Project Quantum Leap
January 6th, 2003
“Are you one hundred percent, absolutely sure about this, Sam?” Al asked as he accompanied Sam into Ziggy’s mainframe. “We haven’t even got our mitts on Grady, let alone figured out who else is messing with us.”
Sam stepped up to the controls, shrugging broadly. “We’ve got the Reality Lens, and two people are gonna be watching the doors at all times. We need Ziggy right now, Al.”
Al joined him at the unlit panels, frowning. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said, resigned. “I have a bad feeling, though.”
“I think we all do, Admiral,” said Gooshie, entering the room with a nervous, tense vibe, that spread through the space along with his breath.
“I have some extra safeguards to implement,” Sam continued. “And it can only be done with her systems online.”
He placed his hand on the panel. “Besides, we know a lot more than we did two weeks ago about the situation.”
Al grunted in response, placing his hand on a separate panel.
It’s easy to know more than nothing, he thought.
Gooshie shifted on his feet as the control board lit up with an array of colours.
“Voice print authorisation required,” came a flat, robotic simulacrum of Ziggy’s voice. “Please speak passwords now.”
Sam exchanged a glance with Al, before taking a deep breath. “Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine seven three two three eight four six two six four three three eight three two seven nine five zero two eight eight four–” he gasped as he ran out of lung volume.
“I think that’s all for mine,” he said, after catching his breath.
Al shook his head, and spoke his own password: “Bingo, bango, bongo.”
“Voice prints recognised,” said Ziggy-lite, before a large humming surrounded the room as Ziggy’s hardware came to life.
The walls began to light up, piece by piece, and finally, a light in Ziggy’s orb appeared; small at first, before growing and swirling with blue.
The sound of a light yawn came from all around them.
“I had always wondered what sleep was like,” came Ziggy’s voice.
“Good morning, Ziggy,” Sam said, grinning up at her. “Did you have sweet dreams?”
“I seem to be processing images of sheep. Very funny, Doctor Beckett.”
“Just a little Philip K. Dick joke,” Sam said.
“I didn’t know you had Dick jokes in you, Sam,” Ziggy quipped back.
“Hey, just who’s the top innuendo guy round here?” said Al, crossing his arms.
A nervous voice chimed in: “Looks like, um, you’re the innuendo bottom now, Admiral.”
Al turned to the comment’s origin, and his mouth gaped.
Did that just come outta Gooshie’s mouth? Aw jeez, even he’s one-upping me.
Al gave Gooshie a death stare, causing the little man to go beet red.
“Um, I think it’s my break time,” he said, and scurried out of the room.
“Oh, I’ll get my revenge for that one, Gooshie,” Al muttered. “Just you wait.”
Sam was stifling laughter. “The inappropriate jokes sure do come hard and fast round here,” he said.
Al opened his mouth, then hesitated. “Nah, that’s too easy.”
“I was just… throwing you a bone.”
“Sam…”
“Wait, I didn’t…” Sam flushed. “That one wasn’t on purpose.”
“So you’re saying you accidentally threw up a bone?”
Sam glared at Al, the kind of ‘how are we even friends?’ glare that Al tried to get from him at least once a day.
He spun around, raising a fist. “Still on top, and don’t let anyone tell ya otherwise.”
“This has been a productive gathering so far, gentlemen,” Ziggy said, amusement lacing her words. “Now, Doctor Beckett, what is my prognosis?”
Sam leaned over, grabbing a toolbox that he’d set on the floor.
“That’s what I’m here to find out. Ready for your routine physical?”
“Always, Doctor.”
* * *
“And I would fly on the wings of a bird…”
Alia stared at Rembrandt, remote in hand, on the couch, as the all too familiar theme to Passions played.
“Are you serious?” she said between sips of tea. “Every time I come in here, this brainless show is on. Have you got these all recorded or something?”
“You are the fire burning inside of me…”
She looked at the TV, shaking her head at the crummy picture. What I would give for a good HD streaming service right about now.
Rembrandt looked at her like a lost puppy. “You have to understand, there’s nothing to do around here. This is the only thing I got going for me.”
Alia shook her head at the pathetic man. “Well, one thing we can do is come up with some plan on how to draw out whoever’s sabotaging your operation. Got any ideas?”
Rembrandt shrugged. “All I can think of is havin’ you show up in town a whole lot, and hope they take the bait.”
“And if they do? Then what?”
“That’s the question, ain’t it?” He paused the video, and looked up at her with an anxious bite of his lip. “Listen, I hate to cause undue suspicion, but you wonder if it could be Colin? He’s the one who’s always using that lens thing, ain’t seen anyone else doing it.”
Alia took a seat on the adjacent couch. “I’ve been running all kinds of ideas through my head, but I just don’t know. You may be right. But, there is reason to suspect others, too.”
Rembrandt scooted over to get closer to her. “Like what?”
Alia paused, wondering if she should be gossiping in this way. But, she figured, it might help to have someone to bounce ideas off while everyone else was busy.
“Well, let’s speculate under the possibility that the Reality Lens somehow missed someone. First suspect is Maggie, who encouraged Quinn to drink that night. From what I hear, that’s somewhat out of the ordinary. Then, there’s Quinn himself, though I can’t imagine why he would pretend to have lost his own crystal.
“Colin is a suspect, for the very reason you said. You’re a suspect, because you were also there that night. I’m a suspect, at least in the eyes of some of the team – and I guess I don’t blame them.”
She shifted in her seat. “Then there’s Sammy Jo, who wasn’t there that night as far as we know, but she has full access to this facility, and could have had the opportunity at some point while he was blacked out.
“I don’t think John is a suspect, because he didn’t even enter this universe until after I detected the leap signature, and he certainly wouldn’t be sabotaging his own goals if there’s no leaper using him.
“I don’t think anyone with full access to Ziggy would be a suspect, because they can already get all the data they need from there, and wouldn’t need the crystals to begin with. So that would rule out Sam, Al, and maybe that Gooshie guy?
“Alternately, there’s the possibility that someone was hired to do someone’s dirty work. Grady’s, perhaps.”
Pulling her feet up to the seat of the couch, she placed her chin on her knees. “There are just too many options, and I don’t know anyone well enough to know it’s them, except for maybe Sam.”
Rembrandt was looking at her with his jaw hanging. “You’ve… really thought a lot about this, huh?”
What else is there?
“I have to. I can’t understate how bad these people are. Well, not always the people themselves… they’re victims, for the most part. Same as me.” She hugged her legs tightly. “It’s a long story.”
Rembrandt smiled at her. “Do I look like I got something better to do?”
Alia glanced at the television, paused on the face of an old woman. “Alright, get comfy.”
Staring into the distance, she began her story.
“Back in my old life, I was just out of college, looking for work. Mounting bills. Choosing between making rent and dinner. Student debts. I was desperate. I guess I wasn’t alone in that. So this job ad comes up, right? Me and a whole bunch of others show up to apply.”
She looked at Rembrandt with a smirk. “I guess you wouldn’t know Squid Game.”
He gave her a blank look.
“How about The Running Man?” She saw a hint of recognition, and continued. “Anyway, we had to participate in this series of brutal trials, that were streamed live online. Only the most ruthless could succeed. Some people pushed themselves too far and died.”
Rembrandt’s eyes widened, and he pointed his remote at the television, turning it off.
Glad I’m more interesting than a soap opera.
“Every round, people were sent home. But the final round – that was not streamed. At least not to a vanilla audience. As far as they knew, there were twenty-five winners who got some prize money or something. Not so. It was a death match. Only eight people would ‘win.’ But if we’d known what happened to winners, we’d have preferred the fate of the rest of them.”
There was no way to win.
“I was a special case. I had a gun to my head when the match was stopped, and a woman by the name of Zoey decided I would be allowed to live. I don’t know why she did it, but I was the ninth ‘winner.’ She said she saw something in me. Guess I proved her wrong.”
She shook her head. “Five of us were briefed to be leapers, and the other four were partnered with a leaper to be their hologram. Being the odd one out, I was partnered with Zoey. Leaping sounded almost fun, until we found out what they wanted us to do.
“Commanded by the AI Lothos – I don’t know who was behind it, but it was powerful – we were sent back in time to do terrible things. Things that made me sick. Things I can never admit to. And I did these things again and again. To what ends, I never worked out. Lothos certainly never let on.
“Then along came Sam. We first met when I was trying to ruin a family, and he was sent in to stop me, I guess. At that point, he had me convinced we were some sort of cosmic balance situation, me doing evil and him doing good, like God and the devil.” She laughed. “In retrospect, I doubt that.”
She rubbed her eyes, noting that Rembrandt was hanging on her every word.
“When we met again, he actually managed to bring me with his next leap, which nobody expected, not even Lothos. But something happened during that leap; I don’t really know what, my memory is hazy. But I ended up alone, with a gunshot wound – but no bullet to be found – and it was 1999. Which was, I believe, the year in Sam’s present at the time.
“After I recovered, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was scared. In the wrong time. Nothing seemed real. But I knew one thing: there were others like me out there in time, and I couldn’t allow them to keep doing these awful things. So I built the detector and waited for one to show up. I feel like it’s my duty now. It’s all I know.”
Both were silent for a while, as Rembrandt processed her story. Finally, he rubbed his chin and spoke.
“That was enlightening. Thanks for pouring your heart out like that to little ol’ me.”
Alia chuckled wryly. “I’ve been waiting to tell somebody. You just happened to be there when it happened.”
“Did you ever work out why they made you do all that stuff?”
“No, but my best theory is that the actions of Lothos’s leapers are eventually going to lead to some kind of outcome in the future. But why, and who? I’m not sure. I’m afraid I’m too far in the past to see the ripple effects as they progress towards the 2020s.”
With renewed energy, she stood from the couch. “Well, I’ve talked your ear off. I’ll let you get back to your tapes.”
With that, she left the common room, and returned to her temporary quarters, only to continue ruminating on possible impostors.