Message-Id: <199308201531.AA08637@dirt.cisco.com> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 10:31:46 CDT From: Gina Goff Subject: "Afterimage", part six "Afterimage" by Gina Goff Part Six Al paced back and forth next to Sam's bed. _Why wake him up when he's just gonna throw me out again? Oh, well, here goes nothing._ "Sam! Sam, wake up." "Al? What time is it?" "Almost three." "What? Why didn't you wake me earlier?" "There wouldn't have been any point. My doppelganger picked tonight to have insomnia. He's finally asleep, though. Let's go downstairs." "Al, wait. I want to apologize for the things I said earlier. I know you've been in a very awkward position..." "Forget it." "No, Al, I have to say this..." "No, you don't," Al said quietly. He and Sam looked at each other without speaking for a long moment, then Al got antsy. "Come on, we haven't got much time. Are the papers still in his filing cabinet?" "Can you think of a better place to hide them?" Two hours later, Al said, "That should be everything." "Not quite." "What's missing, Sam?" "You tell me." Al sighed. "Okay, you leap into your future, say the year... 2015, and we ask Ziggy what's going on. She logs a request for the information. Whoever's manning the Project in 2015, assuming there still *is* a Project in 2015, sees the request. They leap back to 2000 and add their history to Ziggy's database. Bang, we instantaneously get the stuff we need. When the leap ends, Ziggy locks the information away in a secret file. Right?" "Right, except there are two things we need to take care of. First, every time I leap, we change history." "So every time we do a future leap, we have to ask for their history, because it might have changed since the last time we used it. That's not a problem." "No, it's what happens after a leap that could be a problem." "You mean Ziggy hanging on to those files? She can keep a secret, Sam. The problem's going to be getting her to tell us what's in the files, not getting her to keep quiet about them." "No, I want Ziggy to archive the different histories; it could make an interesting paper some day." "Sam..." "The problem isn't Ziggy, it's you." "Me?" "You... Verbena... Gooshie... Tina... anyone on the Project who has to know what's going on with the leap du jour. Ziggy will keep a secret; will you?" "Sam, we went through this `Cross my heart and hope to die' crap when we set up the Project the first time." "I know, but now we've got a lot more people involved. Face it, Al, when I leap into the past, *I'm* the only one who can really mess things up by using my knowledge of future events. And I can't even do that half the time, because of my Swiss- cheesed memory." Sam pointed upward and added, "And I don't think that's an accident." "Sam, you can trust us." "Al, I don't even trust myself. I know that nobody on the Project is going to mess things up just for the hell of it, or for personal gain, but the temptation to change things can be very strong. What if I leaped, and you found out that you were going to lose Beth or one of the girls? Could you really do nothing to stop that?" "No. I could only stand losing them if something even worse were going to happen if I didn't lose them. I wouldn't want to have that choice, Sam. Or remember that I'd had that choice." "Exactly. Which is why we're going to need more power for the Project. We'll have to scrounge the money for some cogenerators so we're not always browning out half of New Mexico." "Wait a minute; you lost me. What does more power have to do with my being tempted to change future history?" "We're going to leap the whole area around the Control Room." "What?!" "I know it sounds crazy..." "Damned right it sounds crazy. Have you been talking to God again? Or is it just the little guys from Mars?" "Look, we do a microsecond pinpoint leap. I know how to do that now. So when I leap out, everybody else will leap just a fraction of a second into their future. That should be enough to Swiss-cheese the events of the preceding few days. If you don't remember what you learned about the future, you can't act on it." "Sam, that's not going to work. You have to be in the Acceleration Chamber to go anywhere." "You don't need the focus of the Acceleration Chamber to make really tiny leaps if the area around the Acceleration Chamber is properly designed *and* you have enough power. If we set things up this way, everybody around the Control Room will leap automatically. You won't have to think about it; you won't even notice it. If somebody who needs to be leaped isn't there, Ziggy will know and we can leap that person individually." "I don't like this, Sam." "I know, I know; it's invasive. I don't think I'd want people playing games with my memory, either. But it's the best solution we've got right now. Let's put it in the notes and let *them* decide what to do with it." "Them?" "The other Sam and Al, and all the others. We don't have months to discuss all the practical and philosophical ramifications of this; they do. We don't have to give them an absolutely perfect design, Al. All we have to do is plant the suggestion." "Sam... Sam, you've got to stop." "I'm almost done." "And people are going to be waking up at any minute. You've got to hide the notes. Sam? What are you doing? Those are supposed to go in the filing cabinet." "I'm going to finish these upstairs." Sam left the study and went to Maxine's room. "What if somebody gets up and sees the light on in your room?" "I'll work in the closet," Sam said, closing the bedroom door behind him. "You go out in the hall and warn me if anyone's coming." "Sam, this is ridiculous." "I only need another ten minutes, Al. And the sooner I get these in his briefcase, the sooner I'm out of here. Get out there." That afternoon, Sam tiptoed into the Admiral's study, found his briefcase, and opened it nervously. Inside, he saw a folder labeled "Sam". _Oh good, it is here. Al was always taking my preliminary notes home to reread them at night. He used to say they made more sense after a few beers._ Sam took the notes he'd hidden under his shirt and stuffed them behind the papers already in the folder. He started to put the folder back in the briefcase, but changed his mind. He took out the old notes and studied the sketches he'd drawn twelve years earlier. _Dr. Beckett, if you only knew where all of this is going to take you..._ "Maxine! What are you doing in here?" Sam dropped the notes and looked up at Admiral Calavicci. "I, uh... just wanted to see what was in Daddy's purse." When Al popped in again, he found Sam sitting on the stairs. "Sam. Why are you...?" Sam glared at him. "I'm in Time Out. You didn't tell me his study was off-limits." "You didn't tell me you were planning on getting caught. Did you get the notes in his briefcase?" "Yes." A timer went off in the next room. "That's for me." Sam started to rise. "You sit back down," Al said, pointing an admonishing finger at Sam. "You're gonna tell me what happened on that first leap." Sam sank back onto the stair for a minute, then realized what he was doing. He rose defiantly and went to Maxine's room. Al was waiting for him when he got there. "I mean it, Sam, I want to know what you did." "Why don't you ask Ziggy? She seems to know everything." "She knows you leaped into 1969." Sam flinched slightly. "So you do remember. What did you do?" "Nothing, Al." "Nothing, my ass. Ziggy knows what you did and she's not telling me. What happened?" "You don't want to know." "I *do* want to know," Al insisted. "What did you do?" "I broke the rules. Okay? I broke the rules." "How? Why? Sam?" Sam sat down on the bed and sighed heavily. "I... I went back and talked to Beth." "My Beth? You talked to my wife? Why?" "Because... she thought you were dead, Al. You'd been missing in action for so long, and she hadn't heard anything... so she thought you were dead. And I... I told her you weren't." "Why didn't you tell her that when I was first shot down? Why'd you pick 1969?" _How do I tell him this? There isn't an easy way to say it._ "Because... at that time... in 1969... she was about to fall in love with someone else." Sam saw Al's stricken face and quickly added, "She didn't really want him. She wanted you. But she thought you were gone." "Sam... are you saying you changed history? Are you saying what I think you're saying?" "When I went back to talk to her, to convince her you were still alive, she was dancing. Alone. To your favorite song. And she was crying. She wanted you, Al. She would have married this other guy if I hadn't told her you were alive, but she wanted *you*." Al stared blankly ahead, trying to take in the implications of Sam's words. "Beth... divorced me?" "By the time you came home, it was too late. She'd already remarried." "And me... what did I do?" "Al..." "Tell me, Sam. I need to know. And you might as well get it all out at one time. What did I do? Did I remarry?" Sam looked at Al cautiously and said, "Four times." "Four times?!" Sam nodded. "To Theresa, Ruthie, Sharon, and Maxine." Al grinned in spite of himself. "You're making that part up." "Honest, it's the truth." Sam sobered suddenly, and said "Al, I'm sorry..." "For what? Sam... when I was in 'Nam, Beth was the only thing that kept me going. I'd think about little things, like the smell of her hair, or the way she smiles, or that silly little sneeze of hers. Beth's the best thing that ever happened to me. You took away her unhappiness. You saved our marriage. Don't ever be sorry for that." They sat in companionable silence for some time, then Sam said, "Al, there's something else I haven't told you." "What?" "It's about the bartender." Al pointed upward with a questioning look and Sam nodded. "He says I'm the one who's leaping me around." "That can't be true. How would you know where to go?" "I think what He meant is that I sort of choose to do this job and He provides the assignments." "Oh, that's a nice arrangement, Sam. And what if you want to quit?" "Then I quit. He said... He said I could go home anytime I want to." "But you haven't." "I know, Al. I guess that means I don't want to quit. We've done a lot of good for a lot of people." "Now your Boy Scout circuitry's working overtime again. Doesn't this lousy job come with any vacation time? Why can't you come home between leaps?" "I don't know. Maybe... maybe I can."