Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 17:15:18 -0700 (MST) From: "Katherine R. Freymuth" Subject: Coup d'etat - Chapter 5 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Chapter 5: Blackmail "Good morning," Sam said as he entered the living room where Pierce had slept for the past week. "How's it going?" Pierce gave a mischeivous smile. "Great. And do you know why? Because I won the bet! And you owe me fifty bucks!" Sam sighed, feigning disappointment. "I was sure you couldn't do it." "Well, I just proved you wrong," Pierce gloated. "Now, where's my fifty?" Sam shrugged. He reached into his back pocket and took out Alan's wallet. Taking out fifty dollars, he put the wallet away and gave Pierce the money. Pierce laughed. "How about we celebrate? Go down to the bar and have a beer?" Sam smiled. "Sure. What the hell." The two did just that. It was about time to open the bar anyway. So, once the bar was set up, Sam poured Pierce a mug of his usual beer. He was putting the mug down when Ellen walked into the bar. She saw Pierce and glowered. "Oh, no. Not you again," she complained as she went to change her clothes as usual. She looked at Sam with a frown. "And you give him a beer. Obviously, you won the bet you two made." "What?" Al asked, coming into the Imaging Chamber. "Sam, how could you win?" "Actually," Sam answered, "Pierce won." "George won?!" Ellen questioned incredulously. "Pierce," Pierce corrected. "Yes, I did. And I'm celebrating with a stiff drink." With anh elaborate swig, Pierce took a drink... and spat it out. "What the hell is this?" "Your usual," Sam answered. Pierce shook his head. "No way!" "You don't believe me, pour yourself one," Sam told him, dumping the rejected beer. Al was confused. He looked from Sam to Pierce and back. "Uh... Sam, what did you do?" Sam smiled slightly. "Seven-Up and orange juice," he answered quietly. Al thought for a moment while Pierce poured his own beer. "I still don't get it," Al told Sam. Pierce tasted his beer. "Ack! This is terrible! What else have you got?" Sam laughed. "You don't like anything else. You just don't like beer. You never have. But your taste buds were so used to this one that you put up with it just so you could get drunk. You just don't like beer anymore. Too many Seven-up and orange juices." Pierce grimaced at Sam. "What are you trying to do Alan?" "Dry you up," Sam asnwered bluntly. "Well, aren't you the straight forward one!" Pierce stated sarcastically. "Just give me another beer." Ellen came out of the back room with a leer. "What? Isn't your usual good enough anymore?" she asked, hearing Pierce's last statement. Al frowned slightly at that, puffing on his cigar. "Don't give him anything, Sam." He raised the handlink to check with Ziggy. "Ziggy says that, if he starts up again, George will still die in a car accident." "Come on, Alan! Give me another beer!" Pierce demanded. Sam looked Pierce straight in the eyes. "No," he said bluntly. "'Atta boy, Sam!" Al said with a gesture of approval. Both Ellen and Pierce stared at Sam incredulously. "Did you really say what I think you said?" Ellen questioned. "You can't do that!" Pierce fumed. "I won the bet!" "True," Sam told him. "And I think it's the first time in months you've gone without a drink every day." "You got that right!" Ellen put in. "Why do you think we broke up? He couldn't stay away from the booze! Ever!" "Why do I get this feeling that I'm b eing ganged up on?" Pierce complained. Al smiled sardonically. "Because you are." Pierce looked from Ellen to Sam and back. "Okay!" he finally said, tired of having their scrutinizing eyes on him. "So, I like to drink! What do you want me to do about it?" Don't drink," Sam told him. "If you can do it for a week, you certainly can do it longer." Ellen walked up to Pierce. "Come on, George," she said softly. "At least give it a try." She smiled slightly. "Besides, you don't need a drink to be the life of the party." Pierce smiled slightly. "You really think so, huh?" "You remember that Christmas party two years ago?" Ellen questioned, a gleam in her eye. Pierce smiled. "I sure do. That's the day we met." "You didn't need a drink that day, I can tell you," she whispered gently. Al's eyebrows rose. "Boy, that must have been some party!" "You did that trick that drove me wild," Ellen breathed, kissing Pierce gently. "Come on, George. I want you to do that trick and I know you can only do it when you're sober." Al's eyes widened. "Trick? What trick?" he asked, yearning to know. Sam gave him a rebuking glare. Al smiled at him. "Who knows? Maybe Beth will like it." "Will you take me back if I do it?" Pierce smiled. "Anything you want, Pierce," Ellen told him silkily. "George," he corrected, kissing her passionately. Al smiled, looking at the handlink. "This is great! Ellen keeps him away from alcohol and the two marry in three months." "That's great," Sam whispered. "Guess it's time to leap," Al said. George looked into Ellen's eyes. "I love you." "And I love you," Ellen told him, kissing him as the customers started to come into the bar. Sam saw them coming in and turned to Al. "Why am I still here?" Al shrugged. "I don't know." "Well, ask Ziggy." Al raised the handlink and pressed some buttons. He frowned and hit the handlink with his palm, causing the small machine to squeal in complaint. He looked at it again and hit it again. And again. And again. "What's wrong?" Sam asked. Al frowned. "Ziggy won't give me any information! Nothing Zero! Zip! It's almost as if she were angry with me or something!" Sam leered at Al. "Al, what did you do?" Al looked at Sam with sincere surprise. "Nothing! What are you getting at, Sam?" "You're the one that said Ziggy was angry with you," Sam commented in a whisper. "No," Al corrected. "I said it was _as_if_ Ziggy were angry with me. But I can't see why. I mean..." "Al," Sam interrupted, "could we just get back to why I haven't leaped?" Al sighed. He raised the handlink and punched some buttons, trying to get Ziggy to give him the information. "Come on, Ziggy," he muttered a complaint around his cigar in his mouth. "AH!" he exclaimed in triumph. "Hey, Alan!" someone called out. Sam turned his head to find the bar full and Ellen very busy with orders. "This is _your_ bar!" Ellen complained. "Mind working it for a change?" Sam hurried to the other side of the bar and started pouring and mixing drinks rapidly, trying to catch up with the crowded bar's demands while listening to Al. "Sam, apparently this Alan character you leaped into has a grim view of Ellen's sobering George up because George was one of his best customers." Al gave him a smiled which didn't exactly indicate pleasure. "I guess we're going to have to have a little talk with Alan." It was obvious that Al wasn't exactly pleased with his task. "Okay," Sam answered quickly. "Just get it done so I can get out of here." Al hesitated."Yeah. No problem." But his voice contradicted his words. He pressed a couple of buttons on the handlink, ready to leave the Imaging Chamber. He looked towards the Imaging Chamber door, expecting it to open. It didn't. "What the hell?" He inputed the command again, this time acheiving the results he wanted. He slipped through the door and closed it. Sam hadn't noticed Al's problems with the door. He was too busy tending bar, trying to remember how to make drinks he had only learned the weeks before. "Hey, Alan!" George called out. Sam looked at him, ready to say no to anything he might order. "How about a Seven-Up and orange juice?" Sam smiled. "How about a Coke?" he suggested. "Good enough," George told him with a smile. *************** Al stormed away from the Imaging Chamber, his cigar forgotten in his hand. "What the hell is the matter with Ziggy?" he demanded from Gushie, who was busy looking over Ziggy's console. Gushie shrugged. "I have no idea," he confessed. "She's not acting like herself." Al glared at Gushie. "In case you hadn't noticed, Ziggy hasn't been acting herself for the past three weeks! But that didn't stop her from doing her job! All of a sudden, she doesn't give me any information! She doesn't open the Imaging Chamber door when I order it! You're the programmer, Gushie! What's wrong?" Gushie put up a calming hand. "Relax, Admiral. We'll find out. But I suggest you ask her what's wrong. She won't tell me anything." Al's eyes opened wide, incredulously. "Again?!" He closed his eyes. "I'll talk to her later. Right now, I have to talk to the guy in the Waiting Room," he finished, walking towards the Waiting Room door. Gushie frowned. "I don't think he'll want to talk to you, Admiral." Al returned the frown. "That makes two of us." He turned and entered the Waiting Room after three attempts to do so. "Not you again!" Alan complained. "Listen, I don't know anything so you might as well just take me back to my bar and leave me alone." Al sighed. He strolled over to Alan with patience in his eyes. "You're an alcoholic, aren't you? That's why you say the best cure for a hangover is a stiff drink." He looked at him with understanding. Alan laughed. "You want me to tell you about my drinking habits?" He laughed again. "What would you say if I told you that you're just lost your best customer and you're going to help him stay off booze?" Alan stopped laughing. "Hey, Pierce owes me twenty-five bucks! He just can't dump my bar without paying!" "Oh, don't worry about that," Al told him, raising his cigar to his mouth to discover it had gone out. He lit it. "He won a bet with you and you cancelled his bill." "I what?!" Alan exclaimed, standing angrily. "You mean that guy who's pretending to be me let Pierce win a bet? On what?" Al smiled. "On whether or not George could stay away from alcohol for a week." "Pierce hates that name," Alan glared. "Well, not any more," Al told him. "In fact, he and Ellen are engaged." Alan tilted his head and laughed. "You're kidding." Al shook his head, puffing on his cigar. "No, I'm not. And George has given up alcohol. And so are you." Alan glared at him evilly. "You're nuts!" Al returned the evil glare. "So many of my friends tell me." He took a step closer. "Listen. I know you're an alcoholic. I can tell." Alam walked away from him, circling the Waiting Room table. "How would you know?" he complained. "I can recognize the signs," Al told him. "Right now, you desperately want a drink." "How would you know?" Alan repeated the question. But he wouldn't look at Al. Al had hit a nerve. "You're a big shot admiral!" Alan huffed. "Porbably never had a drink in your life," he muttered mostly to himself. He started to pace the length of the room. "You officers and gentlemen," he said sarcastically. "Don't give a damn about us grunts!" *Looks like today's full of surprises*, Al thought as he furrowed his eyebrows. "You're ex-military?" he questioned. Alan huffed. "How do you think I got this?" he said sarcastically, pulling up the white sleeve of the Fermisuit he was wearing and pointing to something on his arm that only he could see. Al looked apologetic. "When I look at your arm, I see Sam Beckett's arm." "You mean that guy who forced me out of my bar and is pretending to be me," Alan put in. "Well, what you would see is a Special Forces tattoo." "You were a Green Beret?" Al questioned. "What? You don't think I could be a sergeant in the Green Berets?" Alan leered. "After a tour of duty in Vietnam, I quit." "And started drinking," Al concluded. "What? You have a crystal ball or something?" "No," Al shook his head. "It just seemed to make sense." "Make sense?" Alan questioned loudly. "What would you know about sense? You make these accusations..." "Are you saying you aren't an alcoholic?" Al interrupted. "I'm saying it's none of your damned business, Admiral!" he bellowed back. He started to pace again. "Okay, so it's none of my business," Al said slowly. "Damned right!" "But I tell you what is my business," Al said firmly. "Getting you home." Alan laughed cynically. "Yeah, sure." Al glared at him. "Okay, fine," he told him, an idea in his head. "I guess you don't want to go home." He turned away, walking towards the Waiting Room door and hoping Alan would grab the bait. "You're blackmailing me," Alan said. Al turned back to him. "Exactly," he told him. In a way, it was blackmail. They were all being blackmailed by Whatever was leaping Sam about in time. Alan sighed. "What do you want me to do?" he gave in. He sat on the Waiting Room table, reluctant. Al went up to him firmly. "Just don't drink." "That's it?" "That's it. You've already stopped," Al pointed out. "You haven't had a drink in a week. Just don't have another." "Easier said than done," Al moaned. "You can say that again," Al muttered softly, his cigar making hiis statement less distinct. ---------------------------- We sure hope you're liking this. Let us know. Rob and Kat Freymuth krfreymu@mail.uccs.edu