PROLOGUE
Project Quantum Leap
Stallion’s Gate, New Mexico
Admiral Albert Calavicci still couldn’t believe
the audacity of Jonathon Thomas Beckett.
The way that young man had plastered the truth over the Internet
about the classified government funded project still ruffled his feathers.
Everything the boy had done, every word, every single word placed in
that chat had led up to a point and it was beginning to poke him squarely in
the nose.
Sitting down at his desk, Al turned on his computer
as he sipped at the steaming cup of coffee in his right hand.
Leaning back in his chair, he waited for the computer to warm up then
he peered at his desktop for a long moment before he asked, “Ziggy?”
“Yes, Admiral?” the
parallel-hybrid computer purred back.
“Would you display the spam message
that started all of this nonsense, as well as the transcript of that chat
that was held?”
Without
an audible response, two documents faded in on Admiral Calavicci’s screen.
Transferring his coffee cup to his left hand, he placed his mouse on
the email. He read it again,
this time aloud: “Experienced
lapses in time you can’t explain?”
He paused, sighed, and then continued to read the rest of the message
aloud.
“Have
you had moments of your life pass by without any memories of it?
Have changes in your life occurred without you understanding why?
Have you ever felt like you had an out of time experience?
Have you had persistent dreams of being inside a blue room,
constantly monitored by people you have never met?
If you can answer yes to any of these questions, you are invited to
attend a live chat Sunday night (Jan. 15th) at 8PM EST.
At this time, all members will describe their experiences to the best
of their abilities and we shall all pull together what we have learned to
figure out why this event has occurred to a select number of us.
Is it a form of alien abduction, or is it something else beyond
imagination? It is my hope that
some of you will help fill in the gaps of our memories.
“This message has been sent to various e-mail
addresses all over the country in the hopes of finding others like myself
that have shared a unique experience. Most
of you reading this will probably disregard this message as a joke, but if a
small percentage find that a chord has been struck then this message has
done it’s job. The website
address for Sunday’s chat is at the bottom of the e-mail.
In the meantime, a message board is currently up and running for
those who wish to talk beforehand.”
Al set his coffee cup down, and then he rubbed his
face hard. J. T. had given them
factual explicit answers and all it did was get an assembly of people parked
outside of the project’s perimeter asking – no – demanding to see Dr.
Beckett.
Al used his mouse to minimize the email and looked
at the transcript dated January 15, 2006.
He read through all of it very thoroughly then shook his head and
closed his eyes.
“Admiral, are you okay?”
“Yes, Ziggy.
I’m fine. Fine as I
can be for someone still on a damn string.”
Al knew that he was still under the scrutinizing gaze of General
Hawkins and that didn’t set well with him, either.
Shaking his head to try to rid himself of the anger that quickly set
in with just the thought of the patronizing, egotistical bastard, Al peered
up at the ceiling hoping for some divine aid.
Sighing, he glanced back at the computer screen.
“Has Sam leaped yet?” Al asked.
“No, Admiral, he has not. As soon as he does… you’ll be the first to know.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After being whisked away from his last leap, Doctor
Samuel Beckett needed to escape. It
seemed that every leap was getting tougher and hard-hitting.
He remembered the exchange he had with an enigmatic bartender some
time ago, being told that he was the one leaping himself in Time, but he
just couldn’t make himself believe that - not after what he had learned
that day.
The leaps had become tougher… much tougher for
him, not only mentally but physically as well.
He remembered righting a wrong for Al and knew, deep in his heart,
that it was the right thing to do. He
just wished that he were home.
Even as he felt weightless in the void that held him
over an immeasurable abyss, Sam was not aware of any part of his body.
It was as if he was in a dream; a realm where he could see everything
from a universal scale, but not see anything at all.
It was then that he heard the voice that occasionally talked to him.
“Rest, Dr. Beckett.”
“I want to go home,” he said
softly.
“Not yet. Close
your eyes and rest. The road
ahead is… bumpy and long. Rest.
You will be home soon enough.”
If he could feel his head, Sam would
have bowed it slightly, but still the words came softly, “Oh boy.”
PART
ONE
Hope Springs, Virginia
February 10, 2006
Paige Ilene Arlyss sighed as she walked from her
cherry-red Volkswagen GTO to her house.
She couldn’t believe the day she was having. At ten o’clock in the morning, her boyfriend, Darryl
McDaniel dumped her for no apparent reason and then walked away.
Because her mindset was extremely bewildered from the ordeal with her
now -- ex-boyfriend, she was sure that she failed the Physics test over
Chapter Eight. It was then at
lunch that she found out that Darryl had already asked Phoebe Daniels to be
his girlfriend. By the time she
got to the door of her house, she’d had enough for the day and she just
wanted to snuggle up to the two things that didn’t judge her:
her Siamese kitten, Schrodinger, and her computer.
Opening the door, she heard her mother in the
kitchen singing a country-western song that was playing on the radio. She
sniffed at the air and smiled appreciatively.
Her mother was making fudge. ‘Perfect
comfort food after such a miserable day,’ Paige thought to herself.
“Hi mom,” Paige said as she paused in the doorway of the kitchen.
A tall brunette with emerald eyes turned with a
smile as she looked at her daughter. “Hi
honey. Did you have a good day
at school?”
“If you call getting dumped,
finding that your ex-boyfriend already has another girlfriend by lunch, and
failing a Physics examination a good day… sure,” Paige said with a scowl
as she plopped her backpack on one of the dining room chairs.
“Oh honey!”
Paige shrugged her shoulders and let a smile ease
her anguish. “It’s okay,
mom.”
Dianne Michelle Lane turned to her daughter after
dipping a spoon into the second bowl of fudge she had been making.
“Comfort licks,” she said warmly as she handed Paige the spoon.
“As soon as it’s done, I’ll let you have some fudge, okay?”
Paige grinned at her mother.
“Thanks mom,” then gave the spoon a lick and hummed.
“Anything for you, honey,” Dianne
said as she watched her only child pick up her backpack and head back to her
bedroom; then went back to humming the song on the radio.
Walking into her bedroom, Paige tossed her backpack
onto her bed. Going to her
desk, she bumped the mouse of her computer slightly then watched, as her
monitor seemed to come to life. Animatronics
of a kitten clawing at an envelope at the corner of the screen told her that
she had new e-mail. After
sitting down, she opened her e-mail program.
What she found wasn’t surprising.
Paige found another e-mail from the ever playful, every annoying, but
always-kindhearted Shepherd Jameson.
Paige leaned back in her chair
slightly as she read and licked at the spoon.
PIA,
I
heard about what happened with Darryl.
He’s a hypocritical ass. You
should go out with someone like me. *Hehe* I know… I know… go fly a kite
noodle head, right?
Anyway…
have you thought about the Valentines Day Dance – The Enchantment Under
The Sea? Isn’t that name just
hokey or what? Well… I know
that I’m not the hunkiest guy around, but if you’d like… we could go
together. Wow… I’m corny… asking a girl out on the computer
instead of face-to-face. But
then again, you know me….
Oh
yeah, I forgot to ask you – have you thought about what or who sent that
e-mail / pop-up virus to you? Have
you traced it? The main reason
why I asked about it is because if you can get rid of them as easily as you
do … and you know how computer literate I am… with all those floozies
out there… I just don’t want the little rinky-dink computer I have go
blutzeroo, if you know what I mean.
Well,
sugar lips talk at ya later. Call
me if you need to talk.
Later,
Shep
“The dance?”
Paige rolled her eyes but a grin spread across her features as she
thought about the dance that the school was going to hold.
Darryl had asked her to go with him.
A frown immediately found its way onto her face.
“We’ll talk later about that Shep,” she said softly as she
continued to read. “I’m not in the mood for a dance at the moment.”
As she read about Shepherd’s computer skills, she smirked.
“You are a long way from being any kind of computer literate
person. However, that
virus…”
Paige
minimized her e-mail program then opened yet another to look at the virus
she had received recently. It
was harmless; or at least it seemed to be.
It had no malicious intent to shut down programming; nor did it have
a code to reformat the computer. It
wasn’t a worm capable of replicating itself and eating the memory of her
CPU either. It didn’t even
look as if it was capable of transmitting itself across networks or
bypassing security systems. Even
as Paige studied it, she knew that just the aspect of it sitting on her
computer was enough to pique her curiosity.
|
|
She rapped her fingernails thoughtfully on the desk
as she finished up the rest of the fudge on the spoon.
She stared at the virus application software for a long moment then
turned in her chair to look at the picture of her father, Ira Milam Arlyss,
on the wall. She had only known
him for four years of her life, yet her mother told her often enough that
she was more like her father every day. Paige looked into his eyes.
“So, what do you say, dad? Do
I crack it? Or no?”
A slow smile spread on her face before she answered back, “You’re
right, dad. They shouldn’t
have sent it if they didn’t want me to crack it.”
Turning back to her CPU, Paige flipped open yet
another operating software program and began; her fingers flying over the
keyboard; her mind seemingly to run even faster than her fingers.
She was sure glad that she had the weekend ahead of her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Doctor Beckett?” the voice
called through the abyss echoing softly as it disturbed his rest.
Even though Doctor Beckett still
could not feel his body, he intently opened his eyes. “Yes?” his voice
was weak and weary.
“It’s time, Doctor Beckett.”
“Time?” He was trying to get his
bearings from being woken from his much-needed rest and relaxation.
“Time to put right what once was wrong,” the
voice reverberated back at him. “Don’t
worry Doctor Beckett. You’ll
know all you need to know.”
Before the green-eyed physicist could
reply, he leaped.
PART
TWO
Hope Springs, Virginia
February 10, 2006
As reality began to materialize around him, he found
himself lying back on a bed, listening to music, which he assumed was on the
airwaves. Sam swallowed as his
stomach made its presence known with a growl.
He forced the idea of food away and tried to concentrate on where and
who he was.
He rubbed at his eyes as he sat up on the bed.
With just a glance around the room, he knew that he had leaped into a
teenage boy. He didn’t know
how many girls had posters up that displayed several bikini-clad super
models around their room.
Shaking his head, Sam stood up and felt his back
pocket. He was relieved when he
found a wallet. Pulling it out,
he looked at the driver’s license. It
belonged to Shepherd Allen Jameson, born January 16, 1988, living at 2613
Maple Avenue, Hope Springs, Virginia.
Sam frowned as he looked at the teen’s driver’s
license. The green eyed, black
haired, tan faced kid staring back at him made him question why he had
leaped into Shepherd Jameson as he heard the telephone ring.
It immediately stopped, letting him know that there
was another person in the house with him; moments later he heard a bellowed
call from somewhere else in the house. “Shepherd! Phone!”
Reaching over to the phone beside the bed, he picked
it up and answered indifferently, “It’s your dime.”
Sam blinked and shook his head wondering why he couldn’t have just
said hello as he heard the click as whoever had answered the phone hung the
extension up.
“Oh Shep, you won’t believe
this!” the voice on the other end of the line was a female and her voice
was bubbling with enthusiasm.
“Uhm… ok… what… wait… who
is this?” Sam stumbled.
“It’s Paige.
I can’t believe this. I’ve
never stumbled across anything like this.
I mean, I knew that they existed, but…” Paige began to ramble.
“Paige?” Sam asked hastily with a
grin.
“Yeah?” she said excitedly.
“Take a deep breath. Slow down.” Sam
heard her take in a slow deep breath, then let it back out. “Now, tell me what you found.”
“Well, you know how you asked about
that e-mail – pop-up virus that I received?”
“Yeah,” Sam said knowing that she
was trying to base things on Shepherd’s prior knowledge even though he
personally had no clue about the virus she was talking about.
“Well, I found more out about it;
not only from the net, but from the program itself.”
Sam frowned. “What’d
you find?”
“Ok. Number
one, about only fifty or so people got this so-called virus.
This one message board I go to... to check out computer viruses and
colds was talking about this virus that they have named Inconspicuous.
However, it was number two that’s got me all hyped up.
You ready?”
“Sure, what?”
“It’s taken me all weekend, but… I’ve found
something complex. I’ve found
a hidden program in this virus!”
“You’re hacking into it?” Sam asked a bit
amazed. Sam had heard of people
who had gained unauthorized access to computer systems for the purpose of
stealing and corrupting the data they found.
It was because of those individuals that he had put so many security
applications and protocols on the parallel hybrid computer.
“That’s illegal,” he said into the receiver as the Imaging
Chamber door opened a few feet before him.
Admiral Albert Calavicci stepped out of the Imaging
Chamber door dressed in a comparatively easy on the eye outfit.
He wore black khakis, a dark blue buttoned up shirt and a black tie.
He waved at Sam as he held up the handlink to get the data Sam would
need for the leap. “What’s
illegal?”
Paige sighed on her end of the phone.
“Not really. I’m not out there trying to steal anything from anyone.
I just want to see what this hidden program does.
That’s all. And if
they didn’t want it to happen, then they shouldn’t have sent it to me.
Just listen, Shepherd. There
are hidden programs in everything. Most
hidden programs are in your computer for a reason – you know so that you
will not accidentally corrupt them or delete them.
Well, you can do the same thing in any manmade file.
It makes it invisible to the simple-minded people who don’t have
the knack of reading or writing programs.
Well, these hidden programs can be accessed by passwords. They call
the programs hard-parameter programs. They
have one way in and one way out. It’s
absolute. You with me so far?”
“Yes…”
“Well, this one like I said is more elaborate.
This one has soft parameters. Now
remember, hard means… unless you have the password, you won’t get in.
Soft parameters mean that in order to gain access; you have to
contribute to the program. In
other words, you share your knowledge with the program.
You feed the data every step of the way.
So, if you don’t feed it the right data, your entrance is
rejected.”
“Sam, what’s illegal?” Al asked as he looked
at his friend who was still on the phone.
Sam raised his index finger asking for a moment.
Al nodded.
“Okay, so you can’t guess your way in.
Good.” Sam then put
his hand over the receiver then said softly to Al, “Computer hacking.”
“Ahhh… Crackers… lovely beings
on the planet,” Al supplied.
“Right,”
Paige said still thrilled even though a thought of not getting in bugged
her. “The designer was no
dummy. You know what, Shep?”
“What?” Sam asked a bit hesitantly.
“I’m gonna break this one.
I’m gonna do it. I’m…”
Paige broke her sentence when she heard someone pick
up an extension. “Paige?
I’m sorry to break into your conversation honey, but I need to use
the phone. I need to talk to
your stepfather.”
“Okay mom,” Paige said plainly.
“Talk to you later, Shep. I’ll
let you know what I find.”
“Okay,” Sam said with a frown.
“Bye Paige.” Hanging up the phone, he looked up at Al a bit expectantly.
“So, what’s going on, Al? Why
did I leap in as Shepherd Allen Jameson?”
“Oh good. You’ve
already started to piece the puzzle,” Al began.
“If you haven’t seen it already, Al, I’m in a
colossal puzzle and all I’ve found is the corner piece!
Give me something. Why am I here?”
“Gees, Sam. You’re
testy. Have you had your
Wheaties this morning?” Al tried to decrease his friend’s mood but from
the gaze that Sam shot at him for his efforts, Al knew that Sam wasn’t
going to lighten up much more. “All
right. All right.
You already know who you are. You
have leaped into…”
“Hope Springs, Virginia.”
Al looked up from the handlink as he waved his hand
in the air whimsically. “Seems
to me you have more than one piece of the puzzle, Sam.”
Sam grimaced as he rolled his eyes.
“Do you have anything on Shepherd?”
Al smacked the side of the handlink as the words
hung for a moment. “Well, uh,
no. As far as Ziggy can see,
there hasn’t been anything that happens to Shepherd or his family.” Al paused then faced the scowl on the leaper.
Even as Al took a step toward Sam, Al asked, “Who was on the phone?
Maybe that’s why you’re here.”
“That was Paige.
Paige what – I don’t know. She
didn’t give her last name.”
“That’s enough for Ziggy to get a good rundown
on the people of Hope Springs, Virginia.
That shouldn’t take too long.”
Al entered the data into the handlink then looked approvingly at the
posters on the wall. “Thank
God for women, huh, Sam?”
“That’s degrading,” Sam
supplied protectively but his eyes drifted over to one of the posters and he
blushed as his gaze lingered.
The bleep of the handlink brought Al’s eyes back
to the link in his hand. “Aha!
Paige Ilene Arlyss was whom you were talking to on the phone.
She’s seventeen, the same age as you… er… Shepherd is and oh…
she’s a computer whiz. And
well…”
“And…?” Sam queried back as he
narrowed his eyes.
Al cleared his throat and pulled up the Imaging
Chamber door as the handlink let out another definitive beep that Al had
recently come to know as more trouble coming his way. “I’ve got something that I need to check on.
I’ll be back.”
“Al…”
“I’ll be back,” Al assured him,
and stepped back into Project Quantum Leap.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Project Quantum Leap
Stallion’s Gate, New Mexico
Al couldn’t believe what he had read on the
handlink and rushed back to see just why Ziggy was spewing gobbledygook.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Al demanded as he waved the
handlink in the air. “Ziggy,
tell me what’s going on! Why
can’t we give Sam any data on this leap?”
“I can not give data that I have
not received yet, Admiral.”
“What?”
“Just that. I
can not predict the future.”
“Dominic, did you give her some new
program that mimics L.S.D. or something?”
A comical look came over Dominic’s
face but quickly faded as Ziggy’s next words floored them all.
“Dr. Beckett has leaped into Hope Springs,
Virginia into the aura of Shepherd Jameson on February 10, 2006.
The only reason why I can not give any data is because it’s
currently happening.”
“Oh my God,” Al said with a shocked expression
on his face. “Okay, then,
Ziggy – give me your best guess.”
“I could deduce that Dr. Beckett is
there for Paige Ilene Arlyss, but I can not say for certain why he would be
there.”
Al nodded at the parallel-hybrid computer’s words.
“All right, then, give me everything you’ve got on Paige Arlyss.
Perhaps some logical sense will prevail here.” Al glanced around the room as people scattered.
For several long moments, Al paced the room, his
mind going ninety to nothing. His
right hand came up to rub at his stubbly chin and he pursed his lips in
wonder. “Is there…” Al
paused for a moment then glanced up at the blue sparkling orb of lightning
above him. “Is there any way
that the retrieval program could work since he’s in the present?
What are the odds on that Ziggy?”
“If Doctor Beckett hadn’t used
the other accelerator in Dr. Garner’s lab, there could be a high
probability.”
“What is it now?
Should we try?”
“Using the retrieval program as it
is, now, Admiral, there is only a twenty percent chance of it working
correctly without harming the doctor.”
“Damn. Okay,
Ziggy, let’s get this ball going. Give
me all you can and we…”
“Oh my…” Ziggy’s sensors
warmed in the orb above Al as her voice rose in surprise.
“What?” Al
asked.
“Paige Ilene Arlyss is the daughter of Dianne
Michelle and Ira Milam Arlyss. Ira
Arlyss died in an automobile accident in 1994.
Though the police found that his brakes had been meddled with, they
could not find any evidence to pin Dianne Arlyss with the murder of her
husband. Mrs. Arlyss even hired
a hypnotist and went under Sodium Pentothal to convince everyone involved
that she did not have anything to do with her husband’s demise.
Dianne Arlyss then married Isaac Dennis Lane, five years later.”
For a long moment, Al frowned wondering how the
information had anything to really do with the leap. It didn’t seem to mean anything.
As the frown furrowed his brow, he was surprised at what he heard
next.
“Oh my,” Ziggy said again, her voice pitching
even more curiously, causing everyone in Central Control to stop and look up
at the spherical orb that shimmered methodically.
“What is it, Ziggy?” Al asked
warily.
“Isaac
Lane has recently signed a contract with General Hawkins.
He is currently working with him in an anti-terrorist project called
Project Liberty.”
Al
looked up at the parallel-hybrid computer, inwardly rolled his eyes and took
in a deep breath as he tried to push down the anger that wanted to overtake
him. ‘That monkey butt,’ he thought to himself as he glanced at the
Imaging Chamber door. ‘He’s
working on an anti-terrorist project? Hell,
he’s a terror himself.’
Al
looked up at the electrifying blue orb above him and shook his head.
Something about what Ziggy had said was eating at him and it didn’t
have anything to do with General Hawkins.
Licking his lips, he tilted his head slightly then asked, “Ziggy,
what’s with the ‘Oh my’ responses this evening.
Is there a problem?”
“I do not know, Admiral Calavicci. I shall run a
diagnostic and see if there is a problem.
Thank you for pointing it out.”
Al frowned; questioning what exactly was going on.
Now, the ego-bound computer was being terribly polite about running a
diagnostic. Something again was up and he knew it. “Your welcome, Zig. Listen,
just check it out and let Dominic know what’s going on.”
Shaking his head, Al then looked over at Dominic.
“Get the link back up. I’ve
got to talk with Sam.”
“You can’t, Admiral Calavicci,”
the computer purred back to the Admiral.
“And why not?”
“Dr. Beckett has leaped.”
“He
leaped!? What the…” Al’s
questioning quickly faded as he turned, his head angling up at the sphere
once again.
PART
THREE
Hope Springs, Virginia
February 11, 2006
Paige looked at the screen as she leaned back in her
chair. She wasn’t any further
along than she had been when she called Shep.
“Augh,” she rumbled lowly in her throat as she tilted her head up
to the ceiling hoping for divine assistance.
The
thing that was stumping her was the question from the virus itself that was
on the screen:
Who
has many experiences in their travels and
yet
takes time for the prosperity of others?
She
tried various answers just that sparked off the top of her head: Captain
James T. Kirk and Spock of Star Trek; Thomas Magnum of Magnum PI; Michael
Knight of Knight Rider; and Angus MacGyver in MacGyver; any of the team in
Stargate SG1; the new handsome Captain Jonathan Archer from the new Star
Trek: Enterprise, then went to more real life individuals; the Pope; Mother
Theresa; police officers; investigators; policemen and women; lawyers;
priests; teachers; and as her shoulders sagged, she thought of the hero next
door who moved in from Alabama and rescued her dog from being hit by a car
over a month ago.
“Great.
This is going to take forever. Dammit,”
she mumbled, then in frustration, she got up from her desk and walked away
from it. She had been sitting staring at the screen for so long that
her butt was beginning to hurt and she felt as if her brain was going to
start to melt from the strain of thinking.
As
she walked into the kitchen in search for something to drink and a snack,
she went to the pantry and glanced around.
Nothing caught her eye. “Isn’t
that the case?” she whispered. “When you’re somewhat hungry, you never
find exactly what you are searching for.”
It was in that moment that she slumped her shoulders and her hand
came up to her head in an abrupt epiphany.
“You moron!” she exclaimed as she shut the pantry and opened the
refrigerator to get a drink.
She
rushed back to her room with the cola in her hands and quickly opened her
Internet browser. She typed in
the whole phrase into the Yahoo search engine and, crossing her fingers,
pressed the enter key.
Forty-three
thousand, four hundred results came back on her screen and she began with
the first one, reading through each title that came up.
It was better than sitting there wracking her brain as she tried to
think of the answer.
As
Paige scrolled through the pages the titles seemed far-fetched and
completely random in nature. Some
of them that popped up in the search engine were titled:
Scrappleface: Rumsfeld’s Sorry for ‘Axis
of Weasel Remark’
Useful Tools
Chronology of the History of Slavery 1619 to
1789
The Nature of Time in Economics
Wisdom of Time
A Brief of History of Time: Revisited
Chapter 1: The Law of Time and Chaos
Time: Albert Einstein – Nobel Prize in
Physics 1921
It
was after she had scrolled through a few thousand entries, she propped her
head in her hands as she read through the titles.
Two hours later, she came across an interesting post from a message
board. As she read it, she was
unaware that she was reading parts of it aloud.
“Have
you ever felt like you had an out of time experience?” Paige paused then
uttered painfully, “Ohh brother.” Yet
she continued to read, “Is it a form of alien abduction, or is it
something else beyond imagination?” Paige
frowned but curiosity won out and she then went ahead and read the chatroom
discussion that was held on January 15, 2006.
By the time she finished reading it, she hummed.
“Wild. Some people and their affection with time travel just
really…”
She stopped in the middle of her rambling thought and for a moment sat back and thought about the implied and detailed meanings in the chat she had read. Minimizing the Internet browser, she looked back at the question and the cursor waiting for her answer. She typed in a name on the keyboard -- her answer being one man’s name: