Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sebastian LoNigro set out to prove the String Theory that he had co-developed with his former MIT student, Samuel Beckett—an incredibly gifted genius who was destined for greatness.  After Sam’s sudden and untimely murder in 1973, a distraught Doctor LoNigro formed a strong bond with Sam’s older brother, Lieutenant Commander Thomas Beckett, and together, they both strove to ensure that Sam’s theories would not be forgotten.

 

Tom quickly rose in the ranks to Captain and eventually aided Doctor LoNigro in the development of a top-secret government project code-named Chrono-Leap, which was based off of a combination of the String Theory, and the work of the late Doctor Alexander Garner and his failed Time Displacer Unit.  During the initial test-run of the experiment, a malfunction occurred that endangered the lives of everyone inside the project.  In a bold attempt to shut it down, Captain Beckett bravely stepped into the Chronoton Accelerator...and vanished.

 

He awoke to find himself inhabiting someone else’s body in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own.  Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brainwave transmissions with Doctor LoNigro, who became the Project Observer in the wake of the Accelerator incident, appearing in the form of a neurological hologram that only Captain Beckett can see and hear.

 

Trapped in an alternate timeline, Captain Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong.  All the while, he is subconsciously aware that another leaper exists somewhere, lost in time like himself, who holds the key to restoring reality back to what it once was.  Until that day arrives, Captain Beckett struggles to recall his lost memories of a “World Without Sam Beckett,” hoping each time to alter the hands of fate so that his next leap...will be the leap home.

PROLOGUE

Blue swirls of energy surrounded and supported him as he floated in the limbo between Leaps.  He felt as if protective arms embraced him.  It reminded him of when he was a kid and his mother held him after a nightmare.

The loss of his brother had certainly been a nightmare, one that stuck with him every single day.  His family had been robbed, but he was certain that the world had been robbed as well.  His brother had so much potential, so much ahead of him.  All gone, taken in one brutal moment.

He hoped his brother was proud of him, hoped his father was, too. 

From out of the vivid blue, he felt more than heard a voice declare, ‘I am proud of you, too.  You’ve done much good.  Now I need you to do it again.’  In the next instant, he felt the very physical thrust and drop of preparing to land in a new life.

Tom Beckett blinked as the Leap set him free and he instantly lost his balance, slipping from his position squatting on his toes to drop square on his backside.  As he instinctively reached to the ground to steady himself, he became aware of the small bundle of simple carnations he clutched in his right hand.  Then he noticed he had landed on the piled dirt-mound of a newly made grave.

“Ahhh geez!” breathed Tom.

PART ONE  

Potter’s Field

New York City

Friday, March 13, 1987

5:20 PM

Momentarily unnerved, Tom scrambled to his feet and brushed the fresh dirt of the new grave from his pants.  Looking from left to right he saw that he stood within a veritable sea of nondescript grave markers spreading as far as he could see.  He also quickly realized that the flowers his host had been about to place on the grave were an unusual spot of color and care in the midst of barren landscape.  Wondering whom he was leaving flowers for, Tom bent to peer at the stone but the marker bore only a series of three numbers.  He rubbed at his eyebrow as he tried to make sense of it when a factoid jogged at his memory.  He was in the New York City Cemetery—Potter’s Field—the final resting place for the indigent, and his host had obviously taken the time to bid his last respects to one of those poor souls.

Murmuring a long-ago learned prayer, Tom bent and placed the unlikely bouquet of flowers atop the grave then briefly bowed his head in respect.  Straightening up, he turned and stepped away from the grave, moving to the rough path nearby.  A quick glance around told him he was alone, and so he took the time to locate the wallet and find out more information about who he was, even if there was currently no way to determine *when* he was.  Opening the leather billfold, Tom found the driver’s license nestled within the leather frame, its surface protected by the clear plastic sheet allowing it to be viewed without having to be removed.  He was, this time, in the life of Franklin Benjamin, born April 3, 1942, residing in Brooklyn, 6’1” and 190 pounds.  His license was due to expire on his birthday in 1988.  Tom studied the photo of the blue eyed, black haired man with the square jaw and found that he took an instant liking to him.  Even in the all-too-often unflattering DMV picture, Franklin Benjamin (Tom had to roll his eyes at the “cleverness” the man’s parents had exhibited in naming him) seemed friendly. 

So he’d pinpointed both the “who” and a general idea of the “when” and “where.”  The next task was to find his way out of Potter’s Field and then to navigate his way home.  He only hoped that Sebastian “Bobby” LoNigro, his Observer, would turn up to assist him in that task soon.  In the meantime, the former Navy SEAL was more than up to the challenge of finding the exit and parking lot.  He walked through the waning sunlight, noting the puff of breaths visible in the chilling air as the day’s heat slowly evaporated.      

The sound of a cough halted his progress.  Tom quickly scanned the area, his eyes pausing at the dark form curled near one of the small markers.  The figure coughed again and pulled itself more tightly into the fetal position. 

“Hello?” Tom called out, expecting the person to rise and look at him, but there was no reaction.  He looked around the cemetery again, wary of a setup or a trap, suddenly regretting having been so brazen about checking the wallet.  There wasn’t much money in it, but men had been killed over $10 before.  Slowly, Tom began walking toward the figure, increasing his pace when the hacking cough sounded again, worse this time.

The faded green fatigue jacket, ripped, worn, and dirty in so many places was about as stereotypical of an attire as you could imagine, thought Tom, but that’s what the homeless man wore atop a ragged pair of light blue jeans stained to a near-uniform gray.  He hugged his limbs close to his body and shivered beneath the army surplus jacket.  It was impossible to guess how old he was, Tom thought.  The dark hair appeared to have few strands of silver in it, but whether that was due to genetics or lack of washing, it was hard to tell.  The grizzled beard which obscured the lower portion of the man’s face was, however, liberally streaked with grey.  The man lay on his left side, raising a filthy hand to his mouth as he coughed in his sleep.  Even just kneeling beside him, Tom could hear phlegm popping in his lungs.

“Hey, fella.  You okay?” Tom asked.

The man only moaned in response.  Despite the smell and filthy condition he was in, Tom reached a hand out to touch the man’s forehead.  He was burning up, and as Tom pressed two fingers to the man’s wrist to check a pulse, he was stunned at how icy the hands were.  He’d need to find a shelter to bring the man to.  He couldn’t leave him here to sleep in the elements.  Tom could feel the bite the cold promised to bring when the sun yielded fully to the moon.  The poor soul would die if Tom left him here.

Carefully, Tom brought the man’s body to a sitting position, trying to keep him supported.  As he prepared to situate the dead weight so that he could lift the unconscious man, the man’s head dropped to the side and a thick, angry scar revealed itself.  Starting at the man’s left eyebrow, it curved back towards his ear then scooped forward again, running towards his jawline.  It disappeared into the man’s beard, but Tom suspected the scar didn’t end there. 

This wasn’t the time or place for a medical exam, nor to satisfy his own morbid curiosity.  Tom readied himself to stand with the homeless man in his arms, but he nearly fell over again when the effort he’d been prepared to expend proved unnecessary given how light the man actually was.  He wondered how long he’d been on the streets to have grown so thin.  As he carried the man along the cemetery path, he now knew, thanks to a posted sign, led to the parking lot, Tom felt the sharp boniness of the man’s joints where they pressed into his own arms, stomach, and chest.

Whether it was due to the late hour, or the fact that he was at Potter’s Field, Tom quickly identified his car, as it was the only one in the lot.  He fumbled with his burden as he tried to fish keys out of his pocket.  He finally settled on balancing the man against the hood of the car while he dug for the keys.  Coming up with them, Tom opened the backdoor and got the man’s body arranged on the backseat as comfortably as he could.  He had just closed the door and prepared to round the car for the driver’s side when the Imaging Chamber Door opened and his Observer stepped out.

“Found our car, I see,” commented Bobby LoNigro.

“Fortunately, it wasn’t hard,” said Tom, giving Bobby a ‘where have you been?’ look.

“It’s getting close to budget renewal times and I was in the middle of processing paperwork.  You know, someone’s got to go over the figures in your absence.”  Bobby shrugged.  “Besides, I had to stop in and check on the guy in the Waiting Room.  Frank Benjamin, your host.”

“I know that.  I checked his wallet.”

“Well, he’s a really nice guy.”

“Good to know,” Tom finally said.  “And what about him?”  He gestured at the body in the backseat.

Bobby poked his holographic head through the window of the backseat, studying the figure.  When Tom asked him for a name, all Bobby could do was shrug.

“Alpha doesn’t keep records on the indigent.  What did he tell you his name was?”

“He didn’t—he’s been unconscious the whole time.  I think he’s really sick, Bobby.  I only found him because I heard him cough.  He’s burning up with fever and he’s starting to wheeze.”  Tom finally opened the driver’s side door and looked directly at Bobby.  “I need to get him into a warm bed.”

“You live at 153 Hope Street in Brooklyn.”

Tom shook his head.  “I was thinking more along the lines of a shelter.”

Bobby nodded.  “Exactly.  You, or rather, Mr. Franklin Benjamin, lives at a shelter—Sanctuary House.  To be more specific, he runs the shelter and lives above it on the third floor.  So, for once, we’ll be able to kill two birds with one stone—get you home and get your mission accomplished.  Pretty good luck for Friday the 13^th, eh?”

Tom’s eyes widened.  “It’s that easy?  All I have to do is get this guy into a warm bed and I’ll leap?”

“I wish it were,” said Bobby, “but we still don’t even know who this guy is.  No, Alpha predicts that there’s a 72% chance you’re here to help someone at the shelter.  On Monday, March 16, 1987, there’s going to be an altercation, and a man named Henry Voorhies is going to die.”

Tom glanced back at the sleeping form in the backseat.  “I don’t suppose he’s Henry Voorhies.”

Bobby shook his head.  “No, Henry Voorhies is in his early thirties.  According to the records we’ve uncovered he enrolled in the residential work-slash-rehabilitation program at Franklin’s shelter about six months ago.”

Groaning, the homeless man shifted his position.  As he did so, he began coughing again, his whole body quivering with the force of it.  Both Tom and Bobby regarded him with concern.

“He needs medical care.  Is there a clinic at Franklin’s shelter?”

Bobby checked the handlink and nodded.  “Yes, a small one.  The doctor will report in the morning.  In the meantime, you should be able to make him relatively comfortable with over the counter medication from the shelter’s stores.”

“Help me get there,” Tom said as he dropped into the driver’s seat and closed the door.  Bobby pressed a control on the handlink and reappeared “sitting” beside Tom in the passenger seat.  He relayed directions to Tom as he drove through the city toward Sanctuary House, the shelter Franklin Benjamin had founded.

Every time the car crossed a pothole, the jarring would start the man’s coughing again.  Unfamiliar with the streets, Tom was unable to avoid many of them, and he apologized, “Sorry, fella,” every time the painful hacking sounds reached his ears.  Labored wheezes followed the last two attacks, and Tom glanced worriedly at Bobby.

“Will he make it until morning?”

Bobby consulted the handlink.  “There’s no record of Sanctuary House having called the morgue to pick up a body prior to Henry Voorhies’ death.”

Tom relaxed a bit at those words.  The man’s attempts to draw breath were hurting his own lungs as he empathized with him.  “Tell me what we know about Henry Voorhies,” he requested, trying to focus on the primary mission.

“Henry Jacob Voorhies, age 33.  Two years ago, he lost his job on Wall Street due to a cocaine addiction.  His wife, Janice, left him and he spiraled further down after that.  He lost his house and ended up on the streets, surviving by panhandling and continuing to feed his coke addiction with whatever meager funds he came by.  Turn left here.  Seven months ago, he ended up at Sanctuary House, and as I said, six months ago he enrolled in the rehab program.  His records show that he’d been making good progress.  He was due to go live with his parents in Queens upon completion of the program.  They’d just begun working on repairing their relationship.”

“News of his death must have been hard,” Tom said, thinking to how his own parents had reacted to his little brother Sam’s murder.  Hell, he still hadn’t fully gotten over the loss.

“Devastating,” Bobby said.  “His mother, Irene, suffered a heart attack from the shock and grief.  She never fully recovered from it.  His father, Bernard, became so depressed from his wife’s illness and the loss of their son that he soon became unable to keep up the corner grocery store they owned and they went out of business.  That store had been the heart of their neighborhood, and the neighborhood soon slipped into decline after that—first emotional, then actual.”

Even after all the years of Leaping, Tom still found it amazing that one person’s life could have such an effect on the world.  It didn’t matter if the world in question was literal or limited to a single community, each person’s life held meaning and power, and their interactions with others created a ripple effect that spread farther than any single person could fathom.  As the image of a ripple passed through his thoughts, Tom glanced at the man in the backseat.  ‘I wonder whose lives you’ve touched.  Who’s touched you?  How did you end up in this state?’ 

To Bobby, he asked, “No way of finding out who our friend is?”

“If you could provide me with a name, I’d be able to find out a lot more.  Did you check his wallet?”

“Somehow I doubt he’d have been sleeping in Potter’s Field if he had one.”

“But you didn’t check, did you?”  Bobby looked at the man.  “I probably wouldn’t have either.  I bet he smells as bad as he looks.  Glad I’m a hologram.”

PART TWO  

Sanctuary House

Brooklyn, NY

Friday, March 13, 1987

6:30 PM

Once Bobby had gotten Tom to the shelter, he’d excused himself back to the Project to do more research.  Vic Planshay, Franklin’s assistant, had been sweeping the back parking lot when Tom pulled in and he waved a greeting.  As soon as he saw Tom open the back door of the car, he’d set his broom aside and hurried over.

“Do you need any help?  Hello, who’s this?”

“I don’t know.  I found him unconscious by a grave marker in Potter’s Field and he hasn’t woken up to tell me his name.”  Tom slipped his hands under the man’s shoulders and began the ordeal of maneuvering the limp body out of the car.  Vic helped him and then offered to help carry him inside.  Tom shook his head as he swung the thin form into his arms.  “He doesn’t weigh much.  Just get the doors for me.”

The man coughed and wheezed as Vic held the door open.  “I think we should put him upstairs,” Vic said.  “He doesn’t need to be exposed to any additional bugs, and we’ll have fewer problems in the ward if the transients don’t have to put up with his coughing all night.  Ralph’s old room is still empty so we can put him in there.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Tom.  He followed Vic, grateful for the information and assistance.  They went up a simple flight of stairs to the second floor, where Vic headed for a room halfway down the corridor.

The room contained a twin size bed, a small dresser with mirror, a nightstand, and a desk and chair.  A framed print of the 23^rd Psalm was on one wall, and a small cross hung over the bed.  The small casement window was framed by plain navy blue drapes, which matched the wool blanket folded at the foot of the bed.  Vic pulled back the sheets on the bed and stepped back.

“He’s pretty dirty,” said Tom, glancing at the white sheets.

Vic laughed.  “Frank, we’ve had far worse than him in our sheets.  They’re not that hard to bleach.  But if you feel like trying to bathe him first, go right ahead.”

Tom sighed and lowered the man to the bed.  Vic quickly and efficiently removed the man’s worn shoes and socks, inspecting his feet and calves for open sores needing attention.  Finding none, he looked at Tom.

“Did he have a wallet?”

Frowning, Tom shook his head.  “I didn’t check.”

“Frank!”  Vic swiftly did a pocket inspection, not forgetting the breast pocket on the filthy shirt the man wore beneath the dingy fatigue jacket.  “Well, nothing.  Hopefully he’ll wake up after he’s slept off some of this and we can get his name.”

“Slept off some of what?”

Vic gave him a confused look.  “I know he’s pretty ripe, but are you going to tell me you can’t pick up the scent of booze on him?”

“I was more concerned with the fever and the cough.”

“Yeah, definitely should have Doc Walker look at him tomorrow.  My guess is he’ll need a penicillin shot.”

Tom had a feeling Franklin wasn’t usually so indecisive, but there was nothing for it.  “In the meantime, shouldn’t we try to get his fever down and give him something for the cough?”

“You might be able to get an unconscious man to get some liquid cough medicine down, but how are you gonna get him to swallow the aspirin?”  Vic paused and then answered his own question.  “I’ll run to the drugstore and get some Children’s Tylenol.  Maybe I can get some of that down his gullet along with some cough medicine.  Come to think of it, I’m gonna get the kid’s variety of that, too.  He doesn’t need any more alcohol in his system.”

“Good thinking,” said Tom.  He pulled the sheet over the unconscious man’s form and then added the wool blanket.  Rather than behave any stranger in Vic’s eyes than he already had, Tom asked the younger man to get a cool washcloth to apply to their patient’s forehead.  Until Vic could get the liquid acetaminophen, they’d have to resort to other means to assuage his fever.

It took less than a minute for Vic to retrieve the damp cloth.  Understanding the connection his boss had to the pitiful creature, he handed Tom the rag, though it would have been just as easy for him to place it on the man’s forehead.  Folding it lengthwise into thirds, Tom gently settled it on the man’s brow. 

“Take it easy, pal,” he said in a quiet voice.  “We’re going to take care of you.”

“You’ve got that right,” affirmed Vic.  “I’m heading to the drugstore now.  In the meantime, there’s a stack of paperwork needing your signature.  I put it in your chair so it wouldn’t get lost in that mountain of papers you like to call a desk.”

Tom replied distractedly, “Thanks.”  He turned when Vic put a hand on his shoulder.

“Frank, you know I admire how you care about every person who comes in here.  But right now, you can’t do anything for him and there are other things—other people—who need your attention right now.”  Vic paused.  “How about if I ask Dylan to sit in here with him until I get back with the medicine?  And I promise to come get you if he wakes up before lights out.”

At Vic’s words, Tom recognized the bleed through of Franklin Benjamin’s compassion for the homeless, and he nodded.  “In my chair, you said?” he asked with a grin.

After finding his way to Franklin’s office downstairs, Tom lifted the paperwork Vic had left in the chair and cleared a workspace to set about applying his host’s signature to the designated lines.  Not knowing what the forms were, he simply trusted Vic’s judgment and hoped he wasn’t signing anything he shouldn’t.  He didn’t get the sense that Vic was someone he couldn’t trust, though, and it was clear from the young man’s demeanor that Franklin trusted him with a great deal of responsibility regarding the running of the shelter.

Once he finished with the paperwork, Tom rifled through the desk, finding a bound document boldly titled “Sanctuary House.”  He pulled it out and realized that it was a promotional piece of literature, designed to inform prospective donors about the shelter and its mission.  Figuring that it could only make his job easier to know this information, Tom began reading.

He learned that Franklin had founded Sanctuary House five years ago when he’d noticed the increasing number of people sleeping on heating grates, in the subways, and on park benches.  Franklin allowed anyone who needed a place to sleep a room in the common sleeping areas downstairs.  The rooms upstairs were reserved for those men who agreed to take part in the program.  They had to agree to go through the rehabilitation process, giving up any substance dependence whether it was drugs or alcohol.  They also had to agree to work to earn their keep.  Tom reviewed statistics and saw that in the short time Sanctuary House had been in existence, it had a decent recidivism rate and at least ten success cases were profiled in the book.

Tom was reading over one of these stories when Vic knocked on the open door.  He looked up as Vic said, “Frank, our friend’s awake now.”

“Did you get a name from him?”

“No.  I didn’t win many points with him since he considers me as having tried to poison him.  He woke up when I was trying to pour the medicine down his throat.”  Vic gestured at the pink splotches Tom just now noticed on his shirt.  “He didn’t appreciate it and spat it all back at me.”

Tom had to cover his mouth with a hand before the smirk he couldn’t hold back showed itself.  Vic saw it anyway and sighed.  “I think you’re gonna have to talk to him, Frank.”

“All right, Vic.  Do you still have the medicine?”  Vic passed the plastic bottles to him, both containing a red liquid.  Tom couldn’t resist looking from the bottles to Vic’s shirt.  “Which one did he get you with?”

“The cough medicine.  I got the Tylenol in him before he came to.  So at least his fever’s getting some treatment.”

Tom nodded and left the Children’s Tylenol on the desk while he carried the cough medicine upstairs with him.  As he entered the room, he saw their guest kneeling on the floor looking under the bed.

“Looking for your shoes?” Tom asked.  “We put them in the closet.”

The man whirled when Tom spoke, then instantly grabbed his chest as a coughing fit seized him.  He fought to catch his breath afterwards, and Tom reached for his arm to help him up.  His patient resisted half-heartedly, then settled into the bed.  Tom dangled the bottle of cough medicine between his fingers.  “This stuff’ll help with that, but you can only have it if you promise to stay the night here.”

“What is that?” rasped the man.

“Cough medicine.  Until the doctor gets here in the morning it’s all we can offer, but it’s better than suffering without it, don’t you agree?”

“Suffering’s nothin’ new.”

“How long have you had that cough?” Tom asked, looking into the eyes now warily watching him.

“I dunno.  Days run together on the streets.”

Tom sighed, recognizing the phrase as similar to one Franklin’s informational book contained.  “I guess they do,” he conceded.  He retrieved the dosage cup Vic had left abandoned on the nightstand and filled it slightly past the 2-teaspoon mark.  “Drink this.  It’ll help a little, I promise.”

The man seemed about to resist, but an attack of coughing that left him gasping and wheezing appeared to decide him, and he reached for the small cup, downing the red liquid in one fast swallow, as if slamming back a shot of tequila.  Grimacing at the flavor, he returned the cup to Tom, muttering a surly thank you.

“I think you need rest tonight, but in the morning you can shower and I’m sure we can find some clean clothes for you to wear.”

“Where is this place?” asked the man, turning his head from left to right as he took in the simple décor.

“You’re at Sanctuary House.”

A look of total revulsion came across the man’s face.  “A shelter?”  He shook his head and started to throw the blankets back.  “Let me outta here.”

Tom threw out his hands to stop him but a coughing fit did it for him.  The man doubled over, air whistling in his lungs as he tried to get sufficient breath.  Tom gently took him by the shoulders and eased him back into bed.

“Is there a problem?”

The man glared at him.  “I don’t take charity.  I’ll sleep on the streets.”

“You most certainly will not,” said Tom, thinking how much he sounded like his mother just then.  “If it’s that bothersome to you, you can sweep up after breakfast in the morning to pay for your bed.  How’s that sound?”

Narrowing one eye, the man considered it.  Tom could practically see the wheels turning as the man’s scar scrunched with the facial expression.  Finally, he agreed.

“Good,” Tom said.  “By the way, I’m Frank Benjamin.  I run this shelter.”  He extended his hand and the man hesitantly shook it, but didn’t speak.  After a moment, Tom prompted, “And your name is?”

“Albert.”

“Do you have a last name, Albert?”

When it came, it stunned Tom into silence.

“Calavicci.”

PART THREE  

Project Quantum Leap

Stallion’s Gate, New Mexico

1425 hours

“Dr. LoNigro, I don’t understand this reading.”

Bobby LoNigro walked over to the central hub that housed the parallel hybrid computer, Alpha, that ran Project Quantum Leap.  He looked down at the screen Gooshie indicated.  A blue box repeatedly appeared and disappeared on the screen, indicating an anomaly.

“Alpha, what is this?” Bobby asked.

The robotic gender-neutral voice declared, “As I told Gooshie when he asked me earlier, I do not know.  If I did, I would display such explanation on the screen as well.”

“Well, any ideas?”

“Three hundred thousand of them,” said the computer.  “However, I can not begin to narrow them down without devoting the bulk of my processing energy to the task.”

“Oh, no, not while Tom’s in a Leap, you don’t,” warned LoNigro.  “You save that for later.”

The computer didn’t often sound sulky, but somehow it managed to do just that as it said, “Very well.  As you wish.”

Sanctuary House

Brooklyn, NY

Friday, March 13, 1987

8:35 PM

“Calavicci?” Tom echoed.

Albert apparently thought Tom repeated the name because it was foreign to his tongue.  With just a hint of annoyance, he emphasized, “Yes.  Cal-uh-vee-chee.  It’s Italian.”

“I know,” said Tom.  “I recognize the name.”

And he did.  He had served with the man on two separate occasions.  They’d worked together on Skylab, and then, later, on Project Starbright.  At least until Albert Calavicci’s drinking and anger had gotten him kicked off the Project.  The last Tom had heard the Navy had stripped Al of his rank and dishonorably discharged him.  He’d lost track of him after that and, quite honestly, hadn’t considered it worth his while to find out more about what had become of him.

Yes, he recognized the name.  He had not, however, recognized the face.  As if the shock of realizing that this…hobo…was the same man who, even in the descent into rampant alcoholism, had always been meticulous about his appearance wasn’t enough, the disfiguring scar running the length of the left side of his face just cemented Tom’s flabbergasted state. Only in looking past the disheveled beard into the man’s eyes was he just barely able to identify the man he’d known.  He felt a brief hand of sorrow clench his heart as he noticed how much harder Al’s eyes were now, how much more full of suspicion and hurt.  It struck him that Al had introduced himself as Albert.  The use of his proper name seemed to demonstrate the barrier he’d erected around himself in the intervening years.

“How could you recognize it?” Albert demanded, that very suspicion coming to the fore.  He raised a filthy hand to his mouth and coughed.  A small piece of yellow-green phlegm landed in the unkempt beard, unnoticed by him. 

“It’s not a common name,” answered Tom.

“Yeah, and it isn’t worth a thing.”

Tom hesitated as he considered how to respond to that.  Frank Benjamin hadn’t worked alongside Albert Calavicci, Tom Beckett had.  “I, uh, I’ve always followed the space program very closely.  Aren’t you the same Albert Calavicci who flew on Apollo?”

The answer was a non-answer.  “Do you honestly think a former astronaut would be living on the streets?”  Coughing paralyzed him again.

Tom decided not to push.  Instead, he silently passed a tissue to Albert and delicately indicated the offensive matter in the grizzled hair.  Albert sullenly scrubbed it away.

“Are you hungry?”  Tom thought it a rhetorical question.  One glance at how thin he was made it quite clear that he had to be starving.  All Albert did was shrug, though.  Tom decided to take that as an affirmative and an additional clue to how desperate Albert’s life currently was.  After proclaiming his refusal to accept charity, he did not flatly turn down the offer of a meal.

“I’ll fix a bowl of soup,” said Vic, surprising Tom.  He hadn’t realized his assistant had come upstairs.  The young man hadn’t changed his stained shirt, and he seemed to want to challenge Albert for his behavior by continuing to wear it.  Tom held back a snicker.  Vic Planshay had no idea how stubborn Albert Calavicci could be.  The challenge didn’t faze him one bit.

“So long as you don’t plan on drowning me with it,” said Albert.  He eyed Vic with a steely gaze that clearly said he’d spit the soup at him if given cause.

Vic put up a good battle, Tom thought, but it came as no surprise when he gave up and turned to go.  As soon as the young man was out of sight, Albert let free a bout of coughing he’d apparently been holding back.  He sucked in air in panting gulps as one hand gripped a handful of sheets.

“I thought you said that stuff was gonna help,” he challenged Tom as soon as he could breathe, waving his hand in the direction of the cough medicine on the nightstand.

“Give it a chance,” said Tom, “it doesn’t start working in three minutes.  Besides, I’m pretty sure you’re going to need antibiotics.”

Albert didn’t respond.  He shifted uncomfortably in the bed and rolled his shoulders.  Thinking he wanted to get out of the jacket, Tom reached to help him.  Albert reacted immediately when Tom’s hand touched the fabric.  He jerked so far away from Tom that he almost fell out of the bed and his labored breathing got a distinct note of panic to it.

Tom raised his hands, palms outward.  “I’m sorry!  I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Silently, Albert nodded, rubbing his face with both hands.  Tom sighed.  He should have realized living on the streets had made Albert extremely paranoid. 

“Just leave me alone, please,” Albert brusquely requested.  “I want to be alone.”

“Okay.”  Tom turned to go and then paused.  “Vic should be back soon with your soup.”

“Vic’s here with your soup!”

The younger man came in, apparently determined to win Albert over.  He had slung a towel over one arm and carried the soup bowl elevated in one hand, mocking a waiter at a fine dining establishment. 

Though Tom suspected he probably ought to remain despite Albert’s request that he leave, he decided to let the two of them work it out.  Pausing outside the room, he heard Albert comment, “That was fast.”

“Nuked it,” Vic answered.

The scrape of a spoon against the melamine bowl and the slurp of a man who cared little about niceties anymore relieved Tom’s worries.  He continued back to Franklin’s office, deciding to see if there was a file on Henry Voorhies.  He’d just made it to the small office when Bobby returned.

“I’ve got some information for you,” Bobby said.

“And I’ve got some for you,” returned Tom.  “You’re not going to believe this.  I found out who that guy is.”

“The bum?”

Tom shook his head.  “Bobby, do you remember Albert Calavicci?”

Bobby’s jaw dropped and he gaped at Tom.  “He’s…he’s Al Calavicci?!  No way.”  He pressed a button on the handlink and vanished.  A full minute later he returned, his expression both stunned and sad.  “Oh my God, it is him.  How the mighty have fallen.”

“What happened to him, Bobby?  How did he end up this way?”

Bobby was staring up at the ceiling, still stunned by the revelation that his former colleague was now homeless.  “I don’t know, Tom,” he said in a distracted voice.  “Al was always so particular about how he looked.  God, I always thought he’d land on his feet no matter what life threw at him.”

“Bobby.  Use the ‘link,” Tom prompted.  “Find out what happened to him.”

“Huh?  Oh, right.”  Bobby shook the melancholy off and punched a series of requests into the handlink.  “Well, after he got caught going postal on that vending machine at Starbright and got tossed out, he had to face the music with the Navy.”

“I remember that,” Tom said.  “I don’t know why, but I remember that.  They stripped him of his rank and dishonorably discharged him.”

Bobby nodded.  “After that, there is a string of unsuccessful applications in and around Washington, D.C.  He actually managed to land a couple of jobs, but his drinking soon became a problem and he lost them.  Eventually, no one would touch him.  Alpha shows that he slowly maxed out his credit cards and tapped out his bank accounts.  The last record in any computer system regarding Albert Calavicci is an eviction notice from an apartment complex in D.C. in 1985.  He basically dropped off the face of the earth after that.”

“He’s been on the streets for almost two years?”  Now Tom tilted his head toward the ceiling.  “And he never contacted any of us for help?”

Bobby sighed.  “Albert Calavicci was the proudest, most self-sufficient man I ever met.  He’d sooner die than ask for help.”

“He doesn’t die, does he?”  Tom was aghast.  He and Al had never been close friends, but he hated the thought of him dying.  ‘I hate the thought that he’s gotten to where he is now!’

“How would I be able to tell that?” Bobby reminded him.  “All I know is if he did, he didn’t die here.  But Henry Voorhies will.  I came to tell you I found out a bit more about him.”

“Henry Voorhies, right,” Tom said, preoccupied. 

“Tom!”  Bobby glared at him as he waited for Tom to give him his full attention.  “You’re here for Henry.”

“Sorry.  What did you find out?”

“Well, it appears in addition to his chemical dependency, Henry has a bit of an anger problem as well.  Alpha just accessed the counselor’s files and found notations to that effect.”

“Does he have bad blood with anyone that I should be on the lookout for?” asked Tom.  He got up and crossed to Franklin’s file cabinet, wondering if Henry’s file had any notes to that effect.

“Apparently a handful of men and Henry have crossed swords, as it were,” said Bobby, “but the counselor refers to them by code names—descriptors—and unfortunately, we can’t figure out who he means.”

“I guess I’ll have to talk with him then.”

“Good luck,” said Bobby.  “He’s on his honeymoon.  A month-long cruise to Europe and around the Mediterranean.”

“Great, just great,” muttered Tom, flipping through the drawers until he found Henry’s file.  He lifted it out and brought it back to Frank’s desk.  “I hope Frank has something helpful in here.”

Bobby read over Tom’s shoulder as he examined the file.  While Frank had written an extensive description of Henry’s issues and progress, there weren’t any clues as to who might have butted heads with him.  If any grudges were held between Henry and another resident, there was no record of it in Frank’s file.

Tom lifted the Polaroid photo of Henry Voorhies from the front of the file.  The tall blond-haired man appeared simply to tolerate his picture being taken, his blue eyes distant and his expression bland.  “I’ll see if I can spend some time with him tomorrow, and I’ll definitely have to see if I can tell if there’s anything going on with any of the other men or women.”

“Just men.”  At Tom’s questioning glance, Bobby explained, “Sanctuary House is a shelter for males only.  There’s a ‘sister shelter,’ if you’ll pardon the pun, for females a few blocks over.”

“Well, at least I know the fight isn’t over a woman.”

“Small favors.”

Tom returned his attention to Henry’s file, propping his hand underneath his chin as he read.  There had to be something there, something he just hadn’t seen yet.