Message-ID: <6cd3114c.358ac531@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 16:08:15 EDT
From: Maryilee@aol.com
Subject: "And Then There Were Two" Part 11

Chapter 11


Gary studied Sam; convinced now that the person who had talked so
confidently about string theories, neutrons and protons, could not have
been the science challenged Chuck.  Gary stood in front of Sam. He was
trying his hardest to see through the image of Chuck. He shook his
head, unable to see Sam beyond the aura.

"So, Sam, when-" Gary fumbled for words "How?" He scratched his head,
and looked down.  How do you talk to someone, when that someone
occupied the body of your best friend?

"Is Chuck ever coming back?" Gary asked, worried. Though Chuck was
probably one of the world's most annoying people, Gary knew he would
miss him if he never got to speak to him again.  "Where is he?"

Sam nodded, "Yeah, he'll be back. He's a few years in the future is
all."

Marissa, who had been sitting in quiet confusion, suddenly spoke out,
her voice sounding frightened. "Gary, what's going on here?"

That's right, Gary thought, Marissa has no idea what has become of
Chuck. He couldn't just blurt out  'Marissa, meet Sam, he's temporarily
occupying Chuck's body.' That's just what he did though, when he
couldn't think of any simpler way to break the news.

"Chuck is where?" Marissa asked incredulously.

"Chuck is the waiting room." Sam explained.  "He'll be fine, and when
he comes back, he probably won't remember what happened.  Leaping has
that effect.  We call it the 'Swiss-cheese' effect." Sam said wryly.

"W-Who is 'we'?"  Gary asked suspiciously, suddenly looking hard at
Marissa, as though maybe she had also been replaced.

Sam, noting the expression on Gary's face, laughed.  "Don't worry.  I'm
the only leaper.  The 'we' I was referring to is Al."

"Who's Al?" Marissa asked, actually appearing to be intrigued with the
whole aspect, now that she knew that Chuck was safe.

"Al is my friend, he is the observer on the project.  He appears to me
as a hologram, but he's only tuned into my brainwaves, so only I can
see him."

Gary rubbed his temples.  This was getting to be a little too
far-fetched. All he wanted was for things to be back to normal.  Well,
as normal as possible.

"When will Chuck be back?"

Sam looked away for a moment, biting his lip, "Well, tonight or
possibly tomorrow morning at the latest.  It sort of depends on you."

"Me?" Gary asked, shaking his head in denial.  "What do I have to do
with it?"

"Remember what I told you last night?  About the alley?"

Gary blanched.  Truthfully, he hadn't really paid much attention to
Sam's warning.  At the time, he had been too angry. "Yes, I remember."
He said in a low voice, his eyes suddenly haunted.

"What about the alley?" Marissa asked, her voice tense.

"Sam says that I get..." Gary fumbled for words, "That someone kills me
tonight."

Marissa gasped, "What?  How does he know? What about the paper?  What
does *it* say?"

Gary sighed, "There's nothing in the paper about it, because it doesn't
happen until late tonight.  That makes it too late for the story to
make the next day's paper."

Marissa reached out and felt for Gary's hand, giving it a gentle
squeeze.  She smiled and shook her head.  "Don't worry Gary.  We won't
let that happen, will we, Sam?"


Sam put a hand on Gary's shoulder, "Gary, you know better than anyone,
that the future isn't set in stone.  That it can be changed.  That's
what we're going to do.  I think it's why I'm here."

Gary looked at Sam, questioning, "Why did you pick me?  I mean, there
must be hundreds of people that need help.  Why me?"

Sam shook his head; "I'm not in control of the leaps. Someone or
something controls my leaps.  All I can do is try to find out what it
is that went wrong, and try to fix it."

"And-um-and what if you *can't* fix it?" Gary asked.

Sam detected a note of fear in Gary's voice.  He didn't blame him.  "If
I don't fix it, then the theory is that I won't leap."

"The 'theory'?  That means that you have always been successful,
right?" Gary said, hope in his voice.  "If you hadn't, you wouldn't
have been able to continue leaping."

Sam shook his head sadly, his gaze turned inward. "Most of the time,
I've been able to put things right, but sometimes, it turned out that I
wasn't there to do what I thought I was supposed to do." Sam shrugged
slightly, looking down to hide the emotions that were just beneath the
surface.  "I...I've had to make some tough choices."

Sam thought back, bits and pieces of past leaps flickered through his
mind.  He shuddered as he remembered being strapped into an electric
chair.  Images of a young black man, shot right in front of Sam, sprang
into his mind. He couldn't remember the man's name, but Sam knew that
he had been close to whomever Sam had leaped into.

"I'm sure you did the best you could, Sam." Marissa said gently.

Sam's head came up slowly.  He looked from Marissa to Gary, surprised
to see understanding on their faces.

Gary was nodding, "Sometimes, you can only do so much."

"Listen to the kid, Sam." A gravelly voice piped in.

"Al!" Sam stood up, grinning.  He had thought Al might not be back
after he had told Gary who he really was.

"Well, it's good to see you too." Al answered, clearing his throat, and
fiddling with the handlink, obviously slightly embarrassed.

Sam turned to Gary and Marissa, "Al's here." He announced.  He saw
Gary's look of uncertainty, "Remember, he's only tuned to my
brainwaves. But..." Sam added, as he noticed Marissa trying to control
an agitated Spike, "animals and small children can see him."

"I gather that Gary believes you now." Al stated, lighting a cigar.

"Yeah, I think so." Sam smiled, rubbing the back of his neck.  "So tell
me, Al, has anything changed now?" Sam said expectantly.

Al clenched the cigar in his teeth, jabbing at the handlink.  His
shoulders slumped as he read the answer on the display screen.  "Sorry,
Sam, nothing's changed."

Sam was stunned.  "How can that be, Al?"

"What?" Gary asked, his eyes wide.

Sam sighed and turned to Gary.  "Well, it seems that nothing's
changed...yet.  But don't worry, we'll figure this out."

*************************************

Sam and Gary spent the remainder of the day trying to come up with
different scenarios.  Sam had Al run each one by Ziggy, but it seemed
that no matter what they came up with, the end result was always the
same. If Gary stayed in his apartment-he was murdered, if he went
out-he was murdered.  If he stayed at Chuck's-he was murdered, although
not until the eleventh of November. No matter what they did, the only
change was when Gary was murdered.

Gary rested his head in his hands.  He was scared, but at least he
wasn't alone on this one.  He wasn't carrying the burden all by
himself, and curiously, that made it easier to bear.  He sighed,
glancing over at Sam, who was busily arguing with Al over what would be
the best thing for Gary to do.  It was strange to see Chuck's body,
which was behaving like Gary, towards an invisible man, who from every
indication behaved somewhat like Chuck.  Gary shook his head, rubbing
his eyes; he was so confused.

Gary sat at the bar, an untouched beer in front of him.

*Meow*

Gary glanced down, and sighed.  He was in no mood to play guessing
games with the cat. The cat jumped onto the barstool, then up on to the
bar.

"Hey, if the health department were to come in here right now, I'd be
closed down." Gary groused as he picked the cat up under the belly,
ready to toss him to the ground.  Suddenly, the cat hissed and brought
a hind leg forward and scratched Gary's hand.

"Ow! Damn Cat!" Gary exclaimed, dropping the cat back on the bar. He
grabbed a napkin off the bar and dabbed at the blood from the scratch.
The cat kept meowing, and walking around on top of the bar, right in
front of Gary.

Gary glanced at the cat in irritation.  "What is your problem?"  He
tried to snatch the cat once more, but the animal evaded him. The
movement caused the Sun-Times to fall out of the inside of Gary's
leather jacket onto the bar.

The cat meowed again, and sat on the paper. That was Gary's usual clue
that something in the paper needed his attention.

Gary eyed the cat warily, as he nudged the feline off the paper.  The
animal was totally docile now and purring softly. Gary made a wry face,
and smoothed out the pages of the paper.  This was Sunday's paper, so
it was bigger than normal, and had more sections than the weekly one.
As Gary perused a section detailing the conversion of warehouses to
trendy lofts, an adjacent article caught his eye. The headline read,
"Slum Landlords Feeling the Squeeze."  The article was about community
activists speaking out and getting their neighborhoods cleaned up. What
got Gary's attention was the name Herrara.  There were some quotes from
him saying how difficult a job it was to get the landlords to comply,
but that eventually, if the community kept up the pressure, the
landlords would have to give in.

"Hey Sam!" Gary called over his shoulder.

Sam hurried over, "Yeah?  Have you come up with something?"

"Maybe. Tell me, exactly *what* does Ziggy say is going to happen?"
Gary asked.

Sam glanced to the side, presumably at Al, "Okay, Ziggy says that
your...your body is discovered outside in the alley behind McGinty's.
Robbery was assumed to be the motive.  No one was ever charged in
your-"

"Why did the police think the motive was robbery?" Gary cut him off;
not quite prepared to hear about his own murder.

Sam again glanced at the space occupied by Al. "Because your wallet was
missing, the police assumed it was robbery."

Gary and Sam came to the same realization simultaneously.

"But my wallet was stolen yesterday!"

"Your wallet was already stolen!"

Gary's mind raced. "I vaguely remember one of the kids yesterday was
going through my pockets." He glanced back at the newspaper article
about the slum landlords.  "The same kid that was trying to kill
Herrera."  Gary jabbed his finger at the paper.

He pushed the paper in front of Sam.  "This is about the guy we saved
yesterday.  It was the second time I had to prevent him from being
murdered."  Gary said shaking his head.  "I should have thought of it
sooner. I figured he was being targeted; I just didn't know why."

Sam finished reading the article, and gave Gary a worried look. "It
looks like you're the target now."