Message-ID: <19980104233356.15466.qmail@hotmail.com> From: "Carol Belyea" Subject: Chances - Chapter Six Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 15:33:56 PST Chapter Six So far, it's been two months since the sudden but brief blackout occurred. We only have one month left before the committee visits the project for our proof presentation that time travel is actually possible. So far we've been able to manage but having Al around would make things a lot easier. In order for this thing with the committee to work, we had to make sure that Ziggy's CPU was impeccable. Even one blackout could result as a problem. But so far, we found nothing wrong with Ziggy's main CPU as of yet. No glitches, nothing leaving a trace from where the problem came from. But just the not knowing was enough to give me a bad feeling. Then there's mystery number two. The note I found in Banes' PC. It was supposedly addressed to me. Who else would be called the "Good Doctor"? People who would call me that either knew me really well or hate me. Or both. "FP" was drawing up question marks too. What the hell did "FP" mean? It's obviously a clue and I'm determined to find out the solution to all this mystery. While me and the rest of the Project Staff worked about PQL, Al Calavicci spent his fair share of time in Albuquerque General Hospital. The Rehab Facility seemed like a good place during my intern years. It was a place full of encouragement, determination, and potential. I enjoyed it then. Now that Al was there, though, I couldn't help but feel trapped. Guilty for him being there in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, if I hadn't picked such a fight like the one two months ago, I'd expect Al to walk through my office door in the mornings and say, "Let's get crackin', kid. We've only got one month left before those government nozzles gives us a little visit." I knew I'd have to be there with him. He needed someone standing by him. Sometimes, I wish it didn't have to be me . . . *************************** Albuquerque General November 12, 2000 "Don't you have anything else better to do?" Al asked Sam in annoyance. He was lifting weights while he lay back on a weight bench. His legs were sprawled out in front of him in such a way that it almost looked uncomfortable. Al didn't feel them so he didn't notice, much less care. He wore a navy blue polo shirt and khaki slacks which, to Sam and everyone else he knew at the project, looked kind of strange on Al. Sam thought about the question he was asked with an incredulity beyond what he had expected. "No." Sam answered after a moment. Al stopped his weight lifting and made an attempt to sit up. It was harder for him than it looked but he made it. His physical therapist saw him, half-smiled and walked over from the nurses station. She had thick dark hair made up in a bun, dark eyes, and semi-dark skin. She was Al's type, Sam thought. "Are we all done, Admiral?" She asked. "Yes, we are. Thank you, Lisa." By the tone of Al's voice, Sam knew he wasn't too fond of Lisa after all. Lisa looked at Sam and mused, "He's not lying, is he?" Before Sam could fumble for an answer, Al sighed and barked, "No, I am not lying, Lisa. Now, would you please go away?" Lisa huffed. "I'm not going anywhere if you have that kind of attitude." She answered with a hand on her hip. "Great. So now I'm stuck with the princess of bad attitudes." He transferred from the weight bench to the hospital issued wheelchair next to him with some difficulty. The solid tires weren't locked as they should have been and as soon as his butt made it to the edge of the seat, the chair flew backwards and he ended up on the floor. He was flat on his back, legs twisted in an awkward position. Sam's first reaction was to help. But just as soon as he executed the action it was waved off by Lisa. "He can do it himself. Right, Admiral?" The therapist said. Al didn't answer. Sam felt helpless just standing there. Lisa got the chair back. She parked it right behind the embarrassed admiral, this time making sure the wheels were locked. He untwisted his legs and did a floor-to-chair transfer which took forever to learn. It still needed work. He almost didn't make it again. "Are you okay, Al?" Sam asked timidly. Al didn't look at him when he answered, "I have more than one answer to that." "Why don't you two go on?" Lisa said. "You're finished until after lunch, Admiral." "Thanks, Ms. Levitz." Al stated sarcastically, "You're so amiable." He rolled off toward his room down the hall with Sam following behind. "So, what did you come here for?" he asked Sam. Briefly confused, Sam stuttered, "I - I came to see you." "Well, that's reassuring." He got to his room. It was getting close to lunch and Al wanted to grab the Grisham novel he'd almost finished reading for the second time. He always ate alone in the cafeteria and was getting known for it by then. Sam stared down at Al's wheels while he stuttered for something to say. "Damn it, Beckett. Spit it out already!" Al ordered as he rummaged through his drawers for the book. "Al." Sam finally said. "What?" Al asked impatiently, slapping the paperback onto his lap. "I'm sorry." He knelt down at eye level with Al, gripping the armrests. "I'm so, so very sorry. But . . ." Sam tried to think of what to say next. He looked into Al's eyes and felt their intensity. Al was really just looking at him as if he'd lost his mind. But for the physicist, one look was all it took for him to chicken out again. "I can't stay here." He stood and walked over to the doorway. "Wait." Al commanded quietly before Sam could make it through the door. Sam stopped without turning around. He said nothing. Al hung his head and continued in a hushed tone, "Why, Sam? Why . . . can't you stay? Is it because of me? Or because you can't stand to see me . . . crippled? Huh? Answer that for me. Then you can run away." Anger flushed through Sam's cheeks. He turned to face Al. "I never run away!" he barked. The Admiral looked up again and matched his friend's anger. "Get real, Sam." His eyes narrowed. "It doesn't take six doctorates to figure out what you've been doing since I got here." "Don't you dare go there." Sam warned. "If you came here to pout about what happened between us two months ago, let me give you some advice. Get over it! Do I need to spell it out for you? Display it in sign language? See, it all worked out perfectly for you. So why are you complaining? You said you didn't like the way I slept around. Guess what, Sam? Mr. Wally's perfectly out of order! Permanently! You got what you wanted and as usual, I get dumped on. So, see ya later. You can leave now." "Look, I didn't come here to help you feel sorry for yourself!" "Then why the hell did you come here? I never thought your ego was exactly big enough for gloating. So, g'head. Why'd you come if all you do is run away?" Both men were quiet after what Al had said. Sam just stood in the doorway, averting his eyes from his friend's paralyzed form. He thought his next sentence over carefully before letting it out. "I need your help." He stated weakly. Al stared at him for a minute but then immediately came to the rescue. "What . . . kind of help?" Al questioned. Sam was quiet, trying to figure out what to say next. He slowly took a folded piece of paper out of his breast pocket. For a few moments, Sam just looked at it sitting in his hands, not knowing what to do with it. Al watched him, unable to speak. After two months of constant avoidance, Sam needed his help. Without a word, Al was handed the slip of paper. He unfolded it and read it. "Where did you find this?" Al asked. Sam was almost afraid to talk to him. But he had to say something. He walked back inside the room, closing the door behind him, and sat on the bed. "I . . . ," he swallowed the lump in his throat, "I found it on Banes' PC mainframe. I was told not to do any investigating on my own and to leave it to military intelligence. But I couldn't. They wouldn't do anything. They wouldn't let me do anything. So, I had to find something on my own." "You," Al said as he stared down at the letters on the paper, "disobeyed specific instructions from the Chief of Security? Do you know how much trouble you'd be in if they found out?" Sam nodded knowingly, "Yeah. They said they'd suspend me from the project. But they didn't find out and they won't. Not unless I was careless." "When did you find this note?" Sam's conscious shrunk as he said, "Two month's ago." Al looked at him furiously. "Two months!? Why the hell didn't you tell me?" How could Sam answer that? He stared down at the floor trying to decide what to say. Then he finally came out and told Al that he didn't think it would have been right to tell him in his condition. That he didn't tell him for Al's well-being. Al was infuriated. "Are you nuts? Have you completely lost it? Since when did you begin worrying about my well-being!? I wanna know who this bastard that shot me was and I wanna know why the hell he did it!!" The physicist hung his head, whispering, "He was supposed to shoot me, not you." Al looked at the note again. Sure enough it was addressed to "The Good Doctor". Al thought about it a minute. "Why would a would-be assassin leave a note behind to someone who he was supposed to kill the day before?" Sam lifted his head back up. "What?" "Banes was dead at the time the shooting took place. A day after, he was probably in the city morgue. So that can only mean that someone else left the note." Al read the short note. "A not-so-nice someone." "How can you tell?" "Well, in New York around the late 40s early 50s there was the Mad Bomber. He left the letters 'FP' etched in a piece of metal every time he left a bomb. When he was caught, the police found that 'FP' stood for 'Fair Play'." Al stopped a moment, watching his friend with concern. "Sam, whoever this guy is, he's not playing around. He wants revenge for something and I have the feeling he'll do anything to make sure you die." Sam looked at Al, wondering how Al could worry more about him than himself so easily. Al was the one who will live the rest of his life in a wheelchair and Sam knew Al was aware of it. Yet his attention was focused on the situation at hand and not his sudden disability. Sam marveled at how strong the human soul could be, but thinking about Al now only created a pit in his stomach. Sam nodded knowingly. "So what do I do?" Al leaned in close. "Find the bastard." ******************************* Headed back home with a new conscious, Sam thought about what Al said. Every word was enveloped openly like a sponge in water. The only problem was, as simple as it sounded he didn't know where to start looking for this guy. He didn't know who he was. Sam couldn't even think of anyone who might actually want to harm him. So far, it was a dead end. As Sam's black jeep pulled into his parking space in the military compound he called home, the guard at the gate ran up to him. "Dr. Beckett." Said the ensign. "What is it, ensign?" Sam asked. The lanky blonde soldier answered, "Sir, they need you in the Control Room. They said it's important." Sam got out of the car. "Do you know what's so important?" "They wouldn't say, sir." The physicist jogged down to the core of his project, occasionally dodging technicians and others passing by. He walked into the Control Room just as the door slid open and saw his three top staff members surrounding the juju bead console they called Ziggy. Gooshie, the short one with bad breath and thinning red hair, and his gorgeous wife Tina, wearing a skin tight dress under her loose lab coat, were both there. Sam's favorite person in the whole world was there too. His own wife Donna, who looked incredible in anything. Even the jeans, sneakers, and shirt she wore with her tousled curly hair. Sam grinned with delight. He went over to her and gave her a good long kiss as he held her in his arms. "Where's Johnny?" Sam asked his wife. "Asleep up stairs. Toolie's with him." Donna quickly became serious. "But that's not the issue right now. You've got to take a look at this." Sam looked at the other two and said, "Right. What's up?" "Dr. Beckett," Gooshie started, "We've been sabotaged." Beckett let go of his wife, an enormous frown on his face. "What?" Tina handed him some printouts as the programmer continued, "The blackout that occurred two months ago was no accident. It was caused by a virus." As if on cue, a projected 3D diagram of circuitry appeared and rotated atop Ziggy's console as the computer continued in her sultry programmed voice. "The Aurora virus was downloaded into my hard drive two months, four days, six hours, and forty-one minutes ago. The downloading occurred when Dr. Beckett opened a file from the late Dr. Jeremy Banes' personal computer, unaware of the fact that the virus was attached to the file." Donna didn't know about this. "Sam? You disobeyed security?" But Beckett had other things on his mind. The Aurora virus didn't exist in his knowledge of viruses. His photographic memory would know that it wasn't on the list of common computer viruses. Yet it sounded so familiar to him. He knew he'd heard of it before but he was having trouble remembering. "Sam?" his spouse pressed. He ignored her. "Ziggy, what parts of your circuitry did this virus effect?" She took a while to answer. She finally said, "The Aurora virus has been embedded in my CPU. From what I could find, the virus is . . .," The the computer's voice changed radically into typical teenager's speech, "it's gonna, like, destroy my CPU!" Everyone turned their heads to the glowing fiber optic orb that hung above the juju bead console. "Huh?" They chimed simultaneously. Ziggy's voice turned low and sultry again. "The virus has already affected the core of my CPU. Removing it would be a futile attempt." "Maybe not." Sam reassured. "Gooshie. Tina. Get working on her. Donna, come with me to my office." The couples jumped into action. While the Crosnolfs began working on chips and wiring, the Becketts went to Sam's main office on the 10th floor. Both he and Al had two offices. Each had one in the office wing on the 2nd floor and a bigger one on the 10th. During the project's early years of development, Al and Sam had decided on two offices since they were the ones to spend the most time working there. Sam rushed into his office with his wife scurrying behind. "What is it, Sam?" She knew something was wrong. Something badly wrong. "Close the door." He ordered. Donna obeyed. "I know about the Aurora virus. I know what it does, when it was created . . ." He stopped. With his knowledge now in place, he was afraid to talk. "What, Sam?" She persisted. Timidly, Sam started again. "I know who wants to kill me." Donna stood in shock. "Who?" He couldn't come up with any words. He just sat down in his chair behind the desk and stared into space. Could it be after all these years, the man who created the virus was the psychotic wanna-be assassin? Sam had met this man in college, befriending him with their shared knowledge and goals to excell in quantum physics. Soon, they became partners. When the Star Bright Program became a reality, they worked on time travel theories. Sam's partner soon became jeolous when he had to constantly catch up with Sam. Out of anger, he took the credit for Sam's time travel theories which soon got him kicked out of the Program and any other goverment project because of such plagerism. Sam had not heard from him since. It wasn't like Sam wanted to keep in touch with him anyway. With the thoughts automatically put into place Sam almost inaudiably answered with the name of the man. "Yen Hiroshi."