Message-Id: <9712152001.AA05424@arctos.bowdoin.edu>
Subject: "Reverse Reflection" pt 2
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 15:01:54 -0500 (EST)
From: "Emilie R. Karr" <ekarr@Bowdoin.EDU>

Title: Reverse Reflection, part 2
Author: Emilie Renee Karr (ekarr@bowdoin.edu)


"But..." the man trailed off.

"But..?" Sam--Greg--nudged his friend.

"But--it's like you've been saying.  She still feels like she's
married.  She's barely widowed.  Greg," he sighed, stirred his
drink, "I keep thinking there's something morally wrong about
going after a recent widow.  My mind thinks morals, but my
heart's not buying it..."

Greg didn't know what to say or do.  He didn't understand why he
felt so strongly as if he /should/ do something, say something,
act in some way.  But what to do when he didn't remember where he
was, who he was with...moments ago he thought he had been talking
about something completely different, in another place...

A quick peak around at least showed him the where--a cafe.  The
climate hot and dry.  Near the sea.  West coast, he guessed from
the architecture.  LA?

They were at a table on the street--he, Greg; and this other man
who looked vaguely, very faintly familiar.

Except he couldn't give him a name.  He couldn't give his own
self a name, except it wasn't Greg, he was sure of that, it was
something else, he was someone else...

The other man was regarding him oddly.  "You okay? I'd've
expected some lawyer joke after that."

"Lawyer joke?"

"You know, like 'I wasn't aware lawyers had morals at all, let
alone hearts'--you know, a doctor's typical contempt of my
breed."

So he was a doctor--of course he was a doctor, and his friend
was--

It slipped away, and he was left flailing again.  But his friend
was practically staring.  Quickly he covered, "Sorry, just
spacing out.  Seriously, about morals--do /you/ feel you're doing
something wrong?" Nice save, he congratulated himself.  A
psychological ploy that required only the knowledge he possessed
of the situation--that is, none.

He friend was attempting to answer.  "I've been asking myself--
how wrong is it?  Is it at all?  Any songwriter these days would
say love makes its own rules, but..." He returned to stirring the
ice in the glass.  "Actually it's not I feel wrong about /her/,
loving her...it's her husband."

"She's a widow, you said."

"She is.  Her husband's plane went down in 'Nam a few years ago,
but they only just declared him dead."

"They found the body?" This was ringing a bell somewhere inside
him, but he couldn't quite understand the tension he was
experiencing...

"No, but he's been gone for too long--there really isn't any
doubt he's dead, except..."

"Except?"

His companion's mood sank further.  "She doesn't believe it.
She's almost positive he's coming back, he's alive, he'll
return."

"Almost positive?" So far echoing the other's words did wonders
for the conversation.

"There's the trouble.  She's not facing reality.  She thinks--I
don't know, she had a dream or a vision and it's been keeping
this hopeless--hope alive.  And it frightens me to think of
what's going to happen when they do find proof he's gone for
good.  Greg--she's a strong woman, that's one of the things I
love about her most, but that kind of pain, betrayal..."

Greg nodded slowly.  "Emotionally damaging."

"Awfully cold way to put it.  But yeah."

"Maybe--maybe you can convince her, make her face the truth."

"I know.  I've thought of that.  But it seems so cruel." He
looked out onto the street. "Whatever you may joke about us
lawyers, I personally don't want to hurt anyone that way.  And
especially not /her/."

"Maybe a little hurt now will save her from worse later."

"Maybe she'll never want to speak to me again if I succeed."

"Are you worried more about your chances with her or about her
herself?"

The other man straightened.  "When you say that--"

"I could do it," Greg offered.  Not Greg, but who?

His friend, whoever he was, shook his head.  "I think I need to.
No matter what she thinks of me.  This should come from someone
who..." He smiled, small and surprisingly boyish. "Prove my love
to the world if not to her, right?"

"Whatever." He didn't grin.  He wanted to know why this felt
wrong but he couldn't imagine the reason.

"Greg, thanks.  I know you didn't say much, but what you did--
you've helped me out a lot.  Clarified things in a way I wouldn't
have seen.  I owe you."

"That's what I'm here for."

"What are friends for and all? Never thought I'd hear /you/
spouting platitudes.  Actually, I never thought I'd hear you
arguing me to /pursue/ Beth, you were so against the idea that
/I/ could be in love--"

"Who?" Greg--Sam--demanded.

"Who, me?" The man grinned and stood.  "Sure I'll cover the tab,
like I said, I owe you."

Sam spared barely a glance at the bill the waiter had just
dropped onto their table, where his companion was now placing
money. "No, who--where are you going?"

His friend was already striding away.  "To Beth's house!" he
called back.  "Work be damned! I need to speak to her!"

The name, as names had before, brought everything back in a
terrible rush of memory and guilt and horror.  "No!" Sam tried to
shout, but a blinding light descended and he was again blown into
the timestream.


With a gasp, Admiral Al Calavicci jerked awake.

"What's wrong, honey?" Tina mumbled.

He reached out in the darkness, felt her shoulder through the
bedsheets.  Warm, alive, comforting...present.  Very present,
very *there*...in his dreams--nightmares, really--nothing was
solid, nothing was there, everything he touched vanished before
he felt its pressure under his fingers.

"Nothing," he assured her hoarsely.  Absolutely nothing...that
was the problem with his dreams.  He supposed he should be
accustomed to them by now, he'd been haunted by them for a year,
ever since Sam had gotten himself completely lost for good--

Pessimist.  Don't think that way, Calavicci, you'll just make
yourself nuts.

"Nothing," he repeated. "Think I'll take a walk, make sure
everything's running smoothly."

"Okay." Tina rolled to face him, falling back asleep.  He gave
her a quick kiss on the lips before leaving.  The bedroom was
pitch black but when it came to kisses his aim was always
perfect.

He almost put on a bathrobe, then figuring it was doubtful he'd
return to sleep anymore, dressed for the day.  Simply outfit, red
jacket and silver pants and tie, for Al a dull ensemble.  There
wasn't anyone around the project he really cared about making an
impression on.

The central control room was deserted.  Why waste increasingly
smaller funds on a technician when Ziggy was perfectly capable of
keeping watch herself?

Besides, Al liked the quiet, it gave him a place to think, to
pace without bothering anyone.

A year ago there would have been someone, several people on duty,
even more if Sam was in the middle of a Leap.  Even between them
people would have been hurrying around and making sure everything
functioned properly, checking predictions, preparing rooms and
circuits for the next Leap...

But everything here was deserted now, this night.

The only lights in the control room were certain ones of Ziggy's.
The Accelerator's portal was dark, though behind the door it
glimmered with quantum fire.  The Imaging Chamber was also dark,
inside and out.  Al hadn't been inside it for nearly a year.  He
wondered if it was getting cobwebby.  Probably not, with Ziggy's
vigilance and the strict anti-dust regulations of the Project.

The waiting room was also empty.  Al much preferred it that way.

He regarded its door unhappily.  Sometime in the next few days
Sam would Quantum Leap and some poor soul with the outward
appearance--to all except Al--of Dr. Samuel Beckett would appear
in that room.  And they'd be lost and terribly frightened, and
sometimes ill, and they wouldn't remember their names or their
lives or anything except their terror and a deep miserable
feeling that they belonged elsewhere.

Comforting these pitiful lost ones was a bad enough task, but far
worse was when they remembered.  Because they didn't remember
their own lives.  They would latch onto another, and would look
at Al and say something that only Sam would say, in the tones and
time and manner that Sam would say it.  Or they'd know a hint of
quantum physics or another bit of esoteric nonsense that an
accountant or a housewife or an artist wouldn't most likely know
but that one Dr. Beckett certainly did.

This would never happen for more than a minute at a time, a quick
flash that soon would subside into the Swiss cheese of the
Leapee's mind.  But those minutes always seemed to Al a form of
torture rivaling the worst he had experience in a VC POW camp.

It wasn't simply because such times reminded him sharply what
he'd lost.  It was because of the sure knowledge that somewhere
out there the real Sam Beckett was just as disoriented and
confused, identity lost, and Al couldn't do a damn thing about
it.

It had always been frustrating, to stand by and watch as Sam was
tossed from one lousy, awful, dangerous situation to another and
not be able to do much nine times out of ten.  At least he felt
slightly useful; at least he knew what was going on, at least he
was there to give what little support he could.

A year ago he had had that tiny power.  And then a year ago Sam
had Leaped into some literally impossible situation.  How could
he Leap into himself on the day he was born?  Into his present
self, his self that should be living its life, body and soul
both, in the year 2001?

Completely impossible, but Sam had managed it.  It had taken far
too long for Al, with Ziggy and Gooshie's assistance, to contact
him, and when they did something was very wrong.  In his
insubstantial nightmares Al often heard the voice of his friend,
laughing or crying and balanced on the edge of sanity.

And he had lied to him, lied to his best friend--"We'll get you
out of this.  I'll get you out of this." His last words to Sam a
falsehood, because they hadn't been able to get him out.

Then Sam Leaped, and Ziggy reported in cool, even tones that she
couldn't find him in the timestream.  Reported that Dr. Beckett
had altered something in history--though she never specified
what--and at the same time his brain-waves had become so skewed
that she no longer could lock onto them.

That was a year ago, and despite the efforts of every technician,
programmer, physicist, and genius on Project QL contact had not
been restored.

Al sighed to himself.  Then he spoke aloud, "Ziggy, you there?"

"Of course, Admiral," came the instant reply.

Implicit in the computer's tone was the sharp reminder that she
was always there, forever awake and alert, and actively
searching.  Ziggy hadn't given up on her creator.

One commonality between her and Al.  Neither would ever give up
on this.

Though maintaining that faith became harder every day.  "Ziggy,"
Al asked, "will we ever find him again? Any chance at all?"

"Certainly, Admiral," Ziggy replied.  "There is always a
probability of any event.  There is a probability of 4.6673 times
ten to the negative fourteenth power that you could spontaneously
levitate.  There is a higher probability that contact will be re-
established."

Al noticed that the always-accurate computer didn't give the
exact probability, though.  He almost asked for it, then changed
his mind.  "Is there a chance that Dr. Beckett will die before it
is? Or that he's already..." It was a fear that Al had every
Leap, at the end of every Leap, that Sam had in fact died, lost,
trapped in empty time for eternity without even a memorial.  How
would they even find out?

"There is a chance," Ziggy admitted.

"What is it?" Al pressed morbidly.

"I believe it to be unlikely," Ziggy hedged.

Al knew he didn't want to hear it but he couldn't help himself.
"Tell me the exact percentage--to the nearest 100th," he added
hastily, familiar with how exact Ziggy could be when irritated.

The computer paused before answering.  A second for a human, but
with the speed of organic/binary thought a lifetime.  "86.74."

Al felt his heart drop very low.  This wasn't the first time he
had asked this question, but every time, after Ziggy had gone
over the available data a hundred thousand more times, tried
another thousand scenarios, tested a hundred new solutions, the
percentage grew higher.  How long before it reached one hundred
percent?

"How long--" he began to ask aloud, but Ziggy interrupted.

"It will never reach 100 percent, Admiral."

"How do you know?" Al demanded.

"Because I have calculated the probabilities of Dr. Beckett's
missions for six years, and when it is necessary, he always beats
the odds," the hybrid computer answered quietly.

Almost against his will Al felt himself smile.  "Ziggy," he said,
placing a palm on the electronic scanner, the closest he could
come to giving her a handshake or a hug, "You assess
probabilities better than anyone I've ever known."

"Thank you, Admiral," replied the computer.


Quantum brilliance faded, and Sam was sitting in the seat of an
airplane, watching clouds flow around the wings outside the
window.

Turning his head he examined the woman in the adjacent seat,
wondering if he had any relation to her if, if she could be his
wife or his sister or a daughter or a friend or no acquaintance
whatsoever.  Before she could catch his glance he turned away,
surveying the plane for clues to its location.

All the writing was English--Air America sign by the cockpit.  A
large, standard passenger plane by the appearance.

Outside beneath them was water.  Not a big help--over some ocean,
but Sam couldn't identify which one with no horizon in sight.

Any further examinations were interrupted by a scream behind him
and a harsh shout from the direction of the cockpit--"Stay calm,
stay quiet, and we won't open fire."

Sam turned and stared at the three grenade-festooned, army-
jacketed, machine-gun-wielding terrorists standing by the front
of the aisle.

With a mouth so dry he barely mouthed the words, Sam gasped, "Oh
boy."


To Be Continued (in Part 3)
How quickly should I write Part 3? I want to know--tell me! =D
Emilie RK
ekarr@bowdoin.edu