From: FNYK09A@prodigy.com (Gary Himes)
Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative
Subject: TO FIGHT THE UNBEATABLE FOE 1/7
Date: 30 Jun 1995 18:18:55 GMT
Message-Id: <3t1f6f$cjm@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com>

         "Villian, villian, smiling damned villian!"

                              -Hamlet, Act III, Scene I

                          * * * * *

          I've heard that a man's greatness can be measured
     by his enemies.  Well, in all my leaping around in time
     I've run into some pretty tough customers--mafia hitmen,
     serial killers, klansmen, even the walking dead.  But
     there is one adversary who puts them all to shame,
     someone who can match me quantum trick for trick and
     occasionally show me a few new ones as well...

                          * * * * *

     There was something slightly ironic, Sam Beckett
decided, about the first thing he saw after leaping in being
a stopwatch.  After all, who had a more intimate relationship
with time than he did?
     Sam blinked, reading the watch's face and seeing it had
already measured off almost an hour.  The question that
presented itself to him was, what was being timed?  Looking
around he saw he had leaped into what seemed to be a
basement, but the type of basement a mad scientist might
inhabit.  Computers, chemical apparatus, electronic equipment
and random notes were scattered about.  Sam recognized most
of the machinery present and decided that, from its relative
level of sophistication, he had to be in the mid-1980s or
later.
     "Dr. J?"  a voice said from thin air.  "Can I stop now?"
     Puzzled, Sam's head jerked around as he tried to find
the source of the voice.   As far as he could see he was
alone in the room.
     A whistle directed his attention above him.  There,
hanging in the air about eight feet off the floor was a boy
of about fifteen, floating without any visible means of
support.  Sam's mouth dropped open as he gaped at the amazing
sight.  "Oh, boy..."  he muttered in near-speechless awe.

                          * * * * *

     The boy, taking no notice of Sam's stunned reaction,
gentled floated to the ground.  "See, it's like I told you,
ever since that second blast I got from the photon beam I fly
                             -2-

better than ever!  Not only can I stay up longer, but now I
don't even need the aerosol cans to move around!"
     "Uh, that's good...I guess," Sam said, then looked up
again hoping to see wires or hooks or anything that would
explain a levitating teenager.
     For the first time the youngster seemed to notice Sam's
befuddled state.  "Are you okay, Dr. J?"
     For a brief second the thought that he was a basketball
player named Julius Irving passed through Sam's mind and was
dimissed. "I guess I'm just tired...I guess," he said lamely.
     "You need to relax more, Doc;  do you want to go see
BATMAN with me this weekend?"  The teenager glanced down at
his watch.  "Oh, gee, mom's gonna kill me if I don't get next
door for dinner!"
     "I'll let you know about that movie,"  Sam answered,
sensing the opportunity for a little breathing room.  "Maybe
you better run along."
     "Good idea;  see you tomorrow!" and before Sam could
reply, the boy disappeared!  At least it seemed as if he
disappeared.  It wasn't until Sam took a second to blink and
a hurricane force wind nearly bowled him over did he realize
that the boy hadn't vanished, he'd just run out of the
room...moving faster than the eye could follow!
     Sam Beckett, who in his years of quantum leaping had
seen things even Ripley wouldn't believe, reached down and
pinched himself to be sure he was awake.  He did not find the
fact that he was to be particularly reassuring.
     A familiar grinding sound directed his attention to a
far corner of the room.  He let loose a sigh of relief at the
appearance of the imaging chamber door.  Maybe Al could make
sense of this airborne adolescent.
     But instead of his friend's familiar features, the face
of a man with curly reddish-brown hair and popping eyes
peaked around a corner timidly.  Seeing Sam, he smiled and
came though the door.  "Dr.  Beckett!  How are you?"
     "Gushie?"  the time traveller said incredulity.  "What
are you doing here?  Where's Al?"
     "Admiral Calavicci sends his regrets," Gushie explained.
"He's in Washington this week for the annual budget meeting
with the Senate subcommittee.  He said for me to tell you not
to worry, that quote, 'I've got those nozzles by their
mcnuggets' unquote."
     "Uh-huh," Sam replied dubiously.  "So you got drafted in
his place."  He tried to keep the lack of confidence out of
his voice.
     "Oh, I don't mind!"  the programmer said brightly.  "The
last time I did this I didn't have much of a chance to enjoy
it;  this time I want to take in the whole hologram
experience!"
     Sam raised an eyebrow quizically  "The whole hologram
experience'?"
     "Cherchez la femme,"  Gushie explained, blushing
                             -3-

slightly.
     Sam barely managed to stifle a laugh.  He couldn't ever
remember seeing Al blush.  "Okay Gushie, just keep in mind
that we're here to do a job.  Speaking of which, I know I've
got a swiss cheese memory, but Superboy was just a television
character, right?"
     "I'm afraid I don't watch too much television," Gushie
replied apologetically.  "But I remember him from the comic
books when I was growing up.  Why do you ask?"
     "I know this is going to sound crazy, but when I leaped
in there was a boy flying around the room and then he ran
off...faster than a speeding bullet."
     "O-kay," Gushie answered after a pause, then studied the
handlink nervously.  "He wasn't wearing blue tights and a
cape, was he?"
     "No, he wasn't wearing blue tights and a cape!"  Sam
shot back testily.  "Help me out here!"
     The little man took a sharp breath.  "I wish I could,
but Ziggy hasn't been able to find any negative occurance
scenarios in any of the propability matrices of the people
you're likely to come in contact with."
     "English, Gushie, not computerese."
     "Nobody around here has any problems."
     Sam felt himself loosing patience.  "What about this
person I've leapt into...?"
     "Dr. Benjamin Jeffcoate," he replied, reading the name
from the handlink.  "He's a private researcher with a number
of important patents to his name, including a water
filtration system we use here at the project."
     "Well, maybe I'm here to help him complete some
experiment...maybe involving that flying boy," Sam reasoned.
     Gushie shook his head, "I don't believe so, Dr. Beckett;
apparently his current work is in the area of adapting a
superconductor to use in refrigerators.  And listen to this--
in 1997 he wins the Nobel Prize for his research into the
ionic stimulation of plant growth!"
     Impressed, Sam looked around the room until he found a
small mirror hanging from a ceiling beam.  It reflected the
image of a squat, nebbishy man in his mid-thirties with a
receding hairline.  "Maybe I'm here to help him with his
social life," Sam offered.
     "Again, probably not.  In 1993 he marries his next door
neighbor, a widow named Stephanie Clemens with two children,
and apparently they're very happy together. Say, Ziggy says
her oldest boy, Andrew, is currently fifteen.  Maybe he's the
one you saw earlier,"  Gushie added helpfully.
     "Probably...he did say his mother was expecting him next
door," the scientist mused.  "By the way, where and when am
I?"  Sam felt vaguely irritated at having to ask for
information Al usually provided right off the bat.
     "Oh, right!" Gushie quickly consulted the handlink.
"It's June 28, 1989 and you're in a town called Briarwood, a
suburb of Ontario...say, I believe this is the first time
you've ever leaped into Canada!  And I got to be here for
it!"
     "I'm very happy for you," Sam said dryly.  "Now why
don't you go back, consult with Ziggy, and find out why I'm
here, all right?"
     "Right away Dr. Beckett," Gushie answered obediantly.
"And let me say how honored I am to serve as your aide de
camp on this occasion."
     "That's fine Gushie," Sam answered absently, shooing
Gushie towards the imaging chamber door.  "But
answers...Ziggy...this year?"
     "On my way!"  his voice full of boyish enthusiasm Gushie
stepped through the door.  "Toodle-oo!"
     "Toodle-oo?"  Sam echoed perplexedly, shaking his head.
For all of Al's occasional off color reminiscences, at that
moment he would've been willing to leap into the Elephant Man
to trade him for Gushie.  Oh well, he thought, maybe this
would turn out to be an easy leap and he could make it
through despite the programmer's dizzy enthusiasm.
     Sam stole another look into the mirror.  "I hate to
violate the privacy of another member of the Nobel
fraternity," he said to the reflection, "but a good scientist
would be sure to keep notes on something as remarkable as a
flying boy and I'm afraid I'm going to have to see them."
With apologies made Sam began his search of the laboratory.

                          * * * * *

     Andrew Clemens, a.k.a. Ultraman, laid back on his bed
and enjoyed the latest issue of X-Men.  Other collectors, he
thought, read the comics just for the sheer pleasure of it,
but for him it was the superhero equivalent of doing
homework.  After all, where else was a fledgling crimefighter
supposed to pick up pointers?
     Still, he had to admit he envied the camraderie of the
X-Men at times.  Neat as it was to be invulnerable, super
fast, super strong and able to fly, sometimes it was lonely,
too.   Great a partner as Dr. J was (despite his worrying
that Andrew would misuse his powers or be exposed) he
occasionally wished there was someone else to talk to about
how it felt to soar over the roof tops or the sensation of
bullets bouncing off human flesh.
     Suddenly an idea struck him.  Maybe he could talk Dr.
Jeffcoate into using the photon beam that gave him his powers
on other people!  Now there was an idea--a whole superteam
with him as leader, maybe calling themselves the "Photon
Force" or something like that.
     Andrew sighed mentally.  There was no way in the world
he could ever talk his mentor into making more superheros.
Heck, if he could find a way Dr. J would erase Andrew's
powers tomorrow and leave Ultraman only a fantasy.  That
thought made him wince in memory of an encounter with an X-
ray machine in his dentist's office a few months earlier that
had left him drained of his powers.  Andrew had been
horrified the loss was permanent, but Dr. Jeffcoate had
seemed relieved.  Thank goodness the effect was only
temporary.  It still bothered him at times to think the thing
that made him special could be cancelled so suddenly, but in
the end Andrew had decided that every superhero worth his
cape had to have a weakness.  After all, Superman had
kryptonite, didn't he?
     Besides, there was another good reason why the photon
beam would never be used on another person.  So far Andrew
knew he had managed the power pretty well, except for the
occasional slip like using it to become a track star (though
in the end he'd realized it wasn't fair to the other runners
and gone back to being water boy).  He didn't want to get
rich or take over the world with his abilities; all Andrew
really wanted out of life was to emulate the four color
adventurers who dashed across the comics page.  But he knew
that not everyone's ambitions were as innocent as his were.
If they gave the wrong person a taste of the photon beam they
could turn loose on the world a villian worse than Dr. Doom
or Trigon ever dreamed of being.
     Still, there was an up side to that, Andrew realized.
In a world where there were no supervillians a superhero
could do no end of good.  Heck, that was probably the reason
the superheros in the comics never really succeeded in
getting rid of crime or poverty--they were too busy fighting
their arch enemies to ever get around to it.  With no master
criminals around, maybe Ultraman would have the time and
opportunity to wipe out all the evil in the world!
     As the vision of an earth turned comic book-paradise
swam through his mind, Andrew felt a sudden tingle pass
through his body, like static electricity running from his
hair to his toes.  He thought he saw a strange scarlet haze
swim before his eyes, but before he could react to it the
whole world around him seemed to turn red.  And then...he was
gone.
     After a moment of disorientation the figure reclining on
the bed (who looked like Andrew Clemens but definitly wasn't)
tossed the comic book in their hands disdainfully to the
floor.  Rising from the the bed they made their way to the
dresser, looking with undisguised contempt and a touch of
amusement at the posters of comic book characters adorning
the walls.  The individual with Andrew Clemen's face studied
themselves in the mirror above the dresser, then smiled
wickedly at the sight of the teenager's reflection.
     "Well darling, you're a bit younger than my usual
tastes," said Zoey to her host's mirror image.  "But then a
girl must leave herself open to new experiences, n'est pas?"

                          * * * * *
     Dr. Sam Beckett ran his hands along the long, slender
tube of the photon beam, letting loose a whistle of
appreciation.  Such a simple looking thing, resembling a
telescope on a camera tripod more than anything, and yet it
had changed a normal teenage boy into the most powerful
creature on earth.  The physicist felt a sensation of respect
for Dr.  Benjamin Jeffcoate;  though his surroundings were
far more modest than Project: Quantum Leap, working on his
own the scientist had discovered something nearly as
wonderous as Sam's own crowning achievement of time travel.
What made Sam particularly envious was that the beam worked
on principles Sam understood perfectly, he had just never
considered the result of applying focused photon energy in
this particular fashion to organic molecules.  He could
already see where it would eventually lead to the
breakthrough in stimulating plant evolution that would win
Jeffcoate the Nobel prize in '97.
     "Well, good for you Ben Jeffcoate," Sam said at last.
He might feel a twinge of envy at his fellow scientist's
achievement, but having himself felt the excitement of making
a major scientific breakthrough, Sam Beckett could not
begrudge another the same thrill of discovery.
     Besides, from what he had read Benjamin Jeffcoate was
basically a very decent man.  It had taken over an hour to
find hidden in the bottom of a file cabinet the journal
labeled TEST SUBJECT/PHOTON BEAM: ANDREW CLEMENS.  Sam had
spent the rest of the night being fascinated by the story it
told, of how his neighbor's son had stumbled in front of the
beam during an experiment in stimulating plant growth and
been shocked senseless, only to wake up possessing powers
previously existing only in the realm of heroic fantasy.
     That, more than anything had convinced Sam of
Jeffcoate's basic decency.  Instead of using this incredible
discovery for profit, or exploiting Andrew for the
undoubtable sensation he would cause in the scientific world
and the acclaim he would bring, Ben Jeffcoate had written
extensively about his fears for Andrew, the potential dangers
the photon exposure presented to Andrew's health and, when
those worries proved thankfully unfounded, how the public
reaction to the boy's powers could permanently alienate him
from society.  A strong undercurrent of affection ran through
the various entries, leading Sam to realize that the
scientist and the teenager were more than just experimenter
and subject; apparently the socially-inept Jeffcoate saw
Andrew Clemens as his closest friend.
     A wistful smile crossed Sam's face.  Two men, one a
brilliant scientist with poor social skills, the other an
adventurous, impetuous flyboy with the raging hormones of a
teenager.  Friends despite, or possibly because of their
differences.  Heck, even the age difference was about the
same as between him and Al.  It was almost as if someone had
taken the two men's basic characteristics, mixed them up, and
produced two new individuals with the same relationship.
     Sam finished scanning the journal's last entry, dealing
with events from a few days past in which Andrew had once
again been accidentily been exposed to the photon beam a
second time.  Not only had it increased his existing powers,
but super strength had also been added to the super speed,
invulnerability and capability for flight he already
possessed.
     Once again Sam felt a stab of envy.  As a boy he, too,
had gone through his comic book phase, dreaming of racing a
light beam like the Flash or battling the evil Dr. Paradox
alongside Captain Galaxy.  Of course, Sam had started reading
them a little earlier than Andrew--he remembered getting into
Tom's comic collection when he was around three years old.
Such were the interests of a prepubescent genuis.
     But all of his snooping had still failed to discern any
reason for this leap.  If Gushie was on the mark (which
knowing Gushie was unlikely, the time traveler had to admit)
then no major crisis loomed for Ben Jeffcoate or Andrew
Clemens.  Of course the problem could lie with one of
Andrew's schoolmates, a neighbor or some other nearby person
who simply hadn't been investigated yet. There had been a few
leaps where the person he became and the person he was there
to aid had only the most distant connection.
     Still, that little intuitive voice he had developed
through his years of leaping kept bringing his thoughts back
to Dr.  Jeffcoate's young friend.  His writing had disclosed
Andrew wanted to use his incredible abilities to fight crime
and injustice, to be "Ultraman", a real-life superhuman
crimefighter and champion or the oppressed.  Andrew's heart
was in the right place, it seemed, even though his ideas were
a bit naive.  Sam, who had spent the last few years fighting
his own quixotic battles putting right what was wrong, felt a
certain kinship for Andrew's good intentions.  And certainly
he himself had been accused of naivete on more than one
occasion.
     Andrew had apparently already begun his crimefighting
career.  In the months following his metamorphosis he had
protected a witness protection program member from a hitman,
exposed a company dumping toxic waste, and busted up a
Chinese street gang.  "Ultraman" was making good on his vow
to fight for justice, and Sam realized that if he could do
this much as a high school student, who knew how much Andrew
could accomplish when he grew up?
     Perhaps that was why he was here, to give a little
inspiration to the teenaged superhero.  Dr. Jeffcoate had
written time and again of his attempts to discourage Andrew
from using his powers.  Most of the time he barely managed to
restrain Andrew from one wild idea or another.  He had barely
managed to talk the boy out of making himself a pair of
purple leotards, mask and cape to wear while in action.  Sam
realized the importance of a stable childhood, something
Andrew would never have if his secret was made public, but he
also knew that when young Mr. Clemens developed the maturity
to deal with his gift intelligently he could change the whole
world for the better.
     Sam was still musing on the potential benefits of a
photon-powered hero to the world when he heard the sound of
the imaging chamber door open.  He laid the journal down on
to the desk next to the photon gun and turned, hoping that Al
was already back from Washington.  Instead he was rewarded by
Gushie's contrite features emerging from the rectangle of
light.
     "Good evening Dr. Beckett," he said, a familiar nervous
tone in his voice.  Sam had heard it every time Gushie owned
up to making some silly mistake a sensible ten-year-old could
have avoided.  "I'm afraid there's been...a slight
miscalculation."