Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 14:25:51 -0700 (MST) From: "Katherine R. Freymuth" Subject: Coup d'Etat - Chapter 32 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Chapter 32: Leaping to New Heights Sam was terrified. This leap seemed to go on forever. It had started just as the plane, in which he was now sitting, took off. Unfortunately, from where Sam was seated, he could easily see the plane pull away from the ground, causing Sam to remember, yet again that he didn't like heights. "Quite a view, huh?" Sam's eyes snapped up at the voice. He couldn't say anything at the image he saw. "Aren't you going to say hi, Sam?" "Al!" Sam whispered in shock. "I thought you were dead!" Al exhaled. "I'm sorry, Sam," he said, true regret in his eyes. "I would've told you but I just didn't get the chance. Besides, it was probably best that you didn't know right away, I mean, with Burke neurologically linked to you." He looked at his friend carefully. "Sam, are you okay?" Sam nodded slowly. He hesitated a moment before glaring at Al slightly. "What do you mean it was probably best that I didn't know right away?" Al hesitated. "Everyone in the complex thought that I was dead. Well, except for Beth and Genine and a couple of others. I just never bothered letting the fact that I wasn't get out." Sam stared at him in shock. "You were faking it?!" Al winced at the touch of anger in Sam's voice. "I wouldn't say that. I'm not as young as I used to be, Sam. I really was shot. I really did have a heart attack. And I really was dead - for a few minutes." He lowered his head. "I'm sorry, Sam. I know I hurt you by not letting you know I was okay." "How's your memory?" Sam asked suddenly. Al laughed. "What's funny?" Sam questioned. "Doctors are," Al told him. "Don't worry. Beth already gave me the complete run-down and I've been to the hospital. My memory's not what it used to be but I'm adjusting to it and the doctors says that, although the damage can't be reversed, it isn't as bad as what they first feared. I've learned a few memory tricks along the way." It was obvious that Sam was thinking about what Al had told him. "Why'd you keep it quiet?" Sam asked. "And who's Genine?" Al paused. "Genine? Uh, well, she was a Navy spy that was investigating Burke. Anyway," Al continued quickly before Sam could start another line of questioning concerning the Commander, "being thought dead was to my advantage. It gave me the leeway I needed to regain control of the complex. It put Burke off guard just long enough to make it happen." "But once you got back control of the complex, why didn't you come and tell me? I went through at least seven leaps alone!" "I imagine that was very hard for you," Al said sympathetically. He looked at Sam. "I told you Burke had control of Ziggy. The only way we could regain control of the complex was shut down everything, including the secondary systems. The shutdown erased all of Ziggy's memory banks." "Which would mean that the Imaging Chamber would be off-line until you could reprogram Ziggy," Sam surmised. "Well, technically, no," Al told him. "Actually, the Imaging Chamber itself wasn't effected but, since we had no way to locate you, it was pretty much useless." Sam sighed. "At least you got Burke." Al hesitated. "Yeah, Sam. We got him." *I hope.* Sam looked at him. "You're hiding something." Al sighed. "Trust me, Sam. It's nothing." He looked firmly into his friend's eyes and then smiled. Sam couldn't help but smile back. A tear came to his eye. "It's good to see you, Al." "It's good to see you too," Al replied with heart-felt honesty. "So, why am I here?" Al grimaced. "You're not going to like it." "Al, I already don't like it," Sam complained, refusing to look towards the open airplane door and thus the thousands of feet of shy between the plane and the ground. Al took a breath. "Ziggy says you're here to skydive." Sam's eyes widened. "Skydive?! Al, I can't skydive!" "Well, Ziggy says you're going to have to," Al told him firmly. "Why?" Sam asked with equal firmness. "Well," Al started pacing, checking the handlink, "it's May 31st, 1971, and you've leaped into Cam... ero..." He sighed in frustration and hit the handlink. "Cameron Adams. Seems Cameron made a bet with his friends that, before he turned seventeen, he would go sky...diving," he said, finishing the sentence as his hit the handlink again. "Unfortunately, the kid is much more of an acrophobe than you are and he froze in mid-air. He didn't open his parachute on time and... well... Splat." Sam's eyes widened at Al's choice of words. "Splat?" Al shrugged sheepishly. "Splat." Sam glared at him. "Couldn't you use a different word?" Al returned the glare. "What? You want me to say that he made contact with the ground while falling thirty-two feet per second?" Sam winced. "Sorry," Al told him. Sam exhaled. "So, Cameron gets killed because of this dive." Al nodded. "Then, I just won't do the dive, that's all," Sam told him. Al shook his head firmly. "You can't do that, Sam." "Why not?" Sam demanded. "Because Cameron will just do it later to win the bet!" Al told him. "He's sixteen, Sam! He feels he needs to prove that he's a man now! Besides, his friends have the thumb-screws on him. If you don't do the dive, he'll just die in another." "Okay," Sam told him. "But there's one problem. _Cameron_ has more experience at skydiving than I do." "I'll talk you through it," Al assured him. "You know how to skydive?" "Of course, I do. Remember shortly after we met? I think that's when it was. Anyway, I thought I'd surprise you and I tried to take you skydiving. That's when I found out about your acrophobia." "Hey, kid," a man came into the back cabin. "You ready?" "It's show time," Al smiled at Sam. Sam took a breath. "Yeah, I'm ready." "Okay," the man told Sam. "You remember what I told you, right? Are you sure you don't want me to go down with you? I mean, if anything happens, we could both be in a heap of trouble." Al was checking the handlink. "Boy, is he right. This guy's Robert Masters. He loses his business because he let an inexperienced skydiver, namely Cameron, to go down alone. I think you can guess what the Better Business Bureau thought of that. However, Cameron will only win this bet with his buddies if he goes down alone. And he's determined to win the bet, Sam." Sam took a breath. His stomach was in knots. "I'm sure." Masters sighed. "Okay. Good luck." "Don't worry, Sam," Al said. "I'll be right beside you the whole way down. Sam slowly approached the door. "Okay, Sam," Al told him. "Go ahead and jump out away from the plane." Sam hesitated. "Come on, Sam. Don't get acrophobic on me. Jump," Al ordered. Sam still hesitated. "Now, Sam!" Al pressed. Sam closed his eyes and quickly did as he was told. "Okay, Sam, now spread your arms and legs out," Al's voice told him. "And for heaven's sake, open your eyes. You can't pull a rip cord or land on the ground with your eyes closed." "I can't," Sam moaned. "Of course, you can," Al told him. "Just look at me." Sam opened his eyes to see Al right below him, falling with him. "Good," Al told him. "Now, all you have to do is pull your rip cord," he pointed out the cord on Sam, "when I tell you." Sam closed his eyes with trepidation. "Hey," Al told him. "This will all be over in a few seconds." Sam winced. "Oh," Al said sympathetically. "Poor choice of words. Sorry." He checked his watch. "Okay, Sam. Pull the cord." Sam reached for the cord and pulled. A second later, a blanket of silk caused him to bounce in mid-air as the parachute caught the wind and slowed his descent. Al smiled at him. "Let's do this again sometime," he teased just before Sam disappeared in a bright flash, leaving Al alone in the Imaging Chamber. "Gushie," Al said as he left the room, "information retrieval from the handlink needs some work. I was practically improvising in there. I mean, it's usually slow but this is too much." Gushie nodded. "We're working on it, Admiral." Al looked at him. "How's Tina doing with the security system?" Gushie sighed. "It's going slowly." Al exhaled. He gave Gushie a wry smile. "I really made a mess out of things, didn't I?" He looked at the Accelerator Chamber. "What about that?" Gushie shrugged helplessly. "It doesn't look good, Admiral. The most damage was done to the Accelerator and Retrieval programs. Right now, we're just focusing on getting the complex running and the project operational." Al nodded with understanding. "I'm going to my office. Let me know if you find anything." "Will do, Admiral," Gushie told him. "Oh, Admiral? Commander Strickler has that report you requested. She'd like to go over it with you if you have the time." Al nodded. "Thanks, Gushie." He smiled. Everything seemed to be getting back to normal finally. ************************ ************************ EPILOGUE: Sam found himself in a small apartment like room. He looked about the room. There was a bed, table, chairs, closet - all the furnishings one would expect to find in an apartment. However, there was no personality about anything Sam saw. "Well, Captain, this is it," someone said as they came into the room. Sam looked to see a man about thirty-eight years old, dressed in the uniform of an officer of the United States Army. The man was looking about the room. "Not bad. A little plain, but not bad. Looks like all we need is the test dummy." "Test dummy?" Sam questioned. The officer quickly drew his pistol and aimed it at Sam. Sam quickly straightened in surprise. "Yeah," the officer told him, "and you're it." He backed out of the room. "Bye-bye, Captain Blye!" He quickly closed the door. "Wait a second!" Sam said, hurrying to the door as he heard it lock from the outside. "Let me out of here!" Nothing. Sam had a very bad feeling about this. He took a shaky breath as he looked about the room in which he was now trapped. "Oh, boy," he sighed. ------------------------------------- So, what do you think? Want more? Well, sorry but that's it for now. Don't worry, though. I do plan on actually writing the story this little end teaser is proclaiming. Hope you liked our story. Any comments are definitely welcome. Thanks once again for all the comments that we have been getting. We're very glad that you like our work. Robert and Katherine Freymuth