From: FNYK09A@prodigy.com (Gary Himes)
Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative
Subject: TO FIGHT THE UNBEATABLE FOE 5/7
Date: 30 Jun 1995 18:24:42 GMT
Message-Id: <3t1fha$10h2@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com>

     Gushie, who up to then had watched the unfolding scene
with dumfounded, open-mouthed silence, managed to croak,
"Actually, Ziggy says it will combust in 11.3 minutes."
     "Andrew" mounted the stairs to leave, but turned to look
at "Dr. Jeffcoate" one last time.  "It's too bad, really; I
was prepared to let you live until you interfered with my
pleasure one too many times.  Ah, well...cie la mort."
     Sam Beckett dumbly watched his tormentor leave, coherent
thoughts slowly returning to his mind.  I'm trapped, he
thought, trying futilely to wiggle loose of the shelf pinning
him down.
     "Dr. Beckett, you must free yourself!"  Gushie cried.
"If you don't shut off that burner in 9.82 minutes you'll be
blown up!"
     "I figured that out for myself Gushie,"  Sam grunted.
"Now tell me HOW I'm supposed to get out of this!"
     Sam glanced up at Gushie who looked totally lost.  The
programmer swallowed nervously at his lack of advice.
"Maybe...maybe you should try yelling for help."
     "No one could hear me down here,"  Sam replied testily.
He looked around for a pipe, piece of wood or some other
object he could use as a lever to lift the shelf off him.
Unfortunately nothing useful seemed within reach.
     "Where's he going?"  Sam wheezed, straining futilely to
pull himself free.  It was no use;  his foot was wedged
between the bottom of the shelf and the wall, caught fast.
     "According to Ziggy, he's heading to a radio tower
outside of town,"  Gushie said in a frantic voice.  "Devon
Chandler and four of his friends took his sister Erin, and
now Clemens is going to kill them all!"
     "All of them?"  Sam said.  "When?"
     "About an hour!"  Gushie was now so aggitated he was
nearly frantic.  "Doctor, you've got to get free from there!"
     "The thought HAD occurred to me!"  Sam tensed his back
and tried to lift the weight off him.  It didn't budge.
"This thing must weigh a ton!"
     "Fifteen hundred and forty-three pounds,"  Gushie
uttered.  Sam shot him a withering look and the hologram fell
silent.
     All right, Beckett, this is it.  All your knowledge, all
your skills, all the experiences you've had before and after
leaping and somewhere in all of it you've got to find a way
out of this mess within the next five minutes.  Otherwise
your next leap will be across the river Jordan.  And it won't
be just you who pays for your failure;  if you don't get out
of here five young lives will end and a super-powered lunatic
will be let loose on the world.
     The idea that other lives besides his own were at stake
galvanized Sam to action.  Once again he pressed up against
the mass on his back.  This time it shifted slightly, but
still held him fast.
     The scientist noted that, aside from a few aches and
bruises, he seemed to have escaped serious injury.  The
thought gave him hope.  So long as he had all his faculties
about him he still had a chance, longshot that it was.
Because there was going to be only one way out of this
predicament, and neither his genius or his compassion would
serve him now.  This time it came down to sheer, brute force.
     Sam looked up to Gushie, who was futiley struggling with
the handlink for answers.  "Give me a countdown on the time I
have left," he ordered.
     "Five minutes, twenty seconds,"  Gushie said shakily,
eyeing dreadfully the container as it started to bubble.
     Sam began to hyperventilate, taking long intense breaths
and pulling them down into the pit of his stomach.  He willed
his heart to pump faster and felt the rushing oxygenated
blood fill his limbs.   His eyes glazed over as he focused
his mind away from the current scene and back into his past.
     During his first year away at college Sam had thrown
himself into his studies with a vengeance, absorbing the
knowledge offerred by M.I.T. like a sponge.  He spent his
days in classrooms and laboratories, his nights in the
library.  Consequently after a few months he began to notice
he was putting on weight as his muscle tone deteriorated.
     It was a problem he had never known in Elk Ridge, as the
chores required of a farmboy had always kept him fit.
Eventaully he laid the problem before his roommate Buck.
Buck, a half-Japanese genuis with as many interests as Sam
and a fascination for exploring sub-atomic realities, was an
avid student of the martial arts.  He invited Sam along to
the dojo he studied at, suggesting that the study of judo or
ju jitsu might be an entertaining way of keeping fit while
immersed in intellectual pursuits.
     The brilliant teenager had taken to the study of the
fighting arts with the same brilliance and intensity he had
given to all the interests in his life.  In no time he had
picked up the basics of a dozen disciplines, held back from
championship standing only by the distraction of his study
into quantum physics.  It was a shame, his sensei had told
him, since Sam showed not only the physical agility but also
the inner serenity and discipline that were the mark of a
truly great master.
     Sam called upon that long ago training, fixing his
conciousness beyond fear, beyond anger.  He remembered his
teacher's axiom that the body was merely a tool, to be honed
and used as the soul dictated.  True power, he had said, did
not come from muscles or adrenaline, from hate or fear;  true
power came from a man's faith in himself and the subjugation
of the flesh to the will.
     Shutting his eyes tightly and gritting his teeth, Sam
again pushed against the heft pinning him.  It gave--barely,
but not enough to free him.  This time, however, he redoubled
his efforts, refusing to surrender.
     "Four minutes even."  Gushie's voice seemed to come
across a great distance.
     Sam's breath became ragged, and sweat streamed down his
face.  His only response to the strain was a low groan.
     Up, he thought, go up!  The pain was crushing, his
vision turning red, then a bright white.  Sam took himself
another step back in his mind, away from the outer struggle
and toward some thought from which he could draw strenght.
     "Two minutes, thirty seconds."
     He saw himself standing in a cornfield with his father,
looking up at the night sky as the older man named various
stars for his youngest son.   His father's arms wrapped
around the four-year-old boy, lifting him upward to see more
clearly the brightness of the night sky.  Perched on John
Beckett's shoulder, the boy followed his father's finger as
it pointed to the morning star.
     "Two minutes even."
     And Sam heard his father's words, "Always remember the
stars, son.  No matter where you go, no matter how much other
things change, the stars will always be there.  Because God
himself put them in the sky to remind men that his power and
his glory goes on forever.  Don't ever be afraid to reach for
the stars son, because when you do you get that much closer
to the lord."
     Gushie wiped a wave of sweat from his forehead. "One
minute thirty seconds left!"
     Within himself Sam Beckett saw the child he was, barely
comprehending his father's words, reach out his small hand to
the night sky as if to grasp the pinprick of light above him.
He stretched out his arm...farther...even farther...
     And with a roar of white-hot agony and inhuman exertion
he fought off the darkness clouding his brain.  He fixed his
mind on the star and dimly felt the shelf buckle against his
back.  He imagined for a second he was passing out, his body
seeming to float as if in zero gravity.
     "One minute!  C'mon Dr. Beckett, you can do it!"
     But, Sam realized, he wasn't floating, he was rising!
In his mind's eye the young Sam's fingers impossibly closed
on the flicker of light, while the man he was gave one last,
supreme effort and felt himself push the immense weight off.
He rose to his feet in triumph, gasping for breath.  For an
instant he saw his father's proud face smiling at him, and he
thanked both the man and his God for their light in his
darkest moment.
     But he didn't have an instant to relax.  Gushie
shrieked,  "The chemicals!  You've got to get it!"
     Sam staggered to the table and swiftly turned off the
beaker.  Ignoring the burning pain from touching the
unshielded container, Sam picked it up and hurled it into a
nearby sink, turning on the cold water to wash it harmlessly
away.
     Safe at last, Sam sank to his knees, his chest heaving
as he recovered from the trial of the last few minutes.  When
he finally caught his breath he looked up to a beaming
Gushie.  "That was incredible!  I must say, I've never seen
such a display of willpower in my entire life!"
     "How..."  Sam rasped, "how did he know I was setting a
trap for him?  Does he have x-ray vision also?"
     "No, not according to my data."  Gushie's forehead
wrinkled in thought.  "Doctor, what did he mean by  'it's
amazing the things a girl can learn on a college internship
with the weather underground'?"
     Sam looked at him with confusion.  "Gushie, what are you
talking about?"
     "Andrew said that when you were lying stunned under the
shelf,"  Gushie explained.  "Of course, I know what that the
weather underground is a terrorist group that--"
     "Forget about that for now,"  Sam ordered, his voice
suddenly full of concern.  "Did he say anything else that
sounded strange?"
     Gushie considered for a second.  "It's funny that you
mention it, but when I was watching him before at the high
school--"
     "Hold it.  I thought you said you couldn't find him at
the high school."
     The hologram abruptly looked uncomfortable.  "Uh, well,
that is..."
     "Never mind."  Sam's expression was intense.  "What did
he say?"
     "He was talking to himself, something about some
European river,"  Gushie recalled.
     "What river?"  Sam demanded.  "The Seine?  The Danube?"
     "No, not those,"  Gushie replied, his bushy eyebrows
knitting together in concentration.  "It was a British
river...I've got it!  He was talking about the Thames!"
     "Thames,"  Sam echoed, his voice a whisper.  "Oh my
Lord, it's her!"
     "Zoey!"  and Sam spoke the name like a curse.
     "The evil leaper?"  It was a label Gushie had heard Al
use for the opponent time traveller.  "My goodness, do you
really think she took over Andrew Clemen's body?"
     "That explains everything, doesn't it?"  Sam started
rapidly pacing back and forth as the pieces fell into place.
"That's why his personality seemed to change so quickly, and
why Ziggy couldn't track his brainwaves...she must've leaped
in right after I did.  And she must've known about the trap I
was setting because her hologram scouted the lab before she
broke in!"
     "That would also explain why Ziggy couldn't find what
you were here to do at first--there was nothing to change
until after she arrived!" Gushie studied his handlink.
"Given this new data, Ziggy postulates your best course of
action is to do nothing, Dr. Beckett."
     Sam looked up sharply.  "What?!"
     "Consider, sir, that even when she occupies a normal
host Zoey possesses all the same advantages you do, making
the outcome of any duel between you and her a fifty-fifty
proposition,"  Gushie explained.  "But now, with her usual
advantages augmented by Andrew Clemens' powers..."
     "What are the odds?"  Sam demanded.
     "Hmm, that's strange,"  Gushie said, scanning the
readout.  "I've never seen Ziggy use negative numbers
before."
     "I don't care!"  Sam exclaimed.  "Ziggy's been wrong
plenty of times before.  It sometimes makes me wonder if you
bother to debug her regularly."
     For a second an offended expression crossed Gushie's
face, but it was quickly replaced by concern. "Well consider
this:  if she touches you she'll see who you really are, and
I doubt she'll hesitate to kill you if she discovers your
true identity.
     Sam had no immediate reply to that argument.
     "Right now she believes you're dead," Gushie continued.
"She won't come looking for Dr. Jeffcoate again.  Your best
course of action is to let her win this one time, and then
engage her on some future leap when you're more evenly
matched."
     "Stand by and let four people die, and a decent boy's
life be ruined?" Sam said slowly.  "That's what you'd have me
do?"
     "It's the most logical course of action," Gushie replied
uncomfortably.
     For a long moment Sam said nothing, until Gushie was
convinced he would give in the logic of the situation.  But
then the young scientist looked over to him with steely,
determined eyes.
     "Gushie, I can't believe you think I would do that!"
Sam said in a withering tone.  "I've been willing to overlook
a lot of your slips on this leap because you're new at this
and not really trained to be an observer, but this is too
much!"
     Gushie shifted uncomfortably.  "Doctor, I--"
     Sam moved close to the hologram until he stood over him.
"No, you listen to me!  I don't know what you think I've been
doing back here, but I have a mission and that mission is to
change lives for the better!  Now Al might not have always
agreed with my methods, but he always respected the
responsibility I was given and did his best to help me with
it, no matter what the price we had to pay."
     "I never asked for this role in life, never asked to be
the shining knight of time and space.  But that's the part
that God or Fate or Time cast me in, and I've always tried to
live up to it the best I can."  Sam's expression became
reflective.  "When I was born God gave me a special gift.  He
gave me the intelligence to help others and make the world
a better place.  Now He-or whoever-is asking me to help
another young man with a gift, someone can also do more than
usual to improve the world.  And I can't turn my back on him,
no matter what the risk.  If I did, it would make my whole
life...a lie."
     Gushie looked down, clearly feeling a shame that had
nothing to do with computer readouts of probability
projections.  He knew how many times Sam and Al had beaten
the odds, but until this moment he had never really
understood WHY they kept bucking fate. He'd called Sam
Beckett a hero without truly knowing what a hero was.  And
now he saw himself measured against two men who were truly
heroes...and found himself inadequate.
     "I'm sorry, Dr. Beckett,"  was all he could say.
     For a second Sam's expression softened and it seemed as
if he might say something reassuring.  But instead he asked,
"What's the address of this radio tower that Zoey's going to
commit the murders at?"
     Gushie quickly told him, then added, "Would you like me
to accompany you?"
     "I think I can do this one on my own,"  Sam answered
stonily.  "From what you said, my odds of success are too low
to be measured, so I doubt you could help much."
     Especially considering I haven't been any help to you so
far,  the hologram thought glumly.  "Isn't there anything I
can do?"
     Sam considered for a second.  "If anything...should
happen, tell Al for me...just tell him thanks, for
everything."
     Sam started to leave, then paused for a second at the
table of chemicals and pocketed a vial of clear liquid.  He
quickly climbed the basement steps and disappeared through
the door.
     Gushie lingered a second, wondering what to do.  Maybe,
he considered, I ought to call the admiral in Washington.
Though he was in a closed session, certainly his cellular
phone was...
     A thought struck him like a plummeting comet.  Hastily
he opened the imaging chamber door and disappeared through
it, determined that Sam Beckett would not be lost on his
watch!