From: Coast2C@aol.com Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:35:30 -0400 Message-ID: <960430211813_387213681@emout19.mail.aol.com> Subject: Convergence: Part 11 of 25 Convergence by Dana Anderson Part 11 of 25 (Author's Notes and Disclaimer found in Part 1) * * * * They spent the weekend together, in every sense of the word. Now that the initial urgency of the sexual tension between them had been discharged, they settled into a carefree and more relaxed, but no less exciting, enjoyment of each other's bodies. Al was ecstatic to find that Jenna was every bit as imaginative and insatiable as he was. She was also frankly and completely devoid of any inhibition when it came to sexual activity. The fact that the two of them had managed to grow up in Catholic orphanages without, apparently, assimilating any of the church's tenets or moral teachings in relation to sex amazed, but delighted, him. When the alarm on Al's bedside table sounded at six a.m. on Monday morning, he wondered how they would be able to return to something even approximating a professional relationship, at least during working hours. But their shared military background made this easier than he had expected. As he shut off the alarm and turned back to awaken Jenna, he saw that she was looking at him. "Time to don the uniform and become Deputy Director and Project Administrator" she said. Al nodded. Jenna rose and put on her robe. She leaned over the bed, kissed his cheek and left. Al climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Once again, she had understood perfectly. As Al showered he realized that he shouldn't have been surprised, knowing her background the way he did. They had both been single for a significant part of their military careers. While intimate relationships between members of the armed forces were never acknowledged publicly by the bureaucracy, it was a firmly established fact of life. The one characteristic that helped a person have an active sex life in the military, without risking disciplinary action, was the ability to pull the shield of military bearing around one's self during duty hours. Or 'don the uniform' as Jenna had put it. Al began his morning calisthenics and reflected that Jenna must have developed the ability into a fine art. After all, she had been married to a fellow officer for eleven years. She and Paul would have had to leave their identities as husband and wife just inside the door to their quarters every morning when they left for work. Al showered and dressed and left his quarters in search of breakfast. As he entered the cafeteria he saw Dr. Beeks sitting at a table drinking a cup of coffee. Al retrieved a tray of food from the kitchen, grabbed a cup of coffee and joined her. "Good morning, Verbena" he greeted her. "Did you have a nice vacation?" "Good morning, Al" she replied. "Yes, it was lovely, thanks. How were things around here over the holiday? Any problems I should know about?" "Nothing I couldn't handle" Al responded. "Ziggy tells me that Colonel Tyler is sleeping much better now. She averaged six and a half hours a night for the last week." Dr. Beeks informed him. "That's great" Al said. "Did you talk to her about the completion of the leap data?" she asked. "Sort of" Al replied. "I ran into her the night of the party when I went outside for a cigar. I asked her how her day had been." "You _didn't_" Verbena Beeks gasped. Al nodded. "Yes, I did." The psychiatrist looked him over carefully. "Well, it doesn't appear that she bashed your head in with a rock" she observed. "What did she say?" "Nothing, at first" Al informed her. "She was laughing too hard." "She _laughed_?" Dr. Beeks said, spilling some of her coffee. Al nodded again. "Yeah, she laughed so hard I thought she might do herself an injury. Then she said 'Just swell thanks, how was yours?'" Verbena Beeks shook her head in amazement while she blotted up the spilled coffee with a napkin. Al began to eat his breakfast as though their conversation carried no more import than a discussion of the weather. "You're warped" she decided. "The pair of you. I'm in a complete quandary as to where to go and how to proceed from here." Al put down his fork and gave her a stern look. "Why do you think you need to 'proceed' anywhere?" "Come on, Al" Dr. Beeks ventured. "You know Colonel Tyler has a lot more to overcome than the trauma of leaping into the past for ten years." Al delayed his answer by putting another forkful of eggs in his mouth. There was no way he would tell Verbena that he had made some progress on that front as well. It was none of her business. Getting someone to divulge their personal torments by battering down their defenses with psychological trickery as a profession seemed obscene to Al. He firmly believed that the only reason psychiatrists existed was because so few people could really trust the other people they shared their lives with. "Maybe so" Al countered, after he had swallowed. "But you're on your own from this point on." Dr. Beeks started to object, but Al held up a hand to stop her. "We're busted anyway. Jenna and I had lunch together the next day. She came right out and asked me if you were on my case about her." "What did you tell her?" the doctor asked. "That Ziggy had observed abnormal behavior in her and reported it to you. That, since she resisted your efforts to approach her, you had asked me to talk to her about it." he answered. "How did she react to that information?" Dr. Beeks inquired. Al took a sip from his coffee cup. "I had to put up with another laughing attack. She said she couldn't shake the mental picture of the look she imagined you had on your face when I told you I had ordered her to start behaving normally." "Incredible" the psychiatrist said. "Yeah" Al agreed. "Anyway, I rescinded my orders to her with the caution that if she deviated from normal behavior patterns for too long or in too many respects you would become personally involved in any corrective action that was deemed necessary." "In other words, you threatened her with the demon of psychiatric help" Dr. Beeks said. "You said it, I didn't" Al grinned. "Certifiable" Verbena Beeks reiterated. "And impossible. You're both impossible." "Incorrigible, yes. Impossible, no" Al insisted. "All right, Al" the doctor agreed. "I'll leave her alone for now and see how things go." She had finished her coffee and rose to leave. "By the way" Al said. The psychiatrist delayed her departure and waited for him to continue. "Why didn't you tell me that the reason Jenna managed to avoid me so easily was because I was avoiding her, too" he finished. "Because I knew you would realize it when you were ready to admit it to yourself" she replied. She smiled brightly at his expression and turned to go and found herself face to face with Colonel Tyler. Jenna was in uniform again and looked every bit as serious and professional as ever. "Good morning, Dr. Beeks, Admiral" Jenna said pleasantly with a nod to each of them as she placed her tray on the table and sat down opposite Al. "Morning" Al mumbled around a mouthful of eggs. "Good morning, Colonel" Verbena Beeks replied, nonplused. She threw Al a suspicious look and walked away. "She thinks we're both warped" Al informed Jenna as he bit into a piece of toast. "How perceptive of her" Jenna replied mildly, causing Al to choke. "I've been thinking about why Dr. Beckett and I were able to see each other in the Imaging Chamber the other day" Jenna continued. Al nodded briefly and allowed himself a moment of relief that his assumptions about her ability to separate her personal life and work routine had been confirmed. "What did you come up with?" he asked. "Just an idea" she admitted. "There's a small medical research lab here, isn't there?" "Yes" Al confirmed. "But it hasn't been used in a long time." *Not since Sam leaped,* Al thought. The small lab, that she apparently knew about, was where Sam had worked on the cloning of his brain cells and then combined them with nerve cells from Al to form the basis for Ziggy's biological components. "I don't really have the training or expertise necessary for the first part of the experiment I have in mind, but I don't think you want anyone else to know about it either" Jenna explained. "Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to like this?" Al sighed. "I don't know" Jenna replied. "Do you want me to give Dr. Beeks a call so you can discuss it with her?" "No" Al growled. "Finish your breakfast and I'll show you the lab." * * * * After they had eaten, Al showed Jenna around Sam's research lab deep in the bowels of the complex, near the computer core room. They took the plastic sheets off two chairs and sat down. "I've already checked Ziggy's data banks" Jenna began "And found that she has a complete record of both your and Dr. Beckett's DNA. Dr. Beckett probably had to run a number of tests to check for any incompatibility or contraindication which might have caused a problem in combining your cells with his." "Well, if there were any problems, he obviously overcame them. Ziggy works. What are you driving at?" Al wondered. "The reason Ziggy can tune your brain waves to Dr. Beckett's is partially based on the fact that cells from the two of you are part of her brain. In order to understand how Dr. Beckett and I were able to see each other, I need to find out if my DNA matches his, yours or both and to what degree" Jenna explained. "I knew I wasn't going to like this" Al said. "Well, you can understand why I said no one else should know about this part of the experiment" Jenna said. She swung her chair around and scooted over to a counter. She picked up several glass slides and a vial designed to receive a blood sample, dropped them into a portable sterilizer and turned the machine on. Then she checked the contents of several drawers and removed some alcohol pads, a bottle of antiseptic, some swabs, a packet of gauze pads, a rubber tourniquet and a sealed package labeled 'Syringe, sterile' and placed the items on the counter. "You're not going to start now are you?" Al gasped. "No time like the present" Jenna replied. As Al got up to leave, Jenna called him back. "Hold on, I can't get started until that stuff is sterile" she said, indicating the sterilizer. "Any outside contamination would invalidate the data." Al sat back down. "You said the first part of the experiment" he said. "What's next, do-it-yourself brain surgery?" "I hear it's all done with mirrors" Jenna replied and laughed when Al groaned at her joke. "No, nothing that extreme. All I need is for a doctor, preferably one assigned to the project, to give me an electroencephalogram." "A who?" Al asked. "An electronic readout of my brain wave patterns" Jenna translated. "Yours and Dr. Beckett's are already on file. This part doesn't have to be secret. I don't suppose it will be long before other people know that Dr. Beckett and I can see each other in the Imaging Chamber. An electroencephalogram would be a logical test, especially since no one else knows about Ziggy's biological components." Jenna glanced at the sterilizer and saw that the indicator had changed from red to green. She rose and went over to a counter where a microscope and some other medical equipment sat and pulled the plastic cover off. She checked more drawers until she found some antiseptic sheeting, tore the packages open and laid the sheeting across the countertop. She took two packages of sterile gloves out of the same drawer and tossed one to Al. As she walked over to the sink to wash her hands, she saw Al glancing at the door. "Come on, Al. I need your help" Jenna insisted. "It's been years since I leaped into a heroin addict and I'm out of practice." Al sighed and joined her at the sink. * * * * "Do-it-yourself brain surgery" Sam chuckled. "All done with mirrors" he added, and chuckled again. Al wished that, just for one second, he could interact physically with his friend. One little smack on the back of the head would suffice, he thought. Sam saw the aggrieved look Al was giving him. "Sorry, Al. But it really is funny" he said, and laughed again. "In fact, it reminds me of something you might say." "And I was just thinking she's as bad as you are when you've got the bit between your teeth" Al retorted and clamped his own teeth back down on his cigar forcefully. Sam gave Al a sympathetic look. "She actually made you help her extract the blood sample?" "Don't remind me" Al shuddered. "Why does everything have to have a scientific explanation? Maybe all that's needed for someone to lock in on your brain waves is for the two of you to have shared a few pitchers of beer" Al joked. Then he tensed and his eyes narrowed. "Unless there was more 'sharing' going on than you've mentioned so far" he continued, giving Sam a penetrating stare. Sam's jaw dropped in shock. "She was married, Al!" "Of course" Al said. "Forgive me. I forgot who I was talking to for a minute." Sam wasn't sure whether the look on Al's face was one of satisfaction or relief. Then something clicked. "You really like her, don't you?" he asked. A mask slammed down over Al's features. He removed the cigar from his mouth and replied evenly "I like her fine." Sam nodded, as though he had confirmed something for himself; then dropped the issue. "Well, I can't think of anything else to try, at least until she has the results from the first two tests." "Okay, I'll tell her" Al said. He looked down at the handlink and walked around in a small circle. Sam noticed Al was rubbing a spot between one sideburn and ear with the tip of an index finger. "What's the matter, Al?" Sam asked, recognizing another telltale sign he had catalogued to help him figure out what was going on in his friend's mind. Al swung around and gave him an accusing glare. He was almost positive that Sam was psychic. Sam had that innocent face on again, and Al was not going to give Sam the opportunity to remind him that Al had insisted, on many occasions, that psychic ability was pure bunk. "I was wondering if you would mind if Jenna spelled me once in a while as Observer." Al said, somewhat tentatively. "I don't suppose so" Sam responded. "At least until we can determine if she's up to the job" he added. Al let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding, and nodded. "Good" he said. "I'll talk to her about that, too. Well, you're about to have company so I'll see you later" Al added, indicating Sam's 'brother', in this place and time, approaching. He opened the Imaging Chamber door, and departed. * * * * As he closed the door behind him, Al let out another long breath and sagged against the wall with relief, on two counts. He was glad beyond words than Jenna and Sam hadn't shared anything more than beer and an obsession for quantum physics. Al was pretty sure that Jenna was one of those rare women who would never, under any circumstances, cheat on her husband. He was positive that if Sam had so much as kissed her cheek he would have blushed to his roots when Al had suggested that he had known Jenna better than he had admitted. He was also delighted that Sam hadn't refused, yet at least, to allow Jenna to act as Observer. When Sam's experiment had 'gone a little ca-ca' Al's only concern had been to find a way to retrieve his friend from the past. As the days had turned into weeks, then months and then years and they seemed no closer to returning Sam to where he belonged, a fear had taken root in Al's subconscious and grown over time: What if Al died before they managed to bring Sam back? Al was not the sort of person to worry about things he couldn't change. He wasn't that old, he told himself, and he enjoyed good health. But nothing lasts forever and accidents had a way of happening to even the most careful of people. If life had taught Albert Calavicci anything it was that it didn't pay to take anything for granted. The thought of his friend trapped back in the past without any contact with the life to which he was hoping to return was something he wouldn't allow to become a reality if there was anything he could do to prevent it. * * * * End Part 11 of 25