From: Coast2C@aol.com Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:33:48 -0400 Message-ID: <960430211829_387213996@emout19.mail.aol.com> Subject: Convergence: Part 12 of 25 Convergence by Dana Anderson Part 12 of 25 (Author's Notes and Disclaimer found in Part 1) * * * * Even with Ziggy's not inconsiderable help in cataloging the genetic data, it was a week before Jenna had the results of the DNA tests of her blood ready to run in a comparison check with Al and Sam's records. Jenna was relieved to find that Sam had, indeed, already written just such a comparison program. All Jenna had to do was specify the two samples she wanted Ziggy to compare and the type of output that she wanted. It had been an enjoyable week. Sam's leaps hadn't been dangerous or overly taxing. Al and Jenna's New Years' celebration had, in both their estimations, left even some of their best memories of Christmas in the dust. As Al put it, there was nothing better than fresh data. Jenna had spent most of her working hours that week in Sam's lab or the computer core. She carefully destroyed all the physical evidence of what she was doing as she went along and Al had not asked any questions about her work. As Jenna entered the final instructions for the last set of tests she wanted Ziggy to run she looked at her watch. Five thirty, quitting time. Jenna gave Ziggy the command to execute the first comparison check and left the program running. It would probably take all night for the entire list of tests to run and Jenna could think of _much_ more interesting things to do besides waiting for the results. * * * * After breakfast the next morning, Al was surprised to see that Jenna did not press the button for the lowest level of the facility when they got on the elevator. When she got off the elevator with him on the level of their offices and continued to walk beside him as they passed her laboratory his curiosity finally got the better of him. "Are you planning to join me in Admin land today?" he asked. "No, I hoped you would join me as a fellow student in a lecture on Medical Aspects As They Relate to Quantum Physics 101" she replied. "Is Dr. Beckett still available?" she queried. "Yes" Al replied. "I was going to check on him in a couple of hours. It's still early there and he's probably asleep." "I have some prep work to do anyway. I'll let you know when I'm ready and you can go first and make sure he's got his P.J.s buttoned up" Jenna said. Al gave her a stern look as she entered her office, then continued to the door of his own workplace. An hour later, Jenna appeared in the doorway to Al's office with a manila envelope in her hand and told him she was ready to go. When they reached the Imaging Chamber door and Al signaled for her to wait, Jenna kept her expression carefully neutral. After Al had entered and closed the door, she laughed out loud at the fact that he had actually taken her statement seriously. By the time the door opened again and Al waved her in, Jenna had, luckily, completely regained her composure. * * * * Sam was making coffee in a kitchen that had all the harvest gold, burnt orange and avocado green charm the Seventies had to offer. Jenna shuddered and Al gave her a quick, worried glance that was not lost on Sam Beckett. "It's okay" Jenna said to Al. "I wasn't reacting to being surrounded by the past; it's the decor. That wallpaper is enough to give anyone the creeps." Al examined the loud pattern of nearly fluorescent cartoon daisies. "I don't know" he said. "I kinda like it." "Al has very fond memories of the Seventies" Sam said to Jenna, and they exchanged amused glances as Al continued to absorb the atmosphere of the kitchen's ornamentation. "I don't know how helpful I'm going to be" Sam continued. "I never know what I'm going to remember until it comes back to me." "There's only one way to find out" Jenna reasoned. She opened the envelope, removed three narrow folded strips of paper and placed the envelope on the floor of the Imaging Chamber; causing it to disappear from Sam's view. Jenna unfolded each strip and lined them up evenly on the floor. She arranged them so their edges overlapped slightly and put her hand across the end of all three of them so they would be visible to Sam. Sam, Al and Jenna knelt around the paper strips. Jenna and Al allowed Sam the right side up perspective, but even from where Al was he could see that two of the strips of paper had squiggly lines that appeared to be identical. The other had the same type of lines, but the pattern was different. Sam carefully scrutinized each strip. Then he read the identification markers at the bottom corner of each piece of paper. "Just the bottom two" Sam said, without looking up. These were the two that appeared identical to Al. Sam bent down for a closer look at each strip. Al saw that as Sam worked his way from left to right he was also comparing one strip to the other. When Sam had finished his second examination, he reread the labels and leaned back to look at Jenna. "Are you sure these are labeled correctly?" he inquired. "I'm positive" Jenna answered firmly. "Did you run these through Ziggy?" Sam asked. She nodded. "What was the deviation?" Sam continued. "Point two five percent" she replied. "That's within allowable limits for two readings on the same subject!" Sam complained. "So Ziggy informed me" Jenna agreed. "Would the two of you mind letting me in on the secret?" Al groused. "I would if I could figure it out for myself" Sam answered, as he stood up. "I didn't specialize in neurology, but even in the basic course they taught us that it was impossible for two people to share the same brain." Jenna and Al had risen to standing positions along with him, and Sam looked back and forth at the two of them. "What are you talking about?" Al insisted. Jenna held up one of the pieces of paper Sam had been examining. "This is my electroencephalogram" she said. Then she held up its' apparent twin. "This is yours, Al." "They are sufficiently identical to be considered within the allowable limits of mechanical deviation for two readings of the same person's brain waves" Sam added. He looked at the two of them again and shook his head. "I didn't think it was possible." "Dr. Beeks would have a fit" Al observed. Jenna laughed at what Sam assumed to be an inside joke. He made a mental note to ask Al about it later, but Jenna volunteered the information. "She thinks we're both warped" she informed Sam. "I'm surprised at her" Sam said. "She's usually faster on the uptake than that. She should be sure by now." They each gave Sam a dirty look. "Have you finished the DNA tests, too?" Sam asked, deciding he didn't want to tackle them both at once; especially after seeing the evidence of those identical brain wave patterns. Instead of answering verbally, Jenna retrieved the envelope from the floor, put the three strips of paper Sam had already seen back inside and removed a single sheet of eleven by fourteen inch computer paper. She unfolded it and held the top two corners between her thumbs and forefingers and raised it up to a level where Sam could see the entire page without stooping. "It's just the summary" Jenna said. "Only Ziggy can appreciate the detail." Sam stared at the paper and his mouth dropped open in sheer astonishment. He ran his eyes down the three columns and made some mental comparisons. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. Finally he closed his mouth and swallowed. "I need some coffee" Sam said, weakly. Sam turned away from them and unhooked a mug from a rack on the wall. He poured coffee into the mug and remained where he was as he blew on the scalding liquid and took a sip. Al looked a question at Jenna, but she just shook her head and indicated Sam. "Well" Al growled at Sam's back. "What's the problem now?" Sam turned back to look at his friend, who was now the holographic equivalent of in his face. "I was just trying to decide how I'm going to explain this to my mother" Sam replied. "Congratulations Al, we're daddies. It's a girl." He pointed at Jenna. Al decided Sam had finally lost it and turned to Jenna. "What the hell is he talking about?" he demanded. "This is the summary of a comparison of my DNA with yours and Dr. Beckett's" she began. "Every component in my DNA, down to the last gene, has an exact match in either your DNA or his in a perfect fifty-fifty split." Sam broke into the conversation again. "It's like someone took one X chromosome from each of us and combined them to produce her" Sam added, indicating Jenna once more. Al gulped and looked at Sam again. "'Your brains, my looks'" Al quoted himself. Sam and Al's eyes locked. They were both remembering the first time Al had said that. It had been a rainy evening when Sam had revealed to his friend that he had cloned his own brain cells and had asked Al to contribute the nerve cells that Sam required to complete the biological components of Ziggy's core. "Exactly" Sam confirmed. The two men turned simultaneously to stare at Jenna. "Oh knock it off, the pair of you" she demanded. "It's just an incredible coincidence." "Sure" they said in unison. "A coincidence." * * * * Jenna had left the Imaging Chamber after the three of them had finished discussing the test data she had revealed to them and Sam announced it was time for him to get ready for work. Sam had a long and congested drive to his latest hosts' work place. He left in plenty of time to arrive at what he hoped was an appropriate hour for a junior executive. Al went along as it gave them time to review the additional data on Sam's current leap that Ziggy had produced overnight. With some time left over for other concerns as well, Sam thought. After Sam and Al finished their discussion of Sam's options in trying to make the changes they thought the leap required, Al changed the subject before Sam could direct the conversation to the issue he considered the most pressing. "So" Al remarked. "What do you think of Jenna's claim that it's just a coincidence?" "I don't believe it" Sam said. "And I don't think she does either." "But you haven't done anything in the past that would explain, well, her" Al said, nervously. "Even Ziggy agrees to that." "No, I haven't" Sam concurred. "At least not yet." "That doesn't make sense either" Al objected. "You would have already had to have done 'whatever' for her to be here now. I mean there now. I mean, well you know what I mean." "I know what you mean" Sam agreed. "Besides" Al continued. "Half her DNA matches mine. Are you suggesting that one of the times you were back in 1955 you dropped by the orphanage, asked me politely for an X chromosome, got one of your own, borrowed an egg from someplace and cooked up a little in vitro fertilization? Sure, then you hung around for nine months and pulled a changeling act with the baby. And then you and I and Ziggy all just conveniently forgot about it. Right," Al nodded "that's much more plausible than the coincidence theory." "And less plausible than one of us leaping into Lt. Earl Williams, USN and the other into Phyllis Sorenson for an hour or two in August, 1955" Sam riposted. Al choked on his cigar smoke and his eyes went as wide as half dollar coins. He stared at Sam, hoping to see that his friend was merely joking. Sam looked as serious as Al had ever seen him. Al coughed some more, then shook his head. "No" he insisted, still shaking his head. "No way, pal." "Why?" Sam asked. "'Why!?'" Al roared. "Because if we brought our DNA along our bodies would have to be there, too. And you are _definitely_ not my type. Besides, it still would have had to have already happened." "That seems to be the key flaw in any scenario involving the two of us" Sam admitted. "All right, that's settled then" Al said. "And I'll thank you not to suggest anything like that to me ever again." "Okay" Sam agreed. "Not the two of us, then. And Ziggy says not me. What about you?" He sighed and went on. "You don't happen to recall, um, an 'encounter' with a Phyllis Sorenson in 1955, do you?" Sam asked as delicately as possible. Al shook his head again, this time in bewilderment. "Sam, you never cease to amaze me" he declared. "First, you blurt out that disgusting theory. Then you stumble all over yourself trying to find a tactful way to ask me if I had an affair with a married woman when I was fifteen. Like _that_ might be something I wouldn't want to admit. Incredible." "One was a theory, the other might have been, well, personal" Sam explained. "And Dr. Beeks thinks _I'm_ warped" Al grumbled to himself. Then he said to Sam, "The answer is no." When he saw his friend begin to speak again he anticipated his next question. "And before you ask; yes, I'm sure. An affair with an experienced woman isn't something even the most active fifteen year old is likely to forget, trust me. So, I guess we're back to coincidence." "Not necessarily" Sam said. "Sam, I'm _warning_ you" Al growled, making a fist. "No, no, no" Sam interrupted. "I already agreed that was implausible. Besides, the DNA split is the easiest coincidence to accept. It's the specific DNA of each person that's unique, not the genes themselves. There must be thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of possible pairs of men and women who would have a chance of producing a child with DNA matching components of ours in the same percentage." "Then what, exactly, are you driving at?" Al demanded. "I can accept one coincidence as being within a reasonable range of statistical probability, but not all three at once. What if her brain wave pattern and her presence at the project right now were not accomplished by coincidence, but by design?" Sam inquired "What do you mean by that?" Al asked, his eyes narrowing. "You and I both agree that God or Fate or Time or whatever interfered with Project Quantum Leap in order to get me to change things that went wrong in history, right?" Sam began. "Right" Al agreed, warily. "It's as if some omnipotent power wanted certain things to happen, but didn't want to intervene directly. As though they wanted to intervene through the actions of a human being, right?" Sam asked. "I'm still with you, Sam" Al said. He was waiting to hear what this had to do with Jenna. "This being, this power, saw the potential of the project to achieve its' goals. What if it also saw that Jenna's unique genetic makeup, knowledge and skills had the potential to enhance the effectiveness of Project Quantum Leap in accomplishing those goals?" Sam asked. Al was obviously thinking over the implications of this theory and didn't appear about to respond, so Sam went on. "All that was needed to bring this potential to its' peak was to generate a sufficient change in her existing brain patterns so that they closely matched yours and then insure her inclusion as part of the project" Sam added. "Sure" Al scoffed. "You mean the _easy_ part." "Think about it, Al." Sam requested. "It was something you said that caused the possibility to occur to me." Al looked surprised, then recalled the conversation to which Sam was referring. "You mean when I first told you about Jenna and you were feeling guilty about 'what you had done to her'." Sam nodded. "You said somebody else might have had a bigger hand in what had happened to her than anything I might or might not have done." "Let me get this straight" Al said. "You're saying that whoever is pulling the strings had you leap into her so that she would leap into the past. Ten years or a few hours later, depending upon your point of view, she leaps into you in 1999 and then back into herself in 1989. When she changes history, she takes her own place in the new timeline she created." Al summarized. "Exactly" Sam confirmed. "That still doesn't explain why she and I have the same brain pattern" Al objected. "I have a theory about that, too" Sam said. "Why am I not surprised?" Al sighed. "Scientists have proven that brain patterns change over the life of a person. The most measurable and documentable changes are caused by injury to the brain and life experience" Sam stated. Al was aghast. "So you think God made Jenna's mother whack her on the head with a cast iron frying pan in order to make Project Quantum Leap more effective?" This was news to Sam, but he didn't press for additional details. "No" Sam was shaking his head. "Has Ziggy run any statistics on what percentage of Jenna's leaps caused a calculable change in history?" Sam asked, in an apparent change of subject. "Yeah, just under thirty four percent" Al responded. "Ziggy says it's because humans require instructions from a hybrid computer to be effective" he added, sarcastically. "I don't think the primary purpose of Jenna's leaping into the past was to change it," Sam said "but to experience whatever was necessary to make her brain waves match yours." "It's an interesting theory, Sam" Al said. "But that's all it is. I don't see how we can ever be sure." "Maybe we never will be," Sam agreed "but if Jenna ever had an electroencephalogram prior to her appearance as Deputy Director of Project Quantum Leap we might have a better idea of whether or not we're on the right track." Al considered this for a minute. "We might be in luck on that score. I'll check it out and let you know" he said. He prepared to operate the handlink, but Sam stopped him. "Just a minute, Al" Sam said. "There's one more thing that won't wait." Al appeared to relax back into the front passenger seat of the car Sam was driving. In actuality, he was seated on a chair in the Imaging Chamber that was kept there for situations where Al needed to sit down to be near Sam's eye level. "Go ahead" Al prompted when Sam remained silent for several long minutes. Sam took a deep breath. "Are you and Jenna lovers?" he asked. Al's spine stiffened and he very slowly turned his head to impale Sam with a harsh glare. "I don't think that's any of your business, Sam" Al replied. Al had spoken in a quiet voice that, nonetheless, had a tone that clearly implied Sam was dangerously close to, if not already over, a line Al would not allow anyone to cross. Sam sighed to himself. They were lovers. If Jenna had turned him down flat, Al would have admitted it and shrugged it off. Al's philosophy in that regard was that there were too many fish in the sea to spend time worrying about the ones that got away. And Al obviously didn't consider her a casual fling, either; or he wouldn't be this upset. Al regaled Sam with tales of his sexual exploits on a regular basis; whether Sam cared to hear about them or not.. The only other woman he had ever refused to discuss with Sam, and only in certain respects, was Beth. *Oh boy,* Sam thought. *This is not going to be easy.* "I'm sorry, Al" Sam apologized. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Al relax somewhat. "But there's something I have to say." "Are you sure?" Al inquired, in the same tone he had used before. Careful, it said, you're really pushing it. Sam decided to stop tiptoeing around, it certainly wasn't doing any good. He took another deep breath and plunged in headfirst. "You can't risk a child, Al." Sam continued quickly before Al could cut him off, perhaps permanently. "There's no way to tell for sure without a detailed genetic analysis, but there's too much danger of a reinforcing effect to a harmful gene." Sam cringed, as if preparing for a blow. He had never pushed Al this far or hard on a personal issue. He had no idea whatsoever of how Al would react; but Sam couldn't, in all conscience, let the matter go. Al did not move or speak for at least five minutes and Sam began to relax as he realized that Al was not going to explode in anger. By this time, Sam had arrived at his hosts' workplace and located an empty spot in the parking garage. He cut the engine, scraped up every ounce of courage he had and turned to regard his friend. Al sensed the scrutiny and met Sam's gaze. "I give you my word of honor" Al intoned "that there is no need for you to broach this subject with either Jenna or me again." Sam bit his tongue. Al's statement might mean any one of several things. It might mean that he and Jenna were not now, nor would they ever be, lovers for reasons Al would not discuss. It might mean that they had been lovers, but Al was vowing that they never would be again. It might mean something else entirely. One thing that was absolutely certain was that if Sam said another word on the subject he would be questioning Al's word of honor and that would entail an immediate and permanent end to their friendship. Sam kept his tongue clamped between his teeth and inclined his head in a careful nod. Al nodded briefly in return to acknowledge that Sam had accepted his word. Al stood up, operated the handlink and disappeared through the door of the Imaging Chamber. Sam shivered in a reaction to the unspent adrenaline that had been pumped into his system as a result of the confrontation. He had the sinking feeling that the situation in which they found themselves insured that he and Al would soon be facing another impasse. Sam just hoped that, when it came, it would bring with it a resolution with a more optimistic feel. * * * * End Part 12 of 25