From: Russet McMillan Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative Subject: Operation Lazarus, part 2/2 Date: 6 Jun 1996 21:53:55 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Message-Id: <4p7k1j$14hd@hearst.cac.psu.edu> Nntp-Posting-Host: kzin.astro.psu.edu Operation Lazarus by Russet McMillan mcmillan@astro.psu.edu http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/mcmillan/stories.html The chopper was even more crowded than it had been on the way out, and a lot more confusing. Colonel Grimwold was screaming at me for the trick Maggie Dawson had pulled. Tom and half the squad members were slapping me on the back and demanding to know how I had found the POWs. Doc and the rest of the SEALs were asking the other Sam how he had known about the ambush. Sam wasn't answering them, just staring at me in complete shock. Both holographic Als were similarly dumbfounded. They stood a few feet outside the chopper on thin air, overlapping each other slightly. "Would one of you please move a couple feet to the left!" I snapped at them. Both of them moved, and now they were overlapping completely. Apparently, they couldn't see each other, since the holographic imaging was tuned to my brainwaves. But both I and my double could see both of them. Sam's mouth moved; I couldn't hear anything over the whine of the chopper blades and the crowing of the other SEALs, but I knew what he was asking: "What are you doing here?" I grabbed his chin and twisted it around so he was looking the three POWs crammed in the center of the bay. Billy was completely out of it. Mark was having a great time, apparently still convinced this was a dream and determined to enjoy it while it lasted. Al was trying to scowl and grin and ask questions and answer them all at the same time. Sam's jaw moved under my hand. "Al!" he realized. I leaned forward to bellow in his ear. "The first time, Al gave up his chance to get free so he could help me keep Tom alive. It looks like now I got a second chance to get it right." Sam's head swiveled from the young half-starved Al to the Siamese-twin holograms and back. All three Als stared at us as if we were crazy. When we got back to base, the three POWs and Sam and I were all hauled off the chopper and mobbed like heroes. I wormed my way through the crowd -- funny, they all seemed to be going out of their way to brush up against me -- until I reached Tom's side. "You better get those guys out of here," I told him, waving at the freed prisoners. "They look pretty beat." Tom nodded at me and detailed a couple of men to help Mark and Billy to sickbay. Young Al followed reluctantly, staring back at me. I tried to remember the tricks Maggie Dawson had used to keep the slavering pack of soldiers at arm's length. "Could you boys give me a few minutes?" I shouted over the babble. "I need to have a word with Magic, here." The men howled and yipped. "Woooo! Magic's gonna get his reward! Oh, man, Magic, I wish I was in your place!" "Well, he deserves it," Doc concluded. "I still don't know he figured out about that ambush." Tom slapped the other Sam between the shoulder blades hard enough to make him stagger. "I'll want you to tell me all about it later, Magic. For now --" He waggled his eyebrows at me "-- have fun." With more shouts and wolf whistles the group moved slowly away, leaving me, my double, and two Als blinking at each other in bafflement. "Sam," the more wildly-dressed hologram demanded plaintively, "how come I don't remember it this way from before?" "Because it didn't happen this way before." I was grinning so hard my face hurt. "At least, not for you and me. For _him_," I pointed at Sam, "and _him_," the uniformed hologram, "all this will seem pretty familiar when it comes around the second time." Then I thought of something. "You can remember the altered history, right?" I demanded of both holograms. "You remember being rescued?" I couldn't remember Tom surviving Vietnam -- not clearly anyway -- but that was probably just because of the Swiss Cheese Effect. Was Al really getting any benefit from all my running around in the past? "Yeah, I remember." "Sure, I remember," they said in ragged stereo. "I was a little out of it at the time --" "It's a little fuzzy, but --" They both leaned forward to peer at me, causing their images to overlap again. "It really was you! I wasn't seeing things!" they said in unison. "This is too weird," said the other Sam. "Don't worry about it," I told him. "Trust me, it's better than it would have been if you were the only one. Listen, I think I'm going to Leap out of here soon. You stick with Tom until midnight and make sure he's okay, right?" "Uh . . . sure." "And tell Maggie she's the heroine of the hour. Sorry about the hat, but she should get at least two Pulitzers for _this_ story." "Oh, Sam --" "Careful what you say, Sam," the holograms warned me. I looked up. Al the skeletally thin POW was standing a few feet away, glaring at me and Sam. "What are you two, twins?" he demanded. "One's a reporter and one's a SEAL?" Sam's eyebrows shot up. "You can see us? I mean, _us_?" "Apparently he can," I said. The young man took a step back. "You're supposed to be invisible?" "Not exactly," I told him. "Listen, Al, don't worry about this. It probably won't make much sense in the morning." He snorted. "It doesn't make sense now! This is going to sound crazy, but -- when I first saw you by the path, I could have sworn you were a woman." Sam and I exchanged glances. "You're seeing things," we both said to him at once. "It's only natural after what you've been through," I went on. "Don't make too much out of it. Why don't you go find your buddies and make sure they're okay?" I put an arm around his shoulder and started to guide him away. "Seeing things?" he muttered. "That's right. And you better get used to it, because you'll see a lot stranger things a few years down the line." I twisted my head to grin back at Sam and the other two Als, and in that moment I Leaped.