Date: Mon, 31 May 93 03:59:56 MDT From: tperreau@banshee.VLA.NRAO.EDU (Bill'n'Opus'96) Message-Id: <9305310959.AA01399@banshee.vla.nrao.edu> To: alt-ql-creative@cisco.com Subject: Future Perfect -- Part 7 Future Perfect Part VII "...Due to power constraints, paratemp agents will not be able, at present, travel beyond 1500 BC, Old Earth Calendar..." Paratemp Operational Philosophy (Internal Use Only) Temporal Index: September 19, 1999 Spatial Co-ordernates: Classified (Project Quantum Leap) "So, this is the imaging chamber," Sara looked around the large dome shaped room. A soft, bluish white glow made the shape hard to see. Sara no longer wore her uniform, since Al had explained that this was a very non-military operation. Al couldn't help looking at the western style shirt and tight jeans that she wore. He shuddered to himself and pressed the handlink. They were surrounded by a multicolored cylinder that quickly filled the entire chamber. Sara and Al looked around the area. The three longboats had come ashore, and it was very early morning. "Guess you havn't seen anything like that before," Al said with a smug tone. Sara arched an eyebrow in his direction. "To tell the truth, no." She recognized the area as being Iona. "You can lock on Dr. Beckett?" "Yes. Wait a second." Al pushed a button on the handlink. "Gooshie, center us on Sam." The scene blinked. They were inside a small building. Two men laid side by side on the floor, snoring gently. Sara's felt a small smile form on her lips. "Cozy." Al shot Sara a dirty look. "Sam, wake up." Al waved at the image of Sam. Sam snorted and woke up, blinking his eyes slowly. "Al? Is that you?" Thom woke up instantly to the sound of Sam's voice. He wondered how far the broach had spread. *** Alex? *** Thom though, hoping that the telepath could hear his thoughts. *** Close *** Alexi's feminine touch reached out. *** You're shielded -- difficult to talk *** Thom looked about at the stone of the church. It looked like a grey marble, which was common to Iona. He stood up and pulled out a tricorder, keeping Sam from seeing what he was doing. Sam paid no attention to what Thom was doing, for he was busy trying to wake up. "Sam, we have a visitor," Al tipped his head toward where Sara stood. She watched as Sam said something, reading his lips. Thom walked by her, carrying a tricorder and frowning. Sara decided that it was time to make contact. <<< Ziggy please activate the microfusion and implement the new imaging chamber code >>> Sara sent via her biocomp. Although Ziggy could not yet respond with words, she was able to send a simple beep of acknowledgement. "Al, you're becoming solid," Sam said. Before, Al looked very much like a ghost, partially transparent. A second figure appeared next to Al, which took Sam by surprise. Thom, however, broke into a smile. "Sara. Am I glad to know that you are here." Thom closed the tricorder and placed it away in his pocket. Sara, for her part, looked at him with a definite question in her eyes. "I can barely contact the twins," Thom said. "There is a residual energy field here in the chapel that is shielding us." Al looked at Thom, then at Sara. "You can hear him? You know him?" Sam likewise looked at Thom and Sara. "Tom?" Thom looked at Sam and Al. "Dr. Beckett, Admiral Calavicci, may I intro- duce Commander Sara, Paratemp agent." "I don't like this, Sam;" Al moved over to Sam. "She came to us as an Air Force intelligence liasion." "Perhaps it would be better if Thom and I move aways a bit. There are things that we need to talk about." Sara looked at Thom, who nodded in agreement. He moved by Sam and walked outside. Sam watched Sara disappear through the wall of the chapel. "So that's what I look like. Jeez, no wonder I gave you the willies the first couple of times." Al looked around the church, eyes resting on the corpse. "Sam! That's a body!" Al yelled. Sam, for his part, moved slowly, trying to get a kink out of his back. "Duncan, Al. He's to be buried today." "You and the nozzle spent the night in a church with a corpse?" Al shivered. "Thom is not a nozzle." Sam pushed his hands against his lower back. "I trust him, Al -- he has every reason to help me through this leap." "If he's really from the future, Sam. What if he's another evil leaper, like Zoe and Illyia?" Al fumed. "And how come you can see Sara, and he can see both her and me?" Al punched at the handlink. Ziggy was being quiet for a change. "I'm going to find out what's going on from Ziggy if I have to pull every pc board and chip from that demented machine." Al pushed a sequence on the handlink and the imaging chamber door opened. Al passed though and it shut. Sara looked around. "Admiral Calavicci has just left. Thom, what is a 'nozzle'?" Thom grinned. "I think that the good admiral was refering to me." Thom walked down to the shore. "What is the status?" Sara frowned. "Not good. The initial expansion was 5 years per hour, which increased to 7 before you arrived. Since then, the broach as collapsed back to a more normal 3 years per hour -- but it is still expanding. At 4:15:27 local time, the Magna Carta was not signed. History is reshaping itself. Ziggy / Tempora estimates that we have little under three weeks before the broach reaches our time, given that the current rate of expansion does not change." "The Magna Carta was not signed? Who's king of England?" "No one. The Norman Conquest failed. Harold Godwinson was able to gather enough of his southern levies to defeat William of Normandy. As a result, England is now fractured into Northumbria, Wales, England, Cornwall, and Scotland. Wales is united under Llewellyn Fahr, Alexander III is king of Scotland while a son of Somerled is Lord of the Isles." "Fascinating." Thom removed his boots and pulled his pants up and then walked into the cold surf. "It almost wants to make one not do anything just to see how things turn out." "May I remind you, Thom, that if the wavefront reaches project Quantum Leap, then the chance for a successful seal are greatly diminished." "In eleven and some odd days," Thom's biocomp calculated from him. "Chances of sealing if we proceed as discussed?" "Less than ten percent. Dr. Beckett still gets killed before he can annoint MacBeth as king." "Damn. It has to be Siward." "Earl of Northumbria?" "Yes. He supports Malcolm in the original history, but not for another seventeen years." Thom retreated to the rocks, watching the sunrise over Mull. "If he backs Malcolm now, he can place the boy on the throne, and be the power behind the throne." Sara ran a quick background possibility. "Scotland divides between the lowlands and the highlands and isles. Somerled becomes Regulus of the Isles. No Norman infiltration of Scottish society, results in a backwards people. It's interesting that it takes a unified Scottish nation to unify England." Thom pulled on his boots. "Well, the mission is simple, really. I have to get Dr. Beckett to make MacBeth king without getting killed. No problem." Thom straightened out his uniform, which even though was invisible under the holonet, had the tendency to shift about to the point where it was uncomfortable. "Well, time to bury Duncan." "Good luck." Sara vanished. Thom looked at the spot where she was. "Thanks." He said to no one. "Ziggy! Just what the hell is going on?" Al stormed out of the imaging chamber. Ziggy's lights twinkled and twirlled about. "Power, Admiral. Commander Sara installed a microfusion generator to the J-37 bypass, which I was then able to access. For once in my life, I am no longer dependent upon the fickle commercial power supply." Ziggy purred seductively. "It feels wonderful." "'Commander' Sara? Not you, too?" "Commander Sara is from the 27th century, Admiral. She was able to download data for me to modify the imaging chamber parameters so that you, Dr. Beckett, and Commanders Thom and Sara could all see each other and talk to each other." The tone in Ziggy's voice changed. "It is really important, Admiral, that Dr. Beckett completes this leap. History is being changed even as we speak, and every hour brings the alternate reality wavefront closer to our time." "And just how do you know that she is from the 27th century?" Al nearly exploded at Ziggy. "Commander Sara knew all of the failsafe interlocks, Admiral. The ones that you have, and the ones that Dr. Beckett has. Each one of you have one half of the interlock sequence. Commander Sara had both. Since the chances of anyone at present knowing both codes are astronomical, she must be from the future where the codes are known. At the earliest, this would place her from the mid-21st century, given a nominal life span for both you and Dr. Beckett." Al ran his hand through his hair. Things were getting out of control too fast. The door to the imaging chamber opened and Sara walked out of the chamber. A frown crossed her features. "You. What did you do to Ziggy. If you've caused any..." "I've done nothing more than to add the brainwave matrix for Commander Thom and myself to Ziggy's database. I also upgraded the imaging chamber software, something that your programmer would do within the next few months anyhow." Sara placed her fists on her hips and stared right into Al's eyes. It was Al who looked away first. "Well, how did you do all that?" Al asked. "It would have taken you most of the night to program that in by hand, or even loading the information off of CD-ROM." "Like this," Sara looked up at Ziggy, and a laser beam winked on. Just as quickly it went off and Sara turned to look at Al, whose face went as white as his dress uniform. "Jesus! You're not human!" "Admiral, I am a genengineered human. Instead of taking thousands of sperm and tossing them into a hostile environment, hoping that one will join with an egg and a human will develop with the characteristics needed; I was designed gene by gene, constructed to look this way, and more importantly to be able to survive temporal translocations. I was designed to be a paratemp agent. I have been enhanced, like all paratemp agents, to increase my chance of survival outtime." Sara grasped Al's shirt and easily lifted him off the floor. "However, I greatly resent your acquisition that I am not human. I am as human as you, Gooshie, Dr. Beckett, or any of the other five billion odd people alive right now." Sara let Al drop gently to the floor, making sure that he had his feet under him. "I hope that I have made myself clear." "Like crystal," Al replied.