Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 11:21:57 EDT From: Tracy Finifter To: alt-ql-creative@cisco.com Subject: "A New Face to Reality" Part 4 Message-Id: "A New Face to Reality" by Tracy E. Finifter Part 4 "Hoo-yah!" Sam yelled as he opened fire on the V-C soldiers lying in ambush. Overhead, choppers sped through the air gunning their target: a small village that was hiding a V-C base. All around him, Sam heard the deafening roar of grenades, missiles, and artillery fire. Someone in the distance was yelling "Ambush! Ambush! Pull back! Pull back!" It was Tom's voice. Confusion mounted as the battle continued. Through all the gunfire and all the insanity, Sam had one chance to save his brother's life. Sam rushed as fast as he could through the murky waters. It didn't seem fast enough. Al was yelling something, but what, Sam couldn't hear. He didn't hear anything, not the gunfire, not the screams. He rounded a rising of weeds to find his brother, kneeling in the water, and the chu- hoy, carefully taking aim... - - - "No," Sam whispered as he jolted awake again. His mind didn't know what to expect, but the sound of a television in the background and the comforting smell of breakfast cooking was not it. "Tom, what's wrong?" Sandy called from the kitchen. She set the pan aside and came into the living room, sitting on the sofa next to Sam. In the light, Sam could now fully appreciate the beauty of her gray eyes which held love and concern and her warm and gentle manner. Sam could see why Tom had married her. But there was something else in her eyes. She seemed tired, more emotionally than physically. Sam wondered what kind of toll Tom's flashbacks must taking on the both of them. He reached over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Good morning." "Good morning," she replied. "I missed you waking up this morning." "Yeah, well, I came down to get a drink of water and I guess I just fell asleep," Sam offered by way of apology. "That's funny," Sandy said, "I didn't see any glasses laying around." After a few moments of awkward silence, she spoke again. "You had another dream." It was a statement, not a question, and Sam's only response was a quick diverting of his eyes downward. "You've got to see someone, Tom," she pleaded. "You can't go on like it's not affecting you, because it is. It's affecting all of us." "I know, Sam whispered. "And I really don't know how much longer I can bear watching you like this," she continued. "Are you saying that if I don't get help, you'll leave me?" Sam asked cautiously. "No." Her quick denial indicated to both of them that that was indeed exactly what she had meant. They both looked down, she just as surprised as he that she was actually considering leaving. "Listen, Sandy, I'm sorry..." "No," Sandy interrupted. "There's no reason for you to be sorry." She softened her voice. "What happened over there wasn't your fault. You can't blame yourself for decisions that were made and things that were out of your control." Sam looked back into her eyes with an expression that said "thank you". She understood, that would make things easier. But her patience was running out, and for that, Sam couldn't blame her. Before anything else was said, Sandy rose and walked back into the kitchen. "Go get dressed, and get the girls ready. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes." "Okay," Sam replied and climbed up the stairs. "You're on leave, Sam, so you can wear Tom's civvies," informed Al when Sam reached the top. Sam's only answer was a frustrated nod and a retreat to Tom's bedroom drawers. The observer frowned as he followed Sam through the bedroom door and examined him, unsure of what to make of the scientist's nervous behavior. "You okay, Sam?" "Yes... no... I don't know anymore, Al." He was quiet and evasive, two of the major warning signs Al had come to recognize as being serious trouble. Al hoped that his own theory why was the only reason, but somehow he doubted it. Sam dressed quickly, picked up a comb from the dresser, and pulled it through his hair, uncomfortable with the reflection in the dresser mirror. "You had another flashback?" Al asked cautiously, unwilling to upset his friend any more than he already was. "Uh, yeah." Sam took a long look at the mirror. "When I killed those soldiers, to right before I killed the chu-hoy." "I see." Al slowly placed his cigar in his mouth before punching some figures into the handlink. "What is it?" Sam asked, hopeful for new information that might be useful. "Nothing, I'm just making some notes to Ziggy, that's all." "Oh." An uncomfortable silence fell as Sam finished getting ready. "Why am I here, Al?" he finally asked. "Uh, what?" The question confused the observer. "What does Ziggy say I have to do to leap out of here?" "He's not exactly sure. But it has something to do with Tom. For some reason, something that happens in the next twenty-four hours causes a turning point in his life. Ziggy's trying to pinpoint it, but right now he can't find any relevant data." Sam sighed. "I can't be here to help him, Al. It has to be something else." "What do you mean?" Sam didn't seem to be making much sense. "Tom needs... help. And not the kind of help I can give him here. If I was supposed to get him to see a psychiatrist or something like that, then I should've leaped into Sandy or someone around him but nothing I do along those lines will do any good if I'm Tom. He needs to make that decision himself. And even if back in the Waiting Room you somehow convince him to get help, chances are that he'll forget all about it when he leaps back. There has to be something else." "Well, maybe it's enough that you tell Sandy that you, I mean Tom," he corrected quickly, "wants to get professional help," Al rationalized. "Then when he leaps back, she can hold him to it." "I don't think so. She already told me that she thinks I should get some help. And she feels pretty strongly about it, too. No, if it were that simple, I wouldn't be here." Pronouns were often difficult words to use correctly on leaps because they were the only outward manner the physicist could express the difference between himself and the leapee. Al tried hard to make the differentiation, but he even got the correct pronouns confused at times. However, when Sam was referring to his persona in the first person, it meant danger. Sam was starting to lose himself in his identity, for one reason or another, and when he did so at times like this, times where he was under extreme emotional stress, Al truly feared for his friend's sanity. He tried steering away from any more direct mention of Tom. "You've got a point there. So what do you think you're here for?" Sam slumped down on the bed. "I don't know, Al. I just don't know. Maybe for Sandy, maybe for their daughters. I guess I have to face them now." "I don't get it. Why are you making it sound like you're marching in front of a firing squad? You were all excited about this last night." "Yeah, well last night I didn't have a wife and a family and flashbacks and a drinking problem." Sam opened the bottom drawer of the dresser all the way open and pulled out a half-empty bottle of scotch from under the pile of socks. Al grimaced at the sight. He was all too familiar with the empty dreams and broken promises that laid at the bottom of liquor bottles. "Aw, Sam. I'm sorry." "It's starting, Al. And once I leap out, there's nothing I can do to stop it from continuing." He sounded as if his entire world had collapsed around him. "Then you've got to help him while you're here." "How? I just told you that I can't help Tom like that, not if I'm him." "Then you're going to have to help him any way you can. And help his family." Before Sam could continue the conversation, Sandy called to him as she walked towards the bedroom. "Tom? Who are you talking to?" Sam quickly shoved the scotch bottle back in the drawer before Sandy entered, accompanied by the two most beautiful little girls Sam had ever seen. "That's not daddy," the older one informed her mother. "That's Uncle Sam and he's talking to the man in the funny hat." Rachel was the spitting image of her father while Karen looked more like her mother, but both of them were beautiful. In an instant he forgot all about the usual excuses he would have to make faking his way around confused parents and their insightful children. For the time being, none of that mattered. What mattered was that he was going to change their lives for the better, no matter what it took. * Tracy Finifter | "Life is what happens to you while * * finifter@gandalf.rutgers.edu | your busy making other plans." * * Douglass College, Rutgers University | - John Lennon *