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Chapter Three
“Putting Things Right”
“It’s just kinda...weird that I ended up meeting Sammy Jo, and she brought me here. It’s like...” Cat paused, trying to think of the word she needed.
“GFTW,” Doctor Verbeena Beeks supplied.
Cat frowned. “God For The Win?”
It was Verbeena’s turn to frown. “No. It’s an acronym we use around here. It stands for ‘God, Fate, Time or Whatever.’ Kind of our...explanation for...why things happened the way they did.”
“Oh. Well...yeah, that works. ‘cause something higher certainly was involved. I don’t believe in coincidences. At least, none that strong.”
Verbeena leaned back in her chair and nodded. It’d been two days since Cat had learned the truth about who her biological father was, and so far the young woman seemed to be handling it remarkably well. Her mother hadn’t been exactly...praiseful of her first husband, but Cat was learning that much of what her mother had told her wasn’t exactly honest. A lot had changed in the twenty-some years since they’d been married.
“I mean, meeting Sammy Jo was one thing. But meeting someone who knew my father, really knew him, and getting to be her friend, and then getting clearance for this project...” Again she trailed off with a frown. “Which...I’m not even really sure I quite understand what it is you guys do here.”
Verbeena arched an eyebrow. How much could she tell Cat, and how could she explain it all? “Well...do you know anything about quantum mechanics?”
Cat’s puzzled expression was so like her father’s. “Guys who work on really fast cars?” she tried.
Verbeena chuckled. “Not quite. It has to do with...” She sighed, searching for a simple explanation.
“A quantum is a fixed, elemental unit of energy,” a new voice supplied. “Quantum mechanics, or quantum physics, is a branch of physics that deals with physical phenomena at microscopic scales.”
“Thank you, Ziggy,” Verbeena said warmly. “Would you care to explain to our guest just what it is we do around here?”
“I don’t see why not. She has the proper clearance. And if she’s going to be living here for any amount of time, it’d probably be best if she understood what the Project is all about.”
“Thanks. I think.” Cat frowned again, glancing up at the ceiling. She could swear the new voice was coming over speakers, but she couldn’t locate them. She also wasn’t quite sure just who this “Ziggy” was – a disembodied voice, but she seemed to have some kind of state-of-the-art monitoring system, because she would often chime into conversations with important information.
“Shall I begin with Planck’s Constant, the Pauli Exclusion Principle, or the string theory?” Ziggy asked.
“Uhh...”
“Simple is probably best for now,” Verbeena said with a smile. “We don’t want to overwhelm her.”
“Very well. The simplest explanation is: Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert, to develop a top-secret project known as Quantum Leap. Pressured to prove his theories, or lose funding, Doctor Beckett prematurely stepped into the Project Accelerator...and vanished! He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, suffering from partial amnesia, facing a mirror image that was not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brainwave transmissions with Al, the Project Observer, who appeared in the form of a hologram that only Sam could see and hear. Trapped in the past, Doctor Beckett found himself Leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next Leap...would be the Leap home.”
Cat sat quietly after that recitation, blinking slowly and trying to wrap her head around what she’d just been told. “Ok. So...Doctor Beckett is this...crazy mad genius who figured out how to build a time machine, but got stuck in other people in the past?”
“That’s one way to put it,” Verbeena agreed. “Although I wouldn’t call him crazy. Or mad. Genius, definitely – he has an IQ of 267.”
Cat let out a low whistle. “Yow. And...Sammy Jo’s his daughter, right?”
“Yes. The result of one of his Leaps, actually,” Ziggy confirmed.
“Uh...huh.” Cat frowned, and then shook her head, deciding she didn’t need to know just how that was possible. “So...it was his...body doing the...Leaping? Is that what you call it?”
Verbeena reached into her pocket and took out a piece of string. She held one end in each hand, and held it out taut. “Imagine your life is a string. One end,” she raised her right hand “is your birth and the other,” she raised her left “your death. If you tie the ends together, your life is a loop.” And she did so.
Cat nodded. “With you so far.”
“Ball the loop,” and Verbeena put the string in the palm of her left hand, “and every day of your life touches another one, out of order.”
“Ok...”
“Sam’s theory was that one could...agitate the quanta within that string, which would then enable a person to Leap back and forth, from day to day, within their own life.”
“But something went wrong,” Cat guessed.
“Something went wrong,” Verbeena agreed with a nod.
“But you got him back.”
“After ten years,” Ziggy replied.
“Oh...wow.”
It didn’t take Sam long to find Al; his friend was in his old office, feet up on the desk, a large book spread across his thighs, and a glass of dark liquid over ice within reach. Sam paused in the open door and rapped on the frame.
“Hey. Care for some company?”
Al looked up and smiled, but there was a hint of sadness to it. “Yeah, c’mon in, buddy.”
Sam walked in and pulled up his old chair from their days of brainstorming the Project. He got a look at the book, and raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t know you were into photo albums.”
Al grimaced. “It was Maxine’s. She gave it to me after the divorce, to ‘remind you of what you lost,’ as she put it.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. It...wasn’t a good ending.” Al sighed. Closing the album, he leaned forward and tossed it on the desk, then picked up the glass and took a long drink. He noticed Sam’s look and assured him, “Don’t worry – I’m not getting all melancholy and drowning my sorrows.” He held the glass up. “Coke and Coke. Been a long time since I’ve had anything stronger.”
“Actually, I’m rather surprised you aren’t drinking,” Sam admitted. “Been a tense couple of days.”
Al arched an eyebrow. “Those days are long behind me, Sammy. Besides, last thing I need right now is to get plastered. Getting all...drunk and emotional is the old Al. This is...” He made a face. “Well, not him.”
Sam laced his fingers, leaned forward and rested his forearms on his legs. “Wanna talk about it?”
Al chuckled wryly. “Where to start? The daughter I never knew I had? The vengeful ex-wife? Running into Beth again, after all these years of her thinking I was dead? The way my past keeps showing up to bite my ass? Or how about Tina’s reaction to finding out I had a daughter?” He tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. “How’d she put it? ‘How many other bastards do you have running around out there? No wonder you were always paying alimony to your exes!’” He sighed heavily, sat up, pulled open a desk drawer and took out a bottle of Scotch and a new glass.
Sam reached over and took both the glass and the bottle from him. “Don’t start, Al. You just said that was in your past. Don’t fall off the wagon now.”
Al snorted. “Gimme the bottle Sammy. I think I’m entitled to a blast.”
“No,” Sam said firmly. “Took me a long time to dry you out the first time, Al. Not really interested in doing it again.”
Al glowered at him for a few long moments, then snorted again and picked up the glass of soda. “Asino.”
“Love you too,” Sam said with a smile. He didn’t really need to know Italian to figure out what Al had just called him; he knew his friend too well. He also knew Al didn’t mean it. He poured himself some Scotch and held up the glass in a toast. “Here’s to long-lost daughters.”
Al started to raise his glass, until he heard what Sam said. “Not funny.”
Sam blinked in confusion. “I wasn’t trying to be funny, Al. We both just met daughters we didn’t know we had. It’s kinda...cool, don’t you think?”
Still irritable, Al shrugged a shoulder. “Not really.”
“Hey, c’mon. Remember when I was that British rock star...what was his name? Vodka Tonic...”
“Geoffrey Mole,” Al said, after some thought. “Yeah, I remember.”
“He had a kid he didn’t know about. That wasn’t really his fault, and everyone in the band thought it was really sweet that his mother kept the picture of his father around, and the kid grew up to be a guitar player just like his father. Once Geoffrey found out, he took the boy in, and helped him start his own music career.”
“Yeah? So?”
Sam fought down the sigh. “So...sometimes things happen, Al. Look at me and Sammy Jo. Fate or Whatever kept...throwing me into her life, first as her grandfather, then as her father, then as the lawyer defending her mother. We both know it wasn’t really me doing the Leaping, but that one time, for whatever reason, it was. For just that moment, it was me. Sammy Jo was trying to figure out how to get me home long before she knew I was her father. She doesn’t...hold anything against me for not being there while she was growing up. Our lives...aren’t exactly normal.”
Al sipped his soda in silence, then scowled. “I hate it when you get all logical on me.”
“It’s one of my many charms.” Sam grinned, and after a few moments Al smiled faintly. “So...give it some time. Talk to Cat, get to know her. Let her get to know you.”
The smile faded. “Not so sure that’s a good idea.”
Sam frowned. “Why?”
Al sighed and drained his glass. “Sam. Forget the fact that I was married five times. Or the fact that I was a rampant womanizer. Or an alcoholic. Or...”
Sam held up a hand. “Stop. Right now, just...stop. This isn’t you, Al.” He shook his head. “You’re not like that anymore. You haven’t been for a long time. You have a lot more going for you than you give yourself credit for.” Before Al could even open his mouth to get a crack in, Sam looked him straight in the eyes and said “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
Al shut his mouth and slumped in his chair. “But Sammy...”
“No ‘but Sammy’ anything. Al...” Sam growled in frustration and stood up to pace. “You have to stop...beating yourself up for what you did in the past. It’s over and done with. You can’t change any of it, so...”
“You could,” Al said so softly Sam nearly didn’t hear him. But he did, and spun around to face him.
“No. Absolutely not. Don’t even think that, Al. The Accelerator Chamber is going to be destroyed. I don’t want anyone ever using that thing again.” Sam closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths to calm himself down. “Al, that thing ruined my life. I was very nearly lost in the past. For ten years...” His emotions were starting to overcome him, and he dropped into the chair again, and wiped a suddenly shaky hand down his face. “I was...young, and cocky, and...wanted to prove myself to the world. It was a stupid mistake, and I paid for it for a very, very long time. Do you have any idea how much I missed? Movies, books, music...all the technological advances. Do you have any idea what it’s like to-to...be...missing for years, and the world has moved on, and now suddenly you’re back in it and everything is so...alien.”
“Yeah, I do,” Al said, his voice thick with emotion.
Sam was so caught up in his own thoughts it took him a few moments to realize what Al meant. “Ah, geez, Al. I...”
Al shook his head. “Forget it, Sam. Over and done, like you said.” He looked over at his friend, unshed tears gleaming in his dark eyes.
Sam picked the bottle up from the floor by his chair, poured two inches into the glass and held it out to Al. When his friend frowned, he explained, “Doctor’s orders.”
Al took the glass, studied the liquid for a few moments, then took a small sip. He closed his eyes, and when a tear slipped free he knocked back the rest of the Scotch. “Smart doctor,” he praised.
Sam stood up. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Al opened his eyes and looked up at his friend. “And go...where?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just...drive and see where we end up.”
“Vegas?” Al suggested as he stood up, just a hint of mischief in the word.
With a chuckle, Sam said, “Sure. Why not? Take in a show, cruise the Strip. I heard there’s an active volcano you can see from one of the hotels. I’ve kind of always wanted to see the MGM Grand.”
Al’s eyebrows shot up to his fading hairline. “Seriously, Sam? You want to take me, a recovering gambling alcoholic, to Vegas?”
Sam wrapped an arm around Al’s shoulder. “Yeah. And...hey! I just had a brilliant idea! Let’s get the girls and we’ll find the tackiest wedding chapel and renew our vows!”
Al groaned and shook his head. He picked up the bottle Sam had set on the desk and held it out to him. “Physician, heal thyself.”
“There was a lot of damage done,” Tina said sadly.
“Well, do you think she’ll be all right?” Donna asked.
Tina sighed. “I hope so. It’s hard to know. Maxine wasn’t exactly...she was a bit...vindictive.”
“That’s a shame. I’ve never understood parents who try to turn their children against the ex-spouse. Divorce has got to be hard enough on the children, but to poison their minds with your anger and hurt...” She trailed off, shaking her head.
“Well, Sammy Jo’s been doing her best to convince Cat otherwise. As soon as she found out that Al was Cat’s father, she started telling her about the Al she knew.”
“And you?”
Tina frowned. “And me, what?”
“How are you two getting along? What version of Al are you telling her about?”
Tina dried the last dish from lunch and put it away. “I...I mean...it’s...complicated.”
Donna folded her arms and leaned against the counter. “Tina.”
Tina draped the towel over the rack and snapped, “Well, it is!”
“Why?”
“Why?? Come on, Donna! How would you feel if some young woman turned up here claiming to be Sam’s daughter from a previous...” Realizing how dumb a question that was, she stopped.
“It was...hard. At first. I had always hoped Sam and I would have children of our own. But then he got stuck in the past, and...” She swallowed hard. “But I love Sammy Jo. Before I knew who she was, I liked her. She’s brilliant, compassionate, dedicated. She always does her best to help those in need. So many traits I admired in Sam when we first met. Right from the start, she wanted to get him home, even before she knew he was her father. She told me once that she didn’t think it was...right that he’d been taken away from his family and friends, but she knew why he had been – he needed to help more people than he could if he stayed here.” She shook her head. “And she said she had this theory that the reason he was back there in the past was because the ‘now’ we lived in wasn’t the best it could be, so he had to fix all these tiny little problems that didn’t seem all that important in order to make things the way they were supposed to be here.”
Tina blinked and tried to follow that line of thought. “Umm...”
Donna chuckled. “Yeah, I know. I couldn’t quite follow her longer, more complicated explanation. What she finally ended up telling me was to think of Sam back there as a rock dropped in the middle of a perfectly still pool. At first the ripples are tight to the area of impact, and small. But then they start to spread out across the surface, getting further apart from each other, and wider. And eventually they reach the shore, where they dissipate. But if there’s a leaf on the surface of the pond when the rock is dropped, the course of that leaf gets altered.”
Tina thought that over for a while. “Huh. That...actually makes sense. There’s no way we can know how the people that Sam saved would go on to change things that might’ve ended up affecting us. Ziggy could predict how their personal timeline would go, but no one ever thought to calculate what impact it’d have on anything or anyone connected to the Project.”
Donna nodded. “Right. Now, are you ready for a real headache inducer? None of us know if Al was involved in the Project the first time.”
“But...” And then Tina shut her mouth, and thought about it. “I...” But, again, she couldn’t form an argument either way. Of course he’d always been involved. Everyone knew that. Sam met him on Star Bright, and they left to start this Project. Except...Sam had accidentally changed history when he’d Leapt into Al as a young pilot in the Navy, and altered his reality; Al was dead, and there was someone else as Sam’s hologram. But then Sam had fixed that, and Al was back. But was it the same Al?
“Schrodinger’s cat,” Donna said with a smile.
“No kidding.” And then she had a horrible thought. “Oh...”
“Best not to think about it, Tina. We’re all here, now, and that’s what’s important. We don’t need to know what Sam changed in our pasts, because we have nothing to compare it to.”
“But...we’ve been...manipulated.”
Donna shook her head. “We don’t know that. Maybe Sam didn’t change our lives at all. Maybe he did. Does any of it really matter? You and Al are happily married. Sam’s home. Obviously, this is how things were supposed to be, because that’s how they are.”
Tina groaned and massaged her temples. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. There’s...too many...what ifs.”
“Yeah, I know. Believe me, I’ve spent more than one sleepless night following that same train of thought. Were Sam and I always married? Did he and Al always meet on Star Bright? Was there some...version of reality where he did convince Beth to wait for Al?”
“But then...could Sam have built the Project and gone back in time and changed that, if he hadn’t known Al in the first place? Or did he build a different version of the Project, and Al was just some...random person he helped, like all the countless others?”
“And then did he realize that Al was someone he needed in his life, and somehow go back and undo that, so he’d meet Al? But then that would mean he had some level of control over his Leaps, and if that’s the case why didn’t he just come home on his own? Why did it take ten years and a catastrophic bolt of lightning to get him back? Or did he have to create Sammy Jo in order to...”
Tina held up a hand, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Stop! Just...no more. My brain’s going to explode.” She rubbed her eyes and then opened them. “You’re right. This is the life we’re supposed to be living, and wondering what was changed to make it this way doesn’t do any good. We don’t know that our original lives were worse than they are now.”
Sammy Jo completed a lap in the pool, then swam to the side and rested her arms on the edge. “Ziggy?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Care to run a statistical computation?”
The computer paused before answering. “It would depend on the subject.”
“What are the odds the Admiral has other children?”
There was a longer pause. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but I cannot comply with your request.”
Sammy Jo arched an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“I’m dealing with too many data-limiting factors,” the computer replied, quoting something she’d said to Sammy Jo’s father a few years ago. “The Admiral...”
“Ziggy.” Sammy Jo pulled herself out of the water, went over to the chair she’d left her robe and towel on, and dried off.
“I’m sorry, Doctor, but...it’s actually beyond my capabilities.”
“How is that even possible?” Sammy Jo slipped into her robe and wrapped her hair up in the towel, slipped on her pool shoes and headed for the shower.
“As I was saying, too many unknown variables. There is no way for me to know precisely how many sexual encounters the Admiral has had in his life, nor in how many of those instances that protection was used.”
Sammy Jo flinched. “Um. Sorry I asked.”
“Quite understandable, actually, Doctor,” the computer assured her. “However, I can state with...89.99% accuracy that the odds are strongly in favor of Ms. Reynolds being his only child.”
“Oh?”
“Well, the Admiral might have had an...overly active sex life, but he isn’t the type to be...careless.”
“Good point. And I have a feeling that if he’d known about Cat, he would’ve done the right thing, even if that meant staying in a loveless relationship. He would’ve wanted to provide the best childhood he could, since his own had been far from ideal.”
“He is far from the heartless monster Ms. Reynolds’ mother has portrayed him as,” Ziggy said, a cold tone in her voice.
“I know,” Sammy Jo said sadly. “I hope Cat comes to realize just how much her mother lied to her. Al’s not perfect, by any means. But he does the best he can. He’s not the same man Maxine knew. Or thought she knew. I kind of think she...colored her recollection of him over the years.”
“Well put, Doctor. Now, if you will excuse me, there are a few scenarios I need to turn my full attention to.”
Sammy Jo raised an eyebrow – the computer was quite capable of carrying on several conversations while running multiple computations, but she let it go. “All right. Thanks, Ziggy.”
Cat was standing at her bed, trying to stuff as much of her belongings into the old canvas rucksack as she could. She’d already filled her small leather suitcase to the brim, squeezing so much into it she’d actually had to sit on it to squish everything down enough to get it closed. Tucked safely under some of her clothes was a treasured picture her mother didn’t know she had. She didn’t have that much left that she wanted to take with her, mostly books, a well-worn denim jacket, and whatever clothes she hadn’t been able to fit into the suitcase.
“Where’re you going?” a voice asked from the doorway.
Cat’s back muscles tensed up. “I’m staying with friends until the semester starts,” she replied, not turning around. She took a couple books out of the rucksack, looked at them critically, and decided she didn’t need to take them.
“Oh, really? Friends? Who are these friends? Where do they live? How old are they?”
Cat closed her eyes and mentally counted to ten, slowly. “Mother, I’m twenty years old. I don’t have to tell you everything I do and who I’m doing it with.”
“Don’t take that tone with me, little girl,” her mother commanded, moving into the room. “I’m still your mother, and while you’re under my roof you’ll live by my rules.”
Cat turned on her mother, teeth clenched tightly against the rising anger. Maxine had been beautiful once. But years of alcohol and painkiller abuse had taken their toll on her, as had the unrelenting bitterness she felt towards her first husband. Six years ago, when Maxine had divorced her second husband, Cat’s stepfather, she’d been seriously injured in a car accident. She’d developed an addiction to hydrocodone, and had been in and out of rehab several times. Cat had moved in with Michael, her stepfather, until she graduated from high school and enrolled in the University of New Mexico’s School of Engineering, computer sciences program. She’d moved back home after her mother was released from the rehab center the last time, because Maxine had promised (although not for the first time) that this time she’d stay clean.
“I’m not going to be under your roof anymore,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm. Her mother’s glassy eyes and disheveled appearance were tell-tale signs she’d started using again. “I have somewhere else to live now.”
Maxine advanced on her daughter, hands clenched into fists so tight the skin over her knuckles went white. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. I’m an adult, and I can choose where I live.” She pulled the drawstring on the rucksack shut and slipped a strap over her shoulder. “I love you, Mom, but I can’t live like this.”
Maxine stood quietly for a few moments, then said, “Well, before you go off with your little friends, gimme two hundred.”
Cat blinked and stared at her. “What?”
“I need two hundred dollars.”
“What on earth for?”
“Gotta pay Mr. Pierce.”
Cat groaned. Mr. Pierce was the shady lawyer her mother used. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” Maxine held her hand out expectantly. “I’m outta money.”
“And you think he’s made out of it? Mom...you need help. Get yourself straightened out, look for work, and maybe in a few months I’ll come home to visit.”
Maxine’s entire face clenched in anger. “You will give me two hundred dollars so I can sue that useless jackass. And you will unpack that ridiculous bag and stop talking back to your mother.”
“Why don’t you just leave him alone?”
“Why should I? He’s got money to spare. He owes me.”
Cat’s tenuous control of her anger snapped. “Dad doesn’t have money to spare! He’s barely getting by as it is! And he doesn’t owe you a damn thing!”
Maxine stared at her, eyes wide with shock. “What...what would you know...” Then something clicked in her drug-fuzzed mind. “What did you just call him?”
Cat swallowed and backed up a step. She hadn’t meant to let on that she’d met her father, but now that the horrible things her mother had told her over the years were finally being exposed for the lies they were, she felt the need to defend him. “I met Dad. My real father.” Gathering her courage, she stated, “And I’m going to go live with him, and his wife.”
Maxine slapped her, hard, across the face, then grabbed her shirt and pulled her close. Cat could smell the booze on her mother’s breath as she shouted in her face. “Don’t you lie to me!”
Blinking tears of pain and fear out of her eyes, Cat said, “I’m not. I’m moving in with him.” She lifted her chin and added, “He’s not the monster you made me believe he was. He is the sweetest, most compassionate man. He was hurting for a long time, Mom. He made some mistakes, but he’s not the same person. He nearly died to save his best friend and...”
Maxine struck her so hard this time that Cat reeled backwards from the force, her shirt tearing as she fell. She hit the corner of the bed and ended up on the floor. “YOU WILL NOT GO NEAR HIM AGAIN!” Maxine screamed, aiming a kick for her side. The rucksack took the brunt of it, but Cat still grunted with pain.
She scrambled on all fours across the room, trying to get to the door, but Maxine grabbed her hair and yanked backwards, pulling her onto her back. “DID YOU HEAR ME!? Answer me, you little snot!” Again she kicked at her daughter, catching her on the shoulder this time, hard enough to flip her over.
Sobbing, shaking with fear, Cat curled up with her knees drawn to her chest, and waited for the storm to pass. There was nothing she could say or do; if she tried it would only get worse. She just closed her eyes and thought of the safety of the Project, of the new life she could live with Al and Tina, and Sam and Donna...and suddenly she remembered something very important.
As Maxine ranted and swung the rucksack at her, Cat reached for the wrist communicator Sammy Jo had given her. She keyed it on, but couldn’t draw breath at first to use it. Finally the strap Maxine had been using to swing the bag tore free, and she dropped the bag on Cat, then turned and staggered out of the room, colliding more than once with walls and furniture on her way out.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, trying not to sob, Cat whispered, “Ziggy...c-call...911 and...” She winced in pain and blacked out.
A grief-stricken Al rode in the ambulance with Cat, and stayed by her side all night in the recovery room. Tina came in early the next morning to quietly tell him that Maxine had been arrested.
“They’ve got her in detox. She pulled a knife on a cop when they arrived at the house. Apparently she’s had a long history of painkiller abuse, including a couple petty thefts from free clinics.” She sighed and put a hand on his shoulder, and looked at Cat’s battered face. “And...this isn’t the first time she’s beat up Caitlin. I’m so sorry, honey.”
He reached up and took her hand, squeezing it tightly. There was no way for him to get words out past the lump in his throat. He kissed her hand lightly and just held it, waiting for his daughter to wake up. All that mattered to him right now was that she would be all right. He’d worry about anything else after she opened her eyes.
“I shouldn’t have let her go alone,” Sammy Jo lamented, pacing.
“You did the right thing,” Verbeena assured her. “At the risk of sounding cliché, she needed closure. She needed to confront her mother with the truth, and move on from that stage of her life. None of us could have predicted what the outcome would be.”
“Ziggy could have.”
“I most certainly could not, Doctor,” the computer denied. “Other than her lineage, I know next to nothing about Ms. Reynolds. However, now that I know about her mother’s history of abuse...” Ziggy went silent for a few moments, and then said “I regret that I didn’t investigate more once I ran the blood tests that confirmed the Admiral was her father. I should have looked into her life further. Maybe this could have been prevented.”
“Ziggy, you do not pry into people’s lives,” Verbeena admonished.
“Why not, Doctor? That’s what I did for years while Doctor Beckett was Leaping. I routinely ran criminal checks on everyone associated with whomever he was replacing, including the Leapee.”
“That was different. Al needed that information so he could help Sam.”
“But Ms. Reynolds is part of this family,” Ziggy began.
“All the more reason to not pry,” Verbeena cut in.
“All the more reason she should have, ‘Beena. If Cat had had a criminal history, she couldn’t get security clearance...”
“For what?” Verbeena shot back. “The Project is defunct, Sammy Jo. A half-dozen people is not enough to keep it running. And now that Sam is home, there’s no reason to. Once Caitlin is healed and able to move in with Al and Tina, I’m sure Sam will shut down the Project for good.”
Sammy Jo felt her stomach clench at that suggestion. The Project couldn’t be over; there was still so much research to be done. She and her father and Ziggy had to go over all the records, supplement them with what Sam could remember of his experience. Even if he didn’t want to submit anything to scientific journals, he had to get it all down for posterity. What went wrong the first time he used the Accelerator, the sensation of Leaping, the experiences of being different people at different points of history, some of them very important.
And what of Ziggy? The super computer had no equal. What he had accomplished in building and programming her was nothing short of miraculous. They couldn’t just...throw her on the scrap heap (even if Al had threatened to do that very thing on more than a few occasions). The vast wealth of knowledge she had stored in her memory banks, of all the times, places and people that Sam had lived through...
“We could get funding again,” she suggested, trying to keep the desperation from her voice.
Verbeena raised an eyebrow. “To what purpose?”
“Research. Now that we know time travel is possible, there’s any number of avenues to explore – the impact of Dad altering the past, the brushes with history he had, comparisons of how a certain timeline could have gone, and how it ended up playing out because of what Dad did...”
Verbeena held up a hand. “One headache at a time, please,” she begged, just a hint of a smile in her words. “Ultimately it’s up to Sam. I’ll stay around as long as I’m needed, which...” She sighed. “I have a feeling is going to be a long time.”
The dress white uniform of the Naval Admiral striding down the hall seemed to glow in the overhead lights. He wasn’t tall or broad, but he was still an imposing figure as he stopped outside a door in the drug and alcohol recovery center. The young officer guarding the door snapped to attention when he recognized the man.
The Admiral studied him a few moments, then recalled his name. “Perkins, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good to see you again.”
“You as well, Sir. Might I ask what your purpose is, Sir?”
The man smiled, but it was a cold smile. “It’s personal, Perkins.”
It had been a few years since he’d worked with the Admiral at the facility in New Mexico, but he knew that crossing him would not be a good idea. “Understood, Sir.” He stepped aside and allowed the man access.
He strode into the room, not bothering to remove his hat, and stood at the foot of the patient’s bed, silently waiting for her to wake up. After a few moments, she stirred, and then blinked blearily at him.
“Wh-who are you?” she muttered, not fully awake. She frowned and scrunched her eyes shut, rubbed them with the palm of her right hand, and lifted her head to get a better look at the strange apparition at the foot of her bed. Her initial thought that this was a doctor was quickly dispelled when she realized the silent man was in uniform. Her frown deepened, and she felt strangely uneasy. He still hadn’t spoken, just stood looking at her, and she thought maybe she was hallucinating. “Who are you?” she asked again.
“Hello, Maxine,” he finally said.
That voice...it had been years since she’d heard it last, but she’d never forget it. With a groan, she closed her eyes and put her head back down. “Knew it. Hallucinating. No way you’re here.”
“We need to talk,” he stated, his voice without inflection.
“Talk all you want. I won’t remember any of it when I wake up. That’s the fun thing about hallucinations.”
There was an edge to his voice now. “I’m not a figment of your imagination, Maxine. I’ve come to talk to you about Caitlin.”
She scoffed, eyes still closed. “Little crybaby.”
A bit more emotion crept into his voice, but it was still quiet. “Considering you fractured two of her ribs, dislocated her shoulder and broke her nose, it’s no wonder.”
She opened her eyes and lifted her head to frown at him again. “What?”
“Not the first time you beat the crap out of her, was it, Maxine?”
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, starting to feel panicky. He was scaring her, standing there at the end of her bed, his voice so...controlled. She hadn’t seen Al since the divorce proceedings, and she was dismayed at how...good he looked. Fit and trim, which was not how she’d imagined him all those years, his dark eyes and stoic expression unnervingly shadowed by his uniform cap.
“I told you, I’m here to talk to you about my daughter.”
Maxine snorted. “Your daughter? That’s rich! You’ve got some nerve making that claim!”
Al advanced two steps closer to the bed, and now his voice was cold and deadly when he said, “It’s not my fault you kept her away from me for twenty years, Maxine. But in the week I’ve known her I’ve been more of a parent to her than you were for her entire life.” He leaned forward and looked at her levelly. “You ever lay a hand on her again, you so much as call her, and I promise you won’t live long enough to regret it. As of this moment you are out of her life, forever. Do I make myself clear?”
Maxine pulled herself upright in the hospital bed, jerking her left hand so that the handcuff securing her to the bedrail jangled. “You just wait until I get out of here, you bastard! I’ll drain your bank account dry and you’ll die broken and alone!”
Al straightened and smiled an ice-cold smile. “Oh, I highly doubt that. By the time the courts are done with you, it’ll be your bank account that’s dried up. What the courts don’t take in fines will go directly into a trust fund for Cat, that you’ll never be able to touch, if you ever get out of jail.”
Now the panic took full hold, and her eyes widened. “Wh-what do you mean...jail?”
“I’m quite sure that you’re going to be a very, very old woman before you ever see the outside world again, Maxine. Cat’s pressing charges. Not just for the attack three days ago, but for all the years of abuse. It took some convincing – she still loves you,” and Al scoffed, “but she knew it was the right thing to do. Great thing about hospitals, they keep wonderful records, especially if there’s suspected child abuse involved. And the court systems in New Mexico...let’s just say that multiple first class felonies add up to many years behind bars, and thousands of dollars in fines.”
He stepped back, and a hint of sadness passed over his face. “I’m actually sorry, Maxine. Back when we were married...” He shook his head. “I was in a world of hurt, angry at just about everything and everyone, and...I didn’t treat you right. But...whatever hurt I did to you, whatever you went through after we...parted, there was no reason to take any of it out on your daughter.” He sighed and seemed to slump slightly. “Thank god we have a first-rate psychiatrist on staff.” And with that, he turned smartly and walked out of the room, and her life.
It’d been two weeks since the incident, and Cat was on the mend. Her body, and, more importantly, her mind, were healing. The physical bruises would fade long before the mental ones, though. But living with her new family, eclectic as it might be, was helping immensely.
After fourteen years of bitterness from her mother, and two years living with her stepfather, it was nice to have loving parents taking care of her. Her father was so warm and caring, always concerned with how she was feeling, but never overwhelmingly so. And Tina was even more of a mother hen while Cat was recuperating, hardly leaving her side, and immediately jumping up to get her anything she asked for. It could have been annoying to have the two of them doting on her so much, but it was such an unique experience that Cat reveled in it.
Sam and Donna immediately became her adoptive uncle and aunt, but she felt closer to Sammy Jo than anyone. Cat loved her, no doubt about it; she felt like a sister, but on a much deeper level, as if they were always meant to find each other. And she found that somehow...fitting, given the relationship between their fathers. Somehow, she knew it just had to be this way, that Sam and Al would meet and become such close friends, and then years later their own daughters would form just as strong a relationship. And she had God, Fate, Time or Whatever to thank for that.
And then there was Ziggy. Tina had finally taken her to meet this mysterious ethereal voice, and Cat had been flabbergasted to realize she’d been talking to a highly intelligent computer with a very distinct personality. And even more amazed when she realized she was actually bonding with the computer. Ever since she’d first used a computer in grade school, she’d been fascinated with them, and soon learned everything she could about how they worked, from basic programming to how they were put together. She was at the top of her class in programming, a fact which made Tina incredibly proud.
“Finally, someone else who can understand this cranky damn computer,” she’d said, affectionately patting Ziggy’s console.
“Finally, a human I can have an intelligent conversation with, without having to dumb things down,” Ziggy had shot back, which earned her a glower from Tina which she completely ignored. Tina’s small smile showed that this was an old joke of theirs, and neither felt insulted.
Now Cat was working with Sammy Jo to restore some of the damage from the lightning strike, and Sammy Jo was explaining more about what the Project was about.
“Do you think the Chambers will ever be functional again?” Cat asked nonchalantly.
“Oh, maybe the Accelerator,” Sammy Jo replied, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “But I doubt the Imaging Chamber could ever be used again. At least not without extensive repairs, and we just don’t have the money for that kind of work anymore. Al was just about broke before I finally managed to get Dad home.”
Even though there was no accusation in her words, Cat flinched. Part of Al’s monetary woes, she knew, were because of her mother constantly suing for more alimony. “Well, once things settle down in Mom’s case, and the trust fund is set up, maybe we could use some of that money?”
“Why?”
“I just thought...well...don’t you want everything working again? I mean...wouldn’t it be good if you could...recreate what happened that first time, ya know, just for the sake of posterity, or whatever?”
“Dad got lost the first time,” Sammy Jo pointed out, a slight frown developing. She wasn’t quite sure where this line of questioning was going, but she was starting to get a creepy feeling about it.
“Yeah, I know. But...you fixed the retrieval program, right? And...I could go back over what you did, maybe...strengthen your program a bit. That way if someone else were to use the Accelerator, you could get them back right away.”
Sammy Jo stood up and faced Cat over the console. “The Accelerator is never going to be used again, Cat. It’s far too dangerous. Yeah, I rewrote the retrieval program, but that doesn’t matter now because we don’t have sufficient power to try it again. Even if the Accelerator could be powered up, the Imaging Chamber is ruined, and there’d be no way for me to lock on to the person in the past without the link between them and whoever’s in the Imaging Chamber.”
She sighed and walked around to her friend’s side of the console. “Ziggy was designed specifically to link Dad and Al’s neurons and mesons together, so we could track Dad no matter where or when he was in time. Once Al...homed in on him in the Imaging Chamber, Ziggy could monitor him even when Al wasn’t in the Chamber, because the link had been...opened. A few times that link was weakened, or even broken, because of circumstances on Dad’s end of time, and then it was even harder for Al to get a lock again. So imagine how terrible it was when Al couldn’t even use the Chamber; there was no way for him to know where Dad was, if he was all right, or even if he’d died back there. He could question the person Dad had replaced, but all that would tell him was who and when, not where or what, or, most importantly, why.”
“Did you ever use it?”
“The Imaging Chamber? No. Like I said, it was tuned...”
“To their neurons and mesons. Yeah, I get that. Well, I don’t really get it, ‘cause...that’s way beyond my comprehension of stuff. I need things to be simple, or I feel like a caveman looking at fire for the first time.”
Sammy Jo smiled. “One thing you’re not is dumb. It’s just that quantum physics is a whole different world.”
“You can say that again,” Cat agreed. “That whole...string theory thing? I mean, I get the basic concept, but...what makes that possible, the...agitated quarks or whatever...” She shook her head.
“Well, Dad and I are...as Al once said, ‘scary smart’ when it comes to that sort of thing. I can do some basic programming, but Tina had to check my facts, and most of it was stuff Ziggy ran herself, once I laid out my theories for her. Al flew fighter jets in the Navy. Dad nearly wrecked the plane the first time he was in the cockpit. Everyone here has different skill sets, that all work harmoniously to form a whole. One person couldn’t have all that knowledge in their heads, or they’d explode.”
“But wouldn’t Sam now? He was a fighter pilot a couple times, right? The first time he Leaped, and later when he replaced Dad. He’s a medical doctor, and you said he was a lawyer when you first met him. What happened to all that knowledge?”
Sammy Jo blinked a couple times, then said, “You know...I don’t know. I know that when Dad was back there he had what Al called a ‘Swiss-cheese effect;’ large chunks of his memory were missing. Sometimes he’d remember stuff he knew before he started Leaping, like medical procedures, or martial arts moves, but sometimes he didn’t. One time he Leaped into a patient in a mental ward, back in the ‘50s, moments before he got a very high dosage of electro-shock treatment. After he came to, he started experiencing past Leaps, because the treatment kicked out his ego, and the memories were filling the valley that was left behind. But now that he’s home...” She trailed off in thought.
“Do you think he’s losing his memories of those other lives he lived?”
“Probably. I just don’t think the human brain can contain all that information. It’s not like Ziggy’s million-gigabyte capacity.”
Cat let out a low whistle and looked up at the brain in question. “Wow.”
“Indeed,” Ziggy confirmed.
Cat closed the panel on the access point she’d been working on, and glanced over at the Imaging Chamber. “Ok, explain the radium thing again?”
“There is a radium accelerator ring surrounding the Imaging Chamber. If there’s a catastrophic collapse of that ring, Ziggy can manually seal the Chamber until the radiation half-life has expired.”
“And that’s...”
“1,600 years.”
“Lightning strikes are kinda...catastrophic, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, which is why Dad got trapped in the Chamber when he and Al Leaped together.”
“Wait...what?”
Sammy Jo chuckled. “Oh, you’ll like this one. It was after Dad had gotten the electro-shock treatment, and was getting lost in all his past Leaps. It was determined that the only way to restore him...to himself was for him to get another ‘treatment’.” The scorn was clear on that word; there was no way zapping someone’s brain with high voltages of electricity was a “treatment” of any kind. “It took a while to convince him, but eventually he agreed to it. By that point he thought he was Jimmy LaMotta again, a young man he’d Leaped into who had Down’s. Of course the doctors in the mental ward had no clue what was going on; they thought he was suffering from multiple personality disorder, and figured if they shocked him again it’d straighten him out.”
Cat shook her head. “Man, Dad must’ve been freaking out.”
Sammy Jo nodded. “Al was totally freaked. He’d been losing contact with Dad, and it was getting harder and harder for him to get back there. In the end he was in the room with Dad, standing nearby, when they administered the shock treatment again, at 200 volts, the same voltage as the first time. But lightning struck just as he was getting the treatment, and all that electricity...fuzzled the process, and they somehow switched places – Dad was in the Imaging Chamber, and Al had Leaped.”
Cat stared at her for a few moments, and then started to chuckle. “Oh, dear.”
“It gets better. Al ended up as Tom Jared, an Army captain who’d just been released by the Germans after three years. And somehow during the Leap he and Dad...kind of...merged a little bit...”
Cat’s jaw dropped open as the implications started to sink in. “Oh....no....”
“Oh, yes. Dad picked up a bit of Al’s libido...”
Cat burst out laughing. “That must’ve been a treat for Donna.”
“I don’t even want to think about it,” Sammy Jo said soberly. “Eventually Dad had to use the Accelerator to Leap into Al in order to save his life.”
Cat enjoyed the mental images for a few moments, and then something came to her. “Hang on. How was that possible? I thought Sam could only Leap within his own lifetime. Dad’s...a bit older.”
“Because the Admiral and Doctor Beckett’s minds merged during the Leap, Doctor Beckett was able to Leap further than his own lifetime,” Ziggy explained. “But normally he could only go as far back as 1953, the year he was born.”
“Huh. Hey, do you think that’s why Sam Leaped into Dad later on? Because he’d already done it once?”
Sammy Jo arched an eyebrow. “I never even thought of that. That might...” Her fingers flew over the keyboard at the console, running the scenario through Ziggy. “You know...that’s a pretty good possibility.” She ran some more computations. “Damn. Thanks, Cat. I wouldn’t have thought to wonder about that.”
“And that’s probably why your retrieval program worked better than Sam’s original one did, because the link between them was that much stronger. It was kind of like Ziggy was locking on to Sam and Dad back wherever Sam was, and both of them here, too.”
Sammy Jo looked up at her, a look of awe on her face. “And you said you didn’t get all this stuff.”
Cat turned one hand palm up and shrugged that shoulder, a gesture Sammy Jo had seen Al make several times. “I don’t. It just...made sense. Sometimes you just need someone...outside the situation to look at it. Fresh eyes.”
The peace of the Project was shattered three days later, at the ungodly hour of two in the morning, by a panicked voice shouting over the speakers.
“CONTROL!”
Another voice responded. “Yeah, what’s happening, Gooshie?”
“Sam’s Leaping! Ziggy says no, but Sam’s Leaping!”
Al sat bolt upright in bed, his heart hammering. At first he thought Ziggy was experiencing a major malfunction, but he quickly realized what was going on, jumped out of bed and snagged his robe as he ran from the room. Tina was steps behind him, yanking her own robe on. They ran for the elevator, both of them fearing what they’d find when they reached Main Control.
Sam swore when he heard the recording. “She wouldn’t,” he groaned, getting out of bed.
“What time is it?” Donna muttered, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“Time to go save my daughter’s stupid ass from getting stuck in time,” he replied, heading for the door.
“What?” Donna scooped her robe from the chair next to the bed and hurried after him. “What do you mean?”
“Sammy Jo’s trying to use the Accelerator,” Sam stated, punching the button for the elevator. It was already past their floor, however, so he turned and ran for the stairs, jumping the last three on every level until he reached the final floor. Donna was still coming down the last set as he hit the stairwell door on the run. He pulled up short when he saw Tina and Al racing for Main Control, so they wouldn’t collide.
“Hell of a wake-up call,” Al griped as he neared the door. When it didn’t rise as expected he nearly ran into it. “Hey. What the hell?” He stepped back and approached the door again, thinking maybe the sensors hadn’t read him because he was at the wrong angle. The door still didn’t rise, and he frowned at Sam.
“We’re locked out,” Sam said in surprise. “Ziggy, what’s going on?”
Instead of answering, the super computer played back more of the conversation between Gooshie and Al the day Sam first used the Accelerator.
“He can’t Leap! We’re not ready!”
“Tell Sam that!”
“Put him on!”
“I can’t – he’s in the Accelerator. Al, Al, what do I do!?”
“Nothing. Any interference can kill him.”
Al groaned and closed his eyes. “Oh, Cat. You foolish, foolish girl.”
Sam stared at him. “Why do you think it’s Cat?”
Al rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It just...makes a sick kind of sense, Sammy. After what she just went through?”
Tina, meanwhile, was furiously trying to override the lock-out, hoping they had enough time to get in there and stop...whoever before they actually stepped into the Accelerator. Donna stood next to her, arms wrapped around herself, trying to stay warm in the chill hallway.
“But...” Sam shook his head. “That...”
Al looked at him sadly. “Dumb? Yeah, I know.” He sighed. “My kid. What do you expect?” He grinned humorlessly, and watched Tina’s fingers flying over the keypad. He flinched when she slammed the base of her hand against the keypad, which caused it to break away from the wall in a shower of sparks. She grabbed it and yanked, exposing the wires, then ripped it free and crossed three wires, which made the door finally rise.
They hurried into the room, and all four stopped in their tracks. Sammy Jo was sprawled on the floor, out cold. Across the room, the Accelerator Chamber was glowing blue, and at the console Cat, dressed in a Fermi suit that was quite too large for her, was entering a last series of numbers. She didn’t even seem to notice them as she scanned her computations one final time, then started for the ramp leading to the Chamber.
The door slid up, and she was three steps up the ramp when she was tackled from behind. They tumbled to the floor and Cat looked up into her father’s enraged and panicked face. “Let me go,” she demanded, struggling to get free of his grip. He was straddling her hips and had her wrists pinned to the ground.
“No,” he growled, holding her down. “What the hell did you think you were doing!?”
“Gonna go fix things,” she said, matter-of-factly.
He shook his head. “You can’t be that stupid.”
She glared at him. “It’s stupid to want things better? T-to want...a happy childhood, loving parents? To grow up with my mother not hating my father’s guts?”
Al sighed heavily and got up, pulling Cat up with him. He steered her away from the Accelerator, relieved when he saw that Tina was powering it down. Donna was sitting with a very groggy Sammy Jo on the floor, and Sam stood silently off to the side. Al could see the fear and self-recrimination plain on his friend’s face, and hoped they’d have a chance to talk later. Right now, however...
“Honey...” He sighed and turned Cat to face him, hands light on her shoulders. “Your mother and me...it couldn’t work. It just...wasn’t supposed to. I was...” He shook his head. “Going back there, changing things...it wouldn’t have made anything better. Yeah, maybe we would’ve stayed together a while longer, maybe I even would’ve been there when you were born, but...” Al looked over at Tina, tears welling up in his eyes, then looked back at Cat. “Fate has this...funny way of making things work out the way they’re supposed to.”
“How the hell do you know this is how it’s supposed to be?” Cat demanded, anger making her tremble under Al’s hands. “Maybe you and Mom were supposed to stay together forever!”
Al shook his head sadly. “I know you’re hurting, honey. I know...you think ‘All I have to do is go back there and keep them together, then Mom never ends up an addict, she doesn’t beat me up whenever she gets mad, and we have a perfect family life.’ But that’s not how it works. What would you do? How would you keep us together?”
Cat blinked, and her anger slowly faded. “Well...I don’t know. Mom said you guys split up because of your drinking.”
Al nodded. “That was some of it. Bet she didn’t tell you she’d been cheating on me, though.”
Cat shook her head.
“Didn’t think so. I thought it was a Marine.” Al made a face. “Turned out later I was wrong...about the Marine. She ran off with a bricklayer.”
“Dad,” Cat said. “Well, I mean...the guy I grew up calling Dad. Until I was...10, then Mom decided to...tell me the truth.” She made a face, as well. “Or her version of it.”
“Right. So...what would you go back there and change? My drinking? Took Sam a few years to break me of that.” He glanced at his friend with a brief smile. “And I’d have the occasional...relapse. Your mother’s cheating? Why do you think she cheated on me?”
“Your drinking?”
“And my womanizing. And spending hours at the Star Bright Project, where Sam and I met. I wasn’t exactly the...easiest person to be around. See, I was in a world of hurt, a world I put myself in, because I just...couldn’t get over my first wife, Beth. I was positive we were supposed to be together forever, that she was my one, true love. When I was locked up in that tiger cage in Vietnam, the only thing that kept me going was the thought of her, hoping she was waiting for me to get out. And when I finally did...” His voice caught in his throat and he had to swallow a couple times before he could go on. He lifted one hand off Cat’s shoulder to wipe at the tears that were steadily running down his face. “When I finally did get out of that hell...it was find out that Beth had given up on me. She...found someone else, had the Navy declare me dead, and remarried.”
Cat was fighting her own tears at this point, and hung her head. “I...I didn’t know,” she said, her voice breaking.
“No reason you should’ve,” Al assured her, gently lifting her chin, and drying the tears from her face with his thumb. “Not exactly something I like talking about. Point is, I...didn’t handle it well. Turned to drinking, kept trying to...replace Beth with someone else. But I never could. I kept...holding them to an impossible standard, and at the same time sabotaging the relationship. And every time it failed, I could say ‘See? I knew it wouldn’t work.’ Because I didn’t want it to work. I was...scared. Scared to fall in love again, scared that...I’d get hurt again. And...I didn’t think I could survive being hurt like that again.” He sniffled, and looked over at Tina. “And then I found my real true love.” He smiled at her. “And my best friend. And...I got over it. Over all the pain and anger. It took a long, long time, but...” He sighed.
“I-I’m sorry, Al. I...I wasn’t thinking. I-I just...I thought...” Cat broke off and looked over at Tina, and suddenly realized. “I...would’ve taken him away from you.” She broke away from Al and backed up, slowly shaking her head. “I...was only thinking of myself, my own pain. I-I...I didn’t...didn’t think of...what would have happened...to anyone else.”
Al’s heart was hurting already, and when Cat changed from calling him Dad to using his first name, he felt it break. He’d only just found his daughter, and now she was pulling away from him, physically and emotionally. What had happened? What had...gone wrong, and how could it be fixed?
She looked around at all of them, her eyes lingering on Sammy Jo, who was cradling the side of her jaw in the palm of her right hand. “I...I’m sorry,” she repeated, quietly. Then she turned and ran from the room.
No one went after her, because none of them knew who best to comfort her. They stood silently, each lost in their own thoughts. Finally Donna spoke up.
“What happened to Ziggy?”
Sammy Jo raised her hand slightly. “That would be my doing,” she said. “I...well...Cat and I had been...working on some stuff a few days ago, and...I got kind of...uneasy when she started asking too many questions about how the Accelerator worked. I thought it was mostly just...curiosity, trying to understand what the Project was all about, but...I also kinda figured she might...try something, considering...” She trailed off, and rubbed her jaw. “Girl can throw a punch,” she added ruefully.
“So you...rigged a kind of...early warning system?” Sam surmised. When she nodded he asked the obvious, “Why not just program Ziggy to lock her out?”
“She’s a computer genius,” Tina informed him as she worked to undo Cat’s tampering.
Al groaned. “She hacked Ziggy?”
“She attempted to override my systems, Admiral,” the computer stated. “However, Doctor Fuller managed to write a counter-program, so if someone were to tamper with the protocol, the alarm would be triggered.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Donna said, and then sighed. “So...what do we do now?”
“Someone should go talk to her,” Sam said.
“Who? And say what?” Al asked. “She doesn’t really understand what could have happened had she succeeded. She just thought...storybook ending. Get her parents back together, and everything would be happy.” He shook his head sadly, and looked at Tina. A sob rose in his throat at the thought of losing her, but, worse, of never having known her in the first place. Their relationship had been rocky at times, but he’d been with her longer than any of his previous wives, and he hoped to be with her right up until the end.
Cat had very nearly ruined everything, and she knew it. It had seemed so simple – write a little program, power up the Accelerator, go back and keep her parents together. She hadn’t really thought beyond that, beyond her own pain. It wasn’t until all of them had shown up in Main Control that she realized what she’d nearly done. They’d taken her in, accepted her, no questions asked, and she repaid them by very nearly ripping them apart. Tina had told her about Sam and Donna’s relationship, how she’d originally stood him up at the altar, but then he had the chance to get her to reconcile with her father, which led to her being able to trust men, and ultimately the two of them being married. And that seemed like the perfect solution. Just...get Al and her mother to stay together, and...all the pain would go away.
But now...now she had to get away, get out of here, find somewhere else to live. They wouldn’t want her around after what she tried to do. And she couldn’t blame them. She didn’t belong here. Not really. This was a close-knit family of very dear friends, and she was an interloper. They’d only taken her in to be nice. Now that her mother was locked up, and she’d nearly ruined everything here, she had nowhere to go. But that didn’t matter. She could sleep outside for a while, then try to find someone to stay with until school started. If her stepfather hadn’t died in New York...
Cat slowed to a walk, and then stopped, her mind racing. Maybe that was the solution. Not Al, but her stepfather, Michael. Maybe he was who was supposed to stay with her mother. They’d had a pretty good marriage, she thought. She wasn’t quite sure why they’d broken up; her mother had just told her one day that they couldn’t live together anymore, and Michael had moved out. And then once Cat started going to school, he’d moved across the country where it was easier to find a job. There was always construction going on in New York, new high-rises going up, renovations being done. He’d written her in the summer three years ago, asking her to come out and spend Christmas with him. But then one day in September...
She couldn’t try again, though. They wouldn’t let her anywhere near Main Control again. In fact, she’d be lucky if they didn’t chase her out completely. She’d blown her one chance at a better life. With a sigh, she continued to her room. If she hurried, she could be packed and gone before they shut the place down. Too bad there wasn’t another project like this somewhere, somewhere where no one knew who she was...
“Going somewhere?”
The sudden voice from the darkness of her room caused Cat to jump and let out a gasp. She hadn’t even crossed the threshold yet, and stood blinking in confusion until the lamp came on, and she saw Verbeena sitting in the chair.
“I...uh...” she stammered, backing up.
“Tried to use the Accelerator,” Verbeena finished for her. There was no accusation in her voice, no admonishment, just stating a simple fact.
Cat blinked again. “How...”
Verbeena smiled. “I had a feeling you’d make an attempt sooner or later. So when I heard the alarm, I came down here. I figured whoever ended up stopping you would give you a big lecture on how that was a Very Bad Idea, and you’d need someone to talk to. So...here I am.” She stood up, and waited expectantly.
After a few moments, Cat went over and put her arms around her. Verbeena pulled her close and held her, letting her cry out all the pain and frustration.