Sliding Leap Fanfic...Part 28

Date: 01/08/2002
From: ScifiSTP

Logan stood there for a second to think things through. She was so filled with rage, but she still had to think logically. “Ok, but I’m not letting my hostage go and I am staying right here until Quinn is back.” She said. No one knew what to do or say. Sam wasn’t sure about this. He couldn’t just hand over Quinn in the end, not after all he did for them. He figured they could come up with some sort of plan but just to satisfy Logan and calm her down, he needed to seem like he’ll cooperate.

“That’s fine, but we need to keep things a bit more calm around here.” Sam told her. She nodded and they began to get back to business.

They had a lock on Sam and Al prepared to head to the imaging chamber. Sam wanted to go but they needed him to help work some more things out. Some of the frequency inhibitors were having problems and they were on the verge of being detected. Quinn and Al from the other dimension had went back to tell the other project what was going on. It almost seemed too much to take in. Most others at the project went back to work. They were shaken up by Logan’s entrance, but they still had a job to do.

Al stepped into the imaging chamber. The door awkwardly closed behind him. Some of the functions of the project had fallen into some disrepair and needed further work. “Center me on Sam.” Al said. It seemed so long since he had said that. With that the holographic surroundings enveloped Al. The images faded in and out a bit, but he could tell where he was. He was in Golden Gate State Park. He was familiar with the surroundings because he always came here when visiting San Francisco. He looked around. It was a shame he couldn’t smell the fresh air or feel the cool breeze. Gooshie was able to get a hand link for Al. Like a lot of other things at the project, it was having problems.

From there Al looked around again, trying to find Sam. He had to be really close because he had Ziggy center him on Sam. Soon after, he saw a man hunched over on a park bench. He had a bag lunch sitting next to him. Al walked over and got a closer look. It was Sam alright. He didn’t seem to notice Al. He saw him out of the corner of his eye but didn’t pay much attention to him. Al came closer to him until Sam had to take notice. Finally Sam looked up to see what this man wanted. He couldn’t believe who he saw. The first thing that came to his mind was that it was Al from 1994 and he only saw him as who he leapt into. That being the case he couldn’t blow his cover. He had to act like he didn’t know him.

“May I help you?” Sam asked as Al stopped a couple of feet away from him. Al was overcome with being able to see his friend once again. All Sam wanted to do was tell him who he was, but he figured that it could jeopardize the project. He just had to go on pretending like he had over the past year or so. It had gotten to the point where he couldn’t remember how long he had been leaping without Al by his side.

“Yes,” Al paused for a moment,” Sam, you can help me.” Sam was shocked at what he heard. Why was Al calling him by his name? As far as Sam knew, he was Michael Mallory. He tried to come up with explanations but only one of them made sense as to why Al was calling him by his true name. This was his friend as a hologram. They had started the project back up. One thing Sam noticed though was that he wasn’t holding his hand link. Something was going on.

“Al?” Sam finally spoke up. “ It’s really you?” Sam said as he reached his hand out to see if his friend was a hologram. Sure enough his hand passed through Al’s image and he knew it was true. “You did it. You got the project up and running.” By now Sam had gotten up. If Al wasn’t a hologram Sam would hug him. “How did you get funding again?’ Sam finally asked.

“We didn’t.” Al finally said. A puzzled look came over his face. If they didn’t get additional funding, how was it that they were running the project. So many questions came through his head. Maybe they knew a way to get him home.

“Well, what’s going on Al?” Sam asked. Though he was so happy to see him, Sam needed to know what was going on at the project.

Finally Al had to tell him. “It’s quite a long story but I have to give you the short version.” With that Al told him all that had happened within the past day.

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/533/3802
Nominated by sliderules