Immortal Leap - Part Three: Science-Fiction or Science-Fact?
"Oh come on, Al. Surely you don't believe him!" replied Sam.
"Well, I dunno. How else can you explain what just happened to your finger? It's strange, I'll give you that, but he was so calm about it, so matter of fact. I'm a pretty good judge of character, Sam, and from the start there was something...different...about him. I didn't trust him, but when he came out with all this immortality stuff, it seemed to suddenly be the truth. He didn't have to tell us! I think he's a lot like you actually Sam..."
"Like me?! How can he be like me?! I don't go round chopping people's heads off for fun." Well at least that explained the murder, but to be quite honest it made Sam's blood run cold. What kind of man had he leapt into?!
"Nor does he. It's just the life he was thrown into, like you and leaping. And he uses it to help others. He teaches young immortals, and...and other things."
"Oh this is ridiculous, Al. Can you hear yourself?! There is no such thing as immortality. We live, we die, it's a fact of life..."
"Uh-huh. And you? You live, and you leap, and you leap, who knows how this is affecting your body or anything. Living in other peoples bodies, you could live for 100's of years..."
"Nonsense. My body is still ageing and I guess, when that dies, so will I, just like everyone else."
"But you're not like everyone else, Sam. And nor is MacLeod."
"That's completely different. This is science. That is - is just unnatural!"
"Well, Sam, after all we've been through, I never thought you were be so accommodating to something different. After all, weren't you the one who convinced me to believe in gut instincts, and even ghosts and vampires..."
"No, we knew the ghosts weren't real, and the vampire wasn't either. Gut instincts are to do with body chemistry and are proven to be true", Sam snapped.
"I'm sorry Al, I trust you, but I don't trust some guy who you admit is acting strangely who you suddenly believe can live forever just because your friend proved that time-travel is possible - scientifically possible! I just don't believe it..."
"Oh hey, this must be Richie, MacLeod's student", Al quickly informed Sam, as Richie returned.
"What don't you believe, Mac?" questioned Richie, coming back into the room.
"I, er, don't believe that I took so long to recover from that Quickening, I was just thinking out loud..."
"Yeah, tell me about it. Say, who's the guy in the loud suit? Aren't you going to introduce me?" Richie asked, with a cheeky grin.
"Huh?" was all Sam could manage.
"Oh boy, I think he means me Sam. He can see me!"
Now Richie was confused.
" 'Course I can see you, man, you're standing right next to Mac..."
"And hear you..." Sam muttered to Al.
"What's going on, and why did he just call you 'Sam', Mac?"
"I, er, you'd better sit down, Richie".
Richie sat.
"Sam!" Al hissed, "You can't just tell him the truth".
"I have to. What other choice do I have?"
Al couldn't think of any.
"Ok, Richie, here it is", Sam tried, sitting opposite Richie. "It's going to be hard for you to believe, but it's the truth. I'm not MacLeod.."
"Ha, ha, nice one Mac. Are you sure that Quickening didn't mess you up even more than we thought?"
"Quickening?!" asked Al Sam shrugged.
"Huh!" Richie looked into 'Mac's eyes. Despite appearances, there was something about an Immortal's eyes that gave away their age. Although these eyes looked old and like they had seen a lot, they were not 400 years old. Richie also swore that he could see specks of blue in the brown, which had never been there before. Something strange was definitely going on.
Sam Beckett suddenly found himself looking at the business end of a very sharp sword.
"Ok, who are you then? And where's Mac?"
"MacLeod's safe", interjected Al. Richie turned to touch his sword at Al's throat, and, of course, met with thin air.
"What?! What are you?! Some kind of ghost? Well it's not Christmas and I think I've enough haunting in my life thank you very much".
Richie on the defensive was very prickily indeed.
"Richie, calm down..."
"Calm down, calm down? I just manage to stop worrying about you not having lost your head to Matthews and then I find that it wasn't even you - sorry, wasn't even Mac - cos you're somehow here instead of him, looking like him but there's a difference, I know you're not him. And a ghost or something. And you want me to calm down?! Now I want some answers and I want them now!"
That said, Richie sat down, slightly stunned, nearly dropping his sword. Sam just grinned wryly and sat opposite. He knew Richie wasn't a danger and was just worried about MacLeod.
"MacLeod is safe. The truth is, and I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I'm from the future. I'm a scientist and I invented a time-machine. It allows me to somehow leap into other people's lives. I swap places with them for a few days, and everyone sees me as them, well almost everyone".
"But that's impossible!" replied Richie, interested despite himself.
"It's the truth, Richie. My name is Sam Beckett. I was born in...in, uh, 1953, in Indiana..."
"Now you sound like Duncan MacLeod!"
Even Al had to laugh at that one, as he remembered his meeting with Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.
"...and I invented a time-travel machine. I can travel in time, leaping into other people's bodies. Right now, MacLeod and I have changed places. He's in my body in the year..."
He glanced at Al, helplessly. Due to both the swiss-cheese affects of leaping putting holes in his memory and the confusion of changing time periods every week or so, Sam had absolutely no idea what the date was where Al was or how long he had been leaping.
Al hesitated just a second before the helpless expression on his friend's face made him bend the rules and give Sam the date.
"2002".
"2002", Sam whispered.
"It's been seven years..."
He paled but quickly shook off his melancholy thoughts and continued his tale.
"...and I'm here. I'm here to help, and when I done what I'm here to do, I'll go onto the next leap and MacLeod - Duncan - will return."
"I don't know. This is weird stuff you know."
"Richie, I don't even know what a Quickening is! You have to believe me!"
"Ok, ok, say this is for real? Why are you here, and who's the guy in the loud suit?"
"I'm Al, kid, and I'm a hologram. I'm not really here. I'm back in a holographic imaging chamber in the year 2002. My image is tuned to Sam's brainwaves, which is why usually only he can see and hear me. I'm his link with his own time and I help him out".
"So why can I see you?"
"We think it's because your brainwaves are similar enough to Sam's."
"Oh."
"So, you believe us?" Sam asked quietly.
"I..I dunno. You sure aren't acting like Mac. I have seen some strange things in my time".
"Like 400 year-old men?" asked Al.
"What?! You know about Immortals?"
"Duncan told me", Al replied.
"Oh", Richie replied again.
"So, how old are you?" Al asked bluntly.
"I'm 21, but I 'died' when I was 19."
"Died?" Sam asked.
"Now do you believe me?" asked Al.
"Oh, so you ask me to believe some mad story, and you can't even believe that I'm Immortal! Thanks a bunch. What's going on anyway? Why are you here?"
"You believe us?"
"Oh hey, why not? Strange goings-on just about describes my life at the moment. First, after I meet the first people to really care for me in my life, I find out the guy's got somewhat of an extra-long lifeline. And, he has people with sharp sword after him all the time. Then, after life gets some normality, Tessa gets killed, so do I, but hey, guess what I'm not really dead and I get to look 19 for the rest of eternity!"
Sam and Al exchanged a look. 'Issues', was all Al thought.
"Uh, Sam, we don't know yet exactly why you're here."
"Well, why don't you go back and try to find out!"
"Oh, Ziggy's working on it. Besides I like this place...Oh, hey, Ziggy's says she's hooked up with MacLeod. She says it's fascinating to discover 400-year-old humans. She thinks MacLeod has a totally different view of the world than anyone else she's ever met".
"Who's Ziggy?"
"Ziggy's my computer. Back at the project."
"What's she doing to Mac?"
"It's alright. She only talking to him".
"A computer that talks? All on it's own? Wow!"
"She's one of a kind alright, Kid", Al laughed.
"Oh, and she adds that MacLeod told her we should go to someone called Joe Dawson. He'd be able to tell us if anything strange is going on."
"Oh, right, sure. I'll go call Joe again now. Boy, he'll never believe this one! He thought he'd seen it all, but oh, no, now we have time-travelling scientists!"
"He says he's accepting this but it's obvious he still not comfortable with us", Sam commented.
"Yeah, well, you can't blame him. It does sound pretty impossible. It's not like we make a habit of telling people. It sounds like he still has a bit of work to do on accepting this whole immortality stuff".
"I still can't believe it! Do you think he could be the reason I'm here?"
"To tell you the truth, I reckon MacLeod's the best one to fix that problem. Maybe I should talk to him about his student..." Al mused.
Just then Sam found his head starting to tingle again, as it had when he's first met Richie. That feeling had settled to a dull ache, which he'd been ignored but now it was back, and stronger than before. Seconds later, the lift from the dojo came up. It was obviously someone used to being here.
"It's only me Mac", announced a British voice, and a tall, slim man, with a hawk-like nose strode into the loft.
"Who's that?" Sam whispered to Al.
"I'll have Ziggy run a check", Al replied, watching the new arrival. He had quite an air about him, something that didn't quite fit with the student image he was obviously trying to convey.
"That's Adam Pierson, a Watcher. What ever that is. Zig's now into the Watcher files. Oh right, they watch Immortals. Strange bunch! And this Joe Dawson's one of them. What's this. Adam Pierson is im..."
" 'Im', what's 'im'?" asked Sam, watching his guest move around in the kitchen.
"Want a beer Mac?" Pierson asked.
"Uh, sure".
Al banged the handlink.
"Hang on there's more. 'mortal'. Huh? Oh! Adam Pierson is immortal. Holy shit!"
"What?" Sam hissed.
"Pierson is over 5000 years old!"
"Him?! Never!!"
"Yeah and his real name is Methos, but this decade's identity is Adam Pierson, mild-mannered Watcher and grad student. Regular Clark Kent ain't he!"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why is he hiding?"
"Oh. Wait, Zig's asked MacLeod. She says he just gave an interesting display of Gaelic swear words. He says that at 5000 years old Methos is very powerful and everyone would be after his head. So, he hides to survive".
"Interesting." Sam mummered.
Al turned to look at his friend. Sam had gone deathly pale and was staring intently at the wall.
"Sam? Sam, what's wrong, buddy? Talk to me".
"I...He...How?"
"Calm down and try again. And put your head between your knees. You might be having a panic attack".
Sam nodded and did so, then took a deep breath.
"How can someone be 5000 years old?! I mean, what do you say to the man? It's amazing. Think of all he's seen. All he's done. I can't get my head round it!"
Al smiled. It was typical Sam. As a scientist he was always excited by discoveries but he also wanted proof. At least he had some imagination and vision, though, otherwise he could have been stuck teaching at MIT or somewhere, and what a waste that would have been. You had to have some faith to want to try and build a time machine. And Sam of course, being Sam, had not only had the vision but had made it a reality.
"Sam, don't worry. He's just a person. Look. Besides, he's just having a beer. How much more normal can you get?" he replied.
Sam gave him a look and ignored him as 'Adam' came in with the beers.
"So where's the brat, Mac?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"You know, Richie?"
"Oh, making a phone call..."
Sam just couldn't look at the man. He sat opposite and sipped his beer, finding something very interesting to look at in the corner of the room - again.
Al just shook his head and grinned. That was his friend Sam - Nobel prize winner, time-traveller extraordinaire, and here he was in the second most life-changing experience of his life and he had taken to inspecting dust!
"Earth to Mac, Earth to Mac", tried 'Adam', no Methos, Al reminded himself, watching the scene play out with an even wider grin. For some reason the fact that this man was over 5000 years old didn't bother him. Once he'd accepted 400 years, another 4600 didn't seem such a stretch of the imagination. Still, he wasn't the one who had to talk to him!
"Sam", Al coaxed, "He's talking to you".
"Huh?" came the intelligent response. Sam turned to look at Al, then quickly at Methos, as what Al had said finally registered.
"Sorry, what?"
"Nothing, Mac, just wondering what planet you're on today".
Sam laughed, weakly.
"Oh, er, I've just got a lot on my mind", he replied.
A fleeting, indescribable look passed across Methos' face.
"Who is it this time Mac? I hope you're not about to go risking your head over some moral obligation to duty again".
"What?"
"Come on Mac. It must be something bad if you're this distracted. It's a wonder you're not brooding yet", Methos said, attempting to lighten the atmosphere again and get 'Mac' to open up.
'Mac' meanwhile felt he had lost this conversation somewhere within the first syllable.
"Huh?" he said again. Al groaned. Leaping around in time for five years had given Sam Beckett a certain amount of quick thinking and acting ability, never knowing who he was or what he was doing from one week to the next. This time though, Sam Beckett seemed to have forgotten that.
"What is up with you today Mac?" Now Methos was starting to get a bit worried. MacLeod may not have known it but he seemed to spend half his life recently worrying about the honour-bound Highlander.
"Is it a challenge? You know, swish, swish, parry, thrust, stab, 'there can be only one'?" Methos now made little sword swishing motions to illustrate.
"Um, no", Sam managed.
"OK, fine, don't tell me. I can't be bothered to play games today. I'll just have another beer." So saying he went back to the kitchen.
"Sam, snap outta it! He's gonna know something's going on. It's bad enough that the kid knows..."
Sam groaned, and turned to Al.
"I...I can't! I just can't get my head around this!"
"Well you'd better start, and soon! Look, I'm gonna go check on what else Ziggy's got, maybe have another chat with MacLeod. He may be easier to speak to now the kid knows as well."
"OK, Al, see you later".
"Hang in there Sam, you can do this".
A door opened and then Al was gone.
"That was just about the weirdest conversation", Richie commented, finally reappearing from the bedroom.
"Besides, er, the one we had before..." he continued, looking at Sam.
"Why?"
"Well Joe didn't really seem surprised, Mac, er, I mean Sam..."
" 'Sam'? Who's Sam?" inquired Methos casually, strolling back into the room.
"Oh, er, Methos, hi. What are you doing here? I didn't notice you with all...didn't notice you..." Richie finished, feebly.
"That's dangerous Richie, always take care to distinguish between the numbers of buzzes. It takes time, but you should be able to by now. Didn't you teach him that, Mac?"
"Um, sure he did, I guess I'm just a little distracted today..."
"Hmm, you too. It must be catching. So what's going on? I want an answer. It's not my birthday, cos even I don't know when that is, so you can't be planning a surprise party. Mac's already told me it isn't a challenge, though I'm still deciding whether I believe him. Please don't tell me Cassandra has reappeared", he said as the sudden thought struck him.
"Not that I know of. Last I heard she was still in Switzerland on Holy Ground".
"Holy Ground?"
"Yeah, it's the only place we're safe. No fighting on Holy Ground".
"Richard, strange as this may seem, I think Mac knows that."
"Yeah, right."
"So?"
"So, what?"
"So, who's this Sam?"
"No-one".
"Hmm, sorry, no, wrong answer".
"Methos look, I don't mean to be rude but haven't you got somewhere more interesting to be?"
"Why, Richard, are you trying to get rid of me? So you can tell your teacher more of the rules of the Game...?"
"Um..."
"I don't believe Immortals can get amnesia..."
"Oh, for God's sake, we have to tell him Sam. I can't do this!"
" 'Sam'?"
"Yes, Sam. He's not Mac, he's Sam."
"Sam Beckett".
"I see. Like the playwright. What on Earth do you mean?!"
"You're not gonna believe this..."
"Try me, I've been around..." Methos was deadly serious. He wasn't leaving without a straight answer.
"I'm Dr Sam Beckett, a quantum physicist and a time-traveller. I built a time-machine using a quantum accelerator, allowing me to leap into the past and into other people's lives, and bodies."
"Impossible! Have you guys been watching 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' again? If so, it's very good. You even have different mannerisms."
"You noticed...?!"
"I'm a student of human nature, I observe. Sue me. Now come on, enough already."
"But...it's true!"
"It's science-fiction."
"No, it's science-fact", replied Sam, a need to defend his project, his vision, finally breaking through his shock, and not caring if yet another person knew who he really was.
"In 1995 I built a time-machine, through a project called Quantum Leap, top-secret, government funded. I leapt, it worked, but instead of just travelling back to observe the past, I found myself living it. I leap from person to person and try and change their future for the better."
"Why?"
"Because we think that's the only way I can get home. Besides, if someone was going to die, wouldn't you save them if you had the knowledge of when and where it was going to happen?"
"Depends. How do you know they aren't supposed to die? How do you know they don't give birth to a homicidal maniac if they live...?"
"You don't, but we calculate the odds as best we can."
"Uh-huh, so you're just a regular boy-scout just like Mac, then?"
"Wait, you believe him?"
"Jury's still out, kid, but it's a good story. You believe this?"
"I do now. And I saw his holographic partner. Has Al gone, by the way?" Richie replied, double-checking for Al's presence.
"Yeah, he went to speak to MacLeod."
"Oh that's good, very good. Holographic partner, hmm? Do you have a ray-gun as well? What year are you from?"
"I first leapt in 1995. It's 2002 now".
"Not 2001? That sounds so much better."
"Oh, just ignore him. I have to tell you about Joe", Richie said, remembering.
"Yes, what about Joe?"
Methos seemed to be ignoring the conversation now, but he was listening very careful, and watching MacLeod. Sure, he was acting strange, but, really, time-travel?! It had to be some kind of joke, hadn't it?!
