Greenwich Village, 1986
The return of sensation; the impression of a classroom or lecture hall, a gathering of people expressing nervous laughter. He was watching a figure in a dark robe finish her last sentence, her hands lifting objects from the table in front of her. A nun. Not a young one either, but a woman whose patient smile carried the certainty of experience.
The crowd were all in their late teens, college students perhaps. A mixed bunch, looking somewhat uncomfortable. Not seated in serried rows, but gathered into a bunched semicircle, the table and the speaker their common point of attention. He was seated at the very end of that curve, neither completely part of, nor totally separate from the company.
"So," the nun was saying, "I always insist on a practical demonstration at this point. Kent?" She turned toward him with beatific expectation. "Perhaps you could show the group the way it should be done?"
He looked down at her hands, at the objects she extended to him.
A long, plump cucumber.
And a brand new condom, fresh out of the packet.
Oh, boy ...
Her name appeared to be Sister Margaret. His was obviously Kent, although he had no immediate idea if that was a first or a last name. The audience had laughed at his discomfiture, thereby losing much of their own, and the rest of the lecture - which seemed to be directed toward the very sensible need for safe sex and the dangers of not knowing what you were doing - turned out to be a definite success. Sister Margaret had no embarrassment whatsoever toward her chosen subject. She used both slang and a certain amount of what Sam personally considered obscene language to make her point, and the students were both shocked and fascinated by her advice.
Which was probably the reason why she phrased things in the way that she did.
Kent appeared to be at the lecture in the capacity of some kind of assistant; Sam found himself handing out leaflets afterward, which was a lot easier than the earlier task he’d been set. Several of the girls giggled as he moved round the group and he couldn’t help blushing - which only made them giggle the more. They took the leaflets though, and he added a wan smile and an admonition to really read the advice. Sister Margaret was answering questions while he did this, and she nodded her approval as he rejoined her at the table.
"Well done," she smiled, patting at his arm with friendly reassurance. "If only one of them listens and takes that little more care it will have been worth it. Will you pack up for me? I need to schedule the next talk with the administrator here before we go. I won’t be long."
"Okay," he agreed, watching as she bustled after her departing audience. Go where? he wondered. At least I’m not a nun this time round. There was a cardboard box under the table and he pulled it out so as to begin stacking the remaining leaflets into its depths.
"Safe sex is sex for life," a familiar voice read from over his shoulder. "Now that’s a sentiment I can agree with."
"Al!" Sam turned with relief, seeing the welcome image of his friend standing behind him, a flare of colour against the washed-out walls. "You should have been here for the lecture," the time traveller suggested, suppressing the inevitable smile at his companion’s attire. The man was dressed in silver slacks, a matching tie, and a shirt printed with varying sized panels that shaded from dark red to bright orange and back again; a statement, rather than an overstatement, but still unmistakably characteristic.
Al’s face creased into a mild frown. "I was," he observed dryly. "First time I’ve ever heard a nun say words like that. Back in my days in the orphanage they’d have washed my mouth out with soap for coming out with even one of those expressions, let alone knowing what they meant." He paused to take a puff on his cigar and grinned reminiscently from behind it. "Mind you," he went on, "no amount of lecturing can make up for practical experience ..."
I might have known he’d say something like that.
For some reason the remark seemed disproportionately annoying - as if its very predictability were no longer a reassurance of familiarity but simply a habit that had outworn its welcome. Sam shook his head with exasperation and went back to packing leaflets. "Were you listening to what she was saying?" he asked, wincing a little to himself as he lifted the rubber-wrapped cucumber to add to the box. Al walked round to the front of the table and looked a little hurt.
"Sam," he protested faintly. "I could deliver this lecture. I just hope those kids were paying attention, that’s all. Are you going to carry that about like that?"
The time traveller hesitated and then reached down to roll the object in question off the brilliant green vegetable. Al’s knowing smirk did not make him feel any better about doing it. "I suppose," Sam snapped, from embarrassment as much as anything else, "you always practise safe sex."
The hologram threw him a look. "I don’t need to practise, kid. With me, it’s always opening night."
"Al - !" The interruption was filled with irritation, and the man it was aimed at broke into a broad grin.
"Lighten up, will ya, Sam?" Al chuckled softly. "Looks like you’ll never get anywhere on this Leap by being such a prude."
"I am not a prude," Sam remonstrated unconvincingly, and the grin went back to being a very aggravating smirk. He only says those things to disconcert me. And they always do, damn it. "I just happen to think that your habit of reducing things down to the level of the biology takes all the magic out of what should be a very personal experience, that’s all. What do you mean - this Leap?"
The
smirk twisted into momentary puzzlement. "Huh? Oh - yeah." Al lifted the handlink,
clenching his teeth around his smoking Havana so as to give him free use of
both hands. "I meant with you having Sister Tell-It-Straight on your team ..."
He tapped a couple of buttons, the link squealed in protest, and he frowned
at the resultant scrawl of information. "Okay," he registered, removing the
cigar from his mouth and giving Sam his full attention. "It’s 1986, your name
is Kent Allen, you’re - nineteen, and - uh - you’ve just started your first
term at college." His face lit up. "Ooh, just think about that,
Sam ... student politics ... student parties ... student bodies ..."
Sam grimaced with impatient disapproval, and Al sighed, going back to the information,
where his pleased expression faded into a wary frown. "Looks like Kent did a
no-no a few weeks back. Got a little drunk and disorderly, and was sentenced
to six weeks’ community service. He started it today." He paused to glance at
the box and its contents and twitched a small smile. "In at the deep end, huh?"
Sam scowled at him. He could do without the colourful commentary sometimes.
"So why am I here?"
Another tap to the handlink, a deeper frown.
"Vega isn’t sure."
"Isn’t sure?" The reaction was involuntary. He always hated the first uneasy hours of a Leap, finding his feet, putting himself into someone else’s picture. It helped to have a purpose, a reason to focus on; it wasn’t always the right reason, but it always helped.
"Isn’t sure," Al echoed, eyeing him sideways as he did so. Then he sighed. "Sam - you know how Vega gets sometimes. She objects to too many variables. And she’s in a sulk. Something to do with Gushie forgetting to reconnect her satellite links after his last upgrade. She missed three episodes of Malabara."
"Oh, great," Sam exploded, turning away to stalk the empty lecture hall. "I’m stuck in someone else’s life, and she gets miffed over a Spanish soap opera!"
"Brazilian," Al supplied unhelpfully. Sam turned back to glare at him.
Alonzo Calavicci, he fumed to himself, it’s a damned good job you aren’t really here right now. I’d probably strangle you!
"I don’t care," he snapped. "Just tell me about Kent, will you?"
"Oh - ah, right." The hologram turned his attention back to the handlink. "Well - according to this, he opted to help out at the hospice attached to St Barnabas, and they volunteered him to become a sitter at the shelter they support down in the Village."
"They?" Sam interrupted. Al’s hand waved in the direction of the door.
"They. Sister Margaret and her cronies. That’ll be where she’s gonna take you any minute, I guess. The thing is," he continued blithely, "Kent couldn’t deal with what he found there and split the next day." His eyes dropped back to the link and his expression froze. "They found him two weeks later," he read, then looked up with taut concern. "Somewhere in an abandoned subway tunnel, Sam. He’d been beaten to death ..."
So that’s it. Sam sighed, moving across to study his current reflection in the cracked glass of the lecture room notice board. A young face, its dark hair cropped close to the scalp, its features tending toward the lean and ascetic. A single gold earring pierced Kent Allen’s right ear; Sam lifted his hand and felt the curve of the metal beneath his fingers. He’d got used to the disconcerting effects of such details by now. He knew he didn’t ordinarily have pierced ears, but since Kent obviously did he had inherited the smooth loop along with the faded denim vest and the Springsteen teeshirt. Right ear, he noted, dropping his hand away. Is that significant?
He couldn’t remember, and it probably didn’t matter anyway. From the looks of things he had Leaped in in order to keep Kent alive - and probably to help him finish his community service. Did that mean he was going to be here for six weeks? He hoped not. It was a long time to spend in anybody’s life.
"Looks good," Al noted from behind him. He didn’t reflect at all, of course. Sam’s hand went back toward the earring in instinctive embarrassment, and he pulled it down with a grimace of self-annoyance. He often had the impression that Al behaved as he did in order to deliberately distract him, a ploy to keep him from dwelling too long on the implications of his journeying. There were times when Sam found it oddly reassuring, others when he fought hard to keep the grin from his face and respond with the expected indignation, and times - like now - when he found the whole thing exceedingly vexatious.
Must be bleedthrough from Kent, he considered with another inner sigh. Guess the youngster’s real uptight about something.
He certainly looked as if he might be. Kent Allen’s face did not give the impression of knowing how to smile; it carried a hint of wary scowl, a taint of petulance.
"So," Sam considered, turning away from the reflection and back toward the nonexistent figure of his friend, "all I have to do is see that Kent sticks to his job and stays off the subway, right?"
Al shrugged. "Could be," he agreed, although not very enthusiastically. "Vega gives it odds of thirty to thirty five percent. Of course, " he went on to say, lifting the handlink and giving it a shake, "those aren’t exactly encouraging odds ..."
"No," Sam muttered, wondering if he would ever Leap into a situation where what he had to do was clear-cut and blindingly obvious. "So what about this - shelter? Why did Kent walk away?"
"Ah - " Al hesitated, which proved just long enough for Sister Margaret to reappear in a billow of dark cloth and cheery demeanour.
"All done," she smiled, the radiance of it increasing as she saw that everything had been neatly packed away. "You ready?"
"I guess," Sam answered, moving over to pick up the box. Al stepped out of his way as he did so, one of those unnecessary reactions which the time traveller normally found comforting but which right now seemed designed to particularly annoy him. You’re not here, he growled inwardly, throwing a brief glare in the hologram’s direction. Al was watching Sister Margaret, not him, so he missed the look. Sister Margaret, however, did not.
"Kent," she smiled maternally, "I know you’re worried about this. You don’t have to be. Really you don’t." She put a comforting arm around Sam’s shoulders and guided him and his burden toward the door. "It’s not as if you’ll be asked to do anything medical. You’ll just be there to help in any way that you can. And they’re good people. You’ll see."
They went out of the hall, through a dilapidated school hallway filled with milling students, and emerged into the greyness of a city afternoon.
Where am I? Sam wondered. Al hadn’t been very specific, although that wasn’t entirely unusual. What had he said? Kent was found dead on the subway? And then he had mentioned the Village ...
"Don’t you just love New York?" the hologram’s voice asked brightly from inside the van the nun had indicated, just as Sam slid open the side door. The time traveller suppressed his startled reaction and glowered surreptitiously at the man he’d revealed, while Sister Margaret walked round toward the driver’s seat.
"Do you have to do that?" he hissed, putting the box into the back of the van and climbing inside. Al just looked at him over his cigar and Sam sighed, deciding not to rise to the intended bait. Instead he spent a few moments studying the contents of the van. There was a rucksack tucked behind the passenger seat, together with a guitar case and a heavy leather jacket laden with ornate studs. Mine? he wondered. He rather felt the macho weight of the leather was at odds with the lean and hungry look in the young man’s face. Kent would look decidedly lost inside it, rather than fortified.
New York, New York ... The line of the song drifted into Sam’s head as they drove out of the yard and into the streets. They were somewhere in the Bronx, he figured, the buildings around them showing evidence of having been elegant once. It was late afternoon, and the sidewalks were bustling with people: kids let out of school, harassed mothers and housewives laden with groceries, workmen on their way home, and mini-skirted hookers just beginning their working day ...
"I’ll just be dropping you off at the shelter, Kent." Sister Margaret seemed perfectly at home in among the traffic. She drove with surprising aggression for a nun, although a little more politely than most of the taxi drivers. "I have to get back to St Barnabas in time for evening service. But everything’s been arranged. Go in and ask for George, and he’ll take care of you. You’ll be on night duty of course, so that you can attend your classes, but he’ll explain all that when you get there. I think you’ll find it a rewarding experience." She smiled as she said this, and Sam smiled back a little wanly. Al snorted.
"She would say that," he remarked, in a voice that implied he knew all about nuns and their habits. Sam winced as his mind threw up the possible double meaning behind the phrase.
If he makes a salacious remark right now ... The growl of inner annoyance was followed by a frown of anxiety. What the hell is wrong with me today? There were times he found Al annoying, but he usually had a reason for it. It was as if his best friend had suddenly become an irritating itch he couldn’t scratch, and it was driving him crazy. He risked a glance over his shoulder at the source of his vexation; the hologram was watching the world pass by the windshield with absorbed fascination.
It’s not even as if he’s said - or done - anything I could pinpoint as a cause for this, Sam considered, turning his attention back to the road ahead. He hasn’t told me all I need to know, but then he never tells me all I need to know. Not right away, anyhow.
Maybe Kent Allen just hates Italian wiseguys ...
Which he didn’t, did he? He couldn’t do this without Al’s input, wouldn’t know where or who he was, let alone what he was there to do.
"Here we are," Sister Margaret announced, pulling into the side of the road. They were in a street full of brownstones and tenements, a turnoff from the main block that ran behind a frontage of shops and offices. There was one building set back from the sidewalk, marked off by a low wall and a set of fancy railings; a discreet sign sat next to the gate in the ironwork.
"St Barnabas’s Hospice Shelter," Al read with satisfaction. "That’s the place, Sam. Doesn’t look much, does it?"
It didn’t. A faded frontage, the paint peeling from the window frames, metal gratings over the glass of the lower windows, and a heavy door that said keep out more than it implied welcome.
"Out you go, Kent. I’ll be by on Saturday, just to see how you’re doing."
Sam acknowledged the remark with a twisted smile, and reached to collect the bundle from behind the seat. The jacket was heavy and the instrument awkward; he stumbled out onto the sidewalk, and Sister Margaret pulled the door shut behind him.
"God bless," she called, and left, the van’s exhaust filling his lungs with tainted smoke. Sam found himself looking up at the intimidating frontage with a distinct sinking feeling in his stomach.
"All right," he breathed, since they were once again alone. "Tell me about this place. What exactly is it?"
Al had emerged from the van and was also looking up at the forbidding architecture. He looked over at Sam’s question, then down at the handlink. The device let out a small squeal, and the man’s expression suddenly tightened into wary lines. "It’s - a shelter," he extemporised, looking a little shaken. "For sick people."
Sam frowned. Now he might have a reason for getting annoyed.
"That’s not a lot of help," he snapped, picking up the rucksack and heading for the gate. "What sort of sick people?"
The hologram hadn’t moved. He was hesitating on the sidewalk for reasons Sam couldn’t identify.
"Al! I asked you a question."
"I know." The man dropped his eyes back to the handlink, sighed and looked up again reluctantly. "I just - " He took a slow breath, and faced his impatient company with taut eyes. "Very sick people. People who die, okay?"
"Okay." Sam acknowledged that with a mixture of irritation and sympathy. "That’s what a hospice is for, isn’t it?" He went through the gate, and started up the shallow steps beyond. Al stayed exactly where he was, looking up at the building with doubtful distrust. "Well?" Sam threw back, for once not caring whether the man paid attention or not. "Are you coming, or what?"
The hologram winced, a tight reactive response to his words. Sam’s irritation stirred into positive annoyance. Damn him, I am not trying to be funny, here ... The inner anger tainted his judgement, or else he might have wondered why the obvious misinterpretation of his words had elicited that reaction, rather than the more likely slick comeback. He glared down at the image of his friend, who sighed.
"Sam," Al announced softly, his expression carrying a twist of distress. "You’re in the Village, it’s 1986, and that - " He paused to take a careful breath, "is a shelter for people dying of AIDS."
Three reactions: the first was a shiver of irrational pain, deep-seated and centred in his soul. The second was startlement, and both were blotted out by the third: a surge of unexpected anger that had no discernible source but had to go somewhere. Sam directed it at the nearest target, painting his interpretations with the crimson of its taint.
"You got a problem with that?" he snapped, reading the man’s hesitations, his discomfort, as evidence of prejudice and narrow-minded reaction. 1986. Back then it was called the ‘gay plague’, right? Maybe it still carries that stigma. Damn you, Al. I thought you were better than that ...
Al’s reaction to the implied accusation was a defensive one; his expression tightened into a frown of concern. "Do you?" he asked. The anger tipped over into smouldering hostility.
"No," Sam growled pointedly, and climbed the rest of the steps, reaching for the doorbell as he did so. If you can’t face this, then why don’t you just go away ...?
"Sam - " His intangible company flipped into existence right beside him, the man’s face written deep with anxiety. Sam stared at the door and deliberately ignored him. "You’re gonna have to be careful, you know that, don’t you? Watch what you touch, what you do ..."
God’s sake, Al. It’s not that infectious. You don’t get it by shaking hands ... And I’ve gotta be careful? What about you, huh? Tomcatting around the way you do ... It’s hardly the exclusive property of homosexuals. The virus doesn’t care who it infects. Are you so clean?
And, in the mental silence that followed that thought, came another - one born from an echo of absent memory, a sudden shiver of anxiety that wove itself through the Swiss cheese that made up his past life.
Am I?
"You have to be prepared for this, Sam. You can’t just walk in there as if - "
The door opened, revealing an amiable figure and a generous smile. The man was comfortably plump, a rotund image of geniality that was a startling contrast to the unwelcome air of the building’s façade; he was dressed in faded jeans, an equally faded shirt, and a sweater that looked as though it had escaped from someone’s nervous breakdown. Even Al blinked at its startlement of colours.
"Hi." The voice that emerged was a good octave higher than might have been expected, but it carried a genuine warmth and the impression of good-natured humour. "I’m George. Are you Kent?"
No. I’m Samwise Beckett, and I’m lost in my own past, with no-one but a narrow-minded hologram to keep me company ...
"Yeah. I’m Kent." He didn’t intend to sound hostile, but the words came out as a growl. Al looked at him with tight concern.
"Great." George was unfazed by the reaction. "Come on in."
He followed the unlikely figure into an institutional hall, the interior paint peeling as badly as the exterior. Stark single-coloured walls that might have been off-white once and were now a dingy grey rose up on all sides. The doors that led off this very functional and somewhat depressing space were also grey. Battleship grey, as if someone had bought a job lot because it was the cheapest option going. There was a desk, sporting an attempt at a potted plant, and a vast noticeboard cluttered with scrappy paper, cuttings from magazines, and a number of other bits and pieces that turned it into a veritable pot pourri of colour and shape. It stood out like a sore thumb in the otherwise dingy interior, and Al drifted in its direction while George led Sam toward the desk.
"We found you a room on the top floor. Figured you wouldn’t mind having to climb all those stairs - you being so young and healthy and all." The man wore a bright smile, the sort that made you think he’d been born with it and couldn’t avoid it no matter what. Sam suspected the man would smile while announcing the end of the world; the expression sat on George’s genial features with the imprint of determination. "Now - we keep no set times around here, because we’re not that sort of place. We’ve twelve guests living in at the moment, and then there’s me, and Martin - we’re in charge - and there’s Alan, and Francis, and Sister Mary - and now you, of course. Everybody else is non-residential, but you’ll meet them all in due course. We have a three-man medical team on duty at all hours, so you won’t be asked to do anything in that area. I’ll take you up to your room and then you can get the grand tour. Okay?"
"Okay." Sam was looking around himself with distinct discomfort. The place had a depressing edge to it, and it smelt of an uncomfortable mixture of disinfectant, soap, and poor drains.
How can anyone live in a place like this? he wondered, then winced inwardly. They don’t, he realised. They come here to die ...
It was no wonder that Kent Allen had skipped out as quickly as he had.
Another man appeared, emerging from a side passage and carrying a toolbox. He was a tall, dark-haired individual, in his early forties at a guess; he was lean where George was rotund, a lugubrious counterpoint to the man’s smiling geniality. He wore dark overalls, and a frown.
"George," he drawled as he rounded the corner, "I thought I asked you to call the plumber today?"
George’s smile brightened by several megawatts.
"I did," he answered brightly. "He wouldn’t come. So I called two more, and they said they were booked up. I got word out on the street. We’ll find someone."
The new arrival harumphed sceptically, eyeing Sam up and down as he did so. "We’d better. That pipe isn’t going to last much longer. Who’s the kid?"
"Ah. Martin - this is Kent. Kent - this is Martin."
"Hi," Sam acknowledged tersely. Al looked over from his inspection of the noticeboard and consulted the handlink.
"Martin Rowman - Yale graduate, stockbroker and financier, would you believe? He’s a long way from Wall Street, Sam."
Sam glowered at him. The hologram was a startling patch of colour among the drab surroundings and he looked decidedly out of place.
As out of place as he feels, I bet.
"Hi, yourself." Martin scrubbed his hand down the side of his overalls before extending it with friendly intent. Kent, Sam suspected, would have ignored it. So he did. The man seemed unsurprised by this reaction. "You’re in time for tea, anyhow." He turned toward George and his lean features settled into thoughtful lines. "You going to be long, lovebird?"
Lovebird?
George grinned. If the smile had been startling, this was way over the top. "As long as it takes, muffin."
Muffin?
Al’s eyes flicked from one man to the other and he went a very interesting shade of pink. It clashed with his shirt.
"Sam - " he reacted with disconcertion. "They - that is, he and he - uh ..."
At any other time, in any other place, perhaps in anybody else, Sam would have had to stop himself from laughing out loud. The man’s expression was an absolute picture - a mixture of horrified realisation and disconcerted alarm - but right there and then, all it inspired was a surge of savage irritation.
God’s sake, Al, it’s not a crime ...
It was disconcerting though. Sam wondered how he ought to react and settled on moody indifference. It seemed to go with Kent’s general sense of hostility toward the world.
This isn’t going to be easy, he realised. I can’t remember being nineteen. I don’t think I was ever this uptight when I was a kid, and this isn’t the most inspiring place to be dumped ...
"Okay," Martin was saying with a sigh. "Did Sister Margaret stop by?"
"No. Had to get back for service I guess. Come on, Kent." George turned back toward Sam with warm agreeability. "Let’s get you settled in, shall we?" He waved vaguely toward the interior of the building. "Stairs are over that way." He leaned a little closer and added conspiratorially, "Martin’s still trying to fix the elevator ..."
"I’ll get it working." Martin reacted to the implication that lay behind the emphasis on trying. "You’ll see."
George laughed and waltzed away, a walk that was half swagger and half dance step as he manoeuvred his plumpness with a surprisingly agile dexterity. Sam trailed after him, glancing back at Martin as he did so. The man had been frowning - an expression that added stern dignity to his patrician features - but as George turned away he let the look collapse into a decidedly warm smile. It lit up his whole face, transforming him from an authoritarian image into one of indulgent benevolence. It said a lot about the relationship the two men shared, not least of which was that neither of them was quite what he seemed.
Al trailed after Sam, his face settling into unspecified anxiety. Sam ignored him.
"Sister Margaret told you about being a sitter, didn’t she?" George launched into friendly chatter without concern for the fact that his company had said barely four words since he arrived. "It’s not really hard work, but it can be tough all the same. There’s only one piece of real advice I can give you - and that’s to remember that they know they’re dying. So don’t try to pretend anything different. This is no place for false hopes or self deceptions. Just let them have respect, a little dignity - and indulge them if they need it. They don’t have much time left, and we try to make what little they do have the best we can."
He’d been leading the way up the narrow stairs, turning through the angled corners with surprising agility. "There are certain procedures you’ll have to observe," he said. "Most of them are pretty obvious. If any of the residents has an accident you must call the nurses or a medic. Wear gloves if you’re asked to help with anyone’s personal hygiene - and there’s to be no intimacy with any of our sweet things, no matter what they say ..." George grinned at his company as he made the last remark, clearly not intending it to be taken seriously. "Tell ’em you’re spoken for. That usually does the trick."
Sam stared at him. Spoken for ...? The matter-of-fact advice had held a shocking edge, the reality of this place shaped by its practicalities. All of that he could deal with. He had medical training, even if he couldn’t remember much of it, and he had no paranoia concerning what was basically just an infectious disease. A fatal disease perhaps, but still something that had defined risks and clear transmission methods. It was the off-the-cuff joke that threw him. And it stirred his inexplicable sense of irritation into decided resentment.
How dare he ...?
"Sounds like good advice to me, kid." Al’s interjection was anxious. Sam found himself throwing the man a decidedly savage glare.
And what the hell would you know about it?
If George hadn’t been there he’d have probably said it out loud. As it was he had to bite his tongue - and then force himself to take a deep and disconcerted breath.
What is with this kid?
It was bleedthrough. It had to be. Maybe Al’s obvious discomfort with the situation was deserving of some irritation, but not that much. And surely he’d be better off taking his friend to one side and having a long and patient heart to heart with him about it, instead of wanting to bite his head off.
Wouldn’t he?
"It’s just up here," George was saying brightly, totally unaware of his company’s inner conflicts. He led the way onto a narrow landing and reached to open a grey-painted door. "Dump your stuff on the bed and I’ll take you down to meet the guys. I’m sorry it’s so cramped, but we like to save the room for those who need it."
Sam threw another of those glares in his hologram’s direction. This one was intended to forestall any remark - any remark at all.
"That’s okay," he muttered, stalking past his guide to drop the jacket and instrument case on top of the faded coverlet. The room was cramped; barely big enough to hold the bed, the battered side unit, and the old-style wardrobe that dominated half the space. But it did have a decent-sized window - one that looked out on an inner courtyard and the tiny patch of greenery that it contained. Brownery, actually; the evidence of early fall echoed the disheartened look of the hostel’s interior decoration.
Everything around here is dying.
He turned, to find a brightly clad figure - one completely at odds with his surroundings - staring at the peeling paint with haunted eyes.
Including my patience ...
"Al," he hissed through gritted teeth, "if you want to go, go, okay? If Vega can’t tell me what I’m here to do, then I don’t need you, right?"
"Ah - " The Commodore covered his disconcertion at this idea by studiously examining the handlink. "I - we’re working on it, Sam. We don’t know why Kent walked out, yet."
I do ...
Kent Allen, uptight and angry, would have stayed in this depressing dump only as long as it might have taken him to get rid of his genial guide. Sam knew he had to stick with it. But it didn’t make him feel any better about doing so. He adopted a frown and walked away, not all that bothered whether his intangible companion followed him or not. There was a little part of him that rather hoped he wouldn’t.
And another that prayed that he would.
Because that bright splash of colour was a reminder that this wasn’t his life, and that he was here to make a difference. Even if he couldn’t be sure what that difference was ...
"Let’s go down to the common room." George was waiting out by the stairway. "I think most of them should be there this time of day. Waiting for their visitors - or for everybody else’s." His grin widened at the idea. "You should hear them gossip after everyone goes. Like I said, they’re a great bunch. Don’t let how they look fool you."
How they look?
Sam’s frown deepened slightly, wondering what the man meant. His guide bounced back down the stairs ahead of him, waving his arms to indicate places they passed and offering his commentary as if he were leading a tourist party.
"Top floor’s mostly storage - and leaking pipework. This whole place is crumbling, but we spend any money we get on the patients, not the superstructure. It’s mostly charity stuff, you know? And medical gear can be so expensive. We get a few legacies, too, but we don't really want those too often. We use the second floor for administration and stuff. My office is just down there. Just next to the bathroom. That’s our bathroom, by the way. The one you’ll be using. The one on the lower floor is for the patients. Chelsea thinks we should get a hot tub installed, but that’s way beyond our budget. Of course," he added brightly, turning to smile with conspiratorial certainty, "everything’s way beyond our budget. But we do our best."
"Sure you do," Sam agreed, managing to suppress some of the instinctive sarcasm that had formulated the response. George actually laughed at his expression.
"You’ll see. Come on."
He led the way back to the lobby, where a middle-aged man with dark shoulder-length hair and a decidedly receding hairline had taken up residence behind the desk.
"Francis!" George blew a happy kiss in the man’s direction. "With you in a minute, sweetheart. He’s an old hippie," he warmly confided as Sam descended the last few steps to join him. "But we don’t hold that against him. Just his taste in men."
That was another joke; the manager of the shelter didn’t seem inclined to be serious about anything. The man behind the desk grinned, clearly overhearing the remark and not taking any offence.
"Kent - Francis. Francis - Kent. Our new boy."
"Hi," Francis drawled. "Don’t mind George. He’s just jealous."
"As if," the rotund manager reacted. "I don’t have any interest in your harem, sweetheart, and you know it. They all lack that essential element."
"Yeah," Francis noted with amusement. "Well, they make up for that in curves." And he demonstrated what he meant with a gesture Sam wasn’t expecting. Al - who’d wandered around to stare at the man behind the desk and run his profile through the handlink - raised both eyebrows in surprise and then adopted a decided smirk.
"This is my kinda guy," he remarked, jabbing in the relevant direction with his cigar. Sam - who might have smiled at the inference in other circumstances - frowned at him.
So he’s okay because he dates women? Damn it, Al, that’s just so much macho bullshit, and you know it ...
"How ’bout you, Kent?" Francis was asking. "Which way do you swing?"
Ah -
The question threw him. Partly since he had no idea of what Kent Allen’s sexual preferences might be - and partly because, for one empty, yawning moment, he realised that he wasn’t sure of his answer either ...
I don’t know.
I really don’t know.
I’ve been attracted to women. On Leaps. I know I have.
I’ve just never wanted to sleep with one ...
He didn’t dare glance in Al’s direction, knowing that the smirk would have got worse and that he’d almost undoubtedly blush under its owner’s knowing scrutiny.
He calls me the Prudent Prince. Mr Morals. I’ve got principles, right? Decent ones. That’s all. I’m not Al Calavicci. I don’t sleep around for fun.
In fact, I don’t think I’d want to sleep with anyone I didn’t love ...
As for Kent -
Sam thrust his hands back in his pockets and threw Francis a challenging look. "That’s none of your damned business," he said.
George laughed. "Too right, momma."
Francis grinned.
"That’s telling me. And you’re right. It isn’t any of my business." He stood up and stuck his hand out in a friendly manner. "Welcome aboard, anyway."
"Thanks," Sam noted, keeping his hands firmly in his pockets. Like Martin before him, Francis seemed unoffended by the sleight.
How do these people stay so cheerful? This place is so grim - and all the people that they’re caring for are going to die ...
It seemed a dreadful prospect, standing there in that grey-painted hallway with its vague smell of bad drains and antiseptic. Yet George was brightness incarnate - and Francis seemed utterly at ease with himself and the world. Laid back and mellowed out, just like the old hippie George had named him.
"Many visitors today?" the shelter’s manager was asking hopefully. Francis shook his head.
"Not yet. Monday, you know? Damian’s been with Mark most of the afternoon - but you know that. And - uh - Steven’s sister arrived ten minutes ago. But no-one else yet. Danny said he thought his gang might drop by later, so be warned."
For the first time since he’d met him, Sam saw a vague hint of worry sweep across George’s genial features. "I’m warned," he noted. "No-one come to see Chelsea?"
Chelsea?
George had used the name before - earlier, making the joke about the hot tub and the budget. It had scarcely registered then, but its repetition sent a small shiver down Sam’s spine.
I used to know someone called Chelsea ...
Didn’t I?
The memory was vague and insubstantial. And he had no chance to ask Al about it, not standing there in the middle of a conversation.
Not that he’d tell me, even if I could ask ...
The thought spawned a brief but resentful glare in the relevant direction. One that made the hovering hologram look more uncomfortable than ever. A part of Sam regretted it almost as soon as he’d offered it: after all, he’d set the rules - and Al had done his best to circumnavigate them on more than one occasion.
"Uh-uh." Francis was shaking his head a second time. "I don’t think anyone will," he said, a hint of patient sorrow behind the words. "You know Chelsea. He won’t have told anyone. Not anyone who counted."
George’s unshakeable smile took on a taint of resignation. "And I thought everyone counted where Chelsea’s concerned." He sighed softly. "I know what you mean. But he’ll have told some of them, Francis. He’ll have had to."
"Maybe." Francis shrugged. "But I still don’t think anyone’s gonna call. I think he was always moving too fast to take root in anyone’s heart - and now it’s too late for him to change any of that."
"It’s never too late," the rotund manager pronounced with asperity. "Someone will come. Someone who cares about him, the way we do. Come along, Kent," he decided brightly, clearly regarding that as the end of whatever matter they discussed. "You won’t work off your debt to society just standing in a corridor. I’ll introduce you to the guys, and then you can help Sister Mary and me with the tea."
He turned and walked across the hall, heading for the corner passageway that lay opposite to the stairwell. The time traveller mooched after him, throwing the man they abandoned a moody glance of farewell as he did so. Francis grinned, dropping back to his chair behind the desk and dipping his hand to retrieve the cigarette he’d left in the ashtray. A hand-rolled, narrow strip of smouldering something ...
"Somehow I don’t think that’s tobacco," Al remarked knowingly from around his cigar. He’d used the handlink to flip from one side of the hall to the other and he offered the comment as his friend strode past on George’s heels. Sam’s response was a look of pained exasperation.
So what?
I bet whatever it is, it’s doing less damage to his lungs than that Havana’s doing to yours ...
And what the hell are you still doing here, anyway?
Actually, Sam knew the answer to that. He just wasn’t in the mood to admit that his best friend was trying to be supportive. Or even that his best friend needed to be supportive. All he acknowledged was the peculiar sense of irritation that the hologram’s presence inspired in him.
"Here we are," George announced, pushing open one of a pair of half-glassed doors and waltzing inside. "The common room. And boy - are they common in here."
His arrival - and the joke that went with it - was greeted by a chorus of groans from the occupants of the room.
"Oh come on, George," one voice said wearily. "We’ve heard that one."
"Yeah," another wheezed, sounding oddly out of breath. "Go buy a new bunch of jokes, why don’t ya?"
"There ain’t no such thing as a new joke, Danny boy," a third interjected with warm authority. Samwise - whose view of the room was somewhat obstructed by George’s bulk - froze in astonishment.
I know that voice ...
"Yes, there is," a fourth individual remarked, a little sourly. "And it’s on us, right?"
The third man laughed. A rich, unmistakable chuckle that sent a shiver of recognition right down to the depths of Sam’s soul. "Oh, man," that soft accent noted with familiar flippancy, "are you cheerful today, or what? Make a note, Sister Mary. No second helpings for Mr Doom and Gloom in the corner over there. Just a time-out and five minutes in the penalty box."
George echoed the chuckle, moving further into the room so that Sam could finally see its ravaged inhabitants. Gaunt men with gaunt faces, stripped of weight and burdened with certainties. All of that the traveller saw and registered, along with the black-clad nun, the oddly androgynous figure with its stark white hair, and the pinched-faced young woman who sat cradling the hand of an equally pinched-faced young man. But his eyes were caught and held by the face that went with that distinctive laugh. A dark-skinned handsome face that had once possessed a sheen like mellowed bronze and was now dulled and leathered by the illness that had claimed its owner.
Oh, my god.
Oh - my - god ...
Chelsea?
Somewhere - somewhen - in the depths of a personal history that Leaping had shredded into scarcely glimpsed tatters, this man belonged. As a friend. As a confidante. As an inspiration.
Basketball.
Something to do with basketball ...
The memories refused to focus; the images slipped from his mind like wisps of smoke. He didn’t remember the where. He couldn’t place the why. But he knew the man. Knew him with a certainty that inspired all kinds of emotions. Warmth. Affection. Wonder. Even a hint of delight.
He half-turned without thinking, seeking to share that sudden sense of revelation with his intangible shadow. Al had stepped halfway through the door - and had stopped there, his eyes wide and his face written with a moment of bleak and utter dismay.
Ah - jeezus!
All that indefinable, implacable animosity that the scientist had been fighting exploded into a surge of white-hot anger. If the hologram had been there - in the flesh, rather than as mere image - Sam would probably have backhanded him violently. Just to take that look off his face. The one that so clearly revealed his unforgivable horror at what he saw. As it was, Sam’s hands bundled themselves up into tight fists, and he turned away in decided disgust.
"Hey, hey, hey," Chelsea was saying, his smile still packed with megawatts of personality. "Who have we here, George? You decided to turn Martin in for a younger model?"
"Of course not," was the warmly indignant reaction. "This is Kent - our new sitter, remember?"
"Hi, Kent."
"Welcome aboard, kid."
"Hey."
The chorus of greetings drew Sam further into the room; took him, with inevitability, to Chelsea’s side. The man he was sure had been his friend looked his disguise up and down with quiet amusement, then stuck out his hand.
"Lay some skin on me, brother."
Sam looked down at the proffered palm, then up at its owner. He knew those eyes. Knew the warmth that sat behind the smile - and could read on that debilitated face the importance of this gesture, this casual offer of contact.
Oh, god, Chelsea.
You look so ill ...
And you’re testing me, right?
You want to know if I’ve got the guts to deal with all of this.
He found his eyes flicking briefly to the figure that still hovered by the door, seeing the anxious look that haunted his hologram’s face.
Well, I have.
And I know why I’m here, too.
I’m here because of you.
I’m here for you.
And if anyone tells me different they can damned well go to hell ...
He smiled, putting out his own hand to slap the extended palm with friendly confidence.
"Aw-right," Chelsea laughed. "You’ll do, mister. You’ll do just fine ..."
He should have been prepared for it. He should have known, goddamn it. He knew what this place was, knew what the illness meant, should have been ready for the truth, for what had been waiting behind that door ...
But the reality of it had still taken him by surprise.
It was a largish room, its decoration as dingy as the rest of the place despite the efforts of cheerfully coloured afghan throws and a scattering of flowers. And, for a startled moment, Al Calavicci had stepped back not twelve years, but well over twenty - to a time when he had shared his life with men who had looked much as these men looked. Raw-boned and pale-faced, their muscles wasted and their strength long gone; their withered skin clinging to the bones beneath with the strength of crumpled paper, while angry sores and bruises were written into their features with the savagery of permanence. Men with the pinched look of the starving, some with shuttered faces and weary souls, others with intense eyes and angry determination. The living and the living dead, robbed of hope, beaten down by despair.
Yet still driven to survive.
The horror that Sam had seen settle on his face had been spawned by that recollection, by the inevitable comparison between these men and those that he remembered.
Prisoners of war ...
He’d shivered, and had to pause to pull himself together, and by then Sam had jumped to his own conclusions - which were ones he doubted he could disabuse him of, not based on his behaviour so far.
Damn it, Sam, what’s going on in that head of yours?
The Commodore had known that this Leap was going to be trouble, right from the moment of their arrival at the shelter. This was not an environment he wanted Sam to be in, for several reasons - none of which he could possibly explain to the man himself without trespassing on the reason behind those reasons.
It’s too close, kid.
Too damned close ...
This was an existence that Sam had only brushed against in his own history - a twilight world of alternate lifestyles and minority communities. But living among these people - working with them, coming face to face with the honesty of their relationships - all of that was going to be like sending the man into an unmapped minefield. One step too far, and everything was going to blow up in his face.
Maybe I should let it happen.
Maybe we’d both be better off if he remembered.
There was a small and selfish part of his heart that wanted just that. That wanted his friend to turn and look at him not with the affection of friendship but with the light of love that had been absent from his eyes for so long. But a greater part of him - the part that had helped him live the lie for nearly three years - had no wish to burden his lover with everything that that knowledge would bring. Sam had to be focused to do what he did. Had to be able to subsume himself in the lives of others, to express their feelings without compromising his own.
Speaking of which ...
Al’s eyes narrowed as he watched the interplay between his friend and the shelter’s inmates. Up until now Sam had been projecting the perfect image of an uptight, unsettled teenager, filled with glowering rebellion and brooding angst. But that smile, that look of determination - that was pure Beckett, and no mistake.
Now what’s he up to?
He lifted the handlink and called up Vega’s input on the shelter’s inhabitants. He’d already sought detail on George, Martin and Francis; now he summoned the rest of the list, scrolling down the names and wincing a little as each of them went past with a clearly recorded date of death. Then he blinked, and scrolled back, staring at the name highlighted on the tiny screen with a sense of startled disbelief.
Chelsea Harrington.
Where did I - ?
Chelsea ...
Oh - my - god ...
He raised his eyes, focusing past Sam’s athletic figure to study the dark-skinned man who had caught his lover’s eye. A lean-faced, lean-built man, his short dark hair cropped close to his skull and his body bundled up in a thickly knitted sweater; he carried the weight of his illness well, his eyes bright and defiant within the frame of his gaunt and ravaged face.
A face Al had once seen smiling warmly on the sidelines of college basketball matches; a face that had briefly graced the professional leagues - and the face that still held pride of place in the old albums Sam had saved from his college days.
Chelsea Harrington. Pro basketball player back in ’71 and ’72. Athletic coach at MIT from ’73 through to ’78. The generous soul who’d adopted a gawky, naive farmboy from Indiana and turned him into a graceful, confident athlete; who’d taught him there was more to the world than notes and numbers, and given him the self-surety to face his own truths.
Chelsea.
The first true love of Samwise Beckett’s life ...
Ah - jeezus, the Commodore breathed, half in anger and half in despair. When it rains, it rains ...
His hand clenched reflexively around the handlink, its plastic edges cutting into his palm, and he glanced up, not at the grey-painted ceiling, nor at the vaulted roof of the Imaging Chamber above it, but up - at that undefined point in heaven where he had once been taught to direct his prayers.
You bastard, he accused with inner heat. Why? Why here? Why now? Wasn’t having to face the shelter and the goddamned disease enough?
Why must you ask him to deal with this, too ...?
He got no answer, nor did he expect one; a ripple of laughter drew his attention and he sighed, refocusing himself with an effort. Chelsea had obviously cracked a joke. Sam was chuckling at it, along with all the rest, his eyes shining as he looked down at the man beside him. He might not have remembered all of it -
Spare him that at least ...
- but he had remembered enough to recognise his old associate, enough to bring that soft light to his face, and to write that gentle affection into his smile. He probably wasn’t even aware of his own reaction, but it cut his Observer to the core.
Time was you’d look at me that way ...
All of a sudden it was just too much. Al flipped the handlink up and punched himself out of the situation, stepping back through the Imaging Chamber door as it opened behind him. It shut with its usual efficient shush, layering several inches of steel between him and the impact of twelve years ago.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it," he growled, thumping his frustration into the metal with a clenched fist. It didn’t help that Sam had seen him go. Had watched him go, with a sideways glance that had registered his departure with a note of thank god for that ...
"Something w-wrong, Commodore?" Gushie’s voice enquired from behind him. The Project Observer paused to take one long, careful breath before he turned round.
"Wrong?" he questioned with a note of bitter sarcasm. "I have just left our determined Don Quixote standing in the middle of a whole field full of proverbial windmills - and you ask if there’s anything wrong? The hell there is. Just this whole damned business."
Oh, the chief programmer registered, his face falling into lines of disquiet. He glanced up at where Vega’s main interface sat in a swirl of light and colour, half-opened his mouth to say something - then changed his mind and hurriedly turned his attention back to the clipboard in his hand. Al gave vent to a quiet sigh.
Yeah, I know, Gush. I know. It’s just one of those Leaps, okay?
He stalked down the shallow ramp into the main area of Imaging Control, dropping the handlink into his pocket as he did so. Vega’s interface whirled into immediate motion.
"Doctor Beckett is in no immediate danger, Commodore," s/he remarked softly. "Much of his hostile behaviour is the result of bleedthrough from his host. Isn’t your reaction somewhat - excessive in the circumstances?"
Excessive?
He paused beneath the roll of colours to look up at his partner’s brainchild. "Vega. Sweetness," he murmured, his tones packed with dangerous reasonableness. "You wanna go on functioning at full efficiency?"
"I have every intention of doing so, Commodore." The warm voice sound vaguely puzzled at his question. "Is there some likelihood I will not?"
Al glanced across at Gushie, who prudently kept his head down. "Yeah," he drawled. "’Cause if you ask me another stupid question like that one, I’m gonna end up reprogramming you with a goddamned fire axe."
So saying he spun on his heel and headed for the exit. Vega was silent for a few startled seconds - which proved just long enough for him to make his escape.
I’ll talk to you later, baby. I promise I will ...
It wasn’t Vega’s fault that he couldn’t fully express his turbulent emotions in public; s/he was well aware of the complexity of the situation, and generally kept the inevitable curiosity down to ambiguous leading questions - which would always elicit one set of answers in Imaging Control, and a far more comprehensive explanation when he was safely ensconced behind the locked door of his office. It was just that he wasn’t in the mood to play that game right there and then. Besides - there had been enough trauma and tragedy encountered in the course of Sam’s Leaping to more than excuse his current ill-humour. And there were times when Sam could be so damned stubborn that the rôle of Project Observer had been thoughtfully likened to that of a helpless witness at a road accident.
Gushie didn’t know how right he was, coming up with that one.
There was a distinct sense of foreboding sitting in his stomach right now. A feeling of inevitable catastrophe just waiting to happen ...
"Al? You got a moment?"
He looked up, pulled from his thoughts by the quiet voice. Vernon Beeks had fallen into step beside him as he passed the intersection that led to the Waiting Room. The psychiatrist’s expression was troubled, which was not a good sign.
"I was about to ask you that one," the Commodore admitted wearily. "Your place or mine?"
"Mine," Beeks offered, then allowed himself a twisted smile. "I need a drink. And I know you don’t stock it."
Al threw him a sidelong look. "Wanna bet?" he drawled, half under his breath. "Yeah - okay, Doc. You drown your sorrows, and I’ll trot mine out for your inspection." He sighed, stepping back to wave his company into the waiting elevator car. "You’ll never guess where Sam’s found himself this time ..."
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