When a captain walks down the corridors and stands on the bridge of
his own ship, he feels a sense of empowerment, as if drawing energy from
the ship around him, and the air surrounding his body seems electrified
by the power emanating from within. Over the years, Al had come to think
of the Quantum Leap Building as his own little ship, stationary in the
hot desert of New Mexico. The building was his pride and joy; after all,
he and Sam had spent a lot of time raising funds for it. Al was there for
its birth in 1995, and here now in 2020, the Project was still going strong.
But as he exited the imaging chamber, he didn't pay much attention to the
empowerment and self-satisfaction he had. Tina had sounded disturbed by
the information she had found, and Al wasn't going to kid himself thinking
that it was nothing. After twenty-five years of field experience, Tina
knew true danger when she saw it.
Briskly walking into the main area, Al placed his hand link on Tina's
work console so she could download all the information. While it gave all
the detail, Tina gave Al the summery.
"I factored in Agents Mulder and Scully into the equation, and I found
something horrible. And then Ziggy spurted out that the odds of Sam helping
with the investigation went down to thirty percent."
Al placed his arms on the console and looked relaxingly into Tina's
eyes. He knew that Tina would draw the calmness from him and use it to
calm herself. "Are you saying Sam has a new mission?"
Tina's head bobbed, and a "click" was heard. Tina removed the control
mouse from her console and handed it to Al, and when he read the information,
his face went white, and he dropped his cigar. Rather than pick it up,
he immediately went back into the imaging chamber, where he saw Sam talking
with Mulder and Scully, and Robert was just standing there like he had
all the time in the world.
"Sam," he said. Sam and the two agents looked up at him. "Ziggy has
some new information. The odds of you helping out with the investigation
just dropped dramatically."
Sam turned around in his seat. "Then why am I here?"
Al looked at Robert, and just for a second, he thought he saw humor
in his eyes. The bastard knew why Sam was here, and he didn't say anything.
Al cleared his throat and looked back at Sam and said, in a quiet tone,
"Tina ran some scenarios involving our little friends there." He pointed
to Mulder and Scully. "In two days, Mulder and Scully are found in some
deep woods in D.C. here...dead. Their bodies were sliced up into large
pieces, and the authorities never found out what happened to them."
"Does it have something to do with Barry Hayes?"
"I don't know, but Hayes is never seen again. Ziggy says there is a
99.8 percent chance that you're here to keep Mulder and Scully alive."
Scully folded her arms across her waist. "That is ridiculous. I have
never heard of such... faulty information in all my life."
"Oh yeah?" Mulder retorted. "Scully, every time someone say that you
or me or both of us are going to die, we either narrowly escape it or we
actually do it. I mean, just look at you with your cancer, and then following
that guy that tried to take pictures of Death. Can you really afford to
dismiss what the rear admiral has to say?"
Scully squared off against her partner. "There is no scientific evidence
to prove what he is saying."
"There never is; that's why they're called X-Files."
Scully stood up, and Mulder and Sam joined her. "You're not pulling
me into another one of your schemes, Mulder. I am going to contact Skinner
and tell him that we lost Hayes, we have a suspect in jail, and then I'm
going home."
"There's a flaw," Mulder said. Scully looked at him expectantly, so
he continued. "In each robbery, Hayes worked alone. We have no proof that
Sam Beckett or his friends acted as a corroborator or conspirator, so we
have no grounds to hold him."
"Even so--" Scully began, but stopped when her cell phone rang. She
pulled it out of her jacket and activated it. "Scully," she said, and listened
to the person on the other end. She soon hung up and turned to Mulder.
"That was Skinner. That clay that came off of Hayes' shoe we found while
tracking him that second time is indigenous to a heavily wooded area in
D.C."
Al's face turned white again. "Oh Sam," he said. "It's starting."
Scully looked irritated at him and said, "It's not starting." She turned
back to her partner. "Skinner has ordered us to check the area out. The
woods cover many acres, but the clay is only deposited near the center
of it. And it turns out that the wooded area is owned by a Mr. Gregory
Klutz, so while you go off on your hunt, I'll interview Mr. Klutz."
Mulder nodded. "All right." He looked over at the other people in the
room. Scully immediately knew what was running through his mind and she
wanted to put an end to it.
"Absolutely not; we are not taking them with us."
"Why not?" he asked. "They haven't done anything wrong, and I could
use a few more people on the search team."
"They aren't FBI agents."
Mulder placed his hands on Scully's shoulders and said gently, "Do you
remember my gut feeling? I'm working with it." He turned to the other people.
"Let's go," he said, and everyone filed out of the door.
