Chapter One

    "Welcome to the future, Doctor Beckett," he heard a computerized female 
voice say.
    Sam stirred awake. The tropical island was all a dream. A very real dream 
but a dream none the less.
    He found that his bed and the underwear he was sleeping in were all wet. 
"I think this guy's waterbed sprung a leak."
    "It's not a water bed, doctor," Ziggy stated.
    Sam got instantly disgusted. "That's it! I'm taking a shower!" He walked 
through the young man's living quarters at the Project. Although he was 
revolted by what he noticed as he woke up, he was glad that he was back at 
Project Quantum Leap. 
    He walked into the bathroom, and turned on the hot water. When he 
finished his shower, he went out of the bathroom and started to get dressed. 
He opened the door to the closet. He couldn't believe his eyes. There seemed 
to be a neon rainbow that landed in the closet at some point in time. 
Clothing of all sorts of colors -- bright reds, neon orange, lemon yellow, 
lime green, blazing blues. The clothes reminded him of the outlandish outfits 
his best friend wore.
    The Imaging Chamber door opened, and Tina and Al stepped out. He could 
never get used to Al being in his twenties and still working for the Project. 
Tina was looking right at him, so he quickly wrapped a neon dark pink robe 
around him. Al was looking at the door, his head turned behind him, as the 
door closed.
    "I'll never get used to that," the twenty-eight year old male said 
honestly. He walked over to the bed, and stared at the satin sheets.
    "Sam, I don't know how to tell you this," Tina started. "But, you just 
leaped into the future. The year is October 2015, about a year from the 
Project's time."
    "Doctor Sam, why is your bed wet?" Al asked. Then, it dawned on him. Al 
was grinning lustfully.  "You had a dream, didn't you?"
    Sam blushed. &That's what I must have leaped into, a dream& Sam thought. 
It was not the first time that he leaped in when the person was dreaming, but 
he could not remember who it was the last time, but remembered that again it 
was a dream about a sexy looking woman. "I guess so," he muttered.
    "You old dog, you," Al smiled. He took a drag from his cigarette. "I 
thought people your age didn't have a sex drive anymore."
    Sam remembered how Al always was lusting after and having escapades with 
women. That is how Sam remembered Al, not as the twenty-something standing 
before him but as a guy around the same age Tina claimed Sam to be.
    Sam was still blushing. &Why does this kid have to help me? & he 
wondered. He didn't know how long he could take dealing with the young man.
    Al walked over to the full-length mirror, adjusting his neon Nike T-shirt 
while pulling down on the inseam of his jeans. "I see myself!" He wondered 
out loud. He had no idea how this could happen. Tina had told him that nobody 
could see or hear a hologram except for Sam, but there was his reflection 
looking back at him. "I see myself!" he announced to the two other people in 
the room.
    "Al, that can't be scientifically possible," Tina said. 
Then, all of them noticed it. Al's reflection was wearing a robe.
"Oh, boy!" Sam said. Then he turned to Al. "I'm you!"