Chapter Four

    When Sam came out of the Chamber, he walked over to Ms. 
Martinez-Gooshman.
    "Yah, Al," she answered. "Stop breathing down my neck."
    "Sorry." Sam took a step backwards. "I was wondering, if you could fix 
this thing and get Doctor Beckett back home."
    "You know we're all working on it, Mr. Calavicci," she answered firmly.
    "Do you think --?"
    "No, Al, I will not go out with you. You're half my age, and I knew you 
since you were sixteen and you're hardly out of your teens now." She guessed 
that's what the boy really wanted to ask her. She decided to give him the 
cold shoulder for yet another time. "Let's keep our relationship strictly 
professional."
    "No, can I help bring him home?"
    "Sure." She was relieved that was all that he wanted. "But, aren't you 
already doing that?"
    "But, helping Doctor Beckett on his Leaps isn't enough, Tina," Sam 
answered. "I think I really have the brains this time to bring him home for 
good."
    "You know I don't doubt you, kiddo," she smiled. "I'll finally give you a 
chance to prove yourself. You know where the Project's Drawing Room is, don't 
you?"
    Sam's photographic memory did not fail him. He remembered precisely where 
the Drawing Room was, since he spent many days there in the early days of the 
Project. "Yes, I think I do," Sam answered.
    "Good," she answered. 
    Kelly came into the Control Room. "That pig!" Kelly was disgusted at 
whatever had just happened to her. "That's the last time Verbena sends me 
into the Waiting Room when a member of the opposite sex is our Guest."
    "What happened?"
    "That guy Sam just leaped into kept making sexual comments to me and 
pinching my ass."
    "That jerk," Tina said. She remembered the many men who treated her like 
a sexual object back when she was Kelly's age, but those days were long over.
    Sam smiled. Although he would never do anything like what Bingo's friend 
would do, he had to admit Kelly was pretty sexy looking. Long legs. Nicely 
shaped breasts. She looked like a Sports Illustrated pinup girl from the 
calendar in Al's room.
    "What are you smiling at, Albert?"
    Sam put his hand up to his mouth. "Nothing," Sam lied. "Absolutely 
nothing."
    Kelly just remembered that she was supposed to go to the cantina with her 
adopted old brother, but after his smile she dreaded it. "Al, are you ready 
for lunch?"