{"id":2104,"date":"2012-10-14T20:20:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T20:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2012-10-14T20:20:26","modified_gmt":"2012-10-14T20:20:26","slug":"fic-a-novel-solution-part-610-qlts-gen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/?p=2104","title":{"rendered":"Fic: A Novel Solution part 6\/10 (QL\/TS, gen)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam had spotted Ellison in the crowd and had almost reached him when Al appeared right in front of him. The Leaper jumped a little in surprise and swore under his breath. “Don’t do<\/em> that!” he hissed.<\/p>\n

“Do what?” Jim demanded, turning to face him. The cold, hard look on his face was not comforting. “What are you doing, Sandburg?”<\/p>\n

“Captain Banks sent me,” Sam explained weakly. “He, uh, wants me to help you focus.” This was with a pointed glance at the hologram.<\/p>\n

“Oh, okay.” Al started to punch at the handlink. “I’ll get Ziggy to ask Blair what you should do.”<\/p>\n

“Captain Banks?” Now’s a hell of a time to pull that one out of your ass, Sandburg, unless you’re trying to make up for lost brownie points.<\/em> The detective’s nostril’s flared. “Fine.”<\/p>\n

You don’t sound like it’s fine,<\/em> Sam thought, but he chose not to speak.<\/p>\n

He didn’t realize that choice only amplified Ellison’s suspicions. Now he was suddenly being quiet without having to be asked? And there’d been that weird static again a moment ago…<\/p>\n

“Ok, Blair says you should tell him to try to isolate sounds. Zeller isn’t going to make this easy on them–”<\/p>\n

Sam repeated the young man’s instructions to Ellison.<\/p>\n

“I know what to do, Chief, all right?” Jim snapped. “I know the drill. You don’t have to quote me chapter and verse. Why don’t you save that for your interviews?”<\/p>\n

Damn. He’s definitely not taking this well.<\/em> Sam sighed. Well, at least he’s calling me…er, Blair…by a nickname. That’s a good sign…I hope.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Sheesh, I’m glad the kid wasn’t here to hear that,” Al muttered.<\/p>\n

Ellison started to wander away, scanning the crowd with his eyes and ears. Sam watched him go with another sigh.<\/p>\n

Up on the stage, a man approached the podium. “Mr. Bartley will be out momentarily. He’s finishing a phone call to the attorney general.”<\/p>\n

The Leaper continued watching Jim, who had reached up to remove the radio ear-piece. He paused, turning his head as if reacting to a sound, then pushed further into the crowd.<\/p>\n

“Aw, hell!” Al swore as they suddenly noticed a group of reporters converging on the detective. “Sam, there’s a ninety-six percent chance they won’t catch Zeller if those reporters–”<\/p>\n

The Leaper didn’t wait to hear any more. He started barreling through the crowd. When he reached the enclave surrounding Jim, he started pulling the reporters away.<\/p>\n

It was too late. A shot rang through the air and a glance up at Bartley’s window revealed the man tumbling out of his chair.<\/p>\n

Sam swore loudly. “Damn it, Al, why didn’t you warn me sooner?!”<\/p>\n

“Jack’s been shot!” a voice shouted. “Get a paramedic in here!”<\/p>\n

With an odd look in the Leaper’s direction, Jim bounded up onto the platform and began to search the crowd once more with his eyes.<\/p>\n

Sam swore again.<\/p>\n

-8-<\/p>\n

Waiting Room
\nBack at the Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Hey, how’re you doing?” Al asked gently as he entered the room.<\/p>\n

Blair set down the book he’d been reading and ran one hand through his dark curls. “I don’t know. Between this…swiss-cheese thing you told me about and worrying about Jim…” He lifted disturbed eyes to the Admiral. “Are you sure Sam can fix this?”<\/p>\n

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Al replied with quiet confidence. “Sam’s been doing this for a pretty long time.”<\/p>\n

“Maybe it would be better if he didn’t,” Blair confessed. “I mean, man, if I screwed up this badly, maybe Jim would be better off without me.”<\/p>\n

“Hey, Kid, you’re not the one that screwed up. And I’ll tell you something. Ziggy doesn’t even think Sam’s there to straighten out this business with your dissertation. He thinks you did a good enough job of that on your own.”<\/p>\n

“Really? Then why is he there?”<\/p>\n

“He’s there because this guy Zeller is gonna take a shot at your Captain and this Inspector Connor.”<\/p>\n

Blair turned white and Al held up a comforting hand. “Don’t worry–forewarned is forearmed, remember?”<\/p>\n

The kid nodded and Al studied him. “Ellison really means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”<\/p>\n

Blair nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I know he’s not old enough to be my father, but he’s the closest thing I have. Or more like a big brother, I guess.”<\/p>\n

The Observer nodded, thinking of the absent genius who’d always been like a younger brother or a son to him. I hear you, Kid.<\/em> “Your dad wasn’t around much?”<\/p>\n

“Hell, I don’t even know who he is,” Blair admitted. “All Naomi ever said was that there was a list of candidates. Let’s just say I met one of them…and I sure hope it’s not him.”<\/p>\n

Damn. No wonder the kid’s so devastated by this.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I know where you’re coming from,” he sympathized. “I grew up in an orphanage.”<\/p>\n

“You did?”<\/p>\n

“Yeah. My mom ran off with an encyclopedia salesman when I was just a kid. My sister had Down’s Syndrome and Dad couldn’t take care of us, so he placed us in a home. A few years later, he died of cancer.”<\/p>\n

“What happened to your sister?” Blair asked gently.<\/p>\n

“She was sent to a mental hospital. She died there of pneumonia when she was sixteen.”<\/p>\n

“Man.”<\/p>\n

“That’s why I went into the Naval Academy as soon as I turned eighteen. That was my family.”<\/p>\n

Blair nodded. “Sounds kind of like Jim. His dad went a little overboard on the sibling rivalry thing–he pitted his sons against each other so much that it took them until a couple of years ago to have any sort of a relationship. Plus, Jim’s dad made fun of him because of his senses…I guess Jim was looking for a better family than the one he had.”<\/p>\n

“Most of us do, Kid,” Al agreed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam had spotted Ellison in the crowd and had almost reached him when Al appeared right in front of him. The Leaper jumped a little in surprise and swore under his breath. “Don’t do that!” he hissed. “Do what?” Jim … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[99,159,53,713,66],"tags":[715,276,153,682,716,124,278,193,691,112,434,717,719,268,714,275,718,429,687,688],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2105,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions\/2105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}