Sliders: Home Again
By Black Scarab
Author's Note: This story is not related to the Sliders: The Next Generation story in any way. In fact, this story takes place in a version of Sliders where everything up to The Exodus occurred, but everything after occurred differently, with the entire team remaining together for the entire series. I wanted to make my version of Sliders, where the show never became garbage, and this is my idea of a proper finale. Not perfect, but better than The Seer, at least.
A vortex opened up on a quiet street and shuddered. Suddenly, wind began to rush as a swirling vortex appeared over the sidewalk. Four figures tumbled out of the vortex and landed onto the lawn of one of the houses. The first figure, Quinn Mallory, a man in his early forties, stood up and looked around. He pulled a small device out of his pocket, resembling some sort of hybrid of a television remote and an old cell phone.
"Everyone all right?" he asked.
"All right? What does all right mean, Q-Ball? We're as good as we can be after being almost run down by self-driving cars!" Rembrandt Brown, a black man in his early sixties shouted as he stood up and brushed himself off.
"Mr. Brown, we're just lucky that we made it out of there. Is the timer okay?" Professor Arturo, an older Englishman, in his seventies said as he stood up, helping the last figure, Wade Welles, a woman around the same age as the younger man's, with short brown hair.
"What happened back there?" Wade asked.
"I'm not sure. The Professor tossed me the timer, and when I activated it, there was some sort of interference. It opened a lot more erratically than usual." Quinn replied. "The coordinates are... oh my god."
"What is it, Quinn?" Wade asked. Professor Arturo took the timer from Quinn.
"The coordinates are... a match. We're home." Professor Arturo said. "After all these years."
"Are you sure?" Rembrandt asked.
"Yeah." Quinn said. He looked around and smiled. "In fact, here's the final clincher."
He strolled across the street to a house very familiar to the foursome. Quinn grabbed hold of the front gate and prepared to push it open, when something caught his eye. He stepped back.
"What's wrong?" Wade asked.
"That's my car." Quinn replied, pointing to a silver Volkswagen parked at the curb. "It's been twenty years... Even if my mom did keep it that long, it looks like it did the day we slid..."
The door to Quinn's house began to open and Quinn motioned for everyone to hide behind the fence. They ducked down and Quinn peered over the fence to see himself walking down the steps of his house. The younger Quinn rushed to his car, opening the gate, which squeaked, and pulled away. Quinn put his face in his hands.
"That was... you." Wade said.
"No doubt on your way to my class, if my watch is correct." Professor Arturo said.
"So we've landed on another world like the one where we crashed your father's funeral?" Rembrandt asked.
"No. The coordinates are correct. We are home... but it's the wrong time." Quinn said.
"This should be impossible. The timer works laterally, across different dimensions, not time periods." Professor Arturo said.
"But the evidence is hard to dismiss." Quinn said. "That was me. And that's what I was wearing the day before we slid. Maybe there was some temporal disturbance in the vortex, or we crashed through someone's experiment. Whatever it was, it brought us to Earth Prime on September 26th, 1994."
"So we finally get home, and we literally got home. The home that we left." Wade said.
"So, what do we do?" Rembrandt asked.
None of them had an answer. They stood in silence for a few minutes as Quinn contemplated the timer.
"We have... about a day and some change to figure it out. I'm not exactly sure, but I'm willing to bet our slide out coincides with our original slide. The ultimate irony." Quinn said.
"I suppose, Mr. Mallory, that we have two choices. We can either prevent our initial slide, or pick up where we left off." Professor Arturo said.
"Where we left off?" Rembrandt asked.
"If this truly is the day before we initially slid, or rather we slid and you were dragged in, we can either have Quinn's counterpart in this time period not slide, therefore negating the timeline in which we slid, where we will all then exist in two decades on Earth Prime, or we can let them slide, and take their places, re-living through the next two decades." Professor Arturo said.
"Re-living the last twenty years doesn't sound too bad... It's a shame I don't know any baseball scores from our Earth to use them for my benefit." Rembrandt laughed.
"We can't stay here. I say we go to the Dominion to talk it over. We don't want to be seen in the streets. We already know that Quinn's going to have one case of mistaken identity this week, he doesn't need another." Wade said.
"That's right, your impudent double is no doubt going to interrupt my class during your first slide tomorrow morning." Professor Arturo said.
"Let's go." Quinn said, looking forlornly at the house as they walked away.
Quinn sat, looking out the window at the Dominion Hotel, as Rembrandt and Arturo, dressed in sunglasses and hats walked into the hotel room.
"How did it go?" Wade asked, coming out of the bathroom.
"It went well. We are indeed where we thought we were. Our homeworld on September 26th, 1994. The day before our first slide. When we went by Doppler Electronics, we saw you inside, Ms. Welles." Professor Arturo started.
"I remember today. It's when Hurley goes ballistic on me for not selling those crappy MX-480's." Wade said.
"And I cased my old apartment. I was in there getting ready for my big comeback at Candlestick. I can't believe I ever thought that suit looked good." Rembrandt chuckled.
"I didn't go near the campus, for fear of running into myself or your counterpart, Mr. Mallory." Professor Arturo said. "But it stands to reason that my class is letting out right about now, right after my U-4 lecture."
"That means that I'm on my way to Doppler." Quinn said.
"Have we arrived at a decision?" Professor Arturo asked.
"I want to talk to myself. Give him some advice, give us more control over our sliding." Quinn said. "Maybe delay it until he learns what he's doing."
"Quinn! But what about all the people we've helped in sliding? Those freedom fighters on the world where Russia ruled America, or the Q-Virus world, those were the earliest ones we had, and we have so many other stories, like the prohibition world, or the one that outlawed the Constitution!" Wade said. "We've made a difference, we can't just negate that!"
"You're right, but think about it, I was reckless, we did stupid things that got people hurt or killed. Preventing that could be good as well." Quinn said.
"I wouldn't mind it if the slide happened a few days later... You guys are my friends and I love all of you but... I always wonder what my life would be like if I made it to the game that night... tomorrow night." Rembrandt said.
"I agree with Ms. Welles. Any changes to the established timeline could prove catastrophic." Professor Arturo said.
"Until we know more, we should stay here." Quinn said. "Not get involved until we're sure."
"Come on guys! We're being given a second chance, a chance to do things right. Why not take it?" Rembrandt asked.
The group silently contemplated the Cryin Man's idea. Quinn sat down on the bed and held the timer in front of him, staring at it. Rembrandt stared out the window at San Francisco, as Wade and Arturo silently reflected.
Within Rembrandt's mind, memories flashed, almost taking his double's place on the world where he was a superstar, aiding the Professor in his mayoral race, helping that jaded lawyer on the world where Wade's double had drowned Quinn's double, and countless other adventures where he made a difference. A much bigger difference than just revitalizing his career.
"Who am I kidding?" Rembrandt asked. "I can't lose you guys. I got along fine after you shanghaied me, it's better to have slid and stopped, than to never have slid at all."
"That's good to hear, Remmy." Wade said, hugging him.
"Just leaves you, Q-Ball." Rembrandt said. "What's it gonna be?"
Quinn stared at the timer again, lost in thought.
The next morning, Quinn stood outside the gate to his house. He looked around tentatively, before opening the gate. It squeaked as it moved, and Quinn quickly rushed to the side of the house, kneeling down and peeking into the basement window.
Inside, was the younger Quinn, finishing making adjustments to the timer, before standing up and walking across the room to a stack of blank VHS tapes. He picked one out at random, before popping it into the camera, and setting it up on the tripod. He stopped and took a deep breath, looking around the room.
Outside, Quinn's mind contemplated the timer inside the basement, the original one, sitting on a table. He thought of all the chaos and loss that the group had endured, that he had endured, during those twenty years. Almost getting killed week after week, by the mafia, the Kromaggs, Logan St. Clair, not knowing if the Professor they're with is even actually the right one? Knowing that his mother, their families, all believe them dead. All of that could be erased, all the pain, loss, sorrow, could be wiped out in an instant. All he had to do was knock on the window and lend his past self some advice.
Quinn looked at his younger self. So innocent, unmarred by the two decades of sliding. Quinn remembered saving Michelle from Sid and settling her on a better world, getting Diana and David a world where they could live their life in peace, giving Gillian a new lease on life and helping a version of his father, helping Jamie, Daelin and saving one of his doubles from making a mistake that he still regrets today. Quinn knew that for all the bad parts, everything he wished he could erase, it was outweighed by all the good that they had done. All the good that came from his failed attempt at anti-gravity.
Quinn stood up and smiled, before rushing out of the yard as lights flashed and papers flew around the basement inside.
"Two minutes until the initial slide. We've agreed not to interfere in the events preceding the slide, but the question still stands, do we stay and face the consequences of being stuck out of time, or do we slide out, and potentially end up spending another twenty years aimlessly roaming the multiverse?" Professor Arturo asked as he laid the timer on the table.
"How would we even explain it if we did stay? I'm sure that every government agency that exists will want to know how we aged twenty years in a matter of minutes." Wade questioned.
"If we hide out here for the night, we can go back home and claim that the vortex caused some sort of rapid aging effect... or we can give them the actual explanation, that we spent twenty years sliding only to return to the exact moment we left." Quinn said.
"I don't think even I'd buy either of those explanations." Rembrandt sighed.
"Regardless, I believe it unwise to waste the good fortune we got landing back here. All those close calls, with not being sure and only having seconds to decide..." Professor Arturo started.
"Losing twenty years doesn't seem to be a bad trade-off." Quinn finished.
Rembrandt picked up the timer off the table and held it in front of him, watching the countdown. The red numbers ticked down, with less than ten seconds remaining in the countdown. The other three crowded around Rembrandt as the timer hit zero.
In a San Francisco basement... three people entered a vortex, before it went out of control and emerged onto the street outside the house and swallowed up a red Cadillac.
In a San Francisco hotel room, Quinn Mallory took the timer and slid it into his jacket pocket as his three lifelong friends exited the room, secure in their decision.
The End
As the sliders walked out of the hotel lobby and onto the street, Rembrandt turned to the others.
"What do we do now?" he asked.