Rembrandt injected the blood sample into his body. He threw the vial with the remaining sample onto the floor.
"What are you doing?" Maggie asked.
"Just call me typhoid Remmy." Rembrandt replied.
The other three sliders looked at him in horror. Rembrandt smiled at them, weakly.
"Now look, If I survive this, The Seer, he'll know that the coast is clear. Fix that thing and slide with me. If not... then you have a good life." Rembrandt said, as he hugged Mallory. "You take care."
Rembrandt then hugged Diana. She looked at him solemnly.
"I'm counting on you, alright?" he asked. She nodded in agreement.
Rembrandt then hugged Maggie.
"For family, huh?" Rembrandt asked. Maggie started to sob, and Rembrandt kissed her on the forehead.
Rembrandt hopped into the open vortex. The vortex fluctuated and closed. The three remaining sliders, Maggie Beckett, Mallory and Dr. Diana Davis stood in silence.
"The Seer said death would be immediate." Mallory said.
"For the four of us, yes. But by sending only one of us through, we may have altered that timeline." Diana stated. "Look, we may have just changed the future. He may still be alive."
Maggie wiped the tears from her eyes as she ran to check on the Seer.
"Mr. Lebeau, can you see our friend? Can you see Rembrandt?" Maggie asked, frantically. "Mr. Lebeau!"
"I can't get a pulse." Diana said.
Mrs. Mallory looked at them solemnly.
"He's gone." she said.
"Rembrandt..." Maggie sighed.
"What do we do now?" Mallory asked.
Rembrandt hopped out of the portal on the other side, looking around him, expecting to see a ruined Earth, the one he had left with Quinn and Maggie, but he saw a relatively normal street corner around him. A car sped past him on the road in front of him. Rembrandt ran up to a man standing at the corner.
"Hey you, where are the Kromaggs?" Rembrandt asked.
"Kro-whats?" the man asked.
"Ape creatures, sharp teeth, like to eat eyeballs?" Rembrandt replied.
"Look, man. I don't know what you're on, but I want to try some." the man replied.
Rembrandt walked away from the man and ran into an alleyway. He began to put together his thoughts when he heard another vortex open behind him. He turned around to see two figures emerge from the portal. Rembrandt's eyes widened when he recognized the figures.
"Q-Ball, Farm Boy..." Rembrandt muttered as he backed into the wall.
Quinn looked at him and fished in his pocket for a device. Rembrandt closed his eyes and flinched, expecting to be shot by a laser, but opened his eyes to see Quinn looking over the device.
"Is it him?" Colin asked.
"It's him. Hey Remmy. Welcome back." Quinn said. "We need you to come with us, we have a few more stops to make today."
"You... you were merged with Mallory, and you were unstuck. I'm not going with either of you." Rembrandt said as he turned to run away.
"Rembrandt, everything that happened to you, to us, over the last two years was part of a Kromagg plot to get the coordinates to our Earth for themselves." Quinn said.
"I had the coordinates to my Earth, I was tortured by Kromaggs there for months!" Rembrandt shouted.
"That wasn't your Earth. It was a near duplicate, like that world with the Azure Gate Bridge. I had figured something was fishy when I arrived there and Maggie could breathe." Quinn said. "She couldn't breathe back when we found the coordinates from her world. My double, the one who gave me the solution to the sliding equation and who was helping Rickman, fed the wrong coordinates into Rickman's timer. And when you slid, it was to the wrong Earth."
"Look, Rembrandt. I don't understand the science and logistics of this, but what I do know is that the Kromaggs hijacked the vortex when we disappeared. They had us held captive and tried to extract the coordinates of both Quinn's and my own homeworld from us." Colin said. "We escaped and we've been tracking you, waiting until you were away from the Kromagg pawns."
"They were innocents, and had no idea what was going on, but the Kromaggs orchestrated all that stuff that separated us and everything you've encountered was designed to get you to finally use the timer to return to our true Earth and allow the Kromaggs to finally invade." Quinn said. "But you didn't, we hijacked your vortex to send you here. The Mags can't track you anymore. The world you were about to slide onto wasn't your real Earth anyway."
"Listen, Q-Ball. Lets say for a minute I believe your psycho Kromagg conspiracy story. What next?" Rembrandt asked.
"We've got to get the band back together." Quinn replied as he pointed his timer at the wall and the vortex opened.
"Come on, Rembrandt." Colin said, as he pointed to the portal.
"Fine..." Rembrandt sighed as he reluctantly hopped in, followed by Quinn and Colin.
Rembrandt fell out of the portal onto the ground, and looked up. He saw Maggie, Mallory and Diana looking at him in shock, as they had before he had left them.
"Rembrandt!" Maggie shouted, as she ran over to him.
Colin stepped out of the portal after Rembrandt.
"Colin!" Maggie shouted. "You're not unstuck anymore!"
Quinn emerged from the portal and Maggie jumped back.
"Quinn?" Maggie asked. "But... you're..."
"It's a long story." Quinn said, pulling his device out to scan Mallory and Diana.
"This isn't possible..." Diana started. "You and Mallory were..."
"Merged, I know. It's really a long story." Quinn said.
"They told me that everything that went on since Wade and I slid home was a Kromagg plot." Rembrandt said. "And that we didn't actually slide home."
"So, your world isn't overrun by Kromaggs?" Maggie asked.
"I guess not." Rembrandt replied. "That is if he's telling the truth."
"Maggie, it's me. I was there when Rickman killed Stephen and Arturo. I was there when we slid for months trying to find Wade and Rembrandt. I was there in the bubble universe." Quinn said, looking deep into her eyes.
"I believe him." Maggie said.
"I reiterate what I said before. What now?" Mallory asked.
"We get you guys home." Quinn said, smiling as he activated another portal.
The group walked into the portal and emerged in front of Geiger Applied Research
"We're home?" Mallory asked.
"Yeah. Your jobs are done. Thanks for keeping Maggie and Remmy out of trouble." Quinn replied. "And I'm sorry that the Kromaggs dragged you into this mess."
"I know we already had a tearful goodbye, but..." Diana started.
"We'll miss you." Maggie said.
"So, I'm just one person in here?" Mallory asked.
"You're completely you." Colin replied.
"Good." Mallory said.
"Let's get out of here, we've got one last stop to make before we can start searching for home." Quinn said.
"What's left to do?" Maggie asked.
"Wade!" Quinn replied incredulously.
"Quinn..." Maggie sighed.
"Wade died..." Rembrandt said.
"I told you, Kromagg tricks. Everything since Remmy and Wade slid without us was a Kromagg trick." Quinn said.
"So, Wade's alive?" Rembrandt asked.
"God willing. We don't exactly know what the universe she's in is like." Colin said.
"Let's find out." Quinn said.
The portal opened again and they slid through, landing on a dusty road. The five of them stood up and looked around.
"Wade!" Quinn shouted.
"Don't just shout, there might be Kromaggs around." Rembrandt said.
"Good point." Colin said.
Suddenly there was a rustling in the bushes to the left of them. The sliders stood hesitantly, prepared to fight. Two figures hopped out of the bush, two females in tattered military uniforms holding rifles.
"Who goes there?" one of them asked.
"My name is Quinn Mallory. We mean you no harm, we're looking for our friend, Wade Welles." Quinn replied.
"Come with us." the second woman ordered.
The sliders followed the two women into a small town and were led to the town hall building. The doors were opened and the women motioned for them to enter. They walked into the building to see a military-like command center. A group of women were surrounding a table, one of them looked up at the door, and smiled.
"Quinn!" the woman shouted, as the sliders recognized who it was.
"Wade!" Quinn shouted as he ran to hug her.
They embraced as the other sliders looked on, smiling.
"How did you get here? Last we saw..." Rembrandt started.
"You were hooked up to some machine and died." Maggie finished.
"What are you talking about?" Wade asked. "A few months after being taken to the breeding camp we staged a revolt and managed to escape to this universe, where we've been hiding out for a year."
"So... None of that happened. I'm not a Kromagg pawn, am I?" Maggie asked.
"No." Quinn said. "Rickman wasn't part of the Mag's plans."
"Well, we've got almost the whole crew, and that's good enough for me." Rembrandt said. "I miss the Professor, but what happened to Wade, I blamed myself for it."
"It's okay, Rembrandt. I'm okay, really." Wade said.
"So, what do we do now?" Maggie asked.
"Start searching for home. We have no coordinates, and this timer still times out like the old one, had to glitch it out to evade Kromagg detection. We're back to where we started." Quinn said.
"At least we can all make it home together." Rembrandt said.
"Right." Wade said.
"Time to get out of here." Quinn said.
The End.
(Technically continued in part of Sliders: The Next Generation)