DISCLAIMER: This story is based upon the series, Charmed, that was created by Constance M. Burge. All Charmed characters are the property of Spelling Productions. This story was inspired by the Classic Doctor Who serial Inferno.
THE PLACE: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
THE TIME: MAY 2, 2011
"Rex, are you sure about this?" Hannah Webster asked as she and Rex Buckland stood in an alley that was littered with trash and graffiti lining the walls of the surrounding buildings.
"Positive." Rex replied as he held up the Time Key. "The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 was a significant historical event in this city. I've always wanted to witness it. Now, thanks to Tempus's little toy here, we can."
"Yeah, but I just don't want to get killed in that quake! Don't forget, Rex, we're not immortal anymore."
"Yes, Hannah, but we have our powers to protect us. Trust me, we'll be safe." Rex operated the Time Key and soon a vortex appeared in front of the two former Warlocks.
At that same time, in space, a massive magnetic wave, coming from sunspot activity, hit the Earth. For the most part, it had no effect, except for minor problems with satellites in orbit. That, and one other...
"Come, Hannah, 1906 awaits." Rex said as the two of them stepped into the vortex. Right at that point, the vortex began to pulse and flicker. What the... was all the time Rex had to think before a bright light consumed his vision and everything went black.
ELSEWHERE
Very slowly, consciousness flowed back into Rex and he sat up. He quickly noticed Hannah lying beside him. "Hannah, wake up! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Hannah replied as she opened her eyes and sat up. "What hit us?"
"I don't know. It seems something went wrong with the Time Key."
"That's for sure. Rex, look, we didn't go anywhere, this is the same alley!"
"Yes, it appears to be." Rex muttered as he looked around. Indeed, the alley seemed to be the same, yet different. "Hannah, do you notice anything?"
"What?"
"This alley looks a lot cleaner than it did a few moments ago, and all the graffiti has disappeared."
"You're right." Hannah said. Indeed the alley seemed to have been tidied up. "What does it mean?"
"I don't know. Perhaps we better get home."
"Right behind you, Rex." The former Warlocks made their way to the mouth of the alley and then stopped short. On the wall in front of them was a poster of a cruel looking man with a beaked nose and wire rim glasses. Below the picture of the man was the words. UNITY IS STRENGTH!
"What the hell?" Rex asked. "Unity is strength!?"
"Rex, that wasn't there when we arrived in this alley, I'm sure of it!" Hannah said. "Where did it come from?"
"I don't know, Hannah, but I think a recce is called for. Let's go." Rex and Hannah stepped out of the alley, into the street and looked around. Traffic and pedestrians could be seen. It looked normal, but at the same time, it didn't.
"Well, this proves we didn't move in time, Rex. Everything seems to be the same."
"Not quite, Hannah, look." Rex said and pointed. "Since when did San Francisco have so many security cameras." Indeed, there seemed to be cameras everywhere, mounted at strategic locations. Enough to monitor the blocks around them. Also, posters similar to the one Rex and Hannah had seen in the alley seemed to be everywhere. This reminds me of George Orwell's novel, 1984. Rex thought.
"I don't like this, Rex."
"Me neither, Hannah, let's keep looking." The two of them cautiously made their way down the street, but soon stopped short. In front of them was a flag pole with a flag on in. However, instead of the familiar Stars And Stripes, there was a different flag, one that depicted three arrows emerging from a round hub.
"Rex, what's going on? What's happened to the city!?"
"I think the question you should be asking, Hannah, is not what's happened to San Francisco, but rather what has happened to us!"
Suddenly, a new voice sounded from behind them. "You two! Stay where you are and raise your hands!" Rex and Hannah turned around and found themselves confronted by two men, wearing gleaming black uniforms. Each wore an armband on their right arms, depicting the same three arrows emerging from the hub that was on the flag. Both were armed with semi-automatic rifles that gleamed in the sun.
These men look like Nazi storm troopers. Rex thought as he and Hannah raised their hands. "Is there a problem, gentlemen?"
"You've entered a Red Zone!" the first man replied.
"What's a Red Zone?" Hannah asked.
"Don't ask stupid questions! Hold out your right hands at once." the first man commanded and both he and the second man raised their rifles to cover Rex and Hannah. "I won't ask again!"
"We better do as he says, Rex." Hannah said. The two former Warlocks held out their right hands and watched as the second man ran some kind of scanner over them. What is this all about? Hannah wondered.
"Sir, they're not micro-chipped!" the second man said after a moment.
"What? Are you sure?" the first man asked.
"Positive. They must have removed them somehow. Whoever did it was good, there's not even a scar."
"Micro-chipped, what are you..." Rex got no further as the first man viciously punched him in the solar plexus. Rex slumped to the ground as the wind was knocked out of him.
"Rex!" Hannah said and tried to go to his aid. However, she quickly found a rifle in her face.
"Don't even try it, you stinking traitor!" the second man said with menace. "I'll shoot you both where you stand!"
"Look I don't know what you're talking about? We never had any micro-chips in our hands." Hannah protested.
"All Citizens of the Regime are micro-chipped at birth. It's compulsory."
"We are not citizens of this "Regime" of yours." the now recovered Rex said as he got to his feet.
"That is obvious." the first man said. "Which makes you two either spies or traitors!"
"Shall we shoot them?" the second man asked.
"No, we'll take them in. Section Leader Matthews will want to question them." the first man replied and gestured his rifle at Rex and Hannah. "Move, both of you. Either of you make a funny move and I'll fill you full of holes!"
"We better go along with this, Hannah." Rex said slowly. At least until I get a lay of the land here. he added in his mind.
After having been bundled into an official looking car, Rex and Hannah were driven to a familiar building. "Rex, it's the police station, where Inspector Morris works." Hannah whispered.
"Yes, but at the same time, no." Rex whispered back. He saw that the building now had a more militaristic look. "I think the police here do much more than serve the public."
"You two, out!" the first man said as he opened the car door. "Move!"
Rex and Hannah got out of the car and were marched through the station. All around them, they saw men in the same black uniforms as their captors, moving about.
"Wait here." the first man said, once they had reached an office door. He knocked and went inside. A few moments later, he came back out. "The Section Leader will see you now!"
Maybe we'll get to the bottom of all this. Hannah through as she and Rex were shoved into the office. Astonishment then came to Hannah's face at the woman sitting in the desk in front of them. The woman was none other than Paige Matthews. "Paige, thank God!" Hannah said with relief in her voice. "What the hell is..."
"Silence!" Paige shouted. "You will address me by my proper rank!"
"Rank? Look, Paige, a joke's a joke, but..."
"I am Section Leader Matthews to you." Paige said. Behind Rex and Hannah, the black uniformed men raised their rifles menacingly.
"Sorry, Section Leader, but I think I may know what is happening here." Rex said suddenly. "My name is Rex Buckland, and this is Hannah Webster."
"Nice to meet you." Paige replied sarcastically. "Perhaps now you can tell me where you came from? You have no micro-chips, so neither of you are Citizens of the Regime, or of our ally states. So, where do you come from?"
"Well, this may be hard for you to believe, Section Leader." Rex said.
"Try me."
"Very well, Hannah and I actually come from San Francisco, just not your San Francisco."
"And just where is "your" San Francisco?" Paige asked, a cruel smile coming across her face.
"It's in a parallel space/time continuum." Rex replied.
"A what!?"
"Hannah and I come from another space/time continuum, one that runs parallel to this one."
"Surely you can do better than that." Paige said dismissively. "It is more likely that you came from an enemy country. The Australian Free State comes to mind here, they've been a thorn in our sides for decades now. Did they send you?"
"Listen, just listen." Rex said. "Your name is Paige Matthews, right?"
"I am Section Leader Paige Matthews, yes."
"And your adoptive parents died in a car crash in 1994."
"How do you know that?" Paige asked. "Have you been compiling a dossier on me?"
"No, in the world we come from, there is also a Paige Matthews." Hannah said. "And her adoptive parents died that way."
"Obviously the same thing happened here." Rex said. "So many similarities, yet so many differences."
"Enough of this nonsense!" Paige said.
"One more thing, what about your real family?" Rex asked.
"My real family were traitors to the Regime." Paige said. "They got what they deserved."
"You mean..." Hannah began.
"Executed! All of them." Paige said. "It was just a pity I was too young to watch it. Now, for the last time, who sent you two here!?"
"We've told you the truth." Rex said. "It's not our fault you're too narrow minded to accept it."
"Very well, perhaps some time in a one of our cells will give you two time to consider if you want to co-operate." Paige said. "Lock them up!"
Soon after, Rex and Hannah found themselves in a jail cell. "The comforts of this establishment overwhelm me!" Rex said sarcastically to the departing guards.
"Rex, what is going on? Where ARE we?" Hannah asked. "What was all that talk of parallel continuum worlds?"
"Well, Hannah, it was the Time Key that did this." Rex replied. "Normally it moves us backward or forward in time. However, this time it malfunctioned and slipped us sideways in time instead, into an adjacent continuum. A parallel universe, if you will."
"I think I get it." Hannah said. "It's like that episode of Star Trek, where Spock had a beard."
"Yes, that's it exactly, Hannah. We're now in a world that is the same, yet different from the one we know. Obviously history unfolded very different here. The United States is a totalitarian dictatorship, if it's even called that in this world."
"And Paige..."
"Is not the Paige we know, Hannah, but her counterpart of this world. She's grown up in this so-called "Regime" and no doubt has been listening to propaganda her whole life."
"If the Time Key got us here, could it get us back home?" Hannah asked.
"Perhaps it could." Rex said reaching into his pocket. "All we have to... Oh dear!"
"What is it?"
"The Time Key is not in my pocket. I must have dropped it back in that alley when we got here. We have to find it, Hannah, or we'll be spending the rest of our lives here!"
Section Leader Paige Matthews had been catching up on some paperwork in her office, when Sutton, one of her subordinates, came in and crashed to attention in front of her. "What is it, Sutton?" Paige asked.
"Begging the Section Leader's pardon, but I've just heard back from Central Records in regards to our two new prisoners."
"And?"
"And nothing, it's like they don't exist." Sutton said, worry on his face. "There are no individuals named Rex Buckland and Hannah Webster, nor anyone matching their descriptions, in the database. They are not Citizens of the Regime, rebels, or enemy spies. It's like they're no one at all!"
"What of our ally states? Have you heard anything from them?"
"Yes, Section Leader, they tell me the same thing. Nothing about these two in their databases either."
"Nonsense!" Paige said, slamming a fist down on her desk. "These two are here, they HAD to come from somewhere! I think it's time for another word with them."
Rex had been about to translocate himself and Hannah out, when the door to the cell block flew open and Paige marched in, accompanied by two guards. "You two are giving us a great deal of trouble!" Paige snapped to Rex and Hannah once she reached their cell.
"I'm delighted to hear that." Rex snapped back. "What is it, now?"
"I want to know where you two came from."
"We've been through all that, Section Leader."
"We haven't even begun!" Paige yelled. "Believe me, we HAVE ways of making people talk. I'd rather not use them, but if you give me no choice, I will."
"We can't give you information that doesn't exist. Why can't you understand that." Hannah said. "Rex and I have told you the truth about our origins."
"I CAN'T ACCEPT THAT, IT MAKES NO LOGICAL SENSE!" Paige screamed.
"No need to yell." Rex said. "However, Hannah is right. We have no information to give you."
Paige stood there for a moment, then seemed to calm down. Turning to the guards, she said. "Wait outside." The guards obeyed without question. "Perhaps now we can have a civilized conversation."
"Ah, turning on the charm. You sure know the Secret Police handbook." Rex said.
"I just want to give you a chance to live. Give me the information I want, tell me who sent you, and I can arrange for a lighter sentence. Ten years in a forced labour camp."
"Sounds delightful." Hannah said with sarcasm.
"I'll have you know, Section Leader, that your counterpart in our world is a kind and intelligent woman." Rex said.
"This other Paige Matthews you mentioned, the one that looks like me." Paige said.
"Not looks like you, she IS you, only a different version of you."
"What does she do, this other Paige."
"She's a Social Worker." Hannah said.
"Yet I'm a Security Officer." Paige replied.
"Only because the circumstances you grew up in were very different from hers." Rex said. "She is also happily married. Are you?"
"The Regime is all the family I need."
"I'll take that as a no." Rex said.
"And what do you do in this other world of yours, Mr. Buckland?" Paige asked.
"I'm a professor at Stanford. Is there a Stanford here?"
"There was, but it was shut down by the Regime decades ago, all the universities were."
"Why?" Rex asked.
"Because they were hotbeds of sedition. All Academia is now strictly regulated by the Regime."
"I'm not surprised." Hannah said grimly.
"You know, part of me wants to believe you two." Paige said. "Your conviction in this story of yours is amazing. I've never seen anything like it.."
"That's because it's true." Hannah said.
"I'm sorry, but I just can't believe it." Paige said, shaking her head.
"Well then, Pai... Section Leader, what does magic mean to you?" Rex asked.
"What?" Paige hissed.
"That struck a nerve."
"You will NOT utter such seditious nonsense again!" Paige said as she turned to leave. "Clearly I've been wasting my time here. Sooner or later, we will find out where you two came from, then the real interrogation will begin."
"But we don't exist in your world." Rex said.
"Then you won't feel the bullets when we shoot you." Paige said and headed out of the cell block.
"You know, for a second there, I thought we were reaching her." Hannah said, once Paige was gone.
"Me too." Rex replied. "Whatever she's been taught in this bigoted world, perhaps there is a good person buried beneath all that hatred."
"You saw how she reacted when magic was brought up. Do you think this Paige knows who and what she is?"
"I don't know, Hannah, and we don't have time to find out. We must find that Time Key if we are ever going to see our own world again."
"Well what are we waiting for?" Hannah asked as she came over and linked hands with Rex.
"And we're off." Rex said as he translocated them both out.
The alley looked pretty much the same when Rex and Hannah appeared. "Come on, Hannah, let's begin the search." The two former Warlocks got on their hands and knees and began searching.
"Rex." Hannah said after a few moments.
"What is it, Hannah?" Rex asked as he continued to search.
"We have company."
Rex looked up and saw that they were surrounded by a group of people dressed in scruffy looking clothes. Seeing how immaculate everyone else they had met in this world was dressed, Rex concluded that these people were outcasts of some kind. "Can we help you?" Rex asked.
"The question is, can we help YOU." one of the strangers, a young man, said. "My name is Adam."
"I'm Rex, this is Hannah. We're looking for something, we don't want any trouble."
"Is this them?" another young man asked Adam.
"It seems to be, the descriptions match." Adam replied.
"You seem to have us at a disadvantage." Hannah said.
"We want you to come with us, in fact, we insist." Adam said. The look on his face, and those around him, made it clear that they would not take no for a answer.
"All right." Rex said. "We'll come. We really don't have much to lose right now."
"Very wise of you." Adam said and handed a pair of blindfolds to Rex and Hannah. "Put these on."
"But why?" Hannah asked.
"Clearly they don't want us to see where they're taking us." Rex replied. "In this world, I can't same I blame them." He donned his blindfold.
"Very well." Hannah said as she donned hers.
"Let's move out." Adam said.
"How the hell could they have escaped!?" Section Leader Paige Matthews yelled at the group of black clad men standing in front of her desk. "Who is the incompetent fool responsible? I'll have him marched outside and shot!"
"Section Leader, I swear the doors were locked and guarded." a guard said, trembling with fear. "There is no way they could have gotten out."
"But they did. HOW!?"
"Section Leader, you should take a look at this." Hawkins, who was in charge of video surveillance of the cell blocks, said and placed a VHS tape down in front of her. "We did get the escape on tape, but...
"But what?" Paige snapped.
"You better see for yourself." Hawkins said slowly.
"You're all dismissed!" Paige said and watched as the relieved men filed out. She then placed the tape into a VCR/television monitor, near her desk, and watched as Rex and Hannah seemingly vanished into thin air. What the hell is going on!? Paige thought to herself. Suddenly, the idea that these two strangers came from another world didn't seen so strange. I'll get my answers when we find them, and BEFORE we shoot them!
After an endless series of twists and turns, obviously done to throw off any pursuit, Rex and Hannah had their blindfolds removed and found themselves in what appeared to be a warehouse of some kind. More scruffy looking people were all around them, some armed with weapons.
"Rex, who are these people?" Hannah asked.
"Well, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say this lot is a rebel organization of some kind. Look at that, Hannah." Rex pointed to a flag hanging on the wall.
"A Stars And Stripes!" Hannah said. "This first we've seen since we got here." She studied the flag for a moment, it appeared to be old and tattered, and there was something else amiss as well. "It only has forty-eight stars."
"Which would mean it was made before 1959, when Alaska and Hawaii became states." Rex said.
"I see you've noticed the flag." Adam said as he come up to the two former Warlocks. "That was the flag of this country when our grandparents were young, in the time before the Regime. Not many people left alive from those days now."
"What happened to them?" Hannah asked.
"Most were wiped out in the great purges in the early years of the Regime, the others have since died of old age."
"It was that long ago?" Rex asked.
"Yes, it was." Adam replied. "However, we have books and old newspapers, passed down through the years."
"I'd like to look at them, if you don't mind." Rex said.
"All in good time, Mr. Buckland."
"How do you know my name?" Rex asked. "I never told you."
"We have sympathizers in the Security Forces, they feed us information." Adam said. "That's how we found out about you two in the first place, and your interesting story of where you came from."
"So you believe us?" Hannah asked.
"We might."
"Well..." Rex began, but broke off as four women walked up to him and Hannah. The first woman looked to be around sixty years old. However, it was the three younger ones that accompanied her that drew Rex and Hannah's attention. They were three people they had not expected to meet in this world.
"Rex Buckland, Hannah Webster, these are the leaders of our resistance cell." Adam said.
"Hello." the elderly woman said. "My name is Patricia Halliwell, and these are my three daughters, Prudence, Piper, and Phoebe."
"Well, this IS a surprise." the astonished Rex said slowly.
TO BE CONTINUED...