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Title:Slide Forward, Slide Back.
Author:Rodlox, aka Keenir.
Many thanks to RogueDragon, my beta on this.
Spoilers for:Early Season 3 episodes. Takes place post-Blink.
Written for the 4400ficathon held at 4400abductees.
For:Kristy
Request:What seasons of the show do you NOT want written for you: None
What characters/pairings/genres/ratings do you NOT want written for you: Hmmmm... nothing they couldn't put on TV ratings wise... and detailed descriptions outside of mild boy/girl romance level... any characters are ok
What are your preferred characters/pairings/genres/episodes to have written for you: Mostly the same as I could pull off writting... Diana and Marco... and D and M together... Maia... Kevin B... mushy stuff/deep thoughtful stuff... the good old SciFi aspects of the series
Request : Any of the above crossovers Sliders, Highlander, SeaQuest, any Trek (less familiar with the original), Quantum Leap, and ... The Tomorrow People!... just love to see worlds 'play together'... particularly with my favorite 4400 characters would be good... but any crossover where I know both worlds is great
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The boxy compound sat here a short distance from the rest of Seattle in the coniferous woods. The Department of Homeland Security had thrown up hurdle after hurdle to the compound's Black Power builders, resulting in its present nearly-finished state. Construction would begin again for a few weeks, at least until stopped once again.
Black Power was an organization like Hamas – vital for it' members' social security and health care, but mistrusted by the nation it lived in.
"C'mon, Rembrant," Wade said under her breath. The timer was almost at all-zeroes, and – "There he is," she exclaimed, noticing that Rembrant kept looking around as furtively as a man can while running.
"I believe I'm going to miss this world," Professor Arturo said, looking around one last time.
"Not me," Quinn said, eyes focused on the timer. "Nothing to like here."
"My good boy, that is because you are not a teacher," or a doctor, the professions where the races had both equality and a measure of trust between them.
"If I'd done that, Professor, there wouldn't've been a wormhole."
"There most certainly would," Arturo said. "Another you, or perhaps another of myself would have invented the necessary tools."
"Got a point there. Problem, Rembrant?" as the singer caught up with the rest of them.
He nodded. "You could say that. I figured if anybody could do it, I could, or at least I could help."
A bad feeling in his gut, as much from himself having thrown a wrench in the works on other worlds, as from having learned a little about where this world parted company with his own, Quinn asked, "Help with what?"
"Modern-day Rosa Parks."
"So you…"
If I hadn't caught that bus, I never would've made it out here in time. "Gave my seat to this lady, must've been ninety if she was a day. Yeah," as the sound of a mob came into earshot, "and she was white."
00:00:00 read the timer.
Quinn hit the button on the timer, projecting a wormhole into the air in front of them. "You did good, Cryin' Man. After you." Some days, you just couldn't win, no matter how hard you tried. And in a world where Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had been Civil Rights militants in the image of Denmark Vesey, it was even tougher.
Arturo and Wade patted Rembrant on the back just before he leaped into the wormhole, followed by each of them. The passageway between various timelines closed once Quinn had gone in. The pursuers never found them, as the four were not on the planet anymore. At least, not on this version of Earth.
2:15 PM:
Hurled out of the wormhole, the four travelers picked themselves up and dusted the dirt and pollen off themselves. "Guys?" Rembrant said.
Looking at what had gripped Rembrant's attention, "Looks like they finished building it," Wade said, looking at the fully-built facility. At NTAC.
Looking from there to points around them, "That's not all," Quinn said, seeing the wire fence all around the facility – and around the grassy field they were presently standing in.
"Not that I don't have high hopes for this world," Professor Maximillian Arturo said, "but exactly how long will our stay here be?"
"Fifty minutes, forty-five seconds," Quinn said.
"Probably take us that long to get back to a town," Wade said. "Think we could hitch a ride once we get to a road?"
"That was when the soldiers emerged, the four finding themselves surrounded. "I believe transportation has already been arranged," Arturo said. And Rembrant vanished, winking out of existence.
--
2:35 PM:
"So, thoughts?" Nina asked the theory room guys. They'd sat and watched as she and Garritty had questioned the three intruders who'd dropped into NTAC's lap from out of nowhere. So while agents Baldwin and Skouris were out tracking blink sellers, she was in here questioning a supposed university professor who didn't know who was the President.
"They're definitely confident," Marco said. Nina nodded; they were assured about who they were…it was the rest of the world which they were unsure of.
"Their theory's sound," Havers said, normally the quietest of the people who worked in the theory room.
"It would have to be," Brady said. "One minute, there's nobody in the field. Next minute has four people brushing themselves off."
"Only problem is," Garritty said, "that if it's that easy to … change histories, as they put it, why can't the big brains in the future do it too?"
"Maybe it was a lucky break, him inventing that…timer. If the odds are high enough, it might not re-occur in the lifetime of the universe."
"And if it does recur in another timeline," Marco said, so far successful in ignoring the hallucination of Diana…most likely the result of picking up a little blink when he'd kissed her, "specifically in the future, then it's that future which wouldn't be worried about any Catastrophe."
"If they even have a Catastrophe," Nina said. Marco nodded, scratching at his neck. Now, what to do with them?
--
Rembrant looked at the clock on the wall, 3:03 PM, and back to his coffee, which'd been half full the entire time he'd been here, even after he'd started to drink from it. His coffee mug read I'm a 4400, and all I got was this # of a mug. Unless his friends pulled off a last-minute rescue – and they'd done that before – this'd been the Cryin' Man's last slide. 3:04 PM
The empty diner's door chimed and Rembrant turned to see who it was, his seat swiveling as he did so. Three people, coming up to the bar.
One was a young girl, ten at most, with blonde-dirty blonde hair. "I'm Maia," she said.
The other two looked to be twins, one in full military dress, the other in civvies. And though his grandfather hadn't mentioned twins, Rembrant knew right away who this was: "Richard Tyler?"
"That's us," said the uniformed one. "And if you aren't the spitting image of your grandfather."
"Speaking of which," the civilian Richard said, extending a hand, which Rembrant got up and shook, "I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather." He was one of the first people I looked up when they let us out of quarantine. I couldn't do more than visit his grave.
"You were needed," the military Richard said to his dopplegangr. "My timeline, I got and used the opportunity to save the grandfather of Mr. Brown here, back in the War." The Korean War.
So, in other words, Rembrant thought to himself, I don't have an altergangr here. Rembrant sat back down, his elbow knocking over his coffee. Or mostly knocked it over -- the mug teeteed immobile on one lip, while a wave of caffine was in mid-air, heading for the cup wall and the tabletop beyond. "What the -?" and when he was sure the coffee really wasn't going anywhere, he returned his attention to Maia and the Tylers…only the two Richards were frozen. As was the clock.
And Maia was smiling.
Remembering the game warden on that planet where dinosaurs hadn't died out, and humans somehow still existed, "Are they holograms?" Rembrant asked her.
"No."
"Are you?"
"No."
"Then what are you?" suspecting that 'who' wasn't entirely accuate. 3:04 PM
"In sum, or do you ask of whom I am composed?" Maia said.
"Look, I don't like this attitude of your, so why don't you just –"
"I am the future."
'I believe that children are our future…' "I'm familiar with the song."
"As am I. That does not detract from the fact that I am the future. I am the sum total of all the worlds you have visited and all the worlds you have never heard of."
"Oh no," Rembrant chided Maia. "You're not going to get me there. History diverges, makes new timelines," worlds where things went a little – or a lot – differently.
"Through much of space and time, yes, that is the case. Where you are not is a place where history no longer diverges. History has, in fact, come together. I am this place."
"So that makes you -- what? -- a god?"
Maia shrugged. "I am matter and energy. I am the compilation of every event and all the knowledge of every timeline that has ever existed. By any definition, I am a god." With all that that implies.
"I ain't bowing down before you."
"That is your decision," Maia said, her tone proclaiming she didn't care one way or another.
"What exactly does a god need with me?" Rembrant asked.
"I am the end result," Maia said. "Once all histories were unified, my mind slowly grew less fractious, less segmented. I now sent a message back in time to warn my earlier self of the impending Catastrophe. Some of myselves believe that either I will be able to solve the problem, or I can ride out the Catastrophe. Others of me eached into the past, carving new timelines into existence in the hope of an answer arising. The Ori, the Cromags, and the 4400 are but the tip of my iceberg." For survival's sake, she'd been ignoring the 'war' between the time-states of herself.
"Orr-rai? Kroh-magz?"
Before he could ask further, "Foes of timelines you have not yet reached."
"Will I?"
"I know your death in every timeline one Rembrant Brown has reached."
Nice to know. "Then answer me this -- what's got you so scared? What does a god fear?"
Her voice heavy, Maia said, "An end. The oblivion which I have foreseen. I looked into the future, and I saw only empty space," shivering.
"So you think the past can help any?"
"To mix metaphors, Mr. Brown, every atom of my being is a past experience, though no invention thus far will ensure my continued existence."
"You're not worried about, I don't know, erasing yourself?"
She smiled. "Anyone else must worry about paradox. I am, remember, the end point. Changes and newborn timelines ripple down to me." Maia patted his hand. "But I appreciate your concern."
"Anytime." A possibility occurred to him. "You said there's nothing in the future, right?"
"Yes."
"Maybe there's nothing there to see."
"There is a universe in the future, crisp, resolved, and singular. I am not there."
"Is anything there?"
"The universe." 3:04 PM
Rembrant recalled something he'd been told by one of his teachers, a war vet by the name of Richard Tyler – friend of his grandfather – 'Life never quits. It's always fighting for survival, never letting in, never giving up, never calling it quits. That's true of people too.' "What do you want me to do?" he asked Maia.
"Do what you can, Rembrant Brown. That is all I can ask." There wasn't even a flash of light. In the instant after Maia said that, Rembrant found himself in NTAC Medical, sitting on a check-up pallet, looking at Maia Skouris sitting on the neighboring pallet, smiling. "What was it like?" Maia asked.
"What?" Rembrant asked, getting his bearings.
"What was it like?" lowering her voice. "I can't see that far in the future."
--
2:17 PM:
4400 Center:
The clock on the wall had lied.
It'd been right after Rembrant'd been sent away that Richard had found himself once more able to move. "You heard all that was said," the future-Maia had told him. When he nodded, "What I ask of you is the same. Do what you can. For every failure you experience, there is another you enjoying a success. Harness your skills, for I believe you to be the centerpiece, the best-placed person to rescue all of existence from becoming a non-entity." And she'd sent him back too, to the split-second after taking him, returning him to the conference he'd been having with Shawn and Devon.
"I agree," Richard said, remembering the earlier conversation. Richard thought of the cans and boxes of food that he'd hurled across the kitchen yesterday, cans he'd put away this morning. That's my ability, like it or not. Unfortunately, it's still…it's not good for anything as it stands.
That business done, they moved on to the next order of business: teacher reviews. "Heather Tobey," Shawn said, reading off the folder.
A plan began to take shape in Richard's mind.
--
3:17 PM:
NTAC:
Theory Room:
They'd brought Rembrant down from Medical and listened to him tell what the future 'Maia' had told him. And then they'd let the sliders go, having made copies of the timer during the incarceration -- useless without the mechanism that Mr. Quinn Mallory had said was in his basement in his home timeline, the timer was a good start.
"Based on the description," Marco said, "she gave of herself, I'd say you met the Omega Point." Explaining, "According to the contracting universe model, shortly before the death of the universe, everything will be in a space so small that all the knowledge of the past will be at hand, thus creating an intelligence with god-like wisdom."
"Just one problem," Havers said. "If it was the Omega Point, how could there be a universe left after the Point ceases to exist?"
"Either the Point was mistaken, our theories about contracting universes are faulty," Marco said, "or it saw ahead to the next universe."
"Would something as smart as the Omega Point use the word 'universe' to describe what comes after our universe?" Brady asked. "After all, there's no certainty that the two universes would share any physical laws."
"Maybe she dumbed it down," Garritty said.
"It's certainly possible," Marco agreed.
She was, for all intents and purposes, a god, Nina thought to herself. And even with all that, she asked us for our help. "Then let's do like she asked," Jarvis said to everyone. "We give it all we've got."
Nods all around.
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The End