CHAPTER TWO
When he opened his eyes, he was standing inside his house. Before him, seemingly impossibly, lay the kitchen, and to the right a set of stairs stretched to the upper floor where his bedroom was. He turned around to the door, and saw the other three waiting, worriedly.
"Come on!" he said to them. But they obviously couldn't hear him, or see him or the house.
He stretched out his hand, and the others jumped a little to see it. He made a 'come here' gesture with his fingers, then held out his palm.
"Does he want us to follow?" Arturo asked.
Rembrandt shrugged. "How? You just put your hand in there a moment ago, nothin' happened."
"Wait a minute," Wade said, watching the disembodied arm. She took the hand, and followed the arm as it retracted into nothingness. Then she vanished.
"What the hell?" she exclaimed as she and Quinn stood inside his house. "This is getting freakier every minute!"
Quinn grinned excitedly and held out his arm to pull Rembrandt, then Arturo, through the mysterious front door.
"It's like the TARDIS!" Wade said with a grin.
"Close the door," Quinn told her in a hushed tone.
Wade did so, and they explored the house.
It was almost exactly the house they had Slid from, years ago, on Earth Prime. Except there were some additions: pieces of electronic equipment none of them could recognise, and layers of dust over most of the furniture (although the mess certainly confirmed the house was inhabited).
"For a minute there," Rembrandt said with a sigh, "I almost thought we'd somehow come through some weird portal to Earth Prime."
"Mom?" Quinn yelled. No response. He went back into the kitchen, leaving the other three in the living room.
Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo suddenly heard footsteps come up from the basement. They wheeled around warily, as a man came up into the room. It was an alternate version of Quinn, wearing thin spectacles and with a few days' growth on his chin.
"What?" he exclaimed. "What the hell are you people doing in here? How did you get in?!"
Quinn came back into the room at the sound of the yelling. "Oh," he said to his alternate. "Hi."
The alternate looked taken aback for a second, then pointed a finger at Quinn. "Ah. A projection? Of course, I've been working on it. What mistake did I make?"
Quinn frowned. "What?"
"Well you obviously came back because I made a mistake. Which factor did I miscalculate?"
Quinn frowned again in confusion. "Uh... I...."
"We are all visitors," Arturo explained clearly, "from a version of Earth in a parallel Universe."
The alternate Quinn paused. "I'm sorry?"
"This Quinn is an alternate version of you," Wade explained.
The alternate Quinn looked not so much shocked as perplexed by this. He scratched his head. "Oh," he managed to say. "I though you were from the future."
Quinn laughed nervously at the implication. "Well, uh, an easy mistake."
"Well, it's a relief. I thought I'd made a mistake erasing the war."
Arturo cleared his throat. "Uh... war?
"Yeah," the alternate said dismissively, "the US-Europe thing. I prevented it once I realised the Portuguese were gonna launch nukes at the US. Oh why am I telling you, all you'd remember is the timeline I just created."
"As a matter of fact," Quinn piped up, "we just narrowly escaped an explosion created by one of those Portuguese bombs."
The alternate looked stunned.
"We all got some burns," Wade put in. "Is there a hospital nearby where...."
The alternate Quinn held up a finger, then went to a cupboard and removed a cream. "Apply this to the burns. They'll disappear within a few hours."
"A cream?" Arturo almost bellowed. "Mr. Mallory we were hoping for some more adequate medical...."
"No trust me, it works, it was part of the human genome project, revolutionized the world... well until the comet. But anyway. Only place it exists is in that bottle." He grinned. The Sliders noticed he was babbling, as they applied the cream to their burns. "Sorry," he apologised. "I don't get many visitors. Well, any. I do all the visiting these days. I... uh, well why don't you tell me exactly everything about this other Universe thing."
"...and although the Timer hadn't finished countdown yet, we had to activate it to escape from the tornado and save our lives. Unfortunately, that kinda messed up its programming," Quinn was explaining.
"The Timer's retrieval capability was lost," Arturo put in. "We couldn't Slide to our home Earth."
"So, we rigged it to tell us when there was a weak gap in space-time that would allow us to Slide, and we've just been trying to get home since."
"Amazing," the alternate Quinn said. "I'd never have thought it was possible. It sounds exciting."
"Tell us about yourself," Wade said to him. "Why - how - do you live in a... a... cloaked house? What do you do? And what happened when we Slid here?"
The alternate Quinn stood up and paced. He opened his mouth to speak a few times, then closed it. Finally he said: "My work is very important." He sighed, and rubbed his hands together. "Three years ago, I made a discovery. I discovered the existence of a sub-atomic particle that travels faster than light. Up until then, to the rest of the world, they were theoretical, and were called tachyons." He looked up.
"We know of them," Arturo said. "At least, in theory. Go on."
"Right. Well, now, you see, because they travel faster than the speed of light, they momentarily travel backwards in time." He sighed again. "When I learned... how to control these particles... a realisation dawned on me. I, in a sense, had invented time travel."
"Can you explain this?" Arturo asked.
The alternate held up a finger. "Yes, yes I can. You see, tachyons occur in nature, as I said, and naturally travel backwards in time - theoretically, therefore, producing minor natural changes in history as they do so - which, of course, noone notices. But, when I learned how to control them, I realised... that I can control exactly how far back in time they go. And, what they do."
"How so?" Rembrandt asked.
"Are you familiar," the alternate asked, "with the concept of the butterfly and the tornado?"
The others shook their heads, but Wade nodded. "Yeah," she said. "The idea that goes, that if a butterfly flaps its wings, it could cause a tornado to start up on the other side of the world."
The alternate clicked his fingers. "Exactly. Cause and effect, chain reactions. But, before I could even start experimenting with making temporal changes, I had to make certain I was protected against the timeline. It took some doing, months in fact, but I constructed an energy field around the house. This was just after Mom moved to Florida, by the way," he told Quinn. "Anyway, this barrier shields the area of the house from the effects of changes in the timeline. In a way, creates a separate bubble that doesn't adhere to normal space-time. Everything inside this house is original to how everything was before I began changing history. Well, except for things I've brought inside from the outside world. With the help of some advanced technology I acquired after accelerating Earth's technological level, I programmed it so that only my genetic material, and something in physical contact to it, can enter. That's how you guys got in."
"A bubble," Quinn repeated. "That may be why we experienced a sudden change of events when we landed here."
"You mean the explosion? How so Q-ball?" Rembrandt asked.
"The womhole stays open for around a full minute after we exit it," Quinn said. He emphasised with his hands: "We're in the Universe where Portugal attacks the US," he says. "Then, we Slide. At around the same time - well, relative to us and him - this Quinn changes the course of history, erasing the attack. We Slide, and land in the brand new Universe created by his actions. Now, for the sixty seconds while the wormhole is open, for some reason, we're shielded from the effects of the change. For us, nothing has been altered, this world seems identical to the last. But then, once the womhole closes, we're no longer protected from the changes, and so we begin experiencing the new reality he's created. Calm Bay, people shopping, sunny sky."
"We may," Arturo mused, "have experienced for the first time in history, a natural Slide: we shifted from the doomed San Francisco into this one."
The alternate Quinn was silent for a while. The colour seemed to have drained from his face. "Are you telling me," he said slowly, "that the version of reality I just changed... that you experienced that? As a parallel Universe?"
Quinn tilted his head. "Well... yeah."
The alternate Quinn swallowed nervously. "So... the entire west coast of America... they still all died." He stood up and stared out his window, at the street. "This is just a different reality, where that didn't happen."
"Well... yeah."
"Last month, I altered history to allow for the invention of the atomic bomb, in order to save Earth from a comet. Are you telling me that I created a new Universe where that worked, but that the original people... the original Earth... it's all gone?"
Arturo sighed. "From what we've been able to gather, from our perspective," he said, "naturally occurring tachyons travel, every so often, back in time to make small, almost imperceptible changes. Most likely through chain reactions, like you said. Until now we were never sure, because we never knew whether particles like this existed."
"Quinn," Quinn said to his double, "whenever you change history... you're creating artificial Universes."
The alternate Quinn said something, but it came out as a croak. "No," he repeated. "That's bull. You can't know that for sure."
"Quinn...." Wade said to him.
"My work," he almost yelled, then whispered, "is very important. I... I have saved the world... this world... a thousand times. And no-one will ever know. Don't I deserve some kind of thanks from these people?" He seemed to have begun babbling again - the Sliders noticed he wouldn't stick quite completely with one tpoic.
"Mr. Mallory," Arturo offered, "what you do is incredibly noble. But it's not the job of one man. You cannot be God. You cannot... hold the world on your shoulders like Atlas held the sky. It's impossible."
"It's not impossible!" Quinn yelled. "I'm doing it! It's what I'm destined to do!" He noticed they were a little taken aback. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Like I said, I... I haven't had any visitors for quite a while."
Wade got up, and hugged the alternate Quinn. He stiffened, and then held her until she moved away.
"Thanks," he said genuinely. "You know, I... I haven't seen Wade for months." He sighed. "You guys, uh... well, Mom's old room, and the guest room, you're totally welcome. How, uh, how long are you...?"
"About two days," Quinn told him.
The alternate nodded. "Right, right okay. I need to do some research tomorrow. You're all welcome to join me. Uh... hey look I've never met a mirror version of myself, but while you guys are here, you might as well call me Mallory. To avoid confusion." The others nodded. "Well, I'm gonna turn in. Quinn I'll guess you know your way around the house. Goodnight."
And with that he went upstairs, leaving the Sliders.
"Poor guy," Rembrandt whispered. "Can you believe the pressure."
"You have to face it," Quinn said quietly, "he's done a lot for this world."
"Yes," Arturo said. "But, at what cost for the other worlds he's created?"
When he opened his eyes, he was standing inside his house. Before him, seemingly impossibly, lay the kitchen, and to the right a set of stairs stretched to the upper floor where his bedroom was. He turned around to the door, and saw the other three waiting, worriedly.
"Come on!" he said to them. But they obviously couldn't hear him, or see him or the house.
He stretched out his hand, and the others jumped a little to see it. He made a 'come here' gesture with his fingers, then held out his palm.
"Does he want us to follow?" Arturo asked.
Rembrandt shrugged. "How? You just put your hand in there a moment ago, nothin' happened."
"Wait a minute," Wade said, watching the disembodied arm. She took the hand, and followed the arm as it retracted into nothingness. Then she vanished.
"What the hell?" she exclaimed as she and Quinn stood inside his house. "This is getting freakier every minute!"
Quinn grinned excitedly and held out his arm to pull Rembrandt, then Arturo, through the mysterious front door.
"It's like the TARDIS!" Wade said with a grin.
"Close the door," Quinn told her in a hushed tone.
Wade did so, and they explored the house.
It was almost exactly the house they had Slid from, years ago, on Earth Prime. Except there were some additions: pieces of electronic equipment none of them could recognise, and layers of dust over most of the furniture (although the mess certainly confirmed the house was inhabited).
"For a minute there," Rembrandt said with a sigh, "I almost thought we'd somehow come through some weird portal to Earth Prime."
"Mom?" Quinn yelled. No response. He went back into the kitchen, leaving the other three in the living room.
Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo suddenly heard footsteps come up from the basement. They wheeled around warily, as a man came up into the room. It was an alternate version of Quinn, wearing thin spectacles and with a few days' growth on his chin.
"What?" he exclaimed. "What the hell are you people doing in here? How did you get in?!"
Quinn came back into the room at the sound of the yelling. "Oh," he said to his alternate. "Hi."
The alternate looked taken aback for a second, then pointed a finger at Quinn. "Ah. A projection? Of course, I've been working on it. What mistake did I make?"
Quinn frowned. "What?"
"Well you obviously came back because I made a mistake. Which factor did I miscalculate?"
Quinn frowned again in confusion. "Uh... I...."
"We are all visitors," Arturo explained clearly, "from a version of Earth in a parallel Universe."
The alternate Quinn paused. "I'm sorry?"
"This Quinn is an alternate version of you," Wade explained.
The alternate Quinn looked not so much shocked as perplexed by this. He scratched his head. "Oh," he managed to say. "I though you were from the future."
Quinn laughed nervously at the implication. "Well, uh, an easy mistake."
"Well, it's a relief. I thought I'd made a mistake erasing the war."
Arturo cleared his throat. "Uh... war?
"Yeah," the alternate said dismissively, "the US-Europe thing. I prevented it once I realised the Portuguese were gonna launch nukes at the US. Oh why am I telling you, all you'd remember is the timeline I just created."
"As a matter of fact," Quinn piped up, "we just narrowly escaped an explosion created by one of those Portuguese bombs."
The alternate looked stunned.
"We all got some burns," Wade put in. "Is there a hospital nearby where...."
The alternate Quinn held up a finger, then went to a cupboard and removed a cream. "Apply this to the burns. They'll disappear within a few hours."
"A cream?" Arturo almost bellowed. "Mr. Mallory we were hoping for some more adequate medical...."
"No trust me, it works, it was part of the human genome project, revolutionized the world... well until the comet. But anyway. Only place it exists is in that bottle." He grinned. The Sliders noticed he was babbling, as they applied the cream to their burns. "Sorry," he apologised. "I don't get many visitors. Well, any. I do all the visiting these days. I... uh, well why don't you tell me exactly everything about this other Universe thing."
"...and although the Timer hadn't finished countdown yet, we had to activate it to escape from the tornado and save our lives. Unfortunately, that kinda messed up its programming," Quinn was explaining.
"The Timer's retrieval capability was lost," Arturo put in. "We couldn't Slide to our home Earth."
"So, we rigged it to tell us when there was a weak gap in space-time that would allow us to Slide, and we've just been trying to get home since."
"Amazing," the alternate Quinn said. "I'd never have thought it was possible. It sounds exciting."
"Tell us about yourself," Wade said to him. "Why - how - do you live in a... a... cloaked house? What do you do? And what happened when we Slid here?"
The alternate Quinn stood up and paced. He opened his mouth to speak a few times, then closed it. Finally he said: "My work is very important." He sighed, and rubbed his hands together. "Three years ago, I made a discovery. I discovered the existence of a sub-atomic particle that travels faster than light. Up until then, to the rest of the world, they were theoretical, and were called tachyons." He looked up.
"We know of them," Arturo said. "At least, in theory. Go on."
"Right. Well, now, you see, because they travel faster than the speed of light, they momentarily travel backwards in time." He sighed again. "When I learned... how to control these particles... a realisation dawned on me. I, in a sense, had invented time travel."
"Can you explain this?" Arturo asked.
The alternate held up a finger. "Yes, yes I can. You see, tachyons occur in nature, as I said, and naturally travel backwards in time - theoretically, therefore, producing minor natural changes in history as they do so - which, of course, noone notices. But, when I learned how to control them, I realised... that I can control exactly how far back in time they go. And, what they do."
"How so?" Rembrandt asked.
"Are you familiar," the alternate asked, "with the concept of the butterfly and the tornado?"
The others shook their heads, but Wade nodded. "Yeah," she said. "The idea that goes, that if a butterfly flaps its wings, it could cause a tornado to start up on the other side of the world."
The alternate clicked his fingers. "Exactly. Cause and effect, chain reactions. But, before I could even start experimenting with making temporal changes, I had to make certain I was protected against the timeline. It took some doing, months in fact, but I constructed an energy field around the house. This was just after Mom moved to Florida, by the way," he told Quinn. "Anyway, this barrier shields the area of the house from the effects of changes in the timeline. In a way, creates a separate bubble that doesn't adhere to normal space-time. Everything inside this house is original to how everything was before I began changing history. Well, except for things I've brought inside from the outside world. With the help of some advanced technology I acquired after accelerating Earth's technological level, I programmed it so that only my genetic material, and something in physical contact to it, can enter. That's how you guys got in."
"A bubble," Quinn repeated. "That may be why we experienced a sudden change of events when we landed here."
"You mean the explosion? How so Q-ball?" Rembrandt asked.
"The womhole stays open for around a full minute after we exit it," Quinn said. He emphasised with his hands: "We're in the Universe where Portugal attacks the US," he says. "Then, we Slide. At around the same time - well, relative to us and him - this Quinn changes the course of history, erasing the attack. We Slide, and land in the brand new Universe created by his actions. Now, for the sixty seconds while the wormhole is open, for some reason, we're shielded from the effects of the change. For us, nothing has been altered, this world seems identical to the last. But then, once the womhole closes, we're no longer protected from the changes, and so we begin experiencing the new reality he's created. Calm Bay, people shopping, sunny sky."
"We may," Arturo mused, "have experienced for the first time in history, a natural Slide: we shifted from the doomed San Francisco into this one."
The alternate Quinn was silent for a while. The colour seemed to have drained from his face. "Are you telling me," he said slowly, "that the version of reality I just changed... that you experienced that? As a parallel Universe?"
Quinn tilted his head. "Well... yeah."
The alternate Quinn swallowed nervously. "So... the entire west coast of America... they still all died." He stood up and stared out his window, at the street. "This is just a different reality, where that didn't happen."
"Well... yeah."
"Last month, I altered history to allow for the invention of the atomic bomb, in order to save Earth from a comet. Are you telling me that I created a new Universe where that worked, but that the original people... the original Earth... it's all gone?"
Arturo sighed. "From what we've been able to gather, from our perspective," he said, "naturally occurring tachyons travel, every so often, back in time to make small, almost imperceptible changes. Most likely through chain reactions, like you said. Until now we were never sure, because we never knew whether particles like this existed."
"Quinn," Quinn said to his double, "whenever you change history... you're creating artificial Universes."
The alternate Quinn said something, but it came out as a croak. "No," he repeated. "That's bull. You can't know that for sure."
"Quinn...." Wade said to him.
"My work," he almost yelled, then whispered, "is very important. I... I have saved the world... this world... a thousand times. And no-one will ever know. Don't I deserve some kind of thanks from these people?" He seemed to have begun babbling again - the Sliders noticed he wouldn't stick quite completely with one tpoic.
"Mr. Mallory," Arturo offered, "what you do is incredibly noble. But it's not the job of one man. You cannot be God. You cannot... hold the world on your shoulders like Atlas held the sky. It's impossible."
"It's not impossible!" Quinn yelled. "I'm doing it! It's what I'm destined to do!" He noticed they were a little taken aback. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Like I said, I... I haven't had any visitors for quite a while."
Wade got up, and hugged the alternate Quinn. He stiffened, and then held her until she moved away.
"Thanks," he said genuinely. "You know, I... I haven't seen Wade for months." He sighed. "You guys, uh... well, Mom's old room, and the guest room, you're totally welcome. How, uh, how long are you...?"
"About two days," Quinn told him.
The alternate nodded. "Right, right okay. I need to do some research tomorrow. You're all welcome to join me. Uh... hey look I've never met a mirror version of myself, but while you guys are here, you might as well call me Mallory. To avoid confusion." The others nodded. "Well, I'm gonna turn in. Quinn I'll guess you know your way around the house. Goodnight."
And with that he went upstairs, leaving the Sliders.
"Poor guy," Rembrandt whispered. "Can you believe the pressure."
"You have to face it," Quinn said quietly, "he's done a lot for this world."
"Yes," Arturo said. "But, at what cost for the other worlds he's created?"