When they finally caught up Maggie said "Wow that was fast."
"Well let's just say we left our mark on this world. Here are your keys." Remme said as he passed out the keys.
"Please say they have food there. I'm starving." Mallory said holding his stomach.
"Already made the arrangements." Remme said as they walked inside the building. He led the way down the hall and stopped at the door.
"Wait a minute. We're eating at some guys room." Mallory complained.
"The guy at the desk said it was a restaurant in incognito. We're supposed to say that Mrs. Lightcudder sent us."
"Lightcudder sounds familiar but I can't place it." Maggie said. Remme nodded and knocked on the door.
"Who is it?"
"Um a Mrs. Lightcudder sent us."
"One minute." A voice said and the door swung open and inside the group saw a bunch of table arranged nicely around an unlit fireplace. Mozart played over head softly. A few customers sat and conversed quietly. A young butler stood waiting to show the four newcomers to their table. Over an hour or two they shared a delicious meal. They then went to their extremely large and luxurious room.
About one o'clock in the morning Remme was not sleeping very well. After about an hour and a half of tossing and turning and waking himself up constantly. He decided to go down to the small restaurant and bar and have a drink and quietly slipped out. A few minutes later Maggie awoke to find that Remme had gone. She figured she would check the bar first because she had noticed that Remme had seemed a little upset at dinner. When she walked in the restaurant and bar she saw, as she had expected, Remme. She went over and sat down on the stool next to him.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
"Oh I was just thinking." He replied.
"About what?"
"A saying that Liz always used to say keeps bothering me. She always said, "The future's the future," He explained.
"Can't change it unless you're a time-traveler that has absolutely no clue what their doing." The waitress standing behind them cut in as she handed each of them a drink. They both turned around so quick it wasn't funny.
"LIZ" They both whispered in unison.
"You know, I still believe that to."
"Even with?"
"Even with Quin stuck inside a black hole called Mallory, yeah."
"How?"
"I know things that no one else knows in this time, besides I wouldn't give up hope just yet." Liz said sitting down at the bar and sipping some strange drink.
"What is that?" Remme asked referring to the drink.
"A Pan-galactic Gargle Blaster. You want one?" Liz Replied.
"No thanks." He answered.
"So I heard your staying in the Sliders Suite."
"Yep"
"I would think that at this time in the morning you would be in it."
"Yeah well we couldn't sleep."
All of a sudden a chime rang throughout the building. "What was that?"
"Oh that was the shift bell. I own the place and I take the midnight-oil shift alone and the early morning crew is on their way to take over now." After she had finished yawning she continued. "If you'll excuse me I must get to my room before I fall asleep standing here, I've been up for the last seventy-two hours strait and I must get some sleep. If you need me I'll be in the room next to yours. There's an adjoining door next to the closet. Don't hesitate to knock although I wouldn't guarantee an answer"
"Yeah. Well we better be going to."
"Yeah."
"When you leaving?"
"In about a week."
"Mind if I come?"
"LIZZ!" Maggie said inferring that it was a dumb question.
"I know, I know, duh. Right?"
"You might say that." Remme said chuckling.
"I'll wake you guys at oh 8:00 am for breakfast"
"You always were an early bird."
"Aint that the truth." They all laughed and started meandering towards the exit that led to the elevator. They silently got into the content not saying a word and just enjoying each other's company. The bell dinged indicating that they had arrived at their floor. Liz jumped at the sound because she had started to doze off. She really needed some sleep before she got sick. "I'll see you in the morning." She said rather out of habit instead of out of sincerity as she unlocked her door.
As she walked into her luxurious room she quickly changed clothes and slid under the covers of her king sized bed. In what seemed like seconds she heard the radio blaring at her head. She sunk even deeper into the covers trying desperately to cling to those last few precious minutes of semi-unconsciousness before her annoying alarm sounded.
"RE-EN-RE-EN-RE-EN"
"Oh shut-up!" Liz said pounding on the top of the alarm clock to find the snooze button. Failing at her first task she hit the "off" button instead finally muting the infernal noise. She drug herself out of bed and felt her way toward the shower. She then blindly turned on the water. While waiting for the water to warm up to a tolerable temperature she complained, "What I wouldn't give for a sonic shower and a replicator." Failing to realize that she had forgot to set the temperature she stepped into the shower and got quite a shock when the water was scolding hot. "I'm awake I'm awake" she said as she quickly turned down the water temperature. She enjoyed a nice soothing shower after witch she slipped on a pair of clothes and went to the practically hidden door next to her closet. She knocked and there was no answer so she knocked again, a little louder this time.
This time she got a mumbled answer, "Five more minutes."
"It's already 8:30 nice try."
"Huh. Who are you?" Mallory said just realizing where he was. "Guys wake up there's someone calling us from the closet.
"Oh it's just Liz. We'll be right out meet us in the hallway." Maggie said kind of vaguely still half-asleep.
"Okay" Liz answered.
"Who's Liz?" Mallory and Diana asked.
"Um. An old friend that used to slide with us. We lost her the slide when we lost Quin and Colin. She's a engineer from about 300 years in the future stuck in the past until she can find a way to invent a time machine because of our ignorance. Quin of coarse felt it was his responsibility to help her find a way home and also to keep her with us and take care of her. Although she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, considering she had spent the last six years before we met her on a starship stuck in the Delta Quadrant." Maggie explained, "We ran into her at the bar down stairs. She owns this place. We're supposed to have breakfast with her this morning."
"Why doesn't anyone tell the new people what's going on around here? I'm not going!"
"Fine but she does know how to make the best Lates on this planet not to mention quite a few other planets." She bribed.
Mallory's mouth began to water. Mallory's have two "Achilles heels"; women, and coffee. "Did you say Late?"
"Yep"
"When do we leave?" Mallory said smiling.
"Come on." Maggie said beaming with delight that she successfully manipulated the young man. She opened the door to find a beautiful young woman casually leaning against the wall, her eyes glued to a small futuristic plastic looking rectangle with lights flashing at her that gave her face a eerie glow. She evidently had checked to make sure there was no one around before she had pulled out a data pad thought Maggie knowing that Liz wouldn't want to break her "Prime Directive" over such a little thing.
As the group approached the young woman she simply slid the pad into her pocket and smiled invitingly at the four. "Morning. You must be Diana and Mallory." She said referring to the two people at the rear of the group. She seemed very cheerful and outspoken and extremely optimistic although Maggie and Remme knew that it was all an act, Liz is cheerful but she is far from outspoken and is a realist and sometimes a tad pessimistic if anything. She will only open up if you're around her for a long time and even then she is not totally open. The person she opened up to the most was Quin, probably because they had a similar personality. She had long ago fine-tuned the act during her time at Starfleet academy and applied it with the ease that only comes with years of practice. "Ready to go?" She smiled.
"Yep."
"Liz where exactly are we going?" Maggie whispered as they were walking toward the elevator.
"I figured that we would try Q-Balls Café. The food's pretty good there." She answered solemnly.
"Okay." Maggie replied.
The five walked through the door that was supposed to be rigged to look like a vortex. They were met by the Mature-D who immediately led them to the center of the restaurant where there was a man-made pond in the middle of witch sat an island with a porch on it. Then he handed each of them a menu. Each of them orders. Everyone ordered a breakfast meal accept for Liz who ordered Prime Rib.
During the week Liz, Diana, and Mallory got aquatinted and Maggie, Remme, and Liz caught up. Remme even won $300.00 in the Casino. All in all it was a very good world.
"You said you had the technology and know how to separate the two Quins?" Diana said in one conversation with Liz.
"Yeah. All I need is to get to a more advanced world so that I can make a duplicate of this." Liz said pulling out a small triangular remote. "It's a holo-emiter if I program it to emit from the spine of its hologram I can make an exact copy of Quin's body and it will be impossible to knock it off or turn it off. I can then transfer Quin's personality memories and knowledge from Mallory's head into holographic body it will be Quin only immortal."
"Wow. So all you need is something that can make this?" Diana said fingering the holo-emiter.
"Yeah. Unfortunately it's rather hard to come by considering it's from the future, even for me."
"Oh." She said sounding a little disappointed.
"Don't worry We'll find some way to make it."
"Well it's about time we should get going so we can catch the slide."
"Yeah."x