By Jules Reynolds
The following story is intended for entertainment purposes only. This document can be freely distributed with the condition that no part of the text is modified, and this notice is included with all copies.
This document cannot be sold or translated into any other form without written permission from the author. Some characters and elements of this story are the property of St Clare Entertainment, used without authorization. No copyright infringement is intended. The author receives no compensation from the distribution of this work. Any comments or criticism would be welcome.
"Wade, if you don't get out you'll end up sliding wet!".
Quinn shrugged his shoulders in frustration, when he heard the gales of mischievous laughter which greeted his warning. He turned for sympathy to Professor Maximillian Arturo, who was downing a final gulp of Pina Colada and pulling his jacket on.
"I'm afraid you have to admit this is sheer paradise my dear boy!" the Professor chuckled as he watched Wade chase Rembrandt from the gently rolling rivulets of foam, onto the sand. "You can't blame Miss Welles for wanting to milk every last drop of enjoyment from her stay here, short as it regretfully has been."
"Yeah, Q-Ball, how come we always have to leave the good places fast and then get stranded in some hell hole for a week?" moaned Rembrandt as he skidded to a halt beside them, kicking the sand up in a spray as he stopped. He grabbed the towel from Quinn's outstretched hand and swiftly wiped the water away from his back and then legs. He hurriedly pulled on his pants and buttoning up his shirt bent to slip on his socks and shoes.
"Hey, where's my clothes?" Wade looked around her as she slipped her feet into her sandals and reached for a brightly colored beach -towel which lay on the sand. Wrapping it around her soaking body she started to towel herself madly.
"Didn't you put them with ours?" Quinn asked, looking around for her and then glanced at the timer.
"I could have sworn I brought them out of the beach house. I thought I put them on the sand so I could slide in them," she replied and scowled. "Damn. I kinda liked the new top I'd bought as well," she moaned, looking mournfully some distance back up the beach towards the hut and quickly towelled her short wet hair. She bit her lip. She'd been in so much of a hurry to get some more sea and sun before the slide, she remembered now she'd left them on her bed.
"Too late. I warned you we'd have to slide," Quinn announced and pointed the timer in his hand at a palm tree nearby. The familiar funnel of light opened up immediately, sucking in the surrounding air as a whirlpool does with water.
Wade stared at it and then down at her still wet body. She swallowed and regretted getting carried away with having a good time.
"Come on Miss Welles, you'll just have to hope there's a good clothes store on the next world," Arturo announced cheerfully. "Just as well I was reading your journal while you were in the sea," he added as he brandished it then popped it inside his jacket.
"Oh yeah. Real useful. How am I gonna manage without any clothes, except this micro bikini," she mouthed above the noise of the vortex.
She watched as Arturo shook his head at her ingratitude and leapt headfirst into the vortex, closely followed by Rembrandt.
"Come on," Quinn smiled sympathetically and offered her his hand. "Just hope we don't slide into the middle of an audience or something," he teased as they moved towards the vortex.
Clutching her towel tightly round her she leaped into the void holding onto him, taking one last look at the sundrenched beach and sea behind her as the vortex closed behind them. She'd have to get hold of some aftersun on the next world, she realised, as she felt the burning sensation on her shoulders.
***
The cold air hit them before they exited the tunnel.
As Quinn hit the hard surface of the floor and rolled sideways to avoid Wade tumbling headlong after him, he realised immediately that this would be no paradise world.
The darkness took them all by surprise.
"Everyone okay?" Quinn's voice echoed slowly around the room which they found themselves in and a strange feeling began to take hold of him.
He'd been here before. He'd been here a long time ago. He just felt it. The familiarity felt uncanny. The sense of unease which crept through his senses turned his stomach to a mass of jelly and he swallowed hard.
"If you count a very nasty crack on the elbow as "okay" dear boy then I'm fine," the Professor's voice boomed across at him.
"Yeah, Q-Ball. I guess I'm in one piece. Sure is mighty cold though." Rembrandt offered pulling his jacket closer around himself. "Anyone got a light?"
"I've got that small flashlight we bought. Remember?" Quinn replied, a shiver running down his spine. He reached in his pocket to try to find the small pocket flashlight they purchased on a trip to a hardware store, along with a screwdriver and various other small items he could fit in his jacket pocket - for emergencies. They'd been caught out too many times on too many worlds without means of mending the timer to be caught out again. This time the light was what they needed.
"There!"
The small beam of light flashed across the room and illuminated a scene of devastation. In fact a scene which both he and Arturo remembered only too well.
The layers of ice and snow covered every aspect of the cellar. The desertion still evident.
"Wade! You okay?" Quinn moved across to the small figure huddled in the corner of the room, which his light picked up as it flashed across the room.
"Cc...cc....o...ld!" The stuttering voice was caused in the most part by uncontrollable shaking.
"Good God she's icing up!" Arturo's voice boomed across the room as Quinn tore off his jacket and threw it round the shaking, bikini clad figure of Wade. The towel she'd had around her was a stiff board-like object discarded on the floor - it's dampness had frozen it almost immediately on arrival from the vortex.
"Here, Q-Ball use this!" Rembrandt had pulled off his jacket and sweater and passed the sweater to Quinn.
Quinn was rubbing Wade's shoulders furiously as she shook, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. She couldn't speak. It was too much effort to stop the shaking to try to control her voice. Her arms hurt, her legs hurt. Her wet hair had stopped dripping water and small icicles hung instead from her forehead and lay down her shoulders.
Quinn forced her arms from their wrapped position around her and manhandled Rembrandt's sweater over her head and onto her arms. It's size gave the added advantage that it covered most of her body down past her thighs as well. The small amount of warmth which it afforded and Quinn's frantic rubbing of her arms, at least stopped her violent shaking. At last she started to feel a semi-warmth seep through her. He wrapped his jacket around her legs and covered her feet and then rubbed still more vigorously at her hands. The blueness started to fade and she winced as the pain spiked up them as they started to come to life.
"Next time I call you, listen to me, huh?" he chided gently as she smiled wryly in return and nodded, her teeth still chattering slightly. He picked out the icicles in her hair which were starting to melt as her body temperature rose slightly.
"Are.....are we ......where I think we are?" she mumbled quietly, turning her dark brown eyes towards his face.
"I think so," he replied regretfully. Wade was no fool. She probably recognised the cellar just as he and the Professor had. Only Rembrandt might not recognise it. After all they'd met him outside.
"If this is the Ice World again then I suggest we try to find shelter of some kind dear boy," Arturo suggested softly as he looked down at Quinn and Wade.
"We can't be sure though, can we? I mean we don't know it's definitely the same, do we?" Wade stammered.
"No, we can't," admitted Arturo nodding his head in agreement.
"But where ever we are, it looks pretty likely it is very similar if not the same. And that means, we have to at least look for somewhere to hide until we.."
Arturo turned to Quinn quickly. The same thought crossed Quinn's mind in an instant and he whipped the timer from his pocket and stared at the display which was counting down stoicly.
Quinn shook his head.
"Three hours."
"Well it's better than three days, man," Rembrandt offered hopefully.
"Three days, three hours. It's irrelevant if we can't find shelter. We wouldn't survive on this world without finding some warmth somewhere. Remember our last encounter here. Look at Miss Welles. She can't stay like that for three hours!" Arturo postulated looking at the shivering girl in the corner, her lips still hauntingly blue tinged.
"I'll be okay Professor," Wade muttered angrily. She was annoyed with herself for being so stupid and thoughtless on the last world and regretted that she was now clad in Rembrandt's jumper and Quinn's jacket. They would need them themselves if they were to have a chance of survival, without her screwing it up for them.
"I think not," Arturo returned as he moved towards the stairs. I suggest that two of us go and take a look around outside. If we can find some shelter for the three hours we should do it now."
"I'll come with you," Quinn offered as he rose from Wade's side.
"No Q-Ball. You stay with Wade. I'll go. I've still got this!" Rembrandt zipped up his black leather jacket with a flourish.
"Take the flashlight then," Quinn offered as he handed it to Rembrandt.
"Stay warm girl," Rembrandt shot to Wade as he leapt up the stairs to light Arturo's way to the ground floor of the house.
"I'll try," Wade replied softly as she watched the light and the figure of Rembrandt disappear up the stairs.
"Come on huddle up," Quinn said as he sat down heavily beside her and put a warm arm around her shoulders pulling her closer. She liked the closeness and she liked the warmth. Maybe having slid in a bikini hadn't been such a bad idea after all. She pondered their situation as a smile flickered across her lips. In the darkness her smile was unseen by Quinn, but he felt her nestle closely into his shoulder and he smiled to himself. ***
"I'd say that this is as close to the Ice World which we slid into last time, as makes a difference, Mr Brown," Arturo offered Rembrandt as they moved through the ground floor of Quinn's house.
"Is there any way of being sure Professor?" Rembrandt looked nervously around him. His memories of their visit to the Ice World were not happy ones. Not least of all because it had been the start of all their problems and he had vivid memories of the Ice tornado and what it had done to his red Caddy.
"Impossible to say my dear fellow. Impossible to say." Arturo moved to the remnants of the doorway and looked out onto the ice world. The sense of deja vu was frightening and he put a foot outside the door to test the water so to speak.
The chill of the air with the biting wind took his breath away.
In the distance, the eerie shape of the Golden Gate Bridge loomed through a white landscape. It was half buried in ice, a monument to the population who had once lived there.
Rembrandt walked through the garden which wasn't and towards the last place he remembered seeing his car, just before they'd screwed with the timer and left the Ice Tornado and its death march behind them.
"Man, that tornado must've taken it away and ripped it to shreds!" he moaned looking around him for some trace.
"Of course we still haven't ascertained that this is the Iceworld of our memories," the Professor reminded him as he joined him.
"We must find some shelter, Mr Brown. If we don't we'll all die," he added solemnly. "I'm afraid your car is the least of our worries!".
"Yeah, yeah. I know," Rembrandt nodded, resigned to never seeing his beautiful Caddy again.
"Hey, wait a minute man," Rembrandt suddenly moved towards the iced up wall fifty yards in front of them.
"Whatever have you seen now?" Arturo panted to keep up with his friend as he sprinted forwards.
"This!" a triumphant grin crossed the Crying Man's face as he pulled the object from the ground and brandished it in the air!
"Good Lord, it's a part of your car door!" Arturo shouted above the wind which was now reaching screeching level.
"Yeah, but look at this Professor," Remrandt turned the red surface around and showed Arturo the other side.
In black letters an untidy hand had scrawled the words:
"LEAVE THIS PLACE NOW. IF YOU STAY YOUR WORLD WILL DIE!"
PART TWO
The faint sound of scratching came from the corner of the cellar.
"Quinn. Do you hear that?" Wade asked, her eyes widening as she swung her head round to try to see something, anything, through the darkness.
"Yeah. Probably a rat or something," he answered her, not convincing himself.
"Oh come on! In this freeze up? You got to be joking! Nothing can survive this. There's nothing on this world and you know it!" she declared and then peered nervously into the corner again.
"Um, in which case, what's the noise?" she added nervously.
"I'll go see," Quinn offered, disentangling himself from her arm and getting to his feet slowly. The darkness was complete. The lights of a world which had died were buried with the rest of the population.
The corner of the room seemed distant. He couldn't make anything out at all, not even a shape.
Each shadow which rose behind him, went unnoticed by himself and Wade.
The swiftness of their attack took Quinn off balance and he found himself overpowered so suddenly, so efficiently, he had no time to cry a warning to Wade.
He needn't have bothered for she was grabbed and removed from the room as quickly as he had been. Not a cry broke from her lips.
***
"Hmm. This points to two major things Mr Brown," Arturo offered loudly as he pulled his jacket around himself to try to stem the biting wind from piercing his very skin.
"What's that, Professor?" Rembrandt returned just as loudly, his eyes squinting through the wind and sleet which had now started to fall in heavy, icy bursts, the impact of the drops slicing into his skin painfully.
"We're not alone on this world, and this *is* the ice world we left behind at the beginning of the slide!" Arturo thundered.
Rembrandt nodded and lowered his head. He could hardly see the Professor now, the sleet was thicker, the wind more powerful. The roaring sound deafened him and he didn't know whether to shield his eyes or clap his hands over his ears.
Knowing that it *was* the ice-world didn't make him feel any better. In fact it almost made him feel worse. Such a terrible world to be on. It had been the cause of their getting stuck in the slide. If it hadn't been for that damn tornado, Q-ball wouldn't have had to reset the timer like he did.
Rembrandt closed his eyes. So close to their original world now. So close. If they could only hang on until the slide, maybe they would get home.
"Come on, Mr Brown. Let's get back to the others with our news!" Arturo pulled at Rembrandt's sleeve and guided him back up towards the house.
***
When Quinn opened his eyes, everything was black. His head thundered unmercifully and he reached up gingerly to feel the lump which had risen through his hair and sat neatly at the back, testimony to the force of the blow.
His first thoughts were that he was blind but as he reached up to his face he felt the softness of a cloth blindfold, tightly bound across his eyes.
"This one's come round now." The voice was hard, cold. Quinn started to pull at his blindfold and tore it from his head. No one seemed to be stopping him as he threw it to the ground in disgust and screwed his eyes tightly to hinder the incoming light which caused great spikes of pain to judder through his eyeballs, and into the back of his head.
He reached up and massaged his temples gingerly as the light became more bearable and he was able to take in his surroundings.
The room was basic. Wooden flooring and stone walls. A few chairs strung around for good measure and a large wooden table against a far wall. There was a fire burning openly in an old fireplace. Quinn could feel a gentle glow of heat from it even at a distance. He gazed to his right.
Wade was sitting, propped against a wall, her blindfold gone, looking hazily at him, her eyes slightly unfocussed.
"Hi," she remarked as he raised his eyebrows.
"You okay?" he asked watching her eyes start to focus better. She'd obviously only just come round like himself.
"Yeah," she replied and rubbed her head furiously.
He was pleased to see that she had a blanket now wrapped around her covering her bikini and the jumper which he'd put on her.
"We're not going to beat about the bush. We want your device. The one which brought you here. The one which you used the last time."
The voice startled Quinn with its honest straightforward demands. Their captors obviously knew about the timer. They obviously knew they'd been to this world before. What Quinn wanted to know was how.
"How....?" he started to ask. The questions surfacing in his mind. He was cut short by a single kick to the ribs.
The wind knocked from him for a minute, Quinn grabbed at his chest and winced.
He looked up at his captors with a puzzled expression.
"You want more?" The perpetrator of the attack moved into Quinn's view and stood, legs astance peering down at him. He had to be in his mid thirties, unshaven and unkempt. His black hair lay in matted clumps across his shoulders. His eyes were hard, cold and staring. There was a desperation buried deep within him which surfaced through those eyes, through that penetrating stare. His face bore the scars of blistering frostbite. Angry, red and obviously painful, they matched his mood.
Quinn didn't reply. He didn't know what to say. Who had the timer? Oh yes, the Professor had it. Well, they'd made a pact that no one must get their hands on it. It was the most important decision the group had made. The timer had to be kept out of the wrong hands. Quinn had seen too many worlds gone wrong, too many people dying to let some desperate group get hold of the timer and move into a world, totally unprepared for them. Not because of them, not if they could help it.
He pursed his lips and met the man's look with an unwavering stare.
"You want we take it out on her?" The man moved across and grabbed a section of Wade's hair pulling it roughly. Wade grimaced but shook her head at Quinn.
"I haven't got it." Quinn answered slowly. He was in a desperate situation. His mind raced.
The man let go of Wade's hair and moved back across the room.
"Who?" He asked slowly. "The other two? They got it?"
Quinn stared silently.
"Find the other two!" The order was barked across the room at a silent figure who lounged against the door.
The hunched figure of another filthy unkempt man, this one skinnier with a weasle face and darting eyes, opened the door. Glancing back nervously at the man who'd given the order, he slipped silently away.
As the door closed behind him, a cold draft from the iceworld outside blew in and gusted around the two seated on the floor. Wade shivered.
"We watched for you to return. Never knew whether you would, but we took a chance. Two of us died watching. But you're here now and soon we'll all be gone from this place." The man sounded triumphant, as though a plan which he'd felt would slip from his grasp was finally about to come to fruition.
Wade swallowed hard. They wanted the timer to slide out with.
"You can't just..." Quinn started.
"Don't think you're in any position to bargain with me or order me. I ain't gonna stand for it. Once we got this device our group's gonna leave this place."
"And leave us here to die?" Quinn asked quietly.
"No. I wouldn't wish it on my enemies. Not that there are any here. There ain't no one - just a handful of us. A handful of us who made it through all this. We'll take you outta here when we go but that's it - once we're out you're on your own." The man took a cigarette and lit it. The blue smoke rose to the ceiling and fanned out across it.
He offered the packet at Quinn and then to Wade. They both shook their heads. Wade wished at that point that she did smoke. Maybe it would ease the tension. Then she remembered her aunt dying of lung cancer. Perhaps not.
The door opened and a young girl came in. She was in her late teens with blond untidy hair scraped back in a hair band. Her appearance overall was similar to the man's. Unkempt,untidy and desperate. She eyed Quinn appreciatively and then scowled at Wade.
Wade scowled back and then stared at the floor. She'd seen the look the girl had given Quinn and she didn't like it. In fact it made her very uncomfortable.
The girl handed a bundle of clothes to the man and then turned towards the door. As she took hold of the door handle she hesitated, and within a second had closed the distance between herself and Quinn. She threw herself at him bringing her head down towards his lips.
Wade watched in mute fascination as the girl's head suddenly jerked backwards. Their captor had a clump of the girl's hair in one hand and her shoulder in the other.
He hauled her roughly off Quinn and drawing his hand back, slapped her hard across the face.
"Tara, what's the matter with you? I warned you not to pull a stunt like that! You stupid girl! Get out!"
Tara ran from the room, tears streaming down her red cheeks as she clutched at the painful weal which appeared across one side.
Quinn's eyebrows rose as she left. He didn't like the look of the girl at all. Frankly he was grateful she'd been forcibly removed from him, but the seemingly, casual violence which the man used unnerved him.
As he caught Wade's eye he knew she'd be feeling pretty mad by the whole affair. The look she gave him in return answered his question.
"Here, put these on," the man threw the clothes at Wade and then hauled her roughly to her feet.
"In there." He nodded over his shoulder at a door, behind which Wade glimpsed an old basin. The smell of tobacco clung to his clothes and hair and Wade felt her stomach heave as she grabbed at the clothes and moved towards the door.
The clothes weren't to her liking and smelt heavily of old tobacco smoke and other indistinguishable odours but she was cold. She knew if she didn't have warm clothes on, they didn't stand a chance of escaping whenever they needed to.
The jeans fit well enough and the jumper was a little short but Wade pulled Rembrandt's sweater over the top of it. She felt better now she was dressed.
The cracked mirror which hung over the basin reflected her dark eyes and untidy hair back at her, and she realised how hollow eyed and tired she looked.
"So much for the two days we had on the last world," she remarked quietly to herself as she stuck a tongue out and viewed her whole appearance.
"Yuk" she observed in disgust and pulled her hands through her hair to straighten it into some sort of order.
Quinn smiled up at her as she went back into the room. She looked good in jeans and Rembrandt's sweater made her look cute and vulnerable because it was so oversized.
"Right, let's talk about where you people disappeared to, when you left this place the last time."
Quinn caught Wade's eye as she slumped down heavily next to him. This was going to be difficult.
***
"They're gone, Professor!" Rembrandt declared in panic as his eyes frantically searched the room for the two young friends.
"So I see," observed Arturo wryly.
"We gotta find them, Professor. We slide in under three hours. We gotta find them!" Rembrandt's voice rose and he looked desperately at the Professor, his eyes pleading for some sort of answer to their disappearance.
"Well we know Miss Welles wasn't in any fit state of dress to move outside, so either they've found warmer clothing or they're with whoever wrote that message on your car door," Arturo pondered loudly.
"Yeah, and we don't know if they're the good guys or some sort of bad people," Rembrandt observed, looking worried.
"Quite so, Mr Brown," Arturo agreed thoughtfully. For once in his life he felt unable to suggest anything. They didn't even know where to look.
The sound of footsteps coming down the cellar stairs made the two men wheel round in shock.
"I'm afraid your friends have fallen into some rather unfortunate hands," the educated voice offered as it came down the stairs.
The grey haired man came slowly into their view and stopped, the beam from Arturo's flashlight catching his face in its light. He held a hand out towards them both, a smile playing across his lips.
"I trust you haven't given them the device yet, have you?" he asked cocking his head on one side and studying their faces.
Arturo reached down gingerly and felt the reassuring bulk of the timer nestling in his jacket pocket.
The man caught the movement and smiled.
"Good. You see if you let them have it, any world which they go to will come to a very nasty end."
PART THREE
Professor Maximillian Arturo had heard some stories in his time, and in sliding had seen things he'd never dreamed existed, but the story which was unfolding frightened him. A feeling of such dread, such chill came over him that he couldn't concentrate on the man's words.
"You have to see that they can't be allowed to escape this world. If they do, whichever world they come into contact with will die."
The grey haired man sat on the steps and gazed almost pleadingly at the two men in front of him. He looked suddenly tired, as though the events of the last two years had taken years from him and he had finally come to the end. Yet Arturo estimated him to be only in his fifties.
"Won't we die too, man?" Rembrandt was holding his forehead and looked pained.
He wasn't sure he understood all that this guy had told them, though the Professor had seemed to. He did know though, from what he'd heard, that they had a real big problem.
"Not if you can leave without taking the group, or any of its members with you," the man replied quietly. He knew what he'd told them was difficult to swallow, he always knew this possibility could happen. He'd always hoped it never would.
"Can I please go over this once more, my dear fellow. I need to clarify the situation in my own mind." Arturo rose to his feet.
"Be my guest. I'm not going anywhere," the man replied with a wry smile.
"Please correct me if any of what I say is wrong," Arturo started, nodding in the man's direction as he said it.
"This collection of people - five you say - are known as the Group?"
The man's head nodded imperceptibly in agreement.
"They are the remaining survivors of some Cryogenic experiment involving the governing authorities of San Francisco?"
"The only people to undergo cryogenic storage in the San Francisco area, yes," the man agreed.
"And these gentlemen, and one lady I believe you said, thawed out when all the electricity supplies failed during the freeze up." Arturo paused and stroked his chin.
"You haven't explained your role in this, my good man."
"I was their "keeper" for want of a better word," the man replied softly and an ironic smile crept across his lips.
"And you - were you in cryogenic storage as well?"
"I was."
"Very well. We have five persons and one guardian, shall I call you, in cryogenic storage? A cataclysmic event of some kind, and you're not sure about the true nature of how this occurred, interrupts your enforced sleep. You awake to find that the entire population of the world has been wiped out. How am I doing so far?"
Arturo's slightly mocking manner wasn't lost on the man.
"Do you find this amusing?" he asked as he eyed the Professor angrily.
"Not at all. Not at all. Quite plausable in fact," Arturo replied and then threw his hands in the air.
"I'm afraid it is the latter part of your explanation which I find hard to swallow, my dear fellow."
"And which part is that?" the man asked, his eyebrows raised.
"The part about them being infected with a deadly virus. A virus which lies dormant until activated to come out of hibernation. Forgive me, but I find it hard to believe you would actually infect the only other humans remaining on this god-forsaken world."
"Do you really think I infected them? Good God, you're totally mad yourself. I don't think you understand the problems involved in this," the man declared as he drew himself to his feet.
"Please inform me my good man, inform me. Come on. I'm all ears. We're agog aren't we Mr Brown?" Arturo's voice rose in pitch as he turned, his eyes flashing at Rembrandt as he spoke.
"Come on, Professor. The guy's just trying to explain things," Rembrandt answered slowly. He didn't understand the logic behind much of what this guy was saying, but he was trying and he didn't see what the Professor was getting so mad at.
The man shrugged his shoulders with almost total resignation, and looked at them, hollow eyed.
"All right I'll tell you the whole thing. These people were in cryogenic storage for one simple reason. They're the last of a specific group of the population of San Francisco who survived the plague wars twenty years ago. They're carriers of a plague, though they're not sick themselves. We put them in storage because we couldn't bring ourselves to let more people die. They'd survived the wars, damn it. We couldn't take their lives away, not after that."
The man sighed and put his head in his hands.
"We hoped that in years to come a cure would be found. Now that dream is all over. The plague wars weren't enough for mankind, somehow nature intended that we would all die anyway and this....this ice age descended. I was in cryogenic suspension as well. I don't know what happened either. All I know was that the suspension ceased functioning eventually, and we woke up."
"Why were you in the freezer, man?" Rembrandt asked curiously.
"I volunteered to be with them so that when the cure was found I'd be there to explain things to them. They trusted me. Imagine waking up hundreds of years in the future to strangers. I didn't want them to do that. They'd lost their families in the plague wars, we all had."
For a moment the man's eyes glazed and intense sadness haunted his face.
Arturo could only guess that he had lost his family in the plague wars too. He didn't fully understand the whole scenario but the man's intentions were obviously well meant.
"Why won't we get infected?" Rembrandt asked, panic starting to well in his throat.
"The virus is dormant under these extremely low temperatures. It needs sustained higher temperatures to become active. It won't ever become live while this freeze is on. If they leave with you to warmer climates, it will become live after a few weeks or months. Frankly I'm not sure of the time scale. But I do know one certainty. Sooner or later they'll quite simply infect the population of the world they arrive in. "
"You know we go to different worlds?" Rembrandt observed anxiously.
"I'm a scientist. I've read the theories. After the things I've seen I rule out nothing. They told me you'd arrived through some sort of wormhole, and then left through it before they could speak to you. The car sort of surprised them I think. It doesn't take much to work out that you were either time shifting or using some sort of dimensional shift. They were adamant that you might come back. I warned them that you probably wouldn't, but they saw a way to leave here. They're desperate. They've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. They waited."
"But they know they're infected." Arturo pointed out.
"Do you think they care? They're past caring. They just want to get off this world. How they do it means little to them. I can't blame them. I just can't let them." the man's eyes dropped to the floor in regret.
Arturo reached across and put his hand on the man's shoulder sympathetically.
"I think I understand," he stated simply.
***
Quinn looked unhappily at Wade. If the man who'd left the room managed to find Remmy and the Professor, and got his hands on the timer, their fate was sealed. Slide with this group and inflict them on some other world. It was one thing taking people with you who were okay, who needed help, but taking a desperate bunch like this to another world was another matter.
Wade knew what Quinn was thinking. She was worried too. Okay, the man had said they wouldn't leave them here, but she wasn't keen on inflicting this group on the next world, and besides another possibility had sprung to mind.
"Quinn!" she hissed as she watched the man leave the room to use the bathroom.
"What?"
"Do you think when we leave here we might go home? I mean we're so close now to the original slide, maybe the timer will take us home!" Wade's voice rose in excitement, but her heart was tinged with apprehension at the consequences.
"I dunno. It's possible I guess." Quinn shrugged his shoulders. He just couldn't work a thing like that out. The possibilities of sliding home were so remote. The nearness of their original slide point was exciting it was true, but he couldn't bring himself to hope for anything.
The door opened suddenly and with force and three figures were thrust roughly onto the floor.
"Professor!" Quinn heard Wade's voice and his heart sank. He estimated that there would be only one hour to the slide, if that. How were they going to stop this group from sliding with them?
PART FOUR
"I don't think there was any need to push me quite like that!" Arturo complained as he brushed himself down indignantly and straightened himself up.
"Quit complaining or I'll give you somethin' to complain about!" a thin wiry man threatened, moving towards the Professor.
"Professor, I think they got the message," Quinn hissed as he pulled on Arturo's arm and pushed him back against the wall.
"Yes, well a little less of the ruffian and a little more..."
"Professor, just shut up will ya," Rembrandt urged, taking hold of the Professor's other arm, and making sure that he didn't move any closer to the small, but angry looking man in front of them.
"Pay attention to your buddies, man. If you want to live that is. Makes no difference to us. Either live to come through that tunnel thing with us, or die here. I ain't bothered. See - we gonna live. You can die if you want, but you ain't gonna stop us gettin' outta here."
"Enough, Duke. Get the others and bring them here." The man who had been Quinn and Wade's captor stepped forward and pushed Duke towards the door.
"Okay which of you has it?"
"Rolfe, you know this is wrong. You know you can't leave here. You know what leaving here will do to everyone you meet. It's barbaric."
Wade watched the exchange between the man who had arrived with Arturo and Rembrandt, and their own captor. She had started to think about how she could get the timer from the Professor, without anyone seeing. That way if they asked Arturo for it, he could say he hadn't got it. They wouldn't suspect her, since they'd seen she'd arrived in a bikini and little else. Her mind raced.
"*Barbaric* is what you and your kind did to us. *Barbaric* is what you expect us to do. Stay here on this god forsaken world when there's a way out. *Don't* talk to me about barbaric, Clements." Rolfe moved threateningly towards the "keeper", and pushed his nose into the older man's face.
"I've a good mind to leave you here. Leave you to freeze on this ice cube of a world until you die of old age. But I'm not like you, am I? I wouldn't do that to someone. I'll even take these four with us when we leave. Don't talk to me about barbaric, not *ever*!"
Clements backed away, aghast at what Rolfe was saying. A look of horror spread across his features. He couldn't believe this was actually happening. The worst scenario he could have imagined. His act of saving these survivors would now lead to another world dying. He would ultimately be responsible for the death of millions.
"But you know everyone will die. Everyone you meet, everyone you touch. They'll all die. Can you have that on your consciences?" Clements offered quietly, his hands pressed palm downwards against the stone wall. He had to appeal to their consciences, to their memories of what they had been all those years ago - human beings who knew what it was to lose everything. How could they inflict the same fate on another entire world?
"We might make it to some desert island or something before the virus gets activated. You don't really know what will happen, do you? You don't know the real time scale of when the virus will activate, once we leave here. You know zip about the whole thing." Rolfe's eyes were burning like coals, darting from Clements' face to the Sliders.
"I know that this..this act of self preservation is tantamount to mass annihilation of the world you arrive in. Deny that fact. Go on deny it! You know it's true but in your warped mind you can't accept it. Somehow you think it'll be alright." Clements paused for a moment, and caught the aghast expressions on Quinn and Wade's faces.
"You didn't know you were sharing living space with mass murderers, did you?" he observed as he moved towards the pair, glancing in Rolfe's direction as he did so.
"*Potential* murderers....they've done nothing yet," Arturo added solemnly. He hadn't been sure how he was going to explain all this to Wade and Quinn but it looked as though he wouldn't have to bother now. Clements was in full flow.
"What do you mean by `mass annihilation'?" Wade asked quietly, her heart thumping madly.
"Oh, just that this little band are the last remaining carriers of a deadly plague." Clements laughed out loud.
Arturo's eyes narrowed. The man was verging on madness he was sure. Perhaps the knowledge that he had, the guilt that he felt, was too much for any one person to bear.
"To put it succinctly, my dear, if they leave the temperature of this world for one any bit warmer, and stay for more than a few weeks, the virus will activate. Oh, it won't kill *them* of course, they're only carriers, but it will kill anyone they come into contact with. Basically, within months, the vast majority of the population of the world you next go to, will be dead. Just as it was here."
Quinn's mouth opened slightly and he stared at the man, the words starting to sink in, to take shape in his thoughts. The whole thing was worse than he could have imagined. They weren't just a desperate group trying to leave. They were a group infected with something so deadly, it could decimate an entire world.
He couldn't let them slide. If it meant destroying the timer he would have to do it. He never thought he would feel this strongly about destroying it. So close to their own world, so close to possibly getting home. What if the next slide took them home, like Wade had hoped? If there was one world he had to stop from being destroyed, it was his own. If he could achieve that much in sliding....if."
He looked round at his three friends and one by one met their gaze.
Arturo nodded imperceptably as though he understood what had to be done.
Rembrandt swallowed and raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement.
Finally he caught Wade's look and they locked eyes for what seemed to them both to be an eternity. At last a slight smile crossed her lips and she moved her head only slightly.
As though to destroy the sense of resignation the friends felt at their predicament, and what they had to do about it, the door suddenly flung back and four people, including Duke and Tara, sauntered into the room.
In the confusion of their entrance, Quinn noticed Wade slip silently and almost invisibly to Arturo's side and whisper something into his ear. He turned his head frontwards to watch their captors. Whatever Wade had planned, Quinn felt sure she would want to just be left to get on with it. His attention should be on making sure, that the desperate group in front of him didn't see her or stop her.
Wade slipped the timer from Arturo's palm and went to put it underneath her sweater. The sweater Remmy had given to her. It was baggy enough to hide anything and no one would be any the wiser. It might give them time. Time for what, she didn't know.
Time! She had to check the slide time before she hid it. How? The display might bring attention to her. Her thoughts raced.
"I'm gonna be sick."
Quinn wheeled round and saw Wade lean heavily against the wall. She was up to something, of that he was sure.
"She needs the bathroom," Quinn urged as he grabbed Wade's wrist and pushed her towards the door at the side of the room.
"Let her go." Rolfe ordered, as Tara moved towards Wade threateningly.
"She can't do anything in there and she ain't got nothin' on her. We searched her when she came in."
A smirk crossed his lips at the words, and Wade knew that if she got the chance, she'd lay him out for sure.
Wade moved quickly into the bathroom, and pushed the wooden door to behind her. It wouldn't shut totally, but it was enough for her to whip the timer out from underneath her sweater, and check the display.
Her mouth opened in horror. The display couldn't be wrong. It couldn't be. There was no reason for her to doubt it. Unless the cold had affected it. But if it had, they still had to slide when the timer activated. She stuffed the timer back up inside her sweater, and tucked it into the top of her jeans to secure it. The sweater dropped back nicely and hid the bulge from view.
Quinn looked up as Wade moved from the bathroom, wiping her hand across her mouth and staggering slightly towards him.
"You okay?" he asked sympathetically, taking her arm and guiding her to the wall.
She nodded,but her eyes flashed at him. With her back to the group across the room, she silently mouthed the words `FIVE MINUTES'.
Quinn's eyes widened. What she'd been doing, now fell into place. Somehow Wade had the timer. They had to stall for five minutes, and then somehow slide without the rest of the group. His heart sank. The task before them was impossible.
If they activated the timer at the slide time. If they didn't stop all of the group getting through to the next world. If just one of this group got through....
Quinn shuddered inside. The consequences didn't bear thinking about. But what if they destroyed the timer now? They had the chance. They had it in their possession. They could do it. But then their chance for escape was gone forever. The reality which faced them was bleak - stranded on ice-world for the rest of their lives. A fitting end to their sliding adventures. The first world they'd ever visited and the last.
A diversion! That's what they needed.
Quinn caught Rembrandt's eye. He pushed a fist into his other hand and nodded his head towards the group.
Rembrandt acknowledged with barely a nod.
When Rembrandt threw himself forwards at Duke, Quinn launched himself at Rolfe and, taking the man totally off guard knocked him into the wall.
Wade saw Tara move forwards and leap onto Quinn's back. Tara pulled her arm around Quinn's throat and started to choke him. The action caused Quinn to relax his grip on Rolfe, as he felt his windpipe crush.
As she experienced the satisfaction of Quinn's struggle for air, Tara felt Wade's arm slip around her neck and jerk her backwards. Wade hauled her roughly off Quinn and slammed her onto her back on the floor.
"And that's for what you did earlier," Wade hissed into her ear as she pulled her fist back and slammed it hard into the girl's face. The girl's head rolled sideways as a small trickle of blood ran slowly from her lip.
"Good one girl!" Rembrandt shouted approvingly as he punched out Duke, who was pinned beneath him.
Clements saw the Sliders move into action, and threw himself at one of the remaining men, older and frailer than the rest. His smaller frame belied his strength and he managed to pin down the older member of the group with ease.
"Go! Leave this world. Go quickly!" he urged as he saw Wade slip the timer from beneath her sweater and glancing at it, point it towards the wall on the far side of the room.
The beam lanced out from the device and a brilliant blue tunnel illuminated the room. The sides folded in and for a moment, it appeared to Clements that the air from the room was sucked into its very depths.
The remaining member of the group made a rush forward towards the tunnel as Wade screamed at Quinn to stop him.
Within seconds, the bulk of Professor Maximillian Arturo had put himself between the man and the vortex, and as the man slammed into him hard, Quinn heard the grunt as the air was kicked from the Professor's chest.
The man staggered back and collapsed, stunned from the force of the collision.
"Go! Go!" Quinn urged as he pushed Rembrandt forward and he catapulted into the vortex.
He helped the Professor to his feet and pushed him with effort through the mouth of swirling colors and on to the next world.
"Come on Wade, now!" Quinn grabbed at her hand and pulled her, swinging her hard into the vortex. She was gripping the timer tightly with her other hand, knowing that the loss of it would mean the death of billions of people.
As Quinn turned to send himself hurtling towards sanctuary he looked at Clements with pain. He knew his decision to stay was right, but he also knew it was painful. There could be no escape from this ice-world. There should never be. Clements had to make sure of that.
Clements smiled at Quinn. An acknowledgement of the reluctance Quinn felt at leaving him. He who was not infected. He whose only sin, an act of compassion in an era long gone. An act of compassion which now signed his own death warrant.
Quinn returned the smile and then leapt through the vortex to safety. As the tunnel closed behind him Quinn said a mental prayer that no one ever visited that world again. At least no one with sliding ability.
THE END