Chapter 2: A Few Truths
My host had obviously second-guessed me, as he led me into a nearby guestroom. It was spartious enough, about the size of a typical hotel room, and had the usual creature comforts. He indicated to me a small buzzer, and told me he would wait to explain things if I wanted to. An hour would have sufficed me however, and he said he'd get some food made up in advance while I readied myself. A brief inspection revealed a cabinet full of clothes, ranging from business suits to more casual attire. A shower was in order first though, and then I put on a rather expensive Armani. It felt good. Another look around revealed my belongings in a desk drawer. At least the ones that I had taken with me before I got taken in Quinn's little jaunt around the universe. My watch was there. My wedding-ring was there (which I quickly placed in it's rightful position), and so was a photograph.
Wade had insisted that we had a group photograph taken on a paradise world. The same one where I had the joy of being her slave for a week. All four of us. I stared at the photograph for a long time, and remembered how these three people had become a family to me. I wondered where they were. Probably running away from Kromaggs or averting another apocalypse to the universe. I decided not to dwell on the fact, and walked outside.
Maxwell was waiting for me, and casually looked me over.
'Good fit?'
'I have to ask. Who is your tailor?'
We chuckled at the joke, and he led me to his office. The door had a number of honorifics underneath his name; a quick glance revealed that he was an expert on the human anatomy and a superb doctor, but the office itself was possibly even more impressive. An ocean view was in front of me, washing onto a beautiful beech. I could see a few people working on computers, or just relaxing in the sun. My host poured himself a drink as I admired the view, and was busy getting another glass for myself.
'It's a beautiful view'.
'One of the privileges of being the head of this department. Whiskey? Temporally manipulated to 800 years.'
'8000 years old whiskey? I'd need to see the barrel.'
I graciously took the whiskey and a seat, and Maxwell turned on the computer that was sitting on his desk. While it warmed itself up, I had a brief look around the office. A simple desk with paperwork, no photographs. A drinks cabinet with a variety of beverages. It appeared that Maxwell was also the welcoming committee, and the fact that he was my double was coincidence. A bizarre one at that, but a coincidence none the same.
Maxwell tapped into the computer while I took a sip of the whiskey, and turned around the monitor so that we could both see it. The image changed from that God-accursed Windows to a video-clip.
'That is me, isn't it?"
I tapped at the body on the screen.
"Yes."
"And those?"
I pointed at two black machines that were milling around the area. They were some sort of robots, more advanced than any I had ever seen. They looked as if they belonged in a science-fiction show.
"Scout-Bots. We send them into parallel dimensions before we risk sending anybody else. Just in case the world is uninhabitable. They were there to investigate the radiation that was building up in the surrounding atmosphere. That's when they found you."
I couldn't believe I was watching this. It was morbid, seeing my own body like that.
"You knew about the pulsar?"
"One of the people in the Cosmology department detected it from our hyperspace-rigs."
"Hyperspace-rig?"
"I'll explain in a second. See that Bot?" He pointed at the one closest to me. It brought out what could only be a tentacle, and shot out a hypodermic needle, that it proceeded to stab into my heart.
"That was, unsettling." I downed the whiskey, and Maxwell poured me a refill.
"Unfortunately necessary as well. Direct nano-bot feeding was needed. You would have been completely brain-dead had we arrived later." Maxwell turned off the computer. "I don't believe you would want to see field surgery."
I was listening to his words, and then I caught what he had fully said. "How, dead was I?"
"Two minutes."
"I was actually dead?"
"Yes. By luck, that droid was also fitted with our new medical technology. Given enough time, our nano-tech robots can repair practically any damage to the human body. But with you we had a problem."
"And that was?"
He stared at me for a moment. "You were suffering from a terminal bout of brain cancer. You didn't know?"
And of course that mystic had cured my cancer by performing 'surgery' in my gut! Heal myself? Preposterous.
"I knew of it, but I had reason to think that I may have been cured of it."
"Well, you were not. That complicated matters. You are cured of cancer, you are alive…"
"And have no scaring."
"Exactly. But there was a little side-effect."
"And that was?"
Maxwell pinched the bridge of his nose. "We had to keep you in cryogenic suspension for the duration. At the time, our nano-tech was effective, but slow. We had to cure the immediate problem, and then freeze you to stop anything else happening. So, we cured the wound and revived you. But the cancer was at this point in operable. Open surgery would have caused more damage. So again, we used the nanites to destroy the cancer from the inside. But we had to keep you frozen for quite some time."
I paused for a few seconds. If I had been sipping on the whiskey, I would have done a spit-take. Yes, I believe that's what it is called.
"How long?"
"About four years. It's now the 2nd of March, 2001."
Deep breath. VERY deep breath. Do NOT loose control. This man is responsible for saving your life. DO NOT EXPLODE AT HIM!
"So, no millennial apocalypse's at all?"
"Not really, no."
"Very good. Is there any more whiskey?"
Authors Notes
Okay, this took longer than I planned to write, and it is pretty short. But I've been developing this idea for a little while, and I've got some rather nasty ideas that means I can drag out the plot for a while, and make up quite a few chapters. What can I say, I loved Sliders when I actually got the chance to watch it. After some checking, I realised that I've only seen 16 episodes. Thank you BBC for TOTALLY SCREWING UP THE SHEDULE! INCOMPETENT YAHOOS! AAARGH! WANT SLIDERS BOXED SETS! DON'T JUST WANT PILOT AND A FEW EPISODES! WANT THEM ALL!
Sorry about the little rant. About doing this Sliders fic…
I wanted to focus on Arturo for a change. Hey, he's one of my favourite characters in ANY program, and in most of the fan-fics I've read, he is criminally under-used. Sliders is foremost about CHARACTER INTERACTION, and so, since this is what I like the most, I decided to write about this. Also, I never saw the Exodus episode. From what I've heard, I'm dreading it (and not just about killing Arturo off), and even though there are plenty of fics out there that have Arturo back in it, they tend to use the common dues-ex's.
- Exodus never happened.
- Continues from Exodus. Has characters I've never seen, so can't reference anything.
- That Post Tramatic Slide Syndrome Arturo double thing (never saw the episode, but sounds like fun. Sorry, I'm not buying the theory though, since I can't believe that the others wouldn't notice the difference.)
- It's another double, who just happens to want to slide about the universe aimlessly.
Fair enough, it's a valid, plausable way to bring 'him' back, but when it is done, it is just a case of…
Quinn: Professor!
Arturo: Mr Mallory!
Quinn: You're meant to be dead!
Arturo: You took my double with you in that PTSS episode that everybody likes and uses as a reference to bring me back into their fan-fiction stories. Blistering idiot.
Quinn: Okay. Wanna get lost in the universe again?
Arturo: Okay dokey.
Right… Sorry, I'm being a pedantic goit but I wanted to do something different. Also, some people will probably ask me why I'm setting it modern day.
Little teaser thing.
Everything from the show happened. This is a continuation of the show.
Next time, Arturo learns more about the applied physics of controlled sliding. So I have to come up with a plausable science, as well as set up how to explain sliding, and stuff like coordinates. Coordinates for a reference which is infinate… Give me a few months.
Hopefully too much later.
Give me feedback. Remember, feedback helps make me improve. So if you enjoyed this story, or even if you didn't, let me know.