Now, imagine this.  You have possibly been returned to your home dimension after a seven year sabbatical or so, and during this time you have died and been brought back to life.  Now standing in front of me was one of my companions, or at least his double.  I was prepared for a great deal of questions, but not the punch that hit me squarely in the jaw.  Rembrandt flicked his hand casually, but I knew the blow had caused him some pain.  He sighed under his breath and sat down.

"Don't you people ever learn?  We are NEVER going to let you back here.  But I cannot believe your, wonderful bosses would try to send a plant like this!"  He started laughing at his little joke, and I did not know if I was meant to laugh in turn or not.  I could not tell if this was the Rembrandt Brown who I knew of, but then I had no real way of  knowing otherwise.  So, risking further blows to my person I decided to try some conversation.

"Now, at the risk of appearing ignorant, just what are you on about?"

"You should know.  You are the plant after all."

"Humour me."

Rembrandt sighed again and prepared to start, but his eyes brightened and I gathered he had had a better idea.

"No.  Actually, I want to hear your story first."

So I started my story.  From the beginning, when I was verbally ambushed by Quinn's double in my own lecture hall to my death to my resurrection.  I tried not to mention too much about the consortium or the 'side-effects' of my treatment, but dropped enough hints to suggest that I had benefactors, and I also mentioned other things that only he would know about, or conversations that we had had without the others being present.  He listened thoughtfully to my story, and sighed yet again.  He had probably heard plenty of similar stories from these other 'plants' he had encountered.

"So, assuming this is your world as well, and you are the professor that I knew, why are you here?"

"Home is home, is it not?  Come on now, I've told you my story, what about your own?"

Rembrandt scowled at that.  I gathered that he thought me an impostor, and in his position I could not blame him.  But it did not explain his heavy-handedness with me from before, or the state of the streets outside.  But, eventually he relented.

Rembrandt told me what had happened to the group after my death.  He collaborated that the world I had died on was about to be destroyed by a pulsar, and that they had chased after that man Rickman to get the coordinates for here.  Somewhere along the line, they had discovered that Quinn was from another dimension entirely, and had met his brother, only to be merged with him into some gestalt entity, while here the Kromaggs had invaded this world and put it to the torch.  Wade had been captured by them at some point and taken away.  I nearly was sick as I could imagine what they would had done to her, and I could only hope that she had not suffered long.  Rembrandt seemed to guess that would have upset me, so he told how he had managed to return here with a virus that was lethal to Kromaggs and had managed to wipe the majority of them out.  It was still in the atmosphere, but non-lethal to normal humans, and Rembrandt had been made a national hero.  Unfortunately, it appeared that national was the state of play.  The Krommaggs had learned a lesson from the Roman's, and had 'poisoned our well' so to speak.  The plague needed time to spread, enough time for them to set off an electromagnetic pulse that shorted out the majority of the technology here.  Their method however was similar to the Hiroshima blast.  Japan, France, Egypt and a number of other countries had been decimated by nuclear warheads, the resulting EMP blasts causing the devastation.  With no way to confirm if the reports were true or not, it was fare to speculate that Earth had become a wasteland.  It was a shocking revelation that I had just missed World War III. 

"So what weapons do you have?"

"Stuff stolen from old army bases.  It's not as if the security systems work there any more."

"I saw the devastation outside.  What was that?"

"I figured you'd call it 'poisoning the well'.  They knew about the plague, they hadn't managed to develop a cure for it though.  I don't know the specifics, but it's nasty.  So they just started killing people or sending them through to be slaves.  Setting their stuff to blow up.  They figured if they couldn't have this world, they would make sure we couldn't either."

"The university?"

"Most of the lecturers, scientists, any egg-heads they could get their hand's on were put into concentration camps then killed.  Bookshops and libraries were burned down.  You and Q-Ball were on wanted posters everywhere.  They figured that since they had seen me and Wade, you two wouldn't be far behind and had just gone into hiding.  They're scared most of all of anybody who could replicate the technology, so if you were here to build another timer, or somehow wall them out, they'd be out of business soon enough."

"You still do not believe I am the Maxamillian Arturo you knew, do you?"

He then started to laugh.  "You want to know what I think?  I'm wondering why I didn't have you killed on sight!  Professor Arturo, is, dead.  I saw him die right in front of me, and it devastated us!  I mean, we got lucky so many times before, but with you dead, it brought it home, you know.  I figure, you are a double of his that the Krommies sent here to try to get us to open up.  Trojan horse.  I figured you'd appreciate the humour in that."

This was starting to annoy me.  "And why are you starting to talk like I do?"

"Because I don't get much chance to laugh just now.  So you're the joke just now!  You're dead!  You're not the guy I knew!"

I could feel myself getting more angry at this.  "All you are is a Krommie puppet!  They send you guys here every once in a while, figure to try the sympathy deal.  But they're weak.  They believe that they get to go home, or they'll be allowed to live.  But it's a lie!  And I don't believe that you believe that lie any day of the week!  But if you do, you are the biggest fool on this or any other world!"

That was enough.  Thankfully, I have had enough experience at shouting at people I could not feel my throat get sore at all.  "So you think I'm a fool do you?  Well, I thought I could go home, meet some old friends and sleep in my own bed for the first time in seven years!  But I come home to find out that the race that probably gave the Nazi's pointers had gotten here first!  If the Krommags were so interested in wiping you out, why didn't they just send a nuclear bomb, or another plague through here, instead of me, the so-called plant!" 

I took a small breath.  "You want to know what I was offered?  Do you?  I could have been the head researcher of sliding at the consortium!  It would be any scientist's dream!  But I turned it down so that I could go home.  And if you do not believe that I am who I say I am, then fine.  Fair enough, there really is no way to prove who I am, but I thought you knew me well enough to know I was I.  Welcome to Hell Mr Brown.  It may be home, but I sure as hell do not want to live here any more!"

He shot me a glare and started his own retort in a soft but cold voice.  " I've been here for nearly two years.  I got called the messiah nearly when everyone else figured out I had killed those, things."  He looked as if he was about to spit the word out.  "And this is hell.  I'm expected to help rebuild this place.  And I can't.  We have no scientists or technicians.  No books?  We have hardly any equipment.  You know what they want to do to me, those people who look to me to make their lives better?"

"What?"

"They want to make me president.  Can you believe that?  The first black president of the United States.  That would feel good."

I had managed to calm down by now.  "Better than singing?"

He started crying a little at that.  Yes, out of only one eye.  "Oh yeah!  But I can't do it."

I did not want to see him like this.  Even if he did not believe me to be me, I knew who he really was, that he was my friend.  "You have led these people for two years, yes?"  He nodded.  "And how is here now compared to two years ago?" 

"Better I guess.  You figure I've done alright?"

"From what I have seen?  To be honest, I've not seen that much.  The park was littered with corpses.  I was ill in the fountain, and walking to my home did not help, but I believe that you have done well here."

"You're really you, aren't you?" 

"Have you known any other Arturo to bellow like that?"

"Well…"

It looked  as if he finally believed me.  After another tearful outburst he hugged me and started the grand tour.  This base was underneath one of the junior high schools of San Francisco.  Rembrant had managed to jury-rig a garden so that fresh food was available, since the majority would have spoiled before he had arrived, as well as a fresh water well.  He and the others, mostly teenagers or middle-aged people, had converted some other buildings into gardens, as well as workshops and other little communities.  There was even a school there.  Rembrandt finally took me to a small kitchen and dished out some food for us both.  I believed it was mashed potato.  I wanted it to be mashed potato, but decided to give it a try.

"Delicious" I managed to lie.

"It gets better once you get used to it."  I could tell he could barely stomach it himself.  So to put both our minds at ease I decided to ask some questions.

"If the Krommaggs were so eager to destroy any research, why is my house relatively intact?"

"After we disappeared, the FBI was very eager to find out what had happened to us.  They figured we were working for a foreign government.  The Russians, the Chinese.  The feds got paranoid, and decided to raid Q-Balls place first.  Course, he built it and all the research was there, they figured out what it was, assumed we all got caught in it by accident and were dead or whatever.  They even roped in that Bennish guy in to help."

"They got Bennish to help develop sliding technology?  The last time I worked with him he was going to go into the arms business with nuclear weapons!"

"Oh no, they got him in tight.  Bennish was a naughty boy.  Growing so many drugs in his apartment."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"Anyway, Bennish got off the hook.  Then some company found out about it.  They got interested in adapting it.  Something about how they could fix it so it would work as anti-gravity.  Control the vortex so that it lets you out in the same world, but different place.  Heck, even use as a sliding machine and dump toxic waste.  And since they couldn't get Q-Ball…"

"They got Mr Bennish."

"Yeah.  He managed to con Quinn's Mom into getting all the other research.  He wanted to get yours too.  But then the Krommaggs hit.  But to answer your question, your house got bought out by the bank since you were presumed dead.  Some other guy got the deed to it and it was changed to be under his name, so when they tried to find out where you lived, they didn't find any records that you were still out.  Not even a last point of address.  When the resistance found out you were being looked for, they wiped out any record of you and Quinn ever being alive."

"How did you find this out?"

"Bennish got drunk one night and told some of the other guys and word spread around.  People figured he led them here by playing about with the timer, so he got jumped later on and dumped outside their headquarters.  Bled to death right there with no-one to help him."

"It's sick you know.  Course he would have been hunted down next, but maybe if he'd survived I could do what I was gonna do after killing Krommaggs."

"You want to go after Wade, don't you?"

"Yeah.  I know it's so likely she's dead, but I have to know.  And I want to spread this plague."

"You realise that it would be suicide."

"You really didn't get a good look, did you?  I want to make them pay for this."

"But genocide?  It makes us worse than they are."

"I don't care.  I want to get out of here.  If I got stressed out, I would go for a walk.  But I do that and I just see what they did here."

"And the people here?"

"They did fine without me before.  They had to deal with them before.  I don't need to be here.  And it's not just Wade I want to find."

"What do you mean?"

"One of the first slave-ships they took through?  Our families.  Wade's folks.  My cousins.  Anybody related to us, they took."

"So you want to find them?"

"If you can build a timer then yeah.  But I don't want it to be like it was at the start.  I need to be able to control it.  And you have to teach everyone here how to use one as well.  Just in case we need to evacuate.  And I mean pulsar-world evacuate."

I felt his plight, but it was not really one I could condone.  His very presence could kill them, and as much as I disliked them  myself, I did not kill people.  I knew Rembrandt knew me well enough that I would help him build a timer, but I would not kill.  Then he pulled out his ace in the hole.

"It was weird though.  We got a video image of the group that got taken in the first ship.  I recognised some of the people, all split into groups.  It's a standard procedure before they are split up again.  Our families.  Some politicians.  Small mercy that I guess.  But there was this one guy I didn't recognise.  He stayed in my head when I saw him, but I really didn't think much of it.  Then I got to your place.  I figured since they torched Quinn's house, you might have some notes.  Couldn't figure it out though so I left them.  But I saw a photo on a table."  Rembrandt pulled out the picture.  It was taken about ten years ago, and I was smiling at the camera.  Beside me was a young man in his late twenties also smiling.  He was wearing a graduation gown and holding two certificates.  Rembrandt gave me the photograph and I tucked it away.  "So, who is he?"

That photograph changed my mind about killing Kromaggs.  Yes, I would help Rembrandt build another timer.  It would be tested, unlike Mr Mallory's, and it would work as it was meant to.  If need be, I would be infected by this virus that Rembrandt carried and go myself.

 After a long pause I finally looked up at Rembrandt.  "He is my son."

Authors notes

Woo, new year and my next chapter.  Sorry if it reads odd, but I ended up shattering my elbow just before new year, so trying to type when one of your arms in covered in plaster and you are that pumped full of painkillers is not exactly the best way to proof-read your own work.  But hey.  I get to be off work.  A mate of mine taped the first season of Sliders when it was on cable new-years day so I've been a happy bunny.  So watching them made my mind go click.  I sorta know where I want to go with this but watching Sliders again has helped me keep sane.  You might think being off work for two months is good, but god its boring.  Still, got a chance to work on a novel now…

Also, I'd like to thank those who've read my work.  Writing this lets me work my brain and keep my sanity, but also knowing that there are people out there who are not just reading my stuff but like it is enough to keep me going.  So thanks.

Finally, does anybody know any good places on the net for how parallel universes work and how they are actually mapped out?  I might get round to creating a working model 'multi-universe' but any ideas would be appreciated.