I spent the night at a motel on Orangethorpe Avenue near Quinn's house. The next morning, I called Quinn and he agreed to pick me up. Soon, he arrived in a blue BMW. I goty inside the car and within minutes we were heading north on Interstate 5, which was known as the Santa Ana Freeway. There were pockets of heavy traffic, but then Quinn exited off Norwalk Boulevard in Norwalk, and continued north into an industrial neighborhood in Santa Fe Springs.
He finally pulled into a parking lot. "What is this place?" I asked as I got out of the car.
"This is Crayton Labs, where I work," said Quinn.
"And you work with parallel universes?"
"Yes."
He led me to the building, which did not look remarkable from any of the other buildings in this neighborhood, aside from the huge antennas on top. We both went inside a door. There was a room with two doors, one to the outside and one to the interior of the building,
"Who's the visitor, Dr. Mallory?" asked a security guard.
"He's part of a project," replied Quinn.
"Both of you sign here."
Quinn signed in, and I too signed in. We were then allowed inside the building. I found myself walking through a hallway, my feet echoing against the white-tiled floors.
"Good morning, Quinn," said this Negro lady in a white lab coat.
"Morning, DD," said Quinn. We continued until we went inside one of the doors.
Inside the room, a blond-haired lady who appeared to be in her early twenties sat behind a desk. "Good morning, Dr. Mallory," she said.
"Good morning, Angela," said Quinn. "I'm going to have a little meeting with this man here."
"I've got some messages." Angela gave Quinn some pink message slips. We then stepped into his private office and Quinn sat behind a desk. A Power Macintosh G4 sat on the desk.
"Tell me about yourself," said Quinn.
So I did. I told him that my parents sent me to a parallel Earth because of a war, and that my brother, one of his duplicates, arrived on my world. He had a device that could open a portal to another universe. I joined him and two others on a quest to reach my home world. I clutched my chest.
"What's wrong?" asked Quinn.
"My ribs were broken before my arrival here," I said.
"So why did your Quinn not come to my house? It would have been more convincing."
"I got separated from them during a slide. I now slide randomly through parallel universes. See this watch?" I showed him my watch. "One of your duplicates was working on an interdimensional exploration project for the U.S. government. He ands his coworkers found out that I was unstuck."
Quinn typed a few keys on the computer keyboard. "Unstuck means that something can not be held in a particular dimension, but instead travels through the dimensions. It's only theoretical."
"I'm the proof, Quinn. Next week I leave."
"I'd like to run a few tests on you," he said. "Come with me."
Quinn led me out of the office. We entered a room with all sorts of equipment.
"Thios device will allow me to get some information on you," he said. "It will only take a few minutes. Please take a seat."
I sat on this leather chair, where there was somrthibng res,mbling an X-ray device. The machine hummed.
"What is your research here?" I asked.
"I work with a device called a junction," said Quinn. "It can junction an object with its counterpart in a parallel universe."
"Did you invent this device?" I asked.
"No, our founder, Dr. Crayton, was its inventor. he had been working in the field of parallel universes for years. A couple of years ago, he built a prototype device that could open a wormhole to another universe."
"Have you went through the wormhole?" I asked.
"Oh no," said Quinn. "Not unless you can shrink yourself down to microscopic size. Let me explain this a bit. On microscopic levels, space time is wrinkled, like a quantim foam. Crayton's original device simply opened up a wormhole and allowed us to send signals through to parallel universes."
"And what is this junction?" I asked. Another device?"
"it is a device used for practical applications. What it does is map an object's counterpart from another dimension and then lay it on top of the original. Just think of the possibilties. We can cure a sick person by using his healthy duplicate as a template. I could get a Nobel Prize for my work." There was a beep. "The quantum scanner is finished." Quinn took a disk from the computer which was wired into the device. "Let's head back to my office."
So we did. Quinn looked at the raw data on his office computer, and even ran some programs which were designed to interpret this data.
"Nothing abnormal," he said. "Nothing that would suggest that you are unstuck. Do you remember the tests my counterpart gave you to determine that you were unstuck?"
"Well," I said. "I know that there were a few of them."
"Listen, I have to do some work in the lab," said Quinn. "I'll speak to Dr. Crayton about you. Just stick here in the meanwhile. My computer has Internet access."
I waited inside the office for about an hour when Quinn came in. "Dr. Crayton wouild like to see you," he said.
So I went to meet Dr. Crayton.
Dr. Crayton was the head of thios facility. He was a middle-aged man with blond hair and thick eyeglasses. he wore a white lab coat over an expensive-looking business suit.
"Hello," said Dr. Crayton. "Tell me about yourself."
So I did, including the part about traveling through parallel universes.
"so you actually visited these parallel universes for yourself," said Crayton.
"Yes," I replied. "My brother-Quinn's duplicate- built a device that generated a wormhole allowing for such travel."
"And these wormholes were big enough for as human to pass through."
"We drove a truck through it once," I said. "But anyway, the reason I am here. Five months ago, I got separated from my friends. I found out I was unstuck, which means that I now bounce from universe to universe. I came here hoping that you would be willing to help me, if it is all right with you."
"It is," said Dr. Crayton, a smile on his face.
"Really?" I asked. I was not expecting the doctor to be so generous, let alone take my word for it.
"I'd like you to meet our research staff, whom the junction would not have been possible without," said Crayton.
"A visitor from another universe's version of Earth?" said Dr. Maximilian Arturo. "This is absolutely ridiculous. How do we know he is telling the truth. We could all be wasting our time!"
"He may be our best chance to make the junction succeed," said Dr. Crayton. "We've only been able to create microscopic wormholes. We may make wormholes viable for human travel."
I was meeting with the reserch staff in this conference room. I had been introduced to Drs. Maximilian Arturo,. Vladimir Jariabek, Conrad Bennish, Wing, and Diana "DD" Davis.
"We still have to verify whether or not Colin Mallory here is from another dimension,." said Wing.
"He looks just like my brother, only thirteen years older," said Quinn. "You can have the genetics lab down the street conduct a DNA test; it will show that we are brothers."
"We could conduct a quantum resonance test," said Diana Davis. "The stuff that we junctioned contains parts from parallel universes, which will virbate at a different frequency for a while. If Colin here arrived recently, he should be vibrating differently than the rest of the universe."
"I still am skeptical," said Arturo. "He must have a device that allows him to travel between dimensions."
"I believe him," said Crayton. "He is not lying, and I am certain he is not insane. I saw we perform tests to verify his status. by studying him, we may unlock one of the secrets of the multiverse."
"Hey," said Conrad Bennish. "You're the boss."
I was brought back into the same lab I was over an hour ago. Quinn was there, along with Doctors Davis and Jariabek. I was put inside this chamber.
"We will be doing an QRI scan," said Dr. Jariabek. "this machine was designed to measure the quantum resonance of our test subjects."
"Will it show any differences with me?" I asked.
"If you arrived from a parallel universe recently, your quantum resonance should be significantly different from the background quantum resonance," said Dr. Davis.
The machine hummed. After a few minutes, the whole thing was over.
"Do you have the results?" I asked.
"Well, according to these measuremewnts, you're from a parallel universe," said Dr. Davis.
"I wonder how he knew," said Dr. Jariabek.
"I say we analyze the data," said Quinn. He inserted a disk into the computer that was connected to the QRI machine. he later ejected the disk.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Dr. Crayton asked Quinn.
"Well, sir, if we are conducting all these tests on Colin here," said Quinn, "we should at least show him the junction."
I was in the main lab, a huge room in the basement level of the building. There were all these mainframe computers. The device itself was a chamber, large enough for an adult human.
"So those antennas I saw on top of the building are for this," I said.
"Yes," said Crayton. "They are necessary for us to realize the goal of this research. What the junction does is create a multi-dimensional field inside. This field opens up millions of wormholes in the quantum foam, allowing us to access other versions of the test object in parallel universes."
A lab aide broiught two ceramic plates. "Now look here. These two plates have had a hole bored through them with a laser. We will keep one of these plates out here as a backup, while the other plate will be junctioned with a whole version of itself in another universe."
One of them plates were placed inside the chamber of the junction. Dr. Diana Davis went to the control panel.
"Beginning sequence," she said. "Scanning the molecular structure of the test object., Measuring quantum resonance."
The machine began to hum. I could see needles move in the voltmeters and ammeters.
"Generating junctioning field," said Dr. Davis. There was a glow in the chamber. I looked closely; the plate was enveloped in a bluish glow."Junctioning field at full saturation." I looked at one of the screens; I could see the plate, with the hole in the middle.
"Begin junction," said Crayton.
Dr. Davis pulled a lever, and the chamber glowed brightly. Inside, I could see the plate. The hole bored inside started to disappear. I could also see its representation on the Silcon Graphics monitor screen, and it showed the plate being repaired.
"Junctioning successful," said Davis.
"Good, shut down the field."
The junction was powered down. Dr. Crayton took the plate out and showed it to me. the hole in the middle was gone.
"Well, you invented a new way to repair plates,"I said.
"It only cost ten thousand dollars," said Quinn. "you could buy at least a hundred of those plates with the money we used for this one little test."
"It's okay, Dr. Mallory," said Dr. Crayton. "Once we refine this technology, we can use this to heal people. And believe me, the junction would be cheaper than other forms of medical care."
"Have you used the junction on living things?" I asked.
"We only recently tested on unicellular life forms," said Crayton. "We expose it to radiation to cause cell damage, and then put it in here. We have been so far unsuccessful with multicellular life. But you could be the key, Colin. You can help us achieve our goal."
"Well, let's do the usual," said Quinn. "Let's have a QRI for this test plate and control plate."
Later on, Quinn and I met with Dr. Crayton.
"I've looked through the initial tests on you, Mr. Mallory," said Crayton. "the results were promising. We may be able to use this on multicellular life, even go so far as to use human test subjects."
"I am honored to help in such a noble endeavour," I said. "But I would appreciate you helping me. My brother and friends are out there, hopefully alive, and I know they were looking for me. Can you find them?"
"We can certainly try," said Crayton. "If this project is successful, we would have you to thank for it. Now, you will need a proper place to stay. I;m afraid the lab is not a nice place. Perhaps staying with Dr. Mallory will be feasible. he is as close you have as family for now."
"I don't know," said Quinn. "My wife might object to having a strange man in the house."
"then how about a housing allowance," said Crayton. "I would say two hundred dollars a day."
"I'd be honored," said Quinn. "You would like to stay, right Colin?"
"It will be better than that motel," I said. "Let's do it."
He finally pulled into a parking lot. "What is this place?" I asked as I got out of the car.
"This is Crayton Labs, where I work," said Quinn.
"And you work with parallel universes?"
"Yes."
He led me to the building, which did not look remarkable from any of the other buildings in this neighborhood, aside from the huge antennas on top. We both went inside a door. There was a room with two doors, one to the outside and one to the interior of the building,
"Who's the visitor, Dr. Mallory?" asked a security guard.
"He's part of a project," replied Quinn.
"Both of you sign here."
Quinn signed in, and I too signed in. We were then allowed inside the building. I found myself walking through a hallway, my feet echoing against the white-tiled floors.
"Good morning, Quinn," said this Negro lady in a white lab coat.
"Morning, DD," said Quinn. We continued until we went inside one of the doors.
Inside the room, a blond-haired lady who appeared to be in her early twenties sat behind a desk. "Good morning, Dr. Mallory," she said.
"Good morning, Angela," said Quinn. "I'm going to have a little meeting with this man here."
"I've got some messages." Angela gave Quinn some pink message slips. We then stepped into his private office and Quinn sat behind a desk. A Power Macintosh G4 sat on the desk.
"Tell me about yourself," said Quinn.
So I did. I told him that my parents sent me to a parallel Earth because of a war, and that my brother, one of his duplicates, arrived on my world. He had a device that could open a portal to another universe. I joined him and two others on a quest to reach my home world. I clutched my chest.
"What's wrong?" asked Quinn.
"My ribs were broken before my arrival here," I said.
"So why did your Quinn not come to my house? It would have been more convincing."
"I got separated from them during a slide. I now slide randomly through parallel universes. See this watch?" I showed him my watch. "One of your duplicates was working on an interdimensional exploration project for the U.S. government. He ands his coworkers found out that I was unstuck."
Quinn typed a few keys on the computer keyboard. "Unstuck means that something can not be held in a particular dimension, but instead travels through the dimensions. It's only theoretical."
"I'm the proof, Quinn. Next week I leave."
"I'd like to run a few tests on you," he said. "Come with me."
Quinn led me out of the office. We entered a room with all sorts of equipment.
"Thios device will allow me to get some information on you," he said. "It will only take a few minutes. Please take a seat."
I sat on this leather chair, where there was somrthibng res,mbling an X-ray device. The machine hummed.
"What is your research here?" I asked.
"I work with a device called a junction," said Quinn. "It can junction an object with its counterpart in a parallel universe."
"Did you invent this device?" I asked.
"No, our founder, Dr. Crayton, was its inventor. he had been working in the field of parallel universes for years. A couple of years ago, he built a prototype device that could open a wormhole to another universe."
"Have you went through the wormhole?" I asked.
"Oh no," said Quinn. "Not unless you can shrink yourself down to microscopic size. Let me explain this a bit. On microscopic levels, space time is wrinkled, like a quantim foam. Crayton's original device simply opened up a wormhole and allowed us to send signals through to parallel universes."
"And what is this junction?" I asked. Another device?"
"it is a device used for practical applications. What it does is map an object's counterpart from another dimension and then lay it on top of the original. Just think of the possibilties. We can cure a sick person by using his healthy duplicate as a template. I could get a Nobel Prize for my work." There was a beep. "The quantum scanner is finished." Quinn took a disk from the computer which was wired into the device. "Let's head back to my office."
So we did. Quinn looked at the raw data on his office computer, and even ran some programs which were designed to interpret this data.
"Nothing abnormal," he said. "Nothing that would suggest that you are unstuck. Do you remember the tests my counterpart gave you to determine that you were unstuck?"
"Well," I said. "I know that there were a few of them."
"Listen, I have to do some work in the lab," said Quinn. "I'll speak to Dr. Crayton about you. Just stick here in the meanwhile. My computer has Internet access."
I waited inside the office for about an hour when Quinn came in. "Dr. Crayton wouild like to see you," he said.
So I went to meet Dr. Crayton.
Dr. Crayton was the head of thios facility. He was a middle-aged man with blond hair and thick eyeglasses. he wore a white lab coat over an expensive-looking business suit.
"Hello," said Dr. Crayton. "Tell me about yourself."
So I did, including the part about traveling through parallel universes.
"so you actually visited these parallel universes for yourself," said Crayton.
"Yes," I replied. "My brother-Quinn's duplicate- built a device that generated a wormhole allowing for such travel."
"And these wormholes were big enough for as human to pass through."
"We drove a truck through it once," I said. "But anyway, the reason I am here. Five months ago, I got separated from my friends. I found out I was unstuck, which means that I now bounce from universe to universe. I came here hoping that you would be willing to help me, if it is all right with you."
"It is," said Dr. Crayton, a smile on his face.
"Really?" I asked. I was not expecting the doctor to be so generous, let alone take my word for it.
"I'd like you to meet our research staff, whom the junction would not have been possible without," said Crayton.
"A visitor from another universe's version of Earth?" said Dr. Maximilian Arturo. "This is absolutely ridiculous. How do we know he is telling the truth. We could all be wasting our time!"
"He may be our best chance to make the junction succeed," said Dr. Crayton. "We've only been able to create microscopic wormholes. We may make wormholes viable for human travel."
I was meeting with the reserch staff in this conference room. I had been introduced to Drs. Maximilian Arturo,. Vladimir Jariabek, Conrad Bennish, Wing, and Diana "DD" Davis.
"We still have to verify whether or not Colin Mallory here is from another dimension,." said Wing.
"He looks just like my brother, only thirteen years older," said Quinn. "You can have the genetics lab down the street conduct a DNA test; it will show that we are brothers."
"We could conduct a quantum resonance test," said Diana Davis. "The stuff that we junctioned contains parts from parallel universes, which will virbate at a different frequency for a while. If Colin here arrived recently, he should be vibrating differently than the rest of the universe."
"I still am skeptical," said Arturo. "He must have a device that allows him to travel between dimensions."
"I believe him," said Crayton. "He is not lying, and I am certain he is not insane. I saw we perform tests to verify his status. by studying him, we may unlock one of the secrets of the multiverse."
"Hey," said Conrad Bennish. "You're the boss."
I was brought back into the same lab I was over an hour ago. Quinn was there, along with Doctors Davis and Jariabek. I was put inside this chamber.
"We will be doing an QRI scan," said Dr. Jariabek. "this machine was designed to measure the quantum resonance of our test subjects."
"Will it show any differences with me?" I asked.
"If you arrived from a parallel universe recently, your quantum resonance should be significantly different from the background quantum resonance," said Dr. Davis.
The machine hummed. After a few minutes, the whole thing was over.
"Do you have the results?" I asked.
"Well, according to these measuremewnts, you're from a parallel universe," said Dr. Davis.
"I wonder how he knew," said Dr. Jariabek.
"I say we analyze the data," said Quinn. He inserted a disk into the computer that was connected to the QRI machine. he later ejected the disk.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Dr. Crayton asked Quinn.
"Well, sir, if we are conducting all these tests on Colin here," said Quinn, "we should at least show him the junction."
I was in the main lab, a huge room in the basement level of the building. There were all these mainframe computers. The device itself was a chamber, large enough for an adult human.
"So those antennas I saw on top of the building are for this," I said.
"Yes," said Crayton. "They are necessary for us to realize the goal of this research. What the junction does is create a multi-dimensional field inside. This field opens up millions of wormholes in the quantum foam, allowing us to access other versions of the test object in parallel universes."
A lab aide broiught two ceramic plates. "Now look here. These two plates have had a hole bored through them with a laser. We will keep one of these plates out here as a backup, while the other plate will be junctioned with a whole version of itself in another universe."
One of them plates were placed inside the chamber of the junction. Dr. Diana Davis went to the control panel.
"Beginning sequence," she said. "Scanning the molecular structure of the test object., Measuring quantum resonance."
The machine began to hum. I could see needles move in the voltmeters and ammeters.
"Generating junctioning field," said Dr. Davis. There was a glow in the chamber. I looked closely; the plate was enveloped in a bluish glow."Junctioning field at full saturation." I looked at one of the screens; I could see the plate, with the hole in the middle.
"Begin junction," said Crayton.
Dr. Davis pulled a lever, and the chamber glowed brightly. Inside, I could see the plate. The hole bored inside started to disappear. I could also see its representation on the Silcon Graphics monitor screen, and it showed the plate being repaired.
"Junctioning successful," said Davis.
"Good, shut down the field."
The junction was powered down. Dr. Crayton took the plate out and showed it to me. the hole in the middle was gone.
"Well, you invented a new way to repair plates,"I said.
"It only cost ten thousand dollars," said Quinn. "you could buy at least a hundred of those plates with the money we used for this one little test."
"It's okay, Dr. Mallory," said Dr. Crayton. "Once we refine this technology, we can use this to heal people. And believe me, the junction would be cheaper than other forms of medical care."
"Have you used the junction on living things?" I asked.
"We only recently tested on unicellular life forms," said Crayton. "We expose it to radiation to cause cell damage, and then put it in here. We have been so far unsuccessful with multicellular life. But you could be the key, Colin. You can help us achieve our goal."
"Well, let's do the usual," said Quinn. "Let's have a QRI for this test plate and control plate."
Later on, Quinn and I met with Dr. Crayton.
"I've looked through the initial tests on you, Mr. Mallory," said Crayton. "the results were promising. We may be able to use this on multicellular life, even go so far as to use human test subjects."
"I am honored to help in such a noble endeavour," I said. "But I would appreciate you helping me. My brother and friends are out there, hopefully alive, and I know they were looking for me. Can you find them?"
"We can certainly try," said Crayton. "If this project is successful, we would have you to thank for it. Now, you will need a proper place to stay. I;m afraid the lab is not a nice place. Perhaps staying with Dr. Mallory will be feasible. he is as close you have as family for now."
"I don't know," said Quinn. "My wife might object to having a strange man in the house."
"then how about a housing allowance," said Crayton. "I would say two hundred dollars a day."
"I'd be honored," said Quinn. "You would like to stay, right Colin?"
"It will be better than that motel," I said. "Let's do it."
