I woke up, still remembering the message that I got. I ate Fruity Pebbles and drank Minute Maid orange juice for breakfast. After that, I hopped into Quinn's BMW and then he headed for Crayton Lans in Santa Fe Springs.

"Uh, Quinn," I said as the car was moving throuhg the dense traffic of the Santa Ana Freeway, "there's something I have to tell you."

"What?" I asked.

"I had a dream. This man appeared in my dream and told me that the junction is dangerous."

"We take safety precautions, Colin. We haven't had an accident with the junction. We're waiting half a year before we determine whether or not it is safe to test it on humans."

"He told me that the junction was a danger to Earth and its counterparts in parallel universes."

"I'm a scientist, Colin. Your dreams are not evidence."

"You haven't encountered the things that I have the past year," I said. "This man told me my former companions are okay. He also told me that I would learn about my heritage, and then I had an encounter with the kromaggs the very next day."

"Do you have anything better?" asked Quinn.

"A month ago, a series of events landed me in a mental hospital," I said.

"You told them you were friom a parallel universe and no one believed you."

"That's right; they thought I had tried to kill the King of the United States, but that's another story. There was this lady who was also sent there. She told me that Rembrandt and Maggie and Quinn were okay. Even if she knew of my connection to Quinn from the news strories on that world, she could not have known about Rembrandt or Maggie unless someone told her."

"Well, that does indicate something," said Quinn. "Someone who knew of your predicament told her. But how do we know he told you the junction poses a threat to the Earth? And how do we know he is right?"

"Do we do things if we are not certain of its safety?"

"As I said before, we take safety precautions," said Quinn. "The junctioning field only occupies the chamber. It does not extend over the whole building, let alone the whole planet."

We drove along the freeway for a few more minutes, then Quinn took the exit off Norwalk Boulevard.

"Still, we had been working with the junction for over a year, and there may be side effects we have not considered. I'll speak to Dr. Crayton about it when we arrive."

After parking the BMW, Quinn and I entered the Crayton Labs building. We decided to go right to Dr. Crayton's office. And there he was, sitting behind his desk, watching the computer monitor.

"Dr. Mallory," said Crayton. "Do you have any updates on your projects?"

"I was just wondering if the junction is safe," said Quinn. "I mean, safe for the researchers and the environment."

"It's quite safe," ssaid the head researcher. "We have all sorts of measuring instruments taking every sort of measurement whenever the junction is used. You know that we studied the junctioning field for four months before we actually tried to junction anything. We made notes on how the junctioning field affects everything around it. We know it has not affected anything outside the chamber, and we know the field collapses when the power is cut."

"Still, we are punching tiny holes through spacetime whenever we use the junction."

"If you suspect a side effect from the use of the junction, you can write it down and show me the report, and then we can discuss it with the senior staff."

"I want my work to help people, not hurt them."

"I know you do, Dr. Mallory. I too want to help people. I recruited you because of your brilliant mind, especially at such a young age. You certainly rival Dr. Arturo and Dr. Jariabek in sheer brilliance and insight."

"I think the junction is dangerous," I said.

"And what doctorate do you hold, Mr. Mallory?" asked Crayton.

"Some guy told me in a dream," I said.

"Well, well," said Dr. Crayton with a smile. "I suppose traveling through parallel universes causes you to witness many strange things."

"Do you believe me?" I asked.

"I believe someone did contact you in a dream," replied Crayton. "I don't believe that someone was right, or that the junction poses a threat to anything outside this lab."

"The field has never extended beyond the junctioning chamber," said Quinn. "We have equipment that regulates the power going into the field, and circuit breakers that would shut off power if too much power was going into the field."

"I always welcome your ideas, Dr. Mallory. More than once has it put us closer to our goal."

We both left his office. "Dr. Crayton is sure passionate about his work," I said.

"He's brilliant," said Quinn, "More brilliant than anyone in physics. I think he might outshine Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking. Maybe someday, the strength of a junctioning field will be measured in craytons. Anyway, I mentioned that I had an idea. I'm going to work on it in my office.

The research staff at Crayton Labs conducted some more tests upon me. I heard a lot of technical stuff being discussed, something that my brother would be interested in. I had evewrything done from QRI scans to having my body temperature taken. The watch I wear was studied, to determine how it works.

After some tests, I went to Quinn's office. He was not there, just his secretary Angela.

"He's meeting with the senior staff," she said. "You could wait here."

"How much do you know about this research?" I asked.

"Not much," she replied. "Dr. Mallory just says it has something to be with parallel universes and junction fields. So where are you from?"

"I was born in San Francisco, and moved to El Segundo," I said.

"Dr. Mallory was from San Francisco," said Angela. "He moved to Anaheim after his parents died."

"My parents are also dead," I said.

"Well, my parents are still alive. I'm from Long Beach, and I still live there."

The phone rang, and Angela answered it. "Dr. Mallory's office," she said. She hung up the phone. "Colin, Dr. Mallory and the senior staff are asking youn to the conference room."

Once again, I met with the senior staff of Crayton Labs. Everyone was there, including Quinn and Dr. Crayton.

"Let me try to explain it without going too technical," said Quinn. "We believe that you got unstuck when some extra mass entered the wormhole as you were going though it. It destabilized your bonds with the universe, and now you slide randomly." He then went on to explain in very technical terms, something about QRI's and backtracking.

"Run that by me again," I said.

"He said that we can pinpoint which dimension you were in when you got unstuck," said Dr. Conrad Bennish.

I remember that world. Quinn, Rembrandt, Maggie, and I got into some trouble with the locals, and they were shooting at us. Could a bullet fired into the wormshole cause me to be unstuck?

"I doubt they are there anymore," I said. "They are still sliding around, and they are looking for a place where they can retrieve me. They've done it once before."

"This wormhole they use must have a signature from the device they opened it with," said Quinn. "Your signature has not changed even though you've been in this universe for over two days. Objects that we have junctioned have a different signature for a while, but thety go back to the same background signature. You should have the same signature as the wormhole, and we can backtrack to where you got unstuck, and them forward track to your friends."

"What?" I asked. I remembered the words.

"You can reunite with your friends," said Dr. Wing.

"There is a catch, however," said Dr. Maximilian Arturo. "It will only work on your next trip. Our data is based on your present position; it would be useless once you switch universes. Even if this works, you may not find them,."

"At least I have a chance," I said.

"We still have not found the data we need to construct the device," said Quinn. "I hope this does not distract our work from the junction."

"It may actually help," said Dr. Crayton, speaking up for the first time in this meeting. "A fog on a photographic plate lying next to uramium ore led to nuclear energy. I am certain we will not have another chance to study an unstuck human."

"Well," said Dr. Vladimir Jariabek, "Dr. Crayton is right. We are scientists; we are here to unlock the mysteries of the Universe!"

"The junction would only be a dream without our search for knowledge in the most unlikely places," said Dr. Diana Davis. "Let's continue with our study of Colin Mallory here."

Crayton Labs did some more tests on me, scanning me with various devices. Dr. Crayton seemed to take a personal interest in these tests. I even witnesses another test of the junction. Once again, a cracked plate was repaired by junctioning it with one of its counterpartsd from a parallel universe.

"I believe that we are ready to use it on multicellular life," said Dr. Diana Davis as she shut down the junction. "We intend to use potted plants as test subjects tomorrow."

"Is it safe?" I asked. "I have a feeling it's not safe. I mean, what if there is a residual effect."

"Most of the equipment in this room is used to measure the junction and the field it generates," said Davis. "There is no junctioning fiels inside the chamber." She opened the chamber and put her hand inside. "You can even put your hand inside without any ill effect."

"Did you conduct tests to determine that?" I asked.

"Yes," said Diana. "We used three plates. One of them we junctioned, the other we kept outside, and the third we placed in the chamber a minute after the junction was shut down. That test plate statyed inside for an hour, and no residual effects can be traced."

"I hope you're right, Dr. Davis. I mean, something seems out of place. There is some detail I'm missing."

I went back to Quinn's house, and I settled down. The three of us had dinner, and we spoke more about our lives and events in this world. I even decided to watch one of the DVD's that Quinn owns. It is titled, The President Is Having a Baby. In this comedy, the President of the United States discovers she is pregnant and must deal with the pregnancy as well as the presidency. It sure provided a good distraction frok the pressures of my life.

The next day was a big event. It was the day of the big test. The junction would use a multicellular living thing as a test subject.

The test subject was a potted plant. Both the test and control subjects had incisions made into one of their leaves. I was invited to witness it, as well as the senior staff. Technicaisn were making sure to check the instruments to ensure they were in good working order.

"Excellent," said Dr. Crayton as a technician told him that all systems were ready to go. "Let us begin the countdown."

I saw an LED display a countdown for the junction, almost like a timer. When it reached zero, the junction began to hum.

I could see a represenation of the test subject on the screen.

"Junctioning field at full strength," said Dr. Diana Davis. "Chamber saturated. Junctioning in progress."

I could see the main screen where the molecular scan of the test subject was shown. I can see changes.

"It's working," said Quinn.

After a few minutes, it was over. The junction was shut off. Dr. Crayton opened the door.

He took out the potted plant. I looked and saw that the incision on the leaf had healed.

"You see," said Dr. Crayton. "It worked. This plant was junctioned with its counterpart from a parallel universe, and thus healed."

"We should have the test and control plants studied in the botany lab," said Dr. Arturo.

"Well, you are right, Dr. Arturo," said Crayton. "But even if this is a failure, we can learn from it. And we would not have gotten this far were it not for the tests we conducted on Mr. Colin Mallory here."

"Well, thank you," I said.

"Hey," said Dr. Conrad Bennish. "You're da man!"

"Well, I have to hand it to you, Colin," said Quinn as he sat behind his desk in the office, "You were a great help to us, and maybe to the people of this world."

"I might have been put here for this reason," I said. "I think there's a reason why I visit certain worlds."

"Like what?"

"Last month, I foiled a terrorist hijacking where they attempted to crash a cargo jet in downtown San Francisco. Before that, I managed to take down a Kromagg Dynasty base. And soon after I was separated, I liberated a death camp."

"Well, you've been busy. Anyway, I think I've come upo with an idea on a way to reunite you with your friends. You want me to be specific?"

"No. Just tell me what it would accomplish."

"Well, with the test results we gleaned, we can calculate where your friends would be when you leave. We can put a tracking device the size of a belt buckle. You wear the belt, and it will take you to what dimension they are."

"So I can follow them."

"Maybe, or maybe not. It is likely that it will work when you leave this universe, but it might not work in the next universe. And it won't take you to their exact location; you could arrive in Anaheim and they could be in New York City."

"If that's the only chance, I will take it. I know they are looking for me. I should do whatever I can to find them."

"That's the spirit."

I had a little something to hope for.

I also hoped that the junction does not destroy the Earth.