Rembrandt Brown flies through the vortex after three months. Once again, he will be sliding from world to world.
He reaches the end of the tunnel and lands on some grass. He looks at the vortex which leads to his home world. It closes and shuts the way home.
He looks around to see if Quinn Mallory and Maggie Beckett made it here rather than being stuck on that kromagg-infested world. They are both here.
Then he checks his surroundings. He finds himself in a park, and in the distance sees the tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. He is back in San Francisco.
"We have eight days here," says Quinn, looking at the timer. "We'd better get working on inputting my brother's world's coordinates into the timer."
They all walk towards a granite statue. they recognize the statue as that of Abraham Lincoln. On a plaque it reads "ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1809-1885"
"It looks like he wasn't assassinated on this world," says Rembrandt.
"Assassinated?" asks Maggie.
"President Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth," says Quinn.
"I don't remember anything like that happening on my world," says Wade.
"Well, I guess here he managed to survive 1865. Now we'd better get going."
Teh three of them walk along a concrete pathway in Golden Gate Park. Quinn is still disturbed about the revelations of the past day and a half.
"Remmy," he asks, "was that world home?"
Rembrandt looks at Quinn with great sorrow. "I can't lie to you, Q-Ball," he says. "Yes, it was home."
Quinn's heart sinks. Any reason to deny that the kromaggs conquered his home and took his mother is now gone. And Wade is gone, shipped off to some breeder camp. He then focuses on the task at hand. "I know where we can look."
The three of them get off the cable car, and then they head to a huge building-the Doppler Computer Superstore. Quinn worked at its Earth Prime duplicate. It was a long time ago.
"Maybe there's something in here that can help us input my brother's coordinates into the timer," he says, entering the store.
The layout of the store is the same as Quinn remembers it. there are various brands of personal computers on display. Other parts of the store feature printers and scanners and modems. The shelves are packed with computer accessories like floppy disks and cables.
Quinn approaches a store employee in a blue vest. "Excuse me," he says. "We're looking for..."
When she turns aorund, the three of them gasp.
That woman is Wade Welles!
"Wade," says Rembrandt. "I'm glad you're here. How did you manage to escape the kromaggs?"
"What are you talking about?" asks Wade, obviously confused.
"Wade, we thought you were gone," says Quinn. "But now you're here."
"Guys," says Maggie. "She's not the Wade we are looking for."
Quinn and Rembrandt look at the young woman who looks exactly like their lost friend.
"Well, I'm glad I'm appreciated," says Wade. Then she looks at Quinn. "I recognize you."
"You know me?" asks Quinn.
"Yeah, you're Quinn Mallory. You play for the San Francisco Giants! I'm a big baseball fan, you know."
"I see," says Quinn. "Is there a computer with Internet access here."
"One of our display computers have Internet access. I'll show you."
Wade leads Quinn to a Power Macintosh G4. Quinn opens the Netscape Communicator program and then accesses the Google web site at http://www.google.com. He types in his name into the search field.
And there over one hundred websites about Quinn Mallory. They all seem to indicate he is a baseball player.
One link catches his attention.
The web page is titled "Athlete Brothers Tell All-Sports Illustrated's Interview with Colin and Quinn Mallory". The web page is on the Sports Illustrated web site.
Quinn clicks on the link and reads the article which was dated in March of 1997. From what he can read, this world's Quinn has a brother named Colin, who plays basketball for the Sacramento Kings.
The page with the article aslo has a photograph of Colin and Quinn. Colin wears a basketball jersey, and Quinn wears his baseball outfit. Quinn notices the resemblance, and studies every detail of Colin's face.
"Looks like we found your brother," says Maggie.
"Or one of his doubles, like we did with Wade," says Quinn. "We'll just compare this world's coordinates with the coordinates on the microdot. If they are the same, we look for Colin."
Quinn types in another search, this time for parallel universes. Maybe there is useful information.
He looks through the list of links, and one stands out. It is an Amazon.com link to a book called Universal Mirror.
The author of the book is one Maximilian Arturo.
"First Wade, and then the professor," says Rembrandt. "I just hope we don't run into any more ghosts."
Quinn clicks the link and reads Amazon.com's description of the book. In the book, Arturo explains how experiments with light and shadow prove that the universe consists of sets of entities which can interact directly with entities in its own set, but can only interact with entities in other sets via quantum wave interference. Arturo refers to these sets of entities as parallel universes.
Quinn goes back to the Google web site and enters Maximilian Arturo. He gets Arturo's home page at the university-the same university where Quinn had classes in the fall of 1994. Arturo has office hourts on Tuesday and Thursday.
"Will we have to see him?" asks Rembrandt.
"He may be able to help us," replies Quinn.
September 2, 1997
Quinn, Rembrandt, and Maggie arrive at the university where Quinn once attended in another version of Earth. They had stayed at the Dominion Hotel, and Quinn was able to withdraw money from his wealthy celebrity duplicate's bank account. They also found out that this world was not the world where Quinn's brother was relocated, so they had to see the professor. They enter the building and look at the directory to find Professor Maximilian Arturo.
They ride up an elevator and enter a tiled hallway. They count the doors until they reach the right door. A nameplate with the professor's name on it is right next to the door.
They all enter and visit the duplicate of a man whom Quinn and Rembrandt slid with for more than two years.
"May I help you," says the professor.
"Hello, my name is Quinn Mallory," says Quinn. "I've read your book Universal Mirror."
"You mean the baseball star?" asks Arturo. "I did not know that you were interested in quantum mechanics! I'm a big fan of American baseball. There are two things I love-quantum mechanics and American baseball."
"Well, I'm not the baseball star," says Quinn. "Let me explain."
And so Quinn tells Arturo a condensed version of his story-about building the sliding generator, his mother's revelation, and his decision to look for his brother.
"Do you take me for a blithering idiot?" says Arturo. "I know that traversing the dimensions requires more energy than the total solar output over the past million years."
"You're wrong, and I'm proof of it," says Quinn. "This timer will reach zero tomorrow, and then I will open a vortex and we will continue. I hope that our next trip will be to my brother's world."
"So open the vortex in front of me," says Arturo. "Once you get to the other side, you can open a vortex back to this universe."
"Except that if we slide to the next world, we might have to wait weeks to slide back here," answers Quinn. "And if we get back, we might have less than an hour. We have four days to solve this."
"Mr. Mallory, may I see your signature?"
"Sure." Quinn signs a page of a notepad. Arturo looks at it and then looks at the screen of his Power Macintosh G4.
"Identical," he says. "I doubt a handwriting expert can tell the difference between your signature and the baseball star's."
"Tell you what," says Quinn. "You help us, and I'll autograph a baseball for you."
"Then I can sell it on eBay," says the professor. "But I can not guarantee any results. After all, I had no idea such travel was practical-until today."
"It's not as practical as Q-ball says it is," says Rembrandt. "Believe me, I've done it for two years."
"Well, I do teach class, but I also do research. Perhaps in the afternoon."
Later that afternoon, Quinn and Professor Arturo are in a lab. They study the timer.
"Did you build this?" asks Arturo.
"No, Egyptians from another Earth did," answers Quinn. "It's a long story."
"How do you operate it?"
"The current numerical display shows how much time is left until the vortex can be opened. When it hits zero, we can open the vortex. We slide through and then the timer resets."
"What happens if you do not open the vortex? Or if the timer stays here after you slide."
"Then the timer will not be able to open a vortex for twenty-nine point seven years."
"Oh. How do you select the world you go to?"
Quinn presses a button on the timer. "The timer display shows the coordinates for the next world. By pressing this button, we can scroll through the list of coordinates. The timer records the coordinates."
"There must be a storage medium in the timer."
"That's right, Professor. Anyway, we can visit any world we have been to. and if we press this button here, it sets the destination world to random."
"What is that numeric keypad for? Do you use it to input new coordinates?"
"It was used to set the time duration for the next world," says Quinn. "But we activated it early, and the timer got corrupted. Now whenever we slide, the amount of time until the next slide is completely random."
"Can it be used to input the coordinates?"
"Yes, it can."
"Can it be taken apart and still function after being put back together?"
"Yes, it can. There wass one time when lightning struck the vortex and fried the timer. We managed to repair it before we missed the sliding window."
"then let us study the timer, Mr. Mallory."
And so Quinn and the professor take the timer apart. they can see the circuit board, the Motorola microchips, and a crystal.
"that is the storage device," says Quinn, pointing to a shiny strip with wires soldered into it. "It is a holographic storage device."
"Holographic storage is only theoretical," says Professor Arturo.
"In this dimension, not in other dimensions."
"So where do you keep your brother's coordinates?"
"In here." Quinn presents the miucrodot his mother gave him. "It appears to be a device which can feed images directly into the brain."
"Incredible," says the professor.
the two of them work together at reassembling the timer. After Quinn screws in the last screw, he puts the microdot on his forehead.
He once again hears the message from his birth parents, about the history of his world. He writes something on a piece of paper.
Then he removes the microdot. "These are the coordinates," he says.
He then presses a button on the timer and compares the current world's coiordinates to the coordinates he wrote. They do not match. So he then tries to input the coordinates for the next world using the timer's numeric keypad.
"It's not working," says Quinn.
"Let me take a look," says Arturo. "How do I view the list of coordainates."
"Press that button there."
"Of course." Arturo scrolls throuhg the list. He starts writing numerals on a notepad. "Interesting."
"what?' asks Quinn.
"Check this out."
Quinn looks at the list of numerals Professor Arturo wrote, the coordinates from the timer.
"The coordinates you wrote down has more digits than the coordinates on the timer," says Arturo. "that means your timer uses a different coordinate system."
"Different coordinates."
Professor Arturo goes to the huge wall map to the right of the door. "Here, we use degrees to measure latitude/longitude coordinates. One can easily create a different coordinate system for Earth using a different prime meridian and using different degree divisions. Or take a look a thermometer. We use two different systems of temperature measurement-Fahrenheit and Celsius."
"so we have to translate the coordinates for my brother's world."
"Yes, and you will need someone with more experience than me. I am sorry I can not help you, Mr. Mallory."
Quinn returns to his suite in the Dominion, paid for with a withdrawl from his duplicate's bank account.
"Any luck with the professor?" asks Rembrandt.
"We hit one small problem," says Quinn. "It seems my brother's coordinates are written in a different system than the one our timer uses."
"Say that again?" asks Maggie.
"You've heard how distance can be measured in miles or kilometers, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, my parents used on measurement for my brother's coordinates, and the timer uses a different measurement. to put it shortly, we can not reach my brother's world yet."
"Well, we can't just give up, Q-ball," says Rembrandt. "We have to get the maggs off my world."
"It's late, and we should get some rest."
"You know, Quinn," says Maggie. "Rembrandt was telling me about my counterpart from his world. She was looking for you."
"Did she know Wade?" asks Quinn.
"Yeah, Wade met the other Maggie," says Rembrandt. "In a way, she would be my Maggie, since she was from my world. I wonder what happened to her; I wonder if she is all right."
"From what you told me about her, I am sure she is doing fine," says Maggie. "I would have loved to meet her, though."
And so the three of them go to sleep.
September 3, 1997
Quinn, Rembrandt, and Maggie once again visit Professor Maximilian Arturo in his office.
"Hello," says the professor. "Have you come across a solution."
"Not yet," says Quinn. "I came here to show you that what I was saying was true all along and to keep a promise."
Professor Arturo hands Quinn a baseball, and Quinn signs it.
"Well, goodbye," says Maggie.
"So long," says Rembrandt.
Quinn reads the LED readout. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Then he opens the wormhole. Irt appears like a glowing whirlpool in the air. Quinn, Rembrandt, and Maggie all go through. about a minute later, the vortex closes.
"Amazing," says Arturo, waving his hand through the space where the vortex was.
He reaches the end of the tunnel and lands on some grass. He looks at the vortex which leads to his home world. It closes and shuts the way home.
He looks around to see if Quinn Mallory and Maggie Beckett made it here rather than being stuck on that kromagg-infested world. They are both here.
Then he checks his surroundings. He finds himself in a park, and in the distance sees the tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. He is back in San Francisco.
"We have eight days here," says Quinn, looking at the timer. "We'd better get working on inputting my brother's world's coordinates into the timer."
They all walk towards a granite statue. they recognize the statue as that of Abraham Lincoln. On a plaque it reads "ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1809-1885"
"It looks like he wasn't assassinated on this world," says Rembrandt.
"Assassinated?" asks Maggie.
"President Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth," says Quinn.
"I don't remember anything like that happening on my world," says Wade.
"Well, I guess here he managed to survive 1865. Now we'd better get going."
Teh three of them walk along a concrete pathway in Golden Gate Park. Quinn is still disturbed about the revelations of the past day and a half.
"Remmy," he asks, "was that world home?"
Rembrandt looks at Quinn with great sorrow. "I can't lie to you, Q-Ball," he says. "Yes, it was home."
Quinn's heart sinks. Any reason to deny that the kromaggs conquered his home and took his mother is now gone. And Wade is gone, shipped off to some breeder camp. He then focuses on the task at hand. "I know where we can look."
The three of them get off the cable car, and then they head to a huge building-the Doppler Computer Superstore. Quinn worked at its Earth Prime duplicate. It was a long time ago.
"Maybe there's something in here that can help us input my brother's coordinates into the timer," he says, entering the store.
The layout of the store is the same as Quinn remembers it. there are various brands of personal computers on display. Other parts of the store feature printers and scanners and modems. The shelves are packed with computer accessories like floppy disks and cables.
Quinn approaches a store employee in a blue vest. "Excuse me," he says. "We're looking for..."
When she turns aorund, the three of them gasp.
That woman is Wade Welles!
"Wade," says Rembrandt. "I'm glad you're here. How did you manage to escape the kromaggs?"
"What are you talking about?" asks Wade, obviously confused.
"Wade, we thought you were gone," says Quinn. "But now you're here."
"Guys," says Maggie. "She's not the Wade we are looking for."
Quinn and Rembrandt look at the young woman who looks exactly like their lost friend.
"Well, I'm glad I'm appreciated," says Wade. Then she looks at Quinn. "I recognize you."
"You know me?" asks Quinn.
"Yeah, you're Quinn Mallory. You play for the San Francisco Giants! I'm a big baseball fan, you know."
"I see," says Quinn. "Is there a computer with Internet access here."
"One of our display computers have Internet access. I'll show you."
Wade leads Quinn to a Power Macintosh G4. Quinn opens the Netscape Communicator program and then accesses the Google web site at http://www.google.com. He types in his name into the search field.
And there over one hundred websites about Quinn Mallory. They all seem to indicate he is a baseball player.
One link catches his attention.
The web page is titled "Athlete Brothers Tell All-Sports Illustrated's Interview with Colin and Quinn Mallory". The web page is on the Sports Illustrated web site.
Quinn clicks on the link and reads the article which was dated in March of 1997. From what he can read, this world's Quinn has a brother named Colin, who plays basketball for the Sacramento Kings.
The page with the article aslo has a photograph of Colin and Quinn. Colin wears a basketball jersey, and Quinn wears his baseball outfit. Quinn notices the resemblance, and studies every detail of Colin's face.
"Looks like we found your brother," says Maggie.
"Or one of his doubles, like we did with Wade," says Quinn. "We'll just compare this world's coordinates with the coordinates on the microdot. If they are the same, we look for Colin."
Quinn types in another search, this time for parallel universes. Maybe there is useful information.
He looks through the list of links, and one stands out. It is an Amazon.com link to a book called Universal Mirror.
The author of the book is one Maximilian Arturo.
"First Wade, and then the professor," says Rembrandt. "I just hope we don't run into any more ghosts."
Quinn clicks the link and reads Amazon.com's description of the book. In the book, Arturo explains how experiments with light and shadow prove that the universe consists of sets of entities which can interact directly with entities in its own set, but can only interact with entities in other sets via quantum wave interference. Arturo refers to these sets of entities as parallel universes.
Quinn goes back to the Google web site and enters Maximilian Arturo. He gets Arturo's home page at the university-the same university where Quinn had classes in the fall of 1994. Arturo has office hourts on Tuesday and Thursday.
"Will we have to see him?" asks Rembrandt.
"He may be able to help us," replies Quinn.
September 2, 1997
Quinn, Rembrandt, and Maggie arrive at the university where Quinn once attended in another version of Earth. They had stayed at the Dominion Hotel, and Quinn was able to withdraw money from his wealthy celebrity duplicate's bank account. They also found out that this world was not the world where Quinn's brother was relocated, so they had to see the professor. They enter the building and look at the directory to find Professor Maximilian Arturo.
They ride up an elevator and enter a tiled hallway. They count the doors until they reach the right door. A nameplate with the professor's name on it is right next to the door.
They all enter and visit the duplicate of a man whom Quinn and Rembrandt slid with for more than two years.
"May I help you," says the professor.
"Hello, my name is Quinn Mallory," says Quinn. "I've read your book Universal Mirror."
"You mean the baseball star?" asks Arturo. "I did not know that you were interested in quantum mechanics! I'm a big fan of American baseball. There are two things I love-quantum mechanics and American baseball."
"Well, I'm not the baseball star," says Quinn. "Let me explain."
And so Quinn tells Arturo a condensed version of his story-about building the sliding generator, his mother's revelation, and his decision to look for his brother.
"Do you take me for a blithering idiot?" says Arturo. "I know that traversing the dimensions requires more energy than the total solar output over the past million years."
"You're wrong, and I'm proof of it," says Quinn. "This timer will reach zero tomorrow, and then I will open a vortex and we will continue. I hope that our next trip will be to my brother's world."
"So open the vortex in front of me," says Arturo. "Once you get to the other side, you can open a vortex back to this universe."
"Except that if we slide to the next world, we might have to wait weeks to slide back here," answers Quinn. "And if we get back, we might have less than an hour. We have four days to solve this."
"Mr. Mallory, may I see your signature?"
"Sure." Quinn signs a page of a notepad. Arturo looks at it and then looks at the screen of his Power Macintosh G4.
"Identical," he says. "I doubt a handwriting expert can tell the difference between your signature and the baseball star's."
"Tell you what," says Quinn. "You help us, and I'll autograph a baseball for you."
"Then I can sell it on eBay," says the professor. "But I can not guarantee any results. After all, I had no idea such travel was practical-until today."
"It's not as practical as Q-ball says it is," says Rembrandt. "Believe me, I've done it for two years."
"Well, I do teach class, but I also do research. Perhaps in the afternoon."
Later that afternoon, Quinn and Professor Arturo are in a lab. They study the timer.
"Did you build this?" asks Arturo.
"No, Egyptians from another Earth did," answers Quinn. "It's a long story."
"How do you operate it?"
"The current numerical display shows how much time is left until the vortex can be opened. When it hits zero, we can open the vortex. We slide through and then the timer resets."
"What happens if you do not open the vortex? Or if the timer stays here after you slide."
"Then the timer will not be able to open a vortex for twenty-nine point seven years."
"Oh. How do you select the world you go to?"
Quinn presses a button on the timer. "The timer display shows the coordinates for the next world. By pressing this button, we can scroll through the list of coordinates. The timer records the coordinates."
"There must be a storage medium in the timer."
"That's right, Professor. Anyway, we can visit any world we have been to. and if we press this button here, it sets the destination world to random."
"What is that numeric keypad for? Do you use it to input new coordinates?"
"It was used to set the time duration for the next world," says Quinn. "But we activated it early, and the timer got corrupted. Now whenever we slide, the amount of time until the next slide is completely random."
"Can it be used to input the coordinates?"
"Yes, it can."
"Can it be taken apart and still function after being put back together?"
"Yes, it can. There wass one time when lightning struck the vortex and fried the timer. We managed to repair it before we missed the sliding window."
"then let us study the timer, Mr. Mallory."
And so Quinn and the professor take the timer apart. they can see the circuit board, the Motorola microchips, and a crystal.
"that is the storage device," says Quinn, pointing to a shiny strip with wires soldered into it. "It is a holographic storage device."
"Holographic storage is only theoretical," says Professor Arturo.
"In this dimension, not in other dimensions."
"So where do you keep your brother's coordinates?"
"In here." Quinn presents the miucrodot his mother gave him. "It appears to be a device which can feed images directly into the brain."
"Incredible," says the professor.
the two of them work together at reassembling the timer. After Quinn screws in the last screw, he puts the microdot on his forehead.
He once again hears the message from his birth parents, about the history of his world. He writes something on a piece of paper.
Then he removes the microdot. "These are the coordinates," he says.
He then presses a button on the timer and compares the current world's coiordinates to the coordinates he wrote. They do not match. So he then tries to input the coordinates for the next world using the timer's numeric keypad.
"It's not working," says Quinn.
"Let me take a look," says Arturo. "How do I view the list of coordainates."
"Press that button there."
"Of course." Arturo scrolls throuhg the list. He starts writing numerals on a notepad. "Interesting."
"what?' asks Quinn.
"Check this out."
Quinn looks at the list of numerals Professor Arturo wrote, the coordinates from the timer.
"The coordinates you wrote down has more digits than the coordinates on the timer," says Arturo. "that means your timer uses a different coordinate system."
"Different coordinates."
Professor Arturo goes to the huge wall map to the right of the door. "Here, we use degrees to measure latitude/longitude coordinates. One can easily create a different coordinate system for Earth using a different prime meridian and using different degree divisions. Or take a look a thermometer. We use two different systems of temperature measurement-Fahrenheit and Celsius."
"so we have to translate the coordinates for my brother's world."
"Yes, and you will need someone with more experience than me. I am sorry I can not help you, Mr. Mallory."
Quinn returns to his suite in the Dominion, paid for with a withdrawl from his duplicate's bank account.
"Any luck with the professor?" asks Rembrandt.
"We hit one small problem," says Quinn. "It seems my brother's coordinates are written in a different system than the one our timer uses."
"Say that again?" asks Maggie.
"You've heard how distance can be measured in miles or kilometers, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, my parents used on measurement for my brother's coordinates, and the timer uses a different measurement. to put it shortly, we can not reach my brother's world yet."
"Well, we can't just give up, Q-ball," says Rembrandt. "We have to get the maggs off my world."
"It's late, and we should get some rest."
"You know, Quinn," says Maggie. "Rembrandt was telling me about my counterpart from his world. She was looking for you."
"Did she know Wade?" asks Quinn.
"Yeah, Wade met the other Maggie," says Rembrandt. "In a way, she would be my Maggie, since she was from my world. I wonder what happened to her; I wonder if she is all right."
"From what you told me about her, I am sure she is doing fine," says Maggie. "I would have loved to meet her, though."
And so the three of them go to sleep.
September 3, 1997
Quinn, Rembrandt, and Maggie once again visit Professor Maximilian Arturo in his office.
"Hello," says the professor. "Have you come across a solution."
"Not yet," says Quinn. "I came here to show you that what I was saying was true all along and to keep a promise."
Professor Arturo hands Quinn a baseball, and Quinn signs it.
"Well, goodbye," says Maggie.
"So long," says Rembrandt.
Quinn reads the LED readout. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Then he opens the wormhole. Irt appears like a glowing whirlpool in the air. Quinn, Rembrandt, and Maggie all go through. about a minute later, the vortex closes.
"Amazing," says Arturo, waving his hand through the space where the vortex was.