Over the next several days, Naomi was successful in keeping her younger kids away from the labs and the sliders; however, she wasn't sure how long that would last. The lawyer knew her children well. Well enough to know that the bogus story she had told them about equipment being tested would not last long. Naomi knew that her oldest son Dorian would keep it a secret but the children's young and curious minds would lead them astray sooner or later.
But at the moment she had to force those very thoughts out of her mind and focus on what Dr. Timincin and Arturo and Quinn were saying about the was saying about the success they had finally hit upon about the expanded power they were able to create.
She was accompanied by Rembrandt, Wade, Romo, Zoe, and Harold's wife Wendy. Wendy was a beautiful Korean woman with shoulder length brown hair and stunning bronze colored eyes.
As the three men finished their announcement, Rembrandt asked plainly, "So just to be clear, you all finally found a way to expand the band width and then from there we can leave this world?"
"Sort of yes. We found the way to expand the band width and now we're planning to expand it to the appropriate size we need to get everyone inside the Q.E.D. And as we're doing this, Dorian has assured us that the testing of the extra coating metal will soon be underway," Dr. Timincin answered.
"Alright, so what about our Plan B: the Devices or Timers as you all call them. How's that coming?" asked Romo.
"That's shown to be a bigger challenge than we originally realized," said Quinn.
Unknown to the group, the lab door opened and a new set of people entered into the room. The group consisted of a little girl and an older boy -both of whom bore resemblance to Naomi, and a man with short black hair.
"Why is it a problem?" asked Naomi, still totally oblivious to the new group.
But before anyone could answer, a piercing scream cut through the conversation. The source of the scream was the little girl with thick dark blackish-brown hair that was pulled up into a messy bun. She has a golden caramel complexion and dark haunted eyes.
At the blood curdling scream, everyone turned to the new comers. At seeing her daughter and son, Naomi rushed to them. Specifically her terrified daughter.
"Breana, calm down. It's okay. These aren't the same men. Calm down sweetie," Naomi said as she practically pleaded with her daughter.
"Ma?! What're they doin' here?!" asked the older boy.
"They're doubles Jett. They're here to help us," promised Zoe.
"Doubles? Auntie Zo…" Jett said but trailed off.
"I promise you they're not here to hurt you or anyone in any way. They're trying to leave this world just like us," Zoe assured her nephew.
"Why didn't you tell us?" asked Jett now looking at his mother holding his sister in her arms. The little girl had stopped screaming and now was wailing into their mother's shoulder.
"Because we didn't want to worry you both. That's also why I told you to stay away from the labs," scolded Naomi.
"Uh, that'd be my fault Naomi," said the young man that came in with the kids.
"We should've known Dan. Why did you do that?" asked Wendy.
"Well I heard through the grapevine that some juicy stuff was going on down here. Then I was playing with the kids here and we got to talkin' and it just sorta happened." Dan said as he shrugged with guilt.
"Well thanks to you Breana here is having about to have a panic attack!" exclaimed Romo.
"But I didn't mean…" Dan started but was cut off by Romo's face turning a dangerous shade of red.
"You 'didn't mean'? You didn't mean what? Dan Mallord did you mean, you weren't trying to disobey a direct order to STAY THE BLOODY HELL AWAY FROM HERE?! MORON!" Romo roared.
"Look Dan, we're going to deal with this later. Right now we have things to do. So do us all the favor and stand there and be quiet," Dr. Timincin amended but with enough firmness to let Dan know there was going to be trouble.
Once Naomi got her daughter to calm down, Rembrandt, Wade, and Quinn approached the new group but it was noticeable that as Arturo came closer the child flinched with terror.
All four sliders noticed the reaction and as Arturo came a little closer the little girl whimpered and was trying to scramble out of her mother's arms and get away from the eldest slider.
At the exchange, Wade realized that she's never seen someone as scared as the little girl in her entire life. In addition to this, Wade noticed that the little girl had a fearful yet far away expression plastered across her face even though Naomi continued to calm her down.
Eventually though, Naomi was successful in getting her youngest to take several deep breaths which in turn calmed the child; however, every so often the little girl would glace at Arturo with fear and distrust in her eyes.
Under the scrutiny of her stare, Arturo shuffled uncomfortably and was hurt most by the look in her eyes.
Within himself, Arturo knew that those eyes would haunt him. The emotions within him were too numerous to count; however, the two most powering emotions were anger and determination.
His anger was directed at whatever despicable double of his caused such pain to an innocent child. While most would not believe it, he did enjoy children. They were innocent to the crimes and consequences any world had to offer.
This anger was in turn fueling his determination. This determination was going to push him to work harder than he has ever worked in his life. Arturo wanted to make sure that this child would be safe on another world and pray that she would know no more fear in her life.
Once everyone had settled down, Quinn took over the explanation of what they were working on. He explained how the new dimensions and designs, provided by Dorian, of the timer and the machine would enable them to use more of the unique power source they had in the compound.
As Quinn was explaining everything, Arturo slowly stepped back and went back to a work station.
"However, with all of these changes there are still tweeks in the program we still need to work out. Again, we're working with Dorian about laying one more protective layer of metal over the Q.E.D. machine. With the amount of people going through the portal, we simply want the extra safety precautions," said Quinn as he tried to explain their findings as simply as he could.
Naomi had now released Breana and was now standing behind her daughter and had her hands placed comfortingly on Breana's shoulders. "Alright. I appreciate the extra precaution. Now what of the pulsars?"
As Harold took over the explanations concerning the pulsar, Dan Mallord got bored and saw Arturo across the room munching silently on a candy bar with a thoughtful expression across his face. Time for some fun, thought Dan. Smiling wickedly to himself, Dan made his way over to the professor.
Noticing the man approaching him, Arturo finished off the candy bar and threw the wrapping away. "Wow Prof. You sure do know how to pack it away don'tcha?"
"Did you have a point of coming over here young man," Arturo growled dangerously low.
"Well I did, but the way you practically swallowed that candy bar whole got me distracted," taunted Dan.
Arturo stood up from his chair and straightened up to his full height. "Mr. Mallord I've been in this lab for many hours with sustained concentration. I've not had breakfast nor lunch, so you'll have to forgive me for having something as unhealthy as a candy bar.
Dan not moved by the bristling professor goes so far as to poke the man's large paunch, and says,
"'Unhealthy?' Oh right cause you got this pretty little figure to worry about."
"Enough!" bellowed Arturo as he slammed his hand on the table. Unfortunately, Arturo instantly regretted his temper as he saw Breana, across the room, flinch again and looked at him with unbridled fear. Arturo then decided to watch his temper and overall behavior when the little girl was around.
Thus, the professor said softer but no less seriously, "Mr. Mallord, I have work to do. So unless you wish to prevent me from focusing on getting you lot off of this hell hole, I suggest that you bother me no more." With that Arturo moved away from Dan and went to retrieve more tools he and Quinn would need for the rest of the day.
As the older man roughly brushed past him, Dan scratched the back of his head and noticed Wendy looking at him with disapproval. Dan simply flashed a smile at her and shrugged his shoulders in mock innocence.
"I think it's time for us to go. Keep us up to date on everything. Dan, let's go," Naomi said tersely.
With that everyone, except for few, left the lab.
~|S|L|I|D|E|R|S|~
Once the others left, Quinn couldn't help but ask Wendy, "What happened to her?"
Wendy shared a concerned look with her husband Harold and moved to sit on the edge of his work desk.
"It starts with Naomi. See, five months after Breana was born, King Unomaraq and his, at the time, second in command Arthur Locke had summoned Naomi to leave New Orleans and come to the capital and give the king some legal advice on a classified matter. That took about three and a half weeks. The officer directly under Arthur, was a man by the name of Rickman and he tried to seduce her. It obviously didn't work and he got very angry for her refusing him. On her last day, Rickman ambushed her and…sexually assaulted her; however, she fought him the entire way and unintentionally shoved him into a lit fire place. We think because of the noise, Arthur Locke came in and saw the affects what'd happened. Being a kind man, Arthur let Naomi go but commanded her to never speak of this again for her and her family's safety. Which infuriated Rickman and according to some former workers that're now here, he plotted revenge. And a month later, we suspect that he executed his plan because Naomi's husband was killed and then, surprisingly, on the battle field Arthur was killed as well. I mean again we know who did it, but who's going to go against the King and his new right hand man. Anyway, as for Breana's part of the story, two years ago we found out the full extent of Rickman's revenge as he had someone kidnap Jett and Breana from their home in New Orleans. At that time they were nine and six years old. Needless to say, things got really crazy and hectic. Over the course a month and a half, Breana suffered the most psychologically out of the two. Breana was told that she was going to be given as a gift for the visiting Kromaggs: Arturo and Bennish."
"Oh bloody hell," loudly groaned Arturo.
Harold didn't take notice to Arturo's outburst and took up the next part of the story. "These visitors were to talk and make plans with King Unomaraq about something that we still don't know. But regardless, Breana shared a cell with your double Quinn. Breana's said that although he was a little distant, she did confide in him for a little bit before she was rescued. Essentially, the rescue task force was able to find the kids was because of Adira. Adira had went back to her favorite swamp in New Orleans to further train herself and according to her, she's able to 'see' the whole world from this swamp and was able to locate Jett and Breana. From there the task force went to rescue the kids and several other palace prisoners. But what they didn't know until they got there was that Adira and her friend Sokka snuck out to join them and save Jett and Breana. Once they were there, the other officers couldn't send them back and used their skills to get in and rescue at least two hundred people! The only problem is…when Adira, Sokka, and one of the officers named Vance they found a few Kromaggs eating some tiny one foot tall humans they took from another Earth."
"Whoa. That's terrifying for anybody," said Wade.
"Young Breana wasn't…" Arturo trailed off not knowing how to finish his question.
"No, No! Thankfully neither of the kids were sexually abused and all of their limbs were intact. They were covered in bruises but Breana never opened up to anyone about any details of those bruises. In that mission, we lost a few of the rescue officers during this rescue…suicide mission. But everyone of the rescuees were safe and are here now."
"What about the Quinn that was locked up with Breana?" asked Wade.
"He…was already dead when the officers got there. Again, Breana never said what happened to him. Quite frankly we were lucky to get this much out of her and then piece together some other things from the other former inmates. The other tragedy is that because of the break in, King Unomaraq blew up a random city and kills the ten guards that were on duty."
"What happened after that?"
"Once the kids were reunited with Naomi, she decided to move here and she also makes sure her kids never leave the underground compound. It's just too dangerous."
Yikes, thought Rembrandt, These stories keep getting worse and worse.
"Is there anything anyone can do for her?" asked Wade.
"What we've been doing I supposed Ms. Welles. Finding a way for them and everyone else here to get to their destined new world. Am I right, Mr. and Mrs. Lee?"
"That's definitely a start. We can only hope that time will heal her," said Wendy with Harold nodding in agreement.
With that said and settling into the minds and hearts of the sliders, Rembrandt rubbed his hands together and said, "Well let's not let her or anyone else down! Let's get back to work."
The sliders nodded in response and got back to work with a new vigor.
~|S|L|I|D|E|R|S|~
That same night, Harold and Dr. Timincin had to close the lab early for a classified meeting they had with Romo. Thus, the sliders currently found themselves eating their dinner with Dorian in the huge community cafeteria.
They were sitting at a large picnic table eating soggy baby carrots, a medium sized cut of unknown meat, and a small cup of peaches.
As they were all talking amongst each other about the day's events, Wade couldn't help but giggle at Dorian. The teenager was working and eating at the same time. He was seated across from her and on the other side of his tray was a blue print.
Dorian really is a Mallory, Wade thought with a smile and another giggle. At her giggles, Quinn looked at his friend at his side and asked, "What's so funny Wade?"
"Oh nothing," replied Wade. Quinn squinted at his friend and before he could press her, Dorian called out to someone passing by their table.
"Hey Adira!" called Dorian.
At his call, a young thin girl with clear light brown skin color and curly long hair that reached a little beyond her shoulders approached them at their table. She had a very confident demeanor surrounding her despite her age. She wore simple clothes. A pink hoodie, tan khakis, and surprisingly no shoes.
"Hey Dorian. What's up?"
"Just working. But I really want to know, were you responsible for that mud prank earlier today?"
"Me?! Why I don't know what you're talkin' about. I thought, as my brother, you were supposed to give me the benefit of the doubt."
Dorian stared at her for a moment unfazed. Dorian then asked, "Did you do it?"
"Well yeah, but that's not the point!" exclaimed Adira.
"So you're Adira. We've heard a lot about you. You're practically hero." Rembrandt said with admiration filling his voice.
Adira then stopped mid rant at a laughing Dorian to address the previous statement. "Nah. Not a hero. I just like breaking rules!"
"Well I'm Wade. This is Quinn, Rembrandt, and Professor Arturo," introduced Wade.
"Nice to meet you guys," Adira said without looking at them really specifically.
As she brushed her hand against the table, her hand brushed against the blue print. "What's this?"
"It's a blue print."
"Yeah, I kinda figured that out Hawkeye. But what's on it? What's it for?" Adira said semiserious with a playful expression plastered across her face.
But that's when the sliders noticed something very important about the young girl in front of them.
Something that they had forgotten from the stories they were told in the days before. Adria's pupils were flat, dull, and had no color to them. Adira was indeed blind.
"Right, right. It's a blue print for the Q.E.D. machine. We're going to test the new metal coating on it soon. Say could you help us with it? We need some strong earth benders."
"Course! How can I, the strongest earthbender, turn my brother down. Besides it'll be fun. Where's it gonna be?" asked Adira.
"When we test it we can come get you if that'll help," offered Quinn. However, the young slider didn't realize the mistake he had made by this offer. Adira then turned her sightless eyes at him and stared silently for a few moments.
The silence was tense and Quinn squirmed under her glare. Then finally she spoke, "Look. I didn't ask for help and I don't need help. Got it? Good." Without waiting for a reply, Adira moved her head in the direction of Dorian and asked him, "Now I'll ask again: where is it going to be?"
It was evident to the sliders that Adira was fiercely independent. Dorian already knew this and didn't blink when she addressed Quinn so forcefully. Once she directed her question more pointedly at him, Dorian replied, "We're not sure when yet but we're probably going to do it outside behind the mountain."
"Cool! Let me know when you wanna test it." But then Adira continued with a smile on her face, "You're loving this aren't you?"
"Well yeah! You should really see what we're doing! This stuff is awesome," Dorian says with unbridled joy. His excitement caused the others at the table to chuckle and giggle in response.
"Dorian, you look like a kid getting a gift," commented Wade.
"I can't help it. We don't get to do this kinda stuff all the time. Have you seen it yet Wade?"
Before Wade could answer Adira turned her sightless eyes toward her and said with a teasing tone, "Don't worry Wade if you haven't yet. Take it from me, once you've seen nothing the first time, you've seen it a thousand times."
The spoon full of peaches Wade had scooped up slipped off her utensil as she stared at the young child in shock. Then out of nowhere, Adira started to laugh at her own joke.
After a few moments her laughter started to die down, Adira then turned her attention back to her brother.
"Look I gotta go. I have pranks to go pull."
"Adira," Dorian said in a warning tone.
"Oh don't be a downer. This prank is gonna rock!"
"What is it then?" asked Quinn.
"Now see, that'd be telling." Adira said as she walked away laughing again.
As she left, Rembrandt looked around the professor to Dorian, who was seated on the other side, and said,
"Your sister sure is something."
"Heh, yeah she is. But she's certainly one of a kind."
~|S|L|I|D|E|R|S|~
After dinner Arturo broke away from the group and headed back to the lab. The Englishman was still troubled by the earlier events of the day with Breana LaLache. Her fear still stabbed at his heart. Thus, Arturo sat down at a work table with several parts of one timer laid across it. Behind him is a large chalk board with an unfinished sliding formula written upon its surface.
Quinn and Arturo were still trying to apply the formula to the unbuilt timers. But Arturo is more determined than ever to solve this problem. Thus, Arturo started to work on the formula on the board.
About an hour later, Arturo was still working on the formula on the board. Then the glass door opened and in walked Quinn. The younger man was dressed in the pajamas they were supplied the first night they had come to the compound. The pajamas were a dark grey short sleeved shirt and light grey flannel pants.
"Professor, are you ready to call it a night?"
"Maybe later Quinn," Arturo said as he wearily rubbed his eyes.
The slip in formality made the young genius smile. But he still asked, "Are you alright Professor?"
Arturo took a deep breath before answering, "No my boy. Quite frankly, I am not. We're on an approaching deadline and now more than ever, we can't afford to let these people down."
"Yeah but that's not all, is it? Come on, you can tell me. After everything that's happened this shouldn't be that difficult."
Arturo gave the young man a half smile. "Indeed. We've certainly seen the best and absolute worst of each other." Arturo then approached his former student and clapped a heavy hand on the younger man's shoulder. "It's this business with Young Breana LaLache. The fact that I have a Kromagg double is shocking enough but one that had terrorized two young children is more despicable than I can even begin to fathom yet alone And worse yet...regardless of her mother explaining the situation the child still is terrified that I'm the same monster."
"Professor...it's not your fault. The fact is any of our doubles can choose to be evil. We've seen this time and again."
"It's true but this feels different. I can only imagine how you feel about Mr. LaLache."
Quinn sighed and shrugged, "Actually, I'm still reeling from it. I don't know really where to begin with my emotions."
Arturo nodded in understanding then patted Quinn's shoulder again. "Well Mr. Mallory we're not going to solve all of our problems tonight. Go on to bed now, eh. You need rest my boy."
"So this is one of those 'Do As I Say Not As I Do' moment's," Quinn said through a big yawn.
Smiling at how much younger his student looked in this moment as the young man was trying desperately to blink the sleep from his eyes. Arturo said, "Just this once son. Unlike you," he said with a bit of tease in his voice, "sleep isn't beckoning me at this moment. And instead of looking at the ceiling all night, I'd rather do something useful. Something that'll ease the burdens of the people here. Something that'll help insure our safety."
"Can I help? You don't need to be up alone," offered Quinn.
Once again, Arturo found himself smiling at the young man who he thought of as his own son. However, Arturo declined saying, "No my boy. I'll be fine. Now go get some sleep. Or else I'll have to lecture you on the properties of a good night's rest."
Chuckling at the mock threat, Quinn countered saying, "See that'd be scary if I wasn't your student and if I didn't enjoy your lectures. But I'm only complying because I'm about to fall asleep right on these work tables."
Arturo chuckled softly as he walked Quinn to the door and watched his student make his way down the dark hall to the bunk quarters. Once he was sure Quinn was truly going to bed, Arturo walked back into the lab and started picking at the many parts scattered across the table in front of the chalk board.
Unbeknownst Arturo and Quinn, a slender silhouette figure was standing in the shadows of the hallway. This person had heard the entire conversation. What the figure heard had shocked and touched their heart.
Quietly, the figure made their way slowly back to their room to ponder about the conversation that they had just heard. Not truly knowing how to feel about it.
Just go to sleep, the figure thought to itself, this can't distract you from your busy day tomorrow.
With that final thought, the figure pulled the covers up around them and allowed sleep to engulf them.
..:TBC:..