Chapter 15:
The trio fell out of the portal into the middle of Golden Gate Park and fell onto the ground. They watched as the portal closed, and another opened in it's place.
"Uh, Michael, is it supposed to do that?" Rebecca asked.
"No." Michael said. "I don't think this is from our timer."
"Out of the way!" Sam said pushing them to the side.
An older man fell out of the portal, and landed on the ground. He was followed by a younger man who fell on top of him.
"Watch it, Farm Boy!" the older man said. "Now I know how the Professor felt..."
Two women and a man came out of the portal next, and landed on the ground as the portal closed. They took notice of the spectators. Michael and Sam were watching in awe.
"Hey, there." the older man said. "A little young to be fans of the Crying Man, aren't you?"
"Um..." Michael said. He took out the timer and showed it to the group.
"That's a timer. You guys are sliders?" one of the younger men asked.
"Yeah. I built it using plans I found in the Mallory House." Michael replied.
"Mallory House, huh? Looks like I have some notoriety on your world. I'm Quinn Mallory." Quinn said. "This is Colin, Rembrandt, Wade and Maggie."
"Uh, yeah, we've met, sort of. We met your double on the first world we slid to." Michael said. "And notoriety in the fact that you disappeared in the mid 90's."
"Really, did we all disappear?" Quinn asked.
"Well, you, Rembrandt, Wade and Professor Arturo." Michael replied.
"Well, good to see we didn't exist there." Colin said to Maggie.
"Could that mean..." Wade started.
"Your world, was it over run with Kromaggs?" Rembrandt asked.
"Kro-whattas?" Sam asked.
"That's a good sign." Colin said. "It might be your world."
"Hold on, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We can talk about our experiences after we get some food. I'm hungry." Sam said.
"I like the way you think." Rembrandt said.
They walked to a diner and sat down and began discussing their experiences through the wormhole.
"So, after we lost our home coordinates, we started jumping from world to world, and almost found one that was like our own, but it still had a Professor Arturo in it." Michael said.
"We went there years ago, almost lost our Arturo there. We still don't really know if we had the right one." Rembrandt said.
"But,what about your experiences?" Michael asked.
"That's a long story. How much do you know about us?" Quinn asked.
"Well, we know that you and three others disappeared back in 1995 but not much else." Sam said.
"Okay, so at first we just sort of slid around looking for our way home. And then, in the middle of our second year sliding, we found it." Quinn said.
"On my world, we were developing sliding and as we scouted worlds, Quinn and I found his Earth. But then Colonel Rickman, my superior, who was stealing brain tissue to feed a parasite in his head, he also killed the Professor and my husband, stole the timer with the coordinates on it." Maggie said.
"And we chased that bastard for a few months, since he had the way back home, which is what we all wanted." Wade said. "And then when we caught him, and stole the timer back, me and Remmy hopped through, but had to leave Quinn and Maggie behind because Rickman was about to kill her."
"Then, we got back to find a world taken over by Kromaggs, a species dedicated to conquering parallel earths. They took Wade to a breeder camp and tortured me for info on Quinn for months. When Quinn got back, he and Maggie sprang me from prison and we found out that Quinn wasn't actually from our Earth, but from a world where Kromaggs had taken over, but were destroyed." Rembrandt said. "And that Q-Ball had a brother."
"They found me, and we went in search of our parents. We found this out much later, but Rickman had changed the coordinates with the help of the parallel Quinn that gave sliding to the Mags." Colin said. "So me and him aren't really biologically related, but he's still my brother."
"And so, some crazy stuff happened." Rembrandt said. "After we went searching, some crazy scientist named Oberon Geiger "unstuck" Colin and merged Quinn with his fraternal double. Turns out that this was a Kromagg plot, and that the fraternal double was an unknowing participant."
"We were actually in a pocket dimension, but I had a psychic connection with Mallory, the Kromagg plant, and so he got some of my memories. They spent the next year sliding around trying to catch Geiger and evade the Kromaggs." Quinn said.
"But... at the end of it, we got a virus to eliminate the Kromaggs and Remmy went to the Kromagg infested Earth alone. A seer predicted that if we all slid, we'd die, and he was right. Remmy ended up on the edge of a cliff, and if we had been there, we'd of all fallen off. We were able to rig the portal to send me through, and me and Remmy reunited there." Maggie said.
"Once they left Mallory, we escaped the Kromaggs, which turned out to be the version we met earlier in our sliding, and not the ones who infested Earth, and discovered that that earth was Earth Triple Prime, so perfectly identical, no Azure Gate Bridge even, but it wasn't. We also sprung Wade from the camp. And so we're still looking for Earth Prime." Quinn said. "With a modified timer that we built using Kromagg technology."
"Wow, that sounds like quite an adventure. I wish we hadn't lost our coordinates." Michael said.
"Say, can you help us upgrade ours?" Rebecca asked.
"We can try. I think I can give you the wormhole tracking ability." Quinn said.
"Great! That means we could tag along with you guys for a bit, tracking your wormholes." Michael said.
"Yeah, it'd be nice to have some extra muscle if we get into a tough spot." Rembrandt said. "I'm not as young as I once was, Q-Ball."
"None of us are, Remmy." Quinn said.
"How much time do you have here?" Michael asked.
"We have about a day left, you?"
"Same."
"Great, let's check into the Dominion and we can work on modding their timer." Colin said.
"Good idea." Rebecca said.
Michael, Quinn and Colin sat around a table, working on the timer, as Sam and Rembrandt flipped through the TV channels and Rebecca, Maggie and Wade sat in a circle talking.
"So you guys got roped into it against your will too?" Rebecca asked.
"Not exactly, I had no choice, and Wade was with Quinn when the timer busted itself." Maggie said.
"I asked to join, but I figured I'd have a ticket back home." Rebecca said.
"I've got it! If we cause an influx, your timer can do what ours does!" Quinn shouted.
"Boys and their toys, huh?" Wade said. "If you guys ever do get home, look up my family and tell them I'm okay."
"Will do, and you'll do the same if you get to my world first?" Rebecca asked.
"Of course. What was your universe like, anyway, in differences to our world?" Wade asked.
"Well, there was a giant shockwave about to hit the Earth and I lived in what is Michael's dorm on your world." Rebecca replied.
"We did it!" Michael shouted. "Ladies and gentlemen, we can now track wormholes, and set our geographic location within 400 miles!"
"But we won't. We should be staying in San Francisco in case we hit our world." Sam said.
Yeah." Michael said. "But we can! And we also can return to previously seen worlds!"
"And we shared coordinates, so they have our library of whatever we visited since we got the timer back on Egypt World." Quinn said. "And we have where they've been, with the exceptions of the worlds they went to before the shockwave shorted it."
"So, if we want, we can chance a universe that they've been to, if we needed certainty in getting out of a sticky situation." Michael said.
"This is fortunate that we ran into you guys." Colin said. "It's been a while since we've met sliders who weren't trying to steal our timer."
"I like yours, but I prefer mine." Michael said.
"Anyway, it would be nice if we could go somewhere tonight, we've spent the last few worlds cooped up in this room." Maggie said.
"Agreed." Quinn said. "You guys want to come with us? I checked downstairs, the drinking age is 18 on this world."
"Great! We'll come!" Michael said.
"And if this world has it, I know a great karaoke bar, I need to give my pipes a warm up, haven't sang in a few worlds." Rembrandt said.
"Let's go then!" Maggie said, standing up.
The group sat in a karaoke bar, as Rembrandt sang on the stage. Michael sat next to Quinn at the bar.
"So, tell me, did you ever get the feeling that it was your fault that everyone was stranded away from their homes?" Michael asked.
"Yeah, it happened a lot over the years. But they all reassured me that they were fine with it." Quinn replied.
"Same thing happened to me too, back in the really early days of this." Michael said.
"How long have you been sliding? A few months?" Quinn asked. "We've been going at this for almost 20 years! You haven't seen anything yet."
"I know that, but I'm worried that we might miss the window, or someone might get hurt or die."
"Yeah, that can happen. It's hard to deal with death, trust me. When the Professor died, I wasn't sure I could go on."
"I don't want to lose them. I mean, at first Rebecca was annoying and I couldn't wait to drop her off on her world, but now, I care about her."
"That was how it was with Maggie when we first met her. She was insufferable, but she became a valued team member. Looks like we have a lot in common."
"Yeah. And it seems that Sam and Rembrandt are getting along."
"That's good."
"Hey guys." Colin said, sitting down next to them. "This is probably the best food we've had at a place that Rembrandt has suggested in a long time."
"Ain't that the truth." Quinn said.
The two groups stood across from each other in the middle of the park. Michael and Quinn looked down at their respective timers.
"And... now!" they said in unison, aiming their timers in opposite directions.
"It's been fun guys, let's hope the wormhole tracking gizmo works and we can meet up again." Rebecca said jumping into the portal.
"I hope so too, it's nice to have some fresh faced new sliders. Here's hoping you guys find home." Rembrandt said, leaping into their portal.
"See you on the other slide!" Sam said jumping into the portal.
"Bye guys!" Wade and Maggie said, jumping into their portal.
Michael saluted Quinn and Colin as they both jumped into their respective portals. Michael, Sam and Rebecca dropped out of the portal in an alleyway.
"Quinn! Colin!" Michael shouted.
"Looks like we didn't land on the same world by chance again..." Sam said.
"Yeah, but we're out of here in a few days, so we can try tracking them then." Michael said.
"Let's go find out what this world is about." Rebecca said.
"Good idea." Michael said and they walked out of the alleyway.
To Be Continued...