Chapter 28:
Tiberius stood, glaring angrily at Michael's double as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"You... lost him?" Tiberius asked.
"Well, you see, he punched me and took my timer, and I couldn't overpower him." Michael's double replied.
"You have failed your one and only mission, and you will pay dearly for it."
"Sir, please! Have mercy! He smashed the tracker, it wasn't my fault, I was going to arrest him!"
"I have given you enough chances. Guards! Put him on Stasis World 113. Wipe all knowledge of sliding, but let all other memories remain. I want him to know where he is."
"No! Please! No!" he screamed as Kromagg guards walked in and dragged him out of the room.
Tiberius sat down at his desk and tapped a button on a console.
"We must move forward with the contingency plan. Prepare the manta ships." Tiberius said.
Rebecca sat on the bed at the hotel, as Sam walked in the room carrying bags.
"I've got food! Good thing we got jobs on the last world, we can afford to spend some of it here." Sam said.
"Cool." Rebecca said.
"I know you're still sad about Michael, but come on! He made his choice, it's not like a hole is going to open up in the sky and Michael's going to fall out of it!" Sam shouted.
Suddenly a portal opened in the ceiling and a figure dropped out of it, landing on the floor. It stood up, revealing itself to be Michael.
"I stand corrected." Sam said.
"Michael!" Rebecca shouted, running up to him and hugging him.
"Is it really you?" Sam asked.
"Did I decide to stay on some world after finding out that the Kromaggs have been tracking us?" Michael replied.
"Yes." Sam said.
"Then it is really me!" Michael shouted.
"How did you get here?" Rebecca asked.
"Long story, when I smashed the tracker, my double came back, I stole his timer and activated it early, scrambling it, so that I can't control where it goes, and they can't track it. But that's not the best part. You'll never imagine what world I landed on." Michael replied.
"What world" Rebecca asked.
"I went home." Michael replied.
"No way!" Sam said.
"Yep, I did my research. It was our world!" Michael shouted.
"But you left?" Rebecca asked.
"I had to come back for you guys!" Michael replied. "And give this to Sam."
"What is it?" Sam asked.
"A timer with the coordinates to our home world." Michael replied. "I can't get Rebecca home, but I can get you back there."
"Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not going back without you." Sam said.
"Are you sure?" Rebecca asked.
"Definitely. Can't let you guys have all the fun while I go back to class!" Sam replied.
"Well, we can keep it in case we ever need to get off a world fast." Michael said. "At least I know that our world is safe."
"Yeah. What about your double's timer?" Rebecca asked.
"Useless, now at least. It times out in a month, and we're off this world once our timer times out." Michael said.
"It's great to have you back. We missed you so much." Rebecca said.
"She missed you more..." Sam said.
"Shut up!" Rebecca said, hitting Sam's arm. "What he means is..."
"I know what he means." Michael said, smiling. "I met your double on our world. She was nice,"
"Bet she didn't give you the time of day..." Rebecca said.
"Actually... She's the one who helped me make the new timer." Michael said.
"That poor girl." Rebecca said.
"Anyway, when do we slide out?" Michael asked.
"Well, we have a day here." Sam replied.
"Looks like it's back to aimless sliding for me." Michael said.
"And we're glad to have you back." Rebecca said.
The trio walked out of the hotel and into the sunlight. Michael smiled as they walked down the street.
"It's only been a week, but I missed this." Michael said. "New world, new people, it's fun."
"Yeah, we found some cool worlds after you left, we have to tell you about them." Sam said.
"I look forward to hearing about them." Michael started, but stopped when he heard a portal open. He looked up to see a red portal in the sky.
"What is that?" Rebecca asked.
"Kromaggs." Michael replied, scowling. "I don't know how they found me."
"Let's get out of here!" Sam said as they ran towards the hotel.
"Stop right there." a gravelly voice shouted.
"Tiberius, we meet again." Michael said, slowly turning around.
"We tried to be nice, but that obviously failed. Shoot them." Tiberius said, as guards cornered them and fired their guns.
Michael awoke and sat up, rubbing his back. He looked around the room, seeing nothing but a bench, and a force-field.
"Where am I?" Michael asked.
"Stasis World 113!" a British voice replied. Michael walked up to the force-field and looked into the cell across from his.
"You! I thought you worked for Tiberius!" Michael said.
"I did, until you caused me to fail my mission. Then he sent me here, with no knowledge of sliding." Michael's double said.
"I'm sorry. But I wasn't intending on being imprisoned." Michael said.
"Neither was I, and now look where we both are." his double said.
"Come on, Mike, what exactly do I call you?" Michael asked. "It'd be confusing if we're both Michael."
"We can go the Clone Saga route." his double replied.
"Huh?" Michael asked.
"Don't tell me your world is so uncultured that Spider-Man doesn't exist." his double said.
"We have Spider-Man!" Michael said.
"Then you know about Ben Reilly. He was the Scarlet Spider, and a clone of Spider-Man. To differentiate between them, he took his middle name as his first name." his double said.
"So, you'd be James, then." Michael said.
"Indeed." James said.
"Anyway, do you know where Sam and Rebecca are?"
"I do not. Not like I'd tell you if I did."
"And why not? Because I refused to be sent here? That's not my fault! You're the one working for the Kromaggs!"
"All I ever wanted, was to slide. And they gave it to me. They lied to me, claimed they were peaceful. They're just like all the other Mags."
"Do you know how long I was out?"
"A day or two."
"We missed the gateway."
"They have millions of confiscated timers. You can use one of those if you ever escape."
Suddenly the force-field on Michael's chamber lowered. Michael approached the area hesitantly.
"Don't worry, it's shut down."
"Michael Josephson, please report to the interrogation room, down the hall, to the right." a voice said.
"Go on, they'll send guards if you don't go."
Michael walked down the hall and into the room. He sat in the chair, and it restrained his arms.
"Ah, now that you're comfortable, let's talk, shall we?" Tiberius asked.
"You bastard! I'm not talking to you without my friends!" Michael shouted.
"Then you won't be talking." Tiberius spat. "But... I may give your reduced sentences if you talk."
"Never!" Michael scowled.
"Okay then, we can try this again after you've been properly conditioned." Tiberius said, walking out. "Guards, out!"
The guards walked toward the door, stopping at Michael's chair and turning around to salute Tiberius. Michael fidgeted his arms before they walked out of the room, followed by Tiberius. His arms were unrestrained and he opened his hand, revealing a key card.
"Please return to your cell." the voice said.
"Not likely." Michael said, walking into the hallway and checked every cell, stopping at one with two occupants in it.
"Michael?" a voice said, stepping out of the shadows to reveal Sam.
"Sam! Is that Rebecca with you?" Michael asked.
"Yes." Rebecca said, slowly stepping out of the shadows, covering her eyes.
"What happened?" Michael asked. "Did they take her eyes?"
"What? No, they had me in complete darkness, my eyes haven't readjusted to the lights yet." Rebecca replied.
"Phew." Michael said, as he waved the key card into the force-field. The field dropped. "Come on."
"How'd you get that?" Rebecca asked.
"Lifted it off a guard. Did you tell them anything?" Michael replied.
"I told them to shove their timers up their asses." Sam said.
"Good. Let's get out of here. They have to be keeping our timers in one of the R&D rooms." Michael said.
The trio ran down the hall, passing James' cell. Michael stopped in front of it and looked inside.
"Care to free me?" James asked.
"Not a chance." Michael replied. "We'll come back for you one day, maybe."
The trio continued down the hallway and Michael waved the card in front of a scanner for a room. It whirred and they walked into the room when the doors opened.
"Here's our timer!" Sam said, picking it out of a pile.
"It's timed out, we missed the gateway." Michael said.
"So what do we do?" Rebecca asked.
"My sincerest apologies, but we're just gonna have to use the timer I made to go to our homeworld, and get you home later, Rebecca." Michael replied.
"As long as it gets us off Kromagg Prison world, I'm happy." Rebecca said.
"Wait... It's lighter than it was..." Michael said, sliding the back panel off the timer. "Those bastards!"
"What happened?" Sam asked.
"They stole the device that opens the tear in the walls of the dimensions. Without it, the timer's useless." Michael said.
"Try putting one from another timer in." Rebecca said.
"Good idea." Michael said, picking up another timer and placing it's parts into their timer.
"Will it work?" Sam asked. "Are the coordinates still there?"
"I don't know, but it's our home coordinates all right." Michael said. "It's gotta warm up though."
Suddenly a loud screeching came from the loudspeakers. The sliders covered their ears.
"That's the alarm." Michael said.
"When will it warm up?" Sam asked.
"Any second now!" Michael replied, tapping the timer's screen.
"Guards are coming!" Rebecca shouted, running in from the door and shutting it.
"Here we go!" Michael shouted, and aimed the timer at the wall, opening the portal. "Get in now!"
Sam and Rebecca jumped through the portal as Kromaggs ran in from the hallway, brandishing laser guns.
"Sayonara, suckers!" Michael shouted, jumping into the portal as it closed.
The trio fell out of the portal onto a street corner. They stood up and brushed themselves off, looking around.
"Uh oh." Sam said. "This doesn't look like home."
"You're right. Last time I checked, it wasn't a war-zone." Michael said.
"Manta ship!" Rebecca shouted. They ducked behind an overturned car.
"How'd they get here? We were only there for a few days!" Michael asked.
"I guess not." Sam said, picking a newspaper up.
"Lemme see that." Michael said, grabbing the paper and reading the headline.
"That can't be right." Rebecca said.
"It's May 2015?" Michael asked. "But, that can't be!"
"How do you know?" Rebecca asked.
"The old timer." Michael said, fishing it from his pocket. "When it counts to zero and we miss the gateway, it starts a countdown from 29.7 years. So, that means that if it truly is more than a year since I was here last, the timer should say 28 years, but it doesn't. It says 29 years, 8 months, 10 days. We missed the gateway by about two days, not a year and a half."
"But you said before, the timer isn't a time machine." Rebecca said.
"It's not... unless..." Michael pondered.
"Unless what?" Rebecca asked.
"Unless, the timer that I stole the device that opens the portal from had a time machine function, the Kromaggs may have been experimenting with time travel." Michael replied. "And since we didn't know that, it randomized the time value, since we only had in location coordinates."
"Great! Our world has been taken over! What do we do now?" Sam asked.
"We could slide right back, or... we can check the university. I might be able to find some useful tools there." Michael said.
"Good idea." Sam said.
The trio walked into the gates of the university, dodging being found by the Kromaggs. Michael attempted to turn the doorknob for his dorm room, to no avail. He stepped back and rammed into the door, pushing it open.
"Okay, start searching for my sliding plans. I don't know if the Mags took them." Michael said.
"Hold it right there," a voice said, not a Kromagg voice, but a human one, female as well. She walked up to Michael and punched him in the face. She was wearing a commando uniform and was brandishing a rifle.
"Who are you and why did you do that?" Sam and Rebecca asked in unison. Michael stood up and turned to the woman.
"No, no. I deserve that. How's the weather?" Michael asked.
"Torrential downpour..." she growled.
"Sam and Rebecca, meet Rebecca. Of our earth." Michael said, as she stepped out of the shadows.
Rebecca circled around her double. She looked her up and down, as her double looked on, incredulously.
"Okay, when you left, I didn't think you'd lead an invasion force here." Rebecca's double said.
"That wasn't the intention. Actually, we intended to arrive a year and half ago. But we somehow traveled to the future." Michael said.
"Right..." Rebecca's double said. "Anyway, six months after you left, these things arrived. Giant organic ships, shaped like manta rays. The things in them were ugly, ape like creatures."
"Kromaggs." Sam said.
"Yeah, that's what they're called." Rebecca's double said. "They invaded, luckily for us, the college was fortified as a military base quickly and that gave us students ample protection. I started to lead the rebellion after the old leader was captured by the Mags last year."
"We're really sorry. We intend to return to the past and avert the invasion, but we don't know what to do." Michael said.
"How are you going to do that?" Rebecca's double asked.
"We have access to a Kromagg base. If you'd like, we can take a few extra people with us to overtake the base." Michael replied.
"Michael, that could alter the timeline!" Rebecca said.
"Right. Sorry." Michael said.
"Anyway, we need to know the exact time and date of this invasion, so that we can return here, but before the invasion." Sam said.
"They got here on February 17th 2014." Rebecca said. "Hundreds of those manta ships."
"Okay, that gives us a reasonably large margin of error for landing back in our own time." Michael said.
"Let's get out of here." Rebecca said, turn the timer on.
"I'm trying, I think the Manta Ships are interfering with the timer's frequency." Michael said. "Is thee anywhere that blocks Kromagg signals?"
"Yeah, they built a bunker a few months into the attack to try to hide from them. But it got taken over by the Mags." Rebecca's double said.
"Take us there." Michael said. "Faster we get out, faster we stop this timeline."
"Let's go." Rebecca's double said.
The group drove down the road in a truck and was flagged down by a Kromagg officer. Michael, Sam and Rebecca ducked down in the back seat. Rebecca's double smiled as she lowered the window. She smacked the Kromagg with her pistol and he fell back, unconscious.
"Wow..." Rebecca whispered. "She's awesome."
"She's you." Sam said.
The truck stopped at a gate and the group snuck out of the truck and ran through the gate, into the compound.
"The bunker is behind this building." Rebecca's double said.
"Let's get to it." Michael said.
They ran toward the bunker, and hid behind a bush. Rebecca's double readied her gun, as Michael peeked out of the bush.
"I think we can get in without drawing too much attention." Michael said.
"Let's see." Rebecca's double said.
They stood up and made a run for the bunker, as the Kromaggs noticed their presence. They took out guns and aimed them at the group.
"Into the bunker!" Rebecca's double shouted, shooting the door and ramming into it, ripping the door apart. The Kromaggs shot at them as they ran at the door.
The group jumped through the hole in the door and landed on the ground as Michael took the timer out and put in the coordinates. Michael turned to see if the others had made it, and saw Sam, Rebecca standing behind him, looking horrified. He looked at the ground and saw Rebecca's double lying motionless on the ground.
"Rebecca!" Michael shouted, running towards her, throwing the timer to Sam, who fumbled with it.
"Stop... them..." Rebecca's double muttered.
"I promise, that I will stop this from happening." Michael said, tears welling in his eyes. "I will keep this promise."
"Come on!" Rebecca said, as the portal opened.
Michael stood up and ran toward the portal with his companions. They slid through the vortex and braced themselves as they neared the exit to the portal.
To Be Continued...