The Professor backed toward a trash can, slyly reaching into his pocket.

"Freeze!" the woman shouted, turning the gun toward him. "Hands where I can see them!"

Sweat broke out on Arturo's face as he raised his hands in surrender.

We all got cuffed. The experience of getting my wrists clapped with silver bracelets has become less and less shocking with every new world. "Quinn, the next time we Slide, remind me to study how to pick handcuffs."

Quinn shifted his arms uncomfortably. "When I find a magic shop, I'll definitely start looking for materials."

Thorpe patted us down. I guess he'd been looking for weapons and contraband, for he didn't take our money at first, just The Timer. "What's this?"

"It's a piece of scientific equipment."

The Professor added his own cover story. "A toy for children."

I covered for them both. "It's a scientific toy. We're going to show it to investors tomorrow. We need it. It's our only prototype."

Thorpe furrowed his brow, fiddling with the flip cover.

"Careful," Quinn warned. "It still needs some repairs. If you mess with the settings, it'll break."

The cop wrinkled his nose. "I think I'll hold on to this until we speak to the judge."

He did take out our wallets and check our ID's. I guess they must have looked somewhat convincing, because he didn't say anything about them, well, except, "How did you take these pictures without Truth Collars?"

"We had a special exemption on religious grounds," The Professor bluffed.

It must have been a thing because Thorpe didn't ask about them again, he just gave the ID's to Gutowsky.

Thorpe hadn't searched The Professor yet, but when they did, he immediately found the pistol. "Do you have a permit for this?"

Casting me a nervous glance, Arturo muttered, "Back at home. If I had it with me, you'd find it as convincing as our driver's licenses."

As Thorpe pocketed the weapon, The Professor provided Gutowsky the address of his double...or maybe his actual address, not sure.

The officers called someone on the radio and led us through Golden Gate Park. Gutowsky radioed Arturo's address to someone as we walked.

There's usually a statue of Abraham Lincoln near the center of the park, but in this world, we passed a sculpture of Plus Sized Wonder Woman, lasso raised above her head.

Quinn laughed. "Nice!"

I expected to be taken to a police car, or, considering our large group, a paddy wagon.

We instead got led to a semitrailer emblazoned with the Seal of San Francisco and the words `Justice Truck.'

We once visited a world where the Russians sentenced you for crimes on "The People's Court," so the change of venue didn't shock us as much as make us suck in our breath with alarm.

Embossed images of blind Lady Justice decorated the trailer's solid oak doors. The police pulled them open, revealing a place resembling that mobile crime lab from Knight Rider with a judge's stand in the far back.

They brought us past all the computers, facing the bench.

Our judge appeared on a television monitor with a security camera. Quinn recognized him immediately. "Wapner?"

I rolled my eyes. "Him again?"

Rembrandt appeared to be weeping. "Man, why does it always have to be him?"

Wapner wore a collar, of course. "You seem to be familiar with me, yet none of you are wearing Truth Collars. You are aware that is a capital offense, with sentences up to and including ten years in a Federal penitentiary?"

Quinn approached the bench. "Your honor, I can explain. We're not from around here."

"We mistook you for someone else," I added. A half truth.

Thorpe flashed Wapner our ID's. "They said they took those pictures without their collars...on religious grounds."

Wapner frowned. "I thought you said you were from out of town."

Gutowski had been checking the computers while this transpired. She dropped Arturo's gun on the stand. "He says he has a permit, but his ID and the address aren't bringing anything up in the system."

When me and my other friends glanced at The Professor, he pretended to be fascinated by something on the wall.

Officer Thorpe showed Wapner The Timer. "They were also carrying this. Claimed it was a scientific toy."

Timer: 35:80

The judge rubbed his chin. "I believe there is a way to resolve this matter quickly. Get all four of them fitted with Collars immediately."

Me, Quinn, Remmy, the Professor, we all got one.

"Since you claim to be from out of town, let me explain how these Collars operate. Every time you tell an untruth, you will receive an electric shock. The bigger the lie, the larger the shock. Too much lying can be fatal. Do you understand?"

We all said yes, and immediately winced as electrical current sparked into our necks.

"How about now?"

"Yes, your honor," all four of us answered. No jolt that time.

"Let's start over from the beginning by telling me your names."

Once we'd done this, he asked why we hadn't been wearing collars.

"I told you we're part of a small religious — ow!" Quinn winced as he got zapped.

"What he means to say is that we're from out of town—" The Professor clenched his teeth in pain.

"Fine," I sighed, telling Wapner all about how we were dimensional travelers.

The man blinked rapidly, amazed, I guess, that I didn't get jolted.

"She's right, Your Honor," Quinn groaned in resignation. "It's called Sliding. I built a machine to travel between different parallel worlds."

"And these driver's licenses..."

"State issued, just not from your world."

Thorpe waved The Timer at us. "What about this? Is this a weapon?"

"No, Officer. That's my invention. We need it to get home."

"Did you forge these ID's?"

"No, Officer."

The officers and judge stared at us.

"What about the handgun? Do you have a legal permit to carry it?"

Arturo cast me a sideways glance. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I actually stole the weapon from my assailant—"

We all stared as he flinched from electrical current. "All right, dammit! It's mine! It is legally owned!" He raised his shoulder in attempts to soothe his sore neck.

All three of us kept gawking at him. I think we all felt relieved at not adding illegal possession of firearms to our rap sheet, but betrayed in other ways. We wouldn't get anywhere fighting amongst ourselves, so we kept our mouths shut.

Quinn stepped closer to the screen. "Your Honor, we're not lying. If we were, these collars would be electrocuting all of us by now!"

Thorpe shook his head. "All that proves...Is that you believe it's true."

I clenched and unclenched my fists. No good, of course — handcuffs.

Wopner didn't disagree with the officer. "Have any of you partaken in recreational, mind altering drugs?"

We all said no, but Rembrandt and Quinn winced.

"Let me rephrase that. Have you taken recreational, mind altering drugs recently? LSD? Cocaine? PCP? Methanphetamines? Catnip?"

"Catnip?" Rembrandt laughed. "Now I know you gotta be yanking my chain!"

"Thousands of people die from Catnip overdoses every year, Mister Brown. It's no laughing matter."

Quinn repressed a chuckle. I smirked.

Wopner rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Have you participated in acting classes, guided meditation, self hypnosis?"

All four of us stared at each other, and after receiving mild jolts...

"I took acting in high school," I said. "Wasn't very good."

Arturo looked indifferent. "Guided meditation is very cleansing. I have attempted self hypnosis, but apparently I'm immune." Then, in a lower tone, "I have, from time to time, performed a rendition of Macbeth before a live audience, but I must stress that has no bearing on this case."

Quinn blew a raspberry. "I prefer to train my mind the old fashioned way. Oh, and not much for acting."

Rembrandt shook his head. "Man, I'm just a musician!"

After staring at us for a long time, the judge said, "It's clear that all of you believe this...unusual story about...parallel earths. The forgeries, therefore, appear to be tied to your shared psychological delusion."

"Delusion my ass!" Rembrandt yelled. "We are from a parallel world!"

Wapner banged his gavel. "Order!" He smiled at the officer. "It's good that you brought them to me, Mister Thorpe. These people are genuinely sick." Then, to us, "If anything our justice system is a compassionate one. After careful consideration, it is the Court's decision to excuse any and all criminal charges, including forgery, on the basis of insanity, provided all four of you receive much needed psychological treatment. You will be released under the care of the best state funded mental institution."

"Now wait just a damn minute!" Quinn yelled. "We're not crazy!"

When Rembrandt demanded a lawyer, Wapner really gave us that `Aren't you pathetic' look.

We all shouted protests.

Wapner banged the gavel several times. "Order! Moulton Marston is the best mental hospital in San Francisco. Your stay at the facility need not be a permanent one, provided you get proper treatment and meet Court accredited requirements for your release, the first and foremost being surrender of any and all counterfeiting equipment to the police."

"Unbelievable!" Quinn gasped, glancing at me and The Professor. "We're never getting out!"

"What about The Timer?" I asked.

"Since the object seems to be the source of your psychosis, or at the very least causing an aggravation of symptoms, the device will be under the possession of your wardens until you are deemed healthy enough to...view it without reverting to delusions of...interstellar travel."

Rembrandt shook his head. "You leave one world where they're about to put you in a straight jacket, and they put you in one on the next!"

"There's only two officers and a TV judge," I whispered to Quinn. "And four of us. Want to make a break for it?"

"Too risky. They got guns. Even if we overpower them, how are we going to get those doors open with our hands cuffed behind our backs?"

"If there's a will, there's a way."

"We'd better wait and try to run once we're outside."

In retrospect, not the brightest plan. When the officers opened the back gate, we already found a group of white coats waiting for us. The cops uncuffed us one at a time, the big muscular orderlies throwing straight jackets over us a second later. Quinn and The Professor struggled to get free, but they didn't have the strength to overpower them. Quinn got injected with sedative.

They gave me, The Professor and Remmy injections too, I guess to save time and effort.

I awoke on the cushioned floor of a windowless white truck. Groaning, I pulled myself into a sitting position against a padded wall (an interesting feat to accomplish in a straightjacket).

Quinn still snored on the pads, but Rembrandt and The Professor leaned against opposite walls, neither one speaking to each other.

Rembrandt smirked when he noticed me awake. "You dream about lying too, or you just a light sleeper?"

I only shrugged. "Anyone else think that trail ran unfairly short?"

Arturo raised an eyebrow. "One thing can be said for this society: Truth Collars cut through a lot of lying and subterfuge associated with the courts. Few, if any, would accuse our lawyers of excessive honesty."

"Still, no jury of our peers, no defense..."

"Again, guaranteed honesty goes a long way in swaying the favor of an impartial judge."

"I guess we should be grateful we've been institutionalized rather than imprisoned."

"Exactly my point, Miss Welles. Look at the bright side: We at least reside in a world that differentiates between madness and criminal intent. Instead of being punished for crimes we didn't commit, we have received a sentence analogous to the one we would receive from our home world."

"Provided we don't face Miss Ratchet from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and spend the rest of our lives drugged out of our minds..."

The truck rumbled over a bumpy surface. "Speaking of which, any idea where we are?"

"No clue."

"If the bumpy road is any indicator," said The Professor. "I believe we may be nearing our destination."

Rembrandt tried to move his arms to no avail. "Man, I knew this would happen!"

I shifted on the uncomfortable bench. "Look on the bright side. You'll be getting all the therapy you wanted."

"Man, screw therapy. I'm done!"

The engine started up. I stared across the aisle at The Professor. "Are you really our Arturo?"

His cagey response: "Yes." It could mean anything, like "For all intents and purposes."

"So you admitted it. That is your gun."

Arturo looked weary. "Yes it is, Miss Welles. What of it?"

"Our Professor didn't believe in guns. We've gone through a lot of Slides without one. I don't think he even had training on a range."

He narrowed his eyes. "You're implying that I am somehow different. And that I have practice."

"You have a registered firearm. You didn't have one in our other Slides. That in and of itself is suspicious. That, and you've suddenly developed a liking for guns."

Rembrandt shook his head. "Ever since we left that world, I've been wondering if we brought along the right Professor."

Arturo scowled at him. "I am the right Professor." No jolt to the neck.

"Guess it all depends on how you define right."

The Professor didn't acknowledge that with a reply.

The truck stopped shaking for a moment. "What now?"

"Probably a security checkpoint," The Professor muttered.

The truck rumbled on.

"Let's retrace our steps...We found one Professor chained to a pole in a basement, and the other one came down the stairs to meet us with a gun. Which were you, Arturo? The guy we had to break the cuffs off of, or the guy threatening to shoot us?"

The Professor didn't answer, he just sank lower on the floor.

"The handcuffed guy looked pitiful," Rembrandt said. "Why would our Professor be coming down to meet us with a pistol?"

I shrugged, just about all you can do in a straightjacket. "Maybe he didn't expect us to be there. He could have just been trying to make sure his double stayed put."

"Or he's not our Professor, and he wanted to kill his double and take over his life."

"I guess that's possible, but why take a taxi and chase us down?"

"Because he wanted to stop the real Professor? Anyway, the one chained to the pole...he looked like someone who had been trapped in a basement for a week!"

"That could have been faked."

We both cast Arturo expectant looks.

"Care to enlighten us?"

The Professor pretended to sleep.

Quinn groaned and sat up. "What...happened?"

I rolled my eyes. "A lot of nothing."

He shifted in his straightjacket with discomfort. "That's it. We're hitting the next magic shop we come to. We need to figure out some escape tricks."

The truck stopped again. The back doors swung open, a group of burly orderlies, male and female, ushering us out.

We'd been brought to a sprawling Victorian mansion. Quinn took one look at the building and laughed. "Nice! Hey, maybe we can go visit Uncle Fester and Cousin Itt!"

I groaned. "How much you wanna bet the only similarity is electroshock while chewing a rubber puck?"

Surprisingly white and sterile on the inside, like an actual hospital. We got checked in at a nurse's station.

The head nurse at that place just happened to be Sister Rahab, but not a nun this time. Unlike the last world, she even had her hair spiked up, sprayed black and pink.

"Nurse Rahab?" I blurted.

She narrowed her eyes. No spark of recognition or anything. "Congratulations. You can read a name tag."

I met her sarcasm with sarcasm. "I dig the hair. Very punk rock."

Rahab raised an eyebrow, failing to understand the slight.

Upon receiving the court document, Rahab ordered our group to be broken up, all four of us sent to separate rooms.

The place smelled of disinfectant and the faint lingering aroma of pot roast. I expected a rubber room. Instead, I got pushed into a sort of hotel room...it still kinda looked like a prison. Bed, dresser, a bathroom with lidless toilet, the simple type of shower that doesn't have hot and cold knobs or a way to convert to a bath.

Nothing sharp, breakable or offering the possibility of self harm. In other words, no phone cords, no picture frames. In fact, when the orderly removed my straight jacket, she pulled my belt out of my pants and emptied my pockets of unsafe objects, like paper clips and bobby pins.

Spartan decoration, except on the right, where a wild eyed brunette sat beside...some kind of murder board?

The orderly left me with this stranger, closing the door.

"Hello, new roomie!" The girl wore yoga pants and a t-shirt from some old disco club. Black dog collar, of course. "I'm Jennifer! Welcome to Earth 320!"

The girl had messy, unkempt hair, and I could smell her body odor from a distance. I backed away, fearing I'd start believing her brand of madness and get stuck in the place even longer.

Grinning, she slowly waved her hand in front of my face, like I were still drugged or something.

I tried the door, but someone had locked it from the outside.

"Oops!" Jennifer laughed. "Looks like you're stuck with me, roomie!"

I groaned in frustration.

"You're...Ellen Ripley, no, that's not it..." She put her fingers to her temples. "It's...Wade Welles! Am I right?"

I stared at the girl in shock. "How did you know my name? I just got here!"

Instead of answering, she just laughed at some inside joke. "Of course! It's all falling into place!"

She jumped up on her bed, stabbing a finger at a drawing of the blue Golden Gate Bridge. "You came from there! Finished, but...not the right color!"

Jennifer flipped the drawing back, revealing an elaborate finger painting of an angry howler monkey. She suppressed a laugh, covering her mouth. "Oops. You weren't supposed to see that."

She brought out a sketchbook, flipping through the pages until she came to an eerily accurate charcoal rendering of Professor Arturo. "The man you travel with, he's...the same, but different. It won't matter, though..." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "A few worlds from now, he's going to die, and you'll be glad you didn't bring the right man along...Though it'll be hard to bring the other one back!"

A shiver traveled down my back. "You still haven't told me how you know all this."

Jennifer tapped her head. "Psychic." Her collar jolted her. "Okay, okay! Not one hundred percent the truth, but close. I'm not from this world either. I leave my body sometimes. I see things. You could almost call it...Sliding."

I frowned, the color leaving my face. "Yeah? How did you slide here? Where's your Timer?"

She pointed at me, grinning like a mad cat. "You're trying to trick me! This is a test, isn't it?" Her fingers went to her temples again. "Yes...The Timer..."

Jennifer pointed to the ceiling, as if God Himself were The Timer. "It's all around us! This building...Alexa..."

She rushed to a beer can looking thing on a dresser, holding it up for me to see. One finger held a shushing finger to her lips. "They use these things to monitor me, monitor us, but I jammed the signal."

I stared at the glowing ring of light. "That's a lamp."

"Gee, you really are from another world! This is all the rage in senior homes and asylums like this! It uses the World Wide Web to give us tests and crummy dad jokes. They say it's to provide us with company and keep our brains sharp, but it's all about control."

Jennifer dragged me to a full length mirror in the bathroom, poking her reflection. "Every day at two A.M. she disappears!" Again that mad grin. She laughed. "A different hour in every room. Who knows how it works? They might have a machine in the basement. The lights dim at certain times. They say it's only the ETC equipment down there, but it could be a Slide machine...or maybe the building is full of Devil symbols like those Hellraiser movies, and it goes into Lament Configuration after midnight. All I know is..." She lowered her voice to a whisper, saying the next part in the tone of someone confessing some sexual secret. "After two A.M. the other me in the mirror disappears and I can step through the frame into another dimension."

I stared, the skepticism plain on my face. "I see why they made me room with you. Already I'm doubting my sanity."

She backed away from me, looking utterly betrayed, like she'd confessed her love to me and I'd rejected her. "You don't believe me. You're...thinking I used the glowing beer can to spy on you, Quinn, Rembrandt and The Professor. Okay, how about this? I read your book. The one you negotiated the royalties to before you left."

I self consciously touched my jacket, remembering how they'd confiscated my diary.

"Aspiring writer, diary in your pocket, okay, still don't believe me..." She paced back and forth, pounded her head. "Think, Jennifer, think!"

Jennifer counted on her fingers, speaking to herself. "What will convince her? Slide Number One: America under Sharia Law, women forbidden everywhere...Slide Two: Blizzards and ice tornadoes all over the United States, nearly froze to death before finding the warming station...Slide Three: San Fran, but with homeless encampments on every street, hundreds of people died from feline bacteria...Slide Four: Russia took over the whole country, Slide Five: Elvis, still alive, red means go, green means stop, spherical pizzas...Slide Six: Australia is the new Vietnam, that was a doozie..."

I gaped at her. "How are you doing this?"

A grin spread across Jennifer's cheeks. "I told you, I'm a Slider."

"I...I really want to believe you, but...can you at least show me how you Slide?"

She gave me a slight nod, eyes moving toward the door, as if she saw someone watching us behind the little glass window. "Hide your pill in your cheek. They shouldn't catch on the first time around. Pretend to sleep, and I'll wake you at two."