"They made it!"
"Another rough one!"
A flash of blue-white light. Blue-green lined tunnels between dimensions flowed with energy, taking the man on a violent, turbulent, uncontrollable tumble. It was rougher than anything he had previously experienced, and seemed to last for many minutes. There was a light at the end, and he prepared himself for impact.
Rolling out of the interdimensional tunnel, the man came to an eventual, almost skidding, stop in the middle of a grassy field. His entry left a line of flattened and pulled up blades of grass, and stained the side of his white and red checkered long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and black sneakers with white trim. He had a brief moment to look around, seeing a distant field with some kind of brown pasture animals grazing and some purple mountains behind them, before a portal opened above him, pulling him straight in.
After another minute of tumbling through a violent blue-green tunnel, the man exited once more, this time into a hallway. He was prepared this time, hitting the floor first with his feet then coming to a rolling stop in the middle of the hall. He stopped before a young boy in a white t-shirt with a green brontosaurus on it and long blue shorts, holding a yellow card that said "Hall Pass" on it. The man had barely enough time to see a poster on the wall: an octopus holding a book with all its tentacles and smiling while reading. Then, in an instant, he was pulled through another portal above him, leaving the boy open-mouthed and speechless in the hall.
A minute later, he was thousands of feet in the air, diving straight down towards a thick forest. The dots of trees became small orbs, then triangles, then he could start to see branches, then leaves... until the portal a hundred feet above him painfully slowed his descent, stopped it, then reversed, sending him straight through and into another tumble between worlds.
He was soon thrown sideways into the middle of a vast sea, skipping once over the water before he was sinking in the great ocean, and treading for life. Soon after, he was pulled up and eventually spit out into the freezing snows of a massive mountain. His body barely had time to register the cold and begin to shiver before he was pulled away once more.
(What if...) he started thinking, then paused, almost not wanting to continue the frightening possibility. He rolled end over end through another tunnel, and seeing another bright light indicating another exit, he finally allowed the thought to finish. (What if this never stops?)
A man's voice. "...a massive place. Almost a hundred levels, and over 2000 tunnels. The dispensers provide food, water, you know, the basics."
A woman's voice. "How long have you been here?"
The first man's voice. "10, 12 years? Somewhere around there."
A man's voice, English accent. "Unbelievable. And to have not gone utterly mad from the experience?"
The first man's voice. "Oh, that's nothing. I always kinda liked the solitude, the quiet. You know. He was born here, been here his whole life. Mostly with the Kromaggs."
A man's voice, methodic. "My father raised me. They took humans sometimes. Hurt them, killed them. But he taught me too."
The English voice. "But you..."
The methodic voice. "My human parents were killed. They took me."
A blurry vision: two unclear shapes, one larger and the other smaller. The smaller looked like a woman, holding the larger one's arm and putting space between herself and the other two shapes to the right, both men. The larger one took two blurry objects out of a black shape before him, then gave them to the two on the right. They began drinking.
A woman's voice, above him and very close. "What about him?" A hand on his shoulder. A shake through his body.
The first man's voice. "He's had it rough. Showed up about a year ago. Ever since then..."
There was only pressure, pain, the tumbling stops, then the pull. Nothing more. He had given up. There was no control, nobody could hear him, only hopelessness. He prayed for it to end, and tried once more to simply drift away.
"Hang in there, Farm Boy!" a voice said from somewhere. The man looked around in the tunnel, seeing nobody. "We're waiting for you!" a woman's voice followed. The man turned over, looking every which way. "Don't give up!" a final voice said. It was them, but he couldn't see them. Were they on the same terrible journey, behind him, on another world?
The man grit his teeth, cried out, and strained, not even sure of what he was trying to do. He had to get back to them, find a way. The light at the end of the tunnel was getting brighter... but for some reason, it was approaching more slowly then normal. It expanded further, and he was almost out, when his descent was completely stopped. He sat at the end of the tunnel, at the mouth of the vortex, looking down on a filthy alleyway lined with garbage cans. The blue-green lines of light ran towards the end, but he himself was not moving.
He looked back, and saw a strange white line running through the tunnel, ending where he sat and running back where he came from. He reached his hand out to grab it, and with a thought, slowly began to move back through the tunnel. Second by second, his speed increased until he was racing back through the tunnel. In seconds, he returned to a dry desert, his feet briefly touching the ground before he was pulled back into the vortex. He raced back, the white line grasped and wound around his hand, to come to a touching foot stop in snow, with his sneakers making an icy crunch sound before he was up again. He briefly entered the ocean, and barely had enough time to register the wetness before he was out again. Another tunnel later, and he was in the hallway of the school. A female teacher with blonde hair and a white dress with flowers was kneeling down and speaking to the boy in the dinosaur shirt, whose eyes widened in surprise as the man came to a crouching exit outside the vortex, stood, then was pulled away as the two looked on in shock.
After touching down in the grassy field, he was through another tunnel and flying forward to a very strange sight: the tunnel split in two, heading in different directions, and the thread separated and traveled to the left and right. With the split coming up fast, the man made a quick decision and followed the trail to the right.
A blur of images flew before him, making it hard to concentrate: he touched down in darkness outside of some kind of factory or base, then a busy urban street surrounded by tall buildings, then a forested mountain, then a world filled with giants. The thread remained strong in his hand. More images: soldiers running through the streets in urban combat, natives riding horses on a plain, and a peaceful suburban environment. The thread seemed like it was growing dimmer. A dusty mountain dotted with tenacious shrubs, a lifeless tundra, then a busy street of bustling people. The thread was getting hard to see. A small village with horses being led about. A silent and imposing base. Tall buildings with tubes running between them. The thread was dim. A forested mountain, a city filled with a buzz in the air, an urban warzone. The thread was almost gone. A dusty mountain, an urban street.
And then, he slammed into a metal wall, and the world went dark.
The man groaned, trying to come to his senses.
"Hey, you're Colin, right?" a woman's voice said from above his head. The man opened his eyes to see a round-faced and fair-skinned woman with brown hair and eyes smiling down at him. She reached down bottled water to his lips, and he drank. Expecting the processed metallic flavor of what he had partaken of for the past year, he was surprised to taste the clear freshness of the offering, and soon drank the whole thing.
"Yes," he finally answered, water dribbling down his lips and a few flecks spraying out. He chuckled as he sat up and leaned against a computer tower to her left. "Sorry," he followed up. He was fair-skinned, brown-haired and blue-eyed with a longer face, and had a strong jaw and a wide smile. He was wearing a ratty grey and long-sleeved overshirt that was chewed up from age, long and dirty white pants, a faded blue t-shirt, and brown shoes. Before she could answer, his body seized up as if in electric shock. It had long stopped being terribly painful, but was still a constant reminder of what had happened.
The woman set the water bottle down and wrapped the fingers on her left hand around his right shoulder, and her others around his bicep. "Feel this?" she asked, squeezing. Colin nodded. "Focus on this pressure, and when you do, just imagine you're walking along a peaceful beach. Night or day is ok, but just put yourself in that image." He nodded again and smiled a brilliant smile. "Thank you," he said, then took in his surroundings.
Thomas Beecham and Jules Koenig were to his right, sitting against a computer tower on the wall and drinking from more bottled water containers. The first was a slightly pudgy fair-skinned man with unkempt and curly brown hair, a scruffy short beard, large brown glasses, and a triangular reddish nose. The other was much younger with fair skin, light brown hair, green eyes, a round nose, and a strong jaw. Both wore the same ratty clothes as Colin. "Hey guys," he said, and the two waved slightly back.
The room was still as he remembered: a large and circular place with towering computers, each with blinking buttons and indicator lights lining every wall, only broken up by a single door leading to two passageways to his left. Some had tables and computer consoles in front of them, while others did not. There was a chair in the middle that could be rotated to view any part of the room, and its headrest was lined by a piece of hardware that might have once allowed someone to hear or view things going on in the room or elsewhere, but it had long since stopped working.
There were two others he didn't recognize sitting to his left, and his expression turned to surprise when he finally realized he wasn't dreaming. He looked to his right to see the woman, still there. Her sleeveless yellow shirt, blue jeans, and white sneakers seemed like they had been washed recently, but were still stained somewhat with the signs of dirt.
He turned to the other two: a heavier fair-skinned middle-aged man with somewhat long and wavy black hair, brown eyes, and a larger nose, all framed by a somewhat scraggly beard and mustache. His black slacks, big black shoes, blue t-shirt, and light grey jacket were all scuffed with dirt. The other was a fair-skinned eastern woman in a similarly scuffed and dirty large white shirt, grey pants, and black slippers. Her hair was mid-length, jet black, and tangled, and her brown, almond-shaped eyes watched him with a small smile.
"Where did you all come from?" Colin asked. "I thought the Slidecage mechanism was supposed to send everyone back where they came from." His body seized, he winced, and the woman at his side immediately squeezed his shoulder and bicep. A brief flash of a daytime ocean trip flashed through his mind, then he looked over at her with an appreciative smile. It did feel better.
"We found a key buried within the signal," the older man explained. "It allowed us entry when previous attempts left us aground, as it were." Colin looked at the hard grey ground in confusion. "A key...?" he started, before the eastern woman spoke up. "How about you?" she asked. Colin shook his head. "I... got separated from my brother and friends," he remembered. "I don't know what happened. One minute we were in the tunnel together, and the next... they went one way, and I went the other."
His body seized, and he felt a familiar pair of squeezes as the beach appeared in his mind. "I tried to follow them back... I think," he continued, his eyebrows knitting, trying to remember, "but instead, I came back here. And ever since, I've felt this strange pain, some kind of shaking."
Wade squeezed him, in comfort this time. "It must be horrible," she said. He shrugged slightly. "I spend a lot of time sleeping," he answered, eyes blinking, "so it's not that bad." He looked over at her with a resigned smile. "It comes in waves." She nodded. "Yeah," she said softly, mirroring his. "I know."
The older man spoke up. "If I may," he said, regaining the two's attention. "May I ask what you meant by 'came back' to this place?" Colin gestured around him. "Yes, the Slidecage. My brother helped us to escape, and sent us back to that vacation world," he remembered. The three strangers all shared a look. "There's something about this place that keeps me here," he continued, and seconds later, his body seized. There were squeezes on his arm and shoulder. "At least it's better than before," he said with an optimistic smile.
"Your brother..." the woman at his side started. Colin looked at her. "His name is Quinn, right? Quinn Mallory?" she continued, watching as Colin's eyes went wide and mouth opened in shock. "How did you know?" he asked, stammering slightly and looking between the three strangers. Wade smiled. "I'm Wade," she said, taking her hand off his bicep and holding it out. He shook it with mouth moving, but nothing coming out.
The older man stood and approached, hand also extended, and the other woman soon followed. "Professor Maximilian Arturo," he said with a smile, shaking Colin's hand, who could only shake his head slightly in confusion. A seizure wracked his body and Wade returned her squeezing hand to his bicep and shoulder, but he was too busy trying to think of something to say to notice this time.
"Mary," the last woman spoke, also shaking his hand. The Professor gestured towards her with an upturned hand. "The first of many rescuers," he explained cryptically, then took a seat next to the central chair to give the young man some space. Mary stayed at his side, keeping him between her, and Thomas and Jules.
The Professor turned his head slightly in confusion. "It's odd, though," he started. "Quinn never told me he had a brother. An alternate sister, perhaps, but never a brother." Wade nodded in agreement. "Me neither," she added, squeezing Colin as another seizure gripped his body.
"Me neither," he spoke up. A silence took the room, leaving nothing but the sound of humming computers, before he looked up and spoke again. "He found me almost two years ago," he explained. "He said he was from my world, another world... the one where the Kromaggs had come from.
"They sent us to be with their alternates on other Earths," he continued, "while they were still fighting. After they won and drove the Kromaggs off their world, they came back to get their sons, my brother and me. But his parents hid him, and mine died. They thought they lost us, so they turned on the Slidecage to prevent the Kromaggs from coming back. My brother thought he found a way to get us to the homeworld, but we ended up here instead. Well, until he sent everyone back to the world they came from."
Wade and the Professor looked at Thomas and Jules, and Mary peeked at them from behind the Professor. "He was born here, so he had no world to go back to," Thomas explained, gesturing at Jules. "I stayed here with him. We were here for six months or so before Colin showed up. Practically jumped out of my skin when I saw him stumbling down one of the lower corridors."
Colin laughed a quiet, deep, and friendly laugh. There was a seize, and two squeezes. "And he got back at me by making me play checkers 20,000 times," he said, looking at Thomas with a smile, who made a smug and satisfied face. "But we also tried poker, 21... Sorry I couldn't remember how to play more of the board games I played before coming back here," Colin finished. Jules made a strange face like he was struggling to smile correctly. Mary looked at him without a word.
With a fist on his mouth in thought, the Professor spoke. "So either our Quinn is not from our Earth, and passed through here on his way home," he reasoned, "or his double has a remarkably similar background to ours, and we have yet to find ours. In any event, we remain stranded here until such time that we can find a method to reach the homeworld."
He turned to Colin. "Can you bring us to the mechanism that controls this cage?" he asked. Colin shook his head fervently. "I can, but you can't touch it," he warned, to the confusion of the three. "My brother said it before we left: reconfiguring the system will crash the entire machine."
Mary sighed. "Which means we'll be able to go to the homeworld," she surmised, "but leave it open to the Kromaggs." Thoughts of the experimental Manta, hallways full of Kromagg soldiers, and smoldering bodies flashed through Wade's head. Colin seized, she immediately squeezed, then she looked up with a smile. "Then we'll just have to find another way out and through," she announced. The Professor nodded, but his face was serious. "That still leaves us with the problem of Mr. Mallory's condition," he spoke, rising again to take a seat in front of him. Mary quickly crawled next to him.
"My father taught me how to heal," Jules spoke up in a rough voice, almost like he was spitting out every word. Mary winced. "But I can't do anything to help him." There was a silence as nobody spoke, and the Professor looked intently at Colin. In a short amount of time, another seizure wracked his body, and Wade squeezed him reassuringly. "It's almost as if..." the Professor spoke up, thinking for a short time before continuing, "it comes in a cycle."
He looked up at Wade. "Miss Welles, please remove Mr. Mallory's shirts," he suggested. She nodded, then looked down to him with a sly smile. "I worked at a hospital, so no sneaky ideas there, buster," she teased. He laughed, then raised his arms to assist her. Soon, his still somewhat muscular arms and chest were laid bare, and the Professor put his ear to his chest. "Keep thinking of the beach," Wade whispered into his ear. He nodded, and in seconds, there was another seizure, Wade squeezed, and the Professor backed up to make a note in his notepad.
"Timing is somewhat regular," he muttered, then there was silence as the six waited. When the time seemed to be approaching, the Professor put his ear down to Colin's chest again, waited, and with another seize and squeeze, soon heard another familiar sound from within his body. He leaned back once more, taking another note. "Somewhat regular," he repeated. "But the frequency is odd..."
He turned to Thomas and Jules as Wade helped Colin on with his shirts. "Gentlemen, I will need something to measure a charge, perhaps a vibration or other type of force," he said. "Is there anything in this facility to this effect? Or other equipment?"
The two exchanged a look. "Well, the Kromaggs usually stayed in a single place," Thomas said. "They probably have some stuff we can recover, if you want to take a look." Jules nodded, just with a little too much force to look natural. "The humans moved around a lot, and left things behind," he said gruffly.
"Which of you knows the layout better to find the human equipment?" the Professor asked. Thomas and Jules both pointed to the younger man at the same time, and Thomas smiled, a bit sadly. "He's not much into checkers, so he spent a lot of time wandering around," he explained, as Colin chuckled through a seize and squeeze. "You're lucky I can't get around that well," he joked, then pointed at Thomas. "And I know you were moving pieces around when I was passed out." Thomas, Jules, and Colin all shared a laugh.
With a smile, the Professor stood up, with Mary close behind. "Well then, lads," he spoke out. "It would seem that those of us with knowledge of the Kromaggs should venture to one side of this facility, meaning Mary and Mr. Koenig..." The two exchanged a look, and despite herself, Mary looked away, putting the Professor between them. Noticing the subtle movement, the Professor continued. "And myself," he finished. He looked to Thomas. "Will you be fine on your own?" he asked, to which Thomas nodded. "I know every inch of this place," he explained, "and the Kromagg base probably has more technology to use anyway."
The Professor turned to Wade. "Miss Welles, if you will stay here and care for Mr. Mallory," he said, nodding to her. She returned it, carrying Colin through another body jolt with two more squeezing hands. "Then once we've gathered all that we can, we meet back here to consider our options. Lady Mary," he said, picking up the backpacks, and handed one to Thomas, Jules, and Mary. When they were ready, he brought Mary through the door with a guiding hand in the small of her back. "And Mr. Koenig, if you would lead us, please," he finished. Jules stood, nodded, then went ahead first.
They passed through metallic corridors, lined with solid windows that looked out onto a blasted wasteland of red sand and jagged mountains. The sky was a sickly yellow. The corridors themselves were filled with empty metal boxes, large vertical pipes, the occasional blinking light, and doors that led to more corridors and small rooms. Jules expertly guided them through empty rooms, side tunnels, and at one point through a shortcut duct, before they finally reached the large sliding doors that led into the former Kromagg camp. Mary kept the Professor between the two, and though he seemed to try and keep his emotions hidden, it was obvious from his sideways glances and eyes towards the floor that he wasn't entirely successful.
The Kromagg camp seemed to be some kind of converted laboratory or office space, with a second floor connected by a stairwell. There was what appeared to be hydroponically grown plants on a center table, long since turned brown and dead, and walls of bright lights and shelves covered by torn curtains or covers. They hung down over both the shelves and a console standing against the left wall, and to the right, several massive computer towers were mostly covered, lights still blinking.
"The air is really bad in here," Mary said quietly. She walked towards the curtained wall and began digging through some boxes. The Professor looked about, noticing a light mist that seemed to be coming from the ground up. "Yes," he said. "Is this common, Mr. Koenig?"
Jules turned to the mist, then returned to checking around the hydroponics table. "There was a cloud here before," he remembered. "Along the floor. But it never smelled this bad." The Professor made a face, and began climbing towards the second floor. "Then it appears we are on a time crunch," he reasoned. (One that I haven't experienced in some time), he thought with a small smile.
After ten minutes of scrounging, gathering, and packing boxes full of cables, hardware, scanners, and other materials, they had acquired about as much as they could carry. He wasn't sure, but the Professor thought that the air was starting to get a bit thicker, enough to bring him to a short cough.
"So you're Wade," Colin said, looking over at his physical therapist of sorts. She smiled. "Yes," she said simply, taking him through another short seizure.
"Quinn never forgot you," he said in a deep and serious voice. Thomas was in the corner and unpacking a box full of hardware, and turned his back in respect. Keeping her hands in position, Wade looked away in thought. "He talked about you sometimes," he continued. "Always with the same look on his face, staring off into the distance." She bit her lip, looking at the floor. "I could see it in his eyes," he said, leaning back up against the computer tower. "He was hurt, burdened. He carried a lot when we were together. Not just to keep us safe, but about everything that happened before, freeing worlds from the Kromaggs, keeping to the timer... he shouldered a lot."
A seizure wracked his body, and Wade immediately squeezed in response, then used her shoulders to wipe her eyes. She kept her squeezing hold on him a little longer in gratitude, offering him a sad smile and embarrassed chuckle. Seeing her face, Colin shortly lost his train of thought, then offered her a reassuring smile before he soon found it again. "He told me of the Professor, too," he continued, changing the subject. Wade sighed softly and nodded slightly. "But I thought..." Colin started, then slowly closed his mouth, seeing the pain in her brown eyes.
Luckily, she came to his rescue. "It's a little hard to explain, but..." she started, then spent the next few minutes sharing her memories of the Azure Gate Bridge world and her timely escape from the Kromaggs. Colin was relieved to hear of her rescue, and excited to hear of the portals she used and of Mary's assistance, but something continued to bother him. After a short seizure and Wade's distracting squeeze, he spoke softly, eyes moving back and forth along the ground in thought. "An azure... bridge?" he muttered. "Why does that sound so familiar?"
Seconds later, the others spilled back into the room. Colin and Wade looked up, smiling as the three dumped box after backpack of materials onto the floor. "You're the Professor," Colin said to the larger man next to him. He smiled back. "One of two, in fact," he said, digging through a box and pulling out different circuit boards of unknown purpose. "The other, a sage among men," he said in a voice strong with praise. "A veritable pillar of vigor. And I," he continued, bowing his head slightly at the young Mallory, "am at your service, Mr. Mallory."
Wade offered a light couple of overdramatic claps, then returned her hands to Colin's arm and shoulder, just in time to pull him away from the feeling of a seizure. "I don't know if he's really the brother of our Quinn," she said to the Professor, then looked to Colin, "but you really do look like him."
Colin smiled at the comment. "Remmy used to say that faith is a shield to get us through trying times," he answered. "Maybe this is one of those times." Wade smiled back. The Professor cast an unseen sideways glance at the two, but returned to investigating the board before he was found out.
"So you slid with the others?" she asked. Colin nodded. "Yes, Remmy and Maggie," he answered. The Professor couldn't help but smile as he overheard. "How was Mr. Brown?" he asked, to which he was awarded a wide smile from Colin. "A great friend," he answered. "He was brave, full of life. It was hard not to smile when he was around. He even gave me my first soda!"
Mary laughed, picking through some cables. "Where did your first sip go?" she asked. Colin raised his hands up in mock surrender. "Straight to my stomach, I promise!" he insisted, and she laughed again. Wade turned her head to Mary, then back to Colin, then with a shake of her head, mouthed, "All over the place." Colin shook his head in mock disappointment, shuddered through another seizure, then spoke. "Nobody ever tells the newcomers about the bubbles," he lamented.
He looked back to Wade. "Remmy was the first to jump to your rescue after we met Christina," he remembered. Wade blinked, then smiled widely. "So she's safe?" she asked in disbelief. "And the baby?!" Colin nodded with a wide smile. "We got her home," he explained. "Her dad helped burn the Kromagg DNA away, and now they're living on a new world. His name's Jonathan, like his dad." Seeing Wade's bright face, Colin kept the news of her father to himself.
"Then there was the time he stole an ambulance to save my brother's clone body," he remembered, looking towards the ceiling in happy memory. "His what?!" Wade asked, laughing, and Colin chuckled with her. "Right before we left that world, Quinn, his double, and his clone were all together on the streetside," he remembered. "I was nervous that we might take the wrong one." His smile faded from joyous to nostalgic, and he nodded. "Remmy was always looking out for us," he said happily. He easily endured another seizure and squeeze from Wade with his thoughts warming him.
"Did he grow his mustache back?" Wade asked, but Colin only looked to her, confused. "Mustache?" he asked, searching his memory. "I don't remember him ever having one..." The Professor nodded while he laid out wires and checked their ends, matching his mental image of the Rembrandt he saw in the Kromagg facility with Colin's description. Wade shrugged. "I guess he wanted to shake things up," she reasoned. "After we returned to Earth the first time, he had to get rid of it."
Colin didn't press. "I would have liked to see it," he said.
The Professor spoke up next. "And what of Miss Beckett?" he asked, plugging in a machine against the wall and checking a power box that lit up at the flick of a switch. Colin chuckled. "What did Remmy call her?" he asked aloud, enduring another seizure and squeeze. "What was it, 'spitfire'?" Wade and the Professor laughed loudly, each picturing their own Maggie within their minds.
When things calmed, he continued. "She spoke of you sometimes, Wade," he said, looking to her with a smile. "Mostly when reminiscing with brother, about things getting better between you." He stopped, then made a skeptical face. "Did you two really blow up a T-Rex?" he asked, to which Wade laughed. "He had it coming, trust me," she answered smugly. He shook his head in disbelief. "Amazing!" he exclaimed, then pointed at her. "But maybe I have something to top that. Maggie and I got married," he said with a smile.
"Wow!" Wade exclaimed. "Congratulations, Mr. Beckett!" she added in a teasing tone. He shook his head. "Well, maybe it wasn't that exciting," he admitted. "I was darted with some kind of mood evening drug, and we were taken to a kind of rehabilitation community for overly passionate people." Wade nodded and laughed. "Which would explain why they darted Maggie too," she laughed. She squeezed Colin through another seizure, then calmed down to let him continue. "They made us play house for a few hours," he remembered. Wade smirked. "Were you happily married, then?" she asked, to which he smiled and answered, "Well, there were the drugs..." The three shared another laugh.
The pile of hardware, cables, boards, and other materials started to pile high in the center near the chair, and the Professor, Jules, Thomas, and Mary began separating the pieces into easier to organize piles. Colin leaned back and looked to the ceiling again. "She was the first to lie down on the road to stop and trick those Kromaggs who had you," he remembered, then his smile slowly faded. "It was enough to get Christina back to her world, but you were already off-world." Wade smiled in reassurance, and squeezed him through another seizure.
He nodded in thanks, then continued. "You think Remmy with a mustache is something to see?" he asked. "Maggie had to get a job as a singing waitress at a cowboy saloon, tight dress and all!" Wade laughed and shrugged. "Ok, you win," she conceded, "and if I see her again, I'll make sure to ask her all about it."
She looked to the Professor, who was sitting near the chair and piling several pieces of unknown hardware in a line before him. "Professor," she said. He looked up. "His Quinn has the same background in his code, his Earth was also under attack, it sounds like our Remmy and Maggie, and they knew Christina..." She smiled broadly, squeezing Colin through another seizure. "It has to be our Quinn!"
Despite her words, the Professor's face didn't change. "I would like to add a note of caution, Miss Welles," he said, "for we have been down this road before." He turned his attention shortly to a small terminal that he hooked up to a power source, then turned it on. Returning his attention to Wade's now neutral face, he smiled. "But as Mr. Brown would say, I would advise us all to keep faith," he added with a wink. "This may indeed be them." Wade's bright face returned.
Thomas finished emptying the last bucket of hardware, then stood. "I'll need some help getting to the other human camps," he said. Jules rose and walked to the door, keeping his eyes off, and distance from, Mary. "I can go with you," he said gruffly. Thomas clapped him on the shoulder in thanks, and taking two of the backpacks and some boxes, they headed out.
Wade looked over to Mary. "Sorry about leaving you out of all of this," she said, helping Colin through a violent shake. Mary shook her head and smiled. "It's ok," she answered. "I'm glad to see everyone together."
The Professor looked up from the pile. "Is that all?" he asked. "You seem to be particularly shaken." She shivered slightly, then returned to the pile of hardware. "Yes," she said unsteadily. "It's just... that boy's mannerisms. The way he walks, the emphasis on his words, it reminds me..." She trailed off, and didn't elaborate further.
He gave a knowing nod. "I understand completely, Lady Mary," he spoke out. "It seems we all have much to blame the Kromaggs for. Laying hands on our friends, destroying worlds, even that boy... stolen from his rightful people at a young age." Mary was silent, and he shook his head in anger. "I do not know what we will do when we get home, but I promise, somehow, they will pay for what they've done," he vowed.
Finally, he fished out what he was looking for. "At last!" he exclaimed, holding out a short cable with an odd end along with a small portable screen to Mary. "Please try this, and cross your fingers," he said. Mary held up the cable, widened her eyes in surprise, then plugged it into the side of the Kromagg timer.
It slipped in with a hopeful click. Then, she leaned over to plug the other end into the display, which lit up, showing the familiar menu they had seen on the previous world. The Professor clapped and laughed a single laugh, Wade cheered happily, and Mary smiled and exhaled in relief. Colin looked among them, confused but happy for them, as Wade brought him through another seizure.
As she began to investigate the device and navigate the menus, Wade turned to the Professor. "What are you up to, Professor?" she asked. He sat back, index finger and thumb rubbing his chin in thought. "If Mr. Mallory's condition is related to the constant thrum of continuous vibrations emanating from his body, it will be necessary to understand, and perhaps control, the process," he explained. "To whit, I shall need to detect, isolate, record, retransmit, nullify, contain, and/or ground the forces that compel Mr. Mallory to move beyond the Slidecage."
He pointed to the hardware in front of him. "By using a scanner, isolator, recorder, transmitter, ground, generator, and some kind of battery," he continued, "it might be possible to jury rig a temporary solution to the situation that currently plagues our dear young man here."
He looked around at the blank looks on the girls' faces, and the slower nod of understanding that Colin offered. "Um," Mary spoke up from the screen, "let us know if you need any help."
The Professor chuckled, then turned back to the pile of hardware. "Just keep our patient stable, learn all you can of the brutes' device, and leave the rest to me, dear ladies," he said confidently, adding another circuit board to the pile in front of him.
Half an hour passed before Thomas and Jules finally returned, each bringing a full backpack, a large box in their hands, and another box tied to a rope dragging behind them. They both collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily and coughing. "There's... a problem..." Thomas barely managed to get out. Jules spoke up next. "The human sections," he started, then coughed heavily, "are gone."
"What happened?!" Wade asked in concern. Mary knelt before them, offering each the last of the bottled water brought from the previous world. Thomas accepted his, rolled over, then began to drink, coughing horribly between each sip. Jules took his as well, coughed hard, then spoke harshly through a ragged throat. "Thank you," he croaked out. Mary nodded nervously, then hurried back to her terminal.
"I... don't know..." Thomas gasped out from his back, coughing. "The toxic air... from outside. It's coming in." He shook his head. "This never... happened before. We've had leaks... but nothing like this. Not until..."
He stopped, turning to look at the newcomers. "Not until you three arrived," he finished. The Professor, Mary, and Wade exchanged looks, and after squeezing Colin through another seizure, Wade spoke. "Did we set off some kind of trap?" she asked.
The Professor's movements became quicker as he continued to tie, slot, glue, and solder together the guts of a mysterious machine. "It may be that the mechanism can detect tampering," he surmised, "then would flood the facility upon detecting the opening of a new portal." He looked to Colin, scratching that idea. "Or perhaps it detected that we used Kromagg technology to arrive here," he further guessed. "And in a last act of protection for the homeworld, was designed to kill all within."
He shook his head. "In any event, this does not change our mission," he said confidently. "We stabilize Mr. Mallory, we find a way to escape, and we all leave together." Thomas winced slightly at the thought of losing the comforting tunnels, but his mind soon conjured an image of his gasping death, so he quickly nixed the first idea.
"How much time do we have?" Wade asked. Jules, now leaning against the computer tower behind him, took a swig from his water bottle. "It spread quickly," he spoke roughly, then looked upwards to calculate. "Maybe a few hours," he guessed. Mary nodded. "I'll keep looking through the timer," she said.
Colin stood from his position next to the door, with Wade still holding his bicep and shoulder. "I can try to check the database to see if there's anything I can do," he suggested. Wade threw his arm around her shoulders, and helped him stumble to the console. "I got you," she promised with a smile, which Colin returned.
Thomas stood up unsteadily, took a drink of water, coughed, then stomped his right foot and shook his head to psych himself up. "I'll head to the Kromagg section, see if there's anything else there," he suggested. Jules stood and came to his side. "We'll go," he said more than offered, and with a nod, the two headed for the door.
"Don't stay any longer than you need to," the Professor warned. "If there is any of this infernal gas between you and your objective, return here immediately." The two smiled, waved, then left through the door.
"And now," the Professor said, looking down at the mysterious device, "let's see what else can be done with you."
Another 20 minutes later, Thomas and Jules returned, coughing violently. They dumped a final pair of backpacks and boxes worth of equipment onto the floor, then leaned up against the nearby computer tower. Jules' hand was on Thomas' head, and while the former seemed to cough in suffering agony as much as before, the latter appeared to calm, his breathing becoming more regular. Mary threw glances at the two, and feeling a sense of vibration, almost a whining sound, filling the air, she slowly came to recognize what was going on.
(But he's human...) she thought in confusion. When Jules caught her look through his violent coughing, she nodded slightly to him. He returned it with eyes closed, then leaned his head back into the computer tower behind him a little too fast. A slight crack filled the air, but was soon drowned out by the sounds of more of his coughing.
"I've shut down the extraneous systems to conserve power," Colin spoke, wincing through another body seizure. Wade squeezed him through it. "Lights, automatic doors, anything I could. The gases are still coming." Wade looked to him. "Can you shut the doors?" she asked, but he shook his head. "I could," he started, "but it drains power to keep them sealed. I'll be ready if the gases reach us, though." Wade nodded, then turned. "Professor, how's it going?" she asked.
He was tightening something inside of a black metal box about the size of a VHS case. The box had small holes dug into its sides and top for a total of eight: four on the top, and four more in the back, all in pairs. From the holes protruded four stretchable wires, each ending in loops: two short from the side and two long from the top. Another box of roughly the same size was next to him and sealed, its front panel closed. The front one had a single cable line running to a nearby terminal, and was displaying readings.
"Working as fast as I can, Miss Welles," he answered. He stood, ran a scanner over Colin's body, then linked the scanner to the small terminal on the floor next to him. "The frequencies don't run outside of these two specific ranges," he muttered. He typed something into his terminal, ran the scanner over Colin again, then returned to the screen, nodding. "It's the best I can do under such circumstances, Mr. Mallory," the Professor said, closing up the first box through a small hinged door on the front, then brought both boxes to Colin. He and Wade turned from the computer to look at the strange machine, then back to the Professor with wariness. She squeezed him through another seizure.
He caught their looks and smiled. "Have faith, Miss Welles," he chided jokingly. She and Colin seemed to relax, and he placed the two boxes on his sternum and spine. "Hold these here, Mr. Mallory," he said, and when they were secure, the Professor stretched the two short wires around his ribs on his left side to loop through and hook the holes on the box on the other. Doing the same for his right side, there were now two large boxes barely held to his body by wires.
"What is this?" Colin asked. Pulling the other two extendable wires up and over his neck, then over his left and right shoulders, he brought them down to loop through the other pair of holes in the box on the other side. When he was done, there were now two heavy black boxes strapped to his front and back, which squeezed as Colin turned his body about. They almost looked like a belt, as well as a pair of suspenders that formed an X over his chest. Wade squeezed him through another body seizure.
"With luck, these will identify the frequencies that propel you beyond the Slidecage," he started, "then generate their opposites to nullify the effect. It should also produce an energy field to keep your quantum matrix bound to your corporeal form, and will be powered by a battery in each device that will be charged by a kinetic generator... until we can find something more permanent to fix this issue, of course." Colin nodded, more that he was listening than that he was understanding.
Wade made a face. "What happened to him?" she asked, to which the Professor knit his eyebrows together in thought. "I'm not sure, Miss Welles," he answered. "In layman's terms, it seems that Mr. Mallory's quantum matrix was separated from his body, but not to death as would normally be the case. Instead, it seems to have lost its tether to physical reality. At some point, his quantum matrix began to open random portals through the multiverse, pulling Mr. Mallory's body through them like a puppet on strings."
Nodding with slow understanding, then squeezing Colin through another body seizure, she spoke. "So basically, his soul thinks that he's dead, and is trying to open a path to heaven?" she said with surprise, eyes wide. "But he's still attached to his body, so he was being pulled through different dimensions? So that means..." The Professor shook his head, chuckling softly. "My dear Miss Welles, if you're going to make some kind of comment on the power contained within the human soul," he started, then looked to her with a smile, "save it, please. We don't have time."
Across the room, Mary shuffled through menus on the Kromagg timer through a beaten up attached keyboard connected to a terminal. It wasn't the instant success that she thought it would be. "Coordinate history, power history, status..." she muttered. The link to the Dynasty thankfully wasn't working, and she found that the former owner or creator of the device was named Kanek, but she found nothing else.
She looked to the others. "We won't be able to leave," she called out. Everyone looked at her. "There's not enough power," she continued. "It's limited to normal strength portals for a handful of people. And it definitely can't break through the Slidecage."
Colin sighed in worry. The Professor did some final calculations through the terminal still linked through one of the boxes, then turned to the console. "Keep at it, Lady Mary," he said hopefully. "I'm sure you'll discover something. I'm almost done here."
"The gas will be here soon," Colin said, hovering his finger over the key to seal the doors. Mary went through the device once more, looking for anything she may have missed. Power readings, diagnostics... there was nothing that seemed would help.
Jules spoke up from behind her, coughing heavily. "The input screen," he managed to croak out between coughs. Mary looked to him, then back to the terminal, opening it. When she was there, she turned to see him breathing heavily. He shut his eyes tight, coughed again, the pointed at the screen. "Bottom... right," he choked out. "Write 'victory' there... on the screen."
She looked at him, blinked twice, then rose to put her finger on the terminal where he instructed. No sooner had she finished fingering the word there in Kromagg, a small dialog box opened in the corner where she drew, one that displayed a single line of Kromagg and a toggle switch.
"Emergency... power?" she translated. Flipping the toggle, a warning box overtook the screen for several seconds, warning of dire consequences and catastrophic failure. Mary turned the timer over in her hands, and a light bulb went off in her head. She rose up and began digging through the piles of cables in the heap at the center of the room, shortly separating three that matched the ports inside the Kromagg device. When the extra cables were plugged into the timer with telltale clicks, she began digging through the pile once more. "This might get us through!" she announced. Thomas and Jules, noticing what she was doing, searched with her.
The Professor nodded to her with an assured smile, then turned back to Colin. "The power switch is here, Mr. Mallory," he spoke, indicating a large and heavy switch inside the box that was lightly squeezing into his chest. It sat next to a circuit board with a handful of tiny devices inside, each crudely soldered to specific parts of the hardware and facing inwards towards the back of the box. He went around the other side, waiting until Wade had squeezed him through another body seizure. "The other is in the same place, on the back," he further explained. "You may be able to reach it yourself, but otherwise, one of us will need to assist."
He came back to the front. "I apologize I couldn't whip up something better than this, and we'll need a terminal of some sort to fine tune any frequencies if the need arises," he started, "but perhaps I'll be able to fine tune things on the next world. Provided we get there." Colin nodded, a grateful smile on his face, while the Professor disconnected the front box from the terminal. He turned to Wade. "Miss Welles, if you would assist me in doing the honors..." he suggested, and with a nod, she shifted her right hand to his shoulder, and her left to the switch in the box behind him.
"3... 2... 1..." the Professor counted down, and the two of them switched on the machines. There was a sinister electrical whine as the various components came online, began their scans, and worked to the Professor's instructions. Closing the two panels, the Professor and Wade looked on in silence. The seconds passed by, and everyone looked to the scene before them. Closer and closer the time came to another body seizure. Wade took her usual position at his side, preparing herself to keep him distracted and calm. Closer, then closer...
Then nothing.
Colin breathed a massive sigh of relief as the seconds ticked by, with no pressure, no squeezing, no headache, no bracing, nothing of the continuous nightmare he had felt in his short moments awake in the Slidecage. The Professor and Wade smiled, and she let out a whispering "Yes!"
Raising his hand a few inches over hers on his shoulder, waiting for a high five, Colin looked to Wade. "Thank you for staying with me," he said. She brought her hand up and over his, clasping them together, and brought them down on his shoulder. "Of course!" she said. After a few seconds of supportive squeezing, she released to point a finger at him. "Now, lots of water, no heavy lifting, no heavy machinery, blah blah blah," she joked. He laughed. "Of course, doctor," he spoke back with a smile. She returned it, patted his hand, then turned to help the others at the pile.
Turning to the Professor, Colin spoke. "You don't know how good this feels, Professor," he said. "Thank you." The Professor shook his head, then clapped his hand on Colin's shoulder. "Tell me all about it later, lad," he said with a smile, then pointed to the monitor. "We still have work to do."
With five pairs of hands digging, the others eventually found the power adapters they were looking for: Kromagg to human, fitting three of the wires erupting from the Kromagg device like Medusa snakes. Once they were fit in, Thomas took the wired mess and plugged it into an outlet partially concealed by a computer tower. "Kromagg hardware, with human charging," he said, turning to look at everyone. "Wish we had something like that timer years ago, would have made the tunnels a lot quieter."
Colin smiled, but his face almost instantly fell, looking at the screen in front of him. "The gas is almost here," he spoke out, then turned to everyone. "If we're going to do something, it has to be now."
Mary nodded, then turned to the screen still connected to the Kromagg device. Dialog boxes were popping up in angry red Kromagg left and right. She nervously and quietly sucked air between her teeth as she powered on, then began charging the device. "What's the bad news?" Wade asked. Mary shook her head. "There's a lot to the power system, so I don't really know," she answered. "It wasn't made to take in all this energy."
"It's here!" Colin shouted, and after he keyed something into the computer, the door leading out suddenly slammed and sealed shut with a menacing hiss. The others looked around as the room began to shake, and the lights flickered. "We're running out of time!" he added, then stood from the chair to huddle around Mary's screen with the others.
The lights dimmed again, longer this time. The screen showed a bar rising higher and higher. The timer shook in Mary's hand. The power indicator neared the top. The lights exploded above them and the computer towers went dark. The room was thrust into darkness. The door suddenly opened, and a cloud began filling the room.
"Go!" the Professor shouted. Mary activated the timer, and after a bolt of twisting red energy ripped from the device, a swirling red and violent vortex suddenly exploded open in the corner of the room, flooding the entire area with a raging crimson glow. Thomas disconnected the power on the timer, then after laying it at Mary's side, he and Jules jumped in first. Mary grabbed the screen and cables as Wade ran to her side, and taking the mess between them, they flashed a pair of smiles back to the other two, then jumped in as well. The vortex continued to spin strongly as the gas flooded the room.
Colin and the Professor approached the mouth of the tunnel. The older man gathered his equipment, then turned to the younger. "If I don't see you on the other side, Mr. Mallory," he shouted over the roar of the vortex, "I promise, I will find you!" Colin smiled and nodded. "I believe you, Professor!" he shouted back. The Professor returned his smile, then turned to leap into the vortex. Once he was safely inside, the gas breached the room. Colin wasted no time to leap after him.
The room was choked with a thick fog of deadly vapors. The vortex closed. And deep within the complex, the Slidecage mechanism hummed with power.