February 11, 1998
I read the newspaper in the morning. I read stories about how the Americans were recovering after liberating their country. There were even articles about normal events, events I took for granted on my world, or my temporary world.
Of course, soon I was removed from my cell and soon escorted to the courtroom where a tribunal of American generals and admirals sat in judgment of me.
I listened in on testimony.
It was then that Commander Chris Morton would call his star witness.
And there she sat, in her uniform. She was sworn in.
I can't write, can't put on paper, what she told the tribunal that she experienced in the Presidio.
I can write that she said that my other self was personally involved, that she was his favorite.
I can only mention that photographic and video evidence was introduced to back up her testimony; I dare not describe it.
Then the commander was done with his examination.
"You may proceed," the judge said to Ross J. Kelly.
"I want to turn my attention to what happened after your rescue from the Presidio by Colonel Rickman and his team," said my lawyer.
"I joined up with them," she said. "It was part of my healing, to fight back against those who hurt me. It helped me to be more than just a victim of the American Reich"
"But you met a woman who looked exactly like you. Is that right?"
"Yes."
"And she said she was another you."
"That doesn't mean she was. I don't know who or what she was. Are you saying your client, that man, wasn't the man who caused me so much pain, who broke me?"
"Exactly," he said. "He looks like him, has the same fingerprints and DNA, but he is another version from a parallel dimension. This other you did claim to be from a parallel universe, as you had just testified before us."
"I don't believe her."
"So you know she's lying?"
"She made the extraordinary claim, Mr. Kelly," replied Miss Welles. "She didn't prove she was telling the truth."
"I have no further questions," says Kelly.
"The Crown rests their case," said Morton.
"Witness is excused," said the judge. "Tribunal shall reconvene at 1400 hours."
Ross J. Kelly accompanied me as the military police escorted me back to my cell.
There was only one witness we could have.
But it wasn't the witness that we needed.
I just lay in my cell until it was time for me to head back to the courtroom.
And then I was there, wearing my tweed jacket, white shirt, bowtie, trousers, and lofers.
It was time for me to take the stand.
An Royal Army sergeant acting a a bailiff swore me in.
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God?" she asked.
"I do."
Ross J. Kelly, approached me.
"Tell this honorable tribunal of officers sworn to the Crown about yourself."
And so I told a condensed story about my educational background, and that I lived in the United States of America.
"Where is this United States of America?" he asked.
"IOt does not exist in this dimension./ It exists in other dimensions, including the dimension which I arrived from," I answered.
"Other dimensions? Why, Professor, it sounds outlandish to these guests here, l;et alone the generals and admirals sitting in judgment over you."
"Allow me to explain," I said. "It's a very simple. The double slit experiment. When an electric torch is shined through a barrier with only a pair of slits close together, it produces a patterns on lights at the far end due to quantum interference."
"Because of wavelengths, correct?"
"Yes. The thing is, when the light is so dim that only one photon is emitted at a time, where it only lands at certain places, the exact places that are lit when trillions of photons emitted from a torch pass through, as if something is interfering with the photon even though it is traveling through the slit alone, as if it is somehow traveling through both slits simultaneously."
"That does sound preposterous, isn't it."
"But it is true. And it was done with electrons. When a single photon or electron is emitted, it is as if a whole retinue of shadow photons or shadow electrons also go through. They have the same rest mass, same electric charge, and same momentum as real photons and real electrons. And yet, their only effect is to interfere with real electrons and real photons and other real particles. These shadow particles are in other parallel universes."
"the defense presents these exhibits, scientific papers on the double-slit experiment from the 1920's," said my lawyer.
I then testified about how Quinn Mallory, Wade Welles, and Rembrandt Brown disappeared, how the United States government found the original sliding equipment, and how it recruited me and other scientists to research sliding, and how we made advancements, including opening wormholes to specific dimensions and tracking wormholes, and how I volunteered to go on a mission to track the path of Quinn, Wade, and Rembrandt.
I also told them about my contact with Marc LeBeau, and my other self who could self-slide.
"I have no more questions for my client," said Kelly.
"You may proceed," the judge said to the prosecutor.
"You earlier testified about your credentials," said Commander Morton. "Impressive, being a professor of cosmology at an expensive University."
"Indeed it is, Commander."
"so tell me, how do we contact your University to verify your credentials? Can we dial a telephone number."
"Not from this Earth," i said. "The telephone network here isn't connected across the dimensions to the world where I came from."
"Or this research facility at Yerba Buena Island? Now, as far as I know, there's no sliding research facility at Yerba Buena, but what about your dimension? How do we contact them?"
"We can't?"
"What, no interdimensional cell phones?" asked Morton.
"We had not developed that capability yet."
"But people from that other Earth could open a wormhole here to this world, is that correct?"
"Yes, it is, Commander."
"Why don't they open a wormhole to this very courtroom? Just open it here, you make a run for it- even with your physique, you'll be through before the MP's here could catch up to you."
"While we can open a path to a specific Earth, we can't yet do so to a specific place on Earth. So far, the other side always opened up at Yerba Buena Island, except for the times we were tracking Quinn Mallory. He and the Wade and Rembrandt from his Earth arrived here at Axure Gate Park, near where the Hitler statue used to be. For now, the wormhole from Yerba Buena will only open there.
"so you explorers here had go back to the park to return to Yerba Buena."
"No, they could open it anywhere, or at least within the greater San Francisco Bay Area."
"So why not send someone here to go to this courtroom and open a wormhole back home? I mean, if there's another you here, as you say, there might be another me in your so-called home world, another Chris Morton. They could recruit him to slide here, knock me out with chloroform or some tranquilizer, put on my uniform, and then in this very courtroom, open this wormhole and jump in along with you."
"It's not that simple," I answered. . "Before each slide, a time has to be set for the return vortex to be opened. Only then can the way home be opened. If it is not opened within a minute or so, the timer will not be able to open the way home for twenty-nine years. Such a rescue mission would require perfect timing down to the second."
"Must be very convenient."
"Well, Commander, you're not the bad guys. The people at Yerba Buena wouldn't want to use lethal force."
"Must be a very convenient tale. And yet, we have no way of contacting this alternate Yerba Buena in this United State in an alternate Earth in an alternate Universe. Nobody from there will willing to appear, right here, to say, 'This isn't the Arturo you're looking for.' What I see, and what this honorable tribunal sees, is a dead man desperate to avoid the noose!"
"Objections, sirs and ma'ams," says Ross J. Kelly.
"Withdrawn," said Commander Morton. "No further questions."
"The defense rests," said Kelly.
That night, as I lay in my cell, I was still disturbed by the testimony of this world's Wade Welles.
