February 16, 1998
Royal assent to my execution was made Sunday evening. Ross J. Kelly informed me. I had my last meal, which was roast chicken with white wine sauce, and white wine, with breadsticks.
I was so nervous. I felt that the staff at Yerba Buena had abandoned me, though somewhere deep in my mind I understood why they would not want a firefight with my captors, who weren't bad guys.
I kept wondering if that was the end of my journey that began in September of 1994.
A gallows had been set up at the Presidio parade grounds. There were so many people, with the military police maintaining control, and more soldiers and Marines had been brought here to provide backup. Television cameras were there from the newly-revived television stations.
My execution would be public and televised.
I was taken to the top. I saw the platform, the rope and noose, which wasn't hemp, but stainless steel, and the lever which would release the trap door, causing me to fall until the sudden stop broke my neck.
I faced the crowd, most of them jeering. They considered me a villain.
I looked down at my feet. There was the trap door, through which I would fall.
My heart was racing, as if it was trying to beat as fast as it can before it stopped beating forever.
I couldn't believe this. I had brushes with death in twenty months of sliding from Universe to Universe, but this time it was so drawn out.
I looked at the hangman, a man in camouflage with a camouflaged hood on his head; he had no nametag nor rank markings.
He placed the noose around my neck.
I could feel the steel.
And then this world vanished from sight when a hood was placed over my head.
Then someone or something grabbed me.
What was happening?
Did I get a last minute reprieve?
The answer was yes.
I felt weightless, and then felt my feet on the ground.
My hood was removed, and I looked around, seeing concrete walls.
And it looked familiar, for it was the embarkation room at the Yerba Buena Sliding Research Facility, where the wormholes are opened.
I saw another me.
He must be that duplicate who could self-slide, for lack of a better term.
And he looked tired.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
He fell, and then appeared to fall through the floor.
And so I was finally able to write down everything that happened since January 24th, as I rested in the Quarantine Facility.
There was one thing I want to mention.
Both Dr. Diana Davis and Captain Maggie Beckett were in quarantine, having recently returned from off-world.
Beckett told me about my other self. The scientists did scans and she mentioned Dr. Jensen said it may help them further develop sliding.
I remember what Dr. Davis told me; it was about our project to find this world's Quinn.
"We tracked a wormhole that Quinn's timer generated from that world where you escaped," she said. "We calculated the coordinates and the wormhole led to a world where humans populate North America. No immediate dangers to any interdimensional visitors, so we sent explorers."
"And you found where they went next?"
"There is no next," she said. "I visited that place twice, used the tracking equipment, even tested it to make sure it was working properly. and it was clear, that timer did not open a worm hole from that world. If Quinn and his friends made it there, they are still there- dead or alive."
