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A swirling blue vortex opened, starting slowly as a small pinprick distortion in the center, and then expanding until it was large enough to comfortably exhume four fully grown bodies. Rembrandt 'Crying Man' Brown was first too emerge, screeching and wailing as he flailed out. He flew straight into a set of metal railing, forcibly stopping his movement. When he actually opened his eyes, he yelled. The vortex had opened up high above the city, the ground was visible, but not enough so that Remmy would be happy going over the edge. In fact, the cold hard metal railings on the fire escape had probably saved his life. He didn't fancy his chances back on the other world either. He kissed one of the bars in thanks before the others emerged.

Suddenly, he was rammed in the back by one of his companions. Pressed against the bars once more, Remmy regretted not moving while he had the chance. "Get off me, you big oaf! I'm being mashed like a potato here!"

A laugh rang out from behind him. "Better you than me! If I hadn't just eaten I might try a bit," it said. It could only be Mallory. He had a quirky sense of humor that wasn't always shared.

The pair stood up, still facing in the same direction; away from the vortex. From above and behind them, Maggie came careening out and thwacked right into the back of Mallory, who in turn once more squashed Remmy against the railings. "Oomph!" Cries of protest came from both of the guys and Maggie scrambled off the pile, laughing so hard she was almost crying. "Oh come on, I'm not that heavy!"

Remmy pulled himself away from the railings before he answered. "You wanna bet on that?" he teased her with a smile. She just grimaced at him. "Hey, where's Diana?"

Almost as if on cue, as the words came out of his mouth, Diana burst out of the vortex, timer in hand and without anyone to block her exit, just skimmed the top of the rails and went over.
What if you found a portal to a parallel universe? What if you could slide into a thousand different worlds, where it's the same year and you're the same person, but everything else is different? And what if you can't find your way home?

Starring:
Cleavant Derricks as Rembrandt Brown
Kari Wuhrer as Maggie Beckett
Robert Floyd as Mallory
Tembi Locke as Diana Davis




by Slider Sarah
Produced by Q-Ball79 and Chaser9

"Diana!" Mallory's cry was echoed within a split second by the rest of the Sliders as Diana grabbed hold of a rail with one hand. He rushed forward to grab her hand and stop her falling, but Rembrandt was already there.

Maggie called out, "Diana throw up your other arm! Grab hold of the side and we can pull you up." She tried not too look at the edge where her friend was dangling precariously. It wasn't that Maggie had no head for heights; she'd been a fighter pilot, in the air a lot of the time. However, seeing Diana literally hanging on for dear life it scared her. It wasn't an overly huge drop, but it was far enough to hurt. A lot.

"I… I can't!" Diana appeared to share that fear, intensified by the fact that it was her life in danger. "It's holding the timer."

"Just shove it in your pocket."

"I don't have any in these clothes." Oh why hadn't she chosen the jeans with a pocket!

"Drop it!" That suggestion could only come from Mallory.

There was no way Diana could condone that. "It'll smash! I can't do that!"

"Just throw it up here then."

"I'll try, but I warn you my aim isn't very good." But before Diana could even attempt to throw the timer the thing began to fizzle in her hand. Sparks began to fly. "Ow! Something's wrong with it."

Suitably concerned, Remmy inquired urgently, "Like what?"

"It's burning up on me! Aarrgghh!!" As the timer burnt her hand, she instinctively let go to relieve the pain. And the timer fell to the ground. To the three at the top it seemed to fall in slow motion, to Diana it was even slower. "NO!" she cried, vainly trying to grab hold of the black object again as it spun below her reach.

Gritting his teeth, Remmy ordered, "Diana…, stop… swinging. I don't… know…. how much longer I can… hold you." The strain was showing on his arms.

"Throw your hand up so we can pull you over!"

After a certain amount of effort, Diana was able throw her right arm up and Maggie and Mallory grabbed hold. Between the three of them, Diana was safely returned to the ledge without further incident.

"We really should go retrieve the timer before anyone else does." Rubbing her shoulder and still shaking from her shock, she made a move to go down, but Maggie stopped her.

"It can wait a few minutes. And if it was hot enough to make you of all people drop it, it's probably still real hot."

"But I really should go check it out!"

Remmy's voice was calm and soothing at the same time. "It can wait until you've got over the experience, you need to sit down for a few minutes." He gave her a hug and plonked her down so she could sit with her back against the wall. "And I could do with a relax as well after all that running!"

Despite her protestations, Diana was grateful for it really. But she did worry about the potential condition of the timer. She was the one who would have to fix it. To take her mind off it, she asked Remmy what he had been running from.

"It wasn't my world."

"I thought we'd already established that?" interrupted Maggie.

Remmy ignored her and continued with the tale. "I needed some help to try and find you guys so I went to Q-ball's house, but he wasn't there and his mother had moved after he… died. Then… then I passed a graveyard with a headstone dedicated to Wade and Quinn. It couldn't have been my world. I went to try and find the Arturo of that world, but his secretary called the FBI on me! Everyone knew who I was, even the pizza delivery guy." There was no point him telling them it had been Bennish since none of them knew him. "If it wasn't for the fact that the world was Kromagg free, I could have almost been home!" He smiled at them.

Maggie punched him lightly on the shoulder. "From what I heard, you weren't that popular!" She loved to bait her oldest friend.

Remmy in return feigned offence. "Hey! I was the amazing Crying Man! Sell out shows!"

With a flick of her hand, Maggie replied, "Whatever. What happened then?"

"Oh the FBI chased me and then I ran right into you."

"Any idea why they wanted you?"

"I guess my double was a wanted man. What else could it be? But why wasn't it my Earth? I thought they were the co-ordinates." He stopped them before they could answer. "Wait, let me guess… Geiger?" He spat the name out with a vengeance. There was just something about that man that he didn't like. Something plus the fact that he'd merged Remmy's oldest friend, who he had shared a history with longer than him and Maggie, with someone else and had generally caused chaos wherever he went.

Conversation on that topic waned somewhat after that. There was only so much they could say about it. They had all been hoping that it had been Remmy's world, but it wasn't and that weighed heavily on them. Remmy's main focus was to defeat the Kromaggs. Geiger had raised his hopes and then smashed them down again. He hated seeing his homeworld overrun. None of his companions could quite sympathize. Maggie had a different pain when it came to her world, but Mallory and Diana didn't even have a clue how to empathize. They couldn't.

Diana was still breathing quite heavily. She already had a fear of enclosed spaces, she really didn't need to have a fear of heights as well. But dangling there had terrified her. She shivered and tried not to think about it. To take her mind off it indirectly, she stood up and said, "I need to see if the timer's damaged. I'm going down." No one stopped her. She needed to have her feet on firm ground again. As she traversed the steps, she held onto the rail and moved slowly, looking at the wall on her left instead of anywhere that could indicate height.

When she reached the bottom, followed by the other three, she circled round to what she projected the position of the timer would be and looked around. It was the usual alley which seemed quite common in the US cities they slid to, save for the fact that this one did lead somewhere. But instead of the usual dented rubbish bins and black bin-bags, there were perfectly formed, though not too shiny, metal boxes with latches. What was more, all of them were shut tight and there was no waste littering the street. They even appeared to be attached to each individual building, so perhaps there was a chute inside each. At first she couldn't see the little black control for the wormhole, then she laid eyes on it behind one of the chute-ends and she gasped. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed loudly. "It's in pieces!" She knelt down and picked up each bit in turn.

Her companions were silent. They'd only just got this timer, the previous one being damaged beyond repair. Were they stuck here?

Finally, Maggie was the one to break the quiet. "But you can fix it, right?" Her voice quavered a little as he made it a question and her eyes betrayed a certain sense of alarm. "I mean, will we be able to slide again?"

Shaking her head, Diana replied, "I really don't know. I'd have to have a look at it. Not only did it break when it fell, but it burnt out as well."

"We're counting on you, Diana. I know you can do it." Remmy placed a hand reassuringly on her shoulder.

She smiled up at him and placed her own hand over his. "Thanks Remmy, I appreciate the faith. But I'm not making any promises."

"I know."


The Chandler was quite busy for once. Their usual suite was unavailable, so they were assigned a different one, along much the same lines, but on the other side of the building.

Diana sat on the edge of the sofa, leaning over to the coffee table where the timer parts were spread out in all their broken glory. Mallory was seated on the armchair with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Remmy paced the room and Maggie stood by the window, idly peering at the scenery.

"So, Diana," asked Mallory, "can you fix it?"

"Mallory, for the sixth time in the last ten minutes, I don't know yet. And I won't know anytime soon if you keep disturbing me! You're like one of those annoying kids who sits in the back of the car and asks 'are we there yet, are we there yet?' persistently!"

He clicked a smile at her. "I do try."

"Oh leave it out Mallory," interjected Maggie without turning around. "We don't know how long we have so she needs to work as fast as she can, which at the moment she can't do."

"Sorry Admiral."

"Captain," she corrected idly. She pulled back the net curtain over the window for a better look outside.

Remmy was curious. "What's so fascinating out there, Maggie?"

"The buildings."

He chuckled lightly at her. "I never knew you were into architecture! And we've been sliding together how long? Over two years I think. Amazing what you never know about a person."

"Actually, I don't like it. Can't stand it in fact. It's dull and boring. But there's something… almost futuristic about these buildings."

Diana looked up from her work. "We can't time travel, remember."

"I know that, they just look more… streamlined and shiny I guess. That's all. Nothing important."

Remmy shrugged and started pacing again. No one said anything.

"Well," started Diana slowly and carefully, "I think I might be able to fix it. I'll need to make some calculations, and that might take a while. The system is still in tact, but some of the individual parts will need to be replaced. The second stage microprocessor chips are fused beyond repair. We'll only be able to slide at the window of opportunity again, so I'll have to rig up a display for that. And then there's the helix spirals…"

"Okay, we don't need to know the intricacies. Can you fix it?" Remmy had cut her off before she started to techno-babble as she was apt to do.

"Maybe."

Remembering, Rembrandt suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a mess of wires and bits of plastic. The old timer. The one that had been trashed. "Will this help?" Remmy felt embarrassed and ashamed he hadn't thought of it earlier.

"You still have that thing?" asked Mallory in disbelief. "It's useless, isn't it?"

Diana grabbed it from him. "Perhaps, perhaps not. The main system is trashed, but we might be able to salvage some of it." She pulled off the casing and removed some of the wires. Most of it was indeed well and truly smashed. Far too many of the parts were broken into pieces and rattled around with no further use. "Mallory's right; it's useless."

Remmy hung his head, dejected. He'd only kept it for a moment such as this. He didn't pretend to know anything about the physics, but he needed to slide. He needed Diana to fix it so he could save his world.

"Wait!" There in front of her was one single part that wasn't smashed. Dented and bent it was, unusable it was not. "This one can be used!"

"What is it?"

"The Geographic Spectrum Stabilizer."

Remmy groaned. "It had to be that one. I was about to get used to just sliding within a two mile radius." The other Sliders looked at him blankly. "Our original timer only had a two mile radius. We always knew whereabouts we were."

"So what happened?"

"Logan St. Clair happened. Quinn's female double. She switched the whatjamacallits and we had a 400 mile radius. And then we got an entirely different timer, but had to insert the old geo-whatever."

"Well," interjected Diana. "We need this part. Remmy just sighed. It was going to make things far more difficult.

"So can you fix it?" Maggie wanted to know.

She looked at them all directly. "I think so." Then she broke the gaze. "I need a lab…," Mallory started to say something but she shushed him, "…but unless I can get into one, I'll have to do this on the fly. I just hope I can."


The hours moved past on the clock. The three non-technical minded Sliders helped out where they could, but all that involved so far was fetching coffee and snacks whenever Diana needed refreshment and making sure she was well stocked with paper and writing implements.

So far, Diana's pages of notes on the equations and diagrams of the timer went on practically forever. She'd split the room into two halves: one side was strewn with diagrams and labelings and the other was piled with equations, some of which were crossed out, others weren't. Really, she could have done with a blackboard or whiteboard, but she didn't have access to even that kind of simplicity and so her papers were lain out in order. That was the side with less furniture. The other half contained the sofas and so the diagrams were just thrown anywhere.

Diana herself worked in sections. She'd spend a while on the diagrams and then for a break she'd swap back to the calculations. It wasn't really a break, but she didn't have the time to go slower. Or if she did, she didn't know that.

"Diana," chided Maggie firmly, "you need to relax a bit. You can't work like this."

"I can, I have and I will," was Diana's reply, which she said without paying a lot of attention.

Maggie grabbed the pen from Diana's hand, forcing her to look up. "Is there anything we can do to help that's not get you coffee? "

"How about a tea then." The scientist smiled as she teased her friend.

"Anything other than food or drink? We're just SO bored!" Mallory clarified the question.

Diana pondered an idea for a moment. "Well… I suppose I could give you a list of small parts I need for the timer for you to get me."

"Yes!" shouted Mallory. "Anything, please!"

Remmy had been relatively quiet for the conversation, but now he joined in. "We can raid the ATM again. There's gotta be something in my double's account."

"There wasn't last time we tried."

"Exactly!"

Sighing and shaking her head, Diana reached for a clean sheet of paper from the chair behind it and pushed the calculations to one side. The pen she grabbed back from Maggie ran across the page in her beautifully neat and tidy handwriting. When she was done, she handed the half-page list to Maggie, who glanced at it and then passed it on. "I hope you can read it."

Remmy, Maggie and Mallory walked away from the ATM, with Remmy shifting through a wad of cash before transferring it to his wallet. "Looks like another Rembrandt Brown made his mark on this world!" He beamed as they strolled down the street, on the look out for some kind of electrical equipment store.

"Shame you didn't really," Mallory joked. From what he'd heard, Remmy had certainly had a reasonable career.

"Hey, what is this? Pick on Rembrandt day? I'll have you know…"

"Alright, alright," said Maggie. "We don't need to hear it all again."

"Obviously you do since the pair of you appear to have forgotten," was his retort. "You see…"

Before Remmy really got started on his story of his trip to the top and back, Mallory wandered off and pointed in the direction of a shop window. "Is that what we need?"

"Sure looks like it. We may as well ask them if they have any …" he brought out the piece of paper with the intention of reading some aloud for effect, but he had trouble with and so gave up, the first one on the list, "… of these things."


Diana was still hunched over her calculations when the other three returned. It barely looked like she'd moved except there were a few more pages to the calculations. She looked up and threw her pen down as the door opened. "Wow, that was quick! Not too quick though. I need to get back to the system; these calculations are going in circles. I've seen them before, but it's a question of remembering it right. Did you get it all?"

Remmy passed the bag containing all the pieces over to techno-babble girl. "You're damn right we did!"

"You knew what to look for."

"Well, we gave the list to a shop assistant and he handed them to us," said Mallory disjointedly.

"Let's have a look then." She opened the bag and having moved her last sheet to the pattern on the floor, carefully laid out each piece in turn on the table, her bafflement growing as each piece emerged. Once the bag was empty she picked up her schematics and looked from pieces to paper with puzzlement.

Noticing this, Remmy asked, "What's wrong? We got what you asked. At least, I think we did."

"They're not compatible."

"What?" The question was universal.

Diana picked out a blacked object from the timer and put it with the new items. "They're all too small. Too compact. They're not compatible."

"Are you sure?"

Looking offended, Diana replied. "Yes. I'm sure."

"Can't you just … mix and match?" Mallory did circling hand motions to go with his query, which looked rather funny and made Diana burst out laughing. "It was just a suggestion!" he said somewhat huffily.

Still laughing, Diana corrected his assumption. "Oh it wasn't that, you just looked so funny." Maggie joined in her laughter and did a weird impression to demonstrate to Mallory, and Remmy chuckled along with them. But it was only a little joke, they sobered up pretty quickly. "No, this technology seems more advanced than that which was used to build the timer. The parts must retain their names, but…"

"…they can't be used in conjunction," Remmy finished for her. "But can you not just stick a few extra wires in there to connect? Like an adapter cable?" Maggie asked.

"Well, let's explain it another way. Did you have computers that used the big floppy disks before the smaller ones?" Maggie nodded in affirmation and Mallory did so in remembrance. "It would be like trying to use the disk of one in the drive of the other. Not possible. The only way we could use this technology is if we rebuilt the timer in its entirety."

Snickering, Remmy offered, "We could update our mobile phone."

Diana smiled. "Actually, I was going to ask if you could get a mobile phone cover for it, half of this one is broken. But I expect their phone are more compact as well and wouldn't fit. And I can't rebuild it. I managed to salvage most of the parts. It would take a matter of months, if not years. If I rebuilt with the new parts I would be starting completely from scratch, and to be honest I don't know how!"

The other Sliders looked downcast. This wasn't what they'd been hoping to hear. "So what do we do now?"

Diana shrugged. "I think our only option is to try and find compatible pieces. It's that or be stuck here a very long time."


"Is this the place from the phone book?"

The four Sliders stopped outside a small shop, by their standards quite modern, but by this world's is was almost primitive looking. A huge window took up most of the shop front, with a small door to one side.

Diana looked at the page they'd torn out. "Authentic Electrical Antiques," she read off the page. It matched with the name above the window. "Yep, it looks like it."

"It's weird… most of it looks like it's not a year old," Remmy mumbled as he peered closer in the window.

"Shall we go in?"


"So whadda we have?" Mallory asked as Diana laid all the pieces on the table.

"Weeell," she started, "We have a few." She matched up the damaged parts with the new parts, confident her schematics would allow her to put it all back together. "But we still have a long way to go. Were there any other antique electrical stores in the phone book?"

Maggie brought out the ripped pages she had claimed custody of and looked. "Yep, there are… three." She spoke with triumph.

"Only three? I'm not sure it will be enough…"

Remmy had an idea. "What about the normal 'antique' shops? There's gotta be a good few of them around and they might have a few items."

Diana nodded. "I guess it's worth a try."

"There might be other avenues we could try as well," added Mallory, somewhat shadily. They could all guess what he meant. "How about I handle that option." He laid back and relaxed in the chair. They were quite happy to leave that part to him.

"Anyway," Maggie redirected the conversation back to what was intended. "How are we off for money?"

Reaching into his pocket, Remmy winked and brought out what they had in cash. "And this is just for starters! My double is rich, man! Rich with a capital 'R'!"

The others chuckled. "Just be careful, okay?" Maggie said. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to you."


A woman with long black hair sat in front of a hi-powered computer screen that was linked to the information superhighway. Intricate search engines and links took her swiftly through pages and pages, but none held the information she was looking for. She hit the keyboard in frustration. It beeped annoyingly at her and asked her politely to repeat the query. She sighed heavily. With all these pages you'd think what she needed would be easy to find. And with all this technology you'd think they'd give the computer a voice that didn't make her cringe every time she did something wrong.

She pushed her chair away from the screen a little too hard and she flew across the room until she hit the table with a jerk. She really had to get one of those object sensors to go on the chair. They were mandatory use for the electric and solar powered vehicles but they had other uses as well. And she knew it wasn't hard to get one of them, and they weren't expensive either. She dragged herself back to the computer and typed in a new query.

The moment she found the online electrical goods section of the nearest superstore-hypermarket, her companion entered. "Hi honey, I'm home!" he recited in the style of the old-style TV programs that were so popular these days. She just shook her head. Everyone was obsessed with 'nostalgia' media and social events. This whole world was addicted.

"There you are, Ben!" she exclaimed. "I've been waiting for ages! Wanna get a pizza? I waited."

"Never mind that!" He brushed aside her question. "Take a look at this." Into the drive underneath the computer screen he inserted a disk. A new window came up on one side of the screen and showed four people at a distance entering an antique electrical store.

"So?" She didn't get what her friend was referring to here. "People go into these places all the time. Nothing new."

He stopped her. "But look closer." He clicked a button and it switched to the same four exiting the shop. Another click and the screen zoomed in.

"But that's …" she tailed off and her companion nodded slowly. "… and that's a…"

"Oh yes. And there's more." A couple more clicks and simultaneously there were 3 other shots of the same four at antique shops, exiting, carrying small parts.

"Where did you get this?" she cried. Then she looked at him and revised that. "On second thought, maybe it's best I don't know. But what could they possibly need those parts for?"

Looking directly into her dark brown eyes he said ominously, "There's only one thing they could need these specific parts for."

She comprehended him completely. "Then we need to keep an eye on them. We can't let them jeopardize our chances. Not this close."


At an ATM on the corner of a street, Remmy and Mallory stood together. They'd left Maggie and Diana sitting on what could be best described as a park bench. There was no point everyone heading to the ATM. Even two was just a precaution in case something happened.

Remmy pushed the card in slowly and entered the PIN number. Rembrandt Browns usually thought alike in terms of numbers, which was useful for him. Poised to key in the amount the Sliders had decided upon to take out at that time, a number small enough to avoid unnecessary suspicion, but large enough for their needs, he was stunned when the screen began to flash.

"Incorrect PIN. You have two more attempts before action is taken." The clear but mechanical tones of the ATM voice box were loud and attracted a measure of attention around them. To the onlookers, Remmy gave an embarrassed smile and tried again. Before he pressed enter on his next attempt, he turned to Mallory and said, "Cross your fingers."

"You think it'll help?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Remmy replied, "Can't hurt." He crossed his own and then pressed the button sharply.

"Incorrect PIN. If the PIN is not entered correctly on the final attempt, prompt action will be taken. You have 30 seconds."

"What!!" shouted Mallory. "30 seconds? Think, Remmy, think!"

"I… I don't know! It must have been changed!" Glancing quickly around them, the two could see several cameras trained on the ATM and four of what looked like security machines of some kind moving around in position.

"This is not good. Let's go!" Mallory pulled at Remmy's arm.

The elder Slider held back. "But we need the money."

"Screw the money! We need our lives!" Remmy conceded and both of them ran off as fast as they could, hoping to get out of range.

They heard firing behind them and they turned to see the ATM smoking from the blasts. "Woah," commented Mallory in awe. "Not too friendly I take it."

After staring at the gradually disappearing after effect, Remmy and Mallory made their way regretfully to the girls, with the knowledge that their funds were now seriously restricted. What they had still was it. Completely. And they had a feeling that it would be nowhere near enough.

Once the two who he had been watching had disappeared, the one known to his sole companion as Ben moved out from the doorway shadow not far from the ATM for a clear view of his target. Their limited funds would hinder their search substantially. He knew all about that. Luckily, he and his friend still had a week and a half until their slide, the total left from the original seven weeks and three days. They'd found jobs to earn the cash they desperately needed. How long these had he wasn't sure, but with his studying of their activities he and the girl had come to the conclusion that the timer of this group was in a worse condition than their own.

Sneakily, he followed them further, taking a seat under a big tree, sitting with his back against it and listening to their talk. Without the glasses he usually wore he could make out no details of the parts, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing. He still cursed the fact that this world corrected eyesight, thus doing away with the need for glasses. Were he a registered citizen, he would be eligible for treatment, but he was a slider, a citizen of no world but his original.

The sliders were worried. They had little cash for what they needed. And that meant they had to go outside the law. There was no escaping it if they wished to slide again.


Maggie and Diana glanced up from the radio walkman speaker they were examining as a man entered the same shop. It wasn't who they were waiting for. Internally, they breathed a sigh of relief; they weren't yet ready for the signal.

Incidentally, the sliders didn't even need the part Diana held, it was just to divert the attention of the shop assistant away from the fact that they were discreetly smuggling certain of the items after examination.

Through careful planning, the group now had almost all the parts they needed for the timer. This shop was a veritable gold mine for what they needed and this would probably be the last batch. Everything else was back at the hotel. Thanks to Maggie's sweet-talking, one shop had been gracious enough to allow them to buy on credit. Mallory had provided other parts, though it was unanimously decided not to ask where they actually came from.

The bell by the door was a tribute to how shops had once been. It was a facet of the nostalgia revolution. The people here lived very much in their own present, but to relax they tended to enjoy dipping into days gone by. Hence the plethora of antique shops. TV shows, music, films, amusement… each had a section dedicated to the 'nostalgic' and 'old-fashioned.' It was a worldwide craze.

Clanging quietly, the bell tingled and the two girls looked up once more to spy their friends. That was the signal for a few minutes remaining. Thankfully, the two were almost done. Remmy and Mallory stayed relatively close to the door, browsing.

It didn't look like the girls carried any parts on them, but they were actually laden down. They had acquired coats at a reasonable price with deep pockets. Yet it was probably still a good idea the sales assistant was more engrossed in his TV program than his customers.

In the exact second that Maggie and Diana passed through the detector, Mallory kicked over a basket of LEDs which scattered, carefully angled so that some of them went through the detector, thus hiding the fact that it was really Diana and Maggie who set it off. The girls just walked on, seemingly oblivious.

Once out of direct view of the window, Diana and Maggie just ran for it. After a few minutes, Diana was lagging behind slightly, but she persevered until they turned the corner and slowed to a leisurely walk through the park. At least, Maggie found it relatively leisurely; Diana was still breathing heavily from the exertion.

Since this was an antique shop, the owner had not seen fit to install the usual precautions to deter shoplifters. A secondary door to shut off escape had been branded 'out-of place' by most antique shops, electrical or otherwise. Most chose to remain without it. It heightened the look substantially, but it also left them open to petty thieves.

"We're sorry." Remmy made an attempt to placate a now very alert shop assistant who was no young weakling. "Let us help clear it up."

"Help? You're obliged to clear it up yourself!" the young man shouted irately. "And you're paying for the disturbance on top of that!"

"Excuse me?" queried Mallory.

"Disturbance fine! Ain't you ever worked in a shop?" He pointed to a sigh above one of the shelves, next to a security camera, stating the minimum fine for a disturbance was $100. Their eyes widened as they looked at the shop assistant with alarmed faces.

Remmy protested. "But we don't have enough money!" His tone turned more apologetic. "And it was an accident. We're very, very sorry."

The shop assistant shrugged. He obviously enjoyed this power. "You pay, or the police handle it. Your choice. Say 'hi' to the camera!" He pointed to the security camera, which had caught the whole thing on tape.

Having already seen what this world could do, the Sliders didn't particularly want to tangle with the police. The pair looked at one another for verification and then sped it out the shop, running as hard as they could.

At the first bench she saw, Diana collapsed and sprawled over it, regardless of whether Maggie followed or not. She would have sat on the grass for she loved the sense of closeness to nature it provided, despite her love of technology, however the grass was wet and in addition there were huge signs pronouncing such an act prohibited. "Looks… like… we… did… it," she panted, struggling to catch her breath.

Maggie's seeming immunity made Diana a little jealous, but it wasn't so much extreme fitness, more good breath management that gave Maggie her edge. Maggie was well able to appear unflustered, but inside she knew she was no where near as fit as she had been while in active service. It was an oxymoron. She loved the freedom of this life, but she missed the discipline of the service. She strained her neck back and then squinted at the route they had just taken. "Sure looks like it. Nothing coming after us. Did we get everything we need?"

Diana nodded slowly, still recovering. "I… think so. We won't know until we try them."

"I hope so," muttered Maggie under her breath so that Diana couldn't hear. After Remmy and Mallory's encounter with the ATM, she wanted to get off this world if she could. And friend though Diana was, Maggie wasn't at all sure that Diana could build a Sliding machine from scratch. Diana shared that insecurity which was why Maggie hadn't voiced that though, instead remaining supportive.

She missed Quinn. Even more than she let on. She missed everything about him. How he always had an answer for something, his fiery intelligence that was pure genius, his undeniable good looks. Yeah, he was still here in a way through Mallory, but Mallory was a person in his own right and they shouldn't be compared.

Maggie walked back and forth in front of the bench, hands on hips. Diana had mostly recuperated, but she refrained from joining her friend and stayed seated.

"Where are they?" Maggie stopped dead still and glanced at her watch. "It shouldn't have taken them this long even if they were crawling!"

"Perhaps they're waiting for us somewhere else?" suggested Diana.

The military captain just stared at her. "We definitely said in the park."

"It's a big place."

"Okay then." Maggie took hold of Diana's wrist and pulled her forcibly from the bench. "We'll go looking then."


Remmy and Mallory sat on a cold metal bench at the local jail. They weren't behind bars yet, but they were handcuffed. Unfortunately, these were not like the cuffs of their worlds or Mallory would have been able to pick the lock. Instead, these worked by an electromagnetic locking system, which was controlled only by a remote that was currently in the hands of the overseeing officer. The seals were strong. There was no hope of escaping without them.

"Brown, Rembrandt Lee," called out the officer, a man named Sydney Barnard. Remmy stood up slowly and approached the officer at the desk quietly. In return for the respect he showed he received an acknowledging nod and a faint trace of recognition. Officer Barnard had in fact paid less attention than most to the entertainer 'Crying Man' Brown, who had much bigger hair on this world.

Officer Barnard typed a lock number into the remote and pressed a blue button. Rembrandt's handcuffs clicked open and fell on the counter. Gingerly, Remmy rubbed his wrists, Those things sure were restrictive. However, he said nothing.

"Please register your fingerprints." Officer Barnard held out a pad, not of ink, but like something out of a science-fiction film. The pad was attached by a wire lead to the computer on the counter, which to Remmy resembled a very hi-tech laptop. Remmy complied and the data was logged on the screen with various details he had already given. "Thank you, now move along."

As Remmy acted serenely on the instructions, he was greatly tempted to make a run for it. But that would have done little good. Not only was Mallory still cuffed, but they'd never get very far from this cop convention.

The two guys had used up one of their obligatory phone calls trying to phone the girls, but even though they'd left it as long as they could, Maggie and Diana had still not returned. A message had been left at the front desk, but unless they arrived in the next five minutes, some time at least would be spent in cells.

"Mallory, Quinn Michael." Mallory went through the same process, just with a few extra remarks made sarcastically to the Officer Barnard and his associates which earned him stern glares and rougher treatment than Remmy had received.

Once the rigmarole was completed, they were marched in convoy to the cell area. It was a small area with two more metal benches that were supposed to be beds of some kind. The doors were literally bars and they could see across into opposite cells, but not those on either side of where they were. Remmy was walked in, Mallory was pushed. The bars were shut behind them. They heard the electromagnetic system click into action, but the officers left nothing to chance. They also padlocked the door, presumably in case of power failure.

Remmy and Mallory were alone.

"Excuse me, ladies?" announced the desk clerk as his quarry walked through the main entrance, worry evident. They stopped and turned to look at him once they realized they were being spoken to.

"Yes?" One of them, the dark girl answered, her voice expecting of a message of some kind, which is what they would receive.

"Would you be…" he glanced at his paper, "… Maggie Beckett and Diana Davis from suite 27?"

This time the blondish one answered. "We are."

The other butted in eagerly. "Is there a message for us?"

"Yes," he replied. He fished around in a pile of papers looking for it. Eventually, he found the actual message under several other pieces. He picked it up and squinted at the writing. Someone else had scribbled it down and he couldn't work out what it said. "It's from… Reuy? Renny?"

"Remmy."

"Right. And… Marjorie?" The blonde one grabbed the note from him and looked at it herself. "I think you'll find it says Mallory." He shrugged.

"What else?" pressed the dark one.

The blonde one tried reading at different at different distances from her face, but to no avail. "It just looks like a bunch of squiggles to me. It looks like it says 'been connected' to start with, but that makes no sense.

The dark one shook her head. "I don't think that's it. Let me see." The blonde one handed her the paper without regret. "Hmmm." She stared at it for a while. "Been arrested. Taken to jail. Please come to band wet?"

"First makes sense. Probably Remmy. Did Mallory leave the second part by any chance?" It sounded to her like something he would come up with. She looked at the clerk for assistance, but he just shrugged again.

"I dunno. Someone else took the message."

The blonde one rolled her eyes and the two girls walked off to sit on the stairway so they could decipher the message. The desk clerk made an attempt to overhear, but he was too far away. No ulterior motive, he was just curious. And he was interested in the girls.

Once they were seated away from the eyes and ears of others, the two girls took another look at the paper.

"Oh please do not tell me that says 'jail.'

Her friend nodded her head very, very slowly. "I'd rather not, but I think that's what it says. It makes sense that. 'Please come bail out."

"Oh just great. We don't have much money as it is! Typical men; can never do anything." The last was an attempt to lighten the mood, which it did on the surface, but they both knew that this was going to be a problem. If they couldn't afford to pay a fine or bail, their friends would be stuck there with no way of getting out. It had happened before and wasn't usually a good thing.


Ben sat in a café opposite the jail. He had a nice view of the main entrance and every few seconds he glanced in that direction. He'd been following the Sliders when they split, and opted to stay and wait behind, sure that the group would meet up again afterwards. Only something had gone wrong and now two of them were in jail. Wrong for those sliders, right for Ben and the girl he traveled with. Anything that hindered these sliders and kept them away from what Ben and his friend needed was good. If things hadn't happened like this on their own, Ben might have been forced to act on his own initiative and if there was a way round it, he'd rather not do that.

He and the girl had been travelling for about three and a half years now. They'd met at college, both had been taking quantum physics. At first they hadn't noticed each other much at all. They knew names and not much more. Then they'd discovered they both had an immovable interest in the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge. Out of classes they'd begun to work together and eventually they'd succeeded in finding something. The vortex.

But they'd run into a problem. They went back and forth from their world to others for going on three months, documenting everything in the hope they would gain enough hard evidence to go public and get the credit they deserved. They'd even set up their own private mini-lab for the project. Only when they were getting close to the proof and a way to control precisely how to slide from world to another, they had been forced to advance the timer and were stranded in the multiverse.

Time had gone on since then. The two had grown very close and while they were not romantically involved technically, both hid feelings for another and even if they hadn't, their lives were so inextricably linked that it was almost impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. They worked in tandem with each other and for each other.

Events since that fateful slide where they'd discovered the atmosphere did not contain enough oxygen for them to breathe properly had changed them. Ben no longer wore his hair long, it was too cumbersome and the stresses had aged and sobered the pair. Not only that, but they had hardened. They did what they needed to survive and get home. They rarely involved themselves with a world and only then when they had to.

Even though they were wandering nomads, the two Sliders religiously documented data when it came to technology and the timer. History divergence was of no use to them anymore. They only wanted to get home, and if absolutely necessary would go to any lengths to get there. They may not always like the ways they used, but they knew what they had to do.

The thing was, now they had a way to get home, but there was one part they needed for the timer. An expensive part. And they wouldn't hesitate to take it from under the nose of this newcoming group of sliders.


Mallory sat tapping his nails as he stared at the girl in the cell opposite. She wasn't a real beauty like you'd get in a magazine, but she had a good figure and a nice face. For once, he wasn't in the mood to make a play for any girl he saw, but he was bored and trying to catch her eye gave him some movement. He couldn't tell what she was in there for, though she may have been a hooker. She seemed to be quite shy and he could never catch her eye for long enough to start a conversations before she looked away.

"Do you have to do that?" asked Remmy, somewhat annoyed.

"Sorry." Mallory stopped tapping his nails, but continued staring.

"Not that ! The staring!"

Mallory rolled his eyes. "I'm just so boooooored! You can't even carve things into the metal properly!"

Rembrandt laughed cynically. "I've seen too many of these damned things now. And to think I rarely saw one until I started sliding! Each world has different style. And each one is more boring than the last. You just get used to it after a while. Work out games in your head and stuff."

"I am playing a game."

At this point the girl snapped into focus. "Is that all I am to you? A game? Well, thanks a lot!" She stalked to the back of her cell, true attitude now emerged and turned herself sideways and pouted, so Mallory could see her, but she wouldn't have to look at him. She put her feet up on the tiny table and crossed her arms, obviously sulking.

"Now look what you made me do!" Mallory blamed Remmy. It was always the easiest way out.

She stuck her hand out like she didn't want to hear it. "Don't even bother. I have much higher standards than you'll ever reach."

Mallory was speechless. It wasn't the first time he'd got a reaction like that, but he never knew what to say when he did. Remmy just snickered.

There was a clicking of the bigger electromagnets up the end of the corridor and the jangle of the back up keys. Someone was coming. Two officers by the sounds of it.

The two Sliders kept quiet and made themselves as passive inconspicuous as they could, considering they were, after all, in jail.

"Right, Marianne. You're free to go. Again."

'Marianne' stood up, attitude plainly showing. "Finally! 10 minutes late today." The officer shrugged. He didn't care. Why should he?

Dropping the façade of passivity, Mallory stood up and interjected, "Hey, why's she going free?"

The officer looked at him disparagingly, but it was Marianne who actually answered him. "Sentence for prostituting is either pay the fine or spend two days in local jail, ya idiot! And since I ain't got enough money to pay the damned fine, I stay here." She held her head high and proud as she exited the cell corridor, followed by both officers, but one returned.

"Quinn Mallory right?" he asked. "You and Rembrandt Brown got visitors. 5 minutes only."

The guys were completely un-surprised when Maggie and Diana were led by the same officers to the cells were Mallory and Remmy was kept.

"Hey guys," offered Diana as a starting point, while Maggie just raised her hand in a wave.

Mallory rushed over to the bars that separated them and held them as he spoke to his friends urgently. "You have to get us out of here! I'm going stir-crazy!"

Diana shook her head sadly. "No can do, I'm afraid."

"WHAT?" The reaction from Mallory and Remmy was simultaneous.

Maggie took up the tale. "Sorry guys, we can't pay the fine."

"What do you mean you can't pay the fine?" Mallory was getting desperate. "You must be able to."

Shaking her head, Diana said, "We don't have enough. With the Disturbance Fine and the Resisting of Arrest Fines both, we don't even have enough to get even one of you out!"

Mallory took to attempting to shake the bars. "Oh come on, is there anything you can do to get us out of here? Anything at all?" He winked at them.

Maggie reached through the bars and gave him a hard slap on the cheek. "No we cannot do that! What do you take us for? Whores?" Then she added quietly. "There's a fine for that too anyway."

"You deserved that slap, you know," said Rembrandt from his seat.

"I know. I just don't wanna stay in here!"

Rembrandt the practical asked, "How long are we to be held?"

"Oh, three days apparently. Disturbance is one day, resisting two."

Groaning, Mallory collapsed onto his bench and lay on his side. "Anyone got any good games?"


"We're BACK!" Mallory flung the door to the suite open so hard that it slammed into the wall behind with a terrific crash. But though expectant of a warm welcome, he received almost nothing. Diana was hunched over the nearly complete timer, just adding the finishing touches to it, and Maggie did not even look up from the trashy magazine she had bought during one of the many wanderings she had partaken of during the past three days.

Normally, Maggie loved being able to spend time with Diana. She's spent so long being the only female Slider that she liked to be able to share things with another woman. The guys just didn't understand her passion for shoes and clothes. But Diana had been too busy with the timer to bother with those things, not out of choice but out of necessity. So Maggie had walked and shopped on her own, just taking in the sights of the giant city.

"Er... HELLO!!!!" this time the girls did actually acknowledge Mallory's presence. Slightly.

Rembrandt followed his fellow jailee into the suite. "Am I glad to be out of there!"

"Yeah, it was boring as shit."

"I wasn't talking about the boredom of the place! I could cope with that. But what they did to the food… eugh. What they did to their hamburgers was a crime, man! NO One should be allowed to do that!"

The others laughed at him. Remmy sure did have a passion for his food.

"Okay… I think I'm nearly done!" announced Diana triumphantly. She placed the power chip back into position and reattached it into the system. She then replaced the back, which itself was new, and turned it over. After a few moments initialization, the display lit up in it's bold red letters. "Yes!"

Maggie finally looked up from her magazine. "So how long do we have?"

"71 hours and 14 minutes! Nearly three days. We were working against the clock for nothing.

"Not quite nothing," pointed out Rembrandt. "We didn't know when the next window was. We may have already missed it."

Diana conceded that and Mallory ventured, "So what are we gonna do for those three days? I've just spent that same amount in a cold, dull cell. I'm ready to have some fun!"

"I want something half-edible!"

"I could do with a relax; I've been working for days," added Diana.

A twinkle appeared in Maggie's eye and she flicked her hair back behind her shoulders. "I think I know just the place. I found it yesterday. It's not far."

"Does it have fun stuff?"

"Entertainment?"

"Is the food edible?"

She threw her head back and laughed, "Yes, to all three!"

"Then let's go!"

All four picked up their coats and made a beeline for the door. It wasn't often that they got to have a little fun. The timer, considered too important to lose while out was left inconspicuously in a bag in one of the drawers.

Maggie got to the door first and blocked their exit. She smiled at them. "You're gonna love this place."

"You were right, this place is great!"

The sun blazed down on the four as they walked along the grass. Maggie had taken them to an amusement place, 'San Francisco Unique Authentic Old-Style Fayre' as it called itself. However, to the sliders it was more like the traditional English fairgrounds that occasionally visited cities. Whatever it was, it made for good fun. Entrance was free, but rides were not, meaning they were likely to spend the remainder of their money, or at least most of it. That didn't seem to pose much of a problem, though, since they intended to skip out on the hotel bill again.

Remmy had raced to the nearest food van he saw and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the food was actually quite delicious. From there, they traipsed to the Ferris Wheel and paid for each of them to have a ride. Diana had at first been a little nervous, and clung to Remmy as they moved upwards, but gradually when she realized they were completely safe, she relaxed. Then they'd made a stop at the Punch and Judy show. This was one of the few attractions that was free, and so they sat with the little children on the grass and joined in, earning them strange looks from a few uptight adults, but enjoying themselves all the same. Diana and Mallory have never seen a Punch and Judy show before, so everything was entirely new to them, and when Punch started hitting everyone, Diana had, along with the kiddies, shouted out, "That's mean! You're a bad man!" Mallory, on the other hand, had cheered for Punch, along with only one other small boy whose mother afterwards reprimanded both Mallory and the boy.

Now they were just having a stroll. After the carousel, where the girls had adored riding the pretend horses and the guys enjoyed the fake old cars, they had purchased a stick of cotton candy for each of them and were currently chomping their way through that. Much as he was pained to admit it, Remmy loved the stuff.

It was a strangely different activity for the sliders. No Kromaggs, no disasters, no madmen, no crises. It was some light-hearted fun. It was so rare for them to find the time for fun these, days, that it gave them a child-like love of the place. It was perfect relaxation after the recent stresses. There had been far too many of them, unfortunately. All were underlying, but for a few hours, they could be pushed out of reach in pursuit of pure fun.

"So where to next?" queried Diana. She was having the time of her life. Remmy thought for a few moments. "We've done most of the classics now. What others are there?"

"I know what we should do," offered Maggie, deliberately leaving her sentence hanging. Raised eyebrows looked at her and she caved in. "Like Remmy said, we've done the classic rides… except for the bumper cars and we said we'd do that when the line went down… but we haven't done any games."

"Games?"

"Yeah, things you play."

"I know what games are, Blondie." Mallory did not want to be the one to look stupid.

"Anyway, there has to be an area here because I saw some people with prizes. I say we go there."

"All in favor?" proposed Rembrandt, nominal leader. They all raised an arm. "Motion carried."


"I can't believe you won that thing!" exclaimed Maggie for about the third time. Around his shoulders, Remmy carried a big blue bunny. It's harms were long and sewn together, so that he could fit his head through and carry it like a back pack. He'd won it at one of the games, the one where you had to hit the bottom and the indicator ran up a flashing vertical display and if you reached a certain point you won a prize. Remmy had surprised even himself. He'd never known he had so much power in him. Even now he was wearing the smile of the pleasantly shocked.

Diana removed the strawberry lollipop from her mouth and pointed with it. "Look! It's a giant Tigger!"

Clapping her hands together, Maggie joined in excitedly. "And Winnie the Pooh as well! Aw, they're adorable!"

Disturbed, Mallory looked on. "What are you girls talking about? All I see is a big tiger and a yellow bear. What's all the fuss?"

Both girls dropped their arms to their sides and just stared. "You never heard of Winnie the Pooh?"

"Noooo." He shook his head. "Did you Remmy? Sounds like some obscure thing to me."

Remmy said, "Oooh yeah. I know it."

Still baffled, Mallory looked from one of his friends to the next. "I don't get the big deal! I like the yellow thing with pink cheeks and pointy ears better."

The girls spluttered and Remmy collapsed in fits of laughter. "You must know Winnie the Pooh!" pressed Maggie.

"Not ringing any bells here."

"But it's a classic! I had all the books and the videos and so many other things." Diana smiled at Maggie. She really was a Winnie the Pooh fan.

"Oh so did I!" replied Maggie. "It used to drive Stephen mad. He couldn't understand how a military captain could be so obsessed with Tigger."

"You were a Tigger fan too? I loved him the most!"

"He was just so… unique. You couldn't help but love him!"

"Exactly!"

"Girls, girls," Mallory intervened as he put an arm round each of their shoulders. "I challenge you to a game at that stall. If either Remmy or I win, we take home the funny yellow thing…"

The stall owner interrupted him. "It's called a Pikachu. Don't you ever watch TV?" he sounded disgusted.

Mallory ignored him and continued regardless. "Okay, Pikachu then, and if either of you two win, it's the Winnie character of your choice.

"They don't have them all," corrected Diana absently.

"Huh?"

"They only have Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Piglet. No Eyeore, Owl, Rabbit, Kanger, Ro-…"

"Alright, girl, we get the idea. So you in or not?"

Diana threw his arm from her shoulder. "Not me. Much as I love Tigger and would love to have one for these three days, I'm no marksman. It's a shooting range. I'd lose to any of you in a second.

"Count me out too," said Remmy. "Fairer that way."

"I'm in," announced Maggie. "It'll be an easy win."

Mallory didn't seem so sure. "I'm gonna whup your ass!"

"Oh yeah? You forget I'm a marine by any chance?"

"Were a marine. Remember? Not anymore. That chances the whole thing. I've had practice more recently than you."

She widened her eyes at him. He didn't have a clue what it was really like. Until he'd met her and Remmy, he'd never been in a war. She had. She knew how to shoot a whole range of guns and she could adapt quickly enough to any other. All he'd practiced on was 'shoot em up' computer games. Nothing like the same thing. She should know. Narrowing her eyes at him again, she retaliated with, "It's not a skill we lose."

"Believe that if you will," he sneered maliciously.

Maggie handed her bag to Diana. "I don't just believe that, I'm gonna prove it."

And she proceeded to do just that. Every single target she aimed for she hit. Some were not exactly central, but she still hit them all with ease. Mallory only hit about three-quarters of his, and barely any were dead on.

"You're good, little missy," complimented the old stall owner as he unclipped the chosen giant Tigger and handed it to her. "Looks like you've been trained on the thing. You might be interested in this." He picked up a leaflet form a pile on the counter and handed it to her.

"Thanks." Maggie shoved it in her pocket after only a mild glance. It was for a competition in a couple of days. She picked up the Tigger and gave him a great big hug.

Mallory sulked for some time. He felt humiliated by what had happened. She would have to be better with a gun than he. The sulks receded a little after he won a coconut from the Coconut Shy, proving he wasn't totally incompetent, but he still felt embarrassed.

"I'm the only one without a prize," lamented Diana. Maggie and Remmy had their soft animals, Mallory had his coconut. Maggie had allowed her to carry, and hug, Tigger some of the time, but it wasn't the same.

Remmy comforted her. "Aw, Diana, winning prizes isn't everything."

"I just feel so useless."

He took her by the arm. "You're not useless, Diana. Without you we'd be stuck here for 29 years.

"I'm no good at any of these games though."

Maggie spied a particular stall she'd been scanning for. She pulled Diana away from Remmy and dragged her to it. "Here, have a go on this one. It's perfect for you."

She looked at the stall. "What is it?" she asked, still unsure.

"It's the Steady Hand Game," explained Maggie. "It's all hooked up to a buzzer in an electrical system, and the idea is to get that loop to the other end of the wavy wire without touching the two wires. If the buzzer goes, you've failed."

"Interesting," mused Diana.

"You're playing." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

Sure enough, Diana did turn out to be good at it. She reached the other end with nary a flicker, even though one mistake was permitted. "Now that is my kind of game!" she announced. Her prize was a soft toy dragon, not as large as those received by Maggie and Remmy, but just as cute.

They left the fair in the mid-afternoon. There was only so long their money would hold out if they stayed there. They did still have some left, but that was to potentially last them the nearly three remaining days.

When they returned to the suite, automatically the first thing Diana did was check the timer. It was force of habit. Usually it just reaffirmed how long they had left to slide. Not this time however.

"Uh… guys…" she started.

They turned round to look at her, knowing something was wrong.

"The power chip's dead."

"WHAT!?!"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, guys. If I hadn't put it together right before, it would never have shown us the time." She held the timer up. "The power chip is completely dead. We can't even open the gate. If it was dying, it would be risky opening the gate, dead we can't even get that far." She slumped down on the chair, depressed.

"So why don't we just get another one?" Mallory's simple suggestion was practical, but not feasible.

Diana sighed. "Because that was the single most expensive part. It's not even stealable because they're valuable and therefore protected. The working ones anyway and that's what we need.

"So… what does that mean in real terms?" Remmy's voice was quiet and cautious. He knew the answer, but he didn't want to face it.

"It means, in all likelihood, that if we don't have a power chip, we can't slide."

"At all?" Diana just nodded. It was crushing to her. She thought she had it all worked out, then fate stepped in and blasted it all to pieces. Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked in a futile attempt to keep then back, even though she knew the others were verging on that very same emotion.

"Uh, if we're stuck here, there's really something you should all know," Mallory began, twiddling his fingers and noticeably not looking any of them in the eye. "We… er… I made a couple of black market deals and we… er… have to pay them off in the next ten days."

"You what?"

"Don't make me say it again."

Maggie threw her hands in the air and joined Diana on the sofa. "Great. Just great. So not only are we stuck here for 29 years, we may not even make it to THAT window because in ten days there'll be an angry mob after us! That really puts a damper on my otherwise good day!"

"Look," said Diana, more firmly than usual. "We might still be able to get one. I'll remove it from the system, and then we'll see how it goes, okay?"

All she got were semi-murmurs.

"OKAY?" They were not used to seeing Diana this forceful and decided it was best to leave her to it.

It didn't take very long to pry the back off carefully and remove the dead power chip. It didn't look dead, and just in case, Diana tried reattaching the wires to it, but to no avail. It was, most definitely, dead. She held up the offending piece so all could see.

Cogs began turning in Maggie's head. That piece looked familiar. Of course she'd seen them before, but this was a more recent memory that had been triggered. She traced the day backwards and hit on the answer. She picked up her coat from the back of the Tigger where it had been left, and reached into her pocket. She drew out only a crumpled leaflet. Placing it on the glass table Diana had been working on, she smoothes out the worst of the crumples and pronounced her achievement. "Diana, look!"

The prize for the competition was a power chip. A real, authentic power chip like the one they needed.

Diana pinched herself. "Ow!"

"What was that for?"

"This can't be right. It's far too easy. Things are meant to be hard, not easy!"

"Maybe we got a lucky break," suggested Remmy the optimist.

Maggie shook her head. "No, if this was a lucky break, we wouldn't have to replace the chip at all. This is just our second chance." She puffed herself up. "And I'm going to do it."

Mallory said nothing. He'd gone back into sulks again.

"Are you sure you can?" queried Diana, still on the edge of tears.

Her friend the ex-marine captain nodded sharply. "I have to."

Remmy picked up the leaflet and took a look at it himself. He whistled. "We may have to sell our winnings. We're running a little close on our finances."

"I'll have to get it right then, won't I."


"You let them find out about the shooting competition!" she shrieked, dark hair flying wildly.

Ben tried to placate her. "Look, there was no getting around it! There was only one of me and four of them! It would have done no good."

"But you let them find out about it! Look, they registered already! We can't afford the competition! This is our best chance to get it!"

Tapping his fingers on the table, Ben considered the only viable option under the circumstances. "The we have to 'persuade' them to retract from the competition." He smiled. It had a strange appeal. But above all, it was something that they absolutely had to do.


During the next day, Maggie went down to the fair again and struck a deal with the stall owner. In return for her advertisement of his stall, which was one of a number, both at the competition and in the fair, and the return of the prize won on his stall, she would be allowed to use his stall free as a practice area. Maggie couldn't see any harm in that, although she had a sneaky suspicion that he only allowed her to practice so he could look and to draw in some of the younger lads. Such was the life, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn't go into the competition without practice.

Her friends had accompanied her down there, but after an hour and a half of siting on the grass watching Maggie aim, fire and hit every single target, they got bored and decided to head back to the hotel. At least they could watch TV there.

They left Maggie after brief goodbyes and walked along the sidewalk. The weather wasn't quite as nice as that of the previous day. It was cloudier, but not wet. However, the cloud gave the day an overcast feel, almost ominous.

It wasn't until they were halfway home that they discovered where the ominous feeling came from. They were jumped from behind by two masked people. Diana was hit first and she went down with very little fight, hitting her head on a railing. Remmy and Mallory put up more of a fight, but even though numbers were still equal, the attackers had the element of surprise, plus, apparently, weaponry.

Remmy made a swing at the smaller of the two shapes, but the figure was too deft and easily ducked out the way, before giving him a painful kick in the stomach. Not satisfied that he was out of the way, the figure, now obviously to Remmy a woman, shot him with a gun. Not a bullet gun, but one that ejected some kind of shock that stunned him.

As Mallory watched his friend collapse to the floor in agony, he fought with a renewed ferocity. Grabbing the arm of the attacker nearest him he twisted it around behind him and pulled until the attacker yelled with pain. But it didn't last too long as the second attacker who rose out of nowhere behind Mallory and shot him with the same gun that had brought Remmy down. Mallory sunk to the floor, knowing he'd failed. As the wave washed over him, out the corner of his eye, he saw Diana weakly try to get up, but find she was unable. And there was nothing he could do to help her.

"Ow! I told you not to do that!" shouted the male of the pair. "You know some of it passes to me!"

The female was far more practical. "Would you rather have had your arm ripped off?" He conceded the point and then noticed Diana pulling herself, seemingly with intend to hurt them before she went down after what they had done to her and her friends. But she never got the chance. She was hit over the head with the butt of the gun and though she tried to lash out, there was no hope.

They could only carry one of the three, but that was all they needed. The scientist was the best bet. Not only was she by far the lightest of the three, but they would need her to restore the system to working order. Without her, the chip would be useless to them anyway.


Hearing voices straining to call her, Maggie paused in her practice and looked up. She was more than surprised to see Remmy and Mallory staggering across the field, looking rather the worse for wear. "Oh my God," she whispered before she threw her gun down on the table and ran towards them.

She grabbed chairs and sat the ragged pair down on them. "What happened? Where's Diana?"

Mallory glared at her. "You think if we knew that we'd still be here?"

"Forget that for the moment then. What happened?"

Remmy gave a little twitch, a leftover from the stun shot, and then answered her question. "We were jumped on the way back. Only two of them, but they had surprise and weapons, some kind of stun thing." He shook his head. "We went down pretty fast. And when we came to… Diana was gone." He hung his head ashamed. He felt guilty. Mallory felt guilty. Even Maggie felt guilty for not being there for them. If she had, then maybe they would have had more of a chance.

"Are you guys okay?" She placed an arm on each of their shoulders. "Come on, let's get you a coffee…"

"Can't we have something stronger than that?" asked Mallory, still shaking.

"… or something stronger," she finished. "Then we'll go back get you cleaned up. You've got some nasty cuts."

"Then what?" Mallory's voice was quavering, and he hated it, but the stun was still in his system and he didn't quite have complete control.

"Then we work out where Diana is and how to get her out."


Diana opened her eyes to a dark room. She was lying on her side, on a bed. She tried to call out, but she discovered she was gagged and all she got was a mouthful of cotton. Her hands and feet were bound together, not by rope, but by the same kind of handcuffs she'd seen in use when they visited Mallory and Remmy at the jail.

There was a light on beyond her feet. Quite some distance beyond. Two people, a man and a woman, were sitting with their backs to her, facing a computer. She assumed they were the attackers. Vainly she looked around for Remmy and Mallory. They'd been hurt, she didn't know how badly and she needed to help them if she could. A trickle of blood ran down the side of her own forehead, but Mallory at least had been hit with some kind of weird weapon. She didn't know what they could do.

As her eyes adjusted to the incredibly dim light, she began to make out more shapes. Another bed, a table, two chairs and half a kitchen. But no other people. That meant that either she was the only one taken or they were somewhere else, and considering the crampedness of this place, the former was the more likely.

With nothing else to do, she shuffled down to the end of the bed so she was nearer her captors. She considered rolling onto the floor, but that would draw attention to herself and she wasn't ready for them to know she was awake just yet.

"We need to keep to our times exactly, doll" said the male voice. "If we put the power chip in more than five minutes before the window the power will fail before we slide."

"I know, Ben, I know," returned the woman. "I studied physics too, remember. It's risky sliding from this world as it is because of those waves they put out. It's gonna be the only reason they never discovered sliding, considering they're so far advanced of most worlds. I guess that's what you get for lack of a Dark Ages. We've lost two power chips to the waves already. Dead as a dodo. We can't lose any more. The costs are too high. We'll just have to cross our fingers and hope that this time we land on a world with comparable technology to ours."

This was all news to Diana. Had she not woken up when she did and overheard that specific part of the discussion, she would have just put the power chip in as normal and after five minutes it would have died on them. There was no way they could get another chip in the short time between the competition and the slide. They would have been stuck here. It made her feel a little better in that it wasn't her incompetence that had stranded them here. There was something about that voice too. Familiar but different and she couldn't place her finger on it.

"Have they got the note yet?" asked Ben.

His companion was watching the security cameras of the hotel lobby on the computer which Ben had hacked into. They were taking shifts. "Not a peep. Can't be long now though."

"You really think they'll pull out for her?"

"They have to. They're not like us. Without her, the power chip is useless to them anyway."

That gave Diana a start. It had only just hit her why she had been taken. They wanted the power chip that Maggie was going to win for them. She was a hostage.

"Here they come. Just entered the lobby."


When the Sliders entered the hotel demurely after the loss of Diana, they were handed an envelope addressed to their suite number by the desk clerk.

"What's this?" exclaimed Remmy.

The clerk was disinterested. "How should I know. It's addressed to you."

"Who left it here?" Maggie asked next.

"The other chick that's in your suite. The black one."

That was all they could get out of him, so they headed to the suite to go over it in private. It was addressed to them individually inside and was printed on a computer, thus disguising any handwriting. They all knew it would be from whoever had Diana.

It was opened in silence. All it said was, We have Diana. Withdraw from the competition and she will be returned unharmed. We do no wish to harm her, but we do what we have to do. There was nothing else for it.

Maggie was the first to speak and even then very quietly. "I guess that means we're stuck here then. I'll go withdraw my myself."

"Wait, Maggie." Remmy stopped her. "It's not your fault."Maggie said nothing. "The place is closed now. It'll have to wait until tomorrow."

Without warning, Maggie burst into tears. Remmy pulled her close and let her cry into his shoulder. They were both scared for Diana. They all were.


There was a thump as Diana leaned a little too far off the bed trying to read the screen and her captors turned around sharply.

"Awake now are we?" The two lifted her off the floor and sat her on a chair. The gag was removed from her mouth, but the hands and feet remained tied.

Diana couldn't believe her eyes. "You're… you're me!" she exclaimed.

Her double looked at her. "Yes. I am."

"Why are you doing this to me!"

"Because we need that power chip and Ben and I can't afford to buy one. So we need to win THAT one."

Diana said nothing but looked distastefully at the pair. "How can you do stuff like this! It's wrong!"

"Necessity," Diana 2 replied laconically.

Ben laughed at the prisoner. "Morals mean different things on different worlds and to different people. You can't compare."

Diana flicked her tied legs upwards in his direction. He tried to grab them, but with movement of his right arm he yelled in pain. Diana's feet landed with a thump on the floor, having done no good at all. "Di, I think we have a problem."

"What do you mean? That mangy friend of hers didn't hurt you did he?"

Ben nodded, rubbing his arm. "I don't think I'm going to be able to compete. He gave it a hard twist. I didn't want to say anything before, but I can barely move it."

Diana 2 ran her hand through her hair. "Oh great. They put up more of a fight than anticipated. Uh… are you sure?"

"I'm sure, damnit girl! I'm in serious pain here! Far out pain!" Something of the old him remained inside still even through the years. He'd had to abandon many traits, but they bubbled below.

She sighed and rubber her eyes. "Okay, there's gonna have to be a change of plan then."

He raised eyebrows at her.

"We'll have to make a trade."


For Maggie the competition went well. She held off all her opponents in the first round matches, but as the competition progressed, she came into contact with much better shooters. Even then, Maggie's only real competition came from three other participants. Christopher Hughes, the previous winner who was still on top form, Sarah Matthews, a newcomer to the competition who had come, like Maggie, out of nowhere, and James Justin, the competition favorite. The gaps between them gradually widened with James Justin narrowly beating Maggie to the top place, until the final round where nerves got the better of him and he was disqualified for crossing the line.

That left Maggie the winner. Press photographers and reporters surrounded her. Apparently this competition was more high profile than she had thought. Her mind was whirling. It was only the drive to save Diana that had kept her on such good form. She had had to win. And she had. Everyone kept telling her she was like Mary-Angela Buckley, the last surprise winner who had gone on to win the six competitions in three years that she had participated in, the last being two years prior to this, before announcing her retirement. Maggie felt honored, but she had no clue who they were on about.

She and Remmy were stood in the same alley they had been attacked in. It was all happening in alleys these days. Mallory was not with them. For some reason his body hadn't taken to well to the shock he had received earlier and he was still a little jittery, though it was wearing off, and he felt tired. So they'd left him snoozing on the park bench.

In the distance they could see three figures approaching. Two were walking in front of the other. As they emerged into the light, Maggie gasped, "There's two of you!"

And sure enough there were. Two Dianas. And neither was wearing the clothes Diana had been when she was taken.

"Yeah, there are," sneered the guy who was behind them. "You got the power chip?"

"Right here." Remmy took the chip out her pocket and waved it in the air.

Ben squinted at them for a second, "Hey wait a sec, where's the other guy… cos I warn you, if he jumps us, then she dies." Ben was doing all the talking. The gun was pointing in the back of one of the Dianas, the one this group wanted and if she spoke she died. His Diana had wanted to confuse them apparently.

Secretly, Remmy and Maggie thought to themselves, which one? But neither cared to air the thought. Aloud, Remmy answered with, "Scout's honor." Then he looked at Ben carefully. He recognized him. "Who are you?"

"That doesn't matter."

"I know who you are! You're Conrad Bennish Junior! The crazy metal dude!"

'Ben' also known as Bennish, glared at him. "I hate that name!" He didn't mind the Bennish part, but for convenience he always shorted it to Ben and he refused to answer to Conrad.

"Okay, okay, let's get on with it!" intervened Maggie, sick of waiting. She place the chip in middle ground. "Fair swap."

However, there was a problem. Both Dianas moved forward.

"Hey what are you doing!" exclaimed Bennish.

To Maggie, Remmy whispered, "Which one's which?"

"I have no idea."

"I'm your Diana!"

"No I'm you're Diana! Don't you recognize me?"

"She's stalling! Come on, we don't have time for this!"

"She's trying to get out of proving it!"

Maggie and Remmy just stood there, eyes darting from one to the other, vainly trying to work it out. They never got as far as proving anything. And any questions asked were butted in by one or the other. One was the real Diana, the other was a damn good actress. The bickering continued.

"People!" shouted Bennish as he shot his pistol in the air. He was severely pissed off. Diana had taken things in her own hands and decided to make an attempt to Slide with them instead. And he wasn't going to let that happen, even if it meant sabotaging everything. "I know which one's which."

"You do?"

"But…" one of the Diana's started, but it turned his pistol back on them all.

"If you look at her neck," he gestured the gun towards the one who had just spoken, "you'll find a scar that your Diana doesn't have."

"Are you sure?"

He glared at them again. "You think I'd lie to you? What would I gain by that? Unless your Diana has weed connections."

They cocked their eyebrows at him.

"Nevermind. Look, I'm telling you, she's the one. Take the chip too. I ain't going nowhere with that double-crossing, disloyal liar."

"Conrad!" the other Diana screamed. "Don't do this to me!"

The Sliders didn't even give it a second thought. They grabbed the chip, grabbed their Diana and ran. The other Diana made a move to stop them, but Bennish kept the pistol trained on her and she didn't like to risk it. On the way back to the park, Maggie gave Diana a question about the world where she had been a dead astronaut. Diana passed with flying colors. And extra credit. She was the one.

When they reached Mallory, he handed her the empty timer. "Here you go. Let's be saying goodbye to this world!

"How long do we have?" Diana asked, panting from the exertion.

Mallory looked at his watch. "12 minutes, so you'd better hurry up!"

"I can't!"

"Excuse me?"

Diana backtracked and explained herself. "If I install it into the system more than 5 minutes before the actual window, some kind of radiation on this world will wreck it and we won't be able to slide anyway!" She noticed their stares. "I listened to them talking," she explained.

"So what does that mean?"

She sighed. "I have less than 5 minutes to get it in and working, and even then I don't know how well it will work. It's going to be a rickety ride people. Tell me when we hit five."

It was a long seven minutes, and the last five before the window were even longer. Diana worked as fast as she could, but there was so much tension in the air you could cut it with a knife. Everyone was on edge. Diana reconnected the wires, reattached the back and turned it over to find that there was still one minute and thirty two seconds. Every two seconds she looked back over her shoulder, expecting Bennish and her double to come after them, pistols waving at any moment.

But they didn't. As Diana activated the vortex, she said, "Fingers crossed everyone," then without realizing, repeated the words her double had used earlier. "We'll just have to cross our fingers and hope that this time we land on a world with comparable technology to ours."


"Conrad!" begged Diana in tears.

"Don't call me that," he spat. "You sicken me."

She ran towards him, but did not try to take the pistol. Instead she placed herself right in front of it. "I wouldn't have gone with them! I was playing head games. We would have got the chip and got them out the way! Sow some seeds of doubt within them."

Slowly, Bennish lowered the gun. If he thought he could shoot her, he'd be kidding himself. Even though she'd tried to sell him out, she meant too much to him.

"I love you, Conrad Bennish Junior," she whispered before she leaned towards him and kissed him on the lips.

Bennish said nothing, just took her in his arms and embraced her like he'd so wanted. He loved her, but he wasn't sure he trusted her. "Don't even think about doing that again."

"I promise," she said and was rewarded by his tender kiss. "We'll find another way to get the chip."

He smiled. "I think I know just the way…"

The End

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