Still Parsons drove himself harder. It was only natural to grasp at whatever brief life he had left, rather than accept the fate he was certain awaited him.

***

Eerie blue light played over Rembrandt, Maggie and Colin as they discussed the nightmarish world they had just left.

Rembrandt shook his head in a vain attempt to clear its pounding. "I figure it must be some kinda social control. I mean, who would be able to think through all that noise blaring into their heads?"

"I don't know," said Colin thoughtfully. "I was sort of getting used to it."

Maggie shuddered. "It would have been bearable if not for the ban on earplugs."

Finally their de facto leader Quinn emerged from the vortex, which closed behind him and left the narrow nighttime street in near-total darkness.

Quinn examined their surroundings. "No steel-reinforced loudspeakers, at least. I have a feeling we're going to enjoy our stay." He turned to them with a grimace. "You know, I probably could have tolerated the city-wide Muzak but a different song now and then would have been appreciated."

"Amen to that," agreed Maggie. "Now, are we going to find a hotel or what?"

"I don't think so, Maggie," Remmy asserted. He held up the timer with its engraved Egyptian scarab patterns. "Fourteen seconds and counting."

The others groaned. They had just endured three straight days of "Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting," and were quite understandably exhausted.

***

The "SERVICE COMMENCEMENT OVERDUE" light on Parsons' cycle's dashboard declared him incontrovertibly a dead man: the Regime never forgave. Parsons swerved to avoid a red-tinged bolt of charged plasma that winged its way out of the darkness. His hands were so sweaty that he could hardly grasp the cycle's handlebars. Why hadn't he foreseen that traffic jam on the Seventh Path and left the flats a few minutes early?

When Parsons 21-V saw the man disappear into the swirling blue-green hole, he didn't even think. He reacted on instinct and drove his cycle straight into it.

The low-flying drone pursuing him sent a signal back to Regime Administration before entering the vortex as well...

"Colin, don't take this the wrong way, but: Get the hell off of me!" Maggie screamed.

"I am very sorry," Colin said. Rembrandt was laughing uncontrollably and it was all Quinn could do to keep a straight face.

"Not as sorry as you'll be when I get done with you," Maggie replied, then reconsidered. "Look, just be more careful next time, OK?"

"Well, this world seems normal enough," Quinn said, trying to change the subject away from his brother's sliding inadequacies.

"Yeah, let's just hope they play something besides bad disco, huh?" Rembrandt said, trying to break the ice.

"Actually, I liked disco music," Maggie said. "In fact, Steven and I met while doing the bump to 'Disco Duck'".

"I did not need to know that," Colin remarked, unsure as to the meaning of 'bump'. Maggie gave him a chastising look.

The four of them were oblivious to two others that followed them through the vortex. Parsons 21-V flew out of the wormhole and landed softly on the sidewalk. It was still dark outside so few people were around. 21-V decided to lay low for a while and see what this place was like.

Following him was another drone, one who worked as a Justice Administrator for the local Magistrate. As Winston 45-L exited the vortex, it closed behind her. Winston 45-L was not born in this district, but was recruited to help keep the peace. The Grand Magistrate had requested her specifically. District 21-V was notorious for Jewel Shirtconcealers and the Administration of Justice had been a major source of corruption. Right now, Winston 45-L was unsure where she had tracked the perp, but she knew he was in close proximity.

"Hey, Q-Ball, got any ideas as to where we are?" Rembrandt asked.

"Beats me, man. It looks more like Colonial Williamsburg than anything I've ever seen in California."

Maggie took a look at some graffiti on the wall next to them. It read 'Viva Hernandez'.

Colin pointed to a building which bore the name "Her Majesty's Bank of Virginia: Draketon" on it. "This seems to bear out your hypothesis, brother," he said, proud of how his brother was the first to figure out what was going on.

"Maybe," Maggie said. "But what's with this 'Viva Hernandez' stuff?"

Parsons 21-V passed speedily through the Sliders' line of vision with Winston 45-L in close pursuit.

"And what was that?" Colin asked.

"I have a feeling this is going to be one of the more interesting worlds," Quinn commented.

Thomas Malthus, officially passing the torch (I poured some kerosene on it to make sure it stayed lit)

The Sliders decided to ingore the odd things they saw and check into the Chandler. Little did they know that Parsons 21-V made a U-turn and followed them, with the drone right behind.

Once 21-V noted where the sliders went, he started making all kinds of loops and turns down the alleys, trying to lose the drone. But 45-L refused to be left behind. Finally, 21-V thought he had lost the dratted drone, and so headed into the Chandler. He spotted the sliders in the lobby. He hid, spying, until Colin went up to the room. Then 21-V came out and followed him. Just as Colin was unlocking the door, he turned around and saw 21-V. (Then Colin was so scared that he ran like a duck all the way down the hall... no, that's too cruel.)

<relights torch *with not a lot of kerosene... ahem* and passes it on>

***

Colin stared at the new arrival with his ever-present sense of wonder. It was something his brother and Maggie seemed to have lost a long time ago to their experiences. "Whoa" he whispered softly. Tentatively, he reached out to touch the floating polished sphere, which seemed to reflect back at him with the same intensity. As he lifted his hand under the drone, it fell lightly into his palm; 21-V had disengaged his main propulsion system. Colin looked at it curiously and stood up, meaning to carry the mysterious orb back to their room.
21-V had disengaged for a reason. He needed to know where he was and how he could use that to his advantage. But first, he had to find a way of communicating with these humans. He let the human carry him into the room, where he was set down on the table whilst Colin left to go somewhere. 21-V lost sight of him around the corner and considered launching himself again, but figured he would need to save his energy for the other drone.
Colin got past the spoons and forks in the kitchen and at last found the point knife he had been looking for. He looked at it and nodded, heading back to the main room. He would find out how one of these things worked somehow...

Just across the street from the Chandler's main lobby entrance, 45-L floated pensively. The distorted images of passersby were not disrupted by the tiny point of infrared that continually scanned the face of the Chandler ineffectively searching for a spherical heat generator. The processes in the drone's main CPU realigned themselves. 21-V has turned off his main propulsion and exterior holo-generator, "thought" 45-L. She clicked off the infrared and initialized an induced EM pulse. If this did not detect a flux, it would mean that there was no current running in 21-V in which case, her job would be done.
As the relatively new technology loaded, she decided to stream some pleasant memories through her unused gigahertz. Her authoritative father was there, the person from whom she learned the importance of dedication and the moral rewards of serving the judicial aristocracy. Unproductivity bred anarchy, and that could not be allowed under these new circumstances. It was a new world after the Logicians had dominated in the polls and rebellions. If it wasn't right, it would not be so. Perfect logic.
If the pedestrians could see the lower frequencies of the EM spectrum, they would have noticed a break in the concentric EM pulses emitted from 45-L. She had a lock.

Quinn, Remmy, and Maggie were sitting at the bar, still talking about the last world. Somehow, they had gotten to discussing their favorite music from the 60s. Rembrandt was , of course, hyping his own band's rise from rags.
"I liked the oldies myself" Quinn suddenly said in the middle of Remmy's decade-long resume. "It's more filling, somehow. More original."
Maggie suppressed a derisive snicker. "Oh come on, oldies-boy, get with the times. It's the beat that counts. Can you dance to "Tonight"?
Quinn almost spit in his mug. As a matter of fact, he did. "Says hair-girl." Rembrandt snickered behing Maggie's back. "Are you calling the Beatles unoriginal?!"
"Hey, guys," said Rembrandt, noticing he was out of cash. "I'm going to check on farmboy upstairs. Anyone want something from the room?"
"Nah, that's okay." said Quinn, carefully wondering whether he should drink the new phlegm-tequila concoction.
"Ok..." Rembrandt walked off as Maggie watched him go. "What does Colin do in that room all day anyway?"
"Don't ask..." Quinn bent down to pour out the tequila, pausing. Then he noticed what he just said when Maggie started to laugh.
"That's not what I meant!"

Rembrandt waltzed into the room without knocking and almost waltzed back out, when he noticed that the inanimate sphere on the table was getting more attention than the TV.
"Hey, what is that, some new-age lamp?" he asked, coming over. "Wait a minute, that's one of those flying things from outside, isn't it?"
Colin nodded. "It is very finely constructed. I cannot find an opening. Though it's appearance does suggest some kind of optical security appliance."
Rembrandt looked at him. "You mean a camera." Colin nodded again, still looking at the silver ball. He's getting more like Quinn every day, thought Remmy.
45-L suddenly burst into the room from a window and headed right for the trio. Only 21-V moved, quickly accelerating upwards and circling the room, trying to stay away from 45-L's laser blasts of lethargy.
"Hey!" shouted Colin, grabbing at 45-L. She discharged in his hands, causing him to fly back, surprised and (hehe, pun intended) shocked.
Rembrandt grabbed the same sphere and threw it through the window where it seemed to implode on impact with the entirely too close wall of the next building and fall the remaining two stories to the asphalt. Remmy, Colin, and the decelerated and the now visual 21-V stared at each other, panting.

45-L lay sputtering in the small alleyway, trying to repair herself. She tried to contact the magistrate and report this atrocity, but drew a blank. She then switched to internal decision processing and inputed the charges of assault on government property. The faces of Remmy and Colin came up, the verdict was death. She smiled at her augmented mission. Her father would have been proud.

***

<At this time, Slider142 notices that he is on fire. The other storywriters (donning Ray-Bans) watch as he runs around yelling.>
Slider_Sarah: This is a lot more fun than standing here.
Slider142 runs past.
RavageKnight: Shouldn't we do something?
Slider142 returns going the other way.
HurriKain: Nah, he always tries to get our attention by adding some dialogue and ending in a totally contrived way, oh, there he goes.
We see Slider142 treading water in the writers' pool of thought (it seems to be getting muddy.)
Slider142 climbs out, giving a dirty look to Thomas Malthus.
Slider142: Here you go RavageKnight. Welcome to the board. Bye, now
He walks off dripping. RavageKnight thinks: Well, that was odd...

***

Maggie and Quinn looked at each other slightly worriedly at the sound of the loud noise. "What was that noise?" asked Maggie. She normally did not worry too much about "farm-boy" and what he was doing in the room upstairs (heeheehee!), but this seemed a little suspicious. After all, who knows what was awaiting them in this dimension?

"What is going on here?" asked Remmy in an annoyed voice, with a small, high-pitched tinge of fear. 21-V said, in a monotonous, robotic voice, "I was hoping you could provide me the answer to that question." 21-V had changed form to a translucent glowing sphere with two arms. "Hey! How come you didn't try to zap me?" Colin was shocked (to keep your pun alive, Slider142) at the being before him. "45-L is seeking to punish me for my tardiness to the Service, and now both of you as well for helping me-" Suddenly, Maggie bursts into the room, exclaiming "What?! What is that floating sphere? Are you okay? What was that noise?!" Colin decided that now was the time to take charge. "Sit, Maggie. This is a long story and it will be more easy to tell it if you are not standing. You see-" Unexpectedly, although they should have expected it, who crash through the window but Winston 45-L, fuming mad (about as fuming mad as a humanoid robot can get) and ready to pulverize every person in the room, which now included Maggie because of her obvious concern for her two fellow sliders. In an exclamation now drowned in fear Remmy exclaimed, almost on cue, "Run like hell!!" at which Remmy, Maggie, Colin and 21-V dashed towards the door, flung it open, and ran for their lives down the hall and down the stairs, with Winston 45-L in hot pursuit. Ironically, at precisely the same moment, Quinn had decided to make his way up the stairs to see for himself what was going on. The phlegm-tequila mixture had begun to rumble in his stomach; he knew that he shouuldn't have drunk it. In any event, with Rembrandt runnning down the stairs, and Quinn up the stairs, there was bound to be a collision, which there was. Quinn and Rembrandt tumbled down the stairs like a unified snowball and slammed into the door. Luckily for them, 45-L had not fully recovered from the fall, which gave them several seconds to check if both slipping sliders (sorry, I had to - as bad as it sounds) were okay. At the sound of the rocketlike blast of 45-L's high-power propulsion systems, the group, now composed of all four sliders plus 21-V, dashed out of the exit and into the alleyway like cats in a doghouse. They did not escape, however, before 45-L shot a laser beam at Remmy, hitting him square in the back...

***

<By now the torch has long blown out and the cavern, again, is plunged into darkness.>
BorgHive4: Well, I can't write if I can't see.......
RavageKnight: All right! Hey guys, I found a flint from my chemistry class in my pencil case. I'll be able to re-light the torch with this.....
RavageKnight attempts to light the torch, but to no avail."Oh well, I guess we'll just have to work in the dark..."
Slider_Sarah: Oh great. The new guy just happens to be clumsy as well as imaginative.
BorgHive4: Aah good! Just enough light to see the pen with, this should not be too too difficult...
RavageKnight tosses the cold, unlit torch to BorgHive4. "Do what you want with it, BorgHive4. It's your turn now."

Once hit by the laser, Remmy landed on his side, moaning in pain. 21-V went over to go to his aid as the rest of the group rushed to him also, until another laser almost crossed their path. "GO!! I'll get your friend!" 21-V yelled back. As the robot placed Remmy over its spherical body, the sliders agreed and ran out with the rest of the frightened crowd. 21-V tied furiously to dodge the lasers as well as carry Rembrandt. For a middle aged man he sure was heavy, 21-V thought, as he finally made through the double doors. And when the entire group was together, Quinn noticed that Remmy had lost consciousness. And with a deadly robot on thir heels, they ran like they had never run before...

Sorry this is so short but I have to do a term paper.
I hereby pass the torch to Slider_Sarah.

===

The Sliders' legs were really beginning to hurt and as they did, they began to slow slightly, despite the threat behind them. The problem was that the robots weren't at all tired. Especially the one chasing and firing lasers at them. At least, it seemed like that.

21-V was now leading the group, still carrying Rembrandt's unconscious body. Remmy did begin to wake up as 21-V led them twisting and turning through back alleys, but he was in no state to even consider running.

The flashing laser bolts emerging from 45-L central system and narrowly missed the Sliders as they attempted to outrun the drone.

Suddenly, a red beam caught 21-V's central processor (I nearly called it a light bee!) as they entered another alley. 21-V dropped to the floor. Rembrandt was also dropped to the floor and the fall knocked him back unconscious.

Quinn, Colin and Maggie did not notice the dead end they had turned into, nor the fact the 45-L preparing for a final close run so she could fire at close range. 45-L had not noticed the wall infront of her either. Her optical sensors had been damaged during the fall from the window, but so had her damage control section and therefore she did not know.

The three conscious sliders all rushed to help Rembrandt and in doing so crouched closer to the ground. They had no current concern for themselves, just for their friend.

45-L now had her energy built-up and she sped forward, not realising that the Sliders were not there. All she 'thought' of was how proud the magistrate would be for neutralising the dissenters.

As she wizzed past their heads, the sliders looked up, only to see her smash into the wall that was the dead end. Already partially damaged, 45-L was unable to repair herself no matter how hard she struggled. Again, she tried to contact the magistrate to call for assistance, but to no avail. Without her automated repairs she could do nothing but wait until the final moment when the malfunctions would cause her to explode. She did not have long to wait.

The Sliders were quite surprised when 45-L errupted, but their attention was refocused on Remmy as he woke up.

"Are you okay?" asked Quinn, concerned for his companion.

"Man, my head hurts," complained Remmy in response.

"We're getting you to a hospital on the next world which is in," she held up the timer and waved it at him, "3 minutes."

"What happened to 21-V?" asked Colin.

Quinn suddenly realised that he'd forgotten about the thing that had saved Remmy's life, even if it was its fault he was injured in the first place.

Quinn rummaged around in the rubbish that was scattered around the road and eventually found the metallic sphere. It was badly damaged, but was still 'alive.' Quinn wasn't sure if 21-V could hear him, but said anyway, "Don't worry, we'll help you." He then grabbed the timer off Maggie. "Gimme that," he said as he did so.

"Hey!" protested Maggie.

"We're going back to the last world. They'll have stuff there that can help him. It. Whatever it is," he gestured towards 21-V

"What about Remmy?"

"They had hospitals there. We passed one. They can check him over there." Quinn was adamant. He believed he could help both Rembrandt and 21-V. He hoped so anyway.

21-V did not notice the vortex ride this time. He was too damaged. Safe in Quinn's hands, 21-V emerged from the vortex and Maggie and Colin helped Rembrandt through.

The hospital was not far from the wormhole exit. Once there, the drone doctors checked over Rembrandt, diagnosing him with a mild concussion, but saying that he would be fine soon. The slide was in two days and they gave his recovery time as one. They also directed Quinn to the nearest drone repair workshop and Quinn took 21-V there, where he left him, saying that he had found him damaged in the street.

21-V never saw the Sliders again. He returned to his service and continued his work. Because it was believed he had been damaged in the street, he was not punished. 21-V was never 'happy' with his job after that, but he only had to 'think' of his near-death experience and he worked harder, knowing that the world was safer a dull place.

===

<Slider_Sarah throws down the novelty pen and stamps it out with her foot. The light goes out and she is in pitch-black. Not wanting to relight it, she walks round the edge until she finds the exit. She walks out to the light, but stops to look back.>
Slider_Sarah : That's that one done now. I guess it's time for the next...