| 6.1 | Mirage
MALLORY
What do we do now? They all looked around. This was it. There was no hope. Remmy was gone, and the others had no answers for Mallory...
 
Remmy was thinking during this slide. He hadn't been this afraid since his first one. He saw the light. This was it. He landed with a crunch, and looked around. He was laughing. He was "home". He looked again. This had to be his world. It was terrorized, just like the last time he saw it."REMMY!!," a voice called. Remmy was a little dazed. He looked for the voice. He couldn't believe his eyes. It was Quinn! There was no way. Quinn was inside Mallory back on the Seer's world. Maybe the Seer would be able to explain this to his friends. QUINN
Remmy! Thank God I found you! REMBRANDT
Q-Ball? It can't be you. This is a Kromagg trick. Get away from me, Maggot! Remmy looked at his arm. The virus should be taking effect. QUINN
I'm not YOUR Quinn. I know your professor, though. REMBRANDT
You're lying! Remmy knew he was lying. How could he know the professor? The professor died on Maggie's earth. There was no way this was true. QUINN
Okay! Let me try to explain. Your Professor was left on my earth. Ummmm..... I know! You know the bridge outside San Francisco. On my earth, that bridge is blue! THE AZURE GATE BRIDGE! Remmy was amazed. He hadn't been sure that the right professor had slid with them on the exact world Quinn was describing. REMBRANDT
Okay, Q-Ball. Why are you here? QUINN
Well, its kinda hard to explain. While we were sliding, an accident erased our home coordinates. We were sliding blind. I was the only one out of our group that understood the science. But one time, we landed on an earth that we thought was our home. It was amazingly accurate, but the professor was gone, and the Azure Gate Bridge was Gold. I was intrigued, so I kept the coordinates and continued to slide. When we arrived home, I met your professor. He was amazed to see me, and I was surprised to see him so happy to see me. He thought I was your Quinn. He explained his situation and asked for my help. Together, we constructed a sort of sliding tracker. I took the professor's quantum signature and looked for your Quinn. The first time that we could get his signature stable enough to look for him was on this earth. After talking to the people in the resistance, I discovered that you all thought that you were home. But it wasn't true! This isn't your home! REMBRANDT
That can't be true. Quinn, I mean my Quinn, met his mother here. QUINN
Well, I can't explain that, but I know that this earth isn't yours. That earth I was talking about. Well, I told the professor about that, and it sounded like your earth. I took him there, and he confirmed it. Now let's get going before the Kromaggs find us! Quinn opened the vortex and both jumped in. Remmy came out of the vortex in a lab. He was met by the professor. They hugged and exchanged stories. ARTURO
"Mr. Brown! It's great to see you again. It's been a long time. Where are Quinn and Wade?" REMBRANDT
"Well, its a long story, but Wade was captured and made into some sort of Kromagg computer. And Quinn was merged with his double and was left on the last Earth I was on. Trust me professor, you've missed a lot. We've missed you a lot, also. The other professor was shot and killed on another earth. ARTURO
I'm sorry to hear that Rembrandt. REMBRANDT
Oh man! Mallory... I mean Quinn and my friends. They're still there! We gotta go back for them." ARTURO
"There's no way Mr. Brown. We would have to have the coordinates. If we had one of your friend's quantum signature, it would be different. Sorry, Mr.Brown, there is no way. Now, tell me more about this merging thing." REMBRANDT
"Well, there was this guy, Geiger. He did some sort of experiment that merged Quinn with his double, Mallory." Arturo looked at Quinn. QUINN
"The Bennish effect?" Arturo nodded. Arturo explained to Remmy about an instance where a merged Conrad Bennish landed on PTSS world. The merging sounded a lot like what happened to Quinn. The three worked on a solution and found one. ARTURO
"The solution is fairly simple, Mr. Brown. We simply configure the timer to create two vortices on the other side. As the person reaches the end of the slide, the vortex splits the two, and each person comes out a different one. The process worked perfectly." REMBRANDT
"Well, then we gotta go back for the others. There may still be time!" ARTURO
"Time?" REMBRANDT
"Yeah, Geiger and my friend tried to split the two Quinns but he said that they were too attached." ARTURO
"Then we have to hurry! Our solution will work, but we still may be out of time! QUINN
"We can't leave the lab unattended!" ARTURO
"Ah, yes." Conrad Bennish walked up. Bennish had applied to join the project soon after our sliders left. Without any alternative, Arturo allowed him to work at his lab. BENNISH
"Hey! I'll watch it for you!" ARTURO
"Mr. Bennish, can we leave you in charge?" BENNISH
"You can trust me, prof!" QUINN
"Its all right Professor! Let's go!" REMBRANDT
"How are we going to do this?" QUINN
"Well, I guess we'll just have to slide randomly until we find them. There's no other way." WADE
"WAIT QUINN! I want to go!" It was Wade, PTSS Wade. She explained to Quinn how she missed sliding and how she wanted to go. QUINN
"Okay, let's do it!" REMBRANDT
"You have our home coordinates, right?" Quinn tapped the supercomputer. QUINN
"Right here, Remmy. Don't worry, this time they're safe." REMBRANDT
"Well, here we are, back together again.... kinda." Quinn opened the vortex and they all jumped inside.
Wade was amazed. This was her first slide since they got home a couple years before. These months were very strange, ever since her Remmy hit it big. They kept in touch, but they were never really close. But now she was with another Remmy. She was glad to be traveling again. Life without the adventure of sliding was boring.The vortex opened. Quinn, Arturo, Wade, and Rembrandt flew out. Remmy landed on Arturo. REMBRANDT
"Wow, Professor! I sure did miss all of the soft landings!" WADE
"It must have been fun sliding with the professor." ARTURO
"Wade, Mr. Brown. I am not now, nor have I ever been a TRAMPOLINE! Now I remember why sliding was so painful for me!" Rembrandt laughed and the others joined in. Everyone looked around. This world seemed normal enough. REMBRANDT
"So how long do we have here?" QUINN
"Remmy. This isn't like the timer you used. This is how sliding was supposed to work. We open the vortex whenever we want to." Quinn was proud of this device, the product of all his hard work. REMBRANDT
"That's great to hear. So, how long will we stay here?" ARTURO
"I think that it would be a good idea to search each world, until we find the one Quinn is on. Do you remember that Earth well enough to know when we're on it?" REMBRANDT
"It would be pretty obvious, professor. You see, on that world, sliders were seen as, well, gods." QUINN
"That's weird. Could this be that Earth?" REMBRANDT
"I don't think so, Q-Ball. The people on that Earth had, well, normal hair." The sliders looked at a group of people. All of the men on this world had green hair, including the men in suits. The women had neatly brushed blue hair. Arturo laughed with the others as Quinn opened the vortex. The sliders jumped in, as the group of people looked on, amazed.
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