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It was a perfect pastoral setting. Green pastures stretched on in acre after acre. A few animals grazed the pastures and moved ploddingly onwards towards the greener grass. The peace that hung over this place was unmistakable. That is, until four uninvited travelers disrupted it all.

Maggie came flying through the vortex and managed to land on a soft patch of grass. Diana, following after her, wasn’t so lucky, and neither was Mallory, as they both hit a small quarry of rocks gatherered apparently as building material. The last one out of the swirling blue-green maw was Rembrandt Brown, slider extraordinaire. He flailed and twisted so much as he fell that he dropped the timer, and managed to fall into a rather large mud puddle. As the vortex closed, Maggie picked up the timer and started to take a gander at the surroundings.

“I hate these rural landings,” Maggie groused. “We have enough trouble with figuring out what’s going on and how and what we can survive on in big cities.” Taking time out from complaining and seeing that her companions had not yet joined her in the land of the standing and looking, Maggie inquired, “Everyone all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Rembrandt said. “Let’s just hope they have decent clothes on this world.”

“Well, if you’d packed clothes on the last world, like I did, you wouldn’t have to worry about that, now, would you?” Diana gloated, but not with much relish. She looked down appreciatively at her duffel bag (which contained a few changes of clothing, a little food, some emergency supplies and her PDL, which had gotten the sliders out of numerous scrapes with its capabilities), which had also served to cushion her fall. “They make the landings a little softer, too.”

“Yeah, don’t rub it in,” Rembrandt said, as he was assisted out of his mud puddle by Maggie. “Next you’ll be introducing a new set of luggage exclusively for sliders. Never visit a Medieval world without it.”

Rembrandt chuckled slightly, and remembered when he’d tried such things as sliding kneepads, back when he still possessed a sense of adventure to traveling between worlds.

“We’ve got...” Maggie paused to look at the timer. “...A little less than three days on this world. If we’re going to get food and a warm place to sleep, we’re going to need to scout out this world. That is unless you really want to count sheep.”

No one laughed at Maggie’s joke. Diana had directed Rembrandt’s attention to Mallory, who was softly moaning and clutching his head.

“Oh my God,” Maggie exclaimed.

“I can’t, I can’t,” Mallory repeated, over and 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 Thomas Malthus
Produced by Q-Ball79 and Chaser9

Moments later, the sliders had found a rather cozy barn to transport Mallory to. Making an improvised bed from hay and a few other of the softer items lying around, they set down their young friend. Diana was no medical doctor, but she was the closest thing around. As she examined Mallory, she found he had a slight fever, but there were no other signs of illness.

“Any idea what’s wrong with him?” Maggie queried.

“No clue,” she replied despondently. Having a quick, but highly improbable theory, she fetched the PDL out of her duffel bag. Sure enough, it was registering quantum flux readings that were off the scale.

“The PDL’s gone nuts,” she said, as Remmy and Maggie wouldn’t understand the scientific aspects of what was going on. “Whatever’s causing this seems to be originating from this world's quantum signature.”

“Great,” Rembrandt sighed. “So Mallory’s a basket case ‘til we leave this world.”

“Maybe not,” Diana replied. “If I can calibrate the PDL and the timer to a certain frequency, I may be able to block out some of the symptoms that he’s experiencing.”

As if to respond to her plan, Mallory turned over and his chanted moan got louder.

“We still need supplies,” Maggie reminded everyone, as if they needed to be.

“The food I brought should last for a day or so,” Diana retorted. “Maybe long enough for me to do some more thorough research on Mallory’s condition.”

“We could try and make it to the nearest town, see if there are science whizzes on this earth that could help you out,” Rembrandt volunteered.

Before Diana could reply, Maggie backed him up. “That’s probably a good idea anyway. We’ve been here for half an hour, more or less, and we haven’t seen any people. Where there’s no people, there’s a reason why. And I don’t want it to be a fatal reason.”

Diana nodded. “Fine. I’ll stay here and see what I can do about the problem at hand. I’ve got enough food to last the two of us until we slide.” She sighed. “But Mallory may not make it that long.”

Rembrandt smiled reassuringly at Diana. “We’ll try and make it back as soon as possible. Until then, I know you’ll do what you can to help Mallory.”

Maggie and Rembrandt scoured the nearby farmhouse for anything that might be useful in their trek. There wasn’t much in the way of advanced technology, but there was indoor plumbing and running water (or there would have been, had anyone lived there). Luckily, they found a map (dated seven years ago, but it would have to do) and some weaponry, specifically a shotgun with some birdshot in it, a pitchfork and a small, but deadly sharp, knife.

However, Maggie insisted that most of that stay with Diana, keeping only the knife for herself. “We’re a lot more mobile than Diana is at the moment. We can run from trouble. Because of Mallory, she has to face it. So she needs this stuff more than we do.”

As they began their trek, Maggie attempted to make idle conversation. “So what do you think? Amish world? Just some place that never heard of the Industrial Revolution?”

Rembrandt was in no mood for it, however. In between breaths, he said. “It’s all speculation until we find some people. There’s lots of reasons why a world might turn out this way. War, devastation, disease, famine...”

Maggie interrupted, “And that’s just what we’ve seen on our own world. Who knows what catastrophes some other earth could cook up?”

On that sour note, conversation was virtually nil until they got to their destination - San Francisco! “Haven’t been here in a while,” Rembrandt said cheerily. Maggie managed to grunt affirmation. But both their spirits picked up when they saw...

“People!” Maggie and Rembrandt exclaimed at the same time excitedly.

“Thank God we haven’t landed in the middle of some sort of apocalypse!” Maggie expressed, with genuine relief.

“Yeah, this is good. But let’s stay focused. We still don’t know what’s goin’ on in this world.” Maggie nodded solemnly at Rembrandt’s words. Sure enough, Rembrandt’s pessimism was warranted. The people were an aboriginal sort, not in the way you’d expect Native Americans to look though. They wore drab, brown all-purpose suits (sort of like jump suits) and had a red “T” on their foreheads. None of them deviated in style of clothing and all of them possessed the mark.

“This world just gets weirder,” Maggie complained.

As they continued moving along the dirt road which had taken them from the barn where they’d left Diana and Mallory to the streets of San Francisco, they noticed that plain row of redbrick buildings dotted the landscape. They were not in the common cube shape that most cities were built in, but appeared to be shaped more like adobe huts than anything either of them had ever seen in California.

“Levittown goes primeval,” Rembrandt joked, although there was no mirth in his voice. As Rembrandt and Maggie began to notice that a great many people were staring at them, they heard a great commotion coming from a few blocks away.

Since most of the people around them began to move that way, the two veteran sliders began to move in that direction as well. What they found resembled an old time church rally or a political event, with a few men (and fewer women) guarding some mysterious material that the mass of people, according to the looks of desperation on their faces, wanted badly.

“Stay in line. You’ll get served when your number comes up.” The man in charge was bespectacled, had red, crewcut hair and was scrawny and short. He was surrounded by several tall and brawny guards.

A sign on the platform where he stood read, in English as well as several other different languages Rembrandt and Maggie couldn’t read, “NO ONE EATS WITHOUT THE MARK.”

The large unopened boxes that were being handed out likely meant that no one got much of a choice in what they got, and the hurried way the people receiving boxes scurried away said they were lucky to get it.

After a few minutes of watching in a mix of horror and fascination, Remmy and Maggie heard words that caused the people remaining in line to curse and wail. “That’s all for today. If you have no supplies for now you can try again tomorrow.” The redhead with glasses then began to order those stand arounding him to begin packing up the remainder of supplies.

“But we need this food today,” some haggard elderly woman lamented.

“We know you have more; we’ve seen it. Please have mercy.” The emotions expressed from the crowd followed this vein of thinking very closely.

“I have spoken,” the man said with a great deal of authority in his voice. The protest lowered to a dull murmur.

Then a man in the back spoke up. “Look at those two! They have no mark!! They are enemies of our government!! Make them pay!!!!” When Rembrandt and Maggie realized the man was talking about them, they began running for their lives.

Luckily for Rembrandt and Maggie, the people standing on the platform needed some people to guard supplies, and not many of the common people standing around were interested in pursuing them. And they had a considerable head start. Looking back, they could see that was all that saved them.

“Where we headed?” Rembrandt queried.

“Anywhere but here sounds appealing,” Maggie chimed in.

“No argument here,” he replied. “But we’re going to need a better plan than that to...”

Rembrandt was interrupted by a hushed cry from a back alley. “This way, friends.”

Not presuming to look a gift horse in the mouth, and having no better options available to them, they followed the man. He was young, in his mid-twenties maybe, wore tattered clothing and had no mark on his face. His arm was tucked underneath his clothing. The young man guided them through the various winding streets of the sliders’ former home city much better than they could have hoped to do on their own. But they still had no idea where they were going.

“What’s our destination?” Maggie asked with more than a little curiosity in her voice.

“No time to talk about it now. There could be spies anywhere. But you will be safe; that I promise you.” But who knew how much this mysterious young stranger’s promises were worth?

The trio finally wound their way into a large villa, surrounded by substantial security measures, including a barbed-wire fence and an electronic gate that looked like it could keep out anyone the owner didn’t feel like letting in.

Their so-far-nameless guide barked a few unintelligble words into a box that jutted out fro the center of the gate. The massive doors began to slowly open. “Hurry along, my friends,” the youth called out.

“We don’t know anything about you!” exclaimed Maggie. “No offense, it’s just I don’t enter heavily fortified areas without knowing whose guest I am.”

“Uh, Maggie, I don’t think we have a choice,” Rembrandt replied. The small group of soldiers and peasants finally were close enough to be spotted by the naked eye. Without further discussion, the three fugitives stepped past the gateway and into the very impressive looking grounds of a large mansion. The gate shut behind them, leaving little hope of the angry mob outside getting in. Both sliders liked it much better that way.

“Nice place,” Rembrandt commented, although their guide, and apparent savior, didn’t seem like he was any more talkative now than he had been before and probably less so. “Little big for just the three of us though. How many more people are we gonna be sharin’ it with?”

The man looked dead serious. “Talk to Mr. Beamus. I can tell you no more.”

At those words, Rembrandt and Maggie remained silent until they were taken to the interior of the house. Which happened as soon as they passed some tough, but raggedy, looking guards and passed through something that quite possibly could have been a metal detector. Guiding them quickly to a large, stately room in the center of the mansion, the man soon bowed before the man sitting in a large, comfortable chair. He was tall, completely bald on top and had a full blonde beard, but other than that, he reminded Rembrandt a lot of the Professor. Maggie jumped to the conclusion that this man was the Mr. Beamus their guide had told them of about a second before Rembrandt did.

“You’re Beamus?” Maggie asked, not as politely as she might have.

“Harrison Beamus, at your service,” the man affirmed. “Would you care to tell me your story?”

After much wrangling, Maggie and Rembrandt had decided to tell the man the whole truth. Since he was likely to be what kept them away from a group of locals anxious to do who knows what sorts of devilish things to them, they needed to gain his trust.

After he had heard the rather long and complicated tale, he surprised them both with, “I believe you. I know you must usually encounter a great deal of skepticism when you make this revelation to others, but I know much of interdimensional travel. I have done it quite often myself.” Maggie and Rembrandt shared a glance. “But I get ahead of myself, as I am so fond of doing. I knew you were travelers from a parallel dimension as soon as you arrived. I’m quite the spell dabbler you see,” he paused to take a sip from a cup of wine sitting next to him, “been obsessed with the mystic arts ever since I came to this world. There’s a lot of spells that deal with traveling between worlds, actually. It is not the great scientific discovery that pompous eggheads have made it out to be. Sorcerers, of the especially talented kind, have done it for centuries.” He paused again. “I’ve gotten ahead of myself again, haven’t I?”

“So you’re not from this world?” Rembrandt queried confusedly.

“Not hardly!” the man exclaimed, and nearly choked on his wine. “Came here about five years ago, as a prisoner of the Tirvuirnan Empire.” At the blank looks on their faces, Harrison explained. “Not much of an empire, actually. Voltaire wrote a line about the Holy Roman Empire once, ‘Not holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.’ He could have been well describing these ruffians. They were kicked out of their own world, by some sane group of civilized beings who realized that keeping the Tirvuinanians around meant nothing but trouble. While they may have been quarrelsome and prone to bouts of violence, they were also quite technologically gifted, curse it all. Within a few years, they had an entire fleet of ships that were capable of both travel through the cosmos and to parallel worlds. To get their jollies, they decided to conquer a few of the weaker ones. Fancied themselves quite the military power.”

“These Tirvuirnans? They rule this world?” Maggie ventured.

“Yes. Have for some time now. They met with little resistance. This world was a peaceful, happy place at one time. The natives of this earth never would have harmed a fly. Of course, the blasted Tirvs exploited that weakness to its fullest extent.”

Harrison Beamus’ expression of fierce anger began to fade, as the topic swayed away from the methods of the evil empire. “That’s why I have to run this place. There has to be some alternative to the brutal methods of our repressive otherworldly conquerors.”

“Let me guess,” said Maggie sarcastically. “You have a resistance force that, although it hasn’t much in the way of numbers or advanced weaponry, is determined to end the tyranny of the opressors.”

“My dear lady,” Harrison Beamus chuckled, “the ragtag band of men and women I shelter in this compound wouldn’t last five minutes against an Imperial force. We may not favor the methods of the Tirvuinanians, but we have no choice but to abide by them.” His eyes suddenly acquired a glint that hadn’t been present there before. “But we do have a plan to end their regime on this earth. A plan you might well be a part of.”

When Rembrandt and Maggie looked ready to interject, he continued. “But you have had quite a day, haven’t you? Perhaps you would like to rest for a while.” Although it wasn’t very late, the two sliders couldn’t deny they were exhausted. “Very well. Pedro, show these two their rooms for tonight.”

·          ·          ·

Rembrandt Brown was in a dream world. Literally. All around him, the people were smiling and laughing. There must have been some kind of festivities going on, as a large bonfire had been built and people were doing a peculiar sort of dance around it. Cheery music played in the background. It looked like everyone there was having the most fun that they had ever- wait, was that Wade? Sure enough, Rembrandt Brown’s beloved friend and confidant, Wade Welles, was among those dancing. She was smiling and laughing, talking it up with one of the local men. Not too far from him, there was Professor Arturo and Quinn, looking gravely serious and talking within close proximity to each other. What was going on here? A little boy walked up to him. “Mister? Hey, mister!” Once he had gotten Rembrandt’s attention. “You don’t want to stick around, see tomorrow’s show?” “I can’t. I’ve got places to be.” Rembrandt replied. Wait a minute! But he wanted to stay, why was he saying... “It’s too bad. You’ll miss the fireworks. That’s when we do our war dancing and everyone gets to participate.” The little boy had a genuine air of sadness. “I’ve fought in wars. I’ll see more before I’m through. Don’t like ‘em much, though.” When he went to look down at the boy, he had disappeared. Looking around, his friends were no longer there. But Harrison Beamus stood by the fire, saying “Look familiar?”

·          ·          ·

Rembrandt Brown woke with a start. It was morning. The bed hadn’t been too rough to sleep in, but he didn’t have a change of clothes with him, which meant he had to climb back into the muddy ones he had had on the day before.

“Wonderful,” Rembrandt grumbled.

Maggie, with her military precision still intact after three years of sliding, was already up and dressed by the time Rembrandt had managed to tie one of Mr. Beamus’ bathrobes on.

“What do you think about our mysterious host? Is he on the level?” Rembrandt whispered.

“Only time will tell,” Maggie replied, an unhelpful answer at best. “Besides, we don’t have much of a choice. If we’re going to get back to Diana and Mallory before the slide, we’re going to need his help.”

Rembrandt knew that was true. But he didn’t have to like it. He stumbled off to the shower, mumbling irritably all the way. Once he got there, he was pleased to find a new set of clothes waiting for him. After stepping out of the shower, he discovered they fit. ‘Maybe this Beamus guy’s not so bad after all’ thought Rembrandt to himself.

·          ·          ·

“Mr. Rembrandt Brown, how would you like to go back in time?” was the extremely unusual way that Harrison Beamus opened the conversation.

“Say what?!?” Maggie exclaimed. Rembrandt just gaped, jaw dropped practically to the floor.

“Well, let’s just say I got curious to all the places you’d been, and I have a little trick up my sleeve that lets me see the slide signatures of all the worlds you’ve visited. One of yours, Mr. Brown, matched this world perfectly. One of the earliest ones, in fact.”

Rembrandt finally spoke. “That would have been back in 1995...you say this world was ideal before the invasion?” He paused in thought. “Yeah, I remember this world. A little slice of heaven we hit shortly after we left that Russian world.” Maggie winced at the thought of a United States under the rule of the Soviet Union, but otherwise listened intently. “Wade wanted to stay, but Quinn and the Professor were convinced we still had a good shot at home. There was a lot of cross words spoken that day. Wish I could take some of it back.”

Harrison Beamus grinned widely. “And now you can.”

“You mentioned that before. How exactly?” Maggie enquired.

“There’s a spell...” -- those three words were almost enough to make the unbeliever in Maggie and the Christian in Rembrandt nix the idea right then and there, but they still had to humor their benefactor -- “...that can temporarily graft your soul onto the Rembrandt of 1995. Essentially putting two souls in one body. Crowded, yes, but its a delicate balance that can be sustained for a short period of time, with the right magicks in place, of course.”

Ignoring the urge to reject the idea out of hand, Rembrandt prodded, “OK, we know the how. What’s the why?”

Harrison now had a darker look to him. “During my unfortunate period of incarceration among the Tirvuirnans, I acquired access to certain information, through underground channels of information. I was intrigued by what exactly it was the brought this world’s attention to the Empire. It was, in fact, a slide off of this world and onto one already controlled by the Tirvs. By a group of four rookie interdimensional travelers.” He looked knowingly at Rembrandt.

Now guilt flooded Rembrandt’s thoughts. His group of sliders had been responsible for the enslavement of this world? Harrison Beamus continued.

“It was a fluke, really. They were testing some sensitive sliding equipment and just happened to get the co-ordinates of this world. They wanted to track you, too. Get a fancy tracking device and enslave all the worlds you visited. You slid off quickly, though. Too quick for them to follow.” Rembrandt breathed an inward sigh of relief. “Still, damage done is damage done. The entire populace of this world has you and your comrades to thank for their misery.” He paused to take a sip of wine. “Maybe that’s a bit too harsh; you couldn’t have known. But forewarned is forearmed. If you go back in time, you can fix the situation.”

“How?” It was almost a whisper, as Rembrandt’s spirit was so broken that he had a hard time finding his voice.

“Delay the slide. By minutes, hours, it doesn’t matter how long. Then the Empire’s equipment won’t pick up your slide in and this world will be safe.”

Rembrandt nodded, though it was almost imperceptable. He had accepted this task, despite it all.

“Remmy, are you sure about this?” Maggie asked incredulously.

This was his chance to do something other than just aimlessly slide, which seemed to be their pattern as of late. He had to save this world. After all, it was his fault. His and his alone. Rembrandt Brown’s next words were to Harrison Beamus.

“When do I leave?”


“We can’t,” the Professor said, firmly.

“What are you talking about? This is a perfect world.” Wade replied, equally convinced of the correctness of her position.

“No world is perfect. Human nature is bound to produce flaws in any society,” the Professor pointed out. “Besides, we have no idea what the longterm effects of staying on this world might be for us. The only earth we can safely remain on is our own. Our home earth.”

Wade spoke as if to a toddler. “We tried that. We tried jumping through all your little quantum hoops. We’re still no closer to getting home. If we stay here, at least we’ll be safe. I don’t want to be leading a revolution, or almost getting sucked up by a killer tornado, on every earth.”

“C’mon, Wade,” Quinn interjected. “Not all earths are that bad. The one where my father’s alive wasn’t that bad. A little creepy for me, maybe, but...”

“Mr. Mallory and I will work tirelessly to get us home, I assure you. But we cannot do so on a technologically backward world like this one!” The Professor was beginning to lose his cool.

Rembrandt was the last to speak. This Rembrandt Brown had never met Maggie Beckett or seen his Professor Arturo die, or watch Wade end up in a Kromagg breeding camp and Quinn merged with his nonlookalike double. “Yeah, sure, you can get us home! The boy who got us in this mess in the first place and his English professor! You understand why I feel so confident!”

“I am a professor of physics, not English, you blistering idiot!” Professor Arturo blustered.

“Hey, who you callin’ an idiot?!? I’m not the one who messed with parallel dimensions for kicks and wrecked people’s lives!! That’s Q-Ball’s domain!”

Quinn interceded with a question. Cold, calculated. “Do you want to stay too?”

Rembrandt hesitated. He didn’t want to risk some of the worlds that were as terrible as the ones they’d already visited. And he liked this place. Enough to settle down on it and forget about home? He wasn’t sure. “I don’t know, Q-Ball. I just want to think about this a little while, I guess.”

“Take your time, Cryin’ Man. We’re not going anywhere until you decide.” Quinn backed away and went into the other room of the house they shared, at the local villagers’ insistance.

Arturo continued. “We have a shot, a real chance, at getting home. If you want to throw that away to be trapped on a world that we know almost nothing about, then so be it. But I choose to leave this world and hope for my home earth.”

“Yeah, well, you could spend a long time hoping and never gettin’ there. A lot of us could end up dead in the process. I’m not gonna be one of them.” At that, Rembrandt left the house, to put his thoughts in order.


“He’s crossed over,” announced Harrison Beamus. “The soul has departed for the past. If we can keep it anchored there until he changes history and then anchor it back here, we’ll be in good shape.”

Maggie still did not trust the enigmatic Mr. Beamus. But at the moment he held Remmy’s soul. Was there even such a thing? She didn’t know, but she didn’t want to risk Rembrandt being dead if she was wrong, and that was a pretty powerful trump card. “Do you think you can pull it off?”

Harrison looked offended. “I’ve done this spell many times.” Maggie looked relieved, but slightly skeptical. “Okay, once. But it was on myself. And I came back just fine, as you can see.” Maggie was still wary, but felt she had no choice in the matter. She had to accept that this man was who he said he was and that he had their best interests at heart. He hadn’t proven otherwise, yet, had he? As if to answer her question, the mysterious man broached another point.

“I understand you have two other friends, who are staying just outside of San Francisco, in the fields that the Empire forced us to abandon.” Maggie nodded, and hoped that he caught the worried look that she sent him. “I am also given to understand that they have possession of your sliding device. Not that you would ever leave without them, of course, but leaving this earth at all without returning to them would be considerably more than slightly difficult. Am I wrong?”

Maggie nodded her head negatively. “If you could provide cover for a few blocks, I could probably get back to them in no time.”

Harrison Beamus broke into a wide grin. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll have several of my more protective people accompany you into the countryside. There’s a rather convenient set of tunnels that’ll take you out of the city.” At first, Maggie seemed happy at that news, then realized what the tunnels likely were.

“Sewer tunnels?” At Beamus’ continued wide grin, she knew she was in for trouble.


A slight flash of light eminated from Rembrandt Brown’s body that lit up the surrounding night. The year was 1995. He had only visited a handful of parallel earths, his friends from Earth Prime were still intact and he had a mission to fulfill. But all of this was complicated by the fact that this new soul, of the man from the year 2000, still had to contend with the very confused soul of the Rembrandt Brown of 1995. There was a dialogue that was stunningly quick and complex. It went something like this:

“You’re me?”

“Yes.”

“From the future?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re here because...”

“I’m on a mission from God.”

And the battle was won. The past Rembrandt became dormant and the future Rembrandt was large and in charge. Now Rembrandt had to win a more important battle, over his friends, to get him to believe this far-fetched story, and over himself, so that he could handle seeing his beloved friends as they once were.

As Rembrandt Brown entered the small house which he shared with his recently-acquired, in this time, sliding pals, Wade and the Professor were still awake. He was stunned to see them like this, and couldn’t say anything at all for a minute or two. He just sat there and stared. They both looked at him like he’d lost his mind, of course. They’d never believe the truth, not now, not from this Rembrandt who they barely knew. And so he said nothing. He went to his bed and drifted to sleep.


He was with the little boy again, in his dream. Only this time it was more reality, less memory.

He chastised Rembrandt. “It’s very rude, you know. Not telling them you’re going.”

“I know, ” the elder man sighed. “But I need time. You can’t just expect me to figure out everything the second I hit town.”

“What’s there to know?” the boy replied innocently. “You’ve got it all figured out. If they haven’t yet, you can help them along.”

“It’s not that simple.” Rembrandt admonished. But he had little evidence to support his thesis. “The party’s started,” his young companion said with a grin, looking at the wigwam-like house the villagers had built to hold festivities in. “They’re playing musical chairs and I’m the last one standing.”

“How can you tell from out here?” Rembrandt asked.

“It’s better to tell from out here.” his young friend replied. “But you’ve got to come inside to play. Or else you’ll miss it.”

“Miss what?” he enquired. At that, the little boy laughed and skipped away, leaving Rembrandt alone and in the dark. And he woke with a startling jolt.


The next morning, Rembrandt didn’t know exactly what to tell his compatriots. But he had to start somewhere. So he began, “I think we should leave this world and try for home.”

Wade looked furious with him. That he could bear, though it would likely plague him in his dreams for the rest of his days. Professor Arturo clapped him on the shoulder. “Very sensible, Mr. Brown. Now we can depart this world and Mr. Mallory and I will begin the search for home.” Wade said nothing else. Quinn remained quiet, too, but at least he looked contented.

“We can’t go yet,” Rembrandt interjected. The Professor turned a raised eyebrow towards him. Quinn too started to open his mouth. “We need to do something, if we don’t want to be the reason that this earth is subjected to years of torment and bloodshed. All we have to do is delay the slide, till tonight.”

“Rembrandt,” Quinn began, but then stopped himself. Setting himself on another course, Quinn asked, “How do you know?”

Was it the time for truth or more deception? If Rembrandt told him the truth about where he came from and what he was doing here, how much more would he have to tell them? Could he tell them of their own horrible fates that sliding would bring about? Would he be able to stop it or would he just be torturing them? Or would he be like Cassandra, forever going unheeded in his prophecies? Would he be jeopardizing his friendship with these people, if they got the impression he was an insane pseudoprophet now?

He could not answer all these questions, and so he just answered Quinn’s. “I have been told, by a force greater than myself.” That wasn’t a lie, and he hoped it hadn’t made him sound too crazy. “We know how perfect this world’s been, right? Well, these people have a certain spiritual purity. God must be watching out for them, because there’s a horrible fate waiting for them and He doesn’t want them to endure it.” Rembrandt had caused Arturo to frown and Wade to look puzzled. Nonetheless, eventually they agreed that the slide could be postponed until nightfall. Was there something special about the ceremonial house, the one that he had seen in his dream? He would have to find out about that, too. That would be where they would wait.

As night came, the sliders prepared to move. “Is it time yet, Remmy?” Quinn enquired.

“I don’t know, Q-Ball. It’s nightfall and I don’t see any reason why we can’t slide. I don’t know, I guess I just keep expecting for something dramatic to happen?”

“You mean like this?” a voice from behind the shadows asked harshly. Before any of the Sliders could do anything, the voice’s originator had moved behind behind Wade, grabbed her, and put a gun to her head. Rembrandt recognized the man.

“My God. Harrison Beamus?!?”

“What did you think?” Harrison Beamus jeered. “That you were sent back here for the good of this world? For a bunch of peons who didn’t know how good they had it?!?”

The light dawned in Rembrandt’s mind. “You led the invasion fleet here. This had nothing to do with us at all!”

“Except that I needed a way to escape, and your staying here for just a few minutes longer provided me with just that.” Harrison laughed slightly. “Man, I thought I was going nuts when I woke up one morning to find a message from my ‘future self’ in my prison cell. All about how some people just stumbled onto transdimensional travel and how I could use their device to escape being tracked by the Tirvuirnan Empire. I had a hard time believing it, at first. I thought I might as well try out the slide co-ordinates he’d so graciously given me, though, since I had nothing to lose.” As Wade began to struggle harder, he jerked her closer to him.

“And lo and behold, here you are. My ticket out.”

At this point, Quinn felt the need to interject. “This timer’s...not perfected yet. There’s no way to determine where you go or how long you stay here.”

Harrison paused in thought, but then continued, “Doesn’t much matter to me, boy. Anywhere not under the Empire’s rule is fine with me.”

“No guarantee of that either,” the Professor added dryly.

“Nothing in life’s a guarantee,” the not-quite-so-benevolent Mr. Beamus retorted. “But I’ll take my chances. Give me the timer.”

“Don’t do it, Quinn”, Rembrandt advised. “This guy’s ruthless, but if his counterpart in 2000 is on the up and up, there should be an Imperial Retrieval Team on their way any minute and I’m sure they can handle him with no trouble.” It was a bluff, but a calculated one. It did make the man pause. As Rembrandt had hoped, the message had said nothing of what had happened in the original history after he had arrived on this earth.

“The second they show up, I kill her,” Rembrandt had dreaded that reaction, and had hoped for a less coherent one. Truly Harrison Beamus put the ‘hardened’ in hardened criminal.

“Fine,” said Quinn. “We don’t want any trouble. Just give us Wade and we’ll give you the timer.” When Harrison looked suspicious, the young genius laid down the timer on a nearby workbench, barely ten feet from where the convict stood.

The older man sneered. “Nice try, hotshot. Give me the timer first, then I give you the girl and you just might get to live in peace on this world. At least until the Tirvuirnans show up.” He chuckled slightly. “Now do we have a deal or don’t we?”

Rembrandt had to do something quickly. In mere minutes he would likely be catapulted to the present. But if Harrison Beamus left with the timer back in 1995, what kind of present would he arrive in? As Rembrandt debated internally and Quinn hesitated on what exactly to do, Wade bit the hand that the crazed escapee was holding his gun with. With his grip loosened, she was able to elbow him in the gut, turn around and knee him in the groin. The pain drove him onto the floor. At which point, Arturo took a stray piece of furniture and bludgeoned the man unconscious. Neither slider felt the least bit sorry for the miserable wretch.

“Alright, Wade!” Quinn exclaimed, obviously surprised.

Wade smacked him lightly. “What? You didn’t think he actually could have killed me, did you? I was just waiting until he was distracted enough for me to make my move.” Her tone became more teasing. “But I’m glad my ‘poor defenseless woman’ act fooled you.”

“Can we please leave this world now, Mr. Mallory?” the Professor inquired impatiently.

“Well, the timer’s not in the best condition, but if we wait until it is, we may have bigger problems.” Quinn cut off the Professor’s statement before he could get it out. “But the longer we stay on a world, the less the chances of us getting home.”

“We certainly don’t want to jeopardize that,” Wade agreed.

“Every time we slide, our chances decrease exponentially that we’ll reach home. But as it stands now, I think we have every reason to be optimistic about reaching our home earth. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Brown?” Rembrandt hesitated, as he didn’t quite know what to make of the situation that was unfolding before him. Suddenly, he was catapulted back to the present, rather violently.


“Oh, man, what a ride,” Rembrandt complained, rubbing his temples in order to soothe them. ‘How long ‘til we slide?”

“Just a few minutes,” Diana responded. How had Diana and Mallory gotten here? Rembrandt asked them.

Mallory replied quizzically “Got here? We’ve been here all the time. You’re the one who left us, so to speak.”

Maggie took this opportunity to tease Rembrandt. “Just conked out on us. Couldn’t talk to you or get you to talk back for days.” As he heard Maggie’s words, the Cryin’ Man began to take a look around, things resembled the way Beamus had said they’d been on this world, before the Empire came.

"So what was it? An out-of-body experience?”

“You might say that,” Rembrandt half-chuckled. “Got a chance to do some good in a former life.”

Each of the other sliders registered an expression of mild shock. None of them believed in reincarnation and they hadn’t thought Remmy did either. No one else spoke a word, however, as the foursome looked for a quiet place to slide. On this world, as it was now, it wouldn’t be that difficult.

The End


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