Sliders
“INITIATION”
Chris Keller rolled out of
bed and blindly grabbed for his favourite wrinkled T-shirt. There was still a
piece of half eaten toast on the desk in his cramped San Francisco room which
he quickly gobbled as he glanced at the clock. 9 a.m. As a doctoral candidate
at UCSF he wanted to finalise his work proving the Einstein Podolsky Rosen
Bridge would be useful in practical travel someday. The lanky young student put
on his let his mop of brown hair rest uncombed as he grabbed a jacket and his
notes before taking off to arrive at his makeshift lab in his best friend’s
basement. If he finally had gotten the calculations right, and the bridge was
stable, it could lead to any number of possibilities.
* * * * * * *
He arrived at the house of
Nathaniel Gallagher shortly thereafter. The old Victorian house in the Richmond
district was perfect for the clandestine experiments. In return for the space
Chris had guaranteed Nate, if his assertions were correct, there would try out
the gateway as soon as they could guarantee they had a way to control the
vortex and log the coordinates of the original vortex of their home world.
Unfortunately for Chris, Nate was convinced this would mean travelling to
parallel dimensions, to any number of infinite earths, preferably where Nate
was considered a fertility god. At least that’s how Chris saw the situation. He
was still hungry; the toast had done little to console his rumbling stomach. He
would eat Nate’s food; Nate always had food, even if it was sometimes less than
edible.
“Hey
boyo!”
Nate called from the top window of the house smiling down. He had an infectious
smile and never stopped laughing. His laid back surfer personality belied his
intensity for science even though he himself was a doctoral English Lit
candidate. “I’ll be right down,” he popped back in the house and Chris could
hear him hopping down the stairs.
Nate opened the door and
nodded for Chris to come in, his shoulder length dreadlocks shifting slightly.
The rare San Francisco sun gave his skin a nice bronze glow. Nate adjusted his
glasses, smiled, then gave Chris the once over. “Ready boyo?
We’re gonna make history today mon ami.”
Chris cocked a half smile;
the one Nate called the Dave Matthews looks. “You know I don’t even know if
this thing is going to work, let alone be a gateway to any parallel dimension.”
“It’s been done before.”
“That was a T.V. show.”
Chris quipped.
“Alright, fair enough,”
Nate shrugged, “you look like you need food.”
“Yeah, maybe…what you
got?”
“The usual, crap, oatmeal,
fruit, cereal…like I said, crap” Nate beamed, “Hey bra, think we may see a
timer and stable gateway sometime today?”
“Think so, I was really
close to perfecting it last time. I took one of those old SEGA controllers and
modified, well everything. All I have to do is programme it with the correct
formulas and sequences and hopefully maybe by tonight we may have something.”
Chris said thoughtfully as they made way into the kitchen grabbing mismatched
bowls and spoons for their cereal.
* * * * * * *
They wandered into the
basement a few minutes later flipping the generator switch to start the power
that ran independent of the rest of the house. The whiteboard on the wall had
the nearly complete equation that would prove to be the Holy Grail for both Chris
and his work and the ambitions of his adventurous friend. The entire equation,
they knew, would be divided by infinite possibilities…it was the rest of it
that Chris was grappling with.
Nate shoved his hands into
his jeans and sat on the table with the three networked computes and their
schematics of the proposed time that was nearly complete. He tugged at his
beard. “I was thinking, maybe, if this thing works, we should bring some
company along mate.”
Chris barely looked up
from his calculations and the timer. “What?”
“We may want company for
when we travel through this wormhole.”
“What makes you think this
will work?”
“A feeling,”
“The
kind that comes with a Hollywood budget and theme music?”
Nate smiled, “I invited
Laura and Paul up.”
Chris looked over,
incredulous, “Serious!?”
Nate smirked, adjusted his
thin square glasses, “naturally…of course this is also something I would
totally lie about, but not this time.”
“You didn’t tell them…”
Chris began, his voice hinting at nervousness and tension.
“Of course not, they have
no clue as to what’s up. As far as they know, it’s spring break and it gives a
chance for them to hang out with friends they haven’t seen for a bit”
“Alright,” Chris
reluctantly agreed.
“Excellent, hey Chris how
far have you gotten on the timer?”
Chris sighed, “Still have
to put in the last formulas in to make sure we actually have a geographic
stabilizer. I am making sure we’ll always land within the radius of the city of
San Francisco, or what we call San Francisco…and I am building in redundant
circuitry so that the timer won’t fry as easily as it did on the show.
Hopefully by the end of the night we can control the vertices.”
Nate nodded, “Cool” he
winked, “well, I’ll let you get to it. I’m downloading information into my
handheld device from some websites. Earth prime has a list of all the worlds
they chronicled on the series.”
A painful wince passed
over Chris as he looked up, mini screwdriver in hand. The utter disbelief was
obvious.
“Don’t worry,” Nate
retorted, holding his palms up in acknowledgement. “I realise it’s only T.V.
but there could possibly be worlds like this that exist…might as well be
prepared.”
“But I don’t even know…”
“…If this thing will even
take us to another dimension…” Nate finished. “I know, just call me an
optimist.” He smiled, and headed up the stairs. “I’ll check you out in a few
hours, good luck monkey boy.”
Chris barely raised a hand
in acknowledgement as Nate shut the door. As soon as Nate had left he leaned
back in the office chair and smiled. He wanted to believe as much as Nate.
Looking at the whiteboard he stood and stretched. “….what if you could find
different worlds…” he stopped himself short of reciting the opening credits,
inside his blood was boiling, he wanted this just as bad as Nate, if not more.
* * * * * * *
Paul Kobayashi looked in
the mirror and shook his head; the short hair was just not going to work for
him, only if he had the patience to grow his beloved long hair back. He wanted
to shake his hand like an evil villain but stopped himself short and let out a
self deprecating laugh. He may have been half Japanese and Indonesian and
raised with a rocker’s spirit, but he probably had more of a future as a
Mexican look alike than a wild Asian youth. He stood back and looked in the
mirror again, simple dress, black jeans, shoes, blue shirt, no logos.
He stepped out of the loo
and back into the train car as he made way back to the Amtrak train he and
Laura had boarded on their way up from the California’s central valley. They’d
be in San Francisco in a couple of hours and Paul, for one, was welcoming the
respite, anything to get away from that hell of a computer job of setting up
networks and building servers or setting up firewalls and security protocols
against hackers with all of these new encryptions.
“Hey,” he said to the
daydreaming girl at the table as she stared at the passing rows of farms that
looked like spreading fans as the train passed them by.
Laura McClellan smiled her
sweet tired smile and moved her hand from underneath her chin and sighed.
“Hey,” she said back.
“We should be at the
transfer point in about an hour, and then the bus will take us downtown. Nate
said he’d meet us and take us back to his place.”
“Oh, that sounds cool.”
Paul cocked his head and
studied her as discretely as he could. She had changed from the girl his best
friend once confessed was the most beautiful girl in the world in spite of, or
was it because of, her simplistic nature. The short hair was new but she was
still cute, but he could tell she was thinking about something. “What’s on your
mind?”
“What?”
“You look a bit
preoccupied, just curious if it was something you wanted to share love”
“Oh,” Laura smiled, this time
more genuine than the last. She clasped her hands and stretched her arms. “Just
been so long since we’ve all seen each other, you know what I mean…kinda like
reliving all those years ago.”
Paul looked on, sceptical
at her cryptic statement. “a-huh” he nodded.
“I mean,” she continued,
“we’ve all grown so much from the last time we’ve seen each other, you with
your computers, Nate with the whole Europe thing, and me and Steve and Cal
Poly…” she let that trail off as she smiled at the thought of her beau.
“Yeah, I know what you
mean” Paul agreed “It’s been what, two three years…and what nearly ten for some
of us since high school.” he paused. “Damn, I feel old now.” A smile sneaked
across his face.
“I wonder what we’re going
to do once we get there.” Laura asked, half to herself, half to Paul. She
wondered to herself how much had they really changed, how much can a person
really change. Somehow it almost seemed like a bad idea waiting to happen to
hang out with all these people, that
history for a whole week. But then again
she thought, when’s the next time I’ll
ever see any of these guys again.
The train rolled on as
Paul slowly reclined folding his arms and making a concerted effort to look
like his intent was not to fall asleep immediately as he stared out of the
window, the rhythmic rocking a lullaby he enjoyed.
* * * * * * *
Chris looked up from the
timer and finished putting the back on the device and turned it on. He flipped
it over to see the extra connectors and microchips he had put into the water-resistant
machine. As he had modelled it, upon request, from models off of the dimension
of continuity, he was impressed that Nate’s useless Slider’s knowledge had
proven helpful in a light and ergonomical design. He checked his equations in
double for the 20th time that day and yawned. There was a half-eaten
sandwich with various incarnations of soy imitation products. He adjusted his
baggy cargo pants and looked at the whiteboard again, so close and yet so far.
He knew he could crack it, the only question being when not if. For the hell of
it he walked over one of the three desktops with widescreen monitors and put in
the SLIDERS season one box set to see if the equations on Quinn
Mallory’s blackboard would give him any help. He hung his head, if his professor
knew of this he’d be a laughing stock. Frame by frame he watched the scene as
Quinn discovered the equation had miraculously been solved by his double. “Of
course,” he muttered. “These equations are a joke, there’s no way in hell
they’re real” He hit the play button to watch the scene in its entirety. “These
equations are props; they don’t even have the basics for travel at the speed of
light.” He paused the DVD again as something caught his eye on the whiteboard.
Quickly he picked up the foul black marker that had been responsible for his
semi intoxicated state, and rushed to the board to complete the equations.
“EUREKA!”
* * * * * * *
Nate helped carry Laura’s
bag up the stairs into the old Victorian hose and into the guest bedroom that
had been converted from part of the sitting room. Paul already knew where his
guest quarters were and plopped his bag down inside the room. Nikki Gallagher,
Nate’s sister, gave her half hearted greetings to the two guests; she was going
to be gone to Half Moon bay for most of the week so she really wasn’t going to
be tortured by her brother’s friends or his stupid science fiction obsessions.
Having gotten them settled Nate made his way to the basement.
“Hey boyo!” Nate called as
he came barging down the stairs.
Chris stood there admiring
the finished equation as Nate came down. He turned. “I got it!”
“You solved the equation?”
Chris nodded. “I finally
cracked it, and surprisingly enough, it came from your beloved Sliders.”
Nate laughed, “And you
mock me,”
Chris ran to the desk and
closed the screen for Sliders and picked up the timing device. “Guess what else
is finished,” he could only grin. “The timer has a dozen redundant circuits
leading to its power pathways and a compartment with three spare microchips and
subprocessors.”
Nate clapped his hands.
“Oh shit, this is it Chris. We’re about to do this man, I can’t believe it.”
“It gets better, watch
this” Chris adjusted his small round glasses and turned toward the empty space
in the basement. Pressing the small activation button on the timer a
translucent blue vortex opened about a metre in diameter. “I give you your
Einstein Podolsky Rosen Bridge.” He beamed with pride as he looked back at Nate
who had made his way over to the vortex to see for himself.
The gravity of the vortex
was pulling at him, and then it was gone and what was once his gateway to the
fantasy he had held returned to the world he had always known. Nate gave his
largest grin as he looked to Chris. “This calls for a celebration.”
“Now that’s an understatement”
Chris replied as he followed his rejuvenated friend back up the stairs and into
the kitchen where Paul Laura and Nate’s sister were all gathered. Their chatter
immediately stopped as the two lads were ecstatic with the newfound discovery.
Every eye was on them and the two could scarce control their own body language.
Nate finally stopped
smiling long enough to speak, “Tonight we celebrate, we’ve got a big surprise
in store for you.”
The rest of the crowd
sitting at the table shared their looks of confusion except Nikki who could
only stare with the contempt of a sibling; she of course knew what this
surprise was and wasn’t the least bit impressed.
* * * * * * *
The quintet made their way
down the steps into the basement slowly as the lights were flicked on and then
the generator that followed. The network of computers was brought online and
Chris and Nate prepared themselves for the presentation of a lifetime. Paul and
Laura, sensing the excitement could only look at each other quizzically as
their friends prepared for their aforementioned surprise. Nikki rested on her
laurels watching from the steps pouting to see what would come of all the
brouhaha.
Laura eyed the lab,
obviously well-impressed by the setup. “Nice lab, so what’s the big surprise?”
Nate glanced to Chris, who
gave a submissive gesture indicating for Nate to take the floor and be the one
to initiate their joint speech. “Before we get to the surprise we—I want to
show you something.” He readied one of the computers as Paul watched.
“Are we going to watch a
movie?” Paul asked tentatively.
“No,” Nate shook his head.
“Then what?” Paul
continued.
“This is more of an
introduction as to what is about to come…think of it as a syllabus of sorts”
Nate replied. With that he started the DVD with the SLIDERS season one for the
opening credits of a random episode. The voice of Jerry O’Connell resonated in
the room.
What if you could find brand new worlds right here on Earth
where anything is possible; same planet different dimension…I found the
gateway!
Nikki hung her head in
shame shaking her head as her brother seemingly had lost it. Laura and Paul
stared at each other for the briefest of seconds as Nate stopped the opening
credits.
“You want us to watch SLIDERS?” Laura asked, still a
bit disbelieving.
“No,” Nate said absolutely
grinning.
“I thought you wanted to
show us a surprise; what’s up with the science fiction?” Paul asked.
Chris, finally realising
his part, interjected on Nate’s behalf as he kindly stood by and Chris turned
and faced the uncertain pair. “That is science fiction,” he nodded to the
computer screen before turning and activating the timer into the empty part of
the basement. The brilliant translucent blue vortex sprang open with a roar,
and Chris turned his back having to shout at all who were stunned. “This is
real. We’ve found the gateway…wanna come;” his beckoning toying with the
silenced onlookers. Looking up he set the timer for four hours.
“You’ve got to be kidding
me…right?” Laura asked walking over toward the void to inspect it closer.
“Not in your wildest
dreams.” Chris said mimicking Nate’s satisfied smile.
“Is it safe?” Paul asked,
making his way more cautiously than Laura had toward the espousing vortex.
“Is life safe?” Nate asked
as he placed his arm on Paul’s nearest shoulder.
Paul nodded in defeat.
“Touché,”
Nate stood with his back
to the bridge between these parallel worlds. “This is your surprise, who wants
to sign on the dotted line?”
Laura looked to Paul
searchingly, then to Chris and finally Nate. “Okay, I’m in.” She said as she
stepped forward.
Paul sighed, still
hesitant to take a full step forward. “But I thought the whole premise of their
show was that they got lost?”
Nate folded his arms and
stroked his beard. “True, but so long as we don’t land on a world where David
Peckinpah is president then we should be fine.”
Paul shook his head,
“Booch” he laughed and stepped forward shaking Nate’s hand.
Chris looked to the
stairs, “Wanna come Nikki, room for one more?”
Nikki shook her head no,
“Hell nah, I’m not crazy like you.”
“Suit yourself” her
brother shrugged. “Who goes first?” he asked.
The group of newbie
sliders motion for Nate to make the virgin leap, taking the initiative he
pulled Paul along with him and the two slid together. One by one they leapt
into the vortex and one by one they vanished. When there were none the vortex
closed, they were gone, sliding.
* * * * * * *
The labyrinth of colours
was over quicker than any of them could have really expected. The vortex opened
and one after the other went tumbling into a dark and cramped basement. Nate
and Chris looked at the basement, no computers, no whiteboard; only the
generator was anywhere to be found. Shouts of jubilation erupted from a chorus
of happy travellers. This was definitely not their lab.
“It worked” Nate exclaimed
dusting himself off.
Laura pulled herself from
a box of ‘kittie’ litter shaking her arms free of the granulated potpourri. “So
where are we?” she asked looking at Chris who was busy noting the timer as it
began the four hour countdown.
“We don’t know.” Chris
said, “As of now there’s no real way to track wormholes from any dimension, let
alone between them.”
“How long have we got
here?” Paul asked, taking time to observe tiny details.
“3 hours, 57 minutes, 13
seconds.” Chris responded, tucking the timer neatly back into his jacket.
“Well,” Nate said as he
made his way to the top of the stairs, “what do you say that we go see what
this San Francisco is all about?”
The others nodded in
agreement and clanked their way up the stairs and out of the house.
In front of the house
stood a giant billboard, NIRVANA LIVE IN CONCERT MARCH 16-29 2004
Nate and Paul were
stunned; slowly they looked at each other and then back to the billboard. MUNI
busses passed them in the streets and people sauntered by walking their dogs,
holding hands, and riding bikes.
“Do you realise what this
means” Paul asked to no one in particular as they headed down the street on
foot.
“We are definitely in
another dimension,” Laura said.
“No, he means about the
Nirvana billboard.” Nate replied
“Let me guess,” Laura
pondered and then smiled. “You two want to go and see if they came out with
anymore CD’s on this world?”
“I knew we brought her
along for something.” Nate laughed as he looked to Chris. “What do you say we
split up for a few hours and then possibly meet up back at my house with a half
hour left on the slide? Paul and I want to hit up the music stores, maybe even
Borders too, take a look and see if there’s anything that really distinguishes
this world from ours.”
Chris looked on, sceptical
as always, deliberating his answer. He didn’t mind the idea of going down to
Haight and seeing if the DJ scene was any good. He nodded. “Ok, but you have to
be back here before 5 pm, we slide at 5.30.”
Nate and Chris agreed.
Paul turned to Laura, “wanna come with us?”
“Nah, it’s ok, I’ll stay
and keep Chris company here.” She smiled in reply.
* * * * * * *
Nate took out his PDA and
began to take notes on the world. ‘Nirvana World’ he dubbed it. The skyline came
into view and portions of the Golden Gate Bridge came along as well. At least
this bridge was still the right colour he marked in his charts of important
landmarks.
“What are you doing?” Paul
asked as they hopped off MUNI metro at Powell and headed for what on their
world was the Virgin Mega Store.
“I’m chronicling a list of
worlds, adding them into the data base of possible worlds that may already
exist. I figure I’ll send this one in to EP and let them chew on it for a bit.”
Nate looked up and stared quizzically.”
“What’s EP?” Paul asked as
he too stopped.
Nate faced Paul, “Oh, its
Earthprime.com…think of Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy, but for Sliders. I
managed to download all of the worlds they have chronicled from the Sliders
world and put them onto this thing here. It’s a modified MP3 player and can
download directly from the internet.”
“Ah,” Paul replied, still
disbelieving that a television show could hold anything useful when it came to
the actuality of sliding in real life.
“Hey Paul,”
“Yeah,”
“Take a look at the name
of the store.” Nate motion with his chin to the bright neon sign for Paul to
regard, CHASTE MEGA STORE read the
sign.
“Yeah, so” Paul asked.
“Doesn’t that strike you
as the least bit odd…on our world this place is a Virgin Mega Store.”
Paul just laughed, as if
he was already used to these sorts of quirks. “Hey, well to each his own,
right?” He led the way into the store. As they passed through the archway they
were greeted by a floating hologram of a gorgeous young woman, none other than
Natalie Imbruglia.
“Welcome back Mr.
Gallagher, and…” the programme paused for a moment as it searched its databanks
scanning Paul for any ID, “Mr. Kobayashi, you are not registered with any
California stores, welcome to the San de Francisco Chaste Mega Store, how may I
help with your shopping today?” the hologram asked as is queued for an answer.
Paul looked to Nate,
“Natalie Imbruglia?”
The hologram took her cue,
“I am a fully customisable personal shopper. All shoppers are given their own
holographic assistants for all stores they enter who make suggestions based
upon previous purchasing habits…margin of error is plus or minus four percent.”
Nate looked to Paul, “What
can I say bra, who wouldn’t want her as your personal shopper?” He smirked, and
then turned to the smiling replica pop star. “Can you help me locate all
Nirvana albums post 1994?”
The hologram nodded and
brought up a display, there were 7 more albums. Paul could hardly stop himself
from grinning.
“Excellent,” Nate said.
“I’ll take all of them.”
“Then proceed to checkout,
your order has been rung, wrapped and billed, we just need your scan at the
cashier to confirm your purchase…Thank you Mr. Gallagher and have a nice day.”
The hologram vanished and the two lads walked toward the cashiers.
“Your scan?” Paul asked a
tad confused.
“She probably means my
card; they probably don’t use anything other than electronic money here.” Nate
responded as he grabbed the bag.
“C’est interessant,” Paul
shrugged.
“We’re ready for your scan
sir.” The cashier clerk said with a smile.
Nate nodded and delved
into his pocket and pulled out his Visa card. “Here you go.”
The clerk stared in
disbelief, “No, sir, you scan,” he said pointing to the slight metallic glow on
his wrist.
Nate and Paul looked on in
growing discomfort; there was no way to pay for such items.
“I seemed to have
misplaced it somewhere after the shower this morning,” Nate said without much
hope of being believed.
“I see,” the clerk responded,
his smile now vanished. He motioned with his finger to his boss who fired a
silent alarm. “Sir, you are in violation of California federal law 226J section
25, subsections 1-4, and are to remain in our custody until immigration and the
FBI can deal with tampering of identification chips.
“What!?” Nate exclaimed.
“Sir, every person is
given an Identification law in accordance with federal law 226J and has been
since the 1960’s when Cesar Chavez was assassinated the migrant farm workers
dissolved and deported and all non California residents barred from state
borders. All legal Californians were to be accounted for by the state at all
times. You are in violation and face a sentence of no less than 30 years in
federal prison and no more than death by drowning in the San de Francisco Bay.”
Paul and Nate turned and
ran for the nearest exit. Guards began to position themselves and the
electronic gate began to close. All other patrons were told to remain still but
many fearing they would also be held ran as well overpowering the guards at the
exits. Panting heavily the duo jumped on the nearest coach and headed towards
Castro. Everyone else, guards included, was trapped inside of the store.
“What the hell are we
going to do?” Paul whispered in his frenzied pant.
“I don’t know.” Nate shook
his head; he still had the CD’s. “They’ve got us on petty theft now too.”
“We need to find the
others. Let’s just go back to your house and meet them in the basement.”
“Good idea.” Nate rang for
the coach to stop. “Let’s find another way home, we don’t want to stay on one
route all the way…If that hologram knew who I was or you were when we first
walked in, then we know the surveillance is top notch.”
Paul nodded, “mm-hmm.” The
two stepped of the bus and ran under ground to MUNI metro.
“I just hope the other two
fared better.” Nate said.
“No shit,” Paul responded.
* * * * * * *
Chris and Laura wandered
up Haight Street past hole-in-the-wall restaurants and dingy corner stores.
Smoke shops appeared here and there out of the woodwork selling various pipes,
papers, tobaccos, and other more obvious paraphernalia.
“Hey, let’s stop here and
get a smoothie.” Chris said spying a health food themed café.
Laura shrugged, “Sure, why
not.” They entered the café shop and stood at the end of the queue. “What made
you want to travel to parallel dimensions?”
Chris took his eyes from
the menu. “I didn’t. But once Nate found out what my project was for my
doctoral thesis, the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Bridge, he offered his basement to
me for my research whenever I needed it provided, if I succeeded, we could take
a tour of the Multiverse.”
“Nifty,” She said,
slightly raising her eyebrows
“Yeah,”
“Next!” The hippie looking
clerk called from behind the register.
“Oh, we’re just looking
right now.” Laura said.
Other customers behind
them stepped forward and placed their orders at the counter. Offering their
right wrists, the clerk scanned them and read their totals aloud. The customers
stepped away, smoothies in tow, and left the building.
Deftly Chris observed.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
Laura nodded. “They just
showed him their wrists. No cash or credit cards or anything.” She and Chris
stepped back from the counter and moved toward the door. “What was that all
about?”
“This world must have done
away with money as we know it,” Chris hypothesised, “Maybe their bank accounts
are linked to some sort of electronic implant.” Thoughtfully he adjusted his
glasses.
Laura looked down,
absorbing what he had just said. “Oh my gosh!” she blurted, “Nate and Paul, if
they went to that music store to buy those Nirvana albums…”
“They must’ve run into
trouble.” Chris finished. “You’re right, let’s go!”
The pair rushed from the
tiny café and jumped onto the MUNI bus.
“If they were in trouble the
first thing they’d do is go back to the meeting spot.” Laura said.
Chris grunted his
agreement. “If so they’re probably back at Nate’s house now waiting for us to
get there.”
“How long until we slide?”
Laura asked.
Chris pulled the timer
from his inner jacket pocket an quickly glanced at it. “A little under 40
minutes…38 minutes 17 seconds to be precise.”
“Let’s hope they made it.”
Laura muttered.
* * * * * * *
Chris and Laura jumped
from the bus and began to pace themselves down the street so as not to appear
suspicious to the neighbours. As the blue-grey house came into view, creeping
in height with their approach, Chris saw and heard the screeching loud arrival
of INS and FBI agents in their jackets and unmarked Fords alongside their more
conspicuous CHP helpers. The leader of the mission, a middle-aged dark haired
man from the FBI consulted with the leaders from the CHP and INS units.
Reporters followed close
behind and the CHP was quick to establish a press line and block off traffic in
this street. Officers from INS in bullet-proof jackets lined sniper ready at
the front door of Nate’s house awaiting further instructions from their
coordinators.
“How long do we have?”
whispered a desperate Laura.
“22 minutes…” Chris was
disheartened, there was no way they could sort this out in so short a time.
Quickly though he remembered something and took off running around the block.
“What now?” a trailing
Laura called after him.
“Come on, this way.
There’s a secret side entrance that was built during the cold war, at least
there was on our world. If we can get into the back from around the block, then
we can get into the house.” He motioned for Laura to hurry as he quickened his
pace.
* * * * * * *
Agent Humphries watched
the seemingly desolate house, but the news chopper had seen the two suspects
run into this place and were most likely squatting since it was still on the
market for rent. They had pulled Nathaniel Gallagher’s file and couldn’t find
one for his accomplice, thought they were sure he was an illegal immigrant from
Mexico. Humphries called to the INS coordinator.
“I want you to get the
snipers and battering ram ready, and I want a team ready to apprehend and kill
the perps if necessary.”
The INS guy nodded and
started calling out names setting everyone in place to act on the command of
Agent Humphries. The INS agents nodded as they received their instructions and
slowly crept up to the tops of the stairs.
Agent Humphries looked
around and grabbed a microphone. In the distance the reporters from SNN were
standing about recording the action live as it happened on the scene.
Once everyone was in
position Agent Humphries activated the megaphone. “We know you are in there Mr.
Gallagher, and so is your immigrant friend. We also know you have wilfully
removed your identification chip and that is a felony punishable by drowning.
If your intention was to sell this chip to your friend, he will be deported
back to Mexico and you will be publicly executed.” There was no answer.
A large crowd was
gathering and the CHPs were duly keeping the interested crowd behind the white
caution tape.
“We will give you 2
minutes to surrender Mr. Gallagher, after which we will come after you and will
make no guarantees as to your safety or to the safety of your friend. If you
cooperate, the likelihood a judge will hear your case will be greatly
increased. I repeat...you have two minutes to surrender peacefully.
* * * * * * *
Nate and Paul sat hunched
on the third story of the Victorian house secretively sneaking glances at the scenes
below as they developed. Things were looking bleak by all accounts. Laura and
Chris were nowhere to be found and the had to make the slide in just over 15
minutes. Nate grabbed an old one-strap
backpack from the corner and dusted it off. He placed the CDs in there and put
the bag over his shoulder.
Nate paced back and forth,
rubbing his chin. “What time is it?”
“If they don’t make it in
the next 13 minutes, we’re never going home. The booch’ll drown you and send me
back home to Mexico.” Paul said with a badly imitated Spanish accent on Mexico.
The irony was clear; an Asian guy was going to be deported back to Mexico. “I
suppose since my father emigrated from Indonesia he would have been deported in
the 60s shortly after he got here…that must mean he never met my mother on this
world…” He took another peek from behind the stale curtains.
“Come on, let’s go to the
basement, at least it’ll take ‘em longer to find us if we hide down there.”
Nate said as he motion for Paul to lead the way downstairs to the main level of
the house. Paul sped as quickly as he could.
They could hear Humphries
again on the megaphone as they continued down. “Come out now and surrender or
face immediate and punitive measures!” he warned. The agents in place looked
back toward Agent Humphries, waiting for him to give the nod before the
battering ram would be used.
The FBI agent’s voice
echoed in the house again. “You will have until the count of three to surrender
yourselves to us; otherwise we will not be responsible for what may ensue.”
Quickly Paul rounded the
corner at the stairs bumping into Chris and Laura. “What the hell are you
doing?” he demanded. He placed his hand over his heart; he had half a mind to
punch Chris but he knew the scare wasn’t intentional.
Chris quickly brought his
index finger to his lips. “Shhhh…” he said, “We’re not going to make it.”
“What do you mean?” asked
Paul.
“There’s still too much
time left on the timer before we’re supposed to slide; we’ll all be dead by the
time the it reaches zero.” Nate whispered.
A voice blared from
outside, it was Humphries. “One!”
“We can’t slide early.”
Paul said.
“Do you want to live?”
Chris asked.
“Two!” The number rang in
the ears of the sliders like the last call bell in a dingy pub.
“The thought had occurred
to me, if anyone cares.” Nate interjected his sarcasm clearly the result of the
enormous stress.
“Quick, we gotta get away
from the front door.” Laura panted, pushing the others toward the basement
door. Quickly they all began running down the cramped staircase. “How long?”
she demanded.
“9 minutes 47 seconds”
said the deflated Chris; there was no way to hide for that long.
“Three!” The final number
roared. They heard the front door shatter as the battering ram passed through
it and could hear the shouting and searching of the armed INS agents. And then
they heard Humphries’ voice again.
“This is on your own head
son.” He called.
“We can’t wait any longer;
open the vortex!” Laura whispered furiously.
Chris looked to the other
sliders as he held the timer in his hand, the numbers counting down
interminably slow…9.21…….9.20…..9.19….Nate and Paul nodded solemnly .He opened
the vortex. “You realise what this means?” he asked above the cries of the
gateway.
There was the shouting of
agents who had heard the opening of the vortex. “Down there, in the basement!”
“That we live to die
another day.” Shouted Paul above the wormhole and the imminently approaching
killer border agents. With that he jumped into the gateway and disappeared from
sight.
Laura eyed Nate
sympathetically and then vanished herself. The basement door had now given and
Chris and Nate heard them approaching. They looked at each other and Chris dove
into the vortex.
“Freeze!” Several agents
cried as Nate stood with his back to them. Slowly he turned and faced them.
“Give my regards to Agent
Humphries.” He smiled and stepped into the translucent blue portal that had the
agents in awe.
The gateway closed. They
were lost.
* * * * * * *
Nate walked along the nearly
uninhabited city of San Francisco with his PDA in had searching to see if this
world closely resembled any of the other worlds that were chronicled on Earth
prime.
“Chris!” Nate called as he
called up the nearly identical match of Lotus land. Number 058, coordinates
number 420.420.420.420. Stoner’s
paradise. “I think you’d better get over here.”
“Just a sec,” he called as
he walked alongside Laura and Paul as they stared into the extremely dense
brush. “Nate’s been chronicling the worlds we go to in hopes of compiling a
comprehensive list. I think he may have found one that matches this world.”
Laura watched the reddish
sun set for the second time that day. “You should check it out, let us know
what he says.”
“Who knows,” Paul added,
“There may actually be something to this world…more so than the insane amount
of skunks that seem to populate this place.”
Chris smiled and jogged
over to Nate. “What’s up?”
“Read this,” Nate grinned.
A few seconds of silence
passed as Chris read up on the world. “…Are you serious?” He started to grin
“How long are we here…”
Nate asked
“11 days 14 hours 32
minutes 6 seconds.” Chris said between laughs. Between the two of them Nate and
Chris couldn’t stop.
Laura and Paul joined the
group enjoying the sun.
“What’s so funny?” Laura
asked.
Nate handed him the PDA.
“Read this,”
Laura and Paul held it
jointly and read. Chris and Nate nodded in eager anticipation. Paul was the
first to look up.
“…And roughly how long are
we here?” Paul asked Chris
“11 and ½ days.” Chris
beamed.
Paul couldn’t begrudge
himself a light smile and a hearty chuckle.
Laura just shook her head,
“Oh dear.” She said. “Maybe I should hold on to the timer this time.”
