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The following piece contains the further adventures of the quantum
quartet otherwise known as THE SLIDERS. This document is encouraged to
be freely distributed but the characters and most of the elements of this
story belong to St. Clare Entertainment and Universal Studios. They
have been used without permission, but no copyright infringement is
intended as this story is for the enjoyment of Sliders fans everywhere
and not for profit. Enjoy the story and please send any comments to the
e-mail address below as I would love to hear from you.
The Real Thing
Written on May 22, 1997
by TemporalFlux (temporalflux@hotmail.com)
The events of this story take place around January of 1998 and were
developed under the realistic assumption that John Rhys-Davies would
guest star and not return on a full time basis....yet. Now for the
presentation of "The Real Thing":
Part 1
One year ago...
In a dark museum, an interdimensional portal of unstable nature
suddenly opens and a single woman is thrown free to the ground. This
woman is Logan St. Claire, and she's not happy.
Logan has been tracking her double, Quinn Mallory, for almost 4
months now. She has avoided being sucked up by electric tornadoes,
survived a world where water is as rare as gold, and even killed one
world's Quinn before she realized that he was but a hooligan double of
her nemesis in that world's version of Hollywood.
She almost had him the last time, though. It was a world were the
Egyptian civilization never faded into history and her doppleganger was
still there when she landed. At least, that's what she thought at first.
After seeing that no one had left recently, she got a reading of someone
sliding, and then another reading and another. She had come onto a world
where sliding was common place, and thus lost her ability to track Quinn
whose signal became lost among the many. She took an educated guess as
to the correct sliding tunnel to follow, but to no avail. It was not
Quinn who slid, but some Egyptian idiot instead. She immediately killed
the Egyptian out of frustration and continued on her journey, hoping to
find Quinn anyway...and now she's here.
Logan finally decides to look up to see what surroundings she has
landed into this time and she discovers before her a large statue.
Engraved on the bottom is one simple phrase, "Maximillian Arturo, The
Father of Interdimensional Travel," and this gives her an idea...
Part 2
Present day, one year later...
The Sliders have had their fill of adventure and weirdness as of
late, so the arrival on a world where Quinn was actually an Oscar-winning
actor was a welcome change, but got old fast. The fame was starting to
go to Quinn's head, and Wade couldn't stand it much longer. "Thank
goodness it's time to slide," Wade tells Remmy. Quinn opens the portal
as the timer reaches zero, and the other three sliders immediately jump
through the vortex while Quinn enjoys "his" fame for a few final moments
by signing those last autographs for the "adoring fans."
Wade, Remmy and Maggie come out on the other side of the tunnel as
graceful as ever, with Rembrandt ending up in a nearby fountain and the
two girls landing flat on their faces in front of the portal. They don't
have much time to compose themselves, though, because as soon as they hit
the ground a familiar orange portal opens directly in front of OUR
Sliders' vortex!
Logan St. Claire falls out of the orange vortex to land feet first
on the ground and immediately recognizes Wade and Rembrandt which prompts
her to draw her gun and point it in their direction. "Well, well" she
says, and she's about to fire her gun, not caring if it's the Sliders
that "Double Crossed" her before, when suddenly Quinn comes shooting out
of his vortex. The force of Quinn's exit sends him flying into Logan,
thus knocking the gun free of her hand but unfortunately taking them both
back into the orange vortex!
The other three Sliders are in shock. Just like that, Quinn saves
the day and now is possibly lost forever in another dimension. They are
about to jump into the orange vortex to follow him, but before they can
another individual flies out of the orange vortex and into our advancing
trio thus stopping them from entering before it closes. Rembrandt grabs
the man on the ground and is about to show him the other reason people
call him the Cryin' Man, when he realizes who it is....Professor Arturo!
Part 3
The Professor was in a state of pure elation. He reached out and
gave Wade and Rembrandt a large hug while laughing with a sigh of relief,
even if it wasn't the Wade and Remmy he was looking for. After a short
talk, the Sliders discover that this Arturo has been searching for some
of his missing comrades who had left him behind on a world almost
identical to their home world because they mistook him for his villainous
double who had stolen Quinn's inventions to gain fame. The Professor
goes on to explain that on his earth prime, Quinn invented sliding by
accident and had invited the professor to come over to his house along
with Miss Wells to view his new discovery. They then tested it out and
took Rembrandt by mistake...Rembrandt interrupts him. A realization
comes over both Wade and Rembrandt that this is the Arturo that started
the journey with them, the one that they left behind in "Post Traumatic
Slide Syndrome," this is the REAL Professor!
Wade and Rembrandt share their revelation with the Professor and the
joy can be felt all around. The Professor is confused, though. he asks
his fellow Sliders that if they are indeed the ones he knew then where
was Quinn? And who the devil is this red haired woman with them that
can't dress and most importantly, where is Logan...after all he wanted to
introduce his fiance' who helped him complete his sliding device to his
"real" family. Wade, Remmy, and Maggie don't have a chance to say
anything, though, since the amassing crowd has surrounded them and is
hoisting them into the air chanting "The gods have returned!" over and
over against the column based Romanesque background...
Part 4
Quinn considers himself to be an experienced Slider, but he has
never come out of one vortex to go directly into another, nor has he ever
slid while being strangled by a woman that he thought he would never see
again.
They come out of the vortex, hitting the cold, steel floor
hard...but not hard enough to break the grip of the insanely empowered
grip of Logan St. Claire. Screaming "Mallory" at the top of her lungs,
she continues to strangle him until a blaring alarm sounds distracting
her for a few moments, which gives Quinn a chance to knock her off of
him.
Quinn grabs a nearby pipe to defend himself while he catches his
breath, but Logan is already back up and knocks the pipe away before it
can do any good. Then, pulling out a knife, she poises to inflict a
fatal blow when a voice comes on to accompany to the alarm. The voice
calmly says:
"The Prototronics Research Center will experience a Core Meltdown in
T-minus 11 hours and 56 seconds. All exits have been sealed for the
protection of the citizens of San Angeles....have a nice day!"
With all of these revelations hitting Logan at once, she finds
herself whispering one phrase..."I'm home." Her distraction gives the
recovered Quinn a chance to snatch the knife from her grasp and he says,
"Yeah, it looks like we made it back to hell, but with that reactor about
to explode and my timer not working since I'm out of the dimension the
window was for; it looks like it's time to make a deal with the devil if
either one of us are going to survive..."
Part 5
The Professor, Wade and Rembrandt had always missed home, but on a
world where the Roman Empire never died and they are treated as gods due
to their method of travel, they don't seem to miss it quite as much.
Maggie, being the military mind of the group, is skeptical and doesn't
take to godhood well, since she suspects any culture that makes someone a
god so quickly.
The Professor explains to the others that Logan came to him in the
middle of the night about a year ago. She claimed to be a scientist from
another alternate earth who had invented sliding only to become lost on
her first slide and she needed the help of the Father of Interdimensional
Travel to get her home now that her timer was burnt out. The Professor
says that he told her of his plight and how he could not really help
beyond supplying her with the necessary equipment, and she decided
to take him up on it. It wasn't until after the professor told her about
his search for his friends and what had happened that she really gained a
determination to help the Professor. It was as if she was driven with
enough zeal to take down the gates of hell if that's what it took to find
Arturo's missing friends. This is what the Professor liked about her.
The Professor then begins to tell how their relationship grew until...
Wade breaks in at this point and tells the Professor the story of
the true Logan St. Claire, the woman who tried to kill her and did kill
the Arturo of her own earth just to get the sliding technology so that
she could use it to raid other parallel earth's resources.
The Professor doesn't believe this, though. After all, he has now
spent a year with Logan and has never detected an evil bone in her body,
he only saw a strong desire to help him find Quinn and the others and
also to be precautionary by taking firearms along which is something that
their little haphazard experiment never even contemplated because they
were too eager. It was preposterous to believe what Wade was saying.
The Professor changes the subject back to finding Quinn and Logan.
He tells the Sliders not to worry, that Logan had enabled his device to
actually track worm holes and he just where they had landed, and in 14
hours they would simply rendezvous with them and clear this whole mess
up.
In another dimension, an alarm continues to sound...
Part 6
Quinn has convinced Logan to help. After checking all the doorways
to see if they was a way, Quinn presents the only option available to
them if they are to live through this. They are going to have to build
another timer and import the coordinates of the last dimension from his
timer into the new one so that they can slide back to where they were
before. That way, both timers will work again since they are back in the
correct dimension for the interface and Logan can use the new timer to
return to her home world where they will part ways (Logan still hasn't
told Quinn that she doesn't have her timer nor that the timer is in the
possession of the Professor). Logan is apprehensive to this plan until
Quinn gives her a revelation. If she doesn't help him, then they will
both die and she'll never have the satisfaction of replenishing her
world's resources because she'll be dead too.
They work feverishly on the timer to get it completed before their
time runs out, the entire time both plotting how to outsmart the other.
4 hours left.
Meanwhile, back on Roman world, Maggie's suspicions are starting to
come into play. She has discovered that the people of New Rome are going
to kill the four of them in order to release their true godhood from the
prison of flesh they are trapped in. You see, the citizens need the
god's help, so they think that by helping these gods reach their
unrealized full potential, the gods will be grateful and bless them
greatly. The citizens plan to do this at sunrise, 3 hours away. Maggie
tries to warn the others, but is caught before she can and is locked up
for "her own good" by the citizen's army (insert gratuitous 'Maggie in a
toga scene' here).
Part 7
Rembrandt awakens the next mourning to the pleasant faces of the
caring citizens who had pampered him since he arrived here. A smile
crossed his face until he saw that he was tied to a post and was being
carted off by the "loving" citizens.
Once outside, he sees that it is almost sunrise and his friends are
all in the same predicament. The one he does relish is hearing the
Professor's voice utter the phrase "Blistering Idiot" to his captors.
Then he begins to think, how are they going to get out of this one?
The citizens have called in the high priest and are preparing to
sacrifice the Sliders when a bright light forms in front of the captured
quartet. It's another vortex!! (Albeit highly unstable.) As the light
of the vortex fades, two figures emerge. It's Quinn and Logan! And,
seeing her opportunity, Logan immediately jumps on Quinn once again
trying to kill him. The citizens begin releasing the captured Sliders
thinking that they have now angered the gods by their actions since two
more appeared and are now locked in mortal combat before them. And the
Professor, seeing the hostility and death in the eyes of his love,
finally realizes that everything Wade said was true.
He rushes over, with his timer still in the adjacent room that he
was kidnapped from, and pulls Logan off of Quinn. He scornfully looks at
her and says, "I can't believe you would deceive me so, Logan, I really
cared for you..."
Logan says, "You just don't understand Max, stay out of this!!"
Now with Quinn confused by the sight of the Professor, Logan
breaking free of Arturo to once again attempt to kill him, and Quinn's
timer sounding the alarm for the next slide now that they are back in the
correct dimension, the story takes and unexpected turn...
Part 8
After finally being freed, Wade, Rembrandt, and Maggie run to help
their friends against Logan's rage, but before they can reach her Quinn's
timer activates and vortex opens.
Rembrandt runs up to attack Logan from behind, but she kicks him
back into Wade which hurls them both into the vortex.
Maggie jumps past the Professor, who was disoriented from a blow he
took after hitting a nearby column that Logan kicked him into when she
broke free, and gives Logan a good roundhouse kick just for good measure
which causes Logan to lose her grip on Quinn but not before she rips his
shirt causing the new timer to break free and hit the ground in front of
the Professor. Upon hitting the ground, the new timer activates and
opens another portal.
Maggie tries to tell Quinn about the Professor, but he interrupts
her..."Save it! Let's get out of here while we can!!" and they both jump
through Quinn's portal which closes soon after.
The Professor, now recovered, picks up the new timer from the ground
and approaches Logan with fire in his eyes. He says, "I trusted you, I
believed in you, I even loved you, and you would deceive me in such a way
that now I have lost my friends again!!" Logan starts to say something
but all that comes out is..."but Max..." and he grabs her. Instinctively,
she pushes him back from herself and into the awaiting vortex that was
formed behind him when the new timer hit the ground. It abruptly closes
after he enters it.
Logan then falls to the ground, weeping from sorrow and anger. She
really had gained feelings for this Arturo, and now both her chance at
revenge and love were gone........silently a timer counts down in an
adjacent room, almost beckoning Logan with every tick.
NOT THE END......THE BEGINNING.
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