All The Ways Things Are...

Date: 10/16/2001
From: SL4ever

Prelude (All The Ways You Are)

“This place is paradise.” Remmy said. He was relaxing in a hot tub, a tall glass filled with a bubbly pink liquid within reach of his limp right hand. His eyes were closed. The room was filled with soft, light music.
The woman sitting in the hot tub with him, massaging his legs and feet, seemed amused. “You have no idea how wrong you are.” She cooed. Before he could panic or get paranoid, she added, “this is but a weak, pale reflection of the true paradise.”

Remmy had been on this world for a week now and had seen no evidence of anger, violence, hatred, even unease among any of the inhabitants. Though they were obviously very advanced, there was no sign of law enforcement nor even a sign that it was necessary. The people he had encountered seemed to be the more peaceful and happy than he had ever imagined human beings could be. It seemed to have little to do with physical comfort, such as he was experiencing now and such as most of them enjoyed some form of on a daily basis, and everything to do with mental and emotional state.

There was no pollution on this world. No crime or hate. No one seemed to be afraid. Remmy could barely get his mind around the concept of a world where fear was nonexistent.

“I find it hard to believe that any place could be closer to paradise than this.”

His companion, a woman named Lydia, made a weird noise that Remmy had come to learn was a gentle chuckle among these people. “Remmy, imagine a rock sitting on a thick forest floor. Now imagine a solitary sunbeam breaking through a gap in the tree cover and shooting down to a rock wall. Some fraction of that sunbeam reflects off the rock wall and scatters to the floor of the forest. A small fraction of THAT reflection hits the rock on the forest floor and warms it the tiniest bit. Compare that amount of energy to the output of the entire sun. That is the difference between where you are now here with us and where you are going next.”

Remmy opened his eyes and sat up. “I’m going somewhere?”

Lydia smiled and rose. “Change out of your swim trunks and into the clothes I put in dressing room. After that the first place you shall go is to meet our Goddess. She is finally ready to see you.”

“At last!” Remmy jumped from the water. Since the first day he arrived and realized how powerful this woman must be, he had sought an audience with her to ask her help in reaching his home world and fighting the Kromaggs who had taken it over. He dried and dressed quickly into the ornate gold threaded robe that had been left for him. Then he followed Lydia to a hovercar which took him to the immense palace that dominated this world’s capital city.

The hovercar did not take him to the base of the monolithic structure. Instead, it flew him up. Up to the very top of the highest spire, so far in the air that he dared not look out the windows. Lydia squeezed his hand in reassurance when she sensed his nervousness. The hovercar slid soundlessly into a docking bay and the doors closed behind it before the passengers disembarked. Lydia led him to two comparatively small white gold doors and indicated that he should pass through alone.

Without hesitation, Remmy opened the doors and walked into the pitch black room. For some reason, the light from the hallway stopped at the door. It was as if some kind of barrier allowed Remmy through but not the light. Looking back he could see Lydia, which implied that light HAD to be passing through the barrier or he would have seen nothing. Nevertheless, nothing was illuminated past the door’s edge.

Then Lydia closed the doors and it was a moot point. He was standing two paces inside a completely black room ... presumably sharing the room with this world’s all powerful Goddess.

“Remmy, come closer. Nothing will trip you.” The kind female voice beckoned.

The carpet was soft and deep and somehow reassuring. Sure enough, nothing impeded his progress as he walked farther in the room.

“One more step ahead of you is a deep, comfortable chair to sit in.” From Her it sounded not like the order it was but a gift.

Remmy followed orders. When he was settled, She spoke again.

“I can see all the ways you are, Remmy. And throughout almost every way you are there is one overlying fact that shines through the meaningless variations. You are a good man. Admittedly, my definition of ‘good’ is a little different than yours might be, but this is a True Statement.”

Remmy didn’t know what to say so he kept his peace.

“Unfortunately, in many of the ways you are, including the way you are before me now, there is another True Statement. You have suffered greatly.” Her voice was so full of compassion that Remmy actually had to fight back tears.

“You deserve what I am about to give you.” She concluded.
Remmy found his voice. “What are you going to give me?”
Her answer was a single word. Her voice was gentle, her tone compassionate. The undertone was one of finality, however. That layer scared him. This was the first fear he had experienced since arriving to this world. That was when Remmy realized that fear COULD exist on this world. This was not exactly a world where fear didn’t exist, merely one where local people had little to fear. He wondered if this next place was a world where fear could not exist for anyone there.

“Perfection.” The Goddess had said.

All The Ways Things Are

Part One (Multipartite)

On the last day this version of Maggie expected to exist, she didn’t look like someone meticulously planning to end her life. She was calm, sweet, even amusing to the people she encountered that final day. Her eyes were not tear streaked for she had cried herself out weeks ago. She didn’t display the all consuming rage at life in general and fate in particular because she knew that if she let even a smidgen of that out it would all come out in a ravenous flood and consume her.

She found that once she had decided to embrace the fate of her fallen friends, her rage and sorrow were easier to control. If she kept herself focused on finalizing the details of her life she didn’t have as much a problem resisting the urge to smash everything within reach.

The solution came to Maggie quite clearly one morning several weeks ago while she lay in bed too depressed to move and thinking about all the people she had lost. Her husband and all her friends from her home world. She had not been particularly close to any of the few refugees they had evacuated right before the physics defying pulsars destroyed her world. Then there was Quinn, Colin, and Remmy. All gone. Three months ago Remmy had Slid by himself from the Kromagg warehouse and never returned. He was likely as dead as The Seer.

She suddenly realized as she lay there that Mallory and Diana notwithstanding, had lost everyone. Those two clouded the issue because she hadn’t spent as much time with them and didn’t love them as she had the first three. She didn’t even have the love/hate relationship she had enjoyed with Wade. That had been fueled by her jealously of Wade and though she would never admit this to anyone out loud, she had loved Wade more than she hated her.
There was nothing left for Maggie.

It was time for her to go.

On her final day, Maggie rose, showered, dressed in her most dynamite outfit, and went to the store to buy some cleaning supplies. This was when she encountered the people she was sweet and nice to. When she returned home she cleaned every floor and surface of her huge house.

All three remaining Sliders were rich. The courts had imprisoned Claire and given the Sliders each a third of The Seer’s holdings. The Seer and Claire had been near bankruptcy but it didn’t take many public appearances or the sale of many of The Seer’s now finite number of paintings to make the three of them comfortable. So Maggie’s house was a secluded three story mansion. She had thought the space and grander of it would soothe her but it only served to remind her every second of how alone and isolated she was. And it meant she had a lot to clean.
Fortunately, every room was now bare. She had never completed decorating or furnishing this grand house, and over the past week she had packed everything into boxes stacked in the garage where whoever was in charge of her effects would have little trouble loading them. Each box had a comprehensive content list taped to the side.

She worked without breaks except for a quick tasteless lunch and several bathroom trips so by 4pm she had finally finished scrubbing the last room. Maggie took another shower (thoughts of the condition they found Marilyn Monroe in made her inwardly shudder) and put her clothes in a trashbag. She put on a plush robe, the only other article of clothing not washed and in one of the boxes, and carried the trash bag which also contained the rest of the cleaning materials, to the trashbin on the side of the house.

Then, barefoot, wearing only her robe, Maggie returned inside her house for what she hoped was the last time. She sent the email to Mallory and turned off the computer. She didn’t know how quickly he might get it so she couldn’t take the time to break down the computer and box it up. She regretted that someone would have to go through the trouble of doing this for her, but that was outweighed by her desire to still be in good shape when she was found. Hence her email.

Maggie carried a glass of water, the only glass not cleaned up and packed away in one of the boxes, and her single black pill to the foyer. She didn’t want them looking all over the house for her. She would take the pill and lay down on the bare floor in the foyer, head resting on a single pillow and body modestly wrapped in the robe.
Maggie set the pill and glass on the floor next to her pillow.

It was time for her to go.

“You’re really going to go through with this, aren’t you?”
Maggie squealed and looked behind her, where the male voice had originated. A handsome looking blonde man wearing a crisp, expensive suit and soft leather dress shoes was standing six feet away from her. He smiled, exposing perfect white teeth. The only departure from his immaculate grooming was his full, unkempt blond beard. It was thick and wild.

Maggie was a little disconcerted when she realized that she couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. “Who are you and how did you get in here?”

“You can call me Ammut. As for how I got in here, I am a very powerful man. We’ve met before, actually, but I was disoriented at the time and I looked nothing like this. Wade spent far more time with me than you.”

“What do you want?” She sighed.

He smiled, revealing again his perfect white teeth. “I can see all the ways you are, Maggie. I think you are worth helping.”

Maggie rose slowly, instinctively taking a defensive posture. “You sound like a very troubled man.”

Ammut seemed amused at that. But beneath that she glimpsed for a second an all consuming hatred for her. Then it was gone and she wondered if she had imagined it. “I prevented that email from reaching its destination. No one knows your little secret except for me. But I suggest that you dress more appropriately and go see your friends. They’re about to receive a visitor you will be most interested in.”
Maggie forgot her fear of this man and exclaimed hopefully, “Remmy? Is Remmy back?”

“Sadly, Remmy is beyond all of us. Left me before he could suffer enough. No, this is someone else. He brings Good News.”

Maggie had a strange urge to hug this man who had, after all, saved her life just when things might be turning around. The fact that he could be full of shit didn’t stop her from actually hugging him. Instead it was the clear mental image of her hugging him and him not being able to stop himself from biting her with those perfect teeth. His eyes glittering insanely with rage as he drove those teeth deep into her flesh, his nostrils flaring as they drank in the pungent scent of her blood. If she made any kind of contact with him he would not be able to stop himself from acting on the hatred he felt for her.

Maggie backed up a step. “I don’t trust you. You have no desire to help me.”

“I’ve changed, Maggie. Now all I want is sweetness and light. Cookies and cream. Good hearts and glad smiles.” He smiled, revealing those teeth again and she shuddered. “You had better get dressed. He’ll be arriving at Mallory’s house in twenty minutes.” Ammut backed up to allow her to pass by without getting too close to him. He followed her into the garage and watched as she opened a box and quickly dressed. As she opened the garage door, he smiled knowingly at her. “Care to have a good luck hug before you go?”

Maggie shuddered violently as she backed away. “No thanks. Maybe next time.”

“Ooooo.” He cooed sweetly, revealing once again teeth shining through his wild beard. “I can’t wait.”

****

“Has he arrived yet?” Maggie called, slamming her car door closed and running towards Mallory’s porch. He and Diana were drinking iced tea on the porch and enjoying the sunset.

“Who?” Diana answered, pulling her feet down from the guard rail and sitting up.

At that moment a vortex opened and one figure emerged.
It took Maggie several moments to realize who it was. “Professor Arturo!”

The Slider straightened and brushed off his suit, which was far more casual than Ammut’s. He looked at each of them in turn, focusing the longest on Mallory. He looked younger than Maggie remembered and his eyes were bright and filled with ... something she couldn’t identify. Arturo finally took his eyes from Mallory and searched the sky before smiling them. “Isn’t that a gorgeous sunset?”

****

Mallory invited them into the living room, which was filled with easy chairs instead of even a single couch or loveseat. Mallory liked his personal space. When they had settled into comfortable chairs, Maggie said, “maybe you should tell us who you are. The Professor Arturo who traveled with my friends died on my world.”

“Yes and no.” He replied softly. “I started my travels with your friends who are also my friends. I was left behind and one of my doubles took my place. It’s a long story but suffice it to say that I was just as close to them as you were.”

“Quinn told me about that while we traveled on our own.” Maggie replied. “He believed that he’d left you behind and that a double took your place. Despite what he did to you on his world, the double was not a bad man and he died saving Quinn’s life.”

Arturo smiled brightly. “You’re the second person who has told me that Quinn said that. It pleases me that he served my friends well in my stead.”

“Who else told you?” Maggie wanted to know.

“Colin Mallory.”

“You’ve seen Colin?”

Arturo smiled more brightly. “So can you. I wanted to prepare you a little bit, and then you can talk to him yourself. It requires the expenditure of a great deal of energy for Colin to appear and communicate with normal people, so he wanted me to cover the basics so that he can tell you what he needs to tell you without answering a bunch of questions.” He paused to ensure that he hadn’t left any of them behind, giving Maggie to wonder if Professor Arturo would speak like that, but she forgot about it as he continued. “About six months ago Colin first appeared to me. I never met him before he got Unstuck, of course. He told me about you, Quinn, and Rembrandt arriving on his world and all the adventures you experienced thereafter. He described the accident in the wormhole that caused his present condition. And he told me what he has observed has happened to you since his accident. From time to time he is able to follow people he focuses on, listen to their conversations and see what happens to them. He followed you a great deal the past year or so, until you became trapped on this world.”

“I wouldn’t call what happened to Colin an accident.” Diana commented.

“Well, that is how Colin has perceived it. Perhaps as we travel you can fill he and I in on the details.” Arturo replied. “At Colin’s urging and with his help I constructed a timer. I had given up last year and settled back into a life of teaching and writing until he visited me. I finished it earlier today and Colin somehow guided my wormhole to this particular world and this location on this world. Now, before I summon Colin, perhaps there are some questions I can address. Colin will answer any questions about why he wanted me to visit you and what we do next, but if there is anything else?”

Maggie rose. “I just have one question.”

“Yes?”

She moved to him and embraced him. “Boy am I glad to see you!”

He returned her embrace. When she released him, he said, “thanks. That wasn’t a question, though.”

Maggie smiled and looked at the other two. “Anything to ask him?”

Mallory shrugged and tried his best not to look lost.

Diana said, “we came into this pretty late. It’s your show, Maggie.”

Arturo stood and waved his arms back and forth. “He wanted to save his energy for talking to us, so he only got close enough to see broad movements until I signaled him. He knew what I was going to say so he didn’t waste the energy listening.”

And then Colin appeared.

****

He was a pale shadow. They could make out his shape but it was like looking someone standing underwater. He flickered and faded in and out like a poorly received TV station. Interestingly enough, his voice came out strong and clear. “Maggie, it’s good to see you again.”

“I’m so glad to see you again, Colin.” She gushed, more emotionally than she thought she would.

“I don’t have a lot of time. I’ve brought the Professor to you because he can help you find Remmy. Remmy has done it, Maggie! He has found the world that begot all worlds! The Holy Grail of Sliding. The original world from which all others originated. The Professor can fill you in all the details, but this is a world beyond all others. All other worlds are a pale reflection of it. Nature’s endlessly futile attempts to duplicate perfection. Remmy reached it, the first outsider ever to Slide there. I felt the surge of beautiful energy for the seconds that the wormhole was open. I was countless worlds away at the time and yet I still felt it. It was unspeakably beautiful. Pure ecstasy.”

“You make it sound like heaven.” Diana said dubiously.

“It is. It is the genesis of all religion, all purity, all joy. Perhaps the seat of God. Almost all religions believe in a central being, what if these deities from various religions are different reflections of the same being? Different perceptions of the same ideal?”

“You can generalize all you want to, I don’t believe Heaven is a place you can Slide to.” Mallory countered.

“Belief has its place,” Colin countered. “What I am talking about is fact. I FELT it when Remmy opened the vortex to this world. I felt it and I felt who had done it, our Remmy. The Remmy we traveled with. He did it yesterday at 3:06 am. I felt it keenly, and I rushed the timetable and got the Professor to come now before the trail got cold. You have to follow his footsteps and discover how he found the way. And then follow him. But it’s a fact that what I felt was no ordinary world. I felt pure joy, pure ecstasy. I felt Perfection. There is no unhappiness, no pain, no death on this world. Most of all, there is no fear. It cannot exist there.”

Maggie glanced at Mallory and Diana. Both of them looked doubtful, for different reasons. Mallory probably on faith and Diana probably for scientific reasons.

“My reasons are selfish of course.” Colin admitted. “I know in my heart that this is a place where I can finally be whole again. But I only need one person to accomplish this, the Professor, and he has already agreed to help me. I need to be closer to the next person who opens a vortex to this place. I was too far away last time and could not pinpoint it’s location. If I am closer this time I believe I can pinpoint the location and go there myself. And, as I said, I only need one person for this.”

“This world sounds intriguing on so many levels.” Arturo explained.

“So we are only here to give you a chance to be reunited with Remmy in this beautiful place. To finally give a meaning to all that has happened to you and those you love.” Colin finished. “Will you join us in our quest?”

“I have two questions. Real ones this time.” Maggie added. “First, you first contacted Arturo six months ago. That was long before Remmy found this place. In fact, that was three months before we got trapped on this world and obviously while Remmy was still with us three.” She indicated her two friends.

“That’s true. I originally contacted him to find out if he was interested in rejoining Remmy and you three. He was easier to visit because he was stationary on one world and you guys were moving too much for me to get a lock. I can listen in on you or watch you but to manifest as I am now I need you to be stationary on one world for months. I can’t explain why, I am still exploring my abilities and these are just the limitations I have discovered. My time is growing short, ask your other question.”

“Do you know a man or entity named Ammut?”

The Professor frowned in confusion. Colin’s expression was impossible to read accurately, but he said, “no. Why?”

“He visited me today. He scared the crap out of me. Not the least reason was which he appeared in my locked house apparently out of thin air. I suppose he could have Slid there but I didn’t hear a wormhole. He told me that Arturo was going to be here at this house in twenty minutes. It took me about that long to get here and that was right when he did appear.”

“I have no knowledge of this person. I don’t know how he knew the Professor was coming. I will look into it. Are you coming?”

“How could I not?” Maggie replied. That meant even more than they knew. What else did she have to live for at this point? She would do it just for the chance to be reunited with Remmy, forget any mumbo jumbo about perfect worlds.
The Colin apparition turned to Diana and Mallory. “How about you two?”

The two looked at each other. Diana spoke first. “I’m happy on this world. I have a fantastic house and more money than I ever dreamed of or that I could earn on my old world. I have a well equipped research lab. This is your quest, Maggie. I don’t know Mr. Arturo and I love Remmy but apparently he is okay so that is enough for me. This is not my quest.”

Mallory seemed torn. “I’m inclined to agree with Diana. I have money and property well beyond anything I had at home. I am happy here as well. However, I can still feel Quinn inside me. He is still trapped there. What Colin might have sensed is a well advanced technological culture that could finally separate us. I owe it to him to try. And you might need help if you follow Remmy through some tough worlds. I owe it to you as well.”

“Very well, I’ll be watching you as you travel.” Colin said. “But as I said before, I can’t visit you unless you’re someplace for an extended period of time. Since you have an undamaged timer that shouldn’t be necessary. But I will be following you and hopefully we can speak when we reach the Origin World. Goodbye my friends.” Colin phased out.

Maggie turned to Arturo. “When do we leave?”

“I’d like to wait some time between Slides to protect the timer against those occasions we’ll need to make a hasty exit from a world. Perhaps I can stay the night at one of your houses and we can Slide in the morning. That will give you time to button up your dwellings to protect against an extended absence.”

“My home has already been prepared for that.” Maggie said dryly.

****

“What should I bring along? How long will this trip last?” Maggie asked Arturo after dinner.

“One backpack should suffice. Some basic foodstuffs that don’t require elaborate preparation or refrigeration like granola or energy bars or a jar of peanut butter, stuff like that. Some bottled water. A couple changes of clothes. We won’t want to waste a lot of time procuring clothes or food if we can help it.”

“Weapons?”

Arturo frowned. “I can’t imagine we’ll need weapons. If we enter a violent world or situation we can simply Slide again immediately. If we need time to pick up Remmy’s trail we’ll keep an absolute low profile. We can’t afford to get sidetracked because his trail is three months old. Before much longer the ‘wormhole vapors’ for lack of a better phrase, will have dissipated and we’ll lose his trail forever.”

Maggie shrugged and resolved to sneak a pistol in her backpack anyway.

The next morning they had breakfast with Diana, strapped on their backpacks, and said their goodbyes. “Good luck. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Diana told Maggie. She gave Mallory a warm hug. “And YOU take care of yourself and her. I hope that you find this world and that they can help you with Quinn.” She finished by shaking Arturo’s hand. “Good luck and god speed.”

They returned her well wishes, telling her again that they respected and understood her decision. Diana offered the use of her PDL again. She had gotten it from her safe but Arturo had insisted that his equipment was adequate. He reinterated that again and then activated his timer and the Sliders leaped into the vortex.

Feeling depressingly lonely for the first time in years, Diana retreated inside her house. She set the unwanted PDL on her coffee table and set about cleaning the kitchen. Several minutes later she heard a vortex open in the yard. She raced to the door, “what did you clowns forget?” She called out playfully.

Three strangers stood on her front lawn, the apparent leader of them looked agitated. “Diana Davis. You must tell me, who just Slid out of here?”

****

“This fire is months old.” Mallory told them, kneeling beside a ring of blackened stones. “It looks like it was used for several weeks, but that was a while back.”

“That makes sense, given that this is where he arrived after he left us three months ago.” Maggie added.

Professor Arturo was studying his timer. They had noticed before that it was a cross between the timers they were used to and Diana’s PDL. It had a readout screen and a tiny keypad. He was using a gold toothpick to press the keys. “It says that he Slid out of here. But it is picking up only one incoming wormhole and that is the one he originally arrived in.”

“But Remmy didn’t have a timer, he used a Kromagg Sliding machine to activate a wormhole. So how did he leave? And is this his original Earth?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know and I don’t think so. Remmy’s Earth Prime is or was Kromagg occupied. There would be wormhole traces everywhere as they traveled to and from this world. There is no sign of Sliding activity other than Remmy’s two trips.” Arturo said distractedly. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Can you follow him?” Mallory wanted to know.

“Yes, Mr. Mallory. I have a lock on his wormhole. Let’s wait a while in case the next world is dangerous and we have to escape quickly. No reason to tax the timer until we have to...” His voice trailed off as if he were listening to something. “I’m getting a really bad feeling. Colin can’t communicate with us per se but he has been able to signal me from time to time. I think that something is on our trail. On second thought, we had better keep moving.”

Maggie felt a chill. “Ammut?”

Arturo looked grim. “It very well could be.” He pocketed his toothpick and activated the timer.

****

“I’m not telling you anything until you identify yourselves.” Diana insisted.

The leader sighed. He was a tall, handsome, completely bald man with thick glasses. He held something Diana had never seen before. It was a short, fat, green thing with one burning end. He carried it like a cigarette but the odor was sweet and no smoke emerged from the burnt end. The stranger puffed it like a cigarette and then answered her. “My name is Gabriel. These are my associates Doctor Wu and Colonel Rickman. Both titles are honorary at this point but it amuses me to continue to use them.”

Perhaps foolishly, Diana instinctively trusted this man. “You seem familiar to me somehow. Have we met before? Or perhaps I’ve encountered one of your alternates.”

Gabriel frowned. “Alternates? Oh, you mean doubles. That’s what I’ve always called them.”

Diana inspected Wu and Rickman. Both men were pale and damp with perspiration. They looked back at her with tortured eyes. She instinctively trusted Gabriel but his companions gave her the creeps. Then she remembered something. “Wait a minute, my friends told me about a Colonel Rickman. He killed one of their friends and they thought they had killed him.”

Gabriel took another deep drag from his green cigarette. “Apparently not. But you’ve changed, right Ricky?”

Rickman swallowed painfully, as if he had been holding sawdust in his mouth. His voice was brittle. “I’m not like that anymore, Miss Davis. I am making amends for my past sins.”

“As is Doctor Wu here. Now, on to more important matters, who just Slid away from here?”

Diana answered him honestly, not sure why she was doing so. She described Arturo’s arrival and the meeting with Colin. Gabriel listened silently, puffing away on his green thing. The other two stood without moving, not even blinking as far as Diana could see. Their gaze seemed distant.

When she had finished Gabriel nodded and thanked her. “I appreciate your honesty. Time is short.” A vortex formed behind the men without anyone activating a timer.

“Wait a minute! I want some answers!” Diana insisted. “I helped you, now help me! What is going on?”

The two associates walked numbly into the vortex and vanished. Gabriel grinned at her. “Come along. I’ll tell you on the way! There’s no time to lose!”

Diana hesitated.

“They’re in danger, Diana. They need your help.” When she still didn’t move he shrugged and tossed down the green thing. It immediately went out and then vanished a second later. “The wormhole will remain open another 30 seconds after I go in. You have that long to make up your mind.” With that he stepped in.

Diana cursed to herself as she ran into the house. The PDL was still on the coffee table. Fortunately she had not put it away again before otherwise she would never have time to get it and make it through the vortex. As it was she reached it and leaped in just before her 30 seconds were up.

****

“This world is cold!” Maggie complained good-naturedly. But in an odd way, perhaps because she thought that she would be dead from her own hand by now, it felt good to feel. It felt good to be alive. Any sensation confirmed her humanity and aliveness and thus held some pleasure.
Arturo was looking at her with a slightly amused expression. For a second she wondered if he could read her mind, but that paranoia dissipated when he said, “you’ve been on colder worlds. Remember the time you were chasing the Man who could Slide without needing a timer? He led you to a really cold world.”

“How do you know about that?” Maggie asked curiously.

“As I’ve said, Colin has been observing you for some time.”

“But that happened while Wade was still with us, long before we lost her and then Colin joined us and at least two years before he became unstuck.”

Arturo shrugged. “I have no idea what the sequence of events was after I was left behind other than what Colin has told me. He told me about that adventure so somehow he must have known since you’re confirming it happened.”

“Yes, it happened.” Maggie mumbled thoughtfully.

Mallory returned from a scouting job around the area. “Again, like the last world, no sign of life. I don’t think Remmy spent much time here, there is no sign of a camp. Maybe he walked quite a ways checking things out before he camped but there is nothing within a mile radius of the spot he arrived at.

Arturo and Maggie had been sitting at the spot, talking while he played with his toothpick and hybrid timer. Now, the Professor said, “you are correct, sir. He stayed here only a matter of minutes before Sliding again. The odd thing is that someone later returned to this very spot, only a week ago. It seems like the same wormhole matrix. You see, each timer or other wormhole creating device leaves a distinctive ‘scent,’ for lack of a better word, within the wormhole trail. It appears that whatever device carried Remmy here the first time brought him back very recently.”

“So the question is, do we follow his first path or his second one?” Maggie said.

“This is about more than just following Remmy’s footsteps, we need to follow Remmy’s PATH. Somehow he discovered a way to the Origin World and I think it might have had more to do with what he experienced along the way than the last place he was at before he opened that final wormhole.” Arturo replied thoughtfully.

“This was as much an inward trip as an outward trip, in other words.” Mallory added.

“Exactly.” The Professor seemed pleased. “But this is just my opinion. Speed is also important to us. Another week and I don’t think I could have traced the first wormhole path. The more Sliding activity since he left a world, including our own arrival, the harder it will be. So let’s vote.”

All three voted to follow Remmy’s first path. The Professor and Mallory sat to wait for the timer to cool off but Maggie was restless. She circled their landing spot, head bent as if she was looking for something. This prompted Mallory to finally ask her what she was doing.

“Remmy was here, he left, and then he came back. Why?”

The Professor’s interest was peaked. “You think he left something here and when he realized that he was going to be going somewhere he would not be returning from, he came back here to get whatever it was.”

Maggie grunted agreement while continuing her arcs around Remmy’s arrival point. Ten minutes later she found what she was looking for next to a spruce. Freshly dug earth. She bent and scooped out only what came easily, not attempting to dislodge what had not been already disturbed and not with any urgency. “I don’t expect to find whatever it was,” she explained as the other two rose and joined her, “because he wouldn’t have come back unless it was to take whatever he left behind. I just want to see how big the hole was to try and guess what it was-.” She stopped as her fingers came into contact with something. Now she dug with more urgency and in no time had freed a small tin box from its burial place.

“I don’t understand.” Arturo said thoughtfully. “What we know so far about his movements suggest that he left something on this world and came back to pick it up because he knew he was going somewhere he wouldn’t be coming back from. Colin made it clear that once you enter Perfection there is no coming back. So if Remmy came back for this why didn’t he take it? On the other hand, if he came back to bury this then that raises more questions than it answers.”

Fingers shaking with trepidation she couldn’t explain to herself, Maggie opened the tin box. Inside was a small book. Maggie opened the cover and gasped when she saw the name written on the first page. “This belonged to Wade! It’s her diary!”

End Part One

Wow. You've got me hooked.

Date: 10/16/2001
From: DieselMickeyDolenz

Admittedly, I've got no idea who any of these people really are, beyond Maggie, Diana, Mallory and Remmy, of course. Still, it'll be intriguing trying to piece it all together. Thanks for the interesting fic!

DMD

Lookin' sassy.

Date: 10/16/2001
From: SpaceTime

Killer read! I'm waiting for part II already. :)

- ST

So far so good

Date: 10/16/2001
From: The_Seer

This is definitely not a "typical" Sliders story. It had some very interesting twists and turns along the way. I'm looking forward to Part 2.

Very good start

Date: 10/17/2001
From: SweetOne

Waiting for the next part.

SweetOne

"Of all happinesses, the most charming
is that of a firm and gentle friendship."
Seneca

Oooooooooo....

Date: 10/18/2001
From: MissingSliderRyan

SL4,

You've got my attention. :-D Very interesting storyline you've got. So which Wade do you have? Recall's got manic depressive Wade and I've got sad, laconic Wade. Waiting patiently for the next installment. :-)

MSR

Now THAT'S what I call...

Date: 10/20/2001
From: Blink_S

...treats for the longtime fans! All the way back to Unbridled-boy! 7:-P 7:-P 7:-P

Too bad I'm still getting over what a cool name "Silfluv" was to fully assimilate the implications... even if knowing the author of "Slide Killer" as I do, it's probably a corruption of "self-love"!

Anyway, you da man! Later!

- Blinker 7:-P~~~~~
http://slidersweb.net/blinker

So how'd Shiva get here...?

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/26837
Nominated by DMD