For Chaser9:

Date: 04/08/2000
From: ThomasMalthus

Since you were the only one who liked the first installment, here's installment number two just for you.

Azure as the Sun Rises in the East, Part One:

A world of darkness enfolded Quinn Mallory. He had seen or felt little but darkness since leaving his homeworld (had it been only five years ago?). Only to discover this place. This wretched island of despair. Within a few days of his captivity, he knew every geographical feature of the land mass that surrounded him and knew that it offered him little beyond basic sustenance. A small stream provided fresh water and the occasional fish. The small game, birds and a few assorted other small mammals that Quinn figured was unknown to the biologists of his home world, was his main staple of food. Although the unwilling native rarely felt the need for clothes, humility had departed a long time before, when he felt truly depressed he donned the tattered remains of the clothes he had been wearing when he first slid. Both as a reminder of his home and of his failure. His colossal blunder. And now he paid the price.

This Quinn Mallory had never met a woman named Wade Wells. He had met someone and they had married but she was all but forgotten now. But he would never forget how he left Mrs. Melissa Mallory alone to suffer. And his parents. They were but wisps of memory now, but they never ceased to torture him slowly as he began to drift asleep. He was nightly reminded of everything that he had done wrong over the course of his life. He would not forget these things when the sun, this earth’s bizarre, scorching hot, cruel sun, rose, either.

As the young physics student entered his normal pattern of restless sleep, he noticed something out of the ordinary coming into focus. It seemed like the blue vortex that he had used to come to this earth. Another young man, looking too much like himself, or at least how he used to look, to be believed, popped out of it. Was this a dream? a vision? some fractured version of reality? Quinn did not know, but intended to find out.

“Who are you?” His voice cried out in a harsh tone that could only have originated from vocal chords that had not been used much in years.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m you,” the other man, now clearly another version of Quinn Mallory, replied.

“You’re me?” Quinn responded incredulously. Then chided himself, “Of course, a double. From a parallel world.” The other Quinn nodded slightly with a grin. “Professor Arturo and I postulated that people from one world could have exact biological duplicates on parallel earths, assuming of course that divergences in parallel histories were concurrent...” He stopped as another train of thought came to him. “I wish Professor Arturo were here to see this.” As he said this, he realized its implications. “On second thought, maybe I don’t.”

This last piece of dialogue seemed to register an emotion on the other Quinn’s face, but from five years of having no contact with other humans, Quinn had a little trouble discerning what it was. “Is something wrong?” he asked meekly.

“No, nothing at all,” his double replied.

Quinn didn’t buy his double (which in future he would reference as otherQuinn)’s explanation, but let it pass for the moment. “Why are you here?”

OtherQuinn hesitated. “I’m not.”

‘Oh,” Quinn replied. When his brow furrowed in confusion, otherQuinn explained.

“You see, when sliding, accidents happen.”

“Tell me about it,” Quinn replied morosely.

“They can be worse than getting stuck on some primitive world like this, impossible as that may be for you to believe,” otherQuinn continued. “All sorts of things can happen. Kidnapping, murder, interdimensional espionage, being-merged-with-a-double-who-looks-nothing-like-you, that sort of a thing.”

Quinn’s brow had not yet unfurrowed. “Let’s just say that I’m no longer a physical presence within the universe... any universe.”

Quinn ventured a response. “You’re dead.”

“Basically,” otherQuinn replied.

Had Quinn been in contact with the mainstream culture of parallel worlds for the last five years, he likely would have said something in reference to Haley Joel Osment and “The Sixth Sense”. However, since he hadn’t, he didn’t. Instead, he replied, “So I repeat, why are you here?”

“To help you get off this Godforsaken piece of rock,” otherQuinn said with a smile. It did not take long for that expression to be mirrored in Quinn’s face. “But first you have to agree to help me.”

“Of course,” Quinn replied, realizing he may well be making a deal with the devil and suddenly not caring. “I’ll do anything you want.”

“I understand your zealousness, but you might want to hear the terms first.” Quinn nodded and otherQuinn elaborated. “I have friends out there. Trapped in worlds where I left them, either forcibly or...” Now the emotion that crossed otherQuinn’s face was pure pain. “voluntarily. But I’ve been given a chance by powers higher than myself to make that wrong a right. The only catch is I have to do it by helping you. So how ‘bout it? A spin around the universe sound like fun?”

Had someone been watching this exchange with a stopwatch going, they would have seen that it took only 2/17ths of a second for Quinn to respond with “Sure!” OtherQuinn gave him a warm smile and the one soul in two bodies communed with each other.

Quinn had not been to the Cave in quite a while. It had been his original residence when he first landed here, but it was too dank and open during the winter months and he had been forced to abandon it for a makeshift hut it had taken him long hours to build. He saw no advantages to returning to it as it carried nothing but bad memories. Oh, yes, and the Calculating Wall.

The Calculating Wall was where Quinn had tried so many times to devise a way to go home, all without success. Now the frustrated physics student and his helpful but deceased double stood before it (Had they walked there? It seemed to take no time at all.). It did not take long for Quinn to understand the fundamentals and for him to be able to figure out how to fix his timer.

Quinn awoke with a new spirit of determination. With amazing vigor, his brain recalled every last aspect of the equation that otherQuinn had shown him. Quickly making some improvements to the timer, and bidding this world a hasty good-bye, he joyfully slid to a different existence. On the other side, Professor Maximilian P. Arturo’s laboratory will have captured its first interdimensional traveler.

End Part One.

Thanks for your support, Chaser.

ThomasMalthus

What first installemt?

Date: 04/08/2000
From: Slider_Sarah

Sis I miss that? Crap! I think I meant to read that! If I wasn't somewhat half-drunk now I'd read this one! I'll read it tomorrow. Prowmise.

Sarah.

Wow. Sarah's question ... where's #1?

Date: 04/08/2000
From: sleepingtiger

This is impressive. I can imagine how much more powerful it is with part one behind it. So where is part one?

ktf
Tigs

Found Part One!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!

Date: 04/08/2000
From: Blinker

http://www.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/19390

Moremoremore!!! TM RULES!!!!

- Blinker 7:-P ~~~~~~
http://welcome.to/gate_haven

TM, you are incredible!

Date: 04/09/2000
From: Chaser9

This is wonderful! I can't wait for the next part!

BTW, want a job writing for The Otherworlds?

--Chaser9
http://www.slidersweb.net/otherworlds

I'm sober now.... wow

Date: 04/09/2000
From: Slider_Sarah

Wow. I can't say much else.

When's the next part? Don't make us wait too long! :-)

Sarah.

Thanks, guys!

Date: 04/09/2000
From: ThomasMalthus

And thanks Blinker for pointing out the link to the prelude to my story. And thanks Chaser9 for making this all possible. The next part should be up by next week.

ThomasMalthus

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/19656
Nominated by DMD