Home, Sweet Home Part 1

Date: 10/02/2001
From: ThomasMalthus

Professor Maximilian Arturo, Rembrandt Brown, Quinn Mallory and Wade Welles were all deposited on the ground in turn. Quinn rose first. "Home," he stated simply. "I can already smell it."

"Let's not get our hopes up just yet, eh?" the Professor added as a note of caution.

"Well, there aren't any aliens, earthquakes, sieges or murder frame-ups that I can see, so I'd say we're in good shape no matter where we are," Rembrandt commented with a half-chuckle.

"Don't count your peaceful slides before we see the locals," Wade said, altering the proverb horribly.

In fact, the scenery was quite serene. The quaint portion of San Francisco they had landed in was pure suburbia. Although it did seem familiar...

"This is just a few blocks from my house," Quinn stated authoritatively.

"Perhaps we should do some research first, find out exactly what the history of this earth is," Arturo said. Everybody continued following Quinn. "A library, perhaps?" Still no one responded. Professor Arturo grumbled incessantly.

"My house," Quinn said in a faraway voice. "I wonder if the gate still..."

"Give it a rest, QBall," Rembrandt interrupted abruptly. "I've had enough failed squeaky gate tests to last me a lifetime." Wade and Rembrandt chuckled lightly, Quinn wondered what it meant, Arturo continued to grouse.

The quartet wandered up to within viewing distance of the Mallory house. Quinn froze, unable to move any closer. His eyes were transfixed, looking at the home he had longed for for so many years. Arturo picked up a newspaper from off the ground. "Not that again," Wade complained.

"August 14, 2000," the Professor read.

"2000," Rembrandt repeated, a little dazed. "Doesn't seem right...somehow."

"It's hard to keep up with dates when you're sliding," Arturo responded offhandedly. "It says here that Al Gore is running for president...against George Bush?!"

"Weird," Rembrandt assessed.

"Not important," Quinn breathed. His mother had just walked outside of the house. "Mom..." he started to cry out. She would have heard him, too, if not for Professor Arturo's hand covering his mouth. His other hand was
pushing him back, out of her sight.

Quinn's eyes shot death rays at the Professor. "We have to be sure," the elder man stated emphatically.

"Yeah, Quinn," Wade agreed. Arturo was glad to see her backing him up. "We don't want what happened on that world with the Azure Gate Bridge to happen again, do we?"

"We must go and research this world's history to determine whether or not this is truly home," Arturo said as if he were instructing small children. Quinn started to protest, but the elder man cut him off. "Do you want to
get emotionally involved with these people and then have to leave them again? Do you have any idea how painful that is?"

Quinn Mallory remained silent for a moment, taking it all in. "Fine. Let's get it done." They walked down the block (away from the Mallory home) and eventually hailed a taxi. In the driver's seat was, for once, not Pavel
Kurlienko, but Ross J. Kelly.

"Where to?" he asked.

"The library," Arturo answered soberly.

Rembrandt was having a hard time containing his laughter. "Say, don't I know you from somewhere?"

The driver sighed. "I used to be a lawyer, until I got a letter from some sort of a 'Bar Association'. I mean, I've never been in a bar and suddenly they want to take my practice away. Next thing I know I'm driving cabs."

"Tough break, man," Remmy responded, barely containing his laughter.

"You look kind of familiar yourself," Ross J. Kelley threw back at Rembrandt. "Yeah, you were with a musical group. The Twirling..."

"Spinning Topps?" Rembrandt finished for him, more than a little interested in how he would respond.

"Yeah, that's it," he said. "Haven't heard anything from you in a while. Your last hit was what ten, fifteen years ago?"

Before Rembrandt could rant, Wade cut him off. "He just got back from a big tour and he's very tired," she told their cabbie.

Remmy slinked back in his seat as if to rest. "That settles it," Rembrandt said smugly. "We're home."

Wade rolled her eyes. "You always think we're home when we find a world where you're a singer that people have heard of. And you've never been right."

There was little more conversation of consequence before they arrived at the local library. The four of them filed out and looked up at the impressive structure. "It's amazing to me that we've never done this before," the Professor remarked. "It would seem the most natural thing in the world to research a parallel world's history at one of it's libraries, but we've never..."

"Fascinating," Quinn noted sarcastically. "Let's get to the research already."

They entered the building and spread out quickly. Rembrandt pulled out a book about sports, Wade on San Francisco, Arturo a general history book.

"Hey, QBall," Rembrandt pointed out with a smile, "the 49ers beat the Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX!"

Quinn looked puzzled. "So?" Rembrandt returned a similar look of confusion.

Maximilian Arturo stepped in with a chuckle. "Yes," he said flipping quickly through Rembrandt's chosen book. "And I'm sure Roger Maris' home run record has an asterisk by it as well. Very thorough, Mr. Brown. But there's many more differences that could pop up. Let's start reading, shall we?"

"The Golden Gate Bridge is golden here, too. Not blue." Wade looked up from her book and gave Arturo a portentious glance.

"Mr. Mallory, are you going to give us a hand?" the Professor asked. He then noticed Quinn was gone. He continued to flip through his history book.

***
Quinn Mallory approached the library phone with trepidation. Dare he risk making contact with his wife, even if it turned out she wasn't really the person he'd known?

He threw caution to the wind and picked up the local phone directory. He began flipping pages, searching for his own name. He came up empty. A search for a Melissa Mallory turned up the same results. 'It doesn't mean anything,' thought Quinn. 'It's been five years. She could have moved away or moved back in with her parents.' That gave him another idea.

Finally coming to the name Isaac Tennyson, Melissa's father, he quickly deposited thirty-five cents to make a phone call (hadn't it only been a quarter when he left?) and dialed the number. With each ring of the phone, Quinn's heart stopped. "Come on. Pick up," he said to himself impatiently.

"Hello?" an older man's voice finally answered.

"Mr. Tennyson? It's me, Quinn," he responded nervously from the other end.

"Who?" he asked harshly.

"Quinn Mallory," he told him. There was a discernable pause after Quinn stated his name. He had to remember him. He had to.

"I don't know any Ken Mallory," Isaac Tennyson stated with confusion. "Guess you must have the wrong number."

"No, wait," Quinn said, trying to stop the man before he hung up. "I know your daughter, Melissa. Please, could you just tell me where she is."

"What kind of a sick joke is this?!" the man who might have been his father-in-law replied. "Missy's at San Xavier Cemetary, where she's been for the last twenty years! Now don't call and bother us anymore!" Quinn couldn't be sure, but it sounded like the phone had been slammed down.

***
An hour passed. Quinn Mallory walked up to Professor Arturo, who was still thumbing through a history book. Wade and Rembrandt were elsewhere, most likely continuing the search. Quinn wanted to end this right here and now. "I'm not home, Professor," he stated with a morose confidence. "It didn't work."

"Can you be sure?" Maximilian Arturo asked him.

He nodded in response. "I called Missy's parents and they told me she died twenty years ago. I looked through the obituaries for 1980 and found hers. She drowned at eight years old." Quinn Mallory looked a million miles away. "So you can stop looking. Let's go find a hotel and wait out the slide."

The Professor did not close his book, he merely laid it down on the table. "Yes, about our research," he started, not knowing quite how to say what he wanted to. "You are not home, that much is for certain. But there an emerging distinct possibility that we are home."

ThomasMalthus

Now wouldn't THAT be something?

Date: 10/02/2001
From: DieselMickeyDolenz

Of course, *something* will have to go wrong. Either it's not really Earth Prime or something will have to make them leave. Still, it'd be nice to see how our Sliders handle being home (or NOT being home, in Quinn's case).

DMD

Ross J. Kelly, taxi driver

Date: 10/03/2001
From: The_Seer

"I'll drive for you."

Okay, I couldn't come up with anything more clever. Great story so far.

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/26790
Nominated by DMD