"Perspective" (fanfic)

Date: 08/19/2000
From: Informant

Here's a bad fanfic I just wrote out of bordom. It's bad, but nobody's forcing you to read it. I wrote it all tonight so I didn't have time to correct or change anything.
Read at your own risk!

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"Perspective"
By Mallory

It'd been about a week since we got Remmy back and fixed the timer. That's when things got freaky for me. I'd come to terms with the whole merging thing by then. I felt sorry for the other Quinn. I could feel him still in the back of my head. Every now and again, I'd even have a flash of a memory from him. The image of some short-haired chick that kinda looked like the aquarium gal we saw a few weeks earlier, but this wasn't the same person. It couldn't be. I could smell her shampoo. I could see her clearly, and this time, with a body. A yellow leather jacket, and a necklace that had some writing on it, but I couldn't make out the word.

Maggie's telling me to get back to the point, so I guess I will. The story might be hard to understand to those not familiar with sliding. But if you read the stories that the others write, I think it'll be easier. I'm sure one of them will cover the back story for me, so I'll get to the point.
It started out on a world that I liked to call "The World Of The Green Air"… don't ask. Remmy and me were at the bar in the Chandler Hotel on that world waiting for Maggie and Diana to come, so we could slide out. I don't really know where they'd been, or what they were up to, but when they came, they were running fast.
"Run!" Diana yelled to me and Remmy when she saw us.
Remmy pulled out the time to see how much time we had left. Ten minutes. They weren't the best ten of my life. We ran as fast as we could until we finally lost the guys that were chasing us. Then it was time to slide.
We landed on a world that had normal colored air. A nice place. Clear blue sky, the smell of bread baking… we were standing outside a bakery. As we looked around the world, having a day until our next slide, Remmy seemed to act strange. For some reason he seemed to take the world in a little more than usual. He even started humming one of those golden oldies that he got some award for. Something about him seemed more comfortable here. And there was a reason.
As night got closer, we made our way to the street that the Chandler was usually on. But on this world there was no Chandler. Instead, a sign outside the door read "Royal Chancellor". Remmy said that he'd stayed there before, back in the days when he was touring, and again during his sliding. The place was nice, it had room service and king sized beds, and free internet access. I'm not quite sure why, but Remmy likes to research the histories of the worlds we land on as much as possible. He says it gives him a better feel for the people.
"Where should I start?" he asked Maggie who was already falling asleep on the bed.
"How should I know?" Maggie replied with her sweet perky lips, "Why don't you come over here and forget about that computer." She said in a seductive tone.
OUCH! Okay, that's not what she said. (memo to the people of the world that I'm writing this for. The invention of the "backspace" key would be great for these situations)
Anyway, Maggie told him to check out who the president was. So Remmy did.
"It's Clinton. Same as my world." Remmy finally told her, "Just when you think we might have landed on paradise." He chuckled.
It was about this time that Diana finished with the shower, and came out of the bathroom. Diana saw a link on the page that had something to do with the millennium. Highlights of the twentieth century or something. Whatever it was, Remmy thought it was a good idea to check it out, so he did.
"So far, it seems about the same as my world." Remmy said as he scrolled through the first World War and something about depressed people. By the time he got to the late sixties, Remmy was starting to forget to blink as he read the history. Through the seventies and eighties and early nineties everything was normal to him. When he reached nineteen-ninety-five, his mouth nearly hit the keyboard.
"Remmy?" Maggie asked, worried about her friend, "What's wrong?"
Remmy read from the screen, "Spring, 1995. It links to a few stories… Elizabeth Montgomery died in May, a couple memorable cliffhangers, and the mysterious disappearance of Marina Boulevard."
For some reason, Maggie jumped up when she heard that, so I asked, "What?"
But I was ignored.
"I did…" Remmy started, "It's about me and the others. 'College Professor Max Arturo'" Remmy chuckled, "He never let any of us call him Max, yet the world seems to have picked it up"
Maggie read the rest, "Along with student Quinn Mallory and computer sales person, Wade Kathryn Wells, vanished… bla bla bla, Rembrandt Brown, former celebrity rap singer also vanished, presumably due to the same accident. No sign of them has been seen since."
For the rest of the night, Remmy read as much as he could about the Earth's history. And by the time of the slide, Remmy was sure that this was his world.
"Remmy, I know that's what you want to believe, but we already found your world. As much as you hate it, your world has been invaded." Maggie said.
But Remmy wouldn't hear it. On Remmy's orders, Diana used the coordinates that she'd managed to retrieve from the Kromagg database a week earlier, and set the timer to take us to the world that Remmy had thought to be his Earth when he was taken prisoner there.
We slid back to that Earth. When we got there, what we saw was horrible. Most of the buildings in the area were on fire. People ran through the streets, trying to avoid the attacks from Kromagg manta ships. We ran, trying to avoid being spotted. As we looked for a place to hide, Remmy's eyes caught something. As he looked at it, his eyes began to water. I had to see what it was, so I pulled him down to safety and took a peek myself. What Remmy was looking at was a the sign for Hollywood up on that hill or mountain or whatever. But on this world it was different. On this world, it read "HOLLYWOODLAND". This wasn't Remmy's home.

After finding our way to safety, we discussed options. What to do, where to go, how to live. Would we go back to Remmy's Earth? Could we go back? Remmy being the only survivor, would have to give the bad news to the families of his three original friends. It was a job that he knew that he had to do. They deserved closure. But Remmy still felt obligated to the people of the world we were on. He needed a weapon to destroy the Kromaggs. And with this feeling in my mind, the feeling of the old Quinn inside me, could we really settle down without taking the last chance to save him? Geiger said it was impossible, but I didn't believe him. I knew there was a chance. And at that moment, I knew that the only chance would be to find the Kromagg homeworld. They developed sliding years ago, they might have a way to split us and help this world. But how could we find it? And how did that micro-dot thing that Maggie keeps work for this other Quinn? It was supposed to work on his dimensional frequency or something, wasn't it?
Hoping that it would do me some good, I decided to try the micro-dot myself. At the very least, it would be a joy ride. I just hoped that it would work on me. So I put it on.
Within seconds I was in this weird room. In front of me were my parents. My mother and my father. I remembered the lady I met on that Seer world. Quinn's mother. They were different. I looked different too. And in the few seconds that I was there, it all seemed to click for me. Quinn was able to merge with me because of our similar dimensional signature or whatever it's called, this was my mother, the micro-dot worked for Quinn, and from what I was told about Quinn's dot ride, I got a little more information from it. I guess some of the information was already inside of me somehow, but I got a flow of numbers and stuff. It was trippy. I then realized just how many of my thoughts weren't my own in that dot world, but were actually those of the scientist guy that's subletting my body.
The numbers were clear in my head. I told them to Diana, and she programmed them into the timer in time for the next slide. (there was a lot of running and Kromagg fighting, but it's not part of the bigger story)
The world we landed on wasn't what we expected. From our previous slides, we'd come to expect an ugly wasteland on Kromagg Prime. But it wasn't that way at all. The sky was blue, the grass was… well, we were in the city, so I couldn't tell you about the grass, but I assume it was green. We were just outside of a huge building. The place looked familiar somehow, but not really.
"We've been here." Maggie said to Remmy, "The Mallorys lived here on that one world, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember. Maybe we should go up and see what we find." Remmy replied.
So we did. On the tenth floor, or around there, we came to an apartment. The sign on the door said "Mallory", so I knocked.
When he opened the door, Maggie and Remmy almost fainted.
"Colin?" Maggie asked with a smile.
"Maggie!" the Colin guy yelled, hugging Maggie and Remmy.
Then he looked at me. He stepped into the hallway, letting the door close behind him.
"You're Quinn." Colin said.
"Good guess." I replied.
I still don't know how he knew, but he did. I had heard about him before. I heard that he was Quinn's brother… my brother, I deduced. I'd heard that he was smart, but grew up on a world deprived of technology. I'd heard that he had a decent sense of humor. He must have been nervous when he saw me, cause he didn't show any of that. As he invited us in, he turned to walk through the doorway, not realizing that the door had closed. He bumped into it. As he rubbed his head, he told us that that has actually happened quite a bit.
When we got inside, I met my parents. My real parents. After all of the hugging and meeting, we settled down to business. It was nice to see them, but we would have time for chat later.
My father told me that he knew a man who might be able to split me and Quinn apart, and that we'd see him in the morning.
My mother fixed the timer for us, so we could set the time that we stayed on a world, and return to the base world of our choice at will.
Colin worked with Remmy and Maggie on the Kromagg weapon issue. He had found a weapon on this world that would lock onto and vaporize pure Kromagg DNA without causing damage to those human/magg hybrids that I'd been told about. But that should be good enough, assuming that the Humaggs could be overtaken easily.
So with al of that taken care of, and after a good night's rest, I was taken to the office of a scientist. A slider that had settled on this world to work on his equipment a little, but had found a good living working for a sliding device development lab. With the gizmos they had in there, Dad said that I might be able to be separated that day. I officially had my hopes up.
I was put to sleep while some tests were ran… run… whatever on me, but Diana (who came with me while the others worked with Colin) tells me that I wasn't taken advantage of, so I'm okay with that subject.
When I woke up, I was told that I could be split up that very day. So after a while of waiting while a bunch of science stuff was worked on, I was taken into a room that had a bunch of hi-tech looking stuff, and a chair in it. I was told to sit down, so I did. Maybe it was more of a love seat… it was pretty wide, I guess. Anyway, the scientist guys punched a few buttons, and shot this laser thing at me. I'm not too thrilled with lasers being shot at me. It never brings good. Anyway, I started to get this pain in my head. It spread through my whole body, and became unbearable. I felt like I was drifting out of my own body, like you see on all those shows about out of body experiences. I got dizzy. My vision blurred. I had this pulling feeling in my chest. I felt like I was exploding, but staying alive long enough to feel myself splatter. It was that was for almost three hours. This pain became so bad that after a while, I just stopped feeling anything. But then it was over. My body felt like it was pulsating. I could barely stay awake. But I managed to for a few more seconds. And when I looked over to the other side of the chair, I saw the twitching body of my double… Quinn.
Quinn was covered in sweat, and was somewhere between awake and asleep, but he was alive.
That was about when I passed out myself. The last words I heard were those of my double. He managed to utter two as he looked at the scientist that has split us. "Professor Arturo"

I woke up a few hours later with a splitting headache but otherwise fine. I was alone in my body, and felt like I'd just moved into a bigger house.
The next few days were spent building up strength, and learning how to function when every time I touched something, a hot pain streaked through my body. But Mr. Arturo said that that would go away.
When I got to see Quinn, he told me that he didn't have any memories since before the merging. He told me that by some freak accident, the Arturo that split us was in fact his Arturo, but I forget the details of that.
After the pain dulled and we were better, we decided that it would be best to use the Kromagg weapon as soon as possible. So we did. We made sure that we had the coordinated for Kromagg Prime in every possible form we could think of, and then we set out to use the weapon.
It was rather unfortunate for us that someone (Diana!) punched in a wrong number when setting the coordinated for the slide, so we landed on this Earth instead. But I'm betting that the weapon works.

THE END

 

Okay, here's my story. You can let me go now… and I want my pants back!

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Okay, see, I told you it was bad.

That wasn't bad. It was excellent!

Date: 08/19/2000
From: TimeFluxEMC2

That would work if they ever bring back Sliders. Its not only a great story, its an excellent idea. Oh wow, now I'm like getting alot of ideas. I gotta go write them down before I forget.

-TimeFlux
"Time is now fluctuating, have a nice day."
http://clik.to/TimeFlux

What are you talking about???

Date: 08/19/2000
From: ThomasMalthus

That story was great! Very good characterization of Mallory and excellent portrayal of sliding, and for that matter a satisfying ending to the 'Sliders' saga. I'd like to see more from you.

ThomasMalthus

Really?

Date: 08/19/2000
From: Informant

Hmm... go figure.

I guess I'll probably write another one the next time I'm that bored and decide to read through the old SIY pitches again. :-)

 

Thanks!

WhoooHoooo!!!

Date: 08/19/2000
From: dellyone

Awesome writing, Infy. I haven't read a fanfic told from Mallory's POV before. A very nice start if you decide to continue. I like the way you tied up some loose ends. Hmm... maybe they should find MacGyver, they need another scientist anyway.;-)

dellyone

Actually...

Date: 08/19/2000
From: Informant

I've been reading Sherlock Holmes stories, and I thought about doing another one from Arturo's POV. Maybe my Sliders murder mystery from SIY.
It'd be neat to do the writing with Arturo's words and stuff.

Infy!

Date: 08/20/2000
From: Yeontoo

Dear Informant,

That was superb hun! What about Colin's pov after you do Arturo's? How he got there too :)

Excellent, loved it and it was easy to read :)

Blessings,
Yeontoo

That was bad?!

Date: 08/20/2000
From: DoctorQuinn

No, I don't think so!!! I love hw it was done in first person, and by Mallory at that. You've got his character so nicely portrayed. It sounds just like his words.
~:O) I like when you write fanfics, and when you get around to it, I'll be looking forward to more.

The good doctor

You've been holding out on us, man.

Date: 08/21/2000
From: EustiSlider

Outstanding story, Infy. If this is what you consider "bad" fanfic, I'd love to see some that you consider good.

--Eusti

Excellent job! How long did it take? nt

Date: 08/22/2000
From: CaptainGalaxy

nt

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/22752
Nominated by Blinker