Previously on Sliders…

In 1996, Quinn Malory, Wade Wells, Rembrandt Brown & Professor Maximillian Arturo had slid into a world, which was still 1996, but which had rotated faster on its axis, so that the characters were the age that their counterparts on all other earths had been in 1984. The cars, the culture, and the buildings of this world were all as the Sliders had remembered them in 1984.

There Quinn had arrived just in time to watch the funeral of his younger double’s father. Quinn was 24. His double was 12. He had made the acquaintance of Heather Hanley at the funeral. She was the double of the woman who had been his Home Room teacher at the school where he had been relentlessly bullied by a child thug named Brady and his gang, until he had struck Brady with a baseball bat, leaving the boy with a limp for the rest of his life. Using the alias of Jim Hall to talk to Heather Hanley over dinner about young Quinn, Quinn had briefly courted and kissed his teacher’s double, who was only 21 in this world.

Against the advice of the other Sliders, Quinn had intervened in young Quinn’s life, training him to defend himself with martial arts until the day of the baseball bat fight. Watching from the front fence of the school, Quinn had watched young Quinn throw down the baseball bat and fight off the first two attackers, punching Brady in the chest and kicking the next bully just a little lower. All of the boys and girls who’d witnessed the incident were talking about it that day.

But time had been running out. Quinn and the others were due to slide out of that world and into another. Heather Hanley didn’t understand Jim Hall’s need to leave, just as she hadn’t understood the way he spoke of young Quinn’s future with such certainty. Yet his predictions had come true. Brady and the others had been back in school by the crucial Friday of the predicted third fight, their suspensions over. She had fallen rapidly in love with Jim, touched by his concern for young Quinn and his apparent interest in her. Jim had told her that, at young Quinn’s age, he had had a massive crush on a teacher who looked exactly like her.

Jim had said his farewell to her and then walked around the corner to step into the vortex portal opened by the timer. Heather had come running around, calling for him to wait, and seen him standing in front of the open vortex.

“My name’s not Jim,” he had called, “It’s Quinn.”

She had watched him step into the vortex and vanish, and then seen the vortex close.

Adult Quinn had gone on to visit other worlds, and helped Maggie Beckett’s people evacuate some of their population to a new world by scouting worlds with an improved timer. One of those worlds had been proportionately giant sized, with all the people giants too. They had arrived on a golf course, and not stayed long enough to meet their giant doubles, and quickly slid back to Maggie’s world.

Eventually Maggie had been widowed, and joined the Sliders and formed a relationship with Quinn, until their romance had been cut short by a sliding accident that merged Quinn with his non-identical double, until the essence of her Quinn eventually died. She never felt anything for the new Quinn, but he became a slider until they found the way to free all earths from their arch enemies the Cromags.

Now the story continues on the world that resembled the past…

Heather Hanley stood in the empty quiet street grappling with all of the things that had happened that week. She suddenly understood that this older Quinn who’d called himself Jim was in fact so close in physical resemblance to the facial features of her student Quinn, that he could well be the same person from the future. Had he come back in time to help his younger self? No. That couldn’t be possible. From what little she’d studied of time travel, it was not possible for a person to meet their younger self without causing major repercussions.

Heather thought over what Jim/Quinn had said. He had claimed to have had a crush on a teacher “who looked exactly like” her. He was not referring to her, but to someone who resembled her. She remembered theoretical papers she’d once read written by Stephen Hawking and Maximillian Arturo. Both scientists had maintained that parallel earths existed, but that there was no way to reach them. Yet this Quinn Malory had come from another earth, and was clearly older. Maybe his world was out of time phase with hers and more advanced in technology. Quinn hadn’t had to leave because of personal choice reasons. He hadn’t abandoned her. He’d been drawn back by the inevitable principles of science.

But her Quinn wasn’t. She knew now, that the boy in whom she’d taken a special interest, the gentle vulnerable, sensitive intelligent child who had been skipped two grades because of his advanced scientific intellect, would one day grow to be the image of the man she’d fallen in love with over the last week.

There was only nine years’ age difference between them, and she knew from his older double, that this boy had a crush on her, and that he would remember it vividly twelve years later, that those feelings would not fade or leave him, and that he wasn’t destined to have any other partner in the meantime.

She would help him to become that person.

In the weeks ahead, she realised that there was no more need to protect him from bullies. The whole school had quickly learned of the way Quinn had decked the two worst bullies that day on the lawn. All through high school, even in the years when she was no longer his teacher, Heather would talk to Quinn about his interest in science, and began to get his mind thinking about the possibility of exploring parallel earths. As she predicted, by his year 11 of high school, he mentioned that it would have become an important subject on his mind anyway. In fact, he had already started applying himself to the means of inventing a device which might open a portal to a parallel earth.

One day she approached him again and said, “Quinn, would you like to go for a soda with me after school? There’s some things I’ve been wanting to tell you for some time.”

Quinn accepted, and met her at a little known café, as she thought it unwise that they be seen leaving the school together. The culture was changing, and people were becoming paranoid about the possibility and ramifications of teacher/student involvements.

“Quinn,” she said, “Do you remember Jim Hall?”

“He was the best friend I ever had. I never got over his leaving,” said Quinn, “I lost him so soon after I lost Dad.”

“He had to leave,” said Heather, “I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but what I’m going to tell you will have a profound impact on your memory of everything Jim Hall did to help you. The day you stood up to those bullies, I saw Jim leave this world through a vortex, which took him to a parallel earth. He came from a parallel earth, where everyone was 12 years older than their counterparts on our earth.”

“So it’s already been proved possible?” said Quinn.

“Yes. Jim hall said something just before he left. He said his name wasn’t Jim, but Quinn.”

“Do you mean he’s an older version of me?”

“He was. I’ve never seen him again. It took me a long time to connect this, but I briefly caught a glimpse of him talking to a friend of his, presumably from that other world. The man was an older version of the science lecturer Maximillian Arturo, who teaches at the university you’re thinking of applying for when you matriculate. I believe that they worked together to invent a sliding machine. You could do it too.”

“It’s such a responsibility,” said Quinn.

“Yes, but one you’re up to. You may even do it sooner if you start thinking about it now.”

“I’ll try,” he said, “It all makes sense now: why Jim knew so much about me and why he was so keen to help. I remember that he knew all about the bullies, secrets that only they could have known. He knew their future, because he’d seen it on his own world.”

“There’s something else, Quinn. He told me that, when he was your age, he had a crush on my counterpart from his world.”

The boy was ever sharp and quick to comprehend.

“You mean that you’ve known all these years how I feel?”

“About me? Yes. I cared for you before I met the older Quinn. Then I knew you’d become this world’s version of him. You know I’m not 21 anymore. If you don’t mind the fact that there’ll always be nine years difference in our ages, I’d like so much to start seeing you.”

“On dates? Of course I don’t mind. I’ve always dreamed of it, and thought it would never be possible.”

“That’s what he said, in different words. Nobody else has touched me like you have, and I’ve already seen a glimpse of the man you’re becoming. It is possible for both of us, if we want it to be.”

“I do,” said Quinn.

“Well I am still a teacher at your school. If we’re going to start a relationship, we should do everything we can to conceal it both from other students and from the teachers.”

“And from Mom. She might not understand,” said Quinn, “Although I know she trusted the older Quinn. From remembering things she’s occasionally said about Jim Hall, I now think she suspected who he really was, but didn’t want to confuse me with the details.”

“I wonder if the other worlds out there are all out of phase with each other’s times. Maybe they’re all in phase with ours, except for his world,” said Heather.

“I don’t think they are,” said Quinn, “Remember the way they were dressed, not just Quinn but his three friends too? I met them all in his hotel room. They had different fashions, futuristic fashions. If they’d been visiting a series of worlds, they must have been dressed according to the fashion styles of those worlds. It’s just possible that ours is the only world that was 12 years out of time phase with Jim’s … Boy, it’s still so hard to think of calling him Quinn.”

“He lost his father too, and was bullied all the time. I wonder how it ended for him,” said Heather.

“I think I know,” said Quinn, “Before he started teaching me martial arts, I had been thinking of using a baseball bat on Brady. Even with my new training, I still felt scared and took the bat anyway. I don’t think you saw it that day, but I hid behind a tree with the bat, waiting for the bullies, and very nearly hit Brady, before I dropped the bat and fought back with my hands and feet. If he didn’t have an older Quinn to teach him differently, he most likely used the bat.”

“And came here 12 years later and taught you a better way,” said Heather.

“He was setting us up,” said Quinn, “He knew he couldn’t stay on our world, so he told you he was another me, so that you’d wait for me. I’m so glad you did wait for me, and that you trusted me with this today.”

They were sitting beside each other on a seat with the wall behind them. It had vinyl cushions mounted on it for comfort and they were very close to each other. Heather Hanley looked intently into Quinn’s eyes. He realised what she was waiting for him to do. He’d never known how to initiate things with girls before, and he realised now that it was because he feared a rejection in their response. This was different, because this was the girl he’d really wanted all along, and she had made her feelings so apparent at last, that he had no reason to fear.

Quinn leaned a few inches closer with his head and kissed Miss Hanley.

She put her arms around him and responded keenly.

“I wish you were already out of school, so that we could be more frequent and open about this,” she said at last, “But I know in all my heart that I’ll wait for you. At least from now on, we can do our waiting together.”

Quinn Malory finished school at the top of his class, and went to study a lengthy five year double degree of science and engineering. He did not expect to have Professor Arturo as his teacher until the fourth or fifth year. Yet he wanted to make the acquaintance now.

He talked it over with Heather, whom he was now able to date far more openly.

“I know I should see him, and show him the designs for my vortex timer device,” said Quinn, “But should I tell him that I’ve met his older self and mine, that parallel earthlings have already come here to our world years ago?”

“Do you think he shouldn’t know about that?”

“It’s not that. I just don’t see how I could convince him, and get him to take a freshman seriously, when I won’t qualify to take his classes for years.”

“I’ll go with you, if you like,” she said.

The local Professor Maximillian Arturo had done a better job of preserving his marriage than the one that the sliding Maximillian Arturo had learned about in 1996. He enjoyed teaching, and had a cheerful disposition.

One day he had a knock on his office door , and opened it to a boy and a young woman.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m Quinn Malory, a freshman here, and this is my girlfriend Heather Hanley. She has showed me your paper on the Einstein Rosen Podalski Bridge.”

“Oh that,” said the Professor, “My wife thinks it’s just a pointless theory I’m helpless to prove.”

“But you wouldn’t be,” said Quinn, “I’ve already started building a device that could cross the Bridge, into other dimensions. I don’t have the income to get all the parts I need soon enough, and I’m still learning myself. With your help I think we could get it working within a matter of months.”

“Young man, I am engaged in the somewhat demanding task of marking assignments of other students. Did you really interrupt me, expecting that I would involve myself in your flights of fancy?” said Arturo.

“Sir you must give him a chance. There are other worlds, out of time phase with ours, but parallel nonetheless. I’ve seen his older counterpart, and just briefly, I’ve seen yours,” said Heather.

“Are you sure?” asked Arturo.

“Yes. It was years ago. He had longer hair than you, and was dressed in fashion that’s only just coming in now on our world, but he was you. I watched Quinn’s older counterpart leave this world through a vortex. They’ve already done it, and you two could do it much sooner if you worked together,” said Heather.

“Well … perhaps we could have a look at what you’ve worked on so far,” said Arturo, “Where exactly do you work on it?”

“In my basement,” said Quinn, “Would you like to come there with us tonight? I’m sure Mom would set another place at the table for you to join us for dinner. Heather’s coming over anyway.”

“And just how did you two meet?” asked the Professor, who’d been curious about their ages for several minutes.

“I was his teacher at high school,” said Heather.

“And I was secretly in love with her, until my older double’s last words to Heather paved the way for us to start dating,” said Quinn.

“That makes for quite a story,” said Arturo, “And one best kept under wraps, young people. Mr Malory, I accept your invitation. I’ll bring my own file full of my old notes and theories over, and we’ll compare notes.”

By the end of the university’s final semester for the year, Quinn Malory and Maximillian Arturo had co-created a VURT (Vortex Unit Remote Control) which was far more advanced than the timer that the older Quinn had designed. This one could track wormholes, set coordinates for controlled intentional visits to specific earths, and could be activated at the time of their own choosing, rather than only when a countdown of random length reached zero. With such a device, they could come and go from any world as they chose, and would never have any trouble reaching their home world.

“I think we should make two more of them, just in case we ever get separated on another world,” said Quinn.

“How about three? I’d like to take my wife too. I’ve told her nothing about our secret endeavour, but at last I have the means to prove my theories to her,” said Arturo.

“Don’t you guys think we should test it first?” asked Heather.

“Sure, and since you got me thinking about it in the first place, you should do the honours,” said Quinn, handing Heather the VURT.

“I only catalysed the development of thoughts you’d have had on your own anyway,” said Heather, “And that only because I’d been talking to your counterpart, who knew all this ahead of us.”

She pointed the VURT into the air in Quinn’s basement, as the evening got darker, and opened their first vortex. They stepped through and found themselves pulled along like small objects in a vacuum cleaner pipe, until they emerged on the lawn of the university.

“I guess we’ve still got more work to do on it,” said Heather, “Still, the ability to teleport several miles across our own world is nothing to be sneezed at.”

“I’m not so sure that’s what we did,” said Quinn, “Look at that parked car.”

“You’re right, man!” said Arturo, “There’s no car in our world that looks like that.”

“And the number plate,” said Quinn, “It’ll be years before we’re up to that sequence.”

“You’ve done it!” said Heather, “We’re actually here on a parallel earth!”

“Well, let’s take a walk and see what else is different,” said Arturo.

They walked around, noting all the subtle differences between the new world and their own.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” said Quinn at last, “Let’s get back and make the other three units.”

When the new VURTs were built, Arturo invited Heather Hanley and Quinn Malory over for lunch one Sunday, saying that he had made friends with two other scientists. When they had finished eating, they took out their VURTS and showed them to Mrs Christina Fox Arturo. (The Slider Maximillian Arturo had married the Christina Fox of his world, until she had died of a brain aneurism at the age of 27. On one of his first sliding journeys with Quinn and the others, Max had met the Christina of another earth, to learn that she was divorcing his double for cheating on her. He had left his double a cassette recorded message in his own voice, admonishing the man to treasure what he had and repair his damaged marriage. This Christina was in better health and would not die in her youth. Yet she was still somewhat cynical about her husband’s theories of parallel worlds.

“They’re not bad,” she said, “Maybe you can bring your TVs next time you come, if ours ever breaks down.”

“They’re not TV remote controls,” said Arturo, “Although they were built to resemble one in order to avoid their detection. My dear, these are the means by which I can prove to you (and perhaps one day to the whole world) that it is possible to cross the Einstein Rosen Podalski Bridge.”

For some reason the time phase differential of this world had made it harder for the Cromags to detect. They had never gotten to this world (one of a potentially infinite number of worlds) in the years before the Sliders had defeated them. To the people of this world, dimensional travel was still just a theory advanced by the likes of Stephen Hawking and Maximillian Arturo.

“Oh come on honey, we’ve talked about this. It’s just a hypothesis,” said Christina.

Maximillian pointed his VURT at the open doorway between the dining room and the lounge room and opened a vortex.

“My dear, would you care to take a stroll through my latest hypothesis?” asked Arturo.

“I can hardly believe this,” she said, “How long does it stay open?”

“About a minute. If we miss the jump, we can just open another one,” said Quinn.

“Try it,” said Heather, “It’s fun.”

Quinn and Heather held hands and jumped into the vortex. Arturo took his wife by the hand and led her to follow suit. They emerged in an alley in the town.

“Other worlds?” said Christina.

“That was our reaction the first time too. The VURT has a geographical displacement affect too. We’ve never arrived in exactly the same location. It seems to take us within 20 kilometres of our last position on the previous world,” said Quinn.

They walked around the block and looked at a hi-fi store window, to see a television screening news about the American President.

“Why’s George Bush  so young?” asked Christina, “He’s cuter than Ronald Reagan anyway.”

“He’s the son of the counterpart of the George Bush we know. He seems to be the president in most of the worlds we’ve visited,” said Arturo, “I don’t think he’ll have interdimensional relations with you though.”

“I was just teasing. You know I’ve never agreed with adultery. Honey, it’s amazing,” said Christina, “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“Every world we’ve visited is 12 years out of phase with ours, 12 years ahead,” said Heather, “Somewhere on this very world, there are probably versions of ourselves who are 12 years older than we are.”

“I’m glad we can all come and go as we please,” said Quinn, “I’d hate to think of us caught in random vortex travelling, caught up in the wilder events of some of the stranger worlds out there.”

“Which reminds me,” said Arturo, taking a fourth VURT out of his trench coat pocket, “This is for you, Christina. I’ll teach you how to use it. Just in case anything ever happens to one of the VURTs, or we get separated, each of us can always get home with one of these. It may not drop you on our doorstep. In fact it’s most unlikely, but you won’t find it too hard to get to our place once you know how to program the coordinates of our world.”

“You’re on holidays from teaching for two or three months,” said Christina, “Maybe we could have an interdimensional vacation and make it a second honeymoon.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Maximillian, “If you young people are alright on your own, we’d like to leave now.”

“Go for it, Professor,” said Heather, and watched them vortex out of the parallel world, “I’m a teacher too, and you’re a university student. That puts both of us on holidays as well. Why don’t we see what other worlds are open to tourists from 12 years past.”

Quinn and Heather vortexed into another earth, and found themselves in a thick jungle.

“It’s the first time we haven’t come out in a spacious room, a lawn or an alley, I think,” said Quinn, “The VURT seems to position its openings away from traffic laden roads and other dangers, but it’s certainly picked an unusual place this time.”

They walked for half an hour and finally sat down in exhaustion.

They were talking, when a giant hand reached down and grasped Quinn. He looked up to see that he was being held by a woman with long dark hair. She was in her late thirties, and was gigantic in height. She brought her other hand down, picked up Heather Hanley and took them both over to a giant garden table, set them down and sat down.

They had reached the giant earth, which was one of the few other worlds either undetected or avoided by the Cromags during the invasion of 1995-1999. They had found the world quite early in the piece, but known that they could not prevail against the inhabitants. Just as a quirk of science had put young Quinn’s 1996 twelve years behind the times of the other worlds, some quirk of science had also made everyone and everything on this world gigantic. Yet none of this was known to the newer younger team of sliders composed of the Arturos, Quinn and Heather.

“Look what I’ve found in my garden,” she said.

“Are we still on earth?” asked Quinn, “Our travel device has never taken us off earth before.”

“Of course you’re on earth,” said the giantess, “And whether or not you’re going to be free depends on me.”

She was very pretty. Had he never met Heather Hanley, he could easily have fallen for her, but nobody could compete with his long standing love for Heather.

“Surely you wouldn’t kidnap us?” said Heather.

“You shouldn’t assume anything about me. I almost joined the military. I’ve always been capable and confident. If I hadn’t met my husband, and hadn’t had my heart softened by his courtship, I’d have been a very different woman indeed, and our children might never have been born. But I’ve always been able to discipline them, and you’re a lot smaller than they are.”

“I respect your position, and we didn’t mean to intrude in your garden,” said Quinn, “We actually thought we’d ended up in a jungle. There’s no way to control just exactly where the vortex dumps us on each parallel earth we visit.”

“Parallel earth? You mean like in Star Trek or that Superfriends episode “Universe of Evil?” said the giantess.

“More or less,” said Quinn, “I’m Quinn Malory, one of the two inventors of the Vortex Unit Remote Control. This is Heather Hanley, my inspiration throughout my school years and the love of my life.”

“Quinn Malory?” said the giantess, as she picked Quinn up, held him in front of her eyes and stared closely at him, “It’s incredible. You look almost as old as he did when we first met, and facially, I can’t tell the difference except for your size.”

“He?” asked Quinn, “Do I have a giant double on this world who is known to you?”

“I guess you could say that he’s known to me,” said the giantess, “My name is Mrs Maggie Malory, wife of your counterpart, formerly Maggie Beckett. Aren’t you cute?”

“Suppose you continue being the wife of his counterpart and put him down,” said Heather coldly.

“Relax, sweetie. I’m fascinated, not tempted. I love my family. It was just like looking into a tiny window to the past.”

She put Quinn back down on the table beside Heather.

“Thank you,” said Quinn.

“Sorry I was so defensive,” said Heather, “He means a lot to me.”

“As my Quinn means to me,” said Maggie, “But tell me, are there other worlds out there with people my size?”

“None that we know of. They all seem to be our size, yet their time phase coincides with your world. So the other Maggies and Quinns out there would be your age.”

(In fact the original Sliders had also visited three worlds in succession, where characters and events seemed to be more closely duplicated than usual. On one of the worlds, time flowed backwards, causing the Sliders to be mistaken for criminals and arrested for a crime, before it had happened.)

“Ages,” said Maggie, “He’s a few years younger than me, not that it would stop us.”

“It didn’t stop us either,” said Heather, “Quinn was my student at school.”

“And never was a student luckier,” he said, “Of course she fell for the adult Quinn of another world first.”

“I guess there’s no point in asking you to make me one of those devices then,” said Maggie, “I’d love to take my family on a tour of other worlds, but we’d be too big to travel safely into them without frightening people and accidentally causing property damage everywhere we went.”

“I suspect that if you’d been meant to take those journeys, your Quinn would have invented a giant VURT himself,” said Quinn, “But a family is something to treasure far more than a visit to a parallel universe.”

“I agree,” she said, “I’m sure my daughters would love to have a doll in the image of their father’s youth, and you’d keep them amused as well, Heather.”

Heather backed towards the edge of the table.

“Not much point in jumping off, is there?” asked Maggie, amused.

Quinn backed towards Heather and opened a vortex in front of him.

“Let’s go, Heather!” he said, and was about to step towards it.

From above the vortex, Maggie’s hand came down between them and the vortex opening.

“I said you were at my mercy, little ones, and you’re going to be my daughters’ dolls, whether you like it or not.”

Unseen by Maggie, Heather had placed her VURT behind her back, while standing right at the edge of the table. She had pointed her VURT towards the lawn below and opened a vortex. Now she put her free arm around Quinn’s waist and pulled him backwards off the table. They fell down into the vortex before Maggie could do anything to stop them. She reached into the vortex with her giant hand, but found the pull of its vacuum forces was hurting her arm. She yanked it free and watched the vortex close.

The other end of the vortex deposited Heather and Quinn on another world.

“That’s the first time a vortex has been opened below us and we’ve jumped into it,” said Quinn.

(The stunt had once been used by the original Sliders to escape from another world by jumping off the side of a cliff and sliding into an opening vortex.)

“We made it!” he said, “You saved us, Heather!”

He hugged her for some time, and then leaned his head back to see why she had remained so silent. She looked sad.

“Are you alright?” he asked, “We’ll never be dolls for anyone now. We’ll just have to avoid that world. I was thinking of building a new capacity into the VURTs, to enable us to tag and block the coordinates of hostile worlds we don’t want to revisit.”

“Your giant double married her,” said Heather, “There’s probably a Maggie on this world too. Are you sure about me?”

“I always have been. Besides, I don’t think her character would ever come close to yours, even if it was the character of a Maggie not corrupted by the advantage of giant size,” said Quinn, “I’ve loved you since I started high school, and that will never change. In fact I used to wonder if you were settling for me, when you really wanted the older Quinn.”

“Maybe I thought about it many times, but I set my sights on making it work with you,” she said.

“And you have. He told you he had to leave. He must not have been able to control the vortex timing like we can. Maybe he couldn’t even control which worlds they went to, but you’ve kept encouraging me to find the way to perfect it, and with Arturo, we did. We can go to any world we like, and always come back to this one. I built an extra compartment into my VURT, thinking that I’d like to take something out of it at a suitable moment on another world, and I’d like to do that now.”

He removed the lid of a small compartment on his VURT and took out an engagement ring.

“Heather Hanley, when I’ve graduated from university, will you marry me?”

“Quinn, you know I will,” she said, and they kissed.