Part 4
Rembrandt Brown tried to think of the most casual way to get a look at their timer. "Uh... say, guys, can I have a look at the timer for a minute?" Quinn barely stifled a laugh. Subtlety was never Remmy's strong suit.
Arturo looked slightly hesitant, but after a brief pause he assented with a slightly confused "Of course." Rembrandt looked the timer up and down and then showed it to Quinn. It was the Egyptian timer with the modifications that had been made on the world about to be destroyed by pulsars, the earth where the Professor had died and Maggie's home world. Quinn was completely mystified as to how this could have happened. As he pondered this, Quinn's watch alarm went off. Only thirty seconds until the slide.
"Remmy, I'd really like to finish our earlier conversation. Now." Seeing the relentless look in the young man's face, Rembrandt handed the timer to the Professor and followed him to where they had stood earlier.
Quinn's voice had a frantic tone to it. "OK, here's the situation. If Colin and Maggie aren't here in twenty seconds, we miss the slide and be stuck here for twenty-nine years or until I can build another sliding system. The obvious solution is to slide with the Professor and Wade..." he corrected himself quickly, "I mean, their doubles."
"I think I hear a but coming," Rembrandt muttered.
"But there are some problems here. What about Colin and Maggie? We can't just abandon them here!"
"They might have slid already. We don't know." Rembrandt cared as much for his fellow sliders as Quinn did, but they had to start facing facts.
"That's exactly it. We don't know." Fear and doubt entered both men's eyes as they thought over exactly what this meant for the two of them.
At that moment, as if on cue, Professor Arturo approached them. "Come and take a look at this, Quinn," he said, indicating the timer. Quinn walked over to the Professor. "The timer is picking up another wormhole, just departing from this earth."
Quinn and Rembrandt exchanged knowing glances. Quinn responded meekly, "I guess there were sliders on this earth besides us." 'Brilliant comment,' Quinn thought. 'You can tell I'm a genius.'
The Professor didn't seem to notice, though. "As the case may be, Mr. Mallory, however, this presents us with an opportunity. I suggest we follow these people. It's possible they have technology that could get us home."
"I'm not so sure," Wade remarked as she decided to put her two cents in. "Remember Logan St. Clair and the Kromaggs? It's bad enough we have to deal with villains that are native to parallel earths without facing bad guys who can follow us from world to world."
"And what about Dr. Jenson, hmm?" Arturo retorted. "He gave us the ability to store co-ordinates and track wormholes. An invaluable asset."
"But look where he ended up," Wade came back. "He and his wife both died at the hands of that murdering psycho Colonel Rickman. And don't forget we had to chase him all over the multiverse with only a burnt-out timer and a few cuts and bruises to show for it."
"Are you quite finished?" Arturo bellowed. He calmed down a little, but Wade allowed herself a small smile of victory. "Perhaps we should let the whole group decide. Gentleman, what will it be?"
"I'm all for it," Rembrandt blurted out quickly, earning him a questioning and slightly hateful glance from Quinn that was not seen by the others.
The Professor grinned and turned to Quinn. "Well, Mr. Mallory, it looks as though you are to cast the deciding vote. Yay or nay?"
Quinn didn't know what to say. Asking to talk to Rembrandt a third time would just raise suspicions. Colin or Maggie or both had probably just slid. This was their best chance of catching up with them and he knew it. There was no other choice to make.
"I agree with the Professor," Quinn said with a sigh and a resigned look at Rembrandt. "We should follow their sliding pathway, at least to discover their intents."
Wade looked exasperated. "Looks like I'm outvoted again."
"Oh, cheer up and look at the positive side of things, Miss Wells. All we have to do is meet these people, see if they might be able to help us on our way home and, as Mr. Mallory so aptly put it, discover their intents."
Wade rolled her eyes. "It's like nothing I say even matters. Why am I not surprised?" Though reluctant at first, Quinn put his arm around Wade, to show her that what she said did matter to him. He took a long look at the woman so like the one he had been forced to leave behind on that horrific Kromagg breeding camp world. 'Forced???' a usually-suppressed part of his mind attacked him with. 'You weren't forced! You deliberately left her behind. You couldn't stand to see the woman you loved hate you for what you did to her by bringing her along! Couldn't stand to be around her after Arturo's death because you knew you'd fall apart if you saw that those same feelings of grief were inside you! So you pretend like she doesn't exist, because you failed her.' With effort, he pushed these thoughts away when he noticed the Professor was saying something.
"...fit in some more sightseeing before we leave this world. Come along, Mr. Mallory, Miss Wells." Walking along, the foursome seemed to mesh once more. Quinn thought he could hear Rembrandt mutter something under his breath that he had heard in a poem once: "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world."
End Part 4
