Diary of Wade Wells

Well, what else can I say but...  it's here.  The last day of the twentieth century.  While I wish I was home celebrating this day with my family, thankfully, by the look of things, we're spending it on a world that seems normal.  Normal... that's not exactly the right word.  Let's say that this world is abnormal, but it's abnormal in the good sort of way.

We watched the news last night and saw that there is a technological revolution taking place on this world (at least, that's what Professor Arturo called it).  Apparently, it's a lot like the industrial revolution of the 1800's, except here, instead of industry growing by leaps and bounds, it's technology.  Here, they've made amazing medical breakthroughs and unbelievable advances in computing, space travel, and so many other areas that every time we turn around, we're discovering something new.  It's as if we're celebrating 2000 in some kind of utopian future.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
11:29 am

Quinn Mallory held the timer in his hand, slowly tracing the outer casing.  It was counting down to their slide which was still over a week away.  Amazing....  They'd slid their last slide of the 20th century.

The thought made Quinn sigh.  "Five years," he moaned.

Rembrandt raised an eyebrow and looked at his friend who was sitting next to him at the bar in the lobby of the Dominion.  "Hmm?"

"Five years, Remmy," Quinn said again.  "We've been sliding for five years."

"So we have," was all Rembrandt said in response.

"Are you bitter?" Quinn asked.

The question caught Rembrandt off guard.  "Bitter?  About sliding?"

"You wouldn't be doing it if it weren't for me," Quinn told him.  "You'd be celebrating the millennium back home with your friends and family, and not...  jumping from world to world like interdimensional hobos."  Quinn looked at him...

...and Rembrandt burst out laughing.  "Q-ball, you kill me."

"I what?"

"Man, this whole blame game thing you do every five or so slides," Rembrandt explained.  "I swear, I could set my watch by it."

Quinn closed the timer.  "Maybe I'm just depressed."

"Well, New Years will do that to you sometimes.  I remember back when we hit 1987, I locked myself in my dressing room and wouldn't come out for anything," Rembrandt explained.  "I'd just left the Topps.  I didn't know if I'd made the right choice, and the future just looked so uncertain."

"And you think that's what's wrong with me?" Quinn asked.

"Well," Remmy shrugged, "maybe."

Quinn allowed himself a smile.  "In sliding, the future really isn't certain, is it?"

"No," Rembrandt agreed, "but you've got to admit... it keeps life interesting."

"Quinn!" a female voice called out to him from across the room.  It belonged to Maggie who was with Wade.  The two of them had gone out to see if they had any duplicates on this world and, if they did, to see if they would be a cause for trouble.

"What'd you find out?" Quinn asked.

"No Wade Wells on this world," Wade told him.

"And no Maggie Beckett," Maggie finished.  "My dad's counterpart was killed during Vietnam on this world before I was born.  In fact, the only family member I could find was my Uncle Sam and he's involved with some project out in the desert somewhere.  Very hush-hush.  No one's even seen him for a couple of months."

"Well, there is a Quinn on this world, but he's the drummer of a garage band somewhere in Oakland called 'Kittens in a Blender,'" Quinn said, shuttering at the thought.  "I don't think we'll have any trouble from him unless he has deranged groupies or something."

"What about you, Rembrandt?" Maggie asked.  "Any evil doubles?"

"Sadly, this world was never blessed with the vocal delectations of the Cryin' Man," he told her.

"Yet the world has survived without hearing about tears in your fro.  Will miracles never cease?" said a voice from the door.

"Professor," Rembrandt began.  He opened his mouth to retort but then changed his mind.  "I'm not EVEN going to bother!"

"What about you, Professor?  Any evil Arturos hanging around in the woodwork?"  Wade grinned.

"Evil Arturos?  The very idea!" the professor scoffed.  "I've not even wasted my time searching for my duplicate when there are so many fascinating technologies on this planet to be explored.  Besides, if there is an "Evil Arturo" on this world, I seriously doubt he would choose New Years Eve to enact his plan to take over all of creation."

"I guess the turn of the millennium is just an awkward time, huh?" Wade figured. "Especially if you're an evil world conqueror."

"As I have told you before, child," Arturo said, taking a seat, "this is not the turn of the millennium.  January 1, 2001 will be the turn of the millennium because there was no year zero.  The first millennium was from 1 to 1001 and the second is from 1001 to 2001.  You cannot argue with the pure mathematics."

"But you can party like animals two years in a row," Quinn added.

Maggie smiled broadly.  "That," she said, "is the most logical argument I've heard about the whole 2000/2001 thing."

Quinn smirked.  "Just call me a--"

Quinn cut himself off as the lights in the bar suddenly grew brighter, then flickered and went out.

Wade looked around.  "I wonder what..."

The lights came back on as if nothing had happened, and the bar's other patrons looked around in confusion.

Quinn made a unconcerned grunt.  "Brownout or a power surge or something," he said.

Maggie watched as the other people in the bar talked amongst themselves, still alarmed at the strange interruption in the power.  "I don't know," Maggie replied.  "The locals seem pretty upset by it."

"Maybe they're thinkin' that whole Y2K glitch is causing it,"  Rembrandt offered.

"Yeah," Wade laughed.  "Who knows... by midnight, all of civilization may be collapsing around us."

Oddly, none of the other sliders laughed with her.

"And I thought this was going to be a quiet slide," Rembrandt groaned.
 

*****

What if there was a world where the Russians ruled America?
Or where the dinosaurs never died off?
Or where women were in control instead of men?

These worlds do exist.  Same planet, different universe.
My friends and I have found the gateway to reach them.
Now all we have to do... is find a way to get home....

SLIDERS... Infinite Slides....
Based On the Original "Sliders" TV Series
Created by Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss

*****
 

Friday
December 31, 1999
12:03 pm

"We interrupt 'Lawless' to activate the Emergency Alert System.  Stand by for an emergency message from San Francisco mayor, Pavel Kurlienko"

Mayor Kurlienko entered the press conference.  He cleared his throat and faced the camera.  "Good morning," he said in a thick Russian accent.  "At 11:34am Pacific Standard Time, a power surge cascaded across the bay area power grid.  I'm sure many of you noticed the interruption of service.  Shortly thereafter, I was contacted by Doctor Troy West at EcoPower who recommended an alert be issued.  I have complied with his recommendation and, as of 12:04pm, San Francisco and the Bay Area has now been placed under a level three alert.  Level three, if you recall, is a cautionary alert only.  Please remain calm.  The last thing I want to do is cause a panic."

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
12:27 pm

Wade was almost knocked down by a woman, dragging her two children by their arms, running out the door.  "Hey, what's going..."  The woman never said a word.  She just continued to run down the street.  "...on?" Wade finished, confused.

Wade caught a man checking out at the front desk.  "Excuse me," she said, tapping him on the shoulder.  "Can you tell me what's going on?  Everyone on the street's gone crazy.  It's like the entire city decided to panic at once."

The man looked at her as if she was the stupidest creature on Earth.  "Mayor Kurlienko put the city under a level three alert."

"And...?" Wade asked.

"And..." the man said, picking up his bag and hurrying out the door, "it's finally come!"

"What's finally come?"  Wade called to him as he rushed towards the door.

The man never stopped walking; he simply turned his head as he scurried out the glass doors.  "Zero hour!"

She cocked her head.  "Zero Hour?  So what is that," she sarcastically mumbled to herself, "some kind of sale?"

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
12:34 pm

Wade barged into the slider's hotel room.  "Guys," she began, "something weird's going--"

"Shhhhh!" the other four sliders whispered.  They were gathered around the television set.

"The mayor's put something out called a level three alert," Rembrandt whispered to her.  "We're tryin' to figure out what it means."

On the television screen, a commercial for a nicotine-free cigarette finished playing and a man in a suit appeared sitting behind a desk.

"Welcome back to 'Issues,'" the man said professionally.  "I'm Ross J. Kelley.  Today's program about the NASA Pathfinder Submersible on Europa is being pre-empted so that we can bring you continuing coverage of Mayor Kurlienko's unprecedented issuance of a Level Three Alert for the San Francisco Bay Area."  Kelley turned to a series of monitors to his left displaying the images of three people.  "Joining us live via hyper-net: Conrad Bennish Junior of EcoPower, Al Gore of the ZPEA, and San Francisco Mayor Pavel Kurlienko.  Gentlemen, thank you for joining us."

The three men answered cordially at once.

"Now," Kelley continued, "Mister Mayor, the question on everyone's mind is, of course, why the alert?  This is the first time such an alert has been issued since ZP energy came into use."

"Well, Ross," the mayor answered, "the alert was issued on the advice of Doctor Troy West of EcoPower after the power surge this morning.  It is a cautionary measure... nothing more."

"Mister Mayor, why don't you just tell the truth!" Gore suddenly spoke out.  "We've been warning you for years that this was going to happen!"

Kurlienko snorted.  "Mister Gore, please.  Just hear me out...."

"They've known for years that ZPE was dangerous and they did nothing, and now it's all going to blow up in our faces!"  Gore continued to protest.

Bennish, who was dressed in a lab coat but still sported the usual long hair and sunglasses, snorted.  "ZPE gives the Earth an unlimited power supply through natural means.  It's as safe as solar power."

"Doctor West doesn't seem to think so," Gore maintained.  "Otherwise he would have never asked for the alert to be issued!  We should evacuate and we should evacuate now... Save as many people as we can!"

"What the devil are they talking about?" Arturo grumbled.

"Doctor West does not think that San Francisco is in any danger!" Bennish shot back.

"Then why isn't he here?" Gore yelled.  "If he's so sure that there's no danger, why isn't he here talking to the public?  I'll tell you why... it's because EcoPower isn't letting him!"

"Mister Gore, you're grasping at straws," Mayor Kurlienko said calmly.

"Two years ago, the former chief scientist of EcoPower voiced concerns about Zero Point Energy, and she was promptly dismissed!"

Arturo's mouth opened in awe.  "Zero Point!"

Bennish grew angry.  "Diana Davis was a scaremonger just like you are, Gore!"

"She was telling the truth and EcoPower silenced her!" Gore argued.  "She knew that sooner or later, we were going to reach Zero Hour and now it's here!"

Kurlienko spoke firmly.  "Mister Gore, you should..."

"Now it's here!" Gore screamed.

"Well, I see we're not going to reach a suitable conclusion to this debate this afternoon," Kelly said, chuckling to himself.  "We have to take a break now, but when we come back--"

"I won't be here when you come back," Gore said.  "I'm taking my family, I'm leaving San Francisco, and I'm going to take cover.  Anyone else hearing this should do the same!"  With that, Al Gore stood and walked off camera.

Bennish thumbed in the direction of Gore's empty monitor.  "You ask me, the guy needs to look into a good laxative."

Kelly rubbed the bridge of his nose, obviously trying to ward off an oncoming headache.  "We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors."

Wade hit the mute button.  "Okay, Professor, spill it.  What are they talking about?"

"Zero Point Energy," Arturo said, still in shocked amazement.  "This entire Earth runs on Zero Point Energy!"

"You mind translating that for those of us who don't speak Star Trek?" Rembrandt asked.

Arturo seemed annoyed.  "Mr. Brown, throughout the entire universe, there is a force which binds atom to atom.  It's the glue that holds all of creation together and, until now, has been only a theoretical possibility."

"You mean Zero Point Energy?" Maggie asked, deciding against using the obvious 'duct tape' reply.

"Exactly," Arturo said, snapping his finger and pointing to her, ignoring Wade's mumble of, "Use the force, Luke."

Quinn nodded, disregarding his temptation to throw out an Obi-Wan quote himself.  This was actually serious.  "I remember hearing a theory about that once," he said.  "It was figured that if you could somehow tap into Zero Point Energy, you'd have a near-perfect power source to do whatever you want with."

"Of course, my boy," Arturo answered.  "As you can imagine, it takes a near-infinite amount of energy to keep everything in the universe from falling apart at the atoms, and if you could tap into a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of that energy, you could power an entire world until..." he thought about it, "forever and beyond!  It would be inexhaustible!"

"Okay, brainiac," Wade interrupted.  "What's this Zero Hour thing they're talking about?"

"I haven't the slightest, Miss Wells," Arturo responded.  "Back home, ZPE was just a theory and a rather unpopular one at that."

"So, should we get out of town like that Gore guy was saying?" Maggie asked.

"We should find out more," Arturo said.  "For all we know, this is nothing more than end-of-the-millennium hysteria!"

"I agree," Quinn said.  "Besides, Pavel...  I mean, the mayor said that they were just being cautious and didn't want to feed public fear."

Arturo stood.  "Speaking of feeding," he said, "I haven't had lunch.  Who's hungry?"

"I am!  I am!" Wade said, imitating a commercial she had seen once.

Maggie looked outside the window.  "Looks like the streets have calmed down," she observed.  "I guess the millennium hysteria's worn off.  I'm hungry too, let's eat."

Quinn grabbed his jacket.  "I guess the last lunch of the 20th century isn't one you should skip."

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
2:21 pm

The street was bustling with activity as the sliders made their way back from the restaurant they'd had dined at.  "Exquisite," Arturo moaned.  "Purely exquisite!  They best food I've had since we began sliding."

Rembrandt stretched and smiled, nodding.  "I guess this Zero Part Whatchamahwhozits goes a long way to helping the local cuisine too."

"So, what do you guys want to do tonight?" Quinn asked.  "Clubbing?  Dancing?  What?"

"I vote for dancing," Wade chimed in.

Maggie shook her head.  "I don't care... Whatever anyone else wants."

"I wish to sit out the final moments of 1999 in quiet reflection," Arturo said.

"Boooooooring!" Rembrandt droned.  "I say we go do kareoke...  Give this world some idea of the musical genius they don't have."

Just then, a large black van came barreling around a curb.

"Black van," Wade said.

"Speeding towards us," Maggie added.

"Going really fast," Rembrandt chimed in.

"Never a good sign," Quinn warned.

Arturo looked at them.  "Options?"

"One," Maggie answered.

Wade looked at her.  "Bolt?"

"Bingo," Quinn replied.

The five sliders turned on their heels and quickly ducked into an alley as the black van screeched to a halt and three large men wearing black clothes jumped out.  "Get him!" one of them said angrily, jabbing his finger at the fleeing sliders.

The men were incredibly fast and soon were at the slider's heels.  Wade tripped and one of the men stopped and stood over her.

And he offered her his hand.  "You okay, ma'am?" he asked, helping her to her feet.

Wade took his offer.  "Well, you're the friendliest evil goon I've met in a while."  She noticed the monogrammed emblem on the man's left arm.  "EcoPower?  I heard about you guys on the news."

"Yeah, we're popular," he answered.  "We've been trying to get a hold of Professor Arturo for over two hours.  What the hell is he running for?"

Wade blinked in confusion.  "Uh... black van, ya know... it's a habit."

The man decided not to peruse Wade's statement.  "It's important that the professor come back to EcoPower with us."

"Why?"

"We can't tell you."

"Has it got something to do with that level three alert thing?"

The man didn't have time to answer before he was tackled and pinned to the ground.  Rembrandt and Arturo looked at Wade.  "You okay, sweetheart?" Rembrandt asked.

"How'd you guys get back here so fast?" Wade asked in astonishment.

"Captain Beckett and Mr. Mallory were kind enough to divert the other mens' attention, allowing Mr. Brown and myself to come back here and rescue you," Arturo answered.

"Professor," the man said, his face pressed against the asphalt, "you mind getting off my back?"

"What do you want with us?" Arturo demanded.

"Professor," Wade interjected, "it's not what we think.  They're looking for the other you who works for EcoPower."

"The other me?" Arturo said, looking up at her.

Rembrandt shook his head.  "We told you to look and see if you had any counterparts on this world that might cause us trouble, but noooooo... you didn't have time!"

Arturo let the man up.  "Professor," he said, dusting himself off, "we've been trying to reach you for hours!"

"My dear man, I--"

"Professor," the man said forcefully.  "EcoPower is, as of this moment, on a level ONE alert!"

"So?"

"Level... ONE!"

Arturo just stared at him.

"LEVEL ONE!"

"I heard you the first time, my dear fellow," Arturo answered.  "What I'm having trouble with is what exactly a level one alert means!"

"Level one," the man said slowly, "means a catastrophic failure in the ZPE collector!"

"Define catastrophic," Arturo replied.

The man obviously couldn't believe what he was hearing, "Catastrophic.  Adjective.  Meaning really, really, really BIG explosion within the next six hours!"

The professor blinked. "Zero Point energy?"

"Professor," the man replied, "I don't have time for this.  You're supposed to know good and damned well what the consequences of a--"

The man was tackled again, held down by the combined might of Maggie Beckett and Quinn Mallory.  "You guys okay?" Quinn asked, still breathing hard from his and Maggie's run.

"We're fine," Arturo answered.  "But I think you just clobbered a friend of mine."

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
3:40 pm

The sliders decided to go along with the men who had come looking for Arturo, and they were driven to the beautiful crystal headquarters of EcoPower.  The building, made almost completely of transparent glass, was surrounded by dozens of water fountains and the greenest grass lawns any of them had ever seen.

On the way there, the sliders learned that Arturo's double was on vacation somewhere to celebrate the turn of the century and had disconnected his telephone, cell phone, e-mail, and any other means the people of this world had of contacting him.  He couldn't be found at home or any of his other usual haunts.  It was as if he'd disappeared from the face of the Earth, which was probably his intention.

It was only by pure luck that an EcoPower employee had glanced Arturo at the restaurant where he and the sliders had stopped to eat, and he'd alerted EcoPower that he'd found their missing scientist.

It was yet another case of mistaken identity that would, no doubt, lead to all sorts of hilarity and hijinks.  Trouble was, none of the sliders would likely be laughing at any of it.

The trouble at EcoPower, they learned, was far more serious than any of the media was letting on and, for the time being, they decided that Arturo should take his double's place for nothing more than the sake of information gathering.

The van rolled to a stop and the sliders got out.  Almost instantly, they were greeted by a rather frazzled, forty-something, black man in a white coat.  His name badge had "DOCTOR TROY WEST" printed on it.  "Professor Arturo, where the hell have you been?"

"I was--"

"We've got a serious feedback loop building in the generator and we don't have the slightest idea how to stop it!"

"Sir, perhaps I--"

"We've managed to keep it under wraps for now, but the media's going to break the story any minute now!"

"If you would just--"

"Who the hell are these people?"

"Ah... They are--"

"Forget it!  Obviously they already know about the situation.  Do you have any idea how we can stop the--"

"Doctor!" Arturo exploded.

West stopped and stared at him.  "Professor, interrupting a man is very rude!"

"You have not seen rude, yet!" Arturo yelled.  "Now, kindly fill me in on what exactly is going on here?"

"Professor, you know perfectly well what's is going on!" West replied.

"I am NOT Professor Arturo!  At least, I am not YOUR Professor Arturo!"

West looked at him.  "What?"

"I come from a parallel universe.  Another Earth similar to--"

"Oh," West said apathetically.  "You're a slider?"

Arturo seemed equally amazed.  "You know about sliding?"

"Yes," West replied.  "It was encountered on this world over five years ago.  We get quite a few interdimensional sliders a year as a matter of fact."

"You don't say," Quinn spoke up.

"Yes," Doctor West replied, leading them into the building.  "Just last month, a slider was spotted in West Texas."

"You say you've encountered them, have you duplicated any of their technology by any chance?" Quinn asked hopefully.

"We've tried," West answered, opening a door by giving a palm print scan.  "In fact, a lot of the attempts took place right here at EcoPower.  We were close to opening a sliding vortex, but certain parties in our government halted our research."

"Why?" Wade asked, following the group into a long hallway.

"I don't suppose you've ever heard of the Kromagg Dynasty?"

"We have," Rembrandt moaned.

"So have we," West explained.  "In fact, five out of the last twenty sliding groups that've visited this world were from Earths that'd been conquered by the Kromaggs.  My world doesn't want to risk detection."  He opened another door with a retinal scan.  "Regardless, you're not our Professor Arturo, but you're still AN Arturo and we need as many great minds as we can get.  Will you help us?"

"Not until someone gives us some kind of an idea as to what is going on here!" Arturo pleaded.

"Of course," West said as the door slid open revealing a large white room approximately the size of a football field.  In the center of the room, ringed by computers, was a large silver ball suspended in mid-air that hummed quietly.

"Whoa," Rembrandt whistled.

"Whoa indeed," West replied.

Maggie looked at the awesome sight.  "What is that?"

"A Zero Point Energy Collector," the doctor replied proudly, "siphoning power directly from the essence of the universe.  Clean, pure, and inexhaustible... and we built it."

"Amazing," Quinn whispered.

"Amazing doesn't begin to cover it," West told them.  "But unless we solve the feedback problem, all this will be a smoking crater in less than six hours."

The sliders looked at him and he nodded.  "Allow me to explain," he said.

"Yes!  Finally!" an exasperated Wade replied.

"You see," he began as he led the sliders into the gigantic room through the fifty or so scientists that worked like an army of ants around them, "back when the collector first went on line, we had a doctor go public with a theory that pulling energy off the universal plane would cause a feedback loop that would grow steadily every second that the collector was active.  She was largely ridiculed and summarily dismissed from EcoPower."

"But now you're learning that she was right," Quinn figured.

"Unfortunately, yes," the doctor concurred.  "The feedback loop has become quite large and is likely to breech the universal barrier in a matter of hours."

"Zero hour," Maggie whispered to herself.

Doctor West heard her comment and nodded.  "Zero hour."

"If the feedback loop is such a problem, why not just shut the collector down?" Rembrandt offered.

By this time, Doctor West and the sliders had reached the center of the room where the silver metal sphere hovered above a round table embedded with computers.  A strange sensation of static electricity enveloped them.  All of the sliders' hair began to stand on end.

Wade felt of her levitating hair and looked totally horrified.  "Don't worry, it's harmless...  Like an Van Graff generator," West reassured them.  "Where was I?"  He thought about that for a moment.  "Oh yes... We can't shut down the collector because the effect is cumulative, like walking across a carpet.  You eventually wear a hole in it, but the hole doesn't go away if you stop walking on it."

"But if you shut it down, won't it at least keep the feedback from growing and exploding?"  Quinn asked.

"It's not that simple," West objected.  "Right now, the collector's made a small leak in a large dam.  If we cut the collector off now, that small leak is going to keep leaking and, eventually, it's going to become a large geyser!  There is no stopping it!  It's become a hemorrhage.  Yes... I do think that analogy is more fitting.  A hemorrhage."

The sliders stared at him.  "How large of an explosion are we talking about?" Maggie asked.

"Northern California will be decimated," West answered.  "A three-hundred kilometer radius around that area will be seared.  It's going to be a nightmare unless we stop it right here and right now."

"Dam," Quinn whispered.

Rembrandt silently sighed, "Damn is right, man!"

"No... Dam!" Quinn said again.  "Doctor West said that the feedback loop is like a small leak in a large dam.  Think about it... if you've got a dam with a small leak in it, what do you do?"

"You find a little boy from Denmark to stick his finger in it," Wade sarcastically replied.

"You drain the water from the other side!" Quinn explained.  He turned to Doctor West.  "Is there a way to... I don't know... bleed off all of this extra power that's building up?  Get some of the pressure off of this dam of yours?"

West thought about that.  "It's an awful lot of energy you're talking about, and I'm not sure...  I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"Quinn Mallory."

"I didn't ask," West said, shaking his hand.  "Pleasure to meet you.  Now, I like the way you think.  That's an idea... bleed off power from the feedback loop.  We CAN access the buildup energy... but how do we get rid of it?"

Arturo glanced at one of the computer readouts.  "Doctor West," he said, bending over and staring at the screen, "what am I looking at here?"

"That's a readout of the energy buildup.  Pretty high, isn't it?"

Arturo nodded and frowned.  It was high.  Damn high.  Impossibly high.  How could it have gotten this high without their knowledge?  "If I'm not mistaken, this kind of energy could be converted into a high-energy plasma."

"It... I suppose it could.  Yes.  Yes it can!"

"Professor?  Don't keep us in suspense now," Rembrandt prompted him.

"I have no intention to, Mr. Brown," Arturo answered.  "I'm just trying to figure out how to dispose of a grotesque amount of raw energy before it destroys us all."

"You have an idea?" Quinn asked.

"I have a theory," Arturo answered.  "And it's a doozy."

"The theory of relativity was a doozy for it's time."  Doctor West glanced over his shoulder.  "You said something about high-energy plasma?"

"This is going to sound as if I have lost my mind," the professor admitted, "but have you considered simply shooting the access energy into space?"

"No," West replied.

"Why not?" Arturo inquired.

"Because this isn't science fiction," West told him.  "This is REAL LIFE!"

"Then perhaps we should work on making science fiction, science fact," the professor said.  "Mister West, I do believe that you and your colleges are too close to the problem to see the solution."

"Are we?" West asked, crossing his arms.  He seemed to be insulted.

"I assume you have radio telescopes on this world?" Arturo suddenly asked, apparently changing the subject.

Doctor West slapped his forehead.  "Can't anyone keep a simple straight line of thought!?  Yes, professor, we have radio telescopes!"

"Any near San Francisco?"

"There's one in the Sierras," he answered.  "About... oh, I don't know... a hundred or so kilometers away."

"And it's powered by the collector?"

"If it's in North America, it's powered by the..."  Doctor West suddenly stopped talking and his eyes went wide.  "Oh... my... God...."

"What?  What is it?" Wade asked.

"Oh my god!  Oh my God!  Oh my God!"   West continued slapping his forehead again.  "It's... it's going to take a little time," he continued. "A... uh... few modifications are going to have to be made but... yes... yes... it just might work!"

He grabbed a passing scientist by the coat lapel.  "Johnson... get Myrick, Bates, and Hiller and drive to the Loma Preata Radio Telescope.  I'll give you instructions via cell phone on the way.  Don't ask questions, just go!"

Johnson nodded nervously and ran to find his colleagues.

"Wait!" Maggie angrily yelled.  Johnson stopped and looked at her.  "Not you," she spat at Johnson before turning to Quinn, West, and Arturo.  "What the hell is going on?"

"Simple," West told her.  "We're taking all of the excess energy, we're diverting it to the telescope, we're going to covert it to a high energy plasma, and we're going to shoot it all out into space.  Understand?"

"Yeah," Wade replied.  "We've just turned the Earth into the Death Star."

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
4:57 pm

Wade had noticed that the hum from the floating sphere had become louder and louder over the last couple of hours as if it was trying to bore into her brain.  She didn't even like standing around the damned thing anymore.  Her hair stood straight up now no matter where in the room she stood.  She felt ridiculous and looked ridiculous.  Quinn, Maggie, Arturo, Doctor West, and all of the other occupants of the room were having the same bad hair day also, but they were too busy to notice.  Wade, on the other hand, had nothing to do and nothing to contribute, so she could feel as vain as she wanted.

At the telescope, Johnson and his team made the necessary adjustments to the equipment.  This radical procedure would no doubt ruin the multi-billion dollar array, melting circuits and possibly burning the outer shell of the dish, but the fate of the city seemed a little more important at the moment.

Doctor Troy West walked back and forth though the large room, talking into a cellular phone, asking the same question every two minutes.

"Are you ready yet?  Are you ready yet?  Are you ready yet?"

Finally, Johnson gave him a reply of "yes" and Doctor West gave the go-ahead to re-route the excess energy to the telescope.  He gave Johnson and his team time to get at least five miles away before he entered the appropriate commands to the computer.

Across Northern California, the power grid came to life, routing and re-routing sums of energy that it was never designed to handle.  Across San Francisco, lightbulbs burned brighter and fuses burned out.  The smell of melting plastic filled many homes and businesses, prompting several calls to the fire department.

Against the odds, the power grid held.  It was a good thing that the engineers who designed it were staunch conservatives.

But it was at the Loma Preata Radio Telescope where the excess energy met the end of its journey.  As Johnson and his team watched in amazement, a column of white-hot plasma erupted into the sky.  Even from the scientists' vantage point five miles away, they could feel the heat on their faces.  Off in the distance, gigantic oak trees wilted under the tremendous heat given off from the bleed.  Johnson couldn't even look at the plasma beam directly, it was so bright.

Back in the lab, Doctor West smiled broadly at the results scrolling across his computer.  "Brilliant," he said.

"Thank you," Arturo replied.

"I mean the bleed," West added.  "It's so brilliant that it's going to blind anyone who looks directly into it - sort of like someone who's arc welding.  We should issue an advisory.  I'd hate for some dumb ten-year-old to burn his retinas out."  He watched the results scroll across his computer for a few more seconds before looking up again.

Arturo was there glaring at him.

"Oh," West said.  "Of course, your solution was brilliant also, Professor Arturo."

The professor didn't seem satisfied and that only made Doctor West more nervous.  "Professor, we couldn't have done it without you.  It was your guidance that saved our hides.  Thank you.  Thank you from the deepest, darkest, bottoms of our hearts.  Thank you!"

"Better," the professor grunted.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
5:22 pm

"I'm sure that many of you have noticed the huge beam of light coming from the Southeast," Conrad Bennish Junior explained to millions of viewers via television.  "Well, I'm here to tell you that it's nothing to worry about. Nothing at all!"

The host, Ross J. Kelly, regarded him thoughtfully.  "Then what is it?  Does it have something to do with that power surge this morning or the level three alert?"

"Nothing at all," Bennish reassured him.  "It's just a little way that EcoPower is celebrating the new millennium!  That's it!  It's... sort of a surprise fireworks show.  Sort of."

"Rather unpublicized, isn't it?" Kelley observed.

Bennish snorted.  "It wouldn't have been much of a surprise if we'd told everyone about it, now would it?"

"I suppose not," Kelley admitted.

Bennish sat back in his chair.  "Right."

"Right," Kelley replied.

"Right."

Kelley gave up.  "Well, we'll be going live to Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years in Times Square, New York right after these messages."

-----

The rock band, "Kittens in a Blender," watched as Dick Clark's New Years show began to play on the television set.

"Dudes," the drummer, Quinn "Q" Mallory, spoke up, rubbing his tattooed bare arms.  "Wouldn't it be cool if, like, we played Dick Clark's New Years Show next year?"

Jason Donner glanced over at him and downed what was left of his beer.  "Yeah, man...  That'd rock."  He sat there for a second.  "Q-man, you know what we oughta do?"

"What's that?"

"You know that beam of light that Bennish guy was talking about?"

"Yeah?"

"Well," Donner continued, "the way I see it, EcoPower's throwin' some big party up there."

"Uh-huh," Q answered, tousling his shoulder-length hair with his drumsticks.

"And it's, like, a surprise millennium party, right?"

"Right."

"So," Donner said, standing up and grabbing his guitar, "the way I see it, they ain't gonna have a band up there!"

Q rose to his feet, happily chewing on his gum.  "They're going to need a band!  We could be that band!"

"This could be our big break, Q!"

Q grabbed the telephone.  "I'll call Wing and Daelin; you get the stuff loaded into the station wagon!"

Donner grinned.  "I'm, like, twelve steps ahead of you!  Just let me call my mom for some gas money."

Within a half hour, Quinn Mallory, Jason Donner, Daelin Richards, and Trevor Wing - the rock band known as "Kittens in a Blender" - were on their way to the bright beam of light and what they were sure to be the concert that'd make their careers.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
6:13 pm

"This... is not a welcome turn of events," Doctor West said, looking over the latest data.  He handed the print-out to Quinn and Arturo.

Quinn frowned and muttered an expletive that took Wade by surprise, so much so that she slapped him on the back of his arm.  "Excuse my French," he apologized.

"Quinn actually speaks almost fluent French," commented Maggie, earning her an evil glare from Quinn, and getting him one twice as bad from Wade.

"She meant actual French," he started to explain.  "You see, we..."

"I may mutter a few choice French phrases myself before this night is over, Mr. Mallory," Arturo interrupted, looking over the data.  "That is, of course, if we survive that long."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rembrandt asked, not sure if he really wanted to know what is was supposed to mean.

"The bleed isn't working fast enough," Quinn told them.  "All we've done is postpone the blast."

"What went wrong?" Maggie asked them.

Arturo glared at Doctor West and then back at the sliders.  "Someone whom I will not mention - but he's a doctor we've met recently during the past couple of hours - miscalculated the amount of energy in the feedback loop."

"I misplaced a decimal," West admitted, blushing.  "I always do that."

"Needless to say, the energy in the feedback loop was greater than we thought," Quinn interrupted.

"And," Arturo added, "it's still going to blow in about six hours."

"Oh, hey... That'll be around midnight.  Happy New Years," Rembrandt sarcastically said.

"This is nothing to worry about," West reassured them.  "There's another radio telescope in Oregon that Johnson is on his way to."  A passing scientist handed West another printout which he mumbled a thank you for.  "We'll modify it just like we did to the Loma Preata array and we'll just start another bleed.  There's nothing to worry abo--"  He looked at the printout and stopped dead.  "Oh dear."

"Oh dear?" Wade repeated.  "That doesn't sound good."

Arturo snatched the paper away from him and read it over.  "Good God," he whispered.

"What?" Maggie asked.

"The feedback loop," Arturo whispered.  "The energy in it is... well, it's not only high but it's... impossible!"

"Impossible how?" Quinn asked.

Arturo looked at him.  "Impossible as in... impossible to stop in six hours!  There's so much energy in the loop that we couldn't bleed it off in six years!"

"That much?" Rembrandt asked.

"That much," Arturo told him.

"Okay," Wade stated, looking right at Doctor West.  "It's time you did what you should have done this morning!  You get on the phone, call the governor, and get him to evacuate as many people as he--"

"It wouldn't matter," West replied.

Wade was astonished.  "If you ask me, every person who manages to get away WOULD matter!"

"No," West said, clarifying himself.  "I mean, it wouldn't matter if they evacuated.  There's no where they could go... not with energy levels this high."

Rembrandt shifted uncomfortably.  "Well, don't sugarcoat it, Doc, tell us what's going on.  How big is the explosion going to be, exactly?"

West looked at him with a stone-cold expression on his face.  "Big," he said.  "I mean, this is going to be the second largest explosion in the total history of the universe!  The first being the Big Bang, of course.  This explosion will not only vaporize Northern California, but a lot... lot more!"

"Define a lot, lot more!" Maggie demanded.  She was getting impatient with this guy.

"Captain Beckett," West said.  "You have to understand that the energy we've been tapping into is infinite and ancient.  It permeates everything and anything and we've been letting it leak and build up in our universe for over five years.  Let's just say that the leak was one/trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth percent.  Do you know how much power is in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of infinity?"

"A lot of power?" Maggie answered.

West nodded.  "An awful big fat lot of power.  More than we thought.  A lot, lot more than we thought."

Wade stepped forward and spoke slowly, wanting nothing more than a straight answer. "How big will the explosion be?"

Doctor West sank into a chair. "In six hours," he explained, "the solar system is going to be a ever-expanding cloud of dust about two light years in diameter."

Wade grew pale.  "The explosion is going to destroy the solar system?  The whole solar system?"

"Like I said," West restated, "It's a lot, lot more energy than we thought.  The Earth, the moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, and even the sun will be destroyed when the feedback loop overloads."

"What can we do?"  Maggie asked.

"The only thing we can do," Arturo replied with an odd grin on his face.  "Kiss Uranus good-bye."

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
6:59 pm

Daelin Richards, the tambourine girl for the rock band "Kittens in a Blender," wasn't happy to be heading out into the middle of nowhere, especially on New Years Eve, and especially New Years Eve, 1999.  "Q-man, this is a stupid idea!" she whined.

Q kept driving, but turned his entire body around in his seat to face her.  Donner quickly grabbed the wheel to keep the station wagon from veering into oncoming traffic.  "Daelin," Q began, adjusting his orange-tinted shades, "EcoPower's throwin' a huge party out there!  This could be our big break, sweetie!"

Suddenly, Wing spoke up.  "Quinn, I'm leaving the band."

"What the hell you mean you're leaving the band?" Q exploded.  "You're the best bass player in San Francisco, man!"

"Yeah," Wing began, "but I've got this job, see?"

"Job?" Quinn scoffed.  "Music is your job, man!"

"Yeah, but I need a job that PAYS, Quinn," Wing reasoned with him.  "I can't keep askin' my old man for cash to pay the rent every month!"

"Sure you can," Donner told him.  "I do!  You're not saying you're better than I am, are you?  Screw you then, you bastard!"

"I'm not saying that," Wing replied.

Daelin sighed.  "If Wing's out of the band, I'm out."

Q looked at Donner, then at Wing, then back at Donner, and then at Daelin.  "You'd leave us too, baby doll?"

"Yeah," she said, popping her gum.

"Why?"

She shrugged.  "Dunno.  I just wanna."

Q sank back into the driver's seat and took the wheel from Donner.  "So, this is it, then?  This is Kittens in a Blender's last ride?"

"Yep," replied Wing.

"Pretty much," Daelin added.

Quinn looked at Donner.  "And what about you?  You leaving the band too?"

Donner opened his mouth to reply but Quinn interrupted.  "You guys wanna leave?  Fine!  Leave!  I don't care!  But, before you do... just give me one last chance to get us a big break!"

Daelin rolled her eyes.  "Fine, Q, you got one last chance and this is it.  Get us into the big-time tonight, or Wing and I are walking!"

"Fine!" Q shouted.

"Fine!" Daelin shot back.

"Fine!" Q said again.

"Fine!" Wing felt compelled to say.

"Fine!" Donner said.

"Fine!" Q grunted.

"Where the hell are we going again?" Wing asked.

"I don't know," Q admitted.  "I'm just following the big beam of light!"

"Q-man," Donner spoke up.  "You don't think Wing's better than me, do you?"

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
7:33 pm

Doctor West stood alone in the large room.  An hour ago, he told all of the other scientists that they should go home and spend whatever little time they had left with their families and loved ones.  Not half and hour ago, he called the mayor of San Francisco who had, in turn, called the governor who had, in turn, called the President with the news that the world was going to be blown apart in about four hours.  Now, silently, he sank into his chair near the giant metal sphere and put his head in his hands.  Then he chuckled to himself and spoke.

"I have become Shiva," he said, "destroyer of worlds."

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
7:45 pm

"We interrupt 'Cop Rock: Special Victims Unit' to bring you an urgent message from the President of the United States."

President Ross Perot sat at his desk in the Oval Office.  "People of the United States," he addressed the country. "Ten minutes ago, I spoke to the leaders of ten different nations.  What I told them, I am about to tell you.  As you know, most of our power comes from a source called Zero Point energy...."

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
7:57 pm

The streets of San Francisco had erupted in panic.  Millions who had been on their way to New Years parties all raced home at once to be with their families.  Amazingly, looting was at a minimum since most would-be looters figured that it wouldn't do much good to steal anything if they were all going to be dead in a few hours.

Churches in all corners of the city filled with people seeking answers or consolation... anything... anything to come to grips with the end of the world.

And somewhere among the disorder, one technician in a computer lab had no choice but to laugh at the irony of the whole situation.  At least now, he didn't have to worry about fixing that stupid Y2K computer glitch.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
8:12 pm

Troy West had no family.  The only thing that ever brought him joy was his work.  At the time, it seemed like a nice and orderly way to live a life.

How funny that now, at the end, he was finally beginning to realize what a sad little life he led.

Now, all he had was an empty lab and a humming sphere that was about to blow all of humanity to kingdom come and back again.  It was all he had to show for forty years of work.

Now, there was no hope.  All he had to do now was wait.  Wait for the explosion to take him and put him out of his misery.  If only he had listened to Doctor Davis when he had the chance.  If only he'd detected the hemorrhage sooner.  He had so many regrets but no options.  It was too late to fix anything.  There wasn't a way out of this one.

He felt a hand on his shoulder that twirled his stool around.  It was Quinn Mallory, Maggie Beckett, Wade Wells, Rembrandt Brown, and Max Arturo.  "We've got a way out of this one," Arturo told him.

West was instantly interested.  "A way out?  I thought your slide window didn't open up for another week."

"It doesn't," Wade told him.  "But we're not talking about sliding away from the collector.  We're talking about sliding the collector away from us."

"What?" West replied.

"You said it yourself," Quinn told him. "You researched sliding here until the government pulled the plug.  If you've still got the equipment here, maybe we can put together a sliding accelerator and slide the collector off the planet!"

"Slide... the ZPE Collector?" West repeated.  His eyes went wide and a smile crossed his dark face.  "Slide the ZPE Collector!?  You want...  to slide the...!?"

"Give him a moment, I'm sure he'll get it," Maggie whispered.

Quinn took him by the shoulders.  "Will it work?"

"It'll..." West had to think about it. "It'll...  cut power to most of the planet, but yeah... Yeah... It'll work!"

"Then take us to where the sliding equipment is," Maggie ordered.  She was becoming impatient with the scatter-brained doctor.  "Now!"

Doctor West leapt to his feet and marched to a door on the far side of the room.  He entered a five-digit code into a key pad and the door slid open.  West reached inside and flipped a switch, filling the room with light.

It was a small closet and there, on the floor and shelves, was a sliding accelerator...

...in at least five hundred really tiny pieces.

West smiled at the sliders, looked at the dismantled unit, looked back at the sliders, frowned, and then looked back into the closet.  "Oh," was all he said.

"Oh!?"  Quinn looked at the components with wide eyes as the color faded from his cheeks.  "What... did... you... do... to... it?"

"I forgot," West revealed.  "We... dismantled it.  But, hey, we've got time to put it back together, don't we?"

Quinn stared at him in disbelief.  "It took me a week to get my sliding accelerator put together once I had all the parts, and it took me months after that to get it working!"

"Quinn, calm down," Rembrandt said calmly.  "We've still got four hours."

"With just the professor, myself, and Doctor Dolittle here, it might as well be four seconds!"

"Quinn!" Arturo shouted, prompting a second or two of silence while the echoes of his shout dissipated in the abandoned lab.  "I am not going to, nor am I willing to, sit around feeling sorry for myself for the next four hours while I wait for the dark angel of death to descend on me!  Now, we've found a way to save this world and ourselves and I'll be damned if I don't take the only avenue of opportunity that has been handed to us."  He seemed to tower over him.  "Grow up!"

And, with that, the professor picked up an armload of components and marched back into the lab.  "Come along, Doctor!"

"What?  Oh!"  West bent down, grabbed a box full of circuitry and followed the professor.

"It's impossible," Quinn told the others.

"Look," Wade whispered to him, "if sliding has taught me anything, it's that nothing is impossible."

Wade walked into the closet and tried to pick up a doughnut-shaped piece of equipment.  When she found out it was too heavy Maggie walked over and the two of them carried it off together.

"Rembrandt," Quinn said as Maggie and Wade marched past them, "The three of us can't put this thing together in four hours!"

Rembrandt motioned to all of the sliders in the lab.  "What about the six of us?"

"You guys don't know how!"

"We can be taught," Rembrandt firmly said.  "We're not as useless as we look.  I'm with the others.  Now, either help us or get the hell out of the way!"

"Four hours," Quinn said again.

Rembrandt handed him a box of sliding components.  "Gotta have faith, man.  If not in yourself then the people you love."

"But," Quinn began.  At that moment, he seemed lost.

"Quinn," Remmy began, "I know you've been down lately and I'm sorry, but don't drag us down with you.  Believe it or not, I was in your shoes back in '87... the future just seemed so dark and ominous that I retreated into a dressing room and didn't want to come out."

"What'd you do?" Quinn asked almost silently.

Rembrandt put a friendly hand on his shoulder.  "I decided to take control of my own future and not let doubt lead the way."  Rembrandt stood.  "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go learn how to put together a sliding... thing."

Quinn looked at the box in his hands and then back at his companions who were hard at work already.  All his regrets about getting them into this whole sliding fiasco five years ago dissipated and he was filled with hope again.

"No," he said to the others.  They stopped and looked at him.  "Don't put the electromagnet in the casing like that.  Make sure the poles are positioned correctly."

With that, he and the others went to work.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
10:43 pm

"I see cameras!" Donner announced.  "Media, media, media!"

Sure enough, on the side of the road, there was a SFN van parked with two men filming the brilliant beam of light in the distance.  The road was blocked off by the police.

Q jumped out of the station wagon and marveled at how hot it seemed to be.  Almost as if the beam of light was heating up the night air.  "Yo, news dudes!"

The cameraman and the reporter nodded in his direction as he walked right up to the police guarding the roadblock.

"Guys, we've got to get to the party," Q told them.

The police looked at him as if he was crazy (which wasn't far from the truth).  "Son, I don't think you understand what's going on over there."

"Of course I know," he said.  "Everybody's talking about it!"

"I know they are," the policeman said.  "But we can't let you up there."

"But we HAVE to get up there!"

"Sorry, kid, but we can't let anyone up there!"

"BUT... I promised the band!"

"Oh," the policeman said sarcastically, "well, if you promised!"

Quinn looked hopeful.

The policeman rolled his eyes.  "Idiot."

"But..."

"No," the policeman shouted.  "Now get out of here before we shoot you!"

Q took a couple of steps back.  From the station wagon, Donner, Daelin, and Wing looked on.

"Can they do that?" Donner asked, popping a couple of M&M's into his mouth.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
11:22 pm

Quinn was nothing short of amazed.  The accelerator was just minutes from being put back together and, under the supervision and help of Professor Arturo and Doctor West, Maggie and Rembrandt were more than pulling their share of the workload.

Quinn, on the other hand, had other matters to address and, with the timer flipped open, he examined interdimesional coordinates.  "Too bad we lost the coordinates from the old timer," he told Wade.  "Then we could have just sent the collector to the coordinates of Maggie's old homeworld, and we could be sure that we wouldn't be hurting anybody."

"What about that world we came across a couple of months ago?" Wade asked.  "You remember?  Dead world?"

Quinn thought about it and remembered.  Dead world... probably one of the most horrible worlds they'd happened upon since they started sliding.  All over the streets of San Francisco, skeletons littered the sidewalks... they were even at the wheels of cars where they had died.

Near as any of the sliders could figure, that world had been exposed to a deadly biological weapon from Iraq that had not only killed everyone and everything in the United States, but everyone and everything in the entire world.  People, animals, plants, and even soil bacteria... all gone.  The entire world was a giant graveyard and had been that way for over fifteen years before the sliders arrived.

Professor Arturo brought up the possibility that they were all infected with the agent, but after a few gut-wrenching days, they figured that if they were, they would have been dead before they hit the ground from the wormhole considering how quickly the world-wide population had died.

In the end, fifteen years prior, the deadly bacteria had done it's grisly work and, with nothing else to destroy, it destroyed itself, leaving the Earth barren and sterile.  Professor Arturo theorized that nothing would ever grown there again... at least not for the next 50 million years.. the approximate time it would take for simple single-celled organisms to evolve again.

Upon realizing that they were not going to die, Quinn and the others went through the city destroying all records of the biological weapon so that it wouldn't fall into any other slider's hands - particularly, the Kromagg Dynasty who would no doubt use the weapon on hundreds on unsuspecting human worlds.

Sliding the collector to Dead World was perfect.  In fact, it was a way to kill two birds with one stone.

"Dead World it is," Quinn said, calling up the coordinates and downloading them into the CPU of the accelerator.  "It's done.  Now all we have to do is test the accelerator."

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
11:36 pm

"Bullcrap!" Q screamed at the top of his lungs.  "You can't keep us from getting up there!  What do you think we are, stupid?"

"Yes," the officer said without pause.  "Pretty stupid... or stoned, we can't make up our minds."

Q stared at the policeman angrily.  Finally, he turned on his heels and marched back to the station wagon where the rest of the band was waiting on him.

"Can we go home now, please?" Daelin whined.

"Nuh-uh," Q grumbled.  "This is one New Years party that 'Kittens in a Blender' is going to crash!  You mark my words!"

Wing rolled his eyes.  "Holy god, we've made Captain Ahab our drummer!"

Quinn smirked.  "Yeah... Give me a can of spinach and let me punch our way through that roadblock.  Too bad it ain't that easy."

"I said, Ahab!  Not Popeye," Wing quipped.  "...Jerk."

"Then who the hell is Ahab?" Quinn wondered.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
11:46 pm

Troy West frantically tightened a bolt on the accelerator.  "Almost... Almost... Got it!"  He threw the wrench to the side and grabbed the power cord.  He went to plug it into the wall, but only got a few feet before he ran out of cord.  "It... It's not going to reach the wall!  What do we do!?"

"Use an extension cord, you blithering ninny!" Arturo shouted.  The ZPE Collector was humming louder than ever and every now and then, it would spit out arches of electricity that danced above them like talented lighting.

"Right," West gasped, running for the closet.

Wade was getting more and more apprehensive.  "How much time do we have left?"

"Not much," Quinn admitted.  "A few minutes, maybe."

"Quinn," she said, "in case we don't make it... I want you to know that I--"

"I've got it!" West said, running up to them with a tangle orange cord around him.

Quinn quickly went over and helped untangle him.  And Wade, interrupted once again from telling Quinn her true feelings, suddenly became certain they were going to survive.  That's how it always seemed to go.

Quinn ran the cord to the wall and plugged it in.  "Done!"

"All right," Arturo said as another crackle of electricity snapped over head.  "Normally, I would suggest that we test the accelerator first... but, under the circumstances, I recommend that we simply cross our fingers."  He looked at Quinn.  "Ready, my boy?"

"Ready," he answered.

Arturo took in a deep breath.  "Here goes nothing."

"Actually, since we're sliding the collector, we should say here goes something!" West remarked.

Arturo stared at him.

West never changed his expression.  "It was a joke."

"Funny," Arturo replied as he readied the switch.  "God and ministers of grace defend us."

And then he turned the accelerator on.

And then the lab went dark except for the glow of the monitors around the sphere and the sphere itself which was glowing in a white light and popping with bolts of energy.

The professor looked around.  "What the hell?"

"I think we just blew a fuse," West gasped, "or something."

"No power," Quinn whispered to himself.

The sphere began to glow more brightly and an arc of electricity struck the ceiling, raining sparks down on all of them.

"What do we do now?"  Maggie yelled over the deafening hum.

"We..." Doctor West stammered, "...blow up!"

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
11:50 pm

Q drove the station wagon a hundred feet down the road and then turned around.

"Quinn?" Wing said.  "What are you doing?"

Q then stepped on the gas and gunned it for the roadblock.

"Q!?  Q!?" Donner screamed.

The police jumped out of the way as the station wagon barreled through the roadblock and sped down the road towards the beam of light.

"Ha!  What did I tell you!?" Quinn yelled triumphantly.  "We're going to this party!"

"I'm hot," Daelin remarked.

Donner smiled and looked at her.

"Not like that, you perv!" she spat at him.  "I mean... it's really getting hot in here!"

Suddenly, there was loud bang and the car began to swerve madly down the road.  Then, another bang... and another... and then a forth.

"What out for that treeeeeeee!" Don, Daelin, and Wing screamed.

Q couldn't resist but to cry out like Tarzan before the station wagon became twisted around the tree like a pretzel.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
11:55 pm

The sphere crackled violently with energy and the hum was so loud the sliders felt as if their ears would explode.

Doctor West looked as though he had finally lost it.  "Damned over-glorified ball of metal!" he screamed.  "I hate this thing!  I hate this job!  I hate..." he looked around, "...this chair!  I hate this chair!"

West grabbed the chair and threw it at the collector.  It stuck to the sphere and began to melt.  "There!" West yelled.  "Take that!  You like that?  There's more where that came from, bitch!"

Quinn yanked the plug out of the wall and looked at it, formulating a plan.

"What's the deal?" Rembrandt asked.

Quinn didn't answer.  Instead, he looped the plug around another metal chair and held it above he head.

"Quinn, what the hell are you doing?"  Maggie screamed.

Quinn jumped up onto the computer console, dangerously close to the electrified sphere.  "I'm taking control of the future!" he answered her.

Then he threw the chair at the sphere and was thrown backwards by the large blast of energy, landing very unceremoniously on the floor and falling still.

The accelerator, now powered by the raw energy enveloping the collector itself, came to life and, within seconds, a large wormhole opened under the sphere which began to sink into the vortex.

The wormhole continued to grow.  Maggie grabbed Doctor West by the arm and pulled him away from the gaping maw.  "Move back, move back, move back!"

The collector fell a little further and became temporarily hung in the mouth of the hole.  After a few more seconds, it finally disappeared into the wormhole and out of existence.

As Wade put her head to Quinn's chest and realized that he wasn't breathing, the entire room plunged into darkness... cut from it's only power source.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
11:57 pm

On the world once known by another name, but was now only known as Dead World, a wormhole opened in a dusty old laboratory where fifty or so skeletons in white lab coats littered the floor.  A dozen or so computers crashed to the ground followed by a large platform and metal sphere which, with a loud clang, rolled until it came to rest against a wall, filling the long-silent lab with a loud hum.

The wormhole snapped shut, but the lab was still bathed in a strange blue light... a light given off from the collector.

That's the way it stood for a few moments until, finally, the hemorrhage reached critical mass and all of the energy that had been built up over the years finally escaped.

.045 seconds later, Northern California was gone.

1.2 seconds later, the Earth was destroyed.

In 4 seconds, the explosion enveloped the moon.

Within 37 seconds, Venus and Mars were blasted into atoms.

One minute later, Jupiter, Mercury, and, most amazingly, the sun were incinerated.  Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus followed suit.

The small frigid planet of Pluto and it's moon Charon survived, though they would spend the next billions upon billions of years tumbling out of control, their surfaces melted and then re-frozen.  Eventually, Pluto was captured by the gravitational pull of the star L726-8 and became that system's fourth planet.  Charon, on the other hand, continued to drift through space never to orbit a star again.  After an eternity, it floated out of the Milky Way Galaxy and was lost to the vast empty expanse forever.

The solar system became a super-hot cloud of dust.  Within a million years, the dust coalesced into the center.

Ten million years later, an infant star ignited.

Twenty million years later, small rocky planets formed in clumsy orbits.

A billion years later, the third planet (it was just slightly smaller than the one that occupied it's orbit an eternity ago) formed liquid water seas, and out of those seas came life.

Ironically, it was billions of years after that, that the dominate life form on that new world tapped into the infinite source of power known as Zero Point Energy and, after a few years, destroyed the solar system again.

But, as it did before, the system coalesced and started anew.  If fate was kind, it would get it right this time.

-----

Friday
December 31, 1999
11:58 pm

Wade had been doing CPR on Quinn for a few seconds when Arturo raced over to help her.  She held his nose and opened his mouth and blew air into his lungs.

Arturo pushed up and down on his chest, trying to get his heart pumping again.  "One, two, three, four, five.  Breathe!"

Wade blew air into Quinn's lungs again.  "Go, professor!"

"One!  Two!  Three!  Four!  Five!  Breathe!"

Wade did it again and, when she tried to get up to tell the professor to go, she found that she couldn't straighten up.

"Is he going to be all right?" West asked.

Quinn had his hand on the back of her neck and was kissing her.

Maggie and Rembrandt looked at each other and smiled.  "He'll be fine," Rembrandt laughed.

Quinn finally released her and the two looked at each other.  "That was an incredibly stupid thing you just did," Wade scolded him.

"I saw it on Baywatch once and I couldn't resist," Quinn admitted with a sly grin on his face.

Wade smiled back.  "I meant what you did with the collector and the chair and stuff...."

"So... what about that other thing?" Quinn queried.  "Would it help if I changed that Baywatch comment to 'Happy New Year'?"

Wade patted him on the cheek.  "Let me think about it."

-----

Doctor West and the sliders walked outside into the night air.  "What's that noise?" Maggie asked.

The other listened.  "Sounds like singing," West replied.
"Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind.
Should old acquaintance be forgot in days of Auld Lang Syne."

The singing... thousands of thousands of voices joined in union, was coming from the darkened city of San Francisco.  All those people... singing and celebrating the fact that life would go on.

Rembrandt checked his watch.  "It's 12:01," he told them, "2000..."

"We've got a future thanks to all of you," West proclaimed.

"Yeah," Quinn said, taking a seat on the front steps of the EcoPower building.

"I was just paraphrasing you, of course," West said.  "You know, you said you were taking control of the future."

"Well, I meant personally," Quinn admitted.

Wade sat next to him.  "What do you mean?"

Quinn shifted uncomfortably.  "The past few days, I've been depressed.  I didn't know why until today... It's all the New Year."

"The new year?"  Maggie repeated.

"I thought it had to do with you getting shot a week ago," mused Rembrandt.

Quinn shook his head.  "I guess I've been... lost, in a way," he explained.  "You know, I looked at my future and I didn't see anything."

Rembrandt nodded.  "But you don't feel that way anymore?"

Quinn shook his head again.  "No, I realized... that the future is mine to make it.  I'm going to take control of it."

"Good philosophy, my boy," Arturo grinned.  "And what do you see in your future now?"

"Well," Quinn said, rubbing his sore chest, "first I'm going to take a dozen aspirin and sleep for a week... then... I'm going to keep sliding until I find a way home."

"Good plan, Quinn," Wade said, leaning up against him.  "Good plan."

-----

Sunday
January 2, 2000
9:31 am

There were only two technicians on duty when Professor Maximillion Arturo waltzed into the lab wearing a loud Hawaiian T-shirt and Bermuda shorts.  He had a nasty-looking sunburn on his face, arms, and legs, and had on the stupidest looking fisherman's hat.

"I just got back from the greatest vacation," he told them.  "A island off the coast of South America... no communication with the outside world at all!  It was heavenly."

"Professor Arturo?" one of the technicians asked, making sure that the Arturo he was seeing now was the non-sliding Arturo they had all been looking for several days earlier.

"Of course it's Professor Arturo, you blistering idiot!" the professor exploded.  "Who did you think it was?"

"Forget I said anything," the technician grumbled.

"Now," Arturo said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together, "why is the ZPE Collector off-line?"

The two technicians just stared at him.

"What?" he asked.  "Did I miss something?"

-----

Wednesday
January 5, 2000
6:29 pm

"...Doctor West assures everyone that, while traditional power stations are more polluting, they will suffice until the new wind and solar power stations go on line sometime next year.  And finally, in our people profile segment, we'd like to turn our attention to the rock band 'Kittens in a Blender' who wanted to crash a New Years party, but got more than they intended."

Quinn "Q" Mallory, drummer of Kittens in a Blender, lay in a hospital bed in a body cast.  "...so we figured that since it was an unannounced New Years party, they were going to need a band!"

"While driving to the Loma Preata Radio Telescope - which was, at that time, being used to bleed power from the ZPE Collector - Mallory and his band ran a police roadblock to play at what they thought was the party of the century."

Donner was in a wheelchair with a broken leg and a neck brace.  "Yeah, so we're going to the light beam, right?  Anyway, we start noticing that it's getting hotter and hotter.  Next thing we know, the tires blow out and we crash right into a tree."

Wing and Daelin both appeared bashed up, though not as severely as the other two. "I am through with this band," Daelin told the reporters.

"Me too," Wing admitted.  "I've got a great job now at Bob's Blockbuster Video."

Quinn lay in the hospital bed.  "I know we're a good band... And once we learn how to play, we're really going to kick ass!"

The reporter sat at the news desk and faced the camera with a large smile.  "Just today, Quinn Mallory and Jason Donner announced plans to sue EcoPower for misleading them.  The case is pending.  That's the news, have a great day and have a greater tomorrow."
 

THE END