THIS STORY IS IN PROGRESS AND INCOMPLETE

Redemption

Featuring the welcome returns of

Jerry O'Connell as Quinn Mallory

Sabrina Lloyd as Wade Welles

Cleavant Derricks as Rembrandt Brown

and

John Rhys-Davies as Professor Arturo

Special Guest-Stars

Kari Wuhrer as Maggie Beckett

and

Charlie O'Connell as Colin Mallory.

"... I found the gateway..."

Quinn Mallory was gone.

A sliding accident had been the cause. A singular, unpredictable twist of fate. It didn't matter that fate had decided a mad scientist intent on destroying every universe in existence for securing his own life was behind it. It didn't matter that a selfless young man who had been through many hardships already had been caught in the experiment with his alternate world counterpart. And it didn't matter that the scientist's selfish and self serving actions had almost been expanded to force Quinn's fate onto billions upon billions of individuals.

Despite the circumstances, Quinn thought of the incident as an accident.

One accident of the many that had become his life, only it was debatable whether his current existence could be considered life.

Regardless of what Quinn thought, to his friends, family, and to the mission he had undertaken long ago, he no longer existed in any physical realm. He was in a place no one could reach him, where no technological marvel could deliver the aid of his friends. And beyond this realm was his brother.

Yet...

No. He refused to accept it! He existed! And he would not be excised from the world! He had too much to do. His friends needed his help to survive! His mother was out there, in the hands of interdimensional invaders. His mentor had died with a single wish, one that had not been fulfilled. And she was still-

Quinn Mallory stood in the centre of the road. A moonless, starless sky was all he saw as he gazed towards where the heavens should have been. But there was nothing. Nonetheless, Quinn strived to find a direction. There had to be something to do! Something to try to accomplish!

Wait. In front of him, at least ten metres. Something was there. A figure. Quinn ran towards it, running past lush trees and shrubs, the magnificence of which could not be denied despite the darkness. He had seen so much, but all he wanted was to go to where he wanted to be...

The figure grew closer. Quinn slowed his pace, as he saw a slim, petite person in front of him. Short hair was distinctive, yet, the person had an odd aura around it. Feminine. Quinn advanced. The person's back was turned to him. He turned... No...

She.

It was her.

Quinn wanted to speak, but no words came out, as she walked towards him. She was expressionless, solemn. She reached out to him..

And the world around Quinn faded, and he gasped as the wind was knocked out of him. A fist had been driven into his stomach. Quinn gasped for air, and lashed back at his attacker. His opponent dropped back. Quinn moved away, tried to breath-

There was no air. He was in a vacuum. Nonetheless, he did not feel the need to respire, and the punch had exhausted anything in his lungs. The rule had been twisted, somehow-

The attacker lunged forward. Quinn caught the forearms of his attacker. Quinn sent an upper cut to the jaw, and threw him down. And then he saw the face of his opponent.

"Mallory!!! You're the other one! Quinn-?"

Mallory responded with a roundhouse kick that brought Quinn to the floor, doubling over with pain. Mallory moved swiftly towards Quinn, preparing to finish him off-

But then somebody grabbed Mallory from behind, and sent him to the ground. Quinn leapt to his feet, hands out defensively as his ally stepped towards him.

Mallory. No, a twin. Was he a double-?

"Quinn! We've got stop fighting!" the second Mallory shouted. "If we don't stop, we'll tear ourselves apart! We've got-"

Mallory-the initial Mallory, grabbed the second Mallory and shoved him against the floor. Mallory grabbed the second one's head and twisted his arm back sharply-

His heart thundered in his ears. His body screamed a hundred responses. But all Quinn Mallory did was stand, transfixed and horrified as another life was lost in vain.

Mallory stood up from his counterpart's body triumphantly, smirking as though the person who had just died was inconsequential property to dispose of as he would.

"He didn't have to die!!!!!!!" Quinn screamed.

"I agree."

The voice came from behind. Quinn turned-

And the face he saw was his own.

"And because of that, he remains."

Quinn Mallory's double waved a hand, indicating where Quinn was. Quinn's head whirled. He spun around, taking in his surroundings. The work table. The stairs, the coils, the array of computers and scanners. Quinn was confused. And then his eyes caught the dismantled Gieger counter lying on the floor against the bookshelf.

He had remembered the basement being a lot bigger...

"Nice to be back in your old stomping grounds, isn't it?"

Quinn stared at his grinning, sharply dressed double in wonder...

**

"Who're you?" Quinn Mallory demanded.

The double blinked. "Y'know, I could've sworn we went through this before. I gave you that equation. I think you could stand to be a l'il more polite."

Quinn gasped. "You! But you were stranded-"

The alternate Quinn waved off the protests. "Details, details. And illusions, but that's really not important. The point is, you were in a tough situation, buddy, and I pulled you out."

Quinn reddened with frustration. Why was his double being so damned enigmatic? Would it kill him to just explain what was going-

The mirror. Quinn stared at his reflection.

His hair had reverted to a moppy mess. His clothing was a T-shirt with a patchy long sleever over it, and a pair of ratty jeans. He looked exactly the way he had-

The day he made the slide with his friends.

"You've got to stop it with that cutting edge stuff you're always picking up at the clothing stores these days, man," the alternate Quinn continued, apparently choosing to be indifferent to Quinn's realization. "You're just a guy, and I bet that chick thought the unstylish thing was cool."

"What's going on?"

The alternate Quinn crossed his arms and grinned with the look of someone holding all the cards and toying with the other players. It was a poor poker face. He stepped backwards and plopped onto the couch.

"Damn it, answer me! I'm not in the mood for games."

The alternate Quinn chuckled, and moved to the right, giving Quinn a spot on the couch. "Sit down. This is going to be... flashy."

Quinn sighed, and dropped down to the couch. The soft cushions seemed to melt beneath him, providing comfort that he hadn't felt for a very long time. "I used to spend hours on this couch," he commented. "I slept here when I didn't have the energy to go upstairs."

The alternate Quinn nodded heartily. "I had midnight snacks here when the algorithms on the matter dilution chamber was acting up." He lifted the cushion beside him to reveal a bagel underneath. "And, so did you."

Quinn smiled, briefly. "I was sitting on this couch when I called her for the first time. I'd just met her at work, and then I thought about some wisecrack I'd thrown at her after Hurley had put me through his meatgrinder. And then I felt awful. I picked up the phone, and I called her, and I said I was sorry, and the next thing I knew-"

"-I was picking a basketball game to go to," Quinn and his double said simultaneously. They laughed.

"Well, I did marry her," the double replied. "I guess you're just a slow runner. Would explain a hell of a lot about you."

Quinn choked.

"Look, would you just tell me what's going on? The sliding accident had me trapped in my counterpart. We were fighting for control of our bodies. Somehow, you pulled me out-"

"You want to know what happened?"

For the first time, Quinn saw the smirk leave his double's face. Quinn nodded.

The double snapped his fingers. Right then, Quinn noticed that the double was holding a device that resembled a small remote controller. The alternate Quinn pressed a button, and a vortex opened.

The vortex. A shimmering, silver tear in the air; a gap in realities, which held beyond the opening a tunnel where all laws of physics and physical science ceased to exist, leading to a parallel universe.

The alternate Quinn Mallory leapt in, dragging Quinn with him.

"What are you doing?" Quinn snapped, getting to his feet after the vortex had deposited him roughly on the cold, hard floor. He leapt to his feet.

There was another vortex in the room-the basement! They were still in the basement. But the vortex was open, and three people were standing in front of it. Them!

Quinn ran towards his friends and himself. But when he reached for them, his hands passed through their bodies. They didn't notice his actions.

"I'm immaterial?" Quinn mused. He turned to face his double, who was stoicly watching the scene unfold in front of them.

"This is what happened," the double said. "Three adventurers, eager to discover what lay beyond. And then..."

There was a flash of light. Quinn didn't find it blinding, but his vision faded away to show a white nothingness, and then it cleared to show nothing and everything...

The wine glass dropped to the floor, a symbol of any relief or joy shattering at once.

The gunshot rang out, and Quinn dropped to the grass, a bullet lodged in his shoulder.

The Kromagg manta ship flew out of the vortex with energy weapons blazing.

The basement... It always went back to the basement, where the moment they had shared would never be forgotten...

Quinn watched the moment unfold from a different perspective. He saw her himself together for a moment, before a yell broke them apart. "I think about it a lot."

"With me, we weren't interrupted," the alternate Quinn said. "It was two years ago. We were home. We were in the kitchen. The next morning, we were out looking for rings."

Quinn shook his head. "We had so much together in the beginning. We were out in the world on our own, but we had each other. And I thought that was something that could never changed..." He bowed his head. "And I was wrong. It happened one by one. First the professor... And then it got worse and worse."

The alternate Quinn studied Quinn. "It wasn't your fault-"

"Wasn't it?" Quinn replied acidly. "I wanted to know what was on the other side. It was my question that brought us all to where we are and I don't have a clue where the hell here is!"

"Can't you keep hoping?" the altenate Quinn inquired. "Can't you keep fighting?"

Quinn sighed. "If only things were different."

The colonel laughed as he squeezed the trigger. The bullet flew towards Quinn. Arturo moved, his arming pulling Quinn away-

No! Not again!!! It would not happen-

And it did not. Quinn dropped to the cold stone floor, his heart punctured.

"Professor!! There ain't nothin' we can do for him! We gotta get outta here before the damn thing wipes the planet clean!"

"Professor!! Please!"

The teacher stood by the student, refusing to abandon him even in death.

"No... Go... Save yourself... Will not leave... Son...."

The rooftop was cooled by gusts of wind. She ran to the ledge, looking down at what would be her end. She took a deep breath-

"Sweetheart! God, don't do it! Don't-"

"There's nothing to live for... he was all I had and I can't go on without him..."

She stepped off. And thirty-five stories down-

"Well?" the alternate Quinn looked at Quinn intently. "Is that what you would prefer? Your sacrifice leaving those that you wronged alone?"

"It's a better fate than being captured by the Kromaggs for their needs... Or being integrated into a computer like a microchip!!!" Quinn shook with rage, racked with tears by what he had witnessed.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Quinn?"

Margaret Allison Beckett hurried after him. He walked into the park, his face stony and unreadably. But it didn't have to be for her to understand. She caught his shoulder.

"What." Quinn's voice sounded hollow, flat. Defeated.

"Why are you doing this? Why are you so incredibly self destructive? Dammit, we're trying-"

Quinn brushed Maggie's hand away. "Some example you are. You're the one that pushed everyone that reached out to you away, Beckett. You're the one that made the last moments we had with her the worst of her life! So why don't you just shut the hell-"

"Quinn!"

Quinn was silent, taken aback by her outburst.

"What I did to her I'll never forget. And all I wanted to do after ten months of sliding was to let her know that I was sorry. But it's tearing you up, and you can't expect me to go skydiving while you're contemplating a trip off the Golden Gate Bridge. Quinn, I'm your friend-"

"I'm not your friend." Quinn turned and ran. Maggie started after him. Quinn was fast, but his stride was no match for her marine training. She rounded in front of him.

"You're not making this easy, Quinn. Look, you didn't bring the Kromaggs onto Earth Prime. You didn't ruin her life."

Quinn's face showed pain. "Didn't I? Didn't I drag her onto something that took her away from her family for four years? Four years when she could have made peace with them before home was invaded? I'm the one that took her surrogate father from her, and I'm the one that opened the vortex and offered her the ride."

"And you're the one that made it possible for a chance at life. If you hadn't invented sliding, the Kromaggs would have invaded! She would still be a prisoner. But you've given her a chance; for you to fight for her."

Maggie pulled Quinn closer, holding him gently as he cried softly, knowing that he would never be able to let go of the memory...

Quinn stood in the lab of his parents. There had been so much he wanted to do. To explain, to justify what he was about to do. But there wasn't time. The slide was in less than an hour. He knew the quantum signature of the exotic matter conduits in his timer; now all he needed was something to scan it for the quantum mechanical signature.

The tools were in the state of the art lab that belonged to his father. Quinn marvelled at the array of interconnected laptops and computer workstations; a far cry from his basement lab...

A far cry from his basement lab. Those were the very echoes of what he had lost so long ago. And the very thing he would fight for... Quinn regretted deceiving his friends, but he wouldn't allow them to follow his path. It was his own, and his own arrogance had cost them enough. He would never allow it to happen again. Quinn began to fill his backpack with devices that he would need when there was a squeak. The door opened and-

"Brother?"

Colin Mallory stared at Quinn's backpack, the strap held in Quinn's fingers. Portruding from it were various advanced devices...

"Quinn, what are you doing? I hardly think that our... that our parents would want us to remove their technology without their permission. I do not recall us requesting-

Quinn dropped the backpack to the floor. It landed with a thump, cutting Colin off. Quinn crossed his arms. "You wanted to talk to me, Colin? What is it?"

Colin chewed his lip, realizing Quinn was trying to change the subject. But he allowed him to, for the moment.

"What are you doing?"

Quinn stared back at his brother. "Beg pardon, bro?"

"I do not know anything about the world you came from. Nor do I know anything about your relationship with your friends, your relatives, or your parents. But they raised you. That is where you grew up, brother; that, for all intents and purposes is your home. Isn't that why you've been searching for your birth parents?

"Now you have a chance to fight for their freedom, and you're allowing your friend to return to your home alone?"

"You don't know anything about what it means to lose so much", Quinn snapped.

Colin advanced forward, uncertain what to expect from his father. "Is that so? Quinn, I lost my parents when I was a child. They may not have been my birth parents, but I loved them, and I would give anything for one moment with them to let them know that. Is that completely the opposite with you? You're willing to jettison your home for a safe haven?"

Quinn was silent.

"And what about Wade? I know little about her, but she was your friend and I'm surprised and disappointed that you would-"

Colin never finished. Quinn stepped over the backpack, and grabbed Colin by the collar. He slammed him roughly into the wall.

Colin gasped.

"Don't you ever talk that way about us again!" Quinn yelled, his elbow jabbing into Colin's neck."

Colin angrily shoved Quinn away and went to the backpack. He examined a device at the top. He turned.

"Quinn! This is a geosynchronization sequencer! It's for small positron emission tomography... You're building another timer. One that will have the same dimensional co-ordinate imprint and exotice matter level..."

Quinn didn't silent for a moment.

"Why?"

"Because I never stopped thinking about her, Colin. Because I never stopped believing."

"You still haven't, Quinn."

Quinn slammed a fist into the worktable. "Haven't I? And even if I haven't, what do I have to fight for? To fight with? Everyone's gone. My friends, my family... Everything that mattered to me."

"I thought sliding represented the refusal to accept reality. The reality that your father had left you all alone. You refused to accept it. You fought it. And you won. Why can't you win this?"

Quinn sank into the couch. The comfort of the old furniture should have dulled his senses. Reminded him of how good it felt to be safe, and warm, and...

And how could it be?

"I've got a better question." Quinn got to his feet.

The alternate Quinn stood at the other side of the room, leaning against one of the coils.

"Who are you?" Quinn Mallory demanded.

"'Scuse me?"

Quinn advanced forward cautiously. "You heard me. Who are you? You've avoided every direct question I've asked you. Tried to ward it off by showing me my past. You've done everything to make me forget the present.

"You claim you're the double I met the day I slid? Are you? You caused memories from my mind to be brought to the surface. Made me relive them. You opened the vortex on command. I was trapped in another man; you pulled me out, somehow. You know every moment of my past.

"You've violated the rules of sliding; the very rules of the universe. I want to know how and why."

The alternate glared at Quinn. "I have given you every kindness. I freed you from your bondage. I showed you your past. I gave you hope for your future-"

"Then let's share it." Quinn grabbed his double by the arm and pulled him up the stairs of the basement, to the door. Beyond it was the hall, leading the kitchen and the living room. Quinn flung open the door-

And beyond was nothingness. A blank white space was all that met Quinn's eyes.

"None of this is real..." Quinn whispered.

"Only as real as you believe it to be."

Quinn turned to his double.

"Who are you?"

But everything was gone.

**

The stars. Hundreds of constellations, made of gases that burned in space. Quinn stood among them. He didn't know how. He didn't know why. But the world had dissolved around him. His basement, equipment. All had faded away and now he stood in the stars.

Where he had always wanted to be.

But realization was unimportant. It was the striving, the constant belief and struggle for what he was certain was right that mattered. It was that fire which burned within him...

... Like the stars...

And the stars took shape. The stars took form and they were...

"For five years, Quinn Mallory, you journeyed the multiverse, never knowing what lay beyond."

"Beyond?"

"Beyond the barrier. Beyond the tunnel. Beyond existence itself. For there is more than what you have seen. You may feel you have sufficient knowledge of what your technology has unlocked, but you have barely scratched the surface. There is more, Quinn. More than you've seen. More than you know.

"But I am aware. For an eternity, I have been so. Before your sun burned in space. Before life formed on your world, or any world. All is known to me; all is revealed to me.

"For mine is the power and the will. I am the Access."

**