The dodo bird made an odd squawking sound, but seemed unharmed. It walked around the room as if nothing happened to it.“Perhaps we should cover the body.” The Professor suggested.
Rembrandt walked back over to the stairs, on a pile of boxes was a tarp. He opened it up to cover the body.
“Quinn give him a hand.” Wade said, distracting him from observing the dodo bird.
“Where did the dodo bird come from?” Rembrandt asked.
“He must have slid to a world where they aren’t extinct.” Wade suggested.
“I think not,” Professor Arturo said. “The signature of the wormhole is different. It’s not suggesting slides to a parallel dimension.”
“Then where?” Rembrandt asked. He thought for a second then continued, “you mean time travel? Is that possible?” He looked in Quinn’s direction.
“It’s possible, explains the odd equations. Originally I hoped of building a time machine till I concluded it was impossible. Perhaps I was wrong.”
Suddenly there was noise from upstairs that drew everyone’s attention. Muffled talking from somewhere in the house because louder as it reached the top of the stairs.
“What do we do?” Wade asked worried.
“Not much we can do.” Quinn said as a couple of people came walking down the stairs. He shrugged and added, “We’ve still got half an hour before we slide.”
When the two arrived at the bottom of the stairs they looked at the four but didn’t seem surprised.
“What’s the status?” They asked. The four looked at each other for a few seconds, not sure how to reply.
“Not very good.” Arturo reported. “We’ve got a casualty.” He indicated the makeshift body bag.
“Was that Johnson?” The taller, brown haired man asked. “Such a pity. He was pretty talented.”
The sound of the dodo bird drew everyone’s attention. The shorter blond man didn’t seem surprised to see the bird. “It’s not all bad, looks like we’ve got something to write home about.” He said pointing at the bird.
Wade was upset at the disregard for the dead body. “This man is dead. Shouldn’t we do something about that?”
“What do you expect us to do about it? Clean up your own mess.” The taller man said.
“We’ve come to get your report. Have you made any additional progress?” Both men looked at the four. On various worlds the Sliders visited, they were at times mistaken for their doubles. It seemed this was the case once more. The men recognized at least one of the four; the question was which one. Or did they recognize all of them? And what sort of report were they expecting?
“The field was not as stable as we expected.” Quinn told them, hoping this was what the two wanted to hear. At the moment, it didn’t.
“Why would I ask you.” The taller man said.
“Like we’re going to report back at the word of a grunt.” The blond man added. It seemed the two worked together for a long time, responding to each other almost like a married couple.
“Mr. Brown, is your theory viable for further study?” He pointed down to the dodo bird. “It seems something survived the glide experiment.”“Why did the bird survive and Johnson did not?”
“Well uh…” Rembrandt began. “As my colleague was saying, the field wasn’t as stable as we assumed it might be. The bird had better protection.”
Professor Arturo added, “It’s also possible the bird would turn the same way as poor Mr. Johnson if it went back through the wormhole. Without better stability, the vortex can become deadly.”
The two men exchanged glances with each other. “It’s interesting how you’ve entrusted the cleaning staff with this top secret project.” The taller man once again began.
“Shouldn’t they be disposing the body?” The blond man asked.
This time Rembrandt sounded upset. “I thought under the circumstances I should let them know. I mean with Johnson dead, what was I going to do till you arrived?”
“Ah, yes a good point.”
“If you were not forgetting one important thing.”
“And what’s that?” Rembrandt asked.
“You hated Johnson.”
“With every fiber of your being.”
“I’m willing to bet you killed him.” The taller man said, continuing to take turns talking with his partner.
“So who are you?” The blond haired guy said pulling a gun on the small group. “Search them,” he told his partner.
Quinn tried to hide the timer behind his back, but it was quickly taken away.
“Well, what have we here?” He showed the timer to his companion. “I think they are spies, they were going to try and blow up the facility along with Professor Brown.
“Well, that wouldn’t be very nice. I suggest you disarm this. Or do you plan on killing us all?”
Quinn, Wade, Arturo and Rembrandt exchanged looks of frustration and disbelief.
(To Be Concluded)
Next - Legion of Super Heroes; Against All Odds - Part 3)
*This is part 14 of the 20 part 'Time And Alternate Dimension In Space'.
A Doctor Who, Quantum leap, Writers Block, Sliders & Legion of Super Heroes crossover.
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