"Secure." "How about them Dodgers?" "Secure." "Secure." "Bitch." "Wait!" "Don't leave without me!" "Wait." "All aboard!" "What are you waiting for?" "Come on!" "No!" "No!" "What if you found a portal to a parallel universe?" "What if you could slide into a thousand different worlds where it's the same year and you're the same person, but everything else is different?" "And what if you can't find your way home?" "Sliders." "Oh, man!" "I just got these shoes!" "You need to use rubber soles." "Better grip." "What a ride!" "I haven't felt a rush like that since my first night carrier landing." "You'd think you'd be used to it by now." "Where were you?" "Look, we request you be at the gate 10 minutes before departure." "I don't ever want you to cut it that close again!" "Horses!" "That's right, girl." "They're horses." "Hey, baby." "Hey." "Come here." "Did you get into that sliding lab?" "Can we go riding?" "I haven't been since I was a kid." "Let's see what this world is like, huh?" "Come on, guys." "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Captain Beckett." "You were outside the wire to steal a smoke?" "Walk the dog?" "Ordered a pizza?" "Eloping?" "Your behavior couldn't have had anything to do with the break-in tonight." "Actually, it did." "I noticed some intruders on the base." "Three men and a woman." "They were breaking into the lab." "I tried to stop them." "Yes." "A guard was assaulted near the Quantum Translocation Lab." "Is he all right?" "Took a nasty blow to the head." "Remembers being jumped, not much else." "I don't need to remind you that with the Soviets on the rise again we are on heightened alert." "I've just received word that the joint chiefs have rescinded the uniform code of military justice." "Suspected spies may now be shot at my discretion." "Good, ma'am." "See the captain to her quarters." "What happened after we got split up?" "Did you make it into the lab?" "Lab?" "The lab?" "Remember?" "We risked our necks and almost lost you trying to get into their sliding lab." "Easy, chief." "Yeah, I made it into the lab." "They're doing research on sliding." "They call it "Quantum Translocation. "" "But they're not having much luck." "Nothing that could help us get to the home world?" "They're sliding chickens and baboons." "Well, this place looks like it hasn't even hit the chicken and baboon stage." "I think it's wonderful!" "It's simple." "And, gosh, look at all the stars!" "No city lights." "Yeah, well, give me Times Square any day." "Lock down!" "Maybe there's a curfew." "No!" "Please!" "I didn't do anything!" "And someone's breaking it." "Please!" "I didn't do anything." "I have a wife!" "I have a family!" "No!" "Over there." "Move!" "Trick or treat?" "This looks like a lively place." "Come on." "Did you see it?" "Hurry up!" "You know the word." "And the word is law." "Tech, which has brought woe and ruination upon us must be banished from our midst." "Must be banished." "This man possesses the tech." "I just found that." "Please." "I don't even know what it is." "It is tech, and those who possess it must be punished." "According to the laws of El Diablo." "El Diablo." "No!" "Please." "No!" "Good God." "I don't even want to know what's behind door number two." "Aren't you gonna walk me?" "Hey, Beckett." "I hear Colonel Burke tore you a new one." "Nah." "She just wanted my expert advice on base security." "Sure she did." "I'm just glad they didn't give you the old. 45 caliber retirement party." "'Cause I am too old to be breaking in a new pilot." "The MPs walked me home." "I was surprised they didn't want to tuck me in." "Those meat-boys never come in here." "You know that." "We give them the willies." "Anyway," "I'm glad you're back." "We should link into the air combat matrix, fly some neuro-sims for the flight profile for tomorrow." "Not right now." "I'm beat." "Besides, we've got it wired, right?" "How long we've been flying, Siskin?" "Together, you and me?" "Three years." "Turning and burning." "Three years." "Wow." "Wouldn't you rather be home?" "Oh, no." "Not again." "Are you in one of your introspective moods?" "Just humor me, okay?" "How do you put up with this?" "I don't know." "King and country." "Keeping the red menace at bay." "All that crap." "Same as you." "It takes a special breed to keep America safe now." "Right?" "They got that right." "You still believe it?" "What choice do I have?" "Retire?" "After what they've done to me?" "I mean, we make our choices." "We gotta live with them." "Good night, Siskin." "These people built a whole religion based on their fear of technology." "El Diablo." "The devil." "What happened to that man?" "I don't know." "But that was a radiation symbol on that door." "Is there any danger?" "I really don't want to stick around to find out." "Yeah." "Well, we've got 32 hours here." "You better put that away." "Keep it out of sight." "Yeah." "You're right." "Wouldn't want to tick off ol' El Diablo." "Hey, they've got a band." "And there was no cover charge." "Come on, Q-Ball." "Let's dance." "I don't dance." "Oh, come on, don't be shy." "Let's boogie!" "I'm just not very good." "It's not about being good, baby." "It's about being fearless." "Come on!" "Hmm." "And you said you couldn't dance." "I guess it's all those physics club mixers." "I can't remember when I felt so good." "It's kind of a rancid place to get excited about, don't you think?" "It's not about what this place is." "It's about what it isn't." "It isn't the last world." "Everything about that world is gone." "In this universe, it never even existed." "Every slide is a fresh start." "Isn't that what sliding's all about, huh?" "Never knowing which world you'll wake up in next, or who you'll wake up with?" "That's one way to look at it." "It's a life full of possibilities." "And you're the constant." "What's the matter?" "Are you all right?" "You all right?" "Please tell me you guys put some of that defense budget into sliding research." "What are you doing here?" "Sleep-walking?" "Maggie?" "Steven." "Steven." "You're alive." "Of course I'm alive." "Why?" "Did you put something in my coffee?" "What?" "Colonel Burke said you were confined to quarters." "What are you doing here, Maggie?" "I just wanted to see you." "Why?" "Look at you." "Burke said you were acting strange." "I'll schedule a diagnostic on your neural implants." "No, everything's fine." "I just..." "I had a dream." "About us..." "About the last time we went skiing." "We haven't skied since you joined the EPP." "We haven't done anything together since you were enhanced." "The government can't risk having one of its expensive pilots damaged, now, can they?" "What are you doing here, Maggie?" "We used to be close." "What?" "You mean like husband and wife?" "Yes." "What is this?" "Some kind of a joke?" "You haven't wanted to look at me for the last two years." "I just thought we could talk." "About what?" "About how you'll never forgive me for what I did to you?" "About how I turned you into a freak?" "Steven." "You were the one who wanted to be changed, who wanted to fly the hottest planes." "You could have resigned your commission." "We could have started a family like we talked about." "But no, you had to keep on flying." "It takes a new breed to go toe-to-toe with Ivan." "Rah-rah." "You didn't want that." "What are you trying to do?" "Get me shot?" "I'm as dedicated to the war effort as anyone." "I did what needed to be done." "But you were my wife, Maggie." "I still am." "No." "Now you're some kind of a machine." "You want to talk?" "Go jack in." "Talk to your plane." "What do you think this is?" "It's blue." "I'll take two." "Thank you." "Feeling better?" "Oh, sure." "Nothing to worry about." "You get spit out of a wormhole, you swallow a couple of tankards of the local grog, put it in your stomach, and look out!" "How come you and I never got together?" "Oh, gosh." "I don't know." "Between fighting Kromaggs, trying to find my home world..." "I guess there really isn't that much time for dating." "But you've thought about it." "Right?" "Maggie." "We're good friends." "We could be more." "There are other things to consider." "Rembrandt and Colin?" "We're the leaders, Quinn." "It's right that we're together." "Maggie, we're a team." "We might not always be." "Think about our life." "Sliding from world to world." "Who do we have besides each other?" "Do you want your life to be a series of one-world-stands?" "Am I interrupting something?" "Just checking out the local produce." "Mmm." "Juicy." "Colin, I thought you were gonna teach me to ride today." "Of course, if the liverymen are still amenable." "We'll make them amenable." "Bye, guys." "Is she okay?" "I don't know." "I've just never seen her acting like she did last night." "What do you mean, happy?" "I don't have anything against her dancing." "It's just she's never been one to call attention to herself, you know?" "I mean, especially on worlds where they put you into a radioactive pit for owning a TV." "We've been to a lot of alternate worlds, Remmy." "You gotta remember, she lost the only one she had." "And her husband along with it." "Maybe she's starting to heal a little." "You gonna be the one to take that from her?" "Don't cross any wires, boys." "You'll void my warranty." "We're online." "Circuit interface is green." "Proceed with the test." "Begin simulation." "Roger." "We're cooking with gas now, Jackson!" "Status?" "Still green." "Neural response time is being augmented by 140%." "180%." "200% neural capacity." "Hey, Steven." "What's wrong with him?" "Siskin?" "Siskin!" "The chip's overloading his nervous system." "His neural response is off the scale." "It's killing him!" "Abort!" "Help me." "Please!" "Abort!" "Help me!" "Somebody help me!" "Come on!" "Get a medic!" "Go on!" "That was unbelievable!" "You are a natural." "Just to ride and ride, and no one to tell you where to go, or what the mission parameters are." "We could have kept going and no one would have ever known." "We would have lost our deposit." "Hey, are you all right?" "Yeah, I'm just a little woozy." "Guess I haven't gotten my land legs back yet." "Maybe we should find a doctor?" "No!" "What would they do?" "Bleed me with leeches?" "No." "I'm just going back to the inn to lie down." "Okay?" "I'll be fine." "Who the devil are you?" "What are you talking about?" "It's me, Rem." "Yeah?" "Last time I looked, our Maggie didn't have a computer chip in the back of her head." "Now you gotta be a double and not from this world." "You slid with us." "Right?" "Yes." "Where is she?" "I couldn't stay there." "They were killing me." "Where is she?" "Look." "Look what they did to me." "We'll do whatever we can for you." "But we are going back to get our Maggie." "Thank you." "But I'm not going back!" "Never." "This man is a heretic." "He has technology." "What?" "He has a device." "A forbidden device." "I'll show you." "See?" "Technology." "He's tried bewitching me with it." "It is tech." "You know the word!" "And the word is the law." "What went wrong?" "We're not sure." "The flight control unit was completely shorted out." "You mean the pilot." "You seem pretty shaken up about this." "You don't." "This wasn't just a piece of hardware you thrashed today, some sparkplug you can just replace." "It was a man!" "That's his bunk you're sitting on." "He had a wife and kids before you turned him into some flying freak show." "He made his choice." "Just like you." "Yeah." "If I was the "flight control unit"" "whose brain you'd fried, how would you feel, huh?" "Why are you doing this?" "You've already made yourself dead to me, Maggie." "Now you want me to care?" "You want to know how I'd feel if this was you?" "Relieved." "At least then I wouldn't lie awake every night wondering why you picked this over me." "I don't care about the Russians anymore." "About the arms race." "About fighting the good fight." "Why do you think I set up the Quantum Translocation Lab?" "I figured there had to be a world out there that wouldn't do this to us." "Maybe there is." "You told me I was dead to you." "Well, this is hard to explain, but..." "For a long time now I thought you were dead, too." "And when I saw you in the office..." "You can't believe how I felt." "Captain Beckett." "What is it, Colonel?" "Captain Beckett has been reassigned." "To where?" "After our little snafu today, we've decided to proceed with the next phase of the program." "Is that wise?" "Dr. Jensen, you seem to be a long way from your lab." "Do you need an escort to show you the way there?" "Captain Beckett, this way." "And he didn't tell you where he was going?" "When Colin and I got back from riding he was gone." "Okay." "Okay." "We've been through this before." "We slide in two hours." "We're just gonna have to spread out and search for him." "Quinn, there's something you're not considering." "What if he doesn't want to be found?" "What?" "He was telling me things this morning." "What kind of things?" "Well, I didn't tell you because I figured it was just Remmy blowing off steam." "You know how he can be." "What did he say?" "He was talking about leaving." "Splitting up." "Oh, this is crazy." "Is it?" "Maybe he's just tired of sliding." "What if he's right?" "Do we want to waste our lives running when we could have something right here?" "Remmy's been arrested." "What for?" "They found the timer on him." "They don't know what it is, but they know it's tech." "He's being charged with heresy against El Diablo." "The judgment by fire is tonight." "Okay." "Let's go." "No!" "No!" "If we let them know we're with him, they'll condemn us, too." "They'll kill us all." "Is that what you want?" "Maggie." "We can stay here." "We don't have to slide anymore, Quinn." "We'll stay here." "You and me." "Maggie." "Maggie?" "Let's go." "She's not our Maggie." "I could be." "Where is she?" "On my world." "I'm stationed at the base that you broke into." "When I saw your Maggie, I thought that was my chance to get away." "I jumped her from behind." "I changed clothes with her and I followed you through the vortex." "Why come with us?" "Why couldn't you just leave?" "Quit?" "You can't just quit when you're classified "top-secret. "" "That would be compromising national security." "Besides, there's nowhere I could go where they couldn't track me down." "Except another universe." "What'd they do to you?" "I did it to myself." "The cold war got hot." "We built planes so advanced no human could fly them." "Pilots needed to be enhanced." "Neural implants." "Adrenal stimulants." "You name it, I got it." "Only way to stay on top." "In the air, I'm an ace." "On the ground I'm a circus freak." "What's happening to you?" "There's not enough room up here for all the bells and whistles, so some of it had to come out." "My implant links my brain directly with the flight-control computers." "The computers take over whatever functions my brain has lost." "And without the link, my brain forgets to tell my body" "how to function." "You knew you were gonna die and you still came with us?" "I stole a chip from the lab." "It was supposed to allow my implant to function independently from the network." "But" "I guess it still has a few bugs in it." "We've got to get you back." "I'd rather die here." "I already told him that." "Remmy found out about you." "He was going to tell us, so you turned him in to the local inquisition." "I didn't know what else to do." "You could have come to us for help." "We would have given it." "Now if you know anything about our Maggie, you should know that she has terrific taste in friends." "I'm sorry." "Accepted." "But now you're gonna help us get Remmy back." "Or you're gonna die here." "My God." "What are they?" "Don't you mean, "Who are they?"" "This is Lieutenant Fairchild." "Major Dutton." "And I believe you met Major Franks at the base Halloween party last year." "He was dressed as Eleanor Roosevelt." "What have you done to them?" "By altering their genetic patterns, we have created the perfect pilot." "No fear." "No emotion, no mind." "Just a finely tuned organic flight computer suspended in a shockproof solution, capable of pulling up to 20 Gs." "Meet your new squadron, Captain." "I'm sure you'll enjoy flying together." "Remember, it takes a special breed to keep America safe." "You know the word." "And the word is law." ""Any variation from prescribed DOE" ""andlor corporate operating procedures" ""is punishable" ""upon appeal and review" ""by immediate suspension" ""andlor" ""termination. "" "Termination." "You're crazy!" "Fools!" "Don't you know who this is?" "No." "And the same may be said of you." "This is Rem..." "Rem..." "Remilio, mighty wizard in league with El Diablo." "And with this devilish device that gloweth so wickedly and devilishly..." "Indeed." "All the more reason to burn him!" "Yeah!" "Burn him!" "Burn him!" "No!" "No!" "Technology is just a tool." "Neither good, nor evil." "It depends on how you use it." "Like the butter churn." "It can produce the sweet buttery goodness, or it can produce the sour milk of funkiness." "The hell with this." "My name is Quinn-tar." "And now I will destroy you all!" "You people should really check out the library." "There are a lot better books than this!" "Let's go." "Stop them!" "Stop them!" "Stay back!" "Stay back!" "Stay back!" "Are you all right?" "Please!" "Please, don't take me back there!" "Get her outta here!" "Go!" "Stay back!" "Stay back!" "That was a rescue plan?" ""You churneth the buttery goodness"?" "I don't have writers, you know." "Quinn." "Don't worry." "We're gonna get you some help." "No." "You don't know what they'll do to me." "Just let me die." "I'm sorry." "I can't do that." "You remind us too much of someone we know." "Could I have a moment?" "Did you know about this?" "What they were doing here?" "Look at those things over there." "They used to be men." "And now they're turning me into one of them." "Are you just gonna let this happen?" "It's too late." "Burke will have us both shot." "Steven, do you remember what I told you?" "About you being dead to me?" "And about how when I saw you in the lab," "I thought maybe we had a chance to start over?" "Yes." "Well, I wasn't speaking metaphorically." "My husband is dead." "My Steven Jensen is dead." "Maggie, please." "He was paralyzed in a skiing accident on a vacation that you never took." "I gave up my flight status to be with him." "But he was murdered before I slid off my world." "Maggie, I..." "What?" "You slid?" "I'm from an alternate universe." "I slid into this world with three of my friends." "But now I'm trapped here." "But that technology doesn't exist." "Not here." "Not now." "But you know that it can, Steven." "When I saw you in that lab" "I knew you weren't my Steven, but you were still the same man on this world." "It was crazy, but I thought to myself" "that for a while we could be together again." "There is something different about you." "But it's impossible." "It's just a theory." "We don't even have any proof that alternate worlds exist." "You do now." "Look." "Do you see any neural implants?" "Do you?" "How is that possible?" "Because I'm not your Maggie and you're not my Steven." "But the Steven I knew would never let this happen." "Well, that is quite an interesting story." "I was wondering how your neural implants were removed, but I didn't think you'd come up with such a fanciful explanation." "How else do you explain it?" "Quite simply." "She's a traitor." "Any number of subversive Luddite groups would consider it a propaganda coup to turn one of our enhanced pilots, remove her neural network in a secret operation and then trot her out to denounce the military on some bleeding-heart liberal news outlet." "Oh, by the way, the guard that was attacked during last night's security breach is starting to get his memory back." "He says that you attacked him in the men's room." "That's crazy." "I'm crazy?" "I'm not claiming I just popped in from some parallel universe." "Jensen, don't you see what she's doing?" "She's playing you." "She's telling you what you want to hear." "What?" "She's your duplicate lover from another dimension?" "Something to satisfy your libido and scientific curiosity at the same time?" "I'm telling the truth." "Well, the simplest solution would be to have you shot." "But we're not immune to a little propaganda ourselves." "We're going to turn our would-be traitor into one of our new breed of pilots." "And fortunately, the transformation will rid you of any seditious urges." "The first stage of DNA treatment will begin in an hour." "We've got to get her some help." "How do we get in?" "Here." "Secure." "Secure." "What now?" "Bitch." "Open the panel." "Come on." "What are you doing?" "I'm sending e-mail." "We'll get in somehow." "Steven." "Maggie." "Dr. Jensen, I presume." "I just couldn't take it anymore." "I know, Maggie." "I'm so sorry." "It was true." "Maggie, the other Maggie, told me that she'd slid here." "But I don't know that I really believed it until now." "Come on." "What's going on?" "Her body's rejecting the genetic reconfiguration." "Increase the neural stimulation by 200 milliamps." "Give me 50 cc's of chromosol." "Come on, come on, come on." "Go to 300 milliamps." "Come on." "400." "Shut it down." "What happened?" "I don't know." "For some reason her DNA didn't match the profiles." "Her body rejected the new genome imprints." "Perform the autopsy right away." "I don't want the program held up." "Sorry, Jensen." "If it's any consolation, we'll give her a hero's funeral." "Who's next on the flight roster?" "I don't know." "Go to 500 milliamps." "How?" "Come on." "Come on!" "Steven, you brought me back." "Not quite all the way." "I'm going to get you out of here." "I'm gonna take this machinery out of you." "We're going to start over." "I'm sorry about leaving you here." "I guess I would have done anything just to be able to get away." "Forget it." "I'm just glad I had a chance to meet your Steven." "Is he anything like yours?" "Pretty close." "Only difference..." "I never had a chance to say goodbye to mine." "Goodbye." "Goodbye, Steven." "Are you gonna be able to get out of here?" "Yeah." "I perform the autopsies around here." "Hey, thanks for the vacation," "Quinn-tar." "Any time." "Quinn-tar?" "A little pet name." "Hmm." "It's time." "All right." "Let's do it."