"Hey!" "How much time?" "Less than a minute." "Let me just make this last-minute adjustment and then we can track Wade and Remmy's photon trail back to Earth Prime." "You've been saying that for three months and ten different worlds." "I don't care about getting back to your home Earth, just get us out of here." "Hey, somebody, open up!" "Oh, no." "Whoa!" "Maybe we should explain to them again that it was your double on this world that burned down their casino at Little Bighorn." "Or maybe not." "Hey, hey!" "Whoa!" "This is it." "Earth Prime." "The coordinates match." "Quinn, I still can't breathe on your world." "You'd better get me to a hospital." "Okay." "Just hang on." "Just hang on." "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?" "Quinn, slow up." "You're gonna shake me to death before you save my life." "Just hang in there." "We'll get you some help." "I'm okay." "Do you know if there's a..." "I'm all right." "Unless you like carrying me." "Okay, okay, okay." "You okay?" "I'm okay." "Amazing." "Your lungs must have adapted enough during all the slides to process our oxygen." "Either that or the pollution index is a lot lower than it was before." "The air in LA is better?" "Right." "Well, things definitely are weird here." "I mean, this doesn't look like home sweet home, unless you grew up in a war zone." "Yeah." "Where is everybody?" "Let's go by the Chandler and see if we can hook up with Wade and Remmy." "Maybe the timer's screwed up." "Could be this is just another parallel world." "Come on you guys!" "Go!" "Kromaggs." "My God, what are those things?" "My worst nightmare." "And soon to be yours." "Kromaggs are a warrior race from a parallel world." "They're sliders, but their technology is highly evolved." "They capture and enslave every world they find." "They captured us, but we barely got out." "So, if this is your home Earth..." "I'm praying it's not." "This is where we always used to stay." "There's no sign that Wade and Remmy were even here." "We need to find some food and water." "Where's the kitchen?" "Hold it right there!" "Get your hands up!" "Take it easy, kid." "Put that thing down before somebody gets hurt." "We mean you no harm." "You're human?" "Nothing gets by this kid." "We're looking for a couple of friends of ours." "They might've been staying here the last three months." "Yeah?" "What are their names?" "Rembrandt Brown and Wade Wells." "Your name Quinn?" "Yeah." "Quinn Mallory." "They were here?" "Yeah." "Check this out." "That's Wade's necklace." "This is our Earth." "Nothing gets by you, huh?" "She waitressed here." "Remmy played and sang in the bar." "I was cook's helper, till the Kromaggs came and overran us." "Yeah, Wade said to give you that if you showed up." "Where are they now?" "Man, I don't know." "Maybe alive, maybe dead." "Kromaggs must have got 'em." "They raided us, but me and Marta hid below." "By the time we got back up, everybody was gone." "All right, we need a little more information, kid." "You take us down below, wherever that is, introduce us to Marta." "Maybe she knows something you don't." "All right." "All right." "Move and I'll cut you to pieces!" "Your friend here will break our fall." "It's okay, Marta." "They're the ones that Wade and Remmy told us about." "Just chill." "Damn it, Otis, I told you nobody gets down here!" "He didn't have a choice." "I'm getting real tired of people always pointing guns at me." "Put it down." "You first!" "I'm not gonna ask you again." "Uh, if you guys are gonna shoot each other, why don't you just let Otis and I get out of the way?" "Are you Maggie?" "Yeah." "Yeah, Wade said you were a tough bitch." "Yeah." "I bet she did." "Hi, I'm, uh..." "I'm Do you know where our friends are?" "Not for certain." "The Kromaggs hit us hard and fast, some were killed." "Your friends weren't in the pile." "You have to figure they were taken." "All right." "You two look pretty ragged, so why don't you sit down?" "Otis, go crack a jug of water." "When did the Kromaggs invade?" "Not long after your friends got here." "They hit the big cities first." "Casualties were awesome." "San Francisco?" "It fell right after LA." "That's where his mom lives." "I'm sorry to hear that." "You've never seen weapons like theirs." "Freaking spaceships shooting lasers, the whole sci-fi enchilada." "Within a few days they were in complete control." "So we dug in here." "There are other pockets of resistance, but..." "About all we can do is just piss them off." "So much for friendly extraterrestrials." "They're actually not aliens, they're differently evolved human beings from a parallel world." "Oh, yeah?" "Well, I've never seen a human that looks like them." "How do you know so much about them?" "We've run into them before." "If there's a chance our friends are still alive, we've got to try and find them and head to San Francisco." "It's a long shot." "Chances are you'll be captured or killed yourselves." "Yeah, well, you can't win if you don't play." "Just arm us up and point us in the right direction." "All right." "If they're alive, they're probably in the hole the Maggs call the Re-Education Center." "One of our people's a com-geek with an ear tuned to their mainframe." "He can hack their database." "Where do we find this guy?" "You don't." "Not without me." "Load their weapons." "I'll make the arrangements." "We have to keep the faith, Quinn." "We can't last in a fight we don't expect to win." "Four years of sliding." "More worlds than I can count, and I finally get them home." "To this." "When we find them, you ask them if they blame you." "You know what the answer's going to be." "Listen." "Manta ship." "Let's move it!" "Oh, man, we can't just leave him out there." "He's dead." "You can't be sure!" "You want to join him?" "We've got to move." "That Manta ship will have the Maggs on us any second." "Are you just gonna leave him out there like a piece of meat?" "That's all he is now." "I've lost too many to cry over this one." "She'll do her crying later." "When you see enough combat, you learn to pick your spots." "M-1 to headquarters." "House of Blues." "Go." "M- 1 incoming with two bogeys." "Got 'em." "Quite a little operation you've got going here." "Yeah, one on one, we can give the Maggs a run for their money." "But once they bring in the heavy power, we're just spit in the hail storm." "I'll take it from here." "Roger." "Mad Marta, patron saint of assault and battery." "What news of the front and who are they?" "Answer the last part first." "Friends." "Looking for friends grabbed by the Maggs." "Ah." "Well, you're just in time for lunch." "Their names are Rembrandt Brown and Wade Wells." "I understand that you can hack into the computer mainframe." "You are correct, sir." "But first things first." "An army travels on its stomach." "May I present the latest and the greatest from the hacker's cookbook?" "Cheezenukes." "Why not?" "So, do the Kromaggs speak English or do you hack Magg?" "No." "They've got humans doing all their squat work." "Some of them have been indocked, others cooperate willingly." "It's just hot." "Are you loving it or what?" "And you know, every recipe from the book could be made without the butt leaving the chair." "About our friends..." "You should check out my chanish:" "Chili-filled Danish." "Mmm, now that'll get your heart pumping in the morning." "Come on, bro, focus." "Rembrandt Brown, Wade Wells." "It's the perfect survival food." "It's got the shelf life of a mop handle." "It'll out-survive the cockroach." "Brown, Rembrandt." "Currently, a guest at the Maggs Re-Ed Center." "Brains washed." "Fluff and fold at no extra charge." "At least he's still alive." "What about Wade Wells?" "Wells, Wade." "No current listing." "Well, they must've taken her someplace else." "Sure." "They've got camps all over the state." "But our recon isn't that sophisticated." "Tracking her could be tough." "If they haven't killed her." "No." "They wouldn't waste a Betty." "Their parts are just like ours." "Women are valuable as breeders." "Hey, hey, hey." "Alive is alive." "She could be inside, just not in the active files." "It's gonna be tough getting through to them, though." "The Maggs don't exactly have visiting hours." "All right." "People break out of prison all the time." "That's old, that's tired." "Why don't we try breaking in?" "They have civilians working there." "They come and go." "We'll join them." "I don't like going in blind." "Do you know anybody that's been inside?" "Not that came back out." "Feast your eyes." "Blueprints of the complex." "What you can't get online these days..." "Oh, God, you are amazing." "I know." "What, do you think I spend all my time in the porno chat rooms?" "Give me an hour and I'll do you up some civvy worker IDs." "You have to get your own uniforms, though." "Great." "That's our problem." "Download this for us?" "Yeah." "Looks, brains and he cooks." "Marry me." "Be my love monkey." "Why don't you call me next week?" "Come on." "There you go." "Thank you." "Thanks, bro." "We owe you big time." "Live long and thump butt." "I'm here to relieve you." "Hey!" "Hey, what the hell's going on here?" "Finished?" "You are now." "Hurry up." "Stop!" "All right, everybody, just stay calm." "Stay calm." "That's easy for you to say." "You know, buddy, I really wouldn't get too close." "She's real sick." "Fever, chills, throwing up blood, sores all over." "Let's drag him around here." "This should do it." "According to Trevor's readout, Remmy's in the solitary cells on this block." "Let's go." "I'll mop up." "Open sesame." "The Maggs can really mess with your brain." "Who knows what we'll find?" "Remmy?" "Rembrandt?" "Rembrandt Brown?" "Remmy." "It's me." "It's Quinn." "Leave me alone, you lying maggot." "Rembrandt, we came to get you, buddy." "The hell out!" "Hey, man!" "It's okay." "We're here to get you, Remmy." "Come on, man." "Look at me, I'm your man." "It's me, Quinn, Q-Ball." "No!" "I'm hip to you." "You eye-eating freaks!" "All right." "Listen to me." "Listen to me, man." "Listen to me." "You and Wade slid out of the last world ahead of us." "We were gonna follow your photon trail back here to Earth Prime." "Now I know, no matter what they did to you, there is no way you would have ever divulged that information." "So the only way I could know those details is if I was your man." "It's me, Remmy." "It's Q-Ball." "Oh, God." "Oh, my God." "Quinn." "Now, where's Wade?" "I don't know." "We were taken together, but after we got here they split us up." "Then I heard that they..." "They had taken her to another prison." "Damn!" "It's okay, We'll find her." "We'll bring her back." "You have to believe that." "Come on." "If they find the body, we're cooked." "Marta." "I couldn't very well give you up to the Maggs." "You still owe me 50 bucks." "Come on." "Okay." "Come on." "No, other way, other way." "Let's go!" "Let's go!" "We have got to get to the basement." "We can get to the old tunnels there!" "The tunnel entrance should be behind those lockers." "Come on!" "Go!" "Go!" "Go!" "If Q-Ball won that gun fight, he would've been here by now." "We've got to go back." "Quinn." "Let's do it." "Trying to get back in there now will be suicide!" "We're not leaving him." "Every Magg in that place is on full alert." "You've got no chance at all." "Look, getting yourselves killed won't do Quinn a damn bit of good." "You expect us to turn our backs on him?" "That's not going to happen." "Not as long as I'm breathing." "That's right." "I've got friends on the outside that can help us." "We'll need to plan to pull this off." "We've got to go." "If the Maggs find that tunnel entrance, we'll be trapped." "She's right, Remmy." "Maggie, I am not leaving him!" "I know you love Quinn." "So do I." "But we've got to love him enough to just walk away now, Remmy." "We're the only chance he's got, and we need all the help we can get." "Come on, Remmy." "Come on." "Let's..." "Let's try this again, shall we?" "The names of the rebels and the locations of their outposts." "I don't know." "Well, we know that Rembrandt Brown was one of them." "Is he your leader?" "Is that why you risked certain death to save him?" "Don't go blacking out on me!" "That won't do." "Certainly Brown is more important to the cause than his friend Wade Wells." "You went directly to his cell." "Wade." "Ah." "A familiar name." "Maybe you went looking for her, couldn't find her, and took Brown as a consolation prize." "Is she alive?" "Oh, yes." "Very much so." "Just not here." "I'm afraid your friend is a guest of the Dynasty on another world, in a breeding camp." "You see, the Kromaggs are doing some interesting experimentation with cross-species replication." "She's no doubt enjoying herself." "You know, I've heard once a woman's had a Magg, she can never go back." "Be smart, kid." "Deal with me while you can." "Don't make me turn you over to the Maggs." "How does a human being sink low enough to become one of their lap dogs?" "You'll get your chance to find out." "How long are we gonna have to wait?" "You have no idea what they're doing to him while we sit here on our butts." "We can't make our move until we're ready, you know that." "Don't get crazy on me now." "No, crazy was leaving him in that hellhole!" "We should have fought our way back to him!" "We'd all be dead!" "Doing it this way is worse than death." "We should have tried, Maggie!" "You want to eat yourself up with guilt, fine." "But you leave me the hell out of it!" "We did what we had to do." "I'm not apologizing for that." "We didn't run out on him." "We're going back!" "The runner's just brought word from Trevor." "He intercepted Magg e-mail." "They're moving Quinn to a slave colony on another world." "No way we're gonna reach him in time." "As long as he's alive, we still have a chance." "We have to make our move even if we're shorthanded." "How many of your people have you been able to reach?" "Not too many." "We're spread pretty thin." "But the word will get out." "Look, it's better to wait than gamble going in unprepared." "I am done waiting." "It's probably already too late." "Rembrandt!" "You coming with me?" "You bet." "Just you and me against the whole Kromagg force." "We don't have a chance in hell, but we'll go down in a blaze of glory." "And now's as good a time as any to die." "I'm not asking you to come." "Now don't put that on me." "You are all I have." "You and Quinn." "I lost everything and everybody when that pulsar destroyed my world." "But if you're dead set on getting yourself killed, well, I'm gonna ride that wave with you." "Or, we give Marta one hour." "One hour to get her people together." "We go in there with a plan of attack, and maybe, if we're lucky, we all come out alive." "I couldn't save Wade." "I tried." "But they clubbed me down and I couldn't get to her." "It's all gone now." "My mother, family." "These Magg devils, they have destroyed our world." "Maybe we can't save your world, but we have a shot at saving Quinn." "And we have to concentrate on that now." "Maggie, there's no easy way to say this." "I'm not sure if you can..." "If you can trust me." "Don't lean too hard on me." "What kind of trash are you talking?" "I have put my life in your hands more than once." "I was in that hole for three months, and they worked me over with their mind-control games and their torture." "I'm not sure myself if they got to me." "I fought it as hard as I could." "But they could have programmed me, could have messed with my head somehow." "I'm betting on you, same as always." "I pray to God you're right." "Right in over here!" "Get that door shut." "Come on!" "All right." "Hurry up, guys." "Move it!" "Marta was counting on 25, maybe more." "The ranks look a little thin." "Yeah, well, it only took three of you to spring me." "Hell, we got ourselves an army." "Remmy, go pop the hood." "We're gonna rig this puppy like the Fourth of July." "Maggie, you'll do the briefing." "You got it." "All right, everybody!" "Come on, gather round!" "I'm gonna tell you a little bit about tonight's festivities." "Hey, man, leave her alone!" "Eyes ahead, mouth shut, boy." "Go for it!" "Yeah!" "Don't do it!" "They'll break you!" "The masters at the slave colony'll get your mind right, boy." "Now, you have a nice day." "Hey." "You're fine now." "They're gone now." "Here, let me help you." "Ma!" "My God, it's you!" "Quinn." "I thought I'd lost you forever." "Oh, Quinn!" "I'd given up hope of ever seeing you again." "Now you've come back to me." "I promised I'd be back." "It just took longer than I thought." "This isn't the homecoming we'd dreamed about." "Now I'm sorry you came back." "At least out there, sliding, you were free." "Here." "Oh, girl, you have enough explosives to level the whole place." "Yeah." "Well, they were running a special on C-4 down at the National Guard armory, and I never could pass up a good bargain." "You're a brave man, Remmy." "You went toe-to-toe with the Maggs for three months and you didn't break." "That took real guts." "Yeah, well." "You could give me lessons in courage." "I mean, with what you and your people are doing." "There's no way that we can ever pay you back." "It's not about payback." "It's about victory." "Yeah." "Where are your friends?" "Are they with you?" "Yeah." "Remmy's here." "But Wade got shipped off to a parallel world by the Maggs." "Just like we're going to be." "Oh, Quinn, I'm so frightened." "You've got to be strong." "We'll get out of this." "Remmy and Maggie are free, they will get us out of here." "What chance could the two of them have against the Maggs?" "It can be done." "They're working with this woman..." "Quinn, what is it?" "Why are you looking at me that way?" "What is it, Son?" "They're watching us." "Maybe meeting you here wasn't such a coincidence." "I don't understand." "How come you never asked about the fourth slider?" "There were four of us." "Yes, of course, the professor." "What was his name?" "Arturo." "Maximillian Arturo." "Quinn, please, I don't understand." "What was my dog's name?" "Bopper." "Why are you quizzing me like this?" "You're scaring me." "Because "you" may not be you at all." "The Kromaggs are masters of mind manipulation." "They can make me see what I want to see." "Quinn." "Look into my eyes, and listen to your heart." "It's me." "Ask as many questions as you have to, but let's not waste what little time we may have left." "I have so much to tell you." "Hey!" "Hey, what?" "M-1, we're a go." "I told you, Ma." "Didn't I?" "Quinn, I've got to talk to you." "You've got to listen!" "I can't wait any longer." "I have to tell you." "Tell me what?" "The truth." "This is going to sound crazy, but I swear to you it's true, no matter how fantastic it is." "I promised your parents I'd tell you when you came of age, but I was so afraid of losing you." "My parents?" "What are you talking about?" "Listen to me!" "I'm not your birth mother." "Your parents left you with Dad and me to raise when you were just a baby." "They were our doubles, Quinn." "From another Earth." "So you're saying that my birth parents are from a parallel world." "Yeah." "Ah, this is crazy!" "This is some crazy Kromagg mind game!" "No, it's the truth." "I swear it." "They gave me this." "Here." "Press this to your forehead when you're alone." "They said your questions will be answered." "Who are you?" "Why are you doing this?" "What's with the lies, huh?" "What's with the lies, huh?" "I couldn't have loved you more if you were my own flesh, Quinn." "Please forgive me if that love blinded me." "Your parents came back to Earth to get you two years later, but your father and I hid you." "We couldn't bear to part with you." "We loved you so much." "Quinn Mallory, you're first for transport." "Now, move!" "No." "Quinn, please." "No, no!" "Quinn!" "I love you!" "No!" "Quinn, hit the deck!" "Let's go!" "Kromaggs!" "Two o'clock!" "I got it!" "My mom's here." "They've got her, I can't leave her." "Hey, if we're gonna get out of this alive, we have to leave now." "It's your call, Quinn." "You guys go on." "I'm going after her." "Hey, I understand how you feel." "Let's go!" "No!" "We're gonna get you out of here." "It's too late for me." "Come on, darling." "We got to get through to those tunnels." "Thank you, Marta." "Come on, let's go!" "I'll never forget your courage." "Come on, Maggie!" "The prisoner Quinn Mallory has escaped." "Casualties?" "Light." "Three rebels killed." "Hmm." "Public executions tomorrow." "A hundred humans." "Retribution for the rebel attack." "Yes, sir." "The timer." "Where's the timer?" "Got it right here." "Doesn't really matter, we're at the end of our journey." "My head is killing me." "What hit me?" "Me." "I'm sorry, Q-Ball, but I didn't have time to convince you with common sense." "My mom." "We left her there." "There was no other way." "Besides, you can't be sure who she was." "That first time that the Maggs had us, they had me convinced that I was talking to my father, remember?" "I mean, he was just as real as you are." "Maybe she wasn't your mother after all." "She was my mother." "She might not have given birth to me, but she raised me, she cared for me and she was there for me." "You were adopted?" "How come you never told me that?" "Well, I didn't know until last night." "Whoa." "Well, that must have rocked you." "So, did she tell you who your real parents were?" "Well, you're probably gonna want to fit me for a straitjacket after I hit you with this, but the bottom line is," "I'm not from this world, Remmy." "I'm from a parallel Earth." "My birth parents were sliders." "Okay, Q-Ball, why don't you just lay back and rest?" "I think maybe that little tap I gave you scrambled something in your head." "I don't have all the details yet, but this micro-dot is supposed to fill me in on the blanks." "Stay with me, man." "Things might get a little weird." "How much weirder can they get?" "Wow!" "Hello, our precious son." "How we wish we could be with you, to help you understand all that we are about to tell you." "And we hope that you can find it in your heart to understand, and to forgive us." "There's a great civil war raging in our world, and if our side should lose that war, it will mean the end of life for us as we know it." "Our enemies are a separate race of higher primate called Kromaggs." "We've lived in peace with them for centuries, but now a bloody conflict has broken out." "The Kromaggs now control more than half of our planet." "The lands they've conquered have been decimated, the peoples enslaved or killed." ""Your father and I are working with other government scientists developing a weapon that will drive the Kromaggs from our world, but we fear they may overrun us before the weapon can be finished." "Our race against the clock may already be lost." "And we cannot bear the idea of losing you and your brother to the Kromaggs." "And that's why we've made the painful decision to place you with our duplicates on parallel worlds as foster parents to ensure your safety." "I have a brother!" "A brother?" "Since when?" "If we triumph, the Kromaggs will be destroyed or driven away." "But if you're viewing this, you must assume the worst, for we have promised your foster parents to return for you should our side claim victory." "They in turn have promised us to tell you the truth about yourself when you come of age and are able to accept it." "Please know that giving up our children, even in order to save them, is the most difficult thing we've ever had to do." "Our hearts will break for you every day." "We love you, Son." "The numerical sequence you are about to receive contains the coordinates to your brother's parallel Earth." "We pray that you find him, Quinn." "God bless and keep you both." "Have a nice trip?" "I just met my parents." "Your parents are sliders?" "Yes." "Q" " Ball is not of this world." "Tell me something I don't know." "It's a real deal, Maggie." "I have a brother." "He's on another world, but I have the coordinates." "Whoa." "Have I fallen through the looking-glass here?" "What are you talking about?" "Sliding parents?" "A brother from another world?" "Quinn's an alien?" "Have you guys gone crazy and left me here?" "I want some answers, okay?" "I mean, there's got to be some answers, right?" "Well, the good news is" "I'm not crazy." "The bad news is it's all true." "There's got to be another way in." "Beside that tunnel, something we missed." "We've got to get my mom out of there." "It's too late." "Trevor sent word that she was transported right after the raid." "I'm so sorry, Quinn." "It's too bad the looters got everything." "I sure could use a drink." "We all could." "It's gonna take more than a good buzz to get him through this." "How much time until the gateway opens?" "About three minutes and some change." "After that this gizmo's worth about as much as an eight-track tape player." "I can't take the pain away, but sharing it might make it easier to bear." "I'll find her, or die trying." "I feel the same way." "I'm going to try to find my family." "As long as we've got some life in us, we've still got some fight left." "There might be a way to beat the Kromaggs, but we're not gonna find it here." "What're you saying, Quinn?" "Talk straight." "My birth parents came back for me." "Mom said that she and Dad hid me because they couldn't bear to give me up." "But they came back." "That means they won." "They drove the Kromaggs off my world." "Yeah, yeah." "But I'm not following." "My birth parents were working on a weapon that would defeat the Kromaggs." "They must have been successful because they came back for me." "Then your home world may have a secret that could beat the Maggs." "And if it worked on your world, it'll work here." "If we find that weapon, we could come back here and drive these bastards right into the dust!" "That's right, man." "We could literally save this world." "But there are millions of parallel Earths." "What are the odds of finding your home?" "Better than the odds of beating the Kromaggs with a handful of resistance fighters." "Look, I know it's a long shot, but it's the only shot we got." "If we don't slide when that vortex opens, any chances of beating the Maggs are gone." "Now I can't make decisions for you people, but I know what I've got to do." "Well, I'm with you, Q-Ball, same as always." "Kicking some Magg butt is about the only dream I've got left." "And I don't trust the two of you out there sliding by yourselves." "Who knows what kind of trouble you'll get in without me?" "So let's go for it!" "We'll be back." "You can count on it."