"Still at the ATM." "Again?" "That was way too close." "So, did you get any money?" "No." "That thing almost ate my card!" "You know, one of these slides you are gonna get trapped on a world you do not want to stay in." "But I'll have money." "Where are we?" "Looks like some kind of monastery." "Oh, fun." "How much time we got?" "Seventy-two hours." "Seems fairly normal." "It's too clean." "No Kromaggs, which is just fine with me." "Well, if we're gonna be here for three days," "I've gotta get into a library and into a lab." "There's got to be a way I can program the coordinates to my brother's world." "All we can do is hope that he's got the coordinates for our home world." "What?" "My brother's world." "I just can't get my mind around the idea that I have a brother." "A brother." "A new father and a mother." "A whole new world where someone may have slammed the devil out of the Kromaggots." "That's a lot to get your mind around, Q" " Ball." ""Uprising in Detroit ended." ""Master Oracle declares Michigan rat-free. "" "What?" "Look, I've been to Detroit." "Trust me, they've got rats." "Master Oracle?" "That guy looks like Newt Gingrich." "He's a politician back home." ""Welcomers' ceremony draws 100,000 to the Rose Bowl. "" "Well, it sure doesn't sound like a football team." ""Jason Five, RadRat, sentenced to reconfig. "" "What does that mean?" "I guess Charles Darwin on this world did something really terrible." "This is Cadmus." "Three intruders have transported themselves into the cloister by some unknown method." "They're headed toward central." "It's two men and a woman." "Alert central enforcement, and mark them for surveillance." "They could be useful to us, or..." "They could be dangerous." "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?" "What do you suppose the Oracle is?" "Some kind of church." "Noon assembly in five minutes." "Five minutes until the noon assembly." "The Oracle wants us all." "Aren't you coming to assembly?" "We're kind of new in town." "Why don't you join me?" "Newcomers are always welcome at our assemblies." "My name is Jane." "I'm soon to become a welcomer." "I'm Maggie." "And this is Quinn and Rembrandt." "Nice to meet a welcomer." "Always liked getting welcomed better than not getting welcomed." "Our Chief Oracle is Gareth." "He's a truly gifted man." "The other man is the Chief Counselor, Cadmus." "They are both sighted leaders." "Welcome to this assembly of the Oracle, followers of the Way." "Today is a very special assembly because today, a group of welcomers will pass through the portal to the other side, to the next world, to make it ready for us." "You're in for a special treat." "My friends." "There is a beautiful new world waiting for us beyond the portal." "A beautiful place you might think of as this Earth, so alike it will be." "But there we will find true peace and contentment, leaving behind all of our cares and concerns." "We must be in constant readiness to go, to cross over when we are called." "Witness now the traverse of the welcomers." "Thank you." "I hope you'll join our assembly." "Thank you." "Actually, we're just passing through." "I see." "Well, stop by any time." "The center's always open." "Thank you." "Bye." "I gotta get a look at that portal mechanism." "Just ask 'em." "They seem awfully friendly." "There's something not right about these people." "If they hate somebody like Darwin, what are they gonna think of me?" "Jane said this place is always open." "We'll wait till nobody's around and I'll get a better look." "They believe that life here is just to prepare you for life on the next world." "Yeah, that's pretty much what I was taught in church." ""The faithful will be gathered up on the Day of Accounting. "" "Same again." "Day of Judgment." "Day of Accounting." "So what do they say about the unfaithful?" "I don't see any." "It seems they all agree that the Way of the Oracle is the way to go." "You mean, the whole country follows one set of rules?" "No denominations?" "No political parties?" "No crazy guy holed up in Idaho with automatic weapons?" "Well, there are the rats." "It's what they call the Rationalist Party." "The Oracle apparently tolerates disagreement with their way as long as the rats keep it on a low flame." "Even have debates on television." "Naturally, the Oracle always wins." "So, is it a religion, is it a lifestyle, what?" "Near as I can figure, it's pretty much all of those." "On Earth Prime we had a right wing political movement that wanted to establish a system based on family values." "Yeah." "Their family values." "Obviously, on this world, those people won that argument." "According to this, they've got a lot of rules." "No real freedom of speech without Oracle approval." "No abortion." "No sex without Oracle license." "Right dress and behavior at all times." "Sounds like a weekend at my Aunt Miranda's." "Come on." "Let's just keep moving." "...455B of the Oracle rules." "So I don't understand." "How did the people let this happen?" "Must not have been paying attention when they should have been." "If you don't vote, you get what you deserve." "Yeah, well, at least they have technology, cars, airplanes, CD players." "Schools must be pretty good." "It's all controlled by the Oracle." "No social sciences." "They call that stuff humanism." "And they teach nothing but creation science." "That explains Demon Darwin." "No big bang, no relativity, no black holes, no chaos theory." "But if that portal is a sliding machine, they're going against all their own rules." "How's that?" "Quantum physics predicted parallel universes." "If you do what we do, you have to have an understanding of subatomic particles moving from one place within an atom to another without going through the space in between." "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about, and I seem to slide just fine." "Me, too!" "Your new deck will add style and value to your home." "Dealer prep, redwood tax, import fees not included." "Tax-deductible gifts to the Oracle accepted." "Nothing but preachers and shows about how to add a redwood deck to your house." "I thought the celebrity pro-am golf tournament was pretty good." "Who'd have thought Regis Philbin had such a powerful swing?" "You gonna eat the rest of your green stuff?" "You may have the rest of my green stuff and the rest of my brown stuff if you want." "What is it with the kitchen in this hotel?" "On most of the worlds, the food here is good." "The Oracle probably has approval of all menus, too." "Polyunsaturated everything, no salt, no fat." "No chocolate." "That's what I hate." "Well, we won't have to be here long." "Why do we have to go back to that Oracle place?" "All that gives me the creeps." "Can't we just lay low here until it's time for the slide?" "Yeah." "The guys who were handing out the brochures, those bulges underneath their coats didn't look like Bibles to me." "Well, you guys don't have to go if you don't want to." "But I've got to get a look at the mechanics of that machine." "I'm getting nowhere adjusting the timer." "If they have sliding technology, they might have something I could borrow or copy." "Or steal." "Well, if you're going, we're going." "You know that." "I can't stop thinking about that woman, Jane." "Something about her eyes." "She's a true believer." "Is that so bad?" "I mean, you've got to believe in something." "I believe in myself." "I would never surrender my will to some self-righteous guy who says he's got the answers to everything." "Does that mean we have no future together?" "Those guys must make regular rounds." "Maggie, watch the door." "Signal if anybody comes." "With what, a flare?" "How about just a sneeze?" "Hmm." "This thing doesn't have sliding capabilities." "It looks like it generates too much heat." "That thing's not a sliding machine." "These are ashes." "Tell me about it." "What's wrong?" "That thing's an incinerator." "What?" "Those people are being burned to death." "Freeze!" "Nobody move!" "Now, everyone stand very still." "Why were you in the assembly hall tonight?" "The doors were open." "People were coming and going." "Yes." "The assembly room is always open for meditation, renewal, but you were up on the stage." "You were looking at the controls of the portal." "I was curious." "I'm kind of a scientist." "You've just answered your first question." ""What have we done?"" "And that would be..." "You say you're a scientist." "That's a very dangerous thing to admit." "For whatever it's worth, I'm not a scientist." "What are you?" "I'm an entertainer." "You know, uh, concerts, records, weddings, bar mitzvahs." "And you?" "Tourist." "A scientist, an entertainer and a tourist." "Very little money, and very unusual." "There's someone named Lincoln on this five." "No identification, no travel permits, no locater documentation, no party cards." "And this." "What is this?" "That is a kind of a... communicator." "Really?" "Well, the numbers are counting down to something." "What?" "Uh, it's a power indicator." "Tells me how much time I have left before I have to change the batteries." "If it's a communicator, it communicates with something." "Where's the other one?" "We don't have it." "Lost it." "They're both right." "We lost it, so we don't have it." "Have our technical staff take a look at that." "Forgive my rudeness." "My name is Gareth, and I am the Chief Oracle for the Los Angeles area and this is my counselor, Cadmus." "Your sudden appearance has caused us to forget our manners." "So, I've told you my name." "Don't you want to tell me yours?" "Hi, I'm Quinn Mallory." "This is Rembrandt Brown, and this is Maggie Beckett." "Hi." "We're from out of town." "Right." "So it would seem." "The real question is, how far out of town?" "Oregon, actually." "The interior." "You know, where..." "This is our first trip to LA." "Vacation?" "You could say that." "Have you been to Oracle World?" "Not yet." "But it's on the list." "Right." "The World in Six Days is playing at the IMAX theater." "It is really something." "And the Dark Age Dungeon Ride..." "There's new music this year by John Tesh." "I love him!" "So, if, uh..." "If we could just get our little communicator back, uh, we'll mosey on over to Oracle World and, uh," "enjoy ourselves." "I..." "I'm sorry, but, um..." "We're gonna have to detain you for a little while." "Why are we being arrested?" "What charges?" "Charges?" "I am so sorry." "I thought you were paying attention." "You're completely unknown to the authorities." "You have no identification." "You're vagrants." "And you're in the possession of a scientific device." "First three are misdemeanors." "The last is a felony." "Take them." "Hey!" "Whoa, whoa..." "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute!" "What have we done?" "Ow!" "Man, what is that thing?" "Get in there!" "You know, Q-Ball, before I started hanging with you," "I hardly ever went to jail." "Now, everywhere I go." "Oh, I wonder what he's in for." "Thinking." "What do they do to you for that?" "Reconfig." "Reconfig." "I read something about that in the paper." "How does that work?" "Chemical reconfiguration." "Intravenous feed of a drug soup." "Wipes every cell in your brain clean." "Then they feed you what they want you to know." "So then you just forget everything?" "Everything." "After chemical reconfig, you're a mindless robot." "No cares." "No fears." "No anger." "No ideas." "No challenges, no love." "Paper never mentioned chemicals." "They don't want you to know." "I estimate we've got about 50 hours left till the slide." "Well, we better do something soon." "I'm not staying here 29 years with nothing but white noise between my ears." "I brought you some things to make you more comfortable." "You shouldn't have." "I do it with joy, as I do all my works for the Oracle." "Tell me about the Oracle." "My friends and I, we, uh..." "Well, we have a lot to learn." "The Oracle is a way of life that removes care and doubt." "It's a system of belief and behavior based on obedience to the Master Oracle." "The Rationalists that I've heard about, they think it's a system of repression and thought control." "I think that's sad." "Through love and care, I've seen even the most militant come around to our way of thinking." "Yeah, I was just getting to the love and care part." "It's all part of our training." "You told me you were a welcomer." "When do you expect to go to the other side?" "No welcomer knows the day or the hour." "I've already settled all my earthly affairs, ceded all my assets to the Oracle." "Wait a minute." "You've given the Oracle all your assets, all your money?" "It will do me no good where I'm going." "But the Oracle can use it for many good works here." "I know you believe that you're going to a better place." "We all would like to believe that." "But this portal to the other side, it's..." "Maggie, I understand your doubts." "I had them myself in the beginning." "But the more I learned, the more I gave myself to the Oracle, the more I realized it had to be true." "I have nothing here." "But on the other side, there will be no pain and confusion." "Everything will be love and light." "Jane, if you knew this traverse to the other side" "might bring you death, would you still go?" "Of course." "The technical unit cannot make out what the communicator is." "How do we know it's not a bomb?" "That thing could be the detonator." "No, we've had it scanned, we've had it x-rayed with the magnetic imager." "There's not a trace of explosive material in it." "Then what is it?" "Best guess?" "It's some kind of switch." "It turns something off or..." "On." "But what?" "These people worry me." "They could be part of a Rationalist infiltration." "I've been getting increased reports of RadRat activity all along the Pacific coast." "So what do we do with these three?" "Chemical reconfig." "First thing tomorrow." "What do you think will happen now?" "Breakfast, I hope." "Just as long as they don't do that chemical thing." "Where do you think the timer is?" "No idea, and no idea what to do about it." "Yeah, not what I wanted to hear." "Quinn!" "Quinn!" "Hey!" "Remmy!" "Maggie!" "My name is Samson." "Welcome to the underground." "So we're not prisoners here?" "You're guests of the RadRats." "This is all we could save from the Oracle book burners, but it's a start." "And there are more like us every day." "We've got hidden labs and libraries all up and down the coast." "The big O thinks he's got everything on rails, but one morning he's gonna wake up and smell the napalm." "What about the Rationalist Party, you with them?" "No." "Their minds are in the right place, but their hearts could use a little help." "The only real change will come through revolution." "Lot of that going around." "Now, then." "What about you?" "What about us?" "Well, as a great philosopher once said, "First things first. "" "Who are you?" "Where do you come from?" "And don't give me that Oregon business you laid on the big O." "How'd you know about that?" "Sources." "We know how you came into this world." "You were seen doing it." "We were?" "At first, some of us thought you might be welcomers coming back from the other side." "That the Oracle's portal really does work." "The portal's an incinerator." "And the welcomers are being robbed." "I met one." "She's given everything she owns to the Oracle." "We know what the portal is, and we suspected the rest." "As far as the other side goes," "I don't think there is one." "Who can say?" "You came from somewhere, didn't you?" "We came from Earth." "Not this Earth, but a parallel Earth." "This is Maggie Beckett, that's Rembrandt Brown." "I invented a device that allows us to pass through a vortex into parallel worlds." "And you came here to help us?" "Not exactly." "Well, what else could it be?" "As the poet said, "God gives, but man must open his hand. "" "And what's your job on the team?" "We're not really a team, but in my world, I was a marine captain." "Great." "We can always use another fighter." "Whoa, wait a minute." "We are not here for your fight." "We have no control over how long we stay or where we go." "And the Oracle has the only device that does control that." "The timer, and if we don't get it back before the time runs out, we're gonna be here for a very long time." "Then you'll have no choice but to join us." "Okay, let's make a deal." "You and your raiders help us get our timer back, and we will help you for as long as we're here." "When you were showing us around," "I saw one of your men working on focused laser parameters." "Yes?" "He was doing it wrong." "You've got a deal." "Good." "Well, we'll have to move fast, 'cause if you guys can get our timer back, we won't have much time left." "Then we gotta get started." "As Norm Crosby once said, "Waste not, want not. "" "I thought that was Ben Franklin." "Different worlds, different quotes." "We need to make up a plan for a move on the Oracle compound." "Okay." "Care to join us, Captain?" "All right." "I'm sure our technicians will have a lot of questions for you, Professor." "It's just Quinn." "And what's your job on the team?" "I'm a singer." "Interesting." "We found a tunnel underneath the compound." "We're closing it up." "I'd imagine the RadRats have taken the intruders far away by now." "Perhaps even out of the state." "No, I don't think so." "I think that communicator is much more important to them than they let on, and I think they'll be back for it." "We'll be ready for them." "The tunnels we used will be closed, and the guards will be doubled at the cloister and the assembly hall." "I think it would be better to make a surgical strike with a small force, not a big raid like this morning." "And if you can get intelligence on just the spot where the timer is being held, we can concentrate on that sector." "Come up with a plan and fast." "I'm not too sure about these RadRats." "Compared to the Oracle, they seem like the good guys." "Well, maybe." "But did you see the way the head guy's eyes lit up when he thought we'd have to stay here?" "He's fighting for a cause." "Oh, it's all politics." "And that stuff gets all up in your head and starts twisting it around." "Power, that's what it's all about." "The guys in the suits have got it." "The RadRats want it." "It's the folks in the middle, like us, who always get hurt." "We've got a plan." "Dr. Mallory, your Captain Beckett is so warlike." "I like that in a woman." "Hey!" "What the..." "Call security!" "What's going on?" "Neutralizer agent engaged." "You can take your masks off." "We've got to lay low for six more hours." "No, we've got that covered." "You seem very determined to get yourselves killed." "I'm certain my pack is already planning a rescue mission." "When we didn't return at the appointed time, they're trained to move." "How are they gonna get by all the security the Oracle has piled on us?" "Trust me." "They wont give us up." "There's some stuff here I don't understand." "Ever since we got here, everyone seems to know what we're doing before we do it." "You say we were seen sliding in." "Then, Big O's heat is on us right away at the assembly hall." "Your people come in here to get us out." "We come back in for the timer, there's Big O again." "It's as if they're in on the plan." "Bit of a coincidence." "Who's running this show?" "We have undercover agents very high up in the Oracle." "I don't know who they are or when they'll move, but they will." ""The biggest campaign is built on the smallest detail. "" "Julius Caesar II." "And I'm getting enough of this quoting." "Mr. Mallory." "Like a word with you, in private." "Sit down." "I want to ask you a few questions about your communicator." "You can ask." "Listen, this will go a lot easier with you if I know what it is, what it does." "I don't think you'll understand it." "Try me." "I'm not going to defy my friends to cut myself a deal." "It's a timer." "I know that much." "What's it counting down to?" "What happens when it gets to zero?" "Look, let me put it to you this way." "I think it controls, somehow, your passage in and out of this dimension." "You're the one who saw us slide in." "Never mind that." "What happens when it runs out of time?" "Let's just put it this way." "You'll have three more RadRats on your hands for a long time." "Not necessarily, Mr. Mallory." "Not necessarily." "The Master Oracle himself is very pleased." "Samson is the highest ranking RadRat yet taken on the west coast." "His reconfig will be a major coup for the Oracle." "Listen, I'm sure you're right, but I think we ought to consider making a harsher example of Samson." "And of the others, as well." "What are you suggesting?" "Oh, as dangerous as Samson is, the others are much more so." "We don't know where they came from, we don't know if there are any more like them, and they possess some kind of advanced scientific knowledge they may have passed on while they were underground." "I think we need to be rid of them all." "Are you saying we should execute them?" "Well..." "The intruders I can understand, but I don't want to give the RadRats a martyr with Samson's death." "As far as the people know, he won't die." "Let's just say for the sake of argument your friends do get us out of here." "Then what?" "If we don't get our timer back, we're stuck here for 29 years." "Would that be so bad?" "I'm gonna say yes." "We're gonna win." "What makes you so sure?" "Because we're right." "Okay, let's just say you do get what you want." "Then what happens to the Oracle and the people who believe in it?" "Nothing." "They're free to believe whatever they like." "They just won't be free to impose those beliefs on others against their will." "After all, God created our minds." "He must have wanted us to use them." "Who are you quoting now?" "Me." "I have wonderful news." "I'm here to set you free." "That's great!" "How?" "We're all going to traverse to the next world together." "What?" "The Chief Oracle has proclaimed it." "Samson and the three of you will be joining us as welcomers." "You mean we're going through that portal?" "It's more than I could have hoped for." "Jane, that portal is not what you think." "It's a killing machine!" "The Oracle has lied to you, taken everything you own, and now they're going to take your life." "I expected as much from you." "You can't listen to him." "You must trust the Oracle." "My friends and coworkers in the way of the Oracle, the signs of the end times are all around us." "The confusion that you may be feeling today as you see the unrest increase has been foreseen by the Master Oracle." "Change is painful, but we know the rewards that come of endurance and of steadfast faith." "Today, we are sending two very special groups of welcomers to that reward." "I'll see you on the other side." "Jane, you gotta listen to us." "No." "You must trust the Oracle." "Well, maybe she's right." "We'll certainly find out soon enough." "We will all now witness the traverse of the welcomers." "My friends, many of you know that the Radical Rationalist Samson was apprehended this morning with some of his followers in the compound." "We have decided that our methods of reconfiguration are inadequate here." "Consequently, we are sending them with the welcomers to the other side in the hopes that the wisdom provided there will help them to their salvation." "This is a fraud!" "That thing is an oven!" "Your friends aren't on the other side." "They're dead!" "Your Oracle has robbed them and murdered them!" "It's a RadRat lie!" "You see how perverted the RadRats have become?" "Sending them to the other side to reconfig is the only solution." "Amen!" "The final solution!" "Yeah!" "Send 'em away!" "Mr. Mallory..." "I wish you well on the other side." "It was one of the head guys, after all." "Hey." "Wow!" "It was Cadmus." "I knew it would be somebody." "Can that thing get me back?" "Yeah." "But we'd have to go with him." "We miss the vortex, we're stuck here." "But we gotta make this a quick powwow, because we got two minutes to make up our minds." "I don't think I want to give those guys another shot at cooking me." "No, no." "You don't understand, I started something." "Millions of people saw me on television." "I agree with Samson." "We have to go back and help them finish the fight." "People over there think the portal brings them to a better world, and no one's ever come back." "But if somebody did, that somebody will bring such a powerful message, nothing the Oracle said could stop it." "You gotta go back." "And we've gotta go with him." "We've gotta do the right thing." "You know, you sound just like my mother." "You know I'm with you, okay?" "And I was wrong about you." "You didn't expect to find Jane here, did you?" "Not expect, but I was hoping." "We're taking over!" "Don't resist!" "Put down your gun!" "All right, now." "Take it easy." "Listen to me!" "Please!" "Please!" "Be calm." "Listen to me." "Be calm and hear me out." "Yeah." "Come on!" "You have been misled." "And I myself cannot escape responsibility, for I have stood by and watched my friends and my neighbors have been sacrificed to the greed of the Oracle." "And I have said nothing!" "I've said nothing because I thought the time was not right." "But I tell you today, the time is right." "Yeah!" "The time is now." "The Rationalist cause will be heard!" "Down with Samson!" "Down with Samson!" "You traitor!" "Listen to him!" "I have returned to continue the fight!" "Listen!" "The rational." "The right." "Samson is wrong." "The Oracle is right!" "No!" "Don't listen to him!" "The Oracle is not right." "You lie!" "Yeah, that's a lie!" "Rationalists may not be right, either." "They're wrong!" "We want the Oracle!" "For a change, we are going to have a free and open forum to find out." "I am not a welcomer come back from the other side." "What you just saw was not a miracle, but the result of pure science." "A science that is not to be feared, but to be embraced for what it can teach us about our world and ourselves." "As Charles Darwin said," ""Accurate knowledge" ""is the true wealth of the world. "" "All right." "There is room in this world..." "We only got two minutes left here this time." "Let's take this outside." "I don't think these people can handle any more shocks." "How are they gonna handle what they've got?" "I think we started some kind of revolution." "It was bound to happen." "We just nudged it along." "It's their world." "They're gonna have to deal with it." "Thomas Jefferson once said that politics is like the weather." "Every so often you need a good storm to clear things out." "You're not gonna start quoting now, are you?" "Who's Thomas Jefferson?" "Big man in my world." "Got his face on some of the money."