Plan B was on: to bust up the timer, and all of Nexus Quinn’s stuff. The destruction of all his ingenuity. John’s least favourite option, but it would get the job done.
As Sherri headed for the basement door, John centred himself on Quinn, who was sitting on his desk chair, holding his timer tightly. He was doing surprisingly little for someone who had just discovered something alarming, but his face definitely showed it.
“I know you can’t hear me,” John said, “but I’m sorry.”
Atop the stairs, there was a thump on the door.
John watched Quinn’s gaze fall on it as the knob turned back and forth. The door wasn’t opening.
Oh no, he locked it! So much for Plan B?
The muffled voice of Sherri came from the other side of the door: “Quinn?”
Quinn stood from his seat, and moved to the base of the staircase.
“You told me to invest in a lock, right?” he called back, smirking.
“Why’d you lock me out, Quinn?” she probed.
“Because I don’t think you’re who you say you are.” He walked up a few steps. “You’re… not from here, are you?”
John moved his position to the top of the stairs, and leaned to the other side of the door. Sherri stood there, hammer in hand, ready to bust through the door.
“He has his timer with him,” he told her. “We need to talk him down before he runs off through a wormhole.”
She lowered the hammer, cursing under her breath.
“No, I’m not,” she confessed. John moved back to the basement side of the door to see Quinn’s reaction.
He had taken a seat on a step, and looked troubled, but he still wore a smirk on his face.
“I knew it! After my drives were wiped, I knew something was going on, and there were several inconsistencies that raised a red flag for me.
“So I tested you: Stephanie and I were never dating when I worked with Wade, but you seemed to accept the premise. Then, my analysis of your skin cells confirmed a foreign origin. You’re a double.”
He clasped his hands together. “So, the question is: where is my wife?”
“She’s safe…”
“Not good enough. Where is she?”
“She’s back on my world.”
Quinn frowned, and John poked his head through the door back at Sherri.
Last resort…
“I guess we need to tell him the truth.”
He pulled back into the basement as Sherri began to speak.
“Quinn, I’ve come here because you’re about to make a terrible mistake. I’m… from the future.”
Quinn stared at the door, and let out a nervous laugh.
“Yeah, okay. That’s a new one.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Those people you’ve been planning to give your sliding tech to… they’re Kromaggs, aren’t they?”
John watched Quinn mull over her words with narrowed eyes.
Sherri continued: “Whatever they’ve promised you, whatever they said to you, it’s all lies. The first thing they’re gonna do when they get that tech is come here and kill your family.”
Quinn looked up at the door, incredulous. “And why would they do that?”
“Because they hate humans. They’re only buttering you up because they want your tech.”
Quinn shook his head, standing up from the step and heading further into the basement. He moved to the crystal storage device, and hit a button on the side, ejecting the quartz point.
“You’re losing him,” John called out, frantic, as he watched Quinn place the crystal in his pocket.
“Quinn, please. There’s so much at stake here!” Sherri cried.
“And I suppose kidnapping my wife, assuming her identity, and sabotaging my stuff was all because you really, really want to help me, right?” he scoffed.
He held out the timer.
“Mayday!” John shouted. “He’s gonna bail!”
“Quinn, you can’t trust them! Hundreds of worlds are at stake here! Yours, mine, and so many others! Please… let me in, and let’s talk it out, okay?”
But it was too late. The wormhole opened, as Sherri pounded on the door handle with the hammer, before kicking at the door.
John watched Quinn disappear into the vortex. Thinking fast, he held up his handlink, and scanned the wormhole for its destination.
Sherri kept kicking until the door finally burst open. She sprinted for the vortex, but it closed, leaving her sprawled over the desk behind it.
“No!” She slammed her fist on the desk. “That self-absorbed, unreasonable, two-timing asshole!”
Yeah, that about sums it up.
She and John shared a moment of defeat. John looked down at the handlink, sighing.
“I’ve traced the wormhole,” he said, “but because he had the only means to go off-world from here, we’re gonna have to leap you there. So we’ll need to perform a retrieval and then send you back out after we’ve regrouped.”
Sherri cursed. “Fine. Let’s get going.”
He hesitated, his eyes shifting to the device that had held the crystal.
Would be a pity to let that go…
“Just, do me one small favour before we pull you out. Open that thing up for me, would you?”
* * *
The air was peaceful and fresh on Sam Beckett’s home world. It helped that they had landed somewhere outside a city, Rembrandt figured.
“So, where’d we end up this time?”
All around them grew rows and rows of trees. Remy didn’t recognise what kind of tree, but it was definitely some kind of farm, given the layout.
“I think it’s an almond farm,” Maggie said, as she studied the foliage. “Guess that means we’re in the sticks. What a pain.”
“How we doing for money, Remy?” Q-ball asked, as he held the timer out, studying it.
Rembrandt felt around in his pockets. “Ain’t got much.”
Maggie groaned. “The sooner we can contact those guys in New Mexico, the better. If I have to work another waitressing job, I may go postal.”
“About that…” Colin said, “how are we gonna contact them?”
Quinn stroked his chin. “Well, if I remember correctly, Sam called them from Sheriff Maggie’s place. If we can find the phone records, we may be able to get that number.”
Rembrandt grinned. It was good to have the old Q-ball back with his fast-moving brain.
The corners of Quinn’s mouth turned up. “Hey, Maggie…”
Maggie frowned. “Not liking that look on your face, Quinn.”
He held up his hands defensively. “I have a good idea, honest! We show up, heralding the miraculous return of Madera County Sheriff Maggie Beckett…”
He put an arm over her shoulder, and used the other to gesture dramatically. “First of all, they’ll have to drop those murder charges against Billy, and we might have easy access to those records, right?”
Maggie’s shoulders slumped. “Look, if I’m gonna do this I don’t want to waste a single second playing small town cop, okay? You saw how the other me handled that.”
Quinn chuckled. “I have a feeling once we get through to that secret government project and tell ’em what we know about it, they will want to whisk us away pretty fast.”
Rembrandt turned his attention to Mallory, who was standing apart from the group.
“Q-ball, what’s the clock say?”
Quinn held the timer up. “Five minutes.”
Rembrandt nodded, and approached the fifth slider, who was scuffing his shoe in the soil. “Hear that? You’ll be home in a few minutes!”
Mallory looked up, and gave him a weak smile. “Great. Thanks.”
“Cheer up, my man. I thought you wanted to go home?”
Mallory shrugged. “Yeah, I do.”
He kicked into the dirt again. “Just, now that I know all this stuff is out there, it’s gonna be a little difficult to just… go back, and forget about it.”
Quinn appeared beside Rembrandt.
“Well, in case we don’t do what we came here to do, maybe you can tell Diana everything about the Kromagg threat. And… this might help.”
He held the timer out to Mallory, who stared at it for a moment, then up at Quinn.
“Why would you give me that?” he asked, incredulous.
Quinn shrugged. “Look, it’ll be nothing but a paperweight if it stays here. It only operates from the coordinates of the last world it opened a wormhole to. So, it’s better off going with you.”
He took hold of Mallory’s hand and forced the timer into his palm.
“Take it,” he reiterated. “Let Diana tinker with it; she seems to understand the underlying physics.”
Mallory gingerly held the device up, studying it closely.
“You’ve definitely set it to take me home, right?”
Quinn chuckled, and nodded. “Just try not to collide with another me on your way back, okay?”
Rembrandt placed a hand on his shoulder, as the timer ticked down.
“It’s been real, man. If Doctor Frankenstein ever shows up again, give him a kick in the shins, will you?”
Mallory snorted. “That’s a promise.”
Colin and Maggie closed in, now. Colin reached to Mallory’s head and messed up his hair, causing Mallory to furrow his brow in protest, but Rembrandt could tell he was hiding a smile.
“Lose the hair gel, you look like a dork,” was Colin’s short-but-sweet parting advice, followed by a wink. Rembrandt couldn’t have put it better.
Mallory raised an eyebrow. “You know what? Just for that, I’m keeping this hair style.”
Maggie gave him a light hug. “Sorry for the girl’s name,” she said.
“Honestly, it’s starting to grow on me,” Mallory admitted.
Quinn held out a hand, and Mallory shook it. “I wish I could say our time together was pleasant, but…”
“Yeah,” Mallory finished, and held the timer up, with a nervous expression. “Which button do I press again?”
Quinn pointed to the correct button, and gave a sad sigh, as it touched down on zero, and Mallory pressed it.
“Take good care of the ol’ thing, okay?” he said, backing away as the vortex sprang to life.
Mallory nodded, and waved, before finally stepping into the gateway and disappearing, as fallen leaves swirled around them all.
As it closed up, Rembrandt felt suddenly empty, as he realised what they’d just given up.
He felt Q-ball’s hand on his shoulder.
“So I guess we really are stuck here, huh?” Remy said.
“If we do this right, I promise you’ll make it home, and the Kromaggs will be a distant memory.”
Despite everything, after being strung along by Q-ball, time after time, led around by the promise to get him home; somehow, this time, Rembrandt believed him.