7.11  ·  Sliding Doors

As Sherri was discussing the topic of eyeballs with Al Prime, Quinn was ordering a glass of beer from the mysterious bartender. With the tech in his and John’s pockets that they’d cobbled together as insurance for escaping this strange place, he figured he might as well make the most of the ‘party’ while they were all together.

As he wandered back from the bar, he came up behind a pensive Colin, seated at a table, and plucked a hair from his head. Colin jumped, taken by complete surprise.

“Jeez, what was that for?” he said with one brow low and a poorly veiled smirk.

“Just wanted to snap you out of whatever’s going on with you,” explained Quinn as he placed the beer on the table and took his seat. He flicked a finger across Colin’s shirt pocket, coming into contact with the folded up Reality Lens.

“What did you see?” he said, gazing into his brother’s haunted eyes. “You can tell me, Colin.”

Colin looked down at his tightly clasped hands. “He asked me to keep quiet about it for now.”

Even to me?

Quinn gave his brother a questioning look.

“I want to tell you,” Colin continued, “but you know I owe him one. We’ll talk about this later.”

Colin’s eyes wandered to the bar, where they locked with the bartender, who was silently polishing a glass. The gaze of the man then shifted to Quinn, and he gave an amiable nod that served only to make Quinn more uncomfortable, before turning to talk to Alia and Thames.

Rembrandt pulled a chair up to the table, staring with narrow eyes at the leaper who’d impersonated him.

“You really think that guy’s on our side?” he asked. Quinn frowned.

“Don’t know, man. What those guys made him do wasn’t entirely his fault, if that helps.”

Rembrandt sighed. “It doesn’t.”

Colin cradled his chin in his hand. “The Thames I know online has a pretty strong set of principles. But I suppose that doesn’t count for much now.”

Maggie was the next to join the group at the table.

“What do you guys make of all this?” she asked, frowning. Quinn was about to answer, when he spotted Thames kissing Sam.

“I can honestly say, I don’t know what to make of anything right now,” he mumbled, eyes wide.

The next thing Quinn witnessed was John approaching the pair, followed by another kiss between the doubles.

“Well there’s an image I can never unsee,” said Maggie, her mouth hanging open.

As the two Sams began to laugh, their faces beet red, Quinn relaxed a little.

“Meh, they’re not the only ones around here to have made out with their doubles,” he said, before taking a large gulp of his drink as the eyes of Colin, Remy, and Maggie fixed on him.

“You did what?” Colin asked, eyebrows high.

“What? She was cute, alright?” He looked bashfully into the foam of his beer. “I swear to you, I didn’t know she was a murderer at the time.”

The conversation was cut short by the blue light emanating from Thames and Alia, and all eyes shot to them as they leaped away.

“I’m pretty sure that was…” Maggie bit her lip. “Oh, jeez. That bartender doesn’t plan on leaping us around, does he? Is that what he brought us all here for? To draft us?”

“Yeah, no chance I’m agreeing to that,” said Rembrandt, shaking his head. “Had about enough of this crazy time travel business.”

“You’ve got me all wrong,” said the bartender, as he approached their table. “I actually wanted the four of you here because I have a limited time offer for you folks.”

He grabbed a chair from an adjacent table, and sat on it back-to-front, leaning his plump arms on the top of the backrest.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t involve leaping. But it’s gonna be a tough choice.”

“Out with it, then,” said Quinn, crossing his arms. “And don’t dress it up in your folksy crap.”

The bartender gave him a conceding look. “If you say so. Pay attention, okay? This might get complicated.”

He pulled a notepad and pen from his apron pocket, and placed the pad on the table. He drew two lines running parallel.

“So imagine these two lines as the timelines of your Earth, and Sam’s Earth, past to present. As you know, you jump from universe to universe by opening a bridge from one to the other,” he explained, drawing a straight perpendicular line between the parallel lines. “These two worlds were once a single world, until a point of divergence occurred, at the observation of a quantum superposition.”

He drew a few branches from each line, that continued parallel.

Quinn leaned back. “Thanks for ‘Baby’s First Quantum Mechanics Lesson.’ Get to the point.”

The bartender chuckled. “Right, right. So, this divergence occurs naturally, until time travel is involved. Then things get a little caca.”

He drew a new branch, which looped back to the same line.

“So when you go back here, your alterations cause the original timeline to jump to a newly created branch, while the new timeline overwrites the old. That’s why your memories get changed around. That’s how it normally works, anyway. But you guys changed your Earth’s past from Sam’s Earth, with your changes undoing the need for you to have ever been here in the first place. The multiverse didn’t know what to do with you, since you have versions that never left your Earth after arriving back in 1998. Three out of the four of you have turned yourselves into cosmic loose ends.”

Some bartender. This guy is a time lord or something.

Quinn squinted at the paper. “If our alterations just created new branches, doesn’t that mean there must still be a version of the Kromaggs out there with the tech that could find their way to us?”

The bartender grinned. “If you can picture a third dimension to my drawing, that’s where the old timeline goes. It’s essentially an isolated pocket dimension. If someone attempts to open a wormhole from there, back to our axis, it’ll fail, unless they manage to travel back in time to the point of divergence. And let’s all pray they never figure that one out.”

“So we already knew we’ve been… replaced,” said Quinn. “The Professor and I already drew that conclusion. But how are you supposed to help?”

“Like I said, I have a one-time offer for you,” the bartender said, grinning, and gesturing to the exit. “Out there, you’ll find San Francisco, Earth Prime, 2003. Walk out there now, and you will seamlessly merge into the other version of yourself. You’ll forget any of this happened, and continue on with your life happy and safe, with Wade and your parents.”

Wade…?

Quinn’s eyes shot to the window. Sure enough, the scene had changed from a dark desert to a thriving downtown street.

“So we’ll just be assimilated into the other us?” asked Quinn. “How exactly is that distinct from us dying? The outcome is the same, right?”

“Well, how about your brother here? Did the old version of him die? Or is he still in there?” The bartender turned an eye to Colin. “What do you think?”

Colin looked at Quinn with wide eyes.

“I think we’re the same guy…” he said. “I mean, I have fragments of memories from the old timeline. Not much, but they’re there.”

He squinted at the bartender. “You told me I’d be the same in here.” He tapped a finger to his chest. “But how can I possibly know if that’s true?”

“It’s a philosophical conundrum, I agree. This is why I’m allowing you the choice. You could become the versions of yourselves that you worked so hard to create, or you could choose a different path. You can keep your memories, but you won’t have your old lives. It’s a trade-off.”

The bartender shrugged. “Think about it. Just make your decision before closing time.”

He stood from the chair, popping the notepad back into his pocket.

“Wait a second, what about me?” Colin piped up. “I don’t have a double.”

“That’s correct. You can do anything you’d like, Colin. You have a life to return to, or not. As far as anyone will know, you’ve been travelling with doubles.”

Quinn frowned. “So let’s just assume that all of us went through the door. Would Colin be the only one who remembered us as we are... and all this?”

The bartender nodded. “That’s the way it is.”

Quinn glanced at his brother. “As tempting as the offer is, I don’t think I can give up these memories.”

“No way in hell,” agreed Maggie. “I don’t want to forget Uncle Sam… or everything we’ve done. I don’t care how blissful our lives on Earth Prime are.”

Colin smiled. “Then it’s decided. So what do we do now?”

“Wait a second, I haven’t decided nothing,” said Rembrandt. “Let me think about it some.”

I guess he’s had a tougher time than the rest of us.

Besides the recent experience of torture, Rembrandt’s scars ran deep, dating back to the invasion. Quinn knew how much Remy had changed since then, and he had been banking on undoing it all for all these years.

“It’s okay,” he said, putting a hand on Rembrandt’s shoulder. “Your life, your choice. We’ll support you either way.”

Colin looked up at the bartender. “Give me one of your umbrella cocktails,” he said.

The bartender obliged, and as Rembrandt sat lost in thought, Colin dropped the paper umbrella into his shirt pocket.

“If you decide to leave us… here’s a little something to remember me by. Even if you don’t… actually remember me.”

Rembrandt never did meet Colin before the invasion, did he?

Quinn leaned his elbows on the table, and sat in a daze as he considered the choice, and the possibility of Rembrandt finding peace.