Sliders: Bloodline (2 of 4)

by Nigel G. Mitchell

Wade bought the National Inquiry while the others rented a room at the Dominion Hotel. She read as she walked into their hotel room.

Rembrandt rubbed his hands together as he entered the room. "Yeah, this is more like it. Lot bigger room than when we stayed here last time."

Quinn shrugged off his jacket and hung it on a hook by the front door. "Okay, first order of business is finding out if we're home."

Arturo had his copy of the Chronicle under his arm, but unfolded it. "I think not, Mister Mallory. I took the liberty of checking the weather section of this newspaper. Apparently, today's temperature will be fifteen-point-two latecs. I have never heard of that measurement of temperature."

Rembrandt dropped onto the couch. "Think maybe the US switched to a new system while we were gone?"

Arturo raised an eyebrow. "I hardly think so, Mister Brown. When we left, America still refused to adopt the metric system."

"So we're not home," Quinn said. "Well, at least we won't be stuck here too long. We slide in about an hour and a half."

He took off his jacket as he looked at Wade. She still had her nose in the articles on the Golden Gate Killer. "Wade? You okay?"

Wade never looked up from her reading. "They haven't caught him. They haven't caught Richard Lynch."

Quinn glanced at Rembrandt. "Yeah, uh, we know, Wade. You mentioned it before."

Wade looked up at him. "But don't you get it? He's killed forty-nine women in this world. In the last one, he only killed forty-two. That's seven women who died, all because Lynch is still running around free."

Quinn sat down at a table in a corner of the room. "Yeah, I know. It's sucks."

Wade stared at him, a single thought running through her mind. She tried to stop herself, but couldn't help from voicing it. "We can stop him."

The others stared at her, silent, frozen. Rembrandt's arm still reached for the TV. Arturo stood in the middle of pouring himself some whiskey. Quinn had pulled his timer out of his pocket. But all of them now looked at her.

"What did you say?" Arturo asked.

"You heard me," Wade said. "We can stop him. The police don't know who's committing all these murders. We do."

Arturo put down his glass. "No, we don't, Miss Welles. This is a different world. For all we know, this could be a totally different murderer, completely unrelated to the last world."

Wade thrust the newspaper at him. "No, it's not, professor. The murders are exactly the same. The women go into the park and disappear. Three days later, the police get an anonymous tip to check the bay. They find the women dismembered, cut into equal portions with razors--"

Rembrandt clutched his stomach. "Come on, Wade, I just ate."

Wade lowered the newspaper. "Well, you get the point. It's exactly the same. The only difference is that, in this world, Lynch didn't get caught dumping one of the bodies. But we can stop him. Turn him in."

"No, we cannot," Arturo said. "May I remind you that the justice system requires something to charge people with the crime of murder, namely evidence. Do you think you can just phone up the police and tell them to arrest a man because you saw him convicted of the crimes in another dimension?"

Wade felt her pulse quicken. "So we get evidence. We get proof. Then we give it to the police. All we need to do is point them in the right direction, that's all. Come on, we can do it."

Rembrandt looked at Quinn and shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe we can."

"Out of the question," Arturo said. "Miss Welles, for the billionth time, I must insist that we not interfere with other worlds. And trying to arrest a serial killer is exactly that."

Wade folded her arms. "So whadda you want us to do, professor? Just ignore it? Let this guy go free? Kill who knows how many more women?"

Arturo held out his hands as if speaking to a child. "That's why they have police. To capture people who commit crimes. Let's just let them do their jobs."

"They only caught him on the last world by accident! Suppose that doesn't happen in this world? Suppose they never catch him? Or suppose they do, but only after he's killed a hundred more women?"

Arturo's voice rose even higher. "But what if you're wrong? What if Lynch is not the killer in this world? What if you find your so-called proof, and send an innocent man to the electric chair?"

"Guys!" Quinn yelled, then said, "Okay, everybody calm down. Now look, Wade, we're only in this world for a little while. I don't think there's enough time to track down a killer."

"Oh, come on," Wade said. "Don't tell me you're on the professor's side."

"Yeah," Rembrandt said. "I mean, don't you think we got an obligation to do what's right? If we let this guy go free and do nothin', then we're responsible for what he does. That's as bad as killin' those women ourselves."

"But the professor's right," Quinn said. "We don't have any proof that Lynch is the killer. And even if he is, what can we do about it?"

Wade tossed the Inquiry onto the dining table. "Well, I don't care what any of you say. If you won't help me, fine, I'll do it on my own. But I'm not gonna just sit here while another woman gets hacked up somewhere out there. I'm spending all my time in this world to track Lynch down."

She charged towards the front door with a powerful stride. As she grabbed the doorknob, a firm hand rested on her shoulder.

It belonged to Arturo. "I'll go with you, Miss Welles. But not because I wish to aid you in this ridiculous adventure. My main concern is to make sure that this is carried out in the proper fashion. Promise me that we will collect solid, conclusive evidence before making any kind of statement to the police. And that we will not endanger our lives in this pursuit."

Wade grinned. "You got it."

"Okay," Quinn sighed. "Be careful out there."

"Yeah," Rembrandt said. "Watch your backs, guys."

Wade nodded, then pulled open the door. She walked out into the lobby and headed down the stairs, followed by Arturo.

"I cannot believe I'm doing this," Arturo murmured.

Wade hailed a cab and gave the driver an address. As they headed across San Francisco, Arturo looked at her from where he sat next to her. "Exactly where are we headed, Miss Welles?"

"Lynch was a gardener," Wade said. "Ran a small business called Treetop Gardening. I remember 'cause he used a lot of his equipment on the women he killed."

"Delightful. And exactly why are we going to this establishment?"

"Because that's where Lynch is. And I wanna see him, face-to-face. I know who and what he is, and he's bound to let something slip. That's why I brought this."

Wade opened her coat to reveal her tape recorder. "If I can get him to slip up, I can get a confession out of him that we can send to the police."

"Interesting plan," Arturo said. "Of course, if Lynch is not the killer, then all this is futile."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Wade tucked the recorder deeper into her pocket, and pulled her jacket over it. It seemed virtually undetectable.

The cab dropped them off in front of a small shop with the green, flowery logo "Treetop Gardening" over the door. A small bell tied to the handle of the door rang as Wade pushed the door open.

Darkness filled the inside of the shop, the only light coming from the picture window in the front. The back of the shop cloaked with shadows. The smell of fresh earth mingled in the air, carried by the gardening tools mounted on all the walls. Knives, shears, hoes, and rakes hung on nails all around Wade, their sharp edges catching the light.

The door in the back of the shop opened on squealing hinges. Richard Lynch walked through it. Only when Wade saw him did she realize the job lying ahead of her. Up until that moment, she had only seen Lynch through a TV screen, like seeing a lion through the bars of a cage; frightening, but with a sense of distance, knowing it couldn't reach you. But now Lynch stood in front of Wade, his blue eyes looking straight at her instead of through a camera lens. There were no policemen or bars to protect her now.

Lynch smiled as he looked at her, the same smile he had worn throughout his trial. "Can I help you?"

Wade opened her mouth to recite the speech she had planned. Her voice wouldn't come out. She could hardly breathe. She tried again. Only by working her throat hard did she manage to speak.

"Hi," she breathed, trying not to let her voice tremble. "I'm Wade. This is my husband, Max. Um, we were wondering if you could do our lawn. It's a mess."

Lynch opened a tattered notebook on his desk. Shadows fell over his face as he lowered it to read the book. "Well, my rates are by the square foot. The bigger the lawn, the higher the rates. How big is your lawn?"

Wade blurted out the first numbers she could think of, not even conscious of what they were.

Lynch raised an eyebrow. "Really? Wow. That's the biggest one I've ever worked on."

"Steady, Miss Welles," Arturo murmured.

Lynch began to type on a calculator. "Okay, that's ten dollars a square foot, including equipment rental--"

Wade watched him work for a moment, and glanced up at Arturo. He only looked down at her with a dead expression. He left it up to her.

Wade took a deep breath. "So, these are some interesting tools you have."

Lynch glanced up at her, then back down at his work. "Yeah. You gotta have good equipment in this job."

"I'd have expected you to have fancier stuff. You know, electric trimmers, that sort of thing."

Lynch wrote something down. "I prefer manual. I can control it better, and I like working with my hands."

Wade gave Arturo a knowing look. His expression remained blank.

Wade wandered over to a hedge trimmer on one section of the wall. The blades were over a foot long. She tried to act casual as she leaned towards it. "So, whadda you think of the Golden Gate Killer?"

Lynch looked up at her, his pencil hovering over the page. "What do I think about it? I think it's pretty bad, I guess."

"You guess?"

Lynch looked back down at his notes. "Yeah. I mean, this world's full of crazies. Somebody's bound to snap every now and then. I hope they catch the guy."

Wade turned to look at him. "What do you think drives someone to do something like that? What motivates them."

Arturo turned a light shade of pink. Wade ignored him, focused on Lynch, who stared at her with a puzzled frown on his face.

"I dunno," Lynch said. "I never really thought about it before."

"Take a guess," Wade said.

Lynch put down his pencil and bit his lip in thought. "Well, I guess it's like a compulsion, you know? They just have to do it. Maybe...maybe they're okay for a while. You'd never know they were anything other than a normal person. But this desire, this bloodlust comes over them. And they have to kill. They need to kill. Just to feel something. Anything. Sometimes."

Lynch tore off the form he filled out, pinned it to a clipboard, and slid it towards her. "Sign here, please."

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