by Nigel G. Mitchell
Dino Veritas" and "Post-Traumatic Slide Syndrome."
Quinn crawled along the grass of Golden Gate Park, his face inches away from the soil. He couldn't find what he was looking for, but he knew it was there. He could see other people in the park out of the corner of his eye, staring at him, but Quinn ignored them. He focused only on the ground beneath him. It had to be there. It had to...
Then he saw it. A small stone about the size of a bead.
Though it was unpolished, it still gleamed softly in the sunlight. Quinn carefully dug it up with his finger. After brushing off some of the grains still clinging to its surface, Quinn slipped the pebble into the small leather pouch at his belt. He listened to the satisfying click of the stone bouncing against the others already inside his bag, then went back to his hunting. There were more. There always were.
A bird chirped in the branches above his head as he crawled up to the trunk of a nearby tree, When his head banged into something, he thought it was the tree, but he looked up into the wide eyes of a young woman.
"Hey, Quinn," the woman said, "watch where you're going, huh?"
Quinn grinned sheepishly. "Right. Sorry, Wade."
Wade gave him a smile as she plucked a stone out from under a thick root of the tree. "That's okay. It is kinda hard to keep your mind on things when there's diamonds underfoot."
Quinn nodded as he got to his feet. They were all feeling the excitement of being in a world where diamonds were as common as rocks. It was just what they needed; a way to make more money.
Sliding was pretty expensive. They couldn't carry clothes, food, or anything with them through the wormhole, let alone a house or a car. They ended up renting rooms, buying food, and taking taxi cabs in most of the worlds they went to. They rarely stayed in worlds long enough to get jobs, so their funds shrank quickly. Thankfully, they managed to slide into the occasional world where they could get money again like this one.
They only had a few minutes on this world, so the plan had been to get as many diamonds as possible as quickly as possible to sell in the next world. Quinn had been on his hands and knees for the last half-hour. As he stood, his back hit him with a twinge of pain, and he groaned as he kneaded his muscles back to life.
"How much did you get?" Quinn asked.
Wade stood and sifted through her paper bag. "I dunno. About twenty. I've been going for the big ones. I figure, why load myself down with little ones when the heavy rocks are worth more."
Quinn grinned as he shook his pouch, listening to the soft clatter. "Not me. The big ones are too hard to find. I say, go for what you can get."
Wade smirked up at him. "That's my Quinn, always taking the easy way out."
Rembrandt came up from behind a hill, laughing as he held his hands up in the air. "We're rich, guys. Rich, I tell you! I ain't seen so many stones since Liberace played with me and the Topps in '79!"
Wade laughed as he approached. "How much you get?"
"Enough to set me up for life, that's how much." Rembrandt let the diamonds in one hand spill out of his fingers into his other palm. "Man, this world is the best. Diamonds everywhere you look. I figure I can buy my own recording studio, produce my own records, get myself back on top. And have plenty left over for a new Caddie."
Rembrandt wrapping one arm around Quinn's neck. "I take back everything I said about you, Q-Ball. Sliding is the best thing that ever happened to me."
He let go of Quinn to press his diamonds against his lips in a loud kiss.
"Glad you're happy." Quinn pulled the timing device out of his pocket, flipping it open with a practiced movement. He read the blinking red display that counted down numbers slowly. "Remmy, have you seen the professor?"
Rembrandt stuffed diamonds into his pockets as he shook his head. "Naw, man, haven't seen him in a while. We were working on the other side of the park when he muttered somethin' about diggin' for truffles, and took off."
Quinn shaded his eyes against the sun to look around them. "Well, he'd better get here soon. We only have a few minutes before we slide."
Wade pointed at the footpath that ran beneath the nearby stone bridge. "Wait. There he is."
Professor Arturo strode calmly down the cobblestone path to join the others. He had a bemused look on his face that Quinn recognized. It was the look the professor used when he was feeling smug.
"Well," Arturo said, "good afternoon, lady and gentlemen. I take it your little scavenger hunt went well?"
Wade held up her paper bag. "Sure did. How'd you do?"
Arturo's smile cranked up a notch as he drew a plastic bag out of his pocket. "Quite well, actually. While the rest of you spent your time on this world digging in the dirt like pigs digging for truffles, I discovered a simpler and more efficient way of acquiring the necessary stones."
Arturo held up the bag, allowing the others to inspect its contents. The plastic bag was filled with diamonds that sparkled in the light. They were all perfectly shaped into small rounded beads, casting speckled light onto Wade's astonished face.
"Wow. You had your diamonds polished?" she asked.
Arturo pulled back the bag to look at it. "Not at all. It was done for me. You see, we know that diamonds here are very common. As common as, say, quartz in our world. As a result, they are virtually worthless here. But I speculated that diamonds would still be used for various purposes, like drilling or for ornamental use..."
"Come on, professor," Rembrandt said. "Cut the song and dance, will ya? Where'd you get the rocks?"
Arturo's smile fell as he regarded Rembrandt with a glare. "Very well, Rembrandt, since you insist on degrading any dramatic content I might impart on this moment. I simply went to a nearby pet store. It's aquarium gravel. Cost me three dollars, and I would say it's worth, oh, fifteen million at the going rate when we left our world."
Rembrandt threw up his hands, walking away from the group. "Great. Just great. And you couldn't have shared that with us before we finished crawling around the park like idiots?"
Arturo tucked the bag into his pocket. "Well, I would have, but you seemed to be enjoying yourselves."
"Enjoying ourselves? Come on, professor, if I'da known you could get this stuff off the shelf, I wouldn't have..."
Quinn was the first to hear the familiar beeping of his timer that signaled the time was up. He flipped it open, watching the numbers dance on the display as it reached zero.
"Here we go, guys." He pressed the activation button.
Rembrandt and Arturo stopped arguing to watch as Quinn aimed the timer at an empty space. The blast of air came first, carrying with it the tang of ozone. Then a patch of the world seemed to collapse, sinking into a round hole suspended in midair. The hole expanded to about six feet around, light flowing into it, like water pouring down a drain.
The Sliders stood there, bathed in the light of the wormhole for a moment, then looked at each other.
Wade clenched her fists against her sides, and ran at full-speed towards the portal. At the last moment, she jumped, leaping into the portal. She turned into a flash of light on the wormhole.
Arturo followed her, plunging into the roaring depths of hyperspace. Rembrandt threw one more look at the park, then threw himself into the wormhole. Quinn was the
last to go, leaving their world behind for the unknown.
* * *
"Oof!"
"Hey! Who hit me!"
"It's me. Quinn. Sorry, I dropped out of the wormhole. Didn't see you standing there. Didn't see anything, actually..."
"That you, Q-Ball?"
"Yeah, Remmy. Wade, you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just had the wind knocked out of me, that's all. Where are we?"
"I dunno. It's dark. Can't see a thing, can you?"
"Not me. I think I feel something, though. Feels like cloth..."
"That is me, Miss Welles, and I would appreciate it if you did not manhandle my coat."
"Well, sor-ry, professor."
"Ow! Hey, there's somethin' on the ceiling, hit me in the head. Feels like a stick or somethin'. Can't move it..."
"Hey, guys...I feel a wall, but it feels weird. Rough..."
"A moment, Miss Welles. I happen to have my lighter with me. It should provide adequate illumination...there."
A flame snapped into existence. Its flickering light cast Arturo into sharp relief, surrounded by darkness. He moved the lighter out farther to shed light onto the others, all gathered around him. Quinn saw he stood next to Rembrandt, who rubbed his forehead, wincing in pain.
"There," Arturo said, "now, let's see if we can determine where we've found ourselves this time. Miss Welles?"
Wade's voice came from behind Quinn. "Over here, professor."
Arturo moved forward, thrusting his lighter ahead of himself into the darkness. Its small sphere of light fell onto Wade. She stood against the uneven surface of
a wall, running her hands over its surface.
"It's rock," Wade said.
Arturo squinted at the wall. "Yes. Limestone, I believe."
"Hey, guys," Rembrandt said.
Quinn's attention turned to Rembrandt, who pointed at an elongated cone sticking out above them.
"I found what hit me," Rembrandt said.
"A stalagmite?" Wade asked.
"Stalactite," Quinn said. "Stalagmites are on the ground."
Arturo moved his lighter around the room they were in, breaking away the shadows that danced around them. "I believe we're in some sort of cave."
"A cave," Wade said. "We slid into a cave?"
"Indeed." Arturo took a few steps forward, his light falling onto another wall of stone. "Quite a small one, it seems. I say...I seem to be having trouble locating an exit."
Quinn walked away from him, into the darkness with his hands in front of him. "Everybody spread out, see if you can find it."
He stepped further into the depths of the caves, the light closing itself behind him. Quinn could hear the shuffling footsteps of the others as they did the same. His
breathing seemed to be growing louder.
Then his hands came in contact with rock. Quinn ran his fingers over it, letting its grainy texture glide under his palm as he shifted to one side, then the other.
"Nothing on this side," he said.
"Same here," Wade called out.
Rembrandt's voice echoed as he said, "Ditto."
There was a pause before Professor Arturo said, "I...I must admit the same."
Quinn felt a chill run through him as a thought came to his mind. He tried to force it out as he walked back to the others, back into the light of Arturo's lighter. The smell of butane grew as he approached the professor, who looked back at him with
a grim expression.
"People," Arturo said, "I think we have a problem here."
Wade looked at him, then took a step back. "You're saying there's no way out?"
"I'm afraid so," Arturo said. "We seem to have slid into a rather small cave devoid of an exit."
Rembrandt nudged Quinn with his elbow. "How much time do we got before the next slide?"
Quinn remembered his timer and pulled it out. "Good thinking. Bring that light over here, professor."
Arturo obliged, leaning closer. The others all huddled around the tiny flame that cast a yellowish glow upon the timer's blinking display.
They all read it at the same time. Quinn knew this because they all inhaled, sharply, in one breath.
According to the timer, their next slide was eight days away.
Rembrandt backed away from the timer in Quinn's hand, as if it was an evil talisman. "No. No, that...that can't be right. Tell me that don't say eight days."
Quinn swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat as he gazed at the display by the light of Arturo's lighter. "Yeah, Rembrandt. It's...it's eight days."
"Eight days?" Rembrandt yelled. "We're gonna be stuck in this cave for eight days? I'll go stir-crazy!"
"I'm afraid we have more pressing concerns, Mister Brown," Arturo said. "In this cave, we have no food or water. Without food, we might last the week. But without water...we cannot last more than two days, three at the most. Five days short of our next slide."
Rembrandt charged towards the others again. "Forget about that. How much air you think we got in here?"
Arturo's eyes widened as he looked around them at the walls, alive with shadows. "Good heavens. I hadn't thought of that. I...wouldn't guess that we have more than an hour's worth of air in here. Possibly less."
Quinn closed his eyes and groaned. The walls seemed to be closing in him, crushing him not with stone, but with reality, squeezing him as tightly as a fist.
"An hour." Rembrandt pointed. "Okay. That's it. Q-Ball, turn on that timer and get us outta here, right now."
Quinn suppressed the urge to shout as he faced Rembrandt. "Rembrandt, I have explained this to you a billion times. I can't open another bridge until the time is up. We have to wait for another dimension to align itself with ours. And according to the timer, that won't happen for another eight days. You might as well ask me to part the Red Sea. It just ain't gonna happen."
Rembrandt let his hands fall to his sides. "So you're sayin' we're trapped in here? Trapped in here for eight days, choosin' between starvin' or suffocatin'?"
Quinn swallowed. The lump wouldn't go down. "Yeah. That's about it."
Rembrandt cradled his head in his hands as Wade began running her hands over the walls again. "How'd this happen. That's all I wanna know. How did this happen? What
kinda world is this?"
Arturo brought the lighter over to a wall to inspect it, the flame rippling in response. "Well, I am hardly in a position to make an educated guess, but I would theorize that we are in a world where a landmass occupies the space we last left. It could be a hill. Or perhaps a mountain. I suppose it could have been worse. A few feet to the left or right, and we might have slid into who-knows-what. Perhaps solid rock."
Wade slapped the wall of the cave with a palm. "Okay, we gotta get out of here. Help! Help!" She rapped on the cave's wall with a fist.
"What're you doing?" Quinn asked.
Wade glared at him over her shoulder. "I'm calling for help. What's it look like? Help!" She banged on the stone again.
Arturo approached her with the light. "Wade, there is no guarantee that there is anyone out there to hear us. And even if there were, there could be hundreds of feet of rock to block our voices. To spend our time in here screaming would only waste air and energy."
Wade pushed away from the wall, spinning herself to glare up at Arturo. "All right, professor, you got a better idea?"
Arturo raised himself up slightly, looking down at her. "Certainly. We shall dig our way out."
"Dig?" Wade thrust a finger at the ceiling. "You're the one who said there's hundreds of feet of rock out there."
"Correction. I said there _could_ be hundreds or there could be three. We have no way of knowing if we do not try. We had best get ourselves out of this situation without depending on imaginary people to do it for us."
Wade folded her arms, tilting her head to one side. "Okay, smart guy, try this one. Which direction should we dig? Huh? How do we know which way is closest to the surface? Up, down, left, right, what?"
Quinn felt the tremble beneath his feet before the rumble came. It started low, then gradually increased. The others looked around at the walls, pebbles breaking loose to clatter to the ground. The rumble swelled into a roar. They all put their hands over their ears, struggling to keep out the noise. Just as it reached an unbearable peak, the noise began to fade into silence once again.
Wade pulled away her hands as she looked around herself.
"What was that?" Wade whispered.
Rembrandt threw up his hands. "It was an earthquake. That's just beautiful. Bad enough we're trapped in here with no food or air without worryin' about the roof cavin' in on us."
"Exactly my point, Rembrandt," Arturo said. "If we are to get out of here, we must do so as quickly as possible. Digging seems to be our only solution."
Quinn considered their options. He didn't have to think long before nodding. "Yeah. Okay. I guess we don't have a choice. But Wade's right. Which way do we dig?"
Arturo faced a wall with his lighter, spreading a hand towards it. "This way seems to be as good as any."
Quinn took a deep breath, inhaling the thick scent of butane that filled the cave. "Okay, let's do it."
The four of them gathered in front of the portion of the wall Arturo lit with his lighter. Quinn pressed his hand against the rock, grunting with effort. It didn't budge.
"There's no way we can dig through that with our bare hands," he said.
"Yeah," Rembrandt said, "but didn't the professor say somethin' about diamonds bein' used for drilling?"
Arturo looked at him, nodding slowly. "Of course. An excellent idea. Diamonds are one of the hardest substances on Earth. It could easily break through this rock."
"Only problem is," Quinn murmured, "none of us has diamonds big enough. Except..."
He focused his grin on Wade, who clutched at the paper bag in her hands.
"Oh, come on," Wade said. "I spent an hour getting these babies."
"Wade..."
Wade sighed, waving him off. "I know, I know. We don't have much choice. Just wish we didn't have to use my nest-egg as a means of escape."
She opened the bag, its rustling filling the cave as she pulled out four diamonds. Wade passed them around to the others. Rembrandt looked at his, the size of a small egg, and whistled.
"Man oh man," he said. "This beauty's gonna bring a pretty penny on the market."
Arturo hefted his stone. "True. If we ever get the chance to sell it. I suggest we begin. On the count of three. One. Two. Three!"
They all struck the cave-wall with their diamonds.
Pieces of rock went flying, splintering, as holes formed.
Rembrandt laughed and attacked the wall. It fell to his attack, loosening large chunks that clattered to the floor.
"Hey, this could work, after all," Wade said. "Good thinking, professor. You too, Rembrandt."
Arturo smiled at her. "As always, Miss Welles."
Quinn struck the rock again and again. The crack and thump of the others digging was the only sound.
"Well," Rembrandt said, "this could get kinda borin' after a while."
Wade paused her diamond in midair, then brought it down with a loud bang. "Hey, we could play a game to pass the time. Like, um, twenty questions. Okay, I'm thinking of
something. What is it?"
"Is it a mineral?" Quinn asked.
"Yeah."
"Limestone."
Wade looked up at him. "Yeah. How'd you guess?"
Quinn crawled along the grass of Golden Gate Park, his face inches away from the soil. He couldn't find what he was looking for, but he knew it was there. He could see other people in the park out of the corner of his eye, staring at him, but Quinn ignored them. He focused only on the ground beneath him. It had to be there. It had to...
Then he saw it. A small stone about the size of a bead.
Though it was unpolished, it still gleamed softly in the sunlight. Quinn carefully dug it up with his finger. After brushing off some of the grains still clinging to its surface, Quinn slipped the pebble into the small leather pouch at his belt. He listened to the satisfying click of the stone bouncing against the others already inside his bag, then went back to his hunting. There were more. There always were.
A bird chirped in the branches above his head as he crawled up to the trunk of a nearby tree, When his head banged into something, he thought it was the tree, but he looked up into the wide eyes of a young woman.
"Hey, Quinn," the woman said, "watch where you're going, huh?"
Quinn grinned sheepishly. "Right. Sorry, Wade."
Wade gave him a smile as she plucked a stone out from under a thick root of the tree. "That's okay. It is kinda hard to keep your mind on things when there's diamonds underfoot."
Quinn nodded as he got to his feet. They were all feeling the excitement of being in a world where diamonds were as common as rocks. It was just what they needed; a way to make more money.
Sliding was pretty expensive. They couldn't carry clothes, food, or anything with them through the wormhole, let alone a house or a car. They ended up renting rooms, buying food, and taking taxi cabs in most of the worlds they went to. They rarely stayed in worlds long enough to get jobs, so their funds shrank quickly. Thankfully, they managed to slide into the occasional world where they could get money again like this one.
They only had a few minutes on this world, so the plan had been to get as many diamonds as possible as quickly as possible to sell in the next world. Quinn had been on his hands and knees for the last half-hour. As he stood, his back hit him with a twinge of pain, and he groaned as he kneaded his muscles back to life.
"How much did you get?" Quinn asked.
Wade stood and sifted through her paper bag. "I dunno. About twenty. I've been going for the big ones. I figure, why load myself down with little ones when the heavy rocks are worth more."
Quinn grinned as he shook his pouch, listening to the soft clatter. "Not me. The big ones are too hard to find. I say, go for what you can get."
Wade smirked up at him. "That's my Quinn, always taking the easy way out."
Rembrandt came up from behind a hill, laughing as he held his hands up in the air. "We're rich, guys. Rich, I tell you! I ain't seen so many stones since Liberace played with me and the Topps in '79!"
Wade laughed as he approached. "How much you get?"
"Enough to set me up for life, that's how much." Rembrandt let the diamonds in one hand spill out of his fingers into his other palm. "Man, this world is the best. Diamonds everywhere you look. I figure I can buy my own recording studio, produce my own records, get myself back on top. And have plenty left over for a new Caddie."
Rembrandt wrapping one arm around Quinn's neck. "I take back everything I said about you, Q-Ball. Sliding is the best thing that ever happened to me."
He let go of Quinn to press his diamonds against his lips in a loud kiss.
"Glad you're happy." Quinn pulled the timing device out of his pocket, flipping it open with a practiced movement. He read the blinking red display that counted down numbers slowly. "Remmy, have you seen the professor?"
Rembrandt stuffed diamonds into his pockets as he shook his head. "Naw, man, haven't seen him in a while. We were working on the other side of the park when he muttered somethin' about diggin' for truffles, and took off."
Quinn shaded his eyes against the sun to look around them. "Well, he'd better get here soon. We only have a few minutes before we slide."
Wade pointed at the footpath that ran beneath the nearby stone bridge. "Wait. There he is."
Professor Arturo strode calmly down the cobblestone path to join the others. He had a bemused look on his face that Quinn recognized. It was the look the professor used when he was feeling smug.
"Well," Arturo said, "good afternoon, lady and gentlemen. I take it your little scavenger hunt went well?"
Wade held up her paper bag. "Sure did. How'd you do?"
Arturo's smile cranked up a notch as he drew a plastic bag out of his pocket. "Quite well, actually. While the rest of you spent your time on this world digging in the dirt like pigs digging for truffles, I discovered a simpler and more efficient way of acquiring the necessary stones."
Arturo held up the bag, allowing the others to inspect its contents. The plastic bag was filled with diamonds that sparkled in the light. They were all perfectly shaped into small rounded beads, casting speckled light onto Wade's astonished face.
"Wow. You had your diamonds polished?" she asked.
Arturo pulled back the bag to look at it. "Not at all. It was done for me. You see, we know that diamonds here are very common. As common as, say, quartz in our world. As a result, they are virtually worthless here. But I speculated that diamonds would still be used for various purposes, like drilling or for ornamental use..."
"Come on, professor," Rembrandt said. "Cut the song and dance, will ya? Where'd you get the rocks?"
Arturo's smile fell as he regarded Rembrandt with a glare. "Very well, Rembrandt, since you insist on degrading any dramatic content I might impart on this moment. I simply went to a nearby pet store. It's aquarium gravel. Cost me three dollars, and I would say it's worth, oh, fifteen million at the going rate when we left our world."
Rembrandt threw up his hands, walking away from the group. "Great. Just great. And you couldn't have shared that with us before we finished crawling around the park like idiots?"
Arturo tucked the bag into his pocket. "Well, I would have, but you seemed to be enjoying yourselves."
"Enjoying ourselves? Come on, professor, if I'da known you could get this stuff off the shelf, I wouldn't have..."
Quinn was the first to hear the familiar beeping of his timer that signaled the time was up. He flipped it open, watching the numbers dance on the display as it reached zero.
"Here we go, guys." He pressed the activation button.
Rembrandt and Arturo stopped arguing to watch as Quinn aimed the timer at an empty space. The blast of air came first, carrying with it the tang of ozone. Then a patch of the world seemed to collapse, sinking into a round hole suspended in midair. The hole expanded to about six feet around, light flowing into it, like water pouring down a drain.
The Sliders stood there, bathed in the light of the wormhole for a moment, then looked at each other.
Wade clenched her fists against her sides, and ran at full-speed towards the portal. At the last moment, she jumped, leaping into the portal. She turned into a flash of light on the wormhole.
Arturo followed her, plunging into the roaring depths of hyperspace. Rembrandt threw one more look at the park, then threw himself into the wormhole. Quinn was the
last to go, leaving their world behind for the unknown.
* * *
"Oof!"
"Hey! Who hit me!"
"It's me. Quinn. Sorry, I dropped out of the wormhole. Didn't see you standing there. Didn't see anything, actually..."
"That you, Q-Ball?"
"Yeah, Remmy. Wade, you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just had the wind knocked out of me, that's all. Where are we?"
"I dunno. It's dark. Can't see a thing, can you?"
"Not me. I think I feel something, though. Feels like cloth..."
"That is me, Miss Welles, and I would appreciate it if you did not manhandle my coat."
"Well, sor-ry, professor."
"Ow! Hey, there's somethin' on the ceiling, hit me in the head. Feels like a stick or somethin'. Can't move it..."
"Hey, guys...I feel a wall, but it feels weird. Rough..."
"A moment, Miss Welles. I happen to have my lighter with me. It should provide adequate illumination...there."
A flame snapped into existence. Its flickering light cast Arturo into sharp relief, surrounded by darkness. He moved the lighter out farther to shed light onto the others, all gathered around him. Quinn saw he stood next to Rembrandt, who rubbed his forehead, wincing in pain.
"There," Arturo said, "now, let's see if we can determine where we've found ourselves this time. Miss Welles?"
Wade's voice came from behind Quinn. "Over here, professor."
Arturo moved forward, thrusting his lighter ahead of himself into the darkness. Its small sphere of light fell onto Wade. She stood against the uneven surface of
a wall, running her hands over its surface.
"It's rock," Wade said.
Arturo squinted at the wall. "Yes. Limestone, I believe."
"Hey, guys," Rembrandt said.
Quinn's attention turned to Rembrandt, who pointed at an elongated cone sticking out above them.
"I found what hit me," Rembrandt said.
"A stalagmite?" Wade asked.
"Stalactite," Quinn said. "Stalagmites are on the ground."
Arturo moved his lighter around the room they were in, breaking away the shadows that danced around them. "I believe we're in some sort of cave."
"A cave," Wade said. "We slid into a cave?"
"Indeed." Arturo took a few steps forward, his light falling onto another wall of stone. "Quite a small one, it seems. I say...I seem to be having trouble locating an exit."
Quinn walked away from him, into the darkness with his hands in front of him. "Everybody spread out, see if you can find it."
He stepped further into the depths of the caves, the light closing itself behind him. Quinn could hear the shuffling footsteps of the others as they did the same. His
breathing seemed to be growing louder.
Then his hands came in contact with rock. Quinn ran his fingers over it, letting its grainy texture glide under his palm as he shifted to one side, then the other.
"Nothing on this side," he said.
"Same here," Wade called out.
Rembrandt's voice echoed as he said, "Ditto."
There was a pause before Professor Arturo said, "I...I must admit the same."
Quinn felt a chill run through him as a thought came to his mind. He tried to force it out as he walked back to the others, back into the light of Arturo's lighter. The smell of butane grew as he approached the professor, who looked back at him with
a grim expression.
"People," Arturo said, "I think we have a problem here."
Wade looked at him, then took a step back. "You're saying there's no way out?"
"I'm afraid so," Arturo said. "We seem to have slid into a rather small cave devoid of an exit."
Rembrandt nudged Quinn with his elbow. "How much time do we got before the next slide?"
Quinn remembered his timer and pulled it out. "Good thinking. Bring that light over here, professor."
Arturo obliged, leaning closer. The others all huddled around the tiny flame that cast a yellowish glow upon the timer's blinking display.
They all read it at the same time. Quinn knew this because they all inhaled, sharply, in one breath.
According to the timer, their next slide was eight days away.
Rembrandt backed away from the timer in Quinn's hand, as if it was an evil talisman. "No. No, that...that can't be right. Tell me that don't say eight days."
Quinn swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat as he gazed at the display by the light of Arturo's lighter. "Yeah, Rembrandt. It's...it's eight days."
"Eight days?" Rembrandt yelled. "We're gonna be stuck in this cave for eight days? I'll go stir-crazy!"
"I'm afraid we have more pressing concerns, Mister Brown," Arturo said. "In this cave, we have no food or water. Without food, we might last the week. But without water...we cannot last more than two days, three at the most. Five days short of our next slide."
Rembrandt charged towards the others again. "Forget about that. How much air you think we got in here?"
Arturo's eyes widened as he looked around them at the walls, alive with shadows. "Good heavens. I hadn't thought of that. I...wouldn't guess that we have more than an hour's worth of air in here. Possibly less."
Quinn closed his eyes and groaned. The walls seemed to be closing in him, crushing him not with stone, but with reality, squeezing him as tightly as a fist.
"An hour." Rembrandt pointed. "Okay. That's it. Q-Ball, turn on that timer and get us outta here, right now."
Quinn suppressed the urge to shout as he faced Rembrandt. "Rembrandt, I have explained this to you a billion times. I can't open another bridge until the time is up. We have to wait for another dimension to align itself with ours. And according to the timer, that won't happen for another eight days. You might as well ask me to part the Red Sea. It just ain't gonna happen."
Rembrandt let his hands fall to his sides. "So you're sayin' we're trapped in here? Trapped in here for eight days, choosin' between starvin' or suffocatin'?"
Quinn swallowed. The lump wouldn't go down. "Yeah. That's about it."
Rembrandt cradled his head in his hands as Wade began running her hands over the walls again. "How'd this happen. That's all I wanna know. How did this happen? What
kinda world is this?"
Arturo brought the lighter over to a wall to inspect it, the flame rippling in response. "Well, I am hardly in a position to make an educated guess, but I would theorize that we are in a world where a landmass occupies the space we last left. It could be a hill. Or perhaps a mountain. I suppose it could have been worse. A few feet to the left or right, and we might have slid into who-knows-what. Perhaps solid rock."
Wade slapped the wall of the cave with a palm. "Okay, we gotta get out of here. Help! Help!" She rapped on the cave's wall with a fist.
"What're you doing?" Quinn asked.
Wade glared at him over her shoulder. "I'm calling for help. What's it look like? Help!" She banged on the stone again.
Arturo approached her with the light. "Wade, there is no guarantee that there is anyone out there to hear us. And even if there were, there could be hundreds of feet of rock to block our voices. To spend our time in here screaming would only waste air and energy."
Wade pushed away from the wall, spinning herself to glare up at Arturo. "All right, professor, you got a better idea?"
Arturo raised himself up slightly, looking down at her. "Certainly. We shall dig our way out."
"Dig?" Wade thrust a finger at the ceiling. "You're the one who said there's hundreds of feet of rock out there."
"Correction. I said there _could_ be hundreds or there could be three. We have no way of knowing if we do not try. We had best get ourselves out of this situation without depending on imaginary people to do it for us."
Wade folded her arms, tilting her head to one side. "Okay, smart guy, try this one. Which direction should we dig? Huh? How do we know which way is closest to the surface? Up, down, left, right, what?"
Quinn felt the tremble beneath his feet before the rumble came. It started low, then gradually increased. The others looked around at the walls, pebbles breaking loose to clatter to the ground. The rumble swelled into a roar. They all put their hands over their ears, struggling to keep out the noise. Just as it reached an unbearable peak, the noise began to fade into silence once again.
Wade pulled away her hands as she looked around herself.
"What was that?" Wade whispered.
Rembrandt threw up his hands. "It was an earthquake. That's just beautiful. Bad enough we're trapped in here with no food or air without worryin' about the roof cavin' in on us."
"Exactly my point, Rembrandt," Arturo said. "If we are to get out of here, we must do so as quickly as possible. Digging seems to be our only solution."
Quinn considered their options. He didn't have to think long before nodding. "Yeah. Okay. I guess we don't have a choice. But Wade's right. Which way do we dig?"
Arturo faced a wall with his lighter, spreading a hand towards it. "This way seems to be as good as any."
Quinn took a deep breath, inhaling the thick scent of butane that filled the cave. "Okay, let's do it."
The four of them gathered in front of the portion of the wall Arturo lit with his lighter. Quinn pressed his hand against the rock, grunting with effort. It didn't budge.
"There's no way we can dig through that with our bare hands," he said.
"Yeah," Rembrandt said, "but didn't the professor say somethin' about diamonds bein' used for drilling?"
Arturo looked at him, nodding slowly. "Of course. An excellent idea. Diamonds are one of the hardest substances on Earth. It could easily break through this rock."
"Only problem is," Quinn murmured, "none of us has diamonds big enough. Except..."
He focused his grin on Wade, who clutched at the paper bag in her hands.
"Oh, come on," Wade said. "I spent an hour getting these babies."
"Wade..."
Wade sighed, waving him off. "I know, I know. We don't have much choice. Just wish we didn't have to use my nest-egg as a means of escape."
She opened the bag, its rustling filling the cave as she pulled out four diamonds. Wade passed them around to the others. Rembrandt looked at his, the size of a small egg, and whistled.
"Man oh man," he said. "This beauty's gonna bring a pretty penny on the market."
Arturo hefted his stone. "True. If we ever get the chance to sell it. I suggest we begin. On the count of three. One. Two. Three!"
They all struck the cave-wall with their diamonds.
Pieces of rock went flying, splintering, as holes formed.
Rembrandt laughed and attacked the wall. It fell to his attack, loosening large chunks that clattered to the floor.
"Hey, this could work, after all," Wade said. "Good thinking, professor. You too, Rembrandt."
Arturo smiled at her. "As always, Miss Welles."
Quinn struck the rock again and again. The crack and thump of the others digging was the only sound.
"Well," Rembrandt said, "this could get kinda borin' after a while."
Wade paused her diamond in midair, then brought it down with a loud bang. "Hey, we could play a game to pass the time. Like, um, twenty questions. Okay, I'm thinking of
something. What is it?"
"Is it a mineral?" Quinn asked.
"Yeah."
"Limestone."
Wade looked up at him. "Yeah. How'd you guess?"
Quinn looked up at the stalactites hanging down like swords suspended over their heads. "It's all I can think about, too."
* * *
Quinn's hand ached as he struck the wall over and over again. Rocks and soil piled at his feet, covering his shoes in some places. Looking at the progress they were making, he felt it wasn't enough.
Arturo struck the wall again, digging out a thick block of stone. "You know, it strikes me that this is similar to a predicament found in H.G. Wells' 'Time Machine.' It seems that during his journey through time, the protagonist found himself encased in a mountain with no way out."
"How'd he get out?" Wade asked.
"He set his time machine to send him forward in time until the mountain broke apart by erosion."
"Well, there's an idea," Rembrandt said. "Think you can pull that off, Quinn?"
Quinn shook his head, wiping sweat off his forehead, gritty from smeared dirt. "I wish I could, but the sliding machine's not a time machine."
Rembrandt sighed, resting against the wall. "Say, is it gettin' hot in here?"
"Yes," Arturo said. "It would seem our body heat, fire, and breathing are warming the air in the cave."
"Air." Rembrandt ran his fingers over his throat. "I ain't suffocated yet, so I guess we have enough, huh? How'll we know when we run out?"
Wade slumped against the wall, breathing heavy. "Well, I went scuba diving once, and they explained hypoxia to me. They said it starts where you feel kinda drowsy, drunk. You get clumsy, but still feel good. By the end, you know you need oxygen, but you don't care. You just...fall asleep and never wake up."
Rembrandt nodded and gave the wall a half-hearted strike with his diamond. "Sounds almost...peaceful. Guess there are worse ways to go."
Quinn couldn't take it anymore. "Hey, can we knock off the negative talk? We're gonna get out of here, no question."
"No sense denyin' the truth, Q-Ball." Rembrandt let his hand fall, his face flickering in the uneven light. "How long we been at this?"
Arturo seemed only too happy to stop digging and look at his watch. "Roughly fifteen minutes."
Rembrandt dropped his diamond. "This ain't gonna work. Fifteen minutes, and we've barely made a dent in this thing."
Arturo glared at him. "Well, we've got to try."
Rembrandt's face seemed to darken. "Why, because you say so?"
"No, because it's our only recourse."
"That's what you say, but there's gotta be somethin' else we can do. Somethin'. Anything."
Arturo brushed a trickle of sweat off his face. "Mister Brown, there is no other way. We just have to do the best we can."
Rembrandt charged towards him. "Hey, I am gettin' a little sick o' your..."
A stone came loose from the ceiling. It crashed to the ground between Rembrandt and Arturo. Then more pebbles fell as the rumble came again. The gravel fell like hail onto them as the quaking grew. Quinn pressed himself against the wall of the cave, flattening his hands against it, as if to hold it up.
But he couldn't. A larger chunk fell from the top of the cave, bringing with it a storm of loose soil.
Wade huddled against the opposite wall of the cave. "Another earthquake!"
"Oh, no," Arturo whispered. "The cave. It's collapsing."
Rembrandt ducked as more rocks showered down on them from the roof of the cave. "It's gettin' worse!"
"What'll we do?" Wade yelled over the roar of the quake.
"Hope for the best, Miss Welles," Arturo called back. "It's all we can do!"
Arturo dropped the lighter that illuminated the cave. It hit the floor, and the flame went out, plunging them into darkness again.
Quinn closed his eyes. He felt the earth tremble beneath him, vibrating in a steady rhythm. The roar increased, even louder this time, filling the cave. To Quinn, it seemed like the cave itself roared like a lion, trying to devour them in an avalanche of soil and rock.
Then the roar faded. Quinn felt his muscles loosen as the noise faded into a distant rumble. Then the tremors faded into nothingness. He opened his eyes.
He couldn't see anything. The inside of the cave was still dark, darker than the inside of his eyes and silent. Then the rustling of his friends getting to their feet came.
"Is everyone okay?" Quinn asked.
After a few soft clicks, Arturo's lighter flared to life again, throwing light on the inside of the small cave. He was holding it, using it to illuminate Wade and Rembrandt, who still clung to the walls.
"I believe so," Arturo said.
Wade rose, then gasped, wincing as she clutched her shoulder. "Ah. Ouch. A rock hit me."
Quinn moved over to where she was lying as Arturo leaned closer with his lighter. The light was dim, but he could make out a brownish-red stain forming on Wade's shirt. He delicately pulled the cloth aside to expose a huge gash on her shoulder, oozing trickles of blood.
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