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Colin encounters another unstuck slider who may help him. But what will he have to do in return? Everything will be wrapped up in this story!
ЗЫ. Спецом для Сандрин - ты у нас любишь Колина, вот тебе и альтернативный 5 сезон с ним)))
I opened up the place at 11 AM, unlocking the doors and wiping the counters and making sure all the beer taps are working. I turned on the credit card reader. Now we were ready for business.
I arrived in this world in Ventura, California five days ago. I went to the public library to find out where Quinn Mallory is. There was a lot of information on Quinn Mallory, for he is on the men's soccer team. Of course, that meant he was not into quantum physics which meant that he would not be able to help me. Since I would be in this world for the long haul, I got a job at a tavern on El Camino Telegrafo.
I was in a place where Spanish was the primary language; it did not bother me since I could speak Spanish well. I asked for advances in my pay so I could spend the money on food and rent.
A customer came in and ordered a Corona on tap. I filled a tall glass with Corona and then gave it to him and then he paid seventy pesos. I had seen this customer before; he was a regular here.
For my reading material I had a newspaper and a magazine. I read an article of a visit by King Edward of Britain, and read another article about an upcoming municipal election in Ventura County.
Another man came in and ordered a drink, and I obliged and collected the bill as well as my tip. I read the magazine, which was about entertainment figures. The cover story was about a pop singer named Shakira, who hails from Colombia which is the southernmost state in the republic. The report stated that she had been singing publicly since she was thirteen (She is twenty-three now.) She recently had a concert in San Diego, a city about two hundred miles from Ventura. There were full-page photgraphs of her, and I had to admit she was pretty.
"He is coming for you," I heard.
I looked at the two people sitting at the bar and drinking beer.
"He will be arriving soon."
They certainly were not talking. I looked behind me, but I did not see anyone. Was I hearing a voice in my head? Usually, when most people hear voices in their head, it means they are going crazy. But then again I never met an unstuck person before. I wondered if hearing voices in the head is typical of unstuck people.
Then I saw the air shimmer in front of me. A space in the air was filled with tiny pinpoints of light.
Then a man just popped in, as if out of thin air!
I looked at him. He was tall and fat, with brown hair on his head and a brown beard on his lower jaw. He was wearing a sport coat; I coulkd not see what he was wearing below the waist due to the fascvt it was obscured by the bar.
"Would you like a drink?" I asked.
"Are you Colin Mallory?" asked the fat man, who obvioiusly had a British accent.
"Yes, I am," I said. "Who are you? How did you get here? Why are you looking for me?"
The fat man took a seat on a barstool. "Marc LeBeau told me about you," he said. "He is not of this world. I met him a couple of years ago and he even helped me out. he became aware of your situation nearly a year ago, and has been contacting you."
"So this Marc LeBeau was the one contacting me in my dreams."
"Correct, Mr. Mallory. I came to see Marc LeBeau a few hours ago after he summoned me. He told me it was time we met. In fact, you and I have a lot in common."
"Like what?" I asked.
"You obviously saw my arrival to this world. Like you, I am unstuck. I have been unstuck for almost fifteen years now."
"Fifteen years?" I asked. "you mean to say that you have been sliding from world to world for fifteen years? Has anyone tried to find you. What of your family?"
"At first, I was travelling randomly. But then I had the fortune of talking to Mr. LeBeau. He told me where to look. I learned to control it. to control where I go, and when I go."
"Well, that's nice. Has this Mr. LeBeau told you where my brother is?"
"He has not, but he has told me that the time for your destiny approaches quickly. He has instructed me to help you."
"How can you help me?"
"When I first became unstuck, I was like a boat without a sail or a rudder. But I learned ot control it. and I wish to teach you."
"You're going to teach me how to slide without a timer or anything?"
"Correct, lad."
"And you want something in return?"
The fat man rested his chin on his hand. "I will not lie to you, Mr. Mallory. Mr. LeBeau offered me assistance in one of my goals in exchange for helping you. that is what you want. To control where you go, and to find your brother."
"Yes," I said. "I'll accept your help."
"You will not regret this, Mr. Mallory."
"What is your name?"
"My name," said the fat man. "My name is Dr. Maximilian Arturo."
After finishing my shift, I invited Dr. Arturo to my humble dwelling in Ventura. It was a small studio apartment for transient laborers passing through Ventura. Apartments in this place were cheap and there was a high turnover rate.
"It's not much," I said.
"I've slept in worse conditions during the first few years I was unstuck," said Arturo.
Indeed, it was not much, just a sofa and a bed. There was a stove and a refrigerator in an alcove. There was no television or telephone.
"You must have seen a lot of places," I said.
"Yes, I did," replied Arturo.
"And you must have seen different versions of yourself."
"Yes, I have. I would like to get some rest. Willing myself to another dimension is taxing, and my body thinks it's 1 AM."
"What do you mean?'
"I live in London. It is eight hours ahead."
"London? You mean in England?"
Maximilian Arturo lay on the couch, and he was soon fast asleep.
I decided to leave him alone.
It was about 9 PM when he woke up. I had my dinner and was about to go to sleep.
"You're up," I said.
"I've enough rest," said Arturo. "Are you still taking me up on my offer?"
"Uh, sure."
"I'm going back home. To London. If you want me to help you, I must take you with me."
"How?"
"We must hold hands."
I thought about it.
"Do it," I heard.
then I saw him. The old man who had been contacting me in my dreams.
"Are you Marc LeBeau?" I asked.
"Yes, that is my name," he said. "I sent Maximilian Arturo to you so he can help you."
"What must I do in return?"
"All will be revealed to you."
I then went back to reality.
"Are you ready?" asked Arturo.
"Yes," I said. He extended his hand and I held on tight.
I then felt weightless, the weightless feeling I feel when I slide.
The apartment disappeared and in its place was another room with different furnishings.
"We're here," said Arturo. "Welcome to my world. Welcome to London."
"So this is London," I said. I made detailed observations of my new surroundings. The room we were in was a study, with a bookshelf with various books. There was a personal computer sitting on a desk. I scanned the titles of the books on the bookshelf; most of them were about history and other social sciences, and three of them were about quantum physics. There was one book that was interesting; the title was Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. I got engrossed in the book. After about two hours, I heard the door open.
"I'd like you to meet a friend of mine," said Arturo. He took me outside where there was a hallway. We went into one of the doors. Inside the room, there was a man sitting behind a desk. He was dressed in jeans and a button-down collared shirt. Blond hair covered his head, and his moustache was equally blond. He looked very familiar. I may have seen one of his duplicates somewhere.
"Who is this?" asked the blond man.
"Hello, my name is Colin Mallory," I said.
"Sounds Irish. All of the Irish here are either dead or in hiding. And you do not speak with an Irish accent. In fact, I never heard anyone speak English like you."
"I speak with an American accent."
"American? Never heard of it."
"I have," said Arturo. "I've encountered the term quite a few times during my travels."
"Well, I don't think you're from Scotland Yard; they all speak like me."
"I'm from a parallel universe," I said. "I met Dr. Arturo just a few hours ago."
"And you trust him?" the blond man asked Arturo.
"He's from another dimension, so obviously he has no stake in our little spat between us and Scotland Yard. I believe we should tell him about this place."
"He should tell us about him first," said the blond man.
"Okay," I said. "You'll find it hard to believe, even though you know Dr. Arturo's situation."
And so I told him all about my life. I told him about being born in another version of Earth, being relocated to a second version of Earth, reuniting with my brother Quinn, traveling through many versions of Earth, and becoming unstuck.
"I doubt anyone from Scotland Yard would come up with such a wild cover story," said the blond man.
"What is this Scotland Yard?" I asked.
"Scotland Yard is the secret police force of the Kingdom of Britain," said Arturo. "The chief of Scotland Yard answers directly to that spineless wimp that is Prime Minister Farrington and his superior King Edward."
"Can you tell me the history of the world?'" I asked.
"We have a book of world history in our study; feel free to study it," said the blond man. "We can tell you about recent local history. Over sixty years ago, there was a fascist military coup here sponsored by Germany. A new king was crowned who was King Edward's father. The king allied with the German leader Hitler and engaged in a conquest of Europe. Soon, all of Europe fell to the London-Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis. During that time, the Crown engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Anyone who was not a Briton was expelled or slaughtered in the extermination camps. Not all Britons went along with the Crown and Parliament. Some of us took up arms and resisted. We managed to relocate the Irish and Jews to remote locations where the government would not look for them. This struggle has been going on for sixty years now. Many of our past leaders were captured and executed."
I had read and heard similar stories in other versions of Earth. "What about the countries on the other side of the Atlantic?" I asked. "Were they involved?"
"That part of the world is ruled by a species of people called kromaggs," said Arturo. "They generally avoid human affairs."
"It might not be so forever, what with the rhetoric by our king and the German fuhrer," said the blond man. "I fear a bloody conflict with the kromagg nations may begin within a year."
"Well, thanks for the info," I said. "I don't want to be involved in your conflict." Of course, I knew deep in my mind that I would be involved. "What is your name?"
"I am Jonathan Reed," he said.
Now I remembered. I had met another version of Jonathan Reed many months ago. He led a village of humans on Kromagg Outpost One. During a battle between the village militia and the dynasty forces, he was killed.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Reed," I said. I yawned. "I'm tired now. It feels like it's late at night."
Dr. Arturo showed me to a small room with a cot. I sat down and read the Lord of the Rings. After a while, I fell asleep.
Marc LeBeau appeared again.
"So how do you like it?" asked LeBeau.
"Well, they seem to be nice people," I said. "At least this isn't a kromagg front trying to use me to penetrate the slidecage."
"Colin, Maximilian Arturo promised me that he will assist you and teach you how to control your new power."
"Is there anything that has to be done in return?"
"Well, he is involved in a revolution. I will assist him with my God-given psychic powers, and you will be assisting him too."
"Is this right?" I asked. "How do we know he's the good guy? I mean, we know nothing of his cause, and I only heard his version of history."
"I had visions of the horrors of the regime that rules that version of Britain. The king and his cronies are clearly the bad guys."
"I've read of revolutions that installed worse regimes."
I finally woke up and rubbed my eyes. A clock mounted on the wall identified the current time as 2:14 PM. I wondered if I should trust Jonathan Reed and Maximilian Arturo and Marc LeBeau. I looked outside the window; I could see a trash strewn alley. The buildings around the place look dilapdiated. This was clearly a slum; a resistance cell would hide where no one would want to go.
A young man entered the room. He looked familiar.
"Hello," he said. "Jonathan told me you arrived from another dimension like Dr. Arturo did."
"That's right," I said. "I'm Colin Mallory. What ios your name?"
"My name is Wesley."
I remembered meeting another version of Wesley.
"You're a humagg!"
"Yes," he replied. "Jonathan told me that I was conceived in a lab. They wanted to infuse humans with the kromaggs' psychic powers. There are those like me who serve the king. I was taken in a raid by the resistance. They showed me the truth."
"Do you trust them?" I asked, knowing that these hybrids have psychic powers.
"They do not lie to me," said Wesley. "Jonathan has never lied to me ever."
"I'm not a spy for the king, in case you are wondering," I said.
"I know that."
Dr. Arturo came in. "Hello, Mr. Mallory," he said. "I believe it is time for your lesson."
And so we did. We left the resistance base, which was disguised as an electronics store. We took a walk on the streets of London. It occurred to me while I traveled to different versions of Earth, I had never been to London. Arturo pointed out the Thames River and the London Bridge and the Tower Bridge. I saw people board a red double-decker bus, and the bus then drove down the left side of the street.
"Let us begin," said the doctor. "We shall begin by going to the previous world, the one where I first met you. I shall transport us there. Let us hold hands."
"Okay," I said. I held his hand, and then felt a moment of weightlessness. then I felt the Earth's gravity again.
When I looked around, everytjhing still looked the same. The stores were the same. I looked at a newspaper vending machine, and there was a photo of King Edward.
"Did we go anywhere?" I asked.
"Look," said Arturo.
I looked where he was pointing, and I saw a sign of a green shamrock. It was for a place called Killearney's. It was an Irish-themed tavern.
"Unlike in my world, the Irish here live freely," said Arturo. "Now let us go to the library."
And so we did. I looked up a book of world history. Most of the stuff was unremarkable, but I did notice two things.
There was no mention of a military coup in Britain back in 1940, no alliance with the German Nazi regime. Instead, the Britons and the French crushed Germany when the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia in 1936. The king of Britain in the year 2000 was a King Harold; Edward was apparently a duke in Northumbria, from what I could glean from the caption of the newspaper. And of course, there was no mention of any ethnic cleansing against the Irish.
I also noticed the history of the settlement of North America. The Spanish settlements became the dominant nation, streching from Colombia to the south to Quebec to the north, and from the Pacific Ocean to the east to the Mississippi River to the west. The United States of America, which grew from the British colonies, never made any territorial gains and was an impoverished insignificant nation.
I was back in the world where I met Arturo, only I was across the Atlantic, in London.
"Shall we go?" asked Dr. Arturo.
"Sure," I said. I looked at my watch; it seems I would be here for the next few hours, without any outside intervention.
The two of us walked back to the street where the resistance base was located in Arturo's world. In the location corresponding to the resistance base, there was a candy store. The doctor and I walked right behind the building; we stood in a trash-strewn alley.
"Okay, Mr. Mallory," said Dr. Arturo. "You shall bring us back to my world."
"How do I do that?" I asked.
"You must let go of your conscious self, be one with the multiverse."
"You mean like that eastern meditation stuff?"
"Yes. Do not focus on any one thing in this world."
Dr. Arturo held my hand. I looked around the trash-strewn alley.
I closed my eyes and mentally shut out the noise of the traffic coming from the street.
"Breathe deeply and calmly," I heard the doctor say.
I did so. I did feel calm and at peace.
"Hey!" someone shouted. I opened my eyes, and saw two rough-looking men. One of them brandished a big knife, the other helkd a tire iron.
"How about you two give us some pounds?" one of them said. "Jusdt hand it over and we won't hurt ya."
"How about I give you an ounce," said Arturo. I then saw him pull a pistol from his coat. The two men fled.
"Good thing you have that thing," I said.
"It is easily concealable," said Arturo. "Now shall we continue?"
He held my hand, and I continued to calm. I shut out the sights and sounds and smells of this world, and I continued to defocus. I breathed in and out deeply, taking deep breaths.
I then felt a momnentary period of weightlessness.
"Now," said Arturo.
I looked around. the location still looks the same; it was still the same trash-strewn alley.
Two men entered the alley; I saw they were the same guys who accosted us just minutes ago. Did they come back for revenge?
"We've no business with you," said Arturo, pulling back his coat to show his shiny pistol.
We both left the alley unmolested. The street still looked the same.
Then I looked where the candy store was, and I saw the electronics store instead. "We're back," I said.
"this is indeed my world," said Arturo. "If we go in, everything should be as I remembered."
"Thanks," I said.
"Do not thank me yet, lad. You've still a lot to learn before you can master this. Letting go of the bonds thast anchor you to this universe is only the first step; you must still control where you want to go."
"Do we continue our lessons?"
"Traveling through dimensions is tiring; in fact if I were to exhaust myself, I would find myself slipping between universes with no control of where I go. Let us go in and have a cup of tea."
"I would like that."
So we went back into the resistance base.
The tea was not actually that bad. I made sure to put a lot of sugar in it.
"How long will this training take?" I asked as I sat down in front of a round wooden table.
"It took me months to completely master it," said Dr. Arturo. "I knew it was something I had to do in order to get back home and continue the fight"
"Tell me about yourself. How did you become unstuck in the first place?" I asked.
Dr. Maximilian Arturo sat down. "It's a long story. I was born not long after the coup that changed the course of British history. When I was eleven, Scotland Yard arrested my parents for sedition; they were never seen again. Dissidents were one of the first to be arrested and sent to the rehab camps."
"Rehab camps?" I asked.
"They are camps were those suspected of crimes against the Crown are sent," said Arturo. "But it is not as if the Crown actually cares if the inmates are guilty. Thousands of people-even those loyal to the country-were sent there for imagined crimes. Anyway, I knew that this was wrong.
"One of my interests was science. I read plenty of science textbooks. I went to Oxford and studied physics there. My specialty was quantum mechanics. It took me years to study the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. It was in my years at the univwersity that I became involved in the resistance. I was very lucky that I ended up in a real resistance cell; I've heard that people have been lured into resistance movements set up by Scotland Yard to arrest traitors and send them to rehab camps. It was not long after getting my doctorate in quantum mechanics that I researched anti-gravity in order to find unification of the four forces. During my research, something opened, like a hole in the universe. I still remembered what I felt. I was very much scared of my creation, that it might swallow the whole Earth."
"And you studied it and you found it was a gateway to parallel universes," I said.
"Yes," he replied. "I knew parallel universes existed from single-particle quantum interference phenomena, but until I actually stepped through the wormhole, it was just theory. I studied it for three long years, learned how to track qormholes and open wormholes to specific universes, before I finally took the plunge. I've seen many worlds. Some of them better than mine, others with horrors that my world never experienced."
"Why did you not permanently relocate to another world?" I asked. "From what you and Mr. Reed told me, this world is a horrible place, with the rehab camps and all."
"Because this is my world," I said. "I got involved with the resistance to oust King Edward and restore a government of law, and not of men. I've relocated Irish and Jews and others whom we've rescued from the rehab camps to worlds beyonf the reach of King Edward. And thus I continued my research while undermining the regime until that fateful day fifteen years ago.
"It was on October 26, 1985 that Scotland Yard came for me. I had feared something like this, since they often go after people who have unquestionably been loyal to the king. But I was prepared. I got out and got into my Jaguar and drove back to the lab in Oxford where I did my research. I activated the quantum translocation drive and then jumped into the wormhole just as Scotland Yard began its attack. I heard bullets flying everywhere; the equipment might have been damaged. I thought everything had gone normally."
"How did you discover you were unstuck?" I asked.
"The morning after I escaped Scotland Yard, I went to the library to do research on this world," he answered. "I was sitting across the table from some lady. Then she suddenly disappeared, along with the book I was reading. I wondered what had happened. I went back, and I noticed all of the books were in French. I left the library, and all of the street signs and storefront signs were in French! I did not know how I ended up in that world. It was days later that I found out that I was travelling from world to world without any external equipment.
"On each trip, I looked my duplicate up, hoping that he chose my field of work. They were able to help me quite a few times. I expected them to cure me of my condition so I can go home. But it was not until 1995 that I met a man named Marc LeBeau.
"I found myself in the other side of the Atlantic. I didn't know how I got there, since my travels never took me across the English Channel, let alone across the Atlantic Ocean. LeBeau told me he summoned me here. You see, the people o fhis world had just repelled an invasion from another dimension. He told me that I could take control of my destiny, and he told me I could do this by meditating. It took me two whole years to master it."
"Two years," I said. "I wonder why Mr. LeBeau doesn't open a psychic link between me and Quinn. I mean, if he can't bring me tom Quinn, at least I can talk to him. It's been almost a year since I've seen Quinn."
"I can not answer that question, Mr. Mallory. But I believe you can do this, and that you will reunite with your brother someday. Tell me, did you ever materialize at thirty thousand feet above the ground?"
"No," I said. Now that I thought of it, I was always standing on solid ground during my arrival. "I never entered underwater, or above the surface of a lake or ocean, either."
"That is because your instinct for survival always puts you in a safe place when you arrive," said Arturo. "During the first few weeks of being unstuck, I feared that I might end up high in the sky, or deep underwater, or even at the crater of an erupting volcano. The fact that I ended up on solid ground on every arrival never occurred to me until Marc LeBeau pointed it out. That was the clue! That was how I knew I could control where I go, and when I go."
"So it would be the same for me," I said.
"Yes! There is more for you to learn." Dr. Arturo looked at a wall-mounted clock. "There should be at least forty-five minutes until the next class."
Dr. Arturo and I got on a red double-decker bus. We both sat down as the bus rolled along the streets of London. Dr. Arturo pointed out London landmarks such as the Piccadilly Circus and the Rhodes Square.
We got off the bus, and the doctor escorted me to a recreation center in a city park. The wooden floor was covered with mats.
"Hello, ," this lady said, wearing a T-shirt with a Japanese kanji on it. "Here to take my class?"
I could understand why Dr. Arturo was using a false name; he might still be wanted by Scotland Yard fifteen years after he escaped from them.
"My friend Colin Miller and I will be taking class. If it is sixty pounds per head." Dr. Arturo reached into his wallet. "Here is a hundred twenty pounds. We are both in."
"Nice to meet you," said the lady
"Same to you," I said.
"We'll be teaching you meditation techniques. It's quite popular in Japan, you know. You ever been to Japan? I took a vacation there last year. It was a package tour; I visited Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima."
"Well, can we get started?" I asked.
"Patience, Mr. Miller," said the instructor. "Everybody's still coming in."
"Is Mr. Maxwell a regular here?" I asked.
"Sure. He took the beginner's course once. He said he wanted to meditate to help him travel." I looked at the door, and saw more people come in. "Now we can get started. Let me start by playing some music." I saw the meditation instructor go to a Sony CD player and press a button, and then this music plays from the was real calming. "Everyone sit on the floor now."
I sat on the floor. "What's next?" I asked.
"Be quiet, Mr. Miller," said the instructor. "Now, let us close our eyes and our minds. We must let go of our conscious self. Only the music and my voice exist, nothing else does."
And so I did. I closed my eyes and blanked out my mind. Only the music. Music.
"Breathe in, breahte out," i heard.
I then thought a moment about my experiences, my early life, my meeting with Quinn, my travels.
Then I banished all of that from my mind. Nothing. my only focus was on the music and my breathing. Nothing else mattered.
I then saw the old man Marc LeBeau. "Colin," I heard him say.
No! I had to banish him from my thoughts. I am here, and nothing else matters! Nothing!
"Awake," I heard a woman say. I opened my eyes, and my mind is back in the room. I saw my classmates with me, including Maximilian Arturo. "How do you all feel?"
I felt good, in fact. My worries were gone for the moment.
"Let us begin again," said the instructor.
Finally, after an indeterminate amount of time, for when I meditate I lose all sense of time, the class was over. I walked up to the instructor.
"I really enjoyed your class," I said.
"Thank you," replied the instructor. "Did you have anything in your mind."
"Quite a bit," I said. "I've been through a lot the past year."
"I hope it helped."
And so I left and joined Dr. Arturo on the bus ride back to the resistance base. We sat in the bottom deck.
"This is a technique you must learn before you can control your destiny," he said.
By letting go, I could control. That was something for philosophers to discuss.
I had dinner ine the resistance base. Dr. Arturo was nice enough to buy the fish and chips, the chips being french fried potatoes. I lookd through a World Atlas. I managed to locate Britain and France and Germany and Spain and Italy.
I turned the page to look at a political map of North and South America. Jonathan Reed mentioned that these continents were the homeland of the kromaggs. I read through the list of kromagg nations, many whose names I have never heard of. There were two that stood out, due tyo their locastions. One nation was called Arizoth, whose location corresponds to the United States of America. And there was another nation called Beruth, whose location corresponds to Brazil.
I saw Wesley come in. "Hi," he said. "Do you mind any company?"
"Uh, no. Tell me, you ever met others like you?"
"They all work for Scotland Yard or the military. They are paid top poundage for their psychic skills. Scotland Yard has a thought crime division, where enhanced humans scan the minds of everyone on Earth. Anyone who thinks ill of the king or the members of Parliament is identified and arrested."
"How did you and Mr. Reed escape detection?" I asked.
"We're not all-knowing," replied Wesley. "There are ways of avoiding detection by us."
"Why did you join up with the resistance? I mean, you could have been in the military or something."
"I can read minds. The minds of the rulers are motivated by evil. Jonathan Reed has a noble mind; he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ in his heart, and is guided by what is good and just instead of his own selfish desires."
I reflected on that statement. "Listen," I said. "Something has been bugging me for quite a while. Jesus came from Heaven to be born as a human, right?"
"Yes."
"So where does that leave the kromaggs?"
"I haven't thought of that." Wesley stood silent for a minute. "Listen, were you born in Bethlehem?"
"No, I was born in San Francisco."
"Did you live in Nazareth?"
"I don't think so."
"Are you a Jew?"
"No, I'm not."
"Jesus was a Jew who was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth. Did He die only for those people?"
"No." I then understood his point.
"Tell me about your travels."
So I did. I told him about the wonders I saw, as well as the horrors.
"Did you ever encounter people like me?" asked Wesley.
"Yes, I have. In fact, I met another version of you last year. He was in a resistance movement with another version of Jonathan Reed."
"Amazing," he said.
"Destiny struggles to assert certain patterns that are meant to be," I said. "One pattern I notice is that the bad guys eventually get their evil visited upon them. There are no exceptions to that rule."
I looked at my meal; I had finished the two fish fillets, and there was but a few french fries left. "Wanna have some?" I asked Wesley.
"Sure," he said.
The next morning, I volunteered to work at the electronics store for Mr. Reed in exchange for some British currency. He agreed and I worked at the counter. I knew a lot about electronics from what Quinn taught me. I became familiar with the British and Japanese and German electronics sold in this little store, as well as those manufactured in Arizoth and Beruth. We sold everything from resistors to personal computers.
At about noon, a young woman came. She handed me a CD jewel case.
"This is for Reed," she said.
I took it and kept it in my pocket. I continued to serve the few customers that shopped in our store, and then I went to Reed's office adfter my shift was done.
"Some lady told me to give this to you," I said to him.
"Excellent," he said. "It's a message from one of our outposts. We can't communicate by telephone or the Internet, with Scotland Yard monitoring us and all, so we use encrypted CD-ROM's. Our computer programmers wrote the encryption program."
"I figured you'd use such a method for sending messages."
"Coded messages have been used for thousands of years, both by humans and kromaggs."
"Well, it's time I practice sliding under Dr. Arturo."
"Oh, Colin, I'd better give you your daily pay." mr. Reed opened a wall safe and took out some cash; he gave me two hundred pounds. I figured I might buy fish and chips, or perhaps a drink at a nearby pub. But that was all for later. Right now, I had a lesson to learn.
So I met with Dr. Arturo.
"Get that watch you used to measure the amount of time you have left," he said.
So I did. I got my watch which I kept in the small apartment, or flat as the Britons call it, that Mr. Reed provided to me as sleeping quarters. I read the readout, which was twenty-eight hours. That did not give me much time.
I showed the digital readout to Dr. Arturo. "I hope we can do this within one day," I said.
"I once had a device like that," said Dr. Arturo. "I made it with assistance from my duplicate who was also a researcher into the nature of the multiverse." I saw Dr. Arturo pull something from a drawer and then press some buttons. He then showed me the object, a digital Seiko timer. I could see its reading was synchronzied with my watch.
"Mr. Mallory," he said, "this control watch is synchronized with your own. What you will do is slow down your watch."
"How?" I asked.
"Begin my meditating, just as you learned in class."
so I did. I closed my eyes and shut out all noise. The only thing that existed was my breathing and my heartbeat.
"Now heed my voice," I heard Arturo say. "Feel the time. Now, slow down. Slow down."
Amnd so I did. I started breathing slower, and I could feel my heartbeat slow down. In my minds eye I could see my watch slowing down.
"Your time is slowing down," I heard. "The rest of the universe is moving faster."
I slowly breathed in and out, in and out. I felt calm and tranquil, like a stream running down the slope of a mountain.
And then I woke up. I looked at my watch and compared it to the Seiko timer. As it turned out, my watch was two minutes behind.
"Well, you are learning," said Dr. Arturo. "You've learned to slow the decay of the bonds between you and our universe. That is the first step. The next step would be to strengthen these bonds. In other words, we add time to your watch."
"I just remembered something," I said. "Last year, I was caught, convicted, and sentenced to death for having sex with another man. Only it was my duplicate who did the deed, not me. When I was about to be executed, I still had a few days left. I went unconscious when I got hit with the first stone. I later woke up in a hospital."
"Did they stop your execution?"
"I think I disappeared from the universe before another stone could strike me. I can do this. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to master sliding. I will master sliding, and then I will reunite with my family."
"It is good you have something to live for," said Dr. Arturo. "When I finally returned home, I learned that my wife disappeared. I've had enoucnters with her duplicates, some married to my duplicates, some not. You can not imagine the sorrow I felt when I learned that my wife was sent to the rehab camp."
"why didn't you take her with you all those years ago?"
"She was in Germany at the time. I learned she was arrested at Heathrow."
"Shall we continue the lesson?" I asked.
"Well, I'd better synchronize the watch," said Dr. Arturo. "Let's practice slowing down again."
And so we did.
After a few attempts at slowing down the decay of my dimensional bonds, Dr. Maximilian Arturo decided to go to the next lesson.
"For this lesson, we must wait until you are about to go to the next universe," he said. And so I did. Finally, the lesson began when I had five minutes left on my watch.
The first thing we did is set up candles. I decided to purchase the candles myself from a store down the block. Dr. Arturo took a lighter and lit each and every candle. Then he shut off the electric lights and closed the blinds on the windows. The only light in the room came from the burning flames of the candles.
I looked at my watch, there was only one minute left.
"Begin the meditation," said the doctor.
I closed my eyes. the only thing I heasrd was my breath and my heartbeat; the only thing I smelled was the melting wax from the candles.
"Listen to me, Mr. Mallory," I heard Arturo say. "Stay with me. Focus on my voice. Stay in this world."
I then felt myself weightless, as I do when I go to the next world. I had to focus on Dr. Arturo.
"Stay with me," I heard. "Stay with me. Come on."
I focused solely on Dr. Arturo's voice; nothing else mattered.
"Open your eyes," I heard.
I did, and I looked at Dr. Arturo's bearded face. I could see the flickering of candles. I looked at my watch; it read one hundred seven hours, fifty minutes, and twenty-six seconds.
"Am I still in the same world?" I asked.
"Yes."
I walked around, making sure everything was the same as I remembered it. I checked the world atlas and the world history book.; they were still the same. I went up to my temporary flat. I took the Lord of the Rings, and the bookmark was where I remembered it to be.
I went to the backroom of the electronics store to meet Arturo. "It's the same world," I said.
"Well, we'll still have to practice."
And so we did.
The next two days, I spent meditating. Sometimes I would slow down my wartch, other times I would speed it up, and quite a few times I reversed it. wehen I was not meditating or working the counter at the store I was reading the Lord of the Rings.
Then Jonathan Reed gathered us for a meeting. "we will be meeting with some allies," he said.
I was given a headband. "These headbands will shield your thoughts from the psychic network," said Wesley.
So we got into a white van and then drove off.
"Are you sure this is a trap?" I asked.
"No," replied Arturo. "I contacted Marc LeBeau when I learned of this meeting, and he did not predict a trap."
"Can you trust him?" I asked.
"LeBeau has no stake in helping King Edward; he does want to help you. He told me that himself. He is only helping us as a favor. If it is a trap, we do have an escape route."
After a few minutes of driving through the streets of London, we reached the site, an old decrepit warehouse in the industrial sector near the Thames River. The four of us went inside. It was old and dusty, and there were emtpy cardboard boxes lying around; the markings indicated they were used to hold electronic devices.
We waited for perhaps half an hour. Then I heard the engine of an approaching car. then the sound stopped. I could hear doors opening and closing. Then the warehouse door opened.
Two figures entered. They had two arms, two legs, and a head. But when they entered into the light, my jaw dropped.
They were kromaggs.
"Wait," I said to Jonathan Reed, "do you know who these people are?"
"I've met jhim before," replied Reed.
"You don't understand. They're kromaggs. They intend to conquer the world."
"I can tell you fear us," said one of the kromaggs. "You fear us because you do not understand us. I once had that attitude about humans until I learned more about them."
Then I realized that these were not the kromaggs who were banished from the world of my birth; these kromaggs were native to this world.
"Well, you're different from the others I've run into," I said.
"Who is this?" asked the kromagg.
"He is Colin Mallory, a new recruit," said Reed.
"Hello," said the kromagg. "I am Ambassador Rakakot, ambassador to the Kingdom of Britain from the Kingdom of Beruth."
I recognized that name. Then I remmebered. Rakakot was the kromagg who brought me to Outpost One and interrogated me. He hoped that by studying my condition, the Kromagg Dynasty could find a way to bypass the slidecage and conquer my parents' world.
But this was another version of Rakakot, native to this world.
"If I may ask," I said, "why are you supporting us?"
"We've listened to the rhetoric of your king as well as the German fuhrer and the Japanese emperor," said Rakakot. "He makes speeches of how he would subjugate the whole world under the Axis Our spies tell us he is building more aircraft carriers and warplanes. We believe he is preparing for an attack."
"So you fear he will conquer your part of the world."
"My king has atomic weapons at his dispoal, and he swore to use them to retaliate against any aggression against his kingdom or his allies. an atomic exchange would result in millions of deaths, both humans and kromaggs, and my lord wishes to avoid having to make such a decision."
"What of the other kromagg nations?"
"The President of Arizoth had just signed a non-aggression treaty with your king. He hopes that a bloody war between my people and yours would weaken Beruth's power, and thus make Arizoth the dominant nation of our half of the world, maybe even over the whole world. Remember that our two nations concluded a bitter, bloody war more than fifty years ago, and we still have an uneasy peace."
"So you understand why King Edward must be overthrown," said Reed. "Millions of lives depend on it."
"If you can put your man on the throne," said the kromagg ambassador, "we can sign a non-aggression pact. We will be willing to defend your nation against aggression from the other Axis nations, should they choose to initiate hostilities." He handed Mr. Reed a shiny silver disc. "We will send you military aid. Your forces will need the equipment."
"Thank you, sir," said Reed.
"Well, let us hope all goes well."
The two kromaggs left and I followed them from afar. I saw them get into a limousine and then they drove off. A minute later, I was inside the white van and we headed back to the resistance base. We got there after a few minutes of driving through the London streets.
I practiced more meditation with Dr. Arturo. I could see the results in my watch. After that, I went to purchase a fish fillet and chips and then had dinner in my flat. After eating dinner, I knelt down and prayed to the Lord God Almighty that I would know whether to follow Reed and Arturo. Then I went to sleep.
My dreams were interrupted by an electric shock. I woke up and saw men wearing black outfits and jackboots surrounding me as I slept.
"What?" I asked.
"You're under arrest for crimes against the Crown!" one of the men shouted.
"Who is this?" I asked.
"This is Scotland Yard!"
I was dragged out of my flat and taken downstairs. I could see cars as well as a paddy wagon. I heard a helicopter hovering overhead. The doors to the paddy wagon was open. another painful electric shock was delivered to my back and they pushed me in.
Mr. Reed and Wesley were both inside the wagon. Shirtly, Dr. Maximilian Arturo was put in there, after being shocked by the Scotland Yard agent.
"I guess they're taking us to their headquarters," said Reed.
"We'll probably be tortured and killed," said Wesley. "I can feel their malicious intent."
"We can escape," said Arturo. "They don't know about me. Everyone gather around and hold tight."
We all gathered around the doctor and held tight. Suddenly, I felt weightless. It lasted for a second, and then I felt the tug of Earth's gravity again. I felt hard, solid ground below my feet.
I looked around, and we were definitely not inside the paddy wagon. Instead, we were all on a street corner. A quick read of the street signs indicated we had not moved far in space. it was clear that we were in another dimension.
"Where are we?" asked Wesley.
"We're still in London," said Arturo. "We are in another dimension."
"You brought us to another world?" asked Jonathan Reed.
"This was the world where I found Mr. Mallory," said Arturo.
"Our headquarters has been compromised," said Reed. "Even if you could bring isd back, we'll nbeed to new place to live. I'd also have to notify the rest of our organization of our new headquarters."
"Well, we're same in the meantime," I said. "I doubt this world's version of Scotland Yard, if it exists, is after us."
"Are you sure, Mr. Mallory?" asked Dr. Arturo. "One of us may have a duplicate who is wanted by the authorities for some crime. Anyway, there is not much we can do here now. We are in our pajamas and we have no money and all the stores are closed in this hour."
"Where do you suggest we go, Max?" asked Reed.
"Across the Atlantic," said Arturo. "All of you hold on to me, we're going."
So we held on tight. I once again felt a brief period of weightlessness.
The first thing I noticed upon feeling gravity is that we were indoors. I looked around and saw a couple of paintings and stuff. I then saw a painting I was very familiar with.
It was a painting of my brother, Quinn!
I saw more paintings-of me, Rembrandt, and Maggie. I also saw paintings of two other people. One of them was a white man whom I did not recognize, the other was a painting of a Negro woman who looked familiar.
"Hello," I heard someone say. "I anticipated your arrival."
I looked and saw Marc LeBeau.
We were on his world.
We sat down at a dining table in LeBeau's mansion. He was a kind, hospitable host. He voliunteered to tell us about himself, and how he knew of Dr. Arturo and me.
"It all started when I had a heart attack a couple of years back," said LeBeau. "It was during the kromagg occupation."
"You mean there was a war between humans and kromaggs on this world?" asked Wesley. "and they conquered your home."
"Yes. God gave me psychic abilities. I knew that the kromaggs were not of this world, or even of this universe, but came from another version of Earth."
"Where?" asked Reed.
"On their world, kromaggs sprung from the western hemisphere, and humans sprung from the eastern hemisphere, as in your world."
"It was in the fourteenth century when a kromagg sailing ship first arrived on Africa's Atlantic coast," said Dr. Arturo.
"First contact between the kromaggs and humans occurred thousands of years earlier on their world," said LeBeau. "Humans migrated from eastern Asia to the western continents. Their meeting with the kromaggs resulted in armed conflict. For three millenia, there was a series of wars between humans and kromaggs. Then humans from Europe arrived and changed things. They created a powerful nation called the United States of America, and it dominated the northern continent which they called North America. The last of the wars between humans and kromaggs was back in 1970. It was a long and bloody conflict, and when the tide turned against the kromaggs, they evacuated to another version of Earth. The human nations blocked their return. After that, they began to conquer other versions of Earth which were entirely populated by humans."
"Do the kromaggs still rule here?" asked Wesley.
"Oh no. The U.S. never surrendered. Our scientists developed a virus, highly contagious, which was designed to kill kromaggs. It was on June 28, 1998 when the virus was first deployed. Four days later, the kromagg soldiers began dying quickly. Because the virus had a slow incubation period, by the time the first kromaggs died, it was too late to contain the thing. The U.S. Army rallied and slaughtered the remaining invaders. The kromaggs were gone on July 4, 1998. That day became known as Independence Day."
I smiled. Quinn told me that his version of the United States of America celebrated Independence Day on that exact date.
"So how did you know Max and Colin?" asked Reed.
"Well, I received visions of two very young boys who were sent from the kromaggs' home world. Their names were Colin and Quinn Mallory. Their parents were sliders, as the people from their world referred to traveling between dimensions. One of them was hidden in the world where Crown Prince Leonard was hiding, and the other was hidden on a world where the parents had their honeymoon back in 1969,during a festival called Woodstock. After the war with the kromaggs ended, they went to loom for their sons, but could not find them. Then in September of 1994, I received a vision of Quinn happening in real time. He built a sliding machine. Days later, he, Wade Welles, Maximilian Arturo, and Rembrandt Brown took the plunge and changed their lives forever."
"So you followed my brother and his friends," I said.
"Yes," replied LeBeau. "After escaping a world where the U.S. was ruled by communism, they went back to what they thought was home, but Quinn's father was still alive, and that world's Quinn was also missing along with that world's version of Wade and Rembrandt and Max. Perhaps another version of me is tracking them. Anyway, they started using that world as a base of operations. Quinn even considered staying there permanently and taking over his duplicate's life, but he decided against it, since it was not his life."
"Quinn mentioned that," I said.
"It was in January when I detected another version of Maximilian Arturo," continued LeBeau. "He had been sliding from world to world without a timer. I summoned him here and spoke to him and told him whom I am. I told him that he could take control of his own destiny. It was around that time that something went wrong with Quinn's timer again, and now they slide from world to world without being able to set the time nor able to return to their temporary base. It was then I decided to sell the stories of the sliders. I became known as the Seer, for my ability to see the sliders' adventures. Max was especially interested in his duplicate, whom he could sympathize with. He stayed with me for six weeks before he left. I kept in touch with him via psychic communication. Then came February 7, 1997."
I wondered what was special about that date, and then I remmbered Quinn telling me that he first slid home with Maggie back in February of that year. Was that the date when Quinn found out his home coordinates.
It was not. "Max came back here, telling me he had mastered sliding and thanking me for my help. I then received another vision. I saw the sliders, cincluding their version of Max. They arrived on a world where something believed to be pulsars were going to fry the whole planet. The world's version of the U.S. military was experimenting with sliding, and Quinn found his home world. But Colonel Angus Rickman had other plans. He had a disease which he was treating by stealing brain fluid. Before the world ended that day, he shot and killed Maximilian Arturo."
I remembered that story. It still saddened Quinn and Rembrandt and Maggie.
"Captain Maggie Beckett joined them, and they hunted Rickman who had the timer with the coordionates for Quinn's home. Three months later, Rickman is killed and Rembrandt and Wade finally make it home. Quinn and Maggie try to follow, but there was a catch. The kromaggs conquered Quinn's home. In August of 1997, Quinn and Maggie make it to his home, they rescue Rembrandt, and they set out to find his brother and the path to Quinn's birth world. They meet up with Colin and they continue searching until June of 1999 when Colin was separated from them."
"Interesting story," said Wesley.
"Are my parents alive?" I asked.
"Yes, they are alive and well. They still work for the U.S. military. In fact, they...well, you'll find out."
"What?" I asked.
"It is better you hear from them. And you will meet them, soon."
I yawned. "Well, I'd better get some sleep."
The four of us slept in the den. The morning sun woke me up. I decided to go to the kitchen to have some breakfast. My breakfast consisted of Super Golden Crisp and Minute Maid orange juice.
"Want some breakfast?" I asked Wesley as he got up.
"Sure," he said. "This is the first time I've been to parallel universe. I read the encyclopedia in the den; everything about world history is different from what I remember."
"Good morning," said Maximilian Arturo.
"Good morning," I replied.
"We're gonna have to go home soon," said Jonathan Reed. "But not to our London headquarters, since it's been compromised. Instead, we'll be going to an underground complex a few miles away from our headquarters. The Resistance Militia has its headquarters there. Max has been there before, so he can teleport us right there. We have a plan, but if wee're gonna do it we'll need some muscle."
"What plan?" I asked.
"It's been under discussion with our militia officers for quite a while. That encrypted CD-ROM you saw was about our mission. Hopefully, Scotland Yard hasn't decrypted the computers in our office yet."
"And the kromaggs are helping us?" I asked.
"Officially, they're neutral. They just lost weapons and equipment due to inventory error."
"You leaving?" asked Marc LeBeau as he saw us.
"Yes," said Jonathan Reed.
"Good luck on your venture. I'll be in touch wiht you."
"I'll keep my end of the bargain," said Dr. Arturo.
We all huddled around Maximilian Arturo. I felt weightlessness.
and then I felt wet. There weas water spraying against my face! I saw I was surrounded by women.
Naked women.
We all got out even as they screamed. "Follow me," ordered Reed. We went tthrougn a series of concrete corridors until we reached an office.
Inside was a man in a military uniform with four stars on the shoulders.
"Mr. Reed," said the uniformed man. "What brings you here, sir?"
"Resistance headquarters was compromised," said Reed. "We managed to escape Scotland Yard, but they might find out about this place."
"Well, we can hold them off long enough for us to escape before the military arrives. What of our other intel cells?"
"I haven't heard from them. It will only be a matter of time before Scotland Yard decrypts our database."
"I think we should begin the operations we've been planning for a month now."
"Yes," said the militia officer. "With what happened yesterday, we must move our timetable up. But we should notify him."
"Of course."
Reed and I left the office. I spoke with some of the militiamen. From what I could tell, the Resistance had two components-a spy ring which gathered data and financed the operation, and a militia that enaged in armed conflict. The militia had performed raids on government armories and the rehab centers. Many of the militiamen were soldiers in the British Royal Army who decided to fight for right, or were targeted for a purge.
Finally, a meeting was called. Jonathan Reed, Maximilian Arturo, Wesley, and I all atended, along with the militia's chief officers and their aides.
A man dressed in a three-piece suit appeared. Everyone in the room bowed to him; I did so likewise.
"Hello, everyone," said the man. "I am glad you are all gathered here. I came here secretly and at great personal risk, but it is something I had to do. I am Harold, rightful king over all Britain."
"Your Majesty," said Jonathan Reed, "we summoned you here today to inform you of our next step in our quest to restore you to the throne and out an end to this fascist regime."
"Tell us this plan, Reed."
"My lord, our plan is to take a hostage."
"Whom?" asked the king. I too was wondering.
"Prime Minister Farrington."
I listened intenely at the meeting with the senior leaders of the resistance and their king.
"Our intent is to take the PM hostage," said Reed. "We will then negotiate with King Edward for a safe haven in Ireland and the release of all political prisoners."
"Why should we do that?" asked one of the militia officers. "why don't we march to Buckingham and the Parliament and take over?"
"If we can accomplish our goal without having to shed the blood of more Britons, so be it," said Reed. "A civil war will be costly, especially since we can not rely any support from the top generals and admirals in the military."
"Yes," said Dr. Arturo. "The coup which put King Edward's father on the throne had the support of the service chiefs."
"Well, we know that King Edward rules through sheer terror," said Harold. "He even purged the military. I doubt there is true loyalty to him, not even among those in Scotland Yard. But Mr. Reed is right; we can only rely on ourselves."
"Well, we'd better gather data for our plan. And we'd better review the emergency escape plans. Scotland Yard might be banging on our door, with the Army as backup."
I left and headed to a small room which was apparently a breakroom for the militia. I saw several people there, all drinking sodas or coffee. One of them was playing with a Nintendo Game Boy.
"Hey Colin," Wesley said to me, holding a donut. "You want some?"
"Sure," I said. I bit into the glazed jelly donut, tasting the raspberry jam inside. "How are you feeling?"
"A bit nervous. I mean, everything we've been working for is going to go down within the next day or two. Some of us might get killed."
"I've experienced situations like this before," I said.
It was late at night when Dr. Maximilian Arturo entered the guest quarters where I was sleeping.
"King Harold is summoning us for a meeting," he said.
Wesley and I followed the doctor. We went to a conference room, where King Harold, Jonathan Reed, and militia officers all gathered. I saw Arturo and Wesley bow down before the king; I followed their example.
"Mr. Reed," said King Harold, "tell us your plan."
"My liege," said Reed, "Prime Minister Farrington will be delivering a speech in Oxford University tomorrow morning at 10 AM GMT. There will be no doubt tight security. Scotland Yard will be there, as well as a squad of bobbies. Scotland Yard will be preparing for an assasination. What we will do is we will use an armored vehicle provided to us by Beruth to storm into the place and nab the PM. We will take him to this sewer access, where he will be marched through the sewer to a van painted to look like a public works vehicle. Scotland Yard and the police will be looking for an armored vehicle while the van takes the PM to a warehouse in Southhampton, owned by one of our shell corporations. If that location is compromised, we take him to Site Bravo. From there, we'll sneak him to a small sub which will take him to a ship we have floating tqwenty miles from the British coastline."
"Okay, we'll do it," said the king.
"We shall not fail, sire."
And then we were dismissed.
We had to wake up early next morning. Jonathan Reed assigned me to be a lookout for the team. We rode in a Mercedes van; the armored assault vehicle which would be used for the capture of the prime minister was stashed inside the trailer of a truck. Dr. Arturo was in the van with me; all of us were wearing the headbands to prevent our detection from the psychic network. I fell asleep at times.
It was about 8:30 AM when I first saw the buildings of the Oxford University campus. I already noted the Mercedes police cars parked along the street.
"Ah, Oxford," said Dr. Arturo as he looked at the campus. "It sure brings back memories. Well, we'd better make sure our hats our on."
I was given a hat to wear, to cover the electronic band which would prevent the humaggs at Scotland Yard headquarters from scanning my mind and alerting the prime minister's security detail. Dr. Arturo led the way; it was only fitting that he would be in charge of the lookout team as he had once been a professor here and knew the campus well.
It was not too hard to see where the prime minister would give his speech; it was in an outdoor quad. Oxford University students have already gathered here. I can see uniformed police officers with the batons hanging from their belts, as well as uniformed Scotland Yard agents. I assumed that among the students were Scotland Yard agents dressed in plainclothes. I looked up at the rooftops of the nearby buildings and saw people holding what appeared to be sniper rifles.
"Tight security," I said.
"The PM has good reason for it," said Arturo. "He is more popular than the king, if you know what I mean."
"Everyhing okay," I heard Reed's voice say.
"Yes," replied Arturo. "No extra. Guests are here; host has not arrived yet."
"Excuse me," I heard a man say. I turned and saw a uniformed Scotland Yard agent.
"Yes?" I asked.
"I must search you." He patted me down. "It's okay," he said, and then he left.
There were a couple of people in suits gathering at the podium. One of them tapped the microphone.
Then at 10 AM, he spoke.
"Hello, students and faculty at Oxford," said the man. "I know why you are all gathered here today. Today is a critical juncture of the destiny of this kingdom."
He continued to talk on and on, and then he introduced a speaker. It was not the prime minister, but some fellow from the House of Lords.
"Mr. Ambassador," I heard Arturo say. I turned and saw the kromagg Ambassador Rakakot.
"Hello," said Rakakot. "I received the message from Jon. I know what will go down here."
"So what is your story?" I asked. "I mean, to security."
"My office informed the prime minister that I wish to speak to him about some tr
_________________ 
Самым большим доказательством существования разумной жизни во вселенной является тот факт, что с нами до сих пор никто не попытался связаться.
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