blood

Disclaimer: Sliders is owned by, or is a trademark of, Universal Television, St. Clare Entertainment, the Sci-Fi Channel, & Studios USA. It was created by Tracy Torm� and Robert K. Weiss. I am using the title and characters without permission but am making no profit from doing so; so for the love of all things holy, don�t sue me!

IMPORTANT NOTE: "Blood and Splendor� was written by Sliders co-creator Tracy Torm� and was originally intended to be a first season episode. By the time the script was completed, however, it had become clear that the special effects budget for the episode would exceed the amount of money available, and so the episode was never produced. The story did eventually appear in 1996 as a special issue of Acclaim�s Sliders comic book series and was also used by earthprime.com�s Earth 211 (see the Links page), but it never became an actual episode of the series, and therefore never truly became an official part of Sliders history. Therefore, I�ve decided to borrow the story, make a few minor changes to it, and use it in The Lost Sixth Season so that it earns its place as an �actual episode� of the series. I take no credit for the plot of this story; it was all Torm�s idea. All I did was modify it to fit the cast of TLSS. My sincere thanks to earthprime.com, The Dimension of Continuity, and Acclaim Comics for supplying me with the plot of this lost episode, and to Tracy Torm� for writing it.

As the timer counts down the Sliders� last minutes on a world where President Ross Perot is nearing the end of his second term of office, Logan puts the finishing touches on the new 400-mile geographic spectrum stabilizer. With seconds to spare, she finishes. She activates the vortex, and off they slide into who-knows-where.

While in the vortex, the Sliders are attacked by several bizarre organisms that appear to live within the wormhole itself. The Professor hypothesizes that the creatures may be the �immune system� of hyperspace and may serve the function of destroying any organisms alien to the wormhole (such as the Sliders), though he�s at a loss to explain why they�ve never run into these creatures before.

The trio barely escapes and emerges from the wormhole into a world where the Aztec civilization never died. In this world, the Aztecs thwarted the attempted European conquest of the New World hundreds of years ago and have survived to the present day, spreading their civilization throughout the Americas. Assuming the Aztecs around them to be ignorant-or at the very least unfamiliar with the English language-the Sliders talk openly amongst each other of Sliding and of what just happened in the wormhole. But the Aztecs, in spite of their being dressed in ancient ceremonial garb, are much more advanced than they seem to be. They fully understand English, for one, and they also possess modern technology, as the Sliders learn when one individual (a palace guard who overheard their conversation) pulls out a cellular phone and informs Emperor Montezuma XIV of what he�s just seen and heard. He proclaims to the person over the phone that he�s just witnessed a �gateway to the gods.�

A couple more palace guards arrive (in response to the phone call) and seize Logan, the Professor, and the timer. Rembrandt is left alone because of this world�s reverse discrimination; he has dark skin, which on this world automatically makes you part of the aristocracy (so to speak) and therefore much less likely to be seen as guilty of any wrongdoing.

The Professor is taken to the palace laboratory and is told to hand over the secrets of the holy device (the timer). When he refuses, he is forcibly shoved into a corner and tied to a chair, where he watches helplessly as several Aztec scientists tinker with the timer. After taking it completely apart and examining all the hardware, the scientists begin putting the timer back together again. It is while they are doing this that they accidentally produce a vortex without the timer first reaching zero. The vortex is only open for a few seconds, but that is long enough for one of the aforementioned wormhole creatures to pop out and devour one of the scientists. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by this unexpected turn of events, the Professor breaks free of his restraints and escapes, gathering up the timer and its dissembled components before leaving.

While all this is going on, Logan is at the nearby Pyramid of the Serpent being prepared by local holy men to be sacrificed to the gods as an offering of goodwill-a precursor to Emperor Montezuma�s intended visit to the gods (via use of the timer). And Rembrandt is working to find a way to free his captured friends.

Soon after his escape, the Professor manages to locate Rembrandt, who takes him to a place where he can hide out until the slide. While the Professor works to finish reassembling the timer, Rembrandt continues his efforts to free Logan. Luckily for the Professor, the Aztec scientists were not as primitive as he had initially believed. Their familiarity with microchip technology gave them the skill they needed to take the timer apart neatly (as opposed to simply tearing out components randomly), which makes it fairly simple for the Professor to finish putting it back together. Once he�s reassembled it, the Professor realizes that he and his friends have a serious problem: the power chip is missing, and without it they cannot slide.

At the pyramid, Rembrandt has some newfound friends of his create a distraction, thus giving him an opportunity to rush the altar and free Logan mere moments before she is sacrificed. Rembrandt tries to get Logan to make a run for it, but for some reason she pulls from his grip and goes running straight for the attending Montezuma. She briefly attacks Montezuma and then returns to a confused and anxious Rembrandt. They manage to elude security forces and make their getaway to the place where the Professor is holed-up.

Once there, the Professor breaks the news to them that the timer�s power chip is missing and that they, as a result, cannot slide. It is then that we discover the reason that Logan attacked Montezuma; she had noticed that he was wearing the power chip around his neck as an amulet and had attacked him to get it back, hoping that the others would find a way to recover the rest of the timer. She hands the power chip over to the Professor, who inserts it into the timer. They are shocked to discover that the time remaining before the next sliding window is only 42 seconds. The Professor at this point realizes that the early activation of the vortex back in the Aztec lab must have cut their time here short. The Sliders are quite relieved that they were able to reunite and get the timer back just in time for the earlier-than-expected slide.

As Logan activates the vortex, Rembrandt voices his concern over running into those wormhole creatures again. Logan says something to the effect of, �Better to take our chances escaping to the next world than to stay here and be killed for sure,� and the other two agree; they jump into the vortex. In the wormhole, they again encounter the creatures, but Logan figures out that firing the timer at the creatures causes them to retreat. She shoots at the creatures a few times, but realizes that each time she does so, the wormhole seems to shrink a little. The others realize that she�s right; it is shrinking. Just when they think the wormhole might collapse before they can get out of it, they emerge onto the next world out of a much-smaller-than-usual vortex. They collectively realize that if they run into those creatures again, they now have a defense, but one they must use sparingly for otherwise they risk shrinking the wormhole into nothingness...and them along with it. With that disquieting sentiment, the trio sets off to see what this new world has in store for them, passing a sign reading �Welcome to Hill Valley� as they go.

THE END