mind

This movie opens the same way that �The Unstuck Man� did, with the Sliders (Quinn, Maggie, Rembrandt, and Colin) engaged in a gun-battle on a world in which they were trying to locate Wade (for details, read �Desperate Measures� in my Lost Slides section). This time, however, when Colin becomes �unstuck,� we follow him instead of the Sliders.

Colin doesn�t know exactly what�s going on, but it�s a lot like sliding, except that there�s no timer and no wormhole. He arrives on a world, stays there for a random period of time for a time, �de-atomizes� (to borrow a term from �Lipschitz Live�), ends up back in the chaotic maelstrom of the interdimension for a while, and then �re-atomizes� on a new world.

For seven months, Colin tries to adapt to this without much success. It is then that he meets a man named Sam Beckett (of Quantum Leap). Sam, who happens to be a double of Maggie�s uncle, is also unstuck. Sam is unstuck not from dimensions but from time, and he calls it not unstuck but leaping, but the basic principle is the same. Shortly after meeting Colin and learning a little about his predicament, Sam recognizes the parallels between their respective situations. Besides the aforementioned differences, there is one other important difference between them: Sam has learned how to control his journey. For two weeks, Sam teaches Colin how to control when he leaps so that he can stay in a dimension for as long or short a time as he wants, though he still can�t control where he goes. Sam and Colin leap out simultaneously (Sam�s mission was to help Colin). (This whole first part of the movie takes about 45 min.)

We now shift gears to very briefly recount Wade�s capture by the KroMaggs and the events of �Requiem.� We pick up right at the end of that episode; Wade destroys the weapon and soldiers at Outpost 88, but leaves the outpost itself basically intact. Now that she�s not half-sedated by KroMagg drugs, she realizes that she can fully interact with the outpost�s computer system because she�s hooked directly up to it. Being at one with the computer, Wade can basically access KroMagg military files like she would access a memory. She decides to explore the system-to see what she can see.

First of all, she decides to find out what the KroMagg designation for Earth Prime is. She opens their file on her, reasoning that the file would specify which earth she was captured on. She learns that it�s called Earth 119. She then looks at intelligence files on Earth 119 to see how her world is faring in its war against the Dynasty. In doing this, she comes across records of 119�s history, and she realizes that the world she had slid to after the final confrontation with Rickman was not Earth Prime after all!

In search of further answers, she decides to look up the files on her fellow Sliders to see just how much the �Maggs actually learned about the group. When she comes across the file on the Professor-the one she is sure is her Professor-she finds updated files on him in spite of the fact that he died two years ago. Wade thinks a while, eventually remembers the events of �Post-Traumatic Slide Syndrome,� and realizes that the Sliders must have ended up with the wrong Professor. She knows the �Maggs didn�t mistake an alt-Prof for hers because the quantum signatures from the two described encounters (the �Invasion� one and a later one) match. The Professor that was left behind must have at some point been captured and released by the KroMaggs a second time (briefly depicted in Second Chances as Logan�s first KroMagg encounter). Upon learning this, Wade reaches out to the Professor�s mind (much as she did Rembrandt�s in �Requiem,� except that she�s just reading thoughts, not projecting them) and learns that he is on the real Earth Prime.

Learning all this gets Wade again wishing she could go home, since her family and friends have not been killed by the �Maggs after all. So at this point she begins using Outpost 88�s genetic-engineering labs to clone some DNA extracts from her head (still in its ooze-tube). She uses a bigger version of the ooze-tube, which is directly hooked up to the computer system, to create an exact duplicate of her original body-exact except that it has a brain, but no mind. She plans to download her mind first into the outpost�s neurogenic computer system and then into her newly-cloned body. Then she plans to use the outpost�s sliding system to go home to Earth Prime. The clone is created and hyper-developed to the right age, and Wade is just about to begin the two-step downloading of her mind into it when she hears Remmy mentally crying out for her (from �Turning Point�). She helps him, but tells him that she won�t be able to help him again in the future. She doesn�t explain why, but it�s because once she transfers her mind back into a human body that isn�t pumped full of psi-enhancing drugs, she won�t be able to communicate telepathically with him anymore. Anyway, she transfers her mind into her newly-cloned body, and sets to work trying to repair the sliding equipment (it was damaged when she eradicated the weapon in �Requiem�). Though she had been confident that she�d learned enough about the sliding system while inside the computer that she could repair it, she had been wrong. The equipment is far too damaged to be useful. Wade, back in her own body and on the verge of freedom, is stranded. (This entire second part of the movie also takes about 45 minutes)

We turn our attention back to Colin at this point; four months have passed since his encounter with Sam. Colin happens upon a Dynasty-controlled world, and, remembering how much Quinn had wanted to free Wade from the KroMaggs, tries to locate her. He contacts the local resistance cell (there always is one), and meets a KroMagg double agent named Kryptus Tenaren. With Tenaren�s help, Colin breaks into the local garrison and is able to locate the world on which Wade is being held. Tenaren uses the garrison�s dimensional translocation device to slide Colin to Outpost 88. Colin is shocked to discover that Wade is not being held there, but that she is stranded there alone. Colin explains who he is and then frees her by having her hold on tight to him as he leaps. This brings her with him to the next world. From there on out, they�re able to leap together without being in direct physical contact; they just have to be in close proximity to each other. Together, they begin searching for their lost friends. (This third and final section of the movie takes about a half-hour.)

THE END