Same Earth, different dimension. [complete]
Who: Quinn Mallory and Simon St. James What: The first Otherworlder appears in the basement When: June 13th, 2008
There was something different about this wormhole. Quinn knew it the moment he'd leapt into it - he was the last of the four to jump in, but there had been a flicker right after Rembrant disappeared, and upon jumping in everything felt different.
It was almost… natural. As if this vortex wasn't human made, like the ones they'd been sliding in for months.
He was spit out in the usual manner, practically rolling in a somersault before his momentum was abruptly stopped by something extremely hard.
“….Ow.”
He opened his eyes, realizing he'd landed into a pile of bricks and with a groan he rolled off of them, laying on his back on the floor for a moment.
Simon had decided that routine was good. Spending days doing nothing but worrying about the status of the world did no one any good. So he spent time in the library every day, reshelving and doing tasks he’d been putting off for months because he’d rarely had time for it.
One of these was reorganizing all the old books in the basement stacks. They hadn’t seen the light of day since roughly 1976, and considering these might be the only books surviving the apocalypse, having a large complete collection was very important.
So that’s where he was when a horrific crash coming from the unfinished furnace room. Simon put down his pencil and clipboard, headed to see what the commotion was. It sounded too big to be a raccoon, and he didn’t put it past the fair townsfolk of Normalville to start looting around town. Although who would rob a library...?
Simon opened the door to the furnace room and his mouth dropped open. Not only was there a confused young man on the floor, but he had fallen out of a gigantic hole. In the air.
“....What...?”
Oh crap. Someone was there. He rolled over quickly, pushing himself up to his knees, then frowned as he realized that aside from someone he'd never seen before, he was alone in the basement. No Rembrant, no professor, no Wade. How had they been separated?
“Uh… hello.”
Behind him, the wormhole closed, the unnatural wind that had picked up snuffing out abruptly.
Simon pointed to the place in the air where the wormhole had been. "What...? Who...? How...?"
Quinn gave a sheepish grin, pushing himself to his feet with a quit groan. His back was killing him, great. "Uh..." Most of the time when people caught them sliding, they were outside, so they could just run off and avoid explanations if need be. He was quite trapped at the moment however. And on his own.
So… why not?
“Vortex to another dimension, Quinn, and how's really a long story.”
"You're... kidding." Simon was a simple man. A practical man. He wasn't much into anything that could qualify as supernatural, or science fiction. Of course, two weeks ago, a nuclear attack on the United States had seemed like science fiction as well.
You would think he'd be used to that response by now. "Nope, no joke."
Simon shook his head. What could he really say to that. "My name is Simon St. James. I'm afraid you've come to a rather bleak place, Quinn."
Quinn sighed, somehow not surprised to hear that. The last three worlds they'd slid too had been destroyed or on the verge of destruction. It was beginning to concern him, honestly.
He wondered if his friends had landed on this earth or somewhere else entirely. It was then he realized that Arturo had had the timer. So if they really were on another world... he was stuck here.
“Bleak? How so?”
"The United States has been nuked... most of the major cities have been destroyed. There's no communication. Last we heard was a military broadcast hiding in a bunker in the mountains that we had retaliated and the destruction was complete." Simon sighed. He didn't like thinking about it, honestly. "We're in a valley here. Everything seems fine in here, but it looks like things are starting to die outside. We've had search parties leave and not come back."
Quinn brushed his hair out of his face with a sigh, looking unsurprised. "I figured as much. It's been like that for the past three slides - different reasons of course, but all the Earth's have been on the brink of destruction - or already destroyed."
It occurred to him that he wasn't sure if this was his Earth… what if something happened since he'd been gone?
“Can I ask? Who is… or I guess was the president here?”
Simon didn't like hearing that. If the guy was in the practice of hopping dimensions -- which was an improbability he would address later -- and every single world was ending, the statistics weren't very good, were they?
"George W. Bush."
In this particular case, Quinn wasn't disappointed to learn that. "Not my homeworld then," he said. Realizing he was covered in dirt he brushed himself off. So now the only question was, where had his friends gone.
"You're lucky," Simon said. "Not a lot of people here were happy with him."
"Is he the reason your America got bombed?" Quinn asked.
"Who knows," Simon said. "Maybe. America's always pissing off some foreign power or another. We're not clear on who did the bombing, though.”
"So all the major cities are destroyed, and from the sounds of it America fired back," Quinn said. "If that's the case, your world's heading into nuclear winter, if it isn't there already. You haven't been able to contact any survivors?"
Simon shook his head. "Not since the initial radio contact. I'm not sure if they've just lost their signal, or..." He didn't want to suggest their deaths.
Quinn nodded, understanding the silence without Simon having to say the words. "Probably interference from the fallout," he said. He looked around the dank basement. "So are we able to go upstairs? Or is this the fallout shelter of sorts...?"
"What? Oh no no, this is the basement of the library... I'm the head librarian..." Simon stood back from the door and motioned for Quinn to follow. "It's not the most dignified place to appear, but yeah. We have a whole town there that's been unaffected by the radiation so far."
"Really?" Quinn said, clearly fascinated. He followed Simon through the door. "Any particular reason why?"
"None that I know. We've always kind of had our own weather here. But I don't pretend to be scientific enough to give you concrete reasons." He lead Quinn up through the stacks and to the stairway that led back up to the main library.
Quinn looked thoughtful. "What's the geography like?" Maybe this San Francisco had something different to it than most.
"Well, we're in a valley, maybe that has something to do with it. There's plenty of them in the Appalachians, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the area..."
"Oh definitely, valley climates can vary completely based on the direction the slopes are facing, the thermal belt, all kinds of factors. It's fascinating really--" and then he cut off as he heard the rest of Simon's words. "The Appalachians? Weird, those are usually on the east coast. At least on my Earth."
Simon smirked a bit, glancing back at the eager young man. Interdimensional rifts could have brought someone much less intelligent, that was for sure. "It's on the east coast on this Earth, too."
"What?" Quinn said, looking surprised at a revelation for the first time since arriving. "You mean this isn't San Fransisco? Or another version of it?"
Simon blinked. "Nope. This is Normalville, PA. There's pretty much nothing but farm country and Amish country in every direction until you hit Pittsburgh or Philly."
"Pennsylvania?" Quinn repeated, flabbergasted. "How is that possible?" The wormhole always spit them out in some form of San Franscisco. And then he was muttering to himself, pacing distractedly past Simon. "Unless that flicker I saw... unless that actually was a different vortex - something felt off about it, and that would explain where the others went..." Which meant... even if they weren't on a different world, they were in a different part of the country. A part Quinn wouldn't be able to get to if the entire continent was covered by nuclear fallout. Which meant...
"I think I might be here a long time..." he said, looking at Simon.
Simon nodded sadly, patting Quinn on the shoulder. "I think we're all going to be..."
He wasn't ever going to make it home, was he? At least his friends had the timer, so they'd be able to keep sliding.
Quinn sighed. "Well, I guess first thing's first - is there a place I can stay in town?"
He was just going to have to settle in and maybe with some work, and hopefully the right materials, he could make another timer. Of course he wasn't sure he'd ever find Wade, Rembrant or the Professor again. Unless eventually they all found their way back to their Earth.
And then of course there was that nagging thought... assuming their Earth was even still there.
Simon considered. "Well, I'd say you have two options: the Bed and Breakfast and the Motel. Do you have any money?"
Quinn pulled out his wallet, honestly not sure. He peered in and then looked back up at Simon. "I have a little bit for the moment."
Simon smiled a bit. Quinn had a kind of child-like wonder to him that Simon enjoyed. "Well then, I'd recommend the Bed and Breakfast. It's run by a wonderful older lady who would love to put you up for as long as you need."
Quinn smiled. "Okay great. Bed and Breakfast it is." He paused, then added, "Is there a science lab around here or anything?" If not maybe he could find a good basement he could hole up in.
Simon appeared puzzled. "Are you a scientist?"
"Ah," Quinn rubbed the back of his head with a little grin. "I guess you could call it that. I'm just a grad student really. But the device I use to slide between earths was with my friends, so I going to have to start from scratch if I want to find a way home."
"So you invented a device that allowed you to travel those..." Simon struggled to come up for a word for the void in the air he'd seen. "The wormhole? That's pretty impressive for a grad student."
"It's an Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge," Quinn replied. He waved off the rest of Simon's words. "Might have been more impressive if I'd been a little more careful with it. We messed with the timer when we weren't supposed to and subsequently haven't been able to get home since."
"Wow," Simon said, leading Quinn through the much more refined main area of the library. "That still sounds very impressive. Science was never my strong suit, so you'll likely wow me with anything you do."
Quinn gave a smile as he looked around the library. "Yeah I guess if you work here you're probably more of the literary type."
Simon smiled. "That and history. Especially local history. I know what's probably considered an obscene amount about this town."
"Oh really?" Quinn asked, truly interested. He was always fascinated by the history of the places he ended up. "So what's the most interesting tidbit about the town that you know?"
Simon considered. "Half the town burned down in 1820. They abandoned the rest and rebuild on the other side of the valley. A lot of the original buildings are still standing, although mostly gutted and reclaimed by nature."
"Wow really?" Quinn said. "So there's a whole abandoned town on the other side of the valley?"
Simon grinned and nodded. "You bet. Rumored to be haunted by the souls of those who perished in the fires. Although it's most commonly haunted by teenagers with illegal substances these days. Or so I hear." He'd never been to the ruins as a kid, just as a historian years later.
Quinn smirked at the words. "That sounds about right," he said. "I'll have to check the place out at some point." He realized how that sounded and quickly added, "For the history, not the uh..." He waved his hand, losing words like he generally did when he got flustered. "Anyway I should probably go find this bed and breakfast."
Simon chuckled softly. "I know what you mean." He led Quinn to the door of the library, and pointed to across the street, beyond the town green. "It's that colorful house right there. You can't miss it."
"Great," Quinn said with a nod. He turned to Simon with a small grin. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you around."
"I hope so," Simon said quietly, watching Quinn leave. He thought briefly of telling someone about the young man's extraordinary entrance, then thought better of it. There really wasn't one set authority figure in the town anymore, and the only one who even thought himself to be in charge was Henry, and Simon knew he'd just get labeled a madman if he shared this experience with the deputy. He turned slowly and went back to his work in the stacks.