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Chapter 1


Before we continue, I need to point out that the chapter 1 we're about to see isn't the original chapter 1 of the story. The original had the whole "Sliders arrive, see that it's not Earth Prime, discuss" schtick that very rapidly became a cliché in the fandom. The story was posted with that chapter 1, and originally archived with it as well. I mentioned in the GL commentary that my stories get incessently updated, and this one is no exception. The original chapter 1 eventually got deleted. What we're about to see is the original chapter 2.

The sound burst open around them, as if the Sliders crossed some invisible boundary while crossing from the town to the boardwalk. It pounded through them at a volume better felt than heard, and made any attempt at talk moot. Cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air, along with the smells of popcorn, over-cooked hot dogs, cotton candy, and body odor from a crowd too large for the space provided. The bulk of whom appeared to be gathered at the far end of the boardwalk, around an elevated stage where a band played. The source of the music, if one could call it that. Still, the boardwalk swarmed with people drifting from food stand to game stall and back.

The four Sliders pushed their way through the crowd with some difficulty, and acquired more than a few nasty stares and gestures in return. Their destination was a strand of flashing neon signs some distance away that advertised hotels; the first they had seen of any such temporary lodging. What they saw of the town on their way through it consisted of block after block of closed shops, empty streets, and unlit homes. It had been a welcome relief to see that the desolation wasn't universal.

Yes, we had previously spent a whole chapter discussing the block after block of closed shops, empty streets, and unlit homes. Sometimes, telling is better than showing.

It was well past dark now, and everyone was feeling the effects of a long day. But they couldn't help getting caught up in the surrounding excitement and activity. The volume alone would have been enough to wake the dead, especially as the Sliders drew near the stage. The hotel lights beckoned, but curiosity about what had everyone so excited won out over the need to establish their base.

Enough to wake the dead. Ha. Ha.

I'm pretty sure that pun wasn't intended.

Not that they had much choice. The crowd seemed to function as an entity independent of those who comprised it, drawing in the stray passerby and trapping them in place, adding the new voices to the old in a mob roar. The Sliders drew as close as they dared, doing their level best not to get drawn beyond the fringe. They failed, and soon became as those around them.

The masses stamped and cheered to the music. An impromptu mosh pit was in full gear near the stage. Wade counted at least six stage divers and seriously considered joining their ranks, but for being too far away from the stage. The songs were fast paced with a lot of bass and involved the lead singer bellowing into her microphone at odd intervals. Any pretense at rhyme or reason took a back seat to volume.

Singing ability aside, the lead singer was obviously talented. A voluptuous blonde, she pranced around the stage in high-heels, tight jean shorts and a red bra. Her blonde hair was piled high on her head, from which the occasional tendril escaped to frame her face. The rest of the equally talented band dressed, as it were, in a similar style.

They were beautiful, loud and showmen to the core.

For the band known as Bathory, the night was just beginning.

Even now the Sliders find Bathory's music hypnotising.

****

As the small hours of the morning advanced, the crowds began to disperse. The band packed up and slipped away without so much as an encore, much to the annoyance of the remaining people. Cries for more followed their departure, and continued long after the band was surely out of hearing range.

"Hotel time," Quinn announced wearily, his legs trembling as he fought to keep from falling asleep right then and there. He wasn't the oldest of the Sliders -- that honor now went to Rembrandt -- but he was the reason the four of them were stuck traveling randomly across parallel worlds. That weight made him feel old, as did the realization that he had once again failed to get them home as promised. Tonight, the adrenaline and mob sentiment had sapped all but his last reserve of energy, and he truely wished he still had someone to look for strength as the others looked to him.

As he was coming to expect, the immediate response came from Maggie, a Slider now for only a matter of weeks, but so used to being in a position of power that she was the self-declared second in command. "That's going to be a challenge," she responded with a wide sweep of her arm that took in the variety of hotels lining the strip, all of which flashed no vacancy signs.

Quinn followed the sweep with his eyes, and wondered if they should have found a room as soon as they arrived, or if they had only put off the inevitable. Again. He looked back at the young woman and found her lips pressed in a grim line, her blue eyes narrowed as she discovered and discarded alternatives. Unfortunately, all her years of military training hadn't prepared her for dealing with parallel worlds or the spontaneous, frequently insane, decisions inevitably required. In an irony he knew he'd appreciate more after a good night's sleep, Quinn realized that the military had made Maggie too naive about the ways of the worlds.

"Ask for the presidential suite," Rembrandt suggested. He sounded just as weary as Quinn; more so. "Even when they're booked, they hold rooms back for celebrities."

I understand this is sometimes true, although I've never actually worked in a hotel. I was hired to work in one last summer, but moved before I could start.

"Do you really think you're a celebrity on this world," Maggie asked, arms akimbo and tone indicating that she didn't believe he could be famous on any world. She knew of his fifteen minutes of fame as an R&B singer on his home world, but she hadn't known Rembrandt when he still believed he had a chance at a revival; hadn't been to the worlds where that revival had been successful, or the worlds were the fifteen minutes had never ended.

"Maybe. Maybe not," Rembrandt replied, ignoring the attitude. "The rooms are still there for the taking. But you hafta know to ask about them."

"I'll go," Wade said, to no one in particular. Which was just like her. With the addition of Maggie to the group, Wade had started to fade into the background. But she was the true second in command now, the only one who knew Quinn from "before", and the one most likely to do what it took to get things done, regardless of whether permission had been asked or granted. She caught Quinn's eye, and the two of them turned to enter the nearest hotel, leaving Maggie and Rembrandt to argue it out.

The hotel was lush, overdone in red velvet and gold gilding. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling and heavy tapestries adorned the walls. The lobby furniture was antique in style, but ageless in quality. Immaculate. The kind of furniture meant to be admired rather than used. Except that one chair nearest an unused fire place was occupied by someone reading a newspaper, feet propped on a gleaming wooden coffee-table. Only his legs and feet were visible, but Quinn and Wade couldn't help but to be intimidated by this someone who was so secure with his place that he wasn't afraid to touch anything.

The desk-manager, a handsome twenty-something dressed in a starched red uniform with gold braid, promptly ignored them. He appeared to be deep in conversation with a young woman who looked vaguely familiar. But with all the people they'd met on slides, that could mean anything. She was dressed in a motley piece-meal of clothing, all of it showing signs of extreme wear. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, held back from her face by barrettes.

"-- get in trouble," the manager was saying. His face was mottled, his eyes piercing. He looked like he desperately wanted to be somewhere else.

The girl shook her head, blonde hair flying. "It's not for long."

"You know your kind aren't welcome here."

She leaned across the marble desk, almost touching noses with him and whispered something that didn't reach Quinn and Wade's ears. The manager's face drained of colour; he jerked back.

Colour. Hmmm. This must have been back when I was still spelling in English.

"But I won't," she concluded, returning to her former position.

Quinn cleared his throat then, to alert the manager to their presence. The girl whipped around . . . and stopped. She was older than Quinn first assessed, probably his age. She had liquid blue eyes and a rosebud mouth, and was absolutely stunning. Her gaze locked on his, held it for a long moment. Then she offered a shy smile.

On this world, Beth knows Quinn.

"How rude of me," she said, "to keep you waiting like this."

"It's okay," Quinn apologized. "I shouldn't have interrupted." He took a step forward and offered his hand. It was trembling. "Quinn Mallory."

She caught his fingers for an instant. "Beth."

And I say again .. Elizabeth Bathory.

"You're the lead singer for the band that was playing tonight," Wade announced, suddenly placing why the girl looked so familiar.

Beth nodded once in affirmation. "Just something to occupy the nights. They do drag on so."

"You were fantastic," Quinn said. At that moment, as far as his memory of the night went, they had been fantastic.

"You caught the show?"

"Almost all of it. We just arrived in town."

"Oh? We're playing again tomorrow night. Why don't you come back stage and meet the rest of the band before we go on." She smiled again; a wide, guileless smile that destroyed any free-will Quinn had left.

Behind him, Wade audibly sighed.

As with many of my stories, this one was *intended* to be a parody. That intention lasted only as long as it took to actually start writing the story. But, some parodical elements got left in on purpose. One of them was the fandom-cliché of Quinn falling In Love with some woman on every Earth. The other was the idea that this didn't seem to bother Wade, who had been previously established to have a crush on Quinn. I wanted to see Quinn fall In Love, and have Wade notice and dislike this.

"Your girlfriend's invited too," Beth continued, as though oblivious to the effect she was having on him.

"Who?" He half-turned, saw Wade, and blushed. "She's not my girlfriend."

A shout-out to the fact that Quinn never noticed that Wade had a crush on him.

Wade shot Quinn a scathing look that he never even noticed. She was tempted to introduce herself as his wife. Or better yet, introduce Maggie as his wife and let her kick Beth's butt. Then both of them would suffer.

"Have you found a place to stay yet?" Beth inquired. "I need to know where I can send the passes."

"N-no," Quinn stammered. "All the hotels are booked."

Beth looked thoughtful, then turned on the manager with a suddenness that made him visibly gulp. He had been hovering around the desk throughout the conversation, shuffling papers, typing at the computer, and otherwise pretending to be busy. "Marco," she commanded, "Give them my suite."

Every OC in this story is named for a famous (in my mind) vampire. Marco is named for the character played by Alex Winter in The Lost Boys.

"Miss?" He looked ready to jump out of his skin, and his jerky movements indicated that given enough time he might just figure out how to do that.

"I just had a change of plans."

"Yes, Miss."

"He's a good kid," she said as Marco scurried into the office to make arrangements for the rooms. "A little too stuck on the rules, sometimes." She refocused on Quinn, a look of smug finality on her face. "But rules were meant to be broken, weren't they?"

By this time, Quinn would have agreed with anything she said, and he did.

"But I really should be going. I will see you tomorrow night." She didn't wait for an answer.

Wade left Quinn standing at the desk, watching Beth leave, and headed outside to inform the others that they'd found a room. Passing the man in the chair again, she noted curiously that his newspaper was upside down. She was about to comment on it when he lowered it to look at her over the top. Sunglasses covered his eyes and she got the impression that she didn't want to know what they hid. His lips tightened into something that might have been a smile. He raised the paper again and started whistling something tuneless.

Wade shook her head and kept going.

"This is unbelievable!" She announced to Maggie and Rembrandt, when she caught up with them outside the hotel. "We're in there for like two minutes and some girl throws herself at him. Correction: he throws himself at *her*."

"So, do we have a room or what?" Maggie asked.

"Yes we have a room," Wade snapped, "Her's. Can you imagine the nerve?"

I put an apostrophe in a possessive pronoun!?

*Begins banging head against the wall*

Bad, Wendy. No cookie. Ever.

"Woah, calm down, sweetheart," Rembrandt consoled, wrapping his arm across her shoulders. "She's letting us have her room? Right? It sounds to me like she's doing us a big favor, whoever she is."

"*She* is the lead singer for the band we had to listen to tonight. You know, the one with the big--"

"Voice?" Rembrandt said.

Wade cupped her hands out in the air in front of her chest. "It's not her voice he was paying attention to."

Maggie's eyes narrowed at Wade's gesture. "What is your problem?"

"My problem? You didn't see the way he was looking at her. It was, like, one second nothing but politeness -- the next, he's drooling on her--"

"Voice?" Rembrandt supplied again. The girls ignored him.

"So he thinks she's pretty. This can't be the first time he's looked at a girl twice."

"It was like she cast a spell on him. I mean, it was that quick."

Point of fact, she did cast a spell on him. If one can consider vampire hypnosis to be a spell.

"Magic, Wade?" Maggie took a half-step closer to Wade, looking down on her with the couple of inches she had over the other woman. "I thought you were old enough to know better."

The more petite woman glared back. "Yeah, and what makes you the expert on this world? You think you've got it all figured out after a couple of hours?"

"Um girls," Rembrandt said, tightening his grip on Wade's shoulder and pulling her away from Maggie. "You know, it's been a long time since we got a chance to just relax. It's late; we're all feeling a little beat . . ."

"You don't believe me either?"

"I didn't say that," he said, looking pointedly at Maggie who had a smug smile on her face. "I'm just happy that we're not gonna hafta be pulling up a piece of the beach. I like a roof over my head at night. Especially on an unknown world."

"I can sleep anywhere," Maggie said, referring to her military training which she had turned into a career.

"I'm sure you have," Wade shot back. "Hey, watch where you're going," she directed to a group of drunken revelers, one of whom had just walked into her and tried to keep going. Only Rembrandt's quick reflexes kept her from being dragged down. His arm still around her shoulder, he twisted his own body and pulled her to the side.

I don't remember exactly, but I think that some or all of this exchange wasn't in the original posted version. I seem to recall a one- or two-sentence summary of the conversation. One of my betas at the time pointed out idlely that I tended to skip over conversations, but I didn't realize at the time what he was talking about since he didn't give examples. The comment came up in conversation only incidentally related to this story. On a later reread, I noticed what he had seen (and I wish he had explicitly pointed out and made me rewrite) and finally did turn the summary into dialogue.

At that, one of the guys looked up from his determined focus on the ground, and wolf-whistled at Maggie, followed by a lewd invitation. Another man seconded the invitation, and invited Wade along. The female among their party took offense and cut into them with a barrage of angry, incoherent accusations about their ancestry and personal habits.

The second man loudly agreed with the accusations and got sucker-punched by the fourth party-goer. The fight was engaged. And the Sliders found themselves right in the middle.

Maggie dropped one of the men with a low kick, but found herself on the defensive against the first whose contribution to the fray involved pinching her butt and winking at her.

The conflict, as they are want to do, became the new focus for what remained of the crowd. They gathered around and provided encouragement in the form of catcalls and heckles. A young boy nearest the argument made his contribution with his repeated, belated, urging to "Fight! Fight!"

The fight exploded into a brawl as others from the audience took sides, or joined just for the thrill of it. Rembrandt extracted himself to the sidelines as soon as possible, but still had to contend with people who didn't realise he wasn't part of it. Maggie also withdrew, but a gleam in her eyes gave away her true feelings on the matter.

The woman ended up pressed against one of the picture windows framing the lobby doors, bawling. She had punched one of her own party, received a punch in return and decided that fighting wasn't for her. A loud red mark high on her cheekbone promised to develop into a garish bruise.

Wade never emerged.

By the time the cops arrived and began separating people, it was clear that she wasn't going to.

She was gone, along with two of the drunken louts who had started the fight in the first place.

End chapter 1 with Wade getting kidnapped. If it hasn't already been made clear, the abudance of Sliders clichés were included on purpose.