| Synopsis:
We open in San Francisco which is in the midst of an oil boom. Quinn is informed
that his double's house just hit a gusher while money and champagne flow like water.
Unfortunately, the group has only minutes left to enjoy the festivities before they slide
to a world where Wade lands in the path of an oncoming truck. She is saved by a
strange man who shuns her thanks and reacts very oddly to her kiss of gratitude. Feeling
hungry, the group spies a familiar diner and goes to feast. The only thing on the menu,
however, are bad-tasting sterile hamburgers sealed in plastic. Rembrandt goes to the
bathroom to throw up and see a wanted poster on the wall. The fugitive is Quinn's double
who has a million dollar bounty on his head and is referred to as Patient Zero. After a
close call with the California Health Commission (CHC) in the restaurant, the group ducks
into a pharmacy to get aspirin for Wade. There, Quinn is captured by the CHC after a
greedy admirer turns him in. While he is taken to the CHC labs to be disinfected and
tested, Arturo and Rembrandt check a very ill Wade into a super-hygienic Motel 12. The CHC
techs are dumbfounded to discover that Quinn doesn't have the the "Q" virus he
supposedly infected the whole country with. Bearing a resemblance to strep, the Q causes
white nodules to appear on the back of the throat, high fever, hallucinations and, just
before death, glowingly red eyes. Wade is progressing quickly and wanders out of the hotel
in a hallucinatory haze. As Arturo and Rembrandt catch up to her on the outskirts of the
city, a group of zombies approaches and leads the three to an underground haven for
victims of the Q which is ran by Quinn's alternate. The Quinn of this world tells a
different story than the CHC regarding the origins of the disease. He claims to have been
unknowingly infected and released as part of a research experiment during his medical
school days. When the virus started to spread, the government segmented the city by
income, allowing the poor to die under quarantine while the rich remained healthy and
secure. The government blames him for the virus, claiming that he intentionally infected
the world. Quinn's double recognizes that Wade is about to go "red-eye" and
takes her to a bunk of rest. Arturo questions Quinn as to the steps that have been taken
against the disease and is shocked to find out that antibiotics don't exist on this world.
While the Professor attempts to find some cultures with which to make penicillin,
Rembrandt goes to try and free Quinn. With help of a doctor at the CHC who was
romantically involved with Quinn's alternate, Quinn dons a biohazard suit and escapes the
compound. Before he meets up with Rembrandt, the doctor is shot and killed by armed CHC
agents giving chase. Quinn and Rembrandt arrive back at the underground shelter just after
Arturo takes the first test dosage of this home-made penicillin (he and Rembrandt also
infected with the Q). When the Professor's fever breaks, the group drinks the penicillin
and prepares to slide just as the CHC bursts into the compound. The alternate Quinn claims
victory over the Q, refusing to surrender the antibiotics to the upper class controlled
CHC. The medicine must be available to all the world, not just with those with money. With
everyone regaining their health, Quinn proclaims that "sliding made a
difference" just before they slide to a world inhabited by cannibals. |
