But just as Sharon 1 was about to step on the inductor, suddenly Sharon 2 (who had followed Jim 2 and Sharon 1 down to the basement) asked, "Oooh, what does *this* button do?" And she pressed it.
"NooooO!" Jim yelled. He didn't have much time to elaborate as suddenly the hum of the machinery grew louder, the lights flicked on and off, and sparks flew from strange-looking computer banks.
And then the inductor exploded. The force of the blast knocked Sharon 1 back, and she fell on her ass. Through the thick smoke a figure could be dimly seen.
"What's happening?" asked Sharon 1.
"Your counterpart here activated the reversal transference mechanism... but at the same time that the forward inductor was on line!" Jim told her.
"What does that mean?" she replied.
"It means... we have an uninvited guest!" Jim told her. "A transdimensional vortex was created, sucking some random person from some far-off reality through several multiversal levels and dropping him off here!"
"But... who is it?" Sharon 1 asked.
"It could be anyone or anything. Be on your guard," he told her.
Slowly the mysterious figure walked out of the smoke and into what little light there was, now that most of the lightbulbs had blown. "Uh, hi, my name's Sean," he told them.
Soon, introductions were made, though Sean knew who Jim, Sharon, and Sharon were already. Sean explained about his strange journeys, including his most recent encounter in a strange forest, back in episode 357000. He showed them his three strange weapons: the BE gun, the stripperizer, and the whoriffier (which he still thought ought to be spelled "whorifier" but it was too late to change now). After his story, Jim explained about this "alt" and how Sharon 2's foolish action had brought him here.
"So, you're the reason that I've been going from one place to another, seemingly at random?" Sean asked.
"It appears so," Jim replied. "The transdimensional vortex has sucked you through a sub-manifold of reality, a slice of the continuum, if you will. This particular slice should have had some common element, though. It doesn't sound much like that's been true, from what you've told us."
What Jim couldn't realize as a character in the addventure is that the episodes Sean visited did have something in common, namely that they were multiples of 1000.
"Still," Jim continued, "You're stuck here now and that's all that matters."
"Wait... stuck?" interjected Sharon 1. "Does that apply to me too?"
"I'm afraid so," Jim told her. "The quantum bypass regulators have been blown, and the inductor overheated, melting the interspatial bijection coils."
"How long... how long will it take to fix them?" Sharon 1 asked, not wanting to stay in this reality any longer than she had to.
"That's hard to say," Jim told her. "I can't just buy spare parts down at the store."
Thu Jun 17 11:26:00 2004
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