Three Went Walking (Invasion)
Quinn and company slide onto a world that's virtually identical to our own—but it's a world that's been thrust into a horrific state of panic.
Shortly before our Sliders arrived, the population was thrown into shock and disarray by a disquieting sequence of events.
At precisely 1: 11PM Pacific Daylight Time, every TV went blank. All radios ceased to function. Telephones no longer worked. All forms of electronic communication simply ceased to exist.
The psychological effect of these sudden, unexplainable occurrences has thrown the world's population into a turbulent tailspin.
Some are looting, some are praying, all are wondering what it means. Is it judgment day?
Rumors begin to fly—stories of astronomers sighting an approaching armada. Word of mouth says an invasion is about to take place.
The timer tells the Sliders that the gate can be activated in 16 hours. They decide to head to Quinn's block in the meantime, where they discover that Quinn, Wade, and Arturo are neighbors.
Their heavily armed, worried neighbors rush to them; it seems that several hours ago, the Quinn, Wade, and Arturo of this world set out together to solve a mystery. Greg, Stephanie's husband from across the street, had picked up something strange on his shortwave radio—inhuman voices speaking an unknown language, barking military sounding commands. Quinn was able to triangulate the source of the signal as coming from a hill across town; Quinn, Arturo and Wade took rifles and headed out to the spot of origin.
The jittery neighbors want to know who Rembrandt is. They want to know what the three walkers discovered and how they made it back so soon.
The Sliders quickly make up a story—they had to tum back for more supplies, as looters held them up—before they decide to set out again, following in the footsteps of their doubles.
Leaving their huddled, terrified neighbors behind, they cross the city in search of the source of the alien command voice. We get a vivid look at San Francisco, thrown into a state of trauma as her citizens scramble to prepare for whatever's coming.
The old adage is proven true: a crisis brings out the best and worst in people.
The Sliders walk across the neighborhoods, intervening in several intense situations: chasing off a pack of looters, helping a housewife whose husband never came home from work, reassuring an old couple that as long as humanity still exists, there is hope.
They also uncover many acts of kindness and compassion as they begin to climb the residential hill that leads to a microwave relay station on the summit—the ultimate source of the strange voice.
Our quartet are shocked when they come across the remains of three bodies, reduced to powder by some terrible heat source. They reach the relay station and find it surrounded by an energy field emitting an unearthly blue light. As the craft's doors separate, the Sliders find themselves face to face with alien beings whose mission is anything but peaceful.