Sliders
You are watching television when a commercial for your new favourite cola comes on. The one your friends don't understand how you could enjoy. Next you pick up the phone and dial a number you don't know. A series of tones beep before you respond by speaking your name and giving your address. After you hang up you go take another cola bottle from the fridge. You sure do enjoy drinking it.
A few hours later a knock comes from the door. You get up to investigate and as soon as you open the door you see a pair of men. They seem normal looking and you are about to ask who they are when one says 'Bald Sasquatch'. Suddenly you feel light headed and pass out cold on the floor.
You awaken in a dark room strapped into a chair. You see many others around you with all the seats arranged like a classroom. A man stands at the front of the room. You try to speak but your mouth doesn't move. The man looks at you and the others and nods slightly.
"Now that you are all awake we can get to why you are here. You see we needed people with a certain type of brain. Those brains are rare and although they wouldn't stand out in any way in normal society they are critical to my research. Because I know you will all ask, the cola had a chemical cocktail that made people with the brain we wanted susceptible to our hypnotic suggestion. The commercials did the rest of the work. Now that you are here we can hopefully have some test subjects whose brain won't liquefy right away. Before you get indigent or terrified know that you have a much higher chance of survival than the homeless people our initial research made use of. That's how we learned not everyone is suited for the experiment. Neural implants fitted with micro explosives have been implanted into your brains. So any attempt to escape or effort to remove them will trigger detonation. Just wanted to be clear on that so we don't have lots of questions later." He takes a pause to make sure everyone is paying attention.
"The experiment is the transportation of individuals to parallel dimensions. Simple in concept, ridiculously messy in implementation. You will all be taken for a test jump before being assigned bunks. This won't send you anywhere but it will let us know if the process is lethal to you. Afterwards we can proceed with the next phase of actually sending someone somewhere. That's enough for now; any other questions can wait till there are less of you to talk too."
You are taken one by one out of the room still unable to move beyond your head and shuffling your legs. The lights flicker between each test subject leaving the room. Eventually it is your turn and down a dark concrete hallway you enter a room with a raised metal platform. The large room seems empty except for this platform and an identical one on the roof. The only source of light is the platform itself. You step into the pillar of light between the two platforms when you feel the hands that had been guiding you let go. You fall to the ground unable to keep standing as you hear the heavy door close behind you. The light gets bright and you feel a sudden jolt.
Hundreds were tested in this way, who has survived?
