“Map of the Mind” is episode twelve of season five of Sliders.
The Sliders have arrived in the grounds of a building where many people are gathered. A man with a violin approaches them and asks if he can help. The ask if he can tell them where they are. He suggests having a cup of tea. Over tea, he says they’re having a party. A costume party wouldn’t be allowed – though most seem to be dressed up – as it’s against the rules. They have rules, gates, electrified fences. Maggie and Rembrandt head to look around; Maggie wonders if the slid into a prison without having to be captured.
The others remain with the violinist, who says he will play, despite having no strings. Then an announcement says for all residents to return to their rooms immediately. The man says that’s because of the riot. What is currently happening, they call a riot. And there are sirens as police arrive in riot gear. The residents, including Mallory and Diana, are driven into the building as Maggie and Rembrandt discover they are at the Oakwood Neural Mapping Institute and decide to sneak out the open gate.
Inside, Diana gets captured and tells Mallory to keep going. He ducks into the laundry and has changed into an orderly’s uniform when the police arrive. He sees Diana being hauled away and goes to swipe a card when a doctor sees him. She wants him to help clear up some patient files, then checks the card and thinks he’s a Dr Sean Carter who9 is just starting. They had a bit of an incident. She gives him papers to sign and tells him to go check on Jane White, one of their incurables who needs to be looked in on from time to time.
Mallory finds the woman drawing something on the wall. She says doesn’t he know remapping has no effect on her. Mallory says he just dropped by to see how she’s doing, and manages to get a look at the thing she’s drawing. She doesn’t want Dr Ruskin to find out. Jane sees the images in her head and thinks they are messages from beyond this reality.
Diana has been locked up with the other residents. She discovers that it is effectively an asylum. The violinist says everyone said they didn’t belong inside. And Diana doubts telling the truth about being from another dimension will help her case. She points out the violinist has no strings. He asks what she was; dancer, painter or something like that. What did she do to end up inside. She popped in out of thin air. The violinist says that’s very imaginative. She is a perfect candidate for remapping and once that is done there will be no more popping. They will change the map of her mind. And an orderly comes for Diana.
Rembrandt and Maggie are in town and find a gallery closed due to violating the Creativity Curtailment Act. Inside, they find a young woman who says she’d die rather than go to Oakwood. It seems she was salvaging what is loosely definable as art. Most such has been destroyed as creativity has been banned because it provides a platform for free thought. Watch out for the brain nazis.
Mallory is looking at Jane’s drawings, which come to her in her dreams. He explains he’s just passing through. Mallory changes to look like a doctor and goes looking for Diana. Who is currently being strapped down and put inside a machine.
Maggie and Rembrandt are at the Chandler’s bar, where they encounter a man who is later for his first day on the job. Dr Sean Carter. They talk to him and discover he’s interning at Oakwood and explains how unhealthy neural patterns are cleaned out with remapping and changed. He talks about whether creativity comes from nature or nurture and Maggie stops Rembrandt from explaining he’s a singer, saying he meant the sewing machines. After Carter leaves, they decide he will be their ticket back to Oakwood.
Diana is being remapped, and in this universe, the hemispheres of the brain are the other way around compared to her and Mallory. Which means the remapping has a strange effect on her. The others need to find her and restore her before they slide out.