“Net Worth” is episode fifteen of season four of Sliders.
The Sliders arrive on a world, but with Maggie and Colin on a street and Rembrandt and Quinn inside a sound-proofed building. Quinn gestures that they slide in ten hours and he and Rembrandt go to look for a way out. Maggie tells Colin that one day they will slide into a solid object; he reassures her they’d be crushed to death before that happened.
There’s a yell and they hide as a young man with a box runs and tries to get into the building. He’s caught by his pursuers; there’s a red rose in the box. The leader of the pursuers, Jack (Mark Sheppard), grabs the young man, Rick. Rick has an encrypted entry key and Jack tells him to make it work. Rick crushes it instead. Jack wants Rick cutting but Maggie and Colin intervene.
The other two have returned, not having been able to find a way out, and see the fight. Then alarms sound and everyone outside ends up running off as they are shot at. Two guards approach Quinn and Rembrandt and ask if they’re Online or Offline. Quinn and Rembrandt lack the technology the guards are looking for and things are going south when a young woman arrives and asks Quinn if he’s Rick. He says she is. The woman tells the guards it’s her friends; they tubed over from Magenta. They aren’t wearing rigs because they want to try hers.
The woman, Joanne, opens a lift door with a retinal scan. Rembrandt asks Quinn quietly if Rick is his duplicate; Quinn thinks Joanne has never seen Rick. Joanne ends up kissing Quinn in the lift.
Maggie tells the real Rick they need to get back to their friends. She wants to know what’s going on; the buildings are sealed except from each other and it’s junkpile world outside. Colin claims they’re from Canada. Rick explains there are the haves and have nots; the haves are the Onliners, the have nots are the Offliners. And never the twain shall meet. Maggie asks who he was taking roses to then.
In Joanne’s apartment, Rembrandt is asking about things and she’s explaining. She turns 18 next week which is when most people get cabled – implanted with chips to communicate directly with technology – and she wanted to meet Rick before then. She thinks Rembrandt isn’t up to speed. It’s explained he’s Canadian.
The others have arrived at Rick’s safe place. He keeps a laptop in a sewer. Onliners put them through a shredder and Offliners aren’t allowed to have them. The laptops, and their fingers, get smashed. Rick can send a note to a friend in the towers to see if she knows their friends. Maggie wants to get in physically. That’s not going to happen. Rick explains he’s never met his friend face to face.
Joanne is explaining stuff when she gets a message saying she has mail (the Onliners were technologically advanced, but now seem primitive). Quinn wants to know if she has a keyboard so he can logon. Possibly in the closet. The computer tells her she has urgent mail from Rock Montana. Joanne asks Quinn who he is then. Rick is asking if Joanne has seen Quinn or Rembrandt when he gets cut off.
Because Jack’s Scavengers have found them. Jack will sell the laptop, and says he owns Rick as well, tossing him a coin. He thinks someone will buy Maggie; some Onliners like their reality more than virtual. He needs to try her out first. Colin will be brain food for his piranhas. The laptop is making noises and Rick tells Jack he needs to logoff. When Jack tries, the case slams shut on his fingers and the others break free and they all manage to get away with the laptop.
Quinn is trying to trace the laptop. He also has to reassure Joanne and get her to not call security. Their friends must be with Rick. Rembrandt says it looks like the screen has a lock. Outside. Joanne didn’t know that Rick was an Offliner.
Rick wants to meet Joanne still, but the two come from different worlds. Very Romeo and Juliet (deliberately so). Quinn and Rembrandt want to find Maggie and Colin. And Jack is causing trouble.