“Roads Taken” is episode twenty-one of season four of Sliders.
Rembrandt and Colin exit the vortex; Colin says it was the worst slide he’s had. Rembrandt’s had worse. Then the portal closes, without Maggie and Quinn exiting. Rembrandt suggests they may have exited in a different place; that’s happened before. He asks Colin if he has the timer. No; Quinn has. They wonder what kind of world this is. As there’s an explosion behind them.
They’re wondering where the others are, this world or another, when the vortex opens again and Maggie and Quinn exit. Though Colin and Rembrandt’s slide was bad, the other two’s was normal. They have 122 hours on this world.
Gunfire leads them to what appears to be UN troops shooting at someone; a sniper they’re told, with an anti-tank weapon. When they ask about the Chandler, they’re told it’s clear.
Clear, but damaged, and with injured inside. They ask for a suite but are told those were split up years ago. Nobody could afford them. They get a key to the shower room and a personal entertainment centre – a windup radio – with the Ambassador level. Quinn will take Maggie to the room, as she’s not feeling great. Rembrandt gets a drink, then starts chatting with a reporter. Who says this is nothing like Detroit after the war with Canada. Rembrandt asks what caused this one. Microsoft went under, and took the entire stock market down. The president of Mexico decided to take back some land, not realising that by law every man, woman and child had an automatic weapon by law. The Willie Nelson suicide brigades drove the invasion back.
Both Quinn and Maggie are feeling tired and have a lie down. Colin is listening to the radio when Rembrandt arrives with food. He explains the current situation; it’s best they lay low until they slide. Then a man appears, fading in and out, whilst looking to be turning something unseen. Then he vanishes. Colin asks if Rembrandt thinks the hotel is haunted. What, again?
Quinn and Maggie are still asleep. Rembrandt says no-one in the hotel has seen a man matching the description. And he just paid $50 for ice. Colin says the two seem to be running a fever. Maybe from the slide, maybe from the man. Quinn is muttering in his sleep. And he, and Maggie, seem to be dreaming of a life together, from prom date to marriage and on.
Rembrandt is tending Maggie when he calls Colin over, asking if Colin thinks she looks different. Yes; yellow. Which is not a good sign. Rembrandt heads out to look for a doctor. Then has to take shelter from a sniper, until UN soldiers arrive and deal with him. Rembrandt asks about a doctor; he’s told they can’t spare any medics.
Colin is fiddling with the radio when the man appears and disappears again.
Rembrandt is still with the soldiers when the lieutenant is shot. Rembrandt drags him to safety, and he says if Rembrandt takes him to a doctor, he will get Rembrandt one.
Rembrandt returns with the medic who examines Maggie and Quinn. Sating they look to have liver failure, congestive heart failure and cataracts. He’s never seen anything like this in someone so young. They’re dying of old age.
With there being a war on and bioweapons rumoured to exist, the medic wants to quarantine Maggie and Quinn until they die. The other two don’t want this to happen. And they don’t want Quinn and Maggie to die. Then, there’s the strange man who keeps fading in and out of existence.