Gatecrashers

Case 02789-12

19^th July 2023

Reported: Special Agent in Charge Anderson

Classified

Unauthorized viewing of this

document is punishable in a court of law.

At 18:00 hours yesterday, scientists working within 377^th MI tested Teleportation Priority 006.

Tests confirmed that the lab mice transported from Forts Hood to Jackson are the same and remain in good health.

Future testing and observation will determine if Teleportation Priority 006 provides any side effects.

Major Huffman reports intentions to test on human soldiers in the next three (3) months.

Case 02789-14

20^th November 2023

Reported: Special Agent in Charge Anderson

Classified

Unauthorized viewing of this

document is punishable in a court of law.

Sergeants Redwood and Koltz, identified in other reports as Subjects X and Y, have become, as of this morning, the first human subjects transported by Teleportation Priority 006.

At 07:00 hours, Subject X left Fort Hood via Teleportation Priority’s “front gate.”

At 07:01, Subject X materialized in Fort Jackson via Teleportation Priority’s “back yard.”

At 08:00, Subject Y followed the same path and accomplished the same results.

Doctor Burger now leads a team of specialists who have yet to discover any side effects present within either subject.

From page 27 of Science Today

Dated January 2^nd, 2026

Reported by Skip Patterson

What Shall Humanity do with all its Highways?

As the sun sets on one of humanity’s finest hours, construction workers labor to finish the final few “back yards” that serve as the receiving ends of teleportation devices that will soon stand scattered throughout the world.

Pizzas, and other edibles, can now materialize inside your home the second they’re made (and so can bombs).

Children can zap themselves to school with the push of a button (and ditch school just as quickly).

The world no longer needs gasoline to fill their cars. They no longer require cars. Overnight, the automobile, airline, and delivery industry face bankruptcies.

Politicians have already posed the question, “How soon can we get a ‘gate’ and ‘yard’ on the moon?

Case 02789-36

14^th May 2026

Reported: Special Agent Smith

Classified

Unauthorized viewing of this

document is punishable in a court of law.

Reports have surfaced that Sergeant Koltz, also known as Subject Y, unsuccessfully attempted to pass a retina scan on the 5^th of March 2026.

She has failed to pass a single one since.

It remains unclear whether she has attempted such a scan between the time of her first teleportation and the 5^th of March 2026.

Optometrists have tested Subject Y’s eyes, and they have determined that the health of Y’s eyes has not suffered any decrease in their capabilities.

In fact, the aforementioned doctors reported that Y’s eyesight has gone from 20/20 to 5/20.

From page 3 of Healthy Family

Dated August 22^nd, 2026

Reported by Lisa Welsh

Can Teleportation Change Your Taste Buds?

People across the world have reported that their children and spouses no longer crave the same foods.

Of those who filed these reports, none of them have ever used a teleportation device.

As for the children and spouses whose taste buds underwent radical changes: all of them admit that they used a teleportation device at least once.

Psychologists share concerns that this might serve as only the first warning sign of unexpected side effects from teleportation.

With every first-world less than a year away from tearing down their highways and sprinkling Gates and Yards across their homelands . . .

Case 02789-105

10^th July 2027

Reported: Special Agent Brown

Top-secret

Unauthorized viewing of this

document is punishable in a court of law.

Something’s wrong.

While vetting potential, fresh recruits for the FBI, Agent Dustan noticed that many of his interviewees acted nothing like the personalities portrayed by their earliest psych evaluations.

After a bit of investigation, Agent Dustan realized that every one of these potential recruits stopped behaving as “themselves” shortly after their first encounter with a teleportation gate.

Agent Dustan also noted that these recruits seemed incapable of failing a polygraph. Dustan could ask them to respond, “Yes” to such questions as, “Is the Earth made of cheese.” When the interviewees replied in the affirmative, the polygraphs failed to so much as twitch.

From the transcripts of an interview with

Special Agent Anderson

By Teddy Gardner

Night View: A Prime Time News Show

Dated October 13^th, 2027

Anderson

I have assigned the most talented doctors in the world to investigate these claims. Every one of them has reported that no connection exists between the use of the Gates and changes in their users’ behaviors.

Gardner

Many of your colleagues disagree.

There stands a notable difference between those colleagues and yourself. You’ve used a Gate. Those that disagree with your assessments have not.

Even the doctors that you appointed to the investigation have admitted that they used a Gate at least once.

From the monologue script for

The Tonight Show

Dated November 5^th, 2027

“From the farthest reaches of ‘I don’t have enough to complain about,’ comes this lovely nugget of stupidity.

“Apparently, parents across the globe have united to whine that their kids are ‘too smart.’”

(pause for laughs)

“Yeah. Too smart. These parents complain that their kids exhibit ‘unusual knowledge’ of computers, electronics, and chemistry.

“The parents went on to complain that their children don’t ‘exhibit human emotions.’”

(pause)

“Well, how could any of them ever hope to exhibit their parents’ levels of disappointment? Huh? Am I right?”

From a bathroom wall in downtown Seattle

We’re not us

From page 18 of Healthy Family

Dated December 10^th, 2027

Reported by Lisa Welch

A New Evolution?

Lu Pho, a lab assistant at Hermann-Trent, one of the leading manufactures of teleportation gates, gave birth to a ten-pound boy—with a thin, spiked tail.

Pho laughed off the mutation, saying, “He’s everything I ever wanted.”

Just hours after she gave birth, she, her husband, and their new child teleported to their home in LA.

This strange birth occurred days after a woman in Hong Kong gave birth to what doctors called “A cactus with flippers.”

From the transcripts of an interview with

Donald Trent, co-founder of Hermann-Trent

By Teddy Gardner

Night View: A Prime Time News Show

Dated December 13^th, 2027

Gardner

So, you deny that your teleportation gates have anything to do with the strange behavior and mutations that people around the world have experienced?

Trent

There’s no science to reinforce these wild claims made by technophobes.

These rumors were probably started by the oil industry, a last, cheap punch before my machines put them all out of business.

Evidence suggests that a lot of good comes, health-wise, to those who use my Gates. Increased eyesight, increased stamina, stronger resistance to poisons and microbes.

Gardner

You don’t find it the least bit concerning that everyone who used a Gate now has the same blood type?

Trent

Why should that cause alarm?

Think how beneficial it’ll be when anyone can donate and receive blood from anyone.

From page 16 of

The Seattle Stranger

Dated December 24^th, 2027

Reported by Debra Becker

What’s Happening to Us?

Could we please stop acting as if this is normal?

It started with the children. The newborns. They arrived in this world mutated, otherworldly.

Now, the adults have begun to change. Eight fingers. Six toes. Eyes two different colors.

Why doesn’t anyone care that our cats and dogs have fled from us?

So few people actually talk, anymore. They just exchange nods, as if they read each other’s thoughts.

Those who have used the gates have started to grow longer, stronger teeth. Their fingernails have lengthened to claws. None of these people (who now call themselves “Gatecrashers”) find anything wrong with their mutations.

Am I truly the only one who’s too frightened to deny she’s frightened?

From the mouth of POTUS

At the 2028 State of the Union

“I hold no fear of teleportation gates. I use one, myself, when I visit our overseas allies.

“As you may’ve noticed, nearly all countries now stand as one. The only countries that have not joined the Union of Gatecrashers are those too poor to afford Gates.

“However, the great nations of this earth have pooled their resources, and we shall provide gates to those third-world countries over the next few months.”

From page 3 of

The Seattle Stranger

Dated December 24^th, 2027

Reported by Stan Grace

Convicted Terrorist Changes His Tune

Eddie Vandal, the man convicted of trying to detonate a bomb in the parking lot at Hermann-Trent headquarters, has published countless, online videos in which he demanded the destruction of every Gate on Earth.

However, seconds after authorities teleported him from his trial to the federal prison in which he will serve his life-long sentence, he announced a change of heart.

He currently praises the existence of Gates, encourages everyone to use them.

Since his arrive in prison, Vandal’s hands have changed shape, hardened into shovel-like instruments.

He happily reports that he now enjoys digging.

From page 12 of Earth

(Limited, Handwritten Edition)

Dated April 11^th, 2031

It’s the ones with the mouths full of tentacles that change the game. They know you’re there, even if they can’t see you.

When you spot a Gatecrasher, and it hasn’t spotted you, best thing to do is hide.

But the Crashers with the bouquets of slimy feelers slithering from their jaws? You see one of those, you run like hell. Ain’t no hope in hiding.

If you find yourself in the country formerly called “Canada,” tread lightly. The ground’s full of Wurms. These Crashers burrow underground. They can sense a flea on the surface.

Above all, remember that the children—especially the ones that still look human—are the most dangerous. They’ll wander towards you, all teary-eyed and snot-nosed, and then their faces crack in half, and the bugs come scurrying out.

For all of us who haven’t passed through a Gate, it’s only a matter of time before one of ’em Crashers finds us. They don’t eat us. They just chew us. I don’t even think they need to eat.

I don’t know what the hell they are.

I just know that everyone who ever traveled through a gate didn’t come back; a Crasher returned in his or her place. I don’t know where the originals—the actual human beings—went, but I hope to God they’re dead. For their sakes.

Keep your heads and voices low, people.

Sleep light and don’t dream.

Cellblock C

I awoke to silence, so I knew something was wrong. I rolled off my bottom bunk, little more than a cot, really, and stood. My cellmate, Tubs, was nowhere to be found. That was a first.

The silence gave me the creeps. Prisons are only quiet at night, when there’s no one around but you and your cold mistakes for company.

I ought to introduce myself. Call me Wakefield. Or pigeon, if you’d prefer. That’s what my boss at the mill called me, back when I could find honest work.

My cell sat open, its wall of bars slid aside. That part was normal, actually. The prison screws always unlocked the chicken coops in the morning, when they announced breakfast.

I lived in Cellblock C, with the other nonviolent offenders. Never mind what I done. You don’t need to know about that. All you need to know is that I felt terrible about it. Didn’t ever mean no one no harm.

I turned myself in. Wanted to get myself clean. The judge wanted to give me a reduced sentence for honesty’s sake, but I wouldn’t have none of that. I was guilty. And until I finished my sentence, I’d stay guilty.

I stuck my head out through my open cell, expected to see my fellow inmates lined up on the metal catwalk outside our cells.

No one. Place was empty and quiet. Kinda scared me. I must’ve slept right through breakfast call. That’s no good. The screws wouldn’t force anyone to eat, but every inmate had to report for breakfast.

Should I stay put or show up late for breakfast? I figured it would be best to park my ass on my bunk. I could confess my absence to my block guard, just as soon as she brought my people back.

I waited. And waited. Waited some more. Something was jacked up, ’cause there ain’t no way breakfast hadn’t ended for my Block by now.

I headed toward the mess hall. Never gone there unsupervised before. I made as much noise as possible, so I wouldn’t look like some lowlife sneaking around.

I passed within earshot of Cellblocks A and B. I didn’t hear nothing. I considered peeking around the corner, seeing what all the quiet was about. Decided against it.

I found plenty of loaded trays on the tables in the mess hall. Not a soul sat in any of the seats. No one attended the chow line. No guards in their nests. It felt as if everyone vaporized right in the middle of breakfast.

I got myself a tray and filled it up. Sat. Didn’t eat, just stared at my food, wondered what I’d missed.

Along the way back to Cellblock C, I turned the corner and stared at Cellblock A. Every cell sat open and empty. Not a sound or a person to make one. Same nonsense in Block B.

I returned to my cell. Waited. When I figured lunchtime had rolled around, I returned to the mess hall, found the same mess. I scavenged around the kitchen for some canned food. Ate. Cleaned up breakfast.

I figured, after that, it was about time for recess.

I walked, unescorted, onto the empty, prison grounds. I strolled around the fence, stared through the chain link. Cars sat along the roads outside. Their engines ran. No one inside any of ’em. Not a soul as far as the eye could see.

I expected panic to wash over me at any moment, but it didn’t bother. People always have wandered in and out of my life. This felt natural, fair even.

It occurred to me that I could just walk away. I wanted to learn what’d happened to everyone, and I wouldn’t learn nothing from this side of the fence.

Everything’s a test, though. I didn’t fail this one. I hadn’t finished paying my time, so I wasn’t going nowhere.

Recess ended. I showered and returned to my cell. When I reckoned the time came, I went to the mess hall for supper.

I thought about grabbing an extra desert plate, but that’s against the rules, so I didn’t, even though there was banana pudding to be had, and banana pudding always reminded me of home (the good parts, anyway).

I returned to my cell. Slept.

I was still alone when I awoke. Breakfast. Cell. Lunch. Cell. Recess. Shower. Dinner. Sleep.

I kept careful track of my time. I needed to know that I had paid every moment of it, before I allowed myself to walk out of there.

I might’ve talked myself into leaving, if my survival had been at stake. Truth was, plenty of supplies rested in the joint. A person could live in there a long time. Plus, the water and electricity seemed fine.

One day, I came across some paper targets, while I was digging around for cleaning supplies. The targets had them dark silhouettes. For shooting practice, ya know?

I also found a couple bottles of White Out. I used the White Out to paint faces on the targets.

A friendly face for Tubs (which I hung over the top bunk in my cell). Stern expressions for the prison screws (which I hung from the guards’ nests).

I caught myself talking to them targets, now and again. I felt foolish each time, so I eventually stopped.

I started getting angry at those targets, about three years after everyone vanished, They never said nothing to me. They just watched me suffer. I ripped them all down, crumbled them up, burned them in my metal crapper.

Day of my first parole hearing arrived. I borrowed one of the warden’s suits from his office. I didn’t really want to go through the motions of the hearing, but I couldn’t deviate from the rules. Rules stated that I got a parole hearing.

I sat down in front of a long, empty desk, and made my case, explained how I’d learned my lesson.

My argument wasn’t great, though, and I didn’t grant myself no parole.

I tried to remember what Tubs looked like. Couldn’t.

I figured for sure that the whole human race had vanished. Mom would’ve visited me by now. If not her, someone would’ve shown up to visit someone. Nah, the world was gone, and I would have to wait to find out why.

I tried to use the payphones. Never got even a dial tone. Just dead air, like the phones weren’t connected to nothing. Just as well. I might not of even remembered how to talk at that point.

My dreams went silent. The faces of the other people in my dreams blurred. Their bodies got all ghostly. Eventually, there weren’t no one in my dreams but me.

I had to force myself to talk, when the day arrived for my final parole hearing. I borrowed the warden’s suit, like last time. I sat before the long, empty table, and tried to remember how to speak.

My voice came out a croak, all rusty and full of holes.

I told those empty seats how sorry I was for all the wrongs I’d done. Begged them to understand, to forgive and welcome me back into society. I even wept.

The seats remained silent, like they hadn’t heard a word.

The last week of my sentence arrived. I felt good, clean. Monday turned into Tuesday. Friday snuck up on me. Only a weekend left. I felt sick. My knees wouldn’t stop shaking.

I tried to handle my out-processing papers on Sunday. I took a longer-than-necessary time figuring them papers out. Truth was, the thought of leaving made my stomach hurt something awful.

I had paid my time, though. I had to leave, like it or not.

With a heavy heart, I packed my belongings (a collection of plastic Pepsi bottles and a couple of rocks I’d carved into lucky coins) into a brown, paper bag. I shook a few imaginary hands and headed out the door.

The sun burned my face.

I heard people. Saw kids chase each other across a playground. I saw a man push a baby stroller.  Two women jogged. A car pounded music while it drove by me.

I couldn’t process it. All these people, doing just fine without me. I didn’t fit into the equation none.

I returned to my cell, like a gopher turtle crawling back into its burrow.

I never came out again.

3:01

I sat on the corner of Third Avenue and Pine Street in downtown Seattle.

My scarred, filthy hands shook, while I held my nearly empty, paper cup. I stared at the sidewalk. My black, greasy hair hung over my eyes. I could smell my own reek: urine, beer, and apathy.

Now and again, some passerby dropped money into my cup. I didn’t have to peek into it. I would know when I had collected enough coins. I could tell just by the cup’s weight. Right now, it held almost enough for a cheap beer.

I’d gone hours with only a minimal amount of alcohol in my system, which meant that the hallucinations would start soon.

The way Christmas attracts suicide, something compelled my eyes to lift. I stared a newspaper dispenser. The front page stared back at me, though the dispenser’s window.

Its headline meant nothing to me. Its date meant everything.

October thirteenth. The accident happened today, up on Capitol Hill. 3:01 pm. Different year, same day. Somehow, the day had returned, offered me a mulligan.

I glanced at the clock that hung from the local Ross clothing store. 2:32 pm.

If I caught the bus, I could prevent the accident. I could save him.

I shook my head. Holes riddled my logic, but I couldn’t decide how. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t save anyone.

“Bobby,” an electronic voice said.

I glanced sidelong at the legless robot that crawled across the forest of legs. Pedestrians walked right past it. They couldn’t see the unfortunate fantasy.

The robot’s eyes glowed, sapphire-blue. They pled with me. The robot’s steel claws dug into the sidewalk. It dragged itself closer to me. Sparks snapped and hissed from its hips, where fate had cruelly ripped away its legs.

“Bobby,” the robot whispered. “Today was the day he died. You can save him.”

“Go away, Mom,” I whispered.

The delusion continued to crawl towards me. I looked in the opposite direction—and immediately wished I hadn’t.

A blue tricycle rolled across the street. Its tires left paths of blood.

My paper cup bounced, while someone dropped at least two dollars (dimes and quarters) into my cup, enough money for either a beer or bus fare.

I glanced at the clock. 2:38 pm.

I felt Mom’s cold, metal hand on my shoulder. “You can do it, Bobby. You can change the past, fix everything.”

. . . What if I could?

I uncoiled from the sidewalk. My vision doubled and tripled.

Down Third Avenue, I spotted the bus that would deliver me to Capitol Hill.

The bus driver frowned at the sight and stink of me. I shoved my money into the rusty machine beside the driver’s seat. I seeped across my own seat amongst the normals.

I closed my eyes, ran my long fingernails through my gravel-cluttered beard, over my rash-encrusted face and bloodshot eyes.

Something scurried across my arm.

With a howl, I slapped away the cockroach. More crawled up my legs. Their curious antennas twitched. Strings of drool stretched across their oversized jaws. I jumped onto my feet, shook the demons from my torn, piss-stained pants.

Dark red light filled the bus. Chucks of human meat, crudely cut, hung from chains spread across the bus’s walls, as if spun there by some titanic, mechanical spider.

Blood drizzled from the meat, which swayed with the bus’s motions. Flies buzzed. Maggots squirmed. The stench made me gag.

More roaches scurried up my legs. I danced, furiously swatted the grotesqueries from my shaking, calorie-deprived limbs.

I could feel the roaches explore my body, beneath my blistered skin.

The bus driver, now a giant rat in a judge’s robe, twisted around in his seat. “Hey, buddy! Calm down, or get off.”

I opened my mouth to protest—when a woman’s shadow caught my attention.

The woman (late twenties with long, black hair) hung on all fours from the bus’s ceiling. With a sickening series of cracks, her head twisted around on her neck, until, upside-down, she stared at me.

Her owl-eyes overflowed with sticky, crimson sauce. Her hands slipped from the ceiling, dangled. Sections of her face flaked away, until a browned skull sneered at me.

With another series of cracks, she twisted halfway around at her waist. Her neck twisted again, counterclockwise and loud. Her neck bone bulged from beneath her throat, ready to rip from her skin.

She opened her mouth. A stench of caskets wisped from it. Roaches crawled from her parted lips, scurried across her face and into her empty eye sockets.

I screamed louder. The driver pulled over the bus. His rodent’s teeth dripped amber poison. He demanded that I leave.

I spotted a clock the second I stepped off the bus. Ten minutes remained to prevent the accident that ruined my life.

My legs struggled to run. My stomach back flipped. My knees turned to jelly.

The sun painted the street with the shadows of airborne birds. The shadows morphed into the dark faces of stern jurors.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed.

More than a few heads turned. Someone threated to call the police. I stumbled faster, but the world resisted me. I lurched forward as if through molasses. I screamed in frustration, fought the nightmare syrup.

I stumbled and tripped, skinned my hands on the coarse street. Cars honked. I tried to stand, but I cringed at the sharp sting behind my left knee. Tears in my eyes, I dragged myself towards the intersection where my life had ended.

I heard sirens in the near distance. I spotted the boy on his blue tricycle. He rode across the sidewalk. His mother (late twenties with long, black hair) walked behind him.

“No,” I moaned. “Not again.”

I heard my sports car roar before it even arrived on the scene. I closed my eyes. I didn’t need to watch. I already knew what happened next.

Years ago, after I heard about the accident at the factory, which ripped away my mother’s legs, I drank myself into the sort of stupor for which Dad made himself famous.

Any moment now, my younger, drunker self would drive right up the sidewalk, crash it not just into, but through that kid and his mother. I would mangle them, twist and tear their bodies.

My front bumper would rip the kid’s head from his shoulders, as if Velcro had held it there. Had his mother a chance to digest her tragedy, before I slammed her, splattered her fertilized egg across the bloodstained sidewalk?

The judge and jury would hate me. I would spend two years in a cold prison cell, crowded with rats and roaches. Afterwards, the state would release me on parole, and I would evaporate, live off the grid, ingest poison, and weep for my losses.

I knelt in the street, oblivious to the cars that honked hatred at me.

Another car, one with a siren, pull up next to me. I felt the dragon’s breath bake off its engine. I heard its doors open as ravenous, metal mouths. Arms slither around my crumbled shell of flesh.

“Do you have ID, sir?” the officer asked me.

My eyes peeled open. The kid and mother had vanished. However, I witnessed, just for a second, my younger self. The bastard stumbled from his sports car and nearly fell onto his ass.

What made me ever believe I could save him?