Bryce nodded and fished them out of his backpack. There weren’t as many luggage restrictions for international teleports as there were on plane flights, but it still couldn’t hurt to bring a letter from Bryce’s doctor about the medical equipment in his suitcase.
The last of the college-age girls ahead of them finished having her suitcase scanned, and got in the line for the teleport booths. Kevin stepped up and lifted his, Bryce’s, and his wife Elise’s suitcases one by one onto the conveyor belt, emptied his pockets, and followed his wife and son through the metal detector. Elise was arguing patiently with the TSA agent, who was looking at Bryce’s letter suspiciously while another agent pulled stuff out of his suitcase.
“...and thus clearly qualifies as medical equipment,” she concluded.
Finally the TSA agents decided to let them go, and they joined the line for the teleport booths, much shorter than the security checkpoint line. Finally it was their turn. Elise hurried over to the next free teleport booth, then Bryce, and then Kevin.
He handed his ticket to the attendant and showed her his passport. “Is your destination showing correctly?” she asked as she scanned the ticket, gesturing at the display on the booth, which read “International Customs, Heathrow Airport”. They’d put the international teleport stations in airports because that was where the customs posts were already set up, and because the airlines didn’t need nearly as much space as they used to.
“Right,” Kevin said, trying to keep it brief so his voice wouldn’t betray his nervousness too much.
“Then have a nice trip,” she said, and opened the sliding glass door. Kevin walked in, pulling his rolling suitcase. He heard the glass door slide shut behind him and —
— okay, this was wrong, teleportation didn’t feel like anything. The only thing that should change was the scene outside the door, but he was still facing the back of the booth and felt really weird all over.
He turned to the door, which was already sliding open, and became more aware of the changes. Longer hair was tickling the back of his neck, and something wobbled on his chest as it caught up with the motion of the rest of his body. That was not a customs post, no desks or officials or queue of travelers. Instead, he saw... somebody’s living room. Somebody rich, given that they had a private teleport booth, but you wouldn’t have known that from the other furnishings — good quality, but not obviously super expensive. No one else was in the room, but he was soon distracted from the furniture, lamps and so forth by a glance down at himself. At the low-cut blouse he hadn’t been wearing a moment ago and the breasts that it displayed to great advantage.
He staggered back against the wall of the booth, leaning against it trembling for a few moments before his legs (no, clearly not his) gave out and he slumped to the floor. Finally, after hyperventilating and staring down at that cleavage and the tight pants with no room for anything extraneous in the crotch for a while, he gingerly touched the left breast, just above the neckline of the blouse.
It felt real.
He realized he was wearing a purse slung over his shoulder. He rummaged through it, finding a wallet with a Canadian passport and an Ontario driver’s license in the name of “Dakota Severin,” age 32. There was also, in addition to some feminine necessities he absolutely didn’t want to think about, a phone. He tried the thumbprint sensor and the desktop came up right away. He didn’t exactly breathe a sigh of relief, but his hyperventilation, which had been slowing down, slowed a little more.
He sent Elise a text:
“I’m in the wrong place AND THE WRONG BODY, how did this even happen? apparently this body belongs to dakota severin, age 32, female! I’m at somebody’s house, probably hers. will message again when I know more. — kevin”
He then realized that Dakota Severin was probably in his body. He sent a text to his own number, telling her who he was and asking her to look around the customs area for Elise, whose photo she would find on the wallpaper of his phone; her contacts at InstaThere would get this sorted out soon.
After that, he explored the house, looking into various rooms. The house seemed smaller than he’d expect from someone rich enough to own a teleport booth, but it had a great view from every window, forests and mountains as far as the eye could see — but no houses. It had a deck that overlooked a small lake. And there was no garage, car, or even a road in sight, only a helipad, which had no helicopter sitting on it — not that he could pilot one if there had been. The only way out was the teleport booth, which he didn’t trust or know how to use, or hiking through however miles of wilderness.
He pulled out the phone again and found the maps app, then centered on his current location. It showed nothing but a blue patch of lake and a surrounding blank, unlabeled green area. He had to zoom out a lot before he found the nearest town, which was a long, long way to the southeast. He was somewhere in the Canadian Rockies.
This obviously wasn’t Dakota Severin’s only house, given its size and how few clothes she had in her bedroom here — mostly sleepwear and hiking gear. There was also a full-length mirror in the bedroom. Dakota was striking, though not beautiful; her skin was a shade paler than Kevin’s own, and her hair a shade darker. From this perspective, her breasts didn’t seem as freakishly big as they did when Kevin looked down.
Kevin checked messages and saw several apparently intended for Dakota, from named people he didn’t know, and three from unknown numbers — two of which he recognized as Elise’s and his own, plus an unfamiliar one.
From his own number:
“I’m not this Dakota person. I’m Amy Jedynak and I was on my way to Hartford for my cousin’s wedding. now I’m in London, not to mention being a GUY. check the news if you haven’t already.”
From Elise’s number:
“sorry, I’m not your wife or girlfriend or whatever. if you’re alone you might not know yet but this happened to everybody who teleported within like a 90-second period. I’ll try to not perv on her body too much until they fix this.”
And from the unknown number:
“to whoever’s in my body: you’re not going anywhere until the teleport network is fixed. there should be more than enough food to last until then. if it looks like the downtime is going to last more than two weeks, I’ll arrange a copter to rescue you. don’t try to impersonate me online or you’ll regret it; just enjoy your mountain vacation.”
Horror built up in him with each successive message. Everyone who’d teleported within a ninety-second period...? Then Elise and Bryce were almost certainly lost somewhere in the wrong bodies, and someone else was in Bryce’s, too. Someone who wouldn’t know how to do Bryce’s treatments or when to take his meds. Bryce’s health would probably take a sharp downturn by the time he got his body back unless they could get in touch with whoever was in his body and tell them about Bryce’s medical regimen.
He called Bryce’s phone. But it rang with no answer, then went to voicemail. He left a brief message telling them about Bryce’s condition and the medical paraphernalia in his suitcase, and asking them to call him. After a few moments, he sent messages to the people in his and Elise’s bodies asking them to find the person in Bryce’s body and pass on the message.
After that, he was too anxious about waiting for the call to give the news videos about the disaster his full attention. No one knew why, but thousands of people all over the world were stranded in the wrong bodies, often in the wrong country, and InstaThere had shut down their teleport network in response. So a lot more people, not just those in the wrong bodies, might be stranded with no way to get home if the shutdown lasted very long. There hadn’t been any long-distance flights in years, just shorter-range flights that were cheaper than teleportation, and it would take time for the airlines to gear up for them if the teleport malfunction couldn’t be fixed quickly. As for getting people back in their right bodies... who knew how long that might take.
He didn’t want to mess with the settings on Dakota’s social media apps, so he logged into his own accounts via the browser and checked Bryce and Elise’s recent posts. Nothing since yesterday. He posted briefly about his situation, then watched and read more news until a message arrived. It was from his doppelganger (as the pundits were calling the people in someone’s original body), Amy something.
“finally found your son’s doppelganger hiding in the men’s room. unfortunately he doesn’t speak English. looking for an interpreter. also looking for the luggage you mention, it wasn’t with him. can you describe it in more detail?”
Kevin swore. If Bryce’s doppelganger had panicked and run to the restroom to examine their new body, abandoning Bryce’s backpack and suitcase... if they’d been stolen... even if they established communication, that person would have a hard time following Bryce’s medical regimen without any of his equipment or medicine. Kevin wrote back, describing Bryce’s backpack and suitcase.
Then Dakota started sending him a long series of messages instructing him about her own self-care regimen. He skimmed them over. Nothing as health-critical as Bryce’s treatments, but he’d try to follow it and return Dakota’s skin, hair and... female parts... in the same condition he’d found them. Still... he’d put most of that that off until tomorrow. Hopefully this would all be fixed by then.
He’d been ignoring Dakota’s body as much as possible, but by now, it was insisting that its bladder needed emptying. He took care of that business as quickly as he could. Feeling restless, he paced around the house, obsessively checking messages and news and not finding anything new. Finally, he decided to go for a longer walk. He wouldn’t go far from the house; he wasn’t sure if this was a satphone or depended on a satellite dish built into the house, but he wanted to get outside. And he’d already seen Dakota’s crotch and thighs naked, so changing into hiking clothes wouldn’t violate her privacy any more. He’d have to do worse to follow her self-care regimen if he stayed here for a day or more.
He walked out onto the deck, then down the stairs to the helipad and a small meadow, looking back at the house from the outside. It was no bigger than his and Elise’s house back home, with wood siding that blended into the environment, and the sort of steeply peaked roof they built up north, lined with solar panels.
He walked around the house on all sides and along the lake for a little distance before heading back to the house, uncertain what the range of reception was. As he was heading back, he got a message from Amy:
“we found your son’s luggage and the medical stuff still seems to be in it. still waiting for the interpreter to get here.”
Kevin breathed a sigh of relief, then winced at what that did to Dakota’s chest. He walked for a few more minutes before getting hungry and returning to the house for something to eat.
There wasn’t a wide variety of food. Most of it was non-perishable staple goods: dried rice, beans, and pasta, cans of vegetables, soups, and pre-cooked meat. There was no bread, eggs, or fresh vegetables — which would make sense if Dakota (and the rest of her family, if she had any) only spent time here sporadically. They probably had a chef who could teleport here with their meals, reserving the food in the pantry for emergencies when they couldn’t teleport out.
While he ate, Dakota’s phone rang: an unknown number.
“Hi?” said a tentative female voice. “Is this Kevin Eldridge?”
“It’s me,” Kevin said, feeling self-conscious. “I know I sound different —”
“Oh God, you do! I’m Elise, I wound up in Guarulhos, Brazil. Where are you? I just talked to the person in your body, and they gave me this number — they said they were going to help the person in Bryce’s body with Bryce’s meds and treatments —”
“Yeah, once I found out it’d happened to y’all too, I got in touch with them. It’s a mess; did they tell you the person in Bryce’s body can’t speak English?”
“Yeah. He said they were getting an interpreter. Shouldn’t take too long around an airport. Have you heard anything from Bryce?”
“No, and I’m pretty worried. I’m doing okay, pretty isolated, but safe. I wound up in this rich lady’s summer cabin in the Canadian Rockies —”
“No way!”
“Sure enough,” and he described his situation briefly.
She told him how she’d ended up in the body of someone whose phone battery was dead. The intercity bus station where she’d arrived wasn’t the easiest place to find a place to charge it, and when she did get it charged, she’d at first had trouble figuring out the Portuguese interface. When she’d tried calling Kevin or whoever had his body, she got voicemail the first couple of times, and the same with Bryce’s phone.
“We’d better ask Amy or your doppelganger to check Bryce’s phone,” Kevin said. “There could be messages from Bryce.”
“Yeah. I’ve been trying to check Bryce’s social media, but I’m having trouble with the Portuguese apps. The basic phone call interface is all I’ve figured out so far.”
“I tried that, but there was nothing. I’ll check again now.”
“Do that. I’ll call back after I get some things straightened out here. I hear the authorities are sorting out temporary housing for people like us. Once we figure out if Bryce is okay, I’m going to call my boss and see what I can do remotely to help fix this.”
“Good. Talk to you soon.”
He found this message from Bryce on his social media accounts:
“So I’m an old Asian guy now, and my joints hurt, but I can breathe better than before, so that’s a plus. This guy’s ID says he’s 49, even older than you and Mom. I’m in some city in China I’ve never heard of. It took a few minutes to find somebody fluent in English — apparently this place doesn’t get much tourism. Anyway, Mei says they’ll find me a place to stay until InstaThere can put people back in the right bodies. Where are you? And what are you? I hear half of the people got turned into the opposite sex, which is freaky but kind of neat, I guess.”
Kevin sighed in relief, sent a text to Elise, and then replied to Bryce, telling him about his and Elise’s situations.
Over the next few days, Kevin had to endure an endless barrage of teasing and questions from Bryce about turning into a woman. His hope that the situation would be quickly resolved evaporated, and he resigned himself to Dakota’s self-care regimen, starting with a shower the next morning, and detailed steps to ensure that her hair stayed glossy, her skin smooth, and her vagina yeast-free. Then her exercise routine and finally a multivitamin and herbal supplements with breakfast.
Eight days later, InstaThere announced that they could prevent the problem from recurring. The teleport network was up again, and Kevin returned home, meeting Elise and Bryce at the Atlanta airport. However, it was five more weeks before they had a way to return people to the right bodies.
Everyone affected was instructed to report to a certain teleport facility. Kevin’s family reported to the InstaThere labs in Atlanta. They were told to enter specific booths and wait, but it was an hour before 99.8% of those affected were in the booths they’d been assigned. Kevin sat on the floor of his booth, reading, bored and apprehensive.
Elise’s boss came to Kevin and said, “We have a problem. Amy Jedynak in your body hasn’t reported to the Los Angeles office, and she isn’t responding to calls.”
“Then... I’m stuck in Dakota’s body?”
“No, she’s waiting in her booth at her home in Toronto. We’re going to put you in Amy’s body for now. Later, we can do a pair swap for the two of you any time during business hours. Give us a few minutes to recalibrate things...”
The minutes seemed like hours, but there were only six of them. A chime rang, the door slid shut, and suddenly, Kevin felt different — but the scene outside the booth didn’t change.
Kevin looked down at Amy’s body. She was even younger than Dakota, but not in as good a shape; she was noticeably overweight and her complexion wasn’t as clear. The door slid open and he stepped out. He saw Elise and Bryce emerge from their booths, and approached them.
“It’s me, Kevin,” he said.
“I know, they told me,” Elise said, hugging him. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
But another hour brought the news that Amy in Kevin’s body was in critical condition at USC Medical Center, having been in a wreck on the way to the InstaThere offices. By midnight, she was dead.