A window looking into home.

Turning on the lights to his lab and heading towards the metallic ring at the far end of the room; the dimensional device he had been working on from yesterday, Reed hesitated in his step when he nearly bumped into the blue, glowing, nude version of his wife floating a foot off the ground at the heart of his lab. Tip toeing to the side of her and continuing to the device, the entourage of Susan Storms behind him, followed the man inside and closed the door behind them.

“Whoa! Forgot she was here… And NAKED!” Chuckled Johnny with his hand over his eyes and shaking his head as he turned around in embarrassment. “Heh… Gonna need some therapy after this.”

“Yeah… Seeing a glowing naked version of your sister isn’t going to be a positive highlight of the morning.” Said the Wendigo Susan as she stepped to the nearby wall and plucked a spare lab coat off the rack.

Approaching the floating statue of a woman, the wendigo hesitated on how to put the coat over her, remembering vividly what happened yesterday with the former Hydra agent who she was certain she was stepping over… Or what she thought was her left on the ground, reduced to dust. Gently placing the lab coat over the woman’s shoulders, the wendigo stepped back cautiously as if she might explode, and everyone sighed with relief when she did not.

Even Reed sighed when there was no reprisal from the cosmic entity and crouched over to the dimensional device he had been working on and began to check over where he left off.

“Hopefully, I can find what the error was and try to correct it.” Reed explained, going over the tools he left behind on the floor at his workspace. “I was calibrating a component… Here, right here. Let’s see…”

Folding her four arms together and swishing her serpentine tail back and forth behind her, the alien looking Susan turned her attention to the Susan of this dimension, pulling down her brother’s hands from his face and assuring him the cosmic powered woman was decent enough that he didn’t need to tie a scarf around his eyes.

“So, Reed, honey, how long will we have to wait for any progress?”

“Indeed!” Scoffed the vampiric Susan standing with Von Doom and Malice. The pale skinned woman inspected her unnaturally long fingernails in feigned appreciation while she eyed the man working.

Laying on his back and looking up at the inner workings of the machine, Reed scratched at his beard in thought. The man double checked his work as he calibrated one component after the other. Nodding to himself and stretching his arms out to the controls at the main computer desk in the lab, the room began to hum with energy as the device began to light up and turn on.

“I think that might do it, but I’d very much like to test it this time to make sure I have a proper connection, I don’t want a repeat of…”

“Turn the blasted thing on and send us BACK, you infuriating, nebbish excuse of a man!” Hissed Malice, her powers fluctuating ripples in the air from the palm of her hand and making everyone near her uneasy.

Shaking his head and making a face of disappointment, Reed did as the leather clad copy of his wife demanded. Flicking some switches from the command prompt, Reed kept his eye on the device where he noticed the space within the metal ring begin to bend and warp. He could not see it from his angle, but to everyone else, seeing through the large metal ring was like looking out a window or door. On the other side, colours and shapes swirled and broiled in and out of focus.

“Uhm… Reed?”

Stretching his neck out to see what everyone else was seeing from his spot at the worktable, Reed inspected the image and nodded to himself. From this new vantage he kept his eye on the forming portal and the controls at the desk. Every now and then there was an after image, like trying to see the static image of a television frequency before it became unrecognisable.

“Well… It would seem I resolved the power surge from yesterday, now its just a matter of stabilizing the connection…”

Turning some of the dials at the control prompt, Reed and the others watched on as the images began to become clearer, more focused. Once that happened, the group in the lab stepped forward to see what the gate displayed. Some of the images lasted for only brief seconds, but the ones that did gave the group visions of other realities. Some looked mundane; no different from the world they were in now, others that flashed by were so radically different they left the women to pause with fascination. A world submersed in water where a blue scaled fish woman swam by in view of an underwater New York, a barren ruin of a city where the Fantastic Four struggled in post apocalypse Manhattan, a fantastic utopia where technology appeared centuries ahead of its time. It was all quite a bit to take in all at once.

“Wow…”

Darting his attention from the control setting and back to the portal, Reed smiled, nodding to himself.

“Good… Good… It seems stable… Now to find the right dimension and see what we can find…”

Going over the controls again, the images shifted from one reality to the next with the same ease as switching from one channel to the other from a television set. As it did, the group of Susans watched all the dimensions it displayed pass out of sight. A world still stuck in the time of dinosaurs, a fiery hellscape where a volcano erupted in time’s square left New York uninhabitable, a zombie infected nightmare crawling with the undead, there were too many to keep up with.

“Yeah Reed, let’s try to skip past these.” Opined the Human Torch, grimacing at the sight of the rotting version of him staring back with pale dead eyes. “Don’t you have a dimension where I just tried highlights in my hair or something?”

“How about the dimension that helps me LEAVE this place…” Muttered the supermodel Susan under her breath. Skipping past one dimension, the woman’s eyes went wide at the sight of something familiar. “WAIT! Go back!!!”

Confused, Reed slowly dialed back the device, showing previous realities skimmed over earlier until the one she noticed came back up. There, it was a New York, a New York that did not look too dissimilar to the one they were in now, but to the pink dressed woman stepping closer and looking through the portal… It was a window to her home world.

“THERE!... That’s my reality!”

Stepping closer to see what the woman was, everyone else present did not see what she was looking for.

“How can you tell?”

“LOOK! The billboard over there, that’s me.”

Seeing the billboard, she pointed to, the crowd of Susans noticed the picture of the woman flaunting a blue cocktail dress and tossing her hair to the logo of some unfamiliar shampoo brand.

“I did that photoshoot last month; this is MY world.”

Seeing the woman gasp and bring her manicured hands to her face to hide her elation, Reed smiled back.

“Okay then, lets see if I can increase the power, try to make it where I can stabilize the connection and bridge…”

Dialing the power up, everyone cried out when the dimension on display began to flicker and shift to another.

“Wait! WAIT! Go back! GO BACK!”

Waving her arms frantically as if try to tell the man to go the other way, the other Susans did the same, confusing Reed as he looked back at the new dimension the portal was set to and the power increased. But by then it was too late. The Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic already felt the familiar sensation of the room shifting, a pulling **** like the tug of gravity gave everyone vertigo before a flashing light nearly blinded them all and sent them to the ground, just in time to avoid something come through the ring and lurch to the far end of the lab with a screech of metal after impacting the wall.

Standing back up from the floor, Reed immediately turned off the portal and checked to see if everyone was alright, quickly pulling up the closest woman to their feet where they immediately pulled him close for an embrace.

“Are you okay Susan? Are you all okay?”

“Yes Reed, you can stop hugging her now.” Answered the Invisible Woman, being helped up by her brother, followed by everyone else.

Looking down to the blonde woman in his arms, Reed recognised the collar on her neck and quickly yet gently pulled her away to approach his wife. Checking the two over and feeling relieved they were unharmed, as were everyone else, Mr. Fantastic then looked over to the opposite end of the lab to see what had come through the portal.

“Something came through.”

“Yeah, but what?”

“Looks like… Like a…