Your College

Eliminating your daily commute to campus sounded pretty dang good compared to the determinants that the alternatives had. Setting it up in your college would be nice and simple, hopefully hassle free and consequence free. You put the PDA on your desk, as you were actually excited to go to class tomorrow.

The following day, you put the PDA into your backpack and set off. Going down the same route that you had trodden many times in the past, you bid it a final farewell, as you hoped that this would be the last time you’d have to waste your time not-teleporting. Arriving on campus, you start thinking of an out-of-the-way place to build the teleporter exit. You didn’t want it getting found for obvious reasons, so it had to be somewhere that essentially nobody went.

After ruling out a few options, you mind arrived at the back of the sports storage room. Dusty, dingy, and full of cobwebs, it was clear that no one ever went back there, nor would ever want to. Most of the sports equipment was stored in the club rooms or locker rooms, with this old storage room only being used for the sports stuff that didn’t belong anywhere else. Even when it was used, things were left near the front, since there was no reason to get a face full of spiderwebs by going to the back.

You walked down to the storeroom and found it devoid of life as expected. You used one arm to brush webs away while the other held your phone in flashlight mode. There was an overhead light installed that perhaps worked twenty odd years ago, but it was broken for as long as any living student or faculty member could remember. Finding a nice, tucked away corner, you pull the PDA out and construct the teleporter exit.

You get to watch a repeat of yesterday’s spectacle, a red box appearing out of nowhere and unfolding outwards. This time though, the bar slowly started to spin, gaining speed until it turned into a blur of red. The dopamine-inducing sound of the teleporters linking rang through the small, cramped place as you hoped that it didn’t catch any passerby’s ears. Waiting for a second, you could only hear the warbling sound of the teleporter, no footsteps.

Well, now it was time for the moment of truth! You gingerly placed a foot over the teleporter, slowly lowering it until it met the circular plane. It felt solid. You put some weight on that foot and it didn’t budge. Taking a step, both feet were now on the teleporter. You could hear it whirring up as it prepared to instantly send you through space. You could feel your heart racing as you were about to experience something that you only thought possible in science fiction! Oh wait a second, do these teleporters cause tumors? The red light flashes and your whole vision is filled by the brightness in a split second as you are whisked away.

…

An onlooker watched as you disappeared in a flash of light, leaving only the strange platform below. They had seen you walk to this desolate place, and assumed that you were borrowing some equipment, and waited behind to not get in your way. But as you failed to reappear, they took a look into the storeroom and saw you build the strange device.

They were here just to pick up some extra mini-cones for their coach, being a helpful member of one of the college’s many sports clubs. They were quite physically fit, with visible abs and toned muscles. Due to a lack of social skills, they weren’t super popular, but they still had a handful of admirers from afar.

But that didn’t matter right now, what mattered was the person that just snuck into the storage room, built some sort of machine out of thin air, and disappeared after standing on top of it! Was it someone from a magic and illusions club practicing a trick or something? The onlooker left their cover, and took a closer look at the red light disk on the floor. What was the trick, how did that person do it? Without thinking too much, they set a foot on the teleporter, then another.

…

You blinked several times as your eyes were trying to recover from being temporarily blinded. What started to come into focus was… your room! It had worked! Honestly, you probably should have believed that it would work ever since you saw tool boxes appearing out of nowhere, but still you had your doubts. Doubts that were blown out of the water now, since you had just broken the laws of physics and goddamn teleported! Take that Newton and Einstein and… uh, all the physicists!

You patted yourself down, and seemed relatively tumor free! Fantastic! Marvelous! Magnifico- Your phone buzzed in your pocket. Ah, your alarm. Well, time to cut the celebrations short, you still had a lecture to attend after all. The whole point in setting this up was to save you time and not end up late, so you promptly stepped back onto the teleporter entrance, expecting to arrive on the other side unchanged. Unfortunately, you were about to discover the complications that came with two people standing on the teleporter at once.