The Gatespace Trilogy, Omnibus Edition

by Alan Seeger

  …a year or more, it seemed.

  ~~~~~

  Stefanie wandered out of the alley. She realized that she didn’t even know what day it was, so she went across the street to a café and looked at the date on a copy of the San Francisco Examiner in a newspaper box.

  Her eyes widened when she saw the date.

  December 15, 2000?

  The memories came to her, but they were hazy, like a dream she couldn’t quite recall.

  There was a guy. That big green swirl. Berkeley. And… she couldn’t recall, but she knew it had something to do with when she was going to school at Berkeley.

  Stefanie flagged down a cab and headed out to find the girl she’d once been.

  CHAPTER 48

  “Rick!” The room erupted in cheering and applause.

  Randall ran to him and clapped him on the back. “Welcome back, you crazy son of a bitch! Whatever made you decide to take a walk into 2000, I hope you got what you needed. So did Stef find you? Is she on her way back?”

  Rick stared at him.

  “Randall, I’m fine, and it’s good to see all of you, too,” he said, looking around the room. “But I can’t remember for the life of me how I got back here or where I’ve been…

  “And who the hell is Stef?”

  ~~~~~

  “What do you mean, who’s Stef? You don’t remember Stefanie Padgett?” Randall asked.

  Rick looked at him blankly. Randall led him over to the console and sat him down in a chair.

  “You’ve been living with her for more than a year, Rick. Beautiful woman? Long auburn hair? Good God, man! What happened to you in there?”

  “I — I don’t know, Randall. I remember everything else… my name, my Social Security number, my debit card pin, you and the company… but I don’t remember a Stefanie.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Terry jumped into the conversation. “So you didn’t meet a tall, brunette woman while you were there? She was wearing a hoodie and jeans…”

  Rick shook his head slowly. “No…”

  Randall sat down facing him. “Goddamn it, Rick. This is why we agreed to do extensive animal testing before attempting to send a human through the Gate. The spider monkeys and guinea pigs couldn’t tell us whether they had memory loss or disorientation.”

  A light dawned in Terry’s eyes. “With all due respect, Randall,” said Terry, “it’s very likely that it wasn’t the Gate that produced his condition.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Stef went into that gate fourteen seconds before he came out of it. There’s no possible way they could have had time to interact. If they’d seen each other, even if they didn’t recognize each other, wouldn’t you think they would have stopped to say something, even if it was, ‘Gee, I don’t know you, but isn’t this big green swirl just peachy keen?’”

  “Go on,” Randall said. He knew Terry’s mind was able to comprehend far more than most of them could fathom.

  “We’ve previously determined that every time we send something — whether it’s a probe or a living thing — through the Gate, it arrives on the same day, same time, right?”

  “Right. December 15th, 2000, at 6:17 AM.”

  “So Stefanie would have arrived on December 15th, 2000, at 6:17 in the morning. But Rick was there for hours. Nearly a whole day. So…”

  “They didn’t run into each other because they were in the same alley, but hours apart.”

  “That’s right.”

  Rick interjected, “But it still doesn’t explain why I don’t remember this Stefanie.”

  Terry thought for a moment. “Maybe one of you changed history somehow.”

  The three men stared at each other.

  CHAPTER 49

  During the cab ride to Berkeley, Stefanie pondered what had brought her from St. Louis to the Bay Area and how in the world she had wound up in 2000. She had a vague recollection of having had a reason to come here, though how and why had escaped her now.

  She got out of the cab and paid the driver. He didn’t look twice at the odd $20 bill she proffered, with its oversized, offset portrait of Andrew Jackson. It was early, he’d been up late fighting with his wife the night before, and he wasn’t really in the mood to question his fare at this hour.

  She looked up at the familiar structure of the Student Union, and began to walk toward the Unit 3 residence hall where she’d lived in the winter of 2000.

  CHAPTER 50

  Stephanie looked at the envelope that Caroline had just placed in her hand. She read the name that was scrawled across it in a masculine hand: “Stefanie.” It was her name, but not the way she spelled it. She kind of liked it, however.

  Caroline looked around, but the guy who she’d been dancing with, the guy who had given her the envelope, was nowhere to be found. She was disappointed, because he was solidly built; she wondered what he’d have been like in bed. But, she realized, he apparently was into Stephanie; he’d already written a message to her before we even started dancing. Oh, well. His loss.

  “You gonna open it?” she asked Stephanie.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Steph replied. She tore the envelope open and pulled put a neatly folded sheet of typing paper.

  Stefanie — (There was that spelling again, which she was beginning to like more and more)

  You don’t know me, but I have some advice for you. There’s a guy named Rick Harper that you need to meet. He’s 30 and he works at Stony Brook University on Long Island, in New York. You’ll just have to trust me, you and he are perfect for each other.

  A friend.

  She looked up at Caroline.

  “Oh, great. A stalker.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Stefanie took the elevator up to the third floor and walked down the hall toward the familiar location. It had been fourteen or fifteen years since she’d been here, but nothing seemed to have changed. Then she realized that the dorm was the same; it was her that had changed. This was, after all, 2000, somehow, and it was her that was out of place; out of time, actually.

  She stood in front of the door of the room where she’d lived when she was 21, knowing that if she knocked on it, she’d likely be face to face with herself as a college senior.

  This was nuts.

  She turned around and walked toward the elevator.

  CHAPTER 52

  Rick, Randall and Terry were sitting in Rick’s office, with Rick at his desk and the other two men sitting in the visitor’s armchairs that flanked it.

  Rick had found his cell phone in the lap drawer of his desk, turned it on and discovered the entry for Stefanie in his contacts. He stared at the framed photo of her that was on his desk but had to take it on faith when Randall and Terry assured him that the photo was of Stef. He still had no recollection of her. This must be what it’s like to have had a lobotomy, or to be a stroke victim, he thought.

  They hadn’t been there for more than a few minutes when he noticed something strange.

  The photograph seemed to be fading.

  His startled look attracted Randall and Terry’s attention, and he pointed out the phenomenon. Even as they watched, the photo was becoming less and less distinct. Soon, it seemed, it would be nothing but blank photo paper.

  “Wait,” Rick said, looking at his phone. “Look at this — it’s happening to my phone, too.” He showed them his contact list. Where a few minutes before, there had been an entry for Stefanie, now it said

  stefni

  and before their eyes changed to

  stf

  Worse yet, within moments, both Randall and Terry found their minds wandering to other topics, and speculating what experiments they ought to attempt that day using the Gate.

  Rick suddenly realized that, somehow, something that had occurred back in 2000 had changed history, to the point where not only had he never met Stefanie, but neither had Randall or Terry, and her presence was slowly evaporating from their lives.

  He didn’t know if it was something he had in
advertently done while he was there, or if it was something Stefanie had done, but if there was to be any hope of getting things back to normal, had to do something now, before they all forgot her altogether.

  He jumped up and ran to the lab.

  “Is the Gate still open to San Francisco?”

  Sarah looked up from her work. “Yes…?”

  “I’m going back in,” he called to her as he hurried to the entry platform and disappeared into the Gate.

  CHAPTER 53

  Stefanie punched the elevator button a second time, impatiently. She realized that the younger version of her could come out of that dorm room at any moment, and she had no desire to deal with that situation.

  The elevator door slid open, and a young woman stepped out. Stef started to say hello in the socially acceptable fashion, when she stopped short.

  Other than the separation of fifteen years in age, she might as well have been looking into a mirror.

  ~~~~~

  There was a moment of hesitation; Stefanie and Stephanie face to face.

  Young Steph had said hi and started to walk past, but something in the woman’s face was familiar. He stopped, looking at her, puzzled.

  “I’m sorry, but… do I know you?”

  Stef smiled. “Well, not exactly, but would you like to get some coffee?”

  CHAPTER 54

  Rick found himself in the alley again. 6:17 AM. Unexpectedly, as he looked around, there was the figure of a woman with long brunette hair, wearing a tee shirt and a pair of jeans. She became aware of his presence and slowly looked over at him. She appeared dazed — the phrase dazed and confused came to Rick’s mind — and she glanced back toward the Gate and back at him.

  Of course, Rick realized. Everything that came through this Gate arrived at the same time on the same date, so he had appeared at the same moment that she had.

  Then he realized that she wasn’t looking at him, but past him. He turned and looked behind himself.

  There, looking every bit as puzzled as he undoubtedly did, was another copy of him.

  “Oh, shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  ~~~~~

  Rick #2 — or perhaps he should have been thought of as Rick #1, since he actually was the first one here — looked at the other Rick, cocked an eyebrow, and said, “Houston, we’ve got a problem here.”

  “I would say so!” said the other Rick.

  “What the fuck is going on?” said Stefanie. “I… Rick, I remember coming through that green portal to… to find you, but… now there are two of you? What the hell is happening here?”

  Rick #1 looked at her. “You came through to find me? And then…”

  “I came through to find her,” Rick #2 finished.

  “But…?” Rick #1 looked like his head was going to implode.

  “You were gone for a whole day,” Stefanie said. “I panicked.”

  “And apparently one of you did something that caused us never to have met,” said Rick #2. “Because I got back to 2016, and I couldn’t remember who you were, Stef, or having ever even met you. After a few minutes, even the other staff members started forgetting you. Even the picture of you on my desk was fading away to a blank white image.”

  Stef looked at him, her mouth hanging open. Her head was spinning, her mouth was dry, and her heart was racing. She tried desperately to get the situation straight in her head; the Rick that had originally come through to find her — college girl her, that is — she would think of as Rick1, and the one who had followed her here would be Rick2.

  “It’s all right, honey,” Rick2 said, approaching her. “I remember you again, darling. I remember everything. And I will do whatever I have to do to make sure I never forget you again.”

  Stef took him in her arms and kissed him softly. “I love you, Rick.”

  “I love you, too, Stefanie,” said Rick1 with a grin. “Now you’ve got a backup copy of me. Wanna get really kinky later?”

  “Ah, shit,” said Rick2. “What are we gonna do with him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Stef, “but I kind of think he’s cuter than you.”

  “Huh?” Rick2 looked at his counterpart. “But…”

  “I’m kidding,” Stefanie said, laughing. “You always take everything so literally.”

  “Really?” said Rick2. “You’re standing here with Thing Number One and Thing Number Two and you’re making jokes?”

  “Heh,”Stef laughed. “It kind of reminds me of a line from that book. It was my favorite when I was a little girl:

  ‘And THEN!

  Who was back in the house?

  Why, the cat!

  “Have no fear of this mess,”

  Said the Cat in the Hat.

  “I always pick up all my playthings

  And so...

  I will show you another

  Good trick that I know!”’

  “Come on, my twin hunky Things. Let’s figure out how to fix this.”

  CHAPTER 55

  The little girl reached up to her mother from the back seat of her parents’ car. Her mother picked her up and started into the roadside diner, located just off the Pacific Coast Highway in Eureka, California.

  Her father called after them. “I’ll be in directly, hon. I need to check the oil in the car.”

  “All right,” said the woman. “I’ll get her settled down and get her some chocolate milk.” She started inside. “Oh,” she paused and called back to her husband. “Artie, d’you want coffee?”

  “Yeah, sweetheart, that’d be great,” said the man as he opened the hood of the car, a brand new 1982 Chevrolet Caprice that was his pride and joy.

  The woman walked into the café, carrying the child. It was lunchtime, and the place was packed; every table was full, but there was a family that was just leaving, so the woman stood waiting patiently for the table to be cleared.

  The people that were leaving, a couple with an adolescent boy, greeted the woman in the way that vacationers do.

  “Hi,” said the boy’s mother, making small talk while her husband paid the check and the busboy wiped down the table.

  “Hi there,” said the girl’s mother.

  “Are you here on vacation, too?” said the boy’s mother.

  “Yes,” the girl’s mother replied. “We’re from Oregon. I’m Katy Padgett, and that’s my husband, Owen.”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful up there,” the boy’s mother said. “We’re from Sacramento; Arthur and Marie Harper. We just drove up for the day. Your little one is so sweet. How old is she?”

  “This is Stephanie,” said Katy, smiling. “She just turned two. She’s got her moments.”

  “She’s so cute. Ours is eleven,” Marie said, gesturing to the youth who was fidgeting impatiently.

  “And what’s your name?” Katy asked him.

  “Ricky,” he replied in a barely audible mutter.

  CHAPTER 56

  Terry sat in his chair, lost in thought.

  Sarah walked back into the lab after getting coffee. “How’s it going?”

  “I have no earthly idea, to be honest. He went in, she went in, he came back out, he went back in, they’re both still in there… I can barely keep track,” he smiled.

  Sarah smiled a radiant smile back at him, and he thought the thing he’d considered more than once: that Sarah was one of the prettiest girls he’d ever met. But instead of saying so, he said, “Where’s Randall?”

  “He went home to grab a burger and a shower, not necessarily in that order,” Sarah replied. “Should be back soon.”

  “Okay,” Terry said.

  They settled in for the long haul.

  CHAPTER 57

  Sarah Rhodes was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, in 1986, the youngest of three children. She became fascinated with science at an early age, largely because of the fame of home town hero Neil Armstrong, whose 1969 walk on the Moon put Wapakoneta on the map.

  Her sister Julia, who was two years her senior, wanted nothing more than to w
ear the homecoming queen’s tiara and marry the quarterback of their high school’s football team, so when little sis began attracting attention for winning trophies at the regional and state science fair competitions, it didn’t sit well with her.

  It all came to a head one Sunday evening when Sarah was showing her family the certificate and ribbon she’d brought home from the International Science and Engineering Fair which had just concluded in Detroit.

  Julia attempted to steer the conversation to the new sweater she’d gotten at the mall that afternoon, but their brother Michael — the middle child — looked at her, shaking his head, and said, “Jeez, Jules, you’ve got about fifty sweaters. Who gives a crap about another new one?”

  Julia burst into tears and ran from the table.

  ~~~~~

  A little while later, there was a gentle knock at Julia’s door.

  “Go away!”

  The door opened a crack, and Sarah stuck her head inside. “Can I come in?” she asked.

  Taking Julia’s silence as assent, Sarah slipped inside and closed the door. She sat down on the bed next to Julia, giving her a sad half-smile.

  “I wanted you to know something,” said Sarah. “It seems like you think that everybody in the family is so impressed with all the things that I do; science fair, spelling bee…”

  “Trivial Pursuit champion of the family,” smiled Julia through her tears.

  “Well, yeah. And I’ll give up that crown when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers,” Sarah laughed. “But there was something I wanted to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “While you were busy being jealous of my brain, for all these years,” Sarah said, “I’ve been busy being jealous right back… of the way you look, the way you dress, the way your hair looks like someone spun sunshine...”