I’d been in Trans-Sylvania for slightly less than a year when I got a private communication from the governors. At first, the governors had been only a vague concept to me. It wasn’t until I was working for Alyssa that I’d seen anything from the governors, and then it was second-hand stuff passed on from Alyssa. When I was an Enforcer, I’d seen group emails sent to everyone in Enforcement from the governors.

This time I was being called in for a private meeting with them, and I was told it wasn’t about my job, or at least, not my current one.

“I’m happy to do this double date if we can make the scheduling work, and if Pam agrees. I’m wondering if we should talk to Pam ourselves first, though, to help her get ready like you did with Phil.”

“Hmm, maybe. I agree that she might need help also, but I didn’t actually meet her yet.”

“Play it by ear, I guess. With sufficient notice I can do this anytime, even overnights, apart from my work hours, which you know now.”

I followed her down to a portal to the 18th level, where there was a theater. But not movies on a screen. We went past the main entrance to the theater, down a long corridor, and through one of several doors, onto an empty stage, behind closed curtains. From some sort of control panel Anna selected something. There was a mechanism that I could hear under the stage which moved some set pieces into place. The title “Romeo and Juliet” appeared facing us at the top of the curtain. She did a bit more, and the display changed to read “Rosalie and Juliet.”

“Do you want to be Rosalie or Juliet?”

I converted the rest of my wallet to more of a woman’s wallet, including the other cards inside at least converting to show my new name, not knowing whether they were going to be good for anything. Then I grabbed some bag from my pile of other possessions and turned it into a small purse also matching my current outfit. I put my license in the wallet, my wallet in the purse, and also put my lipstick and phone in.

I was a senior in high school when an underground gas leak led to a massive explosion in my neighborhood. The houses that weren’t immediately destroyed caught fire, and it was a while before they could put all the fire out. Everything for blocks was destroyed.

The houses were rebuilt, and I moved back into my family's house... alone.

I realized I didn’t want this. It wasn’t my house, my neighborhood, or my neighbors. They were all a bunch of imitations. The unique houses on my street had been replaced with a bunch of cookie-cutter copies sized like the originals, but not really like them otherwise. I was living in an imitation of the house I grew up in, without any of what made it special. I was alone, next to nobody I knew. The neighbors were strangers who bought the other rebuilt houses from the heirs of my former neighbors. It felt completely artificial, and I wanted to get away.

If you ever find a target on the planet referenced in Ethertravel Report #2 (report and transmission data attached), contact me. I am available 24/7 for this at attached number. Hold target for me. I will head to nearest station ASAP to ethertravel there.

- Gregorevich

Ethertravel report #2, received February 12, 2417.

I, Johnny Tavaros, am an ethertraveler. I went out in one of the early groups in 2416.

I arrived into the world in a confusion of darkness and pressure. Was I not born yet?

I wanted to be born, and then I was. I burst out of what I realized had been an egg. I looked at myself and was surprised to see that I was myself. That is, I was still the human Johnny Tavaros. I arrived in the world fully clothed, in clothes I had owned on Earth. How was this possible?

I was born a girl here. At least, that’s what my parents said. When I inspected myself, I found myself to have a penis, but they seemed sure I was a girl.

My earliest memory is discovering I was in an egg, and having to fight my way out of it. My giant mother breast-fed me. My father was larger than me, but only by the degree I would expect, or even less than that. He had a normal-sized house inside the huge house where my mother lived.

I left Earth in 2437, and it has been a long time, but I have no idea how long. Tens of thousands of the days here, but I don’t know how long the days are. However long ago that was, I arrived as a blob of slime.

It was pretty quickly obvious to me when I arrived here that this world was way more Earth-like than I expected. The people look mostly like humans with one or two major exceptions, the trees and other animals look familiar, and once I was able to find a map of the world, even the place names and the land forms (pre-icecap-melting versions) were mostly a match for my memory.

I found only one of our bone knives was sharp enough to do it. There was a steel tool that was supposed to sharpen them, but it had rusted and could no longer do that. So we made do with the one knife, but when this session was over, I knew I needed to go to the city. When I told the others my plan, Sakura insisted on going with me.

I was in a grassy field, but I couldn't tell what I was.

I saw a green-skinned girl enter the field, a prepubescent girl with green skin and no hair, and seemingly naked. She came pretty close, maybe examining me, whatever I was. She walked about 100 feet away, dug a small hole with her hands, and squatted down over it. Maybe she pooped there? She covered it up with the dirt and grass she dug from the hole, then left.

The next day, a group of girls similar to the first one came by. I couldn’t tell if the original one was part of the group. They came right up and touched me. I could feel the touches even though I couldn’t tell what it was they were touching. One of them said something I thought sounded like “Soon, soon.” Sort of, anyway; I don’t think I actually heard the words, but I definitely understood it even though I’d just arrived here and had no idea what language they might speak. Some of them went to other spots in the field and pooped in holes like the first girl did.

Everything seemed to be going well, and then my whole plan got run over by a truck. Literally; an accident on a nearby highway sent a truck similar to a semi off the road, and it ultimately stopped after crashing through some fences and the back of my family’s house.

“Are you ready for this?” I asked Linda.

“I’m ready,” were the last words she ever said with her body’s mouth.

“Ready,” some of Linda’s family members said.

Linda’s torso was perched on top of a small table with a pillow on it, with her rear legs on the floor and her front legs stuck to the sides of her head in preparation for the pairing.

I’m a horse-like creature with the ability to stand on my hind legs and use my front legs as hands. But my parents are centaurs!

This is an alternate take on Dawning... Or How I Survived a Plane Crash, Sort Of which is the same up to the kiss. If you have just read that story, you can skip down three or four pages (to “kiss a boy”) and pick up how this version goes.

The darkness never changes, but sometimes it smells different. After 400 years, whether my eyes are open or closed matters because it’s how I communicate. One if by land, two if I see….

I was determined to study the capabilities of this world’s technology and take advantage of as much of it as I could in this endeavor to report back to Earth.

I’m a purple bipedal creature, vaguely humanoid, under a pretty broad definition of that term, somewhat stouter and shorter than humans. I have two five-fingered hands and two five-toed feet. The planet is significantly colder than Earth, but livable in the tropics. The technology level is roughly early 21st century by Earth standards.

I, my good friend Paul, a couple passing acquaintances, and several other people who were complete strangers to me were convinced by various of our friends to help them run one of those interactive entertainment events. We didn’t know our friends were associated with such a thing, nor had we ever heard of this one. We were invited to a free run-through of the event so that we would know how it was supposed to work.

I’m Lisa Wilson, biologist. In the winter of 2079, a viral cold swept the world. It caused people to briefly experience spots of blood in the urine and feces, but otherwise was unremarkable, and people recovered from it like any other cold, so not much was thought about it at first. But it was persistent, with more and more outbreaks among people who had not yet suffered from it throughout the year.

I’d been living in my two-story house for many years before I discovered the top of the closet.