Teleportation is basically when something is pulled into small pieces and put back together somewhere else, and when a person's stomach goes through this process, the result is a mystifying feeling called nausea. Coming out of the teleporter, every member of Tally Hall swallowed their breakfast for the second time that morning. Everyone, that is, except Andrew, whose stomach contents hadn't rematerialized as fast as the rest of him and so were sent back into the face of some poor bystander in Pittsburgh.
The Tallies were all still shaky from the vibrations felt in the warp, and for the next several yards none of them could walk in a straight line. To add to this, the bright blue lights from the warp tunnel had put a deer-caught-in-headlights look in their eyes. They looked like a group of newborn fouls tromping through the teleporting station.
Unfortunately, they were not yet in Glenside, but in Philadelphia. This was because Glenside was not significant enough to have direct teleports from large cities such as Pittsburgh. Two or more teleports were required to enter the town, so two or more teleports later, the Tallies were in Glenside's quaint empty station with Andrew dry heaving into a nearby garbage can.
After making a gagging noise not unlike the call of a velociraptor, Andrew raised his head from the trash bin and said, "I feel like my stomach wound up where my lungs should be. I am never going to be happy again."
"Don't say that," Zubin said while trying to blink out the spots in his vision. "Someone around here has to be happy when no one else is, and I refuse to fill that position."
Ross smiled at Andrew and Zubin's cross-eyed expressions before he checked his watch. They'd made pretty good time, and the base was only a fifteen minute walk away, that is, if they were all still capable of walking after that last teleport. Ross himself was still rather dazed and had to look at his watch five times before correctly seeing the time. Meanwhile, Rob had tried to steady his legs by supporting himself on Joe's shoulder, and the two fell against the wall like a couple dominoes.
Joe didn't seem to have energy enough to be annoyed by this, but he was a bit uncomfortable with the lack of personal space. He tried to shrug Rob off when he felt the side of his face being scraped against an odd texture. "Hey, is this brick?" he said with his mouth smushed against the wall. "Oh, wow, I'd never even noticed 'til now what these walls were made of."
"Well, we just haven't been here in awhile," Ross said as he helped Rob and Joe regain their balance. "It is nice, though, since we didn't see many traditionally made buildings like this on the tour."
"If by traditional, you mean ancient," said Andrew. "Did you see how long it took for this garbage bin to recycle and filter everything out?"
"No, I'm glad to say I didn't see that," Ross replied.
There was something else that Ross would've been glad not to have seen if he had been paying attention, but he was too busy now trying to keep Rob from using him as a crutch. What Ross and the others had failed to notice was that through one of the old-fashioned window frames and across the train tracks was an emaciated man with a shock of brown hair wearing a dark suit, and he was staring at them.
Of course, the members of Tally Hall would not have been bothered had they seen him. They were used to people staring at them, if not because of their snappy dress style but because of their random bouts of beatboxing. They were also used to people who were either odd or completely eccentric in appearance. It also didn't bother them that the man across the tracks was plotting their ultimate doom. After all, none of them even saw the man before he walked out of sight, let alone read his mind. The only reason they would've been disturbed if they had actually seen him was because he had a large booger hanging out of his nose.
