GTS Inc. was founded ten years ago. It consisted of one person: Kate Gilson. She was 18 years old, and had just touched an alien meteorite for the first time.
Kate had knowledge. She had always been intelligent, but after touching the meteorite, she knew things. Things that nobody else on earth knew. And she had powers.
She knew of alternate dimensions.
She could open portals between alternate dimensions.
She could adjust the portals' size, thus altering the size of whatever passed through. Or whoever passed through.
The first time she really, successfully created a portal, she looked through it and saw herself. A version of herself, almost identical. Cate.
Cate had also found a meteorite, but had hesitated for a few seconds before opening her own portal. Thus Kate was the First Kate. Cate was the Second.
They became best friends, as only the same person could. They began to dream of big plans for the portals. Cate was the first employee of GTS Inc.
One day, in college, a boy tried to hurt Cate. She escaped with only bruises. Kate was furious - it may as well have been her. They made a plan.
They had to be careful. Nobody could see Kate, or else they would blame it on Cate, and all their dreams would be ruined. Luckily, they knew a place, and the boy, like most boys, was stupid.
Cate told the boy she wanted to try again. But only somewhere comfortable and secluded, not the college. Somewhere like her parents’ lake cabin. He believed this, idiot that he was, no problem. That night he drove her to the “lake cabin”.
There was no lake cabin. There were no parents either, technically - their father left the family when they were children. Their mother was not wealthy enough to own a lake cabin. They had entered college with scholarships, which would soon give way to student loans.
But they were familiar enough with the lake area. Drives to the lake for picnics when they were kids. Parties in high school. There was a rock quarry that was rarely used anymore, stripped bare.
When the boy asked if she was sure this was the right way, Cate said yes, she was sure. The stupid, would-be rapist boy continued to believe her. They stopped his truck in the middle of the rock quarry. It was a cool night, and bright - the full moon reflected off the pale stone. The high walls and forest beyond blocked sight and sound to the outside world.
He tried to touch her again, and she ran out of the truck. He got out and chased her. But then there was a sound, a sound no other human on earth had heard before except for Cate, and this was much, much louder than before. The sound of a hole being torn open in the fabric of reality. A hole 50 meters high.
The boy looked behind him. He looked up. There stood another Cate, 50 meters tall, illuminated in the moonlight. Except it was actually Kate, who was wearing a baggy, oversized college hoodie, black tights, and red Converse All-Star high tops. And she looked pissed.
She stepped through the portal, her shoe landing directly on the boy’s truck, crushing it completely flat with a screech of metal and popping of bursting tires. The boy ran, screaming. Kate’s giant sneaker landed in front of him, shaking the earth, blasting him with wind and dust. He ran the other way, and she stepped over him easily, once again blocking his path. Cate watched from the edge of the quarry.
The giantess toyed with the boy like this for some time, who wasn’t smart enough to realize there was nowhere to run. So he kept running, back and forth, until he was too tired and fell to his knees. Kate squatted over him, studying him, her face an immovable frown. When he tried to crawl away, Kate pinned him down with a single finger on his spine. He squirmed there for a while, until Cate appeared from the dark corners of the quarry. The boy begged her help. After a while of begging with no response, she tossed something onto the ground next to him. It clanged.
It was an old shovel. And not the short kind with a cross handle.
The boy didn't realize what was happening, not until after Kate had already pulled his pants down with one fingernail. Not until after she had picked up the shovel between giant finger and thumb and spat on the long handle. Only once she forced it into his asshole, did he realize what was truly happening and start to scream like hell.
To Kate, it sounded like little mouse squeaks. She continued to hold him down with one finger and rape him with the dirty shovel handle, which had already turned red with blood. Tears streamed down his face. Her face did not change. Cate watched silently, though she breathed heavily.
Kate stopped, finally, when the boy’s struggles and screams weakened. She snapped the shovel handle in half, leaving it inside him, and flicking the rest away. He tried to curl into a ball but she rolled him into his back and held him there with two fingers, one on his chest and one on his legs. Between them, his penis was a tiny, limp maggot, and blood covered his legs. She studied him for a bit, as he cried and tried to push her off with arms he could barely lift.
Kate and Cate made eye contact, communicating silently with just a glance. Then with the nails of her finger and thumb, Kate ripped the boy’s genitals off, balls and pubes and all. As he screamed, she held them over his face and rubbed her fingers together, mushing them into paste.
Then she stood, towering over him, impossibly tall, still staring down at him with an unpassionate frown. It wasn’t until he tried to drag himself away, that she placed her enormous sneaker in front of him, heel touching the ground, distinctive diamond-patterned sole raised over him. She let him live in helpless terror for a little while longer as he continued to crawl away like an injured worm, until Kate and Cate looked each other in the eyes once more. Cate moved closer to the giant shoe, crouching in front of the boy, who reached out to her feebly once more for help.
Kate lowered her Converse, as slowly as she could.
The boy grabbed onto Cate’s leg, but it was too late. The hard rubber sole pressed onto his back. His legs went first, crunching wetly, and he screamed, until his ribs and lungs collapsed and blood erupted out of his mouth. Then it was his head, bursting like an overripe melon. One eyeball bounced out and landed at Cate’s feet as the sound of his body turning to mush finished.
Kate lifted her foot slightly, so that Cate could see. The boy was just meat and skin and organs crushed into the rubber sole and spread out on the rock, vaguely boy-shaped where the clothes remained and the head had flattened. Cate stood. There was still an intact hand and arm clinging to her ankle, which she kicked into the gore underneath Kate’s foot. She saw the eyeball, which she stared at for a few moments, while it stared back at her, and she stepped on it with her own sneaker, squashing the rubbery white thing. Then she and the giantess looked at each other once more and nodded. Cate walked over to the broken half-shovel and picked it up, avoiding the splintered haft, and used it to scrape the boy’s clothes into a pile, which she carried on the shovel and dumped onto the smoking remains of the truck. A small fire had started on the engine, and the clothes began to burn in the oily smoke.
Behind her, Kate lowered her foot once more and raised her heel, grinding the boy’s remains, even his bones, into a thin, dry paste in the dusty rock, until there was nothing left but a dark stain.
Another look into each other’s eyes. They knew it was not quite enough. Someone could still spot the big red stain in the morning, especially from atop the ridge. Kate had an idea.
She pulled down her tights and squatted. Her piss steamed slightly in the cool night air as it washed the last traces of the boy away into the cracked dry stones.
Afterward, she picked up the smashed truck with the burnt clothes on top and crumpled it into a ball in her hands like tinfoil. Then she threw it into the middle of the lake.
That had been the first human life they had taken. There would be millions to follow.
The prison cell was cold at night. But at least she had gotten used to the smell. Moonlight trickled in through a high window.
No escape there. It was too high and small and she was on the third floor, with concrete below. But maybe that wouldn't be so bad after all.
Kayte had thought about ending her life many times before. One time she came very close. The scars on her wrists were reminders. This time felt similar: Absolutely hopeless.
She was in prison. There was nobody to bail her out - her boss had let her take the fall. And so there was nowhere to go. Nobody to turn to.
She had nothing.
“Visitor,” said the guard. “Your sister’s here to see you.” He walked a little distance away, staying within eyesight.
Kayte sat upright in the small cell. She definitely didn’t have a sister.
A woman approached, and god damn if she wasn’t her sister. She looked different, but… the same.
When Kate saw her face-to-face for the first time through bars of the cell, Kayte was wearing an orange jumpsuit and white slip-ons. She had died black hair, heavy smudged eyeliner, and a nasallang piercing. She was more gaunt than Kate, her eyes more empty, and it was an odd feeling - like looking in a mirror and seeing a reflection of you that had gone bad.
Her appearance contrasted with Kate’s own natural brunette hair, perfect winged eyeliner, nostril ring, and soft-curved face. She wore a hoodie, sweatpants with her college written on the ass, and converse sneakers. Kate had considered what appearance she should convey to be the most convincing to her sister from another life, and in the end decided to go casual. She didn’t want to look too business-professional (too untrustworthy), or try to emulate Kayte punk-ness (too poser-y). She knew she had to just be genuine and sincere. And besides, she didn’t want to have to steal new clothes.
Kayte gripped the cell bars in both hands by her face. “What the hell is going on,” she said softly.
“I’m you, from another dimension.”
“Am I high right now?”
“No. This is real.” Kate put her hands lightly on Kayte’s. They were warm, Kayte’s were cold.
The guard yelled, “No touching!”
“Listen,” Kate said, “Do you want to leave this world forever? Start fresh with me?”
Kayte swallowed. She was usually good at a poker face, at hiding her emotions, but whatever this was, was cutting through to her core. “Yes?” she said. For some reason she suddenly wanted to cry.
“I said no touching!” the guard yelled again. His hand dropped to his baton on his belt.
The floor shuddered then. Outside the prison walls, shouting started.
Kate smiled back warmly, her eyes locked with her sister’s. She squeezed Kayte’s hands. “Okay.”
“Hey!” The guard yelled, and started to march forward.
Then the roof was ripped off.
The crash was deafening, and bricks and debris fell all around them as moonlight flooded into the open cell. Snow drifted softly in.
A giantess towered above them, silhouetted in the night, until a spotlight landed on her face. It was Cate. She squinted, shielding her eyes from the bright light. Her breath formed big clouds of steam. Her hair was dyed blond now, and she wore a long winter coat, high-waisted jeans, and Doc Martens.
Cate reached her hand down carefully with her fingers, and easily pushed aside the metal bars, which bent like wire, no longer separating the two tiny women. Kate jumped into her hand, and held onto Kayte’s, pulling her flabbergasted sister up with her. They rose quickly, stomachs dropping, as Cate turned to leave.
There were shouts and sirens below, and then gunshots.
“Ow!” Kate boomed, more surprised than hurt. She looked down and saw the guard who had shot her, his pistol held up in both hands, smoking. It was hard to tell in this light, but the color drained from his face and he pissed his uniform pants when Cate glared at him.
She raised her boot, paused for a moment, and then stepped on him. Blood sprayed the courtyard. Then she swung her legs over the walls of the prison, leaving behind a perfect, bloody boot print in the snow.
They walked into the night, the giantess and her two sisters in the palm of her hand. The prison was out in the countryside, and the only lights were those of scattered farmhouses and the highway. They were virtually unseen.
“Are you ok?” Kate asked, cupping her hands around her mouth and yelling up to the giantess.
“I’m fine,” she whispered in her giant voice. “The bullet barely pierced skin.”
Kate gave her a thumbs-up. “Are those new boots? You look good in them.”
Cate smiled. “They were on sale and I’ve always wanted a pair. I’m still breaking them in.”
Now Kayte gave her a thumbs up. “Well thanks for breaking me out.”
Kate rolled her eyes, realizing the sense of humor she now had to deal with. Cate grinned, but then winced. “Ugh. I don’t feel so good,” she whispered.
“We can’t stay in the wrong universe for too long,” Kate explained. “Not without the meteorite to stabilize reality. Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”
Eventually they came to a non-descript side road, which from up high looked like a dark little snake in the grass. Kate concentrated and opened a portal big enough for the giantess to walk through, and they left Earth 3.
They would return soon enough.
They appeared in Earth 2. Cate was normal sized now, and her discomfort was gone, but still held her two tiny sisters in her hand. Apart from the change of scale, this world looked exactly the same, except Cate’s car was parked here.
Cate leaned against her car and held the figures up carefully.
“I think that went well. We’re going to go now,” Kate said, waving goodbye.
“Ciao,” said Cate, raising her other hand and waggling her fingers. “Nice meeting you Kayte. See you soon.”
Kayte waved, hesitantly. Kate opened a tiny portal, and the two figures stepped through and disappeared.
Cate sighed and looked around. It was a nice, brisk night. The distant sirens of the penitentiary were in a way, calming. This far away from the city lights, the stars shone in their thousands. She could see the milky way, and shooting stars. She wondered if there were any more meteorites out there like hers.
Eventually she crossed her leg, resting her ankle on her knee, and examined the sole of her boot. It was too dark, so she used the flashlight on her phone to see better. It illuminated the squashed remains of the security guard pressed into her tread amongst the dirt. She cast around for a twig, and used it to scrape out the guts and bones and soiled little uniform..
Something amongst the tread caught her interest, and she plucked it out with her fingernails and held it up to her eye. It was the tiny gun. She had only spotted it because of the severed arm still clinging to it. She brushed the arm off and carefully put the tiny gun in her breast pocket.
On Earth 1, Kate and Kayte appeared before an identical car, only they were now normal sized.
“An Accord,” Kayte said. “Nice. 3rd gen? I love these old hatchbacks.”
“Me too,” Kate said, brushing some snow off the windshield.
“Very easy to break into and hotwire.”
Kate frowned at this. “So you’re why my insurance is so high,” she mumbled.
They sat inside, waiting for the air conditioning to heat up so they could blast it. Kate wiped the inside of the windshield, her sleeve making squeaking noises.
“Is all this real?” Kayte asked suddenly. “Am I really in a different world?”
Kate nodded.
“Why’d you do it?”
“We felt sorry for you. And, we need you - we’re going to commit crimes. But we really felt sorry for you. Not having a mum.”
Kayte looked confused for a second, then her eyes widened. “Wait, you mean… mom is… alive?”
“Yes. In this universe. You’re going to stay with her for a little while until we can get an apartment.”
Kayte stared out the window, stunned. She covered her mouth with her hand because she didn’t know what else to do.
Kate continued. “We’re going to say we’re cousins, from dad’s side, and we found each other on facebook. Other than that, don’t give any specific details. Mom won’t pry. She’ll just be happy to have someone to take care of since I moved out.”
Kayte didn’t reply for a long time. Eventually she said, “Can we stop for smokes along the way? I traded mine.”
Kate heard a tremble in the voice and when she looked, a tear was running down Kayte’s cheek. “Everything is going to be ok. More than ok,” Kate said. She put her hand on Kayte’s shoulder for a moment, and then put the car into reverse and looked out the rear view window. The Honda took a moment to pull itself out of the snow, but soon was on its way. The snow tires had turned out to be worth the investment. She hoped that Kayte would be too.