They had arranged for the transfer to occur at six in the evening, and it was only five-thirty, and the wait was going to kill him, he was quite sure.
He looked around. The lab was as tidy as he could make it without disrupting anything important. Water was on to boil for tea, and he had brought in some pastries that he hoped that she would like. He had bought a bed from a neighbor down the road, and she'd thrown in a set of clean sheets, so those were ready.
He had put the story around that his sister was coming to visit. He hoped, though he did not know, that the woman would look at least something like him, so that the story would be plausible.
The chime of the clock broke him out of his reverie. In the middle of the main lab room the air began to shimmer, and the universe was rent asunder.
Through a grey haze, he saw a woman. She was-he had never imagined himself female, but when he saw her, he knew who she was, and he felt the knowing down to the bottoms of his feet.
She heaved a suitcase through the tear. It took on solid form and bounced off of the floor of the lab. Then she looked at him with a firm resolve in her eyes, and took a clean step through the tear. Her boot gained form first, then her skirts, and then she was through all of the way.
She turned to the tear and counted under her breath. At ten the tear winked out of existence, and she turned to him, extending a hand.
"My name is Rosalind Lutece."
"And my name is Robert."
Their hands touched, her small one in his large, and as soon as their skin came into contact she blanched and passed out, blood trickling from her nose.