176 milliseconds

Alan Jones from tech support is about to die.

Actually, he’s about to die twice.

Having won the Spark Quantum Teleport company-wide lottery, Alan is about to be the first civilian to travel via teleportation. He’ll be traveling from New York to San Diego and back again. Unfortunately, this means that for two brief instances of 176 milliseconds, he will cease to exist. But what does that mean? Will he be the same person when he arrives at his destination? Does it matter if he’s not?

[A short story]