travel via gates to various places on earth instantaneously almost

It was a hallway -- a corridor -- couldn't see the walls, but it was nonetheless a corridor -- couldn't move left or right, just straight ahead.

Then ended.

In the reddish landscape.  Just POP!

Then there they were:  Chloe and Ralph and  Brian and Tom and Dick and Harry and Ahmed and Raphael and Jacques.

Ralph?

Wow, the way things happen.  So Raphael knows some people.  He’s been around.  He’s a surprising surprise.  Quite the cosmopolitan.  He has been helpful.
We are looking over the digs when men come up and talk with Jacques.  Jacques comes over with them.  They have uniforms on.

Morning had broken.

Saw her standing there.

"What's it like outside?" she asked.

"Total bright sun -- something like a desert."

"Oh yeah."

"You know," she said, struggling with the granola bar wrapper, "if they made things easier to open, I know a lot of people who would be very happy"