1.1|ONCE UPON A TIME

The Analyst tapped her data chart, letting the information slip through her fingertips like rain. On the top of the patient's file read their initials, P.P. A slide here, an mmhm there, interspersed with drips from the lukewarm watercooler. Her scalp was coated in a sleek white shell, as blank and metallic as her reflective aluminum pencil skirt and blouse. The sign read 'Xi's Veterans Affair Office: Forgiven Consultations' on the wall behind her, right beside a plaque of the Analyst's credentials. She checked the clock on her desk and it was 5:14pm. She had exactly an hour and fifty-five minutes left before she needed to make her final report for the day.

The Analyst took one last glance around the room. Her patient seemed visibly uncomfortable today. Besides the Analyst's plaque, hung an enormous portrait of Elder Dragon Jin'shina sitting over the room like a king sitting on his throne. The Affairs Office itself was an imposing, grey building, and though the outside looked rather plain, the outside was nothing compared to the inner workings of the hospital. The inside was an immense complex of hallways, labs, medical rooms, and a few other miscellaneous rooms to make a doctor's job somewhat easier.

"I-I, uhm," the patient stumbled, "I am supposed to fill out a form..." The room faded out a bit as the two women conversed, lights from the windows casting heavy shadows. The patient was handed the tablet to swipe her finger, her glare a fiery red. They weren't like any eyes that the Analyst had ever seen before. They were vivid yet soft, the same shade as the sun.

"First off, congrats on your engagement Miss Prosaic."

The patient tapped her ring and looked away.

"Thank you."

"Now. Why don't you start with the ahem, memory, you were going off last  

time." Her gaze locked with the Analysts, the shadows passing by.

"Okay, anything but talking about my feelings.

How do these fairy tails usually go?" 

 

1.1|Once Upon a Timeline

 

"Hi. My name is Allie Aden. I am a freelance paranormal investigator for Abnormal Investigatory Liasons, a government-sanctioned organization that conducts paranormal research. I'm here to interview the principal investigator of the Rose Nite proje-" a guard pushed her aside and she stumbled to the ground, a man in white zentai ignoring her. She got up irritated and brushed off her flannel jacket and jean shorts, sneezing.

The pitpat of leather wedge boots sped up across the gravel-stone until they skid over the parking lot. Allie caught herself mid-fall, wobbling knees throwing her pigtails into a bounce. "WAAAAAAAAAAAIT!" she screamed, trying to get the Courtier's attention. The paranormal investigator, fixing her spectacled glasses finally caught her breath.  "I have... huff huff... some questions... huff... to ask you! The white-suited man turned around, his smooth mask facing her direction.

The man was rather shorter up close, moreso than his crisp suit and formal wear made him look, atop his mask two pointy ears overtop could be seen stretching the material in a vertical slant on both ends of his head. He often spoke gruff and stern, as if putting on a performance and trying to sound older, deeper and more mature than he actually was. But Allie paid no mind to the boy's frivolous facade or charms, chasing him with gutsy and looking for him to validate her wildest fantasies.

"You, you! The lady who threw her shoes...!" he pointed accusingly.

"I was trying your attention you NERD!" Allie yelled, stomping her feet on the ground. Birds fled the branches nearby, leaving the rustling of leaves through the gated fence.

"This government outpost is private." He looked down on her, his voice even. Allie couldn't be sure, but he had a cold edge to it, the edge of annoyance clear to see.

"I know, I know." she pouted, folding her arms. "I didn't mean... huff... huff... huff... to make trouble. My name is Allie Aden. Paranormal reporter, and intern for Abnormal Investigatory Liaisons. See? I'm a gubby too!" She showed her badge, turning and flashing it in his face while she leaned slightly on her knees. "I just wanted to ask... huff... huff... to ask for some answers." Allie said with a huff. The Courtier looked down.

"Fine, fine. I'll answer your questions." he shrugged, giving in.

Allie rolled her eyes, putting on her best I'm-so-annoyed expression.  "I... huff... was... wondering... and... huff... who's... the..."

"My partner."

"Yes! Eureka!" Allie took out a sticker of a rainbow and slapped it to the Courtier's white masked face, adding the only color across his otherwise pure-white ensemble, from his mask to crisp suit and shoes. "She's principal Investigator of the Rose Nite project, Dr. Della right? I have a few questions to ask her! An introduction and interview would be nice." She fluffed her dark pink curls over her fluffy ears.

"Fox girl." He marched up to her stern. "You're going to have to get used to my authority. I'm the only authority here. You can't just... slap stickers onto me, and yell questions to a Courtier. You have already caused enough trouble. I would like you to depart immediately." He stared her straight in the eyes. Allie backed off, "Oh geez. I... apologize." she mumbled. "I... was... I... was..." her clumsy fingers tightened over handheld portable electro-module. The Courtier felt a brief jolt.

"WAS MERELY DISTRACTING YOU TO USE MY LATEST SPOOK-DOXXING DEVICE! The nanosubmicrions have already uploaded all your VP data and protocols to a secure Star-server. One wrong move, and it goes into the cesspool of the LAME machine, baby!"

He gave her a somber look, before rolling his eyes underneath his mask. "We have a deal. If I let you inside, I need to be kept in the loop and know how you're reporting. That is the standard between my company and the Government." He went towards her and leaned in. "Tonight. Follow the GINO datapoints and look for a campsite on the coordinates. I'll meet you in 7 hours." He fixed his tie. "I've got to go."

Allie gave one last look to the place he was pointing at.

"Ah. Thank you. I'm looking forward to your interview."  She took her inhaler and huffed it in deeply, before doing a little cha-cha-cha.

The GINO datapoints led them straight to spot in the woods, a few miles outside the outpost.

Allie found the campsite, and they sat down by a lake. Allie looked to the sky, trying to detect paranormal energy, using her EVP and Tachyon radar. "When are you done?" The Courtier asked, throwing firemites on the pyre. "When you take off that stupid mask." She responded, not even looking at him as her glasses spiraled with the starlight of the wild.

She took a long inhale, fixing her spectacles back on her face.

"It's... always this way. The Government wants to protect the civilians, but the GINO system and the agency mutts are always after us. I can't... be with them on a permanent basis. I..." She took her inhaler again, putting it to her face and huffing it out again. "The system is at 87.7% and still increasing. There has been no decrease or interference from a Ghostly force on the site." She frowned, "Wait. Wait, wait." She adjusted her glasses, "There is a Tachyon blast at coordinates 47,47." she pointed to the datapoints "That's the same location. Something is trying to attack the system." Allie stood up, trying to focus her eyes.

The Courtier leaned back on a log. "More Cascade activity. Very shrewd of you to pinpoint it." He scrolled through his comm. "But let security handle it, not that they can do much." He sat up straight. "I'm sure you didn't come here just to report that, did you?"

She scowled. "Doctor Della?"

"She had a randevu on Venus. Won't be here in the outpost until tomorrow noon." He leaned in a little more. "This Tachyon attack is a little bit bigger than the previous ones. More aggressive. But what the hell are the G.H.O.S.T mercenaries up to now?" He scratched his smooth masked face. "Ugh, forget about that stuff. Let's just chatty-chat! You like that?" Allie asked, setting up more gadgets and gizmos along her log.

"Fox girl." The courtier gave a stern look. "This is a secured government outpost. You can't just keep breaking the rules. This is my base of operations, not a place for you to keep your toys."

She gave a confused pause. "Why don't you have a face, or a liver Mr. Courtier

sir?"  He fidgeted and fussed with her handheld scanner.

The Courtier stared straight at her. "I don't think I like you anymore." he

grabbed her toy and tossed it in the bushes.

"But I'm right! My questions are right. That's the quintessential strength of

 science, knowing when you're right!"

Allie folded her arms and gave a self-assured look.

"What." Her host sat agitated.

"Told you so. So where ya from, eureka?"

The Courtier threw more firemites, the flame making Allie's eyes look bigger and redder like crimson jewels possessed by inferno.

 

"I'm not from this world. Another universe, my true name is Eridite the Blyte." He said with a proud tone, not looking up from the recording gadget on her hand. "I'm an Inter-dimensional traveler."

Allie stared hard at them, "And what were you doing in the Cascade?"

The Courtier took a deep breath, "I'm hunting. In the Cascade, I hunt down the things that hurt people. They go from universe to universe and they don't seem to stop." he went to touch the red scar on his neck, where his skin had been torn as if by some kind of monster. "I'm here because of a girl. A woman. She was traveling within the Cascade when it appeared on my homeworld, and she killed my father when I was young.."

"A Llavalite?" Allie said with concern.

"No, doubtful." the Courtier nodded. "They needed someone to test... and study the Tachyon Cascade. For further study. I volunteered."

He shuddered. "And now... I keep her prisoner in this world."

Allie sat up straight and scowled, "This world? What do you mean 'world'?"

The Courtier ignored her, leaning forward. "My father told me about what you do, how you make things that shouldn't be. He told me how the Cascade is a part of you, of what you are. It changed my father, twisted him. He was a good man, an intelligent man, but he became a monster.

I was told not to have any kind of contact with you. And to forget what I saw in the Cascade, but I could not." He shook his head, trying to make his memory work. He clutched his head, as if fighting his own agony.

"Nevermind. Sorry about the hysteric. What's your story?"

Allie gave a soft sigh. "I'm not from here."

The wind whipped Allie's flannel jacket, causing it to flutter. "You know, it's hard to tell sometimes with people." the wind picked up speed and swirled Allie's hair.

"I'm not from this universe either." Allie repeated, more strongly. "From the day I was born, I knew that I was.. an ALIEN. I've just always felt, different y'know?"

The Courtier stood abit befuddled. "A real space case, I'm sure."

She continued. "My parents are dead. I'm an orphan. I just want to see where they died. I can't even remember where it is, because, I was in a trance. But someone brought me to this planet, but I don't know who. Or why. I joined the military for awhile, served 6 years before I was discharged for 'Improper handling of technical equipment'. Pffft. What do those fundy dundies know, I made those war contraptions better! Anyway after I got kicked out I joined the Abnormal Investigatory Liasons to search for interesting phenomenon, but everyone in that department is a total bummer."

Allie looked a little more serious. "That's why I'm here. To keep the system under check. I have all this gear here for the study of the ghosts, but that's not what I was made for. I need to make things. I do have a talent for it, the only place I could go was the military, because that's what I was made for. But now I'm here, and I won't stay." She held up the remote thing. "I have a few things to take care of." she turned it over in her hands. "I just need to know more about the Cascade. I can't leave it like this."

"So how did you get in here? Why did you come all the way out here?"

Allie looked at her, and scratched her chin. "I was... kidnapped. I was held for 16 years. In a government military facility. They said I was 'adopted' and it was an 'Orphanage', but it definitely wasn't. There was a ghost, I saw it. A flickering ghost! They put me on meds, they tried to psychoanalyze me but, I know what I saw."

Allie gave a deep sigh. "They didn't tell me what they were doing with me. I was in there for 16 years, and I thought I was crazy or something. I never knew my parents, and I was in there with them for a long time. By the time I, aged out of their 'Orphanage' they just kinda shoved me along into the Military. "

"They put me through 'Testing' at the military base. And the longer I was there, the more they changed me. After the time that I 'tested' out and survived military training I was broken." She raised her chin with a proud look. "I won."

The Courtier stood up. "I hate this place. This world is, too brutal." he walked through the firemites. "But I've never seen anything like you. You're pretty strange. I'm just curious, what are you after? Is it that, ghost you claim you saw?"

Allie leaned back, looking at the star-filled sky. "Nothing." she looked at the Courtier sardonic. "Why would I want to find the thing that ruined my life and made others think I was crazy? I have nothing to prove."

He shuffled about. "Not even to find who killed your parents?"

She laughed. "What?! Nothing killed my parents. I said I was an orphan, nothing of the sort. Besides.." briefly, she removed her glasses to give them a lick. "I saw a lotttt snnnnfffuff, sorry sniffles, over at the facility. I even snuck and read my parent's files. Was fascinating, finding out what my dad did for a living."

"Hm. What'd he do?" The Courtier asked.

Allie snorted, "He made weapons, and things that weren't real, that didn't even make sense. What a wank. They found out what he did, they had to lock him up. That's half the truth anyway, maybe later you'll hear the rest."

"How could they lock him up?" the Courtier shook his head. "I'm confused."

"That's the problem." Allie sighed, she was running out of patience. "It's the military. Nothing makes sense. Why are they doing things? Sometimes I think they're just insane, but then there's a reason. I think. Maybe. They just do all kinds of crazy stuff. And this is all about crazy, what they make, what they do, so even they can't understand that."

"Oh, that's a really smart theory." He smiled. "I think I'm getting sick of everything."

Allie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I hear that. What's your theory on the Cascade then? Where'd it come from?"

He threw a sheet along the ground and began to lay back into it.

"I don't know. And I don't want to know. I can't think about the Cascade

anymore."

"What did your father do, anyway?" Allie asked, putting her glasses back on.

The Courtier sat up. "He was a scientist. Some kind of geneticist."

"I see... Gene splice guy huh.." Allie chuckled, taking out a pocket knife and playfully spinning it in the air. She watched until the Courtier drifted off, then stabbed it into the dirt. "Where are thou, Ms. Della.." Allie sat back, and looked out at the stars through her thin glasses. They seemed to be staring at her, like she was the center of the universe. She didn't care. Her heart ached. She just felt empty inside, she felt hollow. The only emotion she could feel was a coldness. Coldness, and hate. But she wasn't mad anymore, she wasn't mad at her handlers, that wasn't how she was anymore. She was mad at this world. The things they were doing. The horrors.

Allie flicked her knife, closed her eyes and drifted off.

 

The next day Allie and the Courtier talked for a long time. They talked for hours, and Allie told him everything she knew. Everything, which wasn't alot that the Courtier didn't already, but was a lot of useless technical trivia he zoned out of occasionally. A star shuttle finally arrived, floating overhead. A woman with scarlet hair, scars over her face and a white labcoat slid down a rope, followed by a frail young man holding a clipchart.

"Eureka! Let me say I'm such a big fan of your work! My name is-"

"I know who you are," the Della said, quietly, interrupting Allie. "You've been banned from no less than 7 security regions, and have flooded my comms with spam." The woman gave Allie a friendly, if rather cold smile and turned to the Courtier. "Why have called me to meet with this, fanatic loon dearest?" she began, giving him an angry glare.

"Couldn't be helped. She had leverage." He tapped the sticker on his forehead.

"I see.."

The woman replied, walking towards Allie. She seemed to be inspecting her. Allie turned to the accompany of hers with a glare. "Oh, I'm Rufus, her research assistant."

She snarled. "I'll need a minute, get us some tea or something. I have a great deal of work to do." she gave the assistant a sharp glance.

"Yes ma'am," Rufus said, meekly, shuffling off back up the shuttle.

"This woman has no right." Della said. "What does she even want?"

"We can talk about that later. I have so many questions I want to ask you!" Allie breathed thru her inhaler, in contrast to Dr. Della smoking a cigarette.

"There is no later." She said. "You, girl, need to learn the rules, because there are rules in your life, and you need to obey them." Allie had stood quietly, fidgeting. "You. Need. To. Learn. The. Rules." Allie said slowly, yanking her hair. Allie was trying her best to keep her composure, and not to lash out at the woman.

"I want to know more about project Rose Nite! I don't know much more.. but I'm going to release everything I do know to LAME if I don't get to!"

Della looked at her, and the two stared each other down, standing face to face.

The woman hissed. "What a charming young thing you are. Although, I hate LAME," the eeriness of the woods seemed to grow quaint and heavy as she paced, considering her next 3 words. "Come with me." She said, guiding the two back on the shuttle.

"Jusppppt like that?" Allie spat a little towards Della.

"I'm a busy lady. I have work to do. Let's just get this over with." She flicked her cigarette towards the sky and laughed. They boarded and slammed the hatch, leaving the outpost to its demure and irrelevant doings. The ship set course for a relativistic speed course to the asteroid belt in approximately 30 minutes.

Allie and Della sat, face to face, the Della being the first to speak.

"I know what information you seek. I also knew what kind of man your father was. You'll get your answers. Now let's do this, like civilized people."

Allie breathed in through her portable nasal tube device, clearing her passage ways for her travel turbulence. "Civllizzzzzable? I suppose. Where are we going? You are the principal investigator for Ros-" "Ssshshsh." Della silenced her, looking out the window of the star shuttle into the infinite void ahead.

Rufus came and started setting down cups of tea one by one, the artificial gravity of the shuttle somewhat wavering weakly enough for droplets to float out.

"Invisibility, and darkness. In darkness, we see the stars more clearly, but we can only make light in darkness. There is a gap in the sky you see, where no light escapes. It makes no sense, but this is it, or as close as we come. To the edge, of our dominion. Beyond that darkness  What you call Rose Nite."

"What is it? What's Rose Nite? Give me the scoop!" Allie held out a microphone connected to a tape recorder. Della leaned in, hitting 'pause'.

"Rose Nite is the term that refers to a specific, highly theoretical model of a spacial region beyond our known Universe. The exact model of physics and the makeup of this Universe are still being worked out. We believe it to be another reality entirely. It is a model that is highly contested, but what our group has recently put together a model for, is what Rose Nite is, and a model to both accurately access and reach this contested reality." 

The Della tapped the side of her neck, causing a black bracelet on it to slide open. She touched the side of her arm, and a black sleeve began to slide from it, covering her entire arm. She then opened a panel and pushed a button, and her arms grew longer, stretching her arms, and growing a second sleeve that grew snug and tight. "Your father had access to a great deal of information, not only about Rose Nite, but also what it was we were doing to get there. The Courtier's group, the Foundation has been working in the field of bioengineering for the better part of 500 years, as the primary means to access the information we need, and this is what we have now. The arm you see on my body is a prototype for the project I was working on, a new kind of skin, the 'Bioelectrical skin', a highly advanced method of controlling and regulating skin function, allowing us to control everything from the flow of blood, to thought. It could in theory regulate the conditions necessary to travel through the unknown region."

Allie pinched it. "Snff... feels like rubber."

Dr. Della cleared her throat. "Ahem."

They spent the next hour in total silence, which Allie found extremely disturbing, they sat there. Dr. Della smoked, occasionally looking out the window, until the shuttle left the city of S'Nefr for a brief refueling run. They entered the asteroid belt, which began to shift from the gravitron field-emitters that shifted asteroids like a whirlpool, designed to let cargo and ships to pass without fear of bombardment. The shuttle entered the belt and soon landed on a facility resting upon a massive rock in space. Rufus showed them to the dropoff platform, the Courtier staying behind.

Soon they marched through a high-tech laboratory with spacious colliders and testing centers. Della showed her to the largest room in the building. "Here's where we keep the Kaleidoscopic Compressor, the heart of Rose Nite. We're working on the technicals needed to reroute the Cascade into a singularity which a rift in the dark region can be accessed. If you can contain that cascade, you can use that contained, controlled flow of matter to open a tunnel through a rift in space and time. To do that, we have to map the topology of that new spacetime. We're doing that, and soon we'll be able to access Rose Nite."

"EUREKA! Thisssspppp is what I've been waiting to see my whole life!"

Allie laid eyes upon the gigantic device, looking like multiple telescopes welded into a playhouse. She took notes in a tiny notebook and ran back and forth, before eventually tripping. She reached for her glasses in front of her, only for them to be crushed by Della's Heel. Armed guards pointed their guns at her. "It'll be the last thing you see in your life." Della said.

Allie swallowed hard, her glass-covered eyes turning composed and bloodshot.

"Funny joke? Riiiiight? Ha ha?"

Della lit a cigarette. "No. We've been tracking you, from the moment you left earth, and all I can tell you is this, you have a powerful and genius imagination, and your father was a sick son of a bitch, a murderer. I don't know what you're doing up here, but if you're here to do your father's bidding you're going to have to earn a way."

"I know what I'm doing, that's why I'm here. I want the whole story!"

"We want to help you, help us with our project."

"Oh yes, help me. I'm sure you're going to-"

"But we don't need you. Only your corpse. I've been working the Courtier for twelve years trying to find out what he knows of Xi's top-secret bio-geneticist program, turns out it's absolutely nothing." She leaned down, as if gloating over a trophy animal she'd just hunted. "Here I have been lying to the Courtier for years, using my position to cover his every move, pretending that I was only here to do my research. Oh no, my research was only a cover."

"B-but-" Allie reached for her Comm within her pocket, fiddling her fingers to send out a signal.

"I'm sure you were gunning for him too, it was only a matter of time. I don't know who told you about Rose Nite or why you wanted to see the Kaleidoscopic Compressor, but I guarantee that in the time it takes for your SOS to get out there, I'll have made my plan in place and relocated this entire lab. Then you can't do a thing to stop me." She took another drag of her cigarette. "Now I'm going to make sure you stay in this lab forever. Dead or alive."

Allie began to cry uncontrollably, grabbing her head. She could feel her brain start to throb, her eyes swelling. Something clicked inside her brain, and all fear dissipated like a faded mist. "You were right about one thing, Doc. I am a son'o'bitches daughter. No more lies." She pulled the detonator out of her pocket and hit the trigger, rocking explosions out in the halls. The lights flickered on and off, Allie was gone in a flash. The guards were taken off guard by a strange mist, Allie now wearing a gasmask she brought. Everything for them ended in a haze of red and white. Della attempted to run out of the room, but a knife was brought to her throat and she was dragged back in.

The Courtier exited the docking platform and continued walking, passing through the corridors of the lab, which were soon engulfed in smoke and fire. "What's going on?" He said, seeing Allie covered in blood splatters, her swiss army knife in hand.

"Oh, I just got rid of the evidence. Just like that, no one's the wiser. I'm feeling so much better, even my allergies have cleared suddenly!" She laughed to herself.

The Courtier stopped. He had a shocked look on his masked face. "What the hell have you done?!"

Allie's overbite bit her recorder, pressing the playback. Della's screaming voice was played multiple times over.

"You're insane." He ran. He was going to try to escape, and run back to his shuttle, but another figure appeared in front of him.

They appeared like a pure white flicker of light, but their silhouette was recognizably Allie's, in spite of Allie looming from behind. This glowing figure began flicking the switches, activating the buttons, and a hologram began to form, in the cloaking shape of an asteroid. It was huge, and at its center sat a glowing object, like a star, and at its edge sat glowing veins of energy, stimulating the Cascade. The figure locked the shuttle hatch and then flickered out of existence.

The Courtier again made a dash for it, only to be cornered into a wall by the bloodthirsty Allie. She reached in, pulled out a gun from its pocket, and fired, the barrel bursting open as a shockwave knocked the Courtier into the floor.

"I never did tell you what my father did, did I?" The maddened gaze in her eyes seemed to swirl into eternity.

"He did so many horrible things, things I swore to myself that I would never be like him. Woops! New Years Resolutions amirite?"

She leaned in to whisper into the Courtier's ear.

"He was a serial killer." She grinned like a shark.

"Course he wasn't my real daddy, but before the military he raised me. I found out some things. One of his old buddies was a, let's say eccentric traveler. He'd even visited other worlds. That buddy had a son, but they worried he was a danger, so he tried to turn him in."

"Oh, oh god..."

Abbie nodded. "My pops murdered yours. Just the works!" The girl took out her inhaler, took a huff and showed him. "Adrenline Influx. Some people need the kick, y'know?"

"Stop right t-"

A security guard burst thru behind her only to be shot on the spot with Abbie's bolt pistol.

"Anyway, wanna know the funniest part? My dad wasn't the one that made me.." She pressed one hand to a wall, the trickles of blood across her cheek beginning to dry and smell of death. "Yours did."

"W-what?! How?"

Allie's eyes began to glaze over.

"Dr. Nicolo Francis Xoticel, your father made me from the test-tube up. What was he like, I, I don't really remember. Oh, yeah, I was in this strange trance most of my childhood. I was like a robot. In a way I guess I still am. My brain shut down for three years after my 'birth', or at least that's what my doctors said. They thought I was brain dead for several years. Then they went into my brain, removed a chunk of tissue, and they put a device on my head that made me think everything was still. Turns out they saved a part of my brain, the part that allowed me to be creative and, I guess, a bit insane. Your father did that to me. After shanking him, my father stole his life's work and took me away to raise me for a little while. But it was more important than that, I was made for some important purpose. But well... that's what I was hoping you could tell me more about."

"I, I don't know I swear!" The Courtier said pleading. He was trembling uncontrollably. Abbie continued.

Allie's mind began to work at a faster pace, thoughts flowing like a river down her head, racing to her lips. "Your father was a scientist recruited by Xi. But if you're an interdimensional traveler, that means he wasn't from this universe either. I wonder what he sought to gain by assisting Xi.. Or mine, for that matter." Her lips moved with the speed of an electric fan, her tongue lashing out, and lips forming words in a matter of moments.

"I was... I was... I was just doing my father's bidding. But then I got a little curious. A little too curious. Like you. You know what I'm talking about. Why, why am I like this.." She took her inhaler and breathed in again. "What was I just talking about? Oh well, doesn't matter." Her eye twitched a bit, then rolled back up top her sockets as she moaned.

The girl grabbed him by the collar, kissing his lips through the white mask and having her way with him. When she pushed away, a trail of saliva stuck in-between.

"Don't worry, I don't have to kill you. You see this device?" She held up a small hand-held tube. "It's a small version of the Kaleidoscopic Compressor, but, it's not as advanced. I've designed it to focus its output at a singularity. I've made a device that allows one to open a portal to Rose Nite. You see, it's time. With this device I can find the hole with the Cascade, and I can go through, but I have to be the one to open it. So you see, we can work together, but if I tell you more you'll steal it all from me."

The Courtier was shaking with fear. "I-I can't betray my people. I'll have to call for reinforcements. They'll come and kill you all."

"I guess you're right." Allie gave him a smile and pulled her pocket-comp from her jacket, tapping it, saving all her data to a star server.

She brought out the bolt pistol, aiming the blaster at him. She smiled. "See? I  

don't need any of that bioengineering shit."

The Courtier threw his hands in the air, yelling. "Wait a minute!"

Allie continued to smile, and began firing. The room lit up a never-ending display of dancing lights. Smoke went out everywhere. The ambience of her shots lit up the room with a bright neon blue.

She fired into the ground, sending a shockwave that made the lights go completely out. Allie stood with her arms folded. "Saved again, you see? No one is safe from me."  The Courtier watched her walk away slowly, unable to understand what was going through her mind.

She walked out of the docking room into the halls, fire-systems having quenched the flames. After she downloaded the facilities schematics, she held the tube-device. The Pocket Kaleidoscopic Compressor had a bright blue glow, illuminating the entire room. The glow was a sharp beam that began to move in a circular motion around a room that was beginning to spin. Her eyes grew with visions of paradise flaunting before her. The beam of blue began to pick up everything within its range of control, and everything started to come to life, starting from the walls, which began to glow in the blue light- and then promptly overloaded and died. Smoke went out from her PKC until it sparked and fried black, she threw it across the room.

The Courtier approached her slowly from behind. Allie's legs were trembling.

"The entire Cascade, from the beginning to the end, is in here." She spoke her

mind clearly, but with a slight hiss, as if her tongue were trying to speak.

"It's an interdimensional hole. When I open it and travel to the Cascade, I'll

find the place where time ends."

The Courtier looked confused. "But that's the future. You know the people of

the future would kill you."

Allie smiled to herself. "Then future me will just work harder."

"The future, yes. But that's okay. It doesn't matter what happens. I made this

universe. I created it all. No one else could. No one else will."

She stood still, her eyes focused intensely on a point in the distance. The Courtier watched her pickup a guard's electron-rifle. "You didn't... make this universe. God couldn't be someone as zealous as you."

"Wanna bet?" She joked.

"When I get to the end of time, I'm going to create a new world, a world of my own design. Someday.." She looked up, vacant, tears in her eyes. "But it won't be this me that makes it." She then smiled once again.

Her hand pulled the guard's blaster, turned it on herself, and shot herself in

the head.

Allie was dead. In the dark void, there was a glowing light.

"Hello?" She asked.

"Hello? Who is this?" The light replied back.

Allie sighed. "Where am I?"

"Who are you?" They asked in turn.

She fell silent. "My name is.."

"Protas!"