The Girl with a Toaster

3. The Two Mysteries

It's hard to distinguish what is about to happen versus what has already transpired. The echoes traveling through my head only add to the confusion. What I can put together is this – There is something chasing me, ready to destroy Earth, and a girl is going to save us all.

A mysterious girl.

Zoe carries herself with confidence and joy... too much considering the peril I'm apparently facing. Should I even be concerned? She makes it sound as if she has it under control.

Currently, Zoe is captivated by her technology, giving me a chance to observe her properly. Her blouse flows diagonally from blue to green, down to her space gray shorts. The sonic pen hides in her back pocket. Hanging off the sides of her hips are three golden trinkets. They resemble vials, but I can't tell what they contain, if anything at all.

Her outfit is unlikely from Earth. The fact that she keeps referring to us as "humans" is curious. She looks human enough... aside from her slightly unnatural hair that shines with a golden vibrance.

"Ah ha! Here's the tiny little specter!" She rotates a monitor towards me. The screen looks more like a holographic projection. On it is a blobby figure with dots undulating in and out.

I feel my eyebrows scrunch at the screen. "That's the thing trying to eat me?"

"Suck you dry of chrono-potential energy, yes! They're creatures of the abstract, bouncing between slivers of space and time. Just like dupleens before they merge into atomic quarks! This one's floofy."

I nod as if I can comprehend. Then an echo hits me again. You're an anachronism.

I turn to her ready to inquire about it, but I pause as I notice her eyes - one blue, one purple, both with enough life to extinguish all the worries in the world. I suppose that's what she's about to do.

Then her expression turns playfully unamused. "Take a picture, it'll last longer. HA! I've always wanted to use that line! Human wit at its finest."

"You keep talking like you're not a human."

"Exactly! Aren't you a bright one?" She turns the monitor back to herself and taps at the mess of buttons before her. It looks like an ancient stone keyboard of sorts, but as with the rest of the technology in the room, it exceeds anything Apple or Tesla could produce.

I probe further. "Then why do you look human?"

"Why do you look ra'taan?" she replies.

"What?"

Not bothering to answer my elementary questions, she jumps over to an adjacent console.

"You said that I'm an anachronism."

She points to a curiously complex device on the console. "See that? That's a chronomolator. It goes ding when there's stuff. You are stuff. Its measurements prove that you don't belong in 2018, but it's not quite telling me why..." She hits it with her palm a couple of times.

"Why wouldn't I belong in 2018?"

She turns to me. "Why don't you tell me?"

She squints at me as if I'm hiding something. I'm starting to feel as if I'm as mysterious to her as she is to me.

Here we are, two mysteries trying to figure each other out.

Zoe turns back to her screens. It occurs to me that I still don't know exactly where I am. We are standing here in a room, yes, but where is this room? The only windows are on the double doors at one end of the room, so I begin to make my way there. It is dark outside, but streams of light occasionally shine through.

As I approach the doors, Zoe warns me, "Don't step out."

"I'm only looking."

What I see outside is as wondrous to me as everything inside. There are no trees or houses or stars or galaxies. Instead, long strings of white light twist and turn in algebraic patterns. They fold and break from each other in harmonic movements. It is beautiful and complex.

I jump as she blurts out "Paraspace!" I turn to see her standing right behind me.

"Do you have to..."

"Physics is mathy, isn't it? The motion of the waves makes much more sense after you understand the correlation of beta decay and happy prime numbers. But humans are quite behind in their physics. Let's see..." She strikes a thinking expression with her duo-colored eyes. "In 2018, your best physicists are still toying around with theories like superposition and the Higgs mechanism, right? They'rrrrre cute propositions but wildly elementary!"

"What exactly are those?" I continue looking out at the light show before me.

"Those are lights you should admire while you have the chance." Her voice suddenly sounds distant. I look back and she's already at the central console. "I'm popping us into my layer of the universe before your brain turns to mush. Let's get you back somewhere where time is a thing! To be fair, you've lasted much longer than others. Most humans would be acting drunk by now."

As I walk towards her, I eye the orb hanging from her neck. I gesture at it. "How does that work?"

"Magic. Now hold on tight, it's gonna get bumpy!" She pulls a lever.

"Huh?"

The entire room quakes and I am knocked off my feet. She yells at me. "I said hold on!"

I grab the nearest stone protrusion I can wrap my arms around. I yell back, "What's happening?!"

"Ugh, mush brain! I just told you! We're heading to my layer of the universe!"

I watch as the lights carved into the walls begin to travel along the cylindrical room. A large blast of abstract, golden elements fires up from the central console towards the ceiling at great force. It is loud - brilliantly loud in its mixtures of zwongs and shings!

The room is engulfed in turbulence as the violent force shoots into the ceiling. I look to Zoe and see a confidence in her composure.

I hang on for dear life.