It's Eureka. Stranger Things Have Happened

Chapter 1

Jewel was just as much of a trouble maker as her older sister, Zoe. Just in a different way. She was a genius, and inventor whose family was trying to keep her under the radar, mostly with the help of her father, U.S. Marshal officer Jack Carter.

As an infant, a toddler, or even as she was getting older, Jewel would do strange things. If she wasn't inventing, she seemed to be talking to herself... a lot more than other kids did. As she became old enough to start going to school, she invented things in her science classes using what was available to her pre-middle school age level. And her inventions always worked on the first try, but none of her teachers could figure out how it was possible. They all simply figured that she was either up to no good, or too smart for their classes and tried to move her up.

Ten-year-old Jewel was in the back seat of a car with her sister. Their father was driving the car. Jewel sat quietly while Zoe tried everything in her attitude arsenal.

It was night time, and raining. Zoe was doing her best to annoy their dad, and it was working. He'd threatened to use pepper spray if she didn't stop.

"Are all cops this angry?" Zoe asked.

"This isn't angry. I was angry at the truck stop when you told the waitress that I touched you funny. Oh, and let's not forget you somehow talking your ten-year-old sister into following you out here, and somehow, the two of you getting separated. We're way past angry. And no ten-year-old should be on her own," Carter said as he looked out the rain covered windshield. The wiper blades removing the droplets just in time to be replaced by more.

The three were seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Road signs hadn't been seen for miles.

"You told him I followed you? Zoe, you came to get me back home before he came after us," Jewel whispered.

"Do you want to be in as much trouble as I am?"

"No," Jewel answered.

"Then be quiet," Zoe said. Her tone told Jewel not to mess with her. Then Zoe went back to talking to their dad. "Will you remind me again why we're not on a plane right now? Oh, that's right. The big, bad marshal's afraid to fly."

"You don't wanna push me right now."

"Look, I'm just saying that if we would've made a left back there-"

"Don't say anything," Carter warned.

"Fine."

Zoe fell back into the seat and leaned against her sister. The two didn't exactly get along, so this was a rare sight. Zoe would run away quite often. Carter had assumed it was because of his marriage failing. Jewel felt like it was because of her.

"It's just funny and all-

"-Seriously, I'll pay you," Carter exclaimed as the car kept moving.

Jewel wanted to admit what she did, but the last time she remembered her sister standing up for her, or even protecting her from something was... She couldn't remember a time that ever happened, and she was trying to decide if she liked how it felt.

She tuned out her father and sister, who were still arguing, until the car crashed without a moment's notice. Still inside the vehicle, they were suspended in mid-air by trees.

Suddenly, she heard Jack fall to the ground and her sister shouting through the window, "Karma's a bitch, huh?"

~***~

"For the last time, there is no other us," Carter said as the three walked down the road into a town.

"Other us?" Jewel asked.