Chapter 3

Tyana stared at her surroundings as she ambled down the street, taking mental notes about the body language, conversations and general life signs that people near by were showing. She noticed the honking of a vehicle and turned around only to see a truck full with two young men hurtling down the street past her, the men inside winking and waving in her direction. The gesture was completely lost on her so she tried to remember it so that she could bring it up with Bret that evening.

She continued down the street and after what felt like, and no doubt was, hours of walking she ended up across the street from an establishment with a large billboard over its entrance and a long line extending round the block. Curious as to what was happening and with learning something new about this reality in mind Tyana found the end of the line and joined it. She had no idea how much longer it was later but eventually she was inside the bustling building, glancing about her, taking in every single piece of information she could find.

It took her a few minutes to recognise it but eventually it clicked that whatever this place was it was related to the sports entertainment world that her former reality loved to eavesdrop on so regularly. Tyana politely excused her way through the crowd until she was stuck smack bang in the middle of it and from there on she carried out the task of trying to fit in unnoticeably. She didn't realise there was one person that couldn't keep their eyes off her.

***

"Jeff would you please pay attention! God, you're gonna completely miss the instructions if you keep staring off into space" Amy said in a frustrated manner, now fully awake. Her far off friend didn't even flinch from his space-inhabited bubble. "JEFF!"

"Huh? What?" He was finally shaken from his distracted thoughts.

Amy rolled her eyes and picked up the pink script that was just set down next to her, "what on earth are you staring at? What could possibly be so interesting that you black out for close to 20 minutes?" she questioned as she began to skim the short segment.

"I'll tell you what…her!" Jeff explained as he pulled Amy to sit on the chair right next to him and pointed down at a bright blue patch in the crowd below.

Amy didn't notice who it was at first but soon established that person was the girl Jeff had been drooling over in the lift earlier that day. She smiled knowingly, winking at him,

"Oooohhh, it's her!" she sing-songed happily, the task of relearning their recently changed lines slipping her mind momentarily.

"It sure is" he mumbled, his eyes daring not tear away from the perfectly carved figure in the throng of people down the stairs.

Amy smiled and returned to reading over her script, "Well, I never thought I'd be glad to say this but I'm happy Matt's out on injury! At least this way I don't have to deal with two slobbering, babbling idiots; one of you is plenty!" she chuckled in amusement at her own comment and her smile faded when Jeff once again snapped out of his own little world; in other words he hadn't heard a word of it.

"Sorry, did you say something?" he asked politely.

Amy shook her head, "No. Nothing at all…Ignore the diva. Just pretend I'm not here and by all means return to staring at a girl I now know you're too scared to approach."

Jeff, as suspected, rose to the insult, "Hey I am not scared! Jeff Hardy doesn't do fear!"

"Yeah? Prove it!"

He shot out of his seat like a man with a mission and held his chin high, "fine, I will!"

Amy watched him intentionally as he paused and then began towards the stairs. She grinned knowingly when he paused and turned back, bottling out as he often did when he for some reason felt he didn't have a chance. He sighed at her satisfied beam and changed the subject,

"Want a drink?"

That night Tyana jumped happily onto her bed and grabbed the beeping communicator from the backpack near by on the floor. She flipped the lid up and smiled at Bret who looked stunned to see her obvious good mood.

"Evening Ty, what you so happy about?"

"Oh, nothing…I just spent the entire day in the city you see and I learnt a load of stuff about this reality!" she gushed casually as she pulled one leg up to her chest and clutched it with her spare hand.

"Really?"

"Uh-huh"

"Then by all means fill me in"

Half an hour of gushed information later Ty beamed proudly and pushed a strand of short hair from her eyes. Bret nodded with an impressed smile,

"Well done. I knew having you aboard was a good idea!" he complimented as his and Ty's thoughts were jotted onto his laptop.

"Thank you. Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I was walking down the street in the morning and there was this honking and a huge truck or something went by and the people inside were smiling and winking and stuff. What's that about?"

Bret cleared his throat, "Yes, well, never you mind about that, it's nothing important. We can't afford to have you side tracked anyhow." Bret dismissed clearly.

Tyana was about to challenge his comment when she glanced to the corner of the room at the 'television' and then shot up in panic.

"Oh my God, Bret, am I being watched right now by the other realm?"

"No, no you're not."

Tyana sighed in relief and settled back onto her mountain of pillows. Her brow suddenly furrowed, "Wait, how come?"

"Well its complex but in lame man's terms we can fix it so that wherever you are the cameras can't air a signal back here. What they record is sort of unrecognisable by these computers and simply forecasts a muddled picture which no one would bother watching. You're safe don't worry"

"But if you can do that to the cameras where I am why can't you do that to all of them? Then you'd be able to abolish The Witnessing all together"

"Tyana it's not as simple as that. We can only grasp control of a certain amount of cameras at a time and there are far too many in this world to dominate."

Tyana nodded in understanding and mumbled a barely recognisable "I see" before she pushed a glass of water up to her pouty lips.

She chatted generally about the operation to Bret for a few minutes until she had to use the bathroom. With that accomplished Ty headed back out to her room for which she has to pass a mirror. After pausing temporarily to savour the still strange reality of looking at her aged reflection she climbed back onto the bed and thoughtfully picked up the communicator.

"Bretski, I know I aged because as an effect of penetrating the dimensions but mentally will I ever age too? I mean, I know right now I still have the mentality of a 17 year old; I can feel it, but will I always?"

Bret looked up at her slightly sad face and shook his head with a warm smile, "Ty you'll age mentally too. In fact I've got a mentality monitor here with me now."

"You do? Serious? What am I?"

"Like you said you're 17 but you will quickly catch up with your body. It'll just take a bit of time is all,"

"Exactly how much time?"

Bret looked to be thinking and fiddling with what Tyana assumed to be the mentality monitor.

"Well taking into consideration your already mature mentality, the responsibility needed for the situation you volunteered yourself to be in and your current progress I think it's safe to say in 3 days or less"

"Really?" Tyana began to ponder thoughtfully, "In 3 days I'll be 23?…That's…unreal"