Here is a little longer chapter, instead of the tiny prologue!
_

*extremely loud alarm clock ringing*

"Holy mother of Gallifrey..."

The thought of getting out of bed in the middle of the night was as trembling as the crappy IKEA alarm clock I got last week.

"I have to get rid of that" I said not nearly as loud to myself as the clock sounded.

As soon as I was up and out of bed I forced myself to look in the mirror for how bad the damage was after sleeping with make-up.
Huh, my big red curly hair had been flattened out on one side, and one side only, making me look like some kind of female Two-Face.
And the make-up? As long as I didn't look like the Joker I considered myself lucky, and in that moment when I thought of that
sentence I could feel my standards smashing to the floor.
But it was not that bad actually, so no DC-Comics-villain-themed look today.

Even though I in the least did not enjoy leaving my pillow all by itself at home, I kind of found the idea of driving far in my red Saab
very soothing.
And my destination was very calming as well. A science-fiction convention more oriented toward the actual science. They are displaying
weird stuff people have built in their endeavors to construct time-machines from various movies and TV-shows, phasers from Star Trek,
lightsabres from Star Wars, man, even their own droids.

I am not really into that kind of constructing myself, but I like to walk around and laugh a little to myself watching how people
constantly fail. A kind of gloating I assume. I love gloating.

"Keys, wallet, sonic screwdriver, drivers license, car keys... And my bag."

Always reminding myself to bring the important stuff with me when going on a more extended trip
is a top necessity for me. I have forgotten my keys almost everywhere I've gone for the last six years and I am
tired of phoning everybody and go "Hi! It's me, I know I left for only five minutes ago but...Yes, I have... No, I don't...
Oh, you have them? Great, see you in 10".

If I was an astronaut I would with the most certainty leave my keys somewhere in space or on the moon.

Well, all that matters now is that they stay in my pocket or my bag until I get home again and that they don't decide to move to Marocco all by themselves.

I really need to get my packing together, too... With all I know people could think I was hiding a body in there with all the trouble I am having with
getting this piece of crap to the car.

Doing one last check that I have everything I need for a one week trip and don't forget anything in my appartment.
When I walk into my bedroom I'm having a silent stand-off with my alarm clock.

"Heck no"
I say to the idea that I might actually need a alarm clock to be on the safe side in the morning.

Driving through the night was as relaxing as my mind had predicted. The goddess of the night was with me and I, in the words of Poe,
did not have to disguise her presence.

When my audience with the goddess had ended, I had finally arrived at the convention.

After making my routine of calling every douchebag I saw for different names in different languages at the parking lot, I could finally make my way in.

Seeing that they had increased the number of fire extinguishers already in the lobby started my little gloated feel trip.
The people in the queue was the same type as last year, and the year before that and so on. You could almost count the number of
electric shocks some of these people had had when they built their droids and lightsabers.

After drafting through the crowd for while, I managed to get to the ticket box.

"Hello, how can I help you?"

"I have booked one ticket"

"Name, please?"

"Jeanine Quaray, Q-U-A-R-A-Y"

"I am sorry but I can not find any booking number in that name"

"Oh, pardon me, I resently changed my name"
This sounded like a lie big as Russia, but it was true. I was so tired of having to spell my surname out my entire life so I simplified it to Quai.
It does actually mean 'bridge' or 'dock' in French, so I kind of like it because of that, too.

"Try Quai instead, Q-U-A-I"

"Here it is. Ticket for one and for the entire convention, yes?"

I had the ticket and from now on it was only pure satisfaction.

The place was really crowded. Sure, this kind of con is always filled with a bigger amount of humans, but this full? It hadn't been this full in years.
I made my way to a more lonely place in the big hall where a man in his fifties sat in his little stall with his little metal junk at the centre of a table
and some graphs were displayed at the booth's walls around him.
I think his loneliness spreaded and transformed itself and became a kind of guilt for me that forced my body to come and see what he had built.

"What have you got there?"

He looked at me like I was an alien and that he completely had forgotten every kind of communicating there is.

"Ehhrm, it is a teleporter to parallel worlds!" He said suddenly with a great amount of enthusiasm.

"Oh, interesting. How does it work?" When he began to explain I had to concentrate so hard not to laugh out loud, so I had no idea what he was saying.
Not saying that I would understand otherwise if I hadn't had to fix myself not to cause a scene over the
most ridiculous thing I ever had found at this kind of convention.

He kept talking for quite a while and occasionaly I could hear some spread out word like accesscode, rift, quantum mechanics, Einstein and such,
but I was too busy thinking about how much it would cost me to call to another dimension to find out if I had forgotten my keys on Asgard and if
that was something I could get anything out from my insurance for.

Suddenly I noticed that the man had stopped talking and was showing a book to me.

"What is this?" I figured maybe a little too loud.

"A kind of users manual that I've put together from my travels with codes and logistics and graphs and..."

"Hmpft, From his 'travels' to the mental clinic across town" I thought, cruely to myself. "Do you sell it?"

"Yes" He replied in a straight and simple phrase, nothing I had expected.

"How much?" Out of pity for the little nut-head, I had to buy it.

"5 pounds. Or we could negotiate about a more reasonable price if you..."

"No, no. I'll take it for 5 quid."

I looked at the book with its redish cover. Quite thick, maybe 300-400 pages? Not bad at all for a thing like this. I read the author's name, the little nut-head's, written in big white letters at the top; Peter Shangry.

"That is a name I will put in my scrapbook from this convention" I thought, but I never did.
Yet, I have never forgotten that name, not since I heard it the first time today.

I started to make my way out from this booth, but then I realised something.

"What is its name?"

"The book?" nut-head replied.

"No, the dimension thingy. What's it called?"

"Oh... The Dream Contraption."
_

End of the official chapter one!
I will soon be out with another one aswell, but until then: Do tell me what you think so far!