The Rani.

The traveller from the future.

As Ursula walked home late at night, carrying her laptop in a satchel, dressed like a goth with her black leather jacket with rivets, leather pants, black boots, she put out an aura that told people to stay away. As she walked back to her apartment, a flash of light caught her attention, and she saw a man stagger in the street. The man, tall and thin, was shaking. Then he collapsed. Calmly, and without any conscience, Ursula checked him over. He was dead. Unmoved, she found his hands were clenched around a strange device. Curiosity overcame any decency, and she opened his hand, holding the object up to the light.

It was a strange pocket watch, only when Ursula flipped it open it had a digital screen with the words New york city, Manhattan. 21 October, 1994. Unmoved, Ursula bent down again, and found in the jacket of the man was a book. She flipped it open, and her eyes widened as she saw that the book was holographic, images popped out of the book, just like that!

Eagerly, she searched the man. Aside from the watch and the book, she removed a ring, what looked like a pocket organiser, a long thin tube, a strangely shaped gun, a weirdly shaped watch, and a tiny marble.

Ursula's apartment was a neat and ordered place. In the corner, next to the couch was a table with a computer and a printer. The TV and a shelf full of videos and a music collection dominated the middle. Closing the door, Ursula ignored her things, and walked straight into her laboratory and her workshop. Dumping her newly acquired things onto the worktable, she methodically dismantled the watch. When she was finished, she looked over the tiny components, her photographic memory recalling where each and every screw went.

Actually, there were very few screws. The watch seemed glued down into the watch, whatever it was. As she examined them, she realised she was convinced the technology was beyond modern technology. She examined all of them, and she couldn't work out what they were.

Next was the tube. It had what looked like coils connected to what looked like some kind of battery. When she put it back together again, she flicked a switch. It buzzed. Ursula jumped, stopping it. She experimented with the device, putting the tip very close to a screw on her bookshelf, pressing the switch again, and the screw turned around by itself. Calmly, Ursula worked out how the device was reversed, and the screw went back into its original position like it had never come out.

Ursula had heard of ultrasonic theories, but she'd never heard or seen anything quite like this. Turning her attention to the watch and the organiser, she found two different computer systems, and Ursula had almost jumped when an amberish coloured liquid seeped out of the watch before she hurriedly put it back into working order.

The watch and the organiser were computers, but they were able to get into her password and encrypted files without even bothering. It was like the protection on the computers, her computers didn't exist.

By far, the gun was one of the most interesting objects. Placing it into a vise, Ursula fired it at a bowling ball she owned. There was a high pitched buzz, and the ball was disintegrated!

Fascinating.

Scraping some of the metal off, Ursula ran a metalurgical test on it. When it had finished, she found herself looking at UNKNOWNS. The material didn't conform to any kind of metal or element on the periodic table!

Later that night, Ursula felt restless as she read through the book. She discovered the book was from the future, over a million years into the future. Ursula had read dozens of time travel novels and theories, and she was fascinated by them, but this book told her how it was all done. It went into dimensional physics, teleportation and so on.

Ursula found herself becoming more and more awed by the prospect. Something about time travel had always attracted her attention, and now she was becoming convinced it was something she could and would do.

She found that the book responded to her commands, like any normal computer, except the system was built into it. She discovered she could ask any question, and the book would merely answer it without curiosity.

" Can you transfer any data to more primitive computers?" She asked it in the morning.

Yes, it could. Transferring the files into her laptop, Ursula spent the rest of the day reading through the files, learning about genetics, teleportation, dimensional engineering and physics. She found that much about the nature and structure of the universe was now known, including the existence of the higher dimensions.

A plan was forming in her mind, and she read up on the schematics of the watch, the palm comp ( which was what it was called ) and the sonic screwdriver. The plan was becoming more and more formed in her mind.

It might take time, but she would get there eventually.