"It's finally done! I can't believe it."
"We've been at this for twenty years, of course it's done. Now, it's late. We've tested it once. I think we should go home now."

Three scientists stood in front of their latest invention. It was fashioned into a metal bracelet, with a peculiar green element in its center. "Good job you all, my research wouldn't have come to life without you all."
"Dr. August you're a genius. But we appreciate it. As head scientist, you'll be getting so many rewards! You've discovered dimensions! That's more than amazing!" The three scientists mingled as they threw their lab coats on hooks and walked out of the lab.

The new invention was set in a display case, and covered with a glass case. The only way to open it was by putting in the code that only the head scientist knew. The lab was locked down, and no one was inside. Guards were outside protecting the lab.

***

"Hi dear. Rue isn't back yet? I thought she was with her friends. I would've assumed she would be home by now."
"What? Rue told me she was going to the lab with you..?" Just as Dr. August planned to rest his mind and body, he was now jumping up in alarm. "Not again..."

~~~

Green eyes looked around under her. In the air vent laid the daughter of the famous scientist. Why was she sneaking into the lab? Well, her father refused to let her see his new research due to it being a big "secret". She had always admired her father's research, and was always invited to see it in the making. But this one was different. No matter how many times she asked, no matter how many times she went up to the lab, he would always deny her from the 'secret room'.

Rue's curiosity got the best of her and she ended up sneaking in. It wasn't that hard considering she knew the lab like the back of her hand. The girl jumped down silently, and she dusted off her dark colored capris. The lab was usually cool so she decided to put on a regular shirt instead of wearing a tank-top.

"This is the new invention?" Rue inquired as her head tilted at the bracelet in the glass case. She remembered one of the scientists saying something about discovering dimensions, but she wasn't sure what it meant. "Pssh, he uses the same code for everything." Rue smirked and put in her and her mother's birthday. The case began to lift while Rue peeked around to make sure no one was around.

"How does this...work?" The girl's thin black tail flicked back and forth, but she found none of the papers that explained it, so she slipped it on her wrist and tried the next best thing... Fiddling with it.

A sudden click sounded and Rue felt herself getting lighter as if gravity stopped. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" She tried to grab onto something, but everything was out if reach by now. And when she looked up, a light blue portal was over her. Before she could call for help, she was sucked inside.

--

Her father came in only twenty minutes later to see papers scattered, and the case opened. Security scattered inside, along with the two other doctors that helped him. "We have to find my daughter! Before anything happens to her!"

---

"Y-yeow!" Rue squeaked when she landed on her tail. "Where am I..?" Er eyes darted around the forest like area she was surrounded by. Rue stood and dusted her clothes off, and then pulled leaves out of her hair.

"Hello? Anyone out here?"

Even as Felix bent down to wrestle another fallen branch out of the leaves, he wondered how the hell he'd got himself volunteered for firewood duty.

"Bring a stack of little ones too for the oven!" an obnoxious feminine voice called after him from beyond the treeline. Felix gritted his teeth and pulled the branch free, adding it to the bushel on his back, and he imagined what it might be like to shut up Midge's big mouth just for a day. It was a sweet freedom he could only dream of.

Not so far behind him, the circus was gearing up for another slow night -- shouts called out across the clearing, posts were hammered into the ground, someone was sawing new boards for a sign that had broken the night before when a drunk kid had stumbled into it. The twins were practicing their duet in painful disharmony; the bearded lady was in an uproar catfight with the fortune teller again. Slams, bangs, whizzes and crashes echoed into the forest. Quiet was a luxury none of them had experienced in years. Felix grabbed a handful of sticks and flung them onto the pile.

A voice, coming from the opposite direction, caught his ear. He stopped, and he stood up slowly, and he listened until he heard it again. He shifted the wood on his back. "Hello?" He craned his neck and walked deeper into the woods, searching between the trees for the source of the voice, but all he could see was bark and weeds and rocks. The clanking and sawing and shouting faded behind him, and he jumped a little creek and clambered up a steep sandy incline, losing a few branches from his stack along the way.

By the time he reached the top, his shirt was spattered with mud and his boots and trousers had been soaked to the knee. He straightened his porkpie hat and glanced around him -- and he spotted a girl moving there between the trees.

"Oy!" he called, and he waved a hand over his head. He squinted in the sunlight and shaded his eyes with a hand -- was that a tail? He was sure of it, when she got closer. She was dressed like an acrobat, too, though he wasn't sure where she'd got that sort of material.

"Hey, you're one of the new sideshow girls, right?" He offered her a friendly smile, knowing the new ones were always skittish when they first arrived. "Simon brought you? Come on, you're a little turned around, the tents are back this way."

A voice called out making Rue's tail twitch. Someone was around? Maybe they could help her! She continued scavenging through the forest, only finding twigs and dirt. "Ugh, lost in the woods. Stuck in the middle of nowhere. And I don't know what this inventions does... Besides spit me into different dimensions!" Her irritation simmered, but she stayed hopeful because she wasn't alone. The next best thing she could've done was climb a tree and hope to see far enough.

She listened for the other voice, not quite understanding what they were saying. Maybe she had mud in her ears, or maybe she was too far away. But for some reason, she couldn't understand the person. Did that mean she was teleported where there was a different language.
Getting closer she recognized it as a male's voice. Was it one of the scientists? It couldn't have been. She was in the middle of the forest.

Suddenly, seeing the male in front if her, she hesitated. He didn't look very familiar...and for some reason he was missing his tail. Weird. He looked similar to herself, and yet he was completely different. Rue decided to go toward him anyway, she needed the help. "Hey, can you help me? I'm lost! Can you tell me where-" Her rambling was put to a halt. The male was talking too... But what in the world was he saying!? Her expression turned to a frown as she tried to understand, but it was no language she ever heard.

Well... The only thing she could do was...well, learn the language the best way she knew how. Rue stepped forward, pulled his collar down and kissed him. It was short lived, but it was still a kiss. "Sorry about that... I couldn't understand a word you were saying." The new language felt odd to her tongue, but she quickly adjusted so she could get her point across.

"Can you tell me where I am? I'm kind of lost... And what were you asking me before?" She continued on as if nothing just happened... Her tail flicked back and forth, as she waited for a response.

"Uh --" Felix stood very still, his shirt and his lips still a bit askew, with deer's eyes staring at her. She'd kissed him, and it hadn't been long enough for him to even kiss her back! A pretty girl (with a tail!) had been kissing him, and he hadn't even had the reflexes to kiss her back. Damned missed opportunity. Now what did she think of him?

He cleared his throat and adjusted his hat. "Yes. Well. Uh." What the hell had he been saying? Why was he out here in the forest? Damn she had nice -- he shook his head. "Right. I mean, what I was saying was. That." He paused with his hand in the air, and he finally pointed back the way he'd come. "The circus is back that way, and you shouldn't be out this far in the woods. Y'know. Wolves and all." He straightened his spine and cleared his throat again. Because people who were sure of themselves always cleared their throats.

"I'm Felix, by the way. The Amazing Felix, Master of Time. I'm sort of famous, I know." He waited, with a small grin, for her to show a glimmer of recognition. Surely, at least the new girls should have heard of him. He liked to think he had a fan club, though he had yet to meet any of its members. "I don't think we've met -- I was saying, you must be one of the new girls, because I haven't seen you before, and I know everyone. But!" He turned around and offered her his arm. "I'd be happy to escort you back."

He looked rather startled when she pulled away. Maybe he didn't know of her customs of learning a language. "Oh. Sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you. I was only-" Well, it was kind of too late now... That's when she remembered there was another way to learn the different languages, a more formal way, but again, kind of too late to explain. She couldn't stifle the soft giggle that escaped as he stuttered. It was somewhat adorable for some reason. But that wasn't important right now! She had to figure out how to get home, her dad would kill her if he found out... Rue looked down at the metal bracelet and then at the stranger she had kissed.

He managed to compose himself and begin speaking. "The...circus?" What did she need out of a circus? 'Wait, where there's a circus, there's people! I can ask for directions!' Rue grinned, completely ignoring the fact about wolves. She also ignored the fact that he was clearing his throat repeatedly...this alien race was a little weird- if they did that. "The Amazing Felix, Master of Time? That's an odd title. What's the title meant for? I'm Rue by the way, um, nice to meet you." Again, he was talking about some circus. Was it really that import- "Wait what? New girl? Oh no, no, no, I'm not- um, from here." Rue looked around the forest. "I'm...lost." She ran fingers through her hair. "Really lost actually."

---

"This is a disaster! How'd she get in?"

"Well it is Dr. August's daughter..."

The three scientists were scattering through papers, looking for something important. "Aha! Here it is!" Dr. August showed the key two the others and then nodded. "This second one had a few bugs, but I think it works now..."

"Wait! We can't go out there, we have to stay here!" One, Dr. Ferguson, interrupted as he put the watch on. "Why not! That's my daughter!" Ferguson explained himself. "If you, the creator, goes out there and something happens, we won't know how to fix it. You will though... We'll send our guards. They know who she is after all."

Felix had been leaning forward in dutiful attention to every word that she said -- but when she finished, he gently clapped his hands together to fill the silence; his face was lax and bewildered. "So ... you're not from ... here?" He pointed at the ground, his eyebrows raised. "You have a tail but you're not one of the new girls, is that what you're telling me?" He laughed quietly -- he could take a joke -- and he pointed behind her. "Is that a real tail, by the way? Of course you're at least trying out for the dance line, right?" He watched her patiently, and slowly shook his head; his eyes never left her. She was a peculiar one. "No, huh? Well!"

He straightened his spine, pulled his hat down suavely, and offered her his arm, as a true gentleman should. "You might as well come with me back to the circus anyway. There'll be someone there who knows how to get back to -- where is it you come from? And why are you out here alone in the woods? Girls don't usually wander this far out unless they're looking for something." He grinned and gave her a wink.

"No. Again. I'm not." Rue raised an eyebrow when he began to laugh. What was so funny? This was a serious matter, and he was suddenly being a bit rude. "No I'm not a new girl. And what is with you an my tail? Of course I have a tail! The real question is, why don't you have a tail? Do they get cut off or something? Were you born without one?" The next thing this Felix asked made her frown. "Of course it's a real tail!" She looked highly offended by the accusation. "And I just told you, I'm not joining anything. I just want to go home. I was in a laboratory only a couple minutes ago, and then the next thing I know, I was dumped in the woods. " She sighed and nodded.

"Alright. Lead the way. I have to figure out my way somehow..." She followed Felix towards the circus he spoke of. All the talk of her tail made her curl it around her waist, hiding it under her shirt. "I'm from Alabass. Well, that's where my dad's lab is." The girl proceeded to correct him. "I did not wander out here. I somehow-" Then, she realized how insane it would sound if she said she teleported there. Teleportation was still new technology, and not everyone knew about it yet. So there was a chance he wouldn't believe her. "How long will this walk take? And do you happen to have a phone? I'll be able to call my family and tell them I'm okay." She acknowledge his wink, but merely sighed. "Trouble. That's what I was looking for.." The comment was more to herself as the two headed off to the circus.

"A phone." Felix repeated the word with emphasis, to be sure he had heard her correctly. He laughed again, but he stifled himself and cleared his throat again, terribly passing off his amusement as a tickle in his throat. It took him an honest moment to realize she was actually serious. Still, he tried to suppress a grin while he responded. "We're a dozen miles out from Philadelphia. The nearest telephone might be at a post office a few hours' walk down the south road, but I wouldn't count on it." Only very rich people and some city government buildings had telephones -- and even then, they were basically useless unless you wanted to talk to a rich person or a senator. Felix could only conclude that this laboratory she had evidently just escaped from was extremely important and extremely well-equipped, to have a telephone installed. He was starting to get nervous, that maybe someone was looking for her, to bring her back.

He stepped over a stream and reached out to help her across. "So, does everyone in your family have a tail?" He'd noticed her confusion about his tail-less state, and he thought maybe she had been sheltered in that evil laboratory in the woods, like Doctor Frankenstein's secret rooms, where everyone had strange appendages and never saw the outside world. Maybe she'd just escaped from being subjected to government experiments! Maybe he'd stumbled upon something amazing and historic, and he'd go down in history as having rescued the first human-cat hybrid! "I mean, everyone in ... what was it, Alabass? They all have tails? Do they all look like you?" Alabass must be the code name for the laboratory's secret location.

Felix took her hand with a smile and led her between the trees. The sounds of banging and shouting and accordion music drifted through the forest toward them, and he hiked straight for it. A flash of bright color from the tent-tops flashed among the branches. "We'll keep you safe, don't you worry." But he couldn't help but ask the question that was burning in his mind. "So what kind of experiments go on in this laboratory in Alabass?"

"Where the heck is Phile-del-phia?" In all of her nineteen years of age, and all the education she was given, Rue was ninety-eight percent sure there was no such place as Phil- Phily- whatever he said. Where in the world was she?! This was bad... This was really bad. Maybe it was some small country she never heard of. Maybe it was just overlooked... And how come only rich people had phones? "That's weird...everyone has phones where I'm from. Except, they aren't in post offices. You take them with you normally." Hers just so happened to not be on her at the time. She had left it just in case someone blew her cover by calling her. Did Felix live under a rock or something? He made it seem as though no one knew what technology was.

She hopped over the stream with his help, and then glanced up at him. Why was he so interested in her tail? It was probably because they took his before he was able to get one. It was a shame they did that to some babies. Her tail was now under her shirt, curled around her waist and hidden from his view. "Uh yeah. We were born with them. Just like we were born with fingers, toes, ears, eyes, etc...duh." If Felix looked closer, he'd notice that Rue's ears were pointy at the tips, and her teeth were abnormally sharp. "I think the real question is, why are you so curious? You spoke of girls with tails before. I would assume you've seen it before. And mostly everyone in Alabass has a tail, unless it's clipped when they're babies. And...yeah I guess. I mean depends on what you mean by "do they look like me." I think you're the one who looks pretty different."

Rue looked a little weary of the sounds they were approaching. None of it sounded familiar, and some sounded a bit dangerous. So, she moved a little closer to Felix. "Thank you." It was nice to know that in such unfamiliar territory, someone would be helpful. Her thoughts rolled over to her dad's laboratory and she shrugged. "My dad and his colleagues do typical things like invent new technology. But he also does things like finding new chemicals or elements. His work is really cool." She said in awe. "One day, he said he'll let me work with him. It'll be so much fun." She bounced a little as she followed, and sighed. "Of course, I can't do that if I can't get back home."

Felix blinked slowly at her. He stared at her with a squinched, incredulous look. "Are you sure you're not an alien?" he said, finally, after a long pause. "Because you look like somethin' out of a penny-novel and you're talkin' outright gibberish. You kissed me and then you could talk." He pointed to his mouth, which was still sort of tingling from the experience, and he wondered if he was going to die now of some alien disease. "Yeah," he said slowly, straightening his spine, "you've got to be an alien. If you've never heard of Philadelphia, then I s'pose you've never heard of Pennsylvania, or New York, or the United States of America. You're not even from Earth, are you?"

He was taking it rather well, he thought. Before, he'd assumed that if he'd ever come face to face with an alien he'd drop dead from fright on the spot. But then, Rue wasn't a little green man with a spaceship: she was a cute girl with a tail. Big difference.

The trees parted ahead of them, and the tents came into view. Workers were hauling wood and posts and signs back and forth, a group of acrobats practiced catching one another, a pair of conjoined twins were singing a duet with music held out before them.

"As long as you're stuck here without your spaceship," Felix continued conversationally, "you might as well come along with the circus. Tonight's our last show, then we're packing up, off to Virginia. On the way you can look for this laboratory of yours -- or your spaceship. How'd you get in the woods? Can't you just go home the way you came?"

"Alien? I'm not an alien... You know, you're kind of rude." She crossed her arms and then shook her head. "Aliens have never been discovered... You're being childish." She then rolled her eyes. "Maybe you are an alien... I kissed you to learn whatever language you were speaking.. It's kind of how it works where I live. Don't flatter yourself." Rue then gave a confused look. Philadelphia? Pennsylvania? United States? Earth? She was definitely not in Alabass... In fact, she wasn't even in Cevolani... Wait a minute, if she wasn't home and this guy was talking about an entirely different world- "Oh crap my dad is going to kill me... Grant it, his invention works- if that's what this thing does... But still, he's going to kill me." She mumbled and looked at the bracelet on her wrist.

"I don't have a spaceship..." Rue said with a slight annoyance. Her attention turned to the circus and she looked around curiously. "I can't believe it... I'm on a totally different planet... This is insane. You people could be insane... No wonder you don't have tails." She started to ramble, but then looked to see that her tail was still hidden under her shirt. Minus her ears and teeth, she could pass off as someone that lived there. Rue didn't know how their government- or civilians operated. They could try and kill her if they wanted to. The small panic died down when Felix spoke calmly.

"I guess I might as well. Besides, I don't need to accidentally spread that I'm some different species around this... Place." She looked around, sticking near Felix as others came into view. Everything seemed so different from where she lived. Circuses had been so outdated and everything was based off of science and discovery. Technology was the thing of the century. Here, not so much. "I'm pretty sure won't find my dad's lab here. And if I could, don't you think I would have left by now? I don't know how to work this contraption." Instead of telling him how she ended up there, she decided to tell a little white lie to save the embarrassment.

"I was testing an experiment with my dad and this bracelet....fused with something else and...well I ended up here after trying to take the bracelet off." No need to admit that she had taken an unknown experiment just to play with it.

"Weird. So it's like a teleporter bracelet?" They were walking into the clearing now, and he led her past a blue-striped tent and a man in white makeup shining a clown shoe. Felix reached out and grabbed Rue's wrist so he could get a better look at this 'teleporter' bracelet. He didn't believe for a moment that anything like that could possibly exist, let alone that it was right in front of him, tail or no tail. He fancied that she was an alien and her stories were true, that there was a planet deep in space where everyone had a tail and they invented personal teleporters, but deep down he knew she was just another slightly-insane sideshow girl, sold to the circus so her family could afford bread. He turned her wrist in his hand. "Looks kinda high-techy."

A burst of fire startled him and he bumped into Rue; half his stack of sticks and branches clattered and rolled on the ground, and he spun around, wide-eyed, his arm extended to protect her.

The fire-breather was shirtless and sadistically grinning. An angular symbol was tattooed over his heart, he wore a fang on a strap around his neck, and he was watching Rue with peculiar interest. "Sorry, 'Lix." He wasn't actually sorry. He was staring at the device on her wrist.

Felix huffed and, ignoring the fallen sticks, urged Rue to keep walking. "Try keeping your hot air to yourself, Cole," he snapped. "C'mon, Rue, I'm sorry, most everyone around here isn't so bad."

Cole straightened his spine, tipped back a canteen and took a mouthful of lighter fluid, without letting his eyes leave Rue. He knew her -- at least, he knew what she was. More importantly, he knew what she had.

He grinned, and he flared his torch into a billowing inferno. Tonight would be his last act.

Rue was still examining the bracelet as he spoke. "I guess you could call it that." This would be a long wait if these creatures didn't have much technology. And she was sensing that too. When her wrist was turned, she pulled it away. "It is 'high techy'. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't touch it."

Randomly, she was bumped into and Rue stumbled backwards. Luckily, she caught herself before she fell over and embarrassed herself. "Watch it-" She was interrupted by the sight of someone...breathing? Eating? Whatever he was doing, he was doing it with fire. "Whoa..."

Even as she was urged forward, Rue continued looking back at the fire eater. "Can all of you guys do that? That's really cool." She looked from Cole to Felix. "Who was he? He called you 'Lix'... Is he a friend?" The guy didn't seem so bad. There was a mystery to his eyes, but other than that it wasn't like he came off as rude. Maybe it really was an accident when Cole bumped into him.

"He's an asshole," Felix answered readily, even as he sped Rue off toward the big top. Damn that Cole! He was always showing off his abs and his bad attitude and catching the girls' attention -- Cole thought he was better than everyone else and he made sure no one was confused about his superiority. Felix often hoped that Cole would set himself on fire one day, just to prove the fire-breather could make mistakes just like everyone else. One thing that Felix had right now that Cole didn't have was Rue -- and Felix would make damned sure Cole would never have her.

"Anyone can do that fire-breathing thing," he answered her question irritably, "but it takes a lot of practice, a lot of stupidity and a lot of getting burned. It's what desperate people do when they have no other skills."

He saw the manager walking by, and Felix flagged her down. Isabel was a proper lady in a simple dress, bright hair pinned back and a no-nonsense determination in her face. She noticed Felix and stepped toward them, and her eyebrows immediately raised at the sight of Rue's teeth and ears.

Felix took off his hat out of respect. "Miss Isabel, this is Rue. Rue, Miss Isabel is the manager here. Ma'am, Rue here would like to stay on with us for awhile -- right?" He looked hopefully at Rue; the alien girl hadn't exactly been excited about joining the circus, and Felix only hoped she would say yes.

Isabel folded her arms, and she regarded Rue carefully, though not unkindly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Rue -- but why do you want to join the circus, and what are your skills? I don't have money or food or shelter to give anyone who can't pull her weight. Tell me what you can do."

Cole had followed them, and he sat nearby whittling at torches to use in his act, obviously listening to every word.