Act 1: In The Beginning...

Chapter 1: Accidents Never Happen in a Perfect World.

My story, our story has a very strange beginning. For some reason, which will be explained later, starts in the future, wraps itself some thirty five years into the past and shortly after, I was born. When my mother tells me the story of what, I get headaches, even though I tried to sit there and listen like the loving daughter that I am. For some reason, my father knows little or nothing of this, although mom tells me that it was he who was the one that saved her.

As the story goes, and the evidence she kept shows, in the year of 2012, on the date 12/20, my father traveled 29 years into the past and rescued my mother from being killed in a crime of passion and pain. In doing so, he dies in the process of saving her, but not before he gives her an envelope explaining everything, both on paper, Optical ROM Disc, several floppy discs of sizes and format, and on a PDA-Sim Card; with 2 PDAs Included. Also included was a small box resembling a walkman with a pair of ear-bud head phones, but it was heavier, sealed and did not have a space to insert a cassette. It was just a box, with a digital display and several buttons underneath the display. "Arch-Pod / mp6 Player / Data Storage" was etched into the bottom of the casing, along with each button's functions by the buttons. At the very bottom, was a set of three rings: her wedding and engagement rings and his wedding ring. They were a perfect match to the set they wear, including the engravings there inside the wedding rings, "F G and C T, August 15th, 1983 U D D U A", followed by 3 dots.

The date 12/20/2012, according to lore and legend, this is a date when man learns everything that is needed to be learned and for good or bad- becomes one with the gods or superior beings. Everything that was theory becomes proven or disproven and technology will no longer have any limit as to what it can do. Thus, according to conjecture, on this date, man will be able to do anything he wants to do, and one particular man decided that it would be possible to undo the wrongs of the past, and makes a mad attempt to make it right.

According to my mother, on a date with her ex-husband, and my half-brother's father, she went with him to a park near the river that over looks Lower Manhattan from Brooklyn after having a dinner date with him. "The Promenade" it was called. After a long talk with him, that she did not wanted to be with him any longer, despite his pleas for remarriage and a second chance, she tells him that she was already married to my father and four months pregnant with his child.

At first he did not say anything, did not do anything, just stood there quietly- over looking the river's darkness, where she once stood and walked away. But when she called to him to return to her parents home to pick up their son, he pounced on her, striking her several times at first, knocking her down and started to strangle her. She fought back as hard as she could, but he was too powerful and was overwhelming her.

While she was beginning to pass out, she saids that she saw a bright light near them, and an older gentleman stood next to them, where no one was standing there before. It was this gentle man who reached over with some device and placed it to the back of the attacker's neck. "It must have been some sort of energy weapon, because of lightning bolts and other special effects could be seen engulfing the attacker. But it did not kill him, only stun him long enough to stop him from attacking me.", my mom used to say.

After he passes out, the gentleman get the attacker's stunned body off my mother and helps her up. He helps her to start walking away from the area, looking for an exit that was near by but missed, continuing up the path by the river, as it starts to snow. Almost half a mile away, under the Brooklyn Bridge, they talked for a while, explaining to her who he was and why he did what he had to do. During the exchange, he gives my mother a millennia envelope containing certain artifacts. He starts to explain to her what they were and to give certain ones to my father, the rest were for her. He then gives her the stun weapon, which was in the form of a cane, but heavier, and shows her how to use it.

During the explanation, the attacker returns from being unconscious and find them by the bridge. He quietly stalks them from the dark shadows until he was close enough to attack swiftly from behind, putting a knife into the back of the gentleman. He tries to remain standing up right, but not for too long, just enough to tell my mother, 'Cathy... Run...'

She does as she's told as the gentleman falls to the ground. The attacker steps over the lifeless body of the gentleman, and runs after mom. She tires out after running a few block and stands by the fence that over looks the river. He catches up to her and stops running several feet away. She turns to face him as he approaches her. He takes a few steps towards her, with the bloody knife in his hand. She raises the stun weapon to his chest and presses it against him. He grabs it with his empty hand, and she presses the button, releasing a surge of energy into his heart. He falls onto his knees, letting go of the knife, she still holds on to the stun weapon on his chest as it empties its energy reserves into him. Eventually, it runs out of power and he falls down to the floor dead.

She stands there looking at him, as seconds become minutes. She pulls away the stun weapon cane from his limp body and starts walking to where the gentleman laid on the floor. Her steps unsteady and slow, it takes her several minutes to get there when before it took her under a minute to cover the distance. But once she reaches to him, she kneels down in front of him and turns his dead body around, dragging it to her lap. She gets his blood on her black dress, but does not care, she holds him dearly- hoping for a miracle to happen and for him to wake up. For several minutes no miracle happens, and she cries.

How long she stays there is unclear. But nobody comes to aid her. Eventually she stops crying, and kisses the gentleman on his cold lips. "Thank you for giving me a second chance, again, for I will never do anything wrong by you ever.", she tells him before she gently puts him back on the ground. She slowly gets up onto to her feet and wipes a tear from her eye before she takes the first steps for home.

The bodies are found early in the morning by a couple of brave joggers, despite the amount of snow that fell during the night before. She remains home in their little apartment, forgetting to have picked up her son from her parents place, and sits on one the dining room chair in front of the dining table, with the millennia envelope opened and its contents spilled about the table:

2 Mini Optical ROM Discs, about 3 1/2 inches in diameter, with the letters DVD-R+ written on them

a PDA-Sim Card; taped onto the back of a PDA and labeled where to insert it

another PDA with a Sim Card already inserted, with a note taped to it, saying, "For Me.", meaning that it was for Fernando's younger self.

Several envelopes stuffed with papers, some filled with newspaper clippings of "Unidentified Young Woman Found Dead by Highway", it was dated 20 days into the future as per her point of view, but the paper was old and brittle, like old news papers look like. Another envelope contained a missing person's report, with her name as the missing person. A final envelope contained a morgue and police report for a "Jane Doe, identified", also containing her name on it, again dated some 20 days into the future as her point of view was concerned. There were other sealed envelopes, waiting to be opened, one of which was a sheet of paper listing lottery numbers by state and dates of their release.

The floppy disks were scattered about the table, each one stating for what system it went to, most of which were not invented yet.

She has the Arch-Pod in her hands with the ear pods firmly in place, listening to it. The text on the screen scrolls by, saying, "Introduction and Instructions Speech file 01." It continues on for several minutes before changing to, "Paul McCartney : Baby I'm Amazed." There are at least 4 more hours of music and instruction files for her to listen too.

But what gets her attention the most was the last sentences of the "Introduction" file, in her husband's voice, saying, "I have given up my life out of love for you so that you would live when you should have died. Though the person died was me, I am still alive and deeply in love with you in present form as the younger me. This was a second chance for us to be together again, for living without you was a living hell. It was a sacrifice I had to take, and would take, for the 1 girl that I ever loved- you, Cathy. Not God or Satan will stop me from undoing a wrong so evil that it destroyed the lives of many, of which yours was the first. If you are listening to this, then no matter what happens to me, I have succeeded... I Love You, Catherine."

Her best friend Jaunita would drop by to check on her, since she did not pick up her son from her parent's home, followed by Fernando later towards the late afternoon. Night falls early during the winter time, and the blizzard of '83 would lock everyone in their homes for another week, including the 3 of them in that tiny apartment. At least the son was in safe hands, even though it was not with his mother.

Five months later, I was born. I retain my mother's sex and most of her good looks, I end up with my father's problems:

A silver laced nervous system, capable of accelerating neural signals at close to light speed, and the issues they involve. Telepathy for one. Lightning fast reflexes for two. But at what levels remains to be seen; for the concentration within me are much lower than those in my father. At least, its gives me an edge above the others in the gymnastics and fencing teams. A strange after-effect is Silver in the back of my retinas, making a smooth translucent mirror back there. This gives me two abilities that some would be very scared of: 1) eyes that glow in the dark and 2) As tested with my father's old pair of Quartz Ruby Lenses, able to produce an intense beam of laser-like light from my eyes when enough energies is stored and the lenses removed. It takes longer for me to do it than dad, but is that because I have a lower concentration of Silver in me.

Silver matrix enfused into my bones, making them harder than normal, in my father's case- unbreakable.

Silver in the hemoglobin in my blood, as known in my father's case, capable of carrying 3 times the oxygen than in regular Iron based hemoglobin. Besides it being an odd colour of purple in a vacuum, the only known abilities he's has was increased athletic abilities and longer underwater duration during his life guard years.

In fact, the silver is in every major organ in my body, like in his, augmenting them either a little or a lot, depending on the organ's function. But there is one draw back to which he has suffered through his life- rapid aging and fast early development.

I also have what he calls "The Family Stripe," a strip of grey hairs between the nose and left eye, about 2 inches thick and goes back about 1/2 way across my scalp. The pointy ears are covered by my long red hair, which mom and dad have argued on many occasions as to what should be done with them; she wants them cut, he does not- having undergone the process himself at an early age. Later on when I got my teeth, it was discovered that I had fangs, and like with the pointy ears- the source of arguments between mom and dad. The only thing that I do not seem to have that dad is happy about, is the 6-finger gene trait that he carries. In a worse case, I would have been born with six fingers. In the very least, my children might be born with six-fingers. But at least, in this respect, I'm normal and we're all happy about it.

It is now May 15th, 2000, my 16th birthday. I am Francesca Samantha Rachel Michelle Gutierrez- better known as Kitty G, and this is my story. Call me Fran, and I'll kill you.