C5: Can Trucks Outrun Mad Scientists?

So, there we were, a standoff for the ages. 

On the edge of the roof was me, adorable, and still young, genius elf and Rainbow Class magician, Ceatha.

And in the middle of the roof, sitting with a book in her hands, was a human woman wearing a long white coat. 

Was she a woman? Or a girl? Age is hard to tell with humans...

Regardless, there we were, staring each other down on the roof of the library. I had just returned from my pizza and shopping trip, and had planned on going down into the library itself to hopefully find a manual on how to properly control the truck. But now, now I had to deal with this human. Why was she here? How had she found this place?

"Um..." She was the one to break the awkward silence. "You're Ceatha, right?"

I gulped "How did you find out my name? Are you a demon or something?"

"D-Demon?" She shook her head. "N-no, demons aren’t real, silly. You just monologue to yourself in the library sometimes. It's like you're trying to explain things to an audience or something."

C-crap had I been talking out loud some of those times?

"W-what did you hear?"

"Ramblings about other worlds and scientific principles mostly. Y-you sounded really cool and I was hoping we could be friends. I really wanted to talk with you."

"Then why didn't you?"

"W-well, I tried. I had been watching you since you had checked out the physics section in the library. Your cosplay was so interesting. N-not that your outfit now isn't bad." I forgot that I had changed into my trucker outfit after I bought it, wait what was a cosplay?

"That was the first day I came to this city... you've been watching me and my research this whole time?"

"N-not maliciously, I assure you. It's just... you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, when a beautiful girl in cosplay comes in to a library, you take notice of her, you know?"

"B-beautiful?" Was I attractive to human women? Wait, was that why the humans were staring at me? 

"W-well, I... come here between classes to study. I'm a Physics major, but I have to study a lot... anyways, I would usually wait outside the library once it was closing, I was hoping to run into you and feign coincidence, but I would never see you leave the library. I got curious and started poking around when I tripped over your invisible lean-to. I thought, maybe you were an alien of some sort, so I started hiding up here on the roof, and I saw you turn yourself invisible! I could hardly believe my eyes!"

This woman... she was staring at my with sparkling eyes, her curly brown hair bouncing as she talked. She reminded me of someone, but I couldn't think of who...

"So, you think I'm an alien? Like from space?"

"Y-yes, that's right. Where's your mother ship? Are you alone? Did you read the Golden Record? Can you breath in space!?"

"Woah, woah, slow down. Uh, I guess I'm an alien? But, I don't have one, probably, no, and technically no."

"What do you mean, guess? Did you lose your memory? Were you sent here as an infant to take over our planet for galactic land sharks? Are you actually a sentient rock and your form is a projection of your inner stability?"

"Where are these ideas coming from? I just got sucked into a Black Hole, and then I woke up in a park downtown. I'm trying to find a way back home, so I would appreciate it if you didn't see me as a threat."

"A b-black hole? You underwent spaghettification? Oh! Is it like E.T.? Do you need to phone home to your family so that they can track your signal?"

"You know... I'm not sure about spaghetti or whatever, but a signal probably isn't a bad idea. I'm surprised I never thought of it myself."

"Oh! I can help with that! Do you know where you arrived, I can try to look for instabilities, something like a scar or something that can feed back to your world."

"That sounds awfully convenient for something like that to exist."

"I... I brought it up as a thesis but my professor said it was too science fiction without evidence to back my theory up."

I supposed that made sense. "Alright, I'll let you help me out on this one, but that doesn't mean you're off the hook for stalking me. I've had enough girls with curly hair sneaking around me..." Wait... did was there someone like that? It felt like I was forgetting something... someone...

"Oh, um, I wasn't... never mind..." she slumped her shoulders. "Well, can you at least tell me what device you used to become invisible?" 

I explained to her the basics of photomancy, briefly, of course. Her eyes went wide at my descriptions of the magic.

"S-so, it's a magic that anyone can use so long as there is light..." She closed her eyes and crossed her arms in thought. "Magic isn't real though. It must be a genetic eccentricity of your alien race. You mentioned something about people needing to eat fruit or talk to tiny creatures to use magic? Those don't really make sense either. Are those native species to your planet?"

"I don't know, that's just the way it is. Besides, the trees are extinct, the demon king killed them all."

"He killed an entire species? He truly is a demon!" The woman growled angrily.

"It'll be easier to just show you, won't it? Invis!" I cast the invisibility spell on myself, startling the woman. 

"Y-you're sure you don't have a cloaking device of some sort?" She looked around for where I had disappeared to.

"I can cast it on you as well, here." I grabbed onto her shoulder and cast the spell on her as well. Her eyes went wide as she looked down and saw that her body was no longer there. Well, I assume they did, her eyes were invisible too. 

"W-what? B-but." 

"Grab onto my hand, I'll fly us down to the park. Don't let go, or you'll fall." She squeezed my hand tightly and I wrapped my other arm around her waist. Her body was surprisingly light for a human. Was she eating enough? Anyway, “Photogenesis!” I merge both of our bodies into light and within a second we are down to the park.

“W-what was that?”

“Photomancy. I said that already.

“I think I need to sit down for a minute...” 

I dispelled the invisibility and let her step away from me. She took a few steps and sat down, pulling out a strange whistle of some sort, except she breathed it in instead of blowing into it. A few minutes passed and she stood up and calmly walked over to me. 

“Right. Where was it that you woke up?” 

“Ah, over here.” I lead her over to the patch of grass I had woken up on. She pulled a strange device out of her pocket and began waving it around the area. Seeing someone fiddle with devices like this really made me think of my little sister... I remember how  her eyes lit up when she discovered the old golem inside the castle treasury and managed to get it moving again by the end of the day. Mother was so proud of her...

“Found it!” She cried out after a moment, before pointing her finger triumphantly towards the sky, but I saw nothing when looking up. “There is a slight disturbance here that is vibrating at a different frequency to the molecules around it. It couldn’t be more than a dozen picometers in length...it’s hard to get an exact size without more testing, but it’s there.”

“Great. What does that mean?”

“Well, at the very least, it means that your story is true. But it also means that this tear could be your ticket to returning home.” 

“Home... hey, do you think I could get a message through there?”

“I doubt you could get anything sufficient through that small of a space. But you might be able to create a beacon of some sort.” 

“Alright. I’ll try it.” I raised my index finger up to the sky, pointing to the same spot she had been. I channel the smallest amount of light possible and fire it towards the spot. Normal, it would have gone on forever, but it seemed to have hit something and disappeared.

“And now we wait. I’ll go analyze this data back at the school lab. I’ll let you know the results... do you have a cell phone I can call?”

“A what?”

“I’ll get you one.” She started humming as she walked off.  “Nobel prize, here I come!” 

Alima... I hope you see my beacon. I hope you’re still doing okay...