Ali Roberts

A young woman, barely out of high school a year, 19 year old Ali Roberts had no idea what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Rather than diving right into the college scene, she had instead chosen to take a year off from school and travel to New York and spend some time with her father's side of the family. When she returned, her family was all abuzz about some box that had been discovered. Little did she know, her future had just been chosen for her.
------
On the other side of the portal, Ali was dumped right in the middle of a firefight, bullets whizzing by her head as she tried to get her bearings. Keeping her head down, she looked around slowly. She was shaken not only from the action around her, of course, but the sheer lunacy of the whole event.

The buzz at her temple startled her, and she looked around for the cause. Slowly reaching up, she felt the implant now resting in her temple. She gave it a gentle tug, but no more when she realized the piece of metal and wires was firmly placed within her flesh. She must have bumped something while poking at the receiver, because suddenly a voice called out in her opposite ear.

"Roberts, you awake over there?" a rather annoyed sounding male voice asked.

Just great, she thought, how the hell do I answer? Hoping the thing was voice activated or something, she just spoke aloud. "Uhm, how could I sleep with all this noise?" The snicker on the other end let her know her comment was received loud and clear, and luckily by someone who appreciated her sense of humor. Now then, how to get out of this alley and find out just where she'd landed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once the bullets stopped flying, and the thunder of the shots stopped bouncing around her ear drums, Ali slowly stood beside the dumpster and peeked over. One man stood at the end of the alley, looking right at her as if he were waiting. What she wasn't sure of was whether he was the voice in her head, or someone else waiting for a moving target to shoot at again.

"Roberts, are you going to stare at me all night, or can we get a move on it?" that deep voice rumbled in her ear again. Well, that answered that question.

"Oh, sorry. Just making sure no one else was gonna shoot at me tonight," Ali shrugged and stepped around the trash can.

She crept slowly down the alley, constantly looking around. What with the whole situation with the box, seeing her own face staring back at her from a picture that was supposed to be thousands of years old, then ending up here being shot at, it was safe to say she was slightly frazzled.

When she reached the end of the alley, the man was staring down at her from about six feet of solid muscle. Tilting her head to the side, she looked all the way up and licked her lips. A sudden twitch in her right eye caused her to blink rapidly and look away. She reached up to rub her eye only to quickly drop her hand and blink some more.

"Ali, what the hell is wrong with you? You're acting pretty damn strange, even for you, girl." Tall, dark, and possibly handsome was staring at her as if she had grown horns. She casually reached up and smoothed her hair back, just to make sure of course.