It was midnight but Michael wasn’t feeling tired at all. He had just been through the most insane experience of his life and he had a girl from the future to thank for it. The adrenalin still coursed through him like a raging torrent, making him nervous and jittery as if he had consumed a dozen cups of coffee. Divona, in contrast, remained her calm collected self. They engaged in more casual conversation, and he even noticed she was beginning to ask him questions as much as he asked her. He felt less like a detective and more like there was a natural friendship brewing between them. 'Why do you live alone?' 'What is your occupation? ''Is electricity expensive?' She made him feel like they had become close, or at least she acted as such to peak his interest. Michael wasn't stupid but being generally an pessimist made him think twice about almost everything. He did not think Divona was bad, but he didn't necessarily she was good either, like most people she seemed to be in the healthy middle. There was this greyness about her that he could not quantify. She was alarmingly neutral in tone, even the way she would look at him with her frosty, artificial glare.

"Is there anyone from the future who may want to hurt you?" Michael said.

"I do not know. My memories are still fragmented, whether intentionally or not." Divona said.

"What if there are other drones? It could be dangerous to stay here. At least for a few days we should stay at a hotel, maybe take things easy... "

Divona tilted her head. "Unlikely. The probability of more than one drone travelling through the time portal and surviving is one in a billion. "

"Oh well in that case I guess I do feel a little better…"

"I would never put you in danger Michael. I am confident there are no more drones."

"What exactly are they? assassination machines from your time?"

"No, They are from the eight hundredth century. It is a very long story."

As they spoke Divona obsessively gazed at the power sockets of the house, like a cat staring fiercely at what it prized, only to look back at her human with that 'hurry up and serve me' face when boredom took route. He knew what she wanted.

"Aren't you worried you'll be electrocuted?" Michael said, looking over at her frankly.

She smiled as she always did.

"I will be fine."

There was something about those eyes. They were deep and mysterious like a galaxy, but shined in such a way as a lens of a camera. Her eyes were human but upon closer inspection one could tell there was something very different about her. Artificial.

"You can use the power but keep the draw at five thousand watts. Any more and I'm afraid you'll cut the power to the whole place. I had it upgraded last month." Michael said

Divona acknowledged what he said as if she already did the calculations in her mind. She walked over to the nearest power wall socket that was next to his LCD TV table. She knelt down near it, looking like a child who was getting a little too curious. Michael became nervous at the very sight. When he was young he was almost killed himself when he stuck pieces of metal inside the small holes in his former childhood home.

He watched Divona move her hand closer to the wall, wondering how exactly she planned to conduct electricity without using any tools. Then, as if out of a horror movie, her fingers started to elongate until they looked more like tentacles of an octopus, each one with an independent mind of its own, probing the surface of the wall and the power socket until two of them jammed inside the two holes at the top.

The vision creeped him out a little, and yet it was all terribly fascinating. He could tell the moment the current ran through her. There was a slight shiver that ran through her spine.

Divona sat comfortably against the wall, her legs pulled into her chest but not the whole way. She closed her eyes and appeared to be in a trance while she charged herself like she was an electrical appliance. She appeared to be calm and collected, patient like his phone as it waiting patiently for a good nights refil.

"Any good? Do you feel like you're recharging?" Michael said.

"Yes. It is good, thank you." Divona said.

"Will you be fully charged by tomorrow?"

Divona shook her head. "Currently I am at zero point zero zero zero zero zero..." She said, repeating the word zero so many times Michael's jaw almost touched the ground. He could not imagine just how depleted she actual was. He listened on;

"...Zero zero zero zero one percent of max capacity."

"Five thousand watts ain't gonna cut it huh?"

Divona shook her head. "No, although for now, this shall suffice."

"Electricity doesn't cost very much. Use as much as you need, maybe tomorrow we can figure out a way to charge you faster. Hey, by the way, how do you normally recharge? In the future I mean…i'm guessing its not with electricity. Probably antimatter or something like that right?"

"Antimatter is one form. Normally I convert mass into energy which I store within the singularity. There is no such thing as an energy shortage in my time. This is all new to me."

Michael collapsed further back on the couch, releasing a sigh of a type he wasn't even sure of. Confusion? Disappointment? Excitement? Who was this girl and what exactly was she? Alive or machine? Human or alien? The way she made herself comfortable by sitting next to wall while plugged in like a lamp blew his mind. He wasn't quite sure if he was crazy, high, or not exactly right in the head. Or still dreaming.

He closed his eyes and lay his head back.

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Michael opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the wall lazily. His neck drooped back far against the couch head, and he had a trail of saliva running down the side of his mouth. He wiped it off quickly and noticed Divona still resting as she was looking as still as a statue. The sun's rays creeped into the house through the partially closed window out by the front indicating he had slept for at least a couple hours. It was the early morning of the next day.

When he looked back at her she was staring at him with her neon eyes which he swore had changed into a lighter shade of blue than before.

"How long was I out?" Michael said.

"From the time you were unconscious, I measured it to be four hours, thirteen minutes fifty one seconds."

"Thanks, that's quite specific there…"

A curvy smile drew across her thin lips. "You will find I can be very specific, Michael."

"Oh, uh, really?"

"Yes," Divona said, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. "I know all your measurements..."

Michael wasn't sure what to think. Was Divona…flirting with him? He tried to decipher what this unexpected behaviour was, or if he simply misinterpreted what she was saying; The cheeky look on her face was unmistakable. He played along.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"That would mean you can see through my clothes. So I take it that you have x-ray vision or something similar?" Michael said.

"Yes, I can see the gamma and x ray spectrum." Divona said.

"Guess i'll have to get clothes made from lead to get some privacy." he said.

Divona tilted her head. "Do not worry. I would never break the trust between us. That is something very important to me, Michael. You and I are friends."

He wasn't sure if he believed her, especially because she seemed to contradict herself, whether intentionally or not. After all, there would be no way for him to know for sure if she was telling the truth, or if she even was a human from the distant future at all to begin with. He wondered for a second if she was actually an alien disguised itself in female form to trick him into serving it.

He doubted he would feel the same way if Divona was a completely different species from another planet. The alien Divona theory that brewed in his head was ripe at first but the more he spent time with her the sillier if felt. It was as if every cell in his body instinctually knew that on some basic level they had the same roots, and that he could trust her as though she were a neighbour.

The light that seeped through the window became stronger which it drew Divona's interest. She unplugged herself from the wall socket, got to her feet and walked over to the window to have a proper look outside at the rising sun that emerged up over the horizon.

"There is a primal beauty about stars," Divona said, "They are bastions of near limitless energy, truly the most elegant things left in entropy's wake."

“Uh yeah...I think so too...”

She then left the window and walked towards the front door, opened it, then left outside. Michael wasn't sure why she didn't seem to have the need to close the door behind her, whether out of habit or as an indication for him to follow her. Maybe in the future there were no such things as doors.

Michael decided to follow her outside, fascinated to discover what she was planning to do. He noticed her attention focused upon the roof of the building. She bent her knees, and like a spring, leapt into the air so high she landed upon the top like a ninja. Michael rushed to the ladder on the side of the house and the whole time while he was climbing it, he couldn't help feel like he was in an action movie with special effects and stunt cables, except it was all real.

Besides a giant water collection solo and a small satellite, there was nothing else up here besides the pretty view of the red land around them and the rising run in the horizon. Divona stood at the edge of the roof, watching the bright watercolours of red and orange as the star's light refracted across the atmosphere and its light creep upon them.

Michael approached Divona and stood next to her. Both of them enjoyed the breeze as they looked outwards at the sun. Divona raised her arms to the side, closed her eyes, and took a large breath of air which Michael wasn't sure she if she even needed but still felt the need.

"I can feel photons striking me in their billions. It is like I am enjoying their warmth upon my skin for the first time."

To Michael's surprise, Divona began to strip off her clothes one by one, pronging him to look away shyly.

"Oh, you're getting naked again…okay, i'll be down below if you need me. I'll uh, leave you to it then."

He walked back to the ladder, returning one last stare when she had her back to him. He could still see the side of her face and noticed the sereneness and calmness to it. The gentle wind brushed her silk like hair differently as it did his. Each strand clearly had slightly more weight to it than ordinary human hair. The way it flailed and reformed like some exotic substance made him believe he may in fact be dreaming.

Then he saw something that peeked his curiosity. He noticed thin transparent ribbons permeating out of her skin like eels slithering around each other. They were ghostly looking and appeared to be made of a substance that wasn't quite solid but not exactly fully liquid either. It resembled a fire except it was smooth and transparent like glass. Thousands of them expanded out of her skin until there was a whole swarm of them that surrounded her body, refracting and distorting the light within the shell where she was protected.

And then, suddenly, they all moved outwards in the same direction, weaving around each other like a kind of fabric, creating some type of Kite that hovered high above. It became gradually less transparent and took a distinct physical form as it became opaque. It expanded outward until it became so big it blocked out the sun not only for the entire building but a large portion of the entire land. Michael noticed the kite expand and detract as if it were breathing, as if it were oddly enough, organic in a sense. It was like a giant solar panel that seemed to absorb the light that struck it.

He climbed back down.

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That afternoon Michael did his best to get some work done. The best part about being employed by the government were all the grants, the worst part was living with those grants. In his case it was both metaphorical and literal. This observatory had been his home for the past two years, and the sheer amount of number crunching he had to do weekly driven him somewhat insane in the first year alone. Officially he was supposed to be searching for radio anomalies in space, but he began to wonder if it was completely redundant now that he had a certain someone standing upon his roof, using herself as a living solar panel.

He hoped he would one day discover a signal from an alien civilisation and have it named after him, but never did he imagine he was blessed with greater things.

Michael sat at his table all afternoon as the sun began to retreat back behind the horizon. He heard a thump outside which startled him, so he raced out the front and noticed it was only Divona who took the liberty of jumping down from the top.

"...I gotta ask...What was that giant kite thing?" Michael said.

"My Duality Matrix."

"Duality what now?"

"It is a Wave particle field that is in a constant state of flux. A field of polarised electromagnetic waves that can materialise and de-materialise matter at will."

Michael scratched his head.

"Its main function is to manipulate the physical world, as well as to act as a shield that can stop fast moving projectiles. In this case, I used it as a receiver to absorb as many photons as possible. I would have made it larger, but I predicted you would have disapproved. "

"Well, We don't want to attract any unnecessary attention... A girl like you ought to be quite popular, and not in the way you'd want, If you know what I mean. You're from the future, better keep your head down."

"Yes, you are right. That is what I thought too."

"You must of collected so much power. A solar panel that size must generate some serious juice."

She smiled. Her cheeks seemed to glow a little, like a plant after a long satisfied day of photosynthesis, and yet it was clear she still wasn't quite satisfied.

"Michael. Do you know where I can get more energy?" Divona said.

Michael laughed. He sort of expected her to say that, and was already way ahead of her.

"Before I help you, I want to know, what's your end game here?"

"End game? What is that?" Divona said.

"As in, do you hope to one day travel back to the future? Do you perhaps have a boyfriend to come home to? Is that still a thing in the future? are there even men? I read this paper once on that topic and it was so interesting…"

Divona tilted her head and smiled tenderly as he rambled on. He liked it when she did that. He could see it on her face that she understood what he meant and she reacted accordingly so.

"Men survive, but it is women who ultimately help make it so." She said, "You are the first man to ever grab my interest, Michael, and not only because you saved me."

Michael blushed. Somehow he felt like it should have been the other way around.

"Why then?"

"I think you are cute." Divona said.

"Cute? uh, I feel like this whole situation is reversed. I'm the one supposed to be calling you cute."

"Why?"

"Uh, I dunno. Convention?"

"Conventions change."

"Yeah. Well, you definitely grabbed my interest too, Divona, you're pretty Baddass. The way you kicked that drone's ass, and the way you can absorb sunlight... I think we're going to get along quite well if you'll have me."

She tilted her head. "'Bad ass'? Are you saying my bottom does not please you?"

He blushed again. "What? no!? where did you even get that from? That's not what I-"

She giggled and he instantly knew what was going on, knew that she was messing with him. They laughed together, and in that moment he could have been fooled she was normal like any other girl, but a normal girl she was not. He noticed she did not say whether she planned on going back to the future, but that was fine because deep down he already knew the answer, and she was likely too modest to tell him. She was too perfect. Truly a jewel that fell from the sky. And he was one lucky guy.