It was a sunny day in Paris. Rhyme thought of just moving around the town and stop all this nonsense, but it was too late.
The two guys whom she knocked unconscious just a few moments ago, weren't alone. There were other people in the black car who ran away after seeing their colleagues lying on the ground.
As Rhyme managed to put on the invisibility cloak just in time, they kept searching for the girl who did this, but weren't able to find her, eventually leading them to carry the two limp bodies, shove them into the backseat and run back in full speed.
The car on top of which Rhyme sat, a gorgeous violet Mercedes Benz, which glided like water on the roads of Paris, was quick enough to catch up with the black car of those mafia guys.
The black car suddenly came to a halt. Rhyme caught the sight of it, and was quick to make an action, but while she took off from the roof of the Mercedes which she was riding;
"Oh crap-", she lost her balance and her body started moving in the most random directions.
"Arrrrgggghhhhh", it was only after a while that Rhyme stopped oscillating in air and landed with her face almost smashing into the concrete road.
"This was bad", she thought, as she tried to lift her face up, but the attempt was in vain, her eyelids slowly drooping, and her eyes closing, and the last thing she saw was a bright flash of brilliant amber light.
On regaining her consciousness, Rhyme lifted up her eyeball to see something which was completely different from a sunny day in Paris.
There were tall buildings, for which sky was the limit; weird shaped houses and shops, around which weirdly dressed people were flying, yup read it right PEOPLE WERE FLYING in the air completely on their own, without any support like wings or anything; air vehicles instead of the traditional road vehicles; and many more things which were beyond the scope of Rhyme's understanding.
Is this a dream? Rhyme thought, before realising that it wasn't, as a boy on an air-skateboard kinda vehicle flew past her, making her bird's nest hair even more messed up.
"What the hell is going on in my life??
First the failed time travel mission, then this ridiculous dream-like world!! Will I ever be able to live normally???!!", she thought, while recalling the events that took place in her life since the last 48 or more hours.
"No dear, this is just the start" a cold, familiar low pitched voice spoke to her as if directly whispering in her ear.
Rhyme was startled at hearing this. Her eyes widened, and her body became stiff, not able to move. She managed to tilt her head a little bit, just to figure out whose voice it was, but was surprised, to find no one.
What is it, who can see her even when she had her invisibility cloak on?
She also tried to steal a glance over her in the sky, but found no one facing towards her direction.
"Are you trying to find me? Did you succeed? Hahaha, poor girl, she doesn't know how things work in new times.."
Wtf? What does this guy mean by new times? Rhyme quickly fidgeted to reach out for her time locket, and on holding it firmly in both hands, she checked the current place and time of her whereabouts, and was thrilled to see this on the dial of date and time;
20:10:56
2nd February, 2222
And the coordinates of the latitude and longitude on the locket matched to that of Manhattan, New York.
The New York breeze still felt somehow soothing to Rhyme, as it was the only thing she can connect to. She didn't understand what happened with her and what were the weird people and buildings around her.
Though the new world around her looked very warm, colourful and welcoming, she didn't want it. She wanted to return back home.
The streetlights weren't really on the streets; they were set up in the sky, which from the ground, looked like little fireflies or bioluminescent creatures trailing behind the air traffic.
Rhyme even noticed some people getting dizzy over some tablets and falling on the street after losing control. This sight of future was something she most feared of - as she assumed that narcotics and hallucinogens, which are illegal in her time realm, would become something like an everyday snack for the people of future.
Rhyme never imagined that she would end up in such an unending time adventure. If she wouldn't have received that on phone call on the day of her arrival in New York City, she would have been living a normal life of a PhD student at this moment.
Rhyme quickly started to try and figure out what was going on, who was it that could speak to her mind, without a mortal body of his/her own, and how did she woke up to find herself in the year 2222.
When Rhyme thought with a calm mind, things slowly started to make sense.....
The dial she played with while trying to get back to 2019 from her high school days, had the coordinates of New York City set by her, but the time and date dial seemed to mess up when she was rolling and hovering in the air after jumping off of the black car.
The time locket somehow opened up a chorisis by itself and she fell through it to land here in this new time realm.
"So you figured it out huh? You might also think that you're super smart don't you?"
So this mystery guy can read her mind and thoughts as well??! "Whaaat! How the hell do you read my mind?? "
She didn't hear any voice in her head, and assumed that the guy left, and continued with her thinking and figuring out stuff.
The only thing she didn't understand was, how can someone else read her mind and communicate with her through her head?
After thinking hard about it, she remembered something.
"Quantum Entanglement! This is it! I found it!", she screamed with excitement, only to get disappointed again;
"So you do have some intellect after all. I didn't expect a rookie like you to connect my powers with a phenomenon like quantum entanglement."
When will I get rid of this demon! - Rhyme thought, but since she wasn't still comfortable with the fact that someone else could read her thoughts, she heard the voice again;
" You better watch what you think! The consequences of something like this happening again won't be very pleasant for you."
She was sick of this voice already. Now she wasn't even allowed to have the most basic fundamental right of a human, the freedom of thought.
"Okay" she thought in her head as a reply to the demon guy, as arguing with someone who is capable of knowing each and every single detail of your life didn't seem a wise decision to Rhyme.
Great. Now all the means by which she could even think to make a plan were crushed. Her plan to escape was dumped in a garbage can even before it started.
There was this mysterious man who could read her thoughts on one hand, and there was Jay, who might probably be dead if Rhyme doesn't return back to the time realm she belongs to.
***
Quantum entanglement
A theoretical phenomenon in quantum physics, according to which, a particle, like an electron, exists as not one, but two (like mirror images of each other), which share exactly same information, and can communicate with each other (god knows how) even if they are several light years apart.
It basically means that the information regarding one of the two parts of the electron, is known to the other, as if entangled with each other in some way.
Rhyme concluded here that the mysterious demon guy somehow used the phenomenon of quantum entanglement to get the particles that make up her brain or mind, to get entangled to his, such that he can have access to all her thoughts and memories.
If you want a more detailed and scientific explanation of the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, I would highly recommend you to look it up on Google or Wikipedia, as it would be more precise and accurate (I tried to write it in a simplified manner, and also might have modified it a little bit to fit to the circumstances).