A Time Matrix is a device designed to influence a human's perception of time. Per the user's wish, ten minutes can seem like ten hours, ten hours like ten minutes, or any other combination the user can conceive. Such fantastic devices can naturally become very addictive. Consequently, the World Government of the era decided to regulate people's use and perception of time. People rebelled, and now, the combination of this repression and the misuse of Time Matrices has caused human civilization to degenerate and in some places, collapse.

Tyler and Rosalie are two people who live in the resulting futuristic anarchy. They know only of the Desert; for now, what lies beyond is a mystery. Territory is divided between two rival gangs, or tribes: The Princes, a tribe which consists of only men, and the Princesses, a tribe which consists only of women. The effects and use of Time Matrices have caused a separation of the sexes (See Time Matrix, P.2).

The story started when an elderly Professor Witherspoon, inventor of the Time Matrices, contacted Tyler and Rosalie when the two were alone at a tribal meet. He told them that he had invented a time machine--a machine literally capable of taking them forward or backward in time. When they disbelieved them, he demonstrated--by taking them into the future. Once he had demonstrated his capabilities, he told them that they must mate and have a child--for their child, he said, would one day become the Guardian of Time.

Professor Witherspoon gave Tyler the Time Machine, a small golden disc. Then, due to some rough treatment Tyler dealt him, he died.

In spite of the sincerity of Witherspoon's words, neither Tyler nor Rosalie particularly cared about "Guardians of Time," and they fell to fighting over the Time Machine. Tyler escaped with the prize, but had a serious encounter with Rosalie's gang, resulting in him being wounded and in imminent peril. He used the Time Machine to escape five years into the past--only to find himself captured by the Princesses, tied to a stake, and left to die. . .which he did.

Five years in the past the original Rosalie and Tyler no longer know of each other. The only connecting factor between the Tyler and Rosalie of five years ago is the Time Machine. . .a device they know nothing about and which is right now hidden on Tyler's dead body. Five years in the past Rosalie was involved in an initiation ceremony necessary for her to become a member of the Princess Tribe, and Tyler was a recent initiate of the Princes himself.

During a routine patrol Tyler and some other Princes stumbled onto the camp where Rosalie was being initiated. There, Tyler discovered an eerily familiar body tied to a stake. They reported to their Leader, Samson, at the Prince's camp. Samson was ambivalent about "avenging" the dead Prince, because the Initiation ceremony where the body was spotted was held in "Neutral Territory," and no positive identification of the Prince had been made. However, Samson was challenged before all the camp's Princes by a man named Hippo, who believed strongly that the unknown Prince's death had to be avenged. In order to maintain his authority, Samson rallied the camp and agreed to a small raiding party. Satisfied, Hippo left--whereupon Samson, angry because his authority was challenged, called Hippo a no-good fag and instructed Tyler to kill Hippo before the sun rose.

Tyler felt uncertain as to his new orders but believed he had no choice but to obey them. He invited Hippo to take a car ride with him to scout the Princess Camp for the raiding party. During the trip Hippo revealed that he had overheard Samson and Tyler's conversation, and he asked if Tyler had really planed to kill him. Being as Hippo held a gun to Tyler's head when he asked this question, Tyler predictably said no. Whereupon Hippo decided he wanted to punish Tyler for his words with Samson, and forced Tyler out of the car, shoved him against its hood, and to Tyler's utter shock, began to rape him. Tyler managed to struggle free and kill Hippo, but not before being seriously violated.

Ashamed of having his honor so grossly sullied, and enraged at Samson for issuing the order which put him in this situation, Tyler became very disillusioned with the Princes, even though they constituted the bulk of his identity. He briefly considered suicide. Then he realized that what Hippo had done to him was really no worse than any number of wrongs Tyler had inflicted on other people since the very day he had become a Prince. He decided that the only way to atone for his wrongs, and wipe away his shame and horror of being unable, even momentarily, to defend himself against Hippo's actions, was to defend the Princesses from the impending Prince attack.

Having so resolved, he selected his weapons, and after entering his car, he rode away to the Princess' aid. Still, the fight went badly and in the end there were very few survivors on either side. During the battle and its aftermath, Tyler found that rather than his actions assuaging his guilt, they had only worsened it. In a fit of stress and agony after the skirmish he threatened Rosalie's life with a weapon, then fell silent and numbly dropped the weapon to the ground. He did this with all the weapons on his person, and then walked away from the camp alone, into the desert.

Rosalie, exhausted and panicked by the travails of the last few hours, began frantically searching the camp for medical supplies when she came across a small, golden disc. She touched it, and suddenly the sun vanished and the night sky appeared in its place. Floating above the horizon was a ethereal green sphere, its source unknown. It was as if somehow she--and everything nearby--had somehow been catapulted forward in time.

Rosalie found Tyler sleeping on the desert floor, and at first threatened him. After several hours of relations, however, she stopped holding her weapon on him, and they began travelling together. As both suffered from the same needs for water and food, they started toward a vague city shimmering in the distance. During the journey they began to know each other, and each became fascinated--even frightened--of the opposite sex.

Eventually they reached the city, and while attempting to breach its boundaries Tyler became trapped in the forcefield surrounding it. Rosalie was forced to free him using ingenuity and an uncanny belief in herself. Once Tyler was freed, the two found themselves on the forcefield's other side, before a great city. They were greeted by a man in a red cowl, and beneath this man's hood rested only an unerving darkness. . .

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