Perfect Strangers

by Barbara J. Hancock

  Silk entered, ignoring the tone that signaled admittance. Right away she smelled the comforting scent of well-oiled metal. The more acrid hint of discharged ammunition was also in the air.

  From the rear, muffled no doubt by soundproof walls, she could hear weapons fire. A sign that read Firing Range—No entry without authorization marked the portal to this “range”. Beside the portal was a glass counter, behind that, a man in a brightly colored, square-patterned shirt waited on customers with a bored expression on his face. She recognized a cash register computer similar to the one at Buzz’s.

  Unfortunately, lines were universal.

  Silk waited. The stares of the other, mostly male patrons pricked her nerves. She wondered how they would all react if she was clothed in the skin-tight, flexible body armor of a Justice Representative. Compared to her old uniform, the pink fuzzy sweater of her new uniform was roomy.

  When it was her turn, the man behind the counter perked up with a grin as if he had just woken from a nap. “Do I know you?”

  Silk shook her head, but the man’s grin widened and he continued. “Yeah, yeah…I know…you’re the one in the metallic bikini.” He looked around her and spoke over her shoulder. “Jesus man, this girl was in the swimsuit issue last year.”

  “Really?” The man behind her sounded excited as he pressed closer.

  “I would like a semi-automatic 9mm handgun.” Silk ignored his proximity and focused on her goal.

  “What?” The man who thought he knew her was a poor salesman. He seemed taken aback by her request.

  “A Glock or a Beretta, 3082 Tomcat,” Silk added, impatient with the man’s ignorance.

  Understanding seemed to dawn on his face.

  “Oh, oh right. You probably need something for protection. Really, a .22 caliber should do it. Great for your purse. Not too much weapon to handle.”

  Silk sighed. IL-Bah had skin like body armor. What this man suggested would only irritate them. And she doubted if she could irritate them to death.

  “The Glock, please.”

  If the man pressing her from behind did not ease up soon, she would have to hurt him, thus ruining her chances of laying low. She should have taken Rule’s weapon. If she had, this stop would not have been necessary. If she had, Rule would not have been able to defend himself.

  Her duty was to find Ronin. Rule had a sense of duty as well. She could not leave him defenseless no matter if it would have been easier.

  The salesman pulled out a sheaf of papers and began a stuttering spiel about signatures and waiting periods and background checks. Silk’s patience was almost spent when this unexpected complication was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass.

  Silk whipped around. Her movement, and the shove that came with it, knocked the man behind her on his ass. His shock would have been amusing if IL-Bah assassins were not preparing to kill her.

  A flash of light melted the glass of the counter and the poor salesman behind it was left charred and stuttering. He was in the open with no cover and no .22 caliber with which to defend himself.

  Silk leapt, taking him down just as another laser blast hit where she had been standing a second before. Speed was crucial. Target-locking weapons always had a delay before firing. A one second delay. The IL-Bah were no longer relying on this world’s technology.

  Using the slick floor to her advantage, she slid the now shocked and silent salesman under the nearest display case and rolled away as another flash vaporized a rack of clothing. The impatient IL-Bah had not waited for target-lock that time. His impatience saved her life.

  She had no choice. There were too many innocents around them. Retreat was her only option.

  Springing to her feet, Silk made for the door of the firing range. She needed to find a rear exit or die.

  The soundproof walls and ear muffs of the people on the range had prevented them from hearing the IL-Bah attack. Few looked her way as she barreled down the aisle behind them.

  She spotted a suitable weapon and commandeered it from a little old lady who had gripped it fiercely between two knotty hands.

  “Good aim,” Silk commented when she saw the target the woman had just destroyed with a bevy of bullets. “Get down.”

  The old woman was surprised. She released the weapon and sat on the floor without protest. Just in time. The door behind Silk came off its hinges with a protesting metal scream and the IL-Bah came into the room. One eager monster discharged his laser. The wall near Silk began to burn.

  She ran. The only way to save anyone around her was to distance herself from them as soon as possible.

  She saw a brightly lit sign that read Fire Exit and sprinted for that door while shrieks and curses and small-arms fire erupted all around.

  “Come for me. Come for me,” Silk gasped as she hit the door full force. An alarm began to sound and it echoed in the cave of the stairway she found on the other side of the door. She wasn’t running scared. She was running to draw the monsters away from innocent bystanders.

  The mall was only two stories high. Without a pause, Silk tucked the commandeered weapon into her waistband and made for the rail. Quickly, she sat on it and whirled around so that her legs dangled over the chasm, but only for an instant. Then she dropped her body down the shaft.

  She landed on her feet, bending her knees and relaxing her spine to avoid injury.

  She heard the whump of more laser fire, but she also continued to hear other weapons fire. Many on the firing range had turned their weapons on the IL-Bah. Buying her time. She hoped they hadn’t brought death to themselves.

  Silk paused for only a moment before she pushed through another exit. Ronin had brought these assassins to Earth because of her, and now he was responsible for more death.

  Death. As Silk blended into the night, she thought of Davis Rule. She had left him unconscious and alone. If he was dead, his blood would be on her hands.

  Chapter Five

  Davis Rule was not dead. He was royally pissed. He had a lump on the skin covering his occipital bone the size of a golf ball and his whole spine was tingling.

  Silk Jones was dangerous. She was also in a lot of trouble. Davis held a cell phone in his lap. Kale’s number was already keyed into it. For some reason, he didn’t hit send. Damn. He’d always acted on instinct and this time he’d been off, way off. He could have sworn that beneath her tough exterior, Silk was happy to have his help. Despite learning his lesson to the contrary, he didn’t want to bring Kale and his goons into this. Not yet.

  When the door to the hotel room opened, he rose and grabbed for his weapon.

  “Do not do it, Rule. It has been a long night.”

  Silk limped into the room, covered in blood.

  Rule was worse than Miilos. Much worse. Her partner had always worried about her safety, but he knew she was made for danger. Her body was stronger, more resilient, genetically altered to withstand assault.

  Davis Rule wouldn’t listen. He pulled her into the bathroom and began to dab a stinging substance on the cuts she had sustained while rolling in glass back at the mall.

  “You say these IL-Bah attacked a shopping center?”

  “Technically, they were attacking me. The shopping center merely got in the way.”

  “You need to see a doctor.” Davis said this shakily as he pulled a two-inch shard of glass from a wound on the back of her arm.

  “I heal quickly. This is nothing.”

  “Your delusion is going to get you killed.”

  “I need no delusion to accomplish that feat.”

  The man was impossible. So big, so dangerous and tsking over her injuries like a child’s nurse. Suddenly, she wanted very badly to show him just how healthy she was.

  “I came back because I thought they had killed you,” she spoke the words softly as the top of his head came close to her lips. He was dabbing her chest now, his head turned down so that she couldn’t see his expression. She could imagine it. After all, she had no cuts on the skin he was
bathing above her breasts.

  “You wanted to see their handiwork?” he asked, his voice sounding as if he needed to clear his throat.

  “I needed to know,” Silk admitted.

  “Well, I’m better off than you are.” Rule tossed a blood-soaked pad of cotton into the trash and took another from a tiny box marked with a blue cross. “You need stitches.”

  “I do not.” Silk shuddered at the very idea of seeking medical attention on this planet. Stitches. Her stomach rolled. She could slide through shattered glass without flinching, but stitches would be unnecessary, archaic torture. “I will heal.”

  “You took me by surprise. What did you use on my head, a cinder block?”

  “My hand.”

  Rule picked up one of her hands. Blood had dripped down her arm and onto her fingers, staining the nails a rusty reddish brown. His hand was easily twice as large as hers. And she could break every bone in it if she chose.

  “This hand knocked me out for over an hour and gave me this knot on the back of my head?” He sounded amused.

  Silk raised her other hand and used it to skim through the thick curls above the nape of his neck. She cupped his skull, brushing over the bump lightly with questing fingers.

  “I am sorry. It was necessary.”

  Rule did not look up. He dabbed another piece of fluff over the palm of the hand he held.

  “I have work to do, Rule. You must not interfere,” Silk insisted.

  “I have work to do, Silk. Right now, you’re my work.”

  “I cannot promise that I will stay with you. But I will until I know that you will be safe without me.”

  He looked up at her. On his knees on the bathroom floor, he looked like a supplicant, but his eyes were defiant. They were also amused as if he couldn’t believe she was talking like she was in charge when she looked like a bruised and battered victim.

  One day he would learn that appearances were deceiving.

  “So, we’ll humor each other as we go along,” Davis surmised.

  “I see no harm in it.” Silk pulled her hand from his. She saw no harm in staying with him, but she did see harm in his gentle ministrations, and in the way those ministrations made warmth rise in her belly.

  “I will have to turn you in at some point.” Rule sat back on his heels and threw the last pad in the trash.

  “Feel free to try, Davis Rule. Feel free to try.”

  Silk rose and left the tiny bathroom. Having the warm, solicitous Rule at her feet was heady, and she already fought the dizziness that came from loss of blood. She needed sleep. Her body needed to heal. What Davis Rule needed from her she couldn’t begin to fathom.

  Chapter Six

  Piper Jo Harding was five feet tall. That in itself was enough to make Silk feel astonishment. The fact that she showed her great age was another. Silk had never seen such a display of wrinkles. It was amazing. The ancient little woman met them at her back door with a shrug and a whistle as she looked Silk over from head to toe. An odd habit the inhabitants of this world found necessary that Silk was beginning to find more than annoying. She was already grumpy because this FBI man knew the first person she needed to contact, and his laughter was still ringing in her ears.

  Davis didn’t waste time on polite introductions.

  “Heard any voices lately, Mrs. Harding?”

  “Not so’s you’d believe me if I said I had. Won’t ask what brings you ’round. Guess I can see that for myself.”

  That.

  Well, Silk supposed that was only a little more insulting than her actual moniker. Especially coming from a woman who thought her microwave oven was broadcasting some kind of alien Top Forty. Any child would know it had more to do with the fact that Harding lived in a giant metal box called a mobile home and that this home was placed directly on top of a combination of mineral deposits that naturally replicated a synthetic receiver.

  “Don’t suppose you can deny the proof right before your eyes, now can you?” The old woman stopped in mid-cackle when Davis swiped an imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve.

  “What? You think they make ’em like this on our planet? You’ve been watchin’ too much television.”

  Silk resisted the urge to look smug. Having one slightly unstable person believe her would not convince Rule. It was however, some consolation to her pride.

  “We need information.” She urged the conversation back to the purpose of their visit.

  “Well, you have come to the right place. Information I have by the truckload, honey.”

  Suddenly, their hostess sounded much more polished than before. Her thick accent softened. She spoke to Silk with a voice that had been influenced by the blending of accents from transmissions broadcasting multiple translations.

  “You aren’t from around here,” Piper stated the obvious with interest.

  “No,” Silk confirmed.

  “Tourist?”

  “Witness relocation.”

  “Ahhh, you must feel completely cut off. Stranded in no-man’s land.”

  Surprisingly, the old woman’s empathy caused a knot to form in Silk’s throat. Not so surprisingly, the ever-observant Davis Rule noted her emotions.

  He didn’t believe her. He mocked the whole situation. And yet his warm hand slid up her arm to end on her shoulder in a comforting gesture not unlike one she would have received from a friend back home. The bandage on her forearm was also due to his unnecessary concern. He had applied it that morning without comment. She wondered what he would think when the cuts were healed by tonight.

  “She’s not stranded, Mrs. H. Just a little confused.”

  The wily woman looked from Davis’ hand to Silk’s face and back again.

  “Well, I must say, if I was twenty years younger you’d mess with my equilibrium too, Rule.”

  Silk stepped away from him, taking her tingling arm with her. How many times would she have to take the big man down before he realized that she wasn’t in need of his aid?

  With an eye roll and another cackle, Piper Jo shuffled with surprising speed into the next room which proved to be the dining room. At least, Silk thought she could identify a table and chairs beneath the mounds of paper stacked on every available surface.

  “My home office, so to speak. I like to keep records of everything I hear.”

  Silk picked up the top sheet on the nearest chair. With painstaking accuracy, Piper Jo Harding had transcribed a commercial for a mouthwash derived from the freshwater springs on N-leh Seven.

  “I still maintain that red crayon is not the most professional instrument to use for your records, Mrs. H.” Rule shifted a few papers around and shook his head.

  Silk did think a digital display might be easier to read, but she didn’t quite understand the lack of interest Rule showed toward the heaps of evidence right at his fingertips. It might be bright red, waxy and somewhat sloppy, but it was extremely precise.

  She recognized the lyrics to her favorite song.

  As Rule and Piper Jo continued to discuss the merits of Crayola versus Packard Bell, Silk began to hum. The song had become a hit just before she’d been sequestered for the trial. It had a haunting refrain about the rains on Sylviin’s moon.

  Suddenly, a clear voice began singing the words. Piper Jo had a pleasant deep tone that almost captured the original’s grace. Silk joined in with her own whispery attempt, and for one long moment she enjoyed a taste of home with this new found friend.

  It wasn’t until they came to the end of the chorus that Silk noticed Davis. One dark curl had fallen in his eyes, but for once he didn’t seem to care. Amazement suited him as well as any other emotion. It colored his handsome face, almost overshadowing the disbelief.

  “I may not sing any better than I dance, Davis Rule. But you need not look horrified.”

  “Give him time, he’ll come ’round. He’s got a heart of gold and I honestly don’t think he was born obtuse.” The little woman at her side giggled as the man almost twice her size frowned
in her direction.

  Silk placed the sheet of paper carefully back on top of its stack. She would have to be just as careful with Rule. He was easy company, but it would be dangerous to start thinking of him as a par—an ally.

  She turned her attention away from the man across the room.

  “Ronin D’Ja-nar. I need to know anything you might have heard.”

  “That’s not a name I would forget,” Piper Jo said, suddenly solemn. “Monstrous news reports. Hold on…” She walked along her seemingly haphazard stacks, pulling sheets until she had a new pile built in her arms. She brought the papers to Silk and deposited them in her arms. Then she plucked the top sheet off and began to summarize from its contents.

  “Escaped a little over three months ago from Secure Hold station. Inside job. Has contacts known and unknown throughout the Confederation of Worlds. Nasty customer. Took one guard’s stunner and repeatedly shocked the guy until his brain was toast. Completely disappeared. No sightings. No leads.”

  Silk crushed the papers to her chest. No sightings. Silk had not killed him when she had the chance because she thought the Justice System would make him pay for killing Miilos. News of his escape had reached her just before her placement in this world. Now that she knew he hadn’t been seen…

  “You’ll need contacts. Other people with their ears to the ground and eyes to the sky.” The older woman looked nervous as if she’d rather listen than participate in strange goings on.

  “Don’t encourage her, Piper. She’s in enough trouble as it is.” Rule’s hands were in his pockets. Something told Silk he wasn’t as bored as he pretended to be.

  “Someone needs to counteract your Doubting Thomas routine,” Piper argued.

  “I’m only interested in whatever real crime she’s involved in.”

  Silk ignored the threat inherent in those words. She had what she came for. Information on Ronin. If Piper offered more help, she would take it.

  “Read through some of that if you’re interested in real crime.” Their hostess nodded at the papers in Silk’s hand. Davis made no move to do as she suggested.