Portal to Passion: Science Fiction Romance

by Amber Stuart

  "I shouldn't be here," he said again. "I wouldn't. Not usually."

  But this was more than the stockbroker could take, apparently.

  "Who is this fucking guy?" the man in the suit burst out, aiming his words at me. "Is this some kind of set up? Are you punking me, you crazy skank?"

  Before I could think of a good response... to either of the freaks, really... the stockbroker stepped forward, swinging at the tall guy in the black bodysuit.

  Turns out, that was another big mistake.

  For the stockbroker, that is.

  I didn't even see the new guy move. He must have, though, because the ex-linebacker with the serious personality disorder flew backwards so fast that simply watching it happen nearly gave me whiplash. Whatever Bundy junior tried to do to the weirdo with the dark hair and the Batman outfit, it nearly got him killed.

  Before I knew what happened, his muscular body slammed into that green dumpster hard enough to leave a three-foot dent. The impact must have knocked the wind out of him, because the blond stockbroker made a sound like an airbag deflating all at once before he collapsed on the pavement, groaning.

  I stared down at the guy where he lay, panting.

  Maybe I was even in a little bit of shock.

  It’d been a really long time since I’d seen someone go down like that. I don’t think I’d ever seen someone throw a pissed off giant, twice their size, that far before, not even at one of my demo meets in Chinatown.

  Just then, a siren blared from directly behind where I stood.

  Pretty much the worst timing ever, as far as the job was concerned.

  My mind went into overdrive. Before I’d fully processed the ramifications of our little gathering, I’d already grabbed the sleeve of the guy in the black bodysuit, jerking him towards the other end of the alley.

  By then, I could already picture the view of our little threesome through the windshield of that cop car. Me and catsuit-superhero-guy, staring down at my beat up mark in a dark alley. Him lying there with his mouth bleeding, slumped against that dumpster, likely his knee out of joint, maybe his back broken from what Batman-boy just did to him. This didn't look like an attempted rape... it looked like I'd set up Bundy to roll him.

  I definitely wasn't going to get paid.

  Hell, I'd be lucky to avoid jail time.

  "Come on!" I yelled. I yanked on the arm of the weirdo who caused this whole mess, trying to get him moving. "We have to get out of here!"

  Luckily, the new guy didn't fight me.

  He let me tug him along by the spongy material of his catsuit. When I looked up, I distinctly saw fear in those strangely round, dark-brown irises, too. He stared at the revolving lights on the black and whites, and I saw his chest heaving in what had to be some kind of emotional reaction even as his pupils dilated, making him look like a cornered animal, or maybe like someone going into shock.

  "I shouldn't have come here," he muttered, following me to the end of the brick alley.

  He didn't slow down to say it, but I found myself glaring up at him anyway.

  "You're damned right you shouldn't," I snapped.

  I found my anger deflating when I looked up at my new friend's strangely-symmetrical face. He really did look shit-scared... and I hadn't missed the part about how he'd only come because he thought I was in danger. There weren't a lot of guys who put their necks out for strangers these days. Maybe I shouldn't be discouraging that.

  No way he could have known I did jobs like this for a living... luring rich sociopaths into dark alleys after they got off scot-free for raping and half-killing someone.

  This guy wouldn’t know that. He hadn't done anything wrong.

  He'd been acting the nice guy, the good Samaritan who actually does something, instead of looking the other way.

  Vowing I'd tell him that, as soon as we avoided the whole jail-time thing, I kicked in the wooden covering over the door at the end of the alley, even as the siren gave another warning blare. I glanced back in time to see the cops hurriedly getting out of their car. One had his sidearm already drawn, and aimed in our direction.

  I’m not big on having guns aimed at me, even when the person holding it has more or less good intentions.

  "Stop!" the guy yelled, even as his partner approached my mark where he lay, half-broken against the green dumpster. "Stop right now! Police!"

  Well, duh, I thought.

  I kicked at the door again, harder that time. I was banking on him not shooting me, which was maybe generous, given everything.

  He didn’t fire, thank goodness, but that first cop, the one who yelled, starting running towards us both, once he realized what I was doing. They both must have assumed me and my weird friend were trapped and grasping at straws with the whole door-kicking thing.

  But the truth is, I’m not big on blind alleys, either.

  Anyway, I'd learned a long time ago to always leave a back door open, even if it wasn't a particularly sexy one.

  Kicking in the last of the particle-board covering I'd erected that morning to hide my emergency exit for this particular gig, I shoved scuba suit guy through the opening in front of me, then disappeared into the dark hole in the brick building behind him.

  Behind us, the cop yelled again.

  I barely heard him.

  Still gripping catsuit guy, I ran down the narrow corridor of the vacant office building, dragging scuba suit guy with me as the sounds faded. The owner of the building started doing renovations on this place a few months ago, then stopped halfway through, probably because the money dried up, or maybe because they lost a prospective tenant. Either way, the place was a weird mish-mash of structural skeletons, bare wiring, sawdust and new paint.

  My friend started running on his own, once he got the basic gist of my plan, and I let go of him so I could run faster. I was relieved when he had no problem keeping up. He ran silently behind me on the wooden planks... so quietly, in fact, that I had to suppress the impulse to look over my shoulder and see if he still ran behind me at all.

  That time, he didn’t try to talk.

  When I finally did glance back, I only glimpsed his face long enough to see the determined look living there. He ran with a strange precision that matched his face and body, his hands and arms held at stiff, jerking angles.

  Turning back to focus on where I was going, I let it go.

  I had other things on my mind at that point, besides who this guy really was.

  If we managed to get out of here in anything other than a police cruiser, I’d be sure and ask him.

  3

  MORE WEIRD THINGS

  I DIDN’T REALLY plan on taking him with me.

  On the other hand, I never really told him to go away.

  Stranger still, he didn't seem to be in a big hurry to leave my side, despite how nervous I seemed to make him, or the fact that running into me definitely hadn’t improved his life any. He seemed to trust me to get him out of this mess, whatever his exact reasoning.

  For some reason, I let that become my responsibility, too.

  He continued to run in that eerily quiet way behind me, following my route through the empty office building without missing a step. After busting through the staircase I’d also partly blocked the day before, I got the two of us up to the second floor. I knew from me and Irene’s mapping out the building and surrounding environs earlier that day, that we now ran roughly southeast, which meant towards the side of the building that faced the next street over from the alley.

  I didn’t pay a ton of attention to my companion, despite him glueing himself to my side. I was pretty bent on getting us both out of there in one piece, so didn’t spend a lot of that time on creative thinking in general, or much in the way of sight-seeing.

  I couldn't help noticing a few things, though.

  For one, he was nimble as hell. I saw that even on the stairs, which were water-damaged and broken in a few places.

  His a
gility grew even more obvious when we found the second half of my planned escape route. I tripped and stumbled and balanced with my hands and body against the mold-damp wall when I climbed up to the window leading onto Second Avenue. He, on the other hand, followed me without so much as breaking stride, moving up the wall as if the crate-ladder’s presence was primarily incidental. He climbed that stack of wooden crates like some kind of spider monkey or lizard... as if his feet knew precisely where to go, without him having to look.

  He reached my side in what felt like a heartbeat and helped force up the window before it occurred to me to wonder if the crates would support us both. I didn’t notice him being out of breath any, either. His facial expression never appeared to flicker, not even when he forced up, one handed, the water-soaked window frame.

  The same window frame I’d been struggling to budge with both of my hands and arms a few seconds before, and not having much luck.

  I should have checked the window better that morning, really, especially given who the mark was, and what I knew him to be capable of, given the photos I’d seen. But really, I hadn't planned on needing the escape route at all.

  Irene stacked the wooden packing crates and boxes the day before so I wouldn't have to do that part in the dark. Clearly, she hadn't checked the window, either, though.

  Turns out, it was pretty much welded shut from the damp and winter rains. Mold had even grown over the cracks between the wall and the frame.

  By then, I was really feeling the time pressure, too.

  We’d already heard the cops break through the same opening on the ground floor. Me and my scuba-suit wearing pal were up and running on the second floor by then, but the surrounding building was so quiet, I couldn’t help but hear the racket. Whatever those cops decided or figured out about us or where we'd gone, I didn’t hear them on the blocked staircase until me and my pal were already at the window.

  Still, it felt close. Really close.

  They might even have back-up around the building by then, too. That meant me and scuba suit guy could be dropping right into a trap.

  Then there was the guy's crazy super-human strength with the welded-shut window... and a few seconds later, I found myself hanging over Second Street.

  I watched in a kind of stupefied awe as he pulled another liquid-fast maneuver where he seemed to glide through the open window like a shadow, despite how small the opening was and how high-up... not to mention the width and length of his broad-shouldered frame. He disappeared through that rectangular opening before I knew he planned to go for it.

  Then, once he stood on the fire escape on the other side, he faced me again, his dark eyes reflecting light.

  But wait. His eyes weren’t dark now.

  Now they looked almost blue-green.

  Maybe I hadn’t noticed before, because of the crappy lighting of the alley?

  He motioned towards me impatiently with a hand.

  Pushing the random thoughts about eye-color out of my head, I let him grab hold of my arms to the elbows. He yanked me up smoothly and immediately once he’d tightened his hold, again without breaking a sweat.

  I didn't really breathe a sigh of relief until my boots hit the pavement under the fire escape. I sucked in a deep breath of night air, gave a quick look-around at the street, then began to walk. I moved fast, booking along at a near trot on my rubber-soled boots, but not too fast.

  My mystery guy continued to follow me.

  He followed like a shadow at my heel as I walk-jogged up Second Street towards Chinatown. I didn’t tell him to buzz off, either.

  Making a hard left when I reached Jackson, I risked increasing my speed in the unlit sections of street. A few seconds later, I found myself in a full sprint. I ran past where a group of homeless guys slept on pieces of cardboard, a few blocks up from that small park with the giant waterfall, and took another right.

  The guy with the weird eyes followed, his footfalls soundless.

  By then, I was pretty danged tired.

  Between the all-out sprint with murderous stockbroker back there, then the fight in the alley, then our grand, maybe-escape, I felt like I was teetering on my last legs.

  Nearly letting out a cry of relief when I saw my bike right where I left it, outside my favorite dim-sum place, I ran faster.

  I reached it only a few seconds later. Without even pausing to look the bike over, I fell to one knee and started working the heavy combination lock around the chain I used to secure the Enfield to the street lamp. I knew the weight of the thing provided its best protection... that, and the keys to the ignition, which sat in the pocket of my red, vinyl jacket.

  Even so, old habits die hard. Anything that might discourage someone jacking the thing seemed worth it in my eyes, even while I worked a job. I'd never owned enough valuable things to take any of them for granted, I guess.

  To me, the bike was special.

  "You need a ride somewhere, man?" I asked my companion, still breathing hard enough to have to force out the words between inhales and exhales. I didn't take my eyes off the lock as I spun the wheel to open it. "You have your own wheels... ?"

  Behind me, there was a pause.

  "Wheels?” he said, puzzled.

  “Yeah, wheels.”

  “Ride,” he muttered, his voice soft. “Wheels.”

  I didn’t look up, but exhaled in some exasperation. “You need a ride, or what?”

  He didn’t answer, but I could almost hear him thinking. It occurred to me, too, that every time I spoke to him, or asked him something, there seemed to be a good second or two of lag before he answered me.

  He still didn't appear to be out of breath, despite the six or seven blocks we’d just covered, a fair bit of it uphill, to get from Pioneer Square to where we now stood. I’m not ashamed to admit I was sweating through my low-cut blouse into the lining of my jacket, and gasping like a smoker, even though I’d never been one. But yeah, jeez, reality check.

  I needed to start running every morning again, at least five miles.

  Either that, or find a new way to make money.

  I finally looked up at him. "Is English your second language or something? I'm asking if you have a ride, or if you want me to give you one. You got a car? A bicycle? Anything?"

  After another short delay, he shook his head.

  "No ride," he said.

  "You don't want one, or you don't have one?"

  Pause.

  "I don't have."

  Staring up at him another few beats, I shrugged it off a few seconds later as I started to thread the now-unlocked chain through the wheel and frame of my Royal Enfield Bullet, which, yeah, was pretty much my pride and joy. My brother had it sent over for my birthday on a cargo ship, brand new from Switzerland, when he was dating some rich older lady who took him all over Europe and Asia. She took him on cruises, bought him thousand dollar outfits and cars and new ski equipment and whatever else Jake wanted. My brother let her wine and dine him for months before he eventually dropped her for some socialite divorcée from Boston about two decades younger and with her own generous bank account.

  So yeah, while me and my brother are both pretty much allergic to regular, punch the clock-type work, I couldn’t help comforting myself that at least I took a comparatively high road with my freelance gigs. I at least tried to help people... most of the time.

  Anyway, I wasn’t milking the sad and lonely just because I could.

  Jake? Not so much.

  Ethics weren’t really Jake’s thing, however generous he could be with the spoils.

  Freeing the last of the chain from the pole, I glanced up at the guy in the scuba suit again, uncomfortably aware that his eyes never left me as I worked over the bike. I found myself wondering again why I'd let him come with me this far.

  Oh yeah, he tried to save my life. That's why.

  Sighing a little, I got to my feet, winding up the chain and hitting the latch to open the storage c
ompartment on the back of the bike. Pulling out my helmet and gloves, I stuffed the chain inside the compartment and locked it before I swung a leg over the leather seat.

  Once I had my weight settled, and my booted foot on the kick-starter, I motioned with my head for scuba-suit guy to get on behind me, setting my helmet and gloves on the seat between my legs. The miniskirt would make riding a little less modest than usual, but it wasn't like I hadn't done that before, too.

  When catsuit guy didn’t move, I glanced back at him.

  “Well?” I said. “I’ve only got one helmet, sorry... and it won’t fit you.”

  He just stared at me, unblinking.

  Looking up for longer that time, I found myself studying the face of my Samaritan friend, again trying to make up my mind about what was so strange about it. I came up with pretty much the same things I had before.

  Overly symmetrical. Unreal-looking.

  An odd fusing of robotic and overly animal.

  Sighing, I shoved the helmet down over my long, curly-ish, black hair, hearing the two or three layers of hairspray crunch under the fiberglass and foam padding. I buckled the strap, still watching the guy watch me.

  "Well, come on, then,” I said.

  He still didn’t move, and I sighed a little, gesturing at the street.

  “We gotta jet, my friend,” I said. “I got you into this mess. I'm not just leaving you here to get picked up by the cops. I hate to break it to you, but you stick out like a sore thumb."

  When he only continued to stand there, I looked at his face again.

  “...What's with the catsuit, anyway?” I said, smiling. “You're not one of those vigilante types, are you?" Remembering what I did for a living and the hypocrisy there, I chuckled again. "Never mind," I said, still smiling as I shook my head. "You can tell me when we get somewhere. Hop on."

  When he continued to stand there, I put my key in the ignition and turned over the engine. Hell, I couldn’t force him. The guy could clearly best me in a fight, anyway, given the short work he made of that mark.