A Step to Nowhere (14 page)

Jason didn’t have a picture in his hands anymore, but he held a gun, pointing it, of course, in the direction of a deadly dangerous criminal. Me. It was strange to see Jason with a weapon. He had usually sat at the computer with a cup of coffee or in front of the TV with a bottle of beer. I saw a knife in his hands many times, when he was cooking. A gun and a stern facial expression suited him, but it was strange.

I gazed into the black hole. Nothing was too horrifying or supernatural about it, really. It was difficult to imagine something coming out of there that could deprive me of life, and my mom of her daughter. Maybe somebody else would be upset. Jason from my planet, for example.

This Jason, unlike his colleague from the garage, wasn’t shaking. He looked at me angrily and, I thought, with curiosity. Did he know who I was? Had his boss explained the situation to him or just said to catch and disarm? Time kept dragging. It seemed the air was sticky and viscous like overcooked sauce. It seemed that we had been standing like this for a thousand years: I – with my hands up and the wig falling into my eyes, and he – with the gun pointed at me. Like actors stuck on a one frame movie.

“Jason,” I said. He narrowed his eyes, the gun in his hands moved. Now he should yell,
How do you know my name
!

He didn’t.

I didn’t know how long we had been standing like this, eyeing each other. I didn’t know what else I could say or he could answer. Another cop came from around the car. There was blood under his nose and down his chin, he staggered and held his gun unsteadily, but he froze when his sight fell on me.

“Fire!”

He actually didn’t scream, just moved his lips, but this word imprinted in my mind like the strike of a bell, deafening me. I didn’t hear him that was true, not with my ears. But I did hear Jason’s words indeed, and understood them immediately.

“We’re ordered to take her alive,” he said.

Really? That’s what you were ordered? Okay then, take me, morons.

I didn’t waste any time thinking about that unknown somebody who could give such an order or why. I grabbed the gun from the ground and took off before I understood what I was doing. I had never thought that I could have a reaction like this.
Good for you, Sam!

I jumped over the hood of the car, where the driver was pretending to be a statue. Well, I could say that I jumped like a graceful deer or a cheetah: one leg on one side of the car while the other helps me to fly, almost a split in the air. Olympic champions, watch out! Right. My reaction was great, but I couldn’t say the same about my agility. In reality I rather crawled across the hood like a clumsy bear, hitting my knee on the metal surface and then my feet when I jumped to the ground.

“Stop!” Both policemen hollered. “Stop, by the word of law!”

Right, like that was going to happen since I found out you were not going to shoot me. Although, was there really a reason to follow orders if they were planning to kill me anyway? What would it change? I didn’t think logically at that moment.

I ran so fast it seemed my skin stretched from the wind blowing against my face. I dashed around standing cars and almost fell under the wheels of the moving ones. Then I turned to the sidewalk when I saw a parallel road and the heavy traffic on it. Fast reaction was good, but running among hundreds of moving cars was suicidal. It was better to get a bullet in the forehead—fast and more humane.

I jumped over the curb, which was higher than on my planet, and scampered among the pedestrians. There had still been a lot of them in spite of the late, twilight hour. They were coming back from work just as on my planet. As I had done just the day before yesterday. People dashed out of my way but no one tried to stop me and I hadn’t seen a surprised face once. I did notice facial expressions, in awe at how talented I was. Not all of them, but I did see some. It seemed that these people had gotten used to scenes like this. Why not? According to Velma it was a usual business here.

I’d heard screams behind my back. They demanded that I stop. By the word of law. Again. Sorry, gentlemen, but for citizens of Planet Two, your law means as much as … We shit on it, that’s how much it means.

Yes, we do. Those are my thoughts while I’m running for my life or for anything.

Also, I totally understood that I wasn’t Superwoman; that was substantiated during my first escape from the bus station. Now I started to suffocate, my eyes were tearing, my throat was burning, and I had a stitch in the left side of my body. I also had no idea where I was running. Where was that frigging Park Street Twelve? What if I was going in the opposite direction? Was I ever going to find it?

I gasped for air, pushed people away with my weakening hands. People screamed left and right that I had a gun. Thank you.
That
I had known. I knew as well that I wasn’t going to last much longer, so I was almost happy to see three hunters blocking my way. They had weapons and I
had
to stop before I ran into them. I kept myself from giving in to temptation, bending in half and falling on my knees. I just pressed my side with my hand.

“Raise your hands!” the one in the middle barked. “By the …”

“Shove your law up your ass,” I said and lifted the gun. “You raise your hands! I don’t have an order not to kill you.”

One of the policemen did raise his arms, two others moved slowly in my direction. I wanted to shoot under their feet so I pressed the trigger or whatever that thing was called, but nothing happened. My finger met resistance. Damn!

“Okay, let’s run some more,” I said, and smiled. I still don’t know why I had to do it or how I could do it.

At that moment I wasn’t sure I would find strength to make another sprint. I didn’t participate in marathons. My legs and my lungs weren’t ready for such an ordeal, but you never knew what your body was capable of until you put it in a situation of survival. I don’t know how, but I made that sprint and ran to the left, to the apartments. I felt that I didn’t have a chance to win against three strong, trained and rested men, but I still ran. Stubbornness was never my best feature, my mother said.

Somebody grabbed the back of my uniform and I almost fell. Again my determined body showed strength. Instead of just falling and being glad that everything was over (which was what I wanted to do); I pulled forward, as a person diving into the water, with all the strength I had left. The silk fabric slipped out of the policeman’s grip and then I heard a bang.

At first I didn’t realize it was a gunshot. My tired brain let me think it was thunder, and I hoped for the rain so I could swallow some normal, real water. Any water. Even one drop. Then I heard screams coming from everywhere. Either people had gotten as excited about the rain as I had or more likely somebody was hurt. While I was running and three guns were pointed at me, not one sentimental lady had opened her mouth for a blissful cry. Maybe there were no sentimental ladies at the moment, but a fact was still a fact. Not a scream, if you didn’t count a couple of idiots who announced to the public that I possessed a weapon. Now it seemed like a barrel with packed human screams had been unlocked and it splashed out into one harrowing holler. That was not what knocked me down though. Not even another shot. It was the handbag of one running and screaming lady. I stumbled over it and spread out with my arms forward in the best tradition of a man who’d slipped on a banana peel. It was a moment emotionally close to the loss of virginity. Pain, and relief from the realization that it was over. No more fuss, just life. My knees, hips, and chest felt like they had been splashed with boiling water. I had time to keep my head up (great reaction, right?) and didn’t smash my face. But when the flight was over, I put my head on the hot, stinky asphalt, and closed my eyes. That was it. Everything was over. My stubbornness wasn’t going to allow me to stand up. Only they didn’t let me enjoy the peace and didn’t let me rest. Only a moment and somebody grabbed me under my arms and tried to lift.

CHAPTER 18

Don’t even think about it. I’m not going to help you.

I hung at somebody’s hands as a dead load. The person groaned but I didn’t even open my eyes until I heard a voice over my head.

“Help me, please! We don’t have much time!”

It wasn’t a hunter, or a cop. It was a man, but not one of the hunters. Judging by the voice, he was young. What if somebody tried to help a dangerous criminal from Planet Two again? Oh, heaven! I was so lucky! Should I buy a lottery ticket and try to win a trip to Planet Two? I hoped his eyes weren’t brown.

I wanted to laugh at my own joke, but my lips cracked as soon as I moved up the corners for a smile. Then I realized my legs had become paralyzed and I couldn’t move them, even if I wanted.

“I can’t,” I said. I didn’t actually say it, I croaked. I must have looked horrible. My wig stayed on the ground, which meant my hair was sticking in all directions as if I’d been caught in a hurricane. It’s funny how women think about their looks sometimes at the most inappropriate moments. At a time when no one really cares about their looks.

“Try, please!” the guy begged. I even managed to get angry. I wasn’t that heavy! He didn’t have to groan like I was a whale. I was one hundred and twelve pounds the last time I’d jumped on the scale. He called himself a man?

“Get her in the car! We don’t have much time!” It was another man’s voice, older. I was still hanging on the stranger’s arms, observing my wig and a gray piece of gum that was stuck to the asphalt. I was lying on it a second ago. I started thinking of how disgusting it was to lie on the gum that had fallen from a mouth with possible cavities and a bad odor (my head, by this time, started feeling heavy, my vision became gray, and I began to hear ringing in my ears), when somebody pulled me up harder, like a log, and then turned me and lifted up. I was in somebody’s arms. See, I was as light as a feather. I wished they would tell me where they carried me. I smelled a bitter aroma from the strange man’s body.

“Now, carry me across the threshold and we can start a new, happy life together,” I murmured.

Nobody reacted to my joke. The man was running and I couldn’t see his face. My head dangled in time with his run, the blood flowed to my head, my legs bounced in the air. Then he pushed me inside the car, onto the backseat, and I didn’t even try to sit or ask where they were taking me. I didn’t care. I gazed at the white paneling of the car, listened to the strange men’s voices, but there was a buzz in my ears and I couldn’t figure out the words, in spite of the fact that the men talked close to me and loudly.

We started to drive.

What if it was some crime ring? What if they were going to sell my organs? My organs were pretty healthy. Except the kidneys. Yes, my kidneys could screw up their business. I had an infection there in my childhood. No luck with the kidneys, guys.

I closed my eyes and wished I could faint. Why didn’t I? Other people were so good at it. Boom, and down they went. I had pain all over my body, my head was spinning, I couldn’t see well, and still I couldn’t black out.

“Drink it.”

Cold touched my hand and I opened my eyes. A bottle of greenish liquid hung over me. It was squeezed in a man’s tan hand.

I tried to sit up and discovered I was still holding the gun. Opening my fingers, I bit my lip to keep back the scream of pain. My hand was numb, my fingers resisted straightening. It felt as if electricity ran through each of them.

“
Tirrez
,” the older man said. I moved my gaze from my whitish-blue fingers to the person whose head was sticking between the seats. He had light, almost white, porcupine style hair, gray eyes with thick, black eyelashes, and narrow lips. I’d gotten lost for a second seeing such a handsome male creature and forgot not only about my pain, but also where I was and why. I was especially happy to see his eye color. Brown was my favorite yesterday, today it was anything but. Gray was fine.

“What’s
tirrez
?” I asked while trying to get out of the parallel universe. A parallel Universe of my mind.

“
Tirrez
,” the voice said from the driver’s seat. “It means … Ah … Wow. I think, though … Yeah. It means something like
I can’t believe it
. You say I can’t believe it, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

It was that younger guy who was trying to pick me up, but lost to my horrible weight of one hundred and twelve pounds. He was an interpreter from English to English. From English of Planet One to English of Planet Two.

“Drink?”

Gray-eyes nodded to the bottle that he was still holding for me.

“Thanks.”

It was that “diluted apple juice”. I drank half of the bottle, clenching and unclenching the fist of my right hand, exercising my numb fingers. Trying to figure out where they were taking me and why. What if they were going to keep quiet and then inject me with something and adios? See you in heaven.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“My name’s Ronald Even,” the guy with gray eyes said when I lowered the bottle and met his gaze again. “My friend’s Steve.”

A hand rose over the driver’s seat and waved a greeting.

“One of our people called us to pick you up from Velma,” Ronald said.

“So, it’s you.” I sighed with relief. I was to keep my bad kidneys.

“We couldn’t get you from her. Bristow’s dogs arrived before us. They are fast. We arrived as you left the garage. We know Velma’s car, so we followed you.”

“You flew out, I’d say!” Steve corrected. I looked in the rearview mirror, but it was turned where I couldn’t see the driver.

“Right. Do people drive like that on Planet Two all the time?” Ronald asked.

“Not many of us would survive driving like that,” I said as I finished the juice. “I crashed Velma’s car.”

“It’s good people are staying inside now,” Steve said.

“Why?” I looked around, considering where to put the empty bottle, and Ronald took it from me.

“People are scared,” he said. “Somebody will see you out; they won’t like something about you and they’ll report you. Plus, police and hunters sniff around, checking the documents. They rake the buildings all the time, looking for
irnaners.
You see, many people hide them in their homes, risking their lives. Like Velma. It’s dangerous just to stroll around, looking at people, making friends, having good times. You were lucky to run into the right place, since we don’t have many people. I still can’t believe we didn’t lose you with all those hunters’ cars.”

“Yeah, look at the lucky one. That’s me.”

The guy named Steve laughed.

“You’re a hostage in your own apartments,” I said. “Jail without jail.”

“We’re trying to change that. We started with small steps—protecting the
irnaners
.”

I heard sirens far away and turned to the window.

“We’ll be fine,” Ronald said.

“Where are we going?” I asked, turning back to him.

“The City of Lost. It’s not safe, but there’s nothing else.”

“Thanks for saving me.”

“No problem.” Ronald smiled. How old was he? He didn’t look older than twenty-five. Younger than I am, too bad. Why too bad? I wasn’t going to seduce him.
Your head is a problem, Sam. Can’t you find something better to think about?

“I need to get to Park Street Twelve,” I said.

“Velma told us,” Steve said. “Unfortunately, we can’t get there today. I’m sure they noted our license plate. We need to change cars and we can do it only in The City of Lost.”

“We’re almost there,” Ronald said. He disappeared from my field of vision, leaning on his seat.

I wanted to ask about the gunshot. Somebody shot there and somebody probably was hurt. Because of me. I wanted to ask, but preferred to be quiet. I was here temporarily, not by my will. The lives of people on this planet shouldn’t concern me. They helped me, thank you, but I didn’t want to know anything. I didn’t want to interfere. I didn’t want anything. So, I turned to the window. I couldn’t see police cars, but sirens grew closer. We stayed on the highway about two more minutes before turning to the alley. Then another one and another one, before driving into a different world.