A Step to Nowhere (17 page)

Why are we always late to appreciate people who aren’t outstanding with special characteristics, but who make our lives better without asking anything in return? Racing after a dream, we miss the opportunity to just live. We don’t value destiny’s gifts, looking for something bigger, better, and worthy of our individual and unique personality.

Steve grabbed my arm and squeezed it. I smiled at my lover’s double, removed the hand holding my arm, and stepped forward. I was scared, but they had to wait a long time to see my fear.

“No one has ever insisted on having a date with me with such determination,” I said. Jason screwed his eyes. “I prefer French food and I’d like to change. Do you mind?”

The crowd parted before me, whispers followed.

“… Is it her?”

“… She’s from Planet Two?”

“… Pard!”

“… Does she look familiar to you?”

“… She’s just like us! Like us!

“… Oh, mother of Mar! She’s from Planet Two!”

“… Don’t touch her, idiot!”

Jason didn’t move from his spot. When I approached him, he grabbed my arm, and pulled me out of the barn to the street. The door slammed with a bang. I turned around and saw dozens of eyes staring at me through gaps in the cracked, wooden boards. There were about a dozen hunters in black. Their outfits looked different from the ones I’d seen before. They had high collars covering their necks, gloves, heavy boots, and helmets. They rather looked like our soldiers and maybe they had been. They also could reflect our S.W.A.T. Both were bad for me. Jason was a leader here, even though his uniform wasn’t black, but dark-green, darker than the police had.

Without saying a word, just looking into my eyes, he lowered his weapon and it hung on his shoulder. He pulled my gun out of my hand (luckily I didn’t have time to use it) and pushed it behind his wide, leather belt. Then he turned me with my back to him, twisted my arms, and put handcuffs on me. They squeaked quietly, locking around my wrists and I thought that their handcuffs were more advanced than ours. This was the world where the Middle Ages walked hand in hand with inventions of the new century.

“You’re not going to read me my rights?” I asked. There was no answer.

I expected the man to push me on my back, but he circled around me, so I could take a look at him, and nodded to the soldiers. They parted and I went to the car with Jason. His colleague, the one who tried to shoot me on the road, opened the car door for the backseat.

“This planet produces such fine gentlemen,” I said, and with a smile, I got into the car. The man didn’t say anything. The door shut before my face.

CHAPTER 20

The men didn’t talk when we left The City of Lost. Jason contacted someone, using the flat little thing that looked like a phone. “We have her,” he said.

We have her.

Her—was me. Samantha Bristow—a law offender. A criminal. Samantha Bristow wasn’t dangerous anymore. The city and the country could rest peacefully.

I looked at the back of the men’s heads through the glass partition that was separating perps like me from representatives of the law. The glass hadn’t been cleaned for days, or maybe months. Fingerprints, dry saliva, even a couple of wads of old chewing gum were covering its surface. Fortunately, the backseat didn’t stink of sweat or smoke, otherwise I’d get sick. The visual level was enough.

I wasn’t scared anymore, even though I should have been by all logical accounts. They caught me and were taking me to some place that wasn’t going to be a banquet in honor of my visit to Planet One. They weren’t going to take me back home. They most likely were going to take me back to the corporation and finish me off. Kill me. Neither the word
kill
, nor the pleasant opportunity of
being
killed had any effect on me, because I was with Jason. Yes, of course, my boyfriend and this guy only looked like each other, but they looked
absolutely
identical and I couldn’t make myself believe that Jason, even
this
Jason, would hurt me. Especially, because he let me go the first time, by Velma’s house. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. I looked at his dark hair and remembered how we met.

My friend Aisha was the one who initiated it. She’d always set me up with someone or at least tried to. She was married, with two kids who were born two years after college, and she couldn’t accept the fact that I was single and could do whatever I wanted with my time. She wanted us to be equal, so we could talk about kids and men driving us crazy. She reminded me about my biological clock, about me not getting younger, and that everyone was married and had kids, but me. She cared about my fate as a wife more than I did. I should note that Aisha wasn’t the only one sticking her nose in my business. My mom would win the lead. I tolerated my friend because she was funny about it, but everyone else had gotten a mental or verbal middle finger. Aisha had known about my insane (there was no better word for it) feelings for Ray. She didn’t know him, but called my attitude toward men “Ray check”. She was right. I compared all the guys to him and no one could handle the competition. I met young and not
that
young men, the ones Aisha somehow found for me, but they rarely could make it to the second date. Sometimes I would bring men home for sex.
I’m a human and not really a moral type
. I brought them, but they had never stayed overnight. Jason was Aisha’s last hope, she said. If she had known how glad I was to hear those words, she would smack me silly.

I liked his looks right away. His eyes were brown and I had a weak spot for this color; his hair was dark. He was tall and had wide shoulders. I had to admit that he was better looking than Ray, even though Ray was handsome. But it was not all about looks. Jason was a very good looking guy, but he didn’t have the charisma and energy that Ray radiated.

It was a regular meeting, nothing romantic. At Aisha’s birthday party. She arranged the seats, putting me and Jason together, but we settled across the table from each other and exchanged glances all night long, to my friend’s happiness. It seemed that she’d forgotten the reason people came to her house because she watched us like a mother cat. I didn’t think about Ray that night, except for comparing the two guys in the beginning.

We ate, danced, laughed, and wished happy birthday to the birthday girl. When it was time to go home I had little doubt that Jason would accompany me to the car. He only drilled me with his eyes and didn’t initiate it. By that time I’d poured enough champagne and wine into myself to lose all shame. I didn’t have much anyway. I was almost thrusting myself upon him, when my caring friend passed in front of me.

“Jason!” she said, planting her hands on her hips, “Sam is leaving. Alone. Do you want her to go outside on the empty street and face criminals, who are just waiting for their next victims? To the world where every step can become a tragedy? Do you want to be responsible for that?”

That’s how she talked, my friend Aisha. That was one of the qualities I liked about her and I forgave her sense of righteousness.

I wanted to object, tell her that I have a pepper spray and any criminal waiting for me had better look further, but Jason jumped up as if he’d been kicked.

“Sure, sure. Sam, I’ll walk you out.”

We said good-bye to everyone and entered the elevator. Aisha and her family resided on the twenty-first floor. It could be a long and boring ride. Especially if one present male didn’t do what was expected from him and one present female was frankly drunk. It was not like I drank a lot or often, but the stars connected that way on that day. What could I do? So, somewhere between the floors, I turned to him and asked, while rocking on my unconfident legs.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Huh?”

“Are we going to kiss or do you not like me?”

Jason blinked and wanted to answer, but didn’t have time for it. I pulled him closer and kissed him.

The next day I was, of course, embarrassed. I tried to explain that I’d never done anything like that, but Jason only laughed, assuring me that he liked it. I should note that I liked it, too. At that moment I liked his looks and manners. It seemed so unusual, touching and romantic when a guy didn’t attack you at the first opportunity. I guess for me it was so unusual that I, myself, asked him for a second date. Then it was the third. How do you like that? Three days before he felt comfortable enough to invite me.

“We’re almost there.”

I shuddered.

“What?”

“We are almost there,” said the confident and firm Jason from Planet One. What if it had been him in that elevator?

“So what?” I moved my arms behind my back. They had started getting numb from the handcuffs. I didn’t want to make jokes or ask questions. I didn’t want to talk to him. What if he was going to tell me my fate? It wasn’t going to change anything. I had to reconcile with the fact that I was going to be killed and I wanted to do it alone. I didn’t need them bothering me.

“I just wanted to let you know that we only follow orders,” Jason said. “We were ordered to capture you and deliver you to the appointed location.”

His colleague looked at him sideways. Hmmm. What was their relationship?

“I know your double on my planet,” I said without any goal in mind. Just said it out.

“It’s not going to help you,” Jason’s partner said.

“I’m not trying to manipulate you, if that’s what you think.” I tried to sit more comfortably, lifted my legs onto the seat, and brought my knees to my chest. It wasn’t really comfortable, but I stayed in this position. “It’s just interesting. You look like two drops of water. Jason and I were going to get married.”

Now both hunters looked at each other.

“You know my name.”

I rolled my eyes.

“What part of the sentence couldn’t you understand? My boyfriend, whom you have the honor of looking like, has the same name as yours. How else could I learn your name? Do you understand now or I should spell it out for you?”

Jason suddenly started to laugh.

“Careful!” his partner screamed when the car swerved from the road.

 
“I don’t remember when people talked like this. Rude!” he said through tears. “I don’t remember talk such as this from any live person.”

I understood what he meant, but if I’d started to bite, I couldn’t stop. Especially, since he’d helped me with his reminder about their orders.

“Do you talk only to ghosts?” I asked. “I can understand that. With that facial expression, any
live
person would try to stay away.”

“What facial expression do I have?” Jason, it seemed, found my flat sense of humor rather amusing, because he was dying from laughter and his partner gripped the handle over the door.

“You look like somebody dropped a brick on your foot and you’re about to finish off half of the city.”

I didn’t say anything funny to my knowledge. Absolutely; I wanted to needle, not to joke. As one could understand, I wasn’t in a joking mood for many reasons. Jason though, started to laugh even harder. He even had to get off the road and stop at the curb. His partner turned to me, and then looked at Jason, who dropped his head on the wheel so I could only see his shaking back, and then the second man laughed, too. Probably in a different situation I would join the fun, as it usually happened, but if one considered the goal of my destination, throbbing hands, and the start of a headache, one would understand why I was waiting for the hysterics to die. Jason’s partner calmed down first, then my boyfriend’s double. He turned to me, wiping the tears and snorting.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” he said as if apologizing. “I just …” He looked at his partner. “I just don’t remember when I laughed the last time. What about you, Vlad?”

“Like now? I don’t remember.”

His answer was careful. I could barely hear what he was saying. Even though there’d been holes in the partition.

“I didn’t follow the instructions. We have to bring her to the location immediately,” Vlad said.

“So, bring me, what’s the problem?” I shrugged. “I’m not stopping you. I’m not in a hurry to get there, wherever it is, but I don’t see a reason to delay. Unless you’re thinking of letting this innocent girl from Planet Two go.”

“We’ve got to go now,” Vlad said.

“I have a double?” Jason asked, glancing at me. If only someone could make me think that the person in front of me wasn’t the one I knew backward and forward. That this person was just his copy. I even noticed a small mole on his temple like my Jason had. It was paranormal.

“Everyone has a double,” I said.

“We’ve heard about that,” Jason said and looked at his partner. “There’s a rule for travelers to Planet Two. Not to meet their doubles.”

“I know that, trust me. Why else would I be here? By the way, your double,” I had to bite, “is much more pleasant than you. He’s kind, responsible, and fair. He doesn’t fag out.”

If not for the glass, Jason would have hit me after that last phrase. His eyes became slits, his jaws strained, and his lips pressed. He gazed at me for a few seconds, then turned to the road and took off.

“We shouldn’t talk to her.” I heard Vlad comment. Like I’d asked them to start doing that.

We were quiet the rest of the way, which was about twenty minutes. I lay down on my side across the seat, and sat up only after the car had stopped and the door of the driver’s side opened.

We’d stopped in front of a huge, iron gate that connected the walls of a high, stone fence. It was impossible to see what was behind the walls. Jason said something into the metal plate embedded in the stone, but I was too scared to hear him. Then he pushed a card into the plate and pulled it back.

My heart compressed from the fear that crept in just at this moment. How many minutes separated me from my death? I didn’t expect to have a proper trial and charges.

“It’s not the corporation,” I said. “Your jail? Cute.”

There was no answer. The gates parted slowly, lazily. Just as slowly we drove inside the yard. It was more like a park with different kinds of trees, flowers, burbling fountain in the middle made of geometric figures put down in the shape of a pyramid, a gazebo, and a few wooden benches under the green arches. The gates closed after us and the car moved on the road among freshly cut lawns to the niveous painted house.

“What a wonderful, I’m not afraid to say,
romantic
jail! I yelled trying not to give away the fear in my voice. “Probably human microwaves here are covered in diamonds. It’s a pleasure to die here. Too bad I can’t post it on my Facebook. Look people, that’s where I’m going to be cooked! I know, not all of us can be so lucky! Don’t hate me!”