by J. Judkins
Naomi considered her words. Why did she need a secret lair? Given her need to keep the modulator as far from herself as possible, Naomi had originally envisioned the lair as a form of insurance. She hadn’t wanted her minions being able to find her, should their recovery mission be successful.
But what good was a secret lair if its usefulness expired the moment she returned to work, where anyone could find her, fewer than ten hours from now?
“That’s another excellent point,” Naomi admitted. “Very well! It’s still early. I’ll compose another email to countermand this morning’s scheduled mass-firing email.” She snapped her fingers. “Even better! I’ll cancel the first message before it gets sent!”
“Good for you.”
There was a half-pallet nearby with cases of washer fluid. Melanie found a space to sit where someone had removed several boxes. “Are you planning on quitting Brookings and doing the villain thing full-time?”
“I can’t. The supervillain thing is a side-job, not my primary one.”
“Ah. Seeing as we’ve got some time to ourselves and you’re not actively threatening to kill anyone—namely me—I want to get a few things off my chest.”
“Go ahead. Communication is necessary in healthy relationships.”
Melanie crossed her arms. “First things first: agreeing to help you doesn’t mean agreeing for you to take me hostage.”
“I invited you because I thought I might need a beautiful hostage if things turned out badly.”
“And, naturally, you thought of me?”
“Of course. You were the very first person on my list.”
“As a potential hostage?”
“No, as a beautiful potential hostage,” Naomi corrected her. “That’s an important detail. I wanted you with me because you’re beautiful.”
Melanie looked away. Her expression seemed to suggest she smelled something unpleasant. “Sometimes I wonder about you.”
“Granted, my potential list of hostages is notably small, as you’re the only person who’d agreed to help me, but you’re still the first person on it.”
“And then you follow it up with comments like that and we’re back to where we started,” Melanie sighed. “Why not start explaining? In detail, please.”
“Explain what? I have nothing to hide.” Naomi tried not to let her confidence show, doing her best to appear cooperative with a hopefully innocent smile. “Feel free to ask me anything. Did you want to know more about the sex toy?”
Melanie averted her eyes. “I don’t care about that.”
Naomi’s grin widened. “Thank you for understanding. Let’s agree to put the cat back in the bag and keep the matter of the sex toy confidential.”
“This is really about that other woman, isn’t it?”
“What is there to know? I believe Angel used to work for us, and I needed to ask a few specific questions,” Naomi said, which was basically true. Hopefully, Central Authority wouldn’t be able to use any of it against her in the future.
“Why not try talking to her, instead of going out of your way to kidnap her?”
“I tried that on the first day. Her companion, Kim, told her to keep quiet.”
“Maybe Kim was jealous? Or embarrassed you were showing Angel attention?”
“I see you’ve also come to the same conclusion. I’ve long suspected she and Angel are a romantic couple.”
“No!” Melanie gasped, jumping to her feet. “Do you really think so?”
Naomi tapped the side of her head. “My mind is like a steel trap. Nothing escapes me.”
Melanie’s face twisted. “That expression doesn’t mean . . . oh, never mind.”
Naomi brushed the inconsistency aside. “Regardless, I assumed Kim didn’t want Angel sharing her secret.”
“What secret?”
“The secret of how she achieved independence.”
“Independence from what?” Melanie continued to look more and more exasperated.
“Oh, you know. Independence in general,” Naomi explained, waving a hand to hopefully conceal how much she desperately wanted to avoid explaining anything further.
“Are you suggesting Angel’s ‘love conquers all’ explanation makes sense to you?”
“Not completely, but I’m certain the details behind her explanation will become apparent. I’m nothing if not observant.”
“Yeah. I’ve noticed that about you.”
“We now know Angel used love to achieve independence. We need to expand on that.”
“How? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It does to me. You think I’m attractive, don’t you?”
“Attractive, and borderline insane,” Melanie agreed, but her eyes were already beginning to narrow, as if she were suddenly dubious about something. “Where are you going with this?”
“You understand my situation. You’re familiar with my personality. I’m gambling that love could free me, too.”
Melanie looked to be having difficulty swallowing. “And what has that got to do with me?” she finally asked.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you, Melanie. You’re intelligent, beautiful, perceptive, resourceful—”
Melanie seemed pleased with the compliment.
“—but most importantly, available,” Naomi finished.
The scowl returned.
“I need someone like that in my life.” Naomi smiled her best winning smile. “And I’m hoping it will be someone like you.”
“Ah.” Melanie looked down at her hands.
“So, what do you think? Are you interested?”
“Is this about me this time?”
“Yes. This is about you. I’m asking you.”
“About me.”
“Should I say it again? Yes, this is about you. Specifically, about you. I’m asking you. Will you help me?”
Melanie’s smile lit up the room. “Yes. Of course.”
Naomi couldn’t help but smile back, rubbing her hands together in glee. “Thank you. I was hoping you’d say that.” She slipped her hands into Melanie’s. Her joy felt overwhelming, infectious. “It means so much to me that you’d say yes.”
Melanie seemed to melt with the attention.
“With your help,” Naomi continued, “I’m certain we’ll be able to find a likely candidate for me to fall in love with before long. Do you have a suggestion for where we should start looking?”
Melanie freed her hands from Naomi’s grasp. She stood up, walked over to the nearest wall, placed her hands against it, and struck the wall with her forehead.
Then she did it again.
And again.
This didn’t seem at all healthy to Naomi. “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah. This has all been great, but you know what? I’m going home.”
“But you agreed to help me!”
“You don’t need my help to fall in love with some random stranger. I’m done here.”
Naomi was left to stare as Melanie took a meandering, indirect path toward the general direction of the door. Her hands clawed the air to convey frustration as she sought an explanation for her sudden reversal in fortune.
“I get it,” she spat. “Time for you to go home and tell your team of lovers all about what happened tonight. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Melanie paused, her hand resting on the doorknob. “Team of lovers?”
“Don’t think I don’t know!” Naomi tried to keep the raw jealousy from her voice, but feared she wasn’t successful. “The encrypted messages. The secret phone calls. I know all about them!”
Melanie burst into sudden laughter.
Naomi folded her arms and glared in indignant anger. “This amuses you?”
“You think I’m seeing someone else?”
“Am I wrong?”
“Oh, my. Where to start?” Melanie gingerly touched her forehead and winced. “First of all, there is no team. I’m in contact with one specific person. And not that frequently.”
�
�The same person you once said hated you?” Naomi mocked. “The same one who’d once suggested this job would be the effective end of your career?”
“That’s the one.”
Naomi remained dubious. “Please tell me, why would you keep in semi-regular contact with someone who hates you?”
“I keep up-to-date with him, that’s true, but only because he expects progress reports,” Melanie said. “I do it because that’s my job. That’s the only reason. Surely he’s got to know that if I ever did find anything worthwhile, the last thing I’d ever want to do is tell him about it.”
Melanie’s excuse made little sense. Why would anyone want to know what went on in pharmaceuticals? “So, you’re saying that you’re not interested in him as a life partner?”
“Oh, God, no.” Melanie hugged herself and shuddered.
“Not even slightly?”
“Not even slightly,” Melanie confirmed. “I’m completely single in every conceivable way. No relationships. No nothing.”
Naomi dared to hope. She’d always admired Melanie, but given Melanie’s ties to her current love interests, she’d never once considered taking things further. She’d only be setting herself up for disappointment and potential heartbreak.
But if she’d been mistaken all this time, and Melanie wasn’t interested in any of them, might it be possible she was interested in her?
The attraction couldn’t be denied. Melanie was her type. Exactly her type. Intelligent. Brave. Beautiful. Independent. A bundle of sweetness, rolled up into one adorable little package.
It would be wonderful, if it were true.
Could it be possible?
“There’s no one in my life,” Melanie said. “I’m not interested in anyone else. Do you understand? No one else.”
And just like that, all of Naomi’s hopes were crushed beneath the weight of despair. “Oh,” she whispered.
“Not even a little bit.” Melanie continued to destroy Naomi’s hopes of a romantic future. Her words were absolute and without mercy. “I’m alone as can be, and perfectly fine with it.”
“I understand.”
Naomi did her best to mask her disappointment, hoping it wouldn’t show. Melanie was everything she could ever want, but what could she do if her potential romantic interest wasn’t interested in loving her in return? Not even a little bit?
The answer was nothing. There was nothing she could do.
Nothing at all.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kim woke up to greet the darkened curtains blocking the sunlight with a smile on her face. She couldn’t confirm whether or not it was a lovely day outside, but from the light around the edges of the curtains, it seemed as if it could be.
Today.
Today was the day the magic would happen.
She was determined this time. There would be no more excuses. No more delays. Time was running out. The signs were there for all to see. Each succeeding day eroded just a little bit more of Kim’s already tenuous self-control. She knew if she didn’t act soon, it would have dire consequences.
Kim had examined her situation from every angle and could see no other options. All the benefits of marriage without an official ceremony, or the reality of marriage with all the implied benefits. Those were her only choices.
And given Kim’s near fanatical resistance toward even the mere thought of marriage, her choice was clear. It had to be option one. If she wanted to keep her single status, it was absolutely imperative she seduce the hell out of Angel at the earliest opportunity to remove Angel’s reason for wanting it.
Kim slipped on a fresh t-shirt, dragging her not-so-fresh clothing from the night before behind her to be tossed into the bathroom hamper. She examined herself in the mirror with a critical eye.
If avoiding marriage was her only reason, Kim might not have the strength to go through with it. But it was not her only reason.
In the early days of self-deluded, fanciful hopes of resistance, Kim had come to fully appreciate how an ordinary event could become deeply meaningful, depending upon the circumstances. Kim had resisted temptation because she hadn’t wanted to send Angel a signal she couldn’t take back. It hadn’t occurred to her then that the opposite also held true, that the meaningfulness of a moment was itself a variable, subject to interpretation.
A wedding night was considered special because it marked a long-awaited “first time” in a couple’s lives. The greater the delay, the greater the corresponding significance for when it finally did happen. The logic was inescapable.
For that reason alone, it was vital Kim allowed nothing to delay her. It needed to happen now— sooner, rather than later—before the underlying significance of the event became something deeply meaningful and beyond her control.
Then there was the matter of her own self-preservation. She knew enough about sex to know both partners should receive mutual satisfaction at some point in order to fall asleep, or at least think about something else for a change. That meant Kim needed to start doing her part. If things continued to be one-sided, she would eventually die from sexual exhaustion.
After taming her hair into something that didn’t closely resemble a rat’s nest, Kim found her toothbrush and brushed her morning breath away. She prepared for the day on autopilot. Most of her mind remained focused on her immediate future.
There was a final reason that today had to be the day. And admittedly, it was not her best.
As a science fiction geek, Kim was fully conscious of her unique status. She alone was uniquely placed to go where no one had gone before. No one outside of science fiction had ever made love to an alien before. Kim could be the first ever in recorded history with that unique insight.
Again, not her best reason, as Kim had absolutely no intention of sharing the details of her personal life with anyone, let alone the entire scientific community. In addition, this technical “first time” wouldn’t truly be a first. Kim had long since lost track of how often she’d been with Angel. It did make for good justification, however, so in the end, she decided to allow it.
Her plan was as detailed and complex as a casual plan could get, carefully crafted to conceal the fact it was a plan at all. She and Angel would spend the day at home. At some point, Kim would seize the opportunity and get things started. It couldn’t be anything romantic—as it was all about spontaneity, not enthusiasm—but that was the only set condition. It was vital Kim not send Angel a message which could be twisted into a blatant admission that she really wanted her in the worst way possible.
The aroma of roast beef filled the air. Kim followed her nose to the kitchen.
Angel was setting out reheated sandwiches from the night before. Feeling uncharacteristically brave, Kim stepped in from behind, wrapping her arms around her and hugging her tightly. “Today’s Sunday,” she said. “No one’s expecting us to do any work. Anything special you’d like to do today?”
Angel smiled as she gently disengaged herself from Kim’s embrace. “Several things,” she replied. “I’d like to borrow your car. I won the lottery yesterday, and I’d like to turn in my ticket.”
Kim was halfway around the table to her chair when the full weight of Angel’s statement sank in.
“The lottery?” Kim tried to keep her eyes from bugging out. “The state lottery?”
Angel gave a slight nod.
“The fifty million dollar lottery? That one?”
“Eighty-three million at present, not fifty,” Angel corrected. “And yes, that one.”
Kim could only stare. The odds against winning the jackpot were in the high multimillions to one against.
Apparently, having concluded that Kim wasn’t going to repeat the same question an additional time, Angel slid the ticket across the table. Kim snapped it up and scanned its contents. It revealed the impossible.
Eighty-three million dollars. It was all true.
“Did you buy your ticket at the gas station? The same time I did?” Kim asked.
“No
. At the time, I didn’t see the point.”
Kim pulled out her chair and sat down, her head still reeling. “When did you get yours?”
“Yesterday.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You did. It wasn’t the first time you’ve expressed a desire for ultimate freedom.”
Kim returned the ticket to the table. She had never been the watch-with-bated-breath-while-the-numbers-were-drawn type of person. If a store scanner told her she’d won, she’d expect a miniscule payout at best.
Angel held up Kim’s car keys. “May I borrow the car?”
Kim ignored the question. “You do realize you can’t simply turn it in, don’t you? Whenever someone wins the jackpot, they check their background.”
“I did not know that,” Angel said. “May I borrow the car?”
“Dammit, will you please stop for a second? Let me think about this!”
Apparently, this was enough. Angel took the hint. She pulled out a chair opposite Kim and sat down.
Kim took a hefty bite of her sandwich as she gathered her thoughts. Angel clearly didn’t understand. If she were placed under the public microscope, it wouldn’t take investigators long to discover that Angel didn’t have a history they could investigate. Kim doubted they’d ever think “space alien,” but she wouldn’t put it past them to deny Angel her winnings, claiming she wasn’t a legal citizen.
And what about media attention? A few days of nosy reporters wouldn’t be so terrible. She’d have to change her phone number to avoid everyone and their brother calling for a handout, but that was a small price to pay.
The big issue was Angel and her lack of history.
What if I turn in the ticket under my own name, and not Angel’s?
The more Kim thought about it, the more she liked the idea. If money were no longer an issue, the two of them could find an isolated place to lie low for a few weeks, until the hype blew over. And once the payments started rolling in, Kim would get her expense money back.
Yes, that sounds perfect.
“I have a proposal for you,” Kim said.
Kim now had Angel’s undivided attention.