"Yeah? Like what?" Jake's smile had lost its amused edge.
"You know a guy named Greg Horner?" Jamie remembered that in her world they'd served together at some point.
"Maybe." Wariness crackled in his voice. "What's it to you?"
"I ran into him a while back."
"Look, lady, whatever he did to you, whatever he said about me, it's got nothing to do with who I am."
"You were in the Marines together, weren't you?"
"I got nothing more to say until you tell me what the fuck you want with me." His eyes were roaming over her body, but Jamie had the strong impression he wasn't checking out her curves. "You carryin', by any chance?"
"No!" Jamie glanced him in amazement. "You thinking I'm here for revenge or something? No, that's not it at all, Jake."
"Then you better tell me what it is or I'm taking you back to your car right now."
"What it is." Jamie pondered what tactic she should try this time. It was like one of those movies where you got to relive a scene over and over again until you finally get it right. A Groundhog Day that involved different people and circumstances. "Are you happy with what you do, Jake? Are you happy with the way things are?"
"Happy?" He snorted. "Girlfriend, I served in the Tehran invasion and occupation. You know, the 'Holy War,' according to CNN? When I start feeling happy those memories come back and slap me in the face. But I like working on cars. Making them right. Everything else, including the rest of this sad-sack cucked beta male world, can go fuck itself."
"Cucked?"
"Cuckolded. You know what that means, don't ya?"
"I think so. But who's cuckolding the world?"
"The fucking big muck-a-mucks who run the place. They got everyone bowing down. A decorated veteran can't even legally own a gun! What total bullshit is that? They crack the whip and people grovel and whine, 'How low do I bend over, massa?'"
Jamie shot him an uncomprehending glance. He sort of sounded like her dad, but more bitter.
"You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" he demanded.
"You're saying people bow too easily to authority? If that's what you mean, I'm with you there. I never would've believed Americans would surrender so many rights so willingly."
Jake turned his head to stare at her – long enough that someone honked at them for not pulling away when the signal turned green. Jake flipped them off. A guy in a pickup roared up alongside them, giving them a hard glare. Something he saw in his Jake's face made him tap his brakes and ease away.
"Smart choice, motherfucker," Jake murmured.
They drove on, turning onto a freeway onramp.
"You got me going on my favorite subject – or 'rant,' as my ex-girlfriend would call it," he said. He pulled off the freeway and into a vacant parking lot with weeds poking through cracks in the cement. "But now it's your turn. And no more coy bullshit. Who are you and what do you want?"
"I'm not sure what I want. And I'm not being coy. It's just that if I tell you – show you – who I am, first, you're not going to believe it. Second, if you do believe it, your life will change." She took a moment to sort out what she was thinking, without much success. The best she could come up with was that Jake Culler could make a formidable ally...but she wasn't sure if that would be against the aliens or their government or both. "That's kind of why I was asking about if you were happy with your life. Because if you are, if you don't want it to change, I'm going to get out of this car and you won't ever see me again."
Jake stared at her for a long, cool moment. "I think my life sucks, basically. I think this world sucks. Everything is a goddamned lie. So, yeah, I'm not all that worried about change." He gave her an icy smile. "So if you want to rock my world, give it your best shot."
"If you're sure that's what you want."
"Bring it on."
"What do you think about parallel worlds?"
"Not a whole helluva lot. Why?"
"I'm from one. I knew you and Greg in my world. My original world. We served together in a government organization that dealt with people who possess superhuman powers."
"Yeah. Right. I'm not into science fiction, but even I watched that show a couple of times. But hey..." His eyes raked over her. "You do got yourself a super body, I'll give you that."
"Thanks. But on top of my wonderful physique I have the powers of super-strength, telekinesis, and telescopic vision. Just to give you fair warning." Jamie was studying the area, which featured a number of moribund businesses and mostly empty streets. The "coast" looked fairly "clear."
"Heh. I gotta say, I think I might have a super ability for attracting fruitcakes – "
The GTO rose. Jake's mouth flapped shut. He latched onto the steering wheel as the car hopped over the nearby now-defunct Quickie Mart gas station and landed behind the building, causing a startled homeless man to drop his bagged drink and stumble away across the lot with his shopping cart.
Jake blew out a "whoa" under his breath. His hands unhooked from the steering wheel one finger at a time. He watched the homeless man shuffle out of sight, tossing terrified glances back in their direction.
"He might talk himself into believing it was the booze," said Jamie. "But I don't think you'll be able to do that."
Jake continued to breathe heavily, his eyes fixed forward as if in hard concentration.
"Greg thought I was an advanced android after my demonstrations," said Jamie. "The 'Girl from Darpa.' Funny thing, DARPA really did build an android that looked like a young woman. In fact, it tried to kill me."
"All right," Jake rasped. "You're saying...you met Horner? You did this with him, too?"
"I've done demonstrations with a number of people, all from my team back on my world. I don't think Horner ever believed me. Maybe he's changed his mind by now. But the others do believe. And many higher level government officials know about me, including the Defense Secretary, the heads of the DHS, FBI, NSA, and President Tomlinson herself."
"The Queen Bitch and her evil hordes." Jake seemed satisfied to focus on that reality for a long moment.
"Ya. She actually tried to kill me a few times – once with WANDA, who I later learned was a 'Weaponized Autonomous Nanodevice Deployment Android.'"
"Still sounds like that same science fiction show I checked out a couple of times." He turned to face her with an air of great reluctance and caution, as though he was facing a personal nightmare. "How did you lift my car like that? What's the trick?"
"It's called telekinetics. And no, we don't quite know how it works. It seems to violate some basic laws of physics."
"More like basic reality. It was some kind of special effects stunt, wasn't it?"
"Same special effect stunt as this." Jamie had noticed the tool chest on a towel in the back seat. She snapped open the lid and a large socket wrench floated out and up between the front seats, hovering in front of Jake's face. He grabbed it. The wrench refused to budge. Jake circled a hand through the air around it.
"No wires," he grunted.
"Nope."
She released it to fall into his lap. Jake lifted the socket wrench slowly and turned it in his hands.
"Still thinking it's an illusion somehow." But he sounded doubtful.
Jamie placed her hand on the control dash between them. "What would happen if you hit my knuckles as hard as you could with that?"
"Broken knuckles."
"Go for it."
Jake shook his head. "Don't think so."
"Start lightly and build up to a bone-breaking blow."
Jake breathed out with a stoical exasperation. He leaned around and rapped Jamie's knuckles lightly. When she showed no reaction, he tapped them a bit harder. Then harder still. He paused, searching out her eyes.
"It's okay," she said.
He raised the socket wrench and gritting his teeth swung it down with a harsh grunt. He withdrew the wrench and bent closer, peering down at her hand. No sign of damage to her knuckles – not so much as a bruise or
even a slight reddening. Jamie raised her hand, flexing her fingers and making a fist.
"See," she said. "No damage."
"You felt no pain?"
"Nope."
"Maybe you have nerve damage or something."
"What if you hit me in the forehead with all your strength? Do you think if that had no effect you could explain it by 'nerve damage'?"
"What's your point – that you're invulnerable like Superman?"
"Something like that."
"It would take a lot more than a socket wrench to test that."
"President Tomlinson tried to take me out with a 10 megaton nuke."
Jake smirked at her as though he knew she was shitting him. After a few seconds, his smirk faded.
"Though I didn't take the full blast," she added. "I might've gone a mile or so before it detonated – and it had to cut through a lot of steel."
Jake turned away from her, gazing straight ahead across a plain of dusty, weed-infested, empty parking lots and abandoned business buildings. Jamie wondered if he lived near here. For his sake, she hoped not.
"This really isn't a stunt or special effect, is it?" he asked in a low voice.
"No. Sorry."
"So you came here from a parallel world where everyone has superpowers? Being serious now. For real. That's your story?"
"That's my story."
"And you're here...why, exactly?"
"My family is alive here. My husband and my baby girl. I lost them on my world. So when I had this opportunity – someone who could travel between dimensions – I took it. Also, I had reason to believe this world was under threat from an alien race."
"Jeez. Now there's aliens involved?"
"An object they sent to Earth triggered the superhuman transformation..." She hesitated, seeing the pain in his face. "It's hard to make this simple, Jake. Maybe just focus on the key things for now. There are alternative worlds, I'm from one – one where people have superpowers – and now I'm here. Are you with me on that?"
"I'd like to know why you're here with me. As I asked before, what do you want from me?"
"I guess I'm here looking for an ally."
"How could I help someone who could supposedly survive a ten megaton blast?"
Jamie took an unnecessary breath. "I might be able to make you like me."
"I already do sort of like you."
She smiled. "Make you have superhuman powers."
"How?"
"I'd have to infect you. Give you some fluids from my body."
"I like the sounds of that."
"More specifically, my tears. There might be other ways to do it, but tears are the only way we've found so far. And to be honest, I can't be sure it would work or what the results might be. I just tried it out on my husband and my best friend after the government scientists told me my tears were the only fluids that held the alien nanovirus."
"Whoa. Hold on here. Jeez." Jake wiped away the gathering sweat on his forehead, untouched by the cold air blasting from the car's vents. "You've got government scientists studying you? Didn't you just say the government tried to kill you?"
"Yes," Jamie said with a short laugh. "But after that failed, President Tomlinson offered a truce, which I've accepted for now. We're supposed to be working together to defeat the alien threat."
Jake sighed. "The aliens again. All right, I'll bite. A horde of slathering reptiles or mindless insect killing machines?"
"Neither. They actually seem quite rational and human-like in appearance, though annoying in their godlike certainty that if they don't destroy us that we'll end up destroying them in the future."
"Are you fucking serious?"
"Dead serious. That's what they claimed on my world." Jamie hesitated. Would the truth be damaging to her cause with Jake? But if they actually did become allies, he'd learn the whole truth anyway. "But there was a twist here: the aliens predicted that your civilization was going to self-destruct, so there was no need for them to intervene. However, my arrival changed that. Apparently, the aliens now predict that you'll survive, because of me somehow. When the government learned about that they decided to kill me."
Jake was rubbing his head as if to soothe or stave off a bad migraine. "Man," he said, "this fucking story is just about killing me. I'd write you off as just another loony broad, except you moved this car a hundred feet through the air and I hit your hand hard enough to break half its bones..." He turned to her, his eyes narrowing into a intense scrutiny. "So you're saying if you give me this alien mumbo-jumbo virus, I can be like you? Move shit with my mind? Leap a tall building with a single bound?"
"Maybe. It varies from person to person what powers they get from the virus. But you'll definitely be impervious to most sicknesses and minor injuries. You had decent strength and telekinetics on my world, but I can't make any hard predictions."
"All right. Fuck it. It's not like I got anything that great going on in my life anyhow."
"You're ready to do this?"
"Lay it on me."
"Okay. Give me a minute."
Jamie leaned back and gazed into the distance, shutting everything out but her thoughts. She drifted back in time with the usual feeling of extreme reluctance paired with an undertaker's determination. The horrific "money shot" was a sad-eyed Principal McEnroe interrupting her algebra class and taking her to her Office where Sheriff Jack Coulter waited with his hands crossed in ceremonial grimness. "Mrs. Shepherd," he'd said. "I'm afraid I have some bad news..."
Jamie blinked, and a matching pair of tears sprang from her eyes, poised on her cheeks. She noticed Jake staring at her with a near-fearful intensity.
"What? You've never seen a woman cry before?"
"Oh, I've seen plenty cry. But usually they're cursing me out while they're doing it."
Jamie choked up a laugh. "Why don't I have any trouble believing that?" She dabbed her fingers in both tears. "Ready?"
"Yep."
"Okay. Try not to blink."
She extended her two fingers slowly toward his eyes. At the last moment, he grasped her wrists as though to steady them, and then sucked them both into his mouth. Jamie gave a startled gasp and only narrowly avoided yanking them out with a force that might've injured him.
"Heh," he said, licking his lips. "Salty. Could use a touch of sugar or maybe lime."
"Asshole."
Jake laughed. "Hey, it should work, shouldn't it? The nano-whatchmacallits are in my system now, right?"
"I don't know. I'd guess so." Jamie tuned down her annoyance with an effort. What annoyed her more than anything was the tingling his lips had left on her fingers, as if they had minds of their own. In that instant she was painfully aware that Jake, despite being a misogynistic prick, was also a damn good-looking man. "Not a good idea to surprise me, Jake. That could have injurious if not fatal results."
"A real femme fatale, huh?"
Jamie shoved open the door, exercising discipline again in not smacking it across the vacant parking lot.
"I'll check back with you in a couple of days," she said. "You probably should go home and rest. If this works, you're going to start feeling a bit sick."
"You never mentioned that."
"And there will be a learning curve with your new abilities, if they happen. Be careful – very careful – around people at first. A good idea would be to test yourself out in an isolated area. I'll check back with you in a bit."
Jamie took some satisfaction in his startled scowl as she – after a quick check of the immediate environs – launched herself into the air. She spotted the homeless man shading his eyes and watching her go. As she rose, she saw him toss a box of Ripple – the label clear in her magnified vision – in a nearby garbage dumpster. Saving the world one alcoholic at a time, she thought.
A minute later, Jamie dropped down on a secluded park bench facing Kim-Ly's possible rental house from across one hundred or so meters of greenbelt. She checked her cell. A message from Kim-Ly read: I'm sorry, but I'm n
ot interested in working for DARPA, or any branch of government involved with the military. I'm also not a U.S. citizen, so I doubt that would be feasible anyway. Thanks.
Jamie smiled. Kim-Ly had never been particularly gung-ho about working for DARE, either. She liked that about her. Jamie would just have to introduce herself in person.
She was pushing off the bench when she spotted a young, dark-haired woman riding a bike up to the house. Jamie zoomed in: Kim-Ly. Thinking quickly, Jamie took control of Kim-Ly and her bicycle, easing her gently off the road onto the grass. Kim-Ly fought for control, but the bike's handlebars were unyielding. When Kim-Ly squeezed the brakes, Jamie raised the bike a few inches off the grass, feeling a guilty amusement at the growing panic in Kim-Ly's face. She guided the bike to a stop directly in front of her.
"Ah..." The young Vietnamese kicked out one foot to avoid falling as Jamie released control. "I – I apologize. I somehow lost control of my bike."
"I know. I was the one who took control of it."
The girl stared at her. "I am sorry, I don't understand."
"I have telekinetic abilities, among other so-called superpowers."
Jamie smiled. Kim-Ly managed a shaky smile in response. Of course Jamie was joking and there was a logical, scientific explanation. Which there was, but Kim-Ly wasn't going to accept that – at least, not at first.
The bike bucked out of Kim-Ly's grip and rolled up to lean against one side of the picnic table. Kim-Ly also rose and settled down next to Jamie with a resounding gasp.
"It's okay," said Jamie. "There is a logical explanation."
"Am I dreaming?"
"No. I'm Jamie Shepherd, the one who emailed you."
"Oh. You work for DARPA! This is some new technology!"
Jamie almost hated to dash the girl's hopes for a neat, rational explanation. "I have been working with DARPA. Sort of. But I'm afraid it's not that simple, Kim-Ly."
"What is not so simple?"
"Me. Who I am, and why I'm here."
"Okay. But I don't understand why you are speaking to me."
"Because in my world – I come from a parallel universe – you had a psychic gift. And I'm hoping to help you develop that here."
Something changed in Kim-Ly's eyes. It took Jamie a moment to realize that some of the original shock had bled from her face. She was now staring at Jamie with something like recognition – or at least a lack of surprise – as if Jamie fit into her worldview somehow.
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