I had seen weird things before, but this took the cake. In fact, it not only took the cake, but it exploded it. Right in front of me was a man wearing a black t-shirt, about five sizes too small, jeans that bunched up at the crotch, very noticeably might I add, and shoes that looked more like what my grandma wore. Definitely the height of uncool.
I was doing my best to ignore him, which I admit I wasn’t doing very well. In five minutes my bus would come and then I could busy myself with schoolwork and pretend that he didn’t exist. But now, I had to look for the bus, which had an inconvenient habit of either coming much too early or intolerably late. I looked at the street and started counting red cars. One red car, two red cars, three...
“I have dark hair.”
I glanced at the man – indeed he had dark hair. And he was closer to me, closer than comfortable. I shifted and tried to smile. “Why, yes, you have dark hair.” Crazy bastard.
He smiled too. I made a mental note that if this guy ever stopped being completely creepy, I would have to ask him for his dentist. He seriously had the most perfect teeth I had ever seen. “I have piercing blue eyes.”
Uh huh. “That’s nice.” I turned away. Another red car went past. Was it fourth or fifth?
“Can you feel the heat?”
“Um.” I looked at the sky. It was late September and it looked like it might rain. I glanced for the bus. It was nowhere in sight.
“The heat,” he tried again. “Your juicy heat between your thighs.”
I narrowed my eyes. What did he just say? “Excuse me?” I tried to make it sound as menacing as possible, but he seemed to only be encouraged.
“I want to stick my shaft into your juicy heat and reach your core.” He bent down on one knee. “Marry me.”
“Fuck you.”
He stood up and smiled. “Fuck you.” He spread his arms as if he wanted a hug and smiled even more. “I want your core.”
I gripped my bag tighter. “One more step, and you’re getting a genetics book hurled at your head,” I hissed.
“Marry me,” he said.
“I’m calling the police,” I said, grabbing my phone and flipping it open. But, just as I said that, the screen changed. The phone went dark and the words “Marry me” began to scroll on the screen. I looked up – the man was smiling even more.
I had to be dreaming. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. But, as I stared at him more, his smile became broader and his eyes darkened until they turned black.
“I will give you my heart,” he said. “And you will marry me.” Before I could say anything or even kick him in his balls, he touched his chest and his chest opened. I stared.
What the hell?
Inside was a single electronic device that looked strangely like a heart. It pulsated and was covered in so many wires that it seemed incomprehensible. I stared at him. I wanted to run, really, I did, but at that moment my legs decided to turn to lead. I gulped. His smile became as wide as a Cheshire’s cat’s. He took out the heart – his heart – and handed it to me. “Give me your core.”
I couldn’t move.
He came closer, still with a wicked smile on him. And I still couldn’t move. I could feel his breath on my face. Oh yeah, this was going to end badly...
And then someone else shoved me to the sidewalk. “Don’t move!” a man cried, grabbing his cellphone. He pointed it at the man with the Cheshire smile and pressed a button.
The man with the Cheshire grin stopped smiling. And then he exploded.
For a full minute, all I could do was stare at the wreckage. The acrid smell of smoldering electronics parts infiltrated my nose and his heart, if you can even call in that, made a calm plopping sound. The man squatted down next to me and took the heart out of my hands. He glanced at it, tweaked some wires, and smiled.
“Good, good. Completely destroyed. One more down.” He tossed it in the trash and turned an analytical eye toward me. “Well, that explains it.”
“That explains what?” My voice came out meaner than I intended, but for once, I didn’t care. I stood up shakily, taking out a bit of metal that clung to my hair, and felt my arm. It was bloody. I had scraped it.
He looked surprised. “You can see me?”
“Of course I can,” I said, annoyed. “But what does it explain?”
His eyes danced and an even wider smile appeared on his face. “It explains why he came after you. You’re a very curvy woman. Very luscious. Not very thin at all.”
My face turned beet red. I had never really considered myself beautiful – but I hadn’t also thought of myself as completely ugly. I was average and, as far as I was concerned that was fine. And what the hell was he doing anyway, talking about what I looked like when he just exploded the poor bastard? Not that I had particularly liked the man while he was alive. But really? Exploding him?
I looked around desperately. It was broad daylight, but nobody seemed to notice the explosion. Nobody seemed to care. They just walked past us, their eyes gliding from us as if we weren't even there. At first, I thought this was a mistake. And then the bus rumbled past us.
“Hey!” I cried, rushing after the bus. “Wait!”
“The bus can’t see you,” the man observed.
I ignored the man and ran after the bus, waving my arms frantically. “That bastard! He just went right by.”
“Like I said, the bus can’t see you.” The man leaned over and pointed to a crowd of people walking across the street. “See them? They can’t see you either. You’re invisible to them.”
I glared at the man. “You’re full of shit.” Then I hurried toward the people. “Hi guys, wait up for me!” I said. But, as I came closer, a shield seemed to spring up. I stumbled back and landed on my ass. I stood up and swore. Then I turned to the man. “Who the fuck are you?”
“An assassin,” he said, his face calm. Then, when he saw my blank stare, he smiled sympathetically. “They can’t see you because he gave you a virus. There are little microorganisms that are living on you who have given you some form of invisibility. And it’s absorbing your words and transmitting it in a different frequency so that you can’t even say anything to the other people walking by.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Is it?” He gestured to the bus stop. “You only saw me after he touched you. I was here the whole time. I was trying to track him down and discover what he wanted.” The man frowned. “I didn’t expect him to say the things he said.”
I shuddered. That was his problem, not mine. “So, if I am invisible, how can you see me?”
“That doesn’t matter.” He waved his hand like it was unimportant. I was about to slap him, but something in his face stopped me. “What is important,” he said slowly, “is that you stay invisible, at least for the time being. The virus will protect you for now.”
“Protect me from what?” I snapped.
“Protecting you from those Fabios who want to possess your core.” He smiled at that. “Your hot, molten core.”
My cheeks were on fire. I might have kicked him in the balls, but then an old lady almost walked into me. Almost. Just as she brushed past me, a strange sort of tingling came over my body and I was pushed away by her mere presence.
I fell – the man caught me and chuckled. “It’s okay,” he said smiling. “As long as he doesn’t have dark hair and blue eyes, we’re safe.”
“Piercing blue eyes,” I muttered.
“Yes, that too.”
I looked at him. His eyes were a completely unremarkable brown and his hair brown too. Nothing dark and handsome about him. But, it did feel nice that he was holding me. Really nice, in fact. Except for the fact that he was a fucking assassin and that he just exploded someone right in front of me.
“So I’m invisible.”
“Yep.”
“And she couldn’t touch me.”
“Yep.”
“And it’s because of a little virus.”
“Uh huh.” He smiled sympathetically. “We’ll have to test the virus on you, of course, but I believe that it is biological virus that has adapted itself with electronic means. It must have set up an electromagnetic pulse wave just now so that she wouldn’t touch you.”
“Do all assassins know about this?”
“Only the better ones.” He bit his lip. “Look, I know this is hard to take in at first, but all I’m asking is that you trust me. I won’t hurt you. It’s them I’m after, not you.”
“Them? There’s more?” And he wanted me to trust him? Was he fucking insane? All I knew about him was that he had wonderfully strong arms that felt very good around me and that he exploded people with his cell phone because he was an assassin. Oh sure, I was going to trust him. I didn’t even know his fucking name. He had to be insane.
I was going to tell him to fuck off, when his body tensed. He set me right. “Two of them are coming now. I can’t fight two off. We better run. Here, follow me and get into the car. We’ll make a run for it.”
“You can’t take on two?” I said, my voice rising hysterically. “You just exploded one of them! What kind of fucking assassin are you?”
“A very poor one, apparently,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Because obviously a good assassin should have an unlimited supply of targeted EMF exploders.”
“What?” EMF. Short for electromagnetic field. Who knew that my physics class could be so useful? I frowned. “But, wouldn’t that mean they’re electronic?”
“You held his heart. You tell me.” He looked at the men, frowning. “We should go now.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
He sighed. “Listen. Those Fabios over there? They don’t know what they’re doing. They’ll kill you without a second thought. That’s why I have to kill them first.”
“But why would they kill me?” I asked.
He swiped a hand in his hair impatiently. “We don’t have time for this! They’re coming for us. Are you coming with me or not?”
“I have class in an hour! And besides, you’re a strange man. Why should I think that I’ll be any safer with you than them? Plus, you did say I have a virus. Maybe that will protect me.”
“Only because it’ll eat your human innards from the inside out,” the man said sarcastically. “Your core will be less appetizing to them. Delicious, no?”
I froze. The men had seen me. They started to run toward us.
“Listen, if you stay, they are going to hurt you. Come with me. I know a place where you can get an antidote for the virus. And then, I swear, you’ll never see me again. Promise.”
The men running started to get goofy Cheshire smiles on their faces. “My staff will plunge into her heat all the night and we shall live happily ever after!” one of them cried.
I turned to the man. Assassin or not, at least he didn’t seem like he would rape me. Not like those guys. I shuddered automatically. “Where’s your car?” I asked.
“Follow me.”
When he said “car,” I thought that meant “car.” You know, an automobile. Little did I know that it was more like a jet engine on crack.
Think of James Bond’s car and how tricked up it was. James Bond’s car was nothing compared to this one. As soon as I went into the passenger’s seat, he turned on the engine and a series of lights turned on. It was like he was in a jet cockpit.
“Put on your seatbelt,” he commanded, and I didn’t even think twice. I strapped myself as tight as I could and held on to the surprisingly plush armrests which had a total of four cup holders in them.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“Your name. You have one, don’t you?”
“Um. Is this the proper time?”
There were more men following us now, about sixteen. The glass was thick – I guessed it was bullet-proofed – but I could still hear them yelling, “Core! Core! Core!”
I buried myself in the chair as much as I could. “Call me Rory,” he said, slamming on the accelerator. Instantly, three men were flattened by the car. Electronics parts from their bodies skittered across the hood.
“Don’t worry,” Rory said cheerfully. “It’s covered by insurance.” He put it in reverse and ran over the bodies. When I stared at him, he winked. “Just in case.”
“Sure.” I looked around... even more were coming.
He looked in my direction and swore. “How good are you at aiming?” he said.
“What?”
“Aiming.” He pushed another button and immediately controls for a machine gun appeared right before me. “Point and shoot,” he said. “Simple.”
I stared at him. “Are you James Bond?”
“Nah, better.” He barreled forward and ran over five guys. “Nine down, fifty to go,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t forget the shooting part.”
“We’ll never make it out of here,” I said. Several hundred more were coming toward us, screaming, “Core! Core!” All of them had dark hair and piercing blue eyes.
Piercing...
“Shit. The lasers.”
“Lasers?”
“Yeah, from their eyes. They’re not called piercing for nothing.” He pressed another button. “Rockets, engage!” he yelled at the car. The car made a purring sound. And then it leapt in the air. The men that had come were engulfed in a blinding fireball. But we weren’t there for long. We landed on the freeway and Rory slammed on the accelerator.
He tossed me his cell phone. “Would you make a call?” he said. “Speed-dial five. I’ll tell you what to say. But it’s rather urgent.”
I stared at him. More precisely, I stared at the background whooshing by him at an incredible speed. Plus, whenever we passed a car, there was a lurch from the virus or whatever the hell it was that was making me invisible. I felt sick.
“Maybe you’d better make the call,” I said.
“Are you kidding? I don’t have a hands-free device. If the cops find me, they’ll fine me through the roof. I don’t have that money.”
“Um. You’re going 130 miles per hour.”
“So?”
“The speed limit’s 70 miles per hour.”
“And, your point is?”
At that moment, a cop wheeled behind us, siren blaring and lights blinking red and blue. But Rory didn’t stop at all. “Look in the mirror. Tell me what his eye color is.”
I began to protest. “It’s too far away. I’ll never be able to see from here.”
“Just do what I said.”
I sighed, making my lip into a pout, and glanced at the mirror. And then I gasped. It was impossible not to see his eye color, a bright shining blue, contrasted neatly with his tan skin and dark brown hair.
Rory frowned. “As I thought. I wondered how they could see us.” He veered off the freeway while I watched in horror as the cop crashed into a beautiful classic Mustang. He looked at my face in the mirror and frowned. “Don’t worry, the other car had one of them in it too. They’re in full force today.”
I shivered when I heard the word them. “Who are they? And what do they want?” I paused. “What do they want with me?”
Rory sighed. “I’ll explain that later. Let’s just get somewhere safe. It’s dangerous right now.”
“But—“
“Do you trust me?” His voice sounded edgy.
I nodded and felt myself shrink. For a couple of minutes, we didn’t say anything. “Where are we going?” I asked finally as we twisted through residential areas, each area becoming more and more dilapidated with every street.
“To my house.”
“Yours?”
His voice was gentle. “I won’t harm you.”
“I know.” The words surprised me. An awkward silence followed. Just when I opened my mouth for another topic, he swerved into a parking space and turned off the ignition. Then he turned to me.
“By the way, what is your name?”
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