Chapter Eight


It was zero hour, do or die, now or never. I took a deep breath and held it.

In front of me, the main lights powered on, the initiators began to glow. So far so good. I nodded to Sarah, and she flipped the next set of switches.

Purple light, the flux field warming up. It was working exactly the same way as my gate at home. I simply hoped there would not be the same reaction.

Sarah triggered the laser, and the gate continued to go through its different phases, preparing for the teleport. I knew the next few moments would decide my destiny. I began to feel an irrational, animal panic welling deep inside me, compounding the anxiety that had already taken me during the past few hours. This was it.

Final stages. I bit my lip, and looked at Sarah. In her eyes, I saw everything I needed to. Warmth, compassion, empathy. I sighed. She was my perfect woman. And soon I could be leaving her behind. But it wouldn't be permanent, I reminded myself. Nothing is permanent.

Sarah asked in a voice that was dead center, not weak or strong, not sad or happy, but carefully and precisely neutral, "Shall we?"

I cleared my throat. "Yeah. Let's do it."

Sarah flipped the final switch. The laser went to full power, and the gate opened. There was a blinding flash, then darkness.


My vision recovered slowly. Not even UV 400 lab goggles do much when you're dealing with the equivalent of thousands of 40 watt bulbs. There was still the after-image of the transportation hovering in front of my vision.

I nervously ran a hand through my hair. The teleporter had worked. Now the real test came.

I jumped back on my hoverboard, and glided over to Sarah. "So, the mouse went through. When's he due to come back?"

"We never measured the time it took for teleport. It could be anywhere from minutes to days to months for him to transport and return." She sat down at a desk and motioned at the complicated display in front of it. "Luckily, we have a tracking device attached that will monitor his progress, as well as his current size. The teleport should drop him in that area you specified."

"Well, the idea was that if a giant mouse landed on Earth, he wouldn't be able to do much harm in the South Pole."

An uneasy moment passed. The data this teleport returned would, to a large extent, determine my future. If the rat shrunk from the teleport, it could mean a fundamental flaw in the invention. It could also mean that I would never be able to return home again. If the rat returned normal size, it would completely change several of the theories I had about the world I was in, and would open up some frightening possibilities.

"What's your world like?" Sarah asked suddenly.

I was taken aback. I began slowly, stammering slightly as I get the tendency to when I'm put on the spot. "Well, it's a lot like here, I guess... I mean, not much different..."

She leaned in closer, causing me to back up a second out of instinct. When a building begins to lean towards you, you back away no matter how attractive it is. "Then, tell me what it's like where you live."

I paused, considering how to tell her about my home life. It was complicated, at best. "I don't exactly live normally," I started, then began to flow more smoothly. "In fact, I don't really live in public. I can't afford to."

Sarah looked as if she was about to say something, but held herself back and let me continue.

"Have I told you that I used to work for the government in my world?" I asked. She nodded. "Well, it ended... badly. I wound up hurt pretty bad and running for my life. The government in my world isn't exactly trustworthy.

"They mobilized all their resources towards looking for me. I was the best they had, and I knew far too much to be allowed to live. I had worked on or around every major military innovation of the past ten years.

"They made my death their top priority. But I managed to lay low, using this invention I had which allowed me to completely change my facial structure. It wasn't permanent, but it got me through. I sold a few of my less revolutionary inventions on the black market, and made enough money to permanently retire.

"I made a home for myself in the middle of the country, where people don't ask questions and you have plenty of room. I still kept most of my facilities underground. I'm completely self-sufficient, so I pretty much just keep to myself, and invent.

"And that's pretty much the short version of my life for the past fifteen years."

My mouth was dry and my throat was hoarse, but I felt somehow better. I had never really been able to vent my feelings and frustrations about what had happened to me, never had anyone to talk about it with. I looked up into her warm, calm brown eyes, each easily the width of my armspan. I could see my reflection in them. But more importantly I could see a deep sadness and empathy. It almost made my heart break in some strange way. She didn't have to say a word.

Distantly, the doorbell rang. Sarah got up, and I glided after her.

Sarah opened the door to reveal Vanessa in the doorway. I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that I was hovering in plain sight. I had expected it to be Tamyra. Where could I go? I was caught, right in the open. Nearest cover was the door. There was no choice involved, only instinct. I bolted.

There was a tremendous pale hand moving towards me, slowly, ever so slowly. I was very far away then, watching from a distance. Was this it, then? I wondered idly. Was this the end? And did it matter so much if it was? I had experienced so many new things in the past few days, I felt like I'd lived more than enough for one life. If this was the end, I was prepared for it.

Two fingers, each the size of a Greyhound, slammed into the wall next to me. She hadn't killed me. Only sheer, lucky animal instinct gave me the sense to turn off my hoverboard. I plummeted hundreds of feet, the world around me a frightening blur, then triggered the hover just a few feet off the ground.

I realized that the noise the hoverboard made could be enough to make the giant woman notice me. Thus I glided over to Sarah's tremendous foot and killed the engine.

I was vulnerable, moreso than I had been in some time. I looked at the gigantic foot next to me, delicate and smooth. Sarah was walking around barefoot. That was a stroke of luck for me, considering the fact that she would feel it if she began to step on me. It also gave me a nice side view. I hadn't found feet especially erotic in my own world, but at this size things were different. She had some pretty large ones, although it may have just been my perspective. Her toes appeared to be each twice my length, and the big toe was as wide as I was long.

Her foot began to lean backwards, and I wound up staring at her lovely sole instead of running away like someone intelligent. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when it came back down on the floor, once, twice, three times as she tapped her foot. The shockwaves were powerful to say the least, and I found myself bouncing on the floor. Sess' shock absorbance was the only thing that kept me from getting seriously bruised.

I quickly sat up and moved a good distance away from Sarah's foot, although I continued to admire it a bit longer from afar. Then I turned my attention to the conversation booming over my head.

"I did manage to put something together, it's still just a prototype but..."

Two large leather boots with fifteen feet of spiky heel came directly towards me. I scrambled for cover as Vanessa brushed past Sarah and down to the lab. Sarah quickly bent down, causing me to nearly fall back in surprise as her legs bent forward and her chest came forward in one fluid movement. It was somehow both arousing and threatening.

She scanned the ground for me, and put out her hands. "Eric, are you here?"

I toggled my mic. "Yeah, I'm right next to your left hand." She looked over and spotted me.

"Okay, quick, get into my hand." She turned it over so the palm was facing me.

I did as she said, leaping into the softness of her palm. Her fingers cupped around me, huge white walls rising up surrounding me. There was a rising sensation, then everything began to tilt. I moved desperately trying to find some purchase on her palm as it quickly went vertical. It was closing up against something, blocking out the light.

"Let go," I heard and felt her say softly. I couldn't, every instinct was screaming against it. Everything was growing dark.

"Trust me." she said slowly. "Trust me and let go." I gritted my teeth. Yes, I had to trust her, she wasn't going to hurt me, she was just doing what was best. I slowly loosened my grip, and fell.

I was in soft, warm darkness, and there was the dulled thunder of a heartbeat. There was motion, and quite a lot, but I was held in place by two walls. Beneath me was some sort of tensile surface. And then it occurred to me that I'd been in this situation before.

I hurriedly toggled my mic. "You put me in your bra?!"

"Hey, it was the only place I could think of," she muttered under her breath.

"No, I mean, I'm not complaining, I mean, it's just kind of..."

"Amazing?" she completed.

"Yeah."

She was moving down the stairs, I could tell from the padding sounds as her bare feet hit the steps, and the motion of descent. She moved so fluidly, I realized that if this was a normal woman I would probably be jarred about quite a bit more.

She came down the steps, and stopped dead. I climbed up the inside of her shirt to get a better view.

Vanessa was looking at something on a counter, looking very intently at it. I squinted to see what she was looking at. It was clearly the drafting paper we used for blueprints. It was clearly a complex diagram, in the shape of a circle...

The plans for the portal. Tamyra must have left them out when she was finished looking at them. My heart sank within me.

"This is interesting." Vanessa spoke slowly, as if tasting her words, as she turned towards Sarah. "I don't know much about mechanics, but that didn't look like the plans for a 'containment field'." Menace dripped from her words. I felt Sarah's heartbeat quicken.

"Get out of my house." She said, her voice a burning but tightly controlled fury.

"What about your job?" the military woman countered, coming so close that I had no alternative but to stare at her neck, in which a vein throbbed.

"I quit," Sarah sounded disgusted. "I don't ever want to see you again. Now get out!" she said forcefully.

"Oh, you'll see me again, bitch," Vanessa said coolly. "This is far from over."

She took her time striding up the stairs and out of the house.

Sarah scooped me out of her bra and sat me on the counter, then turned away, biting her lip. This had to be hard for her. Personally, however, I thought that she had done the best thing she could. This wasn't any permanent solution, but she had time. I had to warn her, tell her what to do next.

"You won't be able to stay here," I said. "You'll have to move out today."

"No," she said strongly. "We can't leave yet. We have to get you home first."

"Sarah, this could take ages, and there's a more immediate need..."

"I meant what I said. We aren't leaving until this is done. I've stalled this long and I can't stall any longer. I can't put myself before you, it isn't -"

I was staring past her, no longer listening, my heart skipping every other beat. Behind her, glowing green text ran down a screen. "Sarah," I said loudly. "There's activity on the monitor."