Only Superhuman (14 page)

After that, the glider’s autonav brought him down to a fairly level patch, one he hoped was far away from wherever Kei came down. Unfortunately, though, the gliders seemed to be set to home in on each other, and her flame-shrouded form came down just a few dozen meters away. Ditching the wings, she jogged over to him, laughing. “Shit, why do real cars never blow up like in the movies when you crash ’em?” Somehow it didn’t surprise him that she talked about crashing cars as a recurring event. But he suspected she knew the answer to her own question perfectly well.

What did surprise him was when she hopped up, flung her arms around his shoulders, and kissed him hard and deep. “Whoo, that was rageous!” she shrilled when she broke away, all too soon. “Let’s get two and crash ’em into each other!”

“You are out of your hull-punking mind, you know that? You could’ve got us killed!”

“Aw, don’t be such a baby! Come on, race you to the spaceport!”

She pulled at his hand, but he yanked it away. “No! Stay away from me, you vackhead! Where the hell even
are
we? They’re gonna come looking after that crash, you know! They’ll find us, they’ll send us
both
back to our parents, and it’ll be all
your fault
!”

She began to circle him aggressively. “You wanna make something of it, Stilt-boy? ’Cause I’m up for givin’ you another good beating anytime!”

“You kidding? I beat you!”

“Ha! What fight were you watching?”

“I had my
foot
on your sucking
neck
!”

“And I was about to snap it off!”

“I just gave you a break, that’s all! You’re strong for a kid, but I got the mass
and
the leverage on you.”

“Okay, come on, prove it!”

He was about to, but he stopped. “No. Why? The car’s trashed. What’s left to fight for?”

She grinned. “Me.”

“What?”

“You win the fight, you get to fuck me.”

“
Why
would I
want
to?!”

She just looked at him. And he looked at her. And he shrugged. “Okay, then.” He started to circle her, sizing her up, looking for an opening as she did the same. “Should’ve figured this was your idea of foreplay.”

“Guy wants me, he’s gotta earn it.”

“So you only fuck guys who can beat you up? That’s smart.”

“Smart for them. I play rough.”

Understanding came to him then. “I get it. You don’t want to hurt them.”

She lunged, but he was ready. He sidestepped easily, spun, and kicked her well-rounded, muscular ass, sending her headlong. But the gravity was low up here and she caught herself with her hands, flipping up and over and coming down facing him.
Where did she learn these moves?
“What do you know about it?” she snarled.

“I know how much I have to hold back when I’m with a normal girl. You gotta be real strong to run sixty klicks, to stand the forces of it. And you don’t strike me as the holding-back type. How bad did you hurt your first guy?”

She lunged again, shrieking. He moved aside, thinking this was the easiest psych-out he’d ever done. But the lunge was a feint; she spun going past and kicked his legs out from under him, landing on her side next to him. They scrambled to hands and feet, and his greater reach gave him the edge; he grabbed the hair tumbling over her forehead and held her there on hands and knees as he came to his feet. That proved a mistake, though, as it brought his groin within her fist’s reach. Luckily his reflexes were enhanced for speed, and he dodged the worst of it. “Hey! Ow! I thought you’d want that part in good condition!”

“Only if you’re good enough!”

“Well, how am I
doing?
” He punctuated it with a kick to her gut, knocking her torso upright, and then delivered one more kick to her ample breasts in retaliation for her attempt on his balls. He felt somewhat guilty when she yelped in pain, but he reminded himself that she not only deserved it, but probably even enjoyed it in some sick way.

Or maybe not so sick, he thought as he saw the approval—the
hope
—in her eyes. “Not bad, Legs! But I’m still gonna beat your brains out!” He raised his arms to block her lunge, but she caught them and flipped clear over him, wrenching his arms back painfully. Then she flung him over her back and the world spun around him for an endless moment, finally coming up to slam into him. “You’re disappointin’ me, J. I was hopin’ for some real action.” Her boot swung toward his face.

But he managed to catch it and tug, yanking her off her feet; the ground was slippery in this gravity. As she fell, he wrenched the boot off and tossed it aside. “Ooh, good start, sugar,” she lilted, if one could lilt breathlessly. They clambered to their feet, but now she was a bit uneven. “That the best you can do?”

“Must be tough, Kei,” he said, circling her, trying to keep her off balance. “A fight like this—with these stakes—you win, you get nothing. But the guy has to be tough enough to take you for real, so you can’t lose on purpose.”

“What’s your point, baldy?”

“Point is, I don’t think this is as fun for you as you say.” This time
he
lunged, hoping to throw off her rhythm physically as well as mentally this time. She moved her arms to block her vital areas, but he wasn’t going for them. He got his long arms around hers and took a firm grip on her faux-flaming tank top as he moved behind her, yanking it up and over. Then before she could slip her arms out, he twisted it around her wrists, restraining them over her head. Still holding her arms up there, he circled around to face her again, trying not to be too distracted by the truly incredible breasts he’d bared. “But it could be,” he went on. “If you stop fighting me and let me in, Kei. I must’ve proven by now I’m strong enough to handle you. Maybe…” He stepped closer. “Maybe I can even teach you a few things about being gentle.” He bent down to kiss her, and she brought her lips up to meet his halfway. Her kiss was anything but gentle. Her hands clasped his, but he kept them above her head just to be on the safe side.

After a while, she pulled her lips away and said breathlessly, “I like it rough.”

He smiled. “Good. Then I don’t have to hold back.” Still not releasing her wrists, he twisted her until he had his arms around her from behind, and bent down to bite her on the neck. One hand came up to knead her breasts forcefully while the other slid down to hook around her waistband.

“J…”

“My name’s Javon.”

“Look up.”

He did. Two police aircars were approaching. “Oh, shit.”

“This way!” Kei led him toward a nearby crag, allowing her top to fall from her wrists. Shaking his head, Javon picked up the conspicuous garment and ran after her.

Soon they were well-ensconced in a crevice, invisible from the air, and she was all over him, tearing at his clothes.

Unfortunately, she was a screamer, even during foreplay, and the little idiot had chosen a hiding place that echoed superbly. The cops came upon them while he was still rounding third base, saw Kei’s naked body adorned in stolen emeralds, and had them both hauled away to juvenile detention, where his parents would no doubt come to claim him and make him their prize commodity again. As he sat in his cell the next day, he resolved that if he ever saw that little redheaded bitch again, he would snap her neck for real.

But then she broke out somehow—and came to break him out too. This time, surprisingly, she managed to be successfully stealthy and got them to the spaceport without a hitch. He began to suspect that she’d allowed herself to get caught—and dragged him along with her—just for the challenge of breaking them both out again. Or could it be that she’d regretted getting him in trouble through her own wanton ways?
Nahhh.

Either way, before Javon knew it, they were together in a private cabin on a ship bound for Mars. “Too bad you didn’t get to keep your emeralds, though,” Javon told her as they made out and pulled off each other’s clothes.

Kei stopped for a moment and laughed. “What?” he asked.

“Javon…” She kissed him, then met his eyes squarely with her own huge, gleaming green pair. “My
name
is Emerald.”

He studied her. “You sure you want to go with that? Not too smart after what we got busted for. And who’d buy a dumb name like that anyway?”

She shoved him away. “No, you idiot! My
real
name! Goddess, I try to confide in you … Get away from me!”

He winced. At this rate he’d never get to punk her. But to his surprise, that wasn’t the primary thing on his mind. He realized what she’d just offered him and hated himself for spoiling it.

He also realized, though, that she wasn’t leaving the room. She wanted to stay, wanted to let him in. He just had to play it carefully, since this volatile little fireball could go off at any moment.

Is it worth the trouble?
he asked himself. Then he looked at her and saw for the first time how lost and lonely she looked.
Yes,
he answered.
Yes, she is.

*   *   *

Emerald Blair (the name “Shannon” was detritus long ago discarded) often wondered why she continued to travel with Javon Moremba. Sure, he was a fellow mod, strong enough to handle her, able to understand the things she’d been through. And he was sexy and exciting, and at nearly eighteen he had two years on her in experience. And she had to admit that his judgment often kept her from getting into worse trouble than she did, although she made sure to balance things by keeping him in worse trouble than he wanted. Finding Mars tame and boring, she’d persuaded Javon to accompany her south of the ecliptic to some of the rough, seedy habs in the Eunomia-family stroids, about a third of an orbit behind Eunomia itself. They were mostly cheap prefabs, easily replicated and easily abandoned, mainly support stations for prospectors and other itinerants who had little investment in their long-term viability. As such, they were more lawless than most small habs, with plenty of opportunities for ambitious young thieves and vandals to find trouble or make it. Especially since Pallas had recently reached one of the points where its highly inclined orbit passed through the Belt proper, so most of the Troubleshooters were too busy fending off pirate raids on that side of the system to pay much attention to petty crime in the Eunomians. Pallas’s extreme isolation and mineral wealth attracted the worst of the worst, a hotbed of tyrants, warlords, and cutthroats. Emry had often fantasized about going there and living out a short but exciting life as a pirate queen. But since Javon had come into her life, she’d found such a future less appealing somehow.

But having Javon around still made her edgy sometimes. The last thing she wanted was to feel like she needed him. She’d once thought she could trust a man to take care of her, and he’d betrayed her. He’d let her mother die right in front of him. He’d forced her to live in Greenwood where people hated her and Mom, even though he knew how happy she was every time they left. He’d let her be born a mod, made her inherit this freakish strength rather than having it engineered out of her. No way would she ever let another man get close enough to ruin her life like that.

So although she kept Javon around once they reached the Eunomians, she made a point of sleeping with as many other guys as could take her. Just to make sure he didn’t get the wrong idea—and because she enjoyed the variety. But few of them could really measure up to Javon, either in technique or in other ways. Guys tough enough to take her often weren’t all that interesting to talk to, or all that kind. Some who won access to her bed got kicked out posthaste when they treated her too roughly. She never proved unable to outfight a guy when she really
had
to.

Javon resented her pointed promiscuity at first, and retaliated with some screwing around of his own, which was fine with her. She had no trouble luring him back when she was ready. And soon they settled into a comfortable routine, hanging together and sleeping together without actually
being
together. But it was a tenuous balance, and sometimes she had to smack him down, physically or emotionally, when he tried to get too close.

It helped when they met Ruki Shimoda in the back alleys of San Berardo, a small, disreputable habitat around Interamnia. Emry had grown tired of the backwater Eunomia-family habs and wanted to go someplace busier yet even farther from the beaten path. Interamnia’s seventeen-degree orbital tilt meant it took extra thrust and time to reach, but it was a large, carbon-rich stroid that straddled the Central and Outer Belts. It was a sort of Pallas Lite, drawing those who sought profit in ways incompatible with public scrutiny.

Thus it was that San Berardo’s crime boss-turned-dictator refused to let FEEL-licensed pleasure houses operate there, since open competition with the higher-quality sex specialists trained and protected by the Federation of Erotic Entertainers and Labor would quickly drive his non-guild shops out of business and keep him from exploiting his sex workers as he saw fit. And thus it was that the fourteen-year-old Ruki had been abducted and gene-raped by an expatriate Neogaian doctor, modded against her will with foxlike features, golden-brown fur, and a tail, and forced to serve in one of the “specialty” brothels that San Berardo had become infamous for. They’d also given her vulpine senses and agility, and whether because of her mods or simply for survival, Ruki had developed an animal cunning as well. Those traits had enabled her to escape the brothel after three years of enslavement, several earlier attempts, and several increasingly severe punishments. Emry and Javon came across her, still attired in a leather bikini and dog collar, as she fought against the three men sent to bring her back. Impressed by the foxlike girl’s skills and wanting in on the action—and all right, maybe to make it a fairer fight—Emry had thrown herself into the fray, with Javon reluctantly following. Together they’d made short work of the assailants, though Javon had to restrain Ruki from slashing their throats open. One of the men was bleeding badly, and despite herself, Emry felt obliged to hit the emergency button on his selfone and wait to hear the sirens approaching before she ran to catch up with the others.