The Portal

She sat on the other side of the one way mirror. Her purple crocodile skinned bag propped up on the grimy interrogation table. Sleek black cocktail dress that fit her like a glove, tanned skin and brown hair tied in an artful knot. Sharp brown eyes examining her glittering pink nails. But there was something about the spoiled rich girl act I didn’t buy. I pressed my hand against my tender jaw. It cracked as I snapped it shut.

She had a hell of a right hook. Leg braced, good form. Better than a girl like her should be.

The door to my left opened and officer Marks made her way inside. She tossed me a bag. Frozen corn. I pressed it to my face.

She smiled.

“Wait until my wife hears about this,” she said. Marks was the definition of squared away. I’d never seen her once with her shirt un-tucked. She was neat to a fault.

I grimaced, “she took me by surprise.”

“She’s like two feet tall.”

I pressed the file to her chest, “She’s Five five.”

“That’s about two thirds of your height,” she mused as she flicked through the file. She didn’t need to. We both knew it back to front. Under a year in the precinct and we had become a good team. One day she would regret hitching her career wagon to my falling star. If she didn’t already.

The suspect crossed her toned legs and lent back in her chair. Not a care in the world.

“Stare any harder and your eyes will bulge out of your head.”

“You get legs like that from walking around in heels?” I asked.

“In those shoes?” she craned her neck to look,” Maybe, it’s like walking on your toes all day, a permanent calf raise.”

The shoes were ridiculous. Glossy black, red bottoms, too tall. A heel as thin as a dagger.

“And her arms, you get that from Pilates?”

“So bitter,” said Marks, leaning back against the wall.

I pulled the frozen bag away from my face, the white now smeared with a touch of blood. Seems her giant diamond ring had got me too.

The door opened again and all the ease vanished from Marks body. It was only the overpowering distain that kept my spine from straightening.

“Chief,” I nodded, “to what do we owe the pleasure?”

The Chief entered. The man was built like a brick shithouse with a personality to match.

“What grounds do we have this woman in holding?” His gravelly voice set my nerves on edge. Raspy, like he had smoked a pack a day since he was in diapers. But I’d never smelt a whiff of it on him. Bastard smelt overpoweringly of leather.

“Resisting arrest,” I said with a smile.

“And what were to grounds for the original arrest?”

“She hurt my feelings.”

Marks choked on something beside me.

The Chiefs jaw clenched and that lovely vein at his temple started to bulge.

“She’s part of the Ten and Back,” Marks filled in and I winced.

“You have one of the richest women in the world in an interrogation room because of your asinine conspiracy theories?!” It was clear why the man thought he needed to yell in a room barely bigger than a coffin. If his sheer size couldn’t intimidate anyone into submission his bark would. I found myself standing taller.

“She did also punch him sir,” Marks said, head tilted towards the ground.

“I currently share the urge,” he grumbled.

Please let him punch me. Give me the excuse.

The racist bastard had come up out of god knows where. Once sworn into the department had stuck his roman nose into every case I so much as sneezed on.

“Sylvie Quinn-“ I began.

“Lady Sylvie Quinn,” he interrupted. “She was knighted two years ago.”

“Lady Sylvie Quinn, has information in an ongoing investigation. Once we have a chat, we will let her go.”

“You will waive the assaulting an officer charge,” he said. “And you will apologise for interrupting her function.”

I pressed the now barely cold pack to my still bleeding face.

“Happily,” I said.

“I will join you for this questioning.”

I held in my sigh until the door closed behind him. “You think he sweet talks his wife like that? I will join you.” I imitated him. A poor interpretation as I couldn’t quite get my face to the purplish tone he got when angry.

“Man doesn’t have a wife or a husband, maybe a cat?”

“Nah, he’d probably eat it.” She grinned as I tossed her back the mushy corn.

“If the man had one friend I’d be surprised.”

I entered the interrogation room slowly.

Lady Sylvie Quinn's eyes slid to mine, but she did not move. Her fingers fluttered before she turned towards us.

I placed the old manila file down in front of her before taking a seat. The Chief choosing the lean against the wall and loom over my shoulder.

“Comfortable?” I asked.

“Start your questions, Dodger.”

“Detective Dodger?” she asked, one dark brow raised. “First name Artful?” I’d heard that joke a million times before. “That explains the poor English pickpocket aesthetic,” She continued, waving her hand towards me. I swear I could hear Marks muffled laugh on the other side of the glass.

“And here I was going for devilish rogue.”

“Mm,” she mused, “you are the definition of tall, dark and handsome. Don’t make me like you.” It was amazing how many women thought that flirting could help them get away with murder. The intentional distraction meant she had something to hide.

“Lady Quinn,” I said, “I fear we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

“Or fist as it were.”

“Indeed,” If I said the word any sweeter, I could have plucked it from the air and eaten it like candy.

The Chief cleared his throat behind me.

“Allow me to apologise,” I said.

Her eyes flashed between us.

“For?” she asked all innocence.

“For sneaking up on you and disrupting your little party.”

“Oh that,” she sighed. “Allow me to reassure you. My little party was made infinitely more entertaining by your appearance.” Her eyes made quick work of my frame before returning to my face. “And it’s cute that you think you could sneak up on me.”

I pressed my irritation into a tight smile. But she had given something away. Her spoiled rich girl persona just crumbled a little more.

“If I were to ask you what the most influential innovation of the last century was what would be your answer?” I asked. She lent back in her chair. “Nothing? Not the free pharma revolution? the carbon capture systems?”

“The Vibrator?” she supplied.

“Funny,” I said.

“Oh, detective you will find I am hilarious.”

“I would say it was X corps Ten and Back portal.”

“The one that broke after one use?” she made a great show of pretending to remember. Hand playing with a strand of hair designed to fall accidentally from her bun.

“You would know. You were there,” I stated.

“That’s not public knowledge,” she smiled. It wasn’t the pretend smile of some one that has been caught. I had the insane feeling that I had passed some kind of test.

“Neither was your drug addiction, but then that’s how they got you.” I searched her face for surprise, fear or even anger. People thought they had control over their facial features. But even the best poker face couldn’t hide the micro expressions. Direct reactions to emotions. They lasted for nanoseconds. But I couldn’t see any reaction. Her face was placid. I tried again.

“One hundred people willing to go through an experimental portal for ten days. Only someone desperate would volunteer to be that kind of lab rat.”

“The money would have helped, Detective. A lifetime worth of riches with just ten day’s worth of work.” The Chief explained. Way to cut me off at the knees.

Her eyes danced between the Chief and me.

“Is this good cop bad cop?”

“Teleport to a new planet perfect atmosphere, 30 hour day cycle. Like a fairy tale,” concluded the Chief.

I gave him a tight smile.

“I don’t believe in fairy-tales.”

“Ohh. So, you’re bad cop? You may want to tell your partner that if he wants to be good cop he needs to crack a smile.” She fluttered her fingers in his direction.

I held back the quirk in my lips. The man didn’t have the capacity to smile. The muscles had atrophied from lack of use.

“Ten days of work,” I restated.

“Felt like decades.” She sighed, “I am not made for menial labour.”

“What did they pay you?”

“You know what they paid me. You have my bank records. Ten million dollars not enough?”

“To throw away your life? No.”

“Then you haven’t known true desperation, Detective. Count yourself lucky.”

“One round and the project is called off. One hundred people earn a fortune and use that fortune to shape the world. Vaccines, financial aid, environmental agendas. You even cured the common cold.” Pulling out a tablet from the file I flicked through the saved articles. One after the other, thousands of advancements made possible by one portal jump.

“One day I was just sitting at home with the sniffles, and I thought. Gosh. I should do something about this.”

I scoffed.

“Am I being arrested for my philanthropic contributions to society?”

“I don’t for a second believe they are philanthropic.”

“I care deeply about life,” she pressed her manicured hand over her heart. I pointedly looked at her allegator skin purse.

“I care about human life not reptiles.”

The Chief had gone very still and quiet behind me. His eyes locked on the purple bag.

“You know something weird, whenever I interview one of you, you all say the same thing.”

“The pancakes were good,” she interjected.

“The pancakes were good,” I repeated.

“It's an inside joke. The pancakes were shit. Why the interest?”

“You could have died, by all rights you should have. But instead, you spend ten days eating shitty pancakes?”

She shrugged, “everyone came back.”

“But none of them came back the same,” I said.

The playful light fell out of her eyes.

“The portal caused amnesia it was very distressing.”

She fluttered her fingers when she was nervous. Now she did it again, pointing towards my cheek.

“You should get that cut seen too or it will scar,” she said.

“Stop changing the subject.”

“Or don’t, I like my men with a bit of texture,” Flirting again. Nice try.

“I’m not you man.”

“You may want to be,” her eyes flicked to the Chief behind me then. If I’d have blinked I would have missed it.

I pulled up a video on the tablet between us. Playing camera footage of the portal return. A glowing blue portal took up the left of the screen. To the right relatives waited. The blue pulsed and people started to run out. They were covered in grime. Bleeding. They weren’t wearing the same clothes they had been ten days prior. Ms Quinn emerged. Her hair a foot longer than when she left. She paused. Then ran into her mothers arms.

“Big hug,” I said.

“I missed her,” she whispered.

I rewound the video. Paused and zoomed in on her face. “You are staring at her like you don’t recognize her.”

“It had been a long time.” She said.

“Ten days.”

“Yes, ten days,” she said. But her words inflected up at the end of the sentence. Liars tended to do this unconsciously. Paired with the shake of her head and the fluttering of her fingers.

I care deeply about life, The pancakes were good, The portal caused amnesia. Each said with an upwards inflection and a small shake of the head. But what was more interesting was when she didn’t inflect.

It had been a long time.

It felt like decades.

She pressed play again. Watching silently as the full video played.

“Everyone came back.” She said it with conviction, It was a point of pride. I’d heard that same tone from army veterans when talking about a difficult battle.

“More people came back than left.” I said.

“That wasn’t in the file,” The Chief spat. I ignored him.

“I have identified Sixty Six individuals, Sixty of which are already dead.”

“Sixty Six,” she said. The emphasis was on the last word. She knew about the others, but she had counted wrong.

“Were done here,” said the Chief.

“What happened to you on the other side of that portal? Each high school dropout deadbeat suddenly focused all their efforts on saving the world? Not to mention the secret weapons developments.”

“Time to leave detective,” the Chief put his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t budge

“Those sixty six extra people Where did they go, before they died?” She asked me.

“Most of them ended up in some type of political position or law enforcement.” I said.

“And when you investigated them what did you find? Loners, no friends no family connections.”

The Chiefs hand dug into my shoulder. Biting like claws.

“Almost like they had appeared out of nowhere,” she said eyes staring daggers Into the man above me.

The Chief launched himself across the table with a snarl. Quinn shied back. His fingers inches from closing around her throat. She moved, like I’d never seen anyone move before. Her foot collided with my chair sending me backwards into the mirror. Hooking under the Chiefs arm she used the momentum to pull him forwards. Gravity grabbed him crashing his bulk to the concrete floor. The next second she was on her feet her heel coming down. In one fluid motion she skewered his eye with the dagger of her stiletto heel. He roared in pain. She twisted her ankle with a click. His screaming stopped.

Marks launched into the room drawing her firearm.

Thank Jesus.

She swept the room before pointing the barrel directly at my head.

“Officer Marks?” I asked. But her face was drawn.

“Its lieutenant Marks actually,” Said Quinn.

“What do we do Commander?” Marks asked. She was talking to motherfucking Quinn.

Quinn pulled her heel from the Chiefs eye, hooking the point under the lower lid she peeled the skin back.

I was going to be sick.

But where I should have seen the red swell of muscles and tendons there was just purple.

Scales, like an alligator.

“What the fuck?”

“A second ago you were displaying exemplary intelligence detective don't disappoint me now.”

Quinn nodded to Marks and the pistol withdrew from my temple.

I backed away pressing myself up against the walls.

“You had questions for me. Have I answered them?” Quinn asked.

I nodded. Swallowing the bile down my throat. “I appear to have more.”

“Like?”

“What now?”

She looked down at the scaled man.

“Well I do need a matching pair of shoes.”