Intimate Adversary

Author's Notes:

I've developed a rep for writing long stories. Really long stories.

This is NOT one of those.

It's perhaps the shortest story I've ever written and was born of a writing exercise I did with some fellow writers.

I gave it a little polish and released it... like an appetizer while you wait for my next tome to drop.

It's just meant to be a fun little pick-me-up.

I hope you enjoy it.

********

All characters engaging in sexual relationships or activities are 18 years old or older.

********

Intimate Adversary

********

As these things always do, it began with sex.

Professor Raul Alfaro Hernandez was having a late evening interlude in his office at the Ciudad Universitaria in Mexico City with Gabriela, one of his grad students, when the eureka moment came to him, multiple ways.

The idea was so bold and outrageous, he almost dismissed it, but something was... intrinsically perfect about the theory which clung to his brain. He suddenly shrieked with excitement and pushed the young beauty from his desk so he could begin scribbling furiously on his notepad—a notepad, which only moments earlier, had cushioned the exquisitely lovely ass of the student.

Fortunate for the professor's immediate survival, the furious Gabriela recognized his rude act as the excited reaction to a profound scientific epiphany and stopped herself from gutting him with his letter opener.

He spent the next week locked in his office, hammering out the details, and occasionally hammering Gabriela, who also ensured he was fed, got rest, and wasn't otherwise disturbed.

By the beginning of the second week, Raul had his Theorem of Rapid Evolutionary Transition in his hands. He made some calls, excitedly arranging to present the paper before his peers at a hastily organized gathering in Geneva.

Raul never made it to the peer review as he and his lovely assistant were snatched away on the way to the airport by CIA agents. They were hustled to a private airstrip and loaded into a sleek executive jet with very plush seats. Raul and Gabriela's emotions quickly went from outrage to panic. As they flew to their secret destination, their fear became excitement as their captors explained they were simply being helped to prove the theory before he presented it. Raul would be able to build his dream team to support this effort.

To sweeten the deal, a grossly large sum of money was offered as a reward for participating. Raul and Gabriela weren't so blinded by the promise of riches to miss the subtle suggestion that their involvement, while desired, was also mandatory. They shared a look and smiled.

Now entirely on board with this new plan, Raul and his pretty assistant took charge of the American team. The talented scientists Raul identified were offered a chance to join the experience, and all leaped at the opportunity, except for Professor Jean-Pierre La'Rond from Quebec, Canada, who'd been chosen to be their lead electrical engineer. He finally, but reluctantly, agreed once he was promised his daily lunches would continue from Smoke Meat Pete in Île Perrot, Québec.

Seeing this flurry of activity by the CIA, the head of China's state intelligence agency concentrated his team's efforts on building a corresponding team and had their operatives in the States infiltrate the Americans to siphon off information on Professor Hernandez theory. In the US secret base, a copy of his paper went missing. The cleaning staff was suspected, as they always are, so they were replaced.

Soon the experiment was being prepared in absolute secret in undisclosed underground labs on two continents. While their efforts were independent of each other, they aimed to be the first to achieve the goal, no matter the cost. The spies from the Chinese team left backdoor access to watch the progress of the Americans. They got a good chuckle over that.

The CIA watched the Chinese agents laughing through their own hidden cameras and felt secure they'd have the last laugh.

Smoke Meat Pete's owner laughed all the way to the bank, as the large and growing lunchtime takeout orders fed record profits.

Both teams selected a candidate to undergo the evolutionary transition. There was significant danger involved, so they chose from their most elite branches of military personnel.

For the US, Captain Brick Johnson, a decorated Ranger, Black Ops Special Forces, and Seal Team officer, was selected by the military brass.

Commander Wang Hung, Leader of the Special Strike Force of the People's Army, was chosen to be the Chinese candidate.

Both men went through rigorous physical and mental preparations while the scientists rushed to complete the Transition Chamber's construction.

Both facilities were directly linked to nuclear power generation stations, which would run at maximum output to meet the power requirement.

Then came the fateful day when both teams announced they were ready.

Now it was time for the intelligence agencies to shine. Both had contingency plans in play to ensure their competitor's team failed. The sabotage was launched.

Raul and his counterpart in China, Fang Shee Ping, congratulated their teams and began the countdown.

Wang Hung's final pre-Transition meal had been spiked with a rather horrific concoction from the minds of the CIA science team. The elite soldier locked himself in the toilet and crapped himself into a coma.

Brick Johnson was slipped a hefty dose of Viagra in the hopes of causing a brain embolism from a sudden spike in his blood pressure. Intense training and excellent genes saved him from this fate.

When the scientists from each team arrived to collect their candidates, they were shocked at what they found.

Brick was furiously masturbating to relieve the pressure, and Hung was a wet noodle who smelled like shit.

The American soldier was stuffed into his transition suit, erection and all, and rushed to the Transition Chamber. They instructed him to stop touching himself.

Hung's situation was dire. Unconscious, he was going nowhere, and the scientists were in a panic. The leaders were expecting them to return with their chosen soldier immediately. The predominantly male science team recognized the only one in the room who matched Hung's height was their female Specialist of Biomedical Physics, Wee Mei. When the other scientists stopped to stare at her, she only had time to squeak before they were pulling her clothes off and stuffing her in the transition suit. To be truthful, one of the horny male scientists, Hui, took the opportunity to touch an actual naked female before she was dressed again. Mei was not a virgin but very inexperienced. She was stunned to realize she enjoyed Hui's gentle touch. They locked eyes before she was sealed away in the suit. With the visorless helmet in place, Mei was close enough to a match for Hung. They strapped the tingling woman down to the gurney and rushed her to the Transition Chamber.

Wasting no further time, Brick and Mei were sealed into their respective devices.

Both teams announced their readiness, and with a nod from cosmic coincidence, they linked to the reactor power within a fraction of a second of each other.

The Chambers burst into a kaleidoscope of colors never before seen by human eyes. A dome of white light exploded outwards from the twisting chromatic anchor point of the chambers. Everyone in the secret labs felt the warmth of the white light pass through their bodies, then they felt a building tingle.

Raul looked to Gabriela, who beamed a beautiful smile at him. All of the scientists in the room were grinning at each other.

Fang smiled nervously and nodded to the leaders who were watching closely. He faked a confident smile as if all was going according to plan. He looked to his team, and none would meet his eyes as they were too frightened.

Back in the states, the CIA operatives were less pleased as they were getting reports that the Chinese lab had similar results, and the dome of white light was rushing across both countries. The lead CIA liaison rushed forward to speak to Raul.

"Hernandez! What's happening?" he shouted.

Raul chuckled as elation filled him. He pulled Gabriela to him and tenderly kissed her before turning to the agent. "Isn't it obvious to you, Mr. Secret Agent Man? We're Transitioning. Rising up to the next level of consciousness."

"The white light!" the agent gasped as his mind tingled.

"Yes, the Lift field," Gabriela giggled, sharing a secret smile with her lover.

One of the technicians monitoring the progress of the field from his terminal called out. "It's covering the hemisphere and will come into contact with the field from the Chinese facility in seconds!"

Raul looked to the other scientists as he squeezed his lover once more. "We are about to experience the next lift! See you on the other side!"

When the two fields touched, their shared energy triggered an exponential amplification of the light, much like a flashbulb reaching ignition. White light shot over the planet's surface, deep into the mantle and out into space to brush the moon's surface. It swept through every being matching the species contained within the two Transition Chambers. The power boosted Humanity up into the next level of existence. Over seven billion souls suddenly vanished from Earth's surface to arrive in the dimension of enlightened energy, ready or not.

There went the neighborhood.

Two minutes and thirty-four seconds into the experiment, the automatic shutdown sequence began. The nuclear reactors powered down safely, and the colors surrounding the Chambers started to fade.

Raul's Theorem of Rapid Evolutionary Transition had been successfully proven.

-=-

At minute three, Brick pushed the Chamber's door open and staggered out. He yanked the helmet off to look around with blurred vision. He went to rub his eyes and realized he was looking through his hand. He could see the skeleton beneath! He closed his eyes and concentrated until he felt calm. When he opened his eyes again, he saw his skin, and everything else looked normal as well.

Perhaps normal wasn't the right word, as the floor was covered with the scientists' clothes. His mind took him to a childhood painting his father had shown him of what the Rapture would look like when God took the righteous up to heaven.

He gave his head a shake and put his rational mind to work. He called out, and only silence responded. He went to a computer terminal and used the emergency numbers to connect with his commanders but received no response. That wasn't possible. He used the computer to tap into the webcams on some populated spots around the world. New York's Time Square was vacant except for empty clothes blowing through the street. Hong Kong's streets were empty of people but not their clothes. The square before Toronto's dual-curved City Hall buildings was hosting a party of people-less garments as well. London's Buckingham Palace was being guarded by uniforms sans soldiers, and Russia's Red Square was similarly vacant. He pulled up webcams from Rio and Sydney, and while some of the cameras showed night scenes, he saw evidence of the people-less clothes in each.

He pushed back from the terminal and looked back at the Transition Chamber. His brain was struggling to come to terms with the idea that something colossally wrong had happened. He'd been briefed that he was supposed to become the next evolutionary stage of Humanity, an Uber-Man. He spotted an agent's gun in the holster attached to the suit on the floor. He picked up the Glock and looked at it. A brief and stupid idea passed through his mind before he simply crushed the weapon in his fist as if it were tin foil.

He nodded in satisfaction. The experiment had worked.

He looked back at the scientist's clothes and wondered what went wrong.

Could he be the last man on Earth?

He suddenly recalled that the Chinese were running a similar experiment. He turned his head and felt a presence. It was distant, but it was... there. Without looking back, he took the elevator to the surface and walked out of the building. He faced the direction of the presence and wondered if he would have to fight this other warrior in a battle of the Uber-Men. He wasn't looking forward to that, but he had to go. He felt a strange compulsion to see someone, anyone else. It was too quiet.

He wanted to get there fast and found himself lifting off the ground. He couldn't suppress the grin that popped on his face. Flight? Seriously? His envy for all those air force flyboys suddenly dissolved. He aimed himself in the direction of the presence and willed himself to move in that direction. He rose into the sky and shot forward, faster and faster, until he felt the warmth of the air he was splitting. He looked back for a second and saw the flames of the air bursting into flames from the heat of his body. He looked forward just in time to slam through a tall apartment building. Concrete, brick, and steel vaporized as he blew through them like they were candy floss.

He slowed himself as he checked himself for injury. There was nothing. Of course, he also had no clothes. It seems they weren't as strong.

He looked ahead, picked up the presence once more, and continued on. He felt confident yet also some trepidation about their meeting.

As he flew on, he spotted a commercial jet and slowed to pace it. He got close to the side and saw it was completely empty. He left it behind and wondered if it would land on its own or just crash when it ran out of fuel. He began to worry about other vehicles now moving without conscious control.

He pushed those thoughts aside as he was approaching his destination. There was an extensive collection of dull concrete buildings. He landed in the square, and the ground sizzled as his superheated body scorched the paving. He glanced at himself and realized he couldn't enter the buildings like this as he'd set the place on fire. He trotted over to a pond and waded in. The water turned to steam, but he persevered, and gradually the heat dropped to a safe level. There wasn't much water left in the pond.

He walked back to the central courtyard and called out, "Hello!"

Silence.

Frustrated, he aimed himself in the direction of the presence and marched over to the building to go inside. He took the elevator down to the sublevels of the complex and found himself walking into a surprisingly identical control room. Again, the floor was littered with military uniforms and the white lab coats of the scientists. Sitting next to one of the lab coats was a woman in the gold transition suit like he worn.

A woman! Recalling his earlier erection issue, his libido woke, and he brutally pushed it back. She was a commie, for Pete's sake!

"Hello. I'm Captain Brick Johnson," he began, but she just gave him a nervous look, and her eyes dropped.

He glanced down and realized he was still naked. He didn't feel cold or hot, so he hadn't really noticed his lack of clothes. None of the clothes on the floor looked like it would fit his more substantial body, so he just ignored the fact that he was nude.

"Sorry, I don't speak Chinese—"

"Then I guess it is a good thing one of us had the courtesy to learn the other's language!" she snapped, but he could hear her nervousness.

"Yes. Yes, it was. Thank you," he replied honestly as this was going to be so much easier now that he knew she understood him.

"Are you here to kill me?" she asked in a quiet voice.

His eyes widened in surprise. He supposed that's probably what it looked like. "No. No, I'm not. Have you seen what's out there? They're all gone!" He tried to keep the shock out of his voice, but he thought he still sounded a little shaken.

She nodded. "I suspected this was the actual purpose of the machine, but no one listened."

"You knew? What happened?" he gasped.

Her eyes narrowed. "I suspected. The Chambers were not designed to contain the energies they would unleash. I told my direct chain of command, but he silenced me and said I would be tried as a traitor if I mentioned it again. Now he is gone as are everyone who might have punished me." She looked down at the white coat. "Hui is gone, too."

"I'm sorry. Was he your boyfriend?" Brick asked.

She shook her head sadly. "No... but he might have become one."

"Can you tell me your name," he asked.

She looked at him, and her eyes dropped once more to look at his nakedness. "Wee Mai."

"We may what?" he asked in confusion, and her face heated up.

"No! My name is Wee Mai. You may call me Mei," she said flustered.

"Mei, right! Look, I'm sorry if I'm not handling this first contact situation very well. I was trained for more... physical interactions," he explained. She just nodded. "What branch of the military are you from?" he asked.

"I am a scientist! I specialize in Biomedical Physics, though I have several degrees from other fields," she insisted.

"Oh! I was sure the Chinese would assign this role to a member of their military," Brick said in confusion.

"Sorry if I don't meet your expectations!" she snapped.

He held up his hands. "Please don't mistake my words. I'm thrilled to meet a brilliant scientist in this situation. Another military mind wouldn't be helpful at all! The fact that you're also such a cute woman is a huge relief!"

The moment the words left his lips, he wished he could take them back, as he sounded like such a jerk.

Her expression shot immediately to surprise, then a huge blush and a smile she struggled to keep from her lips.

He felt relief wash through him that he hadn't offended her. To do that to the only other person on the planet would be a mistake of epic proportions.

"Can we get out of here?" he suggested and held his hand out.

She stood and smiled shyly at him. "Where... where would we go?"

He smiled at her and floated up off the floor. "Anywhere we want. To start, I'd love to show you what the Transition Chamber has done for us."

His eyes widened in delight as her true beauty shone forth when she smiled excitedly at him.

Epilogue

Mei felt Brick's approach from the other side of the planet. She'd sent him to India and Pakistan with the instructions on safely shutting down a series of nuclear reactors to ensure they didn't suffer a meltdown. He'd let her know it had gone well, and he was heading home.

A warm feeling spread through her body at the word; home.

Brick and Mei were living together and had taken on the role of Earth's custodians. In the early days, they'd ensured the oceans were protected against the immediate dangers of the unmanned oil tankers sailing across the oceans and the planes falling from the skies. Then they began working on the long-term risks.

Their plan was to return Earth to a natural paradise. With Humanity gone, nature was finally bouncing back.

They still had much work ahead of them.

She heard the crack of a sonic boom indicating Brick's return. He'd be taking a dip in the lake to cool off, then he'd fly up to join her at their mountainside chalet in Banff, Alberta, their summer home, for this year at least.

Minutes later, she saw him land on the outside deck and enter the patio door with a wide smile. She gave him a smile in return.

"Nǐ hǎo wǒ měilì de shānhuā," Brick said clumsily, but Mei grinned delightedly at the effort he was making for her.

"I am your mountain flower, am I?"

He wrapped his strong arms around her, and she trembled in bliss. "You're my everything, Mei," he sighed.

She flew them both over to the king-size bed they'd moved to the deck looking south over the valley below. She rolled Brick onto his back and kissed him tenderly as her hands traveled over his skin.

Her touch achieved the result she was looking for as his thick cock rose to press against her insistently. She moved her body down his until she could stroke the hot skin of his shaft with her tongue. His strong hands slipped into her silky hair, and he guided her up to the top to take him in her mouth. She'd learned she enjoyed it when he took control over her, though they both knew she was plenty strong on her own. It was a symbolic show of force, but it got her so wet!