[Steven Lyle Jordan]

An eternity-long instant later, we were somewhere else. I was immediately aware of the sensation of falling, and I cried out in alarm... so did the girl, who was still wrapped like a python around me. But as it turned, out, our fall lasted only about a second, before we landed on a divan, bounced off of it, skidded across a coffee table, and finally came to rest on a pastel-pink rug.

Once we'd come to rest, the girl unwrapped herself from me. I started to say, "What the f--" when I noticed a black wingtip next to my shoulder. I looked up, following the leg attached to the wingtip, until I got to the top, whereupon I saw a man in a red uniform looking down at us.

"Please," he said, "we run a respectable place. If you must do that, for God's sake, get a room!"

We sat up, and I looked around. We were apparently in a hotel lobby. I looked at the man standing above us. "Ah, sorry," I said, standing up and helping the girl to her feet. "We just wanted to test the comfort of the furniture. I think we'll try another place." Gripping the girl by the bicep, I led her outside.

And was almost blinded, the moment I stepped out. It was apparently pretty close to noon, and the sun beat down on bright pastel colors everywhere, giving the eye no place to look that was retina-safe.

Now, I said, What the f**k happened? Where are we?"

"Looks like Miami," the girl stated. When I turned to look at her, she nodded at the sign above the hotel we'd just exited... it said Miami Arms.

"And exactly how did we get here?"

"By overloading the subspace shifter," she replied.

"The what?"

"The damned pill you made me swallow, you jerk!" She yanked her arm out of my hand, and gave me a cold look. "We're lucky we landed on dry land!"

"No frickin' way."

"Yes frickin' way! The subspace shifter is designed to shift you to another place upon ingestion. It was keyed to your body weight, and set to take you to a secure cell in Guantanemo if you wouldn't cooperate."

"Gee, thanks."

"Only you force-fed it to me, and since I'm lighter than you, it could have sent me to the Moon, for all I know!" She squinted around. "So I grabbed you, to add weight to the shift, knowing that we'd at least manage to stay on this planet."

"Assuming you're serious about that Moon stuff," I said, "for what it's worth, I wasn't trying to kill you. I just figured it would put you to sleep... like your maniac boss told me it would!"

"If I'd worked for him," the girl stated, "I would've jumped with him."

"Well, you don't work for me."

"No... I escaped with you. Now that I've abandoned my post, I'm in as much trouble as you are."

"All I wanted to do was quit my job!"

"And you should've known better!" I stared, having no idea what she was talking about. "You dummy... don't you realize the secrets you know? About the publishing industry? All the bogus procedures, back-room dealings, false-front boutique houses... all there to keep the 'unclean' at bay, all the outsiders who want to get into publishing and make it big as the next Tom Clancy!"

"You've gotta be..." And suddenly I remembered the conversation we'd had earlier, when I thought she wasn't making the connection. The shoe really was on the other foot.

"You're seeing it now, aren't you?" she said. "They can't let you tell the mainstream media how the publishing industry really works behind closed doors. They can't let you leak the word to every e-book writer and blogger out there. There's no way they'll let you live."