I never thought my superpower would ruin my life over something as stupid as rent.
Sometimes, in my most lowest, darkest moments, I envisioned being decapitated by a glutinous alien from a distant galaxy on its soul searching journey through our universe.
Other times, the ultimate end got a little cliche. You know, the whole succumbing to a terrible illness kind of end.
But nothing, not even the day overdue burrito I had for lunch, could prepare me for the drastic turn my once swift and comfy existence was about to take.
All because of the terrible choice I was about to make.
I stared at the eviction notice taped to my apartment door, the paper crinkling under my fingers. Final Warning, it said. Like I hadn't seen the other six. Like I hadn't used the other six to stock my toiletry cabinet.
"Okay, Kai. Think." I cracked my knuckles. "Do I pay the $1,200 I don't have, or…" I grinned. "Do I portal into a nicer apartment and pretend this never happened?"
Option B. Always Option B. Never go for Option A when you have good, jolly B just around the corner.
I focused, waving my hands like a bad magician. The kind who always drops the fake cards from their sleeves mid-magic.
A swirling blue rift tore open in front of me—my signature Portal Mayhem. The air smelled like ozone and bad decisions. Perfect. Just the way I like it.
I stepped through.
Cue the feeling of wading through a wall of crackling electricity, bonechilling needles travelling down spine and an instant of complete weightlessness.
And immediately face-planted onto marble floors. Clean and sparkly for good mercies.
"Ow. What the—?" I pushed myself up, blinking at the chandelier above me. Crystal. Huge. Definitely not my shitty studio apartment.
Then I noticed the vampire.
(Yes, not my first rodeo with bloodsucking, glowed-up mummies. I've spent one too many hours vacationing in their dark dimension.)
He sat across the room in a wingback chair, fingers steepled, red eyes glowing. His suit probably cost more than my entire life.
"Ah," he said. "The squatter."
I scrambled to my feet. "Uh. Wrong address?"
This things happen. I'm not glad to say I'm used to ending up where I don't want to. Always the weirdest sort of place, I should add.
His smile showed fangs. "You've been teleporting into Apartment 4B for weeks. Drinking my wine. Sleeping in my guest room. Devouring my waffles."
Oh. That's where my portals kept sending me. I assumed I'd somehow found a dimension that provided everything I imagined.
"Look, man, I can explain—"
"You will." He snapped his fingers. Two more vampires materialized from the shadows, the pair of them paler and thinner than their boss. They certainly looked more hungry. "Either work off your debt, or we drain you and turn you into a coat rack."
"Does it have to be a coat rack?"
"You prefer butt wipes?"
I shuddered. "What's the pay?"
--- —--- —
Twenty minutes later, I was tied to a chair in what I guessed was Vampire HR.
"—unauthorized interdimensional travel violates Section 12 of the Undead Tenancy Act," droned a vampire with a clipboard.
I yawned. "Can I get a coffee before my eternal servitude starts?"
The door burst open.
"FREEZE, BLOODSUCKERS!"
A slick, svelte woman in a black tactical suit stormed in, gun raised. Her glare could've melted steel.
The vampires hissed. I perked up. "Oh, hell yeah. Cops. How am I glad to see you. I was just there, minding my own business and being no bother at all, when these hooligans grabbed me for no reason at all."
She shot me a look. "Kai Mercer?"
"Depends. You a fan or here to arrest me?"
"Both." She flicked a device on her belt. A pulse of energy rippled from it in a predefined arc, stunning the vampires, dropping them to the floor like dead undead beings. "Bureau of Entangled Affairs. You're coming with me."
I blinked. "The superpower cops? I didn't even use my powers this time!"
"You opened a portal into a classified vampiric enclave." She hauled me up. "That's a felony in seven dimensions."
I gasped. "There's a classified vampire Vegas? Can we go—"
"No." She shoved cuffs on me. "I'm Agent Lydia Chen. And you, Mercer, are mine now."
---
BEA HQ looked like the DMV crossed with a Bond villain lair.
Lydia dragged me past cells full of superpowered criminals. One guy was made of bees. Another kept turning into a fax machine. I glimpsed something that looked suspiciously like my grandma.
"Cool prison," I said. "You guys take walk-ins?"
She ignored me, slamming me into an interrogation room. A one-way mirror reflected my glorious bedhead.
"Let's recap." She slapped a file on the table. "Sixteen unauthorized portal jumps. Thirty-two counts of theft. And—" She squinted. "Did you steal a mayor's wig?"
I leaned back. "It was a dare."
"You're a walking disaster."
"And yet, you need me." I grinned. "Otherwise, you'd have tossed me in the bee guy's cell already."
Her eyes twitched.
A speaker crackled. "Agent Chen. Offer him the deal."
Her face clouded dangerously. "He's unreliable."
"Just do it."
Lydia exhaled through her nose. "Work for BEA. Use your portals for actual good. Or rot in a null-cell where your powers don't work."
I whistled. "So it's 'be a hero' or 'go to superfreak jail.'"
"Paperwork drone," she corrected. "You'll be on probation. With me as your handler."
"So…Desk duty for the rest of my potentially boring existence?"
No reply.
I pretended to think. "Do I get a cool uniform?"
"No."
"Health insurance?"
"No."
"Pension?"
"Definitely not."
I stood up. "Then I choose jail. Nice knowing you, Lyds—"
She grabbed my wrist. "We'll pay your rent."
I sat back down. "I'm listening."
--- —--- —-
An hour later, I signed the contract in glitter gel pen.
Lydia looked like she wanted to strangle me. "You're impossible."
I pocketed the pen. "But you love me."
A portal fizzed to life behind me—my involuntary stress glitch.
Lydia lunged. "Mercer, don't you dare—"
Too late. I fell backward into the rift.
And landed directly in a bank vault. Luck never fails to smile my way.
A masked figure spun to face me. His outfit was a knockoff of mine, black hoodie over fitting black pants over black sneakers, but with way too many belts around his much thicker waist.
"Who the hell are you?!" he yelled.
"Who the hell are you?" I yelled, matching his peach.
"I asked you first!"
I sighed. "Apparently? The new guy."
The alarms blared. Lydia's voice crackled through my stolen BEA earpiece: "MERCE—[static]—KILL YOU—"
I waved at the security cameras before facing my increasingly agitated vault companion.
I still didn't catch fist rushing towards my jaw before stars exploded in my vision.