Prodigal (Maelstrom Chronicles)

by Jody Wallace

  “Nothing.” The water that had eased his throat threatened to repeat on him. “If I think about my scar, I remember the bike wreck. If I think about my skin, I remember the beach. But it doesn’t mean anything.” As the Humvee bounced noisily back onto the pavement, his fingers spasmed around the canteen.

  Dented the metal.

  He stared at the depressions, shocked. Will and Claire hadn’t noticed, so he hastily dropped it onto the floor.

  In the same way he knew a female sheriff wasn’t typical, he knew a person shouldn’t be able to crush a canteen in his bare hand.

  “Who am I?” he said. “Why does everyone think I’m dead?”

  Before Will could answer, Claire interrupted. “That’s not a topic you can cover right now. Talk about something else. Sarah says not to feed Adam too much information about himself.”

  Will shrugged and started jawing about Camp Chanute and how the people there were getting by. Farming. Generators. Outhouses. Foraging. Schools. Claire commented every so often, in between talking to Sarah, whoever she was.

  Adam already had a problem with this Sarah lady. He wanted know everything about the person they thought he was and where they thought he’d been—what he’d survived. The fingers that had dented an army-issue canteen looked and felt like his, but were they? He splayed them on his knees.

  His hands. Trim nails. No rings, no marks. Just hands.

  It had to have been a cheap or defective canteen. It wasn’t anything to worry about.

  Something pressed his calf. Claire’s leg. She wasn’t looking at him, but she was sprawled out comfortably, taking up all the space she wanted on the wide bench seat of the Humvee. She’d finally ended her conversation with Sarah and now stared thoughtfully at the chilly landscape. But like her handshake, the warmth of her crept through her fatigues and into his bones.

  He thawed the rest of the way out. Did she know how much heat she radiated? More than the vents. More than the brilliant winter sun.

  He studied her as she conspicuously ignored him. Her irises were a darker brown than her smooth brown skin. Her short lashes were a thick, inky black. Her jawline was stubborn, squared off. Nothing pixie-like about Claire. Straight black eyebrows set off a wide forehead, and her hair was very short. It suited her, revealing sharp cheekbones and ears set close to her skull. The glowing wire around her hair disappeared into her skin at the temple, a reddened puffiness around it, as if it might be sore.

  He couldn’t help it. He touched her face. Her skin was soft and warm, and he liked it. “Does it hurt?”

  She smacked away his hand, casting him an aggrieved glare. “What are you doing? Keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Cardinal sin,” Will chimed in. “Do not touch a black woman’s hair.”

  “Does the wire in your temple hurt?” Common sense told him the implant must be connected to the alien communications device she’d been using to talk to Sarah. His head twinged with phantom pain, like a needle drilling into him.

  Had he worn one of those once?

  “It only hurts when it goes in,” she finally answered.

  “That’s what she said,” Will quipped.

  “I hate you,” Claire said, without real hostility. “Get some imagination.”

  “That’s what she said,” Will responded.

  “Latrine duty might be what she says.”

  Their relationship was obviously companionable and relaxed. Both were dark skinned and tall, though Claire wasn’t as tall as Adam. They seemed more like friends or family than lovers, and he wondered if their relationship had formed before or after the apocalypse.

  Did he—did Adam Alsing, who everyone thought was dead—have family? Lovers? What if he had someone waiting for him and couldn’t remember?

  How would they react to finding out he wasn’t dead?

  Tension mounted in him, starting in his thigh muscles and bleeding up his spine until it almost locked his jaw.

  “Do I have family?” Adam gritted out through the anxiety. “A wife or kids?”

  Claire and Will exchanged a glance, and she pressed her lips together before answering. “I don’t actually know, Adam, but I’m pretty sure that goes on the list of things Sarah doesn’t want us to tell you.”

  “If I have family, they’ll want to know I’m alive.”

  “We’ll find out, Adam. Soon. You have to understand, none of us knew you personally. We just knew of you.”

  “I was famous.” He toyed with that notion. “Why?”

  “You’re gonna have to patient.” Claire straightened, her leg shifting away from his. “Sarah—she’s our best doctor, the one with advanced tech—told us not to inform you about your past yet. It could damage and confuse you before she can get you into a mobile scanner unit and evaluate your DNA. Your condition, I mean.”

  “What kind of scanner?” he asked, instinctively suspicious. Resistance to anything doctor-related seemed like a good idea. “What about my DNA?”

  “She just needs to run some tests. Nothing to be scared of,” Claire said evasively. “I’m not a scientist. I have no idea how to explain all the Shipborn shit they use nowadays.”

  “Shipborn?”

  She paused before responding. “I guess it’s safe to tell you that. Your history’s off-limits, not the general history of the planet. The Shipborn are the good aliens who are helping us out with the bad aliens.”

  “Which are you?” he asked. She didn’t seem like an alien, but he had no idea what the aliens looked like beyond the black blobs Will had mentioned.

  She gave him a considering look. “I’m the one in charge.”

  “Of everything?”

  “Of everything around you, and that’s what matters.”

  “Technically you’re no more in charge than Elizabeth,” Will put in. “That’s our mayor. Elizabeth Newcome. She used to be the Secretary of State, but she was kicked out for treason.”

  “You have a treasonous Secretary of State as your mayor. That’s weird. Maybe.” Adam clearly hadn’t learned enough in the past thirty minutes to appreciate the political ramifications of the current environment, but it was his understanding traitors didn’t get jobs like mayor later in life. Maybe talk show host, but not mayor.

  “Elizabeth’s useful,” Claire said. “She knows people I need to know. She knows people I need things from. Case in point, she found people to get the indoor toilets working.”

  “Elizabeth is sometimes more trouble than she’s worth.” Will’s eyebrows drew together. “Especially since Kravitz keeps visiting her. He’s caused enough trouble. I don’t see why you let that bastard—”

  Claire placed a hand on the dash and turned to the driver. “We’re not going to talk about that. We’re just not. And if you keep pushing it, you’re going to shut your pie hole the rest of the way home.”

  “Aye-aye,” Will snapped back.

  “I’m pretty sure I like pie,” Adam commented to ease the tension. He had enough tension by himself; he didn’t need his rescuers feuding.

  Claire kind of grinned. Why did it seem like that was something she didn’t often do? “Everyone likes pie.”

  “I prefer cake,” Will said. “Pie’s too gooey.”

  “We’ll be home in about thirty.” Claire adjusted her sleeve. A wide silver bracelet that matched her vest glinted beneath the cloth. “I’m going to get some sleep. If Elizabeth radios, tell her about the UO but don’t give her details.” She leaned her head against the door and closed her eyes. Her breathing deepened.

  “Ignore Claire. She’s rude,” Will commented in a low voice. “You got any other questions? Besides questions about your life, of course.”

  Claire had promised he’d find out more tomorrow and asked him to be patient. He had no reason to trust her, but he found that he did. “I guess a general overview of what happened with the aliens.”

  “Okay, so, the good aliens. Dr. Sarah is one of them, and you’ll meet her tomorrow. Well, they’re humans—some of them—from
another galaxy. They have a sentient spaceship and that’s why they’re the Shipborn. They go around killing monsters from another dimension. It’s, like, their purpose in life. The bad aliens—the monsters—invaded our planet, and it was getting better, but now it’s getting worse again because the monsters are showing up where they aren’t supposed to be.”

  Adam frowned. Adjusting to the idea that aliens existed was easier than adjusting to the fact he couldn’t remember his life. “How did the bad aliens find us in the first place? What did we do when they showed up?”

  “Uh, well,” Will stammered.

  Without opening her eyes, Claire growled at them. “Latrines, boy. Latrines.”

  Will grinned. “Let me tell you more about the state of the union, to be safe,” he offered. “That doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  But their planet’s response to the bad aliens did?

  Who was Adam Alsing?

  …

  After watching Claire, Will, and the others do everything they could to keep anyone at their camp from interacting with him, Adam had to conclude he’d been somebody awful. He couldn’t remember anything about himself, but he knew when people were sneaking him in the back door.

  A black lady with crutches—Claire’s sister Tracy Lawson—had met them at a gate pretty far away from the center of the fortified complex. Along with a short blond woman named Dixie, she hopped into the back of the Humvee, and they’d hustled him into an empty warehouse that seemed to cant slightly to one side.

  “I had a tough time getting Elizabeth to agree to this, but we have about an hour where the lower halls should be clear,” Tracy told everyone. “Let’s get on with it.”

  Once concealed, they parked the Humvee. Only the headlights of the vehicle lit the echoing space, though Adam could make out cracks in the structure. Tracy and Dixie swung out of the back and sent Randall elsewhere with strict instructions to keep a lid on their discovery.

  “You embarrassed of me?” Adam asked Claire. He followed her toward a door at the back of the hangar, tugging the parka down over his butt. Now that he was adjusting to being…himself, the winter air was freezing his balls off. He’d almost rather wrap the parka around his waist than wear it like a too-short tunic.

  “Embarrassed? Nah, man. But you do dress funny,” Will commented.

  “Is this how I normally dress?”

  “Nobody normally runs around naked in the winter,” Claire pointed out with a touch of humor. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m glad you gave me your coat.” Whatever he’d done, whoever he’d been, Adam wasn’t going to quibble about his lack of pants when they’d had no pants to give him. He was lucky to be alive, since all these people had assumed he was dead.

  He expected the woman on crutches to react strongly, too, but she didn’t. She barely spared him a glance.

  Dixie, on the other hand, squealed and clapped her hands when she saw him. “Adam Alsing, as I live and breathe.” She walked right up to him and shook his hand as if he wasn’t half naked and amnesia-riddled. “I am a fan. Big fan. Wow, I cannot believe how tall you are.”

  Her gaze trailed down his body, and she opened her mouth to say something else. He hoped she would reveal his previous identity, but Claire stopped her.

  “Put a lid on it, Dix.” Claire didn’t seem to need her parka, though everyone else had zipped theirs to the chin. He missed her heat—the warmth of her body next to him in the cab. When she’d fallen asleep for real, her leg had lolled pleasantly against his thigh. “We need to find Adam some clothes and a place to spend the night. The barracks are full, so he’s going to have to bunk with someone.”

  It was ridiculous to hope it would be Claire, or imagine her warmth thawing out his whole body, so he ignored the vision that leaped into his brain. Visions of his past would be a hell of a lot more useful.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you which side of the mattress I prefer,” he offered.

  “No worries. I’m sure we can give you a choice between a hard-ass twin and a narrow-ass cot.” She eyed him like she was measuring him for a bed, her humor still prevalent. That warmed him, too. “You hungry?”

  “I could eat.” He didn’t know what he might like, but his stomach grumbled.

  “We’ll get you some food. Don’t think there’s pie, though.” Claire checked that silver band on her wrist, tapping it until he could see a small screen light up. Outside the truck, she had a buffer of personal space he could practically outline with a pen. “Dr. Sarah will be here in about twelve hours.”

  “I thought you had a doctor here?” he asked.

  “I’m the resident doctor,” Tracy explained. Her crutches clacked on the concrete floor. “But I was a pediatrician before the aliens came. With amnesia, I’m out of my depth.”

  “Am I an alien?” he asked bluntly, a question that had been gnawing at him. “Can you tell me that much?”

  “You are one of us. A Terran,” Tracy said firmly. “Look, Sarah wants us to isolate you from anyone who might complicate things. Civilians.” She fiddled with a decrepit padlock that flaked pieces of rust when she turned the key. “Our mayor insisted on keeping you as separate as possible if you were brought into the city. Claire’s sensor array didn’t pick up any contagions, but it’s best to be safe.”

  The door swung open with a grating creak to reveal a set of stairs headed down.

  “You’re sure we can get in this way?” Claire asked. “I thought we had this door sealed.”

  Tracy smiled. She had a pretty smile—white teeth, wide grin. It crinkled her eyes and brightened her up like firecrackers. She looked like someone who laughed a lot.

  He had yet to see Claire really smile.

  “I hope so,” Tracy said, “or we’re going to violate the quarantine within ten minutes of being here.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Dixie said. “I got everything ready.”

  After switching on the lights, Tracy managed the stairs with aplomb. Dixie followed her and Adam followed Claire, conscious that his ass kept peeking out from under the coat. Will brought up the rear and was kind enough not to mention the fact Adam was mooning him.

  They traveled along a dim passageway, a few bare lightbulbs buzzing overhead. Dust on the floor indicated nobody had been here in a long, long time. Finally, they reached another door, this one with a wheel instead of a knob and padlocks.

  “Here’s the tricky part,” Tracy warned. “I had Dix sneak around and apply some solvent, but it may or may not work.”

  “It’s gonna work.” Dixie clapped her hands. “Will, want to give it a go?”

  The young man, about two inches taller than Adam, stepped forward and set his hands on the wheel. He tugged.

  The wheel didn’t budge.

  Gritting his teeth, he tugged more. “I got this.” Will threw his weight into it but his only reward was a groan—his own.

  “Let me help.” Claire sidled past Tracy and Dixie, who’d fallen back to stand near Adam and kept peeking at him as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Never send a boy to do a woman’s job.” The space was too narrow for two people to fight with the door, so Claire took a turn. Hissing and cursing, she yanked on the wheel, one foot braced against the jamb, to no avail.

  “Shit.” A few droplets of sweat broke out on her high forehead; the electric light glinted on them. “I don’t think the solvent worked, but we can’t take him through the main corridors.”

  “Maybe we could dress him up like a woman,” Dixie said with a laugh.

  “People would recognize me, wouldn’t they?” Adam rubbed his hands. With the lights on and five people down here, two of them exerting themselves, it had warmed up. He could feel his balls again. And his feet.

  His balls felt a damn sight better than his feet.

  Claire glanced at him. “You never know.”

  Yeah. He’d been somebody awful. Somebody famous and awful. Granted, nobody treated him like a serial killer, but they def
initely hadn’t been pleased when they’d recognized him.

  Will rubbed his hands. “If we had a crowbar, we could leverage it open.”

  “You can use my crutch,” Tracy offered tentatively, but her expression was dubious. “This door was never used before we moved in and sealed it. We could be battling regular old rust.”

  “I could try,” Adam offered, loosening his shoulders. Though he felt ludicrous in just a coat, his state of dress didn’t faze his companions. If they didn’t care, he should get over it, too. “Can’t hurt.”

  Just his ego. Did he have an ego?

  Apparently. He sensed a definite desire to open the door after Claire and Will had failed. Preferably while wearing pants, but he couldn’t have everything.

  Claire waved him forward. “Knock yourself out.”

  Adam had to pass her closely to reach the wheel. He stared down at her for a moment—not too far down, because she was tall. Standing within touching distance, her face turned up to his, it felt like something was supposed to happen.

  A sentence burbled out of his mouth before he could stop it. He caressed her cheek, and his fingers tingled at the contact. “Kiss for luck before I die?”

  Claire gaped at him and pushed his chest. “What the hell? No.”

  “Oh my God, that’s from Guy Lassiter and the Mummy Idol,” Adam heard Dixie whisper. “I thought he had—”

  “Hush,” Tracy said. “Adam, are you all right?”

  “I don’t actually think I’m about to die,” he said, confused. “Sorry, Claire.”

  She glared at him for a minute, her shapely lips in a tight line. “Sorry for being melodramatic, or sorry for trying to kiss me?”

  “I don’t remember much about kissing.” What would it take to soften those lips? She’d be as warm inside as she was outside. Hotter, even. He would cup her face in his hands gently, bend toward her, keeping in mind the camera angle, and… He lost it. The memory was gone. “Maybe I never have.”

  “Oh, you have,” she said with a sardonic chuckle.