Prodigal (Maelstrom Chronicles)

by Jody Wallace

  “You can kiss me,” Dixie volunteered. “I’m single and ready to mingle.”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “Open the door so we can get you some proper clothes.”

  He placed his hands on the wheel. The metal was cold, but not as cold as his feet. Expecting to fail but hoping he wouldn’t, he gave an experimental tug. He met resistance. Tugged harder.

  With a squeal, the wheel turned. Adam shoved until he’d completed the circuit, and the door unsealed.

  “I’ll be damned,” Will said.

  “We loosened it up for him.” Claire lifted her chin at Adam, acknowledging his usefulness, but her expression grew thoughtful. “Thanks.”

  They trudged into a wider corridor, this one better lit. They passed a few people, who stared at Adam in amazement, before Claire and the others whipped him into a room.

  “That was unfortunate. I thought you cleared this area,” she said to Dixie and Tracy.

  “Tried to time it right, but what can you do?” Tracy shrugged. “Elizabeth didn’t want me to fake an evacuation. She’s going to be mad, though.”

  “She can get over it,” Claire decided. “The only other choice was to put him in a warehouse or somewhere with no security. Will, go get him a meal. Tracy, can you handle damage control? You’re better at the diplomatic stuff than I am.”

  “Sure.” Tracy unzipped her parka and removed a tablet computer from an inner pocket. “Let me track down the looky-loos.” She and Will exited, and Dixie stared at Claire and Adam with arched eyebrows.

  “I didn’t expect to be in this room,” Dixie said. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

  It was a good-sized box of a room, fully outfitted—two twin beds, several wooden cabinets, a desk, a table with padded edges, several chairs, one high chair, toys. A rug in primary colors covered a good portion of the concrete floor. A Polaroid photo of a fat, brown-skinned baby, her mouth open in a gummy smile, was pinned to a corkboard along with other photos and schedules.

  “I think you’ll be comfortable here,” Dixie said. “I’m just…going to go now, okay?”

  “Thank you, Dix.” Claire inclined her head as Dixie left, leaving her and Adam completely alone.

  Adam inspected the rest of the room, trying to figure out the mystery owner. A padded rocking chair sat in one corner while a lamp on the desk spilled a pool of yellow light on a stack of clothing.

  “Oh, good. They beat us here.” Claire sorted through the stack, pulling out jeans, a shirt, socks, and underpants. She checked tags and eyeballed him. “These look about your size.”

  “Are you going to tell me whose room this is?”

  “Somebody who agreed to stay elsewhere for the night.” She held out the clothing.

  Somebody who had a child. Adam began to unzip the parka. “I don’t want to put anybody out of their bed, especially not a baby.”

  “The baby is happy where she is. Hold on, streaker.” She pointed at a door. “Bathroom. Shower. Undress in there.”

  “You’ve already seen me naked.” He unzipped the rest of the way. Cold air washed his torso. While he’d been self-conscious about the way his ass had repeatedly escaped the parka, being nude in front of her didn’t bother him. “Why does it matter?”

  “It doesn’t.” But she stared at as the ceiling as he slipped out of the parka, as if forcing herself to appear unaffected. They traded coat for clothing, her gaze never dropping below his neck. She’d placed black boxers for him on top of the stack.

  Tension tightened the skin on her cheekbones, and her chin was lifted higher than necessary. Did it have anything to do with who he’d been? Was she afraid to be alone with him?

  “I really want to know my history,” he coaxed. He held his stack of garments politely in front of his hips. “Give me something. Who am I?”

  “A nudist, maybe,” she said. “Have you no shame?”

  “Do I have something to be ashamed of?” He didn’t mean his body. While he had yet to see himself in anything but the rearview mirror of the Humvee, his body seemed to be normal.

  Strong, though. He wasn’t sure Claire and Will had loosened the wheel on that door, but he’d tuck that away along with the canteen thing until he saw the doctor. If the doctor brought it up, he’d tell her about it. It didn’t seem like a good idea to mention to Claire that he might possess superhuman strength. She was leery of him, whether she admitted it or not.

  She narrowed her eyes. “We all have something to be ashamed of. You’re lucky because you don’t remember yours. You should enjoy your clean slate while it lasts.”

  “When do you think you can tell me more? Are you afraid to?”

  “I’m not afraid of you.” But she strode away from him to the door of the room and raised the screen over its rectangular peephole, as if making sure nobody else could see him, naked or otherwise. “Sarah will know more about how to treat you after we talk to her tomorrow. Right now, we need to do what she recommended, which is to lay off any personal history. You want to know who won the World Series, I can find out, but the rest needs to come back to you naturally.”

  “So I didn’t play baseball,” he joked. “Good to know.”

  He got a quick smile for that, but he doubted he was going to get more information out of her. He entered the bathroom. Steel toilet, sink, mirror, plastic chest of toiletries and towels, and a bathtub with rubber ducks lining the side.

  Before he shut the door, he asked, “Are you going to be here when I get out?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “Will’s going to stay with you tonight.”

  They thought he needed a keeper. “If I need a warden, I’d rather have you. We’ve already slept together.” He smiled, trying to charm her. “Well, you napped in the Jeep.”

  She did glance at him, at least, but she didn’t look charmed. “I have things to do, places to be. Sheriff, remember?”

  She snapped down the peephole screen and crossed her arms, closing herself off. She hadn’t removed her silvery vest, the one that looked like scale mail. It had to be thin, because it didn’t hinder her, and she didn’t move like she was carrying a heavy burden. Aside from him, anyway, and she was ditching him.

  Will had been personable, but Claire’s touch was the one that grounded him. Made him feel less anxious. Claire was the one who’d brought him fully into this existence, burned off the last of the fog.

  “Don’t go,” he found himself saying. Emotions pushed through his reserve. “This can’t be the last good-bye.” Again, as when he’d wanted to kiss her, he had no idea where the words had come from. The sentiment, however, had demanded to be expressed.

  “Oh, Lord.” She shook her head, but her fingers tapped nervously. “I’ll have to ask Sarah about that.”

  He did want to kiss her. He felt like it would remind him of who he was—like she could make him real again. He took a step toward her. “Claire. I need—”

  Her eyes widened, and she opened the other door hastily. “I’ve got to go. Do not, under any circumstances besides fire or flood, leave this room. If a snotty, white-haired lady with a scar on her cheek shows up and wants to interrogate you, that’s Mayor Newcome. Don’t let her in. You’ll regret it if you do.”

  The door slammed behind her, leaving Adam alone with his thoughts.

  But not his memories. Those were all gone.

  Chapter Three

  Adam Alsing didn’t seem like an idiot.

  He didn’t seem like the grandstanding, starlet-hopping, self-indulgent movie star who’d given Niko, Gregori, and the handlers so much trouble when they’d been masquerading as religious deities and telling the natives that Alsing was the Chosen One.

  He just seemed like a guy. A guy with a great set of abs and a doctor phobia.

  Claire watched him tense up again when Sarah came at him with a handheld scanner. Dr. Sarah had flown to Camp Chanute this morning on the medical transport, one of Ship’s remodeled shuttles, outfitted with state of the art technology and an AI booster module for Ship
. That meant Ship had, in a sense, accompanied Sarah, as had one of Ship’s exobiologists, a guy named Cullin something-or-other.

  Better to examine Adam on the medical craft than on Ship itself, when they didn’t know what they were dealing with.

  Housing him at Camp Chanute for the night had been bad enough, but what else could she do? He hadn’t even owned any clothes, and if any human being was less menacing than a naked, shivering Adam Alsing, she’d eat her boots.

  A naked, warm Adam Alsing, fresh out of her parka and asking her to stay with him, was another story altogether.

  “The scanner doesn’t hurt,” Claire told him grumpily, crossing the small, sterile lab to stand beside him in case he needed restraining. The shuttle’s mobile clinic gleamed as white as a stormtrooper’s uniform. “The tube scanner didn’t hurt. The other tests didn’t hurt. Nobody’s gonna hurt you, Adam.”

  He was bigger than she was and looked fit as hell, but his muscles had been buffed in a gym, prettying him up for the camera. Claire doubted he knew the first thing about fighting.

  “I have a vague memory of hating bloodwork,” he conceded. “And hospital gowns.”

  “We do not need to extract a great deal of blood,” Ship said through the intercom. It had seemingly tasked itself as infodumper to the amnesiac. Adam had accepted the strangeness that was Ship in stride, like he had everything else, though he hadn’t enjoyed being examined by the doctor. “Your cooperation is appreciated.”

  “I’m not picking up anything unusual,” Sarah reassured them. “The DNA’s pure. Same as it was before. No trace of any unusual chemicals, substances, nothing. He’s clean. Cleaner than most Terrans.”

  “Except for considerable evidence of entity exposure.” Cullin tapped his holo terminal, swiping formulas Claire barely recognized as math. “Considering the last place he was seen, that’s to be expected.”

  Prior to today, Claire had only met the exobiologist in passing. He was the snide genius type, nothing like Sarah or several other Shipborn brains she’d met. Cullin could have been mistaken for a Terran Pacific Islander, if you didn’t know any better. Since his boss in the exobiology division was a tentacled masssian named Priiit, they’d sent Cullin instead, to ease Adam’s introduction to the Shipborn.

  At least Cullin hadn’t been outright rude to their patient. Just vaguely suspicious and arrogant, but, for all she knew, that was his normal attitude.

  “Speaking of the last place I was seen, when are you going to tell me more about myself? It might jog my actual memories.” Adam stared at Claire instead of Sarah or Cullin, as if Claire was the one subjecting him to medical torture.

  As if Claire was the one with the answers.

  She didn’t want to be the one to break it to him that he’d been a Class A fuckup. Not this guy. This guy who touched her without permission because he wondered if her implant hurt. This guy who kept quoting lines from his movies but didn’t realize what he was saying. This guy who looked to her when anyone spoke, like he only wanted to hear her response.

  Claire shrugged and studied her nails. “I’ll tell you more when Sarah says I can.”

  Not that she was passing the buck. It was the truth.

  “How about now?” Adam asked Sarah. “I’ve passed your tests.”

  “Dr. Sarah and I will consult about treatment after I deep-scan my databases for additional information on human amnesia disorder.” Ship answered for Sarah. “We do not wish harm to come to you, Adam Alsing.”

  “Well, thanks.” Adam grinned ruefully. “I’m in agreement with you there.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sarah smiled at him and Claire both. “We did confirm you don’t have any immediate family—no significant other or children. No siblings. We’re trying to track down your parents.”

  “They could be dead,” Adam said slowly. “I’m standing outside myself, watching this on screen. I don’t remember my parents, but I know I had parents.”

  “Amnesia isn’t completely deciphered, even in Shipborn medicine,” Sarah explained. “We have ways to repair any damage that might have been done to your brain, but your physical form is remarkably healthy. You barely even have dead skin cells.”

  Claire inspected the man. Remarkably healthy, huh? He’d bathed last night but hadn’t trimmed his hair. His blond curls fell across his forehead, surfer style, like when he’d filmed Crest the Wave. She had to admit, he was easy on the eyes, even if he probably wasn’t going to be easy to sort out. His jaw clenched as Sarah ran the scanner down his body one last time. The T-shirt they’d found for him was a bit small, clinging to his chiseled pectorals and abs like a wetsuit. The faded jeans rode low on his hips. Claire found herself recalling the way she’d handed him the clothes herself and picked his underwear out of a stack, no less.

  She’d had her hands on Adam Alsing’s drawers. He’d slept in her bed.

  Hey, she was human, and the man was almost too fine to be real. How could any human being have a face like that naturally? Or a body?

  She’d seen alllllll of his body. Twice.

  “Adam, congratulations. You’re in perfect working order,” Sarah said obliquely, switching the scanner off when it reached his legs. “I don’t think I’ll run further scans at this time. What about you, Cullin?”

  The scientist flicked something on the holo computer that made the equations dance. He fingered his chin and grunted. “Maybe in a few days. I need to get Priiit on some of these numbers. They aren’t adding up.”

  “I can help with that,” Ship offered. “At a much greater speed than you do your manual calculations, Cullin KeshTaggert-son.”

  “Oooh, I’m getting the whole name. I’m in trouble.” Cullin laughed as Sarah busied herself with her scanner, plugging the results into her tablet. “Sometimes an organic needs to be in control of an experiment, Ship. Leaves room for creative inspiration.”

  “I am equipped with a superior learning matrix.” To Claire, Ship sounded almost sulky. A couple years of acquaintance with the AI had given her a better understanding of its personality. Didn’t mean she wanted to be BFFs. “Inspiration is not outside of my capabilities.”

  Cullin continued arguing with Ship, so Sarah led Claire and Adam into the large waiting room of the remodeled shuttle. The Shipborn had equipped the clinic vessel with a full-sized curative synthesizer for medical relief trips to Terra’s surface. It boasted nearly the full power of Ship’s med bay, plus access to Ship for quicker database scanning.

  “Can you tell Elizabeth he’s not diseased or contagious?” Claire asked Sarah. “It’ll be more convincing coming from you.”

  The rest of the world would find out about Adam soon enough, and they should understand he wasn’t a ticking time bomb, despite his mysterious past.

  “I’ll contact her if you like.” Then she grinned. “Are you satisfied he’s not contagious? Or are you going to run any tests on him yourself…like you did Niko when you didn’t believe he was a deity?”

  Adam raised his eyebrows. “If it’s a memory test, I’ll fail.”

  Claire shrugged, but heat rose in her cheeks. “Why would I do that? Adam’s not lying about who he is.”

  “I don’t know who I am,” he corrected.

  Back when the Shipborn had been pretending to be angels in hopes of saving Terra without introducing alien technology, she’d mistrusted their whole shit show. She’d set out to prove the angeli weren’t real by taking one to bed.

  It had worked a little too well, and she and Nikolas had made Frances. God, had that been almost three years ago?

  “You’ve been known to take matters in your own hands,” Sarah said, her gaze meaningful. “Rashly.”

  Claire fell back on her usual excuse. “Everything worked out fine, didn’t it?”

  She loved Frances, her daughter, with all her heart, and Niko and Sarah were together now. This was more than acceptable to Claire. It meant she got Sarah along with Niko as a co-parent, and Sarah was kind, generous, and smart as hell.

 
; “It did indeed.” Sarah turned to Adam, including him in the conversation. “Adam, I’m impressed with how calmly you’re accepting your amnesia, as well as the existence of aliens and an apocalypse. This can’t be easy for you.”

  “I would say I’ve had worse, but how would I know?” Adam rolled his shoulders, flexing muscles all over his torso. Claire’s gaze snagged on the sleeves of his T-shirt, which were stretched to capacity. “If I’m not going be patient zero in a plague, I’m curious to know what I am going to be.”

  She wasn’t usually drawn to white guys, but there was something about the smoothness of his pale skin, with those hard muscles rolling beneath it, that made her want to caress him, to see if he was made of ice—or steam.

  When she dragged her gaze from his biceps, he was watching her. The corner of his mouth quirked into his signature sexy grin.

  “Do I pass muster, Sheriff?” he asked, his hand on the back of one of the seats.

  She tightened her lips. Cocky. She didn’t like cocky. “Why are you so impatient? You got somewhere to be?”

  “No, but you probably do.”

  “That actually brings up my next topic.” Sarah offered Claire a small data stick. “Where is Adam going to live? I don’t feel it would be wise to release him into the general populace. He would be…recognized.”

  Claire fingered the data stick. Everyone in the world knew about the Chosen One—and his failure. He’d be idolized for surviving and ripped apart for failing. “You gonna take him to Ship?”

  “Until we find out how Adam survived, Nikolas and the rest of the trine do not consent to Adam coming aboard,” Ship explained. “I believe he would be safe, despite whatever Cullin KeshTaggert’s numbers say, but I am only one third of the trine vote.”

  “You could take him to the base in Yellowstone,” Claire suggested. Sarah was scheduled to deliver curatives to a settlement farther west after the exam. “Most of the people there are Shipborn. They’re used to dealing with freaky shit.”

  “You’re not locking me away in prison,” Adam said firmly. “I’m staying with you, Claire.”

  “Yellowstone’s not a prison. It’s a military base.” While she hadn’t minded housing Adam in Camp Chanute for a night, she wasn’t sure it was a good idea for him to take up permanent residence.