Prodigal (Maelstrom Chronicles)

by Jody Wallace

  “I want to ride with the babies, Mr. Alsing.” The woman headed for the medical shuttle, and Adam helped her along. Winged soldiers swarmed out of the new ship, burning back the shades so the survivors could load. “My name is Sophia Bettles, but you can call me Bitty. You’re much taller than you look in the movies.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” was all he could say before the business of their getaway took precedence over explanations and vendettas.

  Chapter Six

  “You want the good news or the bad news?” Tracy handed Claire the estimate of inoculation needs for Camp Chanute’s residents. With the United States in complete upheaval, a lot of young children and older folks were vulnerable to contagions like the measles. They’d need to treat everyone ASAP so the virus wouldn’t spread from the Riverbenders they’d taken in.

  “The bad news.” Claire barely skimmed the chart. Hopefully nobody would give them crap about immunizations and curatives. Lots of folks had become rabidly anti-science with the arrival of the Shipborn, but she didn’t think she had a lot of that type in Chanute. Why would someone who hated science want to live where the sheriff had given birth to a half-Shipborn baby and believed in the Shipborn’s cause?

  Tracy eased herself into a chair on the other side of Claire’s desk. The sheriff’s headquarters was a former dentist’s office. They’d retrofitted the treatment rooms into holding cells. Randall was taking inventory in the weapons room in back. “Raniya’s team couldn’t retrieve the capsule Adam was in. When they got there, it was gone.”

  That wasn’t the bad news Claire had been expecting, considering Tracy had just handed her medical reports. “Gone? As far as we could tell, it didn’t have a power source. It didn’t have wheels. It sure as hell didn’t have a driver. It was a shell. Where would it go?”

  “There was no evidence it had been there. They found our footprints, but no silver UO.”

  “Like the shades in the buffer zone sneaking around killing people,” Claire mused. “Did they look in the right cornfield? There’s a few around here, and to aliens they probably all look alike.”

  Tracy grinned, but she didn’t take the bait. “Come on, Claire. They wouldn’t make a rookie mistake like that.”

  “Here’s a thought.” Claire swiveled her chair idly. “Did they check the communities near Chicago, see if one of those groups stole it?”

  “You know the warlords don’t acknowledge the Shipborn,” Tracy said. “They wouldn’t answer questions like that. Besides, you said yourself the pod didn’t show up on sensors. If the warlords stole it, all they’d have to do is keep it under a roof, and we’d never know it was there.”

  “If the shades had to take out a whole town in the buffer zone, I wish it had been Chicago instead of Riverbend,” Claire complained.

  Tracy cut her a stern glance. “We’re not savages. I don’t care how awful some of us are. Don’t wish that on anybody. And since I know you didn’t bother to read my report, nearly everyone at Chanute is immune to the measles. We shouldn’t have an outbreak.”

  “That’s good, too.” Camp Chanute residents had quicker access to Shipborn curatives than many on Terra, though the Shipborn offered medical aid more readily than they offered soldiers. “But the incredible disappearing UO is a shit pile.”

  “Elizabeth says the Global Union is going to alert the other settlements to be on the lookout for more. The ones that will acknowledge us, anyway,” Tracy said.

  “Are they going to tell everyone about Adam?”

  “I don’t see how they can keep him secret,” Tracy said. “People talk.”

  “I love change.” Claire rubbed the itchy spot at her temple where she’d removed the sensor array the first minute she could. She only wore one in times of extreme need. “I just love it. I hope tomorrow we get more changes we don’t understand. Things were getting awful dull around here.”

  She leaned back in her chair and stared at the smudged ceiling tiles. The mystery of Adam Alsing’s survival was right up there with the mystery of the dead, drained humans throughout the buffer zone. Today’s shade attack in Riverbend, South Dakota, where no shades should be, had to be related to the second mystery. Did the deadly new tactics of the shades have anything to do with Adam and the silver pod? Was this what Cullin had been hinting at with his faulty numbers? The pod had disappeared like the renegade shades, but they hadn’t found any dead humans near the UO.

  Shade hordes maintained a connection to the rest of their kind. They spread out in a network of pools and hubs, like a giant game of connect the dots. Or at least they had until six months ago. The mother horde in California, centered around the former San Francisco nexus, covered millions of acres, and it was hard to determine how much of the seabed they’d taken.

  Sealing the nexus had been Adam’s job at the beginning of the invasion, when the Shipborn had been pretending to be angels. He’d been the Chosen One—elevated above other Terrans, feted, and trained to save the planet.

  But the Chosen One had failed. The rift to the other dimension had remained open and spewed monsters until Adelita Martinez had blown it to smithereens.

  Now here Adam was, without a single memory of the failure he’d been. They’d discovered later that Ship had been hacked by its former general, Vorn, and forced to pick someone inept for the original mission, but Claire doubted that tidbit would make Adam feel any better about himself.

  “So what are you going to do with Adam?” Tracy took the medical reports out of the bin, smoothed them, and replaced them. “If you aren’t sending him to Yellowstone, you can’t ignore him forever.”

  Especially not with him staying in her quarters. It was the only safe place to put him, and damned if she was sleeping on Tracy’s floor another night. After today’s events, even Elizabeth had agreed to keep him in Chanute for now.

  He’d been shockingly handy in the skirmish. With danger mounting in the buffer zone, she could use another deputy with his gung-ho attitude and his daring and his extreme good looks and…

  Shit. Maybe he could bunk in a jail cell. They’d been upgraded with beds and toilets, and it wasn’t a prison if she didn’t lock the door, right?

  “Yeah, Claire. What are you going to do with me?”

  Startled, she glanced up. Think of the devil, and he shall appear.

  She hadn’t heard Adam enter the front office, and she was normally more observant. He leaned against her office doorjamb, arms crossed lazily. His golden hair gleamed in the streetlight that angled through the glass panes of her picture window.

  Her libido perked up at the sight of him, so she answered brusquely. “Why are you out of your room?”

  He shrugged. A sheepskin-lined jacket lent his shoulders more breadth than she remembered, and clean, faded denims clung to his legs. Damn, the man was good health and hotness personified. Would she be as entranced by him if he were the same cocky jerk as before his amnesia? There was just something about a person willing to risk life and limb to rescue strangers.

  “It’s late,” he said. “I came looking for you.”

  “Anybody give you any trouble?” Anybody chase you down the street and beg you to autograph their panties? Anybody threaten to kill you for nearly destroying the planet?

  “Only you.”

  “Funny.” She’d told him to stay put. After the fight he’d gotten into with the Riverbend survivors, he’d probably figured out why. “I could assign you to work on latrines tomorrow. Can you dig?”

  Not even Shipborn technology had overcome the complications of group waste disposal when one didn’t have the wherewithal to build a waste disposal plant.

  He smiled. “If that’s what you need from me.”

  “Is your epidermis up to it?” They had some Shipborn equipment at Chanute—a tube scanner and a speed-healing device, which worked on people who’d been acclimated to Shipborn technology.

  Which Adam had been, when he’d been the Chosen One.

  “He should be good to go,” Tracy said. “But h
e also should be in his room like he was told to be.”

  Adam, with a cheeky grin, rolled his shoulders around. “Skin’s a little tight. After I got a look at those burns, I can’t believe I didn’t pass out the minute you shot me.” He caught Claire’s gaze. “How much Shipborn junk did they plug into the Chosen One, anyway?”

  “Figured that out, did you?” She’d planned to explain everything to him tomorrow, maybe, or next week. Whenever she absolutely couldn’t put it off any longer.

  “This filled in a lot of the blanks.” Adam pulled a newspaper clipping out of his back pocket. Roughly torn, it reported the failure of the Chosen One to seal the nexus between dimensions—and didn’t lament his disappearance. “Apparently I jumped in a black hole instead of saving the planet, but here I am.”

  “Here you are,” Claire agreed. “Out of the room we told you to stay in, wandering around town after dark.”

  He rubbed his chin with a bare hand. No gloves. Long fingers. Claire blinked away the image of his fingers on her body. “Are the enhancements why I’m so healthy and unusually handsome?”

  “You’re not unusually handsome,” Claire scoffed, trying not to laugh. He was a huge inconvenience, and when she thought about what he’d survived, kind of creepy. But he’d worked his ass off today, risked his life, and seemed curious about his past instead of angst-filled, like she would have been. “Special effects in the movies are fantastic these days.”

  Tracy, who’d been watching their conversation with interest, gave Adam the chuckle he seemed to be seeking, but she also gave him a serious answer. It occurred to Claire perhaps that was what Adam had actually wanted. “Your enhancements are latent. They enabled us to use the speed-healer on you, but you shouldn’t experience anything out of the ordinary.”

  “So they wouldn’t explain something like superstrength or not passing out when I receive third degree burns?” he joked. “Should I be worried about kryptonite?”

  Claire kicked herself. She needed to quit assuming that because he had a pretty face, there was nothing behind it. He’d shown his mettle today. He deserved the truth.

  “I know you have a lot of questions. I wanted to keep you segregated a while longer.” Old resentments died hard, and a lot of the people on Terra resented the living hell out of the Chosen One. She could only imagine what would happen once news of his return hit the general populace. “Give you time to adjust.”

  “Sounds like nobody can afford the time,” he said. “I overheard a conversation in the mess hall—”

  “You went to the mess hall, too? Dammit, Adam.” At this rate everyone in Camp Chanute would know about the Chosen One before morning. She’d have to bar her door.

  Lock herself inside her bedroom with Adam Alsing.

  Maybe she could survive another night on Tracy’s floor.

  He grinned, this time sheepish. “I got hungry. Anyway, they were saying that shades attacked another buffer zone settlement today. Not Riverbend, where we were.”

  “Was it Chicago?” Claire asked hopefully.

  “Claire,” Tracy chided. “Come on.”

  “I hadn’t heard,” she said more seriously. “Who got hit and how bad?”

  “They said it was near Fort Berthold Indian Reservation,” Adam said. “The shuttles couldn’t get to them in time.”

  “That’s terrible.” Tracy smoothed her hand down her tactanium-plated crutch. “Fort Berthold was in the buffer zone, too.”

  “Like us,” Claire agreed. “Buffer zone doesn’t seem to be a buffer anymore.”

  “Riverbend and Fort Berthold are hundreds of miles apart, and neither one’s close to a primary horde.” Tracy sighed. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I’m sure Priiit, Cullin, and the exobiologists are all over this. ” Claire shook her head. “I can’t believe Elizabeth didn’t lead with this escalation when we talked.”

  “I met Elizabeth,” Adam offered. “She came to visit me, accompanied by a few large men, and gave me the clipping.”

  “Mighty nice of her,” Claire growled.

  Mighty intrusive of her. She really should have led with the other shade attacks. At this rate, with shades showing up wherever the hell they wanted, they’d need to start drawing up contingency plans to relocate the town.

  “She tries to meet everyone who lives in Chanute,” Tracy reminded her. “It’s her job. And on that note, I’m going to my room.” She swung to her feet, adjusting her grip on her crutches. “I’ve got a date with a tub of lukewarm water and some contraband tea tree oil shampoo.”

  “Tea tree oil. What did that set you back?” Claire asked.

  Tracy grinned and touched her dreadlocks. She’d switched her braids for dreads for easier maintenance, but she hadn’t gotten the big chop like Claire, who hadn’t wanted to bother with a beauty regime once the apocalypse had hit.

  Okay, truth, she’d never bothered with a beauty regime.

  “You don’t wanna know,” Tracy said. “Will you be camping on my floor tonight?”

  “She has a bed,” Adam said, his gaze daring Claire to deny it. “In her own room. Speaking of which, how’s Frannie?”

  “I don’t want to talk about Frannie.” Saying good-bye to her baby when she went to visit Niko and Sarah wasn’t as painful as a sharp stick in the eye, but it stabbed her heart every single time.

  “She gets moody when Frannie’s visiting her dad,” Tracy said. “We all miss Frannie.”

  “I’m not moody. I’m overworked and underpaid,” Claire told her. “And yes, I’ll be sleeping in my own bed tonight. Apparently I have to guard our special guest from Elizabeth and her goons.”

  “They didn’t hurt me.” Adam stuck his hands in his pockets, somehow suave despite his worn attire. “Just menaced me a little.”

  Everything he did was like an advertisement for the perfect human male. He was so easy on the eyes he was practically pornographic. His posture. His smile. The way his jacket gaped to reveal that tight T-shirt and those washboard abs. Knowing he’d nearly died today to save sick children only added to his appeal.

  She wasn’t a woman who cared about appearances, unless it appeared someone was in her way, but Adam’s physical perfection made her self-conscious. The man had dated actresses and supermodels. Then again, whispered a naughty little voice in her head, he didn’t remember any of them, did he? And he’d tried to kiss her. Sort of.

  He was an odd man. A miraculous, sexy, charming, amiable, way too pale, offhandedly heroic, odd, odd man.

  Adam held open the door for Tracy before joining Claire. Instead of sitting across from her, he leaned against the desk next to her chair, arms braced on the metal surface.

  “There’s a cat in our room,” he said by way of a conversational opener. “It’s up under the blankets on a bed, and it won’t leave. I believe it’s named Rainbow Sparkles.”

  Their room. It wasn’t their room. He was just staying there.

  “Is Rainbow Sparkles a good mouser?” The shades didn’t bother with non-sentient animals, so the flora and fauna of Terra was only affected insofar as the humans had changed lifestyles.

  “I don’t like cats. I don’t think.” He frowned. “Can you look it up on the internet?”

  “Internet doesn’t work the same way anymore.” Half of the sites from before the invasion were gone, and most of the mentions of Adam Alsing on the new, improved internet had nothing to do with whether or not the former action star liked pets. “I could put in a request from Ship, who apparently saved our whole fucking network somewhere, and see if it turns anything up.”

  “The soldiers who trained me.” Adam’s fingers on the edge of her desk clenched, knuckles whitening. “I’d like to meet them, see if it jogs my memories.”

  Maybe he wasn’t as casually curious about his history as all that.

  “They stay aboard Ship. Working. They’re probably busy.” The Shipborn who’d masqueraded as angeli during the initial phase of the invasion weren’t always received warmly when
they ventured dirtside. As a result, few did.

  “What about contacts from my Hollywood days? Are they still alive?”

  “Do I look like a person who keeps up with Hollywood?”

  “You look like somebody who remembers more than the past two days,” he retorted, eyebrow arched.

  Claire winced. Protecting Adam from the truth was over, but for a moment, she wished she could preserve the guy he’d been today. What if he regained his memories and turned back into…himself? Niko and Gregori said the old Adam Alsing had been a self-indulgent punk. “I’m sorry. That was asinine. I think you lived in California. Any survivors from the West Coast definitely had to relocate and might be hard to find now.”

  “People still make movies?”

  Claire modulated her voice so she didn’t sound like a total jackass. “Radio shows, mostly. We have too much shit to do in the United States to worry about entertainment. The world has changed, my friend. As far as I know, the really rich people, Hollywood types and CEOs, moved to Europe until immigration got shut down. They still make movies and TV there.”

  Adam rested his hands on his thighs. Those damned hands. She was conscious of every twitch of his body, while pretending to half-ignore him, and it bugged the hell out of her. Made her jumpy.

  “It’s different in Europe?” he asked.

  “It’s not happy times, but it’s not like this. The daemons are showing up on other continents more, mapping food sources, we think. They’re killing more people than they used to, and they’re turning carnivore on us, which—you guessed it—isn’t in Ship’s databanks. But the random shade deaths are only happening in the buffer zone.”

  “Why only the buffer zone?”

  “Because we’re more spread out? Easier targets? I have no idea.” She hid a yawn. “That’s a question for Ship. I should hook you two up. Ship loves answering questions.”

  “Like how the entities find suitable planets?”