by Jody Wallace
Claire had heard that possibility, of course, and bit the inside of her cheek while she waited for Hurst’s answer. If the damned pods were used for shade transport—if that was how the entities were entering the buffer zone—it practically clinched her theory that some all-too-human dregs were responsible for the buffer zone shade deaths.
Fucking warlords.
“We only have proof that at one point Mr. Alsing was in a pod, not entities. It’s a mystery.” Hurst rubbed his hands. “I love a good mystery.”
“It’s not a good one.” Sieders stared arrogantly at Hurst, but at least his attention was off of Adam. “For Terrans, this is life or death. If the shades can infiltrate the buffer zone, they can infiltrate anywhere on the globe. Perhaps even your Ship.”
Hurst’s eyebrows twitched before his face smoothed into a cheerful mask. “For all of us it’s life or death, ser. For all of us. We’re in this together. I’m here to convey the express wishes of the Shipborn trine that Mr. Alsing reside in Camp Chanute.” Claire expelled a breath as Hurst continued. “Since his survival is a puzzle, we believe the most benign solution is keeping him in a well-fortified boundary town with our scientists.”
“This area is populated. We’ll be conducting our tests in an isolated, secure facility,” Sieders said.
“You mean a facility like the one in Canada where I was detained against my will while some Terrans tried to sacrifice General Nikolas to the shades two years ago?” Hurst smiled cheerfully, as if he weren’t saying combative things. “Our best medical professionals and entity strategists think he’s safest here.”
“You don’t get to decide that. We are not under the rule of the Shipborn.” Sieders gripped his sheaf of papers hard enough to bend it. “This is a Terran matter.”
Hurst nodded as if agreeing but then said, “Since it involves a person who has received as many Shipborn enhancements and training hours as Mr. Alsing did, the situation is not completely under Terran jurisdiction. That is in the treaty between the Shipborn and the Global Union.”
That wasn’t sufficient for Sieders. “Alsing’s enhancements were received before the treaty was signed.”
“The treaty is retroactive,” Hurst reminded him. “I do, however, have a compromise. Would you like help establishing a secure facility near Chanute while you examine Mr. Alsing? We can offer energy shielding, prefabricated buildings, you name it.”
Sieders smoothed a hand over the wispy hair on his head as if tamping down his frustration. What Hurst had said about the treaty must be true. No wonder GUN had tried to take Adam without Shipborn involvement. “I can’t authorize this. I’ll have to speak with the ambassadors first.”
“By all means, call them,” Hurst said. “Or would you like me to do it?”
“I’ll handle it,” Sieders growled.
“I’d like to work with you, Dr. Sieders, especially if you can help me recover my memories,” Adam offered. Claire couldn’t tell if he was pouring on the charm or being honest, but she had zero confidence Sieders could accomplish anything the Shipborn hadn’t. “No one wants more than I do to know what happened to me. I want to join the fight against the entities here in Chanute.”
“If Mr. Alsing remains in Chanute,” Sieders began, “I am certain the Global Union will impose a number of conditions. First, we must know his whereabouts at all times, and he must seek permission from us to relocate to another territory.”
Claire and Adam exchanged a quick glance. The ease with which Sieders conceded was telling. Had the seizure been a ploy—insisting on more than they had the right to take so they would be given more than they would have gotten otherwise?
And did it matter? Claire had crossed over from being leery of Adam to being willing to put herself on the line for him, and Sieders backing down meant no fighting. “I’ll see to it he doesn’t leave town. I’m good at that.”
“I would say your reputation for causing trouble is more at issue here, Sheriff Lawson,” Sieders said dryly.
Or perhaps GUN’s reputation for overreaching.
“Does this mean you agree? Excellent.” Hurst, unruffled and somewhat glib, waved toward the door. “Let’s go somewhere more comfortable to crowbar out the details, Dr. Sieders. We can consult Mayor Newcome about locations for your facility.”
“Hammer out the details, Emissary. It’s hammer.” Sieders seemed to admit defeat, tucking the papers back into his coat. “Mr. Alsing, if you would? I’d like to begin as soon as possible.”
Adam tossed her a salute. “See you later, Claire. I’m going to go get head-shrunk.”
“Uh-huh.” If she thought Sieders might actually unearth anything about Adam’s past, she’d be more anxious, but now that Hurst was involved, she could relax.
Extending a hand to the soldier who’d taken her weapons, she wriggled her fingers and smirked at him. With some reluctance, he returned them. Now that Adam’s place of residence was settled, she needed to get back to work.
This was her town. The sooner she could get these gatecrashers out of it, the better.
Chapter Ten
“Mr. Alsing, we have reached a conclusion.” Dr. Sieders and his assistants sat on the other side of a long, metal table from Adam, eyeballing him like they expected him to lather up like a rabid dog at any moment. Or quote his movies, he couldn’t be sure. They’d pointed out times he’d done that, but when pressed, he couldn’t explain. “Despite the likelihood of PTSD, there is no other evidence of unusual trauma or disorder in your psychological makeup.”
“And that means?” he asked. The youngest person on the team, a guy who’d apparently been a fan before the apocalypse, gave him an encouraging smile before wiping his face as clean of expression as the others.
They must have taken classes in blank face—but it failed to mask other things about them. For example, the overgrown, wiry hairs that wriggled around Dr. Sieders’s head in the breeze from the air vent, as if the top of his scalp was a dance platform. Adam tried not to stare, or Sieders might quiz him why he felt unable to make eye contact—was he suppressing urges to hurt others?
Sieders cleared his throat as if unhappy with the words he was about to say. “It means you’re as sane as any amnesia-hobbled, unsuccessful savior can be in a post-apocalyptic, high-stress environment. I’ve issued my report to the Global Union.”
“Amnesia-hobbled, unsuccessful savior.” Adam placed his hands flat on the metal table in the interview room where he’d spent way too much time in the past days. The doctor, as it happened, hadn’t been as concerned about restoring Adam’s memories as he had been judging Adam’s tendencies toward psychopathy and deceit. “Put that on my resume, will you?”
“The use of humor and cinema quotes to deflect discomfort is not as honest as I’d like.” Sieders tapped the papers into alignment. “Cullin KeshTaggert of the Shipborn has agreed to monitor you and provide weekly updates. You will not be allowed to interact with individuals from your past unless I oversee it. I may also require your future cooperation in testing and treatments.”
“This wasn’t ever meant to be treatment, was it?” Adam asked, not bothering to hide his disappointment. His past separated him from everyone on the planet, people he wanted to support. People he wanted to be close to. “Do you even care if get my memories back?”
Sieders’s lips thinned. He apparently didn’t like being questioned. “Healing your amnesia wasn’t my assignment, but that could change in the future. After we’ve consulted with the Shipborn. It’s possible they are somewhat more advanced with regard to psychological ailments than I assume.”
It was as close to an apology as he was going to get from the arrogant doctor, but at least his days of surveillance hell were over. He hadn’t even been able to take a piss in private. They’d monitored everything. Tested everything. He’d slept about two hours a night, all of it interrupted. He’d actually been asked to jack off while hooked up to electrodes. It had been the most humiliating experience of his life, including the par
ts he couldn’t remember.
When he’d…failed to finish, so to speak, Sieders had tsked about performance anxiety but hadn’t requested that he keep trying.
He might never fantasize about Claire again after that experience.
“If you’re done, can I go?” he asked. The longer he’d been trapped here, the more on top of things he’d felt, but it was little comfort. He attributed it, as did they, to the amount of time it had been since he’d been free of the pod. “Do I need to sign anything?”
He itched to jump up and run. They’d kept him separate from clocks and other indicators of the passage of time. No glimpses of the sky, no news of what was going on outside. Claire had dropped by three meals ago—not that he’d seen her.
But he’d heard her. She’d yelled some inventive profanities when they said they weren’t through with him. Sieders had asked her to leave, and she’d given them a twenty-four hour deadline.
The old guy had bitched about her for an hour afterward.
Well, maybe an hour. No clocks. It had seemed like a long time. When Sieders noticed Adam glaring at him, flexing and unflexing his fingers, he’d proceeded to ask ten billion invasive questions about Adam’s sexual fantasies, whether or not he’d fuck someone who was passed out drunk—hell, no—and so on.
“No, you don’t have to sign anything else,” Sieders finally said, lips pinched. “I’ll have them unlock the doors.”
He rose, towering over the seated scientists. “What time is it? How long have I been here?”
“It’s 12:57 a.m.,” Sieders said. “You’ve been here three days and several hours. I suggest you return directly to your quarters. You are suffering from sleep deprivation. An unavoidable consequence of the rushed schedule of testing we were forced to adopt. You aren’t a danger to yourself or others, but this examination should have been conducted over a two-week period. Your violently-inclined sheriff—”
“Claire Lawson. If you don’t want her coming after me, I’d better go.” Adam owed that woman so many thanks for getting him out of here before he did something stupid.
The doctors hadn’t only tested his mental stability—they’d taken blood tests and other assessments. He’d quickly realized how far he could push the tests that measured stamina or strength before his white-coated captors started to give him the hairy eyeball. Dialing it back to seem normal had gotten easier the longer he’d been here, the more he’d grown accustomed to it.
The longer he lived in this body, his body, the more he realized it was stronger than average. But he couldn’t find out how much stronger until he wasn’t having his every move vultured by the guy who’d been asked to verify whether or not he was dangerous.
As he made his escape, he didn’t shake anyone’s hand, although the young doctor cast him a friendly glance. With a bounce in his step that might have been a skip if he’d been a kid, he escaped into the hallway and forced himself not to bolt.
Outside, the gleam of a full moon lit up the campus almost as much as daytime. He walked swiftly across Chanute, head down, ears burning with the cold, in a beeline for the barracks. The night was chill and quiet—no hubbub. Hopefully that meant nothing horrible had happened while he’d been locked away. No shade attacks, no more towns taken out by the monsters. This late, Claire should be in her room, and he was anxious to see her.
Her quarters were on the bottom floor of the huge barracks, one of the occupied rooms closest to the tunnel. Few people were awake at this hour, just guards and night duty folks.
He descended the last set of stairs and headed down the long, narrow hallway. Footsteps from deeper in the building echoed strangely off the half-painted brick. Several of the lightbulbs had burned out, giving the corridor a more ominous atmosphere than the better-lit, better-populated upper levels.
When he finally reached Claire’s door, he realized whose footsteps he’d been hearing. A number of tall, wide figures emerged from the shadows beyond his position.
“What do you want, Quentin?” The burly man from Riverbend and his large friends surrounded Adam to block his escape. Except for the tunnel that had been sealed before his arrival, a tunnel Claire said nobody used, this was a dead end. “Are you looking for the sheriff? Let’s knock and see if she’s here.”
God, he hoped she was here. He was too worn out to deal with Quentin’s shit. He raised his hand and rapped on the metal.
No response.
Slow smiles spread across the men’s faces. “We’re here for you, you fucking daemon spawn. Time to pay for what you did to this planet.”
Without further warning, the men attacked.
He barely had time to dodge, and he did it poorly. A fist glanced off his arm; another connected with the small of his back. He spun away.
“Nobody here to save you now, Chosen One.” Quentin and his friends circled him in the tight hallway, lunging at him and laughing. “This level’s deserted. We saw to it. Been waiting for you to get out of the loony bin.”
“I don’t think the sheriff and mayor condone assault on their citizens.” Adam danced back, straight into a punch in his rib cage. Another guy landed a solid blow to his chest.
Discomfort bloomed all over his torso, but he was proud—he didn’t double over too much. “Back off.”
They kept feinting at him, laughing, distracting him so one or the other could strike with a kick or hard punch. They got his face. They got his gut. Good damned thing they didn’t have any actual weapons or he’d be hurting a lot worse.
Where the hell was everyone? He wasn’t sure what he should do. Couldn’t run. They blocked his escape route. Couldn’t get into Claire’s room without a key. But letting them just beat him up?
Nah, man.
Anger rising, the next time Quentin threw a punch, Adam grabbed his arm and flung him into one of his friends. Balancing lightly on the balls of his feet, he lowered his shoulder and linebackered through the two remaining guys blocking the stairs.
Fear hadn’t blossomed inside him with the pain. Not even a trace of it. It was something else. Something edgier. He knew good and well Quentin would keep coming after him.
This needed to be solved tonight.
“I have no idea how much combat training I might remember,” he warned them, loosening up. “I may have a black belt. Dr. Sieders said muscle memory isn’t easy to erase. These hands could have been registered as deadly weapons.”
“You’re a fucking useless movie star.” Quentin took off his coat and cracked his knuckles. “The Shipborn should have picked a real man to save us. You don’t deserve to breathe our air.”
Quentin attacked, like a bull. They locked together, each trying to overbalance the other.
Adam tipped his weight toward Quentin, pushing off with his thighs. The other man skidded back more easily than Adam expected.
The angrier Adam got, the more he had to hold back to avoid crushing the other guy.
He threw Quentin off. His friends caught him, surrounded them both, cursing and uttering threats. One shoved Adam from behind, and he let his momentum hurtle him into Quentin.
They hit the other side of the hall heavily, and he headbutted Quentin in the face.
Something crunched. The other man howled and clapped his hand over his eye. Had he broken the bone? Should he do it again?
Before he could, the other guys charged. Adam dodged and returned blows, shoving them away instead of trying to hurt them…until one guy produced a knife.
“What are you doing, bringing a knife to a fist fight?” Adam joked, not sure exactly what it meant, but it seemed appropriate.
“Goddamn coward.” The guy swiped. Adam barely avoided it, arching his body away.
Two latched onto his arms, and Quentin wrested the knife from his friend. Blood dribbled from his eye, and it was already swelling shut. “I’m gonna gut this motherfucker like a deer.”
The sidekicks grappled Adam as firmly as they could, but no way was he letting them stick a blade into him. He flung one, the
n another, against a wall.
One of them slumped down and didn’t rise.
The tall guy he hadn’t hurled caught him from behind, arm locked around his throat. Quentin advanced from the front with the knife.
“Hold him, Pete,” Quentin cursed. “If I stab your dumb ass, it’s your own fault.”
The guy behind him grunted. “He’s…really strong.”
Adam wrestled, trying to flip the guy over his head, but his buddy added his weight to the stack. The minute Adam staggered, Quentin drove the knife toward his stomach.
He shoved himself backward, and his captor smashed into the wall. Adam shook the guy off while he was still dazed. Then, moving faster than he thought he could move, he whirled and snatched Quentin’s knife arm.
The others seemed to be yelling and attacking in slow motion now. He forced Quentin’s wrist against the hard, cold surface of the wall, chips of paint showering down as they wrestled, and squeezed until the knife fell to the floor.
“Leave me alone,” Adam told them in a low voice. “Better yet, leave Camp Chanute. This place isn’t for you.”
“Not your decision. Shipborn and the U.S. government said we could go anywhere we want in the buffer zone.” Quentin flipped him off with both hands.
To hell with this. Adam shot a fist forward, punching at Quentin’s chin hard enough to hopefully knock him out. But Quentin dodged, and Adam’s fist hit the wall.
Shock resonated from his hand to his body. It numbed his whole arm, and he cursed. Then the concrete block he’d impacted crumbled under his knuckles.
That blow could have broken Quentin’s jaw. Hell, it could have caved in his head.
Everyone stared, including Adam, but he regained his senses first. He picked up the knife and flipped it into the air. Then he caught it by the blade. With his bare hands.
“Get your friends and go.” Quentin nursed bruises and welts on his face, and another guy had a bloody head. That wasn’t counting the unconscious guy. “If you leave me alone, I won’t have Claire throw you to the shades. But you’d best be out of town within the week.”