Atom Town Book 2: Hands of the Swamp!

by Jason Scott Nebel

  "That’s odd," said Adam, equally surprised. He turned to a nearby assistant. "Steve, what happened to his little tuxedo?"

  The assistant shrugged. Adam handed him the alligator. "Take care of it," he ordered.

  Eve began to scan the room for the chalk board.

  "Over here, Eve," beckoned Adam, eager to show her something. "This is my Cobalt 7000 Atomic Regenerator!" He shouted. "Patent pending," he added as he pushed a button which began to lower a massive metal cone from the ceiling.

  "And this-"started Eve, but Adam quickly interrupted her.

  "Wait for it," he said as the device slowly continued to lower.

  Eve was growing impatient. "How long does this-"

  "One second," advised Adam as the device finished lowering into position. He sat down on the mechanism's console and smiled to Eve "And go."

  Steve interrupted, presenting the baby alligator, now in black bow tie and tuxedo. As Adam nodded his approval, Eve shook her head and continued.

  "So how exactly does this regenerator of yours work?" hoping she could lead Adam towards the equation.

  "Oh, you just push the button," said Adam, punching a random button at his side without losing eye contact with Eve.

  Instantly a ray of blue light shot out of the metal cylinder, struck Steve in the head and completely disintegrated him down to the shoulders. Steve's body dropped the floor, and with a THUD and a CLANG, the gator was free.

  "Right' said Adam, turning off the ray. "Meant this button." He motioned to another lab assistant. "Steve? Clean this up."

  "They’re both named Steve?" Eve asked.

  "I dunno," shrugged Adam, apathetic to their assigned nomenclature. Clearly Adam neither knew nor cared about whatever their real names were, and the assistants didn’t seem bothered. Or perhaps had just resigned to going by Steve.

  "Well, my turn," said Adam, as he stopped a sweeping Steve and handed him his lab coat.

  "You're using that?" asked Eve, as she stared at the killer ray cannon that just decapitated one of Adam’s assistants. "What if disintegrates you or cuts you in half?"

  "That's what science is all about, Eve. Taking risks!" Adam assured her, taking off his shirt with his one remaining arm. "Besides, that's what this is for," said Adam, picking up a syringe off of a nearby tray and popping it into a bottle of green liquid.

  "Wait, what’s that?" Eve asked, hoping this was what D needed.

  "CX-18, of course," said Adam. "My latest obsession. Isn't she beautiful?" he asked, nodding to a chalkboard near the back of the room.

  Eve recognized it right away. It was the same chalkboard from D's communication, only this time, the full equation had been completed!

  "And how much does it take? To grow a full limb I mean?" Eve slipped a pad of paper and a pen from a nearby counter.

  "Well, whatever amount that is," said Adam, holding up the syringe, now at maximum capacity with CX-18.

  He plunged it into the nub of his arm, then nodded to the control console.

  "Hit it, Steve!" smiled Adam, ready to be zapped.

  As Steve flipped the switch the ray struck Adam's right arm.

  Adam occupied, Eve immediately turned to the chalk board and began writing out the complex equation on the notepad.

  Behind her, an uninvited guest was crawling his way through the laboratory door… It was Lefty!

  Lefty leapt to Steve's neck, pulling him away from the controls, and strangled him to the ground!

  Eve hadn’t even noticed. She was too distracted with writing down the CX-18.

  The controls unattended, Lefty was able to make some modifications of his own. He cranked up a dial until needles began to spike. Sparks began to fly and Adam's shoulder began to smoke as the ray continued to zap him!

  "Steve, I think that's enough," said Adam.

  Eve looked up, Steve was nowhere to be seen and the Cobalt 7000 was now on fire!

  She looked back down at her equation, still incomplete.

  "Eve, do you mind?" said Adam, the beam now bearing down on him like a flame thrower.

  Eve left the equation and rushed into the booth, turning every knob she could think of to shut the machine down.

  Sparks bit at her fingers until the console itself was on fire! She pulled every nearby wire surrounding the console, ripping them from the wall, and at long last, the beam shut off.

  Adam stood up. "I'm okay, I'm oh-kay!" He smiled. "On second thought…" and with that, Adam collapsed onto the floor.

  Eve looked back at her pad of paper. Fire was spreading through the lab, but she needed that equation!

  She stopped. Steve was standing behind her. She turned to see dark circles around his eyes and his arms hanging lifelessly. Looking down, she could see Lefty clutching his ankle, still alive, and apparently turning the people of Atom Town into his own personal puppets. Not if she could help it!

  Eve swung her arm down to scoop up Lefty, but zombie Steve’s hands grabbed her and pulled her away. His cold hands began to squeeze around her throat!

  Eve struggled, forcing them into a table and knocking animal cages to the floor, freeing the gator experiments.

  Now to free herself! Steve’s hands still around her neck, Eve backed up to a wall, then lifted her feet. Using the support of the structure, she pushed with her back and kicked with her feet, sending her to the floor and Steve hurtling across the lab!

  Steve stood back up, and Lefty continued his control. He stopped for a moment. Strange, almost insect like sounds emanated from him and the embedded rock on the back of his hand grew larger.

  Adam popped up across the room, now with two completely normal arms. "Eve! I'm back to normal! Best day ever!"

  Steve grabbed a table that separated Eve from himself, then flung it aside, crushing Adam and sending him back to right back to the floor!

  Somehow Lefty had gotten stronger!

  Eve needed a weapon…

  "He always carries a gun, surely there's something…" Eve stopped. The door next to her was marked ’Small Arms’.

  Eve excitedly swung the door open, only to have an avalanche of Adam's lifeless dismembered arms fall on her.

  "Oh how I loathe that man!" she said standing up out of the pile of admittedly well preserved but poorly stored body parts.

  Adam staggered to his feet next to her.

  "What man?" he asked. His question was quickly met by a slap to the face.

  Eve had just smacked him with his own dismembered hand. She dropped it back to the floor.

  "I'd fire the cleaning lady if I were you," she scolded him. Her venom was short lived, as she had to quickly duck out of the way of an incoming punch from the puppeted Steve.

  "One second," she said to Adam, then immediately unleashed a barrage of kicks on Steve. Her last kick sent her spinning through the air. Upon connection, Steve was knocked back against the chalk board.

  Eve smiled as Steve finally lost consciousness. Her smile quickly faded as he slid down the side of the board, erasing the chalk equation with his back.

  She looked at her notepad. At least she had a partial…

  Suddenly fiery ceiling tile crashed onto the notepad, igniting the paper and countertop.

  Adam pulled a switch and the ceiling began to spray water down on the fire. They both ran for the door.

  She looked back one last time at the charred notepad and chalkboard. She'd failed.

  Adam slammed the door.

  Lefty was crawling through the splattering water over the pile of dismembered arms, seemingly distraught over the loss of his brethren, or as sad as a dismembered little arm could be.

  Back in the hall, Eve watched a baby alligator in a tux running through the hall, then looked curiously at Adam.

  "Your arm! It's back!" she stared in awe.

  "Of course! That's the miracle of CX-18!" he smiled.

  Eve took a closer look. Scales had formed at Adam's shoulder. He
was so enamored with his restored limb that she hated to mention it.

  "The scales, they itch?" asked Eve.

  Adam hadn't even realized he was scratching at them.

  "Interesting,” said Adam, staring at the hardened skin on his shoulder.

  "What do you do about that?" she asked.

  "This," said Adam, and he reached into a fire extinguisher compartment. His hand emerged with a new shirt and a new lab coat.

  "Of course," she said.

  Eve looked back to the door they’d just exited. She’d failed her mission. Everything was destroyed. "Sorry about your lab."

  "Nonsense," smiled Adam. "I'll just use the lab across the hall."

  Adam immediately went into the door across the hall. Eve watched him close the door and wondered how long it would take him to realize it was the same closet he had mistakenly entered earlier.

  A full minute and a half later, Adam came out, somewhat begrudgingly stating the obvious.

  "Right. Closet," he confirmed.

  Frustrated by her failure to acquire the equation and Adam’s incessant lunacy, Eve stepped into the elevator.

  “Where you going?” asked Adam, his face clearly indicating he was hoping she’d stay.

  “I just need a break,” she sighed.

  “From what?” asked Adam.

  “From this,” explained Eve, her finger circling in the air around Adam.

  “My lab coat?”

  “No.”

  “My tie?”

  “No.”

  “Not my hair?!” Adam gasped, gently patting his head.

  Eve let out a long sigh.

  "Goodbye Adam."

  With that, the elevator doors closed.

  8

  A Living Room

  A map of Atom Town laid out on the table, covered in question marks.

  Eve was busy tightening a rope on a strange gear underneath the map.

  A detailed murder board protruded from a hidden slot in the dining room wall, dividing her from the kitchen. It was covered with photos, sketches and copies of reports, as well as pins and thread connecting it all. A shelf suspended from the ceiling, holding jars of samples and clues, including a large bell jar imprisoning a single black rock with flecks of crystal. A label on the jar read “Shadow Rock”.

  There was a knock at the door. She glanced out the windows, but the shades had been drawn to conceal the work she’d been doing. Even without the shades she could tell that dusk was well underway, so who would be knocking at this hour? In fact, no one had even knocked. No one had bothered her since the day she moved in. Not even the Sheriff who was her host and landlord.

  She pushed an unseen button on the phone stand by the door and a drawer popped down holding a pistol. She had needed one once before as she exited her front door, so she was ensuring she would have it the next time.

  She looked through the beveled glass of the door’s small window. She couldn’t make out features, but she knew the tarnished black bill of that hat.

  Pete. The old cabbie that had brought her into this horrible place. Taken her from the modern world of espionage into the ridiculous world of Atom Town.

  If he was here with his cab, it meant he was hoping to take her to another place, equally dangerous and zany.

  Not today. She was busy. She needed to escape the world of Doctor Adam Townsend and lose herself in a project, and now her dining room getaway was nearly complete.

  He knocked again.

  “Miss Adams?” called Pete.

  She opened the door a crack, where a door chain suddenly caught hold.

  “Sheriff sent me to fetch ya’. May I come in for a sec’?” he asked, eying the chain.

  Eve hesitated. She didn’t answer just closed the door on him and spun around.

  Eve closed the gun back in the phone stand, then grabbed the neck of a lamp and yanked it downward, revealing it was a lever controlling the hidden ropes and gears.

  Walls quickly slid back into position, storage cabinets hid back inside the walls and ceiling, then the map flipped over, a red-lined, metal table top on the flipside. The room finished transforming back into a vintage 1950s dining room.

  Eve undid the chain and opened the door, waiting for Pete to come in.

  He hung in the doorway a moment.

  “Since when has there been a chain on this door?" asked Pete, looking around the quiet neighborhood.

  "Since a giant spider, aliens, and a dismembered hand tried to kill me," she reminded him.

  “Y’know, I ain’t seen hide nor hair of ya’ fer a good week,” said Pete, plugging her for information. “Oh sure I seen ya’ head over to the school, and then the unusual number of trips to Bill’s Hardware, but never out and abouts. ‘Cept today of course when you headed out to the Base with the Doc.”

  “Pretty detailed report,” said Eve suspiciously. “You spying on me?”

  “Ain’t that what we do?” Pete smiled, acknowledging their shared history in espionage.

  “Not on each other,” said Eve with clear accusations in her tone.

  “Well it's my job to watch over all the goings on in this town,” explained Pete. “Something happens, I need to know. I need to plan. You have to keep me in the loop.” Pete eyeballed the room, then stared suspiciously at the lamp on the end table. “Anything you wanna’ tell me?”

  Eve looked to the deceptively ordinary living room and dining room then smiled to herself.

  “No. Just keeping myself busy,” said Eve.

  “Doin’ what?”

  “Adapting,” nodded Eve, content that it was neither a lie nor revealing of what she’d been doing to the Sheriff’s house.

  “Fine. You goin’ or not?” Pete asked. “Maybe we can make sense out of the Doc.”

  “Nothing about that man makes any sense.”

  “Uh huh,” nodded Pete. “Nothing involving the Doc ever seems to. Sheriff sent me to fetch you all the same. Seems the Doc has some big announcement for us. I don't like it.”

  “I'm sure it's something routinely ludicrous,” mocked Eve, eyeballing the base of the lamp as Pete got uncomfortably close to the trigger that would reveal what she’d been working on.

  “Sheriff already done told me what the Doc said,” said Pete.

  “Nothing he could say could possible surprise me at this point,” said Eve.

  “‘Goodbye’, Miss Adams,” Pete said softly. “He wants to tell us all ‘Goodbye’.”

  9

  Biting Farewell

  Pete's taxi pulled up in front of the corner building of the town square. The painted letters on the window pane gave a clear indication of their destination… "Sheriff Robert Laughton".

  Eve stepped out of the front passenger side door, odd for a taxi ride, but a much better view than the backseat since a piece of cardboard was occupying the home where glass had once lived.

  "You gonna’ replace that?" asked Eve.

  Pete recoiled and bit his lower lip as he gave her a stern side-glance. After all, she'd been the one who'd broken it a week ago.

  "I told you, I'll pay for it," she said, trying to diffuse Pete's glare.

  "Nah, I'll get to it," dismissed Pete. "You gots more important things to worry about."

  Eve looked back to the door of the Sheriff's office. Last time she'd been inside, she trashed the place in a battle with an alien Adam, and she wasn't too sure how inviting the Sheriff would be after having to clean up her mess.

  Pete could sense her hesitancy, and smiled as he held the door for her.

  Inside, the Sheriff's office, the old curmudgeon was adding a file folder to his cabinet.

  "Miss Adams," he said without looking up from his task.

  "Sheriff," she acknowledged.

  A Deputy popped up from a desk nearby, nearly startling her. He was carrying a piece of paper, a form he'd been filling out. A form she was very familiar with. Eve had seen plenty of them when she'd broken into
the office’s filing cabinet, but she couldn't believe the Sheriff was having the Deputy fill out his own death certificate! Clearly even the Sheriff was aware of how quickly he lost deputies, and was none too fond of having to do the paperwork.

  The deputy was clueless as to what he'd just filled out. How could he know? After all, he was just another undercover agent, just like her. Just like Pete.

  What was his mission? Had he been sent in for the formula as well?

  Enough distraction, she remembered why she was here.

  "So what's the story with Adam?" she asked.

  "Said it were important. Sounded pretty severe," explained the Sheriff, peeking over his shoulder as he filled up his coffee mug.