ADAM

 

Canyon Diablo event site

Date Unknown - Time Unknown

 

 

I was pushing the ATV's little engine hard. The nuke was about to go off and I was still inside the blast radius.

You're probably wondering what I was doing off roading through a nuclear test site. That's not exactly what was happening. In fact, it had been me that placed the backpack sized bomb. The six kiloton blast of the weapon was the only thing in our arsenal that was big enough to kill the elder demon god that wanted to invade our world.

This demon—we just called it Taob since it's full name was long and hard to pronounce—was trying to cross over to our world from some strange interdimensional prison it had been banished to. That weird prison looked like a gigantic pink bubble glowing like some neon sign in the badlands of Arizona. That place was called Canyon Diablo by the Navajo indians because they believed some ancient evil was buried there. The rest of the world dismissed it as the myth of some backward and superstitious people. We should have listened to them.

That explanation probably left you with more questions than answers. It did for me too, but I had more important things on my mind. Namely, getting out of Dodge before I was vaporized by six kilotons of modern science.

The pink wall of light that marked the edge of Taob's prison was approaching rapidly. A little too rapidly in fact. It wasn't just because I was flying toward it with all the power the little four-wheeler could churn out, but also because it was collapsing inward and toward me.

Then everything went white. I felt a wave of heat wash over my back as the portable nuke detonated. The thought of all those fast neutrons passing through my body and altering my body chemistry frightened the hell out of me, if the blast didn't kill me then the cancer that followed just might. That is if my new body could even get cancer.

Did I mention that same phenomenon that brought about Taob also made me seven feet tall and super strong?

Whatever was behind all the strangeness had also changed me. I was a lot like the superheroes I loved reading about in comics. So maybe cancer couldn't kill me now. But that might have been a moot point because I glanced over my shoulder then to see the onrushing shock front of the nuke's blast wave. It overtook me just before I reached the pink dimensional barrier.

My ATV was lifted off the sand by the force of the wave front. The four-wheeler, along with my body, tumbled through the air. At some point I was separated from the machine and did a cartwheel, maybe two. It's hard to tell when the world is spinning so fast around you.

The desert sand slapped me across the face, the shoulders, and then my spine as I rolled several times before finally coming to a stop on my back. I hurt everywhere, but I was alive.

The desert sky loomed above me in all its starlit glory. I couldn't help but marvel at how many stars there were. Out in the middle of nowhere you could see many more of the little points of light. The pink bubble-dome was gone too. And there wasn't any shooting, and no zombie horde, and no more nukes going off. It was blissfully silent.

There wasn't any harm in just enjoying the moment. We had earned it, my teammates and me. I had nearly forgotten about them in the rush to escape the blast. It wasn't just me fighting demons, there was a team of soldiers. We were all part of a secret military group that kept the world safe from things like Taob. They'd left the blast zone ahead of me. I just hoped they made it to safety.

I spoke into the radio. "This is Adam. Are you guys alright?"

It wasn't the proper radio protocol the soldiers liked to use, I was still learning their lingo. But I had to know if they were okay.

After several moments of empty static in my ear piece I began to worry that the radiation from the blast had fried my radio. That was better than the alternative, that they weren't answering because they were all dead.

"Colonel Sterling, do you hear me?" I tried again while trying hard to keep the desperation out of my voice. The thought of being the only one left was terrifying.

The only response I got was the steady babble of radio static.

"Captain Grider? Jay? Gary?" I asked into the radio. "Is anyone out there?"

When several minutes went by without a reply a cold knot formed in my stomach. The vast night sky of the Arizona desert was no longer beautiful and serene. It was cold and empty. I was alone, and I didn't like it.

When I forced myself up onto my feet I was relieved to find nothing was broken. But I was certainly banged up. There were dozens of cuts and bruises all over my body. My flightsuit coverall was shredded and had burn marks all over. Though I wasn't sure how much of that was from the blast and how much was from my super power.

Along with making me taller and stronger, the Change had given me a super power. I could generate electricity. And I had done just that to keep Taob's tentacles from grabbing me. Unfortunately I'd also put a hundred burns in the flightsuit.

But the world was safe from Taob now. That elder demon was gone along with its freaky pink interdimensional realm. There wasn't even a crater leftover. Apparently the entire blast had been contained inside the alternate reality.

Now all that was left was for me to find my way home. I remembered that there was an interstate to the south. That wasn't much help because I had no compass and it was the middle of the night. The ATV wasn't much help either, it wouldn't start up. One of its axles was bent, so I doubt it would have gotten far even if I could start it.

So I picked a direction and began jogging. I would get home one way or another.