ADAM

 

Sunday January 12 - 1204 CST

Three days until Turbocharger activates

 

I tapped on the head of the little plastic crayfish that sat on the motel clerk's counter. "What's with all these little guys? I see them everywhere in town."

"I suppose it's only natural that out-of-towners wouldn't know about the Moreau Crawdaddy." The lady behind the counter spoke with a thick drawl that almost sounded like a different language. "This little fella comes out every year during Deliverance Days. Now how will you gentlemen be paying for your rooms?"

Colonel Sterling looked at me with a knowing glance. He was thinking the same thing. The black crayfish decorations were meant to be festive, but even Sterling saw that they looked exactly like an exo spider-crab. "What do you mean they come out every year?"

The lady shrugged. "Everyone puts them out this time of year. Like pumpkins 'round Halloween."

She was still looking at us expectantly for our payment. So I relented and dug out the credit card Sterling had given me. It had a fake name on it, but it was a real government issued card that actually worked. My only real worry about it was that General Basser would have had our cards deactivated and we would be stuck trying to explain why. "Are the cray—err crawdads—all black like that around here?"

The clerk lady took my card and swiped it. After a tense moment it went through and she handed it back. Apparently Basser didn't follow up on the details of our exile. He really did seem like the type that growled a lot and expected everyone else to worry about the small stuff.

"Oh no. They're mostly the same color as the water. Until we cook 'em. Then they turn a nice, bright red. Only the King Crawdaddy is black, and as the story goes Charles Moreau killed that one good. It's why the town was named after him." Again Sterling and I shared a look. That couldn't just be a coincidence. "I see you both have government cards. Who're you with again?"

"FBI, ma'am." Colonel Sterling showed her the fake credentials just like they do in TV shows.

Then the friendly smiled disappeared from her face. "Is something going on that I don't know about?"

Sterling shook his head. "Nothing to worry about, ma'am. We're just here to follow up on a lead. It's probably nothing but we have to follow through…for thoroughness."

"FBI, huh?" She turned to her terminal and started typing. "Explains why you two never smile."

As she typed up the check-in forms I stared out the lobby window. A truck towing a boat pulled into the lot outside and something struck me as familiar about it. That something made it so I couldn't look away. I wondered why it had my mind churning away.

There were moments in the past few weeks—months if you count the time dilation from the pink bubble—where something crept into my thoughts to guide me like some supernatural spidey sense. I'd never really thought about it much but it really did feel like someone was reaching into my head in those moments and giving me hints. And they tended to come right as I needed help in a really dire situation almost like some guardian angel was whispering in my ears.

For a terrible moment I thought that's what was happening and this truck meant danger and an impending fight for my life.

Then the driver got out and I smiled. It should have dawned on me earlier. The camper shell, the powder burns from hundreds of shots over the hood, the clues were all there. The guy walking across the lot toward us was none other than my old mentor, firearms trainer, and retired gunnery sergeant. Kelly Lively.

My mouth started going before my brain engaged. "Colo—ahhh…Agent Sterling. Look who just pulled up. Can you believe it?"

Sterling finished putting his signature, in triplicate, on a check-in form and looked up like I'd just read off the weather forecast to him. "I asked them to come here, Adam."

Them?

Then I saw the passenger climb out. Still looking like a high school math teacher I saw the exiled librarian of the CTTC, Gabriel Johnson. I could still hear his deep baritone lecturing me on the finer points of exo history.

I was out the door and halfway across the parking lot before Sterling even got a word out. Gunny Lively and Doctor Johnson were probably wondering why I was coming across the lot with an idiotic grin on my face.

It was simple really and could be summed up in one word: stability.

My life had been turned upside down by the Change and the only thing that wasn't spiraling out of control was the CTTC and it's people. From Colonel Sterling to Kelly Lively to Gabriel Johnson to Joszef Madarasz and even crazy Rick Arden. Everyone there was a pillar of sanity in my life. Well maybe not Arden but the rest. But after all the chaos of fighting off Taob and coming back after seven months that felt like only a few minutes to me, that was all gone.

General Basser and his friends had put the entire CTTC through the spin cycle and when everything had finished shaking out nothing was the same. When you're a boat being tossed about in stormy seas looking for a safe harbor it really sucks to sail in only to find out that harbor's been washed away. That's how I'd felt and seeing these familiar faces brought back that missing stability.

For a moment both of them stopped with that look I was all too familiar with. Their minds saw something unnatural and were contemplating whether to run or fight. But a split second later it was gone and they were smiling too.

Dr. Johnson was the first to reach me and shook my hand while clapping me on the shoulder with his other hand. "Adam, it's good to have you back. Somehow I knew you would make it."

Gunny Lively shook his head while smiling. His eyes were a little more watery than normal, but I'm sure if I mentioned it he would probably blame allergies or something. "Adam, I can't believe it. We thought you were dead."

"Yeah, I've been getting that a lot lately." Not wanting to rehash the same troubling memories I pointed at Lively's pickup. "So what did you bring along?"

Gunny Lively's eyes perked up. "Guns. Lots of guns."

Then I pointed at the boat. "No. I mean that."

Lively shrugged. "The Doctor insisted we bring it. Drove all through the night to get that sumbitch here for you too."

Doctor Johnson waved me over and we walked out to the boat sitting on its trailer like a prize. The boat wasn't particularly large maybe fifteen feet in length and it had a big fan as tall as me up on its rear instead of an outboard motor with a propeller. This was clearly a swamp boat. "This isn't actually my boat, Adam. Sergeant Madarasz and his engineers built it. For you specifically."

Then he dug out a letter from his coat pocket to hand to me. It was a handwritten note from Sergeant Madarasz.

 

Dear Adam,

One of my boys came up with the idea of this boat for you before we lost you. Afterwards they all insisted we build it anyway as a tribute, and also as a contingency in case we found another like you. The boys and I worked on this boat in our free time for months while you were away. It helped them to deal with your loss and the loss of others in our mission.

Now we are all very proud to present this to you. It should be useful to you in Louisiana. As you may have guessed it is ideal for swamps.

Please accept this as a welcome back gift and know that all of us here in the Civil Engineers are proud to have you back with us.

PS You might notice that it does not have a motor. That is because you are the motor.

-Joszef

 

"Huh?" That was really I could say about that. The guys in the Civil Engineer shop were another one of my pillars of stability, and even though they weren't here in person they found a way to prop me up against the storm just the same.

Lively looked down on the boat shaking his head. "I said the same thing. Seemed like an awful lot of effort to bring this here boat all this way without its engine."

As I looked over the scant few fixtures of the boat my mind starting wrapping itself around what that mad genius Madarasz had done. "That's because the engine was waiting here for you."

I climbed up into the boat's lone seat to befuddled looks from both Lively and Johnson. That seat was mounted like a pedestal just in front of the big fan impeller like a captain's chair. There were a pair of handholds protruding from either side that caught my attention. Not because handholds are odd, but these were made of some highly polished metal that gleamed like chrome. I wrapped a palm around each one and then concentrated. My right hand became a positive pole and my left a negative. Then the most wicked thing happened. The fan blades behind me began spinning.

"No way." Lively gaped in awe.

Johnson's face broke into a wide grin.

Then a thought struck me. I flipped the polarities and the fan blades spun in the opposite direction throwing a stiff breeze right over me. That was how I could put the boat in reverse. And that wasn't all. The handholds swiveled and moved vanes behind the impeller to give me steering. I joined Johnson in his grin. This was possibly the most awesome gift anyone had ever given me.

Colonel Sterling had finally finished up with the clerk and had stepped outside to see what we were up to. The boat's fan made surprisingly little noise. In fact it sounded like a giant weed whacker minus the buzz of the gas motor. Just big fan blades slicing the air. "Adam, why are you in that boat? And why are you running the engine when it's out of the water?"

His question was valid. I must have looked like a tool sitting on top of a boat on a trailer grinning like I was. "I'm the engine! And this is my boat."

I would eventually explain it to him, but that could wait until after I had my fun. After all, I just got my hands on my very own super hero boat.