ADAM

 

Tuesday January 14 - 2351 MST

Three hours and thirty-nine minutes until Turbocharger activates

 

People think that being in battle is the most stressful thing a guy in the military could face. As it turns out the downtime before the battle is worse. Thinking about all the stuff that could go wrong was really nerve wracking unlike when all that bad stuff was actually happening to you. Then at least you're too busy staying alive to worry about it. Everyone else in the hangar had something to keep themselves busy with which left me with not much to do but mope.

They'd set up a mini-command center which was really nothing more than a card table with a bunch of phones and laptops set up on it. But at least it kept a lot of people busy getting in touch with others and passing along info. Sergeant Madarasz's people were all busy finding vehicles around base and loading them up with tools and generators. The SFs were kept busy filling out hand receipts for all the guns they were handing out. It was the Air Force after all, and even when the apocalypse was upon us they needed their paperwork filled out. Someone had even been sent out to bring back loads of pizza and bottled water.

The whole place was alive with activity and it seemed like everyone had a duty. Everyone except me of course. So I killed time by helping Sergeant Madarasz load generators into trucks. Even if I didn't have the skills to do the more technical things people were working on, I could lift heavy things to save others from straining themselves. They were really heavy too. But eventually they ran out of things for me to lift. When the Civil Engineers settled into poring over blueprints and talking about how to restore power to the Underground I found myself out of my depth and my thoughts wandering back to how things could go wrong.

So I found my way over to C.J. and Larry. They didn't need help with anything but had a moment to chat. So I asked them about the situation and they told me all about the thing climbing out of the vent, hiding in an office, getting rescued at the last moment, and Basser leaving them behind.

"Wow. He just left you there? What a jerk."

C.J. nodded at me. "Yeah."

Larry was nodding too. "I have some more colorful words I would use to describe him."

C.J. and Larry were two of the nicest people I'd ever met. They were also the kind of people that did their jobs so well it was infectious and made other people work hard to not look bad in comparison. These were the sort of people you wanted to be surrounded with if you had a job where failure meant the end of the world. So you can imagine how it made me feel to think someone would abandon them to monsters.

I bottled that negativity up and put on a smile instead. C.J. and Larry deserved that much at least. "The Colonel and me are here now. You're never gonna be left behind again."

That seemed to do the trick for both of them. I could see warmth return to their eyes and it felt good to be useful in that regard. It was good to know I could help out with more than just lifting heavy things or punching bad guys in the face.

The satellite phone rang at C.J.'s station and that meant it was time for them to get back to business. I wished them luck then found my way over to where the two doctors had made themselves at home. Doctor Johnson and Doctor Arden were both babbling on about stuff I didn't understand at a card table identical to the one Larry and C.J. had been using. Only instead of being covered in laptops and phones this one was piled up with all the books and binders that could be rescued from the Underground during the evacuation. Both of the doctors were deep into something from one of the books when I walked up, and though it might not have been obvious to others, I could tell they were both happy to be reunited.

When we first arrived everyone perked up at the sight of me and the Colonel. But no one seemed to even notice Doctor Johnson crawling out of the B-52. Now I get that someone that wrestles with Category 3 lobster monsters seems far more exciting than a librarian, but Doctor Johnson is pretty important to the mission. No one knows the ancient lore surrounding the things we fight better than him. Without that knowledge we would be royally screwed.

People also didn't see him manhandling that M-14 during the battle in downtown Port Moreau. I'm sure if they did they would look at him in a new light. Still I was gladdened to see someone cared.

Rick Arden stopped his lecture when he saw me. "Greetings, stranger. Was there something I could help with?"

He smiled at me crookedly like only half his thoughts were on helping me. "Naw, I'm just seeing if anyone needs my help. There really isn't much for me to do."

Doctor Johnson answered for him. "Actually you can help, Adam. Doctor Arden could use some help getting all this research organized. I need to canvass the staff and find out more about what's loose in the CTTC. You see we don't keep live specimens of any of the creatures that attacked the staff. My worry is that the Praetorians opened up a portal to another world and these things are coming through. If that's the case I'll need a few more critical pieces of data before we act."

He then excused himself and wandered off to interview people leaving me alone with Rick Arden who still had that crooked smile. I was reminded of his collection of hypodermic needles and fascination with poking me with them. It was time to change the subject so I looked over the table to find one. Sitting on top of a stack of leather bound books was a clear plastic box. It was the kind used to transport small pets like mice and had little air holes in the top and a carry handle. I figured Arden had brought out his pets to keep them from getting eaten by an exo and tapped the side to get the attention of the inhabitants.

Arden's smile disappeared. "Oh, you don't want to do that, Adam."

The little rodent like things in the box jumped back away from my tapping finger. Then I noticed they weren't rodents. I mean they were small and furry like rodents but that's where the similarity ended. Whatever they were, they weren't from Earth.

Each one was about as big as my fist and covered in fur, all except for their thin legs sticking out under their bodies. There wasn't a head poking out either. In fact, I think their body and head were the same thing. I only saw one eye and a long snout like an aardvark's sticking out underneath it. They were really strange looking but also kinda cute. "Are these exos?"

Arden lowered his voice. "Possibly, and could you keep your voice down? Look, you've frightened them."

He dug through his pocket for something as I watched the little creatures. They were all huddled up in the opposite corner from me. I suppose I might have frightened them, after all I'm like a hundred times bigger than they were. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to scare them. What are they?"

He finally found what he was after in his pocket. It was a plastic baggie containing several green plant leaves. "Here, Adam. This should calm them down."

I looked over the leaves wondering if he'd just given me some alien form of marijuana. "What is this?"

He smiled crookedly at me. "Spinach leaves. They go nuts over the stuff."

I raised an eyebrow at that. But he was the biologist not me. So I took out a handful of the leaves, popped open the terrarium's top, and let them rain down in the center. Then I waited.

One of the little animals cautiously stepped forward and took a nibble of the plants. Then he took another approving nibble. After that he looked back at the others and gestured them forward with his snout. That brought the rest out to join in the feast. I wasn't sure if I had imagined it, but it looked like they were communicating like people do.

Arden must have seen the shock on my face. "The Myggies are quite intelligent, Adam. I couldn't just leave them to be fodder for the loose exos."

"Myggies?" I muttered as I watched them nibble their way through the pile of greenery. I emptied the rest of the leaves into the box but stopped short of a little bundle of paper stuck to the bottom of the baggie. When I pulled it out I found it to be a hand rolled bundle of a different kind of leaf. "Is this a joint?"

Arden took the rolled paper from me and nodded with a goofy grin. "Yep. Yep. The spinach is to calm the Myggies down. This is to calm me down. Mind walking with me while I calm down?"

"Sure."

As we walked out of the hangar he lit up and took a long huff before offering the joint to me. After getting a nose full of the strong herbal scent that made my nostril hairs curl up I politely refused. "Suit yourself, Adam."

We were in plain sight of about half the CTTC and no one seemed to care that Arden was getting his weed on. It was funny how quickly priorities changed when a demonic horde was running loose around you. "So what did you want to talk about?"

He blinked in surprise. "Oh right. I did invite you out here. What did I want to talk about…"

As he stroked his chin I couldn't help but stare out at the vast emptiness behind the hangar. It wasn't like a city where lights stretched out to the horizon. Without all those street lamps and head lights you couldn't see much beyond the edge of the hangar. There was just vast, empty desert and somewhere out there was the Underground, abandoned except for the monsters.

A chilling thought hit me then. Just about every monster we'd seen had skin or a shell that was as black as the night I was looking at. There could be one ten feet away and I wouldn't even see it. My fingers slowly found their way around Dominus's grip. But nothing leapt out at me from the gloom.

"…right. Right. Isn't it funny we always meet up like this right before an Apocalypse? Sure you don't want to try some?"

The little, hand rolled bundle smoldered as he held it out to me but I waved him away again. "This isn't the Apocalypse though, we stopped it."

He puffed on his joint again and then shook his head. "Oh no, Adam. There isn't just one. Ask Gabriel if you don't believe me. This is another one, can't you tell?"

It was my turn to shake my head.

He shrugged as he happily puffed away. "We have another one on our hands. I'm sure of it. Why else would they take the Primes?"

I shrugged. "I just thought they wanted to kidnap them."

"And do what with them, exactly? Ransom them?"

I frowned because I knew he was right. There were less costly and dangerous ways to get ransom money. And you would be stupid to try blackmailing a secret organization like the CTTC that had its own team of black ops soldiers. They could show up, wipe you out, and disappear. I remember the Colonel calling in a bomber to level a house with a summoning portal in Wyoming and all that was left was a cover story about a gas leak from faulty piping. "Yeah, I guess you're right. So what's going on then?"

"They took four Primes, Adam. Your three new friends and Photon. They wouldn't have taken Photon unless they needed exactly four. He's simply too dangerous to bring out of his cell. And after all those months locked in the dark I'm sure he's very unhappy about it."

I wouldn't ever forget that part of the tour they'd taken me on. Photon was the Prime that had the ability to absorb light particles—photons—from any light source and store them up like a battery. Then he could release them in a focused beam, exactly like a laser. He'd used that ability to break into banks and also to hurt people that got in his way. He was the very example of what happened to some people when you gave them power and they didn't have the morals to handle it. "Yeah, I see your point."

He puffed again and blew some foul smelling smoke out into the darkness. "Do you?"

I thought back to all the crazy stuff I'd seen hoping that an answer would be hidden away in one of those memories but I was coming up empty. Then I remembered the dreams from before we blew up Taob. Taob would always come to me in my dreams to torment me, but he always offered a way out. All I had to do was offer myself over to him. He wanted me because I was different, not just any old human, but one with special powers. It was happening again. "They need four people like me. There must be four demons they want to bring across."

This was turning out just like the prophecy Doctor Johnson pointed out in the book with the hard to pronounce name.

Arden gave me a lopsided grin as I stumbled across the answer to his cryptic question. "And how many horsemen of the Apocalypse are there?"

I didn't even feel it but my jaw dropped dragging my mouth with it and into a wide "O" as realization slapped me across the face. "No way."

Arden's grin gave way to sudden sobriety. "Indeed. Basser's cronies have lied to us about almost everything. This Turbocharger bullshit they've been feeding us is just another one. They never intended to improve your friends' powers. It was all a big con to bring over their real masters to our world, and we fell for it like big dopes."

Arden stubbed out his joint and then tossed it into the night. He walked off muttering to himself and I realized then how much all this bothered him. That was the only reason he would throw away one of his treasured drugs. But I could understand his sentiment. He'd been played for a fool and no one likes the feeling that comes when you find out you were the fool.

And this day, everyone in the CTTC had been played.