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The stranger looked up at Adam, seeing him for the firs time. "Okay, I gotta go. Give my love to Hailey. Bye." He hung up the phone and slid it into his pocket.

"Adam," the man said with an air of familiarity. Adam forced a weak and confused smile. Despite his devotion to the SPW, Adam didn't recognize the face behind the business of it. This was Tyrone Power.

Power stopped suddenly. "What's up with the new look? I hate it. It's too boy-next-doorish." He stopped up to Adam, seized his hand and shook it vigorously.

"Excuse me," Adam said politely, "I don't mean to be rude but who are you?"

As if taking part in a magic trick, a business card seemed to appear in Power's hand. He slid it effortlessly into Adam's palm. "Tyrone Power, founder of SPW," he said as he flashed a winning smile. "I'm here to make you an offer. I saw your landing in New York and it was first rate. I had my source at the police department slide me some pertinent information and here I am."

"Excuse me, did you say you had an offer? What kind of offer?"

"Why, a job offer of course. You got the makings of a star just written all over you. I even took the liberty of running a test group and let me tell you, it was through the roof. Phenomenal."

"Through the roof?" Adam asked in a slight state of shock.

"Fuckin' gangbusters."

"So what exactly do you want?"

"I want you to join the SPW?"

"So you want me to join the SPW?"

"Is there an echo in here?" Power asked playfully and gave a little chuckle at his own joke as if attempting to show Adam he meant no offense. "Yes. I want to get you on right away."

"I'd love to," Adam shrugged. He'd dreamed of joining SPW ever since he started watching it all those years ago. "But I can't. I'm no superhero or anything. I'm just a guy."

"Superhero or not, I saw you get shot. I saw you take a full shot off of a plasma rifle. You're definitely not just some Joe Schmoe. You're marketable."

"I still don't know."

"Look, how about I fly you down to Atlanta, let our doctors take a look at you and if they give you the green light, we'll run with it. If not, you'll get a free trip to Atlanta out of it. My treat."

Adam thought about it for a moment. It's not as if he had anything else to do: no job, no home, no girlfriend. Besides, he'd always wanted to be an SPW. He knew that he'd probably get down there, go through the tests and find out he didn't have what it takes. He'd concede he was an alien-human hybrid but it wasn't like he had super-speed or anything.

"Fuckin' Wally," he muttered.

"Excuse me?" Power asked.

"I said 'it's a deal'," Adam said louder and more clearly.

"Great. Call my secretary, she'll set everything up."

"Okay," the two men shook hands. Power turned around and got back into his limo and the car drove off. For a moment, Adam was left to wonder if he'd dreamed the previous five minutes. But sure enough, Power's card was still sat in his left hand. He tucked it in his pocket.

"Man, what a day."

"Oh," Bob said defeated. He walked back around his desk and sat down.

"Oh?" Adam asked.

"Well, I'll be honest with you. You were a good worker but the way you left. I'll just say it left something to be desired."

"I didn't really have a choice. I didn't want to get into it but I was kidnapped by aliens."

"I understand," Bob said.

"So you can see that I was forced to miss work."

"Well, I know that now but..." Bob trailed off.

"But what?" Adam prompted.

"Well, when you left the way you did, I put in the paperwork at the main office. It put you on the 'no rehire' list and listed you as a bad reference."

"Can't you just call them up, tell them what happened and say you made a mistake?"

"Well, I could. But you see, there's going to be an opening for district manager in about six weeks and I don't want the boys in the main office thinking I'm the type who makes mistakes."

"But you did make a mistake," Adam pointed out.

"Well, I know that and you know that but there's no need for the boys upstairs to know that." Bob paused. "Tell you what, when I get the promotion and Jerome takes over my job, I'll instruct him to hire you."

"Let me see if I got this straight. So you want me to wait six weeks to see if you get a job and if a guy who I trained will give me back the job that I shouldn't have lost in the first place?"

"Exactly," Bob responded apparently missing out on Adam's shock and horror at the proposal. "But there is a hitch."

"None of that was the hitch? Do tell."

"The hitch is that you're going to have to take a paycut."

"A paycut?"

"Yeah, you see I'm going to have to do your paperwork as if you were a new hire so that I can get around the 'no hire' list."

Adam was enraged. All those times he'd come in when he didn't have to, all the overtime he put, all the time he'd worked here and this is how he gets treated, with such little regard. He didn't know how to put into words all the things he felt.

"Okay," he sighed. He cursed at himself for giving in so easily but consoled himself by reminding himself that he had wanted to get back to living his life as much as he had been as was possible.

Adam left. He drove to the Salvation Army in Cambridge and stocked up on some clothes that would better fit his new frame. He packed it all in his car and drove to his mother's house. He was shocked to see Britney's Taurus parked in his mother's driveway and Britney herself sitting on the front porch. Adam stopped the car, got out and walked over to where she was sitting.

Bob stood up and walked around his desk. The two shook hands. "What the hell happened to you?" He looked at Adam's impressive muscles. "You look... good."

"Well, it's a long story but it's not important right now. What I came to talk about was getting my old job back."

Catch up on past installments of Savage Genesis!

• Savage Genesis, part 1
• Savage Genesis, part 2
• Savage Genesis, part 3
• Savage Genesis, part 4
• Savage Genesis, part 5
• Savage Genesis, part 6
• Savage Genesis, part 7
• Savage Genesis, part 8
• Savage Genesis, part 9
• Savage Genesis, part 10
• Savage Genesis, part 11
• Savage Genesis, part 12
• Savage Genesis, part 13
• Savage Genesis, part 14
• Savage Genesis, part 15
• Savage Genesis, part 16
• Savage Genesis, part 17

Or read the whole Savage Genesis saga

"Finally he spoke. He said that he had to do this for his people. He said that he'd come for my child when the time was right. He promised that he'd look out for you and take care of you, make sure you were alright. I told him to shut up, that I didn't want to hear another word out of him.

Then he asked me to give him a name. He said that his people have only their father's name until they mate and then their mate gives them their name. Again I told him to shut up. He was silent for a moment and then said he'd call himself Ruhe and then after that he stopped talking and didn't say another word.

"The aliens returned me home that night. At first I'd managed to convince myself that it had just been a dream but soon it became obvious that I was pregnant. Your father... I mean, James... had been going on a lot of business trips at the time so we hadn't making love. He was either gone or tired from his last trip. He knew the child wasn't his. He accused me of cheating while he was out of the town and when I told him about the aliens he thought I was lying. When I kept saying it, he thought I was crazy. One day I went out for groceries and when I came back, he was gone and so was all his stuff.

"The rest you know. I was scared and alone and didn't know what I could do to pretend you. So I pretend that it never happened. But when Cindy called me up and told me about how you'd gone missing, I knew it was Ruhe. I knew that he'd come back for you. All I could do was hope that he was staying true to his word and was taking good care of you." Here she stopped and she looked up at Adam. Here eyes were moist and tears had stained her cheeks. "Did he?" She asked. "Did he do right by you?"

"He did, Mom. He's the one who got me off of the ship; he's the one who got me home." Adam answered. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He held his mother in her arms. He'd made her relive the worst time in her life and he was no closer to understanding why he was taken.

He helped his mother to bed and then returned to his room. He felt he'd just have to come to terms with the fact that he might never fully understand what happened to him. All he could do was choose whether or not he'd move on with his life. With Britney gone, that hurt to even think about doing. After a few minutes of wallowing in self pity, he decided that he'd see if he could get his old job back tomorrow, then he'd save up enough money to move into an apartment. He'd follow his mother's example and try to put this whole horrid experience behind him.

The following day he borrowed his mother's car and drove to Kid's Vids! He parked the car, forced himself to take a deep breath and then went inside. He had gone into the videostore hundreds of times in the past and so was a little surprised to find that his shoulders were now so broad that they almost didn't fit through the door.

A guy he didn't recognize was working behind the counter. The sales clerk eyed the buff Adam, noticed he didn't have any children with him and began to make some snap judgements. Adam walked up to the counter and leaned on it. He heard it groan under his bulk.

"Is Bob in?" Adam asked.

"Yeah. He's in the back. Do you want me to call him?" The clerk picked up the phone.

"No, I'll just poke my head back there." Adam turned and walked to the office. He stepped around the children and their various messes. He was glad this instinct was intact at least. Most of the children stopped and stared at the behometh as Adam walked past them. He knocked on the office door.

"Hello?" He heard Bob grunt from inside. Adam opened the door and went inside. The office was pretty much the exact same as it had been when Adam had seen it last. Bob glanced up at Adam as he walked in and then did a double take. "Adam!" he shouted.

"Yep, it's me."

Catch up on past installments of Savage Genesis!

• Savage Genesis, part 1
• Savage Genesis, part 2
• Savage Genesis, part 3
• Savage Genesis, part 4
• Savage Genesis, part 5
• Savage Genesis, part 6
• Savage Genesis, part 7
• Savage Genesis, part 8
• Savage Genesis, part 9
• Savage Genesis, part 10
• Savage Genesis, part 11
• Savage Genesis, part 12
• Savage Genesis, part 13
• Savage Genesis, part 14
• Savage Genesis, part 15
• Savage Genesis, part 16

Or read the whole Savage Genesis saga

"Mom, it's me. I promise. I'm in New York. I know I've been gone a while but I can explain everything. But I need some money so I can buy an Amtrak ticket," Adam said. There was a silence. For a moment, he was afraid that she didn't believe him, that she'd think he was some teenaged hooligan playing a very bad prank on her.

"Adam?" She said finally. Her voice waivered and sounded like it might break. "Is it really you?"

"Yes, mom. It's really me," he answered. He heard what sounded like his mother gently sobbing on the other end of the line. "I missed you so much," he added. He gave her time to get out what she needed to, he had had to deal with his abduction in his own way so he'd let her deal with it in hers.

"I thought I'd lost you," she finally said.

"No, I'm fine. But I need you to wire me some money so I can come home."

"Okay," she said. "Let me get cleaned up and I'll go do that."

"Thanks, Mom. I'll see you soon."

He hung up with his mother and walked out of the station, saying goodbye to the officers who brought him in. They were a nice bunch of guys and they all shared a quick laugh about it. There were no hard feelings. He asked for directions to Penn Station and they gave it to him. He had hoped to get a ride but they didn't offer and he didn't ask.

Adam walked to Penn Station. He got his money and bought a ticket. He boarded his Boston-bound train. Other then a few side glances at his scraggly appearance and people refusing to sit next to him due to the smell coming off his clothes, his ride was unnoteworthy. With some help from sheer exhaustion and the gentle rocking of the train, he managed to finally fall asleep.

He got off the train at the end of the line, South Station in Boston. He walked into the terminal in a daze. He shuffled in and went downstairs to get on the T. He was moving on muscle memory without any real thought. He heard people whisper and saw a couple of them pointing. He didn't know if they were responding to the newspaper article or if they were more surprised by Whit.

Adam boarded the red line, changed to the green and got off at his old stop. He walked to his apartment without more than a fleeting thought. He noticed that the laundromat that he'd used was closed now and had been turned into a Dunkin' Donuts. He stopped at Britney's apartment building. Her red Taurus was sitting outside. The car made him realize where he was. He looked at the building again. He tried to figure out what he'd say to her. He figured it'd come to him, after all he'd done alright with his mother.

He walked to the door and pulled it open (depsite the elapsed months it seemed that the landlord still hadn't fixed the broken latch on the front door). He walked down the hall to his apartment and knocked on the door. He heard movement on the other side of the door. Chris opened the door.

"Yes?" Chris asked as he suspiciously eyed Adam. Adam too was caught off guard by Chris' appearance.

"Is... does Britney still live here?" Adam asked. The Taurus wasn't the most uncommon car, maybe it belonged to someone else in the apartment building. Or perhaps Britney had even sold it to whoever bought the apartment from her.

"Yes, she does." Chris was getting defensive now. "What is this about exactly?"

"Please, Adam said sincerely, "Please." He found he had difficulty finishing his sentence. Chris made a face. He couldn't figure out what Adam was doing there but he was pretty sure that he didn't like it. "I just want to see here. I need to see her."

"Who is it?" Adam heard Britney ask from the other room. Adam perked up.

He was amazed at how fast the Earth approached. He looked over at Whit. She was trembling; she seemed to be aware of Adam's fear. "Whit," he said, "do you believe in God?"

"Whit."

"Then you better start praying." Adam watched in slight shock as Whit closed her eyes and clutched her paws together. Adam had been half joking and so found that he was actually a little hurt that she had such little faith in him.

Adam saw a dense population below and headed for it. He figured he'd crash land in the Boston Harbor and then swim into the city. Adam was doing better than he thought himself capable. What he thought was downtown Boston was in actuality, downtown Manhatten. It was an honest mistake from several thousand feet up but as he came closer he realized that he was wrong.

He pulled up, trying to go north towards Boston. The problem was, and Adam had no way to know this, it was too late. He was going too fast, he was going to hit New York City and there was nothing Adam could do about it. Unfortuantely, when he pulled up he ended up aiming away from the water and back towards the city.

His ship crashed at the corner of 32nd street and Broad. The following smoldering crater created by the wreck contrasted to the high rises around it. People looked out their windows as people tentatively stepped out onto the street. They came up to the crater where the intersection used to be and looked down the hole.

Sirens came through the air. It wasn't until people looked up as the cop cars stopped and officers got out. "What's going on here?" One of the officers asked. It wasn't until then that people realized how queit downtown New York could get. No one had spoken, people barely breathed. Movement stirred down in the hole. The police officers all drew their weapons.

The air smelled sweet to Adam. After months of breating stuffy recirculated air, the natural breeze was not only a relief, it was almost intoxicating. He had to extricate himself from the spacecraft first though. The door was banged and bent so it took some finagling to get it to even open. And then he had to climb several yards to the surface. The ripped open ground was jagged and provided good hand holds. Whit followed up behind him.

People gasped as Adam's hand shot up onto the ground. They all stepped back as he pulled himself up onto the street. He stood up. He felt a cool breeze run over his naked body. Adam hadn't been aware of his own nudity for quite a while, it had just become a standard part of his life. Nor was he really concious of how long his beard and hair had gotten. Having never really had, the thing had been an odd experience for Adam). He ran his fingers through his thick knotted beard He laughed at the simple sensation of it.

"Freeze!" He heard a voice shout. He looked up and noticed the cops. He then realized that he was surrounded by about five dozen people and he became all too aware of his nakedness. He moved to cover himself when one of the cops thought he was moving for a weapon (of course, where a naked man would be hiding such a weapon was anyone's guess). The cop fired his gun; it rang out with a loud bang in the quiet crowd. The bullet hit Adam in the chest. It stung as it bounced off his skin.

"Ow!" Adam shouted. The cops looked on in fear and shock. "That really hurt," Adam pouted. He breathed and rubbed his chest vigoursly. "You know you shouldn't go around shooting people willy-nilly."

"We got a spike!" One of the cops yelled out and made a break to his police cruiser.

"Spike?" Adam asked.

The cop pulled out a large plasma rifle and raised it up. Adam had read about these guns, the cops used them on supervillians who most conventional weapons couldn't harm. It was a large rifle, about four feet long with two handholds, one under the butt of the gun and one under the muzzle.

The ground came hurtling towards him at incredible speed. After such a long period of so little happening, Adam was not emotionally prepared for such tension (he was surprised to find out the ship even went this fast). He nudged the ship southwards a bit. After all he didn't want to end up in Maine. He'd only been to Maine once when he was a child and had only spent a total of nine and a half hours there. That was more than enough time to realize that he never wanted to go back.

Catch up on past installments of Savage Genesis!

• Savage Genesis, part 1
• Savage Genesis, part 2
• Savage Genesis, part 3
• Savage Genesis, part 4
• Savage Genesis, part 5
• Savage Genesis, part 6
• Savage Genesis, part 7
• Savage Genesis, part 8
• Savage Genesis, part 9
• Savage Genesis, part 10
• Savage Genesis, part 11
• Savage Genesis, part 12
• Savage Genesis, part 13

Or read the whole Savage Genesis saga

"Whit!" The small lizard began pulling on Adam's ear.

Lucas started running. Adam reached up to take his tiny traveller off his shoulder. The creature ran down to his hand. He looked down at it and was amazed to see it shaking its head. It seemed to be demanding that they go no farther. Adam had no idea how he knew that that's what it meant but he was more sure than he'd ever been of anything in his life. It blinked its giant eyes at him and he was sold.

"Lucas, let's go the other way," Adam said. Lucas stopped at the bend of the hall. He turned around. He was unaware of the guards wating thirty-five feet away from where he stood. He stard at Adam with great frustation.

"You've got to be kidding me," Lucas groaned.

"No, I think this thing knows something."

"Like what? It's a rodent for Christ's sake."

"It's not a rodent and it doesn't feel good about this. And neither do I."

"That's fine," Lucas said in a tone that dripped with sarcarsm that told Adam that it was most defintely not fine. "Does your little pal have a better idea then? Maybe he knows the way out of here."

"Whit!" She chirped defensively. Adam looked down at the creature thoughtfully.

"I think it's a girl," Adam said.

"Do you think that I give a shit?" Lucas bellowed.

"Don't shout!" Adam shouted. The creature perked her head up and leapt out of Adam's hands. When she hit the ground, she took off running the opposite way. "Wait!" Adam called out after her. He took off in pursuit of her. Lucas just groaned.

"Fine. If you want to chase your little rat, go ahead. I'm getting out of here." With that Lucas rounded the corner and sealed his fate. Adam spun around when he heard the sound, like lighting in a bottle. When he got his first look at Lucas he could see what had made that sound. Blasts of energy were striking him with increased frequency. Lucas fell to his knees, raised his gun and hit a button on the side. Nothing happened. Lucas screamed as the blasts kept hitting him. Lucas began pounding wildly on the buttons on his weapon. The gun began making a high pitch whinning noise.

"Ditch the gun!" Adam shouted at Lucas. Up until now, Adam had been frozen, unable to move or help. He knew that he had a gun as well but he had no idea how to use it anymore than Lucas did. What he did know was that Lucas' gun was making a noise that you never want any electronic device to make: the meltdown sound.

Lucas looked over at Adam at the sound of his voice. His eyes were pleading. The two men were making eye contact when the gun exploded in Lucas' hand. Lucas cried a primal note of pain. He looked down where his hand used to be. His left arm now ended halfway between elbow and where his wrist used to be. Lucas collapsed to the ground in a heap. He was moving a bit, letting Adam know that he was still alive. Adam guessed that the same explosion that cost Lucas his hand also cauterized the wound.

"Lucas!" Adam shouted and ran towards him. Adam saw an alien guard approach Lucas' limp body and pick him up by his still fully intact arm. The guard tossed Lucas over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"Whit!" Adam spun around at the sound. Adam saw his little companion standing still further down the hall. He knew there was nothing he could do for Lucas. He didn't know how to work the gun, he was outnumbered and in alien territory. He had no chance of saving Lucas, but he still had a tiny chance he could save himself. He turned and ran away from Lucas and the guards, towards Whit. Whit, in turn, ran further down the hall.

"Shhh. It's okay," Adam said in the neutral calming voice that he perfected from working at Kids Vids! in what seemed like an entirely different lifetime. "We won't hurt you." The creature seemed to relax. Adam doubted it understood him but he was proud that his reassuring voice had done the trick. Adam, hoping to endear some trust from the creature, opened his hand and the creature slide out of his grip and scurried up Adam's arm. It perched on his shoulder and looked over at Lucas.

"Whit!" it said triumphantly. Adam smiled at his pint-sized traveler. He kneeled down and picked up his gun. Adam had suspected that the creature might fall off at his movement or that it might at the very least shift its weight. He was surprised that it did neither, it managed to hang on to him without digging in any fingers or claws.

"What do we do now?" Lucas asked. In all the excitement, Adam had forgotten that the two of them were currently fleeing for their lives. The past sixty seconds were the closest he'd come to normal in the past eight months. He hated having to give up that feeling so soon after having it. He had to switch modes, trying to figure out what to do next. It wasn't as if he'd ever done this before or even knew of anyone who'd ever gone through anything like this.

"Well, we got here so there's gotta be someway off. I don't know how, maybe there's a teleport chamber or something. So all we got to do is find the teleporter and force their O'Brien to get us out of here."

"Who's O'Brien?"

"O'Brien from Next Generation. Don't you watch Star Trek?"

"No."

"He's an Irish guy, he ran the teleporter. Actually when Deep Space Nine... Look, nevermind that. Let's just find the way out of here." Adam turned to walk out. Lucas grabbed his arm.

"How are we gonna force him?"

"What?"

"O'Brien. How are we gonna force him to get us out of here?"

Adam held up the gun. "With this."

"But we don't know how to use them," Lucas pointed out.

"True. But they don't know that." Adam started to leave when Lucas grabbed his arm again.

"But what if they don't speak English?"

Adam sighed. "Listen killjoy, if you got a better plan I would just love to hear it. If not, let's just go for it, huh? I mean, it's not like anywhere we end up could be worse than where we were."

With that, Lucas nodded. He agreed and with that he committed to Adam's plan. A crazy plan with no chance of success was better than no plan at all. Besides, there were times when Lucas had wished for death so despite his desire to stay alive at the moment, he could now remember a time when he didn't feel that way.

Adam walked over to the door, he tried to glance over his shoulder at Lucas but the alien lizard/monkey on his shoulder blocked his view. "Ready?" He asked, his finger poised over the button to open the door.

Adam walked cautiously over to the box and laid his gun down on the ground next to it. He looked over at Lucas and gave him a nod. Lucas lifted his gun and pointed it at the top of the crate. Adam felt more comfortable with Lucas covering him. He realized, of course, that Lucas had no idea how to operate that gun and that there was just as good a chance that he might shot Adam instead of anyone inside the box but Adam tried to push those thoughts from his brain (he also had to try and push the face hugger scene from the movie Alien out of his mind). Adam decided that was the best he was going to get, besides if there was someone else imprisoned in this hellhole Adam couldn't just leave them behind.

Adam grabbed either side of the lid of the crate and lifted, tearing the top right off. Adam couldn't see inside the box, not because of how dark it was inside the box but because something had leapt out and clamped on to his face. He'd had no warning, just a flash of movement and Lucas' gasp. "Oh holy living crap!" thought Adam, "it's a fucking alien fucking face hugger!"

Remembering his movie lore, Adam kept his eyes and mouth shut tightly. He then grabbed a hold of the lims which had wrapped themselves around his head. He struggled with them but to little avail. They were clamped on tight.

"Geb dis tin offa muh face!" Adam shouted from under his covered mouth. He heard Lucas put his gun down and walk over to where he was standing. He felt Lucas pulling at the thing. Adam helped him out and between the two of them, they managed to finally yank the thing off of Adam's face.

Adam was surprised to find the 'alien face hugger' was actually a small green creature that looked like a mix between a lizard and a monkey. It had long arms with spindly fingers, a small body covered in a light fur and a round head with big eyes and floppy ears. Its large eyes looked up at Adam and then frantically searched the room, its little chest heaved. "Whit," it chirped in a frenzied high pitch tone. Adam smiled down at it.

Catch up on past installments of Savage Genesis!

• Savage Genesis, part 1
• Savage Genesis, part 2
• Savage Genesis, part 3
• Savage Genesis, part 4
• Savage Genesis, part 5
• Savage Genesis, part 6
• Savage Genesis, part 7
• Savage Genesis, part 8
• Savage Genesis, part 9
• Savage Genesis, part 10

Or read the whole Savage Genesis saga