Complete Savage Genesis

MAY 5th, 2001

Adam Savage didn't care much for children nor was he particularly fond of movies. So he wasn't quite sure how he started to work at Kids' Vids!, the city's only all-children video store. What he was sure of was that after being given a pay raise and health insurance, he wasn't going to be quitting any time soon. Adam had made peace with his job. It's not as if he hated children and he knew the difference between Disney and Dreamworks although he would be slow to admit that to any of his beer-drinking sports-obsessed friends.

If there was any person who was less suited to work at a children's video store than Adam it was Bob Roberts, Adam's supervisor. Adam often wondered if Bob ever felt anything other than suspicion and resentment towards the children who came into Kids' Vids!. If there ever was a time when he felt positively it was long ago stomped out of him by the hundreds of children who descended like a plague of locusts each and every day.

Adam was working the register while Bob hid out in the office in the back, pretending to go over the order forms for some new releases. Adam wasn't too busy despite the fact that he probably should be. One of the kids had spilled some of a chocolate milkshake that he'd brought in, a game of tag had broken out and the running flailing children had knocked several videos to the floor, and a child was hiding in the back of the store in the midst of a panic attack. Adam had discovered very shortly into his time at the video store that the difference between those who made it and those who didn't was whether or not they ran themselves ragged at every crisis that appeared. Those people hardly lasted a week. The thing that Adam had learned, as had many others, with children there is always another crisis looming in the future.

Bob appeared out of the back and walked towards the front, absentmindedly stepping over the spilt milkshake. He wasn't able to sidestep the running kids in time, however, and so was knocked back a step. Muttering under his breath, he recovered his footing. He maneuvered behind the counter.

"Vultures. They're all vultures." Bob eyed a six year old sneeze into his hand and rub it off on a shelf.

"They're just kids," Adam chuckled. He'd heard Bob's rants before but he always enjoyed them nonetheless.

"They're carrion. They feast on the flesh of the dead."

Adam looks at Bob in disbelief.

"Don't you think you're being a bit melodramatic?"

Bob's eyes squint into tiny slivers. "A couple of months back, as part of a promotion, I dressed up like Tokage. You know, that lizard looking guy from the SPW? I was sitting with a group of four year olds. The little bastards jumped me, climbed up over me. They were ruthless. One of them kicked me in the junk." Bob rubbed his sensitive bits at the remembered pain.

A small child ran up to the counter. Bob stepped back, still remembering the vicious trouncing he recently received at the hands of that childish band. "Here," the small child said as he put the video down on the counter. His voice was high and squeaky but not annoying, which was a relief to Adam. Adam picked up the video and scanned it. Bob continued to peer at the boy with a watchful eye.

"That'll be three-fifty." At Adam's prompting, the child hands over a wad of cash that he pulled from deep within the recesses of his pocket. Adam takes the handful of money from the boy, he removes a five dollar bill and returns the money. Adam rings up the sale while the kid returns the cash to his deep pocket. Adam hands the video and change to the child. "Here you go." The boy grabs the offerings and runs out of the store with it.

Bob watches the boy leave with the same careful gaze. "Vultures."

"Why the Hell do you work at a kid's video store?"

"Eh. I need the dental," Bob admitted in defeat.

"You get dental?" Adam asked in disbelief.

"Yeah," Bob paused before asking, "don't you?"

"Nah. Just basic medical."

Bob, as if aware of his importance to the company, puffed his chest out. "Well keep your eye on the prize and some day you may become assistant manager."

"Can I even dare to dream?" Adam deadpanned. "So what did you come out of the office for?"

"I wanted to know if you could open tomorrow. Louise can't make it."

Bob often asked Adam to fill in for other people, to come in when he wasn't scheduled. Adam always thought it impossible, that this would be the time he says no. Of course, then he would end up giving in and saying 'okay.' Adam knew that he did this and that's why he was determined that this time would be different, that this time he'd stand up to Bob and say 'no.'

"I guess so. I could the money anyway."

Well, Adam thought, maybe next time.

"Thanks. Keeps me from having to commute." In the back of the store the small child in the throes of the panic attack promptly threw up, as if to illustrate his point. "God I hate this place." Bob looks over at Adam. "You can go clean that up. I'll watch the register for you." Adam rolled his eyes as he walked past Bob.

"Thanks so much," Adam said bitterly under his breath.
---

Sunset was always Adam's favorite time of day. He stepped out of the store and into the cool breeze, it had hints of the brisk summer that was coming. Bob was standing next to him, locking up the video store and muttering under his breath something about what should be done to him if he ever were to be unfortunate enough to have children. It was something to do about having his eyes poked out and a hot red poker put some place but Adam wasn't really paying attention to him, he was too busy looking up at the sky.

High above him people in colorful costumes flew through the city skyline. This was the real reason that Adam loved sunset. The nice warm glow that bathed everything was nice but this was the real stuff. Superhero rush hour. For some unknown reason, the heroes of the city always seemed to travel during that golden hour.

"Don't you think?" Bob looked over at Adam expectingly. After Adam didn't respond for a moment, Bob added, "Well?" Adam snapped his head around to look at Bob.

"I'm sorry. I was just..." Adam's words trailed off as his view drifted back skyward.

Bob followed his employee's gaze. He let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. "I'd swear that if I didn't know better, I'd think you were a tourist. Are you sure you're really from here?"

Adam embarrassedly broke his gaze. "I know. I know. I should be jaded by now."

"What's your deal with the supers?"

"I've been obsessed with it ever since I was a kid. You know, I almost got super powers once."

"Come on. Everyone's got an 'I almost got super powers' story."

"No, no. I really did. Back when I was in school, I was in my science class and me and my partner were working on this experiment. Now, our table was right by the window so we saw the thunderstorm rolling but to be honest I didn't think much of it. Sp were just as surprised as everyone else when the lighting struck our lab table. I ducked down but my lab partner, Wally, his name was Wally, he got sprayed with all these chemicals and struck by the lightening bolt."

"Damn."

"I know. I'm thinking 'chemical burn from Hell' and instead the guy gets super powers."

"What'd he get?"

"Super speed."

"That's must've burned you."

"Yeah, I was kind of pissed about it for a while. But at least our track team kicked the ever loving crap out of Chambliss High that year.

Bob took in the story for a moment, "Man, you did get hosed."

"Told you."

"Do you know what happened to him?"

"No clue. Last I heard he got a scholarship to MIT, majored in science."

Bob holds out the store keys. Adam takes them and puts them in his pocket. "Here you go. Now you're opening with Jerome tomorrow so it'd be nice if one of you was on time." Bob shoots Adam a playful glare.

"That was one time," Adam responded defensively. Bob flashed a smile and slaps Adam on the back.

"I'm just teasing." Bob glanced down towards his watch. "You need a ride to the bus stop?" This was another tradition between Bob and Adam ever since Adam once asked Bob for a ride. Adam had meant a ride to his house and Bob knew it but as he was too passive aggressive to flat out say 'no' he agreed to give him a ride to the bus stop which is about block and a half away. To prevent Adam ever asking him again, Bob began preempitevly offering to drive him to the bus stop.

Adam, after the awkwardness of the last car ride, played his own part in this tradition by flatly refusing. "Nah. I'm good." Bob nodded, their ritual now complete. Bob walked off this car satisfied with the knowledge that he had at least offered to help.

Adam began his block and a half walk to the bus stop. As he walked his gaze returned upwards towards the heavens and the modern day marvels that soared high above him. His mind began to wander over dreams, some long forgotten. In some of his boyhood fantasies he could fly, in others he could shoot fire from his fingertips or was impervious to harm. No matter how it manifested itself there was one thing that was always the same: he was special, he was different. He mattered.

He made to cross the street, still looking skyward. A car came barreling down on Adam, although he oblivious to it. The driver, who had been fantasizing about the newest secretary in his office, was caught by surprise. He slammed on the brakes and hit his horn. The horn blared as the car came to a screeching halt, the sound of which snapped Adam back to the real world. Looking embarrassed, Adam stepped back on to the curb and the driver, after shouting a few colorful epitaths at Adam, returned to driving and fantasizing.

Only after waiting for the sign at the crosswalk, then making his way to bus stop and sitting down on the bench did he allow his mind to wander once more towards the realm of the super. Some children dreamed of being superheroes in the same afternoon as they dreamed of being baseball players, astronauts or movie stars but not Adam. Adam's devotion to and awe of superheroes never wavered.

The sun had just set and the flow of superhero traffic above had slowed to a trickle. Still Adam smiled as he imagined. Of course, he had no idea that the very sky he was staring at held the thing that would change his life forever. Of course none of that mattered now. Now Adam was allowed to be alone with his dreams.
---

Super Powered Wrestling or SPW as the T-shirts and bumper stickers read, was started in 1985 by Tyrone Powers. Powers was a gifted businessman who did what no one thought was possible; he made people care about wrestling again. After the first super powered person appeared in 1938, the world seemed to lose its patience with normal men in tights grappling with each others. The evening news began to put wrestling out of business.

It took Powers' foresight to combine wrestling with the very thing that put it out of business. He hired Terry "the Terror" McKenzie and Todd "the Fireman" Jones to fight each other and televised the whole event on Pay-Per-View. Many scoffed at his hiring of a known meglomanical supervillian like the Terror but Powers stood his ground and was rewarded. The show easily ranked as the highest rated Pay-Per-View event in history. The video went on to do monster business as well.

The show became a reoccurring event and it became a huge part of the popular culture. Kids began buying Fireman T-shirts and Terror action figures. Other supers quickly began joining the wrestling league. Soon the Blue Avenger, Corporal Punishment, the Hangman, Tokage, the Exile, Rockford, the Needle and Grandmaster J were all vying for the Golden Belt title. The Golden Belt being the title that Powers invented to mean the current ranking champion of the league or "king of the ring" as Powers calls it in interviews.

Time marched on and even more people joined the league. Eventually the Fireman was forced into retirement when he tore the cartilage in his knee and after a stroke the Terror decided to call it quits too. The two former foes came back to the SPW as announcers and color commentators. And that's how they found themselves sitting behind a desk in a giant arena beside a large roped off ring bathed in light watching two grown men pummel each other.

Of course, this being the SPW these weren't ordinary men. One of them was Static, a being whose body was comprised entirely of energy. His body undulated with what looked like blue pulsating electricity, erratic and chaotic. The other man was Major Pain, a large beefy man wearing what looked like army fatigues if the United States army decided to add showmanship and sparkle to their basic uniform. Around his waist sat the Golden Belt, it was slung low on his hips.

The Fireman eyed the two combatants. "Well, this is it. Major Pain has had a long standing rivalry with Static, ever since Static double crossed him in that cage match against Kitsune and Tsunami." Of course any SPW fan worth his or her salt remembered that match. It was part of the now legendary "Rumble in the Urban Jungle IX: Caged Rage," the same event where Hurricane was hit with a 2x4 by Speedfreak when the referee wasn't looking (although, in the ref's defense, he was looking just with Speedfreak's power it looked like a blur). That injury put Hurricane out of the game for more than a year.

"Well Todd, you know how much I hate to agree with you but you're absolutely right. There's no love lost between these two. Static even once vowed that he'd kill Pain in the ring if he ever got the chance," the Terror added.

Static shoots beams of blue energy out of his fingertips at Major Pain. The energy hit his chest, shredding his shirt. Pain regained his ground and leapt at Static, punching him in the face. "Ow, I could feel that one from here," the Fireman interjected. The sound of the blow filled the stadium and reverberated off the high ceiling.

With Static off guard by the savage attack, Major Pain punched him in the stomach. He then jumped on top of Static, pinning him to the ground. Static struggled to break free of Pain's grasp but Pain kneed him in the chest and punched him in the jaw.

The Terror looked up at the vicious abuse Major Pain was dishing out and smiled manically, "It seems that Pain might just make good on that threat towards Static."

"Indeed, no one can argue that Pain's got Static on the ropes. I don't think that Static can take much more of this abuse."

No sooner did the Fireman foresee victory than Static got his second wind. He placed his hand flat against Major Pain's chest, palm down. A huge bolt of lightening shot out of his hand and dove straight into Pain, knocking him off Static as well as several feet back. Pain landed with a thud on his backside.

"Did you see that?" shouted the Fireman.

Hurt and surprised, Pain couldn't prevent Static from rising to his feet. He was still too winded to even stand up and defend himself as Static crossed the ring slowly towards Pain. Static turned his opponent over onto his back so that he could look him in the eye, then shot him with more electrical blasts. Pain's body convulsed as all that electricity coursed through him. Suddenly, his body went limp. Static placed a foot on the badly hurt Pain and held his arms up high in triumph.

The crowd cheered wildly as the Terror tried to describe it, "I cannot believe this. That was one of the quickest and most decisive turnarounds that I've ever seen in my entire career. Simply unbelievable."

Watching the match on the television in his apartment, Adam had a very similar but slightly different take on the game. "Un-fucking-believable." Adam, who was wearing his Major Pain T-shirt ("No Pain, No Gain"), took a sip from his beer and cursed under his breath. Not only did Adam like Major Pain but he also extremely disliked Static and had ever since he betrayed Pain. To make matters worse he was going to open the store with Jerome tomorrow who simply adored Static. He'd have to endure many vivid descriptions of instant replays as well as general talk about how Static is the best super-powered wrestler in the history of the sport since the Blue Avenger.

Adam picked up the remote and flipped the channel. He stopped when he saw a baseball game on. On channel 7 his beloved Red Sox were trouncing the New York Yankees 11 to 3. While the scene brought him great delight, it was tempered by the sad truth that the only reason that the Sox were winning was because two of the Yankee players were recently discovered to have been superhumans.

During a random drug screening, Major League Baseball discovered low levels of gamma radiation. There wasn't enough for them to Hulk out perhaps but there was enough to hit fifty or sixty home runs without any difficulty. The players were currently suspended as baseball had them under investigation to see if it was an accidental dosage or if they were trying to "juice the lily" as the Adam had heard the kids call it.

He'd wondered where the phrase "juice the lily" had come from and had even spent many a slow work day trying to figure out the logic behind it (perhaps if Adam were older or more experienced with children than he'd have known it was foolish to look for logic in the thoughts and deeds of children). Finally he cracked down and asked one of the kids in his store. The kid only stared at Adam for a moment before calling him a "shrimpstalker." Unfortunately, this only gave Adam two odd phrases to ponder.

Adam heard the door unlock. He turned in time to see his girlfriend, Britney Green come in the room. She smiled when she saw Adam and he totally forgot about Major Pain and having to go in to work on his day off and deal with a smug Jerome. He was in a truly good mood for the first time all day.

"Hey baby," Britney said with a wave. She looked at the baseball game on the television and then at Adam in his Major Pain T-shirt. "Did Major Pain lose?"

Adam's good mood evaporated. "Yeah," he sighed, "he did."

Britney walked over and sat down next to him on the couch. She rested her head on his shoulder and placed her hand tenderly but absent-mindedly over his heart. "I'm sorry. I know how much you root for him." She picked her head up and looked him in the eyes. "Is there anything you want to do tonight? Something to cheer you up?"

"Nah, I'm good," Adam replied half-heartidly. He wasn't trying to be difficult although he knew that his indecision sometimes frustrated Britney.

"You sure? We could run out and catch a movie. Didn't that new Bill Lawrence film just come out? You love him." Adam just shrugged. He did love Bill Lawrence and he had been looking forward to this new movie, Emperor Norton, coming out for the past few weeks. He just wasn't in the mood. He hated it but he felt well on his way to having the type of bad mood where there wasn't anything in Heaven or Earth that was going to derail his self-pity train.

"I kind of want to take it easy. I've got to open tomorrow."

"I thought you had tomorrow off?"

"I did but they need me to cover for someone."

"Are we still having dinner with your mother tomorrow night?"

"Yeah. That's even more reason for me to stay in tonight." Adam thought about it for a moment. "Can you pick me up from work tomorrow? It'd make my life ten times more easy."

"Sure, no problem." Adam thanked her and gave her a kiss. "You know," she started with a wicked grin, "if we're going to stay in anyway..." She trailed off suggestively. She kissed his neck and stood up. She walked into the bedroom.

Adam sat on the couch dumbfounded for a moment. A pair of blue jeans flew out of the room and land on the floor. The blouse Britney was wearing floats through the air and lands next to the pants. By the time the undergarments came off Adam had forgotten there was ever a moment he felt even remotely like melancholy. Adam got up and ran to the bedroom with such verve that he almost tripped over the pile of clothes on the floor.
---

As he changed shirts in the passenger seat of Britney's 1998 Ford Taurus, he became worried. He hadn't worried all day except during a brief interlude when he was trying to figure out what the phrase "vendor pretender" meant. He'd overheard two kids calling each other names and that was the only one he didn't already know or could at least deduce through context clues. Soon, he thought, he'd have to admit he was getting older and was no longer hip.

But now that he was off of work and his mind was free to wonder about things other than when they were going to get in another copy of "Happy Scrappy Hero Pup," he began to ponder over how tonight was going to go between his mother and Britney. The two of them had met before, several times actually, so most of the awkward getting to know you stuff was already out of the way. Still, they'd only met at large gatherings so they'd never spent much intimate time together and never for more than ten minutes at a time.

He didn't know what he was even scared of per se. His mother was friendly and Britney was smarter, richer and better looking than he was. His only complaint was his mother's desire for him to get married and have a baby as well as the fact that he had kept the fact that he had moved in with Britney a secret.

"I'm looking forward to getting some quality time with your mother," Britney said as Adam slipped the new shirt over his head. He looked over at Britney and couldn't help but smile. The two of them had been dating for almost a year now and Adam still enjoyed her company. He didn't want to jinx anything but he was beginning to get more and more sure that she was the one for him.

Perhaps that was the real root of his apprehension. He had even been thinking about proposing to Britney and he didn't want either of these ladies to disapprove of the other. In fact, he hoped for nothing less than for them to hit it off smashingly.

"How far out does your mom live?" Britney asked. Adam looked out the windows as the trees went by.

"Not much further. Maybe another half hour or so."

"I never knew you grew up in the boonies," Britney chuckled.

"This isn't the boonies," Adam said defensively. Of course, Adam knew it was the boonies. In fact, he'd called his childhood home far worse things when he was growing up. But it's one thing when a person insults their own home and quite another when someone else insults it. Britney shot him an amusing glare. "Okay, it's out in the boonies," Adam finally relented. "My dad was a woodsy, outdoors type and after he died my mother couldn't afford to move any closer into town."

The two drove in silence for a moment.

"I hope your mom likes me."

Adam was caught off guard by the directness of the comment. "Of course she will." She gave him a smile that reminded him of the first day of summer. "How could she not?"
---

Both dinner and conversation were lovely. While Cindy Savage had never been a devout follower of Julia Child or Martha Stewart, she had picked up some culinary tricks over the years. As for how Cindy would think of Britney, no one need have worried. Cindy always had a youthful spirit and the decades had done nothing to dampen her vibrancy.

Adam leaned back from the table, full of food and grateful for it. Cindy was in the midst of telling an embarrassing story from Adam's childhood.

"So then he came into the room, still naked. He walks over to me and starts tugging on the hem of my dress." To underscore the humor of the situation, she mimed pulling on a giant dress. Britney shot Adam an amused look. Adam rolled his eyes in response. "So he starts begging that I help him get in the tub. So he's shouting 'Mama! Mama! Help me!' By this point, all the guests have turned to look at him. Even Mr. Jenkins," here Cindy stopped and placed a hand delicately on Adam's. "You remember Mr. Jenkins, don't you Adam? He was that nice deaf fellow your father used to work for. Well," and here she returned to talking to Britney, "Adam made such a fuss that even Mr. Jenkins turned to see what all the commotion was about."

"Mr. Jenkins did not see me naked."

"I can get out the picture if you don't believe me."

"I believe you," Adam responded, holding up a hand to stop his mother before she really got going.

It was too late. Britney's curiosity had been piqued. "I'd love to see that."

"No, you really don't."

"Hold on one second, I'll be right back." Cindy pushed off from the table and walked out of the kitchen. The two watched her leave and then Britney turned towards Adam.

"I love your mother."

"I'd love her more if she didn't show all my girlfriends my naked baby photos.

"All your girlfriends? And here I thought I was special," Britney said with a cute fake little pout.

"You are special." Adam leaned over. He hesitated for a moment before giving her a kiss on the cheek.

Cindy returned holding a small photo album. She pulled a chair over next to where Britney was sitting. She placed the album down on the table and opened it. She flipped to the page with the naked baby Adam tugging on Cindy's dress. He had an adoreable but determined look on his face. "Here he is."

Britney looked at the picture closely. She smiled and then glanced over at Adam. "You look so cute." Adam covered his face in embarrassment while Cindy flipped to the next page.

"And here he is sleeping."

"Aw. If only you looked this cute when you sleep now," Britney giggled.

"You've seen him sleep?" Cindy asked with a grin, eyebrow raised.

"Which picture of me sleeping is it?" Adam asked quickly in a poor attempt to change the subject. Not pausing to see if his attempt worked or not, he leaned over and grabbed the photo album. The photo was of an eight-year old Adam in a pair of Superman footie pajamas. He was spread out on the couch, his limbs lying in all different directions. His hair mussed.

"You were such a cute boy," Cindy said with more than a small note of pride in her voice.

Adam looks up from the photo. "I'm still a cute boy," he said in an only somewhat joking defensive tone.

Adam handed the photo album back to his mother. She looked at the photo again and sighed. "Oh, I know it. It's just you looked so innocent sleeping there. You always looked so peaceful when you slept."

"He's still like that. He's such a heavy sleeper. To be honest, I don't know how he sleeps through some of the things--"

"You know," Adam interrupted, "speaking of sleeping, we've got to get going. Do you need me to help you clean up before we head out, Mom?"

"I can get it." Everyone stood up. Adam leans over and kisses Cindy on the top of her head.

"I love you, Mom. I'll give you a call soon."

Adam and Britney walk past Cindy towards the door.

"Good night. Sleep tight. Oh, and Adam?" Adam stopped and turned around to face his mother. "I do hope that you and Britney are taking precautions."

"Precautions?" Adam asked confused.

"You know. I just don't think you want to be a parent right now and--"

Adam raised a hand. "Whoa. Whoa." Cindy smiled at her son's embaressment.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of. Your father and I used to--"

Again Adam protested. This time he spun around on his heel and walked out the door. He waved goodbye to his mother over his shoulder. "Bye, Mother!" He shouted. She smiled as the front door closed behind them.
---

Later on that evening, after an amusing drive home the two settled down to bed. After eating such filling food the two welcomed sleep. Or at least, they both should have welcomed it. Instead only Britney found solace in slumber while Adam found himself lying in his bed in the dark wide awake. He grew tired of looking at the ceiling because he kept imagining odd shapes appearing. He rolled over to look out the window. "It'll be like watching television," he thought to himself. "Very boring television perhaps. Sort of like CSPAN or ESPN Classic."

He watched with greater interest than he thought he would as the wind blew through the trees outside his apartment, then died down only to blow strong once more. It wasn't until the wind died down completely, depriving Adam of his amusement that he looked at the clock. Considering that he had to be at work early in the morning, he was not pleased with the time.

There was a metallic rattling sound that made Adam sit up in his bed. He looked around the apartment, trying to find the source of the sound. For a moment, he thought it was the wind blowing up against the window but he quickly realized that the night was still outside. He stood up and began looking about for some sort of weapon to protect himself. He had been convinced someone had broken into the apartment. He'd heard some of his neighbors complaining about a string of recent burglaries.

Adam was unaware of how amusing he looked. Dressed only in his boxers he began crawling along the floor looking for something to use as a makeshift weapon. He was so distracted by his self-appointed task that he failed to notice there was light outside the window and that the light was growing stronger and stronger. It finally caught his attention as he noticed the shadows form and grow across the bedroom floor.

He looked over his shoulder at the window. He held his hand up to shield his eyes. Curious, he stood up and walked to the windows as the light continued to grow more intense. He glanced over at Britney, who still slept on her side of the bed. Without waking, she put her hand where Adam's body had laid a few moments prior.

"And I'm the heavy sleeper?" His sarcastic remark came out seconds before a sharp pain filled his entire body. He grew rigid. He tried to cry for help but all that came out of his throat was harsh gurgle. He felt a lightness in his whole body. He began to float slightly upwards as if he was leaf caught in a light breeze. Scared, he tried to flail, to wiggle free of the invisible grasp that held his body so tightly.

A tingling sensation began to grow in his fingertips. The feeling moved up through his arms and into his chest. Adam closed his eyes and said a prayer to a God that he stopped believing in a long time ago. It was not the most eloquent or poetic of prayers but what it lacked in polished quality it more than made up for in sincere belief. It was simple and straight-forward: "Dear God, please make it stop."

Despite the desperation of his plea, however, it went unanswered.

Adam's body disappeared leaving Britney alone in the bedroom. There was a loud popping noise. Neither of them knew it but both of their lives had been changed forever. Of course, Britney was too busy dreaming about having a candy bar for a head to appreciate the drastic change about to befall her.

She awoke several hours later as the phone rang. She ignored it at first because it was her day off and she was intent on taking it easy and as being as lazy as she could manage. Besides in her sleepy state she assumed that Adam was still there to get it.

"Adam," she moaned out after the third ring. When she got no response she half opened her eyes and found Adam missing from the bed. "Adam!" she shouted louder. Only the ring of the phone answered her. Sighing, she rolled over and picked up the phone. "Hello?" she asked groggily into the mouthpiece.

"Is Adam there?"

"Sorry. He's at work. Call later." Britney started to hang up the phone when the voice interrupted her.

"No, he's not. This is Louise at Kids' Vids! He hasn't shown up."

"Excuse me?" Britney asked. She was waking up now and not liking what she was hearing.

"Adam hasn't come into work. Is he running late?" Except for one time when he stepped on a nail and had to go to the emergency room, Adam had never been late for a single day of work. Britney looked at the clock, he was two hours late. He'd call that 'unacceptable' if a co-worker came in that late when he was working. She was brought back to reality by the voice on the other end of the line. "Do you know if he's gonna come in today? We're having a promotion and we really need him."

"I'm sorry," she replied, "I don't know where he is."

"Well, if you see him, could you tell him to come in right away. We'd really - put that down! No! No! That is not a toy! -- We'd really appreciate it." Britney could hear the bedlam over the phone. She'd always teased Adam that he was good with kids and he'd always played it down, insisting he didn't understand them and their catchphrases. Despite Adam's feelings, right now it was sounding to Britney like the store was collapsing in his absence.

"Sure," Britney said and hung up the phone. She got out of bed and looked around the room. Everything was just how she'd left it when she'd gone to sleep the night before, including Adam's pants and shoes. His wallet still sat on top of the dresser. "Well," she said aloud to herself, "he either hasn't left or he's very cold."

Confident that she would him asleep on the couch in the living room or sick in the bathroom she walked out of the bedroom. When she stepped into the living room, however, it was empty. She then poked her head into the kitchen and then into the bathroom. Nothing. After creating an odd scenario in her mind where Adam got trapped in the closet looking for a coat or perhaps an umbrella, she looked in there. He was nowhere to be found.

Well, if he wasn't in the apartment maybe he'd borrowed her car. It'd piss her off if he took it without asking but at least she'd know to stop worrying. She looked out the window but her car still sat right outside, untouched since last night.

Her mind raced. She racked her brain trying to remember if Adam had mentioned anything about an appointment or an errand. She walked back to the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. She wasn't coming up with anything despite her best efforts. She was concentrating so hard that she was oblivious to the fact that she was staring at the one thing that had changed since last night: a small circular scorch mark on the carpet. Finally she snapped out of her daze and stared at the burn mark. She got off the bed and knelt down next to the stain. She tentatively touched it and found it was still warm.

She was pondering what it could be when a snippet from conversation from last night exploded out of her memory banks. Something that Adam and his mother had talked about. Cindy had wanted Adam to pick up a new stack of books waiting for her at the bookstore. Britney got up and walked over to the phone. She picked it up and dialed Cindy's number. The phone rang a few times before Cindy picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey Cindy, it's Britney."

"Britney? What is it?"

"I was just wondering if Adam was over there, picking those books up for you."

"No. Shouldn't he be at work?"

"Well, yeah. But he's gone missing," Britney forced a small laugh, trying to make it sound casual and relaxed. Cindy, however, was a very clever woman and seemed to sense the tension behind her words.

"Missing?" Cindy asked, her voice filled with shock and more than a trace of indignation. "What do you mean mising?"

"Well, he isn't at work and he isn't at home and he didn't borrow my car. I just thought he might be with you or that you might know where he is."

"Well, I don't. Are you sure he's missing? Maybe he just ran to the corner store or something."

"He's gone Cindy. He left his wallet behind. And there's some kind of weird stain on the floor that wasn't there last night."

"A stain?"

"Yeah, there's some kind of scorch mark in the carpet."

"How big is the burn mark?"

"I don't know. Maybe a foot wide."

Silence. It was such a rich silence that for a moment Britney suspected that the two of them had been disconnected. "Hello?" Britney asked. More silence. Then it hit Britney. "You know what happened, don't you?" She asked. "Where is he? What happened to him? If you know then we can go get him." Britney was getting a bit worked up. She'd done a good job, she felt, of being calm up until now so she felt entitled to a little bit of a rant.

"He's never coming back," Cindy replied quietly. Her voice had a grim finality to it. It brokered no argument and wouldn't tolerate further questions.

"What do you mean by that?" Britney demanded. She was, after all, not a woman to take subtle hints. "Cindy? Cindy?" A dial tone let her know that Cindy had hung up on her. Britney threw the phone against the wall and yelled the most creative string of expletives that she could think of. She covered her face and forced herself to breathe normally.

Britney had always prided herself on being a driven, self-sufficent person. She wasn't the type to panic when confronted with a crisis. She was a logical person and felt she could work her way through any problem if given enough time. She forced herself to breathe and take everything in. "Adam," she said to herself, "if you are on this Earth I will find you."
---

Unfortunately, he wasn't. He didn't know where he was but he knew it wasn't familiar. He awoke to total and utter darkness. At first he could make out nothing, not even his own body. He knew his body was there because he found himself nude and the room was cold. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he began to make out the shapes around him. He could see he was in a cage about eight feet in each direction.

Adam stood up and walked to the bars. He gave them a firm squeeze and even attempted to shake them. They were beyond sturdy. He tried shaking them harder. "Help! Help me!" Adam let go of the bars and sat down. He turned around and placed his back against the bars. He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath, unaware that Britney was doing the same thing right then.

"Don't be afraid," said a distorted voice. At the sound, Adam jerked his head up.

"Who said that?" Adam looked around the room but his eyes still hadn't fully adjusted to the darkness.

"Don't be afraid," the voice repeated. Adam heard footsteps approaching him. Soon Adam could make out an approaching figure. Adam rose to his feet and took a few steps backwards.

"Who are you?"

The figure came into better focus for Adam. It looked human at first glance to Adam but once he saw him better he noticed the figure was a little too thin and angular. He stood a few inches short of seven feet. Its skin was blue and its forehead had a gentle slope which made its gaze more piercing. It moved with a quite grace. It seemed to be dressed in a long flowing robe with a huge collar. It made its way over to the cage bars. It took a hold of the bars, its long slender fingers wrapped around the rod.

"My name is Ruhe," he said in the same clipped manner. This close it became clear to Adam that this alien was male although if he was forced to pinpoint the feature that betrayed Ruhe's gender he would be at a loss to explain it.

"What do you want with me?" Ruhe looked at Adam intently. "Why have you kidnapped me?" Ruhe took his hand off the bar and reached for Adam. He didn't move quickly, in fact, he moved with a delicate almost hesitant speed. He put his hand on Adam's cheek.

Adam had thought the creature's skin would be scaly and cool like an amphibian. He was surprised to find that it was actually smooth and warm, much like anyone else's hand. While the touch was gentle, Adam seemed to feel a hidden strength behind those alien fingers. Ruhe removed his hand and took a step backwards. He folded his hands behind his back, turned and walked off. His figure faded into the inky blackness of the room.

"Wait! Don't go! What do you want with me!" Adam shouted out after him. He rested his head against the bars once more. "What do you want with me?" He asked, mostly to himself.

"He won't tell you nothin'. No of 'em will."

Adam looked in the direction of the new voice. After a few moments of concentrating, he could just make out the shape of another person imprisoned a few cages down. He continued staring until he could make the man out better. He was a bulky man covered in cuts, bruises and scars. His left eye was almost swollen shut and his right was bloodshot. He looked like he was in one of the worst bar fights in history.

"Who are you?"

"Name's Lucas. What's yours?"

"Adam."

"Adam, what day is it?"

"Excuse me?"

"The day. What is it?"

"Friday."

"What number? What month?"

"May. The seventh."

Lucas' body sagged under the weight of that information.

"How long have you been here?"

"Almost two months."

"Months?"

"Yeah. You're the first one human I've seen since I came here. Hadn't heard one of them speak English before either."

"If you call that speaking. It sounded like a tape recorder vomiting."

"When they talk to themselves it sounds like chirping."

"Have you figured out what they're saying?"

"Nope. They don't really talk too much. And when they do..." Lucas trailed off. Adam had been so relieved to see another human face but all that comfort washed away with the vague ending to that sentence.

Adam looked around the room, he still couldn't make out much of the room. "We are we? What the hell is this place?"

"It's where we're going to die."

The cold desperation in Lucas' voice worked further to disillusion Adam. He slowly lowered himself to one knee and lowered his voice. "What did they do to you?" Lucas remained quiet and Adam worried that he had offended or scared Lucas. As he realized that whatever horror had befallen Lucas was no doubt about to happen to him. The silence grew within Adam.

"I... I don't know," Lucas finally stuttered. He continued, gaining some confidence as he went. "They make you kind of black out so all you get is fragments. A twinge of light, a whiff of something burning. The only thing that you have with you is the pain. It's all you've got to hang on to." Lucas stopped abruptly and looked away from Adam. Adam kept staring at him. He knew that he shouldn't but he couldn't help himself. He hoped Lucas would say something else, something to put this whole experience into perspective.

"What do they want with us?"

"I've no clue. But if they brought you in it means that I ain't giving them what they were looking for. And since they got about a dozen more cages in here, I guess they're willing to keep looking until they got what they want." Adam looked around, he could just barely make out two cages besides the ones that he and Lucas were in. He guessed that his eyes hadn't finished adjusting to the darkness yet.

"Do you think that they--"

A rattle makes Adam stop mid-sentence. Lucas put his hands over his ears and turned away.

"They're coming," he muttered.

"Lucas, how do they--?"

Adam's words are cut off as his body becomes rigid once more. He fell to the ground, limp. "Lucas," Adam muttered with great effort. Lucas didn't respond. Adam began to feel the familiar tingle begin in his feet. With difficulty, he managed to turn his head enough to look over at Lucas. All he could was Lucas' back. "Lucas," he muttered again. Again, Lucas didn't respond.

Adam's body disappeared from the room, leaving Lucas alone with his tears and prayers.
---

Adam's body rematerialized in another darkened room, this one had a gleaming metal operating table sitting in a pool of light in the middle of the room. Dark figures moved around the table. Adam looked up and could see the faces of these figures by the light reflected off the table. All the figures looked similar to Rohm and at first Adam couldn't tell the difference between any of them. Adam's eyes frantically searched the room. He began wiggling, trying to get off the table. His chest rose as he tried to sit up.

On of the aliens placed a thin blue hand on his chest and gently pushed him back down onto the table. Adam found himself amazed at the strength in that hand. Adam began to notice differences in the faces, slight differences in the slope of the forehead, the shape of the eyes, et cetera.

A deep wet sound echoed through the room followed by a ripping pain in Adam's belly. That's when Adam blacked out.
---

Lucas lied on the floor of his cell. He was doing what he did most of the time over the past seven weeks, trying to remember who he was and those who were close to him. He'd once read about how Holocaust survivors had spent most of their time either remembering or fantasizing. He'd spent the first few days fantasizing. At first, his fantasies were elaborate; he killed his attackers, returned home where his ex-wife was glad to see him. The whole town had felt an absence in their lives, the drugstore where he used to work begged him to come back. After a few days of that, he found his fantasies becoming simplier and simpler: a picnic in a field, sleeping in his own bed, his son's laughing at one of his bad jokes. Soon even that became too much for him He was aware that he'd probably never leave here alive so he felt that it was cruel to imagine something that he knew could never happen again.

He turned to memories. His favorite, the one he turned to the most often was the birth of his son. He was at work when his wife called him to tell him that her contractions had started. He ran home and picked his wife up and then scurried to the hospital. He was a month and a half early and the entire pregnancy had been fraught with difficulty and even a scare when the baby showed an anomaly during an ultrasound. He and his wife had spent the entire pregnancy waiting to hear something had gone wrong. When the baby was born after only a few hours of labor and was healthy, Lucas was relieved. In fact the baby was the healthiest premature baby that the doctor had ever seen.

That wasn't the only memory he visited. The day he proposed to his wife, the day he bowled a perfect game and the day he lost his virginity were also in heavy rotation.

His reminisicing was cut short when Adam rematerialized on his cell floor. He lied in a lump, his body occasionally twitching and jerking. Lucas looked over at Adam, his eyes full of sympathy and compassion. The jerking continued growing in intensity. Lucas wondered if this is how he had looked when he came back from the first operation, did he look so vulnerable and weak? Adam began making a low moan.

Shhhh. Shhhh. It's okay. It's over." Adam's body continued to jerk despite Lucas' attempt to comfort him. "Don't worry, Adam. It'll be alright in a little while. You just got to tough it out."

As if heeding Lucas' words, Adam's body began to calm, the twitching became less violent. Lucas watched as Adam lied still on the floor, a small puddle of drool forming by his mouth. Adam's eyes stared off into space. Lucas stared at the incapacitated Adam.

"Christ, I need a cigarette," Lucas grumbled.
---

Britney knew the law. You can't report someone missing for forty-eight hours. The police have that rule to try and keep superheroes' identities secret as well as not to clog the missing persons department. Ever since the police department started hiring empaths to help out on certain cases, most particularly on missing person cases, the success rate of finding runaways and kidnapped victims skyrocketed from 38% to 96%.

Originally, the police had brought in telepaths to help in interrogations but after the ACLU raised holy Hell about the invasion of private rights and the Supreme Court agreed, telepaths were banned from doing any police work. Many were curious a few years later when police decided to try empaths, wondering if the police were following the letter of the law but no the spirit. Unlike a telepath who can read a person's mind, an empath can only read a person's emotions. Since the empaths were only used for missing person cases and for working crime scenes, the Supreme Court this time found that "as emotions are visible to the naked eye and can be read by a trained psychologist, empathic investigators are not directly violating anyone's right to privacy." With the Supreme Court's blessing, police forces across America began soliciting empaths to come and work for them.

Britney was aware of all this and that's why she waited. She tried to distract herself all day. She started watching television but found her mind wandering. Books, magazines and movies didn't get her either. She jogged for a while but when she came back to the apartment and Sean was still missing her heart sank. That night she slept fitfully. She kept dreaming she was stuck in amber, unable to move, frozen in a sticky prison that she couldn't get out of. She felt impotent.

She called in sick to work the next day and sat at home, watching the clock. She figured the last time she saw Adam was at ten o'clock before she went to bed (she'd decided to use that time instead of when she woke up and noticed he was missing) so she was counting down until then. At five o'clock something inside her snapped and she realized she couldn't wait another second. She grabbed her coat and car keys and then headed out the door.

The station was full that night. Apparently, Captain America had broken up a drug ring. He'd personally defeated two dozen drug runners. He'd called the police and they'd come and picked everyone up. Now they were bringing them in droves and slowly pushing them through central booking. Despite Britney's desperation she was going to have to wait. After several hours of waiting, she was finally allowed to go to the desk where the desk sergant should've been sitting. Of course, the desk sergant had decided to take a cigarette break after booking so many people in such a short time. Filling in for the desk sergant was Officer Chris Gillman.

Officer Gillman had been an officer of the law for the past six years. He'd joined the force fresh out of high school because his father had been a police officer and he lacked any direction in his life. He took to the job well enough and soon came to hope that he'd make detective when the time came to take the test. His mother was proud of him and had hoped to see him do well. Unfortunately, she never got to. Late one night driving home from a friend's house, she got into a car wreck and died.

His mother's death, however tragic, was not why Officer Gillman was in a bad mood that night. He'd just spent the last two hours trying to force a supervillian named the Slug into a holding tank. Chris had discovered that the Slug was not just a colorful nickname but instead was an apt description of the man's personal appearance and abilities. Chris then had to spend the remainder of the time cleaning up a trail of slime left behind by the Slug. When the desk sergant asked if he could cover for him, he leapt at the chance. Bad moods, however, sometimes are as hard to get rid of as a smelly slime is to get off of one's uniform.

When Britney Green walked up to his desk, all of Chris Gillman's tension melted away.

"I need to file a missing persons report. My boyfriend's missing." Chris' heart sank.

"Yes, ma'am. Has the person been missing for forty-eight hours?"

"No, but," she looked at her watch, "it's been forty-five and I'm just about to go out of my mind. Can't you just start looking now?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Look, he's been missing for a while and his mother seems convinced that he's never coming back. What would be the harm in starting a few hours early?" Britney flashed a pleading smile. Chris could tell she was concerned but that didn't change his position any.

"Ma'am, do you have any idea what kind of trouble I'd get in if my supervisor found out I wasn't following procedure."

"Look... I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Officer Gillman. Chris." He offered a good natured grin.

"Look, Chris. If you're girlfriend went missing wouldn't you want to start looking for her right away? Wouldn't you not be able to sleep until you knew she was alright?" Britney's warmth and sincere desperation touched Chris. He knew that he couldn't fudge the time because Mesmero, their resident empathy, would know he was lying. Chris figured that he could convince Mesmero to start looking just a hair early. He'd played poker with the man and seemed like a decent enough guy.

"I suppose I might be able to bend the rules, just a little."

"Thank you. Thank you so much," Britney said. She seemed to be breathing easier. Chris hadn't noticed how tense she was until he saw her relax. If he hadn't been sure he going to help her before he'd have been more than determined now.

"This way," Chris motioned for Britney to follow him. The desk sergant was going to be pissed, Chris was sure but since the sergant shouldn't have been on a smoke break he was also sure that the he wouldn't turn Chris in. He walked down the hall, Britney followed close behind him.

"I don't have one," Chris said a matter-of-factly.

"Excuse me?"

"A girlfriend. Don't have one. Not by choice, I just don't really have the oppertunity to meet many nice girls, you know?" Chris was babbeling now and he knew it. He kept trying to stop, to wrap things up but he just kept chugging along.

"It can be tough. You're a good looking guy, you'll manage." Chris smiled at Britney's compliment. "What's that smell?" She asked. Chris, realizing she was noticing the Slug's slime on him, decided to change the subject briskly.

"Here's missing persons." He points at a door that is indeed marked as "MISSING PERSONS." Chris opened the door and holds it open for Britney as she walks through it.

Britney was struck by how tiny and poorly lit the office was. The room was bare except for a desk, an open chair opposite the desk and a mini-fridge with a television perched on top of it. Sitting behind the desk was a small man with a piercing gaze. This was Mesmero. He was puffing on a cigarette and watching Judge Judy shout at a metamorph who had once stolen a man's wife by pretending to be him. Mesmero turned as the two entered his office.

"Gillman? What are you doing here?"

"She's filed a missing person's report," Chris jerked a thumb at Britney.

"So why isn't Gomez bringing her in? And why the hell do you feel so guilty?"

"Well, techinically she can't file the report for another couple of hours. I thought that maybe we could--"

"Subvert protocol?" Mesmero interrupted. "Why? For some piece of ass you're hoping to impress?"

"Look, Mesmero," Chris almost barked. He was beginning to get testy. He knew that he was asking for a favor but Mesmero didn't have to make it so hard for him. "She's got to find her boyfriend and we both know that the more time that passes means that less a chance we have of finding him all in one piece."

Chris heard a gasp behind him. "Oh God," he heard Britney mutter. He knew that he was upsetting her but this was the only way he knew to press Mesmero into action. If he made Britney upset and anxious enough then he'd be making Mesmero feel upset and anxious too.

"If we start searching now maybe we can find him while there is still a chance. Who knows if he's lying somewhere in a pool of his own blood, gasping for breath and trying to shout for help." Chris thought he heard Britney begin to softly sob behind him. He couldn't think about it. He was trying to help her, he kept telling himself. "Or maybe he's being held somewhere, beaten and broken."

"Stop!" Mesmero and Britney shouted at the same time.

"Alright, Gillman." He motioned for Britney to sit down in the open chair. "Please sit down." Britney dabbed at her eyes as she crossed the room and sat down. "I swear Gillman, don't you ever pull this crap again. It's unprofessional." Mesmero turned to face Britney.

"So what do I do?"

"Just sit back and think of the missing person." Mesmero put his cigarette down on a crowded ashtray. He reached out and took a hold of Britney's hand. He clenched his eyes shut, then opened them wide. To be honest, Britney was let down. She was expeticing more of a show. Not the floating head of Oz or anything but something a little more flashy.

"I'm sorry miss. Your friend is dead."

Britney sat in shock for a moment. Mesmero let go of her hand and picked his cigarette back up. He took a drag and let the information sink in. "Dead?" She finally asked. "He can't be dead," she said with more certainity.

Mesmero looked at Britney with great indignity. "Listen, honey," Mesmero spat out. "I'm a class A empath. Do you know what that means?" Britney timidly shook her head. "It means that if your boytoy were unconcious in Singapore, I'd at least have a twitch. But this? I ain't got nothing on this guy. That's what it means." Mesmero looked at Britney for a moment; she was sitting in stunned silence. Mesmero took another puff off his cigarette before asking, "You're not gonna cry, are you? Cause I can leave if you're gonna cry."

"I'm fine," Britney said in a terse forced way that indicated she was not fine but that she did not want to be questioned any further on the matter. She stood up slowly and gracefully. "You're wrong."

Mesmero shrugged. "Hey, whatever you gotta tell yourself so you can sleep at night." Britney stared at him, unsure of how to react. She turned and stormed out of the room. Chris eyed Mesmero.

"You're such a dick."

"Hey, I was doing you a favor. Say," he asked, "you got a smoke on you?"

"No. You know you shouldn't do that. It's bad for your health."

"Nah," said Mesmero with a dismissive wave of his hand, "I got a clairvoyant friend who swears I don't need to worry about it. Kinda ominous I admit but I choose to see the silver lining."

"Is your friend usually right?"

"Oh yeah. You should see his stock portfolio."
---

Any psychiatrist would've told you that Britney should've gone home and begun the grieving process. What many people who've lost a close loved one would have guessed she actually did, she went to a bar instead. After her third drink, when she demanded the bartender just leave the bottle, he decided to ask her to leave. The second bar of the evening found her little better and when she described the bartender's mother in a lewd and quite detailed manner, she was once again exiled.

She was driving to her third bar of the evening when she decided to take up smoking again. She'd smoked like a chimney in high school but forced herself to quit during college (she'd found she couldn't afford the habit). She'd always prided herself on quitting but she now found that she didn't care. At that moment she didn't care about much of anything. She'd loved Adam and he loved her, of that she was sure. She's thought she'd marry him. That they'd have kids and then someday, a few decades down the line, play bridge together in a retirement home in Florida. She wanted the whole shebang.

She stumbled out of the 7-11 clutching her newly purchased pack of cigarettes (God, they were even more expensive than when she quit) and a lighter. She sat on the hood of her car and tried and tried to steady herself. She had tried to use her teeth to tear the cellophane off the pack of cigarettes. She removed one of the thin sticks and put it in her mouth. After a few moments spent negotiating the child proof lock on the lighter and mastering the distance between the flame and the end of the cigarette, she took a moment to enjoy her success and take a few puffs of the cigarette.

She got up off the hood and got into her car. She look for her car keys in her urse for a minute before she realized that she'd left them in the ignition. She started the car up and got back on the road. She decided to head to a bar she knew that was nearby. It was a bit of a dive and she suspected them of watering down their drinks but a girl will trade in a lot to get a good booze on.

Of course she'd already had more than enough to drink. She wasn't willing to admit it because she still felt hurt and a touch empty inside. Even though she wasn't aware of how drunk she was, the cop car she sped past could tell quite easily. He turned on his lights and followed her for a bit. Britney glared up at her rearview mirror. Her shoulders sagged and she began pulling over to the side of the road.

"Fuck."

After what felt like an eternity, the cop finally saddled up to the side of the car.

"Do you know how fast you were going?"

"You caught up to me, didn't you? I couldn't have been going that fast."

"Eighty in a fifty-five."

"Damn. Well, let me have my ticket," she extended her hand to receive the ticket.

"Have you been drinking, ma'am?" The cop eyed Britney who was having trouble sitting up straight. If there was ever a question that didn't need to be asked, it was this one.

"Yes. Yes I have."

"Can I get you to step out of the car?" The cop opened the car door. Britney looked at the officer and then the open door.

"Okey-dokey." She pushed herself up and got out of the car. As she stepped out of the car, her foot got caught on her seat belt and she fell flat on her face. She pushed herself up from the pavement and looked up at the cop. "Does this mean I failed the sobriety test?"

"Come with me, ma'am"The cop helped her to her feet and began escorting her to the back of his police car.

"What about my car?"

"A tow truck will get it."

He opened the car door and helped her in. After he shut the door behind her, she waved at her car. "Bye car. I miss you." Britney blew a kiss at her car as the police officer drove off.
---

Adam was coming to. His eyes opened and slowly gained focus. He groaned and blinked several times.

"Ah. You're still alive," Lucas said. "I wouldn't move too much if I were--" He was cut off by the sound of Adam retching. He had decided to roll over and had immeadiately discovered it was a bad idea. "Told you," Lucas said.

"What," Adam asked wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "did they do to me?"

"Same thing they did to me. I tell you, they better hope they kill me. If I ever get out of here... Jesus."

Adam tried to sit up very slowly. He was aware of an extreme nausea and when he went to touch his stomach he found a small cauterized wound. He began coughing blood. He looked down at his blood smeared hand in disgust. He didn't know what they'd done to him but he definitely knew he did not appreciate it. He also didn't know how long he could do this.

"How do you do it? How do you not go crazy?"

"My kid," Lucas responded simply. He added, "You got any kids?" Adam shook his head "Well, I do. James Robert Lovell. He's tiny." He paused, reflecting on this son for a moment. "I can still pick him up. I remember when I used to be able to hold him in one arm from elbow to palm." He took a breath, "His mother, well... we don't talk anymore. To be honest, that's for the best. But whenever I lose hope, I think of him. For him I can be strong. For him, I can do anything.

Adam smiled at the warmth and compassion of his cellmate. He never really knew his own father, he had died when Adam was very young. He'd always dreamed that he had that kind of devotion, though. That he'd have been a great father to Adam if fate hadn't cruelly intervened. He also envied this man's resource of strength and worried that when called to task, he would not fare as well.

"I don't think I'm as strong as you."

"You'll be as strong as you have to be." With that Lucas laid down and rolled over. Adam could only assume he had gone to sleep. He couldn't imagine falling asleep right now but he supposed that Lucas knew something that he didn't. Perhaps it was like a camel, drinking whenever it could because it didn't know when there'd be another oasis in the desert. So he laid down and closed his eyes. He had feared the pain would keep him awake but he found his exhaustion helped.

His mind began to slow and then he drifted off to sleep. That night he'd dream of the night he made love to Britney for the first time. They'd both had a few glasses of wine so it was a little slow going and there were some giggles on both sides but later on in the evening he remembered feeling like the two of them fit. Not in a physical way, despite Adam's lack of much sexual experience, he understood everyone fit together in purely physical way. No, he felt like he'd found another part of himself. It was as if he'd had a Britney shaped hole in himself and he'd never even known it until he found her. When he awoke the first morning after they made love he was more aware of that hole than he'd ever been in his whole life.

Of course, left alone with Lucas up on this floating spaceship, being experimented on by unknown people for an unknown purpose, he began to wonder if he'd ever see Britney again and what she was doing at that very moment.
---

The arresting officer was leading a stumbling Britney into the station. The two walked by Chris. She was in no place to recognize him but, fortunately for her, he did recognize her. "Hey, Alderman!" Chris shouted. The police officer looked over his shoulder in the direction of the voice. "What you doing?" Chris walked over to where the two were standing.

"Got a DUI to process."

"I'm actually heading up there. You want me to take her?"

"Be my guest. This one ain't been a barrel of laughs." Chris grabbed her by the hand as the officer let go of her other arm. The cops nodded to Chris and walked off. Chris leaned in close to Britney.

"C'mon, let's get you in the drunk tank."

"I don't want to go to the drunk tank," she said a little too loudly and she gave him a solid shove. Chris looked around to ensure that no one was noticing.

"Trust me, it's gonna be for the best." Chris looked her in the eyes. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes," she said sullenly.

"Then follow me." Chris led her down the hallways to the holding cells. He opened one up and helped her to the bed inside. She sat down on the edge. "Just wait here. When my shift ends, I'll take you back to your place." Chris stood up and helped her lay down. He swung her legs around so she was stretched out on the prison cot. He turned and began to walk out of the cell.

"Chris?"

"Yeah?" He stopped and turned around.

"Thanks," she said weakly.

"Don't mention it. Just get some sleep. I'll be back in a couple of hours." And with that, Chris left, shutting the cage door behind him.
---

Adam awoke in his cell alone. Lucas was gone. He wondered if he was being experimented on or if he was dead. He then wondered which one he hoped had happened to him. Adam waited, unsure of how much time was passing but very aware that it was passing slowly. Finally, Lucas reappeared in his cell. His whole body seemed to be convulsing and ever after he got enough control of his body to sit up, he was still shaking. Tears seemed to be welling up in his eyes.

"What is it?" Adam asked, concerned.

"My hands," Lucas responded. Adam looked down at Lucas' hands and they seemed to never stay still. "They won't stop shaking. I can't... I can't do anything to make them stop." Lucas pressed his hands hard against the floor but still they trembled. Adam looked on with concern and pity.

"I think the bastards are really getting bloodthirsty." Lucas looked up at Adam. "Tell me something. Anything. I just gotta get my mind off of this."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't care!" snapped Lucas.

"Well, I got a girlfriend named Britney. I've been thinking about her a lot lately."

"You think she's the one?"

"Oh yeah. As soon as I'm outta here," he paused. He had though about saying 'if I get out of here' but he couldn't bear to give up that hope. Lucas noticed the pause but let it go by quietly. "I'm gonna marry her. That day. I'm driving us to a Justice of the Peace and doing it."

"I envy you that. I ain't got no one to go back to."

"You got your son."

"I do," Lucas sighed, "When I can see him. His mother... his mother doesn't like me much. She and her new husband, they moved to Portland. It's been hard for him to keep having to commute."

"How often do you see your son?"

"Well, he stays at their place in Portland over the school year and mine during the summer. But as he's gotten older, he wants to stay where his friends are during the summer. You know how kids are."

"You could move to Portland."

Lucas chuckled. "I could. Tell you what, if I ever get out of here, I'll do it."

There was a momentary pause between them. Adam was afraid that Lucas might start to worry about himself again. So he decided to press the matter, to find out more about Lucas' life pre-abduction.

"What did you do before all this?"

Lucas paused. "Stocks. I worked on Wall Street. What about you? What did you do before all this?" There was a tension in Lucas' voice but Adam decided not to press the matter.

"I worked at Kid's Vids, it's a kid's videostore.

"I know that store. I used to take Jim there all the time. In fact, one time there was this guy dressed up like this lizard and all the kids went apeshit. I think one of Jim's friends kicked the poor guy in the crotch." Lucas laughed at the memory, then abrubtly stopped. "That wasn't you, was it?"

Adam smiled.
"No, it was my boss." The two men laugh.

Deep in the shadows, in a place to dark to be seen by the human eye, a pair of alien eyes watched the two men. They particularly stared at Adam.
---

Britney was sleeping fitfully on the cot. Sunlight had begun to stream in through the barred windows above her head. Chris opened the cage door and walked into the cell. He was no longer wearing his uniform, since he was off the clock he had changed into his civilian clothes. He wore a loose pair of jeans and a snug T-shirt that showed off how frequently he went to the gym. He leaned over Britney and gently shook her. She rolled tightly into the fetal position.

"Hey, time to go home."

Britney rolled over and blinked at the light. She covered her eyes, hoping that whatever was causing the pounding in her head would stop soon. She tried to say 'hello' to Chris but it came out as a guttural unintelligible noise.

"You up for some breakfast?"

"Sure," Britney was able to force out.

Chris helped her to her feet and out to his car. The car ride was long and awkward. He had thought about taking her to a small restaurant near the station but realized that taking her to a cop hangout might not be the best option. In the end he decided that a greasy spoon a little further up the road was a much better choice. When they pulled up into the parking lot, Britney made a face. Chris stopped the car and looked over at her.

"You feeling alright?"

"I'm fine," she replied staring at the diner. He glanced at the diner and then back at Britney.

"Is this place alright?" He asked, concern deep in his voice.

Britney had eaten at that diner before with Adam. He had always loved to go to the greasiest, dingiest diners that he could. He had often joked that grease was the sixth and often over-looked part of the food group. He had found this diner and brought Britney to it when he returned.

Despite the fact that it was only his second visit, all the waitresses and people manning the grills seemed to know him. He'd stop and ask one of the waitresses how her daughter was liking college, ask the man working the cash register if he'd managed to get his washer fixed or if he just broke down and bought a new one. He seemed to really enjoy everyone there and they seemed to like him. She remembered feeling out-of-place, like an outsider brought in as part of a joke. When she thought about it now, she found it comforting. Adam was welcome here. How many people can say that?

"It's fine," she said and opened her car door. Chris followed after her. Britney had decided not to burden Chris with all this information. She thought that all he had done was been nice and supportive to her, she shouldn't burden him with all these thoughts and feelings that she had going on. To be honest, she wasn't even quite sure what she was thinking and feeling, as everything seemed to change with every passing moment. She was all jumbled up inside, like a jigsaw puzzle just waiting for someone else to figure it out.

They went inside and sat down in a booth. A waitress walked over to them, she stared at Britney for a moment as if trying to place her. She then looked over at Chris. She shook her head slightly. Britney knew that the waitress had associated her with Adam and so no longer recognized her now that she had a new guy with her. She wanted to shout out, 'you know me! I'm Adam's girl!' but felt that it was inappropriate. Maybe she wanted to be acknowledged, to feel like she was a person. You could've asked her but she wouldn't have been able to tell you herself.

"What can I get for ya?" The waitress asked as she pulled a pad of paper out from a pocket. She eyed the two, not knowing who would order first.

"Coffee. Black," Chris ordered.

"Make that two," Britney meekly chimed in. The waitress slipped the paper back in her pocket. She'd been doing this too long to need to write down when two people just wanted coffee. The waitress left and the two sat in silence for a moment. The waitress returned with two white porcelain cups full of a dark coffee.

"Thank you," Chris said and nodded to the waitress who turned and walked off.

Britney was the first one to break the awkward silence. "I didn't mean to get that drunk. I..." she trailed off.

"It's alright." Chris reached across the table and put his hand on top of Britney's. She didn't take it away despite the fact that she felt she should. She liked feeling the touch, knowing that there was someone there, someone across the table. That she wasn't alone.

"No. No, it's not. I just didn't know what else to do. You know, it would've been better if he was struck by lighting or left me for someone else. This way I don't know what happened and I'll probably never know. I just feel so trapped."

"You probably don't want to hear this but something similar happened to me once." Chris offered up. He always hated it when he wanted to grieve and someone else tried to put his grief in perspective by telling a story about themselves. It was as if they were denying him his right to grieve. So he paused for a moment to allow Britney the chance to ignore or encourage him.

"Really?" She asked. Chris was a little surprised by Britney's interest but he shouldn't have been. She desperately wanted, even needed, to have her problem put into some kind of perspective.

"Yeah. I was dating this girl. Turns out she was a spike," he stopped when he saw the questioning look in Britney's eyes. "I mean super," he corrected himself. "Spike is what we call them."

"Why a spike?" Cindy asked. She'd never heard that. Part of her was thrilled at getting a sneak peek behind the scenes, another part of her wondered if it was a rude or even obscene nickname. The type of dark humor that cops sometimes come up with mutter only among themselves in the middle of the night, far from the sensitive ears of civilians.

"There's a test to find supers. It's called and EPKG. They plug this little monitor thing on you and it prints out a line reading. If there is a spike in the reading that means the person is emitting more energy and is a super. We got to give everyone we book a EPKG to see whether or not they need to be put in a special holding cell."

"I've never heard that one."

"I don't think it's as catchy, maybe. Also, some supers don't trip the reading so it might not be so accurate."

"So who was the spike you were dating?"

"The Extinguisher."

"You dated the Extinguisher?" Britney asked in awe. The Extinguisher, while never a huge player on the superhero scene, was still pretty big news. She was a young, fairly attractive woman with the ability to create flame blasts. Her powers were not as strong and her face as not as striking as some of her peers which was why she wasn't a super-powered cover girl (she never graced the cover of Maxim or Flight). She was, however, plucky and determined so she was well respected in the super community. Her disappearance a year previous had actually increased her popularity.

"I didn't know it at the time," Chris said. "She did keep getting these bruises and showing up late but I always thought she was just clumsy and a scatterbrain". Britney laughed at Chris and he allowed a small smile. He was always amused at the situation when he looked back at it. He once joked with his partner that that year and a half would have made for a great sitcom.

"You're not very observant for a cop, are you?" Britney said with a chuckle.

"I was in love. I didn't care if she was a spike or a baseline," Chris said with a tongue-in-cheek defensive tone. Chris realized that he'd used another cop word and was worried that he was coming off as snooty or arrogant. "A baseline is a person who's not a super," Chris offered.

"I was able to figure that one out," Britney responded.

"You are a smart one."

"So what went wrong?" Britney asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Your girlfriend," she emphasized the word as if she was teasing a sixth grader about going to a school dance. "What went wrong between you?"

"Well, she disappeared," Chris answered. Britney's face fell. She had been enjoying being let in on the cop lingo and the story about a super-powered hero. She was reminded that she was out with Officer Gillman because of what had happened to Adam. Chris went on, "That's how I found out who she was. I was at home eating cereal in my boxers when there's a knock on my door. So I think it's, like the post office or a girl scout or something. So I go and open the door. Captain United's on the other door."

"Captain United saw you in your boxers?" Britney asked in disbelief. She was once again sucked into Chris' story.

"Yeah. I was so in awe of him that I didn't have time to be embarressed. So he tells me that Jean was actually the Extinguisher and that some of the Revengers were on a mission in some alternate dimension or something and that some of them got left behind. He said there was very little chance she'd ever make it back.

"He gave me her cape. I don't know if it was the one she was wearing or some extra she had stashed somewhere. The whole thing was so weird, you know? To have this cape, folded like it was the American flag and she'd been a causality in some war."

"So that's what happened to her and to Spectacle?"

'Yeah. I didn't know what to do for the longest time. I never got to say goodbye and I wasn't prepared for it, I mean, she never told me who she was. It came out of nowhere."

"I'm surprised you didn't come out after it was all done. Give an interview. Try to catch your fifteen minutes of fame."

"It didn't interest me," Chris answered. "I loved her. I was still trying to figure the whole thing out, you know? I kept asking myself, was she ever gonna tell me? Where we gonna be together forever? I just didn't know. Besides, I didn't know her biggest secret so how well did I really know her?

The two sat in silence. The waitress returned and refilled their coffee mugs. Britney sipped from her mug and then put it down. She pushed it away from her and looked out the window.

"Is that guy at the station, the one I talked to..." Britney trailed off. She couldn't remember if she'd ever been told his name. If she had been told, time and alcohol had worked to erase the name from her memory.

"Mesmero," Chris prompted.

"Right," Britney responded, nodding. "Is Mesmero ever wrong?" She looked over at Chris, her eyes large and juicy. Chris took a sip from his coffee and gathered his thoughts before he decided what to say.

"That's a rough one. I mean, is he a dick? Without question," Chris said. He was hoping for a laugh, for some kind of sense of comradery, that he was being nice and considerate. Britney didn't respond. He hadn't answered her question. He cleared his throat and continued. "Is he ever wrong? I've never seen it. I'm not saying he couldn't be, but he hasn't been yet."

Britney starts crying into her hands.

"Look, how about I take you home now?" Chris asked.

"Please," Britney said quietly.

Britney and Chris stand up. Chris pulls out his wallet and throws some cash down on the table. The two walk out.

The car ride was uneventful. Chris had offered to take Britney home because he felt that she had needed someone to give her a shoulder to cry on (not to mention the sheer logistical problem of her car having been towed). He was not surprised that he was attracted to her because he had been attracted to her from the first moment he saw her in the police station. What he was caught off guard by was the fact that he felt he was falling in love with her. He was enjoying all the small things about her that only a person in love can appreciate: her gentle smile, the way her hair fell in her face and she had to brush it aside.

Britney and Chris continued a cordial conversation, Britney kept giving him directions. The directions weren't the best but they got him going in the right direction. Due to her vagueness, he knew that he was on her street but didn't know which house was her's. He eventually slowed down and stopped outside the house that he thought it was.

"This you?"

Britney looked over at the apartment building. "Yep. This is me," she nodded.

Chris sat behind the wheel, looking over at Britney. She eyed him carefully for a moment then looked at the apartment building.

"Would you mind walking me in?" Britney asked.

"Sure. No problem," he responded. He turned the car off and unlocked his door. He got out and went around to open her door for her. He offered her his hand to help her out of the car and she accepted it polietely. He offered her his arm to help walk her, she hesitated at first.

She didn't need to arm to steady her but she wanted the comfort she thought it'd bring. Then she worried about Adam and she found herself frozen, paralyzed by overanalyzing. She decided to take it. She was surprised by how warm and comforting she found him to be. She walked close to him, she enjoyed the feeling of a person next to her. All night she couldn't help but be tormented by nightmares of loss and lonliness, she was trying to shake it off without much success. Having him beside her helped her forget what she was dealing with.

When they got to the door, Britney opened it and the two walked in. She came and deep down, in a part she wouldn't even admit to herself, she had expected to find Adam sitting on the couch, wearing that Major Pain T-shirt that she hated (and once hid until he got so sad that she had to give it back) or watching the Red Sox lose or talking on the phone. The apartment was dark and cold.

"Well, I'd better get going."

"Would you like a glass of water?" Britney turned to face him. She asked him because she wanted to repay his kindness. At least, that's what she told herself. What she really wanted was to not be left alone.

"I'm good, thanks."

"Maybe a cup of coffee?"

"Alright. Coffee," Chris relented. He didn't particularly want any coffee but he could tell that she wanted him to have something and he felt it rude to turn down your host if they really wanted you to do something.

Britney walked into the kitchen while Chris sat down on the couch. Britney returned to the room.

"I just put the coffee maker on. It should be ready in a minute."

The silence returned. Chris decided that maybe it was time he left; that his presence was what was making things feel awkward. He turned to face Britney. She leaned closer towards him, her bottom lip quivering just the smallest amount. At first, Chris didn't know what she was doing. Then her lips touched his.

The kiss might have started off demure but it grew in intensity and passion. Chris put his hand on her neck, cradling her head. Her hand went to his chest. Neither one of them was thinking, only feeling.

That was until the coffee maker beeped. The two broke off their kiss and stood up from the couch.

"Maybe I should just go," Chris offered.

"No. Please, stay. You haven't had your coffee yet." With that Britney left the room and headed into the kitchen. Chris could hear her puttering around in there, getting down glasses and getting out spoons. He thought for a moment about just leaving. He couldn't bring himself to do it because here was a woman who just lost her boyfriend and he couldn't imagine her losing yet another person when she went to go get coffee. Also, he couldn't say that he didn't want another kiss. He cursed himself and returned to his seat on the couch.

Britney returns with two cups of coffee in her hand. She hands on to Chris who takes it graciously. "Thanks," he said and took a sip. It was horrible coffee but he wasn't going to complain. He looked over at her and noticed that her hand was shaking, the dark liquid threatening to spill out.

Chris put his own cup down on the coffee table and then reached over and took her mug away from her. She kissed him again, softly and sweetly on his lips. He enjoyed for a moment longer than he thought he should before he broke it off.

"I should probably go," Chris said reluctantly.

"Please," Britney whispered. "Please don't. I need to feel something; something other than this empty feeling inside me. If I don't, I might go crazy." She was on the verge of tears.

She put her hand on his cheek and leaned in to kiss him again. The two begin kissing passionately. Neither of them spoke for the next hour.
---

Once again Adam found himself on the operating table. He had discovered that the frequency of his visits did not make the experience any easier on him. What was bad was that he seemed to be building up a pain tolerance for he wasn't blacking out as easily and so was forced to be semi-concious while they operated on him.

At that moment, he couldn't tell what they were doing to him but what he felt was a tightness in his chest, as if a very large, very stupid dog had decided to perch on him. There also was an extreme burning sensation that seemed to start in one poair of his fingertips, run up his arm, jumped across his chest to the other arm and all the way down to his other fingertips. It was as if someone had doused his nerve endings in kerosene and set them ablaze.

He didn't know why he wasn't screaming. He could feel the pain but whenever he tried to speak, nothing came out. It wasn't just the screams he was incapable of producing but actual words as well. Sometimes in his cell he thought up some particularly colorful remarks about the aliens' mothers but once he was brought in to the experiment room, he seemed to be rendered mute.

A face leaned close to his. It didn't strike him as odd in the moment because it happened so frequently. He assumed that they wanted to see if he had passed out or not. Because of its frequency, Adam was only half paying attention to the face that peered so intently at him. It took him a moment to realize that he recognized the face.

"Ruhe," Adam thought to himself. He had often wondered what the story behind that one alien had been. Why had he greeted Adam when he was brought in? It was the only alien that either Lucas or Adam had seen outside of the operating room not to mention be the only one who they heard speak English. Though the two men had never spoken of it both had thought often of their mysterious visitor.

Adam became determined to speak to him, to say something. The painful burn had moved from his arms to his legs but he didn't care. He just wanted to talk to the the person he thought of as his only ally among all of his captors.

Adam managed to open his mouth and get out a long guttural 'r' before he found he could once again no longer speak. Ruhe, who had stood up and was no longer peering so close to Adam, turned back to look at him. Ruhe's eyes searched Adam's face.

"Rrrr," Adam growled. He found he couldn't move his lips to form the words despite how desperately he wanted to. Again, he made the gutteral 'r' noise, this time so loud that Adam heard everyone in the room stop what they were doing. Adam managed to exhale and make a soft 'ew' sound as the air ran over his teeth and out through his lips.

While a gentle, almost too quiet, close phonetic pronounciation of Ruhe's name was not what Adam had in mind it did seem to do the trick. Ruhe looked at the others in the room. The aliens started franticaly speaking to each other (Adam found that Lucas was right, their language did seem like a high chirping although Adam could make out some clicking). Ruhe turned and left the room, the others chirping wildly after him. ONe of the aliens turned towards Adam and placed a hand over his eyes.

Adam was extremely interested in what was going on and had been trying to figure out what he had just witnessed. He was also trying to make mental notes so he could relate the story back to Lucas. So Adam was angry when the alien covered his eyes but not for long. Within moments of having his eyes covered, and despite his most sincere wishes, Adam fell deeply asleep.
---
FEBRUARY 19th, 2002

Adam hadn't seen Ruhe again since that day. He had wondered what had happened to him but he never lost any sleep over it. Ruhe was, after all, just an alien. Still, with so much time on his hands, he couldn't help but occasionally give a thought to the mysterious alien.

Despite the many months that had passed, Adam's overall lifestyle hadn't changed beyond the fact that Adam seemed to have grown used to being naked and no longer felt cold. He had tried to keep track of the days based when they were fed but as Lucas pointed out, there was no telling if they were getting fed five times a day or once a week. They went into the operating room so frequently and irregularly that that too was a bad way to measure the passage of time.

To help pas the time and to help deal with the pain of the operations, Adam began working out in his cell: push-ups, crunches, the whole bit. Adam had never really been an active person but with so little else to do it seemed like the best idea. It hurt a lot at first, Adam could feel the scar tissue that didn't want to stretch and sore muscles from earlier experiments. After a little bit, Adam adapted to the pain, he even began to like its focusing power. It reminded him that he was still alive and the actual workout helped him release some of his pent-up frustration and anger. Trying to follow his lead, Lucas had tried to workout alongside him but found he had neither the patience nor inclination to work through the pain.

At this point, Adam looked to be a very different man from the person who had been imprisioned all those months ago. A large and very full beard sat on his face instead of the smooth cheeked shave he'd had when he first came. His hair had grown out to match the long beard. Despite his lackluster diet of unknown slimy things (he didn't dare mention to Lucas but a part of him had actually begun to like the food), his physique was larger and more impressive. A deeper change had happened inside of him though. He felt stronger, more confident. In his dreams, he could take on any of the aliens and win.

He didn't know how or when but he knew the time would come when he'd make his move and make a break for it. He hadn't discussed this with Lucas but he felt as if the two of them had a silent agreement, a prisoner's understanding: keep your eyes open and be ready.
---

Britney sat in the chair closest to the window. She too had changed although not as drastically as Adam had. Her long dyed blonde hair had been cut short and returned to its natural brown. She'd also gained a little bit of weight, nothing shocking, just a pound or two here and an inch or two there. She put her hand on the cool glass window as she continued to gaze at the afternoon sky.

"Honey?"

She turned to back to the conversation. Chris and the florist were both looking at her expectantly. "What do you think?" She looked at the two pictures sitting on the desk. They were both huge assortments of flowers and they both looked beautiful. She shrugged.

Chris leaned over and tapped the photo on the right. "This is the one that I was leaning towards," he said helpfully. Britney leaned in closer and looked at the picture.

"It's lovely," she replied. "Let's do that one."

The florist smiled at them both. "Excellent choice," she said grinning like a shark who's just been fed. She picked both photos up and made a note to herself. She continued writing what Chris assumed was a detailed description of the floral arrangement he'd picked out but what was in actuality a grocery list for her to pick up after she got off work. The florist had found the busier she looked when she was with a client, the less they complained when she showed them her price.

Britney's gaze returned to the window. She'd only been planning her wedding for a week and a hald and she was already bored out her skull. Since neither of them had any living parents Britney and Chris were forced to fend for themselves. They'd booked Chris's church, spent hours making a guest list, they'd tasted cakes, listend to God awful wedding singer after God awful wedding singer (they eventually decided to just hire a DJ), they'd picked out invitations and registered for gifts. IT seemed to her that this wedding had become a living thing, an all consuming entity.

Chris had initially worried that Britney might become a Bridezilla, demanding everything be perfect on her special day. Instead it seemed that the longer it went on the more closed off she got. He had talked to her about post-poning the wedding because she seemed to be so out-of-it but she didn't want to hear it. She might be an unenthusastic bride but she still wanted to be a bride.

Britney stared out into space while Chris continued making plans. She wanted to help him out but felt herself distracted lately, her mind prone to wandering.
---

Adam found himself in the operating room once again. This time was different. Usually they experimented on him while they spoke to each other in those high chirping voices. This time they seemed to be circuling the table, occasionally poking him with one of their long bony fingers. They spoke quickly to each other. Adam had begun to hope that this might be it, that this time he wouldn't have to endure any more of the experiments. Perhaps, he hoped, they had discovered all they could and would just stop.

A jolt of pain followed by a sharp stabbing pain in his belly let him know it had been a foolish wish. He could still hear them clicking excitedly to each other but he was too distracted to notice they were far more talkative than normal. If he hadn't been wracked by pain and had spoken their language, he'd have been witness to some interesting conversation about him and his situation.

"He's coming along nicely," one of the aliens chirped in their native tongue.

"Do you think he will be the one?" One of them asked in response.

"The silentson shows better progress than we could have hoped."

"The other one is a lost cause?"

"No, but more drastic measures will be necessary."

"How long until this one is ready?"

"Soon."

"Do you think he will take to the assignment?"

"Let us ask Ruhe."

They all looked at Ruhe who was standing in the back of the room, well out of Adam's sight. "Yes, he will do fine," Ruhe said thoughtfully. "He is ambitous and will be grateful for his freedom." The others stood in silence for a moment. "I expect this one to do great things."

"He has the warrior spirit!" One of them piped up who up until now had remained silent.

"He is a true Nox!" Another of the formerly quiet people chimmed in. Ruhe looked at them with distaste. He disliked people who didn't make their feelings known until everyone else in the room had already spoken for it either showed lack of imagination or character and in some cases both. It was a belief that Ruhe held in common with Adam. The two of them could've talked about it or a variety of other things except for Adam's extreme pain and inability to speak their language. Besides, the next time that Ruhe and Adam would meet there would be bigger problems, such as where the gun was pointing.

Adam, after the current experiment was over, rematerilzed on the ground of his cell, convulsing. He was flailing about wildly and to steady himself he grabbed a hold of the bars in his cage. He felt the metal turn in his hand. Once he calmed down, Adam looked at where he had grabbed and indeed, distinct finger impressions could be seen in the bars. He looked down at his own hands and then back at the bars. An idea struck him. He looked around the room. Unlike when he first arrived, Adam could now see the entire room. He figured his eyes must've adjusted to the darkness. He saw no one other than Lucas in the giant room.

"Lucas," he whispered. Lucas stirred. He had been lying down, inside his own cell, staying pretty much motionless. Even after his name had been called, Lucas stayed pretty still.

"Yeah?" Lucas asked.

"I got an idea."

"What?"

Adam reaches out and grabs the bars. He squeezes, the bars give a high squeal as they start to bend. Lucas stares in awe.

"How are you doing that?"

Adam began to slowly pull the bars apart. "I have no idea."

Lucas grabbed his bars and began to strain as he attempted to pull the bars apart. The bars squeaked but didn't budge.
Adam's muscles bulged as the bars bent to a 90 degree angle.

Lucas continued to pull, his bars begin to give way. Adam's bars are open enough for him to crawl through and escape.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Adam said.

Adam stuck his leg through and went out of his cage. He walked over to Lucas' cage, where he was still trying hard
to bend his bars far enough to get through.

"You need a hand?" Adam asked as Lucas continued to strain with the effort.

"I got it."

Adam rolled his eyes, leaned over, and grabbed the bars to Lucas' cage. Adam gave them a quick tug and two bars come out in Adam's hands.

Lucas stared at him in awe. "How'd you do that?"

Adam looked down at the bars in his hands. "I don't know. Let's get out of here first, then we can try and figure it out."

Adam dropped the bars. They landed with a loud clang as they hit the ground. The two men turn and looked at the walls around them. Lucas ran over to one of the walls and began running his hand along it. He looked over his shoulder at Adam with desperation. "There's no door!"

Adam placed one of his hands against the wall. "Let's hope our luck hasn't run out."

"What are you talking ab-"

Adam punched through the wall with his other hand, causing a loud crash. Adam glanced at Lucas.

"C'mon!" Adam shouted as he stepped through the hole he'd just made and into the hallway outside. Lucas followed after him. The two men stepped through the hole and into the hallway. The duo looked around.

"Which way do we go?" Lucas asked, glancing towards Adam.

Adam shrugged. "Like I know. Let's just go this way and hope for the best."

Adam started running down the hall, Lucas taking off after him.

The two stopped as they see a group of the aliens in front of them. One of the aliens raised what looks like a gun and points it at them.

"Ah fu--"

A force blast issued out of the gun, hitting Adam square in the chest. He took a step backwards.

"Ow!"

Adam looked down at his chest. The tattered remains of his shirt had been disintegrated by the blast. Adam looked up at the aliens, charged forward and swung at them.

The laser blast hit Adam square in the chest, knocking him to the ground. The alien guard pointed the gun at Lucas. Lucas, having just seen the effects of the laser, fell to his knees and held up his hands to indicate he was surrendering. Adam, on the other hand, care far more for freedom at that moment then he did about staying alive. He rose to his feet and charged at the aliens, screaming a primal cry that contained all the emotions he'd denied himself for months. He wasn't sure why he did it or even what he was doing, but then again neither did the aliens.

Adam knocked down the guard standing in the front and grabbed his weapon from him. He had no time to figure out how to use gun. He decided his best choice was to just use it as a club. He swung it at one of the faces of the aliens and knocked them down. Adam smacked another one, this time the gun butt hit the guard's face with a loud 'thwap!' noise. Hoping that the alien gun worked list most others, he pointed it at the remaining alien guard.

"Drop it," Adam barked. The alien stood frozen for a moment before Adam realized that the alien probably didn't speak English. He didn't know what to do next. Adam understood that he had to be quick because more guards might be coming and even this alien might realize that Adam had absolutely no clue as how to work his gun. "Lucas," Adam shouted. Lucas finally got off his knees and came over. "Get his gun," Adam ordered. Lucas slowly obliged. Once the gun was out of the guard's hands, Adam returned to using his gun as a club and hit the guard upon the head. The guard crumpled to the ground.

"Let's go," Adam said to Lucas. Adam started to run off but stopped when he noticed that Lucas was standing still. "What are you waiting for? Pick up his gun and let's go!"

"Where?"

"What?"

"Where are we going? The best that I can tell, we're on an alien spaceship and have been for quite a while. We might not even be in the same solar system as Earth. Hell, we might not even be in the same galaxy anymore. So where, exactly, do you propose we go?" Lucas asked excaserbated.

"Anywhere that isn't right here."

"I don't know. I'm starting to think that this was a bad idea."

"If you really think that, then by all means, head back. Get cut open, probbed and experimented on. Me? I'm going this way." With that, Adam turned and ran off down the hall. He didn't look back to see if Lucas was following after him but he soon heard the running footsteps behind him. The two ran for a while without direction. Adam was impressed, he'd always assumed that the ship was a small little vessel so as not to be detected by human or super devices. Adam stopped running when he heard footsteps ahead of him. Adam held up a hand to indicate Lucas should stop as well. He turned to look at Lucas.

"Someone's coming," Adam whispered. He saw a cold panic setting in on Lucas' face. Adam sighed. The footsteps were coming closer. He had hoped that Lucas would've provided some kind of advice, some benefit. Alas, it was not to be.

Adam saw a door just a little further up the hall. It had some writing on it, Adam hoped it didn't translate into something horrible like 'radiation room' or 'beware: giant alien monster!'. He grabbed Lucas by the arm and ran to the door. He pushed the only visable button next to the door. The doorway suddenly became translucent, it was as if the door had disappeared entirely. He looked over at Lucas who was scared stiff. Adam realized he'd have to be the one to risk this. He stepped through the now open doorway. There was an odd feeling in the back of his brain, as if he'd just stepped through a full-size tub of Jello. Lucas came in after him and Adam hit the button next to the inside of the door. The door reappeared.

They stood in the room, as silent as the grave they were trying to avoid. Adam held his breath as minutes passed. He was so surprised to find out that he could hold his breath for several minutes that he gasped. Adam was never known for his lung capacity, when he was supposed to be learning to swim he preferred instead to sun himself rather than actually getting into the pool. He was about to express his shocking discover to Lucas when he heard the footsteps approaching much louder.

Adam hid in the corner of the room and watched Lucas take the opposite corner. Despite some initial fear that Lucas showed, Adam thought that his survival instinct was kicking in.

Adam looked down at the weapon in his hands. He'd seen it used (and felt its power) but he had no idea how to charge it nor how to fire it. He hadn't ever fired a gun in his life but he at least knew where the trigger was supposed to be. This gun had no trigger, no hammer or anything else that he could easily figure out. There was a series of buttons along one side of the gun but Adam didn't think he wanted to try and figure it out through trial and error before they were discovered.

As the footsteps continued to approach, Adam felt that if/when the guards opened the door that he'd just point the gun and start pushing buttons randomly. Perhaps it was not the best or most sophisticated plan Adam had ever come up with but it was all that he had. He again held his breath and listened. The footsteps continued to grow louder, he guessed they were on the other side of the door by the sound of it. The footfalls continued on, growing quieter. Adam released his breath in one long slow outgoing breath.

"Whit."

"Shhh," Adam hissed. Just because the guards had passed them didn't mean that they might doubleback if they heard a noise.

"Whit."

"Lucas, shut up," Adam spat through gritted teeth.

"It wasn't me," Lucas whispered back.

"Whit." It was now clear to Adam that it wasn't Lucas. It was too high pitched. He had thought that Lucas had been hiccuping but Adam could now tell it was someone else in the room speaking. The thought of someone else in the room did not bring Adam much comfort. He began to frantically look around the room. He didn't know what or who was making that noise but Adam felt that now was not the time to have unknown variables floating around. The boxes and shelves provided ample places for the culprit to hide. Adam began to slowly walk around the room, keeping an ear open for the repeating sound.

"Whit," the voice said again.

"I think it's coming from over here," Lucas said. Adam looked over to the corner of the room that Lucas was standing in and Adam could see that Lucas was pointing to a crate. From where Adam was standing he could see that there was no one behind the box which meant that whoever was speaking was inside of it.

Adam walked catiously 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.

"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.

"Ready," Lucas replied.

"Whit," the lizard chimed in.

Adam pushed the button. The door shirmed and evaporated. Adam stepped through the newly opened doorway and again encountered that cold wet almost solid shadow of where the door used to be. He stepped into the hallway and looked around cautiously. He listend closely for the slightest sound of footfalls or any other audible evidence they'd been discovered. Glorious silence. Adam waved for Lucas to follow him through. Lucas stepped out of the room, the door solidified behind him.

"Which way?" Lucas asked. Adam looked at the doors, they were of course, not written in English but instead were in the native alien tongue. He looked down the hall, row after row of doors. None looked different from any other.

"This way," Adam said with a confidence he did not feel, before he headed off in a random direction. He heard Lucas pray under his breath and then run after him.

Adam was unaware of the alien's security system. It wasn't his fault, he was too busy focusing on what to do next, while staying alive and free. Even if he hadn't been so distracted, he'd probably not have even known what to look for. His eyes might've drifted casually upwards, to the corners where a video camera might have been nestled. That still wouldn't have helped him though, as there were no cameras on the ship. He would've had to direct his gaze downwards. The floor paneling was sensitized to movement, weight and body heat.

Now that their escape had been made known to everyone on board the ship, the guards were watching closely to see when they'd appear. If Adam or Lucas had known anything about the alien technology, then they would've climbed into the duct work that connects the rooms as they were completely unmonitored. A wrong step in the ducts, however, would've lead them to a great heating room where their flesh would've bubbled and melted off their skin. So maybe it was for the best that they didn't even risk it.

With the alien guards now knowing exactly where they were, they begin to form a line to cut them off and force them back into captivity or worse if they resisted. The two men were, of course, oblivious to all this. Very fortunate for them, their pint-sized companion was not. As they unknowingly approached a corrider and came within a hundred feet of the the planned ambush, their guest decided to speak up.

"Whit!" It cried as it dug its fingers (which Adam discovered had very sharp albeit very tiny talons on them) into Adam's shoulder. He winced in pain as Lucas stared at the creature.

"Shut it up," Lucas hissed. Lucas looked around, twitchy. Adam was surprised that he hadn't noticed the transformation in Lucas. He seemed to be more panicky, less together. It seemed that his fight-or-flight instinct was kicking in and he didn't quite know how to deal with it.

"I can't. It's not as if it's got an on-off switch." The space lizard seemed to be getting quite fidgety now, it couldn't stand still for longer than a second or two.

"Well, come on. Let's keep going," Lucas said, a hint of desperation in his voice.

"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.

Behind him, Adam heard guards chirping and then movement. Shots of energy began landing by him as he ran, in a zig-zag, down the hall. He began running full out, putting everything into this one burst of speed. He was following Whit blindly now. He didn't know where he was going and he didn't know how far behind him the guards were (nor could he afford the luxury of glancing behind him to find out). He was aware, however, that the guards were close enough behind him that he didn't have the time to think, only to react.

Adam began to worry that Whit (as he'd come to call his little friend in his mind) wasn't as sentient as he first thought. That perhaps she was just an animal who was running through the hall because she liked to run and lacked any plan or awareness of her surroundings at all. He realized of course that plan or no, following Whit was the best option that he had open to him. Besides, he felt she was leading him to something, to a place that could help or even save him. He didn't know what gave him this surety but he had it and was fairly confident about it.

Whit stopped in front of a door. Either she wanted him to go inside this particular room or she was just tired of running. Either way, Adam was going in. He stopped in front of the door and hit the button beside it. Nothing happened. Whit ran up his leg, then torso and resumed her perch on his shoulder. He glanced down the hall, the guards were fast approaching, another thirty or forty-five seconds and they'd be upon him.

He hit the button again. He tapped it repeatidly, furiously. He sighed and rested his head against the door. The sound of the incoming guards grew louder now, seeming to echo in Adam's head.

"I give up," Adam said and raised his hands.

He felt the door that he was resting his head on disappear. It caused him to fall face forward through the doorway. He heard Whit squeak and scramble so as not to be squished by Adam's falling body. He looked up into the harsh stare of one of the aliens. The alien leaned in close and grabbed a hold of Adam's arm.

Adam pulled the barrel of his gun up and shoved it in the face of the alien. The alien calmly put a hand on the gun and pushed it away.

"Ruhe!" Adam shouted as the recognition set in. He hadn't seen Ruhe in several months since Adam saw him in the operation room. As he was the only alien whose name he had ever heard and who had ever spoken to him in English (even if it was a garbled bizarre attempt at speaking English). Ruhe reached out with his free hand and touched the panel by the door. The door resolidfied. Ruhe looked over at Adam.

"Do not be afraid," Ruhe said. His voice no longer sounded strung together. He was speaking the words now, not replaying them. He released Adam's arm. He seemed to be eyeing Adam, trying to see what he was going to do. Adam looked around to find Whit but she seemed to have run off. "I've locked the door. They cannot get in here."

"You can talk," Adam said. He was unsure if he was safer locked in here with Ruhe or if he'd have been better off running down the hall by himself.

"Yes. I listened to you a starson talk. I picked up how to speak Earthican."

"English," Adam corrected. Ruhe made a face of confusion. "We were speaking English not Earthican. There is no such thing as Earthican."

"English," Ruhe repeated. "Yes. English."

"You said that you had listened to me and 'starson.' Do you mean Lucas?"

"Lucas?" Ruhe repeated. Adam sensed that he was repeating the name in an attempt to put a face to the name. "The one in your room, is that the one that you call 'Lucas'? I know him only by his true name, his people's name: starson."

"But his name is Lucas."

"No, starson," Ruhe said quite strongly.

"No," Adam said firmly. He had reverted once again to his 'adult voice.' "His name is Lucas just like mine is Adam." Here Adam put his hands on his chest. "Adam," he said again. Then pointed at Ruhe, "Ruhe." If it was good enough to work for Tarzan and Jane, then Adam was hoping that it was good enough for the two of them. Ruhe's eyes widened and his gaze softened.

"You have a name?"

"Yes, I have a name," Adam said defensively.

"When?"

"I was born with one."

"Born with it. So you haven't had a child?"

"Good God, no."

"Ah, I see. On England, you are born with your name."

"First off, I'm from America, not England--"

"But you said you speak English," Ruhe said questioningly. Adam could tell that Ruhe was asking an innocent question and was not trying to be difficult, but he felt as if he were stuck in a poor man's version of 'Who's on First.' Adam thought teaching Ruhe subtlties and intracices of American history might be a bit much for the moment and decided to just let it go.

"Forget it. Just tell me what the hell you people are doing? And who the hell are you?"

"My name is Ruhe. I am your father."

Adam's world came crashing down with those last four words. He had never really known his father. He has been raised to think of James Savage as his dad; James had been his mother's husband and he had no reason to think that anyone else would be his father. Since James died very shortly before Adam's birth, he had grown up with only the idea of a father. It would've been shocking enough to discover his father was still alive or not who he thought it had been but to discover both as well as that his dad was an alien who abducted and experimented on him was bit much to take in.

Adam didn't believe Ruhe; he couldn't believe him. His mother would've told him. He'd have figured it out. He'd have had some sign, some clue. Then he realized that it did explain Ruhe's behavior. He reeled back to his childhood and remembered how his mother used to talk about his father. She had rarely talked about him at all and Adam had just assumed it was just too painful for her to remember. When he had pressed her on the rare occasion when his desire to know overpowered his care for his mother's privacy, she had described him in vague words such as tall, handsome, elegant, smart. She never went by what he did or even who he really was.

"Really?" Adam heard himself ask. "Are you really my father?"

"Of course. Why would I say a falsehood like that?"

Adam was filled with a rush of emotions. He wanted to cry like a newborn and to hug this man while another part of him wanted to punch Ruhe in the face for leaving his son to be tortured and experimented on. He'd spent his whole life fantasizing about a noble father who cared greatly for him and here Adam found his dad and he was willing to lets others do only God knows what to him. Although he couldn't yet appreciate it, Adam was suffering the disillusionment that many had suffered before they met a person they idealized. Of course not too many of those people were experimented on by the person they were idealizing's friends.

Adam began to shake a little. He refused to let himself feel everything that was going through his mind. Even if this really was his father, he was still on the run and if he broke down right now he might end up like Lucas.

Ruhe seemed about to speak when Whit came out of her hiding place in the dark corner of the room. She timidly walked over to where the two of them were standing. She looked at the both of them and then climbed up Adam. Ruhe looked thoughtfully at the small creature.

"Whit?" She chirped. Ruhe delicately held out his hand. Whit sniffed it and then climbed onto it and up to Ruhe's shoulder. He reached up with his opposite hand and petted her. Whit seemed to enjoy the attention and adulation. It was a surprising move of tenderness that Adam hadn't seen coming. The more he seemed to learn of Ruhe, the more questions seemed to fill his mind.

"What happened to me? What did you do?" Adam asked quietly. He was afraid to raise his voice. He didn't know what would happen if he did, which is exactly why he kept it down.

"They experimented on you."

"Yeah, I was there," Adam spat out bitterly. "But why?"

"You are a hybrid. Nox-human."

"Not human?" Adam repeated.

"Nox," Ruhe emphasized. "We are the Nox. We needed a hyrbid but to make you one we had to use gene therapy."

"Yeah but if you really are my dad then I'd have been born a hybrid, right? So why the gene therapy?"

"We needed you to be a Nox warrior. Stronger, tougher, faster." Like the Million Dollar Man, Adam thought to himself.

"By for what? Why did you need me?" Adam asked.

"My people believe in breeding, it brings out the best traits. Long ago we started--" Unfortunately, Adam didn't get to hear what the Nox had started doing long ago because the door the two were standing next to began to echo with a loud deep thudding. "They're breaking through," Ruhe said calmly, "much faster than I had anticipated."

Adam braced himself. He didn't know if he was going to have to fight and he didn't know whose side Ruhe was going to choose. He felt that a father should always protect his son, no matter the cost but even Adam had to admit they'd be vastly outnumbered and he had no idea of what punishment the Nox used for traitors (it probably was for the best that he didn't know, in some cases it was worse than what Adam himself went through if for no other reason then that they didn't allow you to pass out).

Ruhe extended his arm. Whit ran down, leapt off his fingertips and landed on Adam's shoulder.

"We must get you out of here," Ruhe said. Adam sighed, relieved. He was glad to see his dad helping him even at risk to himself. The only problem was that it would take more than Ruhe's desire to get Adam out of there.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Adam asked. The banging hadn't stopped or even slowed, if anything the reverberations had seem to grow louder and heavier. He was unsure of how much longer the door would hold but he was pretty sure it could be measured in seconds rather than in minutes. Ruhe simply raised his hand again and pointed at something over Adam's shoulder. He turned around and looked behind him.

"Whoa." A decade of science fiction movies, comic books and video games hadn't prepared Adam well enough.

The spaceship was a smooth vehicle. It had a main body with a rounded off nose, it looked more like a bullet than what Adam thought of as spaceship. There were no wings or wheels. It appeared as it would just be flung at its destination.

"You'd better hurry," Ruhe said. Adam couldn't tell if he was teasing Adam a little or not. Despite Ruhe's sudden ability to speak English, Adam was unsure if he'd learned deadpan humor yet.

"I have no idea how to fly that."

"Nonsense. Get in and set the autopilot for Earth. An infant could do it."

"But--" Adam was cut off by the sound of a fist-sized hole being torn in the middle of the door.

"Go!" Ruhe shouted and pushed him towards the ship. Ruhe stepped backwards towards the wall. Adam watched as he disappeared into the shadows. He wondered if he'd just lost his father all over again.

The sound of metal grinding against metal snapped Adam back to an awareness of the immeadiate danger poised to him. He saw as the hole in the door widened. It tore wide open. Adam looked down at the gun that he was still holding. He knew that he didn't have the time to make it the distance to the ship but he had no desire to mess with the gun and meet the same end as Lucas. Inspiration struck. As the first guard was slowly navigating his way through the hole in the door, Adam began to wildly punch all the buttons on his gun. The weapon began to make the same high pitched warning sound just as the first guard was aiming his own gun at Adam and another was coming into the room.

"I hope this works," Adam muttered to himself. He threw the whirring gun at the guards. The one in front dropped his own gun to catch the one that Adam tossed at them. Adam turned and ran just as he heard the gun explode behind him. The guards all ducked and covered themselves from the loud explosion. Adam made his way to the front of the craft where he assumed to the cockpit was. He ran so fast that Whit had to clutch his shoulder tightly so as not to fall off. Adam started running his hands along the ship, looking for any piece of exposed metal that he could get a hold of. He finally found a small metal rod that he pulled and opened the hatch. He climbed into the ship and closed the hatch behind him.

Through a porthole he saw the guards gather their guns and get back to their feet. Adam didn't know if the ship was armored or not but he was not to have to find out the hard way. He turned his attention to the control panels. It was a vast array of knobs, dials, switches, screens, monitors and devices that as far as Adam could tell only served the purpose of going 'ping!'

"Don't worry, an infant could do it," Adam repeated mockingly. Whit leapt off his shoulder and landed on the panel. "No, don't!" Adam shouted. He may not have known what he was doing but he couldn't help but feel that his own eenie-meanie-minnie-moe attempt at randomly pushing buttons would yield better results than an animal just chaotically stepping on things.

"Whit!" She said as she pushed two buttons and then pulled a lever. The screens came on and Adam heard a computerized alien voice begin to chirp. Not speaking the language, he didn't understand any of it except for the word 'Earth,' which was the only part said in English. The small ship's engine began to rumble as it came to life. Whit looked up at Adam and grinned.

"Don't rub it in," Adam said defensively.

Adam clutched his seat tightly as it became airborne. It thrust him hard back into his seat as the ship shot forward, going through the forcefield, out into space and on to the long journey home. To avoid detection, either visual or mechanical, the alien vessel was parked on the opposite side of Mars. As it was only a science vessel, it would take the ship about a half an hour to reach Earth. Because Adam had stolen a small probe ship, it would take him a little over two weeks to make the trip. Of course, he was ignorant of that when he first took off, if he had been aware of it then he might've worried about starving to death. At the moment, however, his mind was on other things.

Adam had never been so happy. He was flying with an alien in a hijacked space vehicle and getting to see space first hand. More importantly, though, he was free. He started thinking of all the things he'd do once he arrived at Earth. He even looked forward to trying to get his old job back, trying to pretend like none of this ever happened. He'd find Britney, marry her, eat a triple bacon cheeseburger with chili cheese fries and watch TV for six hours straight. For the first time in his whole life, Adam felt his life was really together.
---

Cindy sat in the very park that she'd met James Savage in twenty-two years prior. She was sitting on the bench, looking at the pond. People rowed little duck boats on it, as they had for the past several decades. Most of these people were laughing and smiling. Cindy remembered her and James being that way, that happy.

She had begun to worry that it was her fault that Adam had gotten taken. While she didn't know exactly what was happening, she had a good enough idea to feel guilty. If only she had told Adam the truth, if she hadn't lied to him and kept things from him for his entire life. Then maybe he'd have been prepared, maybe he could have avoided this fate. She had meant to tell him when he was old enough, but the time never seemed right and once you've lived in silence for so long it is easier to remain silent than to speak up. It was too late now, that much she knew. Just as surely as James had left her, Adam had left now too.

She returned to feeding the pigeons at her feet. It's the same thing that she was doing all those years ago when she met James. His dog (that stupid dog, she chuckled to herself) came and chased the poor birds away. James came running up behind the door and apologized. The two started talking. The attraction was instaneous and over the course of dinner that night, the two fell in love. They were married for a couple of years before Adam's birth. It wasn't much longer after that that Adam and Cindy were left alone. But now Adam was gone as well. Now it was just Cindy.

The birds took off and flew into formation at the cue of some ancient bird tradition that is not visable to the naked eye. "Great," Cindy said, "you've left me too." With that she broke down into tears right on the bench. She had managed to soldier on after losing her husband and her son but those damn birds were the straw that broke the camel's back.

No one stopped and said anything to her. Indeed, people began avoiding making eye contact. So she was left alone. A grown woman crying into her hands while passersby did their best to pretend that she wasn't there.
---

MARCH 2nd, 2002

Adam was about to go out of his mind. He'd been surprised that he hadn't been that hungry the whole trip. He had gotten into the back of the ship and discovered a small metal box that had what appeared to be food in it. He assumed it was an emergency food box and began snacking on it. Despite its odd appearance he found it to be quite tasty and satisfying.

No, the thing that Adam wished for even more than food was something to distract himself with. He rarely slept due to the uncomfortableness of the chair as well as the plain and simple truth that he just rarely seemed that tired. He needed something to do during his many waking hours. After four days, he would have given his left arm for a game of Scrabble (he regretted thinking that almost immeadiately as he remembered the horrible fate that befell Lucas). Still, he craved a pen and paper, a good book, something other than a companion whose only known English was the word 'whit.'

His biggest thrill on the journey was when he flew past the moon and got to see the Watchtower, the giant tower that stood as the Justice League of America's base of operations. Adam wondered if Wonder Woman was looking out her window right then, maybe she'd caught a glimpse of his ship and had given a passing thought to what occupants might be inside. Or perhaps Batman sat inside the Watchtower, trying to deduce what was piloting such a ship. Maybe even Superman himself looked out and saw the spaceship, curious and hopeful that it was another alien, someone to call him brother. He ended up spending quite some time fantasizing about the Justice League and what they might or might not think of him. He probably would've kept thinking about it all the way back to Earth if it hadn't been for the sudden noise.

Just as he was approaching Earth he was struck with awe of the beauty and grandeur of the planet. From so high above it looked clean and unspoiled. Whit climed up on the co-pilot's chair to look out the window. It was the most beautiful sight to a refugee. It was a vision of his home only without any of the problems or concerns that would've made him think lesser of it. The Earth, in that moment, was as beautiful as a dream.

Adam was awaken from that dream quite rudely by an ear-piercing screeching noise. The screens started flashing alien text. The ship seemed to lose focus, it was as if it was floating adrift on some sort of cosmic wave. Whit began bleating excessively.

"I know, Whit!" Adam shouted out. He was quite aware of the gravity of the situation without Whit's shouting. Adam saw a stick in the control panel that appeared to look like a joystick. He took a hold of it and found that it did indeed control the ship. Whether or not a stick is going to control a ship's movement was the lesser question to ask. The better question was could Adam control the ship well enough not to crash into the ground, killing both himself and Whit as well as whatever poor unfortunate bastards they crashed into.

"Whit!" She seemed to be aware of the very same predicament.

"I said I know!" Adam shouted even more forcefully.

The good news for both of them as well as the unsuspecting people below was that Adam was deft at playing video games. He'd spent a good chunk of his childhood (and his money) in the poorly lit arcade near his house and so he'd developed pretty good hand-eye corordination. The bad news was that when he should've been doing his geograpy homework he was too busy hanging out at the arcade. So even though he felt he might be able to steer the ship, he had no idea where to aim it.

"That's North Amierca. That much I know," Adam muttered to himself.

The ship hit the Earth's atmosphere and the ride, which up until now had been smooth, became quite bumpy. The control shook violently in his hand. He held it as steady as he could but it fought him hard. In truth, he was relieved to be forced to focus on something other than his failure at all but the most rudimentary of geography.

Despite the force the ship was being put through, it seemed to be handling it quite well. "At least, I didn't have to worry about the ship falling apart," Adam thought to himself. Immeadiately after he thought that, he began to worry obsessively that the ship would fall apart. He knew the Nox were supposedly a warrior race but were they good builders? And if there ships were so great then why the Hell did they teleport him up instead of sending a ship down to fetch him? He forced himself to push that out of his mind as he tried to maintain control of the ship.

He broke through the atmosphere and the ship stopped struggling. He was now facing his old problem: where do I land?

"It's so much harder when you can't see the state lines and all the states aren't different colors." Adam pointed the ship to the northeast coast of North America. He did know enough to know that's where Boston was. "Fucking New England," he said through gritted teeth. "Why do there have to be so many states in such a small area?"

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 God hated Maine and who was he to try and disagree with the Almighty?

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.
At first, Adam didn't even understand why the cop had gotten that gun out as most of the past five minutes were a complete blur. He realized that perhaps his crash landing was seen as much more malicous than it actually was, besdes the appeaerance of a muscular hairy naked man covered in scars, cuts and brusies wasn't the most comforting sight in the world.

Adam raised his hands instinctively to defend himself as the plasma rifle was aimed and fired. The people in the street cheered loudly as the blast knocked Adam to the ground. Adam rolled on to his side, as the cops and more voyueristic pedestrains stared in awe as Adam got back up to his feet.

"Give it full power!" Another of the cops yelled.

"Look guys, can't we--" Adam was cut off as another plasma shot hit him, this time square in his chest. Adam landed on the ground with a thud as the wind was knocked out of him. He managed to sit back up but found himself coughing violently as he tried to regain his breath.

"Get closer!" One of the people on the side of the street shouted.

"Yeah, do it again!" Someone added.

The cop did indeed get closer. As Adam was winded, the cop jogged over to where Adam was sitting. He pointed the gun at Adam. "Don't move," the cop ordered, putting as much emphasis as he could on the words in an attempt to sound more authoratitive. As the officer was now standing closer, he could see Whit who previously had been blocked from view by the rubble, debris from the wreck and by Adam himself. The cop shifted his aim towards Whit.

Adam saw the gun's movement out of the corner of his eye. He could tell the gun was being pointed at Whit. Without any real thought or hesitation, Adam reached out and grabbed the barell of the gun. With a strength and speed that surprised even himself, he squeezed the metal shut and twisted it at an angle.

"Don't you dare point that at Whit," Adam growled. The cop, eyes wide open nodded and stepped back. Adam stood up. "Now," he said carefully, despite his appreciation and understanding of the situation he was on the verge of losing his temper, "I'm tired and I'm hungry and I really don't have the patience to deal with this. So, do any of you guys know where I can get some clothes, a burger and a ride to Boston?" The cops all looked at each other with quizzical glances.

"Oh crap," Adam said after the moment's silence, "did I, like, time travel to another New York where people don't speak English? Like some kind of 'Planet of the Apes' type thing?" On e of the officers stepped forward. He was by far the youngest of them, no older than twenty. Adam could see he still had some of his baby fat.

"Excuse me, Mr..." the cop trailed off.

"Savage."

"Savage, right. How about we go down to the precinct and see if we can't get this whole thing figured out."

"Sounds good. Which car should I get in?"

The cop pointed to one. "This one is mine." Adam looked at it and nodded. Adam walked over to it, opened the back door himself, got in and closed the door behind him.  The crowd erupted into spontanous applause, snapping the police back to reality. They each got into their own car, without speaking to each other and drove off.
---

Adam sat in an interogation room in the police station. The room was bathed in a soft green light, it appeared as if the fluorscent lights were on steroids but Adam knew better. He'd heard that police stations had rooms with power dampeners in them that allowed them to hold super-villians. He supposed  that this was just such a room. He didn't appreciate being thought of as a villian but he did understand that they didn't want any surprises.

Adam sipped on the coffee that they'd given him. He was surprised by its quality, it wasn't gourmet by any stretch but he'd always seen bad coffee in police stations on television and in the movies. The door opened and a man came in, he was dressed in a suit so Adam assumed he was lieutant or a dectective. He wondered which this made was because that would indicate what they thought of him. He had a file that he was reading from. He sat down at the table across from Adam.

"My name is Detective Watkins," the man started. "So Savage--"    

"Adam," he interupted.

"Adam?" the detective asked incredulously. "Alright, Savage Adam--"

"No, not 'Savage Adam.' My name is Adam Savage."

"Adam Savage? What the hell kind of super name is that?"

"It's not a super name. It's just a name," Adam replied somewhat defensively. Detective Watkins looked down at the file in his hands. He quickly reread a part of it. He pulled a pen from his pocket and made a note in the margins.

"So, Adam. What happened?"

"Well, Detective Watkins, I was kidnapped by aliens and experimented on. After a while I managed to escape, steal a spaceship and fly home. Except that I didn't know how to fly it so I accidentatly crash-landed."

"Aliens kidnapped you?"

"Yes, sir."

"And they held you for how long?"

"I don't know. What's the date? I got taken on May sixth or seventh. I think it was the seventh."

"Do you know the name of the race of aliens? Were they Kree? Skrull? Mandlorian?"

"Nah. They were the Nox or at least, that's what I think they call themselves."

"Uh huh," the detective said, still writing. "And what did they do with you?"

"No clue. Look, I just want to go home. Is this gonna take much longer?" Detective Watkins looked down at the file, closed the folder and tossed it on the desk.

"We'll get you out of here soon. Fortunately, the city of New York purchased quite a nice super-related damage insurance policy. We should probably charge you with flying a spacecraft without a liscense but as it seems like it was a life or death escape attempt, we'll probably let it slide. There is a chance that I'll need to talk to you again in the future if I have any questions about your story, so try not to leave the planet again in the near future."

"It'd be my pleasure. Let's just hope they agree with you."
---

The news that night ran the story of the crazy looking alien who crash landed in Manhattan. They had several poorly taken photographs as well as some footage shot by a Japanese tourist. They played all the clips and then revealed that the police had just let the alien go. There was a graphic behind the news anchor that begged the question, "Are Police Helping Aliens Invade?"

Even with Adam's new bushy beard and all the months that had passed, Britney could've recognized the pictures were of Adam. Unfortuantely, she wasn't watching the television. Instead she was boxing up her possessions so that they could be moved and was listening to the Freddie Fabulous album, "Honky Tonk." She had to excuse herself when the song "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" came on. She couldn't explain the sudden rush of emotion, she just assumed it was a part of pre-wedding jitters.
---

The New York police officers were quite nice to Adam. While they didn't allow him to shower and shave, which he wanted to do desperately, they were able to provide him with some clothes. They decided not to mention to him that they came off a homeless man currently residing in their morgue, which was probably for the best. Even if Adam didn't have an acute sense of smell, however, he probably would've been able to deduce that anyway. Of course that was where their good deeds ended. He was still stuck in New York with no way to get to Boston.

He decided to call his mother and see if she could wire him the money. He hadn't been offered a phone call when he was brought in because he was never under arrest. A part of him was pleased that he hadn't been handed the phone yet. He didn't know who he'd have called. He was worried how he'd tell Britney or his mother that he was back. He wanted to tell them in the best possible way. With his being stranded several hundred miles south of his home, however, he was beginning to care less and less how he broke the news. Fortunately, one of the cops let him use their phone. His mom's phone rang three times before anyone picked up.

"Hello?" He heard his mother ask. Her voice sounded thin and tired. He found himself rendered mute at the sound of his mother's voice. "Hello?" She asked again. He opened his mouth but no words came out. He realized that if he didn't speak out soon she'd just hang up on him.

"Heymomit'sAdamdon'thangupI'mfinebutIneedsomemoneytogethome," he blurted out in one breath.

"Adam?" She said. He couldn't read her voice but disbelief was definetely there.

"Yeah. It's me."

"No. That's not possible. Adam is dead."

"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 suspicously 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.

"No one," Chris said.

"Britney!" Adam shouted. He pushed the door open. Startled, Chris took a step backwards. "Britney!" Adam shouted again as he started for the bedroom.

"Hey, get out of here!" Chris shouted. He grabbed Adam's shoulder. Adam shook it off. Thinking his fiancee was in danger, Chris reared back and punched Adam. His hand almost broke as it collided with Adam's jaw. Adam on the other hand, barely noticed. Chris, sensing Adam was about to go into the bedroom, tackled Adam to the ground.

Britney ran into the room. Adam, happy to see her, stood up and walked to her, dragging Chris behind. Adam leaned over and nonchalantly backhanded Chris, knocking him to the ground.

"Chris!" she shouter and ran to him.

Adam watched in silence as she ran past him and knelt down beside this man he did not know or even recognize. She reached out and stroked Chris' cheek. Light gleamed off of Britney's engagement ring. Adam's jaw dropped.

"Britney?" He asked in disbelief.

She looked up at Ada, recognition dawned on her. "Adam?"

He wanted to speak to her, to tell her how much he loved her, how he'd missed her and dreamed of holding her again. He also wanted to ask who was this man and why was she wearing that huge ring (he noticed it was bigger than anything he could have gotten for her). He wanted to say all this and more. But as he stood there, looking down at her he found he couldn't say a single word to her.

He turned and walked out.

He didn't know where to go. His reunion with Britney had been one of the main driving forces that allowed him to survive his torture. He flagged a cab and took it to his mom's house. He handed over the remainder of his cash. The driver was sensitive enough to sense Adam's lonliness and isolation, he was no so sensitive as to not take the thirty extra dollars Adam gave him.

"Thanks," the driver said as Adam got out of the cab. The car drove off as Adam walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. He stood there for a moment pondering what to say. The door opened. Cindy gasped and covered her mouth.

"Adam? Is that you under all that hair?" She asked as she reached out and ran her fingers through his long thick curly hair.

"Yeah, it's me, Mom. Can I come in?"

"Of course," she said and stepped aside. Adam walked in and found himself walking into the kitchen and sat down at the dining room table. He ran his hand over the table top. The last time he'd sat at that table was the last night he'd spent with Britney. He'd laughed and been embarrassed by stories of his own childhood. Now, she was gone. Engaged to another man.

His mother sat down in the chair next to him. She didn't say a word. She scooted her seat closer to him and put a hand tenderly on his back.

"I went to Britney's. She's..." he trailed off. She patted him lovingly.

"I know. She sent me an invitation."

"She did?"

"Yeah. She's a nice girl."

"You met the guy?"

"No. But I'm sure he's a nice man."

Adam's shoulders started shaking violently. He broke into loud sobs. Cindy pulled his head over onto her shoulder. Despite all the pain and betrayal and loss he'd felt over the past few months, he hadn't cried. But it all added up, had become too much to bare. He was adrift without purpose or direction.

He slept in his old house that night after a shower and a shave. At his insistence his mother pulled out the kitchen shears and chopped off a large portion of his shaggy mane. He then climbed the stairs and went into his old room. He hadn't lived in that room for the past three and a half years but it still looked the same. He turned off the lights and laid in his bed. He found that despite their being no light on in the room, he could still quite clearly. He could see all his posters (Freddie Fabulous, Wonder Woman and Major Pain). It wasn't his ability to still see in the dark, however, that was the cause of his inability to fall asleep. That was due to a great restlessness inside him.

After much struggling, he managed to sleep for about an hour and a half. He continued to lie in his bed for another hour before he got up. Despite his short rest, he actually felt quite awake and alert. He walked around his room before he heard a sound that caught his attention. A quiet shuffling, glass clinking. He opened the door to his room and walked out.

Downstairs Adam found his mother sitting at the kitchen table. She was sipping on a glass of bourbon on the rocks. Adam wondered if he should leave her alone and allow her some privacy. He turned to walk off when his mother called his name. He didn't know if he'd revealed his presence to her when he took a step or if she'd been aware of him the entire time he was there, all part of the mystery that parents can elict in their children. He walked into the kitchen and sat down at this table alongside his mother.

"What happened to you?" She asked after a moment's silence. Adam had avoided talking about his absence and up until now she had respected his silence. He could tell now that it had been eating her up inside.

"The night I visited you, that night I was..." Here he wished there was another way to say this. "I was abducted by aliens." She didn't say anything, nor did she give any visable clues as to what she was thinking. He didn't know if she was in disbelief or thought him crazy or what else might be running through her mind. "While I was there, they experimented on. I don't know why but one did tell me..." Again he trailed off as he thought of Ruhe's revelation that he was Adam's father. He didn't know how to broach the subject with his mother without sound accusatory.

"One of them told you what?" She asked.

"He said he was my father." Again she didn't even react to his words.

"So," she said finally, "you met Ruhe."

"So he was telling the truth? He is my father?" He was so surprised to find himself angry and even a little hurt. "Why didn't you ever tell me? And what the hell was up with my... I mean, James."

"James was my husband and he wanted to be your father. We often talked about having children. When I got pregnant though, he became enraged. He'd been out of town for a month and so he knew it wasn't his. I told him about the abduction but he didn't believe me. So, he left. Said he didn't want a whore for a wife. I didn't want you to know where you came from so I hid the truth from you. I told you that James was your father and that he died just before you were born."

"But why didn't you say something?"

"What would you have had me say? That I was impregnated by an alien? That he told me that he'd come for you and there was nothing I could do about it?" She had gotten loud, almost hysterical. Her body quivered in that way that reveals when a person is teetering on the edge, about to fall off. Her cool veneer had melted away.

"You knew?" Adam asked accusatorily. "You know they were going to take me and you didn't tell me? Try to warn me? Mom, you've got to tell me everything. What happened to you, exactly what you know. You gotta tell me everything."

"I can't. I can't relive that. You don't know what you're asking of me."

Adam ripped his shirt off of his body in one fluid motion. Even in the dim light of the kitchen, his scars were clear, tiny white mountain ridges that ran across his body, marring his otherwise impressive physique. "This is what they did to me, Mom. I can't forget it or ignore it but I've got to try and understand it and you are the only person who can help me do that." Cindy looked away from her son's scarred body.

She continued to avoid his pentrating gaze (how much that reminded her of Ruhe's icy stare). She cleared her throat and began to speak. She spoke in a clear and quiet voice, she spoke without any major pausing or stuttering. It seemed as if she faltered or took too much time to think about it then she wouldn't be able to go on. Adam noticed this and let her speak uninterrupted.

"Several years ago, I was kidnapped by aliens. I was held in a dark room. An alien came in the room, he was tall and graceful. He... he said his name was starson. He couldn't speak though, he could only repeat words with this Dictaphone kind of thing. He tried to explain that he needed a child, to help his people and that it had to be part human.

"He raped me. He was gentle but he was strong. I didn't want to do it but he forced me. I hated him. Despite his apologizes and attempts at tenderness. I hated him. Perhaps I even hated him all the more for it. So after it was over, I spat in his face and I cried and I told him that I despised him. He said nothing though, he just stared at me. I began calling him every bad thing I could think of.

"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 accussed 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."

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."

"Oh," Bob said defeatidly. 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.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," Adam replied.

The two stood in silence for a moment.

"Sorry if I scared you yesterday. I didn't know you were..." Adam started. He found he couldn't say the word engaged.

"It's alright."

"I hope I didn't hurt whatever-his-name-is."

"Chris. No, he was a little banged up but none the worse for wear."

"That's good."

The silence caught back up to them.

"So, when's the wedding?"

"What?"

"Yesterday I saw the ring. I sorta kinda figured it out."

"Oh, it was set for late April but I'm going to postpone it indefinitely."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Adam, I thought you were dead. It almost destroyed me but I moved on with my life. I don't regret that. But now that I know that you're alive, it turns everything on its head. I can't leave you behind twice. It hurt too much to do it once."

"Britney, I love you. I love you so much it hurts. The whole time I was gone, I kept thinking about you. That's what got me through. But it'd never work between us. Not after everything that happened."

"I still love you."

"I know and I still love you. But you've grieved for me and I idealized you. It wouldn't be fair to either of us if we got back together."

"What do we do then?" Britney asked. She turned away from him and crossed her arms across her chest. She clenched her eyes shut and Adam didn't know if she didn't want to see him or if she didn't want him to see her.

"Go home. Get married to what's-his-face. Live your life and enjoy it. Remember what we had and be glad for it."

"I'll miss you."

"I already miss you."

She ran into his arms. He held her tightly. He could smell her hair, its delicate floral scent. He had forgotten that smell while he had been imprisioned. Holding her in his arms he was tempted to shout out that he didn't mean it, that he thought they should go and get married right now. But he knew he was right and what's more, she knew it too. She broke off the embrace.

"Maybe I'll see you around," she said. Then she turned and walked quickly to her car. She started the engine and began backing out.

"Yeah," Adam muttered to himself, "maybe." He watched her drive off and lingered there on the porch for a moment longer. He was saying goodbye to a dream, a beautiful dream that had allowed him to endure more hardship then he ever could've imagined.

He saw headlights approaching and for a few brief moment he fantasized that Britney had ignored what he had said and was returning to him. He frowned as he saw it wasn't Britney's red Taurus but instead was a stretched black limousine.

The long sleek car pulled in front of the house. It sat there for a minute as Adam was left to wonder at who was inside the limo. Finally the door opened and a little man stepped outside. He was no taller than 5'6" and had his thin black hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was speaking into a cell phone that he had clutched tightly to his face.

"No. Tell him I can him an extra two and a half percent out of the back end but that's it. If he doesn't like it then I'll just sit on his contract until it expires at the end of the year. Tell him to just think about the loss of merchandising revenue. If he thinks I'm bluffing he can just try me. I got a dozen guys just like him." 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 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 polietely, "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. Phenominal."

"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."

---

MARCH 17th, 2002

The flight out of Logan airport was luxurous to say the least. Adam flew in first class and was pampered the entire trip. When he landed in Atlanta, a car was waiting for him. His bags were picked up and carried out to the car. The driver asked if he wished to go to the hotel first or if he wanted to head out straight to the SPW Compound. Adam couldn't imagine unpacking or relaxing, he was too nervous. He had the driver take him straight to the Compound.

The Compund, Adam discovered, was an apt name. It was located well outside the city limits of Atlanta and could be seen well before you actually reached it. At the center was a large domed stadium. Adam had seen the inside of it several times on "SPW Raw" and other such events. Peppered around the dome were smaller but still ample sized buildings. There was no exquisite design to speak of. They all seemed functional but little more than that. Around the perimeter were two rows of barbed wire fences, one in front of the other. The only way into the Compound in was past a guard post.

The driver stopped the car at the guard post. The guard walked out, he eyed the driver and Adam. The driver rolled down his window and the guard slid in a small metal box with a wire attached. The box was six inches squared and Adam could see from the back that it had a video screen on it. The driver placed his thumb on it. The box let out a small chirp followed by a beep and then flashed green.

"Hey, Dave," the guard growled. "How's the missus?"

"I ain't married," the driver responded with a smile. He handed the box back to the guard. The guard opened the gate and waved them through.

"What's up with the thumb print?"

"Designed to keep shapeshifters out. Mosy metamorphs can't fake fingerprints and if they could, they ask you a personal question to see if they can trip you up."

"Wow. You guys are really thorough."

"You have no idea," the driver replied. And he was right. Adam was dropped off at a large building. A man in a suit waited by the door for him.

"Mr. Savage?" The man asked.

"Yes."

"My name is Jenkins, Dan Jenkins. Please follow me."

The driver went off as Adam and his guide went inside the building. Adam was ushered down a hall to a room marked 'Psych Room.' Jenkins pointed to it.

"They're waiting for you inside. They'll just ask you some questions. When they're done. I'll take you to the next station." Adam, unsure of what exactly was going on, followed the man's instructions and went into the room.

The room was bright white. It was bare except for a desk and a video camera. A man with a round face sat on the other side of the desk. He motioned for Adam to take a seat.

"Hello, Mr. Savage. I'm just going to ask you a few questions. Please, get comfortable."

A few questions ended up being one hundred and seventy-two and that's not counting the mental puzzles and Rorscach tests. Adam had to explain how he felt about his mother's rape at the hands of an alien as well as his own abduction and torture at the hands of those very same aliens. He had to talk about his extended family, his love and sex life, his jobs (including his attempt at starting a lemonade stand when he was ten that lasted all of one day). He also had to talk about his fears, hopes, dreams and desires.

He left the room feeling violated and exposed. He was glad to be out of there and see Jenkins. Adam was not as pleased as when Jenkins took him to get a physical where he got probed, poked and prodded. To try and ease the tension, Adam pointed out that he at least purchased dinner for the last person he'd been that personal with. The doctor didn't smile, Adam couldn't tell if it was because the joke was that bad or because the doctor had absolutely zero sense of humor (in actuality, both were true).

The only good part of the physical was that the doctor seemed unable to draw blood from Adam. The tip broke off the first hypodermic needle the doctor tried to use on Adam. The doctor kept trying larger and larger sized needles, finally trying something that looked like a spear that once might have been used to harpoon whales. Adam breathed a sigh of relief when that needle broke as well. The doctor decided that extensive MRIs and X-Rays would just have to suffice.

After the doctor's office, Jenkins took him to his third and final stop on his tour of the Compound. It was a large gym full of equipment, all of it cutting edge. Adam wasn't really familiar with most of the equipment. He'd seen commericals for some elipitical exercise equipment but the people on television made it look much less threatening than it looked to him now, sitting there expectantly.

He was ushered from machine to machine, being given only a moment to catch his breath and stretch before starting the next one. Jenkins watched him, making notes on a small notepad that he kept tucked in his pocket. Adam lifted free weights, ran on the treadmill, did push-ups and more. Finally he was taken the last machine in the room he hadn't gotten on.

"What's that?" Adam asked.

"It's a bench press," Jenkins answered simply.

It looked more like a vending machine than a bench press. Unlike a normal press, this one did not have free-standing weights instead there was a bar connected to a large black machine coming out of the ground, a small LCD screen was apparent on the side of the machine that read '0 lbs.'

"That doesn't look like any bench press I've ever seen."

"Lay down and I'll explain it to you."

Adam did as he was instructed. He put his hands on the bar that lay in front of him.

"Now this operates like a normal bench press in terms of what you do. The only difference is that the machine is creating a force equal to much more than any weight we could put on a conventional bench press. I mean, it is not as if we could keep a half ton weight just laying around now, could we?" Jenkins asked with a chuckle.

Adam began pushing up on the bar. It was almost a joke to him, the bar flew up with great ease. He lowered it and lifted again. This time the bar seemed heavier, to resist more. The change was subtle but defintely there. He lifted again and again, each time the bar getting heavier. Minutes passed and Adam began to tire as the bar seemed to be almost too heavy for him to lift.

"Now try and hold it up as long as you can," Jenkins said simply. Adam had almost forgotten the man's presence he had been so quiet during this part of the workout. Adam extended his arms to their fullest and held it. He forced himself to breathe deeply and regularly. Take it slow, he told himself, take it easy.

"Good," Jenkins said. "Why don't you hit the showers and change."

Adam had been waiting to hear those words. He lowered the bar and got out from under the machine. His arms felt numb from the effort and his whole body seemed on edge from the adreline running wildly through his body.

He enjoyed his shower, staying in long after he was clean. He just relished the water running over his body. He was so in the moment that he hadn't noticed the change in his body. It wasn't until he turned the water off and started to towel off that he noticed that his scars were gone, they seemed to have healed themselves. Other than his improved physique there was no longer any evidence of his abduction.

He got dressed and walked out into the hall where he met with Jenkins again. Jenkins ushered Adam into a large boardroom in one of the other buildings. The room was circular with large windows along the walls, letting in copious amounts of light. A large oaken table sat in the middle of the room, men in expensive suits sat all around it. Only one seat was open at the far end, Adam was shown the chair and instructed to sit down. When he got to his chair he could see Power sitting at the end opposite him. Power had a large grin on his face, he began applauding as Adam took his seat. All the other men followed his example.

"Adam, these results are damn impressive," Power said. He held up a file folder and gave it a small shake.

"So what you're saying is I'm a super?"

"Oh there's no doubt about that. You can," and her Power opened the file and gave it a cursory glance, "lift about seventy-five tons. Your skin is practically impentrable, definitely bulletproof. Your sense of hearing and vision are absurdly better than a normal human's. As far as we can tell you don't need to breath, at least not oxygen. Also it appears you have a heightened healing factor."
Here Power leaned forward and lowered his voice a little, Adam couldn't tell if he was going for secretive or personal. "To be honest, you're the best we've ever seen. You even outranked Rockford. You are the first geniune class A super we've ever really had."

"Class A?" Adam asked. He'd loved supers his whole life. He knew all sorts of useless tidbits about supers culture. For instance, he could name every member of the Great Lakes Avengers, he could tell the difference between Captain Marvel and Captain Mar-vell and he even knew that Martian Manhunter had an affinity for Oreos. Despite his encyclopedic knowledge, however, he'd never even heard the phrase 'class A' before.

"Yeah," Power replied. "You see not all supers are the same amount of powerful. I mean, Thor and Booster Gold aren't exactly in the same league, you know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah," Adam responded. It sounded pretty obvious to him.

"Well, you can measure the extent of a super's power. There are four classifications of supers: A, B, C and D with A being the highest and D being almost non-existent. Some D's never even know they have powers."

"And I'm an A?"

"Exactly. Most of the guys we've got are really just flashy C's. Although we do have a couple of B's."

"So I'm more powerful than Major Pain?" Adam asked, amazed. The men in the room just chuckled. "Wow." He knew that the alien experiments had been to try and improve him but he had no idea of the extent of it.

"It's exciting. Well, Adam, here's when I make my offer to you. I want you on my program. I'm willing to offer you a million dollars for one show. Depending on how the ratings go and how you test, we can set up a more concrete contract and pay schedule."

"A million dollars?" Adam asked in disbelief.

"Yes. A signing bonus, if you will."

"You're gonna pay me a million dollars?"

"Yes. As well as twenty-five percent of T-shirts and other merchandise based on you. So, what do you say?"

"Fuck, yeah," Adam responded. The men in the room chuckled again.

"Well, let me give you a copy of the contract we've prepped. You can hire a lawyer and go over it yourself. Then call me up and we'll talk. In the mean time, let me show you your character design."

"Character design?" Adam asked.

"Lights!" Power barked. The lights in the room immeadiately dimmed and the shades were drawn. Panels of the wall behind Power slide open and a screen illuminated. Power picked up a slide remote and pushed a button. A grainy black and white photograph of Adam's crash landing in New York City appeared on the screen. The picture was taken as Adam crawled out of the crater his ship had created (Adam was glad that Power had had Adam's gentials blurred out of focus to preserve some of his dignity).

"This is the look I want," Power said simply. Adam was amazed at how he looked. With his long hair and thick beard, not to mention his scarred naked body, Adam looked like a destructive super. The photo also made it appear that Adam was crawling out of some sort of netherworld, as if Hell itself had rejected him. If Adam hadn't already understood why the police had opened fire on him, he more than understood it now. He was a little scared of himself.

"That's what I want. That power. That scary demeanor," Power added. He turned to look at Adam. "I know you've groomed a little since then but don't worry, we've got great wig people that can set you up. You know the Hangman? Totally bald. You'd never know it though, would you?"

Power turned back to the screen as he clicked on to the next picture. This one was a quite detailed pencil drawing of a wooly-looking Adam dressed in tattered clothes that tastefully covered his nakedness, the words 'artist conception sketch' was stenciled in the bottom right corner. "We'll play you off as primal. You are angry, you are tough but you are also a misunderstood behometh. Sort of like our own Hulk. You'll make a great supervillian."

He clicked to the next picture. It was a publicity shot of Igntion, a new comer to the SPW that Adam had only seen twice before his abduction. He had a red costume that was flame retardant which was a good thing as the rest of his body was engulfed in flames. Despite the fire, you could still see Ignition flashing a winning smile. He looked like the type of guy who would've beat Adam up in high school.

"We'll pair you up against Ignition. He hasn't quite clicked with the fans yet which is a shame because he tests so well with women. He's got this likeable thing that women just can't seem to get enough off and we need as many women watching as we can get." There were several nods and few murmured words of agreement. "His fire won't hurt you so he'd be a good match for you. It means he can get big and flashy with his flame which will look real good on camera. So what do you think?"

"Well, it's good," Adam said. He paused before meekly adding, "but I'm not a supervillian." The men in the room didn't say anything.

"Adam," Power said in a comforting voice as he sat up in his chair, "no one since the days of the Fireman and the Terror has anyone been a real hero or villian. We create motives for people to fight to help keep it interesting. I mean, it would be super-powered boxing if we didn't make up back stories for people."

"So Static and Major Pain don't really hate each other?"

"No. But Static is a spoiled kid from the suburbs so it'd be hard to justify him fighting anybody, see?"

"So you just come up with a story to set up the fight?"

"Exactly. So as I was saying, your pitch is that Ignition will defeat Needle and claim the Gold Belt. Then you'll come in and challenge him saying he's unworthy of the belt. The two of you will fight and you'll win by cheating. That way you look like a winner and Ignition looks honorable and can keep the belt," Power explained.

"What if Ignition doesn't beat Needle?" Adam asked innocently. "Maybe I could come in and tease him then he could challenge me to protect his honor."

"Um, Adam, the fights are rigged. We know who's going to win."

"The fights are rigged?"

"Yeah. It's a part of the story that we're trying to tell."

"I don't get it. So you get people to pretend to be different people and beat each other up until the person you've decided on is going to win?"

Power was quiet for a moment. "That is one way to look at it. But I'd say the better way to look at it is that we are telling modern day myths. Our characters are like gods descended from Mount Olympus. We give our viewers a chance to see the personality of these figures and watch as they struggle with each other. And then just like your classic myths, these stories give us a chance to learn a little something about ourselves. Haven't you learned something about love or hate or obsession from watching the SPW?"

"I guess I have."

"You see? That's what we're going for. And just like with the Greeks or the Norse or what have you, the people who are told the myth need to think it's for real. If they think it's pretend, they won't get any real emotional truth out of it."

"I can see that."

"How about we get the driver to take you back to the hotel. We've hit you with a lot of info. We'll leave you to go over the contract and let you take in everything we've said."

Adam thanked everyone and went out to the catch his ride. He rode on to the hotel in silence, glancing over the contract that had been handed to him. It had words like 'subsidary rights,' 'likeness' and 'intellectual copyright.' He didn't really understand it and as they pulled into the Ritz, he saw the elegant splendor of the lobby and when he came to his room (the penthouse, of course) he signed the contract and called up Power.

"Mr. Power, I'm on board," Adam said with commitment.

---

He came to the arena early on the night of his first match. He went through hair and make-up before heading to costume. He felt silly walking down the hall dressed that way. True it was based on a way that he himself had once looked but in his own defense, he has just escaped after being held hostage for months on end.

He went to the green room to wait for his fight. Since it was his premiere and he was an unknown, they hadn't given him too much to do. When it was time, an assistant would come and get him, lead him to the arena. He'd challenge Ignition to a fight. It was supposed to be a quick fight.

See Savage Genesis in its original installments!

• 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
• Savage Genesis, part 18
• Savage Genesis, part 19
• Savage Genesis, part 20