Savage Genesis, part 15

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 incrediously.

"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 dectective 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."