by Andy Mangels
Michael started to get up to go after her, but Max caught his arm. «Michael, let her go for now. Fine, she stays with us.» He turned to Kyle. «But I want you to go with Isabel.» Kyle stopped mid-chew of his veggie burger. «Okay by me.» As Michael sat again, Max continued. «Isabel, what I was going to suggest is that you make your way to Boston.
If Jesse can't help you, he should know enough about the town now to hide you.» Isabel's eyes widened, and a smile lit her features. «Do you mean it?» She was obviously looking forward to a long-overdue reunion with her husband. «I think you can both catch a train here to Chicago," Max said, nodding. «Then another train can get you to Boston.» «And what about the rest of us?» Liz asked.
«I think we should make our way to Los Angeles," Max said. «Kal Langley may not have been able to make my ship fly, but he's got money and power. He'll be able to help us somehow. He can protect us if nothing else.» Michael nodded. «Sounds like a plan.» Kyle looked worried. «How do we know that Isabel will be out of harm's way just because we're splitting up?» «He's right about that, Maxwell," Michael said. «We really don't know if your plan will head Isabel away from Liz's vision or toward it.» Max stared at them both blankly. He hadn't thought of it that way.
«Let me try again," Liz said. «I mean, I can't really control when I get these flashes, but maybe since Isabel already has powers, it will kick-start things.» Max knew that she had avoided touching Isabel at all since the second time she had the vision.
Isabel's face clouded over. «Are you sure? You said you saw some pretty gruesome stuff.» Liz smiled wanly. «Yeah. What's the worst that could happen? I'll yak up my Starship Chicken Burger?» «We shouldn't do this outside," Max said, remembering how Liz's earlier flashes of prescience had made her cry out and fall temporarily unconscious. He gestured with his head over toward the van, where Maria was sipping her drink and glaring daggers his way. «Michael, you want to make sure it's safe back at the bus?» Michael gulped and stood, brushing crumbs off his Tshirt. «Sure thing, Maxwell.» Michael sauntered over toward the VW, licking the frenchfry grease off of his fingers. Sometimes it seemed he just couldn't do anything right with Maria. He had tried to stick up for her and she had turned it into an attack.
It was par for the course of their relationship. Ever since the beginning it had been rocky, although he couldn't really blame her at the start; their first lengthy interaction had been when he'd hijacked her mother's car with her in it and forced her to drive to a place he'd thought held the secrets of his alien origins.
Despite all of their romantic ups and downs, Michael loved Maria fiercely. They had tried to be apart many times over the past several years, and yet they were always pulled back together, as if they were magnetically charged.
Their relationship didn't have the star-crossed Romeo and Juliet nature that Max and Liz's had, or the domestic bliss that Isabel and Jesse had enjoyed. Michael realized that he and Maria thrived on conflict, as if overcoming adversity fueled the fires of love. But every now and then, he wished their romance could be simpler.
«Hey," he said, reaching out for her hand. She didn't take his, so he forced the issue. He took hers and crouched to look at her eyes, since she was refusing to look up.
«You're staying with me, Maria.» «Oh, so Max caved in, huh?» she asked, her voice still whiny.
«It didn't take much.» He caught her gaze and looked deeply into her eyes. «I was trying to stick up for you back there. In my own twisted way, I was saying that my love for you is as important as his love is for Liz.» «I know. I just…» Maria's lip quivered, and she began to cry.
Michael stood up and hugged her close. «Hey, it's okay.» Very gently, he patted her hair.
She finally pulled away and looked up at him, disengaging her hand from his to wipe the back of it under her eyes. «I'm not crying because of what happened before.
Well, maybe because of that. But also because you just said how much you love me.» «I tell you I love you a lot," Michael said. At least it felt like he did.
«Yeah, but you compared your love to theirs. Liz and Max are like this cosmic Romeo and Juliet that's so different from us. We're more like Sandy and Danny in Grease.» Michael laughed hard. It seemed like it was the first time he had laughed in ages.
«What?» Maria said, her expression defensive.
«The Romeo and Juliet thing. I was just thinking the exact same thing while I walked over here.» Maria raised an eyebrow. «Hmmm. Maybe we're sharing brain waves or something.» «Or something," Michael said. Then he leaned in closer and kissed her.
Liz was nervous. What she had seen in her future flash about Isabel had been horrific. Both, times. And now they were about to try for the vision a third time. This one should be the charm, she thought mirthlessly. She hoped her mind would show her something other than the alien autopsy no, alien vivisection that she had witnessed before. She hoped that whatever they decided to do next would alter that obscene future.
They all gathered on the side of the Microbus opposite the Orbit Drive-In. Isabel stepped forward and put her hand out. Liz saw that she was trembling slightly. «You ready?» Isabel asked.
«All set to enter the Dead Zone like Anthony Michael Hall," Liz said, taking a deep breath. She reached out and touched Isabel's hand. Closing her eyes, she concentrated and she was Isabel again, the restraining straps and pain holding her firmly onto a table. Above her were agonizingly bright klieg lights outfitted with reflective metallic hoods. After her eyes adjusted to the glare, she could see herself/Isabel reflected in them, could see the blood on her head. It was easily visible since most of her hair was gone.
Electrodes and wires were attached to her skull, and she could feel them invading other parts of her body.
The white room was filled with busy medical personnel, and in the galleries elevated above the room she could see men in dark suits watching from behind safety glass.
She saw one woman among the observers, and noticed that several video cameras were trained down upon her as well.
A piercing whine filled her ears as a masked doctor peered down at her. He wore clear goggles, and his slatecolored eyes held no pity.
Struggling, she saw that as in her previous visions her stomach was covered with a protective medical drape, which was stained crimson with blood. The technicians were removing her organs and putting them in metal pans, weighing them as she watched in silent horror.
The whine became louder and louder, and the masked doctor moved in closer. And suddenly, the pain became too great to be borne. Liz tried to scream, tried to get away, but it was no use.
Blood sprayed across her vision in a scarlet haze as the excruciating pain washed over her in relentless waves, tsunamis of pure agony.
And then, a cool hand pulled her away, into darkness.
Away from the pain and the blood and the death. Liz looked up weakly and saw who had saved her. «Alex?» But her dead friend's familiar smiling face wasn't there anymore if it had ever been there at all. The face belonged instead to Max, who was crouching over her. Liz abruptly realized that she was on the ground behind the Orbit Drive-ln in Nebraska, her leg twisted awkwardly beneath her.
«M'okay, Max," she said, still woozy. She looked around at the others. Kyle was steadying Isabel, who looked almost as distressed as Liz felt.
«I take it the vision didn't get any better this time?» Max asked as he helped Liz up to a sitting position.
The sequels are always worse than the originals, aren't they? Liz thought absurdly. She shook her head. «No. Still horrible. Nothing new.» She decided not to mention having seen Alex, since she wasn't certain that she actually had.
«So, splitting up isn't going to work?» Isabel said, her tone lifeless.
«We don't know that," Liz said. «We haven't split up yet.
We've all been together every time I've had this vision.
Maybe if we split up, we'll cut off this particular lane into the future.» She didn't want to bring up the convers
e point, though she couldn't help thinking it. Or splitting up might be the action that leads you straight into the lair of the Big Bad Wolves.
Isabel moved quickly in front of the van, and they all heard her retching. They stood in silence until she returned a couple of minutes later. Kyle handed her some of the napkins he had stuffed into his pocket.
Liz didn't know whether to look to Max for the decision, or to Isabel. Neither, apparently, did anyone else.
Isabel finally spoke, breaking the uncomfortable quiet.
«We've been letting our fear of the Special Unit control our lives for too long. It's time we made some decisions of our own. I'm going to Boston. And I'm not going to let them capture me or… they aren't going to get that chance.» Liz admired Isabel for the brave front she was putting up. But she suspected that her friend might be even more sick and frightened had she seen for herself the gruesome details of Liz's vision.
3. Los Angeles.
Ava opened her eyes, but found she was having trouble focusing them. Her eyelids felt as heavy as garage doors. Drugs, she realized, her thoughts muzzy. It was as though her brain had been removed from her skull and then had been wrapped up in a warm, moist blanket. They've drugged me up. Again. Gradually, over a period that might have been minutes or years, her vision began to clear, though her thoughts remained scattered, her powers of concentration all but nonexistent. Sensation began returning to her body, which she discovered was lying supine on a hard table of some sort. She saw that people surrounded her, many of them dressed in white smocks, caps, and surgical masks. Doctors? Am I sick? Then she noticed the two men who stood watching her from one of the room's sterile white corners: a scar-faced, fiftyish man in a black suit, and a somewhat younger, identically dressed man who stood impassively at the scarred man's side. From their bearing, Ava sized them both up as military. She was pretty sure she'd seen them before somewhere, though she couldn't concentrate sufficiently to recall exactly where. All she knew was that the scarred man looked as tough as the proverbial nails and that the other one was downright frightening, his eyes as sharp as those of some predatory bird. His piercing gaze made her feel like a morsel about to be eaten. Suddenly she remembered where she'd seen them before: They'd been on the plane that had taken her from New York to Los Angeles, along with Rath and Lonnie. Where are Rath and Lonnie? With every last shred of concentration she could muster, she reached outward with her mind, desperate for an answer to that question. «I still say this is damned dangerous, Viceroy," Dale Bartolli said quietly, his eyes as wary and alert as a shrike's as he studied the semiconscious young woman who lay strapped to the gurney. The medical personnel were checking the Harding girl's vital signs as they administered the counteragent to the drug that had kept her immobile since her recapture at Los Angeles International. Matthew Margolin, the special agent code-named «Viceroy," nodded. He stroked one of the numerous scars that ran along the side of his chin like cracks in a welltraveled stretch of highway. Margolin had grown tired of debating. With two more of these superpowered alien kids presently on the loose somewhere in Southern California, the stakes were far too high for him to tolerate any insubordination. «I know it's dangerous, Dale. But it's the only decision possible if we want to get our hands on Michael Guerin and Isabel Evans again.» Especially since they seem to have the ability to be in two places at once. Bartolli nodded, evidently picking up on Margolin's warning tone. «Maybe you're right. Just as long as we don't let her come around enough so she can use her Jedi mind tricks to force us to let her go. Or make us kill each other.» Margolin met Bartolli's hawklike gaze and held it unflinchingly. «It's a calculated risk, but a necessary one. And I've taken thorough precautions.» He motioned toward one of the masked and smocked technicians, who approached carrying what appeared to be a large wad of aluminum foil, which she handed to Margolin before returning to her other duties. The clump of fine metal mesh was unexpectedly heavy in Margolin's hand. Very carefully, he separated it into two pieces and handed one to Bartolli. «Tinfoil," Bartolli said, staring at the crumpled metal wad in his hand. «Tinfoil is supposed to stop this alien from melting our brains, Chief?» Margolin chuckled, realizing how this must look to his second-in-command. «This is something brand new from the R and D folks," he said, enjoying showing Bartolli who was boss by one-upping him. «Another spin-off from our alien-tech reverse-engineering efforts. I'm not surprised you don't know about it yet. This material employs some of the same principles as the psi-detection gear our backup team used to track the aliens right after they escaped from custody at LAX. Most importantly, it has psiresistant properties.» Bartolli eyed the stuff with evident suspicion. «And I'll bet it'll keep a sandwich fresh all week long too. So what are we supposed to do with this stuff?» Silently, Margolin smoothed his own clump of foil out until it was nearly as straight and flat as a sheet of paper. Then he carefully applied it to the top of his head, bending it and patting it until it formed a shiny skullcap. «Now put yours on," Margolin said, faintly amused by Bartolli's incredulous expression. «When I was a young FBI agent in Washington, D.C., there was a crazy homeless guy who used to show up on the bus I rode to work," Bartolli said at length, still staring at his ball of foil. «He wore a tinfoil Napoleon hat because he thought a secret government satellite could read his thoughts from orbit otherwise.» «How very interesting," Margolin said, waspish. «Now put it on.» Scowling, Bartolli gestured toward the doctors and technicians who were tending to the Harding girl. She let out a low moan, evidently about to return more fully to consciousness. «So why aren't the doctors wearing these silly-ass things, Viceroy?» Bartolli wanted to know. «They are. Under their caps. The last thing I wanted was to let the redoubtable Ms. Harding use her mind freak on our technical staff. Now put on your damned tinfoil beanie and stop complaining. Unless you want that girl to decide you're our weakest link after she comes to, that is.» Margolin grinned as he watched Bartolli reluctantly comply. Margolin thought he looked far less fierce than usual at the moment. Adjusting his protective skullcap, he hoped that he hadn't once again underestimated the extent of the alien teens' abilities. If he had, then they were all in very big trouble. Outside a Melrose Avenue eatery, Lonnie watched from across a battered plastic table while Rath slowly chewed his teriyaki burger. He seemed to be even more up inside his own head than usual if such a thing was even possible apparently lost in thought as he eyed the numerous passersby on this trendy-yet-appealinglytrashy boulevard. Most of them were young, and many looked at least as post-punk as Rath and Lonnie did. Looks like we're gonna fit right in here, Lonnie had thought only minutes after they had arrived on Melrose Avenue, still driving the car they had stolen from the airport parking garage immediately after their escape from the MiBs. No need to waste our alien energies on celebrity disguises, at least for now. She had idly wondered then if any of the street's more gaudily dressed habitues had grown up in a municipal sewer system, the way the East Coast Royal Four had. But now her full attention was focused on Rath. «You've barely said two words to me all morning," she said. Rath shrugged, then replied around a mouthful of a drippy burger, which he'd just slathered with enough Tabasco sauce and Karo syrup to challenge even a fullblooded Antarian's palate. «Day's still young, Vilandra. Didn't know you were counting my words. What's my running total so far?» «About nineteen now. What the hell's the matter with you today, Rath?» Looking uncharacteristically pensive, he set his sandwich back down into the red plastic basket. «It's Ava. I keep thinking about her.» «It's a little late to start feeling guilty now, don't you think?» After all, Ava had been in the hands of the Feds for almost a whole day ever since she and Rath had run out on her during their scramble to escape from the airport. Lonnie herself didn't feel any real remorse about Ava's fate; ditching Ava had been Rath's idea, not hers. He shrugged again. «Maybe you're right. Maybe not. I just have a feeling that there might be something we can do to help her.» «I thought you said she was a liability. A bell around our necks.» «I know I did. Maybe I was wrong about that
.» That nearly floored her, and she felt her eyebrows lifting off like space shuttles. Rath just admitted he might have been wrong about something. Better get my affairs in order. The end of the world must be coming up fast. She wondered if he was really beginning to feel pangs of guilt, not only for throwing Ava to the wolves, but also for murdering Zan, their erstwhile king. After all, without Zan and Ava, the East Coast Royal Four was reduced by fifty percent. Maybe here, three thousand miles from the only home any of their small, insular group had ever known, things were beginning to look very different to Rath. «We need each other to survive," Rath said, confirming Lonnie's musings. «Especially so far away from home. I mean, it's not like we can just show up at Kal Langley's place and expect him to take us in. Or trust him.» «You're right about that. But your change of heart about Ava is pretty out there, Rath.» She recalled how she had jumped on him right after he'd decided on his own to leave Ava behind. And how he had convinced her that it had been the only prudent move they could have made at the time to protect themselves from their alien-hunting pursuers. «You were worried that the Feds were tracking us through her. So even if we did manage to rescue her, what's to stop the MiBs from doing that all over again?» He pushed the wreckage of his burger to the side of the table and rose to his feet. His smile was the death's-head rictus of a veteran warrior. «Simple, Lonnie. After we're done rescuing Ava, we'll just have to make sure that there are no Men in Black left alive to continue the chase.» Hastening after Rath as he strode quickly onto the busy sidewalk, Lonnie wasn't quite sure why his words didn't sound completely, utterly absurd. Taking the fight to their pursuers sounded pretty reckless. She wondered why she wasn't completely terrified of the whole idea. 4. Sidney, Nebraska. «Are you sure about this?» Isabel asked, her eyes intent on Max's reaction. She was still shaken from Liz's statements about the gruesome vision she'd had of Isabel's future, but she was attempting not to show it. «As sure as we can be, Iz.» Despite what he'd said, Max didn't look confident. His eyebrows peaked in the center, and the expression made him look younger, even though the sideburns she had given him yesterday were supposed to help him look older. And different. In case our pictures are on the news again, Isabel thought. They still hadn't seen or heard anything further about their Wyoming misadventures, and no one at the bus station had tried to stop them. Despite the fact that there were dozens of railroad tracks throughout the town, none of the trains that passed through Sidney were passenger trains. Kyle had suggested they could hop into a boxcar and ride like hobos, but Isabel immediately nixed the idea. So, with some creative scheduling, they had bought tickets for a Greyhound bound for Lincoln. From there, they planned to catch a train to Chicago, and then either fly or continue by train to Boston. It seemed quite a convoluted travel plan, but it was low profile, and Isabel thought it might even give her and Kyle a chance to rest up during the journey. «Okay, let's do it, then," Isabel said, facing the others in the sparsely populated train station. She hugged Max fiercely, then Michael, then Maria. Liz put up her hand in a wave and backed up, a wan smile on her face. She doesn't want me to touch her any more than I want her to touch me, Isabel thought. She waved back, then turned to gather her bag. Kyle shook hands with Max and Michael, and hugged Maria and Liz. «See anything about me?» he asked Liz as they parted. «Don't talk to the lady in blue polyester on the train," Liz said. «She's going to bore you to tears, and then hit on you.» Kyle saluted. «Got it.» They all laughed for a moment, and then Isabel and Kyle turned to board the bus. They sat together, with Isabel at the window. She watched her brother and friends through the slightly dusty Plexiglas. As the bus pulled away, they waved again, and Isabel waved back. She realized that with a very few short-range exceptions, this trip would take her farther away from Max and Michael than she had ever been before. But Liz's visions terrified Isabel even more than did being separated from nearly everyone she'd ever known. I have to get away. Beyond that, she tried to take comfort in the knowledge that Jesse would be waiting for her in Boston. Even if he didn't know it yet. The thought of Jesse holding her again was comforting, but not enough to quell her roiling stomach. I'm still afraid that something horrible is going to happen. They've already divided us. Now are they going to conquer us? The Colorado/Utah Border Max looked over at Liz and smiled. He had been driving the Microbus for hours now, crossing Colorado on Interstates 76 and 70. Now they were entering Utah, and in five or six hours would be headed through Nevada, toward Las Vegas. Liz was staring out the partially open window, her sunglasses on to protect her eyes from the bright sun and hot desert air that whooshed by the Microbus. Perhaps sensing Max's glance, she turned and looked at him. She's so beautiful, Max thought. He mouthed the words I love you to her, and his heart melted as she squeezed his hand and mouthed the words back. The radio was on loud to cover any noises coming from the back of the VW Michael and Maria had pulled the privacy curtain earlier, and Max didn't know if they were fighting, or engaging in more pleasant pursuits. Probably a little of both, if their past is any indication, he thought with a smile. The desert scenery was stunning, a beautiful panoply of ochers and reds, but they didn't have any more time to take in the sights today than they'd had the last time they had passed this way, over a year ago. That was when Max and Liz had come up to Salina, in search of a secret government facility. They had found it, underneath Sam's Quick Stop market, and then faked a robbery to gain access to the site. Max had entered the underground storage facility and had seen the ship the ship that had brought his essence to Earth during the summer of 1947. In the intervening time, the military had apparently repaired the ship but had been unable to make it run. Max and Liz had quickly been caught by the police, arrested, and charged with armed robbery. The subsequent days had been tense. Neither Max nor Liz could fully explain their actions, either to their parents or to the courts. Phillip Evans had done his best to help them, but although Max was set free, Liz was held under more substantive charges: She had been holding the weapon they'd used in the «robbery.» Max had returned later to the underground facility, only to find the ship gone. His father had followed him to the site, and after the pair had discovered that a dangerous chemical was being stored there, they struck a deal with an FBI agent who led them to Liz's release. That misadventure had been the beginning of the most disastrous time in Max and Liz's relationship, and may have led to the unraveling of their lives in Roswell. Max knew that this was the time when his father had started developing strange suspicions about him and Isabel. It was also when the Parkers had forbidden Max from seeing Liz. Max recalled that he had offered to break Liz out of jail before they knew she would be freed. «And then what?» Liz had asked him. «Just be on the run the rest of our lives? We'd never be able to go home again. No, Max, I'm sorry, but that's just too far for me. I'm not ready to give up my home or my family.» But nine months later, that was exactly what Max and Liz and the others had been forced to do. They had been pushed out of Roswell, away from everything and everyone they knew. It's got to stop, Max thought. We will not be on the run for the rest of our lives. He turned the music down and tilted his head toward the back of the Microbus. «Michael? Maria? I'm going to need one of you to drive here pretty soon. Liz and I really shouldn't be in the front.» Some noises and bumps came from behind the privacy curtain, and finally Michael's head popped forward. «What's up?» «Salina," Liz said, pointing off in the distance. «The teenage witch?» Michael asked, perplexed. Max winced. Sometimes he didn't know if Michael was trying to be funny, or if he was just clueless. «Salina, the town. Where Liz and I got arrested. Part of my court sentence was that I couldn't return to Utah until after my twenty-first birthday.» The privacy curtain was drawn completely aside by Maria as she joined Michael in the center seat. «So? You're in Utah now, aren't you?» Max looked up in the rearview mirror and made a face. «Yes, I am. But given our luck lately, I don't want to chance that we'd drive by one of the cops who stopped us before and get arrested again. Ergo, it's your turn to drive.» «Oooh, 'ergo,'" Maria said, h
er tone slightly mocking. «Is that Antarian?» Liz looked back at her friend, one eyebrow raised. «Maria, didn't we give you two enough time alone back there?» As Maria sighed dramatically, Michael patted Max on the arm. «Pull over up there and I'll take over.» Minutes later, Max and Liz were safely behind the privacy curtain, and Michael was driving. «Be sure not to go over the speed limit," Max called out. «We don't need to call any more attention to ourselves.» «I hear and I obey, Maxwell," Michael said, sighing heavily. Liz moved Maria's guitar case aside and spread her blankets out across the back of the Microbus, then patted them to encourage Max to lie down with her. Grinning, Max plopped down beside her. She rolled onto her side and propped her head up with her hand. «Hey," he said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. «Hey, yourself," she said, then leaned in to kiss him. The effect was magical, as it sometimes was when they kissed. Max saw/felt in his mind's eye a kaleidoscope of images and memories: a swirling galaxy; Liz in a one-piece swimsuit at a pool; the controls of a spaceship; Max healing a wounded bird in the park; Liz with a flower in her hair; the rocks in the Roswell desert canyon, where the Granilith had been hidden; Maria and Liz laughing in a park; a constellation of five stars; a/f of them at the prom; even Alex in his tuxedo And then Liz pulled away, breaking their contact. «I'm sorry," she said, her voice low. «Hey, it's not your fault," Max said, holding her hand. «Neither of us can control what we see in our flashes. The images I got were mostly pretty happy ones.» Except maybe for that last one, he thought, suddenly wistful. Liz put her head down on his chest, and Max stroked her hair. He knew that she had never gotten over the death of Alex Whitman. Neither had Maria, for that matter, since the three of them had been friends for a long time. Max wished there was some way he could go back and undo what had happened; he had tried to revive Alex in the ambulance, but he had evidently been injured past the point of no return. It had been doubly hard for Liz to accept Alex's death when it was suggested that he had committed suicide. Eventually, the truth came out that Tess had mindwarped Alex as part of her plan to take the unborn child she carried Max's child back to Antar to deliver to his enemies. Alex had died as a result of Tess's repeated mental assaults. The search for a way to follow Tess and retrieve his son was what led Max and Liz to find the restored spaceship in Utah. It was also what had led Max to Hollywood, where he had tracked down the second surviving alien «protector» from the 1947 Roswell crash. The first had been the shapeshifter they knew as Nasedo, but he had been killed; this second alien had taken the name Kal Langley, and had made a commitment to himself never to shapeshift from his human form again, lest he forever lose every truly human characteristic he had ever acquired. Langley had become a rich and powerful Hollywood producer, and he seemingly had everything he wanted. But when Max reappeared in his life, Langley's stable and prosperous existence was shattered. Max found out that Langley had to obey Max's commands, so Max forced him to use his film connections to find the reassembled ship that had been spirited away from Utah. He then forced Langley to shapeshift for the first time in decades in order to pilot the ship. Unfortunately, the ship couldn't fly. Max remembered what Langley had told him the last time they had seen each other: «I destroyed my life for you tonight, all for nothing. Because of you, everything I've worked for is gone," he had said. «Being your protector might be encoded in my genes, but after tonight… I'll never stop hating you.» And now they needed Langley's help again, and were on their way to Los Angeles to get it. Max doubted their protector would be any happier about helping them now than he had been a year ago, but he really had no choice, as long as Max was in charge. He has money, power, and influence, Max thought. And he's survived and thrived among humanity for over fifty years. He's got to be able to help us stop the Special Unit once and for all. Somehow. But as he lay in the back of the Microbus, Liz's breath soft on his chest, Max feared that the victory against the rogue government forces arrayed against them might require more hardship and sacrifice than they had ever faced before. «Go home, Max. Don't come back," Langley had said. «Word of advice: The more you embrace our alien side, the more you're gonna lose.» What am 1 going to lose now? Max asked himself. What are we all going to lose? Mount Pleasant, Iowa Kyle stared forward, his eyes slightly glazed. He had never felt more bored. Why didn't I listen to Liz? He had been sitting in the Superliner's lounge car, reading a Powers graphic novel that he had picked up several days earlier. He liked reading good comics when he could, but they didn't have much room for reading material in the Microbus. The irony that he himself now had some kind of developing superpowers was not lost on him every time he read comics; it was one reason he tried to pick intelligent, «real-world» looks at superheroes. When she sat across from him in the lounge car, the woman in blue polyester hadn't seemed much of a threat at first. She was even pretty, though at least fifteen years his senior. His reading interrupted, he initially hadn't even remembered Liz's warning. Now, half an hour had passed, during which time she'd revealed her name Lucinda and had detailed her past three divorces, her erotic adventures at Sleeping Beauty's Castle in Disneyland, the problems with her last five haircuts, the changing scenery and how boring she found it after approximately nineteen trips aboard this same train, whether the light in the trains was flattering to her, and her loathing of people who ate the Korean cabbage dish Kimchi. In his mind, Kyle kept repeating the first three of the Buddhist «Four Noble Truths»: life means suffering; suffering has a cause; and the cause of our suffering can be ended. He couldn't quite see how to work in the fourth truth: suffering can be ended by following a path to wisdom, peace, meditation, and growth. What's my path, out ojhere? he asked himself as the woman chattered on. The simple answer was to get up, walk through the sliding doors to another car, and continue until he got to the sleeping car where he and Isabel had a suite. They'd lucked out and been the sole people renting aboard that particular sleeping car, so they had no neighbors. Kyle had left Isabel alone to shower and clean up. He knew how much of a horndog she thought he was, so he didn't want to crowd her «personal space.» Not that there hadn't been a few times he'd wanted to. She was beautiful. And married, he reminded himself. Finally, Kyle could take no more of Lucinda's selfinvolved babbling. He gave her a smile and stood, saying, «Lucinda, I really need to get going. I've got to check in on my friend, and I really need to use the little boys' room.» She grinned lasciviously. «I'm sure you need the big boys' room.» She threw her shoulders back, pushing out her chest, and tilted her head to one side. «You want me to come back to the sleeper with you? 1 give great massages.» Oh Lord, Kyle thought. I should have listened to Liz. He forced another smile. «No thanks, that's all right. My friend might not appreciate the company. She's a bit touchy sometimes.» Lucinda's eyes flared, and then narrowed. «Oh. 1 see. Well, have a good rest of the trip, then.» «You too," Kyle said, exiting as quickly as he could. He passed through the sliding door and looked back once. Lucinda was watching him leave. Kyle made his way back to the sleeping car. Their suite, paid for with alien-altered currency, was downstairs. He prepared to descend the narrow stairwell, when he heard a metallic gong and voices. Isabel's and a man's. And neither voice sounded happy. Isabel had really needed the time in the shower alone. She hadn't washed for two days now, and felt gritty. The hot water relieved the stress of the past few days a little, but that amount of tension couldn't be completely excised quite so easily. She looked down at her side, where a pair of small bruises were ripening to an ugly purplish-blue. Those had come from the tasers that the agents had used on them in the back service corridor of the mall in Cheyenne yesterday. The charge had disrupted her system more than she'd expected. Fortunately, it didn't seem to be having any long-term effect on her. Long-term effect. The phrase was almost a joke, especially in her situation. After all, she was the woman who had betrayed her family and friends on her home planet, was later resurrected on Earth as a half-alien/half-human girl, and was now running for her life from the various forces both alien and human that wanted her dead. Co
mpared to the trauma-drama that was her life her lives a few bruises were insignificant. Isabel turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She grabbed a big fluffy towel and began drying herself. Following the hot shower, the feel of the fabric on her skin was a welcome sensation. Once she felt suitably dry, she donned a robe, then bent over, wrapped her hair in a towel, and flipped her head back. Isabel heard a noise outside the bathroom door, in the bedroom of the sleeping car's suite. Kyle must be back. She opened the bathroom door and stepped out. «Good timing, Kyle. I just finished in here. You can shower now if you " What she saw stopped her short. There was a large, ruddy-complexioned man standing in the room, pointing a strange device at her. It didn't look like any weapon she had ever seen before. «Who are you? What are you doing in my room?» Isabel said, trying to keep the edge of fear out of her voice. «I'm here for you, Vilandra," the man said, his voice edgy and deep. He was using her Antarian name. He's an alien as well. Or one of the human puppets being mind-controlled by aliens. Instinctively Isabel put up her hand and sent a wave of energy out toward the man. Although the metal walls clanged from the energy's impact, the man stood there, apparently unaffected by her blast. He smirked. «Your powers can't hurt me.» He took a step toward her. «Kivar wants you back, Vilandra.» 5 Bowie, Arizona Jim Valenti gripped the station wagon's steering wheel tightly as the desert highway slowly unwound before him, the afternoon shadows slowly lengthening across the bare brown land. Amy DeLuca had flattened down the backseat and was sleeping beside him, wrapped in one of the multicolored blankets that River Dog had given them as a buffer against the autumn breezes and the cold desert night. Valenti was extremely grateful that River Dog had aided them without adding further complications to their already precarious situation. The old shaman of the Mesaliko Indian Reservation was an integral part of the alien history of Roswell, though not an active enough part, apparently, to merit investigation by the Special Unit. Those government spooks have no idea just how much the old man knows, Valenti thought. In the 1950s, River Dog had befriended Nasedo, helping heal him after a tribal sweat ritual had gone awry, unbalancing his alien physiology. Though River Dog later lost track of the shapeshifter, he'd never judged him as an evil spirit, as had the tribal elders. Thus, even after the alien killed their mutual acquaintance, author James Atherton, River Dog had trusted Nasedo, and vice versa. The old Native American was one of the few who knew the truth about Nasedo and who hadn't been eliminated by Nasedo during subsequent years. Although Valenti hadn't learned about it until later, River Dog had also helped Max, Michael, and Isabel learn the truth about their alien origins, and had aided Michael in getting through a hallucinatory sickness by restoring the balance of energy within his half-alien body. When he was sheriff of Roswell, one of Valenti's best deputies was Owen Blackwood, who had grown up on the reservation. River Dog had apparently not entrusted Blackwood with any of the secrets of the cave in which Nasedo had lived for a time, nor with the meanings of the alien hieroglyphs engraved on its walls. Instead, River Dog had shared this knowledge with Eddie, a teenager on the reservation. It was Eddie who had met Valenti and Amy earlier when they arrived. This morning's tumultuous events remained green enough in Valenti's memory that he still found himself trembling from time to time, his body tensing with recollections of fear and adrenaline. He had gotten a call from Suzanne Duff, the FBI agent with whom he had worked the Laurie Dupree abduction case the previous year. She had given him a cryptic warning, telling him that he was no longer safe in Roswell. Then, in rapid succession, Valenti had gotten a page from UFO Center proprietor Brody Davis on his special «panic pager," followed by a phone call from Sheriff Hanson, asking him to get into the office early. Hanson wouldn't explain the urgency, but Duff had told Valenti to get himself and anyone else he felt might be at risk from the government's alien-hunters away from Roswell immediately. Immediately after arranging a clandestine meeting in Tucson with Duff, Valenti had called Amy, who had been on her way home from his place to change clothes before opening her shop for the day. She had explained that she was being followed by a black sedan, and the resulting chase had ended in a lumberyard. Valenti had hurried over there and driven off with her before her pursuers had had a chance to follow. Amy had cut her head badly when her car crashed in the lumberyard, but Valenti knew he couldn't risk taking her to the hospital. The safest place he could think of at the moment was the Mesaliko reservation; it seemed unlikely that the Special Unit operatives would think of looking for them there. While an elderly native American woman one of River Dog's friends sewed up the gash on Amy's scalp, Valenti tried to raise Phillip Evans, then Jeff Parker, on his cell phone. Disconcertingly, though not at all surprisingly, there was no answer at either home, nor at either of their business numbers. Valenti then dialed Brody Davis at the UFO Center, and was gratified when he finally got an answer. «Brody? This is Jim Valenti. Are you all right?» The Englishman sounded rattled. «Yes. For now.» «What's going on there? You paged me.» «Yeah, like an hour ago. You told me that pager number was for special emergencies, and I think what I saw certainly qualified as one of those.» Valenti turned and saw that River Dog was regarding him with a calculating stare. «What did you see, Brody?» «A bunch of commando guys broke into the Crashdown Cafe and took Mr. and Mrs. Parker away. I locked the Center down and called you immediately. What took you so long?» «I've been a little tied up, Brody," Valenti said guardedly. «Apparently the Parkers aren't the only ones they're after. I'm on my way out of town now, to try to get some help.» «What's going onT Brody asked, his voice almost a wail. «Men in Black coming to Roswell isn't exactly a new concept to those of us who are UFOlogists, but what do they want with the Parkers? Or youT «I'm sorry, Brody. I can't tell you right now. It's too dangerous.» Valenti knew that Brody was already involved in alienhuman encounters to a far greater extent than he realized; his body was occasionally «abducted," mind-controlled by an entity named Larek, a native of Antar who sometimes communicated with Max and the others from the alien homeworld. As far as Brody knew, he was a multiple abductee but had never been told that his «missing time» hadn't been spent aboard a visiting alien spaceship; the only actual physical interaction he'd ever had with an alien was when he'd employed Max to work for him in the UFO Center. Valenti heard silence on the other end of the line, until Brody spoke again in anxious tones. «Exactly how dangerous is this? They had guns, Mr. Valenti.» Valenti winced. «Where's your daughter, Brody?» «Sydney's staying with family out of town.» «Good. Keep it that way," Valenti said. «You should be safe. I don't think anyone has connected you to the rest of us yet.» «What is this 'us' thing, Deputy? And what exactly is it that I have to worry about?» Brody's voice sounded strained and defensive. 1 can't say I blame him, Valenti thought. «Brody, please trust me when I say that you are better off not knowing right now.» He paused for a moment, considering what to say next. Better to give him an inch than risk him leaping the mile. «All I can tell you is that your work at the UFO Center is a lot closer to the plain truth than you probably ever realized. But the more you know, the more at risk you'll be. You and your daughter and your family.» More silence followed from the other end of the line. Finally, Brody said, «So, what should I do?» Valenti wasn't sure, but he didn't want Brody to know that. He recalled the situation over a year ago when Brody's memory had gone haywire because of Larek's «abductions," and Larek/Brody had taken Max and the others hostage in the Center, which had been a secure bomb shelter back in the 1950s and might be used that way again now. «I know you can lock down the Center," Valenti said. «Do you have supplies there? Can you survive holed up in there for a few days?» «Yes. I've got several months' provisions here if I need them. But I " «You won't need months," Valenti said, interrupting. «Days, at most. Close up shop, lock yourself away, and get done with some of those projects you've been meaning to finish. Try to have as little contact with the outside as possible. But contact me if anything else comes up, all right?» «You'll answer my page this time?» Valenti mas
saged his temples and sighed. «If I'm able to, I will. But a lot of really big things might be coming down over the next few days. I don't know what the outcome is going to be.» Silence reigned yet again on the other end of the phone, and then Brody said, «I wish you the best of luck, Deputy Valenti.» Not sure if I'll even be a deputy once this is all over, Valenti thought, suppressing a chuckle. «Thanks, Brody. You too. Ill be in touch.» He clicked the phone off. Valenti stood beside River Dog's station wagon as the freshly stitched-up Amy made herself comfortable in the passenger side, preparing to take a much-needed nap. River Dog came up from behind him. «This is someone else who is involved?» he asked, gesturing toward the phone in Valenti's hand. «Sort of," Valenti said, tucking the phone into his belt, between his pistol and handcuffs. «He's become a part of all this. I don't think he's in any immediate danger, though. He probably would be if he knew the real truth about everything.» «I do not know the truth about everything myself," River Dog said. «But what I know here, and what I feel here» he gestured toward his head, then his heart «tell me I must be involved as well. Those whose souls come from beyond must be protected.» Valenti smiled. «That's a pretty enlightened way of looking at things.» «My people have long talked of those who come here from beyond," the shaman said. «As with the men of the earth, so too are the men of the sky. Some have the heart of a butterfly, some have the sting of the scorpion. Max and Michael and their friends have the power to sting, but they choose to use their hearts instead.» Hours later, as Valenti drove with Amy through the Arizona desert along Interstate 10, he replayed the words of River Dog in his mind. River Dog had loaned them the old station wagon, promising that despite its weatherbeaten looks, its engine was more than strong enough to get them to the Dupree mansion in Tucson. Valenti knew that if anyone was looking for them on the road, they'd be less likely to do so in a car as nondescript as this one. Valenti had also traded in his ever-present cowboy hat for a beatup baseball cap, and Amy had pulled her hair back in a scarf it helped hide the stitches and bandage on her forehead as well. Passing through the town of Bowie, Valenti knew he had less than a hundred miles to go before he got to Laurie Dupree's house. He hoped he wasn't walking into a trap laid by Duff, but he felt certain he wasn't. If she were working with the bad guys, she wouldn't have bothered to warn him. He wondered if Duff was now placing her law enforcement career in the same kind of jeopardy into which he had put his own when he'd begun helping Max and the others. He didn't know what he and Amy and Duff and Laurie would be able to accomplish once they got together, but he was comforted that at least he had allies. Not only did he have allies, but so did the kids. He wondered what was happening with the kids since they had e-mailed him yesterday, and hoped that the reason the Special Unit was putting the squeeze on their parents now was because the teens had managed once again to elude their government pursuers. I'll die before I give those bastards any information that might lead them to Kyle, he thought, his jaw set in a hard angle of determination. And I'm willing to bet that Amy and the Evanses and the Parkers feel exactly the same way. Elk, New Mexico At the Special Unit's safe house, Special Agent Patrick Harrison was getting annoyed. When he had gotten the clearance to move in with a special ops takedown in Roswell in the predawn hours, he'd expected it to go smoothly. And to some extent, it had. But to a much larger extent, it hadn't. One of the sweeper teams had picked up Jeff and Nancy Parker without much trouble, but things had gone south when he and his own team had broken into the Evans household. Phillip Evans had been talking to someone on a cell phone prior to his capture, but he had destroyed the phone before they could take him. They had also found a security camera hidden in the living room, which had been outfitted with a broadcast antenna. When they disconnected the cam they had shut down its carrier signal, but they had been unable to determine where the signal had been sent. Shortly afterward, Harrison got word that Special Agent Paige's team had been unsuccessful in capturing Amy DeLuca and Jim Valenti; they had been unable to find them in the several hours that had elapsed since their escape. Harrison expected that Valenti might have left the area, and that caused him concern. Valenti was a law enforcement officer, and therefore had access to resources that most civilians didn't. Harrison ordered the ineffectual Sheriff Hanson to cut off all access codes for Valenti to state or federal databases, and had him put all of his deputies on alert for any sign of either Valenti or DeLuca. «Matters related to national security» was the justification Harrison had given the tongue-tied young sheriff; Hanson had apparently lacked the stones to put up much of a protest. The only other potential persons of interest they hadn't detained were Brody Davis and Charles Whitman. The Davis character ran the UFO Center, and although he'd apparently had extensive contact with the alien teenagers over the past couple of years, his dossier showed that he was essentially clueless as to who and what the teens really were; there was no reason to assume he knew anything about their current whereabouts. Whitman hadn't had more than passing interaction with the parents of his late son's friends for quite some time now. There was no reason for coming after either of them, at least for now. The news from the California compound hadn't been much better than that from Roswell. Three of the alien subjects apparently had been captured in New York, but during their transfer to the Los Angeles facility, two of them had escaped. Commander Matthew Margolin «Viceroy» had passed along the alarming news that with the simultaneous sightings of the aliens in Wyoming and New York, the Special Unit might now be dealing with duplicates of the metahuman teens. Or perhaps even shapechangers. The latter concept chilled Harrison to the bone. Many years ago he had been drafted into the Special Unit by an agent named John Stevens, and he had come willingly. While other government agencies dealt with terrorist threats, military coups, homeland security, or other issues related to national defense, only the Special Unit was in the business of protecting America and its people from the very real threat posed by extraterrestrial beings who had already penetrated the nation's borders. The fact that the Roswell teens had remained undiscovered for so long in a town already seen as a hotbed of alien rumor-mongering was terrifying in and of itself. They are already living among us, and we've been powerless to ferret them out for more than half a century now, Harrison thought. With the alien incursion already a fait accompli, who could say what else they might do? Although Stevens had disbanded the Unit a few years ago, Harrison and the others had been relieved and gratified when Margolin reactivated it. Most of the Unit members considered it their highest patriotic duty to help defend the country against aliens. Especially those that look enough like real humans to hide themselves among us, he thought. Until they decide to turn you inside out or lay their alien eggs in you. Harrison heard the floor creak almost imperceptibly behind him, and turned toward the sound. Agent Cutler was standing there, a frustrated look on his face. He was one of the best interrogators the Unit had, and he'd been interviewing the teens' parents for the past several hours. «Anything yet?» Harrison asked. Cutler shook his head. «Nope. They've all pretty much clammed up. And they want to see each other, to make sure the other parents haven't been harmed.» Harrison snorted derisively. «Have they?» «We knocked the guys around a bit, but nothing major," Cutler said. «Mostly internal bruising. Phillip Evans is really hollering about his civil rights.» Cutler pulled a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and lit it. «We've been giving the women lots of water and juice. They're pretty uncomfortable now since they can't go to the bathroom.» «And they still haven't told you anything useful at all?» Harrison asked. «Nothing yet. They seem pretty set on not telling us anything.» Cutler took a drag on the cigarette and exhaled the noxious gray smoke. «So, I'm going to proceed to the next step in the interrogation process. You wanna be there?» Harrison nodded. «What's the next step?» Cutler smiled a barracuda smile of yellowed teeth. «We give them what they want. We let them see each other.» Nancy Parker was shaking so badly from fear that she could barely walk as they maneuvered her down the hallway. It didn't help that the dark c
loth hood they'd put over her face barely let any light in; she could see the shapes of the agents, and the hallway walls of what appeared to be a private home, but she could make out nothing more specific than that. «Where are you taking me?» she asked, trying to keep her voice as even as possible. Her leg throbbed where she had cut it that morning while trying to escape the agents who had invaded the Crashdown, and her bladder was so full, she thought she might burst at any moment. Though they had been interrogating her for hours, they hadn't yet allowed her to use a bathroom. None of her captors answered her, and she dimly saw a door being opened in front of her. The room beyond was bright, and very hot. Someone pushed her inside, and forced her to sit in a chair. Suddenly, the hood was removed, and brightness flooded her vision, forcing her to close her eyes against the painful glare. She heard her husband's voice before she could make out his shape. «Nancy. Are you okay? Have they hurt you?» Squinting toward the sound of his voice, she saw Jeff. He was shackled to some kind of T-shaped post against the wall of a spare, cream-colored room that was almost entirely devoid of furniture or decorations. Jeff's clothes were disheveled, huge sweat stains darkening them under his arms and across his chest. She couldn't see any blood, though she thought his eyes looked oddly unfocused. «I'm fine, baby," she said. «But I really could use a trip to the bathroom. What have they done to you?» «Nothing that won't heal," said a familiar voice. The man sat down in a chair nearby, between her and Jeff. He was the one who had been interrogating her already, on and off for the last… how many hours have we been here? The man was short, with a receding hairline and wavy hair; absurdly, he reminded Nancy of that comedian that Liz had liked so much. Rob Schneider, she thought his name was. He turned to look over at Jeff. «Now we've given you something that you wanted you got to see each other. So it's time for you to give something to us. Quid pro quo.» «Get stuffed," Jeff snarled. Nancy silently prayed that his defiant attitude wouldn't cause him any more pain. «We don't know anything. And we don't owe you anything.» The interrogator calmly lit a cigarette, then moved his chair closer to Nancy's. «Hmmmm, we don't believe you, Mr. Parker. We think you know more than you might think, and certainly more than you want to admit. How about we ask the questions, and if you do know the answer, you tell us?» He blew smoke into Nancy's face, making her cough. «First question.» Interrogator puffed on the cigarette and nodded to one of the other silent agents who had joined him in the room. The other man grabbed Nancy's arm, pulling it forward. Interrogator put the cherry end of his cigarette next to it. Nancy tried to pull her arm away from the heat, but the man only moved the cigarette closer. «What powers does your daughter have, and how did she get them?» Jeff glared, but didn't say anything. A moment later, Nancy felt searing heat connect with her forearm, and she screamed. «Stop! Stop!» Jeff yelled. «Liz says she can see the future sometimes, and 'zap' people. We don't know what that means. And we don't know how she got the powers.» Interrogator smiled at Nancy. «See, that wasn't so hard, was it?» Nancy tried to spit at him, but the spittle just dribbled down onto her shirt. Interrogator stood and walked over to Jeff. He put his hand up to Jeff's neck, his thumb on one side, his forefinger on the other. «Your turn, Nancy. Every second you don't answer my question will be a second that your husband's brain doesn't get any blood.» «Nancy, don't," Jeff started to say, but the sound was cut off as Interrogator squeezed. Calmly, their torturer looked toward Nancy. «How many of the aliens are there? Max, Isabel, Michael, Tess… who else? Are there more than them?» Nancy's mind whirled. It was one thing to be brave when facing the agents in a room by herself, but she couldn't watch them torture Jeff. Her husband looked at her, his eyes pleading. She didn't know if he was pleading for her to not tell, or for her to stop the torture. Seconds ticked by. Jeff's face was reddish and getting more so, and he began to twitch against his bonds. His eyes fluttered, and began to roll back in his head. «Do I need to repeat the question?» Interrogator asked. «We won't kill Jeff. We can revive him. But he may have some brain damage, especially if you force us to do this repeatedly.» Jeff's convulsions stopped, and his body bucked, in full rigor. Then he was unconscious. Interrogator didn't move his grasping hand. «Stop it! I'll tell you!» Nancy screamed, weeping, hating herself for weakness but seeing no other way to save the man she loved. «There are lots of them. The four kids have duplicates, but there are other aliens here on Earth who are looking for them too.» Finally, Interrogator let go of Jeff's neck and stepped away. Jeff's head slumped forward, his body slack against his bonds, unmoving. Interrogator turned and slammed his hand into Jeff's chest. With a gasp, Jeff sucked in air, and his regular but labored breathing resumed a few anxious moments later. The evil Rob Schneider look-alike moved his chair in front of Nancy, then sat down so that he faced her from only a few inches away. Her tears began flowing in an unstoppable torrent as sobs wracked her body. «Now, Nancy, I'm sure that we can avoid any further unpleasantness," Interrogator said, smiling as solicitously as though he were attending a meeting of the Roswell School Board. «Would that be all right with you1.» Through her tears, Nancy regarded the man with a volcanic hatred. Despair threatened to engulf her. Still, a small part of her clung stubbornly to hope. No matter what they do to Jeff or me, none of us actually know where Liz, Max, or the others are right now. And not even this evil bastard can force us to reveal things we don't know. This was her only comfort as Interrogator began forcing her to betray the secrets of her daughter's diary. 6. Boston Jesse Ramirez looked down the street as he got in the taxi, and was grateful he didn't see anyone suspicious following him. He knew he wasn't being paranoid; the strange phone call he had gotten last night immediately after Isabel called him proved he wasn't out from under the surveillance of the Special Unit. He settled into the backseat, grateful to be out of the chill autumn air. He called forward to the driver. «Mass General.» «Da hospital?» the man said in a heavily accented voice. Jesse assumed the man was from Brooklyn. Momentarily, it amused him that whereas New York cabbies all seemed to be from other states or countries, at least one New Yorker had come to Boston to drive a cab. «Yeah, thanks," Jesse responded. «You okay? Do I got to step on the gas a little extra?» the big man asked. Jesse was about to say that he was fine, but as he glanced over his shoulder, he suddenly realized he wasn't. Two cars back in the adjacent lane, he could see a dark sedan with two men in it. Both wore dark suits. One was speaking into a cell phone and looking directly at him. «Yeah, get me there as quickly as possible," Jesse said, trying to come up with a convincing lie. «My wife's gone into labor.» The cabbie grunted and flipped his blinker on, speeding up to switch into the next lane with barely inches between his back bumper and the front bumper of the car behind them. The car honked, and as Jesse looked back, the driver flipped him the bird. Jesse couldn't see the dark sedan, but he knew that only three cars separated them. «Hang on," the cabbie said as he gunned the engine, running a yellow light and turning left across oncoming traffic. Jesse's stomach tightened even further, but they somehow zoomed through the intersection unscathed. «You know, I got five rugrats myself," the cabbie said as he moved down the busy street, swerving in and out of traffic with almost dizzying frequency. «Three back in Brooklyn wit' my first wife, and two here in Boston wit' Sheila. She ain't my wife on accounta me not technically bein' divorced. But I take care of 'em all, which ain't easy on a hack's paycheck. Lucky for me I got VA. bennies from da Gulf War.» Noticing the cabbie glancing at him in the rearview mirror, Jesse nodded agreeably. «We don't have any children yet. Any, ah, other ones, I mean.» The cabbie turned his head and grinned, putting one thumb up. «Da first! Dat one's always best.» «So I've heard," Jesse said, turning to peer out the rear window again. He hadn't seen the sedan since the yellow light; the cab had now turned corners at least five times and weaved in and out of enough traffic that it felt like a roller coaster. I got away from them, Jesse thought, daring to let himself hope. The cabbie continued to talk, and Jesse let the man's words wash over him. Regular, boring, everyday conver
sation was like a salve to his soul right now. When he fell in love with Isabel, he had never even entertained the thought that he would be on the run from the government because she was half-alien. Not to mention the fact that he had killed one of their agents after the man had threatened her. «We're here, Mac," the cabbie said, punching the meter's buttons. Jesse was shaken from his thoughts and noticed that they were indeed at the hospital. The emergency room entrance, to be exact. Jesse thanked the driver and gave him a hefty tip, then exited the vehicle. He noticed a sign that revealed he was near the corner of Fruit Street and Grove, then turned to scan across the street in search of the restaurant where he was to meet the woman who called herself Denise Prinze. Maybe the emergency room wasn't the best point of reference, Jesse thought, getting his bearings. Cambridge is down that way. He stepped off the curb, intending to follow Grove along the long block toward Cambridge Street when his blood went cold. Coming down the street was the dark sedan. Jesse sprinted back toward the hospital's parking garage, and was grateful that a nurse pushing a woman in a wheelchair momentarily blocked the sedan's approach. Inside the garage, Jesse ran along the wall, crouching low next to the cars as best he could. Luckily, no one was parking or walking to their cars, so no one confronted him. The sedan pulled into the lot, and Jesse ducked down. The passenger, a man in a dark suit, got out and pulled a gun from a holster under his suitcoat. The sedan drove forward, toward the ramp for the next level. The man with the gun peered around the garage, then squatted to look under the cars. Jesse quickly scooted his feet even with the tires of the car he was hiding behind, thankful it was a large SUV Jesse saw a small chunk of concrete nearby, which had apparently broken off from one of the parking barriers. Stretching, he reached for it, mindful that if he fell, the man in the suit would hear him. Finally, he grasped the rocklike object. Peeking up over the edge, he saw the man inching his way along one wall, clearly still looking for hiding places beneath the cars. Come on, pitcher, Jesse thought. All those years oj baseball practice better pay off. He cocked his arm and threw the concrete toward the other section of the garage, past the up-sloping ramp. A few seconds later, it crashed to the ground, skittering across the concrete, and bouncing up to hit a car. The agent's attention was immediately diverted, and he ran away from Jesse, apparently planning on looping around to the far end of the garage from the opposite end. As soon as the man was out of sight, Jesse stood and ran as quickly as he could. He exited onto Grove Street and quickly crossed to Cambridge, checking over his shoulder the entire time. No one appeared to be pursuing him. A short distance down Cambridge Street, he finally saw Antonio's Cucina Italiana. Hurrying, he ducked inside the door, and was greeted by the rail-thin maitre d', whose mustache looked slight enough to thread a needle. «Welcome, signore.» Jesse took a moment to catch his breath. «Hi. I'm waiting for someone," he finally said, moving discreetly away from the windows so as to be as invisible as possible from the outside. «Are you Jesse Ramirez?» the man asked with a sprightly smile. Jesse was a bit taken aback. But since the head waiter didn't look like any federal agent he'd ever seen, he nodded. «Ah Your partner is already here. Sophia will show you to your table," the maitre d' said. A slender, twenty-something waitress behind him gestured for Jesse to follow her. The waitress led him to a table in the back, where the lighting was softer and dimmer. Sitting there was a pudgy woman, her long reddish hair pulled into a french twist, her sober expression and clothing projecting a very businesslike demeanor. She put down her glass and smiled at him. «Jesse?» «Yes, hello.» He sat, taking the menu from the waitress. As soon as the girl had moved away, he faced the woman and said, «So you must be Denise Prinze. What's this about?» «My real name is Shelby Tremaine. I'm a friend of Phillip Evans's," she said. He scrutinized her, one eyebrow cocked. «I heard him talk about you a lot. Why the fake name?» he asked, though he already suspected he knew the answer. «Sorry about that," she said. «I wasn't sure whether your phone was bugged, or if you were under surveillance, so I played it safe.» She took a sip of water from her glass. «After what happened in Roswell this morning, I really believe we're all going to have to play it as safe as possible.» Jess felt several mental alarms suddenly going off all at once. «What's happened in Roswell?» Shelby began to tell him, and Jesse listened, his sense of horror steadily escalating as her tale unfolded. Roswell, New Mexico Brody Davis was pacing in the museum's main exhibit hall. Deputy Valenti's call had really bothered him, and he had come down to the exhibit area to think. The whole morning had been rather freaky, like something out of one of the conspiracy books that lined the shelves of the UFO Center's library. He thought he had an inkling of what was going on, but he couldn't quite connect to it, either rationally or emotionally. The answer is somewhere in my head. Why can't I find it? For some reason, he even felt certain that the morning's events were related to the «missing time» he experienced whenever the aliens abducted him. But he didn't think that another abduction was imminent; those episodes were usually preceded by some kind of premonitory feeling. My spider sense isn't tingling, he thought with a small grin as he remembered Spider-Man's built-in «trouble radar.» The oddest part of his gut reaction was that he felt he had a personal stake in whatever was going on between the blackgarbed paramilitary men, the Parkers, and Deputy Valenti. He wondered what the Parkers had done. Does it have anything to do with the abrupt disappearance of Liz and Max and their jriends? Has somebody abducted them, too? Did they and the Parkers see something that the stormtroopers want kept quiet? It had always seemed to Brody that Max was more connected to the heart and spirit of the UFO Center than he let on. Sure, Max had been an employee before Brody had bought the museum from its original proprietor, Milton Ross. But despite his laconic manner with the Center's visitors and his intense dislike of the vest he was supposed to wear while on duty Max had always seemed to believe that other intelligent life really did exist out there in the cosmos. Of everyone he knew, Brody felt that Max might be the closest to understanding what being an abductee was like, without having been one himself. A vibration in his pants pocket brought Brody out of his reverie. He withdrew his cell phone, pulled up the antenna to its full length, and checked the Caller ID. It was an unlisted name, but he recognized the 617 prefix as from Boston. He pressed the talk button. «Hello.» «Brody Davis, please," the male voice on the other end of the connection said. The voice sounded familiar. «Speaking. Who is this?» «Jesse Ramirez. Isabel Evans's husband.» Now Brody knew why the other man's voice sounded so familiar. He'd only talked with the young lawyer a few times, but had found him to be a pleasant enough guy. «Hello, Mr. Ramirez. What can I do for you?» He hesitated to ask about Isabel. She had disappeared after the West Roswell High graduation ceremony, along with Max, Liz, Maria, and a few of their classmates. If he wants to tell me what happened to her if he knows what happened to her he will. «I know we don't know each other that well, but a situation has come up that I believe you can help me with. And we really need your help.» «What is it that you want, Mr. Ramirez?» Brody was intrigued. «Please, it's Jesse. Something bad happened in Roswell this morning. Something no one is supposed to know about. And I'm certain it's going to be covered up, just like the crash in 1947.» Brody sat on the stairs that led down from the entrance. «Does this have anything to do with the Parkers or Deputy Valenti?» There was a pause at the other end of the line. «You know about that?» «I saw it," Brody said. «I was in the UFO Center early today, and my security cameras caught a squad of Men in Black taking Jeff and Nancy Parker away. I tried to call Valenti about it, but I couldn't get through.» «Do you know if he was taken too?» Jesse asked, urgency audible in his voice. «No. He left town. I don't know where he went. But from what I gathered, the government spooks tried to get him as well. And I think they may have taken others.» Another pause. «They did," Jesse said finally. «They got Phillip and Diane Evans as well. That's part of why I'm calling you.» Brody nodded, even though Jesse couldn't see him. «Okay. So how can I help?» «What if you had the cha
nce to prove that everything you have been presenting at the museum is actually true? The 1947 crash, the cover-up, aliens among us, the whole bit.» Brody stood up, adrenaline surging through his body. «I'd take it. And run with it.» «There are two things we need to do to make this happen," Jesse said, now sounding like a confident defense lawyer addressing a jury. «First, we have to find a way to free the Evanses and the Parkers. And Amy DeLuca, if they have her. And to accomplish all that, we need you to retrieve a video for us.» «A video? Where?» «As far as we know, Phillip had a signal feed from a camera he'd left set up when they took him and Diane captive. The tape is still in Roswell. It will show who took them.» «I may have footage of the Parkers being taken," Brody said. «But the troopers were wearing masks, so it may not do any good.» Something nagged at the back of his mind, and finally he caught it. «You said 'we.' Who's with you? Isabel?» «No, it's a lawyer friend of Phillip's," Jesse said, and Brody heard a tone of sadness in his voice. «Isabel and the others are… involved in this mess, and the government is looking for them. That's why they took their parents.» Brody sat down again, his mouth hanging open. «Oh. My. God. Max and the others… they found proof? Proof of the crash? Proof that aliens are on Earth?» «You might say that," Jesse said. «So we need to blow the lid off this thing, if their lives or the lives of their parents are ever going to get back to normal.» «So what's the second thing you'll need?» Brody asked. «You've got friends in the news and entertainment business, right?» Jesse's voice sounded like he was hesitating. «And as crass as it sounds, you've got enough disposable cash to plan and execute some fairly big publicity quickly?» «Yes to both, but my media contacts are mostly in La-La Land, California. And Valenti told me to stay here for my own safety. I'm at the Center, and I've it locked down.» «If you get us the right people and help bankroll this, we can handle the California end of things," Jesse said. «You probably won't even need to leave the UFO Center. Except for retrieving that video from the Evanses' safe spot, that is. Do you have a way to reach Valenti?» «Yes, I have his pager number," Brody said. «Good," Jesse said. «Because we need to get in touch with him to coordinate our plans. So, here's what I want you to do…» Tucson, Arizona «This goes beyond anything I'd even have conceived of," Suzanne Duff said. «I had no idea the Special Unit would go to these lengths.» Valenti waved his cowboy hat like a fan, trying to cool himself down. The dry Arizona desert air was almost unbearably hot, and he was feeling it. «Come on, Agent Duff, you know as well as I do that a lot of special ops government groups do all sorts of illegal things, from assassinations to running drugs. And you knew about the Roswell cover-up, too. They erased people from existence back then; what makes you believe they wouldn't do the same to a few civilians who got in their way in Roswell today?» Duff finished her drink and didn't answer. Seated nearby, Laurie Dupree used a pitcher to refill her glass with raspberry iced tea. The four of them were sitting out on a veranda overlooking the autumn desert scenery, but none of them could spare time to enjoy the sights. «So, what do we know for sure, then?» Laurie asked. «And what can I do to help?» «Providing us with a safe house has been a blessing, Laurie," Valenti said. «I have some ideas about how to " «Hold it!» Duff interrupted him, and stood quickly. «Safe house. That may be where they're keeping them. I think I» she stopped, waved her hands for a second, then pointed to Valenti «I think I may have something. Laurie, I need to plug my laptop into your DSL line.» «Sure, I'll take you in," Laurie said.