Turnabout r-8

by Andy Mangels

  «You bastardsl» Diane shouted, tears streaming down her face. The feral man holstered his weapon and, very calmly and casually, lit a cigarette. «If she speaks again," he said to his men, «kill her. Same goes for the rest of them.» Scarface shook his head and tsked in mock sympathy. His eyes never left Max's. «Drop the barrier, Max, and tell your friend over there to do the same. You've lost. It's over.» As powerful as Langley had said his «secret weapon» was, Max knew that it would take a few precious seconds time they no longer had for its power to build up properly. He had never felt so helpless before. Abruptly he found himself standing at the brink, teetering at the edge of a bottomless well of despair. Tears stung his eyes. I've failed again. Just like I failed everyone back on Antar. Like a gauge of his own strength, the barrier in front of him fritzed and popped like a bug zapper, then vanished. The suspended bullet clattered to the floor. «Let it down, Langley," Max said, then spoke to the others. «They've won. It's finished.» «Are you crazy, Max?» Langley said, his eyes huge. «Probably. You're supposed to do what I tell you, Langley. Don't argue. Just do it.» Duff, Valenti, and Liz all protested, but Max felt he was beyond hearing, almost beyond caring. He simply couldn't allow these thugs to murder his parents and the Parkers in cold blood. Langley sighed, shook his head, and dropped the barriers that covered his group, front and rear. More bullets rained to the floor. Max felt his emotional center of gravity shift subtly. The abyss of despair drew steadily nearer, I don't care. I just don't want anyone else to have to suffer because of me. I just want this nightmare to be over. One way or another. He shut his eyes. «Max, it's not over," came a voice from the darkness. Opening his eyes, Max found that he was no longer in the Special Unit compound. Or at least, he was no longer entirely there. On one level, he was vaguely aware of the rough hands that were dragging him away. On another, he was sitting in the backseat of the Microbus, looking into the faces of Isabel, Kyle, Jesse, and Shelby as the dark highway unwound in front of the weatherbeaten little van's windshield. Max felt groggy with fatigue and fear. «Who's driving?» Maria cast a quick backward glance in Max's direction from the driver's seat. «I have to get to do something around here, don't I?» «It's not over," Isabel repeated, looking Max squarely in the eye. Max laughed bitterly. «That's not how it looks from in here. I think they've finally beaten us, Iz.» He thought about telling her that they had pistol-whipped Dad right in front of him, but thought better of it. «Don't come here. There's no point in letting them capture you, too.» Memories of Liz's earlier future-flash predicting Isabel's vivisection returned to haunt him. It struck him that she might soon become the Royal One. Isabel thrust out her lower lip defiantly. «Shut up, Max. We're coming to rescue you.» «Listen, Max," Kyle said, leaning forward, his eyes shining with earnest intensity. «The camcorder cavalry should already be arriving in droves. Both local and national media, from the look of it. They'll blow everything the Special Unit's doing right now sky-high.» «We're almost there too," Jesse said, glancing briefly toward the front, where the white lines on the road were moving past as quickly as machine-gun fire. «You were all supposed to stay at Langley's," Max said. «We kind of thought you might say that," Shelby said, grinning. «That's why we sort of neglected to tell you.» «Besides, we didn't want to hang around there, just in case Langley's place got raided," Jesse said. His dark features were a mask of grim determination. Max knew that Jesse had killed before to protect his wife from government alien-hunters; Max could tell from the set of his jaw and the fire in his eyes that he wouldn't hesitate to do so again if push came to shove. Jesse's mention of Langley prompted Max to look quickly around the back of the Microbus. «Where is Langley? And Michael? Aren't they still hooked into the mental linkup?» Max suddenly worried that the Special Unit had already killed them both. «Sure, they are," Kyle said, as enthusiastic as Max was tired. «Michael is unconscious, and Langley seems to be about to wet himself. I think you're not seeing them here in the link because I'm getting better at setting up private psychic chat rooms for specific people. I swear, Max, I'm starting to think I can do just about anything if I put my mind to it.» Max desperately wished that were true. But he knew that wishes were worse than useless. Only deeds counted. He felt himself slipping away from his friends as the Special Unit troopers marched him away. «Tell them to say 'cheese,' Max," Shelby said. «The fourth estate is gonna have film at eleven. And the Special Unit's gonna have a lot of explaining to do.» Max felt his emotional center of gravity shift yet again. But this time the pit of despair seemed to recede from him, even as the brightly lit corridor he was being marched down completely replaced the interior of the Microbus. He suddenly stopped walking, and noted that all of the other captives his and Liz's parents, Michael, Liz, Valenti, Duff, and Langley were all being marched or dragged in the same direction. Good, Except for Michael and Dad, they can all hear me. Scarface and the feral man converged on him. «Let's keep moving, Max," said Scarface. «There's no point in delaying the inevitable, after all.» Max felt his earlier confidence return, like the sudden break of dawn. «You're right. That's why you should have somebody look out the window. You're surrounded.» The feral man scowled and looked as though he was about to strike Max, but Scarface raised a hand and told his subordinate to give the outer perimeter a quick check. Though he appeared doubtful, the feral man made a terse query into his communications earpiece. He listened in silence for a moment. Then his eyes grew large and incredulous. He turned toward Scarface. «The whole place really is surrounded," he said. Scarface scowled. «Surrounded? By what?» «News vans! And they're not ours.» Max grinned. Turnabout, he thought. 17. It's show time, Maria thought. The tires squealed in protest when she brought the Microbus to a halt beside the brightly lit ring of vehicles primarily, vans festooned with broadcast gear and marked with the insignia of various local and national media outlets that had already encircled the ancient factory building. Maria was the first to hop out, and Kyle, Isabel, Jesse, and Shelby quickly followed suit, exiting the van through the other two doors. «This must be the place," Maria said, fiddling nervously with the alien compass device that had guided her here. «Too bad we couldn't find an alternative to 'outing' ourselves to the media," Isabel said. «There goes whatever chance we had at living normal lives.» «Normal. I'm not sure I know what that even means anymore," Kyle said, shouldering the backpack that housed the alien artifacts Eddie had given them. «I'm surprised it was so easy to get this many media people interested in Max's story so quickly," Jesse said. Drawing her sweater tightly about herself against the late-night cold, Shelby nodded. «I was thinking the same thing.» Maria had to agree. All this media interest on such short notice struck her as awfully convenient, and more than a little suspicious. «Maybe there's a way to shed a little light on that question.» Reaching down to her fanny pack, she retrieved one of the alien compass thingies Langley had called them tenspleefs or something from where she had stashed it earlier. Imitating the hand movements she'd seen Max, Michael, and Langley making back at the mansion, she tried to activate it. Nothing happened. Oh, yeah. I don't have alien powers like Liz or Kyle or the charter members of the Pod Squad. This thing evidently won't run on my charm or my outstanding, P.J. Harvey-like song styling sensibility. She turned to Isabel and handed her the alien tracking dingus. «Would you do the honors?» Isabel took the device, which remained pointed toward the news vans. «What am I looking for?» «Cousins of yours," said Maria. «To test a theory of mine. I have an idea about why the media people are so interested in the alien-hunter story we planted tonight.» «And that is?» Kyle said. Maria watched in silence as Isabel closed her eyes and concentrated on activating the device that sat in the palms of her hands. The tracking device suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree. Everyone watched the flashing lights in silence until Maria spoke, breaking the spell. «I've heard of foreign correspondents but I had no idea how many reporters really aren't from around here.» «Sort of explains Geraldo Rivera, doesn't it?» said Kyle. «And maybe that Alan Colmes guy on Fox News," Ma
ria said. «Michael says he's a Romulan.» «Guess it makes sense to take a healthy interest in a story about aliens and alien-hunters," Shelby said. «Especially if you're a reporter who comes from another planet.» Rath kept his hands up as the agent prodded him and Ava forward with the barrel of his Glock. As they reached a door labeled MEDICAL SECTION, Rath looked toward Ava for reassurance. She gave him a nod that told him the man who had «captured» them was seeing and hearing only what she wanted him to see and hear. Rath was glad Ava had been able to nudge him into finding an entrance to the place where the MiBs had taken Lonnie without leading them into the path of the loud fire fight they had just heard going down in a nearby corridor. «Go on in," the agent said, and Rath wasted no time pushing the door open. Here we come, Lonnie. Well have you out of here in no time flat. In the room's center lay a table, which was sprinkled liberally in crimson robin's-egg patterns. And atop the table lay Lonnie. Or what was left of her. No. Not Lonnie. The bastards! Time seemed to stop. Ava burst into great wracking sobs. Rath glanced at the MiB who had been in her thrall; he was blinking and looking stupidly about the room, as though unsure of how he'd gotten here. Then the agent pointed his gun straight at Rath, obviously no longer under Ava's control. You'll pay, Rath thought, raising a hand, his palm facing the agent. You'll all pay, you murdering bastards. His Antarian powers focused his rage like a laser. A moment later, nothing remained of the agent save a charred pile of meat, smoldering clothing, and melted metal weaponry. Rath could hear raised voices and footfalls coming from just beyond the chamber's opposite door. «More MiBs are on the way," he said. «But pretty soon they'll be dead MiBs.» He stalked purposefully toward the door. He paused when he realized that someone was tugging on his arm. He turned toward Ava. Tears streamed down her face. «Don't do it, Rath. They'll just kill you, too.» «Don't try to stop me, Queenie.» «I'll mindfreak you unless you stop.» Rath suddenly lashed out, his glowing fist connecting solidly with her jaw. She sank to the antiseptic white floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Not if you're unconscious, he thought. Aloud, he said, «I'll be back for you once this is all over.» Then he turned back toward the door. Max couldn't help but revel in the look of shock and surprise Scarface and the feral man were showing. «Guess it pays to have a good publicist," he said. «Ready to wheel and deal now?» Scarface approached Max closely enough so that Max could tell he'd eaten something spicy for dinner. «Stand down, men," he said to his agents, though he never took his eyes off Max. Despite the feral man's obvious reluctance, the armed goons soon opened their ranks, allowing Diane Evans and the Parkers to help the groggy Phillip Evans get to his feet. Valenti and Duff each took one of Michael's arms, raising him up, while Liz and Langley moved toward Max, flanking him. «Now let us go," Max said, feeling absurdly like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. «Just let us all walk out of here in peace, and we'll let the whole story die.» «Those reporters are going to be mighty curious," said the feral man. «What do you intend to tell them?» «That depends completely on what you decide to do next," Max said. He turned to Scarface. «So how about it?» The scar-faced man studied Max silently for a lengthy interval. Finally, he said, «You win this battle, Mr. Evans. But never forget that we'll make your families disappear permanently if our friends in the fourth estate ever report so much as a word about the Special Unit.» Max nodded, hyperaware that everyone's eyes those of friend and foe alike were upon him. He felt a rush of relief as he realized that Langley's brain-blast might not prove necessary. «I'll settle for that. For now.» Max looked at Liz. Can I trust these guys to keep their word? He seemed to be speaking to her telepathically no doubt because of Kyle's third-party psi-talent. What's to stop them from picking us off later on, after our families go home? It's pretty clear we can't trust them, Max. Her eyes were huge and soulful. They will come after us again. They'll keep coming as long as they're afraid of you. Of us. They won't give up as long as they even know about us. So what do I do, Liz? Kill them? Of course not, Liz said silently, in tandem with the quiet voice of his conscience. I suppose I could just order Langley to do it. How would that be any different from doing it yourself, Max? He knew she was right. But he also understood that he had no alternative other than to make this deal with the Special Unit. With luck, there would be time later to manage whatever blowback today's battle was sure to generate. «Come on, Liz," Max said aloud, taking charge of Michael, with Liz's help, so that Duff and Valenti could keep their hands free just in case the MiBs tried a parting sneak attack. «Let's gather everybody up and get the hell out of here.» Max was startled to hear Michael's frantic voice coming from elsewhere in the hallway. «Bastards!» Max turned quickly toward the angry shout and saw the rapidly approaching form from which it had come. No, not Michael. Rath. Michael's East Coast duplicate. Though the two Special Unit leaders appeared every bit as surprised as Max, they reacted instantaneously to the threat, as did the cadre of armed guards who instantly raised their weapons. The scene became a slow-motion tableau before Max's startled eyes. While he and Liz struggled to drag Michael's limp form out of harm's way, Rath bypassed them, his fists glowing like a pair of meteors as he ran directly toward Scarface, who dived behind the cover of several heavily armed men. But the feral man stood his ground, grinning his dangerous grin as he drew a big-bore pistol from his shoulder holster. He pointed the weapon and fired several rounds in rapid succession. But not before Rath's hands released a flurry of eyedazzling energies that passed Max closely enough to singe his eyebrows. Despite the apparent dilation of time during this lethal exchange, Max found he couldn't think or move quickly enough to try to erect a force field between the two combatants. From a little farther down the corridor, he heard an anguished cry coming from Langley, who had once again failed to protect one of his young Antarian charges. «Run!» Max shouted to his parents and the Parkers, and through the brilliant spots that still clouded his vision he saw that Duff and Valenti were already busy hustling everyone to the relative safety of a room directly off the main corridor. The air was perforated by the multiple sharp reports of machine-gun fire. His vision cleared enough to reveal the bullet-ridden corpse of Rath and the charred, smoldering ruin of what had once been the feral man. Max stared for a moment in horrified fascination before he realized that Scarface was still very much alive, and directing his men to open fire. Thinking quickly, Max raised another force field around himself, Liz, and the retreating backs of the rest of his party, rescued and rescuer alike. «Come on, Max," Liz was saying, puffing as she struggled to drag the still-unconscious Michael. «I can't move him by myself.» A moment later, they had all passed through a door, which Max reinforced with force-field energies. Looking across the wide chamber, he saw that Langley was doing the same thing with the opposite door, as well as blocking off the balcony above to prevent any Men in Black from drawing a bead on them from overhead. Max heard his mother's frightened scream, and he realized with a start that the group had taken refuge in the chamber of quasimedical horrors from which he had just escaped. The place his sister's dupe had failed to escape. Max wanted to walk toward the butcher's block where the corpse lay, to take his mother in his arms and reassure her that the carved piece of meat that lay there wasn't her daughter. Wasn't his sister. But he couldn't afford to split his concentration right now; if he was to let the force field slip even for an instant, none of them would likely survive for very long. Liz, he said wordlessly. Tell my mom. Gotcha, Max. She didn't need an explanation. Moments later, Max's force field was still holding strong. And Liz was doing the very thing Max longed to do: offering words of comfort and reassurance, but mostly repeating over and over that this wasn't Isabel, that Isabel was safe, safe with Jesse and Kyle and Maria. Meanwhile, Valenti and Duff found some surgical linen and discreetly covered up Lonnie's gore-spattered body. After helping Duff cover up the mutilated corpse that lay on the operating table, Valenti quickly took stock of the room. Several other still bodies lay strewn about in the awkward random postures of sudden death. From the singed wh
ite lab coats most of them wore, he concluded that these people were the ones responsible for the grotesquerie they had found on the table. All but one. Crumpled behind the operating table was a teenage girl who strongly resembled Tess Harding. It's Ava, Valenti realized, kneeling beside her. The other Tess, the one from New York. Valenti heard someone moaning nearby. He looked up and saw Langley, who was helping Max barricade the room with force fields. The alien protector's face was a mask of concentration and remorse. «I've failed them," he said, sobbing. «I was supposed to protect them, but instead I've failed them all.» Very gently, Valenti reached under Ava's blue hair to touch her neck. He felt a faint pulse. «Maybe not completely, you haven't," he said. The MiBs were smashing something heavy into the door, and Max kept his force field strong and steady. But he already felt exhausted, and pushed beyond his limits; he wondered how long he and Langley could keep this up. The chasm of despair yawned wide again. Rath's attack no doubt precipitated by his discovery of Lonnie's body had ruined Max's last chance to get out of this situation without getting more blood on his hands. He looked toward Langley, and they locked eyes significantly for a moment. What now? Max said/thought, using Kyle's still-open psychic channel. Most likely we Mil or we die, Max. Looks like we're gonna have to go ahead with the brain-blast after all. The thought of being the cause of more death today was making Max physically ill. No. There has to be another way. His mind replied with something Liz had said earlier: They won't give up as long as they even know about us. Langley, whose emotions felt jangled and confused in Max's head, had evidently overheard the thought. Ava's alive, he told Max. If we can get her mindwarp powers into the mix, we might be able to zap the MiBs with persuasion. Max suddenly understood. You and Isabel and Kyle can extend Ava's mindwarp power over a wide area, he thought. Use it to trick these guys into leaving us alone instead of just frying their brains. This is still pretty powerful stuff, Max, Langley thought in response. Doing this will pretty much burn all our alien bridges. After we do it, we won't be able to look up any of the other aliens living on Earth because all the ken-teefs on the planet will be so many paperweights. It's not the kind of solution you'd consider if you were still thinking about going home to Antar. Max replied: Right now, all I'm concerned about is getting all of us out of here alive. And keeping the Special Unit from coming after us again. I'm right with you, Maxie, Langley said/thought. Under the circumstances, this is probably the best choice with the support of the king of Antar, of course. And with your Isabel and Kyle and my Ava still in the game, we just might have enough resources to pull it off, tinfoil hats notwithstanding. Kyle seemed to be beside Max then though Max knew he was actually still outside either in or near the Microbus and assured Max that he felt very good about what they were about to do. The chasm of despair receded yet again from Max, replaced by the first real feeling of hope he had experienced since the day the Special Unit had forced him and his friends to flee Roswell. «Tess!» Liz said, then caught herself. Try as she might, she found it nearly impossible to set aside the intense, whitehot hatred she still felt for the late Tess Harding, the woman who had betrayed Max and murdered Alex Whitman without a shred of remorse. She had to keep reminding herself that this young woman wasn't Tess, despite the close resemblance. She thought she might be able to get past that one day, given enough time to grieve and heal. But putting those feelings aside in the here-and-now was quite another matter. «Ava," Liz said tightly, kneeling beside the semiconscious girl, «wake upi We need you. The Special Unit agents are pounding down the door, and Max and Langley can't keep their force fields up forever.» Ava blinked and shook her silvery-blue hair as she tried to sit up. Her eyes looked bleary and unfocused. «What? Where's Rath?» Liz hated having to answer questions like that, even for somebody who looked so much like Tess. «I'm sorry," she said, taking Ava's hand. «Rath… I'm afraid he didn't make it.» A look of intense grief and guilt crossed Ava's delicate features. Liz found it gratifying, and was immediately ashamed of herself. She reminded herself again that Ava wasn't Tess. «I tried to stop him from going after them alone," Ava said, looking a few yards away at Michael's unconscious form. Ava's tears began flowing freely. «But he wouldn't listen.» Liz gently patted Ava's hand. «We often have the same problem with our own Rath," was all she could think of to say as she watched the slow rise and fall of Michael's chest. She looked back at the sobbing girl. Here but for the grace of the Special Unit goes Maria, she thought sadly. Liz was startled by a loud thump as the agents out in the corridor apparently redoubled their efforts to knock down the door beyond Max's force field. «I'm sorry about what's happened to you," Liz told Ava. «But if you don't get into this fight, we're all dead.» Ava shook her head, looking defeated. «Did you notice those tinfoil beanies the MiBs are wearing? My power can't cut through those. It's a waste of time.» «We have a way to boost your mindwarp power to a much higher power level," Langley said aloud. «You just have to believe. Maybe you could even try clapping your hands, the way they did for Tinkerbell in Peter Pan.» «If we're going to do this," a sweating Max said, also speaking out loud, «we're going to have to do it now.» Liz suddenly realized that if both Max and Langley were getting too exhausted to communicate telepathically, then the collapse of their force fields couldn't be far off. Soon, they'd be overrun by MiBs. «Kyle says he's right outside in the van now, holding the alien communicator orbs in his hands, just the way you explained," Liz said, hoping to bolster their spirits. «I'm ready too," Langley said, sweating profusely as he struggled to maintain his own force field. Liz thought he looked just as worn out as Max did, and could easily see why; at the moment, someone was very noisily trying to smash down the door Langley was covering, and the balcony overhead was crawling with armed men who would be able to open fire the moment the force field there fell. As both force fields flickered and began to collapse, Liz helped an exhausted Max walk toward the operating table, which Ava and Langley were approaching from the opposite side. The parents were huddled against a wall, tending to the unconscious Michael. «The more power we pour into this, the better," Langley said as the four linked hands near Lonnie's body, making Liz think of seances and weird mystical rituals. Maybe that's what this is, she thought. Whatever. So long as it works. Liz closed her eyes. Once again, she saw a future-flash of a soft-focus white room, suffused with both terror and anger. Hoping she wasn't glimpsing a future that awaited anyone she cared about, she put it out of her mind. «Concentrate, kiddies," Langley said, his eyes tightly closed. Liz imagined it was as much to concentrate as to avoid seeing the table where Lonnie's corpse lay. «I can only do this little trick once.» Liz didn't like the sound of that. In fact, she wondered what the price would be for carrying out this plan, for focusing and channeling so much power. After all, in literature whenever anyone tampered with the forces of nature or made a bargain with the Devil, or with scheming Machiavellian types like Langley there was always a steep price to be paid, a painful sacrifice to be made. Putting her misgivings aside, Liz concentrated on placing whatever psionic energies she possessed into the channel Kyle and Isabel had established. If I'm to be the sacrifice, then so be it. They won't give up as long as they even know about us, someone's voice her own? was saying in her head. So we're targeting every one oj their people who knows about us. Every one oj their machines that knows about us. The pounding on the doors grew louder, more insistent. Mass-mindwarp amnesia, broadcast on a need-to-know basis over the Kyle-and-Isabel Channel, Liz thought, chuckling. With a little help from their psychic friends. One of the doors came crashing open. The room immediately filled with a cacophony of angry shouts, clacking rifle-bolts, and the harsh footfalls of booted feet. «Now," Langley said. Then, as though a silent bomb had detonated, the room abruptly filled with a blinding radiance. And Liz felt herself or perhaps only a part of herself being swept away. Margolin held his pistol at the ready as his men repeatedly struck the medical section's door with the military siegeram. Though the door was reinforced with structural steel, it should have given way min
utes before it did. Those aliens beyond the door must have been propping it up somehow, using their bizarre psychokinetic abilities. Who can doubt now that those abilities represent a clear and present danger to the entire country? he thought, glancing back at the heap of charred meat that had been his second-in-command only minutes ago. «Door's coming loose," Henrickson said. A moment later, a bone-jarring crash signaled that he was right. The Special Unit troopers streamed through the opening like voracious soldier ants. Abruptly, the world turned white. Margolin shielded his dazzled eyes, but it did little good. Something was tugging insistently at his brain, his mind, his will. No! he thought, clutching madly at his protective cap. I'm insulated from this! I won't allow my mind to be bent by these alien freaks! Then the tsunami of white light and psychic noise rose to a crescendo around him, engulfing him as though he were a straw in a hurricane. But he stood his ground, refusing to bend, just as he always had. 18. Maria could feel that Langley's improvised «brain bomb» had just gone off. She thought something in the air felt different, but couldn't yet determine what it was. Dawn was breaking on the horizon, but hadn't yet chased the chill from the air. Her breath steaming in front of her, she looked to the east, just past the ancient factory building the Special Unit called home. Though she was technically doing something useful standing watch, studying the outside of the Unit's lair for any sign of reaction Maria felt distinctly left out. And this was even though Kyle and Isabel had made sure she'd been able to mentally «listen in» as the last-ditch counterattack against the Special Unit was carried out. Carried out by the jew, the proud, the superpowered, she ruminated glumly, thinking how weird it was to overhear the thoughts of Tess, or a pretty darned reasonable facsimile thereof, during the runup right before the attack. What she could see of the building's facade and crumbling loading docks still looked completely peaceful. It was impossible to tell whether the brain-bombing had worked according to the last-minute plan she'd gleaned over the Kyle-O-Phone. If it has, then everybody in the Special Unit is deep in alien hypno-sleep right now. And when they wake up, they won't be able to resist Tess's I mean Ava's Kyle-boosted, delayedaction mindwarp. Then they'll delete every file and shred every hard copy, just before forgetting all about Roswell, alien teenagers, and their ongoing X-Files obsession. And, as Brody might say, I had shag-all to do with making any of it happen. Maria had never felt so useless before in her life. Stretching her legs as she leaned against the front of the Microbus, she glanced eastward again. The ring of news vans had just begun to break up and drive away, as though the people inside them,the aliens inside them, she reminded herself had abruptly become satisfied that there was nothing to report here after all. No stories about aliens, or alien-hunters, or conspiracies to manage or spin. they must have been tuned into Radio-Free Kyle, too. So with any luck, it all adds up to two things: the Special Unit goes down today, and nobody «outs» the Pod Squad in the process. She wasn't quite sure whether she should feel freaked out or reassured by the heavy alien infiltration of the media. I guess it's better for Michael and the others to be spied on by Bug-Eyed Paparazzi from Outer Space than by badly dressed paranoid wackjobsfrom the FBI, she finally decided. Then another, even more chilling, thought suddenly occurred to her: What if the news vans are leaving because the Pod Squad's brain bomb didn't work as advertised? What if they're shoving off now because they know the Special Unit is still alive and kicking and about to come after them as well as us? It was only then that Maria noticed the unaccustomed silence that now reigned inside her head. The mental link that Kyle and Isabel had set up which had come to include her own, non-alien, non-superhuman brain as well as those of Max, Michael, Langley, and just about everydangedbody else who'd gotten swept up into this mess seemed to have just collapsed. Without realizing it, Maria had begun getting used to the constant low-level chatter of the ongoing psionic party-line. Kyle's Psychic Friends Network is off the air, she realized with mounting fear. «Kyle?» she said, and thought; she then paused to listen for his response. None came, either through the air or over her now-silent mental transom. She scrambled back inside the van as quickly as she could manage. She saw that Isabel was in the back, looking dazed by the brain bomb's immediate aftermath as Jesse cradled her in his arms. Shelby, her caffeine overdose now evidently history, snored quietly beside them, oblivious. Kyle lay sprawled across one of the bench seats, an alien communicator orb clutched in each hand. The orbs, which had glowed a fierce orange when Kyle and Isabel had touched them apparently using them as lenses or amplifiers for everyone's interconnected alien powers, possibly even including those possessed by the now-departing members of the press corps were now gray and dead. They looked like so many lumps of desiccated moon rock. The alien compass also lay nearby, looking as inert as the orbs.