Author: Chris Kenworthy
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights or anything about Roswell. I don't own the rights to Nanowrimo either.
Pairings/Couples/Category: Max/Liz, Isabel/Alex Michael/Maria Ava/Rath Kyle/surprise. This is CC, taking off from a part in 'Departure'. How Alex is actually alive is explained in a prequel.
Rating: MATURE for suggestive sexual situations.
Summary: After spending a happy summer together, the 'I know an alien club's peace is shattered when they find out that Kivar, and his army, are coming to Earth.
Author's Note: This is my second Nanowrimo Roswell entry, and the third in my 'Unexpectedness' series, which also includes Divergence and "Summer love isn't always easy"
Part One - Roswell
"We don't have a plan!"
Max looked over at Liz Parker... (his girlfriend, his dearest love, his soulmate -- these were the sort of things that his mind seemed to insist on tagging along at the end of her name, like they were his qualifications. But he forced himself not to pay attention to that.) "We... we have the same stuff that's always worked for us in the past. Keeping a low profile, hiding in plain sight. Keeping our enemies uncertain as to whether or not we're even here. And kicking butt when there's absolutely no other choice." He sighed. "And right now, keeping a low profile means getting to math class."
"Max, that won't be enough." Liz's cute-beautiful face was lit up with conviction as she pulled Max towards the nearest cover - which, unfortunately, was only the doorway alcove of an unused classroom, as opposed to somewhere that would offer real privacy like the school's eraser room. Again, Max's brain took off without permission, remembering some of the makeout sessions he had had with Liz in the eraser room, mostly in the spring of their sophomore year. Now they were both seniors, on the second day of classes, and...
"Well, I didn't mean math class specifically. Going to math class won't accomplish much at all," Liz continued in an intense whisper, "but it's still a good idea. But hiding in plain sight won't do it this time, Max. You, all of us, we've broken cover too many times, and your enemies may well know where to find everybody in the group. The King, or dictator, whatever, of an entire planet, is coming to Earth with the best of his soldiers, specifically to find YOU. Do you really think that you can escape from him by looking like just another teenaged boy in Roswell?"
Max sighed loudly. This was a train of thought that he'd abandoned a few times since hearing the news himself, mostly because he didn't like where it led. Maybe he didn't have that luxury anymore. Was it possible that affection for his home, for his parents, was making him stick his metaphorical ostrich head into the sand? "So... what's the alternative," he asked in a hush, hoping that Liz would be able to think of a plan that he hadn't thought of, that the words that left her lips wouldn't me the ones that he was so very frightened of.
No such luck. "Max, max... I can't stand the thought either. But - but I think that we'll have to leave Roswell."
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They couldn't talk about it any more right then - Math class was looming too near. Max wrestled with the concept of calculus limits and felt that he did tolerably well. After classes let out, the pair of them met up with Max's sister Isabel, Alex Whitman, and their good friend Michael Guerin. If Maria, Liz's oldest girlfriend, and Michael's girlfriend in another and slightly more recent sense, had been there, it would have been the six of them from the good ol' days. But Maria had to take a shift at work starting before any of the rest of them got off school. (Maria had a free for period eight, and as a senior was able to leave Study hall for a good reason.)
"The biggest problem with leaving town," Michael muttered, "is the Granilith. It's way too big to fit into any kind of vehicle up to a tractor trailer, and I don't think that we can afford to get and fuel a tractor trailer, not to mention the kind of attention a bunch of high school age kids driving a big rig would attract. And... we can't just leave it here in town, can we? It's an alien artifact, a hideously powerful one, and Kivar specifically is after it. The guy who's going to be here in a little more than a week. And we've been operating under the assumption that we can't possibly let him have it."
"Probably he's come to Earth for the sake of taking back the Granilith once and for all, just as much as in order to find any or all of you guys," Alex agreed soberly. He was also an old friend of Liz's, and after years of dancing around the question, he and Isabel had almost literally shifted worlds to get back to each other early that summer.
Max, Michael, and Isabel were each part alien... and not just any aliens, but in a strange way were supposedly they were alien historical figures brought back to life after they'd been executed. On that alien planet, Max had been the young king of the planet of Antar, Isabel had been his sister, and Michael had been the King's general and the sister's betrothed fiancee. This revelation of a supposed 'romantic destiny' between Michael and Isabel had thrown their relationships with Maria and Alex askew for a while, but thankfully the issue seemed to be resolved now. Destiny was out of the running.
"Well," Liz said, "could we use the Granilith itself to escape? Kill two birds with one stone, as it were? It can be used as a spaceship - Michael and Isabel went to another planet in it. If we're gone, and the Granilith is gone, then Kivar has nothing."
"A few problems I can see with that," Isabel said reluctantly. "One, the Granilith doesn't have unlimited capacity. I think even a group of six passengers would be pushing our luck... and if the three of us, and the three of you, come along - then that leaves a few of our other friends here on Earth to face Kivar themselves."
"Plus," Max put in, "That might be just what our alien enemies want? What if they've figured out a way to intercept the Granilith in flight, or track its movements to wherever we think is safe harbour?" He sighed. "I... I think that we're going to need to ask our alien friends if they have ideas for what to do about the Granilith."
"And what about ourselves??" Michael put in.
"Yeah, maybe they'll have some ideas about that," Alex agreed.
"I wouldn't count on it," Isabel said darkly. "When the problem is alien technology, yeah, aliens might give us an unearthly deus ex machina. But if the problem comes down to hiding from Kivar or fighting him here on Earth - then I think we're pretty much on their own. Remember, aliens don't understand what Earth is like."
"But we do," Liz said, warming to the topic. "And by that same argument, we have an advantage of Kivar and his troops. They don't really understand the territory. We've lived here all our lives - this is home. Maybe that'll be the edge that we need to hide against his superior forces."
"Maybe," Max agreed, reaching out and hugging Liz to him. "But I hope that that's enough."
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Max went over to Rath and Ava's apartment that evening, after supper with his family, and was a little bit surprised to see Kyle Valenti already there. "Ava... she, umm, she didn't change her mind, did she?" He blurted out on seeing Kyle, who he really had a very complicated history with.
"No, what, do I have to be dating her to come over and hang around?" Kyle laughed. A few weeks ago, on a trip to a beach town in Texas, Kyle and Rath had both declared their feelings for Ava, and near the end of their trip, she had chosen Rath, surprising Max more than a little. Maybe that was superficial of him. Kyle was handsome, athletic, and not without a certain playful charm, but Ava and Rath had known each other for all their lives, and she must know alll of the hidden virtues that Max saw so rarely in Michael's near-twin.
It was still hard fro Max to come to terms with Ava and Rath's continued presence as part of his circle of friends. They had grown up in New York, born of the same alien hybridization that had produced Max and his friends, so that each alien from Roswell had a counterpart in New York that was identical in appearance, but slight deviations in the alien-human DNA mix, and very different upbringing, had managed to create differences in character that were nearly as contrary as any cliche 'good twin, evil twin' pairings. Ava was the counterpart of Tess, originally from the Roswell pods but raised elsewhere by a heartless, extraterrestrial shapeshifting bodyguard, and Tess was arrogant and manipulative where Ava was, on the whole, open and kind.
"Something on your mind, Evans?" Rath asked Max. "Or did you just come over here to stand in our doorway and stare into space like you're stoned?"
"Umm, yeah," Max shook his head. "More of the same as yesterday, I'm afraid. Kivar coming. Overwhelming odds. Staying here in town versus hitting the road, and figuring out what to do about the Granilith. We were thinking of using the communicator again, and I think you had it last, right?"
"Yeah, it's here." Rath waved the small, intricately designed alien gizmo with a small sigh. "Dunno if it's so smart an idea, though. Rayde said not to bother talking to them unless it was critically important. Kivar's ship might be able to trace the signal, at this point."
Max took a deep breath. "Figuring out how to protect the Granilith is *very* critically important."
"So," Ava added, "I guess that we'd better go talk to them before the K man gets any closer." She sighed. "Though I suppose we could still wait for Isabel... or Michael."
"Yeah," Max agreed. "I'll call them over, though Michael may not bother coming."
He was right. Maria was just about to get away from her job at the Crashdown cafe and come by Michael's apartment, so Max wished him a pleasant night and moved on. His sister showed up a few minutes later, asking if they'd started without her again. (The first time they'd really got the communicator to work, Isabel and Alex had arrived in the middle of the conversation.)
"Naw, still waiting on you, your highness," Ava replied. "Here, we're all set up in Rath's room. Who'd have thought that there'd be an upside to having a pad with a bedroom that doesn't have any windows." For some reason that none of them had been able to put their fingers on, the alien communicator seemed to get its best reception in highly enclosed, energy-poor surroundings - a room with a door shut, heavy drapes hung or better still no windows at all, no electrical lights or other appliances running. It tended to produce very spooky conversation sessions - like they were running a seance and talking with ghosts and spirits of the departed, instead of lifeforms who lived on planets far faraway.
Four of them waited in the darkness of Rath's messy room while he expertly made adjustments to the mechanism. "This is Rath, calling Raydeleen. On the line with me are Max and Isabel Evans, Ava, and Kyle Valenti."
"Ava Sullivan," Ava corrected, and Max made a small questioning noise. "Kyle said I should pick a last name, so I have. A little corny I know, but it's better than just 'Ava' without anything else, like I was some pretentious rock st..."
"Ava, hi," a clear voice suddenly 'said' from the communicator. "As interesting as that was, I think that you have bigger concerns to tell me about."
"Yes, Rayde," Max said, a little surprised that Raydeleen - an important official in the Antarian Royalist army - had replied to their original signal without some functionary coming on the line first to tell them that they were tracking her down. If it weren't for the urgency, he would have asked if there was some reason she was already watching the communication status of the 'Sanctuary' where she was based.
Instead - "I'll get right to the point. We've been, umm, going over tactical options, and it seems like we have no alternative to flee Roswell before Kivar gets here, possibly drawing him into a chase. But we can't move the Granilith, either over land, through the air, or into the space, without running the risk of leading Kivar straight to it. Is there any way to..." He struggled to come up with a more specific question, instead of simply asking the alien woman to solve the conundrum for him. "To... hide or seal the Granilith away so that Kivar can't get to it, even if he knows where it started from?"
There was a slight chuckle from Rayde, and then no more for several seconds. "You're... you're so close, Max, and it would be more secure if I didn't have to say it loud over the link, just in case someone is listening in." There was a pause. "The granilith is capable of manipulating matter on the molecular and atomic levels, has considerable reserves of energy, and is able to carry out commands in pre-programmed sequences. Does that give you any hints?"
Max sighed, looking around as if he expected to get a cue gesture from one of his friends, but by the blinking light of the communicator it was impossible to see anyone else's face or hands. However, someone's knee bumped into Max's own, followed by a vaguely affirmative sound. "Okay, we'll try to take it from there." It did, after all, make sense to not broadcast their ideas in either direction over a communication link that might not be secure. "How are things on your world, Rayde? Any crisis brewing?"
"Not yet, at least." There was a very human-sounding sigh from Rayde - did the communicator's translation functions also cover nonverbal sounds? "I've been monitoring a nuclear standoff on Breeolyn - that's why I was able to come onto your circuit as quickly as possible. Oh, and one other thing that may be of interest to you all."
There was a short silence. "What... what's that?" Kyle blurted out.
"The Essentologists studying Tess have confirmed something. The psychic spirit that she is implanted with is NOT the correct one to match her DNA pattern, that of Ava the Bride Queen. We don't know what this means - there was no indication of this mixup before the crash - if indeed it was a result of events from before your original landing on Earth."
Max sighed. Yet another bit of weirdness about the Roswell 'forty-seven crash, we absolutely did not need. "How's Tess doing, otherwise? How's the baby?"
"Mother and son both doing fine. You'll be a father in about three months, as nearly as we can tell."
"Groan." That was another sore point. Tess had seduced Max and connived to bear his child, and even when Liz and Maria had found out about all of Tess' dirty laundry, there had been no way to deal with her other than taking her away from Earth, (where something in the air was mysteriously harming the unborn child,) and delivering her to one of the factions in an interstellar war. Liz had been enormously hurt by the revelation that her blonde-haired rival had taken the purity of her alien soulmate, and would be the mother of his firstborn, though there were enough extenuating circumstances that she blamed herself at least as much as Max. Max was very glad, actually, that Liz hadn't been here to listen to that last line.
"Okay, this'll probably be our last transmission unless something goes horribly wrong," Max said.
"Right. Rath, did you try modifying the communicator to detect the approach of Kivar's ship?" Rayde asked.
"Yes, and it seems to be approaching faster than we thought," Rath replied. "T minus five days three hours, as near as I can work it. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, all." As the line went dead, Max groaned at the news of the enemy's quick approach, which Rath hadn't bothered to mention to him. Ava got up and turned the light on. Max turned to the person who had nudged him, which turned out to be Isabel, as he'd suspected.
"You've got an idea, now?" he asked.
"Maybe," Isabel replied. "Need to talk it over with Liz and Alex first. But basically... that thing's off, right?" She looked at Rath and the transmitter.
"Yeah, definitely," he insisted. "One hundred percent radio silence."
"Okay, then. If we could get the Granilith to make that new chamber for itself underground when we landed, why can't we drive it further underground? Like, say... a hundred miles down, in a random direction from Roswell... more or less, depending on how deep the crust is stable and solid, I can't remember." She smiled grimly. "We can program it to surface at a particular time and place, but without knowing where and when, it'll be just about completely inaccessible to anyone. Even we won't be able to get to it until the right time."
"What if he has enough firepower to blow holes in the planet down that far?" Rath asked grimly.
"Then we probably could never be sure of keeping it away from him anyway," Ava countered, and Max nodded. "It's a good plan, better than anything else we can come up with I think." She sighed. "And we'd better do it soon."
"Friday night?" Max ventured. Slowly, each of them nodded. "That's two days from now. And then - we'd better get ready to run away from Roswell."
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"Wow," Liz breathed, sitting very close to Max on the couch in his parent's living room later that evening. He'd driven over to pick her up after her shift so that they could spend a bit of time together... the two of them had pooled their money to buy a car at the end of the summer, and already it was proving to be an interesting logistical challenge to share it - but that kept them talking and driving hither and yon together, so really it was no bad thing. "I... I have to admit, I didn't expect you to go all kickass about this leaving town thing so soon." She leaned in, her straight dark hair brushing against Max's shoulder, and kissed him on the lips. "But I suppose it's good that you're getting everything organized." She shuddered. "We *really* don't have much time."
"No," Max admitted, shivering himself as he thought about actually leaving his home behind, of going 'on the run' with his friends, trying to outrace an enemy that could, at least sometimes, travel faster than light. "And... and there's another thing. Who... who actually goes? You and Me, Michael, Maria, Isabel, Alex. Kyle, Rath, and Ava. Any... anybody else?"
"Oh, right," Liz sighed. "Umm... gut reaction. Mister Valenti and Maria's mom... they know the truth, they can make up their own mind. Everyone else - my parents, your parents, and so on... No. Nobody tells them. They'll be safe here if they don't have anything to do with us. I *really* hope." She worried over that a little bit more. "Plus, I can just picture myself trying to convince my Dad that he has to leave the cafe behind because aliens are after me and my boyfriend. Even if he believes the alien part... he wouldn't want to go."
"Okay." Max nodded. "It... it's been a long day, and I don't really want to talk about hairy alien danger any more."
Liz's face suddenly lit up with a hint of a playful smile. "Oh, no?? Then... what do you want to do? Something that doesn't, umm, doesn't require much talking?" She was moving while softly whispering the words, almost purring deep beneath her throat. The two of them had already been sitting in a very iintimate pose, their thighs touching, but now Liz swivelled herself around and stretched her legs out across Max, so that her thighs came up onto his lap. One leg brushed against something else that was making its presence felt in Max's lap. Max bent sideways to try to kiss Liz, but their position made this awkward and he soon realized that his lips were actually going to end up in the vicinity of Liz's shoulder. However, this part of Liz's body was uncovered by the summery tank top that she was wearing, and Max decided not to waste the opportunities offered by that happy accident, nuzzling her soft skin and kissing the gently concave spot just underneath her collarbone. Liz sighed loudly and squirmed, which had the effect of exciting things even further in Max's lap.
"Umm, isn't it pretty late for a school night, guys?" Max groaned as he realized that his parents were standing in the dining room doorway.
"Yeah," Liz whispered. "We shoulda done this out in the car." Max tried to choke down his inappropriate laughter.
"Umm, yeah," Max agreed out loud when he had regained control over his breathing. Liz sitting up straight in the traditional way helped, though he hoped that his parent's wouldn't notice what wasn't anything in his pocket.
Liz smiled, and another thing Max hoped his parents couldn't see was the playfulness in her expression. "Gnight sweetie." She stood lithely up, and held out a hand in an expectant gesture.
"You sure you're be alright driving home by yourself, dear?" Mrs Evans asked.
'Yes, mom," Liz drawled with a trace of sarcasm, and in one slightly hurried movement Max got up, hurried Liz over past his parentals to the front door, and pressed the car keys into her hand. Liz took the opportunity to kiss him goodnight, a sweet and chaste kiss that wouldn't make either of them any more bothered about having to split up. Once Liz had gotten behind the wheel of the old two-door sportsedan, waved once towards the Evans, and driven away, Max hurried towards his bedroom before Dad could start a conversation.
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"Hey Max," Maria said, slipping into a seat across the courtyard table from him the next day. "How heavy is the planet today?"
Max looked up at her and couldn't stifle a laugh. "Is it so easy to tell that I'm propping it up with my very own shoulders?" he joked back, and Maria mixed a shrug and nod and showed him what the resulting blend looked like. "All I really want to do is keep my own little world from crashing down around me, and the rest of the place can take care of itself," Max said feelingly. "But how're you? I missed you around yesterday."
"Thanks," she replied. "I'm, umm, about as good as can be expected when everyone else is so twitchy... well, Michael and Liz especially. Alex is remaining surprisingly calm - but then, I suppose the fact that he's already 'died' once this year and came back might have something to do with it."
"Yeah," Max replied absently, and lowered his voice just in case. "Listen, how's your mom doing with the whole revelation thing lately? I mean, I haven't seen her particularly much since... well, since she found out about the whole 'alien' thing." The key word had just been mouthed, not breathed.
"Ummm..." Maria whispered back. "Not too great, not too bad, all things considered - like Alex, or me, when we first found out. For a long time it was as if she didn't want to know any more, and then when she found out that Michael was back in town, she hauled us both in for an interrogation session. She's been asking some more questions lately, too - she spotted Rath and Ava somewhere, and I've told her part of the deal with them."
"Okay," Max muttered. "I was meaning to ask about that." He took a deep breath. "If... if the worst comes to worst, and we have to leave Roswell, would you want to ask your mom to come along??"
Maria blinked. "Wow - what a quastion! Would you??"
"I don't think it's a good option for my case," Max said regretfully. "My parents don't know anything - not for sure, which means that it'd be nearly impossible to convince them about the situation in time, and they're probably safer if they don't get told anything."
"Ahh." Maria considered that. "I... I think I'd ask her, yeah. But she might not want to go... she's built a life and a business here in Roswell."
"She's better placed to leave thann Liz's parents, at least," Max remarked idlly. "They've invested in a place, a restaurant - something that they'd really lose out on if they left behind." He caught the look in Maria's eyes and sighed. "Yeah, I know that your mom has invested in inventory of, umm, of various kinds, and that she's made a lot of valuable business contacts here in Roswell. Still, it's not quite the same thing."
"Whatever," Maria replied, and that seemed to signal the end of the topic. "I guess it looks like we won't be making it to the welcome-back dance after all." That was a West Roswell High social event, held a week and a half later, (which seemed kind of late to be welcoming people back in Max's opinion, but the student social committee hadn't asked him.)
"No," Max admitted. "We could have a formal of our own, or at least some kind of party." He sighed. "A 'goodbye to Roswell, maybe forever' fling, as far as that goes."
"Hmmm." Maria chewed on that thought. "Does Kyle get to ask someone? He's kind of the odd one out at this point."
"Does he get to ask someone what??" Michael asked, suddenly appearing behind Maria and leaning down to give her a kind of a modified bear hug. "Hmm?"
"Uhhh..." Maria made a vague waving gesture from the elbow to a seat beside her, (because she couldn't move her upper arms while Michael's grip was encircling them,) and Michael caught the hint, letting her go and sitting down in the indicated position. Maria gave him a warm kiss, and then whispered, "Max suggested we have a dress-up party, with soft music and dancing, because we won't be able to go to the ball this year."
"Oh, he did did he??" Michael shot Max an unimpressed look, and Max remembered all of the fuss about their junior prom last year, which had prompted one of Michael and Maria's most memorable mid-length fights of the year. (Mid-length being an argument that lasted, well, something like from twenty hours to six days.) Max just shrugged, not feeling particularly inclined to come to his best friend's rescue. He liked the idea of dressing up and going to a big to-do with dancing, especially now that he and Liz were really back together. He'd escorted Liz to the junior prom himself, but just as friends, and it had set off a deep and bitter rift between them that lasted for weeks that spring.
Meanwhile, Michael had introduced yet another new topic. "I've been thinking about what we'll need for the big run, Max." Max sighed. Everything about their departure from Roswell was starting to seem so real, from goodbye partied to planning necessities. "Crowding into a van, or even two vans, for a road trip of unknown length, and not being sure of how long we'll be able to stop sounds like the pits. How about we try to get our hands on a decent RV??"
"Hmm..." Maria sighed. "Isn't it more noticeable?"
"Who's the dude who wrote about the stolen letter that was hidden in plain sight??" Michael did not wait even slightly for the answer. "Yeah, it's hard to see an RV, but if you're looking for a bunch of kids on the run from an alien army, would you really *notice* it??"
"It's an idea worth looking into, yeah," Max agreed and sighed. "Of course, WHERE we get it still needs to be sorted out. I don't want to get into grand theft auto at this point - we're in enough trouble already."
"Oh, are you sure? I've heard it's a heck of a game," Michael said. Max looked at him dubiously. "Grand Theft Auto, the violent computer game? Gee Tee Ay? Ringing any bells here Maxwell??"
Max didn't answer, mostly because in staring at Michael he had seen something else, or someones else. "Liz! Ava!!" Max waved widely, and the two girls, somewhat unlikely good friends, hurried over to join the confab in progress.
"Hey, what are you doing here, Ava??" Michael asked the short, prettyy blonde girl. "Haven't signed up for classes just as we may have to be leaving?"
"Nah, but Isabel asked me to come over to the computer lab and help out with the planning for Project Sub-bedrock," Ava replied. Max nodded - he had known that Liz was working with Isabel and Alex to research their plans for hiding the Grailith deep underground, but hadn't known that Ava would be invited. In fact, Max had volunteered to help out, since he was pretty good with science and making plans and stuff like that, and Liz had kissed him and said no, that they'd be okay, and he hadn't really thought any more about it. The fact that Ava had been invited along too made him suddenly question the whole deal.
Liz must have noticed the puzzled expression on Max's face, because she reached out to take his hand in hers. "Come on, babe, let's walk." Shrugging, Max nodded goodbyes at Michael, Maria, and Ava, and headed off towards the edge of school grounds with Liz. It was still about fifteen or twenty minutes before the first class of the day would start, but other students were already starting to come near. "Isabel... Isabel told me what Raydeleen said - the stuff about Tess. The things that I guess you didn't want to mention to me."
"I... I didn't think you wanted me to mention Tess to you ever again if I could help it," Max said with an uncertain smile. "You... you always get twitchy and uncomfortable when she comes up."
"Well, I think that you can understand why." Liz sighed. "She plotted to steal you away from me - not that she didn't get some help from me and from circumstance there, and she covered up her involvement when she thought that Alex was dead. But... but when there's still important stuff going on with her, I'd rather that you told me, rather than trying to keep me in the dark. I always want to know what's going on in your life, no matter how hard it might be to hear."
"Easy to say," Max pointed out. "A bit harder to live up to. If I have much about her to tell you, you'll start to resent me for continually bringing up her memory again and again, hurting you that way."
"Yeah, I know," Liz sighed. "But unfortunately she's not really out of our lives, as long as she's the mother of your son. No matter that she hasn't even given birth to the baby, and they're both so far away that we have no true conception of it." The two of them turned to follow a chain link fence, on the inside, the school lawn as opposed to the city sidewalk that was on the other side of the barrier. "What... what did you think of the stuff about Tess not having the... the spirit, the essence of the true bride in her?"
"I... I never know what to make of that kind of stuff, Liz," Max complained. "You know that." Not only had the aliens of their group been engineered from the alien DNA of specific people, but supposedly the Roswell foursome had also been given the 'essence' of their departed forebears... which most of the other aliens that they'd met seemed to regard as a kind of artificially induced reincarnation - that in their eyes, Max *was* King Zan of the house of Liaret, once overlord of all planet Antar, now born again. The fact that he remembered little of that other life didn't seem to matter, any more than in human reincarnation traditions... well, most people supposedly didn't remember much of their previous incarnations without special spiritual traditions or hypnotism or whatever else - Max didn't really believe very much in that sort of thing either.
The alien essence stuff was also tied into the supposed romantic destinies that they had had with each other - Tess had come to Roswell certain that she was Max's true love, the girl of his dreams, and the fact that he'd been happily involved with Liz had instantly triggered a fierce competitive streak in the petite blond alien girl. Finding out that they had been married in a previous life had only strengthened Tess' convictions. So... "If Tess really *isn't* the reincarnation of Queen Ava, whoever that really was... then - then maybe Ava is?" Max didn't want to even say the words. He didn't want a possible link to Ava to disrupt his relationship with Liz just as it was getting back into a good place, and Ava didn't seem to have any interest in him that way, as far as that went. (Of course, even if she didn't, Ava would never betray her closest friend by trying to move in on Liz's man.)
"Umm... Ava doesn't think so," Liz said. "Though maybe we don't have enough information, it seems like none of the New York four really got specific alien spirits." She sighed. "That fits with why Nicholas and all of the other aliens were concentrating mostly on you guys. And... and what I was wondering about wasn't so much, 'If Tess isn't queen Ava, then who is,' so much as, 'If Tess isn't Queen Ava, then who is SHE??'" Liz giggled nervously. "Umm, if you get the point of the distinction."
"You mean, you think that she has the reincarnated spirit of somebody else??" Max clarified.
"Well, that's the way Rayde said it, right?" Liz insisted. "Not, 'we don't think she got implanted with a spirit' or 'we don't think the spirit that was implanted in her survived,' but 'we think the spirit that she is implanted with is NOT queen Ava.'"
Max let out a long breath. "Yeah, that... of course, we can't get too hung up on phrasing. We're talking about a translator circuit in that alien device, which may not have been able to convey the statement that Rayde meant in her own language, to sufficient detail to allow semantic niceties like that. But if that's even possible... who do YOU think that she is?"
"I... I don't know, Max," Liz admitted soberly. "Maybe it's nobody that we've heard of yet - maybe somebody was able to bring additional alien spirits to earth, not long after 1947. But still..." She considered, and then shrugged. "If... if it's at all possible, I want to try to figure out what happened to Tess, when we leave Roswell. I - I think it might be important."
"Umm... if we can, then that's fine by me," Max agreed. "We should probably put it up to the whole group - I don't really want to declare a quest like that only on the basis of my dubious royal authority."
"Of course, your majesty," Liz teased him. "And certainly, if it's a case of survival versus curiosity, then we survive. That's patently obvious." She stopped walking. "Now kiss me, before the first period warning bell rings."
Max smiled. "That, I can definitely do." He wrapped his arms around Liz's lithe figure and her lips seemed to melt into him, surrounding his heart with an aching, enervating fire. Liz's own arms found their way to Max's back, pressing his chest into hers... and right then, of course, the bell rang. "Something always seems to interrupt us."
"Maybe not always, big boy," Liz said in a breathy whisper. And then they hurried over to get into the school.
----------
"Okay, who wants to do the honors?" Rath asked, as they filed their way into the underground Granilith chamber. This was only the second time that Max had been here - though he'd been in the older Granilith chamber, the one adjacent to where their incubation bods had been housed, in the rocky peaks near the Puhlman ranch crash site northwest of town, many times. But when Isabel and Michael had used the Granilith to take Tess away from Earth, it had pretty much ruined that structure, melting the stone to the point that the way in was completely unuseable, and on their return landing they had placed the Granilith at a more convenient point, south of town and not far from the main highway, concealed about nine feet under the desert floor and accessible only by a secret stairway mechanism. This new chamber had some of the same strange architectural style as the old one, but it was smaller, and for all nine of them to crowd in was a tight fit.
The 'Big G' itself, however, was the same as ever - mysteriously imposing and impossibly enigmatic, shaped like a giant cone balanced on its point, the surface shiny and metallic. Their were a few small interface devices near it, one of which was designed to receive the short rod of cloudy and irregular crystal that was the Granilith's 'ignition key.' This was required to get the thing to do anything - or pretty much so. As far as just what it could do...
"Not me," Max quickly disclaimed. "Aside from launching it into space, I wouldn't know how. One of you guys do it." He turned towards Michael and Isabel, holding out the rod.
Both his sister and his best friend hesitated. "Umm... Michael, you used it more on that alien planet, right?" Maria asked.
"Yeah," Michael argued. "But Isabel is the one who understands the plan better." He turned to Isabel. "All yours - if you think you're up to it. Otherwise, I'll take my best shot."
Isabel sighed, reached out, and took the key. "And... and don't strain yourself while you're linked to it," Michael quickly added. "We don't want to have to do a healing stone ritual on you."
"Like you strained yourself, when you were shooting at those alien spaceships?" Isabel said
"Don't worry - *I* have a little bit more sense."
Isabel walked over, put the rod into the receptacle, and laid her hand upon the surface of the Granilith cone itself. Suddenly, something strange started to happen - a distortion of the usual rules of his reality that Max was staggered with the intensity of it, like waves on the surface of space and time, washing over him. No, not quite - the distortion wasn't quite as fundamental as the space he walked through, it was more... psychic, mental. Like something was trying to change the way his consciousness worked. Most of the others were having trouble too, Max was just able to realize - Isabel, Michael, Rath, and Ava about as much as he, Liz slightly less so, and Alex and Maria hardly seemed to be affected. He couldn't get a good look at Kyle.
And then, things settled down somewhat. The horrible waves crashing down around his head from nowhere had stopped, but things were still not back to normal. It was like the difference between looking through air and looking through glass, or something like that. He could breathe, but every move he made, everything he saw, every sound he heard was distinctly alien.
"The... the transition is complete now," he said, seeing it, "or at least halted. "The wave sensation was a mental transformation in progress, and right now it's being... maintained."
"What... what kind of mental transformation?" Alex asked, alarmed. "I... I felt something weird going on, but... Isabel - are you okay??"
"Isabel Evans will return to you after interface mode has been disconnected," Isabel's mouth said in an eerie, toneless voice. Even though Max didn't understand all of what was going on, he could tell thta this wasn't a joke that Isabel was playing - that she really wasn't the... the entity that was communicating through her. Given that her hand was still flat against the Granilith cone, it wasn't hard to guess what that other entity was. "Interfacing... with the Granilith itself? Are... are you sentient, Granilith?" That was something that Max had never even thought of.
"The consciousness or free will of this unit is fundamentally undecideable," Isabel intoned. "However, sufficient processing power is available to provide a semblance of 'intelligence'. Interface mode has been implemented as an aid to programming, and was automatically triggered because of a confluence of requisite criteria."
"What... what's going on here?" Maria asked, sounding as freaked as Alex. "Max... Max, are you talking to the Granilith somehow? I couldn't really understand what you said. And is it answering you somehow?"
"Can't... can't you hear what Isabel is saying?" Liz asked, and it was clear from the expressions on Alex and Maria's face that they couldn't. There were still many things that Max didn't understand here. Should he ask all of the unanswered questions about the Granilith and this 'interface mode', or just proceed with what they had planned to do as quickly as possible?
Michael had already made up his mind, it seemed. "Okay, you tin cone," he growled at the Granilith. "Why don't Alex and Maria hear you when you speak through Isabel's voice? What are these criteria? And if you could use Isabel as an... an interface, why did you need to do all of that floopey stuff with the air in here?" It figured, Max realized siloently. Always the least subtle of them (with the possible exception of Rath,) Michael hadn't realized that the floopeyness was inside their heads, not really in the air.
"The answers to queries one and three are sufficiently related to be answered as one," Isabel began. "Interface mode is not capable of simply communicating through the vocal and auditory apparatus of a proxy person. To complete the interface mode, temporary mental alterations must be made to those who would speak, and listen, on a parapsionic basis. Individuals within the chamber who do not posess a sufficiently high psi rating cannot be so altered without risking permanent brain damage."
"So only those of us with some basis for alien powers can speak to you or hear what you say, even with Isabel's body as a communication aid," Max filled in. "And there is no risk of harm to any of us from this process?"
"Chances of complication are statistically insignificant in the first ten earth minutes of Interface mode." Isabel's chest breathed. "Second query from Michael Guerin - the criteria included the presence of required key personnel in the chamber, the insertion of command key, and the mental recognition pattern of a series of instructions in Isabel Evans' mind that she was not able to specify by more conventional input methods."
"Right," Max said. "Let's get to programming. Umm - Liz, do you want to..."
"Alright, Granilith," Liz said, stepping forward slightly and holding her chin up a little higher than normal. "I am going to give you a list of instructions that you are not to begin on until a specific countdown command is given, and until all personnel are safely out of the chamber. Firstly, this chamber will be allowed to collapse, and you will travel beneath the earth's eurface to a depth of sixteen point eight kilometers down, two point seven kilometers south, and eight hundred forty meters to the east. There you will embed yourself in the surrounding rock as solidly as possible. Is this step feasibe?"
"It is, Liz Parker," Isabel replied, and Liz jumped slightly.
"Alright. In Twelve point eight years, you will surface again, at the following GPS co-ordinates." She took a slip of paper from Isabel's hands and read them out. "That will be another few kilometers south and west. There, you will establish another command chamber, seal the door against any entry but that of Max Evans, Isabel Evans, Michael Guerin, or Ava Sullivan, however if the door or chamber is breached by superior firepower you will not attempt to repel such intrusion. Understood?"
"Understood - but a point of information. Liz Parker, you can also set your own handprint to open the chamber door. Also, the characteristic 'codes' of your mental pattern can be voluntarily loaned to others on a contigency basis, whoever these loaner codes will not be honored unless specific instructions along those lines are given at this point."
Liz turned to Max. "Sure, give yourself the key," Max admitted, though he was surprised by this reference. "As far as the loaner codes - is there any possible way to steal those without the intent of the owner to loan?"
"Intent is not a binary function," Isabel said. "Loan of mental codes from an unwilling donor can be induced by physical torture methods, or use of psi power to induce mind control."
"But if our enemies get us in such bad shape," Rath said, "they can probably get us to take them inside the chamber anyway. Err... get *you* to take them inside."
Max nodded in agreement, not commenting on the fact that Rath had been left off the access list. He could understand why. Liz smiled slightly. "Okay, add me to the list, and permit the use of loaner codes. Save that step." Isabel nodded.
"Now, in the event that the surrounding bedrock is broken by earthquake or other forces before the time period are up, preventing you from hiding in that place," Liz continued, then you will attempt to travel through warp space, evading pursuit as necessary, and travel to a rocky planet near the following Antarian co-ordinates." Now Liz spoke a much more complicated series of numbers... distances in the Antarian units for interstellar mapping, then the planet's distance from its promary in Earth kilometers. You will bury yourself only about one point five kilometers underneath this planet, and at the end of the same time period (adjusting for time distortions in warp space as best possible,) will surface at the closest point below the planet's surface as specified on Earth, creating an underground chamber. However, if you have had to locate on this contingency planet, you will also broadcast a radio signal to assist in location."
"Query," the Granilith's voice put in through Isabel. "Specific location on the contingency planet to travel to underground?"
"Unspecified," Liz put in. "We don't know enough of its parameters to give you detailed instructions." She shook her head. "No - identify the planet's rotation axis arrive, and find the spot of highest elevation on the rotational equator. One kilometer east of that spot."
"And the parameters of the radio signal?"
Liz looked around, nearly defeated by the Granilith's relentless pursuit of precision. Ava spoke up. "Are you familiar with the Earth specifications of AM radio?" Michael clapped silently in appreciation.
"Affirmative."
"Then broadcast at the maximum legal AM signal on the eight hundred ten station," Ava said. "Umm, a middle C major third scale, repeating indefinitely." Middle third major C didn't give the Granilith any trouble either, somewhat to Max's surprise. How much had the Granilith managed to figure out about human society and culture? Or was it tuning into Isabel's mind for this stuff? Max doubted that Isabel knew the technical specifications for AM signals or the absolute pitch of middle C offhand.
"Is there anything that we're forgetting?" Liz asked. Nobody else suggested additions. "Complete program."
"Program complete. Awaiting execution instructions."
"Execute in four minutes," Max said.
"Four minute countdown confirmed... now. Please retrieve the crystal key and exit the chamber. Interface mode will terminate in five seconds... three, two, one." Finally Isabel's hand left the Granilith cone, and all of the strangeness about Max's senses suddenly disappeared, not in confusing waves like they had come, but suddenly.
"Isabel, are you okay/" Liz suddenly blurted out. "The program's been input - we need to leave." And Liz rushed forward to grab the key. The teenagers, human, not-quite-human, and hybrid alike, hurried up the stairs and out of the hatchway in an orderly line. Nobody turned back until they had reached the cars, just out of sight of the road. Rath checked a digital watch. "Still forty-nine seconds to go."
"Good," Maria muttered. They waited out the time quietly, and a quiet rumbling sound started when Rath's countdown was up, never getting too loud and quickly dying away. The ground beneath them might have shaken slightly, though it was hard to be sure.
"Is... is that it?" Isabel muttered. "Stupid question, I guess."
"That's all of it, I guess," Max agreed. "Granilith is no longer in the area, and I think Kivar would have a heck of a hard time if he tries to go after it directly." He took a deep breath. "So, party night tomorrow, and then we take off."
"Great," Kyle muttered, leading the way over to his car.
"Did you find anyone to take to the party, Kyle?" Rath asked, not without an edge of superiority. Kyle didn't answer.
TO BE CONTINUED....
