Runaway with me (CC, Max/Liz I/A, Mature) Pt 21 Jun 26 2008

[Chrisken]

Part Eleven

"Come on, Alisa darling, just one drink. Linda won't mind..."

Liz, (Alisa to the customers here in the bar, except for when Max was a customer,) rather thought that Linda *would* mind, since she knew Max (aka Jacen) well, and Liz didn't think that she'd given her boss any indication that she'd rather be harassed by the customers than serve her shift in peace and go home to him. However, she didn't really feel like letting the manage bail her out of this situation. So she put the straight jack that the smoothly-gelled man had ordered down on another table, well out of his reach, and picked up a table knife, waving it to and fro about as threateningly as she could, which wasn't really anything much.

"What's your name, bud?"

"Jennings. Alan Jennings."

"Well, *Jennings,*" Liz said, "the question of my boss minding is completely beyond the point. I don't want to join you in a drink. I'm here to serve you your drinks, and as long as you pay up and don't cause trouble, that's all fine. If you continue to make an aggravating, completely foolish nuisance of yourself, then we have a problem, and I don't think either of us want to have a problem. Just in case it might have crossed your mind to wonder, I'm happily spoken for, and have no wish to change that status or whom it is in relation to. Now, do we understand each other??"

Alan blinked. "Um, yeah, darling."

"Okay. Letting you get away with calling me that, as a favor." She put down the drink, and collected the money that he dazedly offered. "Have a great evening." As Liz swept away to the bar, she heard Alan's drinking buddies ribbing him for getting 'frozen out by the waitress.' She also noticed Linda staring at her. "Umm, anything wrong?"

"Not that I can see, though that particular angle was a little bit over-the-top," she remarked. "I'd have thought you'd be more used to the male clientele trying their hand at petty harassment, but you seem to have found an alright way to deal with it."

"Umm, yeah, about that..." Liz grinned feebly. "I, uhh, I've had customers hit on me before, but - this environment is..." She suddenly cut herself off, realizing that she couldn't admit the truth, because it had to do with the fact that she really didn't have previous experience in a bar situation.

But Linda didn't seem to care too much about that. "I think these are your orders for sixteen," she said, pointing at a few full glasses, not all the same size. Liz expertly loaded them up onto her tray and headed off amongst the clientele again. This time, nobody really bothered her for anything but more orders.

-----------

"Yeah, that sounds right," Isabel agreed over the phone. "So it'll run, what, on Wednesday's morning edition? Okay. And the charge account will be on file if we want to use it again? Cool. You have a nice day too." She hung up the phone and turned to Alex and Maria. "We're in business."

"Cool, about darn time," Maria muttered. Most of the time that Isabel had spent on the phone hadn't been spent on the details of the advertisement that she wanted to put in the personals section, but establishing the file necessary to charge the ad to her credit card. "So, how about---"

She was cut off as Alex's phone rang again. Isabel made a puzzled face, and scooped it back up by reflex. "Hello?"

"Isabel, is that you picking up Alex's phone?" Tess asked, seeming amused by the fact.

"Oh, hi Tess, what's up?"

"I've been trying to reach you for over half an hour. We're pretty much ready for that housewarming party anytime... can we do it tonight?"

Isabel hesitated only a moment. "Yeah, we'll all be there for seven thirty, sound good?"

"We'll be where?" Maria protested.

Apparently Tess couldn't hear or didn't pay any attention to a voice so far in the background. "Can't wait to see yous."

By the time Isabel had said her 'bye' and hung up the phone, Alex was already explaining to Maria about how they'd been investigating Tess and needed her and Michael to come along this time.

"But we were going to - all right, never mind," Maria grumbled. "Well, I should change into something a bit more party-ish I guess. And I *expect* to be able to slow-dance with Michael."

"You'll have to sort that out with Michael," Isabel remarked.

"And is there anything else we'll need?"

"Alcohol, apparently," Alex said. Maria's eyes widened. "Just one of those little shot bottles maybe, to sneak into Tess' drink when she isn't expecting it."

"Well, my house won't work," Maria said. "My mom is on an evils of drink kick - hasn't had a drop in the place since Valentine's day or so."

"I think that my Dad keeps a few little bottles in the locked cabinet in the living room," Isabel sighed. "But he probably also keeps count of them, so we'd better think of some way to replace it."

"One thing at a time, sweetie," Alex told her. "In the meantime - grub at the Crash, nothing too big, and pass along Michael's invite? Oh, will he be off work in time to come?"

"Yeah, he's off at seven," Maria said as they left the room. "I'm not, but I think that I can get Regan to cover me."

"I thought you were talking about something else you wanted to do tonight, not working, Maria," Alex said. Maria just shrugged.

-----------

Max wasn't home when Liz got off her shift at the bar and got back to their apartment. She hadn't been sure if he would be, but after her brush with the annoying guy, she'd really hoped that he'd be there to wrap her arms around as soon as possible.

It had to be something that was keeping him hard to work at the ranch, she decided after a moment. Max knew her shift very well, and though he was enjoying spending time with some of the guys that he'd met in town, that wouldn't keep him away from her. Liz was so certain about that feeling that she hardly even recognized the sentiment as a cliche example of denial. That sort of troubled relationship had nothing to do with what she and her soulmate shared.

So she flipped idly through 'Graviton star', (which Max had begun reading to her the night before,) and folded some of the clean laundry that he'd left out in baskets since yesterday. In just a few minutes, there was a familiar sound at the apartment door, and Liz rushed back just as Max let himself in, with the happy result that she pretty much threw herself into his arms.

"Well hey there darling," Max said. "How was work?"

"Some lush kept trying to hit on me until I told him off," Liz sighed. "You?"

"Oh, nothing much... just a lot of muck to clean out of the barns and spread on the pasture fields." Max sighed. "What do you want to do tonight?"

"Get you naked and into bed," Liz giggled. "And neither of us leave until the morning."

"Hey, wait just a second," he protested, kissing Liz's forehead and stroking the curve of her hips as Liz pressed her torso against his. "Not sure about you, but I'm hungry and will need food soon - especially if you have energetic activities in mind for the bedroom."

"When do I not?" Liz teased him. "Okay, one round, maybe two right now - and then I'll cook you up a late dinner. Deal?"

"Hmm..." Max tried to resist this as a negotiating tactic, but Liz twisted herself around somewhat, which had the effect of bringing Max's right hand over her soft butt. At the same time, she ran one of her own hands to his crotch, ever so gently tracing over the seams of his work jeans, and licked at a sensitive spot on his neck. Max had gathered her up in his arms and carried her halfway into the bedroom before even realizing what had happened. Her spicy rose perfume mingled with the scent of fried food in his nostrils as she kissed him on the lips, leaving no doubt of just how much she meant what she was doing.

-----------

"Wow, hey guys! Welcome to my humble home, or something like that."

Maria gave Tess a quick once-over as she waited for the others to precede her inside. The new girl hadn't dressed up quite as much for the party as Isabel and Maria herself had - possibly she hadn't wanted to be overdressed compared to her guests. She was wearing stylish blue jeans, and a casual white halter-top, and had her hair down in the same curly cloud that was her signature style - in fact, Maria wasn't sure if she'd yet seen Miss Harding with her hair any other way, though that wasn't too surprising considering how few times their paths actually had crossed. She had flat sandals on her feet, which emphasized just how short she was, and little bits of golden jewelry on her fingers, one wrist, and both ears, though her neck was unadorned. (Probably any jewelry there would have clashed with the lines of the halter.)

Maria herself had modeled her party getup on the tricks that Michael had played with her appearance the day before, out in the desert - she was wearing the pretty purple dress that he had made out of her more casual clothes, and asked him to curl her hair again like he had then. (The effect only seemed to last four hours or so, and wore off more suddenly than hot rollers or a curling iron did.) To this, Maria had added brown leather boots with three and a half inch chunky heels, her favoorite silver pendant necklace, tiny ruby stud earrings, and some more dramatic eye makeup than she usually wore, among other things. Isabel had brought herself in black leather pants, one of those slutty cotton blouses that tied off instead of buttoned up, (also in black,) little FM shoes, and a messy french twist to her hair. Maria happened to know that Alex was not a big fan of upswept hair styles for girls, but probably he wouldn't object to it tonight on Isabel because of the rest of the outfit.

Michael and Alex, of course, had not seemed to put nearly as much effort into their party duds, but at least they both looked pretty hot or cute, respectively. Michael had put on one of his tight thrash rock t shirts and black jeans with bleached-white patches and a few tears in them, and Alex was looking appealingly preppy (if there was such a thing,) in a blue shirt with the top button undone and beige dock...

"Are you gonna come in, or just stand out there like a zombie all night?" Tess asked her crossly.

"Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"If she's been turned into a zombie, don't let her in," Alex teased from the Harding's living room. "We don't want it to become THAT kind of party."

"Ha ha, very funny," Maria remarked, heading inside and passing Tess, who waited a moment and closed the door behind her. "Is your Dad around anywhere?"

"I think he's making himself scarce for the time being," Tess remarked off-handedly. "We may not see him all night, unless one of his precious collectibles gets broken. I sometimes think he has a psychic link to each and every one of them, and it would hurt him for a single figurine to get cracked."

"Well, we'll do our best to be careful," Alex said. "And probably stay away from the areas where he's got a lot of stuff, yeah, that'd be good."

"Thanks. We're pretty teenager-friendly over here," Tess said, indicating a part of the large living room that was dominated by the home theater system and a wide sofa facing it. "Wanna watch something? We don't have a terribly good DVD collection yet, but..."

"Ooooh, 'Never kill a boy on the first date!' Michael said, picking something up off the low table in front of the sofa. "This one was kick-ass!"

"Yeah, classic Buffy sounds good to me," Maria agreed, and so soon one of the collectors-edition videotapes was loaded up and starting to play. Tess hovered around, somewhat overplaying the role of the conscientious hostess, and Isabel seemed to be focusing some of her own attention on getting the girl to sit down, relax, and watch the show. Of course, if she didn't, then it would be much harder to doctor Tess' drink without her noticing.

They finished the first episode, then Isabel channel-surfed some to see if there was anything worth watching on the cable, and then it was back to the adventures of America's favorite vampire slayer - the one where Xander turned into Hyena-boy. Halfway in, Isabel volunteered to grab some drinks if anybody else wanted, and Tess asked for a watermelon-kiwi soda from the fridge. This, obviously, was their chance, and Isabel made a point of telling Michael to gather up some used glasses and an empty bowl that had previously held barbecue potato chips, so that she could carry them over to the kitchen. The shot-bottle of vodka was dropped into the plastic bowl... Michael had been the one to carry it in, since he had the capacious pockets in his outfit and sufficient co-ordination to hand it off, if necessary, without risking a flub.

It was a few minutes before Isabel came back with several drinks, and nobody said much for a while as they watched the archetypal hunters get hunted, and sipped at beverages. Suddenly Tess took a very large gulp of drink, swallowed it, and an angry expression came over her face. "Bitch!" she suddenly exclaimed to Isabel. "You - you knew what you were trying to do, right? I... I heard about the Blind Date contest, and wasn't hard to guess why Max was acting so weird that night. Couldn't figure out who gave him the booze, but..."

After Tess trailed off, there was an almost unearthly silence in the room. Michael had paused the tape, not wanting to miss anything while this confrontation played out. Finally Isabel broke the tableau. "Yes, umm... I suspected what it would mean to slip you some alcohol."

"How much?" Tess asked in a low growl. "It's more dangerous than you might imagine..."

"A little more than half a shot of vodka, mixed in with that glass," Isabel said, pointing at the container in front of Tess, which was now only about a quarter full of kiwi watermelon soda. "I don't think that'll be enough to really hurt you. And now it's time for you to answer our questions! How much have you found out by spying on us? Why did you come to Roswell?"

"To find you - to find the two of you and Max!" Tess raged. "He - he was supposed to be here, waiting for me, not off doing space-knows-what with some slutty brunette waitress who didn't even have the common sense to duck from a fuckin' GUN..."

"Hey!" Maria interrupted. "That's my best friend that I think you're talking about, girly, and I don't think you're in any position to throw the S word around in HER direction, of all people!" Tess turned to stare at Maria. "What... what business is it of yours if Max and Liz are together? You've never even met him, I don't think, and..."

Right then, Maria's rant was brought to a sudden stop by the last thing she'd ever have imagined to happen at that moment. Something came floating, then rushing towards her through the air from the direction of the kitchen, and flung itself right at her face. For an instant, she was seriously frightened, but the object turned out to be far from dense enough to hurt - in fact, it was light and mostly exploded in a cloud of flaked and crumbs on contact. The small amount of whatever-it-was that got into her open mouth was sweet and tasty. From the feel of patches of the stuff clinging to her shoulders and arms - it was pastry.

Michael suddenly burst out laughing. Maria quickly brushed as much cake as she could away from her eyes and looked her sharpest and most painful daggers at Spaceboy. He'd suffer for his mirth more at a later time, however.

Alex, meanwhile, had gathered up some napkins and pressed them into Maria's hands to help clean herself up, but his brain was still occupied with the topic of conversation from before Tess had used alien powers to throw the cake at her. "Tess - HAVE you met Max? I... I suppose he wouldn't have known about it - but maybe you showed up in Roswell for the first time before you made everybody notice you as the new girl, or..."

"Before we were adopted," Isabel breathed, stunned by the thought. "I... I remember seeing a little girl about our age, with pale curly hair. Never - never really believed that that was a real memory, until now. Was - was that you, Tess? Did - did we actually meet, or did I just see an image of you way back then, between when we emerged from our pods and got picked up on the highway."

"Did you... did you have a pod of your own, where ours were?" Michael asked. "We never managed to find that particular cave again."

Tess looked at Michael and Isabel and laughed bitterly. Alex and Maria she now seemed to notice not at all. "Yes, we met for just a moment. I... I was the last out - I emerged just as the three of you had gotten used to - to breathing air, and walking around. You wanted to leave the - the cave, to explore, and I was scared. I wasn't ready yet." Bitterness turned to undisguised fury. "You left without me! YOU ABANDONED ME THERE!"

"They - they were so young, and just wanted to understand what was happening to them," Maria muttered, still wiping cake away from herself. Michael belatedly got hold of a cue and started using his powers to help her. "Can you really blame them for that?"

"I don't know about blaming myself, but I can understand if she's still hurt about it," Isabel said softly. "I - I was hurt and sad about the way Michael didn't come with us, when the car came - and I still had Max. To - to remember that she should have been with the three of us, and to have lost us all..." She sighed. "Tess, I'm sorry. I still don't remember what happened in that place as well as you seem to, but if it would have made things any easier on you to wait a little while, then I wish I had."

"If it was only a little while that she wanted to wait," Michael muttered. "Would you have joined us, Tess, if you'd gotten a chance to get your bearings? Or did you want us all to wait and make a rendezvous at the cave - with some alien who knew about when we'd be emerging from suspended hibernation?" Tess didn't answer that one. "What happened to you after the cave? Where did you go from there - all the way to New York State?"

Tess scowled. "How did you know about Schenectaddy?"

"From doing my homework," Michael remarked casually. "But that's not really a responsive answer. And, lest we forget the ten thousand dollar question - just who is it that's posing as your father, and what's his place in all of this??"

"Maybe that's Nasedo," Alex guessed. "The alien visitor, the shape shifter. Bit of a stab out of the blue I know, but..."

"Hey, everything alright down there?" Tess' father suddenly called out.

Michael got a big grin on his face and then got ready to call out in reply, but Tess made a wild grab for his hand. "Do *NOT* challenge him right now," she said. "He'd get angry, angry that you dosed me, angry that I told you so much. And you wouldn't like him when he's angry."

Isabel had to stifle a stray giggle at that unfortunate phrasing. "Umm. yeah, everything's just peachy," Maria called back, and turned the tape on as a sort of reinforcement to what she had said. Soon the adventures of Buffy and the Slayerettes were continuing, and Mister Harding apparently took Maria at her word.

Isabel couldn't help fishing for a little bit more from Tess, though. "So - are you an alien child from the crash? That's what we always figured that we were, but..."

"I... I'm not sure who we are, or where we came from, except that we spent a LONG time in those pods," Tess whispered back. She seemed to have recovered some self control. "Since forty-seven pretty much fits the clues I've picked up - maybe before then, in the ship or whatever." She groaned. "*He* never tells me anything, except for cryptic hints. But - but there's a book, that's supposed to have answers for us, if we can figure out how to understand it."

"Oh, great," Alex muttered. "That sounds VERY helpful."

"And why did you say that Max was supposed to be here waiting for you?" Michael asked. "Even if you were part of the group back then, he probably barely remembers you. I'm not sure if I even remember you."

Tess stayed silent for a long moment, glancing at Alex, who had his arm draped comfortably over Isabel's shoulder, and Michael, who had his arms around Maria's waist from behind, she nearly sitting in his lap. "Umm... I think I'd like to hold off on getting into that one for now. It might get a bit awkward."

"What do you mean, awkward?" Maria asked, her voice rising higher in volume. "Wait a second - do you think that we lowly humans aren't good enough for your alien podmates? That... that there's some reason that Isabel and Michael should be an item?"

"Ugh - gag me with a spoon," Isabel complained.

"Hey!" Michael said. Maria grabbed his arm with her fingernails coming first. "Not, umm, not that I'm particularly interested myself, but still think I get to say 'hey' to that particular phrasing."

"Okay, okay," Isabel admitted. "Not that you aren't something of a catch, dear old friend - more rough edges than I'd personally like to try and polish down, but nothing entirely unappealing. Just - you've been my best friend for so long that you're like another brother to me. I couldn't think of being with you any more than I can stomach the notion of hooking up with Max."

"But he's not your brother, Isabel," Tess said, and got the full Ice Queen Glare treatment. "Okay, okay, shutting up about it for now."

None of them could relax even as much as they had before, though, and very little of the bottom half of the episode was actually paid any attention to. Something big had changed.

----------

"Hey, Jacen, Alisa," Steve Miller said, opening the door. "Umm, we've already done a few hands. Thought that you weren't going to make it."

"Umm, that's my fault," Liz said quickly, smiling at the young farm hand.

"Actually, kind of both our fault," Max admitted too. Steve chuckled, as did the people sitting at the round table in his living room - a girl with light brownish-red hair, and a slightly older guy with a swarthy Mexican complexion.

"Oh, so you're THAT couple," the girl filled in. "The ones who are still so 'can't resist each other' that you can't even get anywhere on time?"

"Umm, not quite, but... but sometimes close," Liz admitted shyly, unable to avoid staring into Max's face for a moment. "It's, well, this is the first time we've really had a chance to shack up together and, well, and really..."

"Come on, we don't need to hear all the details," Steve broke in, and Max laughed. "Okay, umm, I'd offer to take your coats if you had any, and come right on inside, yep. Jacen and Alisa, meet my own better half, Trisha, and Hector." They all said hellos, and Max and Liz took the free seats, which were next to each other. Each of them handed over some spending money in exchange for plastic poker chips.

"Alright, so. The house game is five-card stud, nothing fancy, and nothing wild," Hector said, shuffling the cards. "Care to cut, Alisa?" Liz nodded, and seperated the cards into two piles. Hector started dealing out. Liz had a nine of hearts face up, and the king of hearts in the hole. Somewhat to her surprise, she was immediately sure that Max had a pair of threes back to back. (Well, if he had any pair at all, it would have to be threes, but still the firmness of her certainty was astounding.) Maybe that was because of how close they were getting in other ways, though she hadn't really been aware of reading his mind in any other circumstances.

The first hand didn't go so well - Max bid up his secret pair a little too hard, but when Trisha was dealt a higher pair out in the open, (tens,) and he didn't have any serious prospects of getting a second pair, or three of a kind, Max had to fold. However, the hands kept on coming fairly quickly, and everybody had won at least one pot before too long. Liz was enjoying the social aspect of the evening, of spending time with other people at the same time as Max was next to her, and just having fun playing some cards.

She learned a number of things too - about the art of bluff and the science of calculating how the odds would shift with the next card dealt. She learned about the others at the table - before she came she'd known that Steve and Hector worked with Max at the ranch, but there was more to them than that. Hector was studying for his vetrinary license and Steve was training as a sort of 'assistant foreman.' Trisha stocked shelves at hte independent grocery in town part-time, but she was also a very talented artist who had had paintings and sketches sold in the galleries of Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

The high point in play came at around twenty minutes to ten o'clock. A few very promising initial hands were dealt out, and the initial bids rose quickly. Steve and Max ended up regretfully dropping out, but Liz was eager to continue - with a pair of kings back to back and a jack to back them up, she wasn't sure how she could lose. Hector had a pair of queens out in the open now - was it possible that he had a third in the hole? It seemed Unlikely, especially since Liz knew that Max had been dealt a queen face down. And trisha had stayed in this long just on eight-nine of hearts face up - maybe she had three to a straight flush, but that wasn't much to count on with two cards yet to deal.

Hector bid two. Liz saw his two, and raised five. "Wait a second!" Stee exclaimed. "We're still on two dollar limit."

"Oh, right," Liz said, reaching to take back some of her chips. "Sorry, guess I forgot that."

"Well, maybe we can keep things interesting. Change to progressive bidding at this point - you can bet or raise up to the level of what you've already got staked?"

Liz considered that for a moment. This would let bets get higher as the hand went on, but not so badly as pot limits, where you could bet up to the amount that EVERYONE had bet previously. And she'd already staked more than five so far. "Fine by me."

Max and Steve, who didn't really have much reason to comment, nodded silently, and Trisha sighed. "Yeah, no objections," she decided, "but five dollars is definitely too rich for me. Fold."

Hector saw Liz's five dollars, and so Trisha dealt them each another card. Liz got a two, Hector the seven of hearts, which would've been more good to Trish than him, if they stayed in. Each of them put in four dollars more and moved on to the last card.

This time Liz got another two, leaving her with two pair - no help against three queens, but it would let her pair of kings carry the day if Hector had a second pair of his own. Feeling daring, Liz saw his opening bet of five with a raise of ten, and saw his re-raise of ten more. They flipped their hole cards, and everybody gasped when they saw Liz's second king. Nobody exclaimed more loudly than Hector.

"What the hell? Look?" He was pointing at his own hole card, and for a moment Liz was confused. Had he made the queen trio after all? No, then Hector would probably be gloating, not pissed off. And then she realized it.

His hole card was exactly identical to hers - both kings of clubs. A bit of a cold chill washed over Liz. They'd only been playing with a single deck, and - well, she hadn't checked for possible duplicates before beginning to play. Maybe Steve and Trish had. But this looked really awkward for her, since she'd won based on one of those kings of clubs. She knew that she hadn't cheated - had Max tried something foolish? Or - or had somebody else done this just to set her up, or both herself and Max? For a skilled enough cheat, it would be simple enough to make sure that both cards made it to the showdown, which would expose the trickery immediately, but not the true perpetrator.

Still struck speechless, Liz looked around, noticed Max's eyes gazing straight at her face - and when he met his eye contact, Liz was suddenly sure that Max had nothing to do with this... or, at least, he was just as surprised and taken aback as she. There was a tiny twinge of nervousness and uncertainty, which she felt might be him worrying that he MIGHT have done it unintentionally, but Liz didn't buy that for a moment. Some of Max's powers might be able to manifest subconsciously, but if he'd faked up a playing card this well, he'd have known about it. The designs on each King seemed to be identical. The second of them had to be a bona fide card from another deck of exactly the same type.

"Okay," Hector grunted once everybody had recognized his objection. "What do we do about this?"

"No need to make too big a deal of it," Trisha said quickly. "Hector, you tossed your hand off into the couch when you lost, two hands back. I went to retrieve them, and checked to see if any cards had fallen behind the cushion. I guess I found one that had been back there for a while."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, smiling. "We lost a King from the last pack, I remember that we had to get these cards because of it." He sighed. "And the duplication didn't really alter the course of play, Hector. Alisa wins the pot."

"It didn't affect things *much*," Liz said, feeling the need to be as straight as possible now that the hosts had taken her part. "Hector might have miscalculated the odds of me having a king in the hole, because he had one - but the one that he had didn't really affect the odds at all."

"Yes, except I didn't think it through that much," Hector told her with a grin. "Take the money. It's yours by right."

Liz smiled slightly and collected her winnings. They didn't really need the money, especially not with Max's tricks - but maybe they could use it to take their new friends out to dinner or something.

-----------

Isabel made a point of looking for Tess early the next morning, and found her sitting under a tree at the far edge of the school grounds. "Hey, sorry again about last night. How's the head?"

Tess grunted, and for a moment Isabel wondered if that was all the response she was going to get. "It's holding together okay. Not throbbing much any more, even."

"Okay," Isabel said, putting the pleasantries behind her. "This - this cave where our pods were - can you take us there? Do you know where it is? None of us have ever been able to find it - and Michael was trying pretty hard for a while." Isabel hadn't been particularly interested in that avocation at the time, wanting to fit in with other kids more than discover her lost alien heritage - but the FBI killing people changed everything.

"Hmm?" It seemed to take a long while for that much to penetrate into Tess' pretty blonde head. "You couldn't? Umm... yeah, I'm pretty sure that I can find the place. Only reason that I didn't go already was that I assumed you guys already knew about it, and if you caught me sneaking in, you'd have a lot of awkward questions." She sighed. "That's no longer really a big worry I guess."

"No, I suppose not," Isabel said. "Okay, we'll go after school - probably the five of us. Is it far from town? Near the crash site?"

"Should be about an hour's drive, north and a bit west, I think," Tess said. "But - but what about the book? I - I can probably go get it for myself, but I think I'd like it if you and Michael could be there."

"This book that supposedly 'proves' that I shouldn't be with Alex, and Michael is my natural mate or something?" Isabel shook her head. "Not terribly interested at the moment - unless you think it might also have something actually useful. We have enemies, you know, and I think that that's a bit more important than who pairs off with who, for now."

"Well said," Tess agreed. "I'm not sure what all is in the book, but it could well have information on using our powers to fight with, not to mention talking about weapons or tools that are available to us here. Oh, hey!" She waved, and Isabel looked in that direction. Michael was heading over the football field towards them, and Michael wasn't far behind. What about Maria? Well, if she and Alex hadn't been joined at the hip this morning, she couldn't exactly expect the M-and-m's to be inseperable. Tess frowned slightly when Isabel turned back to her - maybe she just realized that she had also waved in Alex's direction.

"Alright, we were talking about our enemies," Tess said once Michael had taken a seat in the grass himself. Alex sat down very close to Isabel and offered his arm for her to hold, which she did gladly and smiled at him. "Maybe, maybe it would help if I knew how much you've found out about the alien hunters. In fact, how much you've found out about yourselves as well.."

"How about a fair exchange of questions?" Isabel put in. "I'm interested in hearing more about you and your supposed father, as far as that goes."

"Fair enough," Tess said. "Mind if I read between the lines and take 'Who is Ed Harding really and is he related to me' as my first question?" Surprised, Isabel nodded. "No, no real relation - posing as a Dad was just the easiest way for him to keep me close to him, though I'm still not sure why that was important. He didn't have any problem with you guys growing up in Roswell, so he could have gotten me into foster care somewhere. Maybe he just thought I wouldn't do so well without him."

"He's... I'm not quite sure how to put it. He was on the ship that crashed, maybe crew but - but he was supposed to take care of us, all four of us. They hadn't expected to have to make an emergency landing, of course, or what kind of reception they'd get when they landed. He's been hunted by humans for over fifty years now."

"Hmm." Michael considered that. "Alright. Your turn?"

Tess considered a moment, not really sure what to ask first. "Why did Max run away from Roswell?"

Alex raised his eyebrow. "Um, we're still not really sure," Isabel admitted. "I... I was able to reach him with my powers just once after he left, and... and he said that there was some reason that Liz was important, and that it was essential that they have time to figure out what was going on between them before something else interfered." Suddenly Isabel wondered if Tess was part of this answer - since she seemed so focused on a guy that she hadn't even met, believing perhaps that Max was her natural mate as an alien. Had Max left because he had some strange and vague foreknowledge of Tess' coming, and been worried that she was what would interfere with whatever he had with Liz? Stranger things had happened - well, nearly as strange, anyway.

"That's it, that's all that you know?" Tess said, disappointed. Isabel nodded. "Okay, your turn I guess. Serves me right for wasting a question on that."

They had not nearly run out of questions by the time the bell rang, summoning everybody to first class. Maria had arrived by then, and they'd asked Tess about her earliest memories of living with the mysterious alien man, and what he'd told her about his home planet, which turned out to be a bunch of enigmatic scraps that Tess evidently enjoyed frustrating them with, since she'd been frustrated to hear them in the first place. Tess had been told meanwhile, the brief version of their interaction with Topolsky, and some of the things that River Dog had told them about his alien visitor, his 'Nasedo.'

"Okay, Nasedo is probably the same as my Ed," Tess reported, leading the group as they crossed the field quickly. "He, umm, he told me that I was supposed to find this River Dog guy if he ever got badly hurt. Left some amber crystals there, they're a form of alien first aid, and if we worked together we could heal him, even if he looked like he was dead."

"Okay, right, we've got the healing stones already," Isabel mentioned. "Had to use them on Michael, but that's a long story. What about this afternoon, the pod cave? You up for taking us there?"

"You guys, definitely." Tess sighed. "I... I'm not comfortable with taking the little Earthling kiddies along - but I probably can't stop you if you're determined to show them. Just - well, it's not really just a cave. You'll have to see it to really understand what I mean by that - but... well, I dunno, 'pod cave' just doesn't seem to do justice."

"Why the hell not?" Michael asked. "It's kinduv like the Batcave. You're not gonna find much that's cooler than the Batcave."

Maria rolled her eyes at him.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Chrisken]

Part Twelve

"Alisa!"

Liz was stuck so deeply in a sense of... not quite foreboding, just preoccupation maybe, that she didn't recognize her assumed name the first time it was called out in the small village store - or the second. When a gentle hand touched her shoulder, she yelped soundlessly and nearly dropped the can of pears that she'd been vaguely considering.

After that moment of sudden shock, however, everything came rushing quickly back, and it didn't take long for her to realize that whoever had been trying to get her attention meant her no harm. Looking around herself, she wasn't even all that surprised to see the face of Trisha... Trisha whose last name she couldn't remember if she'd heard it, but Steve Miller's girlfriend, who she and Max had played cards with just the night before. Trisha who worked here at the store, she remembered, and wondered if she'd seen her here before they'd really met.

"Umm, hi Trish, sorry. I was just..."

"Completely zoned out about something," the other girl filled in. "Mind if I ask what was occupying you?"

"Umm... I'd rather not say," Liz admitted. Surely she couldn't tell this girl of her second thoughts about staying here, her notions that important events were moving quickly in Roswell, over and beyond Kathleen Topolsky's death, and... and a vague sense of somebody, some girl that she didn't recognize, talking to Isabel. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it of such strange impressions and return to the here and now. That worked rather better than she'd expected it would. "So, how's the morning going for you?"

"Not too bad, just putting in my hours," Trish replied, following Liz as she headed up towards the front of the store and the single cash register. "And you? Getting some of the shopping done before you need to go on shift at the bar?"

"Yeah, that's the plan," Liz agreed. "Since I had the morning more or less free."

"Gotcha," Trish agreed. "Wish me luck for this afternoon - I woke up with a mental picture from my dreams or something, and want to get it right before the sense of it fades. A kind of city scene gone wild, with the parking meters going off like sparklers and a car alarm... shining without being alarming, though I have NO idea how I'm going to convey that in a painting."

Liz had to control herself hard to keep from gasping. Even in the vague words that Trish had used, Liz had no problem recognizing that scene - Valentine's night, when Max had whisked her away from her blind date, he had set up exactly such effects. How could Trish have gotten that impression? It - well, it hardly made any sense.

But just then they had arrived in the short line for check-out, and Trish waved and headed off, with more work to do. Liz concentrated on standing up straight and holding her little plastic basket of food - and then spotted the newspapers on the checkout counter. Should she get one, just in case her friends had managed to place a personals ad already? Yes, she had to know, to be sure.

Paying for the groceries and getting them home was faintly blurry in Liz's mind. But she remembered opening up the paper on the dinner table in her and Max's apartment, searching the personals section, and finding, somewhat to her shock, the heading that she and Max had agreed upon.

'Hi, guys. Hope that you're having a great getaway vacation. Things here seem to be moving so fast - there's a new girl on campus, shaking everything up. Not sure what her deal is. You've probably heard about Katy T - it's so scary thinking about her. We love you guys and miss you - come home soon. Isabel, Alex, and Maria.'

That was it, and probably had cost enough - it was bigger than a lot of the other ads. Liz tried to force her brain to behave, to work through what this meant logically. Scary about Katy T - that was easy enough. She could see how Topolsky's death would have been frightening to any of them. Things were moving fast, and a new girl on campus was shaking everything up. Liz wasn't sure what to make of that. Probably they couldn't have been any more specific, or didn't have further details yet.

And it had been the three of them to get together and compose this message - everybody but Michael. Maybe he'd been busy, or Isabel had wanted to hide the bit about the personal ads from him to start with. Well, in that case, none of them would be able to hide it long, because the second letter of the weekend, the one after Liz had heard about Topolsky herself, was well on its way to Michael's apartment now, and Max had repeated all the instructions for placing an ad there.

She stayed there at the table, wondering what everything meant, until by pure chance she noticed that it was five minutes after the time she should have started getting ready for her shift at the bar.

-----------

"So, the Pulman ranch is the crash site, and the government took it off the maps?" Maria said dubiously as Tess drove north away from Roswell. Rather that bothering to convoy, they'd chosen to all squeeze into Tess' large SUV, but it was still a pretty tight fit for five, and all three kids stuck in the back were regretting their choices.

"Yeah, that's what Ed told me," Tess said. "The Podcave is just on the edge of the old ranch property, out into the rocks past where Puhlman would have been able to do anything useful with his land, I think. There's no really good road for about three miles or so near it."

"All to the good," Michael muttered. "Less chance of anybody blundering into it just by accident."

"Don't think there'd be much risk of a human getting inside," Tess replied. "But yeah, we don't want to get spotted or anything." She sighed. "Okay, does that count as a question? Can I ask one now?"

Isabel shot Maria a look. Maria shrugged, and so Isabel did too. "Go ahead, I guess," she mumbled.

"Okay, let's see... How did you find out about River Dog, and go to see him the first time?"

Alex chuckled. "Okay, that's your story Michael," Isabel told him. "Your stupid semicircle."

"Semicircle?" Tess asked.

"Okay, umm... wow, this is going to be a big one for you," Michael realized. "It started back a little while after Liz got shot... somebody from the FBI showed up to take away Valenti's UFO files. We never found out for sure if there was a connection with the shooting or Valenti trying to find out about Liz's handprint, but - I tried to break into the Sheriff's station myself, to see if he'd managed to keep anything away from them. And yes, Max and Isabel had to save my ass when things went wrong, but I *did* find something - a key. As soon as I touched it, I got a kind of mental impression from it, but I couldn't even tell what the flash was of for a long time."

"Slowly things began to piece together. First I was able to resolve the picture of a half circle..." Michael glared back at Isabel in the rear view mirror, or tried to because he couldn't get a good look at her, and Izzie just shrugged. "Then it was a dome, made up of geometric shapes. I started drawing it in art class..."

"And you actually showed up in art class just so that you could use art supplies to try and get this thing sorted out, right?" Maria teased him.

"And the teacher recognized it after a while - called it a geodesic dome house. I don't think he realized that I didn't know what I'd been drawing. And in one of the books that Max brought home from the UFO center, there was a picture of the author at his house in Marathon, Texas - it was the dome from my flash. And this guy, this UFO specialist, had been missing for years and years."

"I wanted to go to Marathon right away. Max and Isabel tried to put me off, so I sortof tricked Maria out of her car, and ended up driving her off to Marathon, since she'd been too stubborn to just let me drive away by myself." Michael's smile was distinctly fond by this point. "Max, Isabel, and Liz caught up with us halfway there - and Kyle Valenti, though Liz was able to sweet-talk him into just going home."

"Not you too, Alex?" Tess asked.

"Naw, I still wasn't in the know about anything," Alex laughed. "A little pissed that Liz and Maria were keeping secrets from me, but that was it."

"Oh - so you were friends with them first?" Tess asked. Alex nodded.

"Well, anyway, we all got to the house, looking more than a little trashed, like it had been searched. I tried Valenti's key in the front door, actually, but it hadn't fit, so Max had opened the door with his powers. But there was a secret trap door inside that was controlled by the key - while we were down in the cellar, we heard some people come in up above. There were all kinds of notes there, and a secret exit that led outside the house. The five of us gathered up everything that we could carry, ran back to our cars and headed for home. Thought that was it - until Max and Isabel's house, where we'd kept the stuff, was burgled. Nothing much taken except for those papers, although they did their best to make it look like a common robbery otherwise."

"I'm not sure if I'd say 'nothing much', actually," Isabel put in. "They did have enough sense to swipe the completely obvious swag - like the tv and the stereo."

Michael shrugged that off. "Well, anyway, we were sure that somebody knew what we had found and had gone in to get it. The only clue left was a necklace that Isabel had found in the basement and had been wearing. Owen Blackwood, he's one of the deputies, recognized it as having come from his reservation. So Liz ended up going there to ask questions about it."

"Why Liz?" Tess asked. "Why didn't you go yourself, Isabel - or Max?"

"We weren't sure how well under surveillance we were, and didn't want to risk bringing the FBI out to wherever the answers were - yet again," Isabel said, a little bit stiffly. "Liz could move more freely. After Liz made contact with River Dog, Max came out with her the next time - telling her about a strange man, and about William Atherton, the UFO writer, who'd been the man's friend. Until something went wrong - River Dog saw the man kill Atherton."

"Hmmm," Tess muttered, uncertain. "Well, first off, I'm not entirely sure whether or not THAT was Ed. There - there might be other people around, people who can do what he can do, and..."

"Our question," Alex put in. "What CAN Ed do, Tess? Specifically - is he able to change his shape and look like other people?"

"Oh, yes, he's really good at that," Tess said. "Still catches me sometimes by showing up as somebody who I don't recognize, though I've gotten fairly good at telling that it's him regardless. That's really what I meant - if some other visitor from the stars could have assumed his shape and killed Atherton, River Dog might not have known the difference." She sighed. "But I don't really know of any such person, so maybe by Ohm's razor we shouldn't speculate too much about him."

"Do you mean Occam's razor?" Isabel asked, just a bit smugly. "Ohm's law is something to do with electrical resistance in conductors, I think."

"Whatever," Tess sighed. "To answer your question a bit more fully... he can change things by concentrating on them with his powers, like I can, and move objects and exert force on them. He can connect to the mind or body of anybody he touches, reading impressions from them, or - or hurting them by directly sabotaging their body." Maria gasped at that. "And, I'm not sure, but I think that he might be able to change the superficial appearance of other people too. There's probably more that I'm either not thinking of, or that he's never hinted at to me."

"Quite enough to get started on," Isabel muttered, though privately she was a bit relieved. Aside from the shapechange stuff, she and Michael could do most of that, and she had the dreamwalking powers as well. "Okay, your question."

"Just a minute, okay?" Tess slowed down the car, and carefully turned left through a gap in oncoming traffic, to a marked but much smaller county road heading west. Towards the Puhlman ranch, presumably. "Okay, so River Dog told you about 'Nasedo.' Have you ever learned more about him or attempted any kind of direct contact - not counting saying hi to my Dad?"

"That really is two questions in one," Maria put in. "Learning more about him, and direct contact, I think that those are seperate questions."

"Okay, fine, I'll take the direct stuff."

"Nothing too definite, though we've tried," Michael said. "First off, well, there was this flurry of 'UFO sighting' stuff in late January, in the woods near town, and we thought that it might have something to do with a real alien. River dog actually came to me and told me so. Max and Isabel ended up going on this father and child camping weekend thing... and our human friends tagged along..."

Michael's stories of 'the sighing' in the woods, and of his attempt to send Nasedo a message back at the public library, took them most of the way to the Podcave. "Ooh, so you were able to figure out the map," she remarked. "That's good. Maybe you haven't lost all of the otherworldly intuition that's supposed to be inside all of us."

"Oh, so it really does mean something?" Isabel asked boredly.

"Yes. The cave wall has directions to important sites and caches around the Roswell area. There should have been a marking for the cave itself - the balance wheel probably, used in the healing ritual. This pod site itself is marked on it - with the four square glyph, signifying the four of us, and what we mean to each other. It's still too bad that Max isn't here for this."

"Yeah, yeah, save me," Maria muttered. "What's so special about the library, then? And how many other locations are marked on the map?"

"The library is where the book was hidden," Tess told her. "Inside one of the walls, buried there by the use of powers like ours." She sighed.

"Okay... I think that there were maybe seven symbols on the map," Michael muttered. Tess parked and they got out of the car.

"We've accounted for four," Alex put in.

"We head up that way now," Tess said, pointing up a rocky peak, with a sort of rough footpath that could just maybe be climbed. "I'm not sure what any of the other symbols mean, except for one - the whirlpool, the one that was on the necklace. That should be out in the desert, south of here, and would indicate the site where a powerful communication orb was hidden - one of two. The air force personnel who cleaned up the crash site got the other."

"The orb that Topolsky said she had," Michael muttered. "Her bosses probably took it back by now."

"Wait a second," Isabel said, puffing just slightly with the climb. She'd have to get into better aerobic shape if this sort of thing was going to keep popping up. "The symbol on the necklace - that was the same one that Nasedo left for us out in the woods as a sign, near to the cave." She glared over at Michael. "So how did we get to the library? You said that you were following the symbol from the sighting in the woods. That should have taken us out into the woods, to find the orb that Max and Liz found a little while later."

"Eh well." Michael shrugged. "Whoa." He waved his arms theatrically, and Maria yanked him back firmly towards the rock and away from the edge of the path, which had an ugly drop beyond. "Maybe I mixed up the symbols a bit. Max and Liz are probably glad that I did - they had enough fun out there in the desert."

"Wait a second - Max and Liz found the orb?" Tess seemed incredibly put out by that.

"Yeah," Alex assured her. "Took it with them, too."

"Hmmph." Just about then, Tess got up to the end of the path, which looked like a dead end. To the left, there was a rock surface which did seem a bit unusually smooth and flat. Smiling, Tess stretched out her right hand, fingers spread, and brought it near the right edge of that flat area, just above waist high on her. Another hand shape appeared faintly, in the rock, and started to glow as Tess brought her own skin and bone to match it. After a moment, a crack appeared in the rock, marking the edges of a door-shaped area. The rock sank back into the small hill and then slid aside, and Tess gestured for them to go on in ahead of her. Isabel shrugged and led the way, keeping tight control over her composure as she stepped inside an eerie space lit by soft blue light.

There wasn't that much to it. A few horizontal extensions from the rocky walls near the door that might actually have been meant as shelves. Some odd details of alien architecture or something like that. And then, dominating the space visually and conceptually, there were the four pods that presumably they had emerged from, ten years ago or a bit more.

"So," Alex said, stepping next to her and pressing close, holding Isabel tight with one arm. "This is... is where you were born, in a way."

"Yes," Isabel muttered, feeling long-buried memories suddenly snap into better focus. "I... I do remember being here, I remember exploring the cave, and leaving." She turned to Tess, who was just coming in now, following Michael and Maria. "Sorry that we left you here... I'm not sure what I can say that would make it any better for you."

"That's okay," Tess said. "There's no big reason to spend a lot of time here for now, I think."

"Well, we can sit a while and do a few more questions, before going back," Michael said, holding Maria close to him. "Here's one - what gives you the notion that we're not supposed to be romantically involved with humans? You talk about this book, but it isn't one that you've seen, so..."

"Alright, alright," Tess muttered, frustrated, and sat on the slightly raised surface under the pods, leaning against the smooth metal side of one of them - maybe the one that she had emerged from herself? "I don't really have anything, beyond what Ed told me. Every... every time I got frustrated because I didn't fit in with other kids, or even once when I was getting along with a human boy all too well - he told me that I just had to keep waiting. That when we got to Roswell, I'd meet the three of you, and when I was with Max - that everything would be right. That we were supposed to be together, and that you guys were supposed to hook up as well. I mean, he never really said anything about dating or sex or anything, that's what he's like, but I don't think I'm off base in what I read between the lines."

"Hmm," Alex muttered. "I... I wonder if it's just because you're the only alien kids on the planet and he thinks you don't have any other prospects, or if there's some more specific reason. Like in that 'Lois and Clark' episode, where Clark finds out he was engaged at birth to a Kryptonian chick."

"If it was just aliens being with aliens, why those pairings specifically?" Maria asked.

"Maybe because Isabel and Max really are full siblings, and they have the same sort of incest taboo as we do," Michael suggested. "Or something similar to that. Maybe it's me and Tess instead of Max/Isabel."

"Okay," Isabel said, suddenly realizing that she knew what question she had to ask next - but it wasn't their turn. "Do you have one, Tess?"

"Umm... not right now, actually - and it looks like you've got something to ask. Do you?"

Isabel shook her head in bemusement. "Yeah. What do you know that we don't about the FBI people chasing us - the ones who Topolsky was trying to get away from?"

"Ah, yes." Tess sighed. "Well, I'm still not sure what all you know - but they're not 'just' FBI. It's something deeper, something considerably more obsessive than a simple law enforcement department. As nearly as I can figure out, it started with the Air Force investigation into the crash and the alien autopsies after that. They moved into the FBI in force because that was the only existing government organization that could conduct investigations broad enough to find aliens who had hidden among the American population. ~~I think that there are some who aren't on the FBI payroll, but the ones who are are the toughest. They're known just as 'The special unit.'"

There was a stunned silence for a long moment at Tess' melodramatic declaration. "Okay, so how would somebody like Topolsky fit into that?" Alex asked a bit nervously. "We've told you most of what we know about her."

"Hmm." Tess considered this a moment. "I'd suspect that she was career FBI, probably hand-picked because she looked like a good candidate for undercover work at a high school. She might have had previous teacher's college experience or something like that. She'd have been requested by the local FBI special unit head honcho, and told more and more about what she was looking for while she was here. My guess is that she was the one who stole the Atherton papers from you guys - and probably the one who chased you through Atherton's geodesic dome house."

"Yeah, that's what I thought too, in retrospect," Isabel agreed. "Or at least, one of the people who followed us into the house. Valenti comes first, maybe, Topolsky sneaks up on him and knocks him out somehow. That fits with what little we heard and saw."

"Then, you and Liz expose her, without even knowing what you were up to," Tess said to Alex, "and she goes away and reports for debriefing. That was probably a lot more intense than she'd ever have bargained on, and the Special Unit wouldn't want to let her go back to regular FBI work afterwards. She'd know too much about alien-related stuff."

"And so she tries to escape, warn us, ask us for help?" Isabel said, not liking the notion.

"Or was allowed to think that she'd escaped, and followed," Tess remarked. "Topolsky may be gone, but the Special Unit is definitely here in Roswell. It may be hard to see them, but I've learned the way Ed acts when he knows that they're close by. He's got some plan in mind - and I don't think that even I am gonna like it, never mind you guys."

"Oh, great," Isabel muttered. "Come on, let's go back to town." She sighed. "I wanna put in an appearance for my parents, so that they don't start worrying."

----------

"Honey, I am - wait for it - home."

"Good to hear," Max said, quickly getting up and taking a bag away from his beautiful live-in girlfriend. "Dinner should be ready in just about five minutes, and I saw the message from my sister and your friends. What's in this bag?"

"That's a surprise for later," Liz said, kissing him, "although you're being such a sweetie that I wish I could give it away early for you. What's for dinner?"

"Nothing too fancy," Max said. "Elbow macaroni and a veggie tomato sauce."

"Sounds great," Liz insisted. Soon the two of them were at the table, and Max served out with so much panache that Liz thought maybe he should go into the business of feeding paying customers instead of working off on that ranch. "So - what about the message from Isabel?"

"Nothing great to think about at the moment," he admitted. "Things seem to be moving quickly - we'll need to figure out what our moment is." Liz smiled as she watched him eat some of the pasta and lumpy rich sauce. "One possible benefit of us being out of town is that if we time the return right, we can possibly take whoever-it-is by surprise - charging in like the cavalry to save our friends when they don't expect us."

"Yeah, I guess," Liz muttered. Most of the rest of the meal was taken up by fairly routine descriptions of the day's events while the two lovers were seperated.

After dinner was over, Liz volunteered to clear off the table, and once dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, she turned the radio on to some fairly energetic rock music and collapsed into the armchair. Max went over to the sofa, and soon she couldn't escape noticing that he was looking at her. "What?"

"Um - just wondering - is it later yet?"

"Oh, man." Liz rolled her eyes and appealed silently to the heavens for patience, which made Max chuckle loudly. "What if I said that it wasn't - that you had to wash up the dishes before getting your surprise?"

"Hey, come on - I cooked..."

"And I've had a long day," Liz muttered back, and then made an apologetic face. "Sorry, didn't mean to snap. Umm - okay, well, the dishes do need to get done, and you can pick if you want to wash or dry and put away. Yes, I know that you could probably do it all in one step more quickly using your powers, but I actually feel like doing them the human way. Strange but true. And... and then, I'll go change into the surprise."

"Ohh?!" Max's mind started going over the possibilities. "It's something that you wear?"

Liz's eyes danced as she got up. "Something that I wear, yeah. Not you, for preference."

He laughed and chased her into the kitchen. "Okay, okay, I'll get my hands all soapy. Know that it's not the greatest thing for your oh-so-soft skin."

Two plates, glasses, silverware, and some pots and pans later, Max waited on the bed, stripped down to his underthings and wondering just how long Liz would stay in the bathroom before she came out. It had already been five minutes - what could possibly be keeping her occupied for that long? Just at that moment the door swung open, and Max forgot that time even existed.

Liz was a vision of erotic loveliness. Her hair had been carefully curled, (surely she couldn't have done that in just five minutes with the usual techniques, could she? Max wasn't sure if he wanted to even start wondering about that,) and the only thing that she was wearing was a vibrantly red babydoll nightgown that clung lovingly to her gentle curves in a way that Max was jealous of it for. Oh, no, on second thought, as Liz stepped into the room, he realized that that wasn't the only thing. In a completely ridiculous gesture of overkill, she also had red high-heeled shoes on.

Max charged out of the bed, swept her up against the wall, and started kissing Liz madly, as if he needed to breathe her, like oxygen from the air was no longer sufficient to sustain him compared to the lips and skin of his beloved. Liz reacted just as eagerly, wrapping her arms around his strong chest and pressing her lean body next to his, but teasing words sounded in his mind. *The bed is more comfortable than doing this standing up.*

Max grinned inside his mind, wondering if Liz could sense this, because she couldn't really read his expressions on his face the way their mouths were busy. With a significant diversion of his attention, he managed to scoop Liz's figure up in his arms and carry her back over to the double bed. After he set her down there, Liz was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Max standing in front of her. Grinning like an unpredictable fairy spirit, Liz pulled Max's underpants down, exclaimed as if she were actually surprised at what was revealed there, and licked her lips naughtily. Max moaned in anticipation and steeled himself to keep his balance for what was coming next.

-----------

That night, Isabel sighed as she moved some completed homework from her desktop to the backpack she generally relegated such things to. (She didn't actually wear it on her back much - that was out of fashion this year - but she needed SOMETHING to carry school books and such to and from her locker in.) Going to the bathroom, using the necessary facilities, scrubbing her face and behind her ears, her attention was still focused on everything that she'd learned from Tess that day, especially the stories about the Special Unit.

Visions of fierce alien hunters, ready and prepared to use sophisticated technology and deadly weapons to counter what they'd learned about their powers so far, kept lurking in her mind whenever Isabel didn't do anything to distract her attention from them. Especially troubling were the chimeras that didn't target Isabel herself - thoughts of Michael being dissected - no, vivisected, cut apart while he was still alive. Max, too, though the fact that he wasn't around somehow seemed to give Isabel an obscure peace of mind regarding his future. And then there was the fear of Alex getting hurt, or worse - usually because he tried to protect her.

Coming back into her bedroom from the bathroom, Isabel put some soft pop music on, hoping that that would divert her attention, and changed into a fancy, delicate nightgown to sleep in instead of her usual patterned pajamas. Lying down in the darkness, some of the same nightmare visions haunted her while she was still mostly awake, but those began to fade as she actually approached sleep, and eventually entered into...

The next thing Isabel knew, she was walking out in the desert again. This particular area didn't seem particularly familiar - less rocky than the neighborhood of the Podcave, where they'd been that day, but unmistakeably a desert. Looking around, soft dunes and occasional patches of oasis or rough rock were visible for miles around in every direction - except for one spot, where it seemed to her that a rough rise led to a sudden cliff or escarpment. She could only make out a little of the land below that high peak, but it seemed greener and much more inviting, so she headed in that direction.

As she walked, Isabel had a bit of an opportunity to wonder about what she was doing here. If she hadn't been abducted while she slept and brought somewhere else, then this was a dream or some other kind of mental fantasy. Yes, come to think of it, there was something about the feel of the entire experience that was reminiscent of her dream walks, though it seemed unusually vivid and clear for a dream that she was dreaming herself. Shrugging, Isabel decided not to worry about that very hard.

The act of shrugging, however, had brought a new mystery to light. She was not dressed as she had been for going to sleep, in fact she was wearing a gown of comfortable pale purple-blue material that seemed to be simple and beautifully designed at the same time. It was hard to judge the total effect, since Isabel didn't have a mirror, or even a calm pool of water to gaze into. She tried to use her power to create a mirror surface in the air, but the result was too ripply to get a clear image from - in fact, at times the effect was disturbingly like a funhouse mirror.

Isabel resumed walking and continued taking stock of the outfit. Upon and around her feet were a kind of white boots, muted in cut but probably adding well to the overall look. She had some unfamiliar jewelry on too, an odd kind of band surrounding one calf several inches below the knee, two silverey bracelets, four different rings on three of her fingers, a pendant hanging in the v-neck of the dress, and something on her ears - probably just studs, from the feel of them. Fairly ordinary, fresh clean underwear, as much as she could tell from the feel of it. Most of her hair was loose and down, but there were two stylized braids that had been resting on top of her hair, one on each side, falling back behind her shoulders. And - and atop her head was a jeweled circlet!

She was dressed up like a princess, or maybe a conceited rich girl on her way to the senior prom. Hmm.

It wasn't too long after that when Isabel made it up the hill and close to the edge of the cliff. The lush greenness of the country beyond was much clearer now, in a stark contrast to the barren desert, and yet another wonder slowly came into view - a great castle or palace had been built up against the cliff face, with tall towers, open courtyards and fountains, well tended gardens and much more. Isabel stared down at it for what seemed like two minutes or so, and then muttered to herself, "Okay, so how do I get down to it?"

"I think I can help out with that," a rich, strong voice whispered in her ear. Isabel stiffened, not sure if she was ready for who would be talking to her. A man's voice, though probably a young man, and Isabel concentrated hard, screwing her will to the utmost, as she turned around to see who had appeared in her dream. And then a smile of relief came over her - it was Alex, not quite like Alex as she was used to seeing him, but definitely nobody else.

Dream Alex was wearing a kind of old fashioned suit, vaguely pre-Victorian or something like that. Courtly clothes, but they suited him well, even down to the hat with the oversize feather stuck through it. He grinned himself as he saw Isabel's own outfit, hugged her hello and gave her a European peck-kiss on her cheek. Isabel countered with a friendly but affectionate kiss on his lips.

"Okay, nice to see you here," she said, wrapping an arm around Alex's waist and looking down at the palace again. He put an arm about Isabel's shoulders, and she thrilled to be so close to him, feeling safe and yet deliciously unsure about what this might lead to. "What about the palace?"

"Look over there," Alex said, pointing along the cliff edge, a direction that she hadn't paid much attention to yet. There was something there, yes, so far away as to seem very tiny, but it...

"Oh, my god, you're kidding!"

"Why would you say that?" Alex asked. "They're aliens. They must have some way of making it safe." He looked down cheekily into her face. "Unless you want to just jump off and use your powers to bring us safely down. That's possible, I think."

"You mean, trying to fly under circumstances like that?"

"Fly, glide, invisible elevator - there are probably at least half a dozen ways of handling it," he quipped. Isabel shook her head and started walking towards the distant something, keeping both of them well back from the precipice.

"So - just what are we doing here?" Isabel asked. "Last thing I remember, we were back in Roswell."

"Our lives are still back in Roswell," Alex said agreeably. "But there are things that we need to learn here, where you came from."

"Okay," Isabel muttered, mentally filing that under 'cryptic', and not too surprised of it. As much as she'd like to be truly sharing Alex's dream, or having him join her in hers, she could tell that this wasn't really Alex's mind - he'd be more freaked about the alien dreamscape than she was. Instead, this dream figure was all about stuff in her own subconscious - and not necessarily stuff that was related to Alex. He could be a symbol for something else - but Isabel shied away from thinking too much about that, just glad that in some way Alex was with her here.

Soon enough they approached the 'something' close enough for it to assume more detail - it was a kind of mid-air suspended staircase, leading from a walkway extending out above the drop, and leading down to one of the rooftops of the castle. When they got to the walkway, Isabel couldn't help but step out nervously, trying to ready her powers to pull her back to solid ground in case there was some problem, but the walkway, and the stairs, seemed nearly as sturdy as the desert ground itself. Walking down the stairs and seeing the cliff face stretching above them, the palace and a small nearby city beneath them, was one of the most beautiful things that Isabel thought she'd ever experienced, awake or asleep.

When they got down to the foot of the stairs on the roof, which had a kind of rooftop garden laid out over it, there were a few people waiting maybe nine or ten feet away. "Hello, your highness," one of them muttered. "Are you well this afternoon?"

Isabel took a long time to process this, and when she did she could hardly believe what it meant. "Do... do you mean that I'm really a princess?" she whispered in Alex's ear.

"Me, I don't mean anything," he whispered back, and Isabel shook her head slightly, realizing that he hadn't been the one to say anything of the sort. "They seem to think so. Kind of cool - you always behaved as if you thought you were royalty, after all."

Isabel shook her head at that, and stepped a bit away from him, just enough to convey that they were no longer conferring privately. "I'm doing quite well, thank you," she said. "Maybe a little bit thirsty."

"I could fetch something," one of the... the servants said. "If you wish to remain out here and enjoy the gardens. Or escort you and your friend inside, where you could use the private kitchen in your apartments."

"Hmm." Isabel traded a look with Alex. "Yeah, I think I've had enough of the great outdoors for now. Lead on."

It was a fairly long route - apparently the princess' rooms were in a completely different part of the palace from where the stairway came down, and the castle's premises had to stretch over an area nearly as big as the Mall of America. First they went down a much smaller set of stairs at the far end of the rooftop garden, which brought them inside the building, and then along great hallways and narrow corridors, through small cozy rooms and twisting passages, until a great shiny door in a stone arch was arrived at. "Here you are, your highness. As you well know, we cannot enter unless you give us your permission."

"Hmm." Isabel considered that, and then in frustration she growled "How the heck do I..." and then cut herself off. Even having started the question was not good for a princess-ly impression, but she thought she'd figured out the answer herself at least. Stepping over to the right edge of the door, she took her hand out and waved it near the arch there, around waist height. Sure enough, the outline of a hand with fingers splayed appeared, and Isabel matched her own hand to that marking. The metal door immediately slid up towards the ceiling, revealing a small vestibule with closed doors of a more usual turn-the-handle variety. "Come on, honey." Holding Alex's hand, Isabel stepped inside, and nearly jumped off her feet when the door came whooshing back down just behind her.

The suite of rooms available would have made a very expensive condo back on Earth, Isabel decided, even if the prestige value of being located within an alien castle hadn't been included in the asking price. There was a lounge that looked out on parklike palace grounds, a more subdued den or study, a kitchen that was probably big enough to entertain the entire gang, including a nice big breakfast table, and a somewhat bizarre bathroom that she didn't think she was ready to tackle yet. Back in the kitchen, Isabel found something to drink that was fruity and creamy at the same time, and beakers for herself and Alex. "Okay, there has to be at least one doorway that we haven't tried before."

"Down the hallway past the den," Alex replied immediately, and she smiled. "Why?"

"Well, just stands to reason that there'd be at least one bedchamber," she said to him, grinning. "The couch in the lounge seems good, but better suited to watching alien tv than sleeping - or a few other things that we could do in the bedroom. As in, together."

"Right, got it," Alex agreed. "Well, finish your beverage first."

"Why?"

"I dunno, just because."

Isabel did, even though she was starting to worry that this dream would fade out at the last possible moment. Then she hurried Alex along to the door that he'd mentioned, and opened it up. The room wasn't quite what she expected - it was small and cozy, and there wasn't any furniture in it. In fact, there wasn't really a floor in the usual sense. For a moment, Isabel was confused, and then realized that the 'floor' was what she was expected to sleep upon. It was softer than any carpet, though firmer than most beds were, at least in the sense of being able to walk on it more easily. Once she realized that, Isabel quickly went to pull her boots off, not wanting to track desert dust and sand onto the bed - and she promptly lost her balance, falling conveniently into a pile of cushions.

"Hmm," Alex said. He had already taken his own footwear off, and he kneeled close to her. "I think that I like this."

"Yeah," Isabel said, kissing him deep. "I... I have to wonder though - if the servants aren't supposed to come in here, then who cleans and does my laundry? Does the princess have to soil her own hands?"

"Maybe there are robots or something," Alex pointed out. "More efficiency and less privacy concern than with living maids."

"Hmm, possibly," Isabel admitted. "But I hope that even robots don't burst in when we're in the middle of this."

"What, kissing?" Alex said, kssing her back.

"No, more than kissing," Isabel said. With a pleased sense of surprise, she realized that by shrugging and wiggling in a very particular way, she could get her dress to pretty much fall apart. Alex seemed pleased too.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

And update number 4 for JulNoWriMo...

Part Thirteen

The next morning, Isabel headed up to the DeLuca's front door early. Maybe a bit too early, she reflected, after waiting several minutes for an answer. Finally, there was the sound of movement and a grumbling voice inside, and Maria opened the door - wearing knee-length cotton shorts, an oversized pink sweatshirt that had seen better days, and fuzzy bear slippers. "Umm, yeah, what is it?" After a few seconds of blank, slightly pissed staring, a considerable quantity of panic suddenly slipped into Maria's expression. "Ohnoes - did something bad happen to Michael? Or Alex - Alex is missing, or something?"

"Um, no - at least, not so far as I know," Isabel muttered. "Haven't actually checked on either of them since last night or so, but -- this may sound a bit stupid, especially under these circumstances - but I was wondering if you wanted to work out with me." A pause. "Well, jog, to be more specific I guess - if you wanted to go jogging with me."

Maria seemed to take a long moment to evaluate this, including giving Isabel's own outfit a long appraising glance - tight lycra shorts, with a great sweat top tied around her waist and hanging down from there, and a snug workout top of the same sort of material as the shorts. "Umm, why me?"

"Pure shot in the dark, if you're talking about why I should think that you might want to exercise too," Isabel said. "If you're asking why I might pick you for company while I exercise - I dunno, guess it just seems like something that I'd rather be around another girl for."

"Translation, you don't really want the guys to be leering and ogling as you puff and sweat," Maria re-interpreted, and there was just enough truth to that perspective that Isabel didn't protest. "And you didn't want to go with the new girl?"

"Tess? Nah," Isabel said firmly. "You may not have noticed, but it takes me a while to warm up to new people, and I guess that it turns out imported DNA is no free pass out of the waiting period. Tess - I'll work with her, if and when I need to, and even put in some 'getting to know you' face time. But jogging doesn't seem like a particularly good activity for that, and... and I'd just rather do it with you I guess." Isabel sighed. "Is the fifth degree over now? Can I just get a yes or no answer?"

Maria took a moment, and then laughed lightly. "Sure, yeah, I'm up for it, though maybe not for anything too long or intensive. Just let me go get changed into something joggish."

"Alright..."

"You can wait in the living room," Maria said offhandedly as she headed off to her room. Isabel stepped inside and closed the front door after her.


"Okay, come on, that's enough, that's really really enough."

In response to Maria's plea, Isabel turned around and slowed down to a mediocre walking pace. "Alright, okay. Walk it off, walk it off."

"I don't wanna walk it off," Maria moaned. "I just wanna sit down."

"You need to walk it off, or your muscles will lock up or something like that," Isabel said reasonably. "Come on, let's talk about something fun to take your mind off it. Erm.." At this point, Isabel got a mental block

"Well, hmm." Maria considered. "You could tell me a story about you and Max when you were young - I mean, if you want to."

Isabel smiled, and fell into step beside Maria as she walked down the street. "I... I'd like that. Let's see... there's our first Christmas - the first one after we'd come out of the pods and were with our parents. That's a nice one."

"Aww, yeah, sounds like it," Maria said. So Isabel told the story - from Mrs Evans trying to explain to their two new kids about why they celebrated christmas and managing to get Max confused about the difference between Santa and Jesus, and Isabel getting lost at the mall because she wanted to spend her allowance savings on a really special present for Dad, (who had been the responsible adult who'd taken her to the mall.)

"And on Christmas night - I think that you and Liz were with that party of carolers that came to our house," Isabel said fondly. "Not that I really knew either of you at all back then, but..."

"Probably true," Maria said. "Our moms dragged us out for door-to-door carolling until we were twelve years old - actually, maybe I remember going and seeing you guys, too. Because you were still sortof new at school, been around for eight months or something like that, and I remembered that you were both kindof standoffish."

"Yeah, well." Isabel sighed. "So, wanna tell me something about when you and Liz were little ones? Probably got into more trouble than I did."

Maria laughed and started to tell her about the time that Kayla S dared her to sneak a whoopee cushion onto Tommy Stevens' desk chair in the classroom. Before the tale was over, they went into a corner store and bought some juice to drink.

-----------

They met up with Alex and Michael at lunch that day. "Hey, how's your morning been?" Alex asked Maria, since they didn't have any morning classes together and hadn't met in the halls.

"Ehh, alright. Seen Tess, but she didn't try to talk to me or anything. How about you guys?"

"I think that she wanted to bug me about that book again but didn't have the nerve," Isabel said.

"Yeah," Michael agreed. "She may just go and get it herself, and chuck it at one of us, or something." He sighed. "I hope that it doesnt' have any sharp corners or anything."

Alex laughed softly as they headed out for a picnic table on the outskirts of the lunch area in the schoolyard. "Maybe we should go and try to find her after school - just to talk more about stuff."

"Yeah, I guess," Isabel said. She kissed Alex, and suddenly that brought her dream of the prior night back to mind. "Oooh, I had the weirdest dream this morning."

"Really?" Alex asked. "Anything to do with Max or Liz?"

"Hmm? Uh, no. More like you and I... or you, me, and this big alien castle."

"Huh," Maria muttered. "I don't remember having any dreams - what about you guys?" Alex shook his head, but Michael got an intense look on his face that told her he was trying to remember something.

"Yeah, I guess... I may have had one very similar," he said. "Not - not quite a castle, though, it was - it was a strange city, and you and I were exploring it, Maria."

"Hmm... really?" Isabel considered this. "Did the dream start with both of you in the city?"

"Well, it's always a bit hard for me to remember my dreams that closely," Michael insisted. "If I try to hard to figure out a particular detail like that, I tend to decided one way or the other, but I'm not sure if that really has anything to do with the dream, or if it's just what seems good in retrospect." He considered. "But I *think*, with qualification, that I was in the city to start, but wandered around a little while before finding Maria."

"What kind of places did you go?" Alex asked.

"Someplace like a shopping mall - no, more like an indoor flea market and bazaar," he said. "And then we snuck off to a park and sortof - umm, had fun together. Kissing, a little bit more too."

"Alright." Isabel tried to put as much thought and care into unwrapping and dressing her lunch salad as she could, but a few things couldn't be escaped so easily. Her dream and Michael's sounded similar, each involving an alien place, and a lover - but they'd each been with their current partner, not with each other. Did - did that mean that it was 'alright' in some definition, (whose?) to explore alien culture and take their human friends enough? Or was the dream 'supposed' to be drawing them together as a mated pair, like Tess had been talking about, except that neither of them could accept that and had made their own substitutions??

And was it an honest dream, or some racial imperative from their alien side coming through, or an even more blatant form of manipulation? Tess' powers were still largely unknown to them, though they could ask this afternoon if they found her. (And she'd probably want to know the same things in return.) Could she somehow project dreams at them??

"Oh, I got a letter from Max and Liz yesterday," Michael suddenly said. "It was waiting for me when I finally got back home. Guess they mailed it on Sunday, after the news about Topolsky had come out. I didn't realize that it was being reported so widely."

"Yeah, across the state at least," Alex said in a low voice.

"And they mentioned this idea about placing a personal ad in the Albuquerque paper to send them a message. I tried calling the personals desk - well, twice actually, but last night they were closed and this morning they got pissy about me not having a credit card, sheesh."

"Umm... I think that Isabel has a charge account set up there," Alex muttered. Maria rolled her eyes at him.

Michael missed Maria's expression entirely and split his attention between Alex and Isabel. "And - just how do you know about this?"

"Umm, because Maria got a letter the day before yesterday, and what with all of the confusion about you working and Tess' party, we forgot to tell you, okay?" Isabel blurted out.

Michael seemed to shudder slightly with this news, but otherwise he took it rather well. "Okay, so you've left them one message already?" he asked. Maria nodded. "And this was before we were sure about who Tess were, or had seen the Podcave. Seems like sending along an update makes sense."

Isabel nodded. "Maybe we can call into the desk before lunch hour is over - but we should work out what to say first. We can't exactly talk openly about this stuff in a major city newspaper, even if hardly anybody will know that we're the ones who placed the ad."

------------

Liz dropped the mug of beer as she was unloading it from her tray.

The results were actually quite impressive. It would seem a bit unlikely that a fairly heavy and solid glass mug would be so very brittle, but as soon as it hit the floor the vessel seemed to burst outward in a spray of glass shards and sudsy alcoholic beverage. A few of the regulars across the room who had gotten to know 'Alisa' started clapping in a teasing manner, while the two customers nearest the site of impact, (a guy who was somewhat more well-dressed than this bar's usual clientele and a blonde twentysomething woman who was all clad in casuals,) seemed distinctly annoyed by the inconvenience.

For her own part, Liz hardly noticed any of that. She simply turned, managed to safely slide the tray and remaining beverages onto an empty table nearby without paying too much attention. And then she was in motion, hurrying out the front door of the bar without apologizing to the customers, or speaking to Linda who was also on duty and staring at her. Once Liz was out on the main street, she broke into a run, and didn't slow down one bit until she had made it onto the property of the ranch where Max worked, more than a mile away from town.

Once there, she slowed down into a kind of casual jog, faintly surprised at the fact that she seemed to know exactly where to find Max, even though she'd only once gotten a brief tour of the premises, and knew that a field hand's duties could take him just about any part of the ranch.

He was off on the edge of a pasture field, spraying some kind of fertilizer or other stuff over the grasses, along with Hector. Both guys spotted her at the same moment and stared, but only Max dropped his sprayer hose and hurried over to meet her. "Liz, what is it?"

He'd forgotten to call her 'Alisa,' but that didn't matter anymore, and Liz deliberately used his real name. "Max, it's time. I don't know if I can explain why, but... but we have to leave here, for good."

Max took only a moment to think about this, rubbing her arm absently in an affectionate gesture, and then jumped slightly - as if he'd gotten a hint of what Liz had felt back in the bar, perhaps. "Alright," he said evenly. "Back to Roswell?"

Liz thought about that. "Maybe not right back into town - not if we haven't found out more about what's happening, at least. We could just be putting ourselves in danger. But we need to get much closer to home than we are now - close enough that Isabel could dreamwalk us if she thinks of it, for one thing." Max blinked and nodded, probably having to do a lot of mental re-adjustments for this. "And then call one of our friends, maybe."

Max considered. "Alright. We'll leave now, go by the apartment and only back what we can't bear to leave behind, yeah?" Liz nodded, pressing herself close to Max's side in relief. "Do you think that we can afford to stop off in a motel for the night, or will we need to sleep and drive in shifts? That's a lot less fun, but..."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," LIz admitted. Less sexy motel fun, and less PG-rated fun in the car, talking together and thinking of driving games. "I... I'm not sure Max, I don't have all of the answers. Maybe we'll have to work that one out as we go."

"Alright," Max said. "Come on." And they hurried out fo the field towards where the field hands parked their cars, while Hector started to exclaim in astonishment at Max's desertion of his duties.

A tall man, who was vaguely familiar to Liz, just managed to intercept them in the parking lot, standing between Max and the driver's door. "Just what is the deal here?"

Max didn't attempt to hide his 'busted' face. "Umm... we just got some very upsetting news. Alisa's grandmother in Santa Fe... she had a stroke." Liz gasped in surprise at Max reusing the memory of Grandma Claudia to talk them through this, but it seemed to fit, especially as Liz's own exclamation could be taken for her continuing distress.

"And so you apparently think that that entitles you to simply run off and..."

"Sir, I'm resigning my position here effective immediately," Max said. "Don't expect that we'll be coming back to town. Now please step out of the way and allow me into my vehicle."

The foreman, (Liz had figured out that was who he was,) blinked a little at this imperativeness from a former employee, but he did move away. "Sorry to lose you, Jacen. If you do want to come back after this emergency is over, we'll see what we can do."

Max hadn't expected that himself. "I'll keep you in mind," he said as he stepped into the car and Liz hurried around to the passenger side.

------------

Tess pulled up outside the school when she noticed Michael waiting there, more than an hour after classes had let out. "Hey, what's up?"

"Umm... wais waiting for Maria," he said coolly, walking a bit closer to her vehicle, "but she IS pretty late, and not picking up her cell phone."

"Hmm." Tess digested that. "Worried about her?"

"Not really," Michael said. "But a little I guess." He shrugged. "Can you give me a lift over to her mom's store? Maria had to lend a hand there, before we went on shift."

"Alright, hop in," Tess agreed. "And why were you sticking around here? Don't tend to think of you as the after-school actitivies type."

"I'm not usually," he admitted. "And usually when I am, the 'activity' is detention, which is what it was today, alright?"

"Really?" After a moment's pause, Tess continued on, not quite interrupting Michael because he hadn't started speaking yet. "You'll have to give me directions on where I'm going here, right?"

"Yeah. For now, just get on second and carry on like you were going to the Crashdown," Michael replied.

"Alright... and about the detention - is it okay if I ask what you got in for, or something like that?"

"Well, I was late to my first class after lunch," he said. "And I was in a bad mood and kinduv worried about Max and stuff, so I gave the teacher some attitude. That's pretty much it - they don't tend to cut me slack any more, if they ever did."

"That sucks," Tess said equably. "I... I guess that you've had a pretty tough time of it, compared to Max and Isabel with their seemingly perfect parents."

"Maybe," Michael said. "I don't tend to feel sorry about it, or react well if other people are in the mood to take pity on me, but... well, I'm glad to be out of the foster care system, and especially to be rid of Hank. Now that I'm on my own, I'm pretty much doing okay, except that it's hard to stay on top of the bills sometimes, and that I've stoll got a rep as a troublemaker to live up to - or maybe to live down, depending on my mood." He sighed. "We didn't tell you about the time I stormed out of a Monopoly game with Isabel's family, did we?"

Tess giggled softly. "No, I don't think that came up, but let me guess - attitude was rearing its exasperating head once again?"

Michael blinked. "You know, that kinduv does fit. Maybe a quick temper is another of my problems." Tess stayed quiet in response to this for a long moment, her face straight.

"Umm," she finally said, "since you mentioned Isabel, any idea what she and Alex have been up to since school let out?"

"I think that they went over to his place for a quote study session," he said. "Though I wouldn't be too surprising if they weren't studying any course that's taught back at West Roswell High."

"Not even Sex ed?" Tess teased. "Well, I wasn't meaning to pry or anything, just trying to be prepared in case of an unlikely scenario."

"Like what?" Michael asked her sharply, twisting his head so fast that it popped faintly.

But Tess didn't answer his question. "We're nearly at the Crashdown. Turn up Main street?"

"Umm, yeah, it's only a few blocks up. Maybe two and a half."

"Alright," she said. "I'll stay slow."

------------

It didn't take long for Max and Liz to pack up the things that they felt that they couldn't do without, which wasn't too much, from the apartment. Almost everything that had been purchased in Albuquerque or here in town didn't make the cut, with the exception of two books that were grabbed because they were convenient, and Max's box from his grandmother never got repacked. Even some of the clothes were left in the dresser and the closet. The alien orb was checked twice to make sure that they had it, though, along with the jewelry that Liz had brought along. Nobody seemed to notice them as they raced back into the car and left that little New Mexico village behind forever.

"Umm... maybe we should talk about why we're doing this," Liz muttered awkwardly. "I mean, what little I know about the 'why.'"

"Yeah, I guess," Max agreed. "Though it'll be a long drive to anywhere and this probably won't take long. Though if you'd rather get your impressions into words out loud before they fade, that makes a lot of sense."

"Alright, let's see." Liz thought about it. "There - there was a definite sense of menace - of a menacing man, though I couldn't see a face or anything like that. A vaguer notion of something going wrong, then more sharply, the idea that someone I cared about was in danger of harm. Pain, a hard concussion, blunt object to the head."

"Hmm..." Max considered that, but if he rated Liz's crypticness factor, he didn't announce the results of that analysis out loud. "But not your head?"

"Umm, no, I guess not." Liz sighed. "Somebody that - that I care about a lot, and not you... or my parents. Ma- marria I think, or maybe Alex."

Max considered that. "Okay, so was that head blow something that's going to happen in the future, I wonder, or something that happened when you felt it?"

"I... I don't know." Liz shivered, not liking the idea that there was nothing she could do to spare one of her friends that pain - or that there was very little that either of them could do to help in time if the concussion were life-threatening. "Let's just go."

"Alright." Max sped up the car, getting a good ten miles per hour above the posted speed limit. "It... it'll be all right." Liz arched an eyebrow at him. "I... I'm not sure why I know that, and I guess I'm not completely sure, but - but it can be all right, at least. Hold onto that, and that it's not too late to help."

Liz shook her head, a worried smile on her face as she tried to take it all in.

-----------

"Umm... okay, I have to admit, I'm feeling a bit uncertain of the depth here."

Isabel shuffled around on the bed enough to look into Alex's eyes. "What, don't you want to keep going? There's a lot more ground to be covered, and we've - well, we're well started on the making out and fondling I guess. Not so far along on the 'foreplay' scale."

Alex smiled weakly. "And are you ready for what foreplay typically comes before?"

"I... I guess that I'm not sure." Isabel felt her confidence deflate slightly. "Maybe, on some level, I *wanted* to get so caught up in what we were doing that I wouldn't think about whether I was ready. And then you had to go and come off all mature and more sensitve than physically possible, for a teenage guy, and make me think about just that."

"Sorry," Alex said, and he reached his hand out just slightly to gently squeeze her bare chest as if that was a consolation to her. "I... I still feel like I can get to cloud nine just from brushing my lips against yours, and I do love it when we fool around and make out. But... but that doesn't mean that I want to move on further, or to get to the point where it's just immensely frustrating to NOT move on. For one thing, if we keep moving on into new territory, maybe that would make just kissing seem less great, and I think that would be a shame."

"Okay, I guess that's the argument that I can't muster up any defense against," Isabel admitted, hugging him, and then reaching around and looking for her sweater. "So, any idea what you want to do now?"

"Well, there is that english homework that I actually would appreciate some help with," he laughed. "I've been so busy thinking about other things that I haven't really had time for the poetry of the South counties in the 1700s."

"Actually, I was able to get ahead on that stuff, erm, the day before yesterday or something like that," Isabel mentioned idly. "Found it distracted me from the Topolsky stuff. So yeah, I'll play the tutor - maybe a horny tutor who wants to subtly seduce her student..."

"Yeah, okay," Alex said, shaking his head just a little when he realized that he couldn't stop Isabel's one-track mind entirely. "Just what is it that has you in a state like this anyway?"

"Being here with the man of my dreams."

Actually, Isabel didn't really tease or taunt Alex too much as the two of them set up with their books and began to get into the material that Alex had been having trouble with. They'd only been at it for a little while when Alex's mother knocked on the door, and then poked her head in before she got an answer. "Oh, hello Alex, hello Isabel. What're the two of you up to?"

"Going over the epic lyrics of a guy named Willis Chesterley, mom," Alex said, feeling suddenly glad that both of them were fully dressed, neat, and engaged in a completely innocent activity. Not that his mom was really the type to freak out if she had happened to discover her son and son's-girlfriend in the middle of foreplay. In fact, it was the notion that she might have been supportive and offered Alex helpful tips that made his mind shy away from the possibility in anticipatory embarassment.

"Alex!" Isabel whispered at him, not quite quietly enough that Sheila Whitman wouldn't be able to hear. Alex blinked in surprise, not sure for a moment what was bothering Isabel, and then realized that the skin of his face was starting to feel hot. Oh, no - a blush. Well, he was facing away from his mother, and she might not realize that anything was wrong even if she noticed the color in his cheeks, but still. And of course, now that he was aware of the reaction, no effort of forcing himself to calm down could seem to wipe away the flush.

Isabel, after a long moment, reached out to touch his fingers with her own, and a few seconds later, Alex's blush did recede quite quickly, which startled him, because that was almost exactly the opposite of the usual effect that touching Isabel had on him. Then he realized that she could be using her powers on him, affecting the blood cells in his face. Did, did that mean that she was getting flashes from him too? Alex wasn't sure if he'd ever been the subject of alien powers before, but he'd always expected that he'd feel a more unusual sensation than this when it happened.

"Dinner's going to be in about half an hour," Mom told them. Alex looked up at her, and realized that she had noticed when their fingers touched, though probably she hadn't understood the true reason. "Are you going to be staying over, Isabel? There's plenty."

"Umm, yeah Missus Whitman," Isabel said. "What's on the menu?"

"A rich, chunky shepard's pie, from a recipe that John's father gave me," she said. "Just put it in the oven before coming up here."

"Sounds great," Alex said. "We've got some tabasco in the cupboard, right? I know that Isabel loves putting that on just about anything."

-----------

"Michael!" Amy Deluca exclaimed as he entered the shop, trailed by Tess. A few customers in line groaned at the brief interruption of service. "What - what are you doing here? Where's Maria??"

"I... I thought that she was supposed to be here," Michael said. Amy shot him a 'don't belabour your mastery of the supremely obvious' look. "She - she never showed up?"

"Never came *inside* the store, as far as I'm aware," Amy said. "When I had a brief moment to check about fifteen minutes ago, I went out into the parking lot - the Jetta was there, but no other sign of her."

"Uh-oh," Tess muttered to herself, and Michael glared at her.

"Umm... is there anything that we can do to help?" he asked. Tess glared back, probably none too happy about having been volunteered unwillingly.

"Err... maybe just for a few minutes," Amy said. "Michael, there's a pile of stuff in the back, in front of the sink, if you could bring it out here that'd be a help. Tess, have you ever worked a cash register?"

"Umm... yeah, once, back in Delaware," she said, blinking. "Had an afterschool job in the local mall."

"Alright, just do your best to keep up," Amy said, hurrying away from the counter, (after having finished the transaction she'd been in the middle of when Michael had come in,) and heading off to help some old lady who wanted a sweatshirt from a shelf that was higher than she could reach. Michael did his best to ignore the daggers that Tess was looking at him and went into the rear section of the store to do his moving.

It was about ten minutes before Amy was finished thinking of other things that they could do to help her out, and suggested that maybe they could look around and see if they could find out what had happened to her daughter. Tess jumped at the chance to escape, and get to something that she was actually a bit more interested in, and she led Michael out to the parking lot with a firm grip on his forearm, getting him to confirm where the familiar Volkswagen car was parked.

"Okay, let's see." Michael hung back, watching Tess as she examined the vehicle, then crouched down and touched something on the asphalt near the driver's side door.

"What's that?"

"Umm... to be honest, I don't know," Tess admitted. "Some kind of residue of something, but nothing I'm immediately familiar with." She reached out, touched the door, and immediately grunted in frustration.

"Couldn't get anything?" Michael asked.

"There's something," she insisted, "but I can't quite sort it out. Some - somebody else was here, besides Maria. And - and I can't figure anything else out."

"Hmm." Michael pushed past her and planted his own palm firmly on the car door. Suddenly a series of impressions hit him - Maria getting out of the car, frustrated but still very pretty, and then - a sound behind her, and blackness.

"She... she was taken from here," Michael said slowly. "Either that or... well, maybe chased, but I don't think so - don't think that she'd have been able to run away herself."

"Could be the special unit," Tess said. "Maybe they wanted to have her to use as leverage against you and Isabel - the two of them were looking kinduv chummy at school this afternoon."

"Yeah, they went out jogging this morning or something like that," Michael said. "She mentioned that."

"So maybe that's why they took her," Tess argued. "Or they wanted to find out how much they could get her to tell them about US."

"Maybe," Michael muttered. "I'd better call Isabel. If Maria's still unconscious, maybe she's dreaming and Isabel can get into her dreams."

"Oooh, Isabel has the dreamwalking gift?" Tess said, sounding very interested. Michael groaned slightly, but then cut it off - it didn't make sense to still be secretive about their powers in the face of this new development. But there was one thing he had to say before placing his call.

"We don't know, for sure, that it's the special unit who's taken Maria," Michael said, and now it was he who gripped her arm very tightly. "But if it's Ed, then I'm going to have things to say to him once this is all over - ASSUMING that she's safe and unharmed. If not - then words are going to be not nearly enough."

"Oh, come on," Tess said, rolling her eyes and trying ineffectively to pull her arm away from Michael. She attempted to give off the impression that she didn't care so much about that, but there was a glint of worry in her eyes. "What would Ed want with Maria, of all people?"

"I don't know, but I might need to," Michael said darkly, and then fished out the cheap cell phone from his pocket and called Isabel's number.

----------

Maria groaned loudly as she found herself back once again in the waking world. There was a dimly painful lump on the back of her head, but somehow it was the fact that the pain was so mild and not that it was there at all that puzzled her. Why was that? After a few moments she managed to work out that much - she had been knocked unconscious, and wasn't stiff enough to have been out for too long. Therefore, she'd have expected the head wound to be much more painful at this point.

She moved away from that topic and tried to evaluate her surroundings, or at least the condition of the rest of her body. Eyes closed - well, they could stay like that for a while at least. She was sitting, or slumping in a chair - no, a car seat, with a should seat belt restraining her in a mostly upright position. Something seemed weird about... well, about a number of things, really. Her legs seemed a little bit short, her chest not quite the same shape... and her hair! Her hair was suddenly long, falling well past her shoulders! That was impossible, wasn't it? Well, Isabel had talked about helping her grow her hair out, but Maria had assumed that was like a quarter-inch a day at most, not several feet in a few minutes!!

Suddenly manic with confusion and shock, Maria opened her eyes, blinking at the brightness of the light in the car, and tried to get a good look at herself in the passenger's side mirror. A shaft of sunlight managed to bounce off the reflective surface and straight into her eyes, and she shrieked in discomfort and snapped both eyelids tightly shut again, but not before seeing something that discombobulated her even more. A face, a momentary glimpse of a very familiar face, but it was definitely not her own visage that had staring back at her from the mirror. A cute, slightly naive expression, framed with long straight DARK hair... Once the spots in the back of her eyes started to fade, she cracked one eye open again carefully. No sunlight shining directly at her from here, at least. She was in a convertible of some sort, driving out on a two-lane desert road with not very much traffic on it. She had to struggle against the blowing wind slightly to catch a lock of her unnaturally long hair and bring it in front of her face for examination. Yes, it was a shade of dark cocoa-brown that Maria recognized, and much straighter than her own natural hair, which had a softly curling wave when she grew it out to any length unless she straightened it.

From beside her, in the driver's seat, came a silky, menacing chuckle.

Maria whirled to face this person, being careful not to turn too far and expose herself directly to the sunshine from behind the car. Once again she jumped in response to a ghost's face - someone that she knew and had NOT expected to see here. "Max?" But... if what she had seen before was accurate -- she turned back around and tried looking in the rear view mirror again, using a small delicate hand to ward off the sunlight from hitting the silver and glass. Yes. She looked exactly like Liz. And, since she was pretty sure that she WASN'T really Liz, that meant that - "You're not really Max."

"No, of course not, that was never the plan," he said, sounding exactly like Max, but with that edge of cruelty or hardness still detectable deep underneath his words. "I *was* supposed to have the genuine and original Liz Parker as my companion for this step, except that she apparently ran off and left me having to struggle for a substitute. However, there are pros to these circumstances as well as cons. The special unit has been upset that Max is nowhere to be found as well, and so they should be chomping at the bit to grab him now that we have emerged onto the scene once again."

"I... I don't understand what you're saying," Maria muttered. "Who are you?" And, and then things started coming back to her. River Dog's stories about his strange alien friend, and Everett Hubble's quest of vengeance against an alien shapeshifter, which had pitted him against Max and lead to his death. Tess' deeply foreboding warnings about 'Ed.' "Nasedo, or Ed Harding. You're the alien stranger, aren't you??"

"Good girl," he muttered. "Finally caught up to the home audience, huh? Yes, I'm a traveller of sorts, an expatriate of a great world... chose to come out into the galaxy on a great mission, and ended up getting stuck on this disgustingly primitive planet with a bunch of scheming little creatures who can't make up their minds whether to just shoot me dead or cut me open to see how my species works."

"Are - are you talking about the Special Unit, or about human beings in general?" Maria managed to ask, surprising herself. "I... I don't deny that humans can be cruel and hateful. If your people have moved beyond that then I'm happy for that. But... but that's not all that we can be."

Max turned and looked at her. "I... I know that, as odd as it may seem. Maria Lauren DeLuca, I know that you care a lot about your friends, including Isabel and Michael, and also Max. I think that you'd risk a lot for their sake." There was a pause. "That's why I drafted you to help me out with this job, actually. Believe me when I say that what I'm doing, I'm doing for them, and for Tess. What happens to me isn't as important as being sure that they're safe."

"So you knew that we'd found out about Tess??"

"Pretty much. After she came back one afternoon, it wasn't hard to tell the change in her, that she'd found someone else that she could confide in. Didn't expect that that would be anybody other than Isabel or Michael, or both of them."

"Okay, so what's the deal here?" Maria asked. "You're Max, and I'm Liz. Is that because you want the Special Unit to chase us? That makes sense... he's the one that they'd suspect most of being an alien, and she's valuable as... I dunno, as a material witness and an experimental subject, because of the shooting. Topolsky said as much to Alex, before she realized that he didn't understand what she was talking about."

"It... it's a bit more complicated than that, but yes," Maxedo said. "That's the meat of it. I... I can't wait for Agent Pierce to reinforce the net tightly and move in at his own convenience. Needed to force his hand, to get him to move into a confrontation without being ready. It's the only hope. Don't worry too much - nobody will hurt you, as long as they think that you're Liz."

"Wait a second," Maria muttered. "Who the hell is 'Agent Pierce'??"

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Fourteen

"So, Isabel, umm... I ran into your mother this morning at the hair place," Mrs Whitman said and smiled tightly over the dinner table. "She's having such a hard time with your brother's continued disappearance. It must be hard on you too."

"Actually mom..." Alex hesitated, caught Isabel's eye, and she nodded at him. "There's a bit of good news on that front, at least. We... some of our friends have been getting letters from Max and from Liz. Michael got one the day before yesterday, and Maria the day before that."

"Really?" Mister Whitman said, after swallowing a bite of the rich shepard's pie, (a layer of crisped potatoes on top of beef, vegetables, and gravy.) "Where were they posted from?"

"Different towns in the northwest corner of the state," Isabel told him. "Knowing my brother, he'd have probably driven out to a different place every time he wanted to put something in the post - so that they can't be used to track him beyond a general area. But the point is - well, there's two points. One is that it sounds like they're ready to think about coming home soon. And, even if that doesn't come through - they came up with a way for us to send messages to them. Every time I do, I include that I miss him and hope he gets back to Roswell soon."

"That's good, dear," Missus Whitman said. "Maybe you should tell your parents about this, if you haven't already. I know that they'd want to know of any reason to hold out hope. What do you mean about the messages? How can you send them anything, without being able to track it to where they are?"

"Half of the spy books I ever read have some idea like that in them," John Whitman said offhandedly.

"Do any of them involve putting a classified ad in the paper?" Alex asked. His dad nodded with his mouth full. "I think that it's a fairly good idea myself... there are hundreds of thousands of copies if not more, printed in Albuquerque, and it's impossible to track all of them."

All of a sudden there was a ringing. Isabel, Alex, and John all checked their pockets, while Gloria looked at the cordless on the table. "Oh, it's me," Isabel said. "Really sorry, I'll just be a moment." She punched a button and put the phone to her ear. "Sorry, Michael, I really can't talk right now..."

She trailed off at that point and listened in silence for a moment. Alex could just tell that her eyes were growing a bit wider. "Umm, okay, err, let me see..."

"Is it Max, or Liz?" Gloria asked, breathless. Alex thought that was an unlikely conclusion to come to, since the call identifier had said Michael, but apparently Isabel jumped on that explanation.

"Yes, umm... I need to talk to him," she blurted out, her hand over the cell phone mouthpiece. "And... and we may need to leave without finishing dinner - I'm really sorry, and wouldn't do this if it weren't important, but..."

"No, go, do what you have to do," John Whitman insisted. "Bring your family back together."

"I... I'll do that, sir," Isabel said, and hurried out of the room uh-huh-ing to the phone. After a minute or so, Alex went to find her, and she was out in the back yard, where he remembered talking with Michael about dating ideas and what kind of gifts to give a girl.

"Maria's missing," Isabel said shortly to him. "Michael and Tess think that either the Special Unit or her 'dad' are involved. We're to go over to Michael's place, meet the two of them there, and he wants me to try to dreamwalk Maria."

"Ohh..." Alex said, stunned by this revelation. "Yeah, umm... oh, we can't tell them why we're really going, huh? My parents I mean?"

"No - probably better if they still think it has something to do with Max." She led him around the house and stopped, suddenly realizing that Alex had driven them both there. "Umm, is it okay if you..."

"I don't think my dad will need to go anywhere tonight," Alex said, taking the car keys out of his pocket. "Let's roll."

-----------

Michael and Tess drove a bit around the neighborhood looking for clues before heading over to Michael's apartment, and Alex was already there in Michael's living room by the time they arrived. "Isabel's in your room," he said softly. "She let us both in."

"Alright," Michael said evenly. "Do you think she needs anything from any of us before starting the dreamwalk thing?"

"No, she found a picture of Maria on your nightstand and everything." Michael smiled just slightly at that.

"Alright, then, we need to come up with another strategy - if Maria's awake, Isabel wont' be able to get in."

"Why not?" Tess asked. "I mean, well... I don't know about Isabel, but from what I've heard about our powers, 'dream walking' is just one way of reaching out with your mind and touching somebody else's. It might be easier in some way to get through while the real world isn't crowding in on that other person, but the basic principle would work the same way."

Michael considered that. "Alright, if she doesn't have any luck, maybe you can try teaching her." Tess nodded. "But still, we need something else, a plan B."

"Valenti," Alex said immediately. "Look, I know that we can't go to him openly. But... but he's got resources that we don't - just like you guys have resources that he doesn't. And some way of figuring out what he knows might help find Maria, or figure out what's really going on here. We just need some way into the station - and not selling peanut cluster candy."

Michael chuckled ruefully. "You heard about that escapade, huh?" Alex nodded silently. "Okay, well, there's Kyle. He would be able to go in and talk to his Dad - but he's not really about to help us either." Michael sighed. "If it was Liz who had been kidnapped, maybe we'd be able to use that to convince him to help somehow. But he knows that Liz is far away from Roswell for now."

"Okay, I might be able to help a bit," Tess said softly. "I've met Kyle Valenti, and I have a trick that I didn't mention yet, too. Michael, I can change what people see - or think that they see, at any rate." She took a deep breath. "You could walk into the police HQ..."

"The sheriff's station, it's called," Michael corrected. "We don't really have a police department, just the county sheriff's force. But anyway... you mean that everybody would think that I'm Kyle?"

"You'd look like Kyle, to them, as long as I could keep the distortion up," Tess began. "They might think that something was very wrong with Kyle, unless you could act enough like him..."

"No, it's too dangerous for you to go in, Michael," Alex immediately said. "I'll do it. That won't mess up your powers, using them on a human, would it Tess?"

She chuckled slightly. "No, I could change the appearance of a rock or a snail if I wanted to."

"Oh, gee, thanks."

"Come on, Alex, you heard what she said," Michael argued. "Do you really think that you can act like Kyle enough to..."

"Oh, come *on*," Alex sighed. "I... I just want to talk to my dad about that piece-of-shit tent he bought for the father's day camping weekend. A couple of guys from the team and I are going rapid-rafting this weekend and... well, I guess I don't need to go into all of that detail for you, Deputy Bunson, huh? Just go and tell him that I'm here, if he isn't too busy hunting flying saucers to talk to the only family that he's got left!"

"Wow," Michael breathed. Alex hadn't been trying to imitate Kyle's voice, but somehow the attitude and the reactions, the turns of phrase, had been quite close - and much more natural than Michael's own attempt to imitate the annoying jock boy would have been. "How - how did you do that?" Michael always tended to think of Alex as awkward and geeky, which was why he hadn't expected that he'd be able to play the part of a jock terribly well.

"I dunno." Alex shrugged. "I guess you can put it down to keen observational skills and a smattering of comic talent."

"I don't know how Kyle acts and talks that well," Tess said slowly. "But if you're satisfied, Michael, then we'll go with Alex." She sighed. "In fact, I could probably use your guys' coaching in terms of handling his appearance and voice. Cindy Wallingham has been trying to drag me into the 'football groupies' clique, so she's wasted no opportunity to have me meet a lot of the guys on the team, but..."

"Okay, I guess," Michael said. "Can... can you have us 'think that we see' Kyle here, without anybody actually taking his part? That way, both of us can look at the... the illusion you create, or whatever, and offer our notes." He paused. "Wait a second, if you can just create Kyle's image, do you really need one of us..."

"Yeah, of course she does, Michael," Alex pointed out, eager not to have his demonstration go to waste. "For one thing, there's no way she could make the image believable act like Kyle without one of us cueing her. But more importantly, the whole point of the exercise is to get one of us inside the station to look around. You guys might be able to use your powers to spy on the station without even going inside or making anybody think that Kyle was there, but the combination of somebody using their own two eyes actually inside the building, and being able to ask a few questions without arousing too much suspicion, should pay off."

"Yeah, that was my though," Tess said. "Okay, here goes." And suddenly, it seemed as if Kyle Valenti just blinked into existence in Michael's living room with them, standing awkwardly with a slouch and ruffled hair. His clothes didn't seem to fit - well, they fitted his body reasonably well, but they weren't at all like the kinds of clothes that Kyle would generally wear, and the skin tone and hair color didn't seem quite right.

"Oooh, okay, we've got a lot of work to do here," Michael muttered. "Where to start?"

They had pretty much settled on all of the basic details, and were arguing a bit about how the image should move as Alex walked, when Isabel managed to make her presence known in the doorway. "I... I'm sorry Michael, I've tried and I've tried. I can't get through to her. I... I can vaguely sense her mind, somewhere on the county roads southeast of town. But, but when I try to make a closer contact - there's like a force that is keeping me from getting in, not a solid thing like a wall, but more like - like a mental wind that's blowing me back." She took another deep breath. "I... I think that there's another person with powers like ours near her."

Michael's neck twisted sharply so that he could glare at Tess. "Ed. That settles it. He's got her - unless you can account for his whereabouts some other way."

Tess smiled faintly. "He probably wouldn't be home now, no matter what, and I don't generally have a number where I can reach him when he's at work on the base. But... somehow I think that you might be right. What the hell is he trying to do with her... oh no, he wouldn't...."

"Wouldn't WHAT?" Michael insisted.

"There... there was something he mentioned, about using Liz to draw the Special Unit into a trap," Tess muttered. "I... I thought that since Liz wasn't around, he wouldn't be able to try. But... but maybe he thinks that he's found some way that Maria could take her place."

"Okay, so what now?" Alex asked. "Do we go with the Kyle and sheriff thing, or try heading southeast and catching them ourselves??"

"Getting too close to whatever game Ed is playing could be dangerous, unless we know exactly at what point to interfere," Tess insisted. "Both for us, and for Maria."

"We can combine the two," Michael said. "Maybe. Go in as Kyle, and if they don't know anything, find some way of dropping a hint and making them check it out."

"Alright," Alex said. "Wish me luck honey."

"With WHAT?" Isabel exclaimed. "What's going on, and what do you mean by a Kyle thing??"

"We'll explain along the way," Tess said. "If you can't do any good dream walking here, you might as well come along for the ride."

------------

"Yeah, I... I don't have any specific notions as to what's going on, but... but it's like more and more nervous energy is coming through whenever I think of our friends in Roswell," Liz said. "This is pretty weird, when you think of it. Am... am I getting powers, because of how close I'm getting to you?"


"I don't know," Max said. "Well... I realize it might be hard to sleep when you feel this agitated, but sleeping and driving in shifts is probably the best thing that we can do to help them, short of hijacking a plane." He sighed. "I'm worried about Isabel too... oooh!"

"What, what is it Max?" Liz exclaimed. The car had jerked back and forth on the road just slightly.

"I... when I said her name, it was like I got a flash of her," Max said. "In a room - in Michael's room, on her bed, and... and trying to dreamwalk somebody. I... I couldn't see who the picture was."

"Maybe it was one of us," Liz said. "But we're probably still out of range, even if one of us can get to dreamland."

"Probably," Max said. "Hmm... Michael - Maria, Alex." Liz shot him a long look. "Was just trying to see if it would work on anybody."

"Very sensible, but I take it no luck?" Liz asked, and Max shook his head. "Well, that's weird. Maybe if I can get to sleep, I'll dream something useful - like having a psychic dream of the gang." She paused for a moment. "Do... do you think that you might be able to put me to sleep by connecting with me?"

"Hmm... probably, but it's probably not a good idea to do THAT while I'm driving," Max said.

"Pull over?"

"Yeah, it's worth losing a little driving time if it works," he reasoned, and headed over to the shoulder of the road, slowing to a stop. Then he turned to Liz, held her hands in his, and looked into her eyes. Liz immediately yawned.

"Hey, I didn't even do anything yet," Max protested, laughing. "Maybe all that we needed to get you to sleep was a placebo effect."

"Yeah, but I like the idea of drifting off like this," Liz said. "I love you honey. Okay, now do it."

Max connected to her so smoothly he almost felt as if they were more naturally one being, and just had to live most of their lives as two different bodies for practical things like driving and walking around. Reminded by that, he took a brief 'look around' to see if there was anything in the connection he could sense that would explain some of Liz's unusual sensitivities, but couldn't see anything immediately. Just as he was lulling her conscious mind into slumber, though, there was something that he glimpsed inside, and nagged at his mind as he left Liz to snooze and started driving again.

It had been a brief impression of something that didn't seem to relate to the reasons that they were going back to Roswell - his own face, twisted by anger - angry about Liz. Not pissed with her over something that she had done, but... but angry at HIM for even spending time with her. That - that didn't make any sense. How could he, or some other him, be angry at himself for that? It didn't make much sense.

And... and no matter WHO was angry about it, Max knew that he would never let himself and Liz be seperated now. He *couldn't*, and he was pretty sure that she felt the same way. There might be some problems, and a few reluctant compromises that needed to be made over that, with the parents and even the legal realities of their situation, but... he and Liz were a matched pair now... not husband and wife in a traditional sense perhaps, but at least that close. Nothing would ever be able to pull apart what the forces in their hearts had joined together.

Max smiled slightly as he drove down the road.

----------

Alex waved slightly as he left the station. Isabel imperatively gestured for him to come, and since he was already heading towards the three teenaged aliens, he took that to mean that he should hurry and not talk, or gesture until he got there. Probably she was worried about anyone witnessing the transition from Kyle back to Alex, or noticing that Kyle was acting out of character. "Okay, what have we got?" Michael asked in a low voice as he arrived close to where they were huddled almost inside a thick stand of trees.

"Umm... neither Valenti nor the deputies seemed to know anything useful," Alex said. "I tried to get them on the track, said that I'd heard something on the radio about a really bad accident out of town, but I'm not sure if they took the bait."

"Hmm," Isabel said, frowning. "That sucks. You didn't get anything else?"

"Well, one detail that might be somehow significant," Alex said. "There's a new deputy in there - a transfer down from Santa Fe. Valenti introduced 'me' to him - but I think that there was something odd about his reaction to the whole thing, like he wasn't wild about having a new guy around just at this moment."

"New guy," Michael breathed softly. "Whenever somebody new shows up around here, they're usually not just what they seem. Topolsky... you and Ed, Tess."

"That was my thought," Alex said. "If the Special Unit is here, wouldn't they want to get one of their own people into that station too?"

"They would indeed," Tess said. "The leader of the Unit, Special Agent Pierce, is considered to be a natural at disguise and deep cover - or so Ed told me. He might be bold enough to come and play the part of a green, inexperienced deputy himself."

"What was the guy's name?" Isabel asked Alex. "His cover name, I mean."

"Dave Fisher," Alex said. "Umm... you wouldn't happen to have ever seen a picture of Pierce, would you, Tess?"

"No, sorry," she said. "But if we can get a picture of this Fisher guy, maybe you can get inside his head, Isabel."

"While he's awake?" Isabel railed. "I... I mean, I'd have tried to get in touch with Maria if I could, even though she was awake - or at least, I think that she was. But... but somebody from the FBI, excuse me, from this 'Special Unit' thing that's even worse than the FBI... someone who may know who-knows-what about our alien abilities and the ways to counter them? What... what if he's able to do something while I'm in his head..."

"Well, you might have a point," Tess groused. "But... but I'm not sure what else to DO about him, if you can't..."

"Okay, okay, let's keep a cool head," Michael muttered. "Or as cool as possible. We can get the picture taken, and then sit on it for a while. Maybe start tailing Maria, at what seems like a safe distance, as long as Isabel can keep her sense of where they are."

"Okay," Alex agreed. "I've got a new digital camera in the car, that'll work okay I think, right??"

-----------

"Alright, so why are we stopping?" Maria said as Maxedo pulled off onto the shoulder. "And why here?"

"Mile marker forty-two," the shapeshifter grunted, pointing to the tall pole on the roadside with the number marked on it. "First step in playing chicken with the Unit." Once the car had come to a stop, he got out and hurried around to the trunk, from which he produced in a few seconds... a body that looked bigger and heavier than he was! He put the guy, balding in a very dark blue suit, on the ground next to the marker, and then got back behind the wheel with a satisfied look.

"You... you had a body in the trunk??" Maria nearly shrieked as the convertible's engine gunned and the wheels tore back out into a driving lane once again.

"Well, yeah, but not a dead body," Maxedo said conversationally. "He's comatose, but should survive if he's taken to a hospital in good time. Maybe with a bit of brain damage and memory problems, but, well, I couldn't completely help..." He let that sentence trail off and speed-dialed a number on a fancy cell phone. "Hi, FBI switchboard? Yes, I'm having a nice day Betty how about you? Direct my call? Sure, put me through to Pierce, hehehe. Okay, yeah I'm joking a little bit, I know very well that you can't route me through to Pierce, or to his extension at 82633, or even admit that you can take a message for him. But I know that you really will take a message, so here it is. I left something of his at mile marker forty-two on route two eighty-five south of Roswell. Got that? Of course you don't. And he'll know who it is, once he gets there."

"You sound like one of those cliche movie serial killers when you're on the phone like that, you know," Maria told him as he hung up.

"Hmm... well, I'm not in a movie, and I don't think I'm cliche, but I probably was a serial killer." He sighed and moved into the leftmost lane. "Try not to kill anymore when there isn't a completely obvious need for it - doesn't really help me cover my tracks anymore, and it just gets people like the Special Unit to hate me more, if that's possible. On the other hand, if I can actually accomplish something useful by killing people..."

"So, who was that guy who you left in a coma?" Maria asked.

"Him? Oh, I thought that you'd realize immediately - he was a field agent for the Special Unit. Didn't you see guys dressed like him working with Topolsky, back when she was first in town." They had, Maria realized - she had search the motel room of one. "Do make an effort to keep up - things will be moving quickly and I won't have time to explain every little thing to you in baby words..."

"Oh, shut up," Maria grumped, and shifted awkwardly in her seat. "It's something about being in this body, or this shape... I can't quite get used to it, and it's distracting." She sighed and looked down. "The weirdest part is the girls being smaller, somehow."

"A whole new kind of human body image issues..." Maxedo chuckled.

"Yeah, very funny. From what I've seen, there isn't much reason for aliens to have body image issues - what with you being able to look like anybody you please, Max and Michael are both beefcakey-stud gorgeous, Isabel looks like some twenty-five year old supermodel and Tess is the dream girl next door..."

"There are a few advantages to our special status, yeah," he said absently. "Too bad I wasn't able to give you Liz Parker's brain, as well as her looks..."

"If you did, you might live to regret it," Maria said, sighing. "I know that she's a genius and I'm not, though I like to think that I've got some street smarts. Which are enough to make me distrust the fact that you're not using this quiet time to tell me more about your plans, if you really want my help."

"That's not a bad intuitive leap," he admitted. "Well, no, I'm not going to tell you much, but here's a bit. Want to wait long enough for somebody to find our friend back at the mile marker, and then I'll instigate a bigger disturbance. That should be enough to get everybody, even Almighty Leader Pierce, following us."

"Alright, good enough," Maria said. "And then?"

"I'll need to draw them into a complicated situation with a lot of people around - and then the plan isn't set in stone. I'll be able to react to the moment-by-moment progress of a complex environment better than they will, and figure out how and where to make my move. Sometime just before that happens, I'll find some way to make sure that you're safe."

"Oh, great," Maria muttered. "That just fills me with all kinds of confidence."

"Next time, don't hint around for answers that you should know you won't like," he laughed acidly. "Now, if you don't mind my asking - just what do you think of Michael? I haven't had that much of a chance to interact with him directly..."

Maria chuckled at the absurdity of the situation. "Michael... is impossible, arrogant, stubborn... and everything he does is driven by the kind of passion that I was starting to think was extinct until I met him." She took a deep breath. "He... he'll have figured out that something was wrong when I didn't come back to the school to pick him up, and he won't rest until he gets me back safe."

"You hope," Maxedo said to her with a bit of a superior sneer. "And a little part of you is worried that the deep passion inside him is going to focus on Isabel eventually."

Maria blinked, not having expected that kind of comeback. "Well, maybe a very little part," she admitted. "Much smaller than the part of me that's even more worried that your stupid plan is going to be the death of me."

"Well, we've all got death coming at us, and it catches everybody sooner or later."

"If that's meant to be helpful, guess what??"

There was a long pause. "No, it wasn't especially."

------------

"Hmm," Michael muttered, cocking his head slightly. "Isabel, and idea how far back we are, still??"

"Not really... five miles at least," Isabel replied, her tone sounding a bit irritated. "Why?"

"Not sure, just thought I heard someth..." He trailed off, and in the silence all of them heard a faint whine in the air. "Sirens. Back behind us."

"Could be the sheriff," Alex muttered. "What do we do?"

"Umm... take that right turn up ahead," Michael suggested, pointing out a barely-visible county road. "We can loop around and come back to the main road behind them. Then try and figure out who it is and what they're up to."

"Alright," Alex said, nodding. While he was slowing down to make the turn, Michael and Tess, looking out the back door of Tess' car, spotted the vehicles with flashing lights.

"No sheriff or deputies yet, I'm pretty sure," Tess said, frowning. "Ambulance, small fire department unit, and a dark unmarked car with one of those siren buds that you can put up on top of the roof. Which would probably be the ride of a Special Unit field agent."

"Okay, so the special unit is driving towards Nasedo and Maria already," Michael muttered. "Do they know it? And why do they have those other emergency vehicles as backup?"

"Maybe we'll find out when we get back to the road," Isabel said.

They couldn't turn back from the road that they were on, but it was fairly easy to turn to the left twice and get back to the main highway, by which point Michael was pretty sure that the three sirens would have already passed by. He seemed to be right.

It wasn't long before they saw the ambulance parked on the shoulder, though, along with an unfamiliar car, a sporty green thing. "Who's in THAT?" Alex asked. "Some other special unit agent who came from the other direction?"

"Maybe somebody unrelated, who stopped to help," Isabel said. "Stop a ways away, Alex... I want to know more about this. Maybe we can find out something useful without giving ourselves away as anything more than gawkers."

"I probably shouldn't let the paramedics spot me, they might think something funny was up," Michael muttered.

"Why would paramedics notice you, particularly?" Isabel asked. Michael shrugged, and didn't say anything.

It took about five minutes before the ambulance was speeding on its way back to the town of Roswell. Its crew had apparently picked up a badly wounded 'guy in a suit' from the side of the road, though nobody was sure how they'd known that he was out here. Tess said that she'd been able to eavesdrop on the ambulance workers, (exactly how, she didn't explain,) and that according to them, the patient was minimally responsive, with signs of serious damage to the internal organs and spinal cord without any direct point of injury - and a glowing handprint developing on his skin.

"Oh, man, what the hell is Nasedo doing?" Michael grumbled.

"He must be doing it deliberately," Tess said. "Trying to make it clear to the Special Unit that an alien is involved."

"He'll make it clear to Valenti, too, if he's paying attention," Isabel replied. "He knows what the handprints mean too, or at least he has his suspicions."

"I... I'm starting to wonder if it makes too much sense for all four of us to be chasing after Maria after all," Alex said suddenly. "There are going to be clues back in town - information that we'll need to sort out what's really going on here."

"But we can't all go back," Tess pointed out. "No good if we've figured out those things, and can't get to where the action is in time."

"So you're talking about splitting up?" Isabel said, and after a moment Alex nodded. "Well, I'll need to be on the car chase team, because I'm the one who's got a sense of Maria. And... and I think that if there's going to be a team going back to town, you should be there, where your brain can be put to best use." Her eyes were trained on Alex's, silently asking him if he was ready to be seperated from her for the sake of this idea.

Alex paused, and then muttered, "Yeah, umm, that makes sense so far." He looked over the selection of available partners. "I'll take Michael as my sidekick sleuth, if that's okay, and you can have Tess for extra alien oomph out here."

"So it's guys and girls, and the guys are the ones who have to turn around and go back home?" Michael complained. Isabel just shrugged.

"One other thing - we're miles out of town already, and all came in the same car," Tess pointed out. "Just how, logistically, do we split up??"

"I'll take care of that," Michael said cryptically. "You girls take Tess' wheels, and I'll scare up some more."

"Oh, lord Michael," Isabel said groaning. "Don't get my boy thrown in jail as an accomplice to grand theft auto, kay?? Or get caught yourself, as far as that goes."

Michael chuckled. "Have I ever let 'em take me in?"

It actually didn't take much effort for Michael to start up the green car with his powers, though Alex wondered exactly where the owner had gotten to since the ambulance and the wounded man were long gone.

------------

Liz was more than a little surprised to find herself in the back seat of a big car cruising down a two-lane desert highway. Looking around, she saw that Isabel was in the passenger side of the front, and behind the driver's wheel, right in front of Liz, was... well, she couldn't make out many details, both on account of the odd placement and the fact that both Liz and the mystery girl were quite short, but she could see some curly blond hair peeking out, (as it were,) around the headrest. "Isabel!" she blurted out. "What's going on?"

"Liz?" Isabel seemed to be at least as confused. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Liz smiled slightly at that phrasing. "Maybe I'm not really here, wherever here is," she admitted. "I... I was in a car with Max, heading back home to Roswell - and I fell asleep. Maybe I'm dreaming." She considered that.

"How far away are you?" Isabel asked suddenly. It was starting to seem as if she had actually made contact with the real Isabel somehow, as far as Liz could tell. "We need help here, and we need it like an hour ago!"

"Umm... still a long way," Liz admitted. "Not sure how long ago I last got a look at the road, but... well, we were probably something like four hours away from Albuquerque..."

"And in the wrong direction," Isabel scoffed. "Okay, well, I'm not quite sure how we're in touch since that must be beyond my usual dreamwalking range - but this is more like you're dreamwalking me, at least a little bit. Maria is missing. We think that Nasedo has taken her, and is dragging her into a confrontation with... with the FBI alien hunters, except that they're even worse than we thought."

"Oh, man," Liz muttered. "Maria!" After several deep breaths, she was able to compose herself well enough to think. "What about blondie up there??"

"Oh, Tess?" Her attention now drawn to the driver, Isabel tried waving her hands in front or her eyes, but elicited no reaction. "Probably I've slipped into some sort of daydream or trance state - she doesn't see you, and she thinks that I'm asleep. Well, Tess is an alien too... she's tight with Nasedo, but otherwise she's like us - she was unborn when the ship crashed and came out of the pods a little later than we did." Isabel considered a moment. "Oh, and I think that she's got a notion to steal Max away for herself, so be careful when you actually get in range..."

"Oh, please," Liz scoffed, delighting in pure confidence with respect to the bond that she and her man now shared. "She even tries it, and Max'll show her how little of a chance she's got. But maybe we shouldn't be too hard on her, if she's been handy to have around?"

"Yeah, I think so," Isabel said slowly. "I hope that I didn't make a mistake accepting her as my wheel girl. Oh, Alex and Michael headed back to Roswell in a stolen car, hoping to investigate because there are aspects of this FBI stuff that we don't understand yet. Nasedo headed southwest out of town, so you and Max can probably meet up with them before you get to us or him."

"Okay, yeah thanks," Liz assured her. "As long as I remember this stuff when I wake up."

"Oh, there's a simple trick for dream recall," Isabel said. "All that you have to do is..."

And that, frustratingly enough, was when the car vanished in a puff of slumber.

-----------

As they approached the Roswell outskirts again, Michael turned to Alex. "Okay, so when we get there, what do we do first?"

Alex made a face. "Lose the hot wheels."

"Hmm? Oh, right." Michael sighed. "But we'll still have to get around town."

"Yeah." Alex considered that. "Well, I could try picking my dad's car up again. He might not have even noticed that I dropped it off."

"Probably better than going to the Evans', or trying to get the Jetta," Michael muttered. "Sucks not to have a car of my own. Been trying to save up for a bike or something, but that'll take time."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Okay, next... I'm not sure, probably we can't get into the Sheriff's station again, not without Tess. Maybe go to the hospital and see if we can find out anything about that guy who was taken back in the ambulance?"~~

"No," Michael muttered. "Dammit, we're not going to find out anything new there." He let one hand slip off of the wheel to knock at his own head in his determination to shake some errant thought loose. "Maybe we don't need to run around to do our snooping after all. You're pretty good with computers, yeah?"

"Umm... I know my way around them okay, I guess," Alex admitted. "Not sure I can break into the sheriff's station digital network, never mind whatever the Special Unit is going to be using here in town."

"Maybe not all by yourself," Michael said, smiling. "But I have a few tricks that might come in handy there... everything that happens in a computer is just tiny little energy signals, right?"

"In a way, I guess," Alex admitted.

"I think I'd be able to move those signals around in ways that they aren't meant to - to get us through security safeguards."

"Okay, we'll give it a try," Alex admitted. "Park the car a few blocks away from my house, then. Close enough for us to hurry over, far enough that whoever finds it might not immediately suspect my part of the neighborhood."

"Yeah, gotit," Michael said, and sighed. "Umm, listen, there was something that I wanted to say to you. I... I don't know why you picked me for your partner, and there are a few different reasons you might have made your choice. But - but if part of it was not wanting me to be alone with Isabel, I've gotta tell you man, you don't have anything to worry about. On my part, or hers, I'm pretty sure. She's crazy about you, and I'm just worried about Maria. No matter what kinduv crap Tess pulls out of her ass, that's not gonna change."

"Thanks," Alex admitted. "The thought ran through my mind, but frankly I'm just not that comfortable with Tess, and I know that you're smarter at this kind of thing than you might seem on first glance. All of the capers that you and Maria have gotten into together, you know."

"Like what capers, exactly?" Michael asked, sounding confused.

"Never mind. We're getting close now."

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Fifteen

"Hey hey, Evans," Tess said as the girl next to her stirred in her seat. "You with me?"

"Umm... looks like, yeah," Isabel agreed, sighing. As she realigned her senses to the real world, she decided not to say anything about her contact with Liz to Tess, unless there was some way it looked very important. After all, the entire experience might yet have been a vivid daydream - it wasn't quite like her usual dreamwalks, which were just as real to experience as her waking life - and she didn't want to risk blurting out how she'd warned Liz about the rivalry that might yet develop over Max. Better to give Liz as much of the advantage of surprise as she could, that way - if indeed that mattered at all. "Where are you? I mean, where are we, anyway?"

"Umm, just passed through Greenfield, continuing south by southwest on local road two," Tess reported. "Can you still sense your friend?"

"I think so..." Isabel concentrated. "She's off to the west, or west southwest." Reaching out, Isabel pulled out a local map that had already been consulted more than once on this trip. "I... I thought that Nasedo would be heading back east to route 285 sometime soon, but looks like maybe he's going the other way - west out of Hagerman on local two-forty nine."

"Weird," Tess agreed. "What's out there?"

"Nothing at all, as far as I know," Isabel admitted. "Well, lots of sand and dust, probably a few ranches or mines."

"Mines, hmmm." Tess considered that and drove on in silence. "How far do you think that we are from Hagerman?"

"I.. I don't know, I'm not sure how long ago we left Greenfield," Isabel replied. "But they don't look too far apart on the map - three, four miles." She looked up ahead, and saw an odd cloud rising out of the middle distance. "Oh, boy."

"Yeah," Tess replied. "Well, we can see what's burning as we drive through town."

And they did - it was right on the main road that they were passing through - a small-town convenience store with a prominent sign out front advertiing ice cream cones. There weren't any flames visible from where Isabel was looking - just smoke, but she didn't doubt that the fire was in there somewhere. (That was the point of the old saying, after all.)

And there were people gathered around - employees and customers who had hurried out of the building as well as interested passersby, she thought. And one of the cars that was stopped by was the sedan with the red siren light on top - the one that Tess had identified as a special unit car.

"Wait a second," she said, as Tess slowed the car. "There was a small fire truck with the car when they passed us, right? And an ambulance, but we know what happened to THEM. But why isn't the fire truck here, where we need one?"

"Not sure," Tess admitted. "Okay, do you want to learn how to hear at long distances?"

"Hmm." Isabel realized that a guy in a dark blue suit was talking to the local townspeople. "Alright, especially if they can't tell that we're doing it. What's the technique? I don't have to reshape the insides of my ears or something, right??"

Tess chuckled slightly. "No, just... just reaching out, like you were going to try to move something with your mind, but... but listening with it instead. Using that extension of your mental energy to detect vibrations in the air molecules and carry the meaning of the sounds back to you."

It took a while for Isabel to get the trick of it, but Tess had more luck. The agent was, unsurprisingly, asking about if anybody suspicious had come by just before the smoke and fire started, and the woman behind the counter told him about a couple who'd gotten exotic double chocolate waffle cones - a tall, handsome teenager with short dark hair, and a shorter girl, very pretty with long hair the same shade.

"Max!" Isabel breathed, stunned. "Max and Liz. But... but they're on the other side of town, a long way away yet..."

"How... I thought you weren't quite sure where Max was," Tess shot back, looking wounded.

"Umm... it just makes sense that they'd be northeast - the few letters that we've gotten were postmarked around there, and it's the furthest they can go from Roswell without crossing a state line..."

"...Yet?" Tess prompted, and Isabel stifled a groan. "Anyway, I don't think it's really Max and Liz. I told you that Nasedo's plan called for him and Liz... apparently he's figured out a way to make Maria look like her - and he's taken Max's shape."

"Why?" Isabel asked, and then it occured to her. "Because Max was the one who was most deeply under suspicion from the Special Unit - Max and Liz. They never entirely got off the radar after the shooting incident last fall."

"Yeah," Tess said. "Well, we probably shouldn't stay parked here any longer - not likely to learn much more. Pass on or back away?"

Isabel thought about that. "I... I don't think that we really want to be in FRONT of the special unit guy - isn't he going to move out soon himself, stay on the trail? Oooh, something's happening." Sure enough, two fire trucks drove up to the store, a local unit and a Roswell one that looked like the one that they'd seen earlier. Had it been ordered away until the guy in the blue suit had learned what he wanted to know? As they started to head in and make sure that the smolder wouldn't get out of control, the guy in blue walked over to his car, looked around - and his gaze froze right on Isabel.

All kinds of stuff flashed before her eyes as she waited, expecting him to call out, pull his gun, head over towards them, or SOMETHING. But instead the man shook himself oddly, and got behind the wheel, pulling out again. Isabel turned to Tess. "He... he knows that something's wrong. Why, why didn't he..."

"I don't think he's sure what he saw," Tess muttered. "I was able to confuse him - if I'd been more on the ball, he'd never have seen anything suspicious about us in the first place." She sighed and put the car back into gear. "Come on, he's out of sight now."

"Okay," Isabel said. "But detour around the store on the side streets."

"Sure," Tess agreed. "I wonder what Ed's got planned next?"

------------

"Oh my god, this is too cool," Michael said, staring over Alex's shoulder at the computer screen. "We can see EVERYTHING that he's doing!"

"Yeah, except for where the mouse is going," Alex agreed, smiling himself. "I admit that I'm surprised Mister Valenti had a desktop-sharing application installed on his computer... though I'd have had absolutely no chance to break into it without your help... navigating a network channel into the station, and defeating the password authentication routines to enable share mode."

"Glad to do my bit," Michael agreed. "Okay, what's that??"

"Umm... looks like I wasn't the only one suspicious of David Fisher," Alex said. "He's looking up his service record at Santa Fe, and... ooooh." A color picture showed up on the window that was a copy of another computer screen, miles away. A dark-haired young man with a wide smile, dressed in a police uniform. "Now THAT is interesting! Unless my brains have been scrambled by everything that's going on today... that's not the David Fisher who was in the Station today."

Michael blinked. "It's not??"

"No," Alex agreed. "Very similar in appearance... it'd be hard to tell if the picture wasn't so good quality - almost impossible if you were going by a description that somebody told you. But something about the cheeks and the nose - this guy is younger than the Roswell one. Which suggests a few interesting things. And I suspect that Valenti is good enough at observation to have come to the same conclusion."

"Special Unit," Michael agreed. "Found some shmo who looked pretty close to one of their own guys in the Santa Fe police department, managed to pull the strings to get him transferred over, and pulled their own switcheroo before the real David Fisher got to Roswell."

"Maybe," Alex agreed. "Or he could have been a plant - a Special Unit rookie who went to Santa Fe for six months or so to establish a cover for a more experienced guy who was too busy to spend so much time directing traffic."

"Alright," Michael said. "So... so Valenti will suspect Fisher of being Special Unit... and we do too. But Valenti suspects us of being aliens, and I suspect him of being a closet UFO nut. Where does that leave us?"

"I... I'm not sure," Alex said. "Fisher is dangerous... I feel like we need to keep him from getting to Ed or Maria. But... but I'm not sure how, or if that will really accomplish much in the short term."

"Can you find out if Fisher is still at the station?" Michael suggested.

"Umm... not from the desktop sharing - and oooh, there's something else!" Sure enough, another picture was coming in on the computer, over an email client.

"You know, I'd love to be able to look through those emails sometime," Michael put in.

"Yeah, but we can't now, without him seeing... and there's probably a lot of dull stuff to wade through... What the heck?" The picture had come up - Max and Liz, standing at the counter of a homey country store, enjoying ice cream cones. The photo was fairly gray and not terribly clear - probably from some sort of security camera, but the faces were impossibly not to recognize - and Alex's head was swimming with what they might mean.

"That... that picture came from a store in Hagerman," he said after a long moment, "and was taken maybe fifteen or twenty minutes ago. That's right in the direction that everybody was headed before we headed back to town."

"Max and Liz couldn't possibly be there," Michael said, shaking his head. "They posted the letter to me from the other side of the state - just two days ago or so. Well, I guess they might have been able to get there, but... but why cross Roswell, or go around it, and not even let any of us know they were here?"

"I... I don't know," Alex admitted. "But if Max and Liz are in the path of whatever's going on with Nasedo, and the special unit, and what Maria's caught up in the middle of - then it just got a lot more dangerous."

"Yeah," Michael agreed, looking very badly worried for his old friend. "Enough of the passive spying. Fisher. There's got to be something in the station network for keeping track of who's out in a squad car and who's signed into the building."

"Alright, I'll look," Alex said. "Umm... any chance you can do a remote packet scan?"

"What's that?"

"Umm...a way of detecting what's going on on the network, and what's going where...."

------------

After the 'ice cream stop', and the odd gesture that Maxedo had made back towards the store as they left, nobody has spoken much in the car. The shapeshifter had been deeply sunk in his own thoughts as he drove, and Maria, for her own part - well, at first she had her own ice cream cone to eat and his to deal with at the same time - Maxedo had been licking with obvious relish until they got into the car, but he'd handed it off to her with all the interest she'd have for a lump of fertilized earth, and had made no mood to take it back and drive one-handed. Sighing, she started to roll her window down.

"Don't just chuck it out of the window, that's the worst kind of littering," Max's voice rang out at her, and she bristled. "Here." And with a casual wave of his hand, the cone and cream seemed to puff into dust swirling out from her hand. Maria exclaimed in shock at the peculiar sensation of touching something so solidly one moment and NOT the next.

She hated when he did things that she wasn't expecting like that. On some level he seemed to enjoy making her uncomfortable, though he never said so out loud.

And the fact that other people had seen her looking like Liz was still making her uncomfortable too. Being her alone with an alien was one thing, but parading around like that in front of strangers in a small town country store... Maria hated that, but couldn't bring herself to resist something that was clearly part of Nasedo's big plan. He'd stolen a kiss from her when she'd least expected it, and as warm as his lips and arms were, there was something that had chilled her soul about that kiss. And he'd insisted that she smile straight into a security camera with him before leaving the store...

"And what's next?" she groused out loud. "Gonna stop and mutilate some cattle? Tear down any scarecrows we happen to run across??"

"No, just driving," Maxedo grunted back. "Got a long way further to go."

"Oh, lordy," Maria muttered. "How far from Roswell are we going to end up?"

"Not far at all, actually."

"Hmm?" She glared at him. "How's that??"

-----------

Michael took a very cautious look out the door of an east side burger bar about an hour later. "Dark haired guy in a deputy's uniform, younger than Valenti for sure - could've been one of the ones who was on guard duty when I got thrown in the hoosegow."

"No, it's not Tim Hanson, if that's the one you're thinking of," Alex insisted, facing away from the door and the window without turning. "I tell you, it's Fisher, or the guy who's now calling himself Fisher." Alex had looked out about forty seconds earlier.

"Alright, then it's time to give Mister Fisher his welcome to Roswell," Michael said, smiling slightly. As the deputy walked away from his car, Michael concentrated, resisting the urge to reach out and raise up an arm to concentrate the alien energy more precisely on the grounds that they were in a public place and it might draw suspicion on him. Using his eyes alone would have to do.

The results were fairly impressive. From approximately the spot where the gasoline nozzle would be inserted, a fiercely explosive burst of flame emerged - not as big or as devastating as those car bombs in the movies, but the reaction from his detonation managed to send the entire car shooting the other way - it tipped up on the two far wheels when they were blocked by the sidewalk, and then pivoted onto its side doors, resting on the concrete. It perched precariously like that for a long moment, Michael staring with open amazement, (for he hadn't really planned on anything like this,) and then tipped over to land on its roof, mostly now on the grass lot beside Anderson's hardware, where they'd be wanting to set up demonstration tents in a few weeks...

After maybe fifteen seconds, there were some plainly audible creaking and cracking sounds as the windows and supports that usuallyl held the roof up, overstrained by the weight now resting on them, gave way and the car settled down further. By this point, a lot of the customers of 'Sir Loin of the Bun' had started to crowd close to the windows and try to see what had happened, and Alex apparently felt justified in turning around and gawking with the rest.

There were a lot of other people staring in astonishment outside. Deputy 'David Fisher' could hardly be distinguished from them in his reaction, except for a bit of outrage added in which made sense as the... well, the driver of the vehicle in question. He wasn't the owner, after all, because the squad car was owned by the county, or something like that. But...

And then he swung into determined, precise action, charging forwards to the vehicle, and examining the far side of it, where the spot from which the explosion had issued had ended up. Michael wished that he could see what Fisher saw there... was there gas leaking there? Had his use of powers somehow left a glowing silver handprint on the paneling?

Whatever his search had yielded there, he didn't spend long, circling around the wreck after what seemed like just a few long breaths. He went to the spot on the asphalt beneath where the fireball itself had bloomed, checking for any sort of soot or residue there. Michael considered. The fire had been a gasoline fire, and that did leave a kind of soot, though not very much of it. Michael knew that well enough - back at the trailer park, some of the other kids around had been fond of using fires started with gas to destroy things that they didn't want coming back to haunt them. Michael had never needed that himself, not after he'd learned how to disintegrate solid objects with his powers...

A very faint cry of alarm issued from deep in Alex's chest, and Michael realized that he hadn't been paying close enough attention. Fisher was now examining the crowd just as if he hoped to find the guilty party watching and smiling at his misfortune. Michael's face was perfectly even and calm, but still, casually removing themselves from the ranks of the gawkers seemed like a good idea. "Hey, there's no lineup anymore. Come on." And he led the other boy up to the counter and started ordering their fanciest bacon cheeseburger with multiple beef patties.

A look at Alex was all that was necessary to nudge him into paying for Michael's food as well - Michael must have forgotten his wallet back in his apartment, at least he hoped that it was there. They took a table right next to the window to watch the aftermath without being conspicuous. The old Mesaliko deputy, Blackwood, had just pulled up, presumably to give Fisher a ride somehow, and as the new guy walked towards the passenger seat, Michael had a strong urge to do *something* else, though he realized that he couldn't afford to entirely prevent Fisher from leaving the scene at this point. A little desperately, he reached out with his mind to push the lawman off balance, hoping that he'd acquired enough slippery stuff on his shoes to topple over smoothly, and maybe think that it was his own damn fault.

He went over smoothly, sure enough. But he didn't really get up. Blackwood blinked, hurried out to check on his man down, and then hurried in through the passenger door himself, the more quickly to get at his radio and, presumably, call for an audience. Another babble of onlookers started, and Alex irritably turned around, since he'd been stuck facing away from the real action again.

"What did you do this time?"

"Umm... more than I meant to, apparently," Michael confessed. "But I think that I may have managed to keep Fisher out of the action."

Alex groaned. "Isabel expects me to look after you... and I'm not sure you're making that easy."

"Well, if I don't cut her a break when she tries to play my keeper, or Max..." Suddenly an odd sort of feeling struck Michael. "We should go back to your place now, and check the sheriff's system."

"Um, alright I guess," Alex said. "Might as well finish our burgers first though."

"Well, of course - it'd be suspicious not to!" Michael agreed with a big grin.

-----------

"Oh, hey Michael," Mister Whitman said as the two of them charged inside the house and over towards the stairs. "What's up for this evening?"

"Umm... computer class assignment," Alex blurted out, and Michael just managed to keep from snickering. "Basic network security stuff."

"Oh, alright. Mom wanted me to clearly point out that you didn't tell us you'd be out for dinner today." Pause. "You *have* eaten, right?"

"Yeah, we grabbed burgers, Mister Whit - erm, Mister Whitman, I mean," Michael said, actually looking embarassed by the flub.

"Not the healthiest pick, but alright," he said, and Alex took the opportunity to wave and take off. Michael followed right behind, and soon they were both sitting before Alex's computer.

"Okay, mister security whiz, do your stuff."

"Hmm?" Michael jumped slightly on his stool. "Isn't it, umm... I don't exactly remember what I did, but I think that you needed to get connected to a staging area first."

"What?" Alex exclaimed, and then something occured to him. "Ohh... I didn't realize that was critical every time."

"Well, maybe not, but I still have a bit of a hard time navigating through cyberspace with only my powers," Michael pointed out clearly. "Having the computer itself lead the way helps."

"Okay." Alex pulled up a command line and tapped out a PING command to the nearest relay subhub on the sheriff station's backbone. "Alright, does that help?"

Michael didn't answer, just concentrated intently, and Alex tried to imagine the complexity of what he was attempting to control. "Okay, I've found the... you called it a firewall, right?"

"Yeah, that'd be the first line of defense I guess," Alex agreed. "I think that you were about to find an open port in the wall last time."

"Okay." Michael grumbled. "Having problems finding it again."

"Darnit, I should have got you to... well, I'm not sure if you'd have been able to identify the port number easily, if you didn't have the translation.."

"They're numbered?" Michael muttered. "Oooh, right, digital sequence from 0 to... um, to something really high. Yeah, that's the ticket, I... I'm in." He grinned. "Fooling the VPN system into thinking that we're authorized, and not keeping a record of our connection. Okay, there you go."

"Right," Alex said, getting on the computer himself and pulling up the obscure hacker's interface that they'd used to jerry-rig an interface into the squad car control system. "Oh, there's somebody out way to the southeast of town, near where Isabel and Maria should be. Gee, I wonder if he drove all the way from Roswell to there since we last checked."

"Okay, how do we find out how much he's seen?" Michael asked. "And, just for reference, who is it?"

"Car's registered to Hanson," Alex said. "The other is tougher. Let me see..." And off he went, exploring the digital system again. Michael had been able to grant him all access on the network's main security system, but it was still up to him to figure out how to use those permissions.

"Okay, it looks like somebody's typing up transcripts of the radio conversations and putting them on a file server," he said after many long minutes, "but the last one here is from over fifteen minutes ago."

"Probably the best we're going to get," Michael said. "Lemme see it." He leaned over the file that Alex had opened.

"Not too much here," Alex said. "Officially following reports of dangerous speeders out on county roads... hasn't spotted anybody suspicious yet."

"And no reference to a light blue SUV," Michael said, sounding relieved. "Hmm... observed the aftermath of a small fire in... in a small town general store. Hmm... do you think that has anything to do with that picture of Max and Liz?"

"I... I don't know," Alex admitted. "No apparent injuries... something about a Roswell fire engine not acknowledging why it was so far out of town... it was called back, until the report of the fire came through."

"Special unit," Michael decided. "They're using FBI badges to get co-operation from other authorities, but don't want any of that to get back to the Sheriff's deputies - because the Special unit can guess that Valenti's a loose cannon. So... so people like the fire truck driver and the ambulance have been ordered to keep the FBI's presence here secret."

"Okay," Alex agreed. "Hmm... according to this, Deputy Hanson - and anyone that he's still following - well, when this transcript ends, he was a few miles east of Hagerman, heading further east on county road two four nine."

"There's NOTHING out there," Michael muttered.

"Yeah, I think so," Alex agreed, quickly calling up yahoo maps on a seperate connection that didn't go through the sheriff's station. "It's a shortcut to Maljamar maybe, or Lovington, but even those are unlikely places for Nasedo to be heading." He frowned slightly.

"You're thinking of something," Michael noticed.

"Yeah, well - this is a long shot, but... what if he's not going anywhere in particular? I mean, if he goes north on the 172 and then heads back west, then he'll be heading back to Roswell, and he'll be AHEAD of everyone who's still chasing, assuming that nobody's caught up."

"Do you really think that that might be the plan?" Michael asked. "Valenti's going to have more deputies back here in Roswell than the one he sent out after speeders. Same probably goes for the special unit - even if Fisher is out of action in a hospital, there have got to be more boys in blue around here."

"I dunno," Alex muttered. "But it's the only thing that makes any sense so far. Not much sense I admit - oh, heck, maybe we should just forget about it. Log out of the sheriff's station and try poking around hospital records?"

"Sure," Michael said. "Maybe I should try calling the girls, whatcha think?"

"Oh man, we shoulduv run Isabel before this," Alex suddenly realized. "I didn't think of it."

"I wasn't sure if it was a good idea," Michael maintained. "If we can do this much spying - what if the Special Unit has some monitoring jigger in the cell towers, or something like that??"

"Hmm." Alex considered that, and it didn't seem so unlikely. "Well, if you can follow computer signals through a land-based network, why not trace our cell signal through the air and make sure that it's not being tapped or intercepted??"

Michael blinked. "Sheesh, you never ask the easy things, do you?"

Alex laughed. "No, just the fun ones."

-----------

Isabel's cell phone rang.

"Hey, yeah?" she snapped, picking it up. "What took you so long?"

"Trying to make sure that the line would be secure," Michael muttered. "Among other things. Let's see - how close are you to local 172??"

Isabel jumped. "Umm... maybe nine miles, and MAN it's been a boring, irritating drive!" Tess turned to look at her. "Umm, okay, first off, there was a fire, in a local country store serving ice cream in Hagerman, and..."

"Yeah, Alex and I found out some about that, actually," Michael agreed. "Valenti's found out about it by now. Were... is there any chance that Max and Liz were there??"

"I... I'm not sure, but I really don't think so. What Tess thinks is that Nasedo took Max's shape, and somehow disguised Maria as Liz. Because... because he needed Liz for this plan to work, and she - she wasn't available."

"Oh, man," Michael said. "That... that's creepy on a deeply intense level. She must be freaking out, not just being stuck with him, but looking like her disappered best friend, and having Ed play the part of..."

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. "Umm, on another note..." She hesitated, and tried to whisper into the phone as much as possible without being obvious about it. "I think that the real Max and Liz are heading back to town, though they won't be here soon enough for me. Liz - she came into my dream somehow."

"Hmm. Okay, I've filed that away for later consideration, since I'm not sure what to make of it right now."

"Yeah, me either. Okay, so you were talking about Valenti... have you guys found out anything too useful about his role in all of this?"

"Not really... he's suspicious of the Special Unit, and they don't trust him either. There's a squad car somewhere on the road following you guys - unless you let him pass you already."

"Umm, no, haven't seen one, but we'll keep eyes and ears open. Anything about the Special Unit?"

"Umm, let's see." Michael's voice hesitated, and Isabel wondered if he was re-testing whatever he had originally done to make the line 'secure.' "Fisher has been out-ed as having fake credentials, and thus under suspicion as a Special Unit operative. At the moment, though, he's in the hospital with a badly broken shoulder blade and a few other nasty injuries."

"Ohh," Isabel breathed. "What, did Valenti arrange to have him taken out of action without being obvious?"

"No, it was me. I, umm, I didn't really mean to have him hit the road that hard, but maybe it's all for the best. Okay, Alex and I have been speculating about where Nasedo's headed - if he's got a particular destination out in the desert somewhere, or if he's meaning to loop around and approach Roswell again after leading the pursuit away from town."

"Hmm." Isabel considered that. "If he heads back north at the 172, then that suggests the loop-around, right?"

"Umm... yeah, either that, or just a very compicated way of heading east I guess. Is there anything else you or Tess need to talk about?"

"Could you put me on with Alex??"

Michael hesitated just a moment. "Yeah, sure, of course." There was the sound of a mobile phone being passed over.

"Hey, how's it going?"

"Nerve wracking, but I'm hanging in here. So, apparently, is Maria. You?"

"Doing alright... in fact, this sort of investigation is oddly fun. I... I do wish that I could be there, so that you could lean on me if you wanted to."

"Oh, boy, do I ever want," Isabel said, with more volume than she had intended, but she didn't care. "Maybe if your idea is right, then we'll be back together soon. And with Maria to bring back to Michael, hopefully."

"Yeah," Alex said. "Okay, Michael and I are probably going to be hanging out at my place for as long as we can without my parents getting suspicious. If... if this is going to stretch late into the night, then maybe you should call your folks and hand them the obvious excuse??"

"Hmm, what would that be?" Isabel asked. "Oh, study sleepover at my new friend Tess' house, something like that?"

"Yeah... well, the details are up to you, you know your mother better than I do." Alex sighed. "For now, at least."

That got Isabel laughing, and when she had finished she said, "Thank you! I really needed that right now."

"Hey, anyti--"

"Hmm? Hey, are you there??" Isabel frowned and looked at the phone, which had already disconnected. "It's got plenty of signal, so what the fr... oh, Michael probably ran out of minutes, darn him."

"Yeah," Tess said, sighing. "So, you've had contact from Max?"

"From *Liz*," Isabel corrected, pronouncing the girl's name clearly. "And, well... I'm still not entirely sure whether it was a usual human dream or not."

"I could try to find out, but not while we're driving..."

"No, keep going, there's a deputy in a squad car somewhere behind us," Isabel insisted. "And, just how would you do that anyway?"

"It, umm, it's complicated to explain." Tess sighed.

----------

"Hey, Liz, wake up!" Liz felt a familiar hand gently shaking her shoulder. She also realized that the car wasn't moving.

"Huh? What's going on??" She looked around, and realized that it was now sometime in the middle of the night, to judge by the deep darkness away from the lights of the highway. "Ummm..."

"I sortof lost control of the car for a moment," Max admitted. "Shouldn't have taken that to persuade me that I was too tired, to pull off onto the shoulder and wake you up, but you looked so cute curled up in the seat like that."

"Gee, err, thanks," Liz said. "Okay, well, we can't lose much time here." She yawned and took off her seat belt. "Switch around the front, and that should get me awake enough to drive. If you fell asleep at the wheel or anything, then you really need your rest."

"Hmm." Max considered, getting out. "Why around the front?"

"Little shorter trip than around the back of the car," Liz replied, "Which steals us some of the time necessary for this." When they met, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him soundly.

"Ask a foolish question."

"Yeah. Oh, but here's a hopefully more sensible one - where are we??"

"Umm, three hour's drive out of Albuquerque, on the most direct route to Roswell," he explained. "Not much further to go."

"Yeah, okay. I think I can find my way from here okay. You get to sleep." And she hopped up behind the steering wheel, and not long after the car had pulled out into traffic again, Max wasn't responding to her wordless sounds, so she assumed that he was already drifting off to dreamland.

Driving this road at night, with nobody but her sleeping lover in the car, a car that they'd bought together in the big city, was very strange for Liz. She had never been that used to driving, in fact, but adapted to the road without any feeling of discomfort or uncertainty. She was still a bit groggy from sleep, though, and took a quick exit to a donut store near the highway with a drive-through, taking a large coffee with cream and a big blueberry-bran muffin. A drivethrough bag and some wrappers already tucked between their seats indicated that Max had also grabbed some provisions by a similar method, when it had been her turn to sleep...

To sleep, perchance to dream! Suddenly Liz remembered her odd dream of being in Isabel's car, and knew with a strange certainty deep within her that it hadn't been just a regular nightmare. Maria was in trouble, and Isabel had joined up with Tess to try and help her. She couldn't remember if Isabel had said anything about Michael and Alex - were they in Roswell? How would she find them, once they had arrived? Well, the important thing was to get to town first. She remembered Isabel saying that they were coming from 'the wrong side' - so it didn't make any sense to try and intercept Maria or Isabel before going to Roswell. Would probably need to avoid his parents, and hers, lest they get caught up in more awkward questions, and maybe grounded all over again...

Suddenly the absurdity of her situation caught Liz and she laughed bitterly. For making out with Max in the eraser room, causing a disruption in class together, sneaking out of the house once to meet him at Michael's apartment, and again to go chasing out through the desert with him, her parents had grounded her for weeks. Now, she had broken THAT rule, gone off and lived with him in a distant town, pretending to be a legal adult, and their relationship had progressed past all of the boundaries that her mother was so worried about her getting to too quickly. What would the response be if they even guessed just a part of that?

"I'll be lucky if Dad doesn't try to ship me off to that school in Vermont," Liz whispered under her breath. But the prospect didn't frighten or alarm her, just amused her on an odd level. She believed in her ability to chart her own course now, and that she would be with Max, come high water or hell. Their parents might indeed try to keep the two of them apart, but they had already demonstrated that they would not simply accept such a seperation. Liz wasn't sure what lengths she and Max would have to go to now to be together, but she was sure that they were equal to the task. That was all that mattered.

Then it occured to her that before they returned home and met anybody that knew them, it would probably be a good idea for Max to restore their drivers' licenses, clearing away the fake names and altered dates of birth. That could be awkward if anybody found out.

She carried on driving, thinking of these things and many more, daydreaming about the beautiful times that they had shared together in their little apartment above the wash-n-web, indulging in a few moments worth of might-have-been, and trying to prepare for the unknown challenges that might await them.

And all of a sudden, she was approaching the city limits, and slamming her foot on the brakes before she had any conscious awareness of the reasons why. A figure - a petite girl, somehow oddly familiar, had staggered blindly out over the shoulder and into the rightmost lane, which was where Liz had happened to be driving. Engaging the parking brake, she dived out of the car and went to check on the young lady, making sure that she was alright.

Liz nearly took a tumble herself when she spotted the face, confused, eyes closed in the headlights of Max's car.

The same face that looked back at her in the mirror every morning.

For a second, Liz was confused and perplexed enough to look for a reflective surface to check that she was still herself. There was the bumper of the car, but not enough light for her to see anything clearly in it. "What the hell is going on?" she asked. Nobody, not even her lookalike, had any answer.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Sixteen

"Liz? Liz??" She was a little surprised to hear Max's voice, and even more surprised to realize that he was out of the car.

"Umm... did you wake up because I stopped so suddenly?" she asked. "Well, umm, this girl ran out in front of the... I don't think that I hit her, but..."

"What?" Max crouched down next to her, to both of them, and reached out to brush some hair past her ear. "No, I woke up because you were calling for me - yelling my name!"

"I... I was?"

"Yeah, just a few seconds ago. Don't -- don't you remember?"

"Umm... no, I guess not." Liz smiled slightly. "Probably doesn't matter, in comparison with - well, can you actually get a good look at her?"

"Yes, actually I can." Max frowned slightly. "Very good resemblance - would have been better if you hadn't changed your 'look' so much while we were away." He sighed, reaching out to touch Liz's double and then hesitating, feeling nervous even about checking to see if she was hurt. Liz could sort of understand the nervousness factor. "If it hadn't been for her, then we probably should have turned you back so that nobody is so surprised about seeing you different - but it's probably good that I can tell the two of you apart better."

"Actually, I thought that both of us should stay the way we were," Liz said, wondering if she was focusing on trivialities to avoid the big questions that she suddenly couldn't answer. "So that maybe our parent's wouldn't recognize us from a quick glance, or their friends. The members of the gang will know who we are, especially if we're trying to demonstrate to them." She sighed. "Well, whoever this chick is, she definitely shouldn't be lying on the asphalt. Umm... do you think we can get her into the back seat, first off?"

"Yeah, if she's like you so much she won't be heavy," Max said. "Help lift the legs, and I should be okay."

"Open a rear door before we start carrying," Liz suggested, proving that a part of her mind was as pragmatic as ever. "Umm, on the side away from traffic, yeah." Max did this. Actually, if there was any traffic, the car would still be in it, as far as that she hadn't pulled out of her lane. They'd need to either pull onto the shoulder or get moving again quickly, but it would be better not to try carrying the fake Liz in from the driver's side, which would be close to any car that might show up going the other way.

The transfer was completed, and then Liz put the car in gear for long enough to get well out of the way of a possible collision - she didn't want to go any further without trying to get some answers. She switched the ignition off. "Okay, um Max... do you think that you can connect to her and make a connection? Either to find out who she is, or to help her and wake her up, just - whatever you can do to help out?? I know that you had to get me to open my eyes before you could connect to me after the shooting, but..."

"It's a different situation," Max agreed. "I needed a really good link to save your life after such a bad wound, but for this - well, I'll give it a try, at least." He nerved himself, stared at the girl's insensate face fixedly, reached out, and got a firm but gentle grip on her arm, above the elbow and below the short sleeve of the shirt that she was wearing - either a shirt that Liz had left behind in Roswell or a very good replica of it. He maintained the contact for maybe nine seconds, and then let her go and turned away, an uncomfortable and frustrated expression plain in the curve of his mouth.

"What - what's wrong, Max??" she asked.

"I... I'm not sure," he said. "Whoever she is, she's not badly hurt, just exhausted and scared, and she'll probably wake up soon." Liz waited for the rest of it. "But that's just it - I couldn't find out anything about who she is, like somebody was able to block that away even from herself."

"So - so when she wakes up, my - my twin or whatever we're going to call her, she'll have amnesia or something?" Liz interpreted.

"That would be my guess," Max muttered. "We can wait for her to wake and get the full details. Meantime, I want to start driving again. This girl is not going to give us the answers that we need, in terms of what's been going on with our friends, and I want to start finding out more as soon as possible."

"Umm, alright," Liz said. "I, uhh, if you drive, I'll get in back with my alter ego, and try to get some answers from her, okay?"

"Sure," Max teased her. "As soon as we get back close to Roswell, you're tired of me and don't want to spend any time together any more." She shook her head, grinning at him, and headed around.

They'd only been driving for a few minutes before the other girl groaned and blinked several times in a row. "Are - are you okay?" Liz asked. "Do you remember your name?"

"Ca--" the girl choked out. "Ma... what's going on?"

"Umm, we were driving down the road and you charged out in front of our car," Liz said, choosing the simplest answer to that question that she could think of. "I didn't hit you, but you collapsed, as if you were exhausted or something. Cama - is that your name?" She pronounced it with two flat ah sounds.

"I - I don't think so, but I'm not sure of anything," Cama muttered. (Liz decided to use that name, even if it was wrong, until they got a better idea for one.) "I - I do remember running - running out of the suburbs or something, on a path through the woods. But I don't remember anything other than that."

"What suburbs?" Liz pressed, curious if she could get some more helpful reactions. "Roswell?"

"Umm... I'm not sure. Maybe, but I didn't recognize any landmarks or anything."

"Do you know any Roswell landmarks?" Max asked.

"Oh... yeah, actually," Cama muttered, sounding pleased that something useful was actually there inside her head. "The crashdown cafe, City hall, the sheriff's station. West Roswell high school. Not sure if there are any more that I could think of offhand."

"Hmm," Liz muttered, thinking about that. Certainly seemed like the sort of basic facts that would occur to someone in her circle. All of a sudden something occured to her that she wished she'd asked Max about before Cama woke up - had he been able to tell if she was human or not? If there were shapeshifters, then maybe a shapeshifting alien could take on her own form, and block Max from connecting to her (or it) well enough to read specific memories. On the other hand, if he'd gotten any trace of such a thing, Max would have told her - wouldn't he??

"Do you believe in aliens?" Liz suddenly blurted out, before any internal censor could stop the words.

"What??" Cama asked. "Umm... I think so, but I'm not sure. Might explain some of what happened, if they were after me." Maybe, Liz admitted. "Umm, actually, not to pry too much, but since you ask - are you an alien?? Just figure I've gotta ask questions of my own if I'm going to sort out what's going on."

"Huh," Max muttered. "She actually *acts* like I'd expect you to if you had a case of amnesia, Liz." Liz rolled her eyes and did her best to supress a groan.

"How you'd act?" Cama repeated. "Liz??" She peered at Liz more closely. "Why's he talking about how you'd react if you lost your memory?" And then, perhaps inspired by some sort of instinct, she turned to see if she could see herself in the reflection of the window. That apparently didn't work, but she used the metal seatbelt buckle next, and this apparently told her what she needed to know. "Okay, this is pretty freaky I admit."

"Yeah, you're telling me," Liz agreed. "Umm, to answer your question, no, I'm definitely not an alien." Please, don't let her ask about Max, she thought.

"And do you believe in them?"

"Yes, I think that I do."

After a moment, Max got into an area that could reasonably be described as 'suburbs' - one of the business parks on the north end of town actually, and he parked and suggested that Cama get out and see if she thought anything around there was familiar. "Okay, what's the game plan?" he asked once Liz and he were the only ones still in the car. "We can't leave her alone, but I don't think that we'll be able to get too far into any investigation before she realizes that something's up - she doesn't remember anything about herself, but aside from that she doesn't seem ignorant." Liz nodded. "Maybe it would be better if I volunteered to answer that question - about being an alien."

"Hmm," Liz muttered. "I wouldn't have thought of that, but yeah, it makes a weird kind of sense. Hopefully she won't freak out or anything. Oh." Cama had tapped on the rear window, and Max rolled down his window to wave her in.

"Yeah, I think that I passed through here," she muttered. "See if we can backtrack the route? Or do you guys have an elsewhere to get to?"

"Um, nowhere that seems more important than figuring this out," Max told her. "Which way?"

Cama's directions led Max back out of the business park, down a more residential street, and to a shiny black convertible with the top down, stopped in the middle of the street. "You don't remember that car?" Liz asked.

"No, not even a little bit," Cama grumped. "Though apparently this is where I started. So what now?"

"I guess we could search it for clues," Max said, getting out and approaching the vehicle. "Hmm... driver's door not quite closed. Keys still in the ignition - probably we should park it properly at least. A few empty takeout containers and such, no personal belongings that I can see. Umm... glove box, let's see. Whoa." He whistled and passed something over to Liz. "What do you make of that??"

"I - umm, I'm not sure," Liz muttered. There was a copy of Max's original driver's licence - completely accurate as far as she could remember the details - and a registration for the car in his name. Why?? None of this was making sense. Why did this other girl look like her? Why were these documents for Max? They hadn't been here!!

"Let me see," Cama suggested. Liz hesitated. "Come on, you don't have any right to keep secrets from me about this." Max nodded, so Liz passed them over, and Cama whistled as she oriented herself facing away from a streetlight to read. "Okay, Max... that's you? The picture looks like you."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "I... I've never seen this car before, and I have no idea how it or you got here, but... but it seems pretty obvious that we're connected to what's happened to you somehow." He sighed and dropped his voice. "And for full disclosure, yeah, I am an alien. Don't tell anybody else."

"W... wow," Cama breathed. "Okay, this is an awful lot to absorb right at the moment." She sighed. "Just what WERE you guys doing, coming into town in the middle of the night? Do you have somewhere to be??"

"We... we were coming back home, because Liz was worried that something bad was happening to our friends," Max explained, sounding like he thought the words were lame. "We'll try to find them, if that's okay with you now."

"Sure I guess. Parking the car does sound like a good idea first."

------------

When the morning twilight was starting to break over town, the three of them still had very few more useful answers, compared to the number of pending questions. None of the gang seemed to be home - Max managed to use his powers to check on Maria's house and Alex's without waking any parents to check, but his luck broke at his own house, where he hadn't even needed to unlock the door to see if Isabel was around, but his father had been awake, had recognized his son immediately, and hadn't been able to restrain his volley of questions about what Max thought he had been doing, leaving town.

Max hadn't wanted to stay around for either a verbal fight or an interrogation, and had done a pretty effective storm-out routine. Now he, Liz, and Cama were sitting in the living room of Michael's apartment, having verified that he, too, was unaccounted for, and trying to plan their next move while they had more privacy than the car offered.

"Something seems to be oddly familiar about your friends, guys," Cama muttered. "Maybe I was on the fringes of your social circle too?"

"We, umm, we didn't really have any other friends," Max muttered shortly.

"Not - not when we were here," Liz agreed. "But what about - Isabel mentioned something about a new girl, in that personal ad, and the email she sent you." She peered into Cama's face. "Maybe you're Tess?" Cama's face quirked, and then she shrugged. "But that wouldn't explain the hair - or the face."

"The hair?" Max asked.

"Wasn't Tess blonde?" Liz asked. "With curly hair??"

"Umm, no, I don't think that my sister mentioned that," Max said. "Remember, she hardly even mentioned her in the personal ad, because she didn't want to say anything that might attract attention. The email went into a bit more detail about how she'd met Tess, but I don't think there was anything about what she looked like."

"Hmm," Liz muttered, trying to think of how she was so sure about what Tess looked like.

"Okay, here's something," Cama said. "Whatever might have happened to your friends - any idea how big it might have been? Something that other people might have found out about, I mean?"

"Well, I guess," Max said slowly. "Hopefully they wouldn't have found out too much about what's going on."

"Yeah, but there could be reports of weird disturbances." Cama gestured to Michael's small TV. "And the morning news should be just starting."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Liz said, turning it on and tuning it to the local station. Unfortunately, the top stories were some sort of minor scandal involving the tax reform bill in Washington, and reports of more fighting breaking out on the Russian border. Finally, there was a small mention of the sheriff's department being still investigating reports of loud noises and lights around the east end of town, from the night before. Sources didn't seem to agree on whether it had been an unusual episode of gang-activity or 'some youth prank.'

"Okay, I recognize that area," Max muttered. "North and west from my place. Come on, maybe there'll be some clue."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Umm... Cama, maybe you should stay here - if anybody sees the two of us together, there could be all kinds of questions - especially if it's Valenti."

"The sheriff?" Cama said, making an odd face. Liz noted her recognition down on a mental 'Cama fact sheet.' "No, whatever's going on, I'm not going to stay out of the investigation. This is still the only lead to what happened to me. That area isn't too far from where the car was found, was it?"

"Maybe five minute's drive," Max admitted. "Okay, if you're coming, then... then we'll need to disguise you, Cama."

"Maybe better to do me," Liz said. "I'm already kinduv incognito from hiding out of town..."

"But on the other hand, Cama can't *act* like you, Liz," Max said. "We'll leave you as you are and try to make her look different some other way... but quickly!"

They worked quickly, and Cama got her hair pinned up and hidden under a hat that Maria had apparenly left over at Michael's some day since they'd been gone. Her eyes and some of the rest of her face were concealed by a pair of Michael's sunglasses, and Liz was able to talk Max through giving her a shade of lipstick and blush that weren't at all like Liz would ever choose to wear herself. She was given Max's long coat to wear, and then they were off.

In the neighborhood, Liz spotted a parked County services cruiser, and so they parked and tried to mix in among the few early morning pedestrians who were curious as to what was going on. They couldn't find out too much staying away from the officers, until somebody suddenly spoke up from behind them. "Max? Liz! Is it really you guys??"

"Alex!" Liz exclaimed, spinning around and hugging him hello. Alex looked very surprised, and she suddenly realized that he had recognized Cama and not really herself. "What - what's been going on??"

"Umm... I'm not sure," Alex muttered. "Been trying to find Michael and Isabel for hours."

"And Maria?" Max and Liz asked in unison.

"Umm, well, that's part of the long story." He waved at Cama. "Who - who's your friend?"

"We're not really sure," Cama told him brusquely.

Alex looked at Cama for a long moment, and gestured for her to take off the shades. She looked at Max and Liz for confirmation before doing so. "Umm... Isabel said something about Maria getting shapechanged - to look like you specifically, Liz. Though she didn't sound sure about it. Is - is it possible that..."

"That she's Maria and doesn't know it?" Liz breathed, taken aback by the notion that her best friend wouldn't have recognized her... that seemed even less likely than Maria looking like her.

"I suppose it's possible," Max agreed. "But come on, Alex - you've got to have more information about what's been going on, and I think that it's important that you tell us all of it - in as good order as you can manage. Let's go back to the car."

"Yeah, sure," Alex agreed, and followed them. "Oooh, nice wheels. You traded the Jeep in in Albuquerque, right??"

"Not quite a straight trade - sell and then buy," Liz answered, "but yeah. Okay, what's the deal?"

"Well, I guess for the stuff you need to know, it started when Maria disappeared," Alex said.

"She got knocked out, maybe?" Liz put in. Alex blinked and nodded - then got into the back seat with Cama. "I think I had a flash of that, when we were off on the other side of the state."

"Whoo, those are some strong vibes," Alex admitted. "We sort of went to Tess to ask her if she knew anything..."

------------

"When everything was coming to a head, it was late, like one am," Alex finished, quite a lot of explanations later. "Nasedo and Maria - they did loop back around into Roswell - coming from the east, along the highway, then looping onto some local streets to get north of midtown. Isabel said that she didn't want me to be getting mixed up in whatever happened next - we weren't sure what the Special Unit was really up to, but Valenti was ready for whoever was coming. I tried to go against her wishes, to tag along with Michael - but he got one step ahead of me, and locked me inside his apartment. It took me nearly two hours to get the screens on the window off so that I could crawl out, and manage to climb across to the fire escape. The buses weren't running by then, and there weren't available wheels in his neighborhood... I ended up walking all the way there - tried to hitch a lift, but nobody would take me. And though I've searched the area as well as I could, I couldn't find a trace of anybody important. Tess' car was abandoned near where people were complaining about the noises and light. I hadn't found my dad's car, that I assume Michael took, or whatever vehicle Nasedo was in..."

"A black convertible?" Liz asked, and Alex nodded. "We found that one - well north of the area where the confrontation took place. So... so it definitely sounds like our friend here who looks so much like me could - could be Maria, shapechanged by Nasedo. She was hit by some alien power or something that affected her memory, and started driving."

"Yeah," Cama said in an oddly dreamlike voice. "And maybe somebody caught up with me, had the car surrounded or something, so that I ran away on foot." She looked over at Max. "Was the convertible damaged when we found it? Any impacts on the front bumper, anything like that??"

"Err - I didn't notice any such, but we were concentrating on other stuff, and the lighting wasn't great," Max pointed out. "Okay, well... I wish that you knew more, Alex, but who knows. If Michael hadn't managed to lose you, maybe you'd be missing in action right now too, and I definitely needed to see a friendly face who knew who I am."

"Right," Liz said. "First thing, we need to try and find out if anybody's been taken captive. If Valenti got Michael or Isabel - they'd be in the jail cells at the station, right?"

"As long as he didn't realize what he had, yeah," Alex agreed. "And they probably wouldn't use their powers to get out as long as there wasn't any pressing reason to be free right that second, because they wouldn't want to be seen."

"Okay," Max said. "We'll need to get somebody inside the station - I don't think that Liz or I could, and Alex, I'm not sure if we can afford to get you detained, just on the off chance." He sighed and turned to Cama. "Mar... um, how would you feel about showing up there and telling the deputies that you don't remember who you are? I... I realize that it might be scary, but they won't hurt you..."

"I'd just have to snoop around a bit, and make sure not to mention any of what you guys have told me?" She sighed. "I think that I could, but..."

"Something else to try first," Alex said. "Michael and I were working together on computer stuff - getting into the sheriff's station systems. If Michael or Isabel had been brought in, they'd be on the mainframe, yeah??"

"Unless Valenti REALLY wanted to keep it quiet," Liz said uncertainly.

"Well, we can try," Max said. "Hopefully it won't take me long to catch up on what you were doing together." He sighed. "And at some point, we're going to have to figure out where the FBI would have taken them, if they caught anybody."

"The Special Unit," Alex corrected, as Max put the car in gear. "They'd probably do something that's worked before. Where do the Roswell crash stories say that any survivors or corpses from the crash were taken."

"Area 51, right?" Cama piped up.

"No, not immediately at least," Liz corrected. "That's two states away, in Nevada. There had to be somewhere closer for... for the alien autopsies. I can't remember where, though - and we probably can't go to the diner and look at those old crash-era headlines that my Dad's got on the wall."

"I think that I can get into the UFO center and find out the right detail," Max said. "Except that I have to help Alex with the computer hacking stuff."

"Give me your keys, I'll go do the center," Liz insisted. "I'm pretty sure I can work Milton's computer as well as you can. And speed is *seriously* important."

"Okay, just make sure Milton doesn't catch you at it," Alex pointed out. "The last thing that any of us need is you being caught in a robbery thing again."

"If Milton's around, just tell him that I'm back in town," Max suggested. "He may be so relieved that he'll let you do the 'errand' for me."

"Okay," Cama said. "I guess that I stick with you guys, huh?? Those of the male persuasion, I mean."

"Yeah," Max said. "Don't worry, we'll get you sorted out yet."

-------------

"Hi, Max?" Liz said when somebody picked up on her cell phone call.

"Yeah."

"I've got what we need - Eagle Rock millitary base, not far outside of town. It's been closed down for years, but that might just make it more appealing to these Special Unit guys."

"Alright," Max said. "We, umm - we're just getting into the county system, hang on a minute, okay?" Liz made an affirmative grunt. "Nobody around there??"

"No, not a trace of Milton," Liz assured him, "or anybody. I've got a print job that's just finishing... yeah." She gathered up the pages and headed back towards the museum's door.

"Oooh, okay, here we are. Miss Tess Harding, in custody on a disorderly conduct, also person of interest in an ongoing case... attempted to reach her father, one Edmund Harding, and there wasn't any answer at his house." Max sighed. "No mention of Michael, Isabel, or Maria."

"Okay, well... at least it's something," Liz pointed out. "Maybe Tess will know. Do you think that Valenti will have to arraign her and let the judge post bail at ten o'clock?"

"I... I'm not sure. Maybe Alex should go in saying that he needs to visit her. They can't give him a hard time for that, really, can they?"

"Umm, I'm not really sure what Valenti might not do if he feels driven to it," Max muttered. "Doesn't mean it isn't the best idea we've got, though. Come back here to Michael's as quick as you can, kay?"

"Of course, my love," Liz breathed, and slipped out of the Center doors, locking them behind her.

----------

"Th-thanks for coming, Alex," Tess said, smiling shyly from behind the bars of the holding cell. "Decided to bail me outta the hoosegow."

Alex sighed. "The deputy said that you're not getting arraigned just yet, only being 'held for questioning,' so bail hasn't been set." He shook his head slightly. "Also mentioned that if your Dad showed up, you might get released into his custody."

"Hmm, yeah," Tess muttered, apparently not trusting that. Alex wasn't sure he did either - if Valenti had any notion of who Ed Harding really was, he might really want to spend some quality time alone with him - from a secure spot, of course. "Oh, Liz and Max are back in town." Tess' eyes went a bit wider at this whispered tidbit. "So what happened? Do you know where Isabel and Michael are? And your father??"

"Hmm," Tess grumped. "You know that I can't tell you all of that here - with who knows anybody listening."

"Yeah." It had been a calculated risk just to ask that much, to tell her what they most needed to know and leave it up to Tess' ingenuity to find some way of slipping him a hint to the most critical piece of info, in a way that Valenti couldn' tap into.

But he hadn't expected what came next. Tess reached out to brush his fingers with hers - he'd been idly fiddling with some of the bars. And the alien charge of her contact was so intense that Alex really thought that he'd been blown back away from her and thrown into the wall of the room opposite the cell. It was only when a bored deputy called out "Hey, no touching your juvie girlfriend," that he realized their fingers were still in contact, curling around each other a bit. Surprised, he didn't bother to correct the characterization of Tess as his girlfriend - or as a juvenile delinquent, for that matter.

"Go back to Max," Tess mouthed to him, and smiled. Alex said goodbye and left, his mind turning around an idea for what the point of all that had been. Could Tess have managed to 'charge' him with a series of flashes, telling all the things that they couldn't say within earshot of the law, so that Max could receive the message later? It made some sense, though he thought it would have been easier to give him the impressions directly, the way Max had done it with Liz so long ago - except that Tess wouldn't trust a human with something so important. Alex could carry her memories to Max, but not experience them himself. Also, he somehow suspected that Tess would enjoy the impression of intimacy from having Max get her message - and Liz be unable to stop it even if she knew, because they NEEDED Tess' deposition...

A notion occured to Alex as he drove back towards Michael's place. Neither Max nor Liz had spoken much about what they'd gone through since leaving - but if Liz had gotten a premonition of Maria's danger from so far away, then maybe Tess was underestimating her.

So when Alex came into the living room, he made a point of patting Liz on the arm, (which was bare, because she was wearing a daring and skimpy tank top,) and felt the energy flow again, more of a discharge than a charge. "Sheesh, Alex, how about warning me??"

"I didn't want Max to insist on doing it," Alex pointed out, and Liz's eyes widened in understanding.

"Still, that was taking a chance - whatever Tess left in you is gone, and if I haven't caught enough of it..."

"Well, what did you see?" Max asked, catching on. Cama was looking blank, as if all of this was a mystery to her - and Alex was worried about that. If she were really Maria, wouldn't this sort of thing about alien flashes be deeply familiar to her, no matter if she didn't remember the details... or was he working off of the wrong assumptions? After all, for most of Maria's life she hadn't been involved in this sort of thing, no matter how much she'd gotten used to it recently. Maybe that sort of thing had an effect in her amnesiac state.

"Umm... driving through the streets of town, late at night, towards... the hospital," Liz muttered.

"Oh," Max replied. "Alex, you said that Michael hurt that Fisher guy enough to lay him up for a few days?"

"Yeah, we'd found out that he'd been admitted," Alex agreed. "Maybe Isabel and Michael had figured that much out before he even left, but they didn't tell me - that Nasedo would be heading for the hospital."

"Well, I think that Tess and Isabel got inside at least," Liz muttered. "Running away from a few people in dark suits, through hospital corridors, trying to..." She gasped. "Michael got shot, Max - and somebody who looked like you whisked him away before Isabel could get to him. Nasedo."

"Oooh," Max muttered. "Well, I guess Nasedo's probably pretty good at taking care of him... we don't need to freak out any more. Was Tess arrested when she was still in the hospital, do you think??"

"She - she was with, with you..." Liz said, fitting it together and looking at Cama/Maria. "One of the blue-suits had a shiny silver thing that blasted out a pulse of whirling blue light at both of them. I... I think that Tess probably blacked out and didn't wake up until she was already in custody."

"Makes some sense in terms of why she didn't try using her powers to avoid getting caught," Max muttered. "And that could be when you started to lose your memory... Maria."

"But why didn't Tess lose hers?" Maria ranted. "If she got hit harder than me."

"It might be like comparing apples and tomatoes," Alex pointed out. "Alien brain structure is probably a lot different from ours - if they're still vulnerable to the same kinds of attacks, then probably they're affected in different ways. She's hit hard straight off but recovers - you're able to escape, but most of your personal memories fade away."

"Now - now that we know it was an energy attack of some sort, maybe I'll be able to help you recover, Maria," Max muttered. "We need all of us in top shape, and all the perspective we can get on what's happened. Liz, were there any other hints about what happened to Isabel at the end of Tess' memories? Were the two of them seperated?"

"Umm... yes," Liz said, smiling. "Isabel was with fake you - it looked like they were agreeing to split up for some reason."

"Maybe Tess was supposed to get Maria out of the hospital safely," Alex suggested. "Or just keep her out of Nasedo's hair."

"Well, maybe Isabel and Michael have rendezvoused by now," Max said hopefully. "Incidentally, I just might be able to make Maria look like Maria too."

"Really?" she asked. "But... but you can't shapeshift, can you?"

"No... but your body naturally looks like itself," Max said. "Whatever Nasedo did to interfere with that, I might be able to change it back."

"Okay, good luck," Liz said. "You're gonna use Michael's bed for that?" Max nodded. "I think that Alex and I should prepare for a search pattern around the hospital. I don't think braving Eagle Rock sounds like the best of ideas right now - we don't really have any indication that anybody's been captured - they may all be lying low, pretty safely."

"Right," Max said. "But we do need to find out if any of them are in trouble." He sighed. "And check on if David Fisher was killed, on the computer?"

Liz's face fell. She wasn't sure if she should hope that Nasedo's raid had failed, or if he'd been able to kill the Special Unit man. Was Fisher just a low-ranking undercover agent, or somebody more important, anyway??

"Yeah," Alex said when Liz didn't reply right away. "I think that the hospital network, I can break into without any alien help - just borrowing Liz's brain."

Liz tried to think of a witty rejoinder to that, but couldn't think of one.

-------------

"Hmm... yeah, that's a *little* bit more like the Maria DeLuca I love," Liz said, looking up as Maria and Max entered the room. "Still the hair and the clothes don't look right, though. How's the memory?"

"Not bad, sweetie, but not great." Maria sighed. "Everything up until I got knocked out is reasonably clear, but the more recent stuff is still badly swiss-cheesed. I feel more like I know who 'me' is now, but I'm not sure I can help you find Michael or Isabel."

"Actually, you may be more help than you know, even without your memory," Max suggested. "I... I've been feeling something nagging at me, and I think I've worked it out now. You guys have a kind of long-distance link to my good friends, a kinduv vague and nebulous one, compared to... arrumph." He cut himself off suddenly. "But maybe that sort of thing can be used as a homing signal, with my help, and if the two of you can do it together."

Alex's eyes narrowed slightly. "Compared to what, Max?" Max shrugged awkwardly. "Hmm... I guess that congratulations are in order for you guys." Now it was Liz's turn to smile weakly. "Okay, should we all pile back into the new wheels?"

"Yeah," Liz decided. "It's pretty roomy, so... oh no." Just as she finished speaking, somebody banged loudly on the apartment door. Max turned to Liz, with an expression of confusion and hope on his face, but the great expectations were dashed when a voice that he hadn't been hoping for called out.

"Maria? Michael?? If you kids are canoodling in there, when you oughtta be in school, I swear that I'll..."

"Oh, crap, I don't have time to fight with Mom now," Maria muttered. "Especially since she's sure to ask about my 'new look.'" Maria heaped sarcasm into her finger quotes.

"Well, none of the rest of us can really explain why we're hanging out here either - in the middle of a school morning and without Michael being around," Liz pointed out. "So do we beat an undignified retreat down that fire escape? I think that Max can open up the window that you're SUPPOSED to use to get out onto it, the one that Michael sealed to keep Alex from chasing after him too quickly."

"Come on, you guys are overthinking this," Max said with a big smile. "Alex, Maria, you guys hide in the bathroom. I don't think she's likely to check there... not with Liz and I creating a diversion." He looked over at her. "Whatcha think, honey, can we freak her out enough to mamke her leave in a few minutes??"

"I'm up for it if you are, I guess," she said slowly. "You're gonna have to feed me a lead." Once Alex and Maria were safely out of sight, Max opened up the door.

"No, Missus DeLuca, Michael and Maria aren't here," he opened up with. "We liked living out of town so much that I think they're trying it next. Michael offered to let us stay together here."

Liz pressed close to Max with a big, slightly prurient smile on her face, and began to silently count seconds.

------------

"Okay, any idea how we do this thing?" Alex said as Max pulled close to the curb a few blocks from the hospital.

"Umm - get out of the car," Max muttered. "And - all hold hands?" He sounded embarassed about that.

"Even me?" Liz asked.

"Umm..." Max thought about that. "Alex and Maria and I should ring - but you can grab one of my joined hands so that you're in the circuit too."

She smiled slightly. "Okay."

"I'm still not convinced about this skirt," Maria muttered. She'd changed into some clothes that had been left behind at Michael's at some point in the last few weeks, (nobody was asking about the exact circumstances of THAT,) but her hair was still long, straight, and dark. "Too short for a serious mission?"

"It's fine, Maria," Alex told her for the third time. "Okay, let's do this." They formed up the pattern as Max had indicated, a triangle with an extra blob hanging off of it sort of, and everybody concentrated. "Yeah, I'm getting something."

"Me too," Maria said, smiling. They're - umm..." Not wanting to break the formation to point with her hands, she ended up nodding as clearly as she could.

"What??" Alex blinked in surprise. "No, the bead that I've got is thataway."

"Yeah, your links are going different ways," Max agreed. "And they're probably tangling each other up some, so that neither of you are as on-target as you would be alone. Sorry, I didn't expect that. Isabel and Michael are clearly NOT together."

"So - so what now?" Liz asked.

"Michael was the one who was shot," Maria said. "Without any other piece of info, we need to find him first."

Max looked at Alex. "Umm... yeah, I won't argue with that logic," he said. "How far away should I get, to not tangle Maria's link up?"

"Maybe two blocks," Max said. "And it'll take a while for the energy to sort back out.

"We don't have time for that!" Liz exclaimed suddenly. "Look!"

A man in a blue suit had just turned the corner and started walking in their general direction, on the other side of the street. He was very definitely carrying something shiny. "Oh, crap," Maria muttered. "If it isn't one thing, it's another."

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Seventeen

"Okay, everybody keep calm," Max whispered with so much sudden confidence and authority that Liz instantly trusted him twice as much as usual. "Not a trace of panic, nobody move too quickly, but let's all head back to the car and see what he does."

"Alright," Maria whispered, though her voice trembled. The four of them shifted around enough to completely obliterate any trace of the unusual arrangement that they'd been in a moment ago before getting halfway to the wheels. By unspoken agreement, none of them looked in the direction of the man in the suit.

Max was just reaching for his door handle when the Special unit agent, (or alleged agent? suspected agent??) spoke up. "Just a moment, sir."

Liz nearly froze, but Max replied, "Sorry, buddy, I'm kinduv in a hurry," so offhandedly that Alex had to stifle a snicker. As Liz climbed into the front passenger seat, she risked just one look at the enemy, and was delighted to see how flummoxed he was that Max had resisted his voice of authority without even appearing to notice it. Probably there had been no specific instructions for this sort of thing in his mission briefing, and he wasn't sure if he could openly use the FBI's name in an attempt to intimidate.

Max drove away as soon as Maria, the last of them, was inside the car, before she'd taken her proper seat or closed the door, never mind buckling up. "What's he doing?" Alex asked, trying to turn around enough to look behind the car.

"Not sure... I think he might be wondering about trying to break into a parked car to chase us with," Liz said softly, allowing a few giggles out. "Apparently not worth the risk - he headed off where he came from."

"Yeah, but I don't think that that routine will work more than once," Max said darkly. "I'm not sure that we can afford to split up, but if not - Maria can't find Michael."

"Okay, wait, let's think about this," Maria put in. "You said that my link to Michael was tangled up in Alex's link to Isabel. Isn't there some way to unsnarl the tangle, or whatever, without having to pull Alex and I apart?"

"Sounds sensible to me," Alex put in.

"Hmm..." Max considered it. "Maybe if I'm not trying to use your links at the same time, that's all that it would take.We still need a pretty safe place to hole up and figure things out, though, if there are FBI agents running around."

"Or Special Unit, to whatever extent that's different from FBI," Liz added.

"It's a subset, not a distinct entity," Alex put in helpfully. Maria gave him about half of a groan - and then gasped.

"A safe place... I'd forgotten this in all of the confusion. The Pod Cave that Tess showed us to. It, umm, it would probably be out of the way in terms of just going there to do an alien tracking thing - but Nasedo might have gone there if *he* wanted a safe place to lie low, and taken Michael or Isabel with him. Or maybe one of them might have gone there themselves"

"Wait a second," Liz put in. "Pod cave, as in the suspended animation pods that Max told me about? Where they all emerged like ten years ago?"

"Yes, including Tess," Alex put in. "It's a good lead to keep in mind, but maybe you should try the tracking routine first, Max"

"Did either of you happen to pay close enough attention to lead me to this chamber yourselves?" Max asked. Maria shook her head, and Alex waved a hand back and forth like a see-saw. "Oh, great."

"And if we can find it... well, I guess Max can see if he can use the handprint trick to get in," Maria said. "Tess mentioned to Michael that he should be able to - not sure about Isabel."

"Yeah, I think it's supposed to be all five of them at least," Alex agreed. "Probably Nasedo too - I mean, somebody had to dump them - and you, Max - in there before they came out of the pods. If not Nasedo, it was probably someone like him."

"Well, let's not worry about it," Liz said. "How about heading out of town? Frazier woods again??"

"I dunno, as crazy as the town might be, there are people around who might stop the Special Unit from doing anything too crazy," Maria argued. "Out in the woods - I just have this picture of us getting mobbed by federal agents like they're something out of a zombie movie."

"Oh, please, let's not bring zombie movies into this," Alex and Max said almost in unison. Liz sighed.

-------------

After arguing about it for far too long, they ended up continuing to drive *through* Frazier woods, (taking the most isolated backroads they could out of town in order to spot anybody who might be following them,) and up to the old Mesaliko reservation. When Max parked the car near the old Cave, they could all see that a figure was sitting maybe ten feet away from the opening, on a sort of a stool made from a hollow tree trunk.

"River Dog," Liz said as she got out. "Umm... are we disturbing you or something?"

"No," the old Indian said with a slight smile. "In fact, I think that maybe I was waiting for you without realizing it. Don't ask how. Danger is looming over you and your friends, is that it?"

"Yeah, you could say that," Max said. "People who *really* don't like visitors."

"Ahh, it has ever been thus," River dog managed to chuckle softly. "As in my day, when the tribal elders thought that my friend was an evil spirit." He sighed. "Since the death of Atherton, I've been wondering if they are right. And now, there are people who have come to the town who also think that you children are wicked?"

"Yeah, I guess that's a good way to put it," Alex said. "And, well, as much as we'd like to talk, maybe Max and Maria should get started with the real reason why we came here."

"Yeah, that does make sense," Liz agreed. "Where's good, Max? Right here between the cave opening and the car?"

"Sure I guess."

"And do you want me near, or to go off with Alex and River Dog?"

Max smiled and reached out for her hand. "I... I always want you near." Liz couldn't resist grinning at that as well. "And that's the best way to keep OUR link from tangling up with Maria's. As long as we're touching, the lines of connection retract to nearly nothing."

"Okay." Liz turned around to smile a small apology over to Alex, but he was already walking away with River Dog, apparently trying to catch him up on everything that had happened recently - which would take several hours at least, Liz guessed. Max reached out his two hands, and each of the girls took one. Liz strained her own senses, but couldn't detect any trace of the link that Max spoke of.

"Hmm... I'm not sure actually," Max said after a long time. "He... he's in town I think, somewhere on the south side, inside... inside a house or some other building, probably under ground level. Maybe... maybe in the vicinity of ten blocks west of his apartment, but there's quite a margin for error there. I'd hate to have to search an area like that with the Special Unit chasing us."

"Maybe... maybe if we could get closer, we'd be able to trace him down better than that," Maria suggested.

"Yes, but... but there's something interfering with our senses that proximity won't help," Max told her slowly. "And... and as much as I'm worried about Michael too, I think that it's worth trying for Isabel with Alex. If we can find her, then we're stronger against the Unit, and can search for Michael better."

"Eeyh... yeah, that makes some sense I guess," Maria muttered after a long moment. "If you want backup, then maybe we should talk about busting Tess out of the clink too."

"It may come to that," Liz muttered. "But Isabel's powers would be necessary there too. Max can't get anybody out of the jail with just our help." She took a breath. "And I'll go get Alex I guess."

"Sure," Max said, but his eyes on her insisted, 'Even out here, be careful.' Liz certainly intended to. But there was no apparent danger as she went off to the two guys, now chatting at the edge of a patch of trees, and explained the situation. Alex came back eagerly enough, once Maria had gone back to the car and driven it a little further away.

"Okay, yes, this is clearer," Max said, almost apologetically. "Isabel's..."

"...doing okay, and healthy, though she's scared," Alex filled in, his eyes wide with the sensations of the connection Max was giving him. "Somewhere north and a bit east of here... it could be the Pod cave, actually."

"Okay, what do you think?" Max asked, turning to look at Liz.

"Err..." Liz sighed, trying to weigh the feelings of her two best friends - and Max, who was also torn between his own best-ests. "I support going to look for Isabel first, but we should probably check with Isabel first."

"Now?" River dog asked, starting her - she hadn't realized that he had gotten so close to them. "Will you not remain and rest here, to prepare for the trials to come? I will be able to provide some good food..."

Alex and Max exchanged a glance. "I... I'd love to stay," Max insisted, "but there simply isn't any way to stay if we're going to be in time to help our friends. Once everybody's together - we'll come back, if we safely can."

"Very well. Is there anything else I can do to be of help?"

"The cave map," Alex said suddenly. "Tess said something about that too, Max, Liz: it's a treasure map as much as anything. The pod cave, the orb, and this book of hers were all marked on it. Maybe something on there will give us an edge we need against the Special Unit - a weapon."

"Hmm." Max considered that. "Yeah, we can take a look - my own sketches of the map are back in my room at the house. But we can't take the time to draw it all out again."

"Not sure if we're going to be that much wiser for taking a quick look, but okay," Liz agreed, and they headed inside the opening mouth.

"Okay, so if this is the pod cave," Alex said, pointing to one icon, "this is the library in town, and this is the radio tower where you found the orb... then this one would be where we are right now." He sighed. "The other spots are mostly south and west of town, to varying distances. I'm not sure how Michael was able to work things out precisely enough to identify the library though, on this scale."

"Maybe we'll have to wait until we find him to find out," Liz admitted.

"Come on guys, what's the hold-up?" Maria grumped as she stomped into the cave.

"Umm, Alex suggested that we should examine the map here," Max said. "And... well, if it's okay with you, we're going to try looking for Isabel first. She's probably at the Pod cave."

"Hmmm." Maria considered that. "Is there any way to get there without going back down to the seventy and through town?" Liz looked around, realizing that nobody else had thought of that detail. "I don't know of any through road to the two-eighty-five north from here."

"No, but there's a sort of trail that you can follow," River Dog put in. "Would've been better with your old car, the Jeep, but this one should be able to make it." Max's face quirked into an odd smile - probably that was the sort of thing he'd never expected to hear an old Indian man say.

"One thing, first," Alex put in. "I left my camera back in the car - want to take a picture of the map before we go. Umm, if that's alright with you, River Dog..."

"It's not really my cave or my map," he pointed out. "You're entitled."

"Okay, yeah, that makes sense," Max agreed, and Alex went off to fetch it. "So how do we get to this track, River Dog?"

-------------

"Okay, umm, I think that from here we turn off the side road..." Alex started to say.

"About where that blue unmarked sedan is parked?" Liz said, pointing. Maria gasped.

"Okay, careful," Max said. "Sheesh, it'd have been better for somebody else to drive so that I could concentrate on something else."

"Keep going through," Maria said. "We'll look to see if anybody's in the car."

"I think that the windows are tinted," Alex pointed out.

"Just shaded a bit," Liz replied. "It's worth a try. If there's nothing conclusive, then we can turn around and try with somebody else driving so that Max can use alien senses."

But when they drove past, Liz and Alex both agreed that the car seemed to be empty, while Maria wasn't entirely sure. Max pulled a quick three-point turn and returned to park across the roughly defined turnoff onto a gravel track. Everybody seemed to get out at once.

"Okay, all of you stay back," Max said. "I'll go and check it out."

"Not a chance," Liz insisted. "You may have extra abilities, but you're in the MOST danger out of any of us if the Special Unit is around."

"I'll do it," Alex suggested, and nobody argued with him. He circled around the car, peering in through the windows, and then came back to report. "Nobody there, nothing else to be worried about," he said. "There's some kind of a radio hookup in the console, and one of those flashing light berries that you can stick on top of the roof, so it makes sense that this is an FBI 'unmarked car'. Beyond that - no other weapons or cameras or anything that I could see."

"Alright," Max insisted. "I'll zap the tires just in case, and we shouldn't leave our wheels here either. Park up the road a way?"

"We could try driving a bit closer to the hill," Maria suggested. "I don't know why they'd have parked here, unless they weren't too sure where they were going. There are plenty of little rocky outcroppings that we could hide the car behind..."

"Okay, sure," Liz said. "But VERY careful now - we don't know when danger might next pop its head up. Maria, you wanna take the wheel?"

"Sure, I'm drivey-girl," Maria agreed. Max took the shotgun with no comment, and Liz fought down a slight push of jealousy - it made a lot of sense for him to be there, as it gave him the most visibility out the front to react to any danger. And she had asked Maria to drive because she still wasn't too confident and natural behind the wheel. She got into the backseat behind Max and started watching out behind them and to the side.

"What should we do if we find someone?" Alex asked. "An armed agent, I mean."

"Duck?" Maria suggested succintly.

"I can try to use my powers to pull one person off balance, knock them down," Max suggested a little uncertainly. "Not sure about more than one at once."

"Too bad you don't have an alien force field or something like that," Liz suggested. "You might be able to deflect bullets, but that's probably really tricky."

"Yeah, don't give me too many ideas just at the moment," Max muttered. "I know that you're just trying to be helpful, but..."

"What about creating something like a bright flash of light?" Alex suggested. "That could be distracting."

"Hmm." Max thought about that. "Maybe, but I think I could only generate it with my hand. So... so if I lift up my hand towards an enemy, look away from it and shield your eyes if you can."

"Good thing to warn us about, yeah," Maria muttered. "And, oooh, we've got a bogey, so give it a try!!"

"Where?" Max asked, and Maria pointed off in front of the car and bearing to the left. Max stretched out his left arm, and Liz was thrown towards his seat as Maria applied the brakes. That cut off her own line of sight to the burst of light that ensued, and probably Alex's as well. Liz hoped that Maria had been able to shield her eyes as well, since she was behind the wheel.

"I... I couldn't cover myself in time," Max muttered, and Liz choked back a snort, reaching past the seat to rub his shoulder comfortingly. "What's going on?"

"I... I think that he's sort of dazzled, but still waving a gun in our direction," Alex said, concern in his voice. "As, as soon as you can focus already, time to try that pushing trick I think." Liz looked between the seats and tried to see the gunman herself, a sinking sensation of deja vu hitting her. (Well, at least Max was right there ~~to heal her again if she got shot this time, assuming that he didn't get shot himself, or...)

She spotted him, saw the man in the black suit point a mean-looking black revolver straight at the car... and then suddenly the little gun was flying far away. There was a *bang* sound in the distance at just about the same time that it would have hit the desert floor... did the impact make it fire? As the agent was just starting to react to the surprise of that event, suddenly he sprawled to the hard sand himself, pushed forward and held down by an invisible and inhuman hand.

Liz threw open her door and rushed toward the temporarily incapacitated man without thinking about her own safety, and ignoring Max's screams of frustration when he realized that she was throwing herself into the path of danger. Mister Special Unit was swearing loudly and struggling as she approached, but seemed unable to rise or do much more than squirm around. He'd tried to reach for something in a pocket or at his belt, and Liz froze, but suddenly both hands were yanked out and held away from his body. That just increased Liz's determination. Max wouldn't be able to hold the man like this for long, she could tell. She'd have to finish getting the job done.

She searched the man's belt herself, roughly, and laughed in fierce triumph when she found a pair of handcuffs there. Quickly and roughly she locked one of her captive's restraints into the shackles, but had to wait for Max to figure out what she was doing before she could get the other arm close enough. And then, Max had let go of both arms, and Liz was only holding the one. The fingers of the man's other hand seized around her ankle and the cuff of Liz's blue jeans, squeezing so hard that she felt the circulation in that foot restricted immediately, and struggled to keep her balance.

That was just when Alex came to the scene - she hadn't noticed him running out after her, or what he'd been carrying. It was a bulky green rounded disk, perhaps eighteen inches wide all around and three and a half thick, and it made an impressive THUNK when Alex threw it down onto the agent's head. Liz had to let you a snicker at the irony as she wrenched her... no, wait a second, that WASN'T irony. Just something being humorously fitting. A ufo hunter being knocked out by a heavy model flying saucer, probably a demonstration piece that Amy DeLuca had been carrying around in the car to show to clients. She finished cuffing the guy's hands behind his back.

And then, once that was done, her thoughts returned immediately to Max, and she rushed back to the car to reassure him and see if there was anything that she could do about his eyes. He had gotten out of the car himself by this point, though he was leaning on the car door as he stood like he were unsteady or dizzy. "Your eyes, Max - how bad is..."

"Not really too bad at this point," he said, not especially convincingly. "Like I looked into the setting sun for too long or something like that. I've got spots in front of my eyes, and a bit of a headache, but I'm alright otherwise."

"That won't do if we need you in tip top shape for a confronation with another agent," Liz pointed out, conflicted about how she was pushing him. "Can... could you use your powers on yourself? Heal your retinas, or whatever other part of your eyes got damaged?"

"I - I've never been able to heal myself before, Liz," he whispered in a low voice. "I've tried before - once when Michael and I were... well, we were exploring out in the desert, looking for this pod cave actually. I lost my balance, fell down into a gully and broke my leg in three places. I tried to fix that so bad, because nobody knew that I'd been hurt, and I wanted to keep Isabel or my parents from finding out - but it was like my powers didn't face the right way. Michael was able to fix me up a bit with his own powers, not a true healing job but a molecular connection of the calcium and what-all in the bones. That won't help this time."

"No," Liz breathed softly, and leapt at a slim chance. "Okay, then put your arms around me."

"Umm... not that I object to the opportunity, but why now?" he mumbled, embracing her.

"Because maybe if this link between us is strong enough, I can do for you what you can't do for yourself," she whispered. "Hold me as tight as you can, and concentrate on how much you love and trust me. Try to... to send me your gift, just for a moment. Long enough for me to..."

And then, in the middle of Max's strong arms holding her, she felt his powers coming into her, and gasped out loud with the sensation of it. It took an effort of will to not experiment with more than Max had needed to entrust her with... she smiled as she looked into his eyes, and felt how the tissue of the retina, the 'recording film' of each eye had been burned in just a few spots where the glare of the intense light had been focused for far too long. The cells there, the rods and cones, were already struggling to repair themselves, but Liz could accelerate the processes involved - feeding those who had suffered only light damage more blood and stimulating the processes of self-rejuvenation involved. For the more badly burned cells, the ones that were dying... was it possible to stimulate division in retinal cells? She knew that nerve cells couldn't divide once they were mature, and these light-sensitive organs were similar to nervous tissue, but...

The retinal cells were multiplying to make up their losses, already. Liz wasn't sure if she had been mistaken in drawing her simile, or if Max's powers made those conditions irrelevant, or if perhaps Max's eyes were different enough from a human's to make the difference. But he'd be okay now, and within just a few moments...

No, she couldn't assume that much without probing deeper. The retina wasn't as far as she needed to probe - an overload that the retinal cells themselves were strong enough to generate could damage nerve cells along the optic channel, or even in the visual center of the brain. Liz didn't intend to muck with much inside Max's brain without understanding more of what she was doing, but she could look for clearly damaged nerve cells and try to help wherever she could.

After another long moment, she broke the connection with him, receiving a rush of images from him just at the end of that contact, mostly of their big escape together, and smiled back at him, not wanting to move out of his embracing arms just yet. "Wow," he muttered. "That was... I didn't realize that we could do anything like tha..."

"Yeah, I know," Liz breathed, and sighed - they really did have other things they needed to do other than moon into each other's eyes any more. "This... this might sound callous, but I've thought of another way you could use your powers in a fight. It - it's a bit callous, and risky because you'd need to be able to touch the person who you want to attack, but..."

"Combat by connection?" Max asked her softly, his body trembling slightly.

"Oh... you've thought of that one too?"

"Well, yeah. I think it might have been Michael who came up with the idea first, and asked Isabel and I what we thought of it. Umm... around the time that we went up to see River Dog the first time, with FBI agents watching what was going on." He sighed, and let her go so that they could get back inside the car. "There are other issues, though. If I'm connected to somebody, then I feel what they feel - more intensely than they do, maybe."

"Yeah, I see that now," Liz breathed. She hadn't put it into words, but she had felt the discomfort of Max's eyes when she'd been linked to him. "And so, if you hurt or kill someone - it would be like attacking a part of yourself."

"Yes," he agreed. "But if I need to do that... then somehow I'll find a way." He turned over to Maria. "Maybe we'd better hide the car and go on foot from here. Easier to get the element of surprise that way, I think."

"Right," Maria sighed, trying to drive the sedan off level track and towards a likely-looking peak. "Roger, willco."

------------

"Yeah, I'm sure that it's *that* hill," Alex said, pointing through another rock face that the four of them were taking cover behind. "It has a very distinctive shape. There's a footpath that goes up it, and just before the path ends there's the spot where Tess used her handprint to get inside."

"Alright," Max said, nodding grimly at the news. "Well, I'm not sure about Isabel at the moment, but there are two people on that hill - humans. Carrying firearms, so likely Special Unit. And I'm not sure if I can overpower two at once." His face looked more discouraged than just 'not sure.'

"Well, we've got to do something," Liz insisted. "Isabel's probably inside, and they tracked her there or something. Trying to wait her out, see if she gets hungry or thirsty or just plain tired of waiting." She took a deep breath and looked up at Max. "Maybe I could create a diversion, help you get the upper hand that way."

"What??" Max reached out to hold her by the shoulder, not gripping hard, but very protectively. "I... I couldn't possibly let anything happen to you, Liz - you know that."

"I appreciate the sentiment, Max, but seriously - we're all going to have risks if we don't want to get hurt later on. Nasedo made Maria look like me, and I'm sure he'd have had his reasons. The special unit knows about who I am, what happened to me on the day of the shooting, and they're curious about it."

"Yeah, Topolsky said something like that too," Alex agreed softly. "Before she, well... you know."

"I do," Liz agreed. "So, by extension, they're not going to shoot me out of hand or do anything else really vehement. These guys will recognize me and try to take me alive without hurting me... and then you'll make your move and save me, like the knight in shiny armor that you are." She gave him the cutest look she could muster on short notice. "And, if necessary, I'll take the element of surprise after YOU'VE gone, incapacitate the second one however I can." Her mood grew even more serious. "I don't like the notion of killing anybody, but we shouldn't leave them just 'unharmed but tied up' after they've figured out that something's more important here."

"I don't want to kill people just because they happened to find something," Maria put in. "Sounds way too much like the sort of thing that all of us hated about the Sheila Hubble story. Maybe someday somebody's going to hear about what we do today and judge us for it."

"And they're probably not going to hear the whole story from our side," Alex pointed out. "But I know what you mean. And if we just hurt them and leave them alive, wouldn't it make somebody else in the Special Unit curious about why??"

"We don't have time to worry about this," Max muttered. "Liz, if you're going to go divert, then go." Liz kissed him quickly, and then rushed over to a spot near the base of the footpath, where at least one of the climbers could see her. Yeah, there was the second, both of them just kind of waiting around with guns drawn.

"Hey up there!" Liz called out. "Umm, could you help me out with a little roadside breakdown? I'm not quite sure what's wrong, but my cell phone isn't getting a signal, and..."

Yeah, that was enough to do the trick. Guy number one was heading down towards her, gun holstered so as to be able to use both hands to restrain her, while number two, higher up, was covering her with his own piece. Okay, Max, how are you going to play it, she wondered. If it had been Liz in his place, she'd have concentrated her powers on buddy two with the gun, used as much of a push as she could to knock it against... no, pull it AWAY from the rock so that it would land somewhere far away on the desert floor. Then Liz woulc have to react fast - should he wait until they were within reach of each other? No, not quite.

"Watch out!" Totally surprised, Liz turned to see that Maria had followed her out. "Don't trust her, she's trying to get past you. I think that you should shoot her now."

"Hey!" Liz screamed, and just barely managed to stop herself from yelling 'Maria, what the hell do you think you're doing?' One possible answer was that she was trying to magnify the diversion and use a bit of reverse psychology to completely confuse the agents...

"Waaah!" Oh, there was her cue... very impressive, Max, Liz had to admit to herself. The black, slightly shiny gun was arcing through the air just about as perfectly as she might have wished, and the guy who was just out of arm's reach had no clue what was going on yet. So - how did she do this? Going for the crotch automatically was tempting, but Liz wasn't sure if she could pull that off just from a logistic point of view. Instead she carefully balanced on her left foot and drove the other one as solidly as she could into Buddy's leg, landing just above his knee.

It wasn't a particularly impressive result for the first time she'd ever really kicked somebody in earnest. He grunted a little bit in discomfort and gave Liz a stunned look like 'What did you think that you were going to accomplish with that?' And that was just when Maria literally charged straight into him with a flying bodyblock that sent both of them sprawling to the ground.

Liz, as the only person on the scene who had kept her balance, watched carefully for an opening to make a second move, hopefully more successfully. Sheesh, she should try to grab something that could be used as an effective weapon, but there wasn't one readily available to hand, not even a decent-sized rock free - there were some that were way too small to be effective, and others that were much too big to be moved easily, but that was the selection. Did the 'throw sand in the other guy's eyes' trick really work with any reasonable frequency?

But the agent was trying to grab Maria's legs, from a position where he was sort of sitting on his side, and Liz had no time to think more about weapons. Instead, she quickly realized that this was an opportunity to try a failed tactic under much better circumstances - she stepped forward and let a vigorous toe kick fly right into the guy's face. She wasn't wearing sharply pointed shoes or anything, but the impact seemed to be more satisfying, and he yelled out in pain and frustration and let Maria go. So that seemed like something worthwhile. On the other hand, he hadn't been disabled yet, and he still had a gun holstered in his belt, if he could get the presence of mind to pull it. Could Liz dare to reach for it herself??

While she was hesitating, Max brushed past her at a jog and reached out for the man's slightly flailey hand. Liz hadn't even realized that he was approaching, but she was actually glad of it. It hardly seemed to even take a second before the blue-suited man who had frightened her so much was knocked quite unconscious, lying still on the sand.

"Wow," Liz breathed. "Umm, if I could ask..."

"Carotid arteries," Max mentioned. "Don't even need to pinch. Just sort of slow the blood flow down a bit."

She shook her head. "Not what I was gonna ask. About the other guy - what happened to him?"

"Oh, you didn't see that?" Maria asked, struggling to her own feet. "Max pitched him off the rock. Probably made a splat when he landed." Liz turned to look at Max, surprised by the idea of Max doing something so brutal-sounding. She noticed that Alex had come out from behind cover to join them.

"I... I didn't know what else to do in the time I had," Max blurted out, sounding a little nervous. "He could have charged you or... well, I was a little worried that he had a backup weapon of some sort."

"Well, it's okay by me," Liz assured him. "What do we do with this guy?"

"Don't suppose that we could lock him up inside the Pod cave?" Alex asked wistfully.

"Hmm... no, there's too much that he might be able to mess up in there," Max said darkly.

"Like what?" Maria asked. "A bunch of old incubation pods?"

"Not sure, but that's not all that's in the cave," Max told her. "Don't ask me how I know." His gaze returned to the unconscious Special unit guy. "If there's any other caves around here, though, I'd just love to Amontillado him up in one of them."

"Oh, god..." Liz breathed, her eyes widening as she thought of such a fate. "Leave him enough of a hole to breathe through, at least."

"Come on, that'll take too long," Alex insisted. "Will he stay out of it for a while, Max?"

"I... I'm not sure," he admitted. "Never done this before. But... but you want me to go up and open the door to let Isabel know it's okay to come out, right??"

"I think that's obvious enough I don't need to confirm it," Alex pointed out, and Max sighed.

"It's a good thing that all of these guys carry around handcuffs," Maria pointed out, bending down over the body. Max rolled his eyes slightly, but didn't complain when Maria cuffed the agent's wrists together.

"I'll go up the hill with you," Liz said to Max and Alex. She wanted to take a look for the other agent, though, and see how badly he seemed to be hurt.

-----------

"Eesh, yeah, he's not getting up anytime soon," Isabel said, as she stood next to Alex with their arms around each other, peering off the path into the desert and seeing a small slightly crumpled figure laying there in a blue dress suit. The pod cave door rumbled shut again. (This was after the big relieved embrace between Isabel and Alex when they first saw each other.) "And oh, boy, Max, am I ever glad to see you!" She tried to hug Max as well without entirely letting go of Alex, and the result was a kind of odd one-armed neck lock until Alex let go of his teenage-fuy nervousness and made it into an actual group hug. "Oh, and you too, Liz."

"Nice to know I fit in somewhere," Liz joked, as Max pulled her into the huddle between himself and Alex.

"Come on, cut me a break, it's been a very stressful... day or something like that. Oh, is Maria okay..." Isabel asked, starting to look around.

Liz looked back over her shoulder and saw her best friend coming up the path, though she still didn't look entirely like herself yet. "Yeah, here she is." Though Liz would have actually liked to have a group hug with the five of them, there wasn't exactly plenty of room, and so they sort of ranged out into a very lumpy circle instead, still going Isabel-Max-Liz, now to Maria, then Alex, and back to Isabel. "Umm, is there anything we should do inside the pod cave Isabel, or just get out of here now that we've found you?"

"No, god, I don't want to see any more of that place," Isabel muttered quickly. Alex raised an eyebrow. "That wouldn't stop me if I thought of something that really needed doing, but... oh, crap."

"What is it," Max asked his sister quietly.

"Well, I don't know if it's anything that we can *do*, but I should show you guys something I found at least. Either Tess doesn't know about it, or she didn't make a point of showing us even if we asked 'is there anything more to this place than the obvious?'"

"Well, come on then," Alex said, reaching out for Isabel's hand with his own. Her ususally cool facade was seriously cracking by now, and it wasn't hard for any of them to tell that after being trapped in the cave for who-knew how many hours, she wasn't eager to go inside again. But she worked the door again using her handprint without visibly shaking or anything, and all of them filed in. Neither Max nor Liz had gotten a very good look inside, since nearly as soon as they'd opened the door and called in to Isabel to reassure her that they weren't FBI agents hunting her, she had barrelled outside to meet them.

"Hmm, okay, let's see... I guess I'm going to have to go down and crawl through there again to trigger the door," Isabel said with a sigh, pointing to one of the busted-out pod assemblies as floor level, the outlines of which made a sort of tunnel big enough for a person to enter on their hands and knees.

"Well, I think that out of the four of us, I'm the only one who's going to pay any attention to your ass, honey," Alex put in with a quick peck on her cheek. "And I'm sort of entitled to at this point."

Isabel shook her head, but couldn't wipe a smile off of her face, and she kissed him back. Liz happened to notice that Max was deliberately keeping his eyes off his sister and her rear end as she got herself into position, and couldn't help sneak one peek herself just out of curiosity. Yeah, not a bad butt. The designer jeans didn't hurt at all, of course.

"There's a sort of a release switch back here - why they put it so out of the way I don't know, unless it was deliberately to keep anyone from discovering it accidentally. Even I was in here a long time before I got bored enough to blunder across it."

Suddenly there was a soft grinding, as of a wall moving aside. Isabel didn't crawl back through - instead she stood up in a space that hadn't really been available a moment ago, and walked out of view behind a bank of the pod equipment, probably incubator life support stuff. Suddenly Liz realized that if they walked to the other end of that wall... they would meet up with her, around the entrance into a new passageway that had just been revealed where no hint had occured before. She and Max moved at the same point, and Alex followed with Maria bringing up the rear moodily.

Soon they were at the end of the short passage, and when Isabel moved within range, another door slid up, revealing a strange room dominated by a large upside-down metal cone, humming softly. It had to be nine or ten feet tall, Liz guessed, and around four or five feet wide at the top.

"How does it balance on a point like that?" Alex asked, curious.

"No clue," Isabel answered. "I've tried touching it, waving my hand around for more palmprint controls and so on, but nothing. No idea what it means, what it does, or even what it is beyond the fact that it's obviously..."

"A significant alien artifact," Max filled in. "Okay, yeah. I *do* wonder whether Tess could explain any more about this, or if maybe we should keep its discovery a secret from her."

"Hey, wait a second." Isabel suddenly turned to face the others. "What happened to Tess? Why isn't she with you?"

"Oh... she's with the sheriff," Liz said quickly, realizing that there was probably a lot that they needed to tell Isabel, if she could manage to sort out the truly important from the trivial. "Being held as a material witness."

"What if he gives her up to the Special Unit?" Isabel asked, genuine concern on her face. "I wouldn't wish that on anybody, and it might be bad for us if they can actually make her talk."

"I don't think that Valenti will be verry eager at all to co-operate with the FBI or anybody else, especially this 'Special Unit'," Max said. "Maybe a year ago, but not now. They burned their bridges with him. Plus - well, he covered for me with the Hubble thing. I'm sure that he was trying to protect me, my secret."

"Until he can find it out for himself," Maria put in. "That much fits at least."

"But now that we've got you," Liz said, with a bit of a smile. "Now we can think about breaking Tess out of the clink."

"What about Michael?" Maria nearly wailed.

"I... I think that Michael may be the hardest one to save," Max said slowly to her. "I know that it's hard to wait. We're GOING to get him back safe." He took a big breath. "But if we can get Tess' help first, that's probably for the best."

"Aright," Liz put in. "I've been thinking about this. We'll need a plan that's quick, bold, and unexpected. Get her, get out of there before anybode realizes what's going on, to expose everybody to minimal risk. Got a few ideas, but everybody will have to help ironing out the details."

"Let's talk about it on the way back in to town," Max said, reaching out, and gathering Liz in to his side."

"Wait a second, we're going right back into town?" Alex asked. "Just because we've got Isabel now?"

"Yeah," Liz agreed without a pause. "She can help protect everybody... and there's really no more time for hiding. Come on." And she led the way out of the Cone room.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Eighteen

"Alright, yeah, I think that'll be a workable plan," Max agreed, and looked into the back of the car. "What do you guys think?"

Maria and Isabel exchanged looks. All five of them had crammed into Max's wheels, even though Isabel had a car, (a stolen car, actually,) that she'd driven up to the pod chamber - partly because nobody wanted to show up in the hot wheels, but mostly because they didn't want to divide forces at this point. "It might be okay," Isabel said dubiously. "Not wild about being put on point, but I think I'm up to it. The frustrating thing is Tess' own part in the plan - Alex will need to explain so much to her, especially about how it'll be her job to make sure that Alex and Maria get it out of the building safe after the wall opens up."

"Hmm... okay, yeah, that's a point," Liz said. "Max, do you think that you could put a flash inside Alex, the same way that Tess did?"

"Maybe it'd be better if you had let me *get* that flash," Max said to Alex and Liz. "Then I'd have a better idea how it was done. I take it that you're not comfortable enough in whatever powers you've got to try it yourself, hun?" Liz shook her head silently.

"I... I think that I might be able to," Isabel said. "Nobody's going to use powers on Alex *but* me, anyway."

"Did Tess mention anything about that kind of thing to you?" Maria asked her, and Isabel shook her head.

"I've just got a kind of a feeling - can't really explain it."

"Okay, worth a try," Liz put in. "If that doesn't look like it'll work, we could probably even pass her a note - I mean, Alex could. Things will happen fast enough that the guard won't be able to take it away in time."

"Item number one, make the guard believe he doesn't see this note," Alex suggested.

"Now there's using your head," Maria put in.

"Oh, we didn't get your version of events last night, Isabel," Liz put in. "Before you got up to the cave, I mean. Might be important in helping us put things together and figure out what happened to Michael. I need to remember to ask Tess for hers too."

"Hmm." Isabel looked outside the car - the scenery of the approach to Roswell from the North was already starting to become familiar. "Well, okay I guess. Please keep interruptions to a minimum, though."

-----------

Well, I guess you've heard most of the story up until everybody started heading back into Roswell, so I'll start my story there. There were a lot more people who had joined up with the tail of the chase by that point, but it started with Nasedo and Maria, one unmarked special unit car, Tess and I, and Tim Hanson right behind us. Michael had figured out that Valenti and his deputies were preparing for Nasedo to make a move for the hospital - how they'd worked out that much I'm not quite sure, since the chase was already well underway when he pulled his own trick on David Fisher... Maybe that was the point, that since both things happened at the same time, Valenti assumed there had to be some sort of more direct connection.

So Michael was going to wait nearby the hospital himself and see what he could do when things started to happen. There wasn't anybody bugging any of the cars as we started to get into town - I guess that they didn't want to set up road blocks where they'd inconvenience other drivers and maybe put them in harm's way or anything. So the first thing we saw of trouble was when the shooting started.

It wasn't aimed at us, but when I realized that the car that Maria was in the thick of it I was already plenty scared. Right then the unmarked car in front of us skidded to a halt broadside, and though Tess slammed on the brakes, we crashed into it - not really hard, but worse than a fender bender. And he got out with his own gun, focusing on us, and both of us bailed out of the car.

There was only one of him, though, and Hanson was screeching his brakes too to provide a distraction, so we didn't really have much trouble. Tess pulled the gun away, and I pulled his legs out from under him - we didn't really co-ordinate on that, it just sort of happened, and each of us ran around to see what was happening. By this time Nasedo and Maria had nearly got to the hospital, and he was able to create this sort of blue energy shield to repel the bullets while they dashed the rest of the way. Michael had gotten inside too, but we didn't have it so easy - there were still lots of deputies watching and so on, and we didn't want to get spotted.

~~Tess told me that she had a plan, and I was worried enough about Maria and Michael to go along for it. She started by just playing little tricks on the deputies and a few of the bystanders with her powers - moving things around like a poltergeist, changing a gun into a water pistol by adjusting its molecules somehow, and that kind of thing. And she - did any of you know that she could affect people's senses with her powers directly? She did some of that too, just outrageous stuff, making them see pink elephants and goblins taunting them, that kind of deal.

Once there was enough confusion to be cover in case her abilities slipped for a moment, she made both of us look like guys in deputy's uniforms and nobody really paid much attention when we went into the building. I sort of charmed our way into a security office so that we could see if there was any action already going on inside, and to try to sneak a look at anyone we would recognize on the camera monitors. Tess let the mindwarp drop and turnes us both back into girls for that, though I suppose there's a chance it would have been easier to turn on the charm as a guy.

I think that the security guards were starting to get suspicious, actually, when Tess managed to find Maria on the monitor. Actually, I'm not sure how she recognized her as Liz - we hadn't got a very good look when Nasedo and Maria ran out of their car, and she didn't know you, Liz. I don't think that she knew Nasedo by sight either - he'd changed out of Max form by that point, though Maria was still Liz - probably he either thought he still might need her, or it was too much of a pain to change her back - or both. But she was able to get me to look up at the right time, and I could recognize Liz's face well enough and knew what that meant. Tess memorized the location of the camera and how to get there, and we beat it out of there so fast I'm surprised the rentacops didn't try to detain us, just on general instinct that we were up to no good.

Of course, nobody was around by the time we got up two flights of stairs and into the other wing of the hospital, but by then I could sense Michael around nearby, so we were able to meet up with him and find out that he was following a sort of sense of his own to Maria. We found her, in the end, but we weren't the first ones to.

There was a man, a special agent, but not one of the guys in blue suits. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, to get the advantage of surprise I guess. He'd shot Nasedo, but not really that badly, just a flesh wound in the shoulder or something, and they were doing the Mexican standoff - if Nasedo tried to use his powers or Maria made a move, then the guy would shoot again. If the agent shot, then Nasedo would counterattack with alien energy. Nobody wanted to be the first to set off mutual destruction.

But the agent panicked when he realized that we were coming to help Maria, before any of us really figure out what the deal was. He turned and shot - hitting Michael. Nasedo countered with a kind of energy bolt, which knocked him out and burned him pretty badly I think. I did what I... what I could to help Michael, but without much experience or talent in healing - I'd have lost him if Nasedo didn't come over and help once he was sure that his enemy was well enough taken care of.

We had a hurried war council session heading down that hallway and avoiding a few hospital security guards who had shown up. Michael still wasn't in great shape, though he was in no immediate danger of dying, and when Tess volunteered to stick with him I let her. Nasedo wanted one of us to go and cover the stairwell, so that no new agents could get in that way - preferably by creating a break in the staircase itself. I agreed to go and took Maria along. Michael and Tess went to cover the only other way into the wing, the main doors, and weld them closed if they could. The elevator was out of order, but Nasedo said that he could reactivate it to use as our escape route when he was done. I didn't really want to know about 'done with what?'

Let's see... using my powers on the stairway went pretty well, less trouble than I thought it'd be, although there was a scary moment when the wall started to creak and shake like it was going to collapse inwards. And then - there was another Special unit operative - a woman. She didn't use her regular gun - she had some kind of tranquilizer needle thing and shot me with it. I'm not really clear on what happened with that. Maria might have been hit as well. I think that she tried to get us out via the doors and Tess took her out then.

The next thing I really remember clearly - well, we must have gotten down to the ground floor somehow. The elevator? Yeah... no, not quite. Nasedo got it moving, but somebody - the sheriff, yeah, he'd gotten it counterrigged so that the lift froze between the second and third floors. Nasedo managed to get us all out down on two, instead of up on three where they were waiting, and down stairs.

As we came out of the landing on the ground floor - there was another special unit agent with a weird weapon - some kind of energy pulse thing. Tess stayed behind to hold them off, and got hit. I'm almost a little glad that she's safe in custody, instead of dead or in a special unit lab or something.

Everybody else scattered around this point. Nasedo kept Michael with him. Maria just got into Nasedo's car and started driving north, and I went into the first car I could find, unlocked and started it with my powers, and set off to follow her. Must have lost track of her, being so woozy, and decided to head for the Pod Cave once I realized I was outside of town and there were people following me.

And that's about it, until I found the cone room and you guys rescued me. Which you know about. So I'm shutting up now.

----------

"About time," Maria joked. "So I guess between getting tranquilized with a needle, and catching the edge of that energy weapon that hit Tess, on top of the trauma of getting abducted and shapeshifted, it's not much surprise that I lost my marbles for a bit.

"Yep," Liz said, looking out the windows, and realizing that they were already nearly at the Sheriff's station. "You going to park near here, Max?"

"Umm... yeah, I guess I'd better," he admitted, braking and swerving towards the curb vehemently enough to elicit a loud round of protests, mostly from the back seat. "Alright, so before we review the plan one more time - are there any comments people would like to make or revisions to propose?"

"Oh my god," Liz breathed. "Quick, Max - drive!" For a second he just looked at her, too stunned to reply. "Find another parking spot or anything, but... no, kinduv too late now. What is he doing here?"

And Max realized what was going on only when a man getting on for middle age tapped on the passenger window - Liz's father, Jeff Parker. "Liz? My lord," he called before she'd even started rolling the window down. "What's going on. Why didn't you... I don't know, at least call to tell us you were back in town or something?"

Liz nearly broke down in tears from the mix of relief, frustration, and disappointment in her father's eyes, but as Max squeezed her fingers she felt a small core of resolve form deep inside her gut. No matter how much her parents might be pained at their failure to understand her, the truth was that there were definitely more critical things going on, matters that she couldn't afford to take time out of for walking into an emotional scene with her family. So she did the only thing she could think of and tried to play it cool. "Umm, no big thing, just - well, had a few things to take care of, with - well, my friends. When I had time I was going to... to swing by the old place. Probably."

Jeff's eyes bugged out at the nonchalance she had been able to heap onto him, and Liz flahsed him a tight smile to try and take the sting off without giving him an option to take the initiative. "I love you, Dad, don't ever doubt that. But trust me, you would NOT understand what my life is like lately."

Jeff chuckled hollowly. "I remember when I said something very much like that to your Grandma Claudia - but I didn't expect to get it so soon from you." Liz gasped, all of her coolness sucked away by this... was it a tactic, or just an offhand remark? "You take care of whatever it is you've gotta do, sweetie. I'm not going to fight you on it. But come home as SOON as you can - and we're going to sort this thing out. I am *not* ready to be an empty-nester just yet. Morning Max... and friends."

"Hello Mister Parker," Maria said.

"Maria - is that you? We were worried when you and Michael didn't show up for shift yesterday," Jeff said, and Maria shrugged awkwardly. "Had a hair emergency?"

"What... oh, this?" Maria put her hand up to her long dark curls, which still hadn't been completely changed back from her shapechange experience. "Not really the biggest thing I've had on my mind of late, but..."

"Well, it looks good on you," Jeff said, and stepped back from the window a bit awkwardly before heading along down the sidewalk.

"Are you alright?" Max said, squeezing Liz's hand tightly and warm.

"Yeah, actually... better than I've been since we last left our love nest, at least," Liz whispered. "Didn't think it would go that well. I'm sorry that your folks, um... didn't..."

"It's okay," Max assured her. "I'll work things out with them too. May take a few hints from your own performance there."

"Okay," Isabel said, reminding the two front-seaters that they weren't alone in the vehicle. "Jail-break planning time?"

----------

Alex took a deep breath as he walked into the station and waited in line at the reception desk. After listening to some annoying lady try to register a complaint for disturbing the peace against her neighbor because she didn't like the genre or volume of music he played in the afternoons, Alex stepped up to second place in line behind a grandfatherly man who, it seemed, was interested in paying his son's bail with rare foreign collectible coins. Everyond else had to be far more impatient than he was, Alex realized, and stopped himself from visibly fretting. Nobody, not even the diversions, (who were at least half of the total personnel of this caper,) could make their move until he was in position, and they hadn't really mentioned a contingency like this lineup when drawing up the plans.

Fortunately, this obstacle obviously didn't require anything more difficult than waiting, and they HAD worked out the timing well enough that it could handle this road bump. Finally some sort of arrangement seemed to have been worked out, or - no, the deputy had told the old man that he'd have to speak to the judge who had posted the bail to see if the coins would be a suitable guarantee, but at least that got him away from the desk. "Hello, Whitman." Against all odds, it was the same annoying twenty-something deputy who had let him in to see Tess the last time. Not Tim Hanson - maybe he'd been hurt during all the action last night. "Come back for your little sweetheart?"

"Assuming that her dad hasn't already come by to get her out," Alex said, though he somehow knew that that hadn't happened. If Nasedo had really come to get Tess out, he wouldn't have done it the quiet way, he'd have come in all action star and given the deputies - and the station itself- whatfor. But they were assuming that Nasedo and Michael still had to be lying low on the south side, so low that even Max and Isabel couldn't find the traces of Michael's powers. (But why would Nasedo worry about that? Did the Special Unit have some kind of alien-detector gear that could do the same sort of things as Max could with his sensing of connections?)

"Nope, she's still here and as lonely as ever," the deputy put in, and laughed much too nastily for Alex's tastes. Even if Tess wasn't his girlfriend, or even someone he was particularly fond of at the present moment, he didn't really like to think of anybody helpless against such... such a predatory personality. Then again, even if Tess couldn't get away herself, she was probably more than tough enough to stand up for herself against this kind of... "Hey, you wanna sign yourself in or what?"

"Hmm? Oh, right, of course." So Alex took the pen and signed his usual scrawl of a signature on the visitor's guestbook. "Okay, anything else?"

"Remember, no touching," the guy grumbled. "Umm, Mary, could you bring Alex Whitman here into the lockup? I... well, I just can't be bothered."

Alex looked up and was more than a bit startled. The young woman stepping up to the desk, (and rolling her eyes at the deputy's attitude,) was only a few years older than Alex, and very pretty, with vividly reddish hair. Was she a temp or secretary or something? Alex thought that you had to be a deputy or some other county official to accompany somebody in to see a prisoner. Well, he wasn't going to complain. "Hi, Alex, come with me," she said, gesturing him over to the side.

"Alex!" Tess exclaimed as soon as she saw him coming in. "What... I'm going crazy just sitting in here, not knowing what's going on. I have, um, have so many questions..."

"Well, we haven't found your father yet," Alex said, more for Mary's benefit than Tess', "but Isabel's showed up, and she's okay." Tess actually relaxed slightly at that. "Don't worry, we're going to be getting you out of here - and soon." Suddenly daring, he reached into his pocket and quickly passed a folded up piece of paper through the bars.

"What?" Mary exclaimed, rushing forward. But Alex knew that Tess was already reading the first point that had been written in big and bold letters across the top of the paper. '1: MAKE THE DEPUTYS THINKS THAT THEY DOESN'T SEE THIS PAPER.' Of course, the fact that Mary was obviously not a deputy might be a source of confusion, but the intent should be clear, that it was to refer to any of the station staff who were in the room, anybody but Tess and Alex themselves. As it happened, there weren't any fellow prisoners, which was something that Alex had wondered about while waiting in line. The jail cell for minor male offenders was in a different room, probably so that there wouldn't be much taunting and back-and-forth and so on. Suddenly Alex remembered the night that he and Liz had been picked up - no, Liz hadn't been brought into this room. He wasn't sure why.

So Mary paused when she looked up to demand that Tess hand her the paper - she couldn't see the paper, and maybe didn't even see Tess in a pose where it looked like she was reading something invisible. "What - what just happened here?"

"I was about to reach out and hold Tess' hand," Alex put in, "and then I remembered that that was against the rules, so I didn't."

"You - you took something out of your pocket - a paper. Where is it?"

"I - I don't know what you're talking about," Alex said, trying to just buy Tess time to continue her reading at this point. "Unless - well, unless it was this." He reached into his pocket again - and produced a white hankerchief, thankful that he did have something else in there that just might have believably been confused with the paper. "Needed to take care of something hanging off my nose.

Mary looked at both of them doubtfully - and then Alex pushed her aside violently, not even quite sure why the sudden impulse from the back of his mind told him to do that.

And the back wall of Tess' jail cell fell outward - not the whole wall actually, but certainly a big enough section for a girl Tess' size to walk through. In fact, it would have been big enough for Alex to charge through with his arms stretched out all the way to each side - except that he was on the other side of the bars, which hadn't been affected by the sudden calamity.

"Come on, Tess," Isabel told her. "Remember your job. If you need help walking, I'm right here."

"Good luck, sweetie," Alex said, waving at his girlfriend, and waiting for a wave back before charging back into the main room of the station, wondering what would happen to him next then. The problem, he reflected, was that whatever illusions Tess might create to cover his retreat, he wouldn't see them, just like he could still see the paper when Mary couldn't.

-----------

"Okay, he's on his way," Max said to Maria. "Go." Maria smiled at him slightly, and headed through the sheriff's station doors herself. The plan called for her to not wait at the desk like Alex had, but just to barge into Valenti's office and start yelling at him about something that he'd supposedly done to upset her mother.

"Good luck," Liz called, and turned to Max. "And now we're on too."

"Yeah," Max agreed, looking grave. He hadn't liked this part of the plan, but had been unable to muster much argument against Isabel, Maria, and Liz when they joined forces. The biggest diversion had to be out here, within sight and sound of the station, but far enough away and close enough to the car to make a quick getaway with Alex and Maria. Tess and Isabel would be going in Nasedo's rented convertible, which they had picked up from where it had been parked on the north side of town, since Tess' car had apparently vanished from near the hospital where it had been last seen, possibly taken as evidence by the Special Unit...

Max waved his hand and a horrendously loud burst of sound rang out, quite effectively mimicking a gunshot in Liz's opinion, who still hated that sound ever since an argument had broken out in the Cafe. She could see somebody look out the window in the Sheriff's station, and while they waited for more of a crowd to gather the pair of them quickly slipped on sunglasses and Max gave himself a silly looking mustache and Liz a pretty realistic but fake nose piercing. That was about as much disguise as they would be able to use without compromising their effectiveness as decoys, Alex had said reluctantly - enough that they still looked like themselves but couldn't be convincingly identified from a casual look.

One deputy actually came out of the station doors with his gun pointed right at them, which made both Max and Liz jump. Max put his hands up. "I... I heard it too," he said. "Don't know where the shot came from. I don't have a gun or anything on me."

"I hope you don't mind if I confirm that," the deputy said, moving slowly closer and not wavering his gun for a moment. Max wondered if he should MAKE the gun waver for a moment, but unless he kept that up for a long time he was worried that the deputy would take his next good shot.

"I... I don't think that I can let you do that," Liz said in a sort of a stage mumble. The deputy snarled when he heard her. Okay, that's not good, Max thought to himself.

He knew that he needed to do something, something that would not have the immediate effect of getting one or both of them shot, and hopefully something that would tend in the future to prevent either of them from getting shot. But what? If he could create some sort of shield or energy barrier in the air between them, like the one that Isabel had mentioned Nasedo using, , that would really be just the ticket. But when he concentrated on his powers and visualized that result, he could tell that it wasn't working right, and had to clamp down hard on his sense of the Balance to stifle a shower of sparks that would have startled the deputy and been entirely ineffective at anything else.

And right then, Liz glared at the deputy and twitched her hand - not pointing at him or anything threatening like that, and the gun seemed to explode in his hand. He screamed in pain and threw the handle away from him, staring at them in utter disbelief. Max couldn't help but smile, while waiting nervously to see what he would do next. What he did was to run back into the building, screaming for help.

"Oh, boy," Liz muttered to Max. "He's probably going to bring the rest of the force out with him - or at least send them out in his place. I don't think I can try that trick more than maybe once more. And we don't have a Tess effect planned to help us get out of something like this."

"Hmm, yes," Max muttered, but he was straining to hear something over the general confusion. Yes, there it went, a sort of a faint-ish crashing sound. That would be Isabel making her move. Alex would be heading out through the main room of the station soon, getting Maria to withdraw on the way, and the Tess effects covering *their* escape would help prevent the organization of a posse to chase Liz and himself. But still...

"Maybe we should move out of the way, a little, for instance..." Liz started, and trailed off because it wasn't clear in what direction moving would be good. They were already close enough to the car that moving any closer to it would seem to be a giveaway. Max smiled, taking her hand, and crossed over so that they had moved *past* the wheels and were about as far away from it as before. Just as they got to the mark, he realized that somebody was watching them. One of Kyle's football team buddies - Pauly maybe? Had he seen the deputy come out and confront them, and the gun blow up?

Well, there was no time to really worry about the guy right now. Max turned his attention back to the station, which definitely sounded more like bedlam than an agitated beehive about to send armed workers out to menace them, just for instance. But - but *something* seemed about to happen. He braced himself for quick and decisive action.

A body charged through one of the windows of the building. A big, tall guy in a deputy's uniform, landing on his feet fairly well through the shower of glass. It was pretty clear that he hadn't been thrown through the window, but had charged through it himself. And as Max and Liz watched warily, he grabbed a baton and started vigorously swinging it, pounding the grass, the shrubbery beneath the window, the soapstone bird feeder, and the air around him, to a chorus of 'Die, bee! Take that, killer stinger!!' and so on.

"Tess must have outdone herself with him," Liz said, with a trace of admiration in her tone. "I wonder if he had a bug phobia to start with."

"We've got activity at the door," Max muttered in an undertone. Liz tensed too, wondering if this time they would get an adversary, a friend, or some other poor soul helpless in the grip of alien illusion.

It turned out to be something in between the first and third, a woman who wasn't in uniform, maybe thirty-ish with rich light brown hair, who was crouching down and seemed to be looking out for danger from every side. She noticed Max and Liz but didn't immediately express any defiance to them, or anything at all in words. Liz crept cautiously closer.

"Careful," Max pointed out. "She's got a weapon." Sure enough, this woman had something pistol-shaped clutched in her left hand. Bee-guy seemed to be clubbing less energetically at this point, but brushing and spasming, as if the fantasy bees were climbing all over him.

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Can you tell what? Is it a firearm?"

"Um, no - electrical - a high-voltage line taser or something like that." The realization encouraged Max to get a bit closer himself. He knew that the range of such devices was limited, though he wasn't sure of the exact length of wire included with this model. But if Maria and Alex emerged soon, they would definitely be within range, and he didn't want to put them through that kind of risk.

"So what's the best way to take her out while we're still safe here?" Liz asked softly, and his mind ran through several possible plans of attack. Grinning fiercely, he started by yanking the weapon in her hand with a tremendous tug of force. That didn't work the first time, but when he tried to go the other way it went flying out of her hand. Max and the woman, (was she an undercover special unit agent?) charged towards each other at breakneck speeds, and Max tried the hostile connection ploy with her - not doing any lasting harm, just slowing the carotid blood flow enough to put her to sleep.

And that was when Alex and Maria charged out of the station, with three fairly rational deputies in hot pursuit.

------------

"Oof, yeah," Isabel said as she slammed the door of the black convertible and shot a look back towards the station building, revealing no effective pursuit yet. She had considered actually jumping into the driver's seat dukes of hazzard style, but hadn't been quite sure if she could complete the maneuver gracefully. "Let's go?"

"Yeah, coming," said Tess, who had had to run around the car to get in on the other side. "Just a moment, actually - I think that Alex and Maria haven't quite made their way out of the building yet, and it'll be hard to keep the mindwarps going once you drive off. Distance is starting to become a strain even here."

"Oh, of course," Isabel agreed, pleased that Tess was being so diligent about her assignment of protecting her human friends, given that not so long ago she hadn't seemed to care at all about anyone who wasn't alien. "They're still in there? Has something gone wrong?"

"No, not really I think - just, I was doing all I could to increase the confusion in the big room, as instructed. Would take longer for Alex to get to Valenti's office, signal Maria, and them both to get to the main entrance than for you and I to just run straight over here, even though we had much more distance to cover. Just common sense."

"Alright," Isabel said, and watched as somebody came out of a back door not too far from where she'd altered the station wall into Tess' exit, noticed the hole, and covered it with his gun as if he were expecting somebody to come out of it or attack him from within. That, too, could be part of Tess' admittedly impressive powers. Isabel just hoped that Tess never got it in her head to mindwarp her. Her sense of what was real and what wasn't was shaky enough growing up in this town without adding perception distortion powers into the mix. "Let me know when."

"Umm... yeah, I think we're good now," Tess said after only around fifteen seconds. Isabel had already started the ignition by then, and she moved the car into first and then second gear, driving off into the street. "Sheesh, is this your first time driving a manual?" Tess asked. "I could've taken the wheel, would attract less attention than you."

"I... I know how to do this," Isabel insisted a bit uncertainly. "We had some manuals at the school driver's ed. Just - um, just been a while. And you can't be that great on a stick shift - your Blue-mobile is an automatic."

"No, but... but Nasedo made sure I kept up all kinds of 'survival skills,'" Tess put in. "Auto manual was a pretty good example, actually - in a crisis situation you might need to hotwire a car or something of that sort, and couldn't count on getting one that would run a particular way."

"Oh of course." Isabel couldn't help letting out a harsh chuckle. "He must know all about stealing cars. Did he cover the part about not leaving the owner alive?"

Tess did jump at that reference. "What - what do you mean?"

"I don't suppose the names 'Everett Hubble' and 'Sheila Hubble' mean anything to you?" Isabel asked, and Tess shook her head. "Well, let's see. Everett Hubble came into town several months ago, for the big UFO Convention." Tess snickered. "Yeah, I know, but still. He's got a reputation as a UFO ~~crackpot, but - but a long time ago he was just an ordinary blue collar joe around here. Back in the early seventies I think. Had a wife, Sheila. He was heading off to treat her to a private fireworks show for the fourth of July, stopped in at a Cafe on a country road half an hour west of Roswell, to pick up the matches. And while he was inside, Sheila was killed by a... by a carjacker. One who left her without any sign of the cause of death except a glowing handprint."

"Oh, boy," Tess muttered, and then looked up. "Where are we heading to?"

"The plan is to rendezvous with Max and the others in a park on the south side of town, after making sure that nobody's following us," Isabel put in. "Now, I suppose that there's no proof that it was Ed - the alien posing as your father I mean - who killed Sheila. Hubble made the mistake of fingering Max for it, just because he had alien powers, and I don't want to jump to similar conclusions. Might be more than one shapeshifter running around, as far as that goes, in which case it would be really hard to prove who did what, really. But if it was... I just can't stand the thought of that casual cruelty. No matter how badly he might have needed the car, to get away from someone chasing him maybe - it couldn't have hurt or slowed him down much to spare her life. She - she was pregnant, Tess. The husband was just about a wreck himself - like everything that he'd been living for died inside him and left him empty inside except for the urge to revenge. And - and there were clues pointing to a local drifter. I think whoever killed Sheila had been using his face. Hubble and Sheriff Valenti's father, they tracked down the drifter, and Hubble shot him..."

"ALRIGHT, alright, I get the freakin' point!" Tess snapped. "It - it does sound a bit like him, and I don't really like that he's so - so callous about people from here myself. I know I'm not too warm to - to regular people, but maybe that's just because I don't feel like I ever really know them. Nasedo - sometimes I think he really does hate them because of what the Special Unit put him through." She took a deep breath. "And there's just one more thing that I want to mention. Other people have had their wives and kids murdered without turning into Captain Ahab. If it was so easy for this Everett Hubble guy to go unhinged - shooting the drifter, nearly doing whatever to Max - did he try to kill Max?" Isabel nodded, surprised by this line of thought. "Maybe something else would have set off that - that anger and hatred inside him, even if he'd never met an alien. He might have ended up in jail for brutally beating a football player who broke his son's leg, if they'd had another child, or - or I don't know what else..."

"Okay, well, let's change the subject slightly," Isabel said. "How much do you remember of what happened at the hospital after I got tranked? It's all kind of vague for me. I - I remember you holding the line while we were retreating, and getting hit by the energy weapon or whatever..." she trailed off. "Oh, did that affect your memories too? Sheesh, all of us have some kind of amnesia thing going on it seems."

"No, I think I'm pretty clear on it," Tess said. "How much detail do you want me to go into?"

"Umm - oh, shoot, I think we've got trouble," Isabel muttered, seeing a car turn onto the street behind them at recklessly unsafe speeds. She turned off onto the next side street as calmly as she could and changed up a gear. "Did Nasedo happen to tell you any good evasion tactics for car chase situations?"

"It would really have been SO much easier if you'd let me drive," Tess groaned. "Okay, umm, this is alright I guess - maybe not quite so fast, since we're too noticeable like this. Maybe turn again when we'll next hit a stop sign or traffic light - pick a number from one to four - quick."

"Two," Isabel blurted out automatically.

"Okay, we're turning right, doubling back on our trail," Tess announced. "No arguments."

-------------

"Alright!" Alex exclaimed as they turned into the small parking lot at the edge of the park. "Umm... oh. No black convertible yet."

"Yet," Max said, emphasizing the one-syllable word reassuringly. "We made good time, no sign of trouble or anything. Don't need to get worried that they're really in a jam yet."

"But still - they had to have left before us," Alex said disspiritedly. "How long do we wait for them before panicking?"

"Try something for me," Liz suddenly put in. "The two of you renewed your link not that long ago. Tell us where she is." Alex looked up at her sharply. "Don't come up with reasons why you can't or it won't work. Just believe and DO it."

"Umm... a few blocks... er, thataway," Alex said, pointing off towards the north and west, with a very surprised look on his face. "Driving somewhat - well, not quite erraticaly, but not heading straight here either." He paused, the impact of that settling in. "Maybe there's someone chasing them..."

"Or it could be that they've already lost whoever was after them, probably, but are still being careful," Maria put in. "Let's just wait a moment. Liz, do we have a backup plan in case they're REALLY in trouble?"

"Hmm... not at the moment I think -- Max?" Max grinned fiercely at her, and Liz caught the notion from his expression. "Ambush? Wait from hiding as Isabel's car goes by and then let the following car have it."

"They won't know what hit them," Max confirmed.

"But we don't know what we'll hit them with yet either, do we?" Liz asked.

"I've been thinking about that," Max said. "The energy that I can manipulate with my powers... I should be able to concentrate that and shoot it like a weapon. Bet I could take out some tires at least."

"At which point all the people in the car pile out and chase you," Liz pointed out. "Doesn't sound like such a great plan to me..."

"Well, maybe I can get something with a bit more oomph than just shooting out tires," Max muttered. "I guess I'd need to get to nearly bazooka-level to stop a car and injure everybody inside, huh."

"Bazooka level?" Liz repeated uncertainly. "I wouldn't want to risk that unless it's been tested out under safer conditions..."

"Hey, guys!" Alex interrupted. "You can stop your contingency planning I think - they've stopped with the evasive maneuvers and are heading over towards us." Sure enough, the sound of the convertible could be heard approaching them along Riley street, and soon they could all seet it as well. Isabel jumped out of the driver's seat and hurried over to embrace Alex again, which Liz thought was sweet but possibly a little overdone, unless they'd really had a close call in escaping somebody on the way down here. That reunion was interrupted by a strange moan of anguish from Tess.

It was Maria who approached the alien girl. "Are - are you okay?"

"Is somebody using an alien psychic attack on her or something?" Max wondered, coming over towards the car, Liz's hand in his.

"Umm... not, not really," Tess managed to choke out between what sounded like gut-wrenching sobs. "It - it was just... or is just..." She waved at Max and Liz, but whatver meaning the indication was supposed to convey, it was not immediately clear to at least some of the watching teens. "Gi - gimme a moment, and I'll pull myself together," Tess promised. "We've got work to do, the way I hear it. Nasedo and Michael are in trouble - either still hiding from the Special Unit, pinned down the way Isabel was and not able to move - or maybe they're already in custody."

"No!" Maria nearly shouted the words. "But - but he's on the South side. I thought that if they captured anybody, they'd be taken away to Eagle Rock."

"The Air Force base?" Tess said, nodding in approval at her knowledge of that tidbit. "Yeah, that'd be a strong possibility, but only if they feel really secure. Moving prisoners, especially ones with our natural talents, is always risky. If they didn't have enough people, enough vehicles, or the situation was touchy in some other way, they probably wouldn't bother moving anybody yet." She sighed. "Or... or maybe they have a secure facility on the south side that none of us know about yet."

"Well, I guess the first step is some cautious recon," Isabel said after a moment. "Stay in convoy? Neither set of wheels is really big enough for all six."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "But I'm with you girls."

"You'd better be."

"Right," Liz chimed in. "Maria stays with us, and I'll drive while Max works to boost her connection to Michael. You guys follow, and we'll both park when Maria says we're getting close."

"By this point I think you could do nearly as well as me," Max pointed out to Liz. Tess winced, a confused look on her face.

"But it's Michael we're talking about, so 'nearly' isn't good enough," Maria declared, and on that note they split up into the seperate cars.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Nineteen

Liz looked around, trying to get her bearings as Max drove away from the park that they had used as a rendezvous point with Isabel and Tess. Max just drove, showing no hesitation as he crossed Main street, the dividing line going traight down the middle of town, separating the east side and the west. She turned downtown, northward, trying to catch a glimpse of the UFO center and the Crashdown, but they were much too far away to see anything of them. "How much do you know where we're going, Max?"

"The impression I got was maybe a mile and a half south from here, and four blocks east or so," he reported.

"Is the link with Maria still active?" she asked.

"Not for me, as long as we're not touching," Max put in with a trace of a smile.

"And me... I can sense that Michael is growing near - or that we're coming close to him, rationally it has to be that way around," Maria put in. "But no more - almost like I can sense the 'something' blocking my link with him and trying to leave me confused."

"Sucky," Liz decided. "I almost wish we didn't have to split up into two cars again." She looked back behind her, to where Tess, Isabel, and Alex rode together in Nasedo's black convertible.

"Yeah, but we don't have a car that can really handle six," Maria put in. "Plus, the way Tess looked when she first saw the two of you together, maybe it's a good idea to keep you separated a bit. I'm not sure if she wanted to punch something or cry."

"Maybe a bit of both," Liz mentioned absently.

"Hmm? Do you have any idea what that was about, good friend of mine?"

"Well, a bit. Somebody, maybe it was Isabel, mentioned that Tess seemed inordinately interested in Max and why he wasn't here in town - like she'd had a crush or an emotional fixation on him before she even came to Roswell. Is that right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Maria admitted. "Or like somebody who we uually refer to with an N told her that Max was the one great love of her life."

"Yeah," Liz said. "Well, if she was so focused on Max, then maybe she was able to see something, or sense it with her own powers. Something that's linking Max and me now... that nothing she'll ever be able to do could possibly break." Liz sighed, and wasn't quite able to keep a pleased smirk completely away from her face. "If I'd been in her place, I'd have been upset too."

"But you're not, you're in the place she *thought* she was entitled to, with very little justification," Max put in. "And you deserve it in so many ways."

"No, I think it's you that's worthy of me," Liz replied teaingly.

"And what did I do to deserve being stuck in the same car with the both of you?" Maria grumped.

"Oh, sorry," Liz said immediately.

"Oh, that's okay really, I guess," Maria said. "I guess I'm just worried about what Tess had to tell them... about what Nasedo did in the hospital for instance. Did he kill that Special Unit guy?"

"Yeah, maybe it would have been better to find that stuff out before going charging after Michael," Max admitted. "He said, so belatedly."

"We could call them and suggest it," Liz said. "Fred's fried frack and soda shop isn't too far from here, but close enough to where Michael should be. I think that all of us could use a chance to fuel up."

"Okay, yeah, get on the phone," Max said. "We'll need to be careful and watch that nobody makes a move on us when we're inside the place, though."

"Yeah," Maria agreed. "But we've got plenty of eyes now, and several living alien weapons, including you, Liz."

"Me?" she asked. "I haven't done anything."

"Yet," Maria said quietly. "Just give you a chance."

Liz picked up her cell phone and called Isabel, explained the suggestion. "Oh, come on Liz," Isabel said after she'd gotten to the part about fueling up. "You heard the plan, I know that you did. We're not going in anywhere after Michael just yet, guns blazing, The mission is recon - figure out what the situation is, if we can, without risking ourselves."

"Oh, right," Liz said after a moment. "But..."

"Which suggests that we don't really need to eat yet, or get Tess' side of the story. That can wait until AFTER we know what we're facing - we can go somewhere, eat, talk a lot, and hopefully come up with a plan of attack. And possibly lie low if somebody saw too much of any of us."

"You'd have to wear a smaller top for that," Liz mumbled under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Oh, never mind. I get the picture, and will relay. Let you know when Maria has something more to report." She hung up the phone.

"No fried frack yet?" Maria asked, sounding disappointed.

"No, Isabel pointed out that it can wait until after the recon. Will give us another good reason to not take chances yet."

"Oh, right," Max admitted. "Okay, umm... I think we're getting close. Better to drive straight up or take a turn and circle the area first?"

"Loop it," Maria suggested. "No sense going straight into the spider's parlor."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "I'll tell Isabel and the others."

------------

"Okay, so what do we know?" Tess said as she got out of the black car. "There do seem to be a few boys in blue around the area, more than we've seen elsewhere, but that's not a particularly good clue."

"The best indication I was able to get from Maria was one that pointed at a building just down the street," Max told her. "Big sprawling three story house."

"How do you know that was the best indication?" Tess countered. "Just because it was the clearest? I can tell that there's something messing up our senses around here - not sure if the source is - is Nasedo, or somebody in the Special Unit, but either way, you might have been pointed to that house as a diversion."

"Well, we have to start someplace," Liz told her. "Unless you have any better ideas yourself, Tess?"

"Not yet, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking," she shot back.

Maria went over to Alex and Isabel. "What was she like in the car with you guys, anyway?"

"Umm, kind of painful," Alex replied immediately. "But I guess I'll have to give her a pass on that for now on account of we need help badly."

"Yeah, I guess," Isabel said. "Assuming we get out of this okay, though, and Tess Harding is still asking for an attitude adjustment, I'm volunteering to teach her a lesson in manners."

"Good luck," Maria put in. Suddenly they could all hear another car turning the corner over near where Max said he had 'sensed' Michael, and coming right towards them. Liz and Tess broke off their sniping when they heard it, and both stepped towards Max protectively.

He seemed to recognize the car, though, and was looking in amazement to try and identify the driver beyond all possible doubt. "Mil... Milton Ross?" he breathed.

Sure enough, the eccentric UFO researcher stopped his car in the middle of the street and leaned a little way out the open driver side window to call to Max and the other kids. "Sheesh, don't you know it's not safe to be just standing around here?" he called. "The Special Unit is in town, and they're looking for alien kids. We'd better go someplace less obvious."

Max looked at Liz, at Isabel, and then decided to put it out there. "If somebody is looking for alien kids, why is that of any concern to us?"

"Oh, come on, Max, I could hardly be quite as clueless as I generally seem, now could I?"

"Why not - I am?" Max muttered, but he got a sinking feeling that nothing was likely to put Milton off.

"I admit that you had me fooled for a long time, But I've been looking for aliens among us for too long to not spot somebody as unusual as you when I see him every day. Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything extreme, and I can probably help."

"And what if we say that we don't want or need your help?" Tess asked.

"Then I go back home, read a good book, and try to pretend like I didn't figure anything out at all," Milton replied evenly. "And pray to the heavens above that Pierce doesn't catch anybody because I was too much of a dork to get past your natural suspicions."

There was a strained moment, and then Liz spoke up. "I don't think it could hurt to go somewhere and talk. There's six of us and just one of him."

"But we choose where," Tess put in. "That way he can't lead us all into a pre-arranged Special Unit trap."

"Oh, brother," Milton said. "You're going to be a tough cookie to win over, aren't ya?"

"You'd better believe it bub."

------------

"Okay, enough about us for now," Isabel grumbled when the big pizzas arrived at their table in the dark and slightly grimy Italian joint. The kids actually hadn't told Milton much about themselves, but he'd kept on asking. "How do you know about the Special Unit and why they're here?"

"Well, working in the industry, you can't help but hear rumors about the Men in Black or whatever," Milton hedged.

"Yeah, but that's different," Max countered. "I think that you know something a lot more concrete."

"I'd certainly hope so, if you're promising any help," Maria added.

"Well, okay. I wasn't always the proprietor of a cheesy 'Aliens in America' museum, obviously. Even the serious crackpots like Hubble think of me as a harmless dilettante, and that suits me fine. If they'd ever been as deep in as I was, they'd *really* be freaking out."

"Were you lying when you said that you'd never managed to find an alien, Milton?" Max asked.

"Well, no - at least, not before I was fairly certain that I'd found YOU." Max groaned, and Liz rubbed his arm silently and gestured to the untouched slice on his plate. "Even though I bought the place because I suspected that sooner or later an alien would actually walk in the door, it was months before I clued in. Around the time of the convention, actually."

"With Hubble," Max said.

"He was one of the clues, yeah. Also that kid from the shooting... shooting his mouth off at the panel discussion."

"You didn't seem like you were giving him any credibility at the time."

"No. It's easy to assume a facade of being clueless, as I think that you know from experience. Doesn't mean you're not watching everything like a hawk from inside your head."

"Okay, enough of this stuff, once again," Alex put in. "Special unit... did you use to work for them? Or against them??"

"If I'd worked against them, I'd probably never have survived long enough to meet any of you," Milton said. "Long ago... I was a nuclear chemist who they brought in to help solve a few... unusual problems. Like exactly how the 'kill a man with no weapon but a glowing handprint' trick works, and if it's possible to fashion a defense against it."

"Oh, right, that," Liz said. "Listen, I'm not sure if you'll believe me, but none of us have ever killed anybo..." She trailed off, looking at Tess.

"Oh, come on, what do you take me for?" Tess snapped back. "Yes, that includes me too."

"Good to know," Isabel whispered.

"Maybe not so good. We might need somebody experienced enough in battle, who's comfortable going for the kill," Milton corrected. "Not that I like the thought much myself. But I know what Pierce would do once he catches aliens - I've seen the White Room. Wouldn't wish that on anybody... but maybe Pierce himself, in a 'poetic justice' kind of way I guess."

Maria, meanwhile, had started shivering uncontrollably and let out a high-pitched 'oooh' kind of moan when Milton mentioned the phrase 'The White Room.' Alex was the first to ask her about it. "You okay, Maria? I mean, none of us are really happy about the thought of..."

"It - it's not just that," Maria muttered. "I... I think that I've seen that room before. I had a flash of it when I was... was kissing Michael, the evening that we found Topolsky's body. And if I had a flash of it from being near to him..."

"Is that because Michael is in the White Room now, or headed there?" Isabel put in, her normally pale face looking ghost-white.

Milton had been looking closely at Maria, started to ask her something, and then shut up without having successfully formed a word. Liz guessed that he wasn't sure if Maria was an alien herself, and that was probably good. No sense in explaining how much she, Maria, and Alex had been affected by the aliens in their lives.

"Alright, let's get down to business,," Max suggested. "Michael is missing - we aren't sure if the Special Unit has him or not, Milton. You remember Michael?"

"Him? Oh, yeah. We've got history, after all."

"Yeah, I guess so," Max admitted uncomfortably. "What can you give us?"

"How prepared are they going to be for us?" Tess put in. "We've seen that they have a few unusual weapons, and you mentioned that you were working on a defense..."

"I'm not honestly sure," Milton said. "The handprint of death barrier wasn't finished when I managed to get away from them and change my identity - but that was nearly three years ago."

"What kind of barrier were you working on?" Isabel asked. "Something like a bulletproof jacket?"

"A vest, yes," he agreed. "Lined with heavy elements that the radiation and the Cadmium 109 couldn't penetrate. There was talk of having it surgically implanted as a protective layer between the torso skin and the rib cage, but I'm not sure if even Pierce is nuts enough to try that..."

"Cadmium 109?" Liz said. "Is that something to do with... alien..."

"Hmm? Oh, right, I see I've gotten ahead of you," Milton whispered. "The handprint bodies - Pierce has put most of them through enough scientific tests that there's very little left. A spectographic analysis of the heart tissue and other vital organs on some of the more recent victims showed an isotope of the element Cadmium that was unfamiliar... you know what isotopes are."

"Those of us who've been paying attention in chemistry class do, yeah," Alex said. "Variants of a chemical element, based on weight and the number of neutrons in the atomic nucleus."

"Right. Cadmium 109 was unknown on earth, so the special unit files dubbed it Cadmium X, for extraterrestrial. They're a bit over-dramatic like that sometimes. One of the things that they'd probably do sooner or later if they caught an alien is take him or her apart to see if there was any amount of Cadmium X inside their body, or if it was generated as a side effect of their powers."

"Can you actually help us, or do you think that this sort of thing is helpful?" Maria complained.

"Hmm... well, I'm not that sure," Milton admitted after an awkward moment of silence. "Guess I thought that I could just warn you, help you escape, and that would be it. Didn't realize that one of the crew was already... unaccounted for. But still... maybe I can help with strategy. If I knew just what you've learned to do with your powers, that will help."

"Yeah, sure," Tess muttered ironically. "Max, do you really trust this guy, like at all?"

"Hmm." Max considered the question seriously, looking into Milton's face. "Somewhat, I think. Figure he deserves a chance to prove himself, but we don't need to tell him anything that can easily be used against us."

"Oh, that's great," Tess and Milton said at the same time.

----------

"Okay, we're looking okay," Alex reported over the phone to Liz. "I think Tess has started her little trick, and it's working. My guy is moving away from his position. Talking into his comm unit, rechecking maybe."

"Yeah, ours too," Liz reported staring at the Special unit man through a pair of cheap binoculars that they had managed to round up. "Except he ain't moving." The guy in the blue suit did seem to be very focused on the device that didn't look quite like an ordinary cell phone or a walkie-talkie, but reminiscent of both.

"What can Max sense?" Alex put in, and Liz turned to look at her guy. He only nodded somewhat, his eyes closed, but by now Liz could interpret his reactions well enough, and knew that he had been able to tell what they'd been talking about, in general terms.

"I think it goes in line with what you were saying. Every other agent in this area is falling back, except for this one."

"Just like Milton predicted," Alex said a bit suspiciously.

"What, would you have been more confident in his intentions if he'd been wrong?" Liz asked.

"No," Alex admitted grudgingly. "But I can't be too confident about something that could easily have been pre-arranged for some deep cover agent."

"I'm pretty sure that Milton wasn't sent here by the Unit," Liz argued. "It wouldn't add up, and anyway... I think I can sense his sincerity. Since I got back to town, my alien fu seems to be on the rise." She refused to let that notion bother her until this crisis was over.

"Alright, well, I'd better split as per the plan. Say hi to Isabel when you see her."

"Gotcha," Liz said, "Bye and take care."

"You be careful too." With that, Liz hung up the phone and turned to Max. "Ready?"

"Totally, but Iz isn't quite in position yet," Max said, eyes still closed. After about fifteen seconds, Liz could see Isabel turning a corner several blocks away, on the other side of Mister Blue. "Come on." Max's eyes winked open, he grabbed Liz's hand, and headed off in that direction without any pause.

Liz blinked as she ran, trying to reconcile the sensations of the sudden connection that Max had triggered with both of their bodies being in active motion. Without planning it, their paces had synchronized, and Max was having to adjust his stride significantly to compensate for Liz being shorter than he was and not being left behind, but he didn't seem to be letting that affect his sense of energy.

The special unit agent seemed to figure uut that they were all closing in on him just before Max and Liz got past the nearest cross streets. After only a moment's pause, he pulled his gun and pointed it at Liz. It seemed to be aiming a bit low, as if he was mearning to shoot her legs or her guts, but she couldn't be sure at that distance - and anyway, a bullet in the gut could be easily as fatal as one in the heart, if not as quick. That was what had started the whole thing, wasn't it?

Why wasn't he aiming at Max? If Liz was shot, he could heal her. Maybe that was the point, he wanted to get direct confirmation if Max was an alien, and slow him down at the same time. Or he could have turned to face Isabel, who was alone.

But Max reached up a hand, and an amazing green wall of rippling energy manifested in between them, crossing the sidewalk from somebody's front lawn and well out into the street. It was about halfway between them, though Max and Liz were still closing the distance on their side, and the guy must have been surprised enough by its appearance that he fired the trigger. Liz heard a sort of 'boing' sound, and saw a faint yellow glow through the shield, but that was all. Power-freaking, mister blue kept the gun pointed at them, shaking it slightly. Poing poing poing poing, and four more glows appeared, forming a sort of an L-shaped pattern.

And then he collapsed, just keeled over where he stood. Isabel was drawing close from behind him now, approached, and then knelt at his body. "Max, let it go," Liz said, and after a moment the shield dropped away.

"He's dying," Isabel called out a bit diffidently. "One of those shots must have rebound just right - it's lodged in one of his lungs and he's losing blood fast."

"Those who shoot at aliens should wear vests," Liz muttered darkly. "Max, are you going to..."

"Not first thing - he brought this on himself." Max hurried forward himself, and Liz lost touch with him in a few seconds, too surprised to keep up at a run herself. It really shouldn't be that much of a shock that Max's compassion and forgiveness was straining under these circumstances, but...

It wasn't long before Max had looked under the guy's blue suit jacket and pulled out a much bigger piece of electronic gear than the communicator - and immediately swung the thing furiously at the edge where the sidewalk met the road. It made a 'ding'-ing sound and didn't seem to be any the worse for his fury. Sighing slightly, Isabel pointed at the device. It seemed to melt in on itself, twisting and emitting faint screeching sounds, and there was an impressive plume of smoke that jetted forth. Both Max and Isabel gasped out loud, and even Liz could sense a slight twist in the scene, though it wasn't anything she could put her finger on definitely.

Now Max turned his attention to the wounded man himself. "He doesn't deserve mercy, and they'll probably misunderstand completely when they see a handprint on him... but that doesn't really matter. Right thing to do." He kneeled above the dying man's face, taking his hand.

"So the interference is gone?" Liz asked Isabel.

"Yeah. Like I was looking for Michael in a dark gym with a flashlight... and somebody finally shut off the disco ball."

"So which house is he in?"

"Dammit, he's slipping away," Max muttered, sounding really upset at the prospect now. From the way he said it, Liz was suddenly sure that she, herself, had to act instantly or the man would die - and Max would probably blame himself for it, since he had refused to act instantly.

Her first instinct was to reach for Max, but she wasn't sure how much that would accomplish. Max's control of his own healing powers was certain, but with somebody as badly hurt as this, he needed to make a connection with the victim. Liz remembered Max telling her that he had almost lost her, too, because he hadn't been able to get her to open her eyes and look at him.

So Liz reached out for the fallen man, grabbing him by the ankle, and sent through the one thought uppermost in her mind - 'Open up and let him help you!'

"Oh yeah, that's better," Max muttered, and she wondered if he could tell that she was linked now too. Things got a little fuzzy for just a moment, and the next thing she knew, Max was holding her in his arms and pulling her away - getting her away from the Agent - still a dangerous man, in all likelihood - before he woke up.

"So WHERE is Michael?" she asked one more time.

"Not in any of the buildings, but he's close," Max said. "Underground. Deeper than any ordinary basement, but alive and breathing alright."

"How?" Liz asked, shaking her head in wonder. "Are they down in the sewer system or something?"

"No, we don't think it's that," Isabel said. "Maybe Roswell has an electrical tunnel?"

"Like the one the vampires were using on Buffy?" Liz blurted out before she could stop herself.

"Who knows?" Max said. "But I think we should try to meet up with the rest of the gang first. Milton's info about the Special Unit's sense distorter device proved out, and I can't think of any reason he'd help us eliminate that unless he were really on our side." Isabel had already pulled out her cell phone and was talking to someone - probably Maria, who would be with Tess and Milton.

----------

"Not sure just what it is, but the access that we need is here," Tess insisted, leading the way behind a small neighborhood library. "You guys went to a lot of trouble to restore our alien senses, so trust mine now."

"It doesn't look like access to anywhere," Maria grumbled. "But I guess that we'll give you a... chance."

Just around the end of that sentence, near the brief pause, Tess had pulled down on a handle on the library wall. A metal door slid away beneath the ground, revealing a small alcove without much of a floor - the top of a vertical channel with a ladder going down the right side. As far as Liz could see, it must have stretched at least twenty feet down.

"This is... this is it?" alex asked, his voice sounding very uncertain.

"Michael's signal, based on Maria's connection to him - it's down there," Max agreed uncertainly. "There's no interference anymore, and if the Special Unit is able to fool us so clearly now, why did they settle for uncertainty before?"

"Because they weren't ready to draw us into a trap yet?" Liz said. "Sorry, just brainstorming aloud, not really trying to cast doubts on this endeavor."

"And what if Michael is already in the trap?" Isabel asked seriously.

"Then we'll have to go down ourselves to rescue him," Max pointed out. "But I think I'd be able to tell if there were lots of Special unit agents down there."

"Can you tell if anybody but Michael is there?" Maria asked immediately.

"Yeah, I think two other people - one more alien, one human. Nasedo, and maybe they have a Special unit hostage. I don't think one of them could be keeping two prisoner."

"And if he is, then we'll have better than six to one odds when we get there," Isabel put in. "Okay, who goes first?"

"Me," Tess said confidently.

"No," Liz interrupted. "Sorry Tess, I know that you found this access and everything, but we need to keep your power in reserve, not expose it on the front lines. Could mean somebody's life. Umm... Isabel?"

"Yeah, I'm up for it," Isabel insisted, and stepped over to the ladder. After she had gone far enough that her head was about a foot below ground level, she paused. "Somebody gonna come back me up?"

"You or me?" Liz asked Max.

"I think that I should honey." Max crossed over. "Okay, Isabel, continue down."

She did - and almost immediately the metal wall started to shoot up again. Alex reached out and caught the handle - but he had to strain hard to keep it from pushing up and out of his grasp. "What's going on?"

"I... I stepped onto another section of ladder," Isabel said. "It must have a weight-sensitive switch on it or something. To close the wall up while people are inside here, I guess. Whoever designed it didn't expect a party of so many."

Liz turned around to look at Tess, Maria, and Alex. Milton had gone back home now, with their thanks - Max didn't want him risking his life further. "Maybe you should get down to wherever the ladder ends, and we'll keep checking the wall to see when we can send another unit down."

"Wait a moment," Max put in. "What about opening the wall from inside? I mean, when we need to come back up and get out?"

"Good point," Isabel admitted, sounding unnerved.

"Let me see." Tess said, reaching out and touching the wall again. "I... I think that there's a time-based switch down at the bottom that will keep the door open for as long as there's any weight on the ladder within a ten-minute period."

"Then you guys look for that switch and turn it on as soon as you can," Alex suggested. "So that the rest of us can go down all at once."

"Okay," Max said. "But if we can't turn it on right away - be VERY careful. That might mean that we've gotten into some trouble."

"Don't get into trouble," Liz warned, smiling slightly. And then Alex let the door close, and she could hear the sounds of climbing beyond it. Alex kept trying every twenty seconds or so, and it was only the fourth time that it slid down again easily. "Hey, what's going on?" Liz called.

"We've reached a sort of tunnel or landing at the bottom," Max's voice drifted back up, faintly. "Isabel is going ahead and exploring - we're both making light. Should have remembered to pack flashlights, so we wouldn't be so obviously..."

"Okay, next team, chop chop," Maria said. "Tess, you coming along this time?"

"Yeah, try and stop me!"

Nobody did, and Tess went over and hurried down the ladder steps. She went far enough, in fact, that the wall started to rise again, before realizing that she should wait for a fourth person to follow her down. After a moment's look shared between the three old human friends, Alex went forward and took his place on the ladder.

"Probably best that way," Maria mentioned as the wall slid up and they waited for something to change. "Not that Alex would have a great opportunity to look up somebody's skirt even if he was below a girl - the light in there can't be good..."

"Oh, boy." But on some level, Liz appreciated Maria's attempt to break the tension. "Actually, I think that you're the only one who's wearing a skirt, Maria. Isabel, Tess, and I are all wearing the pants."

"Huh. Yeah, I guess that's right." She sighed. "I guess you need to have alien powers to wear the pants in this extended family."

"Hey, you were getting premonitions..."

"Of things that I'd rather not know about."

At that point, two things happened at once. Liz had been resting her hand on the wall handle, not tugging at it repeatedly like Alex had, just exerting a soft pressure that wasn't tiring but would hopefully be enough to let her recognize when Alex stepped off the ladder. Her hand jerked now, and the wall came down nearly a foot. Secondly, there was a loud scream from underground, piercing enough to break through the calm of the quiet city neighborhood. "Who was that?" Maria blurted out immediately.

"Isabel maybe?" Liz asked. It hadn't sounded like Tess really - it hadn't been a high-pitched shriek, and Liz suspected that if anything actually did scare Tess enough to break her inhuman composure, the blond girl would be a shrieker. The mezzo tone fit better with Isabel's voice registers anyway. Liz didn't worry about that any more, but continued pulling the wall down, and nearly jumped onto the ladder. "Come on."

"Wait a second," Maria blurted out. "They haven't reported finding the switch yet. Maybe they won't find it, maybe Tess was - was wrong when she said that it would be there."

"Are you worried about us going and sealing ourselves in?" Liz asked, and Maria nodded. "Okay, let's try it. I'll go down far enough to make the wall come back up, and then come back up and try to pull the wall down from inside. If that works, then we know that at least we can come out one at a time."

"Okay," Maria agreed. "If you can pull it open from inside, then I'm coming down after you. Otherwise... I'll wait out here for you."

"Got it," Liz said, though privately she worried about Maria staying behind by herself. What if the Special Unit came back to this area? Quickly she climbed down, waited as the wall slid up and sealed her off, then back up. Reaching out, she felt the smooth metal wall, groped for a handhold, nearly fell off the ladder for a frightening moment, and then admitted defeat. "No go."

"Alright." Maria pulled the wall open enough to see Liz and wave to her. "Go kick some special unit ass or whatever."

"Yeah, thanks." Liz started her way back down, unnerved by the darkness around her and the flickering lights and shadows down below.

"Liz?"

"Yeah... Alex?" she answered after a moment. There was an 'uh-huh' noise. "What's going on?"

"I... I'm not quite sure. Tess left me here by the base of the ladder. Do you think you can make a light, like they can?"

"Hmm... good question." Liz tried to visualize her palm and fingers lighting up with a calm blue radiance, like Max's had that night that River Dog tested him. Nope, not even a spark. "Doesn't look like it."

"Just fine and dandy like sour candy." Pause. "Was that your foot?"

"Probably - move aside a little so I can come down beside you, okay?" After a moment she could hear a body shuffling aside, and she climbed down to a flat surface like concrete. "Okay, take my arm. I think that there's enough light to see around a corner there."

"Yeah - but that means that any bad guys will be able to see us, maybe."

"There's no point in being here if we're not ready to put ourselves in danger to help, Alex," she told him.

"Okay... just take a deep breath and think of Isabel, huh?"

"Well... something like that." Just before they were about to turn around the corner, there was a frizzing sound, a quiet thunderclap, and a stream of yellow lights blizzing all around and past them. The faint blue and white lights that they had been heading for blinked out entirely.

"Just stay calm," Michael's voice said, but Liz wasn't at all sure that she could follow his suggestion.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

You wanted more, you got it... hope you like!

Part Twenty

"I... I can try to be calm, Michael," Liz called out into the darkness, "but I have so many questions. Are you okay? What's going on down here?" After a moment, she decided to keep it at those two.

"What the hell, Guerin, did your whole homeroom class come running in here after you?" an unfamiliar voice growled at her. Nasedo? No - though Nasedo might be a bit unappreciative of how they'd come, he'd have recognized more just from being near her and the others she rather guessed, and it wasn't his sort of wisecrack. Thus - this must be the human who Tess had sensed down in these tunnels, presumably, and a Special Unit agent.

"Whoever you are, I'm not sure that you can keep all of us cowed the same way that you held off Michael and N... and mister Harding," Max said. "Why don't you just put down that thing that you're holding and let us talk?"

"Oh, sure, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Let me give up my only possible means of defense against your alien powers, and then you could kill me and all go free."

"Our alien powers are still dead from whatever you did a few moments ago," Isabel complained. "They're not coming back for a while I think."

"Isabel!" This was Michael again. "Don't tell him..."

"Come on, Michael," she snapped back. "I think this situation calls for a little forthrightness. How could we ever expect this guy, whoever he is, to deal fairly with us if we hide our secrets from him?"

"That's a point I guess, yeah," Max chimed in. "Any chance you can turn on a light at least, then, mister?"

"Why?" The word came out sounding like a snarl. "I can see you just fine."

Nightvision goggles, infrared or something, Liz guessed silently. And he really wasn't trusting in anything. Being the only person in the room, (if it was a room,) who could see clearly would be a huge advantage if the fighting started again. And there must be some sort of attachment on his weapon that sprayed out a wide-area gas or energy, capable of suppressing alien powers. So, what could they use in this situation, besides the advantage of numbers, which had the disadvantage of probably getting at least one of their group shot? Psychological tactics? Hmm...

"If you want to actually use that gun on anybody, maybe you'd better do it soon," someone else said - this must be Nasedo, and it actually sounded a lot like the voice he'd used when he was posing as Tess' father. "If your FBI friends come in after us, I'd guess that you'll probably be among the first to fall."

"Yes, but... but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to wait," the agent said, his voice sounding younger and less certain. "I'm willing to give up my life to keep any of you from getting away."

"Which would tend to suggest that our best move is to rush you right now and take our chances," Tess said menacingly. "You can't shoot us all I think."

"No..." Alex put in after a second. "Our best strategy is to wait. He has no way of knowing how soon you can regain your powers, and then just one of you could use them when he doesn't expect it."

The seconds started to tick by in silence... ten, twenty, thirty. After thirty-eight seconds, there was another spray of faint yellow lights, emerging in a sort of cone and bouncing off of the walls. Against that faint light, Liz could see several shapes dashing towards the origin point of the cone. She didn't fool herself that she could help physically against the Special Unit man, but she figured that any distraction would be helpful, so she screamed about as loud as she could. That probably wasn't the most helpful thing that she could have done, because only a few seconds later she heard Max's worried voice. "Liz? Are you okay??"

"Oh, um, yeah, I'm fine. Wasn't shot or anything." Yeah, that's really helpful. "Have you..." And then she shut up as the sounds of energetic melee in the darkness reached her and she guessed that further talking would only distract her friends.

"Okay, can someone else come over here and help me sit on him?" Michael said once the sounds of struggle had mostly died down. "It is the special unit guy that I've wrestled to the ground here, isn't it? If someone I know is being restrained, I haven't covered your mouth or anything, so shout out."

"I'm good," Max answered, and everybody else sounded off.

Right at the end of the sequence, an unfamiliar voice said, "I'm okay too, but I think I got turned around in the dark..."

"No dice, I can recognize your tone even if you're trying to disguise yourself," Michael growled. "AND the fact that you're the person I'm holding prisoner."

"Hey, okay, I think I've got his legs," Tess said.

"Be careful, he's probably strong, and you're pretty light," Isabel cautioned. "Max, Mister Harding, we can use you big strong guys over here."

"Hey, I'm skinny but I'm tall," Alex chimed in.

"Okay, okay, just get over here then honey," she insisted. "Can you follow my voice?"

"Umm... not that we haven't already accomplished some good, but what's the game plan at this point?" Liz suggested. "Are we just going to wait here until somebody's powers come back? That could take a while, if you got two doses of whatever-it-is. And Maria's still up the ladder, guarding our retreat. I don't want to wait long enough for somebody else to find her."

"What else are you suggesting, Liz?" Max asked, the tenderness evident in his voice even in this serious situation. "We can't make a light or restrain him any more effectively without them, and..."

"Come on, you're not thinking straight," Alex replied. "We need to grab his gear. He probably *does* have a flashlight, and definitely somebody can use his binos or whatever."

"And they all have handcuffs, yeah," Isabel remembered, and the fact that she was grinning could be heard in her voice. "Nobody press any buttons on the gun, though."

After a few seconds more of activity, Max muttered, "Okay, yeah, I've got the infrared goggles going. Tess, you're closest to the cuffs... yeah, you've got 'em. Oh, they're still attached to his belt, just..." RRIP! "Okay, that's one way to do it."

"What about the light, Maxwell?" Michael asked.

"I don't SEE a light," he complained, sounding worried. "Tess, maybe you should let me do that, it'll be easier when I can see both of his arms..." A few clicks signified the cuffs locking firmly into place. "Okay. Umm, no, no flashlight in any of his pockets or anything."

"Maybe the gun has a flashlight attachment too," Liz suggested.

"Hmm... I'd rather just clunk him on the head with it and have Max lead us out than experiment too much," Isabel said.

"I dunno, Is," Max said. "This is okay for some things, but I'd still rather have another few pair of working eyes - especially since we still need to find the switch to let us all go up at once."

"But we're wasting time here!!"

"Liz!" Max shouted her name so loud that she nearly stumbled. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you, it's just - one more step and you'd trip over the gun."

It seemed to Liz like that was a sign. She reached down in front of her, found the metal object, and carefully picked it up without pressing any obvious switches or triggers. "What's a good place to try pointing this, Max - away from and people or walls?"

"Umm... you'll need to pass by most of us, and then turn a left in the corridor."

"Liz!" Isabel wailed.

"Shuddup, I'm doing this. Max, guide me through." And based on his words, she maneuvered past her friends and faced in the direction he indicated. The first button she tried didn't seem to have much affect - maybe that was the power suppressor, if it couldn't fire multiple times in succession. She debated a few other likely buttons, and the second one she tried made the gun shake and roar with miniature explosions under her hands and fired a few small pellets of hot hard light into the wall ahead of her - an ordinary firearm projectile probably, but if so that was three more bullets than she ever wanted to fire in her whole lifetime.

There was a small stream of pale blue fluidic light that she couldn't immediately tell the function of - was that another device to be used against alien powers, against a single opponent instead of a field of them? And a laser guiding beam that stood out brilliantly red and vivid in the darkness - and then she got the spotlight working, a white circle of illumination that was almost blinding. "Come on, let's go people!"

"Do we leave him awake?" Alex asked.

"I don't want to try knocking him out with the gun," Isabel argued. "That's more likely to lead to brain damage or severe bleeding inside the skull than to cleanly knock him out, I heard somewhere."

"No more worrying about it," Nasedo put forward. "We just go."

----------

Liz froze halfway up the ladder when the door slid down above her, all the way to the ground outside. After a tense moment she heard Maria's voice. "Is that you guys?"

"Well, who else would..." Liz started, but then she realized that it might not have been clear to Maria how many people were getting ready to emerge from the tunnels. A few more rungs up and she could catch sight of her best friend anxiously peering down at her. "It's okay, Michael and Nasedo are fine, but we're all kind of powered down now."

"You're *what*?" Maria nearly screeched as Liz and Max filed out of the ladder crawlspace. "As in, completely helpless against more Special Unit guys? I... I've heard people lurking around, the whole time that you were down there..."

"Whoever's coming up next bring the gun," Max ordered, but to Liz he looked worried. Liz had declined to take the weapon with her when leading the way up - partly because of the difficulty of lugging it along and using her hands on the rungs, but mostly so that those waiting at the bottom would still have a source of light.

"A gun??" Maria repeated, worried, but nobody answered her. The next person out was Tess, followed by Isabel.

"Are we really going to use that... that THING, Max?" Isabel said, the distaste evident in her tone.

"We carry it as long as we've got no other defenses, Max pointed out. "The first person to recover scrambles its molecules so badly that nobody could rebuild it or use it again. Sound good?"

"Well, that's pretty much what I was waiting to hear, yeah," a woman's voice announced as the woman herself came around the library corner, training an automatic pistol right at Liz's head. Suddenly more armed figures appeared - from behind her, from the way that they had originally come, even straight through the hedges that had grown up so tall behind the building. They were surrounded on every side.

~~Max reacted instantly, pointing his hand threateningly at the woman. She was dressed in a severe but ordinary business suit. "Stay back, or I swear that I'll..."

"Oh, please. You couldn't put out enough juice to blow down a blade of grass, I'm sure. Richley, would you do me the formalities?"

They all looked around for Richley. He turned out to be a guy standing behind the guards opposite the woman, and he wasn't carrying a weapon apparently - instead having a big piece of equipment vaguely reminiscent of an old-fashioned geiger counter with a fancier LCD screen. "Yes, their bodies are all full of static oxygen ions, except for... that one." He pointed the detector's wand vaguely at Maria. "But there's no electromagnetic potential there as far as I can tell - she's just a turncoat hanger-on."

"Hmm." The woman looked closely at Maria. "Yes, Maria DeLuca. Birth records, medical details, the whole she-bang is all in order for THAT one." She addressed Max. "What that means is, we know that our device to supress your alien powers went off several times down there, and none of you will be able to do anything out of the ordinary for a little while." She sighed. "It's been a very frustrating twenty-four hours trying to catch up to you and figure out what was going on and where, but the jig, as they say, is up. You may have taken Pierce out of the picture for now, but it's my job to make you WISH you were dealing with him."

"Pierce?" Tess blurted out. "When - when did we take our Pierce? I don't remember that, and you guys would have told me if it happened when I was in lockup, so..."

"Hmmm." The Special Unit lady didn't answer, just looked over the five of them, counting up. "Well, we're missing a few of your friends - maybe they can shed some light on Pierce's fate." She raised her voice. "I really wouldn't reccomend slinking back into the tunnels - it'll go hard on your compatriots first, and we're quite ready and prepared to go down there after you."

There was a long pause before Michael and Alex emerged, and a longer one before Nasedo climbed the ladder and emerged to glare at the lady. "Thompson," he growled at the lady in charge as they were scanner, and the guns were trained ever more carefully. "Surprised that they let you run this operation, even after I killed Pierce."

"You killed Pierce?" Maria said. "But..."

"The guy in the hospital," Michael suddenly realized. David Fisher. That wasn't just any Special Unit cover agent. Pierce went into the sheriff's station himself."

"Yes," Thompson confirmed bitterly. "And you took him out of action, laid him up in traction without even realizing who you were up against, Mister Guerin?"

"I... I didn't really mean to hurt him that bad. Or give... give anybody a prime opportunity to assasinate him." But he didn't seem exactly sorry that the head of the Special Unit that they had heard whispers about was gone - only that somebody else had caught them in an unprepared moment.

"Okay, Miz Thompson," Max said. "You and your people seem to be holding all the cards. None of us are going to take a chance against this many guns - and you can probably figure out when that power-sucking thing is going to wear off better than we can and blast us with it again. Do you cart all eight of us out to some secure location, put us in the white room - or are there enough different rooms for each of us to be seperated."

"Hmm." Agent Thompson considered that question gravely. "Let's see. You're obviously asking so that you can time any possible escape attempt for the right moment, but I'm not going to hide my decisions from you because of that little fact. On the other hand, I didn't really think it would be this easy to capture the Roswell aliens, and I have to admit I hadn't really planned out this far ahead. If we do move, we'll have to move fast and decisively, because Valenti is still looking for all of us, and he's a complication I can't be bothered dealing with. On the other hand, we all seem to be pretty inconspicuous back here for the time being."

There was a long pause, as Thompson's gaze swept them all, and then came to rest on Max. "You can't think of anything else, beyond Liz, can you Max? Not even your own fate matters compares to hers. I can see it in your eyes, in the way you look at her without turning your head. You'd do anything to keep her safe. That's okay. I'd rather let her and the other human patsies go, as long as I can be sure they're not a threat to the safety of this community." Her eyes bored into Max. "I guess that the answer to that depends on if you're willing to answer me this question. What planet do you come from, Max?"

Max hesitated for just a second before admitting the truth. "I... I don't know. I don't know anything about it, really. As near as I can work out, I was an unborn baby, or something like it, at the time of the crash. We've never met another alien except for - well, for Nasedo, and he hasn't told us much."

"A pity. We tried everything that we could to break his resolve too, and in the end we failed. Asking him again would be pointless until we can get to the White Rooms." Thompson took a deep breath. "Incidentally, what happened to that gun you were talking about?"

"We didn't want to come out of the ladder carrying it once you guys were pointing your own guns at our friends and girlfriends," Alex admitted. "It's down at the bottom of the ladder.

"Good enough." Thompson dismissed that thought immediately. "Well, if you haven't ever met another alien, Max, then maybe you should speak to one. With me right here, holding Liz and the rest of your friends hostage against your good behaviour."

"What? How?" Max was flabbergasted at the notion.

"With alien communicator devices, of course." Thompson produced a familiar alien orb with her free hand. "I see that you're carrying the other one, Max - that's not the best pocket to keep it hidden in." Max looked down and realized that the curve of the other orb was indeed visible through his jacket.

"I... I don't know how to activate the orbs," he said. "And if they're responsive to... to the same energies that give us our - our unique talents, then I could try for ages while I'm pumped full of activated oxygen or whatever, and it wouldn't work."

"Hmm." Thompson considered this fairly. "Good point. If you try without it first, then we can immunize you and only you from the effect of... of our anti-power device, and allow you to recover some of these energies you speak of. But remember that if you use that against us, Liz will be torn up by so many bullets that you could never heal them all in time - even if we didn't shoot you a few times for good measure. And your other friends too."

Max seethed inside as Thompson passed over the second orb, attempted in vain to get them to do anything, and then suffered the same guy who had used the scanner to prepare an injection and jab him in the upper arm. It took a few moments before he could sense his abilities beginning to return, and a partial affinity with the two orbs as well, but in that moment he sensed something that he knew none of the Special Unit would want to hear.

"It's not enough, just me. Somebody else has to hold the other orb."

"Right," Thompson sneered. "And that other person has to get immunized as well?"

"I - I'm not sure, but maybe. We can try it without..."

"No, I think that my patience has run out, Max Evans!!"

At that moment, her face starting to show panic, Liz rushed forward, her guards not expecting that motion and unwilling to shoot yet. She reached Max in less than a second, took one of the orbs from his hand in her own, and then joined their free hands.

The results were unexpectedly dramatic, even by the standards of alien power effects that they were used to by this point. Rose-colored lighting leapt from one activated orb to the other, coalescing into a vortex of swirling pink, violet, and soft blue light. The vortex grew quickly, and Max and Liz were immediately sucked into the hole in the world that they had accidentally created. A strong wind was starting to suck at the others nearby, both friends and enemies, when Max passed through and saw no more of Roswell.

-----------

"Ow. That was no as much fun as it looked like it would be."

Liz groaned weakly and tried to sit up. Wherever she was she expected that Max would not be too far away, at least. There was no immediate sign of him, She was lying face down against a patch of dirt and a few leaves of grass, and her left hip was poking into a big root. A huge weight of warm, humid air was weighing down on her.

To her surprise, the surroundings didn't really look like jungle or rainforest. It was humid enough for a rainforest, and possible even raining a warm rain down on her, just a very light drizzle of rain, but aside from that it looked a bit more like regular woods than the rainforests that she had seen in books.

Okay, that was enough of the immediate surroundings. "Max?" Silence for a long moment.

"Doesn't sound like he's very near," a different voice said, and Liz's heart seemed to sink into the roots.

"Tess. Oh, great joy." Why did it have to be *you*, Liz thought, but she couldn't quite bear to say even that to her out loud. "Do - do you know any more than I do about how we got here?"

"You and Max activated the orbs, because the stupid FBI woman gave him hers," Tess said, smirking. "The orbs created some sort of vortex, which sucked a bunch of us through."

"How many?" Liz asked. "The Special Unit people themselves?"

"A few of them, but not all the guards."

"Ahh." Well, Liz could feel some sort of satisfaction in that they weren't obviously being held at gunpoint at the moment. She had been *hoping* that the orbs could do something unexpected, something that would get them out of that sticky situation, when she'd made her move to Max. Well, unexpected she had definitely gotten, and even though the weather was sticky, it wasn't as problematic as special unit guards. But that raised another question...

"If so many of us went through, what happened to the rest of them?"

"Well, I got a brief impression of a kind of forked slipstream," Tess mentioned. "Like a bunch of quickly branching paths. Maybe they took different routes."

"Inside an alien wormhole, or whatever?" Liz asked. "I would have thought it would be all Max and I could do to create a gateway to a single destination."

"Unless there are lots of THOSE around."

"Of what?" Liz finally stepped around a couple of closely set trees, seeing Tess sitting on a rock, and a huge shimmering oval of whirling colors and light just beyond her. It was much bigger than the vortex that Liz remembered making with Max, and more stable, but there were definitely similarities. It definitely didn't seem to be going away.

"Okay, this explains some things and raises more questions," Liz admitted. "I guess I hoped that we'd just ended up somewhere else on Earth, but there aren't big glowing colorful gateways anywhere on Earth that I'm aware of, especially ones that just stick around like this. So..."

"Does the air seem at all different to you?" Tess asked. "I mean, to breathe?"

"No, I'd have noticed if I was having trouble before this," Liz said, though she suddenly wasn't sure. Stories of families nearly dying of carbon monoxide and thinking that they just had the flu bad ran through her head. But still, she didn't even feel faintly sick. There was an energy running through her, and it wasn't just adrenaline actually. "It's... it's *better* than regular air."

"Could be a higher level of oxygen than we're used to," Tess admitted. "I think that I feel it too."

"Maybe, or... it smells CLEANER," Liz insisted. "Like this is a world that's never known air pollution."

"Maybe it hasn't." Tess sighed. "Okay, we have two choices as I see it. We can explore the woods, try to find some sort of friendly civilization and ask about friendly strangers arriving elsewhere that they know of - on the news or whatever. Maybe not friendly, if some of them happen to land somewhere that doesn't like strangers. Find out if they know anything about the... the gateway. Or - or we can just dive back through and see where we end up."

"Ooh," Liz muttered, immediately conflicted and feeling a little inadequate that she hadn't managed to think things through at least this far - though maybe Tess had been better prepared for this sort of experience. "We might as well at least look around here. The 'gateway', if that's what we call it, doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but we shouldn't get too far away from it or lose track of where it is." She sighed. "If we *do* meet anybody, what about languages? Did Nasedo teach you any language but English?"

"Actually, yeah, but still just Earth tongues - Spanish, French, German, and Chinese." Liz must have been giving her a dubious stare without realizing it. "What? You never know what you might need to stay one step ahead of the FBI."

"Okay, so no help talking to aliens then."

"No, but I asked about it once, and he said that he didn't think it was important, that if we met friendly natives we could probably connect and share language centers. He demonstrated that with me, but the knowledge doesn't last long if you don't drill with it."

"Hmm. Okay." Liz sighed and looked around. "Okay, well, if we're going exploring, we'd probably better stick together, huh?"

"Yeah." Tess got up and walked over to Liz. "Just a second, I'll try placing a homing pulse here, and then we can use that to get back." She bent over the rock, and then grunted loudly in frustration. "Still don't have my abilities yet."

"I'll keep track of where we're going," Liz assured her. "You just concentrate on listening for anyone else moving around."

The woods were so thick in a lot of places that it was hard for Liz to work out a satisfactory search pattern.

----------

"Come on, man, we can't stay here, not dressed like this," Michael insisted. "It's starting to snow harder. We've *got* to take our chances with the gateway. Roll the dice again!"

"And what if we might end up somewhere that I can't breathe the air - or that you can't breathe the air," Alex said, though he was indeed shivering at the cold air and the precipitation - more like sleet than snow - coming down. "Or where it's much too hot to survive?"

"Then hold your breath and jump back through," Michael shot back, but he looked like he knew it might not be that easy.

"Okay, yeah," Alex said, and without a trace of reticence he grabbed the other boy's hand. "What? Seriously, the last thing we need is to get split apart further."

"Okay, yeah, that makes sense," Michael admitted, and suddenly he leapt forward and pulled Alex forward with him. Again there was the strange sensation of another dimension rushing past him, and for a moment Alex was worried that they'd end up back on Earth, behind the library, with the Special Unit gunmen still waiting for them. But that didn't seem too likely. The vortex that they'd been sucked through seemed to be a different subspecies from these stable gateways, and in all likelihood it would have faded away while they were gone.

He wasn't sure where they *would* arrive, though, and that made him nervous.

As it happened, they ran through several inhospitable locales first before arriving at anything that either of them felt that they could tolerate for long - a kind of a choking fog that smelled like a chlorine pool, and a rocky plain that was even more desolate than the cold sleety one - with thin air and a brilliantly hot sun shining down and giving them a bad sunburn in mere seconds. Finally, they ended up in what looked like a pasture or a farmer's field.

"Who puts these gateways in such inconvenient places?" Alex asked. "If there's any way to control destinations through them, I'd expect that cities, or at least the equivalent of airplane terminals, would grow up around them."

"Well, maybe they CAN'T be controlled," Michael suggested. "Or maybe they inevitably drift along, or blink out of certain places and end up elsewhere."

"Well, if this is farmland, there has to be a farmhouse somewhere nearby," Alex suggested. "And where there's a farmhouse, there's food, and, erm, washroom facilities. Neither of which may be terribly appropriate for me, but I need to take my chances at this point."

"Alright," Michael said, and stepped closer to a tall plant to examine it more closely. It had looked like a cornstalk at first glance, but there weren't any corn ears on it or anything. Perhaps whatever fruit or sead it would produce wasn't developed yet, though the plant already seemed to be nearly as high as the cliche'd elephant's eye.

They made their way along the 'row' between files of plants, and eventually realized that they would have to make their way through an actual pasture of animals to get to the nearest structure that they could see. "Hmm... want to see an alien cow at close range?" Michael asked.

"What if they act more like angry bulls?" Alex asked nervously.

"Hmm..." Michael considered, and waved at the nearest plant, which waved vigorously, tugged this way and that by invisible forces. "Yes! Okay, well, I think I can handle at least one bull."

"What about the rest of them?"

"We can run away from the rest. It's only one bull that ever gets close to you."

Alex sighed. "You lead the way, then. And *no* tipping them over no matter how placid they seem."

----------

Somebody was watching them by the time they got halfway through the pasture - probably a few farmhands as opposed to the landowners, Michael thought, though he wasn't quite sure how he could tell. "Hey, mister, is that bull safe?" Alex muttered softly to himself. "Oh, he's safe as anything. Not sure I could say the same thing about you."

"What??" Michael asked irritably.

"Sorry. Really old joke. Never mind."

But that got Michael to thinking about the communication issue. "Hello over there!" He called out. "Sorry to be wandering through the pasture, but - well, we just fell out of a gateway in the cornfield."

There was an enthusiastic reply to this, at least. Too bad none of it was in anything remotely like English, but at least now the farmhands knew that their visitors spoke a different lanuage.
Would they have any idea what to do about it?

They just stood there impassively until Michael and Alex were within six feet, at which point one of them reached out, grabbed Michael hard along his jawline and SQUEEZED.

----------

Max and Maria, meanwhile, had been sitting in a city square for nearly an hour, surrounded by alien people who looked at them strangely and didn't get too close. The gateway that they had emerged from had been halfway down an alleyway near the square, and neither of them had wanted to disappear back into it, certain that most of the answers that they needed could be found here. Suddenly someone called out to them in English. "Are - are you from Earth?"

Max whirled around, to find an old man with a twinkle in his eye and rough brown skin. "Yes! How - how do you know about Earth? How can you speak our language?"

"It - well, it's a long story, but first - how did you get here? Have the portals spread to Earth? Did you discover one?"

"Umm - no, not a stable portal," Max said. "I, we - um, we sort of accidentally created a little vortex to a wormhole."

"And I wasn't part of the 'we', just to be clear," Maria said. "I mean, I know it was an accident and all, but for the record, I wasn't involved." Max sighed softly.

"Okay, that could do it," their new friend said. For a moment it seemed as if he really wanted to ask how they'd managed to do it, but didn't, which Max was glad of because he wasn't at all sure if he could have explained. "Well, I spent some time on Earth a long time ago. It's a bit of a complicated story, but - well, you're kind of disrupting people's lives here. Could I invite you to my home? I know something about making the sort of food that might be familiar to... you're from the American region, right?"

"The United States," Maria put in patriotically. "Of America, yes."

"The states, right." He smiled. "Call me Aaron."

"Okay, well, the most important thing on my mind at this point, Aaron," Max said, "is that a bunch of my friends went through the same vortex, and they didn't all emerge here. Do you have any idea how we can find them?"

"Ooh, that could be tough. But - well, I'll do what I can, including trying to get in touch with people who might be able to do more."

"Thanks." Max took a breath. "My name is Max."

------------

"We're not getting anywhere helpful," Liz complained. "Should go back to the gateway."

"Wait a second," Tess muttered. "I - I think that I'm starting to get something. Not - not my active powers, but - but I can sense another mind. Off... of that way." She pointed, her finger leading mostly in the direction of a path leading further away from where they had come. "Not far away." Liz couldn't see any sign of a person or a building, but then, it might be just out of sight around a curve in the way.

"Okay, we'll give it a try," she said, and followed Tess. What else was there to do? She wasn't sure that she could talk the alien girl out of something that she really wanted to do, and didn't really want to split off and strike out on her own out of sheer stubbornness. Soon it became clear that the trail was indeed going to curve in the direction that Tess had hinted at.

Just as Liz was wondering when they'd spot any sign of who they were looking for, the sign burst upon her, but it wasn' what she'd been expecting. First, a bellow nearby, something like 'KWAA-TTOO!', and just when Liz had stopped to wonder what was familiar about the tone of that exclamation and the situation, Tess ran into her with a running tackle and pushed her aside. As Liz once again collapsed into the forest dust, a huge tree trunk fell through the spot where she'd been, coming down on Tess' left leg.

"Oh, that's it - timber," Liz muttered belatedly. Not the first alien word that she had expeced to learn, but what the heck? "Umm, Tess, are you okay there?"

"Do I *look* okay?" Tess grumbled to herself. Just then, the woodsman, (or so Liz had to label him to begin with,) came charging around the bend, obviously attracted by the sounds that tackler and tacklee had made. "Well, hello there sir, can you possibly manage to..."

The woodsman cut her off with a stream of enthusiastic words in his own language. Liz was starting to get a bad feeling about this. The woodsman sounded very upset that they'd gotten in the way of his tree, or that they'd been wandering around without letting him know beforehand, or something like that. And he certainly wasn't eager to touch them to share language skills.

He was also very bizarre looking - humanoid in general outline, but covered in shaggy fur everywhere except for where his face would have been, including the six fingers on each hand, (with one opposable thumb that seemed to be on the opposite side from a human's.) And that face - it was such a jumble of strangely placed... objects, that Liz could make nothing of it at the moment.

-----------

Isabel sat up, groaning, and looked around. There was a shiny metal surface more or less underneath her, a sort of glass wall curving around at least one-hundred eighty degrees and arching above - through the glass she was surprised to see stairs, faintly illuminated shapes, and the mostly-daylit curve of a huge world hanging not too far away. Nasedo was gently settling to the metal floor in the low gravity, and the portal that they had come through..

The gateway boiled with furiously indignant lights and colors, gathered itself up into a huff, and then indignantly blinked out.

"Uh-oh," Isabel muttered, wondering if she was talking to herself. "This could be bad."

TO BE CONTINUED...