Roswell Fanatics

0835 The Industrial Area, Tonopah Test Range Nevada

Even from the distance…even with only the sensors of the orb, the Ship had felt the powerblasts, recognizing the characteristic electromagnetic signal of the cold fusion virus as certainly as the Antarean symbioteDNA itself.

Ship did the calculations in milliseconds, it could not be the First Officer. She did not yet have the potential to powerblast with that intensity and even if she had, the drugs she’d been injected with would have denied her that ability until they wore off in any event. Ship generated a probability distribution….there was better than 92% certainty that the source was the Captain.

Ship would have preferred that the Captain had come to Tonopah…released the nanorobots, and combined forces to better manage the local organics…but the thoughts in the First Officer’s mind had been correct. He likely believed that she had been threatened, and the probability of him doing something to help her once he had made that decision actually approached unity.

And to a lesser being, or even a less experienced Ship, being in pieces on a hangar floor with most of itself unpowered would have been disabling. But not to Ship. It still had the power to influence events…it just had to go through organic intermediaries. Given time, it could undoubtedly have swayed the good doctor with superior logic. But time was of the essence so perhaps subterfuge would be more practical.

As the Ship caused all components to briefly glow iridescent blue, simulating the destruct warning, it used the electromagnetic field from the nearest fusion generator to modulate the signal on the doctors music player. Ship briefly ran through its memory bank the complete recording of the old science fiction story it had downloaded from the player in the base library. It carefully emulated the voice of the computer on Sigourney Weaver’s freighter.

“Attention. Autodestruct sequence has been engaged. Please evacuate a distance of at least 22 light minutes. Autodestruct will commence in four hours, 12 minutes, and fifty-three seconds. To cancel autodestruct, please enter crewcode and handprint pattern recognition to the orb within four hours, 12 minutes, and 40 seconds.”

It was only a bluff of course, but if it hadn’t been…if the Ship really had been authorized to release the ring singularity, it would have eaten the Sun and most of the planets…at least through Saturn. For added effect, Ship slowly increased the rate of cycling of the blue iridescence, timing it to gradually be on longer and longer...to be continuously on in four hours 12 minutes and 32 seconds.

‘There,’ thought the Ship. ‘That ought to stimulate an interesting response from the Commander of these organics….'

0840 Northwest buffer zone for Area 51 between sectors three and four

George Stevens had gone through the same sort of SERE training that most special forces type of personnel had experienced,…but he had never really believed he would be captured. It wasn’t that he somehow believed himself invulnerable…just the opposite. A sniper who picks up the nickname ‘Sandman’ knows all too well just how fragile life is, and how quickly it can be snuffed out. He had never really expected to survive capture.

But as he came back to consciousness, even before he opened his eyes he was remembering that training….testing his bonds…anticipating the interrogation he would get….that would likely get ugly quick. He wasn’t going to give his captor any information if he could help it … and certainly nothing of tactical value. A professional didn’t do that, and the Sandman was a professional.

But what he had learned in his training seemed to break down almost immediately... because, although they’d done a lot of weird things to him at Brunswick…they’d never put him in sandstone handcuffs.

As his vision cleared, Sandman saw they weren’t really cuffs…more like a block of sand. That really puzzled him..he was sort of an amateur geologist…it helped in his profession…and the sand wasn’t glued or fused to him…it really did look like his hands up to his forearms had been encased in about 60 pounds of sand that had been compressed for a few millennia by some primordial ocean. How the hell had his captor done that?

Sandman heard him move before he saw him, turning his eyes and seeing those two brown eyes staring out from the camouflage face paint that exactly matched his camouflaged clothes. He really didn’t seem all that impressive, once you looked through the camouflage…more like just a teenage kid. Of course, teenage kids don’t take out two teams with their bare hands, and it had taken four instructors at Brunswick to take Sandman down. The kid was obviously more than he appeared to be, Sandman just didn’t know what.

Sandman had been collapsed on the floor of the desert while unconscious, and he found himself spitting some sand out, even while eying his captor. The boy waited patiently.

“Well, I like your tailor anyway,” said Sandman finally.

“Where is she?”

“Where is who?”

The kid had good hand speed, Sandman had to admit, as the slap came stingingly across his face. But as a tactical interrogation..it was kind of pathetic. Any of the instructors at Brunswick could have done better on their worst day. Either the kid had no experience at this, or his heart really wasn’t in it.

“Where IS she?” he asked.

“Look kid….asking the same question when I didn’t understand you the first time isn’t going to work. You sorta gotta explain it better before you can hope to beat something out of people."

“Where is she?” Max said, adding Power to his slap.

“Whoa…that was better,” said Sandman. “But you are still missing the central point here. Until you better define the ‘she,’ I can’t help you. If you mean my Ex…she was last seen in Bishop California with the guy she left me for…poor bastard.”

“My wife…where is she?”

The slap carried real force this time, Sandman was impressed. Even one of the instructors at Brunswick couldn’t have done better. The kid apparently was stronger than he looked.

“Your wife? This is about some girl?”

Sandman would have died to protect his buds without saying squat….but this was beginning to sound like some huge misunderstanding. The kid was attacking one of the best defended places in North America? Solo? For a woman? Sandman anticipated the next slap and rolled with it, barely feeling it.

“She’s not some girl….she’s my wife, and you TASERed her and abducted her.”

“No shit, kid? This is really about some GIRL? OK, your WIFE? Kid, you have made one horrendous mistake. We don’t abduct women around here…I mean, I’ve worked here for four years and it just doesn’t happen. Why don’t you go back off range and get the hell out of here….I mean, those Defenders are probably a hundred grand apiece…they catch you and they’ll try and make you pay for them.” Max put considerable Power into the next slap.

“Where is Liz??”

“OK, kid…you are getting a whole lot better at the Tactical interrogation stuff….I’ll give you points as a quick learner, but you can torture the hell out of me and all that’s going to happen is you are going to have to hear me scream, OK. I don’t know the information you want…you might as well just kill me and get it over with.”

Sandman was taken aback by the hurt look on Max’s face. “I don’t kill people.”

“Well kid, if you aren’t going to kill people, you sure as hell have come to the wrong place, because right now you have a small army of security agents planning on killing you after that little exercise we just had. I mean, are you really not shitting me…I mean…you just came here to look for your wife? Go to the gate for crying out loud. If she works here, they’ll get her on the phone and if she wants to come see you, she’ll meet you at the gate.”

“She doesn’t work here, she was brought here after she was shot at Tonopah.”

“Oh…the medevac? The little gal they brought in after those two nutjob researchers TASERed and drugged her? THAT’S what this is all about? Hell, what I heard is that they’ve been trying to contact you since last night…all the lines have been tied up because of that earthquake thing. Why didn’t you just come to the fuckin’ gate and ask?”

“I don’t believe you”

“Well kid, I can’t help what you believe or don’t. You’ve already got my best advice…..get the hell out of Dodge before they find you and make you pay for those vehicles…you keep going toward the base…they’ll get you. The defenses get a whole lot more capable as you get closer, and no, I don’t care if you beat the shit out of me, I won’t tell you what they are. But kid, if you aren’t shitting me, this is some royal misunderstanding. You are going to get yourself killed for nothing..”

Max looked at the man…maybe the concern was real…maybe he didn’t even know the horrible things they did to aliens at the facility…but he was tired of beating on him…sickened by it.”

“Tell me where they have her.”

“Kid, no shit…just leave, OK? If you are lucky, you can get away before they regroup. When they find me I’ll track down your wife…tell her to get in touch with you. You’re going to get yourself killed for nothing.” Sandman knew the mission….researching and reverse engineering xeno-technology..and it was important. But this was just a kid…he didn’t want him killed because of a misunderstanding.

“Tell me where they have her!”

“Well this morning when I was on duty, they had her at the clinic, just treating her for the drugs. Hell, they may have even discharged her by now, kid. Don’t go in there, you’ll just get yourself killed.”

“What does the clinic look like?”

Sandman just shook his head. He’d done his best. He actually had developed a liking for the kid…too damn bad he was too stubborn to listen to reason.

“Well kid, it’s the building with the big sign out in front…the one that says, ‘clinic.’ I hope you live to see it, …but I doubt it.”

Max looked at the man, wishing he could believe him…wishing that everything he knew about Area 51 was false, but knowing it wasn’t. This guard really didn’t seem like a bad guy.

“Thanks for your help..”

“I’m not too sure I helped you a bit, kid..probably just got you killed. But it was nice knowing you. Uh…before you die, any chance you could tell me where you got your cammies?”

Max walked over to the guard and touched his battle dress uniform, the colors swirling as he did so to make it the same camouflage pattern as his own. “Be my guest," he said.

Sandman looked down at his uniform as Max walked off. ‘Son of a bitch…,’ he thought. ‘ I been talking to an alien…they aren’t so bad. Nicer’n the French, anyway…’

0845 Northwest bound on Highway 395 northwest of Rachel

"This is intolerable," said Schreiber.

"If you keep elbowing me and the driver, it'll be worse than that," threatened Anderson. "I told you if you sat in back, you'd have more room."

"I won't sit in back with that subhuman woman," said Schreiber, "
..or that filthy alien either. Why don't you sit in back...or the other Agent?"

"I ride in front because I'm the Agent in Charge, Doctor. And he rides in front...hell, he's the fuckin' driver...how could he do that from the back?"

"Well why did you have to bring that Air Force woman anyway? We don't need her."

"Doctor, she saw the vehicle. Either we took her along, left her to ID us, or killed her. We still have a five hour drive to Reno to get to the plane. If she ID'd us, the Air Force would be all over us."

"That doesn't explain why you don't kill her."

"Because we don't have time to dispose of the body, and if the Air Force were to find it....hell, they own this half of the state. We'd have planes and UAVs and helicopters and everything else out here, hell probably spy satellites too. It was simpler just to take her along."

"Well it makes it damn uncomfortable. Why don't we have a larger car...or a van or something, where we could lock these two up?"

Special Agent Charles Anderson knew that Doctor Schreiber was important, knew that he would be essential to work on the alien once they got to the facility in New Mexico...but he wasn't sure how much more of the whining bastard he could take. Even the driver seemed to feel that way as he pushed the accelerator to get the car up to 90 mph.

"Say, we could put them in the trunk....there'd be room there, if we tossed out the spare tire."

"We are not putting them in the trunk. This is a dark car, it's almost 80 out there and likely to hit 100 before we get to Reno. There's no air conditioning in the trunk. We need to have the alien alive when we get her to the facility."

"She'd probably survive anyway. The one they tested...he was very resistant to hot and cold. And the other one...she doesn't matter at all."

And Anderson knew that if Schreiber had just said that to begin with, he would have loaded the two into the trunk...let the Lieutenant die. But now he was pissed...getting a perverse joy out of seeing the fat Doctor unhappy.

"Can't do it, Doctor. We might have a flat tire...need the spare. You either sit in back with them, or sit up here with us...QUIETLY."

Schreiber didn't stop grumbling altogether, but he reined it in. He contented himself with the knowledge that his suffering was martyrdom since he was doing it on a noble mission to preserve the purity of the human species against the alien menace and the traitorous human subspecies.

0855 Security Section, Area 51 (Groom's Lake) Nevada

Area 51 was a research outfit, not a combat outfit. They really didn't have a battle staff, or a battle cab to direct operations from. But the headquarters of the security section was close, and it had to serve.


"OK," said Slammer, "I want the security forces pulled right in to the base perimeter, and then I want them to just stay there...to be quiet so we can hear this alien coming to us. When he gets in close, we'll hit him in force, right at the perimeter with two thirds of our teams, while they other third is in reserve unless we need them."

"With the spacecraft gone...where do you think he'll be going, sir?" asked Bob Davidson.

"The clinic," said Slammer.

"The clinic?" asked Davidson.

"Yeah, the clinic," said Hawthorne, looking disappovingly at Slammer, "..the place we took his wife after we assaulted and drugged her.."

"That wasn't us, Captain...and it wouldn't matter anyway. When he took out that scout...well that pretty much made his intentions known."

"And what if that's what he decided. We assaulted his wife...flew her off to Area 51....the place where they cut up aliens to see what makes them tick..."

"We don't do that any more, Jim."

"But how would Max know that? Hell, I can't believe we told Liz she couldn't tell him that aliens exist....no damn wonder she looked at us like we were crazy."

"OK, we made some mistakes," said Slammer, "...I made some mistakes. But when he started killing our personnel...it no longer matters any more. He has to be stopped."

The Project security manager came into the Security Section and looked up at Slammer. "Sir, Doctor Stanbeck called...he says he needs to talk to you right now."

"Please tell Peter I'll have to get back to him...we're in the middle of something really important now."

"I already told him that. He said to tell you that no matter how important whatever you are doing is...what he's got is more important..."

0945 Security Section, Area 51 (Groom's Lake) Nevada

It was a grim faced Slammer that ticked off the issues facing them:

“To start with, we have equipment that almost destroyed the world yesterday, essentially threatening to do the same thing today…in English…in a radio signal clearly coming from one of the fusion cylinders. The deadline for that is….essentially three hours.

The one person we know has been able to prevent that in the past is missing…along with one of our own officers. The car has been located…damaged, but apparently nothing that should have caused serious injuries, but neither of the people in it have been found.

And last but not least…we are being attacked by an actual alien….who may have killed one of our personnel…the man is at least missing, and hasn’t been picked up either visually or by the noise sensors.

So gentleman, discussion. Jim…is that ship really capable of doing it?”

“It almost did it yesterday…I don’t know why it couldn’t do it three hours from now…although what’s triggering it…where the English language broadcast is coming from…when it showed no activity at all for 50 plus years…sir, I just don’t know. But if it ejects the ring singularity in that FTL cylinder….yeah…it might damage stuff out to 22 light minutes.”

“How far is that?”

“In miles,sir? I’d need to use a calculator….orbit of Jupiter, approximately I’d guess.”

“Well, I think we can rule out evacuating anyone out of range. What’s the status on Lieutenant DelGado and the girl?”

“Local police has been notified, sir,” said the Security Manager. “…We’ve got reconnaissance UAV’s out looking for them…and the scout too, for that matter. No luck with either of them..”

“And what do we know about the alien?”

“Well sir,” said the Security Manager, “ I discretely contacted a woman in the Sheriff’s Office in Roswell, someone by the name of Angela, and just asked for more information on this Max Evans and…well sir, he’s a kid..”

“What do you mean…a kid?”

“Well, it’s just like the girl was saying…they’re a couple of sophomores in high school. He was found wandering in the desert at age…oh, about six they guessed. He and the girl have known each other since third grade….started dating a few months ago. They apparently went stargazing in the desert…claimed they fell asleep. The girl’s parents went ballistic, threatened to send her to boarding school out East to keep the two of them apart….the kids split.”

“Any evidence he used any sort of coercion?”

“It sure didn’t sound like she needed much coercing when she was on the scopolamine,” commented Jim Hawthorne.

“It sure doesn’t look like it," said the security manager. "They’ve sent their parents a few emails…put through an anonymizer service so they couldn’t be traced…to a friend of the girl. He delivers them to the parents. The emails seem genuine…sounds like the kids just hit Vegas, got married, then took off for Tonopah. They’ve been there ever since. I didn’t talk about the alien angle…maybe the kid's parents know, but it doesn’t sound like the Sheriff’s office does. Oh…and the kid's got a sister…another foundling…they found the two of them walking along a road north of Roswell naked..same family adopted both.”

“Well the ship appears to be demanding a crewmember…I can’t see either of these people being that,” said Jim.

“Well Liz certainly turned it off yesterday..how she got the ability to do that I have no idea…she seemed to be talking to the damn orb,” said Slammer. “I hope we can find her,…but what if we don’t?”

“How about Max?”

“Max may be at war with us..”

“He may be the only chance we have. Maybe he can talk to the orb…at least buy us sometime.”

“Yeah, but first someone will have to talk to Max.”

“I’ll volunteer for that, sir. We have him on the sensors now…he should hit the base perimeter right about …here,” Jim said as he pointed to the location on the map.

“No, Jim. That’s my job.”

“You’re needed here, sir.”

“No, Jim…no I’m not. This is my responsibility…I’ll go meet him at the perimeter. If I can’t talk sense to him…make him some sort of deal…well, you do what you think needs to be done.”

“I’m not the ranking officer if you aren’t here, sir. That would be Lt Col Aldrin.”

“Who has never been out of his avionics lab in the last fifteen years…no Jim, we don’t have time to get him up to speed in three hours…you do what you think is best if I don’t come back.”

“Sir…this really isn’t Max’s fault. It sounds like he was ready to just keep being a human kid…until we took Liz.”

“Yeah, well at least that damn Schreiber and Blaukopf are locked up. They’re the ones who started this all. I’m going to go get a few things, then go out to talk to the kid. Get a helicopter from Nellis..if I can make him listen to reason..we’ll need to get to Tonopah pronto. Three hours isn’t that much time.”

0945 Correctional Custody detainment area, Nellis Air Force Base Nevada

“Hi, I’m Pete Frameham from the US Marshal’s Service,” the man said, holding out his badge and identification.

“What could we do for you, Marshal?” asked MSgt Dupree.

“I’m here to pick up two prisoners,…Blaukopf and Schreiber.”

“There must be some mistake, Marshal.. Special Agents Pierce and Anderson of the FBI picked them up for you last night…”

“Special Agents…who?? The FBI doesn’t pick up prisoners…certainly not for us. Let me see the paperwork on that..”

“Oh hell,” said MSgt Dupree as he turned to administrative specialist. “Let the base commander know we’ve got two prisoners missing…let them know uprange too.”

0955 Area 51 base perimeter
MSgt Ortiz drove the humvee along the dirt perimeter road that circled the outer fence of the base. He had been assigned there for two years..and had seen more of this commander in two weeks than he had ever seen of the man's predecessor. The troops liked the man...he knew what he was doing..knew how to talk to people...how to treat them like they were part of the team. The man knew how to lead. That's why what the man was doing really worried him. The detachment needed a good commander...Lord knows it had been long enough without one.

"Sir," said MSgt Ortiz. "Are you really sure this is a good idea? I mean...I knew Sandman...he was the best. Not just with a rifle, sir, but in hand to hand..., with a handgun...., the man was sudden death, sir. I wish you'd take my body armor...take an M-16...maybe a grenade or something...."

"Thank you, Sergeant, but I'm afraid it's not that kind of fight. We can't afford to kill him...we need him too much right now. What we need to do right now is to talk to him...get him to listen. If he's really hostile...really out to be our enemy...I don't know if anything will help. If he comes through the fence acting hostile...well, the Captain will give you your orders. But if this is all about the girl...I'd like to think I can win his trust somehow...if I can make him listen."

"Yeah, but if you can't, a nine millimeter might come in awful handy, sir."

"Thanks, Ortiz...but just the radio. That and the bag there...that's all I'm going to take."

"Well, this is the spot...the sensors show him coming down that arroyo, sir...maybe 10 minutes away if he keeps up the same speed. Good luck to you, sir."

"Thanks, Sergeant," said Slammer. 'I'm probably going to need it.'

0955 Northwest buffer zone for Area 51 between sectors three and four

The buzzing of the UAV irritated Sandman. He could have brought the damn thing down with his rifle...with his handgun even. He could have probably thrown a rock at the damn thing...if his hands weren't encased in fifty pounds of sandstone.

"Mother pus-bucket,...are they blind or what?"

But as he looked at the sleeve of his cammies...he knew. 'Damn, that kid makes great cammies...and I've been out of contact too damn long. I can't get to the radio...they can't see me...'

He saw the audio sensor...only a quarter mile away. That wasn't that far...not for a Recon Marine. The handcuffs were only fifty pounds... He started jogging toward it...double-time...his rhythm thrown off by the awkward weight he carried holding both hands together. After a few steps he decided holding the block of sandstone above his head interfered the least with his progress.

He wanted to get to that sensor...scream in to it...or at least pound on it with the sandstone. 'He wasn't a bad kid,' Sandman thought...'just a little misguided.'

He could already envision the ribbing he was going to get from the other guys...letting the kid get the drop on him. 'Sandman in sandstone,' they'd no doubt make quite a joke of it. But still....they'd envy his new cammies. The kid was an artiste',...somehow he needed to tell them to not shoot him. How could you hurt someone who knew camouflage that well?

10:05 Arroyo just outside the base perimeter road

Slammer heard him before he saw him. In fact, had he not just been sitting quietly on the rock...the alien might have gotten by him altogether. His clothes blended in to the desert....his clothes and his facepaint...or was that paint...maybe aliens were chameleons...they just blended in to whatever background they were in...maybe they were built that way...built as fighters...deadly creatures that could conquer worlds..but then...he couldn't get out of his mind the picture of Liz Parker...or Liz Evans, as she'd made it abundantly clear. Even doped up with scopolamine..the girl had made it clear....she loved this creature...loved him with all her heart. And Slammer wanted to believe that if someone like Liz...if she could love him as much as she obviously did...maybe he wasn't all that much of a monster. Maybe he'd help do something about that FTL drive...if only to save Liz.

Slammer didn't know what to say...he'd never spoken to an alien. But he knew the first few words would be critical...

Max looked at the map in his hand. He was almost certain the base fence would be just up the arroyo. It would get harder then he knew. If what the scout had to say was true...he'd possibly die...and certainly have to kill. But those things weren't important...not anymore..not to a man who had spent an eternity envisioning his wife on some steel table...being dissected like a frog in biology class. It was all his fault, somehow...he wasn't sure how, but it had to be. He thought so briefly of all of the years he had concealed what he was...from the world...from his parents...even from her, for so many years. He had told Isabel in the e-mail that she should embrace her human side, ...and perhaps she had. But today...today Max would embrace his alien side. He'd destroy anyone in his way...do whatever he had to do to rescue her...to make it safe for her once more.

Max had felt the presence as he'd come up the arroyo...but thought it was just from the people on the base. And he'd been concentrating on the base...concentrating too much, he realized, when the voice came from 15 feet to his left, from the cluster of large rocks that had fallen from the side of the arroyo.

"Max Evans, I presume..."
Max crouched as he turned, his hand already up...already glowing golden.....as the energy begged him to release it at the man...

18:35 Kunsan Air Base, Korea

The pain in her lower abdomen doubled Sandi over as she went to leave the clinic....and she dropped to her knees.

"Sandi? Sandi...what's wrong?" asked Major Ann Nuncio, one of the nurse practitioners. "Sgt. Matthews...get a gurney. We need to get the Major to the Emergency Room."

10:05 Arroyo just outside the base perimeter road Area 51

Max held back the powerblast...thinking that he could have gotten his name only from Liz. And if he had spoken to her...he must know where she was.

"Take me to Liz..."

"I wish I could do that. son, but I don't know where she is."

"Then take me to your leader..," said Max...wincing immediately when he realized just what he'd said.

"That's a problem too, son. Because that's me."

As he reached for the bag Max raised his hand and he slowed..watching the boys eyes as he gingerly reached into the bag and withdrew the two cans of cherry cola.

"How about we have a little drink...talk the situation over...?"

"I think the time for talking is past."

As he pulled the bottle of Tabasco sauce out, Slammer asked, "You're sure? You've had a long hot walk...what's the harm in talking?"

"I'm not wasting time here while you are torturing her."

"We didn't torture Liz, hell...I like Liz. I just wish she'd told me about you...of course in fairness to her...I'd told her not to tell you about you..."

"I don't understand. Where is she...what have you done to her."

"Max, I was telling you the truth...I don't know where Liz is. One of my Lieutenants was driving her back to Tonopah...back to home, when they both disappeared. We found their car...it had gone off the road. But we didn't find either of them."

"You expect me to believe that? This is area 51...I know what you do here."

And Slammer had to allow that the kid....the alien kid...did have a legitimate gripe...terrible things had happened to at least the one alien here. "That was a long time ago, son."

Slammer could see the rage in his eyes as he answered,
" A long time ago. Liz was SHOT...yesterday."

And when he saw the look in Max's eyes..the look of pain..of anger...of fear...not for himself...but for the Earth girl he loved...suddenly Slammer knew...Max was much like he was. Had someone done that to Sandi...carted her off to a place where there had been torture...death. He'd have come looking for her...even killed too, if he'd had to....

"Max, she was TASERed by two men...and yes...it's my responsibility...they worked for me. But they did it on their own..nobody ordered it...nobody approved of it. They are locked up right now at Nellis AFB, and they are going to be tried for assaulting Liz.....for assaulting...your wife. But she was OK when I last saw her..OK when she left this base. But I need your help right now....something has come up..back at Tonopah Test Range. We need to go there first. I can get a helicopter here in a few minutes to take us there.Everything else...it needs to go on hold until we do that."

"Nothing is more important than Liz," Max said as he turned away...as he walked up the arroyo to the road and the fence beyond it.

"Max, I came here unarmed...even after you killed our man...to try to make peace with you.. We have to do that son, or there is no tomorrow for either of us."

Slammer felt the heat ripple back from the fence as it glared white and melted..a twenty-foot gap now open to the desert.

"I haven't killed anyone...but I will...anyone I have to...I'm going to get Liz."

Slammer tried to follow, but the golden glow from the hand knocked him back...not a lethal blow...not even a painful one, although clearly Max had awesome powers if he chose to use them. Could it be true? Could the scout still be alive?

As he saw Max go through the fence he started to fear that it really didn't matter. In another three hundred meters, Max would be in the killzone of the massed security forces...he had once thought that would be enough...now he wasn't sure. But in a matter of minutes, someone was going to die...that was certain. He picked himself up off the desert floor and scrambled up the side of the arroyo after the boy...

Slammer caught him at last....a hundred meters inside the base perimeter...standing there on the small hill...looking at the monument.

Here are five travelers from a distant star
But the Earth where they lay, is not alien to them
For in death, they belong to the Universe

There were tears in Max's eyes...he hadn't thought that he would find somethng like this....hadn't thought it would affect him like it had.

Max looked up as he heard the Colonel stumbling up the side of the hill...waited until he was standing there beside him by the monument.

"Trust doesn't come easy to me, Colonel," Max said. "It never has. I never even told my folks the truth...after they adopted me. I wouldn't have ever told Liz...if she hadn't almost died.

I don't know what any of this this was all about.....not even why I'm here. If there was some conspiracy...some invasion...well, nobody ever told me about it.

I was just an orphan...a kid with a terrible secret....one that kept him from ever loving or being loved. If Liz hadn't needed me...If I hadn't found her love....I don't think I would have ever trusted anyone. You have to risk to trust, risk being rejected...risk being betrayed...and until I had Liz's love...I could never do that.

But I'll take the chance, Colonel. After seeing this...I guess I'll take the chance."

0950 Warm Springs Nevada, Intersection of Highway 375 and Highway 6.

Nevada State Police Officer Rivaldi wasn’t a local. He’d been sent down from the Winnemucca office to augment the officers handling this end of the roadblocks. The other three were over by the box of doughnuts and thermos of coffee he had brought for them. It had been a long, cold, night for them, deployed out to Warm Springs to halt traffic going in to the area of the radioactive leak from the Test Site. Or….as it turned out, the ERRONEOUS radioactive leak.

They’d heard the radio messages of the monitoring teams…no one had found anything…except for defective ground monitors. Somehow they must have all failed simultaneously…how weird was that? They expected at any time to get the order to end the roadblocks…probably the governor was mulling it over right now. But in the meantime, he had a job to do…raising his hand to stop the approaching car.

The driver of the car looked at the roadblock up ahead with thinly disguised contempt.

“Look at that,” he said to Anderson and Schreiber. “Four of them and only one’s working. The other three are spread around the hood of that car, having coffee and doughnuts. What a bunch of losers…”

As the driver pulled up to the officer he slowed the car and rolled the window down, flipping open his wallet with his ID and shield.

“FBI…taking two prisoners up to Reno.”

Officer Rivaldi recognized the ID…but one of the two prisoners was wearing an Air Force Uniform. Rivaldi had been in the Air Force…one tour as a security policeman…it didn’t make sense.

“She’s active duty? Doesn’t the Air Force handle their own disciplinary actions for active duty personnel? They sure did when I was in the Air Force…”

Despite her handcuffs, Laurie tried to lean forward to speak…to tell the officer they were being kidnapped…but Anderson anticipated her..and put his hand over her mouth..forcing her back. Anderson pulled out his badge and looked at the deputy across the lap of Schreiber.

“Look officer..this is a federal matter…it has nothing to do with the state police.”

He slowly brought his hand to his weapon as he smiled and continued, “…now why don’t you go have a doughnut with your buddies over there …and we’ll be on our way.

The light tap on his right shoulder surprised Special Agent Anderson…and he turned quickly. The size of the barrel of a 12 gauge riot gun at a distance of six inches surprised him even more.

“So I guess you feds would have arrest warrants and extradition paperwork on the two ladies?” the officer holding the shotgun asked.

“Officer,” said Anderson, “..you have no idea what you are doing. I am a federal officer in the performance of my duties and..” the light tap on the head with the barrel of the riot gun seemed to quiet the agent down.

As he saw the local cops remove the guns from the two FBI officers it was too much for the doctor.

“You fools have no idea what you are doing….the girl back there….she’s an alien…we need to get her to a laboratory where we can contain her…study her…You mustn’t let her escape. My name is Doctor Kurt Schreiber…I am an expert about aliens.”

But the back door of the car was already being opened and the man put down the shotgun to help Liz and Laurie out, then started to unlock their handcuffs with the keys he had taken from the two FBI agents.

“That right, Liz? Are you an alien…like Dr. Strangelove here says..?”

“Sheriff,” said Liz with a big grin, “You know me….born and bred in New Mexico…just a little small town girl.”

“Well introduce me to your friend there then…you gals had breakfast? We’ve got some coffee and doughnuts. Bobby…lock those guys up…all three of them. We may need to get a pych eval on the wackjob professor there.”

“Sheriff, this is Laurie…Laurie DelGado…, Laurie this is the county Sheriff, the deputy over there is Roger...and Bobby of course..with the prisoners...the other officer I don't know...”

"Jim Rivaldi, Liz...pleased to meet you. We heard about what you did for Mike Walker....he and I were in the same class at the police academy...I'm sure glad to meet you too Lieutenant...any friend of Liz's is a friend of the Nevada State Police."

Handcuffed in the back of the police car, the three prisoners watched the scene in growing disbelief.