Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 9:02 pm
Thanks for coming back to read!
Timelord31, thanks for the shout out! Nah, I'm very aware of how much time goes between one update and the other... I love posting! The conversation between Jake and Ray is going to turn out to be a very interesting one
DunkBiscuit, wow! I'm honored you took the time to post! yay! Thank you very much for the comments! I try, I really try to write fast... But I like to write long and detail chapters... and, well... I'm making an habit of sitting down and write everyday, so I go faster
BETHANN, you noticed I was early? hehehe I couldn't stop myself I had always thought that Jake and Liz's meeting was going to be awkward, but then I thought that Jake would know how to... take advantage of the situation.
Grace52373, when I first wrote Jake and Dave's insight, I thought it was too lenghty... But I have been hinting here and there, so it was time for something more "solid" I guess. Oh, don't worry, hardly anyone knows what Dave is up to -being on my fanfic world or in the real world
nibbles2, aaaaahhhh! I think you are one of very few readers who actually has some faith in Dave
There's still a lot to be covered between interviews, though... not much time to relax yet
tequathisy, lol! Dave needs to do these interviews, otherwise, he would probably have just left by now... There are more than two or three motives behind what Dave is doing and why he brought Jake in the first place. And he has reasons to keep him in the dark as well. So much to write and so little time...
xmag, wow! a lot of your questions come out on this chapter! Are you sure you didn't turn my computer on while I wasn't looking? What Dave wants would have been impossible to achieve if he had sent them away and arrange their lives just like that. Now, Jake? He has very hard times ahead... Especially if the "kids" start to see him as the good guy and Dave as the bad guy... but that we'll see in time
Awwnn thanks for the wishes for my chat! It was a blast!!! I want more chats!! hehhehehe
omwf, thanks for stopping by! I don't read too much fanfics -shame on me- so when I started thinking and writing this story I really hoped it was an original idea, hehehe So far, no one has sued
XIX
Hidden Truths
When should he tell them? Kyle watched his hand, flexing his fingers, expecting –but not hoping- to see green sparks come alive again, like he had seen less than an hour ago when he had been changing for lunch. Granted, they had been nothing more than a couple of tiny bitty green sparks, but he had seen them. No questions there this time around about static, or anything else. He didn’t understand it, though. Liz’s trip into the World of Sparking Green had lasted about a month or so. And then, nothing. Away from Max and later coming back, she had stopped sparking and everyone had thought that had been the end of it.
So, if his trial period had already passed, why had he sparked on Monday morning –assuming that hadn’t been his imagination- and again today?
Well, maybe he wasn’t seeing the big picture. Liz had made one last trip into Sparking Green when Tess had arrived last year. Heck, not only had she sparked, she had sent Tess flying across a room, something that Isabel later told him was actually a hard thing to do, especially for “beginners”.
And then Liz had had her first vision. Her power didn’t involve anything green related, which had been promising for Kyle who really was dreading a trip into the spooky-and-not-welcome Sparking Green World.
He tried to smile at that notion, and failed. Gosh, not even his attempt at humor was making him feel better.
Kyle was waiting in the corridor so he might have the chance to tell Max –and Liz- privately about it, and then tell the rest of the group. He had to tell them that there was a good chance that keeping his “changes” secret might not happen at all. And if Dave, Jake, or anyone else found out about the side effect of being healed by Max, then not only would Kyle himself and Liz be in trouble, but Max would never see daylight again.
Not that they were seeing much of daylight anyway, Kyle grimly thought as he waited for his two friends. Earlier that day, when they had all been at the Gym, Samantha had come by to invite them to lunch with “the guys down there”.
Today was their wishing-I-wasn’t-there visit to Engineering, and by the sounds of it, Samantha knew everyone in there pretty well and had insisted the only way they were going to get the right feeling of the place was at lunch.
”Besides,” she had said, “we are hoping for some new blood since our last new guys went away last week.”
They all had looked blank. Didn’t Samantha know that they had no clue about engineering or physics or any of that stuff? That they had barely graduated from high school? Of course Dave had said he should get a look, that maybe he could find something to do down there, but… well, Kyle didn’t really know what to expect.
A career in Engineering? Well, if he didn’t fry anything with his newly found electricity, it sounded… intriguing. He couldn’t claim he had had a real dream about his future back in school. He had always known that being part of the Houston Astro’s team was a nice dream at best, but not something that would work in the long run.
He had started working at Toby’s out of need, and hadn’t really liked it much until the idea of actually being a business partner had occurred to him. He had been thinking about that for a week before popping the question, and he had to admit that that week hadn’t completely sucked –except for those septic lines that he so not wished to remember- because he had seen a real future there.
To be honest, Kyle reflected while staring at nothing in particular on the wall in front of him, he had rarely considered an actual career in college in his last two years of school. So, really, what was he going to do “down there”?
Before he could even try to answer that question, there was the problem of his powers. What would happen to him if someone in this place found out about the fact that he had been changed? He suddenly felt claustrophobic. And if this was just an imaginary feeling for a possible problem, how could Max, Isabel and Michael deal with this kind of stress? No wonder Max had lost it at the Lab.
And then again… what if there was a real possibility here? A real future? “Kyle Valenti, Engineer”. Kyle smiled to himself at the prospect. Wouldn’t that make his father proud, uh? And it did sound promising assuming this whole deal was true. Gosh, getting a degree? It was as exciting as it was scary. Besides, his grades in Math and Physics had been anything but outstanding, really… So, why was he attempting to dream it?
He didn’t want to plan a future just to see it crumble, he somberly reflected. He had left home for the unknown, and frankly, things had changed little. This place was still unknown to them. And what if in the end he was let free just to find out that Max, Michael and Isabel were trapped here?
Flexing his fingers again, Kyle thought that maybe special powers wouldn’t be that bad if it meant protecting the ones he cared about. If he could stay in the middle of them and the things that could happen to them… and for the second time in those five minutes, Kyle got a really good glimpse of what it felt like to be one of them. Not only the experience of fear of these walls, but the responsibility for other people’s lives as well.
As his watch read 1:03, Kyle finally saw Max and Liz turning the corner, their feet making no sound. They looked just as tense as he felt himself.
He didn’t need to see to know that a spark had briefly formed in his right hand at the sight of them. If Max and Liz looked like that it couldn’t mean good news. And so, the need to tell them about his sparks evaporated instantly, efficiently making him to shut his mouth and not say a word.
* * *
He had never –ever- seen a more beautiful thing in his life. Gosh, not even when his hockey team had won the championship had Michael been so euphoric at the sight of something.
Aerodynamic, chromo-like exterior, smooth to the eye and touch, the motorcycle in front of him was the most astonishing piece of work on two wheels that anyone could ask for. In fact, calling it a “motorcycle” was just a crime. And Erick, the thirty-something guy that had greeted them when they had arrived some ten minutes before, was just finishing telling them –Maria, Isabel and himself- why it was a crime to think of this brilliant piece of engineering as a “motorcycle”. Isabel looked unimpressed, Maria just plain bored. But Michael –and Erick- were in heaven.
“Oh, it was such luck to assemble it too, not just design it,” Erick was saying, a huge grin on his face as his eyes practically gleamed at the sight of his work.
“Any chance you could assemble one for me?” Michael absently said as he was getting a feel of the handle. He liked bikes, wasn’t a maniac about them exactly, but knew a good thing when he saw one. And this baby could very well say, “I belong to the twenty-first century”.
“Hm… I’m not sure,” Erick answered, “It’s a birthday present.”
“Dave’s?” Isabel immediately asked, for the first time really interested in the conversation.
Erick seemed surprised for a second and, whispering, he said: “Dave sent me a letter himself to work on this project. I don’t know who is going to receive it, but I would surely love to be that someone.”
So, Dave sent presents? Or was it for himself?
If it was a present for someone else, that would mean Dave had people that he cared about. But then again, it could be something for some other stupid deal for all he knew. And then again, if it was for him, well… the man had great taste; Michael couldn’t deny that.
“So, has he come to see it yet?” Maria asked, also taking a sudden interest in their conversation.
Erick laughed. “Sure…,” he sarcastically said as Samantha was coming back with Kyle, Max and Liz at the far end of the immense space they were in now. Like a warehouse with a close roof. “You are like all newbies are, thinking Dave himself is here,” Erick cheerfully continued, “and even if he was here—”
“No one would believe it,” Michael finished for him with a smirk. It was quite amazing that everyone thought it so funny that Dave was, in fact, right beside them. And it also pissed Michael off that Dave had calculated it so damned well, with such detail.
There was just no way to tell these people who Dave was. Or more likely, what he looked like, what he wanted, or anything related to him besides what they already knew. This reminded him of that Jeremy guy that had come into Kyle’s apartment on Sunday morning… He had babbled about Dave, hadn’t he? If only he could find that Net Geek guy… He had asked the Network Keepers just yesterday what it took to be one of them, but his time was still not his own. He couldn’t go snooping around that “Base” until next week. First, he had to finish the damn schedule, so Dave wouldn’t get suspicious as to why Michael was scooping around places where he shouldn’t be yet.
Michael let go of these thoughts –momentarily- as Max and Kyle came to a halt in front of Dave’s present. Isabel rolled her eyes as Kyle started to inspect it. Max appreciated it from a distance as Maria met with Liz some ten feet away, embracing her best friend. And Liz… Liz was staring right at him.
As Max finally approached the motorcycle and Isabel said something under her breath about men and things with wheels, Liz disentangled herself from Maria as the blond girl kept talking to Erick. But something odd happened: Liz walked towards Michael, trying to do so casually.
Michael slightly frowned. Why would Liz be approaching him like that? And then he remembered. He scowled at her. She narrowed her eyes. For a second she reminded him of Max when he wouldn’t let the matter drop.
Passing by him, Liz kept walking to the corner where a small coffee maker machine, some glasses, and a huge water container were kept.
“Want some?” she barely whispered as she passed him by. Michael followed her as Maria and Isabel kept asking Erick about Dave’s letter. Erick was cheerfully answering whatever questions he could just for the fact that they were wearing White Cards. One thing was for sure, Michael thought as he walked behind Liz, having White Cards did impress people down here, so they were more ready to talk about anything since the group already had “Level 6 clearance”.
Liz went for the water container, Michael for the glasses.
“Why didn’t you say something about the window?” Liz asked, barely looking at him as he passed her the glass. She wasn’t angry exactly, but more likely frustrated.
“Are you nuts?” Michael said, whispering as well. “What do you think Max would have done if I had told him I shattered one of Dave’s windows? He would have freaked out more than he already did!”
Liz stopped the glass she was going to fill with water in mid air. “What did he do?” she asked, letting go of her frustration a little, briefly closing her eyes.
“He didn’t tell you?” Michael said, taken aback.
“He didn’t have time to,” Liz said, glancing at Max, frowning. What was worrying Liz so much?
“Well, he did a hell of a lot more than I did. He shattered a glass door down at the lab,” Michael said, and seeing Liz’s eyes widening, he amended, “he got startled by a loud noise. It was an accident.” Michael paused as Liz bit her lip. “I can’t believe Dave told you,” he darkly added.
“He didn’t tell me exactly,” Liz absently said as Michael passed her another glass and she started to fill it up. “The glass was shattered and he said it was a reminder to not piss you off. He seemed to take it pretty seriously, though. He also said he wouldn’t change it ‘til Max had been there.”
Liz placed the glass on the table and turned to look at Michael. “You should have told us, Michael.”
There was something comical in that moment, Michael briefly thought, because two years ago he wouldn’t have bothered trying to explain to Liz the motives behind his actions. He wouldn’t have bothered telling much to anyone, for that matter. But when you were being hunted for seven months straight, on the road, and being separated most of the time, you sort of learned to share things so others would know how you’d most likely react in future occasions. You learned to keep everyone in the loop, which had been exactly what he hadn’t done.
“I was planning to,” Michael said defensively, “I just thought he would have replaced it by the time you got there.” Liz gave him an unconvinced look; that was certainly no explanation. “Listen,” Michael said, dropping the defensive tone “Max was way too scared of something happening to you, especially with the whole sweater business. I knew I had to tell him, but yesterday was not the time, and neither was this morning. He’s too tense,” Michael ended half annoyed, half frustrated at this whole situation. He knew keeping things from Max and the others was one of the worst things he could do, but Liz saw, just as he had seen, that there was nothing to gain by telling Max something that couldn’t be taken back.
If Max had been asked, he would have argued the case. But he was too busy with Kyle and Erick and the girls to pay any attention to what Liz and Michael were discussing.
“I know…” Liz said, glancing back at Max. “I might… I should’ve kept something to myself as well today,” Liz said, and then, amending herself, “for a little while, I mean…”
Michael arched his eyebrows. How uncharacteristic of Liz to admit that telling the truth was not always the best way of dealing with Max. Not that Michael had lied, he had just postponed the bit about telling. Still, Michael didn’t say anything at that, knowing that whatever Liz was referring to, he would get to know later that night.
Liz sighed in frustration as a lock of hair loosely fell in front of her eyes. She put it behind her ear as she was filling the second glass and the lock fell again. Michael had seen that a thousand times and knew how much it pissed her off. It reminded him of Max when he got frustrated by little things too. Actually, there was a lot about Liz that reminded him of Max.
For all the differences between Max and Michael, they loved each other as brothers did. Once Michael had found that he was not alone when he was a child, he had taken a special secret vow, secret even to him, that he would protect Max and Isabel whatever it took. Somehow, Max had gotten a big brother aura around him, and when Michael had gotten to see, years later, that even big brothers were as flawed as everyone else, Michael had had to re-adjust his vision of Max. To accept Max as he was, as Max had accepted him as well. It hadn’t been easy, but it hadn’t been impossible either.
That vision had had to change once more when the brunette that was beside him had entered their lives, changing Max's life directly and Michael's indirectly. Now, to say that Michael had accepted Liz would have been more than just a little bit of a stretch. Michael had grown to tolerate Liz for Max’s sake, and because Michael valued Max and his opinions too much to go against it. And through everything they had had to endure because Max had saved Liz, Michael had had to remind himself that, even if it sucked, Max was in love with Liz. Period. And Michael had swallowed it –hard- because no matter what he had said to Max, what was done was done. Then, along came Maria. And he had fallen in love with her. Period. It had given him a new perspective as to why Max had saved Liz.
Michael passed Liz a fourth glass and wondered if the others were thirsty enough. Liz had a lot on her mind so she was busying herself with that little task. They both kept silent and Michael felt a little awkward standing there, watching the girl tuck that loose lock away for the hundreth time. He was tempted to offer his powers to glue it or something behind her ear, but he let it pass.
Liz and Maria had a friendship like his and Max’s, Michael had reflected ages ago. They were so different, but they valued each other as real sisters would have. The odd thing was that Max and Maria seem to tag along way better than Michael and Liz did. But that was one of those mysteries that didn’t make him stay awake at night.
As time had passed, Michael’s tolerance had gained a tinge of… respect. For all the things that had irked him about Liz, the girl had gotten them out of trouble on more than just one occasion. She knew her science, that was for sure, and her logical approach to things had helped them too. Michael had learned then to count on Liz. And once Liz had gotten her powers, he had learned to trust Liz with his life.
The thing was, Michael thought as he watched Liz filling the fifth glass in a row, that even if they wouldn’t call themselves friends as in the real sense of the word, they would certainly call themselves teammates. For all their differences they both belong to this group, and they both had silently agreed to, well, tolerate each other, and to get along. Maybe Liz didn’t vibrate at the same frequency that Maria and he did, but they had learned to harmonize on a somewhat strange song. Strange enough for him to sense Liz’s distress at what she was thinking, and vibrating just well enough for them to keep a companionable conversation. At least for a little while.
“How did it go?” Michael finally asked her. It was just that, if the glasses were any indication, the interview hadn’t gone as well as it should have.
“Fine… frustrating,” Liz said, sighing, taking a sip of water now that there were no more glasses to fill. Michael gave her half a smile.
“I know exactly what you mean…”
“He makes you feel like… like…” Liz said trying to find the right words.
“Like breaking a window?” Michael elaborated. Liz glared at him, but she dissolved it into a small smile. They both turned to look at Max.
“Maybe he’ll break the whole thing, not just one piece,” Michael said, wondering out loud. “I mean, after a glass door…”
“What did Jake say about that?” Liz asked, diverting his attention from a very vivid image of Max breaking Dave’s entire window. Maybe Michael should have aimed for something bigger as well…
“Freaked out about us being tense and gave us the rest of the week free… for a moment we just didn’t believe it.” Michael leaned against the table, crossing his arms. Liz was about to say something when Samantha called them in.
“So, want the grand tour?”
* * *
What an interesting bunch, Samantha silently thought as they were all finishing dessert. “All” meaning the six teens, the eight engineers, two designers and four physicists that were now working in this section. All their cards were green, except for the teens’, her brother’s, and hers, which were white.
That was the best part of this project: The White Cards. She could go wherever she wanted in this place and that was a feeling she loved. She had always been a curious girl and the thought of closed doors had never been a good one. Too many secrets were already in this place to make her anxious, but the thought of closed doors made her eat her nails.
”That’s why I didn’t tell you a thing,” her brother had said when she had been admitted into the project, “Samantha, you would hate it there! You’ve never been good at ignoring other people’s secrets.”
“Oh, please William. That doesn’t mean that I can’t keep secrets,” she had defended herself.
And it was true too. Which was exactly why she had been admitted in the first place: She knew how to keep her mouth shut. And boy, this project definitely needed her to keep it shut. Psychic powers… who would have guessed, uh?
She had laughed, really laughed at Dave and Ray when they had first debriefed her two months ago. They had been in Dave’s private living room above ground, the three of them alone.
”You are kidding right? There is no such thing as psychic powers…” They had remained silent. She had stopped laughing. “I mean, all this secrecy, and… come on, this is a Level Six project! It can’t be about researching psychic powers. Why would you want to keep that secret?
She had a point there: There were a number of other people researching just that world wide. It wasn’t a big secret and all. Science still considered it improbable, and most scientists would add impossible as well. Granted, the military in some countries had tried taking advantage of it, but it had all proven not to be all that accurate to begin with, or useful. But that aside, the field itself hardly would qualify as a Level Six project. Level Five at best… Or maybe Level Six projects weren’t all that exciting, she had thought for a second, maybe they were over-rated.
Except that a person who could alter molecular structures at will was hardly an over-rated project. Dave had scouted for five months looking for as many diamonds as he could get that Max had potentially made. He had invested a small fortune in that too, as far as she had calculated. And each diamond the dark-haired boy sitting in front of her had transformed had been a very interesting piece of work.
All diamonds in general could be catalogued according to characteristics such as brilliance, shape, size, color and how many irregularities, inclusions or air bubbles it had inside. She had read a lot about that in order to be able to identify Max’s diamonds from all other diamonds. His had been a little bit off at the beginning; they weren’t the best color, nor they had the best transparency or the right shape, but what was outstanding was the near absence of inclusions or air bubbles inside. Still, over the months, they hadn’t improved much. They all had the same “mistakes”, or more likely, the same quality. Maybe Max didn’t know about brilliance, color and transparency when it came to diamonds.
So, when she had been given Liz’s engagement ring, she had been surprised. It was, simply put, a perfect diamond.
”But why would it be perfect?” Dave had asked Jake when she had presented her report six days ago. “It is reasonable to believe that was the first one, or at least one of the first ones. Why would he not make the others the same way?”
Jake had stared at the ring for a second.
“Maybe it has to do with the moment,” Jake had absently said. Both she and Dave had stared at him. “What he was thinking when he made this one, you know? He was going to ask a girl to marry him. He wanted it perfect. I don’t think he gave much of a thought to all the others.”
“His heart wasn’t in it, uh?” Dave had ventured, staring at the engagement ring.
Jake’s theory was still just that: A theory. She didn’t know what to believe herself about this. It wasn’t a hoax, that much she knew, or Dave wouldn’t have risked so much to bring these people here. But why hadn’t they gone to someone else? Why had Dave taken so many precautions, and require everyone involved with these kids to have Level Six clearance?
That had led her to the very obvious question: What else could they do? She was dying to know because she knew for a fact that all the diamonds she had analyzed were Max’s and she also knew that Michael and Isabel were in the project.
When she had met them last Sunday she hadn’t been sure of what to expect. Some sort of magician-looking kids, maybe? And she had been tempted to ask for a little trick, just to finally know that Dave’s –and Ray’s- words had not been a joke. But how exactly could one ask “Hey, can you change this carbon coil into a diamond? I’m just curious about it?” Not really… she had guessed she would have to wait for Jake to make the proper introductions at the Lab…
Maria and Liz were joking with the two designers about desserts, while Kyle was talking to Erick about the “fabulous” motorcycle Erick had been working on for the last month. Max, Michael and Isabel had disappeared a minute before with Andrea, the head of engineering, probably so she could show them some new project.
How absurd it all seemed to her for an instant. They were kids! Of course Dave had told her that, though he had barely said much about them at all. But to know that and to see that were two very different things. Everyone in here seemed to believe they just looked young, not that they were barely grasping their 20th birthdays.
She had just kept the fact to herself. If the kids wanted to say anything about themselves to anyone else, that was their problem, but she was not going to screw up her level six clearance just because she felt like chatting with her co-workers. Not that there were too many people working with her on molecular projects to begin with, but still...
Whatever. None of it mattered now. She just couldn’t wait to start. Whatever they were going to do –Jake, the kids and herself- was going to be ground-breaking territory. No one, anywhere, would be researching the same as she, and that was enough to make her eyes sparkle.
She wasn’t fooling herself. It would be years before she could go public with any of it, but it didn’t matter to her. She was a very patient woman. She just loved to be, well, special, unique, and she was certain that working with these very unique kids was going to be very special indeed.
The question now was when was she going to start working with them? Now that Max was here, Dave was not going to keep hunting for any more diamonds, and Jake had left unclear when was he going to ask for her expertise in analyzing molecular structures.
She had talked to Jake around 11:00 a.m. this morning only to learn that he now thought they might have to wait more than a month to start working together.
”What? Why?” she had asked over her cell phone, not exactly yelling, but loud enough to turn heads all around her.
“I want to take it slow,” Jake had answered sounding a little bit annoyed, though she hadn’t known why.
“Didn’t Dave say he wanted them working right away?” she had asked, confused.
“Well, contrary to public opinion, he’s not as a brilliant as he appears to be.”
So now she had to wait longer. For the past two months she had wondered and wondered time and time again what kind of kids they were. Oh, what would she have done had she been able to turn carbon coils into diamonds? She returned her emerald eyes to the two girls in front of her. What would she do if she were married to someone who could turn carbon coils into diamonds? Now there was a thought…
She was just puzzled, and she didn’t like puzzles. Hated them, actually. But she was going to be patient. Whatever hidden truths these kids, Dave, or Jake kept, the possibilities implied by this whole project were just too important to allow curiosity to get the better of her.
* * *
“You,” Ray said, opening his front door and raising a finger to the man in front of him; his eyes narrowed as a sign of disgust. “You sent them to me after everything I said this morning? After the fact that I told you exactly what I thought about Max being tense because Liz was with Dave?”
Jake stood in the hall, a tired expression on his face. “Come on Ray, you are still in one piece. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
Ray could have said a million things to that, but he didn’t. Jake didn’t look like joking in their usual way of sarcasm over sarcasm, so Ray only moved aside to let Jake in.
“What have we gotten ourselves into?” Jake asked, making a beeline for the fridge. How could Jake eat so much, do no exercise at all, and still not be a 250 pound guy?
Puzzled far more by Jake’s words than his eating habits, Ray stared at Jake, waiting for an explanation. The slightly red-haired doctor emerged from the fridge with a left over slice of pizza and orange juice.
“I mean, what is Dave playing this time? He has too much invested in this whole thing and he hasn’t told me half of it,” Jake said, placing a glass and a plate on the counter.
“What makes you believe he’s told me more than he’s told you?” Ray asked, grabbing the remote control and freezing the hockey game he had been watching in his living room just moments ago. Because Dave was sleeping at this hour of the day, and Ray was stuck at midday revising the new security systems –which were updated every three months- he had at least until six before talking to Dave. So, this was his free time, and now he had Jake in his kitchen in total conspiracy mode. Would wonders ever cease…
“He must have told you things he didn’t tell me, and vice versa,” Jake absently said, pouring the orange juice out of its container.
“Jake,” Ray said, coming to the other side of the counter, “What is it with you and all this sudden interest in Dave’s plan?”
Jake stared at him, “You are okay with all of this?”
“You were okay with all of this last week, if I remember correctly. You were the one who developed the sedative gas if I’m also allowed to say,” Ray pointed out.
“That was because your plan wouldn’t have worked otherwise,” Jake answered back, annoyed. “And it was going to be too dangerous for them if we had used any other type of sedative.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining then, nor coming up with another plan. And you did know what we were doing, Jake.”
“I thought I knew, but now I’m not so sure…” Jake almost whispered. For one instant Ray really resented having missed two of Jake’s and Dave’s sessions. Sure, the security systems were better than ever now –and Dave had insisted that he looked upon those ASAP- but maybe if he had been there, he would now understand what was going on with Jake.
“What’s up with you trying to find fault with Dave?”
Jake opened his mouth just to close it again. His eyes were uneasy as he was trying to say whatever he was thinking. Ray waited. It was so unusual to see Jake like this, doubting his friend’s plans, that Ray wasn’t sure if it was good or not. It made Ray feel cautious all of the sudden around Dave’s best friend.
“Why—what do you think Dave wants from them?”
“Why do you want them in here, anyway?” Ray had asked Dave the first night the kids had been here, when the offer had been made and they had left. “How do you plan on using their abilities?”
“I have many, many ways in which their skills can be useful to me, I won’t deny that, but it is much more than that, Ray.” Dave had answered as if he were thinking something very important. “I just hope for our own sakes that they say yes. There is just way too much at stake here. But nothing will work if they are not here willingly,” he had enigmatically concluded.
Ray hadn’t told anyone about that insight into Dave’s plan, but the words had stuck in his head. Still, Jake was waiting for an answer.
“Honestly, I don’t know. But it is important, that much I do know,” Ray answered, thinking that was just about the lamest answer he had ever given.
“That doesn’t say much, Ray,” Jake said, sipping his orange juice. “When you were first presented with the project, what did you think?”
Ray smiled. That was another memory he would never forget. “That it was only natural that it was Dave who found aliens on this planet. He has a talent for finding the weirdest stuff.”
Jake smiled at that. “Yeah… only natural… Anything else besides that? What was the debriefing like?”
“Aliens? Really Dave?” Ray had asked, arching one eyebrow over a bunch of documents he was now starting to look at. Some were from something about a radio telescope checking, some were from a genetics lab, and one was from a report on some Phoenix hospital.
He was sure there was a relationship among all those reports, he only had to sit down a couple of minutes and see it through. Dave waited those minutes until Ray had finally looked up and repeated himself: “Aliens?”
Dave had smiled. He had been excited, Ray had been able to tell, but he had also been cautious. “What do you want to do with aliens?” Ray had asked, laughing a little. At that point, he still hadn’t believed it.
“That’s the question, you see. I’m not sure what to do with this information,” Dave had said, looking at the papers in Ray’s hands, all serious now.
“How long have you known?” Ray had asked, starting to believe that Dave was not kidding.
“Confirmation of their identities,” Dave had said, opening a folder in front of him and handing Ray a surveillance camera picture, “came yesterday. I’ve been up all night wondering what to do. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about their lives at first sight,” Dave had ended, standing up and starting to pace, a habit certainly picked up from Jake.
“So, you want me to go and check them out?” Ray had asked. He had never been a fan of science fiction and, until that day, had thought the idea of alien life-forms on Earth was just ridiculous. He was still not convinced and was waiting for Dave to start laughing, but somehow he knew Dave did believe his information was right.
“I don’t like entering the lion’s den just because I feel curious about the lion,” Dave had absently said. “Tell me Ray, if you were an alien living among a very dangerous species, would you go unguarded? Without a plan to defend yourself? Especially if your intentions might not be completely honorable?”
“Of course not,” Ray had smiled. A cover up operation, an infiltration operation would certainly not be much different.
“Exactly.”
“Then, what do you want? Check the lion’s cave first?” Ray had said, frowning.
“Yeah, but do so very cautiously. I don’t want anybody getting suspicious. I might not be the only one behind those kids, if kids they are, and I certainly don’t want to tip anyone off about us knowing their little secret.”
“But Dave, if they are dangerous, what are you going to do?” Ray had wondered, for the first time really wondered, what could it all mean? An alien invasion? It sounded so laughable, but still…
“You see Ray, that’s what I’ve been wondering all night. If you were an invader, and had to hide whatever the case, would you go to a very public place, like a hospital, and heal your very human boss’s daughter and four other children?”
The Phoenix report had still been in front of Ray’s eyes. “You think we might get ourselves a deserter? A traitor to its cause?”
“I’m saying that you better get me good information about that cave, because this lion could turn out to be anything, Ray.”
“So I gathered up a team,” Ray was saying now to Jake, “and we started to slowly infiltrate Roswell, New Mexico. Dave was very intrigued by their actions, because frankly, things didn’t quite add up from our point of view. It took us a while to see who was alien and who wasn’t and how many people were involved in the secret. But we got to see that not much of an alien invasion was going on…”
“He didn’t send his Messengers?” Jake absently asked just before taking another sip from his orange juice. Ray mentally chuckled. As if Dave would spare his Messengers on a recognition mission…
“No, not in the beginning. He did so when he was preparing the rooms, of course, where they woke up. But that was just till the end of the game.”
“So Dave just told you to keep watching?” Jake asked, half through his cold pizza slice now, his eyes narrowing.
“Well… yeah… though…” Ray trailed off.
“Though what?” Jake pressed.
“Though there was something odd taking place,” Ray said. “Dave became sort of obsessed with details.”
“Dave is an obsessive person,” Jake said smiling a little. “You know that.”
“Yes, I do,” Ray said a little bit annoyed at being patronized, “but I mean, I’ve been working with him for eight years, Jake, this was different. I don’t know; he went to Japan for a week about a month after we started watching, and when he returned he had all these ideas of how to get information about them. It was as if he couldn’t get enough, but… It was always all about the cave, and not the lion, if you like. He practically implied that we couldn’t approach Max, Michael or Isabel up close and personal. He was very serious about that.”
“So, he discovered something he hadn’t known before in that trip…” Jake said out loud, his pizza and orange juice forgotten.
“I don’t know,” Ray truthfully said, “with Dave, it could have been the movie he was watching on the way home that sparked his imagination. But if you are looking for a very odd thing, he certainly must’ve gotten to see a very weird movie when the kids disappeared after their high-school graduation. That’s when all the madness really began. That’s when the project here began.”
“Yes, that’s when he approached me,” Jake said, thoughtful.
“Suddenly he realized he wanted them here,” Ray said, for the first time feeling a little bit guilty for revealing all these details. Dave had been so adamant about the secrecy of it all. But it still puzzled Ray. Why had Dave so drastically changed from only watching to bringing them here? And it had been practically over night.
“Something else changed then,” Jake said more to himself than to Ray, his eyes lost in a point on the wall. “But what? Did he ever mention—”
“Not a word,” Ray cut Jake off, “believe me I have been waiting for an explanation for months now, and nothing. But whatever he wants, Jake, he’s terribly afraid that something will happen to those kids. That’s why I’m not doubting his plan, you see? I know how much he has done to get to this point. And I trust him to be doing the right thing.”
“Yeah, but what the hell is the right thing, Ray?” Jake impatiently said. “What is Dave trying to do with them? And if it is such an honorable cause, as you put it, why is he also hiding it from us?”
And to that Ray had no answer to give.
TBC...
Okay guys, here's the author's note I desperately didn't want to post, but... you have finally caught up with me... So, I was torned into posting each time I finish a chapter or to write five or six and then come back and post weekly again. I think I'm going to do that, because that way it'll be easy to keep the story straight for you... ggaaahhhh!!! I'll hurry! I promise! But if you guys have any questions about the story and stuff, I'll be checking to answer those
Misha
Timelord31, thanks for the shout out! Nah, I'm very aware of how much time goes between one update and the other... I love posting! The conversation between Jake and Ray is going to turn out to be a very interesting one
DunkBiscuit, wow! I'm honored you took the time to post! yay! Thank you very much for the comments! I try, I really try to write fast... But I like to write long and detail chapters... and, well... I'm making an habit of sitting down and write everyday, so I go faster
BETHANN, you noticed I was early? hehehe I couldn't stop myself
I had always thought that Jake and Liz's meeting was going to be awkward, but then I thought that Jake would know how to... take advantage of the situation. Grace52373, when I first wrote Jake and Dave's insight, I thought it was too lenghty... But I have been hinting here and there, so it was time for something more "solid" I guess. Oh, don't worry, hardly anyone knows what Dave is up to -being on my fanfic world or in the real world
nibbles2, aaaaahhhh! I think you are one of very few readers who actually has some faith in Dave
There's still a lot to be covered between interviews, though... not much time to relax yet tequathisy, lol! Dave needs to do these interviews, otherwise, he would probably have just left by now... There are more than two or three motives behind what Dave is doing and why he brought Jake in the first place. And he has reasons to keep him in the dark as well. So much to write and so little time...
xmag, wow! a lot of your questions come out on this chapter! Are you sure you didn't turn my computer on while I wasn't looking? What Dave wants would have been impossible to achieve if he had sent them away and arrange their lives just like that. Now, Jake? He has very hard times ahead... Especially if the "kids" start to see him as the good guy and Dave as the bad guy... but that we'll see in time
Awwnn thanks for the wishes for my chat! It was a blast!!! I want more chats!! hehhehehe
omwf, thanks for stopping by! I don't read too much fanfics -shame on me- so when I started thinking and writing this story I really hoped it was an original idea, hehehe So far, no one has sued
XIX
Hidden Truths
When should he tell them? Kyle watched his hand, flexing his fingers, expecting –but not hoping- to see green sparks come alive again, like he had seen less than an hour ago when he had been changing for lunch. Granted, they had been nothing more than a couple of tiny bitty green sparks, but he had seen them. No questions there this time around about static, or anything else. He didn’t understand it, though. Liz’s trip into the World of Sparking Green had lasted about a month or so. And then, nothing. Away from Max and later coming back, she had stopped sparking and everyone had thought that had been the end of it.
So, if his trial period had already passed, why had he sparked on Monday morning –assuming that hadn’t been his imagination- and again today?
Well, maybe he wasn’t seeing the big picture. Liz had made one last trip into Sparking Green when Tess had arrived last year. Heck, not only had she sparked, she had sent Tess flying across a room, something that Isabel later told him was actually a hard thing to do, especially for “beginners”.
And then Liz had had her first vision. Her power didn’t involve anything green related, which had been promising for Kyle who really was dreading a trip into the spooky-and-not-welcome Sparking Green World.
He tried to smile at that notion, and failed. Gosh, not even his attempt at humor was making him feel better.
Kyle was waiting in the corridor so he might have the chance to tell Max –and Liz- privately about it, and then tell the rest of the group. He had to tell them that there was a good chance that keeping his “changes” secret might not happen at all. And if Dave, Jake, or anyone else found out about the side effect of being healed by Max, then not only would Kyle himself and Liz be in trouble, but Max would never see daylight again.
Not that they were seeing much of daylight anyway, Kyle grimly thought as he waited for his two friends. Earlier that day, when they had all been at the Gym, Samantha had come by to invite them to lunch with “the guys down there”.
Today was their wishing-I-wasn’t-there visit to Engineering, and by the sounds of it, Samantha knew everyone in there pretty well and had insisted the only way they were going to get the right feeling of the place was at lunch.
”Besides,” she had said, “we are hoping for some new blood since our last new guys went away last week.”
They all had looked blank. Didn’t Samantha know that they had no clue about engineering or physics or any of that stuff? That they had barely graduated from high school? Of course Dave had said he should get a look, that maybe he could find something to do down there, but… well, Kyle didn’t really know what to expect.
A career in Engineering? Well, if he didn’t fry anything with his newly found electricity, it sounded… intriguing. He couldn’t claim he had had a real dream about his future back in school. He had always known that being part of the Houston Astro’s team was a nice dream at best, but not something that would work in the long run.
He had started working at Toby’s out of need, and hadn’t really liked it much until the idea of actually being a business partner had occurred to him. He had been thinking about that for a week before popping the question, and he had to admit that that week hadn’t completely sucked –except for those septic lines that he so not wished to remember- because he had seen a real future there.
To be honest, Kyle reflected while staring at nothing in particular on the wall in front of him, he had rarely considered an actual career in college in his last two years of school. So, really, what was he going to do “down there”?
Before he could even try to answer that question, there was the problem of his powers. What would happen to him if someone in this place found out about the fact that he had been changed? He suddenly felt claustrophobic. And if this was just an imaginary feeling for a possible problem, how could Max, Isabel and Michael deal with this kind of stress? No wonder Max had lost it at the Lab.
And then again… what if there was a real possibility here? A real future? “Kyle Valenti, Engineer”. Kyle smiled to himself at the prospect. Wouldn’t that make his father proud, uh? And it did sound promising assuming this whole deal was true. Gosh, getting a degree? It was as exciting as it was scary. Besides, his grades in Math and Physics had been anything but outstanding, really… So, why was he attempting to dream it?
He didn’t want to plan a future just to see it crumble, he somberly reflected. He had left home for the unknown, and frankly, things had changed little. This place was still unknown to them. And what if in the end he was let free just to find out that Max, Michael and Isabel were trapped here?
Flexing his fingers again, Kyle thought that maybe special powers wouldn’t be that bad if it meant protecting the ones he cared about. If he could stay in the middle of them and the things that could happen to them… and for the second time in those five minutes, Kyle got a really good glimpse of what it felt like to be one of them. Not only the experience of fear of these walls, but the responsibility for other people’s lives as well.
As his watch read 1:03, Kyle finally saw Max and Liz turning the corner, their feet making no sound. They looked just as tense as he felt himself.
He didn’t need to see to know that a spark had briefly formed in his right hand at the sight of them. If Max and Liz looked like that it couldn’t mean good news. And so, the need to tell them about his sparks evaporated instantly, efficiently making him to shut his mouth and not say a word.
* * *
He had never –ever- seen a more beautiful thing in his life. Gosh, not even when his hockey team had won the championship had Michael been so euphoric at the sight of something.
Aerodynamic, chromo-like exterior, smooth to the eye and touch, the motorcycle in front of him was the most astonishing piece of work on two wheels that anyone could ask for. In fact, calling it a “motorcycle” was just a crime. And Erick, the thirty-something guy that had greeted them when they had arrived some ten minutes before, was just finishing telling them –Maria, Isabel and himself- why it was a crime to think of this brilliant piece of engineering as a “motorcycle”. Isabel looked unimpressed, Maria just plain bored. But Michael –and Erick- were in heaven.
“Oh, it was such luck to assemble it too, not just design it,” Erick was saying, a huge grin on his face as his eyes practically gleamed at the sight of his work.
“Any chance you could assemble one for me?” Michael absently said as he was getting a feel of the handle. He liked bikes, wasn’t a maniac about them exactly, but knew a good thing when he saw one. And this baby could very well say, “I belong to the twenty-first century”.
“Hm… I’m not sure,” Erick answered, “It’s a birthday present.”
“Dave’s?” Isabel immediately asked, for the first time really interested in the conversation.
Erick seemed surprised for a second and, whispering, he said: “Dave sent me a letter himself to work on this project. I don’t know who is going to receive it, but I would surely love to be that someone.”
So, Dave sent presents? Or was it for himself?
If it was a present for someone else, that would mean Dave had people that he cared about. But then again, it could be something for some other stupid deal for all he knew. And then again, if it was for him, well… the man had great taste; Michael couldn’t deny that.
“So, has he come to see it yet?” Maria asked, also taking a sudden interest in their conversation.
Erick laughed. “Sure…,” he sarcastically said as Samantha was coming back with Kyle, Max and Liz at the far end of the immense space they were in now. Like a warehouse with a close roof. “You are like all newbies are, thinking Dave himself is here,” Erick cheerfully continued, “and even if he was here—”
“No one would believe it,” Michael finished for him with a smirk. It was quite amazing that everyone thought it so funny that Dave was, in fact, right beside them. And it also pissed Michael off that Dave had calculated it so damned well, with such detail.
There was just no way to tell these people who Dave was. Or more likely, what he looked like, what he wanted, or anything related to him besides what they already knew. This reminded him of that Jeremy guy that had come into Kyle’s apartment on Sunday morning… He had babbled about Dave, hadn’t he? If only he could find that Net Geek guy… He had asked the Network Keepers just yesterday what it took to be one of them, but his time was still not his own. He couldn’t go snooping around that “Base” until next week. First, he had to finish the damn schedule, so Dave wouldn’t get suspicious as to why Michael was scooping around places where he shouldn’t be yet.
Michael let go of these thoughts –momentarily- as Max and Kyle came to a halt in front of Dave’s present. Isabel rolled her eyes as Kyle started to inspect it. Max appreciated it from a distance as Maria met with Liz some ten feet away, embracing her best friend. And Liz… Liz was staring right at him.
As Max finally approached the motorcycle and Isabel said something under her breath about men and things with wheels, Liz disentangled herself from Maria as the blond girl kept talking to Erick. But something odd happened: Liz walked towards Michael, trying to do so casually.
Michael slightly frowned. Why would Liz be approaching him like that? And then he remembered. He scowled at her. She narrowed her eyes. For a second she reminded him of Max when he wouldn’t let the matter drop.
Passing by him, Liz kept walking to the corner where a small coffee maker machine, some glasses, and a huge water container were kept.
“Want some?” she barely whispered as she passed him by. Michael followed her as Maria and Isabel kept asking Erick about Dave’s letter. Erick was cheerfully answering whatever questions he could just for the fact that they were wearing White Cards. One thing was for sure, Michael thought as he walked behind Liz, having White Cards did impress people down here, so they were more ready to talk about anything since the group already had “Level 6 clearance”.
Liz went for the water container, Michael for the glasses.
“Why didn’t you say something about the window?” Liz asked, barely looking at him as he passed her the glass. She wasn’t angry exactly, but more likely frustrated.
“Are you nuts?” Michael said, whispering as well. “What do you think Max would have done if I had told him I shattered one of Dave’s windows? He would have freaked out more than he already did!”
Liz stopped the glass she was going to fill with water in mid air. “What did he do?” she asked, letting go of her frustration a little, briefly closing her eyes.
“He didn’t tell you?” Michael said, taken aback.
“He didn’t have time to,” Liz said, glancing at Max, frowning. What was worrying Liz so much?
“Well, he did a hell of a lot more than I did. He shattered a glass door down at the lab,” Michael said, and seeing Liz’s eyes widening, he amended, “he got startled by a loud noise. It was an accident.” Michael paused as Liz bit her lip. “I can’t believe Dave told you,” he darkly added.
“He didn’t tell me exactly,” Liz absently said as Michael passed her another glass and she started to fill it up. “The glass was shattered and he said it was a reminder to not piss you off. He seemed to take it pretty seriously, though. He also said he wouldn’t change it ‘til Max had been there.”
Liz placed the glass on the table and turned to look at Michael. “You should have told us, Michael.”
There was something comical in that moment, Michael briefly thought, because two years ago he wouldn’t have bothered trying to explain to Liz the motives behind his actions. He wouldn’t have bothered telling much to anyone, for that matter. But when you were being hunted for seven months straight, on the road, and being separated most of the time, you sort of learned to share things so others would know how you’d most likely react in future occasions. You learned to keep everyone in the loop, which had been exactly what he hadn’t done.
“I was planning to,” Michael said defensively, “I just thought he would have replaced it by the time you got there.” Liz gave him an unconvinced look; that was certainly no explanation. “Listen,” Michael said, dropping the defensive tone “Max was way too scared of something happening to you, especially with the whole sweater business. I knew I had to tell him, but yesterday was not the time, and neither was this morning. He’s too tense,” Michael ended half annoyed, half frustrated at this whole situation. He knew keeping things from Max and the others was one of the worst things he could do, but Liz saw, just as he had seen, that there was nothing to gain by telling Max something that couldn’t be taken back.
If Max had been asked, he would have argued the case. But he was too busy with Kyle and Erick and the girls to pay any attention to what Liz and Michael were discussing.
“I know…” Liz said, glancing back at Max. “I might… I should’ve kept something to myself as well today,” Liz said, and then, amending herself, “for a little while, I mean…”
Michael arched his eyebrows. How uncharacteristic of Liz to admit that telling the truth was not always the best way of dealing with Max. Not that Michael had lied, he had just postponed the bit about telling. Still, Michael didn’t say anything at that, knowing that whatever Liz was referring to, he would get to know later that night.
Liz sighed in frustration as a lock of hair loosely fell in front of her eyes. She put it behind her ear as she was filling the second glass and the lock fell again. Michael had seen that a thousand times and knew how much it pissed her off. It reminded him of Max when he got frustrated by little things too. Actually, there was a lot about Liz that reminded him of Max.
For all the differences between Max and Michael, they loved each other as brothers did. Once Michael had found that he was not alone when he was a child, he had taken a special secret vow, secret even to him, that he would protect Max and Isabel whatever it took. Somehow, Max had gotten a big brother aura around him, and when Michael had gotten to see, years later, that even big brothers were as flawed as everyone else, Michael had had to re-adjust his vision of Max. To accept Max as he was, as Max had accepted him as well. It hadn’t been easy, but it hadn’t been impossible either.
That vision had had to change once more when the brunette that was beside him had entered their lives, changing Max's life directly and Michael's indirectly. Now, to say that Michael had accepted Liz would have been more than just a little bit of a stretch. Michael had grown to tolerate Liz for Max’s sake, and because Michael valued Max and his opinions too much to go against it. And through everything they had had to endure because Max had saved Liz, Michael had had to remind himself that, even if it sucked, Max was in love with Liz. Period. And Michael had swallowed it –hard- because no matter what he had said to Max, what was done was done. Then, along came Maria. And he had fallen in love with her. Period. It had given him a new perspective as to why Max had saved Liz.
Michael passed Liz a fourth glass and wondered if the others were thirsty enough. Liz had a lot on her mind so she was busying herself with that little task. They both kept silent and Michael felt a little awkward standing there, watching the girl tuck that loose lock away for the hundreth time. He was tempted to offer his powers to glue it or something behind her ear, but he let it pass.
Liz and Maria had a friendship like his and Max’s, Michael had reflected ages ago. They were so different, but they valued each other as real sisters would have. The odd thing was that Max and Maria seem to tag along way better than Michael and Liz did. But that was one of those mysteries that didn’t make him stay awake at night.
As time had passed, Michael’s tolerance had gained a tinge of… respect. For all the things that had irked him about Liz, the girl had gotten them out of trouble on more than just one occasion. She knew her science, that was for sure, and her logical approach to things had helped them too. Michael had learned then to count on Liz. And once Liz had gotten her powers, he had learned to trust Liz with his life.
The thing was, Michael thought as he watched Liz filling the fifth glass in a row, that even if they wouldn’t call themselves friends as in the real sense of the word, they would certainly call themselves teammates. For all their differences they both belong to this group, and they both had silently agreed to, well, tolerate each other, and to get along. Maybe Liz didn’t vibrate at the same frequency that Maria and he did, but they had learned to harmonize on a somewhat strange song. Strange enough for him to sense Liz’s distress at what she was thinking, and vibrating just well enough for them to keep a companionable conversation. At least for a little while.
“How did it go?” Michael finally asked her. It was just that, if the glasses were any indication, the interview hadn’t gone as well as it should have.
“Fine… frustrating,” Liz said, sighing, taking a sip of water now that there were no more glasses to fill. Michael gave her half a smile.
“I know exactly what you mean…”
“He makes you feel like… like…” Liz said trying to find the right words.
“Like breaking a window?” Michael elaborated. Liz glared at him, but she dissolved it into a small smile. They both turned to look at Max.
“Maybe he’ll break the whole thing, not just one piece,” Michael said, wondering out loud. “I mean, after a glass door…”
“What did Jake say about that?” Liz asked, diverting his attention from a very vivid image of Max breaking Dave’s entire window. Maybe Michael should have aimed for something bigger as well…
“Freaked out about us being tense and gave us the rest of the week free… for a moment we just didn’t believe it.” Michael leaned against the table, crossing his arms. Liz was about to say something when Samantha called them in.
“So, want the grand tour?”
* * *
What an interesting bunch, Samantha silently thought as they were all finishing dessert. “All” meaning the six teens, the eight engineers, two designers and four physicists that were now working in this section. All their cards were green, except for the teens’, her brother’s, and hers, which were white.
That was the best part of this project: The White Cards. She could go wherever she wanted in this place and that was a feeling she loved. She had always been a curious girl and the thought of closed doors had never been a good one. Too many secrets were already in this place to make her anxious, but the thought of closed doors made her eat her nails.
”That’s why I didn’t tell you a thing,” her brother had said when she had been admitted into the project, “Samantha, you would hate it there! You’ve never been good at ignoring other people’s secrets.”
“Oh, please William. That doesn’t mean that I can’t keep secrets,” she had defended herself.
And it was true too. Which was exactly why she had been admitted in the first place: She knew how to keep her mouth shut. And boy, this project definitely needed her to keep it shut. Psychic powers… who would have guessed, uh?
She had laughed, really laughed at Dave and Ray when they had first debriefed her two months ago. They had been in Dave’s private living room above ground, the three of them alone.
”You are kidding right? There is no such thing as psychic powers…” They had remained silent. She had stopped laughing. “I mean, all this secrecy, and… come on, this is a Level Six project! It can’t be about researching psychic powers. Why would you want to keep that secret?
She had a point there: There were a number of other people researching just that world wide. It wasn’t a big secret and all. Science still considered it improbable, and most scientists would add impossible as well. Granted, the military in some countries had tried taking advantage of it, but it had all proven not to be all that accurate to begin with, or useful. But that aside, the field itself hardly would qualify as a Level Six project. Level Five at best… Or maybe Level Six projects weren’t all that exciting, she had thought for a second, maybe they were over-rated.
Except that a person who could alter molecular structures at will was hardly an over-rated project. Dave had scouted for five months looking for as many diamonds as he could get that Max had potentially made. He had invested a small fortune in that too, as far as she had calculated. And each diamond the dark-haired boy sitting in front of her had transformed had been a very interesting piece of work.
All diamonds in general could be catalogued according to characteristics such as brilliance, shape, size, color and how many irregularities, inclusions or air bubbles it had inside. She had read a lot about that in order to be able to identify Max’s diamonds from all other diamonds. His had been a little bit off at the beginning; they weren’t the best color, nor they had the best transparency or the right shape, but what was outstanding was the near absence of inclusions or air bubbles inside. Still, over the months, they hadn’t improved much. They all had the same “mistakes”, or more likely, the same quality. Maybe Max didn’t know about brilliance, color and transparency when it came to diamonds.
So, when she had been given Liz’s engagement ring, she had been surprised. It was, simply put, a perfect diamond.
”But why would it be perfect?” Dave had asked Jake when she had presented her report six days ago. “It is reasonable to believe that was the first one, or at least one of the first ones. Why would he not make the others the same way?”
Jake had stared at the ring for a second.
“Maybe it has to do with the moment,” Jake had absently said. Both she and Dave had stared at him. “What he was thinking when he made this one, you know? He was going to ask a girl to marry him. He wanted it perfect. I don’t think he gave much of a thought to all the others.”
“His heart wasn’t in it, uh?” Dave had ventured, staring at the engagement ring.
Jake’s theory was still just that: A theory. She didn’t know what to believe herself about this. It wasn’t a hoax, that much she knew, or Dave wouldn’t have risked so much to bring these people here. But why hadn’t they gone to someone else? Why had Dave taken so many precautions, and require everyone involved with these kids to have Level Six clearance?
That had led her to the very obvious question: What else could they do? She was dying to know because she knew for a fact that all the diamonds she had analyzed were Max’s and she also knew that Michael and Isabel were in the project.
When she had met them last Sunday she hadn’t been sure of what to expect. Some sort of magician-looking kids, maybe? And she had been tempted to ask for a little trick, just to finally know that Dave’s –and Ray’s- words had not been a joke. But how exactly could one ask “Hey, can you change this carbon coil into a diamond? I’m just curious about it?” Not really… she had guessed she would have to wait for Jake to make the proper introductions at the Lab…
Maria and Liz were joking with the two designers about desserts, while Kyle was talking to Erick about the “fabulous” motorcycle Erick had been working on for the last month. Max, Michael and Isabel had disappeared a minute before with Andrea, the head of engineering, probably so she could show them some new project.
How absurd it all seemed to her for an instant. They were kids! Of course Dave had told her that, though he had barely said much about them at all. But to know that and to see that were two very different things. Everyone in here seemed to believe they just looked young, not that they were barely grasping their 20th birthdays.
She had just kept the fact to herself. If the kids wanted to say anything about themselves to anyone else, that was their problem, but she was not going to screw up her level six clearance just because she felt like chatting with her co-workers. Not that there were too many people working with her on molecular projects to begin with, but still...
Whatever. None of it mattered now. She just couldn’t wait to start. Whatever they were going to do –Jake, the kids and herself- was going to be ground-breaking territory. No one, anywhere, would be researching the same as she, and that was enough to make her eyes sparkle.
She wasn’t fooling herself. It would be years before she could go public with any of it, but it didn’t matter to her. She was a very patient woman. She just loved to be, well, special, unique, and she was certain that working with these very unique kids was going to be very special indeed.
The question now was when was she going to start working with them? Now that Max was here, Dave was not going to keep hunting for any more diamonds, and Jake had left unclear when was he going to ask for her expertise in analyzing molecular structures.
She had talked to Jake around 11:00 a.m. this morning only to learn that he now thought they might have to wait more than a month to start working together.
”What? Why?” she had asked over her cell phone, not exactly yelling, but loud enough to turn heads all around her.
“I want to take it slow,” Jake had answered sounding a little bit annoyed, though she hadn’t known why.
“Didn’t Dave say he wanted them working right away?” she had asked, confused.
“Well, contrary to public opinion, he’s not as a brilliant as he appears to be.”
So now she had to wait longer. For the past two months she had wondered and wondered time and time again what kind of kids they were. Oh, what would she have done had she been able to turn carbon coils into diamonds? She returned her emerald eyes to the two girls in front of her. What would she do if she were married to someone who could turn carbon coils into diamonds? Now there was a thought…
She was just puzzled, and she didn’t like puzzles. Hated them, actually. But she was going to be patient. Whatever hidden truths these kids, Dave, or Jake kept, the possibilities implied by this whole project were just too important to allow curiosity to get the better of her.
* * *
“You,” Ray said, opening his front door and raising a finger to the man in front of him; his eyes narrowed as a sign of disgust. “You sent them to me after everything I said this morning? After the fact that I told you exactly what I thought about Max being tense because Liz was with Dave?”
Jake stood in the hall, a tired expression on his face. “Come on Ray, you are still in one piece. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
Ray could have said a million things to that, but he didn’t. Jake didn’t look like joking in their usual way of sarcasm over sarcasm, so Ray only moved aside to let Jake in.
“What have we gotten ourselves into?” Jake asked, making a beeline for the fridge. How could Jake eat so much, do no exercise at all, and still not be a 250 pound guy?
Puzzled far more by Jake’s words than his eating habits, Ray stared at Jake, waiting for an explanation. The slightly red-haired doctor emerged from the fridge with a left over slice of pizza and orange juice.
“I mean, what is Dave playing this time? He has too much invested in this whole thing and he hasn’t told me half of it,” Jake said, placing a glass and a plate on the counter.
“What makes you believe he’s told me more than he’s told you?” Ray asked, grabbing the remote control and freezing the hockey game he had been watching in his living room just moments ago. Because Dave was sleeping at this hour of the day, and Ray was stuck at midday revising the new security systems –which were updated every three months- he had at least until six before talking to Dave. So, this was his free time, and now he had Jake in his kitchen in total conspiracy mode. Would wonders ever cease…
“He must have told you things he didn’t tell me, and vice versa,” Jake absently said, pouring the orange juice out of its container.
“Jake,” Ray said, coming to the other side of the counter, “What is it with you and all this sudden interest in Dave’s plan?”
Jake stared at him, “You are okay with all of this?”
“You were okay with all of this last week, if I remember correctly. You were the one who developed the sedative gas if I’m also allowed to say,” Ray pointed out.
“That was because your plan wouldn’t have worked otherwise,” Jake answered back, annoyed. “And it was going to be too dangerous for them if we had used any other type of sedative.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining then, nor coming up with another plan. And you did know what we were doing, Jake.”
“I thought I knew, but now I’m not so sure…” Jake almost whispered. For one instant Ray really resented having missed two of Jake’s and Dave’s sessions. Sure, the security systems were better than ever now –and Dave had insisted that he looked upon those ASAP- but maybe if he had been there, he would now understand what was going on with Jake.
“What’s up with you trying to find fault with Dave?”
Jake opened his mouth just to close it again. His eyes were uneasy as he was trying to say whatever he was thinking. Ray waited. It was so unusual to see Jake like this, doubting his friend’s plans, that Ray wasn’t sure if it was good or not. It made Ray feel cautious all of the sudden around Dave’s best friend.
“Why—what do you think Dave wants from them?”
“Why do you want them in here, anyway?” Ray had asked Dave the first night the kids had been here, when the offer had been made and they had left. “How do you plan on using their abilities?”
“I have many, many ways in which their skills can be useful to me, I won’t deny that, but it is much more than that, Ray.” Dave had answered as if he were thinking something very important. “I just hope for our own sakes that they say yes. There is just way too much at stake here. But nothing will work if they are not here willingly,” he had enigmatically concluded.
Ray hadn’t told anyone about that insight into Dave’s plan, but the words had stuck in his head. Still, Jake was waiting for an answer.
“Honestly, I don’t know. But it is important, that much I do know,” Ray answered, thinking that was just about the lamest answer he had ever given.
“That doesn’t say much, Ray,” Jake said, sipping his orange juice. “When you were first presented with the project, what did you think?”
Ray smiled. That was another memory he would never forget. “That it was only natural that it was Dave who found aliens on this planet. He has a talent for finding the weirdest stuff.”
Jake smiled at that. “Yeah… only natural… Anything else besides that? What was the debriefing like?”
“Aliens? Really Dave?” Ray had asked, arching one eyebrow over a bunch of documents he was now starting to look at. Some were from something about a radio telescope checking, some were from a genetics lab, and one was from a report on some Phoenix hospital.
He was sure there was a relationship among all those reports, he only had to sit down a couple of minutes and see it through. Dave waited those minutes until Ray had finally looked up and repeated himself: “Aliens?”
Dave had smiled. He had been excited, Ray had been able to tell, but he had also been cautious. “What do you want to do with aliens?” Ray had asked, laughing a little. At that point, he still hadn’t believed it.
“That’s the question, you see. I’m not sure what to do with this information,” Dave had said, looking at the papers in Ray’s hands, all serious now.
“How long have you known?” Ray had asked, starting to believe that Dave was not kidding.
“Confirmation of their identities,” Dave had said, opening a folder in front of him and handing Ray a surveillance camera picture, “came yesterday. I’ve been up all night wondering what to do. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about their lives at first sight,” Dave had ended, standing up and starting to pace, a habit certainly picked up from Jake.
“So, you want me to go and check them out?” Ray had asked. He had never been a fan of science fiction and, until that day, had thought the idea of alien life-forms on Earth was just ridiculous. He was still not convinced and was waiting for Dave to start laughing, but somehow he knew Dave did believe his information was right.
“I don’t like entering the lion’s den just because I feel curious about the lion,” Dave had absently said. “Tell me Ray, if you were an alien living among a very dangerous species, would you go unguarded? Without a plan to defend yourself? Especially if your intentions might not be completely honorable?”
“Of course not,” Ray had smiled. A cover up operation, an infiltration operation would certainly not be much different.
“Exactly.”
“Then, what do you want? Check the lion’s cave first?” Ray had said, frowning.
“Yeah, but do so very cautiously. I don’t want anybody getting suspicious. I might not be the only one behind those kids, if kids they are, and I certainly don’t want to tip anyone off about us knowing their little secret.”
“But Dave, if they are dangerous, what are you going to do?” Ray had wondered, for the first time really wondered, what could it all mean? An alien invasion? It sounded so laughable, but still…
“You see Ray, that’s what I’ve been wondering all night. If you were an invader, and had to hide whatever the case, would you go to a very public place, like a hospital, and heal your very human boss’s daughter and four other children?”
The Phoenix report had still been in front of Ray’s eyes. “You think we might get ourselves a deserter? A traitor to its cause?”
“I’m saying that you better get me good information about that cave, because this lion could turn out to be anything, Ray.”
“So I gathered up a team,” Ray was saying now to Jake, “and we started to slowly infiltrate Roswell, New Mexico. Dave was very intrigued by their actions, because frankly, things didn’t quite add up from our point of view. It took us a while to see who was alien and who wasn’t and how many people were involved in the secret. But we got to see that not much of an alien invasion was going on…”
“He didn’t send his Messengers?” Jake absently asked just before taking another sip from his orange juice. Ray mentally chuckled. As if Dave would spare his Messengers on a recognition mission…
“No, not in the beginning. He did so when he was preparing the rooms, of course, where they woke up. But that was just till the end of the game.”
“So Dave just told you to keep watching?” Jake asked, half through his cold pizza slice now, his eyes narrowing.
“Well… yeah… though…” Ray trailed off.
“Though what?” Jake pressed.
“Though there was something odd taking place,” Ray said. “Dave became sort of obsessed with details.”
“Dave is an obsessive person,” Jake said smiling a little. “You know that.”
“Yes, I do,” Ray said a little bit annoyed at being patronized, “but I mean, I’ve been working with him for eight years, Jake, this was different. I don’t know; he went to Japan for a week about a month after we started watching, and when he returned he had all these ideas of how to get information about them. It was as if he couldn’t get enough, but… It was always all about the cave, and not the lion, if you like. He practically implied that we couldn’t approach Max, Michael or Isabel up close and personal. He was very serious about that.”
“So, he discovered something he hadn’t known before in that trip…” Jake said out loud, his pizza and orange juice forgotten.
“I don’t know,” Ray truthfully said, “with Dave, it could have been the movie he was watching on the way home that sparked his imagination. But if you are looking for a very odd thing, he certainly must’ve gotten to see a very weird movie when the kids disappeared after their high-school graduation. That’s when all the madness really began. That’s when the project here began.”
“Yes, that’s when he approached me,” Jake said, thoughtful.
“Suddenly he realized he wanted them here,” Ray said, for the first time feeling a little bit guilty for revealing all these details. Dave had been so adamant about the secrecy of it all. But it still puzzled Ray. Why had Dave so drastically changed from only watching to bringing them here? And it had been practically over night.
“Something else changed then,” Jake said more to himself than to Ray, his eyes lost in a point on the wall. “But what? Did he ever mention—”
“Not a word,” Ray cut Jake off, “believe me I have been waiting for an explanation for months now, and nothing. But whatever he wants, Jake, he’s terribly afraid that something will happen to those kids. That’s why I’m not doubting his plan, you see? I know how much he has done to get to this point. And I trust him to be doing the right thing.”
“Yeah, but what the hell is the right thing, Ray?” Jake impatiently said. “What is Dave trying to do with them? And if it is such an honorable cause, as you put it, why is he also hiding it from us?”
And to that Ray had no answer to give.
TBC...
Okay guys, here's the author's note I desperately didn't want to post, but... you have finally caught up with me... So, I was torned into posting each time I finish a chapter or to write five or six and then come back and post weekly again. I think I'm going to do that, because that way it'll be easy to keep the story straight for you... ggaaahhhh!!! I'll hurry! I promise! But if you guys have any questions about the story and stuff, I'll be checking to answer those
Misha
Hope you guys like it!
I do happy dances too!! Dave knows a lot of stuff, yeah, but there are things he's still lacking 
I'm itching to write Max's interview as well!!
Dave being dead to the army is not even the beginning of it 
- and it seemed perfectly logical that Max could have talked to her. But, yeah, it had to come out of him...