The pain never really stopped but the convulsions finally abated enough for her to at least be able to breathe and somewhere in her brain Tess fought her way back to consciousness. She couldn't move her body...but she could at least move her eyes within her head, although even that seemed erratic. Whatever the machine was, it seemed designed to immobilize....if none too kindly...but not to kill. But as she saw the rock wall start to distort...start to twist itself in the vortex pattern that she'd seen only that morning...she was pretty sure that just holding her there would be lethal enough...the entity was on its way.
She looked desperately for the healing stones that she'd dropped...and managed to spot three of them under the pods where they'd rolled...the other two were out of her sight. She tried desperately to use her telekinetic powers to pull the stones toward her but the only result was the machine buzzing softly and the pain increasing from extreme to unbearable. The machine obviously didn't want her to use her powers...and she was obviously as trapped as a fly in flypaper..as the vortex continued to swirl and grow.
'Why the Hell is this personal?' Tess asked herself...It had to be something to do with the Skins at Copper Summit...they were the only ones she'd ever done any real harm to...besides...it was a Skin machine. But she had a deal with Kivar... a deal he wanted very badly to stay in power. How could it be the Skins? Kivar owned them....besides, even the Skins didn't have anything that radiated pure evil...like the feelings she was getting from the ever widening vortex. But there was no one else...unless you count humans... and even then she'd done nothing to warrant this.
Sure there were a lot of times she'd played fast and loose with the rules...mindwarping Max... tossing 'destiny' in Liz's face. OK, she'd admit it...she'd been a Royal bitch...but half the girls in Isabel's Princess Posse had done things at least as bad at one time or another...trying to seduce someone else's boyfriend or backstabbing a competitor. Even mindwarping Alex...sure...it would cost him a summer, but he'd still be left with memories of a great time in Sweden...Tess had actually been considering leaving him with memories of a sultry affair with some hot Swedish babe. No...this really didn't seem fair....
'Why me???' she asked herself, as she felt the entity start to emerge from the vortex. 'Why is this personal??'
Tess felt a sense of tremendous power...tremendous hatred... as the entity emerged..and a sense of ancient evil as well. It was like the thing was decayed...like it had lived long past its time...and that's how it looked as well. It was, she could see, at least part cyborg..its wizened body wrinkled..yellowed..barely even humanoid any longer with the bulges of embedded machinery and protruding tubes. The face looked like....well, it looked like a face that was a thousand years old...years that had not been kindly to the owner.
Only in the eyes did Tess really see anything that looked..well...human, for lack of a better term. And there was somethng familiar...not with the face...but with those cruel eyes sunken back into the naked skull from which even more tubes seemed to protrude. As it looked at her Tess was frightened...almost frightened beyond the capacity for rational thought.
Where once there had been a mouth a cruel smile showed mostly artificial teeth...although Tess doubted that the thing actually fed any more. It seemed to derive nourishment from one of the machines attached to it. It's appearance went well beyond revolting...and under other circumstances Tess might have even felt sorry for the horrid thing...it's gasping breath apparently augmented by a membrane respirator, it's own lungs no longer even capable of breathing without assistance. It looked to Tess to be some nightmare out of Hell....she knew she'd rather die than live like that... 'Why? Why would it even want to go on?' she wondered.
As she was slammed across the room suddenly...as her pain exploded into agony...Tess realized it had read her mind, as she got the answer back in her mind...a voice in her brain that carried with it a loathing hatred so great that Tess would have never believed it could exist...'Because of you, Tess....because after 900 years...I can finally get at you...'
Ninety-six hours (Canon/CC Adult) 15 Nov 06 complete
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Rowedog, ISLANDGIRL5, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, FSU/MSW-94, Forum Moderators
‘Nine hundred years?’ Tess asked herself. ‘This makes no sense whatsoever.’ The Skins-Antar conflict hadn’t been going on for nine hundred years…the young queen whose DNA she incorporated in her own hadn’t been alive a single hundred years ago. ‘I’ve only been out of the friggin’ pod for a single decade…..what’s going on here?’
But looking at the…creature…that was before her…it was easy for Tess to believe that it had lived most of a millennia…it certainly looked it. What terrible hatred would compel someone to go through that…just to keep living?
The mouth opened…and a raspy voice spoke in almost a hiss, the creature’s lungs putting out too little air for normal speech… “I killed him first you know…..Zan…..the only one that you ever loved."
This still wasn’t making much sense to Tess. Yeah, in a previous life she’d married Zan,…a Royal..loveless marriage, to cement a political union between two politically powerful families…but she’d never loved him…or at least that was what Nasedo had told her. And while some of the technology that seemed to be providing life support for the creatures grotesque body looked like it might be Skins technology….Zan had died in an artillery bombardment of some kind…or so Nasedo had said.
‘But Zan was dead decades before I was born,’ thought Tess. ‘He meant nothing to me..’
The blast hurled her across the room…smashing her into the far wall as the pain coursed through her body like fire. “Not him…bitch. Zan your child….your baby….the only one you ever really loved….loved enough to give your life for. I killed him Tess…I took him from his foster parents in Vermont and crushed the life from him…because I hated you so much…and I couldn’t get to you…you were already dead. Your DNA was wiped out…all of it….but still that wasn’t enough to punish you for what you did to me.
I have lived nine hundred years…I have killed and I have tortured and I have endured the pain of living like this for only one reason….so I could look in your eyes when I killed you myself….so I could kill you slowly and watch you suffer….suffer as I have done because of you.”
The mental image was projected into her mind…a slightly older Tess…with a baby in her arms. The picture of Tess looked frightened…clinging protectively to the little baby…”That was Zan, Tess….the only one I think you ever really loved….and that was what he became..” the picture morphed in her mind to that of a two year old…a child being killed by a powerblast..flattened almost instantly against a stone wall behind it. Tess knew the image couldn’t be real…she’d never had a child…not in either of her lives…but somehow the pain…the grief came to her anyway…as if she’d lost a part of herself…as if she’d actually been the child’s mother. It wasn’t her child…couldn’t possibly be her child…but even so…to kill an infant like that…tears rolled down her eyes as she looked back at the entity…at those eyes that seemed somehow familiar…but eyes that burned with such malevolence she could recognize little but the malevolence in them.
“How could you…?” Tess asked. And as she felt her heart break at the thought of the loss…somehow she believed. “How could you kill my baby?”
“Why not, Tess,” the creature croaked…”You killed the one I loved….”
But looking at the…creature…that was before her…it was easy for Tess to believe that it had lived most of a millennia…it certainly looked it. What terrible hatred would compel someone to go through that…just to keep living?
The mouth opened…and a raspy voice spoke in almost a hiss, the creature’s lungs putting out too little air for normal speech… “I killed him first you know…..Zan…..the only one that you ever loved."
This still wasn’t making much sense to Tess. Yeah, in a previous life she’d married Zan,…a Royal..loveless marriage, to cement a political union between two politically powerful families…but she’d never loved him…or at least that was what Nasedo had told her. And while some of the technology that seemed to be providing life support for the creatures grotesque body looked like it might be Skins technology….Zan had died in an artillery bombardment of some kind…or so Nasedo had said.
‘But Zan was dead decades before I was born,’ thought Tess. ‘He meant nothing to me..’
The blast hurled her across the room…smashing her into the far wall as the pain coursed through her body like fire. “Not him…bitch. Zan your child….your baby….the only one you ever really loved….loved enough to give your life for. I killed him Tess…I took him from his foster parents in Vermont and crushed the life from him…because I hated you so much…and I couldn’t get to you…you were already dead. Your DNA was wiped out…all of it….but still that wasn’t enough to punish you for what you did to me.
I have lived nine hundred years…I have killed and I have tortured and I have endured the pain of living like this for only one reason….so I could look in your eyes when I killed you myself….so I could kill you slowly and watch you suffer….suffer as I have done because of you.”
The mental image was projected into her mind…a slightly older Tess…with a baby in her arms. The picture of Tess looked frightened…clinging protectively to the little baby…”That was Zan, Tess….the only one I think you ever really loved….and that was what he became..” the picture morphed in her mind to that of a two year old…a child being killed by a powerblast..flattened almost instantly against a stone wall behind it. Tess knew the image couldn’t be real…she’d never had a child…not in either of her lives…but somehow the pain…the grief came to her anyway…as if she’d lost a part of herself…as if she’d actually been the child’s mother. It wasn’t her child…couldn’t possibly be her child…but even so…to kill an infant like that…tears rolled down her eyes as she looked back at the entity…at those eyes that seemed somehow familiar…but eyes that burned with such malevolence she could recognize little but the malevolence in them.
“How could you…?” Tess asked. And as she felt her heart break at the thought of the loss…somehow she believed. “How could you kill my baby?”
“Why not, Tess,” the creature croaked…”You killed the one I loved….”
Bewilderment caused Tess to forget caution. “You’re insane. I don’t even know you…I’ve never done anything to hurt you..” and then the flash hit her…the flash that made Tess realize that the creature before her truly was insane…driven that way by pain…
The memory came to her through the entity…as if it had only happened yesterday..the voice was familiar…
Tess felt the pain flow out from the creature….pain beyond endurance….pain far worse than any pain Tess had suffered from the machine…pain worse than anything Tess had ever known. The name left her lips involuntarily…. “Isabel..?”
The world seemed to turn itself inside out as her body was hurled to the other side of the pod chamber. Tess heard her arm snap as she landed…the pain of the break inconsequential in the wave after wave of agony that was already washing over her from the mind of the entity.
“MY NAME IS VILANDRA…”
The memory came to her through the entity…as if it had only happened yesterday..the voice was familiar…
- He'll need to use his power, to open the doors.
...He'll take a deep breath, put his hand on his chest, and bring him back to life.
...and Alex will sit up suddenly, and Max will jump back, and the whole van will shake a little.
...the whole...the whole van will shake, and they'll come running back here with big goofy grins on their faces, and we'll have to come up with some kind of cover story for Hanson and everybody....
Tess felt the pain flow out from the creature….pain beyond endurance….pain far worse than any pain Tess had suffered from the machine…pain worse than anything Tess had ever known. The name left her lips involuntarily…. “Isabel..?”
The world seemed to turn itself inside out as her body was hurled to the other side of the pod chamber. Tess heard her arm snap as she landed…the pain of the break inconsequential in the wave after wave of agony that was already washing over her from the mind of the entity.
“MY NAME IS VILANDRA…”
The flashes continued to hit Tess…each one worse than a physical blow. It wasn’t just that she saw Isabel’s hand drop the single flower onto the casket it was that she felt what Isabel had felt at the time it happened…an emptiness that just sucked the soul from her…oh she went on living…or at least going through the motions…but they were only that…like some shell-shocked soldier who just pushed forward oblivious to everything…even to her own life.
She saw Isabel try desperately to fill that emptiness…first with hallucinations about Alex….later losing herself in the arms of another…even marrying him….trying to convince herself that she had moved on but she was still empty inside…no more than the husk that shelters a Skin… she had become incapable of feeling…just going through the motions...dead inside.
Tess really wouldn’t have blamed Isabel if she’d attacked her when she returned with Zan…but even then there was nothing but numbness…it was almost a year before the emptiness in Isabel’s soul started to be replaced…by hatred for Tess. By then she truly seemed to have lost her mind. She swore that even Tess’s death would not stop her from her revenge.
Kivar’s political situation had continued to deteriorate…he needed a Royal heir…he contacted Isabel once again..and she offered him a hideous covenant. She would marry him and bear him heirs if he could use his Skins to find Zan…and allow her to destroy the last vestige of Tess in existence….and Kivar agreed.
“How could you….” Tess asked, her eyes filling with tears as she saw Isabel’s memory of holding her future child, ‘…how could you kill your own nephew?”
The eyes that had once been the eyes of Isabel Evans…..the eyes that were now the eyes of Vilandra, Empress of Six Planets, stared back at her with loathing.
“My nephew….the two children I bore for Kivar….many millions of others …I’ve killed, Tess…all for this moment….all so I could look in your eyes and make you feel the pain that I’ve felt for most of a millennium….
Oh no, Tess…you won’t die…not now…not so quickly…my healers and bioengineers will keep you alive for a thousand years….and I’ll stay alive to witness your torment…to delight in every minute of it..”
“Isabel…you killed your own children?”
Tess was wrenched across the room into another wall…gasping as the wind was knocked out of her.
”MY NAME IS VILANDRA…” croaked the cybernetic monstrosity in front of her.
“Your heir died first. My brother had sought to hide him but he was easy for the Skins to find. Zan wound up in Brattleboro…just a few miles from Dummerston Vermont, where Kivar had his second base. They found him almost at once. But even crushing the life out of him was not enough. I wanted you, Tess…wanted to torture you for centuries, like I’ve been tortured. I gave Kivar his teo heirs…and poisoned him during our next lovemaking. Once he was dead, as Queen Mother the power was mine until the princes came of age….and I saw that they never did. I killed them…slowly…so no one would suspect. I needed to keep power to get my revenge on you.
It took almost ten years for the Skins to complete the conquest of Earth for me….my brother and Michael fought to the end. But their power was no match for five planets and in the end Michael and Max died with their wives…Maria and Liz. When it was over I was the only surviving Royal, the widow of Kivar, the Queen Mother…and with the death of my last child…I became Empress of the Six planets.”
Tess didn’t need to hear the words…the flashes were still coming to her….Isabel….no…Isabel had died when Alex died…Vilandra sleeping with a man she despised…bearing his children…killing him and them…even Max and Michael and their families. She had gone beyond insane.
Millions of people on six different planets had died as she had used all their resources to build research centers…scientists had been tortured…their families tortured to motivate them to do research on the technology of the granolith and the nature of time itself. 40 billion sentient beings had suffered ...and Vilandra herself had endured the pain of the damned as she had healing after healing….as machine after machine replaced her failing organs…all so she could have her revenge. Finally they were successful...developing the vortex that sent her back almost a millenium to have her revenge.
“I swear…I didn’t know. Nasedo told me mindwarping wouldn’t do him any serious damage….just some headaches,” Tess cried. ‘But you knew what a lying sack of shit Nasedo was,’ Tess told herself. ‘In your heart you knew, he didn’t care for any humans…he wouldn’t care if Alex died for the plan..’
Tess got no answer…but really hadn’t expected one. She’d seen into the creatures mind….all that was left was hatred…revenge…evil. And to Tess, that was the worst part. For there was no vestige of the girl who had befriended her…had trusted her…had once been her friend.
Isabel was gone, she realized sickly, there was only Vilandra…only an ancient evil seeking vengeance for a terrible crime. ‘I swear to God,’ she told herself, 'I’d rather die myself than do that to her..’
Tess didn’t understand when the vortex stopped…when the machine holding her started to ripple and fade from existence…when the misshapen evil creature itself started to dissolve in front of her very eyes. But just for a few seconds as she looked into those eyes…it seemed like it was Isabel Evans looking back at her.
As the festering evil that had once been Vilandra, Empress of the Six Planets, totalitarian ruler of 40 billion sentients started to fade from existence…that small part of her being that still remembered when it had once been called Isabel Evans gave a silent thanks for the end of her suffering. It had been two hundred years since the Antarean physicist had warned the Empress about the possibility of a conundrum….doing something that would distort the timeline in the past in such a way that Vilandra herself might cease to exist. She’d killed him of course…it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
As she faded from existence as her timeline ceased to be….Isabel Evans was finally content. She was realistic in her expectations. Tess would no doubt try to make some other sort of a deal….but the fact that Vilandra was disappearing meant that Alex would likely survive…at least for awhile. A Skin general had once told Vilandra that the nest in Vermont would have started action against the Earth in only five more years. Once that happened…the Earth would be conquered with in nine or ten years…regardless of what Max and Michael and Isabel did. But after an eternity of loneliness…misery…insanity…what remained of Isabel Evans was more than content for a fresh roll of the dice. If she could have 14 years with Alex she would take it and be grateful.
It took Tess almost 20 minutes to recover…and by that time she understood. Vilandra had existed because she had killed Alex. It had only taken her deciding not to do that for that timeline to cease to exist. Tess was shaken to the core by what she’d seen….her own death…the death of her child…what had happened to Isabel in that timeline.
She crawled on her knees and one hand to the healing stones…and used one to fix her fractured arm. By that time she already had her plan….she certainly wasn’t going to mindwarp Alex…but fortunately she had no qualms about a doublecross.
‘So the second nest of Skins is in Dummerston Vermont?’
She needed to set up a meeting…make a deal…and the last thing in the world she wanted was for Max or the others to know about it. Ten minutes later she was back in the Ferrari. She’d take a flight to the East Coast from Albuquerque, so the others wouldn’t know…and couldn’t try to stop her.
She saw Isabel try desperately to fill that emptiness…first with hallucinations about Alex….later losing herself in the arms of another…even marrying him….trying to convince herself that she had moved on but she was still empty inside…no more than the husk that shelters a Skin… she had become incapable of feeling…just going through the motions...dead inside.
Tess really wouldn’t have blamed Isabel if she’d attacked her when she returned with Zan…but even then there was nothing but numbness…it was almost a year before the emptiness in Isabel’s soul started to be replaced…by hatred for Tess. By then she truly seemed to have lost her mind. She swore that even Tess’s death would not stop her from her revenge.
Kivar’s political situation had continued to deteriorate…he needed a Royal heir…he contacted Isabel once again..and she offered him a hideous covenant. She would marry him and bear him heirs if he could use his Skins to find Zan…and allow her to destroy the last vestige of Tess in existence….and Kivar agreed.
“How could you….” Tess asked, her eyes filling with tears as she saw Isabel’s memory of holding her future child, ‘…how could you kill your own nephew?”
The eyes that had once been the eyes of Isabel Evans…..the eyes that were now the eyes of Vilandra, Empress of Six Planets, stared back at her with loathing.
“My nephew….the two children I bore for Kivar….many millions of others …I’ve killed, Tess…all for this moment….all so I could look in your eyes and make you feel the pain that I’ve felt for most of a millennium….
Oh no, Tess…you won’t die…not now…not so quickly…my healers and bioengineers will keep you alive for a thousand years….and I’ll stay alive to witness your torment…to delight in every minute of it..”
“Isabel…you killed your own children?”
Tess was wrenched across the room into another wall…gasping as the wind was knocked out of her.
”MY NAME IS VILANDRA…” croaked the cybernetic monstrosity in front of her.
“Your heir died first. My brother had sought to hide him but he was easy for the Skins to find. Zan wound up in Brattleboro…just a few miles from Dummerston Vermont, where Kivar had his second base. They found him almost at once. But even crushing the life out of him was not enough. I wanted you, Tess…wanted to torture you for centuries, like I’ve been tortured. I gave Kivar his teo heirs…and poisoned him during our next lovemaking. Once he was dead, as Queen Mother the power was mine until the princes came of age….and I saw that they never did. I killed them…slowly…so no one would suspect. I needed to keep power to get my revenge on you.
It took almost ten years for the Skins to complete the conquest of Earth for me….my brother and Michael fought to the end. But their power was no match for five planets and in the end Michael and Max died with their wives…Maria and Liz. When it was over I was the only surviving Royal, the widow of Kivar, the Queen Mother…and with the death of my last child…I became Empress of the Six planets.”
Tess didn’t need to hear the words…the flashes were still coming to her….Isabel….no…Isabel had died when Alex died…Vilandra sleeping with a man she despised…bearing his children…killing him and them…even Max and Michael and their families. She had gone beyond insane.
Millions of people on six different planets had died as she had used all their resources to build research centers…scientists had been tortured…their families tortured to motivate them to do research on the technology of the granolith and the nature of time itself. 40 billion sentient beings had suffered ...and Vilandra herself had endured the pain of the damned as she had healing after healing….as machine after machine replaced her failing organs…all so she could have her revenge. Finally they were successful...developing the vortex that sent her back almost a millenium to have her revenge.
“I swear…I didn’t know. Nasedo told me mindwarping wouldn’t do him any serious damage….just some headaches,” Tess cried. ‘But you knew what a lying sack of shit Nasedo was,’ Tess told herself. ‘In your heart you knew, he didn’t care for any humans…he wouldn’t care if Alex died for the plan..’
Tess got no answer…but really hadn’t expected one. She’d seen into the creatures mind….all that was left was hatred…revenge…evil. And to Tess, that was the worst part. For there was no vestige of the girl who had befriended her…had trusted her…had once been her friend.
Isabel was gone, she realized sickly, there was only Vilandra…only an ancient evil seeking vengeance for a terrible crime. ‘I swear to God,’ she told herself, 'I’d rather die myself than do that to her..’
Tess didn’t understand when the vortex stopped…when the machine holding her started to ripple and fade from existence…when the misshapen evil creature itself started to dissolve in front of her very eyes. But just for a few seconds as she looked into those eyes…it seemed like it was Isabel Evans looking back at her.
As the festering evil that had once been Vilandra, Empress of the Six Planets, totalitarian ruler of 40 billion sentients started to fade from existence…that small part of her being that still remembered when it had once been called Isabel Evans gave a silent thanks for the end of her suffering. It had been two hundred years since the Antarean physicist had warned the Empress about the possibility of a conundrum….doing something that would distort the timeline in the past in such a way that Vilandra herself might cease to exist. She’d killed him of course…it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
As she faded from existence as her timeline ceased to be….Isabel Evans was finally content. She was realistic in her expectations. Tess would no doubt try to make some other sort of a deal….but the fact that Vilandra was disappearing meant that Alex would likely survive…at least for awhile. A Skin general had once told Vilandra that the nest in Vermont would have started action against the Earth in only five more years. Once that happened…the Earth would be conquered with in nine or ten years…regardless of what Max and Michael and Isabel did. But after an eternity of loneliness…misery…insanity…what remained of Isabel Evans was more than content for a fresh roll of the dice. If she could have 14 years with Alex she would take it and be grateful.
It took Tess almost 20 minutes to recover…and by that time she understood. Vilandra had existed because she had killed Alex. It had only taken her deciding not to do that for that timeline to cease to exist. Tess was shaken to the core by what she’d seen….her own death…the death of her child…what had happened to Isabel in that timeline.
She crawled on her knees and one hand to the healing stones…and used one to fix her fractured arm. By that time she already had her plan….she certainly wasn’t going to mindwarp Alex…but fortunately she had no qualms about a doublecross.
‘So the second nest of Skins is in Dummerston Vermont?’
She needed to set up a meeting…make a deal…and the last thing in the world she wanted was for Max or the others to know about it. Ten minutes later she was back in the Ferrari. She’d take a flight to the East Coast from Albuquerque, so the others wouldn’t know…and couldn’t try to stop her.
Friday 4PM June 4th, Albuquerque New Mexico.
Tess felt like it had been an eternity since she’d slept…she had never felt so tired. But she’d been able to nap for almost 90 minutes on the flight coming back from the east coast…and that had helped a little bit.
She didn’t have to worry about baggage at least, and when she got to the parking lot the battered Ferrari was still there. She was becoming fond of it, she decided. With her powers of molecular manipulation she figured she could probably fix the damaged side…if she ever had a week or two when she wasn’t doing anything else. But that damn sure wouldn’t be tonight…or any time soon.
It had taken hard work, a little mindwarping, and a lot of luck to forge that deal, and she needed to start fulfilling her end of the bargain tonight…even though the payoff wouldn’t come for another four days.
As she had left the airport she’d seen n Espresso stand and gotten a shot in the dark….that ought to help. She gulped it down, trying to keep her head clear.
The only real urgent thing was to make the phone calls…and make them before her cell phone was out of range. The wide open spaces of New Mexico still had vast reaches with no cell phone coverage, and she needed to make the calls before she was too far from Albuquerque.
She’d made a call on the aircraft to the manager of Rudy’s Cabins. He’d already been contacted by her new acquaintances on the East Coast…he wasn’t going to be a problem. But to avoid suspicion, she needed to make these on her cell phone, and within the confines of the state of New Mexico if possible. She’d worked hard to put this deal together…and she wanted nothing to screw it up.
Mentally she flipped a three sided coin. The precise order really didn’t make any difference.
“Hello…Michael…Tess.”
“Tess…where are you…? We were worried sick.”
“Michael…this is real important….and you can’t tell anyone…you understand? Not Max…not Isabel…not anyone. Nobody else…you have no idea how critical that is. I need for you to meet me….meet me at Rudy’s Cabins near Bottomless Lakes State Park…..cabin number three, at 8 PM. This is really important Michael…I have information that is critical that I can’t give you over the phone. I really need for you to do that for me, Michael.”
“Alright Tess…If it’s that important…I’ll be there. Yo can count on it.”
“Great, Michael…you’re a life-saver, thank you. Oh…and Michael…?”
“Yeah, Tess?”
“Bring Maria too…this involves her as well..”
“OK, Tess.”
When Tess made the second call she almost lost it, Isabel’s voice reminding her of the entity. Tess shuddered as she started her spiel..
“Hello…Isabel…this is Tess…”
The final call was made only minutes before the faceplate of her phone said, ‘out of service area,’ ‘You’re cutting it close, Tess,’ she told herself. But this plan sure seemed safer than mindwarping Alex all summer…considering how that would turn out. Besides…the more she thought about it…the more she liked this plan. In the vast emptiness of Eastern New Mexico she pushed the pedal down hard…feeling the car leap forward toward Roswell…and toward the now deserted ten cabins in that remote resort.
She reviwed the plan in her mind…considered all the options. ‘No, Nasedo was right, Tess. This is too important to take any chances'. She clutched the healing stones in her hand through their pouch…then laid the pouch on the passenger seat next to her. Those stones would have a busy night…and so would she.
Tess felt like it had been an eternity since she’d slept…she had never felt so tired. But she’d been able to nap for almost 90 minutes on the flight coming back from the east coast…and that had helped a little bit.
She didn’t have to worry about baggage at least, and when she got to the parking lot the battered Ferrari was still there. She was becoming fond of it, she decided. With her powers of molecular manipulation she figured she could probably fix the damaged side…if she ever had a week or two when she wasn’t doing anything else. But that damn sure wouldn’t be tonight…or any time soon.
It had taken hard work, a little mindwarping, and a lot of luck to forge that deal, and she needed to start fulfilling her end of the bargain tonight…even though the payoff wouldn’t come for another four days.
As she had left the airport she’d seen n Espresso stand and gotten a shot in the dark….that ought to help. She gulped it down, trying to keep her head clear.
The only real urgent thing was to make the phone calls…and make them before her cell phone was out of range. The wide open spaces of New Mexico still had vast reaches with no cell phone coverage, and she needed to make the calls before she was too far from Albuquerque.
She’d made a call on the aircraft to the manager of Rudy’s Cabins. He’d already been contacted by her new acquaintances on the East Coast…he wasn’t going to be a problem. But to avoid suspicion, she needed to make these on her cell phone, and within the confines of the state of New Mexico if possible. She’d worked hard to put this deal together…and she wanted nothing to screw it up.
Mentally she flipped a three sided coin. The precise order really didn’t make any difference.
“Hello…Michael…Tess.”
“Tess…where are you…? We were worried sick.”
“Michael…this is real important….and you can’t tell anyone…you understand? Not Max…not Isabel…not anyone. Nobody else…you have no idea how critical that is. I need for you to meet me….meet me at Rudy’s Cabins near Bottomless Lakes State Park…..cabin number three, at 8 PM. This is really important Michael…I have information that is critical that I can’t give you over the phone. I really need for you to do that for me, Michael.”
“Alright Tess…If it’s that important…I’ll be there. Yo can count on it.”
“Great, Michael…you’re a life-saver, thank you. Oh…and Michael…?”
“Yeah, Tess?”
“Bring Maria too…this involves her as well..”
“OK, Tess.”
When Tess made the second call she almost lost it, Isabel’s voice reminding her of the entity. Tess shuddered as she started her spiel..
“Hello…Isabel…this is Tess…”
The final call was made only minutes before the faceplate of her phone said, ‘out of service area,’ ‘You’re cutting it close, Tess,’ she told herself. But this plan sure seemed safer than mindwarping Alex all summer…considering how that would turn out. Besides…the more she thought about it…the more she liked this plan. In the vast emptiness of Eastern New Mexico she pushed the pedal down hard…feeling the car leap forward toward Roswell…and toward the now deserted ten cabins in that remote resort.
She reviwed the plan in her mind…considered all the options. ‘No, Nasedo was right, Tess. This is too important to take any chances'. She clutched the healing stones in her hand through their pouch…then laid the pouch on the passenger seat next to her. Those stones would have a busy night…and so would she.
Last edited by greywolf on Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Friday 8:00PM June 4th Rudy’s Cabins, Bottomless Lakes State Park Access Road, NM State Highway 409, 14 miles from Roswell New Mexico.
The Jetta drove cautiously by the office and came to a stop before cabin three. The passenger got out and looked around warily, before going to the driver’s side of the car.
“Stay in the car, Maria, until I give the OK. If I don’t come back out…or if you here a commotion…just get the Hell out of here.”
“OK Michael,” Maria lied. If the big lug thought she was going to abandon him if was in trouble…well, he was badly mistaken. Michael had expressed some doubts about her being there…the entity had already worked him over once and he feared he would be unable to protect her. Maria was more concerned about the little blonde-haired witch. If it came to trusting Tess or trusting the entity, Maria would probably choose Tess….but it wouldn’t be all that easy a call. Michael, on the other hand, had been insistent that he had to hear what she had to say.
Michael looked in the windows cautiously…then went in. It didn’t take long to search the cabin….there was little to it. A small kitchenette…a tiny bathroom barely large enough for the commode, a small washstand, and a shower in bad need of re-grouting,…and a bedroom with one double bed and an ancient black and white TV with rabbit ears on it. On impulse he turned on the TV and after a few seconds it gave a fuzzy picture of the local news channel. The place looked clean…but on impulse he looked under the bed…well, it wasn’t really clean…there was the largest collection of dust bunnies he’d ever seen…but it certainly didn’t look dangerous.
“Looking for bogeymen under the bed?”
“I thought I told you to stay in the car?”
“I was afraid you might be in trouble..”
“Well, yeah…that’s why I wanted you to stay in the car..in case there WAS trouble.”
Maria stepped in and closed the door. “Well, did you find any…trouble that is?”
“Yeah…if you are allergic to dust…the place is likely to be lethal.”
Maria looked around slowly…the TV was telling about a plane crash in Herndon Virginia….four dead…all government employees…she didn’t want to think about death right now…didn’t want to talk about it either…she snapped off the TV.
“So do you have any idea what this is all about?”
“Maria, I told you what I know…that’s all the information that I have….”
“Yeah, well I still don’t see why you trust that bitch..”
Michael shook his head sadly. He knew what was eating Maria….Liz was her best friend…and what was going on between her and Max….Michael didn’t understand it either…not really. Six months ago he’d have bet his soul those two would end up together…but between the destiny thing and …and whatever had happened. He put his arm around her and pulled her head softly to his shoulder, trying to comfort her. Unfortunately, that’s when the phone rang. He picked up the ancient dial phone looking at it dubiously….”Hello…?”
“Michael…this is Tess…”
“Tess….where are you?”
“I’ve been delayed, Michael…but it’s OK. I’ve got some good news….and some…well, not so good news…really.”
“What do you mean, Tess?”
“The good news is the…the entity is gone….we don’t have to worry about it…not ever again.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
”You’ll have to trust me on that, Michael..” and suddenly Michael DID trust her on that….against all reason, there was something in her voice that made him sure that they really didn’t have anything more to fear from the entity….he knew that with absolute certainty.
“Well, where are you? When will you be here?”
“I’m going to be delayed, Michael. I’ll see you…well…probably ten o’clock in the morning or so. Just stay there…it’ll be safe….we’ll talk in the morning.”
“But what’s the bad news, Tess?”
“Well…we’ll need to leave in four days for the East Coast…there’s something we need to do there…it’ll be…dangerous…but if we are successful….well, we’ll be able to start a process that will eventually remove Kivar from power…make everything alright. It won’t be easy but….well, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”
“Wait…Tess, you can’t leave it like that…”
”Michael..I have to go. We’ll talk about it in the morning..”
As Michael hung up the phone, Maria looked at him with concern. “What did she say?”
“She said that the problem with the entity is over and we are safe for awhile…”
”For awhile, Michael?”
“We’ll need to leave for the East Coast in four days….to fight Skins I think.”
“You think??? You mean you trust that little..little…”
“No, I don’t trust her exactly…but I trust her on this. She says it might be a start to breaking Kivar’s power on our homeworld."
“Oh…so you could go back,” said Maria.
And it wasn’t exactly what she said that affected Michael…but how she said it. He looked at her…seeing the fear in her eyes…the fear, he knew, of losing him.
He looked at the woman who’d stuck by him,... who’d pulled him in out of the rain when he was sure no one in the universe could care for him…the woman who’d hovered over him when he was injured…her every action showing how much she cared. The woman whose heart was breaking right now…thinking he might soon be on his way back to Antar. He couldn’t do it…not to her…not to himself.
“I’m not going back to Antar…Maria. I guess I've decided...well...maybe there really aren't any places in the universe better than Roswell New Mexico...”
She looked up at him in shock…and in hope. But that too scared him. “Maria…there are no guarantees. If we have a battle to fight….a battle with the Skins…well we nearly lost the one at Copper Summit. I can’t guarantee that I’ll come back from that…and…well…you know I have to go…I can’t let the other three fight that battle alone.”
She looked up at him…she understood….there were no guarantees. Perhaps if there were…if she actually knew he’d be alive in five days…perhaps then she’d have waited…but probably not. Her hands went to the buttons on his shirt…and his eyes widened.
“You’re sure?”
She answered with a smile and a nod..her fingers continuing in their task.
“"Maria…I mean…I don’t even have any protection..”
“I don’t care, Michael,” she said…and he could see it in her eyes. Even if he didn’t come back…perhaps she’d still have a part of him. He felt himself going numb as she pushed him back onto the bed and her fingers went to the buttons of her own blouse.
He’d never believed he could be accepted…wanted…loved. He’d fight for her…for the family he wanted to have with her…he’d fight a universe of Skins if that was what it took to keep her safe. As she crawled in beside him he knew there was nothing in the universe more beautiful than her…..
Friday 8:30PM June 4th Bottomless Lakes State Park Access Road, NM State Highway 409, 14 miles from Roswell New Mexico.
As the car drove down the road it turned down the long driveway toward Rudy’s cabins. “There’s number five…,” said Alex. “It’s funny though…the place is deserted. You’d think June would be the start of their busy season.”
“Well stay in the car, Alex…until I check the cabin out.”
“I’m not going to let you go in there alone, Isabel.”
“Be reasonable, Alex. I have powers..and you don’t.”
“I’m going in with you…and that’s final.”
“Alexxxx….”
”Don’t worry Isabel,…it’s not a date…not anything like a date…”
“Oh God, Alex…I am so sorry about that…I really am.”
They drove by the Jetta without seeing it…or the blonde girl with the healing stone glowing brightly in her palm. Within a few minutes they were both in cabin five.
The Jetta drove cautiously by the office and came to a stop before cabin three. The passenger got out and looked around warily, before going to the driver’s side of the car.
“Stay in the car, Maria, until I give the OK. If I don’t come back out…or if you here a commotion…just get the Hell out of here.”
“OK Michael,” Maria lied. If the big lug thought she was going to abandon him if was in trouble…well, he was badly mistaken. Michael had expressed some doubts about her being there…the entity had already worked him over once and he feared he would be unable to protect her. Maria was more concerned about the little blonde-haired witch. If it came to trusting Tess or trusting the entity, Maria would probably choose Tess….but it wouldn’t be all that easy a call. Michael, on the other hand, had been insistent that he had to hear what she had to say.
Michael looked in the windows cautiously…then went in. It didn’t take long to search the cabin….there was little to it. A small kitchenette…a tiny bathroom barely large enough for the commode, a small washstand, and a shower in bad need of re-grouting,…and a bedroom with one double bed and an ancient black and white TV with rabbit ears on it. On impulse he turned on the TV and after a few seconds it gave a fuzzy picture of the local news channel. The place looked clean…but on impulse he looked under the bed…well, it wasn’t really clean…there was the largest collection of dust bunnies he’d ever seen…but it certainly didn’t look dangerous.
“Looking for bogeymen under the bed?”
“I thought I told you to stay in the car?”
“I was afraid you might be in trouble..”
“Well, yeah…that’s why I wanted you to stay in the car..in case there WAS trouble.”
Maria stepped in and closed the door. “Well, did you find any…trouble that is?”
“Yeah…if you are allergic to dust…the place is likely to be lethal.”
Maria looked around slowly…the TV was telling about a plane crash in Herndon Virginia….four dead…all government employees…she didn’t want to think about death right now…didn’t want to talk about it either…she snapped off the TV.
“So do you have any idea what this is all about?”
“Maria, I told you what I know…that’s all the information that I have….”
“Yeah, well I still don’t see why you trust that bitch..”
Michael shook his head sadly. He knew what was eating Maria….Liz was her best friend…and what was going on between her and Max….Michael didn’t understand it either…not really. Six months ago he’d have bet his soul those two would end up together…but between the destiny thing and …and whatever had happened. He put his arm around her and pulled her head softly to his shoulder, trying to comfort her. Unfortunately, that’s when the phone rang. He picked up the ancient dial phone looking at it dubiously….”Hello…?”
“Michael…this is Tess…”
“Tess….where are you?”
“I’ve been delayed, Michael…but it’s OK. I’ve got some good news….and some…well, not so good news…really.”
“What do you mean, Tess?”
“The good news is the…the entity is gone….we don’t have to worry about it…not ever again.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
”You’ll have to trust me on that, Michael..” and suddenly Michael DID trust her on that….against all reason, there was something in her voice that made him sure that they really didn’t have anything more to fear from the entity….he knew that with absolute certainty.
“Well, where are you? When will you be here?”
“I’m going to be delayed, Michael. I’ll see you…well…probably ten o’clock in the morning or so. Just stay there…it’ll be safe….we’ll talk in the morning.”
“But what’s the bad news, Tess?”
“Well…we’ll need to leave in four days for the East Coast…there’s something we need to do there…it’ll be…dangerous…but if we are successful….well, we’ll be able to start a process that will eventually remove Kivar from power…make everything alright. It won’t be easy but….well, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”
“Wait…Tess, you can’t leave it like that…”
”Michael..I have to go. We’ll talk about it in the morning..”
As Michael hung up the phone, Maria looked at him with concern. “What did she say?”
“She said that the problem with the entity is over and we are safe for awhile…”
”For awhile, Michael?”
“We’ll need to leave for the East Coast in four days….to fight Skins I think.”
“You think??? You mean you trust that little..little…”
“No, I don’t trust her exactly…but I trust her on this. She says it might be a start to breaking Kivar’s power on our homeworld."
“Oh…so you could go back,” said Maria.
And it wasn’t exactly what she said that affected Michael…but how she said it. He looked at her…seeing the fear in her eyes…the fear, he knew, of losing him.
He looked at the woman who’d stuck by him,... who’d pulled him in out of the rain when he was sure no one in the universe could care for him…the woman who’d hovered over him when he was injured…her every action showing how much she cared. The woman whose heart was breaking right now…thinking he might soon be on his way back to Antar. He couldn’t do it…not to her…not to himself.
“I’m not going back to Antar…Maria. I guess I've decided...well...maybe there really aren't any places in the universe better than Roswell New Mexico...”
She looked up at him in shock…and in hope. But that too scared him. “Maria…there are no guarantees. If we have a battle to fight….a battle with the Skins…well we nearly lost the one at Copper Summit. I can’t guarantee that I’ll come back from that…and…well…you know I have to go…I can’t let the other three fight that battle alone.”
She looked up at him…she understood….there were no guarantees. Perhaps if there were…if she actually knew he’d be alive in five days…perhaps then she’d have waited…but probably not. Her hands went to the buttons on his shirt…and his eyes widened.
“You’re sure?”
She answered with a smile and a nod..her fingers continuing in their task.
“"Maria…I mean…I don’t even have any protection..”
“I don’t care, Michael,” she said…and he could see it in her eyes. Even if he didn’t come back…perhaps she’d still have a part of him. He felt himself going numb as she pushed him back onto the bed and her fingers went to the buttons of her own blouse.
He’d never believed he could be accepted…wanted…loved. He’d fight for her…for the family he wanted to have with her…he’d fight a universe of Skins if that was what it took to keep her safe. As she crawled in beside him he knew there was nothing in the universe more beautiful than her…..
Friday 8:30PM June 4th Bottomless Lakes State Park Access Road, NM State Highway 409, 14 miles from Roswell New Mexico.
As the car drove down the road it turned down the long driveway toward Rudy’s cabins. “There’s number five…,” said Alex. “It’s funny though…the place is deserted. You’d think June would be the start of their busy season.”
“Well stay in the car, Alex…until I check the cabin out.”
“I’m not going to let you go in there alone, Isabel.”
“Be reasonable, Alex. I have powers..and you don’t.”
“I’m going in with you…and that’s final.”
“Alexxxx….”
”Don’t worry Isabel,…it’s not a date…not anything like a date…”
“Oh God, Alex…I am so sorry about that…I really am.”
They drove by the Jetta without seeing it…or the blonde girl with the healing stone glowing brightly in her palm. Within a few minutes they were both in cabin five.
Last edited by greywolf on Sun Jul 22, 2007 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
They had barely gotten done checking out the cabin before the phone rang…it was Tess.
“Tess….where are you?” asked Isabel. “Is everything alright?”
“I’ve been delayed, Isabel…but it’s OK. I’ve got some good news….and some…well, not so good news.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that, Tess…”
“The good news is the…the entity is gone….we don’t have to worry about it…not ever again.”
“For real? But what was it…how do you know it won’t come back?”
”I can’t take the time to explain that to you, Isabel. You’ll have to trust me on that. and suddenly Isabel DID trust her on that….against all reason, despite her misgivings about Tess. There was something in her voice that made Isabel absolutely sure that the entity would never trouble them again.”.
“Well, where are you? When will you be here?”
“I’m said I'm going to be delayed, Isabel. I’ll see you…well…probably ten o’clock in the morning or so. Just stay there…it’ll be safe….we’ll talk in the morning.”
“So what’s the bad news, Tess?”
“Well…we’ll need to leave in four days for the East Coast…there’s something we need to do there…it’ll be…dangerous…but if we are successful….well, we’ll be able to start a process that will eventually remove Kivar from power…make everything alright. It won’t be easy but….well, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”
“Wait…Tess, ..I need to know more about that…are you saying the four of us are going….home to Antar?”
“Isabel....I have to go. We’ll talk about it in the morning..”
“So what’s the story?” asked Alex…she could already see…and sense…him pulling away from her emotionally. The pain in his eyes when he’d heard her mention Antar had been like a blow across his face.
“Tess says that we are safe from that entity…but she can’t get here tonight. She’ll tell us what happened in the morning.”
“And the rest of it, Isabel?”
“Well…she said something about us going to the East Coast in four days….I’d guess we will be fighting some Skins…but if we are successful….well, it may mean the overthrow of Kivar…”
“So you’d then be going back….back to Antar?”
“Not necessarily,” she said….scared to death by the thought of losing what was developing between them.
“What does that mean…not necessarily?”
Suddenly she knew what it meant…knew it with a certainty that burned through any doubt. She couldn’t lose Alex…she’d spend the rest of her life…the rest of eternity regretting it if she ever left him.
“It means…no. I’m going to stay here…Antar has gotten along without an Ice Princess for decades…they’ll have to get by without one in the future. My place is here with my family….with…..with…with you, Alex.”
“Isabel..I can’t ask you to give up a kingdom…” he said..backing up slowly. She was approaching him like a predatory beast. But his retreat was stopped as he backed into the bed.
“I don’t want a kingdom, Alex…I want you….now…tonight…always.”
“But …but …but…I just came here to protect you. It wasn’t like this was supposed to be a date….”
Her hand went to his belt buckle and there was a quick flare of golden light as it dissolved.
“It’s not a date, Alex….it’s a seduction….and resistance is futile..”
His heart really wasn’t into it…but he tried one last protest…”Isabel…we can’t…I don’t even have any protection…”
But the look in her eyes told him that was going to make no difference to her……no difference at all…
Friday 8:50PM June 4th The parking lot in front of Rudy’s Cabin number seven, Bottomless Lakes State Park Access Road, NM State Highway 409, 14 miles from Roswell New Mexico.
“Wait in the car until I check the place over, Liz” said Max.
But she didn’t. And he knew she was doing it to make a point. She wasn’t his to command. He wasn’t her king, he wasn’t her boyfriend, he wasn’t her…..anything. She’d made that clear enough…crystal clear, in fact, that night he’d seen her with Kyle.
“I don’t see Tess,” she said.
“It’s only 8:50. We’re still 10 minutes early. This is cabin number seven, like she said. If she said she’d meet us here, I’m sure she will. I just hope she’s alright.”
Liz hoped Tess was alright too. With all she’d given up to keep Tess part of the group she couldn’t hope for anything else.
Future Max had made it plain, Max’s destiny…..everyone’s destiny, depended on Tess. She knew that she could never really like Tess. The cost of keeping her part of the group had been far too high. And she hoped that was why she felt the way she did…that her fears weren’t in fact well-founded.
‘I’ve just never trusted that little blonde bitch…..’ she thought.
And she knew she still didn't.
“Tess….where are you?” asked Isabel. “Is everything alright?”
“I’ve been delayed, Isabel…but it’s OK. I’ve got some good news….and some…well, not so good news.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that, Tess…”
“The good news is the…the entity is gone….we don’t have to worry about it…not ever again.”
“For real? But what was it…how do you know it won’t come back?”
”I can’t take the time to explain that to you, Isabel. You’ll have to trust me on that. and suddenly Isabel DID trust her on that….against all reason, despite her misgivings about Tess. There was something in her voice that made Isabel absolutely sure that the entity would never trouble them again.”.
“Well, where are you? When will you be here?”
“I’m said I'm going to be delayed, Isabel. I’ll see you…well…probably ten o’clock in the morning or so. Just stay there…it’ll be safe….we’ll talk in the morning.”
“So what’s the bad news, Tess?”
“Well…we’ll need to leave in four days for the East Coast…there’s something we need to do there…it’ll be…dangerous…but if we are successful….well, we’ll be able to start a process that will eventually remove Kivar from power…make everything alright. It won’t be easy but….well, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”
“Wait…Tess, ..I need to know more about that…are you saying the four of us are going….home to Antar?”
“Isabel....I have to go. We’ll talk about it in the morning..”
“So what’s the story?” asked Alex…she could already see…and sense…him pulling away from her emotionally. The pain in his eyes when he’d heard her mention Antar had been like a blow across his face.
“Tess says that we are safe from that entity…but she can’t get here tonight. She’ll tell us what happened in the morning.”
“And the rest of it, Isabel?”
“Well…she said something about us going to the East Coast in four days….I’d guess we will be fighting some Skins…but if we are successful….well, it may mean the overthrow of Kivar…”
“So you’d then be going back….back to Antar?”
“Not necessarily,” she said….scared to death by the thought of losing what was developing between them.
“What does that mean…not necessarily?”
Suddenly she knew what it meant…knew it with a certainty that burned through any doubt. She couldn’t lose Alex…she’d spend the rest of her life…the rest of eternity regretting it if she ever left him.
“It means…no. I’m going to stay here…Antar has gotten along without an Ice Princess for decades…they’ll have to get by without one in the future. My place is here with my family….with…..with…with you, Alex.”
“Isabel..I can’t ask you to give up a kingdom…” he said..backing up slowly. She was approaching him like a predatory beast. But his retreat was stopped as he backed into the bed.
“I don’t want a kingdom, Alex…I want you….now…tonight…always.”
“But …but …but…I just came here to protect you. It wasn’t like this was supposed to be a date….”
Her hand went to his belt buckle and there was a quick flare of golden light as it dissolved.
“It’s not a date, Alex….it’s a seduction….and resistance is futile..”
His heart really wasn’t into it…but he tried one last protest…”Isabel…we can’t…I don’t even have any protection…”
But the look in her eyes told him that was going to make no difference to her……no difference at all…
Friday 8:50PM June 4th The parking lot in front of Rudy’s Cabin number seven, Bottomless Lakes State Park Access Road, NM State Highway 409, 14 miles from Roswell New Mexico.
“Wait in the car until I check the place over, Liz” said Max.
But she didn’t. And he knew she was doing it to make a point. She wasn’t his to command. He wasn’t her king, he wasn’t her boyfriend, he wasn’t her…..anything. She’d made that clear enough…crystal clear, in fact, that night he’d seen her with Kyle.
“I don’t see Tess,” she said.
“It’s only 8:50. We’re still 10 minutes early. This is cabin number seven, like she said. If she said she’d meet us here, I’m sure she will. I just hope she’s alright.”
Liz hoped Tess was alright too. With all she’d given up to keep Tess part of the group she couldn’t hope for anything else.
Future Max had made it plain, Max’s destiny…..everyone’s destiny, depended on Tess. She knew that she could never really like Tess. The cost of keeping her part of the group had been far too high. And she hoped that was why she felt the way she did…that her fears weren’t in fact well-founded.
‘I’ve just never trusted that little blonde bitch…..’ she thought.
And she knew she still didn't.
Last edited by greywolf on Sun Jul 22, 2007 6:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Tess glanced through the cabin’s window and strained to concentrate. Maybe she could have avoided doing this by just asking for their help, but Nasedo had taught her to take no chances. Of course, there was always the law of unintended consequences, she reminded herself. But given what she’d recently seen….well, she’d take no chances on facing THAT again. The healing stone glowed in her hand as she drew power from it to help strengthen the mindwarp. Both were trying to resist what she wanted them to do…but with the power of the stone, it wouldn’t matter. This was the last stone still charged, and it would take her weeks to recharge the whole five. But with luck, these two would be the last two people she’d mindwarp tonight. The power she had should be more than adequate.
As Tess dragged herself back to cabin one, she was almost spent…both physically and mentally. But even so, she managed a tired smile as the red Mustang came up to the cabin.
Kyle’s face had a look of obvious concern as he walked up to the door.
“Where is everyone Tess?”
“Uh….they are in the other cabins, Kyle. They are…well sort of busy right now.”
“Busy? That’s insane. What’s wrong with them? You shouldn’t be alone here…unprotected…after what has happened…..”
“It’s OK, Kyle…the entity….well….the entity is no more…actually…it’s kind of like it never was…except for what I learned from it.”
“Tess, I don’t understand….,” said Kyle…his fingers drumming nervously on the railing of the porch of the cabin. “…but it doesn’t matter, Tess…. I’ll be here for you…like your big brother…always.”
Tess looked at the tapping hand….and shook her head. Then she looked up into Kyle’s eyes, her own starting to tear up…
“What’s the matter, Tess? What did I say?”
“I’m not sure I really realized just how badly I’ve fouled up until right now, Kyle. The reason you are treating me like you are…like a big brother…I mindwarped you Kyle. I manipulated how you thought about me…made you think of me like your sister..”
“Why Tess? Didn’t you trust me to care about you without being mindwarped?”
Tess shook her head...the tears going slowly down her cheeks…. “That wasn’t it, Kyle. I could tell how you felt about me…I think I just didn’t trust myself. I’m sorry Kyle…I really am…I’d like nothing more than to warp you back the way you were…..but I won’t….I’ll never mindwarp you again…unless you agree.”
“Tess…I guess I just don’t understand…”
“Then you’ll have to trust me, Kyle,…and I’ll have to then be totally honest with you and trust you to make the right decision for both of us….because to have the future that I want…well…you have to understand the sort of person I’ve been…and then understand the sort of person I want to be…and then you have to make a choice…but I’d like your mind free to do that…”
Kyle looked down at her blue eyes….and made his decision. “Go ahead, Tess. I do trust you…”
Saturday 9:00 AM June 5th Rudy’s Cabin number one
Tess awoke to the sight of the ceiling of the cabin…the sound of his gentle breathing…and the feel of Kyle’s arm draped across her naked chest. She turned slowly, not wanting to awaken him…and smiled as she drank in the sight of him. ‘Poor baby,’ she thought. She’d kept him quite busy last night. Her hand went to her lower abdomen and smiled as she felt the new aura growing there. She moved her head toward his…and gave him a gentle kiss. She’d let him rest for awhile…then see if he couldn’t be coaxed into just one more instant replay before they got up and went to meet the others.
As she looked up to the ceiling, Tess shook her head. She still didn’t get whatever was going on in Liz’s head. She hoped in the years to come that she and Liz could become friends…maybe then Liz would let her in on the secret.
‘Damn….I know she wanted him…I felt it when I connected with her…’
Nonetheless, Liz had fought the mindwarping like giving up her virginity to Max was going to mean the end of the world… '…but they did get into a rather nice rhythm once they connected,’ she thought with a smile…the word ‘connected’ in this case covering a multitude of meanings.
Tess figured that Isabel was almost surely pregnant by now….Liz, quite possibly…it was her fertile period. Maria and Michael had really surprised her….neither had required any mindwarping at all…that was all just them.
She looked back at Kyle… ‘God he was understanding…..I don’t deserve him…I really don’t…’ but that didn’t mean she was going to give him up….not ever. She moved her head over near his and let her curls tickle his nose. He gave several quick jerks and she found herself looking into his eyes.
“Is it time for me to get up?” he asked.
“Oh yes…most definitely..,” she said as she rolled over to straddle him her blue eyes laughing from amongst the golden curls as she looked down at him, “…at least time for certain parts of you to get up…I’ll handle the rest….”
11:05 AM Eastern Standard Time (9:05 AM Roswell Time) The Oval Office, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC.
It was rare for a meeting to have such high security that only four people plus two Secret Service Agents would attend….rarer still for them to have to give blood samples and have them checked before the meeting started.
When the word came back that the blood samples had been verified, the Attorney General nodded to the FBI Director…who nodded to Deputy Director Armbrust. The President didn’t trust Armbrust…not really. He’d only met him once, bur he had struck the President as sort of a xenophobic paranoid. But when the FBI Director, the Attorney General, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff say that they desperately need for you to hear something from the guy…you listen…even if you are the President of the United States.
The President looked at the band-aid over the inner part of his right elbow and then looked up at the other three. “This had better be good…”
The meeting lasted 45 minutes…an eternity for a White House briefing…and there was still 15 minutes scheduled for the President to ask questions.
“I wouldn’t have thought that you would trust an alien…even an alien-human hybrid, Mr. Armbrust…”
“Sir….just because I headed the Special Unit…well it doesn’t mean I’m so inflexible that I can’t choose between the lesser of evils.”
”The enemy of my enemy is my friend..?” inquired the President.
Armbrust smiled. “Partly, perhaps. I do have to admit I admire the cheekiness of the young lady…to walk right in to the Justice Department…go up to security…and mesmerize the security guard to bring her to my office.
But what she said about Dummerston Vermont….the military verified it with their satellites,” he said, nodding to the JCS chief who nodded himself in agreement… “…but it was when we went to brief the Attorney General….when the Deputy Attorney General kept objecting…insisting that the girl be confined….I have to admit…I almost used my own gun on her when she did that…powerblasting she called it, on the Deputy Attorney General.
But she was right…his DNA wasn’t human…not even close…and when he awoke in custody and suicided….blew himself into scraps of skin and dust…well it was plain we are dealing with a dedicated enemy….almost two thousand of them. When the young lady suggested a compromise on her status…and that of the other three…it seemed reasonable enough…all things considered.”
”You don’t think these 'Skins' will miss their plant in your office?” the President asked the Attorney General. The AG looked at the chief of the FBI and smiled.
“We put out the word that we were sending him on a visit to the Denver office due to an emergency there sir, ….then crashed a remotely controlled aircraft with three cadavers in it on federal property in Herndon Virginia. The ME has put out the word that he identified three bodies…but that the other was likely totally consumed in the fire. We’re watching the colony in Dummerston…but there has been no unusual activity there. We think they bought the ruse.”
The President looked at the JCS chief. “You think this plan will work then?”
“Sir, there is no reason it shouldn’t work. We had an exercise with Canada scheduled in two weeks on the coast off Vermont. We’ll use that as a cover. We are gathering intel entirely through the use of satellites..everyone knowledgeable about the existence of…these Skins..has their DNA checked daily…to limit the possibility of infiltration.
I have to admit..there may be a few infiltrators in our troops….the fact that they replaced the Deputy Attorney General….Good Lord, sir….they had to have done that at least fifteen years ago….who knows what they may have infiltrated…but if that young girl can really ferret them out by reading their minds…or whatever she does…we can screen the people before we tell them just what the operation is.
I’m not underestimating their powers sir, but we’re going to be hitting them with a massive number of troops, supported by airpower and armor…not to mention our four half-alien friends. We’ll win…as long as they don’t know we are coming…and they won’t….not if that young lady will help us.”
The President’s gaze turned back to Armbrust. “So this Tess….do you trust her?”
The President watched Armbrust tap his hands nervously on the desk for awhile before he spoke.
“I guess I do sir…up to a point. These Skins are totally alien….nothing like us. They will have to fundamentally alter the atmosphere of the Earth to live here without those husks. The young lady is at least half-human…bioengineered to maintain the DNA of an alien race that has been conquered by the leader of these Skins. She has agreed that the four of them will fight with us….help us against these skins…but more than that…they will swear allegiance to this world…and most importantly..they will make no attempt to reconstitute their alien heritage…that is, they will intermarry with humans ….agree to live here as US citizens…subject to our laws.
While I think it well within the young lady’s capability to be…well….let’s be polite and say devious…it should be easy to assess if they are being true to her promises. I mean…if they work with us….help us…intermarry…become part of our word….well…it’ll be easy to tell which side they are on. Strangely enough I find some reassurance in the fact that she is an avaricious little bitch…. She wanted a million dollars a year each for the four of them…and half that for their significant others. I figured she really wouldn’t care about the money if she thought the world was about to be conquered by someone else…”
“So you told her yes?”
“No sir. I told her I’d hire them all as GS-15s…a sort of retainer fee….plus standard government per diem and benefits. It’ll cost less than $2 million a year for the eight of them. It’s reasonable enough. The plane we crashed just for the cover story on this was almost $17 million. Oh…and the young lady gets a Ferrari…a red one.”
The President chuckled. “I take it she’s always wanted a red Ferrari then?”
”Actually…I believe she’s already stolen one, sir. She says if she’d going to go straight she probably needs to make restitution…”
“Sounds like the young lady might have a career in politics….so what do I need to do?”
The Attorney General spoke up, “We need a finding sir….that these Skins represent a clear and present danger to the US….authorization for a combined FBI and military operation against them….and authorization for the Special Unit to hire 8 GS-15s as special consultants..”
“…and for the GAO to buy one Ferrari?”
“Yes sir,” said the Attorney General, “…a red one.”
"You've got it, gentlemen. Let's make this happen, shall we?"
As Tess dragged herself back to cabin one, she was almost spent…both physically and mentally. But even so, she managed a tired smile as the red Mustang came up to the cabin.
Kyle’s face had a look of obvious concern as he walked up to the door.
“Where is everyone Tess?”
“Uh….they are in the other cabins, Kyle. They are…well sort of busy right now.”
“Busy? That’s insane. What’s wrong with them? You shouldn’t be alone here…unprotected…after what has happened…..”
“It’s OK, Kyle…the entity….well….the entity is no more…actually…it’s kind of like it never was…except for what I learned from it.”
“Tess, I don’t understand….,” said Kyle…his fingers drumming nervously on the railing of the porch of the cabin. “…but it doesn’t matter, Tess…. I’ll be here for you…like your big brother…always.”
Tess looked at the tapping hand….and shook her head. Then she looked up into Kyle’s eyes, her own starting to tear up…
“What’s the matter, Tess? What did I say?”
“I’m not sure I really realized just how badly I’ve fouled up until right now, Kyle. The reason you are treating me like you are…like a big brother…I mindwarped you Kyle. I manipulated how you thought about me…made you think of me like your sister..”
“Why Tess? Didn’t you trust me to care about you without being mindwarped?”
Tess shook her head...the tears going slowly down her cheeks…. “That wasn’t it, Kyle. I could tell how you felt about me…I think I just didn’t trust myself. I’m sorry Kyle…I really am…I’d like nothing more than to warp you back the way you were…..but I won’t….I’ll never mindwarp you again…unless you agree.”
“Tess…I guess I just don’t understand…”
“Then you’ll have to trust me, Kyle,…and I’ll have to then be totally honest with you and trust you to make the right decision for both of us….because to have the future that I want…well…you have to understand the sort of person I’ve been…and then understand the sort of person I want to be…and then you have to make a choice…but I’d like your mind free to do that…”
Kyle looked down at her blue eyes….and made his decision. “Go ahead, Tess. I do trust you…”
Saturday 9:00 AM June 5th Rudy’s Cabin number one
Tess awoke to the sight of the ceiling of the cabin…the sound of his gentle breathing…and the feel of Kyle’s arm draped across her naked chest. She turned slowly, not wanting to awaken him…and smiled as she drank in the sight of him. ‘Poor baby,’ she thought. She’d kept him quite busy last night. Her hand went to her lower abdomen and smiled as she felt the new aura growing there. She moved her head toward his…and gave him a gentle kiss. She’d let him rest for awhile…then see if he couldn’t be coaxed into just one more instant replay before they got up and went to meet the others.
As she looked up to the ceiling, Tess shook her head. She still didn’t get whatever was going on in Liz’s head. She hoped in the years to come that she and Liz could become friends…maybe then Liz would let her in on the secret.
‘Damn….I know she wanted him…I felt it when I connected with her…’
Nonetheless, Liz had fought the mindwarping like giving up her virginity to Max was going to mean the end of the world… '…but they did get into a rather nice rhythm once they connected,’ she thought with a smile…the word ‘connected’ in this case covering a multitude of meanings.
Tess figured that Isabel was almost surely pregnant by now….Liz, quite possibly…it was her fertile period. Maria and Michael had really surprised her….neither had required any mindwarping at all…that was all just them.
She looked back at Kyle… ‘God he was understanding…..I don’t deserve him…I really don’t…’ but that didn’t mean she was going to give him up….not ever. She moved her head over near his and let her curls tickle his nose. He gave several quick jerks and she found herself looking into his eyes.
“Is it time for me to get up?” he asked.
“Oh yes…most definitely..,” she said as she rolled over to straddle him her blue eyes laughing from amongst the golden curls as she looked down at him, “…at least time for certain parts of you to get up…I’ll handle the rest….”
11:05 AM Eastern Standard Time (9:05 AM Roswell Time) The Oval Office, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC.
It was rare for a meeting to have such high security that only four people plus two Secret Service Agents would attend….rarer still for them to have to give blood samples and have them checked before the meeting started.
When the word came back that the blood samples had been verified, the Attorney General nodded to the FBI Director…who nodded to Deputy Director Armbrust. The President didn’t trust Armbrust…not really. He’d only met him once, bur he had struck the President as sort of a xenophobic paranoid. But when the FBI Director, the Attorney General, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff say that they desperately need for you to hear something from the guy…you listen…even if you are the President of the United States.
The President looked at the band-aid over the inner part of his right elbow and then looked up at the other three. “This had better be good…”
The meeting lasted 45 minutes…an eternity for a White House briefing…and there was still 15 minutes scheduled for the President to ask questions.
“I wouldn’t have thought that you would trust an alien…even an alien-human hybrid, Mr. Armbrust…”
“Sir….just because I headed the Special Unit…well it doesn’t mean I’m so inflexible that I can’t choose between the lesser of evils.”
”The enemy of my enemy is my friend..?” inquired the President.
Armbrust smiled. “Partly, perhaps. I do have to admit I admire the cheekiness of the young lady…to walk right in to the Justice Department…go up to security…and mesmerize the security guard to bring her to my office.
But what she said about Dummerston Vermont….the military verified it with their satellites,” he said, nodding to the JCS chief who nodded himself in agreement… “…but it was when we went to brief the Attorney General….when the Deputy Attorney General kept objecting…insisting that the girl be confined….I have to admit…I almost used my own gun on her when she did that…powerblasting she called it, on the Deputy Attorney General.
But she was right…his DNA wasn’t human…not even close…and when he awoke in custody and suicided….blew himself into scraps of skin and dust…well it was plain we are dealing with a dedicated enemy….almost two thousand of them. When the young lady suggested a compromise on her status…and that of the other three…it seemed reasonable enough…all things considered.”
”You don’t think these 'Skins' will miss their plant in your office?” the President asked the Attorney General. The AG looked at the chief of the FBI and smiled.
“We put out the word that we were sending him on a visit to the Denver office due to an emergency there sir, ….then crashed a remotely controlled aircraft with three cadavers in it on federal property in Herndon Virginia. The ME has put out the word that he identified three bodies…but that the other was likely totally consumed in the fire. We’re watching the colony in Dummerston…but there has been no unusual activity there. We think they bought the ruse.”
The President looked at the JCS chief. “You think this plan will work then?”
“Sir, there is no reason it shouldn’t work. We had an exercise with Canada scheduled in two weeks on the coast off Vermont. We’ll use that as a cover. We are gathering intel entirely through the use of satellites..everyone knowledgeable about the existence of…these Skins..has their DNA checked daily…to limit the possibility of infiltration.
I have to admit..there may be a few infiltrators in our troops….the fact that they replaced the Deputy Attorney General….Good Lord, sir….they had to have done that at least fifteen years ago….who knows what they may have infiltrated…but if that young girl can really ferret them out by reading their minds…or whatever she does…we can screen the people before we tell them just what the operation is.
I’m not underestimating their powers sir, but we’re going to be hitting them with a massive number of troops, supported by airpower and armor…not to mention our four half-alien friends. We’ll win…as long as they don’t know we are coming…and they won’t….not if that young lady will help us.”
The President’s gaze turned back to Armbrust. “So this Tess….do you trust her?”
The President watched Armbrust tap his hands nervously on the desk for awhile before he spoke.
“I guess I do sir…up to a point. These Skins are totally alien….nothing like us. They will have to fundamentally alter the atmosphere of the Earth to live here without those husks. The young lady is at least half-human…bioengineered to maintain the DNA of an alien race that has been conquered by the leader of these Skins. She has agreed that the four of them will fight with us….help us against these skins…but more than that…they will swear allegiance to this world…and most importantly..they will make no attempt to reconstitute their alien heritage…that is, they will intermarry with humans ….agree to live here as US citizens…subject to our laws.
While I think it well within the young lady’s capability to be…well….let’s be polite and say devious…it should be easy to assess if they are being true to her promises. I mean…if they work with us….help us…intermarry…become part of our word….well…it’ll be easy to tell which side they are on. Strangely enough I find some reassurance in the fact that she is an avaricious little bitch…. She wanted a million dollars a year each for the four of them…and half that for their significant others. I figured she really wouldn’t care about the money if she thought the world was about to be conquered by someone else…”
“So you told her yes?”
“No sir. I told her I’d hire them all as GS-15s…a sort of retainer fee….plus standard government per diem and benefits. It’ll cost less than $2 million a year for the eight of them. It’s reasonable enough. The plane we crashed just for the cover story on this was almost $17 million. Oh…and the young lady gets a Ferrari…a red one.”
The President chuckled. “I take it she’s always wanted a red Ferrari then?”
”Actually…I believe she’s already stolen one, sir. She says if she’d going to go straight she probably needs to make restitution…”
“Sounds like the young lady might have a career in politics….so what do I need to do?”
The Attorney General spoke up, “We need a finding sir….that these Skins represent a clear and present danger to the US….authorization for a combined FBI and military operation against them….and authorization for the Special Unit to hire 8 GS-15s as special consultants..”
“…and for the GAO to buy one Ferrari?”
“Yes sir,” said the Attorney General, “…a red one.”
"You've got it, gentlemen. Let's make this happen, shall we?"
Epilogue
When Tess informed the rest that she'd made a deal with the Special Unit they were more than a little taken aback. She argued for almost two hours....argued that no one fights in a burning building....that if they were going to survive...they needed to do this.
It was Liz taking her side that ultimately won the others over. Liz said that she knew in her heart that if the four didn't stick together...it really would be the end of the world. Max stood silently beside her nodding his head...having seen through the connection just how she knew that to be the case...knowing what she had been ready to sacrifice...just for that additional roll of the dice.
Three days later they were off to an FBI safe-house on the East Coast where they studied the layout of the Skins nest in Vermont...went over the plans for the attack...and recharged the stones.
The attack turned out to be somewhat of an anti-climax....the Skins had depended greatly on their infiltrators to warn them of attack. Between the military and the Special Unit and the Pod-members...they rolled up the last outpost pretty easily and the records they captured as they did so made it pretty easy to track down those who had infiltrated into the rest of society.
The eight were kept on as GS-15s.....a cheap retainer by a grateful government....a secret weapon against future need.
It was three years later that Tess finally told Liz the whole story...sitting on a bench at a school playground in Roswell, watching their children play on the playground equipment. And Liz told her the rest of the story.
"I felt so bad about....well, splitting up the four...interfering with destiny....causing the end of the world. I had to try to make things better."
"So instead of just going away...I kill Alex...drive Isabel insane....cause the enslavement of six worlds....Great plan, Liz...," said Tess.
"But I didn't know...," Liz started to protest...until she saw Tess laughing at her,
"Hey...I was only kidding. Maybe you had to do what you did so I could do what I did so Isabel....er...Vilandra could do what she did...so it could finally come out OK. Maybe there really is no destiny....maybe you just have to work at it. That's what Nasedo taught me anyway.
Maybe this is all like Bill Murray inGroundhog Day, maybe you and Isabel and I were just destined to play and replay this until we finally got it right."
"Yeah....seems like Michael and Maria were the only ones that had it right from the beginning."
"So...can you make it tomorrow night...You and Max and Zanita...to the big cookout at the Valentis?"
"It seems so strange...the Sheriff and Amy leaving."
"Hey...someone with law enforcement experience had to go replace that Armbrust guy. I never did like him...he's the bastard that authorized the White Room treatment for Max....and who should know better about aliens than my father-in-law?"
"And you had nothing to do with him deciding to retire? Or him suggesting Jim as his replacement?"
"Me? Liz, ....how can you even think that. It's a medical retirement. The man has Parkinson's disease, Liz,...Haven't you noticed the tremor in his hand all the time...his hand continually beating on the desk?"
"I guess I have, now that you mention it. Sure...we'll be at the barbecue...we wouldn't miss it."
Tess smiled. She really did love her father-in-law. She was glad all of the pod people would be there at the big send-off. And she was glad that Liz reallywanted to be there....she'd have felt badly about mindwarping her again...even though it had all worked out well the first time.
Liz and Max hadn't announced it, but she could feel the new aura in Liz...the Evans' were expecting their second. She envied Liz...she and Kyle had been talking but thus far it hadn't gone beyond talk. She'd kept her word to herself...she wasn't going to mindwarp Kyle again...but still, Maria and Isabel were also working on their second children...it just didn't seem right that she and Kyle only had Karla.
But she'd talked to Isabel...about how she'd convinced Alex to have a second child so soon. Tess chuckled inwardly as she recalled the conversation...there were more methods to get your own way than just using a mindwarp.
'OK, Kyle,' she told herself..., '....tonight's the night....resistance is futile...'
When Tess informed the rest that she'd made a deal with the Special Unit they were more than a little taken aback. She argued for almost two hours....argued that no one fights in a burning building....that if they were going to survive...they needed to do this.
It was Liz taking her side that ultimately won the others over. Liz said that she knew in her heart that if the four didn't stick together...it really would be the end of the world. Max stood silently beside her nodding his head...having seen through the connection just how she knew that to be the case...knowing what she had been ready to sacrifice...just for that additional roll of the dice.
Three days later they were off to an FBI safe-house on the East Coast where they studied the layout of the Skins nest in Vermont...went over the plans for the attack...and recharged the stones.
The attack turned out to be somewhat of an anti-climax....the Skins had depended greatly on their infiltrators to warn them of attack. Between the military and the Special Unit and the Pod-members...they rolled up the last outpost pretty easily and the records they captured as they did so made it pretty easy to track down those who had infiltrated into the rest of society.
The eight were kept on as GS-15s.....a cheap retainer by a grateful government....a secret weapon against future need.
It was three years later that Tess finally told Liz the whole story...sitting on a bench at a school playground in Roswell, watching their children play on the playground equipment. And Liz told her the rest of the story.
"I felt so bad about....well, splitting up the four...interfering with destiny....causing the end of the world. I had to try to make things better."
"So instead of just going away...I kill Alex...drive Isabel insane....cause the enslavement of six worlds....Great plan, Liz...," said Tess.
"But I didn't know...," Liz started to protest...until she saw Tess laughing at her,
"Hey...I was only kidding. Maybe you had to do what you did so I could do what I did so Isabel....er...Vilandra could do what she did...so it could finally come out OK. Maybe there really is no destiny....maybe you just have to work at it. That's what Nasedo taught me anyway.
Maybe this is all like Bill Murray inGroundhog Day, maybe you and Isabel and I were just destined to play and replay this until we finally got it right."
"Yeah....seems like Michael and Maria were the only ones that had it right from the beginning."
"So...can you make it tomorrow night...You and Max and Zanita...to the big cookout at the Valentis?"
"It seems so strange...the Sheriff and Amy leaving."
"Hey...someone with law enforcement experience had to go replace that Armbrust guy. I never did like him...he's the bastard that authorized the White Room treatment for Max....and who should know better about aliens than my father-in-law?"
"And you had nothing to do with him deciding to retire? Or him suggesting Jim as his replacement?"
"Me? Liz, ....how can you even think that. It's a medical retirement. The man has Parkinson's disease, Liz,...Haven't you noticed the tremor in his hand all the time...his hand continually beating on the desk?"
"I guess I have, now that you mention it. Sure...we'll be at the barbecue...we wouldn't miss it."
Tess smiled. She really did love her father-in-law. She was glad all of the pod people would be there at the big send-off. And she was glad that Liz reallywanted to be there....she'd have felt badly about mindwarping her again...even though it had all worked out well the first time.
Liz and Max hadn't announced it, but she could feel the new aura in Liz...the Evans' were expecting their second. She envied Liz...she and Kyle had been talking but thus far it hadn't gone beyond talk. She'd kept her word to herself...she wasn't going to mindwarp Kyle again...but still, Maria and Isabel were also working on their second children...it just didn't seem right that she and Kyle only had Karla.
But she'd talked to Isabel...about how she'd convinced Alex to have a second child so soon. Tess chuckled inwardly as she recalled the conversation...there were more methods to get your own way than just using a mindwarp.
'OK, Kyle,' she told herself..., '....tonight's the night....resistance is futile...'