Different Kind of Destiny (CC, All,MATURE) Complete 12/11/06

[Chrisken]

Part 6b

MAX:

"Okay, how about this," I muttered, holding an arm a little bit in front of me and shaking my hand as if I could force the rest of the idea that was lodged in my brain out that way. "We... we really want to get Pierce to go on the move, to chase us. We'll have much better luck that way than if she's just sitting pat, waiting for us, especially if we can put Isabel's idea into action."

"Right," Michael said, nodding and frowning slightly, as if he wasn't sure where I was going with this. I wasn't quite sure either -- yet.

"Okay... well, she's not going to come after us while we're not doing anything, and she's probably too canny to get taken in by any lure or pretense of weakness we might try." Isabel nodded somberly. "So... what if we try to attack the Special Unit in an unexpected way... try to hurt someone, or take something, that's not in Roswell?"

"Umm... like what, Max?" Alex prompted, also seeming a little puzzled.

"Like breaking into the FBI headquarters in Santa Fe."

There was a hushed silence, which, predictably, Tess was the one to break. "My... my mom? You're going to rescue her?"

"Yeah, but it's not just about her," I told her softly. "Pierce probably has a lot of other agents there in Santa Fe... not only guarding her, but standing by in case she needs reinforcement. I think we can probably find a way to nullify those backup troops without killing them. Between that and taking Evelyn back, who probably knows more about the Special Unit than anyone else who might help us... once Pierce realizes what we're trying to do, she'll come tearing out after us."

"Good," Tony said. "But maybe she shouldn't clue in too soon... she's faster than you, after all."

I thought about that. If this was just to be a feint, then it didn't matter if Pierce caught us before we got to Santa Fe... as long as we could make sure she caught us at the right kind of place. But Tony's hopes had been raised by the mention of getting his wife out... I could understand that, in a way that I wouldn't have been able to before Liz got snatched. He wanted us to spring her before Pierce got at us - just in case we couldn't later, either from being captured ourselves, or because some angry henchling found out that Piece was dead, the jig was up, and killed the hostage.

And... it made sense anyway. Evelyn's information still might be a good tip, even if we went with Isabel's plan, and taking care of the reinforcements was a good way of covering oru asses. I suddenly realized that I knew how to put somebody into a coma that would resist any attempts at rousing them, except those keyed to my own power signature. I'd make sure that they'd all wake up in about three days, to make sure nobody died of thirst, but Pierce couldn't be sure of that. (Too bad it wouldn't accomplish anything to put Pierce in a coma, even if I could. Or... hmm...) "Okay, so how do we keep her from clueing in too soon?"

Tess was jumping in before I'd finished answering the question. "As long as we don't head straight for Santa Fe directly, we can approach it without her realizing exactly what's up. Maybe she'll just think that we're trying to draw her out of Roswell by moving away - then she'd be more likely to stay put. And at least we're already north of town - that's better than having to circle around Roswell."

"We can go back to the motel first," Michael suggested. "That wouldn't make her suspicious at all... well, not suspicious of the right things at least. And then maybe zag off to the northeast, making it look like we're trying to back away from Roswell even more and get to the state line. Then, all of a sudden - in we swoop."

"Okay, yeah, that sounds good," I agreed. "Let's roll for Kathleen's motel first. We can plan the rest once we get there." I hurried over to Liz, who had woken up while we were talking. "Hey, darling. How... how do you feel?" I wanted to wrap her in my arms, but a little voice inside my head told me not to. Isabel said that Pierce had tampered with Liz's beliefs and attitudes - just a little, and she'd be able to sort it all out herself given time - but these were hardly ideal circumstances for putting things to the test.

She looked up into my eyes. "Max... Max, you saved me!" She either expected a response or saw something disappointing in my eyes. "Err - didn't you?"

"We got you out of Pierce's building, yeah," I agreed, smiling. "What about..."

"I was so stupid," Liz blurted out, throwing herself at me and her arms around my neck. "I... I should have known better than to come to Evelyn - to Pierce alone, but I didn't listen to myself, and..."

"Sssh, it's not your fault," I insisted. "She - she was manipulating you, biasing your judgement just a little bit, to make sure that you'd make those mistakes. We don't need to speak about it now." Liz felt warm and soft and comfortable next to me, and I wanted so badly to forget caution. But it wasn't that easy. "How... how do you feel, in your mind? We think that Pierce had a chance to..."

"To use me against you?" Liz's mouth dropped open. "Oh, no - I remember part of it. Something... something awful already happened, didn't it?" I couldn't answer for a moment. "When we first touched there, outside my cell."

"Yes. We think Pierce was able to use you to cancel out my powers, as a one time thing." Liz whimpered slightly. "But they're back now, and we escaped. Everybody's safe for now." Another whimper/sob, but one that was more relief than worry somehow. "I - I was talking about something more psychological, though."

"Hmm..." Liz considered that. "I... I don't know. I don't dislike you guys, or feel any fear of you. I don't suddenly like Pierce - I really hate her, in point of fact. What else could she do to my mind, that I could sense?"

I looked over at Isabel, who shrugged. "I... I'm not sure."

"Maybe it's the hate that Pierce touched," Alex suggested. "I mean... it's understandable that you'd hate her after what you've been through... but being hateful can lead to making mistakes. Maybe that's what she's counting on."

"Ehhh... I don't want to think about it right now." Again she must have read something in my face. "Yeah, Max, I realize that I'm going to need to think about it soon, that I can't hide from this forever like an ostritch with my head in the sand. Just let me put it off for about ten minutes?" I shrugged. "Weren't you saying something about going to a motel?"

"Yeah - the same motel we left Topolsky at," I told her. "Want to ride in the back of the Harding's van with me?"

"Yes, definitely," she said, reaching up and touching my face, with a smile.

----------

"I'm still worried about what we do after settling with Pierce," Alex muttered as we got back onto the main road. "Even if you can build a perfect defense against anyone but her using the Orbs... what will it be like living for years under a defensive bubble, always having to keep that up in case some special unit nut tries to take a run at you again."

"We won't," Isabel muttered softly. "One way or another, we're going to take our lives back from them. Forge some kind of lasting peace with them... or at least an enduring truce."

"Sounds like a plan," I agreed, though it was hard to say how. And which was less threatening, actually - just sitting back, ready to defend ourselves, as long as we weren't really being attacked... or pursuing the other guys, determined to make them 'sue us for peace?' It was hard to be sure of anything.

Well... it was easy to be sure of some things... like how glad I was to be back beside Liz at this point, and know that Pierce hadn't twisted her mind enough to make her hate me or be afraid of me. But that didn't really help us out in dealing with Pierce... or did it? If it did, I couldn't see how.

"Maybe Evelyn will be able to help with that angle," Tony said from behind the driver's seat. "Finding a way to get whoever's next in line at the unit to just leave us all alone." All five of us were in his van, plus Tess of course, which left Maria and Michael, Nasedo and Kathleen in the Jetta. I still felt upset at having left my Jeep about a block away from Pierce's place - but we'd had other worries at the time than making sure to pick it up.

"I... I don't want to talk about all this special unit stuff," Tess blurted out. "We'll have enough time to worry about that. I - I want to try to talk about something happier."

I laughed a bit at that... but she had a point. "Okay - how about you ask us something? We probably have a lot of stories that you haven't heard yet."

"Umm... okay Max. What... what's your favorite memory from the year that you were nine years old??"

I blinked - had expected Tess to ask about something more recent - something from after all of us had startd getting to know each other. "Well, umm..." I thought about that. "Hmm... it's tough, because I can think of a bunch of fun things. Going on a road trip with my family that summer... Dad got several weeks off work, and he and Mom rented one of those trailer campers, you know?? Like an RV, but not really a vehicle that moves under its own power, just a mobile home that you can hook up to your car."

"Yeah, Max, we're familiar with the concept," Alex said, but he was gently teasing me.

"Okay, anyway." I was feeling lucky that I could even remember back to when I was nine, considering all of the stress of this situation. "Also my Dad took me out fishing at this river point a little past Artesia... but somehow the memory that sticks out most in my mind... doesn't have anything to do with my family or anything." Isabel made a 'hmmph' sound of protest. "Sorry. That was the year that we got a couple of really cool computers in our classroom at school, with educational games that were really fun - like European royalty, where you were trying to survive in a post-renaissance court, scheming against other court advisors, and if you got to be the king or queen's trusted confidante, then you had to compete with the other kingdoms." He sighed. "It's odd how that sticks out as my favorite thing... it wasn't just that one game, though that's the one I remember most clearly."

"Well, that's not too bad or embarassing I think," Liz said, smiling over at me. "So you're a bit of a computer dork. Color me shocked." I laughed at that.

"Well, it's your turn now," Isabel told me. "Ask one of us something, maybe."

Hmm... well, maybe. Of course, I knew a lot about Isabel, and quite a fair bit about Liz, and I didn't want to turn things back around on Tess just now. "Umm, how about you Mister Harding - can you play while you're driving?" I asked.

"Yes, I can," Tony replied. "Does that count as Max's turn??"

All of the girls started giggling entirely at once, which started Alex chuckling. "No, it was a point of information, not a point of policy, or something like that."

"Point of policy??" Tess asked dubiously.

"Model UN thing, or sounds something like that," Liz explained. "Okay, Max, come on. Ask your real question."

Umm. "What happened on your last overseas mission, Mister Harding??" Tess said that he used to be Green Beret, after all - I was curious what his response to this would be like.

"Umm... I'm not really supposed to talk about that," Harding replied, which I had more than half expected, and I tried to think of another question. "But I guess I have no choice now." Tess giggled, and I realized that he was playing along, pretending that this game was far more binding that any of us thought it was. "Alright, so it was down in the mid-east, maybe four years ago. The target was an Iranian bio-weapons lab, that our intel said was trying to develop a bug that could safely be carried by Arab hosts, but would be deadly to most of the Israeli population."

"Whoa," Isabel breathed. "I thought even the best biotech in the world was decades away from that kind of selectivity."

"You'd be surprised," Tony replied darkly. "Especially when you've got trained psis working on genetic alterations." Oh, boy... yet another development that I hadn't even thought of, though at least this one didn't seem to relate directly to our own predicament. However, if people like Pierce are involved in ethnic warfare in other places on the planet, would they ever really just forget about us and leave us alone?

The story was suitably tens, dramatic, and harrowing, and then Tony asked Alex about his hobbies, and Alex asked Liz about some prank that had been played on Maria when they were eleven, (Liz confessed to having done the deed,) and Liz asked Isabel if Iz had ever tried to dreamwalk her. Isabel shot back to Tess with a question about when she had first realized that she had paranormal powers, and Tess asked Liz about her first kiss with me, and then Liz said that she didn't really want to ask any more questions, and the whole thing kind of died there. For a little while, we just kept driving on.

"Okay, then we need some anywhere but here," Isabel suggested. "Umm... start with you, brother dear."

I smiled slightly. Usually when Isabel tried to drag me into this game I didn't play along very enthusiastically, but today I was definitely in a mood for the fundamental conceit of it. "Okay, if I could be anywhere but here... let's see." A look out at the somewhat forbidding desert scenery beyond the car gave me my cue. "I'd like to be someplace green and full of growing things. Maybe up in the midwest or something... it's probaby a nice day in Minnesota today, with spring just turning into summer. A field or pasture somewhere, having a picnic."

"Pastures and fields usually have owners who aren't too wild about picnickers," Tess put in.

"And pastures have stuff that you do *NOT* want to step in," Alex chimed along.

"C'mon guys," Liz argued. "'Anywhere but here' is a fantasy game. Crotchety farmers and cow pies have no place in it - unless Max says so, that is." She turned, and I was wondering if she was going to ask whether I *wanted* a crotchety farmer and some cow pies, but that wasn't what was on her mind. "Is anybody else coming along on your picnic?"

"Well, it's a pretty depressing picnic unless you have company, in my opinion," I told her. "Yes... you're there with me - hope you enjoy the scenery." Liz smiled and giggled. "And... and I think that's all. No offense to anyone who wasn't included, but that's all I really want right now. 'A loaf of bread, a jug of... cherry cola, and thou, beneath the leafy bough.'"

"Isn't there a third thing in that verse?" Isabel asked. "I mean, before 'thou', which makes four." I grunted in annoyance at the nitpicking.

"I think it's lovely like that, and who cares what somebody else said," Liz shot back.

"Alright, somebody else's turn," I prompted. "How about you, Alex??"

"Hmm... let me see..." He looked over at Isabel, grinned, then sank into thought for a moment.

But Alex didn't tell us his 'anywhere but there' right then, because Isabel's cell phone rang right then - it was Maria in the other car, saying that Nacero wanted to talk to us. I put my ear close to Isabel's head, which required some awkward positioning in the vehicle, and reflected that this conversation was likely to be even more weird. Nacero's grasp of language might be getting better, but somehow I had the feeling that he still wouldn't be great with a cell phone. "Hello?" Isabel asked.

"There's... there's a disturbance, a ripple in the possible futures," Nacero muttered.

"Possible futures?" I asked. "Buddy - can you see forward in time??"

There was a long pause at this. "Not see - but think." Was he talking about another alien power or not? "You do it too - you think about what might be possible in the future, and adjust your plans accordingly. I've seen you do it."

"Oh," Isabel replied. "Anticipation - prediction. You're right, we do do that." She sighed. "So what kind of disturbance do you predict?"

"I... I'm not sure," Nacero muttered. "Can't... can't quite fit a concept, just anticipating that something's not quite right."

"A premonition?" I asked. "A vague feeling of foreboding that's not about any one specific worry?" Nacero made a kind of a grunting sound. "Okay, any idea what we can do to best avoid the disturbance? Do we not head off towards the motel?"

"No, no!" he exclaimed. "Can... can we leave the main trunk earlier??"

"Oh," I suddenly realized. Yes, we could leave route 285 almost immediately - there was a possible turnoff coming very soon, if we were where I thought we were, and it was probably something that I should have thought of myself. As long as we were on the main road, it wasn't obvious that we were heading for the motel, even though that was the fastest way to get there, and assuming that Pierce was tracking us, she'd be thinking about where else we might be heading - Albuquerque or Santa Fe, possibly. "Turn off on country road 12," I called out to Mister Harding. "Left." Turning back to the phone, I said, "Thanks, man. Can you give the phone to, umm, to Michael?"

After a few moments, Michael came on, and I told him about the change in plans. The Jetta was behind us, it turned out, and we were all able to make the turn onto the rough county road. We couldn't make as much speed here, and the ride was bumpy even at thirty-five, but it was still better than getting Pierce worried. Either she'd tumble too soon to Santa Fe as our ultimate destination that way, or... what if she thought we were heading for the big airport?? Or... well, there were all kinds of interesting things that we MIGHT do in the nearest big city, and I couldn't take the time to think about all of them.

I don't remember that much about the drive on the little county roads to reach the motel. Maybe I was drowsing in the car a bit - I'd gotten back to the seat next to Liz once all the stuff with the cell phone call had finished. It was pretty clear that I wasn't the only one who was tired, and Pierce probably wouldn't worry about us as long as she knew we were staying put, so we got a whole bunch of rooms to catch up on sleep. Liz and I ended up sitting next to each other on a double bed so soft it was sinking beneath Liz's weight, (and Liz isn't a terribly heavy person - it was sinking even more for me.) "How... how do you feel?" I asked her softly.

"Umm... pretty much okay I think," she said softly. "Not terribly tired - maybe because I got a good nap when you guys were breaking me out and so on."

"Yeah, but everything you've been through has been a shock to your system, probably," I remarked. "Would be good to lie down and rest at least, and maybe you'll find yourself drifting off to sleep."

"Alright." She sighed. "Max... I don't know what you were expecting, but can you hold my hand while we sleep? I don't think it's going to hurt you this time."

"You don't have to keep saying that," I told her. "And yes, I will touch you whenever and wherever you ask." Liz giggled. I'd actually wondered about wrapping my arms about Liz as we lay down, but if she'd wanted that she'd probably have asked for it, and I wasn't going to push into any kind of intimacy that Liz didn't feel ready for. But as I touched her hand, something seemed to happen. That sense of Liz's presence, the thing that I had been tracking when we were trying to find her, before we knew that she'd been lured into captivity by Pierce... for the first time I could sense that presence right next to me, touching me. About as safe as it/she could possibly be under the tense circumstances. I remember that that sensation made me smile broadly, and then nothing else but... well, but waking up about seven hours later in the motel room, with Liz lying on her side, facing me, her eyes closed and her chest moving ever so slightly with her soft breathing.

I stayed there like that, just watching her and holding her fingers with mine, until Maria came over and said that it was probably time we should get on the move again, or at least get up and talk about the timing.

We stayed at the motel a little longer, knowing that it would probably be our last safe harbour until the rest of the plan had played out. Drilled with the Orb a little and tried to talk with Nacero a little more about our powers. Ate just about everything that was available in the little diner next to the motel office. And then it was back on the road, heading north and east, falling back onto the main highway, but only for a little while. We had to make it look like we were heading for the state line.

-----------

"Okay, we're gonna need to make our break for Fanta Se now," Michael said over the phone line. "If we go too far to the east, it'll be obvious what's going on - and we'll be moving further away from our target anyway."

"Hmm..." I considered the map spread out on my lap as I sat in the front passenger seat of the Jeep, Isabel next to me behind the wheel. "Yeah, but let's go through to Santa Rosa anyway. We'll have the interstate once we get there."

"Mrrmf," Michael mumbled. "Are you sure that Pierce is still back in Roswell?"

"Yeah, she's sitting tight. Hasn't moved."

"I'm not sure I like that," Isabel announced. "Means that she's near the Roswell airfield - what do we do if she charters a jet? She could beat us to Santa Fe that way."

"Maybe," I admitted. "But we could still get to the right place to make your plan work, while she worries about chasing us down, Isabel." Isabel grumbled a little under her breath. "And I'm not sure that getting that plane will be so easy for her."

"What else woud she be doing, as she watches us take off for the edge of the state?" Michael asked me over the phone. Great - the two of them were double-teaming just like they used to in the old days, except that now they couldn't even hear when the other one was lecturing, really. Which meant that at any moment, they might start lecturing me at the same time. "She couldn't have been expecting us to go back to Roswell once we got past Vaughn. Which meant that she'd be coming to terms with the idea that she'd have to intercept us or chase us... ergo, calling up police cars that could chase us, and getting ready to intercept by plane. She's not expecting that the place she'll have to fly is Santa Fe yet - but she knows that she'll have to fly somewhere."

"It's too bad that there are so many National forests around Santa Fe," Liz put in from behind me - well, not quite behind me, because right behind my seat was the space where people came in through the side door, so there wasn't a seat right there. "We could take a road that would take us right past Santa Fe, without making it clear that we'd get there until we were only fifteen minutes or so away. But that's out."

"Maybe she'll think that we're just passing through Santa Fe on the way up to Colorado," I said without much enthusiasm. "Would she catch a plane up here if she thought we were just passing through?"

"Probably yeah, if she knew that she could get much closer to us that way," Isabel replied. "But we'll be turning back west onto the interstate at Santa Rosa anyway."

We did - and as far as I could tell, Pierce didn't get on her plane until we turned back north at Clines corners... which makes sense, really - because until we got off the interstate, it looked like we were doubling back towards Albuquerque. (It might have worked even better if we'd actually been able to convince Pierce to go to Albuquerque, but she'd been too canny to jump for that.) From Clines to Santa Fe was just a stretch a little over an hour long up route 285, and I think that Pierce had some problems getting a plane at the Roswell airfield, and hadn't been able to get a big flashy jet that would get her up here REALLY fast. If we could find the FBI building where Tess' mom was being held, we'd have something like fifteen or twenty minutes there well before Pierce arrived.

"I know the building well," Tony said softly. "It's an office block on the west side of town, west and a little south. Southeast corner of Riley and Margaret. Pierce's people have the top two floors - there's more conventional FBI operations elsewhere inside, and some kind of investment banking company."

Isabel shot me a look. "Do we go in the same way as before? Paralysis field, and the whole deal."

"Need to talk to Nacero," I replied. "If it's possible, I'd like to try stopping EVERYTHING but us from moving - not just people."

"What?" Alex asked, blinking. "Like a time freeze or something?"

"It's a complete contradiction to stop time in the real world - or useless, anyway," I told him. "Just like the paralysis field, but also 'paralyzing' large solid objects... unless we want them to move."

"Gonna be a tall order, even with Nacero and the orb," Isabel predicted.

"Yeah, we'll see." A pause. "Turn left here, yeah?"

"Yep." Tony nodded.

---------

ISABEL:

"Okay, the Orb," Max said, bringing it back out as we gathered near where we'd parked the cars, a few blocks away from the building that Mister Harding had told us about. "Only one person can hold it as we move in, and that should probably be..." He broke off, shaking his head, and looked at Nacero, who was back in his 'Tv's Angel' shape. "Sorry, man, do you have a name, anything that you'd prefer that we call you? I mean, well, I kinda get the impression you'd rather we didn't use..." He trailed off, not even saying it out loud.

Nacero leaned close to the three of us. "You can call me Efrarv. For the rest of them - Nacero is as good as anything." Max's eyes widened, but he didn't object to that distinction, or ask what the new name meant, what language it was in. Myself, I just hoped that Efrarv (wow, that was hard to pronounce, even in my head,) would stick with the program, even though we were trying to rescue a human, and wouldn't try to turn on us in the middle of the mission. He'd been helpful so far, but still seemed worryingly unstable.

Max didn't seem too worried, though - as his next little spiel showed. "Well, only one of us can carry the Orb as we go in, and I think that should be you, Efrarv. But maybe... the rest of us would benefit by each holding it for a moment beforehand? Get a kind of a power boost... and some useful tricks from it afterwards?" Efrarv nodded, and Max seemed to close his eyes and concentrate for... for about twenty-five seconds or so, I guess. Then he handed it over to Michael.

"Umm, okay." Michael took the orb, but looked uncertain. "Any idea what our plan is? Are we going for the bold frontal intrusion like before?"

"No," Efrarv said with a small smile. "Distract and deceive. Keep them guessing. Stop them or fight them only as a last resort."

"That sounds good to me," Max muttered, and I had to agree. Michael didn't ask any more questions, and he did the same sort of silent communing with the Orb as Max had. Then he passed it over to me, and I tried to get my thoughts in some sort of order that wasn't full of fear and worry and dwelling unduly on Alex. That wouldn't help any of us now. I... I needed a model of the sort of abilities that I could get from this thing, and - almost unbelievably, the best that I could get was from Dungeons and Dragons. (Yes, I've played AD&D - try not to look so surprised. Back in grade four, it was the 'cool thing' for a particular clique of girls that I was trying to, erm, shamelessly claw my way through in order to rise in the social strata of my grade. Roswell is weird like that sometimes. Also, Max and Michael liked it too, so even after I'd left those girls behind, I would sometimes get talked into playing a session with them in Max's room. I'm not explaining any more about it now.)

But what I could remember of the magic-user rules was actually very helpful here. Specific 'spells' that someone who had sufficient power could memorize, and then use when the need arose. Of course, D&D magic-users needed to hem and haw while their warriors protected them for precious segments of time before casting a spell - reciting incantations, making gestures, and finding material components. Aliens could get things done a lot quicker. And I should be able to use my powers to do something that I hadn't 'memorized' if there was a need. Still, this seemed about as good a way of preparing as any that I could think of.

Time seemed to slow as I made my choices. The heavy hitter 'spells' were the ones that I needed to worry about preparing at this point - no need to worry about pissant stuff to open doors or shoot little bolts of energy - the sort of things that were first or second-level spells. I picked a short-period area-effect paralyzation tactic, a bit more limited in its basic pattern than the one that Max used back in Roswell, but I should be able to expand it or extend it if there was true need. Several direct-sense illusions that would cloak us from Special Unit guards, or convince them that they saw attackers somewhere else, and the equivalent manipulations for electronic video - blanking out a display by overlaying an old picture onto it, or simulating new pictures onto it with high-resolution detail. (That was quite a doozy - but it should be really effective if I had a chance to use it.) What else?? My brain was still thrumming with the potential that the color wall had shown us - Unchained thought. We'd need everything we could get, if not now, then when Pierce showed up.

Anti-psionics would still probably be necessary, so I loaded up on patterns like that - three basic variants: 'dispelling' an existing psionic effect, resisting or blocking a new psionic attack, and cloaking or phantasming psionic senses. That was nearly all the spells that I could memorize at whatever my Alien experience level, so I took a gamble on a physical energy attack - yeah, the lighning bolt. Shaking myself out of it, I noticed Max and Michael staring at me a little impatiently. How long had I been at it? Well, that didn't matter so much right now. I passed the Orb over to Efrarv and looked around. "Who else is going with us?"

"Tony," Michael said softly. "His experience could come in really handy - and he'll be able to convince Evelyn that she's better off with us." He considered everybody else. "Tess... can you keep our friends safe?"

Tess gulped a little. "I... I'll do my best. We may have to take our chances on the run if any significant danger manifests - but I don't think they'll worry about us much while you're on the warpath. But I'll do whatever I can to protect them. It... it's the least that I can do, under the circumstances."

"Yeah, seems like a fair trade," I said in a low voice, and hurried over to kiss Alex passionately. Michael looked like he'd like to do the same thing to Maria, but both of them were a little too nervous, so he just hugged her and whispered something in her ear that I couldn't quite make out. Then, as Tess, Alex, Maria, and Liz headed into the Jetta to wait and be ready in case they had to run, the rest of us started to make our way up towards the office building, in the dimming twilight. The streetlamps were already glowing, and a few people shot bemused glances our way as we moved into formation - Efrarv, Max, Michael, and I taking the four points of a rough square, (or maybe a rectangle,a bit longer than it was wide,) in that order from front to back, left to right, and Tony within. Walking up the street like that, with nearly the same battle-ready expression on every face, we... that was it. We had to look like one of those 'power shot' big walks from out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, which made it even funnier that Efrarv looked like David Boreanaz.

Nobody challenged us as we finished the two-block walk, and I reached out with alien senses toward the building, then realized that the space was already clogged with alien perceptions, and I could afford to just wait and let the others tell me anything I needed to do. "Security system all over the building," Max muttered softly. "Two guards in the lobby... they may be the only ones until we get to the floor."

I reached out to touch Michael's hand, and with quiet exhiliration realized that I didn't even need to speak to communicate a plan to him. "We've got that covered," Michael muttered. He worried about the high-tech digital cameras, while I reached out and influenced the perceptions of the guards. When we strode into the lobby, they didn't see three teenagers and a twenty-something hunk that resembled a TV action star - but two more guards wearing uniforms and no shoulder patches on their uniforms, a male doctor or scientist in a formal lab coat... and Danielle Pierce. Tony Harding I left exactly as he was - but with the change in the rest of our roles, his spot in the middle of our formation could be seen as a prisoner being escorted into custody.

"Who... who are you people?" One of the guards said, stepping up. "What are you doing here?"

I scowled my best Pierce-scowl at them, and then suddenly realized a minor flaw in the plan. Since the real Pierce guarded her true identity so carefully that nobody could attack her, it wasn't likely that her appearence would immediately cow low-ranking grunts like this. What to do now? Should we incapacitate these guys before they could sound an alarm? What if that were noticed??

But the 'doctor', Max, seemed to have an idea. "This is top secret, Wilkes. You didn't see either of these people." He waved casually at Tony and I.

"B-but," the other guy protested. "How can we just take *your* word that..."

"My clearance." Max pulled his wallet out and opened it up with one surprisingly smooth gesture, flashing his West Roswell High student photo ID. Both guards nodded and resumed their position. Max let out only the softest of chuckles while we walked up to the elevator.

"You enjoyed that far too much, 'doc'," Michael whispered, almost silently. "How did you know what to make your picture look like?"

*I told him.* This voice WAS completely silent, or maybe better to say it wasn't really voice, just words ringing in our heads - I was somehow sure that Max and Michael heard it as well. Efrarv. *Wasn't hard to see far enough into the poor fool's mind to know what would satisfy him.*

Wow. That was pretty deep stuff, even by the standards of our own rapidly developing powers. Just like controlling minds, reading minds was inherently difficult, no matter how much mastery of unchained thought you had... issues of quantum uncertainty had to arise, not to mention the simple fact that everybody's brain had evolved to work differently, based on unique genetic combinations and differing experiences. But apparently Efrarv had had a lot of time to work it out - maybe it was especially different for him because his brain was more different than most.

In the elevator, I put in control blocks, to make sure that no Special Unit system could override control and try to trap us in there, and to make sure that it wouldn't stop on any other floor. "Okay, should we maybe change our disguises at this point?" Max asked. "Since the Pierce gambit doesn't seem to have worked so well."

"What about the security cameras?" I asked. "If someone sees one group enter the elevator, and another leave it, that would be a huge tip-off that something was wrong. Even if someone in a Special Unit party was psionic, they wouldn't play games like that on their own security staff, no?"

"Isn't there a camera here in the elevator?" Tony asked.

"Umm... not that I could pick up, no," I said. Tony seemed to frown in thought at that.

"Guys, let's not worry about it," Michael said. "Max, if you have a better disguise, you run that on anybody close to us. I'll keep up the same imagery on the security monitors as we were using down there. That way, if anybody's trying to find us based on warnings from security, they'll never be able to. Sounds good?"

"Okay," Max said. "Umm, Efrarv, can we try a variant of that same trick - you get images from Special Unit minds about what people who are high in the ranks here look like - ones that aren't here already - and I'll work the illusion?"

"It... it's not that easy Max," Efrarv replied. "ID badges are a lot simpler to tease out than that... and we don't have any agents right in front of us now." Max frowned slightly.

"Wait a second," I said. "I think I've still got some imagery from Topolsky. Is that worth a shot? We're a little bit low on context I know."

Max sighed. "I think it'll be worth a try. It's not like we'll be helpless if they figure out that something's not right, after all." So I tried to send Max pictures of faces and uniforms, and he smiled, and I let my illusion drop so that Max could recreate it. He didn't include any of the five of us in the deception, so I wasn't quite sure who I was supposed to be as we strode out of the elevator on the right floor.

"Mis... mister Wieley," the receptionist gasped as we made our way through. The security guards here in the reception area just seemed confused. "What... what's going..."

"We're just on our way to containment with this fucker," Efrarv growled, and that was enough to get us past the receptionist and into the claustrophobic corridors inside the floor. The first hallway intersection we came to, Max led the way left, but Tony waved to the right.

"Have you ever been here before?" Michael asked Mister Harding suspiciously.

"No, but I've got a lot of experience with layouts of Government offices like that," Tony whispered back. "Trust it."

Max seemed like he wasn't sure. I tried reaching out with my mind to see if I could sense anyone who was feeling... trapped. Yes, there was one, and it was in the direction that Tony indicated. "Come on, Max," I said. Oddly, the mood of the confined person wasn't hopeless or depressed, but... excited? If that was Mrs Harding, could she tell that Tony was close??

Tony led the way, well, nearly - Max insisted on still going in front of him, but he followed Tony's directions, and soon we were in a section of heavily reinforced security doors, and while Tony hesistated, I led the way to the hopeful mind that I had sensed. "Who wants to do the honors?" I asked, gesturing at the door.

"Allow me," Efrarv said, and he didn't even go near the door, just looked at it, and the display above the keypad lit up in a pattern of green LEDs (88 - 88 among other things, those little 8 designs that could be any other number, but show 8 when all of them are lit up,) and the door slid open. A tall handsome woman, who did look a lot like Ms Pierce, except that her hair was a bit darker, looked out cautiously, frowned slightly at me, and then noticed Tony and rushed towards him. "Have... have you come to fetch me away?" she asked him in a whisper that wasn't quiet enough to keep any of us from hearing.

"Yeah," Michael muttered. "It's just the getting away part that might be tricky."

-----------

LIZ:

We waited in the car for a long time after Max and the others had left. Then suddenly I blurted out, without realizing why, "Got trouble!"

Tess looked at me sharply. "How... how can you tell??"

"Umm... not - wait." I shook my head. "Somebody coming the other way." I pointed in the direction of the back of the car. "They know something's going wrong in the office, and suspect we might be here."

"Liz, how do you know all of this?" Maria asked.

Tess was craning around to look back there. "If only I had more sensory powers," she muttered. "Liz, how do we know that this 'sensation' isn't just another crackerjack surprise that Pierce stuck into your head while she had you?"

"Be- because!" I spat out. "Because I think I could tell by now - and Isabel woulda seen it. I still feel a few weird twinges of Pierce's influsnce, but I know that they are now and can fight against them. This..." I sighed. "Maybe because I used to be so close to Max, I'm able to get a hint of the power that he has now. THEY'RE GETTING CLOSER!!"

"I believe you, Liz," Alex said. "Should we get the van, too? Will they do something to Mister Harding's ride, like torching it?"

"I don't think there's time," I muttered. "And no, they're unlikely to stop for that."

"I think I see them," Tess muttered. She was looking in the driver's side mirror, had turned the ignition and was revving up the Jetta's motor, but hadn't taken us out of Park. I didn't understand why she wasn't getting underway as soon as possible, but guessed that she had some sort of plan. Sure enough, when she suddenly gunned us out into traffic like a bat outta hell, I saw the point. She had waited long enough that the Special Unit car had started to brake, hoping to block us in so that we couldn't go anywhere, and then started to move, so that we were picking up speed while they were still slowing. It wasn't a trick that bought us a whole lot of time. but was relatively cool looking nonetheless.

"Okay, so not only do they know that we're around, but they were able to tell exactly which car we were in?" Alex muttered. "How the hell??"

"Probably have a low-level psionic in there or something," I said absently.

"Very interesting," Maria muttered, "but we now have slightly bigger problems. Like how the heck we get away from them??"

"I'm on it," Tess muttered, and indeed she was weaving so crazily through the traffic that the big black car was hard pressed to catch up. "Liz, if you've got any sort of power, maybe you could try to add some other useful diversions."

"Like what?" I yelped, suddenly completely out of ideas.

"Blow out their tires?" Alex suggested. I shot a look at him. "Well, come on. If Michael can do it..."

"Maybe a bright flash of light in their eyes?" Tess suggested, and that actually made sense. Well, if it was actually possible for me to create a bright flash of light on command, without using a camera or anything like that. I struggled internally, trying to get a grip on whatever powers I had, as Tess kept on driving, sticking to big streets full of evening traffic as much as she could, getting further and further away from the office building.

Finally, just when I was thinking that I'd never be able to do it and wondering whether Tess could lose these guys on her own, it happened. A spot in mid-air lit up like a miniature sun, creating a remarkably bright and long-lasting radiance. The black car drove into the light for a few seconds, then turned away suddenly and sideswiped a pickup truck. "Whooo!" I yelled, turning up to face Tess, just in time to hear metal scrape against metal as we passed close enough to a parked car to touch it.

"Sorry," Tess mumbled to the entire company. "I... I was looking in the rearview mirror just when you set that off, Liz. Kinda got a little dazzled myself.

"Oh, boy," Maria moaned as Tess just managed to swerve around a corner.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 6c

MICHAEL:

"Okay, come on, no time for hesitation now," I said, as Tony Harding and his wife embraced. "Or for long hugs, either. Umm... somebody make sure to cover us all on the security cameras from here on out..."

"No," Max said, and he reached out and put his hand over Efrarv's, touching the shapeshifter and the alien power orb at the same time. Efrarv's face betrayed a bit of surprise, but suddenly there was a huge and complicated wash of energy coming from both of them - cautiously violent, if that isn't an oxymoron, and changing in pattern so quickly that I could never have anticipated it, or defended against it - except that it wasn't aimed at me, and only a small part of it actually flowed through me. (That small part was completely harmless, as far as I could tell.) Not quite understanding what was going on there, I chose to focus on the outside, ready to defend against any reaction. Sure enough, there were more than a few frightened or angry mental probes that tried to forge upstream against the wash, questing to find its source, and I was able to help fend them off while Max and Efrarv found their source.

"What... what's going on?" Isabel asked nervously. "Max, what are you doing? I - I thought that we were trying not to..."

Max didn't reply until the power surge had ended, and that was forty-five seconds or so after Isabel had spoken. "I... I did what we came here to do, besides rescuing Evelyn," he said in a gruff voice, letting his hand fall away. "I've neutralized most of the Special unit here - the guards, the elite agents, the psionic talents. There's a few psis who have managed to put up a barrier that we can't break down from this distance - we'll have to get closer. Aside from that..." And Max took in a long, ragged sigh. "I don't think anybody will be waking up for a few hours, or be in fighting shape for longer. Nobody's dead, and I don't think more than a few will have lasting mental injuries, but..."

"More than a *few*?" Isabel asked. "Max, listen to yourself.

"We're not going to get this breakfast made without cracking a few eggs," Efrarv said with a bitter laugh. "These people here should be grateful that we've shown them so much mercy. It's more than their leader would ever do for us."

"Well, come on then," Evelyn said. "Let's get this done and leave the building. I... I find it as unpleasant as any of you do - but I've seen enough to be convinced of the necessity." Evelyn kept her hand in Tony's and led the way down the corridor the way that we had come. "This way, right?"

"Umm - yeah," Max concurred, seeming surprised about it. I guess he hadn't thought that Evelyn's psi powers would be strong enough to sense this little enclave of resisting Special Unit-ers. (I hadn't figured out as much, though in my defense I hadn't really been trying.) We hurried back, and then took a different branch.

"Okay, if you were capable of going all Unchained on their asses," Isabel remarked, "then why did we sneak inside?"

"Because the power of Unchained thought wouldn't have been sufficient to wipe them all out if they'd been on guard for an assault from without," Efrarv explained, "or intruders fighting their way in. But Max waited until we were in the depths of their stronghold, unsuspected, before unleashing our weapon." He looked over at Max with a dim measure of respect. "Not... not something I'd have been human enough to think of for myself, but I can appreciate the results."

"By the way, it seemed like there were other things to do than ask before," Evelyn added, "but... may I assume I'm in the presence of the four aliens that Tess told me about? The ones whose existence got me locked up and my family drafted into Special Unit service - not that I blame you for existing or anything, but..."

"We're not... not the others," Efrarv said, and I groaned with the realization that he was suddenly back into Unclear/cryptic mode. "Halfway... this and halfway that - neither fowl nor fish."

"Whatever that means," I groaned. And then suddenly a burst of yellow-white light burst out of - well, at the time, I had no idea where it had come from, just that it was bright, and painful, and kind of hot. The pain was... it wasn't just in my eyes, but centering mostly around my face. What had happened? I... I couldn't seem to open my mouth to ask.

"Mi - Michael!" A voice - sounded like Isabel's. "Fro -- for crap's sake GEDDOWN!"

Oh, right. I tried to drop into an alert crouch, and ended up sprawling over a section of floor. Well, that at least accomplished the major objective. Hands touched my arm and shoulder... strong hands, tinged with faint calusses. Was that Tony? And... and what had happened? The actual event had been too fast to process, but the results - ohh, the pain was starting to make me dizzy, even though I couldn't fall. My - my face. My face had been hit by something - maybe an energy bolt out of... coming through the corridor wall? That... that made a horrible kind of sense. I... I couldn't see anything, couldn't seem to open my eyes or my mouth. My nose hurt especially much, and I could smell something cooking. That would probably be my own skin - oh, no. And taste a trace of my own blood... Dammit, Max, where were you? The answer was also self-evident - he had to react to the threat, to make sure that we'd all be safe, before coming back and healing me. But... but would his healing powers be enough to help me if... if, I wasn't sure what happened. Thoughts in my head were starting to get a bit swimmy. Was there any secondary effect starting to hit my brain? I didn't think Max could just heal brain, it was way too complicated to put back exactly as it had been if I had brain damage. And could he do eyes - eyes were really complicated too. He... he wouldn't need to open up my eyes to heal me, like he had with Liz, right? The new techniques he's learned from the color wall and the orb must have made that...

The next thing I clearly remember is looking up at Max, of bringing my fingers up to my face, my nose and mouth, and realizing that I was healed. (I only just stopped my fingers from poking into an eye to make sure that that was sound as well, even though any four-year old could tell me that was about the worst thing I could do for my eye. "Umm... hey, thanks man," I muttered. "In with the save."

"You sure you're fine?" he asked nervously.

"Just about tip top," I said, picking myself up, nodding with thanks to Mister Harding. "Good job. Got the last holdouts too?"

"Yeah," Max agreed. "Our... our ever-changeable friend could probably have handled them alone, or with Isabel's help - but I didn't..."

"S'okay, brother," I assured him. "I... I admit I was wondering when you'd show up, but I'm okay. Really. And no harm, no foul, right??"

"Really?" the shapeshifter said, coming close. I looked up and suddenly realized that a much larger hole had been punched out of the wall to the next room, though he had come through the original door. Isabel walked through the hole, which was a foot higher than the three of us and probably wide enough that the three of us, (Max, Isabel, and me) could have gone through it in side by side formation. "I always thought it was no arm no foul." He considered. "Your version makes a lot more sense, Michael."

"Umm... glad that I could help," I said. If Maria had said something like that, it would have been funny, but here, even though I've heard people say things like that - from an often-psychopathic killer alien, it just reinforced how wide the gulf was that seperated Efrarv from humanity. And... and hadn't he said something about failing in his mission, because he couldn't understand people, and that was why we were... why we were here? (Why we had been born, or created, or whatever term applied to the beginning of my existence, and Isabel's and Max's.) I... I was glad that I existed, I guess, though that was somewhat contigent on a happy ending to all of this Special Unit business. But I still didn't trust Efrarv further than Unchained thought could throw him - which was probably nowhere at all, if he wanted to use his own powers to stay put.

Well, we left the building hurriedly then, and I reached out a thought towards where we'd left the others - and they weren't there. Neither was the Jetta. "Dammit, I should've..."

"What could we have done about them, before making sure that we'd gotten out safely ourselves?" Isabel asked softly. Suddenly I wondered if she HAD known beforehand, and hadn't said anything on purpose.

"Wait a second, what's going on?" Evelyn Harding asked again. "Did... were you expecting to meet people out here?"

"Not here," Isabel said in a low voice, "but down the street a ways, and we can 'see' well enough to tell that they're not there." After a pause, she added calmly, as if it was an afterthought, "Tess was with them."

"Oh, no," Evelyn breathed. "My daughter is many incredible things, but... but good at taking care of herself? Her... her powers aren't strong in attack or defense. And... and if the four of you are here, then... then there's nobody with unearthly powers back there?"

"We... we thought we might need all of our abilities to go in and get you," I said uncomfortably. *Maria*!! In retrospect, it should have been better to...

"Now, let's nobody overreact," Max put in. "They were supposed to take off if there was any sign that they'd been noticed. It doesn't mean that anybody's been hurt - though I'll agree that we should rendezvous ASAP. To whit, let's get to the van in double-time. My link with Liz is strong, and that should lead us to the rest of them too."

"Alright." Isabel let out one sigh of relief and started to run. Evelyn couldn't keep up the pace as fast as the rest of us, and eventually Efrarv scooped her up and carried her without slowing down one bit. I guess maybe he has alien strength in a way that we don't. (Or can he just use unchained thought to reinforce or boost his body's abilities? Hmm, that might be something useful to experiment with at some point.) Soon enough, we were all in the van and heading off - Tony was driving, with Max giving him directions from the shotgun seat.

"I... I do want to thank you," Evelyn muttered to Isabel. "Which - which one of you guys was - was the first? The one who's been on Earth the longest?"

"Oh, that's him," Isabel said, nodding to Efrarv. "Nacero, or - well, something like that." Efrarv had implied that we shouldn't use his private name for people who had been born human, that 'Nacero' - the visitor, was good enough for them to address him with. Since we didn't want to offend him, it seemed best to humor him, especially since there was no telling if there was some other significance to the name than a difficult collection of consonants on each end of it. "I... I guess Tess told you a lot about - about what she sensed from us, especially before Pierce split you up. When she was first figuring out that she had the power to read alien thoughts."

"Yeah, I guess so," Evelyn said, and let out a long sigh. Efrarv wasn't commenting on anything much, so suddenly the only sounds were Max muttering as he tried to reconcile his inner sense of connection to Liz with what his eyes told him about the streets and traffic. That would have been hard enough if Liz had been stationary, but pretty soon it became clear that she wasn't - and that someone was very probably still in hot pursuit. Max started to get impatient, and upset with Mister Harding - but Tony was doing the best he could - he couldn't catch up much faster because of the traffic on the Santa Fe streets, and he couldn't immediately change direction based on Max's notions. Nobody could.

I just sighed and kept holding on to my thoughts of Maria. "What - whatever's going on over there, just hold on, babe."

-----------

MARIA:

I held on for dear life as Tess screeched through another hairpin turn at high speed.

"Dammit," Alex muttered. "Do they have some kinduv a professional stunt driver back there?"

"I would guess that the Special unit trains people specially in this kind of thing," Liz said, rather calmly. "As well as the FBI and other elite police teams. Of course, even so most of the time when you really NEED a trained urban pursuit driver, you probably don't have one available, because they can't teach the skills to that many people, and this sort of situation probably tends to develop very suddenly, when you don't have an opportunity to call up a specialist..."

Just at that point, Tess cut off Liz's increasingly off-topic ranting, with a succint "Crash positions!"

"Heh, what??" I turned back to a forward facing position, and then realized that I was seeing 'what'. It looked like Tess had managed to misjudge a turn and skid the car, and - well, we were heading straight for a dumpster in some wide back-alley. It was coming up on my side, so that we'd be hitting at an angle, and I tried to remember what to do in a car crash. Cover my head with my hands? Put my head between my legs? No, that would never work with the shoulder seat belt - and they'd never have put in shoulder seat belts if that was a good thing to do anyhow. Probably I should just try and stay relaxed and sitting in an upright position. But - cmon, who was I kidding? We were about to crash - how could I possibly stay relaxed. Well, I hadn't been especially relaxed to start with, so how could I possibly *get* relaxed??

I wondered if this car had had a passenger side airbag, and that was about the last thing I remember before the jarring sensation and the bone-rattling thud hit. When the rattling was fading - the crash was over, and most of the crumple space in the front right of the car had crumpled itself, but at least it hadn't crumpled into the ME space. Well - only slightly - I definitely had less and more oddly shaped leg room now, but that hardly seemed to matter. I also had no big white air-baggy thing blown up in my face and lap and everywhere in between, so either there wasn't one or it had failed to deploy. Pretty much par for the course either way. I unbuckled and tried to open the door - it came open, but only a little, and I wasn't quite sure whether I'd be able to squeeze out that way. Looked around a bit more.

Liz and Alex had already gotten out of the back seat, and Liz was hurrying to Tess' side. The driver airbag in the middle of the steering wheel definitely HAD gone off, and Tess seemed to be having some trouble - whether it was just not being able to free herself from the airbag and the seatbelt, or if she was actually having problems getting air to breathe, (which would be more serious,) I wasn't sure. I reached out and tried to pull bag away from the vicinity of her face, and was rewarded with a big gasping sound. "Okay, you're welcome." After a moment, I realized that I could reach the buckle of Tess' seat belt from here, and she'd probably appreciate my help there, so I unbuckled it. Soon it seemed that Liz would be able to get her the rest of the way free, so I returned to my own circumstances. I didn't really like the idea of crawling past Tess' air bag myself to get out on her side, so what was my best choise otherwise??

"Does - does this help Maria?" Alex asked, and he tried to pull my door a bit more widely open, pressing it nearly flat against the dumpster.

"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid," I muttered to myself, and dived into the gap. For a long, squishy moment I was convinced that I'd wedged myself in so solidly that I'd never get out, either way, but then one more panicked wriggle and ta-da, through the tight spot. Alex and I rounded the back passenger-side corner of what was left of the Jetta, just as Liz and Tess showed up from the other side of the car.

And... and just in time to see four Special unit agents in dark blue suits pile out of the car that had been chasing us. Oh. Right. "Dammit, we don't have time for this," Liz muttered, though come to think of it, I wasn't sure what the emergency would have been if it HADN'T been for them. We needed to find the others and rendezvous with them, but that didn't seem like something that I was willing to hurry about, even though it'd be nice to see Michael's face and have him make a fuss about the scratch that I suddenly realized I'd somehow picked up on my cheek. (He'd *better* make a fuss about wanting to protect me, if he knows what's good for him.)

For a second, the special unit people just stared... not sure if they just couldn't believe it was this easy to catch us, or maybe they were worried that at least one of us had kick-ass alien powers and they were up against more than they could deal with. Somehow I was pretty sure that none of them were psis - well, at most, one or two might be low-level psis like Tess was. (Her alien telepathy trick wasn't completely penny-ante, but it didn't really help her out much in a fight - at best it could help call the cavalry for backup. And nothing else she'd done was very impressive at all.) Three guys and one girl - which oddly enough, was kinduv the reverse of us in terms of gender proportions, and the same mix as the four aliens were. One guy was, umm - let's see. I never really got all of the details of what they looked like terribly straight in my mind, because the situation was a little frightening and so much had already happened to confuse me, but. One guy, the driver I think, was fairly average-looking, 'neutral' hair and not too tall or too short or - maybe a little bit on the skinny side, but there was a cold gleam in his eyes as he looked at us. Another guy looked a bit more stereotypically like a police brute - tall, wide, not that smart but determined, muscles all over the place. The woman was pretty... plain, but not in an unattractive way because she was pretty I guess - mid-brown hair too, and in her late twenties I decided. She was just someone who it would be hard to really notice that much if you didn't have a very good reason to - which probably made her very good at following people in crowds or certain kinds of undercover work.

And then, the fourth agent was short - probably around my height or another half-inch higher, and even skinnier than the driver had been, in proportion. But he was the one who scared me most of all because he was the one who was holding a gun in our direction. Nothing particularly big or complicated as guns went - some kind of pistol I guess. But all I could seem to think about was how easily that little thing could ruin or end somebody's life. Never liked guns at the best of times, going back years before Liz got shot.

Okay... so what did we do? We... we couldn't really hope to win a fight against these guys, could we? Looking more closely, I realized that shorty wasn't the only one who was armed - the chick's hand was straying towards some sort of electrical looking device hanging from her belt... a shock prod or something like that? The driver... his wasn't meant to be so obvious, but I thought I could tell from the way he moved that he had a holster under his shoulder, though he wasn't going near it. And the big guy - bulge around his ankle was VERY suspicious, not that he really needed firearms or any other kind of weapon to hurt people.

"What... what's the problem?" Alex suddenly asked. "Why - why were you following us? Are you cops? Or... or mobsters or something? We... we haven't done anything wrong, that I'm aware of, and if I accidentally offended the godfather of New Mexico, then, um, then I'm really sorry, but..."

Shorty and Chick shared a look. Chick nudged the driver and muttered something. Driver fished in his jacket and came out with a few things - one of which was a badge. "Federal Bureau of Investigations, son." That was a laugh. The driver couldn't have been... well, maybe five or six years older than Alex, tops. "Maybe you haven't done anything wrong - I don't know. But we have a warrant to take you in for questioning as important witnesses regarding a very serious crime..."

"Since... since when do they issue warrants to take important witnesses in for questioning??" Tess asked - a pretty good point, I had to admit.

"And what about the fact that I was kidnapped - held against my will for no lawful reason in Roswell?" Liz shot back. "Is that a very serious crime too? Because the people who did that called themselves FBI too, and I'll bet some of them had badges as fancy as yours."

"Sarcastic backtalk is *not* going to get you anywhere," Chick snapped imperiously. "I do not want to use painful force here, but unless you come along quietly..."

Might as well join in the sarcastic backtalk myself, no matter what Chick said. "Does firing the gun count as 'painful force'??"

That was it. "No, but this does!" She strode forward - but not towards me. Bringing out her shock prod, she apparently picked out Tess as the one to torture as a way of teaching me a lesson. Certainly she was no mind reader, then - seeing Liz or Alex would definitely have been more personally painful for me. But still, I'd have to have had a heart of stone to be entirely unmoved by the whimpers of pain as the short blonde girl - who I had to admit had done her best to help us all out - fell to her knees and convulsed under a charge from the prod.

There - there seemed to be no help for it now. Tess had undoubtedly got a call for help out before she'd been zapped, and maybe Max was able to follow his 'connection to Liz' as well. The alien cavalry would be here soon, and would make quick work out of these jokers. Without psi, mere humans had no defense against the ET onslaught. We'd already distracted them long enough to give our guys a head start - or so I hoped. What if they were still inside the Special Unit building? No, that couldn't possibly be. They *had* to have gotten out by now.

And then, there was the question of what the Special unit guys would do with us now that they had us. The car that they'd been chasing us in was a very ordinary looking four-door sedan, and there was four of them and now four of us, making up a grand total of eight - way too many to fit inside. Driver apparently went back to call for reinforcements, and seemed to have trouble reaching the comm room back at headquarters. That, undoubtedly, had something to do with Max and the others' visit. There were some whispered consultations, and apparently Driver and Chick were going to take the most important-looking witnesses, while Shorty and Bruteus watched the other two. Alex and I were the ones left behind, which I wasn't sure if I was reassured by or not. Now that they were splitting up, and splitting us up - then the rest of our group would probably have to rescue us one split at a time. Tess' call for help would have included this area, but if Max was following Liz, then he'd find the car first. And what would Shorty do if he found out that aliens had attacked his friends? Would he shoot us out of anger and as a way of getting back at them? Try to use us as hostages??

I was hoping for a sudden and dramatic rescue so hard that at first I thought I was just imagining it. Just as Bruteus was escorting Liz into the back seat of the car, Mister Harding's van pulled up into the alley behind it, stopped, and Nacero, Max, and Michael poured out of it. The four FBI guys went down under their powers so fast that I wasn't sure what had hit them, if it was anything that I could have identified. Pure thought-power, maybe. The fact that Michael was getting proficient in something so completely beyond my understanding was getting a little scary, but I was CERTAINLY not complaining at this point. I hurried up to Michael to hug him in relief, and Alex rushed past us to see if Isabel was still in the van. Liz jumped out of the car and came to Max, and he opened his arms expecting a hug of his own, but Liz first led him around to see if Tess would be okay. (She'd been so out of it that the FBI guys had had to carry her into the front seat of the car and buckle her in themselves.)

Nacero scowled at Michael and made a disapproving sound deep in his throat. "You let your guard down," he growled.

"What?" Michael jumped, and tried to let go of me, however I was still hanging on and had my arms over top of his, so that didn't work too well until I relaxed my own grip. "Uh-oh. There's another threat?? Where?" Nacero pointed up at the other end of the alley, past the crashed Volkswagen - and both of us turned, arms still around each other, and gasped.

The new figure didn't look nearly as impressive as the agents who had already been knocked unconscious or whatever. (I didn't figure Max or Michael for killing them.) He was slightly on the tall side, with fairly light hair, not long but a bit shaggy, as if he hadn't had time to get it cut lately. He was wearing black loose-fit jeans and a green pullover shirt with a few buttons at the top, but somehow the sense of menace and danger that accompanied him was instantly easy to recognize, no matter that his own appearance didn't fit it. Part of it had to be that he was a strong Psi himself - again, I'm not sure how I could tell this, but maybe now that I've had a little experience with Psi and alien powers, my own mind has learned to pick up on the telltale signs of a brain that has learned how to manipulate the world around it, even though I can't do the same thing myself. "Well, what have we here?" he asked, in a soft tone that instantly cut through all the other little noises and activities in that place.

Max looked up from Tess to the newcomer, and growled softly. "I figured that was too easy. You're their backup??"

"Not intentionally, but yeah, in practice I guess so," he replied softly. "Was just out taking a walk, but I diverted to this area when I learned that a chase was heading in the direction it was... and when they found out that they couldn't reach headquarters, I came as soon as I could." The psi held up a little thing that looked like a very fancy and new cell-phone, but was presumably also linked to the Special Unit radio frequency.

"And what do you hope to accomplish?" Max asked him, his voice even more dangerous. "Your powers are strong, but you could never triumph over all four of us, all by yourself."

"No," he said evenly. "But... but I don't need to triumph alone. Pierce has landed in San Francisco. Almost certainly, he's coming here as quickly as he can. All that I need to do is wear you down a little and delay you, and then he'll be able to catch up with you, and you'll be toast." Pierce's name sent a chill through me, and probably through Michael as well. For a second I was actually confused by the references to Pierce as a *he*, before I remembered that that was the false front that Ms Pierce had cultivated, to keep her rivals and enemies, in the Special unit and elsewhere, from attacking her. This guy wasn't in on the secret - we were some of the very few who had penetrated to Pierce's true identity. Hmmm.

"Well, what if we just leave?" Max asked, gesturing Liz and Tess away, backing towards the van himself. "So that you can't..." All of a sudden - Max broke off, and I had the sudden sensation of mighty forces pulling me in opposite directions. Then... then the struggle was over, but I was so tired, and warm, familiar arms were carrying me. I struggled to come back to greater awareness, and ended up in the back of the Special Unit sedan, with Max and Michael on either side of me. "Are... are you feeling okay, Maria? Nothing... oh, god, she could have brain damage, and she wouldn't even know how to tell me..."

"Umm... I don't think I have brain damage," I muttered woozily. "Maybe you're right that it'd be hard to tell, but I just feel tired and a bit headachey..."

"Can you smile for me, Maria?" Max's voice was insistent.

"Umm... don't really feel like smiling..."

"It's important."

"Do it, sweetie," Michael chimed in. "If you possibly can." Feeling very confused, I plastered a big grin onto my face as best I could.

"Raise both arms up as high as you can and keep them raised," Max next ordered. I did that. "And repeat after me - 'It is sunny out today.'"

"It is sunny out today. Except that really it isn't - very cloudy day in Santa Fe. Max, what the heck was all this?"

"Umm... well, I thought that was worth a try, and you passed with flying colors. Umm... that was a stroke test that I remembered from... well, they made Isabel and I memorize it when my grandfather on my mother's side was coming to Roswell. He was in a high-risk group, and I guess the repetition really stuck with me." He sighed. "Not sure how well the same tests apply to someone who might have been brain-damaged from psionic attacks, but it's the only thing I could think of."

"WHAT HAPPENED?" I nearly screamed.

"That Special unit Psi - he attacked you to force our hand," Michael said. "I protected you as best I could, but he was really tricky, and so Max went on the offensive, with - with Nacero's backup."

"I... I didn't want to drag things out," Max muttered. "Settling everything once and for all seemed like the best way, before Pierce could really get any closer." He sighed. "And... and I didn't want to really hurt him. But... but he must have either been very determined, or he got frightened from the fireceness of my initial attack." He let out a long breath. "Over - he accidentally overspent his power on defense and died." Max let out a long breath, and I knew that the idea of somebody dead because of him must really upset him, no matter what the circumstances. "So... so we had to get out as quickly as possible - Liz found out that the keys were still in this car, and..."

"Wait a second," I muttered. "What about... do the Special Unit have some way of tracking this thing??"

"We shut down the radio," Tess said, from the direction of the front seat. "Michael scanned for radio and other long-range EM emissions - there's nothing clearer than randomized heat. We're off the Special Unit radar - except that Pierce can probably track Nacero's mind and the orb wherever they go anyway."

"Not just Nacero," Max pointed out. "I think Pierce still has a bead on me too. But that doesn't matter." He took a deep breath. "We're heading to a place where we can have it out with Her and not need to fear." There was a short pause. "Well, with as little fear as possible, anyway."

"Just what was the plan again?" I said. "I, umm, I probably wasn't following that closely when you and Isabel were talking about it, and - well, it's been a busy little while. Something about... about tapping into a greater power than Pierce's?"

"Yeah, something like that," Michael said. "Umm... do you really need me to go through it all from the start?"

I thought about that. "No, actually. Just hold me close and let me know when they get there."

"Deal." Of course, because we were both belted in, Michael couldn't give me a really satisfying hug, even though we were right next to each other, but it was some comfort anyway. "How... how did things go in the office, anyway? With Tess' mom and everything?"

"Missions accomplished," Tess put in. "Mom's fine, and the people in the office were calmly neutralized without permanent harm." She sighed, and I smiled at the thought. "Oh, and Michael's face got burnt off. Max put it back together again."

"What? Eww!!!" I turned around to stare at Michael's face. It looked the same as ever, down to the... well, actually, the faint trace of a scratch above his eyebrow looked even fainter, as if it had been faded when Max had been healing other things. Aside from that, he looked great. "How... how badly burnt are we talking about??"

"Probably better not to give you the gory details," Michael replied. "Actually, I was never really sure myself, and Max didn't fill me in on anything juicy. Ooops," he continued, probably noticing an expression on my face. "I guess that was the wrong choice of words to use."

"Ya think??" I made a big sigh. "Well, thanks anyway Max. Glad that you were around... makes me feel a *little* nervous about this sort of thing."

"I just hope that... well, that any injuries we take in the final confrontation with Pierce, I'll be able to heal so easily," Max muttered. "Both from the angle of means and opportunity." He sighed. "It'll be a little while before we get there. Better rest while you can, brother."

"Okay," Michael agreed. "Don't worry. We'll kick ass."

-----------

ALEX:

I looked around dubiously at the area that the two cars had been parked in. "The Santa Fe Country Power New Mexico plant??"

"Yep," Isabel said, slipping her arm around my waist. "Only place that we could get what we need. God, I hope that it works."

"But... but won't there be too many people around? If they notice you - if they ask what's going on. God, Pierce could use innocent workers as hostages?"

"There aren't that many people in the installation, and most of them are in the control centers," Isabel pointed out. "It's down among the turbines, and nobody really spends much time there. Partly because it's incredibly noisy and unpleasant smelling... but that's the price we'll have to pay. Maybe a few security guards stand between us and there, but we should be able to convince them that they don't see anything, or distract them long enough to slip through."
She sighed slightly.

"Well, we'd better go quickly," Nacero added. "Pierce will be here in less than five minutes, I think, and you'll want to be where you need to be before she catches up. We can't count on this thing to defend us."

"Say, I was meaning to ask, buddy," I said, as we headed towards the noisiest part of the plant building. "What did you ever do with the other one?"

As usual, Nacero acted like he didn't even hear when I talked to him. Maybe, in a weird way, he didn't. He said that he wasn't human enough to communicate with us effectively, or something along those lines, and maybe that was more literal than I thought. Or... or maybe truly human conversation was so.... so alien to him, so confusing, that he'd learned to ignore it, like I've learned to ignore when my mom sings hymns when she's by herself in the parlour, and so now he... maybe he COULD pay attention to me, if he thought that it was important, but he doesn't as a matter of habit. Hmm.

I'm not quite clear what did happen with the security guards - there was definitely some kind of a delay before we could slip through, but I didn't see one so I somehow suspect that none of them saw any of us. We hurriedly came in among the turbines - big, enormous things, like a giant forest - no, like a giant's orchard, because though they were much larger than trees, they were still laid out in rows and columns, so that when you were standing at the right spot you could see a clear path all the way out of the field of them. "Nobody wander too far," Max warned. "We don't want Pierce or her people to be able to pick off stragglers."

There seemed really to be fairly little danger of that - everybody wanted to crowd close, to the point where everybody was trying to get into the same spaces between the energy trees. (Nobody wanted to be in the open spaces where they were visible from four directions, though it was pretty hard to avoid at least passing through them.) Isabel led the way, so I was trying to keep up with her - it was as if she was trying to find something or some spot and couldn't quite decide or figure out where it was.

All of a sudden, Michael let out a soft cry, and I realized that something had started. Max crossed over to Isabel and Nacero stepped near Michael. I hung around, and it was vaguely as if I was able to sense a faint impression of what was going on *through* Isabel, directly from her mind to mine, as hard as that seems to believe, considering that I'm not an alien or a psi or anything. But still... I could sense Pierce and a group of five lackeys, each of them frighteningly strong psis, crossing the guard threshold without worrying about the guards, heading in among the turbines with us. The four aliens struck at a distance, avoiding Pierce and concentrating on her comerades - Pierce tried to defend them, but the guys, especially Max, and especially especially Nacero using the Orb, were relentless, and Pierce soon realized that four of her backup were badly wounded enough that she couldn't risk bringing them into combat - not that they'd serve her well there anyway. I could sense the fury as she charged towards us, along with her one remaining counselor.

"Max Evans!" Pierce called from nearby, but still not quite in a line of sight yet. "I... I admit I didn't expect you to be this resourceful. But all of your cleverness and your unearthly techniques will still eventually profit you none. You cannot hope to prevail against me."

"No?" Max asked. "If you think so, then why are you afraid to step out and face us down?"

"Why are you??" Pierce asked meanly. As Isabel trembled slightly, worried about what that notion might mean, Pierce did indeed step out from around a turbine, so that all of us could see her and she could see us, with the four aliens in the lead of our formation.

"Now," Isabel muttered. Max and Michael joined hands, and the noise that we had been shouting above screeched much louder, and then faded to a dull whine. They had tried to draw on the entire power of the generators and wield it as a weapon against Pierce. The lackey fell to the ground from behind the turbine in the same place that Pierce had emerged. But Pierce herself, staggered, but she remained standing, and smiled... as Isabel wilted against Max, and the guys didn't seem that steady either.

"That was stupid," Pierce decided. "I admit I've never seen this particular variation on it, but focusing on conventional energy - on physical power, is a common enough rookie mistake. Surprised that they were able to draw you into it, Mister Nacero, since you've been around the block a few times. Of course, you had more than enough true thought-power to back it up to give me a fight for it, but all that it took was a slightly fundamental understanding of the meaning of our powers to resist all four of you. Now - I admit I'm a little puffed, but you guys are on your dregs. So this is how things are going to go. Shapewalker, you're going to hand me that little toy you've got in your free hand - it won't help you anymore now, and I might be able to get some use out of it now. And all of you are going to lower your defenses, and let me put you all to sleep until I can call enough vans and serfs to have you all dragged away. DeLuca, Whitman, you guys will probably come off the luckiest. I'll want to have you go through a thorough examination, but you'll be able to go home to your families in a day or two - with your memories adjusted by quite a bit, naturally. Liz, our time together last go round was interrupted, but I don't think I'll need to keep you around that long either, even if Max's healing powers created some unusual results for my lab boys. But the four of you who came from beyond Earth's sun - you won't be seeing it for a LONG long time."

"And what, then about the Harding clan? What do you think I should do about a family full of human traitors to the people of this planet, who've turned against me again and again despite repeated warnings? Death's too good for you, but I'm not sure what I can come up with that's worse. Maybe just drag the dying out a lot."

"You know, I still don't see that happening," Max muttered. "We may not have much power left, but your psi edge is slim at this point." He took a deep breath. "Not enough to overwhelm us all."

"You know... you're probably right, Max!" Pierce declared. "Good thing I'm not really alone here." There was a bit of puzzled sounds from all of us at that. "Oh, but of course you DIDN'T realize that. Come on out, Jim."

I looked left and right, and then risked a glance behind me. From behind another turbine on our flank emerged Jim Valenti, pointing a gun and moving closely. "Mister Valenti!" Maria squeaked. "Michael, how come you didn't, umm, know..."

"Oh, I've cloaked him from psionic senses," Pierce put in. "Not that difficult for a mind of relatively low base strength. Yeah, Isabel knows what I'm talking about - you haven't had an occasion to try it yourself, have you? And, let me warn, that in addition to his stealth powers and that gun, Jim Valenti has a few other abilities up his sleeve, courtesy me. But you're not going to force him to use them, are you, Max, because first off - he's going to make sure that Liz gets shot - again. And this time, you don't have enough juice to heal her." Pierce chuckled. "I bumped into Jim, he was sneaking around my base in Roswell before I left town. Was worried about you, imagine that, and trying to make sure that you hadn't been hurt." Danielle Pierce shook her head. "Now, drop the orb and surrender. NOW!!"

I looked into Isabel's face, and her gaze held no hope at all.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 6d

LIZ:

No, no way.

It could not, CAN NOT, end like this.

I looked around, at the turbines of the Santa Fe power station where Isabel had taken us for a final showdown against Danielle Pierce of the special unit. The turbines were quiet now, except for a dim whine that might be just one of them off in the distance. Isabel, Max, Michael, and Nacero had seized on all of their power to stop Pierce's psi abilities, and it wasn't quite enough. The struggle had worn all five of them out - but now a new threat had appeared. Jim Valenti, the sheriff, the alien hunter, had been given terrible powers by Pierce before she came here, and now he was in her sway. He was pointing a gun at me, and Pierce said that if the four aliens didn't surrender to her, she would make him shoot me. Max was right next to me, but... but he couldn't save me. He didn't have enough energy left to repair a gunshot wound.

However... there was something, some deep power within me, and maybe it was the one critical factor that Pierce had forgotten to take into account, for all that she had maybe nurtured it to use it as a weapon against Max, just as she had given Valenti abilities to use him as a weapon against both of us, against all of our group. That was... was very much her style, I suddenly realized. She loved trying to turn people into weapons, particularly against people they cared for. Everybody in the world were just tools to her, and for that, more than anything else, I wanted to see her destroyed.

So... so what could I do? Before... before I had even finished asking the question, I was... was trying to do it. I was *thinking* at Valenti, at that core of personality that I knew was lurking down underneath the layers of control and manipulation that Pierce had laid down. *You... you don't want to do this, do you, Mister Valenti?? You... you once told Maria that you wanted to protect her, from anything and everything. To protect everyone in Roswell. Well, we're from Roswell, even Max, Michael, and Isabel - even Nacero, in a way, and we - we need your protection more than anything right now. From Pierce. You... you've been seduced by her, figuratively if not literally, but I believe that you know, deep down, that she's in the wrong here, and that the right thing to do is to help US against HER, and not the other way around. You... you don't want her to be able to use you as a tool, any more than I did, do you?? Just - just...* I petered out at that point, partly because I had no real evidence that what I was doing was getting through. Maybe I didn't have any real telepathic power, and I was just thinking words at myself. Maybe it could have worked if Valenti weren't so deeply gone. Or maybe I was getting through - but that was the other thing. What did I want him to do? To just refuse to shoot us, and let us take our chance against what was left of Pierce's powers? To try to shoot her? Or... well, Pierce had said that she'd given him powers, although she was vague about the details. Did I want Jim Valenti to use those powers against her??

Right then, Nacero made a break for it. WITH the Power orb that had helped us to get this far. Dammit... well, maybe I couldn't blame him that much. He... he didn't really have that much reason to sacrifice himself for my sake, and he had some justification in trying to keep the Orb away from Pierce I guess. Valenti suddenly moved the gun in his direction and shot, but the shapeshifter didn't seem to be affected. Pierce glared, and a rock threw itself at Nacero, a lightning bolt shot out of one of the turbines, but he just kept going. Maybe he was using what was left of his alien powers and the power orb, or maybe not, I'm not sure. Pierce grumbled, but apparently decided not to worry about chasing him any more, because she'd have to take her attention away from the rest of us, and maybe get jumped from behind.

"I... I don't care that Max had nothing to do with it," she said to Valenti. "Shoot Liz. Nothing immediately fatal, yet. Maybe a shoulder wound."

Valenti pointed the gun at me, concentrated - and Pierce screamed. It took more than a few seconds for me to realize that he had done the thing that I hadn't even put specifically into a transmission for him. Valenti had used his loaned powers to attack Pierce, to cripple her defenses. Valenti sank into a pained crouch - whether she had been able to counterattack, or if it was just the exertion of using that much power that he hadn't been prepared to withstand, I didn't know. Even though I was very grateful, Valenti wasn't my first priority. "Max..." I said, squeezing the arm that he was still holding Isabel with.

"Right," Max said, and he glared at Pierce, with Isabel and Michael... they were concentrating on giving him all the scraps of thought power that they had left, I could tell. Now, even without Nacero, the tables had been turned, and they had the advantage. Max stepped up to her. "I... I could kill you now, but I don't want to, or want to have to," he said. "Your psi powers have been bound, but they can yet be restored to. All... all that we want is to be left alone. Never bothered by the Special Unit, or any psis, ever again. That includes Tess and her family, Valenti and Kyle, as well as all my other friends." He took a deep breath. "Swear to me that you will see to this, to the best of your ability, and we have no quarrel with you."

"You... you would bind me to my word, wouldn't you?" Pierce asked. "Did the Shapewalker teach you how to do that, or that stupid metal football of his? If... if I say the words, no matter what I mean in my mind, because you have the advantage over me you could force me to live up to it." Max nodded slightly. "Well... well I'll never give you the satisfaction, you piece of crap. Even... even if I can't use you to increase my own power, I would never let you be free in my country... on my own world. I... I know that the fact that you were sent here means no good for humanity, and eventually someone else will expose you, and you cannot force me to cover for you..."

"I see," Max muttered. "Then I guess I have no other choice." He paused a moment, and Danielle Pierce sprawled onto the rough ground. Somehow I knew for certain that she was dead now. "Hey, hey there bud!" He walked over to the other special unit guy, who was starting to stir. Maybe Max had used his powers to revive him.

"Huh, wha??" He scrambled to his feet, took in the scene, and looked a bit sadly at the body of his leader. "Is... is she...?"

"Dead, yeah," Max said. "I... I realize that this doesn't look good for us, but she gave us no choice. I was... I've been fighting for my life here." He took a deep breath. "If I offer you the same truce that I offered Danielle... would you take it? Do you have the authority?"

"I... yes, and not really," he replied. "But... but somehow I think that nobody will be that keen on continuing her quest now. I'll... I'll take your message to the others, to whoever ends up replacing her. Maybe that person will contact you with a peaceful message - or maybe not. I'm not really sure." He sighed. "But... well, I've got my hands full here, and I certainly couldn't have kept you from escaping."

"Right," Max said. I stepped up towards him. Was... was it going to be this easy? Not that it had been terribly easy so far, but... I looked around. Tony, Maria, and Alex were deep in conversation with Mister Valenti, who seemed understandably confused about what was going on. Max stepped close to me. "I... I need you to get out of town. Umm... take the van. North on Eighty-four to Tierre Amarilla and find a motel there. We'll find you." He hugged me. "I... I hope that this sort of precautions aren't necessary, that we can just go back to Roswell and start living our old lives again, but..."

"I... I understand, Max," I said. "And... I'll do my best to keep everyone else safe. But you... the three of you are going after Nacero??"

His mouth quirked at the edge slightly. "I'm sorry, yeah. We... we still need to get a few more answers from him - maybe now that Pierce is toast, and if it's just the four of us in the Tri-gon, he'll talk."

"Okay, good luck," I assured him. "Come back soon." And so we went. Isabel and Alex, Michael and Maria were having their own little goodbyes, and then we headed back to the cars before splitting up. All seven of us who were fully human crowded into the van, while Max, Isabel, and Michael got into the special unit sedan and headed off. I hoped that Nacero hadn't been heading too far over terrain that a car like that really couldn't handle.

----------

MAX:

We pulled up beside a tired-looking figure who'd been walking along the desert flats, just a little ways from the road. Efrarv had changed his shape again - maybe he'd been getting ready to try hitching a lift once he thought he was far away from the Special Unit. He looked very short now, and faintly asian, with bright, inquisitive eyes. "Hey, man, no need to worry. We took care of Pierce. Just... still have a few questions about the bigger picture," Michael started.

"Ques - questions?" Efrarv asked, like this was a completely new and foreign concept to him.

"Yeah, you know," I said. "Things that we wonder about... about the reason that we were sent here. About the other aliens. That kind of thing."

Efrarv laughed shortly. "How... how can you still not understand these things?" he asked bitterly. "Don't you have... have the epistle that was left for you in the secret place of your emergence?"

"What, this thing?" Isabel asked. From a pocket in her jacket she brought out the little accordion book. "Yeah, we have this, but we... we don't know what the letters and the words mean."

For a moment, Efrarv looked stricken. "You... you never learned," he whispered. "There was no one to teach you the meanings." Suddenly I realized that this was a bit of common ground. Nacero hadn't been taught about human words and languages, thought he'd been able to learn some himself. And then a bit of the old anger resurfaced. "Well, I won't stand here and... and speak it out for you, like a father telling stories to his children before they sleep. That is *not* my place." And he reached out, and touched Isabel for a moment, and she gasped in sudden comprehension.

"How... how did you do that so quickly?" she breathed for a second.

"You - you can read it now, Isabel?" Michael asked her.

For answer, Isabel started to read aloud. "Once, a long time ago... there were people who travelled the stars. They took whatever shapes pleased them, and had incredible games and sports, and their lives were good. Sometimes on the planets that they came to, there were other people or animals that the people of the stars could talk to, who shared the same sense of... of fun, and they delighted in learning from or teaching all of them, and exchanging favorite toys and keepsakes. Occasionally they came upon people who were intelligent but not as fun, and the people of the stars tended to avoid trying to play with them, because it didn't tend to work out happily."

I'd been leaning over Isabel's shoulder as she read this much, (which was just a few little pages,) and suddenly she handed me the book, touching my fingers with her own as she did, and whatever Efrarv did to her must have been passed on to me. Stunned only slightly by this effect, I continued reading. "Then, the people of the stars first came to a beautiful planet spinning around a yellow star, and found that there were living beings who had spread across it not like any that they had ever known before. These 'earthlings' fought against each other in giant brawls that involved thousands or more of their people at a time, and ended the lives of many, without being able to find a better way of agreeing to settle their differences. They built strange machines that they thought would make their lives better, but were ruining the beauty of their planet, and the people of the stars did not understand them at ALL." Have to admit, sometimes I feel the same way about human beings.

"And so the people of the stars were pinched in by their circumstances. They could not communicate with the Earthlings without understanding, and yet they feared that they could not afford to ignore them, for the citizens of Earth were trying to develop machines that could take them away from their planet, and eventually among the stars, and build terrible bombs that could cause much destruction. Eventually they might become people of the stars too, and there would have to be understanding between the two peoples before then. So one of those who had travelled the furthest and leaned the most said this. 'The earthlings procreate their kind from coming together two by two, just as we do in our own way. By taking a small thing from the body of the Earthling as a source, and taking of myself similarly, I can procreate a person who is half of our kind and half of theirs. He will be our go-between, able to understand both people and explain each to the other, and in this way, maybe, after much work and patience, there will be peace and harmony between us.' And the other people of the stars agreed, so in due time it was done as he had said, and a man was sent to the Earth who was both of the Earth and the stars.'"

Michael was getting antsy, so at this point I passed over the book, and shared the understanding of reading with him, so that he could continue. We all suspected what was coming at this point, I think. "But... but when the Man went among Earthlings, still he could not understand them, and they did not understand him and were afraid of him, and he did not know why. The man went back and used a power stone that the people of the stars had left him to talk with them, and they told him, 'Because you cannot accomplish this task, for which you have been created, you are a failure and have no place among our kind either.' The man was... was sorely distressed when he heard these words, for he had been rejected by both the peoples that he had come from, and in his distress he wandered the lands of men, seeking to avoid the attention of those Earthlings who would hurt him."

"But some of the people of the stars said, 'Well, even though our first attempt at bringing onto the earth a go-between have failed, we believe we see the mistake that was made. Human children learn much from their procreators, when they are young and their bodies are still growing, their minds are also developing, they are empty vessels with which to learn the languages and the customs of other Earthlings. Our man had not the opportunity to learn these things, for that he was grown to adult size quickly, and among us, so that he learned our ways instead of theirs. Let us... let us instead bring our intermediary to Earth as a little child, that he or she may be accepted into an Earthling household as one whose parents were slain or killed by the wild creatures of that world, so that they might be taught by them as... as substitute parents."

Michael passed back to Isabel. "And... and then many of the other people of the stars came up with other ideas, because they did not want the second plan to fail as the first had, for it would take long for their mixed child to grow up as Earthlings did. Some said, 'Let us send more than one child, since he would not know us and may despair at not being like the other Earthlings, but if there are several, they may find each other and be comforted. Also, one may succeed where another fails.' And another said, 'Yes, and also they should be male and female both, as the earthlings are, for the two varieties of Earthlings often seem to not fully understand each other.' So... so it was done, although the children could not be sent out among earthlings when they were very young, for the children of the stars could not make them so that they would pass for earth children until they had grown some. And they were given the two power stones, one with which they could talk to the children of the stars when they had learned enough, and one with which they could defend themselves against earthlings who might seek to harm them."

Most of both sides of the accordion book had been finished, and Isabel looked up at both of us. "There's... there's a shift in the language patterns here - from a descriptive mode to a more direct form of address. 'You are those babes - child both to the humanity of earth and of we wanderers of the Galaxy. Learn all that you can of the human condition, and then tell us what you have understood, that we may begin to cross the gap that was insurmountable to us alone. Prosperity and success to you."

"So... so that's the story," I said, realizing that Isabel had come to the end. "The... the reason why we're here. But... but how horrible for you, Efrarv." I looked up at him. "You... you couldn't be accepted by humans, because of THEIR mistake - because they hadn't realized what was necessary to bridge the gap the first time around, but they blamed you for it and rejected you as well, making you a scapegoat." Of course, Efrarv probably didn't understand the metaphor of scape goats, but it just kinduv slipped out before I could stop myself.

"And... and that's what you hated us for," Michael added. "What you thought that we'd taken away from you. That we were the heirs to the connection to the Travellers that you had been denied. That totally sucks. I'm not sure if we even WANT to tell them what we know about humans."

"More than that," Isabel said. "They were trying to build a bridge from their race to humans, but they never stopped to think that the bridge might have more than one step. We... we understand humans, and we understand a bit of what the aliens are like, but I'm not sure that we'd be able to communicate directly to them." She looked straight at Efrarv. "But... but we've learned to communicate with you - and you can speak to the Travellers, if they'll only listen to you. If they can only admit that they were wrong to spurn you, that you're a part of the solution."

And... and Efrarv smiled slightly, thinking of that. "And... and the power stone has done its job, with your help," he said, softly. "Those who want to hurt us - to experiment on us to find the secrets of the travellers - they are destroyed."

"Well, one of them is destroyed," I said, taking a deep breath. "We don't know yet if there are others who will come after us. Is there still any good juice in that thing, or is it useless now?"

Efrarv held up the power stone. "It will recover somewhat over time," he said. "Not as much as I will, but it will retain more than half its effectiveness."

"Okay, let's go and find the others," Isabel said, pulling Efrarv back towards the car. We piled in. "You know, I've been wondering about one particular thing. We... we were sent here to experience the full human condition. I... I wonder if that was specifically supposed to include romantic love. If... if that's why we've all - all found someone special. A human teacher."

"Stranger things have happened," I said, smiling at the thought and wondering how Liz would react to the idea. "And... and you've learned more about humanity than the Travellers ever expected, Efrarv, over the years. Am I right?" He nodded tentatively. "You've learned even more over the past few days and weeks, because of this crisis, and maybe found a teacher of your own. A human uniquely qualified to bridge the gap between human and alien."

"Wait, who's that??" Efrarv asked.

----------

MARIA

"Oh, come on, what's all this for?" I asked as Michael helped me out of my mom's new car, a shiny white '96 Toyota.

"Well... partly just as a congratulations for passing all your finals and getting B grades," Michael said, kissing me and leading the way into the Crashdown. "Nothing fancy, just thought I'd take you someplace I could definitely afford to pay the bill." I giggled a bit idiotcially. "And... and it turns out that there's something else to celebrate too." He whispered in my ear as we went through the back of the restaurant. "Max heard from someone at the Special Unit today. Truce accepted. They won't bother us if we don't bother them." He watched my face as we got settled down and opened up menus. "Is... is something wrong about that? I - I kinda thought that it was really good news."

"Well... well, in a way it is," I admitted, keeping my own voice really low. "I'm... I'm overjoyed at the idea that we're all safe and don't worry about secret societies plotting against us. On the other hand... well, I guess I can't keep myself from thinking that we're not the only people they've ever hurt. Maybe if you restrict it to people using the 'Special Unit' name, though I doubt that they haven't killed some people to get more information about the four of you. But... but the greater Psi society, the Orbus Manuum. They've got their fingers in every pie baking in the whole world, as it were, and they're the kind of people to take way more than their fair share. Anyone... anyone who got in their way, who happens to have something that one of them wants, or who's seen something that they're worried about becoming known... aside from the four of you, nobody could stand against them. Even decent human Psis like Tess and her mom are too scared of the bad ones to... to do anything."

Michael waited a long moment, and then reached out to brush a bit of hair away from my eyes. "Yeah... yeah, I know. But - but we can't take them down right now anyway. We don't know enough about our own powers, and if we tried to start a fight, we'd probably just end up hurting more innocent people. So... so maybe we just sit tight, here in Roswell, grow up, and bide our time." He smiled slightly at me. "And, don't forget, we've got our own mission to worry about, which has nothing to do with psis or the Secret societies."

"It... it has a little to do with psis as long as Tess keeps spending so much time with Nac... with Efrarv," I said, still feeling that the shapeshifter's true personal name was at once weird and forbidden, even though he'd told the four of us kids that he didn't mind us using it. Me, Liz, Alex, and Tess. "Do... do you really think that they... that they might work as a couple? Like... like us, or Max and Liz? I mean, heck, he's been around since 1947."

"And... and he still understands less of the world than any of us do, in the ways that count," Michael said softly. "That kinduv makes him a child. Maybe Tess can be the older woman, and make a man out of him." He chuckled. "Or maybe not. I dunno. Still, if anyone can help him bridge the culture gap, it'd be she. Maybe that's why she was born with her unique power in the first place."

"Yeah. Hmm... I think I'm in the mood for a Plutonium platter," I decided. "You?"

"Aww, give me an Eclipse burger, some saturn rings, and I'm good," he drawled. "Hard... hard to believe all that's happened in so short a time."

"Yeah, when Ms Topolsky came b..." I shook my head in surprise. "Wait a second. What the heck happened to Topolsky!?"

"What, you can't remember that?" Michael grinned slightly. "She stayed with River Dog... figured that we'd have too many bodies heading up to Santa Fe as it was, and she'd be safe enough there. Seems to have worked out." He sighed. "Isabel, Alex, and I went up to see her yesterday, and she's still fine. Hoping to go back east, to her hometown, and talk to her Mom before figuring out what to do next. She probably doesn't have much of a career left with the FBI anymore, which is a little unfortunate, but..." He sighed. "Maybe she'll actually go into high school education for real."

"Well, that would be... weird," I said. Then we ordered our dinner and beverages.

"Oh, I was meaning to ask," Michael said. "How... how's Alex's grandfather doing?"

"Really great," I told him with a smile. "We... we still aren't sure if it was a plot or something, but if it was, it apparently wasn't anything that would seriously hurt him. Alex's folks got home yesterday morning." I sighed. "I think he's upset that he didn't actually get to spend much time over at Isabel's house or anything like that."

"Oh, just give him time," Michael said. "Umm. not that he'll actually be moving in with Mister and Mrs Evans, but... well, he won't be upset for too long, if I know... my sister." He smiled at that thought. "And Max and Liz... boy, they're really starting to piss me off with all that lovey-dovey stuff." I sighed an 'oh, man, I KNOW' sigh. "And the worst thing is, when I find them totally sliding into second base on my couch and manage to pry them apart, all Max tells me is that he was hard at work on the mission of finding out about this thing that earthlings call 'Going steady.'

I laughed about that. "Well, I guess the next big question is - what are we going to do to celebrate the start of summer??"

Michael grinned that irresistable grin at me. "Well, let's start to think about the possibilities. Isn't there a water park open this time of year down in Carlsbad?"

"That's not the only possibility," I told him. Hmm... Michael in swimming trunks. "But yeah, that's definitely a good one. What else??"

THE END.