Roswell Fanatics

She had gone one way – he had gone the other – and she hoped that he had been more successful than she had been as she came back from her search with one small prickly pear leaf and one prickly pear. She saw Max and started toward him waving – and the prickly pear tumbled from her fingers into the shadow of the lava outcropping. Without a second thought she went down to her knees to recover the missing fruit.

The crotalus viridis was actually watching Max – Liz's approach took him entirely by surprise. Liz was too big to eat – and normally the snake would have tried its best to avoid her but if she came too close the next thing would have been to rattle a warning. The prickly pear rolling in to its side was in fact the snake's first warning and that too distracted it momentarily. As she blundered in to it's striking distance, the snake's first warning actually was in the infrared.

They are called pit vipers because of a shallow pit on each side of their head near the eye. Unlike the eye itself, this pit can't form an image. But it's excellent at detecting heat from the small mammals it hunted and the warmth of Liz's face so close virtually screamed a warning to the snake. It was already curled and as soon as its eyes found the target, it struck.

Liz had lived all of her life in the Southwest and as her eye detected movement she knew she'd made a serious mistake – but there was nothing she could do about it. The snake was just a blur as it came at her.

The snake was almost five feet in length and it can strike two thirds of that length in less than five seconds. Liz's face and neck were less than three feet away and the snake struck instinctively for the source of greatest heat – her neck. The carotid artery and jugular vein almost pulled the snake's fangs toward them as these vessels carried warm blood to and from the brain. The speed of the strike averaged 6 feet per second from a standing start – but at midstrike it was moving almost 18 feet per second – far too fast for Liz to duck or even to put up a hand to deflect it. But the strike never landed.

As death hurtled toward Liz death met the snake only inches from her skin.

CRRRAAAKKK!!

Liz gasped as the head of the snake exploded only inches from her face. She felt a warm blast of air pass her face but the remains of the snakes head shot by her altogether – the now decapitated body writhing before her. Death had come to the snake too quickly for its body to react yet. She looked up from the still-moving mass to see Max ten feet away – his right palm outstretched with a fading glow. That's when the shakes hit her as the adrenalin released seconds ago finally took effect.

Max wasn't sure he could do it when he saw the movement of the snake, but he'd had no real choice. He'd never tried a powerblast that concentrated before – or that close to another person. He'd mentioned powerblasting to her – but never gotten around to actually showing it. This was a hell of a way for her to be introduced to it. She'd looked up at him with the glow fading from his hand and instantly started shaking like a leaf in a strong wind.

“Liz, it's OK,” he called out. “You have to believe, I would never hurt you.” He waited helplessly – expecting her to bolt out in to the desert. She bolted alright – straight in to his arms.

“Omigawd, Max – that was so close – so frightening.”

“I didn't have any choice,” he protested, “...I didn't want to powerblast that close to you, but I didn't have any choice.”

She was still shaking – hugging him – but her eyes looked up to his. “I was scared of the snake, silly, not you. I'll be OK. Just hold me for a few minutes – let me calm down.”

Max held her – surprised that she found comfort in his arms. All of his life he'd guessed that seeing his powers would have sent her running away. He obviously couldn't have been more wrong. “Take as much time as you want, Liz. I guess I should have realized all these years that you were more rational than most people.

“Uh-huh,” said Liz as she held him and was held by him. Max could be so silly sometimes. She never felt safer than when she was with him. But it was more than rationality – it just felt … right.
But eventually the shaking stopped and the two of them looked down on the snake.

“Can you use your powers to clean and cook the snake, Max? It seems to be pretty much all we've got.”

“I guess. Are you sure that's what you want?”

“Yeah, well I heard they taste a lot like chicken. Besides – I made breakfast and it has to be better than that.”

Cleaned, the snake had almost two pounds of meat on its bones. It would be their best meal for the next two days.


Holloman AFB 2:30 PM

“We have a serious life-safety issue,” said Dan Holbrooke, an engineer on the fuselage interior group.”This is the problem,” he continued as he laid out three seat rails. “We are still searching the wreckage but these three pieces already tell us that we have a problem. These are three of the four seat rails from the rear of the aircraft. You can see the aft portion is gone – apparently due to the wing of the F-117 slicing through them. But there were at least two seats that were on this area,” he said, indicating an obviously undamaged portion of the rails,”... that should have either still been attached – and they aren't – or should have left some serious distortions and gouging as the cam-lock mechanism tore out. As you can see, on these three rails we have nothing like that. The concern, of course, is that we may have defective cam-bolts out there – that if this is a systemwide problem we could have seats coming off those rails and passengers being injured or killed in accidents that should have been survivable. Obviously, this isn't causative for this mishap – but it's a potential system-wide safety problem. Thousands of aircraft are using the same type of camlocks.”

Bob Hamilton nodded. “Fortunately, the Air Force has apparently tracked down those missing seats. We'll be going out there tomorrow morning by helicopter,” he said, nodding at Jim Valenti, “...and we ought to be able to retrieve the bulk of the missing debris. Apparently the seats and a lot of baggage are in one relatively well defined area. We should be able to retrieve those two seats for analysis – probably no later than noon.”

It was early Wednesday morning and some people were asleep and some weren't.

At the Evans residence in Roswell, the man and woman clung to one another – not in passion, but simply in mutual support and consolation. They took solace in each other – and in the knowledge that down the hall their daughter at least was safely in her bed – but their hearts were heavy and their minds numbed by their loss. Still, they had been committed to each other for over twenty years. They would, they realized, get through this somehow. Tonight, though, it barely seemed possible.
Down the hall it was every bit as bad. The moon was almost full, and the light of it streamed through the window. Isabel lay on her back, looking at the ceiling of the room, but she wasn't seeing the ceiling. She was seeing a brother – the times they'd had, both good and bad, and feeling the crushing emptiness his passing had left.

Two miles away at the Parker residence, it was – if anything – worse. She had been their only child – their pride and joy and hope for the future – the hope for as much immortality as any of us get – and now that was gone. They too had been a couple for a long time, and intellectually they knew they'd survive this – that the sun would still come up in the morning and that life would go on. But tonight that seemed almost impossible to contemplate. All they could do was to cling to one another and hope tomorrow would be a better day.

At the Visiting Officer's Quarters on Holloman Air Force Base, Jim Valenti lay on the bed, tossing and turning. He needed to sleep – he knew that – he wanted to be rested enough to be able to help tomorrow – no, this morning, he noticed as he looked at the clock for the hundredth time. It was just that every time he tried to close his eyes, pictures came to his mind of other 'recovery' missions he had participated in. The memories of those bodies he had helped recover – grimly mutilated and sometimes already partially consumed by scavengers would morph themselves in his mind with the faces of the two young teenagers who had not even really had a chance to live before their lives were snuffed out by what the NTSB was finding was literally a perfect storm of human and mechanical failings.

For none of these people was sleep coming easily tonight. In the malpais, the story was different though.

They lay spooned together in the new cave that Max had carved from the rock - both sleeping soundly. They had found little for dinner, but it really didn't matter. A pound of protein had almost 1600 calories and the two of them had pretty much picked the carcass of the snake clean at lunch. What little they found for dinner had filled their stomachs well enough, and snug and warm and – together – they had fallen asleep within minutes – and within minutes after that her body had pressed back against him and his had molded itself to her and safe, warm, and for the moment content, both were dozing peacefully.

In the dream-orb they were older, at a seaside resort, and walking along a sandy moonlit beach hand in hand. From time to time, there would be a gentle hug – or a tender caress – it really didn't go any further than that. Liz enjoyed the dream unreservedly – knowing this was the world she wanted for them. Max enjoyed the dream guiltily – knowing that it could never be but finding it too sweet to pull himself out of the dream-orb and wake up. Indeed, Max wasn't even really aware that this WAS Liz's dream orb. He'd never been able to dreamwalk – not like Izzy who could fall asleep staring at a picture of someone and enter their dreams from fifty miles away. He'd tried – but it had never worked. A picture, however, can't really compare with the real thing and a square foot or so of actual physical contact apparently can bring a dream-orb real close.

No, there was a lot of angst going on in the state of New Mexico – sleepless nights to be followed by troubled dreams – but not on the malpais. On the malpais that night, all was well.

The dream faded and he gradually awoke. Once more she was laying pressed closely against him. He thought back to the dream and briefly felt the elation that he had known then – before reality reasserted itself. He should be grateful – he was grateful – that she accepted him and wanted to stay his friend despite his difference. It had only been a dream and could never anything but a dream. He not only couldn't expect her to actually care for him that way but – worse - he couldn't allow himself to even think that such a thing might be possible. There was too much pain there were he to actually admit to himself how badly he wanted what he knew could never be.

Even so, he was unable to stop himself from enjoying the warmth of her body against his – enjoying the feel of her body moving softly against his with each breath she took. It was a guilty pleasure – but a pleasure that for these few minutes at least he was unable to deny himself.

She awakened and smiled - then remembered her vow to not push him – but despite that she couldn't immediately pull away from him. She'd dreamed of walking beside him – holding hands in the darkness – soft caresses – the first tentative steps toward intimacy. It was difficult to come down from that feeling of happiness and belonging.

So she lingered a few minutes pressed against him – enjoying the guilty pleasure of pretending that now was that time – that this was the start of that dream – even though she knew better. But as light trickled in to the small cave she knew it was time to pull away. She'd frightened him away in the past – she would not risk doing so in the future.

As Liz moved away Max realized that she had started to awaken and was careful not to let his hands touch her – or impede her pulling away. After all, he had been the one who had again forgotten to keep the place warm – without doubt the onnly reason she had instinctively pushed against him in his sleep. ' At least we are both warm-blooded,', he thought. 'Mammals too, I guess,' he told himself. He had after all been born alive – at least when he'd finally been born – and Isabel at least seemed as equipped as Liz to nurse young, a thought that somehow made him uncomfortable at some deep internal level he hadn't really figured out.

Perhaps it was that believing himself too much like her also caused him to envision things he knew could never be – like last night's dream. No, the thought of Liz someday nursing a child was frightening – almost painful. When she finally found her special someone Max had little doubt – he'd lose her to that guy forever. It would be best for her, of course, but it seemed to painful even to contemplate.

“Well, I guess it's rise and shine time,” said Liz, stifling a yawn.

“I guess it is at that,” said Max, starting to wriggle his way out of the opening to the cave. “want to scout around here for breakfast, or just set out to the east, foraging as we go.”

“Which ever you'd like, Max, but we looked around here pretty well last night. There didn't seem to be much. How about you give me five minutes to – uh – powder my nose – and then we head east?”

“OK. You go south, I'll go north. Watch out for snakes. We meet back here in five minutes – then head east.”

“Five minutes it is, then - and I think it's probably too cold this early for snakes to be out, but if they are I'll watch for them - if only for breakfast.”

Thirty- two miles to the south the helicopters were already airborne. Jim and the three NTSB investigators were on the second helicopter. The lead helicopter – with an all Air Force crew - had classified photographs that they said showed a debris area. Not just aircraft debris, but apparently baggage as well. Hopefully they'd be able to recover what was left of Max and Liz there, Jim thought to himself. He could only imagine how he'd feel if it were Kyle out there. The Parkers and the Evanses needed closure and - Jim realized - so did he. Tragic as this was, everyone needed to put it behind them if they were ever to move on and the sooner that happened the better.

It's name was Cucurbita foetidissima but both Liz and Max knew it as Buffalo Gourd. It had been a staple in the diet of the Native Americans of the Southwest. Unfortunately the gourds were a little bitter - it was too late in the season for them and they were fairly dry - as well as full of oily bitter-tasting seeds. But beneath the withered vines and dried gourds was the tuber itself - the energy storage form for the next year's crop.

The roots were fist-sized - not unlike a somewhat fibrous potato - the tuber was naturally full of starch - nutritious in a sort of wallpaper-paste sort of way even before Max did his magic. After that it wound up sort of like sugared mashed potatoes - acceptable enough if you were teenagers who had been on a two day forced march.

The dried gourds themselves proved worthwhile though. Liz found a section of lava that had funneled rainwater down into a crack - even large lava beds have to give somewhere when exposed to temperatures running from 140 in the summer noonday heat to the low teens in the winter cold. The water had found a sandy area in the bottom of such a crack and after scooping out sand with the gourds the water level had been reached only about eighteen inches down. They gathered the water in the gourds and Max sterilized it with his molecular manipulation at Liz's insistence - no telling what lizards or snakes had been frolicking on the rocks that had drained in to the little sump - and they ate their fill of the starchy mass. An hour later, with two gourds each - one holding water and they other the starchy sweet paste, they were headed back East.


Seven miles away - on the edge of the desert beside the malpais - the helicopters sat empty as even the aircrew assisted in recovering debris from the crash. The initial debris was only about a quarter-mile onto the lava but even so, their boots were already taking a beating. There was another grouping of debris a mile further in - where the classified pictures showed two additional passenger seats. They hadn't gotten to that yet - the priority was the first site - where the classified radar absorbent material from the F-117 had come to rest.

The morning had been spent photographing it in situ - documenting relative positions on a big scatter map. Actual retrieval had just begun. As one of the searchers picked up a battered suitcase it opened - and the contents clattered onto the lava.

"Oh shit, said the NTSB investigator. THAT isn't supposed to be here..."

Within minutes they had drafted a local resource to give his opinion.

"Deputy Valenti, you appear to be as close as we have to an expert on firearms on site here. Other than the fact that it shouldn't be here - firearms must be declared and inspected, and according to the record this one wasn't - what can you tell me about this? As you may already know, we found four pistols that shouldn't have been on board amongst the remains of the passengers that have been autopsied. Now this..."

"Well," said Jim Valenti, "... it appears to have started life as a legal if somewhat scary appearing semiautomatic assault rifle."

"Started?"

"Well, there are a few modifications to the receiver here," he said, pointing to a couple of screws whose bluing was different from the rest of the gunmetal, "... and the safety now has three positions instead of two, and someone has welded up a couple of what look like fifty-round magazines. I couldn't tell you without firing it, and I wouldn't want to do that except with the gun in a vise and a damn long string on the trigger, considering how beat up it is from the fall, but I think that this weapon has been modified for fully automatic fire. That's a felony in New Mexico under state law, and the feds don't really think too kindly about doing that either."

"Is it safe to take back to base, or do we need to bring someone out to disarm it."

"Well, it's safe enough - since it has no ammo in it - you can lug it around OK, but better have someone who knows what he's doing test fire it. It might be kind of noisy - and painful - if you do it wrong. How in hell did this get by security, anyway?"

"That, Deputy Valenti, is an excellent question."

“Geococcyx californianus,” said Liz, “...the Greater Roadrunner, state bird of New Mexico, killing one is subject to a $50.00 fine," she continued while nibbling on the drumstick,”...It tastes a lot like chicken.”

“Or rattlesnake....,” said a smiling Max nodding in agreement. “You think the law is going to track us down for eating these?”

“I'm more worried about explaining how you broke the law of gravity getting us safely down from the airplane, Max, then I am about explaining to a fish and game ranger why two lost and hungry teenagers are eating a couple of roadrunners.”

Despite the state legislature's love of the bird, they certainly weren't any sort of endangered species. A close relative of the cuckoo bird, even though thousands of the birds were on the losing end of collisions with cars every month, there certainly wasn't any shortage of them. These particular two had been the losers in a three way courting match with a female of the same species. While they had been busy fighting, the other cock had convinced the hen to run off to some locale somewhere north – where undoubtedly they were engaged in some amorous activities of their own even now. Max had broken up the continuing fight between these two with a mini-powerblast and now – 20 minutes later – they were dinner.

“Well, I'm thinking about it. I'm sure there is a way – I'm just not sure what that way is. You have any ideas?”

“Not really. About every three hours I find myself disbelieving what actually happened myself, and I was there. I don't think we'll have too much problem with people guessing what really did happen – that's too improbable to believe - but we have to come up with is something else that's credible enough that it can be believed. Maybe our folks can help think of something.”

“Our folks? I'm not sure that's a good idea, Liz.”

“Max, … you have GOT to tell your folks... and you can't seriously think that MY folks are going to be a problem?”

Max looked at Liz. If there was one person in the world he did trust, it was her.... and if she said her parents were going to be OK with it, well – she knew them better than he did. But telling mom and dad he'd been keeping a major secret from them for ….Oh, his ENTIRE LIFE – certainly wasn't anything he felt comfortable about doing.

“No, I guess not,” said Max. “If you say it'll be alright with your folks, I imagine you are right. I'm really not looking forward to talking about this to mom and dad though.”

“Max, this will NOT make a difference about how much they care for you. It just won't.”

Max just shrugged. Liz couldn't tell if that was because he really thought his parents wouldn't be able to handle the knowledge, or if he just felt scared and guilty about not trusting them before.

“Max, I'll be there with you – it'll be alright. Trust me on this.”
Max looked at her and nodded. He wasn't really enthused about this and had serious misgivings – but he did trust her and there was little doubt she handled sticky social situations much better than he did.

“Want some more water?” he asked, trying to change the subject. He'd used his powers to squeeze the moisture out of a Yucca plant. It was a little bit bitter, but not all that bad.

“Thanks, Max. You know, if it weren't for you I'd not only be dead from the fall, I'd probably be dead by now from hypothermia, thirst, and hunger.”

Max smiled at her. “Oh, you do your fair share. You kept me of dying from hypothermia...”

“Let's not talk about the pepper, OK?”

“I meant the first night, Liz,” said Max, looking alarmed, “...I wasn't complaining about the pepper... not at all.”

The big brown eyes smiled up at him. “Lighten up, Max. It was a joke. Friends joke with each other sometimes. They can do that because they are comfortable with each other.”

Max nodded. The fact of the matter was that he was more comfortable with Liz than anyone else in the world – but that still wasn't really that comfortable. But it was getting better – every hour that went by when she treated him – well, not normal really - but not alarming either... somehow it made him feel like he finally belonged. He wasn't normal, and never could be, but at least he wasn't so different that Liz couldn't accept him. That was better than he'd spent most of his life imagining.


Ten and a half miles away....

The sun was going down as they got the second seat over to the helicopter and the crew chief loaded it in and secured it. They had spent most of the day documenting and gathering debris from two aircraft and an assortment of extremely dented and scuffed luggage from the first site. They had come to the second site and managed to secure the two seats that appeared to have not been damaged in the collision but rather just by the fall.

Jim Valenti noticed that Bob Hamilton and one engineer were apparently excited about the absence of any markings at the base of the seats that would indicate they had been pulled out. That – and the illegally modified assault rifle – were two issues that they were really going to have to work once they got back to base, which unfortunately was going to be very shortly.

“Look, Jim, I know you wanted to take more time to search this site for the bodies of those two kids but we will be back out here tomorrow – combing the area for the mounting bolts for these seats. If either of the two are around here, we'll find them then. It just doesn't make sense to be blundering around in the dark looking tonight.”

“I agree. It makes no sense to risk someone falling in one of these pits in the lava and getting hurt – or even breaking a leg in one of these fissures. It's not like we can really help the kids any – but I know their folks and I've been on enough recoveries that I know how important it is to the family...”

“Deputy,” said an Air Force Captain,”...I'll be glad to give you all the unclassified photos if you think they'll be helpful. You can use them to plot a grid for your search at least. They won't show dead bodies, but a lot of the terrain features stick out pretty well. It'll be a help, anyway.”

“Thanks,” said Jim Valenti. It would at least give him something to look at tonight in that empty room in billeting – after he made the calls to Max and Liz's folks to let them know that they was still looking
- but no luck so far.

It really wasn't that late but it was that dark - and with the loss of the sunshine the desert quickly cooled. As the first winds started to pick up he saw Liz shiver and ushered her toward their newest cave du jour.

"Good night, Max," she said as she laid down in front of him on the floor of the chamber he'd warmed with his powers.

"Good night, Liz," he replied. "Sweet dreams..."

"You, too, Max," she said.

But neither of them dreamed at first. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, waiting for him to fall asleep so she could snuggle back against him while he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep - wondering if she would again snuggle back against him in her sleep - half afraid that she would and half afraid that she wouldn't.

Eventually she decided he was asleep and slowly - as if she was just instinctively moving toward the warmth of him - she moved back to spoon against him.

Max gave ground slowly - as if he was doing everything he could to keep from getting too close to her - then as he could retreat no farther felt her spoon against him.

As she drifted off to sleep - spooned against him - warmed not just by the little cave and the warmth of him against her back but by some inner warmth as well, Liz Parker - lost in the wilderness surrounded be venomous reptiles, harsh lava, and trapped in a small cave with an alien-human hybrid who happened to also be her best friend - had never felt quite so safe in her entire life.

For Max it was a guilty pleasure. He had retreated as far as he could and now – honor satisfied that he couldn't really help being this close to her - was enjoying every second of the warmth of her against him. But eventually he drifted off as well.



Hangar 23, Holloman AFB

Jim Valenti liked Bob Hamilton. He knew that the man really didn't have to keep him inn the loop like this, but a former search, rescue, and recovery guy himself, Hamilton had made sure that Jim knew he couldn't disclose this stuff publicly until the team findings were released, but then not only let him in on what was going on, but had actually let him help. Jim was far more knowledgeable about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms than were any of the NTSB investigators and had worked with people from the El Paso branch for years. That's why he was giving this night briefing to the NTSB members.

“These are the firearms that were recovered from the cabin,” he said, projecting the picture on the screen. “Several of them were in holsters that survived the post-crash fire and were found still strapped to passengers seven and nine. The pistols are of a type commonly available on the international market. Exactly where they came from will be difficult to track immediately – the serial numbers were filed off. The BATF has a method of recovering those numbers – they do a very careful smoothing of the filed area, then do fluorescent dye penetrant testing in an effort to pick up fine grain distortions in the metal caused at the time the serial numbers were imprinted. Overall, recovery of serial numbers by this method runs about thirty percent giving us a pretty good chance of recovering at least one serial number. That might provide us with some corroborating evidence of who owned those weapons, but since the two recovered in holsters were strapped to two of those four big guys and the two normal size guys were Ramon Valencia and Francisco Calderon, a serious drug lord and his …. well, I guess chief of staff would have to do … my professional opinion is that we are going to find out the four guys were bodyguards – professional muscle – and they were the ones who were packing.”

“But how did they get it by security?” said one of the NTSB investigators. The team captain answered.

“Fortunately the Albuquerque security system records every digital security camera input on a big computer disk, and we already have some of our people up there to review that and copy any pertinent parts. The airport has thirty-one cameras, so it's a rather herculean effort. Fortunately, the aircraft was in Albuquerque for only a short time, and they can go back and look over only those files. The thirty-one channels of digital imaging saturate the disk pretty quickly, but it will hold 120 hours – five days – worth of recordings. We are going to have them review and copy any recording that shows any of the passengers that boarded at Albuquerque as well as any evidence that the aircrew left the secure area themselves. Hopefully they will get back to us with information by morning.” The team leader nodded for Jim Valenti to continue in his briefing.

“This little beauty,” he said, projecting the picture of the assault rifle on the screen, “... is an AR-15 that started out life as a perfectly legal semi-automatic rifle. According to its serial number, it was stolen from a sporting goods store in St. George, Utah three years ago. With the modification of these parts it was converted in to an illegal fully automatic weapon. The BATF took it out on one of the local ranges and fired it and confirmed that it'll go through one of these welded up fifty-round magazines in about five seconds. Notfor general release – they have been finding these popping up for about the last year. They suspect a source up in Durango, Colorado, but haven't been able to track it down just yet. As you can see, this breaks down to fold up well enough to fit in a small suitcase, and here is the suitcase we found the weapon in.”

“Once again,” said the team chief,” we have people looking through those video records for any clue as to how this got aboard without being manifested. Thank you, deputy - next we'll hear from Arnie Driscoll of internal airframe. Arnie, what can you tell us about those seats?”

“Well,” said Driscoll, “... four of the seats are no real problem. What happened to them is obvious. They and the seatrails they sat on were wrenched out of the aircraft at the time of impact. That's obvious from the condition of the recovered debris. What's more, each of those four seats had pieces of the seatrail still cambolted in place. These other two – these are what is distressing. Not only were their seatrails found in the aircraft wreckage with no evidence that they were subject to the actual impact from the aircraft or that the cambolts were torn away, but the seats themselves have no evidence that they were torn away from the seatrails. If the cambolts were in place – and we have no reason to believe they shouldn't have been, they should have left considerable evidence of stressed metal if the seats had been subject to enough force to free them from the seatrails. That would argue strongly that the cambolts either were not in place or that they failed at a fairly low loading – far less than they should have. We will of course be back out on the lava tomorrow trying to find any of these four bolts that we can near where the seats themselves were found. There's also another possibility though – one I'm going to have our people check on with the baggage handlers in Albuquerque>”

“What's that, Arnie?” asked the team chief.

“Well, we found a surprising amount of baggage and a baggage net at the site we found the damaged seats – but the aircraft crash reconstruction would indicate that the baggage compartment was barely penetrated. Yes, the bulkhead between the passenger and baggage compartments was penetrated – that's what got the stab and rudder hydraulics – but there was a pretty full load of baggage still in the baggage compartment at the time of the crash – at least according to our post crash reconstruction. What I'm wondering is whether or not someone moved some seats around to get in more baggage. By company policy, Mesa Air doesn't do that – but it isn't illegal. From listening to the cockpit voice recorder it's apparent that the aircrew played sort of fast and loose with the company rules on reconfiguring seats. Maybe they had an overage of baggage – not weight, the weight and balance was OK according to the dispatch manifest – but cube. Maybe they just had too much volume for the baggage compartment and tried to do something cute about it. And somehow fouled it up.”



Back in the malpais, they had again somehow drifted in to the same dream-orb.

They walked along the moonlit beach together. This time they were more than just hand-in-hand. His arm was around her waist, her head was on his shoulder, and, from time to time, she'd stop and look up at him and grin. Her face, Max saw, was absolutely beautiful in the moonlight. 'It's only a dream,' he told himself, '...everyone is entitled to a dream.... He bent down and his lips met hers. It seemed like for a few seconds – or maybe hours – all the world stood still. Even though he knew it was only a dream – knew it only COULD be a dream – it seemed like his heart was beating hundreds of times a minute. It was more than affection – more than just a boy-girl kiss – it was a promise - a commitment that he was hers and she was his and Liz gave it willingly as if it were their destiny to be with one another always. It had been profoundly sensual...but more than that...It had been right.

'It's only a dream,' he told himself, but he returned the kiss and the implied promise that went with it willingly. 'If only it COULD be more than a dream,' he lamented in his thoughts.

Liz had looked up at him several times as they walked down the moonlit beach – hoping – wanting for him to make the first move. Finally it came. She kissed back - enthusiasm offsetting inexperience – and found her heart racing as he responded and she deepened the kiss. Suddenly it was more – Max shy no longer – wanting her as much as she wanted him. It was as if it that moment each had decided that it was their destiny to always be together. It had been profoundly sensual...but more than that...It had been right.

They continued to walk down the beach in the dream-orb. In the real world of the small cave Max had carved out for them – both were still fast asleep. She snuggled closely against his chest and his arm found her waist and their midbrains knew they were warm, safe, and with each other.

For the time being, that was enough.

0700 Dining Hall A
Holloman AFB, NM

“You look a little happier than you did last night, Bob,” said Jim Valenti, as Robert Hamilton sat his tray across the table and sat down.

“I feel a good deal happier. I heard from the guys we have up in Albuquerque going through the digital video. We have a recording of the pilot coming out of the secure area carrying his flight bag. He met with several of the passengers – then they retreated in to a restroom where there was no recording equipment.”

“So you didn't actually see them pass the handguns?”

"The handguns - no. But he went in to the restroom with one of the passengers who was wearing a holstered pistol at the time of the crash, and the other gentlemen going in was Francisco Calderon. More to the point, as they went in to the restroom Calderon was carrying what looked very much like the suitcase that had the machine gun in it. When the came out Captain Harris was carrying it – and he carried it right through the security door avoiding screening.”

“So the going in assumption right now is that the pilot himself got the weapons through security?”

“That's it in a nutshell, Jim. We have to rule out everything else, of course, but right now that is the leading hypothesis Then there is the other good news....”

“Which is?”

“That the investigators up in Albuquerque interviewed one of the baggage handlers. Apparently the passengers getting picked up there had been on a considerable shopping trip. They paid for substantial extra baggage which the gate agent weighed and reported to the dispatcher. While it was within the allowable baggage weight, the baggage handler said when they tried to load it, the baggage didn't all fit. Much of it apparently was light but bulky. He heard from the main baggage handler that this was reported to the First Officer and that Hendershott apparently fixed the problem by moving passenger seats and cargo netting the excess to the bulkhead between the baggage area and the passenger compartment. We are trying to track him down right now. In the meantime we are getting ready to go back out there and look for these...,”he said holding up some unusual looking bolts. “If we find them and they show no evidence of being stretched at all, then the seats really didn't break loose. They were sitting on the rails without actually being fastened to them – and that was why they were sucked out while the other seats stayed with the aircraft.”

“I wish that we had some better way of tracking down where the two kids were sitting,” said Jim. “We might find it easier to find their bodies. I talked to both pairs of parents last night. They would like to have a joint memorial service for the two kids, but they are kind of holding it off until the search is over. Bringing their remains back would help them find closure on this. Lord knows it's a hard thing – I can't imagine what I'd feel if this had happened to my son Kyle. I'd just like to do what I can for them.”

“Well, there's a lot of area to cover. We have ground teams looking where we can. Some of those range areas have been dangerous since they did Honest John live fire testing back in the 1950s with anti materiel and antipersonnel bomblet warheads – you just plain can't go in some of those old range areas. If the bodies landed in there they are likely to never be recovered. I know the Air Force intends to fly over all those areas, but only about 85% of those bomblets go off initially. The other 15% can lay there for years – waiting for someone to try to pass through the area – and take a leg off – or worse – when they do.”

“Well, hopefully we will find them somewhere near where we found those two seats yesterday.”

“That's probably the best bet,” agreed Hamilton. Once that cabin had the floor torn out of it anything loose would have tended to be sucked out. With the engines pressurizing the cabin with bleed air, there would have been five pounds per square inch forcing anything that wasn't tied down out that hole. If neither of the kids was seat-belted, they would have been swept out just like the seats. Something very much kike that happened to the flight attendant on that Aloha Airlines plane some years ago. There have been a few other similar cases as well where due to damage to an aircraft's fuselage, passengers have been ejected from the aircraft. Unfortunately, unless they impact the aircraft as they exit most are probably conscious until impact.”

Jim shuddered, imagining the terror the two teenagers must have faced if they were actually conscious all the way to impact. Suddenly he wanted very much to change the subject. He pulled the photographs out of his pack and put them on the table.

“I've been looking these over – what can you tell me about this picture?”

“Not much, I'm afraid. It's an infrared image.”

A young staff sergeant at the end of the table looked up. “I'm in intelligence. We review the downward looking infrared tapes from the F-117s – at least we did. Now that those aircraft are gone we are converting over to the F-22, but I have a lot of experience with the F-117 Downward Looking InfraRed. Can I help you?”

Jim passed the picture to him.

"What I'm wondering about," said Jim, "...is those two blobs down in the corner there?"

The F-117A was never designed for reconnaissance - but having said that - it still did a pretty good job of it. The practice had started during Desert Storm. The aircraft used the DLIR to aim the laser which guided the bombs but the DLIR recorded on a computer disk that had significantly oversized capacity for a six hour mission. The pilots just let it run on wide field of view - giving an infrared picture nearly a mile wide of everything that was beneath them on their flight to the target and back. The Intel people quickly found that with a number of aircraft over the target area each night these IR strips were great at showing what was going on. It was entirely serendipitous - but in practice it worked quite well.

As the young staff sergeant looked at the picture the F-117 DLIR recordings were his only frame of reference, but they were quite limited. Because of the gimbal limits of the F-117 DLIR, the views he was used to were essentially straight down. Had he been a satellite reconnaissance technician he would have seen from the dataplate that these pictures were grazing shots - not done from directly overhead. On an overhead shot Liz and Max would have been circular blips. These shots spread their IR 'blobs' out in an East-West direction - like shadows of a setting sun. Because of that - and the poor resolution of a one mile strip of recording reduced to an 8 inch photograph - the way he interpreted it seemed logical enough to him.

"There IR signatures are smaller than an adult human beings and they appear to be traveling on all four - my guess would be coyotes..."

Jim winced as he thought of the bodies of the two teenagers being out there. He'd done enough recovery operations to know that the scavengers wouldn't hesitate to feed on a fresh killed body - even if a fall had done the killing. Other creatures, like the local vultures, were even less fastidious. An open-casket funeral wasn't going to happen for either of those kids, but if he was going to get any remains back to their parents - anything that might give them closure - he needed to find their bodies quickly.

"After we look around the area where the seats are," asked Jim Valenti to Bob Hamilton, "... do you think we could go out to this area," tapping his finger on the picture with the two heat signatures, "... where these two coyotes were to take a look around?"

"Sure, Deputy," replied Bob Hamilton, "...that's the least we can do."


Out on the malpais.....

Dreams aren't really volitional, but neither are they totally autonomous. What you dream depends on a lot of things - the subconscious mind, the midbrain, even the conscious mind can play a part. Then too, sometimes things in dreams just happen for no apparent reason, much like real life.

The walk along the beach dream was one that Liz had had before - and one she liked. Sometimes - like last night - if she thought about it while falling asleep she could sort of trigger it - the scenario of just the two of them watching on the beach, that is...

Tonight had been a little different - perhaps the midbrain or subconscious mind - or perhaps even Liz Parker's cerebrum just deciding that, 'Hey it's only a dream anyway, so why not?' Tonight they were both a couple years older than they really were and Liz was dressed a little different than she'd ever dreamed of being dressed before. By some people's standards the bikini would have been nothing exceptional, but for our 'perfect Miss Parker,' it was showing a lot of skin. The fact is she would have been awfully self-conscious if there had been anyone else on the beach - anyone at least but dream-Max. She had been rather more flirtatious than had been her norm as well - and in her dream Max had responded rather more passionately than she had expected given his usual shyness. As morning approached, she wasn't complaining about that - but she had definitely noticed.

It was difficult to explain what happened next. Undoubtedly it had something to do with having walked in on the bedroom scene between Lexie and Doug less than a week ago, perhaps it also was having shared the same shelter with Max for three nights - sharing pheromones in the process - or perhaps Liz Parkers cerebrum had decided that she'd been the perfect child all her life - playing it safe - but her happiest moments had been these last few days when she began to understand just how much Max really did mean to her. Whatever it was that happened to change the course of the dream, change it it did.

The walking and gentle kisses had somehow led them to the beach towel and they'd sat on it watching the moon out on the water for hours - interrupting their contemplation of the beauty of their surroundings with gentle kisses and gentle caresses. Then they had lain side-by side - more interested in contemplating the beauty of each other in the moonlight than anything else. Somehow she wound up in his arms - on top of him - and she reveled in the feeling of their skin touching - separated only by his swimsuit and her bikini. Finally she had pushed herself away from him - sitting up and straddling him.

She knew it was only a dream - what she wasn't sure of was whether it would have made any difference to her even if it had been real. She wanted him closer - wanted him to know how much she loved him - how special he was to her. Her hands went behind her back and fought briefly with her long hair - finally finding their way to the clasp of her bikini top. One brief movement and it was free and she let the top fall away onto the sand as she looked down at him in the moonlight. As she brought his hands up toward her breasts she smiled down at his face. Dream-Max seemed totally astounded - his mouth agape in disbelief as she continued to bring his hands toward her breasts and beneath her she was surprised - although not unpleasantly so - to feel his arousal start.

It was only a dream - she realized that - she had no illusions - but it was a beautiful dream. It was a dream to be savored and cherished and - as her hands cupped his to her breasts - she intended to do just that - very much like Lexie had so obviously enjoyed Doug's attention. Except it didn't quite work like that.

Max disappeared. He just seemed to melt away. She put the bikini top back on and walked up and downthe beach for several minutes before giving up on the dream and waking up.


Max came awake from the dream as near to panic as he'd ever been in his life. It got worse almost immediately. For years - ever since puberty - he hadn't even been willing to admit to himself that he MIGHT one day feel like THAT toward Liz. He'd loved her - loved her from the first moment he'd seen her - but they'd been third graders. Something like that hadn't even been on their radar screens.

He'd had to confront the academic possibility of that sort of feeling toward Liz in their joint sex ed classes, and he'd dismissed it without even seriously considering it. They were ' too different,' he'd assured himself. Even though he'd known - certainly since their break-up when she'd asked him to start taking her to boy-girl dances and stuff - that Liz certainly didn't consider him off limits, he also knew that was because Liz was ignorant of what he was. That had been why he'd gotten the pictures - now doubtless lost with the aircraft - to make sure that everyone knew he had no claim to Liz's affections.... no, that wasn't right. No claim to Liz's passions.

There could never, he knew, be passion between him and Liz. Not before she knew, because even if he would have believed it possible for himself, he wouldn't deceive her that way. And now, certainly not AFTER she knew. Liz was being brave - and friendly - and a good friend. Max had no doubt that she'd keep his secret. But it's one thing to have a friend who accepts you despite your differences - quite another to have that same friend think that you have delusions that she would accept you as her own special someone.

The dream had been one long guilty pleasure up until the last - up until her hands had slowly brought his up to touch those perfect silvery breasts bobbing gently in the moonlight beneath her angel-like face. At that point, the guilt had massively exceeded the pleasure.

But even before he had recovered from the adrenalin rush stimulated by his dream, Max had other problems. Not her hair that his face was in - the hair that brushed against his own cheeks and felt like heaven and made him want to stay there forever. Not his own awkward discomfort as his body - reacting to the dream and attempting to push its way through his trousers - threatened to nudge Liz into consciousness. No, those things were certainly problems, but the real problem seemed to be his right hand.

They'd been laying on their left sides spooned together. Sometime during the night - during the long dream - the arm had tightened, bringing her back against him and in the process finding the gap between her Levis and her blouse. Exactly when it had occurred during the night he wasn't sure - what HAD occurred, Max knew immediately upon awakening. He had Liz's breast cupped in his hand.

OK, not EXACTLY her breast. EXACTLY he had her left breast encased in a sports bra cupped in the palm of his right hand - and he could briefly feel it pulse with every beat of her heart - after which brief time he could feel his own hand pulse with every beat of his heart - and those heartbeats were coming real quickly.

As he pulled his hand away, Max was almost physically ill. 'Max, you're as bad as Drevins. OK, so maybe you didn't actually drug her, but as soon as she was asleep - trusting you - look what you did...'

It was impossible to deny to himself any longer that she attracted him that way. It wasn't just a guilty pleasure any longer - though the guilt was real about what he'd just done.

'You are going to always want her, Max...,' he finally admitted to himself. '... and you have no business ever letting her know that. You are too different. She'd never be happy with you, and if you really love her you'll just accept that - not take advantage of her friendship or gratitude - not try to manipulate her into a relationship that would only cause her fear and horror. If you care for her, Max, you'll never try to be anything but her friend. Otherwise you really aren't any better than Drevins.'

Max slowed his breathing and thought about non-sexy things - Izzie's cooking - until his pulse rate - and everything else - went back down. By the time Liz started to awake, Max thought he had himself under control.

When she woke up, Liz smiled at Max.

"Good morning, Max..." she said,

"Uh --- good morning Liz. I need to - uh - I need to get out and go find some breakfast."

In a few more minutes they were out of the cave and both heading for their own bathroom facilities.

As she watched him go north - and she headed south - she thought. 'Max really seems sort of distant and distracted today.' Then she shrugged her shoulders. 'Of course, that may just be because I'm comparing him to dream-Max. 'Still...,' she thought, looking back over her shoulder, ' give us a few years and maybe I can get him to concentrate on other things, and not disappear just when it is threatening to get interesting either......'

It was almost noon out on the malpais and the searchers had been successful - sort of.

"I think I've found one too," said Jim Valenti. The interior engineering guy came scurrying quickly across the asphalt from where he'd been looking.

"That's one of them alright," he said, picking the cambolt up with tweezers and looking at it with a magnifying glass before putting it in the plastic ziplock bag.

"No evidence of stress to it either. No way was that locked in place when the seat came of the rail. That copilot must have gotten distracted - or not known what the hell he was doing."

"Or the ever popular 'all of the above'," said Bob Hamilton, nodding his head. "Apparently they got hold of the baggage handlers who helped him. He didn't impress any of them as the sharpest knife in the drawer. Well, that's three of the missing eight cambolts - I'm amazed we found any of them really. This one is hall and gone from where the seats landed."

But Jim Valenti wasn't really paying that much attention. He was looking at some prickly pear cactus - and some stubble that was once prickly pear cactus.

Jim had grown up in the Southwest. It wasn't uncommon - in times of drought - for ranchers to use propane powered flamethrowers to burn the needles off of prickly pear cactus so their cattle could get both nourishment and moisture from the cactus. But as he looked around, they were hell and gone from anything that remotely resembled a ranch. Of course, his father had told him the stories while he'd been growing up - of the shapeshifters - how they would use their powers to burn off prickly pear needles and eat the leaf and fruit when they were on the run.

'Could this be where they ran to?' Jim asked himself. Could they have made it over the mountains and hidden out all these years - just living off the land?

'No,' he decided, 'there must be some other explanation. Perhaps the targeting laser of the F-117 had been fired at the time of impact. Maybe THAT had somehow burned the cactus.'

'...But then what would be eating it...?' he asked himself. No, he decided. That was silly. He'd been taunted all of his childhood by people who hadn't believed his father. He was a grown adult and had put that behind him. He wasn't going to open that sore again. Obviously the laser had fired - or - who knows - some secret Air Force weapon - and the cactus had been burned. Then some family of rabbits or something had devoured it. That had to be it.

"Well Jim," said Bob Hamilton, "...I talked to the team leader on the radio and he said three cambolts were enough. Rather than waste any more time here, let's go to where those coyotes were...."

Jim nodded his head in agreement, then looked around just one last time. There was nothing here - just a little indentation in the ledge - barely room for a coyote to take refuge. Better to leave and try to find the kids - he preferred to remember them as they were - still kids and not carrion - better to go try to find the kids elsewhere. He started the long hike back to the helicopter.

Ten miles away....

It was called Agave Nectar and Liz had found the patch of Agave. They had drunk and eaten their fill - but the stuff was almost too sweet to be able to stand. A tablespoonful of the nectar contained almost sixty calories making it a very concentrated food source - but it was almost sickeningly sweet.

"Sorry about the agave nectar, Max. There just wasn't much of anything else."

"Are you kidding? This isn't bad. Sort of makes me wish we'd saved just a tiny bit of that habanero though."

"I'm not at all sure there is THAT tiny a bit, Max."

Max smiled and nodded. "You are probably right, Liz. That was rather amazingly spicy..""

Liz wasn't just too sure what had been bugging Max this morning, but he seemed to be over it. Or maybe, she thought, they were both sort of in a bad mood. It wasn't just the weird food - it was also worrying about their parents, and Isabel, and their friends. Not just concerned that for all the folks knew they were dead, but just how to break the news to them - and then what to tell everybody else.

Max looked at Liz -relieved that things were going well. It was hard to keep his eyes off her though. Admitting how much he wanted her only made it harder. It wasn't just the physical attraction - he could handle that. They were both probably too young to get seriously involved in that sort of thing yet anyway.

No, what he really regretted was what he'd seen in that dream. It wasn't simply about getting to second base with Liz - or even going further. The fact of the matter was that Max would have done anything to have Liz look down at him like that even once - to actually KNOW he was her choice - not just to have sex with, but to spend her entire life with. Yeah....he'd give his life to have her actually look at him just once like that. But it wasn't going to happen and he wasn't going to do anything to make her feel awkward or uncomfortable about it. She wouldn't want him, she'd want someone normal - and he certainly couldn't blame her for that.

An hour later:

Seven miles away everyone had searched for the teenagers bodies, but no one had found any evidence that they were ever there. In fact, except for one person, no one had found anything at all. But one person had found something that alarmed him greatly.

"What you got there, Jim?" asked Bob.

"Uh - a void in the lava," Jim said, trying not to let his sudden concern show in his voice.

Hamilton looked briefly. "Hmm - must have been a gas bubble trapped in the lava."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Jim Valenti. Only he knew that wasn't the case. He knew what this actually was - a shelter identical to the shapeshifter shelters that his father had shown him. He also knew the large woody leaves of the remaining prickly pears plants should have had thorns - and smaller and more tender leaves - and fruit.

There was no other way to put this story together. The cave was recently made - the residue from the center of the excavation was visible scattered around the mouth, and the prickly pears had been recently harvested.

Had those even been coyotes at all? More likely shapeshifters. Hs father had told him they could eat anything - manipulate whatever it was to something edible. Could the evil things have been scavenging on the bodies of Liz Parker and Max Evans? If so - well - there was apparently nothing left of them.

Jim Valenti fought back the nausea - then replaced it with a firm resolve. He was going to track these things down - whatever it took - and kill them.

"Something wrong, Jim?"

"No - uh - nothing at all except the obvious. Just thinking about those poor kids."

Jim wasn't going to make the mistake his father had. He wasn't going to tell people what he thought and then be considered a crackpot. He'd need proof. He'd bring the bodies of the things in - then explain what he'd done.

"You know, Bob...., I don't think I'm going to find them flying over in the helicopter. I think I might go back to base and get my vehicle and gear - try coming out here and driving along the perimeter of the lava flow - if the Air Force can give me a map that'll keep me out of the areas with unexploded ordnance. Rather than hiking over the lava if I could spend my time driving along the edge of it - then just come in to search - well, I think I could cover more area a lot quicker."

"Well, if that's what you want, Jim, I'll try to get you briefed by the Air Force about where the unexploded ordnance is. In the meantime, we can keep the helicopter searches going."

"Yeah, you know we are only about ten or fifteen miles from Carrizozo. If I need any help, I can talk to their police or fire departments on the radio in my truck. I really think it would be better," he said, looking at the burned prickly pear,"... that way I can check every nook and cranny from up close. It's the least I can do for those kids' parents."

Holloman AFB 49FW/EOD

Senior Master Sergeant Arturo Sanchez had a Master Explosive Ordnance Disposal badge on his camouflaged uniform. He also had ten fingers and toes – all of which indicated he was very good at the job he'd been doing for over twenty-three years. He seemed as confident as he was competent as he briefed Deputy Sheriff Jim Valenti about the Oscura and Red Rio ranges that were located near Carrizozo.

“Well sir,” said SMSgt Sanchez, “... we only go out there about twice a year normally when the civil engineering guys do range maintenance. They rebuild the targets on the ranges themselves and we go along to take care of anything interesting they find in the process.”

“Interesting?” asked Deputy Valenti, the concern on his face obvious.

“Well sir, over the years they've dropped a lot of live ordnance out there – although it's nothing like the Lance and Little John impact sites. We won't go near those without an ambulance standing by. Heck, every now and again you'll just hear a big boom for no apparent reason. Sometimes a coyote moves a bomblet the few remaining inches it needed before it armed up – sometimes it's just erosion from the wind that uncovers something that's been sitting there since the 1950s – but those areas are a ways south of where you want to go. Here, let me show you on the map.”

Jim walked over and the SMSgt pulled out a map of the northern range areas.

“This, sir, is the malpais,” said Sanchez, pointing to a dark area on the map. “As you can see, our range areas do border it, but the actual target areas themselves are east of the malpais. That's where the overwhelming majority of the unexploded ordnance is.”

“Well, I was kind of hoping to miss even the underwhelming minority of your explosive devices out there, sergeant.”

Sanchez smiled. “Probably a good idea, sir. But if you are reasonably careful, that shouldn't be a great problem. There is a main road – highway 380 – that goes right through the center of the malpais. The malpais itself has never been used for a range – just too hard to get people in there to construct or maintain stuff. About a half mile south of the malpais a small gravel road turns off highway 380 and heads east. It's called county road A008. If you take that to its end you'll see one old ranch – and a gate onto the range. I can give you a key for that gate. The road is pretty rough – don't even try it without four wheel-drive – and after that thunderstorm I can't even promise you it will be passable since it pretty much runs down an arroyo for about half of its length. But assuming the road is passable, it pretty much runs along the south edge of the malpais and comes right up against it in five or six places. We travel that road at least twice a year, and what few items of unexploded ordnance were on it we have long since cleared. The road is pretty well marked – but don't get off it – not even to cross over narrow areas to get to the malpais. Except where the markers are right on the edge of the malpais, don't get off the road at all. On those five or six places – and they are pretty evenly space out there, you'll be just fine. Fact of the matter is there isn't much of anything along that road but twenty mike mike anyway.”

“Twenty mike mike?”

“Yes sir. That's 200 millimeter cannon. Red Rio used to be used for strafing practice back in the seventies when we had F-4Es based here. The aircraft had an internal Vulcan cannon – just like the F-16s and the F-22s do – and they used to strafe aircraft on a simulated airbase we had out at Red Rio. Only problem was with that gun when you came off the trigger there were already shells in four of the barrels and the gatling gun was rotating about 1500 RPM. You could keep the gun from shooting those shells – but you couldn't stop them from spinning through the mechanism, so every time you came off the trigger four live rounds got kicked overboard – where they rained down on the desert floor below. Most of the ammo was just target ammo, though some of it was high explosive. Even just the bullets of the HE rounds can hurt you – if they failed to go off on impact. But the target rounds can too if they are live rounds – and like I said, four of those got kicked out every time the pilot's finger came off the trigger.”

“'Hurt' how bad?”

SmSgt Sanchez shrugged his shoulders. “If you are in a car and explode one it'll probably just take your wheel off. If you are walking and happen to set one off....”

“It'll probably take my foot off...”

“Leg, most likely. Try to not do that.”

“So how long did the F-4s use the area?”

“About seven years – but then the Air Guard F-4s used it on weekends for maybe a decade after that. The area out there is lousy with them, Deputy. If I were you, I'd stick to the road except where the road actually touches the malpais.”

“Well, thanks for your help. Anything else I should watch out for?”

“Not unless you run in to Killer-of-enemies,” said the Staff Sergeant sitting across the room.

SMSgt Sanchez chuckled. “SSgt Perino is part Mescalero Apache. That's their historic territory up there – the reservation is less than fifteen miles away.”

“So who is this Killer-of-Enemies?” asked Jim Valenti.

“Well, according to legend, Killer of Enemies and White-Painted-Woman were the first two people created when the Earth was born. White-Painted-Woman gave birth to Killer-of-Enemies who killed the Owl-Man-Giant who had terrorized the world. After that, everything was fine. Only thing is – my grandpa told me that Killer-of-Enemies came back – back in the early 1950s. Then he disappeared out into the desert. That's the legend, anyway. Our girls still pray to White-Painted-Woman at their Sunrise Ceremony, when they get accepted into womanhood.”

"So, when this Killer-of-Enemies went out into the desert, where did your uncle say he went?"

"Oh, into the badlands..... the malpais."

Jim nodded his head. "Well, i guess I'd better be going if I'm going to get out there..."

Perino and Sanchez looked at each other doubtfully. "Deputy, I'll give you the key, but I really don't want you going out there in the dark. Promise me you'll wait for morning? You go off that road in the darkness and Perino and I'll be clearing ordnance trying to find all the pieces."

Jim looked at the setting sun. They were right. He might just as well start in the morning....

On the malpais, Max was hollowing another small cave out of the lava.

Dinner had been mainly agave nectar and paste again, although Liz had found a small number of prickly pear plants. While the food was monotonous it was nutritious enough - at least in terms of calories - and calories is what Liz needed out here in the cold. Neither of them were really dressed for this weather but during the day when temperatures hit the low 60s it was bearable enough, but even before the sun set the temperatures started to plummet - reaching the high 20s before sunrise. The short hours of daylight limited their travel time and forced them to spend more time in the little caves than they really required just for sleep. It was the time in the cave that was starting to scare him.

'OK, a little fantasy probably is alright,' he told himself, '...but the erotic stuff is just not going to happen. Liz wouldn't want you like that. She'd want - and she deserves - someone normal.'

Of course, he'd been telling himself that all day, and that really wasn't the problem. Unfortunately, he knew that too. His body's physical attraction to Liz was actually the least of it. What was burned in to his soul was the memory of the look she had given him in that dream - the possessive 'you-are-mine-and-I-am-yours-and-that's-the-way-it-will-always-be' sort of look - THAT was the problem.

Liz's face had lit up with happiness with that look. It was a happiness that Liz wanted and needed. More than that, Liz deserved it. It wasn't even mainly the physical part - mostly it was knowing someone would be there for you forever. Most humans had someone like that - and he never had. From the very first he'd known intuitively that he was different - that he wasn't one of the group - that he didn't belong. The look in Liz's eyes had been about belonging - belonging eternally to someone who belonged to you as well. It was about being special.

All of his life Max had known he was different - knowing that at any time his difference might provoke fear in the eyes of any human that discovered what he was. Just once in his life he'd like to see someone actually look at him like Liz had looked at him in his dream - different, yes, but not different fearful. Different special.

Which of course brought his mind back to telling the parents that he loved what he was. He was going to do it - not because he thought it was a good idea - but because Liz thought it was a good idea. 'Admit it,' he told himself, '...you just don't understand people.'

Then he turned his eyes back toward the area where they had eaten - where Liz was carefully securing gourds containing water and agave paste for tomorrow. It was too bad, really, that there wasn't a mirror present. Because if he'd had one he would have seen the same look on his face as he looked at her that he'd seen on her face as she'd looked down at him in that dream. Perhaps that would have reassured Max - but perhaps not. Denial, as they say, is not just a river in Egypt.....


As Liz walked toward Max she was struggling to not show the affection she felt for him. That would, no doubt, panic him again. But it was hard not to show how much she cared about him. It wasn't just that he was always saving her life, but he was working so hard - not to just get the two of them through this, but he was working so hard not to panic.

Perhaps more than anyone else in the world, Liz recognized how frightening this was for Max. Heck, he was so afraid of people learning his secret he hadn't even wanted to go out to recess. Now he could at least talk with her about telling their parents. It made him terribly uncomfortable to talk about that - Liz could tell - but at least he was willing to talk about it and listen to her and finally even to agree. Liz had a hunch that agreeing to do that had been even harder for Max - emotionally harder anyway - than facing death falling from the airplane.

As she approached Max, she fought back an overwhelming urge to give him a kiss and to tell him how proud she was of him.

"How's the shelter coming?" she asked.

"Should be just another couple of minutes, Liz. Then you can be out of the cold."

Liz nodded. Somehow when she was close to him it was so hard not to take his hand - to tell him how she felt about him. But before too long he'd be asleep. Then she could safely cuddle up against him without him even knowing.

Max saw Liz nod. He couldn't let himself have another dream like the one last night - and certainly couldn't let his hand stray again. He'd already decided to stay awake - to just pretend to sleep. That's be safer for Liz - safer for both of them....