Roswell Fanatics

Michael wondered what was going on when he saw Isabel’s eyes go wide and her mouth fall open. But it was a small distraction to him. Isabel, he was sure, could handle her brother without his help. She’d always been able to handle him.

Michael’s attention was mostly on Maria DeLuca. This show was too funny. She was yelling at the cook, obviously very upset with him. She’d backed the poor guy up to the edge of the grill. He had to either face a seething Maria Deluca, or continue to back up and grill his own butt. 'What a choice,' he thought. 'No good options there.'

Michael thought suddenly that he was very glad he wasn’t Jose. ‘I think I just might take the grill,’ he thought to himself. ‘Maria was sure a firebrand when she was angry. Kind of cute though, like an enraged little kitten.’

Maria had finally let him get back to the grill and he’d gotten the order up, a Will Smith with double jalapeno slices and pepperjack cheese. Jose was glad he wasn’t eating it, it was going to give an ulcer to someone, that kid out there that the boss had warned him about, most likely. He watched Liz at the fountain draw a cherry coke, not quite full, and then lace it with habanero sauce. Maria couldn’t have been right. That kid must have done something to Liz. ‘Madre de Dios, she is trying to kill him.’

He turned around and went back to the grill, feeling sorry for the boy. He didn’t really look like a bad kid, and Jose found himself suddenly hoping the young man had a good medical plan.

Liz didn’t say a word as she placed the Will Smith and Cherry Coke down in front of Max Evans. Isabel whispered to her, “Liz tell him to leave. Talk some sense into him.” The girl looked at her and said, “I can’t Isabel. I’m not allowed to talk to Max. Our folks have decided we can’t be trusted with each other. Hadn’t you heard?” She turned and left while Isabel Evans looked through the window at her mother, holding her hands up and waving them in helpless frustration.

8:35 PM Crashdown Café

It was late on a Sunday night in the small town of Roswell, and Jim Valenti was not surprised to see an empty spot in the street parking in front of the Crashdown. He backed in between two cars and shut the engine of the Tahoe down.

There were no calls that were more hated by law enforcement officers than domestic problems. And this call was as complex as any of those. The duty officers were surprised that he was even in his office, but were more than happy to let the boss handle it if he desired. They’d offered backup and been surprised when he’d turned it down.

“These are just a couple of kids,” he’d said, “going through some rough spots with their relationship and their parents. I’ve dealt with them before, I’ll be fine.”

And Jim Valenti hoped that would be true. Kyle had gone to a weekend junior NRA competitive rifle meet in Gallup with a friend and his parents and wouldn’t be home for another four hours. Friday evening after he’d left, Jim had gone to see Mr. Fillmore the bank president, who was finally home from the hospital. It was largely a social visit, but Jim also had to remind him that state law require two people to have the combinations to timelocks. Fillmore was kind of a paranoid old coot, and in the ensuing discussion had let slip that he didn’t really trust his own employees, that he hadn’t even told them about the second camera in the vault.

They’d gone to the vault Friday night after the bank had closed and the employees had gone home. Well, no the old coot had admitted, in his 46 years at the bank no employee had ever been accused of stealing from the safe deposit boxes, but it had sounded like a great idea when the security people had mentioned it, and it was a business expense, so the government would pay for part of it, and he’d ordered it anyway.

The digital video recorder sat in one of the safe deposit boxes, a design flaw in Valenti’s professional opinion. If someone were stealing from the safe deposit boxes, it might be the first one they opened. Mr. Fillmore admitted he hadn’t thought of that, and maybe he ought to take that up with the security people.

The high resolution camera, Jim admitted, was concealed exceptionally well in the light fixture. He had taken the recorder, which digitally recorded all activity when there was either sound or movement in the vault, promising to get it back by Monday.

Jim had fast forwarded through the time-date stamping in an effort to see what had happened after the loss of the first camera, but hit the pause button immediately when the jerky speeded up figures of Max and Liz came into view and rapidly dropped to the floor. He backed up to the moment of the gunshot and slowed to slow motion as he watched again, his mouth dropping open in disbelief. Max Evans had been killed.

No, Jim thought, the boy hadn’t been killed. But it hadn’t been a grazing wound either. The resolution and placement of the digital camera was much better than that of the camera that had been destroyed by the shotgun blast.

It was clear, the bullet had penetrated the boy’s skull, and there was visible evidence of brain damage in the flaccid paralysis of his right side.

No human could have survived that Jim Valenti realized immediately. Not for 40 hours without treatment. Jim had seen his share of human trauma in 23 years as a cop, most from motor vehicle accidents, but some from gunshots, hunting accidents as well as criminal violence. That wound was simply not survivable he told himself, even knowing that Max had survived, that he had walked out of that vault with little more than a concussion. How was that possible?

If no human could have survived that, yet Max had survived it, what did that make Max?

Jim had viewed the video throughout the weekend and it had answered some of his questions, but raised others. He’d made a videotape of part of the recording, then reformatted the disk to erase the original. He’d checked it to make sure it was clean and it was. Then he reformatted it twice more anyway. He would return it to Mr. Fillmore on Monday, and let him put it back in the vault.

When the call had come to the Desk Sergeant from Jose at the Crashdown, Jim had been getting a cup of coffee. Maybe he could get some answers from the horse’s mouth, he’d decided. He’d taken his electric razor and shaved for the first time since Friday morning while enroute to the restaurant. The uniform was rumpled, but it’d have to do.

As Jim Valenti walked in to the restaurant he saw the three sitting at the booth. Michael Guerin, a foundling foster child, he thought, recalling the troubles he’d had with old Hank Guerin, the kid’s foster father. Isabel and Max Evans, both also adopted.

Michael and Isabel were looking at the Sheriff as he walked in. Max had eyes only for the small girl across the room from him. This didn’t look too hard, thought the Sheriff. But domestic problems always seemed easier than they were he thought, seeing the quarreling adults in the birthday room. And it often took only the smallest of things to set them off, to have the situation explode in violence.

Jim Valenti hadn’t noticed Maria Deluca at all as he had approached the booth and was unprepared when she stepped right in front of him. “Leave him alone, Sheriff. Max isn’t hurting anyone. It’s a public restaurant. He can be here if he wants.”

Valenti had tried to step around her, his eyes on Max Evans, worried about what he might be thinking, what he might be planning. He was totally unprepared when Maria stepped back in front of him and he bumped into her heavily. As she lost her balance the Sheriff grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. Max Evans never changed, but the movement across the table from him drew Valenti’s eyes and he saw himself staring into the eyes of Michael Guerin.

He realized instantly that Guerin had first thought he’d intentionally manhandled the girl, but the boy had relaxed immediately when he realized he’d only been keeping her from falling.

But in that half second he’d seen rage in the boy’s eyes. In that single moment of misunderstanding a line had nearly been crossed.

He wasn’t sure just what violence Michael Guerin was capable of. He hadn’t been sure of much of anything the last 48 hours. He liked the outspoken young waitress, he certainly hadn’t meant to hurt her. He remembered Guerin waiting outside the bank that morning. He’d been there with Maria DeLuca.

Jim Valenti knew that he had to cool off the situation here. He needed to get the Evans boy away from the Crashdown. He needed answers from him, help from him, or sooner or later someone would make a tragic mistake.

Steadying Maria he said, “Miss DeLuca, I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m not here to arrest anyone. Max, come with me, we need to talk. It’ll be OK, really.”

He watched as the Evans boy looked up at him, then to his side. Valenti felt a soft hand on his arm there and turned to see Liz Parker looking up at him.

“I’ll be OK, Max. Go ahead and go with the Sheriff, talk with him. I’ll still be here when you get back.”

She looked up at Jim Valenti again, looked deep into his eyes, and said “The Sheriff isn’t going to do anything to you, Max.”

The Sheriff looked in her eyes and knew somehow that the last statement had not really been meant as reassurance to Max Evans, but as a warning to him. He looked down at the soft hand on his arm, seeing the broken fingernail on the long finger, still not yet grown out far enough to file off smooth. She was indeed tougher than she looked, this little girl.

As Max started to open the back door on the Yukon Jim Valenti said, “Up here Max. You don’t need to ride in back. Those back doors can’t even be opened from the inside,” the sheriff wondering as he said it just how true that last statement was. Things you take for granted with other people didn’t seem to apply to Max.

“I just thought….well when you took Liz and me home that morning, you had us ride back there then.”

“There’s only room for one to ride shotgun. Thought you two lovebirds would rather be locked in together than separated. Or was I wrong on that, Max?”

Valenti smiled in surprise then. He’d actually made the kid blush. He suddenly remembered an old Mark Twain quote; Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.....

As Valenti got in behind the wheel he looked at the young man, looking out through the side window, his eyes still on Liz Parker. His face was sad, and he was shaking his head. Jim started the engine and slowly drove away.

“She’s right you know, Max, ” said Jim Valenti. “She’s not a China doll. She’s not that fragile. She’s a lot tougher than she looks.”

Max looked at Valenti, barely managing to conceal his surprise.

Max remembered the night in the vault. He’d finally awakened, his head had felt like it was splitting and he’d found Liz next to him in the dimly lit vault. The men were there. Their bodies were crumpled at the bottom of the wall, obviously not going to hurt anyone ever again. Liz’s left forearm had been broken, obviously deformed, the wrist nearly shattered, and he’d done it.

Somehow when he’d been hit by the powerblast, Garber had pulled Liz’s arm along, and she’d been hit by the fringes of it.

“Oh God Liz, I’m so sorry,” he’d said, as he’d healed it, taking several minutes as the blinding pain in his head took away his concentration.”

“I’m OK Max,” she’d said. “I’m not a China doll you know. I’m not all that fragile. I broke the same arm in the second grade, before I even knew you. It healed. It’s nicer to get it healed up after 30 minutes though, rather than taking three weeks.”

Had she used that expression any other time? Any time that the Sheriff may have heard her? ‘She must have,’ thought Max, trying to calm himself. ‘A coincidence, nothing more.’

The Sheriff looked forward, appearing to concentrate on his driving. “Of course she was lying to you about it only being 30 minutes, it had been more like six hours. Not sure she knew that though.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Sheriff,” said a suddenly fearful Max Evans.

“Of course you do Max. You need to start trusting people more, son. You need to start trusting me.”

“Why should I trust you, Sheriff?”

“Because I trust you Max. For the last 48 hours I’ve watched a video of you injured so badly you seemed barely alive. But you were alive enough to raise a hand and pulverize those two in the vault with a blast of white light.

I’m alone with you, driving in the night, knowing damn well that you could kill me in an instant, and I couldn’t do anything to stop you. You know that too. Why pretend any different? If I didn’t trust you I damn sure wouldn’t be here with you like this, Max. Don’t you think it’s about time you trusted me?”

Max Evans looked at Sheriff Valenti.

Trust didn’t come easy to him. He’d hidden who he was, what he was, for his entire lifetime. He realized that he would have never even trusted Liz, despite his love for her, had she not almost died in front of him in the Crashdown that day. But he knew he could trust Liz, knew in his very soul that he would always be safe with Liz.

And Liz trusted the Sheriff, he could feel it in her, had felt it in her that day the Sheriff had told them he knew their story about the fire extinguisher had been a lie. He trusted Liz and she trusted this man. Maybe that would be enough. Maybe that would let him trust Jim Valenti as well.

It had been hard for Max, hard to change a lifetime of secrecy, of fear of discovery. He was still very wary, uncertain he was making the right decision, as he sat beside the Sheriff in front of the large monitor. Jim Valenti could see that.

But that was understandable, Valenti finally decided. If his story ever really got out the best the kid could hope for was to be in the National Enquirer for long enough that he’d never have any semblance of a normal life. And that was the very best. Far more likely he’d wind up locked up in some government laboratory, dissected by some mad scientist who wanted to find out how he worked.

Valenti could never be a part of that, all the kid had really done was to put his life on the line to protect Liz Parker, killing two guys who Jim Valenti believed had really needed killing badly, and even the coroner’s inquest said it was justifiable.

‘Besides,’ thought Jim Valenti, chuckling to himself softly, ‘I’m not sure I’m man enough to go up against Liz Parker if I let this kid get hurt. I know a threat when I hear one.’ Valenti pushed the button on the VCR and the monitor sprang to life.

The two unsuccessful bank robbers entered the vault, pushing the two teenagers before them. As Garber tugged the door closed, trying to shield the two from the police fire from the outside, McMillan opened a barrage of his own from the AK-47 through the closing door. McMillan had trouble controlling the rifle in full auto fire, and the barrel climbed, impacting the closing door and it’s frame. Ricochets flew through the vault, and as Max pressed Liz into the corner he was struck by the flying bullet. He dropped like a stone, a deep obvious wound in his left temple.

Initially Liz seemed as stunned by the wound as Max was, but after thirty of forty seconds she managed to pull his head into her lap as she sat on the carpet. The wound bled freely, staining her dress, but she seemed not to notice. Max’s right arm and leg dangled strangely, and his eyes were shut. Liz cradled his head, seeming almost catatonic.

Tears dripped off her face onto his as she cradled his head with her left hand and lightly stroked his hair with the right, her lips softly repeating “Oh Max, …no, no.”

McMillan looked down at the two and turned to Garber. “Well,….” he said, “..one hostage is toast.”

“I realized you really did heal a gunshot wound to Liz Parker at the Crashdown when I saw you heal her arm later in this video, Max. So I guess you can heal yourself, too. I guess that….wherever your people come from, you all can heal quickly.”

The boy looked at the video in growing confusion. “I don’t know much about where I come from, I…..” he looked at Jim Valenti for a moment, as if making up his mind about a decision of terrible importance, “….We….., my sister Isabel and Michael and I, are the only ones I’ve ever met and we were, …I don’t know, lost, abandoned, orphaned?

But no, I don’t think so. I’ve never healed particularly fast unless I’ve been awake and consciously tried to heal myself. Or Izzie did it, or Michael, though he’s not very good at it. In fact, he comes to me when Hank gets drunk and beats on him, he’s embarrassed to show up at school with the bruises. He certainly doesn’t heal fast on his own.”

Jim Valenti made a mental note to have a talk with Hank Guerin, maybe more than a talk. “Hank beats Michael? Why does Michael let that happen, why doesn’t he come to me about it?”

“Michael’s afraid to use his powers, he can’t control them well. He’s afraid if he did he’d hurt someone. And he doesn’t want attention, none of us do. We don’t feel we can afford it.”

“He looked ready to use his powers tonight, when I bumped into Miss DeLuca. The look in his eyes scared the crap out of me for a second.”

Max smiled slightly. “He tries to pretend he’s an iceman, that nothing can get to him, but I think he likes Maria. She was so frightened of us, of him when she first found out. Now they bicker sometimes like an old married couple.

But he was in a family once with another foster child, a girl a few years older than Michael. Their foster father was a drunk, eventually the wife got tired and left, and one day when he was drunk the man decided that maybe the girl would be interested in his company. She locked herself in the bathroom. He was breaking down the door and Michael stopped him. The man’s leg got broken. The guy was drunk, nobody really believed what he said about a seven year old boy, they figured he just fell while he was drunk. The kids were taken away by social services. Michael and the girl were split up, he’s never seen her again, but…you might want to be careful about how you treat women around Michael, Sheriff, particularly Maria.

He’s not had a very pleasant life and kind of sees the world in black and white with not a whole lot of gray, if you catch my meaning.”

“So how did you survive the head injury?”

“Sheriff, I have no idea.”

Max rewound the tape and played it over, freezing the frame when the bullet struck. His mouth dropped open in shock. Jim Valenti noticed he was not looking at himself in the video, but was looking at Liz Parker.

“Oh no! Please, no.” He appeared to stare at the video in horror, shaking his head. As he started the video in slow motion tears came into his eyes. When next he spoke, it sounded like someone whose grief was inconsolable.

“I tried to yell at her to take cover, but she couldn’t hear me over the gunfire. I touched her hand to make a connection, so she could hear the thoughts in my mind, hear me tell her to get down in the corner so I could shield her. The bullet hit then……when we were in the connection. The pain she felt was as bad as mine, but the damage sent me into unconsciousness. But she felt it all…..”

Max’s face was a mask of horror. “Why didn’t the connection break? How did she keep it open……?”

The Sheriff saw a flurry of activity as Max fast forwarded the tape, his eyes on Liz and Liz alone. Suddenly he stopped the tape and his eyes went wide again in surprise, and in horror. As he put the tape on slow motion he saw the girl holding Max’s head gently, her hand slowly caressing his hair. And where she touched him, just barely visible, was a gentle yellow glow. Tears fell from the boy’s eyes, and a deep sob seemed to shake his entire body.

“What is it, son? Max, what’s going on. What’s the matter with you?”

Max was at first unable to talk. When he finally was able to talk, he was visibly shaking.

“She’s trying to heal me, Sheriff. She never broke the connection, she somehow kept it going, I don’t know how, because she’s trying to heal me.”

“Liz is totally human, Max. Her family has lived around here for four generations. She’s not a foundling, not an orphan.”

“”I don’t know how, Sheriff,” said the boy, almost screaming. Tears were streaming down his eyes. “Maybe she learned how, somehow, when I healed her gunshot at the Crashdown. Maybe she was using the connection to make me heal myself, like remote control. I don’t even know how she sustained the connection, let alone how she used it. I can’t believe she’d do this.”

“Well, I suppose turnabout is fair play as they say. You healed her, she healed you. Why are you so upset?”

Max looked at the Sheriff, shaking his head. “You don’t understand, Sheriff. Liz isn’t very good at healing, She’s slow and weak, worse even than Michael. Far worse.”

“Well Max, considering the shape you were in, I’d think you’d be grateful, not upset.”

Max continued to shake, to sob, as if his heart were breaking,

“You still don’t understand, Sheriff. When I healed Liz from the bullet wound in the Crashdown I did it in three or four seconds. You can’t just shove the tissue back together, it wouldn’t work. You need to put everything back…right.

You connect with the person, you use their memories, you use the pain from the injury to guide you. It’s a template, the only way you can get things right.

Skin is pretty easy, muscle harder, nerves the hardest of all, everything has to be spliced back just right. The brain is almost nothing but nerves, Sheriff.

Liz is repairing me layer by layer, a few hundred cells at a time. She has millions of cells to repair, Sheriff, maybe billions. She’s replaying the pain, again and again, hundreds….thousands of times. It’s driving her insane.”

The Sheriff fast-forwarded the tape, his eyes only on Liz Parker. She appeared to be catatonic, tears dripping from her eyes and falling on the face of Max Evans. Whether it was her own pain, or her fear of losing Max, the Sheriff couldn’t say, but she truly appeared to be enduring the tortures of the damned.

Only when Garber pulled her away, did her eyes again seem to be alive. She struggled to get back to the boy, fighting Garber, enduring a savage beating from the man in the process. As the shotgun sounded in the background, taking out the other camera, the girl screamed in rage and fear, raking Garber’s face, trying to get away.

The body of Max Evans moved only slightly, as he looked up at the girl, locked in struggle with Garber. Blood from his head wound covered one eye, but life seemed to seep into the other and he raised one palm. A white light flashed briefly in the palm, and the body of Max Evans collapsed.

A shock wave like an explosion tore through the vault above the girl. Valenti watched again, the video player in slow motion as the bodies of the two men were hit by the shock wave, visibly damaged even before flying into the unyielding wall of the vault. The girl’s left hand was held by Garber, and as the shockwave hit him her arm was pulled into the fringes of the blast, breaking almost at once with the transmitted forces dragging the recumbent girl halfway to the far wall.

Her arm dangled helplessly at her side as she struggled back to the motionless body of Max Evans. She appeared stunned but conscious. With her undamaged hand she touched his head, and seemed to become desperate. “No Max. Don’t do this to me. Let me in, don’t push me away. No Max, no! Don’t go Max. Don’t leave me here without you.” Suddenly she closed her eyes, cradling his head again in her lap.

In the dim light she seemed to glow momentarily, and the glow spread from her into the body of the boy. Then she began again to stroke his hair, the golden glow readily apparent in the dim vault, brighter and stronger than it had been.

“What am I seeing here, Max?” asked Jim Valenti.

The boys eyes were puffy, the cheeks tear streaked. His face had a haunted look, one of pain, disbelief, and maybe…wonder.

“I remember being somewhere, trapped deep in my mind, Sheriff. I heard her scream, I don’t think with my ears, more in my mind. I fought my way back to consciousness, but I was weak, so weak. I looked and saw her struggling, saw what he was trying to do to her. I had no strength, Sheriff. I couldn’t even sit up. I had no energy, nothing to use for power. But everyone has power in them, Sheriff, it’s like an aura. It’s more than life, it comes to you in the womb, and when I volunteered in a hospice once I saw that it goes somewhere when people died. It’s the part of you, Sheriff, that I think is immortal.”

“Do you mean a soul, Max?”

“I don’t know, Sheriff. Isabel calls it that. We’ve talked about it a lot. She believes in God and souls, and believes that’s what the aura is. She is sort of religious. I told her that I didn’t understand why a kind and loving God would allow little children to die of cancer, would allow all the misery in the world. I told her I thought maybe she just liked Christmas too much.

But maybe you can think of it as a soul. There’s energy there, but you mustn’t tap it. If you do I think everything you are dissolves into nothingness, for all eternity. But I couldn’t let that happen to her, Sheriff. I used that energy, and then I watched myself, watched my aura start to dissolve.

I could feel Liz try to make a connection. I pushed her away, I used the last of my strength to stop her from connecting, stop her from losing herself with me.”
The Sheriff looked at the young man, the young man whose eyes filled with wonder as he appeared to remember more.

“I remember fading, almost gone, everything that I was starting to float away, kind of like entropy sort of, just starting to spread out, to evaporate into nothingness, to go away forever. And then she was there. I don’t now how she made a connection, I don’t think I was even conscious really. She kind of …..absorbed me, held on to me, gave herself to me Sheriff, nourished me with her own soul. She just held on, wouldn’t let me go…”

Max fast forwarded and the glow from Liz deepened in the darkened vault.

“She went back to healing me, one layer at a time, ignoring the agony she had to have been feeling, while she healed me that slowly.”

Max fast-forwarded until he saw the figure of Liz move, looking at the time-date stamp on the image, not wanting to believe that Liz endured that for six more hours.

“Sheriff, I would have stopped her if I could have. I wouldn’t have let her do that if I could have stopped it. You have to believe me. I wouldn’t have let her do that if I could have helped it, not for my life, not for my….soul. I would have never done that to her, never….never Sheriff.”

Jim Valenti saw the boy’s body wracked with sobs, overcome by what he’d just seen. There was no question he loved Liz, no question Liz loved him. Both had nearly died in the vault, both had been willing to sacrifice everything for the other. The deputy had been right, these were tough kids, both of them. But as a pair they were even far tougher, far more capable, far …better than they were as individuals.

Jim Valenti put his arm around Max’s shoulder. “They are a different species altogether, son. Not like you and me.”

Max looked up at the Sheriff, not really comprehending. “Women, son. Not like us guys. If the future of human existence depended on us guys, the human race would be extinct in a generation.”

“I’m not sure I’m human, Sheriff. At least, not all human.”

“Like I told you, Max, you’re close enough.

You were raised by a human mother and father who love you, and you love them. You love a human girl, and she loves you. You’re certainly a whole lot more human, a whole lot better person, than those two beasts you killed in there.

Liz made her choice when she went through that for you, just as you made your choice when you maneuvered yourself into the vault to protect her. I think if you had it to do over again, you would, and I think Liz would go through that hell for you too.

And as for souls,,,,,and God…, well I guess it’s possible Liz Parker is just the end result of a bunch of random mutations in DNA that got started somewhere, that’s real lucky for you if it’s true. But my guess is something else. It’s hard for people who don’t have trust to have faith, I guess son. Liz said you have a hard time with trust, and I guess that’s true. But trust is sometimes real important, you probably ought to work on it. Did Liz know about you, I mean about the not-of-this-earth part, before she was shot?”

“No Sheriff.”

“So I got there what? Three minutes later, and she already trusted you enough to lie for you, clumsy lies to be sure, but lie for you nonetheless. How long had you loved her? Since the third grade, ..really? But you’d never trusted her? Think about that a little bit.”

“I will, Sheriff, I will.
So now what? What are you going to do with the tape?”

“Well son, I didn’t see anything on that tape that looked like a threat to public safety. I have to admit it’s a little disconcerting to know that three teenagers are running around with the equivalent of an anti-tank weapon in the palm of their hands, but I’ve got to admit, you’ve handled that power responsibly.

It looks like we know what happened, as much as we can know what happened. The only crime I saw there was practicing medicine without a license. If Liz turns you in for it, I might do something I guess. Or maybe charge her too for doing the same. The jury already said the deaths were justifiable. You told them you did it, didn’t exactly tell them how, but heck son, you had a concussion. You probably did your best. So I imagine the tape will just have to be destroyed. It’s served its purpose.”

“Sheriff, how much of what Liz and I said in there did you listen to?”

“”Max, when it seemed to be getting personal, I fast forwarded through it. I’m not a voyeur, just trying to protect the public. I did watch the fight over healing her ribs though, damnedest lover’s quarrel I’ve ever heard of. She’s feisty, that one. The female of the species is indeed more dangerous than the male. But I had to do that. Since the issue was whether or not you might have harmed her, I really couldn’t ignore that.

And to tell you the truth, son, you scared me with the power you showed when you killed those two guys. When that little gal looked you in the eye and you backed off…., well it was hard to think of you as someone that was a threat to national security or something. Sometimes I need a little help trusting people too.”

Max rewound the tape, and then played part of it again, watching Liz Parker, near catatonic with concentration and pain, healing Max Evans. When she breathed, his body breathed. When her heart beat, his echoed that beat.

He shut off the tape and ejected it from the machine and handed it to Jim Valenti.

Then he said a silent prayer to whatever kind and loving God created Liz Parker, giving thanks for her life, and for her love for an undeserving part-alien Max Evans.

Jim Valenti took the videotape from Max and put it in the microwave in his office. As he pushed the button there was sparking and arcing within the oven. Max Evans reached out and stopped the oven.

“Bad idea, Sheriff. You’ll blow your microwave.” He held the cassette over the wastebasket and a soft glow came from his hand, as the cassette crumbled into dust which rained down into the basket.

“Wow, Max. I’ll bet that’s handy around the house. Bet your folks don’t even own a paper shredder.”

The boy suddenly got a furtive look on his face.

“They DON’T KNOW, Max?? They raised you and you never told them either? Boy, you are going to have to work hard on trusting people, Max. Real hard.”

“Maybe you’re right, Sheriff. I think it’s time Liz and I were more truthful to them, her folks too, at least about how we feel toward each other. At least as much as they can handle right now.

You want to go back to the Crashdown with me? If this doesn’t work, they’re probably going to call the cops anyway.”

“Might have time for a cup of coffee and a slice of Amy Deluca’s pie before they close at that, Max. Let’s go.”