Roswell Fanatics

When Kyle had been in fourth grade a man had moved in to their neighborhood with Tourette syndrome. He'd moved on in a couple of years. As much as he'd tried, Jim Valenti had never really gotten the grade-school age Kyle to understand that their neighbor had never really been responsible for the obscenities he would sometimes bark out. Tonight he would briefly gain tremedous insight into the life of the unfortunate man. The only problem would be he would soon forget it.

Tess actually didn't have much experience with a conversation of this kind, so she borrowed heavily from the dialogue in the rape video she had been shown almost two weeks previously. Kyle's mind screamed in horror as he found his mouth saying the words.

"Listen bitch...I'm sick and tired of you being a cock-tease. Time for you to start putting out..."

His mind recoiled in astonishment as his body pushed forward threateningly, hearing her voice quavering as she looked up from the sleeping pad.

"I thought you...you were different from them," she said tearfully, pushing herself back from the side of the sleeping pad in an obvious attempt to keep away from him.

Kyle felt like a marionette with someone evil pulling the strings as he pursued her...grabbing her wrist and pulling her toward him savagely...but with the touch of his hand to her wrist her thoughts flowed through...her love flowed through...and he read her thoughts...the thoughts that cared for him so much his heart nearly burst with pain at what her mind told him.
*I'm sorry Kyle...so sorry...they are going to kill you if I don't do something. This is all I can think of. Maybe in our next lives we will find happiness together...*

From the monitors a mile away the observers gathered closely to the screen as the boy tried to pin her to the sleeping mat. Tess struggled and pulled herself away briefly and a blinding glare went out from her palm past his head...obviously a warning shot to him...although it reduced the northwest corner camera to rubble.

"Keep away, Kyle...I don't want to hurt you," she yelled in warning. Apparently the alien did have some degree of affection for the kid after all, thought the observers. But that was apparently one seriously horny teenager...he charged at her again...and again she shook free...another warning shot taking out the northeast camera and damaging the one mounted on the computer......

Dr. Higby had met Bartelson at the parking lot with Dr Phillips the clinical psychologist at his side. Phillips been less than enthused when he had heard that his social experiment was going to be abruptly terminated, and as they had descended in the elevator from the guard house Phillips had attempted to object. Bartelson cut him off sharply, "I've already had my ass chewed in the Star Chamber because of the incompetence of YOUR subordinates in snatching the Sheriff's kid," said Bartelson. "Nothing...and I mean NOTHING would make me bring up that issue with those bastards again."

As they approached the monitoring room the three men heard the sounds of...cheering. When they got to the room almost a dozen men were hovering around the screens...some apparently making bets. Bartelson looked at the screens quickly...the boy was apparently trying to force himself on Tess...'Well, a condemned man is entitled to a little fun,' he thought to himself...until he noticed the two screens that were blank and the one that was showing blurry images.

"You idiots," Bartelson screamed...thankful that the two remaining cameras were at least showing Tess and the boy. "You're letting them wreck the place. Gas them....NOW!"

She had brought him close...knowing it would soon be time...just wanting to feel his touch on her body once more. She had made him throw her down onto the sleeping pad...climb on top of her...she wished she could let it go further...but she could feel his mind fighting her...appalled that his body seemed to be responding to her almost on its own. And Tess knew she wanted him...even like this...with the observers watching and the whole thing being videotaped...but she had to keep to the plan...if there was any possibility at all of Kyle surviving, that was more important than what she wanted.... As she caused him to bring his face near her hand went to his nose...a small fraction of her telekinesis causing a small vein on his nasal septum to burst and pulling a few ccs of blood into the cup of her hand...then she did it.

From 400 separate points in his body Kyle was thrust away from Tess. It was almost like inertia had ceased to exist as he was projected toward one of the remaining cameras. The force of that thrust alone would have killed him...had it not been evenly spread among the points of his body that Tess had so lovingly memorized...and the impact with the wall...but there was no impact as she stopped him millimeters from the wall by those same 400 points as the blood projected from her hand sprayed over the lens and Kyle's body slid slowly..carefully...to the floor.

The button to gas the holding area had barely been pushed when Bartelson saw the alien girl blast the boy away...just missing the camera...his body hitting with a thud so hard that it that jarred the camera next to it... the camera that now was showing the world in tones of pink as the boy's blood sprayed onto it. The boy's body slid to the floor out of sight just as Tess herself appeared overcome by the gas. For the moment, it looked like the situation was under control.

"What the HELL did you think you were doing?" Bartelson screamed at the monitors. "It's a wonder we even have video of Tess. Get a team down there and make sure that boy is dead....and see if his body is still usable for the accident." Bartelson had little doubt Kyle was dead...nobody could survive being blasted around like that...he just hoped it would still be possible to use the body in the accident scenario. He DID NOT want to see those two geriatric senators again.

In the holding area Tess sent her mind into Kyle's even as the gas overcame him. *You will forget, Kyle* she warped him..*Forget me...forget this place...forget everything since the first dart hit you. When you awaken, you will escape...get as far away from here as fast as you can...*

Tess lay on the sleeping pad alone...Kyle's unharmed body out of sight of the remaining cameras. But that wasn't how it appeared to the four people in the Rapid Reaction Team as they came through the door, the lead two with trank-dart guns and the two in back with full automatic assault rifles.

Tess herself had experienced nightmares for the first several years after she was awakened from her year of drugged sleep while the holding area had been constructed by the horrible nightmares...the memory of what she had instinctively done to those who had vivisected her. She'd tried her best to forget those images...but today she was glad she had failed as she recalled the trauma to thise people and used the memories to weave a mindwarp of the four men who stared at Kyle's sleeping body. She lashed their minds with the memories of that carnage, and since it was very close to what they actually expected, she had little difficulty making them see just what she wanted.


Bartelson was glad that the field of view left after the loss of the three cameras continued to include the sleeping Tess, since she was clearly more to be feared than some sixteen year old human teenager. Nonetheless, the protocol called for a heavily armed and armored Rapid Reaction Team if any of the components of the security system were compromised, and he watched closely as the four entered the holding cell, looking first at Tess, then at the area where the teenage boy must have fallen. Bartelson was anxious for a moment when one of the four turned suddenly away and retreat toward the door...at least until he noticed the man's isolation mask start to fill with vomit.

"Kee-RIST what a mess," said the senior man on the team with obvious disgust. "The kid's fuckin head is caved right in....half his brain is smashed."

"Could we still make it look like he's been in an auto accident?" asked Bartelson.

"Shit yes...It looks like he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and went through the fuckin' window. Remind me to never try to get it on with Tess here, I think I'll just stick to playing chess with her...maybe not even that," said Ormsby.

"OK...we need to clean up the mess and get him to the morgue...bag the kid...but Higby here says we are still going to have to decon the whole damn tunnel between the holding area and the morgue once you've moved him. Body bags aren't air tight...sometimes stuff leaks, and we aren't going to take any chances. I'm having the controller here tell the computer that the kid's chip can go through the airlock. Confirm that has been done BEFORE you bring him out."

Bartelson could tell that the men were displeased about the extra work...with a mile of tunnel and only about 40 people between the two shifts, even with the guys who were just arriving on the bus, that left each man over 125 foot of tunnel to decon. But he really didn't give a damn, these assholes had made this mess....and gotten him in trouble doing it...they could damn well clean it up. Besides, the ones that had to stay late were going to get overtime anyway...they had no reason to bitch.

As Ormsby and Griffin were pulling the zipper up on the body bag, Tess reached out her mind and stopped them...the zipper two inches from the top, although it seemed fully zipped to them. It was the last thing she could do for Kyle...the last bit of help she could give him...and she prayed it would be enough.

As they took the gurney with Kyle's body bag on it through the airlock she noted the time. Kyle should awaken in thirty minutes...most of the Facility personnel should be in the tunnel for an hour or so.

'In sixty minutes, I'll set off the nuclear device,' she told herself, praying that Kyle would get away before then and that he would have a good life without her.

Twenty minutes later, Dr. Higby met Ormsby and the others at the morgue. With the exception of the holding area, the morgue was the highest security area in the Facility, and only four personnel had access to the codes to permit entry. Perhaps it was because it was a morgue that the designers had neglected to make it difficult for people to get out, but then why would they have expected anyone to leave it?

Jim Valenti moved quickly over the dark terrain. He'd be at the hatch in ten minutes or less, and then have a chance to take a better look at the hatch mechanism itself. He had five pounds of thermite...enough to burn through the hinges and possibly the lock, depending on the construction. The thought of what the hatch itself might weigh didn't much worry him, but it was going to be hot if he melted the hinges and the lock mechanism on the other side of the hatch, because he'd first have to burn his way completely through the hatch to get to the lock mechanism. In the meantime, the molten hinges might well start to solidify...welding the hatch closed from the hinge side. He hoped he'd just be able to burn through the locking mechanism and leave the hinges alone but either way there'd be some risk. He'd just have to look at it when he got there and make the best guess he could. Life was like that sometimes...even for life and death decisions. Sometimes you just had to roll the dice and take your chances.


Kyle awoke disoriented in the darkness...unsure where he was or how he'd gotten there. When the memories returned....the shortcut through the park and the tranquilizer darts hitting him...his eyes shot open in alarm to find himself in near darkness, encapsulated in some sort of a bag. It wasn't completely closed and he worked his hands toward the zipper. He pulled at the zipper and was able to get the bag opened. He found himself naked on a stainless steel table in a metal room.

Disoriented as he was, Kyle barely hesitated before going to the door. Whatever this place was...wherever this place was...he somehow knew he had to get away...to get out and...up. He staggered to his feet and looked at the door. It was metal, with a silicon gasket seal and was almost like an airlock. But the wheel at the center of the door turned easily enough and as he opened the door he quickly saw that it was indeed an airlock that connected him to a larger room with other airlocks. Had Kyle been completely recovered from the effects of the gas...or had the compulsion to get away been less compelling, he might have ignored the other rooms that were duplicates of the room he'd awakened in...assessed that what he really needed to do was get to the exit at the end of the main room, but he wasn't recovered and black operations don't really feel constrained by building codes to put up 'exit' signs either. So he continued forward into the door directly in front of him.

Again, had it NOT been a black world operation, that door too might have been properly marked...with a sign indicating that no one should enter because the atmosphere was asphyxiating...but the few people with access to the mortuary knew of the hazard and the door had never been marked. The atmosphere in the airlock was pure Argon...not poisonous...just inert. One of the so-called 'noble gases,' it didn't react easily with anything and would not support life of any kind. It wasn't poisonous...not even reactive enough for that...and it didn't hurt to breathe it...even though it had no oxugen and wouldn't keep you alive. Of course, Kyle's lungs were full of air before he went through the door and the few breaths he took before he opened the second door weren't enough for him to completely deplete himself of oxygen before he got to the second. Nonetheless, by the time he finished turning the wheel to open the second door, the grayness overcame him and he slumped to the floor. It was just his good fortune that he'd left the doors behind him open and that the air in the main room would eventually dilute out the Argon atmosphere of the second room and he'd be able to survive. Still, it would wind up costing him some time, and the clock WAS ticking.

Bartelson sat in the observation room, observer Ormsby and Dr. Phillips at his side. The situation, he thought, was FINALLY getting under control. The boy was safely rotting away in the morgue and he'd dispatched everybody but the gate guard and the two with him in the control room down into the tunnels. Dr. Higby was enroute back to the holding area to inseminate the creature....Ormsby here had provided the semen. Tess may or may not be quite in her fertile period, but they would do it every other day until they could confirm she was pregnant. Bartelson was NOT going to face the people in the Star Chamber without telling them that the project was back on plan. A half a dozen others were going back to the holding cell to repair the damaged cameras, and pretty much the rest of the assigned personnel were already starting to decon the long tunnel. He'd contacted the folks at Sandia...they'd be ready for the body in three days, and the stolen Porsche was already in a warehouse in Taos.

Bartleby breathed a long sigh of relief. Things, he decided, were going to be alright. But Murphey's law affects the bad guys just as much as it does the good guys, as Bartleson was about to find out. There was a beep from one of the monitors.

"Uh-oh..., we got a problem," said Ormsby suddenly as his head turned to the general schematic of the facility where a chip ID was moving down the corridor away from the morgue.

He looked at the chip ID in disbelief. "That's got to be a computer glitch...."

"What is it?" asked Bartelson anxiously.

"It's the boy's ID chip....it's moving down the corridor...away from the morgue," said Dr. Phillips.

"That's not possible," said Ormsby. "I saw the kid myself...or what was left of him. There's no way he's alive...I saw his brain hanging out of his crushed skull. But the computer shows his chip is moving down the hall toward the emergency exit."

Suddenly the color drained from Dr. Phillips. "What you saw was what Tess wanted you to see. The boy's alive which means Tess is lying there awake...she mindwarped you into seeing him dead. No one saw that on the monitors...she tricked us. We were watching the wrong one. She's done this to give him a chance to escape."

"Son of a BITCH!," shouted Bartelson, already dreading what those bastards back in DC would do to him if this wasn't contained. "Send some people after him..."

"They're all in the tunnel on the other side of the morgue. They'll never get to him in time...he'll get away," said Ormsby.

"But we are close enough to get to him," said Bartelson.

"Hey, I can't leave the observation room," objected Ormsby.

"And I'm a psychologist...not ...muscle..," said Phillips.

"He's just a sixteen year old kid and there's three of us," said Bartelson, pulling his pistol from his shoulder holster and looking at them meaningfully. Both of the Facility personnel gulped, then got their protective gear on. If they hurried they could get to the escape exit about the same time the boy did.

Bartleson cursed the cumbersome protective suit for the twentieth time. The suits were far more encumbering than traveling without them...like the boy. He really had expected the boy to be through the emergency hatch, up the ladder, and running across the desert...they'd have at least had the advantage of shoes as they ran down the naked kid through the yucca and rocks...but as he turned the last corner Bartelson found they'd been luckier than they thought.

The boy was standing there naked...alone...still looking somewhat dazed, but certainly not seriously damaged. They rushed him before he could finish opening the door and within seconds it was all over and the boy was securely restrained.

"Let's take him back to the morgue and I'll get my bat," said Bartelson. "Better late than never..."

"But...don't you understand?" asked Phillips. "This means Tess is faking being unconscious. She's in there with a half dozen people fixing the cameras...maybe even Dr. Higby by now. She isn't stupid. She had to know we'd track the kid down unless she did something about it."

"You mean?" started Bartelson

"She's going to take out the whole tunnel complex near the holding facility and everyone in it. To cause as much chaos as possible so her....mate...here escape. We have to get out of here...who knows how much time we have left?"

Dr. Phillips suddenly found himself looking down the barrel of Bartelson's pistol. "That isn't going to happen. My life is over if this project fails...the committee made that clear to me. We have to stop her somehow."

Dr. Phillips looked at the boy and smiled. "She wouldn't do this if she didn't really care about the boy. We've got a hostage. We need to go by the armory quickly and get a few things. We can pick up more manpower in the tunnel as we get closer to the holding facility. If she cares enough about the kid to die for him, she ought to hesitate for a few seconds when she sees him. With luck, that'll be all we need."

Tess continued to feign unconsciousness as Dr. Higby strapped her into the stirrups of the gurney and reached for the speculum, talking to the small crowd of people who were repairing cameras and cleaning the carnage of Kyle’s ‘death’ from the holding cell…the holding cell that was in fact perfectly clean to begin with.

“Well, too bad, Tess…you missed your one chance to actually have this done the natural way. I almost was convinced you’d started to get sweet on that kid…apparently not though. That has to be the ugliest coitus interruptus on record. Well, this one won’t be interrupted,” Higby said, inserting the vaginal speculum. “I’ve got a syringe in this bag here for you here from Ormsby…I’m not sure the man likes you beating him at chess all the time. Maybe he’s figuring to do better with your joint progeny.”

Tess didn’t care…she’d endure even this. It didn’t matter…even if he inseminated her, even if it somehow found her egg in the few minutes they all still had left, it wouldn’t matter. Like everything else it would be obliterated by the bright flash of the explosion. Still, she would have preferred that it not happen if she could have avoided it. It was like defiling something sacred that she should have had with Kyle.

But Higby never picked up the syringe. Suddenly, the door burst open and four guys were shooting tranquilizer darts in to Tess, hiding behind the shield of Kyle Valenti’s body..

Dr. Higby lurched away from Tess as her body became a pincushion. Tess looked to the door and an icy hand seemed to clench her heart as she realized she couldn’t strike back without hurting him. It was only a moment’s hesitation…but it was enough. Before she could use her telekinesis..or mindwarp…her brain was cloudy with the effect of the drug. She tried her best to use molecular manipulation…to clear her system of the tranquilizer…but before she could manage, they had the IV hooked up and a constant drip of the drug was keeping away from her ability to detoxify it. ‘You are well and truly screwed,’ Tess told herself, ‘..and you’ve failed Kyle, too.’

There was a conference over at the side of the room between Bartelson, Higby, and Phillips. In ten minutes they had come to their decision. Higby walked over to Tess who was too paralyzed to move, intentionally moving into her field of view so she could see his face.

“Well Tess, we decided you are too dangerous to keep as you are. You have been…a very bad girl. We aren’t just too sure how you beat the anesthetic gas, but we have to assume that given time your…inventive…mind will figure out how to beat the tranquilizer too. So we’ve decided we need you a little LESS inventive. We have decided to do something to guarantee that. The operation is called a transorbital lobotomy. With your ability to regenerate it’s unlikely the process will kill you from infection, but you should end up considerably more…docile. In fact, you will wind up being little more than an incubator for all the little bastardsd that we will be producing from your body. With them as experimental material we will no doubt quickly find out how you do all the amazing things that you …used to..be capable of doing.”

“But before that,” said Bartelson, crowding in to her field of vision, “We are going to give you a lesson that…if the lobotomy doesn’t destroy all your memories…will teach you who is boss. We are, Tess. This game is ours…just as this planet is. Hold the boy up…where she can see him.”

Tess had never wanted this…never wanted for Kyle to be hurt. He still looked confused and uncertain as they held him by his wrists …held him in front of her where she could see…as Bartelson took the bat and brought it back. She struggled to do something…anything. She tried to dissolve the capsule within her…to get this moment over with…to blot everyone out of existence and die together with her mate cleanly…but she lacked the power to even do that. In the end, she could only lay there on the gurney, her legs still strapped in the stirrups as Bartelson brought the bat back…then swung it forward toward Kyle’s face.

At that time a mile away, Jim Valenti was packing thermite around the hatch of the escape hatch nearest the morgue. He was surprised when it opened and he fumbled for his silenced Glock until he saw the face lit by the light from below.

“Kyle?”

“Dad?”

“Kyle…?” Jim looked at the naked teenager. He seemed physically alright…except for what appeared to be a puncture of some sort under his left shoulderblade that was slowly oozing blood…but he was certainly confused…and fearful.

“Dad…we have to get out of here. Something horrible is going to happen. We need to get away…now.”


Back in the holding cell the bat was in full swing…a foot from the boy’s face, when the teenager’s hand pulled away from Ormsby’s grip with contemptuous ease. It caught the bat and Bartelson’s hands stung, like he’d swung into solid concrete. Everyone in the holding cell stared at him in disbelief, but the boy’s eyes were on Dr. Higby as he spit something on the floor and started to speak.

“Doctor Higby…has it only been ten years? Time creeps along so…tediously, when someone …suffocates you in an Argon atmosphere. You can’t even close your eyes,….you just stare at the same blank place on the ceiling for day after day. Fortunately, your escaped prisoner opened my door….”

Dr. Higby looked at the tracking chip capsule on the floor…the one he’d planted in Kyle Valenti…then his eyes shot open in horror and he grabbed quickly for the gun in Bartelson’s holster...several of the others in the holding area grabbed for their guns as well…but the powerblast was much faster than any of them.

Ten minutes later a couple of dozen people watched as Dr. Higby and Bartelson came through the door into the long corridor. Bartelson seemed to be in an evil mood.

"Get back to work! Nothing has changed...we still need this damn hallway decontaminated. Get with it!"

The workers cringed at his voice. He seemed really pissed. Even Dr. Higby seemed to be hunkered down in his decontamination suit, his face barely visible. The workers quickly looked away and tried to at least look busy. Obviously the bigwigs were in a foul mood today. Well, at least they were getting time and a half.....


Thirty minutes later Dr. Higby woke up in the holding cell...not wearing a decon suit, and with Ormsby similarly disrobed beside him. They stared at each other...and at the half dozen other people in the holding cell....in disbelief. Both the girl and the Nasedo-boy were gone.

"Shit..." said Bartleby, "if they get out of here..."

"We've got to stop them," said Higby.

There was a general rush for the door. As it opened, the faces of the men there looked up with confusion as they saw ANOTHER Bartleby and Higby....knowing the two men had left only a half hour ago. But before the confusion could be straightened out a warning bell started to ring...and the three blast doors in the long corridor started to close.

Ormsby's eyes went wide and he felt quickly in his pockets as confusion reigned in the Facility.

Bartleby and Higby at first didn't understand the look on Ormsby's face...didn't understand the alarm...until Ormsby opened his palm and showed them what he'd found in his pocket...an ID chip that Dr. Higby recognized. He had once been implanted it in Tess's back.

"Checkmate...." said Ormsby...and the nuclear device detonated.

The computer had initiated the destruct sequence as Ormsby had left the holding cell and it had only waited to get confirmation that any two of the three blast doors were closed to activate. The first one to close was the one five hundred feet from the holding cell and the second was 2500 feet up the tunnel. The third door, 4000 feet up the tunnel was only a few feet from closing when the computer detonated the bomb and even it never had time to finish…not that it would have made a hell of a lot of difference in any event.

The U-235 was like an orange with 12 segments and each segment had three detonators that went off simultaneously, compressing the fissile ball to only two-thirds of its original diameter. But since the chemical explosions of the high explosive couldn’t affect the rate of spontaneous fission of the U-235, the practical effect was to almost triple the neutron flux in the fissile mass, and it instantly became supercritical.

The cascades of neutrons across the sphere were at near light speed, and even before the small amount of Deuterium and Tritium at the core started to fuse, 15% of the neutrons that had almost escaped the perimeter of the sphere were being reflected back by the Beryllium, feeding the chain reaction…and as the 85% ‘leakers’ through the Beryllium neutron reflector continued …still at an appreciable fraction of light speed, they struck first the bottom and then the sides of the computer desk, and many reflected back from the depleted Uranium to drive the neutron flux within the incandescent ball of U-235 plasma to even greater heights…driving the fission reaction far higher than it’s designers had ever intended. But as the initial neutron flux hit the top of the desk…that’s where things really got interesting.

The mixture of U-235 and Pu-239 that had been formed by years of attempts by a bored and lonely little girl to manipulate the desktop were not quite a critical mass itself, but driven by the huge neutron flux of a fission weapon less than a meter distant, it became one. Normally the explosion of small nuclear devices is limited by the fact that they blow themselves apart before they can be sustained, and had either of these devices been alone, neither would have yielded more than a few tens of kilotons. But there explosions occurred near simultaneously…differing only by the time it took neutrons traveling at near light speed to cross a space of less than a meter…about ten to the minus tenth seconds…and the effect on the small fission weapon that had started this chain reaction was truly awesome.

The U-235 plasma flattened as the nuclear explosion above it deformed it…and as the fresh neutron flux lashed the chain reaction even further, the nuclei of uncountable U-235 atoms died as the neutron flux split them into lighter weight reaction products…and they gave up their packing energy to form a plasma ball like a small sun….a sun that instantly went nova.

Most of the force of the explosion was actually directed down, pushed that way by the smaller explosion of the desk top mini-nuke, but even so, fifty feet of rock on all sides of the holding cell were vaporized, and the cracks in the hard rock extended to the surface, where vents of incandescent gases briefly lit the sky. The fireball carved the chamber almost 100 foot deeper, spending a portion of it’s fury on the hard rock there as well. But where there were voids in that rock…nothing but air to stop the fireball, it went a lot farther.

The designers had not been 100% sure that the first set of blast doors would contain the force of explosion, but what they had not even considered was that the explosion would be of such a magnitude that the first set of blast doors themselves…all of five hundred feet from the device…would itself be vaporized by the fireball.

The fireball faded after the first 800 feet, but the force of the explosion continued to push the mass of vaporized rock and depleted Uranium…as well as the vaporized steel of the first set of blast doors… at several multiples of the speed of sound in air, even as the rock and concrete of the tunnel itself cracked from transmitted ground shock. The mass of material…still largely in the form of a plasma…passed through the doors at 2500 feet as if they were not even there…less than a second after the detonation had occurred, and the third door was blown off it’s huge hinges as the fury of the explosion sought out every avenue to escape…and a hellish vapor of 5000 degree radioactive gas vented from every air vent, emergency escape, and lastly from the guard shack itself.

When it was over, the ‘sterilization option’ had done its work far better than its designers had ever intended. There was no life of any sort in what had once been ‘the Facility’, and nothing could live in the radioactive rubble…not for a couple thousand years at least.

Five miles away, Amy saw the flash in the rearview mirror...and was temprorarily flash-blinded. Jim helped her steady the wheel, pushing his own foot down on the accelerator to put as much distance between them and the explosion as possible in the twenty-five seconds they had before the shock wave got to them. When it hit, it caused a spiderweb fracture in the safety glass of the rear window, but the glass held. As the fireball died down grom the explosion, Jim Valenti looked in the back seat at his son.

"Well, Kyle, you were right about needing to get away from there. I don't think we'll have to worry too much about pursuit, either."

"God it's good to be back, Dad," Kyle said. But even as he said it he felt like something was....missing. Somehow he felt like he'd left something behind...something important.

It was two weeks later in the Star Chamber under the Senate Office Building. The two Senators looked at the man...their disappintment keen. The whole program was a disaster. The best cover they could come up with had been that an old 1950s era nuclear reactor had been forgotten by the ancient atomic energy commission and it had failed in a way that made it go critical. Hardly anyone was stupid enough to believe THAT story, but still...until a few centuries went by the place would be too radioactive for anyone to be able to disprove it either. Sometimes that was the best you could do. They had in fact been fortunate that so little of the radioactive debris had gotten airborne and vented off the government land...government land that was still going to need an expensive cleanup...even without touching the Facility itself where the U-238 had apparently neutron activated and left a God-awful mess.

It was tempting...very tempting...for them to blame the man before them for this debacle, but in all fairness he had been somewhat of a newcomer...and he had had absolutely nothing to do with what had turned out to be the disastrous decision to colocate a nuclear device with vast quantities of U-238. Besides, even though he was the only survivor from the facility, it was doubtful that even he would last much longer. He'd been too close to ground zero, and the physicists did not anticipate him having a particularly long life.

"Well, Mr. Bartelson, the committee has decided this really wasn't your fault, but we'd like you...like this whole operation...to just go away now."

"So I understand, sir," said Bartelson.

"We intend to be reasonable...you should be hearing from the witness protection program shortly...if you haven't already...getting a new identity. We'll see that you get a pension."

"Thank you, sir," the man said. He appeared more sincere than he was actually, but then he also appeared more human than he was as well. He'd already found the Swiss bank accounts that the real Bartelson had embezzled...he'd never want for money...not if he lived another 4000 years...which was likely, and he already had talked to the witness protection people about a new identity. His new name would be Ed...Ed Harding...and he was about to disappear from government service forever.

Twenty minutes later he was on the Washington Metro and the blond teenager came over to sit beside him.

"So how'd it go?"

"Excellent. Your new name is Harding...I'm Ed, by the way. You and your 'daddy' are getting out of town. DC can be such a ....sultry.... place in the summertime with all this humidity."

"I think the desert would be nice," said Tess Harding with a smile.

"I do,too," said her 'father'.

They got off the Metro at National Airport and went to the ticket counter. Ed showed security his new ID. Tess showed them a Hershey bar, but it seemed to do the trick. Pretty soon they were westbound on the same flight the real Bartelson had used two weeks previously to get to El Paso.

It was three months later on a Friday night...the first league game of the season for the West Roswell High football team and by far their most difficult opponent. If they got by Clovis, they were almost certainly going on to win the league and had a good shot at the state championship. They had eked out meager victories over their first three non-league opponents, due in large part to senior quarterback Donnie Fowler. It wasn't that Fowler didn't have talent...he was just lazy...refusing to do the sort of prep work that would really let him be effective while at the same time refusing to listen to Coach Crenshaw. Donnie always thought he knew best, despite his lack of preparation.

The fact is that Crenshaw would have benched Donnie after the first game...actually probably after the first half of the first game, if he'd been sure about Kyle Valenti. Oh, the coach didn't doubt his character or his willingness to work hard...it was just that the kid still had that period of amnesia from the time he had gone missing, and both the coach and the team doctor were a little worried about him getting into the action and maybe getting his bell rung so soon after...well...after whatever the heck kind of trauma he'd already been through.

But it was now a month into the season and Fowler had been totally ineffective for almost four quarters. The defense had held Clovis to one touchdown, and when Donnie Fowler had gone out and just totally blown off the call that the coach had made, Crenshaw had finally had enough.

"Valenti...go in for Fowler. The play is a fake post flag pattern to Willis."

Donnie Fowler looked up with disbelief as Valenti came in from the sidelines. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Replacing you..."

The senior looked at the sophomore in disbelief...then at the coach...finally at the other seniors in his clique.

"See that this bastard gets what he deserves," said Fowler before turning and sullenly walking off the field slowly.

Kyle called the play and went under center. He got no blocking whatsoever from the seniors on the team and the defense came through the line virtually unopposed. Kyle was was slammed down hard for a loss in his own backfield before he could even get started. But apparently the coach was in no mood for such things because every senior who hadn't bothered to block found himself replaced before the next play to sit in sullen silence next to Donnie on the bench.

Kyle called the same play again on what was now a fourth and 22 situation on the Clovis 42..with virtually no time remaining. The cornerback went for the fake and Willis got two steps ahead of him. The pass from Kyle caught him in mid-stride and Willis gradually pulled away from the defensive back for 58 yards and a Roswell touchdown. As he crossed the goal line, the timekeepers gun fired. The score was now 7-6 in favor of Roswell with the try for point to go. Kyle took a timeout and went to the sidelines.

"OK, coach...what do you want us to do?" asked Kyle.

"Your call, son. We can kick it for a tie, or try for the win. You're my quarterback for the rest of the season...what do you want to do?"

"Go for it."

"OK, son...let's get the two points."

The other team was trash-talking..."Hey Valenti...understand you got abducted by aliens. By the time we get done with you, you'll wish you were back aboard some saucer...getting an anal probe or somethin' " Kyle tried to ignore them.

The Roswell cheerleaders went to the field just behind the endzone and started to cheer the team on...Kyle tried to ignore them.

Kyle called for another pass to Willis...he was the fastest guy on the field. The ball was hiked and Kyle rolled to the right and looked into the endzone, but the lack of depth of the field had compressed the route that Willis could run. The cornerback was covering him deep, the outside linebacker was covering him shallow. Kyle saw the crease...the outside linebacker was too wide and he took off running for the goal line between the inside and the middle linebackers. Both saw what he was doing..a half step too late. Both broke for the quarterback at the same time.

Kyle knew he would make it to the goal line...knew he could win the game...but it was going to be ugly. Both linebakers outweighed him by at least 60 pounds, and they were going to hit him hi-low with the middle linebacker hitting him at the knees going one way and the outside linebacker hitting him in the head or shoulders going the other way. He'd win the game, but he might not remember doing it. And as he crossed the line he knew it was going to hurt...and they hit him just as he expected except...it really didn't hurt all that much.

Kyle felt his body rotate with the hits... it was a dizzying experience but it was almost as if the laws of physics had somehow been suspended to keep the two guys from tearing him apart. He lay in the endzone looking up and the West Roswell High cheerleading squad ran up to celebrate.

All at once he saw the face looking down at him, framed by golden curls. "Nice game, Valenti. Maybe I'll see you at the dance?"

"Uh...sure." he said quickly, as his teamates started to mob him.

He knew the name of the new girl...Tess Harding, and that she was somewhat of a football groupie. He wasn't sure just exactly how a sophomore transfer student had gotten the votes to become a cheerleader her first year, but since Isabel Evans had dropped out of cheerleading to spend more time with Alex Whitman...well, somehow the new girl had gotten the votes. What worried Kyle was that she seemed to date only football players...at least five or six of them so far...and they got one date each, and then she'd drop them like the proverbial hot rock. And all six of the guys...even the locker room Lotharios she'd dated had been consistent about one thing...they'd had a good time...she was pleasant...but not one of them had ever even gotten to first base.

It sort of made Kyle wonder just what kind of a girl she was.

'What ARE you doing?' Kyle asked himself as he drove away from the dance. He'd said good-bye to his father after the game. His father had to go up to Albuquerque for the weekend. Maria had told him her mother was doing the same thing...no doubt more undercover work, as Maria had described it. 'Well, at least they've set the date...'

Kyle's eyes turned to the young lady sitting in the passenger seat of the Mustang he'd spent much of the summer doing body work on and painting. The Mustang looked great...but the young lady looked even better. He'd invited her to go to the Crashdown for an after dance drink but she'd said she'd rather he came to her house to have a few snacks and to listen to CD's in her living room. He had this odd feeling about her...especially with her history of dating guys one time and dumping them...that this couldn't possibly work out...but her smile seemed genuine enough.

Her father met them at the door with soft drinks and a plate of...super nachos. Kyle hadn't thought that anyone else made those...although half of them were covered with jalapenos that were almost on fire. Tess didn't seem to mind them though. They sat in the living room munching on nachos and listening to the music. It was very pleasant.

Kyle wasn't the most experienced guy when it came to dating and really didn't expect too much from a first date...especially this one...but as the evening wore on, he found Tess closer and closer to him on the couch. Eventually, their lips were only inches apart and he got up the nerve to let his lips brush softly against hers, waiting for her to protest. Instead, she seemed to melt into him....

Forty-five minutes later, Kyle was coming up for air. The kisses had been long...and passionate, the embraces closer and closer. He'd gone well beyond anywhere he'd previously gone ... not just on a first date...but ever. Kyle was afraid he was going too far..that he'd scare Tess off...but he didn't seem to be able to help himself.

She'd changed out of her cheerleader outfit after they'd gotten to her house...to put on something 'more comfortable' and the sheer blouse she was now wearing barely concealed the bra underneath. Suddenly he found his hand creeping up her back...almost like it had a mind of its own...from her waist upward...finally touching the bra strap. He waited fearfully for an explosion..but when none came..he put his fingers gently under the strap and...almost against his will...found his fingers moving slowly along her right side toward her arm. He waited carefully for her to bring the arm down to block the advance of his fingers...but it didn't happen. His fingers continued their journey but just as he was about to get to the edge of second base, Tess gave a small jump..and stood up.

"Hold that thought," she said. "I forgot something." She ran in to the kitchen.

Kyle wasn't sure what to believe. He thought he'd probably pushed her too far ..particularly since her father was sitting there in the kitchen...but...'Hold that thought...???'

As Tess rushed in to the kitchen Ed Harding looked up from a Medieval history text he was reading.

"You," she said...need to go."

"Oh, I don't think so. According to this, I shouldn't even let you two be in the same room alone together until after the banns are read."

"This is NOT the fourteenth century, and fluorosilicon or not..if you do not leave this house immediately, I will powerblast your alien butt."

The man smiled and shook his head in apparent disdain. "Shocking how violent these class five worlds and the beings in them are....I believe you'd actually do it. "

"You better bet I'd do it...and don't come back until Sunday afternoon at least....and make sure you let Kyle know you are going."

"Well, I suppose I could contact Max Evans...Lord knows how much stray radiation your chosen in there picked up from all that dabbling with Uranium-238 you were doing. It might be best if the young man got a deep healing at the DNA level...before you get TOO carried away."

"I'm on the pill...don't worry."

"I actually wasn't worried about you, Tess....just your poor unsuspecting victim there."

"Go....!"

Kyle was taken aback when Ed Harding entered the room and announced that he'd been called out of town unexpectedly...asked Kyle to look after Tess for him, and left. Tess returned from the kitchen with another plate of super-nachos which sat there going to waste as they picked up where they'd left off.

Kyle couldn't believe he was actually doing it...but he felt his hand slowly work itself along the bra strap until he found himself cupping her breast. He looked into Tess's eyes to see what her reaction was going to be...never more unsure of himself in his entire life.

"I don't see where you find the patience and self control, Kyle," she said, and Kyle started to take it as sarcasm...until the bra and blouse dissolved before his eyes and she reached deep into his mind to remove the memory block.

"Well," said Tess with a quirky smile, "I've gotten you to second base, Kyle, but now we are going to play my game and I'm predicting...mate in two moves."...and as it turned out, she was absolutely correct.


The End