Disclaimer: I do not own any part of this series. Nor am I the intellect behind Bennie's fic Conspiracy. If Bennie were to find and read this, I sincerely hope that the production of the piece is permissible; all attempts at contact have turned up returned-to-sender e-mails.
Summary: Liz always knew a return to Roswell was in the cards. Five years after she left, Fate plucked that one from the deck. AU inspired by 'Conspiracy' (details inside).
Author's Note: This story is loosely inspired by the universe of Bennie's story Conspiracy. Here is a link: I highly encourage you to read it, and others on the site. (http)(:)(/)(/)(bennie).(tvheaven).(com)(/conspiracy01)(.html). Just remove parentheses.
A basic summary: Roswell is home to refugee Antarians. Liz is a foundling, but not told the truth about her community's alien nature. King Max and the Antarians did not want her to leave, but Liz wanted to go to college. Eventually, the sense that she was not part of a large secret in her loved ones' lives led to Liz running away.
She and Max were never together, though there was a spontaneous comfort-kiss-slash-lustful-encounter type scene (referenced later in this story). In Bennie's story, an added 'Epilogue' involves Liz returning some years later and Max finally letting her in on the secret: this story can be seen as a reader's interpretation of a different 'epilogue' (though it evolved into a multi-chapter story).
Title of this story is from the song "Song of Los" by Apparat.
Title for this chapter is from the song "Bones" by MS MR.
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The pages of self made cages (Hard times for dreamers)
…
Five years.
Half a decade has passed since I left Roswell, and so much has changed in me. I learned so much that sometimes I think my head is full of dense weight. I thought life was difficult in a cage.
Now I know. It could have been worse.
Sometimes I think about my last conversation with Max, and I wonder how close to the edge we came. How close he was. How close I might have been, without even realizing it.
Have you ever repeated a conversation in your head? Thought of comebacks when the moment passed? I did, a lot, after Max drove away, hurt by my honest denial. After I climbed on that freeway-bound bus. I never said goodbye to my family or my friends.
I imagined recording a cassette tape and mailing it back to Roswell. My dad would carefully slot it into place in the small radio on the back counter, turning the knob up so my voice sounded like it came from a throat. My mom would accept my apologies with tears in her eye. I'd send a verbal hug to Maria and Alex, a nod to Michael's unwavering presence. And Max would sit and listen, the hurt of my departure having faded.
"You couldn't keep me here," I scripted in my head. "Sure, you could keep my body in this town, but in the end that's all you'd have. A body. I couldn't live like that. I'm human. I needed space, I needed air, I needed to breathe and be free for a while before I could commit."
I always stop there. Commit. Commit what? My mind, my heart, my soul? (All three?)
Five years ago, I left my house with no goodbye, the possibility of love with no hesitation, and all because I thought that I had no choice. I felt trapped and watched and so tired of my own paranoia.
But it turns out, I wasn't wrong about a conspiracy.
Roswell has a secret. It's a secret held in the hearts and minds of a people who had everything to lose and nothing left to give.
I know now that they could have stopped me. They could have forced me to stay at the command of the man in charge. He could have done it himself.
But he let me go. It must have taken everything he had, must have become a constant weight and stress that he could never escape. A worry in the back of everyone's mind, unspoken dread clinging to every memory of me. What I might say, or do, or think if I ever found out. What could happen to me in the big world beyond the defensive borders of their small town.
I'm glad I know that now. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.
Four years ago, I went to a job interview and my world changed.
After I left Roswell, I spent a year scrounging and saving, working odd jobs and living in an old woman's attic (she had an extra pair of hands around the house and I had a safe place to sleep at night). I finally achieved my dream to wander halls of knowledge beyond a high school in New Mexico.
It wasn't everything I expected. It was more, and it was less. It was transitory, a place I belonged to by default, a large school where I felt the lack of close community. The air felt wrong—like a missing vibration, a piano tuned just a little sharp.
Then, in-between odd jobs and with rent coming due, I received a letter with a job offer from a particularly dubious, curious source: the federal government.
Something made me dial the phone number—likely the college student with looming debt, or perhaps the lonely student on an overwhelmingly large campus, or maybe even the girl who was sick of being excluded from secrets. So I dialed, bought a smart suit, and found myself standing in an office while the entire universe warped and shifted around me.
And when I was offered a job, I accepted without hesitation and was put in a training program for two years. They demanded a lot and I gave it my all.
The more I learned, the more I felt that I owed my hometown. I owed myself. All those years, I never understood why secrecy, why paranoia, why I felt like an outsider. And now that I knew, I realized that I did have a place. This career gave me a place.
Science is important to me. Always was, always would be. Between further academic classes, I was sweating, working my muscles to unforeseen physical peaks. I got my hands dirty and my knees scraped, my back sore and my lungs aching. But six months in, I traversed the obstacle courses like a pro.
My interviewer-hirer-supervisor, Brody, was a great mentor. He pushed me academically, always encouraging me to absorb as much as my human brain could manage. And he was always there for me on the toughest days, ready with explanations and rebuilding the confidence I'd lost somewhere along the way.
It took determination to leave Roswell and everyone I loved. But confidence I lacked, and it was confidence I gained, under the tutelage of an alien's host body.
Yes, that's right. Brody, Larek's host body.
Larek visits Earth to check up on Antar's lost colony. Sound crazy? It's true. When he brought me into my interview, sat me down, told me—and then proved it—I knew I'd just been let in on something big.
The bigger shock was learning about my hometown being that very colony.
And I was the lone human.
My parents didn't abduct me or anything. Larek told me that he's kept a distant but careful eye on the colony ever since it was rediscovered by his planet. Antar was a neighbor, and it was taken over by a parasitic alien lifeform. While some were able to evacuate, the parasites spread quickly and wiped out the majority of the Antarians. The rest of the confederation—formed by a system of five plants orbiting nearby suns—banded together to destroy the parasites and stop them from spreading to the other planets.
They were successful in stopping the infection, but at a cost: by isolating and destroying the ecosystem they thrived on. The price of winning was Antar.
One of the refugee ships blasted through space in Earth's direction before Antar fell, but lost contact with the remaining confederation due to pre-liftoff damage. They made it here, began building a new life at their crash site, and made an effort to remain under the government's radar. King Zan, whose essence was saved to transfer into a body which could survive in this ecosystem, leads them now. Keeps them safe.
Antarians are a peaceful people, which is how the parasites were able to take their home planet. They can defend themselves, but tend towards harmony. They are an empathic race and prefer avoiding conflict—retreat instead of attack, withdraw instead of defend. Nurture is highly valued among their people.
The evidence Larek has found indicates that my birth mother was a teen runaway. She gave birth in the desert, and brought me closer to civilization—but perished before she could make all the way into town, weakened by blood loss. If she had been in a hospital, she might have lived with medical attention.
But instead, she was running from something. Heading nowhere in particular.
We have that in common. Something in our blood that makes us seek freedom. She headed to the open skies and wide spaces of the desert. I retreated to the towering heights of a layered city. But we both ran away, our very bones unprepared to settle, needing the movement of uncertainty.
I was lucky to be found and they were afraid I wouldn't live for the first week of my life. Yet I grew stronger, and the couple who found my birth mother and I in the desert wanted to keep me.
The Antarian people may have debated whether to keep me or turn me over to humans. But my parents wanted me. Larek—under the guise of a human traveler—saw to it with his own eyes that I was wanted. Not that he ever doubted I would be, not when he knew King Zan and what kind of a leader he was. He says he even knew my parents back on Antar. The confederation was in close contact.
I asked him recently why he kept his distance. Larek said, "They still mourn for the home they lost and know they can never return. They deserve the chance to rebuild where they are, to lead their lives in peace."
Under the serene response, I heard the tumultuous, "They do not know the full story of Antar's loss. We had to destroy so much of what they loved that it is only a barren rock. Let them keep their memories whole."
I also heard a fondly weary, "Zan does his best for his people with what little he has, and he is still very young in this lifetime. They deserve a little bit of security and peace."
That's what we're for.
Larek picked his agents in a very particular manner.
We all endured a bit of what I call "mind-melding". With some detailed information about location and a prepared area, Larek can press on consciousness from his astonishing distance. It is not intrusive enough to read thoughts, only to gain a sense of trustworthiness. Those who passed his test were invited onto a project secret from every branch of the government, details vague even to supervisors who grant us clearance. There are men and women previously from the CIA and the FBI of the United States, from every conceivable top-secret organization globally, and a few specialists Larek dug up from who-knew-where.
The mind test was disquieting. He told me later he already knew I could be trusted. It was merely a matter of whether I was ready to know the truth or not.
I was. And I never made him regret bringing me in.
Our group was called the Safeguard. Larek came up with it. Brody funded it, fully aware of his own role in the whole situation and overly enthusiastic about it—he was a UFO nut before Larek's first contact, which to him was like a dream come true. He was a self-made, insanely lucky millionaire, who used his wealth and resources to build a small, quiet empire whose only priority was to ensure that Roswell remained a safe place for refugee Antarians.
Safeguard was not able to control everything the government did, but we ensured that Roswell remained a safe zone. Zan remained unaware of our existence, a fact that troubled but also relieved Larek. Zan was his friend, but the young king wasn't ready to contact the confederation. The ship was damaged upon landing, and there was a whole saga Larek did not want to talk about involving military confiscation and Antarian recovery efforts. (Several people involved –military, concerned citizen, reporter—were members of Safeguard now: though older and unable to do some things, they were very useful in other arenas).
The Antarians on Earth had not sent a message to their allies. Larek didn't know if the transmission equipment was damaged, but he assumed that if they had not found a way to fix the problem they weren't eager to contact the confederation. They were still grieving and confirmation of Antar's loss would hurt too deeply.
Larek wanted to protect Zan. I thought his motivation was a bit noble, but a lot misguided.
Zan deserved to know the truth. Larek couldn't protect him from that forever.
Belonging to Safeguard had always meant that a return to Roswell was in the cards.
Unsurprisingly, one day Fate plucked that one from the deck.
The convoy of SUVs in a shade darker than midnight, eighteen long and blind-siding the speed limit, snaked a single line down the 285 to Roswell.
I sat in the middle, somewhere between car 4 and car 9, phone glued to my ear as I coordinated the party. I was skipping out on a research project, but academics were far from a priority.
On the screen before me was a live feed from traffic cameras. They were able to capture the city hall—and the street, lined with a few dusty army vehicles and guarded by tough-looking agents.
Some of these men and women were just following their leading agent's commands. Others knew what they were really doing in Roswell.
We would deal with that later. Right now, I cared more about the citizens of Roswell. The entire population was under surveillance, with jeeps and tanks closing off all access routes. People were being restricted their homes, those who had been on the streets led to a secured area. I had no way of knowing with certainty who was where, but infiltrating agents confirmed several key targets being held in the city hall.
Zan was one. The king's second-in-command Rath, head of security. Vilandra, his sister and chief advisor who managed public concerns. The king's estranged wife Ava, who remained queen in name to her people and good friend to the royal family. Oeri, Rath's wife and curator of their planet's art forms and cultural artifacts. Unconfirmed but possible were Lomeh and Xon, royal guards.
Larek spoke quickly in my ear, feeding me information and directions. When he was done I snapped my phone shut and picked up a radio.
"All teams, standby." Confirmations came through. "Alpha through Echo come into the center of town. All others, split to your pre-arranged coordinates and follow instructions given on-base. Call in once secure. Teams Delta, Echo, and Bravo, head to your prearranged coordinates and deal with rogue agents. Team Charlie, station yourselves at your prearranged coordinates and remain in the vehicle."
One by one, the teams confirmed their directions. My team—Alpha—remained silent as I switched off the radio. "We wait until all teams report in secured locations. We must have control of the area," I said, my voice reaching every quiet corner of the speeding car. "Await my instructions. Be prepared to move."
This was where all Safeguard's training led. Our purpose became reality when a threat moved on our protected entity.
And I was in charge, only answering to the Director.
It felt like a jump, but after three years of work I also felt like I had earned the position. I had absorbed lessons from my co-workers, gone through advanced training and practiced until a commanding tone became engrained. It was hard, but felt right, to make these calls and lead these men and women. They turned to me in a way I had started to anticipate. They saw something in my leadership.
So I would be what they needed me to be. My broken-in pants were perfectly pressed. My shirt was none too snug, nor too loose. My breasts were compressed by a snug bra, small though I thought them, and my suit jacket and badge bumped my appearance from "office worker" to "agent". My shoes had a slight heel but were comfortable for a run and a fight. My hair was pulled back into a tight tail atop my head.
Safeguard made sure we were ready for any situation: I trained in these clothes. The sense memories bolstered my resolve.
The first SUV reached the checkpoint, slowed, released one of my team leaders. After a short period of conversation, the rest of us were waved through. We passed the SUV which remained: they would take care of this checkpoint, informing them of what their old orders meant, what their new orders were, and what would happen next.
Brody and Larek might have done a lot, but this was unofficially official, sanctioned by an actual government higher-up. We were given jurisdiction. We were the authorities now.
SUVs split as we approached the town. A through E headed into the center, and the rest split to deal with other agents stationed around Roswell.
I kept my eyes on our tech setup instead of watching my childhood home pass.
Once reaching our destination, we sat in silence and waited the streets to be cleared, waited for Bravo to infiltrate the hall.
Waited as they entered and surrounded our opposition. Sully derailed our foe expertly. The situation devolved into a standoff, but we had expected as much. That was why only one team went in: the second would tip the scales in our favor, pull the rug out from underneath the others.
I watched until acknowledgments came in from my teams all over town. Then I pressed the reply button, excluding my occupied Bravo team. "Good. Maintain positions. Await further orders. Team Charlie, be prepared to move." Acknowledgments. "Alpha Team, move out." They surged ahead of me, keeping their leader safe while performing their required duties.
My heels made no sound on the concrete sidewalk and clicked when I reached the five wide marble steps. I inhaled the dry scent of sand and stone, felt the cold of sunset filtering through wind-blown sky, heard the rumbles of car engines and the feet of my own agents.
Home. I'd never felt so attached yet distant.
The city hall doors opened to my agents' charge. They spilled down the corridor, entered the main meeting room through the front doors, and spread out inside. I paused in the doorway—theatric, perhaps. But more pointedly, asserting my dominance. I had no fear, exposed my presence, stood in plain sight. I was in charge here.
I took in the room from behind mirrored sunglasses. Yes, there was Rath closest to the king, Oeri behind his outstretched arm, her own reaching forward as if to slip around and shield him instead. Lomeh, defensive posture shielding Vilandra. Ava, the queen, gripped a letter opener as though it were a knife. And Zan, face an indecipherable mask.
I did not look closer at their faces.
But I felt their eyes.
They shifted from me, to my agents, to the agents who were there before us, and to their leader. He stood in the center of the room, gun aimed at the king.
Pierce, the alien-hunter.
The government had him on their payroll for a lot of reasons. He found secrets like a bloodhound. He made an excellent cup of coffee, and was a charismatic conversationalist. He was ruthless. He could be useful.
He had also been tagged by his own agency as having the potential to go rogue.
Our good fortune. They wanted no hand in our intervention.
Framed by the dying rays of sunset, I let my arms dangle loose in their sockets. Ready.
Pierce turned to look at me. His eyes were wild. The lines that never warmed his smile were sharper than ever, his forehead deeply creased, his shoulders bunched and tightened. He was worse than unhappy. He was not stable.
To our advantage, the aliens in the room were wary of their secret. They were reacting more like humans would in the face of assault by armed government agents. No hands extended to use their powers—but that was hardly enough to dissuade Pierce. I was surprised Rath hadn't moved already, with the king under direct threat. Zan must have made it an order: no exposure. No matter what.
My observations were made while my body remained motionless. The sunglasses made me feel less exposed when recognition shone from face to face. Yet no one so much as breathed my name. The Antarians were probably far too shocked to draw attention to knowing me.
My agents did not have their weapons out. Pierce's did not seem to know what to do, weapons drawn but lingering on the ground or a wall.
When Pierce turned, Zan fell out of his line of sight. It was arrogance, but the refugee king did not make a move. Instead, his composure crumpled at the corners and his eyes were on me. His gaze felt the heaviest, a weight and pressure tracing the lines of my limbs, drinking in the color of my skin and the shade of my clothes. I could feel it. My heart rejoiced and despaired when he reestablished his barriers.
In the time I squirmed internally under those alien eyes, Pierce drawled, "Stone."
The name I used, undercover for a Safeguard investigation. My response was a single nod. He smiled. The corners of his eyes stayed flat.
I looked to his underlings. "Agent Lee, you and all your subordinates will leave this location immediately and turn yourselves over to the agents waiting outside." He was clearly startled by my command. Pierce's aim wobbled. Lee opened his mouth, hesitated, and glanced between me and his commanding officer. I tapped my fingers on the shield at my hip. "Now, agent."
"You can't come into an active investigation and issue orders to my men," Pierce interrupted, turning his full attention to me. "Why are you here, Stone?"
His gun lowered. I breathed more easily. Zan eyed the back of Pierce's head, then me. Calculating.
I hoped fervently he saw my edging footsteps, approaching a wild animal liable to pounce. That he waited. That he stayed back.
"If you cooperate you might keep your job. If I and my supervisor determine that you were unaware of the circumstances, you may escape criminal charges—"
"Criminal?" Lee blurted.
"—but the same is not true for your former-agent supervisor—"
"Former," Pierce snarled. "I am a federal agent of the United States and you have absolutely no authority over me!" His shout bounded from ceiling to floor, rolling into brittle silence.
My fingers tightened on my hips. "I advise you to consider your options carefully."
Lee blinked. Pierce's other agents seemed dazed. Only McCarthy and Burns stared at me with flat eyes, and I knew they, at least, were fully aware of the situation.
Pierce stalked toward me. His gun-hand waved in the air erratically as he roared, "This is my operation! Who do you think you are—"
My chin tilted up so I could continue meeting his eyes. "I deal with messes like you."
"Me? I'm the only one here doing my fucking job!"
I eyed the gun. "Lower your weapon, sir." Sully practically vibrated on my left, but he wouldn't react proactively. Zan, on the other hand…
By leaving Roswell, I burned every bridge I'd ever constructed myself or let others build for me. But I now knew Zan better than I ever did while living in Roswell. And I could see, over Pierce's shoulder, that the king's expression had gone from detached to furious. Rath gripped his shoulder.
So when Pierce's eyes shone with an unfamiliar glint, I was less worried than I could have been. And he lowered it, all right—between my eyes.
Would you believe, this was not the first time I had stared down the barrel of a gun?
It was only notable because this was the first time anyone from my former life was witness to it.
Sully's gun clicked, inches away from Pierce's ear.
The click muffled my name, gasped from Oeri's lips: I barely heard her voice, only a fragment which sounded more like a squeak of fear.
Zan struggled against the grip Rath and Vilandra had on him, both arms pinned. Pierce loomed. With the sunglasses hiding my eyes, my fear didn't register.
The air turned thick as gel.
I repeated my command. "Agent Lee, take your men off the premises." Lee looked at Pierce's profile. His fingers twitched. The agents hesitated.
Then they moved. My team escorted them to the doors.
Pierce's eyes rolled in their sockets, flying around the room to take in the shift of his forces from his side to mine. The gun aimed at my head shook. I felt flecks of spit on my cheek as he snarled, "You're here for answers, aren't you? I'm the only one who can give them to you! Who can tell you what no one wants you to know!"
Hearing that in this place shuffled forth memories of longing, memories of wishing that whatever conspiracy kept me in the dark could be broken, memories of lies and secrecy and pain.
His offer when I was home was a cruel gut punch.
He truly was that good at reading people.
Contrary to what he hoped, I could see his reaction had exactly the effect for which I hoped. The agents clearly not in the know were rattled by his seeming imbalance. I saw only McCarthy and Burns lingering at the back. I peeked around the outside edge of my glasses. Vasquez did not look at me, but her head bobbed slowly. She'd take care of it.
Rage emanated from the Antarians, keeping the room in a state of imbalance as the agents cleared out. It was like a live entity, something nearly tangible. I refused to look back at Zan.
The only thing keeping them in check was uncertainty about my role here. And that anger was soaked in fear, worry that I would take him up on his offer.
But Pierce was playing his only card. Isolated, hand clenched around his weapon, he backed away two steps. His arm shook with small tremors, though he didn't lower his weapon—incorrectly thinking I was bargaining chip or savior. Sully hadn't moved, either.
Pierce knew that there was no way out. Lower his weapon, we'd take him in. Shoot me, Sully would retaliate.
The only wild cards here were the Antarians. I felt the weight of eyes on me. So many eyes.
Taking a deep breath, I let the last vestiges of fear slip away.
This man threatened my people. I did not want this man to leave the desert alive.
I felt the ruthless serenity of knowing. My actions would never make it into a government report. I was, in fact, cleared no matter what outcome Pierce pushed. (It was the emotion that kept me going in the rough parts of training, when I thought about why secrets were so necessary to everyone I loved, when I reviewed security footage. This was the callousness I doubt anyone ever knew I could possess.)
Pierce's gun hand wavered when he saw that his control over me was as tenuous as his ability to interrogate alien prisoners.
"Where are they, Pierce?" I asked.
He frowned. His jaw clenched. His finger twitched on the trigger. Sully inhaled, preparing himself to fire steady and sure.
Slowly, I reached up with one hand and slipped the sunglasses off my face. Let him my eyes not tearful or pleading, nor merciless and cold. Eyes empty of fear. I stared down the barrel of the gun and let flood my heart memories of home when I was happy—dancing with Maria, listening to music on a car radio, walking down the hallways at school with Alex's fingers poking my shoulder. (A brief, stolen, mistake of a moment astride Max in the Jeep.)
That was all he saw looking at me.
And in return, I saw the cracks of insanity peel back. He looked at my expression and remembered.
His arm started to lower—halting, jerky movements.
I don't know whether it was a signal or true emotion.
The scene in my head is more expansive than that moment felt.
A scuffle broke out behind me. Vasquez would have subdued a returning loyalist with barely a sound, so I did not hesitate to turn. Away from Pierce.
My gun out of its holster and in my hands, a slip-second movement that was trained into my hands and arms. Aim, pull, see McCarthy stagger and collapse, clutching his gut, Vasquez lunging from her knees to shove McCarthy's weapon out of the way.
I turned back, recalling a gun aimed at my head. My own lifted in weak defense. Thinking my moments would be the last, if Sully was the slower draw.
I killed before.
Previous mission. Extenuating circumstances. It was unpleasant and messy and far too close, right in my face. But I did it and I would do it again.
Maybe that's one of the big reasons I was afraid to go home after I learned all the reasons for secrecy.
All Zan ever wanted was peace.
And I was a killer now.
Instead of an incomplete journey, I saw the space Pierce's body used to be. Then I looked down, expecting to see Sully.
Zan's knee pressed into Pierce's neck with suffocating pressure, each hand pulled back tightly, white-knuckled grip on wrists, and eyes staring intently into mine.
Our eyes met for the first time. And I saw the black alien nothingness of iris-concealing-pupil.