"Hmm," Alex said, working away at the laptop a little bit longer. They were nearly to Cincinnati, which was where they'd planned to stop and surf the internet, but now that Alex had figured out a way to get them online, however slowly and erratically, while on the road, it was probably just going to be the site of another stretch and switch, purchasing some food and other supplied, and then along the road to Columbus. Whatever forces Kivar had here on Earth, he was heading in their direction, and Max wasn't sure that they could afford to rest. Then again, maybe it would be better to worry about how they were being tracked, (since it hadn't been hard for him to head in their direction so far, it seemed,) and then make a radical course change.

But right now they still had unanswered questions about Pittsburgh to answer. "Okay," Alex said eventually. "I... I think that it's probably one of the Carnegie Institute museums, based on what you told me, Max. Does that sound familiar?"

Max strained slightly at his flash, and the faint memory from years ago that it had connected with. "M- Maybe." Alex had said 'museums,' implying many, not just one, which wasn't something Max was pleased to hear. "How many are there?"

"Um, four or five, it looks like." He tapped around and hit the mouse a few times. "Dammit, nothing has pictures. Not the Encarta online, and not the Carnegie institute's own website." Max tried to open his mouth to say something, but Alex cut him off. "Guess I'm going to have to widen my search pattern. Hang on."

Alright," Max said, and looked over at Liz. She seemed increasingly tense, and Max wished that he could do something to save her from the stress and uncertainty of this chase. But... but there was no way to shield her from what was rushing at them, or the strange mysteries that they were gradually being dragged into. A mystery that, well, that just might have something to do with Liz herself, though Max was far from sure what that connection might be. Liz smiled slightly, and Max realized that it was because she'd recognized the eye contact he'd made. Well, that was something at least.

"Alright," Alex suddenly said, making a few more adjustments to the computer and showing Max a picture on the laptop screen. "The Andy Warhol museum. Is that it?"

Max squinted slightly. The building in the picture looked, to him, more like a small and slightly run-down apartment building than any kind of a museum - white and several stories high. He took an extra second just to be sure. "Not even close."

"Alright." Alex accepted this judgement with equanimity, and didn't seem to lose any confidence from it. "It may take me a few minutes to find a picture of one of the others."

"Alright," Max agreed. Restless, he stalked up to the motor home's cab.

"Hey!" Michael immediately greeted him. "There's unusual news on the radio - if one of you hadn't come up soon I was going to send Maria back." He sighed. "We need some kind of intercom system rigged up in here."

"I'll ask Alex once he's done researching Pittsburgh museums," Max said, though he realized that Alex really needed to be taking a break soon. Maybe he and Isabel could snuggle up somewhere private together... not that Max liked thinking about the details of that kind of thing, even yet, but he could admit on a fairly detached basis that Alex deserved some alone time with the girl he loved, and he couldn't really deny that kind of thing even to Isabel just on the grounds that she was his sister. After all, she might have a weird reaction about Max and Liz, because he was her brother, and he wasn't about to let that stop him.

"Well?" Maria said, prodding Max with two fingers lightly. "Aren't you going to ask us what the news is?"

"Sorry," Max said. "What's happened?"

"Kivar went to Birmingham," Michael said.

Max nearly sat down on nothing at all, and he had to grab wildly at the back of the driver's seat, pulling it hard enough that Michael made a sound of complaint and the course of the motor-home swayed slightly. (Max hoped that Alex had had a good hold of the laptop.) "Birmingham? That... that's not the right direction to go after us, was it?"

"No," Maria agreed. "It definitely isn't. In fact, it seems to be almost directly the wrong direction. From Nashville, we went north towards Louisville, then northwest. You go South from Nashville to get to Birmingham. Like in that song 'postmarked Birmingham.'"

"They mention Nashville in that song?" Max asked idly. He'd only heard it once, a few years ago, when country invaded his usual pop/rock stations in the late nineties.

"No, but you can figure it out from the context," Maria said. "'Gone a hundred miles south' is a line in the song, actually, referring to winding up in Birmingham. I was curious enough to figure out where you'd have had to start from to..."

"Okay, I think that we're straying wide of the point," Michael said. "Kivar went the wrong way. And we don't know why..."

"Are we really sure that it's Kivar?" Max asked. "Maybe he figured that we'd be tracing him from news reports and wanted to fake us out, so as to catch us unawares."

"Maybe, I guess I can't be sure," Michael admitted. "But..." All of a sudden, he was interrupted.

"Hey," Liz said, and poked Max in friendly fashion from behind. (Not poking him on his behind, though.) "Alex wants you to look at the laptop again."

Maria shot a look at Max before he left. "Intercom."

"I'll see what we can do," Max said with a sigh, and followed Liz back into the living area of the motor home. When Alex showed him a very different picture, of an institutional, but oddly aesthetic building with brown walls and a series of alternating glass walls and doors leading onto a lobby decked in pale off-white, Max nodded immediately. "That's it. I'm almost sure of it."

"The Carnegie Museum of Art," Alex replied, smiling slightly. "I'll look for pictures of the others, just in case they're close enough to that one to introduce reasonable doubt. But this looks like a good suspect." He took a deep breath. "So, now that we know this, what do we do?"

"Pay a visit to it while we're in Pittsburgh, if we can," Liz said. "Maybe poke around and ask a few questions. What else is there?"

Nobody was sure, and Max filled them in on the new developments vis-a-vis Birmingham. "I'm not sure that that makes much sense as a fake-out," Alex decided.

"I'm not sure that it makes much sense at all," Liz decided. "We should check the radio ourselves, see what we can hear, and maybe find out more details from Michael and Maria. I want to be very cautious about this."

"Take it with a big salt pill?" Isabel asked. She's been sitting on the couch with her eyes closed, so still and silent that Max had wondered if she'd been asleep. Well, apparently if she had been, she wasn't any more. "That makes sense I guess. Everybody seems to agree that K is enormously clever."

"Yeah, despite the fact that nobody really knows that much about him," Alex said. "I mean... well, he seems almost like a cartoon villain sometimes."

"Could you guys keep it down?" Kyle called from the alcove. "I'm trying to sleep here."

"Use earplugs," Isabel replied. "This is important." Kyle grumbled, and Isabel actually picked up a little package of foam ear protectors and zinged it up into the alcove. But somehow nobody could think of anything else to say now that Kyle had complained.

#

"Okay, let's see," Michael muttered, looking around to see if anybody else at Romeo's rendezvous, an Italian restaurant on the edge of Cincinnati, was paying attention to their long table. "Everyone here has a stake in the issue - do we try to rendezvous with Lonnie, or not?" He munched on a few of his long pasta tubes. "We debate first, and then do public voting. Start with the pros and cons?"

"Pros," Rath said slowly. "She knows an awful lot about stuff to do with other aliens on Earth - stuff that she and Zan never told me. She might already know something about Shana."

"And... she's damn good with her powers," Ava chimed in. "Could be the edge we need to survive and escape from an encounter with Kivar, if he manages to catch us after all."

"Con - we don't know how much we can trust her," Max said slowly. "Maybe not at all."

"Pro - refusing to meet her might be putting her in danger," Isabel muttered, though she didn't seem happy about saying that.

"Erm, point of order?" Amy asked in a small, timid voice that didn't seem much like her. "Or, uhh, maybe a point of information, I can never remember which it..."

"We don't do this by Robert's rules or anything, mom," Maria said. "But if you want to ask a question, just go ahead."

"Alright - why is the voting public?" Amy asked. "Maybe... maybe that means people will go the way that they think other people want them to go... or the way that they think they'll least upset other people. There are good reasons for the secret ballot, after all."

"Umm, I guess that's a fair point," Max said. "We started doing it this way informally I guess, and it's sort of become traditional. Though it's been a long time since we've actually had a full roll call vote or anything."

"I like the open voting," Michael decided. "Only the opinions that people are unafraid to state openly get counted that way. Don't really want to have to follow the will of a silent majority that isn't even willing to admit to me who it is."

"Hmm... I'm not sure," Alex admitted. "Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages." He looked around. "Suppose we try doing this one as a written, secret ballot, with the understanding that it isn't to be construed as setting a precedent on its own?"

"I guess," Rath agreed. "Of course, we kind of need to trust that no-one with the power to do so is going to try messing with the ballots."

"Yeah, that's implied," Ava agreed. "We stick by the honour system. Are there any more pros and cons before we start the voting?"

"Con... Lonnie's been working with Kivar's agents before," Kyle said. "What if she tries to sell us all out?"

There was a long pause, and then Jim Valenti pulled out a sheet of paper and small scissors, and started cutting it up. "Everybody just print 'Yea' or 'Nay' on their slip of paper," he said.

"How do you spell Yea?" Rath asked.

"Y-E-A," Ava said in a low voice. "Nay is N-A-Y."

The voting took a while, mostly because there weren't that many blue ballpoint pens to go around, and a lot of the kids were apparently trying to keep their printing from being distinctive. When the slips were counted out, it came out, somewhat to Max's regret, as six Yeas and five Nays. "Okay, so we wait at the diner, I guess," Maria said dully. "Probably hang around Columbus about as long as we can afford to."

"I'm going to need some ice cream for dessert," Liz decided, looking around for a waiter.

#

"Okay, and the teams line up again, now at Miami's twenty-seven yard line - certainly an exciting moment, possibly a dynamic turning point in the entire game that we're looking at. Third down and ten for the..."

"W-what do you mean, Maria?"

Michael reached down and ever so quietly turned down the radio. Max looked over, spared a moment to look into his best friend's eyes, and said nothing, even though a part of him was saying that they shouldn't be doing this. Max drove on. He and Michael were in the front seat of the Jeep now, with Maria and Liz talking in the back. The two girls probably couldn't realize how much of what they were saying was drifting up past the blanket, which was now no longer hung as neatly up across the van as it had once been, and it seemed clear that Michael was turning down the stereo to better eavesdrop on their girlfriends - without turning it off entirely, which could clue Maria in that he was listening. They were nearly halfway to Columbus at this point, driving through the gathering dark of evening, and not many other drivers were sharing the road. Despite the guilty pangs, Max strained slightly to hear the private conversation as well.

"It - it's a pretty simple question, Liz," Maria replied. "When you and Max go off to 'sleep' together, is sleeping all you do? Well, I guess I should qualify it, since I don't think it's very likely that you don't do anything else for a period of time like that." She sighed. "Umm, how far - is there anything that..."

"I, I don't believe this," Liz said a bit stiffly. "You... you guys have been bunking together yourselves since this started... well, not all the time I admit. But - would you want me to ask you if..."

"I don't mind," Maria replied. "Michael makes sweet, sweet love to me, and sometimes not quite so sweet as hot and spicy. He's good at it. I think I'm good at it too, and we have a lot of fun together." There was a little pause. "Oh, come on, Liz; don't look so shocked - you knew that we were doing the deed, right? I didn't think it was possible that anyone in the group didn't know - about how he planned a last night on Earth party with me when he thought he'd have to go forever, and the joke I played on him about being pregnant when he got back." Maria snickered a bit.

"Yeah," Liz agreed uncertainly. "I... I knew, yeah. But - but we haven't talked about it, really. I didn't want to pry into something so personal between the two of you, and..."

"No, you didn't pry," Maria admitted. "And because you weren't asking, I wasn't telling, honouring your wishes. But... but you're my best friend, and best friends have the option to ask. I... I'm just a little worried about the way you've been acting ever since this started, and..."

"How have I been acting?" Liz asked sharply. Max was wondering if this wasn't the best conversation to eavesdrop on, but he could hardly help listening now - literally. Both Liz and Maria's voices were carrying, obviously neither of them giving any thought to getting overheard, and there would be no convenient way to avoid hearing. If he suddenly turned the radio up enough to drown out their voices, it would probably startle them, make them realize what Max and Michael had been up to - and stifle the conversation that Max thought was one that the two friends probably needed to have, and sooner rather than later.

"I... I'm not sure how to explain it," Maria said, sighing. "I guess you seem a little distant and preoccupied. Now, I realize that there are enough reasons for you to be distant without getting into the question of if you have a sex life now, but..."

"Yeah, there are!" Liz agreed. "And... and I don't think that has anything to do with what Max and I do that's between the two of us." She sighed. "But, well, since you seem so insistent on bugging me about it..."

"It's not that I want to bug you," Maria said. "I... I was just a little worried. I - I know that it helps to talk about this kind of thing, well kinda, and - and I hoped that I'd be the person that you'd come to."

"Oh, boy," Liz muttered under her breath.

"I heard that," Maria continued. "Is... is that what it's come to? Did - did you tell someone else, and not me?" She let out a groan that sounded like she had stifled a cry of pure angst. "I... I can't believe this. It - it feels like our friendship is falling apart before my eyes, Liz. Was... was it Ava?"

"Yeah, okay!" Liz replied. "I... I didn't mean for it to happen like that, but - well, she came around yesterday morning [check time] to see if I needed any help packing, and my Dad had said something weird to her, and she said my face was a bit red, and all of a sudden I was telling her the whole thing."

"The... the whole thing, yesterday morning?" Maria asked. There seemed to be a moment before she put it together. "After... after the party at my Mom's house - that was you and Max's first time?" Max looked over awkwardly at Michael, who replied with a relatively friendly and understanding smile. Max hoped that Michael would be able to refrain from teasing him about anything that came out during this. "I... I see."

"I - I don't want our friendship to suffer," Liz said, sighing. "The - the fact is, I do feel closer to Ava now than - than I used to, and I guess there is no way to keep that from affecting our dynamic. Maybe... maybe sometime soon I'll wake up and realize that she's my best friend, even though I never wanted anyone else but you to have that place in my heart." Liz sighed. "But... but I didn't want to upset you or anything, and so I'd like to apologize for the way things have gone."

"Apology accepted." Maria took in a deep breath. "And... and I guess I should probably tell you this. After... after me and Michael, and once he was back in town, I - I dropped a few hints around you, and you didn't seem to want to talk about it, and I really needed someone to... just to yatter at, to get some stuff straight in my own head." She took a deep breath. "So - so I went to Isabel."

Liz made a soft giggling sound. "Really, and that helped?"

"Yeah, actually it did," Maria agreed. "I - I realize that it's a bit funny, because back when I first met Isabel I never really thought that she'd ever warm up to me. But... but thinking that we lost Alex was a bonding experience for all of us I guess, and - well, finally getting him back mellowed her even more."

"Yeah."

"But Isabel could never replace you, Liz," Maria insisted.

"Well, Ava c- erm." Liz blew a bit of air out between her teeth in a frustrated mannerism. (Max couldn't see her, but he knew Liz well enough that that didn't really matter anymore.) "I... I'm sorry that I made you feel as if you couldn't come to me and talk to something that was important, Maria. You... you said that best friends have the option to ask. Best friends also have the option to tell, and - and just because I wasn't exercising my option to ask you about something private, that - I, I didn't mean to give you the impression that I'd be uncomfortable with you telling me about something important."

"Huh... okay, got it. Thank you, sweetie."

"Any time. It's what I'm here for." Liz raised her voice slightly. "What do you guys think?"

"Umm... I think that we're busted?" Michael admitted.

Max sighed.

#

"Okay, umm, this looks like a good place to stop for a base camp," Max said, pulling into the campgrounds. "Whatcha think?"

"Umm... yeah, sure," Maria replied, though she still sounded jumpy at the idea of stopping for any significant length of time. Max just didn't think that they had any choice, himself. They couldn't keep up this pace forever, and an opportunity for nearly the entire group to sleep might help them get more ground covered in the future. And then - and then there was the Lonnie issue. Max wasn't really any more comfortable with Michael about the idea of waiting for Lonnie - but they'd voted to let her in, and that seemed to involve at least a good faith attempt to rendezvous here, not just checking once as they drove by.

The motor home pulled up in the same lot as the van, neither too close nor terribly far away, and everybody got outside for a confab. "Okay, umm, some people have to go into town to meet with - I mean, to look for Lonnie, and... and we can probably pick up a bit of camping gear - a tent for some people to sleep in, if she isn't there. Maybe even if she is," Liz decided.

"I'm in for that," Alex decided. Quickly Isabel, Michael, and Liz volunteered as well, and that seemed to fit - they headed off in the van. A lot of the other people headed off to crash, or at least rest, in every available part of the motor home - the sleeping chamber, the alcove, the sofa in the back of the living room, and even the captain seats in the cab. Max ended up alone outside with Laurie.

"Umm, I guess we're on watch, until the others get back, at least," he said, a little awkwardly.

"Yeah. Worse things... at least this way I feel like I'm contributing, though I could hardly do that much to help if some alien does show up," Laurie muttered in an undertone. "Well, run away from them and scream."

"Hey, if you scream loud enough to get Rath and Ava out here, that's about as much as anyone could ask for," Max said, and she laughed nervously. "So, umm..."

"Well, if we're going to talk, I - um, I might as well ask about you," Laurie decided. "Still don't know that much about you, Max Evans. Michael - well, he gave me a few basic stats, but still..."

"Umm, well, then ask away," Max said, smiling. "What do you wanna know?"

"I - I'm not sure where to start," Laurie admitted. "When... when did you and Michael first meet?"

Max smiled. "Well, Isabel met him first, if you're not counting that night that we came out of the pods together..."

"Oh, no, I'm counting that!" Laurie interrupted. "Tell me... about that, I mean, if it's okay to talk about."

"Hmm..." Max thought about it. "Well, let's see. I still have very few memories of leaving the pod chamber at that time, and I don't one hundred percent trust them because of the way we only remembered anything once Tess wanted us too. But most of the images seem to make sense... pulling something kinduv stretchy and flexible apart, pulling myself through and gasping to take a breath of air. Looking around a strange room full of soft blue light, seeing two - two other little people like myself, and a girl in a fourth pod who was still sleeping peacefully. Somehow a door opened in the room and we three came out exploring, finding ourselves high on a rocky peak over the desert. We got separated wandering through the desert, and then Isabel and I found each other again. And then Michael..."

"He climbed up on a rock and expected you guys to come to him," Laurie filled in. "Yeah, I remember now - Maria told me that part." Interesting, Max thought to himself. Had Michael told Maria about it, or had Liz passed on the version of the story that Max had told to her? "And you held out your hand for him when your parents came - I mean, the people who would become your parents... but he was scared and ran away."

"Yeah," Max said. "That's the meaty part of that story. And then... well, Isabel - she always remembered the other boy in the desert, even when I got to the point where I wondered if we'd imagined him. Sometimes she got really sad thinking about him. And that day, after lunch - I'd have been eating lunch with her, except that I had math club and we ate bag lunches in a classroom every Tuesday. She came into homeroom that afternoon and came up to me, and said 'I found him. I found our other brother.' I was... I was completely stunned - but she introduced Michael and I to each other at recess, and - and there wasn't any room for doubt. I... I didn't pretend to understand what was going on like Isabel did, but I knew that Michael would be my best friend for ever. Though we've had our arguments... I think I was still right about that."

Laurie smiled. "So, what can you tell me about you and your Grandpa?" Max asked. "He... he seems to have been the only family you really loved, which is kind of sad."

"Ohh... I wouldn't say that," Laurie put in. "I... I loved my mom a lot, until she - umm, she died when I was eight, from - well, they say that she had a... something wrong with her lung, or her liver, or something. It doesn't really matter, because I think that it wasn't a natural death." She sighed. "Bobby and Meredith - they were already jealous of me, because Grandpa doted on me, and - and Mom was going to have another baby, a son. I think... I think they were worried that they'd have even less chance if he had a cute little grandson, so - so they gave my Mom something to make sure... to make sure that the baby wouldn't survive - and that there wouldn't be any more." Laurie sighed. "Dad had always been cold and a little distant, and once Mom passed away, he started to get paranoid, even suspecting me of plotting against him." Laurie sighed. "I... I was fond of Dad, even when I hated him the most - it's weird how that kind of thing can happen. But..." She sighed. "But I didn't answer your question. Yeah, Grandpa was great - even when he was acting kinda crazy, there was something so endearing about his enthusiasm. And - and after my mom died, he made sure to take care of me as best he could, so that... so that I never felt anything but happy and loved, even in that house with the three of his kids in it." Laurie sighed. "It was... was only after he died that Bobby and Meredith were able to drive me crazy too, and shut me away."

"What... what about your Dad?" Max asked. "I mean... sorry if I keep asking you about things that you don't want to talk about."

"No - it's okay," Laurie said. "Well, what happened to him is hardly okay, but you know what I mean. On his forty-fifth birthday, he was found in the local hooker motel, buck naked in the bed, and with a knife wound in his chest."

"Ouch," Max muttered. "Sheesh. Do you think that your aunt and uncle put somebody up to that one too, or...?"

"I honestly don't know," Laurie added. "It could have been somebody my Dad owed money to, or... right now I'd rather just not think about it."

"Sure," Max insisted. "So... like any particular kind of music?"

Laurie laughed, and her face brightened up like something glowy.

#

"It... it feels a bit weird not to be inside the vehicle, not to be on the move," Liz said sleepily as she snuggled into Max's arms. They had settled in by this point - no sign of Lonnie at the diner where Rath and Ava said that she'd be most likely to meet them. So they would stay here all night, rest as much as they could, with a few people standing watch, both guarding against direct threats, and listening to the radio for any news that Kivar was moving back in their direction. Max had insisted that with or without Lonnie, they had to be back on the road by ten in the morning the next day, if not any sooner.

"Yeah, it is," Max admitted. They were sleeping, (or about to,) in a small two-person tent, and more specifically in a sleeping back that was inside the tent, on a foam mattress. Despite the fact that there was at least as much privacy here as in the best part of the motor home, Max didn't really feel any particular urge to indulge carnal desire with Liz right now - they were both too tired, and hearing the argument that Maria and Liz had had about keeping sex secrets from each other had affected him in an odd way that he couldn't entirely pin down yet. Maybe there'd be occasion for a bit of furtive nookie in the morning. "Goodnight, my darling," Max whispered, stroking Liz's hair, and fell quickly asleep leaning into her small body. Liz was snoring quite soon herself.

Max dreamed that he was walking across the desert sands, and after a few paces, he looked down, to check that he was himself. 'Oh, good,' he mumbled to himself, shaking his head slightly. "At least... at least I'm me in this dream, instead of reliving somebody else's memories." He did wonder what he was doing out in the desert, but not with any particular urgency, just mulling over the question idly and shrugging to himself as he plodded along.

It didn't take long for something different to happen, though. As Max walked he realized that the desert's unbroken sand was changing - at first, it was just a variation in the scenery far ahead of him - a lake or other body of water, far off in the distance, and the pleasant rise of a grass-covered hill far above the dunes. He looked more closely at it, confused, and then realized that the scenery all around him had suddenly changed - well, not the sand that he was walking on, but that seemed to be the only thing that was the same, because it was suddenly in a very different setting. Instead of making up a desert plain, the sand was... was a narrow strip of beach between a small and very pretty lake and a green hillside. This - this was what he had seen from a long way away in the desert, and now it was surrounding him totally and the desert was nowhere to be seen, not even anywhere in the distance.

What could be seen, though, was two other people on the beach, not far, maybe twenty-five feet or so away from Max. A couple, definitely, a young man and a beautiful woman who were in the midst of very intensive foreplay and - and he recognized them. "Oh, gross!" The words burst out of Max's mouth without any forethought as he started to clue in entirely on what was going on... the girl was Isabel, the guy was Alex, and she was just in the middle of pulling his bathing suit down around his ankles. "I - I didn't need to see that."

Alex and Isabel looked up, a flush of color filling his cheeks, while Isabel immediately reacted with annoyance. "Dammit, Max, what the heck are you doing here?" She straightened up slightly to berate him, and Max turned away automatically at the sight of her uncovered breasts. (At least her string bikini bottom was still in place, for whatever comfort that was worth.) "No matter what, you just have to come around and ruin my fun, don't you?"

"I'm just dreaming here." It had been something Max only meant to say as a soft mantra under his breath, but apparently he must have said it loud enough for the others to hear.

"You're dreaming?" Isabel shrieked. "What the hell? Did... did my dream-walking powers go flooey again and pull you in here? Or... no - you couldn't have dream-walked me, could you?"

"I... I don't know what's going on, assuming that you guys are real dreamers too and not just parts of my own dream," Max said, trying to shuffle slightly closer without directly looking at Isabel. He decided to treat the two of them at face value, since there was probably no way inside the dreamscape to be completely sure of their origin aside from observing their behaviour, and he'd probably get a better chance to do that without insisting that they were just figments of his imagination. Once he woke up, they'd be able to compare notes and sort out the issue more thoroughly. "Umm... actually, I guess maybe it makes the most sense for me to just wake up right now and get out of your hair." Max tried pinching himself, but though the pain was startling, it didn't affect the beach landscape a bit.

"Oh, dammit, what is it now?" Isabel asked. Max risked a cautious look, and there was good news and bad news. The good news was that Isabel had retrieved a bathing suit top, was holding it in place over her chest, and trying to fasten it together in the back. The bad news had to do with what she was staring at that had taken up most of her attention, out over the edge of the water - a darkly sinister figure, standing on a small floating - kind of a hover-Segway. Max found the image funny for a split second, but that was before the passenger raised its hand and shot a blue-purple fireball at the three of them. Max managed to bring up an energy shield, but the concussion of the enemy's attack seemed to rattle his bones through his connection to the force field.

"Dammit, we need cover," Alex muttered. "Is that just a manifestation of someone's nervousness about Kivar, or..."

Isabel interrupted him - apparently her bosom was mostly secured now. "I - I saw some trees up on the hillside, over a way," she muttered. "Might help, assuming that he can't just set fire to the whole woods. Do we try?"

"We try something, Max muttered."But keep an eye out for anything more fireproof." As one, they turned and ran away from the water, dodging laser beams as well as possible. (Max noticed idly that Alex's swimsuit had also been replaced, which he was definitely glad of, though he hadn't noticed just when it happened.) A burst of violently hot light caught him on the forearm, just a few inches back from the wrist - a painful burn, and one that Max hoped wouldn't keep him from channelling energy through his left hand or anything. As they rushed towards the forest, Alex pointed out something that looked possibly more promising - a kind of cave entrance, which led into a rocky tunnel. Max still wasn't sure about this - a tunnel might mean that they could get trapped in a dead end, but Isabel and Alex were already running blindly for cover, so he followed him. Quickly the darkness of the under-earth swallowed them up, and there was silence except for the three teens running through the dark - and a dark, slightly menacing laughter from the vicinity of the cave entrance.

"What... what's going on here?" Max hissed as he felt himself getting closer to Isabel - and then he stumbled over something, landing in an awkward crouch. "Has... has Kivar actually attacked this dreamscape? Is that why we can't get out? Or..."

"I - I don't know," Isabel's voice came back, on the edge of panic. "I don't have any of the answers for you, Max. I... I really don't know. Nothing quite like this has ever happened to me before." She sighed. "I just wanted to fool around with Alex for a while without having to deal with the backseat of the van..."

"Shh," Max said, even though he hated to interrupt her. An odd sensation of motion and faint sound happened in the darkness next to him, which was probably the result of Alex wrapping Isabel into a pair of comforting arms. But there was the sound of footsteps coming into the tunnel, and then a glowing hand with six fingers lit up the area - illuminating the masked figure of Kivar, (looking a bit like Darth Vader when the light came from underneath him,) and showing that the three of them were backed up against a pit drop of terrifyingly uncertain depth. Somehow, even from behind that mask, in the dream Max could feel Kivar's gaze sweeping dismissively over Alex, of considering him for a long amused moment, and then moving on to Isabel - with surprise.

"Arynda," the dark figure breathed, surprised and just slightly upset. And suddenly Max woke up gasping and stifling a shriek, with his arms still around Liz. Liz woke too, worried about whatever was upsetting him. Without saying a word, Max got up, grabbed a jacket to use as an impromptu dressing gown, and hurried out of the tent to go over to the van. Max had seen Alex stretched out over the back seat, and Isabel curled up comfortably on the middle seat, before he and Liz had retired to the tent. Now both of them, too, were awake and agitated. Max decided that if he'd stayed in the tent, they might well have sought him out themselves.

It didn't take too long to establish that the three of them had experienced the same dream images, or for Liz and Michael (who was on watch,) to get the gist of things as Max and Isabel compared notes. What the meaning of the dream was was much harder to tell.

"I... I have a theory," Liz said slowly, and everybody turned to her. Kivar... Kivar was somehow able to sense your dream walking powers in operation and home in on them, Isabel. Along the way - maybe breaking into your dream pulled Max in as a side effect, or maybe Kivar could recognize Max's sleeping thoughts and wanted him to be there." She sighed deeply. "I'm... I'm not sure what his objectives were, if they were just information gathering or if he would have tried to hurt any of you through your dreams. But... but he was exerting power to keep any of you from waking up, from the time that Max got in there. All the way up to the end, he was exerting more and more concentration in that, until suddenly - you said he looked at you, Isabel, and was startled by something, right?" Isabel nodded. "Okay, so when he was startled, that ruined his concentration, and it only took a moment for all of you to escape the dream."

"If it really was from Kivar, does that mean that he'll have a better lock on us now?" Michael muttered, worried. Nobody had an answer.

"Okay, we need to leave Columbus soon," Max muttered. "It's..." He leaned over and took a look at the digital clock on the van's dash stereo. "Holy heck, it's nearly half past four AM?"

"Umm... yeah," Isabel agreed. "I, umm, I woke up after four twenty and brought out Alex's picture. The dream-walk itself didn't take very long."

"Ahh..." Max said, considering. Obviously he had slept a long time himself, maybe having other dreams that he couldn't remember, before getting swept up into the shared dream. "Okay, well... we can check the diner for Lonnie among the breakfast crowd in around half an hour then. I..." He sighed. "Vote or no vote, I don't want to be hanging around Columbus for long now."

"What - what was it that Kivar called you, Isabel?" Michael asked, and Alex repeated the word: 'Arynda.'

"I... I don't know if that's a name or what," Isabel said. "If it is - what does it mean? Is that something that connects to Vilandra, or..."

"Or, if Tess wasn't the bride, maybe you weren't the traitor," Alex said. "Maybe you're someone else that Kivar recognizes from Antar." Isabel's eyes widened in shock, not quite sure how to come to terms with that idea. "In fact, well come to think of it - if there's reorganization in the roles from what you expected, then - then maybe Tess is..." He couldn't finish the thought.

But Liz did. "Maybe Tess is the traitor," she agreed. "Vilandra. I... I was wondering about that earlier, way back after you talked to Rayde back in Roswell, but - well, but I didn't want to bring it up. Not like Tess didn't behave like Vilandra - or like Lonnie, for that matter. She sold everybody out for dubious and risky gain to herself. In fact, I'm not sure that even Lonnie has been as Vilandra-ish as Tess was." She sighed. "The creepy thing is..."

"Don't - don't even say it for now," Max warned her. All kinds of uncomfortable ideas - that of Tess being his spirit sister instead of his destined mate - of what it would mean, then, that she'd... no, he couldn't even come to terms with those thoughts yet, never mind words.

"Alright," Isabel said. "But... but if any of that's true, does that mean that I'M..."

"There's no evidence that way," Liz quickly jumped in. "In fact, it doesn't fit with at the clue we just got - if you'd been the bride, then Kivar would have called you Ava or some variant on that. No, that's not the answer to that part of the puzzle." Isabel and Max both breathed a quick sigh of relief.

"Well, I don't think any of us are going to be getting any more sleep," Alex pointed out. "Michael, you wanna see if you can catch some z's? I'll take over watch."

"Alright," Michael said. "Probably no-one else should sleep in the tent now - not if we may need to get moving in a hurry."

"I'll pack it up and take it down," Liz said, and then kissed Max quietly. "Say hi to Lonnie for me - something tells me that when you go to the diner looking, she's gonna be there."

Max shot a look over Isabel, very unimpressed with that idea now - but they were committed to look. Michael disappeared into the back of the motor home, and Max sat with Alex in the van, listening for news, but things seemed quiet on the Kivar front at this point. He sighed, wondering how long it would take the dreadful warlord to act - to correct the mistake he had made by going the wrong way.

#

"Okay, let's do this, I guess," Ava said, looking over first at Rath, and then to Max beyond him. They were well outside the diner, but it wasn't hard to tell that Liz's hunch was starting to come true. A distinctive red Porsche was parked out in the corner of the lot, making a conspicuous departure from the other kinds of cars that this establishment's patrons generally drove. There was also a semi-familiar looking figure visible in one of the windows. Max turned around to take a look at Liz, sitting behind the driver's wheel of the van as their getaway girl, (though nobody was quite sure in what circumstances they might need one,) and headed towards the front doors.

Lonnie had spotted them and waved by the time they were most of the way to the diner proper, and the mood was oddly relaxed and loose as they greeted each other at her table. "So, I guess you figured that I figured this might be a good place to hook up?" she said softly, her brownish eyes aimed directly at Rath.

"Yeah, umm, something like that." Rath admitted. "So - what do you expect happens next, Lonn?"

"I want to leave with you guys," she said firmly. "I realize that the ground rules are different now, and I want to be back with you. Think I can pay my fare in several different ways - I still have talents and sources of information that none of the rest of you have got."

"Speaking of information," Max put in, "does the name Arynda mean something to you, Lonnie?" Lonnie blanched slightly, and nodded.

"Yeah, but I might need to think for a bit to place it," she admitted. "And of course, even if I knew off the top of my head, I'm not sure I'd be saying anything before we came to an understanding-"

"You want to be back with me?" Rath repeated Lonnie's words from back a few steps in the exchange of dialog, and Max realized that Rath had been stunned by the statement. "That - that's what you meant, right? Not being with us generally, one of the group, but with..." Lonnie looked at him, and Rath swallowed. "I... I don't think so, babe. For - for one thing, I'm spoken for otherwise now."

Lonnie's eyes widened slightly. "You... you found someone else? Who?" She racked her brains. "Did that Maria chick decide to trade her Spaceboy in for a slightly cooler and more punk-a-licious model? Or... or maybe you managed to sweep Isabel off her feet? Hmm, either way, there'd be some hunky guy left out in the cold, but I'm not sure I wanna help myself to the leftovers..."

"No," Ava announced. "Rath's with me now. Which means no leftovers - since the only other guy in my heart was Zan." Lonnie shook her head in frustration.

"Is... is arranging a consort for you really part of this deal, Lonnie?" Max asked pointedly. "You... you want protection and the safety of numbers. We probably have uses for the alien knowledge and abilities that you've picked up." He sighed. "I think that we can deal - but I expect nothing but complete honour from you. If you can't reach that standard... well, it might be better that we head off in our separate ways."

Lonnie looked over at Max, focusing her attention entirely on him for the first time since they'd arrived at the diner. He looked back at her, and couldn't help but make a mental inventory of Isabel's identical worser half. Like Rath and Ava, Lonnie had apparently drifted closer to her opposite number in appearance over the summer - her hair was a bit wavier and a darker blond than Isabel's, with two locks running down the side of her face in a style that Max found slightly odd, but also would probably help to make sure that he didn't mistake them. She was wearing a dark purple spandex shirt, and only had one piercing beyond the usual ones on her earlobes that Max could see - a very small stud through the side of her nose. "Okay," she said finally. "I... I'll be on my best behaviour, and I really do think that'll be enough." She sighed. "I got the gist of what happened with Tess, and - well, even though arguably she got off light considering what all she did - I don't want any of you to get that pissed at me."

"And this isn't just about the big stuff," Max continued, pushing Lonnie to see at which point she'd push back. "Not selling us all out at once is a no brainer. But I expect you to treat my friends decently, according to human standards - not taking what isn't yours, or playing mind games to get your own way."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Lonnie argued, frustrated. "Now, can we get going? I... I've been feeling something upsetting hovering around this whole area for the past hour or so. Sooner we get on the road, the better."

"Well, I'm gonna go up and make a takeout order," Rath decided, standing up. "Then we can drive back to the campground and... no, that doesn't make sense. Evans, call and tell the others to break camp. We'll worry about making a rendezvous later."

Max nodded, picked up his cell phone, and called over to Alex, explaining what had had been agreed with Lonnie briefly and suggesting the obvious things. Meanwhile, Ava started bringing Lonnie up to speed slightly on the details of what was going on.

Once Rath was heading back with the food, Lonnie stood up from the table for the first time, and Max saw that she was wearing an odd kind of long leather skirt, tight enough that he was surprised she could walk so fast, with long slits up the sides, but the slits were fastened together with laces running back and forth. "So, Kyle's the only odd man out, right?" she asked Ava. "Cute, lean and fit body - he was always giving Tess the eye when he thought she wasn't looking the first time we came to Roswell?" Ava nodded. "Hmm... has potential."

Max shook his head and wondered if Kyle would even realize what hit him when Lonnie got her chance to make a fresh impression on him. It definitely seemed that Lonnie was in the mood for company, and if Rath wasn't going to give her a chance, she'd try her luck elsewhere.

"Great," Liz muttered when she realized the situation, aided by a few whispered hints from Max. "Another tricky situation to keep an eye on, in the midst of all this alien madness."

And they took off for Pittsburgh as fast as traffic on the highway would allow.

#

"Okay, that's the situation," Rath said. He'd filled Lonnie in on just about every important thing that had happened over the course of their flight this far. "Got any insights?"

"Hmm." Lonnie considered. "Well, I always suspected that there'd been some more shape shifters hanging around Earth for the past few decades - and at least one of them being a sister." She chuckled. "No specific details like this couple from Louisville, or what happened to their kid, but Jenni Madison might well have been able to see the same flash that you got from her, Maxxie boy, and even without that she just might be able to guess that you'd find out about the art museum, or think that you'd already known about it when you went to visit her." She sighed. "'Shana' will expect you to show up there, and plan accordingly."

"So... so she will meet us there?" Liz asked.

"I - I didn't say that," Lonnie protested. "It all depends on what she's after. If she wants to meet you, to attack or to make friends, then yeah, I think she'll show up. If she's not ready to expose herself yet, then she'll either just stay well away plan some other kind of surprise - which might be friendly or unfriendly, depending on her disposition. And, once again, you have to make the decision about whether you're going to walk into whatever will happen, or stay away."

"I... I'm worried, but not enough to steer clear," Ava replied. "Whatever this thing is with Shana, it's important... maybe even the key to our survival. There was a reason that Liz and Isabel and the guys heard that story down in Dallas."

"So you think that she's friendly?" Rath asked. "Or, that maybe she's the most dangerous threat to us, even counting Kivar, and we can't afford to ignore her?" Ava shrugged.

"What about Arynda?" Liz asked. Nobody spoke up. "Umm, Lonnie?"

"Oh, right, Parker." Lonnie blew air through her plush lips dismissively and sighed. "I... I'm still not sure entirely, but - but I think it has some connection to - to the Royal Four. She wasn't one of the foursome herself, but - but someone who was nearby when they were growing up." Lonnie's face creased in thought. "A serving girl? Somebody's bratty little sister? The daughter of someone who worked in the castle?" She shook her head. "It's not coming clear."

"Hmm." Max considered that. "Speaking of, just for the record, do you really remember anything about the Royal Four growing up? I mean, there are some awkward gaps in what we know. Vilandra and Zan were brother and sister, the children of the old king and Queen Alinda... and Zan was presumably the oldest son, or oldest surviving son, at least. Zan married Ava, and Vilandra was betrothed to Rath, although she was apparently stepping out on him with Kivar, near the end." He groaned softly. "But... but most of that is just the end of the movie. Were there other kids in the Royal family? Where did Ava and Rath come from?"

"I... I don't know that much, for sure," Lonnie admitted with a groan. "Especially because I've realized lately that lots of what I thought I remembered were either getting made up on a subconscious level, or stuff that Nicholas or other people were putting into my head. I... I'm pretty sure that Ava was..."

"Dammit!" Rath suddenly swore. "Nicholas. I knew that we forgot about somebody important, but I couldn't put my finger on who." Several people turned to stare at Rath, including Max. Liz didn't, because she was still driving. "Well, think about it - he's Kivar's lackey here on Earth, and he knows most of us pretty well. Maybe he'll be able to help Kivar's troops find us."

"Just what did happen between you guys and Nicholas, before the Summit?" Liz asked. "It might help us figure out what our next move is."

"Basically, he tracked the Emissaries when they came to Earth to find the Royal Four, and talked me up with all kinds of stories about how wonderful it'd be to be going back home," Lonnie grumped. "That's pretty much why Rath and I... did what we did to Zan, when he decided that he didn't want to attend the Summit. Which was probably what he wanted. and he let slip about you guys very carefully."

"Right. Well, think about it, though," Ava said. "Nicholas has had a fairly dismal record here on Earth when it comes down to his true mission. He never got his mitts on the Granilith, he wasn't able to off or capture any of us except maybe, indirectly, Zan - and Max has been more than enough of a pain in Kivar's butt to overshadow that. He wasn't able to accomplish anything at the summit, and made himself and Kivar look a little foolish trying. He lost an entire crowd of Skin agents when Tess blew her top on him. Also, Nicholas is kinda cowardly, and Kivar's supposed to be pretty mean and impatient. Maybe Nicholas is just hiding from the big man."

"I... I hope so," Max said. "Speaking of which - that thing with the Copper summit skins, and the firewall trick that Tess used - do you think that most of the Sins really did die in that? As opposed to the whole thing just being a fake-out, a cover so that Tess, and I, could get out of that situation alive and Tess could carry on with the plan of seducing me and Judas-ing us all?"

"I, I do think that most of them bit it," Ava agreed after a long moment. "Most of the skins weren't in the know about the deeper plan - even Nicholas may not have had 'Need to Know' at that point. And I don't think that even her powers were strong enough to spare everybody and have you not realize it. She probably intentionally let Nicholas go, because Kivar would have busted her ass for killing him - and Nicholas would still have had to use a mind-warp to cover himself, and probably a shield to ward away the backwash of the rest of the flames. But that was small enough that it could slip under your radar. The entire Copper Summit Skin complement trying to pull that trick would mostly never have flown."

"Okay, yeah, I see what you mean," Max admitted. And then he yawned a big yawn. "I can't think of this any more. Anyone else wanna come up and navigate, while I take a nap?"

"I'll go," Lonnie volunteered. "If you trust me with it, that is."

"Go," Ava said. Once they had changed places, Max thought that he saw Ava watching Lonnie intently, as if aware for the possibility that Lonnie might do something unexpected.