Thanks for coming back to read! Thanks a bunch to my reviewers too! Though I have already written 25 chapters, it's really helpful to get insights so I can go back and correct things, or add things. Once you catch up with me, well… I'm not going to update as fast, but rest assure that the whole plot is already in my head, all up to the last scene ;)
-- Side Note -- if Dave knew that his interview with Michael is actually chapter 13, he would really laugh at his luck :D
XIII
Hiding
The windows almost trembled. Almost. Michael would have been surprised at how well he was holding in his energy if his attention had been pinned on that. He would have been surprised too if he had known that Dave wasn't feeling all that safe in that room with him so close to making the windows tremble. Though the room was silent, there was this… tension, he guessed, all around them that made that silence oppressive.
Both men's eyes remained locked on each other's. By 7:19 a.m. both had pretty much forgotten their expectations of an easy talk. When Michael had crossed that door fourteen minutes before –and he hadn't really bothered with checking if he had been exactly on time, thinking that Dave should be thankful he was around the time— Michael had been sending this… coldness. He just couldn't help it. He had been working himself up since 5:23 a.m. just as badly as he did when he was arguing with an imaginary Maria.
They had both saluted with a short nod, Michael taking the same seat Kyle had taken the day before, Dave putting the piece he had in his right hand over the desk. Kyle hadn't been joking. It was a huge desk, and the puzzle's frame was occupying a good part of it. Apparently, Dave had been working on a corner of it, since a large part was already put together. This Michael noticed while quickly scanning the whole room.
It was lightly snowing from what he could see out the windows behind Dave. It was still dark outside and it wouldn't turn any brighter till around 8:00 a.m. The right wall was bare, with a large cupboard from one corner to the other. On the left wall was this big white square with black numbers on it. What the hell? Then his eyes had returned to Dave, who had been looking straight at him.
"How did they convince you?" Dave had asked without saying anything else. Michael had frowned at him, not sure if he was understanding the question, expecting Dave to be more specific.
"What do you mean?" Michael had replied, his tone defensive.
"I know you don't want to be here, so I'm wondering why you are actually here." Michael had been tempted to play with semantics and cynicism and word games –he was just in the right mood for that- but decided against it. He was not going to gain a thing by going in circles. Besides, what was the point in answering anything other than what was being asked?
"They convinced me. That's all that should matter to you." So, if Dave knew so much about them, he should know about him not being the talkative type.
"Of course it matters to me—" Dave had started, but Michael had cut him off.
"I bet it does. That way you can have a better idea of how to play with whatever we want." Michael had been repressing way too many things, frustration evident in his voice. Now that he was having the chance to say exactly what was on his mind to the right person, he was not going to stop.
"Is that what you think? That I'm playing with you?" Dave had asked him in a calm voice, with a slight frown.
Michael had let go a sarcastic laugh, and then returned his eyes to Dave's. "You played with our fears. You put us in those damned rooms as if we were prisoners, letting us believe the worst had finally come. You kidnapped us in the middle of the night without us being aware of it so we couldn't have a clue of what was happening. You let us go so we reached the conclusion it was okay, that you were telling us the truth, when in reality we don't know a thing about anything, much less about you. You keep playing with us," Michael almost shouted, his eyes burning, "at every turn we make and with whatever we want!"
"I played with your beliefs just to show you that not everyone that is out there to get you means you harm," Dave answered, still calm, but his voice had gained some volume.
"Bullshit!" This time Michael did shout, barely restraining his energy from blowing up the ceiling's white lamp. "What the hell do you really want from us!"
That had been the last question to echo in that room, and that was why they both were now staring at each other, the windows almost trembling behind Dave. Michael was waiting to hear some stupid story, not knowing at all how close Dave actually was to telling him the truth. Actually, Michael would not know that for another eight years.
Just as Jake was getting to know some 130 feet below, Michael was neither a telepath nor a mind reader, because if he had been, he would have clearly read this from Dave: So much for the let's-avoid-mines theory… Dave leaned over his desk, carefully avoiding his pieces so they wouldn't end up on the floor, and kept his eyes on Michael's.
"Why don't you tell me what exactly I'm after. Tell me why I keep playing with you, because I'm sure that it doesn't matter what I tell you, you won't believe me."
Michael scowled at him. What? Was Dave going to admit whatever came out of Michael's mouth? Yeah, right… This was a very effective way of not answering, but if Michael could turn this around, he could actually end up with some real answers.
"You want us to feel safe," Michael started, leaning over the desk, slightly narrowing his eyes. "You want us to believe this was the best thing we could have done."
Dave smiled. "But you think you aren't safe and that there is, or at least was, a better option."
"Don't play with my words," Michael said in a deadly tone.
"I'm not. You are right. You aren't safe Michael, you aren't safe here, or anywhere on this planet. What you are will hunt you all your life, and you certainly know that better than I do. Now, is this the best thing you could have done? I can't see the future, so I can't really answer that." Dave finished, hardly raising his voice, hardly even blinking.
He was doing it again. Dave was playing with him and Michael was just feeling helpless around this man's tricks. But since he was being so brutally honest, Michael had nothing to lose.
"If you are all that great, if you knew your offer was so damned great too, then why the hell didn't you just come one day and tell us that? Why take us in the middle of the night? What the hell were you planning when you did that?"
Dave's hazel eyes brightened for a second. He was expecting this question and Michael felt uncomfortable at that thought. It was as if Dave already knew what Michael was thinking, and the thought of being known so damned well wasn't a nice one. Especially to Michael.
Dave leaned back in his chair. "I thought about forty-three scenarios for our first meeting, that is, the whole group and myself. I went over and over all of them in my head for months trying to decipher how to approach you all. How to earn your trust, how to take you off the roads. And trust me, it wasn't easy. And do you know what the most difficult part was? You." Dave said, with a very slight smile.
"What?" Michael said in that curt way of his.
"Out of everyone in your group… Are you really not going to tell me how they convinced you to accept my offer?" Dave asked in a good natured way, but was greeted with what Jake would have called "the mother of all icebergs", and a look that clearly said "don't push it".
"You haven't answered my question," Michael said, his muscles rigid, the tension returning to the air. He was in no mood for good natured questions. Hell, not even for good natured answers, if it came to that.
"No, I haven't," Dave said, standing up to reach for a piece. "You are all like these pieces, these few pieces that don't make sense, either alone or put together." Dave started to say, not looking at Michael at all. "When I first found out about you, I was fascinated. But you were just kids. You had lives of your own. So I just watched you from afar. And all that time I was wondering, 'What would happen to these kids if someone else find out?' And the answer was never pretty."
"So you just appointed yourself as our Guardian Angel? How thoughtful…" Michael said with more than just an edge of sarcasm. Dave was deliberately striding away from the point, and Michael had no intention on letting him off the hook. However, this time, Dave did look up from his pieces, and as usual, smiled.
"I was more like a shadow. But you see Michael, shadows can learn if they stay long enough. And when I found out that you had run for your lives that night, I knew that my chances of ever meeting you had pretty much been reduced to zero. You wouldn't trust anyone outside your group."
"What makes you think we trust you now?" Michael asked, half annoyed, half daring.
"You are here, aren't you?" Dave answered back, earning a long ago patented Michael scowl. He was pushing too much.
Dave took another piece. "I took you in the middle of the night because I needed you to know how easy it could happen. How easy it was for someone like me to track you down and make you disappear."
"We have already been caught." Max's words echoed in Michael's head, words that had been said in a Suburban at 1:00 a.m. only three days ago, "That was the whole point of keeping us apart, as if we were in a real prison, so we could know it can happen to us; that we are sitting ducks like you said."
"You were kept apart so you could really taste the fear of being alone. I could have made it worse, haven't you thought about that?" This time Dave's tone was… darker. A tone that made Michael's skin crawl. "I could have kept you apart for miles and not let you know the others were okay for months. I could have isolated you. I could have threatened you into accepting the offer."
"But you were playing with us all the time," Michael said with a confidence he was not exactly completely feeling, but with an anger that was 100 there.
Dave stayed still, not leaving Michael's eyes. "Yes Michael, I was playing with you," Dave admitted, his tone serene, serious. "I was playing every trick I could think of so you would accept. As you had said, I had this great offer, but I couldn't really back it up. You had never heard about me, you had no intention of trusting anyone. So I had to prove, or to at least try to prove, that with all I could have done to you, I still wanted you to accept out of free will, that I was telling the truth. If you decided to leave, you already had a glimpse of what would happen to you out there if you were caught. But if you stayed, then you just might be safe with me."
And it had worked. Max had believed him. Liz had believed him. Hell, they all had, and had convinced Michael into believing in him too. And Michael had to admit that so far, Dave had pretty much backed his side of the offer. But for how long? And still, there was that unanswered question hanging in the air.
"Why?" Michael asked, breaking the silence that had momentarily fallen over them again. "Why do you want us?"
"I've already told you that on Saturday," Dave said, his eyes dropping to his puzzle, tirelessly searching. "I want to study you."
"Yeah, right," Michael said, not believing one word of Dave's last statement. Just like Max, Michael could feel something was wrong, just not as strongly as his best friend did. It was a feeling born out of his distrustful nature. All the same, both Max and Michael knew there was something else that Dave wanted. "That's just not enough. You want something else."
"Not enough?" Dave said, astonished –or at least feigning he was astonished- and placing both his hands on the desk, he pinned Michael with his eyes. "Do you have any idea what you represent?" Michael blinked, Dave's serious and bewildering tone had taken him aback. That didn't sound fake.
When silence was Michael's answer, Dave slightly shook his head. "Where do I start?" Dave murmured more to himself than to Michael. "It is not entirely the fact that you are part alien, Michael, but that you are part human too. You are advanced humans. Do you know what that means for the study of our future selves? Neurology alone would write entire libraries just by what you can do. 'Mind over matter' would take a completely different meaning. Your DNA structure has all these infinite possibilities not just in Biology, but possibly in the medical field. You are clones too. Heck, we are happy we can clone mice, when you are living proof that one can clone entire lives, memories and personalities. And speaking of clones, you are hybrids, two entirely different and unrelated species perfectly mixed into one, perfectly functioning... And I can go on and on Michael. So let me know what exactly your definition of 'not enough' is, so I'll see what I can do about it."
Three seconds passed before Michael answered in a very confused and somehow outraged tone, "you want to profit from us?"
To Michael's surprise, Dave laughed, all seriousness gone, which actually made Michael feel even more annoyed at this situation, at this man who kept playing with every word he said and with every movement he made.
"Not everything is money in life, Michael," Dave said, sitting, his serious tone returning, just a little bit less, well, serious. "I have had only one love in this life, Michael, and that is knowledge. Yes, I made a living out of it, but that's just a secondary effect. Ignorance is our worst enemy. So, you see, you are really valuable to me because I can learn so much from you."
Michael wasn't convinced. There was still something off in here, but he couldn't place it. Dave was very convincing, he had to give the man credit for that, but…
"And speaking of learning," Dave cut off Michael's train of thought, "I met Mrs. Dunlop."
Michael's train of thought collapsed into one of the worst train disasters in Michael's mind.
"What did you say?" He slowly, quietly, asked. He could feel his muscles tensing even more, and knew that those windows were not going to stay in place for very long now.
Mrs. Dunlop was an old lady that lived at the Old Chisholm Trail Trailer Park. She had been the only decent person in that place, and had taken some care of him, even babysitting him a few times when Hank had been away for too long or just way too drunk to take care of a seven-year old. She had an incredible book collection. That was, incredible for the tiny trailer she lived in. It was because of her that Michael had learned the value of lecture, and books. Before Max and Isabel had finally come into his life, Michael had spent a lot of afternoons with one or another of Mrs. Dunlop's books. She hadn't exactly lent them to him, but she had never missed a single one when he had taken them.
It was in Mrs. Dunlop's collection that Michael had found out all about the Roswell Incident. She had told him once that it was only natural she had all those "conspiracy" books since they lived in the town that had seen aliens running in the streets. She was also subscribed to three different UFO magazines, and by the age of eight, Michael was eagerly awaiting those every single month. Even when he had been fifteen years old, he had still waited for them.
But once he had moved out of the trailer park, he had never returned. A tiny part of him felt a little bit guilty for not visiting her, but they weren't all that close, he argued to himself. Besides, Mrs. Dunlop was friends with everyone in that place, so she hadn't exactly been heart broken by his departure, much less stayed all alone and by herself.
Still, Mrs. Dunlop had made life in that hell bearable during his childhood, and Michael did thank her for that. He could still remember the first time he had "borrowed" Ulysses from her bookshelf. The only good memories he had from those years when he had been all alone on this planet came from that trailer, that bookshelf, and those books.
"She's a really interesting person," Dave said, starting again with his puzzle. Kyle had also been right about the fact that it was freaking maddening to see that man so absorbed in that stupid thing.
"What did you do to her?" Michael's tone gained volume, and it was not going to take much time before he started shouting again. He was truly barely under control.
"I had a nice chat with her."
"You told Kyle you had never been in Roswell."
"And I was telling the truth. I made her win a trip to Florida. I met her on the plane." Dave didn't look up to him, his eyes scouting for the next piece, his fingers flipping and flipping face up each tiny part of the puzzle.
"Why?" Michael asked cautiously. Suddenly this man seemed more dangerous now than at any other time since they had met him. How much did he know? How had he known about Mrs. Dunlop in the first place?
"Because I needed answers to your past. You were the most difficult one to get to know. Didn't you wonder why all those books were in your room?"
Um…no. He had been too absorbed in how to get out of there and in the well-being of all the others to actually think why these people knew about those books. And even if he had done that, he would have probably not seen the connection between those books and Mrs. Dunlop. Sure enough, despite whatever Isabel had said, he did go to the Public Library, so the books would have had his name on the library cards. It was a no-braniac trail to follow.
"How did you find out about her?" Michael didn't lose his cautiousness –something Max would have been really proud of- but somehow felt vulnerable. Infinitely powerless in front of this man that seemed to know just about everything there was to know about them. But if that was the case, why was he having this conversation? In that instant Michael realized just how much Dave could know but still how much there was that he didn't know. Why? Why had this man been able to trace an old woman in a trailer park but hadn't known about all that Kyle had told him just yesterday? Even if Dave still looked dangerous to him, he had lost all his omnipresence in that room. Though this man was powerful, he still was just that: A man.
"We visited your old place. Stayed around for a couple of months, too." Dave said with pride, a kid being proud for doing a particularly difficult assignment well.
"We?"
"My crew and myself. Well, I just read the reports, but three of my men rented spaces there, finally found her. You have to be very cautious when you want to know about someone and don't want anyone knowing that you want that information. So, to casually inquire about you was an extremely difficult task. You weren't exactly the friendly type when you lived there. In fact, most people thought that you were either dead, or in jail, or had died in jail."
"I bet…" Michael said coldly. Dave had sent men to live there? And what about Kyle? What about those 14 or 15 cars Dave had told him he had sent to Toby's place? "You sent people all over Roswell looking for pieces of our past?" Michael asked leaning over the desk. So this was why he knew about their early lives, but not about their real lives now… the picture was coming into focus now for Michael.
"Of course I did. The new Janitor a year and a half ago. Mr. Evans' new secretary around the same time. Maria's new neighbors a year ago. The new transfer kid in Freshman year… She was damned convincing, you know?" Michael frowned, his brain speeding. What kid? When?
Dave seemed to know exactly why Michael was confused, and continued. "Last year, when you were Seniors. It's a really useful thing that older kids never notice the younger ones. She made up this story about having the biggest crush in history first on you and then on Max. Gave her free pass to all knowledge about you. It was only natural her new friends would help her out with rumors and gossips."
"You recruited a teenage girl?" Michael said, not entirely unconvinced. He had no doubt this man was capable of that. If he remembered correctly, Maria's new neighbors had five-year old hurricane twins. Not exactly your average spies…
"Hell, I would like to find more people like her, to tell you the truth. It's not common, but teenaged people have this stereotype about not being reliable or even capable of doing important things like, let's say, espionage, which makes them perfect for the occasion. I never went to high school, but from what I've heard, that place is the perfect training ground for that kind of thing. And the gossip networks… the FBI, NSA, CIA and all the letters of the alphabet should envy not only the files those people keep on each other, but the speed with which information can be sent and obtained."
"I've never really cared about rumors," Michael said dismissively, thinking that Dave's attempt at humor was even worse than Kyle's.
"Exactly. That's why neither of you found out about her in the first place. But what were you doing instead of listening to high school gossips? What were you doing in Sophmore year or when you were Juniors?"
"Why don't you tell me? You seem to know everything about us," Michael said in that cold voice that had apparently set on his vocal cords.
Dave smiled. A knowing smile. Again, Michael had the feeling that Dave had just known he was going to ask about that. And again he didn't like it.
"You already know I don't," Dave said, forgetting about his puzzle for once. "I did my homework as well as I could, but there are things that were beyond other people's knowledge. I researched about your lives as other people knew them. I not only met with Mrs. Dunlop, but with more people that you probably won't even remember."
"You want me to believe that you spent all those resources tracking down other people but that you didn't have anyone on our tail all the time? How the hell did you find us in Colorado in the first place? Asking directions?"
It could have been Michael's imagination, but he would have sworn that Dave's eyes had turned a shade darker. He was used to seeing Liz's eyes changing shades depending on her mood, so he didn't really dismiss Dave's change either. Something in his last words had touched a chord inside that man's head.
"I wish it had been that easy," Dave enigmatically answered. "As much as I wanted to 'tail' you, as you put it, it was too much of a risk. I could have put a team on you 24/7, that's true, but that would have let others know about my… interest in you. Leaks happen, you know? And since I know all about leaks and informants and, well, espionage, I didn't want to risk someone else finding out about you.
"But on the other hand," Dave continued, "I could put separate teams, unrelated people to research about the people who had known you. It was still risky, but it was better than nothing. And then you just disappeared in the middle of the night. That truly took me by surprise."
"How could you not know about the Special Unit?" Michael asked abruptly. "Why did you take so long to present yourself? If you are such an altruistic person, how can you explain that?" Michael was angry now. He could somehow sense Dave holding back, holding something important back, and he didn't like it. So he was now trying to put Dave against the wall –in a figurative way, of course- trying to trick him into actually telling him the truth.
"The Special Unit was a big mistake, I do recognize that. I thought it was over, that the agents that still remained didn't have the resources to keep tracking you down. Now, the military base was your mistake. They wouldn't have gotten the resources if it hadn't been for the Army."
"We didn't know Tess was going to blow up the base," Michael said exasperated, for the first time lowering his eyes before Dave.
"She had lost her son. You didn't know her well enough to think she would avenge him?"
Michael tried to not look surprised at that. Of course Kyle had already spread the story. Max's son had died during an altercation with the Army, and Tess had decided to blow up the base. If that had actually happened, Michael wasn't sure if Max wouldn't have helped Tess out on that one.
"It happened too fast," Michael quietly said. "We didn't have time to react… Tess just came out of nowhere, bringing the Army behind her and Zan… It was just too fast… Next thing we knew, Zan was gone and so was Tess. When the base blew up, we didn't have any doubt about what had happened." Michael finished, hoping that would be enough.
"How did Max take it? Didn't he want to blow up the base too?"
"We all did," Michael answered, a little bit surprised at how true his words were. The anger in his voice helped tons with sounding convincing too. "We grieved for a while, but I guess it was for the best. Our lives just became a wreck after that, living on the road. That was no life for a child. Besides, running with a baby would have been just chaotic… pretty much impossible." That was a very cold thing to say, Michael reflected, even for himself. But it was also the truth, and why Max had decided to give Zan away as well. They, and Zan, had way better chances of staying alive without each other.
"That is true," Dave quietly reflected from his side of the desk. Actually, he remained quiet for some time too. Enough to make Michael start to feel really uncomfortable in that place. His eyes started to divert from Dave's fingers to the windows behind, then to the cupboard to the left and, finally, to the numbers on the right. There was something odd with those numbers, Michael noticed. He could sense there was a pattern, but he couldn't place it. It was like the time he had –or had thought he had- deciphered the map in the cave. He knew there was a code, if he could only break it.
"Do you like numbers, Michael?" Dave suddenly asked, Michael turning his head in a second to look at the man, trying to not look as if he had been caught.
"Didn't see my report card?" Michael defiantly answered. Dave gave him a broad smile.
"Of course I did. As many things with all of you, it didn't make sense." Michael frowned; Dave leaned back in his chair, leaving his pieces for a while. "You didn't take any test seriously, that is, when you actually took them, all High School. And then, all of the sudden, you want to attend Biology your senior year. You also wanted to take regular attendance to your other classes… For someone who doesn't give a damn about school, as your grades would suggest, you made the teachers talk quite a bit when you started to show up."
Dave's comments were making Michael wonder again exactly how much this man really knew about them and what had happened. Hadn't Kyle already told him that they had almost left the planet two years ago? It couldn't take a genius to decipher that Michael had been planning on leaving, and once stranded here, well…
"Besides, why would someone who has read the kind of books you've read not take school at least slightly seriously? That is, before senior year…"
"That is no mystery," Michael said dismissively again. Maybe what Dave was doing was comparing both stories to see how similar or different they were. "I knew beyond a doubt that there was no future off of this God forsaken planet for me once the ship left." He had also deliberately avoided saying the "Granolith", more out of instinct than of reason. "Once I was stuck here, I figured I needed to attend school on a more regular base," Michael finished with a little sarcasm.
"But things kept happening, didn't they?" Dave asked, still leaning against the back of the chair. "Because for someone who has realized he has to make a future on this God forsaken planet, you still flunked out. But," Dave said raising a hand before Michael could say anything, "this time, you did take the tests seriously. So seriously that half of your teachers thought you were cheating."
Michael narrowed his eyes, more at the memory than at Dave's words. It was true. He had taken some tests twice –not gladly- just to prove he knew the answers. Stupid things that anyone should know, for crying out loud. Of course, if Max hadn't expected him to know the meaning of ephemeral, how could he expect those idiots he had for teachers to accept he had studied?
All the same, it wasn't that he didn't know, it was that he wasn't showing up for the tests to begin with. Not only were there unexpected things like Khivar in California, or Maria dumping him, or Max dying, but he also had two jobs to keep, friends to pass time with and last but not least, the whole Jesse thing. By the time Tess had crashed, he had pretty much known there was no chance at all he was graduating that year. So, while Max had been studying with Liz, he had had all the time in the world to investigate… Just as Dave had said a minute ago, things kept happening, and school was just not at the top of his priorities.
Michael just scowled. He knew Dave was expecting him to tell him what exactly those keep-happening-things were, and Michael was just not that easy on giving answers.
"I cheated on my tests too," Dave said lowering his voice a little, leaning over the desk.
"I didn't cheat on those," Michael said even in a lower tone, angry. Why did people think he couldn't do that without cheating? Dave smiled a different smile this time. It was one of someone who is remembering something funny.
"I failed every single test I took just to piss people off." What? Michael stared at Dave, who stared at him back. "You see, there are more uses for cheating than to just pass. You could have passed those tests, all by yourself, but you didn't care to. You cheated, because you weren't telling all you knew. I cheated, because I didn't want them to know how much I knew as well."
Where was Dave going? Was he going to said "so, you see, we are not that different after all?" Please…
"I thought you had said you hadn't gone to High School." Michael said out of the blue. His memory could impress him sometimes.
"That doesn't mean I didn't take tests…" Dave said in an even darker tone now than the one he had used before. "You were smart in keeping things to you. I admire that trait. I mean, from you, I can understand it, but from Max and Isabel… why didn't they tell their parents at the first chance? Or anyone? How exciting must it have been to find out you could do these things that no one else could, and yet not tell a soul…"
"It isn't that great…" Michael let the comment slip, and mentally slapped himself for it. Was he feeling comfortable now? Stupid mistake. He didn't continue the sentence, and Dave didn't press him either. Silence fell over them for the third time in half an hour.
Michael's eyes diverted again to anywhere but the man seated in front of him. To the cupboard, to the windows, to the numbers. Anything but Dave's eyes.
"How do you build something like this and keep it secret?" Michael finally found something to ask, something to take the conversation somewhere else but his powers. Dave didn't seem to mind Michael's change of subject, a man who knew his answers would come sooner or later.
"You don't. I mean, you don't build it. You make others build it, then you make others buy it under the name of yet other people. Then you make other people come and rebuild it, thinking they are working for the first people who built it. Then— Well, it's tricky, and it takes time… but once everything is done, you keep it to yourself, just like your abilities, I guess. You don't tell a soul."
"You have just told me," Michael said, almost daring him.
"Oh, yes. And everyone who works and lives in this place also know about it." Michael blinked. Of course he had thought about all these people down here, but he hadn't been all that interested in them to begin with. "It's all a matter of perspective. Why they are here is a whole different reason from why you are here, but they do want this place to continue being their home and work place. Once they finish their projects, they are usually placed in other places where they want to be, and have no interest in revealing this place. Their silence is better than answering rightly to other people's questions. Just like the tests we both avoided, it's better to let people think that we don't know."
So, how many things was Dave feigning ignorance about? And why was he telling Michael in such an open way that Dave was so used to lying and "cheating"? It wasn't doing wonders on the trust-in-me side of the list.
"How did Maria find about you?" Dave asked Michael, the question mentally shaking his thoughts. Michael tensed at the mention of Maria's name. "I mean, I know the risks of keeping this place secret, but I can only imagine what the risks of keeping your secret are."
"Liz told her," he dryly said.
"And Liz found out because Max saved her… Why did he tell her the truth?"
"Because he's Max," Michael curtly answered. He didn't like where this conversation was going. In fact, he didn't like talking about them at all. And now that he was thinking about it, what would Dave do if he just stood up and walked away? Kick them out of the complex?
"Why did Maria stay?"
"Where else was she going to go?" Michael answered, shrugging. The idea of just executing his latest thought was coming into shape in his mind.
"So, why did you stay?"
"You know, I'm thinking exactly the same thing, why am I staying in here?"
"Oh, that I know," Dave said with a genuine, ear to ear smile. "You are hoping I'll give you more answers, trick me into telling things you think I'm keeping from you, and finding out how you can leave this place without me tailing you this time around." Michael blinked, feeling stone frozen in time. Dave wasn't joking. Dave knew.
"You see Michael, you and I have some things in common, but in general, we'd go different ways. And because we don't know each other, we are trying to anticipate each other's moves. I'm used to people trying to trick me and I'm used to tricking people as well. But I don't want to trick you. I'm being this honest with you because if you decide to leave, not this office but my domains, we both lose."
"Really?" Michael asked sarcastically. Like hell Dave's life was on the stake here.
"Really," Dave simply answered, not giving him a long speech or reason. Just that one word.
"Why do you care if we are caught or not? Why do you care what happens to us out there?" Michael asked in a calm voice, genuinely curious and a little bit startled by Dave's very honest answer. What startled Michael even more was Dave's silence. The man had just dropped his eyes to the floor, thinking. He didn't have an immediate comment for this question. Maybe he just hadn't anticipated this question, as he had seemed to have done with everything Michael had asked him so far.
"I don't know," Dave finally answered, arching his eyebrows, his eyes lost in some point in the air. "I mean, I do care, I just don't know why," he said more to himself than for Michael's ears. "Why do you care about Maria? Why didn't you just take off the first night Liz found out about the truth? Why didn't you knock some sense into Max about telling her anything but the truth? Why did they convince you to accept my offer when you know so well that you don't know a thing about me?"
Michael tried to open his mouth in an attempt to answer him, but the words didn't come. He made another attempt, and this time, the ideas didn't come. They both just stared at each other.
"You are crazy," Michael simply answered after a whole minute had passed. Dave almost laughed at that comment.
"I guess I am," he said shrugging, "but we both have questions, so we both have to give answers," he ended, finally breaking the first wall of ice that Michael had set off. But just the first. Michael had plenty of those right in place.
So, for the next four hours not much was really said between the two of them, who had consciously accepted play in this game of tricky questions and half answers and enigmatic comments. Though Michael had never met someone like Dave, deep inside of him, very deep inside of him, Michael had a sense of familiarity. As if he had done this many times before with many other people. A verbal chess game, one where there was no real winner, just a feeling of getting to know more than what had been given in the first place.
All the same, Michael had the distinct feeling that all along Dave had been playing with him on a superior level. The funny thing was that Dave had truly been playing with him in more ways than Michael could have thought possible. And if Michael could have had even the slightest peek into that man's mind, he would have seen that Dave truly knew the meaning of how to use half truths when you were lying.
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Isabel moved her hand to one side, almost in a gesture of greeting. They –Jake, Max and her- were now in the same room where they had been playing car games the day before, except that now the screen held a very different image than the one of the racing cars. Now it was an image of themselves, or more likely, the heat image of themselves. She was looking at her own figure all in shades of reds, oranges and yellows, and she had moved her hand just to see if the hand on the screen would move as well. It did.
"You know," Jake said, as he was staring at the same screen, "it never ceases to amaze me how alike we both are."
"Well, we are humans too," Isabel answered, dropping her hand. It was her, alright…
"Of course you are, but just half. Look at our images, there's no difference. And every cell of your body is as different from mine as day is from night. That's what amazes me."
"You thought we would look different?" Max slowly asked. In fact, Max had gotten that quiet tone that he only used when he was very uncomfortable talking about something.
"I was expecting it, sure. But then again, I was expecting a lot of things," Jake said while changing the picture. Isabel and Max exchanged questioning looks with each other. What did Jake mean with that last comment?
The image did change. It was the three of them again, but instead of warm colors, they were now all in blues, light blues and whites.
"Now, this is different," Jake said, looking at the picture and then turning to them. It was different in the fact that, though Jake was covered in different shades of blues, Max and Isabel's blues were really vivid, and white on the edges.
"What is that? Ultraviolet?" Max asked, looking at his own hand and then back to the screen, almost as if he were expecting to see blue around himself.
Jake smiled. "Though it would be interesting to see how insects see you, nope. This is something we got from the Russians like a decade ago. We've been working on it ever since."
They both looked at Jake, expectant. "So, what is it?" Max asked.
"Energy, synergy, aura, psychic vibrations… called it whatever you want, no one really knows. In the 60's, the Russians had an advanced project on psychic abilities, and developed the ancestor of this camera," Jake said pointing to the screen. "They performed experiments with this woman who had the ability of telekinesis. So they took one picture of her hands, then she did her thing, and when they took the picture again, her hands would look a little like you do right now. She changed the energy –or whatever it is- around her hands."
"But we are not changing anything right now," Isabel said, frowning.
"Well, a decade of working did pay off. You see, the reason why the Russians' camera didn't get a Nobel Prize or anything was because you could take a picture of an apple, and it would look exactly like the picture of anyone's hands. And everybody knows that an apple can't have mental abilities… No psychic energy or anything… Besides, no one wanted to believe in such things openly. But," Jake said looking closer at the screen, "it was taking pictures of something. We refined the lens, to put it in words, but we still don't know what exactly we are photographing."
"We?" Max asked, looking at the ceiling, almost as if expecting to find a group of people looking at them from there.
"Some other people who would be gagging right now if they could see this picture," Jake said laughing. "And to answer your question," he said looking at Isabel, "you are not changing anything, but you have all the potential to do it."
"So this camera takes pictures of how capable one person is of having psychic abilities?" Max said, looking back at his own image.
"Why not?" Jake said, shrugging, "we have taken pictures from nails to horses, from idiots to geniuses, and I have never seen one picture with such vivid colors as yours." Jake pressed another button from his remote control and the screen went blank.
"I was planning on showing this yesterday, but you know how yesterday went. I don't like excluding Michael on this one though, so we'll have the same explanation tomorrow morning, okay?"
Michael. Isabel felt a shiver running through all her spine. Though she would have more faith in Michael's acts than Max on any given day, that didn't mean she was 100 sure everything was okay up there in Dave's office. She had expected something to happen for the past three hours. Either it being Jake's G.E.S. beeping, a cell phone ringing, or an entire alarm system going off through all the corridors of this place. But so far, nothing.
Well, didn't they say that "no news was good news"? Isabel sighed, for an instant making eye contact with Max. Her brother gave her the slightest smile in a reassuring way, clearly thinking the same as she had at the mention of Michael's name.
"So, you are recording all the time?" Max addressed the… was it doctor? Almost two entire sessions had gone by and they still had no clue what kind of doctor Jake was.
"In these rooms every time there's movement. The cameras activate themselves. No point in losing battery or energy. It's a good thing there aren't insects or it would be pretty boring to see the record of a fly passing through on the screen," Jake joked, and though they didn't exactly laugh, they did manage to smile. It wasn't that Jake was trying to be funny, but just that this was the way he talked.
All the same, Isabel had to give credit to these people on knowing how to keep this place neat. Nothing was out of place. Not in the corridors, not in Jake's office, not in this room. Jake kept telling them about the rooms, but so far, this was the only they had seen. A white glass door separated it from whatever was on the other side. Yet, she knew that Jake was waiting for Michael to show them. She just hoped that the showing would happen tomorrow, because her imagination wasn't exactly friendly with her thought about what was there.
For a second, an image of six men in lab coats watching them through the white glass passed through her mind, a reminiscence of Max's act of watching the ceiling. She shook the thought off. It was doing nothing good for her. And God, she wanted everything to work out.
"Are you hungry?" Jake asked, checking the hour on his watch. She did the same. It was 10:49. She wasn't hungry, but she was thirsty. They had talked ever since they had arrived, and that Cherry Coke from 7:00 a.m. had been long ago finished. And, by the way, the only new place they had seen this day had been the bathroom, which was at the very opposite side of the white glass door. There had been nothing remarkable or outstanding about it. Your ordinary –if very large- office bathroom.
"I wouldn't mind another Cherry Coke," Max said, trying to sound normal. Trying even harder to not look uncomfortable. She couldn't really blame him. Talking about their powers was one of the weirdest things to do, no matter what they had agreed upon.
Almost as if Jake could read her thoughts, when they were walking out to get the sodas out of his mini-fridge, he asked out loud, "You know, you don't really have to tell me, but I would love to hear how you got to discover your abilities. What was it like when you were kids?"
Talking about their powers was one of the weirdest things because they barely talked about them. Not with other people, but within themselves. When they were growing, for Max and Isabel it was like, if you didn't say a thing about it, then you could pretend it didn't exist. Michael couldn't control them, and was pissed off at the fact. Besides, there was the risk of being overheard.
So, those early years of discovery had been… well, a sort of excitement mixed with fear. By the time they were teenagers, they hardly talked about anything alien related, in part because they were scared of it, and in part because they didn't really put much use to their powers. Max was always giving her these looks of "you are doing it again", every time she did something in front of him, that he just spoiled the little joy she could find in them. But that had changed with Tess's arrival and their message from home. They were getting stronger, and whether they wanted to admit it or not, that also scared them big time. Michael had gotten the better deal out of it though, because he had finally managed to gain control over his energy, leveling with her and Max. Of course, to get Tess's level they would need years of practice…
"Well, it was…" Max started, glancing at her, crying for help with his look. It wasn't that they couldn't talk about this, it was just… How do you talk about something you had never really talked about because you feared for your life? Start with the beginning? Jake passed them the sodas, expectant.
"It just happened…" Isabel tried to elaborate. "I wanted my dress to be light blue instead of pink, and it would start to change, so I would just stop wishing it before Mom noticed…"
"Or we would want to… I don't know, get a cookie and it would just move towards us," Max reflected, "We were just kids, doing silly stuff."
"But you weren't silly kids, that's for sure. You didn't go showing off… did you?" Jake asked, now opening some chips he had also brought with him from the cupboard, signaling with his hand if they wanted something. Both siblings declined.
Still, a question was pending in the air. They both thought about it for a second. "Everything was new," Isabel said, remembering her first memories. Fuzzy memories. "And we had to learn so much so fast, because all the other kids were doing all the things kids our age were supposed to do…"
"But soon we sort of realized that there were things they weren't doing…" Max said, sort of fidgeting with his own fingers, watching as Jake gave a last look to the cupboard. "I mean, by the time we actually started doing things, we knew the others weren't. We just kept it a secret… Half of the time we even kept it a secret from each other."
Those had been some very scary years, Isabel reflected. Where had Michael been, to begin with? Where was the other kid, the other one that was like them? She had known just as strongly as Max had known that Michael was out there, and that they belonged together. Every kid they had met, they had hoped… It hadn't been till they were almost eight that things had started to happen. By that time they were conscious enough of their surroundings and what people expected. Especially what their parents expected. And changing colors and moving cookies wasn't on the list. So many things weren't on that list…
"So, you pretty much developed your abilities by yourselves? I mean, individually?" Jake asked, raising an eyebrow at Max's latest comment, the three of them still standing.
Max took a deep breath, almost as if preparing for a long speech. "Well, it was more like… I would do something, and try to do it again. If I could do it again, then I would tell Isabel and she would try it… but when we were kids, not much really happened…"
"Your parents never caught you when you were kids?" Jake asked, indicating that they should go to the living room, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. But did Jake know that they had actually been caught by their parents not even a year ago?
"I don't know why they didn't…" Max said, sitting on the larger sofa, Isabel sitting at his right. Jake took the other sofa, at their left. "I mean, it wasn't that we did anything often, but they could have caught us."
"I'm sure Mom had her suspicions. It all started with that video…" and of course, that comment had to be elaborated. Jake was almost done with his chips by the time he had finished asking about the incident, and they had finished telling him everything they could recall.
"It must have been tough on you," Jake said sympathetically. "I mean, not only keeping those things secret, but to adjust and all. Like you said, to live up to the standards of everyone else."
They both nodded. It was around 11:20 a.m. by now, and so far, no explosions had been heard down here. Was Michael still up there? Isabel was feeling uneasiness now. She didn't like one of their own out of her range, to put it in words.
"So, what is it like? To heal?" Jake asked. Both Evans swallowed hard. They had pretty much avoided the subject of unique powers, and had omitted her dreamwalking and Michael's very efficient destructive technique… And Tess' mindwarps, of course… But the main reason for them avoiding the subject was that Max couldn't allow Jake to know what happened to someone he had healed… those changes could not be seen in a lab. How were they going to convince the man in front of them that Max shouldn't heal a thing? "You said you didn't know you were healing the pigeon, but you must have felt something…"
Max took his time to think this one through, almost as if he were deciding every single word he was going to use. Probably he had done so every night since they had arrived here… "It's like…" Max started, still thoughtful. Then, shrugging a little, he looked at Jake, "Water, like a flow. I can feel the flow, and when something's is not right, the flow is… disrupted I guess… I remember thinking that when I touched that bird, that it was disrupted…"
Isabel looked at her brother. Max had never really told her how it… felt… to heal, just how tired he got after healing. It wasn't as if she had told him how it felt to dreamwalk either, now that she was thinking about it. When Max had said half of the time they kept their powers to each other, and later on told the other, it was like, "hey, I did this, can you?" but there wasn't any how they had done it. Though half of those times, their little experiments ended up with something blowing… and blowing things did feel like disrupting something…
"And when you touched the bird, or when you heal someone now, you put that flow back in place?"
"It isn't that easy…" Max said with a dark tone. Jake caught the intention, and frowned. "In order to put that flow in place, I have to… well, it feels as if I have to use my own flow to re-direct the other person's. I didn't feel that with the pigeon, but I did when I saved Liz, and every other person I have healed after that. And that feeling… It drains me."
"It exhausts you?" Jake tentatively asked.
"Usually, but last time I tried it, it killed me."
Isabel felt cold. The idea of losing Max –or Michael for that matter- was one that plagued her nightmares. One of her worst fears. And it had happened. She had been shot and had been fighting for her life, so there wasn't much to remember about that, but for the brief minutes between Valenti getting out of that fire telling them Max was dead and the actual shooting… that feeling had killed her inside. If Max had truly been dead… she didn't even want to think about how things would have been for them now.
Jake was silent for a few seconds. "You mean it literally killed you?"
Max nodded. "And it's something I'm not going to do again."
It wasn't 'til 12:30 pm that they finally left the place, Jake still wanting to keep discussing the whole "transferring" thing, even trying to see a way of healing without Max ending dead –something Max refused to do no matter what.
"Do you think he'll find a way to convince you?" Isabel asked as they were waiting for the elevator.
"Not a chance in hell," Max seriously said, "if he finds out about…" The doors opened, showing a deserted inside. Max didn't have to elaborate about what he was afraid Jake might find out. Beginning with Liz, continuing with Kyle, and probably ending with who knew what kind of experiments.
But Isabel was still unsure. Maybe she had asked the wrong question. What if Jake found a way to obligate Max into healing? How long could they keep things hidden from these people?