(Liz Parker's Diary continues...)
Just before closing the janitor closet door, I took out my cell phone and scanned the distant hallway, spotting Michael and pointing the shiny black bulb at him until the phone beeped. Alex had rigged up these little add-ons to all of our phones for better security at short ranges... infrared voice messaging, he called it. Nobody else could possible intercept these communiques, unless they had another device in the light of sight from the sender, with the encryption codes that Alex had put in. I put the phone up to my ear and pressed the button to play Michael's message. "She's coming your way - everything looking good. Clean aside from the doo-dad Max told you about earlier. Twenty-five seconds to intercept." That meant she should be coming by, just about...
"Now," I whispered, and Maria went and opened the door again. At first I couldn't tell that much about the person outside, except that she was surprised that a closet door had opened right in front of her. Then Tess stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Maria reached out and made sure it was locked.
"Fancy meeting you here," she muttered, bringing up her arm significantly. One of the buttons on her sleeve was noticeably bigger than all the others on her shirt.
"We can talk freely," Maria said, startling Tess. "That gizmo isn't recording anything - never was."
"How the heck do you know??"
"Max and Isabel checked it out pretty thoroughly in the cafeteria," I said. "It's built to send out a locater transmission, but they're pretty damned sure that that's all. Nothing that would pick up light radiation, or sounds, and store them in and organized way. Nothing that's sensitive to a radio trigger, or some other remote control like that."
"Can they really tell so much?" Tess asked, looking impressed.
"We hope so," Maria said. "Alex has been drilling Isabel pretty closely with some electronics stuff, having her sense them and analyze capabilities. She isn't wrong much."
"Alright," Tess said, seeming to accept this all. "What's up?"
"Okay, first off... there's something I want to try this afternoon, once school lets out. Out in the street right outside the Crashdown, across the street from where Max works. Quarter to four. Can you be there?"
"Sure I can, but I'd like to know a little bit more about it."
"I want Max to confront one of those Special Unit guys." Tess seemed stunned by the notion. "Nothing too bad, just shouting at him and calling him weird for following us around. I want very much to see what they'd do, if it changes their behaviour. And I want them to know that we're not going to just stand around passively and wait - occasionally we might do something unexpected."
"Are you sure you're ready for what their response might be, Liz??" Tess asked softly. "I mean... I admire the idea in principle actually... I'm a little jealous that I didn't think of something like it first. But Pierce will get exactly what message you're sending, and she might step up the timetable on her own plans."
"Let her," I insisted defiantly. "Waiting for her to be perfectly ready to come and swoop in will never get us anywhere. Our guys have resources that I don't think she could predict, and forcing her into moving early might give us a fighting chance."
"It might... might also get somebody killed," Maria realized out loud, looking pale. "But you're r--right Liz. We've gotta do something."
"Okay," Tess said. "I'll be there. Anything else?"
I decided to open up with her. She seemed to be holding up her end of the implicit bargains we'd made, and I decided to trust Tess with some more details. "Is there... is there anybody in the special unit who could futz with my dreams? Or can Nacero do that sort of thing maybe?"
"I... yes, it would take a powerful broadcast telepath but it's possible. I don't think Nacero has that sort of ability, especially not with humans. Why??"
"I had a very weird dream last night. About... about a friend of ours. Making me think she was in trouble."
"The rogue FBI agent?" Tess guessed. "The one you were meeting with in the Indian reservation a few days ago??" Hmm... I hadn't been sure how much she'd guessed about Topolsky. Probably been able to find out a lot from being connected to Max, Michael, and Isabel's thoughts... boy, that idea was really getting creepy.
"Yeah. The dream was really detailed... with all kind of information about... about the hiding place we moved her into after you and I had that talk in the woods - a place we thought she was safe. In the dream, she was dragged away by agents. But when we finally got up there, being very careful about being followed and walking into a trap and such, everything was fine."
"Hmm... I have to say I'm not sure," Tess admitted. "To create an illusion with that much detail would normally have required the psionic to have that information available about the setting... and, as you might have realized yourself, if the special unit had that info they could simply have grabbed her without warning you, instead of frightening you and apparently doing nothing, accomplishing nothing else. It doesn't seem to make much sense as a tactic. You don't think it could just have been a regular dream?"
"It didn't feel too regular." Since everything else seemed to be pointing in that direction, I was softening my stance. "Then again, these aren't regular days for me. Maybe it was just my brain's way of letting out a little stress."
"Okay. Oh, one other thought... I don't know for sure that it's possible, but my mom said she heard about it once. A very skilled psionic might have been able to implant the framework of that dream... the conceptual basis, in such a way that your own brain filled in all the details. Again, I'm not sure what the point would have been, but that might explain something."
"New topic," Maria said. "The guys... Michael, Max, Isabel. They're not sure where they came from - in the direct, physical sense. They have dim memories of coming out of incubation pods, hidden somewhere out in the desert, but haven't been able to narrow that down. Do you know anything about those? It just might be important."
"Umm... no, I don't think so. I've never deliberately reached that deeply into any of their minds, and I don't think I came upon anything relevant to it by pure chance. Umm... I think Nacero has been to a place like that, several times, but I'm not sure exactly where it is - or when he's been, whether it was before Max and the others showed up... I kind of think it would have been after."
"Hmm..." I thought about that.
"If they trust me enough, I could try doing a deep probe into one of their subconscious minds," Tess offered. "Face to face would be best for that kind of thing, to avoid any possible complications. I promise - I won't deliberately go after anything else, and I won't tell anyone anything that I find through such an operation. In fact, I can probably try to do it so that I get nearly nothing at all directly from their thoughts... just help them to consciously access a long-repressed memory."
"We'll tell them," Maria said. "Right now, we'd probably all better get out of here before anybody starts banging down the door."
"Yeah." I opened the door. The hallway was pretty empty - everyone else having gone to classes by this point. Isabel was leaning against a locker not far away, trying her best to make it look like she had nothing better to do. A little ways further down the hall, a guy in a blue suit was doing a much worse job of being inconspicuous.
The four of us hurried off to class. Nobody here but us studious and slightly tardy high school girls.
----------
"Okay..." Max muttered. "Everybody clear on the plan?"
"Yes, of course we are," Isabel sighed. After a second, she muttered, "Sorry, I was feeling nervous and jumpy. Yes, I'm clear."
"I'm clear," I said.
"So am I... and our friend is still just about four car lengths behind the Jeep, which sounds good," Alex finished.
"Okay," Max mumbled. He turned off of second street and parked in a different area than he did normally, about a block and a half south of the Crash. We got out and started to head up the street. For some reason, I had a completely insane urge to wave at the Special Unit agent who had managed to find a spot to park himself, (we'd picked this place partly so that it would be hard, but not too hard,) and followed us at as great a distance as he could. There would have been almost no chance that I'd have spotted him if I hadn't been looking, but since I was, it wasn't hard.
We had arranged all of this pretty carefully. The four of us come north, Tess heads south, and Michael and Maria come from the east, all timing it so that our paths converge, and we pass each other, right outside the diner. Michael and Maria headed in as if it was time for their shift, Isabel waved hi to Tess. Each of us had exactly one boy in blue, and they were more than a little surprised to find that they all ended up at the same place at the same time. Ours had caught up to us as we got near to the restaurant... probably wanting to be sure that he could see whether we went in, or ducked around to go up to my balcony, or headed over to the UFO center, or what.
Max and I nodded at each other at the exact same moment, and we all turned around. Max headed forward, while Alex and I stayed where we were, and Isabel dodged out to the side, standing in the parking lane of Main Street, bracketing the east side at least partially. Michael was guarding the west flank, which was the entrance into the Crashdown dining room, keeping Maria behind him. Tess was glaring at them from the south. So suddenly, they found themselves calmly and efficiently surrounded.
And Max strode forward, carefully but with a bit of fierce energy in his movements. "Hey, what the hell's the deal??" he called out loudly. The streets around the center of Roswell were always busy, this time of day, and several passers by were already starting to pay attention to the unusual confrontation "Look at me, mister, 'cause I'm talking to you. No, don't look at your friends and pretend you don't hear me!!"
I took a deep breath. Could something go really badly wrong here? I remembered the message that whoever had sent by stabbing Isabel. And these guys were openly carrying guns. If one of them shot Max, and they threatened to shoot anyone else that kept them from getting away, then what??
We couldn't even... Max was the only one with the healing touch, at least with enough of it to save the life of somebody with a serious gunshot wound. Physician, heal thyself? Not likely in this case.
Forced myself to calm down. They *could* do that, theoretically, but there was zero chance that they would, that they would have been ordered to use deadly force in so public a situation. It would turn the entire town upside down and possibly lead to a serious investigation of the Special Unit, in the worst possible light. They didn't want that kind of publicity.
At least... not unless it seemed like there was no other choice.
Fortunately, things didn't seem to be going badly. "You've been following me and my friends for days now!" Max was shouting, really getting into the fun of it. "Did you think that we were blind, that we weren't noticing? Who do you work for?? Have we done something wrong??"
The agent he had been focusing on particularly, the one who had been following the four of us, smiled a little sheepishly. "Listen, kid, I wish I knew what to tell you."
"Do you admit that you've been following me?" He didn't say anything, though it seemed like he made the tiniest little nod. "Are you willing or able to say ANYTHING about it??"
A long pause. "Then I'll give you two choices. Either get the hell out of here," Max took a deep breath, "or I'll grab one of you by the arm and take you to a Sheriff's deputy, tell him you've been stalking me. See what the law has to say about that."
That part was pure bluff, and probably Max's idea. Valenti might have come to find Max when he found out that Hubble was trying to kill him, and told Alex that he was looking out for us, but I still wasn't sure we could trust his motives. On the other hand, I kind of got the feeling that Valenti didn't like FBI or other outside authorities snooping in his town, so he might appreciate the chance to make trouble for a Special Unit agent just on principle.
But it looked like he wouldn't get the chance. None of the blue-coats seemed happy about it, but they were starting to head off, across the street where Isabel stepped aside to clear a path that they could take, across the street. Somebody started to clap - I couldn't tell quite who, or why. Max did a good job of staying and watching until all three of them were out of sight, and then we lost little time in heading into the dining room - all seven of us.
"Of course, they'll be back and following us again soon," Tess whispered softly. "They'll be hanging further back, harder to spot. Probably less noticeable clothes than the blue suits -- better cover stories in case of a confrontation like that. Switching out with other agents more often, so it'd be harder to make the case that there's a threatening pattern."
"Party pooper," Michael muttered. "I don't care, it did my heart good to see that." And that, to tell the truth, was most of the reason why I came up with this plan. Slightly scary tactical advantages were well and good, but it had been clear to me this morning that our side needed a morale booster, and even a hollow victory would be better in that vein than nothing at all.
"By the way, Maria mentioned something else that I can maybe help out with," Tess said softly. "But maybe we should talk about that somewhere else."
"Yeah, okay," Isabel said after a moment. "But not right now. Right now - we eat!!"
"And drink," Michael added. "Though... not booze drinks, just sodas and such."
"And just maybe, we'll be slightly merry," Alex finished.
Maria and Max shot him an odd look.
-----------
After consuming a rather starting quantity of greasy snack food, a few of us headed upstairs to chez Parker. Michael and Maria really did need to get on shift, and Alex's parents had called through to the diner, and asked him to come home as soon as he could, so that left Tess and Isabel, Max and me. Tess quickly explained more or less what she had told Maria and I in the janitor's closet.
"A deep probe?" Max repeated as if he didn't like the way the words sounded when they came together that way. I couldn't really blame him.
"Maybe 'probe' is the wrong word to use around aliens," Tess said, and giggled nervously. Isabel and Max were both staring at her flatly. "And maybe I shouldn't have even said that. Oh well. Call it... a guided memory retrieval session. I'll be using the contact I have with your minds simply to help you remember, to put you in better touch with your earliest memories. That way should be *extremely* safe... and very few privacy issues too. I won't be able to 'snoop' hardly at all on what you find out." Tess made a little sad face, as if she regretted the prospect of giving up some good juicy mental secret.
"Well... maybe," Isabel said, stretching her legs out on the couch. "What do you think, Max?? It's probably better if I volunteer for this, if only because..." She waved a hand vaguely, and I swallowed as I realized what she was getting at. If something went horribly wrong while Tess was touching her mind, then Max might be able to save things by trying to use his healing touch on her brains. We all hoped that it wouldn't come to that... but maybe she had a point.
"Well... if you want to go through with it, I'll support you in it," Max assured her. "It... it kind of makes sense. We really need to know what might be in that pod place... or at least, it would be really good to find out."
"Hmm..." Isabel thought about that. "What we *really* need is to get back that Orb that Nacero stole from us... or at least figure out what they're any good for." She looked piercingly over at Tess. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, now would you Tessie??"
"Umm... metal thing, about big enough to hold in one hand?" Tess asked. Max's head turned around to stare at her.
"Yeah... what do you know about it?"
"Umm... it's very important to him... something that he associates with his resentment of the three of you. I... I'm not quite sure why." Tess was stammering slightly, obviously nervous at this turn in the conversation.
"Just... just because Topolsky gave it to us, or something more fundamental than that??"
"Ummm..." Tess closed her eyes and concentrated. "Yes, something deeper. The one he took... even though he still has it, it's a source of frustration. He... he knows how to use that one, but the knowing how doesn't do him any good, because... because of who he is."
"Really?" Isabel blinked. "Would it... would it have done us any good if we learned how? And that's why he took it away??"
"Yeah, something like that," Tess agreed. "And that... if you got the orb to work, it'd somehow be everything he's most worried about."
"Okay..." I tried a question. "What about the second orb - the one that he doesn't have yet? Do you think he knows about it? Does he have any particular feelings about it?"
"Umm... okay, yeah. He knows there's another... I don't think he knows if you've got it or not. He..." Tess sighed, her eyes still closed, looking somehow intently relaxed, almost as if she was slipping into a self-hypnotic trance state. Her voice was getting a little slow and dreamy too. "The second one, he could probably use if he had it... if he thought there was a need. But there's still some outrage -- outrage over the fact that you guys might have it, and more... maybe the fact that it was MEANT for 'the three,' and not for him. On another level, he's a little glad that you've got it, because it might help you out of a tight spot. His feelings about you are *really* conflicted... even though there's anger or resentment, he also feels an undercurrent of sympathy and protectiveness. He..." Tess gasped, and opened her eyes. "He doesn't want anybody to hurt any of you, except possibly himself."
"Oh-kay..." Max mumbled. I could tell from the look on his face, as he sat there in one of my mom's dinner chairs, that this scene was definitely starting to freak him out. "Any notion what either of them actually DO? Where he might have hidden the one he has?"
Tess closed her eyes again and was silent for a long time. "The second one... I get an impression of power there. Energies... energies that could be used in combat, or for defense. Against... against the interlopers... that might be the Special Unit he's talking about. And the first orb - the one that he already has... it's to connect, to make contact..." She sighed and opened her eyes again. "He won't let me any nearer than that. It seems to be terribly close to his anger, his resentment of the three of you. That's the only thing he fights me on so much... he doesn't seem to want to give up that secret to anybody, yet."
"Wait a second!" I said, concerned. "You mean... he can tell that you were in his head, just now?" That didn't really seem good.
"Yeah. I'm sorry - I was trying to avoid that at first, but... well, you guys seemed to insistent, and I lost sight of caution and just kept pushing and pushing." She sighed and turned to Max. "I have some notions of where he might have hidden the Orb - some of the places that he spends his time on, though I don't know precisely where any of them are to be found. On the other hand... if it's so important to him to not let any of you get the contact Orb, and he knows that I've been trying to find more out about it - he may take it and hide it somewhere much more carefully now. Again, I'm really sorry."
"It... it's okay," Isabel told her. "We know a lot more about both the orbs and Nacero than when we started, and I think that's worth it." She sighed. "One thing that I don't get, though, is that if he didn't want us to have the first orb... how did Max and Liz find it in the first place? I thought that it was Nacero who led them there."
"Well... maybe he changed his mind," I suggested. "He certainly seems to be unstable enough for it. Maybe there's some other motivation, something that ties into protecting the three of you, that made him think that us having it would be a good idea. Then resentment rose up and swamped protectiveness, and he stole it away again. Or maybe he was just using us to get it, because there was some reason he couldn't dig it up directly himself."
"Or... or maybe it wasn't Nacero at all, but something else that led us there that night," Max said quietly.
"Something else?" Isabel and I asked at the same time, and she added "Like what??"
"I...I'd rather not say just yet, until I get a few things sorted out in my head." I was staring at him so hard that I'm not sure what he saw in my face, or Isabel's, but he added after a moment, "Just trust me for a little while, okay??"
"Alright I guess," Isabel turned her head back towards Tess. "The memory retrieval thing. We'd probably better do that now, before we forget entirely."
"Okay." Tess got up from the armchair she was sitting in and gestured that Isabel should sit up on the couch so that she could take the place next to her. Isabel seemed a little bit reluctant to draw up her legs, which had been streteched out on the sofa this whole time, and put her feet back on the floor.
I'm not quite sure how to describe the retrieval session, because there's not that much that visibly happened. Tess reached around Isabel's head to lay her hand on the far side of her head. with her palm mostly over Isabel's ear, with hair in between. Isabel's eyes closed, while Tess' stayed half open, and Izzie seemed to cycle between very calm, slow breathing, and a more shallow, faster breathing pattern, on what seemed to be a sine wave with a period of maybe forty-five seconds. It was about six minutes before Tess took her hand away and shuffled slightly to the side in order to give Isabel her space. "Did... did it work?" she asked nervously.
"Yes." Isabel opened her eyes and looked at Max. "Or at least it worked quite a bit. The memories are definitely clearer... as if they happened sometime yesterday, maybe. I'm still not sure it'll be simple to find the place, but now I think it'll be possible."
Max smiled. "Do you want to get started now? The Special Unit might not have arranged another tail for us, and I doubt they'll still want to use the boys in blue."
"Yeah, maybe," I agreed, wanting to get in on this. "We could grab Maria too - she had that flash about the pods yesterday, and we didn't really have a chance to try out what SHE saw. That could be a good counterpoint to your new memories Isabel."
"Yeah," Isabel said softly. "But first... Liz, do you mind if I use your phone to call Alex's place?? I'm a little... well, a little worried. It seems unusual, them calling for him at the cafe like that, right??"
"Not entirely," I said. "It's happened before - not when you were hanging around with him, but it has." Isabel looked down slightly, as if embarassed... that she'd forgotten she hadn't really been spending time with Alex for very long, all things considered. "But if you want to call, by all means go ahead." I picked up a cordless phone and lightly tossed it to her.
She dialed, and I went over and spoke with Max about something unimportant - a homework assignment we'd been given in social studies, because I didn't want to feel like I was listening in. I caught little snippets of what Isabel was saying, pretty predictable stuff like asking if Alex was there yet. It didn't seem like long before she hung up the phone.
"Alex... Alex's grandfather in Kirtland had a... a seizure, possibly a stroke," Isabel breathed. "His parents are getting ready to leave, to head up there and... and make sure that he's okay. They... well, they want him to come with them, obviously."
"Oh, no," Tess whispered, and we all turned to look at her. "I... I don't think this is a coincidence, guys. They're trying to seperate you from your friends and allies, one by one. Alex had a weakness... a relative in a suitably distant location, probably with a medical history that fit in. They *want* to get him out of town, long enough to... to make a difference somehow."
Max looked ashen, but he had a resolve face. "If th-- they want Alex to leave, then we want to find a way for him to stay, right?? As long as it could be done without attracting too much attention?"
"But... if this doesn't work, will they keep at it?" Isabel jumped. "Mom's sister - aunt Laney. She's had diabetes for years and years now. If somebody managed to... if they were able to replace her meds with sugar pills, she could go into a coma. It wouldn't even look too..." She broke off, not able to continue any further.
"I don't know how great a danger that is," Tess said softly. "This looks surgical, a carefully planned move to create a very specific response. If it looks like we're on guard and won't react the obvious way they were hoping... they may put it aside and try something completely different. Hurting your loved ones just to torture you psychologically would be escalating things in a manner that doesn't sound at all like Pierce... at least, not at this point."
"Oh... okay," I started. "I know Alex's parents pretty well, what kind of arguments they'd be receptive to." Pause to think just a little. "There's school - that seems the most obvious one. They're proud of Alex -- he got his brains from his father, mostly, and school and academics are important to them. Finals aren't that far away, and if he made the pitch that he wanted to stay in classes, instead of driving all the way across the state..."
"Yeah, alright," Max said. "If they want to find someone he can stay with while they're away, then maybe Izzie and I can talk to our folks." He stopped a little, maybe realizing how that would sound if his parents had heard that Alex and Isabel were dating. "Or maybe Maria's mom."
"How did you leave things with Alex?" Tess asked.
"He... he said he's not sure if he wants to go," Isabel said. "He might have guessed about some of this stuff himself. One of us should probably call back soon, or maybe a couple of us could go straight over there."
"How long are Michael and Maria still on shift today?" Max asked me, frowning slightly as he tried to work out the right thing to do. "Do you have to go on?"
"Umm... Maria's only short-shifting," I said. "Covering for Katie Wilson, because she had to be late. Michael's on until... oh, eight or nine, I can't remember which. Katie's supposed to be here at five-thirty. And no, I don't have to work myself." My parents had been looking for other people to take on more in the diner, because they said they didn't want to take time away from studies for me or any of my friends. Schoolwork wasn't as big a priority for me now as it was for them, but I was glad that they had arranged the time off anyway.
"Gut check time," Max said, addressing Isabel and I. "Which is more important - the Alex crisis, or the pod chamber?"
"Alex," I said immediately, without even thinking about it.
"Umm... yeah," Isabel agreed after a moment. "Tess... if my memories start to fade again, can you do this trick again?"
"Uhh... I, I think so," Tess replied, clearly startled by the question. "I guess I didn't expect that they would fade particularly quickly, but..." She hesitated. "Now that we've been through it once, I think I can quickly teach you a refresher technique to make the memories more vivid again, without even having to go into contact with you again."
"Okay, that sounds good," Isabel agreed. "Max, let's head home and try to sound Mom and Dad out about Alex... I have to admit, I'd kind of like having him around. Liz, maybe you could bring Maria up to speed, so that when Katie arrives she can do whatever she needs to as soon as possible."
"Yeah," I told her. "Bye and good luck."
"Umm... I guess I'll get going too," Tess said. "Should check in with my Dad and stuff."
"See-ya, Tess," I said, smiling at her. "Come around again soon."
-----------
"So, what do you think??" I said, sitting down next to Alex on his lawn. It was hours later, and evening was falling across Roswell. Maria and I had eaten dinner at the Whitman's house, with Max and Isabel 'just happening' to drop by afterwards to pass on their sympathy about Alex's grandfather.
"I think the Special Unit had better watch out, 'cause I'm pissed now," he answered, in much too soft and mild a voice to make the threat anything other than comical. But nothing was particularly funny at this point, so I didn't laugh.
"About where you're going to stay," I prompted. "The Evanses have offered, and so has Maria's mom. Neither Isabel's parents or yours seem to think that there'd be anything wrong with the two of you being under the same roof for a week or so."
"I don't think my folks even realize that I'm seeing anybody," Alex admitted. "If 'seeing each other' is the right term for what's going on between Isabel and I." He smiled at the thought. "I admit I think I'm more impressed by that idea. Not just getting to see more of Izzy... but being closer, I'd be better able to keep an eye on both of them. Things are going to get messy very soon, and they're likely to be in the thick of it."
"Yeah," I agreed. "I really am sorry about Grampa Lou." I still remembered, very vividly, (or at least with the semblance of vividness,) a March break trip up to Bloomfield, not far from Kirtland... Alex's father had been called there to consult with a research team at a biological institute there, and Alex and I had come up because we didn't have school and watched a change of scenery. Alex's grandfather had driven over one afternoon and given Alex an advance birthday present, saying it would be easier than shipping it a month later. He was a slightly grumpy guy, as I remembered him, but full of a hard-to-describe lively spirit, and still in pretty good health for seventy-something. And that had been only about a year or so ago. Didn't like to think about him maybe having a stroke... like my own Grandma had had. "I... I know it's crazy, but I feel responsible."
"Why?" Alex asked, and then guessed it. "Because of the confrontation plan? Liz, that's really stupid. Things had already happened in Kirtland by the time Max parked the Jeep this afternoon. And... well, we don't know what anybody might have done to my grandpa, but if there was anything, it probably took some time to arrange. A day or two."
"Yeah, yeah, I know it all in my head," I admitted. "But still... I convinced Max and everybody to do something risky, something maybe a little stupid, and then something bad happens to someone you care a lot about. It's no so easy to convince my stomach that there wasn't any connection."
"Your stomach will figure it out eventually," Alex quipped. "It's a pretty smart bag of organic tissue." For some reason, that made me laugh quite a bit.
After a little while, we went back in, and Alex told his parents that he was really sorry he wouldn't be able to go up and make sure that Grampa would be okay, but his classes had to be a priority, and he'd decided that he wanted to accept the offer to move in with the Evanses and share Max's room. His mother made a bit of a fuss, and then he and Max and Isabel headed off in the Jeep, to meet Max's parents and work out some of the details.
"I'd probably better go too, tell my mom that unless there's some big problem with the Evanses, she won't need to make room for a houseguest herself," Maria said. "Liz, do you want a ride?" I told her sure, of course.
"Oh, I nearly forgot, I meant to offer my sympathies to Isabel, I heard about what happened to her at the school the other day," Alex's dad said. "Could you tell her that I'm glad she seems to be doing well."
"Right, yes," I said. "It looked really bad at the time, but she wasn't hurt seriously. Just lost a little blood - that was the worst of it I guess."
We said goodbye to Alex's mom and headed down to where Maria had parked the Jetta. "Okay, that's one crisis dealt with sucessfully, or at least so it seemed," she whispered once the motor was on. "What about the pod chamber thing? Can we pick Isabel up and get anything done on that tonight??"
I groaned... today had already been much too full of plans and schemes. "Umm... it might be better to leave that for tomorrow." I sighed.
"Gotcha." We were getting close to the Crashdown already. "I feel kinda tired too, actually. How about I go in with you, we go behind the counter, and make ourselves a couple of cherry-coke, rocky road ice cream floats? That sound good?"
"GOD yes!!" I exclaimed. Maria looked over at me, and we both started howling with laughter.
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ALEX:
"Okay, I guess this is it," Isabel said, getting behind the wheel of her mother's car and pulling out into the street. "I hope you enjoy your stay at Evans house." After she finished speaking, she shot one of those 300-watt (or so) grins over at me.
"I fully expect to," I told her. "Not that enjoyment was the reason for any of this, but... well, I guess you know what I mean." My parents had been interested in getting started as quickly as possible, even though it was a long drive to Kirtland... they could get a motel room for the night somewhere between Ramon and Vaughn, and be at least an hour ahead in the morning, compared to sleeping here in Roswell. That was why Isabel had rushed me back home, to quickly pack up a bag of overnight stuff, to settle in at their house for tonight -- and to say a quick goodbye to my mom and dad before they roared out of town.
"I... I feel bad that you got dragged into all of this danger," Isabel blurted out. "It... it's bad enough that Max and Michael and I have to live with the threat of government UFO hunters and what-all else, but now you're in as much danger as we are. You and Maria and Liz. Sometimes I think you should never have been involved."
I sighed. "We've been over this, and we'll probably go over it again, heheh. No, in a perfect world none of our lives should be in danger just because you are what you are. But... I wouldn't have given up what I've been through... knowing all of you, caring the way I do about you Isabel, helping Max out when he was in the hospital -- just to save myself from the danger. Not ever."
She smiled slightly. "Mind if I pull over so we can kiss a little??"
"Isn't that kind of a stupid question?" I shot back, and she laughed. "On the other hand, if we won't be able to find ways to kiss when we're living under the same roof without your parents catching us, I may explode or something."
"That would get really messy," she said, slowing down and maneuvering the car into a parking lot. "I'd better start to get creative."
And then we were parked, and Isabel shuffled over slightly. It was a good thing that the car was too old to have captain's chairs in the front, it was just a big bench, with the automatic gearshift attached to the steering column. We put our arms around each other at the same time, (luckily, she went high and I went low, otherwise it coulda been awkward,) and our lips met.
I'll say this. I don't have that much experience with kissing before Izzy, but she has got to be naturally *amazing* at it. Well, either that, or somehow we just happen to be great together. It was more than fifteen minutes later before we got ourselves sorted out and back onto the road safely. Fifteen EXCEPTIONALLY great minutes.
Isabel walked with me as I carried my bag up to Max's room, where a pretty comfy looking inflatable bed had already been set up. Max had some news to pass along to both of us as I settled in.
"Maria and Liz called. Isabel, they didn't say what the wanted straight out, but Maria asked if you wanted to cut class tomorrow to go exploring out in the desert."
Isabel smiled. "Yeah, I think that'd be good."
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Liz Parker's diary:
No dreams that I can specifically remember last night, which counts as a good thing I think. Maria and Izzy and I met for breakfast together - not at the Crashdown, but a little coffee shop in the north end of town.
"Are you sure you wanna ditch and tag along with us, Liz?" Maria asked with a slightly teasing tone. "I got the flash from Michael - Isabel had the memory retrieval thing done with Tess. But, well, you don't have any specific info or skills to contribute."
"Maybe not, but I wanna come anyway," I insisted. "Not quite sure why. And there's no particular reason I need to show up at classes today, no scheduled tests or assignments due."
"Well, that's all well and good, Liz..." Isabel sighed. "But I'm not convinced that this should be a girl's club deal. For one thing, I'd like to drop in on Michael and ask him along. He's probably done more crawling around in the desert looking for hidden secrets than any of the rest of us. That could be valuable."
"Okay, he can come along too," I said, not sure I liked where this was headed.
"And Liz..." Isabel sighed. "Four kinda seems like too many. Big enough number to seem odd if somebody spots us out there. Enough people ditching to DEFINITELY form a pattern."
"Michael ditching doesn't add to a pattern," Maria said supportively. "It's the times he actually shows up at school that seem unusual."
I focused my attention on Isabel. "Are you saying that I *can't* come with??"
"No." Izzie took a deep breath. "It's your choice. But I don't think it's a good idea." She sighed. "Go to school, hang out with Max and Alex."
I frowned, upset at how upset I was that Isabel didn't agree with my own plan. But I decided not to make an issue of it. Isabel was kind of the informal team leader here, because Tess had enhanced her memory access. I didn't want to contradict her, and anyway what she was saying made sense.
So I went to my morning classes, and after third period convinced Max and Alex that we should all at least go off campus for lunch. (All three of us had a fourth period lunch.) We drove out to the barbecue stand, and I had a burger with double tomato slices, and some tangy lemonade to drink.
Alex got a grilled boneless chicken breast and an enormous pile of hashed browns, and Max had some kind of mexican steak and cheese wrap. We spread ourselves out over on of the picnic tables and generally had a nice time.
"Umm, excuse me?" I jumped and looked around - a woman had spoken right behind me. She was on the short side - maybe five-four or five-four and a half, and looked about my mom's age, with a soft cloud of dark blond hair hanging around her head, pale highlights running through it.
"Who are..." Alex started.
"I realize this must seem strange," she practically whispered. "By any chance are you friends of Tess Harding?"
Was this some strange new Special Unit gambit?? "Umm... you might say that," Max mumbled. "I've known her for a few weeks now. Say hi to her in the halls when I see her, but..."
The woman didn't seem to be paying much attention to what Max was saying after registering that it was a qualified affirmative. She was staring very intently at me, and suddenly asked, "Liz? Are you Liz Parker??"
Seriously freaked now, I barked, "What's it to you? What is going on here?"
So softly that I almost couldn't hear the words, the woman whispered, "I'm Tess' mother."
Oh. "Tess' mother... who's been *working* up in Santa Fe and didn't get a chance to visit Roswell?" Alex said.
She nodded. "Call me Evelyn. I, umm... I was able to get 'out of the office' early this morning, unexpectedly."
I looked at her, still not quite sure what to make of this development. Tess had said that she and her father had been pressured into working with the Special Unit because they had her mother as a hostage. So just what was Evelyn doing here in Roswell??
TO BE CONTINUED...