XXXVII
Tell Me A Fable
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He had been staring at the screen for a full minute before he realized he had to blink. The cursor was on and off waiting for him to start his report, but Jake had no idea what to write.
The frozen screenshot behind the Word document intrigued him as much as the hybrids' abilities did, which was not surprising, really. It was a shot of the special lens, one of the many he had been studying all night long, trying to decipher Max's surge of energy on early Friday morning.
Was Liz different?
Even if Max's energy had covered the entire room at the time, right on the threshold, for a fraction of a second, Liz had been out of its range, and it was that exact moment that Jake had frozen on his screen. The problem was, he didn't know what to make of it. The energy around her didn't look like an average human, but it wasn't that far gone to be truly unique… The word that came to mind really was, well… unusual.
Compared to Max's bright hues of blues and blinding whites, Liz's blues looked tame, but not as lifeless as every other human Jake had ever seen before. So now Jake was trying to comprehend if unusual equaled different, and if so, how much different?
Was this why Max had been attracted to her for such a long time? Maybe Max had sensed something different about her, the non-romantic-all-analytical part of him rationalized. Or maybe being around Max had been subtly altering the energy around her. It would begin to explain how their connection worked, since Max would have made her able to connect to his own energy signature. Liz wasn't attuned to either Michael or Isabel, so she wasn't sensitive to all kinds of hybrid energy.
All he needed to prove that was Maria walking into his lab so he could take a snapshot of her own energy… And what about Kyle? What did it take for a human's "aura" to change? Just being around them? Or was there a sexual aspect implied here? Well, if Jake was around them long enough, he would certainly start to see some changes sooner or later… But if only Maria's energy was changed and not Kyle's, then it was probably a more intimate relationship that would cause the energy signature to get a more vivid blue under the lens.
Minimizing the Word document, he stared again at the screenshot. Liz's face was frozen in worry as she was trying to reach Max. Maybe her emotional state was playing a part in the way her energy looked. Jake's eyebrows rose. He should write his colleagues on the lens project and ask them to think through a series of experiments with people under different emotional reactions to see if there was a change. It was worth trying.
Before he could open his e-mail and follow up on this idea, his cell phone rang. He absently picked it up while still looking at Liz.
"Did you take my pencil?" Dave's voice came clear and slightly accusatory. Dave could be so weird about the oddest things, really.
Though to give Dave credit, Jake had taken things from him without even noticing before, a fact that Dave remembered oh too well every time his property was misplaced while Jake had been around.
"Not that I can see right now," he simply answered, secretly amused that they had been around each other for so long that this kind of phone call was actually normal.
"Call me if you see it," Dave said in a more resigned tone. It was nice to know that Jake's gift of so long ago held such meaning to his friend, but listening to the click on the other side signaling the call was over still left him a little perplexed.
Leaving the cell phone beside him, he returned to his previous task, his mind already running with ideas of genetic make-up versus environment and proximity.
It would never cross his mind that it had been Max's healing that had triggered the change in the first place, a chain of other factors enabling Liz to access abilities of her own in the long term. Not until someone else told him so in the distant future.
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No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
And Max was gripped with a fear that for a second was both his and Zan's as well. Staring at himself in the mirror that walled the inside of the elevator, the doors still open waiting for him to step inside, the quote he had once read somewhere seemed to jump into his mind in red bold letters. He could not let fear rule his life, and most definitely not rule this moment. This meeting was too important to screw it up.
He couldn't stop staring at himself, frozen in place. His heart was beating so fast, and his eyes were so round, still trying to process what that flash or memory or whatever had been, let alone trying to decide how he felt about it. He had to snap out of it, he told himself, but he was still not moving a muscle.
It was Liz's worry that did the trick. Through their connection Max could feel her emotions shifting, trying to decide if in the last five minutes something could have had happened to him. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out really slowly. First things first: He had to get to Dave's office, preferably on time, so he opened his eyes and took a second, not so deep breath.
Entering the elevator, he felt the same tight knot in his stomach that he had felt when he had been visiting the Empire State Building. He knew he was still just a kid, not even twenty yet, and he was about to negotiate life and death matters with a man who was light years ahead in negotiation skills. All thoughts that were doing nothing to calm his nerves, but at least Liz would understand this uneasiness well better than the fear he had experienced just a minute before.
Zan had also been afraid of his first meeting, Max thought, for a second looking closer to the mirror to check if his pupils were normal, and not two gigantic dark marbles that would have made his skin crawl. He looked just fine, if a little paler.
Okay, that was a start.
The elevator doors closed and Max was automatically lifted up. He still had eight minutes to find some semblance of normalcy so he could act like someone who knew what the hell he was doing. That was step number two.
He decided the only way he was going to manage that was to get out of the way what he had just experienced, dealing somehow with his own emotions about his past memories, even if time was getting shorter by the second.
Max had had… echoes before, he guessed, of his past life. Like a dream half remembered in the middle of the day. Some things were clearer than others, like the water that had felt jello-like. Others were fragmented, like remembering kissing Ava for the first time at a party, though it was more like a certainty than an actual memory. He couldn't remember what people looked like or even snatches of his own alien language, but there were ideas, thoughts that he recognized as part of Zan.
And he and Zan weren't alike.
Zan embraced his destiny. Max was all for free will. But Max couldn't deny they both had been in a position of leadership that neither could shake off, and both had risen to the occasion, even if their stomachs had been torn in knots. Maybe Zan's experiences could come in handy, Max thought, trying to see the bright side of getting such a clear insight into the leader of an entire planet.
It was the only guidance he was going to get, anyway.
But this… this whatever that had just happened had been so real. For one moment, Max hadn't even been aware of himself, of his own life. That was what scared him the most, that he hadn't been in control, just sucked into this memory of an alien being on another planet and in another time.
But it wasn't me.
Max whispered, still looking at himself, half expecting to see his reflection talking back. He was more than glad when nothing happened, but reluctantly acknowledged that the butterflies in his stomach hadn't gone anywhere either.
He was not Zan, he repeated to himself, and whatever that memory had been, it was just that, a memory, a very real one, but something that meant nothing to his life right now.
Ironically, if this had happened when he had been going to the Summit, maybe it would have made him feel better… He probably would have wanted to grasp at it and had as many memories as he could too, but he wasn't going to go there right now. Dave wanted the facts of his life now, and he was expecting to meet Max, not Zan. Which was great because it was Max who was going to walk out of the elevator right now.
As the doors opened, for one instant Max feared that more memories would seize him during his meeting, but there was nothing he could do about that. Closing his eyes for a second, he concentrated on his connection to Liz. If anything could remind him of who he was, it was this, the feeling of his soul mate, lending him strength in his moment of need.
Nodding once to himself, he finally stepped out of the elevator. It felt so surreal to be walking down this hall, when barely a week before he had dreaded it so much. Granted, things hadn't taken a turn for the worse, but saying they had turned for the better would be stretching it. A lot. Things had just stayed… stuck. They still weren't sure what Dave wanted and had made little progress on getting to know the people around them.
In fact, Kyle had started to sparkle, Isabel was torn between contacting Jessie or leaving him in the dark, Jake had almost caught his wife on that special lens of his, and now Max was having hallucinations of his alien past. And those were only the highlights.
Maybe he should just let Zan take over and return when it was all calm and nice. It would be the first time his alien side would be doing him a favor.
The hall came to an end, and Dave's living room with the black couches came into view, the same one where they had sit and made the deal the first time they had come. The door to the outside world seemed to mirror his situation right now: On his right was freedom; on his left, where he could barely make out Dave's office door, was safety. Too bad he wanted both, but apparently could only get one at the expense of the other. . Maybe now was the time to bargain for it.
Maybe.
With a final deep breath, Max finally pushed the door open, the carpeted floor on the room silencing any movement. He had heard the others describing the room, but now that he was in it, things looked sharper than his imagination could have ever come up with.
The enormous puzzle was half through on the black desk, making Max think that he could put it together with a wave of his hand. Well, maybe more like a few waves, considering the size of it, but he doubted Dave would settle for that. The room had a cold feel to it, as most of its colors were either dark blues or black, the white light coming from the ceiling giving it no warmth. He had the distinctive feeling that this place held power. Just like the Summit room where Zan was headed, important decisions were made here.
It only took him a second to find the man who had pretty much summoned him here. Dave's silhouette was a sharp contrast against the window, a snowstorm blanketing everything in white outside. Standing still, Dave looked completely at ease in his own skin, a fact that Max could not entirely claim after what had just happened with Zan's memories a few minutes before.
The room smelled of chocolate, giving Max a false sense of security and comfort that completely clashed with his worries and fears. He was barely inside the room, still holding the door open, not really knowing what to do. He felt out of place here, just like he had felt at the Summit in New York City, a clueless kid who had no idea what to do.
Butterflies seemed to multiply by the thousands in his stomach.
"You know, I've been thinking…" Dave casually said without turning from the window, "Are you an alien, Max?"
Max just knew he had heard it wrong. He swallowed, standing still, trying to see what exactly was Dave aiming for. Seconds ticked by. Dave turned around then, probably wondering why Max was so quiet, the mug in his hand the source of the chocolate smell.
"I don't think there's any doubt about… that," Max said, slightly narrowing his eyes, knowing there was more to this question than met the eye.
Dave gestured with a hand for Max to sit as he himself headed for his own seat. Max let go of the door as he focused his eyes on the black leather chair, finally moving to sit opposite Dave. Behind him, the door silently closed.
Dave slightly smiled more to himself than to Max as he contemplated his puzzle for a second. Then he locked eyes with Max, all seriousness returning. "What I want to know is, biology aside, do you consider yourself an alien?"
No. Yes. I don't know. Max froze. What was he supposed to answer? What was the right answer here? What was Dave expecting him to answer? Yet what really scared him in that moment was that he didn't really have an answer for that. He just didn't know.
He just didn't know at all.
Taking his silence for confusion, Dave elaborated on his question: "I have a book that says you're the king of an entire planet, and sixteen files from the FBI that say you're an invader and a killer. Both say that you're an alien in this world, that's the only thing they actually agree on. But I still have to hear your side. Are you an alien, Max?"
Dave placed his mug on the desk, hazel eyes searching for a reaction, Max guessed, so he made himself looked stern, in control, and though he actually lowered his eyes, he finally came to an answer. His answer. Too bad he didn't have time to stop and see if it was the right answer, or the one Dave was expecting.
"Biology aside," Max answered slowly, "no. I've lived a human life all my existence. I grew up like one, I have a family, I went to school. I even—" he stopped himself short. I even fell in love with a human girl he had been about to say, and though that was no secret, he suddenly felt vulnerable. His eyes met Dave's, and for a moment Max was able to stop the butterflies and just think straight. Why was this question important to the man sitting in front of him?
"I know what the book is supposed to say, but I don't really remember being a king. I know so little about Antar I'm not fit to be its representative, let alone its leader. And I know what the FBI thinks about me," Max said, his voice involuntarily getting darker, "I know what they want to hear, and that's why we kept running. They would never see us in any other light."
"No, they won't," Dave said with a heavy sigh, like this topic held a certain burden Max could not discern. Loosely closing his arms on the dark desk, Dave leaned forward and slightly frowned. "You were caught right in the middle of both sides with no idea what was coming at you, uh?"
Max silently nodded twice. He looked at the puzzle again, the desert storm about to swallow the oasis, making him think that it was the perfect picture to illustrate how his life had been back then: His life had seemed so uncomplicated and calm, up until the moment he had saved Liz, and the storm had descended on them.
"I didn't even believe there was a 'them'," Max said quietly, white memories half succeeding at invading the black surface of the desk. "And even afterwards… I still thought I could keep my life. That I could keep them all safe." Max paused, feeling like he could see all the events, small and large, that had ended with him in this place. His eyes locked with Dave's again. "And now you're in the picture, and right or wrong I'm the one responsible for their lives, for the outcome of our deal. Yet I seem to find myself in a rather dark place, with no clear answers."
"You're still in the middle of unknown parts," Dave thoughtfully said, a comment that made the butterflies return. If Max was still in the middle, what more was coming at him, then? "It's not easy being in the middle," Dave said still with a somewhat lost look, leaning back into his seat, his mug steaming on the desk. "You have to grow up too fast, and see things long before you should."
The very things you want to know about, Max thought. His past was his only token, the only thing he could bait Dave with. It was only a matter of not stumbling with what the others had said. The problem was that revisiting the past was not something easy to do, even when you were skipping parts. Max took on a faraway look and fixed his eyes in a point somewhere behind Dave's left, where the snow was effortlessly blanketing everything behind the window.
"You're right, I've seen things I wish I hadn't… and being here, all week long, I've been thinking about them a whole lot more… I remember… I remember escaping from the Special Unit. I remember getting out of a freezing river and barely being able to stand up, let alone run. But Liz was there, urging me on, telling me to keep going… And I have this… clear moment in my mind, where I just looked at her face and I thought she was the most beautiful woman on Earth. And all I wanted to do right then was to stop, and sit, and wait for them to catch me while she was running away. Because if they had me back, then they wouldn't be looking for her... never looking for her again."
It had been so long since he had thought about that night, about that particular moment. It was almost ironic that now he could draw strength from it, but that was exactly what he did. He focused on Dave again.
"And part of me has been feeling exactly like that for the past seven days. Every time I wake up and I look at her still sleeping, still beautiful, I wonder if maybe I should just sit and wait while she goes into a life that wouldn't mean running out of cold rivers. If I should convince you to let her go while I stay here.
"But I don't… I don't know if you would even allow that. I don't know what you really want. I need to know what's going on. I need to know I made the right choice."
It was a rather fortuitous thing that Max couldn't read minds, because he wouldn't have liked Dave's answer right then: I honestly don't know.
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AN: The phrase "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear" is by Edmund Burke.
