As Liz snapped out of her reflections of how the gang splintered off over the past 20 years, she realized she was next in line at the charming ice cream stand. It reminded Liz of a small ice cream parlor that used to be two doors down from the Crashdown Café during her childhood in Roswell. The ice cream parlor closed years before that fateful day when Max saved her life.
Liz and Max were in El Quartelejo, Texas, a small town just outside of the Rita Blanca National Grasslands and home to Northwest Texas Community College. They'd been there for over 11 weeks now, making it the one of the longest single stops in their 20 years of travels since leaving Roswell. Even when Liz never had a vision to spur them to make a save, they typically would leave any area after a maximum of two months just in case someone following their trail could catch up to them. And if they stayed longer than a month, it was usually to take advantage of a lucrative money-making opportunity, which wasn't a factor in El Quartelejo.
Before touching down in Texas, they made a save at Mount Ranier in Washington State, thwarting an active shooter before he could put his plan into motion. Mount Ranier was an intentional stop, but always planned to be just an overnight one. After leaving Portland following a two and a half week stay, the couple headed Northeast with their sights set on Spokane as the next extended stay destination.
Somewhat abruptly, Max announced that he thought they should head to Texas next instead, specifically El Quartelejo. Just days earlier, rumors of a UFO crash in the Rita Blanca grasslands hit the news cycle, but Max said that was not the specific reason he had his sights set there. Even so, they usually went out of their way to avoid any areas of reported UFO activity. While they believed most were fake, they saw only a risk of attracting unwanted attention by going to a place buzzing with UFO reports.
Whenever Liz pressed Max on why El Quartelejo, he offered nothing but uncharacteristically aloof replies, such as, "Just a feeling," or "This path feels right to me." Liz knew they had no particular business in Spokane. She liked the area when they'd spent a day there in the seventh year of their odyssey, and Liz thought it would be a lovely area to stay for several weeks. Since they had no specific business in Spokane and because Max expressed so much conviction that they should go to El Quartelejo, Liz found no reason to object.
The couple spent much of their time in El Quartelejo staking out the Northwest Texas Community College. Early on, Max landed a three week contract landscaping job, and at first Liz thought that was the only significance of the college. Much to her surprise, when the job ended, not only did Max express that they should not head back to the road, but he continued to want to frequent the college.
Liz became something of a regular at the ice cream stand. On this blistering 98-degree late July afternoon, the sun slowly set on the small, unassuming Texas town.
The young girl behind the ice cream stand recognized Liz as she stepped forward, her turn finally arriving. The petite girl had long, straight black hair that extended halfway down her back. She wore a light gray tank top, a short, thigh-high black mini-skirt and a white apron stained with a variety of colors representing the different flavors served throughout the long day. Attached to the left strap of her apron was a nametag, "Hannah."
"Howdy, Liz," Hannah greeted her with a big smile, recognizing Liz as a recent regular. She spoke with a thick southern accent. "Are ya here for the usual or ya lookin' to get adventurous today?"
Liz smiled meekly, "Two vanilla cones, please."
"Ah, ok," Hannah said, "The usual it is. Comin' right up!"
Like a pro, Hannah grabbed two cones and plopped one scoop of vanilla on each. "That'll be $6."
Liz handed Hannah a $5 and a $1 bill. Her and Max didn't carry credit cards. Hannah handed Liz the ice cream cones.
Liz, ice cream in hand, walked past the still long line of customers toward Max's location. Max sat on a park bench at the edge of a small park positioned directly across from Northwest Texas Community College. Similar to a quad found at many universities, the park—while unaffiliated with the college—was naturally a popular hangout for the students.
Liz approached Max behind the bench and, as she leaned in to hand him his cone over his shoulder, she said, "Here's your 'Vulcan Vanilla Ice Cream,' sir," harkening back to the name of the cold treat from the Crashdown and in her best customer voice.
Max turned around, grabbed the cone and leaned back to give Liz a quick peck on the lips. "Thanks."
Liz circled around the bench and took a seat to Max's right, each of them quickly beginning to consume their ice cream before it started to melt. Liz noticed Max looking at something in the college's student newspaper.
"Anything interesting?" she asked.
Max angled the paper toward her. "This graffiti tag has been left all around the college ever since the—" Max instinctively lowered his voice, "crash." Now back at his normal volume, "I don't know why, but something about this looks familiar to me… I just can't put my finger on it. Do you recognize anything?"
Liz examined a couple of photos for several seconds before responding. "No," she said plainly. Then, with a playful smile, she added, "But we're not the kind of people that know anything about graffiti tags, Max."
"Yeah," Max said, looking intensely at the photos once more. "…Right."
Liz took another lick of her ice cream, then reached over and closed the newspaper. Max looked up and made eye contact with her.
"What are we doing here, Max?" Liz asked, with a hint of forcefulness to convey to her husband that she needed him to stop dodging the question and engage in a real conversation. "We've been here much longer than we'd normally stay. I haven't had a vision. We're not even making good money. And you still never told me what spurred you to take us here."
Max replied with a simple, yet unexpected one word answer, "Isabel."
"Max," Liz reasoned aloud, "we haven't spoken to Isabel in Jesse in years. Right? How can we be here because of Isabel?"
"Well…" Max suddenly seemed a bit pensive, "That's… not exactly true."
"You've been in contact with her?!" Liz's reaction was one of shock, not anger over not being informed sooner.
"After her and Jesse left… For years, she was just gone, a fading memory from our lives. But something changed three, maybe four years ago. It took some time to fully develop and for us to understand what was happening, but we discovered this kind of psychic bond. We can sense how we're feeling. At first, it was comforting just to be connected, however abstractly. But then we started getting a sense when one of us needs to talk. She has this special phone. It's secure on her end. She only turns it on when I need to call her. I've been calling her from pay phones or businesses."
Liz couldn't believe it, "How long has this been going on?"
"The first time I called her was about six months ago," Max replied.
"And so you called Isabel at Mount Rainier," Liz said, trying to put the pieces together. Max nodded. Liz continued. "And she told you we should come here." Again Max nodded. "But why do we need to be in El Quarterlejo? What's the significance of this place?"
Max explained, "Iz had a dream. A young man was attacked and beat up. She saw the Northwest Texas Community College sign in her dream and looked it up to learn that it was here. She was a little spooked when she also learned of the reported crash. She said that the dream was really intense and she hadn't had a rogue dream walk like that since Laurie Dupree and she just… She felt like we needed to know."
"Ok, but Max," Liz paused a beat before continuing, but she knew she had to say it. "I know you're trying to be careful, but there's a reason we don't stay in touch with anyone. It's so risky, possibly dangerous. Not just for us, but for them."
Max looked out across the park. "I know," he said softly. Then, turning back to make eye contact with her, he continued, "But she's my sister, Liz."
"Ok," Liz said flatly. "Ok. I understand that. And maybe you've found a way to talk to your sister safely. But we've been here almost three months and there's no sign there's anything remarkable about this college or this town."
"I know," Max conceded.
Now Liz stared out at the park, scanning all of the students as she'd done dozens of time over the 11 weeks, not sure where to take the conversation next. She noticed a young man sitting on another bench to their right. Liz got a profile look of his face as he stared into the park just as they did. He had a wiry, yet muscular frame, shaggy black hair and wore a green v-neck t-shirt, jeans and a pair of black sneakers. Similar to how Hannah reminded her of herself in high school, this boy reminded her of Max in some ways. There were a couple of girls sitting a few yards away on a blanket in the grass and the young man frequently glanced up from his book to stare at one of them. That reminded her of Max even more. How he used to stare longingly at her at the Crashdown. Maria would point it out to her, but Liz could never believe that Max Evans was pining for her.
Suddenly, an all too familiar feeling washed over Liz. A vision was coming on. She saw the young student, though she could only tell it was him from his clothing. He was curled up on the ground with a group of guys with stronger builds kicking him from all directions. He was lying on the concrete with brick buildings close to both sides. The vision was shorter, jumpier, and generally felt more helter skelter and frantic than what she'd become accustomed to.
As Liz broke free of the vision, she gestured subtly in the student's direction. "Wait a minute. There."
Max seemed energized, "Did you have a vision about him?"
"Yes," Liz said, "he was getting beat up. It was at twilight, so not long from now. And it happened…"
Liz surveyed her surroundings. On the left end of the college's primary building directly across from them, there was a narrow alleyway between the college and neighboring building.
"There," Liz gestured to it, "It's going to happen in the alleyway... probably soon."
"Then we wait," Max said.
By now both finished their ice cream. Max put his arm around Liz, looking to establish that they were enjoying the park and not staking out the latest victim they identified that needed saving. As the sky got darker and darker, that familiar anticipation built up in Liz. Even for as long as they'd be doing the hero routine, Liz always got butterflies on these stakeouts when she knew the moment for action was getting close.
It happened suddenly. A giant kid ripped like a football player in a sleeveless, plain white muscle shirt with navy athletic shorts, a gray pair of sneakers with black, ankle-high socks and a backward black hat came approaching from behind the young student's bench, shouting at him.
"You just keep makin' eyes at my woman," the muscle bound guy shouted, "What, you can't help yourself, bro?!"
Startled, the wiry student dropped his book and paid no attention to his backpack sitting beside his bench. He got up and started to walk away. The muscle bound bully began running after him and both were soon sprinting across the park. It looked like the victim could make it to the alleyway to escape, but, as he neared, a blue pickup truck came roaring down the street that ran parallel to the left edge of the park. As the victim approached the alley, three other muscle bound students, clearly friends of the bully in pursuit, leapt out of the truck and intercepted the victim right at the edge of the alley.
"That's our cue," Liz said. She and Max began running at half speed toward the confrontation.
The bully in pursuit quickly caught up to the others. The four bullies surrounded their victim. They pushed him to the ground and began kicking him violently, just as Liz saw in her vision.
When Liz and Max approached, Liz shouted, "Hey!"
The bullies looked up and after a brief moment of indecision started retreating down the alley. The lead bully who'd approached on foot said, "We'll finish this next time, Zan!"
Liz looked at Max, puzzled and he fired back an equally perplexed look. That couldn't be…
They still needed to play hero. Max saw a junction box and electrical piping running along one of the buildings and he subtly used his powers to cause a surge of electricity. Frightened and singed by the sparks, the bullies all hit the ground a few feet down the alley as Liz and Max approached the victim.
"Are you ok?" Max asked.
"I think so," the student said softly, slowly rising as Max and Liz helped him to his feet.
"Did one of them call you, Zan?" Liz asked.
The student didn't reply verbally but looked uncomfortable at the notion of strangers knowing his name.
"That's an unusual name," Max said.
Liz could tell his hopes were quickly soaring that he was reuniting with his long lost son, who'd been sent away for adoption shortly before the gang left Roswell. She knew the odds were improbable. In the back of her mind, she sensed something odd playing out here, but her gut told her to search for a coincidental explanation and quickly take control of the situation before Max got his hopes too high.
"Is that short for something?" Liz asked.
Max's rising hope seemed to quell and he looked at the young man for an explanation. He still seemed in shock, perhaps from the attack, but he still offered no words in response.
Liz looked up and saw the bullies rising to their feet slowly.
"Max," she said, "they're running."
They could hear police sirens in the distance. Someone else in the park likely called them. In situations like this, Liz and Max always look to detain the perpetrator as subtly as possible to give authorities time to get to the scene and make arrests.
Max started to move to go after them, but the student grabbed his wrist.
"Please," he pleaded with Max, "Don't leave me here. Take me home."
Max was empathetic and turned his attention away from the escaping bullies. "Ok."
The student did something Liz surprising. He hugged Max. Max seemed a bit thrown off himself, but a little awkwardly embraced the victim. The young student stood a couple inches taller than Max. Liz noticed that he moved his right hand so his palm rested on the back of Max's head. A blue light flashed at the back of Max's head and it looked like it passed through his skull and was about to emerge from his forehead. Max immediately grabbed the student's wrist and yanked it away from his head, pulling out of the hug. Max stared at the young man with a look of intense fascination, mixed with a hint of fear, a look Liz hadn't seen from her husband in years.
Liz then heard the bullies starting to run once more. "They're getting away," she said.
Max was clearly now focused on the student victim. Liz felt like she may be able to intervene without powers and ran after the bullies herself. The alley extended along the main building of the college and then she saw the bullies turn right. As Liz approached the turn, a blinding white light from behind the building flashed for maybe two seconds.
When Liz turned the corner, she saw another alleyway between two buildings, this one slightly wider. She stopped, a bit winded, but noticed the boys were nowhere to be found. The alley was too long for them to have cleared it and there was nowhere else to go but straight ahead. It seemed impossible she could've missed them.
On the far side of the alley, she heard some rustling near a dumpster. She cautiously stepped in toward the dumpster, her curiosity demanding she get a closer look.
"Hello?" Liz asked.
A brown skinned Hispanic man emerged from behind the dumpster. He had sun-wrinkled skin and white hair on the sides and back with a white mustache and white scruff over the rest of his face, indicating a few days passed since he last shaved. He was shirtless wearing a pair of blue jeans and a worn out pair of brown leather boots.
"What did you see?" Liz asked, still several feet away, but reluctant to get any closer.
"Los visitantes," the man uttered, clearly flustered, "Los visitantes!" Liz knew enough Spanish to know that meant the visitors.
He turned away from Liz and began to run off. Liz decided this man was not responsible for the white light or for what happened to the four bullies. She considered chasing after him, but hesitated as she struggled to process everything.
"Liz," Max said, now standing just behind her. She was a few steps into the back alleyway and Max stood at the intersection of the two alleyways. The student victim, who the bullies called Zan, stood right next to him. "C'mon, Liz," Max said, "Let's go. Let's get him home."