Title: Whom among us Part two
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13 for now
Disclaimer: No, I don't own any of the Roswell characters. I don't plan to steal them and lock them up in white rooms either. ;-) I just let them out to play from time to time and see what happens.
Distribution: Distribute anywhere you like, now based at http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Author's notes: Future fic. Assumes that Liz has a lot more luck cutting Max out of her life after 'End of the world.' There's been a lot of furor over whether this qualifies as a dreamer fic, so watch out if you have no tolerance for rebel-ness.
Spoilers: End of the world. Scattered concepts after that.
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Alex Whitman sat morosely in the lecture hall, listening to Professor Konder wax eloquent on linked data structures. Like many of the other students taking this course, he had a small laptop computer set up on the table in front of his seat, and suddenly, overwhelmed with boredom, he activated the cellular modem to check his email.
Let's see... thirteen pieces of spam, four chain letters, three digests from his mailing lists, and... well, what was that?? JackSeeger@emailanywhere.com. Now where was that name familiar fr... hadn't he vaguely known a Jack Seeger at West Roswell high?
The message was short and to the point:
Hey, Whitman.
Thought you'd like to know this - your girl's shown up again. here in Tempe.
Whatcha gonna do about it?
----------------------------------------
Jack Seeger.
"The tribe has spoken." "Arizona State forever."
Alex drew his breath in in shock. Despite the vagueness of the text, and the fact that she had never been 'his girl,' Alex knew who Jack was talking about. Isabel Evans. During the first half of senior year, before Isabel and her new 'family' had left Roswell forever, Alex's obsession had become public knowledge.
An obsession that he'd never really gotten over, Alex knew. As much as he tried to put whatever he felt for Isabel behind him, the more he pushed it back, the harder it kept popping back up. Still, the part of his life where he actually did things about it was over. It's not like he could just go down to Tempe, wherever that was, and start looking for Is. What would he say if he found her??
And that's when it dawned on Alex. Liz Parker was at Arizona State university, based in a town called Tempe. Presumably, Jack Seeger was too, from his signature. (Alex took a moment to shake his head over someone actually putting the Survivor catchphrase in his sig. After all, that show had totally sucked since 2003.)
If Isabel was in Tempe, it had to have something to do with Liz. Probably Max Evans was there too. So... he'd skip off a few classes to go to Arizona and visit an old high-school friend. No one would suspect he'd known the Evanses would be there too.
Alex opened a web browser and started looking for travel sites. Hopefully all of them would be staying in Tempe for at least a day or two. He surreptitiously pulled a credit card out of his pocket and started buying greyhound tickets to Arizona.
* * * * *
Liz took a deep breath to calm her nerves before knocking on the door. What the heck, she took a second one. After three hours of carefully asking around, (interrupted by having to actually go to class,) she had finally found a lead on who was involved with the Lightning Bolt.
Unfortunately, that lead led straight to Doctor Hadrian Patternuss. He was the department head of Astronomy for the entire university, and Liz had only even seen him a few times. What's more, she knew fairly well that he had advised NASA on the 2002 'asteroid' that had turned out to be an old space probe, coming back to Earth on a collision course with a small town in Georgia. Patternuss had been part of the team that ID'd the probe, then found a way to divert it away from the Earth, in a project that would hopefully serve as a blueprint for what to do in the event of a real collision asteroid.
A butterfly flitted about in Liz's stomach, but there was nothing for it but to dive in, as it were. Knock, knock, knock.
"Hello?" a rich tenor voice rang out from the office behind the door. "Whoever it is, just come on in."
Her nerves compounded, not eased, by this informal greeting, Liz tentatively worked the doorknob and showed herself. Doctor Patternuss looked to be in his late forties, with a friendly smile that somehow didn't make Liz feel at ease.
"Um, hello?" she said nervously, the hint of a squeak in her voice, (*why* couldn't she get rid of that?) "You don't know me, my name is Liz Parker, and I'm an astrophysics major..."
Patternuss seemed to straighten himself to attention and perk up visibly, (not that he had been anywhere near morose to begin with.) "What year?"
"Uh, junior... third." Liz blurted out, knowing she had picked the wrong way to phrase her answer the first time and trying to put it behind her. It was a small question, she told herself. It doesn't matter.
"Have you picked a field of study yet?" Liz recovered just in time to hear the question.
"Yes," she blurted out, trying to smile. "I mean, I had been thinking of interstellar planetography." So you can find Max's home planet?? she thought at herself scathingly.
"And you've been doubting that decision?" With a sudden flash, Liz realized why Patternuss seemed so strangely familiar. He was acting kind of like a benevolent priest... like Pastor David, the old reverend emeritus at the Episcopalian church her mother had dragged her to in Roswell. But for the department head of a scientific subject as a major University, it qualified as 'creepy.'
"Well," she said, trying to get back to the subject, "I've heard about the ligtning bolt, and it sounds really fascinating."
"Ah! The Lightning bolt, indeed. 'The gates of heaven open wide.' I understand you fascination, Liz Parker - I share it! A mystery wrapped in an astronomical enigma - just down the street from us, as it were, and yet still beyond our ability to reach out and touch it. I can't help but feel - (and forgive me if I'm letting my cosmological mania show,) as if everything we haven't yet dreamed about our universe is tied in with that little bundle of energized plasma." Patternuss quickly shut up, as if afraid that he'd let himself ramble on for too long.
Liz, for her own part, was trying valiantly to contain an onslaught of giggles. Partly it was her knowledge of some of what the lightning bolt *did* signify, (Faster-than-light travel between worlds, alien civilizations, and extra-terrestrials fighting their battles on the earth, just for example.) And partly, Professor Patternuss just seemed so comical when he was waxing eloquent on the mysteries of the stars.
But now, he was sober. "However, you must realize, Liz, that this institution has rules that must be followed. A lot of students are eager to participate in our studies of the Lightning bolt, and we must make our selections based on seniority and relevant experience. Based on those criteria..."
"I know," Liz said, her spirits falling for real. "I don't qualify."
"I'm afraid not," Patternuss whispered, shaking his head solemnly.
"Any chance I could pick your brain about what you've found out so far?" Liz tried gamely.
"Uhhh..." he considered that for a moment. "Afraid not, again. I actually need to be on my way to a project meeting. But that's a good idea - maybe I'll have Drayden give a talk. Should be educational for all of you interested youngsters." Patternuss chuckled, as if the idea of educating university students was something comical. Having witnessed some party nights in her time at Arizona State, Liz had to admit he might be right.
"When would that be?" she asked, hoping it would be soon enough to do Max some good, though a public 'talk' was far from the best situation, she knew.
"Oh, in a week or so," Patternuss decided airily as he began to pack up. "Once th oddity has fully dissipated and our observations are concluded." Right, Liz thought to herself. Way too long for us to wait around.
"Well, good luck with your observations," Liz wished the astronomer. "I'll be thinking of you whenever I pass... by the way, where are you working from?"
"Hmm? Oh, the main observatory. The one on top of the northeast corner of the Markman building." He smiled blandly at her as he held his office door open.
"Right. Thanks." Liz left the office, waited to see which direction the professor was heading, then beat a hasty retreat the other way.
* * * * *
"That's all you found out?" Michael Guerin asked Liz menacingly. They were sitting at two small tables in the food court... Liz and Michael, Max and Tess. Liz couldn't help but notice that four young people she didn't recognize, (the others?) were sitting a little ways apart from them and keeping watch. Like a perimeter defense system. Of Isabel Evans there had been as yet no sign.
Michael and Tess had changed as much as Max had. If Liz had thought that Max 2005 looked tough, Michael seemed the consummate street fighter... acid-washed jeans, leather jacket, and various handles just visible at his pockets. Liz didn't want to know what kinds of things they were handles for, but figured she'd find out before all this was done.
Tess, at least, hadn't overdone it with a commando look. Her light blonde hair, which still had all of its natural waves, was cut shorter than it had been in Roswell, not even coming to her shoulders. She wore a pleated navy skirt that came to her knees, and a black blouse with a crescent moon design on it. What struck Liz about Tess was that she seemed almost a modern sorceress... which brought to mind the spell she cast on Max, way back when.
"What do you mean, is that all, Michael?" Max shot back. "It's a lot more than we'd have found out asking around by ourselves. We'd probably have just gotten a lot of awkward questions back."
Tess ignored the two guys and focused on Liz. "So, what do you think our next move should be, Liz?"
"Well, I thought I could probably find Professor Drayden tomorrow," Liz mumbled. "Patternuss mentioned him, he's on the project, and I took one of his lectures last year. Maybe I can get more out of him."
"And if he gives you the same runaround as professor number one, Liz?" Michael sneered. "They all have the same regulations to follow, Liz. You won't get enough more out of him to be worth the wait."
"You got a better idea, Michael?" Max asked coolly.
"Yah," Michael shot back. "We know where they're looking up at this thing from. I say we slip in, in the dead of night, and copy out the information we need."
Liz burst out laughing, and Michael looked angrily at her. "I-I'm sorry, Michael," she giggled, "but have you thought about getting a clue?" Okay, that was mean, but Michael had it coming to him. "This is As-tro-no-my." She sounded out the word with exaggerated slowness. "The dead of night is their peak time."
"They'll be working in the observatory all night?" Max clarified, getting it.
"As long as... Max, give me the papers," Liz suddenly instructed.
"Huh??" Max seemed as confused by someone giving him orders as by what Liz was asking for. "W-what papers, Liz? I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Liz sighed. "The web-page printouts you showed me earlier today? About the you-know-what??"
"Oh, *those* papers. Umm..." Max's face kinda scrunched up in thought.
"You gave them to me, Max," Tess told him with a long-suffering sigh. After a few moments of digging in her bag, she produced them and handed them over to Liz.
"Thanks. I'm sure I saw some general co-ordinates in here somewhere..." Liz scanned through the pages until she found the needed figure. "Right ascension... fifteen hours, twenty-odd minutes. That means..."
"Means what?" Michael asked sourly.
"Shut up, I'm thinking," Liz told him flatly. It had taken her a long time to get to the point where sidereal time, or star-time, was almost as natural as the sun-based time of day that the whole world but astronomers used. Given that it was early march, the sidereal time was only a little earlier than the sun time, and so...
"Darn!! It'll be rising a little bit before nine, which means that they'll already be setting up."
"It?" Michael prompted.
"The lightning bolt, presumably," Max guessed, and Liz nodded.
"They'll make observations under the oddity fades into the morning twilight, and then hang around making observations and calculations past dawn," she predicted.
"But they'll leave at some point, right?" Tess asked. "I mean, they'll need to sleep, not to mention having other duties to attend to."
"Around eight, I'd guess," Liz judged. "Well into the morning."
"Then we make our move under cover of morning," Michael decreed.
"Cover of morning?" Max repeated. "How much cover does morning offer, dimwit?" He smiled as he said the last word.
"Liz, back me up here," Michael insisted. "How many people are really up and around a college on a Friday morning??"
"He's got a point," Liz admitted to Max.
"Okay," Max groaned. "So we make it tomorrow morning." He turned to Liz. "I hope you're okay with participating in a burglary of University premises. I hate to ask this of you, but you're the only one who knows how to find what we need."
Liz groaned inside. It was starting again - the lying, the sneaking around, the generally unethical behavior. For Max's sake. Sure, the adventure was fun, but...
"Sure, I'm in, definitely," she heard herself telling Max. "Oh! If you're going to have to wait around all night... do you have somewhere to stay? My dorm room is definitely not big enough for all of you, hehe." She tried to make Max laugh along with her.
"Isabel's working on the housing issue," was all he said.
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To be continued...
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13 for now
Disclaimer: No, I don't own any of the Roswell characters. I don't plan to steal them and lock them up in white rooms either. ;-) I just let them out to play from time to time and see what happens.
Distribution: Distribute anywhere you like, now based at http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Author's notes: Future fic. Assumes that Liz has a lot more luck cutting Max out of her life after 'End of the world.' There's been a lot of furor over whether this qualifies as a dreamer fic, so watch out if you have no tolerance for rebel-ness.
Spoilers: End of the world. Scattered concepts after that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Whitman sat morosely in the lecture hall, listening to Professor Konder wax eloquent on linked data structures. Like many of the other students taking this course, he had a small laptop computer set up on the table in front of his seat, and suddenly, overwhelmed with boredom, he activated the cellular modem to check his email.
Let's see... thirteen pieces of spam, four chain letters, three digests from his mailing lists, and... well, what was that?? JackSeeger@emailanywhere.com. Now where was that name familiar fr... hadn't he vaguely known a Jack Seeger at West Roswell high?
The message was short and to the point:
Hey, Whitman.
Thought you'd like to know this - your girl's shown up again. here in Tempe.
Whatcha gonna do about it?
----------------------------------------
Jack Seeger.
"The tribe has spoken." "Arizona State forever."
Alex drew his breath in in shock. Despite the vagueness of the text, and the fact that she had never been 'his girl,' Alex knew who Jack was talking about. Isabel Evans. During the first half of senior year, before Isabel and her new 'family' had left Roswell forever, Alex's obsession had become public knowledge.
An obsession that he'd never really gotten over, Alex knew. As much as he tried to put whatever he felt for Isabel behind him, the more he pushed it back, the harder it kept popping back up. Still, the part of his life where he actually did things about it was over. It's not like he could just go down to Tempe, wherever that was, and start looking for Is. What would he say if he found her??
And that's when it dawned on Alex. Liz Parker was at Arizona State university, based in a town called Tempe. Presumably, Jack Seeger was too, from his signature. (Alex took a moment to shake his head over someone actually putting the Survivor catchphrase in his sig. After all, that show had totally sucked since 2003.)
If Isabel was in Tempe, it had to have something to do with Liz. Probably Max Evans was there too. So... he'd skip off a few classes to go to Arizona and visit an old high-school friend. No one would suspect he'd known the Evanses would be there too.
Alex opened a web browser and started looking for travel sites. Hopefully all of them would be staying in Tempe for at least a day or two. He surreptitiously pulled a credit card out of his pocket and started buying greyhound tickets to Arizona.
* * * * *
Liz took a deep breath to calm her nerves before knocking on the door. What the heck, she took a second one. After three hours of carefully asking around, (interrupted by having to actually go to class,) she had finally found a lead on who was involved with the Lightning Bolt.
Unfortunately, that lead led straight to Doctor Hadrian Patternuss. He was the department head of Astronomy for the entire university, and Liz had only even seen him a few times. What's more, she knew fairly well that he had advised NASA on the 2002 'asteroid' that had turned out to be an old space probe, coming back to Earth on a collision course with a small town in Georgia. Patternuss had been part of the team that ID'd the probe, then found a way to divert it away from the Earth, in a project that would hopefully serve as a blueprint for what to do in the event of a real collision asteroid.
A butterfly flitted about in Liz's stomach, but there was nothing for it but to dive in, as it were. Knock, knock, knock.
"Hello?" a rich tenor voice rang out from the office behind the door. "Whoever it is, just come on in."
Her nerves compounded, not eased, by this informal greeting, Liz tentatively worked the doorknob and showed herself. Doctor Patternuss looked to be in his late forties, with a friendly smile that somehow didn't make Liz feel at ease.
"Um, hello?" she said nervously, the hint of a squeak in her voice, (*why* couldn't she get rid of that?) "You don't know me, my name is Liz Parker, and I'm an astrophysics major..."
Patternuss seemed to straighten himself to attention and perk up visibly, (not that he had been anywhere near morose to begin with.) "What year?"
"Uh, junior... third." Liz blurted out, knowing she had picked the wrong way to phrase her answer the first time and trying to put it behind her. It was a small question, she told herself. It doesn't matter.
"Have you picked a field of study yet?" Liz recovered just in time to hear the question.
"Yes," she blurted out, trying to smile. "I mean, I had been thinking of interstellar planetography." So you can find Max's home planet?? she thought at herself scathingly.
"And you've been doubting that decision?" With a sudden flash, Liz realized why Patternuss seemed so strangely familiar. He was acting kind of like a benevolent priest... like Pastor David, the old reverend emeritus at the Episcopalian church her mother had dragged her to in Roswell. But for the department head of a scientific subject as a major University, it qualified as 'creepy.'
"Well," she said, trying to get back to the subject, "I've heard about the ligtning bolt, and it sounds really fascinating."
"Ah! The Lightning bolt, indeed. 'The gates of heaven open wide.' I understand you fascination, Liz Parker - I share it! A mystery wrapped in an astronomical enigma - just down the street from us, as it were, and yet still beyond our ability to reach out and touch it. I can't help but feel - (and forgive me if I'm letting my cosmological mania show,) as if everything we haven't yet dreamed about our universe is tied in with that little bundle of energized plasma." Patternuss quickly shut up, as if afraid that he'd let himself ramble on for too long.
Liz, for her own part, was trying valiantly to contain an onslaught of giggles. Partly it was her knowledge of some of what the lightning bolt *did* signify, (Faster-than-light travel between worlds, alien civilizations, and extra-terrestrials fighting their battles on the earth, just for example.) And partly, Professor Patternuss just seemed so comical when he was waxing eloquent on the mysteries of the stars.
But now, he was sober. "However, you must realize, Liz, that this institution has rules that must be followed. A lot of students are eager to participate in our studies of the Lightning bolt, and we must make our selections based on seniority and relevant experience. Based on those criteria..."
"I know," Liz said, her spirits falling for real. "I don't qualify."
"I'm afraid not," Patternuss whispered, shaking his head solemnly.
"Any chance I could pick your brain about what you've found out so far?" Liz tried gamely.
"Uhhh..." he considered that for a moment. "Afraid not, again. I actually need to be on my way to a project meeting. But that's a good idea - maybe I'll have Drayden give a talk. Should be educational for all of you interested youngsters." Patternuss chuckled, as if the idea of educating university students was something comical. Having witnessed some party nights in her time at Arizona State, Liz had to admit he might be right.
"When would that be?" she asked, hoping it would be soon enough to do Max some good, though a public 'talk' was far from the best situation, she knew.
"Oh, in a week or so," Patternuss decided airily as he began to pack up. "Once th oddity has fully dissipated and our observations are concluded." Right, Liz thought to herself. Way too long for us to wait around.
"Well, good luck with your observations," Liz wished the astronomer. "I'll be thinking of you whenever I pass... by the way, where are you working from?"
"Hmm? Oh, the main observatory. The one on top of the northeast corner of the Markman building." He smiled blandly at her as he held his office door open.
"Right. Thanks." Liz left the office, waited to see which direction the professor was heading, then beat a hasty retreat the other way.
* * * * *
"That's all you found out?" Michael Guerin asked Liz menacingly. They were sitting at two small tables in the food court... Liz and Michael, Max and Tess. Liz couldn't help but notice that four young people she didn't recognize, (the others?) were sitting a little ways apart from them and keeping watch. Like a perimeter defense system. Of Isabel Evans there had been as yet no sign.
Michael and Tess had changed as much as Max had. If Liz had thought that Max 2005 looked tough, Michael seemed the consummate street fighter... acid-washed jeans, leather jacket, and various handles just visible at his pockets. Liz didn't want to know what kinds of things they were handles for, but figured she'd find out before all this was done.
Tess, at least, hadn't overdone it with a commando look. Her light blonde hair, which still had all of its natural waves, was cut shorter than it had been in Roswell, not even coming to her shoulders. She wore a pleated navy skirt that came to her knees, and a black blouse with a crescent moon design on it. What struck Liz about Tess was that she seemed almost a modern sorceress... which brought to mind the spell she cast on Max, way back when.
"What do you mean, is that all, Michael?" Max shot back. "It's a lot more than we'd have found out asking around by ourselves. We'd probably have just gotten a lot of awkward questions back."
Tess ignored the two guys and focused on Liz. "So, what do you think our next move should be, Liz?"
"Well, I thought I could probably find Professor Drayden tomorrow," Liz mumbled. "Patternuss mentioned him, he's on the project, and I took one of his lectures last year. Maybe I can get more out of him."
"And if he gives you the same runaround as professor number one, Liz?" Michael sneered. "They all have the same regulations to follow, Liz. You won't get enough more out of him to be worth the wait."
"You got a better idea, Michael?" Max asked coolly.
"Yah," Michael shot back. "We know where they're looking up at this thing from. I say we slip in, in the dead of night, and copy out the information we need."
Liz burst out laughing, and Michael looked angrily at her. "I-I'm sorry, Michael," she giggled, "but have you thought about getting a clue?" Okay, that was mean, but Michael had it coming to him. "This is As-tro-no-my." She sounded out the word with exaggerated slowness. "The dead of night is their peak time."
"They'll be working in the observatory all night?" Max clarified, getting it.
"As long as... Max, give me the papers," Liz suddenly instructed.
"Huh??" Max seemed as confused by someone giving him orders as by what Liz was asking for. "W-what papers, Liz? I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Liz sighed. "The web-page printouts you showed me earlier today? About the you-know-what??"
"Oh, *those* papers. Umm..." Max's face kinda scrunched up in thought.
"You gave them to me, Max," Tess told him with a long-suffering sigh. After a few moments of digging in her bag, she produced them and handed them over to Liz.
"Thanks. I'm sure I saw some general co-ordinates in here somewhere..." Liz scanned through the pages until she found the needed figure. "Right ascension... fifteen hours, twenty-odd minutes. That means..."
"Means what?" Michael asked sourly.
"Shut up, I'm thinking," Liz told him flatly. It had taken her a long time to get to the point where sidereal time, or star-time, was almost as natural as the sun-based time of day that the whole world but astronomers used. Given that it was early march, the sidereal time was only a little earlier than the sun time, and so...
"Darn!! It'll be rising a little bit before nine, which means that they'll already be setting up."
"It?" Michael prompted.
"The lightning bolt, presumably," Max guessed, and Liz nodded.
"They'll make observations under the oddity fades into the morning twilight, and then hang around making observations and calculations past dawn," she predicted.
"But they'll leave at some point, right?" Tess asked. "I mean, they'll need to sleep, not to mention having other duties to attend to."
"Around eight, I'd guess," Liz judged. "Well into the morning."
"Then we make our move under cover of morning," Michael decreed.
"Cover of morning?" Max repeated. "How much cover does morning offer, dimwit?" He smiled as he said the last word.
"Liz, back me up here," Michael insisted. "How many people are really up and around a college on a Friday morning??"
"He's got a point," Liz admitted to Max.
"Okay," Max groaned. "So we make it tomorrow morning." He turned to Liz. "I hope you're okay with participating in a burglary of University premises. I hate to ask this of you, but you're the only one who knows how to find what we need."
Liz groaned inside. It was starting again - the lying, the sneaking around, the generally unethical behavior. For Max's sake. Sure, the adventure was fun, but...
"Sure, I'm in, definitely," she heard herself telling Max. "Oh! If you're going to have to wait around all night... do you have somewhere to stay? My dorm room is definitely not big enough for all of you, hehe." She tried to make Max laugh along with her.
"Isabel's working on the housing issue," was all he said.
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To be continued...
