Homecoming, Part 3d: "Bet the world"
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
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, currently based at fanatics: http://www.roswellfanatics.net/
Feedback: YES PLEASE!
Category: Alternate timeline epic. Conventional couples angst leading up to UC in later parts - you have been warned!
Rating: PG-13, for now
Summary: Alien mysteries lead to an interesting year...
Spoilers: Up to 'Ask not'
(October 20 2001.)
As the limo turned down Maria's street, Michael fixed Alex with a serious stare. "Remember, man..."
"I know, I know," Alex sighed "Twenty-five years."
"We're all countin' on ya, man," Michael reminded him with a friendly clap on the back.
* * * * *
(October 23 2000.)
Michael hurried down the invisible passageway in the sky after Maria. Boy, could that girl *run* when she needed to. With difficulty, Michael pulled up almost beside her, and panted out. "We can't just keep running from this thing. We're - (long gasping breath,) caught in a maze here. That kinda implies a shortage of suitable places to escape."
"You... you got any ideas, spaceboy," Maria stage-whispered as she kept booting it along, "I'm all ea--"
Maria never quite finished the sentence: she suddenly became more interested in keeping her balance as a new factor suddenly upset her physical equilibrium.
Michael hit it only a fraction of a second after Maria did. The floor was starting to slope down under his feet. First almost too little to detect, then a quite noticeable slant. The invisible floor was quite friction-free, as the invisible walls were, and quickly at this rate the pitch would become such that traction would be impossible.
Indecision gripped Michael for a moment, but only until the monster roared behind them. Jumping forward to wrap one arm tightly around Maria's waist, he leaned back and let his feet slip out from under him. "Hey!" Maria cried out in sudden shock, but kept quiet once she realized what was happening -- the two of them slid side by side on their backs, down the chute, which was starting to twist to the left in a corkscrew pattern.
Michael tried to keep his wits about him. On any normal day, he would probably have paid hard-earned money to be going on this ride with a beautiful girl right beside him. But this was not an ordinary day. They were still stuck in the middle of a life-or-death trap, and were now following a one-way-only route into who-knew-what. The corkscrew slide was carrying them further in one direction than the other, and the ground seemed to be approaching awfully quickly. Then, suddenly, they were underground, and the slope of the slide became even steeper, until...
"Whoa!" Michael's feet struck a small ledge and glanced off, and an instant later the same thing happened to Maria. Suddenly the two of them were jumping through the air, and then a bone-jarring (but not breaking,) landing on a floor. The chute ended here.
But where was 'here'? Sheepishly Michael relit the glow on his hand. There was the chute landing, right behind them. A chamber, ceiling ten feet high, floor twenty-five by thirty-five feet big, or thereabouts. Surprisingly, there were actually furnishings of a sort on one of the walls - huge circular levers that could apparently be pointed in any direction, with backdrops marking off a circular arc divided into twenty segments. A stairway led up and away from the room.
"Good enough," Michael said, crossing the empty space in the middle of the chamber towards the stairs. His 'sense' told him that this was the right way out. He stepped up onto the first stair.
It pivoted, rather than accept his weight, forming a slope back down. Michael tried the second stair, and it and the first twisted down in unison.
"Trick stairs," he muttered, looking over at Maria. "I don't have time for this."
"The dials," Maria pointed out. "They have to be the key." Quickly she went along the wall, setting each dial in a sequential position, then rushed over to the stairs to check her findings. The first stair held, until she stepped up to the second. Maria tried to recover and jump down to the landing gracefully, but Michael was too quick with the 'coming to the rescue' move, and she ended up tangled in his arms. Michael's heart skipped a beat again.
Just at that point, of course, in the silence they could hear a distant roar and an odd 'swishing' sound.
"What the heck is that?" Maria asked, in the kind of tone of voice that suggested she knew the answer and wanted it to be *anything* but what she knew.
Michael grimaced. "Well, it doesn't sound anything like a monster sliding down a chute, that's for sure." Maria shot him a dark look. Michael smiled weakly.
"Okay, we have about ninety seconds until it gets here," he rambled on. "No way we can figure out how to use the stairs that quickly, so I guess it's do or die time. Defeat the monster or die trying." He set Maria down gently.
"Oh god." A mixture of sheer terror for him and muted pride filled Maria's face. "Do you have any idea how?"
"Not a clue," Michael muttered. He didn't even have a weapon.
* * * * *
Alex thought to himself as he watched Isabel concentrate on the link with Michael. **Boy, I really hope we get Michael and Maria out of this alright. Man, Isabel is SO beautiful... This alien knowledge stuff is weird, weird weird. I can't get used to the idea of having facts inside my brain that came from some other person - or more than one person - from some alien planet halfway across the galaxy - maybe fifty years ago, or more...**
Just then, Isabel's eyes snapped open. "Michael's in trouble!"
The paralyzing panic lasted only a second. Then Alex hurried over to Isabel's side. "What kind of trouble?"
"It's hard to tell, Michael's thoughts are so jumbled," Isabel muttered. "He's running from something - Maria too. I can't make out what... ooooh." Isabel groaned in surpressed horror. "I can see parts of it now. Monster parts. Alex, you never said anything about there being a monster in the maze!" Those beautiful brown eyes were accusing as they stared up at him. "How could you leave out a detail like that?"
"Keep focusing on the link with Michael," Alex reminded her reflexively, as much to deflect Isabel's insinuations about his carelessness as for the right reasons. He turned away from Isabel and scanned through the 'washer file' in his brain. "There's nothing in here about monsters, guardians, or active threats in the labyrinth. I'm sorry, Isabel, but your monster just doesn't seem to be... Oh, god." Stricken, with remorse, he forced himself to turn around and face Isabel.
"Oh, god, *what,* Alex?" she prompted him, paling.
"A... a footnote," Alex analogized. "At least, that's the best way I can think of to explain it."
"And what does it say, this footnote?" Isabel asked.
"High-risk version of the rite of passage, for the most daring only. An insubstantial energy creature is bound into the Brundis crystal along with the time warp. In the labyrinth, away from our space-time continuum, it can assume a deadly material form."
"And how do they stop it??"
Alex dredged his alien memories for a long moment. "I... I think that Michael can use his powers against it. Make it insubstantial again, at which point it returns to the beginning of the labyrinth. They can't kill it, but they can keep backing it off until they get out. Max can help, using the crystal." He sighed. "That's all I can get. I'll go out and tell Max."
Isabel's only reaction was to nod ever so breifly and close her eyes again. Alex knew that time was critical, but he couldn't help but feel censured.
He hurried out to let Max and Liz know about the beast.
* * * * *
The beast roared through the terminus of the chute and into the chamber, somehow managing to avoid the trip ledge that had caught both Michael and Maria. Without any mouth, it managed to scream quite loudly at both of them, waving its claws and tentacles menacingly.
By now, though, Michael was ready for it - or as ready as he was going to be. With a massive exertion of his alien abilities, he picked the beast up and flew it into the air, pouring on the acceleration with as much strength as he could muster, then let it collide crashingly against the opposite wall and floor where they met to come together. CRASH!!! The impace was satisfyingly loud.
The monster oriented on Michael and came to charge at him again. This time, he lifted the massive creature off the floor, struggled it up until it was levitating only a few inches from the ceiling, and let its huge body drop. THUUMPPP!!!!
Yet again, the beast shook the impact off. Michael pushed it back while reconsidering his strategy. At this rate, the monster could probably take more of these crashes than Michael could have the energy to put it through. That thing was *heavy*! And Michael knew that the one thing that he couldn't afford was to leave himself too overtired. That would be the same as being defenceless against this thing.
"Michael..." Maria muttered from beside him. She was getting anxious. **Gotta try something, Michael.** Seized by inspiration, he focused on the creature and tried to send its molecules flying apart. He'd never really tried this on anything living before, though he'd thought about it and tried it on scrap metal. But it didn't seem to work against this critter. Almost like it... like it wasn't quite made out of molecules, if that made any sense.
Getting worried now, Michael tried the handprint of death strike. The one he had used on Pierce... at least no-one would put him in jail for killing *this* thing. But even that high-energy blast seemed to scarcely phaze the monster. It charged at Michael again, and this time he didn't have the strength to push its massive body back telekinetically. In fact... he didn't even have the strength to dodge.
Maria tried to pull him away, but the monster oriented on him as he moved and Michael slipped his hand out of Maria's grasp. At least *she* could get away. Maria stumbled away, caught by surprise, her momentum carrying her on without him.
And then the creature was upon him, knocking Michael down with a huge arm and standing over his body. Those tentacles ripped at his clothing, and a huge, heavy claw tore into his side, quite painfully. Michael focused his powers for one last panicked push, but the beast hardly budged.
"Take that!!" Something nudged the body of the monster, far less than even Michael had been able to move it that last time, but the tentacles suddenly left him alone as the creature oriented on someone else. It had to be... "Nobody does that to the guy I love without messing with Maria DeLucca!!!"
Maria pantomimed swinging something thick and heavy at the monster's claw, even though she didn't appear to be holding anything, and the appendage shook slightly with the impact. Maria noticed him staring. "Invisible chunk of wood or something, I tripped over it," she explained in passing before clubbing the monster again.
"Maria!!" Michael complained. "You're not hurting the thing, you're just making it angry at you!"
"Well, that was the plan all along braniac," Maria retorted - thunk - "and by the way, you're welcome for saving your life!! Now, make with the alien powers and RETURN THE FAVOR!! Yii" Maria skittered backward as the monster took a swing at her and gave it another tired bash 0 that invisible pillar of wood had to be heavy.
Michael groaned and lifted the monster back into the air - his strength had recovered far enough to make that possible. The alien creature seemed to be getting tired too, though not nearly quickly enough. Inside his mind, Michael was finding it hard to focus for a second on anything but how much he loved Maria - her fire, her passion, the 'chutzpah' that would drive her to piss off an alien monster like that just for his sake.
And then, suddenly, the monster reared and charged at Maria again. The beast also seemed revitalized for the moment, full of piss and vinegar or something. Michael was just about to marshal his energies for another defensive toss, when something else saved him the trouble. A glowing shield of green energy shimmered into existence down the diagonal of the room, seperating the monster from Michael and Maria. Maria looked over admiringly at Michael. "Good one!"
"I didn't do it," Michael confessed. "The only one I know who can do shields is... Max?" He raised his voice on the name for some reason.
And that's when it hit him -- Isabel's message -- or mabye when he became consciously aware of it, Michael couldn't tell. [The monster is some kind of energy being, manifesting with a body only inside the labyrinth. That's the key to defeating it - you can reverse the process and make it insubstantial again. Max will help.]
"Okay," Michael muttered to himself, though he knew only Maria could hear him, and she didn't know what was going on. He tried to reach out and focus his powers on the monster to try this out, but the shield worked both ways - Michael's power couldn't reach through it. "Okay, Max, I'm ready, let it down now."
It actually took about twenty seconds before Max let the shield slip, by which time the monster had started to get confused. Quickly, Michael reached out to let his power envelop the beast, trying to focus his energies in the way Isabel had suggested. It wasn't like anything else he had ever done before, but he thought maybe he could do it - if Max helped out too.
After a few second, he could feel another power play around the monster - working in a slightly different way than his. Immediately Michael switched to supporting the other's effort, figuring that if it was Max (it had to be,) then Max would have Alex advising him directly, and hopefully would know better what to do.
There didn't seem to be any response immediately. Michae was worried - his power levels were getting pretty far down already, and the monster had oriented on Maria and himself again (couldn't tell if it was both of them or only one,) and building up speed for another charge. Fifteen feet away. Nine, three - and then the creature's body seemed to be enveloped by shimmers, as Max and Michael's power finally started to have an effect. Within a few seconds, it was gone.
Michael turned to Maria and, caught up in the moment, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. Maria kissed back, and in a few seconds two or three of their total of four legs buckled from the exhaustion and the two teenagers ended up in a tangle on the floor, still clinched at the mouth.
It was Maria who broke away first. "Well, much as I hate to say it, we should probably get a move on." She gently but definitely took one of Michaels hands away from her waist and sat up.
"Yeah." Michael pulled himself to a crouch. "The monster isn't dead - just sent back to the beginning of the maze, or something, I think. Another little tidbit from Isabel. It'll be gunning for us again."
"Lovely." Maria stood up and returned her attention to the dials. "So, any idea what's going on here?"
"Some kind of mathematical puzzle?" Michael guessed with a sigh. Math was so not his strong suit. "How close we're getting to the correct code is somehow reflected by how many steps up the stairway we can get without being dumped."
"Okay, let's give this a try, then." Maria adjusted a few of the dials, and then went over to try the first step. It pivoted.
Michael groaned.
* * * * *
"Are you getting anything?" Alex asked Isabel nervously.
"No.... it's not a constant thing," Isabel complained. "Sometimes I can make sense of Michael's subconscious mind, more often I can't. Just have to wait for those rare flashes of insight, you know what I mean?"
Alex nodded understandingly. A cheer broke out in the living room, and Alex looked over at Isabel. "Still nothing," she snapped, in an angry tone but with a teasing twinkle in her eye.
"Okay..." she murmured after a long moment. "Yeah, the monstey's been zapped out or whatever - now Michael and Maria are working on this math puzzle thing, with dials on the walls and a trick staircase." She sighed. "Michael isn't pleased."
"Do you want my help?" Alex asked tentatively.
"Hey, you might be the big brain, but I do okay in calculus class," Isabel shot back. "I can handle it - relaying everything to you would just be a extra waste of time."
"Thanks so much," Alex joked back with a wide smile. "Well, I'll check in with Max and Liz - be back in a few." He stood up, closed the door softly, and crept out to the living room.
Tess was sitting on the couch, focusing intently on the Brundis crystal. "Hi, Alex." Kyle was sitting next to her, similarly intent on a healing stone. Jim Valenti was sitting at the desk chair, quietly watching the two of them.
"Umm... what's going on here?" Alex couldn't help but ask.
"Well, after de-materializing the monster with Michael's help, Max and Liz were really tired out, so I thought it was a good time for us to spot them out," Tess explained. "After all, they *did* just bend the laws of physics."
"If you're looking for Max and Liz, they're raiding our fridge," Kyle explained. "Using 'the inner power' seems to give *some* people the munchies. And by the way, *everybody* is chipping in when we call for pizza later."
"Oh." Somewhat caught off guard by all this, Alex stood still for several seconds, thinking, and then turned to include Mister Valenti in the conversation. "Speaking of calling later, has anything been discussed out here about the alibi situation."
Jim Valenti sighed. "We were thinking of going with 'co-ed sleepover.'" He must have took Alex's evaluative stare as critical, because he defensively added, "'The best possible lie is the one closest to the truth.' Throw in something about study grouping for a big test or whatever."
Alex nodded slowly. "Yeah. That could fly. What about Mrs. DeLucca? She'd get a little suspicious if one of us were calling on Maria's behalf."
"I suppose I could make that call..." Valenti sighed. Obviously all of this petty deception was a little grating on the 'man of law and order.' "Make it sound as if she's 'around somewhere' but can't quite make it to the phone."
He took a deep breath. "And by the way, though the big test might not be real, I feel obliged to warn you guys, I *will* be taking my chaperoning duties seriously - I want *nothing* to happen that I couldn't tell the girls' mothers about." He stood up, headed towards the kitchen door, then paused. "Though I'm not going to tell them everything that I actually *could* tell them." Then Valenti did continue on into the kitchen, probably to pass that warning along to Max too.
"Translation for any of you who might not speak 'good ol' boy,'" Kyle announced softly, "First base okay, maybe stealing second. No further." Tess picked up one of the couch cushions and whomped him soundly with it.
* * * * *
"Almost... there..." Michael sighed, not sure whether he was talking to Maria or himself. It seemed like about an hour since they had gotten out of the dial room... though it was really hard to tell time in here... especially since time seemed to be capable of swinging back and forth crazily here in the labyrinth.
He led Maria up a stepladder that took them up above some kind of high-tech future apartment complex in Japan or Korea. From up here long wide corridors led off in four different directions, but Michael only went a short way down the rightmost. "Ta da."
"Uh... ta da what?" Maria asked somewhat impatiently as she caught up with him. Michael turned up his handlight and shone it very deliberately in front of them. A hole in the wall, four and a half feet wide by three and a half feet high, about a foot high off the ground, was thus made glaringly obvious.
"Um, okay..." Maria said, re-orienting. "What do we do, crawl inside like it's a vent?"
Michael savored the mental image of Maria climbing into that passageway ahead of him, on all fours... in those jeans... and then shook his head. "We could, but probably not worth the extra effort. This passageway is expanding. In ten minutes it should be big enough for us to walk into - though I'll have to keep my big head down."
Maria smiled slightly. "And you don't think that monster will be able to catch up with us anytime soon with an extra ten minutes of catch-up time?"
Michael sighed and focused his awarenessof the maze back the way that they had come. "I get no trace of him within detection distance. We've come a long way already, Maria. Besides, can you really picture the monster climbing up that ladder?" The question elicited a short howl of laughter from Maria. "It's going to take a lot more than ten minutes for that dumb thing to figure out how to follow us up here."
"Okay," Maria agreed. "We can afford to wait, and I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity to get off my feet." She sat down with her back up against the invisible wall opposite the crawlway, knees propped up together in front of her. "Whaddoo we talk about now?"
Michael sat down opposite her, stretching his legs out in front of himself as far as they would go. "You got me."
"Well..." Maria smiled at in that way she always did when she *knew* she was about to be difficult, and Michael's soaring heart started to plummet. "I have a topic. What did that kiss mean? Back in the dial room, after you'd whooshed the monster."
Michael tried to stifle a sigh. "Maria, it was a kiss. Why does it have to 'mean something?'"
"It means *something,* Michael," Maria affirmed relentlessly. "What, was I just the nearest handy expression of celebrating a victory in battle? Kiss the nearest wench, soldier?? Or is that what the jocks are doing after a touchdown instead of high fives? Kiss a cheerleader?!"
Michael sighed again. "It wasn't like that, Maria." **Take a deep breath.** "Being-- in this labyrinth thing with you, Maria, is reminding me very strongly just how much I love you, and why." There. He'd said it.
Maria, however, seemed none too impressed. "Okay, so you love me. So what?"
Michael couldn't believe his ears "So what??"
"So you love me," Maria repeated. "Are you a stone wall? Are you the soldier who can't afford to have a girl at home waiting for him?? Are you the killer who can't be with me because he loves me too much?! Are you the guy who'd use any cliche he possibly could as an excuse to avoid me, or are you going to *DO* something about the fact that you love me, Michael Thomas Guerin?!" Although Maria hadn't moved from her relaxed sitting posture, her cheeks were flushed and her breaths panting by the time that rant was over.
Michael was shocked, and not just by the fact that she had somehow found out his middle name. Everything Maria had just said had hit too close for comfort. **Well, what did you expect??** a little voice inside his head asked. **Maria knows all your lines, all your tricks, and it looks like she just called you on them. What are you gonna tell her?**
"I - I don't wanna be that guy," Michael force out after long seconds of silence. "I want to be with you. But my life is *so* complicated and SO crazy, and if I were going steady with you again... deep down I'm afraid it would just mean I had more to lose."
"You'd have more to win, too," Maria reminded him softly. "And that's just about time."
"Time??" Michael repeated, confused. "Whatt's just about time??"
"It's time that we should be moving again, silly," Maria clarified, shaking her head as she clambered back to her feet. "The passageway - looks like you won't have to duck your big head much."
Caught by surprise again, Michael surveyed the not-quite-square opening. Now it was seven feet wide by six feet high or so, only a few inch's step off the floor they were now standing on - quite big enough, Michael agreed. He must have left his hand on glowing pretty bright if Maria had been able to see the opening clearly from where she had been sitting though.
They walked down the new corridor in silence for about a minute - the air still thick with tension from the emotional discussion put behind them (literally, if not metaphorically.) Finally, Maria spoke up with one last comment. "Don't kiss me again unless you've decided that the benefits outweigh the risks. Okay?"
* * * * *
Max smiled at Liz as he popped the last of the little iced pastry that had come free with the pizza between her lips. "So...."
"So..." Liz echoed. For almost a minute, an awkward silence hung over Valenti's kitchen as neither of them could think up a followup to that.
"How about that weather we've been having, huh?" Max joked, sending Liz and himself into gales of helpless laughter for no particularly good reason either of them could have given.
"Boy..." Liz said once her giggles had faded out. "Another monday night in Roswell, huh?" A gesture all around the two of them helped clarify what she meant.
"Yeah," Max agreed with a small sigh. "We never do seem to make it to the movies, do we?" Not that I'm complaining, he thought silently.
"Naw - probably just as well," Liz answered, startling Max as she nearly echoed his unspoken thought. "After all, going to movies is for normal people, and..."
"*What's so great about NORMAL?!?*" Max finished in unison with her, grinning. "Okay, fair enough. But that's still no reason that we have to be struggling against mysterious Chzechoslovakian enemies every date night. What would be your ideal beyond-the-norm evening??"
Liz blinked a little in surprise. "Are we talking do-able here, or absolute fantasy?"
Max smiled. "Up to you, whichever you'd rather share."
Liz smiled. "Well, this isn't too geographically feasible for us, but I've always wanted to go to some big city just for a night out on the town. Nothing too crazy - say, dinner at a busy, crowded deli, watching a musical, sodas afterward in some dance bar, and cap it all off with a quiet walk through the almost-empty streets." She smiled. "Is that out of the ordinary enough?"
"Yeah," Max said, trying not to let Liz catch him calculating ways and means. Suddenly a loud sigh escaped him.
Liz turned around in Max's arms and looked up at him with those big brown eyes. "I think someone's getting a bit *too* relaxed," she accused him, and then stepped gently out of Max's embrace, stretching slightly. "Come on, it's high time we took over for Tess and Kyle again."
"Do we *haave* to?" Max groaned playfully as he stood up himself. Actually, he really didn't mind the thought of 'getting back to work' considering what the job was like.
Max hadn't mentioned this out loud, but when Liz used the healing stone to send him her energy, he could *feel* it. He could sense that little piece of her inside of him - very soft, slightly cool, and undeniably... 'Lizly.' To be honest, even if there wasn't an alien crisis afoot, Max would be all too happy to do this just for the sensation. Maybe switch and send *his* balance energy to Liz -- see what that felt like.
Probably it would be better if they put the healing stones away and didn't so much as touch them except when there was a real emergency. Max had a crazy mental image of himself on the Jerry Springer show - alien energy junkies. "I'm hooked on my girlfriend's inner essence."
All the while he had been thinking, Liz had been leading the way out to the living room. "Tag, Valenti," she declared, swatting the teenaged Buddhist lightly on the shoulder. "We're taking over." Max noticed that she made no move to actually take the healing stone out of Kyle's hands - not while Tess was still holding the Brundis crystal lamp - her pale face looking unearthly in serene repose - eyes closed, legs crossed lotus-style on the couch.
"Hey," Max said softly to Tess, and when she opened her eyes he immediately held out his hand for the Brundis. Tess handed it over, stretching and swinging her feet back over the edge of the cushions so they hung down to the carpeted floor.
"Any problems?" Max asked conversationally.
"Not a one," Tess reported. "Michael and Maria are back on the move, and Monster seems to have lost their trail." She looked from Max over to Liz and then back. "Have fun."
Max nodded blandly as Tess and Kyle got up off of the couch. Liz already had the healing stone - probably she had timed getting it from Kyle as close to Max taking the crystal as she could. Max shrugged and looked over at Liz, inviting her to choose her seat.
After a short pause, Liz crossed over to sit down where Tess had been, so Max took Kyle's seat and concentrated. Quickly and easily now the vision of the labyrinth returned to his awareness - still not quite comprehendable as a whole and confusing in its interrelations, but the basics were easy enough to figure out. Michael and Maria were...
A soft sigh escaped Max as he felt Liz's balance slide into place within him, and was answered by a gasp from Liz! "Oh, oh my god, Max! I see it!! I can see Maria, and Michael, and the path they're on... It's going around the moon!!"
Max drew in his breath as suddenly he saw it too. "Oh wow!! You're right. Boy, that must be a trip."
Liz checked to make sure that Tess and Kyle had left the room, and whispered "I'm always around the moon, as long as you're with me, Max Evans."
Max smiled giddily at the bad (if romantic,) joke and settled down to watching the labyrinth.
* * * * *
Alex sat in the chair, silently. Holding a healing stone in his hands - concentrating on it, concentrating on letting his strength sustain Isabel through it.
After a long stetch of silence, Isabel sighed.
"Any problem?" Alex asked.
"No, no," Isabel answered, opening her eyes and shaking her head. "Just tired I guess."
"Maybe you should take a break, then," Alex suggested. His immediate response was a black look from a hot blonde alien. Alex counted himself lucky that she didn't literally shoot daggers from her eyes.
Despite this, Alex recklessly pushed on. "Things are quiet. There's no immediate crisis brewing. Max, Liz, Tess, and Kyle have already been switching off."
"Yeah, well, you know who can't 'switch off,' Alex?!" Isabel snarked back. "Michael. Remember? He's doing more than any of us and he doesn't even have a damn healing stone for Maria to recharge him with."
"But your road is not his road, Isabel," Alex reminded her softly. "For better or for worse, Michael and Maria got themselves caught in that maze. They're the ones who have to trek out, and we're the ones who have to help from outside as best we can. And I don't think the best way for you to help is to stubbornly stay in the link until you collapse from the mental exertion."
Isabel started to pshaw that notion, but only got halfway through the 'h' before an uncertain look crossed her face.
Alex knew he had to follow up on the lead if he was going to convince her. "I don't have any experience with this part of mentalics, but it's pretty clear that the effort of maintaining a link this long is eating you empty inside. Remember, you had almost no experience before this afternoon. You haven't built up the kind of mental endurance or whatever your people use to do this. Now, Max and Liz are watching Maria and Michael directly through the crystal. If they need us, they'll call us. Better to take a break now rather than be facing the wall right when Michael *really* needs y-"
"Alright, *alright!!*" Isabel blurted out, finally. "I get the point. Just let me sign off and try to let Michael know that I'll be gone." She closed her eyes and went back into concentration mode. When she opened her eyes again, there was a clear quality to them that hadn't been there while she was in contact with Michael. "There. Logged off. Are you satisfied?" She laughed softly. "Or did you have any notins as to *how* we could spend our break... given that we're all alone - in a bedroom..."
"Where our designated chaperone Sherrif Valenti may check in at any moment," Alex pointed out. "And though I have *several* notions for what the two of us could do with a little prvacy, I'm afraid that the ideas that are most quickly popping to mind aren't very restful."
Isabel laughed softly. "I guess you're right."
"So why don't we get *out* of this room for a little bit, huh?!" Alex grinned. "Are you hungry? I heard Kyle talking about ordering pizza."
Isabel stood up and smiled without commenting about pizza. With a few strides of her long (gorgeous) legs she bridged the distance between them, and - still not speaking - circled her arms tightly around Alex's waist. Caught by surprise, Alex went with his instincts and draped his own arms around Isabel's shoulders. Their faces were only about an inch away from each other.
Then, after a moment that to Alex almost seemed like a year, Isabel closed that distance too, and brought her ruby lips to his. Alex kissed her back tenderly for a few seconds before he realized Isabel's tongue was peeking out from between her lips, inviting him in.
All the strength seemed to leave Alex's knees as the kiss got more intense and passionate by the second. Isabel's hands were going crazy over his back, so Alex started to run a few fingers through Is' gloriously soft hair. Finally, after what had to have been more than two minutes, Alex couldn't take it anymore and broke, smiling weakly over at his dichotomous dream-girl. "I... that was just something I really wanted to do," Isabel said after a moment. "Pizza?"
Alex smiled and took Isabel's hand as they headed out in search of hand-delivered sustenance.
* * * * *
"Is anyone else starting to sense a pattern here?" Michael quipped.
After hours of alternating between the sky, the underground, and the near-surface of planet Earth - (with that one interesting side trip under 'water',) the space/time labyrinth had broken away entirely. Right now he and Maria were riding 'down' an escalator toward blue sky that was seeming increasingly black and letting stars through, though the sun was still out. The 'ground' or 'earth' was hovering above them and to the left, leaving Michael with the uneasy situation that either it or he was ignoring the laws of gravity he'd known all his life.
"Yeah," Maria said nonchalantly, trying to lean over the 'edge' of the escalator, and nearly hitting her head on an invisible wall. "We're heading out into space."
"Just like that?" remarked Michael in an aside. "No sense of surprise or fear?? Just 'yeah, space?!'"
"I'm exhausted and I don't get surprised by much since I met you, spaceboy," Maria informed him. "The air's obviously still good here in the labyrinth, so what's to be scared about?" Michael shrugged and didn't comment.
The escalator ended on them soon, and it was back to the endless trek through multiple intersections and corridors - Michael's alien 'sense' his only guide. The labyrinth seemed determined to make up for the featurelessness of near-Earth space around them, and Michael knew that commiting to a wrong turn could cost them hours, or even lead to another confrontation with the beast.
Eventually - he couldn't tell how long - they stumbled into a small room - another slightly furnished one. Couch and cupboard, both of them invisible. Michael could see through them even with the faint light from his hand shining off the edges.
Maria gratefully ran up and collapsed into the couch, while Michael checked the exit first. There was a rectangular panel exactly as large as the doorway by which they had entered, but it was solid and couldn't be passed through -- yet. Michael's 'Labyrinth vibe' told him that this was the right way to proceed, but couldn't inform him how. Like the moving stairs, probably - puzzling out the way to get past was a challenge.
Well, Michael didn't see any clues and he was too tired to be brain teased at the moment anyway. He went over and collapsed next to Maria on the invisible couch - wanted to say something, but couldn't figure out what could cut through all the tension hanging between them.
"Nice view, huh," Maria commented absently. Michael had let his hand glimmer low again, and they could see the stars stretching out before them. The moon - nearly full - seemed about as big as it did from earth, whereas a fair stretch across the sky the two-thirds-lit earth shone much bigger and apparently more brightly. (Michael wasn't sure of the grammer there, but shrugged it off.) Both of the planetary bodies seemed to hang at about eye level relevant to Michael and Maria's current orientation, and they were about...
"Hang on a second!!" Michael exclaimed, standing up for no particularly good reason, pointing each of his arms at the earth and moon, and then attempting to judge their seperation by the angle is arms were pointing at. "If they're... you know I think the space we're sitting in right here might be 'Lagrange point.'"
"Whose point??" Maria answered doubtfully, and Michael stifled a blush and sat down again.
"Never mind... I guess it's not important," he mumbled.
"Well... I'm curious," Maria said, her voice gentle and unpressuring.
"Okay." Michael turned to her and smiled slightly. "Growing up... once I'd realized what I was, you know... well, I started getting into space travel and all that. Going down from the trailer park to the town library and reading books about Nasa and missions to mars and all that, you know."
"Makes sense," Maria answered with a teasing grin.
"Okay. The Lagrange points... I don't remember who Lagrange was or if they were even named after a person - are the five locations in a two-body gravitational system that have simple, stable orbits." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, restored cleanness and smoothness with a gesture, and started marking illustrations on it through tiny molecular alterations.
"Like if we have the earth, here.... and the moon here. As the moon travels around us, it has enough mass to pull on anything else that's in the area. The first three lagrange parts are... umm, here..." he marked a spot on the far side of the moon from the earth, "where the pull of the earth and the moon are always lined up, so it's like just one pull. Here too." This was on the opposite side of the earth from the moon. "And the third... would be here I guess." This mark was partway from the moon to the earth along a straight line. "The gravity of the moon just counters enough of the gravity of the earth to keep it in a synchronized orbit, even though it's further in."
"Umm... okay," Maria said, frowning at the picture. "I think I get it - very vaguely. Never knew much about astronomy or anything. But... we're not in any of those spots, are we?"
"No, no, of course we're not," Michael agreed. "But the thing is, those first three Lagrange points, they work out fine in theory but aren't very good in practice. The gravity of the sun," - and Michael stuck a thumb out towards the light coming from behind them, "pulls everything out of place, and unless you use rockets or something you can't correct. Gravity would keep you at the right distance from the earth and moon, but you'd slide out of phase to the side, mucking everything up."
"The fourth and fifth lagrange points are more stable, here and here." He marked two larger spots to either side of the earth-moon pair. "Each forms a triangle with the earth and moon where all three sides are equal. These are called the 'trojan points,' because of some asteroids that take up this position in jupiter's orbit around the sun, and they're totally stable because they're self-correcting. If you drift out of position, you get gently buffeted back in."
"Okay...." Maria repeated again. "But what good are they?"
"A couple of people have been suggesting that space colonies could be set up at the lagrange points," Michael explained. "Huge spheres or cylinders, inside of which you could keep breathable air and set up houses, towns, parks... whatever you want." He thought about that, looking around. "I guess either we're not in the future now - or they never did... we're not far *enough* into the future, at any rate," he corrected himself.
"Oh." Seeing the disappointment on Michael's face, Maria changed the subject. "Well, how do we get out of here anyways?"
"I'm not sure," Michael replied. "It's another puzzle room or something I guess."
"Hmm..." Now Maria was the one to get up. "I guess we'd better look for clues then." There was only one obvious locale, and Maria proceeded to it, opening up the cupboard on the wall. "Hey, weird."
"What is it?" Michael got up and joined her - (only a few steps' distance.) Inside the cupboard - was a huge level that could be pulled up and down. Nothing more.
"Well, nothing ventures..." Maria reached out and pushed the control down one notch. Something out of the corner of his eye caught Michael's attention. Quickly he rushed over to the 'doors,' which were now both impassible - solid.
"Turn it back!" he requested. Startled, Maria did so - opening the portal that led back the way they came.
"Maybe another setting opens the other door," Maria suggested, checking to make sure that Michael was safely inside the room before pulling the lever down two notches. Both doors solid again - and a meteor rock appeared out of nowhere, buzzing their invisible 'room.' Shocked, Maria continued down again even though a meteor in the real space-time continuum couldn't hurt them more than anything else could - and the rock vanished again.
"Something weird is going on," Michael commented. "That lever is changing more than the doors - it's altering the real world around us. But how? We're still in the same place, no matter what setting it's on."
Maria shrugged and continued testing different positions, while Michael kept one eye on the doors and another on space around them. A spark of light appeared ahead of them - between the earth and the moon. "What's that?" he muttered.
"Dunno," Maria replied, heading forward to join him. "That's the lowest setting... hey, check it out!"
A patch of the invisible wall apparently had magnifying capablities, and by orienting himself right Michael could take a closer look at the flare he had spotted. "Hey, that's a rocket!!" he exclaimed. "Looks like one of the later Apollo series - Apollo 16 maybe??"
"Hey!" Maria pulled it together. "What if that lever... moves this room around through time? And there's only one time where the labyrinth pathway continues?!"
"Hey, that makes sense," Michael agreed. "Try some of the settings further up from where we were."
Maria did. As they continued forward through time Michael saw more spaceships travelling between the Earth and the Moon. Suddenly a half-finished metal construction appeared - not fifty feet away from them. Another notch, and they were surrounded by half a dozen gleaming metal cylinders.
"Cool," Maria pronouned, her eyes locked on the happy expression on Michael's face. "I'm glad you got to see this, Michael."
Michael shook himself out of the trance and noticed something else. "This is our stop." Sure enough, the corridor continued on out of door number two, and his labyrinth sense assured him that it wasn't a false trail.
"And away we go again," Maria sighed, unable to hide her own smile.
* * * * *
The scene at the Valenti house was starting to actually look like a slumber party. Sleeping bags from the mountain of camping gear in Jim's basement had been set up on the living room floor, and most of the young people had changed into 'scavenged' pajamas, (read: molecularly transmuted from old towels and blankets.)
"They're approaching the moon now," Isabel mentioned to Max and Liz, demonstrating that she had re-established the mental link with Michael. Approaching pretty close - they might end up at the moon's surface before they get around - or even under it!!"
"Wow," Liz breathed softly, then noticed the gasp as Isabel closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. "Isabel, what is it?"
"I just... I'm getting a little more from Michael this time than the sights and sounds of his subconscious re-processing the details of trying to make his way through the labyrinth," Isabel explained. "I was before, but I was able to tune most of it out. Now..."
"What are you getting now?" Max prompted.
"Stuff," Isabel muttered unhelpfully. "Mental imagery... that seems to be about the way he feels about Maria.
"Oh," Liz said, and then did a double-take. "OH!!! Um... wow. Probably you should..."
"Do your best to ignore it," Max said firmly. "And *never* ever mention this to Michael or Maria."
Liz and Isabel nodded in agreement. Alex smiled and turned his attention to Tess and Kyle, who were sitting on the floor about ten feet away. He didn't mean to eavesdrop on them, but, well... you know how the rest of that goes.
"I just wanted to mention something..." Kyle was saying. "I know I've been giving you a pretty hard time about coming here and taking over my room and stuff... but I know it wasn't really your choice. Anyways... I guess what I've been saying is that you're pretty cool to have around and I'm glad you came to this planet."
"Well, thanks Kyle," Tess said with a smile. "You're pretty cool to have around too. But I've been thinking about why I'm here. I mean... Michael is living on his own. Why can't I too?"
"Well... there's the fact that someone who was living in that house was kind of..." Kyle stopped, apparently realizing that there wasn't any way he could finish that sentence without upsetting Tess more than necessary. "You know."
"I guess..." Tess sighed. "But I promise you - as soon as we settle up with whoever killed Ed, I'll get out of your hair. Y-you're a good friend, but let's face the fact - this house is not big enough for two teenagers. I need to find my own digs."
"Okay, twist my arm." Kyle laughed. "But you'll have to let me come over and visit."
* * * * *
Michael sighed as they stood and rested while letting an unexpected feature of the labyrinth carry them along. As soon as they had turned the corner from the far side of the moon and caught sight of the earth again, Michael and Maria had ended up on a kind of moving conveyer belt that was rushing them quickly towards Earth. The chance to make progress without having to keep walking was a nice change.
He couldn't stop thinking about what Maria had told him. A part of Michael very much wanted to take Maria up on her implied proposal. He'd never been as happy as he had last year when he'd been with Maria and things were going well - even though she couldn't be stopped from busting his chops about table manners, gifts, dating etiquette and all that. He could probably manage to learn, if it came to that.
But somehow Michael just couldn't open his mouth and say the words. Was it pride? The kind of fear and concern for her sake that she mocked? Or was it something else? For an instant, the 'Isabel dreams' popped into his head. No... Isabel was like a sister to him, nothing more. Right? Just because they had been something different fifty years ago, didn't change what he felt...
"Whoo! Take my hand, Michael!" Maria called out. Michael realized that they were approaching the earth's upper atmosphere and the moving sidewalk was coming to an end. Suddenly they were slipping down another invisible slide, heading for... it looked like the Pacific ocean!
Whoosh! splash! After diving with impossible speed down through the air and the ocean, Michael and Maria came to the bottom of the slide - to find that there was a little labyrinth-water at the bottom. "What the heck!?" Maria asked. "Is the space-time labyrinth leaking?"
"There's all kinds of other junk in here," Michael reminded her. "Why not water?" He tried not to grin too obviously at the way Maria looked with wet patches in her hair, halter top, tight jeans, and patches of her exposed skin. Michael was wet too, but was willing to bear it. "Okay..." Three possible pathways - but only one would lead up away from the ocean floor, Michael's sense told him. The way out was pretty close now.
Up a stairway, down some nice big galley hallways, and soon they had passed through the suburban California coast and only a few minutes later, they were walking through the desert.
"Starting to feel like home, pod-boy?" Maria teased him. Michael smiled and kept on walking. The sun was moving closer to the east as they walked - another time thing, probably.
"Wait a second."
"What did you say?" Maria asked, turning towards Michael.
Shrug. "It wasn't me." The voice had been a baritone man's voice, so he didn't even bother accusing Maria. "Who are you!!" he called out.
"Michael, Maria!" A forty-something man was walking towards them from outside the labyrinth. "Don't walk away, or you'll move out of my time-frame. I can't see you or hear you, but I'm pretty sure that I've finally found the right place and time to pass along this message."
"Oh, my god," Maria said, staring at the man. Michael shushed her. This sounded interesting.
"Okay, let's see," the speaker mumbled, apparently trying to find his way in mental notes. "Back on your home planet, a challenge was made. The principals were Queen Emeritus Alinda... that's Max and Isabel's mother... and Kivar, the tyrant who took over Max's throne and killed you all. If the Royal Four can make their way back to Azt, the homeworld, within two Aztan years of when you received the first message from Alinda, then Kivar will step down and hand the government back to Max. Otherwise, Kivar will stay in power forever - Alinda can't lead the loyalists in rebellion against him."
The older man shrugged. "It sounds weird to me too, but there's a long tradition of that kind of thing on your planet, Michael. Great political issues are often settled with games or bets - the idea being that they're no less arbitrary and less expensive and wasteful than going to war. Kinda makes sense. So... let's see. The time limit works out to October the twenty-ninth of 2001... that date is important, so don't forget it."
"Kivar is allowed to bring four of his agents into the field of play - where they know you guys are or are going to go - and they can try to interfere with you. But they're not allowed to kill humans or expose the existence of aliens to the world in general. I know you've got to be suspicious if me telling you all this is some kind of trick - if I'm not what I seem to be here. But you can confirm what I've told you by using the orbs as communicators. The book will show you how."
"But we don't *have* the..." Maria started.
"And *don't* stress about the book being missing," the mystery man continued. "You'll find it, Maria, about... um, three and a half weeks from now. Let's see - is there anything I missed? Challenge to get back home, fate of your world at stake, deadline, enemy aliens, communicators and the book - oh, right. If you make it back home on time, you'll be heroes - the whole Royal Four - especially Max. Even if Kivar tries to go back on the deal and remain in control, not enough of his people will support him if he loses, so you don't need to worry about that. If you can't make it back in time - well, then you'd be better off not stepping foot on Ast ever again. But hey - you guys can do it. I believe in you."
The stranger sighed. "Well, you'd better hurry up and get going now. The gang's waiting for you back at Valenti's house. Say hi to Isabel for me." He made a waving gesture. and Michael, rather unsteadily, led the way on down the invisible corridor of the maze.
"Michael, did you even realize who that way??" Maria asked after they'd been walking for a few more minutes.
"Um... no. He seemed to know an awful lot about us, and he was old, but... why - who do *you* think he was??"
"Michael..." Maria was shaking her head. "That's Alex - about twenty or twenty-five years from now. I'm sure of it!!"
* * * * *
(October 24 2000, not long after midnight.)
"They're coming close," Max said, smiling. "I can feel it."
"Yeah." Liz had one hand on top of Max's on the Brundis crystal, and the healing stone in the other. "Boy... it's been a long day, huh?"
"Oh yeah," Max sighed, looking at the clock. After one-thirty AM. More than eight and a half hours had gone by since Michael and Maria had first been sucked into the labyrinth. "I can't get my brain around the thought that we have school tommorow morning."
"Then maybe we don't, silly," Liz teased him. "Should we let the others know that this is almost over?" She waved at the living room floor beyond the couch where they sat. Isabel, Alex, Tess, and Kyle had all laid down for rests, leaving Max and Liz to keep vigil alone.
"Naw..." Max replied. "It'll be a nice surprise."
"Cool." There was silence for a moment. "Anything unusual going on in there?" Liz waved at the Brundis crystal.
"No... everything still looks quiet."
"Then come here, darling," Liz giggled, waving Max over. Jim Valenti was nowhere in sight, the others were all tucked into their sleeping bags, and Max couldn't argue that they deserved a little make-out time.
But not everyone was asleep. Out of the corner of her eye and through dishevelled blonde hair, Tess Harding was watching the young man of her dreams and her dark-haired, Roswell native rival. She watched as Max sank into a passionate embrace, spreading out over the couch, french kissing like there was no tomorrow.
No-one noticed the quiet, stifled sobs that started coming from Tess Harding's sleeping bag.
* * * * *
"This is starting to look a lot like New Mexico," Maria commented. "Maybe even the year 2000."
"Yeah," Michael agreed. "If you knew it was going to be this hard, would you have been able to even get started??"
"Well... yeah," Maria said sensibly. "If I'd known what that damn lamp was going to do, I definitely wouldn't have touched it though, that's for sure!!"
"Maybe this'll teach you to listen when I say to stay out of my stuff?" Michael joked.
Suddenly a roar broke out from behind them.
"You gotta be *kidding me*!" Maria screamed. "How the heck did that thing get through the lagrange point room after we'd gone??"
"Not really caring..." Michael said, kicking up into a run alongside Maria, trying his hardest to stay ahead of the monster. He wasn't sure if the labyrinth was helping them cover ground again, but soon they were passing the Roswell city limits sign again. Dawn was falling on the city, and soon it was night. Michael strained to keep the light bright enough to run by while keeping up speed.
Suddenly, a stabbing pain hit Michael in the side. Maria jogged around to face him as his speed fell off. "What is it?"
"I don't know... a sharp, unpleasant feeling near my stomach," Michael explained. "Makes it really hard to run."
"Like a cramp?" Maria asked. Michael looked a little blank - he'd heard the word, but never experienced the reality himself. "You've never had a runner's cramp?" Michael shrugged.
"Well... you've got one now - maybe alien's cramp. Could be all the power you've been amping out today had something to do with it. Well, come on, walk it off. Walk it off."
Michael hobbled along next to Maria, and soon was able to get up to a brisk walking pace. "We're not going to be able to outrun the monster this way."
"We're not going to be able to outrun it any way as long as you've got that cramp," Maria sighed. "Max, this would be a great moment for that shield."
They hurried along. No shield, and the monster was rumbling closer. "Max???" Maria wailed, but no response.
Time was growing short. *Something* had to be done. Maria pushed Michael gently on ahead and turned around to face the monster. "Babe!'" she called out with a gusty melody. "I got you babe! I got you babe!! They say our love won't pay the rent..."
The monster yelped and ran away. Maria hurried after Michael, pleased that her intuition had paid off.
Michael stared at her as she approached. "You scared off the ferocious alien space monster by *singing at it*??"
Maria shrugged. "It worked, didn't it??"
And right then, Maria bumped into a wall. "Whoops. Turn?"
Michael feebly managed to make his hand glow, wincing from the exertion. The corridor right-angled and headed into a house - Valenti's house, which they were standing above the front yard of. "Doh, of course."
Exhilerated, Michael and Maria rushed through the front wall of the house, squeezing in one after another as the invisible walls narrowed towards... WHOOMPTH!
"Hey! Huh?"
"What's the... deal..."
Michael took a moment to evaluate the situation. Max and Liz had just sprung apart on the Valenti's couch, he was pretty sure. Alex and Liz's sleeping bags were nearby - he had just landed nearly on Tess and Maria right on top of Kyle. "Hey, did we miss anything cool, guys?" Maria wise-cracked.
And suddenly everything was right and it all fell into place. Michael flashed an apologetic grin at Isabel and waved Maria over. "Come on, Valenti, hand her over." He swept Maria into his arms and planted a deliberate, no-tongue kiss on her ruby red lips.
Maria stared up at him once the kiss was over. "Do you really mean that?"
Michael grinned at her. "Yeah, I do. Bring on the relationship."
Someone cleared their throat. Michael looked around and saw six faces staring at them - no, seven. The rucus had brought Jim Valenti out in his bathrobe.
"What was the labyrinth like, man?" Alex asked them, as irrepressible as ever.
"Gee, where do we start?" Michael sighed and held Maria closer.
* * * * *
After 2 a.m., every one of them totally exhausted, they were still talking about it.
"I've always loved temporal cycle plotlines in my science fiction," Alex said. "I just never thought I'd be destined to re-enact one."
"What do you mean?" Isabel asked, cuddling up beside him.
"Well... Michael and Maria saw me make that speech to them in that California desert," Alex pointed out. "At least, we all hope it was really me. So... unless I'm prepared to break the chain, I'm going to have to find that place and time and tell them something. The cycle has to be completed."
"Do you want me to see if I can write down a transcript, Alex?" Maria asked.
"No... no sense in making things any squiggier than they have to be. I'll speak from experience and memory, giving you guys what I think you need. Less chance of inaccuracies perpetuating themselves through the cycle that way. After all, if I tell you anything simply because you told me to tell it to you, I don't know if it's so or not. The knowledge has simply sprung to life, fully complete, inside the cycle."
"Enough of this," Michael groaned. "You guys have at least twenty years to sort *that* out. What do we do about the challenge? Or 'supposed' challenge."
"What Future-Alex said is right," Max said. "We can't afford to completely believe him, but we have to take what he's said at face value - at least until we get the book and can hopefully figure out a way to double-check it. Which means we have..." He looked at the calendar on his watch. "Only a little more than a year to master interstellar travel if we hope to get this challenge done." He turned to Alex. "First off, we need to get the rest of the information out of that alien washer of yours. Whatever's inside there, we need to know it, I'll bet."
Alex nodded. "Well, for that I'd reccomend that I need access to that little thing at all times. Twenty-four hours a day."
Max looked at him gravely. "You want me to make a duplicate to substitute in Brody's collection."
"I've been thinking about it, and I think that's the best way to handle it," Alex confirmed.
Max thought about it. "We'll talk later." Even after all the underhanded things the gang had had to be involved in, Alex could see that willfully taking advantage of Brody's trust in such a big way offended his principles. Well... he'd either have to get used to it or come up with a better plan.
"I wonder why Alex mentioned you," Maria said to Isabel. "I mean... besides the obvious - if there is a deeper reason. I mean..." she caught herself. "I'm sure you're not... not..."
"Dead in the future?" Isabel said, trying not to blanch. "I hope not, but whom among us can tell?" She forced a smile.
Michael groaned, and everybody stared at him. "Sorry... just *really* tired. It's been quite a day." The whole group broke into laughs at this.
"Do we *really* have to show up for school tomorrow?" Isabel moaned. "I mean..." She turned to stare at Jim Valenti, who was sitting across the circle from her and hadn't said a word since welcoming Michael and Maria back and expressing his gladness that they were both okay. Others turned to stare at the Sheriff as well.
"Hey, don't look at me," Jim disclaimed. "I'm not the truant officer. Personally, I'd say some of you deserved the break. But... I'm not gonna help you cover for *that.* It's up to each of you to make their own decision." He yawned. "And with that, my own bed is calling me. I expect the lights to be out in here - ten minutes."
As Maria rolled out her sleeping bag, she looked at the spot where they had come through the exit of the labyrinth. "Hey, what happened to the maze after we left? And that monster thing?"
Alex had the answer, as he yawned his way towards dreamland. "The labyrinth existed for the two of you, and ceased to exist once you both got out. The monster probably lost its body. I wouldn't be surprised it it was halfway to Jupiter by now.
"Just so long as it never messes with me or Michael again," Maria quipped.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
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, currently based at fanatics: http://www.roswellfanatics.net/
Feedback: YES PLEASE!
Category: Alternate timeline epic. Conventional couples angst leading up to UC in later parts - you have been warned!
Rating: PG-13, for now
Summary: Alien mysteries lead to an interesting year...
Spoilers: Up to 'Ask not'
(October 20 2001.)
As the limo turned down Maria's street, Michael fixed Alex with a serious stare. "Remember, man..."
"I know, I know," Alex sighed "Twenty-five years."
"We're all countin' on ya, man," Michael reminded him with a friendly clap on the back.
* * * * *
(October 23 2000.)
Michael hurried down the invisible passageway in the sky after Maria. Boy, could that girl *run* when she needed to. With difficulty, Michael pulled up almost beside her, and panted out. "We can't just keep running from this thing. We're - (long gasping breath,) caught in a maze here. That kinda implies a shortage of suitable places to escape."
"You... you got any ideas, spaceboy," Maria stage-whispered as she kept booting it along, "I'm all ea--"
Maria never quite finished the sentence: she suddenly became more interested in keeping her balance as a new factor suddenly upset her physical equilibrium.
Michael hit it only a fraction of a second after Maria did. The floor was starting to slope down under his feet. First almost too little to detect, then a quite noticeable slant. The invisible floor was quite friction-free, as the invisible walls were, and quickly at this rate the pitch would become such that traction would be impossible.
Indecision gripped Michael for a moment, but only until the monster roared behind them. Jumping forward to wrap one arm tightly around Maria's waist, he leaned back and let his feet slip out from under him. "Hey!" Maria cried out in sudden shock, but kept quiet once she realized what was happening -- the two of them slid side by side on their backs, down the chute, which was starting to twist to the left in a corkscrew pattern.
Michael tried to keep his wits about him. On any normal day, he would probably have paid hard-earned money to be going on this ride with a beautiful girl right beside him. But this was not an ordinary day. They were still stuck in the middle of a life-or-death trap, and were now following a one-way-only route into who-knew-what. The corkscrew slide was carrying them further in one direction than the other, and the ground seemed to be approaching awfully quickly. Then, suddenly, they were underground, and the slope of the slide became even steeper, until...
"Whoa!" Michael's feet struck a small ledge and glanced off, and an instant later the same thing happened to Maria. Suddenly the two of them were jumping through the air, and then a bone-jarring (but not breaking,) landing on a floor. The chute ended here.
But where was 'here'? Sheepishly Michael relit the glow on his hand. There was the chute landing, right behind them. A chamber, ceiling ten feet high, floor twenty-five by thirty-five feet big, or thereabouts. Surprisingly, there were actually furnishings of a sort on one of the walls - huge circular levers that could apparently be pointed in any direction, with backdrops marking off a circular arc divided into twenty segments. A stairway led up and away from the room.
"Good enough," Michael said, crossing the empty space in the middle of the chamber towards the stairs. His 'sense' told him that this was the right way out. He stepped up onto the first stair.
It pivoted, rather than accept his weight, forming a slope back down. Michael tried the second stair, and it and the first twisted down in unison.
"Trick stairs," he muttered, looking over at Maria. "I don't have time for this."
"The dials," Maria pointed out. "They have to be the key." Quickly she went along the wall, setting each dial in a sequential position, then rushed over to the stairs to check her findings. The first stair held, until she stepped up to the second. Maria tried to recover and jump down to the landing gracefully, but Michael was too quick with the 'coming to the rescue' move, and she ended up tangled in his arms. Michael's heart skipped a beat again.
Just at that point, of course, in the silence they could hear a distant roar and an odd 'swishing' sound.
"What the heck is that?" Maria asked, in the kind of tone of voice that suggested she knew the answer and wanted it to be *anything* but what she knew.
Michael grimaced. "Well, it doesn't sound anything like a monster sliding down a chute, that's for sure." Maria shot him a dark look. Michael smiled weakly.
"Okay, we have about ninety seconds until it gets here," he rambled on. "No way we can figure out how to use the stairs that quickly, so I guess it's do or die time. Defeat the monster or die trying." He set Maria down gently.
"Oh god." A mixture of sheer terror for him and muted pride filled Maria's face. "Do you have any idea how?"
"Not a clue," Michael muttered. He didn't even have a weapon.
* * * * *
Alex thought to himself as he watched Isabel concentrate on the link with Michael. **Boy, I really hope we get Michael and Maria out of this alright. Man, Isabel is SO beautiful... This alien knowledge stuff is weird, weird weird. I can't get used to the idea of having facts inside my brain that came from some other person - or more than one person - from some alien planet halfway across the galaxy - maybe fifty years ago, or more...**
Just then, Isabel's eyes snapped open. "Michael's in trouble!"
The paralyzing panic lasted only a second. Then Alex hurried over to Isabel's side. "What kind of trouble?"
"It's hard to tell, Michael's thoughts are so jumbled," Isabel muttered. "He's running from something - Maria too. I can't make out what... ooooh." Isabel groaned in surpressed horror. "I can see parts of it now. Monster parts. Alex, you never said anything about there being a monster in the maze!" Those beautiful brown eyes were accusing as they stared up at him. "How could you leave out a detail like that?"
"Keep focusing on the link with Michael," Alex reminded her reflexively, as much to deflect Isabel's insinuations about his carelessness as for the right reasons. He turned away from Isabel and scanned through the 'washer file' in his brain. "There's nothing in here about monsters, guardians, or active threats in the labyrinth. I'm sorry, Isabel, but your monster just doesn't seem to be... Oh, god." Stricken, with remorse, he forced himself to turn around and face Isabel.
"Oh, god, *what,* Alex?" she prompted him, paling.
"A... a footnote," Alex analogized. "At least, that's the best way I can think of to explain it."
"And what does it say, this footnote?" Isabel asked.
"High-risk version of the rite of passage, for the most daring only. An insubstantial energy creature is bound into the Brundis crystal along with the time warp. In the labyrinth, away from our space-time continuum, it can assume a deadly material form."
"And how do they stop it??"
Alex dredged his alien memories for a long moment. "I... I think that Michael can use his powers against it. Make it insubstantial again, at which point it returns to the beginning of the labyrinth. They can't kill it, but they can keep backing it off until they get out. Max can help, using the crystal." He sighed. "That's all I can get. I'll go out and tell Max."
Isabel's only reaction was to nod ever so breifly and close her eyes again. Alex knew that time was critical, but he couldn't help but feel censured.
He hurried out to let Max and Liz know about the beast.
* * * * *
The beast roared through the terminus of the chute and into the chamber, somehow managing to avoid the trip ledge that had caught both Michael and Maria. Without any mouth, it managed to scream quite loudly at both of them, waving its claws and tentacles menacingly.
By now, though, Michael was ready for it - or as ready as he was going to be. With a massive exertion of his alien abilities, he picked the beast up and flew it into the air, pouring on the acceleration with as much strength as he could muster, then let it collide crashingly against the opposite wall and floor where they met to come together. CRASH!!! The impace was satisfyingly loud.
The monster oriented on Michael and came to charge at him again. This time, he lifted the massive creature off the floor, struggled it up until it was levitating only a few inches from the ceiling, and let its huge body drop. THUUMPPP!!!!
Yet again, the beast shook the impact off. Michael pushed it back while reconsidering his strategy. At this rate, the monster could probably take more of these crashes than Michael could have the energy to put it through. That thing was *heavy*! And Michael knew that the one thing that he couldn't afford was to leave himself too overtired. That would be the same as being defenceless against this thing.
"Michael..." Maria muttered from beside him. She was getting anxious. **Gotta try something, Michael.** Seized by inspiration, he focused on the creature and tried to send its molecules flying apart. He'd never really tried this on anything living before, though he'd thought about it and tried it on scrap metal. But it didn't seem to work against this critter. Almost like it... like it wasn't quite made out of molecules, if that made any sense.
Getting worried now, Michael tried the handprint of death strike. The one he had used on Pierce... at least no-one would put him in jail for killing *this* thing. But even that high-energy blast seemed to scarcely phaze the monster. It charged at Michael again, and this time he didn't have the strength to push its massive body back telekinetically. In fact... he didn't even have the strength to dodge.
Maria tried to pull him away, but the monster oriented on him as he moved and Michael slipped his hand out of Maria's grasp. At least *she* could get away. Maria stumbled away, caught by surprise, her momentum carrying her on without him.
And then the creature was upon him, knocking Michael down with a huge arm and standing over his body. Those tentacles ripped at his clothing, and a huge, heavy claw tore into his side, quite painfully. Michael focused his powers for one last panicked push, but the beast hardly budged.
"Take that!!" Something nudged the body of the monster, far less than even Michael had been able to move it that last time, but the tentacles suddenly left him alone as the creature oriented on someone else. It had to be... "Nobody does that to the guy I love without messing with Maria DeLucca!!!"
Maria pantomimed swinging something thick and heavy at the monster's claw, even though she didn't appear to be holding anything, and the appendage shook slightly with the impact. Maria noticed him staring. "Invisible chunk of wood or something, I tripped over it," she explained in passing before clubbing the monster again.
"Maria!!" Michael complained. "You're not hurting the thing, you're just making it angry at you!"
"Well, that was the plan all along braniac," Maria retorted - thunk - "and by the way, you're welcome for saving your life!! Now, make with the alien powers and RETURN THE FAVOR!! Yii" Maria skittered backward as the monster took a swing at her and gave it another tired bash 0 that invisible pillar of wood had to be heavy.
Michael groaned and lifted the monster back into the air - his strength had recovered far enough to make that possible. The alien creature seemed to be getting tired too, though not nearly quickly enough. Inside his mind, Michael was finding it hard to focus for a second on anything but how much he loved Maria - her fire, her passion, the 'chutzpah' that would drive her to piss off an alien monster like that just for his sake.
And then, suddenly, the monster reared and charged at Maria again. The beast also seemed revitalized for the moment, full of piss and vinegar or something. Michael was just about to marshal his energies for another defensive toss, when something else saved him the trouble. A glowing shield of green energy shimmered into existence down the diagonal of the room, seperating the monster from Michael and Maria. Maria looked over admiringly at Michael. "Good one!"
"I didn't do it," Michael confessed. "The only one I know who can do shields is... Max?" He raised his voice on the name for some reason.
And that's when it hit him -- Isabel's message -- or mabye when he became consciously aware of it, Michael couldn't tell. [The monster is some kind of energy being, manifesting with a body only inside the labyrinth. That's the key to defeating it - you can reverse the process and make it insubstantial again. Max will help.]
"Okay," Michael muttered to himself, though he knew only Maria could hear him, and she didn't know what was going on. He tried to reach out and focus his powers on the monster to try this out, but the shield worked both ways - Michael's power couldn't reach through it. "Okay, Max, I'm ready, let it down now."
It actually took about twenty seconds before Max let the shield slip, by which time the monster had started to get confused. Quickly, Michael reached out to let his power envelop the beast, trying to focus his energies in the way Isabel had suggested. It wasn't like anything else he had ever done before, but he thought maybe he could do it - if Max helped out too.
After a few second, he could feel another power play around the monster - working in a slightly different way than his. Immediately Michael switched to supporting the other's effort, figuring that if it was Max (it had to be,) then Max would have Alex advising him directly, and hopefully would know better what to do.
There didn't seem to be any response immediately. Michae was worried - his power levels were getting pretty far down already, and the monster had oriented on Maria and himself again (couldn't tell if it was both of them or only one,) and building up speed for another charge. Fifteen feet away. Nine, three - and then the creature's body seemed to be enveloped by shimmers, as Max and Michael's power finally started to have an effect. Within a few seconds, it was gone.
Michael turned to Maria and, caught up in the moment, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. Maria kissed back, and in a few seconds two or three of their total of four legs buckled from the exhaustion and the two teenagers ended up in a tangle on the floor, still clinched at the mouth.
It was Maria who broke away first. "Well, much as I hate to say it, we should probably get a move on." She gently but definitely took one of Michaels hands away from her waist and sat up.
"Yeah." Michael pulled himself to a crouch. "The monster isn't dead - just sent back to the beginning of the maze, or something, I think. Another little tidbit from Isabel. It'll be gunning for us again."
"Lovely." Maria stood up and returned her attention to the dials. "So, any idea what's going on here?"
"Some kind of mathematical puzzle?" Michael guessed with a sigh. Math was so not his strong suit. "How close we're getting to the correct code is somehow reflected by how many steps up the stairway we can get without being dumped."
"Okay, let's give this a try, then." Maria adjusted a few of the dials, and then went over to try the first step. It pivoted.
Michael groaned.
* * * * *
"Are you getting anything?" Alex asked Isabel nervously.
"No.... it's not a constant thing," Isabel complained. "Sometimes I can make sense of Michael's subconscious mind, more often I can't. Just have to wait for those rare flashes of insight, you know what I mean?"
Alex nodded understandingly. A cheer broke out in the living room, and Alex looked over at Isabel. "Still nothing," she snapped, in an angry tone but with a teasing twinkle in her eye.
"Okay..." she murmured after a long moment. "Yeah, the monstey's been zapped out or whatever - now Michael and Maria are working on this math puzzle thing, with dials on the walls and a trick staircase." She sighed. "Michael isn't pleased."
"Do you want my help?" Alex asked tentatively.
"Hey, you might be the big brain, but I do okay in calculus class," Isabel shot back. "I can handle it - relaying everything to you would just be a extra waste of time."
"Thanks so much," Alex joked back with a wide smile. "Well, I'll check in with Max and Liz - be back in a few." He stood up, closed the door softly, and crept out to the living room.
Tess was sitting on the couch, focusing intently on the Brundis crystal. "Hi, Alex." Kyle was sitting next to her, similarly intent on a healing stone. Jim Valenti was sitting at the desk chair, quietly watching the two of them.
"Umm... what's going on here?" Alex couldn't help but ask.
"Well, after de-materializing the monster with Michael's help, Max and Liz were really tired out, so I thought it was a good time for us to spot them out," Tess explained. "After all, they *did* just bend the laws of physics."
"If you're looking for Max and Liz, they're raiding our fridge," Kyle explained. "Using 'the inner power' seems to give *some* people the munchies. And by the way, *everybody* is chipping in when we call for pizza later."
"Oh." Somewhat caught off guard by all this, Alex stood still for several seconds, thinking, and then turned to include Mister Valenti in the conversation. "Speaking of calling later, has anything been discussed out here about the alibi situation."
Jim Valenti sighed. "We were thinking of going with 'co-ed sleepover.'" He must have took Alex's evaluative stare as critical, because he defensively added, "'The best possible lie is the one closest to the truth.' Throw in something about study grouping for a big test or whatever."
Alex nodded slowly. "Yeah. That could fly. What about Mrs. DeLucca? She'd get a little suspicious if one of us were calling on Maria's behalf."
"I suppose I could make that call..." Valenti sighed. Obviously all of this petty deception was a little grating on the 'man of law and order.' "Make it sound as if she's 'around somewhere' but can't quite make it to the phone."
He took a deep breath. "And by the way, though the big test might not be real, I feel obliged to warn you guys, I *will* be taking my chaperoning duties seriously - I want *nothing* to happen that I couldn't tell the girls' mothers about." He stood up, headed towards the kitchen door, then paused. "Though I'm not going to tell them everything that I actually *could* tell them." Then Valenti did continue on into the kitchen, probably to pass that warning along to Max too.
"Translation for any of you who might not speak 'good ol' boy,'" Kyle announced softly, "First base okay, maybe stealing second. No further." Tess picked up one of the couch cushions and whomped him soundly with it.
* * * * *
"Almost... there..." Michael sighed, not sure whether he was talking to Maria or himself. It seemed like about an hour since they had gotten out of the dial room... though it was really hard to tell time in here... especially since time seemed to be capable of swinging back and forth crazily here in the labyrinth.
He led Maria up a stepladder that took them up above some kind of high-tech future apartment complex in Japan or Korea. From up here long wide corridors led off in four different directions, but Michael only went a short way down the rightmost. "Ta da."
"Uh... ta da what?" Maria asked somewhat impatiently as she caught up with him. Michael turned up his handlight and shone it very deliberately in front of them. A hole in the wall, four and a half feet wide by three and a half feet high, about a foot high off the ground, was thus made glaringly obvious.
"Um, okay..." Maria said, re-orienting. "What do we do, crawl inside like it's a vent?"
Michael savored the mental image of Maria climbing into that passageway ahead of him, on all fours... in those jeans... and then shook his head. "We could, but probably not worth the extra effort. This passageway is expanding. In ten minutes it should be big enough for us to walk into - though I'll have to keep my big head down."
Maria smiled slightly. "And you don't think that monster will be able to catch up with us anytime soon with an extra ten minutes of catch-up time?"
Michael sighed and focused his awarenessof the maze back the way that they had come. "I get no trace of him within detection distance. We've come a long way already, Maria. Besides, can you really picture the monster climbing up that ladder?" The question elicited a short howl of laughter from Maria. "It's going to take a lot more than ten minutes for that dumb thing to figure out how to follow us up here."
"Okay," Maria agreed. "We can afford to wait, and I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity to get off my feet." She sat down with her back up against the invisible wall opposite the crawlway, knees propped up together in front of her. "Whaddoo we talk about now?"
Michael sat down opposite her, stretching his legs out in front of himself as far as they would go. "You got me."
"Well..." Maria smiled at in that way she always did when she *knew* she was about to be difficult, and Michael's soaring heart started to plummet. "I have a topic. What did that kiss mean? Back in the dial room, after you'd whooshed the monster."
Michael tried to stifle a sigh. "Maria, it was a kiss. Why does it have to 'mean something?'"
"It means *something,* Michael," Maria affirmed relentlessly. "What, was I just the nearest handy expression of celebrating a victory in battle? Kiss the nearest wench, soldier?? Or is that what the jocks are doing after a touchdown instead of high fives? Kiss a cheerleader?!"
Michael sighed again. "It wasn't like that, Maria." **Take a deep breath.** "Being-- in this labyrinth thing with you, Maria, is reminding me very strongly just how much I love you, and why." There. He'd said it.
Maria, however, seemed none too impressed. "Okay, so you love me. So what?"
Michael couldn't believe his ears "So what??"
"So you love me," Maria repeated. "Are you a stone wall? Are you the soldier who can't afford to have a girl at home waiting for him?? Are you the killer who can't be with me because he loves me too much?! Are you the guy who'd use any cliche he possibly could as an excuse to avoid me, or are you going to *DO* something about the fact that you love me, Michael Thomas Guerin?!" Although Maria hadn't moved from her relaxed sitting posture, her cheeks were flushed and her breaths panting by the time that rant was over.
Michael was shocked, and not just by the fact that she had somehow found out his middle name. Everything Maria had just said had hit too close for comfort. **Well, what did you expect??** a little voice inside his head asked. **Maria knows all your lines, all your tricks, and it looks like she just called you on them. What are you gonna tell her?**
"I - I don't wanna be that guy," Michael force out after long seconds of silence. "I want to be with you. But my life is *so* complicated and SO crazy, and if I were going steady with you again... deep down I'm afraid it would just mean I had more to lose."
"You'd have more to win, too," Maria reminded him softly. "And that's just about time."
"Time??" Michael repeated, confused. "Whatt's just about time??"
"It's time that we should be moving again, silly," Maria clarified, shaking her head as she clambered back to her feet. "The passageway - looks like you won't have to duck your big head much."
Caught by surprise again, Michael surveyed the not-quite-square opening. Now it was seven feet wide by six feet high or so, only a few inch's step off the floor they were now standing on - quite big enough, Michael agreed. He must have left his hand on glowing pretty bright if Maria had been able to see the opening clearly from where she had been sitting though.
They walked down the new corridor in silence for about a minute - the air still thick with tension from the emotional discussion put behind them (literally, if not metaphorically.) Finally, Maria spoke up with one last comment. "Don't kiss me again unless you've decided that the benefits outweigh the risks. Okay?"
* * * * *
Max smiled at Liz as he popped the last of the little iced pastry that had come free with the pizza between her lips. "So...."
"So..." Liz echoed. For almost a minute, an awkward silence hung over Valenti's kitchen as neither of them could think up a followup to that.
"How about that weather we've been having, huh?" Max joked, sending Liz and himself into gales of helpless laughter for no particularly good reason either of them could have given.
"Boy..." Liz said once her giggles had faded out. "Another monday night in Roswell, huh?" A gesture all around the two of them helped clarify what she meant.
"Yeah," Max agreed with a small sigh. "We never do seem to make it to the movies, do we?" Not that I'm complaining, he thought silently.
"Naw - probably just as well," Liz answered, startling Max as she nearly echoed his unspoken thought. "After all, going to movies is for normal people, and..."
"*What's so great about NORMAL?!?*" Max finished in unison with her, grinning. "Okay, fair enough. But that's still no reason that we have to be struggling against mysterious Chzechoslovakian enemies every date night. What would be your ideal beyond-the-norm evening??"
Liz blinked a little in surprise. "Are we talking do-able here, or absolute fantasy?"
Max smiled. "Up to you, whichever you'd rather share."
Liz smiled. "Well, this isn't too geographically feasible for us, but I've always wanted to go to some big city just for a night out on the town. Nothing too crazy - say, dinner at a busy, crowded deli, watching a musical, sodas afterward in some dance bar, and cap it all off with a quiet walk through the almost-empty streets." She smiled. "Is that out of the ordinary enough?"
"Yeah," Max said, trying not to let Liz catch him calculating ways and means. Suddenly a loud sigh escaped him.
Liz turned around in Max's arms and looked up at him with those big brown eyes. "I think someone's getting a bit *too* relaxed," she accused him, and then stepped gently out of Max's embrace, stretching slightly. "Come on, it's high time we took over for Tess and Kyle again."
"Do we *haave* to?" Max groaned playfully as he stood up himself. Actually, he really didn't mind the thought of 'getting back to work' considering what the job was like.
Max hadn't mentioned this out loud, but when Liz used the healing stone to send him her energy, he could *feel* it. He could sense that little piece of her inside of him - very soft, slightly cool, and undeniably... 'Lizly.' To be honest, even if there wasn't an alien crisis afoot, Max would be all too happy to do this just for the sensation. Maybe switch and send *his* balance energy to Liz -- see what that felt like.
Probably it would be better if they put the healing stones away and didn't so much as touch them except when there was a real emergency. Max had a crazy mental image of himself on the Jerry Springer show - alien energy junkies. "I'm hooked on my girlfriend's inner essence."
All the while he had been thinking, Liz had been leading the way out to the living room. "Tag, Valenti," she declared, swatting the teenaged Buddhist lightly on the shoulder. "We're taking over." Max noticed that she made no move to actually take the healing stone out of Kyle's hands - not while Tess was still holding the Brundis crystal lamp - her pale face looking unearthly in serene repose - eyes closed, legs crossed lotus-style on the couch.
"Hey," Max said softly to Tess, and when she opened her eyes he immediately held out his hand for the Brundis. Tess handed it over, stretching and swinging her feet back over the edge of the cushions so they hung down to the carpeted floor.
"Any problems?" Max asked conversationally.
"Not a one," Tess reported. "Michael and Maria are back on the move, and Monster seems to have lost their trail." She looked from Max over to Liz and then back. "Have fun."
Max nodded blandly as Tess and Kyle got up off of the couch. Liz already had the healing stone - probably she had timed getting it from Kyle as close to Max taking the crystal as she could. Max shrugged and looked over at Liz, inviting her to choose her seat.
After a short pause, Liz crossed over to sit down where Tess had been, so Max took Kyle's seat and concentrated. Quickly and easily now the vision of the labyrinth returned to his awareness - still not quite comprehendable as a whole and confusing in its interrelations, but the basics were easy enough to figure out. Michael and Maria were...
A soft sigh escaped Max as he felt Liz's balance slide into place within him, and was answered by a gasp from Liz! "Oh, oh my god, Max! I see it!! I can see Maria, and Michael, and the path they're on... It's going around the moon!!"
Max drew in his breath as suddenly he saw it too. "Oh wow!! You're right. Boy, that must be a trip."
Liz checked to make sure that Tess and Kyle had left the room, and whispered "I'm always around the moon, as long as you're with me, Max Evans."
Max smiled giddily at the bad (if romantic,) joke and settled down to watching the labyrinth.
* * * * *
Alex sat in the chair, silently. Holding a healing stone in his hands - concentrating on it, concentrating on letting his strength sustain Isabel through it.
After a long stetch of silence, Isabel sighed.
"Any problem?" Alex asked.
"No, no," Isabel answered, opening her eyes and shaking her head. "Just tired I guess."
"Maybe you should take a break, then," Alex suggested. His immediate response was a black look from a hot blonde alien. Alex counted himself lucky that she didn't literally shoot daggers from her eyes.
Despite this, Alex recklessly pushed on. "Things are quiet. There's no immediate crisis brewing. Max, Liz, Tess, and Kyle have already been switching off."
"Yeah, well, you know who can't 'switch off,' Alex?!" Isabel snarked back. "Michael. Remember? He's doing more than any of us and he doesn't even have a damn healing stone for Maria to recharge him with."
"But your road is not his road, Isabel," Alex reminded her softly. "For better or for worse, Michael and Maria got themselves caught in that maze. They're the ones who have to trek out, and we're the ones who have to help from outside as best we can. And I don't think the best way for you to help is to stubbornly stay in the link until you collapse from the mental exertion."
Isabel started to pshaw that notion, but only got halfway through the 'h' before an uncertain look crossed her face.
Alex knew he had to follow up on the lead if he was going to convince her. "I don't have any experience with this part of mentalics, but it's pretty clear that the effort of maintaining a link this long is eating you empty inside. Remember, you had almost no experience before this afternoon. You haven't built up the kind of mental endurance or whatever your people use to do this. Now, Max and Liz are watching Maria and Michael directly through the crystal. If they need us, they'll call us. Better to take a break now rather than be facing the wall right when Michael *really* needs y-"
"Alright, *alright!!*" Isabel blurted out, finally. "I get the point. Just let me sign off and try to let Michael know that I'll be gone." She closed her eyes and went back into concentration mode. When she opened her eyes again, there was a clear quality to them that hadn't been there while she was in contact with Michael. "There. Logged off. Are you satisfied?" She laughed softly. "Or did you have any notins as to *how* we could spend our break... given that we're all alone - in a bedroom..."
"Where our designated chaperone Sherrif Valenti may check in at any moment," Alex pointed out. "And though I have *several* notions for what the two of us could do with a little prvacy, I'm afraid that the ideas that are most quickly popping to mind aren't very restful."
Isabel laughed softly. "I guess you're right."
"So why don't we get *out* of this room for a little bit, huh?!" Alex grinned. "Are you hungry? I heard Kyle talking about ordering pizza."
Isabel stood up and smiled without commenting about pizza. With a few strides of her long (gorgeous) legs she bridged the distance between them, and - still not speaking - circled her arms tightly around Alex's waist. Caught by surprise, Alex went with his instincts and draped his own arms around Isabel's shoulders. Their faces were only about an inch away from each other.
Then, after a moment that to Alex almost seemed like a year, Isabel closed that distance too, and brought her ruby lips to his. Alex kissed her back tenderly for a few seconds before he realized Isabel's tongue was peeking out from between her lips, inviting him in.
All the strength seemed to leave Alex's knees as the kiss got more intense and passionate by the second. Isabel's hands were going crazy over his back, so Alex started to run a few fingers through Is' gloriously soft hair. Finally, after what had to have been more than two minutes, Alex couldn't take it anymore and broke, smiling weakly over at his dichotomous dream-girl. "I... that was just something I really wanted to do," Isabel said after a moment. "Pizza?"
Alex smiled and took Isabel's hand as they headed out in search of hand-delivered sustenance.
* * * * *
"Is anyone else starting to sense a pattern here?" Michael quipped.
After hours of alternating between the sky, the underground, and the near-surface of planet Earth - (with that one interesting side trip under 'water',) the space/time labyrinth had broken away entirely. Right now he and Maria were riding 'down' an escalator toward blue sky that was seeming increasingly black and letting stars through, though the sun was still out. The 'ground' or 'earth' was hovering above them and to the left, leaving Michael with the uneasy situation that either it or he was ignoring the laws of gravity he'd known all his life.
"Yeah," Maria said nonchalantly, trying to lean over the 'edge' of the escalator, and nearly hitting her head on an invisible wall. "We're heading out into space."
"Just like that?" remarked Michael in an aside. "No sense of surprise or fear?? Just 'yeah, space?!'"
"I'm exhausted and I don't get surprised by much since I met you, spaceboy," Maria informed him. "The air's obviously still good here in the labyrinth, so what's to be scared about?" Michael shrugged and didn't comment.
The escalator ended on them soon, and it was back to the endless trek through multiple intersections and corridors - Michael's alien 'sense' his only guide. The labyrinth seemed determined to make up for the featurelessness of near-Earth space around them, and Michael knew that commiting to a wrong turn could cost them hours, or even lead to another confrontation with the beast.
Eventually - he couldn't tell how long - they stumbled into a small room - another slightly furnished one. Couch and cupboard, both of them invisible. Michael could see through them even with the faint light from his hand shining off the edges.
Maria gratefully ran up and collapsed into the couch, while Michael checked the exit first. There was a rectangular panel exactly as large as the doorway by which they had entered, but it was solid and couldn't be passed through -- yet. Michael's 'Labyrinth vibe' told him that this was the right way to proceed, but couldn't inform him how. Like the moving stairs, probably - puzzling out the way to get past was a challenge.
Well, Michael didn't see any clues and he was too tired to be brain teased at the moment anyway. He went over and collapsed next to Maria on the invisible couch - wanted to say something, but couldn't figure out what could cut through all the tension hanging between them.
"Nice view, huh," Maria commented absently. Michael had let his hand glimmer low again, and they could see the stars stretching out before them. The moon - nearly full - seemed about as big as it did from earth, whereas a fair stretch across the sky the two-thirds-lit earth shone much bigger and apparently more brightly. (Michael wasn't sure of the grammer there, but shrugged it off.) Both of the planetary bodies seemed to hang at about eye level relevant to Michael and Maria's current orientation, and they were about...
"Hang on a second!!" Michael exclaimed, standing up for no particularly good reason, pointing each of his arms at the earth and moon, and then attempting to judge their seperation by the angle is arms were pointing at. "If they're... you know I think the space we're sitting in right here might be 'Lagrange point.'"
"Whose point??" Maria answered doubtfully, and Michael stifled a blush and sat down again.
"Never mind... I guess it's not important," he mumbled.
"Well... I'm curious," Maria said, her voice gentle and unpressuring.
"Okay." Michael turned to her and smiled slightly. "Growing up... once I'd realized what I was, you know... well, I started getting into space travel and all that. Going down from the trailer park to the town library and reading books about Nasa and missions to mars and all that, you know."
"Makes sense," Maria answered with a teasing grin.
"Okay. The Lagrange points... I don't remember who Lagrange was or if they were even named after a person - are the five locations in a two-body gravitational system that have simple, stable orbits." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, restored cleanness and smoothness with a gesture, and started marking illustrations on it through tiny molecular alterations.
"Like if we have the earth, here.... and the moon here. As the moon travels around us, it has enough mass to pull on anything else that's in the area. The first three lagrange parts are... umm, here..." he marked a spot on the far side of the moon from the earth, "where the pull of the earth and the moon are always lined up, so it's like just one pull. Here too." This was on the opposite side of the earth from the moon. "And the third... would be here I guess." This mark was partway from the moon to the earth along a straight line. "The gravity of the moon just counters enough of the gravity of the earth to keep it in a synchronized orbit, even though it's further in."
"Umm... okay," Maria said, frowning at the picture. "I think I get it - very vaguely. Never knew much about astronomy or anything. But... we're not in any of those spots, are we?"
"No, no, of course we're not," Michael agreed. "But the thing is, those first three Lagrange points, they work out fine in theory but aren't very good in practice. The gravity of the sun," - and Michael stuck a thumb out towards the light coming from behind them, "pulls everything out of place, and unless you use rockets or something you can't correct. Gravity would keep you at the right distance from the earth and moon, but you'd slide out of phase to the side, mucking everything up."
"The fourth and fifth lagrange points are more stable, here and here." He marked two larger spots to either side of the earth-moon pair. "Each forms a triangle with the earth and moon where all three sides are equal. These are called the 'trojan points,' because of some asteroids that take up this position in jupiter's orbit around the sun, and they're totally stable because they're self-correcting. If you drift out of position, you get gently buffeted back in."
"Okay...." Maria repeated again. "But what good are they?"
"A couple of people have been suggesting that space colonies could be set up at the lagrange points," Michael explained. "Huge spheres or cylinders, inside of which you could keep breathable air and set up houses, towns, parks... whatever you want." He thought about that, looking around. "I guess either we're not in the future now - or they never did... we're not far *enough* into the future, at any rate," he corrected himself.
"Oh." Seeing the disappointment on Michael's face, Maria changed the subject. "Well, how do we get out of here anyways?"
"I'm not sure," Michael replied. "It's another puzzle room or something I guess."
"Hmm..." Now Maria was the one to get up. "I guess we'd better look for clues then." There was only one obvious locale, and Maria proceeded to it, opening up the cupboard on the wall. "Hey, weird."
"What is it?" Michael got up and joined her - (only a few steps' distance.) Inside the cupboard - was a huge level that could be pulled up and down. Nothing more.
"Well, nothing ventures..." Maria reached out and pushed the control down one notch. Something out of the corner of his eye caught Michael's attention. Quickly he rushed over to the 'doors,' which were now both impassible - solid.
"Turn it back!" he requested. Startled, Maria did so - opening the portal that led back the way they came.
"Maybe another setting opens the other door," Maria suggested, checking to make sure that Michael was safely inside the room before pulling the lever down two notches. Both doors solid again - and a meteor rock appeared out of nowhere, buzzing their invisible 'room.' Shocked, Maria continued down again even though a meteor in the real space-time continuum couldn't hurt them more than anything else could - and the rock vanished again.
"Something weird is going on," Michael commented. "That lever is changing more than the doors - it's altering the real world around us. But how? We're still in the same place, no matter what setting it's on."
Maria shrugged and continued testing different positions, while Michael kept one eye on the doors and another on space around them. A spark of light appeared ahead of them - between the earth and the moon. "What's that?" he muttered.
"Dunno," Maria replied, heading forward to join him. "That's the lowest setting... hey, check it out!"
A patch of the invisible wall apparently had magnifying capablities, and by orienting himself right Michael could take a closer look at the flare he had spotted. "Hey, that's a rocket!!" he exclaimed. "Looks like one of the later Apollo series - Apollo 16 maybe??"
"Hey!" Maria pulled it together. "What if that lever... moves this room around through time? And there's only one time where the labyrinth pathway continues?!"
"Hey, that makes sense," Michael agreed. "Try some of the settings further up from where we were."
Maria did. As they continued forward through time Michael saw more spaceships travelling between the Earth and the Moon. Suddenly a half-finished metal construction appeared - not fifty feet away from them. Another notch, and they were surrounded by half a dozen gleaming metal cylinders.
"Cool," Maria pronouned, her eyes locked on the happy expression on Michael's face. "I'm glad you got to see this, Michael."
Michael shook himself out of the trance and noticed something else. "This is our stop." Sure enough, the corridor continued on out of door number two, and his labyrinth sense assured him that it wasn't a false trail.
"And away we go again," Maria sighed, unable to hide her own smile.
* * * * *
The scene at the Valenti house was starting to actually look like a slumber party. Sleeping bags from the mountain of camping gear in Jim's basement had been set up on the living room floor, and most of the young people had changed into 'scavenged' pajamas, (read: molecularly transmuted from old towels and blankets.)
"They're approaching the moon now," Isabel mentioned to Max and Liz, demonstrating that she had re-established the mental link with Michael. Approaching pretty close - they might end up at the moon's surface before they get around - or even under it!!"
"Wow," Liz breathed softly, then noticed the gasp as Isabel closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. "Isabel, what is it?"
"I just... I'm getting a little more from Michael this time than the sights and sounds of his subconscious re-processing the details of trying to make his way through the labyrinth," Isabel explained. "I was before, but I was able to tune most of it out. Now..."
"What are you getting now?" Max prompted.
"Stuff," Isabel muttered unhelpfully. "Mental imagery... that seems to be about the way he feels about Maria.
"Oh," Liz said, and then did a double-take. "OH!!! Um... wow. Probably you should..."
"Do your best to ignore it," Max said firmly. "And *never* ever mention this to Michael or Maria."
Liz and Isabel nodded in agreement. Alex smiled and turned his attention to Tess and Kyle, who were sitting on the floor about ten feet away. He didn't mean to eavesdrop on them, but, well... you know how the rest of that goes.
"I just wanted to mention something..." Kyle was saying. "I know I've been giving you a pretty hard time about coming here and taking over my room and stuff... but I know it wasn't really your choice. Anyways... I guess what I've been saying is that you're pretty cool to have around and I'm glad you came to this planet."
"Well, thanks Kyle," Tess said with a smile. "You're pretty cool to have around too. But I've been thinking about why I'm here. I mean... Michael is living on his own. Why can't I too?"
"Well... there's the fact that someone who was living in that house was kind of..." Kyle stopped, apparently realizing that there wasn't any way he could finish that sentence without upsetting Tess more than necessary. "You know."
"I guess..." Tess sighed. "But I promise you - as soon as we settle up with whoever killed Ed, I'll get out of your hair. Y-you're a good friend, but let's face the fact - this house is not big enough for two teenagers. I need to find my own digs."
"Okay, twist my arm." Kyle laughed. "But you'll have to let me come over and visit."
* * * * *
Michael sighed as they stood and rested while letting an unexpected feature of the labyrinth carry them along. As soon as they had turned the corner from the far side of the moon and caught sight of the earth again, Michael and Maria had ended up on a kind of moving conveyer belt that was rushing them quickly towards Earth. The chance to make progress without having to keep walking was a nice change.
He couldn't stop thinking about what Maria had told him. A part of Michael very much wanted to take Maria up on her implied proposal. He'd never been as happy as he had last year when he'd been with Maria and things were going well - even though she couldn't be stopped from busting his chops about table manners, gifts, dating etiquette and all that. He could probably manage to learn, if it came to that.
But somehow Michael just couldn't open his mouth and say the words. Was it pride? The kind of fear and concern for her sake that she mocked? Or was it something else? For an instant, the 'Isabel dreams' popped into his head. No... Isabel was like a sister to him, nothing more. Right? Just because they had been something different fifty years ago, didn't change what he felt...
"Whoo! Take my hand, Michael!" Maria called out. Michael realized that they were approaching the earth's upper atmosphere and the moving sidewalk was coming to an end. Suddenly they were slipping down another invisible slide, heading for... it looked like the Pacific ocean!
Whoosh! splash! After diving with impossible speed down through the air and the ocean, Michael and Maria came to the bottom of the slide - to find that there was a little labyrinth-water at the bottom. "What the heck!?" Maria asked. "Is the space-time labyrinth leaking?"
"There's all kinds of other junk in here," Michael reminded her. "Why not water?" He tried not to grin too obviously at the way Maria looked with wet patches in her hair, halter top, tight jeans, and patches of her exposed skin. Michael was wet too, but was willing to bear it. "Okay..." Three possible pathways - but only one would lead up away from the ocean floor, Michael's sense told him. The way out was pretty close now.
Up a stairway, down some nice big galley hallways, and soon they had passed through the suburban California coast and only a few minutes later, they were walking through the desert.
"Starting to feel like home, pod-boy?" Maria teased him. Michael smiled and kept on walking. The sun was moving closer to the east as they walked - another time thing, probably.
"Wait a second."
"What did you say?" Maria asked, turning towards Michael.
Shrug. "It wasn't me." The voice had been a baritone man's voice, so he didn't even bother accusing Maria. "Who are you!!" he called out.
"Michael, Maria!" A forty-something man was walking towards them from outside the labyrinth. "Don't walk away, or you'll move out of my time-frame. I can't see you or hear you, but I'm pretty sure that I've finally found the right place and time to pass along this message."
"Oh, my god," Maria said, staring at the man. Michael shushed her. This sounded interesting.
"Okay, let's see," the speaker mumbled, apparently trying to find his way in mental notes. "Back on your home planet, a challenge was made. The principals were Queen Emeritus Alinda... that's Max and Isabel's mother... and Kivar, the tyrant who took over Max's throne and killed you all. If the Royal Four can make their way back to Azt, the homeworld, within two Aztan years of when you received the first message from Alinda, then Kivar will step down and hand the government back to Max. Otherwise, Kivar will stay in power forever - Alinda can't lead the loyalists in rebellion against him."
The older man shrugged. "It sounds weird to me too, but there's a long tradition of that kind of thing on your planet, Michael. Great political issues are often settled with games or bets - the idea being that they're no less arbitrary and less expensive and wasteful than going to war. Kinda makes sense. So... let's see. The time limit works out to October the twenty-ninth of 2001... that date is important, so don't forget it."
"Kivar is allowed to bring four of his agents into the field of play - where they know you guys are or are going to go - and they can try to interfere with you. But they're not allowed to kill humans or expose the existence of aliens to the world in general. I know you've got to be suspicious if me telling you all this is some kind of trick - if I'm not what I seem to be here. But you can confirm what I've told you by using the orbs as communicators. The book will show you how."
"But we don't *have* the..." Maria started.
"And *don't* stress about the book being missing," the mystery man continued. "You'll find it, Maria, about... um, three and a half weeks from now. Let's see - is there anything I missed? Challenge to get back home, fate of your world at stake, deadline, enemy aliens, communicators and the book - oh, right. If you make it back home on time, you'll be heroes - the whole Royal Four - especially Max. Even if Kivar tries to go back on the deal and remain in control, not enough of his people will support him if he loses, so you don't need to worry about that. If you can't make it back in time - well, then you'd be better off not stepping foot on Ast ever again. But hey - you guys can do it. I believe in you."
The stranger sighed. "Well, you'd better hurry up and get going now. The gang's waiting for you back at Valenti's house. Say hi to Isabel for me." He made a waving gesture. and Michael, rather unsteadily, led the way on down the invisible corridor of the maze.
"Michael, did you even realize who that way??" Maria asked after they'd been walking for a few more minutes.
"Um... no. He seemed to know an awful lot about us, and he was old, but... why - who do *you* think he was??"
"Michael..." Maria was shaking her head. "That's Alex - about twenty or twenty-five years from now. I'm sure of it!!"
* * * * *
(October 24 2000, not long after midnight.)
"They're coming close," Max said, smiling. "I can feel it."
"Yeah." Liz had one hand on top of Max's on the Brundis crystal, and the healing stone in the other. "Boy... it's been a long day, huh?"
"Oh yeah," Max sighed, looking at the clock. After one-thirty AM. More than eight and a half hours had gone by since Michael and Maria had first been sucked into the labyrinth. "I can't get my brain around the thought that we have school tommorow morning."
"Then maybe we don't, silly," Liz teased him. "Should we let the others know that this is almost over?" She waved at the living room floor beyond the couch where they sat. Isabel, Alex, Tess, and Kyle had all laid down for rests, leaving Max and Liz to keep vigil alone.
"Naw..." Max replied. "It'll be a nice surprise."
"Cool." There was silence for a moment. "Anything unusual going on in there?" Liz waved at the Brundis crystal.
"No... everything still looks quiet."
"Then come here, darling," Liz giggled, waving Max over. Jim Valenti was nowhere in sight, the others were all tucked into their sleeping bags, and Max couldn't argue that they deserved a little make-out time.
But not everyone was asleep. Out of the corner of her eye and through dishevelled blonde hair, Tess Harding was watching the young man of her dreams and her dark-haired, Roswell native rival. She watched as Max sank into a passionate embrace, spreading out over the couch, french kissing like there was no tomorrow.
No-one noticed the quiet, stifled sobs that started coming from Tess Harding's sleeping bag.
* * * * *
"This is starting to look a lot like New Mexico," Maria commented. "Maybe even the year 2000."
"Yeah," Michael agreed. "If you knew it was going to be this hard, would you have been able to even get started??"
"Well... yeah," Maria said sensibly. "If I'd known what that damn lamp was going to do, I definitely wouldn't have touched it though, that's for sure!!"
"Maybe this'll teach you to listen when I say to stay out of my stuff?" Michael joked.
Suddenly a roar broke out from behind them.
"You gotta be *kidding me*!" Maria screamed. "How the heck did that thing get through the lagrange point room after we'd gone??"
"Not really caring..." Michael said, kicking up into a run alongside Maria, trying his hardest to stay ahead of the monster. He wasn't sure if the labyrinth was helping them cover ground again, but soon they were passing the Roswell city limits sign again. Dawn was falling on the city, and soon it was night. Michael strained to keep the light bright enough to run by while keeping up speed.
Suddenly, a stabbing pain hit Michael in the side. Maria jogged around to face him as his speed fell off. "What is it?"
"I don't know... a sharp, unpleasant feeling near my stomach," Michael explained. "Makes it really hard to run."
"Like a cramp?" Maria asked. Michael looked a little blank - he'd heard the word, but never experienced the reality himself. "You've never had a runner's cramp?" Michael shrugged.
"Well... you've got one now - maybe alien's cramp. Could be all the power you've been amping out today had something to do with it. Well, come on, walk it off. Walk it off."
Michael hobbled along next to Maria, and soon was able to get up to a brisk walking pace. "We're not going to be able to outrun the monster this way."
"We're not going to be able to outrun it any way as long as you've got that cramp," Maria sighed. "Max, this would be a great moment for that shield."
They hurried along. No shield, and the monster was rumbling closer. "Max???" Maria wailed, but no response.
Time was growing short. *Something* had to be done. Maria pushed Michael gently on ahead and turned around to face the monster. "Babe!'" she called out with a gusty melody. "I got you babe! I got you babe!! They say our love won't pay the rent..."
The monster yelped and ran away. Maria hurried after Michael, pleased that her intuition had paid off.
Michael stared at her as she approached. "You scared off the ferocious alien space monster by *singing at it*??"
Maria shrugged. "It worked, didn't it??"
And right then, Maria bumped into a wall. "Whoops. Turn?"
Michael feebly managed to make his hand glow, wincing from the exertion. The corridor right-angled and headed into a house - Valenti's house, which they were standing above the front yard of. "Doh, of course."
Exhilerated, Michael and Maria rushed through the front wall of the house, squeezing in one after another as the invisible walls narrowed towards... WHOOMPTH!
"Hey! Huh?"
"What's the... deal..."
Michael took a moment to evaluate the situation. Max and Liz had just sprung apart on the Valenti's couch, he was pretty sure. Alex and Liz's sleeping bags were nearby - he had just landed nearly on Tess and Maria right on top of Kyle. "Hey, did we miss anything cool, guys?" Maria wise-cracked.
And suddenly everything was right and it all fell into place. Michael flashed an apologetic grin at Isabel and waved Maria over. "Come on, Valenti, hand her over." He swept Maria into his arms and planted a deliberate, no-tongue kiss on her ruby red lips.
Maria stared up at him once the kiss was over. "Do you really mean that?"
Michael grinned at her. "Yeah, I do. Bring on the relationship."
Someone cleared their throat. Michael looked around and saw six faces staring at them - no, seven. The rucus had brought Jim Valenti out in his bathrobe.
"What was the labyrinth like, man?" Alex asked them, as irrepressible as ever.
"Gee, where do we start?" Michael sighed and held Maria closer.
* * * * *
After 2 a.m., every one of them totally exhausted, they were still talking about it.
"I've always loved temporal cycle plotlines in my science fiction," Alex said. "I just never thought I'd be destined to re-enact one."
"What do you mean?" Isabel asked, cuddling up beside him.
"Well... Michael and Maria saw me make that speech to them in that California desert," Alex pointed out. "At least, we all hope it was really me. So... unless I'm prepared to break the chain, I'm going to have to find that place and time and tell them something. The cycle has to be completed."
"Do you want me to see if I can write down a transcript, Alex?" Maria asked.
"No... no sense in making things any squiggier than they have to be. I'll speak from experience and memory, giving you guys what I think you need. Less chance of inaccuracies perpetuating themselves through the cycle that way. After all, if I tell you anything simply because you told me to tell it to you, I don't know if it's so or not. The knowledge has simply sprung to life, fully complete, inside the cycle."
"Enough of this," Michael groaned. "You guys have at least twenty years to sort *that* out. What do we do about the challenge? Or 'supposed' challenge."
"What Future-Alex said is right," Max said. "We can't afford to completely believe him, but we have to take what he's said at face value - at least until we get the book and can hopefully figure out a way to double-check it. Which means we have..." He looked at the calendar on his watch. "Only a little more than a year to master interstellar travel if we hope to get this challenge done." He turned to Alex. "First off, we need to get the rest of the information out of that alien washer of yours. Whatever's inside there, we need to know it, I'll bet."
Alex nodded. "Well, for that I'd reccomend that I need access to that little thing at all times. Twenty-four hours a day."
Max looked at him gravely. "You want me to make a duplicate to substitute in Brody's collection."
"I've been thinking about it, and I think that's the best way to handle it," Alex confirmed.
Max thought about it. "We'll talk later." Even after all the underhanded things the gang had had to be involved in, Alex could see that willfully taking advantage of Brody's trust in such a big way offended his principles. Well... he'd either have to get used to it or come up with a better plan.
"I wonder why Alex mentioned you," Maria said to Isabel. "I mean... besides the obvious - if there is a deeper reason. I mean..." she caught herself. "I'm sure you're not... not..."
"Dead in the future?" Isabel said, trying not to blanch. "I hope not, but whom among us can tell?" She forced a smile.
Michael groaned, and everybody stared at him. "Sorry... just *really* tired. It's been quite a day." The whole group broke into laughs at this.
"Do we *really* have to show up for school tomorrow?" Isabel moaned. "I mean..." She turned to stare at Jim Valenti, who was sitting across the circle from her and hadn't said a word since welcoming Michael and Maria back and expressing his gladness that they were both okay. Others turned to stare at the Sheriff as well.
"Hey, don't look at me," Jim disclaimed. "I'm not the truant officer. Personally, I'd say some of you deserved the break. But... I'm not gonna help you cover for *that.* It's up to each of you to make their own decision." He yawned. "And with that, my own bed is calling me. I expect the lights to be out in here - ten minutes."
As Maria rolled out her sleeping bag, she looked at the spot where they had come through the exit of the labyrinth. "Hey, what happened to the maze after we left? And that monster thing?"
Alex had the answer, as he yawned his way towards dreamland. "The labyrinth existed for the two of you, and ceased to exist once you both got out. The monster probably lost its body. I wouldn't be surprised it it was halfway to Jupiter by now.
"Just so long as it never messes with me or Michael again," Maria quipped.
TO BE CONTINUED...