Homecoming, Part 4c: "The hybrids strike back"
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 again.)
"Oooh," Maria shuddered as they walked down the porch steps to the front walk. "I know we've been through a lot over the past two years, but that night..." She couldn't find words for a few seconds. "I hope I never have to live through something like that again."
"Or to *not* live through it," Max pointed out soberly.
"You know what I mean." Maria sighed with the stress of the memories.
"Yeah, I do," Michael said, looking tenderly over at his ex-girlfriend. "Hear, hear."
"You'll get no argument from me," Alex chimed in softly.
* * * * *
(Back to early morning of Wednesday, November 29 2000.)
When it didn't look like either of their guards were paying very close attention, Alex called over to Liz in a hoarse whisper. "Hey! How're you doing?"
Liz twisted her neck awkwardly to look back towards Alex despite her bonds. "Doing okay under the circumstances, I guess. More worried about Max than myself. You?"
"Panicked out of my mind for Isabel's sake," he confessed. "And my arm hurts like hell." He tried to gesture indicatively with the wounded left forearm, but between the way he was tied to his chair and the injury itself, he couldn't do more than twitch it a little.
It was apparently enough to draw Liz's attention to the pale cloth bandanging his arm. "Oh god, Alex," she moaned apologetically. "I didn't realize you were hurt. What happened?"
Alex sighed. "I tried to bash Steve's brains out while he wasn't looking, but he caught me at it. Gave me this as a 'consequence."
"I only wish you'd succeeded," Liz giggled, and then instantly returned to a more serious disposition. "How bad is it??"
"Bad," Alex whispered. "I can't move or feel my hand, and Steve said that if I don't get to a doctor by midmorning that'll probably become permanent. I think he intentionally damaged the main nerve in my arm." The thought of going through all his life with a limp hand gave him the shudders. Had his future self moved his left arm when Michael and Maria got the message from him? They hadn't said anything about it, and probably after so long neither of them would remember. After all, most people Alex knew hadn't clued in to Bob Dole the first time they saw him on televsion...
"Don't worry," Liz whispered, cutting in on his mental ramblings. "Once we all get out of this, Max'll heal you. He can do a better job than any human doctor." Liz smiled in pride for her hybrid sweetie.
Alex nodded somberly, unable to be as optimistic as his best friend. "That's assuming Max in particular *does* get out of this," he sighed softly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Liz shot back.
Alex groaned. "Liz, I wasn't meaning to pick on Max especially. But that..." He gestured with his head towards the tunnel mouth, since it was the only part of his body that could move much, "is a deathtrap. Once they get Michael inside too, up the tunnel goes the heat field and Steve and Grant have toasted themselves three hybrids. No fuss, no mess."
Liz's eyes were wide in stark horror, perfectly outlined by the reflected light from the floodlight against the mountainside. "Oh, my god!! And you let Isabel walk in there, knowing that?"
Liz's words hadn't been accusing, but Alex felt about three inches big. (Actually, he wished he really *were* three inches big, since then the ropes wouldn't fit him and he could scamper across the platform -- assuming he could keep from jamming his tiny feet in the grilles -- and try to turn off the heat field device. But enough about that.)
How could Alex tell his best friend that he had been terrified of fighting back again, and so had chosen the path that kept both himself and Iz alive and okay for as long as possible, hoping that some unnamed *something* would come along to save them all? That instinct, after all, was exactly what Steve and his cronies were counting on - that faced with the proper mix of authority, cruelty, and determination, the roswell home team would simply follow the path of least resistance until too late?
"Se norge a, Palex," Liz blurted out suddenly, and it took Alex a few seconds to realize what she was doing. There was a secret language that the two of them had cooked up as precocious eleven-year-olds, a mix of the french they were learning in Miss Cooper's class at the time, a little German Alex's maternal grandfather had taught them, (before he died two years later,) and a few other odds and ends, the whole of it camoflaged with a systematic pattern of spoonerisms. Cudgeling his brain, Alex ciphered out what Liz had just said to him. Switch the front consonant sounds on each pair of adjacent words, and... it was 'don't worry, Alex.'
There had to be more to it than this. The only reason Liz would suddenly start talking in 'Olde Roswellian' was because she has something to tell him that she didn't want to rish their captors overhearing. After all, they had been missing for a while, perhaps at least one of Grant and Zentar was hiding and eavesdropping on them. "Alb," he said, keeping a straight face, It was the affirmative term, the equivalent of 'yes.'
Liz broke out into a longer stream of the gibberish, and this time it came back to Alex like it was second nature. 'I'm *sure* that my dream holds the answer to this.' Noticing Alex's doubtful look, she elaborated 'The dream I had when I was with Max, weeks ago. It can tell me how to beat these guys, I know it can. I just need to be able to act at the right moment. I need you to do something for me, Alex.' When he nodded slightly, Liz continued. 'When I give you a signal, create a diversion. Make sure that all of them are focusing on you, not on me.'
Alex considered, and nodded again. "He joofnung ce queci lavaille, triz," he replied. 'I hope this works, Liz.'
Right then, things started happening. Alex couldn't see the details immediately because the chairs had been set facing towards the tunnel opening and away from the ladder, (probably intentional,) but he knew what it would be. Steve had shown up with Michael and Maria. This time Maria was tied to her chair (off on the other side of Alex from Liz,) before Steve lowered the heat field and waved Michael in. Not much had been said.
"Don't go in there, Michael!!" Alex called out suddenly, not sure why. To make up for not having warned Isabel similarly? "It's a deathtrap!!"
Michael froze and spun away from the tunnel opening. Steve was right of him (from Michael's perspective, left from Alex's,) working the heat shield controls, the ray gun at his feet, and Zentar was on the other side. Grant stood opposite him, right between Alex and Maria's chairs, fingering his automatic pistol ominously. Three against one odds, plus the hostage factor. Not Michael's best situation.
But maybe not as bad as it seemed - Alex noticed Max and Isabel walking up the tunnel cave behind Michael. With the three of them working together, it would be even odds, and Alex knew his hybrid friends were clever enough to dethread the threat against himself, Liz, and Maria.
But at the last possible moment, the heat shield blazed up again, knocking Max and Isabel backwards into the tunnel again and Michael forwards away from it momentarily. Grant must have
given Steve the cue.
Michael picked himself up, looked sadly over at Maria, at Alex himself, and then turned to nod to Steve. "It's okay. I'll go in peacefully. I'm sorry, man." That last was directed at Alex, and Alex immediately realized that Michael felt the same frustrating helplessness that Alex himself did.
The heat shield was let down just long enough for Michael to go in. **Come on, Liz," Alex thought to himself. **Give me the signal, any time now. Time is running out on our friendly neighborhood aliens.**
* * * * *
As Max groaned and picked himself up, he could just make out Michael trudging down the tunnel to meet them by the reflected light originating in the heat-field above. "Hey, man," he mumbled, disappointed. "For a minute there, it looked like we were gonna get an opening."
Michael shrugged. "Damn, these guys are good."
"So, what happens now?" Isabel asked softly.
"They start moving the heat field down the tunnel until we have nowhere safe left to stand," Max said softly.
"Yeah, that's pretty much what Alex said was the deal," Michael agreed.
"Oh, come *on*, guys!!" Isabel exclaimed. "Do we have to be this pessimistic *all* the time? They might not be trying to kill us right away. Considering all the effort these skins have gone to, maybe they're just holding us here until we can do something for th-- Oh." Max had pointed up towards the cave mouth, where the reddish shine of the field was getting brighter. Getting nearer, slightly. "Good point, Max," Isabel growled.
"Come on." Max led the way back up the tunnel until he was about three feet away from the edge of the field. Even at this distance he could feel the effects of it, the infrared radiation that had to be pouring out of that heat zone, the overexcited air molecules that were leaving it every second, the thermal energy that was spreading down the wall. He concentrated, and a wall of green energy sprang up a few inches shy of the red line. And waited.
No effect. Whatever things Max's shield was able to protect against it, heat - hot air molecules and radiant heat energy - was apparently not on the list. After long seconds the red field moved far enough down to entirely swallow the green shield, and Max let it lapse.
"Let's go down to the tunnel end at least," Isabel sighed. Having nothing better to suggest, Max and Michael followed her.
"Oh, by the way," Max persuaded a large object out of his jeans pocket and handed it to Michael.
"What the heck is this??" Michael asked, though the expression on his face told Max that Michael already guessed a little.
"Trithium amplifier," Isabel told him.
"It's a skin weapon," Max explained, "that Steve used to knock out our powers when we were first tossed in here. Apparently it's the same model as that thing of Brody's that knocked you out. How he got ahold of it I don't know."
"We figured that if we get out of this alive somehow, it might be useful," Isabel put in. "Don't worry, we got it set to its 'off' state while it was recharging.
Michael nodded vaguely, they were reaching the end of the tunnel now, it ended in a vaguely semi-spherical curve. Max turned around to look behind him. The heat field was still approaching them steadily, and he could already feel the spillover heat.
It stopped about nine feet away from them. "What's up with that? Is Steve *trying* to make us suffer??" Michael groused.
"I wouldn't put it past him," Max said with an angry sigh. "Or this might be as far as the range on that generator goes, or maybe he's counting on us making a break for it and running right through the heat field." He wiped the sweat off his forehead. "One thing's for sure, we can't last forever here."
Isabel looked at both of them, and took a deep breath. "Don't try to stop me." She stepped forward, two paces towards the field, and before Max knew what was going on the air around his sister, all the way to the tunnel edges, had turned white, like a big puffy cloud stuck inside the dark tunnel. He felt cool air starting to waft back from the cloud.
"What... what's she doing??" Michael asked. He tried to step forward into the cloud, but some kind of turbulence buffeted him back.
"She... she's providing a barrier between us and the heat," Max realized. "Slowing down the air molecules before they can get to us." Already the temperature in their little pocket seemed even on the cold side of comfortable.
"But... but Isabel!" Michael exclaimed. "Not only is she bearing the full effect of the heat, but she's using her powers on overdrive! That's a double hit to her balance." He tried to charge forward into the cloud again, but again was bounced back. "We can't let her do this, let her sacrifice herself for our sake."
"I'm not sure we can stop her, Michael," Max said sadly. In his mind, he was wondering what would happen when Isabel's reserves were exhausted - would Max do the same thing to protect Michael? Or the other way around??
* * * * *
To Alex, it seemed like forever since Steve had set the heat field controls and they'd all watched the zone of red sparkles disappear down the tunnel. Alex had been watching Liz intently, trying to make it look like he wasn't, hoping for that sign she said she would give him.
Finally, after so long, it came. A small gesture with her hand, unremarkable if you weren't expecting it, unmistakeable if you were. Alex was on.
"Hey, Grant!!" he called out. The skin turned to stare at him. "So, all that time you were flirting with Isabel, that was just scouring out the opposition, right?"
Grant smiled tightly. "More or less. She's very beautiful, in any species, and the 'flirting' you speak of was fun for its own sake. But yes, I was probing her subconscious mind for information about your little group, and testing the state of her own mentalic abilities. If you choose to dignify them with that term." He laughed softly.
Oh, boy, Alex thought. Grant's a mentalic too. Plus, Steve doesn't seem too diverted by this discussion yet. The seeds of a plan started to develop in Alex's mind.
"For having no formal training, I'd say she's doing not too bad," Alex shot back. "How many years did *you* spend in the Academy to get to where you are today, Grant??"
The leading question had the desired effect. "Just how do you know so much about our world, anyway, little human child??" Grant said, moving closer.
"That's for me to know and you to try to read out of my brain, you stupid alien," Alex shot back.
"Hmmm... I guess that's right." Grant held his ground and concentrated. Steve and Zentar seemed to be following this event quite closely now, Alex realized. Come on, Liz, make your move. Any time now...
"We know that something started to change over a month ago," Grant said teasingly. "Probably just before Steve threw his party. It's as if you came into posession of a source of information right then. Not the project Nemasee book -- you only got your hands on that more recently, and it's the wrong kind of information besides. What *was* it, Alex??"
Alex realized that Grant was trying to provoke a subconscious thought about the washer, but he didn't know how to stop him from succeeding, and wasn't quite sure if he wanted to, anyways...
"Ah-ha!!" Grant strode up to Alex, reached down the front of his shirt, and pulled up the string. Soon, he had the alien washer dangling before him. "A neuralizing memory archive," he breathed wonderingly. "Didn't know the royalists had sent one of these along!! Well, since it's probably already attuned to you, we can't figure out what's on it, but that doesn't matter. Bye bye, alien memories." Grant lifted up his free hand, about to melt of vaporize the washer or destroy it forever in some other way.
* * * * *
Maria was the one with the best view of it when it happened. She was watching the drama play out between Alex and Grant, of course, but she had a good view of Liz past them. Grant had stepped back once he had the washer. Liz reached her foot out and quickly kicked a lever on the side of the platform.
WHENNKK!! Suddenly the entire platform tilted forward as the supports dropped down by about two feet on the tunnel side. Maria felt her chair sliding forward. But Liz, who had been waiting for this moment and ready for it, managed to use the energy of the shift forwards to shift her weight from the chair to her feet and spin the chair around.
BOMMPPP! The side of Liz's chair, right where the seat, the back support, and one of the rear legs joined together, went crashing into Grant Sorenson's right temple. He staggered, and the chair broke away mostly in pieces. That was all it took for Liz to scramble out of the ropes that had held her, and she charged immediately for the ledge where the ray gun and the heat field control were kept.
About this point Maria's chair fetched up against the mountainside, which kind of limited her view. She heard a few ray gun blasts, and what sounded like alien cursing. Maria had just managed to turn her chair around when the three skins were surrounding Liz from various points of cover. "Come on, darling, you can't stand up against all three of us with that little toy." As if to prove his point, Steve stepped out from behind Alex's chair, (which he had been using for cover,) and when Liz took a shot at him he deflected it with a glowing purple energy field.
And that was when Max and Michael charged out of the tunnel opening screaming Braveheart-style battle cries.
* * * * *
Max saw Michael boost Steve away with a surge of telekinetic force, trying to throw him off the platform. But after a surprised second, Steve compensated, and flew with the ease of practice to land on the edge of the platform, bracing himself against the slant. Michael shot out with what looked like the handprint of death strike, but Steve shielded.
"Max!!" It looked like Liz was so glad to see him that she had stepped out of her cover, and Grant was raising the gun at her. Max acted without thinking. He lifted his hand up to point at the alien enemy, and he could feel his power reaching out.
Grant screamed in pain and the gun dropped from his hand. "God! NO!!" Max tried to stop whatever it was that he had put in motion, but he didn't seem to know how. Suddenly Grant's body exploded into a cloud of... of not even dust, just vapor, scattered molecules that merged with the air and were lost in it forever. Somehow Max knew, deep in the core of his soul, that Grant Sorenson wouldn't be coming back. That he had killed.
"You... you..." The third skin, the flunky, pointed at Max in return. "You discorporated him!!" A pulse of yellow energy streaked out of Zentar's hand and dashed Max to the floor. "You'll pay for that, boy-king."
"I don't think so!!" Liz was pointing the ray gun straight at Zentar, and he had forgotten about her. The ruby red lightning speared through Zentar's body, exploding it. Chunks of skin and bone splattered over Max, most of them looking pretty inhuman now that the facade Zentar had lived under was now shattered.
"Maxwell!!" Michael yelled. Max brushed a particularly disgusting chunk of shoulder away from his jeans with a shudder and hurried over to see what Michael was screaming about. Steve had jumped (or flew) off of the platform and was making good time to his car. "We've got to catch him!"
"Isabel!!" Alex yelled out. His chair had gotten stuck half-way between the platform and the mountainside, very ignominously for the poor boy still tied to it. "What happened to Isabel?"
Max froze, remembering. Isabel had collapsed in a heap when the heat field finally dropped. Max and Michael had gone on ahead, somehow realizing that bringing her out of the cave would do no good until they had settled Steve and Grant. But now...
"You guys catch Steve," Michael said, gesturing to Max and Liz. "I'll make sure Isabel, Maria, and Alex are all right." The distribution of labor sounded great to Max, and he could tell from the fierce grin on Liz's face that she was up for it too. The two of them hurried down the ladder as quickly as they could (Max not being willing to try to mimic Steve's flying trick unless it was a true emergency.)
As they reached the desert floor, Max suddenly noticed that it was brightening twilight, something that hadn't been easy to see up above with the floodlight shining in his eyes. How much time had passed?
A third car was driving up to the platform, parking closer than Steve's viper and Grant's SUV, and the driver got out and intercepted Steve. As he ran towards them Max could see that the new person was Courtney Banks, Steve's 'sister.'
"What's going on out here??" Max could vaguely hear Courtney calling out. "What have you been doing all night??"
With an offhand wave, Steve sent Courtney flying through the air, landing on the sand hard enough to hurt though not, Max hoped, hard enough to break any bones. And then Steve was rushing on, heading for his viper again.
"Hey!!" Liz nudged Max. Unbelievably enough, *another* car was pulling up to the deserted site - a red Chrysler Prowler that Max recognized from somewhere. Liz was flagging it down.
As the car screamed to a stop right in front of them, Max recognized the driver - Kyle Valenti. Liz hopped into the back seat (the top was down,) and gestured that Max should take shotgun. "Follow that car, Kyle!!" Liz said, pointing at the viper screaming away.
"Uh, sure, whatever," Kyle said, gunning the motor up again. Even with all the power that Kyle had rebuilt into the classic engine, catching up with Steve's lead was slow - the viper was also a car with an extreme amount of oomph to it, and the rough terrain in this area complicated things for both drivers. Just as they were starting to pull up behind Steve, Max could see him making something of an crosshand throwing gesture through his open window.
"Kyle, look out!!" Kyle swerved the Prowler out of the way just in time to avoid the ball of purple energy that Steve had lobbed back at them. "What now?" Max muttered to himself.
* * * * *
"There you go." Michael straightened Alex's chair with an offhand pull, and then he waved his hand where the human teenager's hands and feet were tied, and the ropes parted as if they had been cut. "Don't worry," he promised. "Isabel's gonna be fine."
Alex smiled weakly, lurched to his feet, and grunted as surprise as Maria tackled him with a hug. "Oh, god, Alex..." Maria said, hyperventilating into his ear. "I didn't know if we were all gonna get out of that okay."
"Ssh, ssh..." Alex said, brushing Maria's hair, feeling a little embarrassed about holding one of his oldest friends and another guy's girlfriend like this, but obviously she needed company. "It's alright, we've won. Max and Liz are gonna catch Steve and settle him, and we're all gonna be safe."
Maria pulled back and smiled at him, the tears shining in her eyes. "Thanks, Alex. Now, do you think we can turn off that damn floodlight??" She raised up a hand to shield her eyes, which had the glare streaming straight into them. "It's almost morning."
Alex grinned, and they headed over to the lamp and figured out how to switch it off. Alex was just starting to realize how dim the morning twilight was in comparison when he heard footsteps coming up the tunnel. Only one person worth of footsteps...
He rushed over. Michael was carrying Isabel in his arms, or at least Alex could only assume it was Isabel. Her body was wrapped in the same kind of webbing that had surrounded Michael when he was in the last stages of alien heatstroke after barging into River Dog's sweatlodge. Her figure had that same awful, dead stillness, and yet there was something else wrong with her. She seemed shrunken, withered underneath the webbing.
"What happened to her??!" he asked Michael angrily.
Michael shook his head. "She sacrificed herself to protect Max and me from the heat. She used her powers to cool the air that was coming through to us..."
"So she was using her powers hard," Alex muttered, seeing it. "And exposing herself to the heat at the same time. God!! Why didn't you sto-- no, you probably couldn't not when Isabel had set her mind to it, could you??" Michael shrugged awkwardly.
"Healing stones," Michael thought out loud. "Dammit, we moved them up to the pod chamber when we were getting ready to do the communique this morning... or yesterday morning, or whatever."
The ramifications hit Alex like a medicine ball to the face. The pod chamber was practically on the other side of Roswell from them, northwest of town near the Puhlman ranch, while they were east south-east right now. It would take - probably an hour and a half to get there from here. Which looked like more than an hour and twenty minutes longer than Isabel had.
* * * * *
"We can't keep dodging fireballs like that and keep on his tail," Kyle called out to Max over the roar of the engine. "Either you find some better defense or we'll have to turn back!! He's doing it again!!" Sure enough, Steve was lobbing another charge of energy at them out of his window.
Taking a quick chance, Max summoned the shield, trying to make it so that it would keep up with the car. No such luck. Steve's purple energy ball splattered against Max's shield, (making him wince,) and dissipated, but the barrier Max had created was stationary with respect to the ground, and thus seemed to be screaming towards them itself. Max tried to collapse the shield before they reached it, but couldn't, quite, and only luck had the car screaming past it mere inches away. "Don't do that again!!" Kyle called out unhelpfully.
Third energy charge. This time Max focused his powers on it as if it was a physical thing and *lifted.* That worked considerably better - it gave Max's powers the equivalent of hot potato to touch the energy charge, but it zoomed well above the car and detonated in the desert beyond them.
"My turn," Liz said, standing up in the back seat of the Prowler and steadying herself with a hand on Kyle's driver's seat and aiming the ray gun at the viper ahead of them. Steve tried one more energy charge again, and Max sent it screaming right of the car.
"Try not to kill him, Liz," Max suggested. "If we can take him captive, we might be able to learn something from him, even use him as a bargaining chip." And they had killed more than enough skins this morning. "Aim for the right side of the car, Steve will be left."
Liz nodded and did her best to suit action to Max's word, but her first shot rocketed too far to the right, missing Steve's car entirely. "Damnit," she muttered under her breath. (Max supposed it would be a little too much to expect Liz to be a crack shot.) She tried again, and blasted a crater in the dirt road just behind Steve's car, making Kyle growl and do a course correction again. Route 380 appeared above them, and one by one the cars turned right onto the four-lane highway, heading east out of town, towards... towards Tatum, yeah, that was the next town along this route. Not a big place.
Liz was aiming for her third shot when suddenly... "Wow, look at that!!" Steve's viper was accelerating far faster than even a car like that had any right to expect. Caught off guard, Liz took her shot, and the ruby lightning missed again, passing over the viper like a clap of thunder and disappearing into the sky. And the viper was still gaining speed.
"Must be doing better than 350 miles an hour," Kyle said wonderingly. "No, four hundred..." He turned to Max. "Unless you can give me a little help with that, I think he's getting away."
Max knew that alien powers had something to do with the speed of Steve's getaway - he could feel them. But he wasn't about to try *that* trick right now either; it had danger written all over it. "No, I think you're right." But you won't be able to hide from me forever, Steve Banks, he silently swore.
"Max!!" Liz said, grabbing Max's shoulder as Kyle slowed down to a leisurely cruise for the moment. "Alex! Steve hurt his arm, while they were getting Isabel. It's really hurt, Steve went for the nerve. We've gotta go back to the platform site so you can heal it."
"Okay," Max said, nodding. "Hope ya don't mind, Kyle."
Kyle pulled the prowler through a u-ie, and sped up as he headed back west down the highway. "I'll drive you anywhere you want if you explain what the hell has been goin' on."
* * * * *
Michael shrugged off the frustration and came to a decision. "We're heading for the pod chamber. Izzie's a strong chick, she'll hold it together until we can get there." He stood up, carrying the girl who had been closest to him in his life in his arms again, and looked out over the edge of the platform again. No way could they carry Iz down the ladder safely without spending *way* too much time on it, so... Michael stepped off the edge, focusing his powers, and coasted to the ground like he was in another invisible elevator. There were still two cars in the area, but since one of them seemed to be occupied... "Looks like we're taking the SUV," Michael called up to Alex and Maria, who were already heading down the ladder."
"Wait a second!!" Maria called out from above Alex. "The SUV... Was that Grant's car?"
"Yeah, I think so," Alex said, "Liz and Max were the only ones to ride with Grant, but I saw it at the Evans place. Why??"
"Let's search it!" Maria replied, running ahead as soon as she got to the bottom of the ladder. "He might have had healing stones in it!!"
Michael felt as if he'd missed a step. "Well, I suppose anything's possible, but why?"
"Come on," Alex hurried Michael along. "These healing stones are basic alien first-aid supplies or something, right? And Grant and Steve were heading into a dangerous mission. Why wouldn't they have brought some healing gear along?"
More hopeful now, Michael left Isabel's body laying on the ground as the three of them tore the car apart in search. "Um, Spaceboy, a little help here?" Maria called back to him from the front seat. Michael backed away from the trunk and came to see what she was talking about. It turned out to be the glove compartment, which had been locked.
Michael waved a hand over the lock, focusing on manipulating the internal mechanisms, and the compartment door popped open. A lot of papers and complicated geology handbooks, the inevitable collection of maps - a few bottles and vials Michael didn't want to know about right now, and... "Yes!!" Two familiar-looking amber crystals.
"Only two? Two people doing the healing??" Alex said over his shoulder. Michael understood his point. Admittedly, they only had three people here, if they didn't wait and hope that Max, Liz, and Kyle would be back soon, but when Michael himself had been ill, and not as badly off as Isabel, there had been four participating in the healing ritual.
"I'm one of them," Michael said softly. "I'm a hybrid, like her, and my balance is strong right now. Because she took the heat for me." He thought a moment. "It should probably be me and Maria, Alex. Your hand is hurt, we don't know if that might interfere..."
"I have to do this for her," Alex said in a low voice. Maria pur her hand on Michael's other shoulder and whispered in his ear.
"He's right. You wouldn't want to be cut out of the process if something had happened to me, or I to you. And love can work miracles."
Michael nodded in deference and passed one of the stones over to Alex. All three of them hurried back to where Isabel's body had been left.
"What now?" Maria asked nervously. "Do you need to do that thing with the water and the chant??"
"No water, unless Grant had some evian in there," Michael pointed out. "No wooden bowl."
"I think we can do this without all the external trappings," Alex said. "From what I can remeber..." and then he did a double-take. "The washer! What... no, time enough to worry about that once Isabel's all right." He sighed and tried to resume his train of thought. "Just concentrate on the stone and on your inner energy, your balance." Michael realized that though he presumed his balance was stronger, he was the one member of the group who had really no experience with these healing stones. He had been on the recieving end in River dog's cave, entirely out of it until the healing was over, and he had been inside the labyrinth while Liz and Kyle had been using the stones to boost their hybrid partners' power to help him and Maria get out.
But he concentrated, following Alex's hint, and soon enough it seemed like something was happening. The healing stone lit up in his hands, and Michael could feel his power going to Isabel, helping her, replenishing her drained reserves. Across from him, Alex's stone lit up too, and there was another stream of power buffering his own.
And then, suddenly, something was going wrong. Isabel was missing too much, and what he and Alex could provide through the stones wasn't enough. Suddenly it wasn't like they were pouring energy into her, but that something deep inside Isabel, something instinctive, primal, was *sucking* it out of them. Something that lay too far down to comprehend friendship, love, or caring, but that knew survival quite well. It was going to get enough energy for Isabel to survive or kill both of them trying.
And what if even that wasn't enough??
"What's going on here??" Michael recognized the voice, vaguely. It was Courtney. He couldn't even move his head to look at her. "What are you guys all doing out here in the middle of the night? What's wrong with my brother?? He acted like he didn't even recognize me just then." **Damnit, Courtney, not now!!**
"I got news for you babe - that wasn't your brother..."
Suddenly the conversation between Maria and Courtney -- the healing stones themselves became irrelevant as Michael felt his balance being drawn in by Isabel's...
* * * * *
Michael found himself in the middle of a snow-covered field. He caught a glimpse of himself in an ice-mirror stretching between the branches of a tree and to his surprise, he looked... older? More rugged, with a beard... like he was in his late twenties or something.
"Your ordeal is upon you, Michael Guerin." Michael jumped and found River Dog standing behind him. "I am your guide. Take the rope and pull it back that way." There was a rope and pulley hooked up to a telephone pole just next to the old Indian. One end was loose, the other stretched back in the direction River dog was pointing - into a snow-covered forest.
Michael shrugged, took a good hold of the rope, and started hauling. At first it didn't seem too hard. Then whatever was at the other end pulled the rope taught, and Michael really had to put some effort into it to get anywhere. He was so focused on the task at hand that he didn't hear the footsteps approaching him at first.
He looked up. It was Max, and he was holding out his hand to Michael. Michael sighed, made sure that that the rope was secure, and stretched out his hand to the guy who'd been somewhere between a best friend and a brother all of his life.
Something weird happened as their hands met. It didn't hurt, but Michael was sure that he saw blood between their hands - mixing, mingling. It actually felt good, revitalizing, which was good considering the job he had ahead of him here.
"Best team in the galaxy, huh?" Max asked with a wide smile, and then he faded out and disappeared. Michael shrugged and resumed his haul, realizing that river dog was trailing him without helping out. Well, he was old and probably didn't have much strength to spare, even if the vision quest guide's rulebook didn't prohibit direct assistance.
The next figure that Michael saw, just before he reached the tree line, was Maria. She was wearing a long wool skirt, boots, a shiny winter jacket, scarf, and knitted hat, and looked *incredibly* adorable and cute to Michael. She walked quickly up to him, wrapped his arms around him, and kissed him warmly and sweetly. It was like a little piece of heaven.
"Je t'aime toujours, Imzadi," she breathed into his ear after the kiss was done.
"Say what?" He pulled back to look into Maria's face, she smiled at him but didn't elaborate. "I'll see you soon, babe, back out in the real world, but I need to keep hauling this rope along. Isabel might not have much time." Maria continued to stare at him, but she didn't look like she was quite getting the message.
So Michael pushed her away, very gently, and Maria took a few steps back. Then there was this ominous creaking sound, and BOOM! she was gone. Michael stepped forward, appalled. He hadn't even realized that they were on an ice patch, but Maria had broken through, and it looked like she was having a hard time finding her way back to the open air.
"Maria!! It's over here," he yelled, not sure if she could hear him. Michael wasn't sure if he should try to use his powers to save her or just diving in himself.
Suddenly, there was a dark shape, swimming under the ice, and it took Maria with it. Michael felt a touch on his arm, and he turned around and stared accusingly at River Dog.
"The swimmer's magic will save her," River Dog said enigmatically. "And you must continue with your own task." Michael hated it, but he knew that his vision guide had to be right.
One footstep after another, he dragged himself onto the forest path. Just what was this he was pulling, anyway?? He saw another ice mirror, and peered into it. Maybe this one was magic or something, because he could see Tess, struggling through a blizzard, looking very lost and alone. And then the picture faded and he saw only the trees behind him.
Again. Again. Again. Michael's feet, his arms, his shoulders, his back were all killing him, probably some other parts of his body too. (Except this probably wasn't his real body here - so was his spirit killing him??) And then his foot didn't clear a root or something. WHHUMPP! Faceful of snow and dirt. Man that's nasty.
"Come on, Michael." He looked up - it was Liz, extending a hand to help him up, which he gratefully took. "It's not much further. I've gotta say, Michael, I really respect what you're doing."
Michael brushed some snow off of himself and shrugged. "It's not like I really had much choice."
"That's not how I saw it." Liz walked further down the path, and Michael shrugged and carried on in his own direction. **Not much further...* he repeated silently in his mind.
Sure enough, soon a forest glade opened before him. Finally now, Michael could see what the other end of his rope was attached to - a huge bundle of wood, which was being pushed into the glade from the opposite direction by a familiar twenty-something guy -- wait, that was Alex!! Older, just like Michael himself was in this vision. But when Michael had seen Max, Maria, Liz, even Tess, they were teenagers. Weird.
On a wide, flat space in the middle of the glade, there was a block of stone, and on top of the stone there was a person-sized cocoon. All three, the flat space, the stone, and the cocoon, were covered in snow. Alex was just pushing the wood into place near the middle of one side of the flat space, near one end of the stone, when Michael reached him. "Now what, Alex??"
"I have the key." Alex pulled out a lighter, pointed it at the wood, and suddenly the whole pile was burning in a raging bonfire. The snow around them started to melt away without leaving water behind, and Michael realized that what he had only seen as a flat space was actually a huge open book - THE book.
The cocoon opened from within, except it wasn't just a cocoon, it was like a perfect, silky chrysalis, and from within, like a butterfly, emerged Isabel. She seemed older, like Michael himself and Alex, and to Michael she had never looked more beautiful; she seemed so elegant and graceful. She was wearing a multi-colored gown, and... did she have wings? She did, Michael decided after a second, but not material ones - wings floating behind her made out of pure energy.
"Thank you," she said, stepping down off the stone and walking around the bonfire to Alex and Michael. She got to Alex first, and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply and slipping him the tongue. After about twenty seconds, (the point where Michael started feeling *really* embarrassed,) Isabel broke the kiss and stepped close to Michael, putting her arms around his chest.
Michael heard a faint tinkling around his feet, and he realized that Isabel was crying, and her tears were turning into ice and shattering. "Why are you crying??" Isabel didn't say anything. (Why could nobody answer a straight question in this loopy vision.) He reached out a hand to catch her ice-tears as they fell, and they started to melt as they came into contact with his warm skin. Then a few fell into his hand that didn't seem cold and weren't melting.
Surprised, Michael brought his hand up for closer examination. There were crystals there, but not ice crystals. They seemed like... diamonds??
* * * * *
Alex looked around, trying to get his bearings. How had he arrived here?? He was standing on a small path through a thick forest, in early spring, it looked like. How had he been moved from the desert to here?? Stepping out from between the trees appeared -- his father??
"What's going on??"
"I'm, um, your vision guide," Doctor John Whitman explained with a trace of nervousness. "Apparently. Uh, you need to start by pushing this rock, er, thataway." He pointed down the forest path.
The rock was mostly round, but with a wide flat bottom that would make rolling it awkward, and it was almost five feet high and four feet around. "Can you gimme a hand here??"
"No, I can't do anything to help Isabel directly this time," Mr. Whitman said mysteriously. "But you won't be alone - see the rope?"
There was indeed a rope wrapped around the rock, and a length of it stretched away on the far side, Alex realized. The rope pulled taut and attempted to pull the rock with it. Alex got the cue and started pushing from behind it.
After a few minute's effort and about fifteen feet's progress, the rope went slack for a bit, and Alex took a break. He noticed a pool of standing water nearby and looked into his reflection - to his surprise, he looked at least eight or nine years older!! He heard a faint voice from beyond the trees, a voice plaintively calling out for help. "Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me? It's Tess..."
"You can't find her now," John Whitman told his son. "Come on." Sure enough, the rope had gone taught again. Alex hurried over and started pushing again.
Second break. This time Alex noticed people walking up from down the path, the way he had come from. Max and Maria. "Here," Max said, taking out a little angular piece of metal and holding it out to Max. Alex held out his hand, Max put it in, and Maria followed suit with another.
"Two parts of the key you'll need," Maria explained. "Good luck. We need Isabel."
Alex shrugged, thanked them with a nod, and started pushing again. A minute or two later he noticed that he was pushing the rock past Kyle, who was standing between two kisses on the edge of the path.
"Here you go, that should finish it," Kyle said, holding out another key fragment. Alex took it. "Watch the new kid carefully."
Alex shrugged, not sure what to make of that, and when he turned around he noticed a mass of dark curls at about his chin height. He couldn't immediately make out the identity of the person, since she (or he? No, he didn't think it was a he,) was several inches shorter than he was and standing very close, so he couldn't see the face. The slender fingers of a small hand held his own hand, and a slight touch tapped him in the middle of his chest, creating a reaction that Alex couldn't immediately identify. And then she was turning away and dashing into the forest cover.
After not much more pushing Alex got the rock into a forest glade, the spring sun shining down on them. Michael was just getting into the glade too - he had been pulling the other end of the rope or something. And in the middle of the glade, on top of a giant replica of the book, was a crystal box a la snow white, and inside he could see Isabel, sleeping beautifully. He noticed suddenly that both Isabel and Michael seemed older too. (Weird.)
"Now what, Alex?" Michael asked, looking at the big rock that they had dragged here.
"I have the key," he said. It also ran through his mind that his dad had disappeared sometime just before he got into the glade. Had Michael had a guide too? He fumbled out the three metal pieces that had been given him, fitted them together into a circle, and found a matching spot on the stone where the key would fit. Suddenly the entire hunk of rock started to shine with a blue light.
Isabel woke up, effortlessly opening the lid of the case from inside, and walked towards them. "Thank you." She put her arms around Alex's neck, and kissed him passionately. He kissed back, but after what seemed like far too short a time she broke the kiss and went over to hug Michael.
"Why are you crying?" Alex heard Michael ask. And then... and then, suddenly it seemed, Alex was back in the desert. Isabel seemed unchanged, but Michael had grown some webbing himself, and was furiously trying to snatch it off of his body and throw it away.
"Come on, Iz," Alex said, bending over to look into Isabel's face through the webbing. "Come back to us!!"
And then Isabel was moving, tearing the cocoon of webbing open from the inside, dust and grit flying everywhere as it was broken. "Oh, god, Alex..." She crawled awkwardly into his arms... and Alex was once again reminded of the dead feeling in his left hand. How late was it getting?? But he shoved that thought out of his mind and focused on comforting Isabel.
"I was... I was so far away, I didn't think I'd ever be able to come back to you..." Isabel was moaning softly.
"It's okay, it's okay," he whispered reassuringly, stroking through Isabel's hair, which, like the rest of her physically, seemed full of life and none the worse for her ordeal. "We found you. We brought you back... it's alright."
Isabel turned and looked around, at Michael, who was still sitting somewhat awkwardly, the healing stone in one of his hand, and at Maria and Courtney, who were both watching. "What... what happened?" Isabel asked somewhat belatedly. "How did we get out of the tunnel?"
"Liz turned off the heat field," he told her gently, "and Michael carried you out. You had the heat stroke, like he did after going into the sweat lodge, except instantly, and worse."
"I remember... I remember stepping up to protect them from the heat," Isabel said somewhat doubtfully.
"...Which was quite a stupid idea, while we're on the subject," Michael declared, getting a glare from Alex. "Well, it was. You coulda died, Isabel."
She smiled weakly at him. "But I didn't. And because I shielded you and Max from the effects of the heat, I bet you were able to kick some skin butt, am I right?" Michael was silent, he couldn't deny *that*. "I can't use my powers to fight like the two of you can - I don't have that nerve of steel. But I could protect you two so that you could save us, and I did. And the two of you were here to bring me back."
Alex sighed with relief for that, and then got them off onto another topic, to pre-empt any further argument. "Iz... did you see anything during the healing? I did, and I think you did too, right Michael?" Michael nodded in agreement.
"Um, let's see..." Isabel closed her eyes, still relaxing in Alex's embrace, and tried to remember. "I was standing on a giant replica of the book. Max, Liz, and Maria each said something cryptic to me..." She paused here for several long moments, probably assembling the mysterious clues in her mind. "I'll go into them later. I noticed Tess, trying to get to the book, but it's like she was being dragged away by something. Kyle was a picture on the open page. And then... and then I was coming out of the cocoon, in the dream, and you and Michael were there, except you seemed older. I kissed you, Alex, and then..." She coughed and blushed. "And then... I don't remember." Alex didn't buy that for one second. The way she reacted - she remembered the end of that sequence the same way he did, with hugging Michael. She just didn't want to admit it.
"Sounds wild." All three of them looked up to the owner of the new voice, and Maria and Courtney turned around to see Max (said owner) walking towards Isabel and Alex, Liz following beside him. Kyle was still behind the wheel of his car. "So... we all good here??"
"Not bad, Maxwell," Michael said. "What about Steve, did you let the SOB get away??"
"Couldn't help it, my man," Max sighed. "He had this funky hyperdrive power that we have simply *got* to learn. Ummm... Courtney." Max turned to face the new person. "How much do you know about what's going on?"
"Only what Maria told me," Courtney said. A few stares focused on Maria, who shrugged helplessly. "That there's some weird alien invasion stuff going on, and it looks like my brother was killed and replaced by one of them. Also... from what I can tell, all you guys seem to be psychics or something??"
Max didn't challenge *that* misplaced assumption. "About your brother... that's the way it looks. I'll tell Sheriff Valenti about your brother, he... 'knows' about this sort of thing too. Are you going to be in any immediate trouble without him? Financially, I mean."
"No, the house is in my name and I'm doing okay for cash," Courtney shrugged, a stunned look on her face. "I don't know what to tell the radio station if they call to ask why Steve's not coming in to work though."
"We'll work on that," Max said softly. "For now... why don't you go on home, okay?" Courtney considered that, waved at everyone including Kyle, and went back to her car.
"We'll need to search the area," Alex said as soon as she was gone. "The washer is missing, Grant had taken it from me when Liz pulled her little kung-fu spin."
"Oh, my god," Max breathed. "I hope I didn't..." He made a 'whoosh' gesture with his hands.
"No, don't worry," Maria commented. "Grant dropped it when Liz's chair slammed into his head. I saw it slip down beneath the platform."
"But first things first." Max knelt down next to Alex, took Alex's left hand in his, and slowly unwrapped the fabric around the wounded arm. "Look at me."
* * * * *
The rush of connection images hit Max as soon as Alex locked his eyes on Max's own. Alex as a little kid - boy, he couldn't be any older than four, playing with a toy spaceship in a pretty backyard surrounded by oranging trees. Max let the memory become part of him as he focused on the healing. Alex and Isabel sitting together and looking up at the stars - this would be the Fazier woods trip, Max guessed. Before they had snuck away to investigate the 'sighting.'
Alex at twelve or thirteen, leading Maria and Liz down into a rocky canyon somewhere. The nerves in Alex's arm that Steve had so cruelly torn apart were stating to knit back together, but would they fire the same way that they had done before?? Alex touching the washer for the first time, in the UFO center. Ten years old, dressed in a black suit and sitting in a church pew - Alex's grandfather's funeral, Max somehow knew.
The images were coming more quickly now. The holding cell in the Roswell county sheriff's station, as Liz pointed a single finger and tried to explain to Alex where Max and Isabel came from. Why they were so scared. Another Isabel memory - Alex pulling the front door of his parents' house open and seeing Isabel there waiting for him, wearing a blue top -- Max wasn't sure when that was from...
And then one of those moments hit Max that seemed to transcend the term 'flash', where for a timeless moment he *became* a memory from the connection. (It had happened with Liz and her cupcake dress.)
Alex had been climbing a tree and looking down at the houses and streets below him. Alex and his parents had just moved to Roswell and he didn't have any friends here.
And then the connection was over, and Max just sat there for a second staring at Alex curling and stretching his fingers as if testing them out to make sure that they were okay.
Max would never have thought that someone human could feel the same loneliess that Max had, but there was no mistaking what he had felt from Alex. In some ways, actually, that moment had been even more intense, because as long as he could remember, Max had always had Isabel.
He couldn't find any words. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Michael who broke the silence. "Your hand okay, Alex? Then let's find that slug of yours."
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 again.)
"Oooh," Maria shuddered as they walked down the porch steps to the front walk. "I know we've been through a lot over the past two years, but that night..." She couldn't find words for a few seconds. "I hope I never have to live through something like that again."
"Or to *not* live through it," Max pointed out soberly.
"You know what I mean." Maria sighed with the stress of the memories.
"Yeah, I do," Michael said, looking tenderly over at his ex-girlfriend. "Hear, hear."
"You'll get no argument from me," Alex chimed in softly.
* * * * *
(Back to early morning of Wednesday, November 29 2000.)
When it didn't look like either of their guards were paying very close attention, Alex called over to Liz in a hoarse whisper. "Hey! How're you doing?"
Liz twisted her neck awkwardly to look back towards Alex despite her bonds. "Doing okay under the circumstances, I guess. More worried about Max than myself. You?"
"Panicked out of my mind for Isabel's sake," he confessed. "And my arm hurts like hell." He tried to gesture indicatively with the wounded left forearm, but between the way he was tied to his chair and the injury itself, he couldn't do more than twitch it a little.
It was apparently enough to draw Liz's attention to the pale cloth bandanging his arm. "Oh god, Alex," she moaned apologetically. "I didn't realize you were hurt. What happened?"
Alex sighed. "I tried to bash Steve's brains out while he wasn't looking, but he caught me at it. Gave me this as a 'consequence."
"I only wish you'd succeeded," Liz giggled, and then instantly returned to a more serious disposition. "How bad is it??"
"Bad," Alex whispered. "I can't move or feel my hand, and Steve said that if I don't get to a doctor by midmorning that'll probably become permanent. I think he intentionally damaged the main nerve in my arm." The thought of going through all his life with a limp hand gave him the shudders. Had his future self moved his left arm when Michael and Maria got the message from him? They hadn't said anything about it, and probably after so long neither of them would remember. After all, most people Alex knew hadn't clued in to Bob Dole the first time they saw him on televsion...
"Don't worry," Liz whispered, cutting in on his mental ramblings. "Once we all get out of this, Max'll heal you. He can do a better job than any human doctor." Liz smiled in pride for her hybrid sweetie.
Alex nodded somberly, unable to be as optimistic as his best friend. "That's assuming Max in particular *does* get out of this," he sighed softly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Liz shot back.
Alex groaned. "Liz, I wasn't meaning to pick on Max especially. But that..." He gestured with his head towards the tunnel mouth, since it was the only part of his body that could move much, "is a deathtrap. Once they get Michael inside too, up the tunnel goes the heat field and Steve and Grant have toasted themselves three hybrids. No fuss, no mess."
Liz's eyes were wide in stark horror, perfectly outlined by the reflected light from the floodlight against the mountainside. "Oh, my god!! And you let Isabel walk in there, knowing that?"
Liz's words hadn't been accusing, but Alex felt about three inches big. (Actually, he wished he really *were* three inches big, since then the ropes wouldn't fit him and he could scamper across the platform -- assuming he could keep from jamming his tiny feet in the grilles -- and try to turn off the heat field device. But enough about that.)
How could Alex tell his best friend that he had been terrified of fighting back again, and so had chosen the path that kept both himself and Iz alive and okay for as long as possible, hoping that some unnamed *something* would come along to save them all? That instinct, after all, was exactly what Steve and his cronies were counting on - that faced with the proper mix of authority, cruelty, and determination, the roswell home team would simply follow the path of least resistance until too late?
"Se norge a, Palex," Liz blurted out suddenly, and it took Alex a few seconds to realize what she was doing. There was a secret language that the two of them had cooked up as precocious eleven-year-olds, a mix of the french they were learning in Miss Cooper's class at the time, a little German Alex's maternal grandfather had taught them, (before he died two years later,) and a few other odds and ends, the whole of it camoflaged with a systematic pattern of spoonerisms. Cudgeling his brain, Alex ciphered out what Liz had just said to him. Switch the front consonant sounds on each pair of adjacent words, and... it was 'don't worry, Alex.'
There had to be more to it than this. The only reason Liz would suddenly start talking in 'Olde Roswellian' was because she has something to tell him that she didn't want to rish their captors overhearing. After all, they had been missing for a while, perhaps at least one of Grant and Zentar was hiding and eavesdropping on them. "Alb," he said, keeping a straight face, It was the affirmative term, the equivalent of 'yes.'
Liz broke out into a longer stream of the gibberish, and this time it came back to Alex like it was second nature. 'I'm *sure* that my dream holds the answer to this.' Noticing Alex's doubtful look, she elaborated 'The dream I had when I was with Max, weeks ago. It can tell me how to beat these guys, I know it can. I just need to be able to act at the right moment. I need you to do something for me, Alex.' When he nodded slightly, Liz continued. 'When I give you a signal, create a diversion. Make sure that all of them are focusing on you, not on me.'
Alex considered, and nodded again. "He joofnung ce queci lavaille, triz," he replied. 'I hope this works, Liz.'
Right then, things started happening. Alex couldn't see the details immediately because the chairs had been set facing towards the tunnel opening and away from the ladder, (probably intentional,) but he knew what it would be. Steve had shown up with Michael and Maria. This time Maria was tied to her chair (off on the other side of Alex from Liz,) before Steve lowered the heat field and waved Michael in. Not much had been said.
"Don't go in there, Michael!!" Alex called out suddenly, not sure why. To make up for not having warned Isabel similarly? "It's a deathtrap!!"
Michael froze and spun away from the tunnel opening. Steve was right of him (from Michael's perspective, left from Alex's,) working the heat shield controls, the ray gun at his feet, and Zentar was on the other side. Grant stood opposite him, right between Alex and Maria's chairs, fingering his automatic pistol ominously. Three against one odds, plus the hostage factor. Not Michael's best situation.
But maybe not as bad as it seemed - Alex noticed Max and Isabel walking up the tunnel cave behind Michael. With the three of them working together, it would be even odds, and Alex knew his hybrid friends were clever enough to dethread the threat against himself, Liz, and Maria.
But at the last possible moment, the heat shield blazed up again, knocking Max and Isabel backwards into the tunnel again and Michael forwards away from it momentarily. Grant must have
given Steve the cue.
Michael picked himself up, looked sadly over at Maria, at Alex himself, and then turned to nod to Steve. "It's okay. I'll go in peacefully. I'm sorry, man." That last was directed at Alex, and Alex immediately realized that Michael felt the same frustrating helplessness that Alex himself did.
The heat shield was let down just long enough for Michael to go in. **Come on, Liz," Alex thought to himself. **Give me the signal, any time now. Time is running out on our friendly neighborhood aliens.**
* * * * *
As Max groaned and picked himself up, he could just make out Michael trudging down the tunnel to meet them by the reflected light originating in the heat-field above. "Hey, man," he mumbled, disappointed. "For a minute there, it looked like we were gonna get an opening."
Michael shrugged. "Damn, these guys are good."
"So, what happens now?" Isabel asked softly.
"They start moving the heat field down the tunnel until we have nowhere safe left to stand," Max said softly.
"Yeah, that's pretty much what Alex said was the deal," Michael agreed.
"Oh, come *on*, guys!!" Isabel exclaimed. "Do we have to be this pessimistic *all* the time? They might not be trying to kill us right away. Considering all the effort these skins have gone to, maybe they're just holding us here until we can do something for th-- Oh." Max had pointed up towards the cave mouth, where the reddish shine of the field was getting brighter. Getting nearer, slightly. "Good point, Max," Isabel growled.
"Come on." Max led the way back up the tunnel until he was about three feet away from the edge of the field. Even at this distance he could feel the effects of it, the infrared radiation that had to be pouring out of that heat zone, the overexcited air molecules that were leaving it every second, the thermal energy that was spreading down the wall. He concentrated, and a wall of green energy sprang up a few inches shy of the red line. And waited.
No effect. Whatever things Max's shield was able to protect against it, heat - hot air molecules and radiant heat energy - was apparently not on the list. After long seconds the red field moved far enough down to entirely swallow the green shield, and Max let it lapse.
"Let's go down to the tunnel end at least," Isabel sighed. Having nothing better to suggest, Max and Michael followed her.
"Oh, by the way," Max persuaded a large object out of his jeans pocket and handed it to Michael.
"What the heck is this??" Michael asked, though the expression on his face told Max that Michael already guessed a little.
"Trithium amplifier," Isabel told him.
"It's a skin weapon," Max explained, "that Steve used to knock out our powers when we were first tossed in here. Apparently it's the same model as that thing of Brody's that knocked you out. How he got ahold of it I don't know."
"We figured that if we get out of this alive somehow, it might be useful," Isabel put in. "Don't worry, we got it set to its 'off' state while it was recharging.
Michael nodded vaguely, they were reaching the end of the tunnel now, it ended in a vaguely semi-spherical curve. Max turned around to look behind him. The heat field was still approaching them steadily, and he could already feel the spillover heat.
It stopped about nine feet away from them. "What's up with that? Is Steve *trying* to make us suffer??" Michael groused.
"I wouldn't put it past him," Max said with an angry sigh. "Or this might be as far as the range on that generator goes, or maybe he's counting on us making a break for it and running right through the heat field." He wiped the sweat off his forehead. "One thing's for sure, we can't last forever here."
Isabel looked at both of them, and took a deep breath. "Don't try to stop me." She stepped forward, two paces towards the field, and before Max knew what was going on the air around his sister, all the way to the tunnel edges, had turned white, like a big puffy cloud stuck inside the dark tunnel. He felt cool air starting to waft back from the cloud.
"What... what's she doing??" Michael asked. He tried to step forward into the cloud, but some kind of turbulence buffeted him back.
"She... she's providing a barrier between us and the heat," Max realized. "Slowing down the air molecules before they can get to us." Already the temperature in their little pocket seemed even on the cold side of comfortable.
"But... but Isabel!" Michael exclaimed. "Not only is she bearing the full effect of the heat, but she's using her powers on overdrive! That's a double hit to her balance." He tried to charge forward into the cloud again, but again was bounced back. "We can't let her do this, let her sacrifice herself for our sake."
"I'm not sure we can stop her, Michael," Max said sadly. In his mind, he was wondering what would happen when Isabel's reserves were exhausted - would Max do the same thing to protect Michael? Or the other way around??
* * * * *
To Alex, it seemed like forever since Steve had set the heat field controls and they'd all watched the zone of red sparkles disappear down the tunnel. Alex had been watching Liz intently, trying to make it look like he wasn't, hoping for that sign she said she would give him.
Finally, after so long, it came. A small gesture with her hand, unremarkable if you weren't expecting it, unmistakeable if you were. Alex was on.
"Hey, Grant!!" he called out. The skin turned to stare at him. "So, all that time you were flirting with Isabel, that was just scouring out the opposition, right?"
Grant smiled tightly. "More or less. She's very beautiful, in any species, and the 'flirting' you speak of was fun for its own sake. But yes, I was probing her subconscious mind for information about your little group, and testing the state of her own mentalic abilities. If you choose to dignify them with that term." He laughed softly.
Oh, boy, Alex thought. Grant's a mentalic too. Plus, Steve doesn't seem too diverted by this discussion yet. The seeds of a plan started to develop in Alex's mind.
"For having no formal training, I'd say she's doing not too bad," Alex shot back. "How many years did *you* spend in the Academy to get to where you are today, Grant??"
The leading question had the desired effect. "Just how do you know so much about our world, anyway, little human child??" Grant said, moving closer.
"That's for me to know and you to try to read out of my brain, you stupid alien," Alex shot back.
"Hmmm... I guess that's right." Grant held his ground and concentrated. Steve and Zentar seemed to be following this event quite closely now, Alex realized. Come on, Liz, make your move. Any time now...
"We know that something started to change over a month ago," Grant said teasingly. "Probably just before Steve threw his party. It's as if you came into posession of a source of information right then. Not the project Nemasee book -- you only got your hands on that more recently, and it's the wrong kind of information besides. What *was* it, Alex??"
Alex realized that Grant was trying to provoke a subconscious thought about the washer, but he didn't know how to stop him from succeeding, and wasn't quite sure if he wanted to, anyways...
"Ah-ha!!" Grant strode up to Alex, reached down the front of his shirt, and pulled up the string. Soon, he had the alien washer dangling before him. "A neuralizing memory archive," he breathed wonderingly. "Didn't know the royalists had sent one of these along!! Well, since it's probably already attuned to you, we can't figure out what's on it, but that doesn't matter. Bye bye, alien memories." Grant lifted up his free hand, about to melt of vaporize the washer or destroy it forever in some other way.
* * * * *
Maria was the one with the best view of it when it happened. She was watching the drama play out between Alex and Grant, of course, but she had a good view of Liz past them. Grant had stepped back once he had the washer. Liz reached her foot out and quickly kicked a lever on the side of the platform.
WHENNKK!! Suddenly the entire platform tilted forward as the supports dropped down by about two feet on the tunnel side. Maria felt her chair sliding forward. But Liz, who had been waiting for this moment and ready for it, managed to use the energy of the shift forwards to shift her weight from the chair to her feet and spin the chair around.
BOMMPPP! The side of Liz's chair, right where the seat, the back support, and one of the rear legs joined together, went crashing into Grant Sorenson's right temple. He staggered, and the chair broke away mostly in pieces. That was all it took for Liz to scramble out of the ropes that had held her, and she charged immediately for the ledge where the ray gun and the heat field control were kept.
About this point Maria's chair fetched up against the mountainside, which kind of limited her view. She heard a few ray gun blasts, and what sounded like alien cursing. Maria had just managed to turn her chair around when the three skins were surrounding Liz from various points of cover. "Come on, darling, you can't stand up against all three of us with that little toy." As if to prove his point, Steve stepped out from behind Alex's chair, (which he had been using for cover,) and when Liz took a shot at him he deflected it with a glowing purple energy field.
And that was when Max and Michael charged out of the tunnel opening screaming Braveheart-style battle cries.
* * * * *
Max saw Michael boost Steve away with a surge of telekinetic force, trying to throw him off the platform. But after a surprised second, Steve compensated, and flew with the ease of practice to land on the edge of the platform, bracing himself against the slant. Michael shot out with what looked like the handprint of death strike, but Steve shielded.
"Max!!" It looked like Liz was so glad to see him that she had stepped out of her cover, and Grant was raising the gun at her. Max acted without thinking. He lifted his hand up to point at the alien enemy, and he could feel his power reaching out.
Grant screamed in pain and the gun dropped from his hand. "God! NO!!" Max tried to stop whatever it was that he had put in motion, but he didn't seem to know how. Suddenly Grant's body exploded into a cloud of... of not even dust, just vapor, scattered molecules that merged with the air and were lost in it forever. Somehow Max knew, deep in the core of his soul, that Grant Sorenson wouldn't be coming back. That he had killed.
"You... you..." The third skin, the flunky, pointed at Max in return. "You discorporated him!!" A pulse of yellow energy streaked out of Zentar's hand and dashed Max to the floor. "You'll pay for that, boy-king."
"I don't think so!!" Liz was pointing the ray gun straight at Zentar, and he had forgotten about her. The ruby red lightning speared through Zentar's body, exploding it. Chunks of skin and bone splattered over Max, most of them looking pretty inhuman now that the facade Zentar had lived under was now shattered.
"Maxwell!!" Michael yelled. Max brushed a particularly disgusting chunk of shoulder away from his jeans with a shudder and hurried over to see what Michael was screaming about. Steve had jumped (or flew) off of the platform and was making good time to his car. "We've got to catch him!"
"Isabel!!" Alex yelled out. His chair had gotten stuck half-way between the platform and the mountainside, very ignominously for the poor boy still tied to it. "What happened to Isabel?"
Max froze, remembering. Isabel had collapsed in a heap when the heat field finally dropped. Max and Michael had gone on ahead, somehow realizing that bringing her out of the cave would do no good until they had settled Steve and Grant. But now...
"You guys catch Steve," Michael said, gesturing to Max and Liz. "I'll make sure Isabel, Maria, and Alex are all right." The distribution of labor sounded great to Max, and he could tell from the fierce grin on Liz's face that she was up for it too. The two of them hurried down the ladder as quickly as they could (Max not being willing to try to mimic Steve's flying trick unless it was a true emergency.)
As they reached the desert floor, Max suddenly noticed that it was brightening twilight, something that hadn't been easy to see up above with the floodlight shining in his eyes. How much time had passed?
A third car was driving up to the platform, parking closer than Steve's viper and Grant's SUV, and the driver got out and intercepted Steve. As he ran towards them Max could see that the new person was Courtney Banks, Steve's 'sister.'
"What's going on out here??" Max could vaguely hear Courtney calling out. "What have you been doing all night??"
With an offhand wave, Steve sent Courtney flying through the air, landing on the sand hard enough to hurt though not, Max hoped, hard enough to break any bones. And then Steve was rushing on, heading for his viper again.
"Hey!!" Liz nudged Max. Unbelievably enough, *another* car was pulling up to the deserted site - a red Chrysler Prowler that Max recognized from somewhere. Liz was flagging it down.
As the car screamed to a stop right in front of them, Max recognized the driver - Kyle Valenti. Liz hopped into the back seat (the top was down,) and gestured that Max should take shotgun. "Follow that car, Kyle!!" Liz said, pointing at the viper screaming away.
"Uh, sure, whatever," Kyle said, gunning the motor up again. Even with all the power that Kyle had rebuilt into the classic engine, catching up with Steve's lead was slow - the viper was also a car with an extreme amount of oomph to it, and the rough terrain in this area complicated things for both drivers. Just as they were starting to pull up behind Steve, Max could see him making something of an crosshand throwing gesture through his open window.
"Kyle, look out!!" Kyle swerved the Prowler out of the way just in time to avoid the ball of purple energy that Steve had lobbed back at them. "What now?" Max muttered to himself.
* * * * *
"There you go." Michael straightened Alex's chair with an offhand pull, and then he waved his hand where the human teenager's hands and feet were tied, and the ropes parted as if they had been cut. "Don't worry," he promised. "Isabel's gonna be fine."
Alex smiled weakly, lurched to his feet, and grunted as surprise as Maria tackled him with a hug. "Oh, god, Alex..." Maria said, hyperventilating into his ear. "I didn't know if we were all gonna get out of that okay."
"Ssh, ssh..." Alex said, brushing Maria's hair, feeling a little embarrassed about holding one of his oldest friends and another guy's girlfriend like this, but obviously she needed company. "It's alright, we've won. Max and Liz are gonna catch Steve and settle him, and we're all gonna be safe."
Maria pulled back and smiled at him, the tears shining in her eyes. "Thanks, Alex. Now, do you think we can turn off that damn floodlight??" She raised up a hand to shield her eyes, which had the glare streaming straight into them. "It's almost morning."
Alex grinned, and they headed over to the lamp and figured out how to switch it off. Alex was just starting to realize how dim the morning twilight was in comparison when he heard footsteps coming up the tunnel. Only one person worth of footsteps...
He rushed over. Michael was carrying Isabel in his arms, or at least Alex could only assume it was Isabel. Her body was wrapped in the same kind of webbing that had surrounded Michael when he was in the last stages of alien heatstroke after barging into River Dog's sweatlodge. Her figure had that same awful, dead stillness, and yet there was something else wrong with her. She seemed shrunken, withered underneath the webbing.
"What happened to her??!" he asked Michael angrily.
Michael shook his head. "She sacrificed herself to protect Max and me from the heat. She used her powers to cool the air that was coming through to us..."
"So she was using her powers hard," Alex muttered, seeing it. "And exposing herself to the heat at the same time. God!! Why didn't you sto-- no, you probably couldn't not when Isabel had set her mind to it, could you??" Michael shrugged awkwardly.
"Healing stones," Michael thought out loud. "Dammit, we moved them up to the pod chamber when we were getting ready to do the communique this morning... or yesterday morning, or whatever."
The ramifications hit Alex like a medicine ball to the face. The pod chamber was practically on the other side of Roswell from them, northwest of town near the Puhlman ranch, while they were east south-east right now. It would take - probably an hour and a half to get there from here. Which looked like more than an hour and twenty minutes longer than Isabel had.
* * * * *
"We can't keep dodging fireballs like that and keep on his tail," Kyle called out to Max over the roar of the engine. "Either you find some better defense or we'll have to turn back!! He's doing it again!!" Sure enough, Steve was lobbing another charge of energy at them out of his window.
Taking a quick chance, Max summoned the shield, trying to make it so that it would keep up with the car. No such luck. Steve's purple energy ball splattered against Max's shield, (making him wince,) and dissipated, but the barrier Max had created was stationary with respect to the ground, and thus seemed to be screaming towards them itself. Max tried to collapse the shield before they reached it, but couldn't, quite, and only luck had the car screaming past it mere inches away. "Don't do that again!!" Kyle called out unhelpfully.
Third energy charge. This time Max focused his powers on it as if it was a physical thing and *lifted.* That worked considerably better - it gave Max's powers the equivalent of hot potato to touch the energy charge, but it zoomed well above the car and detonated in the desert beyond them.
"My turn," Liz said, standing up in the back seat of the Prowler and steadying herself with a hand on Kyle's driver's seat and aiming the ray gun at the viper ahead of them. Steve tried one more energy charge again, and Max sent it screaming right of the car.
"Try not to kill him, Liz," Max suggested. "If we can take him captive, we might be able to learn something from him, even use him as a bargaining chip." And they had killed more than enough skins this morning. "Aim for the right side of the car, Steve will be left."
Liz nodded and did her best to suit action to Max's word, but her first shot rocketed too far to the right, missing Steve's car entirely. "Damnit," she muttered under her breath. (Max supposed it would be a little too much to expect Liz to be a crack shot.) She tried again, and blasted a crater in the dirt road just behind Steve's car, making Kyle growl and do a course correction again. Route 380 appeared above them, and one by one the cars turned right onto the four-lane highway, heading east out of town, towards... towards Tatum, yeah, that was the next town along this route. Not a big place.
Liz was aiming for her third shot when suddenly... "Wow, look at that!!" Steve's viper was accelerating far faster than even a car like that had any right to expect. Caught off guard, Liz took her shot, and the ruby lightning missed again, passing over the viper like a clap of thunder and disappearing into the sky. And the viper was still gaining speed.
"Must be doing better than 350 miles an hour," Kyle said wonderingly. "No, four hundred..." He turned to Max. "Unless you can give me a little help with that, I think he's getting away."
Max knew that alien powers had something to do with the speed of Steve's getaway - he could feel them. But he wasn't about to try *that* trick right now either; it had danger written all over it. "No, I think you're right." But you won't be able to hide from me forever, Steve Banks, he silently swore.
"Max!!" Liz said, grabbing Max's shoulder as Kyle slowed down to a leisurely cruise for the moment. "Alex! Steve hurt his arm, while they were getting Isabel. It's really hurt, Steve went for the nerve. We've gotta go back to the platform site so you can heal it."
"Okay," Max said, nodding. "Hope ya don't mind, Kyle."
Kyle pulled the prowler through a u-ie, and sped up as he headed back west down the highway. "I'll drive you anywhere you want if you explain what the hell has been goin' on."
* * * * *
Michael shrugged off the frustration and came to a decision. "We're heading for the pod chamber. Izzie's a strong chick, she'll hold it together until we can get there." He stood up, carrying the girl who had been closest to him in his life in his arms again, and looked out over the edge of the platform again. No way could they carry Iz down the ladder safely without spending *way* too much time on it, so... Michael stepped off the edge, focusing his powers, and coasted to the ground like he was in another invisible elevator. There were still two cars in the area, but since one of them seemed to be occupied... "Looks like we're taking the SUV," Michael called up to Alex and Maria, who were already heading down the ladder."
"Wait a second!!" Maria called out from above Alex. "The SUV... Was that Grant's car?"
"Yeah, I think so," Alex said, "Liz and Max were the only ones to ride with Grant, but I saw it at the Evans place. Why??"
"Let's search it!" Maria replied, running ahead as soon as she got to the bottom of the ladder. "He might have had healing stones in it!!"
Michael felt as if he'd missed a step. "Well, I suppose anything's possible, but why?"
"Come on," Alex hurried Michael along. "These healing stones are basic alien first-aid supplies or something, right? And Grant and Steve were heading into a dangerous mission. Why wouldn't they have brought some healing gear along?"
More hopeful now, Michael left Isabel's body laying on the ground as the three of them tore the car apart in search. "Um, Spaceboy, a little help here?" Maria called back to him from the front seat. Michael backed away from the trunk and came to see what she was talking about. It turned out to be the glove compartment, which had been locked.
Michael waved a hand over the lock, focusing on manipulating the internal mechanisms, and the compartment door popped open. A lot of papers and complicated geology handbooks, the inevitable collection of maps - a few bottles and vials Michael didn't want to know about right now, and... "Yes!!" Two familiar-looking amber crystals.
"Only two? Two people doing the healing??" Alex said over his shoulder. Michael understood his point. Admittedly, they only had three people here, if they didn't wait and hope that Max, Liz, and Kyle would be back soon, but when Michael himself had been ill, and not as badly off as Isabel, there had been four participating in the healing ritual.
"I'm one of them," Michael said softly. "I'm a hybrid, like her, and my balance is strong right now. Because she took the heat for me." He thought a moment. "It should probably be me and Maria, Alex. Your hand is hurt, we don't know if that might interfere..."
"I have to do this for her," Alex said in a low voice. Maria pur her hand on Michael's other shoulder and whispered in his ear.
"He's right. You wouldn't want to be cut out of the process if something had happened to me, or I to you. And love can work miracles."
Michael nodded in deference and passed one of the stones over to Alex. All three of them hurried back to where Isabel's body had been left.
"What now?" Maria asked nervously. "Do you need to do that thing with the water and the chant??"
"No water, unless Grant had some evian in there," Michael pointed out. "No wooden bowl."
"I think we can do this without all the external trappings," Alex said. "From what I can remeber..." and then he did a double-take. "The washer! What... no, time enough to worry about that once Isabel's all right." He sighed and tried to resume his train of thought. "Just concentrate on the stone and on your inner energy, your balance." Michael realized that though he presumed his balance was stronger, he was the one member of the group who had really no experience with these healing stones. He had been on the recieving end in River dog's cave, entirely out of it until the healing was over, and he had been inside the labyrinth while Liz and Kyle had been using the stones to boost their hybrid partners' power to help him and Maria get out.
But he concentrated, following Alex's hint, and soon enough it seemed like something was happening. The healing stone lit up in his hands, and Michael could feel his power going to Isabel, helping her, replenishing her drained reserves. Across from him, Alex's stone lit up too, and there was another stream of power buffering his own.
And then, suddenly, something was going wrong. Isabel was missing too much, and what he and Alex could provide through the stones wasn't enough. Suddenly it wasn't like they were pouring energy into her, but that something deep inside Isabel, something instinctive, primal, was *sucking* it out of them. Something that lay too far down to comprehend friendship, love, or caring, but that knew survival quite well. It was going to get enough energy for Isabel to survive or kill both of them trying.
And what if even that wasn't enough??
"What's going on here??" Michael recognized the voice, vaguely. It was Courtney. He couldn't even move his head to look at her. "What are you guys all doing out here in the middle of the night? What's wrong with my brother?? He acted like he didn't even recognize me just then." **Damnit, Courtney, not now!!**
"I got news for you babe - that wasn't your brother..."
Suddenly the conversation between Maria and Courtney -- the healing stones themselves became irrelevant as Michael felt his balance being drawn in by Isabel's...
* * * * *
Michael found himself in the middle of a snow-covered field. He caught a glimpse of himself in an ice-mirror stretching between the branches of a tree and to his surprise, he looked... older? More rugged, with a beard... like he was in his late twenties or something.
"Your ordeal is upon you, Michael Guerin." Michael jumped and found River Dog standing behind him. "I am your guide. Take the rope and pull it back that way." There was a rope and pulley hooked up to a telephone pole just next to the old Indian. One end was loose, the other stretched back in the direction River dog was pointing - into a snow-covered forest.
Michael shrugged, took a good hold of the rope, and started hauling. At first it didn't seem too hard. Then whatever was at the other end pulled the rope taught, and Michael really had to put some effort into it to get anywhere. He was so focused on the task at hand that he didn't hear the footsteps approaching him at first.
He looked up. It was Max, and he was holding out his hand to Michael. Michael sighed, made sure that that the rope was secure, and stretched out his hand to the guy who'd been somewhere between a best friend and a brother all of his life.
Something weird happened as their hands met. It didn't hurt, but Michael was sure that he saw blood between their hands - mixing, mingling. It actually felt good, revitalizing, which was good considering the job he had ahead of him here.
"Best team in the galaxy, huh?" Max asked with a wide smile, and then he faded out and disappeared. Michael shrugged and resumed his haul, realizing that river dog was trailing him without helping out. Well, he was old and probably didn't have much strength to spare, even if the vision quest guide's rulebook didn't prohibit direct assistance.
The next figure that Michael saw, just before he reached the tree line, was Maria. She was wearing a long wool skirt, boots, a shiny winter jacket, scarf, and knitted hat, and looked *incredibly* adorable and cute to Michael. She walked quickly up to him, wrapped his arms around him, and kissed him warmly and sweetly. It was like a little piece of heaven.
"Je t'aime toujours, Imzadi," she breathed into his ear after the kiss was done.
"Say what?" He pulled back to look into Maria's face, she smiled at him but didn't elaborate. "I'll see you soon, babe, back out in the real world, but I need to keep hauling this rope along. Isabel might not have much time." Maria continued to stare at him, but she didn't look like she was quite getting the message.
So Michael pushed her away, very gently, and Maria took a few steps back. Then there was this ominous creaking sound, and BOOM! she was gone. Michael stepped forward, appalled. He hadn't even realized that they were on an ice patch, but Maria had broken through, and it looked like she was having a hard time finding her way back to the open air.
"Maria!! It's over here," he yelled, not sure if she could hear him. Michael wasn't sure if he should try to use his powers to save her or just diving in himself.
Suddenly, there was a dark shape, swimming under the ice, and it took Maria with it. Michael felt a touch on his arm, and he turned around and stared accusingly at River Dog.
"The swimmer's magic will save her," River Dog said enigmatically. "And you must continue with your own task." Michael hated it, but he knew that his vision guide had to be right.
One footstep after another, he dragged himself onto the forest path. Just what was this he was pulling, anyway?? He saw another ice mirror, and peered into it. Maybe this one was magic or something, because he could see Tess, struggling through a blizzard, looking very lost and alone. And then the picture faded and he saw only the trees behind him.
Again. Again. Again. Michael's feet, his arms, his shoulders, his back were all killing him, probably some other parts of his body too. (Except this probably wasn't his real body here - so was his spirit killing him??) And then his foot didn't clear a root or something. WHHUMPP! Faceful of snow and dirt. Man that's nasty.
"Come on, Michael." He looked up - it was Liz, extending a hand to help him up, which he gratefully took. "It's not much further. I've gotta say, Michael, I really respect what you're doing."
Michael brushed some snow off of himself and shrugged. "It's not like I really had much choice."
"That's not how I saw it." Liz walked further down the path, and Michael shrugged and carried on in his own direction. **Not much further...* he repeated silently in his mind.
Sure enough, soon a forest glade opened before him. Finally now, Michael could see what the other end of his rope was attached to - a huge bundle of wood, which was being pushed into the glade from the opposite direction by a familiar twenty-something guy -- wait, that was Alex!! Older, just like Michael himself was in this vision. But when Michael had seen Max, Maria, Liz, even Tess, they were teenagers. Weird.
On a wide, flat space in the middle of the glade, there was a block of stone, and on top of the stone there was a person-sized cocoon. All three, the flat space, the stone, and the cocoon, were covered in snow. Alex was just pushing the wood into place near the middle of one side of the flat space, near one end of the stone, when Michael reached him. "Now what, Alex??"
"I have the key." Alex pulled out a lighter, pointed it at the wood, and suddenly the whole pile was burning in a raging bonfire. The snow around them started to melt away without leaving water behind, and Michael realized that what he had only seen as a flat space was actually a huge open book - THE book.
The cocoon opened from within, except it wasn't just a cocoon, it was like a perfect, silky chrysalis, and from within, like a butterfly, emerged Isabel. She seemed older, like Michael himself and Alex, and to Michael she had never looked more beautiful; she seemed so elegant and graceful. She was wearing a multi-colored gown, and... did she have wings? She did, Michael decided after a second, but not material ones - wings floating behind her made out of pure energy.
"Thank you," she said, stepping down off the stone and walking around the bonfire to Alex and Michael. She got to Alex first, and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply and slipping him the tongue. After about twenty seconds, (the point where Michael started feeling *really* embarrassed,) Isabel broke the kiss and stepped close to Michael, putting her arms around his chest.
Michael heard a faint tinkling around his feet, and he realized that Isabel was crying, and her tears were turning into ice and shattering. "Why are you crying??" Isabel didn't say anything. (Why could nobody answer a straight question in this loopy vision.) He reached out a hand to catch her ice-tears as they fell, and they started to melt as they came into contact with his warm skin. Then a few fell into his hand that didn't seem cold and weren't melting.
Surprised, Michael brought his hand up for closer examination. There were crystals there, but not ice crystals. They seemed like... diamonds??
* * * * *
Alex looked around, trying to get his bearings. How had he arrived here?? He was standing on a small path through a thick forest, in early spring, it looked like. How had he been moved from the desert to here?? Stepping out from between the trees appeared -- his father??
"What's going on??"
"I'm, um, your vision guide," Doctor John Whitman explained with a trace of nervousness. "Apparently. Uh, you need to start by pushing this rock, er, thataway." He pointed down the forest path.
The rock was mostly round, but with a wide flat bottom that would make rolling it awkward, and it was almost five feet high and four feet around. "Can you gimme a hand here??"
"No, I can't do anything to help Isabel directly this time," Mr. Whitman said mysteriously. "But you won't be alone - see the rope?"
There was indeed a rope wrapped around the rock, and a length of it stretched away on the far side, Alex realized. The rope pulled taut and attempted to pull the rock with it. Alex got the cue and started pushing from behind it.
After a few minute's effort and about fifteen feet's progress, the rope went slack for a bit, and Alex took a break. He noticed a pool of standing water nearby and looked into his reflection - to his surprise, he looked at least eight or nine years older!! He heard a faint voice from beyond the trees, a voice plaintively calling out for help. "Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me? It's Tess..."
"You can't find her now," John Whitman told his son. "Come on." Sure enough, the rope had gone taught again. Alex hurried over and started pushing again.
Second break. This time Alex noticed people walking up from down the path, the way he had come from. Max and Maria. "Here," Max said, taking out a little angular piece of metal and holding it out to Max. Alex held out his hand, Max put it in, and Maria followed suit with another.
"Two parts of the key you'll need," Maria explained. "Good luck. We need Isabel."
Alex shrugged, thanked them with a nod, and started pushing again. A minute or two later he noticed that he was pushing the rock past Kyle, who was standing between two kisses on the edge of the path.
"Here you go, that should finish it," Kyle said, holding out another key fragment. Alex took it. "Watch the new kid carefully."
Alex shrugged, not sure what to make of that, and when he turned around he noticed a mass of dark curls at about his chin height. He couldn't immediately make out the identity of the person, since she (or he? No, he didn't think it was a he,) was several inches shorter than he was and standing very close, so he couldn't see the face. The slender fingers of a small hand held his own hand, and a slight touch tapped him in the middle of his chest, creating a reaction that Alex couldn't immediately identify. And then she was turning away and dashing into the forest cover.
After not much more pushing Alex got the rock into a forest glade, the spring sun shining down on them. Michael was just getting into the glade too - he had been pulling the other end of the rope or something. And in the middle of the glade, on top of a giant replica of the book, was a crystal box a la snow white, and inside he could see Isabel, sleeping beautifully. He noticed suddenly that both Isabel and Michael seemed older too. (Weird.)
"Now what, Alex?" Michael asked, looking at the big rock that they had dragged here.
"I have the key," he said. It also ran through his mind that his dad had disappeared sometime just before he got into the glade. Had Michael had a guide too? He fumbled out the three metal pieces that had been given him, fitted them together into a circle, and found a matching spot on the stone where the key would fit. Suddenly the entire hunk of rock started to shine with a blue light.
Isabel woke up, effortlessly opening the lid of the case from inside, and walked towards them. "Thank you." She put her arms around Alex's neck, and kissed him passionately. He kissed back, but after what seemed like far too short a time she broke the kiss and went over to hug Michael.
"Why are you crying?" Alex heard Michael ask. And then... and then, suddenly it seemed, Alex was back in the desert. Isabel seemed unchanged, but Michael had grown some webbing himself, and was furiously trying to snatch it off of his body and throw it away.
"Come on, Iz," Alex said, bending over to look into Isabel's face through the webbing. "Come back to us!!"
And then Isabel was moving, tearing the cocoon of webbing open from the inside, dust and grit flying everywhere as it was broken. "Oh, god, Alex..." She crawled awkwardly into his arms... and Alex was once again reminded of the dead feeling in his left hand. How late was it getting?? But he shoved that thought out of his mind and focused on comforting Isabel.
"I was... I was so far away, I didn't think I'd ever be able to come back to you..." Isabel was moaning softly.
"It's okay, it's okay," he whispered reassuringly, stroking through Isabel's hair, which, like the rest of her physically, seemed full of life and none the worse for her ordeal. "We found you. We brought you back... it's alright."
Isabel turned and looked around, at Michael, who was still sitting somewhat awkwardly, the healing stone in one of his hand, and at Maria and Courtney, who were both watching. "What... what happened?" Isabel asked somewhat belatedly. "How did we get out of the tunnel?"
"Liz turned off the heat field," he told her gently, "and Michael carried you out. You had the heat stroke, like he did after going into the sweat lodge, except instantly, and worse."
"I remember... I remember stepping up to protect them from the heat," Isabel said somewhat doubtfully.
"...Which was quite a stupid idea, while we're on the subject," Michael declared, getting a glare from Alex. "Well, it was. You coulda died, Isabel."
She smiled weakly at him. "But I didn't. And because I shielded you and Max from the effects of the heat, I bet you were able to kick some skin butt, am I right?" Michael was silent, he couldn't deny *that*. "I can't use my powers to fight like the two of you can - I don't have that nerve of steel. But I could protect you two so that you could save us, and I did. And the two of you were here to bring me back."
Alex sighed with relief for that, and then got them off onto another topic, to pre-empt any further argument. "Iz... did you see anything during the healing? I did, and I think you did too, right Michael?" Michael nodded in agreement.
"Um, let's see..." Isabel closed her eyes, still relaxing in Alex's embrace, and tried to remember. "I was standing on a giant replica of the book. Max, Liz, and Maria each said something cryptic to me..." She paused here for several long moments, probably assembling the mysterious clues in her mind. "I'll go into them later. I noticed Tess, trying to get to the book, but it's like she was being dragged away by something. Kyle was a picture on the open page. And then... and then I was coming out of the cocoon, in the dream, and you and Michael were there, except you seemed older. I kissed you, Alex, and then..." She coughed and blushed. "And then... I don't remember." Alex didn't buy that for one second. The way she reacted - she remembered the end of that sequence the same way he did, with hugging Michael. She just didn't want to admit it.
"Sounds wild." All three of them looked up to the owner of the new voice, and Maria and Courtney turned around to see Max (said owner) walking towards Isabel and Alex, Liz following beside him. Kyle was still behind the wheel of his car. "So... we all good here??"
"Not bad, Maxwell," Michael said. "What about Steve, did you let the SOB get away??"
"Couldn't help it, my man," Max sighed. "He had this funky hyperdrive power that we have simply *got* to learn. Ummm... Courtney." Max turned to face the new person. "How much do you know about what's going on?"
"Only what Maria told me," Courtney said. A few stares focused on Maria, who shrugged helplessly. "That there's some weird alien invasion stuff going on, and it looks like my brother was killed and replaced by one of them. Also... from what I can tell, all you guys seem to be psychics or something??"
Max didn't challenge *that* misplaced assumption. "About your brother... that's the way it looks. I'll tell Sheriff Valenti about your brother, he... 'knows' about this sort of thing too. Are you going to be in any immediate trouble without him? Financially, I mean."
"No, the house is in my name and I'm doing okay for cash," Courtney shrugged, a stunned look on her face. "I don't know what to tell the radio station if they call to ask why Steve's not coming in to work though."
"We'll work on that," Max said softly. "For now... why don't you go on home, okay?" Courtney considered that, waved at everyone including Kyle, and went back to her car.
"We'll need to search the area," Alex said as soon as she was gone. "The washer is missing, Grant had taken it from me when Liz pulled her little kung-fu spin."
"Oh, my god," Max breathed. "I hope I didn't..." He made a 'whoosh' gesture with his hands.
"No, don't worry," Maria commented. "Grant dropped it when Liz's chair slammed into his head. I saw it slip down beneath the platform."
"But first things first." Max knelt down next to Alex, took Alex's left hand in his, and slowly unwrapped the fabric around the wounded arm. "Look at me."
* * * * *
The rush of connection images hit Max as soon as Alex locked his eyes on Max's own. Alex as a little kid - boy, he couldn't be any older than four, playing with a toy spaceship in a pretty backyard surrounded by oranging trees. Max let the memory become part of him as he focused on the healing. Alex and Isabel sitting together and looking up at the stars - this would be the Fazier woods trip, Max guessed. Before they had snuck away to investigate the 'sighting.'
Alex at twelve or thirteen, leading Maria and Liz down into a rocky canyon somewhere. The nerves in Alex's arm that Steve had so cruelly torn apart were stating to knit back together, but would they fire the same way that they had done before?? Alex touching the washer for the first time, in the UFO center. Ten years old, dressed in a black suit and sitting in a church pew - Alex's grandfather's funeral, Max somehow knew.
The images were coming more quickly now. The holding cell in the Roswell county sheriff's station, as Liz pointed a single finger and tried to explain to Alex where Max and Isabel came from. Why they were so scared. Another Isabel memory - Alex pulling the front door of his parents' house open and seeing Isabel there waiting for him, wearing a blue top -- Max wasn't sure when that was from...
And then one of those moments hit Max that seemed to transcend the term 'flash', where for a timeless moment he *became* a memory from the connection. (It had happened with Liz and her cupcake dress.)
Alex had been climbing a tree and looking down at the houses and streets below him. Alex and his parents had just moved to Roswell and he didn't have any friends here.
And then the connection was over, and Max just sat there for a second staring at Alex curling and stretching his fingers as if testing them out to make sure that they were okay.
Max would never have thought that someone human could feel the same loneliess that Max had, but there was no mistaking what he had felt from Alex. In some ways, actually, that moment had been even more intense, because as long as he could remember, Max had always had Isabel.
He couldn't find any words. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Michael who broke the silence. "Your hand okay, Alex? Then let's find that slug of yours."
TO BE CONTINUED...