When Alex looked out the limo, he saw that they were almost at their next destination. "Here's to the new year, 2001," he said, toasting the air with an imaginary glass.
"Hear, hear," Max agreed.
"Yep." Maria mimicked Alex's gesture, shooting a glance over at Michael.
Michael reluctantly produced an imaginary glass and 'clinked' it to Maria's. "Hell of a bash."
----------
(December 31 2000. About seven thirty PM.)
"Tunes?"
"Check," Alex called out.
"Food?" Maria asked next.
"Most of it's all ready," Isabel replied. "Liz should be on her way back with the last of it right now."
"Ummm..." Maria frowned, and spun about, obviously trying to recognize anything that she might be forgetting. "Uh - entertainment?"
"That would be the whole point of the party, Maria," Michael put in sarcastically, but he was grinning fondly at her.
"You know what I mean..." she muttered, but a few people shook their heads. "Movies, we've got the big-screen and vcr in here, we could get some tapes in case anybody wants to watch something."
"I'm not sure I'd call that a big screen," Kyle pointed out.
"It's bigger than what I've got at home," Maria shot back. The entertainment center in the lounge had a television that was probably thirty-two inches.
"I can go and find a video store," Max offered.
"Thanks, Max," Maria said with a grateful nod. "Umm... games or something?"
"Baby." Michael swept Maria into his arms quickly, then let her go and looked deeply into her eyes. "You're over-structuring. Everything's going to be great, we'll have an amazing time."
Maria smiled. "Okay, so... what's left?"
"Just to get into our fancy duds and get started," Alex said with a smile.
"Oh -- do you think..." Maria checked quickly, and it was clear in a moment that Max had already left. "D'you think Liz and Max will mind if we start without them?"
"Nope," Isabel answered. "I've got Liz's outfit in our place, she can get changed there. How long do we need to leave you to get ready, Tess?" Tess and Liz's luggage was still in the lounge, now A.K.A party central.
Tess smiled a bit. "Oh, not long. Ten minutes?"
Alex waved at the others and quickly headed back to his room, with Michael right behind him as he, and everybody else, was doing the same thing. Alex's outfit (china blue long sleeved shirt, dark navy pants,) had been picked out by Isabel before they left. From Michael's outfit (lavender shirt with a slate gray suit jacket and pants,) he couldn't tell if Maria had had any input on it.
"Hey," Alex said as they waited for the last of the ten minutes to run out. "Here's to the millennium, huh?"
Michael nodded. "Hope I live to see another one."
Alex couldn't help but laugh.
----------
(Ten minutes to eight.)
The party was in full swing by now - a pretty cool jazz cd was on, and Liz had just poked her head in, delivered a tray full of miniature sandwiches, and said she'd be back in a few minutes.
Despite what Michael had said to Maria about over-structuring, (or possibly in line with what he had said, depending on how you looked at it,) somebody had found a box set of Trivial Pursuit, and Alex, Isabel, Tess, and Kyle were starting a game. Michael and Maria were dancing, and Jim Valenti was watching something on the television quietly.
Alex knew that Isabel and Liz had gone out shopping for special outfits for the party that afternoon - it was the only reason Iz hadn't gone to the amusement park with them, after all - or at least, it was the only reason that Alex knew of. Why exactly they had decided they needed new clothes Alex wasn't exactly clear on - they had always been planning to have a fancy dress-up party for new year's eve, in Mexico. They'd all come prepared.
But he couldn't exactly argue with the results. Iz looked incredible. Impulsively, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek while Kyle was considering his answer.
"Trying to butter me up will get you nowhere," she mumbled softly. "You're gonna lose, Whitman. I'm the trivia queen."
As the game continued, Alex idly took inventory of the outfits of the rest of the group. Kyle, having no sweetie to take him to task for clashing, (or none here in Arizona, at least,) was wearing a white short-sleeved dress shirt, olive pants, and a big technicolor necktie. Tess was decked out demure and pretty in a simple aqua dress with a modest scoop neck and a hem that reached almost to her knees. And Maria was looking hot to trot in a silky red blouse and a matching short skirt, with her hair pinned up all sexy.
Mister Valenti was wearing a fairly simple and severe suit, of course.
"Umm... Whitman? Your turn?" Kyle prompted, and Alex turned back to the Pursuit a little sheepishly and rolled the die. Hmm... no Science, no entertainment... that just figured. He had a choice between sports, sports, and art. Somewhat reluctantly, he moved counter-clockwise to Art.
Tess removed a card with his question on it. "Which British artist is known most for his quote 'problem pictures', like 'Death sentence' and 'The fallen idol'?"
"Ohh, yeesh," Isabel muttered.
"Umm..." It seemed somewhat familiar to Alex. "Was it... oh, my god. Liz?"
"Uh, incorrect," Tess quipped.
"What?" Kyle turned to look in the direction that Alex was staring, and promptly went a little glassy-eyed himself.
Liz had just come back into the party room, dressed in the outfit she had bought while shopping with Isabel earlier that day - a white spandex pantsuit that clung in all the right places and yet seemed... flowing, somehow. It was the extra fabric that hung loose around her forearms and calves, Alex decided after a moment -- like a double bell-bottom effect but somehow not nearly so corny.
Liz Parker had never seemed quite so radiantly beautiful, and that was a pretty hard bar to leap over.
It wasn't just the clothes, either - she seemed to shine, somehow, with some soft and unearthly radiance, and her long dark hair sparkled like the stars of the night sky were hidden deep within. She seemed taller than usual -- though that could be the black high-heeled shoes, which she walked in with surprising grace.
Alex shook himself back to some semblance of poise as Liz approached. "Hey, guys," she said with a wide smile. "Can I kibitz until Max gets here?"
"Shuvavvah," Kyle mumbled. Tess elbowed him in the ribs in a sisterly gesture.
"Sure, Liz," Isabel said with a mysterious smile. She didn't even seem upset about Alex's momentary reaction to Liz's entrance - though he never really gave her any serious reason to be jealous, Alex supposed. Plus, maybe she had suggested Liz's outfit and was just pleased with herself that it was a hit.
"So... I guess the question is still to you, Alex," Tess said with a joking sigh. "Do you need me to repeat it?"
"Uhh, no," Alex let out a soft moan himself. Whatever flash of intuition had almost connected, it was lost now, he knew that. "Vincent Van Gogh," he guessed off the top of his head.
"No, John Collier," Tess reported, and Alex groaned - he had known that one, very vaguely.
"Well, your turn baby," he said, passing the die to his lovely girlfriend and taking the question box from Tess in turn. Isabel rolled only a two, and scowled - she hadn't had much luck getting to a headquarters space either.
Max showed up about one and a half times around the circle of players later - carrying a bag of video rentals and dressed in an actual tuxedo, definitely making him the spiffiest out of all the guys. Liz ran up to him for a passionate kiss... (which young Mister Evans certainly returned eagerly after he got a look at his sweetheart,) dimmed the lights, and led him out onto the dance floor.
----------
(Around nine.)
"Hmmm..." Michael considered the card he had just drawn from the stock, and then pulled the jack of spades out of the collection he held in his hands and laid it down on the discard pile.
Alex paused, trying not to seem too eager, and picked that jack up, replacing it with a seven of hearts. Michael scowled, ignored the seven, and drew from the stock again.
The party was still going on strong across the hall, but Michael had asked Alex if he was up for a game of Gin Rummy, which Alex no longer even questioned as a request for a private conference on alien-related affairs.
"I'm worried about the notion that former special unit operatives are obviously still working together," MIchael muttered as he made his next discard. "I went over Nasedo's diary again last night."
"I figured," Alex said softly. He had noticed Michael holding the watch silently while Alex had been preparing for bed. "What did you find out?"
"Well, that he went to a lot of trouble to try to stop that from happening; even sent an anonymous tip to FBI internal affairs and the USA Attorney's office. That the special unit personnel were accustomed to working well outside the book and might try to work together to continue the mission, even after Congress suspended funding and officially disbanded the unit."
"Hmm." Alex considered that. "I agree that it's not ideal, but what can we do?"
"What can we ever do?" Michael groaned. "Be careful. Especially since if there's anyone else who might be investigating the former Special Unit personnel, they might find us if the Special Unit is still looking for us."
Alex knocked on the table, and MIchael shot him an uncertain look. "In the game, I'm knocking," Alex cued. He spread his cards out onto the table - two runs, a group of fives, and one lone two as deadwood.
Michael sighed. He had a run too, as well as four queens, and could lay off a six against one of Alex's runs, but was left with fourteen. "Okay, that's the first deal to you," he reiterated. "Game to one hundred."
But as it happened, well before they made it to the end of the game, the phone in the hotel room rang. "Hello?" Michael said, answering it. "No, Kyle Valenti isn't here... yeah, you wouldn't have gotten an answer in his room either -- Can you tell me who's there?" Judging by the growl deep in Michael's throat, whoever was at the other end, probably the attendant at the hotel front desk, could not do that. "Okay, put it through across the hall, in the suite lounge." He hung up the phone and stood, leaving his cards on the table. "Come on."
By the time Michael and Alex got back to the lounge, Kyle was already on the phone. "Who is it?" Michael called out.
"Just a sec," Kyle said into the phone, and then took the receiver away from his mouth, covering it. "It's Courtney! She's here - she's right downstairs."
"How... how did she know you'd be here?" Tess asked.
"Well..." Kyle blushed a little. "I sent her an email last night, from that little internet kiosk in the lobby -- I had no idea if she'd even check her inbox, but I really didn't expect her to come out here." He turned to look at Max and his father. "I know that this wasn't in the plan, but can she come up? She drove all this way..."
"Looks like she really does have a thang for you," Maria stage whispered.
Jim shrugged. "Umm... yeah, she can join the party, as far as I'm concerned," Max said. "All necessary precautions should be observed, of course." That was clearly a reference to talking about things that an outsider shouldn't hear.
"Well, where's she going to sleep?" Isabel asked. "No way we can get another female crashing anywhere here."
"We'll work it out," Jim assured her. "Kyle, you wanna maybe go down and escort her up?" Kyle was off like a shot.
Liz and Max started playing some sort of video game on the entertainment center against Michael and Kyle, and Isabel and Jim were just sitting and listening to some music over by the stereo, so Maria and Alex were the only ones to greet Courtney and Kyle when they arrived. "Hey. Amooz boosh?" Maria said, offering a tray of tiny little pieces of finger food for them to help themselves.
"Ummm... thanks," Courtney said with an awkward smile. "And thanks for letting me crash the private party."
"Not at all, actually I really respect you for driving all this way without so much as calling to tell us you were coming," Maria replied with a straight face.
"Well, um, Kyle mentioned which hotel you guys were staying at, but I couldn't find a phone number." Courtney shrugged cutely. "I asked for directions once I made it into town."
"Well, that's okay," Alex said with a smile. "So... man, these things are tasty! Anyone know what's in them?"
----------
(Quarter to eleven PM.)
"Ohhh!" Michael called out as the shadowy figure wearing dark clothes shot out foot-long claws from his knuckles and assumed a fighting posture. "It's go time!"
And sure enough, Wolverine leapt after Mystique, who countered with a duck and some kind of surprisingly skilled martial arts move. Max and Alex joined in with the cheer. 'X-men' was definitely the movie hit of the evening - at least for the guys, although Isabel was grooving on the, well, the 'alienation' theme, as it were.
Tess was starting to look a little bored, so Liz quietly took her aside and led her to the girls' bedroom. Tess sat down on one of the beds, an unreadable expression on her face. Liz smiled a little uncomfortably.
"So... are we ever going to talk about this?" Liz asked.
"Umm... talk about what?"
"You know what I'm talking about," Liz answered. "We... in the forest, down there in Puerto Penasco. We saved each other's lives." She dropped down into a chair."
"Yeah." Tess lowered her eyes.
"So, I guess the question is... what do we do about that?"
"I don't know," Tess admitted. "In the 'Cluster' books, among the Polarians, when two people save each other's lives, they have exchanged debt and are almost like brothers or sisters."
"Uhh... huh?" Liz blinked, and picked a question to ask first. "The what books?"
"Cluster," Tess said. "Far-out science fiction, Piers Anthony. All kinds of strange alien races, and people's auras, their identities, jumping from planet to planet." Liz couldn't think of anything to say for a moment, and Tess added, "I know it's corny, but I like them, okay? For one thing, it's a good feeling to read and say 'no matter what, I'm 99.9 sure my home planet isn't as weird as this."
Liz laughed at that. "So... what happens after the debt exchange?"
"It kind of depends on the situation. Traditionally, the participants... well, they mate, and breed, and have a child, and that completes the exchange. The polarian species doesn't have the concept of romantic love, so a child of debt-exchange is considered the most special or unique kind of mating."
Liz was frowning by this point... "So, what about us, I mean, two girls, would we have to..."
"I don't think so," Tess said quickly. "There's a reference in the Hyades conference chapter that if two male Polarians, say, exchanged debt, they would find two females who had also exchanged a debt and switch partners. But I know a lot of fans of the books don't like that - it sidesteps around the circular immediacy that's the appeal of the Polarian philosophy... and that isn't really the point, is it?" she finished trailingly.
Liz laughed a little. "No, I don't think so. Well, what I'm hearing is that unless we want to find two guys who've also saved each other's lives and have their children, this Piers guy doesn't have much guidance to offer?"
"No, I guess not." Tess smiled wanly back. "Seriously... thank you. Somehow I never really believed that you would be there -- for me, you know."
"Well, hey, you stepped up first," Liz reminded her. "And if you hadn't... well, then, assuming you'd have still fallen off that cliff, there would have been no-one there to rescue you and you'd have died too, so would've served you right." Tess shrugged. "Seriously, I had a better reason than you did. I know how important you are to Max, and to Michael, and Isabel. Even if you do drive them up the wall sometimes."
"Oh, yeah, and they wouldn't have cared if you'd died," Tess said softly. "And I'd only care because they cared."
Liz blinked in surprise. Had Tess been saying, indirectly, what it seemed as if she'd said?
"Maybe... what this all means, is that we'll actually become friends," Liz whispered after a moment, hardly believing that her own voice was saying the words.
Tess looked up in surprise. "Well... stranger things have happened," she joked.
"Yeah. I think you're one of them," Liz shot back.
"I think... I'd like that," Tess returned to the subject. "I could use a friend - a human friend, a girl human friend. I-- I still have problems with this 'being human' thing, and from what I can tell, you rock at it." Liz could feel a flush stinging her cheeks. "But I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to subject yourself to that."
Liz grinned as she got up from the chair, sat down onto the bed next to the blonde girl and threw an arm around her shoulders. "Let's take it one baby step at a time."
----------
(11:30)
The lights were turned down low. Max and Liz were out on the dance floor, as were Kyle and Courtney. Alex and Isabel were talking on the couch, and Michael and Maria were quietly watching some of her favorite scenes from 'The truman show.'
A song ended on the stereo, and there was a silence, stretching just long enough out to be spooky. In the dimness, Liz shot a look at Max, (who had mixed the CD that was playing,) but he just smiled enigmatically.
A pretty melody on string instruments sprang forth, meandering its way quickly down through deeper and deeper octaves until making a landing on what would have to be cellos if not a double bass or two, before starting to rise again accompanied by other orchestral instruments. Isabel looked at Alex, and he offered his hand to her; they rose, as one, and began to move slowly to the music. The persistent beat of a snare drum began to make its presence known, somehow definitely not a part of the orchestra but something else. It seemed to have fun fading in and out, (the drum that is.) Finally the orchestra faded away, to be replaced by the irrepressible sounds of a music synthesizer, still vaguely carrying on the ever-changing melody though.
One lone string instrument returned - a viola, carrying a haunting harmony tune, with perhaps a bass guitar supporting it. Michael and Maria had gotten up and joined the other couples by the point a human voice finally sang out.
"I didn't hear you leave...
I wonder how am I still here."
The drum beat seemed to match its rhythm to Alex's pulse, (or was that the other way around,) as he playfully dipped Isabel back.
"And I don't wanna move a thing.
It might change my memory.
Oh I am what I am.
I'll do what I want
But I... can't hide..."
Max let Liz go for a second, and she spun around incredibly, and then returned to his arms.
"I won't go. I won't sleep.
I can't breathe, until you're
Resting here with me.
And I won't leave; I can't hide...
I cannot be,
Until you're resting here with me."
Courtney and Kyle were dancing arm in arm and arm in arm, staring into each other's eyes like there wasn't anybody else in the entire world.
"Don't wanna call my friends:
They might wake me from this dream.
And I can't leave this bed,
Risk forgetting all that's been."
Michael and Maria were off in their own little world too, their bodies moving so sensually to the music that you could almost see their passion.
"Oh I am what I am.
I'll do what I want, but
I-I can't hide--
And I won't go.
I won't sleep.
I can't breathe - until you're resting here with me.
I won't leave, I cannot hide.
I can't be, until you're resting here,
And I won't go.
I won't sleep!
I can't breathe - until you're resting here with me."
Liz and Max seemed to be glowing softly as they spun about, her head resting on his shoulder.
"I won't leave, n' I can't hide.
I cannot be, until you're resting here,
With me..."
And Jim and Tess watched the dance.
----------
(Almost midnight.)
"Watch the clock, people," Isabel called out, gesturing to the large wall timepiece above the doorway from the lounge into the hall, which read five or six minutes until the arrival of the new millennium.
"Hey, Maria," Kyle said, quickly coming up to her. "Sorry, Court wanted me to ask you something, as far as rooms..."
"Um, yeah?" Maria said as she turned around, a little surprised. Michael backed away subtly.
"Yeah, uh... she's got a credit card to pay for her own rooms, and since all the rooms here have two beds, she was thinking she could take a roommate and that means only one girl has to sleep in the lounge tonight. Do you mind rooming with her?"
Maria blinked. "No, I guess not. Why me?"
"Well, I guess she knows you best, from all the time you've spent working together at the cafe." Kyle shrugged.
"The house is in her name, money to throw away on hotel rooms... Kyle, is your girlfriend loaded?" Maria teased.
Kyle paused for a second. "I haven't really thought about it. She doesn't seem to be struggling for anything. Could be all the ill-gotten gains of her fake brother, I suppose."
Maria nodded idly and let that one pass. "So, me with Courtney... any idea who should be in here?"
"Umm..." Kyle lowered his voice and moved closer. "Probably Isabel, since Tess was on guard duty last night, you know..." His eyes flicked only once, meaningfully, to the large object wrapped in white sheets, underneath the couch.
"Ohhh." Maria had forgotten about the air-sled entirely, but apparently Courtney hadn't noticed it, which was all for the good.
"So..." Michael was muttering in a low voice to Isabel, meanwhile. "Tess said you'd be ready to start poking into Max's marbles once we got back to Roswell?"
"I dunno," Isabel groaned, also in a low voice. "I'll let you know when I've got any information, okay?"
"Sorry, sorry," Michael disclaimed. "Didn't mean to upset you."
"Hey," Alex said as he drifted by Liz. "Best wishes and all that."
"You too," Liz told him with a smile. "You've been such a good friend this past year, don't ever change."
"Ummm..." I saw Liz dragging you off while the movie was wrapping up," Max said, carefully edging closer to where Tess was sitting on a chair beside a telephone table. "Was it more screaming or just repressed hostility?"
"Max..."
"No, come on," he said, overriding Tess' attempts to interrupt. "Liz agreed that she would stop getting on your case, and if she isn't living up to that, I do want to know about..."
"It wasn't like that at all," Tess finally managed to put in. "It was good stuff - trust me."
Max's face screwed up in confusion. "Good stuff?"
"Yeah." Tess laughed softly. "We're debt sisters now, and we're going to try to become friends - real friends."
Max blinked in surprise. "Well... I'm really glad to h--"
At that moment a huge cheer seemed to break out from everywhere around them, and Liz looked at the clock instinctively. Still three minutes to midnight. "What the..."
"It's wrong, the clock is wrong!" Michael exclaimed, looking at a watch he had pulled out of a pocket somewhere. "It's after midnight!"
Everyone looked at each other in shock. "We never checked the clock?" Maria mumbled to herself. But it was pretty obvious that no-one had really had reason to.
"Okay, come on," Liz called out. "It still counts if we kiss within a minute. Max!" She practically ran into him, french kissing her special guy with wild abandon.
Michael and Alex practically ran into each other too, trying to hook up with their respective sweeties. "Courtney!" Kyle called out, looking back and forth as if expecting her to pop up from behind the footrest.
"I'm here!" she sang out, coming in from the girls' bedroom. "Sorry, I just had to... what's..." That's as far as she got before Kyle wrapped her up in his strong arms and kissed her soundly.
"Uhh... huh?"
"Happy new year," Kyle whispered, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair out of her face.
----------
(January 1st 2001... a little past one in the afternoon.)
"Okay," Max called out from behind the wheel of the Jeep... "what do you think, right or left here?"
Courtney and Maria called out "Right" at the same time as Kyle said "Straight ahead." A few second later, Tess chimed in "Left."
"Right it is." The five of them had headed out to explore Sierra Vista after lunch at the hotel's restaurant... looking for something to see, something to do, or someplace to shop... none of which was particularly easy on the new year's day holiday. But Max, for one, was content just to explore and sightsee... and there was a largely unspoken agreement to keep Courtney, the outsider, away from their rooms at the hotel for the afternoon while the rest of the group 'hung out' at their home away from home.
"So... stop me if I'm getting too close to a sensitive area or anything..." Maria continued. "But I feel like I've known you for months and still I hardly know you at all." Maria had been subtly grilling the girl for the past twenty minutes... where she'd grown up, what her parents had been like, why she thought her brother had moved to Roswell (before finding out that her brother had been replaced by an alien impostor, that was.)
"Hey, I don't mind," Courtney insisted. "I kinda like talking about myself, in case you hadn't noticed. So... what's next?"
"Umm... did you ever go to summer camp?" Tess pitched in.
"Yeah, yeah... when we were living in Indiana, for three weeks every summer we went up to this place called... um, oh -- what was it." Courtney's face scrunched up a little in thought. "Yeah, 'Camp Bosley.'"
"Like the guy in Charlie's Angels?" Maria asked.
"Yeah... nobody knew why it was called that, but it was a pretty cool place. Up in the hills a little... there was a river but no lake - Steve always disapproved of that. He said that a summer camp should be next to a lake... he'd gone to another camp before we got there, that I'd been too young for. But there was hiking and campfires and weird things like candle-making and clay sculpture... and staying up all night telling ghost stories. I always lived it there." She sighed a little. "What about you, Kyle, did you ever go to summer camp?"
"Umm... yeah, just, er, just once," Kyle muttered. "Don't exactly have good memories."
"What, it wasn't any fun?"
"Actually, it was a lot of fun, that wasn't the problem. You see..." Kyle trailed off again. Tess shot Max a wondering glance in the rear-view mirror.
"This was camp Lidibeekah, right?" Maria asked. Kyle nodded. "Do you want me to tell them?" Kyle looked surprised, but signalled his agreement again.
"He went there for about a month and a half," Maria explained softly. "When his dad came up to take him back, he got home and found out that his mom had moved out of the house."
"Oh, man!" Courtney exclaimed in surprise. "That stinks!"
"And of course, later on there was football camp," Kyle mumbled, clearly wanting to change the subject. "But that was really less like a summer camp and more like a big long... football practice. Not to say that it wasn't fun... football practice can be fun. But not..."
"What's your favorite color and why?" Courtney called out, obviously trying to give Kyle a better subject change. "Uhh, start with you, Tess."
"Ummm... uh." Tess stalled out for a bit, and then blurted out. "Uhhh... brown, because it looks warm and safe. That sounded corny, right?"
"No, it's good," Maria assured her. "Max?"
"Hey, why do you get to say that we go counter-clockwise," Kyle interrupted. "You just don't want to have to go next."
"Still, she called it first," Courtney put in.
"Um, I don't mind," Max said. "Umm... I'll go with brown too, because it's got a little bit of every color in it, it's inclusive."
"Green," Kyle put in. "Because things that are green grow, and we all need to grow."
"Okay, now me," Courtney admitted. "I'll go with yellow, because the sun's yellow and I have to admit I have a soft spot for the sun."
"Umm... blue," Maria finished up. "Because it's peaceful and cool, and... I just like it, that's all."
"Hey, check it out, looks like something's open!" Tess said, pointing a finger at a sign ahead of them.
Max continued on a bit further and came to a complete stop nearly underneath the large marquee. "The dearest gift of winter, presented by the Cochise County amateur players club," Kyle read out. "Last day. 2 pm and 7:30 pm. We're in time for the matinee."
"Amateur acting?" Maria asked.
"Come on, it'll be fun," Max urged her. "A new experience."
"Okay," Maria sighed.
"Come on," Courtney urged. "If they charge for the tickets, it's on me. Snacks too, if they have anything."
----------
(Two thirty in the pm...)
"Okay, so what are we doing here?" Isabel said, looking at the airsled, now uncovered and sitting in the middle of the lounge, where a large space had been cleared out.
"I dunno." Michael shrugged. "Why don't we start with you getting in and seeing if you can hover all right?"
Isabel turned to look at Valenti and Alex, who both nodded encouragingly. Frowning just a little, she walked over to the alien device, squatted down next to it, and made a big grumble of climbing in, folding her long jean-clad legs awkwardly into the small seat. Finally she stopped fidgeting and looked up at Michael. "Okay... now how did you do this?"
"Umm... I think that big red thing is the main ignition," Michael, said, pointing out a particular piece of crystal on the sled's 'control panel,' a large octagon. "Try touching it and making a connection."
"Okay." Isabel reached out a few fingers and tried to force something to happen. For a few long moments there was nothing, but as she relaxed the sensation came through her of incredible power, hers to command. Mental note, don't try too hard with this thing. "Okay, so where's the vertical lift..." All of a sudden Isabel KNEW what the appropriate feature was, and she didn't even have to touch it, just look at the diamond-blue oblong about as long as her finger and as thick as two of them. Just look at it and think about what she wanted. The sled lifted smoothly into the air, carrying Isabel with it, and hovered about four feet off the ground.
"Cool," Michael said. "Come on, Mister V, let's try the back seats." Michael waved to the spots behind the drivers' seat on the sled where it looked like two people could perch and ride on the back of the sled.
Isabel dipped a bit lower so that they could get on easily, and she felt the sled generating extra lift to support their weight, but it seemed well capable of handling the load. "How's the fit?"
"Not the comfiest of seats, but I can handle it fine," Michael decided. "Especially if I'm in a hurry -- I know we really haven't had a chance to put this baby through time trials or anything, but I'm betting it can MOVE."
"I dunno," Isabel frowned. "Not sure I'd want to break any speed limits with people perching on the back like that. What if you couldn't hang."
"I'm not sure that's possible," Valenti said softly. "This looks precarious, but I'm sure that there's something holding me in securely. Mister Whitman, care to try knocking me off?" He sat back, obviously not wanting to do anything that might signal to the sled that he actually WANTED to get up, which might in turn deactivate the alien seat belt or whatever he was talking about. Try as he might, Alex couldn't dislodge him or Michael, though pushing and shoving them this way and that was clearly uncomfortable for them.
"Okay." Michael stepped back off the sled in one smooth motion, and Alex had to supress a slight groan at seeing how well the auto deactivate could do what he couldn't. "By the way, Alex, anything in the washer about this little baby?"
"Thought you'd never ask," Alex replied with a smile. "I couldn't get anything until I'd actually seen the sled, but a lot of good stuff has been coming in since. Definitely this was one of the most important tools they prepared for you guys to use, at the same time as they were preparing to send the four of you here to Earth. I'm not sure of its full powers, but I'm pretty sure that we haven't seen or guessed at its full capabilities yet."
"Hmmm." Michael thought about that. "Okay, well, we've seen transportation, surveillance, concealment... we're pretty sure that it has an energy weapon even though we haven't had a chance to test that yet. Umm... communication system?"
"Seems likely," Alex agreed, turning to Isabel. "Any notion..."
"Communications channel," Isabel agreed, touching a tiny purple glitter on the control board. "Open and standing by... but I'm not quite sure how it works."
"I'll go across the hall into... umm, Max and Kyle's room," Michael suggested, "and you try to communicate with me." Isabel nodded, and he disappeared out the door. Isabel wondered briefly why he hadn't tried his own room, and then realized that the other was further - Michael and Alex's room was right across the hall from the lounge. "Hello, Michael, can you hear me?" She repeated the attempted communique mentally, but didn't get any response or even any certainty that Michael was getting her message. A few minutes later, when he returned, frustrated, it became clear that he hadn't.
"I'm not sure that it's that easy," Isabel said. "I think there has to be some kind of receiver... tranceiver, activated at the other end, before it can work."
"Any idea what kind of tranceiver?" Alex asked, and Isabel paused, then shook her head. "Well, going over what we've got..." he thought for a second. "The orbs? Maybe they do double duty for this, all by themselves."
"Maybe," Jim allowed. "But it's just as likely that the Special Unit took the tranceivers and still has them, or that Harding buried them in one of the caches around Roswell."
"Yet another reason that we need to find those caches and see what's there," Michael muttered.
"If it's that easy," Isabel said. "If they're secured, we may have a had time figuring how to get them open safely."
"We'll find a way," Alex assured her. "Now... back to the sled. What can we check for next?"
"Defensive system," Valenti suggested. Michael looked at him with his 'smart remark' face, but Valenti continued before he spoke. "Not the energy weapon. More like... protection."
Isabel liked the idea, and almost instantly it seemed that the sled, (and herself and Valenti, who was still riding on the back,) were surrounded by an enclosure of swirling power, vaguely white.
"Wow," Alex said, and his voice was a little distorted, like echo-ey. "We can't even see your faces in there -- which will be handy for the whole secrecy thing."
"We can see you almost perfectly," Valenti reported.
"Wow, even your voice is camoflaged, Isabel," Michael said. "All rumbly and booming." Isabel stifled a rude snicker. Michael picked up a heavy brass bookend from the mantel, (though there were no books to 'end' there,) and tossed it lightly at the force field, and it bounced softly off. Valenti dug in a pocket, came up with his gun, made sure that the safety was on and tossed it out - it passed through the field like it was nothing -- which in a way it was, Isabel supposed.
"Okay, that's enough testing the force field," Alex said warningly. "We could hurt something - though probably not the ship."
Iz let the field drop. "Mister Valenti, get off," she advised.
"What? Oh..." without a word he stepped off and a few steps away, and Isabel settled the sled back down to ground level and let the power in its systems die away, climbing back out. "I think that's enough for today. My legs are killing me."
"Maybe Tess should be the driver," Michael commented absently. "She's a little bitty person compared to the two of us."
"Or Liz," Alex volunteered. "You guys seem to be assuming that only aliens can make the sled go, but Liz proved that we can shoot the alien raygun, right? This seems to be the same thing -- power triggered, but not necessarily excluding the latent HUMAN power..."
"Do you want to give it a try, Man?" Michael asked, waving at the sled.
Alex looked down momentarily at his long gangly legs, remembering the complaints of everyone to drive the sled so far, all long-legged like himself. But he was defending the honor of the human race here, or something stupid like that. "Let's go." He climbed in and touched the red crystal, concentrating on making it work the same way that he fired the ruby laser weapon.
But there was no response. After a long awkward moment, he turned to Isabel. "There some trick to this?" he asked hopefully.
"Not really... just relax and let it come."
Alex tried again, with no better result.
"I hate to say it, but this might be very different from the blaster gun, Alex," Michael pointed out. "Sure, it's power-activated, but it's also as if it dials directly into my brain. So maybe it needs an Aztan brain, or a hybrid one. And maybe the power family has to be more specific..."
"I get it," Alex interrupted, trying to keep the hurt if not the frustration out of his voice. "No humans allowed."
"Or maybe humans just have to do something a little different, to make up for the mental link not working the sae way," Isabel said, walking over and holding his shoulder comfortingly. "We can keep trying if you want."
"Maybe later," Alex grumbled, getting out. "So... any other business for today?"
"Nothing I can think of right now," Valenti said. Michael shook his head uncertainly.
"Actually, I have something else," Isabel mentioned. "Been racking my brain to see if there was something we could have done to keep that guy from getting the jump on us down in Mexico, and I've hit on an idea. A perimeter detection field. Wanna help us try it out?"
"Sure," Alex agreed, all of his resentment about the sled forgotten in the appearance of a new caper. "How does it work?"
"Well, I'm not quite sure yet," Isabel said. "Why don't we go out and try to find someplace to try a few experiments?"
(six in the evening...)
Liz sighed contendly and leaned against the railing a bit, and admired the view in front of her, the sun beginning to set amidst the various buildings of the small Arizona town. It had been an incredible trip... a scary and tragic journey in parts, but definitely worthwhile overall, for a couple of reasons that she would never have guessed at or expected beforehand, as well as the ones that they had all been expecting. And one of the most UNEXPECTED developments had been...
In an incredible example of pure synchronicity, there was a tap on the patio doors at that moment, and when she turned to look, it was Tess Harding waving shyly from the other side. Liz hadn't locked the patio door, (it seemed a little weird that the door went that way, but made sense - this way the balcony could be a convenient location to get some privacy, whereas if the lock had gone only the other way it would have only served to keep someone locked out on the balcony. Of course, a lock on the apartment side was critical to keep cat burglars out, she supposed... and she was mentally babbling to herself.) Quickly Liz nodded to Tess, who opened the door, stepped out, and locked it behind her. Liz smiled a little to herself at the notion that Tess had checked to see if it was okay to intrude on her.
"So... didja come out for the view or for me?" she asked the blonde girl with a smile.
"Umm... err, a little of both," Tess said, sweeping her gaze across the western horizon. "Mostly you, I suppose."
"Okay, what did you want to say to me?"
Tess didn't answer for more han a minute... maybe two. "I guess first off, I wanted to thank you."
"Thank me?" Liz repeated, susrprised. Again, there was a pretty long pause from Tess, who was looking off the side of the railing, to where other balconies were poking from the hotel wall here and there.
"You included me... you made sure that everyone else included me. You made me feel like I belonged." She sighed, but it was a mostly happy smile, and when she turned around Liz was not at all surprised to see a smile on her face. "Michael's been doing that too, ever since that night in Mexico... you didn't say anything to him about me, did you?"
"Michael? About you? No," Liz admitted. "When has he been making a particular effort to include you?"
Tess thought about that. "Well, first was the amusement park yesterday, and the party last night. He just told me that I have to try out the air sled as soon as possible. Courtney's otherwise occupied, by the way."
"I know," Liz mentioned, her gaze sweeping across the concealing trees she had seen Courtney and Kyle walking amongst and into about fifteen minute ago. "Well... wait a minute. Yesterday morning -- when Michael took over your guard shift in the lounge."
"Yeah?" Tess replied.
"I saw something out of the corner of my eye as I was waking up, wouldn't swear to it, but... your journal was on the table there, right? Do you suppose that might have anything to do with Michael's change of heart?"
Tess thought about it for a moment, with a gathering sense of shock. "You mean... you think he read it?" Liz nodded slightly. "I'll kill him!" She turned back towards the patio doors. Liz reached out and touched her hand to Tess' forearm.
"I wouldn't. You said he's been treating you nicer, right? Well, for invasion of privacy, we can pay him back, friendly-like." Liz grinned and rubbed her hands together. "Trust me."
"It... it's just--" Tess sighed. "I want to build a relationship right with Michael and the others - I don't want them to treat me nice because they pity me."
"I don't think it's pity," Liz told her. "We've all become so used to thinking of you as a little firecracker who doesn't need anything from anybody... I'm sure it just never occured to Michael to think that you were upset at being left out. I know it didn't really sink in for me until recently."
"Really?" Tess asked, though Liz wasn't quite sure what part of her ramble she was asking for confirmation on, or it it was all of the above.
"Yup. And I'll tell you another thing... I almost didn't recognize you this afternoon. You were all... so sweet and friendly and everything!"
Tess swatted at her lightly with a few fingers.
"No, really," Liz continued. "I have to admit... or, at least I'd like to admit... do you think we have enough friendship for a little honesty here?"
"Only one way to find out," Tess replied. "Nothing TOO brutal yet, though... okay?" she added with a nervous laugh.
"I caught myself thinking today... 'See, Tess can be nice. She just never used to be nice to me.'" Liz looked like she was about to say something else, but couldn't figure out what, and ended up letting that thought speak for itself.
Tess scrunched up her face in a way that Liz surprisingly found cute... (in a platonic way, of course.) "I guess I deserve that." Liz shrugged apolagetically, not arguing.
"But, the way I see it, the point is how you're learning to act NOW," she pointed out helpfully.
"Thanks," Tess told Liz. "Well, I'd better go and..."
"Don't," Liz blurted out suddenly. "Just -- stay and watch the sunset, huh?" The desert sun had just dipped beneath the horizon, and a deep red was starting to come out, silhouetting the downtown of Sierra Vista gorgeously.
Tess smiled at Liz and leaned onto the railing beside her, watching.
(Back to Oct 20th 2001)
"Yeah, it was quite a trip," Max agreed. "Probably good that there wasn't anything more that happened... the drive home the next day was pretty dull, right?"
"Yeah, just time to decompress I think," Maria agreed.
"I remember my mom asking me about the trip..." Max started, but he got interrupted.
"Hey, we aren't moving," Alex pointed out. He peered out the window "Not at Kyle's place... what the heck?" Ahead and to the right brake lights were visible. "What's happening?"
Michael pushed the button to lower the partition to the driver's area. "What's the hold-up?"
"Not quite sure as of yet, sir," the driver said, indicating the backup of vehicles ahead of them. "Was just about to inform you of the wait. Someone's pulled up behind us, but I can see if they'll be willing to let us out."
"Naw, we're in no hurry," Maria put in. "Probably just a train coming through... and if that's it there isn't any easy other way to get through."
"Alright," the driver said, and nodded. Michael put the barrier back up and looked at them.
"Okay, what next?"
TO BE CONTINUED...