Many of the characters within this story, and the universe they inhabit, are the intellectual property of Jason Katims Productions.
Roswell: Re-Imagined
Written by Horatio Jaxx
Chapter 52: A Meeting of the Minds
Max, Liz, Michael, Maria and Isabel were the first to arrive at the abandoned soap factory. They came together in two vehicles, Max's jeep and Maria's Jetta. Isabel rode in the back of the jeep with her arms crossed. She did not enjoy being the fifth wheel of the group, and whenever they traveled together by car that vexation was double. The five of them went to the storage room at the back of the building and began their wait in silence. It was fifty-three minutes after two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon.
It was almost four minutes later when Jason's Ford Fiesta rolled up to the abandoned soap factory and parked. Jason, Eve, Aaron and Ashley promptly got out of the vehicle and went into the derelict building that once served as a factory for making soap. It took them a minute to make their way to the storage room in the back. The four of them filed into the large room and took up positions opposite Max, Liz, Michael, Maria and Isabel, each an arm's length apart from each other. Nothing was said between them vocally, but all were communicating their greetings to the others telepathically.
Just as Jason, Eve, Aaron and Ashley were entering the storage room at the back of the old soap factory building; Julie and Jeremy were climbing out of the former's 2006 Subaru Outback. They quickly entered the building and took up positions with the others in the rear storage room. They too gave their greetings telepathically and then joined in on the discussion that the others were holding in the same fashion.
The topic of conversation that was raging telepathically between them all was the possible plans that OSI had for them after they graduated from high school. For the past three days, all eleven there had been gathering their own information regarding the plans of the OSI. Between them there was only one with a report that was news to the group. Julie had read from the mind a watcher that things appeared to be gearing up for a new phase in their operation. The group debated the varied possible interpretations of that information, but in the end, they concluded that speculation was a waste of their time.
Kyle's Mustang GT began its approach up the access road to the soap factory building just as they came to that conclusion. The group of eleven within the building felt his approach, but they thought nothing of the extra-large glow of the minds within his vehicle. He and Tess were expected to arrive together. Their combined minds were expected to appear as one at a distance. The group of eleven continued their telepathic converse as they monitored their coming. It was not until the car rolled to within twenty yards of the building that they were able to separate the radiant mental signatures in the vehicle into three minds. The conversation between them came to a sharp stop as all eleven spun around and focused their attentions on the front of the building.
For the next few minutes, the group of eleven monitored the approach of the minds coming towards them. Nothing was said between them as they waited on the visage to support what their minds were telling them. None of them dared to project out to the approaching minds. Their number suggested that at least one of the three was unknown to them, and that fact had them anxious about all three. The second before Kyle stepped into the room, all eleven were holding their breath. At the sight of him they exhaled their relief but held their focus on the doorway. Three steps behind Kyle, Tess followed him into the room. The two of them moved three steps into the room and to either side of the doorway before stopping and turning their attentions back towards it. A couple of seconds later and six steps behind, Kenneth Burton walked through the doorway.
When Kenneth walked into the storage room of the old derelict soap factory, he saw eleven additional faces staring at him with blank expressions. He froze with a hint of fear on his face. Their presence was not a surprise. He was told where he was going and who would be there, and he felt their presence several minutes before he saw them. What made him so tense at that moment was the knowledge that now was the time when whatever was going to happen was supposed to happen. He waited in silence. Shortly, he began to perceive a litany of questions and answers erupting in his mind.
Who is he? Aaron projected.
Kenneth Burton, Tess projected.
Where did he come from? Ashley projected.
He's been living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for the past eleven years, Kyle projected.
He used to live here in Roswell, Tess projected.
What's he doing here now? Jason projected.
Same thing we are I suppose, Max projected.
Does he know of any more like us? Michael projected.
No, Kyle projected.
How did you find him? Maria projected.
Where did you find him? Eve projected.
He found us; Tess projected.
How long has he been here? Liz projected.
He just arrived today; Kyle projected.
Is he alone? Julie projected.
What does he want? Jeremy projected.
Why did he come? Aaron projected.
Does he know who we are or where we come from? Michael projected.
I suspect he wants the same thing we do, answers, Max projected.
At this distance, Kenneth could easily discern who was projecting at any given moment. He soon judged from their questions and their faces that they were just as confused as he, and knowing that calmed him a little. The rapid successions of projected questions and answers had him making quick looks left and right to view its author. After a few swings of his head, he suddenly stopped halfway through and fixed his attention on the only face there that was not projecting any questions or answers. Their eyes locked into a stare at each other. The sight of her studying him with an amazed expression caught his attention unlike any of the looks from the others. The longer he looked at her, the more captivated he became. From the instant he focused his eyes on her, he was entranced. He knew at that moment that she was the one person there that he could abandon. Whatever danger that she feared, he would face it with her. For the first time since learning of their existence, he felt like he was where he belonged.
Isabel was equally enamored with the tall young man that entered the room behind Kyle and Tess. She and he alike fell under each other's spell. Everyone else in the room fell away into the distance as they fascinated over one another. Without having said a word, they felt a desire to hold each other. When the temptation became so powerful that they almost lost themselves to it, they pushed back from it. To their surprise, when that happened, they suddenly awakened to discover that they had moved to within inches of each other and that everyone else in the room was watching them in silence.
I'm Isabel.
After a moment of embarrassment, Isabel projected that greeting with a bashful smile. After a pause, Kenneth started to speak with his mouth, but Isabel checked him with the sharp movement of her index finger up to her mouth. Kenneth remembered the command to not say anything vocally and caught himself. He then pushed out a telepathic projection.
I'm Kenneth.
Isabel and Kenneth continued to hold their stares into each other's eyes. Several seconds into that, Max took two steps forward and projected his thoughts into the telepathic silence.
We're stronger together. Anything we do, we must do together. If they're going to collect us after we graduate, then we need to know this. We need to merge. We're stronger now … and I believe, for the first time, we're all here.
Max turned to face Kenneth straight on. And then he began to project his thoughts again.
Kenneth, we're being watched and listened to by agents of the Air Force. There is at least half a dozen of them outside this building. They know about you now. You're one of us now.
Why are they following you? Kenneth projected.
Everything will become clear to you after we merge, Max projected.
What do you mean … merge? Kenneth projected with a frown of curiosity.
Isabel promptly stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on his arm before projecting a response to his inquiry.
You'll understand everything after we've done it.
Kenneth accepted that answer without question. He followed Isabel's lead as she gently pulled him back beside her. The others reacted to their move by forming up into a circle with an arm's length of distance between them. When they were situated and still, the Roswell Fourteen began to merge. Kenneth followed the lead of the others. With their guidance he learned to relax his mind and blend into the collective consciousness forming between them. Suddenly a new mind, a single mind, came into existence and replaced the fourteen that was there before it. Its aura extended out for more than fifty miles in every direction. That was the largest collective consciousness they had ever constructed. Kenneth was instantly brought forward to the same chapter of their collective existence. Within the first minute of forming their collective mind, The Roswell Fourteen began registering a clear image and a precise location of the outcrop. The mystery of where it was and exactly what it looked like was gone. After acquiring that discovery, they directed their collective consciousness on the eight OSI agents outside of the factory. They noted that two of them were using extremely sensitive microphones with parabolic dishes to hear what they were saying. The collective mind of The Fourteen focused in on the mind of an agent who was calling out to give a report, and they began listening in on what he said and heard.
LINE BREAK
"All thirteen are inside the building," the agent reported curtly. "Plus one … a male … I've never seen him before."
"Young or old?" Ryan's voice questioned back through the phone.
"He looks to be about the same age as the others," the agent answered without hesitation.
"Follow him," Ryan insisted an instant behind. "Get me a picture and a name as soon as possible."
"Yes sir," the agent acknowledged in a perfunctory manner.
"What are they talking about?" Ryan sharply questioned an instant behind that response. "They're not talking at all, sir," the agent reported with a hint of bewilderment.
"You sure?" Ryan asked with a surprised inflection.
"They're in a large empty porous building," the agent explained defensively. "We've got two microphones on them. We can hear every moving around inside, but they're not talking. They're not saying anything, sir."
For several seconds the agent heard nothing but silence coming through his cellphone, and then he asked a question.
"What do you want us to do, sir?"
"Don't do anything," a distracted Ryan returned. "Just keep me posted."
LINE BREAK
As soon as the OSI agent disconnected his call, The Roswell Fourteen, extended their collective mind west of Roswell and searched for the voice that was on the opposite end. Their search moved at the speed of light. Within a few seconds they found a large house with a dozen OSI agents in and around it. They quickly picked out of their thoughts that this was the command center for their surveillance of them. Seconds later they found the person in command, Major Ryan Kawecki, and began peeking into his thoughts just as he started dialing out to his superior.
LINE BREAK
"General, there's been a significant change in the behavior of The Thirteen," Ryan reported into the phone a second after it picked up on the other end. "For the first time since we began surveilling them, they've come together as a group."
"What are they were talking about?" General Pittman asked sharply.
"They don't appear to be saying anything," Ryan answered with confused astonishment.
"You mean you can't hear them," an annoyed General Pittman contradicted.
"The agent in the field is telling me that there is no vocal communication going on between them," Ryan responded with insistence.
"They can't hear them," General Pittman yelled angrily. "Major, find out what's going on."
Ryan was not perturbed by the General's abrupt response. They had been working together for more than a year, and he had become accustomed to his manner. He simply waited for the General to finish with his bluster and then he continued with the report that he wanted to give.
"Sir, if The Thirteen are secretly communicating, then that could mean that this entire operation is compromised."
Ryan couched this remark in an earnest tone of voice.
"Nothing is compromised, Major," General Pittman rifled back. "You're reading too much into this. Do you have anything else to report, Major?"
"Yes," Ryan answered with a reluctance to change the subject. "We may have found number fourteen."
"Great," General Pittman bellowed excitedly into the phone. "Who is he?"
"We don't know yet," Ryan answered unenthusiastically. "But we'll have that soon. Sir, we're hearing movement in the building," he quickly advised to go back to the previous subject.
"What are you trying to say, Major?" General Pittman questioned with annoyed curiosity.
"I think they may know about us, sir," Ryan confessed his thought softly.
"Ridiculous," General Pittman challenged gruffly. "They haven't done anything to suggest that they know we're watching them."
"That's just the point, sir," Ryan spoke back with intensity. "Everything they've done up until now has been out in the open. And then today, they all come together in an abandoned building and don't say anything, or at least nothing we can hear. I think we have to consider the possibility that they've noticed us."
"They don't know anything. Stop panicking, Major," General Pittman instructed with more than a hint of finality. "If they knew they were being watched, they would have run off."
"Sir," Ryan began in a tentative voice. "I just think that maybe someone should approach them. I mean, after all, they're just teenagers."
"They're not teenagers, Major," General Pittman stressed in a fierce tone of voice. "They're not even human," he continued angrily. "No one approaches them. You got that, Major?"
"Yes sir," Ryan answered in a defeated voice.
"We keep our distance," General Pittman ordered in a harsh voice. "We wait for them to graduate, and then we pick them up. Work the plan, Major. You got that?"
"Yes sir," Ryan softly acquiesced
"I want everything you got on fourteen first thing tomorrow," General Pittman finished with finality an instant before hanging up the phone.
LINE BREAK
The Roswell Fourteen backed their collective consciousness away from the merge the moment the call disconnected. After taking a few seconds to digest what they just saw and heard, the group began a telepathic discussion about how they should act.
I say we leave, right now. We know where the outcrop is. I think we should take off and make a run for it, Michael projected.
We don't know what we'll find when we get there. This could all be a shared delusion, Isabel projected.
It can't be a delusion. We've all seen it in our dreams, Jeremy projected.
That's just it. We didn't see anything but a big rock sticking out of the ground. What if that's all that it is? What if we go there and that's all that we find, Aaron projected?
We know what's going to happen here. I say we risk it, Michael projected.
What about parents, are we supposed to just leave? Liz projected.
I think we must, Ashley projected.
I say we just go away and come back after everything has quieted down here, Aaron projected.
We can't leave here without going there first. It's calling us. It's been calling us from the beginning, Julie projected.
We won't make it a mile out of the city if we all try to leave right now. They're watching us, Kyle projected.
Kyle is right, Max projected.
No one is saying that there isn't a risk, Jeremy projected.
If we leave Roswell, they're going to come looking for us. And they'll probably find us, eventually. This could be our one and only chance at finding this … delusion? We have to take it, Michael projected.
We're being watched, constantly. How are we supposed to get away? Tess projected.
They don't know that we know that. So, maybe we can use that to our advantage, Max projected.
That's not going to be easy. They've got cameras recording our every move. They've got people watching us day and night, Kyle projected.
No, they watch us during the day. They watch our houses during the night, Max projected.