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 64: The Event

The parents of the Roswell Fourteen tensed visibly at the sound of base sirens blaring and calls of yellow alert. Jeff Parker was the first to get up on his feet and demand an explanation. The airmen standing guard by the front exit were quick to point out that they were all in no danger. Jim and Phillip were not satisfied with that answer, and they supported Jeff with demands more information. The airmen made no attempt to expand on their assertion and that provoked several more parents get up on their feet and demand an explanation.

"Okay, you need to sit down and relax," the first airmen insisted with his left hand out in front of him and with his right hand on his holster.

The parents of the Roswell Fourteen had been sitting inside the cafeteria for more than two hours. All were tired and frustrated by the absence of any information. When General Pittman left, nearly two hours earlier, they all suspected that he had information about their children, and they all were eager to know what was happening with regards to them. The sirens had brought many of them near to the end of their patience. Diane grabbed hold to Phillip's arm out of fear for his safety. Nancy did the same with Jeff. Several seconds into this commotion, General Pittman raced into the cafeteria.

Following behind General Pittman was Ryan. And following behind him were two airmen in helmets and armed with M16's. General Pittman came to a stop half a dozen feet in front of the parents. Ryan came to a stop to the right and a step behind the General. The two airmen, with the M16's, took up positions half a dozen feet to either side of them both. The General showed little interest in the parents once he was there. Instead, he panned his attention about the room as though he was looking for something that was hard to see. The parents were slightly unnerved by this and looked about the room themselves. After a few seconds of looking around the room, General Pittman turned his attention towards Ryan.

"Give me the radio," General Pittman commanded Ryan with his hand extended towards him.

Ryan disconnected the earpiece from the two-way radio and surrendered the latter to the General.

"This is General Pittman," he barked into the two-way radio after pressing the transmit button, "report, over."

"No sight of it, General," Lt. Colonel Babcock's voice blared out of the two-way. "Radar screens are clean. Interceptors have been scrambled, but nothing has been detected so far, over."

"Contact me the instant anything shows up," General Pittman bellowed into the two-way with no regard for the protocols of communicating in this manner.

After concluding that the General was done speaking, Lt. Colonel Babcock transmitted a, "roger that, sir, will do, over."

Shortly after the General finished his call, the sirens stopped blaring. The sudden silence surprised the parents. They quickly looked about as if they expected something new to occur. Seconds after that, their attentions turned back onto General Pittman. They were all astonished by the level of tension he was displaying, and all wanted to know why. Shortly, Jim gave voice that concern.

"What's going on, General?" Jim implored.

General Pittman looked to Jim briefly and then returned to ignoring him. He went back to glancing about the room, and he began to pace a little as he did. After a few seconds more, Phillip tried his luck.

"We have a right to know what's happening with our children," Phillip exclaimed with an intense stare.

General Pittman gave Phillip a quick look and then returned to his pacing. He was completely unsympathetic to the concerns of the parents. His only thoughts were for ways to salvage a day that had went terribly wrong for him. He saw no need to tell the parents any more than he already did. And he did not want to risk giving them a perception of advantage. It was his estimation that the only motivation the Roswell Fourteen had for coming to Holloman were their parents. If that was true, he suspected the parents would know all soon enough. Until that moment he preferred to keep them ignorant.

After more than three minutes of nothing half a dozen parents filled in the silence with calls for answers. Jeff Parker led the barrage with an abrupt, "What the hell is going on?"

General Pittman continued to ignore their pleas as he waited on the arrival of the Roswell Fourteen. Moments later, the parents went quiet again. They could see that he was not going to address their inquiries and contented themselves to at the General. They could sense something was about to happen, and nearly all concluded that there was nothing they could do but wait for that to happen. Diane Evans was the one exception in that. Her desperate need to know the disposition of Max and Isabel forced her to turn her attention towards the young Major who was forever present at the General's side.

"Tell us what's going on, please," Diane implored with a pained expression.

Ryan was taken by surprise by the request directed at him. He quickly turned his attention towards Diane and paused just long enough to gauge the depth of her worry, and then he responded to her query with a simple and direct report.

"Your children are coming."

General Pittman spun around to give Ryan an angry look. The parents watched the two high ranking officers with looks of puzzlement. The cafeteria went silent as the parents pondered what was meant by the Major's statement. A myriad of thoughts ran through their minds. Their children were captured. Their children were surrendering. Their children were injured. As they considered these thoughts, none of them formulated a question to address these concerns. General Pittman was at a loss for the appropriate response to Ryan's defiance of his wishes. After a few seconds, their pondering was interrupted by the sound of Lt. Colonel Babcock's voice blaring through the two-way radio in General Pittman's hand.

"General Pittman, this is C-N-C," the Colonel's voice erupted into the silence of the cafeteria with a heavy inflection of discomposure. "It's here, sir. It just appeared from out of nowhere. It's directly over the dormitory. It's enormous."

In his excitement, Lt. Colonel Babcock had abandoned the protocols of speaking over a two-way radio. General Pittman paid no attention to that and began barking into the radio at the instant of a pause.

"What's it doing? … Babcock, what's it doing? … What's happening out there?"

"It's just sitting there," Babcock finally reported back.

There was a short pause after that and then Lt. Colonel Babcock voice came through the radio again, at near to a whisper.

"No, it's coming down. It's moving … it's enveloping …"

Suddenly, the radio went silent. Over the next minute, General Pittman made repeated attempts to reconnect with the outside, but there was no response. He stopped trying when the lights in the cafeteria momentarily, flickered on and off. The General began studying the ceiling as he slowly turned about to examine all areas of it. Ryan, the parents and the guards followed his example. Moments later, a milky white tube of opaque light enveloped one of the M16 guards. It extended down from the ceiling to the floor. In appearance it looked like a clear glass tube filled with a thick white smoke that was being illuminated by an overhead lamp. The guard instantly disappeared within the light. When the tube of light retracted, the guard was gone. The whole event took a couple of seconds. No one within the cafeteria had time to be shocked by that single event. An instant later it happened again to the second M16 Guard, and then again, and again, and again. Inside of ten seconds, all the armed guards were gone. The parents were shocked to the point of breathless by this extraordinary event. A still came over the room as everyone who was left waited to see who would be next. Shortly into their wait, General Pittman was suddenly enveloped by a tube of white light. An instant later, he too was gone.

LINE BREAK

Within the wink of an eye, General Pittman found himself standing outside. Startled by that event, he quickly scanned the area in front of him to discern where he was. He recognized that he was still at Holloman. Everything around him was familiar with exception for the milky white glowing dome that was situated where the dormitory building should have been. He assumed that the dormitory was encompassed by this luminescent field of energy. A second later he noted that there were more than a dozen airmen staring at the glowing mound of white light with awed expressions. He quickly organized half a dozen of them and set them to the task of trying to penetrate the dome. To his surprise, he soon learned that getting inside the dome was not the problem. Staying there was.

General Pittman, and the airmen who were helping him, quickly learned that they could insert items into the field with no problem. There was no barrier. Things could move in and out of it without any resistance, but when something was tossed inside, it became enveloped by the white luminous energy. It was not until they sent a person into the field that they learned that everything that went in came out, at that same moment, in a different location along the perimeter of the dome. After the first airman went in and came out, three more were sent in. Each one walked out of the field enveloped by field of energy that retracted back into dome when they were fully outside of the field's perimeter. By the time the base commander, Major General George Bristow, arrived on site, General Pittman had been working at getting back inside the dorm building for the past twenty minutes.

General Pittman explained to the base commander that the field of energy they were looking at was some kind of vessel. Shortly after he finished explaining why the ship came to be on his base, the vessel began rising into the air. As the vessel rose, it became obvious to all that the bulk of the ship was beneath the ground. The area of the ship expanded as more of it passed up through earth. Airmen all around the vessel began racing away from it to escape being enveloped within the glowing white field of light.

Halfway through its assent from out of the ground, the vessel became translucent. The outline of the craft could be made out by the glistening streaks of light that highlighted its silhouette. Nearly a minute later the entire ship was hovering fifty feet above the dormitory building. Nearly one-hundred individuals standing on the ground in a large circle about the dormitory building, stood motionless as they stared up at the partially invisible craft. More than 30 seconds later, the vessel began to slowly ascend. As it did, the lights about it began to fade. Several seconds into its ascent, the vessel completely disappeared from sight. Nearly everyone there stood still for several seconds, staring at the empty sky. They were all wondering if something else might occur. General Pittman began running towards the dormitory building almost immediately.

LINE BREAK

"What's happening?" Phillip cried out in a panicked voice to Ryan, a second after General Pittman disappeared.

"Your children are here," Ryan responded with an almost calm demeanor.

Several of the parents were in a state near panic. Each of them inched back a little out of fear that one of them might by next. Ryan too had that fear, but he suspected there was no chance of running from it. So, he stood his ground and waited for the next event. A few seconds later another tube of white light appeared, but this time it did not envelope anyone. It materialized before the parents in a space unoccupied by anyone. A couple of seconds later Max Evans walked out of it.

Max did not know how his parents would react, or what they would feel. He moved slowly towards his mother and her wide-eyed stare of astonishment. He noted that she held her ground and after three small steps she began to smile. He returned her smile with a feeling of relief. And then he said his first words.

"Hi Mom."

An instant after he spoke, Diane rushed forward and threw her arms about Max. Phillip rushed forward a second behind wearing a large smile.

"Hi Dad," Max acknowledged as he held Diane in a tight hug.

Phillip was speechless at that moment. The best he could do was grin with happiness. A second later, Isabel walked out of the tube of light. After seeing the happy expressions on her parent's faces, she raced over into her father's arms.

"Hi Dad," Isabel acknowledged with a large smile.

The rest of the parents were looking on in amazement. An instant behind Isabel's embrace of her dad, Jeff and Nancy Parker watched as Liz walked out of the tube.

"Lizzie," Jeff called out as he hurried over to her and snatched her up in his arms.

"Hi Dad," Liz responded with a large smile.

Nancy stood beside them, waiting her turn to hold her daughter with tears and a grin on her face.

"Oh, my baby, I was so worried," she declared with her hands clasped together and pressed against her chest.

Eventually, every member of the Roswell Fourteen walked out of the tube of light. Jim embraced his son, Kyle. Amy did the same with Maria. Michael and Kenneth were the only two of the Roswell Fourteen, to make an appearance and have no one to share the moment with. The hugs and kisses went on for a few minutes, and then event settled into the explanation phase.

"Mom, Dad," Isabel addressed as she held her hand out for Kenneth.

Kenneth Burton took Isabel's hand and she promptly pulled him next to her.

"I want you to meet my husband," Isabel reported with a large smile.

Phillip and Diane were made momentarily speechless by that report. Kenneth took advantage of the moment to give his confirmation.

"I know this must be a surprise to you, but we are married in a fashion," Kenneth reported with a smile.

"It's common law," Isabel clarified with a grin.

As Kenneth and Isabel were speaking, Liz was leading her parents over to the group. As soon as they were together, she let go of her mother's hand and sidled next to Max and took his hand.

"Mom, Dad, I want you to meet my husband, Max," Liz communicated with a smile.

Both groups of parents were stunned and a little confused. Liz briefly displayed a large grin on her face before continuing where she left off.

"So, you see you were never going to split us up."

"I don't understand," Nancy asserted with a shake of her head.

"We're mated to each other, Mr. and Mrs. Parker," Max supported with a hint of a smile. "And we have been for a very long time. But I promise to take care of her," he finished with a definite smile.

"How long have you known this?" Phillip questioned with a confused expression.

"We just found out today," Isabel exclaimed to her dad. "We knew that we were different somehow, but we didn't know anything about our past until just a little while ago."

"We were drawn to each other," Max supported a second behind. "But we didn't know who, or what we were, or where we came from until we found our ship. That's why we ran away. We knew the only way we were going to be safe was by finding out who we were."

Phillip, Diane, Jeff and Nancy could do nothing at that moment but look at their children with amazed expression. Seconds later, Liz spoke into the silence.

"But during all of our time together we were … we are your children," Liz affirmed.

"And we love you," Isabel exclaimed vehemently.

Phillip, Diane, Jeff and Nancy were once again speechless. Near to tears and with smiles on their faces as they looked at their children anew. The eight of them had been standing there in a huddle for nearly a minute when Ryan walked over and gently intruded upon their meeting.

"Excuse me, but why are you here? Why did you do this?" Ryan questioned gently.

All eyes within the group turned to him. But it was Max who responded to his inquiry.

"We have lived for many thousands of years," Max began in a polite tone. "Over the course of that time we had evolved and changed in ways, physically, that we could not retreat from. We came to a point in our existence where we were no longer living. We simply existed. We began to long for what we had lost … what we had thrown away. And then we found earth and a second chance. So, we engineered human bodies for ourselves."

The rest of the parents followed their children as they moved in around this conversation.

"But why remake yourselves into children?" Ryan questioned with a curious inflection.

"The human form was alien to us in locomotion and aesthetics," Liz answered. "We needed to mature into these bodies so that we could acclimate to them in every way."

"To make that work, we had to strip our minds of all memory of our past lives," Kenneth added to the end of Liz's remark.

Ryan pondered this for a few seconds and then turned his attention back to the group with a new question.

"Then how did you come together if you didn't know who you were?"

"We have capabilities that only someone like ourselves can perceive," Isabel explained with a hint of a smile. "Half of us were reengineered with these capabilities turned on. Until recently, they remained dormant in our mates."

"Why the split?" Ryan immediately asked out of curiosity.

"Children who grow up together develop sibling bonds," Liz answered with an amused smile. "These bonds inhibit romantic designs towards one-another."

"Given our ability to mentally connect with each other," Max began to add. "The strength of a sibling bond can be magnified immensely. So as a precaution, our abilities were temporarily turned off in one member of every mated pair."

Ryan took a few seconds to comprehend what he was just told. He scanned the group of families with a smile. A brief grin escaped from his mouth accompanied with a shake of his head. And then he settled back into a smile before asking his next question.

"So, what happens now?" Ryan questioned inquisitively.

"We leave," Max instructed flatly. "Our parents will not speak of this to anyone, and you will leave them alone to return to their lives."

"We may choose to peek in from time to time to see how they are doing," Isabel warned in a stern voice. "And if we do not like what we see, there will be consequences … severe consequences."

A second after Isabel spoke her warning; Max took a step toward Ryan and spoke their final word on the subject.

"Tell them that. Tell them all."

"I will," Ryan assured.

Shortly after Ryan's reply, the Roswell Fourteen turned about to their respective parents and began to make tearful goodbyes.

"We have to go, Mom," Max insisted to Diane.

"Bye, Dad, I love you," Isabel wept before giving her father a loving hug and a kiss.

"You guys take care of yourselves," Liz instructed her parents after giving them both large hugs.

Maria hugged her mother. Kyle hugged his father. Throughout the room, children and parents were giving each other tearful farewells. Michael even stepped over to his father and instructed him to stop drinking and to take care of himself. A minute after it started, the Roswell Fourteen began stepping back through the tube of light. One by one, they all disappeared into tube of white light. Max was the last to step through. A second after he did, the light tube retracted, and they were gone.