Chapter 12: Good Intentions
Max Tennyson did the best he could.
He tried to be a good son, a good brother, husband, father, grandfather and soldier.
The soldier was the only one he was ever sure of. He was a great Plumber. Give him a mystery or an artifact and someone to fight and he was set. As for the rest of it...
He'd always wished he'd done better by his sons, and he had no doubt of what they thought of him as a father. He hoped that he had done right by his wife, and he was reasonably sure that he was a good brother. But as a grandfather...
He was a good grandfather to two great grandkids.
It was a little odd, he knew, that the two people he was closest to in the world were his grandchildren. They knew him the best of anyone except maybe his sister, and he knew them better than their parents. He knew them and he was so proud of them. Sure, he had to guide them a little - to remind them that what was easy wasn't always what was right - but they were still children and that was to be expected. Even with the temptations they faced Max trusted his grandkids to do what was right.
They'd earned that trust the night the Omnitrix fell from the sky. He knew most people would have either been terrified or selfish with the device, but not his grandchildren. No, not them. The first thing they did was race off to help save lives. He knew power corrupted, he'd seen too many people fall to ever doubt that, but Ben and Gwen were special.
They were heroes.
His heroes.
If they weren't - if they weren't so used to doing everything in their power to help - they would be hurting so much now. Being helpless wouldn't be tearing them up and they wouldn't have tried so desperately to find a way to fix things.
When he'd told Gwen the news she'd clutched her hands to her mouth and went so pale that he had been afraid she was about to faint. She didn't. She raced into the Rust Bucket and collapsed into her bunk with her spell books. She didn't move from her bunk again until they got back to her house, not even when he stopped for burgers and milkshakes.
Ben had stared after her and looked lost as his hand went to the Omnitrix, but he didn't activate it. Not even when Gwen raced inside. Ben spent the entire ride home sitting in the passenger seat and flipping past every alien form he had in his watch over and over again as he tried to find his own way to fix things.
Neither of them ever did and he could see the guilt eat at them.
It would have been different if they'd been there, he thought. If it wasn't a surprise, if they'd known what was going on and that there was nothing that they could do instead of finding out after and always wondering what if...
No. No. He knew that nothing stopped the wondering. He wondered after every mission where someone didn't come home. And after Verdona…
If he'd been home, or if he'd been the one driving...
There was always a what if. Even after thirteen years there were still what if's. He didn't listen to them anymore, but they were still there. He tried to find something in all those years that might have helped his grandchildren now. Some piece of advice, some story that would make things easier for them. He almost told them about Roswell...
He did tell them a little about their grandmother. He told them how long it took him to finally made him accept the fact that there was nothing he could do. He told them that there wasn't any alien tech, or any magic spells, that could ever fix everything. That all you could do was enjoy life as it went because it went so fast.
That's what he tried to tell them. Ben looked at him and nodded at the right times, but Max knew he didn't hear a word. If Ben did, he wouldn't have gone right back to dialing through the aliens in the watch the moment Max stopped talking. Gwen didn't even look up at him. Nothing he said helped, so he stopped talking and waited to see if either would start.
Neither did.
He didn't have the words to help Frank or Lili either, but at least they let him be a shoulder to cry on. That, and -
Max's hand twitched as he remembered how light the casket had been. It should have been heavier. It held the hopes of his kids, after all. He knew that his sons loved their children, just like he knew that they had both prayed for more...
And that this was the closest either had ever gotten.
They laid Ken down next to his grandmother. It was the first time Max had seen her tombstone in years. He'd hoped it would be easier after all this time. It wasn't, but he'd held together.
After the funeral the entire family had settled at Frank's house. Lili sat in the middle of the couch, with Frank and Sandra on either side of her. She held their hands in hers and stared into nothing. She didn't make a noise except for the occasional sob. Her red hair was the only part of her with any color, and even that seemed faded.
Max had settled into an armchair in the corner while Lili's parents sat in the other couch with Carl and tried to think of something to say. He was still thinking when he heard a voice call his name.
"Dad. Dad, wake up."
"Sorry!" Max jerked in his seat. He didn't remember falling asleep. He didn't even remember feeling tired. But now he opened his eyes and saw everyone watching him. Almost everyone. Lili was leaning on Frank's shoulder and snoring softly. She still had his and Sandra's hands trapped in hers. "Sorry."
"It's okay, Dad," Frank said and he shared a look with his brother that would have been a grin at the old man's expense on any other day. "I think we're all going to turn in."
Max nodded and fought back an embarrassed yawn. It was barely dark outside and there he was falling asleep in a chair like he was an old man. He knew he'd be hearing about it later from - "Where's Ben and Gwen?" His eyes went around the room and he realized that the kids still weren't there, and that he never saw them when he got back. He'd thought that they'd gone to get changed, but...
There was an awkward moment as everyone else looked around, too. Awkward and guilt-filled. "I think I saw them head upstairs when we got back," Lili's mother said as she glanced at her husband for confirmation.
He shrugged and looked uncomfortable. "They must have gone to bed."
No one checked. No one ever thought to, not even him.
"I'm going to tell them goodnight," Max said as he stood and his stomach twisted. Not with guilt, or not just with guilt. He'd never meant to leave them alone for so long, just in case either finally decided that they wanted to talk. No, the thing that made his stomach twist was the fact that the two had been quiet for so long. On the best of days, Ben could find trouble just by walking down the street and Gwen would follow along, complaining and enjoying every minute of it.
Today wasn't the best of days and Max knew how tempting it could be to go and start trouble just to focus on something besides the pain.
His heart nearly stopped when he looked in Gwen's room and saw that it was empty except for the clothes tossed on the floor. He fought the urge to find the nearest television and check the news as he went further down the hall.
When he found them in the nursery, he wished he had a camera.
Ben was lying flat on his back on the floor in front of the crib while Gwen was curled up right next to him. She had her head on his chest and an arm wrapped across his stomach and he had his arm wrapped around her. The best part was the stuffed animals that they were both clutching in their hands.
Max grinned. This was even cuter than when he caught them dancing. And it was always so much fun to see how fast they blushed when he brought THAT up.
His smile faded as he looked at them. No, at their clothes. The black they wore was a stain in the bright room. It should have been a happy place, not a…
He was almost a Grandfather for a third time.
Grandpa Max looked at the crib and saw a thousand things; him teaching Ken how to fish, how to play ball, how to cook. Maybe taking him on a summer road trip of his own. Max's chest tightened as he saw it all, a lifetime…
A lifetime that was already done.
If only…
And that was when Max stopped himself. He ducked his head and took a deep breath. There wasn't anything he could do for Ken, but he still had two grandchildren that needed him. He thought of leaving them there, but he just couldn't. After all that had happened today, they deserved something more than the floor. It didn't matter how comfortable they looked now.
He picked Gwen up first. He was always surprised at how light she was as he lifted her. He'd seen her take on aliens five times her size without pausing so often that he sometimes forgot that she was only eleven and maybe eighty pounds. She mumbled something as he picked her up. He barely had her cradled against his chest before she opened her eyes and started looking around. Her eyes found his, and they were so red and puffy that the usual bright emerald of them was lost. It broke his heart to see the pain there, but it was also a relief.
He watched her all day and he knew that she hadn't cried. Not once, not even at the funeral. He was glad that she finally let it out.
"Grampa?" Gwen mumbled.
Max hugged her a little closer and kissed the top of her head. "Go back to sleep, Honey. I'm just going to put you to bed"
"Whr's Ben?" Gwen was still blinking. She started to push away from him so she could look around.
Max smiled. A year ago he never would have imagined that she would have even asked. Sure, he'd hoped they would get along better, but honestly he would have been thrilled if that had just been to stop screaming at each other. And they had. Until last week anyway. But this… he never would have imagined that Ben was the first thing she thought of, or that he would have been the one who had been there for her today. "I'll get him next."
Gwen blinked at him one more time and then she nodded like she was giving permission. "K." With that she put her head against Max's chest and started to breathe easy again as he carried her out of the nursery.
Frank was standing in the hall waiting for them. "So that's where she was," he said with a strangled tone. He reached out and took her from her grandfather. Gwen grumbled in her sleep in the switch but quieted when her father kissed her forehead. He carried her into her room while Max took off her shoes and turned down the bed. The two men tucked her in, dress and all. She rolled over on to her side and curled up around the teddy bear she still had clutched in her hand.
Her father looked at her and brushed her hair from her face. Then he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped her eyes. She scrunched up under her covers at the attention and hid her face in her pillow. "You don't have to go, Dad."
Max had just been turning away. "Ben's still in the nursery."
Frank's face twitched at the word, but he nodded. "I'll get him."
Max shook his head. "I've got it." He knew his son couldn't face that room, not today. "Just tell me where you want him."
His son shrugged. "I don't know. Paul and Mary are in the guest room and Carl and Sandra are on the fold out in the office. They were going to go home, but Lili asked Sandy to stay."
Max smiled a little. He was glad that his daughters-in-law had forgotten about their grudge for a day. Hopefully it would be forever. Then at least something good would come out of today. He looked over at the love seat that was under the window. "We can put him on that."
"You sure he won't mind?"
"He's been sleeping on a bunk for almost two months. I'm sure that's more comfortable."
"Right."
If Gwen was sound asleep, then Ben was dead to the world. He snored the whole way in and kept on snoring even as he was set down on the couch. Frank grabbed a pink and blue afghan from the foot of Gwen's bed and put it over Ben.
They stood there for a moment, just looking at the two before they walked out.
"I wish I could sleep as well as them," Frank groused as he closed the door behind them.
"Those two will sleep through anything. Well, as long as the air conditioner is on, anyway."
"I heard all about Death Valley," Frank said with a chuckle. Max startled a little and tried to imagine how she had explained the Christmas Village. "Gwen didn't think thermometers even went that high."
"It always chooses the worst second to break," Max agreed with a nod. There was a moment of silence before Max glanced over at the nursery. "The room looked good."
Frank smiled just a little. "We've been working on it for weeks. Lili did a lot of it. And I got to use the fix-it skills I inherited from you."
"Glad to be a help."
Frank looked at his daughter's door. "You were right, Dad. We should have told her."
"It would have been a great homecoming surprise for her." Max reached over and put his hand on Frank's shoulder. "You're already a great dad, Frank. I'm so sorry you didn't get a chance to prove it again."
Frank closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "When Lili got the news... Gwen was all we needed, but..." his voice broke off. "It would have been nice."
Max pulled his son into a hug. He didn't see the thirty-two year old man just then. Just the six-year-old boy he'd once been.
Frank tried to say something, but all that came out was one strangled sob. After a moment they pulled apart. Frank wiped at his eyes and yawned. "I'm going to hit the hay too, Dad," Frank said. Then he paused and gave his father a guilty look. "I didn't think - Do you want to stay in Gwen's room? We can put the kids downstairs."
Max shook his head. "I'm going to go back to the Rust Bucket."
"We can find room for you, Dad."
"I know, Frank. Thanks. But I'll be right outside."
"Are you…"
"Go check on Lili."
Frank nodded and gave his father another hug. "Thanks for being here, Dad."
"Always…" A trill from Max's back pocket made the promise a lie before it even left his mouth. It was his old beeper. He'd put it on after the attack on Fort Tesla and forgotten all about it.
Frank didn't. He'd heard it too often, had seen it pull his father away too often to ever forget it. He glared at the little black box and Max couldn't meet his son's eyes. The beeper rang again. Max pulled the plastic box from his pocket.
"Your clients forget that you're retired?"
"Looks like," Max muttered as he read the small screen on the top.
"Must be some emergency if they had to bring out the big gun." Frank smiled, and Max didn't need to be a secret agent to see how fake it was. "How long until we see you again?"
"Probably in about eight hours. Six if you want me to make breakfast," Max said as he turned the beeper off and shoved it back into his pocket. "Someone else can take care of that."
"Thanks, Dad," Frank let out a tight breath and then he smirked at his father, "but I think we'll figure out something else."
"Don't know what you'll be missing." Max put his hand on his son's shoulder. "I'll see you in the morning.'
"Goodnight, Dad."
Max waved one last time to his son, but as soon as the door closed his smile died and he sighed to himself. He hoped he hadn't just lied to his son. The message hadn't been urgent, or even an alarm. Just a note. 'See you outside, W.'
An alarm would have been more welcome. At least then he would have had some idea what to expect.
Max walked downstairs and out the front door, and every step seemed to make him that much older. He felt all the little aches he'd forgotten about; his knees hurt from so many chases, his ribs ached from that one bad landing he'd had back when he was a pilot, the pain in his left hand he'd gotten after punching a Fourarm and a dozen more. By the time he got finished running through it all, he realized there wasn't a part of him that didn't hurt or twinge in some way. His steps slowed with each remembered ache.
The worst thing was how tired he was.
He tried to tell himself it was because he'd just been up for forty-eight hours, and been through a ringer. With all of that and the week he'd just spent dealing with the kids at each other's throats it wasn't any wonder that he was exhausted. He tried to tell himself that, but he knew better.
He was getting old.
No, worse. He was old.
By the time Max reached the door it felt like he'd gone miles instead of feet. For the first time, he felt too tired to face whatever was waiting for him. He was that tired. What more, he was retired…
The Rust Bucket was so inviting. He glanced through the dark window and saw that it was just how he and the kids had left it that morning. There were dishes piled in the sink, Ben's clothes tossed on the floor and Gwen's laptop was still sitting open on the kitchen table.
Max opened the door and went inside.
He didn't bother to reach for the light switch - the lights turned back on the second he closed the door. If anyone looked through the windows right now they would see him turning on a light here or there and moving around as he got ready for bed. They would never see him sitting at the kitchen table. More importantly, they would never see the man he was sitting across from.
"You're a long way from home, Wes. Problems at the reservation?"
"No, no trouble at home," Wes Green said. He was dressed for a long trip in jeans and a faded plaid shirt with his long gray hair tied up in a ponytail. If anyone had seen him they would have thought he was a handyman, not a Chief or a Plumber. There was a glass of ice water on the table in front of him. He'd been nursing it for a while if the little rings of water on the table were any indication. The glass was the only thing still on the table. Gwen's laptop had been picked up and placed carefully on the small kitchen counter along with whatever papers and toys had been around. Wes had always been a bit of a neat freak. "Things have been calm since you and your grandchildren visited last year."
"That's good. I was afraid our furry friend had paid another visit."
"No. He would have been easier to deal with." Wes started to say something more, but then he stopped and sighed. "I'm sorry to have to do this to you today. I almost caught up to you in Oregon when you took off. I knew something had gone wrong then, but I didn't… When I found out I wanted to wait, but Jim insisted."
"Jim?" Max asked and he tried to make it sound casual. "I should have known that he was behind this."
Jim Huxby. The first Plumber. He wasn't the first one to fight aliens and magic, he'd just been the first one to get the government to pay for it. It helped that he stopped Nazi infiltrators from calling down an Elder God on Washington D.C. the week after Pearl Harbor. It helped even more that he'd already been a colonel when he did it.
Max still remembered meeting the man. It was hard to forget his new boss telling him that he never would have been picked if the old guard hadn't gotten so old, recommendation or not. It was not what Max wanted to hear. Not after he passed up being the mission commander of Apollo 11.
His sons had never forgiven him for it when they found out. Frank used to be such a space nut.
"If you're lucky, the only thing you and the rest of the green idiots will have to deal with are the aliens," was the second thing the man had to say.
And Max had laughed in his face. He remembered when he'd been the rookie pilot and all the horror stories the other pilots had told him about in Korea and figured it was just more hazing the new guy.
And then he saw the films. He'd seen horrible things in his life, but nothing like what had happened in second World War. The true history of what happened during the war, when things that could only be summoned by mass murder were called up. When cities had to be burned to stop them.
"He still hasn't retired?" Max said. The man was ancient the last time Max had seen him. Now he had to be pushing 100.
"That man will retire when he dies" - Wes shook his head as he reached down to the seat next to him - "and he'll never die." He picked up two manilla folders and set them on the table in front of Max.
Max felt the old thrill that never went away. A part of him was ready to jump in. "No."
Wes raised an eyebrow, but he didn't look all that surprised. "No?"
"No. I'm retired."
Wes nodded. "I told him you would say that." He let out a dry chuckle. "I said it, too. I told him there's more people out there than us old fossils. I told him that I was done."
"But-"
"But Jim pointed out that we were only as retired as he wanted us to be." Wes scowled and took a drink as he pushed the folders back across. Max looked a them this time and his eyes went to the bright red stamps on both and his eyebrows went up in surprise. The top folder was stamped Cosmic Top Secret. Technically, it was an act of treason to even have it off base. The top of the folder was marked Project: Chimera.
Max's stomach dropped at the name. Field agents like him and Wes were left in the dark about what the people in research were up to, but that didn't mean that they didn't hear things. There were always rumors about better suits, bigger guns and faster cars. And hover bikes. Stories about hover bikes came out every couple of years like clockwork.
Max would have loved to have had a hover bike.
They talked about Chimera, too.
It was the kind of thing that should have been used to scare the new kids. It wasn't. Chimera was only talked about with people you've known for years and even then it was in whispers. This was the first time he'd ever saw the name written down.
Plumbers started out knowing they were outgunned. No matter how much alien tech they got their hands on, the aliens had more and better. Even worse, almost every species out there had some physical advantage over mankind. Between the two, humanity was stuck.
The rumor was was that forty years ago, the Plumbers decided to do something about it. That they spent thirty years playing with a mix of alien genes, all of the assorted machines they could beg, borrow or steal, and the best bit of human science and guesswork they could manage.
Rumor said that the results were locked away in a room somewhere. That most didn't look even the least bit human, and that those were the easiest to deal with. Some survived. Some always did, in those kinds of stories. That the ones that managed to be born were sent out into the world with their deformities blamed on chemicals or radiation and kept under observation in case they developed something useful.
Max had always thought that they were just stories until last year. He'd seen Ben take on so many people who were... different that he had to wonder.
Finally, he couldn't help himself. He grabbed the folder and opened it. The first couple of pages were a recap. It was a list of failure after failure until the last few years. Then they had some success, but it was just in time to be canceled as a casualty of the budget cuts that came after they drove off Vilgax. He read and couldn't stop shaking his head. "It was all true?"
"Yes."
"And they are going to try again? Didn't they learn anything after the first time?" Max felt sick as he shoved the file away. "What on Earth has changed?"
Wes caught the folder and placed it off to the side. Then he wiped his hand on his jeans. "Your grandson."
Max tensed and looked out the window. He didn't see anyone else out there, but that didn't mean anything. If they had finally come to grab Ben... He would have to abandon the Rust Bucket. The Plumbers would find it too easily. And they couldn't use any of the cars parked outside.
Not that it mattered, he knew how to hot-wire pretty much everything. Which reminded him, he'd have to teach Ben and Gwen how to do that. And how to pick locks. He'd made plans for this over the years. If they managed to get out of Bellwood they would head south into Mexico. After that, they would have time. Time and options. He had contacts that could get his entire family off world in a few days. The second hardest part would be convincing them to go before it was too late.
The most difficult was sitting across from him. Wes Green had saved his life a dozen times, just like Max had saved his. They'd been friends for decades. Max had been there when Kai was named.
None of that would stop him. Not from protecting his family.
Wes met Max's eyes and didn't move. He didn't look surprised, but he did look offended. "If that was what Jim wanted, I would have told him to go to hell."
Max nodded but didn't relax at all.
Wes let an angry sigh escape from his mouth. "Yes. They have made plans. I don't blame them. Your grandson is a good man, but if I hadn't met him I wouldn't have trusted an eleven-year-old boy with the world's most powerful alien artefact either. Don't tell me you haven't thought about trying to remove it."
"Of course I have," Max admitted with a grimace. It was all he'd thought about for the first month. The kids thought it was an adventure, and so did he sometimes, but he knew how dangerous it was. Max stood and got a glass of water for himself. That was why he'd taken Ben to Fort Tesla to begin with. He'd told Ben that they were just going to find a way to dampen the Omnitrix' power surge so everybody within a thousand miles couldn't follow it back and they had. It was a reason, but he was really looking for a way to take the watch off.
Max had put Ben through every scan he could think of, and they all said the same thing. It wasn't a sophisticated lock that kept the Omnitrix in place. No, the device had melded itself into Ben's body. The scans that were sensitive enough showed a thin lattice of fibers that ran from Ben's wrist to every other part of his body, including his brain. It was like a giant antenna.
The only good news was that the computer was sure that trying to cut it off would more than likely destroy the Omnitrix. That was the only reason why Max had sent in the report in and every scan he had taken. He wanted to make sure that no one got any ideas. "I'm glad Jim read a report for once." The words were just a little bitter.
Wes chuckled. "Jim gave the report to every scientist, doctor and witch doctor he could get his hands on. He didn't believe them either, but he didn't want to risk the tech. At least not right now."
"Right now," Max repeated the words, and they still sounded threatening. "If he doesn't want to take the Omnitrix right now, why did he track you down?"
"Because you've given him another option."
Other options? It took him longer than it should have to look at the scans again. As he looked at them, he realized that they were basically a blueprint. "They can do it?"
"They found someone who had already started."
Max frowned. Already started? Plenty of people had tried to steal the thing, but the only person he knew of who could even come close to copying its effects was...
"They brought in Animo? Didn't they see what he did to our guys last month?"
"Yes. That was why he was brought in."
"We spent a YEAR trying to keep that madman from getting the Omnitrix and Jim just hands it to him?!"
"He was the expert," Wes said. "And he won't be running off with it for a long while."
No, Max thought, he wouldn't.
"The lab boys said it took a genius to design the Omnitrix." Wes looked through the window to the dark house across from them. "A genius to build, but a madman might be able to copy it. Some of it."
"An economy model." It's what they did. They did it with everything that looked even a little useful. But for this...
"Yes. A one for one change. The white coats were already playing around with Dr. Animo's work when both the man himself and your scans fell into their hands. They think they'll have the first prototype by next year. After that..."
It was a good idea. A whole squad of Bens. Even if they were limited to one form each... He could almost see it. Max rubbed the back of his head. "I never should have sent in the scans."
"It would have saved everyone trouble."
"Except for Ben." Wes nodded and looked away, and just like that, Max knew that he'd told Jim to go to hell. "Damn."
"That's what I said when Jim appeared on my door."
"The boss paid you a personal visit?"
"He wanted to talk to the important people himself."
Max shook his head and chuckled. "Didn't want to chase me across the country, huh?"
Wes grinned. "He said he was busy cleaning up your messes."
And that was what it came down to. Messes.
There were less than there used to be. Despite what he told the kids, the Plumbers never closed down. Just downsized. There had been so little activity after they'd beaten Vilgax that there were only a few teams around the world to keep an eye on things while they put all their research and development in one base.
That's all they needed. The Plumbers were formed to keep Earth safe, not to protect the universe. Sure, there were moments when the Plumbers cooperated with the Galactic Enforcers. They shared some intel and turned over the occasional smuggler or wanna-be galactic conqueror, but that was it. For the most part, the Earth and the Universe pretended the other didn't exist.
Until last year.
And that was nothing compared to this. "Everyone will notice if we do this." Max tapped the report with every word.
"Yes. We'll be seeing sails on the horizon again," Wes said with dark humor. "I hope it works out better for us this time."
Max flipped through the file again. It was all there. He'd given them every bit of information they needed. There was only one thing it didn't answer.
"Why are you telling me about all of this?"
Wes looked out the window. "Pretty night."
"Just tell me."
"They need volunteers."
Max threw his head back and laughed. "And he thought of us? I'm sprier than I look, but as far as I can tell the alien forms match our ages and I don't think a couple of sixty-year-old Fourarms are going to do anyone any good."
"Not us." Wes gave him a look and he tightened his jaw. "'The scientists think that there was a reason that the Omnitrix picked your grandson."
"It chose Ben because he was the closest to where it landed."
"They think that there was more to it than that. That he was the only one that it could bond to."
Max's eye twitched. "Destiny?" He'd heard all he needed to hear about destiny from his sister over the years. She believed, he didn't. They fought about it until they agreed to never talk about it again.
Wes scowled. "Do not discount destiny. We are all bound by it."
"I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about destiny today."
Wes winced and nodded. "Even without destiny. The psychologists believe that it chose him because he was still a child and could mentally accept the change better."
"Plenty of adult aliens chased after that thing." Destiny and psychology. Max shook his head. He'd been up too long to even want to think about either. "They based that off of one person?"
"He is all they have to compare to," Wes said. "Copying the device will be difficult enough. They will not make it more difficult. Your grandson is the only one who has ever used it. He is a child, so they will use children."
"Children?" Max felt sick as he whispered, "Gwen?"
"And Kai." Wes finally met Max's eyes. And for the first time in a very long time, his friend's eyes were cold with anger. "Jim thinks they would make ideal Kinecelerans. Gwen even more so because of her karate training."
"No."
"No? She has the heart of a warrior. I saw that last summer. Just as I saw the way she watched her cousin. She was proud, yes. Proud, but jealous."
Max swallowed. "If you'd asked last summer, she probably would have jumped at the chance. Not now." The Plumbers did good and necessary work. Max had always known that or he never would have joined. But this, turning children into soldiers...
He was suddenly very glad he'd never told them about Gwen's skills with magic. That was a gift even rarer than alien technology, and if he had... "Are you?"
"No." And that was it, no explanation.
Max nodded with relief, but his still looked at the report. "Is Jim going to insist?"
Wes' eyes turned and looked out the large window. His friend's face had become a stoney mask, and that was when he was always the most dangerous. Finally, he shook his head. Just once. It was the barest jerk of a motion but it was enough to calm Max's stomach. "Not with us. Not yet." He shrugged. "In a few years, who knows? Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe it will work. Maybe it will be something she wants. If I am not, and he does insist, at least I will have time to..." He stopped and looked at Max. "If he does, bring your grandchildren to me. My people will keep them safe. You have my word."
"Thank you," Max said, and some of the stress went from his back.
"Besides, he doesn't have to insist. There have already been volunteers."
"Who is he going to get that's crazy enough to do this?"
"Several of the younger Plumbers are more... determined to make their mark than we are. I heard that Morningstar has already volunteered his son."
"Lou always had more pride than brains." Max shook his head and looked at the other folder. Unlike the first this was only marked top-secret. "And that? More good news?"
Wes let out a breath and almost smiled. "More of the old kind. They managed to recover some video from Fort Tesla's backup drives. Jim asked me to have you take a look. Maybe keep an eye out while you wander."
Max nodded and opened the folder. There were a dozen pictures of aliens wandering around the base, trashing it. Most of them were humanoid with what looked like squid heads, exposed brains and one eye. Maybe six feet tall. They looked almost identical. There was no way for him to tell how many there were.
"They're not on any of our lists. And our contacts claim not to know anything."
"Claim?"
"Jim thinks they're lying."
"He thinks everyone's lying," Max said as he flipped through the first eleven photographs of the aliens tearing through the base. They focused on computers and written records at first. And then they destroyed everything else. The last was the most interesting. In it was the one unusual alien that he'd only seen a bit of in the other photographs. It was caught just as it discovered the security camera, so Max got a good look at it. The stiff way the other aliens stood around it made it the leader. The alien was giant, almost ten feet tall, and humanoid with snow-white skin, black hands and feet. There were eyes on its face and chest. Max's eyes went to its purple face, but he couldn't read any expression in it. "I've never seen them before. Have they shown up anywhere else?"
"Not that we can see. The alert is out, but if they've left..."
He knew just by looking at it that the alien wouldn't stop until it got what it wanted. Whatever that might be. He flipped further into the report and saw that nothing had been taken. They had just gone through and destroyed everything. It didn't make any sense. The base hadn't been used for years, not until he started taking Ben to it back in the fall.
The Omnitrix...
It always came back to the Omnitrix.
"I'll keep an eye out."
"I figured as much." Wes looked at the plain watch on his wrist, then looked at his friend. "I know this had been a rough day. Now that the business is done, is there anything you need?"
"Just some sleep."
Wes stood and put his hand on Max's shoulder. "Then I'll let you have it, old friend. Please, tell your family that they are in my prayers."
"Thank you."
The door didn't even click when it closed behind Wes. He'd gone, but he'd left the two folders behind in front of Max. Max stared at them. They were going to make children into soldiers using the work he'd done to try and protect his grandson. He'd already buried one child already today, and now he had to wonder how many more would be buried because of him.
He sat alone for a long time.