Part 6 – Underground
May 3rd – May 4th, 2005
1 : Liz
8:01am
T minus 6 years, 5 months, 29 days, 7 hours, 59 minutes
"Happy Birthday!" Doctor Allan Preston, Liz's mentor, said excitedly as he gave her a white envelope. It was the beginning of their session, and although Allan was a jovial man most of the time, today he was extra-cheerful. For a second, Liz didn't know if she should tell him it wasn't her birthday yet.
She also privately resented his cheerfulness since she hadn't slept well at all. That goddamned reoccurring dream had come visiting her again. The sunset, the petals… Max sneezing… and then everything crumbling beneath her feet. The whole thing was so surreal she had dismissed it as nothing but a weird dream her mind had fixated on. It had a beautiful sunset, she didn't mind dreaming about that. It was the whole other part she dreaded.
Allan hugged her, shattering her momentary reverie, and gave her a kiss on each cheek, as the European custom demanded. He was always coming and going to and from the Old World, and sometimes he mixed up his cultural manners.
"Allan, thank you!" she enthusiastically said. "It's a bit early for it…"
"Oh, two, three weeks? I'm closed enough and I couldn't keep it a secret any longer. Go on, open it!"
His happiness was contagious, and already grinning, Liz eagerly opened the envelope. Inside, were two tickets. Getting them out, she recognized them for airplane tickets. Bound to Paris, exactly a week from now, to return three days before her birthday. Her enthusiasm evaporated.
She no longer had visions, but the ones she had had before Max took them away, were seared in her mind: Michael exiting a cab with the driver on the right side. Maria sitting in a Square surrounded by Chinese people. Isabel coming down some stairs in luxurious surroundings. And Max getting shot in a French restaurant.
Allan was excitedly talking by her side. All Liz could hear was the echoing thunder of a shot, a cup shattering on the floor, and Max moving backward by the force of the impact.
"No," Liz whispered, paling, frenetically looking through their connection that Max was well. Confused and anxious, Max answered her back.
"I'm sorry, no?" Allan asked.
"I can't go," she stated, some of her sanity coming back with Max's mental touch.
"It's already cleared with Dave and Jake," he said, more subdued now. "Liz, we've been working on this for two and a half years. You have to be there for the presentation."
She mutely refused. Nothing would make her set foot in France. Nothing.
2 : Max
10:53pm
T minus 6 years, 5 months, 28 days, 15 hours, 7 minutes
"You should go," Max said simply as he hugged her to his chest, both lying on the bed, telling each other how the day had gone.
"Max," she said, turning to look at him in the dim light, "it's not worth it. I won't get to see Paris, so big deal. Millions of people never get to see it."
He smiled his slow smile. The one that said "I understand, but you don't".
"We won't go," she assured him with finality.
"I won't go, Liz. It was me who was shot… And we don't even know if it will happen in France. We never thought we were going to go that far…" he smiled again, a sad smile this time.
"Max, no."
"I've taken so much from you…" he started. Liz groaned, effectively interrupting him.
"What?" he asked, a little taken aback. She looked him in the eyes, and took a minute to rise onto her elbows, even if one was squarely pressing down Max's sternum. He flinched.
"Don't start with that again. I know you said you wanted me to go see the world, and I was the one who told you it wasn't fair that you didn't get to do it, but neither of us thought we'd be in this situation. I just… I just wouldn't feel right being there knowing you are stuck here…" she whispered, moving her hand to caress his cheek.
They had been underground for three years, and for the most part, the furthest they'd gotten had been the towns within a fifty mile radius, at best. But about six months before, Jake had been hinting at other places. Maybe a change of scenery, he would say. Maybe getting to know new surroundings, a new culture. They didn't really pay much attention to it. The last thing they wanted to do was to find themselves breaking the deal and having to run in some foreign country.
"You've worked so hard on Allan's research…" Max whispered, returning the caress.
"Research done thanks to how your metabolism works," she pointed out. "You should be there, too."
Max frowned. "I think the donor doesn't really count." They both smiled.
Allan's presentation in Paris was about their breakthrough in rushing the healing factors of the human body. Allan didn't know who the donor was, and he never really said much about what he thought he was looking at in the microscope, but Max had the feeling that Allan knew exactly who and what the donor was. After all, whenever Max went into the lab to help them out, Allan always looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes when he thought Max wasn't paying attention.
"Ten days in Paris," he taunted her. "You can't pass that up."
Liz bit her lower lip, not knowing how else to say no to this offer.
Placing his hand on the back of her head, he guided her to lie on his chest again. "I appreciate that you want to have such limited choices in traveling as I do, but it's not necessary. Liz, you don't have to sacrifice any more than you already have. I was born into this. You still get to decide. I'm sure if you asked them to send Maria with you, they wouldn't object."
She shut her eyes tightly at that. It was one thing for her to say no to Paris. But to also deprive Maria of the opportunity?
"Did that convince you?" Max tentatively asked. Liz just swatted him. He laughed then, her weight on him feeling just perfect.
"I'll be back for my birthday," she said out loud, the first hint she was considering taking the chance.
"I'm counting on it," Max said, hugging her. A couple of minutes later, he cryptically added, "I'm dying to give you your present."
She smiled, thoughtful for a second. Had he asked her, she would have told him that the way he'd phrased it gave her an unwelcome foreboding feeling.
3 : Kyle
9:31am
T minus 6 years, 5 months, 27 days, 6 hours, 29 minutes
"I think she's speechless," Kyle worriedly joked as Maria stared at the tickets in her hand. Two minutes later, the shout of joy and delight proved him wrong.
4 : Jake
10:47am
T minus 6 years, 5 months, 27 days, 5 hours, 13 minutes
"Explain this to me," Dave said over the phone. "Allan, you and I conspired to give those two a romantic getaway as you suggested, and now you're telling me Max refused but Liz wants to go? Are they having some problem we are not aware of?"
The question wasn't serious, but the sentiment was.
"I don't know Dave," his honest answer came. Jake had been going to lay out plans for the other four so they wouldn't feel left out, but this turn of events had baffled him as much as it had Dave.
"Well, you're the expert. You keep telling me to do this and that, and when I finally agree there's enough safety to get them out… they refuse it."
"Technically speaking, they half refused it. Look, I'll talk to Max, see if I can find out the reasoning behind this."
5 : Max
2:21pm
T minus 6 years, 5 months, 27 days, 1 hour, 39 minutes
"There's no problem… is there?" Max slowly asked, standing in the doorway to Jake's lab. They were seldom called by Jake, so this unexpected summons had him on edge for the ten minutes it had taken to walk down the corridors and get down here.
Jake had been typing something on his laptop, and had vaguely acknowledged Max as he finished up his notes. Closing the lid, he looked up, a smile on his face. One thing Max had to give the man was that he always looked welcoming.
"Come, come. Sorry for the short notice."
Max went inside, heading for one of the two chairs in front of Jake's desk. Piles of files were neatly placed at his right, and as Jake opened and closed a drawer to his left, Max heard the familiar sound of a bag of chips being opened. Jake loved junk food, but he never indulged his taste when they were going to do an experiment. So that was out.
Silently offering Max the open bag, Jake also seemed to tense at something he was thinking. "I've already eaten," Max politely declined.
"Good, more for me," he smiled, getting his hand into the bag, and popping a couple of artificially cheese flavored goodies into his mouth.
"So, you're not going to Paris," Jake said without preamble. Liz had told Allan that morning, and now Max presumed the good doctor had been the one who had told Jake. By this time of day, it was almost a given that Dave already knew.
"Liz is going," Max said, "if that's okay, I guess…"
"Yes, yes, Allan has no problem with taking both girls, though he says he's not going to go shopping and sightseeing."
That wasn't going to be a problem, Max thought. Maria had a built-in radar for shopping, no matter the city. She didn't need a sixty-something guy trailing behind her if he didn't want to go.
"The question is, why aren't you going?" Jake said, repeating his statement of a minute before. "Is there something I should know?"
That was the tricky thing. Kyle could read minds, Liz could reach Max and have somewhat premonitory dreams; both of them would get spidery, green sparks if they were too stressed. And yet no one outside the six of them knew about that. A fact Max wanted to keep intact.
That meant telling Jake that Liz had had a vision about him being shot in a French restaurant was out of the question. Fortunately, Max had the perfect answer.
"I've been working on a… private project," he slowly said, piquing Jake's interest. How did the saying go? The best lies are the ones that have truth in them.
"I'm listening," Jake said, his hand in midair as he was hunting for more fried cheese.
"It's Liz's present, actually…" Max elaborated. Jake's eyebrows shot upward, a wide smile spreading. "I've been working down in genetics… They have this… um… plant research," Max continued, now feeling slightly embarrassed. It was one thing that he thought it was romantic, it was another to talk about it before his project was fully realized and he could show it off. Jake simply nodded, his chips forgotten.
"Liz loves roses. White roses. So I asked around, and Henry, one of the technicians, has been helping me to understand how to breed new kinds of flowers."
"Oh," Jake said, slightly surprised. "Ray would give you extra credit on stealth," he added a moment later. It was a relief for Max to know he hadn't attracted any attention. "How long have you been working on this?"
It wasn't difficult for his mind to grasp the basics, but patience played an important role when it came to crossing species and getting what he wanted. He wished he could speed up a lot of things with the aid of his powers, but he could only do so much without skewing the results.
"Um…I thought I was going to have it ready for Christmas… two years ago, and Henry just laughed at me."
Jake frowned in sympathy. One thing Max had not known was how complicated it was to get the right rose. So much trial and error. So much time. Max had thought back then that it wouldn't matter, since he could meddle with molecules. He had been wrong—oh, so wrong. It hadn't stopped him, though. Knowing that the right rose could, in fact, be achieved, all Max needed was another special occasion. Now his special gift was going to serve as his excuse.
"The thing is, this last batch I have is going to be blooming right around when Liz is leaving. And I want to see it, make sure it's ready. Plus, Michael threatened to kill me if I left Maria and him alone while we were seeing the Eiffel Tower," Max rushed in, a detail that might sell his story just the right way.
"You know… it might not be easy, but maybe I could convince Dave to let you all go…" Jake said thoughtfully, his hand absently reaching for his snack.
"Thanks, I really appreciate it, but I really want to see this through," and I really need to stay away from French restaurants.
"Allan is really proud of her, you know," Jake said, leaning back on his chair. "Liz is really good at what she does, and has been learning really quickly." Max genuinely smiled at the compliment. Watching Liz in her element was extraordinary. He was spending more and more time at Allan's lab helping out just to be a witness to that. He'd always liked science, he just hadn't been as passionate as she was. "I really wish you didn't feel so strongly about not going…"
"She deserves it, but I'm pretty sure she's going to have the workshop foremost in her mind, and Allan will want her 100% there, too. I would just be in the way."
Jake looked at him for a moment, and Max was sure he was going to keep questioning. Sometimes it felt as if Jake had a lie detector in those dark brown eyes of his.
"Well, I can assure you it won't be the last time you get a pass to Paris," Jake smiled. Max smiled back, inwardly wincing. He would have to come up with very creative responses to keep avoiding that place and keep Liz's ability secret. Anything would do. Anythingbut the truth.
6 : Michael
5:01pm
T minus 6 years, 5 months, 26 days, 22 hours, 59 minutes
"You sure about this?" Michael asked in a low voice as he pretended to study the blueprints of the car he had in front of him. It was their first day getting to know cars, but as Michael foresaw it, all cars where the same: four wheels, doors, chassis, and a million piece motor easy to tweak.
"Michael, I don't want her to keep missing out on things," Max said in an equally low voice, his eyes roaming the intricate blue lines on the paper. Michael knew, just as well as Max did, about Liz's vision of him getting shot.
"I don't like them going without any of us… The vision can still come true. Just because you're not there, doesn't mean one or both of them won't get shot."
It was a reasonably valid point, Michael knew, but he was not going to be the one to tell Maria she couldn't go. Damn Max for not giving him a heads up!
"They'll be with Allan the whole time. I'm sure… I'm sure they'll be safe," Max finished, not sounding so confident now that Michael was pointing out the risks. Of course, Michael didn't look convinced; he was far from feeling convinced. The problem was, Max really wanted Liz to go, for whatever reason, and arguing about it was not going to be productive. He hated when he had to reach a compromise, but if he had learned something from his own memories, was that compromise was the only way to work with Zan. Might work as well with Max. "We should send Isabel. At the very least, Dave would add extra security just to make sure his precious cargo is not shot at."
"That's not a bad idea," Max said, as he traced with a finger a particular point in the car structure that would easily. "An all-girls trip. It might also cheer her up," he added, voicing Michael's thoughts. Lately, Isabel's gloom was starting to get on his nerves.
"Gentlemen," Ray said, reaching the table where they were looking at the blueprint. "Finished?" he asked, meaning their reading of the car's internal structure. It was like learning how the guns worked, and since then, they had kept escalating the size. The guns had been trickier since they had been smaller. A car… a car had endless possibilities, and all they needed was a basic understanding of how the parts worked. They could scan now too, but they had never told Ray—or Jake—that. They didn't need so much time looking at something anymore, but they feigned it all the same. When they both nodded, Ray smiled. "Proceed."
Two minutes later, the car collapsed in a heap to the floor. They hadn't touched it. They didn't need to.
T minus 6 years, 5 months, 28 days, 21 hours, 41 minutes
