Now, shaking her head to end her woolgathering, Duff renewed her concentration on the screen in front of her. Among the images there, she recognized Kyle Valenti and Michael Guerin, though their looks had changed considerably since she had last seen them two years earlier. Another image was a poorly taken photograph, evidently shot through an oddly darkened window. She thought she could make out the features of Isabel Evans.

The report didn't name the teens, but did note that another male and two females were also "persons of interest." Duff suspected that the male was either Isabel's brother… Max… or Alex Whitman. The girls would likely be Liz Parker and Maria DeLuca.

The fact that the report didn't name the kids was one warning flag for Duff; another was the absence of the original strike orders. They had already been classified, and all internal memos were to be routed through one specific office. A specially prepared press statement was boiler-plate obfuscation, and other information was blacked out.

They're covering something up, Duff thought. Not that secrets were unusual in the domestic intelligence game, but this smelled bad. She suspected that the men who had interrogated her two years earlier were probably involved in this; the older one had been badly scarred, and the younger one struck her as extremely unpleasant, almost feral.

I wish these kids well, Duff thought. From what the report did say, their actions sounded more defensive than offensive. She seriously doubted that they posed a danger to anyone.

I hope they manage to get out of Dodge before the net closes around them.

Cheyenne, Wyoming Max watched as dusk started to fall. The group had been unable to reach a consensus about whether to risk going to the hospital to heal the people who'd been injured during their escape from the mall.

Max decided the matter would be better faced after a few of their own urgent needs had been taken care of first. Kyle agreed reluctantly, but ultimately went along with the group's decision to wait a few hours, especially since a recent news report had upgraded the status of the injured pair from "critical" to "guarded." Although the report also said that one of the patients was comatose, and that both would remain overnight in the hospital's critical care unit, Max reasoned that they could wait a few hours without necessarily condemning anyone to death.

With the group mollified for the moment, Max concentrated on what they were going to do in the meantime. They all really needed to eat, and the alien trio was in particular need of rest, if only to recharge their powers. Max acknowledged that going back to the hotel they had been staying at prior to the raid on the mall was risky; they didn't know if it was being watched or not. So Max decided that, for now, they would stay here, in the shadows of the abandoned church. Nobody argued.

"Kyle and I will go get some food," Max said. "I saw a chain of fast-food restaurants about ten blocks away. “

"You need to be disguised," Liz said with a frown. "If any of us go out in public, we'll have to change our looks. At least a little. “

"Oh great, it's alien makeover time again," Michael said with a groan. He was lying down in the back of the van, looking uncharacteristically carefree.

"It's necessary, Michael," Maria said.

Isabel stepped forward, her hands up. "Who's first? “

"I'll go first," Max said. Turning to Michael, he added, "We're going to need some money, though. “

Michael sat up and mock-saluted. "After being called a terrorist, I guess 'counterfeiter' isn't going to add too many more years onto my sentence. “

Following their first month or so on the road, Max had stumbled onto an idea on how to get the money they needed to continue their travels. They couldn't really make the money, and if he continued to create diamonds out of coal… as he had done for Liz when he'd asked her to marry him, and then again after Stonewall… they might establish a pattern that would get them into trouble.

But weeks ago, Max had seen a store clerk holding a twenty-dollar bill up to the light. When asked what he was doing, the clerk explained about the security thread woven into the linen of the bill, as well as the color-shifting ink. These two elements were some of the more sophisticated anticounterfeiting steps being taken lately in the printing of paper currency.

Max immediately saw the solution to their money problems, although it had taken a great deal of research and weeks of practice before Michael had perfected his new "craft." Using his powers, he resequenced the elements of a one-dollar bill into a five- or a twenty-dollar bill. Like repainting the Microbus, all of the chemical and physical elements were already in place; they merely had to be rearranged somewhat.

Although not everyone in the group liked Max's and Michael's financial solution, they all knew that as long as they were on the run, holding down jobs for money was out of the question. Max and Michael had both reasoned that since the money they were altering had come from the government… and that it was the government that had forced them to be on the run in the first place… then nobody was actually getting hurt, except maybe the Treasury Department. Indeed, they had seen several times already that their "funny money"… Kyle insisted on referring to the alien-created paper as "quatloos," for some reason… passed smoothly through counterfeiting-detection devices.

Now, as Michael got to work on turning the Cybernet Cafe's one-dollar bills into twenties, Isabel stepped up toward Max. "I think we're going to go really short," she said, sparing a glance toward Liz. Max saw her nodding.

Isabel's hands glowed slightly, and Max's shaggy dark hair began to disintegrate. A very faint burning smell rose in the air as the hair disappeared. Within minutes, he had a spiky flattop with short sides.

Isabel put a finger up to her mouth and squinted at her brother. "Something's missing," she said. Then, running her fingertips down from Max's oversized ears to his cheekbones, she drew in a set of sideburns. The hair follicles extruded a quarter-inch of dark hair in seconds, as if the alien energy from Isabel's hands were a grow-lamp and the emerging hairs were hungry plants.

"Oh, very nice," Liz said, moving to stand next to Max. She ran her fingers along the side of his head, and he smirked.

"Okay, next," Isabel said, as Kyle moved to stand in front of her.

"I want some facial hair too," Kyle said. "I didn't know you could even do that. “

Isabel smiled enigmatically, clearly not willing to part with all of her secrets. Max understood the impulse, a habit born of long practice.

"What do you want?" Isabel asked Kyle.

Kyle looked thoughtful. "I'm thinking a mustache and goatee. And maybe medium short hair, dirty blond." Kyle grinned at her, as though hoping he had just asked Isabel to re-create him as her ideal man.

"That is so not you," Maria said.

"Hey, the customer is always right," Kyle shot back.

"Whatever," Isabel said with a sigh.

Isabel closed her eyes and lowered her head, stifling a snort of laughter. Then she raised her hands and placed them on Kyle's temples.

She looked straight into his eyes, finding his gaze trusting and hopeful, like it was when he was calm after he'd meditated. This was the Kyle that she liked, the guy who was so much like his father. He was protective and caring, kind of like a big, loyal dog.

"What?" Kyle said. "What are you smiling about? “

Isabel hadn't realized she'd been smiling. "Oh, nothing," she said, quickly altering her expression to neutral. She let her power flow through her hands, changing the colors and length of Kyle's hair. Almost instantly, it became shorter and lighter, and she gave it a bit of a wave.

Finished with that part of her task, she moved her fingertips to his upper lip. She could feel his warm exhalations as she did so, and the sensation kindled memories of warmth and intimacy. But not with Kyle. With Jesse.


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