Liz nodded and said, "I recognized you…" Then she shot a glance at Maria, and something passed between the two girls.

"Future Max!" Maria exclaimed.

"What?" Michael said. "Who is that?”

Maria immediately looked sheepish, as if she had said too much.

Max looked down at Liz and said, "Future Max?”

"Who the hell is Future Max?" Michael said to Maria. "What are you two talking about?”

"Sorry, Liz," Maria said.

"It's okay," Liz replied. Then she turned to Max and said, "There's something I have to tell you.”

"We'll just give you guys a minute," Maria said.

"No," Max said, raising his hand. "This involves all of us. No secrets.”

"This involves Tess and Kyle and…" Liz collected her- self for a moment, and then spoke quickly and clearly. "It goes back to just before you found Kyle and me together.”

The memory of that night came back suddenly, like a blow. He remembered seeing Kyle and Liz in bed together. He remembered the shock and the feeling like someone had reached into his stomach and twisted his insides.

"Max, it wasn't an accident that you saw us. I set that up for a reason," Liz said.

Max felt the beginnings of understanding and said, "You wanted to be free of all this. You wanted a normal life.”

Shaking her head, Liz said, "No. I did it for you, because you asked me to.”

Max could remember few times in his life when he was as surprised as he was now. "I asked you to?”

"The night before you came to visit me, but not you, exactly. It was you from the future, fifteen years in the future," Liz said.

"How?" Max asked, finding things making less and less sense.

"You had used the Granilith. You explained that it had powers we had not discovered yet. You brought a warning and asked me to do something," Liz said.

"Go to bed with Kyle?" Max said, feeling even more confused. He looked over at Kyle, who was keeping his eyes to the ground. The boy looked as embarrassed as Max was confused.

"No," Liz replied. "You described a scene similar to the one in my premonition, where there was a battle and both Isabel and Michael died. And it was all because Tess had left and the four of you were not together for the battle. Max, Tess had left because… ”

"Of you and me," Max said, finally beginning to understand.

"You told me that 1 had to give you up to keep peace between Tess and the group," Liz said.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" Max said.

"You told me not to. You from the future told me that you would try to find another way," Liz said. "You said the only way to be sure was if you believed that it was over between us.”

Then the totality of it hit Max. Liz had given up so much… all because he had asked her to. Not who he was now, but some version of him from the future.

"It was all for nothing," Max said finally. "Tess…"He didn't have to say any more. Everyone there knew what Tess had done. She had killed Alex and betrayed them all. She had given birth to Max's son and tried to turn him over to Max's enemy Kevar on their home world. Then, when Kevar rejected Max's son as heir, she had come back looking for shelter.

"You didn't think to mention any of this before?' Michael asked. Then he turned to Maria and said, "And you knew?”

"What good would have it have done?" Liz said.

That stopped Michael in his tracks.

"How would you prepare for some mysterious danger fifteen years in the future?" Liz continued.

Then Max understood the final piece. Liz had taken all of that on herself. She had once accused him of taking too much on his shoulders, and now she was doing the same.

She turned to him and said, "I hoped that so many things had changed that there was a chance that that had changec too. And I didn't think you needed any more weight to carry You blame yourself for things that happened on another planet and in another life. You blame yourself for Alex and everything that happens to every one of us.”

Max shook his head. She didn't think he could have borne another burden. So she had taken it on herself.

He marveled at this small, slight girl in front of him. She had tried to protect him. Unfortunately she could not pro- tect him from the truth. He had been responsible for the fall of their home planet. He had been responsible for Alex's death and the pain his friends and his sister had suffered.

"What now, Max?" Isabel asked.

Max realized that everyone was looking at him… looking to him. He knew what they wanted. They wanted him to lead. To solve the problem. To keep them safe. Well, his track record on that score hadn't been very good so far. Max shook his head. "I don't have any answers here," he said.

"So we just chalk it up that in fifteen years we're going to take second place in a duel to the death?" Michael asked.

"I told you, Michael… I told you all before we left: I'm not the leader of this group anymore. And from what Liz is telling us, it's under my leadership that everything goes to hell," Max said.

Isabel was looking at him with a look of disbelief in her face. After a long moment, she said, "Well Max, as a mem- ber of this group, do you have any thoughts at all?”

"Yes," Max said. "I think it's very important that I not make all the decisions here. I honestly think that following me will lead us to ruin again. I brought us there on our home planet. I bring us there in the future that Liz describes.”

"Maybe third time's a charm, Maxwell," Michael said. It was a surprising attempt at humor for Michael, and Max found himself smiling. The effort won Michael a hard smack in the arm from Maria, however.

"I do have a few other thoughts," Max added. "If what Liz said was correct, then we lost because all four of us, including Tess, were not fighting together.”

"But Max," Liz said, "Tess is dead. She died when the air force base blew.”

Max nodded. In perhaps the only selfless act of her life, Tess had walked into the base instead of endangering the group further. She had chosen to die fighting instead of living out the rest of her life in the Special Unit's White Room. Shuddering from his memory of that place, Max wondered how much of his youth he had left in that room.

How much had been burned out of him by Agent Pierce under those bright white lights? Just about all of it, I guess, Max thought.

Max understood Tess's decision. He had vowed to him- self that he would die fighting before he ever went back there. Oddly, Max had died and had seen things, glimpses of the other side that he wished he could forget. Neverthe- less, he would go there before he would go back to the White Room, because he had seen both death and Hell… and Hell was white.

"I think the three of us have to become stronger, to.compensate for Tess's loss," Max said.

"How do we do that?" Isabel asked.

"By doing the opposite of what we have done up until now," Max said. He saw the light of understanding go on in Michael's eyes.

"Our powers," Michael said.

"What? What about them?" Isabel said.

"Up until now," Max explained, "we have tried to not use them, or to do so only when absolutely necessary.”

"But not anymore," Michael said.

Max nodded his agreement. "The point of this trip for me was to do things differently. We've been hiding our whole lives, denying who we are. Now I'm ready to use my powers to do whatever good I can. We're not hiding anymore and we're not exactly running. I think if we can keep moving we can stay ahead of… our enemies. Maybe as we use our powers more, well gain extra strength.”

"Sounds like a plan, Maxwell," Michael said.

Isabel nodded her agreement, and Max realized that in spite of what he wanted and in spite of what he had just said, he had just mapped out their future. And the others had agreed.