He felt some of the tightness in his muscles ease a little. He didn't have some hideous aliens-only disease. And Ray knew exactly what was going on. He could walk Max through the whole akino deal.

"Usually it would be a cause for celebration," Ray agreed. "Like a human bar mitzvah or a wedding. But-"

"I know, I know. I live on earth. This is my home. I shouldn't waste time thinking about a place I'll never go," Max interrupted.

"That's not what I was going to say," Ray told him. "There is no question that you must join the collective consciousness. And soon. But we're too far away. You need… you need the communication crystals. And they're on the ship."

"The ship? The ship disappeared after the crash, remember? We don't know where it is," Max protested. "Michael and I have been looking for it practically our whole lives."

Ray reached across the table and grabbed Max's hand. Which was weird. Ray wasn't one of those touchy-feely guys. Max felt his muscles retighten until his entire body ached.

"Max, if you don't connect to the consciousness, you will die," Ray said slowly and clearly.

Die. The word sucked all the air out of Max's lungs and left him gasping.

No. It couldn't be. A few dizzy spells could not possibly equal a fatal disease.

"Wait," he protested. "I've lived on earth my whole life. You have no way of knowing how that's changed my body. You can't be sure I'll respond the same way I would have if I was on our home planet," Max said in a rush. He tried to pull his hand free, but Ray tightened his grip.

"You're right. I don't know how growing to maturity on this planet has affected you. But here's what I do know," Ray answered. "I know that the experiences you described to me-the painfully loud sounds and bright colors-they're almost exactly what I went through myself when it was my akino time."

"That doesn't mean crap. I thought you were supposed to be a scientist or something. Don't you think you're making a huge assumption here?" Max demanded. He gave his hand another wrench, and this time Ray let it go.

Max crossed his arms, tucking his hand against his body. But he could still feel the tremors running through it.

"Maybe you're right," Ray said gently. He used his sleeve to rub a coffee stain off one of the little alien faces decorating the table. "But just in case you're not, I-"

Max felt like he was about to lose it. He could already feel a lump growing in his throat, and his eyes were getting so wet that another blink might bring tears.

He sprang out of his chair so quickly that it toppled. He caught it before it hit the ground and slammed it back in place. Then he took a long breath, pulling it deep into his lungs. "What do you want me to do today?" he asked. "I know you're not paying me to grow my hair."

Ray gave a small smile-whether because Max had used one of Ray's favorite expressions or because of his amazingly obvious subject change, Max wasn't sure. "Why don't you go into the storage area and see if you can find any more foo fighter stuff for the display?"

"On it." Max took three steps away from the table, then turned. "Ray, if you're right and I do have to connect to the consciousness, how much time do I have?"

"It's hard to say exactly," Ray admitted. "Maybe months. Maybe days."

"Is it closing time?" Maria DeLuca whined. "Please let it be closing time." She slid her left heel out of her new shoe and studied the massive blister growing there.

"Five minutes," her best friend, Liz Ortecho, told her. "I don't know why you wore those shoes to work, anyway."

"In these shoes I actually approach tallness," Maria explained. "You just don't know what it's like when you're my height. People act like I'm some kind of mutant-part girl, part puppy. Strangers pat me on the head."

That was the truth. Kind of. Maria did like being taller. But if she was totally and completely honest, she chose the shoes more because of what they did for her legs than what they did for her height. She'd have to live in the gym to get the killer calves those shoes gave her.

Liz's dad had broken down and bought new uniforms for the wait staff at the Crashdown Cafe. They were basically Men in Black rip-offs. Except Maria had gone for the black skirt instead of the black pants. And in her new skirt, with the new shoes, well, it's not like she was suddenly as beautiful as Liz or anything. But the combo definitely got her a few more looks, and a few more tips, than usual.

Unfortunately the guy she most wanted to do the looking, Michael Guerin, hadn't shown up today. He hung out at the cafe a lot. Of course, he never bothered to tell her in advance when he was going to stop by. That would make things way too easy on her. And her feet.

"People don't pat you on the head because you're short," Liz explained. "It's because your hair looks so springy. People want to touch it to see if it will go boing."

"Oh, thanks for clarifying that." Maria tried to shoot Liz an annoyed look but ruined it by breaking into giggles.

"I'll collect the sugar bowls, and you can start filling them," Liz said. "That way you can stay behind the counter… where probably no one will notice that you aren't wearing shoes."

Maria immediately kicked off the torture devices masquerading as footwear. Aaaah! She gave her toes a happy wiggle, then knelt down to grab the sugar. As she reached for the box, the opening notes of the Close Encounters theme rang out.

The door chime. Someone was coming in. Was it Michael? Without standing up, Maria grabbed her left shoe and jammed her foot in. She felt an explosion of wetness on her heel as her blister burst. She ignored the pain and shoved on the right shoe, gripping the counter for balance. Then she slowly stood up, trying for a casual, I-have-no-idea-the-door-chime-even-rang coolness.

Her casual smile faded when she saw Elsevan DuPris standing in front of the cash register. The guy gave her the creeps. It's not that he wasn't friendly. In fact, he was a little too friendly. And his southern accent, it was a little too southern. It just sounded fake. Which brought up the question-why? Why would a person stroll around dressed in a white suit and white shoes, twirling a walking stick and talking in an obviously fake southern accent?

DuPris was the editor-owner of the Astral Projector, Roswell's all-alien tabloid. So you had to expect the guy to be a little eccentric. But he was even eccentric in his eccentricity.

"I'm doing a poll for my little paper, and I wondered if you'd be good enough to assist me," DuPris drawled. "I believe there is a connection between a person's ability to roll their tongue and alien inbreeding somewhere in their lineage. I thought it would be interesting to see if we have a greater number of people with this attribute in our fair town, for obvious reasons."

Liz rushed up to the counter and dropped a load of the flying-saucer-shaped sugar bowls. "Sounds interesting. I'd love to see your data sometime, but we're closed now, so-"

"So I'll say good night to you young ladies. And I'll be sure to bring these, uh, experimental results by," DuPris said. He tipped his white Panama hat and sauntered out the door. Liz followed him and locked it the second he stepped outside.

Maria smiled as she kicked off her shoes for the second time. Liz definitely knew how to put people in their place when they needed it. If she hadn't been around, Maria probably would have done the tongue-rolling thing for DuPris, feeling like an idiot the whole time. Then she'd probably have been sucked into a long conversation with him, making feeble comments about needing to get back to work but not actually being able to escape.

Liz returned with an armful of ketchup bottles and lowered them to the counter. Maria rolled her tongue at her.