So, where are the queen and your sister today, Max?» «That's partly why we've come here," Max said. «We sent Isabel, my sister, away. Liz has been having premonitions, and she recently had one where Isabel was being vivisected by Special Unit agents.» «Special Unit. I hate those guys," Langley said. «But I thought Nasedo shut them down.» «Hardly," Michael said. «They've been coming after us in a major way for the last year.» «Tess came back," Max said, explaining. «My son was rejected on Antar, so she came back so they wouldn't kill him. But her ship got shot down above Roswell and crashed. The air force got it, and she barely escaped with our child.» «Boy does this sound familiar," Langley said snidely. «Why anyone would bring a ship anywhere near Roswell is beyond me.» Liz gave Langley a cool look, then continued where Max left off. «After she gave us Max's son, Tess went back to the air force base and blew it up. Completely. That's when the Special Unit really started coming after us.» «We've been on the run ever since," Max said. «We've had a couple of scrapes with Skins along the way.» «Not to mention those scaly, pointy-headed uglies with the pointy, nasty teeth," Maria said, pantomiming fangs by curling her fingers in front of her mouth. «And yesterday," Max continued, «we almost got caught by government agents.» «Ah, the good old reliable Men in Black," Langley said. «You know, those movies have more truth to them than most people realize. Except the MiBs aren't friendly to any aliens. Oh, and none of them have the charisma of Will Smith.» «I liked Tommy Lee Jones better," Michael said. «Yeah, somehow I guessed that," Langley said, before turning back to Max. «So what are you here for this time? What is it you need now?» «We're tired of running, and tired of fighting. We want to find a way to either get rid of the Special Unit once and for all, or…» Max hesitated. «Or what?» «Or we expose them for what they are and what they're doing. But if we do that, we won't be able to avoid exposing ourselves, too.» Langley didn't say anything, and instead took a quick swig from the Tabasco sauce bottle that had been sitting in front of Michael. «There's more," Maria said. «The Special Unit guys have taken Max's parents prisoner. And Liz's. It happened early today.» Langley nodded. «Almost ironic that it's humans who are doing the abducting to find aliens, isn't it?» He let the question hang in the air for a bit, then turned to Max. «And you're expecting me to help you get out of this mess?» Max didn't know if Langley was being glib, or if he was looking to blame the ex-king for whatever action Max was about to order him to take. They both knew that Langley was genetically programmed to obey any command Max gave him. He maintained steady eye contact with Langley. «You will help us. You will do everything in your power, use all of your money or your resources.» The kitchen was silent for a moment as Max continued staring into Langley's eyes. Finally, Langley gulped and nodded. «I thought you were going to say that. Since you asked so nicely, I'll sit down and figure out a plan with you. But first, you guys really stink. Go take a shower, and I'll have some new clothes for you.» Inhaling discreetly, Max caught a whiff of himself. He decided that Langley's idea sounded terrific. Maria and Liz were in the bathroom upstairs. Liz dried her hair as Maria stepped out of the twelve-nozzle glass-tiled shower. The marble-floored bathroom was filled with steam, but now that the showers were off, fans were sucking the vapors up and out of the room. «You could fit ten people into this shower," Liz said, impressed. «I have never been in a place this nice," Maria said as she toweled herself off. «Maybe I'll look for a place like this after I get my big non-soul-sucking music contract.» Liz was amused. «Is there any such thing?» She remembered when Maria had turned down a recording contract she had been offered in New York because they were trying to turn her into «a prefab, breast-implanted, BritneyChristina-j. Lo clone.» «There's gotta be, girlfriend. P. J. Harvey or Dido or lots of other grrrls are doing what they want," Maria said. «And they're successful. Why not me?» Liz nodded. «Maybe after all this is over.» «So what about this Langley guy?» Maria asked. «Is he anything like what you imagined?» Liz remembered what Max had told her about the alien protector who had wanted to be human, no matter what the cost. «Yeah, pretty much. Max told me quite a bit. Actually, I was expecting him to be more of a jerk.» Maria snorted. «Do not repeat this, or I will kill you, but he actually reminds me of Michael. Like maybe he's Michael in another twenty years. If Michael had a future, and a lot of money, that is.» Liz moved her thumb and forefinger across her mouth. «My lips are sealed.» She thought that maybe Maria was being too hard on Michael, but now wasn't the time to say it. No, it is the right time, she thought. «Maria, you've really been down on Michael about his future lately, and pretty doom-and-gloomy about yours, too. I know we're all stressed and tense, but we're going to make it through this. And I really need my old bouncy, happy buddy Maria back if I'm going to hold it together until this is over.» Maria looked at her oddly as she wrapped the large towel around herself. Then she walked over and hugged Liz. «Okay, Liz. I'll try to be the one-woman Roswell pep squad for a while. Will that help?» «Just don't do any cheers," Liz said, grinning. Later, they were all gathered in the palatial study located on the second floor of Langley's mansion. A terrace outside offered a gorgeous view of the city at night, a veritable galaxy of lights. But after some initial oohs and ahhs, the four teens turned their attention to the plans they needed to make. Liz was in much better spirits than she had been just hours earlier, even though she still worried about her parents. At least we're finally making some progress toward freeing them, she told herself. Langley had spread a large map of the greater Los Angeles area out across his expansive dining room table, and Max placed the alien compass on top of it. Then he began unloading the other alien devices from his bag. «You've been using the ken-teef, huh?» Langley asked. «The what?» Michael replied. Langley pointed at the compass. «That. The ken-teef. It's an alien-tracking device.» «Umm, I can't say we've been using it," Max said. «We just got it. We don't even know how it works.» Langley sighed. «Boy, Nasedo really didn't give you much to go on, did he? Okay, which one of you is the most psychic?» Liz raised her hand. «I guess I am.» «Well, you pick it up, then," Langley said. «Now, think about what you want to find. Think about aliens in the immediate vicinity.» Liz concentrated, and the white nodule on the top of the device began blinking. «Notice how the lights are pointed in multiple directions?» Langley asked. «That's because there are three aliens in this room, and another in the house. It's trying to show you all of them. Now, concentrate on one alien.» Liz did so, and the white segment nearest Max started blinking rapidly. «Good," Langley said. «See, it's not so hard, once you focus.» «And if you know what the hell you're doing» Michael said, half under his breath. «Now turn it over so the white part faces the map," Langley said. As Liz did so, he said, «Now think of all the aliens in the area. It's only got about a forty-mile range as a locator, and it won't work with humans, so don't even try to use it to locate your kidnapped parents.» «So how did Eddie find us with it, then?» Michael asked. «He was farther than forty miles away from us.» «Maybe it was the Chameleon's help," Maria said sarcastically. Liz ignored them and concentrated, and was surprised to find a multitude of lights dotting the map. «They're all over!» «Who'd have thunk it that Hollywood would be/ull of aliens," Langley said with a wry smile. He pointed back toward the map and said, «Now concentrate on only the Antarian aliens in the area. It should show my house here with the three " Liz's mouth fell open as the clusters of lights from the ken-teef settled. On two different areas. One was clearly Langley's house, and three white spots were visible there. But the other was in the City of Industiy, which lay near the map's southeast edge. Three white spots could be seen there as well. «Is there something you're not telling me?» Langley asked. He reached for the ken-teej. «Let me try that.» He looked down at the map, and one light shone in his sector. «There's me.» The light shifted position slightly. «There's Max.» A moment later, two more lights appeared near the location of the first two. «That's Michael," Langley said, looking up at the others. Liz's mind raced to find an explanation, but Max found it first. «The Dupes. From New York. They must be out here as well. Maybe they're on the run from the Special Unit the same way we are.» He turned to Langley, concern showing on his face. «Look for the signatures for Ava and Vilandra.» Two dots on the map appeared at the City of Industry location. One of them was flickering, like a guttering candle flame. «That's them," Langley said. «But one of them is in big trouble.» 11. Elk, New Mexico In the darkness, Jim Valenti hugged the wall of the building, moving slowly but surely toward his target. The gun in his hand was his service revolver, but the rest of the equipment he carried had been provided by Agent Duff. He had never had occasion to wear a bulletproof vest during the course of his duties in Roswell, much less the other assorted pieces of body armor that protected his limbs and torso. A black stocking cap mask was rolled up over his forehead, helping to hold in place his night-vision goggles, as well as the earpiece communicator and its wire-thin throat microphone attachment. He and Duff had come here in the same sleek black helicopter that Duff had used to reach Laurie Dupree's sprawling Tucson estate. The ultra-advanced chopper was yet another thing that Valenti wasn't used to; he had ridden in a few helicopters during his training days, but had repeated the experience only a handful of times in the years since. And it was quite another thing to be in one of the high-speed, long-range «black helicopters» that the UFO nuts, conspiracy buffs, and insomniac long-haul truckers so enjoyed discussing over the talk-radio airwaves during the wee hours. When Duff had first arrived in the chopper at the Dupree estate, Valenti had expected a pilot to climb out of the cockpit after she did. Instead, he had been surprised to note that she was the pilot. He felt ashamed of his initial sexist impulse; he realized that he never considered that a woman might be rated as a helicopter pilot. She had wasted no time disabusing him of that prejudice, informing him that her military specialty prior to joining the FBI had been rotor-based aircraft. Tonight, after leaving Amy and Laurie behind in the relative safety of the Tucson mansion, Duff and Valenti had landed the specially equipped chopper a half mile or so away from the Special Unit safe house, and then covered the remaining ground on foot. Duff had outfitted Valenti with the latest in combat gear; he felt a little silly getting dressed up, but now that he was nearing the target, he was grateful for the additional protection and weaponry. Strapped to his leg was a hand-held, high-voltage stun gun, and his gloves were weighted with shot, like an oldfashioned sap. He also had an ASP baton in one leg pocket, but he wasn't trained in its use. The Roswell Sheriff's Department hadn't used them. In fact, Valenti had only rarely had occasion to take his PR-24 side-handle baton out of his vehicle while on duty. Walking carefully so as not to break any sticks or kick any rocks, he peered around the corner of the building. The main ranch house was ahead, the night-vision gear turning it an eerie emerald hue. Most of the windows were covered with curtains, and the lights inside were either dimmed or shut off entirely. «You in position?» he heard over the earpiece. «Yeah," he said into the wire microphone. «Ready as I'll ever be.» «Okay, let's move in," Duff said. Valenti caught a glimpse of her as she moved across the wide driveway, which he noticed was conspicuously devoid of cars. She was moving forward quickly, her sidearm in her hand. As she made her way to the area in front of the raised front porch, Valenti circled around to the rear. The door there was illuminated by a single glass-encased bulb, and was as unguarded as the front entrance had appeared to be. «I'm getting a bad feeling about this," Valenti whispered into his mike. «Where are the lookouts?» «They may not have any," Duff said. «Are you sure this is the right place?» «We'll find out in a moment," Duff said. «In five.» Valenti edged along the wall toward the rear door, pulling the stocking-cap mask down over his face and goggles as he advanced. «Four.» Valenti quickly double-checked the perimeter to make sure no one was standing in the shadows nearby. «Three.» He leaned over and peeked into the back window. He thought he saw a furtive movement in a darkened hallway. «Two.» He grabbed the doorknob, feeling it turn freely in his gloved hand. Unlocked. His breath felt moist against the mask. «One.» Valenti quickly pushed the door open, his gun at the ready. He moved as silently as he could manage, though he felt sure that whoever he'd seen moving inside the house must have heard him. He could also hear Duff entering through the front door on the opposite side of the house. He moved down the hallway toward the spot where he had seen the movement, and heard a sound on the other side of one of the interior walls. Footsteps were headed toward him from beyond a nearby open doorway. Valenti switched the gun to his left hand and cocked his right hand back into a fist. As soon as the figure came forward and he saw immediately that it was a man wearing dark paramilitary clothing, clearly not a civilian he let loose his strongest punch, straight to the man's jaw. The shot-filled glove gave his punch extra power. The man stumbled backward, obviously completely surprised, his arms pinwheeling wildly. Still conscious, he struggled to regain his balance and was trying to yell something. But Valenti could see that his jaw was now at an odd angle, and the shout that emerged was incoherent. The man swung at Valenti and missed, and Valenti pointed the gun at him, gripping it in both hands. «I'd suggest you give up," Valenti said. The man complied, and lifted his arms into the air. «Turn around," Valenti said, and the man did. Valenti wasn't wild about hitting a man who had already surrendered, but he knew he couldn't risk letting the man flee or raise an alarm. He swung his right arm again, smacking the back of the man's head with the full force of the sap glove. The Man in Black crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Elsewhere in the house, Valenti heard a sharp crackle of electricity, and then another thud, as if a sack of potatoes had been dropped. «One down," he heard Duff say on the earpiece. «I got one too," Valenti said. «But where are the others?» Valenti heard the sound of footsteps coming up from the basement, and he sprinted down the hall to figure out where the person coming up would emerge. Duff arrived at the spot at the same time he did, the black mask covering her face. The basement door opened, and a young Hispanic man stepped forward out of the brightly lit stairwell. «Vohland? Goldberg? Is everything all " He stopped short as he saw the barrel of two guns pointed at him. Duff silently gestured toward the floor, and the man quickly took the hint, lying flat, with his hands behind his head. Duff squatted beside him and whispered, «How many in the house?» «Just three," the man said. «The others left.» Duff gestured to Valenti to watch the captive. «I'm gonna check it out," she said. «I don't think he's lying, but I'll do a quick recon to make sure.» As Duff began to search the house, the man said, «Who are you?» «Let's just say that your actions in Roswell this morning ticked off the wrong people," Valenti said. «Now shut up. We're the ones who'll be asking the questions.» Duff returned a minute later. «Nobody upstairs, and nobody else on this level. I'm going down.» She stepped over the supine man and descended the wide stairway into the basement. Shortly afterward, Valenti heard her on the earpiece. «All clear. But it looks like someone was recently held down here.» «How can you tell?» Valenti wanted to know. «There are still ropes tied to some of the chairs down here, among other things.» He heard a tinge of disgust in her voice. «My guess is the people they grabbed in Roswell were held and interrogated here, but have since been taken someplace else. I'm coming back up.» Duff reappeared from below, and quickly cuffed the Hispanic agent's arms behind his back. «Secure the others, and drag them over here," she said. Valenti went and got the unconscious man and cuffed him, then dragged him down the hall by the back of his heavy-duty field jacket. He winced a bit to see a smear of blood on the floor, but he saw that most of it seemed to be coming from a split lip. «The other ones in there," Duff said, gesturing. Valenti went to retrieve the second man, and saw that he was conscious and starting to rise from the floor. «Freeze," Valenti said. The man didn't. Instead he reached for something in one of the pockets of his paramilitary vest. Valenti fired a shot over the man's head. The bullet ripped into the drywall, sending a spray of fine white powder into the air. This apparently convinced him to stop moving, and to lay his hands on the ground. «You okay?» Duff asked over the earpiece. «Yeah," Valenti replied. «Just had to fire a warning shot. Somebody didn't listen very well.» He pushed a knee into the man's powder-covered neck, and yanked one arm up to cuff it, then the other. «You don't know who you're crossing," the man said, his words still slurred from the stun-gun zapping he'd received from Duff. But the venom behind his words was unmistakable. «I know exactly who I'm crossing," Valenti said. «And I know exactly who we're going to take down. You guys screwed with the wrong town.» Valenti grabbed the man's collar and dragged him into the hallway, depositing him beside the man he'd knocked unconscious. Then he got down and frisked them both, removing anything that either of them could possibly use as a weapon or as a tool to escape the cuffs. «What happened in there?» Duff asked. «Apparently your stun gun wasn't set high enough. He was coming to.» «I can fix that," Duff said, standing up. She crossed over to the second man and stuck the stun gun to the side of his chest, zapping him a second time. He convulsed once, then fell into unconsciousness. «Get him on his feet," Duff ordered, pointing to the Hispanic man. Valenti did as he was told. «We're headed back down," Duff said. «Give him a taste of his own medicine.» «Hey, I'm just part of the cleaning crew," the man protested as Valenti dragged him down the stairs. «I'm not even a full member of the Unit yet!» Duff followed them, and Valenti looked back to see a hint of a smile on her face. «See, now I know you're telling the truth. Because if you were a member of the Unit, you wouldn't have just said that there was a Unit.» She pointed to a room far to the left of the stairs. «Take him in there.» Valenti took the man down a hallway and inside the room. He was surprised that the room was mostly bare, except for a pair of chairs, a table in the center, and a Tshaped post against one wall. The lighting was bright, though the cream-colored walls muted the effect somewhat. «Strap him up to the post," Duff said, gesturing. Valenti took the struggling «cleaner» over to the post and removed his cuffs. As he prepared to put him into the heavy straps, the man said, «Look, I don't know anything. I can't tell you what I don't know.» «Even if you are just a junior agent with the scut job of cleaning up afterward, you know what came before the cleanup," Duff said as she walked over to the now-shackled man. She held the stun gun in one hand and manipulated its intensity dial with her other. «Here's how it's going to work.» She pointed to Valenti. «This man here is going to go upstairs and try to search through the files and computers I saw up there. You want to know why he's going up and not me? Because he's got more of a temper than me. If he questioned you first, I might not get the opportunity.» The captive agent apparently wasn't as green as he'd seemed, though he still seemed frightened. «Oh," he said. «This is where you do the good cop/bad cop routine, right? Listen, I " She steamrolled over him, brandishing the stun gun. «No, you listen, punk. You saw that other man bleeding, and you heard the gunshot. I think you'll count yourself lucky that it's just going to be you, me, and ol' Sparky here.» She toggled the stun gun's trigger, and a jagged sapphire bolt of electricity arced between its tips. «Save me some," Valenti said, smiling the most evil smile he could summon, though the thought of torturing anyone even someone who hosed the decks after the Special Unit conducted its «interviews» made him extremely queasy. He left the room quickly, aware that although they seemed to have the upper hand now, that could change at any moment. They had no time to waste. Moving quickly through the other basement-level rooms, he saw that one of them was outfitted similarly to the interrogation room where Duff was grilling their captive. This room had been in the process of being cleaned up when he and Duff had arrived. Two rooms. One far the Evanses, and one far the Parkers, he thought, now convinced that Duff's analysis had been right. Imagining what might have happened to them there and since filled him with dread. And rage. He considered the fate that awaited Kyle and the others if the Special Unit caught up with them. These bastards are going to pay. He went back up to the ground-level floor and checked on the two men who lay there, both apparently still unconscious. He closed and locked the front door and backdoor, just in case anyone else showed up unexpectedly, then sprinted upstairs. In one of the rooms were several boxes of files, as well as a couple of computers. He sat in a rolling chair and toggled one screen on. A muffled male scream came from two floors below, but Valenti ignored it. Whatever she's doing to him can't be any worse than what they did to my friends, he thought. Or what they will do to Kyle and Max and the others ij they get their bloody hands on them. Fifteen minutes later, Duff came upstairs. «He's told me everything he knows," she said, pulling off her mask. «Damn these things are hot.» Valenti grinned, but didn't feel the least bit of humor. «I don't even want to know what you did to him.» «Let's just say that he won't be fathering any kids for quite a while," Duff said. «Meanwhile, his kidneys will remind him about what happened here today every time he takes a leak.» Valenti winced. «A little too much information.» She shrugged. «Anyway, he confirmed that the Parkers and the Evanses were still alive and in relatively good shape when they were taken from here.» Thank God, Valenti thought, breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief. «So where were they taken?» «Some place near Los Angeles," Duff said. «He didn't know the location.» «Can you find it?» «We'll get going to L.A. very shortly," she said. «I'll find it. But how we get them out is gonna be another issue entirely. Sounds like where they got taken might be the main West Coast stronghold of the Special Unit.» She came over to his side. «Speaking of which, what have you found?» He gestured toward the computer screen. «Most of it's encrypted. I can't break it, and I'm afraid to try anything that might damage the files.» Duff studied the screen. «You think one of the kids could give it the alien whammy and get in?» «Maybe," Valenti said. He pointed over to the boxes of hard-copy files. «There are some records in there of some of their operations, but most of it is surveillance reports. You wouldn't believe how many laws they've broken in this county alone.» Duff snorted. «Sure I would. I work for the FBI, remember? I know what government groups are capable of doing in pursuit of their goals… good and bad.» She gestured around the room. «We need to get all this outside. We're taking it with us.» «Where?» «Back to that Brody Davis guy. Can you think of a better place?» Valenti grinned. «Nope. This stuff will fit right in with the rest of the files Brody keeps at the UFO Center.» He started to shut down the computers, then turned toward her. «You know, I don't mean to nag, but I've noticed you can be a mite bossy.» «Oh, really?» Duff put her hand on one hip and raised her eyebrow at him. «You wouldn't be forgetting that federal police powers supersede a local deputy's authority?» He hoisted a hard drive into the air. «Does it matter? It's not as though either one of us is going strictly by the book here.» He looked over at her and smiled a tired smile. «Still, I think we've made a helluva team. If I weren't already involved with Amy DeLuca, I might just come calling on you, Agent Duff.» She laughed. «If you were a full-figured woman who could cook a mean pot of jambalaya, you'd have a much better chance at me. But you'd have to go through my wife first.» She grabbed a stack of file boxes and headed out the door. Fifteen minutes later, they had finished loading all of the file boxes and hard drives onto a Jeep they had found in one of the exterior buildings, and were ready to drive all of it back to the copter. «Let's get the three goons out here where it's safe," Duff said, gesturing toward a wide expanse of lawn, shadowy and dark in the night. «Why?» «Come on, Jim. You really want to leave this place standing?» Another twenty minutes had passed by the time they got back to the copter, loaded it, and were airborne. Duff looked over toward Valenti. «Let's do a fly-over.» Moments later, they were over the Special Unit safe house. Smoke curled out of its windows, and Valenti could see flames licking up one of the side walls of the structure. The nearby outbuildings were on fire as well. Sitting safely out on the lawn, trussed up and completely naked, were the three Special Unit agents. Valenti looked over at Duff. «You scare me some," he said. «Imagine how you'd feel if you had really done something wrong?» Duff said, looking at the scene below. Valenti was glad Duff was on his side. She rolled the copter to the left and headed toward Roswell. Valenti knew that after having witnessed a Special Unit raid, Brody wouldn't much care to see a black helicopter landing on the street right in front of the UFO Center. But he knew that Brody would get over it quickly once he got a look at the chopper's cargo. 12. Above California I hings had gone as well as could be expected in Chicago. The tumultuous events of the past few days aside, Kyle thought things had actually gone exceedingly well. Kyle sat back in his seat aboard the private airplane Brody had chartered. Nevertheless, he remained tense. He tried yet again to clear his mind, waiting for the comforting ritual of meditation to carry him away. Once again, he found that he just couldn't focus, and abandoned the attempt. He looked to the seats ahead of him, where Jesse and Isabel snuggled, their long-delayed reunion still underway hours into the Los Angeles-bound flight. Though he felt happy for Isabel, he found it difficult to set aside the attraction he felt for her. He averted his gaze to the right, where Shelby was busy studying some documents, peering over a pair of glasses that perched on the very tip of her nose. She was drinking a cup of coffee at least her fifth one since Chicago, Kyle thought, prompting him to wonder if there was such a thing as a caffeine-based life-form and he realized that, for Shelby, this must have been a very long day indeed. Samejor all of us, he thought. Somewhere along the line, I must have just gotten used to days like this. Shelby turned, looked up from her papers, and noticed him watching her. «How are you doing, Kyle?» He shrugged. «Meditation doesn't appear to be an option right now. I'm too wound up. Can't meditate, can't nap…» She held up a sheaf of papers. «I'd offer to let you read some of these legal papers to put yourself to sleep, but somehow I don't think they'd really help.» Kyle smiled. «So, you seem to be handling this whole affair rather well. Is it just because you've known about the Evans family secret for a while? Or is something else keeping you calm?» Considering how much caffeine she'd ingested, Kyle wondered if she was secretly taking tranquilizers. Shelby removed her glasses, slipped them into a blouse pocket, and returned the smile. «Probably a bit of both. I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid. Hung out with sort of an alternative crowd. Fat girls usually aren't firstdraft choices for high school friendships, so we loners and outcasts tended to gravitate toward one another. Maybe that gave me a wider perspective on life than the 'in crowd' had. So here I am, on the road with an alien fugitive and actually kind of cool with the whole idea.» She shuffled her papers into a neat pile and set them on the seat beside her. «My church had always taught me that we were the only beings in the universe, but that never made any sense to me. It seemed the height of pride and hubris to believe that of all the billions of planets out there even if one did believe in an all-knowing, all-seeing God that we would be the only planet with life.» «I never really went to church," Kyle said. «At least not after Mom left us. These days, I follow the Buddhist philosophy. At least as best as I can under the current circumstances.» «Philosophy beats dogma, at least in my book," Shelby said. «Philosophy is about asking questions and coming to understand the answers. You aren't spoon-fed somebody else's idea of the truth via dogma. You're not told what to think. Science fiction taught me a lot about possibilities, and to compare what is against what could be.» She pointed forward, toward Isabel. «I've known Isabel and Max since Phillip and Diane first adopted them. These days, I know something about them that I didn't know before. But they're still the same Isabel and Max, and I still love them. Were they hiding the truth about their secret lives for all these years? Are they part alien? Do they have powers and memories I don't understand?» She laughed. «Yeah. And I've got lots of questions about those things, believe me. But I'm not going to he frightened by the fact that they're different. The possibilities they offer me the possibilities they offer the world are limitless. They represent what could be.» «That's a pretty Zen-like view of things," Kyle said, finding Shelby's optimism oddly infectious. Shelby spread her hands apart and shrugged. «What good does it do me to fear them because they're different, because they're something I'm not? It's fear that makes people hate fat people, or gay people, or people of different ethnic backgrounds. Rather than learning from them, or at least allowing for their differences to be a part of the diversity of life, people reject those who are different. I've had a bit of experience with rejection.» She paused, chuckling at what she no doubt regarded as an understatement. «Maybe that's made me a little more open-minded than the Men in Black. Or makes me ask more questions.» Kyle saw Isabel get up, and watched as she approached. «Hey, I don't mean to interrupt, but have you tried calling your father yet, Kyle?» «No, we don't have his number," Kyle said. «Just a pager " He stopped when he saw Isabel tapping her finger against her temple. «Oh. You mean that kind of call.» «Yeah," Isabel said, taking a seat near him. «I'll help guide you if you want.» Kyle nodded. «That might be a good idea. I seem to be a lot better at this when you're involved.» In fact, every time he'd succeeded in activating this new power since its unexpected emergence a few days earlier in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Isabel had been somewhere close by. If the human brain is a sort of bioelectrical engine, he thought wryly, then maybe she's the psychic equivalent of a spark plug. Isabel turned toward Shelby. «Please excuse us, Shelby.» Shelby waved her hand. «Don't mind me. I'll either be fascinated watching this, or else go back to my papers if you both slip into an excruciatingly boring telepathic trance.» Smiling gently, Isabel took Kyle's hands in hers, and, for a brief moment, Kyle felt a twinge of concern. What if Jesse gets jealous? But the thought fled almost as soon as it had formed. Isabel and Jesse were tight together, and he'd already seen from the intensity of their reunion that nothing was going to change that. Kyle closed his eyes as though making yet another attempt at meditation. This time he wasn't trying to clear his mind, however; he concentrated on his father, letting his mind rise and move out into the dark night. After a moment or two, he felt a peculiar physical sensation, as though he'd been abruptly transformed into a shadowy flying wraith. But he knew he was still sitting on the plane, that it was only his thoughts that had taken wing. For an absurd moment, he visualized himself wearing the mutant-detecting Cerebro helmet that Professor Xavier had used in the X-Men movie. Then he and Isabel were sitting together, only not aboard Brody's chartered plane. Instead, they were seated just behind the cockpit of a darkened helicopter, looking at Jim Valenti and the female African-American pilot who occupied the front seats. Both his dad and the woman were dressed in black paramilitary gear, and Kyle had never seen his father look so tough. He tried to reach out to touch him, but his hand passed through his fathers shoulder, as insubstantial as fog. «Dad," he said softly. Jim Valenti turned swiftly in his seat, surprise etched across his craggy features. «Kyle? What… how did you get in here?» «I'll give you the Cliffs Notes version, Dad: I've been developing some weird, alien-style psychic powers lately," Kyle said. «Just like Liz did. Only different. She gets premonitions. I can set up telepathic conference calls, sort of.» He gestured back toward Isabel. «She's helping me navigate. Kind of a cross between a Jedi master and a switchboard operator for a psionic party line.» Jim looked stunned. «You… why do you have powers, Kyle?» «It looks like it's a side effect of Max's healing," Isabel said, leaning forward in the cramped cockpit. The psionic manifestation of her shoulder sank partly into the back of the pilot's seat. «So why am I not affected?» the elder Valenti asked. «Max healed me, too.» «We haven't exactly been able to study it, Dad," Kyle said. «Liz thinks it has something to do with relative age, and perhaps how much time has elapsed since exposure. We're young, and our bodies are still changing.» Jim raised an eyebrow. «Careful there. Your old man's not that old.» «I'm not saying you're old, Dad. But your body isn't going through the same kinds of changes ours are at this age. It might just take longer for you. And besides, Max healed you long after he healed Liz and me.» The pilot turned and looked at Valenti. «Why so quiet, Jim?» Kyle saw a strange double image then, of his father looking forward silently, and another of his father turned, talking with him. The quiet version turned back to the pilot and said, «I'm either hallucinating, Suzanne, or I'm having a psychic conversation in my head with my son and Isabel Evans.» The woman looked at him goggle-eyed. «Are you kidding me?» Valenti turned and gestured toward where Kyle and Isabel crouched. «I wouldn't kid about something like that, Suzanne. They're right there. They say they're communicating with me through some sort of psychic link.» The pilot turned, her gaze passing straight through Kyle. She really can't see me, he thought. Must be because Isabel and I dialed up Dad's brain, not hers. Shaking her head, Duff said, «No one's there, Jim. You sure you didn't get hit on the head back at the Special Unit house?» Kyle concentrated harder and reached with his mind toward the pilot. «Hello, Suzanne," he said simply. «Jeez!» The woman jerked to the side, apparently now able to see Kyle as well. «Take it easy," Kyle said. «You've got a chopper to fly. But I had to show you that what my dad just told you is true.» «Where are you?» the older Valenti asked. «In the flesh, I mean.» «We're on our way to California with Jesse," Isabel said. «In the plane Brody chartered?» «Yeah," Kyle said, realizing that his father must have been in touch with Brody. «He picked me and Isabel up in Chicago. The others are going to meet us in Los Angeles.» «Wait," Jim said. «The others? As in Max and Liz and Maria and Michael?» «They're trying to get some help from Kal Langley," Isabel explained. «He's the movie producer who's actually an alien. Like Nasedo, only different. Remember? We told you about him.» The pilot shook her head. «This just gets weirder and weirder.» «Have you found out anything more about our parents?» Isabel asked, ignoring the woman's remark. Jim Valenti looked down, a frown crossing his face. «The Unit was holding them outside Roswell in a safe house until a little while ago. Apparently they've been transferred to somewhere near Los Angeles.» He paused and looked at her. «But as near as we can tell, they're alive and unharmed.» «We need to bring in the others," Isabel said, looking over at Kyle. «The others?» Kyle thought he knew what she meant, but wanted to be sure. «Max and Langley and the others. Patch them into this 'conference call.'" Kyle had begun to feel sweat or its nearest ectoplasmic equivalent collecting on his brow. He looked at Isabel incredulously. «How do you suggest I do that? I've never even met this Langley guy. And I'm doing all I can just keeping this four-way call going!» Isabel put her hand on his shoulder. It felt strangely solid, probably because they were both equally wraithlike during this psionic interaction. «Okay, you're right," she said. «But can you at least try to get Max on the line? I'll keep helping you.» Kyle sighed heavily, feeling fatigue creep up on him as he wondered whether his «psychic spark plug» was up to the job. «All right," he said at length. «But next time, we call collect.» Smiling, Isabel gently placed one of her hands against his temple. Once again, the sensation felt exactly like actual flesh-to-flesh contact, perhaps because she was physically touching him back aboard Brody's jet. Concentrating, Kyle reached out with his mind, in search of Max. The helicopter cockpit vanished around him, shooting away in shards of alternating light and darkness. He and Isabel and his dad and the FBI agent were standing now, in utter nothingness, a white void. Kyle concentrated harder than he'd ever done before, and felt his heart rate speeding up. It was like no meditation session he'd ever experienced. In fact, it was exactly the opposite of meditation, which had always slowed his pulse down. It felt more like an athletic contest. I can do this, he told himself, recalling the adrenaline rush of high school sports days. I've just got to be strong enough. Max was cradling Liz in his arms on one of Langley's luxurious couches, watching the flames in the fire pit dance and crackle. Langley was in his study making some calls, lining up the people whose help they were going to need, and he had wanted to do it alone. Maria and Michael were elsewhere, probably sleeping, Max guessed. Liz was already asleep in his arms, though fitfully. Max could tell from the fluttering of her eyelids that her dreams were anything but restful. He touched her forehead lightly, his palm glowing. His fingertip traced a silver line near her hairline as he transmitted his feelings of warmth and love directly to her dreaming brain. Max heard a sound and abruptly stopped. He looked around, but saw nothing. And then the room begin to liquefy around him, the muted colors of the walls and draperies running down to the floor like melting ice cream. Even Liz melted from his arms, her body falling like sand through his fingers. Max scrambled to catch her, to keep her whole, but found himself instead kneeling in a parched, sienna-hued desertscape. Looking up, he saw Isabel, Kyle, Jim Valenti, and the female FBI agent who had worked the Dupree abduction case last year. They all stood around him in a loose circle. He realized then that they were standing in the rockstrewn desert outside of Roswell, in the very place where «the Pod Squad» had assembled so often for private conversations over the years. «Max!» Isabel approached, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. She felt somehow less than substantial, like a figment from a dream. «What's going on?» Max asked, pulling away from her. «Long explanation," Kyle said. «Suffice it to say that those psychic shout-outs I did back in Wyoming weren't a fluke. Isabel's been helping me deal, and bringing me up to speed.» «Why are you here?» Max asked, turning toward the FBI agent and Valenti. «And why am I here?» «Trying to answer the very same questions was why I went Buddhist," Kyle said wryly. Max was having a hard time processing the conversation, though it certainly seemed real enough. The sudden change of milieu was unnerving. «We're not really here," Isabel said, scowling at Kyle as she gestured at the desert panorama that surrounded them. «Isabel's right," Kyle said. «The scenery is probably just an unconscious manifestation of my nifty new mental powers. Sort of a psionic screen saver.» Ignoring Kyle's banter, Isabel looked Max directly in the eye. «Kyle and I are headed for Los Angeles. We're on a chartered jet right now, along with Jesse and a lawyer friend of Dad's. She's got all the proof we need to drag the Special Unit out into the open.» And us as well, Max thought ruefully. «Not all the proof," the African-American woman said. «Jim and I just cleaned out the files from the Special Unit's safe house outside Roswell. Brody's holding the stuff at the UFO Center right now.» «We're on our way to L.A. now too," Jim Valenti said. «By helicopter. Once we get there, we'll need to hook up with Jesse and the other lawyer you're traveling with. As well as whoever Brody has been able to contact there to help us bring the Special Unit down.» He gestured around the circle. «It certainly seems as though fate is conspiring to bring us all together, doesn't it?» It certainly seemed that way to Max. He drew comfort from the fact that he, Isabel, Michael, Liz, Maria, and Kyle had so many good people rooting for them. And on their way to help us. «Have you found Langley yet?» Isabel asked. «Yeah. Maybe it's best that you all come here. We can strategize better once we're all together in the flesh.» He gave them the address. «How soon will you be here?» «Our pilot just announced that we're starting to make our descent," Isabel said. «Which airport?» the FBI agent wanted to know. «The private airfield at Burbank," Isabel said. «We should be on the ground within minutes. Then we just have to get to Langley's place. Brody's already taken care of that for us.» «I'd give us another twenty to thirty minutes before we get to the Hollywood Hills," the FBI agent said. «I'm keying in the coordinates for this Langley guy's address now. Any chance there's room to land a helicopter there?» Max laughed, realizing how incredible the entire situation was. «Yeah. You might say he's got a really big front yard. I suppose if you land there, the neighbors will just think it's a publicity stunt to promote one of his movies.» And then it hit him. The thing that had been nagging at him since Isabel had appeared before him. Her death. «Wait. Why did you come here, Isabel? You know what Liz saw.» He could see a flicker of doubt in her expression, but there was determination as well. «I know what she saw, Max. But we're going to make sure that it doesn't happen. We're all going to be there. We can't fight these people one by one, like the bad guys in some cheap kung fu movie. We can't let them keep taking away our freedom, our parents, our " Isabel suddenly grabbed her stomach and screamed. Wounds began to appear on her, blood seeping through her clothes, running down her face. «Max!» she cried out, her eyes huge, panicked. A moment later, she blinked out, and a reddish stain hung in the air where she had been. «Kyle, what happened?» Max asked, reaching toward the younger Valenti. But Kyle's face a mask of shock and fear was fading as well, until it, too, blinked out of existence. All at once Max felt as though he were rushing headlong through a wind tunnel. His head snapped back painfully, and he was once again in Langley's living room, holding Liz, who remained fast asleep. What just happened to Isabel? 13. Los Angeles Max wriggled out from under Liz's sleeping form as best he could, then sprinted toward Langley's study. Langley was there with paperwork spread in front of him, a phone headset across his bald scalp, and a cell phone held up to one ear. «Hold a sec," he said into the headset's wire pickup. «What's up, Max?» «Something horrible just happened," Max said. He grabbed the ken-teef off of the table, and pulled the large area map toward him. He turned the alien-tracking device upside down and concentrated. Isabel, he thought, picturing his sister. The white nodule blinked on, and a light shone down onto the map. The bright spot, apparently representing Isabel, lay a significant distance away from the City of Industry. «What is it?» Langley asked, coming closer. He had put the cell phone down, though he still wore the headset. Show me all the Antarians, Max thought, and the white nodule accommodated him by blinking a multitude of times. Three bright spots appeared on the map in the Hollywood Hills region. One continued to shine where he had asked it to locate Isabel. And two more were visible near the City of Industry. The third, faltering light that had been with the others when Langley had demonstrated the ken-teef was now gone. «She's dead," Max said. He dropped the ken-teef onto the table. «Who's dead?» Langley asked. «What's this about?» «Lonnie. Isabel's duplicate. Vilandra's duplicate. Whatever. Her light was the one that was blinking before. The one you said was in trouble. It's not there anymore.» «What makes you so sure it's hers?» Langley asked. Max giggled a bit, but not out of mirth. He recognized it as a sound that came from someplace deep, dark, and very deliberately hidden. «One Max. Two Michaels. One Isabel. One Ava. One Langley. That's it. That's all that's left of Antar's good guys. Because the Special Unit just killed Lonnie.» Liz appeared in the doorway. «Max, what's wrong?» Max looked at her. Though he knew his eyes were wet, he could feel a smile tugging gently at his face. «It wasn't Isabel, Liz. In your premonition. It wasn't Isabel they vivisected. It was Lonnie. The duplicate. She's dead now.» «I think you'd better sit down, Max," Langley said. «You look like you're about to faint, kiddo.» «I'm so sorry, Max," Liz said, coming over to hug him as he sat in a huge padded chair. «How do you know for sure the other Vilandra is dead?» Langley asked, grabbing the ken-teef for himself and examining the points of light that reappeared on the map. «Maybe she got into a car and just drove out of the ken-teefs range.» «I was having a… Kyle brought me into a vision. It was kind of like one of Isabel's dreamwalks, only I was awake," Max said, trying to explain. «Isabel was there, and Kyle, and Sheriff Valenti, and this FBI agent who is helping him fight the Special Unit. We were trying to figure out what to do next. They'll all be arriving here in the next hour.» He stopped, trying to refocus his thoughts, to reach high enough ground to avoid being swept away by his own roiling sense of grief and loss. «We were discussing things, and…«He began weeping openly, and used the back of his hand to wipe the tears from his cheek. Liz leaned over from behind, embracing him. «It's okay, Max.» After a pause, he found his voice again. «We were talking, and Isabel suddenly went all bloody, and then she got ejected from the vision," Max said, resuming. «She just wasn't there anymore.» «Maybe your Vilandra somehow tuned in on the duplicate Vilandra's death," Langley said quietly, looking and sounding sadder than Max had ever seen him. «Like some sort of psionic sympathetic vibration," Liz said, nodding in agreement. But Max wasn't at all sure about that. «Then why didn't I feel something when Zan died in New York? The other me, I mean?» Liz shrugged. «Maybe it's because your powers don't seem to have a telepathic component. Isabel's dreamwalk powers might have made her sensitive to the death of her duplicate.» Max nodded soberly. He wondered what the East Coast Tess had felt at the moment of her counterpart's fiery death a few months back. Langley turned away from them, and Max saw one of his hands clenching and unclenching. The shorter man's back tensed, and suddenly, across the room, all of the drink glasses near the wet bar exploded. Glass cascaded through the air, but none of it came close to any of them. Langley turned back around, and Max saw an expression of anger of hatred on his face. He had seen him like this before, when he had forced Langley to shapeshift and help him find the spaceship. Langleys fury seemed even more focused and vehement, almost white-hot in its intensity. «They were my responsibility," he said, his voice low and menacing. «But they didn't want my help.» «Who?» Max asked.