The odds were as good as they were ever going to get.
Rath concentrated intensely for a moment, and his wrists glowed like shooting stars. His handcuffs dropped away as he spun toward the agents, raised his hands, and let fly with several tightly focused energy blasts.
As Michael drove the Microbus back toward the hotel where they had left their belongings, Liz looked over at Max. Something was definitely wrong. But he didn't want to talk about it, so she wasn't going to press the issue. Yet.
'So our pictures are on the news then?' Michael asked.
'Just the three of us guys,' Kyle said. 'They weren't very good shots, though. Looked like they were taken from a security camera at the clothing store or something. It would be hard for anyone to identify us from them. “
'I don't get it,' Maria said. 'If they want the word out about us, why don't they just release the pictures they have of us from Roswell? “
'What if they don't want word out about us?' Liz asked. 'I mean, the Special Unit doesn't seem to want its agenda known to the public. Think how ridiculous they'd sound if they told your average American, 'Aliens are living among you, and they're teenagers.' So, what do they have to gain by releasing information about us? “
Michael nodded, a slight grin on his face as he looked back at them. 'Liz has a point. They don't have any reason to expose us. But the media and the local cops don't know that. So maybe these reports came from them. After all, what happened in the mall was pretty public. It's not like it would be easy to cover that up. Even for Special Unit spooks. “
Liz nodded. 'It would explain why the news pictures looked like security-camera screen captures instead of photos. “
'We haven't heard enough of the news yet to see if anybody's talking about your astounding displays of power,' Maria added. Then, to Michael, she said, 'Hey, Spaceboy, eyes on the road. We don't need to get pulled over right now.
'Jesse didn't mention anything about people discussing our powers,' Isabel said. 'According to him, the news was pretty vague about the details. “
Liz looked over at Max. He was still brooding. Not that brooding was anything new for him, but he seemed to have gone even deeper into the darkness than usual.
'Maybe we can find out more at the hotel,' Kyle said. 'At least we can watch TV while we pack. “
'No,' Max said clearly, speaking for the first time since the hospital parking lot. 'We get in, get our stuff, and get gone. No time for showers or TV or snacks. “
'If we even can get our stuff,' Isabel said from the front passenger seat. 'We don't know that they aren't waiting there for us. “
'No, but we're going to find out pretty soon,' Michael said. 'I'm parking behind the restaurant up here. The hotel is on the other side of the block. If they're watching for us, we'll stand a better chance of ditching them on foot. “
As Michael parked the van, Isabel said, 'I'm staying here. I've got an idea that might help us. And get us more information. “
'What's that?' Max asked.
Isabel grinned and held up the I.D. badges and wallets of the government agents who had tasered them in the corridors. 'I'm going dreamwalking. “
Agent Frank Kaneko had returned to his duplex that evening dog-tired. His wife already knew he was physically all right; following the altercation he had faced at the mall that afternoon, he had called her to allay any fears she might have if she'd heard the news. He made his best effort to assure her he was emotionally all right, as well as physically four-square.
But he wasn't.
Something about the operation today didn't smell right. From the time his squad had received their orders to scramble to the moment he'd picked himself up off the floor in the back corridor of the mall, unease had sat heavily in the pit of his stomach.
Afterward, he and the other agents there had been debriefed and were ordered not to discuss the matter with anyone, even one another. He was certain they all had questions, and it would just be a matter of time before one of them brought the subject up with a colleague. But right now, it was best to keep one's mouth shut. There were some other kind of spooks involved… he didn't know if they were Bureau, CIA, special ops, or something else… and even with only five years on the job, Kaneko knew better than to mess with mysteries.
But the situation refused to leave his mind. He had been among the group approaching from the side when the muscular young man had exited the internet cafe and pushed a heavy concrete garbage can at them, scattering most of them like tenpins. Kaneko hadn't lost his footing, though he'd been momentarily startled to see the windows of the Internet place clouding over darkly, as if by an invis- ible can of spray paint.
He and an agent named Pelner had doubled back and moved through a plus-size clothing store a few doors down. Initially, they'd planned to see if they could go through a back corridor and enter the Internet cafe that way, but instead they had come into direct contact with three of the fleeing targets.
Pelner had tasered two of the girls before they could react; orders had been very specific that guns were not to be used. Trank darts, gas, tasers, or other immobilization techniques were the only acceptable options. The teens in question were reportedly armed and dangerous.
As Pelner had advanced on the third girl, Kaneko knelt to check the status of the two unconscious girls. For a] moment, he was concerned that the girls might have been innocent bystanders… employees scared by the conflict in the mall… but then he'd recognized them from the pictures the office had gotten along with the alert.
The third girl finally got down onto the floor as ordered, and while Pelner kept the trank gun trained on her, Kaneko had cuffed her. As far as he could see, none of the girls were armed, nor did they seem very dangerous. But he knew that looks could be deceiving, and it was anyone's guess what horrors lay in the minds of these three.
Kaneko had planned to cuff the other two unconscious girls and call in with his cell phone, but a noise down the hall drew his attention. That was when three young males rounded a corner, coming toward them.
The next minute was a blur, and even now, Kaneko didn't know whether to believe his eyes… and his body… or not. At one point during the stand-off he had heard a shout in his head; someone calling for an Isabel to wake up. Moments later, one of the unconscious girls had awakened, and somehow slammed Pelner into a wall.
And then, the cuffed girl had kicked him in the leg, making him feel as though he'd just been struck by lightning.
Ten minutes later, when he had finally regained consciousness, he saw many of the other agents picking themselves out of a maze of concrete and steel rubble a floor beneath them. A local deputy named Duane Elkins had been hurt the most, when a metal support bar had punctured his leg in the fall; most of the rest of them had just been scraped or bruised when the floor had collapsed underneath them.
No one knew how or why the floor had given way, nor how the cafe's windows had changed from transparent to black, nor how the clothing store's windows had blown out. Compared to those questions, the mystery of how the unarmed, cuffed girl had electro-shocked him into unconsciousness was small potatoes.
After much tossing and turning, he had taken a trip to the kitchen for a nip or two of Maker's Mark. The bourbon helped him sleep on particularly stressful days. Now he finally drifted into
