Cheyenne, Wyoming 'So everything's okay then?' Liz asked.
'Yep.' Max smiled lightly 'You're sure? No problems?' She looked into his eyes, but couldn't see any concern in them.
'No problems. “
They were walking across the parking lot toward the Microbus. Kyle and Michael had been arranging Maria's guitar case and what little other luggage they all had, setting up individual areas for each of them within the cramped vehicle. Soon, they'd be back on the road.
Isabel and Maria were standing outside the van, looking up at the cloudless dawn sky.
'We're all clear, kids. Now let's blow this thing so we can all go home,' Max said.
Liz recognized the paraphrasing from Star Wars, and was about to make a joke about Max being a scruffy- looking nerf-herder, when she tripped and fell forward into Isabel… Suddenly she was back in the White Room, with its painfully bright klieg lights and the doctor and the restraining straps that secured her to the operating table. But now she could see that there were others in the room as well, and still more people watching from galleries elevated above the room. Men in dark suits, mostly. One woman was present.
She felt excruciating pain from somewhere in her chest, but she couldn't lift her head to find its cause.
Instead, she looked past the red haze in her eyes, past the pain lancing through her mind, and into the mirrored hoods on the overhead lights.
She wasn't surprised to see that she wasn't Liz anymore. She was Isabel now, though it took Liz a moment to recognize Max's sister. Most of her hair had been shorn away, replaced by a chaotic tangle of electrodes and wires. But that wasn't the worst of it.
She couldn't see everything because of the medical workers who bustled about her lower half, but she could see that her/Isabel's stomach and chest were draped with protective medical material.
The fabric's light blue surface was stained crimson with blood.
And then one of the workers moved aside, and she saw that her/Isabel's chest was open, spread wet and wide, as they continued to disassemble her, organ by organ.
Liz screamed, and the sound reverberated off the white walls. But the technicians paid no heed to the sound.
And then, there were hands on her shoulders, and Liz found herself looking at Max. She could see her reflection in his dark eyes, saw the fear on his face, an expression mirrored by Isabel and Maria, who stood directly behind him.
'Liz! Are you all right?' Max said.
Liz was startled to find herself lying on the blacktop of the parking lot, beside the van. She realized that she must have screamed out loud. She nodded, and Max grasped her hand tightly and helped her to her feet.
Liz caught her breath. 'I saw it again, Max. Isabel was… they were doing an alien autopsy, but she wasn't dead! It was horrible! “
Maria tried to put her arm around Isabel's shoulder, but the taller girl pushed her away, her face suddenly drained of all color.
Max gave Maria a quick, apologetic glance, then released Liz's hand so he could approach his sister. 'We're going to make sure it doesn't happen, Iz. It won't come true. “
Michael hopped out of the van. 'I know it's not a good time, but we've got to go, Maxwell. Liz screamed pretty loud, and somebody's going to come looking any second. “
Kyle and Maria helped Liz up into the back of the Microbus, and seconds later, Max helped Isabel inside.
Liz couldn't help but notice that Isabel was making every effort not to touch Liz as she found a place to sit. Isabel wouldn't, or couldn't, even look at her.
I don't blame her, Liz thought. I'm not sure I'd want to look at anybody who'd just foretold my death.
Michael started the VW and sped out of the parking lot.
Roswell, New Mexico Ever since the military lockdown of the town following the explosion at Rogers Air Force Base, Brody Davis had taken ever greater security precautions at the UFO Center, as well as at his own home. The Center was already well fortified, as had been proven when Sheriff Hanson had tried to storm the place thinking a hostage situation had developed there. And while he already had hidden video cameras monitoring the inside of the place, Brody had also installed a number of external video cameras over the last several months.
If another government lockdown was coming, Brody was going to be ready. It wasn't that he was particularly antigovernment; he just didn't trust them, especially with all the invaluable data that was stored here at his museum.
There had been times… especially when Max Evans had worked there… when Brody had felt he was on the verge of making a breakthrough in his research into the Roswell conspiracy and UFO cover-ups in general. But those months had also been full of what he'd come to think of as 'lost time': the period during which he felt he had been abducted by aliens. Once, he had even awoken in New York, with no idea how he had gotten there from Roswell, nor why he had made the journey. Clearly, some other intelligence had been pulling his strings.
This morning, he had come to the museum very early. His daughter, Sydney, was staying with his parents for the week, so he had been able to spend a lot of productive time on his research.
He pulled a CD out of its case on the wall bookshelf and prepared to sit back at his desk, when a movement on the monitor caught his eye. The camera had a wide-angle lens, and faced across the street from the UFO Center, toward the Crashdown Cafe.
He watched as a black van and a black sedan pulled up in front of the Crashdown, and men in black leaped out and tackled Jeff Parker. Moments later, several of them burst into the Crashdown, guns drawn.
For a moment, Brody was too astonished to move. Then his survival instincts kicked in. Running to the wall, he toggled several switches, which triple-bolted all of the doors. Another switch brought a secondary set of doors sliding forward and locking into place; the thick steel barriers would act as a secondary shield should the first set of doors fail.
He kept his eye on the monitors to see if they were coming across the street toward him, or were down the alley, but he didn't see any movement.
'Who do I call?' he asked out loud, but only one name came to mind: Jim Valenti. Although the man worked in law enforcement, Brody trusted something about him. Maybe it was the way he had been so protective about Max and his friends. Maybe it was his clear and outspoken belief in the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Or maybe it was something deeper that Brody couldn't quite define.
Rifling through a stack of papers, Brody tried to find the number. Valenti had come to see him a week or two after the Rogers explosion, and had given him a special beeper number. 'If anything… strange ever happens that you don't think you can discuss with the law, page me,' Valenti had told him then.
'Why?' Brody had asked. He hadn't needed to elaborate on his question.
'You and I both know that there's more going on beneath the surface than most people will ever understand,' Valenti had said, his voice steady and low. 'If you ever need help, Brody, remember that I'm an ally. “
Now Brody knew he needed an ally more than ever before. He finally found the pager number and punched it into his cell phone.
The phone rang once, and then picked up. A tone buzzed in Brody's ear, and he punched in his private phone number, then the pound sign. An automatonlike female voice said, 'Thank you.' He
