Turnabout

tranquilizers. After all, she knows that her little friends need to be brave and loyal if they're to stand any chance at all of rescuing her. So she's apparently given them more than enough bravery and loyalty.» «No doubt after trying and failing to use her persuasive powers on us» Bartolli said, pointing to the foil cap on his head. «Of course,' Margolin said, nodding. «If one wants an adversary to move in a particular direction, one has to close off all the alternatives. She knows her only chance is to reach straight into her friends' minds and force them to come back and get her.» Margolin watched as the two teens sneaked up on a trio of apparently oblivious agents working a security post. They began reaching for their weapons a little too late per their orders and were slammed roughly into a wall by blasts of amber-colored power from the Guerin boy's hands. Margolin noted how still the agents lay afterward, and hoped that they were merely unconscious. Bartolli shook his head. «Did we really need to let that happen?» he said, pitching his voice so that only Margolin could hear him. «Absolutely. They have to think they're getting the better of us… until the time comes to spring the trap.» «This is almost too easy,' Lonnie said, pointing to the clipboard that hung on the door ahead of them. HARDING, TESS, it read. Tess Harding, she thought. That's the name oj the other Ava, the one from way out in the New Mexico boonies. The one Ava said died a few months ago. That must be who the MiBs think they've grabbed. They must think Rath and I are part oj that defective Roswell bunch too. «Easy, nothing,' Rath said, beginning to look tired. «It wasn't exactly a picnic in the park bringing down those guards, dear Vilandra.» «Yeah, but there should have been more of them,' Lonnie said. And yet, despite her misgivings, despite her growing fear that they had both been drawn into an elaborate trap, she found that she could not turn back. «This is where they're holding Ava,' Lonnie said, gesturing toward the door. «It has to be.» Rath scowled, pointing at the clipboard that bore Tess Harding's name. «Thank you, O Mistress of the Obvious. I managed to Mulder that one out for myself.» Lonnie ignored him. Against her better judgment, she placed her hand on the doorknob, turned it, and discovered that it wasn't locked. Very slowly, she pushed the door open. Rath led the way yet again, prompting Lonnie to wonder when her usually self-absorbed lover had become so chivalrous. It was almost as though he was being influenced by some outside force. Oh, my God, she thought, following Rath into the room as she realized what must have happened. The room she and Rath entered contained what appeared to be a large surgical operating theater, almost like something out of Young Frankenstein, only a lot more modern. A balcony, filled with empty seats, overlooked the place from above. The room's center was dominated by a large flat table, over which hung a large cluster of gleaming metal lamps. The table was surrounded by a confusing array of IVs, tubes, respirators, and chrome-plated medical monitoring equipment, none of which appeared to be turned on at the moment. But it was the body strapped to the table that drew Lonnie's attention the most. It was Ava, and she was alive, trying to raise her head in their direction. «Thank God you guys finally made it,' Ava said to them both, smiling broadly. «I knew you wouldn't leave me here.» Lonnie only glared silently at her. «Looks like you didn't leave us a whole hell of a lot of choice,' Rath said, evidently having just come to the same conclusion Lonnie had. «You mindwarped us into rescuing you,' Lonnie said, wondering momentarily how Ava had managed to influence them over a distance of several miles. Had the bond between the Royal Three really grown so strong over the years? Or had the MiBs drugged her in a way that ramped her powers up instead of damping them down? Ava seemed to be trying to shrug, despite the bonds that held her down by the wrists and throat. «Do you mind if we argue about that later? After you get me out of here?» Lonnie raised her hand and released a burst of energy. The strap holding down one of Ava's wrists shattered, scattering bits of debris around the room. «Hey!» Ava shouted. «Take it easy!» Rath stepped forward, raised his hands, and released another three blasts in quick succession. A moment later, Ava was wobbling on her feet and staring defiantly at them both. «I'm not going to apologize for bringing you here,' Ava said. «And I wouldn't have had to do it if you hadn't dumped me back at LAX.» Rath shook his head. «I don't get it, Ava. If your power is strong enough to do a direct-dial, long-distance mindwarp, then why didn't you just force the MiBs to let you go? Why drag us right into their evil lair?» «Must be those tinfoil hats.» Lonnie was sure she must have heard that wrong. «What are you ' «Freeze!» shouted a rough voice from up on the balcony. «Get on the floor! Now!» Lonnie felt rooted to the floor, unsure of what to do. Time seemed to slow, as though everyone present were swimming in a vat of syrup. In the balcony above, several black-suited MiBs were taking two-handed aim with huge pistols that wouldn't have looked out of place on Han Solo's hip. She watched as Rath extended his hands and released a rapid succession of power blasts. He hit the floor, rolled, fired again, and then bedlam broke out in the balcony as the MiBs seemed to begin fighting among themselves. Bullets caromed around the room. At least one slug struck Rath in the shoulder. Another appeared to strike Ava in the side. «Come on!» Rath shouted, ignoring his wound as he ran for the door. Ava followed immediately, and Lonnie at last began moving, bringing up the rear. Then something struck her in the back, knocking the wind from her and casting her down into a black abyss. Shunting aside the resentment he felt toward Ava, Rath allowed his military instincts to take over. His hands glowed and throbbed with power as he counted the MiBs on the balcony. Five of them, he thought, releasing blast after blast from his palms. Like the three guards they had overcome out in the corridor, these guys all wore what appeared to be tinfoil beanies. Like crazy homeless people, but with better clothes, Rath thought as he threw himself to the floor, rolled, and sprang back to his feet, loosing another quick pair of blasts. One of the MiBs lost his skullcap from the impact. Rath realized that Ava was taking full advantage of that when the hatless agent suddenly turned his weapon on the man beside him, shooting him in the chest. A third agent brought his weapon up and dropped the hatless man in his tracks. Something bit him on the right shoulder. It felt like a beesting, though the warm, wet flow of blood and the sensation of burning betrayed it as a gunshot wound. Rath decided to assume that these guys were all done fooling around with lasers and stun-guns. «Come on!» he said, sprinting for the door and swallowing his pain. He heard the girls' footfalls behind him, but didn't look back as he ran into the corridor. He put up a force field between himself and the dozen or so federal agents who were now swarming toward him from both ends of the hallway. Bullets and trank darts spattered ineffectually against the energy barrier. Guess they're not all shooting to kill, Rath thought, not comforted in the least by the observation. «The way we came in isn't that far from here,' he shouted, still running. Ava, though still unsteady, was keeping pace alongside him. «Keep aiming your blasts at their headgear, Rath,' Ava said. «Maybe I can make enough of them think we're invisible so we can slip out of here.» Only then did Rath notice that Ava's postpunk ensemble was spattered with fresh red blood, evidently her own. And that Lonnie hadn't made it out into the corridor. «Lonnie! We've gotta go back for her!» Bullets whizzed down the corridor, only to be stopped by Rath's force field. He looked into Ava's eyes, and she met his gaze without flinching. «We go back for Lonnie, we get captured. AH of us. You want that?» No, Rath thought. And Lonnie wouldn't want that either. As they fought their way to the lightless basement through which Rath and Lonnie had entered the building, Rath kept telling himself that Lonnie would want him to escape, even if she couldn't. Something in the back of his mind told him that the only way he could get to safety was to be forcibly mindfreaked by Ava, who wasn't even allowing him to be angry about that for the moment. Disgusted, Margolin gestured toward the table in the center of the operating theater. The agents the ones who hadn't been zapped into insensibility or killed by the escaping teens, that is hastened to place the unconscious Evans girl there, in the spot previously occupied by Tess Harding. Harding's escape, and that of the Guerin boy, rankled him. I was overconfident again. He swore not to be so careless next time. Bartolli approached him, an accusatory look on his hatchetlike face. But he appeared to be sensitive enough to Margolin's simmering anger not to offer any unsolicited criticism of the Special Unit's latest failure. Evidently even a predator like Bartolli knew better than trying to bite the big dog at a time like this. «What now?» was all Viceroy's second-in-command said. After a moment's thought, Margolin replied. «We move forward with the disposition of the one alien still in our possession. While she's still in our possession.» Bartolli nodded. «You want to make an example of her.» «Damn straight I do,' said the man called Viceroy, recalling the vivisection that the late Special Agent Pierce had almost succeeded in performing on Max Evans in a facility not too different from this one. «Call the medical guys back in, and tell them they have the green light to find out what makes this alien tick.» Viceroy grinned a death's-head grin. «The time has come for invasive procedures.» 10. Los Angeles «I I think it's just up this way,' Max said, pointing to the road that veered off to the right, just ahead of the Microbus's headlights. He had to admit that even he was getting frustrated trying to find his way to Langley's mansion through the steep labyrinth that was the Hollywood Hills. And it was especially hard to do this at night. «What's the compass-thingy say?» Maria asked. Liz looked up, exasperated. «I don't know. I can't seem to read it right. The lights keep pointing all around. It's not making any sense.» «Too bad he's not on one of the maps of the stars that all those people on the street corners were selling,' Michael said, then turned the steering wheel sharply. «So, we try this road now.» As they passed impressive house after impressive house, Max had to marvel at the money people spent to live in such luxury. He was amused that although he used to be a king and likely lived very well he had become so used to a far simpler life in Roswell that this sort of opulence seemed excessive to him now. Almost embarrassing. «I remember that place,' Max said, pointing straight ahead. «Langleys