Even though Max suspected that Ray spent a lot of time thinking about home-his home.
When Max first found out that Ray was an alien, too, he'd gotten this picture in his mind. He'd never admitted it to anyone else, but he'd thought he and Ray would get a Luke Skywalker-Yoda kind of thing going, where Ray would impart all his wisdom to Max, tell Max about his parents, teach him how to refine his powers, that kind of stuff. Okay, maybe it was dorky. But that's what he'd thought.
It hadn't turned out like that. Ray had told him and Michael about their parents' death. He'd shown them a hologram re-creation of the spaceship crashing in the desert outside Roswell back in 1947. And he'd told them how he brought their incubation pods from the ship to the desert cave where they would be safe during the years it took them to develop to maturity. He'd even shown them a few new things that they could do with their powers, things that might help protect them against being discovered by Sheriff Valenti. Plus he'd completely been there for them when a group of alien bounty hunters came after Maria.
That was all. Ray was happy for Max to keep working at the museum. But he acted as if he and Max were just two ordinary humans. And he wanted Max to act the same way.
Max wanted so much more from Ray. He wanted Ray to teach him the history of their planet-its culture and all its phenomena. Ray might tell him if the intense volume thing Max had just experienced was alien related. But then he'd probably clam up.
Max climbed out of the Jeep and crossed the parking lot. He took off his sunglasses and hooked them over the edge of his T-shirt.
'I found a great painting of foo fighters,' Ray announced the second Max walked through the door. 'Come check it out.' He started toward the back of the museum without waiting for a reply.
'I didn't know Foo Fighters had any UFO connection,' Max commented as he followed Ray.
'Don't say that so loud,' Ray cautioned. He took a quick glance around for tourists, but the museum's few customers were flipping through the T-shirt rack on the other side of the place. 'People pay good money to come in here and enjoy their wacky human theories. Myself, I think it's the World War Two version of an urban legend. That generation's hook-handed man in the back of a car.'
'Whoa. I'm talking about the rock band here, Ray. And you would be talking about?'
Ray turned the corner and nodded at a massive oil painting of an old fighter plane being chased by what looked like balls of orange and green fire. 'The band got their name from these foo fighters. That's what people called the incredibly fast, glowing balls and silver disks reported to follow planes and ships in the European and Pacific theaters during the war. The UFOlogist types think they were UFOs,' Ray explained. He pointed at Max. 'And if anyone asks you about them, you believe the same thing. Got it?'
'I live to deceive the public,' Max said. Now seemed like a good time to ask about what had happened in the car.
Ray tilted his head to one side. 'I think that painting is crooked. Good thing I left the ladder out.'
'I'll fix it.' Max hurried over and climbed up to the second-highest step. He pushed the corner of the painting down about half an inch. 'How does that look?' he asked.
He stood way too close to it to tell. The painting was so big, it filled most of his field of vision. Max stared at it, transfixed. The orange and green balls practically vibrated with color. He felt as if they were flying toward him. They were so bright, they almost seemed to glow.
'Ray? Is it straight?' Max repeated. He felt his mouth moving, forming the words. But no sound came out. He realized the museum had become absolutely silent.
'Ray!' he shouted. He could feel the muscles in his throat working. But he couldn't force out a sound.
He started to turn and look for Ray, but his gaze locked on the colors of the painting. They were brighter now. So bright, they made his eyes burn.
Look away! Now! he ordered himself. But the colors were so beautiful. So vivid. Mesmerizing. The green and orange filled his vision. It was like staring directly into the sun. And he couldn't force his gaze away.
His eyes felt like hot coals jammed into his head. The green and orange balls exploded in front of him. Filling his vision with searing bits of color.
Then a wave of dizziness swept through Max, and the world went black. He couldn't feel the ladder under his feet. And he was falling.
He knew he was only a few feet off the ground. He should have landed instantaneously. But he kept hurtling through the dark, silent void. Spinning, twisting, rolling. But always falling.
Then it was over. He could feel the museum's tile floor under his back. He could hear Ray's voice saying his name.
He opened his eyes a crack. He saw blobs of color, but none had the effect of the painting's green and orange balls of fire. He opened his eyes the rest of the way and sat up.
'Are you okay? What happened?' Ray asked.
Max scrubbed his face with his fingers. 'I was hoping you would tell me,' he muttered.
Ray turned to the group of tourists who had gathered. 'He's fine. You can all go back to what you were doing. Don't miss the crop circle exhibit,' he told them. Then he helped Max to his feet. 'Come on, I'll get you something to drink.'
Ray led Max to a table at the back of the museum's little coffee shop. 'You want water, a Lime Warp, what?'
Max shook his head. All he wanted was information. And fast. 'Nothing. I just need you to help me figure out what's going on. I was standing on the ladder, and everything was normal. Then the green and orange in the painting got brighter and brighter until they were burning my eyes. Then it's like I went blind. And deaf-that actually happened first. And then I was falling. It was like I'd fallen off a skyscraper or something. It took me forever to hit the ground.'
Saying all that out loud… it made him feel like a loon. Maybe he had a fever or something.
Ray sat down across from Max and studied his face intensely. 'Is this the first time anything like this has happened?' he asked.
'On the way here something weird happened, too. All the sounds got incredibly loud. I thought my eardrums were going to explode. And then it just stopped. Everything sounded normal again,' Max told him. He lowered his voice. 'I thought at first maybe it was an alien thing. But maybe it's-'
'You thought right,' Ray jumped in. 'Have you had any spells of extreme fatigue?'
'Uh, I guess, sort of. Once or twice,' Max admitted, thinking back over the past few weeks. He hadn't really thought anything about those spells.
Ray nodded, his expression grave. 'You've just described the first stage of the akino.'
'And that would be?' Max asked. He struggled to stay calm and rational, even though there was something in Ray's tone that made Max's anxiety level spike. Not to mention the streaks of sickly yellow invading the blue-and- green whorls of Ray's aura.
'Our race has a… collective consciousness,' Ray explained. 'It's like a psychic Internet. All the knowledge, all the life experience, all the emotions of all of our people are there in the consciousness. When a young person reaches maturity, he or she is able to make the connection to the consciousness for the first time. This rite of passage is called the akino. The physical symptoms you've experienced-the bursts of heightened sensation, the fatigue-are signals that it is time for you to make your connection.'
Max breathed a sigh of relief. 'So, it's a good thing, right?' Actually it sounded more than good. It sounded awesome. The collective consciousness would hold the answer to every question Max had about his home planet, his people.
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.'
