The Vanished

minded. Before he died, he'd been kind of a mentor to Michael, Max, and Isabel, the only adult survivor of the Roswell Incident crash.

At least that's what they'd all thought until Elsevan DuPris revealed the truth about himself.

'I was asleep,' Adam answered, his green eyes dark with sympathy.

Max cleared his throat. 'I'm sorry, man,' he said, placing his hand on Michael's shoulder.

For a moment Michael was surprised to feel how weak Max's grip was. But it made sense, with all he'd been through recently.

'It's okay,' Michael said, taking a deep breath. 'It's fine. We have something more important to deal with right now.'

He would think about Cameron later. Much later. He wasn't going to let his feelings about some girl stop him from doing what needed to be done. Even some girl who turned him inside out, who betrayed him and saved his life.

If Max could stand up and face the disaster their lives had become, so could Michael. The withered, gray spots that had appeared on Max's face and neck after he'd opened the wormhole had faded, but he still had to be seriously exhausted. Michael was impressed that Max was even standing. His best friend was so painfully inspiring, it made Michael feel uplifted and nauseated all at the same time.

Michael grabbed a pair of pants and a T-shirt off the floor and yanked them on. 'What are we waiting for?'

'To the Batmobile!' Maria cried. No one laughed. 'Sorry. You know what happens when I get nervous. Brain Jell-O,' she muttered.

A few minutes later all six of them were crammed into Max and Isabel's Jeep. Michael sat squashed between Adam and Max in the backseat, with Liz more or less on Max's lap. Maria was riding shotgun, and Isabel was driving.

They zoomed through the flat, strip-mall-lined streets of Roswell toward the desert beyond. The sun blared down on them, and the air over the road shimmered with haze.

'Do you think the ship will still be there?' Maria asked. Her question echoed through the silence in the Jeep like the crack of breaking ice. 'I've been trying to imagine it still in the base-to visualize it. Maybe if we all do that, if we all visualize it, it will-'

'What flavor of Jell-O is that in your brain, anyway?' Isabel snapped.

Maria bit her lip and didn't say anything else.

Every muscle in Michaels body tensed. There was a thing between Isabel and Maria lately. And he had a feeling he was the thing. They'd both made a play for him when all he'd been thinking about was Cameron. And even though they'd both backed off, there was still this thing, this little bit of attitude. He was about to tell them to chill, but thankfully, Liz beat him to it.

'Was that necessary?' Liz asked, leaning between the two front seats and glaring at Isabel.

'Maybe,' Isabel replied. Her shoulders were stiff, and she stared grimly at the road ahead of them. 'I'm just not in the mood for one of Maria's little New Age games. Is that okay with you?'

'No,' Liz said. 'It's not.'

'Everyone calm down,' Max interrupted. 'We're all worried. But we can't take it out on each other.'

'Well, sorry if I'm paying attention to reality,' Isabel said. 'But did any of you stop to think that when Adam trashed the compound, it might have alerted other people? Like the police… or even worse, the media?'

'First of all,' Michael replied, 'Adam didn't blow up the Clean Slate compound. DuPris did, when he had control of Adam's body. You should understand that better than anyone, Izzy.'

That was because DuPris had taken over Isabel's body, too. Just thinking about it sent a surge of bile up Michael's throat.

'I know,' Isabel said. 'But that doesn't change the fact that the police, or even a TV crew, could be waiting for us around the next corner.'

'The explosion was a few days ago,' Liz said. 'The media would've been crawling all over Roswell by now if they'd heard anything.' She reached back and quickly twisted her long dark hair into a spiral down her back. 'I know you're freaked, but that doesn't mean you can just be randomly mean to people.'

Isabel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'I'm sorry, Maria,' she said quietly. 'I'm just in a mood. Don't take it personally.'

'It's forgotten,' Maria said.

The thing faded. Michael leaned forward slightly. 'The ship should be undamaged,' he said. 'Remember that piece of metal I found out in the desert? The ship is made out of the same stuff, and nothing I did to that scrap hurt it in the least. Not even a blowtorch-'

'The ship's fine,' Adam added. 'I know for sure.'

'Did Valenti have you test it?' Max asked.

'Yeah, we beat that thing up endlessly. Nothing I did ever hurt it at all,' Adam replied, staring out the side of the Jeep.

Michael heard the distant tone of Adam's voice and felt a surge of anger. He didn't even like to imagine how Adam had been raised. The late Sheriff Valenti had imprisoned Adam in the underground compound and never let him know that there was anything outside, never taught him anything about the world. Valenti even told Adam that he was Adam's father, which to Michael pretty much defined the word twisted.

It made Michael's childhood shuttling between foster homes look like The Brady Bunch.

Maria peered over the back of her seat at Adam. 'So the ship could be fine,' she said. 'It could have survived DuPris nuking the place. All we have to do is dig it up, hop in, and zip off to get Alex and bring him back.'

Michael glanced at Max, and the concerned, caged look in his best friend's eyes told him Max was thinking the same thing he was-if only it were that easy.

'Even if the ship's okay, we've still got to figure out how to fly it,' Michael said. 'Then if we manage that-'

'We still don't know how to get there,' Max broke in. 'I mean, I could get general instructions and directions by linking to the collective consciousness, but there's a big difference between being told how to do something and actually doing it. None of us has a clue about space travel. What if the flight takes years?'

Maria's eyes were wide. 'Yeah, but it's possible, right?'

'We wouldn't be coming back out here if it wasn't,' Isabel replied.

It's possible, Michael thought. It just isn't very likely.

But he wasn't about to squash Maria's hopes-and the hopes of everyone in the Jeep-by saying that out loud.

Hope was all they had left.

***

'We've arrived,' Isabel said, slowing the Jeep to a crawl. She pulled up alongside a massive stretch of ground that was so burned, it gleamed like onyx, the rocks in the soil fused into a glassy sheen by the blast of Adam's energy. Make that Adam's energy combined with and controlled by DuPris's.

The six of them clambered out. 'It's under there,' Adam said. He pointed to a section near the center, staring at the ground as if he could see through it. 'Deep.'

Max led the way, kicking at the scorched sand. 'Looks like we're in for some serious digging.'

'We didn't bring shovels,' Maria said, raising her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun.

'We've got us,' Isabel replied, locking eyes with Michael.

Maria blushed. 'Oh, right. The not-quite-human bulldozers.'

'I'm still weak,' Max said. 'I don't know how much use I'll be-'

'The four of us can connect,' Michael interrupted him. 'Well get it done faster that way.'

Liz turned to Maria. 'Come on,' she said. 'Let's go keep watch.'

'Ma'am, yes ma'am!' Maria said with a little salute. 'Always wanted to do that,' she said, grinning.

Michael smiled. Even in a situation as tense as this one, Maria always managed to do something that lightened his mood.