driving,' Max repeated, unconcerned with anything except Liz's safe recovery. He sank back into his seat, exhausted.
Peering in the mirror, she saw that Michael and Isabel had apparently been inspired by Max's ingenuity; widiin seconds, the olive-green Jeep had acquired a spanking new black paint job. She wondered briefly whedier Michael or Isabel had selected the color, then blinked her eyes as the numbers and letters on the Jeep's front license plate rearranged themselves. Vow, she thought, amazed at how adept her alien friends were getting with their powers. Instant, automotive dyslexia.
She had to wonder what Joe Morton thought of the pursuing cars' uncanny metamorphoses. Tearing her gaze away from the mirror, she looked ahead-and saw the no-good gunman staring back at the Jetta with a totally flabbergasted expression on his ugly face. Hahl Maria gloated, enjoying his extreme confusion and discomfort. Maybe the Jeep and the Jetta's unnatural transformations would put the fear of God-or, at the very least, little green men- into die slimeball.
A flashing blue light appeared in her mirror, ruining the moment. Looking back out her side window, she saw a black-and-white State Patrol car zooming up fast behind them. Instinctively, she put her foot on the brake, slowing down to something closer to die legal speed limit. A few car lengths back, behind the wheel of the Jeep, Isabel obviously did the same.
'Hey, what are you doing?' Max shouted, watching in horror as Morton's blue Chevy pulled farther ahead of them, disappearing toward the not-so-distant mountains. 'They're getting away!'You want those cops to pull us over?' she snapped back at him, fully aware that Liz was speeding farther away from them with each passing second. 'You want to try explaining to the police what's going on?' She knew there was no other choice but to slow down and hope the cop car passed them by. 'If you've got a better idea, Max, lay it on me!'Despite his all- consuming desire to rescue Liz from Morton's clutches, Max couldn't argue with Maria's trenchant assessment of their current predicament. Hissing in frustration, he slammed his fist into his palm as his anguished eyes watched the Chevy shrink toward the horizon.
lights flashing, siren blaring, the State Patrol car drew up behind the two slowing vehicles. 'Okay, everyone put on their Not-Guilty faces,' Maria said, swallowing hard. A horrible thought occurred to her and she suddenly prayed that Michael and Isabel had been shrewd enough to transmute their bogus air force uniforms into something less incriminating. That was all they needed now: for the pair of disguised aliens to get busted for impersonating an officer (or two).
The cop car cruised up alongside the Jetta and a stone-faced state trooper, peering through the passenger side window, scanned the metallic green vehicle and its occupants. Maria slowed down cooperatively, letting the officer take a good long look. 'These aren't the 'droids you're looking for,' she whispered under her breath, feeling a cold sweat glue the back of her shirt to her suddenly sticky skin. Here's where we find out, she thought, if Max's magic paint job did the trick.
Paranoia made the next few seconds stretch out tortur-ously, but, finally, the wary trooper looked away from the Jetta, back toward the road ahead. Putting on a sudden burst of renewed speed, the flashing cop car accelerated away from them in pursuit, Maria assumed, of the fleeing blue Chevy.
Letting her forehead droop onto the steering wheel, Maria let out a fervent sigh of relief, and wondered if she was ever going to get used to being on the run from the authorities. I'd better get used to it, she mused, if I'm going to hep hanging out with Michael and the rest of the Pod Squad.
They had gotten away with it this time, but at an excruciating cost. Maria stared straight ahead at the disappearing lights of the patrol car. Morton and his convertible were nowhere to be seen, already long gone. She heard a brokenhearted groan from the backseat, but found herself afraid to turn around and look Max in the eyes.
They had lost Liz.
21.
Shoot-outs. Kidnapping. Chases. This is more than I bargained for!' the science guy shouted over the wind blowing in their faces. Behind the wheel of the blue convertible, he sounded positively hysterical. 'You just said that you needed a couple of tests done, that there was no danger, damnit! Now look at us. We're fugitives!'Shut up and drive!' Morton ordered from the backseat, where he kept guard over Liz while glaring back at the vehicles doggedly pursuing them. He fired again, bang, bang, then swore venomously as his shots missed their targets. 'Who the hell are these kids?'Trapped in the back of the Chevy with the enraged gunman, Liz flinched every time the gun went off, throwing her hands over her ears. Morton's unhappy curses came as a relief to her, since they meant his bullets had not yet found her friends. Be careful! she silently urged Max and the others, deathly afraid that someone she cared for might be hurt or killed while trying to rescue her. She felt like she was caught in an endless, recurring nightmare, one that had started two years ago in the Crashdown, when Max first risked everything to save her. How many times, she despaired, is Joe Morton going to make my friends place themselves in jeopardy for my sake? A siren cried shrilly somewhere behind them, and Liz didn't know whether to welcome or dread the advent of the police. She was being kidnapped, true, but she also had way too many secrets of her own, secrets that, at all costs, needed to be hidden from any and all official attention.
The driver's reaction to the distant siren was a good deal less ambiguous. 'Oh, God,' he moaned. 'I'm going to jail.' He peered, ashen-faced, into the rearview mirror, watching for the inevitable appearance of a police car in hot pursuit. 'This can't be happening! I'm a scientist, not an outlaw!'Stop whining!' Morton berated the terrified techie. 'Hit the gas! Faster!' He looked like he wanted to strangle the driver and take the wheel himself. 'No ones locking me up now, not this close to the big payoff!' Liz knew he was talking about the briefcase full of alien hardware, now resting on the passenger seat beside the self-proclaimed scientist. 'Hit the gas or I swear I'll blow your head off right here and now!'The Chevy sped up dramatically, the sudden acceleration throwing Liz back against the padded seat cushions. 'That's better,' Morton muttered, twisting around to check out the road behind him. 'What the-!'His florid, bloodthirsty features went pale and slack as he witnessed something that shocked him to the core. 'Okada!' he called hoarsely to the science guy, whose name Liz finally learned. 'Look behind us. Am I going crazy or are those cars changing color?'Liz risked a peek back over her shoulder. Sure enough, both the Jeep and the Jetta were acquiring new paint jobs right before their eyes, the surprising new hues flowing over the cars' old colors like a high tide washing over a sandy shore. Liz felt a stab of guilt, knowing that Max and the others must be frantic to rescue her if they were willing to use their powers so flagrantly in broad daylight.
'Holy cow!' Okada exclaimed. For a moment, he sounded more intrigued than panicked, his scientific curiosity piqued by the two automobiles' inexplicable transformations. 'How is that possible?'The switch occurred in seconds; only moments later, the red Jetta and olive Jeep had been completely replaced by their green and black counterparts. Infuriated by his inability to comprehend what he had just witnessed, Morton turned on Liz, jabbing his semi-automatic pistol under her chin. The steel muzzle felt hot against her tender skin. 'Who are you kids?' Morton demanded, spittle flying from his blubbery lips. His face was so close to hers that she could taste his sour breath, see his yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. 'What are you?'The blaring police siren, growing louder by the minute, spared Liz any need to reply immediately. 'Oh crap!' Okada screeched, his voice cracking. Flashing blue lights were now visible behind them, passing the transformed Jeep and Jetta to chase after the speeding convertible and its passengers. 'It's the State Patrol!'Later,' Morton promised Liz ominously, before giving the cop car his full attention. 'Faster!' he ordered Okada, yanking his face and gun away from his frightened hostage. 'Give it everything you've got!'The Chevy shot like a rocket down the lonely desert road, leaving the Jeep and the Jetta far behind, but the black-and-white police car continued to gain on them. 'ATTENTION: YOU IN THE BLUE CHEVROLET,' an amplified voice addressed them sternly. 'THIS IS THE STATE PATROL!' Liz heard Okada whimper pathetically; the distraught scientist was definitely not cut out for a life of crime. 'SLOW DOWN AND PULL OVER AT ONCE. I REPEAT: SLOW DOWN AND PULL OVER!'The hell I will!' Morton snarled, aiming his pistol at the oncoming police vehicle. 'Nobody's taking my merchandise away from me now!'He opened fire, unleashing an ear-splitting salvo of gunshots against the cops, who must have gotten nearer to the Chevy than the Jeep or the Jetta ever did, because Morton's bullets inflicted a lot more damage this time around. One shot perforated the hood of the police car, causing an eruption of steam and smoke from the engine below, while another shot tore apart the besieged car's right front tire. Morton chortled with vicious glee as the injured vehicle lost control and swerved off the road
