Turnabout

would make again in a heartbeat. «I'll go out on a limb and make one final prediction,' she said at length. «There won't be a lot of those prophetic flashes in my immediate future.» Then Liz heard the sound of tires grinding on gravel and pavement. She turned, as did everyone else, to see a long white limousine come to a stop beside the Microbus. The nearest window, as impenetrably black as obsidian, began to lower with a faint electronic whine. She was relieved to see that Langley was inside. Beside him sat Ava, whose lost-puppy expression made Liz forget her antipathy toward Tess, at least for die moment; Liz couldn't help but wonder if Ava would ever feel at home anywhere, and felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for her. Liz forced her gaze back to Langley, whose expression was impassive. A pair of expensive-looking sunglasses obscured his eyes. Max approached the car. «Thanks,' he said simply. «Following my genetically preprogrammed commands was the least I could do. But you're not gonna get a 'you're welcome' out of me unless you give me a direct order. Now, do you mind if I have a word with the general?» Max shrugged, resembling a very tired teenager far more than he did a king. «He's all yours, Hollywood.» A grin split Langley's face as Michael approached. «I certainly hope so.» Michael eyed him suspiciously. «What do you want?» «I've got meetings to get back to, so I'll cut right to it. I always liked you back on Antar, kid. Maybe there's a place for you here in Hollywood if you want to come work with me.» Michael let out a harsh laugh. «Me? Work with you? Why?» «Because it pays for people of our… extraction to help one another out, capiscel And because you remind me of a young David Duchovny, maybe with a little more acting range. You'll need to lose that girlie haircut before I set up the agency photo session and start introducing you around to casting directors, though.» '«I want to believe, Maria said, failing to conceal asmirk «David Duchovny?» Michael's expression was a study in disgust. «David Duchovny?». Michael repeated. He sounded insulted. Langley hiked a thumb toward Max. «Kid, your fearless leader here might not be able to act his way out of a pay toilet, but I think you may be different. You could have a really bright future, say, in action films with the right connections.» Now Michael seemed merely astonished. «Action. Films.» «Say it again, with feeling this time. Mel Gibson's not getting any younger, you know.» Michael's jaw fell open. Liz wondered if Langley knew that Braveheart was one of his favorite pictures of all time. Maria, who was obviously well aware of that fact, marched over to Michael and threw a possessive arm around his shoulder. «Don't call us,' she said to Langley, her eyes like sharpened steak knives. «We'll call you. After we get back home to Roswell.» Maria tried to drag him off, but Michael merely stood like a statue, apparently barely aware of her presence. «Mel Gibson?» he whispered. Langley shrugged and started raising the window. «Suit yourselves. You know where to find me when you finally make up your mind, General.» The gravel popped and crunched as the limo maneuvered back onto the road and drove off. «Mel Gibson?» Michael said as Kyle started up the Microbus and each member of the original group of six, plus Jesse, began climbing back inside. Everyone else had either left via chopper, or had departed in a car called in by Langley. «Mel Gibson?» Liz climbed into the back and took a seat beside Jesse, whose arms were entangled with Isabel's, and behind Kyle and Max, who were seated, respectively, in the driver's seat and front passenger's seat. Liz looked out the open door, where Michael and Maria still stood. Michael looked thoughtful. Maria looked impatient. Kyle gave the van's ancient, aircooled engine a good, loud rev, dropping an unsubtle hint. «We're going home now, Spaceboy,' Maria said. «So get in already.» He meekly allowed her to lead him by the hand. «Mel Gibson, Maria.» «Oh, be quiet.» Yes, things are getting back to normal, indeed, Liz thought as the side door finally shut, enclosing the seven of them in a cocoon of weary but companionable silence. She was looking forward to writing in her journal again, day by day, with no clue as to what might lie ahead. 19. Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles From the clock on the wall, he knew what lay ahead. It was the same every day. «Please stand away from the door, Mr. Margolin,' the voice would say. And after he had backed into the strangely yielding corner, the door would open. Someone dressed all in white white coat, white pants, white shoes, white goddamned teeth would enter and set down a soft white cardboard tray topped with a soft white paper plate filled with bland white food. Even the walls, floors, and ceilings were white. And soft. The people in the coats had told him that this was for his own protection. The softness, not so much the whiteness (truthfully, he wasn't at all certain what purpose the unrelenting whiteness served, if any). The softness suffused everything so that the room's walls and corners and edges couldn't hurt him. But he wasn't worried that any such right-angled thing might hurt him. He was far more concerned about the far more complex shapes that visited him after the lights went out. When the remorseless white receded and gave way to a comforting, stygian black. And in the crepuscular passage between the two, he could actually see them the small gray people with their long fingers and their bulbous heads and their gigantic, softball-size, oil-slick eyes, twin black holes from which nothing, not even light, could escape. Those eyes could suck the soul right out the top of your head if you let them. Margolin had a sheet of foil that he'd stolen from one of his early meal trays and kept hidden so that he could crumple it protectively about his skull during the night. Tonight, in the darkness, he smiled to himself as he adjusted his makeshift cap. As long as his silver shield was in place, the gray people didn't frighten him in the least. And during the interminable whiteness of the day, when he was forced to hide the foil cap so that the whitecoats wouldn't be tempted to take it away the way they had relieved him of his belt, pencils, and shoelaces the gray men almost never approached him. It was during the long, white daytime hours that he could reassure himself that the gray men hadn't won. That they hadn't beaten him, or broken him. That they never could beat him, or break him, or force him to bend. No matter what anyone said, he knew that the gray invaders hadn't bent his mind, though it certainly wasn't for lack of trying. Oh, how they'd tried. But he knew with bedrock certainty that they had never succeeded at least, not exactly. The men and women who came to see him each day, those who fed him and sponge-bathed him, even said as much. Mostly. Snapped was the word one of them had used, rather than bent. He hadn't much appreciated the insipidly smiling, white-clad man who had used that ugly word. So Margolin had taken one of the hard plastic cafeteria trays they now no longer permitted him to use, and had used its blunt edge to beat that man to within a bloody inch of his life. After that, nobody else ever tried to say that he'd snapped. At least, not to his face. Psychotic break following electroneural trauma, was a phrase he heard often as well. But it was too long and clinical to rouse his visceral anger the way the hated word snapped could. These last few days or maybe weeks… years? the whitecoats had taken to trying to assure him that the gray people weren't even actually here. But Margolin knew better. He knew that the small gray people were here. And not just here. They were everywhere. Sometimes, when they stalked him in the darkness, he wished they'd get it over with and simply kill him. After all, he knew they wanted to. And they could have done it, he often thought. Why didn't they? He knew that he certainly wouldn't have hesitated to wipe them out. So why didn't they kill him! What was holding them back? They were everywhere, after all. Whenever he mentioned any of these ruminations aloud, the whitecoats only smiled their most indulgent white smiles. The whitecoats thought they were so smart. But they never found Margolin's foil cap. 20. Roswell, New Mexico Ms she looked at Max, who was now truly and lawfully her husband, Liz couldn't recall having experienced a happier moment than now. He looked so handsome in his dark tuxedo, his hair finally cut short enough to hide his ever-present cowlick. Sitting beside her in the rear of the limousine, he turned toward her, caught her eye, and smiled. It was no longer the tentative, hesitant, scared smile she had first seen from him back in 1999 and earlier. His smile now was wide, confident, and full of love. He leaned toward her and they kissed. As their lips touched, Liz saw things as she had when she'd kissed Max before she had gained and lost her own powers: Stars and galaxies whirled in her mind, flashes of the journey Max and his «family» had made from Antar so many years ago. She saw herself in kindergarten, in the cupcake dress her mother had sewn for her. She saw flashes of them all in the desert, holding hands, feeling powerful. She saw herself as Max saw her: a brilliant emerald aura cascading around her, with her eyes shining like diamonds in sunlight. And then she saw herself, older, as she fussed over a little girl who sat on a stairway, her knee scraped and bleeding. A slightly older boy came over to them and passed his palm over the wound, healing it with a slight glow. Liz hugged the two children and kissed each of them on the forehead. Max pulled back and looked into Liz's eyes. «Did you see them?» he asked, his own eyes moist. «Yes,' she said, feeling tears of happiness rising. «Alex and Maddie. Our children.» The opaque partition in the front of the limousine slid down, and the driver called back to them. «We've arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Evans.» Max dabbed at Liz's cheek to wipe away the tears. «Are you ready for this?» She smiled unsteadily. «I've faced evil aliens, evil congresswomen, evil government agents, and everything else that's been thrown at me since high school began. I think I can face this.» The door opened, and bright sunshine streamed in at them. Liz gathered the satin hem of her wedding dress and stepped out onto the street. Max joined her a moment later. In front of them, the small crowd erupted with cheers and whistles and applause. The front of the Crashdown Cafe had been transformed with silver and white streamers and balloons, and Sheriff Hanson had even granted the Parkers a permit to cordon off the street for one block for the wedding reception. Liz scanned the crowd and saw everyone there, still dressed in their finest from the wedding ceremony. Maria and Michael were arm in arm, as were Jesse and Isabel. Liz's father was beaming, and her mother was crying. Max's parents were nearby, similarly affected. Jim Valenti stood with Amy DeLuca, and