Turnabout

command. «This is something brand new from the R and D folks,' he said, enjoying showing Bartolli who was boss by one-upping him. «Another spin-off from our alien-tech reverse-engineering efforts. I'm not surprised you don't know about it yet. This material employs some of the same principles as the psi-detection gear our backup team used to track the aliens right after they escaped from custody at LAX. Most importantly, it has psiresistant properties.» Bartolli eyed the stuff with evident suspicion. «And I'll bet it'll keep a sandwich fresh all week long too. So what are we supposed to do with this stuff?» Silently, Margolin smoothed his own clump of foil out until it was nearly as straight and flat as a sheet of paper. Then he carefully applied it to the top of his head, bending it and patting it until it formed a shiny skullcap. «Now put yours on,' Margolin said, faintly amused by Bartolli's incredulous expression. «When I was a young FBI agent in Washington, D.C., there was a crazy homeless guy who used to show up on the bus I rode to work,' Bartolli said at length, still staring at his ball of foil. «He wore a tinfoil Napoleon hat because he thought a secret government satellite could read his thoughts from orbit otherwise.» «How very interesting,' Margolin said, waspish. «Now put it on.» Scowling, Bartolli gestured toward the doctors and technicians who were tending to the Harding girl. She let out a low moan, evidently about to return more fully to consciousness. «So why aren't the doctors wearing these silly-ass things, Viceroy?» Bartolli wanted to know. «They are. Under their caps. The last thing I wanted was to let the redoubtable Ms. Harding use her mind freak on our technical staff. Now put on your damned tinfoil beanie and stop complaining. Unless you want that girl to decide you're our weakest link after she comes to, that is.» Margolin grinned as he watched Bartolli reluctantly comply. Margolin thought he looked far less fierce than usual at the moment. Adjusting his protective skullcap, he hoped that he hadn't once again underestimated the extent of the alien teens' abilities. If he had, then they were all in very big trouble. Outside a Melrose Avenue eatery, Lonnie watched from across a battered plastic table while Rath slowly chewed his teriyaki burger. He seemed to be even more up inside his own head than usual if such a thing was even possible apparently lost in thought as he eyed the numerous passersby on this trendy-yet- appealinglytrashy boulevard. Most of them were young, and many looked at least as post-punk as Rath and Lonnie did. Looks like we're gonna fit right in here, Lonnie had thought only minutes after they had arrived on Melrose Avenue, still driving the car they had stolen from the airport parking garage immediately after their escape from the MiBs. No need to waste our alien energies on celebrity disguises, at least for now. She had idly wondered then if any of the street's more gaudily dressed habitues had grown up in a municipal sewer system, the way the East Coast Royal Four had. But now her full attention was focused on Rath. «You've barely said two words to me all morning,' she said. Rath shrugged, then replied around a mouthful of a drippy burger, which he'd just slathered with enough Tabasco sauce and Karo syrup to challenge even a fullblooded Antarian's palate. «Day's still young, Vilandra. Didn't know you were counting my words. What's my running total so far?» «About nineteen now. What the hell's the matter with you today, Rath?» Looking uncharacteristically pensive, he set his sandwich back down into the red plastic basket. «It's Ava. I keep thinking about her.» «It's a little late to start feeling guilty now, don't you think?» After all, Ava had been in the hands of the Feds for almost a whole day ever since she and Rath had run out on her during their scramble to escape from the airport. Lonnie herself didn't feel any real remorse about Ava's fate; ditching Ava had been Rath's idea, not hers. He shrugged again. «Maybe you're right. Maybe not. I just have a feeling that there might be something we can do to help her.» «I thought you said she was a liability. A bell around our necks.» «I know I did. Maybe I was wrong about that.» That nearly floored her, and she felt her eyebrows lifting off like space shuttles. Rath just admitted he might have been wrong about something. Better get my affairs in order. The end of the world must be coming up fast. She wondered if he was really beginning to feel pangs of guilt, not only for throwing Ava to the wolves, but also for murdering Zan, their erstwhile king. After all, without Zan and Ava, the East Coast Royal Four was reduced by fifty percent. Maybe here, three thousand miles from the only home any of their small, insular group had ever known, things were beginning to look very different to Rath. «We need each other to survive,' Rath said, confirming Lonnie's musings. «Especially so far away from home. I mean, it's not like we can just show up at Kal Langley's place and expect him to take us in. Or trust him.» «You're right about that. But your change of heart about Ava is pretty out there, Rath.» She recalled how she had jumped on him right after he'd decided on his own to leave Ava behind. And how he had convinced her that it had been the only prudent move they could have made at the time to protect themselves from their alien-hunting pursuers. «You were worried that the Feds were tracking us through her. So even if we did manage to rescue her, what's to stop the MiBs from doing that all over again?» He pushed the wreckage of his burger to the side of the table and rose to his feet. His smile was the death's-head rictus of a veteran warrior. «Simple, Lonnie. After we're done rescuing Ava, we'll just have to make sure that there are no Men in Black left alive to continue the chase.» Hastening after Rath as he strode quickly onto the busy sidewalk, Lonnie wasn't quite sure why his words didn't sound completely, utterly absurd. Taking the fight to their pursuers sounded pretty reckless. She wondered why she wasn't completely terrified of the whole idea. 4. Sidney, Nebraska. «Are you sure about this?» Isabel asked, her eyes intent on Max's reaction. She was still shaken from Liz's statements about the gruesome vision she'd had of Isabel's future, but she was attempting not to show it. «As sure as we can be, Iz.» Despite what he'd said, Max didn't look confident. His eyebrows peaked in the center, and the expression made him look younger, even though the sideburns she had given him yesterday were supposed to help him look older. And different. In case our pictures are on the news again, Isabel thought. They still hadn't seen or heard anything further about their Wyoming misadventures, and no one at the bus station had tried to stop them. Despite the fact that there were dozens of railroad tracks throughout the town, none of the trains that passed through Sidney were passenger trains. Kyle had suggested they could hop into a boxcar and ride like hobos, but Isabel immediately nixed the idea. So, with some creative scheduling, they had bought tickets for a Greyhound bound for Lincoln. From there, they planned to catch a train to Chicago, and then either fly or continue by train to Boston. It seemed quite a convoluted travel plan, but it was low profile, and Isabel thought it might even give her and Kyle a chance to rest up during the journey. «Okay, let's do it, then,' Isabel said, facing the others in the sparsely populated train station. She hugged Max fiercely, then Michael, then Maria. Liz put up her hand in a wave and backed up, a wan smile on her face. She doesn't want me to touch her any more than I want her to touch me, Isabel thought. She waved back, then turned to gather her bag. Kyle shook hands with Max and Michael, and hugged Maria and Liz. «See anything about me?» he asked Liz as they parted. «Don't talk to the lady in blue polyester on the train,' Liz said. «She's going to bore you to tears, and then hit on you.» Kyle saluted. «Got it.» They all laughed for a moment, and then Isabel and Kyle turned to board the bus. They sat together, with Isabel at the window. She watched her brother and friends through the slightly dusty Plexiglas. As the bus pulled away, they waved again, and Isabel waved back. She realized that with a very few short-range exceptions, this trip would take her farther away from Max and Michael than she had ever been before. But Liz's visions terrified Isabel even more than did being separated from nearly everyone she'd ever known. I have to get away. Beyond that, she tried to take comfort in the knowledge that Jesse would be waiting for her in Boston. Even if he didn't know it yet. The thought of Jesse holding her again was comforting, but not enough to quell her roiling stomach. I'm still afraid that something horrible is going to happen. They've already divided us. Now are they going to conquer us? The Colorado/Utah Border Max looked over at Liz and smiled. He had been driving the Microbus for hours now, crossing Colorado on Interstates 76 and 70. Now they were entering Utah, and in five or six hours would be headed through Nevada, toward Las Vegas. Liz was staring out the partially open window, her sunglasses on to protect her eyes from the bright sun and hot desert air that whooshed by the Microbus. Perhaps sensing Max's glance, she turned and looked at him. She's so beautiful, Max thought. He mouthed the words I love you to her, and his heart melted as she squeezed his hand and mouthed the words back. The radio was on loud to cover any noises coming from the back of the VW Michael and Maria had pulled the privacy curtain earlier, and Max didn't know if they were fighting, or engaging in more pleasant pursuits. Probably a little of both, if their past is any indication, he thought with a smile. The desert scenery was stunning, a beautiful panoply of ochers and reds, but they didn't have any more time to take in the sights today than they'd had the last time they had passed this way, over a year ago. That was when Max and Liz had come up to Salina, in search of a secret government facility. They had found it, underneath Sam's Quick Stop market, and then faked a robbery to gain access to the site. Max had entered the underground storage facility and had seen the ship the ship that had brought his essence to Earth during the summer of 1947. In the intervening time, the military had apparently repaired the ship but had been unable to make it run. Max and Liz had quickly been caught by the police, arrested, and charged with armed robbery. The subsequent days had been tense. Neither Max nor Liz could fully explain their actions, either to their parents or to the courts. Phillip Evans had done his best to help them, but although Max was set free, Liz was held under more substantive charges: She had been holding the weapon they'd used in the «robbery.» Max had returned later to the underground facility, only to find the ship gone. His father had followed him to the site, and after the pair had discovered that a dangerous chemical