Maria turned to her boyfriend. "Michael, will you make him leave, please?"
Michael took both of her hands in his. "Baby, I think you should talk to him," he said gently. "It might make you feel better."
Maria's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "Excuse me?" she said.
A shrill beeping sound split the air. Michael's cell phone. He grabbed it out of his pocket and flipped it open. "What?" he said into the phone.
But Maria already knew who it was. Isabel, or Max, or maybe Valenti. Someone from their group calling to set up an alien powwow. The quarantine at the hospital had been strange enough; the fact that it was now a city-wide quarantine called for some serious investigation by those who happened to have superhuman powers.
"Fine," Michael barked. He snapped the phone shut and stared pleadingly at Maria. "You're going to kill me."
She sighed. "No. I know you have to go where you're needed."
Michael bit his lip. "I don't want to leave you in the middle of this," he said, nodding toward her father and Sadie.
"Then hurry back," Maria told him. The truth was that she wanted to hurl herself into his arms and beg him not to leave her alone with her father. She desperately needed moral support from him. But giant otherworldly crises always took precedence over her life. She mustered up a smile to make Michael feel better. "Keep me posted."
"I'm so sorry," he said. Then he hurried over to his motorcycle, leaped on, and sped away.
Maria turned back to her father. "This had better be good," she said.
Michael screeched to a stop in front of the Valenti house, jumped off his bike, and stomped up the walkway. He was
seething. What kind of a boyfriend would leave Maria in a situation like that? Her father had abandoned her! And now she was alone with him, without her mom for support. And without her useless boyfriend, he thought angrily. No matter how hard he tried, he never seemed able to be there for Maria when she needed him. He always had to put his alien responsibilities first. He knew he had no choice, but every so often he wished he could be a better boyfriend to Maria.
He slammed through the door and stopped in surprise. Isabel, Max, and Valenti all turned their worried eyes to him. They look like crap, he thought. "Just how bad was it at the hospital?" he said out loud. '"Cause you all look like crap."
Isabel rolled her eyes.
"It's bad," Valenti said. "Half the city is sick. Kyle, Marias mom… "
"And Liz," Max said.
"What?" Michael cried. "They're all sick?"
"They're all in quarantine," Isabel told him. "The CDC said they were taking all the patients over to Metachem to treat them."
Michael was baffled. "Meta-chem? The pharmaceutical company?"
"Yeah," Valenti answered. "They say they've got better labs over there and enough space. They don't want to have to shut the hospital down."
"That's weird," Michael said. "Isn't it?"
"I'm thinking the CDC can control access to the patients better if they don't have other people coming in and out," Max said. "At the hospital, there's a big staff, and there are all the people who are already patients there."
"Well, they definitely want tight control," Michael agreed. "They've shut down the whole town. No one gets in or out."
"This makes me nervous," Isabel said.
"It's not an alien hunt, it's a quarantine," Max told her. "Still, we've got to put an end to it as soon as possible. We have to break into Meta-chem tonight."
"What?" Michael said. "Why?"
"Because I'm going to heal those people," Max announced.
9
"Liz! You awake?" Kyle whispered.
In the bed next to him, Liz stirred. "Yeah," she said. "I don't really feel like I can sleep anymore. All my senses just keep racing."
"I know what you mean," he said. "I keep hearing things even when I don't want to." That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was how much his skin hurt wherever the thin cotton sheet touched him… which was everywhere. But he didn't want to complain. He knew Liz must be bothered by it too. "What do you say we blow this joint?" he suggested.
"How?" Liz asked skeptically.
"Look around," Kyle said. "Everyone's asleep. And the doctors all went to some big doctor meeting about five minutes ago. I heard them talking."
Liz sat up in bed and glanced around. "Wow. I'm really out of it," she said. "I didn't even notice."
How could she not notice? Kyle thought. It's so much quieter in here without all the doctors asking questions.
"I feel like it's getting more internal," Liz went on. "Before, I was feeling things and hearing things that were going on around me. Now I keep hearing stuff inside me. You know, my heartbeat, and the sound of my own breathing."
Okay, Liz is tripping out, Kyle thought, worried. He needed her to be alert so that they could find an answer to all this. "Well, then, we need to take a little walk before you slip into a coma or something."
"Where?" Liz asked. "You want to try to sneak outside?"
"No, I was thinking we'd visit that lab again, the one you work in. I'm more interested in what's behind those locked doors than I used to be."
"You might be right," Liz said. "If I see what materials Dr. Sosa was working with, maybe I can figure out what it was that I spilled. And then we'll be able to tell if it could be causing all these diseases to spring up."
Suddenly Liz sank back on her pillow, as if all her energy had been drained just by sitting up for half a minute. She lay there exhausted, just staring up at the ceiling.
"Liz, you okay?" Kyle asked.
"I don't get it," Liz murmured, as if she was talking to herself. "How could one tiny spill do all this? I mean, I cleaned it up right away. It was like spilling a cup of coffee or something. There was hardly anything in those test tubes. That can't be what's causing this. Can't be."
He was really getting worried about her. They might share the same symptoms, but this sickness was obviously hitting Liz a lot harder than it was hitting him. She sounded practically delirious, and he couldn't tell whether she even remembered he was there. "Think about it," he told her. "This guy has been doing research on alien
cells… you saw them yourself. He's not to be trusted. How do you know he wasn't developing some kind of… alien repellent or something?"
Kyle knew he sounded like an idiot. But he wanted to keep Liz focused on the problem at hand. And as far as he was concerned, there was something fishy about a scientist who was mean to Liz Parker, had alien cells on a slide, and kept his supply closet locked.
Liz was giggling now. "If that was alien repellent, it sure didn't work," she said loudly. "You and I are the closest things to aliens in here, and we're not nearly as sick as everyone else."
"Shh!" Kyle said. He didn't want to be talking about aliens in anything other than a whisper. And besides, he heard footsteps approaching their beds. He and Liz both lay silently, pretending to sleep, while a nurse came and checked on them. Only when the footsteps had died away again did Kyle stir. He slowly swung his legs over the side of the cot and raised himself to his feet. He could actually feel the air rush over his skin as he moved. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it took some getting used to. "You ready, Liz?"
She had struggled up to a sitting position. She gazed at him and nodded. "Let's go."
"You can all stop the covert planning," Valenti said, coming back into the living room from wherever he'd been. Max couldn't keep track of everyone. All his thoughts were focused on Liz. Where was she? Was she feeling any better? Were they doing tests on her? Was she afraid? "Why?" he asked Valenti, trying to keep his mind on the