floor, rolled, fired again, and then bedlam broke out in the balcony as the MiBs seemed to begin fighting among themselves. Bullets caromed around the room. At least one slug struck Rath in the shoulder. Another appeared to strike Ava in the side. «Come on!» Rath shouted, ignoring his wound as he ran for the door. Ava followed immediately, and Lonnie at last began moving, bringing up the rear. Then something struck her in the back, knocking the wind from her and casting her down into a black abyss. Shunting aside the resentment he felt toward Ava, Rath allowed his military instincts to take over. His hands glowed and throbbed with power as he counted the MiBs on the balcony. Five of them, he thought, releasing blast after blast from his palms. Like the three guards they had overcome out in the corridor, these guys all wore what appeared to be tinfoil beanies. Like crazy homeless people, but with better clothes, Rath thought as he threw himself to the floor, rolled, and sprang back to his feet, loosing another quick pair of blasts. One of the MiBs lost his skullcap from the impact. Rath realized that Ava was taking full advantage of that when the hatless agent suddenly turned his weapon on the man beside him, shooting him in the chest. A third agent brought his weapon up and dropped the hatless man in his tracks. Something bit him on the right shoulder. It felt like a beesting, though the warm, wet flow of blood and the sensation of burning betrayed it as a gunshot wound. Rath decided to assume that these guys were all done fooling around with lasers and stun-guns. «Come on!» he said, sprinting for the door and swallowing his pain. He heard the girls' footfalls behind him, but didn't look back as he ran into the corridor. He put up a force field between himself and the dozen or so federal agents who were now swarming toward him from both ends of the hallway. Bullets and trank darts spattered ineffectually against the energy barrier. Guess they're not all shooting to kill, Rath thought, not comforted in the least by the observation. «The way we came in isn't that far from here," he shouted, still running. Ava, though still unsteady, was keeping pace alongside him. «Keep aiming your blasts at their headgear, Rath," Ava said. «Maybe I can make enough of them think we're invisible so we can slip out of here.» Only then did Rath notice that Ava's postpunk ensemble was spattered with fresh red blood, evidently her own. And that Lonnie hadn't made it out into the corridor. «Lonnie! We've gotta go back for her!» Bullets whizzed down the corridor, only to be stopped by Rath's force field. He looked into Ava's eyes, and she met his gaze without flinching. «We go back for Lonnie, we get captured. AH of us. You want that?» No, Rath thought. And Lonnie wouldn't want that either. As they fought their way to the lightless basement through which Rath and Lonnie had entered the building, Rath kept telling himself that Lonnie would want him to escape, even if she couldn't. Something in the back of his mind told him that the only way he could get to safety was to be forcibly mindfreaked by Ava, who wasn't even allowing him to be angry about that for the moment. Disgusted, Margolin gestured toward the table in the center of the operating theater. The agents the ones who hadn't been zapped into insensibility or killed by the escaping teens, that is hastened to place the unconscious Evans girl there, in the spot previously occupied by Tess Harding. Harding's escape, and that of the Guerin boy, rankled him. I was overconfident again. He swore not to be so careless next time. Bartolli approached him, an accusatory look on his hatchetlike face. But he appeared to be sensitive enough to Margolin's simmering anger not to offer any unsolicited criticism of the Special Unit's latest failure. Evidently even a predator like Bartolli knew better than trying to bite the big dog at a time like this. «What now?» was all Viceroy's second-in-command said. After a moment's thought, Margolin replied. «We move forward with the disposition of the one alien still in our possession. While she's still in our possession.» Bartolli nodded. «You want to make an example of her.» «Damn straight I do," said the man called Viceroy, recalling the vivisection that the late Special Agent Pierce had almost succeeded in performing on Max Evans in a facility not too different from this one. «Call the medical guys back in, and tell them they have the green light to find out what makes this alien tick.» Viceroy grinned a death's-head grin. «The time has come for invasive procedures.» 10. Los Angeles «I I think it's just up this way," Max said, pointing to the road that veered off to the right, just ahead of the Microbus's headlights. He had to admit that even he was getting frustrated trying to find his way to Langley's mansion through the steep labyrinth that was the Hollywood Hills. And it was especially hard to do this at night. «What's the compass-thingy say?» Maria asked. Liz looked up, exasperated. «I don't know. I can't seem to read it right. The lights keep pointing all around. It's not making any sense.» «Too bad he's not on one of the maps of the stars that all those people on the street corners were selling," Michael said, then turned the steering wheel sharply. «So, we try this road now.» As they passed impressive house after impressive house, Max had to marvel at the money people spent to live in such luxury. He was amused that although he used to be a king and likely lived very well he had become so used to a far simpler life in Roswell that this sort of opulence seemed excessive to him now. Almost embarrassing. «I remember that place," Max said, pointing straight ahead. «Langleys is about half a mile past that.» A short distance farther, Michael pulled the van over into a gated driveway. Cameras on top of the gate swiveled toward the van, and a voice issued from a black box atop a post near the driver's side. «State your business.» «Maxwell Evans and company, here to see Kal Langley," Michael said. «Mr. Langley is occupied at present," the officious voice said. «Do you have an appointment?» «No, we don't have an appointment. Would you just tell him that Max Evans is " «I'm afraid you'll need to make an appointment with Mr. Langleys office," the man said, interrupting Michael. Michael turned to Max. «I thought you said you could make this guy do whatever you wanted?» «I can, but I have to get to him first," Max said. «It doesn't work on flunkies.» «Screw this," Michael said. He leaned out the window and pushed his palm outward, in the direction of the iron gate. His palm glowed red for a brief moment, then the gates burst open in the center. Michael drove the Microbus up into the driveway, and the four of them piled out of the vehicle. Max led the way up the steps, expecting to hear alarms or the shouts of security guards any second. Instead, the door was opened by a fiftyish man in a suit. «Good evening, Mr. Evans. Mr. Langley will be down momentarily.» As they stepped into the foyer of the mansion, Michael asked, «Why didn't you just let us in, if you knew Max was okay?» «Because Max is not okay to just drop in on me whenever he feels like it.» The voice came from a balding man with squinty eyes, who was descending the stairway. He was tying a robe closed around his bare, hairy chest. «I'm sorry, Kal, but it's important that we talk to you," Max said. «Yeah, that's what you said last time, too, and we both know how well that worked out," Langley said, a sour look on his face. «You completely screwed up my life.» Max sighed heavily. «I'm sorry. I did what was necessary.» «Was it necessary to zap my gate out front just now? On camera?» Langley gestured to his butler. «It's a good thing Belton here knows what's up, or we'd both have some explaining to do.» «If he had let us in, we wouldn't have had to zap it," Michael said defensively. Langley regarded him for a moment. «Surly attitude. Jumps before thinking. I'd guess you must be Rath's duplicate, huh?» He didn't wait for an answer before turning to peer at the girls. He pointed at Liz, then Maria. «I'm betting that you're Ava, and you're Vilandra. Nasedo must have taught you more about shapeshifting than I realized. You know, you seem a lot shorter than the real Vilandra, but given our average height here relative to on Antar, I guess it's a wash.» Max was astonished, and he looked over toward the butler. «How much does this guy know?» he asked Langley. Langley snorted. «Belton? He's a Krandal. They were one of the races loyal to you back in the Antarian system.» «And he's working for you? On Earth?» Michael sounded incredulous. Langley spread his hands and furrowed his brow, mocking Michael. «Oh, come on. I know you guys have met other aliens. At least the Skins. All Jive planets have 'people' here on the good old third rock from the sun. Some are political refugees, some are here to track you guys down, some are here for reasons of their own. The ones in that last category usually don't survive too long.» Langley paused and gestured behind him. «You guys want a drink? I don't know if you're legal, but if you combined your Antarian age and your age here on Earth you could have fought in the Civil War. America's Civil War.» «We'll pass," Max said, pointing to himself and Michael. «Alcohol doesn't mix well with our systems.» «Duh," Langley said. «That's half the fun. Follow me. I think I have some milk or juice in here too.» As they followed him into the kitchen, Liz spoke up. «I'm not Ava, by the way. I'm Liz, Max's wife.» She gave Max a cold stare, and he realized that he should have been the one to make the introductions and correct Langley's initial misimpression. «And I'm not Vilandra," Maria said. «My name is Maria. And we're both fully human.» Langley regarded the entire group for a moment. «My mistake. Guess I didn't look closely enough.» He studied Liz more intently. «You may have been fully human before, but you're not quite normal now, are you?» «I healed her," Max said. «She seems to have developed some kind of secondary powers because of that.» «That'll happen.» Langley nodded as he pulled bottles and cans out of one of the several refrigerators in his enormous kitchen. «Didn't Nasedo teach you anything?» He set the bottles down on the counter, then grabbed a couple of containers of Tabasco sauce and handed them to Max and Michael. «Chasers," he said simply. He poured himself a drink, and then sat down on a stool behind a large, shiny countertop. Gesturing toward the other stools arranged around the counter, he said, «Sit.