ple of different ethnic backgrounds. Rather than learning from them, or at least allowing for their differences to be a part of the diversity of life, people reject those who are different. I've had a bit of experience with rejection.» She paused, chuckling at what she no doubt regarded as an understatement. «Maybe that's made me a little more open-minded than the Men in Black. Or makes me ask more questions.» Kyle saw Isabel get up, and watched as she approached. «Hey, I don't mean to interrupt, but have you tried calling your father yet, Kyle?» «No, we don't have his number," Kyle said. «Just a pager " He stopped when he saw Isabel tapping her finger against her temple. «Oh. You mean that kind of call.» «Yeah," Isabel said, taking a seat near him. «I'll help guide you if you want.» Kyle nodded. «That might be a good idea. I seem to be a lot better at this when you're involved.» In fact, every time he'd succeeded in activating this new power since its unexpected emergence a few days earlier in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Isabel had been somewhere close by. If the human brain is a sort of bioelectrical engine, he thought wryly, then maybe she's the psychic equivalent of a spark plug. Isabel turned toward Shelby. «Please excuse us, Shelby.» Shelby waved her hand. «Don't mind me. I'll either be fascinated watching this, or else go back to my papers if you both slip into an excruciatingly boring telepathic trance.» Smiling gently, Isabel took Kyle's hands in hers, and, for a brief moment, Kyle felt a twinge of concern. What if Jesse gets jealous? But the thought fled almost as soon as it had formed. Isabel and Jesse were tight together, and he'd already seen from the intensity of their reunion that nothing was going to change that. Kyle closed his eyes as though making yet another attempt at meditation. This time he wasn't trying to clear his mind, however; he concentrated on his father, letting his mind rise and move out into the dark night. After a moment or two, he felt a peculiar physical sensation, as though he'd been abruptly transformed into a shadowy flying wraith. But he knew he was still sitting on the plane, that it was only his thoughts that had taken wing. For an absurd moment, he visualized himself wearing the mutant-detecting Cerebro helmet that Professor Xavier had used in the X-Men movie. Then he and Isabel were sitting together, only not aboard Brody's chartered plane. Instead, they were seated just behind the cockpit of a darkened helicopter, looking at Jim Valenti and the female African-American pilot who occupied the front seats. Both his dad and the woman were dressed in black paramilitary gear, and Kyle had never seen his father look so tough. He tried to reach out to touch him, but his hand passed through his fathers shoulder, as insubstantial as fog. «Dad," he said softly. Jim Valenti turned swiftly in his seat, surprise etched across his craggy features. «Kyle? What… how did you get in here?» «I'll give you the Cliffs Notes version, Dad: I've been developing some weird, alien-style psychic powers lately," Kyle said. «Just like Liz did. Only different. She gets premonitions. I can set up telepathic conference calls, sort of.» He gestured back toward Isabel. «She's helping me navigate. Kind of a cross between a Jedi master and a switchboard operator for a psionic party line.» Jim looked stunned. «You… why do you have powers, Kyle?» «It looks like it's a side effect of Max's healing," Isabel said, leaning forward in the cramped cockpit. The psionic manifestation of her shoulder sank partly into the back of the pilot's seat. «So why am I not affected?» the elder Valenti asked. «Max healed me, too.» «We haven't exactly been able to study it, Dad," Kyle said. «Liz thinks it has something to do with relative age, and perhaps how much time has elapsed since exposure. We're young, and our bodies are still changing.» Jim raised an eyebrow. «Careful there. Your old man's not that old.» «I'm not saying you're old, Dad. But your body isn't going through the same kinds of changes ours are at this age. It might just take longer for you. And besides, Max healed you long after he healed Liz and me.» The pilot turned and looked at Valenti. «Why so quiet, Jim?» Kyle saw a strange double image then, of his father looking forward silently, and another of his father turned, talking with him. The quiet version turned back to the pilot and said, «I'm either hallucinating, Suzanne, or I'm having a psychic conversation in my head with my son and Isabel Evans.» The woman looked at him goggle-eyed. «Are you kidding me?» Valenti turned and gestured toward where Kyle and Isabel crouched. «I wouldn't kid about something like that, Suzanne. They're right there. They say they're communicating with me through some sort of psychic link.» The pilot turned, her gaze passing straight through Kyle. She really can't see me, he thought. Must be because Isabel and I dialed up Dad's brain, not hers. Shaking her head, Duff said, «No one's there, Jim. You sure you didn't get hit on the head back at the Special Unit house?» Kyle concentrated harder and reached with his mind toward the pilot. «Hello, Suzanne," he said simply. «Jeez!» The woman jerked to the side, apparently now able to see Kyle as well. «Take it easy," Kyle said. «You've got a chopper to fly. But I had to show you that what my dad just told you is true.» «Where are you?» the older Valenti asked. «In the flesh, I mean.» «We're on our way to California with Jesse," Isabel said. «In the plane Brody chartered?» «Yeah," Kyle said, realizing that his father must have been in touch with Brody. «He picked me and Isabel up in Chicago. The others are going to meet us in Los Angeles.» «Wait," Jim said. «The others? As in Max and Liz and Maria and Michael?» «They're trying to get some help from Kal Langley," Isabel explained. «He's the movie producer who's actually an alien. Like Nasedo, only different. Remember? We told you about him.» The pilot shook her head. «This just gets weirder and weirder.» «Have you found out anything more about our parents?» Isabel asked, ignoring the woman's remark. Jim Valenti looked down, a frown crossing his face. «The Unit was holding them outside Roswell in a safe house until a little while ago. Apparently they've been transferred to somewhere near Los Angeles.» He paused and looked at her. «But as near as we can tell, they're alive and unharmed.» «We need to bring in the others," Isabel said, looking over at Kyle. «The others?» Kyle thought he knew what she meant, but wanted to be sure. «Max and Langley and the others. Patch them into this 'conference call.'" Kyle had begun to feel sweat or its nearest ectoplasmic equivalent collecting on his brow. He looked at Isabel incredulously. «How do you suggest I do that? I've never even met this Langley guy. And I'm doing all I can just keeping this four-way call going!» Isabel put her hand on his shoulder. It felt strangely solid, probably because they were both equally wraithlike during this psionic interaction. «Okay, you're right," she said. «But can you at least try to get Max on the line? I'll keep helping you.» Kyle sighed heavily, feeling fatigue creep up on him as he wondered whether his «psychic spark plug» was up to the job. «All right," he said at length. «But next time, we call collect.» Smiling, Isabel gently placed one of her hands against his temple. Once again, the sensation felt exactly like actual flesh-to-flesh contact, perhaps because she was physically touching him back aboard Brody's jet. Concentrating, Kyle reached out with his mind, in search of Max. The helicopter cockpit vanished around him, shooting away in shards of alternating light and darkness. He and Isabel and his dad and the FBI agent were standing now, in utter nothingness, a white void. Kyle concentrated harder than he'd ever done before, and felt his heart rate speeding up. It was like no meditation session he'd ever experienced. In fact, it was exactly the opposite of meditation, which had always slowed his pulse down. It felt more like an athletic contest. I can do this, he told himself, recalling the adrenaline rush of high school sports days. I've just got to be strong enough. Max was cradling Liz in his arms on one of Langley's luxurious couches, watching the flames in the fire pit dance and crackle. Langley was in his study making some calls, lining up the people whose help they were going to need, and he had wanted to do it alone. Maria and Michael were elsewhere, probably sleeping, Max guessed. Liz was already asleep in his arms, though fitfully. Max could tell from the fluttering of her eyelids that her dreams were anything but restful. He touched her forehead lightly, his palm glowing. His fingertip traced a silver line near her hairline as he transmitted his feelings of warmth and love directly to her dreaming brain. Max heard a sound and abruptly stopped. He looked around, but saw nothing. And then the room begin to liquefy around him, the muted colors of the walls and draperies running down to the floor like melting ice cream. Even Liz melted from his arms, her body falling like sand through his fingers. Max scrambled to catch her, to keep her whole, but found himself instead kneeling in a parched, sienna-hued desertscape. Looking up, he saw Isabel, Kyle, Jim Valenti, and the female FBI agent who had worked the Dupree abduction case last year. They all stood around him in a loose circle. He realized then that they were standing in the rockstrewn desert outside of Roswell, in the very place where «the Pod Squad» had assembled so often for private conversations over the years. «Max!» Isabel approached, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. She felt somehow less than substantial, like a figment from a dream. «What's going on?» Max asked, pulling away from her. «Long explanation," Kyle said. «Suffice it to say that those psychic shout-outs I did back in Wyoming weren't a fluke. Isabel's been helping me deal, and bringing me up to speed.» «Why are you here?» Max asked, turning toward the FBI agent and Valenti. «And why am I here?» «Trying to answer the very same questions was why I went Buddhist," Kyle said wryly. Max was having a hard time processing the conversation, though it certainly seemed real enough. The sudden change of milieu was unnerving. «We're not really here," Isabel said, scowling at Kyle as she gestured at the desert panorama that surrounded them. «Isabel's right," Kyle said. «The scenery is probably just an unconscious manifestation of my nifty new mental powers. Sort of a psionic screen saver.» Ignoring Kyle's banter, Isabel looked Max directly in the eye. «Kyle and I are headed for Los Angeles. We're on a chartered jet right now, along with Jesse and a lawyer friend of Dad's. She's got all the proof we need to drag the Special Unit out into the open.» And us as well, Max thought ruefully. «Not all the proof," the African-American woman said. «Jim and I just cleaned out the files from the Special Unit's safe house outside Roswell. Brody's holding the stuff at the UFO Center right now.» «We're on our way to L.A. now too," Jim Valenti said. «By helicopter. Once we get there, we'll need to hook up with Jesse and the other lawyer you're traveling with. As well as whoever Brody has been able to contact there to help us bring the Special Unit down.» He gestured around the circle. «It certainly seems as though fate is conspiring to bring us all together, doesn't it?» It certainly seemed that way to Max. He drew comfort from the fact that he, Isabel, Michael, Liz, Maria, and Kyle had so many good people rooting for them. And on their way to help us. «Have you found Langley yet?» Isabel asked. «Yeah. Maybe it's best that you all come here. We can strategize better once we're all together in the flesh.» He gave them the address. «How soon will you be here?» «Our pilot just announced that we're starting to make our descent," Isabel said. «Which airport?» the FBI agent wanted to know. «The private airfield at Burbank," Isabel said. «We should be on the ground within minutes. Then we just have to get to Langley's place. Brody's already taken care of that for us.» «I'd give us another twenty to thirty minutes before we get to the Hollywood Hills," the FBI agent said. «I'm keying in the coordinates for this Langley guy's address now. Any chance there's room to land a helicopter there?» Max laughed, realizing how incredible the entire situation was. «Yeah. You might say he's got a really big front yard. I suppose if you land there, the neighbors will just think it's a publicity stunt to promote one of his movies.» And then it hit him. The thing that had been nagging at him since Isabel had appeared before him. Her death. «Wait. Why did you come here, Isabel? You know what Liz saw.» He could see a flicker of doubt in her expression, but there was determination as well. «I know what she saw, Max. But we're going to make sure that it doesn't happen. We're all going to be there. We can't fight these people one by one, like the bad guys in some cheap kung fu movie. We can't let them keep taking away our freedom, our parents, our " Isabel suddenly grabbed her stomach and screamed. Wounds began to appear on her, blood seeping through her clothes, running down her face. «Max!» she cried out, her eyes huge, panicked. A moment later, she blinked out, and a reddish stain hung in the air where she had been. «Kyle, what happened?» Max asked, reaching toward the younger Valenti. But Kyle's face a mask of shock and fear was fading as well, until it, too, blinked out of existence. All at once Max felt as though he were rushing headlong through a wind tunnel. His head snapped back painfully, and he was once again in Langley's living room, holding Liz, who remained fast asleep. What just happened to Isabel? 13. Los Angeles Max wriggled out from under Liz's sleeping form as best he could, then sprinted toward Langley's study. Langley was there with paperwork spread in front of him, a phone headset across his bald scalp, and a cell phone held up to one ear. «Hold a sec," he said into the headset's wire pickup. «What's up, Max?» «Something horrible just happened," Max said. He grabbed the ken-teef off of the table, and pulled the large area map toward him. He turned the alien-tracking device upside down and concentrated. Isabel, he thought, picturing his sister. The white nodule blinked on, and a light shone down onto the map. The bright spot, apparently representing Isabel, lay a significant distance away from the City of Industry. «What is it?» Langley asked, coming closer. He had put the cell phone down, though he still wore the headset. Show me all the Antarians, Max thought, and the white nodule accommodated him by blinking a multitude of times. Three bright spots appeared on the map in the Hollywood Hills region. One continued to shine where he had asked it to locate Isabel. And two more were visible near the City of Industry. The third, faltering light that had been with the others when Langley had demonstrated the ken-teef was now gone. «She's dead," Max said. He dropped the ken-teef onto the table. «Who's dead?» Langley asked. «What's this about?» «Lonnie. Isabel's duplicate. Vilandra's duplicate. Whatever. Her light was the one that was blinking before. The one you said was in trouble. It's not there anymore.» «What makes you so sure it's hers?» Langley asked. Max giggled a bit, but not out of mirth. He recognized it as a sound that came from someplace deep, dark, and very deliberately hidden. «One Max. Two Michaels. One Isabel. One Ava. One Langley. That's it. That's all that's left of Antar's good guys. Because the Special Unit just killed Lonnie.» Liz appeared in the doorway. «Max, what's wrong?» Max looked at her. Though he knew his eyes were wet, he could feel a smile tugging gently at his face. «It wasn't Isabel, Liz. In your premonition. It wasn't Isabel they vivisected. It was Lonnie. The duplicate. She's dead now.» «I think you'd better sit down, Max," Langley said. «You look like you're about to faint, kiddo.» «I'm so sorry, Max," Liz said, coming over to hug him as he sat in a huge padded chair. «How do you know for sure the other Vilandra is dead?» Langley asked, grabbing the ken-teef for himself and examining the points of light that reappeared on the map. «Maybe she got into a car and just drove out of the ken-teefs range.» «I was having a… Kyle brought me into a vision. It was kind of like one of Isabel's dreamwalks, only I was awake," Max said, trying to explain. «Isabel was there, and Kyle, and Sheriff Valenti, and this FBI agent who is helping him fight the Special Unit. We were trying to figure out what to do next. They'll all be arriving here in the next hour.» He stop