Michael stood up and hugged her close. «Hey, it's okay.» Very gently, he patted her hair.
She finally pulled away and looked up at him, disengaging her hand from his to wipe the back of it under her eyes. «I'm not crying because of what happened before.
Well, maybe because of that. But also because you just said how much you love me.» «I tell you I love you a lot," Michael said. At least it felt like he did.
«Yeah, but you compared your love to theirs. Liz and Max are like this cosmic Romeo and Juliet that's so different from us. We're more like Sandy and Danny in Grease.» Michael laughed hard. It seemed like it was the first time he had laughed in ages.
«What?» Maria said, her expression defensive.
«The Romeo and Juliet thing. I was just thinking the exact same thing while I walked over here.» Maria raised an eyebrow. «Hmmm. Maybe we're sharing brain waves or something.» «Or something," Michael said. Then he leaned in closer and kissed her.
Liz was nervous. What she had seen in her future flash about Isabel had been horrific. Both, times. And now they were about to try for the vision a third time. This one should be the charm, she thought mirthlessly. She hoped her mind would show her something other than the alien autopsy no, alien vivisection that she had witnessed before. She hoped that whatever they decided to do next would alter that obscene future.
They all gathered on the side of the Microbus opposite the Orbit Drive-In. Isabel stepped forward and put her hand out. Liz saw that she was trembling slightly. «You ready?» Isabel asked.
«All set to enter the Dead Zone like Anthony Michael Hall," Liz said, taking a deep breath. She reached out and touched Isabel's hand. Closing her eyes, she concentrated and she was Isabel again, the restraining straps and pain holding her firmly onto a table. Above her were agonizingly bright klieg lights outfitted with reflective metallic hoods. After her eyes adjusted to the glare, she could see herself/Isabel reflected in them, could see the blood on her head. It was easily visible since most of her hair was gone.
Electrodes and wires were attached to her skull, and she could feel them invading other parts of her body.
The white room was filled with busy medical personnel, and in the galleries elevated above the room she could see men in dark suits watching from behind safety glass.
She saw one woman among the observers, and noticed that several video cameras were trained down upon her as well.
A piercing whine filled her ears as a masked doctor peered down at her. He wore clear goggles, and his slatecolored eyes held no pity.
Struggling, she saw that as in her previous visions her stomach was covered with a protective medical drape, which was stained crimson with blood. The technicians were removing her organs and putting them in metal pans, weighing them as she watched in silent horror.
The whine became louder and louder, and the masked doctor moved in closer. And suddenly, the pain became too great to be borne. Liz tried to scream, tried to get away, but it was no use.
Blood sprayed across her vision in a scarlet haze as the excruciating pain washed over her in relentless waves, tsunamis of pure agony.
And then, a cool hand pulled her away, into darkness.
Away from the pain and the blood and the death. Liz looked up weakly and saw who had saved her. «Alex?» But her dead friend's familiar smiling face wasn't there anymore if it had ever been there at all. The face belonged instead to Max, who was crouching over her. Liz abruptly realized that she was on the ground behind the Orbit Drive-ln in Nebraska, her leg twisted awkwardly beneath her.
«M'okay, Max," she said, still woozy. She looked around at the others. Kyle was steadying Isabel, who looked almost as distressed as Liz felt.
«I take it the vision didn't get any better this time?» Max asked as he helped Liz up to a sitting position.
The sequels are always worse than the originals, aren't they? Liz thought absurdly. She shook her head. «No. Still horrible. Nothing new.» She decided not to mention having seen Alex, since she wasn't certain that she actually had.
«So, splitting up isn't going to work?» Isabel said, her tone lifeless.
«We don't know that," Liz said. «We haven't split up yet.
We've all been together every time I've had this vision.
Maybe if we split up, we'll cut off this particular lane into the future.» She didn't want to bring up the converse point, though she couldn't help thinking it. Or splitting up might be the action that leads you straight into the lair of the Big Bad Wolves.
Isabel moved quickly in front of the van, and they all heard her retching. They stood in silence until she returned a couple of minutes later. Kyle handed her some of the napkins he had stuffed into his pocket.
Liz didn't know whether to look to Max for the decision, or to Isabel. Neither, apparently, did anyone else.
Isabel finally spoke, breaking the uncomfortable quiet.
«We've been letting our fear of the Special Unit control our lives for too long. It's time we made some decisions of our own. I'm going to Boston. And I'm not going to let them capture me or… they aren't going to get that chance.» Liz admired Isabel for the brave front she was putting up. But she suspected that her friend might be even more sick and frightened had she seen for herself the gruesome details of Liz's vision.
3. Los Angeles.
Ava opened her eyes, but found she was having trouble focusing them. Her eyelids felt as heavy as garage doors. Drugs, she realized, her thoughts muzzy. It was as though her brain had been removed from her skull and then had been wrapped up in a warm, moist blanket. They've drugged me up. Again. Gradually, over a period that might have been minutes or years, her vision began to clear, though her thoughts remained scattered, her powers of concentration all but nonexistent. Sensation began returning to her body, which she discovered was lying supine on a hard table of some sort. She saw that people surrounded her, many of them dressed in white smocks, caps, and surgical masks. Doctors? Am I sick? Then she noticed the two men who stood watching her from one of the room's sterile white corners: a scar-faced, fiftyish man in a black suit, and a somewhat younger, identically dressed man who stood impassively at the scarred man's side. From their bearing, Ava sized them both up as military. She was pretty sure she'd seen them before somewhere, though she couldn't concentrate sufficiently to recall exactly where. All she knew was that the scarred man looked as tough as the proverbial nails and that the other one was downright frightening, his eyes as sharp as those of some predatory bird. His piercing gaze made her feel like a morsel about to be eaten. Suddenly she remembered where she'd seen them before: They'd been on the plane that had taken her from New York to Los Angeles, along with Rath and Lonnie. Where are Rath and Lonnie? With every last shred of concentration she could muster, she reached outward with her mind, desperate for an answer to that question. «I still say this is damned dangerous, Viceroy," Dale Bartolli said quietly, his eyes as wary and alert as a shrike's as he studied the semiconscious young woman who lay strapped to the gurney. The medical personnel were checking the Harding girl's vital signs as they administered the counteragent to the drug that had kept her immobile since her recapture at Los Angeles International. Matthew Margolin, the special agent code-named «Viceroy," nodded. He stroked one of the numerous scars that ran along the side of his chin like cracks in a welltraveled stretch of highway. Margolin had grown tired of debating. With two more of these superpowered alien kids presently on the loose somewhere in Southern California, the stakes were far too high for him to tolerate any insubordination. «I know it's dangerous, Dale. But it's the only decision possible if we want to get our hands on Michael Guerin and Isabel Evans again.» Especially since they seem to have the ability to be in two places at once. Bartolli nodded, evidently picking up on Margolin's warning tone. «Maybe you're right. Just as long as we don't let her come around enough so she can use her Jedi mind tricks to force us to let her go. Or make us kill each other.» Margolin met Bartolli's hawklike gaze and held it unflinchingly. «It's a calculated risk, but a necessary one. And I've taken thorough precautions.» He motioned toward one of the masked and smocked technicians, who approached carrying what appeared to be a large wad of aluminum foil, which she handed to Margolin before returning to her other duties. The clump of fine metal mesh was unexpectedly heavy in Margolin's hand. Very carefully, he separated it into two pieces and handed one to Bartolli. «Tinfoil," Bartolli said, staring at the crumpled metal wad in his hand. «Tinfoil is supposed to stop this alien from melting our brains, Chief?» Margolin chuckled, realizing how this must look to his second-in-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