Loose ends

20.

Oh my god, Alex! What are we going to do?"Maria was beside herself, sniffing rosemary oil like it was the elixir of life, to absolutely no effect. Beside her in the front seat of the Jetta, parked outside the Motel 6, Alex looked just as horrified and helpless. The whole plan was falling apart right before their eyes! First, Mortons blue Chevy had come squealing back into the parking lot, taking Maria and Alex by surprise. Then the two criminals had charged back into room #19, before either of the teens in the Jetta could do anything to warn Max and Liz that they were about to be caught in the act.

And what could we do anyhow? Maria realized, paralyzed with shock and uncertainty. Neither she nor Alex was armed with anything more potent than a half dozen miniature vials of scented oils, all of which she would have gladly traded at this moment for a working Uzi and the skill to use it. How were a couple of ordinary teenagers, like her and Alex, supposed to rescue their friends from a trigger-happy felon like Joe Morton? As they watched impotently, the other man-the lab tech from the university- rushed out of the motel, clutching what had to be the legendary black attache case. Gunshots sounded from within #19, causing Maria to almost jump out of her skin. Two shots, she counted, going pale. One each for Max and Liz- She clasped her hands over her mouth, holding back a scream, and looked hopelessly at Alex, to make certain that she wasn't hearing things, but the anguished look on his face made it clear that he'd heard the shots, too. Tears welled in her eyes as she imagined Liz and Max lying bleeding and dying on the floor of room #19.

' Where are Michael and Isabel? she wondered desperately, looking frantically for the Jeep, which she thought she spotted parked across the street, which was now filled with the noise and confusion of a multi-car pileup. It's not fair! She and Alex were both one percent human; neither of them had the power to heal Liz and Max if they'd really been shot. There's nothing I can do to save them.

So convinced was Maria that her friends had been gunned down that it came as an actual relief when Joe Morton backed out of #19, his meaty arm around Liz's squirming waist. She's alive! Maria rejoiced, then noticed the gun in Morton's free hand. But what about Max? The gunshots, along with the crashes on the highway, attracted plenty of attention. Numbered wooden doors opened up all along the length of the motel, as potential witnesses poked their heads out of their rooms to see what was happening, then ducked back inside at the sight of Morton and his smoking pistol. The imposing gunman fired a shot into the air to keep any onlookers at a distance as he tossed Liz into the backseat of the Chevy and, gun in hand, clambered in after her.

With the cowardly-looking science guy at the wheel, the blue convertible burned rubber out of the parking lot, passing the Jeep as Michael and Isabel suddenly arrived on the scene. Morton fired repeatedly at the Jeep, clipping one corner of the windshield and forcing the army-green vehicle to swerve across the parking lot, almost colliding with the parked Jetta. Sticking to the shoulder of the road, to avoid the accident blocking the highway, the Chevy sped away in a cloud of dust and gravel, taking Liz Parker with it.

Maria gripped the steering wheel in front of her, uncertain whether to take off in pursuit or to check on Max first. Her dilemma was solved when Max himself came running out of Mortons motel room, seemingly unharmed. A desperate look upon his face, he dived into the backseat of the Jetta, breathing heavily. "Max!" Maria shouted, twisting around in her seat. "Are you all right?"I'm fine," he gasped, "but you have to follow them!" His voice was ablaze with urgency. "They've got Liz!"1 know!" Maria told him. Afraid of losing her best friend forever, she fired up the Jetta even as Michael and Isabel, side-by-side in the Jeep, still wearing their faux military uniforms, pulled up beside them. Maria shuddered at the sight of the bullet hole in the Jeep's windshield. That could've been Michael's head, she realized.

In ten words or less, Max updated his fellow hybrids on what had just happened. "We can't lose that Chevy!" he stressed passionately. "We can't let Morton hurt Liz again!"Sirens sounded nearby, growing louder by the second. "The police," Maria realized, drawn by the gunshots, the auto accidents, or both. "Hang on!" she warned Max and Alex as she threw the Jetta into drive and peeled out of the parking lot, going from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds. With any luck, she hoped, the cops would be too tied up with the big highway pileup to chase after them right away. In the rearview mirror, she saw the Jeep zooming right behind her. Michael had already used his powers, she saw, to repair the damage to their windshield. Hold on, Liz, she thought, following Morton's escape route along the shoulder of the highway. We're coming for you! Pouring on the speed, they came within sight of the blue Chevy before long. At first, Iiz and her kidnappers were heading north on 180, toward Carlsbad proper, but they quickly veered off the main highway, turning left onto a less-populated side road that led west toward the mountains. Motels, souvenir shops, and fast- food restaurants soon gave way to flat, barren, desert scenery. Cacti and yucca provided sparse decoration to the arid landscape whizzing past them on both sides of the road. Keeping one eye on the road and the other on the speeding convertible carrying away her friend, Maria tried to figure out where Morton and his accomplice were heading. Geography wasn't exactly her forte, but she didn't remember much in this direction except the mountains and maybe the northern tip of the park.

Okay, she recalled, there was always Las Cruces, where the university was, but that was almost 150 miles away, on the other side of the Guadalupe Mountains. Surely the science guy wasn't planning to take a shanghaied teenage girl all the way back to his snazzy labs and academic colleagues? They must be planning to hide out in the mountains somewhere, she guessed, pushing the speedometer needle up to eighty and beyond. Not if 1 have anything to say about it! Morton knew they were chasing him, of course, especially after they followed him off the highway into the desert, where pretty soon they were the only cars on the road. He glared back at them from the back of the convertible, holding onto his cap with one hand and his gun with the other. Maria glimpsed the back of Liz's head, bizarro red hair and all, but she was too far away to tell how Liz was holding up. First the shooting, now this! she agonized silently, trying to imagine what her friend was going through now. This must be like her worst nightmare coming true.

"Can't you just blast him or something?" she asked Max in desperation. She had the air conditioner turned all the way up, but still felt covered in sweat. "Some sort of Czechoslovakian tractor beam maybe?"Max shook his head. "It's not that easy," he explained succinctly, "not at these speeds." Shunning seat belts, he perched on the very edge of the backseat, leaning forward between Maria and Alex, his head and shoulders straining to bring him as close to the fleeing Chevy as possible. "If that car crashes, Liz could be killed."So much for that brilliant idea, Maria thought. She desperately wanted to close the gap between them and the convertible, just so she could get a better look at Liz, but knew that she had to keep a safe distance between the Jetta and Morton's gun. He had already fired at them a couple of times, but without much success, the wild shots ricocheting off the asphalt ahead of the Jetta or whizzing by overhead. Don't take too many chances, she warned herself, knowing that Liz was depending on her. Morton had to run out of gas and bullets eventually. If I have to, III chase him all the way to Tucson.

The wail of a solitary police siren, coming from several miles behind them, complicated her plans. She couldn't see any flashing lights in the mirror yet, but the siren definitely sounded like it was getting closer. "Do you think they've got our description?" she asked uneasily, sharing an anxious look with Alex. There was no way they could rescue Liz if they had to cope with the police, too. Too bad we're way out of Sheriff Valenti's jurisdiction, she thought.

"Don't worry about that," Max said grimly, dropping back into his own seat. He rolled down the window and shoved his arm outside, placing his palm against the outside of the door. "Just keep driving," he said, his brow knitting in concentration.

What in the world-? She gulped, nearly losing control of the wheel, as the Jetta's cherry-red paint job changed before her eyes, a new metallic-green color spreading out from the right side of the vehicle, where Max's hand was, until the entire exterior of the car resembled some giant, glittering, green bug.

"Hey, pretty cool!" Alex enthused, impressed by the Jetta's instant makeover. "You ever consider a career in grand theft auto, Max?" he joked in an obvious attempt to relieve some of the tension in the car. "You'd be a natural."I changed the license plates, too," Max replied dryly. He sounded winded, as though the large-scale transformation had taken a lot out of him. "Just to be safe."Maria had mixed feelings about this whole thing. "Urn, you can change it back, right?" She glanced sheepishly back at Max. "Otherwise, my mom is going to freak."Keep driving," Max repeated, unconcerned with anything except Liz's safe recovery. He sank back into his seat, exhausted.

Peering in the mirror, she saw that Michael and Isabel had apparently been inspired by Max's ingenuity; widiin seconds, the olive-green Jeep had acquired a spanking new black paint job. She wondered briefly whedier Michael or Isabel had selected the color, then blinked her eyes as the numbers and letters on the Jeep's front license plate rearranged themselves. Vow, she thought, amazed at how adept her alien friends were getting with their powers. Instant, automotive dyslexia.

She had to wonder what Joe Morton thought of the pursuing cars' uncanny metamorphoses. Tearing her gaze away from the mirror, she looked ahead-and saw the no-good gunman staring back at the Jetta with a totally flabbergasted expression on his ugly face. Hahl Maria gloated, enjoying his extreme confusion and discomfort. Maybe the Jeep and the Jetta's unnatural transformations would put the fear of God-or, at the very least, little green men- into die slimeball.

A flashing blue light appeared in her mirror, ruining the moment. Looking back out her side window, she saw a black-and-white State Patrol car zooming up fast behind them. Instinctively, she put her foot on the brake, slowing down to something closer to die legal speed limit. A few car lengths back, behind the wheel of the Jeep, Isabel obviously did the same.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Max shouted, watching in horror as Morton's blue Chevy pulled farther ahead of them, disappearing toward the not-so-distant mountains. "They're getting away!"You want those cops to pull us over?" she snapped back at him, fully aware that Liz was speeding farther away from them with each passing second. "You want to try explaining to the police what's going on?" She knew there was no other choice but to slow down and hope the cop car passed them by. "If you've got a better idea, Max, lay it on me!"Despite his all-consuming desire to rescue Liz from Morton's clutches, Max couldn't argue with Maria's trenchant assessment of their current predicament. Hissing in frustration, he slammed his fist into his palm as his anguished eyes watched the Chevy shrink toward the horizon.

lights flashing, siren blaring, the State Patrol car drew up behind the two slowing vehicles. "Okay, everyone put on their Not-Guilty faces," Maria said, swallowing hard. A horrible thought occurred to her and she suddenly prayed that Michael and Isabel had been shrewd enough to transmute their bogus air force uniforms into something less incriminating. That was all they needed now: for the pair of disguised aliens to get busted for impersonating an officer (or two).

The cop car cruised up alongside the Jetta and a stone-faced state trooper, peering through the passenger side window, scanned the metallic green vehicle and its occupants. Maria slowed down cooperatively, letting the officer take a good long look. "These aren't the 'droids you're looking for," she whispered under her breath, feeling a cold sweat glue the back of her shirt to her suddenly sticky skin. Here's where we find out, she thought, if Max's magic paint job did the trick.

Paranoia made the next few seconds stretch out tortur-ously, but, finally, the wary trooper looked away from the Jetta, back toward the road ahead. Putting on a sudden burst of renewed speed, the flashing cop car accelerated away from them in pursuit, Maria assumed, of the fleeing blue Chevy.

Letting her forehead droop onto the steering wheel, Maria let out a fervent sigh of relief, and wondered if she was ever going to get used to being on the run from the authorities. I'd better get used to it, she mused, if I'm going to hep hanging out with Michael and the rest of the Pod Squad.

They had gotten away with it this time, but at an excruciating cost. Maria stared straight ahead at the disappearing lights of the patrol car. Morton and his convertible were nowhere to be seen, already long gone. She heard a brokenhearted groan from the backseat, but found herself afraid to turn around and look Max in the eyes.

They had lost Liz.