Loose ends

25.

Where are you, David Ramirez? Why can't I find you? Her eyelids squeezed shut, Isabel did her best to tune out the sights, sounds, and smells of the busy pizza parlor. She rubbed the vital scrap of paper between her fingers until it felt as thin and fragile as tissue. Her heightened consciousness reached out, sifting through hundreds of churning minds, before zeroing in on the one distinct psyche that could tell her what Max so desperately needed to know. She nudged at the fringes of the lieutenants identity, seeking admittance. Here I am, David, she called out silently. Let me into your dreams.

"Any luck yet?" Maria asked, breaking Isabels concentration. The alien beauty's eyes snapped open, impaling the other woman with a royally ticked-off glare. The entire table shushed Maria in unison, causing the exasperated teen to tilt backward on her chair, throwing up her hands. "Sorry! My bad," she apologized, sort of. "Excuse me for wondering how she was doing."Outside Caverns of Cheese, the afternoon sun remained high in the sky, yet Isabel felt the day slipping away taking with it any hope of liberating Liz from Joe Morton's murderous clutches. A handful of soggy pieces of crust were all that was left of two pepperoni and Tabasco pizzas, but her friends kept ordering additional snacks and desserts just to avoid being asked to leave their ad hoc base of operations. Isabel feared they were wasting their time.

"It's no good, Max," Isabel confessed, feeling like a failure. She hated to disappoint him, but it was the truth. "I can sense him, somewhere nearby, but wherever he is, he's awake, not dreaming." She tried to explain, to make Max and the others understand why, no matter how strenuously she labored, she couldn't come through for them. "It's like his waking mind forms a wall around his identity, his essence. I can't slip inside until that wall comes down." She looked at her stylish designer watch and saw that it was not even 3:30 yet; the only creatures sleeping right now were the bats at Carlsbad Caverns. "He might not go to bed for hours."Alex put down the cell phone, which he'd taken custody of earlier. "I keeping trying his number," he volunteered, "but no luck. Either he's not home or he's not answering."Great," Michael said sarcastically. "For all we know, the damn ringing is keeping him awake." He shoved his plate away from him in frustration. "Isabel is right, Max. This is getting us nowhere. We need to get out there and start looking for Morton and Liz."What do you suggest, Michael?" Max asked skeptically "That we drive up and down every back road between here and the Rio Grande? We don't even know what kind of car he's driving now, if he's on the road at all. For all we know, he could be holed up anywhere."He turned toward Isabel, his face drawn and haggard. Isabel hadn't seen him look this bad since that time he thought that liz had cheated on him with Kyle. "Please, Iz," he begged her. "Try one more time."If it will make him feel better. "Okay," she agreed, giving the worn scrap of paper her attention again. Caverns of Cheese slowly receded from her awareness as she closed her eyes and went into a familiar trance. One more time, she thought, with little hope of success. Just to ease Max's mind…

The floor of the cave was moist and surprisingly cool. Lieutenant David Ramirez lay bleeding where he fell, unable to move at all. Morton's bullet had shattered his spine, he realized, after blowing a hole in his chest. He couldn't feel anything at all below his shoulders, which was probably a mercy of sorts. He felt cold and dizzy, light-headed even.

He was dying, he knew that, alone in a cave with no one to hear his last words or confession. So this is how it all ends, he thought bitterly, mourning his once-promising future. He wished he'd never heard of Roswell or aliens or secret UFO technology. At least, he thought, this spares the air force the expense of a court-martial.

His eyelids drooped, and he found it hard to stay awake. Just as well, he decided, his ebbing consciousness surrendering to the encroaching darkness. Oblivion called to him and the lieutenant decided not to fight it anymore. Goodbye, he thought, shutting his eyes forever. Guess this qualifies as a dishonorable discharge.

Then, just as he was letting go of life, he heard another voice calling his name. David? Is that you? The wall came down, disintegrating into nothingness, and Isabel slipped into Ramirez's unresisting mind. She realized at once that this was no ordinary dream; the colors were strange and distorted, gray and monochromatic in some places, while luridly bright and garish elsewhere. Shapes and angles were stretched and pulled out of proportion, as though glimpsed in a funhouse mirror. What's happening here? Isabel wondered, disoriented. Where am 1? It took her an instant or two to get her bearings, then she found herself standing in an unfamiliar cave, less grandiose than Carlsbad's magnificent caverns, and more like the hidden Pod Chamber outside of Roswell. The ruffled limestone walls of the cave were black-and-white, like an old-time movie, but fluorescent golden sunshine, brighter than daffodils, invaded the rocky chamber from an opening to her right, giving her just enough light to see by.

A feeble moan caught her ear, and she looked down to see Ramirez lying at her feet, a gaping wound in his chest. The injured pilot was black-and-white, too, but someone had colorized his blood, which glowed as psychedelically as the pigments in a black-lighted painting. Neon-red fluid pooled beneath the lieutenants body and leaked from the corners of his mouth. Isabel stepped back in horror, yanking the toes of her boots away from the spreading pool of gore, and threw her hands over her mouth. She suddenly became aware of a rhythmic throbbing noise, pounding in the background like rolling thunder many miles away. The muffled thumping, which she instinctively knew had to be Ramirez's own failing heartbeat, grew slower and fainter by the second.

"Oh my God," she realized. The lieutenant wasn't dreaming, he was dying! Morton must have shot Ramirez, just like he killed Okada, and the biker in the alley. But where was Liz? Isabel looked about rapidly, but saw no sign of the kidnapped girl, only Alex's backpack, lying crumpled on the stone floor. Where had Morton taken Liz after shooting the lieutenant? Perhaps only Ramirez knew.

I have to hurry, she thought, and not just for Liz's sake. She had wondered sometimes about what would happen to her if she stumbled into someone's mind at the very moment of their death; now she seemed dangerously close to finding out.

And, even more terrifying, she knew she would have to go even deeper into the dying man's consciousness to learn everything he knew of this place, and of Liz's fate. What ijl stay too long? she worried, dread eating away at her resolve. What if he takes me with him wherever he's going? "David?" she whispered, then tried again more loudly. "David!" The dying pilot's eyelids flickered momentarily, but that was all. All around her, the fading pulse ticked away toward its inevitable cessation.

Unable to avoid kneeling in the sticky, sickening crimson pool, she took Ramirez's head in her hands and tried to rouse him from his terminal slumber. "Wake up, David!" she shouted into his face. "Talk to me, please!"At first, there was no response and Isabel feared she was too late. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw ebony shadows creeping in on them from every corner of the cave, threatening to extinguish Ramirez's last spark of life. She could barely hear his faltering heartbeat anymore.

His eyes opened, making contact with hers. "Isabel?"She dived into his deep brown orbs, the portals to his soul, and instantly landed inside his head, looking out through those same eyes at the craggy ceiling of the cave. Darkness closed in perilously, obscuring his/her view, but Isabel found what she was looking for in the churning recesses of his memory. Yes! she thought ecstatically, swimming back toward the rapidly shrinking light. Time to go.

Part of her regretted leaving Ramirez to face the ultimate blackness alone, but then she remembered how, on the phone, the blackmailed lieutenant had worried only about his security, not Liz's. She decided not, to lose too much sleep over Ramirez's tragic end, despite the intimate bond they had just shared.

"Good-bye, David," she whispered, using his own quivering lips, then woke herself up…

Max was there, right where she'd left him, watching her with eyes so naked in their agonized hope that she had to look away. The rest of her friends were there as well, seated around the empty pizza trays. Alex took her hand and offered her a sip of water. "How did it go?" he asked gently.

She appreciated the tender treatment, but declined the water, unwilling to let her tormented brother suffer in suspense an instant longer.

"I did it," she told them, the salvaged memories and impressions still fresh in her mind. "I know where they are."