The Rebel

NINE

Liz felt fingers brushing her hair away from her face. I have to tell Adam to stop, she thought. But it felt so good. I'll pretend I'm still asleep, she decided. Just for a few minutes more.

"What are you doing here, Liz?" a voice asked. Not Adam's voice. Max's voice.

Liz's eyes snapped open, and she saw Max kneeling on the floor next to her. "What are you doing here?" he repeated.

She sat up, Adam's air mattress squeaking under her. He'd insisted that she take it while he slept on the floor. She glanced across the room. He wasn't there now.

"What are you doing here?" Max asked again.

What was wrong with him? He was like a talking doll that someone had stepped on so many times it could say only one thing. "If you'd called me last night the way you were supposed to, you'd know," Liz snapped.

An expression that was part hurt and part guilt flashed across Max's face. "I was going to, but then the consciousness-"

"The consciousness," Liz cut him off. "Of course, the consciousness."

Max stood up and took a step away from her. "I actually came by because I need to talk to Michael," he said, pulling a painfully obvious subject change.

"Michael and Trevor never made it back last night," Liz told him. She felt a little pang as she realized she'd been so caught up in her own garbage, she'd almost forgotten about them. "I heard about what happened," she added, her voice softening.

"Yeah, so it wasn't just because of the consciousness that I didn't call," Max said, leaping on the excuse in what Liz considered pure weasel fashion. "After Alex came and told me that he thought Trevor could be dangerous, things kind of got out of control."

Liz nodded. "I get that," she said. She stood up. She was tired of talking to Max with him towering over her. "And if last night was a one-time thing, it would be no big deal-even though I really needed you."

"Why? What happened?" he asked. His eyes flicked up and down her. "Whoa. Your aura is really in chaos."

Is it just Max looking at me right now? Or is it all the beings? Liz wondered, a prickling, tickling sensation running from the top of her neck all the way down her spine.

"There was a time when you would have noticed that the first second you saw me," she told Max. She pulled down on the hem of Adam's T-shirt, which she'd been using as a nightgown. Suddenly it felt too short.

"Liz, cut me a break," Max shot back, his voice taking on a steely edge. "There's a guy who could be a killer wandering around loose. And not just a guy-Michael's brother."

"No, that's way too easy. You know that's not what's really going on between us," Liz insisted. She snagged the Star Wars comforter off the air mattress and wrapped it tightly around her waist.

"I'd like to hear what you think is going on between us," Max said, his voice faintly patronizing. In another second he's going to be asking me if I'm PMS-ing, Liz thought.

"God, Max, I can't even kiss you anymore without you drifting away to the consciousness," she burst out. "Do you know how disgusting that feels? To be kissing someone and then feel their lips get all loose and dead?"

As opposed to Adam's lips, so eager, so warm. Liz shoved that thought away.

"Disgusting," Max repeated. In a flash he had her face cupped between his hands. His eyes bored into hers, then shifted down to her lips.

He's going to try to kiss me, Liz thought with a spurt of panic.

"Yeah, completely disgusting," Liz answered. She reached out and put her fingers on his lips, gently but firmly. "Because it wasn't you."

Max pulled her hand away and backed up. "Disgusting," he repeated again. "So, what are you really saying? Are you saying you don't want to be with me?"

"I want to be with you, Max. But you're not you anymore," Liz cried.

Max's brilliant blue eyes got a blank, shuttered look. "So you're breaking up with me?"

Liz felt that ripping, tearing sensation again, just the way she had last night with her parents.

Is there going to be anything left of me? she thought.

But she couldn't pretend that things were the same between her and Max. She couldn't pretend he was still the one she'd fallen in love with, the one she'd loved heart, and soul, and body.

That Max was gone.

"Are you breaking up with me?" Max repeated, voice dead.

How could he expect her to speak? How with this gaping, raw wound inside her?

Liz nodded. And Max turned and walked away.

"So you broke up with Max?" Adam asked. It had taken him all the way through one-and-a-half daytime talk shows to get up the guts to say it.

"Yeah," Liz answered. It wasn't a happy yeah, a now-I'm-free-to-spend-all-day-making-out-with-you-Adam yeah. It was just kind of tired and sad.

Adam was worried about her. Her eyes were all puffy; her lips turned down a tiny bit at the corners, and her aura hadn't cleared up any.

"Is that why you decided not to go to school? Too hard to be around him right now?" Adam hated the thought that Liz could care so much about Max, even in a twisted, negative way.

But basically, that was what drew him to Liz. She was so intense about everything. He wanted to make up for every moment he'd lost in the compound, and Liz was a person who did things full out.

"No. Well, I guess it's a side benefit," Liz answered. "I was afraid my father would show up at school, and I don't want to see him." Her aura's deep purple web darkened until it was almost black.

He wanted to do something to make her feel better. But what? Almost as soon as he asked himself the question, an idea popped into his head.

Adam turned his attention to a large section of the floor almost in the middle of the living room. There was no furniture in it. He and Michael were supposed to get some eventually.

"Do you like to trampoline?" he asked Liz.

"Huh?" She looked over at him with a distracted expression.

"Never mind. Just wait," Adam said, smiling to himself. He concentrated on the molecules of wood in the section of the floor and used his power to push them farther apart. "Okay, now watch." Adam stood up and walked over to the section of floor he'd modified. His feet sank into it up to his ankles. He shot a look at Liz, then he started to bounce, going so high, his head brushed against the ceiling. Maybe I should temporarily make us a hole up there so we can go even higher, he thought.

But when he looked at Liz again, he knew that wouldn't be necessary. She had this very polite smile on her face. All he'd done was give her the extra burden of trying not to hurt his feelings.

The mole boy again proves that he has failed to grasp the basics of normal social interaction, Adam thought.

He pushed the molecules of the floor back into place, then went over and sat down next to Liz. Not too close. He knew enough to know that touching wouldn't be welcome right now.

"I wish I knew what you were feeling," Adam said. "I never had a fight with my dad. I mean, I never had a dad, just Sheriff Valenti. So it's not like I can give you some great advice."

"That's okay," Liz answered. She started twisting her hair into a knot. He'd noticed that she did that almost every time she felt uncomfortable.

"I never told anyone this, but after I killed the Sheriff-" Adam began.

"You didn't kill him," Liz interrupted. "You can't think that way. Elsevan DuPris had control over you."

"Yeah, well, after my body killed the sheriff and I found out what I-it-had done, I totally broke down crying the first time I was alone," he admitted.

He glanced at Liz. She had her serious, intent look going. He wasn't sure if this was helping her or not, but it was the only father experience he could share with her.

"I should have hated him, right?" Adam asked. "And I did hate him, too-when I found out the truth. When I found out that there was a whole world he'd locked me away from while he had me do his little experiments. But…" Adam paused, not sure how to explain the rest, even to himself.

"But what?" Liz prompted.

"But he used to read me storybooks. And he… he was nice to me. And as far as I knew, he was my dad. I felt like I belonged to him. Even when I found out how evil he really was, I guess I didn't want him dead. It's almost like he was part of me, you know? So how could I want him dead?" Adam answered. "Maybe locked away in the compound himself, but not dead."

"I never thought about the sheriff dying as you losing a father," Liz said. "But of course it felt that way to you."

She reached over and took his hand. "Do you have these times where you totally forget he's dead? When my sister died, there would be days where I'd get halfway home from school before I'd remember, especially right after it happened. Like I'd have a story I was planning to tell her, and then-bam!" She made a little explosion with her hands. "It would hit me."

"That's happened to me, too." Adam felt a loosening in his chest. He hadn't realized that he'd really been needing to talk to someone about this. "So when does it stop?"

Liz shrugged. "When it happens, I'll let you know," she answered. Then she turned her head and met his gaze. "It doesn't happen nearly as much anymore. And the realizations are more like, I don't know, like oh-rights than bams."

"I thought everyone would just think I was being a moron if I actually said I felt sad about Valenti," Adam confessed.

"Of course you were sad. He was your papa," Liz reassured him.

But he wondered if she'd switched over to talking more about herself and her own father. If Adam could feel so much for Valenti, how much more must Liz feel for Mr. Ortecho?

"You should talk to him. Your papa," Adam said. He wasn't sure she'd want him butting in, but he thought she needed to hear it.

"You don't get it," Liz burst out. "He pretty much proved he doesn't even know me. He probably thinks he loves me and everything, but how can you love what you don't know?"

"So you're just going to run away?" he demanded. "That's not you, Liz. You fight for things. You want him to know you-make it happen."

"Make it happen," Liz repeated. She snorted.

"Yeah, make it happen," Adam insisted. "You helped break Michael out of the Clean Slate compound. You faked out Elsevan DuPris's bounty hunters. You practically even brought Max back from the dead, the way he tells it. You make things happen all the time. Impossible things."

Liz didn't say anything. She took her hand away and pulled her hair free from its knot, then immediately started twisting her hair back up again.

"You know what's going to happen if you don't, right?" Adam asked. He knew what he was about to say would probably hurt her, but he had to do it, anyway

Liz shook her head.

"If you don't, someday you're going to be coming home from school-or the job you get after college, or whatever-and you'll be all excited about telling your father some great thing that happened to you. Or even some awful thing," Adam explained. "And then-bam!-it will hit you. You don't talk to your papa anymore."

Max's eyes went right to the group's usual table as soon as he entered the cafeteria. He felt a little of the tension flow out of his body when he spotted Michael sitting there. He hurried over.

"You're alive," he said.

Michael shot him an angry look, and Max belatedly realized this wasn't exactly the time for humor, not that it had exactly been humor.

"I stopped by your place this morning, but you weren't there," he continued. "We need to talk." He saw Isabel and Alex heading toward them. Maria would probably show up any second. "Alone, okay?"

"Whatever." Michael didn't sound too happy about it, but he shoved himself up from the table and followed Max to the bio lab. Max knew nobody would be hanging around in there at lunch. At least since Liz wasn't at school today.

He clamped down hard on the pain that shot through him when he thought about her. He couldn't deal with the Liz thing and the Michael thing at the same time. Even separately felt almost impossible.

"You wanted to talk, so talk," Michael said, leaning against one of the lab station counters.

"I wondered what you were able to find out from Trevor last night," Max told him.

"I wasn't trying to find out anything," Michael shot back. He picked up one of the Bunsen burner strikers and flicked it, producing a few sparks. "I wasn't with him to do some kind of undercover work for you."

"I didn't mean it that way." Max slumped down on one of the tall stools across from Michael. "Look, according to the consciousness, Trevor could be a threat to all of us. You should have felt the fury coming off the beings when I sent out an image of him."

Max saw Michael stiffen, and he rushed on before Michael could interrupt him. "I didn't get any sense that Trevor is a killer, but that's what Alex felt from him in the wormhole. I just want to know if there's anything you and Trevor talked about that will help me get all this straight."

Michael flicked the striker a few more times, then tossed it behind him. "Have you ever considered the possibility that the consciousness could be lying to you?"

It was as if Michael had sucker punched him. Max actually felt a little dizzy, a little wobbly perched on the stool. He stuck one foot down to steady himself.

Max had linked himself to the consciousness for life. He was a part of it. It was a part of him. If it could lie… if it could have some kind of evil intent…

No. Impossible. His parents were part of the consciousness. Ray was part of the consciousness.

"The consciousness isn't a single entity," Max explained, talking to himself as much as Michael. "It's an immense collection of beings-the number of them is practically unfathomable. I don't get how something of that size and structure could lie."

"Well, how do you explain the fact that Trevor went through his akino and lived?" Michael asked. "I mean, according to the consciousness, you don't join, you die."

Wait, did that mean Max hadn't had to join? Did that mean-

Max shook his head. He realized there was a very obvious answer to Michael's question. But it didn't seem that Michael had given it a thought.

"Have you ever considered the possibility that Trevor could be lying to you?" Max asked, trying very hard to keep his tone nonconfrontational.

"He's my brother," Michael answered, as if that said it all.

Max stood up so fast, he knocked the stool over. "So am I," he insisted. "In every way that matters, I'm your brother, too."

Didn't Michael get it? Didn't he understand that the bond between them was deeper than the one created by being born of the same parents? He and Michael had shared every important experience of their lives. Michael and Trevor were practically strangers.

"If that's true, if you're my brother, then why don't you trust me?" Michael exploded. He shoved himself away from the counter. "I'm out of here."

Max watched him leave. He wanted to call Michael back, but what was the point? Michael had made his choice.

Max stood up and turned on the faucet next to him. He stuck his face under and let the water pour over him until his skin turned numb with cold. Then he snapped off the faucet and dried himself off with one of the rough brown paper towels.

Then he heard a little squeaking behind him.

"You're not going to give me grief, too, are you, Fred?" he asked. He walked over to the cage of white mice and pulled out the skinniest one. He stared into its little red eyes. "Remember, you owe me. I saved your life once. I saved Michael and Liz's lives too, not that they're bothering to be grateful."

Fred squeaked again. Max pretended he could understand him. "Yeah, I know." Max sighed. "They've saved my life at least once each. So I should go try and work things out with them before someone wanders by and sees me going all Doctor Doolittle."

He put Fred back in the cage, then felt a tingle of curiosity from the consciousness. No. No way. There are some things I won't do, he thought.

The tingle grew to an insistent electric sizzle.

"Okay, fine," Max muttered. He picked up one of the food pellets from the mice's dish and popped it into his mouth.

The blend of flavors was more complex than he'd expected. He closed his eyes and chewed slowly, sharing the experience with the other beings.