The Salvation

SIX

Alex leaned against the locker next to Michael's, going for a casual, just-hanging-out-with-my-bud kind of feel. "I think my next list for the web site is going to be the top ten things a guy looks for in a girl. So, uh, what do you look for?"

He felt like a total dweeb, but Michael didn't seem to notice anything unusual. Which wasn't exactly a comforting thought.

You're doing this for Maria, Alex reminded himself. A little reconnaissance mission. He hadn't told her he was going to try to squeeze some info out of Michael. If he found out anything good-like that Michael went for girls who were into aromatherapy-he'd pass it on. If, on the other hand, Michael told him he was a Xena, Warrior Princess kind of guy, then, well, this conversation never happened.

"Skin," Michael answered.

"Skin?" Alex repeated. "Like showing a lot of skin?"

Michael pulled a bag of Hog Phasers, Roswell's answer to spicy pork rinds, out of his locker and held it out to Alex. Alex checked to make sure Michael hadn't added chocolate sauce or anything yet, then took a handful.

"Showing a lot would be okay, but what I really mean is, I like soft, smooth skin, you know?" Michael pulled out a can of whipped cream and sprayed some into the bag.

"I'm a butt man myself," Doug Highsinger offered from the end of the row of lockers. He grabbed a stack of books and slammed his locker closed.

"You certainly are," Alex joked. "I already did the top ten favorite body parts list. I'm looking for other… qualities, I guess you'd call them."

"Oh. Well, then, I have nothing more to add." Doug wandered off with a half salute.

"So you're looking for stuff like a good sense of humor." Michael crammed three of the Hog Phasers into his mouth and chewed loudly.

"Yeah. Exactly," Alex said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Is that something that's important to you-a good sense of humor?" Because that would be great, he thought. Maria didn't make hilarious jokes or anything. In fact, she usually made really lame ones. But she was always finding something to laugh at, and that was the best kind of sense of humor, if you asked him.

Michael licked a smear of whipped cream off his top lip and shook his head. "Hasn't it completely sunk in that pretty much any girl in school would go out with you if you looked at her cross-eyed?" he demanded. "You don't have to suck up with some sensitive-guy list on your web page. Those days are over, my friend."

"I wasn't-" Alex began to protest.

Michael slammed his locker shut. "Gotta go. I'm meeting up with Trevor and Maria. Good luck to you and the B team." He strode off down the hall.

"You guys are the B team," Alex called after him, then shrugged and headed out to the parking lot. Liz and Isabel were already waiting for him in the Jeep. He swung himself into the back. "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work-" Alex stopped himself. "Sorry. Pulled another Maria. I can't get Snow White out of my head."

"Oh, just so you know," Liz said as Isabel pulled out of the parking lot. "Maria said if she ever heard you use that expression again, she was going to use your head for a planter. For an herb garden or something."

"The truth hurts-that's her problem," Alex answered, stretching out his arms and resting them on top of the backseat. "I brought some cards. I thought we could play poker if Max-" He stopped himself. "And yes, folks, your eyes didn't deceive you, that was his foot going into his mouth for a second time."

"Yeah. Watch it. Or the expression will quickly become pulling an Alex," Isabel warned, glancing at him in the rearview mirror as her blond hair whipped around her face.

Alex decided to keep his mouth shut the rest of the way to the UFO museum. Liz and Isabel didn't bother trying to make conversation, either. There was obviously some mental gearing up happening on both their parts as they prepared for the Max encounter.

It wasn't exactly a picnic for Alex to see Max in his comaesque state. But Max wasn't his brother. He wasn't the love of Alex's life. It just didn't rip him up inside in the same way it did Isabel and Liz. Both of them were walking wounded.

"Hi ho, hi ho," Isabel said sarcastically as she pulled into the museum parking lot.

"You want me to just run upstairs and check on him?" Alex asked, looking up toward Michael's apartment. "If he's still out, I could give him the speech about wanting to find the Stones for him-in case anybody in there's listening-then we could go to Flying Pepperoni for a while and do another check later."

"I want to see him," Isabel said, unlatching her seat belt. "Now."

"So do I," Liz insisted. They each gave him a semi-disgusted look, then climbed out of the Jeep.

"Okay, okay. Just a suggestion." The girls had guts. No taking the easy way for either of them, Alex thought as he followed them up the outside staircase leading to the apartment.

"The TVs on!" Isabel cried when she reached the front door. She jerked it open and ran into the living room. Max was sitting on the floor, eyes focused on the set.

"Hey, you're awake! Who kissed you?" Alex called as he burst into the room. His heart felt like it was on an elevator going up. Max was the center of their group, the backbone, the leader, the… Alex couldn't come up with another one. His brain was on overload. Max was the Max.

"Max!" Liz exclaimed. "What happened? Are you okay?"

He didn't turn his head. Alex's internal elevator was going straight down, no stops. Something was very wrong.

"Did you find the Stones?" Max asked, finally looking over at them. His blue eyes were alert. But there was something missing.

"It's not him," Liz said, her voice low and strained.

Alex gave a quick nod to let her know he got it. "Not yet," he told the consciousness. "We're planning to go out to the cave today."

"We talked it over, and we think there's a good chance Michael stashed them there," Isabel added, her voice sounding normal even though her entire body was rigid. "Not that he would tell us or anything."

"Let's go," the consciousness said through Max. Clearly it was accessing his knowledge of the language and of earth itself. Alex hoped it was careful as it went digging through Max's brain. Who knew what kind of damage it could do in there?

"The Jeep's right downstairs," Alex answered. All we have to do is keep the consciousness entertained, he reminded himself. When we don't find the Stones at the cave, we'll just drive it somewhere else-anywhere else.

"Good." The Max thing rose to its feet and headed for the door. Alex, Isabel, and Liz exchanged wary looks but silently followed.

"I'm driving," Isabel announced when they hit the parking lot. She trotted to the driver's side and scrambled behind the wheel before Max had a chance to respond. Alex nudged Liz toward the shotgun seat, then climbed in the back. If anyone was going to have to share a seat with a dangerous alien contingency, it was going to be him. The Max thing got in beside him.

"Hey, Max, we have Trevor taking your place at home," Isabel said as she drove through town, heading for the highway. "I think Mom and Dad like him a little more than they do you." She shot a fierce glance over her shoulder at Max's face. Alex didn't have to check to see if she'd shocked some kind of reaction out of the real Max. Isabel's devastated expression gave him the answer. She turned back to the road and sped up.

"Max, look! UFOnics!" Liz called out, her voice high and too loud. "Remember that time that I went there with Jerry Cifarelli and you were jealous and you changed your face and went in so you could spy on us?" She twisted around, gripping the roll bar in both hands. "Remember, Max?" Her voice broke on his name, but she kept going, taking her turn at trying to jar Max free. "And it didn't work because you forgot to change your eyes, and so I knew it was you. Remember?"

The anti-Max turned to Alex, ignoring Liz. "If the Stones aren't in the cave, where do we try next?"

Alex wished he could head butt Max for the pain he'd just caused Isabel and Liz. But he couldn't hurt the consciousness by hurting Max's body, not much, anyway

"We could do a day trip to Carlsbad Caverns," Alex suggested. "Maybe even a weekend thing. It's huge, so searching it could take some time."

Alex struggled to remember some factoid about the caverns. "There's one room-that's what they call the different parts of the caverns-rooms-named the Hall of Giants," he volunteered. "It has some really tall rock formations in it… which is why it's named the Hall of Giants."

The Max thing twisted its lips in a condescending smile. Bring it on, Alex thought, ready to babble all night if that's what it took to keep the consciousness occupied. And make it leave Liz and Isabel alone.

"Let's see if I've got this right-while I was driving the car home yesterday, you two were frolicking in the ocean," Maria said. She slid off the hood of the Cadillac and glared from Michael to Trevor and back, trying not to let herself get distracted by the image of said wet-male frolicking.

"Not frolicking," Trevor told her, absentmindedly drawing in the desert sand with the toe of his work boot as he leaned against the car. "Like we said, we were able to test the power of the Stones by using them to heat up the water in the ocean. At first we just did a little section."

"So you could frolic," Maria shot back, noticing what Trevor had drawn in the sand was a big, curling wave.

"Then we realized that we could use the ocean as a way to fully test the combined power of the Stones," Trevor continued.

"The bad news is, forming a connection and using the Stones together didn't give us much more juice than each of us using the Stones separately," Michael added. He adjusted his weight on his leg so it wasn't pressing into the side of the hood ornament.

"Which means we're looking for another way to boost the Stones' power," Maria said.

"Yeah," Michael agreed.

"Yeah," Trevor repeated.

Silence descended. Too bad none of them had a clue how to do it.

Michael stretched out on the hood, staring up at the sky as if looking for inspiration. Maria tried not to look at the strip of naked stomach that Michael's scrunched-up shirt was now exposing. It gave her a certain kind of inspiration, but definitely not the kind she needed.

Stones. She needed to be thinking about the Stones. How could they be enhanced?

Maria forced her gaze away from Michael and over to Trevor. "I guess it wouldn't help for you two to connect with me? I mean, I can add a little bit of energy, but probably not enough."

"Probably not," Trevor answered, but he said it in a nice way. Maria was liking Michael's brother more and more as she got to know him. But as similar as he and Michael were, Trevor just didn't get to her the way Michael did. Looking at Trevor was enjoyable. Looking at Michael was almost meltdown inducing.

"Wait. Wait. That almost made me think of something." Michael sat up fast.

"What?" Trevor asked.

"Almost made?" Maria chimed in.

"Shut up," Michael snapped at them, running his fingers through his black hair until it was spikier than ever. "Just wait. I got this flash of a thing. An idea."

Trevor gave Maria the raised-eyebrow look. She gave it back, but she had to use her fingers to make her eyebrow go as high as his did.

"Okay, connecting with Maria is a stupid idea. It would hardly do anything," Michael burst out.

"That's been established, thank you very much," Maria muttered, blushing for no reason.

Michael ignored her and turned to Trevor. "But what if the two of us connected to Max? It might take the power of all three Stones to shatter the consciousness from the outside. But if we link to Max, we link to the consciousness, and then we'd be using the power of the two Stones from the inside."

Maria's stomach dropped. Destroying something from inside Max didn't sound appealing to her.

"It could work," Trevor answered slowly "The consciousness might be much more vulnerable from the inside. But there's no way of testing your theory. Max is the only being on earth connected to the consciousness."

"What's the downside of trying it?" Maria asked, hoping they might see how dangerous this could be. "I mean, do you have any idea if the consciousness could sense what was happening and… retaliate?"

Trevor shrugged helplessly. "I don't have any more information than you do. It's never been attempted."

"It wouldn't be the first time we've done things that have never been tried," Michael said. He tried to smooth down a few of his spikes, but it didn't work. "But who knows if the human body can even withstand having the power of the Stones directed into it?"

"Exactly," Maria said, remembering the way the Stone's power sliced straight through Adam's heart. Her mouth was suddenly very dry.

"When I used a Stone on DuPris, I didn't hold back," Trevor said. "I detonated it right into his body. I don't know if any entity could take that kind of blast without-"

"Going splat?" Maria finished for him. She wiped her hand across her face, as if flecks of DuPris's bone and blood were still spattered there.

"Once we're in, we might be able to direct the power at the consciousness without sending it full force through Max," Trevor said, lacing his hands together and putting them behind his head. "But I don't think we'd be able to avoid giving him some kind of jolt."

"Why not try it on me?" Maria swallowed hard. "That's what a lovely assistant is for, right? Just connect and give me a little, teeny bit of the Stones' power."

"No way," Michael said immediately.

Her heart jumped at the quickness of his protective response, but she wasn't about to back down. "Why not?" she demanded. "It's safer to test it on me. The consciousness won't be alerted, and if… if something goes wrong, you guys can heal me."

"If we just do a little, just to see the human body's reaction to a low dose…" Trevor let his words trail off as Michael shook his head. "No way. We can't risk it."

"It's for Max. I want to do it for Max," Maria insisted. "And besides-" She looked Michael right in the eye and touched his arm. "I trust you not to let me get hurt. At least not permanently."

At least not permanently physically, she added to herself. Emotionally was a whole other story.

Michael stared at her for what seemed like an eternity, and a few times she thought he was about to say something, but he stopped himself. Maria's heart was beating a mile a minute.

"Okay, but we'll take it very slowly," Michael said finally. "If anything goes wrong, even the slightest bit, we break the connection."

"Agreed," Trevor answered. He pulled one of the Stones out of his pocket and put one hand on Maria's left arm. Michael stepped over, Stone already in his fist, and gently wrapped his fingers around her right arm.

I hope they don't get anything too embarrassing off me, Maria thought as they made the connection. The Stone in Trevor's free hand began to glow with a blue-green light. The Stone in Michael's glistened purple-green.

Maria closed her eyes, trying not to panic. Don't think of splat, she ordered herself. Don't think of splat. She repeated the words over and over until Michael interrupted her.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Is it over? Did you do it? Am I bleeding?" Maria exclaimed, her eyes still squeezed tightly shut.

"You're not bleeding," Michael answered. "Do you feel like you should be bleeding? Does something hurt?"

"No. No. I was just wondering," Maria said. She thought she heard a snicker. "You better not be laughing at me!" she warned them, without opening her eyes. She'd open them when this was over, not one second before.

"We're just going to try a little more," Trevor told her. "And no one is laughing."

"Okay. Good." She began her mantra again. Don't think of splat. Don't think of splat.

"Yow!" she cried as she felt her feet leave the ground. Her eyes flew open despite herself. She was eye to eye with Michael. And she was… okay. "So this is what it's like to be tall," she said, glancing around. "I like."

"No pain?" Trevor asked.

Maria turned her head toward him, and her body followed. "I'm good," she told him.

"Let's go up just a degree," Michael said.

Maria slowly rose another two feet. She flapped her arms up and down. The guys got the message. A second later she was swooping and darting through the air. "I'm a ballerina bird," she exclaimed, starting off on one of her uncontrollable giggle fits.

"Is she hyperventilating?" she heard Trevor ask.

"No, she's just being Maria," Michael answered with a smirk.

"More! Do more!" Maria begged. And she was dropped into a rolling nosedive, then pulled out just before she reached the desert floor.

"Better than any amusement park ride, huh?" Michael shouted up to her.

Maria giggled even harder as the power twirled her through a triple somersault, then skimmed her low enough to touch Michael and Trevor's heads.

"We don't have anything like amusement parks on the home planet," Trevor said. "When we go back, we should open one. We could call it Guerin brothers. The Guerin makes it kind of exotic sounding."

Maria stopped giggling so abruptly that she bit her tongue. The taste of blood filled her mouth. She couldn't have possibly heard what she thought she'd just heard. Michael was planning to go back home with Trevor? And he didn't think this was important enough to even tell her?

"Let me down!" she yelled. "I think I'm going to be sick." The second her feet touched the ground, Maria bent over, wrapping her arms around her stomach.

I don't mean anything to him, she thought. He can just leave. Maybe kiss me good-bye. Maybe not. Just see ya. Adios. I'm outta here.

A moment later she felt Michael's hand rubbing her back. "Was it too much power, you think?"

She jerked her body away. "No. I'm fine. I just got dizzy."

"There's not much point in doing more experiments with Maria," Trevor said, pocketing his Stone. "It can only tell us so much about what will happen with Max."

"We'll just have to go for it. Tomorrow the two of us will connect and see what happens," Michael answered.

"No!" Maria snapped upright. She was in full panic mode on so many levels, she had no idea why she was thinking clearly, but she was. Maybe panic was the key to a clearer mind. "I just realized that now that the consciousness is aware of what's going on, Trevor can't go near Max."

Michael blinked, and Maria knew he was impressed she'd thought of something that hadn't occurred to him. Not that it mattered to him, really.

"She's right," Michael said. "It would go ballistic if it saw you. It knows you're one of the rebels who want to destroy it."

"So now what?" Maria asked. She struggled to keep all her attention focused on the Max crisis. If she let herself think about Michael anymore, she'd lie down right here and never, ever get up.

"So I make the connection to Max and use both of the Stones myself," Michael answered.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Maria said.

"I'm doing it," he said in that firm Michael way that left no room for questions.

And that was that. There was nothing Maria could do once Michael had made up his mind.