The Stowaway rh-6 Page 8

  "I know what I need to do to deal with DuPris," Max said. "I got instructions, actually more like a blast of knowledge, from the consciousness before the connection broke." He looped his fingers around the handle of the mug and turned the mug in a slow circle. "Do you know what a wormhole is?" he finally asked.

  "There's a theory that says that the gravity of black holes pulls on more than just the objects around it, that it actually pulls on space and time, and that it can create a tear in the time-space continuum. A wormhole is the passageway made by the tear," Liz answered.

  "You forget who you're talking to here," Alex told her.

  "It's a shortcut through space," Liz said.

  "And if I channel the energy of the consciousness, I can create one," Max explained. "After I do, I'm supposed to use it to send DuPris back to our home planet."

  "There's only one problem," Michael said. "We have no idea where DuPris is. He could be anywhere. He, Isabel, and Adam could have left town. Or they could all have different faces and be hanging out at the mall."

  "Did Isabel… was she okay when you saw her?" Alex asked Liz.

  "Yeah. I don't think DuPris will hurt her or Adam," she told him. "It doesn't make sense-they're like his slaves. He wants them around."

  "Anyone have any ideas about how to track them?" Alex asked. "Max, is that anything the collective consciousness could help with? Do they know where DuPris is?"

  Max shook his head. "Today in the cave it was the first time anyone on our home planet had seen him in more than fifty years. They had no idea where he was. He's not connected to them. I don't think they have any way of sensing his movements."

  "I'm almost surprised they want you to send him back," Liz said softly. She lowered her head, her hair falling forward and hiding her face. "I'm surprised they don't just want you to kill him. It seems like what they wanted in the cave."

  Michael didn't think Max would have been able to live with himself if the consciousness had succeeded. If his hands had been used to kill someone, even someone as evil as DuPris, it would haunt Max every day for the rest of his life.

  "Seeing him practically made them insane," Max explained. "But now…" He gave a hoarse laugh. "I don't know-I guess they cooled down. They want to put him through some kind of judgment."

  "I have an idea," Maria said suddenly. She'd never rejoined the group. She stood over by the sink, twisting a dish towel in her hands. "Liz, you said that Adam came into your dream and tried to tell you who was controlling him, before he started convulsing. Anyway, it seems like DuPris figured out he had to stop Adam from, uh, making outgoing calls. But maybe he forgot that there could be incoming calls, too."

  "So I should go into Isabel's dream and ask her where DuPris took her and Adam when they left the cave," Michael said, feeling a tinge of hope. "Great idea."

  "Thanks," Maria mumbled, without looking at him.

  "I'll try it right now. Isabel could be taking a beauty nap at any point." Michael closed his eyes and tried to let his mind go blank. Thoughts kept bombarding him. What was going to happen to Isabel and Adam if he couldn't do this? How did Max get that withered spot on his neck? Was it dangerous?

  As soon as he shoved one thought away, another one replaced it. Could the wormhole take Michael back to their home planet, too? Did he want to go? Were he and Maria ever going to be able to just hang again? And what was DuPris making Isabel and Adam do right now? And-

  Michael felt a light, tentative touch on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw Maria standing next to him. "You're never going to be able to focus in here. Come on."

  She turned and headed out of the kitchen. He stood up and followed her as she led the way across the living room and down the hall to her bedroom. He reached for the light switch, but Maria grabbed his hand.

  "Leave it off. It will make it easier for you to relax," she said, then she seemed to realize she was still holding his hand and dropped it fast. "Now take off your shoes and lie down."

  Michael kicked off his sneakers and stretched out on the bed. He felt a little of the tension ease out of him. Maria's room was one of his favorite places.

  "Okay, I know you think aromatherapy is a big joke, but smell this, anyway." Maria thrust a little vial at him, and he obediently took a sniff. He would have done pretty much anything she told him to right then. She seemed a lot less freaked now that she was all caught up in her healing arts stuff-that's what she called it, healing arts-and if doing this was helping her feel less afraid, that was all he needed to know.

  "Really breathe it in," Maria instructed.

  The lilac scent made the inside of his nose burn, but he didn't tell her that. He just pulled in a lungful of the stuff.

  "Now close your eyes," she said, her voice soft and almost musical.

  It's got to work this time, Michael thought as he shut them. If it didn't, Isabel-

  He felt Maria's hand smoothing out the wrinkles the thought had made in his forehead. "Focus on the lavender."

  He found himself focusing more on the scent of her. Had he totally screwed things up with her? Could they ever just be couch potatoes on this bed again, watching a triple feature of old horror movies? And what was that withered spot on Max's neck?

  Maria started rubbing her fingers in little circles on Michael's temples. "You can't stop thinking, can you? Okay, here's what I'll do. I'll talk to you. Listen to me instead of your thoughts," she said. "Mozart used to have his wife read to him when he was composing because it got rid of the chatter in his head and let him concentrate. If it worked for Mozart, it can work for you."

  The warmth of Maria's fingers felt as if it were seeping deep into Michael's brain. He settled deeper into her bed.

  "Lavender used to be my favorite color in the box of sixty-four crayons-you know, the one with the sharpener built into the side," Maria said, her voice calm and sweet. "It seemed like it could draw anything. It was the right color for everything. I drew lavender flowers and my father's lavender eyes, my mother's lavender smile. They were the same to me, mother, father, flowers. All good. All lavender. And I was lavender, too."

  Michael's breathing slowed down. The thoughts that had been attacking him faded into a babble that was easier for him to ignore.

  "We were made up of the same stuff," Maria continued "The boundaries warm and fuzzy. Mom was me, and I was Dad, and he was all of us and the flowers. My father used to hang the pictures I drew up on the refrigerator before he… before he left. He said I'd created a beautiful world, a beautiful lavender world."

  Maria's voice faded as the spinning orbs of the dream plane became visible. He was in. He turned in a slow circle, his eyes darting over the glistening iridescent orbs as he searched for Isabel's.

  He didn't see it. But that didn't mean it wasn't there. Michael began to whistle, calling to Isabel's orb. Maybe she wasn't asleep right now, although Adam had slept pretty much nonstop. Or was that even sleep? It was more like unconsciousness. Could Isabel even dream?

  Adam got to Liz, he reminded himself. He continued to whistle. He'd stay in the dream plane all night if he had to. It was their only shot.

  He sat down, and one of the orbs circled around his head, playfully brushing his cheek. Michael knew that orb. He'd visited it quite a few times when he was about thirteen and obsessed with Patrice Burgess, the woman who worked in the dry cleaners near foster home number whatever.

  Michael nudged Patrice's dream orb away A few seconds later he felt a light brush on the back of his neck. Take the hint already, he thought. He turned to flick it off and saw Isabel's orb hovering behind him.

  He held out his hands, and her orb spun into them. He peered inside and saw a blond doll in a bikini driving a little pink convertible. The car kept zooming halfway up a steep hill, then rolling back down.

  Where was Isabel? He didn't see her anywhere.

  Doesn't matter, he told himself. He'd just expand the dream orb, then go inside and find her. He began to whistle again, slowly moving his hands apa
rt, urging the orb to grow.

  It began to shrink instead. This had never happened before. The orb had been the size of a volleyball, and it had already shrunk down to grapefruit size. There was no way he could get inside.

  "Isabel," he shouted. "Where are you?"

  The doll in the convertible turned her head. It's Izzy, he thought. He should have realized it before. Isabel was dreaming she was the doll.

  With a sucking sound the dream orb collapsed to the size of a baseball. Before Michael could react, it was the size of a golf ball.

  "Izzy, you have to tell me where you are," he screamed. "Where did DuPris take you?"

  Michael heard another sucking sound. The orb was going to shrink again. "Tell me!" he cried.

  "Cameron knows," Isabel wailed, her voice like a squeaky hinge.

  What? Had Cameron betrayed them again? Was she working with DuPris all along? "What do you mean? How does she know?" Michael yelled.

  Before Isabel could answer, her dream orb shrank to the size of a marble, then to the size of a pea, and with a tiny pop, it disappeared altogether.

  *** 8 ***

  "The ticket guy remembered Cameron," Michael announced. He swung himself back behind the wheel of the Jeep. "She traded in a ticket to Hobbs for one to Albuquerque. That bus left more than two hours ago, but it makes a couple of stops, including the airport, which eats up some time. If we really motor, we should just be able to beat it to the station."

  Was this the hand of fate trying to bring Cameron and Michael together? Maria wondered as Michael wheeled the Jeep around and sped out of the parking lot. Maybe the two of them were destined to be a couple. Maybe Maria should be really happy for them because they'd found their soul mates.

  Maybe she should ask Michael to pull over so she could puke.

  You shouldn't even be thinking about that stuff, she told herself. You should be thinking about Isabel and Adam. She managed to concentrate on sending them some positive thoughts for about two seconds before she started wondering why Cameron had left town in the first place. Did she and Michael have some kind of fight? Would they end up doing the whole joyful I-was-wrong-no-no-I-was-wrong thing at the bus station? Would she have to watch them kiss?

  "Next time you work at the Crashdown, I'm sure my papa is going to ask you how you did on your life science test, okay, Maria?" Liz asked. "I told him you needed me for an all-night study session tonight or you'd flunk it."

  Maria could hear the tension in her friend's voice. Maybe Michael would have to stop the car for her, too. Liz was always so careful to be the most perfect daughter. She wasn't as skilled as most about lying to her parents.

  "Got it. I'll tell him that I never would have passed if not for your brilliant tutoring," Maria promised. "I hope the babysitter remembers the cover story I told her to give my mom." She gave a choked half laugh. "Actually, it probably doesn't matter. My mom's so in lust, she probably won't even notice that the babysitter isn't me."

  Alex groaned. "Mom. Lust. 'One of these words is not like the others. One of these words just doesn't belong.'"

  "Tell me about it," Maria answered. "New subject, please."

  "I have one," Alex said. "What I don't get is how Cameron could know where DuPris took Isabel and Adam."

  Cameron wasn't exactly the new subject Maria had been hoping for. But what did it matter? Whether they talked about her or not, Maria would be thinking about her. She couldn't help herself.

  "And if Cameron saw them, she wouldn't have just gotten on a bus," Liz added. "She would have stayed in town until she found you and told you, right, Michael?"

  "Look, there's something you have to know about Cameron," Michael said, his eyes locked on the road. "Everything I told you about her was a lie, and that's because everything she told me about herself was a lie." He rushed on. "She wasn't in the compound as a test subject-she was in there as a spy for Valenti."

  "Spying on you?" Maria asked softly.

  "Got it in one," Michael answered. "Valenti promised her if she got the names of the other aliens in Roswell from me, he wouldn't turn her back over to her parents."

  He shot a glance at Max over his shoulder. "I told her." He spat out the words as if they tasted bitter on his tongue. "I betrayed you and Isabel."

  Maria could imagine what had happened. Michael had believed Cameron was a prisoner, just like him. He saw the two of them as united against Valenti and the Project Clean Slate people. Why wouldn't he tell her the truth? She opened her mouth, wishing she could say something to comfort him, but she couldn't find the words.

  "Cut yourself some slack," Alex told Michael. "She already knew the truth about you. It's not like you were telling her that there were aliens on Earth."

  "And she helped Adam escape," Liz added. "Why wouldn't you trust her?"

  It didn't matter what the rest of them thought, Maria realized. What would matter to Michael was what Max thought. She turned and looked at him. He still seemed totally wiped out.

  "You didn't betray me," Max said. "Cameron betrayed you."

  The tight, guarded expression on Michael's face didn't convince Maria that he believed Max.

  "So what do you think Cameron's deal is in this situation?" Alex asked. "Why do you think she didn't say something if she knew where DuPris took Isabel and Adam? She can't have any connection to DuPris, can she?"

  "Don't ask me," Michael answered. "It's not like I have a great track record knowing what's really going on with Cameron. I'm the one who told her-"

  "Don't even go there again," Max interrupted. "Cameron betrayed you. End of story."

  End of story for Max, Maria thought. But Cameron had torn something deep inside Michael. Even when it healed, there would probably always be a nasty scar.

  Kind of like the one she had. Kind of like the one Alex had. Didn't anybody's love story get a happy ending?

  She took another glance over her shoulder. Oh, right. Princess Liz and Prince Max.

  ***

  Liz stared up at the sky as the Jeep sped down the long, straight stretch of highway to Albuquerque.

  "Looking for binary pairs?" Max asked softly.

  She hadn't been, but she said yes, anyway, remembering a night not too long ago when she and Max had sat in the parked Jeep, talking about the future, looking up at the star-filled sky. That night she had told Max that the two of them were like a binary pair, two stars so close together, they appeared to shine the same light. That had been the night Max had finally agreed they could be more than just friends, a night she'd never forget.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Max reached over and took her hand.

  Liz felt a little shiver whisk along her spine. She couldn't shake the image of that hand, Max's hand, covered in gore. Clawing open DuPris's body cavity.

  "Max, do you trust the collective consciousness?" The question burst out of her.

  "I don't know what you mean," he answered, his voice flat.

  "I know what she means," Alex jumped in. "She means totally without your permission-no, more than that, totally against your will-the consciousness used you to try and kill someone. Not exactly a trust builder."

  "I explained to you that the beings in the consciousness were furious. Basically they just lost it when they saw DuPris," Max said. His grip on Liz's hand tightened.

  "And that's okay with you?" Michael demanded. "Because you had your akino and joined them, they can just make you do whatever they want whenever?"

  Liz was glad to hear that she wasn't the only one who had some doubts about the consciousness. Hopefully hearing concerns from all of them would get Max thinking.

  "Not whenever," Max protested. "It was just that one time."

  He didn't answer Michael's first question, Liz noted. She knew the answer, anyway. What the consciousness had done to Max was not okay with him.

  She twisted her hair into a knot on the top of her head, something that always helped her think better. And something that gave her a reason to slip her hand away from Max's
.

  "It's already turning out to be more than one time," she finally said, working to keep her tone gentle. "Now they've ordered you to open the wormhole and send DuPris back."

  "Ray Iburg is part of the consciousness. My parents are part of the consciousness. You don't think that's enough of a reason to trust it?" Max exclaimed.

  Ah, there it was, Liz thought. The reason Max wasn't letting himself acknowledge that he hated what the consciousness had done to him.

  "There are millions of beings in the consciousness, though, right?" Maria asked tentatively. "So what Ray or your parents want, that might not be what the consciousness makes you do."

  "They aren't making me do anything," Max snapped.

  Michael snorted. "Tell that to DuPris," he muttered under his breath.

  Max wrapped his arm around Liz and pulled her closer against him. The wrinkled spot on his neck brushed against her cheek. She twisted around and ran her fingers over the patch of skin. It felt dry and hard, mummified. "Do you know what did this to you?" she asked. She was almost positive she knew the answer, but she wanted to hear what Max would say.

  "Huh-uh," he answered. Liz felt like shaking him. She would have if she thought it would do any good.

  "I know I'm not a science geek like the two of you," Alex said, leaning across Liz to check out Max's neck. "But even to me it seems significant that it appeared right after the consciousness had control of Max."

  "I guess," Max mumbled.

  "When they had control, it drained you," Liz said, deciding to spell it out for him since he didn't seem capable of analyzing the situation on his own. "You're still exhausted. What I want to know is-" She pulled in a deep breath. "What's going to happen to you when you open that wormhole? How much is that going to take out of you? Are you going to end up like this all over your body?" She flicked the wrinkled spot. "Are you… are you going to die?"

  Max didn't answer, but Liz felt the tension filling his muscles.

  "Didn't the consciousness bother to tell you what could happen?" Michael demanded.