Stargazer Gets the Girl
Chapter 23-F The Circle Grows
By Stargazer MD
As Deputy Owen Blackwood approached the car he had just stopped, he wondered which one of the many excuses he had heard innumerable times this hapless driver would try. To his surprise, there was none.
“Is there a problem officer?”
“It’s Deputy, and yes, there is a problem. I don’t like you city folks coming into our town and tearing up our roads. You were doing seventy-three in a thirty-five.” (117 kph in a 55 kph zone) “Let me see your license, registration, and proof of insurance.”
The driver smirked as he handed over the requested documents.
“Am I supposed to know you?”
“I’m Josh Kelley!”
“Who?”
“Josh Kelley. I just starred in a righteous video.”
“Co-starred at best, maybe,” Deputy Blackwood replied dismissively. “Why don’t you get a haircut and get a real job?”
“Listen, just give me my ticket and I’ll be on my way. I got things to do, and places to be,,,”
“Ticket? You don’ get no stinking ticket! This is Egypt. The land of de-nial,” Deputy Blackwood chuckled as he drew his Colt Super-Python wheel-gun and blew the offender into the next county. “Four bit parts,” he muttered to himself as he walked back to his cruiser. “Four bit parts, six years ago, on a show that’s been cancelled, and I still can’t find my way out of this one busted-ass spaceship town. I got to get a new agent.”
**********
Meanwhile, at the opposite end of town, Isabel slid the Volvo into the Taco Shack’s parking lot, but her concern wasn’t just for Ava. “I don’t want you anywhere near any of these picnic tables. I don’t want you sitting, leaning, nothing. If you get one stain on your uniform pants, you’ll rue the day you were hatched.”
“But I wasn’t hatched,” Alex answered to the now empty car.
Kyle saw Isabel approach the table, and he stood, making room for her, but he continued to watch her with concern as Alex sided up next to him.
“Ava, what’s wrong?”
“Buddha Boy tried to kill me,” Ava quipped. “I think he left the Tabasco out in the sun and it turned into turpentine. It kicked and burned all the way down.”
“What else did you eat?”
“I had one of my special burritos, but it tasted like it was made with road kill, week old road kill at that.”
Isabel looked up to see Liz approach with a small package in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. “Ava, try this,” she said softly offering the snack to the newest alien.
“What is it?
“Just try it,” Isabel said reassuringly as she instantly caught on to what Liz was thinking.
The gang watched with differing levels of comprehension as Ava took a tentative bite of her first unadulterated taco. “What-is-this?” Ava gasped as she proceeded to shove the rest of the snack into her mouth. “This is great!”
“Your first bite was mostly grated cheese and sour cream,” Isabel advised with a smile on her face. “If you like that just wait until you try one of Amy’s pies.”
“Pie? You mean they get better?” Ava asked in amazement.
“Pie, cheesecake, hamburgers,,,”
“Wait until you try Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream,,,”
“You mean food taste like this all the time?”
Michael looked on uncomprehendingly as the girls swarmed Ava and assured her that she was in for a real treat. He looked over to Alex. “You’d think it was a big thing.”
Alex simply nodded in response. He did not want to discourage his friend by pointing out how much his new alien taste buds differed from his old ones, especially since that unless Michael got his period, there was no way that he would ever be able to experience what Ava was about to go through.
Kyle sat next to Ava, a bottle of Goya Lemon-Lime in his hand. An experienced party animal, he was the first to notice Ava slip from an appearance of euphoria to distress. “She’s going to blow!” he said in alarm, retreating to a safe distance.
Ignoring the scattering teens, Isabel stepped forward and spun Ava away from the table top, and handed her a trash can. As spasms rocked Ava’s boy while it pumped itself dry, Isabel rubbed her back and reassured her that everything would be all right.
“What the frack was that?” Ava demanded as she rinsed her mouth with water and spat into the trash can.
“You’re getting your period,” Isabel answered softly with a shy smile on her face.
As the conversation turned serious, the rest of the group faded away, leaving only Ava and Isabel sitting at the table, while Alex and Kyle were watching them from the sidelines. “You didn’t seem too interested in what Isabel went through a little while ago,,,”
“Not my thing,” Kyle cut in. “When a girl goes broke for her five days, that means a five day vacation for me.”
“Not this time,” Alex answered earnestly. “She wouldn’t be getting her period unless she considered you to be a possible mate,,,”
“Mate!”
“Mate. Maybe she isn’t ready to start a family, but she’s apparently ready to pick you.”
Kyle looked over to Ava where Isabel was in instruction mode. “There’s two very real threats, one to you, and the other to all of us.”
“How can my getting my period threaten all of us?”
“Your eyes are going to change. If anyone sees you, there will be no doubt in their mind that you’re not from around here,,,”
“But you can tell me when that’s going to happen, right? I can stay inside.”
“Yea, it will be right after you finish your hornys,,,”
“Horny? I’m going to get horny?”
“Oh yea, if you’re not careful, you’ll kill Kyle. On the other hand, if he’s not careful, you’ll become pregnant.”
“Isabel,” Ava protested, “Although Zan introduced me to the wonders of back-alley sex at a much more tender age than when you started, I’m in control.”
“You won’t be, Ava. That’s part of the cycle. You will be insanely horny until Kyle satisfies you, and if you don’t have an alternative plan,,,”
“Well, that’s easy. I’m not you. I’m not a good-girl princess. Thanks to Zan’s perverted love of trash can sex, Kyle here can make a visit via the back door, float my boat, and then we’ll come out the other side, none the worse for wear.” Ava’s happily saw that her rather earthy plan had the desired effect. “You should see your face!” Ava teased.
“I,,, I,,,“ Isabel gasped, but she calmed as Ava put her hand over hers.
“I’m sorry, Isabel,” Ava said contritely. “I’m used to every conversation being a fight, but seriously, we’ll be fine. Kyle may have started out having a thing for Tess, but he’s finding out that he’s better off with me. He’s learning that I don’t tease, I’m not hung up on my dead husband, and if he treats me right, I can match him kink for kink.” Ava stood up and walked towards the parking lot and their waiting guys, but she was unprepared for the tight warm hug that Isabel pulled her into.
“Call me if you need anything,” Isabel said softly. “There’s only two of us, and we have to take care of each other.”
“I will,,,”
“But Ava,” Alex commanded softly as he reclaimed his mate. “Not tonight!”
**********
Monday morning Maria was at Liz’s locker when they were joined by Isabel. “Is Alex okay?” Liz asked with concern.
“What?” Isabel asked, panic rising in her voice.
“His teeth!” Maria said reassuringly as she stepped closer and placed a comforting hand on her tall friends arm.
”Everything alright?” Alex asked.
“Everything’s fine. False alarm,”
“I thought I felt something,,,”
“Maria’s teasing me again.”
“Okay,” Alex replied, not questioning Isabel’s simple fib, knowing that his two girlfriends were always trying to one-up each other. “Love you.”
“Max took care of it yesterday. It’s as if they’re brand new.”
“So you guys never go to the dentist?”
“Yea, kind of like that whole fear of being discovered thing,,,”
“But that means you miss out on Doctor Medeiros” Maria gasped.
Isabel ignored Maria, choosing instead to respond to Liz’s unspoken question.
“With Michael’s special mouthwash and Max giving us a check-up every six months, we’re fine. And with Alex changing, he’ll have to start the same routine,” Isabel concluded as she looked askance at Maria.
“Don’t worry about her,” Liz teased. “Doctor Medeiros has a habit of leaning in on you when he’s working. His chest is as hard as a rock, he doesn’t wear a tee-shirt under his scrubs, and,,,”
“When he says ‘open wide,’ I have to physically struggle to keep my knees together,,,”
“Maria! I can’t believe you’d say that,,,”
Liz was struck by the fiery expression on Isabel’s face as well as the look of hurt on Maria’s and knew she had to stop this fast. “Isabel, Maria would never do anything like that! She wouldn’t cheat on Michael! It’s just a harmless daydream,,,”
“I know she wouldn’t do that for real,” Isabel pleaded. “But you still don’t understand. It may surprise you that while I always knew Alex and I would have some kind of a future together, I didn’t realize that I couldn’t live without him until that horrible night when l got his call from the hospital. But by that time the damage was done. I had been window shopping through the male population of Roswell for too long.”
Isabel paused and looked around fugitively before leaning in and continuing in a soft but earnest voice, “Now you can never tell him that I told you this, because he would be mortified if you learned that he ever had a cross word for me, but I’m living under an ultimatum. He would gladly kill or die for me, but if I ever ‘Grant’ him again, he’ll leave town, go to M.I.T., and never look back. Our connection,,, If he ever saw an image like that in my mind,,,”
“Iz,” Liz said calmly, reassuring her troubled friend, “Alex would never hold something as innocent as an errant thought against you, we raised him better than that,,,”
“Liz,” Isabel cut in, “I don’t ever want to find out, and more importantly, I’m never going to give him a reason to have to make that decision.”
**********
Later that afternoon Isabel climbed out of the car with a smile on her face, The tall teen practically floated up the walk, but she was almost knocked to the ground as Gloria blasted from the house.
“You know what?” Gloria blurted out, “You can have him.” She turned away and took a step or two, and then stormed back. “In fact, you know what? He’s brain damaged. As a matter of fact, you’re both brain damaged, and since brain damage is hereditary causing parents to get it from their children, I’m going over to your mother’s house to get drunk.” Gloria turned on her heel and stormed off muttering all the while, “I’ve never seen two people more suited for each other. Your going to be the happy brain-damaged wife married to the perfect brain-damaged husband in the perfect brain- damaged family raising cute brain-damaged children,,,” her tirade only falling off as her car door slammed behind her.
“Alex!” Isabel called out before she was completely through the door. “What the frack did you do to your mother?”
“In here.”
Isabel stormed into the dining room , but she stopped on a dime at the sight that awaited her. “Now what are you doing?” she asked in total confusion.
“I’m working on a project that came up on my ‘snack time’ web site,” Alex replied as he tore open a box of ‘Snyder’s of Hanover’ hard sourdough pretzels and started to quickly and efficiently lay the pretzels out on the paper covered table.
“What project?” Isabel asked skeptically as she looked at the two other opened boxes that stood like signpost at the top of a growing array of the salty baked treats.
“Have you ever thought about pretzels?” Alex asked offhandedly. Ignoring her negative response he continued, “Why some are whole, why others are broken? Did they break in the factory, or after they were in the package?”
Isabel’s countenance broke as she realized that there was no crisis in the making, and began to enjoy watching her mate pursue one of life’s oh so little mysteries that he found so entertaining. “Tell me what you found out.”
Alex looked at Isabel with a smile on his face, happy that she was buying into his activities, but her practically started purring when she draped her arm over his shoulder and leaned into his side. “Here’s package one,” he explained. “A paperboard carton with an inner sealed bag containing fourteen ounces (400 grams) of product. When opened, I found nine intact pretzels, four reconstituted pretzels from broken parts, seven pretzels missing one upper arm, one pretzel missing both upper arms, and four orphaned arms.”
“Interesting,” Isabel replied as she popped one of his ‘orphaned arms’ into her mouth.
“Hey,” Alex complained. “That’s my research.”
“Sweetie,” Isabel teased. “It’s a pretzel. Besides, you’ve already categorized this exhibit. So how does this box compare to the others?” she continued, barely able to keep a straight face as she snagged another sample.
“They’re all about the same,” Alex related seriously. “Nine, nine and ten intact pretzels, not to mention the fact that the amount and patterns of damage is similar. Now it’s easy to deduce that the reconstituted pretzels were broken either as they were being packaged or during shipping, but what about the other fragments? When were they broken? There is no cross-over between the boxes. None of the orphan parts from any box fit any of the partial pretzels from either of the other boxes,,,”
“You’re assuming facts not in evidence.”
“Is that lawyer speak?” Alex asked with newfound interest. “You know how hot I get when you go all ‘professional woman’ on me.”
“You’re assuming that the whatever parts of a broken pretzel doesn’t make it in one box will end up in the next box, but the problem with that is that there is no way on knowing that these are sequential boxes from the same production run,,,”
“You’re a genius!” Alex exclaimed as he bolted upright and started to look for his laptop. “There is no way to factor in the randomness of how they were placed on the shelf at the store. I’m going to have to expand my research to a larger sample set. I’ll order a box directly from the factory, that way I’ll know they are from a sequential run,,,”
“Alex, Alex! I hate to reign in your enthusiasm, but isn’t this the kind of task you can delegate to one of your web trolls? We have more important things to do, like get out to the Granolith chamber.” ‘Not to mention, mending some fences with your Mother,’ she added silently.
**********
Isabel paused in front of the door to the pod chamber, turning towards her fiancé expectantly. Alex stepped forward and hesitantly swiped his hand over the rock. Even though his status as Interface with the Granolith granted him rights to the chamber, he did not feel comfortable opening the door to her birth chamber while she was present, but all that faded away as he descended into the pod chamber and heard the sound of an agitated Maria.
Maria turned away from Michael and sailed into Alex. “What have you two been up to?” she demanded before she turned back to her boyfriend. Seeing that her verbal harangue wasn’t getting her anywhere, she started to slap him about the head and shoulders. “You’re up to something, now why don’t you make it easy on yourself and tell me.”
“Maria! Stop beating up on Michael,” Isabel commanded as she quickly placed herself between the two of them. “You know he can’t defend himself.”
Alex looked around the chamber and noticing several missing people he asked, “Where are Kyle and Ava?”
“Ava’s at home,” Liz explained. “She’s developed a love for toast. She has Kyle driving all around town buying different kinds of breads at all the bakeries and the Sheriff is going crazy making up different combinations of toast and toppings.”
“Well, that’s a whole lot cheaper and easier than having lobsters flown in from New Hampshire,” Isabel teased.
“Hey, you would have loved them if I could have gotten them here in time,” Alex rebutted defensively. “Now you’re going to have to wait another year to try them.”
“You never bought me lobsters,” Maria exclaimed as she reached around Isabel’s back and gave him another swat.
“Ria, You’d hate lobster,” Michael reasoned. “They go into a pot of boiling water while they are still alive, they squeal when they hit the water, and they get put onto your plate whole. They have these big bug like eyes, and they watch you while you break them apart with your bare hands and eat them.”
“There goes my appetite,” Isabel sighed.
“Ewww,” Maria moaned, turning her attention from Michael to Alex. “How could you do that to those poor little creatures?”
“Maria, have you ever seen a lobster?” Liz quizzed. “They look like overgrown cockroaches. You step on cockroaches and you boil lobsters. That’s their lot in life.”
“Thanks for that visual,” Isabel said to no one in particular. “Maybe it’s a good thing Ava’s not here.”
“Hey!” Alex shouted. “Can we get down to the reason why we’re all here?” The chamber was suddenly silent as all eyes turned on him, a situation which caused his momentary flash of bravado to evaporate. Looking around the room, he was able however to take comfort in the open countenances on his friends faces, but then Isabel came to his rescue.
“Alex has been working on a project with the Granolith for a couple of months now, inverting considerable time and expense into keeping us safe,,, right?” she led off.
“Ahhmm, yea,” Alex stammered before trotting to the back wall of the chamber and retrieving a large duffel. He carried it to the center of the room and dropped it at his feet. “A little while ago I was brushing Isabel’s hair and letting her win at Jeopardy,,,”
“Hey,,,” Isabel protested.
Alex smiled at his obviously transparent fib. “While I was doing that, I was thinking about the past year and what I would do to protect her. I took my EMT course, and that really came in handy when she broke her arm in Texas, but I realized that my medical skills and Max’s healing skills are reactionary at best, and with three of us being shot in just over a year, not to mention blast injuries, we need to be more proactive. So that made me think of my vest. It saved my life,” Alex subconsciously scratched his chest at this point. “That night, while Isabel slept, I consulted with the Granolith, and came up with a plan.” Alex opened the duffle and started pulling out individual totes. Seeing his fiancé approach, he dug deeper into the duffle and handed her hers.
Isabel examined the markings on the tote before pulling out the vest, the research she performed before purchasing Alex’s vest fresh in her mind. “A Second Chance Monarch?” she asked, but as she pulled the garment out she had her doubts. “This isn’t heavy enough to be rated threat three-A. I don’t see a carrier, no ballistic panels, what gives?”
“This is a Granolith Special,” he answered as he passed out the rest of the garments. “It’s decades ahead of it’s time, and the Granolith designed it to be stealthy. Once it’s body formed to you, no one will even know you have it on, yet it provides better protection than anything on the market. Instead of bulky ballistic panels, the Granolith morphed the Kevlar carrier utilizing a fluidic nano technology that allows ease of motion until an outside source of energy applies itself, at which time the energy of the weapon itself is utilized to solidify the Kevlar, protecting the wearer.”
“And if we run into Nicholas?”
“The Kevlar is the inner protective system, it protects us against human threats, like knives and bullets. The Granolith designed the outer system of the vest to protect us from Czechoslovakian threats, like contact burns or energy bolts. The outer layer is a thin skin of copper mesh. It’s highly conductive, and will actually draw an incoming bolt to the center of the vest. Then, once the energy has been drawn into the copper, it is conducted to a lower layer of carbon composite fiber that adsorbs and dissipates the energy as heat.”
“And this works?” Liz asked excitedly as she put her vest on over her clothing.
“Michael hit it with his best stuff,” Alex replied proudly. “Wore himself out, and didn’t so much as discolor the nylon shell. The Granolith figures that one of these could withstand ten full power bolts a minute before the carbon starts to break down, so that means that we could be outnumbered five to one and still have a good fighting chance.”
“What about a shot that misses the vest?” Max challenged.
“In the case of a bullet, shooters are trained to aim for center mass, which the vest protects,” Alex lectured. “If they miss, well that’s why this is last resort protection. I don’t want anyone running out and starting a gunfight, our best protection is prevention, but in the case of a bolt, the copper will actually draw a near miss into the center of the vest, thus protecting the entire body.”
“Sounds too good to be true,” Liz exclaimed.
“It works,” Michael replied flatly.
“What the frack does that mean,” Isabel challenged. Turning towards Alex, she continued in a tone of voice which brook no arguments or evasions. “I know you two have been up to something,” Isabel challenged. “The only reason you’re still breathing is that I’ve been trusting that it needed to be done. So why don’t you stop postponing the inevitable and tell us what happened.”
Alex turned to Michael, who declined the invitation, explaining, “I’m going to be in enough trouble with Maria. I’m not going to piss off Isabel too.”
“Hugh?” Max asked.
“Rath and Lonnie came to town,,,” Alex choked out, only to be drowned out by a chorus of questions and demands.
“Hey, hey!” Alex practically shouted, trying to get control.
“Why weren’t we told?” Max demanded.
“You are being told,” Michael shot back. “Or at least you will be as soon as you give the guy a minute to speak.”
“There’s really not much to tell. Lonnie and Rath were at the old soap factory. Since you admitted you had the Granolith, they came looking for it,” Alex related while giving Maxa sour look. “I was here with Michael blast testing the vests, when the Granolith detected their presence, and it told us where they were hiding. We decided the odds were in our favor, and decided to run them out of town before they could cause any trouble,,,”
“So the two of you decided to take them on?” Max asked coldly. “You know what happened to me,,,”
“We’d have to be a special kind of stupid to do what you did Maximllion,” Michael replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You were outnumbered three to one and walked into an ambush with your eyes wide shut. We had the tactical advantage. We had superior firepower, superior defenses, and the element of surprise,,,”
“You got the jump on them?” Isabel challenged.
“Yea,” Alex admitted softly. “We caught them completely by surprise. Michael and Rath exchanged some fireworks, the vest protecting Michael, but Rath got busted up bad,,,”
“Lonnie?” Isabel asked fearfully. “You didn’t turn her back on her,,,”
“Lonnie wasn’t a problem,” Alex answered evasively.
“Once Lonnie found out that Isabel held the Royal Seal and she saw the Granolith’s seal on Alex, the wind kind of went out of her sails,” Michael explained.
“What does Isabel having the seal have to do with anything?” Max muttered.
“Lonnie knows you,” Alex answered confidently, “But she also knows herself. I don’t think she wants to go up against a duplicate of herself, and since she doesn’t know that Ava’s really a part of our Four Square, I told her that that with both Zan and Tess dead, neither group can gain full control over it,,,” Alex confessed while sending some loving to his mate to take the sting out of his words.
“And they believed you?” Isabel interjected disbelievingly.
“Doesn’t really matter what they believe, ” Michael rebutted. “Alex gave them an ultimatum. If they step in New Mexico, he’ll take it as a threat to Isabel and the girls, and he’ll kill them. No warning. They’ll never know what hits them,,,”
“And what do they get?” Max cut in.
“New York City,,,”
“What? We can’t go to New York?” Maria barked out. “You kept New Mexico and gave up New York? I must have been thinking with your ass because you certainly got screwed in that deal,,,”
“They have to have something,” Alex replied defensively. “It’s their home.”
“Do you think they’ll honor the deal?” Max questioned.
I don’t think they’ll be back,” Alex postulated. “There’s no reason for them to. Lonnie doesn’t want to take Isabel on and Rath would never risk getting both of the Vilandra clones together,,,”
“Afraid is a strong word,” Michael interrupted.
“Leary?”
“Leary,” Michael agreed. “Rath knows that if he pisses Isabel off she’ll come straight at him, all the while he would have to worry about Lonnie stabbing him in the back,,,”
“You should have killed them both while you had the chance,” Liz interjected.
“Liz!” Maria gasped.
“’Leave no enemy intact behind you’,,,” she deadpanned.
“You’re reading Sun Tzu?” Michael asked in amazement.
Liz faced off against her larger friend. “I read a lot of things,” she explained before turning back to the group. “Who’s been brought back from the brink of death? Lets see; Me, Alex, Kyle, Alex again, Max. How long do you think we’re going to be able to beat the odds? Come college, we’re going to be splitting up and I for one don’t want to see us picked off one by one. If we have a chance to eliminate a threat to any one of us, we have to take it.”
With this thought to dwell on, the group started to break up and headed for the Granolith chamber so it could contour fit their vest, but first Isabel took Alex hand and pulled him off to the side. “Don’t think this means I’m not mad at you,” she said softly. “But I understand why you did it.” Alex didn’t reply, but she did feel a tingle run up her arm from their joined hands. “I agree with Liz though, you should have killed them when you had the chance. Dupes, skins, Nicholas, Kivar, you can’t hesitate.”
“You mean murder them?” Alex gasped.
“No! Not murder!” Isabel emphasized. “Advantage or not, you were engaged in self defense the moment they raised their hands towards you. You don’t think they would have killed you if they could?” Isabel stopped and held his hand over her heart. “This isn’t about us,” she whispered earnestly. “It’s about Cassie, Andy, and Rion. Our children. I don’t want them to go through what I’ve gone through, what I’ve put you through,,,”
“Izzy,,,” Alex protested the pain in her voice where she implied that she had hurt him, but she pressed on.
“We’ve seen our children in our dreams. Now I don’t know if they’re real or if they’re just wishful thinking, but we are going to have a family, and I’m not going to let anyone hurt them,,,”
“No one’s ever going to hurt them, or you,” Alex answered with his heart and soul as he lowered his forehead to touch her own.
Isabel took comfort from him for a moment before her duty to the others reclaimed her attention, but as she took his hand and led him towards the pods she couldn’t help implore him once again. “No mercy. They’ve been hurting us for a century. It has to stop.”
As Alex got on his hands and knees to follow Isabel through to the Granolith chamber to join the others, he couldn’t help but think that if they were going to keep coming here he would need to have it create a proper doorway, but this thought was driven from his mind as the Granolith surrounded him and his mate in crystal identification cylinders. “Aw frack!” he bellowed. “Now what!”
TBC
My completed stories:
The Seekers, I&A with angst
http://www.majiksfanfic.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=282
Alex C Whitman SSAIC, I&A with uber-angst
http://www.majiksfanfic.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=488
: In control
i'm sure Alex can meet her needs 
