Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 10:19 pm
Thanks for coming back to read!
Island Breeze, I'm glad you are still reading! Thanks for the comment about Liz's explanation about why she's with Max. That was kind of difficult to write
XVII
Small Talk
“Are you sure it will be all right?” Liz asked with concern.
“Yeah, it’s not the first time that something like this has happened,” Dave said for the tenth time in the past ten minutes. Still, Liz felt horrible.
About twenty minutes before, she had finally taken Dave’s offer of a steamy mug of hot chocolate, so five minutes later, courtesy of Max being startled by something –startling her in the process-, she had dropped half of it over Dave’s desk… over Dave’s puzzle… effectively ruining about twenty of the pieces that were lying closest to her. Oh my God! Liz had half said, half yelled, and her eyes had moved faster than light to catch Dave’s expression. And Dave had been looking at his puzzle, a sad and resigned smile on his lips.
“It was too much that it had survived Michael,” Dave had finally said, getting up and going for a towel, Liz moving tiny pieces out of the way, hot chocolate dripping into the soft carpet.
“It does happen a lot that I miss pieces and all,” Dave had said, giving Liz a small thin towel to dry herself while he wiped the table with another one. “Don’t worry, I always make someone produce the pieces I no longer have. Because, as you must know, an incomplete puzzle is just no fun at all.” Dave had smiled one of the warmest smiles Liz had ever seen on anyone. How could a man like him have such a perfect smile? Liz had wondered not for the first time that day, but now she was helping him dry the last drops off the table. “Those empty spaces could drive me nuts,” he had said taking some of the wet pieces and looking at them with an even more resigned face. Then he had left those, and looking at her he must have noticed that she was still waiting for something else to happen. “Come on, sit down. There’s no real harm.”
And ever since that moment Liz had been saying how sorry she was, because ruining a 15,000 piece puzzle was a major aggravation to anyone, no matter who that anyone was. But Liz had finally sat down again, biting her lower lip, not even looking at the mug in front of her. “I ruined your puzzle,” Liz said one final time. “I really am sorry... It was Jake’s present, wasn’t it?”
“Kyle does have a good memory if he remembered that,” Dave said, seating himself in his own chair. “And you do too. I wasn’t expecting that little detail to remain in your minds.” Oh, that little detail and hundreds of other little details were being put by Liz on a mental map so she could get to see the links. On some intuitive level she knew that Dave was telling more than he should… that there were clues to who he was. It was almost as if he wanted them to discover something about him. Just… not too quickly.
“Is it hard?” Dave asked her, bringing Liz back to the conversation. “You know, to be suddenly startled by something you felt from Max?”
“How do you know I was startled by Max’s feelings?” Liz asked defensively, and with more than just a little bit of concern. How could Dave tell?
“I didn’t know it, you’ve just confirmed it,” Dave said raising one eyebrow, giving her a one-sided smile.
“Oh…” Liz said, ashamed of herself. It was the second time she had fallen into that verbal trap. First telling him the “diamond” was a key, and now this… Still, Dave kept watching her, thinking something, apparently.
“Everything is all right, isn’t it?” Dave asked, a little bit worried. It took her a second to realize that he was asking if everything was all right with her husband. Once that hit her, she nodded rapidly.
“Yeah, it was just… something startled him, like… maybe a loud noise or someone suddenly coming out of nowhere… After a while, you just sort of catch on… what is important and what is not…”
“How much is ‘a while’?” Dave asked frowning a little, a genuine curiosity getting the best of him. Liz mentally sighed in frustration. How much information was “too” much information in this situation? She really wanted Dave to see Max and Michael and Isabel as what they truly were: Beings with souls just as valuable as any human soul. So… how much did she have to say for that point to be clear? Well, whatever “too” much was, she had to try to be honest with this.
“A year… maybe more… we aren’t exactly sure when it started.”
“Does it ever scare you?” Dave asked with a soft voice. “I mean, you’ve already told me it’s worth it, but do you ever think of him as anything other than who he is?”
Like what he is? Liz thought to herself. The funny thing was, she didn’t think about that at all. She had every right in the world to do so, and yet she just couldn’t bring herself to see Max as anything other than… Max. Slightly shaking her head “no”, she smiled. “Not from the moment he let me see him.”
“What about when things weren’t… normal? His life changed yours; that much you’ve told me so far… but wasn’t it something that made you afraid?” Dave pointed out, leaning back in his chair.
“Yeah…” Liz conceded, but still… “But even when things got so strange or dangerous I—I don’t know… One day I was running from their enemies, and the next I was sitting in a class room. I started the day talking about the latest History assignment and ten minutes later it would be about intergalactic war…” Liz said, acknowledging that he was right, her life had been complete chaos at some points, but there were things that he couldn’t possibly know about how she had managed to survive it. “And yet, through all of it, that… that strange balance between his world and my world… Max would never be anything else but himself. And…” Liz paused, trying to put her own thoughts together, “at some point you just accept that that is how life is and you keep going. I mean, there were times when I could kiss him, times when I could kick him, times when all I wanted in the world was to see him, and when I just wished he had never entered my life, but,” Liz emphasized, “Max has never, ever scared me. He just wouldn’t hurt me at all. Never like that.”
“You never wondered how strange all this is?” Dave asked, almost as if he were trying to picture himself in the same position, “I mean, it didn’t really scare you when you started this… ‘connection’ with him?”
What was up with Dave and this “being scared” scenarios? Liz thought briefly. Yet, Liz shook her head no once again. “It was just natural… feeling him…” Liz said with a small smile, thinking about all the times when that connection had been the only way of knowing if Max was all right, and all the feelings they shared. And then she remembered the darkest side of it. “And even if I can’t tell you when it exactly started between all our ups and downs,” Liz said seriously now, “I can tell you when exactly we knew for sure.”
“When Max died?” Dave asked almost above a whisper. It startled Liz all the same. How--? Of course, Max had told Jake… he had told him just yesterday, and Dave already knew… Of course he already knew.
“How did you guess that?” Liz said, now acknowledging that Dave hadn’t really known about it. He had guessed it.
“How could I not guess it? Somebody dying, somebody you love so much dying is one of the worst things you can feel. Something that strong must have knocked you down, especially since it happened a year ago, right?”
“You are a very perceptive man…” Liz slowly said, her mind not in the conversation but on a night a year ago when she had known beyond doubt that Max was dead. Gosh, she was so cold so suddenly she shivered. But Max was fine back in the present day, though feeling slightly guilty now that Liz was focusing on his feelings.
“You sound as if you already know about that pain,” Liz said, reassuring herself that Max was indeed okay, yet trying to not lose the slightest chance of getting to know one more piece of Dave’s past.
“A long time ago…” Dave said dismissively. He was clearly not thinking about whatever had caused him that pain. That absence of importance –especially since it was about something personal- made Liz look closely at him. It was so strange that one minute Dave’s eyes looked as if they knew every single secret she had kept for four years, and the next he was just not there, his eyes seemingly lost.
What secrets was he concealing from her? And what if this wasn’t a game to him –as she sometimes thought this was- but something much more serious? For one second her curiosity got the best of her making her a little bit bold. She wanted to know just as bad as he wanted to know. She wanted to know everything.
“You know,” Liz started, a little unsure of how to ask what she wanted to know, but all the same getting Dave’s attention. “I’ve been telling you for hours now what has happened since the first day I met Max, but… what about you? Is there anyone with you?” Liz ventured to ask. What was the worst that could happen? That Dave just ignored the question?
“Anyone?” Dave asked unsure, and then, “You mean a woman?” Dave smiled as Liz nodded, his eyes slightly moving to one side of the table, not getting that lost look, but more of a playful one at some memory. “Women are beautiful, intuitive as hell, the best lie detectors ever invented, but… they are also too… complicated,” he said, frowning a little. “Of course, there is Susset; without her, half the time I wouldn’t know what time zone I’m in. So I guess you could say there is a woman in my life.”
Now, this was getting interesting. Liz looked at him with even more curiosity. “So, she’s like…” she said, trying to keep Dave talking. But instead, Dave turned to look at her, waiting for her to finish. Liz lowered her eyes a little. When Dave was staring at you, he had the ability to make you feel as if you were under a microscope. “You’re not in love with her, but is she? She’s like in love with you or something?”
Dave laughed. A chuckle at first, and then he let go a good laugh. “Good Lord, Susset is only capable of loving her work. I swear to you, even when Jake, Ray and I are totally exhausted, that woman can keep going and going. So I guess the answer is ‘no’. Susset knows better than to be in love if she wants the job to get done. She’s my assistant,” Dave finally clarified.
The news took her by surprise. Liz almost turned around, waiting to find a secretary in one corner typing everything that was being said in the room. Dave smiled at her. “We’re on vacation. She’s somewhere on this planet, as far away from me as I could get her,” he joked, lowering his eyes to his puzzle and sounding a little bit annoyed at the thought of this Susset being near him. He seemed to sense this, because, turning to look at her, he amended: “Oh, she’s a sweetie, but she can drive me nuts as no other mortal can in this world when I’m on vacation. Sometimes I even think the word ‘vacation’ is either an insult to her, or the word just doesn’t make sense in her mind.”
“Does she know? About us?” Liz uncertainly asked. Had Dave lied on that account?
“No,” he politely said, his eyes focused on her, almost warm. “That was the deal. Only Jake, Ray and I know.” Oh, he might still be lying, but all the same Liz believed him. Besides, even if he wasn’t telling the truth, what could she do about it?
Nodding, Liz kept silent for a couple of seconds. Then, another question, “You’re on vacation?” confused, she turned to look at him. Dave, on the contrary, gave her the broadest of smiles. “Sure thing! I refuse to work when my birthday is coming. And seriously, do you think I would consider these interviews work?”
Rather coldly, Liz answered him, “I’m not even sure what exactly we are to you. For that matter, I don’t even know what your work is all about to begin with.”
“Ah, the big mystery of who I am,” he said. Was he mocking her? “Well, if you want to know, my work is not all that glamorous. Most of my companies are run by other people, and I’m just a major investor. That way I can keep an eye on things without me being the one in the public eye. I mean, by now you already know how much I value being anonymous. This is the best way of doing it. I’m just lots and lots of numbers on lots and lots of bank accounts.” Dave smiled, not at her, but more likely at the idea of what he had said. Liz couldn’t tell, but somehow, it amused him to be a number.
“Ray said that you have your projects…” Liz tentatively said. “Is that what we are to you?”
Dave doubted what to answer her for two seconds. “… I guess the answer would be ‘yes’ and ‘no’. My ‘projects’ rarely involve people. They are researches of various kinds, fields that I have some personal interest in. That’s why I own a company which could scan the entire radio telescope network. And it is because of Jake that I’m also aware of DNA researches.” Dave chuckled. “Incredible isn’t it? If it weren’t for Jake, I would have never paid attention to DNA research as closely as I do. I would have never found out about you. I would have never made the link between the signal coming from Roswell and the DNA found on your dress when Meta Chem hired us later on.”
They both stared at each other for the briefest of moments, truly seeing for one instant the chain of events that had led to this moment in time. How many things had conspired for things to happen, and how many more were actually working right now?
“But,” Dave continued, diverting his eyes away from Liz’s, “the most sensitive of my projects are developed here. The most commercial are developed elsewhere.” He was triggering Liz’s curiosity further on, and she didn’t disappoint him.
“Sensitive? What do you mean ‘sensitive’?”
“Oh, come on Liz. Don’t you want to go spying all around this place?” Dave said with the most sincere of smiles. “Why do you think I gave you all white cards to begin with?” Liz blushed, a little bit embarrassed. Spying on this place had been the first idea she had gotten to begin with. Talk about perceptive.
“But if you truly want a clue of what my projects are, you are part of one of them: Getting to know how their powers work would open a million possibilities for other matters. I told Michael that, though he did point out how little he believed of what I’d said…” Dave concluded, releasing a small sigh, slightly frowning and thinking about something that had happened in that room just 24 hours earlier.
“Michael hardly believes anything… but once you earn his trust, he’ll stick to you no matter what,” Liz cautiously said. She had to prove to Dave –and to anyone else- that they couldn’t just possibly see Max, Michael and Isabel as these heartless, emotionless creatures from outer space. And all that she was getting from this bizarre situation was the feeling that if she didn’t say the right things somehow Dave could be viewing them as, well, plain aliens. And the three of them were so human, he had to see that. He had to.
“The trick, of course, is earning it,” Dave was saying, finishing her thought about Michael’s trust. “I was certainly going on the wrong way yesterday when he shattered my window,” Dave said, slightly moving his head to his right as a way of signaling it. “How did you manage the trick? Somehow I don’t think Max’s faith in you was… contagious.”
“You can say that again,” Liz said, finding herself in the distant memories of a time when Isabel could barely stand her, let alone Michael be nice with her. Liz shuddered. “No, I first earned his trust… well… I guess when he read my journal.”
Dave raised his eyebrows, his eyes very round. “You let Michael read it?” Clearly, there had to be more than that.
“Not exactly…” Liz said. Did she want to tell this story? Well, if she wanted to make a point of how human they were, the answer was ‘yes’. “He sort of stole it.”
“I wish I had been that lucky.” Dave answered, his features returning to normal. But now it was Liz’s turn to raise her eyebrows, her eyes very round too.
“We know your dad burnt it,” Dave clarified for her, “We don’t know why though. But it was a shame.”
“I asked him to do it,” Liz said, feeling very protective of her dad. Protective and proud. So he had burnt it after all, uh?
“Why?” Dave asked, trying to understand such an atrocious act, it seemed.
“Because everything that was in there, read by the wrong people, would only lead to more and more problems. Besides, none of us could really tell our parents any long explanations. It was the only way they could get to know the reasons… the truth about why we left…” Liz paused, letting go of the explanations and remembering that she had every right to ask as he had. “Why do you say it was a ‘shame’?”
Dave stared so long at her that Liz started to believe he had dozed off with his eyes open. And that made her feel more than ever that she had no idea of who Dave was or what was going on in his mind.
* * *
She doesn’t realize how important she is, Dave thought with amusement. This small town girl had won the heart of a small town boy, and somewhere between then and now she had gotten the guts to stick with him along with everything that implied. Somehow, Dave knew that ten years in the future, or twenty, or thirty, Elizabeth Parker would wake up and she wouldn’t regret a thing. Not a single decision she had made, because everything this young woman did, she did it with conviction.
He knew she was the planner type too. Liz would probably think thrice everything before doing it. Taking life as it came was just plain stupid when your life was at stake. And Dave knew that only too well. After all, he had planned his own escape for a little less than six years before breaking free. And ever since he had started planning he had never stopped. Dave had a back up plan for everything he did.
The funny thing was, Dave reflected, that the reason he had gone to so many extremes to convince them to stay was because he didn’t have a plan B. If they had said “no”… well, they wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. And speaking of conversations, Dave silently thought, Liz was still waiting for an answer.
“It is a shame,” Dave said, finally breaking the spell of his eyes on hers, “because everything you wrote there, Liz, was such a testimony to what you and they and everyone involved has endured.”
“It could have been viewed like that, but… I mean, do you view it like that? Or would you have believed their background story, about Antar and their roles, if it hadn’t been because you have the book?”
Oh, the book, that strange metallic alien book they had gotten for just the right amount of time to scan it and put it back before anybody missed it. He wondered what Phillip Evans had done with all those alien artifacts that had been in that safe deposit box back in Roswell, New Mexico. He made a mental note to find that out.
“I gotta admit that the fact it was made out of some alien alloy did play a huge part in my believing it, and what it said, was genuine, what it said, but there are still so many loose ends with that story and what they’re doing here now…”
“So you do have the book and know what it says,” Liz said, with a small triumphant smile, though there was a little bit of uncertainty in her eyes. She was trying to verbally trap him just as he had done with her so many times now. He smiled. He had to admit the girl was giving it a good shot.
“Yeah, I like to decode things. Not exactly that sort of thing, though… Anyway, we are using your translation as a guide, and so far, it has proven faithful. But I’m not the only decoder you know. Michael seems pretty good at it. Finding hidden meanings, I mean.”
Dave paused, trying to decide if he should tell Liz that the mathematic matrix that was hanging in there had sparked Michael’s curiosity, when Liz astonished him with the strangest thing ever.
“Yeah, decoding that map,” she absently said, probably thinking something else –something related to that translation and the things she didn’t want him to find out, but he didn’t know that. For about one second Dave had almost said “what map?”, but, catching his tongue, he just nodded as if he knew what the heck was Liz talking about. So Michael was a natural code breaker, it seemed. How interesting… but what map?
“You kids have done so many things in such a short time it’s rather amazing. I really wish I had had the chance of reading your writings,” Dave sincerely said, Liz still thinking about something else. The map? Oh, Dave knew he was going to get obsessed with it if he didn’t find out what Liz had been talking about. But he had to play along. Play it cool, as the youth of these days tended to say.
“Well… I guess we have…” Liz said, finally taking her mind from wherever it was to now. “What were you doing when you were our age?” Liz asked, now all her attention back to the conversation.
Their age? That would have been around 1983… a totally different world, Dave mused for an instant. “I was counting,” Dave said, his eyes turning to the numbers on the wall. “Counting, counting, counting…” he almost dreamily said. Jake had told him that it was rather weird –if not downright creepy- how he, Dave, loved numbers so much. Dave shrugged. “I like numbers,” he said out loud, Liz clearly waiting for a better explanation, which he wasn’t sure he wanted to give at all. By now, he had said enough about himself to spike these kids’ curiosity. Just enough to keep them guessing.
“You were doing codes?” Liz said after a minute had passed. Now, that was amazing. How had she known?
“Hm?” he cautiously asked as he slowly returned his gaze to her, not wanting to give Liz the answer, but curious as to why she had hit on it so accurately.
“The Network Keepers… they showed us a letter from you, about ‘time controllers’… I figured they messed with some form of computer code or something…”
Of course! The Network Keepers must have told them about all that Matrix crap that they were so fixed with. He liked, no, he loved playing with those kids, his Network Keepers, to see their potential and their creativity when it came to making and cracking codes, but he hadn’t thought his twelve Network Keepers who were stationed here were going to show his six new guests their most prized possession. That had been a move he hadn’t anticipated.
“’Time controllers’ are the programs that run time down here. All clocks, if you like.” Dave explained, half of his thoughts reviewing all his plans for this week. What else could go astray? Such meaningless things could become such meaningful problems in the future… Liz only nodded, acknowledging that she understood.
“And yes, they ‘messed’ with that program, making everyone believe they were three hours behind time. It was a disaster for a lot of people and their projects, but the mistake was mine. I should have seen the window they found on my program. Thanks to that, I could correct more important programs elsewhere. That’s why I thanked them.”
“That’s why you keep them,” Liz said, arching one eyebrow. Touché.
“Yes…” Dave slowly said, “because of that and so many other reasons. They are really good at what they do.”
“You have the best hackers in the world working for you?” Liz naively asked. Dave laughed.
“The best hackers in the world work for themselves. Not even I would have anything they want. To make it short, they want to see if a code can be broken and then they break it. They wouldn’t have such a long leash with me. I don’t want my Network Keepers messing up with anything they want.”
“Why? You don’t want them spoiling and ruining other people’s work?” Liz said, and Dave had the distinct sensation that she was loving the fact that he was letting her know so much.
“Oh no, I wish I was that… honorable… No, messing up like that is traceable. And the last thing they want, my Network Keepers, is I –or anyone- tracing them back to this place. So, they content themselves with being programmers and not hackers. Which leaves them with only my programs to hack into. And that I can live with.”
“So you were writing codes when you were 19?” Liz said, returning to her first question, doing exactly what he had done so many times with so many people, coming full circle. And that was so weird. It had been less than four hours since she had been talking with him, and she had gotten the grasp of his own speech. Oh, how much did Liz Parker amuse him!
“I guess you can say so…” Dave finally gave in. And it was so short, that definition, “writing codes”, because he had been doing so much more than just that… Codes were the base, true, but he had built himself a skyscraper. And all before he was even 19. Now he had a small empire of his own. He glanced at Liz for just a second. How much was this girl, this young woman, going to know about him and his… codes, by the time this was all over? How perceptive would Liz Parker become?
* * *
If Ray had ever kept a record of his worst days, he would have surely run to his apartment, opened his notebook, and scribbled this date with big red letters. Or so he imagined himself when he had seen Michael, Max and Isabel walking toward him before 10:00 a.m.
Oh no, Jake, you didn’t! You couldn’t have! Not you, not them, and certainly not now!
But all these thoughts Ray had to swallow –and hard- because he couldn’t let these kids know that they made him afraid. No, letting people know you were afraid only gave them an extra power over you. These were kids, and he had to keep reminding himself that every time he was talking to them. These were just kids. Well, maybe not just kids…
Still, Dave was leaving the picture on Saturday night, and he’d better practice his “cool” exterior with all of them, because whether he liked it or not, as Jake liked to tease him, he was going to be their babysitter… By all means, Ray was their direct contact with Dave and the one who had to see they had everything they needed. He wondered why Dave hadn’t appointed that to Jake. It would have been more practical, wouldn’t it? Jake already had to spend a lot of time with Max, Michael and Isabel. Why divide them? But of course, Dave’s logic didn’t make sense to him half of the time; Dave didn’t share all the facts with him half of the time either.
Whatever the case, Ray didn’t like to be in the company of all five of them while Max looked as bad as Liz had on Monday. Those kids needed to give themselves a rest. That tension would only lead to a very ghastly ulcer, Ray reflected as Maria and Kyle welcomed their friends with mixed feelings of gladness and worry. After all, why were they here so early?
“Maxwell here lost his temper,” Michael said, hugging Maria as she asked exactly what was on Ray’s mind. As all four of them –Maria, Kyle, Michael and Ray- turned to look at Max, Max got the most guilty look one could muster, and looking anywhere but at them, barely said: “He said it was Dave’s fault.”
“You lost your temper?” Kyle said, with big round eyes, probably imagining, as Ray was, exactly how Max had lost his temper. And Ray knew the basics of what they could do… No, if something had happened to Jake they wouldn’t be here looking so… normal. They weren’t cold blooded murders. That Ray knew for certain.
“I got startled,” Max said defensively, “I wasn’t meaning to do anything.”
“Define ‘anything’” Kyle pressed on. Now that Ray was looking at Kyle, he noticed that Kyle hadn’t been so chatty today. Something was bothering Kyle, Ray thought, as the two boys were talking to each other. Some gut feeling was telling Ray that he should be more alert about Kyle too.
“I shattered a glass door, that’s all.” Max said, looking uncomfortable just as Kyle was looking surprised. Michael rolled his eyes as if saying “yeah, that’s all,” while Maria gave him a sympathetic smile. After all, Maria knew, just as Ray knew, that Max was worried about Liz –and it was just a waste of time, as if Dave would do anything to any of them after everything he had invested in them. And oddly enough, Isabel wasn’t exactly paying attention. Was it his imagination or did she too looked uncomfortable. Almost as if she were… avoiding him?
For a second he remembered his dream. Isabel had looked so real to him. She was a beautiful woman, of course, but she wasn’t his type. Not that it had been that kind of dream, really, but now that he half remembered it, he smiled to himself: Imagine if Dave was the alien here. Oh, Dave and Jake had their mystery past, sure, but they were no aliens. Where had he gotten such mixed up ideas? It was amazing what the subconscious could come up with.
“Jake told us you had some ideas for us,” Max said, changing the subject, taking Ray by surprise for a second. Maria and Kyle turned to look at him, clearly not knowing a thing about what Ray and Jake had talked about, and what obviously Jake had told the other three down there at the lab. “I think it should include some exercise,” Max said, all serious now. Of course, with Max, it was almost always “all serious”.
“So, you are going to take his offer? I mean, seriously?”
Max nodded. “We barely made it last time… when the FBI almost got us…” Max said in that quiet way of his. “And technically, we didn’t really ‘make it’ the last time or we wouldn’t be here. So, if you truly want to help us to learn how to escape, I am taking it seriously.” Ray had to admit the kid had given this good thought. And he was 100% right: They hadn’t made it last time, and Ray was the one to blame for that. Well, at least on the intellectual part of the plan. For a brief moment he wondered where Steve Lewis and his two friends were, since they had been the ones to really get them.
The other thing that Ray also knew was that, out of the three of them, Max was the one who actually exercised. Sure, Isabel tried to keep some sort of schedule about it, but Michael didn’t really bother much with “keeping in good shape”. Yet Max did take his routine seriously. Aside from them, Kyle too exercised regularly, but Ray thought Kyle’s approach to exercise had more to do with his way of life than Max’s approach to how to save his life.
As Ray guided them into the Gym he had the warm feeling that maybe, just maybe, this whole thing Jake had proposed –about the two of them teaching these kids how to escape- might work. And, because he knew nothing about Michael breaking the window, he also thought that maybe they both would be in one piece when this all was over too.
* * *
“I’m really sorry about the puzzle,” Liz said one last time, and Dave would have rolled his eyes at her if he didn’t know how important it was for her to apologize. Besides, he was just dying to return to the subject of “the map”, but he would wait. Obviously Liz hadn’t noticed she had slipped on that, and if he was too eager on it too soon, she would.
Turning from the cupboard where he was looking for some snacks, he answered her, “It’s really okay. I’ll have it fixed sooner or later.” Then, finding a peanut bag –and it was a pity that Jake couldn’t eat these things- he straightened up and turned to her. “Besides, I’ve put so many puzzles together by now, that I have already lost count.”
“You must really enjoy doing that…” Liz tentatively said. Oh, Dave loved this. “Small talk” was always the best talk, because it was so full of little details that otherwise would just not matter in a serious talk. He nodded with a small smile.
“Anyway, I guess napkin puzzles don’t really count,” Dave said remembering childhood times. But now he had Liz’s complete attention, frowning a little as if trying to understand something very hard. Of course, what he had said hadn’t made sense. He had to keep reminding himself that people always got lost in translation with him.
“’Napkin’ puzzles… err… when I was a kid, I sort of entertained myself by shredding napkins into tiny pieces and then I put them back together. Those were actually my first puzzles. Imagine my delight when I found out you could actually buy them!” Oh, imagine his Mom’s anger when he had gotten tired of the napkins, then tired of the newspapers, then tired of the magazines, and had finally started ripping apart family photos… He still shred and put back together napkins on airplanes or when he had long waits before him, and it always, always, gave him a guilty pleasure, just to remember his Mom’s expression of “what am I going to do with you now?”
Reaching his seat while he was opening the bag, Dave turned to look at Liz –why had she gotten so quiet so suddenly?- and discovered that Liz was staring at him, a little bit pale, and was she actually breathing?
“Are you all right?” Dave asked with concern, standing straight and watching her closely from the other side of the table. “Liz?”
Liz quickly said yes with her head, blinking very fast. “Yeah—yeah… hm… I was just… distracted… you know… something… something with Max… But everything’s all right.” She smiled. A very faint and somehow phony smile. Was Liz lying? But lying about what? His story of napkin puzzles could be mildly amusing, but there were no secrets hidden in it.
Of course, how could he know what he had just described had nothing to do with any of his secrets but had everything to do with Liz’s own secrets. Because Liz had dreamt that. Liz had dreamt of him shredding a napkin while he was waiting for her at the Crashdown Café and she had been certain then that he was going to put it back together. And it could mean… it could mean that… that her powers were coming back…
TBC…
Author’s Announcement: The guys at http://p196.ezboard.com/bdreamingamongstars kindly invited me to have an author’s chat two weeks from now. That is Wednesday April 12, at 8pm EST. So, if you guys have the time and want to chat, I’ll gladly be there
Island Breeze, I'm glad you are still reading! Thanks for the comment about Liz's explanation about why she's with Max. That was kind of difficult to write
That maybe both things, actually... hehehehehe Oh, something *is* going to happen eight years in the future, but that's still so far away...I'm wondering what that means exactly. Eight years later... that they'll be there that long? That something will happen eight years in the future?
XVII
Small Talk
“Are you sure it will be all right?” Liz asked with concern.
“Yeah, it’s not the first time that something like this has happened,” Dave said for the tenth time in the past ten minutes. Still, Liz felt horrible.
About twenty minutes before, she had finally taken Dave’s offer of a steamy mug of hot chocolate, so five minutes later, courtesy of Max being startled by something –startling her in the process-, she had dropped half of it over Dave’s desk… over Dave’s puzzle… effectively ruining about twenty of the pieces that were lying closest to her. Oh my God! Liz had half said, half yelled, and her eyes had moved faster than light to catch Dave’s expression. And Dave had been looking at his puzzle, a sad and resigned smile on his lips.
“It was too much that it had survived Michael,” Dave had finally said, getting up and going for a towel, Liz moving tiny pieces out of the way, hot chocolate dripping into the soft carpet.
“It does happen a lot that I miss pieces and all,” Dave had said, giving Liz a small thin towel to dry herself while he wiped the table with another one. “Don’t worry, I always make someone produce the pieces I no longer have. Because, as you must know, an incomplete puzzle is just no fun at all.” Dave had smiled one of the warmest smiles Liz had ever seen on anyone. How could a man like him have such a perfect smile? Liz had wondered not for the first time that day, but now she was helping him dry the last drops off the table. “Those empty spaces could drive me nuts,” he had said taking some of the wet pieces and looking at them with an even more resigned face. Then he had left those, and looking at her he must have noticed that she was still waiting for something else to happen. “Come on, sit down. There’s no real harm.”
And ever since that moment Liz had been saying how sorry she was, because ruining a 15,000 piece puzzle was a major aggravation to anyone, no matter who that anyone was. But Liz had finally sat down again, biting her lower lip, not even looking at the mug in front of her. “I ruined your puzzle,” Liz said one final time. “I really am sorry... It was Jake’s present, wasn’t it?”
“Kyle does have a good memory if he remembered that,” Dave said, seating himself in his own chair. “And you do too. I wasn’t expecting that little detail to remain in your minds.” Oh, that little detail and hundreds of other little details were being put by Liz on a mental map so she could get to see the links. On some intuitive level she knew that Dave was telling more than he should… that there were clues to who he was. It was almost as if he wanted them to discover something about him. Just… not too quickly.
“Is it hard?” Dave asked her, bringing Liz back to the conversation. “You know, to be suddenly startled by something you felt from Max?”
“How do you know I was startled by Max’s feelings?” Liz asked defensively, and with more than just a little bit of concern. How could Dave tell?
“I didn’t know it, you’ve just confirmed it,” Dave said raising one eyebrow, giving her a one-sided smile.
“Oh…” Liz said, ashamed of herself. It was the second time she had fallen into that verbal trap. First telling him the “diamond” was a key, and now this… Still, Dave kept watching her, thinking something, apparently.
“Everything is all right, isn’t it?” Dave asked, a little bit worried. It took her a second to realize that he was asking if everything was all right with her husband. Once that hit her, she nodded rapidly.
“Yeah, it was just… something startled him, like… maybe a loud noise or someone suddenly coming out of nowhere… After a while, you just sort of catch on… what is important and what is not…”
“How much is ‘a while’?” Dave asked frowning a little, a genuine curiosity getting the best of him. Liz mentally sighed in frustration. How much information was “too” much information in this situation? She really wanted Dave to see Max and Michael and Isabel as what they truly were: Beings with souls just as valuable as any human soul. So… how much did she have to say for that point to be clear? Well, whatever “too” much was, she had to try to be honest with this.
“A year… maybe more… we aren’t exactly sure when it started.”
“Does it ever scare you?” Dave asked with a soft voice. “I mean, you’ve already told me it’s worth it, but do you ever think of him as anything other than who he is?”
Like what he is? Liz thought to herself. The funny thing was, she didn’t think about that at all. She had every right in the world to do so, and yet she just couldn’t bring herself to see Max as anything other than… Max. Slightly shaking her head “no”, she smiled. “Not from the moment he let me see him.”
“What about when things weren’t… normal? His life changed yours; that much you’ve told me so far… but wasn’t it something that made you afraid?” Dave pointed out, leaning back in his chair.
“Yeah…” Liz conceded, but still… “But even when things got so strange or dangerous I—I don’t know… One day I was running from their enemies, and the next I was sitting in a class room. I started the day talking about the latest History assignment and ten minutes later it would be about intergalactic war…” Liz said, acknowledging that he was right, her life had been complete chaos at some points, but there were things that he couldn’t possibly know about how she had managed to survive it. “And yet, through all of it, that… that strange balance between his world and my world… Max would never be anything else but himself. And…” Liz paused, trying to put her own thoughts together, “at some point you just accept that that is how life is and you keep going. I mean, there were times when I could kiss him, times when I could kick him, times when all I wanted in the world was to see him, and when I just wished he had never entered my life, but,” Liz emphasized, “Max has never, ever scared me. He just wouldn’t hurt me at all. Never like that.”
“You never wondered how strange all this is?” Dave asked, almost as if he were trying to picture himself in the same position, “I mean, it didn’t really scare you when you started this… ‘connection’ with him?”
What was up with Dave and this “being scared” scenarios? Liz thought briefly. Yet, Liz shook her head no once again. “It was just natural… feeling him…” Liz said with a small smile, thinking about all the times when that connection had been the only way of knowing if Max was all right, and all the feelings they shared. And then she remembered the darkest side of it. “And even if I can’t tell you when it exactly started between all our ups and downs,” Liz said seriously now, “I can tell you when exactly we knew for sure.”
“When Max died?” Dave asked almost above a whisper. It startled Liz all the same. How--? Of course, Max had told Jake… he had told him just yesterday, and Dave already knew… Of course he already knew.
“How did you guess that?” Liz said, now acknowledging that Dave hadn’t really known about it. He had guessed it.
“How could I not guess it? Somebody dying, somebody you love so much dying is one of the worst things you can feel. Something that strong must have knocked you down, especially since it happened a year ago, right?”
“You are a very perceptive man…” Liz slowly said, her mind not in the conversation but on a night a year ago when she had known beyond doubt that Max was dead. Gosh, she was so cold so suddenly she shivered. But Max was fine back in the present day, though feeling slightly guilty now that Liz was focusing on his feelings.
“You sound as if you already know about that pain,” Liz said, reassuring herself that Max was indeed okay, yet trying to not lose the slightest chance of getting to know one more piece of Dave’s past.
“A long time ago…” Dave said dismissively. He was clearly not thinking about whatever had caused him that pain. That absence of importance –especially since it was about something personal- made Liz look closely at him. It was so strange that one minute Dave’s eyes looked as if they knew every single secret she had kept for four years, and the next he was just not there, his eyes seemingly lost.
What secrets was he concealing from her? And what if this wasn’t a game to him –as she sometimes thought this was- but something much more serious? For one second her curiosity got the best of her making her a little bit bold. She wanted to know just as bad as he wanted to know. She wanted to know everything.
“You know,” Liz started, a little unsure of how to ask what she wanted to know, but all the same getting Dave’s attention. “I’ve been telling you for hours now what has happened since the first day I met Max, but… what about you? Is there anyone with you?” Liz ventured to ask. What was the worst that could happen? That Dave just ignored the question?
“Anyone?” Dave asked unsure, and then, “You mean a woman?” Dave smiled as Liz nodded, his eyes slightly moving to one side of the table, not getting that lost look, but more of a playful one at some memory. “Women are beautiful, intuitive as hell, the best lie detectors ever invented, but… they are also too… complicated,” he said, frowning a little. “Of course, there is Susset; without her, half the time I wouldn’t know what time zone I’m in. So I guess you could say there is a woman in my life.”
Now, this was getting interesting. Liz looked at him with even more curiosity. “So, she’s like…” she said, trying to keep Dave talking. But instead, Dave turned to look at her, waiting for her to finish. Liz lowered her eyes a little. When Dave was staring at you, he had the ability to make you feel as if you were under a microscope. “You’re not in love with her, but is she? She’s like in love with you or something?”
Dave laughed. A chuckle at first, and then he let go a good laugh. “Good Lord, Susset is only capable of loving her work. I swear to you, even when Jake, Ray and I are totally exhausted, that woman can keep going and going. So I guess the answer is ‘no’. Susset knows better than to be in love if she wants the job to get done. She’s my assistant,” Dave finally clarified.
The news took her by surprise. Liz almost turned around, waiting to find a secretary in one corner typing everything that was being said in the room. Dave smiled at her. “We’re on vacation. She’s somewhere on this planet, as far away from me as I could get her,” he joked, lowering his eyes to his puzzle and sounding a little bit annoyed at the thought of this Susset being near him. He seemed to sense this, because, turning to look at her, he amended: “Oh, she’s a sweetie, but she can drive me nuts as no other mortal can in this world when I’m on vacation. Sometimes I even think the word ‘vacation’ is either an insult to her, or the word just doesn’t make sense in her mind.”
“Does she know? About us?” Liz uncertainly asked. Had Dave lied on that account?
“No,” he politely said, his eyes focused on her, almost warm. “That was the deal. Only Jake, Ray and I know.” Oh, he might still be lying, but all the same Liz believed him. Besides, even if he wasn’t telling the truth, what could she do about it?
Nodding, Liz kept silent for a couple of seconds. Then, another question, “You’re on vacation?” confused, she turned to look at him. Dave, on the contrary, gave her the broadest of smiles. “Sure thing! I refuse to work when my birthday is coming. And seriously, do you think I would consider these interviews work?”
Rather coldly, Liz answered him, “I’m not even sure what exactly we are to you. For that matter, I don’t even know what your work is all about to begin with.”
“Ah, the big mystery of who I am,” he said. Was he mocking her? “Well, if you want to know, my work is not all that glamorous. Most of my companies are run by other people, and I’m just a major investor. That way I can keep an eye on things without me being the one in the public eye. I mean, by now you already know how much I value being anonymous. This is the best way of doing it. I’m just lots and lots of numbers on lots and lots of bank accounts.” Dave smiled, not at her, but more likely at the idea of what he had said. Liz couldn’t tell, but somehow, it amused him to be a number.
“Ray said that you have your projects…” Liz tentatively said. “Is that what we are to you?”
Dave doubted what to answer her for two seconds. “… I guess the answer would be ‘yes’ and ‘no’. My ‘projects’ rarely involve people. They are researches of various kinds, fields that I have some personal interest in. That’s why I own a company which could scan the entire radio telescope network. And it is because of Jake that I’m also aware of DNA researches.” Dave chuckled. “Incredible isn’t it? If it weren’t for Jake, I would have never paid attention to DNA research as closely as I do. I would have never found out about you. I would have never made the link between the signal coming from Roswell and the DNA found on your dress when Meta Chem hired us later on.”
They both stared at each other for the briefest of moments, truly seeing for one instant the chain of events that had led to this moment in time. How many things had conspired for things to happen, and how many more were actually working right now?
“But,” Dave continued, diverting his eyes away from Liz’s, “the most sensitive of my projects are developed here. The most commercial are developed elsewhere.” He was triggering Liz’s curiosity further on, and she didn’t disappoint him.
“Sensitive? What do you mean ‘sensitive’?”
“Oh, come on Liz. Don’t you want to go spying all around this place?” Dave said with the most sincere of smiles. “Why do you think I gave you all white cards to begin with?” Liz blushed, a little bit embarrassed. Spying on this place had been the first idea she had gotten to begin with. Talk about perceptive.
“But if you truly want a clue of what my projects are, you are part of one of them: Getting to know how their powers work would open a million possibilities for other matters. I told Michael that, though he did point out how little he believed of what I’d said…” Dave concluded, releasing a small sigh, slightly frowning and thinking about something that had happened in that room just 24 hours earlier.
“Michael hardly believes anything… but once you earn his trust, he’ll stick to you no matter what,” Liz cautiously said. She had to prove to Dave –and to anyone else- that they couldn’t just possibly see Max, Michael and Isabel as these heartless, emotionless creatures from outer space. And all that she was getting from this bizarre situation was the feeling that if she didn’t say the right things somehow Dave could be viewing them as, well, plain aliens. And the three of them were so human, he had to see that. He had to.
“The trick, of course, is earning it,” Dave was saying, finishing her thought about Michael’s trust. “I was certainly going on the wrong way yesterday when he shattered my window,” Dave said, slightly moving his head to his right as a way of signaling it. “How did you manage the trick? Somehow I don’t think Max’s faith in you was… contagious.”
“You can say that again,” Liz said, finding herself in the distant memories of a time when Isabel could barely stand her, let alone Michael be nice with her. Liz shuddered. “No, I first earned his trust… well… I guess when he read my journal.”
Dave raised his eyebrows, his eyes very round. “You let Michael read it?” Clearly, there had to be more than that.
“Not exactly…” Liz said. Did she want to tell this story? Well, if she wanted to make a point of how human they were, the answer was ‘yes’. “He sort of stole it.”
“I wish I had been that lucky.” Dave answered, his features returning to normal. But now it was Liz’s turn to raise her eyebrows, her eyes very round too.
“We know your dad burnt it,” Dave clarified for her, “We don’t know why though. But it was a shame.”
“I asked him to do it,” Liz said, feeling very protective of her dad. Protective and proud. So he had burnt it after all, uh?
“Why?” Dave asked, trying to understand such an atrocious act, it seemed.
“Because everything that was in there, read by the wrong people, would only lead to more and more problems. Besides, none of us could really tell our parents any long explanations. It was the only way they could get to know the reasons… the truth about why we left…” Liz paused, letting go of the explanations and remembering that she had every right to ask as he had. “Why do you say it was a ‘shame’?”
Dave stared so long at her that Liz started to believe he had dozed off with his eyes open. And that made her feel more than ever that she had no idea of who Dave was or what was going on in his mind.
* * *
She doesn’t realize how important she is, Dave thought with amusement. This small town girl had won the heart of a small town boy, and somewhere between then and now she had gotten the guts to stick with him along with everything that implied. Somehow, Dave knew that ten years in the future, or twenty, or thirty, Elizabeth Parker would wake up and she wouldn’t regret a thing. Not a single decision she had made, because everything this young woman did, she did it with conviction.
He knew she was the planner type too. Liz would probably think thrice everything before doing it. Taking life as it came was just plain stupid when your life was at stake. And Dave knew that only too well. After all, he had planned his own escape for a little less than six years before breaking free. And ever since he had started planning he had never stopped. Dave had a back up plan for everything he did.
The funny thing was, Dave reflected, that the reason he had gone to so many extremes to convince them to stay was because he didn’t have a plan B. If they had said “no”… well, they wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. And speaking of conversations, Dave silently thought, Liz was still waiting for an answer.
“It is a shame,” Dave said, finally breaking the spell of his eyes on hers, “because everything you wrote there, Liz, was such a testimony to what you and they and everyone involved has endured.”
“It could have been viewed like that, but… I mean, do you view it like that? Or would you have believed their background story, about Antar and their roles, if it hadn’t been because you have the book?”
Oh, the book, that strange metallic alien book they had gotten for just the right amount of time to scan it and put it back before anybody missed it. He wondered what Phillip Evans had done with all those alien artifacts that had been in that safe deposit box back in Roswell, New Mexico. He made a mental note to find that out.
“I gotta admit that the fact it was made out of some alien alloy did play a huge part in my believing it, and what it said, was genuine, what it said, but there are still so many loose ends with that story and what they’re doing here now…”
“So you do have the book and know what it says,” Liz said, with a small triumphant smile, though there was a little bit of uncertainty in her eyes. She was trying to verbally trap him just as he had done with her so many times now. He smiled. He had to admit the girl was giving it a good shot.
“Yeah, I like to decode things. Not exactly that sort of thing, though… Anyway, we are using your translation as a guide, and so far, it has proven faithful. But I’m not the only decoder you know. Michael seems pretty good at it. Finding hidden meanings, I mean.”
Dave paused, trying to decide if he should tell Liz that the mathematic matrix that was hanging in there had sparked Michael’s curiosity, when Liz astonished him with the strangest thing ever.
“Yeah, decoding that map,” she absently said, probably thinking something else –something related to that translation and the things she didn’t want him to find out, but he didn’t know that. For about one second Dave had almost said “what map?”, but, catching his tongue, he just nodded as if he knew what the heck was Liz talking about. So Michael was a natural code breaker, it seemed. How interesting… but what map?
“You kids have done so many things in such a short time it’s rather amazing. I really wish I had had the chance of reading your writings,” Dave sincerely said, Liz still thinking about something else. The map? Oh, Dave knew he was going to get obsessed with it if he didn’t find out what Liz had been talking about. But he had to play along. Play it cool, as the youth of these days tended to say.
“Well… I guess we have…” Liz said, finally taking her mind from wherever it was to now. “What were you doing when you were our age?” Liz asked, now all her attention back to the conversation.
Their age? That would have been around 1983… a totally different world, Dave mused for an instant. “I was counting,” Dave said, his eyes turning to the numbers on the wall. “Counting, counting, counting…” he almost dreamily said. Jake had told him that it was rather weird –if not downright creepy- how he, Dave, loved numbers so much. Dave shrugged. “I like numbers,” he said out loud, Liz clearly waiting for a better explanation, which he wasn’t sure he wanted to give at all. By now, he had said enough about himself to spike these kids’ curiosity. Just enough to keep them guessing.
“You were doing codes?” Liz said after a minute had passed. Now, that was amazing. How had she known?
“Hm?” he cautiously asked as he slowly returned his gaze to her, not wanting to give Liz the answer, but curious as to why she had hit on it so accurately.
“The Network Keepers… they showed us a letter from you, about ‘time controllers’… I figured they messed with some form of computer code or something…”
Of course! The Network Keepers must have told them about all that Matrix crap that they were so fixed with. He liked, no, he loved playing with those kids, his Network Keepers, to see their potential and their creativity when it came to making and cracking codes, but he hadn’t thought his twelve Network Keepers who were stationed here were going to show his six new guests their most prized possession. That had been a move he hadn’t anticipated.
“’Time controllers’ are the programs that run time down here. All clocks, if you like.” Dave explained, half of his thoughts reviewing all his plans for this week. What else could go astray? Such meaningless things could become such meaningful problems in the future… Liz only nodded, acknowledging that she understood.
“And yes, they ‘messed’ with that program, making everyone believe they were three hours behind time. It was a disaster for a lot of people and their projects, but the mistake was mine. I should have seen the window they found on my program. Thanks to that, I could correct more important programs elsewhere. That’s why I thanked them.”
“That’s why you keep them,” Liz said, arching one eyebrow. Touché.
“Yes…” Dave slowly said, “because of that and so many other reasons. They are really good at what they do.”
“You have the best hackers in the world working for you?” Liz naively asked. Dave laughed.
“The best hackers in the world work for themselves. Not even I would have anything they want. To make it short, they want to see if a code can be broken and then they break it. They wouldn’t have such a long leash with me. I don’t want my Network Keepers messing up with anything they want.”
“Why? You don’t want them spoiling and ruining other people’s work?” Liz said, and Dave had the distinct sensation that she was loving the fact that he was letting her know so much.
“Oh no, I wish I was that… honorable… No, messing up like that is traceable. And the last thing they want, my Network Keepers, is I –or anyone- tracing them back to this place. So, they content themselves with being programmers and not hackers. Which leaves them with only my programs to hack into. And that I can live with.”
“So you were writing codes when you were 19?” Liz said, returning to her first question, doing exactly what he had done so many times with so many people, coming full circle. And that was so weird. It had been less than four hours since she had been talking with him, and she had gotten the grasp of his own speech. Oh, how much did Liz Parker amuse him!
“I guess you can say so…” Dave finally gave in. And it was so short, that definition, “writing codes”, because he had been doing so much more than just that… Codes were the base, true, but he had built himself a skyscraper. And all before he was even 19. Now he had a small empire of his own. He glanced at Liz for just a second. How much was this girl, this young woman, going to know about him and his… codes, by the time this was all over? How perceptive would Liz Parker become?
* * *
If Ray had ever kept a record of his worst days, he would have surely run to his apartment, opened his notebook, and scribbled this date with big red letters. Or so he imagined himself when he had seen Michael, Max and Isabel walking toward him before 10:00 a.m.
Oh no, Jake, you didn’t! You couldn’t have! Not you, not them, and certainly not now!
But all these thoughts Ray had to swallow –and hard- because he couldn’t let these kids know that they made him afraid. No, letting people know you were afraid only gave them an extra power over you. These were kids, and he had to keep reminding himself that every time he was talking to them. These were just kids. Well, maybe not just kids…
Still, Dave was leaving the picture on Saturday night, and he’d better practice his “cool” exterior with all of them, because whether he liked it or not, as Jake liked to tease him, he was going to be their babysitter… By all means, Ray was their direct contact with Dave and the one who had to see they had everything they needed. He wondered why Dave hadn’t appointed that to Jake. It would have been more practical, wouldn’t it? Jake already had to spend a lot of time with Max, Michael and Isabel. Why divide them? But of course, Dave’s logic didn’t make sense to him half of the time; Dave didn’t share all the facts with him half of the time either.
Whatever the case, Ray didn’t like to be in the company of all five of them while Max looked as bad as Liz had on Monday. Those kids needed to give themselves a rest. That tension would only lead to a very ghastly ulcer, Ray reflected as Maria and Kyle welcomed their friends with mixed feelings of gladness and worry. After all, why were they here so early?
“Maxwell here lost his temper,” Michael said, hugging Maria as she asked exactly what was on Ray’s mind. As all four of them –Maria, Kyle, Michael and Ray- turned to look at Max, Max got the most guilty look one could muster, and looking anywhere but at them, barely said: “He said it was Dave’s fault.”
“You lost your temper?” Kyle said, with big round eyes, probably imagining, as Ray was, exactly how Max had lost his temper. And Ray knew the basics of what they could do… No, if something had happened to Jake they wouldn’t be here looking so… normal. They weren’t cold blooded murders. That Ray knew for certain.
“I got startled,” Max said defensively, “I wasn’t meaning to do anything.”
“Define ‘anything’” Kyle pressed on. Now that Ray was looking at Kyle, he noticed that Kyle hadn’t been so chatty today. Something was bothering Kyle, Ray thought, as the two boys were talking to each other. Some gut feeling was telling Ray that he should be more alert about Kyle too.
“I shattered a glass door, that’s all.” Max said, looking uncomfortable just as Kyle was looking surprised. Michael rolled his eyes as if saying “yeah, that’s all,” while Maria gave him a sympathetic smile. After all, Maria knew, just as Ray knew, that Max was worried about Liz –and it was just a waste of time, as if Dave would do anything to any of them after everything he had invested in them. And oddly enough, Isabel wasn’t exactly paying attention. Was it his imagination or did she too looked uncomfortable. Almost as if she were… avoiding him?
For a second he remembered his dream. Isabel had looked so real to him. She was a beautiful woman, of course, but she wasn’t his type. Not that it had been that kind of dream, really, but now that he half remembered it, he smiled to himself: Imagine if Dave was the alien here. Oh, Dave and Jake had their mystery past, sure, but they were no aliens. Where had he gotten such mixed up ideas? It was amazing what the subconscious could come up with.
“Jake told us you had some ideas for us,” Max said, changing the subject, taking Ray by surprise for a second. Maria and Kyle turned to look at him, clearly not knowing a thing about what Ray and Jake had talked about, and what obviously Jake had told the other three down there at the lab. “I think it should include some exercise,” Max said, all serious now. Of course, with Max, it was almost always “all serious”.
“So, you are going to take his offer? I mean, seriously?”
Max nodded. “We barely made it last time… when the FBI almost got us…” Max said in that quiet way of his. “And technically, we didn’t really ‘make it’ the last time or we wouldn’t be here. So, if you truly want to help us to learn how to escape, I am taking it seriously.” Ray had to admit the kid had given this good thought. And he was 100% right: They hadn’t made it last time, and Ray was the one to blame for that. Well, at least on the intellectual part of the plan. For a brief moment he wondered where Steve Lewis and his two friends were, since they had been the ones to really get them.
The other thing that Ray also knew was that, out of the three of them, Max was the one who actually exercised. Sure, Isabel tried to keep some sort of schedule about it, but Michael didn’t really bother much with “keeping in good shape”. Yet Max did take his routine seriously. Aside from them, Kyle too exercised regularly, but Ray thought Kyle’s approach to exercise had more to do with his way of life than Max’s approach to how to save his life.
As Ray guided them into the Gym he had the warm feeling that maybe, just maybe, this whole thing Jake had proposed –about the two of them teaching these kids how to escape- might work. And, because he knew nothing about Michael breaking the window, he also thought that maybe they both would be in one piece when this all was over too.
* * *
“I’m really sorry about the puzzle,” Liz said one last time, and Dave would have rolled his eyes at her if he didn’t know how important it was for her to apologize. Besides, he was just dying to return to the subject of “the map”, but he would wait. Obviously Liz hadn’t noticed she had slipped on that, and if he was too eager on it too soon, she would.
Turning from the cupboard where he was looking for some snacks, he answered her, “It’s really okay. I’ll have it fixed sooner or later.” Then, finding a peanut bag –and it was a pity that Jake couldn’t eat these things- he straightened up and turned to her. “Besides, I’ve put so many puzzles together by now, that I have already lost count.”
“You must really enjoy doing that…” Liz tentatively said. Oh, Dave loved this. “Small talk” was always the best talk, because it was so full of little details that otherwise would just not matter in a serious talk. He nodded with a small smile.
“Anyway, I guess napkin puzzles don’t really count,” Dave said remembering childhood times. But now he had Liz’s complete attention, frowning a little as if trying to understand something very hard. Of course, what he had said hadn’t made sense. He had to keep reminding himself that people always got lost in translation with him.
“’Napkin’ puzzles… err… when I was a kid, I sort of entertained myself by shredding napkins into tiny pieces and then I put them back together. Those were actually my first puzzles. Imagine my delight when I found out you could actually buy them!” Oh, imagine his Mom’s anger when he had gotten tired of the napkins, then tired of the newspapers, then tired of the magazines, and had finally started ripping apart family photos… He still shred and put back together napkins on airplanes or when he had long waits before him, and it always, always, gave him a guilty pleasure, just to remember his Mom’s expression of “what am I going to do with you now?”
Reaching his seat while he was opening the bag, Dave turned to look at Liz –why had she gotten so quiet so suddenly?- and discovered that Liz was staring at him, a little bit pale, and was she actually breathing?
“Are you all right?” Dave asked with concern, standing straight and watching her closely from the other side of the table. “Liz?”
Liz quickly said yes with her head, blinking very fast. “Yeah—yeah… hm… I was just… distracted… you know… something… something with Max… But everything’s all right.” She smiled. A very faint and somehow phony smile. Was Liz lying? But lying about what? His story of napkin puzzles could be mildly amusing, but there were no secrets hidden in it.
Of course, how could he know what he had just described had nothing to do with any of his secrets but had everything to do with Liz’s own secrets. Because Liz had dreamt that. Liz had dreamt of him shredding a napkin while he was waiting for her at the Crashdown Café and she had been certain then that he was going to put it back together. And it could mean… it could mean that… that her powers were coming back…
TBC…
Author’s Announcement: The guys at http://p196.ezboard.com/bdreamingamongstars kindly invited me to have an author’s chat two weeks from now. That is Wednesday April 12, at 8pm EST. So, if you guys have the time and want to chat, I’ll gladly be there
So Liz's powers are coming back... and Max is apparently not thrilled about it. This should be interesting! Well, Max has his own problems. His power broke the window, so he is a little bit uncontrolled himself when he is startled.
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