The Rebel *Sequel* (CC ALL, YTEEN) Ch. 26 - pg. 19 - 12 / 9 / 20

[Michelle in LA]

I just finished re-reading the first two -- The Offer and The Message -- and I can't believe her evil genius! They are full of clues and portents. So intriguing -- and Machiavellian!

We are being tortured by the best. But then we knew that.

[Misha]

Woa! Tons of things to comment on!

Michelle in L.A., You've been busy! Re-reading half a million words and correcting my half a million mistakes? I just wish my evil genius was evil and fast like your beta skills. I certainly wouldn't have started writing this epic story of mine had I known it would take me close to ten years Gotta love RL...

xilaj, I'm torn half the time as well. On one hand, I want to write everything about what Dave did and what happened in those eight years, all the fun stuff On the other one, I want for you all to know what's going on and how all the motivations and plans of these men come to play in the podsters' lives. There are times where I just skip ahead to the next past chapter, or just keep going with the present. Ah, the wonders of writing two timelines.

keepsmiling7, I'm always afraid that playing with the past so much is going to make it confusing. Since book 3 goes side by side with book 1, it might not always be clear where the story is in the timeline

mary mary, it's always intriguing to read everyone's thoughts on Dave. The actual character I based him on was the opposite, in the sense you always thought he was good, until you realized that not always he was, eerrr... ethical. With Dave he always comes off as the bad guy, and he certainly has been... but is he actually the good guy in the end? That'll be for you guys to decide.

Now, the fanfic I turned her into was a Superman story, named Kal-El's Journal, which is both the most hilarious and the darkest story I've ever read (and this is coming from an avid Stephen King reader). It's incomplete, mind you, and incredibly long (when the author posted a new part, it was 80 pages long... How I wish I could be like her... ) so at least you know she was dragged into a loooong story once upon a time

xmag!!! ::tackles:: Thank you thank you thank you for that PM regarding certain Candy scene! I had chocolate cake today, by the way... heh.... Hope you're doing better! I don't know, McKay sounded like the right, imposing name for the head of the Special Unit. Sorry, I never watched Atlantis. Regardless, things can only go downhill with the Unit crashing the party right when it is starting

ken_r, I know when I started plotting this story a trillion years ago, it was all very white and black, but as I went writing and discovering not only my characters but the circumstances they were in, things started to get rather gray. If everyone is doing the right thing according to their knowledge, though, does that mean they are all the good guys?




Part 3 : Fugitives
November 2nd, 2011 – New York

1 : Liz

They had gone for the subway, but their goal wasn’t to get into one of the cars. Instead, panting, they were sitting on one of the benches, trying to not look suspicious. Not-Max hadn’t wanted to go any further, but to Liz’s mind, this place meant a maze of tunnels and trains where she could escape. She had decided to trust this shapeshifter not even ten minutes ago—and in the process she’d saved his life—but that didn’t mean she had to stick to that decision for the rest of hers.

Her phone was dead, no connectivity whatsoever. Staring at it, she saw out of the corner of her eye that Not-Max was slightly leaning, as if he were losing his balance.

“Wait, Ma—Max,” she faltered, at a loss for what to call him, “What’s wrong with you? Did they shoot you? Are you bleeding?” she whispered, trying to see if there was any blood. He was wearing a black sweater, so it wasn’t obvious. If the policemen patrolling the subway got wind of this, he would be sent to a hospital, with an escort. And that was a situation she was not looking forward to.

“They weren’t shooting with bullets,” he said, slightly slurring.

“What? What else would they be shooting with?”

In her vision, it had been clear: Max was shot, and he was falling down. She had assumed there had been blood, but now that she was trying to picture it…

“Drugs,” he said, his eyes closing of their own accord. “Not enough to take me down with just one dose… I don’t think…” he said as an afterthought.

“We need to contact someone. Max already knows I’m in trouble, but we are closer to the hotel than we are to him. The others will arrive there soon. What about you? Do you have someone we can contact?”

Not-Max actually leaned forward a little too far. Liz caught him before he could hit the floor. He opened his eyes with a start. He was fighting the drug-induced sleep with all he had, but it might not be enough. She looked around. No one seemed to be paying any attention.

“They’ll… contact us… here,” he slowly said, shutting his eyes tightly for a second in a vain attempt to chase away the sleep.

“Okay, okay…” Liz said, her eyes on the welcoming open doors of the subway in front of her. “Do—do you have a name?” she asked instead. She could always catch the next train. Having a source of information without the will to withhold anything was a chance that would not come again.

“Jade,” he said after a few seconds.

“Jade, what… what exactly is going on? Why did you take Max’s face?” And could you please, please change it? she silently pleaded.

“Van needs to… talk to him alone… see if… see if his brother is there…”

Whose brother?

“So Max was coming to see me, and he got snatched…” she said more to herself than for his benefit. Jade shook his head.

“I had to… make sure…”

“Jade?” she worriedly asked. Once he fell asleep, did she leave him to his luck here and run, or… Wherever Max was, he was not getting any closer. That meant he was not coming to get her, even if he had to know by this point she was in serious trouble. She didn’t even want to think about the possibility that Max was a prisoner. She hadn’t really gotten any bad feelings from him, but…

Michael… he must know what’s going on. Remembering Jesse had told her not even an hour ago that Isabel was on her way to the hotel, Liz made her decision. She would leave Jade here, run to the hotel, find Isabel, maybe get Michael too, and come back. Jade knew what was going on, they needed him.

She lowered Jade onto his back and slowly rose to her feet, when he grabbed her wrist—with an iron grip.

“It’s not safe,” he murmured, blinking fast. “Please…” he whispered. He looked so much like Max, it broke Liz’s heart for a second.

“Jade, we need help,” she whispered back. His grip didn’t get any looser.

“Once it’s safe… they’ll give… the all clear…” he was breathing with a little difficulty, but looked more alert than just a minute ago.

“Listen, if we have the Unit on our backs, we need to keep moving…” she tried to explain. It had been 8 years and ten months since the last time she’d been chased by the Special Unit, and these were not exactly welcome memories. For the first time in a long time she actually was thankful for Dave’s offer. He had given her some degree of peace of mind.

Jade shook his head again. “We’re safer here… They’ll find us.”

That’s not the problem, Liz thought as she looked around, her wrist firmly detained inside Jade’s hand, the problem is that someone else might find us first…

Knowing the Unit wouldn’t be fooled for long, she made a decision.

“We’re leaving,” she stated, taking Jade by the arm and forcing him to stand up. He barely put up any resistance, his plan of staying put dissolving, along with his ability to remain awake. It was a small victory when she finally sat him down inside the subway car, the door closing with a hiss.

With no idea where they were going, no functioning phone, and no allies in the city, Liz had a lot of planning to do.


2 : Max

“Zan doesn’t have any brothers.” The conviction with which Max said those words was not feigned. Max did not have all of Zan’s memories, but he had enough. And there was the very convenient little fact that no one had ever mentioned that.

Something flickered in Van’s dark eyes. His calm demeanor disappeared for a second, replaced by a moment of doubt.

“Zan wouldn’t have known…” he said in a low voice. “I wasn’t born for many years after he died, and it was kept secret until recently.”

If that were the case, you would be on the throne right now, or getting closer to it. You wouldn’t… Max’s thoughts trailed off for a moment. You wouldn’t need me.

Van was here to kill him.

“Your Majesty, I’m not here to harm you, or yours,” Van said in a calm voice, reading Max’s fear like a book. “I am here to warn you. We are here to protect you. And maybe… maybe to take you home.” That spark that had been lost when Max had not called himself Zan was back.

It was a bit intimidating to see someone looking at him with such… devotion? Trust?

“What happened to everyone?” Max asked, looking back at the closed elevator’s doors. He needed time to sort out what it all meant, and this question was as good as any.

“I used an interdimensional shifter, it allows the privacy we need, without anyone on the outside being the wiser. I assure you, no one has been harmed.”

It’s the same device Nicholas used in Roswell, Max understood, seeing how everyone on that elevator had just disappeared the minute he set foot on the Observation Deck. But in Roswell Liz, Kyle, Jim and Maria had entered afterwards. This dimensional shield was not letting anyone come through. Anyone who was not part alien, at least.

“You say you’ve come to warn me. I’m listening,” Max said. At the back of his mind, he was trying to reconnect with Liz. It must be this dimensional field, he rationalized.

“We’re not sure,” Van said, walking to his left, towards the city view. Max followed. “We’ve learned through our spies that Khivar has ordered your assassination. Details are still confusing, but we know it’ll happen in the next twelve hours. Since your own Guard here was inadequate, we came to protect you. The best men the Rebellion has to offer. Zan, we will not let that man put his hands on you again.”

His voice was fierce enough for Max to not correct his name. If Khivar was serious about wanting him off, it didn’t matter if Max thought of himself as Zan or Max. Yet Van would care a great deal. Zan was worth mobilizing resources, worth fighting for. Max was not.

A slight wave of dizziness passed over him. He dissimulated it by placing a hand over one of the telescopes to steady himself. It would not do to look weak or at a disadvantage in front of a potential enemy.

“I don’t blame you for doubting the truth about all this,” Van was saying, sounding as if he were very far off for a moment, and then his eyes focused on Max’s face. “When Khivar took your throne, when he killed you, plans to bring the Royal Four here were hastily made, and over the years, adjusted. Yet by the time four human decades had passed, no one believed you were still alive. With no heir to the throne…”

Max couldn’t reach Liz at all, and much less Michael or Isabel. He was getting incredibly sleepy, too. Cold air swirled through the deserted roof, helping him stay awake.

“… and Khivar had destroyed all viable genetic material, so it was the decision of our Queen, our mother, to propose…”

The sound was off again. That this was caused by the dimensional shifter was now an unlikely answer. Van wouldn’t have risked something hurting Zan, would he?

He turned to look at his self-professed brother as a second wave of sleepiness hit him.

“Zan? Are you okay?”

It was the last thing he heard on the Empire State Building.


3 : Michael

He’d felt Max’s connection dimming, but it wasn’t until he reached the lobby that Michael realized the connection was gone. He was hurrying along to get outside the hotel, the fire alarm shrilling its way into everyone’s ears, but Michael was barely aware that he was moving.

He was torn between finding Maria and finding Max, and he didn’t like his loyalties being torn in two. The thought vanished as a blond girl passed him by. Not his wife, but Maria wouldn’t be far.

People were pooling into the street, as many guests as curious onlookers, sirens sounding in the distance. On the eighth floor, dark smoke was lazily going up from a couple of windows. As Ray had told them once, where there’s smoke, there’s fire… Fire alarms are convincing up to a point. Add smoke to the mix, and the confusion will last long enough for you to be gone.

Out they went, leaving behind the hotel, the smoke, and the people. And any semblance of some happy vacation time.

Where are you?! Michael desperately thought, his eyes searching for one petite blonde. It was useless, a voice at the back of his head said. She would be gone by now, and was probably not a blond anymore.

“General, we have to go,” his self-proclaimed rebel said through clenched teeth, obviously thinking searching for Maria was a waste of time. She was not the target. Michael was.

Max was, too.

He changed tactics, from trying to get a hold of Maria’s emotions or Max’s consciousness to Isabel’s. Her direction was crystal clear, coming from his left, completely opposite to where Liz’s bistro was. With agents so close by, he’d have to trust that Liz was safe at least, and get some much needed answers from the stranger by his side.

“This way,” Michael said, walking through more onlookers and without turning to see if the man was following him. “There’s something wrong with M—Zan,” Michael corrected at the last second. The rebel frowned at that.

“Wrong?”

Isabel was getting further ahead. Maybe one block away. Michael craned his neck to see if he could catch a glimpse of her or Jesse, both tall enough to be seen from a distance. All he got were crowds of tourists and New Yorkers walking by.

“Yes, wrong. I can’t sense Max, and the only reason that could be is if he’s unconscious. Not sleeping, not far, unconscious.” Now that he was saying it out loud, he felt his gut clenched. He started walking faster, almost running. “I have to find Isabel before we lose her,” he barely explained, second-guessing his connection to his almost-sister.

The man cursed, and it took Michael a moment to realize it had been in Antarian. That he could understand it gave him chills, but he decided now was not the time to think that one through.

Firemen and policemen arrived, the fire truck turning the corner right beside Michael. Before he could cross the street, the rebel abruptly stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“What the hell—”

“Unit men…” the man whispered, a black sedan passing at that moment. Michael’s skin tingled with the need to blast it. He almost did it, too, until he saw that his companion was getting suspiciously close to a parked red Lexus.

In the distance, Isabel’s connection moved fast. Too fast. She was either in the subway or riding a very speedy taxi. Please tell me you’re taking Maria with you, he thought with a hole relentlessly growing in his chest. She didn’t exactly send comforting waves, but neither she nor his wife was panicking. They were on the run, but they weren’t being chased.

Yet.

The red Lexus came to life at the exact moment Michael opened the passenger’s door.

“You’d better take me to Max before I kill someone.”

[Michelle in LA]

Happy Birthday, Misha!

I love people who, when it's their birthday, give a present to someone else!

Giving us another example of your talent is the best way I can think of to celebrate your advent into the world.

Love the way this roller coaster is taking us along -- and I'm kind of relieved that Max's constant dizziness (we've seen it since their meeting in the park) is finally coming to a head, so that someone who can identify it will see it and hopefully help.

I'm really worried about their inability to sense each other -- for all of them, really. What's causing that, I wonder? Is it only their ability to sense Max? Because they all seem to have fog in their connections to their partners.

I'm worried about Liz, on her own throughout the NYC subway system. How long will it take for the drug they've given Not-Max to wear off? Or will it? What if it's a poison? If it's the Unit, then it's probably the suppressing drug and a tranquilizer, but if it was Khivar's men, then it could be some deadly poison.

I'm thinking it's the Unit, though -- Liz was at a café near the hotel, and the g-men are swarming their hotel right now.

I love this insight into covert tactics -- I see I'll have to start reading some spy novels! Never tried that genre before, so I have a lot to discover. Must help to have lots of money, though. (OK, so when does it not, I know.)

One chapter is not enough to make me stop biting my nails! I'm worried about all of those mentioned today, but also about Dave and Jake, and what's happening with the team scattered from the hotel.

Great chapter in the most exciting installment of the Trilogy yet!

I know I don't say it enough: Thank you!

[keepsmiling7]

Poor Max......things can't help but be so confusing to have part of Zan's memories, but not all of them
Cool......"interdimenisonal shifter"......
I see nothing but trouble ahead,
Carolyn

[Timelord31]

very interested.. wonder whats wrong with max and can't wait to find out.. Sorta glad you didnt send me any of 3.. so looking forward to it with no warnings...

[Timelord31]

very interested.. wonder whats wrong with max and can't wait to find out.. Sorta glad you didnt send me any of 3.. so looking forward to it with no warnings...

[mary mary]

Well, since all of their connections seem to be interrupted at the same time I tend to think it's alien generated... It could be the good guys or the bad...

I could be wrong though, I've been known to be wrong before.

I have given the "Outlander" a rest for the time being and am catching up on Max and Liz, I sorely need a break, honest. (Baaad Michelle!)

Anyway, Happy Belated Birthday to you, I hope you enjoy many more.

Ginger

[xmag]

Can I say how much I hate the Special Unit? they might think they are protecting the Earth and humans, but in fact, their prejudices and hatred have pushed them to ally with the ones who want to destroy Earth! Let's hope that once this is over, the Special Unit agents and the ones involved with them (politicians, for example), will be prosecuted. They need to pay.

What's going on with Max and Co? They seem out of it, except for Isabel, I wonder why. It's hard to know who is trustoworthy and who isn't.

[ken_r]

I was reading Xmag's comment.

Can I say how much I hate the Special Unit? they might think they are protecting the Earth and humans, but in fact, their prejudices and hatred have pushed them to ally with the ones who want to destroy Earth! Let's hope that once this is over, the Special Unit agents and the ones involved with them (politicians, for example), will be prosecuted. They need to pay.

Recently I stuck ice picks int Zanity and a few others about enemies of our aliens. It was on RH and a story by greywolf.

You said that shades of gray were forming. I think that only on very early TV was anything actually black and white. When I was writing my story about Topolski I had a lot of material to consider in how her attitudes might have changed. I remember once from the western writer, Louis L'Amour that from a distance good and bad are hard to separate. The actor James Woods was once asked, "How do you play the bad guy so well?" he answered "Remember from the bad guys point of view he usually doesn't consider himself bad." Someday I would like to try to write a story about Daniel Pierce. In his eyes he was a hero, a patriot. This is also applied in my political enemies as most of them consider me the enemy.

I said once that I was becoming confused about who was the enemy. I will take my own advice and see the enemy as those who ultimately bring harm to your heros.

ken r

[Michelle in LA]

If Daniel Pierce, and others of his ilk (love that word -- ilk!), were actually patriots, they would care about finding the truth. That would be the only way to "save the earth"! Ooooh! (Love that phrase -- Save the earth! )

But we got to see what Pierce really loved -- causing pain and anguish. Gotta love a man who enjoys his work! Drugging and torturing someone, and then trying to get him to agree with what lawyers call "leading" questions (questions that are slanted, contain their own answers, and require only that a confused witness say yes), is just a way to get someone to submit to your agenda, not to get at the truth.

Remember two things about Pierce:
1) He drugged Max with an experimental, not-FDA-approved drug to block his powers, then gave him the orbs and demanded that he use his powers -- activate the orbs, or be cut apart until he was dead. It would be really stupid, and way above Pierce's paygrade, to initiate communication with another planet. He knew what he was doing -- he knew that Max couldn't possibly make them work.
2) He was primarily interested in covering his own tracks -- remember that he wouldn't let any of 'his' agents leave? He vivisected to death Agent Stevens -- the guy the Sheriff called in the pilot episode, to whom he gave the waitress uniform -- because that man was protesting his methods and wanted out. He had Topolsky so terrified of dying the same way, she was ready to join the 'alien invaders' of the Earth, and be taken off the planet!

Pierce didn't believe himself a hero -- he thought he was a god. Anyone in human history who has done that has turned into a monster.