"92-93-94..."
Kyle smiled as Tess counted out the situps he was doing. They were a little harder to do with her holding his ankles down than they were when he did them with Eddie Bryan...the offensive tackle, when they did their football team conditioning, She was a lot lighter than Eddie, and tended to bounce up in the air if he did the sit-up too forcefully. But her face was a hell of a lot cuter than Eddie's face...and the rest of her...his eyes feasted on her body briefly...then returned to her eyes, before he got too excited.
Kyle felt like he could do situps all day...as long as he had her face to look at as he pulled himself up.
"98-99-100"
He held himself in a seated position briefly, before getting in to position for doing pushups. He couldn't see her face or body when he did those....which given the position and all, was probably just as well. He was struggling to not concentrate too much on how he'd awakened this morning. If he did he was afraid he might hurt himself doing pushups sort of like stubbing a toe...only worse.
one hour earlier
They'd gone asleep holding hands again...Kyle determined not to embarrass himself by letting his hands roam in his sleep tonight. But it hadn't quite worked out that way. He'd awakened this time to find her head again nuzzled up against his chest,...and his arms....the left arm had been cradled under her head, supporting her like a pillow. The right arm had been resting on her hip...his hand caressing her upper abdomen...just at the start of her pubic hairs. He'd frozen instantly...scared to death of what she might think...before remembering how she had felt toward him in the connection. It had been incredibly sensual...but he hadn't been aroused by her, strangely enough. He was too much in awe...realizing just how much she really did believe she loved him....and maybe she did. In fact, Kyle wished very much too believe that her love for him would survive there escape into the outside world, but he really couldn't quite let himself believe that it would. It wasn't that he doubted her...not really...but he hadn't doubted that his mother would love him either...until the day it had stopped. He realized that what was keeping himself from believing wasn't anything about Tess...merely his own fear, but fifteen year old boys aren't that use to committing...to feeling that vulnerable. Try as he might, he was afraid to even hope for a happy ever after. It seemed too much like tempting fate....
Specimen (AU T/K Adult) (Complete)
Moderators: Itzstacie, Forum Moderators
"36-37-38..."
Tess struggled to do the sit-ups. It made it easier to have Kyle's smiling face awaiting her at the top of each situp. Tess had never really thought much about physical conditioning...but it made sense. Not necessarily to become a football player. Kyle had explained the elaborate game to her yesterday...like Chess except the players were real people, and the movement seemed to involve constant collisions. But the physical conditioning might come in handy for their intended escape. Tess didn't want to hold Kyle up if they needed to run for it and she wanted to get into good condition.
She wasn't altogether sure she wanted Kyle playing the football game, his powers of recuperation weren't what hers were after all, but he'd explained to her yesterday he'd been doing it since he was six...in something called peewee league. He said that he'd started so young that no one had much mass, so even the collisions didn't hurt that much, and most injuries were so minor your mother would just kiss them better and send you back out onto the field. Except Kyle hadn't had a mother then...she'd felt the lingering pain through the connection. The woman was an idiot...Tess decided...to leave Kyle like that. She would never...could never...leave him. Oh, she realized Kyle had his doubts...not really about her, but about himself. But she knew he was worth being with forever...even if he doubted it himself. She'd already formulated a plan to get those dates out of the way as quickly as possible...and no one...except Kyle, was even going to get to first base.
"47-48-49-50"
Tess fell back on the floor looking up at him holding her ankles...trying not to flush as she imagined him pulling those ankles wide and sliding up into her arms. It was hard enough to control her emotions just remembering the morning.
Two hours previously...
He was still snoring when she awoke...and sent her mind into his. She spooned up against him, willing his left arm to cuddle against her head, while his right arm crossed over her hip to rest lightly against her lower abdomen. She briefly considered third base...but decided it wouldn't be fair. His desire for her to have choices was laudable...even though he was the only choice she would ever desire. It wouldn't really be fair to ....stimulate...him anymore than she could avoid...as pleasant as that was to her. She'd almost hurt him yesterday...something the dictionary had called 'blue balls.' She was determined not to hurt her beloved until she could convince him that was something she could cure for him...but even so...it was sooo nice when he touched her..... As his hand softly stroked her, even as he slept..., Tess had almost purred until the lights had finally come on...
Tess struggled to do the sit-ups. It made it easier to have Kyle's smiling face awaiting her at the top of each situp. Tess had never really thought much about physical conditioning...but it made sense. Not necessarily to become a football player. Kyle had explained the elaborate game to her yesterday...like Chess except the players were real people, and the movement seemed to involve constant collisions. But the physical conditioning might come in handy for their intended escape. Tess didn't want to hold Kyle up if they needed to run for it and she wanted to get into good condition.
She wasn't altogether sure she wanted Kyle playing the football game, his powers of recuperation weren't what hers were after all, but he'd explained to her yesterday he'd been doing it since he was six...in something called peewee league. He said that he'd started so young that no one had much mass, so even the collisions didn't hurt that much, and most injuries were so minor your mother would just kiss them better and send you back out onto the field. Except Kyle hadn't had a mother then...she'd felt the lingering pain through the connection. The woman was an idiot...Tess decided...to leave Kyle like that. She would never...could never...leave him. Oh, she realized Kyle had his doubts...not really about her, but about himself. But she knew he was worth being with forever...even if he doubted it himself. She'd already formulated a plan to get those dates out of the way as quickly as possible...and no one...except Kyle, was even going to get to first base.
"47-48-49-50"
Tess fell back on the floor looking up at him holding her ankles...trying not to flush as she imagined him pulling those ankles wide and sliding up into her arms. It was hard enough to control her emotions just remembering the morning.
Two hours previously...
He was still snoring when she awoke...and sent her mind into his. She spooned up against him, willing his left arm to cuddle against her head, while his right arm crossed over her hip to rest lightly against her lower abdomen. She briefly considered third base...but decided it wouldn't be fair. His desire for her to have choices was laudable...even though he was the only choice she would ever desire. It wouldn't really be fair to ....stimulate...him anymore than she could avoid...as pleasant as that was to her. She'd almost hurt him yesterday...something the dictionary had called 'blue balls.' She was determined not to hurt her beloved until she could convince him that was something she could cure for him...but even so...it was sooo nice when he touched her..... As his hand softly stroked her, even as he slept..., Tess had almost purred until the lights had finally come on...
Last edited by greywolf on Wed Nov 07, 2007 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hour 09 Day 3648
“White knight to queen’s bishop three,” said Tess. Generally by the end of the tenth move, Tess could tell you who was going to win the match (usually her) and how many moves (at the maximum) it would take to do it. But they were on their fourteenth move, and she didn’t know exactly how much longer the match would go on…only that it would end in a stalemate with her having a knight and her King, and Kyle having only his King….and that it would take almost another ninety minutes.
The reason for her uncertainty was not that she was distracted by Kyle…although in truth she was, …he sitting on the chair next to her peering at the computer screen…with an occasional quasi-surreptitious glance at her chest that Tess would have noticed even had she not been connected to him. She was trying her best not to let him know that she noticed his appreciative eyes, although she was quite happy to feel through the connection that he enjoyed the sight of her almost every bit as much as she enjoyed the sight of him.
No, the uncertainty came not from that, but from the fact that neither one of them were actually TRYING to win this game…just get to the stalemate with as little actual thinking about the game as possible. The purpose of this exercise was to use their ‘day’ time to get Tess up to speed on the world outside, and how to make the best possible practical use of the vocabulary she had learned from the dictionary. The easiest way to do that was just to have Kyle talk to her….of course, if he did, it would be obvious to the observers just what was going on. What they wanted was to be a little more discrete than that.
So THAT was the real reason they were sitting crowded side by side on the chair in front of the computer….because that gave her a plausible excuse that did not involve mental communication through the connection, to be touching along her right lower leg, thigh, buttock, and….whenever she could feign clumsiness…to bump in to his chest as well. That way they could maintain contact for the connection, and besides….after a lifetime alone, she wanted to be close to her mate…even if they couldn’t do all the rituals just yet.
*So tell me more about your educational facility*
*West Roswell High? It’s got about 1200 students. We go to five academic classes a day, plus PE…except I usually get a study hall instead if PE, since I get PE credits for football and basketball and baseball*
Tess filed the ‘football’ comment in the group of things she wanted to come back to later. She was trying not to be too possessive…especially since they hadn’t done their rituals yet, but the little he had told her about the game made her question the wisdom of his participation in a ‘sport’ that seemed like he was voluntarily exposing himself to eleven other well trained and conditioned individuals who were trying to physically assault him. She knew he didn’t have the regenerative capability that she did and felt sort of protective towards him. After all…he was hers…or eventually would be…as soon as she got those other ‘dates’ out of the way.
*So tell me more about your classes…your friends….tell me what school’s like. The only thing I’ve ever known is these four walls, this computer, and the jerkwads who come in here sometimes* thought Tess.
As you can tell, she was already getting the grasp of colorful idioms from Kyle that weren’t included in the dictionary. She felt fortunate to have chosen such a diverse and well rounded mate.
“Uh…King to King’s bishop one…” said Kyle, keeping up the pretense of the game in case any of the observers hadn’t already looked away from terminal boredom.
It was three hours later…three hours of constant discussion in the connection, punctuated by two chess games that both ended in stalemates, that Tess and Kyle took a break for lunch. The prefab meals had been all Tess had ever known, and apparently ignorance was bliss. It was obvious that Kyle didn’t much care for them. Tess considered mindwarping him…making him think they were ice cream or some other treat, but she wouldn’t do it without asking him, and she never got that opportunity, because as he was opening up his meal, she heard the solenoid click and she knew they were being gassed.
Tess was sort of taken by surprise, she had pretty much figured out the schedule for her medical testing, and it shouldn’t be time for another sixteen days…but the hiss of the gas was undeniable and she had no time to either protect Kyle and to get him to understand what he would have to do to feign unconsciousness….. he was almost ten feet away when the gas hit him. As she saw his eyes roll back and his body slump to the floor, she slumped to the floor right with him. They did lab tests on her every month…hopefully it was just another such occasion.
But today, she realized, was different. Always before she’d known she could stop them…no matter what, either by killing them or by manipulating her embedded chip to set off the bomb. She’d never before had anyone else to worry about. Loving someone, she realized, did leave you vulnerable. She’d never worried for herself, but she now worried about Kyle.
“White knight to queen’s bishop three,” said Tess. Generally by the end of the tenth move, Tess could tell you who was going to win the match (usually her) and how many moves (at the maximum) it would take to do it. But they were on their fourteenth move, and she didn’t know exactly how much longer the match would go on…only that it would end in a stalemate with her having a knight and her King, and Kyle having only his King….and that it would take almost another ninety minutes.
The reason for her uncertainty was not that she was distracted by Kyle…although in truth she was, …he sitting on the chair next to her peering at the computer screen…with an occasional quasi-surreptitious glance at her chest that Tess would have noticed even had she not been connected to him. She was trying her best not to let him know that she noticed his appreciative eyes, although she was quite happy to feel through the connection that he enjoyed the sight of her almost every bit as much as she enjoyed the sight of him.
No, the uncertainty came not from that, but from the fact that neither one of them were actually TRYING to win this game…just get to the stalemate with as little actual thinking about the game as possible. The purpose of this exercise was to use their ‘day’ time to get Tess up to speed on the world outside, and how to make the best possible practical use of the vocabulary she had learned from the dictionary. The easiest way to do that was just to have Kyle talk to her….of course, if he did, it would be obvious to the observers just what was going on. What they wanted was to be a little more discrete than that.
So THAT was the real reason they were sitting crowded side by side on the chair in front of the computer….because that gave her a plausible excuse that did not involve mental communication through the connection, to be touching along her right lower leg, thigh, buttock, and….whenever she could feign clumsiness…to bump in to his chest as well. That way they could maintain contact for the connection, and besides….after a lifetime alone, she wanted to be close to her mate…even if they couldn’t do all the rituals just yet.
*So tell me more about your educational facility*
*West Roswell High? It’s got about 1200 students. We go to five academic classes a day, plus PE…except I usually get a study hall instead if PE, since I get PE credits for football and basketball and baseball*
Tess filed the ‘football’ comment in the group of things she wanted to come back to later. She was trying not to be too possessive…especially since they hadn’t done their rituals yet, but the little he had told her about the game made her question the wisdom of his participation in a ‘sport’ that seemed like he was voluntarily exposing himself to eleven other well trained and conditioned individuals who were trying to physically assault him. She knew he didn’t have the regenerative capability that she did and felt sort of protective towards him. After all…he was hers…or eventually would be…as soon as she got those other ‘dates’ out of the way.
*So tell me more about your classes…your friends….tell me what school’s like. The only thing I’ve ever known is these four walls, this computer, and the jerkwads who come in here sometimes* thought Tess.
As you can tell, she was already getting the grasp of colorful idioms from Kyle that weren’t included in the dictionary. She felt fortunate to have chosen such a diverse and well rounded mate.
“Uh…King to King’s bishop one…” said Kyle, keeping up the pretense of the game in case any of the observers hadn’t already looked away from terminal boredom.
It was three hours later…three hours of constant discussion in the connection, punctuated by two chess games that both ended in stalemates, that Tess and Kyle took a break for lunch. The prefab meals had been all Tess had ever known, and apparently ignorance was bliss. It was obvious that Kyle didn’t much care for them. Tess considered mindwarping him…making him think they were ice cream or some other treat, but she wouldn’t do it without asking him, and she never got that opportunity, because as he was opening up his meal, she heard the solenoid click and she knew they were being gassed.
Tess was sort of taken by surprise, she had pretty much figured out the schedule for her medical testing, and it shouldn’t be time for another sixteen days…but the hiss of the gas was undeniable and she had no time to either protect Kyle and to get him to understand what he would have to do to feign unconsciousness….. he was almost ten feet away when the gas hit him. As she saw his eyes roll back and his body slump to the floor, she slumped to the floor right with him. They did lab tests on her every month…hopefully it was just another such occasion.
But today, she realized, was different. Always before she’d known she could stop them…no matter what, either by killing them or by manipulating her embedded chip to set off the bomb. She’d never before had anyone else to worry about. Loving someone, she realized, did leave you vulnerable. She’d never worried for herself, but she now worried about Kyle.
At about the same time...at West Roswell High School
Maria waved her hand to get her mother's attention as the Jetta came in to the parking lot. The party had been planned long ago...before the shockwave of the kidnapping of Kyle Valenti had occurred. Kyle too had been invited to this party, and although his presence would have possibly been lost in the crowd of the twenty-eight people invited from Maria's home room that would be having a quick end-of-school-year party, his absence would surely make him the talk of the party...at least for however many of the remaining twenty-seven people that happened to show up.
The real purpose of the party, Maria knew, was in the hope that her best friend's lab partner would show up. Liz was practically head over heels for the guy, but Max was...if anything...more painfully shy than Liz was. In fact, he probably wasn't going to come anyway and she'd talked it over with Liz...considering canceling the party. But that too was difficult....food had already been puchased and the party room at the Crashdown reserved. Besides, like Alex had said, it was bad enough that the kidnappers had taken Kyle, without letting it destroy any vestiges of a normal life for the rest of the Freshman class.
So they were going ahead with the party....her mom would be taking her to the Crash...along with a half dozen fresh pies that were her contribution to the evening. After that, Maria would help Liz clean up....then spend the night at her place.
"Mom...I count seven pies...not six."
"Oh...the extra one is mine...the blackberry one. I'm....uh...I'm taking it out to Corona this evening."
'Weird,' thought Maria. The little restaurant out there must be truly desperate for pie if her mother was making a special run. There was a scheduled delivery tomorrow morning.
Maria waved her hand to get her mother's attention as the Jetta came in to the parking lot. The party had been planned long ago...before the shockwave of the kidnapping of Kyle Valenti had occurred. Kyle too had been invited to this party, and although his presence would have possibly been lost in the crowd of the twenty-eight people invited from Maria's home room that would be having a quick end-of-school-year party, his absence would surely make him the talk of the party...at least for however many of the remaining twenty-seven people that happened to show up.
The real purpose of the party, Maria knew, was in the hope that her best friend's lab partner would show up. Liz was practically head over heels for the guy, but Max was...if anything...more painfully shy than Liz was. In fact, he probably wasn't going to come anyway and she'd talked it over with Liz...considering canceling the party. But that too was difficult....food had already been puchased and the party room at the Crashdown reserved. Besides, like Alex had said, it was bad enough that the kidnappers had taken Kyle, without letting it destroy any vestiges of a normal life for the rest of the Freshman class.
So they were going ahead with the party....her mom would be taking her to the Crash...along with a half dozen fresh pies that were her contribution to the evening. After that, Maria would help Liz clean up....then spend the night at her place.
"Mom...I count seven pies...not six."
"Oh...the extra one is mine...the blackberry one. I'm....uh...I'm taking it out to Corona this evening."
'Weird,' thought Maria. The little restaurant out there must be truly desperate for pie if her mother was making a special run. There was a scheduled delivery tomorrow morning.
They watched the Jetta leave the parking lot, relief going through all of three of them as they saw Maria get safely in the car with her mother. Roswell was a large town as far as New Mexico went, but most of the United States would consider it a small town indeed, and it did have a small-town attitude. The kidnapping of one of the town's teenagers was traumatic to the entire population, and all the more so to the fellow classmates of that student, so it was only human that they'd be concerned...worried that something similar might happen to others in their class. Of course, in the strictest sense, these three weren't entirely human.
In fact, no teenager really believes that bad things can happen to them…perhaps the reason their auto liability insurance is so high, and only when someone their age has something serious happen to them do they really start to consider that such things CAN actually happen to them and to others of their age. It sometimes gives them pause…pause to consider which things are truly important. And that was what had happened to these three.
Isabel didn't exactly look like an ice princess this afternoon, and that was actually an improvement. Early this morning she'd looked like hell, after an anxious night spent shared between trying to dreamwalk Kyle Valenti and dreamwalking Alex Whitman..just to make sure he too hadn’t been kidnapped.
Isabel had tried to dreamwalk Kyle the very night he had first disappeared…with no success. That scared her…scared her rather badly, because it told her that in a few brief hours he had either been taken reasonably far away from Roswell, been somehow trapped somewhere deep or behind some sort of shield of great mass like lead or something, or because he wasn’t dreaming at all…perhaps even was dead.
There were sixteen boys in her homeroom class, and Isabel Evans had dreamwalked them all at one time or another during the year. Max was always predictable….dreaming about his lab partner smiling at him. Michael was almost as predictable, having dream arguments with the DeLuca girl. It was like two grade-schoolers attracted to one another and having no idea how to handle the sexual tension, so they just yelled at one another. Twelve of the remaining fourteen males were even worse. Isabel realized that teenage boys thought about sex, but those twelve had dreams that were frankly pornographic…and as the room ‘hottie’ as they called her, for ten of those boys, she was featured prominently…and sometimes disgustingly..in their adolescent fantasies. The other two fantasized about each other, and as far as Isabel was concerned…good luck to them with that, she wasn’t particularly attracted to either of them either, though they seemed otherwise nice enough. That left only two, Kyle and Alex.
From their dreams it was apparent that neither Kyle nor Alex had any doubt she was female, but they were at least gentlemen about their fantasies. In fact, Alex and Isabel had, over the past year, developed into quite a dancing couple and that, she had been sure, was as close as it would ever get. He’d never take the first step toward her in the real world …because of his shyness, and she’d never get involved with him…because of her secret. But even so, she mourned the loss of Kyle…and if anything threatened Alex…. No, Isabel wasn’t yet ready to give up her sacred vow…but she wasn’t going to let anything hurt Alex….or any other schoolmates.
Isabel, like most teenagers, had always considered her friends and family a given…that they’d always be there. The loss of Kyle had shaken her to the core. There were, she’d decided, worse things than being an alien hiding from a whole world. She’d been frightened her whole life of Sheriff Valenti, but yesterday she’d seen him…saw the pain in his eyes, and had to go up to him and tell him how terribly sorry she was about what had happened to Kyle. No, Isabel Evans was changing…understanding that life gave no guarantees. If it could happen to Kyle, it could happen to anyone, and it had nothing to do with being an alien or not. She felt a new kinship to her family and her friends…felt less apart from them and more a part of the community. And if anyone threatened her community…and most especially to Alex…, Isabel was going to take care of them…even if she risked being revealed as an alien when she did so. And she’d have liked to have told that to the two standing next to her, but she hadn’t. They’d been invited to the party at the Parker’s but they never went to things like that….part of the vow. She’d like to go to this one because Alex would be there…along with everyone else, and she could use her powers if need be to stop another kidnapping. She just wasn’t sure that Max and Michael felt the same way.
‘The funny thing,’ thought Michael as he watched Maria’s mother take her away, ‘…is that I don’t even LIKE that girl. She can be such an argumentative pain in the ass..’ but he sighed deeply as he watched her go away. Somehow his daily verbal battles with Maria DeLuca gave meaning to a life that was beyond dreary…living with an obnoxious drunk, while trying somewhat desperately to find something…anything…that would show him the way home. But the fact was that in all these years he’d really never found a clue about how to get home….or what home was…or even if he would fit in there any better than he fit in here. No, the one thing about his life that really seemed…..genuine…was those fights he’d have with Maria, and the thought of anything happening to her…even if he HAD convinced himself he didn’t REALLY like her, scared him to the core. Which was why he’d spent the last two nights shivering in the cold carport next to that same Jetta that was now pulling out of the parking lot. And that was also why he expected to spend another sleepless night doing pretty much the same thing on the roof outside Liz’s room, where Maria would be staying tonight. It would turn out he was only half right. He really wanted to go to that party tonight, just to make sure Maria…that was…all of his remaining classmates were safe. But that wasn’t going to happen, he knew. Isabel would throw a hissy-fit if he even suggested it.
Max was absolutely sure that he did LIKE Liz…in fact, he’d loved her since the third grade. The reason Michael would not be spending the night up on Liz’s rooftop guarding Maria was that when he went up there he’d run in to Max…already there….just like he had been the last two nights. They’d agree to split the shift, and each would wind up getting their first half night’s sleep since Kyle had disappeared.
Max would have given anything to go to that party too, just to keep an eye on Liz…and of course, all of his other classmates, but he was absolutely sure that wasn’t going to happen. Isabel would never put up with it.
The baseball team members had started an informal sort of memorial for Kyle in front of the gym…just a picture of him in his baseball outfit and hand-lettered signs stating they missed him, and prayed he’d be back soon. As the three started to go Isabel saw it…and choked back a sob, before saying, “I don’t suppose either of you would like to go with me to that party at the Crashdown tonight?”
“I’m in..” said Max.
“Wouldn’t miss it…” said Michael.
In fact, no teenager really believes that bad things can happen to them…perhaps the reason their auto liability insurance is so high, and only when someone their age has something serious happen to them do they really start to consider that such things CAN actually happen to them and to others of their age. It sometimes gives them pause…pause to consider which things are truly important. And that was what had happened to these three.
Isabel didn't exactly look like an ice princess this afternoon, and that was actually an improvement. Early this morning she'd looked like hell, after an anxious night spent shared between trying to dreamwalk Kyle Valenti and dreamwalking Alex Whitman..just to make sure he too hadn’t been kidnapped.
Isabel had tried to dreamwalk Kyle the very night he had first disappeared…with no success. That scared her…scared her rather badly, because it told her that in a few brief hours he had either been taken reasonably far away from Roswell, been somehow trapped somewhere deep or behind some sort of shield of great mass like lead or something, or because he wasn’t dreaming at all…perhaps even was dead.
There were sixteen boys in her homeroom class, and Isabel Evans had dreamwalked them all at one time or another during the year. Max was always predictable….dreaming about his lab partner smiling at him. Michael was almost as predictable, having dream arguments with the DeLuca girl. It was like two grade-schoolers attracted to one another and having no idea how to handle the sexual tension, so they just yelled at one another. Twelve of the remaining fourteen males were even worse. Isabel realized that teenage boys thought about sex, but those twelve had dreams that were frankly pornographic…and as the room ‘hottie’ as they called her, for ten of those boys, she was featured prominently…and sometimes disgustingly..in their adolescent fantasies. The other two fantasized about each other, and as far as Isabel was concerned…good luck to them with that, she wasn’t particularly attracted to either of them either, though they seemed otherwise nice enough. That left only two, Kyle and Alex.
From their dreams it was apparent that neither Kyle nor Alex had any doubt she was female, but they were at least gentlemen about their fantasies. In fact, Alex and Isabel had, over the past year, developed into quite a dancing couple and that, she had been sure, was as close as it would ever get. He’d never take the first step toward her in the real world …because of his shyness, and she’d never get involved with him…because of her secret. But even so, she mourned the loss of Kyle…and if anything threatened Alex…. No, Isabel wasn’t yet ready to give up her sacred vow…but she wasn’t going to let anything hurt Alex….or any other schoolmates.
Isabel, like most teenagers, had always considered her friends and family a given…that they’d always be there. The loss of Kyle had shaken her to the core. There were, she’d decided, worse things than being an alien hiding from a whole world. She’d been frightened her whole life of Sheriff Valenti, but yesterday she’d seen him…saw the pain in his eyes, and had to go up to him and tell him how terribly sorry she was about what had happened to Kyle. No, Isabel Evans was changing…understanding that life gave no guarantees. If it could happen to Kyle, it could happen to anyone, and it had nothing to do with being an alien or not. She felt a new kinship to her family and her friends…felt less apart from them and more a part of the community. And if anyone threatened her community…and most especially to Alex…, Isabel was going to take care of them…even if she risked being revealed as an alien when she did so. And she’d have liked to have told that to the two standing next to her, but she hadn’t. They’d been invited to the party at the Parker’s but they never went to things like that….part of the vow. She’d like to go to this one because Alex would be there…along with everyone else, and she could use her powers if need be to stop another kidnapping. She just wasn’t sure that Max and Michael felt the same way.
‘The funny thing,’ thought Michael as he watched Maria’s mother take her away, ‘…is that I don’t even LIKE that girl. She can be such an argumentative pain in the ass..’ but he sighed deeply as he watched her go away. Somehow his daily verbal battles with Maria DeLuca gave meaning to a life that was beyond dreary…living with an obnoxious drunk, while trying somewhat desperately to find something…anything…that would show him the way home. But the fact was that in all these years he’d really never found a clue about how to get home….or what home was…or even if he would fit in there any better than he fit in here. No, the one thing about his life that really seemed…..genuine…was those fights he’d have with Maria, and the thought of anything happening to her…even if he HAD convinced himself he didn’t REALLY like her, scared him to the core. Which was why he’d spent the last two nights shivering in the cold carport next to that same Jetta that was now pulling out of the parking lot. And that was also why he expected to spend another sleepless night doing pretty much the same thing on the roof outside Liz’s room, where Maria would be staying tonight. It would turn out he was only half right. He really wanted to go to that party tonight, just to make sure Maria…that was…all of his remaining classmates were safe. But that wasn’t going to happen, he knew. Isabel would throw a hissy-fit if he even suggested it.
Max was absolutely sure that he did LIKE Liz…in fact, he’d loved her since the third grade. The reason Michael would not be spending the night up on Liz’s rooftop guarding Maria was that when he went up there he’d run in to Max…already there….just like he had been the last two nights. They’d agree to split the shift, and each would wind up getting their first half night’s sleep since Kyle had disappeared.
Max would have given anything to go to that party too, just to keep an eye on Liz…and of course, all of his other classmates, but he was absolutely sure that wasn’t going to happen. Isabel would never put up with it.
The baseball team members had started an informal sort of memorial for Kyle in front of the gym…just a picture of him in his baseball outfit and hand-lettered signs stating they missed him, and prayed he’d be back soon. As the three started to go Isabel saw it…and choked back a sob, before saying, “I don’t suppose either of you would like to go with me to that party at the Crashdown tonight?”
“I’m in..” said Max.
“Wouldn’t miss it…” said Michael.
As they stuck the needle in Kyle’s arm, Tess continued to lay there…feigning unconsciousness. But even if she could fool the cameras, she couldn’t fool her own body about the apprehension she felt. She could feel the power gathering in her palms…knowing that even without her consciously trying, her body was preparing to destroy the two men if they seemed to threaten Kyle. Kyle’s welfare was not a life or death matter to her, she realized. Somehow it was far more important than that. The young girl who herself had endured far worse was cringing internally, watching them take blood from his veins…and marrow from his thigh bone. It was all she could endure even knowing he was anesthetized and couldn’t feel it, and she could feel her palms wanting to send out the golden glow…to smash the two into oblivion before they could cause him any more damage…
“Now what we ought to do,” said one of the technicians, “is to take a biopsy of one of his testicles…cause he sure doesn’t seem to be in any big hurry to service Tess here. Makes you wonder if he really has a pair.”
Tess’s heart was beating with apprehension. That guy was only seconds away from meeting his maker, if this kept up.
The other technician chuckled. “Hey, just because you got an early date in the pool you don’t have to be upset with the kid.”
“Yeah, well I got two chances to win. The first for the day that he does her…or at least tries to… and the second for the day that she kills him. My guess is that they’ll be the same day. The kid has the good sense to leave her alone when she’s awake, but one of these days ol’ Tess is going to wake up when he starts groping her just before lights-on, and blast him into hell. I tell you, she may look like a teenage girl, but if you’d ever seen the tapes of how she handled those guys when she first woke up…I’ll tell you, if I was this kid I wouldn’t touch her…not even with your dick. Cause if she gets just a little bit mad at him, he’s going to wind up smashed in to the ceiling and it’ll be raining entrails all over the place, just like nine years ago.”
“Well, either way, if nothing happens by tomorrow, you aren’t going to win the pool.”
Behind the protective faceplate the first technician’s face suddenly broke out into a grin. “I know how to speed this up..”
The second technician’s face broke out in a similar grin. Somehow words weren’t necessary…both moved to Tess, one grabbing her wrists and one grabbing her ankles and flinging her up onto the sleeping pad. It was harder with Kyle…he weighed considerably more. But eventually the two got him up on top of her.
“Too bad the kid doesn’t have a hard-on, maybe we could do the whole job for him,” said the first technician.
“Hey you two,” came the shout over the intercom, “…that’s cheating.”
“All’s fair in love, war, and betting pools,” said the first technician.
As they left, Tess felt the weight of Kyle pressing down on her…. ‘God this is lovely’
She’d decided that if Kyle believed in God, so would she. Of course, it hadn’t been God that had mindwarped the two technicians to leave them like this. No, she couldn’t bring herself to mindwarp Kyle…not really…she even felt guilty about having him caress her before he awakened each morning…and she doubted seriously that waking to find himself on top of her would speed up their mating in the least, he was pretty adamant he wanted her to have ‘choices’, even if those choices were totally unimportant to her. She hoped it wouldn’t embarrass him too much, but Kyle would probably be asleep for another hour anyway…she might as well enjoy the closeness.
The little Jetta pulled away from the Crashdown and Amy DeLuca felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t EXACTLY lied to Maria….but still, if Maria had told her she was going to be staying home…and then spent the evening doing something entirely different, she’d be in big trouble. Amy felt a little hypocritical expecting Maria to tell her the truth, while deceiving the girl about her own plans for tonight. Amy was going to spend the evening with Jim, staking out that Mailbox shop in Corona….not EXACTLY the kind of undercover work with the Sheriff she’d occasionally fantasized about, since he’d put her in the cuffs that day, but giving their mutual concern about the missing Kyle Valenti, all that either of them were probably capable of thinking about right now. Jim had told her that stakeouts tended to be long and boring. The blackberry pie was just to nibble on…hoping that somehow it would buck up Jim’s spirits. Amy’s heart was bleeding for him, she could tell every hour not knowing what was going on with Kyle was an agony for him.
‘Why couldn’t I have chosen someone like him my first time around….rather than the jerk I did? Maria’s dad hasn’t so much as sent her a birthday card since she was seven.’
As the Jetta pulled in to the Chaves County Sheriff’s office parking lot, Jim Valenti shook his head in a sad smile. Amy was more concerned about Kyle than his own mother had been. He’d just gotten off the phone with his ex-wife…the first time they’d spoken in almost a decade. He’d told the FBI there was no way she’d have been involved in their son’s disappearance but they had done their best to track her down anyway. It was just part of the protocol…she was the non-custodial parent of a missing minor, and it had been routine to check her out. They’d tracked her by a DUI ticket she’d gotten two years ago to an address in Malibu, California. And Jim had told her…not really quite believing himself that she would have no interest in the welfare of her own son. But her initial response had been underwhelming. She’d asked why he was bothering to call her. She’d apparently been at a restaurant, and had interrupted the all too short conversation several times, trying to get the passing waiter to get her another mojito. Jim said he’d just wanted to make sure that she knew what was going on and how the search was going. She hadn’t QUITE told him not to bother.
As he saw Amy DeLuca get out of the car and start toward the office, he shook his head, his lips forming a sad smile. Amy hadn’t made the best of choices for a mate either. She too had been deserted…and at the time she didn’t have a job…or really any work skills. Unlike him, she hadn’t had a civil service job with good insurance…and a family nearby to help with the child-rearing. But she’d worked hard, and done her best, and clearly done much better by Maria than his birth mother had done by Kyle. And even now…even though Kyle wasn’t her son…just another one of Maria’s many friends, it was clear that Amy Deluca did care….and increasingly, he realized, he was coming to care about her. But that…he knew…would have to wait. For right now, the only thing that really mattered to him was finding Kyle....
'God alone knows how Kyle is being tortured at this very minute.....how alone and terrified he must be.' Jim Valenti thought.
Thirty miles away in the facility, Kyle was sound asleep on top of Tess. He was, ....for the moment at least...., warm...and safe...and most certainly loved.
Tess, however, was awake...feeling the weight of Kyle pushing down against her....feeling his cheek next to hers...his chest compressing her breasts against him....her legs intertwined with his....
She was almost purring with happiness.
“Now what we ought to do,” said one of the technicians, “is to take a biopsy of one of his testicles…cause he sure doesn’t seem to be in any big hurry to service Tess here. Makes you wonder if he really has a pair.”
Tess’s heart was beating with apprehension. That guy was only seconds away from meeting his maker, if this kept up.
The other technician chuckled. “Hey, just because you got an early date in the pool you don’t have to be upset with the kid.”
“Yeah, well I got two chances to win. The first for the day that he does her…or at least tries to… and the second for the day that she kills him. My guess is that they’ll be the same day. The kid has the good sense to leave her alone when she’s awake, but one of these days ol’ Tess is going to wake up when he starts groping her just before lights-on, and blast him into hell. I tell you, she may look like a teenage girl, but if you’d ever seen the tapes of how she handled those guys when she first woke up…I’ll tell you, if I was this kid I wouldn’t touch her…not even with your dick. Cause if she gets just a little bit mad at him, he’s going to wind up smashed in to the ceiling and it’ll be raining entrails all over the place, just like nine years ago.”
“Well, either way, if nothing happens by tomorrow, you aren’t going to win the pool.”
Behind the protective faceplate the first technician’s face suddenly broke out into a grin. “I know how to speed this up..”
The second technician’s face broke out in a similar grin. Somehow words weren’t necessary…both moved to Tess, one grabbing her wrists and one grabbing her ankles and flinging her up onto the sleeping pad. It was harder with Kyle…he weighed considerably more. But eventually the two got him up on top of her.
“Too bad the kid doesn’t have a hard-on, maybe we could do the whole job for him,” said the first technician.
“Hey you two,” came the shout over the intercom, “…that’s cheating.”
“All’s fair in love, war, and betting pools,” said the first technician.
As they left, Tess felt the weight of Kyle pressing down on her…. ‘God this is lovely’
She’d decided that if Kyle believed in God, so would she. Of course, it hadn’t been God that had mindwarped the two technicians to leave them like this. No, she couldn’t bring herself to mindwarp Kyle…not really…she even felt guilty about having him caress her before he awakened each morning…and she doubted seriously that waking to find himself on top of her would speed up their mating in the least, he was pretty adamant he wanted her to have ‘choices’, even if those choices were totally unimportant to her. She hoped it wouldn’t embarrass him too much, but Kyle would probably be asleep for another hour anyway…she might as well enjoy the closeness.
The little Jetta pulled away from the Crashdown and Amy DeLuca felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t EXACTLY lied to Maria….but still, if Maria had told her she was going to be staying home…and then spent the evening doing something entirely different, she’d be in big trouble. Amy felt a little hypocritical expecting Maria to tell her the truth, while deceiving the girl about her own plans for tonight. Amy was going to spend the evening with Jim, staking out that Mailbox shop in Corona….not EXACTLY the kind of undercover work with the Sheriff she’d occasionally fantasized about, since he’d put her in the cuffs that day, but giving their mutual concern about the missing Kyle Valenti, all that either of them were probably capable of thinking about right now. Jim had told her that stakeouts tended to be long and boring. The blackberry pie was just to nibble on…hoping that somehow it would buck up Jim’s spirits. Amy’s heart was bleeding for him, she could tell every hour not knowing what was going on with Kyle was an agony for him.
‘Why couldn’t I have chosen someone like him my first time around….rather than the jerk I did? Maria’s dad hasn’t so much as sent her a birthday card since she was seven.’
As the Jetta pulled in to the Chaves County Sheriff’s office parking lot, Jim Valenti shook his head in a sad smile. Amy was more concerned about Kyle than his own mother had been. He’d just gotten off the phone with his ex-wife…the first time they’d spoken in almost a decade. He’d told the FBI there was no way she’d have been involved in their son’s disappearance but they had done their best to track her down anyway. It was just part of the protocol…she was the non-custodial parent of a missing minor, and it had been routine to check her out. They’d tracked her by a DUI ticket she’d gotten two years ago to an address in Malibu, California. And Jim had told her…not really quite believing himself that she would have no interest in the welfare of her own son. But her initial response had been underwhelming. She’d asked why he was bothering to call her. She’d apparently been at a restaurant, and had interrupted the all too short conversation several times, trying to get the passing waiter to get her another mojito. Jim said he’d just wanted to make sure that she knew what was going on and how the search was going. She hadn’t QUITE told him not to bother.
As he saw Amy DeLuca get out of the car and start toward the office, he shook his head, his lips forming a sad smile. Amy hadn’t made the best of choices for a mate either. She too had been deserted…and at the time she didn’t have a job…or really any work skills. Unlike him, she hadn’t had a civil service job with good insurance…and a family nearby to help with the child-rearing. But she’d worked hard, and done her best, and clearly done much better by Maria than his birth mother had done by Kyle. And even now…even though Kyle wasn’t her son…just another one of Maria’s many friends, it was clear that Amy Deluca did care….and increasingly, he realized, he was coming to care about her. But that…he knew…would have to wait. For right now, the only thing that really mattered to him was finding Kyle....
'God alone knows how Kyle is being tortured at this very minute.....how alone and terrified he must be.' Jim Valenti thought.
Thirty miles away in the facility, Kyle was sound asleep on top of Tess. He was, ....for the moment at least...., warm...and safe...and most certainly loved.
Tess, however, was awake...feeling the weight of Kyle pushing down against her....feeling his cheek next to hers...his chest compressing her breasts against him....her legs intertwined with his....
She was almost purring with happiness.
Last edited by greywolf on Wed Dec 26, 2007 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
Back at the Crashdown it was safe to say that the post-Freshman year party for Liz and Maria’s homeroom class was NOT going well.
The almost life-sized portrait of Kyle had been obtained from the local newspaper which had taken photos of each of the high school baseball players at the start of the year, and Kyle certainly looked happy enough in his WRH uniform. The photo had been intended to remind everyone that Kyle was still with them…still part of the class, despite his terrifying abduction, but in actuality it served mainly to remind his classmates that Kyle wasn’t there.
The photo itself and the thoughts that went with it seemed to suck the life out of the party room that Liz and Maria had reserved for what was supposed to have been a cheerful event. And even with the songs coming from the jukebox, the party was rapidly assuming a sort of funereal mood, that was serving to depress everyone, and everyone in this case certainly included Isabel Evans.
Now had you conducted a quick poll in the school of the two people in the freshmen class most likely to NEVER get together, it actually wouldn’t have been Michael and Maria. Even their fellow freshmen were astute enough to realize that if the two truly weren’t both getting something out of their strange relationship, they would have just agreed to disagree and gone their separate ways.
No, the two unlikeliest people by far to get together were virtually anyone…and the aforementioned Miss Evans. But of all the anyone’s in the class, the very least likely anyone would have been the computer geek musician…Alex Whitman.
And normally it would have never happened…but this wasn’t a normal time…it was a time when the whole class was shaken by having had one of their own taken from them.
Alex was thinking about that when he saw Isabel sitting there…looking at the picture of Kyle…and just for a moment he forgot himself…forgot that Isabel Evans was an ice princess. Just for that one minute she looked scared and vulnerable and so very alone…just like the Isabel Evans he had seen in his dreams for most of the freshman year….an Isabel Evans who wasn’t distant…a girl who relished every moment of those dream dances just as much as did Alex Whitman.
Perhaps it was simply the force of habit…a habit burned into his brain by a hundred dances with her on his arm, …but for whatever reason he took those four steps and took her hand…just as he always did in those dreams…and urged her out onto the dance floor.
And perhaps if Isabel hadn’t been worried sick…hadn’t been exhausted from two sleepless nights of dreamwalking…and trying to dreamwalk…with an intensity she’d never felt before…perhaps if she wasn’t so desperate for some sense of normalcy….perhaps then Isabel would have remembered that this wasn’t a dream, and her Ice Princess persona wouldn’t allow her to actually associate publicly with Alex.
But Isabel WAS fatigued…was frightened and lonely…and perhaps that’s why she didn’t bother to think…just reacted to the offered hand and the friendly face she had come to know…and to love. And before either of them had really caught their breath….before either of them quite realized that this WAS real…not a dream, Isabel Evans was in the middle of the dance floor, dancing a slow romantic dance, her head pressed gently against his shoulder…as it had been pressed on so many of those dreamwalks.
And as they danced slowly with a long accustomed grace that belied the fact they’d never actually held each other in the real world the comfort each gave the other suddenly became too much to give up…even when they both realized what they were doing. As her lips gently brushed his neck Alex could have sworn he heard…even though his ears denied it, a whispered voice from her that softly said, *I love you Alex…..*
Maria liked Alex…she always had. But her jaw was hanging as slack as any in the room when she saw him haul Isabel onto the dance floor and start to dance with her. When Isabel actually put her head on his shoulder, and they maneuvered around the room like they’d been practicing this for months…Maria was dumbfounded. She looked quickly toward Liz, who had been shyly eying Max since his arrival.
“OK, Liz…Your turn. Max is over there… Go get him.”
“Go get him? You mean....ask Max to dance with me?” asked Liz, her voice almost squeaky with disbelief.
“Dance? No, Liz. I thought you might want to dissect a frog with Max. Yes, of course dance. This is a party…that’s what you do at parties.”
“But he wouldn’t be interested in…”
“Come on Liz, don’t give me that crap. If Alex can get Isabel on the floor and…My God…she’s kissing his neck, ….right here in front of God and everybody…If Alex can ask the Ice Princess, you can sure as hell ask your lab partner.”
Liz looked at Max with uncertainty before turning back to look at Maria, a shy smile growing on her face.
“I’ll ask him to get out there if you ask someone…I won’t do it alone..”
“Well, fine then….,” said Maria, ‘…I’ll find someone…”
As Maria approached Michael looked up at her…
“What???”
“Do you know how to dance, Michael?”
“Are you asking me to dance, Blondie?”
“Hey…I wouldn’t mention hair…not with that whacked out hairdo of yours…”
“My hair is just fine…and I can outdance you any day…”
It would be almost twenty minutes of dancing and arguing with Michael before Maria would even remember about Liz. She’d spot her eventually through the crowd on the dance floor, slow-dancing in one of the darker corners of the room with Max….not too far from his sister who was slow dancing….and apparently in a lip lock with Alex. It’d be another twenty minutes before she could maneuver Michael over into the darkness….but when she finally did it would prove to be very much worth the effort.
The almost life-sized portrait of Kyle had been obtained from the local newspaper which had taken photos of each of the high school baseball players at the start of the year, and Kyle certainly looked happy enough in his WRH uniform. The photo had been intended to remind everyone that Kyle was still with them…still part of the class, despite his terrifying abduction, but in actuality it served mainly to remind his classmates that Kyle wasn’t there.
The photo itself and the thoughts that went with it seemed to suck the life out of the party room that Liz and Maria had reserved for what was supposed to have been a cheerful event. And even with the songs coming from the jukebox, the party was rapidly assuming a sort of funereal mood, that was serving to depress everyone, and everyone in this case certainly included Isabel Evans.
Now had you conducted a quick poll in the school of the two people in the freshmen class most likely to NEVER get together, it actually wouldn’t have been Michael and Maria. Even their fellow freshmen were astute enough to realize that if the two truly weren’t both getting something out of their strange relationship, they would have just agreed to disagree and gone their separate ways.
No, the two unlikeliest people by far to get together were virtually anyone…and the aforementioned Miss Evans. But of all the anyone’s in the class, the very least likely anyone would have been the computer geek musician…Alex Whitman.
And normally it would have never happened…but this wasn’t a normal time…it was a time when the whole class was shaken by having had one of their own taken from them.
Alex was thinking about that when he saw Isabel sitting there…looking at the picture of Kyle…and just for a moment he forgot himself…forgot that Isabel Evans was an ice princess. Just for that one minute she looked scared and vulnerable and so very alone…just like the Isabel Evans he had seen in his dreams for most of the freshman year….an Isabel Evans who wasn’t distant…a girl who relished every moment of those dream dances just as much as did Alex Whitman.
Perhaps it was simply the force of habit…a habit burned into his brain by a hundred dances with her on his arm, …but for whatever reason he took those four steps and took her hand…just as he always did in those dreams…and urged her out onto the dance floor.
And perhaps if Isabel hadn’t been worried sick…hadn’t been exhausted from two sleepless nights of dreamwalking…and trying to dreamwalk…with an intensity she’d never felt before…perhaps if she wasn’t so desperate for some sense of normalcy….perhaps then Isabel would have remembered that this wasn’t a dream, and her Ice Princess persona wouldn’t allow her to actually associate publicly with Alex.
But Isabel WAS fatigued…was frightened and lonely…and perhaps that’s why she didn’t bother to think…just reacted to the offered hand and the friendly face she had come to know…and to love. And before either of them had really caught their breath….before either of them quite realized that this WAS real…not a dream, Isabel Evans was in the middle of the dance floor, dancing a slow romantic dance, her head pressed gently against his shoulder…as it had been pressed on so many of those dreamwalks.
And as they danced slowly with a long accustomed grace that belied the fact they’d never actually held each other in the real world the comfort each gave the other suddenly became too much to give up…even when they both realized what they were doing. As her lips gently brushed his neck Alex could have sworn he heard…even though his ears denied it, a whispered voice from her that softly said, *I love you Alex…..*
Maria liked Alex…she always had. But her jaw was hanging as slack as any in the room when she saw him haul Isabel onto the dance floor and start to dance with her. When Isabel actually put her head on his shoulder, and they maneuvered around the room like they’d been practicing this for months…Maria was dumbfounded. She looked quickly toward Liz, who had been shyly eying Max since his arrival.
“OK, Liz…Your turn. Max is over there… Go get him.”
“Go get him? You mean....ask Max to dance with me?” asked Liz, her voice almost squeaky with disbelief.
“Dance? No, Liz. I thought you might want to dissect a frog with Max. Yes, of course dance. This is a party…that’s what you do at parties.”
“But he wouldn’t be interested in…”
“Come on Liz, don’t give me that crap. If Alex can get Isabel on the floor and…My God…she’s kissing his neck, ….right here in front of God and everybody…If Alex can ask the Ice Princess, you can sure as hell ask your lab partner.”
Liz looked at Max with uncertainty before turning back to look at Maria, a shy smile growing on her face.
“I’ll ask him to get out there if you ask someone…I won’t do it alone..”
“Well, fine then….,” said Maria, ‘…I’ll find someone…”
As Maria approached Michael looked up at her…
“What???”
“Do you know how to dance, Michael?”
“Are you asking me to dance, Blondie?”
“Hey…I wouldn’t mention hair…not with that whacked out hairdo of yours…”
“My hair is just fine…and I can outdance you any day…”
It would be almost twenty minutes of dancing and arguing with Michael before Maria would even remember about Liz. She’d spot her eventually through the crowd on the dance floor, slow-dancing in one of the darker corners of the room with Max….not too far from his sister who was slow dancing….and apparently in a lip lock with Alex. It’d be another twenty minutes before she could maneuver Michael over into the darkness….but when she finally did it would prove to be very much worth the effort.
Last edited by greywolf on Wed Dec 26, 2007 1:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
A stakeout, Jim Valenti had been told at the Police Academy, was endless hours of boredom, hopefully terminated by a few minutes of actual accomplishment. He'd been on stakeouts before, and certainly didn't expect it to be pleasant.
Even so, had it not been for the underlying reason for this stakeout, that his own fifteen year old son was kidnapped somewhere, going through who knew what hellish torture, Jim might have admitted to himself that this stakeout was far nicer than most.
His partner this evening was not some some bored cop, she was an attractive lady...still young...she couldn't have been any older than eighteen when she'd had Maria...and her concern for his own missing son seemed nearly as great as his own. Another difference was that they were not sharing the ubiquitous box of donuts that usually graced a stakeout.
"Would you like another slice of pie, Sheriff?" Amy asked, seeing he had almost finished the current one.
"Uh...I think two will do me for awhile, Amy...." The small Jetta was also not your typical police stakeout vehicle. It gave the whole situation a sort of intimacy that made it unlike any stakeout Jim could remember. "...and given the circumstances and all, you might just call me Jim rather than Sheriff."
As Ormsby approached the Post Office, he went through the usual checks. The Special Unit had given the Facility a description and the license number of every unmarked law enforcement vehicle in New Mexico and Texas, but the fact of the matter was you could usually tell them from a mile away without any help. Police vehicles, even unmarked ones, tended to look like...well...unmarked police vehicles. They actually were almost always Crown Victorias, but even the few that were not...the New Mexico outback sometimes required four wheel drive capability, tended to be large vehicles that could carry both people and prisoners. It was a requirement of the job.
Ormsby didn't give a second look at the Jetta...he'd seen it around the cafe before, and assumed it belonged to someone who worked there....and he paid evel less attention to the two people sitting in it and chatting to one another, while eating what looked like pie. He looked up and down the main street of the town of Corona...it only had the two streets...and seeing nothing suspicious, he went in to check to see if the facility had any mail today.
Even so, had it not been for the underlying reason for this stakeout, that his own fifteen year old son was kidnapped somewhere, going through who knew what hellish torture, Jim might have admitted to himself that this stakeout was far nicer than most.
His partner this evening was not some some bored cop, she was an attractive lady...still young...she couldn't have been any older than eighteen when she'd had Maria...and her concern for his own missing son seemed nearly as great as his own. Another difference was that they were not sharing the ubiquitous box of donuts that usually graced a stakeout.
"Would you like another slice of pie, Sheriff?" Amy asked, seeing he had almost finished the current one.
"Uh...I think two will do me for awhile, Amy...." The small Jetta was also not your typical police stakeout vehicle. It gave the whole situation a sort of intimacy that made it unlike any stakeout Jim could remember. "...and given the circumstances and all, you might just call me Jim rather than Sheriff."
As Ormsby approached the Post Office, he went through the usual checks. The Special Unit had given the Facility a description and the license number of every unmarked law enforcement vehicle in New Mexico and Texas, but the fact of the matter was you could usually tell them from a mile away without any help. Police vehicles, even unmarked ones, tended to look like...well...unmarked police vehicles. They actually were almost always Crown Victorias, but even the few that were not...the New Mexico outback sometimes required four wheel drive capability, tended to be large vehicles that could carry both people and prisoners. It was a requirement of the job.
Ormsby didn't give a second look at the Jetta...he'd seen it around the cafe before, and assumed it belonged to someone who worked there....and he paid evel less attention to the two people sitting in it and chatting to one another, while eating what looked like pie. He looked up and down the main street of the town of Corona...it only had the two streets...and seeing nothing suspicious, he went in to check to see if the facility had any mail today.
Even in Eastern New Mexico it gets dark pretty early in the Fall, and Nancy Parker watched her husband watching the two girls cleaning up after the party and knew something was bothering him. It wasn't surprising, the kidnapping of Kyle Valenti had shaken the whole town. But it apparently went beyond that she decided as she spoke to him.
"I wanted her to grow up to a better world, that's why I wanted us to stay in a small town. What's this world coming to when kidnapping comes to Roswell?"
"She is growing up too, dear," said Nancy with a sympathetic smile. "I think she may have gotten her first grown-up kiss this evening?"
"Max Evans?"
"Who else?"
"Well, I know that she's been looking him over since third grade, but I never really expected either one of them to get over their shyness. She was actually more comfortable with Alex Whitman."
"Only because she considers him like a brother and Maria like a sister. I think Maria may have gotte3n her first grownup kiss tonight as well, and...surprisingly...Alex."
"Alex? I didn't know he even dated?"
"I'm not sure he has, but he and Isabel Evans were well, surprisingly....close tonight."
"He was actually dancing with Miss Ice Princess of West Roswell High? Alex Whitman?"
"Well....yes. I actually had to go in and sort of prod them a couple of times to keep dancing. They seemed content to just cling to each other in a darkened corner attacking one another's necks like vampires. If both of them aren't hickies from collar bone to ear, I'll be greatly surprised."
"We are talking about Alex WHITMAN here, are we not? Little Alex...Liz and Maria's friend. The computer nerd?"
"Well, still waters apparently run deep."
"Hey...I've always known little Alex had a lot to offer. It just never occurred to me that someone like the Ice Princess would figure it out."
"Don't call her that, Jeff. She was certainly no Ice Princess tonight, and it wasn't just passion either. She really seemed to care about Alex...almost protective of him."
"Well, maybe. I still worry about what sort of a world Liz and Maria are growing up in though."
"So do I," said Nancy sadly, "...so do I."
"I wanted her to grow up to a better world, that's why I wanted us to stay in a small town. What's this world coming to when kidnapping comes to Roswell?"
"She is growing up too, dear," said Nancy with a sympathetic smile. "I think she may have gotten her first grown-up kiss this evening?"
"Max Evans?"
"Who else?"
"Well, I know that she's been looking him over since third grade, but I never really expected either one of them to get over their shyness. She was actually more comfortable with Alex Whitman."
"Only because she considers him like a brother and Maria like a sister. I think Maria may have gotte3n her first grownup kiss tonight as well, and...surprisingly...Alex."
"Alex? I didn't know he even dated?"
"I'm not sure he has, but he and Isabel Evans were well, surprisingly....close tonight."
"He was actually dancing with Miss Ice Princess of West Roswell High? Alex Whitman?"
"Well....yes. I actually had to go in and sort of prod them a couple of times to keep dancing. They seemed content to just cling to each other in a darkened corner attacking one another's necks like vampires. If both of them aren't hickies from collar bone to ear, I'll be greatly surprised."
"We are talking about Alex WHITMAN here, are we not? Little Alex...Liz and Maria's friend. The computer nerd?"
"Well, still waters apparently run deep."
"Hey...I've always known little Alex had a lot to offer. It just never occurred to me that someone like the Ice Princess would figure it out."
"Don't call her that, Jeff. She was certainly no Ice Princess tonight, and it wasn't just passion either. She really seemed to care about Alex...almost protective of him."
"Well, maybe. I still worry about what sort of a world Liz and Maria are growing up in though."
"So do I," said Nancy sadly, "...so do I."
Re: Specimen (AU with aliens) T/K Adult 12/31
Before going to the Mail Box, Ormsby went through his usual surveillance of Corona New Mexico. It didn't take long. The population of the town was just over two hundred, and there were only a very few businesses there and it's sole interest to the people who ran the Facility was the rented mailbox where they could pick up mail order items they might need on too short a notice to be serviced by the federal supply system.
The secret of the Facility had been kept for over fifty years, and that was done both by controlling the total number of people who worked there, and by controlling the footprint of those same people. At any given time about two-thirds of the Facility employees would be either on-site, or in transit from the areas where they mmostly lived, north of Albuquerque. The bus ran twice a week to swap people out, generally in the dead of the night. On rare occasions specialists would be brought in by helicopter, and during the expansion nine years previously, sealed vans had brought in construction workers who had done their jobs and left without knowing anything about the Facility other than what they'd seen, and that they couldn't tell anyone even that. Most of the land was federal property...officially controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, or the Forestry Service. But the Facility itself, and for five miles on either side of it, was unknown to the locals, or for that matter the personnel of the BLM and Forestry Service, each of which thought it belonged to the other. Ormsby, in fact, was one of only a couple of the forty-five personnel at the Facility who ever went to Corona.
The Special Unit had supplied the Facility...and through them, Ormsby, with a list of all the unmarked police vehicles in New Mexico and Texas, but it was scarcely necessary. Most unmarked police cars could be spotted blocks away...they tended to be virtually identical to one another except perhaps in color. that tendency driven by their mission to carry a couple of officers and on occasion, those arrested by them. the vast majority of them were, in fact, the police interceptor version of the Ford Crown Victoria. Before he went in to the MailBox Ormsby checked the town of Corona carefully for any such car. If he noticed the Jetta by the town cafe' at all...or the two people eating pie inside it, he gave it no serious thought. He'd seen the car there on other occasions, and assumed it belonged to one of the locals who worked in the cafe. He couldn't really know, because on his infrequent visits to Corona he didn't worry about dining, they had a pretty good dining hall back at the Facility. What they didn't have was a bar with hard liquor, and Ormsby was in the mood for something a little stronger than a beer.
Jim had been on a fair number of stakeouts, and had he not been worried sick about his missing son, he'd have probably found this one the most pleasant. Not only was the blackberry pie a huge improvement over the normally obligatory box of donuts, Amy DeLuca was clearly much better company than most fellow officers, who tended to either talk shop or about their current problems with their wife or girlfriend. It was nearly closing tome at the MailBox when they saw the man go in and open the bbox. He discarded all of the mail....apparently junk mail...in the trash receptacle, and left the building. Amy and Jim waited to give him a head start, there were only four roads out of town, and they anticipated following him in the dark, driving with their lights off in the moonlight, as soon as he was out of town. But the car only travelled two blocks before it pulled over into the parking lot of the only bar in Corona.
"Well what do we do now, Jim?" asked Amy.
"Go in, I guess. We can't really take the chance of him slipping out and leaving with someone else. Who knows when he'd be back at the mailbox again. I'd rather keep my eye on him now that we have seen him."
The secret of the Facility had been kept for over fifty years, and that was done both by controlling the total number of people who worked there, and by controlling the footprint of those same people. At any given time about two-thirds of the Facility employees would be either on-site, or in transit from the areas where they mmostly lived, north of Albuquerque. The bus ran twice a week to swap people out, generally in the dead of the night. On rare occasions specialists would be brought in by helicopter, and during the expansion nine years previously, sealed vans had brought in construction workers who had done their jobs and left without knowing anything about the Facility other than what they'd seen, and that they couldn't tell anyone even that. Most of the land was federal property...officially controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, or the Forestry Service. But the Facility itself, and for five miles on either side of it, was unknown to the locals, or for that matter the personnel of the BLM and Forestry Service, each of which thought it belonged to the other. Ormsby, in fact, was one of only a couple of the forty-five personnel at the Facility who ever went to Corona.
The Special Unit had supplied the Facility...and through them, Ormsby, with a list of all the unmarked police vehicles in New Mexico and Texas, but it was scarcely necessary. Most unmarked police cars could be spotted blocks away...they tended to be virtually identical to one another except perhaps in color. that tendency driven by their mission to carry a couple of officers and on occasion, those arrested by them. the vast majority of them were, in fact, the police interceptor version of the Ford Crown Victoria. Before he went in to the MailBox Ormsby checked the town of Corona carefully for any such car. If he noticed the Jetta by the town cafe' at all...or the two people eating pie inside it, he gave it no serious thought. He'd seen the car there on other occasions, and assumed it belonged to one of the locals who worked in the cafe. He couldn't really know, because on his infrequent visits to Corona he didn't worry about dining, they had a pretty good dining hall back at the Facility. What they didn't have was a bar with hard liquor, and Ormsby was in the mood for something a little stronger than a beer.
Jim had been on a fair number of stakeouts, and had he not been worried sick about his missing son, he'd have probably found this one the most pleasant. Not only was the blackberry pie a huge improvement over the normally obligatory box of donuts, Amy DeLuca was clearly much better company than most fellow officers, who tended to either talk shop or about their current problems with their wife or girlfriend. It was nearly closing tome at the MailBox when they saw the man go in and open the bbox. He discarded all of the mail....apparently junk mail...in the trash receptacle, and left the building. Amy and Jim waited to give him a head start, there were only four roads out of town, and they anticipated following him in the dark, driving with their lights off in the moonlight, as soon as he was out of town. But the car only travelled two blocks before it pulled over into the parking lot of the only bar in Corona.
"Well what do we do now, Jim?" asked Amy.
"Go in, I guess. We can't really take the chance of him slipping out and leaving with someone else. Who knows when he'd be back at the mailbox again. I'd rather keep my eye on him now that we have seen him."