)Thanks for coming back to read
Chapter Ten
Meetings
1 : Dave
May 2004 – New Jersey
The place wasn't exactly what Dave had pictured when Ray had handed him the whereabouts of the hacker who had been toying with him for the past 16 months, 7 days, and 11 hours —and counting— but it certainly didn’t disappoint.
He had been right. The hacker was a 19-year-old kid, who thought he could take on the world. Well, he had certainly taken on Dave. Besides the hybrid kids playing havoc with Ray and Jake back at the compound in Minnesota, this had been the kid who'd gotten Dave's attention the most.
Finding him had become an obsession. The boldness, the cunning! Daniel Walsh had been taunting him. He reminded him so much of his younger self, that it was impossible not to want to meet him. Would Dave have become like Daniel, had his parents not died? Unlikely, he thought. His parents had been passionate, vocal, and not afraid of anything. Despite being proud of how he'd managed to change little corners of the world, Dave had no illusions that he wouldn't have built his empire if he'd grown up with them. He would have followed their footprints, become an activist, but in a rather loud—if more traditional—way. Certainly not living in a place like this.
The apartment complex was not exactly on the shabby side of things, but Dave had seen much, much worse. The white units piled against each other, the paint having seen better days. It was an apartment unit at the outskirts of Jersey City, that was rented mostly by single, young men. College was not an option for the inhabitants of "Jefferson Star Apartments" unless they worked two jobs and had a loan.
Daniel Walsh didn't need either. He had been stealing from Dave for the past year, sometimes blatantly, sometimes with subtle finesse. Why he wasn't living at a penthouse was anyone's guess. Dave couldn't really figure him out. Was the kid playing with him, or was he truly clueless about what he was doing? Jake had suggested the kid was probably drunk, stumbling through Dave’s codes like a bull in a china shop. Dave had not known how to answer that The thought that the kid could break his codes while drunk was unnerving.
It didn't matter, Dave knew, as he stood on the street, his eyes watching for signs of life behind the yellow curtains of apartment 8B. Nothing moved. If Daniel knew he had been made, he would have bolted and never looked back. Dave had set him up with an incredible prize to keep him logged on, and now he had the kid barely a hundred yards away. Dave smiled. Gotcha!
Ray said something to someone over the communications link. Dave rarely made deals alone, and just as rarely did he let anyone see he had brought company. It made people nervous. Dave's safety made Ray nervous though, and he kept reminding Dave that a desperate person was capable of desperate things.
"All clear," Ray said in his left ear, and Dave moved forward.
Apartment 8B needed a new "B". It read more like 8L with just a dot here and there to signify it had been a B long time ago. Dave rang the bell, and waited. Rustling came and a "Just a minute!" yell from somewhere inside. It sounded as if... as if he were cleaning up in a hurry. Dave's eyebrows went upward, amused. Was Daniel waiting for a girl? For his sister, maybe? Certainly someone of the opposite sex. No teenage boy ever cleaned up for his male friends.
One minute went by. Dave looked to his right, and then to his left. The 2pm sunlight was killing his patience faster than fractals ever would. Finally, the kid opened the door.
And stared.
"Hello, Daniel," Dave said, trying to smile a reassuring smile, but in reality knowing he was sporting one hell of a triumphant smirk. Gotcha, indeed.
"No..." Daniel whispered, shaking his head. "You're not—you're not—" for some reason, he couldn't find the words to finish that sentence, his eyes going round as saucers.
"May I come in?" Dave asked, walking inside the tattered apartment. It looked too dark to his adjusting eyes.
Beside him, Daniel laughed. He laughed the kind of laugh that speaks of relief. "You're not him!" he stated, his nervous hands slapping Dave on the back. "Oh God, you're not him! You can't be! He's somewhere on the other side of the world!" he exclaimed, a fist in the air. He was taller than Dave by an inch or two, with electric blue eyes, and hair that was in serious need of a haircut. Daniel stared at him anxiously, expecting him to come clean and say that, yes, he wasn't himself. Oh, did he enjoy proving him wrong.
"Yeah, I can't believe you fell for that," Dave said simply, still standing in the middle of the living room. The green couches were disheveled, with dark green spots on them that were better not explained. All sorts of chips littered the rug, and the apartment had a slight odor of something sweet. Not a bad smell, just something that was not particularly likeable.
"I didn't fall for anything. I totally know where Dave is. I mean... yes, he knows where I am, but—"
"I wouldn't be here if you weren't good, let's make that clear from the beginning. But you have been playing with money that is attached to other people's lives, and that I do not appreciate."
It had been either the voice, or the eyes, Dave knew, because Daniel lost all confidence again, and blindly taking a step back, he stepped on something slimy enough to make him trip.
"Relax, kid," Dave said, sitting on the closest couch arm available. "If I wanted anything other than to make a deal with you, I would certainly be on the other side of the world. Now sit down, and listen."
Daniel trembled. He loved to be a thief as long as he was thousands of miles away, where no cop was going to get him. Where no owner could follow him and beat him up. In other words, Daniel was a coward when consequences came knocking at his door. And consequences were something Dave could bring in spades.
"I—I'll give it all back!" he half shouted, his hand groping for the doorknob at his back.
"I don't want it back. I already have it back, actually. I want to ask you something, in fact."
Daniel stood still, a frightened gazelle just about to flee. "What...?"
"What did you find in my level 6 codes?" Dave's eyes got somber, while Daniel's got shiny. This was the single, most important achievement in any hacker's life, and Daniel knew it. Hell, Dave knew it. Yet he didn't like anyone's hands on his most important business.
Level Six codes held the information of every deal he'd ever made that needed digital tracking. It also contained sensitive information about government, corporations, and persons of interest. And Antar. Level Six codes contained a treasure of information, and the amount of damage that could be done if they got into the wrong hands was high and wide. Now, Dave was reasonably sure of which files Daniel had put his hands on, but he wanted to hear it from Daniel.
"I went through the Alpha files," Daniel cautiously said, now moving toward the couch in front of Dave. "How they used gifted children through the Cold War. How Jake was able to develop some of the most lethal bioweapons... You were one of the top prizes, I think—you were barely eight years old and you were breaking codes that had taken years to develop!"
The unwelcome intrusion into his past was a small price to pay for the ignorance of so many other files Daniel could have read.
"Yes, I'm sure 40-year-old codes must be fascinating to a mind like yours," Dave said, smiling.
Daniel didn't smile. He actually looked serious, for once.
"You are the most accomplished hacker of our time," the kid said with all sincerity. "I mean, there are others... there are always others, who've gotten their hands on things you don't care about, or don't have the time to. But what you do with the information you have? You're not just there for the ride! You make things happen!"
So you saw more than just the Alpha files, Dave thought heavily.
"I do make things happen, but that requires discretion. What you saw, who you told—"
"I didn't tell anyone," Daniel said in a rush, eyes looking directly into Dave's.
"What?"
"Search my computer. My phone records. Anything you want. I didn’t tell anyone. I knew you wouldn’t want me to.”
Daniel broke eye contact at that, something that warned Dave the kid was lying. Or maybe he’s just nervous, he thought.
He wouldn’t know he was wrong until seven years had passed, while fleeing New York City.
“Let me get this straight. You went through a year of probing and breaking and running through all my codes, and when you finally broke the most important codes I have, you didn’t go out of your head and shout it to the world?”
“There are too many files…” Daniel whispered. “I did it, and then… It was like getting out of a maze just to find that the door to the promised prize just leads into another maze. I knew I wanted the Alpha files, everyone wants those files—”
Dave arched one eyebrow. He did not find that comment amusing, even if it was true. Childhood traumas –his and Jake's childhood traumas—were not for prying eyes.
“Sorry,” Daniel mumbled when he noticed. “What I mean is… what would I do with some guy’s files about the Italian Mafia? Rat him out?”
For the right price… Dave thought to himself. What Daniel lacked wasn’t ambition. It was insight. The kind of insight that would have told him what to do with someone the Mafia sought after. In Dave's view, Daniel lacked vision. In Jake's, he lacked malice.
Whatever it was, it meant that Daniel was potentially telling the truth. He’d found the treasure chest, but by opening it he hadn’t found the gold he had hoped for. Not all that is gold glitters, my friend.
“As embarrassing as it is to admit that you did manage to sneak into my files for about seventeen minutes—
“Nineteen!”
“— three days ago,” Dave continued, ignoring the correction, “you may be interested in—“
“Yes. Oh God, yes!”
“I—” Dave tried to say, finding himself a second later in the arms of an overeager, and over-thin teenager.
“I thought you would kill me first, and ask later,” he said in a half whisper, still holding Dave in his arms.
“Well, I usually need my Network Keepers alive… And they are usually not stealing from me," he added as an afterthought.
“Yeah, that’s because they’re morons,” Daniel said, getting a grip on reality, and on the fact that he was holding the mighty Dave as if he were his best friend. He let Dave go and stood straight. “Now, I spent a year chasing you, and all I want is a year under your roof, learning with the best. Can that be done? Can you offer me a year?”
“Well, Daniel, I think I can offer you that at the very least.”
2 : Maria
September, 2004 – The Compound
“Come on, one more time, focus!” Ray instructed as Maria took her fighting stance. She’d been working on this form for the better part of two months, and she was angry enough to kick the wall down.
By the corner, Michael chuckled. Both Ray and Maria glared at him.
“Sorry,” he apologized a second after, coughing a little.
Her attention back on her target—a willing Ray—she went over the steps in her head and a heartbeat later she went for it. She almost got it this time, the kicks and the punches coming more naturally now than they had before.
“Good, good, you’re getting there. Focus and try again,” Ray instructed.
Getting the forms right was the easy part. Applying them in the right situation was a whole other thing. Because she was small, she had to be more aware of how to use her opponent’s energy and weight. She had speed, Ray said, but she lacked strength.
She went through the form a dozen times more, all of them close but not perfect.
“Maybe we should take a break. You need to regain some balance,” Ray declared, lowering his arms.
Maria glared at him, wiping off the sweat dripping from her forehead. Since she was gasping for breath, she didn't object. A moment later, she walked towards Michael and the water fountain.
“I don’t get it. It seems perfect every time you do it,” Michael tried to cheer her up.
“It’s not,” she said between gulps of water.
Although Ray had trained all six of them, Max, Michael and Isabel had it easier. Their training would be a mix up of mental strength and actual muscle. They worked to minimize the amount of energy they had to release. Liz, Kyle and Maria had to do it the human way, and out of the three, she was the one who actually wanted to master it as far as she could go. She was now training for her black belt second degree.
She could easily take Michael down in a match, but the weasel always got her on the floor with him with a little turn of his wrist.
“What was so funny?” she asked, going easier on the water now. Michael frowned. “When I was starting, you laughed…” she reminded him.
“Nothing, just thinking it felt good when Ray was ordering someone other than me to focus,” he said, shrugging. Michael had no trust for Dave, and little patience for Jake. But Ray… Ray he did respect.
In the beginning, he’d watched Maria's lessons with a hawk's eye, which had made Ray nervous as hell. But with time, and as Ray actually got to work with Michael, her boyfriend had started to be less anxious about it, and more appreciative of what she was learning.
“Shouldn’t you be at Jake’s lab now?” Maria asked after a minute. Michael’s mood changed faster than she could say lab rat.
“He’s been trying to get us to do some stupid thing about perception. I don’t like it,” he stated with finality.
Michael never liked whatever Jake had in mind to begin with. Only after Ray gave it some practical use, did Michael willingly go. She’d once asked Liz if Max secretly thought the same. Liz had looked thoughtful. Max thinks it’s his part of the deal. Jake always asks him if he’s okay, and Max has never had reason to say no.
Of course, Max the Saint would never complain. Michael, on the other hand…
“Why don’t you tell him so?” Maria said out loud, wondering for the millionth time if there was a reason why Michael was so against it.
Michael opened his mouth for a second, and then closed it. He tried again, raising his hand, and closed it once more. “He’s just so darn curious,” he muttered a moment later, his hand going to his hair in a nervous gesture. “He’s been asking about connections lately…” he admitted, a storm going on his eyes. “He asked us if you wouldn’t mind helping out on a little ‘experiment’. Try to see what a connection looked like. The three of us refused.”
“You did? When? Why didn’t you tell me? Tell us?” she asked, her katas forgotten. She’d never really set foot in Jake’s lab. The most she got was Liz’s babble about what they had discovered when Jake shared whatever he saw.
“It’s not fun, okay?” Michael burst out. “I don’t want you near him, or him finding out that I did something to you. The less he knows about you, all four of you, the better,” he finished, whispering. He meant Jesse as well, now that he and Isabel shared a connection. But she read deeper. He was afraid that Maria had been changed in some fundamental way. That both Liz and Kyle had been changed by Max was a fact. That she and Jesse had also gone over to the dark side was still up for debate. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Michael feared he had changed her in a literal sense.
“Michael,” she thoughtfully said, “I’ll speak with him.”
“What? No!” Michael tried to sound decisive, but he sounded wounded instead.
“I think I’m old enough to know if I want to do it or not,” she informed him. “I get why Liz and Kyle are out of the question, but I’m curious, okay? At least hear the man out.”
Michael didn’t like it, one bit. She sighed to the heavens for patience. “Go do your magic show,” she said, waving with her hand in Jake’s general direction. “I want to practice this thing a little longer.”
“You’re crazy,” Michael said by way of good-bye. She just chuckled.
3 : Michael
“So I just put on the glasses and blow the darn thing?” Michael asked, suspiciously looking at Jake first, and at Samantha a second later.
In his hands, Jake had a pair of plastic goggles. About twenty feet in front of them, a brown, empty pot rested on a pedestal. Jake had seen him blowing stuff up on many occasions before, so why was this time special?
Jake smiled. Samantha looked eager. Maybe too eager.
“I know you’ve been wanting to blow something up, so…” Jake said by way of explanation. Jake never missed an opportunity to record them in action. That he knew when enough time had passed since Michael’s last outburst, didn’t feel right. Jake knowing him so well made him nervous.
“Okay…” Michael said, unconvinced, taking the goggles from Jake’s hand and putting them on. At least, for today’s experiment, he was spared the biometrics. He never liked when he had to have those damn circles sticking all over his chest.
Wearing protective gear, on the other hand, was usually standard procedure when they were blowing stuff up. Both Jake and Samantha put on their goggles and moved a few feet behind Michael. Usually, Max would be standing between Michael and the others, ready to put up his shield if he needed to.
“Whenever you're ready,” Jake said, eyes focused on the pot.
Michael looked at it as well. By this point, he was used to not raising his hand. Even if it was way easier that way, Ray had taught them the value of surprise. Chances were, as Ray warned them, that during a crisis they might need to stay still while orchestrating a diversion.
A few seconds went by as Michael willed the pot to explode. It remained untouched.
Michael frowned. The room they were in was long. Long enough to fit four cars in a row. It was meant to contain the more destructive side of their powers, and usually stuff ended up either blown up or scattered or melted. There were no smoke detectors, and no windows. What happened here remained a mystery for the rest of the compound.
Michael’s fingertips tingled as he concentrated more power towards the pot.
The room did have a sophisticated camera system that had been fried on more than one occasion. Usually by accident, but every once in a while, Michael liked to play with it. Before they had come to the compound and made their deal, they had already learned to place a hand on a light switch, and follow the internal wires to fry an entire electrical system. Ray had been more thorough with them, devising ways for them to find bugs.
The pot moved slightly, looking as if an air current had entered the room. For all the energy Michael was throwing at that thing, it should be obliterated by this point.
He turned to look at Jake, suspicion growing exponentially.
“What is it made of?”
“Clay. Are you having trouble with it?” Jake innocently asked. Michael narrowed his eyes.
Gritting his teeth, Michael turned to look at the damn thing. It wasn’t clay. Clay exploded after 1.3 seconds of him staring at it.
“Would you like to touch it?” Jake’s offer just infuriated Michael more.
“If you say it’s clay, then it’s clay,” Michael said, his eyes fixed on that thing. There was a trick to this experiment, Michael knew, and he didn’t want Jake to tell him what it was.
Usually, the experiments were quite straightforward. Drag this here, explode that there… Or subtle things, like changing forms, frying stuff. But every other month, Jake liked to play with their heads, in more ways than just the literal one.
“Didn’t you say this was a perception test?” Michael asked, still looking at the pot, still concentrating on making it a million pieces. Nothing was happening
“I did,” Jake said with a slight smile in his voice.
“What does this have to do with perception?” Michael finally gave in. He wanted to use his hands to focus his energy better, though he hadn’t had need of that little habit in months.
Silently going to him, Jake gave him another pair of goggles, as plain looking as the ones Michael wore. “Try it with these,” Jake said simply, trying not to smile.
It’s in the goggles, Michael thought in annoyance, taking his off, and placing the new ones on. Two seconds after, the pot shattered in all direction, making a spectacular display of too much energy on too small an object.
Samantha was furiously typing on her laptop. Some days, Michael wondered if she was truly typing something, or just clicking on the keys to appear busy.
“What the hell happened?” Michael asked, taking the goggles off again. They looked normal enough. That something like a plastic sheet over his eyes could thwart his best efforts was not a welcome thought.
“Perception,” Jake said, giving him the first pair. “These have a slight gradation to them—far enough away, objects look about three feet closer than they are. At this distance, you really couldn’t tell that the pot looked closer with the goggles than it did without them.”
“This is useful how?” Michael asked bluntly. He hated coming to these pointless sessions, and he hated them even more when he was alone.
Jake walked to one of the largest monitors, a flat screen. He punched some keys, and the monitor flared to life. People showed up on the infrared screen as reds and yellows.
“This is right before we started,” Jake said while Michael got closer. It was a view of the room from above. Jake, Samantha and he looked like large red dots on one corner, while the rest of the room looked cool in shades of blue.
“This is thirty seconds into it,” Jake said as the screen changed. In front of the pedestal with the pot, a tight ball of red grew. It was almost perfectly spherical.
“Forty five seconds,” Jake said, the ball growing bigger. “One minute.” The ball tripled in size.
“You kept at it for one minute twelve seconds. You could have thrown a pan of water and watched it evaporate.”
Michael narrowed his eyes at Jake’s words. “I wasn’t thinking about heating it…” he murmured.
“No, but you kept trying to blow it up and, as you can see, it just kept adding energy to this spot in the air. And it became heat.”
“If I had wanted heat, I would have aimed for heat,” Michael said in a flat tone. Honestly, why did he even bother trying to understand this guy?
Jake smiled devilishly. “By all means, think of heat…”
Five minutes later, Michael found himself doing a repeat of the experiment, sans the pot. He had to concentrate on the same spot for one minute and twelve seconds, and see the differences.
Sweat started to run down his temples before even thirty seconds had passed. He blinked a couple of times as he kept trying to focus on the same spot in the air. It was difficult to gauge the distance. He was tempted more than once to glance at the monitor where the heat readout was displayed.
“Time,” Samantha said, finally ending this stupid experiment. He was soaked through with sweat, and in dire need of water.
“Perception,” Jake said, dividing the screen in two, to compare both trials. “How you focus affects the end results.”
Where the first ball had been almost perfect, the second one didn’t know if it wanted to be a line or a butterfly.
“What the hell did you expect? I couldn’t concentrate on a spot in the air!” Michael said, frustrated. He was getting a slight headache.
“True,” Jake agreed. “And we can do this again with a more structured experiment. But what I wanted you to notice is this: When you thought about heat, you used way more energy than necessary. See?” Jake pointed to the pictures. “You achieved a higher degree of heat in your second attempt, but it cost you dearly. You didn’t even sweat when you finished the first, and there’s enough heat in this picture to achieve a lot. Now you are barely able to breathe normally.”
Michael glared at him. “So what are you saying? That if I didn’t think of heat I could still achieve heat?”
Jake smiled. “Yes. You just don’t know how to adjust your energy, and waste a lot of it to get things done. But if you change the way you perceive things, like with the goggles, not only would you be able to do more with less cost to your body, but you’ll get to be more creative about it.”
He hated it when Jake made sense.
4 : Jet
October 2004 – Washington, D.C.
There was something extremely intoxicating about stalking one's prey.
Shifters were all created with one intent and purpose: to kill. Bioengineered to be soldiers, shifters trained from the moment they could properly change their form—a few weeks after they had emerged from their tanks—and Jet had not been the exception.
In fact, he was good at it. And he was good at it because he valued what he was, what he could do, and what he could achieve. And right now that means carrying out my execution orders in an invisible manner.
They were not called the Invisible Guard for nothing.
Although their primary duty was to Guard the king at all costs, other more subtle duties fell under their jurisdiction, ones not written in the job description. It was their privilege to impart the king's justice when the king's person had been attacked in any way.
Shifters were the single most outstanding achievement of Antarian bioscience. They represented the culmination of hundreds of years of research. To create another life had been big. To create a life form that was so different, that could shift to any form… that was grand. And although the general public did not have cozy feelings about them, they were highly regarded in the military life they were forced to adopt. Because shifters were exceedingly intelligent and stealthy to a fault, they were entrusted with the safety of the king.
The Seal guaranteed their loyalty, of course, but being in the Guard had little to do with that. If Jet was being honest—and he usually was—shifters coveted this position so much because it empowered them. Working for the king was no small matter, and acting on the king's behalf meant rising above any Antarian, shifter or otherwise.
It gave their race respect. No one would dare to look down on a Guard. And no one would dare to attack Antar's mighty king without careful consideration.
Their lives revolved around the king's. They followed him, assessed the immediate dangers, were ready to strike—or to retreat.
Van said there was no shame in retreating, and being part of the Rebellion usually meant they had to retreat on a daily basis. Jet didn't like it, but he'd learned the tactical value of it. It was the only reason he'd ever thought about joining the Rebellion in the first place. They weren't unorganized. They weren't stupid. If anything, the Rebellion was a power unto itself, one that had been quietly growing for decades. And Jet, like all good soldiers, could see a battle coming in his future way ahead of time.
The man he was following tonight had almost destroyed that future. Of the twenty-three men who had held Zan prisoner, eight had been medical personnel. And here he was, Dr. Williams, the head of every single torturer who had held blades against his future king's skin. Jet's almond eyes narrowed to almost slits.
From the moment he'd realized that the Rebellion was in a tactical position to win, Jet had made it his business to learn as much as he could. Not from Khivar and his propaganda—though he paid attention to it as well—but from other shifters. From wounded captives. It was so easy to materialize in a cell, pretend to be a fellow prisoner… and learn.
Joining the Rebellion had not been an easy decision. He wasn't an idealist like Jade, nor did he want another life like Violet and Ash, or want to remain invisible like Shade. He wanted order. He wanted fairness. He knew he was going to be a soldier regardless of who won, either with Khivar or with Zan, and he was perfectly okay with that. But he also took very seriously the threat to his own race, to shifters. And Khivar was not exactly covering the fact that he despised them, and found them useful enough to let them live but not really have a life.
Jet did not consider himself less than the next Antarian. If anything, he was better. He could run faster, dissolve into walls, wear anyone's face. Physically, shifters were superior in every way, both to humans and to Antarians. But going against Antarians was just idiotic. Shifters were part of Antar. They belonged to that planet as much as the next naturally born citizen. Zan had said that, there were records of it if one knew where to look. Through the Rebellion, seeds of their acceptance had been planted already, and Van had been responsible for that.
If you join the Rebellion, Van had personally told him, you accept that all rebels are brothers and sisters. If you can't trust the person next to you, shifter or not, you're dead.
No, joining the Rebellion was more of a strategic step. It could take Van years to earn enough power, harvest enough energy from all the corners of Antar, but eventually that was going to happen. Van was a ghost, a whispered name. Van represented everything that Antar had been before Khivar. The change that Zan had tried to impose was the change that people now wanted.
You were changing things before your people were ready, Jet thought, his eyes following the good doctor to his car. From the shadows of the tree line where he was standing, he didn't even have to shift into the trunk to be invisible. His black clothes were enough. His eyes turned a darker shade, his Antarian blood boiling with the thought of what that man would do to Zan, or Van, or any of them, if he were allowed to live.
It hadn't been easy to earn his place in the close ranks of the Rebellion. Shifters were welcomed as a general rule, but his high position in Khivar's army made him the perfect spy. He'd come to the Rebellion not in his capacity as a shifter, but in his capacity as an officer of the Royal Army. Most shifters, for all Khivar and society didn't want them, served at the most highly specialized levels. Lately, half of them had orders that included capturing rebels.
Luke himself had talked to him way before letting Van near him. Why should I believe you're honest? Why shouldn't I kill you right here, right now, as the double agent I'm sure you are? he'd asked simply. Jet hadn't even blinked. Because I have never raided establishments five nights in a row before. Khivar is getting weary of the Rebels. He knows something he wishes I didn't already know, that I can feel: that the Rebellion is a growing enemy.
It took months to prove his worth.
Years to earn his place under this tree, watching the doctor get into his car, start it, and drive away. Luke had instructed them that there could not be any trace of their involvement in these executions. They were not a statement from the Antarian Royal Family. They had to be carefully staged accidents. And that needed preparation. That needed information. He watched the car go, the man inside alive for another night. But just one more.
. Well, I can't say that I completly got the thing about Michael, his powers, heat and all that stuff, but I trust you. 
. Imagine that ! I'm not sure if I'm happy or scared to know that there are 4 Michael and Maria children roaming around the planet!
!
