Roswell Fanatics

8:00 PM Tony’s Bowling Alley, 213 South Central Street, Tonopah Nevada.

The bowling alley only had six lanes and it was league night, so the plan to go bowling was a washout. But they did have one rickety old pool table open, with the felt nearly worn off. Max didn’t think it was entirely level either, but that was because Liz kept beating him so badly.

Anna wasn’t doing well either, missing the cue ball altogether her first attempts at playing. Finally Greg started coaching her, and she seemed to do a little better. She’d lean over the cue, and he’d reach around and steady her left hand as he helped her stroke the cue with her right.

Liz had been worried that being this close to Greg would be hard for her, but she seemed to be tolerating it. Even with the coaching though, she wasn’t very good…although she and Greg together were giving her and Max a run for their money…mostly because Max couldn’t shoot very well.

They were down to the final ball, and she and Max could win if she made a difficult double bank shot…past a solid ball…she and Max had stripes. She stroked it hard enough she thought…but she’d been wrong. It was on line…just not hard enough. The cue hit the last striped ball…sending it toward the pocket, but it just didn’t have enough steam. It was going to stop, she knew it would. She REALLY REALLY wished it wouldn’t, because Max was going to tease her about it…he’d told her she’d never make the shot.

But then somehow it was almost like the ball got a little extra speed and somehow barely trickled in to the cup. She looked at Max quickly….it wouldn’t be fair if he were using telekinesis…but it hadn’t been him. He was under the table…trying to prove it wasn’t really level. It must have just hit a spot on the felt where it was smooth.

Liz looked up with a big victory smile on her face…nobody was paying attention. Max was still under the table and Greg and Anna appeared lost in each other’s eyes.

“Uh—hem….We won..”

“Oh, congratulations, Li….uh Beth. Nice game,” said Greg, not really taking his eyes off of Anna. Anna didn't even respond that much.

Two minutes later Max and Greg were over getting drinks for everyone while Liz racked the balls.

“Don’t worry, Anna. Max didn’t know how to play either…I had to show him. You’ll get better eventually.”

Anna smiled and put the cue ball on the table, breaking the rack and sinking two balls. She ran three more before she looked up.

”My mom was also a pool hustler.....and used to take me with her when she’d practice. I ruled the pool table in the dayroom in rehab… nobody even came close. I just decided it would be nice to have Greg coach me,” Anna said, grinning.

Liz shook her head. “You are SOO bad, girl…”

Anna was going to be alright.

11:10 PM The Evans residence, Roswell New Mexico

In the master bedroom, Diane had come up with a plan of sorts.....


“Umm…you know I love that perfume on you, darling….”

“Yes dear….

"And that negligee......

"Apparently not that much Phil....it didn't stay on all that very long.

“Ohh God…..I love it when you do that Diane….UMMMHHH!!!”

“Umm….Philip….careful there, you’ll wake our daughter…..””

”I’ll WHHAAA!!!.....WWHHOOOOOO??????”

”Our daughter, Philip. Remember Izzie? The alien girl engaged to Alex Whitman. You remember.....our daughter….”

“Yes…..I’ll be quiet….whatever you say..dear….UHHNNN yes…..UHNNN….. UHHHHHNNN!!!”

In the meantime, down the hall, Isabelwas already sound asleep, waiting for Alex to drift off and show up in the dream orb. Her plans for him appeared to be......quite similar, really.

Like mother like daughter, I guess.

1:00 AM Michael Guerin’s Apartment, Roswell New Mexico

He had been tossing and turning for three hours. There were many unanswered questions; where he came from and why he was here…..to name only a couple. The apartment wasn’t that great, and it was the best he would be able to do for quite awhile. He hadn’t even graduated from high school yet…..and he was struggling just to make ends meet. It was totally and absolutely irrational of her to expect him to make a commitment….any kind of a commitment. What on Earth could be going through Maria’s head to even expect something like that?

Well, that was easy….Alex and Isabel…..not to mention Max and Liz. Damn it, none of them should be making any kind of a commitment to any human……hell, they didn’t even know if they could have kids…..

‘Damn, I bet Maria was cute when she was a little girl,’ he thought. ‘..and if she had a little girl of her own, she’d probably be just as cute.’ And if Michael committed to her…got her to commit back…she might never have that little girl…might never have kids at all.

Because deep in his heart he knew….knew that she was just like him. If she ever once made that commitment…she’d never step back from it.

Was that fair to her? Because that was the only thing that mattered…..what was best for Maria. Because if it was best for Maria…he’d do anything….just walk away and never return to Roswell.

But what if she had already committed? What if....it really didn't make any difference what he did....Maria was going to love him anyway?

‘Damn, how can I know that?’ he asked himself…… ‘how can I ever know that?’

Isabel had done her best to teach Michael how to dreamwalk…..but he’d never really been able to do it. Once, with Isabel helping, he’d almost been able to dreamwalk Max. But he’d been staring at her picture on the wall for three hours now. If that wasn’t concentrating hard enough…he might as well quit trying. Maybe he could get some hint from her dream how she felt about the whole situation.

He stared at the picture and let his mind float toward her…..

‘It’s just you and me, babe……’

He'd be looking for a ring in the morning.

2000 local time (0400 Roswell time) Officer’s club casual bar, Kunsan AB, Korea

Five years before the Roswell spacecraft crashed a British RAF pilot had made the comment that there were only three things wrong with the ‘Yanks’ of the Army Air Corps,…..that they were overpaid, oversexed, and over here.

Col Robert ‘Bull” Durham was thinking similar thoughts as he watched the drama unfolding at the bar. Bull was the current head dog of the Wolfpackand he’d been watching the young fighter pilots really celebrating for the last two hours.

No, they weren’t from his 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, these were from a stateside base, deployed over for one month of training here at the ‘tip of the spear,’ as the officers and enlisted at Kunsan liked to call themselves. And it was a fair term, at that. They were only minutes flight away from the DMZ, and that’s why it was a remote base with only active duty personnel assigned….and that sometimes caused problems.

The hospital was small…only six nurses assigned. Except in wartime they would ship serious patients up to Osan, where they had a bigger base…and one not so near the action. And at Osan there were families…unlike here.

He’d been watching the problem grow….watching the other pilots egg on the young fighter jock to go ask out one of the two nurses eating in the mess. One of his squadron mates had been betting him he couldn’t get a date with the youngish looking Major….him being a mere Captain.

And to tell the truth if it would have been one of the young unmarried Lieutenant nurses out there, Bull would have already gone over and told the somewhat tipsy young man and his friends to knock it off, but seeing the situation as it was…Bull and his Vice Commander had a side bet going on just how badly and publicly the young man was going to go down in flames. It didn’t take long.

The young Captain navigated unsteadily to the table where the two women sat eating dinner, his drinking buddies watching from the doorway to the bar. The Captain nurse, he decided, clearly was not bad….but the blonde Major…. Now she was REALLY impressive. Sure…both of them had wedding rings…..so did he…in his pocket. But damn….a couple of lonely girls…probably hadn’t seen their spouses in months…and he was separated from his wife….separated by about twenty-hours of flying and almost 6000 miles. Now how could he deny that lonely young major a good time?

“EsCuush me, Major….”

“Yes, Captain?” asked Sandi.

“I…. am a fighter pilot and I’d like to ask you..”

“Really, you’re a fighter pilot? Oh my goodness, that must be interesting work…”

“Interesting…and very dangerous, Ma’am.”

“Well if you do any flying in this condition, I’m sure it is…Captain.”

The nurse turned to the other nurse dining with her. “Jane, did I ever tell you about the time I dated a fighter pilot? He spent half the date telling me about himself…the other half telling me about his airplane.”

Bull was trying not to laugh as he saw the young fighter pilot hang in there, He had to give the kid some credit for persistence…if not good judgment.

“Ma’am. I really would like to buy you a drink…”

“Captain,” she said. “I think you’ve probably bought enough drinks for tonight.” Turning to the other nurse, she continued to talk, “Did I ever tell you the difference between a pig and a fighter pilot? When a pig gets drunk he doesn’t turn in to a fighter pilot.”

By this time the pilots friends were rolling on the floor at the entrance to the dining area, laughing at him. He made one last attempt.

“Why I don’t believe you, Ma’am. Here I am out here at the tip of the frigging spear….protecting the free world, and you won’t even have a drink with me?”

The nurse again turned to her fellow nurse. “Jane, you know the difference between a fighter pilot and a jet engine? The jet engine stops whining when you shut it down…”

As his squadron mates hooted and howled at the pilot as he came back into the bar, the senior officer of the deployed squadron wandered over to see Bull.

“Good evening, Colonel. Looking forward to a good exercise.”

“Nice to see you again, Dick. Welcome to Kunsan.”

“My young Captain there just got quite a welcome. I don’t think that cute nurse likes fighter pilots.”

“Oh, she likes a fighter pilot alright, the Captain just wasn’t the right one. That’s Major Randolph, our Chief Nurse.”

“Slammer Randolph’s wife?”

“That’s her. I’d have told your young Captain that he didn’t have a chance…but I figured he’d probably figure that out pretty quickly.”

“Yeah, if that young lady can handle Slammer, she can handle anyone.”

As they left the dining hall to go back to their quarters, they went down the steps. Jane saw Sandi clutch quickly at her lower abdomen.

“Sandi, are you OK?”

“Yeah, I just got a twinge of pain….probably pulled something working out on the Nautilus machine. It’s gone now.”

4:30 AM Isabel’s Room, The Evan’s Residence, Roswell New Mexico

Their passion had been spent four hours previously…but neither had left the dream orb. They lay there on the blanket…looking up at the dream stars in the dream sky…. just enjoying the closeness….

But the ‘click’ of the closing door mechanism alerted Isabel to a problem in the real world, so she delayed only long enough for a whispered good-bye and a soft kiss on his cheek before pulling her mind from the orb.

The room was almost dark, but in the little moonlight pouring through the window she could see the man’s outline, sitting on the chair staring at her. Her right hand went up, ready to strike, as her left went to the bedside lamp, fumbling for a few seconds before she found the switch to turn it on.

“Daddy?”

“Shhh Izzy, you’ll wake Mom.”

“Daddy, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I’m not really sure, dear. Your mother and I were…well, we were talking…and she said something that I really wasn’t paying too much attention to. But after she went to sleep I kept turning her words over in my mind…not even sure I heard what I thought I heard. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep…so I finally needed to come in and look at my little girl…just to see that you are alright.”

“I’m fine, Daddy.”

“You certainly looked happy, dreaming there. Izzy, I’d almost swear that sometime in our…talk, your mother told me that …that you were an alien and you were engaged to marry Alex Whitman,…is that silly or what?”

Isabel gulped several times. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. She wanted her mother here for this..she needed her support. But she loved her father too. She couldn’t lie to him any longer. She held up her hand and made her palm glow, softly lighting the room so she could see his face as she told him.

“It’s true, Daddy. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long…you and Mom. I told her just the day before yesterday. When you and Mom found us that day…we’d only been out of our incubators about twelve hours. There never was any real life before that for us. We were almost like newborn babies…not knowing much of anything. Max and I were so afraid….afraid of being different…afraid we wouldn’t be accepted. Especially Max….he made me promise not to tell. He didn’t think that humans would ever accept us…that we’d always be freaks. Until he knew that Liz loved him, he never really believed. Can you forgive us, Daddy? Forgive me? Can you still love me?”

Philip Evans face never changed. He looked at Isabel with tears glistening in his eyes as he spoke to her.

“I don’t know Alex that well, Isabel. Is he a good person? Is he someone who will love you like we love you? Someone that will make you happy?”

“Why…yes Daddy, Alex…Alex is great…..but the alien part.”

“That doesn’t matter, Izzy. I think I always knew it. When you find two beautiful kids walking along a road alone….who would desert such wonderful kids? I knew there had to be a story there. When you learned to read in six weeks…I caught Max reading my law books before he went to Third grade….I mean it was obvious that there was something special about both of you. And when I handled Michael’s emancipation…found out that he had been found wandering naked through the desert a couple days after we found you and Max….and I knew you two had been friends with Michael since you met him in grade school…when no one else would be….it was clear that the three of you weren’t just normal kids.

But what matters, Izzy, is that you are engaged. I’ve already lost one of my children…I can’t lose another. I want you to be so sure that Alex is the right one…..I want you to take your time…not rush in to anything like Max did…..like we pushed Max into doing. That’s all that’s really important, Isabel.”

“He’s the right one, Daddy…but we aren’t going to get married right away…we are going to wait for graduation. And you’ll love him too, Daddy. Alex is just wonderful.”

Philip looked at the joy on his daughter’s face, and couldn’t help but smile.

“Well maybe you’ll invite him over for dinner tonight…perhaps I could get to know my future son-in-law a little bit better. I take it you told him…..about the alien stuff I mean?”

“Yes Daddy, he knows…of course he knows. And I’m sure he’d love to come to dinner…to get to know you. And Daddy, the thing with Max….it was me….. I was the one that was so afraid of Liz…the one who tried to break them up for all these years. He really has loved her Daddy, all these years he’s loved her. They are going to do fine, Daddy. Really….they are.”

Philip Evans hugged his daughter…HIS daughter, no matter where she came from or what she was, the bond had been made a decade ago, and nothing would ever break that. With tears in his eyes, because he knew he was losing her….or at least no longer going to be the MOST important man in her life, he hugged her tightly to him.

“I hope so, honey. I just wish I had my whole family here where I could see them and know that they were safe. Your mom, you, Max,….and Alex and Liz, too.”

“Let’s go into the kitchen, Daddy. We’ll have some hot cocoa. I’ll show you how Max and I make it when there’s no one else around….why we never need to clean the microwave.”

“OK, Peanut.”

“Dad, I told you in fourth grade that I didn’t like being called peanut. Besides, I’ve grown since then.”

“So your old Dad is being nostalgic. I’m entitled to that, my baby just got engaged. Does that boy know that if he doesn’t take good care of you, he’ll answer to me?”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about on that account, Daddy.”

Of course, she knew he would. He always had.

0730 Area 51, Grooms Lakerunway, Nevada

Slammer had consulted with the safety people, with the propulsion people, and finally with Peter Stanbeck. The cylinders had survived the crash intact, and they’d outlasted two of the three diamond saws. It was probably safer to fly them over the range than take them in a ground convoy…especially with the unexploded ordnance that littered some of the range live-fire areas. They could have taken the spacecraft offrange to the East and then North, before turning West on highway 6, but security would have been more of an issue. It was safer and simpler to fly.

That’s why the Air Force C-17 was loaded with 50,000 pounds of used and somewhat abused spacecraft parts, taxiing out to takeoff for the short flight of 100 nautical miles to Tonopah Test Range. Once there, however, the parts known to be dangerous…the three cylinders, would be stored in individual hangars, under constant video surveillance. The hangars at Tonopah were much smaller than hangar B, but there certainly was no shortage of them. It was finally cleared by the tower and the aircraft lifted off into the blue Nevada sky.

During the flight the cylinder embedded logic continued to try….seventeen times a second, to bring the ship mind to a state of consciousness. It failed, but it had come much closer than usual. As the ship flew from east to west, cutting the lines of magnetism of the Earth, a number of areas of the wreckage generated electrical current by electromagnetic induction.

The power would have been trivial…by the standards of human engineering, but it was sufficient to turn back on some ship logic that had been dormant for decades.

And for one very small metal tube…lost among the fifty tons of wreckage, the power was more than adequate. The nanorobots started their built in test sequences and gradually came up from their dormant status, waiting patiently for a crewmember to use molecular manipulation to release them from their storage container and for the ship mind to direct them to perform any needed repairs. And even with that little bit of power, the nanorobots could wait for months.

They weren’t terribly bright, the nanorobots...... there was a limit to what even alien technology could put into a robot so small that tens of thousands of them would only fill a thimble. But they sure were patient. Given a few thousand years, they could have built the ship from scratch. With the right help, they could have this hulk spaceworthy in only about eighty years.

Of course, someone first needed to let them out of the jar.

9:00AM Garman’s Jewelers, 415 North Main Street, Roswell, New Mexico.

Maria wasn’t sure why she tormented herself this way. But Alex had always been a close friend, and since Liz had been gone, she was now probably closer to Isabel than any other girlfriend. So she was with them…bubbly Isabel and deliriously happy Alex, going down to pick up Isabel’s ring.

It had been all Maria could do to make her wait yesterday. The design they’d picked hadn’t been available in Isabel’s size. Isabel had been so flustered she’d almost explained to the saleslady that it was OK, she could molecular manipulate it to the right size. It’d taken a swift kick from Maria under the desk to keep Izzy from giving away the whole enchilada.

And Alex, of course, had been no help whatsoever. He’d been so lost in Isabel’s eyes, he hadn’t even noticed. Maria figured these two probably needed a keeper, just to keep them out of trouble until they could adjust to the new status…and she was the likely candidate. It also hadn’t helped that Alex was going over to Isabel’s for dinner….that her folks seemed to be giving it all a chance.

It wasn’t that Maria resented the fact that Isabel seemed headed for a happy-ever-after, she really cared about Isabel and Alex both, and was happy for them. It was just that…good things seemed to always happen to everybody else. Other kids had great fathers who were there for them…..hers had left. Other people had boyfriends who weren’t afraid of commitment. She told herself that Michael never would..not because she believed it so much as…because she had to believe it. Because that was the one thing she couldn’t get her hopes up about…because if she ever really admitted to herself how much she wanted that…how much she needed that…if she ever really let herself believe how much she was already committed emotionally to that insensitive, uncaring lug…..if she ever lowered her guard that much….she knew she’d be crushed when she never got him.

And this was tough enough, she decided, as she watched them giggle and hug as Isabel tried on the ring they had gotten shipped in…the one that was the right size without the need for any molecular manipulation.

They were so happy, and she started crying a few tears, seeing Isabel’s joy….but somehow the tears kept flowing, and they were no longer about Isabel and Alex…they were the same old tears, the tears that Maria always cried when she wanted something SO BADLY, the tears she had cried because other girls had loving fathers…and hers had rejected her. The tears were coming down and she couldn’t stop them…didn’t know how to stop them. She turned away, not wanting them to see…not wanting for her pain to destroy their joy….she cared for both of them, and they deserved better than that. She turned away, …almost running for the door, the tears blinding her eyes…causing her to miss seeing the person who had just entered, running into him and nearly knocking him down.

“Maria, are you alright?”

“MICHAEL! What are you doing here…”

“Well, Maria..I guess as long as you are here anyway..”

Maria fled from the building, running as fast as she could. Michael tried to follow but ran directly in to a man entering the store. By the time he apologized and helped the man up, she was gone from sight. He ran on for almost a block looking for her, before hearing the faint sobs in the alley.

She was leaning against the brick wall of the building when he saw her, her eyes squeezed tightly shut…but not tightly enough to contain the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Maria?”

“Go away, Michael. I’m not up to this right now.”

“Maria, what’s wrong?”

“Just go away, Michael…I don’t want to see you right now….just leave me alone.” ‘Please Michael,’ she screamed in her mind, ‘..don’t do this to me…don’t let me get my hopes up…I'll die if I let myself admit how much i love you...and then lose you again.

“OK, Maria. Whatever you say.”

She watched him as he retreated slowly up the alley, rubbing her tears, trying to get it back under control. And she did it…she finally got her emotions back to reality as he walked to the mouth of the alleyway and looked back at her and said.

“But if you won’t help pick it out..I don’t want to hear any griping for the next 70 years or so that you didn’t get the engagement ring you wanted.”

9:25 AM Garman’s Jewelers, 415 North Main Street, Roswell, New Mexico.

“Michael, You can’t afford this.”

“I can too, Maria. This is a long-term investment…and it’s worth it. Actually, the payments are rather modest when you finance it over seventy years.”

“Michael, no one finances an engagement ring over 70 years….”

“Of course not. The engagement ring will be paid off in forty years. The other thirty is for the wedding ring.”

“Wedding ring???”


“They come in sets, Maria. But don’t get too excited. We probably aren’t getting married any sooner than Alex and Isabel.”

She smiled at him, her heart almost bursting with joy. “Seventy years, huh?”

“Yeah. And just to show you how much I care…I’ll cover your half of the payments for the first five years.”

She started laughing then, and threw herself into his arms.

0930 Hangar 72, Industrial Area, Tonopah Test Range Nevada

The security arrangements for the hangars had been pretty decent….considering what they were designed to protect was a whole aircraft. But Security Police MSgt Thomas and his team had been told to protect the three cylinders with as much security as the physical plan would permit, and so while most of the wreckage was boxed, labeled, and carefully laid out on the floor of hangar 68, each of the cylinders had a hangar of its very own, newly wired with high resolution security cameras that could see a gnat flying around the hangar and with motion detectors that could tell you if the gnat was moving. Each of the cylinder containing hangars would have constant on-sight protection as well, along with a back up reserve force that was quartered with the firemen over at the fire station, from where they could respond within 40 seconds. MSgt Thomas was sure of the 40 seconds…he'd personally clocked his men, during the no-notice test yesterday.

As Slammer drove the blue Air Force pickup truck up to hangar 72 MSgt Thomas and Capt. Hawthorne saluted. "Well sergeant, are our high risk assets all secured."

"Yessir, Colonel," replied Thomas, "We have over a dozen people in the immediate area with another dozen over at thr fire station where they have two Humvees mounting M-2 fifty caliber guns. All four hangars are monitored down at the base camp as well, 24-7, with motion detectors, imaging infrared, and high resolution video. Until we get our facilities back at the Detachment up and running, that's likely as good as we can do, but nobody is going to sneak up on us anyway, sir."

"Thank you, Sergeant. Jim, how's the billeting for everyone going?"

"Billeting is going reasonably well, sir. Most of the troops are happy with it, the civil service people less so, but they understand it's necessary…except for our two least favorite supergrades.., The messing, however, is a problem. Seems like the dining hall down at Nellis cannibalized some of the kitchen stuff for repairs and improvements on their dining facilities. The stuff we need is on order, but that may mean we are still two or three weeks away from having the dining halls fully up and operational. But we are getting by for the time being on MREs."

"Ouch," said Slammer. "That won't work for very long for anyone…especially the civilians. I'm reasonably hardcore, but even I would consider mutiny if we keep the MRE's up very long. Let's look around and see if we can find a source for one or two hot meals a day…even if we have to go to civilian sources in town. They have that convention center..some of the restaurants must cater for it."

"I've already looked in to that, sir," said Jim. "We have that big interdisciplinary meeting of all the departments tomorrow night, to discuss the orb and how to assess it. One of the restaurants in town has agreed to cater the dinner for it. We'll have almost 200 hundred people attending that. I'll give them a call, see if they can do at least one meal like that per day for everyone."

"Well, it looks like you have the situation in hand. I'm going up to the headquarters building to start dusting out my new office. Need a ride with me, Captain?"

"No sir…I have a truck. I'll be up there myself in about twenty minutes."

12:30 PM, Crashdown Café, Roswell New Mexico

Amy came in the back door with five boxes of pies. As she sat them in the cooler she noticed the two other waitresses hovering around Maria. Amy knew that Maria had been depressed since Liz had run off…not really herself. She'd gotten used to seeing her daughter moping. But it wasn't like that today. She was smiling…almost giddy with excitement. She started in to the dining room not really understanding…until she saw Maria showing off the ring on her left hand.

"Amy…," called Nancy's voice from the back booth, where she was sitting having lunch with Diane Evans, "…There's an empty seat if you'd like to join our club. It isn't a big club, …but it appears you are eligible for membership."

Amy sat down beside them and picked up a menu. "A Sigourney Weaver, I guess…..and do you serve anything stronger than milkshakes?"

She'd be talking to her daughter when Maria got off work.

12:45 The Crashdown Café, Roswell New Mexico

"That's Isabel Evans?"

"Yeah, and that's Alex Whitman with her. Don't ask me to explain that…I still don't understand it…but as long as they're happy with it…and they certainly are."

"And Michael Guerin…he's the cook?"

"Yeah…and half of the show in the eraser room yesterday."

"THAT was…them."

"Yeah, that's Maria over there....you can see more of them when they are…apart."

"And Isabel and Alex are really….engaged?"

"Apparently…if the vice principal can be believed…once she started talking again."

"So Max Evans is where?"

"Nobody knows. He and Liz eloped and ran off. My dad's got people looking for them but so far..no luck."

"Eloped as in….MARRIED?"

"Yeah, in Las Vegas. They've sent a couple of emails…apparently doing OK. Their folks are worried sick about them, of course. They are hiding out until they are old enough that their parents won't be able to get it annulled."

"I see…" said Tess, re-evaluating just about everything she had been taught for the last ten years.

Tess was realistic.., you didn't have to be a psychiatrist to know that her 'uncle' was a couple tacos short of a combo-plate, but even so…she'd been willing to give romance with Max Evans a shot…just so she wouldn't have to put up with him nagging her about 'miscegenation',….whatever the hell that was.

She should have known better than to get sex education from a creature who was asexual. Although perhaps before the two years in that facility…he might have been a little less fouled up.

Apparently Max and this Liz were happy enough miscegenating like bunny-rabbits…and Isabel and Alex looked like it wouldn't take much to head them down the same path. As for Michael and Maria, …Tess still wasn't too sure exactly what had been going on in the eraser room…but it seemed to work for them.

Sure, she'd promised Nasedo she'd make a play for Max…for the glory of the race and all that. But hell, he was married. 'I'm a lot of things,' Tess said to herself, 'but I'm not a home-wrecker.' No. it was better to not mention ANY of this to Nasedo. He'd almost certainly go after Alex or Maria if she did and certainly Liz.

Tess thought at first that she should have felt some guilt about that....lying to Nasedo....., considering Nasedo had cared for her for a decade now….but she didn't. The evidence was before her own eyes….Isabel and Michael clearly didn't consider humans to be inferior…and as for Liz…well obviously Max had made the same sort of choice.

'What the hell, Tess.' she told herself. 'You are a sophomore in High School…, it's probably time for a little adolescent rebellion. Besides,' she thought, 'Kyle's got a kind of cute ass…..It might be fun to see more of it.'