Three of a Kind by Victoria Hibbard - Webs



Three of a Kind by Victoria Hibbard

Pt. 4

Chapter 26 Readings

"Some have a style that they work hard to refine -

So they walk a crooked line.

But she won't understand why anyone would have to try

To walk a line when they could fly.

No sense thinking I could rehabilitate her

when she's fine

fine

fine.

She's got so many ideas traveling around in her head

She doesn't need nothing from mine."

~~ The Bangles If She Knew What She Wants

"In this position, the Strength card indicates that Elizabeth's

spiritual bonds are stronger than her attraction to material possessions, love

will conquer hate in her soul, and that she has the will for her higher nature to

overcome her carnal desires, right?" Abraham asked. He was seated on the

hardwood floor of Paul and Natty's living room. Spread out in front of him on

the coffee table was a formation of Tarot cards. Elizabeth sat on the couch

across from him, with Natty sitting beside her.

"Excellent, Bram! You're a natural at this," Natty smiled.

"You're even better at it than I am!" Elizabeth exclaimed. Her blue

eyes were lit up at the prospect of future enlightenment to come, although the

part about upheaval made her curiously nervous. Though she hadn't voiced her

inquiry out loud, her question had been answered decisively. And, she could

sense, that for the time being, Kyle was safe and healing.

Learning the ways of the Tarot under Natty's instruction spoke into her

own special instincts almost as well as the reciever of the telephone could

amplify the voices of her loved ones...if only she could call them. Despite the

affinity she learned she had for reading the Tarot, it seemed as though

Abraham had a true gift for it. The interpretations of the meanings came so easily

for him. Without even looking at the beginner's guide that Natty had, he

could understand the cards, and how the meanings could change depending on

the various positions they assumed within a reading. He was also proving to be

quite adept at understanding how the cards "communicated" with their neighboring

cards, a concept that Elizabeth still needed the beginner's guide for. Natty

told them that some of the Tarot's earliest origins could be traced to Judaism.

With Bram's Jewish background and ever expanding knowledge of the Jewish

faith, Natty speculated that this could give him another advantage to interpreting

and understanding the Tarot.

"Great. The next thing you'll have them doing is running a 1-900

psychic line for you," Brandon sneered. "What a bunch of hocus pocus. If you wanna

hone their special instincts, Natty, you should let me take all three of

them up to the Indian Casino in Jackson."

"Don't you dare!" Natty cried. She gave Brandon a dark look.

"It's no worse than any of this devil's worship bullshit your feeding

them-"

"Tarot is not Devil's Worship, Brandon. There's nothing in a deck of

Tarot Cards that instructs someone to worship Satan. The Tarot is an

instrument of the will of the person using it, not a tool of the devil."

"Whatever," Brandon muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Are you really afraid that some evil spirit is going to enter me and

make me spit up green soup, like in the Exorcist?" Abraham inquired.

With that, Brandon's indignation began to fade, and he let out a

chuckle.

"No, Bram. It's just stupid, that's all."

"Maybe it's stupid to you, Brandon, but my sister Harmony taught me to

read the Tarot many years ago...and she was not stupid. Nor was she into

Satanism. She just had alot of New Age ideas, and she shared some of them with

me. Regardless of whether or not there's any truth to the mystery of the

Tarot can't really be proven, but it makes me feel close to her, and all of the

good things that were a part of who she was..."

"I believe in it," Elizabeth stated, picking up the card in the spread

that covered her significator. It was the Three of Wands, and it represented

Elizabeth's hopes for a happy family life. She gazed at the depiction

of three maidens, joyfully holding up overflowing cups in celebration. If she

closed her eyes, she could almost picture herself revelling with them. In her

mind's eye, the women became herself, her mother, and the spirit of her grandmother,a

woman she'd never met but whose presence she often felt. Elizabeth felt the

peace of knowing that she'd be reunited with her mother again, under the

watchful eye of her grandmother. Together, they would celebrate as their family was

pulled together and made whole again. Polly and Katie would come back, Kyle

would get better, and they could all know a joy beyond what they'd ever known

before. In the blue sky the maidens danced beneath, there was no mothership

hovering over them. No shadows were cast on the grass from it. Absolute

Pretenama.

Madeline sat apart from the others, in a huge, cushioned rattan chair

that took up most of one corner of the room. She watched Abraham's face

flush with the inspiration of his newly found gift with an awed sort of terror.

Her own experimentations with reading Natty's Tarot deck gave her no

particularly amazing insights. In fact, she learned that her own ability to interperet them

was about as well honed as Brandon's, with one difference. Though she

couldn't read them well, she could certainly feel their power. The reading Abraham

had given her the evening before had been nothing like Elizabeth's. There were

no joyful depictions of prancing muses. She shivered, despite the warm

temperature in the room.

A nearly perfect recollection of the reading came to her as she drifted

into a fitful dose. The last card in her spread had been The Tower.

Foretelling of major upheaval and unforseen catastrophe, Natty had tried to coach a

more positive light into the reading. Abraham's fingers had been shaking,

his eyes wildly flicking between her and Natty. Madeline's external influences

within the reading had been equally disturbing-- the devil, bondage, illness, negative

energy. Then, of course, the Death Card had popped up, scaring Madeline

senseless. Despite Natty's assurances that Death translated to Change within the

scope of the Tarot, Madeline had not been consoled. Then, when she'd awaken

that morning, it had seemed as though the prophecy of death was coming true.

A cramp, from somewhere deep in her lower abdomen, roused her from her

near sleep. Another cramp answered it, tightening up the muscles low in her

back. Madeline eased herself out of the comfort of the chair and made a hasty

trip to the bathroom. It was one of several such trips she'd made since she'd

gotten up for the day. The result was the same. Once again, she found a

bright, angry looking red-orange stain where her own blood had inexplicably been

flowing from her body. The wad of toilet tissue she'd put between herself and

her panties only an hour ago was already soaking through. Replacing it with

another wad, she shakily flushed the evidence of her illness down the commode.

Then, as she washed her hands, she examined her appearance in the

mirror. Her stomach was definitely a little puffy. She tried to recall an

incident within the past few days that might explain the swelling. Had Patricia

kicked her or punched her? Had she suffered some sort of other injury durning

their escape? Nothing came to mind. The scuffle she'd gotten into with Sean

at the camp had certainly hurt worse, but had caused no such bleeding. As she

lowered her T-shirt back over her stomach, she winced as the movements of her arms

caused a slight flare up in the tenderness she'd simultaneously been suffering

in those strange, mammallian protrubences she had that humans called

breasts. At least, polite humans referred to them as breasts. Brandon was known to

call them hooters, or jugs...or worse...and none of these terms brought any sort

of understanding to Madeline. At any rate, she regarded them with the same

sort of disdain that she afforded Brandon when he spoke derogatorily of women's

breasts. Sirian women didn't have jugs, and they certainly didn't have to be

bothered with discomfort in them. Even human women that were encumbered with

them never spoke of pain or tenderness in them. Why Madeline's had to hurt was

beyond her own powers of reasoning.

With one last look in the mirror, she noted that she was also pale,

like a ghost. Her own reflection was not the only ghost she'd seen as of

late.

Madeline now had a vague understanding of the eyeless spectors she'd

seen in her mother's presence on board the mothership. The realization had

struck her when she'd been at the Community Center on their first day in Lodi.

She'd briefly separated from the others to have a look around the quiet

facilities. Natty had told her where a water faucet could be found, and she'd gone

in search of it down a long hallway leading away from the main all-purpose room.

Another long hallway elled from that one, and three doors opened into

it. The first was the men's room, the second was a locked closet, and the third,

located way down the hall by the fire exit, had been the ladies' room. The water

faucet had been between the first two doors.

As she had lapped gratefully at the water, she had been alone. Then, as

she turned to leave, suddenly, she'd felt a coldness that hadn't been there

before. Even as she walked back up the first hallway towards the main room,

the coldness was still there. Then, she'd seen Lydia standing right there

in the hallway, just at the enterence of the main room. From that vantage

point, it was quite easy to see Phillip. He was sitting at a computer with Paul and

Brandon, his back turned away from them. Lydia had been quietly gazing at him

with a sad smile on her face. Then her gaze fell on Madeline briefly before she

just faded out of sight.

Madeline didn't know how she recognized that figure to be Lydia. What

she had seen was a Sullam Voe woman, looking just as a Sullam Voe woman ought

to look, not in her human guise. Her heart had filled with sadness at the

thought of Lydia missing Phillip. Then came the realization that Lydia missed him

because she was dead. Though she had eyes, and obviously had a soul, there was

a similarity between her presence and the presences she'd witnessed

before of the eyeless man and woman. Always, there was that cold feeling preceeding

their arrival. And, there was a surreal quality in which both they and Lydia

appeared, one that separated them from anyone or anything else Madeline could see

in the room. That, of course, could only mean one thing. As surely as she'd

known Lydia to have once lived, so had these other beings. Madeline still had

no idea who they were, but she now suspected that her mother might.

Unlike the other entities Madeline had seen, though, seeing Lydia's had

given her a sense of comfort. Coming here to protect Phillip had been a good

thing. She could feel that Lydia meant her no malice. In fact, she sensed that

Lydia was now watching over him too. Knowing that Phillip had a guardian

spirit gave Madeline a strange sense of relief. She could now proceed with a

clear head. If Abraham's gift gave any indication of what was yet to come, Madeline

knew she had to face it, regardless of how much she feared it.

At least things made more sense now. If only she'd known that Phillip

had a guardian spirit, and that she herself would soon be amongst the

spirits, she would have never come here. The fright she'd felt only moments ago was

slowly dissolving away with the grime she splashed off of her face at the

sink. As she stepped out of the bathroom, Madeline could hear the rise and fall of

Elizabeth, Natty, Abraham and Brandon's voices in the living room. In

the small dining nook off the kitchen, Paul was fiddling with his personal computer. She

could actually hear his fingers tapping away on the keyboard, despite the

conversation. From the darker part in the back of the house, in the

small guest bedroom, came the peaceful sounds of Phillip sleeping. Madeline and

Elizabeth had shared the double bed in there the past two nights, while the male

guests had slept in the living room. Brandon had loudly declared his intent to

sleep on the couch, leaving Abraham and Phillip to make beds for themselves on the

floor. Since none of the rooms were carpeted, Madeline doubted that either of

the two had slept well.

The guest room was warmer than what a human might find comfortable, but

to a member of a cold blooded, reptillian species, the room was the perfect

temperature. Phillip was stretched out on one side of the bed, lightly

snoring. While the humans complained about the sweltering weather, the Sullam

Voe found all but the numbing cold tolerable. However, since their physiology was not

equipped to warm or cool the body as efficiently, they lacked the

internal warnings that told them if it was too hot. Terrestrial reptiles were known to

literally bake themselves to death after falling asleep sunning

themselves on rocks. Philip kept himself well hydrated to prevent that sort of thing from

happening. A sports bottle, half full of water, was sitting on the end table next

to the bed. Next to it was half of the day's issue of the Lodi News Sentinel.

The other half was folded over Phillip's chest, as if he'd been enjoying

the quiet and reading before he'd fallen asleep.

Madeline reached out and picked up the paper. She noticed that he'd

been reading the "Freedom Network" bulletin. In addition to local happenings

Madeline was able to slowly read a tidbit about unidentified Visitor bodies

being found in areas of Southern California, some apparently discovered strapped

into parachutes, and she found it to be disturbing. No reason was cited as

being known. Madeline suspected that 5th Columnists were evacuating, and she

felt that Phillip suspected the same. Of course he'd be troubled by that

knowledge. Philip had many friends in his 5th Column Club. It made her think of Nigel,

even though she knew that Nigel was not one of the jumpers. The last she'd

heard, he was still secreted away at Visitor Fields, recovering from the injuries

he'd sustained from her mother.

A small amount of venom flooded her mouth, but she wasn't sure which

person prompted the reaction. Both Nigel and her mother were sore spots in her

psyche. As quickly as the hurt came, it left. She could only gaze down at

Phillip and feel sorry for him. He'd lost so much. First Lydia, then his friend

Dale, and now, possibly more of his friends. In addition, he had to be separated

from Emily, and that was because of Patricia. Madeline only hoped that he

wouldn't be too terribly upset when he lost her...Would he mourn her loss? How

did it feel for an Ay'Yath'te to lose a student?

Another cramp seized at her stomach. It was enough to make her grit her

teeth, but it was a dull pain at least, so she didn't feel the need to

cry out. Sighing softly, she walked around to the other side of the bed and

stretched out. Once she did, the cramp relaxed it's grip. The pain and the

blood could only mean one thing. Madeline suspected that she was dying. Not much

was known about the physiology of hybrids. No one understood why they molted and

aged so fast. Elizabeth, Abraham and Madeline were even at a loss to understand

themselves. It was plainly obvious that despite their genetic

similarities, they were unique individuals. Elizabeth had originated from a Sirian father

and a human mother. She had gestated inside of Robin's womb and been born

nine months later, by Cesearian section. She'd had a reptillian appearing twin

brother, who'd died shortly after birth. This, Madeline had known because

Elizabeth had told her. Abraham, on the other hand, was of the exact opposite

conception, as she was herself. Abraham's Sullam Voe mother had given birth

naturally, but had died a short time afterwards from extreme complications.

Because Abraham and Elizabeth were genetic cousins, they could possibly

have a few similarities that Madeline lacked, because she was of completely

different circumstances altogether. Her own father had summed it up

all so well when she'd overheard him tell Julie that she was a lab created, test tube

hatched, half-bred freak! Patricia, her own mother's mother, wanted to kill her

for that very same reason. It now seemed that Patricia wouldn't have to go

to all of that trouble after all, since Madeline was dying of her own accord.

Maybe, she rationalized to herself, this was the reason why she could see the

spirits of those who had already crossed over.

Rolling over on her side, she gave Phillip a long, silent gaze. At

least if she was going to cross over, she felt there was one thing she could do

for him to ease his existence before she went. She could sense his longing to

be back in Los Angeles, helping his friends and raising his daughter. With

Patricia out of the way, he could. They could all go home. Madeline still

wasn't certain of her plan. Perhaps Patricia could be reasoned with. If she turned

herself over and allowed Patricia to do whatever she wished with her, the

others could be bargained for. Maybe she'd be willing to leave them alone. That, of

course, was thinking vainly. Madeline knew that she alone was not that

important in the scheme of things, although Patricia might savor her death with a

special relish. In her heart, she knew that the answer lay within Patricia's

death.

Abraham's reading to her had spoken of a solo journey. The Nine of

Wands had told of preparations for a confrontation, strength kept in reserve, and

of an attack. The Ten of Swords warned of possible defeat, or the threat to a

loved one. Then, of course, in their various respective places, had come the

cards of Death, The Devil, and The Tower. The only card which had brought any

sense of relief had been The World. It betokened sucess and triumph, and also

had given the hint of travel.

So, travel she would, Madeline decided. Once again, she would take a

vehicle which did not belong to her in order to accomplish her goal. She

realized that she would have to take some of Brandon's fuel money as she helped

herself to the keys to Kyle's truck. It was completely unavoidable. However, she

planned to leave a note, so that he would understand, because she highly

doubted she'd be alive to pay it back to him. She would also request that no

one follow her, even though she didn't know if they would honor that request.

Madeline wasn't certain just how she'd find Patricia, but if she made her

presence known in one way or another, she suspected Patricia might likely find her.

For now, none of that mattered. All she needed was the keys to the truck, some

currency, and a weapon. The rest would figure itself out. As she

hatched her plans, drowsiness overcame her. It was just as well to sleep now. She would

be driving all night. Reaching out, she gently pressed her fingers into

Phillip's palm and let them rest there for a moment. He stirred lightly in his sleep

and let out a soft sigh. His fingers reflexivly closed down around hers

just before she drew her hand away. Despite her certainty that she was dying, his

touch made her feel so alive; much more so than she had in the last few days.

Smiling softly, she closed her eyes, feeling the warm rush of her own

pulse in her temples.

It was dark when Madeline awoke, but the house was still well lit

outside of the confines of the small bedroom she rested in. The first thing she

noticed was the time. The red, digital numbers on the bedside clock radio

glared 8:47. She'd been napping for nearly five hours. The second thing she

realized was that she was alone. At some point, Phillip had gotten up. The place

where he'd lain was cool to the touch, suggesting that he'd been up for some

time now. Slowly, she sat up and felt another rush of warmth from her body. She

expected to feel dizzy, but the wave never came. It was odd that she

should be hemorrhaging, and not feel light-headed. For the moment, the cramping

seemed to have eased up.

Madeline swung her feet over the bed and winced in surprise as her heel

came into contact with something beside the bed. Groping in the dark, her

hand came into contact with her sneaker. She hadn't recalled taking off her

shoes. In fact, she hadn't even removed her contacts.When she turned on the

bedside light, she found that her shoes were arranged neatly by the bed, and

the laces were tied. Phillip had done this. She had seen him do the same thing

with Emily when preparing her for a nap. He'd remove the tiny shoes from her

clawed feet and tie the laces neatly. This sort of perfectionism was a well honed

discipline common for those of military background. They were alike in

that respect. Madeline, too, found comfort in order, although she was not nearly as

regimented as he.

That was precisely one reason why it would not be Phillip's weapon she

took with her tonight. He would notice it missing far faster than anyone

else would. Not that it mattered, really. Madeline intended to be long gone

before anyone noticed she or any guns were found missing. Before returning to

the land of the living, Madeline hunted in the room quietly for a writing implement

and a piece of paper. She found the items in an endtable drawer, along with

several opened envelopes that bore previous postmarks. They were all addressed

to Nature Moore, who must have lived in Fresno, California at the time of

receipt, and the return post was from someone by the name of Harmony Moore in

Los Angeles. The dates were several years old, and the letters inside them

were yellowed with age. Scolding herself for spying, Madeline withdrew the

needed items-- a worn down pencil with chew marks on it from someone who obviously had a

habit of gnawing on pencils as they thought out letters, and a small, spiral

bound, pocket sized notebook. She ripped out a couple of sheets from the

notebook and placed it back in the drawer. Then, she started to compose what

she hoped would be a good explaination for her intent. Unfortunately, she quickly

learned why letter writers ended up gnawing on pencils. Try as she might, she

could not find the proper words to summon up her apology. She could converse

in English quite fluently now, and read some, but she was worse at writing

in this language than Willie was at speaking it.

Madeline scowled at her words. "soree i stoll yor kees brandin. well

kyls kees that he lond you. i well giv them bak in la if i do not di. plees

i well pay you bak for the munee i tuk tu if i do not di. i o you ten dollers.

soree i tuk polls gun. i well need it. plees do not folo mee. were i am gowing

is danjerus. i jest wont you all tu b saf."

She knew her letter was badly misspelled, but English writing skills

had never been a major focus in the scope of her education. She could write

quite eloquently in her mother's native language, though, and there was at

least one individual in the group that would appreciate the fact that she was not

as illiterate as it would seem. With neat, Sirian symbols, she completed

the rest of her letter. Phillip would be able to translate. This way, she was able

to communicate how she really felt, without the bother of sounding out

words that had spellings that made no sense. The Sirian script was easier to form.

There were no capital or lower case letters. Apostraphes often separated syllables

to be accentuated, where as, in English speech and writing, it was all left

to guess work. In fact, she wasn't even sure she knew the correct spelling of

her human name. She'd never really had the proper occasion to need to know.

Instead, she signed her note as Ma'thal'ee, in Sirian symbols. Then, she folded

it and tucked it into her pocket. She would swap the letter for Kyle's keys

when she took them from Brandon's jeans as he slept that night.

Out in the living room, the television was on. Abraham, Elizabeth,

Brandon and Natty were crowded on the couch, watching Ren and Stimpy on

Nickelodeon. Between them, they were polishing off a bowl of popcorn.

Paul and Phillip were in the dining nook, which was actually servicing as Paul's

computer area. The two of them were hunched over the work desk, reading the

coded postings left by others in various different resistance cells. Phillip

seemed to be amazed at this way that the humans here had managed to keep in

contact with each other. Unknown to the two of them, they were being watched, and

not just by Madeline. The figure of Lydia was standing at Phillip's

shoulder, within arms reach. He was regarding them silently, and appeared to be

completely oblivious to the fact that Madeline could actually see her. Madeline

quietly seated herself back into the large, comfortable rattan chair that she'd

occupied earlier.

"You finally woke up. Aren't you feeling well?" Elizabeth asked her

when the program on the television broke for a commercial.

"I am fine," Madeline responded dully, "I am just tired."

Elizabeth shot her a bewildered look that told Madeline that she knew

she was lying. Of course Elizabeth knew. Madeline supposed she'd have to tell

her something sooner or later, but she hoped for later. Much later, like,

in the afterlife.

"We have got to get a computer like Paul has and link up with other

groups," Elizabeth said, after a moment's hesitation. "I know that Chuck

Shanklin has one in San Francisco. He left a post that said that Polly, Katie and

Tonya are doing fine. I wish we could communicate with L.A. that way..."

"You know Kyle's all right, don't you?" Madeline asked.

"Yes, I sense that he is. But I sense that he's worried, and so is

mother...and so am I. I'm not sure how long I can stand this."

"Me too," Abraham stated, "I'm worried about my Grandmother."

"I know you are," Elizabeth told him reassuringly, "Can you try

to...sense her? See how she's doing?"

Abraham shook his head sadly.

"I don't think I have that gift, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When

she snapped her eyes open, she shook her head.

"I can't reach her either. But, I know that if she took a turn for the

worse, I'd know it. You would too. You knew when your mother died

even before I did."

A visible chill shook Abraham. It was a moment that he said he couldn't

remember, but Madeline suspected he could; if not in concrete visions,

at least in feeling. Maybe, she supposed, he blocked that ability within himself

because of that experience. Elizabeth's words weren't meant to upset him

though, and in a strange way, they were reassuring. Madeline had never met Abraham's

mother, but she knew she'd recognize her if she saw her presence. As of yet,

she hadn't, but then again, she hadn't known Abraham very long, either.

"Maybe Natty could do a reading for me to see how she is," Abraham

suggested. He had learned, as they all had, that it wasn't the wisest practice to

perform Tarot readings upon one's self. Even though there wasn't a

particular danger in it, it was still hard to remain objective.

Brandon made a rude snorting noise as Natty squiggled off the couch and

retrieved her cards from where she kept them on a bookshelf. She took a

seat on the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table from where the others

sat, and began to shuffle.

"Man, you're blocking my view," Brandon complained, but his protests

fell on deaf ears.

The cards again. Madeline tried to supress a shudder that crawled up

her spine. Natty finished mixing the cards and expertly began to lay them

out. She had chosen the appropriate significator card to represent Abraham,

which was the Page of Cups-- a young man or woman with light brown hair and medium

shaded eyes...thoughtful, studious and possessing of an active imagination.

Throughout the rest of the reading, Natty seemed to grow perplexed. Both the 8 of

Swords and the 10 of Swords appeared, suggesting confusion and inability to

know which way to decide in a matter for the first, and burdens, defeat and

the possible death of a loved one for the second. Other cards indicated

unexpected travel, and treacherous undertakings. The final card was The Moon.

Natty shook her head a little as she interpreted it. It represented unfocused

intuitions, frightening visions or dreams, duplicity, confrontation, and once

again, possible bad luck to a loved one. Abraham looked white with worry, while Elizabeth bit her lip in concentration.

"It sounds more like what he's already been through," she stated hesitantly.

"Yeah, it's not the clearest reading in the sense of his question, at any rate. Sometimes, the Tarot will pick and choose what it will answer and to whom it will address," Natty replied.

"Say what?" Brandon asked, who'd overcome his initial opposition to at least look half interested.

"What I'm saying is that the cards may not have answered Abraham's question, but instead, answered someone else's."

"Like whose?"

"Weelll..." Natty sighed, shrugging lightly, "the Page of Cups is a pretty broad significator. It can enbody either gender and represent someone from their early teens to their early twenties. Also, the physical description it usually typifies is rather broad, meaning that lots of people have fair skin and medium toned hair and eyes. The tarot could have been addressing a silent issue that either one of the four of you have, and very possibly, it could have been addressing all four of you at once." Her eyes roved around the room, and Brandon, Abraham, Madeline and Elizabeth all swapped gazes. But only Madeline knew just precisely who the cards had been addressing. She kept her unfocused intuitions to herself.

***************************************************************

Patricia returned to her secret temporary base somewhat mollified after her prior streaks of disappointment. It all started with the escape of that relavish breeder of Diana's, Polly Maxwell. Only moments before her scheduled execution, no doubt, the prisoner had managed to find a way off the ship, and Patricia knew for a fact that she had 5th Column help. A guard had been found dead in the captive's cell, stripped of her uniform and changed into the prisoner's clothing. Then, of course, there had been the theft of the shuttle. Next, Patricia had made an attempt to investigate the happenings at Camp Bernadino. She was pleased to see that operations had recovered, and that business was continuing as normal. Both of the camp's senior staff, Doris and Roland, had survived the events, and they were still managing the day to day status quo. They had been more than willing to provide Patricia with any and all information they had on any of the cadets, including everything they knew about Sean Donovan and Madeline.

However, the things she really wanted to know about the hybrid were things that only Sylvester, the Infirmary Director, could tell her. After all, it had been Sylvester that had given her the first transmission, containing information and proof of Madeline's existence. Patricia hoped to find out a little more about Madeline; namely, who her parents were. Unfortuantely, all she learned was that neither Sylvester, his nurse Kirsten, had survived the Resistance raid on the camp. Any additional knowledge Sylvester might have had or discussed with his nurse died with him and his colleague. Lastly, there'd been the debacle at the Bernstein's and at the Bate's house. After her prime targets had all managed to wipe out a good portion of her commando squad and escape; not once, but twice, she signalled for a shuttle pickup and returned to the mothership half blinded, angry, and empty handed.

As she was briefly attended to in the infirmary, David had delivered more bad news to her. Somehow, Diana had managed to escape the confines of her new quarters. It was plainly obvious to see that she'd gone by the way of the ventillation system, and had likely accessed the emergency parachutes to evacuate herself So had others, it was discovered. Cursed traitors, no doubt. Now, David was quite chasened by the tongue lashing she'd given him, and he'd seen to it that all escape routes off the ship were blocked. So, too , were all roads in and out of Los Angeles. That was not an easy feat, by any means, but Patricia never fooled herself into believing that any job she did would be easy.

A good whiff of common sense told her that the turncoat guard, Orlando, who had escaped with the prisoner, Polly Maxwell, had likely sprained the forks of his tongue tattling to all of her targets about their fates. She surmised that a good portion of them had left town. All signs seemed to indicate that. At both of the homes she'd struck at, packed bags of belongings had been present. This did not concern her as much as it annoyed her. It was common behavior for someone who'd been warned of impeding doom to flee. Mistakes were usually made when the intended target believed that things had died down and attempted to return. Patricia suspected that this would eventually be the case. She had half a mind to order David to haul the ship out of Los Angeles airspace now, just to create such an illusion. Let them come back. The roads were now policed, and anyone attempting to return would be caught. Meanwhile, as she waited for her next opportunity to strike, Patricia kept herself busy.

Combat was difficult when one was ignorant to the enemy. She investigated intelligence reports and prisoner interrogation transcripts concerning former resistance hideouts, and then visited them. Her skulkings had led her to an interesting discovery. Indeed, L'ura Kathka, the mother of Abraham, was dead. Patricia found where the resistance had buried her remains. After unearthing her, she'd detached the femur of one of her legs, and sent it to the lab on board the mothership for testing. DNA confirmation was only one thing Patricia was interested in. L'ura's remains might also have clues left about any genetic experimentations Diana may have conducted upon her to make it possible to concieve of a hybrid. Then, of course, there was the remains of...something else...interred next to Laura. She'd swiped a femur bone of that nauseating deformity as well. Tests brought back on that were proving to be quite interesting. Indeed, the remains belonged to a creature that contained both human and Sirian DNA. She hadn't known there'd been another hybrid in addition to the three she already sought, but Patricia was satisfied enough to know that at least it was as dead as L'ura. Not so for the contents of what she believed was the father of Elizabeth Maxwell.

Empty. Nothing..well, almost nothing. All she'd found were a few, badly decayed strips of fabric.They were so soiled that it was impossible to ascertain precicely what color they'd once been. Laboratory tests done on these shreds concluded that the fibers were made of cotton. Minute traces of dye were found and analyzed. It was determined the fabric had once been a shade of light blue. Perhaps a shroud, or a sheet had been used to wrap his body in, and deposit him into the hole for burial. But the absence of a body left Patricia to think only one thing. Not dead. Hybernation shock, perhaps? Supposedly, the resistance had killed him. However, humans were ignorant to Sirian physiology. When subjected to extreme trauma, the body could go into a state of hibernation similar to suspended animation. It was this knowledge that led to the develepment of the suspension tanks that now housed and nourished the humans entombed on board the mothership. Furthermore, this state could persist for up to 72 hours. It was remotely possible for Brian to have woken up after his injury, dug his way out of his grave, walked away, and vanished into oblivion. Wrapping him in a sheet made this scenario even more plausible. It prevented dirt and debris from obstructing his nasal passages and his mouth. It also meant that he wouldn't have had to break out of a more permanant, sturdy enclosure, such as a casket. No Sirian was ever completely dead until autopsy or utter dismemberment declared otherwise; at least in Patricia's book.

It gave her one more possible target, too. So now, she laid in wait. At night, she'd leave and do her investigations. During the day, she made an encampment for herself. From her vantage point, in an abandoned but extremely grandious house, aided with a pair of telescoping binoculars, she could see the Bernstein's house. Patricia knew that the woman of the house was badly injured, and was probably still in town, under medical supervision. Getting to her and torturing answers out of her was too risky in a public place such as a medical facility. Instead, she kept an eye out for anyone that might come to the house to collect any neccessities the woman might need durning her convelescence. She hadn't seen anyone as of yet, but she already knew that lightning had struck once. There had been two vehicles in the garage, and all surviving members of the household had fled the scene in one of them. The other had been left in the garage. When the authorities had left the scene, no doubt, they had shut the battered enterence behind them. However, when Patricia later returned, the garage door had been standing wide open, and the second vehicle was missing. She now had scouts on the prowl, looking to find that vehicle. One of their members, Orlando, had been shot during the skirmish, and he hadn't left the house with the others.

Patricia wasn't foolish enough to believe that it was possible for Brian to resurrect himself from the dead, but not Orlando. She believed Orlando had taken the second vehicle at a later time. His hide was one worth charring for his actions...and she would take great pleasure in doing so after he told her where the other targets had gone! Patricia scrutinized the printouts that David had supplied her that he'd tapped into the DMV computer database to get. She now had a listing of all the vehicles she'd seen at the sites she'd visited, and information on who owned them. The Bernstein's escape vehicle was registered to Stanley Bernstein. The second car in the garage, the one that was now missing, belonged to the matriarch of the household, Lynn Bernstein. The vehicle parked in front of their house that had been damaged had been registered to a Tonya Follows, last known address in San Fransisco. She had recorded the liscence plate from that car before it had been cooked 'well done' by the male in the group with the two toned hair and the pierced tongue. Patricia crossed off the first car on the list. She knew where it presently was, and it was no longer in any condition to service the resistance. The second car on this list was circled in red. It was being searched for. The last was also crossed off, but Tonya's name was highlighted. A DMV capture photo of Tonya Follows, as her coutenance appeared on her driver's liscence, was one of the household members that had escaped from the Bernsteins.

One of her injured commandoes, Lu'Kath, later told her that he'd seen this Tonya Follows wearing a pendant he'd once given to L'ura Kathka. Patricia hadn't seen this particular human, Tonya, at the Bates' residence later that day. Nor had she seen Polly Maxwell. Prisoner questioning records maintained that Tonya Follows and Polly Maxwell were well acquainted. Patricia supposed that Follows might have taken Maxwell and gone somewhere with her...perhaps to her native San Fransisco.It was worth considering if her targets never made a return. San Francisco was also the native town to Brandon Watts, the young man with the studded tongue, who'd unleashed so much destruction upon her commandoes. DMV research showed that he owned a salvaged Mazda, and was registered to his current address at the Bernstein's. Patricia hadn't seen any vehicle at the Bernstein's that matched the description in the report. She figured he had it parked elsewhere...or perhaps it was no longer of service to him.

At any rate, even though his most recent address was his current residence, his prior address had also been in San Francisco. She knew that Phillip, Madeline, Elizabeth and Abraham had all left with Watts, in a pickup truck that she learned was registered to Kyle Bates. Perhaps they'd all rendezvoused with Follows and Maxwell in San Fransisco.... Kyle Bates was still in town, after being injured. He owned several vehicles, Patricia learned. A blue Ford Escort, the pick up truck, and two motorcycles were in his name. He'd also recently sold a Lincoln Towncar and an Acura Integra.

For now, all of those vehicles were accounted for, except the truck. It was circled in green, the others crossed off. Kyle's residence was now where Stanley Bernstein's crippled car was parked. Patricia's CLETS report also indicated that Robin Maxwell owned a 1982 Datsun. It too, was missing from the premesis. Interestingly enough, Robin Maxwell had been at the Bates' house, sans her car. She had not departed in her car, nor had she left with Watts. That led Patricia to believe that it was Robin's vehicle that Follows had left town in, taking Polly Maxwell with her. Robin's vehicle was circled in green which coded the vehicles she'd contacted the San Fransisco Mothership about. If those cars were located there, Patricia would be notified. Then, there was one last vehicle. It was the white van with the green rear door that she'd seen parked at the Bates' residence. She believed that the remaining resistance members, the ones who hadn't gone with Watts when he left, had departed in it. At the time, Patricia had been too venom blinded to see the manner in which they escaped. She'd had enough to contend with merely getting herself out of the burning house so she could safely meet her shuttle escort. The pilot of the shuttle reported that he'd seen a van leaving the residence shortly before he touched down.Patricia had him court martialled for not thinking to destroy it. He was apealing his court martial, and could likely win his request.

After all, he'd never received any orders to assault the vehicle. Not that Patricia particularly cared. She cared more about who the van belonged to, and where it could possibly be now. It could lead her to two of her primary targets: Ham Tyler and Robin Maxwell. Stanley Bernstein and Kyle Bates were secondary targets now, and they could linked with that van too.

The CLETS report gave surprising results about the van, and gave her ideas for secondary ideas for ideas of inquiry concerning one of Ham Tyler's known associates. The van was registered to a Christopher Dean Faber. He had about four listed current addresses, and a rap sheet of prior addresses that was dizzying. In addtion, Faber had several aliuses linked with his name, and at least seven other vehicles at his disposal. Patricia had already cased two of Faber's supposed addresses, only to learn that they were bogus. There was much to learn about this man, who also had prior registrations with the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles. Information about him was already forthcoming. Faber was a native of the state, and most of his family was dead. However, he still owned property there. Two of the seven vehicles in his name were still registered there. The Lousiana mothership had been contacted regarding this man, and she'd accessed information from Louisiana's DMV, and tax rolls there. Patricia now had information pertaining to a known living relative; a niece by the name of Rachel Molineaux. She was currently incarcerated in a local work camp, and had been since the time of the re-invasion. Patricia had subsequently ordered for Rachel's release and extridition to the Los Angeles Mothership. Faber may not have known of his neice's fate, but Patricia decided he'd soon learn. Rachel's life might prove to be a powerful bargaining tool to obtain Faber's cooperation. She had also alerted the Louisina patrols to be on the alert for any of her target and the missing vehicles, in case Faber was trying to relocate some of them there.

Unfortunately, nothing of interest turned up on Hamilton Tyler. He did have a valid California Driver's license, but his listed address was also bogus, and he had no vehicles currently registered in his name. Not long ago, he'd had a Buick, and a red Chevrolet van but both vehicles were listed as 'totalled' on her report. None of that was relevant now, of course. Patricia smiled in the darkness, and her smile was cold and soulless. Though she usually liked to move at night, she had plans for the morning. Rachel Molineaux would be arriving, and Patricia would take her along to the two other addresses listed as belonging to Christopher Dean Faber. There would be no more running away for anyone she might encounter there. Rachel's life would depend on it. The manhunt for Ham Tyler via Christopher Faber's neice might not have meant as much to Patricia if it hadn't been for the jornal David turned up shortly after taking over Diana's quarters.

Patricia got her first look at it when she returned from Camp Bernadino on her first day out. Neither she nor David had been able to understand the strangely incrypted notations Diana had made in her logs, at first. Then, it began to dawn on Patricia that she had seen some of these words before. They looked hauntingly familiar, even if they still made no sense. Searching her memory banks, she suddenly rmembered the time, prior to her daughter's Compulsory School, when D'ana and Se'there had been small hatchlings. Like many twin children, they'd developed their own 'secret language' that made sense only to them. In Pre-Compulsory, where all Sirian hatchlings were taught the basics of writing and making letters, D'ana and Se'there would swap notes back and forth in their own code. Their teacher had finally gotten concerned about it, because it was impeding thier ability to learn the actual writing, reading, and speaking skills they were supposed to be developing. From that day forward, Patricia had outlawed the girls from ever speaking or writing in their secret code, despite her husband's protests that they should be allowed to 'excercise the special privelidge of their unique bond...even if it is only allowed at home'. She was seeing that forbidden code now! Diana's notes were written in it! 30 years later, she still remembered it! And even though neither she or David could decode it, Patricia knew who could. She ordered David to transmit the whole bundle to Rendezvous Station, care of Dr. Mi'Alith'ca Levasss, who would then transmit the notations to the Sunny Sands of Merkat Sanitarium, where Se'there was institutionalized.

Se'there was loonier than a crivit with it's tentacles tied together, digging in a block of cement, but she'd be able to decode Diana's blather, Patricia was sure of it. As it so turned out, Patricia had every reason to be proud of Se'there, although she'd never say so aloud. In fact, she never spoke of Se'there to anyone anymore. But, within 72 hours after the first burst had been sent to Rendezvous, she had already started getting feedback. It was apparent that this was a project that enthused Se'there, and she was quite eager to read anything her sister wrote, even if she didn't understand the exact nature of what she was reading or why she was reading it. Soon, Patricia had the information she wanted. What she learned sickened and shocked her. At first, she'd been inclined to believe that Se'there had not translated her sister's babblings correctly. However, despite her insanity, Se'there was highly intelligent and very educated...and Patricia knew it wasn't a lie. Diana had spawned Madeline from her own genetic material and that of a human man, Ham Tyler. Now, Patricia was simply angry. How dare she! It was just disgusting to pollute the Sullam Voe race with relavish...and it was unthinkable to soil her bloodlines with it! Ham Tyler was as good as dead, and Patricia vowed to use any means at her disposal to find him and kill him, as it seemed that he was the human used to soil her heritage. Using Chris Faber as a reference was a good place to start in a search for this allusive man. Then, after Ham Tyler was gone, Madeline would die. Patricia could not allow an abberation with Rhetatheket blood coursing through relavish veins to exist. Perhaps she'd even be doing the wretch a favor. And, then, when those two were dealt with, she'd have the time and the luxury to deal with the worst offender of them all... Diana. ***************************************************************

Pain gripped Orlando's sides, but he demanded of himself to keep moving. It would be too easy to drop onto the street and fall into a protective state of hibernation, but then his liberation would all be in vain. He remembered only tattered bits of the last two days. Diana's ministrations had done some to ease his pain, but his injuries were more than just surface wounds. He supposed that he'd have an infection by now if it weren't for her help, but that didn't do much to ingratiate himself to her. Way too much was wrong with her, and he knew that beyond the shadow of a doubt by now. Rumors had circulated that the Los Angeles Commander was insane, and Orlando had already believed it. In fact, he remembered warning a group of new cadets leaving from Rendevous Station with him to that fact. Laura had been among them. Her face swam in front of his vision for a moment and vanished.

His rememberence of her only served to make him stronger in his resolve to escape. He had to warn the resistance that Diana was on the loose. She was also in a compromised state, which would allow her capture to be quite easy, if only he could get to the resistance before Diana migrated to another hotel. They had been staying in two different hotels the past two nights. Diana had acquired the funds for this from some means Orlando could not determine. All the while, she'd told him things..crazy things. She told him about how she planned to get her daughter back, and how they would rule the Earth together. Then, she'd marvelled again at his scale patterns, and only she had managed to uncover the one secret he hid from just about everyone. Orlando was a direct descendant from the House of Raman. His second cousin had been none other than Charles, the late husband of Diana, and the former attache to the Leader.

This had pleased Diana, oddly. She told him that she may even be able to find a place for him in her new order, if he behaved himself. He would be her chosen consort. Like hell. Orlando was running just as fast from that notion as from any other. Diana was very attractive, yes. He could certainly understand why Security Chief Dale had volunteered to sleep with her to glean information. However, he knew with something beyond mere guesswork that most of her relationships ended with a permanant goodbye. Even her own husband was not immune. Nor had Dale been, for that fact. Orlando was not about to step into that role.

As the days blurred together, Diana had begun to slip into an odd sort of reality. Her babblings had started to take on even stranger tones. She told him about having a bond with 'The Chosen One', and how she'd been picked to be the salvation of all Sirians. 'The Chosen One' spoke to her in a language no one else understood, and told her things about what was happening on the homeworld. Diana knew of the sufferings of their people and of the Leader's lies. She knew how precariously close to bankruptcy he was...and The Chosen One had told Diana that she was now poised in place to topple him from his command and lead the Sullam Voe to a new and fruitful life on Earth. It was all a farce, but the eerie thing was, Diana appeared to believe all of it. In her eyes burned that cold conviction that she was undeniably right. Orlando hadn't wasted any time arguing with her.

From that moment on, Diana had begun a steady decline. She started complaining of headaches, and on more than one occasion, Orlando saw her nose bleed. Earlier that evening, her condition was such that she hadn't even roused herself to eat, or find anything to feed Orlando. She stopped worrying over his injuries, and instead just laid in the bed next to him with a towel over her eyes to block out all light. It began to occur to Orlando that her instability could be due to a medical condition. She tossed fitfully for awhile beside him, jostling his injured ribs on more than one occasion. Then, her movements had abruptly changed. Her entire body had gone rigid, and she'd had a brief period of convulsions. Orlando pushed himself up on one elbow, rolled her over, and applied direct pressure to the base of her spine. This stimulated the calming reflex, and could even produce a euphoria; at least during sexual arousal. When someone was in pain, however, it acted as tranquilizer of sorts. Though it was not an action designed to put someone to sleep, it did relieve pain. It also served to stop the seizures that expectant mothers endured prior to giving birth. Though she was was not expecting, the motion did stop her convulsions. Diana had fallen into a deep sleep from that point on.

Orlando realized that he now had an opportunity to escape. He'd left the vehicle where it was parked at the hotel parking lot. Diana had the keys in the pocket of her jeans, and she had been fully dressed in bed. He hadn't wanted to chance waking her. Besides, if she managed to snap out of her illness long enough to relocate herself, he could tell the resistance about her mode of transportation. They could track her down that way. Orlando had swiped her gun. She hadn't been wearing that to bed, at least. The pain finally forced Orlando to take a seat on a bus bench. No public transportation would be running at this hour. It was well past midnight. Orlando had no idea where he was yet, but he did know that the hotel he'd escaped from was only a half mile away. If Diana awoke and found him gone, she'd have a reasonably decent chance of finding him if he didn't move quickly. Wearily, he scanned his options. There was a fast food restaurant, i's golden yellow arches still lit. However, there were no cars in it's parking lot. The lot next door suddenly aroused his interest. It appeared to be deserted, but there were tons of cars parked on the pavement behind a wooden rail fence. The sign on the building declared it to be "Ollie's Used Car Rodeo". All of the cars had stickers on the windshields declaring the prices in bold, orange symbols. A few sodium vapor streetlights illuminated the used car lot, but otherwise, it was abandoned. Closed for the night.... Orlando was up off the bus seat and across the street before his thoughts caught up with him.

He knew stealing a vehicle was wrong, but he hoped to return it and apologize to the owner. The fence was impossibly easy to scale. In fact, it only came thigh high. That should have been Orlando's first indication that something was wrong. He soon found himself face to face with a snarling animal on a thin lead. A watchdog. Using Diana's weapon, he pistolwhipped the growling beast before it could take a bite of him. The animal slumped to the pavement, unconsious but still breathing. Orlando was relieved he hadn't killed it. It was only doing it's job. His side was aching bad enough to bring stars to his vision, but he supported himself easily, moving from car to car. He found one where the gearshift matched the operation lever Diana had used to maneuver Lynne Bernstein's car. Smashing in the window was not the danger to him that it was to a human employing this tactic.

He had his psuedoskin to protect him from the shards of glass. He reached in and unlocked the door, searching vainly for the keys. They were not in the vehicle, of course. Orlando did not know how to start a car without a key. Shivers washed over him, threatening to pull him down into darkness. However, desperation told him that he could not be found in this lot. He needed to be out of here before the owner came to open up...or the watchdog came to. His eyes scanned around and something shiny caught his vision in the shopfront of the lot's building. Easing himself out of the car, he pressed his face to the window and saw... Rows upon rows of labelled keys, pegged on the wall behnd the sales desk. Each key was labelled with it's corresoponding row as a letter, and its corresponding position within that row as a number. Orlando turned and noticed that the lot was labelled in the same way. The car he'd vandalized was parked in a space labelled B-9. Before breaking into the building, Orlando scanned the premises and found an inexpensive alarm box mounted outside. He disabled it with a quick blaster shot. Then, he broke the front door window, reached in and unlocked the door. Moments later, the key to B-9 was in the ignition slot of the car. The engine turned over quickly. He was pleased to see that there was almost half a tank of fuel in the car. It was more than enough to get him to the place he knew to be the current resistance headquarters, even though he lost his way several times and had to backtrack on the unfamiliar roads. No one was there when he arrived, but he knew they'd return and find him there. Until then, he had no more energy other than to curl himself up in a ball and drift off into a deep sleep.

Chapter 27 Call and Answer

"Oh

under those white street lamps,

there is a little chance they may see.

We have no past, we won't reach back,

Keep with me forward all through the night,

and once we start, the meter clicks,

and it goes running all through the night,

Until it ends, there is no end..."

~~Cyndi Lauper All Through the Night

Bleary-eyed with exhaustion, Madeline slowed the pickup truck down in

response to the speed of the suddenly heavy traffic. The drive back to

Southern California had proven to be uneventful until now.

Traffic over the grapevine was always slow on a weekday morning, at

least so Madeline had heard. She remembered hearing meaningless human

conversations between Julie, Kyle, Robin and others about workday commutes on crowded

freeways, and how even though things were better now than they used to

be before the "lizards" came, driving in "rush hour" traffic was still annoying.

She'd had her own experience with it when they'd come into Stockton's city

limits, on that hot afternoon, fully three days ago, sweltering in the back of the

truck she now drove. It had been miserable, but her instincts told her that this

was even worse. She had no way of knowing how precisely right her

instincts were. It was already 8:30 in the morning. As she neared the city limits of

Los Angeles, most of what would be normal commuter traffic was backed up

for five miles. Not knowing what was going on, people in their vehicles, late

for their jobs, were swearing under their breaths. Unless there was a gory

accident or heavy road construction in progress, the rush hour traffic would have

usually thinned somewhat by now.

Progress had come to a dead stop. After a few minutes, Madeline killed

the engine, not wanting to waste what little fuel she had left. Then, she

settled back into her seat to miserably await her fate. Surely, Brandon,

Phillip and the others would have woken up by now and figured out what she had

done. They could even already be on the road, hoping to catch up with her. At

this rate, they just might. The early morning sun shone in through the

windows with a brilliance that nearly blinded her sensitive eyes. She was forced to

drop her gaze, and her stare landed in her lap. For the first time, she noticed

the terrible staining on her jeans. The blood of her illness had begun to

flow more copiously, and her valiant attempts to hide it were no longer adequate.

Suppressing a light moan, Madeline looked up again, hoping to see that

the traffic situation had improved. Nothing had changed, except...

She saw a distant flash of red, that to weak human eyes, might appear

to be a siren on a rescue vehicle. Craning her head out the window, she

focused more narrowly and decided that it was not a siren. What she saw had to be a

half mile up the road or more, even, but there was no doubt in her mind that

she had seen a glimpse of a Visitor's uniform.

The word "roadblock" was not readily accessible in her vocabulary, but

she didn't need to know what to call what she knew was there. Many of the

humans in the vehicles surrounding her were still oblivious to what lay ahead.

If they knew, they just might try to do what she knew she had to do. The

patrols were hoping to find...and would find...her...if she stayed here.

Madeline had witnesed the flash of red out the driver's side window.

Slowly, she inched her way over to the opposite side, cracked the door open,

and slid out. The passengers in neighboring cars looked at her as she stole out

of the truck, but as long as they made no disturbance, she paid them no

mind. Crouching low, she weaved between cars until she came to the embankment

on the side of the freeway. The metal guard rail was easy to clamber over.

Soon, her feet were crunching on summer browned grass as she eased her way down

the slope. In the distance, she could make out a gas station, even though

she instinctively knew that the gas station was just off the freeway exit

located some five miles away. It was the only thing she had to serve as a landmark

to safety.

***************************************************************

Maggie Blodgett was wide eyed and awake with purpose. She had been up

for three hours already, tending to the house that she and Chris now

shared, and taking care of those residing there. One of the household members,

Druid, Chris' Shih Tzu Terrier, was bouncing emphatically against Maggie's calves,

demanding to be fed...and now!

"Alright, alright," Maggie mumbled begrudgingly. She allowed the small

dog to jump in front of her, his claw nails click click clicking on the

linoleum floor. Her attitude softened a bit as she opened a can of Alpo and

spooned a portion into his bowl. He sat at her ankles, watching her every move

with eyes that could still see quite clearly despite the fact that a light

cataract film was beginning to cloud them. Poor Druid. He was about ten years old

now, a crusty senior citizen for a dog. Maggie smiled as she lowered the food

down to him. He sure was a cantankerous old fart. She didn't know a whole lot

about dogs, but she did know that smaller breeds, like Druid, tended to live

longer than their larger counterparts. She hoped so. Chris was very attatched

to his four-legged mop, and that attatchment had come to infect Maggie over

the years, although she acted like she was exasperated with Druid most of

the time. Druid dug into his food, mindless to the annoying knocking noise that

his metal dog tag made against his ceramic bowl.

Robin stumbled into the kitchen next. Though she was dressed, her hair

still had a spiky, uncombed look to it. The red hair dye she'd used to

disguise her appearance at the Legation when she'd worked there was fading out,

exposing her brown roots. The bags under her eyes were almost as dark as the

roots of her hair. No doubt, she'd been up most of the night, as Maggie had.

Somehow, though, restless nights had a tendancy to show more on Robin's face.

"Any word from Chris or Ham?" she inquired as she emptied a bag of

blueberry bagels on the counter and began slicing them.

"Yeah, Chris radioed me about 45 minutes ago. We're all gonna meet up

at the H.Q.," Maggie answered, stifling a yawn.

"What time?"

"As soon as we eat breakfast."

The smell of coffee infiltrated the kitchen as the pot clicked on to

its automatic brew cycle. Robin raised an eyebrow as she began loading

bagel halves into the wide slot toaster. She hadn't smelled coffee that smelled this

real in a long time, and she vaguely wondered to herself how Chris had

managed to get it.

Maggie set to work scrambling eggs. She noted that Robin was toasting

extra bagels, most likely to feed the guys when they all met at the airstrip.

Though eggs would be tough to transport, Maggie had already sliced up

some fresh melon and stored it in a tupperware bowl in the refrigerator. The task

had kept her occupied while she couldn't sleep that night. The sound of the

front door opening made both women look up from their tasks. Stanley

Bernstein was heading out into the morning, on his way to visit Lynne.

"Hey, what about some food?" Maggie called to him.

"I'll eat at the cafeteria," Stanley replied politely.

Robin made a face and handed him a couple of the toasted bagel halves.

"You've got to be kidding," she told him, "Take these. Hospital food is

bad for your health."

As he accepted his offering and continued on his way, Druid shot past

him, attempting to get outside first.

"Druid, NO!" Maggie ordered, "You can wait for your walk til I get my

breakfast!"

Druid obediently stopped, but he danced anxiously around Stanley's

ankles.

"I'll walk him," Stanley offered, "Lynne said something awhile back

about wanting a dog. I guess I should learn a few things about handling

them..."

Robin stooped down with his lead in her hand. As she snapped it onto

his collar, his furry muzzle clamped onto the bagel she had in her other

hand. She grimaced as she pulled it out of his mouth.

"Lesson number one, then," she said, "do not attempt to put a leash on

a dog when there's food in your hand."

Druid's doggy lips almost seemed to grin connivingly at Robin as

Stanley led him outside.

***************************************************************

Ham's group arrived at the tiny airport first. The first thing all of

them noticed was the strange car parked in front of the main building. Not

only was it completely unfamiliar, it still had the orange price numbers taped

to the top of the windshield. Guns were drawn instantly as it became obvious

that the intruder had shot the lock off the front door to get inside.

Ham took the lead as he inched his way through the door, weapon drawn.

He didn't have far to go before he spotted the figure of a man, crumpled

on the floor, a Visitor's sidearm still in his grip. The man didn't even stir

as Ham cautiously approached. At his back, the others followed single file.

Then, they broke formation to quickly surround the intruder. Just as Ham

closed in on the figure, Jaime dropped her weapon and barked a hoarse command.

"Do not touch him! Do not shoot!" she cried. Her reverberating voice

bounced off the stark walls. The prone figure on the floor only stirred

lightly.

With her face mimicing the perfect imitiation of human disbelief, Jaime

stepped forward and knelt down at the man's side.

"Orlando, Grace be to Zon, it is you! " she cried.

Orlando began to move in earnest as Jaime's hesitant caresses

stimulated the nerves of his crest beneath his wig.

"Orlando," Mike protested in disbelief, "I heard he died!"

"Well, it sure looks to me like he came back from the dead," Chris

sniffed.

At his choice of explainations, Jaime looked up, and even her contacts

couldn't disguise the pure wonderment in her eyes.

"Looks like it," she sighed softly in a tone that was half amazed and

half frightened.

Maggie and Robin arrived about half an hour later. By then, Orlando

was propped against a wall and Jaime was examining his wounds. He had

already told his story to a dumbstruck audience, but snippets of his tale leaked out

from those wanting to rehash. Only Mike was momentarily absent from the

group. He had taken the keys to the van to bring it in and park it in the airplane

hangar next to Phillip's shuttle.

"So now we've got Queen Primo Leatherass and her mother running amok in

the City of Angels," Ham grunted in disgust, "And it wasn't even Patricia

that stole the damn car, which leaves us back to square one."

"I take it you guys didn't find anything," Maggie ventured hesitantly.

Her gaze came to rest on Orlando, and she shook her head in puzzlement.

"No one said that," Ham stated, his voice taking on a rough, tired

coarseness, "but all we found were a few more reasons to lay into

Patricia. When I find her..."

"Yeah, and we thought we had a possible lead with one of the

Bernstein's neighbors. Some fiesty old thing said she saw a woman make off with

Lynne's ride. Now, come to find out from Orlando here that it was Diana swiping the

car, not Patricia like we first thought," Chris finished.

"I thought I did the right thing by coming here and telling you,"

Orlando sighed tiredly, "It seems you are not pleased with my news."

"You did do the right thing," Jaime reassured him. "Maybe we should

cruise on out to that hotel and take Diana down..."

The rest of her suggestion died on her lips at the inmistakeable sound

of a shuttle craft passing overhead. For a few tense, precious moments, no

one dared to breathe. Then, Mike appeared with the keys to the van, looking

completely unconcerned.

"Did you see the craft?" Robin asked him. "Did it look like it was

circling?"

"No, I didn't see it," Mike replied, "But I heard it from the hangar.

Thank God I already had the van inside."

The collective breath that everyone had been holding at the same time

escaped with an audible whoosh.

***************************************************************

The shuttle craft set down right in the middle of a seemingly quiet

residential street. Palm trees looming high above from curbside

planters rustled in protest as the air was briefly disturbed. Neighborhood dogs barked

their shrill warnings, but at this time, on a late Friday morning, many of their

masters weren't home to hear them. Patricia wasn't even remotely concerned

about the frightened looks that retirees and housewives gave as they peered

nervously out of windows shrouded with heavy curtains. As the ramp lowered, Patricia

donned her sunglasses and stepped out into the bright day. Behind her, three

shock troopers rose and followed. Between them, they nudged a young female

prisoner forwards.

"So, tell me, Rachel. This where I might find your uncle, Chris Faber,

no?" Patricia demanded of her hostage in her thick, peculiar accent.

The girl hesitated for a moment. Patricia raised her hand and cuffed

her warningly on her cheek. Already, a pink welt was forming on Rachel's

rounded features. It was only one of several marks Patricia had already

inflicted upon her. Rachel's eyes automatically assumed a submissive, downcast look.

"I don't rightly know," she gasped from between swollen lips, "I've

been in that camp for so awfully long. I haven't seen my uncle since I was a

little girl..."

Patricia said nothing in return. She jerked her thumb at the shock

troopers. On her command, they led Rachel to the front door and shot the lock

without even testing to see if it was open. There were no shrill screams of

surprise and fright as the troopers hustled through the doorway; nor were there

any armed and waiting resistance members. The house was completely empty.

Patricia was quite disappointed, but she expected it. The van hadn't been parked out

front, nor had any other vehicle.

In the kitchen, Patricia found evidence that the house hadn't been

vacant for long. The kitchen sink was stacked with dirty dishes, and though the

coffee pot was turned off now; the aroma still clung to the air. There was a

stack of unopened mail on the kitchen table, and Patricia began to rifle through

it as the guards forced Rachel to take a seat in a dinette chair. One of the

shock troopers who was not guarding Rachel began to comb through other rooms

in the house. Another went to the ped door leading to the garage. Upon opening

it, he made an appreciative noise.

"There is lots of guns and ammunition in there, and possibly some bomb

making materials," he reported.

"We will worry about those things later," Patricia stated as she turned

her cold, ocean blue gaze onto Rachel. In her hand were several of the

envelopes from the stack on the table.

"Who's Margaret Blodgett?" she demanded, holding out a piece of mail

for Rachel's inspection.

Rachel shook her head, indicating that she didn't know. It mattered not

to Patricia whether the girl was lying or not. She reached out and struck

her hard on the other cheek anyways. Patricia knew who Margaret...aka...Maggie

Blodgett was. Her name was mentioned from time to time in Diana's enemy

intelligence reports. In fact, her name on the mail at this residence was an

unexpected bonus, even though Patricia had no other particular reason for caring

about Maggie Blodgett. Resistance scum, yes. Target, no, unless she made a nuisance

of herself.

"Large men's clothing in the bedroom closet, consistant with what would

fit a man of the size we know Faber to be," the trooper that had left moments

ago came back and reported.

Patrica afforded Rachel a cruel smile.

"Looks like you and your uncle have this in common, no?"

She leveled her remark in such a way that told Rachel that Patricia

knew enough about human psychology to know that comments about personal

appearance could hurt as much as physical blows. Rachel had never been a petite girl,

but after several years in a work camp where the people were forced to work

like dogs and eat like pigs, all so they cuold be fattened up for the supper

table...Rachel had been getting very approving looks from the camp facilitators

before she'd been whisked away. She'd known her turn was coming. It had

happened to a couple of her friends. They just simply disappeared one day. Rachel

had been reduced to quoting silent prayers from the Bible she had been unable to

keep at the camp. But, she'd been raised Baptist, and she had as much Bible

in her mind as she did between the pages of the Good Book. When the call for

her removal had come, she thought, at last, that the Lord had answered her

prayers...

But, it seemed she was to face more trials. And, Rachel was a staunch

believer that God never gave her more than she could handle. Whatever,

her purpose, she had to face it bravely. In her heart, she felt that her purpose

must be to protect her Uncle Chris. He must be in some sort of trouble.

So now, she wasn't as blind to her fate here. These people would get no

answers from her about her uncle, mostly because she didn't have any to

give them. After her two years at the work camp, she weighed 200 pounds. Yes, a

lot of it was fat, but another good portion of her bulk was well worked

muscle, stretched out over a tall frame of 5 foot 9. Maybe Patricia was beating

her so she could "tenderize" the meat. Instead of answering Patricia's query,

Rachel sat silent, giving her no idication that her remark had hurt. Once again,

Patricia's hand snaked out and cuffed her under the chin. The shock

trooper hesitantly came forward with a shoebox filled with pictures and various momentos.

"I found this on the top shelf of the bedroom closet," his

reverberating voice stated, muffled somewhat by the helmet he wore.

Most of the pictures were of places. Patricia rifled through them

quickly, but Rachel was allowed to watch. There was one of her Uncle Chris in

his Navy uniform; a much slimmer and younger version of him, but it was him none

the less. One other picture was one Rachel actually remembered. He had

come home from his distant travels one day, unexpectedly, much to her mother's

surprise. The two hadn't spoken much, but Rachel remembered that he had whisked

her off to the zoo. He'd kindly asked another patron at the zoo to take his camera

and snap a picture of the two of them that afternoon. Rachel, who'd only

been 5 at the time, sat atop her uncle's shoulders, holding on tightly to the

string of a bright yellow helium balloon. In the background were cages with the

colorful parrots that had entranced her so much that day. This picture

was labelled on the back as "Me and baby Rachel at the zoo, 1978. He'd also bought

her a picture keychain as a souvenier; the kind where you squinted through

the peephole and saw a picture. The picture had captured the zoo's "Parrot

Paradise", and her uncle had bought it at a kisok right outside the bird atrium.

Rachel had held on to that little momento until the day she her drunk mother had

been taken away, and she'd been imprisoned at the camp. To this day, Rachel

didn't know what had become of her mother. She hadn't gone to the camp with

Rachel, but she suspected she knew where she'd gone. Her mother had been about as

big as Rachel was now, maybe even bigger, the day the Visitors had taken her.

She no longer knew where her keychain was either.

Patricia made pleased noises over another picture she selected. It was

of a young, dark-haired man with flinty blue-grey eyes. Rachel could tell it

was an older photograph, both by the color quality, and by the man's hairstyle

and clothing. He actually had sideburns and wore bell bottomed Levi's, even

though they weren't the "elephant bells" that Rachel had heard about. Posing

beside the man was a petite, glossy haired Oriental woman in a colorful

flowered dress. The man held a small girl in his arms. She was dressed in a yellow,

swiss dot dress, with a matching hair bow in her long black tresses, and white

patent leather Mary Jane shoes and little white ankle socks. The back of the

photo was labelled "Ham, Nguyet and Sunshine, age 4, Saigon 1972. Another photo

of the same little girl, this time a bit younger and alone, was labelled

"Sunni eats dirt, 1970. Indeed, the toddler had scooped up a handful of dirt and

looked like she was about to eat it. Patricia discarded this photo but kept

the one of the threesome, and the one of Rachel and her uncle. The next photos

she rifled through were of a litter of puppies nursing on their small

mother. The only one of that batch that was labelled was of one of the puppies, now

alone, curled up sleeping in a motorcycle helmet, of all things. It was

labelled "Druid comes home" October, 1981.

A few personal possessions belonging to a woman were brought in and

gone through, too. Hairs were collected from any brushes in the house. The

various guns and ammo from the garage were rounded up and deposited in a heap

on the kitchen floor. Then, a pair of troopers went out the sliding glass door

to survey the back yard for any sheds or hiding places for more weapons. By now,

a few hours had passed. The whole time, Rachel was forced to remain seated by

two other guards with their weapons trained on her. She wondered vaguely

if they had to go to the bathroom, because she certainly did.

A loud beeping noise issued from a small pack Patricia wore on her

waist. As Rachel discovered, it was a two way radio. Patricia answered the page

brusquely.

"The vehicle has been found? Where? Give me the coordinates." As she

spoke, Patricia entered the coordinates on a small, palm sized lizard computer

of some sort. Then, she changed the frequency on her radio and paged for the

two guards outside to come back in. Within moments, they were both inside

the kitchen. One of them was holding a small, wriggling bundle of fur in his arms.

"No weapons, but look what I did find," he said proudly.

Patricia gave him a disdainful look, but then her expression changed.

She lunged for the small Shih Tzu Terrier. As her hand came near the dog,

there was a loud yipping snarl, and the inmistakeable sound of snapping jaws.

Patricia jerked her hand back angrily, green blood dripping from the small

puncture marks that had penetrated right through her psuedoskin. She made

another grab for the animal, and then, she had him. He yapped and snarled loudly, his

hind legs pawing desperately for a purchase on a solid surface so that he might

run. Without warning, he let loose and urinated all over Patricia. If

Rachel didn't know that the poor dog had done so because he was terrified, she would

have cheered him on. With a viscious yank, Patricia tore the collar and name

tag from the dog's neck. The dog went limp in her hands, his protests suddenly

silenced. She threw the collar on the table, and then to Rachel's

horror...

Patricia tipped back her head, and her jaws extended to the most

grotesque porportions imaginable. She raised the tiny, limp dog over her head

and began to lower him into her mouth with both hands. Her throat bulged as the

dog made it's headway, even though the rear half of it's body was still hanging

out of her mouth. She slowly fed the rest of the dog in, bit by bit, until

the only part left of it was the bulge in her throat and the collar on the

table. Rachel vomited helplessly as the spectacle of this hit home. Patricia

heard the sound of her wretching, and whirled to face her. The dog was still

making the last of its progress to her stomach, and Rachel doubted that the woman

was able to speak just yet. She grabbed Rachel up out of the chair by a lock of

her long, dishwater blond hair. There was a sharp, stinging feeling on

Rachel's scalp, as though she'd drug her head though a field of nettles. A

trickle of blood oozed down her temple. Patricia gave her a cruel smile as she

tossed the lock of hair that had been pulled right from Rachel's head onto the

table next to the dog's collar.

'Lord, help me,' Rachel prayed to herself silently, That woman just ate

a helpless little dog, and I know I'm next! Lord, please give me

strength!

"You'll come with me," Patricia said, all traces of dog gone from her

voice. Then she directed an order to the two guards that had brought the dog

in from outside.

"You two will stay here and wait for the house residents to return.

Signal me as soon as they do. I want Faber left alive for questioning. If any of

my targets are with him, they are to be left alive too, no?"

"With all due respect, ma'am, if Chris Faber comes charging through

here with any of your targets, you are talking about leaving half of the damn

resistance alive, but under guard..."

"I did not say they had to be consious or uninjured. Even 'dead but

recognizable' will be acceptable in the event of an emergency. I do

warn you that I do not want to see any cooked corpses. I want inmistakeable proof of

decease. However...Faber lives. I suspect he knows where my other targets are,

and I have a good way to insure he will tell me..."

With that, the two guards at Rachel's side pushed the muzzles of their

sidearms into Rachel's ribs and forced her out the door and into the

waiting squad vehicle. Patricia followed behind, her bootheels rapping a smart

staccato on the pavement.

Once again, Rachel was forced to take a seat. As the shuttle lifted

off the ground, Patricia first regarded the pictures she'd taken. With a

satisfied smirk, she tucked them into the concealed breast pocket of her black

uniform. Then, she yanked Rachel's head upwards to expose her neck. With a soft

whooshing sound and a feeling of pressure, a dose of medication was injected into

Rachel's bloodstream. At once, she began to feel disoriented and limp.

The last thought she had before lapsing into a twilight world was of Patricia,

holding her hefty mother up by her ankles and distending her jaw wide enough to

actually fit her in her mouth.

***************************************************************

By the time Madeline reached the gas station, several hours had passed.

She was hot, tired and dusty, and a mess to boot. She tried to avoid public

scrutiny as she took the last dollar bill from the pocket of her

bloodstained jeans and fed it into the slot of a soda vendor. Despite her appearance, she

actually felt better because she had a plan now, but her plan would require her

to trek back exactly where she'd come from. First, she wanted to clean up

the best she could, enjoy a moment's refreshment, and rest her aching feet.

While she caught her breath, she thought about Brandon, Philip,

Elizabeth and Abraham. With all sincerity, she hoped they hadn't followed her, but

she knew better. If they'd woken up and noticed she was missing shortly after

she'd left, they could now be at the roadblock. If they'd woken up when they

usually did and discovered her absence, they'd still have a ways to go before

they got there. At any rate, her calculations pinpointed that by the time she

got back to the roadblock, they'd already be there, or they'd be getting there

shortly afterwards. She hoped they'd have the good sense to turn away, because

she had a good idea who had put up the patrols.

It was a shame that the idea hadn't occurred to her to turn back until

she'd almost made it to the gas station. With the roadblock in place, likely

set up by Patricia, Madeline knew it was a surefire way to rendevous with her

grandmother. That was precisely the reason she'd come. Running from

the roadblock had merely been a stupid instinct, and one that had cost her a great

deal of time.

As she downed the rest of her soda, Madeline briefly wondered how long

she had before this bleeding killed her. Could she make it back?

Physically, she felt fine, other than some mild cramping low in her back. Not to

mention, her feet were hot, tired and achy from all that walking. The refreshing

breezes had cooled her as she'd walked, and the temperature here was much more

tolerable than it had been in Lodi, but it had whipped her hair into a knotted

frenzy. Madeline was beginning to notice other symptoms of discomfort that

concerned her, even though they weren't severe. Her eyes were extremely itchy

behind her contacts, and were subject to bouts of watering, despite any lack of

emotion to make them do so. In addition, she'd sneezed several times while

walking, and her nose was intermittently stuffy. Remembering that discomfort,

Madeline took care to stuff extra toilet tissue in her jeans pocket to use if

the same thing happened again.

Finally, there was no more reason to delay the inevitable. She'd

finished her drink, washed up and rested for as long as she dared. Though she

still had fifty cents in change from the soda vendor, she knew she could not go

into the service area of the gas station and purchase a snack. Instead,

sustinence consisted of grubs she found as she began her backwards trek. She had

nearly forgotten the exquisite cuisine she'd eaten while she was her mother's

hostage on board the mothership. Succulent snails, insects, fresh fruit and

nuts and plenty of vegetables kept her well fed and strong. None of it had to be

prepared the way humans cooked their meals to make them palatable. She found

herself wishing for her favorite of all foods; kiwi fruit. Madeline was not

familiar with the various plants she saw as she walked in the dry grass, with

the exception of dandelions. They grew in profusion in the wild, and she

knew them to be edible. A healthy helping of these supplimented her insect snack. he

couldn't help a smile as a thought of Brandon's possible reaction if he

could see what she was eating crossed her mind. Strange, the things one thought

of when death was possible hour or two away.

The trek back to the site of the roadblock passed faster than the walk

away from it, or so it seemed. Before making her approach, Madeline sat a

bit away from the embankment, watching the patrols search the long line of

vehicles. She noticed that her truck--Kyle's truck--had been towed away. There were

more troopers present now than it had seemed before, and they searched with

an urgency that was decidedly more noticeable. She sensed that they knew

something, but this did not bother her. Her eyes squinted into the early evening

sun, scanning the rows of vehicles that seemed to stretch on for an

eternity. She didn't know just how the others would get to the roadblock since she'd taken

the vehicle they'd all gone to Lodi in, but she knew that Natty and Paul

both had cars. She saw lots of cars that came close in looks to the ones she'd

remembered in Lodi, but she knew instinctively that her search party was in none

of them.

Before rising and meeting with destiny, Madeline took one last look

around. She gazed at the trees, the wild flowers, the brown grass, and even the

little tiny bugs burrowing in the clumps of earth. She listened to the sounds

of the birds and the traffic. Finally, she turned her eyes upwards and looked

towards the gigantic hovering disk that had been her home most of her

life. No doubt, her mother was up there, wondering where she was...

But a strange feeling came over her as she contemplated the mothership.

It had always drawn strong feelings from her, even if they were mostly

negative. However, it was her genesis, but now it seemed strangely empty. Just as

empty as the aluminum can she'd tossed in the trash at the gas station. It

was a big, hovering, empty soda can...

Her mother's presence was not there. In fact, very little of anyone

she'd ever known there was. In the course of a few days, the rules had

changed, and so had the faces.

A cold chill coursed up Madeline's spine as she got to her feet.

Nothing would ever be the same again, but then again, things hadn't been the

same for quite some time. As Madeline marched towards her surrender, she put a

light hand on the gun she'd swiped from Paul. It gave her the only sense of

security she could muster in the face of the unknown.

***************************************************************

The hotel room was darkening with the onset of evening, and finally,

Diana was able to fling the towel away from her eyes. It landed beside the

bed with a light thud, and with a moan, she rolled over and buried her head into

the pillow. Orlando was gone, she knew. The space beside her on the bed

was cold, as though she'd been alone for some time now. She could hardly care at

this point.

Her pillow case was spotted with blood that had trickled from her nose

and stopped at intermittent intervals. Deep inside her being, Diana knew

she was gravely ill, but there was very little of her that cared anymore. The

signs had been there for weeks now, but only within the past two days had the

decline in her health begun in earnest. She knew she was beyond self treatment,

or even self diagnosis of whatever ailed her, but...

Another spasm of pain rolled through her head, shattering her thoughts

like the most delicate of glass made from the finest pink sands of the

homeworld. She had all but forgotten where she was or why she was here anymore.

Nothing mattered more than the soft blackness she felt herself drifting

towards. Before, she'd fought it. Now, she welcomed it. It was utterly silent

in the blackness, completely devoid of the incessant chattering of the

Enlightened Ones or anyone else. She was beyond their help, even, and she was past

worrying about it. Only a shred of medical knowledge would filter in through the

pitch from time to time, and that knowledge told her that she could well be dying.

It was strange that she should feel detatched and uncaring from that

notion, but she did. In the darkness, there was no pain. In death, there wouldn't

be either.

It hadn't been long ago when the realization dawned on her that she was

not pregnant as she thought she'd been. All the symptoms she'd been

experiencing as of late were not ones of gestation, but rather, of some strange,

unidentified malady invading her body. Whatever it was, it was feeding

on her like a developing child might, and it was winning.

However, there was no time to mourn the loss of the child she'd never

carried. There was not even any energy left for her to be angry with

Orlando for leaving. The darkness took all pain away, including emotional

upheaval. When the veil lifted for brief moments of time, Diana still found the spirit

to fight it, but not the strength. Any attempt to heave herself from the bed

left her weak, panting and faint. There was no more food, only water from the

faucet in the sink. But she was simply too weak to fetch any now. Therefore,

the darkness came easier and faster now, never giving her much time to act

on any surge of clarity or spirit she might still possess.

Diana's last fleeting thought was of Ma'thal'ee. Her daughter was

walking toward her, through a field of browned grass and wilting weeds. The

look on her features was one of blazing determination and purpose, yet in the

depths of her eyes, there was fear. As her sight dimmed yet again, she pushed

the last of her energy towards her daughter and called out her name in her mind.

Then, she faded back into the safe reaches of the darkness, where not even

Madeline could find her.

***************************************************************

Amir Haddad was busy keeping two steps ahead of the first of the

weekend's rush at the desk of the Halfpence Hotel, the inn that he and his wife

owned and operated. Despite the hovering mothership over head, people still

sought weekend getaways from time to time. This weekend preceeded the 4th of

July, and it was likely to be busy, as would the following weekend just after the

holiday. Already, though it was only a little after seven, several guests had

checked in. By no means had he reached capacity. In fact, he could scarcely

remember a time when that had happened, not since the year of Liberation after

the Visitor's retreat. That had been a profitible year. But, from the way

things were looking, business would be good this weekend.

Amir's wife, Sheetal, had gone to retrieve a batch of fresh towels and

sheets in anticipation of the rooms she'd need to supply for the night. The

laundry room was in the room behind the reception area. An access door leading

outside allowed Sheetal and the maids they employed to roll carts of laundry

and cleaning supplies straight from the laundry and janitorial area without

having to pass through the reception area. It was from this annexed room that he

heard his wife's terrified scream. Dropping his ledger book, Amir hurried

into the laundry area to see what had terrified Sheetal so. There, he found his

wife, held at gunpoint and restrained, by a woman clad in black.

"The money is not in here!" Sheetal was sobbing, "But we will give you

what we have!"

"Yes!" Amir agreed hastily, "Please release my wife, and I will give

you what you want!"

"Silence, you relavish fools!" the woman hissed.

Amir felt his spirits sink even farther as two Visitor shock troopers

entered from the access door. Sheetal wimpered, as if she too was

understanding that this was no ordinary hold up.

"You operate this resting lodge, no?" the woman demanded of Amir.

Amir nodded nervously, feeling a sudden flood of sweat collect on his

head beneath his turban. The shock troopers moved toward him slowly and

menacingly.

"I do not come here to kill your wife or you, but I have no concern

whether or not you both live or die. That will depend on how well you do what

I tell you, no?" the woman told him.

Amir's command of the English language was heavily accented but

surprisingly good, but he had a difficult time understanding the strange inflections

of this woman's speech. Understanding of her words caught on slowly, but

her body language was easy to read. He nodded vigorously, hoping that she had

indeed said that he and Sheetal might live through this ordeal.

"What rooms have guests in them?"

"Many," Amir answered, "but many do not. I can get my record book and

show you."

"Do it. And, get the keys to those rooms."

Amir passed a desparate look to his wife, and then hurried to obey. One

of the shock troopers escorted him into the reception area and locked the

front door. Amir studied the ledger and began selecting the keys to the

corresponding, occupied rooms. Despite the shaking of his hands, his work was quick.

Soon, he had 48 keys and the ledger book ready. He allowed the shock trooper to

lead him back into the janitorial room without any protest.

"Let us go. We will go to each room until I find who I'm looking for.

Your wife will come along, and I will keep this gun on her. Do not try

anything stupid, no?"

It was only when the group stepped out into the rear parking lot that

Amir saw the shuttle craft parked there. Silently, he found the first key

and hesitantly knocked on the door of the room.

"No time for that," the woman spat, "Unlock the door!"

The room's occupants were a pair of college aged young men. They had

two female guests and a keg of beer to keep them company Their looks of

surprise were somewhat delayed due to the fact that they were all well on the

way to shameless inebriation.

"Not them. Keep going!"

Before they left the room, the woman made a motion to one of the shock

troopers. He matter of factly whipped out his blaster and took aim at

the house telephone. It erupted into bits of hard plastic and internal

components. Amir was not given time to see the reactions of the room's occupants. He was

already being herded to the door of the next occupied room.

***************************************************************

Once Orlando had explained the bizarre story of his capture and his

subsequent escape, the rest of the resistance members present felt like

they were trapped in a bizarre stalemate. Ham was bitterly dissappointed that it

hadn't been Patricia who'd stolen Lynne's car, even if he would have been overjoyed

at the prospect of having a good shot at Diana on any other day. Somehow,

he found Orlando's tale of her sudden illness a bit hard to believe. He'd

stated as much before that he felt that the bitch led a charmed life. However,

Diana was not the immediate threat at the present. Queen Scaly had been

slithering around their daily existances for far longer than he cared to imagine.

In fact, Ham almost felt desensitized to any danger she might pose to him.

Patricia, on the other hand, had to be dealt with, and quickly. Ham

didn't need a bunch of half-baked legends about her evil doings and her

capabilities to prompt him to action. None of the stories worried him in the least. It

was

his understanding of her ways that did. Some of the things Patricia had

purportedly done, Ham had done too. Regardless of whether it was the

Scalies, the Charlies or the casualty of some other calling, Ham had, over the

years, amassed enough blood on his hands to ensure him a hot seat in hell, right next

to El Diablo himself, in the afterlife. He knew the sort of mindset

Patricia's profession required, and he knew exactly how dispassionate she'd be

about killing him. And there was no way in hell he'd allow himself to become a

statistic on her resume.

Despite his quiet, smoldering resolve to smoke Patricia like a hog on a

spit, Ham knew he needed rest. He hadn't even attempted to sleep in well over

24 hours. Chris, Mike and Jaime weren't any better off in that department.

Orlando, perhaps, was faring worst of all. There was little the injured

5th Columnist could do except tell what he'd learned. While Robin and Maggie kept

watch, the others allowed themselves a few precious hours of rest. When the

sun began it's descent, the siesta was finished. A desperate need for strategic

planning overcame the group as they contemplated the fact that they still had no

concrete ideas as to where Patricia might be now, or where she'd strike

next.

Finally, it was decided that they would split into pairs. Ham and Robin

would take the van over to the Halfpence Hotel, where Orlando reported that

he'd left Diana. Room 210, to be exact. Maggie and Jaime would take Orlando

to Chris and Maggie's house. It was agreed that he needed immediate medical

attention, but that it was too risky to try to take him to Visitor Fields. From

the house, Maggie would call Julie to have a look at him. If Howie's

expertise was needed, he could possibly be secreted away from Visitor Fields and

brought to Orlando's bedside.

Lastly, Chris and Mike were to "dispose" of the vehicle that Orlando

had stolen. Chris's idea of disposal involved taking the car to a seedy

chop shop in the crime infested bowels of East L.A., where it would undergo an

amazing, overnight transformation. The proprietor of the business was someone

Chris knew would get the job done quickly, expertly, and quietly. Though Chris

was certainly a formidable foe in a fight, even he wasn't stupid enough to

venture into that part of town alone, especially in a cherried out, vintage Chevy

Malibu that also happened to be hot. There had been an initial protest that

Robin should go with him to the shop instead of to the hotel with Ham to face Diana.

This had been brought up by Mike. Chris had matter of factly told him that

he'd feel better about Robin facing Queen Scaly with Ham than dealing with

the lusty intents she would likely inspire in a pack of tough, horny gang

bangers.

"What's the big deal about the car anyways?" Robin asked as she

inspected the alien weapon that Orlando said he'd stolen from Diana. As far as she

could tell, it was fully charged. She had every intent of taking it with

her, since it wouldn't do Orlando much good at this point.

"Are you kidding? That car was stolen early this morning, and it's

theft has probably been reported already. Not to mention, it sat parked out

here, in plain sight, for half the night, and all damn day. We know a squad

vehicle passed over us..." Maggie stated.

"And you think Patricia would have traced it to us already, assuming

that she was in that squad vehicle?"

"Why take chances? A new coat of paint, different license plates, and

a good file job done on the vin number will slow down anyone looking for

that car, regardless of whether it's Patricia or the cops," Chris explained

patiently. "And, we'll all have ourselves another car to add to the resistance

motor pool."

"You two be careful getting that car out of here. Maggie, you call

Elias when you get back to the house and have him pick those two up and bring

them to the hotel to meet Robin and I after they drop the car off," Ham

instructed.

"Does Elias know where this place is?" Maggie questioned skeptically,

"Because I sure don't, and I'm not sure I like the sounds of this

joint."

"Elias knows. Just between us, the guy that heads this operation is

some gangbanger cousin of Miranda's. I guess not everyone in her family came

out as decent as she is, but, like I said, he does good work and he knows how

to keep his trap shut," Chris said.

Mike nodded in satisfaction, relieved to hear that he would get a piece

of whatever action might transpire at the hotel.

"Listen, you two," he told Ham and Robin pointedly, "if anything looks

fishy over there, lay low and wait for Chris and I."

Robin nodded solemly, but Ham responded with nothing more than a rude

grunt as he deliberatly clicked the safety on a gun he was loading.

"Well, if we sit around here any longer, Orlando is sure to croak, and

rest of us will get secretary spread," he finally stated, "Let's get a move

on."

Chpater 28 The Heat of the Moment

"Only emptiness remains,

It replaces all

all the pain.

Won't you come out and play with me?

Step by step, heart to heart, left right left,

We all fall down like toy soldiers.

Bit by bit torn apart, we never win,

But the battle wages on for toy soldiers..."

~~ Martika Toy Soldiers

Diana was completely unaware of the commotion outside until it entered

the dark sanctuary of her second floor bedroom. The tumblers in the lock

turned, and suddenly, the door was thrown open. Reddish light from the setting sun

cast a hellish glow to the sillouhets framed in the doorway.A sobbing human

woman, dressed in the flowing garb typical to the fashions worn by women of

the Muslim faith was being forced inside by...

Despite the nearly crippling pain in her head that blurred her vision,

Diana knew who was here, holding the sniffling human at gunpoint. It was her

own mother, Patricia. Before she even had a chance to sit up in bed, a

shock trooper entered the room. He held a communticator in his palm, and he

gestured urgently for Patricia's attention. Patricia never took her eyes off of

Diana, or a hand away from her hostage.

"One of the roadblocks is giving a report. They have got a positive

confirmation. One of your targets has turned herself in. They await

your instructions."

"Who is it that they have?" Patricia questioned.

"The hostage identifies herself as Madeline."

Patricia couldn't disguise her smile.

"Have them bring her here to me, at once. Give them the coordinates."

"Acknowledged. They report that they should have her here in less than

ten minutes."

The shock trooper then snapped a stiff salute to Patricia.

At the mention of her daughter's name, Diana was instantly more awake.

She snaked a quick hand down to the side of the bed to feel for her weapon.

It was either missing, or not within her reach. Whichever the case was, she

dared not break eye contact with Patricia to find out.

"One last thing. You and your partner are to round up every last person

we have encountered tonight. Take them to the center courtyard and execute

them. There will be no witness left, no?"

"As you wish."

Patricia took one last disdainful look at Sheetal, still wimpering and

struggling half heartedly in her grasp. Tears streamed from her soulful

brown eyes.

"These humans always cry when faced with the moment of their death.

Pathetic, no?"

With that, she snapped off a quick blast into Sheetal's midsection. The

woman crumpled to the floor without another sob. A mournful, angry howl of

protest and human anguish sounded from just outside the door. The shock

trooper grabbed a hold of Sheetal's sandal clad feet and hauled her out of the

room. Patricia, her burden relieved of her, was free to focus all of her

attentions on the occupant of the room.

"You think your new shade of hair can disguise who you are? I think

not."

Patricia had her pistol trained on Diana, preventing her from making

any sort of sudden moves. An involuntary flood of venom flowed copiously into

her mouth, but with the exception of that one vestigal trait, Diana was

rendered defenseless. She hadn't the stregth at this point to do much more than

stare Patricia down.

In the flurried course of the past few minutes, she had gathered enough

information to know that Madeline had been captured and was being

brought here. She wasn't certain if this would turn out to be a blessing or a curse. The

constant, throbbing pain in her head prevented her from working out any

sort of contigency plan. Usually, she was brilliant at mastering her own

ingenious escapes from peril. Now, her only hope had been reduced to keeping

Patricia at bay, and trying to stay consious while doing it. A small trickle of blood

began to drip from her nose. Diana didn't dare raise a hand to try to staunch

it. As long as she remained still, Patricia seemed content just to brandish

her gun and enjoy it's threatening power. The whine of a shuttle craft

dissipated the quiet stalemate. With a cold, satisfied smile, with her weapon and her

gaze still trained on Diana, Patricia backed away from the bed slightly and

moved towards the door.

"This will be a dual victory, no?" she declared confidently.

Clambering footsteps on the concrete stairs caused just enough sound

vibration to send a fresh shard of pain through Diana's skull. Then,

through the agony, she felt something else. It gave her a momentary sense of

clarity and resolve. Indeed, her daughter was here. The magic of science and

whatever other divine power that had enabled her to create Madeline had also created

an unbreakable bond. She knew now that this was not just any ordinary

spiritual cement that existed between mother and daughter. Diana gazed coldly at her

own mother, who afforded her with an equally evil stare, and she felt

nothing. No love, no empathy, no understanding, and certainly, no bond. Patricia

may have hatched her, but otherwise, she was a complete stranger. A tiny spark

of horror bloomed at the realization that this, was perhaps, how her own mother

regarded her and always had...

Supposedly, humans believed that the scenes of their lives would pass

before their eyes in the few moments of time that separated their life from

their death. All of their joys and regrets and every moment of time that ever

held any meaning to them would map themselves out in a great moment of personal

understanding. Diana could almost feel the sands of time slipping

back, revealing the secrets she'd long ago buried. She'd already remembered her

father's death. It was now a fact, no longer just a dream.

Then came the memories of the days she'd spent at the Academy as a

school child. How many of her classmates took occasional breaks from their

studies to go home to their families and celebrate holiday festivities? High Day,

Ramalan, and the week of observence for the Water Rituals were times

when most adults and students alike were released from their daily drudgeries for

vacation. Diana, unlike the majority of her classmates, had always remained

behind at the academy, from the age of eleven onwards. She'd spend her vacation time

sharpening her skills and studying. Though it put her ahead of her

classmates academically, it had always left a cold, empty feeling in the pit of

her soul. Over the years, that pit had filled with the fire and vengence of pure fury.

Patricia never came to collect Diana for the holdiays. Rarely did she

even visit. Once she was no longer a small hatchling, Diana simply had no more

recollections of what it meant to be a part of a family. Her family had become her

scientific labs, where she received praise and honor from her instructors. It became

the military, which honed and sharpened her combat instincts. Strange,

that it should be her own science laborotory that gave her back that one tie to

family she'd so long ago lost.

Two different shock troopers entered the room, roughly guiding

Madeline, who was trapped between them, her eyes wide like those of a frightened doe.

In one moment, Diana met her daughter's gaze, and an understanding passed

between them. Madeline had allowed herself to be captured, because she had a

purpose. She was utterly silent as she regarded her mother, who still sat in a

half reclining position on the bed. Then, through the haze of her pain and

confusion, Diana noticed something else. Madeline's pants were stained with what

was inmistakeably her own blood. A maternal instinct stronger than anything

she'd ever known before cut through the pain at the realization that her daughter

had been injured at the hands of the troopers that had hauled her in.

Suddenly, her cautious paralysis was broken. Diana lunged forward, her

hands outstretched towards the muzzle of the gun her mother had pointed at

her. Resolve and fearsome speed closed the distance between the two women at

an astonishing rate. Before Patricia could utter a word, her hand

reflexively made up it's mind on how to handle the situation. A brilliant flash of blue

fire erupted from the barrel before Diana had the chance to knock the

weapon out of her grip.

At that moment, the sound barrier broke as well. Madeline's protesting

screech echoed off the walls, drowning out the noise of the shot. The

laser fire seemed to arc in slow motion before its concentrated power was visibly

split into two. One half of the energy scattered away and scorched a smoking

hole in the wall above the bed. The other half hit it's intended target.

Diana was thrown violently backwards. She landed in a still heap on the mattress

at the foot of the bed.

Madeline was beyond conscious thought, but somehow, she'd managed to

free herself from the astonished grasp of the two shock troopers. She took

two stumbling steps toward the bed before instinct made her look up.

Patricia stood before her with the smoking muzzle of her pistol pointing at her, and a

taunting grimace on her face.

"Now you'll join her," Patricia stated.

All of Madeline's plans of reasoning with Patricia had flown out the

window.

She had been stripped of Paul's gun, and she was still too far away to

let lose with a spray of venom to cripple Patricia again. She watched as

Patricia's finger almost imperceptibly tightened on the trigger...

In the corner of her eye, Madeline saw something else. They were not

alone. Two beings were there in the room, their eyeless sockets watching the

transpiring events with a cold but anticipatory silence. They were here

to claim some souls...

Another wail built up, and Madeline let it lose, along with the strange

feeling she felt suddenly gathering up inside of her. Lightbulbs began

to pop from the fixtures over the vanity sink and in the bedside lamp. It still

wasn't enough. Something pushed inside of Madeline. The mirror over the vanity

shattered, and the windows exploded from their frames. The two shock

troopers instantly took protective stances, huddling up beside the bed to prevent from

being hit by flying debris. Patricia stood there, impassively witnessing

Madeline's temper, the gun still pointed...

Until she was suddenly lifted from her feet and thrown backwards, every

bit as violently as Diana had been thrown by the laser blast. However,

Patricia didn't come to rest on the bed beside Diana. She flew straight back

into the wall and seemed to hang there for an impossible minute. Seconds later,

blood poured from her mouth and her eyes widened in a seemingly painless

disbelief. The gun dropped from her grip and clattered to the floor. Patricia

soon pitched forward and dropped from her suspension. As the room swam back

into focus, and the odd hurricane of feeling finally abated within Madeline, she

could see what had happened. Somehow, she'd managed to throw Patricia right into

the wall mounted row of coat hooks. They had impaled her, but they had not

been long enough or strong enough to pinion her to the wall for long.

Madeline attempted to collect her wits, but her grandmother's rasping

voice sounded from the ground.

"You have proven to be a worthy advesary, Ma'thal'ee. Now, take my gun

and finsish what you started."

The weapon was in Madeline's hand before she even had a chance to

wonder how it got there. She trained it on her grandmother's broken, motionless

body. Somehow, it occurred to her that Patricia was unable to move. The

sounds of her ragged breathing were filled with fluid.

They were still there. The eyeless spectators of the man and woman

were still there, and with a sudden certainty, Madeline knew that Patricia

would become one of them the instant she pulled the trigger. For the rest of her

days, Patricia would follow her around, menacing her with a soulless stare

until the day came that she could collect her spirit...and that day, Madeline

knew, would be here soon.

"No!" she cried defiantly. "No! I cannot!"

"Do it!" Patricia ordered. More blood trickled from her mouth.

"No."

Madeline lowered the gun, but did not let it loose.

"Then you are as dispicable as I thought. You are not of my blood."

Patricia's rasping taunt filled Madeline's ears as she backed up. She

turned away from the spectacle, her eyes burning with tears. Through the haze,

she saw the two cowering shock troopers. They made no move for their

weapons. Madeline once again lifted Patricia's gun.

"Get her out of here," she ordered them in a wavering voice. If her

tone lacked conviction, her actions did not. The shock troopers were on

their feet in instant obedience. Together, they cautiously hedged past Madeline,

lifted Patricia, and in a two person hold, they carried their fallen commander

out of the room.

***************************************************************

Ham poked his head out the window of his van as he skidded to a halt in

the parking lot of the Halfpence Hotel. There was the usual amount of cars

in the lot, just about what one would expect early on a Friday evening.

Sitting amidst them was Lynn Bernstein's car. He spotted it right away. It

was covered with a fine layer of dust, to suggest it had been parked there and left

undisturbed for couple of days. At a glance, it didn't seem like

anything was amiss. Then, he blinked in surprise as he watched a Visitor shock trooper herd

a group of humans out of a first floor room. It was a family consisting

of a Hispanic couple and their small child. From his distance, he could

distinctly hear the toddler's frightened wails as the group dissappeared down a

breezeway, past a grouping of soda vendors.

"We got trouble here," Ham hissed quietly to Robin. She was already

aware of that fact too. Without being told, she had assumed a slouched down

position in her seat to minimize her risk of being detected. In her hands was

the weapon she was "borrowing" from Orlando. Another first floor door

opened, and a second shock trooper emerged with a different group of people. This

group seemed to consist of a quartet of frightened, drunk college coeds. One

of the young men in the party stumbled as he was herded past the soda machine.

The Visitor guard used the butt of his rifle to urge the youth forward.

Moments later, they all vanished in the same fashion as the first group had. Watching

for a few more minutes, Ham saw a bit of a commotion on the upper floor.

Together, he and Robin witnessed another pair of shock troopers emerge from yet

another room. Only these two weren't herding humans. Between them, they

carried a limp form down the stairs. It was too difficult to tell who they may

have been carrying. Their bodies blocked most of the view of the wounded party.

As soon as the troopers clambered down the stairs, they too dissappeared

into the shadowed depths of the breezeway.

"This can't be good," Ham muttered, more to himself than to Robin,

"Looks like they're beefing up for a nice dinner party..."

Quietly, he killed the engine, knowing that he didn't need to concern

himself with turning off the headlights. He had shut them down half a block

away from the hotel. Then, he slowly opened the door and eased his way out.

Robin mimiced his cautious movements on the other side. They met up at the

rear of the van. At once, they could hear the screams of frightened humans. Ham

passed a grim look to Robin.

"Whatever's going on here, it doesn't sound like we can afford to wait

for Donovan. If those four creeps and Queen Scaly are the only lizards we

have to worry about, we can take them on ourselves and hold down the fort til

our backup arrives," he whispered to her.

Robin nodded in agreement, her heart suddenly picking up speed from a

rush of adrenaline.

"Looks like Orlando underestimated Diana's physical condition. Maybe

she figured out that Orlando escaped and called for help. I'm betting that

she was the one we saw being carried downstairs..."

"I'd wager that your bet is right on the money," Ham responded dryly.

With his finger pressed to his lips for emphasis, he motioned for Robin to

follow him. They sprinted across the parking lot as quickly as they dared.

Once they got to the breezeway, they put their backs to the stuccoed walls and

inched their way, foot by foot, until they got to the edge of the shadows that

obscured them from immediate sight. The breezeway ended at a courtyard, of

sorts. The section closest to where they stood housed a gated off swimming

pool. Just beyond the pool was a small blacktopped parking lot. It was likely the

place where deliveries would be brought and employees of the hotel would

park. Two squad vehicles were parked there, and this was also where the

frightened humans were being herded. However, the efficient scene that Ham and

Robin had witnessed moments before was rapidly turning into disorganized chaos.

A fifth trooper emerged from one of the vessels and took a good look at the two

Visitors that had just arrived, sharing the burden of the limp person in their

arms. The two other guards turned to look as well. At that moment, another

figure emerged from the first squad vehicle... She was female, and she was not

wearing a Visitor uniform. Despite the woman's obvious bulk, she moved amazingly

fast, her legs pumping desparately, as if she was hell bent on escape. A few

of the people in the crowd saw this girl's daring departure, and instantly, as

a group, it seemed, their terror trances were broken. In all directions

they began to flee. Some passed Robin and Ham in their mad dashes to freedom.

The engaged troopers looked up and saw the panic ridden herd had jumped

to action. One of them shouted a curse, grabbed his weapon, and fired a

shot into the crowd. People instantly dove for cover on the bare black top. It

allowed Ham a clear shot. Lunging forward, he took aim and shot the inattentive

trooper in the midsection. His partner made a quick motion for the two

carrying the body to get inside a shuttle. The other trooper still standing drew

his weapon. Together, they began a wary search of the courtyard, interested

only in finding whichever human had fired the weapon.

Robin satisfied their curiosity quickly. Without thinking, she leveled

a blast that knocked one of the pair right off his feet. Her blast was

answered with a retort from his partner, but she ducked out of the way.

Scorched stucco rained down in a pile where she'd stood only moments before. However,

the Visitor was still unaware that he was battling two armed assailants,

not just one. As he cautiously advanced towards the shadows where Robin hid, Ham

took his opportunity. He had stealthily moved to conceal himself more or less

behind the bushes that were planted around the gate of the pool. From where he

hid, he had a clear shot, and he wasted no time deliberating. The last of the

shock troopers fell a few feet short of the breezeway. Almost on cue, the

squad vehicle containing the survivng members of the party lifted into the

air. Seeing this made the few people who'd taken cover on the blacktop scramble to

their feet. As Ham emerged from the bushes, he was nearly knocked over by

the woman who'd escaped from the departing vessel.

"Air attack!" she cried in lusty panic as she fled, "Find cover!"

Ham felt his bowels turn to icewater as the same thought crossed his

mind. In this courtyard, he was a sitting duck if...

But the expected attack never came. The squad vehicle circled overhead

once, as if it's pilot were debating, but then it simply flew out of sight.

Robin stepped out of the shadows of the breezeway, wide eyed and pale,

but very much unhurt. She gazed out silently as the last of the frightened

hotel guests raced out of the courtyard. Her eyes came to rest on the one

figure that remained still sitting there, despite the fact that there were char

marks on the walls, the smell of ozone in the air, and three dead lizards

sprawled in the courtyard. This man was obviously human. His head was swarthed in

a turban, and upon closer inspection, Robin could see that his clothes

were bloody. She cautiously moved closer to him, and up close, she could hear that

he was crying. In his lap, he cradled a dead woman. Her long, dark hair had

come loose, and blood oozed from the back of her head. The soft pastels of

her sari were stained a garish crimson. Her grieving husband seemed almost

completely unaware of the carnage and hell that had just broken loose in the

courtyard. Finally, it seemed, the man sensed Robin's presence. He looked up from

his wife's still figure, and the fear in his eyes was undisguised. It took

a moment for him to realize that he was not looking up at a Visitor guard.

Robin stooped down so that their eyes would be level.

"What happened here?" she inquired softly.

"I do not know," the man moaned, rolling his eyes towards the sky,

"They come and they kill my wife."

Robin awkwardly reached out and put a comforting hand on the man's

shoulder. She wished she could question him more, but it was obvious that he was

in a state of shock. In fact, he looked every bit as stricken as...

Her mind flashed back in time to another, very similar moment. Mike

Donovan and Sancho Gomez had just touched the shuttle down in the midst of the

mountain camp. Robin had raced from the shuttle's cabin and outside, only to

find her father hunched over the figure of her dead mother, who was grotesquely

splayed out on a picnic table. Before the realization of what she was seeing

had sunk in, she had witnessed the look in her father's eyes.

Tearing her gaze away from the grief consumed man, Robin bit her lip

and watched as Ham inspected the squad vehicle that was apparently left to

rot in the courtyard. Satisfied that it was unoccupied, Ham approached Robin and

the man. The look of compassion on his face was momentary and fleeting before a

steely resolve replaced it.

"What the hell happened here tonight?" he demanded in a much sterner

tone than the one Robin had afforded the new widower.

The man's response was almost identical to the one he'd given Robin

moments before. Ham opened his mouth to demand a better answer, but Robin

stood and loudly shushed him.

"Ham, I honestly don't think he knows what happened. How could he? I doubt Diana announced her presence to everyone that was here tonight..."

"Yeah, well someone around here has got to have some answers. I'm gonna have a look around. You coming?"

Robin nodded. She took one last look at the man with his wife. The man made no move to rise and join them. She decided to let him greive in peace. Resolutely, she followed Ham into the breezeway. There was no one there anymore. In fact, they saw no one until they reached the cement stairs that the second set of Visitor guards had taken to bring their fallen commander down. Crouched in the space beneath them, partially concealed by bushes, was the woman who'd escaped from the squad vessel. Ham eased his way into the space and began to fire questions at the shaken victim. Robin rolled her eyes skyward at his lack of empathy, but realized that there was not enough room for her to join them and try to make things easier on the girl.

Instead, she began a visual inspection, and she realized at once that things were not right. The concrete steps to the stairs were streaked with drying red blood. Although she was no forensic investigator, it seemed to her as though the smears had a distict look to them to suggest that someone had been dragged, bleeding, down them. At that moment, the automatically timed exterior lights flipped on, affording her a better view of the carnage. Trapped in roughed spots and cracks in the steps, mired in congealing blood were whisps of long, black hair. Robin thought back to the crying man and his dead wife in the courtyard, and she had a sinking suspicion that she knew who the hairs and the blood belonged to. Upon closer inspection, Robin also noticed spatters and stains of a different color. What hadn't mixed in with the human blood was congealing at a similar rate of it's own. Instead of red, though, the hue of these spatters was an oily, brackish, green. Lizard blood! Her eyes traced the pattern of both stains all the way up to the second floor landing. She was unable to see the genesis of either until she silently began to make her way up the steps.

"Where in the hell do you think you're going?" Ham called to her, suddenly aware of her wordless departure.

"Up," she called in return, her voice echoing oddly off the walls. When she reached the landing, she drew out her weapon again, holding it tightly as she followed the gruesome trail. It stopped abruptly at a room located about four doors away. The door to the room was still standing wide open, as were the doors to many of the other rooms. However, the evening breeze had kicked up some, and the drapes shrouding the window were billowing inwards. The glass had been shattered. Bits and pieces of it littered the cement walkway. At first, Robin heard nothing but her own breathing. Then came an odd, keening sound, somewhat similar to the cries of the man in the courtyard, but somehow different, too. Cocking her head, Robin realized that there was something familiar about the alien sound of the cries. She had heard it before, when Laura had been frightened...and later, from Elizabeth when Laura died. Not long ago, she'd heard Jaime cry in much the same way when mourning what she'd believed to be Orlando's loss. Mixed in with the strange, purr-like sounds were definite human sobs, though. The interior of the room was much too dark for Robin to see clearly from her vantage point. Cautiously, she inched forward, and she had almost made it inside when her sneaker crunched loudly on some broken glass. The crying had suddenly stopped, and was replaced with a ragged, purring breathing that came suspicously close to sounding like a throaty growl. Robin locked a frightened gaze on the source of those threatening noises, and then she gasped in shock.

Sitting in the near darkness, on the foot of the bed, was Madeline. Like the man downstairs, she clung to a lifeless seeming figure whom she'd gathered into the protection of her lap. Quickly, Robin dropped the gun to her side, realizing that Madeline was likely the more frightened of the two of them by now.

"Madeline?" Robin called out softly, past the lump that had formed in her throat. "It's me, Robin. I'm not going to hurt you..."

The growling quietly from the bed quietly subsided, and only then did Robin continue to shuffle forward. She moved carefully, partly because she didn't want to scare Madeline, and partly because she didn't want to chance stepping on any more glass.

Once she was close to the bed, Madeline reached out with a grimy hand that was streaked with green ooze. "Help me," she called out, "please help..."

Another choking, purring sob erupted from the starchild's throat as her hand clamped on to Robin's wrist. She drew her the rest of the way to the bed, desparately grabbing for words to explain her needs. Nothing more could force itself from her beside the wounded sounding cries. In the darkness, her eyes seemed to glow from the tears, but also because she'd been forced to remove her contacts at some point. Robin felt a cold terror prickling at the skin on the back of her neck.

"Madeline, are you hurt?" Robin demanded, her voice rising with her panic.

"They're here...and they have no souls...They want to take hers! Please, don't let them!" Madeline finally wailed.

"Robin, what is going on in here?" Ham's voice in the room forced Robin to snap her gaze in the direction of the doorway. Ham stood just inside, and the young woman he'd cornered in the stairwell below was just behind him. His gun was drawn exactly the way Robin's had been when she'd entered the room.

"Ham, don't shoot! It's Madeline. I don't know why she's here, or how she got here yet, but she's here, and she's in some kind of trouble!"

He made no immediate response. With one hand, he fumbled along the side of the wall, vainly searching for a lightswitch. When he flipped it, nothing happened. Cursing lightly, he holstered his gun. He disappeared for a few minutes. leaving the young woman just outside the door, and leaving Robin pondering just where he went. The whole time, Madeline remained silent, hunching herself protectively over the figure cradled in her lap. When he returned, he had a high powered flashlight that he'd likely kept stored in the back of his van. The harsh light instantly filled the targetted areas of the room, but left the places untouched by it's concentrated beam shrouded in utter darkness.

"Well, isn't this a pretty picture," Ham commented, playing the light around the room.

For the first time, Robin was afforded a glimpse of the massive destruction that had moved through here. The wall mounted coat hooks were bent at awkward angles, and something dangled from one of them that looked suspiciously like...skin. No, not skin. More like latex, or better yet, gooey mozzerella pizza cheese. More green ochre was splattered on the wall behind it. "Oooh, gross!" Robin breathed in horror. She also noted that the mirror over the vanity was shattered, and so was every light fixture in the room.

"Well, that's seven years' bad luck," Ham stated as he took in the scene.

The beam of light finally came to rest on Madeline's huddled form. She squinted and immediately released the hold of her free hand from the figure she cradled, raising it to shield her sensitive eyes from the light. Her other hand bit into Robin's wrist as if the light was causing her pain. Both Ham and Robin gasped in shocked recognition as the beam illuminated the face of the person Madeline had been holding. Her hair looked a few shades lighter than usual, but the countenance was that of Diana, without a doubt. Only instead of greeting them with an imperious smirk, the Queen of the Lizards was utterly silenced. Her eyes were closed and her features slack. Robin then noticed the ugly furrow of melted psuedoskin and exposed, bleeding scales at the top of her forehead, just below the hairline. Ham simultaneously noted the scorched hole in the wall behind the head of the bed. His lips pressed into a thin line as the implications began to set in. If it hadn't been Diana that those two lizard guards had carried down the stairs, then who had it been? Ham moved the light away from Madeline and made a second pass around the room.

"Patricia..." Madeline started painfully, her voice barely above a whisper. "Sh-she came here first and I..."

"You killed her?" Robin cried, almost enthusiastically.

"NO," the girl wailed, her voice edging dangerously close to hysteria. "She shot...t'Ama...I ...just...made her...stop..." Madeline was unable to continue before another bout of sobbing took over.

Robin tried to process what she'd just heard. The word t'Ama rang in her ears with a familiarity. Elizabeth had once called her that when she'd been much smaller and Robin had roused her after she'd fallen asleep in front of the T.V. set. She hadn't known exactly what it meant then. All she knew was that it was one of those strange Visitor vocabulary words that Elizabeth seemed to know just as mysteriously as she'd quickly learned to speak English. t'Ama must mean mother.

"How did you make her stop?" Robin pressed cautiously.

"I don't know...I just...pushed...and...then...I could not..." The look on Madeline's face suddenly went from horror stricken to guilty. "She told me to kill her, but I could not!" With that, she broke eye contact with Robin and seemed to get swallowed up in a world beyond anyone's grasp.

Ham ignored his own illegitimate daugher's anguish as he probed the light around. It came to rest at the ugly spector of the coat hooks and traveled down to the floor. Robin's lip curled up in an involuntary sneer of disgust as the picture Madeline had haltingly described unfolded in her imagination. Only the mother of a starchild could suddenly understand just what Madeline had meant when she said she just "pushed" Patricia to make her "stop".

While she pondered her thoughts, Robin watched as Ham darted over to that particularly gory corner of the room. He snatched up an object that was laying on the floor in the puddled blood. As it turned out, it was actually two objects, both of them gore-streaked photographs. Ham studied them stoically, obviously puzzled and angry at the same time.

"That lizard woman with the funny accent took them from the house..." Robin and Ham both looked up to see that the young, heavyset woman that had been standing outside had entered silently at some point. Her gaze was fixed on the pictures Ham held. "She took those pictures...and then she ate that little dog..." As she spoke, her face crumpled and a suppressed cry of rage filled grief escaped from somewhere deep within. Suddenly, instead of there being only one hysterical female in the room, there was two. The combined volume of their cries still could not drown out the sound of thundering footsteps on the concrete steps outside.

Both Robin and Ham drew their weapons, but once again, their fear turned out to be a false alarm. Instead of a battalion of Visitor troopers, the intruder turned out to be Chris. Chris and Mike, to be exact. They both pushed through the doorway.

"Hiya, boss. Elias is here too. He's downstairs with the Towelhead we found in the courtyard," Chris crudely stated.

"What did we miss?" Mike inquired, taking in as much of the macabre sight illuminated by Ham's flashlight as possible.

"Not much more than we did. And, I might add, anyone that knows anything isn't talking much," With his statement, Ham's stare travelled around and touched Madeline and the other sobbing girl in turn. "I doubt Elias will get much more out of Ahab downstairs, either," he added.

Robin shot him a rude glare. "Patricia was here, that much we know," Robin hissed through gritted teeth, "but Madeline did something to her. We saw a couple of troopers carrying her out of here. I think she could even be dead.."

"Ha. She's gotta have at least as many lives as her snake charmed bitch offspring over there. Speaking of Queen Leatherass, has anyone even checked to see if she kicked the bucket yet?"

"Well, I'm assuming she's still alive...at the very least, Madeline thinks she is..."

Mike and Chris both took astonished glances at Madeline's shaking form, huddled over her mother. Then, Chris tore his gaze away and looked at the other sobbing woman, who had taken a seat in the only chair present in the room. "And who's this?" he questioned.

"It's me, Uncle Chris. It's Rachel." Her quiet, choked voice seemed to stop time for a moment. She looked up, and for the first time, Robin and Ham realized just how beat up she was. A section of her scalp was raw and scabbed, as if someone had ripped a hunk of her hair out. Numerous brusies purpled her face, and one of her eyes was nearly swollen shut. An ugly gash split at her lower lip, and crusted blood from that injury had dried on her chin. But to Chris's amazed shock, it would seem as though he was gazing at the most beautiful site in creation. It was as if the years of age had suddenly peeled back from her battered features, revealing the little child he'd last seen and remembered as his neice. Even Ham's cynicism dropped. He remembered the way Chris had bragged about her birth, over 18 years ago, as though she were his own daughter. Shortly afterwards, he'd even seen her briefly. If he could ever live to regret anything, it would be the harsh way that he'd tried to command answers out of her frightened mouth less than an hour ago.

"Jesus Christ, baby girl! What in the hell are you doing here?" Chris's inquiry went unanswered, largely because another bout of sobs burst forth from Rachel, rendering her incapable of speech.

Robin, Mike and Ham were left to only wonder at what God awful circumstances had brought Rachel to this hellhole in such a beaten condition. Another disturbance at the doorway told them that Elias had just come in to join the party.

"I think it's safe to say that nothing more is going to happen here tonight. All I know for sure is that we have several casulaties and we have to get them out of here," Robin declared matter of factly. She slowly took a seat next to Madeline on the mattress. At some point, Madeline had released her grip on Robin's wrist. Robin lifted one of the girl's hands away from Diana long enough to slip her fingers along the psuedoskin covering her neck. There, she could vaguely make out the faint thrumming of a pulse. She had no way of knowing whether or not her pulse was normal for a Visitor, but it felt awfully slow to her inexperienced touch...but it was there nonetheless. "She's still alive," she announced to the others.

"Figures," Ham grunted.

"Yeah, but her ass is ours," Mike chortled gleefully, "and I think I almost like it better that way."

"Well, it won't be that way for long if we don't get her out of here. Robin's right. Maggie and Jaime are setting up a makeshift lizard hospital for Orlando at my place. They're supposed to have Julie get Howie to help. Howie will know what to do with this heap of luggage," Chris said. He'd moved over towards Rachel, and had put a protective arm around her heaving shoulders.

"Not to mention, I got the innkeeper and his dead wife loaded in your van. I don't know just what to do with them, but I couldn't quite stomach leaving him there with those dead lizards downstairs," Elias ventured.

"Speaking of dead lizards, did you get their weapons?" Ham questioned.

Elias's white teeth flashed in the dark. "Why of course I did. If you weren't gonna, someone had to."

"Great. Oh, and Gooder, looks like we got ourselves another Lizard Go Cart to add to our collection." With a smirk, Ham tossed the flashlight on the bed next to Madeline. He then rolled Diana's limp form off of her daughter's lap and rudely began to rummage through the pockets of the pants she wore. Victoriously, he withdrew his hand and held up the key to Lynn Bernstein's car.

Madeline made a lunge for her mother's body, but Robin reached out and held her at bay.

"No, Madeline. We have to get her out of here. We can't do that if she's attatched to you, okay?"

Madeline said nothing, but she seemed to barely comprehend Robin's words. Ham tossed the keys to Elias. "Chris will take your ride and take his neice back to his house.Gooder can fly the shuttle to our hidey hole. You follow him out in Lynn's car so that he has a ride back. Robin and I..." Ham's gaze lingered over Diana's still form. He was, no doubt, invisioning a long, torturous interrogation when she regained consiousness.

"Hey, how come you get all the good jobs?" Mike protested in a half mocking tone.

"You just don't have the heart for it, Gooder," Ham deadpanned in return.

Chapter 29 Matters at Hand

"Can you take me high enough,

Can you fly me over

yesterday?

Can you take me high enough?

It's never over..

Yesterday's just a memory.

(Yesterday's just a memory)..."

~~ Damn Yankees HIgh Enough

The ride to Chris and Maggie's house was one of the most unpleasant

rides Robin had yet to imagine. She rode up front in the passenger's seat of

the van, next to Ham's silent form as he drove. In the back, the innkeeper,

who's name was now known to be Amir, was huddled with his dead wife, Sheetal.

Elias had thoughtfully taken a clean sheet from one of the unlocked rooms and

shrouded the dead woman's body with it. In addition, Madeline and Diana were

along for the ride. Like Sheetal, Diana was also wrapped. They had dragged her out

of the hotel room using the bedspread as a stretcher. It now served to keep

her warm, and hopefully alive. No one particularly cared for Diana's preservation

out of any sort of mercy. Merely, they wanted her to regain her health long

enough to be questioned, possibly tortured for all of the horrors she had wrought

upon humanity, and only then could she be permanently dispatched.

Despite her ongoing battle of hatred for all of the suffering Diana had

inflicted upon her and her family and friends, Robin was all too aware

that Madeline's feelings were not that simple. She could no more hate her

mother than Elizabeth could hate her father. Over the years, Robin had come to

accept the fact that it was wrong, and even harmful, to suggest to her daughter that

she should hate Brian for raping her. A part of Robin would never forgive

Brian for that, but it simply wasn't right to force her own feelings onto

Elizabeth. Grudgingly, she realized that the same applied here. The cruel hands of

fate would deal the grisly cards of truth out to Madeline in due time. Until then,

Robin was forced to grit her teeth as she heard Madeline tearfully comforting

her injured mother. At least Amir seemed unaware of just precisely whom he

was sharing space with in the back of the van. The demon that had crossed

his path and stolen his wife from him had been clad all in black and bore little

resemblence to the woman Madeline kept close to her.

"Don't worry, mother. I will not let them take you from me," Madeline

whispered in the dark interior of the van.

A black chill coursed up Robin's spine as she heard the disembodied

voice speak. She knew somehow that Madeline wasn't ranting about the

resistance, but she still had no idea exactly who she was talking about.

Ham came to a teeth jarring stop in front of Chris and Maggie's house.

It seemed that every interior light was ablaze. Julie's car was parked out

front. The red Toyota Celica that Stanley Bernstein was temporarily borrowing

from Chris was there too. Lastly, Elias's car was parked in the driveway,

blatantly declaring that Chris and Rachel had beat them to the house. Then again,

that was no surprise. Anything could drive faster than Ham's bucket of bolts.

"Stay put and keep an eye on Queen Scaly. Knowing her, she's faking

it," Ham said as he climbed out of the van. Robin watched as he sprinted up the

front walkway. The minutes ticked by in an awkward silence. If she was faking

it, Diana made no move to jump out of Madeline's arms and club Robin over

the head or...worse...impregnate her with alien sperm. Ham reappeared with

Julie, Stanley, and Howie in tow.

From back of the van, Robin heard the rear doors swing open. Then she

heard Amir's quiet voice inquire about what he should do with his wife. It

was obvious that the poor man knew she was beyond anyone's help, yet he was

reluctant to let her go. Stanley sympathetically answered the man's pleas,

telling him that they would lay her to rest in the garage and call a funeral home

so that she could be buried properly wherever Amir wished. Robin was relieved

that someone came up with a decent, sensible solution that would leave the

man and his dead wife their dignity. She only wished she'd known what to tell Amir.

When Robin left the confines of her seat and went around to the back with

the others, she noticed that Sheetal had already been removed from Amir's arms long

enough for him to climb out. Then, he'd taken position at his wife's

head, and Stanley had her feet. Together, they were carrying the shrouded form

into the garage. Meanwhile, Howie and Julie had crawled into the back of the van

to assist with Diana. Julie was unsuccessfully firing a round of questions at

Madeline, trying to ascertain what had happened.

"Let's just get her inside, Julie," Howie said with a resigned tone

that betrayed his disgust, "I'll need to examine her, and I'm sure I'll find

out what happened."

Robin stood next to Ham, who was watching everything dispassionately.

Only when Julie climbed out of the van and Howie motioned to Ham for his

assistance did Ham react.

"I say we just toss her on the lawn and let the dogs have her."

"Ham, this is no time for mentality like that. Either help Howie or

get out of the way," Julie countered tiredly.

Ham held his ground for a moment more before he finally stepped forward

to help Howie unload Diana.

"Where do we take the Raptor Queen?" Ham grunted as he supported the

bottom half of Diana's weight, leaving Howie to deal with her head.

"Follow me," Julie responded, beckoning them inside, "We need to move

fast. I have no idea what happened to her, but it doesn't look good."

Robin watched as Diana was transported away inside Chris's well lit

house. Madeline had managed to crawl forward and had taken a new seat at the

rear of the van. Her legs stuck out of the back with her feet resting on the

back bumper as though she was trying to decide if she wanted to go inside or

not. Robin was already desensitized to the splotches of green blood on Madeline's

T Shirt, but somehow, she'd managed to miss the rest of the picutre.

There was blood staining the thighs and lower front of her faded blue jeans too, and it

wasn't green.

"Madeline, did you get hurt too?" Robin asked, trying to keep the tones

of concern in her voice lowkey. She didn't want to alarm Madeline or panic

her, despite the unease she was beginning to feel herself. In all of

Elizabeth's seven years of existence, Robin had only seen her daughter's blood one time,

when her finger had been cut after touching a sharp holly leaf. If Elizabeth

ever bled as much at it appeared that Madeline was, Robin knew she'd freak. A cut

finger had been bad enough, but this was something else.

"No. No one hurt me," Madeline responded. Her voice was dull and flat.

The "something else" that Robin turned over in her mind suddenly dawned

on her with a clarity that had just answered her question before Madeline

even spoke.

"We'd better get you inside and get you cleaned up."

Robin's tone bore all of the authority of a mother. Madeline responded

without hesitation and followed her dociley inside. They entered

through the gaping garage door, both of them avoiding glances at the carefully shrouded

figure of Sheetal, resting on a camping blanket on the ground. In fact, Robin was

so respectful of the dead woman's space that she nearly tripped headlong

on something else stretched out on the ground some distance from Sheetal's

body. Looking down, she could barely conceal a scream as she stared at the lifeless

features of a dead Visitor guard. Tossed haphazardly beside him was

another one. She had no idea where this dead duo had come from, and suddenly, she didn't

care. Grabbing Madeline's hand, she propelled her past the hideous sight and

into the kitchen through the ped door.

Maggie and Chris were there, as was Rachel, the girl that she and Ham

had found at the hotel. Rachel's various cuts and scrapes had already been

cleaned and bandaged, but her eyes held a shadowed, far away look. She sat in a

dinette chair, gazing out the window. Maggie was having a quiet discussion with

Chris. He too sat in a chair, and Maggie stood in front of him, speaking in

low, soft tones. It slowly dawned on Robin what the strange rasping noises

were that she had just become aware of as she entered the space of the kitchen,

trying to quietly lead Madeline past an inexplicable pile of weapons and

explosive components piled smack in the middle of the floor.

Chris was crying. Maggie held his head pressed against her middle, with

her arms around him. In one hand was Druid's dog collar.

Rachel had mentioned something about Patricia eating a little dog back

at the hotel.

Robin's mind reeled in protest as she remembered Druid's playfulness,

just that morning, as he'd tried to snatch a bagel out of her hands. Now he

was gone, and there were two dead lizards in the garage. Swallowing her gorge and

her disgust, she maneuvered Madeline around the small aresenal on the

kitchen floor. Quietly, she led her past Chris's shaking form, knowing that

she'd never tell a soul what she'd just seen. Somehow, she didn't imagine that

Chris was the sort that easily cried.

Ham was in the living room with Howie, Julie, the two Visitor patients

and Jaime. Though he looked intensly uncomfortable, Robin had a good guess

that he just might know what was going on in the kitchen, and was purposely

avoiding the scene to leave Chris with some dignity. Stanley and Amir were in a

corner of the room. Stanley was using the telephone, undoubtedly to call the

funeral home to pick up Sheetal's body. Amir held the phone book in his hands,

looking quite lost. Madeline had stopped walking, and was watching as Howie and

Julie administered various M*A*S*H* type treatments to Diana. The urgent

seeming but quiet words they exchanged told Robin that things were serious,

even though she couldn't hear what was being said. With a tug, she continued to

pull Madeline in tow into the back hallway where things were much quieter.

From there, she led her into the bathroom. Madeline stood mutely, gazing out the

door, that was slightly ajar as Robin quickly rinsed out the tub and started

to fill it.

"Okay, let's get you into the tub. I'll find you a change of clothes in

Maggie's room."

Madeline made no move to obey her. Robin rolled her eyes slightly with

frustration and grabbed a hold of Madeline's hand again. Pulling her

over to the tub, she let the girl watch as the water poured from the faucet.

"It's nice and warm in there, and it'll make you feel alot better. I

promise."

Robin's words finally seemed to sink into Madeline. Dipping a grimy

hand into her pocket, she reached in and pulled out the two orb shaped contacts

she'd removed earlier and laid them on the side of the tub. They had about as

much expression in them as Madeline's true eyes did, which was about none.

Then, she removed her soiled garments slowly, as though she were waiting for

Robin's reaction to all of the blood. When Robin only glanced at her long

enough to judge for herself that there were no major injuires, she finally spoke.

"My mother is dying, I think," she said slowly as she climbed into the

tub.

"Julie and Howie are very good at fixing people. I'm sure they know

exactly what she needs..." Robin replied, not really certain how to respond. In

her inexperienced opinion, she knew better than to try to shove false

optimism down Madeline's throat with sugar coated lies about how Diana was strong

enough to survive a nuclear war, just like a cockroach.

"I am dying too," Madeline stated matter of factly.

"From what? You said you weren't hurt, and I didn't see anything to

suggest that you're dying.."

"The blood that leaves my body. I do not know why it is happening, but

there must be something wrong inside of me."

Madeline's shellshocked calm finally seemed to leave her for a moment.

Her breathing suddenly quickened to disguise the threat of escaping sobs.

Robin looked at the heap of soiled garments on the bathroom floor, more

certain now than ever that she knew what ailed Madeline. She bit back any uncertainties

that she might be wrong and called on her memories to help her out. There

had been a time in her life when her mother had taken her aside and had the big

"girl talk". Robin had rolled her eyes the whole time, insisting that she'd

learned everything her mother was telling her in health ed. Still, when her day

had come shortly afterwards, she remembered that she'd been frightened anyways,

even though she knew it all. And, her mother had patiently been there for

her with fresh clothes, Tylenol for any cramps, and plenty of kind advice to

show her how to deal with everything else.

It seemed that Polly's day had come shortly before the Visitors came.

Robin had stayed politely out of her mother's way while she'd taken care of

her sister, but she knew what Polly was going through. Now, those memories

would have to serve as a model on how to treat Katie when her turn came. Their

mother wouldn't be there for her. So far, Elizabeth had never...come to her

for any of this sort of thing...and until now, it had never occurred to Robin to

wonder why.

"Madeline, didn't your mother ever explain the birds and the bees to

you?" Robin asked, realizing that a part of her was annoyed at Madeline's

seeming ignorance. If Diana had done a proper job of being a mother, Madeline

shouldn't have to wonder what was happening to her. Unless, of course, Diana

didn't think Madeline would ever have a menstrual cycle. She shoved that thought out

of her mind as quickly as it drifted there. Diana certainly knew enough about

human reproduction to know how to get Robin pregnant with Brian's child. She

simply had to know about periods and stuff, even if lizards didn't get them!

"Birds and bees?" Madeline asked in a shaky breath.

"It's slang. Madeline, you are not dying. What is happening to you

happens to all human women when their bodies mature. It means that your body is

ready to have babies."

Madeline seemed to slowly turn this bit of news over in her mind, but

then her eyes flew wide open.

"I am going to have a child!?" she demanded almost hysterically.

"Uh, no. You have to...you know...have sex with a guy before you can

get pregnant..." The words were already dying on Robin's lips as she

noticed that Madeline's expression hadn't changed in the least. It was as if she

understood, at the very least, how babies got conceived, and she still

looked quite worried. Robin tried not to let any shock or surprise show on her

features as the realizations dawned on her that Madeline might not be as naive as she

had thought...as naive as Elizabeth had been at her age.

"It's called a menstrual period...what's happening to you right now, and

actually, it means you are not pregnant. It happens every month for a

woman, and if she doesn't get one, it could mean that she's pregnant," she explained

as matter of factly as possible.

"How is it possible to bleed so much every month and still live?"

Madeline asked.

Robin could only shrug her shoulders.

"It's just one of those miracles of nature, I guess. Whatever the case,

I can pretty much reassure you that you're not going to die anytime soon.

Now, why don't you sit up a little so I can wash your hair. It

looks...disgusting!"

Madeline obliged and Robin began the soaping and lathering motions that

were still as familiar to her now as they were in the days when she used to

bathe Katie.There were really only two distinct differences that stood out.

One was the fact that Madeline's hair was much longer than Katie's had ever

been and it was so tangled, it would need two cream rinses. (Kathleen had wisely

kept Katie's hair clipped to a manageable length to avoid problems like

this.) The second was that Madeline had a strange, bony ridge at the top of her

scalp, leading straight down to the nape of her neck. From that point on,

there was also something strange about the skin on Madeline's back. It was flesh

colored as it ought to be, except that along either side of her spine, there was

some strange, dark mottling. Upon closer inspection, Robin saw that the skin

containing the mottles was...scaled...

It was fortunate that Madeline couldn't see the expression on Robin's

face. In fact, her eyes had closed, and her expression almost looked serene

and dreamy, as if massaging the shampoo into her scalp had a calming

effect. But just as Robin finished with the last of the cream rinses, the girl's eyes

flew open wide and darted around the room. Her scalp literally began to

crawl beneath Robin's fingers, causing fine hairs on the back of Robin's neck to

suddenly stand up on end.

"They are here!" Madeline wailed suddenly, "They want to take her!"

"Who's here?" Robin asked, but even as her eyes traveled around, she

thought she saw...something...

In the reflection in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

Confused, Robin dipped her conditioner coated hands into the bathwater

to rinse them off, dried them on the legs of her jeans, and got up. She

poked her head out of the door and saw no one. Returning her focus to the

bathroom, she realized, with an odd dismay, that she and Madeline were alone. No one

looked back at her in the mirror, but Robin could have sworn she'd seen

someone there moments before. If she wasn't mistaken, that someone had been the late

Supreme Commander, John. Only, the image she'd caught a glimpse of in the

mirror had been oddly hollow eyed, almost as if he didn't have any eyes.

Madeline regarded her silently from the bathtub, sitting in a protected

position with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Her bathwater

was rather murky and probably getting cold. Robin reached over to the towel rack

and handed her a towel that smelled strongly of Maggie's love of fabric

softener. She found her voice as Madeline wrapped the towel around herself.

"You dry off. I've got to get something for you to wear to bed."

As Robin walked the short distance from the bathroom to the room Chris

and Maggie shared, the case of the creeps she'd come down with slowly began

to wear off. Rummaging through drawers, she found a T shirt, a pair of

lightweight nylon running shorts and a clean pair of underwear for Madeline. She

supposed Maggie would keep her stash of Maxi Pads in the bathroom cabinet. Upon

returning to the bathroom, she saw that Madeline had drained the tub and taken a

seat on the lid of the toilet. She had drawn the towel around herself tightly,

and was watching the door with a guarded expression.

"You saw them, didn't you," Madeline said in a voice that was so quiet,

Robin had to strain to hear it.

Robin pondered her response as she pawed through the bathroom cabinets

to find sanitary napkins. Her search was rewarded instantly, and could no

longer serve as a distraction to keep her from answering.

"Let's just say I saw something, but I don't know what it was," she

finally replied.

"It was them. They have no souls. They want my mother's. I think that

is why they always follow her. Tonight, they have stayed close, very close.

They were either waiting for her or for...Patricia. If Patricia died

tonight, she would have become one of them, and I would have to see her all the

time. She would look at me and have no eyes. No eyes means no soul. No soul!"

Robin stayed speechless as every fire and brimstone demon from the days

of her Catechism sermons rolled around in her memories. Souless entities

were something that a lapsed Catholic such as herself would find entirely

too easy to believe in. She forced herself to steer back to crystal clear reality.

As far as she could see now, there were no eyeless spooks rattling their chains

in the bathroom. By the time she'd finished showing Madeline how to handle her

feminine situation, Robin had almost managed to convince herself that

she'd seen nothing at all. It didn't stop her from realizing that she was suddenly

craving company of a more cynical nature. Nothing Madeline's tortured,

traumatized imagination conjured up would hold a candle against the practical

natures of those like Ham, Chris and Maggie. Keeping a frame of mind like theirs would

be the only thing that would help her get any sleep that night.

The chaos in the living room had settled somewhat when Robin emerged

from the bathroom with Madeline. Chris's coffee table had been moved to make

more space in the center of the room. Orlando was stretched out, clad in

nothing above the waist but his damaged psuedoskin and a wrap around brace of sorts.

Howie had obviously been aprised of his conditon before he'd arrived. An I.V.

was inserted into one of Orlando's arms, and Jaime was at his other side,

holding his hand. At some point, she'd drifted off to sleep, despite the fact that

she was still sitting upright, her back propped against Chris's easy chair.

There wasn't much of Diana that Robin could see behind Julie and

Howie's hovering forms, but the emergency room urgency level had faded

somewhat. Snippets of conversation were barely decipherable, but Howie was worrying over

how to get her to Visitor Fields in the morning without anyone knowing who she

was. Apparently, either someone had brought up the fact that if Diana's

identity and whereabouts were revealed, there could well be an assasination attempt

by diehard resistance members or 5th Columnists, or Howie had thought of

the notion himself. He seemed to understand that Julie and the others would

likely want her brought to trial, alive. It appeared to be the only reason why he

even consented to treat her in the first place. Unless, of course, Visitor

doctors were bound by the same creeds as their human counterparts. Robin knew

nothing for sure.

Madeline finally separated herself and perched on the edge of the couch

where she could remain close to her mother. Her face had suddenly taken on a

remote expression, not unlike ones Elizabeth wore when anyone discussed

Brian's death.

Stanley and Amir were absent from the room now. Leaving Madeline where

she was, Robin found herself drifting into the kitchen. Chris, thankfully,

had gotten a hold of himself. He was matter of factly collecting his guns

off of the kitchen floor, examining each one to make certain that not a single,

precious component was harmed. At some point, Maggie had brewed some herbal tea

and had offered some to both Chris and Rachel. Rachel held her mug silently,

only taking occasional sips. Chris's still sat untouched on the kitchen

table, next to a box of photographs, a disgusting blob of what looked like human hair,

and Druid's ruined dog collar. Maggie and Ham were both at the kitchen

sink. While Maggie rummaged in the under the sink cabinet for cleaning rags and

disinfectant, Ham was filling a huge bucket with warm water from the

tap. A mop leaned against the wall nearby. For the first time, Robin noticed the globs of

green lizard blood on the linoleum, the broken window over the sink, and

scorch marks on the walls.

"What happened in here?" Robin asked, directing her question to no one

in particular.

Maggie straightened up from her crouch, with an assortment of Chris's

old, ripped up T-Shirts in one hand, and a bottle of Pine-Sol in the other.

"There was a little surprise party waiting here for us when we got

here," she answered.

Robin suddenly remembered the two dead lizards in the garage. Maggie

nodded, almost as if she could read her mind.

"Yeah, it looks like Party Animal Patricia decided to make a little pit

stop here with a bunch of her scaly buddies, and they just had themselves a

grand ol' time," Chris snarled. He had several guns stacked carefully in his

arms. With a grim expression, he shuffled out the ped door and into the

garage. Rachel sniffled lightly. Her eyes were still as big and as dark as the

mouth of a cave, and she offered no elaboration on Chris's explaination.

"There was a couple of guards here waiting when Jaime and I got here with Orlando. We took them out pretty quick. Too bad they left such a mess," Maggie stated.

"What a shame there was nothing left twitching when I got here," Ham said. He took the pine cleaner from Maggie and dumped a healthy dollop into the bucket in the sink.

"You're lucky there's enough of them left to spit on. When Chris got a load of what had happened, he was fit to be tied."

Robin bit her lip nervously. Chris wasn't the sort of man she'd want to see get that angry. True to Maggie's description, he still looked quite volatile. In fact, he completed the task of transporting his guns back to where they belonged without much of another word to anyone. His cheeks were red and sweat poured from his forehead, even though the effort of moving weapons wasn't much of a strain. Almost automatically, he plucked a few rags from Maggie's hand, dipped them into the water that Ham poured, and began to scrub at a scorched cabinet.

"Could you spare me a couple of rags?" Ham asked, "I gotta get all of that damn lizard blood out of my van." He neglected to mention that some of it wasn't lizard blood.

With a nod, Maggie tossed him a few strips. Ham hefted the bucket out of the sink and disappeared out of the kitchen with it. Maggie immediately took over the sink and began to ready it for her own cleaning job.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Robin offered, feeling very drained, but suddenly, very restless.

Maggie watched as Chris muttered and swore as he swabbed at various spots on the walls and fixtures. Then, she turned her gaze back to Robin. "Nah," she mouthed, hardly above a whisper,"I think Chris just kind of wants to keep busy. I'm gonna mop in here, but after that, I think I'll just put Rachel to bed and leave him alone."

Robin nodded understandingly, but it didn't stop her from feeling lost and useless. She had no desire to return to the living room, since it had been transformed into a lizard triage ward. In fact, she suddenly realized that she was out a place to sleep, and very possibly, so was Stanley. Rachel would need the small guest room where Stanley had spent the past few nights. Quite frankly, Robin couldn't imagine herself squeezing onto the couch where she'd slept with Madeline there now, babysitting Diana. She vaguely wondered what sort of condition Kyle's house was in after the raid on it. Almost everything she, Polly, Elizabeth, Katie, and Kyle had owned had been there. The house had been on fire when they'd evacuated. Robin felt a stab of sorrow for Kyle at the realization that his house might be utterly destroyed, and a stab of fear for herself as she wondered if she, her sisters and her daughter were officially homeless. With everything that had happened in the past few days, no one had been back to Kyle's house, especially Kyle himself. He was holed up Julie's apartment with his leg in a cast, Elizabeth and his truck in Lodi, and all the rest of his belongings left behind at his house. Her mind wandered over the various possibilities in a rapid sequence. It occurred to her that Ham, Mike, Jaime and Chris may have gone back to Kyle's house to see if Patricia had returned there.

She watched as Chris grew ever more frustrated with his futile attempts to rid his walls of blaster burns, and she decided that he was not the person to ask at the moment. He may know, but it didn't seem at the top of his list of priorities at the moment. Robin slowly backed out of the kitchen and into the garage, the question burning brightly in her mind. With Patricia out of the picture, it dawned on her that her sisters and Elizabeth could come home...but what if there was no home to come home to? A portion of her mind registered that only the two Visitor corpses were left in the garage. The funeral home must have already picked up Sheetal. The car that Stanley was borrowing from Chris was absent from the driveway. It was likely that he had offered to take Amir home...(if he had one. Robin simply didn't know.) She wondered vaguely if Stanley would chance going back to his own house tonight...or if he'd go up to the hospital and request to stay with Lynn. Ham's ugly van had taken up residence where Stanley's car had been parked. The rear doors were thrown wide open, and Ham was in the back, scrubbing the bottom. The mats he'd laid down on the floor of the rear of the van were pulled out and tossed on the driveway for scrubbing later.

Ham seemed to sense her approach before she made any noises to make her presence known. "Wanna do me a favor and bring me that bottle of bleach on the shelf over the washing machine?" he asked.

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure," Robin replied, her mind instantly snapping out of her reverie. She made a quick backtrack into the garage to honor Ham's request, taking care to avoid the sprawled, dead Visitors. She returned with the bleach to find Ham emptying the bucket of sudsy water onto the driveway. Then, he began to refill it from the garden hose, adding a generous portion of bleach to the mix. It smelled almost noxious.

"Don't wanna take a chance on getting Gator Aids from Queen Scaly's blood," Ham quipped.

Robin's tired mind had only half seized on the meaning of his joke when a laugh erupted in spite of herself. Reaching into the bucket, she grabbed a hold of one of the rag strips and began to wipe down the mats. "Do you suppose Patricia's dead?" she asked hesitantly.

"Don't count on it. Madeline said she couldn't kill her. Tough break. I would have had no problem."

"Well, it's a little different for her, y'know. Patricia is supposed to be her grandmother.."

"Yeah, well most grandma's I know don't tote guns and try to off their grandkids. She should have vaped her while she had a good chance."

"I just wonder why she came back here in the first place. She's supposed to be in Lodi with Elizabeth, Bram and the others. If she's here, then where are they?"

"Probably back in Lodi."

"Probably not, knowing Elizabeth. I'm willing to bet they know she's gone. Elizabeth would want to try to find her. Do you suppose it's safe for everyone to come back?"

"They might as well come back. If Patricia's not dead, ten to one she won't just sit around and twiddle her scaly thumbs. There's just no telling what Madeline told her before she...did whatever she did to her..." Ham stated.

"She didn't seem like she was in the frame of mind for an all out confessional. I just remember what Orlando said about the Los Angeles Mothership being recalled. Maybe they really will leave...and take Patricia with them," Robin replied, a little too hopefully.

"Yeah, and a choir of angels might fly out of my butt, too."

"Well, you never know," Robin said around another chuckle.

"Could you go see if there's any towels in the garage? It's time to dry things out back here."

Robin finished up with the mats and searched the garage once again. She was rewarded with a bounty of three freshly laundered towels that Maggie had dried earlier but had forgotten to take out of the dryer. Ham took two of them from her, and she kept the last one. Hoisting herself in, she began to swab at the floor of the van, vainly hoping that three towels would be enough. Ham had done a thourough cleaning. Everything that had been stashed in the back of the van was now precariously balanced on the only two seats in the entire vehicle. The muzzles of a few Uzi's and other guns pointed in helter skelter directions. Robin made sure not to brush against any of them as she worked, suspecting they were probably loaded. Despite her caution, her shoulder brushed against a small box, perched on the top of a teetering pile of miscellaneous weaponry and maps stashed on the driver's side seat. The box and a good portion of just about everything else fell to the freshly dried floor with a clatter that seemed deafening for a moment.

She heard Ham mutter something from behind as an embarrassed flush crept into her cheeks. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she cried, hastily snatching at two small guns that had fallen. One of them looked like a .38 special, or so she thought. The other was a Visitor weapon. Both of them, fortunately, had their safeties on. After placing them back on the seat, Robin reached for the box. The flaps had been folded in such a way that it hadn't opened, and nothing had spilled from it, even though it had landed on it's side. Before she had a chance to put it back on the seat, Ham snatched it from her surprised hands.

"I'll take care of that. Don't worry about it," he said in a tone that sounded more hurried than annoyed. The manner in which he handled the box was gentle, as if volatile explosives were contained in it.

"What's in there? A bomb?" Robin asked, her eyes widening with concern.

"No. It's nothing you have to worry about," Ham responded. He had been regarding the box with a concern of his own, but when he looked up to answer Robin's question, his gaze looked unsteady and troubled. Gut instinct told Robin that he was lying, but before she could call him on it, he gently laid the box down in front of him and let out a deep sigh. "Ok, what's in here does concern you, actually," he started, pausing for a moment to find his next words, "But it's not dangerous, like a bomb. It's just that...well, I'm not really sure how you're going to take this.."

"Take what?" Robin asked hedgingly. A feeling in the pit of her stomach told her that she wasn't going to like what she was about to hear. Fleetingly she wondered about the question she'd come out here to ask him about in the first place. Maybe what was contained in that box was all that remained of her possessions rescued from Kyle's house...

"It's something that Chris, Mike, Jaime and I discovered when we were trying to track Patricia's movements. We uh...well, we searched everywhere that we thought might be a likely place for her to go and dig up information about us. Apparently, "dig" is exactly what she did..."

"Dig?" Robin echoed quietly, "Dig what?" Ham's expression softened somewhat from it's usual grim lines, but his expression alternated from outrage to something resembling dismay. He was unable to look Robin in the eye as he spoke, something which was a rarity for Ham Tyler. "Yeah, she did some digging," he continued carefully, "and she did some poking around in some places that she had no business being in. Like our old H.Q. at the abandoned jail. And..uh..well, you remember what we put out in the back forty...the old excercise yard..."

Robin struggled for a moment to recall exactly what he was talking about. Her face visibly paled when it dawned on her. "That's where we buried Laura and Robert Troy...and..." Brian's name hung in the air as an unmentioned statement.

"Yeah, exactly. I guess she wanted proof of decease...or something...we don't exactly know what since Patricia didn't leave us a detailed itenerary of her little trip."

"She dug?" Robin questioned, feeling gorge rise up in her stomach."Just who did she dig up?"

"All of em," Ham stated.

The silence in the van was louder than Robin's cry of anguish that came only moments later. "No!" she wailed in protest.

Ham didn't flinch at her outburst, nor did he offer a counter to her cry.

"What's in the box!" she demanded.

Ham was silent for a moment as he contemplated just how to answer. Diplomacy and tact were needed, and those weren't qualities that came easily to him. "I couldn't just leave him there, Robin. It just wasn't right. I know you want better for..your son..than that, and he deserves some decency. I did the best I could...and I was going to tell you, but...everything just happened..."

Robin felt herself slump bonelessly against the back of the front seat, and she welcomed its support. Suddenly, as tears sprang from her eyes and sobs of disgust and anger poured from her soul, she felt as if that seat was the only thing that was keeping her from falling apart with the rest of the world. "She dug up my baby?!" she gasped through the tears, "Oh, my God, why? He didn't ever do a thing in his life to deserve this! This is sooo.."

"Sick," Ham finished decisively.

"Sick!" Robin spat, burying her forehead into her knees.

"I knew it would upset you...but I thought that it would only be right for you to...uh...Well, maybe there's a better place for him. With your parents, maybe.."

Robin looked up and regarded Ham through red rimmed eyes. "My father doesn't even have a grave, really, because he just...evaporated..."

Another bout of sobs shook her shoulders, but she squared her way through them and forced out the rest of her words. "But my mother...is buried....We buried her at the Mountain Camp. And when my father died, I put a marker next to her grave for him...."

"We can take him there, if you want. I'll help you."

"What if Patricia isn't dead and she comes and-"

"She'll have a real hard time digging for anything when I get a hold of her and rip off her arms," Ham replied evenly. He watched as her hands hesitantly reached out and touched the box. "I'm sorry I didn't have something better for him," he said, suddenly realizing how crude a coffin a cardboard box made for the remains of a lost child.

"No...you did the best thing," Robin sniffled, "at least I have him and Patricia doesn't. You didn't just leave him there..."

"No. I couldn't. Even I'm not that heartless." But he couldn't bring himself to tell her the rest of it. He hadn't been able to find every bone, and he suspected he knew why. The condition they'd found Laura's body in told him that. Ham kept that bit of information to himself, knowing full well that Abraham would not be pleased if he learned what had happened to his mother's grave while he was gone. He also kept quiet about Brian's grave, Jaime's ridiculous theories to explain why it was empty..and his own more sensible theories to explain it. All of the doors of the van were left open to air out the interior, while Ham rummaged around in Chris's garage to find a box to store the collection of things that had accumulated in his van.

Robin wandered into the kitchen, still clutching onto the box that contained what remained of her son. She didn't dare lift open the flap to peer inside. That notion was simply too much. Chris had given up on cleaning the rest of the kitchen, mostly because there wasn't a surface left for him to scrub. Instead, he rummaged through his refridgerator and pulled out a cold beer. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Robin slumped dejectedly in a kitchen chair, with the box balanced on her lap. Without a word, he pulled another beer out and placed it on the kitchen table in front of her. Robin gazed up at him gratefully and accepted his offering, despite the fact that it was past two in the morning, hardly what one would consider Happy Hour. Chris plopped exhaustedly into another chair and opened his beer. After a long swallow, he pulled something out of his jeans pocket. It was the dog collar Druid had worn that still bore his inscripted, bone shaped metal name tag.

"I suppose you're pretty upset about what happened. Do ya know what you're gonna do with 'im?" Chris finally asked, the usually smooth tones of his Louisiana accent roughed from anger and emotion.

"Um, yeah, I think so," Robin returned quietly, "I'm gonna take him up to the mountain camp and put him with my mother."

"Good plan. You should have this to put with him."

With that, Chris slid the dog collar across the table, where it came to rest against Robin's beer can. She reached out and picked it up hesitantly and silently wondered why he had given her Druid's collar. "I've always believed that every boy should grow up with a dog. I kinda figure that Patricia did them both wrong; your boy and my dog. If there's an afterlife, I reckon they're both together now. That's the way it ought to be."

Robin suddenly understood the roughness behind Chris' voice. A vision suddenly came to her that might have been cliche in any other context, but to her, it was rather revolutionary. It was the first time since the death of her alien appearing son that she'd ever tried or succeeded in picturing him in any context, dead or alive. If Robert Troy had lived, he'd be nearly eight years old, just like Elizabeth. Only instead of looking like an adult (like his sister), Robin plainly saw him as she would see any other eight year old...except for one difference. The need to cover him in a psycological psuedoskin was gone, and her child appeared to her as she knew he'd look in heaven. Running through a field of grass as green as his scaled flesh, barefoot and carefree, Robin could almost hear him laughing. Beside him, the surrealistic blades of grass parted, and the zigzagging shape of Druid appeared, running beside him. His tongue was lolling as he panted, and his eyes were as bright and animated as they had been in the days of his puppyhood. Togther, the dog and his boy master ran to a destination that had no beginning, and seemed to have no end. Robin felt tears sting her tired eyes, but they weren't tears of sorrow.

Resolutely, she closed her fingers around the collar, knowing that despite all that had happened, both Robert Troy and Druid were at peace. "You're right, Chris. They are together. I'll keep this with him," she whispered.

Ham stepped though the ped door with a disgusted backward glance at the two dead bodies heaped in the garage. "We'll get Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum outta here in the morning before they start stinking," he said, "But for now, I was wondering. Suppose I could borrow the sleeping bags out of your camping gear in the garage?" Ham directed his question at Chris, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he'd broken up an emotion charged moment.

"You ain't bagging no dead lizards in my sleeping bags!" Chis volleyed in a challenging tone of voice,"They cost me 40 bucks a pop, and they're too good for scaly carcasses."

"Hell, no, I wasn't gonna use your sleeping bags for them! I was asking for Robin and I. There isn't anywhere in the house fit for either her or I to sleep in, so we'll just crash in the van...if we can use your sleeping bags."

Chis raised an eyebrow in question, but his quick mental calculations came to the same conclusion that Ham had just reached. The living room was a lizard hospital, the spare room was being used by Rachel, and he wasn't sharing his and Maggie's room with no one.

"Ah, son of a gun, what about Bernstein? Where the hell am I gonna put him?" Chris muttered, suddenly at a loss. Maggie was usually the one that worked out these problems, but she was sound asleep by now.

"I think if he was coming back, he would have. Maybe he's staying up at the hospital with Lynn," Ham replied.

"Hope you're right boss, cuz I ain't got a third sleeping bag." With that, he heaved his bulk out of the kitchen chair and went to the garage. Robin followed the two of them, still clutching the box and the dog collar. Chris dialed the numbers on a combination lock that chained the doors of a home made, wooden, storage closet. Inside the closet were two big, navy blue sleeping bags, each contained in its own nylon storage bag. One of the closet doors was lined with a rack of fishing poles. The other door, with a similar rack, stored hunting rifles. Other shelves in the closet housed assorted camping necessities, such as skinning knives, kerosene lanterns, a portable cook stove, a tackle box, a tent kit, and even a package of biodegradeable toilet paper. Once he'd wrestled the sleeping bags out of their compartment, Chris swivled and tugged on the box in Robin's hands.

"Now, c'mon," he told her, "He ain't gonna mind sleeping in here tonight. The way I see it, he'd be in boy heaven here."

Robin reliquished her hold on the box and watched as Chris neatly slid it on one of the shelves. Then, he carefully lifted one of the flaps on the box until he'd made an opening big enough to slip Druid's dog collar inside. Finally, he shut the somewhat creaky doors to the storage closet and relocked it.

"If that's all you'll be needing, I'm heading back inside," Chris said.

"That'll be fine. Go get some rest, because we got work to do tomorrow."

Without another word, Chris disappeared back inside. Robin stooped and helped Ham unsheath the sleeping bags. They worked quickly to avoid being stuck in the garage with the dead scalies any longer than necessary. Ham led the way to the van, and Robin supposed she had slept in worse situations than in the back of the van, but she was loathe to remember. In fact, she had nearly forgotten to ask Ham about Kyle's house. Now, as she snoothed her sleeping bag out and climbed into it, she realized that she was simply too exhausted to. Only after she had settled herself did Ham climb in and repeat the motions that she'd just finished moments before. The floor of the van was hard beneath the down filled sleeping bag, but Robin felt her body relaxing in spite of it. It was a fortunate that she was positioned comfortably, because with Ham squeezed in beside her, there was scarecly any room to move. She realized that she was glad that she wasn't alone.

"Get some sleep," Ham said quietly beside her. Robin didn't know if he could tell that her eyes were still open or not, but she obligingly lowered her lids. Almost immediately, an image began to dance across her mind's eye of her son and Druid. They were still frolicking in the fields of forever. Before the image faded from her vision, Robert Troy raised his face up, and his eyes; the ones that had been so much like her mother's, met with hers. He smiled, and raised one small hand up to wave at her.

Chapter 30 Post Apocalypse

"Take me to your heart

Feel me in your bones

Just one more night

And I'm comin' off this

Long & winding road

I'm on my way

Well, I'm on my way

Home sweet home

Tonight tonight

I'm on my way

I'm on my way

Home sweet home"

~~ Motley Crue Home Sweet Home

The group was forced to stop the car at the very outskirts of the

city. Up ahead, a rag tag group of Cal Trans workers were clearing abandoned

vehicles off to the sides of the road. Paul Keifer killed the engine of his

battered black Lincoln Continental and gazed at Phillip, who sat in the

passenger seat beside him.

"So, do you suppose your buddy Patricia is the one responsible for this

mess?" he asked, gesturing at the orange vested work crew that was

laboring feverishly about a half of a mile up ahead.

Behind them, the lanes clogged even more. Fortunately, or so it would

seem, the Cal Trans team had been working throughout the night to clear the

mess. Now, it was just after dawn on Saturday morning. They had already been

sitting through the traffic jam from hell for longer than they cared to

remember. Inch by inch, they'd made their way forward. Now, the needle on Paul's fuel

gauge hovered just above the E mark. The engine temperature hovered just

above the H. At last, Paul was finally afforded a sight of what had caused the

back up, and that meant that they were almost through it.

"Yes, I have no doubts in my mind that she caused several roadblocks at

every entrance of the city," Phllip responded warily.

"Yeah, but look. The orange shirts working the job are Cal Trans, not

lizard troops. They're clearing away cars, not rounding people up."

"That must mean she already got Madeline," came Abraham's sleepy voice

from the back seat. He was crammed in tight with Elizabeth, Brandon and

Natty.

"Madeline better hope Patty got her first, because when I find her, she

might as well just lay down and take a dirt nap, cuz I'll kill her. Since

she's a hybrid, I'll be able to make half a wallet out of her hide, at least.

Then, I'll stick the ten dolers she stoll frum me in it," Brandon spat. He

had the note Madeline had stuffed into the pocket of his jeans wadded in his hand.

His outburst got dirty looks, in stereo, from both Elizabeth and Abraham,

who sandwiched him.

"I just wish she would have talked to me," Elizabeth muttered, looking

more than a little insulted.

"Discussing her actions in advance would not be something Madeline

would have developed the skills to do. I highly doubt Diana would have been

pleased if Madeline took the time to enlighten her to half of her schemes.

Anything she wishes to accomplish, she has learned to do in secrecy, out of

neccessity," Phillip countered, speaking with the wisdom of a world weary 5th

columnist.

"Yeah, well, she'd better learn that things are different here. She's

not making herself very trustworthy. As it stands, she's got two counts of

grand theft auto and one count of grand theft shuttle on her rap

sheet...Hell, not even I can claim that!" Brandon said. Then, his face turned from anger to

contemplation."Well, not "grand theft shuttle" at least. I may have her

beat on the car counts, but...not all in one week, for crying out loud!"

Abraham was only half listening to Brandon's ranting by now. Bouts of

apprehension and nervous excitement coursed through him in alternating

currents. He was anxious to see how his grandmother was faring. It had been four

days since he'd heard any word as to her condition. Only intuition told him that

she had survived her ordeal, and the Tarot card investigations he'd conducted

on Lynn's behalf had given him a vague hope that she was doing as well as

could be expected. However, he wasn't as quick to believe in the abilities he

possessed as readily as Elizabeth seemed to be.

Then, of course, there was Patricia to contend with. They were heading

right back where they were not supposed to be, with no summons from anyone to

tell them it was safe. Elizabeth and Phillip had pretty much decided that

the game was up. Elizabeth was just as concerned about Kyle as Abraham was about

his grandmother. In addition, she was concerned about her mother. When

she'd learned that Madeline had taken off, she had decided that hiding out was not

her style either. Philip declared that Elizabeth would not be going

anywhere without him.

Finally, it was decided that Natty and Paul would bring everyone back.

Just in case there was any trouble, another car was following behind them.

It was an El Camino "lowrider". Crammed in the cab and the back bed were several

of the Central Valley's toughest toughs. Most of them were members of a

Stockton gang, El Chupacabra. Mixed in with the Hispanic men were three faces

Brandon was familiar with. They were Bay Area imports, all of them caucasian, with

nearly bald heads. Tattoos on their arms labeled them as members of one of San

Fransisco's more legendary group of skinheads, Lucifury.

In past times, the members of Lucifury and the gangbangers of El

Chupacabra would have never associated themselves together in such a brotherly

way. Once, "colors" had divided gangs. Now, one color stood to unite them all; the

color green. Any excuse to go anywhere and rack up dead scalies was cause for

excitement. The only fighting between the two gangs now was over who'd

get rights to kill more lizards. The members of both gangs had been strongly advised

by Natty that they were not to harm a fake hair on Phillip's head. For

the time being, at least, they obeyed her directive, only casting a few

dangerous looks in his direction. Having them along for protection seemed like a good idea

at the time. It had been Brandon's idea, in case they ran across any more

of Patricia's goons. Natty and Paul had agreed.

Now, though, Natty worried. There were just as many good lizards in Los

Angeles as there were bad lizards. She personally knew of one of them.

Willie had somehow managed to find Harmony's address book among her possessions,

stashed away at the resistance headquarters. Several days after "V" Day, it had

been Willie who'd contacted Natty and told her of Harmony's death. He'd

patiently answered all of her questions, and stood by on the line as Natty had

cried. Then, Willie had told her that Harmony had spoken of her often, and

that he felt he knew her as a friend. Though Visitors couldn't cry, Natty had felt

as though Willie had truely shared her sorrow over Harmony's loss. A few

months later, a package had arrived for Natty in the mail. It contained some

of her sister's belongings, and a few photographs. One of them had been of

Willie and Harmony together. A brief letter was included, carefully written in

very neat printing. It had simply stated that if Natty had any questions, or if

she just wanted to talk about Harmony, she could call Willie where he worked at

the Club Creole, and if she ever came to Los Angeles, she would be welcomed

as a friend. Willie had signed it, and given her a promise that the

proprietor of the restaurant, Elias, would treat her "into" a very nice meal.

Shortly afterwards, the lizards had reinvaded. If Natty had any hopes

of ever going to Los Angeles and bringing her sister's death to any sort of

closure, those hopes had nearly been dashed. Later, she'd learned that the Club

Creole had been destroyed. It was only through dim contacts, much after the

fact, that she'd learned that the resistance had escaped the mess and had

survived. Paul later confirmed this, and had let her know that Willie was alive

and well. Now, it seemed as though she'd finally get to meet the keeper of her

sister's memories...that is, if El Chupacabra and Lucifury didn't get too

trigger happy first.

An hour later, the car full of weary travellers and the El Camino full

of gun toting gangbangers and skinheads pulled into a Shell station about five

miles from where the roadblock had apparently been cleared. Billowing steam

poured from beneath the hood of Paul's overheated engine. While the group

waited for it to cool, Brandon pulled out the last of what remained of his pocket

money. They would need it for the pay phone. After several minutes of

deliberation, Phillip suggested they contact Mike. It was the only number Phillip

knew by heart, and it was also the only one where he was reasonably sure

someone might be home.

"Here," Brandon told Phillip, handing him all of the coins he had,

"It's only 1.83, but it's all Madeline left me with. Make it count."

Phillip dropped several quarters into the slot and dialed Mike's

number. To his disappointment, Sean answered the phone.

"Yah, wha..." Sean mumbled, almost incoherently.

"Sean, it's Phillip. Is your father there?"

"Who? Oh, Dad. No, he's not. He went somewhere."

"He did? Where, Sean? Where did he go?"

"Beats me. With Julie somewhere."

"Mike is with Julie?" Phillip asked.

"Yes, I think that's what I said."

"Where with Julie? At the headquarters?"

"No...the lizard hospital. That's where, I think."

"Visitor Fields?"

"Yeah, duh. If you're done grilling me, I'm going back to bed now."

The line clicked and went dead in Phillip's ear.

"A lot of good that did," Phillip muttered to Brandon.

"Was Mike there?" Brandon asked quizzically.

"No, that was Sean. He said that Mike is with Julie at Visitor Fields.

I'm not sure, but it sounded like something was wrong with Sean."

"Like what?" Brandon asked.

"Like he was really...umm...rocked or something," Phillip replied.

"Rocked?" Brandon asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I have heard you call it something like zoned out. Or drunk, maybe."

"Oh, as in stoned? I get it. Well, I've thought Sean was a waste case

for a while now. If you ask me, I think he hemps."

"Hemps?" Phillip asked.

"Yeah, you know. Tokes the tree, blazes bud..."

Phillip's expression contained even less enlightenment than before.

"Smokes pot, Phillip. Geez!" With that, Brandon pinched his thumb and

forefinger together, brought them to his lips and inhaled dramatically

in the universal joint smoker's sign.

"Oh, yes, I see," Phillip replied, "and yes, I think you're right. I

think he abuses substances."

"So, why would Mike and Julie be at Iguana General?"

"Sean did not say. I suppose I will have risk a call to Howie there and

find out if this is correct."

"Yeah, well, Sean had better hope he's not blowing smoke up our butts.

That dollar and eighty three cents has already been reduced by a half dollar

on his stoned, sorry ass, and we can't afford for anyone to jerk us around

much more."

***************************************************************

David sat in the command chair on the bridge of the mothership, his

fingers steepled in a very human seeming gesture of deep thought. This, of

course, was unconscious on his part. He'd never met a human face to face, and was

quite unaccustomed to the day to day nuances of non verbal human expression.

None of what had been planned by his mother was coming to fruition, and David

felt himself teetering on the edge of apprehension and hope.

Apprehension. David glanced around the bridge, eyeing the other

personnel at their various duty posts. He knew a few of them by name, and he knew

that none of them could be trusted. They had been loyalists under Diana's

command, and now they claimed allegience to him, only because he was now their

commander. If they knew the truth...

Only a select few remaining on board the ship knew the truth. Perhaps

it was better that way, but David knew that he was at a distinct numerical

disadvantage. Only days ago, he'd had a better hope, but those days

were a bitter memory. Following the escape of Orlando and Jaime with the human

prisoner, Polly Maxwell, threats to question all crew members of the Los Angeles

mothership and ferret out any fifth columnists from their ranks had issued from

Patricia's lips. Word had quietly and quickly circulated, especially when David

was given orders to begin the interrogations now, instead of waiting until the

Los Angeles Mothership had been deployed out of Earth's atmosphere and re-routed to

Rendevous Station, as had originally been the plan.

Instead of awaiting David's interrogations, many fifth columists had

escaped from the mothership by way of the ventillation shafts, parachuting to

the ground below. Others had simply jumped to their deaths, once the

parachutes had been used up. David supposed that even Diana had made her escape this

way. Once Patricia had learned of Diana's leavetaking, she had become enraged.

It hadn't taken her long to find the escape route. A few unlucky fifth

columnists had been caught attempting their own escapes. Patricia had sent a regiment

into the ventillation shafts, gathered up the unfortuante traitors, and had

them executed. Now, the shafts were blocked off and guarded. David had been

publicly blamed for letting it happen.

Not that he minded. In fact, he'd known some about it, and all he could

do was silently curse his bad luck and allow their departure. It had been

his mother's orders that had finally given him a slight stroke of good

luck. With the interrogations under his authority, David was indeed able to ferret out

who remained of the fifth column on board the ship. However, no harm would

come to them. Only he was aware of their quiet allegience. David could only

promise them, for their cooperation, that further interrogation at Rendevous

Station would be deemed unneccessary.

Now, each day, a small trickle of fifth columnists would greet him at

his door, volunteering for their turns now, while Patricia would not be

present to hear their confessions. David was slowly learning that the fifth column

on board this ship had grown to something considerably larger than anyone had

believed. By his rough calculations, half the crew were either active

fifth columnists, or else, if not actively invloved, they had developed some

rather anti-loyalist beliefs in their time away from home. Blind loyalty only

served well when it could be constantly reinforced. By and large, most crews aboard the

motherships now were comprised of troops that had been away from home

for at least three years. They were battle fatigued, homesick, and growing more and more

resentful as the days passed. If they were still not sympathetic to the

plight of the humans they had once sought to conquer, the majority were beginning to

see that the Leader's promises were nothing more than hollow, paper words.

David himself was well aware of this. Lies were too fragile a thing to build

lasting allegiences on. He preferred truth whenever possible, even though

subterfuge had it's strong points when needed.

Though he counted himself within the growing majority that believed

this mission on Earth was rapidly becoming a wasted effort, he still could

not state that he felt pity for humans. At least, not until he'd gazed upon the

beauty and the splendor of this planet himself. It was no wonder that his

father wanted to conquer it and to own it.

David, however, felt something else stirring inside of him as he gazed

out the viewports. True beauty was something he'd only gazed upon a few

times in his life. What a pity to see it laid to waste.

The intercom on the bridge chimed for his attention, pulling him away

from his silent reverie. Looking at the console, he instantly noted that the

message was coded urgent in priority and secrecy would be needed for this

transmission. Excusing himself, he quietly departed for the quarters

that had once belonged to Diana, his half sister, and the former commander of this

vessel. Once safely in private, the screen filled with the image of Melissa, the

chief science technician on Rendezvous Station.

So, he should be lucky enough to gaze at true beauty twice in one day,

he mused to himself, drinking in the image of Melissa's true form. On

Rendezvous Station, only cadets in training and personnel on active duty were

required to wear human guises. Melissa's human appearance gave her the look of a

young woman with tawny hair and hazel eyes. Now, though, on her off duty time, she

gazed at him solemly with fatigue rimmed scarlet eyes. It was obvious to

David that she'd been working hard with the samples Patricia had dispatched to

her.

"Do you have anything to report to me?" David asked, flicking his gaze

around the room as if he couldn't quite trust the walls around him.

"First, allow me to inquire after Patricia, sir. How is her health?"

Melissa asked, too politely.

"Mother's condition has stabilized, but she's still very critical. It is the medical staff's opinion that she is not well enough to be transported to Rendevous Station yet."

To any casual observer, David's demeanor would appear to show the proper meausre of dignity and respect. Only a select few, such as Melissa, knew that David's concern for Patricia's well being was as false and insincere as the human skin covering he wore. Any knowledgeable observer would also note that Melissa's inquiry was intended only to gauge the possiblity of Patricia's presence within earshot. Satisfied that this was not the case, Melissa relaxed her guard somewhat.

"The samples are...exactly as I feared. DNA of the....well, humans would term this bone the "femur"...tested positive for the identification of L'ura Kathka..."

"I am very sorry, Melissa. The callousness in which this assignment was given to you is apalling..."

"Do not apologize, David. This was your mother's doing. Besides, considering that the remains do indeed belong to L'ura, I would not trust this assignment to anyone else. It is the only way I could ever be 100% certain..."

David gave Melissa a few quiet seconds to regain her composure. He was one of the few that knew of the bond that had once existed between L'ura Katthka and Melissa. They had been hatched around the same time, and had been friends since the earliest days of their childhoods. Despite the fact that Melissa had been assigned to Rendezvous Station shortly after her graduation from Academy, while L'ura had been allowed to remain behind on the homeworld to care for her ailing father, their bond hadn't faltered. During the brief period of time that L'ura was trained on Rendezvous Station prior to her assignment on board the Los Angeles Mothership, she and Melissa had been allowed a few chances to catch up with each other. Those fleeting moments had been all Melissa had left of their friendship, with the exception of a cruelly severed limb. At least now, David understood, Melissa had the answers she'd sought after nearly two years that had been devoid of any contact from her childhood friend.

"The other bone fragments also tested positive for what I can only surmise as being what would belong to a hybrid of our species and the Humans. In addition, I also took the liberty of running three separate Ba'atherit Serum scans. The first was to measure weather or not their was any biological relation between the two sets of remains given to me..."

"And?" David asked, unable to prevent himself from cutting in.

"And, I was able to conclusively prove that a genetic bond exists, though not close enough for them to be mother and child. Before I divulge the findings of the second scan, I must ask you something," Melissa hedged, drawing in a deep breath.

"Yes, you may. Go ahead."

"There was quite a bit of crusted terran soil mixed in with the remains, suggesting that they had been buried in the Earth at one time. Did Patricia tell you anything about where she found them, or make any curious remarks?"

David nodded his head solemnly. "She is on to something, Melissa. The humans bury their dead. They also, apparently, bury ours when the need arises. It would seem that this is how they disposed of Brian's remains, at any rate. Later, they buried the remains of the child and of L'ura nearby....to signify some sort of family unity, I suppose. At any rate, Mother was triumphant and puzzled. She fully expected to find all of the remains where the humans had buried them, but she was chagrined when she learned that Brian's body was unaccounted for."

A hissing sound escaped from Melissa's lips that sounded a bit like laughter. "I will just bet," she muttered.

"Melissa, this is no joking matter, and you know it. If mother recovers, follows her curiosity into some rather shadowed corners, and discovers that you have known the answer to this perplexing problem all along, you will lose every edge you have on the Altered Spawn Project...not to mention, you surely will die!"

Melissa sobered visibly on the monitor. "I am fully aware of the implications, David. Which is why..." Her voice trailed off as a dark thought crossed her mind. David was able to read it all too easily.

"I only wish I could, Melissa. Unfortunately, my mother is under constant watch from the scads of scale sucking loyalists that permeate this place. I also do recall that I informed you of the fates of many of the 5th Columnists that might have been of aid to me in a situation such as this. The few that remain would have a difficult time...committing such an act...without getting caught. Then, before their executions, they'd be forced to betray the others, with those lovely little drugs and torture devices my darling half sister left lying about. Before long, my involvement in the plot would be exposed."

"No. You are right," Melissa agreed hastily, "Too risky. Perhaps, if we are fortunate, the fates will take care of this dilemma for us."

"Yes. Now, you were about to inform me about the results of the second Serum scan."

"They tested positive for establishing the paternity of Brian Kathka to the remains of this child. Also, further testing revealed that the gender of this child was male. In addition, there were some surprising findings. The meausrements of the bone samples were appropriate for those belonging to a newly hatched infant, however, the density was all wrong."

"All wrong?" David asked, "How so?

"They were too calcified to belong to a new hatchling, or to a neonate human. Infant humans, in particular, have bones that are mostly made of cartilage to allow for fast growth and easy passage through the mother's birth canal. Though the bones of our hatchlings are not as soft as those of a human when they first emerge from the egg, they are still made up of more cartillage than compact bone. It is only after the first molt that this changes, and in humans, bone calcification slowly increases over childhood...most notably during the child's first year of development. My mesurements conclude that this child did not live long after delivery..perhaps a day or two at best. However, simply put, his bones are too hard!"

"Is that what killed him, do you think?" David asked.

"No. Rumor has it that the red dust that the humans used to drive us off the planet was obtained from a bacterial culture that resided in this child's blood. If this is true, I would be inclined to believe that the bacteria caused the child's death. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any conclusive proof to determine a cause of death with what I was given. These remains are old, about 8 to 10 years old, and any bacterial samples I would need for a culture would have died with their host long ago."

"But, the paternity test was positive," David concluded.

"Indeed it was. So, too, was the third Ba'atherit Serum scan I ran, comparing L'ura's DNA to blood sample I obtained from Brian. They are definitely hatchmates. And, if L'ura's spirit will forgive me for being gruesome, I can run more tests. Her remains are less than two years old. She was also interred in her pseudoskin, which was airtight enough to allow for the preservation of a little bit of bone marrow from the femur. It may just be enough for me to prove some of the other theories I have had for some time now."

"Keep me informed then," David stated.

"Yes, sir," Melissa replied, her voice rapidly losing the intimacy that would indicate to anyone else that she and David were friends. Before allowing her professionalism to swallow her personality completely, she afforded herself one last moment to be David's confidant as opposed to his subordinate. "Three more quick items on the agenda," she whispered, almost conspiritorily, "The first is to please, if at all possible, try to prevent Patricia from being routed to Rendezvous Station for her continued care. I can get a lot more accomplished if I don't have to worry about her poking her forks in my business...."

David's lips curled in a soft smile, that unbeknownst to him, looked uncannily human. "As you wish," he responded, "I'm sure that could easily be arranged, even if I must play the role of the overly cautious, mollycoddling son. Your second point?"

"Se'there has finished with the last of the decodings from your half sister's scientific logs. You know, Diana really is sick! Do you know that she and a man by the name of Nathan Bates were having talks, many years ago, of creating a child together? A hybrid child, that would be conceived and incubated externally?"

"No!" David hissed, his eyes growing wide.

"Yes, apparently, this idea was scrapped when Charles was sent to Earth. However, it did not stop her from using the sperm of Nathan's grown son, Kyle, to try to conceive of a hybrid. Fortunately, this child did not live to hatch."

David cringed in spite of himself. Like his mother, he could not quite invision why Diana would find it desireable to mix Sirian genetics with that of a human. To him, it was bad enough to have to parade around in a human suit.

"Anyways, I have the transmission burst ready for you. It bothers me to have to use poor Se'there in this way, but if we are going to, I really wish we did not have to turn it over to Patricia. Frankly, I wish I could get my claws on this "Madeline", since she is the spawn of a Creche child, and see what effects may have been passed down to her. In fact, I would like to examine Elizabeth Maxwell, too....."

"Dreams for another day, Mi'Alith'ca..."

"Yes. Forgive me for getting carried away."

"What is the third item on your agenda?"

"Take care of yourself. That is all," Melissa replied.

The monitor blacked out then, and David's connection to anything friendly and familiar was suddenly gone. In fact, as he contemplated the dark screen before him, David felt an icy chill seep in, beneath his psuedoskin. It caressed his scales with a malevolent touch that felt far blacker than the obsidian screened monitor. Shuddering involuntarily, David turned on his heel and stalked from the office that had once belonged to Diana. Even though she was gone, it seemed to David that the insanity that had eaten away at a once brilliant mind was still quite present and accounted for.

***************************************************************

Once again, the house that Chris and Maggie shared was filled to capacity. The stranded group at the gas station had been rounded up after several telephone relays. The only exceptions were the members of the two gangs, El Chupacabra, and Lucifury. Together, the rag tag group was toiling to plug Paul's leaky radiator at the gas station. As soon as it was fixed, they would be arriving at Maggie's to pick up Brandon. From there, they would travel to San Fransisco and serve as an escort to retrieve Polly, Katie and Tonya. The resistance members assembled appeared to be in various states of physical or mental decay. The travellers from the Central Valley were road weary. Elizabeth sat huddled on the couch, clearly relieved to be in the company of her mother, who sat next to her. The last occupant on the couch, Abraham, had eaten a hearty meal that Maggie had managed to whip up, and then had promptly fallen asleep. Meanwhile, Paul spent a little while circulating amongst the familiar faces he'd come to know while he'd worked in L.A. He also introduced Natty to them. Despite her exhaustion, Natty still was able to maintain her sunny disposition. Finally, though, weariness had taken over. The two of them situated themselves in the kitchen and listened to Maggie's detailing of the events that had transpired the night before. Maggie was only mildly surprised that Paul wasn't dominating the conversation with his loud voice and his descriptive expletives about the f***ing lizards. She suspected he'd be much more like himself after he'd had some rest.

Philip looked as worn as the others, but more than that, too. Standing by himself. looking absently out the livingroom's front facing window, it was plain to see that many thoughts were passing through his mind. What those thoughts could be was anyone's guess. If he was relieved to be back in Los Angeles, in the city he tentatively called home, it didn't show. For now, Mike allowed Philip his solitude. There were no doubts in his mind that the events of the last two weeks hadn't scarred his friend for life. However, the frenzied pace in which things had transpired hadn't offered Philip much of a chance to dwell on his misfortuens. Now, perhaps, was a moment when all he'd lost could finally catch up to him. The death of Lydia, his exposure as a 5th columnist by a trusted collegue who'd suffered at the hands of Diana, and his resulting career loss, all in a measure of time that barely registered as a tick on the cosmic clock, was all bound to filter in past Philip's cautious reserves and hammer him like a tsunami on a hapless beach. At least, Mike reasoned, Philip would soon be reunited with his daughter. That joy would have to amount to something. Mike's gaze shifted over the heads of others in the room, until he saw Sean. It was hard to gauge what sort of mood Sean was in. He had stopped and picked his son up when Pbilip had finally reached him on the payphone he'd been using. According to Philip, he had spoken briefly with Sean earlier, and he reported to Mike that Sean sounded as though he was inebriated.

Brandon had backed up Philip's theory with a few colorful descriptions of his own. Now, Mike was left to consider an ugly truth that had only begun to invade his awareness. Brandon and Philip had made the possibility a reality. Mike would have to keep a firmer hold on Sean, because the battles he'd waged against the mind control of the Visitors wasn't over yet. Brandon seemed to be the only returning traveller that still had a spark of life left in him. Far from being vegatative, he had roved the rooms of Chris and Maggie's domain restlessly while stuffing his face simultaneously. Once he'd wolfed down Maggie's offerings, he'd negotiated travel arrangements with the gangbangers at the gas station from the phone in Chris's living room. Then, he'd patched a call up to Stanley Bernstein at the hospital, and informed him that Abraham was home, safe and sound..at least for the time being. Then, once again, he continued his roaming until his restless wanderings were resolved. The target he sought was sitting in a lawn chair in Chris's back yard, morosely watching the sun set on another unsettled day. Lost in a sweep of shiftless thoughts, Madeline was unaware of his approach. So too, was the young woman sitting in another lawn chair nearby. Brandon hardly registered her presence, even though she was completely unfamiliar to him. Instead, he zeroed in on Madeline like a buzzard sighting fresh carrion.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Misdemeanor Madeline. I kinda figured you'd be out joyriding in a hot car...maybe knocking over a few convenience stores...picking some pockets..."

"Obviously not," Madeline responded dryly.

"Ripping some Rolexes of of dead folks in a mortuary, extorting elementary school kids for their lunch money, and then, topping off your little crime spree with a suck faced, misspelled, lame assed attempt of an apology letter..."

"I am sorry I took your money, Brandon. I will find a way to get it back to you."

"Oh, yeah...soorreee I stoll yor muny. Gee, Einstein, did it ever occur to you that I just might happen to need my freaking money? Or that Kyle might just happen to want his truck back? Speaking of Kyle's freaking truck, where'd you stash it, anyhow?" Brandon spat, venomously.

"I do not know where Kyle's truck was taken. I will have to find a way to return it or replace it."

"Oh, yeah, sure you'll replace it. How...or might I ask who..are you gonna swipe the dough from? Cross me off your list. You already stuck your half- scaly paws down my pockets and left me with nothing but chump change and pocket lint. Shit, I don't even get paid til next Friday..."

"I will find a way to get your money back to you, like I said..."

"What sort of whacked out chick would rummage through a sleeping guy's jeans and snag his last 10 bucks anyways? Especially, when you take it from the guy that risked his life and spent almost every dime of his paycheck to haul your sorry ass...or should I say...SORREE ass to hell.....just to protect you from your nutted up, pistol packin, tongue flickin' green Granny....Look. I know I may have a few dings in my halo, but you...You have the morals of a crack smokin' meter maid, you know that? It's not hard to figure out where that comes from, either. You may have everyone else in this joint fooled, but I got you pegged. Don't screw with me, snake eyes, because I'll...."

"Because you'll be laying in a pool of your own blood, choking and gasping from the hole I rip in your throat if you even so much as look at her crosseyed!" Brandon looked up from his tirade to see Sean Donovan bearing down on him.

"Oh, now your gonna stick up for your iguana girl, is that it? Wanna start some shit with me? I'll knock your converted crack-head right off your shoulders!" Brandon fired back.

"That would be an incredible feat for a stiff to pull off," Sean sneered, subconsciously positioning himself in a defensive, pre-attack Silent Strike stance.

"It's gonna take more than a few creampuff karate chops to knock me down, Lizard Lover," Brandon retorted.

Sean came at him, simultaneously sizing up his opponent and choosing his target. Brandon's midsection bounced off of Sean's extended foot just as the last words left his lips. Winded, but not incapacitated, Brandon rebounded quickly. His well honed street taught style of fighting proved to be a formidable match against Sean's militaristic and calculatingly brutal tactics. He even managed to rain in two blows on Sean's face before Sean had him down, face first, on the grass. With his knee in Brandon's back and the pressure around his neck sending sparks of white hot agony through his field of vision, Brandon immediately reached into his instincts. One of his arms was pinioned beneath his body, but that was a fortunate thing. As his vision began to grey out, Brandon was finally able to work his hand into his front pocket. From there, his fingers closed on his switchblade; a gift given to him when he'd been accepted by the leader of the skinhead group he'd run with in San Francisco. Once the cool metal registered contact with his skin, Brandon felt a surge of confidence and strength sweep over him. Just as he puledl it from his pocket, he was suddenly released from his pinion. Quickly and instinctively, Brandon brought his knees up to protect his midsection as he rolled off of his stomach. Dizzily, he jumped to his feet, only to find Mike Donovan restraining a very combative Sean. The imposing hulk of Chris Faber was beside Mike, warily positioning himself between Sean and Brandon. Brandon dropped the swtichblade onto the grass, blinking in surprise.

Standing off to the side, looking stricken and horrified, was the other girl who'd been sitting near Madeline in the second lawn chair. Her rounded cheeks were flamed a cherry red, and her blue eyes were opened wide. The look on her pallid face suggested a trace of guil,; as though it had been she that had alerted the others to the showdown outside.

"My God!" she exclaimed breathlessly, "You were going to stab him!" Her oh so opened eyes traveled down to the discarded knife in disbelief.

"No shit, dumbass! He was trying to break my neck and kill me!"

Another surprise awaited Brandon as Chris snatched the youth by the collar of his T-Shirt, one handedly dragging him within inches of his whiskered face.

"Look here, Junior. I know boys will be boys and boys will fight. But no one will ever speak to my neice like that, in my presence, ever again. Understood?"

Brandon mutely nodded as he felt his adrenalin surge begin to sag. Chris released him, and he staggered backwards, barely keeping on his feet. Somehow, he managed to snatch his switchblade up from the lawn and return it to his pocket. Looking from one shadowed face to another, it slowly dawned on Brandon that no one was chastising him for pulling out his blade. They must have come to the same conclusion that Brandon had reached as he struggled for air like a flopping goldfish under Sean's swift chokehold.

"Sorry," Brandon muttered breathlessly to the portly, but as of yet nameless, entity that Chris had identified as his neice. He then wiped his blood and grass stained hands on his jeans as the sounds of rumbling engines filled the evening air. The members of El Chupacabra and Lucifury had arrived. Suddenly, he felt a sense of self consiousness wash over him as he imagined what he must look like. It certainly wouldn't do for two bands of the toughest street gangs around to see him looking like a kicked puppy. Slowly, he headed inside to wash up, very mindful that Sean's eyes watched him the whole time. Unlike Brandon, who was coming to his senses and cooling off now, Sean's eyes were still filled with murderous contempt.

Chapter 31 Monopoly

"You got to know when to hold 'em,

Know when to fold 'em,

Know when to walk away,

Know when to run,

You never count your money

While you're sittin' at the table,

There'll be time enough for countin'

When the dealin's done."

~~ Kenny Rogers The Gambler

No one needed to tell Kyle Bates that his house was almost completely

demolished. The fire that had started in the back portion of the

dwelling had gutted the bedrooms. A few of the walls in the house were still standing,

though they were scorched and buckled. Amazingly, the garage and a good portion of

the kitchen was left intact, though both suffered from heavy smoke damage.

Leaning on a pair of crutches, he shook his head at the absolute

unfairness that had been dealt to those he now considered family. Robin and

Elizabeth grimly sorted through the boxes of their belongings that were piled up

in the back of Ham's van. The only posessions they owned now were the ones that had

been stored in Kyle's garage. Most of Katie and Polly's belongings had been

demolished too, with the exception of what they'd taken with them to

San Francisco. Kyle cared nothing for what he'd lost. His house was insured to the

last rafter for every conceivable disaster that could hit. His dirtbikes had been

in the garage, and they had been spared. Important papers, valuables, and

keepsakes had been kept in a fireproof box that lived up to it's promise of being

fireproof. Anything else he'd lost was replaceable.

Kyle reassured himself, as he watched Elizabeth sorting through the

remnants of her life, that what he treasured the most of all had been saved.

Home, for the time being, was the Halfpence Hotel. Amir Hadad had

opened his doors again just six days after losing his wife to Patricia's scourge.

Instead of the usual Fourth of July Weekend business, however, his

"customers" were the displaced members of the Los Angeles Resistance. Amir now proudly

declared himself as the newest member. Kyle, the Maxwells, and the

Bernsteins were among those benefitting from his generosity. So were Brandon and Tonya,

the latter having just returned from San Fransisco with Katie and Polly in

tow. Natty and Paul were given a room for the duration of their stay.

Before departing for the Central Valley, the members of El Chupacabra

and Lucifury had rolled up their T-Shirt sleeves and helped with the

clean-up efforts at the motel. They hadn't minded getting themselves soaked, elbow deep,

in buckets of Mr. Clean and sanitizer if it meant gawking at all of the

lizard blood and marvelling at what violence must have transpired. A few of

the surlier members of El Chupacabra had spray painted a declaration on the

concrete divider wall separating the parking lot of the Halfpence Hotel from the

neighboring 7-11. First, a dripping red "V" was applied. Next, in artful script

came the words "Muerte a los lagartos!" Amir had feared that it was what he'd

believed to be "gang tagging" at first. Then, the translation "Death to the

Lizards" had been explained to him. He made no attempt to rid the wall of El

Chupacabra's artwork.

There was also plenty of single, young, females for the gangbangers and

the skinheads to gawk at. After gawking at Robin and Elizabeth, at least

when they were within the sight of Ham Tyler, they quickly got the idea that such

was not a good thing to do. Though they were not familiar with the group's

demographics, and likely thought that Ham was Robin's, and possibly

even Elizabeth's father, the threatening, steely looks Ham gave them communicated to

them that it didn't matter precisely what the relationship was between him and these

two particular women. They were off limits.

If any "lagartos" now habitating at the motel minded the spray painted

opinions of El Chupacabra, they said nothing. The gangbangers also

seemed to learn, rather quickly, which single chicks were human and which weren't. They

left the 'greenies' alone. In addition to offering shelter to homeless human

resistors, several 5th Columnists had taken up residence at the

Halfpence Hotel.

Philip, concerned for the well being of Sean, and feeling that it would

benefit him to have more of Mike's undivided attention, decided to move

himeself and Emily out of Mike's apartment. They were on the waiting list for an

apartment of their own in the same complex. One recently vacated unit

was being cleaned, but it would not be ready to move into for several days yet.

Philip had managed to save most of his earnings over the years. Like Diana and

Lydia, he hadn't much of a place to spend any of his wages when he'd worked on

board the mothership. All of his basic shelter, food and uniform needs had been

seen to as part of his military stipend. Now that Patricia's threat of discovering

his whereabouts was temporarily eradicated, he had decided to liquidate his

financial assets into currency he could spend on Earth. Though he was

not rich by any standard, Philip had what he needed to survive until he could secure

employment. With Mike acting as a reference, Philip had successfully

lied about his employment status and his species to the apartment manager. The

landlord was also ignorant to the fact that Philip had an extremely green daughter.

Planning to help Philip meet expenses was Nigel. Freshly released from

Visitor Fields, he too was a temporary resident of the motel. When the

apartment was ready, Nigel and Philip planned to share it. Like Philip, Nigel lied

about his Sirian genetics. However, he was already employed; at least

presumably so. As soon as he recovered enough to be fit for work, Howie promised him a

position at the hospital as a security guard. Though the pay was barely

above minimum wage, Nigel was thankful enough not to mind. In addition, he would reap

the benefits of spending time with his neice, Emily.

Jaime had been given the same offer of employment from Howie, who felt

that Visitor Fields would be a much safer place for 5th Column patients if

they were served by 5th Column staff. Gratefully, she had accepted the job, and

was already working. Much of her off time was spent at Orlando's bedside

while he recovered. What remained of it was spent skulking around the hallways,

gleaning what bits of information she could about Diana's condition. Everything

she overheard was brought back to the Halfpence Hotel, where she too had

taken up residence.

Though she was still welcome to stay with Willie at Elias and Miranda's

home, Jaime had decided that things were awfully crowded in their two bedroom

house. Instead, she opted to rent a motel room until Orlando healed.

Then, she'd reasoned that they would split the rent on a place of their own.

Unfortunately, Orlando had other plans. He'd gently informed Jaime that he planned to

move on and help unite the scattered cells of the 5th Column in the

Southwestern United States. He'd offered her the opportunity to come with him, since

she was familiar with the area, and he'd been rather baffled by her blatant

refusal. Though she had declared 'family ties' as her reason for staying, the

dark expression on her face hadn't been masked by her psuedoskin in the

least. Orlando hadn't pressed her, but he knew instinctively that she had other

reasons for not leaving.

While Jaime was busily stuffing herself on all of the useful

information she could glean at Visitor Fields, others kept busy too. Many interesting

things had been discovered when the room Diana had spent her last few days of

freedom in had been cleaned. In fact, Natty knew the sort of people that El

Chupacabra and Lucifury were. Anything of value found in that room would likely

wind up in their pockets. She had personally supervised their work, marvelling

at how efficiently they removed all traces of the carnage. Then, she surmised,

they were masters of the trade. They'd all lived on the fringes of society

most of their lives, eeking out an existence by selling drugs, and committing

burglary, auto theft, and occasionally, murder. When they wanted to advertise

their work, they were quite adept at it. However, when they wanted their

deeds to go undetected, they knew how to get rid of the evidence.

When they'd finished, all of Diana's "loot" was bagged, just like it

was being sealed for a police investigation. With the exception of missing

lightbulbs and small fixtures, and a few holes in the walls from where the coat

rack had been unbolted and discarded of, and the one scorch mark in the wall

above the bed where Patricia's blaster bolt had grazed the top of Diana's head

and burned into the sheetrock, Lucifury and El Chupacabra had effectively

sterilized the room.

Natty had given all of the collected evidence to Juliet Parrish. Much

of it was useless items needed for grooming. However, there were a few

articles of clothing in the mix. Some of it, Stanley Bernstein confirmed later,

belonged to Lynn. In addition, her car keys were recovered. The items that held the

most interest were the ATM card and the paper transaction records that had

been spit out of the Versateller machine along with any cash Diana had withdrawn.

The name on the ATM card belonged to a woman by the name of Eva Grimaldi.

Research into the bank records, conducted craftily by Paul Keifer,

discovered that the social security number linked to the account matched to the

same name. As it was so learned, Eva Raquel Grimaldi, born 8/17/66, really

existed, at least once upon a time. She had been claimed on a tax return as one of

two dependents of Carlo and Gwen Grimaldi, in the year 1983. It was the

last year anyone from that particular branch of the Grimaldi family had filed

taxes. Judging by the address on the tax return, that was no surprise. They

had been residents of San Pedro, California. Of course, there were no death

records in existance for any of the Grimaldis, and it was also no big surprise

where Diana had obtained the picture ID and the social security number.

The real Eva Raquel Grimaldi was likely languishing in a food storage

pod, or already dead. Though she had just turned eighteen at the time of the

Visitor's initial invasion, today, she would have aged almost 9 years,

and would be 26. At the time of her disappearance, it wouldn't have been likely for

Eva Grimaldi to have bank accounts, stocks, bonds, vehicles, property, a

marriage certificate, or a job history. She hadn't been old enough. In fact,

further research on the tax return indicated that she was still a high school

student, most likely a senior. Sadly, she'd been just the right age for Diana to

abduct her person, and later, her identity, and use it to serve her own purposes.

Wearing a pseudoskin, it wouldn't be hard for Diana to stretch reality by a few

years in reverse and pass for 26.

The paper trail didn't end there. Apparently, Diana had amassed quite a

bit of wealth. No one could ascertain where she'd gotten the original sum

of money required to begin her various transactions. Though the Grimaldi family

wasn't poor by any standard, or at least, so their tax return for 1983

indicated, Eva Grimaldi had owned nothing. At least, nothing in her own name. Philip

held to the opinion that Diana had done with her earnings as he had done with

his, which was to save the majority of it. There wasn't much in the way of

personal possessions or luxuries one could spend their wages on when living on

board the mothership. Entertainment and more discriminating foodstuffs above

and beyond daily rations were what the majority of the mothership's crew

blew their money on. Entertainment fell more to the category of gambling in the

recreation halls. Some of the crew bought themselves a few indulgences on Earth,

such as chocolate bars, alcoholic beverages, or...as had once been the case,

the polo shirts Elias had produced to market the Club Creole. Others sent a

majority of their money back home to feed their families.

Diana had no time for frivoulous activities such as gambling or

shopping on Earth, and she had little in the way of family to support. Like

Philip, she had simply held her funds in reserve. Unlike Philip, she'd also found

opportunities to make her money grow. There was simply no way to prove,

or disprove, that the money in the accounts belonged to Diana, even if the name in

which that money was stored and transferred under was not.

There was obviously much to learn, and there weren't too many available

that had the knowledge or the time to untangle Diana's financial webs and

figure out where she'd gotten what. Or, as the biggest question of all was,

what to do with what she had. Debates ranged from "donate it to the resistance" to

"split it up amongst us all". Paul had gathered up much of the

information. It was up to others, like the accountant, Stanley Bernstein, the son of an

investment tycoon, Kyle Bates, the master of identity forging, Ham Tyler, and the

ever watchful source of Visitor legal knowledge, Philip, to hash over these

quandries. Together, they labored to learn exactly what Diana had,

precisely how she'd gotten it, and how much of it was liquifiable.

It was Kyle who discovered one of the earlier sources of Diana's

financial boons. At some point in time, back when Nathan Bates had been alive,

Diana had acquired a share of Science Frontiers. Though small in comparison to

the stock held by some of the former company's more lucrative investors, it had

done well after Kyle had sold his father's company to EcoSound. Instead of

cashing out, Diana had reinvested her shares in EcoSound. Though times were

hard on the stock market, EcoSound was one company that had done well, despite the

onslaught of the Visitors. To this day, Diana's shares were appreciating.

Kyle was openly outraged. He'd never dreamed, in a million years, that

his father would have ever conducted any sort of deals with Diana that

would allow her any share of his holdings. It also had never occurred to him, as

he'd scrutinized his father's assetts with the help of attorneys, to

question any of the stocks being held by individual, 'penny ante' investors. Not that

questioning things would have gained him anything, as Stanley pointed

out to him. Why would the name Eva Grimaldi stand out as special against any of the

other names of individual investors that had stock in Science Frontiers, or any of

his father's other corporate assetts?

It was learned that Diana limited her link with Nathan Bates only to

Science Frontiers. Eva Grimaldi's name did not appear as an investor in the

real estate company his father had co-owned, nor with the Yacht and Sailing

Club or the small chain of sporting goods stores his father had acquired. Instead,

she'd made other investments suited to her own reasoning. It was learned she

had shares in Visitor Fields, although she acquired these stocks through

the use of her own name and Sirian funds. Philip was not surprised, as he too

admitted to small scale investing at the hospital. It served his own purposes, both

financial and health-wise, to have a well stocked, operational hospital

to treat Sirian health dilemmas and ailments. In fact, Visitor Fields was, he

explained, held by many different stockholders. Some of them even lived on the

homeworld. He had learned that it was one 'franchise' that was doing well, and

even though most people on the homeworld could not see the fruits of their

investments, they were snapping up shares of Visitor Fields left and right. It only

served to make the hospital more financially stable. It also supposedly helped

the economy back home, and investors were hoping to find other 'Earth to

Home' franchises to launch.

Regardless of where she'd gotten it, Stanley's final calculations of

Diana's wealth were impressive. With humor that only an accountant could

appreciate, he'd drolly remarked that he was surprised that she didn't owe any back

taxes on her investments under her assumed name. In fact, he'd even wondered

aloud if she'd "converted" an accountant to do her taxes for her. He'd then

asked for Philip's assistance to translate anything of a Sirian nature. Now that

Philip knew where to look, he was able to obtain various records of Diana's

Sirian ledgers. It was here that Philip learned that roughly half of what

Diana owned was tied up in trusts, and that provisions were being made to funnel

more money into the trusts. Most of it, he reasoned, would be used for her to

fund her various scientific schemes. He soon learned that he was wrong. The

largest of these trusts, was not even in her own name. The beneficiary of this

trust was someone by the name of Ma'thal'ee Jhath'le Rhetatheket.

"Madeline!" Philip had cried aloud, as he coerced Stanley to tally up

the figures he gave him.

Stanley had shook his head as he caculated Madeline's entrusted net

worth. There was close to seven hundred thousand dollars in reserve. The

conditions in which the funds could be dispersed were discovered by Philip, as he

sought to find some sort of legal document on record that would serve as Diana's

living will. Indeed, she had one, as did he himself, Lydia, and other high

ranking officers on board the motherships. Not to have one would be foolish,

and it would also allow the for military to dig into the coffers of the dearly

departed and use the leavings to their discretion. Often times, the families of

these unfortunates wouldn't see a thin credit come their way. Like humans,

Sirians could make provisions in their wills that stated their wishes, if they

were to die, or become incapacitated to the point that they were no longer able

to dictate thier own will. The provisions made in Diana's will were simple

and straightforward. Madeline would stand to inherit three quarters of

Diana's total worth upon Diana's death. In addition, she would inherit the rest if

the second beneficiary named in Diana's provisional died before Diana did.

The second largest trust was also designated to someone else. More

funds were deposited and spent from this account than from most of the

others. Expenditures were carefully tabulated, and the sums of money deposited

were divided into what would be spent, versus what would be saved. Savings-wise,

the account was valued at just over 175,000. However, as Stanley pointed

out, expenditure money funnelled into this trust exceeded 20,000 a year, and

as far as he could tell, every "dime" was accounted for. Only Philip was able to

read the ledgers to determine where this money was going. The beneficiary of

this account was named as Se'there Rhetatheket.

A cold chill crept down Philip's crest when he learned this. He'd known

Se'there many years ago when she'd been a hatchling. They'd been

schooled together in the Primary Academy. In fact, the Nath families and the Rhetatheket

families had known each other, once upon a time, in a day when he could

scarcely remember, and would certainly never speak of. In those distant days,

Heth'taen Rhetatheket had still been alive, and had marvelled at the Nath twins.

Philip remembered him. Sadly, he remembered a warm, animated man, who met with

his father to discuss politics. In addition, they seemed to enjoy a mutual

friendship. When Philip and Martin had been small, Heth'taen always took a few

minutes out of his meetings with their father to play with the boys. He once told

the twins that he couldn't wait to have hatchlings of his own, and that he

hoped for twin boys, just like them. A few years later, shortly after Philip and

Martin started Pre Compulsory, Heth'taen's wish was granted. Only, instead of

twin boys, he got twin girls. If he was disappointed, it didn't show. In

fact, he acted absolutely ecstatic. Soon, the marriage talks started. Heth'taen

and Philip's father decided that Philip, considered the eldest of the Nath

twins, because it had been his claws that had broken their shell, would marry

Se'there, the first hatched of the fraternal Rhetatheket twins. Martin would then

marry D'ana.Whatever the case was, he remembered hearing that S'there had

died. Diana certainly never mentioned the name of her sister in his presence at any

time he'd spent with her on board the mothership. Now that Se'there, Martin,

and Heth'taen were all dead, the pact was obviously broken, leaving Philip

and Diana to pursue any mate they chose.

According to what Philip was plainly able to read, Se'there was alive,

if not well. The expenditures from the trust were being used to pay for her

continuing care at a specialized facility on the homeworld that treated

patients suffering from extreme psychiatric ailments. There was little in the

way of personal information regarding Se'there to indicate her condition or

her treatments. However, her hatch date and other statistical information, such as her

marital status were listed. Se'there's hatch date was the same as

Diana's.

Another half formed memory inched into his brain of the little girl he

remembered that had borne this name. She had been extremely energetic,

and intelligent. Though she'd been a few years younger than he, she'd

gravitated to him upon learning he had a twin.

"I have a twin too," she'd boasted to him one day, "Except we don't

look just alike. We came from two different eggs, and I hatched first!" She had

then pestered Philip with all kinds of questions about how he and his

brother had been hatched, and who poked out first.

If his distant memory served him right, S'there's statement about not

looking identical to Diana seemed true. The Se'there he remembered bore

delicate, tawny amber pattern mottling, where as Diana's were said to be of a

burgandy color. That would indicate that the two were dizygotic, or as humans

said, fraternal twins.

Philip could not remember exactly when he'd heard tell of Se'there's

death. His Primary Academy training days were long past, and he had gone onto

Compulsory Academy, just as the military demanded. However, he did

distinctly recall the year that Se'there's class graduated up to Compulsory. Instead of

the attendance rosters bearing the name of Se'there, though, the only

Rhetatheket in attendance at that time had been D'ana...who'd later become Diana. He

knew that it was then that he learned of Se'there's death, but he could not

recall from whom he'd learned it from. Had it been Martin?

He snapped himself out of his revisitations of the past, and shook the

troubled feelings away that suddenly gnawed at him as he pondered the

obvious holes in his recollections. Whatever he'd remembered musn't have been

entirely accurate, because it would seem that Se'there was still living. While

he thought this out, Stanley had been trying to determine what of Diana's holdings

could be liquidated, and what couldn't be touched.

Philip re-examined the documents and found that the provisions Diana

had made regarding her Sirian finances were soundly legal. If Diana died as a

result of her injuries, Se'there's shares would pass into a legal

conservatorship. This was clearly outlined, and was completely reasonable. Madeline's

provisions, however, were a little more convoluted. Apparently, the

terms in which her money could be dispersed was an action still in it's negotiating

stages. It was not tied exclusively to Diana's death or incapacity, as it was a

trust designed to provide for Madeline's well being. Naturally, Diana

herself oversaw what funds were deposited and spent from this account.

The only provision that stood out from the others was the time in which

Madeline herself would gain access or control to these funds. In fact,

a dispersal schedule had been defined, and it stated that Madeline would have been

given access to a small portion of her holdings on the six month anniversary

of her adult molt. Philip did a rapid guestimate, trying to remember just how

long ago it had been when the girl had emerged from the cocoon of her brief

childhood, looking like a young adult. He'd been away, attending to business

elsewhere, and upon his return, she'd molted. The three week span in which he'd

been gone had been 9 months after Madeline's secret hatching, which he'd later

learned had been in May of the year before. February, then, of this year,

which would then entitle Madeline to that portion in August.

The next provision stipulated that if Madeline treated her income

wisely, her next installment would be granted to her at the one year anniversary of

her adult molt. Then, at her second hatch anniversary...or...second

birthday, as humans termed it, she would then be allowed to govern half of her trust

on her own, as long as she proved to be responsible. No terms were stated for

what "responsible" meant, nor had any appointments been made as to whom

would govern the trust as power of attorney in the event of Diana's death.

While the resistance discussed what should be done with what they'd

found, one fact stood out clear in Philip's mind. Before anything could be

spent, redirected, or placed under another authority, Diana had to actually be

declared dead...or legally incapacitated. So far, as the record stood, Diana did

not meet the criteria for dead. Further more, no determinations could be made to

her level of functioning until her recovery had progressed a bit more.

"Well, I could fix the 'dead' part," Ham huffed, making a sour face.

Nothing could be settled in the least for the moment, a fact that didn't set

well with him. As one of the proponents of funding the resistance with Diana's

loot, he was already envisioning all of the contraband arms and munitions he and

Chris could acquire. More practical concerns, such as refurbishing the new

H.Q., were so far down on his list of priorities, that they ranked alongside

a proctology exam.

"Well, I wouldn't mind it if Philip could find a provision that would

govern what portion of Diana's money could be used to repair Lynn's car or

replace the clothes she stole. Frankly, I can't imagine that Lynn would ever

want to wear that jog suit again, or drive her car, for that fact!" Stanley

groused.

"Yes, I think it would be appropriate to see if she can be held liable

for any damages she's caused, and have her accounts garnished to pay for

the damages," Philip stated, as he quietly reviewed the computer printouts

he had of Diana's Sirian ledger.

"You said that Madeline is coming into some money soon, like in August,

right?" Ham asked, his voice barely masking his suspended thought.

"The provisions would indicate this, yes," Philip replied.

"How much money?"

Ham's tone was so steely and to the point, that his meaning was caught

quite clearly by the other three in the room.

"About 35,000 dollars,"

Stanley let out with a low whistle.

"That's an awful lot of money to entrust a girl Madeline's age with,"

he remarked stoically.

"So, we don't entrust her with it," Ham responded, "We use it. By my

calculations, Madeline herself has caused a lot of trouble in the past

few weeks. At the very least, she can buy Kyle a new truck. That'll run her about 6

grand. The rest..."

Philip looked up from his documents, a slow expression of outraged

amazement forming on his features.

"Absolutely not!" he thundered in response, "Madeline should not be

forced to pay for her mother's misconduct. That money was set aside for her

benefit, not for the resistance to auction off as pay back money!"

"Look, Philip, the money to fund us has to come from somewhere. We've

all made our sacrifices. You should see how much money Kyle pumps into this

outfit...his damn trust money and inheritance, mind you. And yeah, some

of it did have to be used to mop up his old man's indiscretions, but Kyle knew what

needed to be done, and he's never pitched a bitch about it. Furthermore,

since Queen Scaly elected me as Madeline's Frozen Pop, I would say that that gives

me power of attorney in her absence. And I say...come August first, this

outfit is gonna have a whole lot of fixing done, and a whole lot of guns to get

more fixing done."

"And what about Madeline?" Philip asked, "What is she supposed to live

on? Guns won't put a roof over her head or food in her stomach."

"She can go get a damn job like everyone else, go to work everyday, and

pump more money into the resistance, just like Elias, Willie, Julie,

myself...and hell...even Gooder..."

"Uh, I hate to interrupt here, but..." Stanley's voice trailed off

uncertainly, as the argument between Ham and Philip stalled with his

interruption.

"We're all ears, Stanley," Kyle prompted, nervously looking out the

window of the hotel room. So far, Robin and Elizabeth were still going through

their things in the parking lot, and they were oblivious to the argument

heating up inside. To keep the costs of energy down for Amir's sake, the air

conditioner was left off, and the windows were opened.

"Just how, precicely, is a one year old Starchild supposed to go out

into society and get a job? What would she do for a living, bust

lightbulbs? I can tell you all right now that Madeline is in no position to find

employment. She has no job experience, no formal education..."

"Yeah, and according to Brandon, she can't even read or write," Kyle

added.

Ham looked mildly surprised at this revalation, his eyebrows

momentarily shooting up a notch.

"Well, I thought Starchildren were supposed to have amazing intelligence. What, did Diana forget to program that into Madeline's genetic soup?" he asked, caustically.

"She is intelligent," Philip responded, "but it seems obvious that Diana did not spend much time teaching Madeline rote academics. Instead, she concentrated her efforts on conceptual conditioning..."

"You mean, conversion," Kyle interjected.

"No, not conversion. According to Madeline, that was abandoned early in her training due to malfunction. Rather, I meant...hands-on learning. Critical thinking, too, and later, at the camp, physical conditioning. Very little of Madeline's education would have been centered on learning to read and write English, although her vocabulary was built upon.On the mothership, it is not often required that we know how to read and write our assigned human languages above a merely functional level, although it was taught to us. However, there are no computer systems, library disks, or other media on board that are written in English or any other Earth based language. It was never intended for humans to know how to operate our machinery."

"Yes, and no one learns anything unless they're taught. Abraham is a bright boy. He's far brighter than...Daniel...ever was..." Stanley's voice seemed to momentarily trip over the mention of his deceased son's name, but then he regained his resolve to continue. "My point is, that Abraham wouldn't know how to read and write if Polly hadn't tutored him through the GED program. It's amazing, when you think about it, that the boy is ready to take the exam, yet he's barely a year old. However, I wouldn't think of tossing him out to the wolves right now and telling him that he needed to go get a job! He's nowhere near ready!"

"I'm not sure Elizabeth is, even. Sure, she's smarter than all of in this room combined with the whole Encyclopedia Britannica, but...Holding down a job requires more than smarts. Maturity and self control are really important. Elizabeth is so busy thinking so many amazing thoughts that she'd just kind of...forget to do her work, I think. Frankly, I'm just not sure if Elizabeth is 9 to 5 material, and I'm not sure that Madeline and Bram are either."

"Well, then, Oh Wise One," Ham snorted at Kyle, "suppose we teach Madeline and Abraham to sit around on their half leather asses and collect Welfare, while you marry Elizabeth and support her "amazing thoughts"?"

Kyle regrouped his thoughts for a moment, trying not to strike out blindly at Ham. "That's not what I'm saying at all. Ok, well, if Elizabeth and I get married, I'd be fully willing to support her. She'd never have to work if she didn't want to. Abraham's destiny will be determined by his circumstances and how he adapts to them. As for Madeline...well, it's obvious that Diana has a thing or two figured out. Why else would she set aside a trust fund the size of the Mothership for Madeline to draw on? I don't think she envisioned Madeline landing a job as a slurpy jockey at the 7-11. If that trust fund is set up the way I think it is, then something tells me that maybe Diana took a few tips from the Nathan Bates School of Funding the Junior Tycoon..." The blank looks on all of the faces, with the exception of Stanley Bernstein, urged Kyle to continue his explaination. "When I was a kid, my dad had me take a Junior Investors course. Then, he gave me some money and told me to invest it. You know, pick what I wanted to invest in, and buy some shares. I think I was like...11 or 12, something like that. Anyhow, I really dug dirtbikes, even then. I decided to invest it in a company that manufactured...dirtbikes, among other things. It was totally my decision, and my old man, for once in his life, didn't argue with my choice. By the time I was 15, that little investment paid off. I started off with something like 15 thousand dollars, and a few years later, that investment had more than tripled. When I finally sold the stock, it was worth over fifty thousand. I think Diana had something like that in mind for Madeline. It's what I intend to do with Elizabeth if we get married. People like Diana and my father may be bonafide assholes, but they know one thing about how to get by in today's economy. Yeah, sure, if you want to make something of yourself, you have to work at it...but if you wanna get dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking rich, you have to learn how to INVEST wisely..."

Kyle's lecture washed over everyone slowly, as they drank in the implications. Stanley was the first to speak, his eyes glistening with understanding that came from his well honed knowledge of financial workings. "Yes, I'm quite sure Elizabeth would be a natural with the stock market. She has incredible abilities..."

"Oh...I get it..."Ham cut in, his understanding of Kyle's wisdom etched clearly on his face. "You'd marry Elizabeth just so that you can exploit her instincts and get loaded. Real slick, Junior!"

Kyle lunged forward, the crutches that had been supporting his weight nearly forgotten in his anger. They slipped from beneath his arms and almost clattered to the floor, but he was able to reposition them in time to avoid a fall. Unfortunately, it stopped his momentum. "You lowlife son of a bitch! How dare you say I'd marry Elizabeth for her investing potential, when you just sat there 5 minutes ago, spending your own daughter's trust fund on guns and grenades and new subscriptions to The Rifleman?!"

"Let's get one thing straight, Choirboy," Ham retorted, "Madeline is NOT my daughter. Just because Diana says it's so, doesn't make it so."

"Oh, I guess Madeline's only your daughter when it's convenient, then. Like, ignore her now, but just wait til August. Then, I'll just bet you'll be full of fatherly compassion as you bilk her out of everything she owns, and callously tell her to go get a job. Get screwed, man!"

"At least I'm up front about it, unlike you!" Ham said, his voice betraying no emotion.

"Yeah, well, that is not was Elizabeth and I are about," Kyle said, as he leaned back on his crutches to part the curtains away from the window. Outside, Elizabeth and Robin continued their business. "Look at those two," he continued, in a softer tone, "what's in that van is all they have. What's wrong with wanting Elizabeth to have more than half a vanload of posessions? I just want her to have anything she wants...but I want her to learn how to get it for herself. It's not a matter of teaching her how to make me rich. I already am. Hell, I know how to get rich on my own, I don't need her to show me. For her sake, I just want her to learn some things about how this world works, and how to make what she has work in it. If that's wrong, then shoot me down now."

"It's not wrong, Kyle," Stanley said, "and your logic, though it seems ugly in some lights, has its merit. Frankly, I think I should sign Abraham up for some investment classes. If it doesn't teach him how to invest well, at least it might keep him from getting swindled."

"Where is this class you speak of, Kyle?" Phillip asked, with interest. "It might not be a bad suggestion for Madeline. If it does not start right away, maybe someone can work with her on her reading skills so she could benefit from it, and learn something about the value of her currency."

"It starts at the Community College at the end of August. I'll have to get another catalog...the one I had with all the information got torched in the fire...but it runs for six weeks, I think. Robin knows about it too. In fact, she's planning to enroll in it."

Ham made a sour face as Kyle's idea was lauded. When it came to money, he couldn't bring himself to trust anyone whose last name was Bates. His attention turned to the same scene that Kyle had been observing moments ago. Elizabeth was holding a small object in one hand, and making a broad motion with her other. A radiant smile was on her face, as if she'd just discovered buried treasure. From the rear of the van, Katie emerged, clutching a battered looking E.T. doll in her arms. Following behind her was a slight, solemn-faced, dark-eyed girl, wearing a child's version of traditional Muslim garb. Ham vaguely recognized Katie's companion as Medina, Amir's eleven- year-old daughter. Apparently, the two girls had become fast friends since Katie's return from San Fransisco. Together, they examined the item Elizabeth held with obvious curiosity. Even Robin had stopped her task of going through a box to take a look. Whatever small treasure Elizabeth had found, Ham could see that it obviously brought her immense joy. He flicked his steely gaze back to Kyle, who was oblivious to Ham's scrutiny as he filled Stanley in on what information he had about the investment classes.

It occurred to Ham that Kyle was the one that had it all wrong. Elizabeth didn't need any class to teach her how to get rich. She'd always be the sort of person that could find a gold mine in a toilet full of turds. It seemed that these were values handed down to her by her own mother, who didn't seem the least bit concerned that all of her worldly possessions had suddenly been reduced to a few boxes of trinkets, the clothes she wore on her back, and a rattling box of her dead son's bones. Nor did it seem to matter to Katie, who'd turned the situation of living in a motel for lack of any better place to stay into an opportunity to meet a new friend. It occurred to Ham that he hadn't heard her issue one complaint about it either, which told him that Katie didn't need Kyle and his stacks of money to be happy.

It also hit him that in all of the melee that had occurred as of late, Katie's birthday had somehow been lost in the shuffle. He scanned his memory, trying to remember the exact day Katie had told him it would be. June 29, he recalled, which had been nearly a week ago. She'd been in San Francisco still, and...had her birthday been the day they'd sent Patricia packing, or the day after? Time was lost on him, but one fact wasn't. He'd promised Katie he wouldn't forget it. Perhaps it was belated, but it beat forgetting altogether...which was more than he could say for Head Up His Money Grubbing Ass Bates. Sliding a quick hand into his pocket, Ham found his wallet. He pulled it out silently, checked its contents, and made a satisfied grunt. Then, without even excusing himself from the discussion, he sauntered out of the room, making a beeline for the group at the van.

"Hey, ladies!" he called, loud enough to where he knew the others in the hotel room, especially Kyle, could hear him through the open window. In unison, Elizabeth, Robin, Katie and Medina looked up. "I know a certain somebody that never got her birthday party," Ham continued, a devilish smile spreading on his face, "so if you all are done here, maybe we should take the birthday girl to Pizza Works..."

"Ooooh, where they have all those cool games?!" Katie cried.

"That's the place."

"Cool! Can Medina come?"

Ham smiled lightly and nodded. "If her dad says it's ok, she's more than welcome to come," he replied.

Without even a moment's hesitation, Medina tore from the group and made a run for the office, a hesitant smile lighting up her sad but pretty features.

"What about Bram? Can he come?" Katie prodded.

Twenty minutes later, Ham's van was loaded full of the youngest resistance members. To his satisfaction, Elizabeth shared space in the back with the likes of Katie, Abraham and Medina, with Robin in the passenger's seat beside him.

Kyle, and his wise-assed investment schemes, was left back at the hotel. The look Kyle had shot Ham as he pulled his van out of the parking lot wasn't lost on him either. The more he thought about Kyle and Elizabeth getting married, the more he cringed. There were times when Ham felt that he and Kyle saw the world in a similar fashion, that perhaps Kyle was a bit like he himself had been at that age. It had caused friction between them when they'd first met, shortly after the re-invasion. As time had passed, Kyle and Ham had learned to put their differences (or likenesses) aside, and a mutual respect had developed. Times like these tested that respect, though. Kyle was not quite thirty years old. At his ripe old age, he had somehow decided that he knew what was best for the world's first Starchild...and seemingly what was best for the rag tag group of relations that Elizabeth knew as her family. By some odd anomoly, Elizabeth had come to live with Kyle...and over the years, so had her mother and her young aunts. Kyle, meanwhile, presided over his court of orphans with a watchful stance that Ham felt verged on controlling... A wedding band for Elizabeth...an investment class for both her and Robin...

What next, Ham wondered, would Kyle be co-signing the loan Polly would need to buy her first car, and attending Katie's parent-teacher conferences at school? It felt terrible to admit it, but Ham wasn't sad that Kyle's house had suffered damage so extensive that his little family unit got forced out from under his roof. Sitting next to him, Robin seemed oblivious to Ham's unflattering mental portrayal of Kyle and his ill-bred intents. He wondered if she felt like he did...if she worried at all that Kyle seemed to exert his influence in Elizabeth's affairs a bit more exhuberently than he ought to.

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Robin about the investment class, but he decided not to. For one, judging by the distant expression on Robin's face, she might think he was coming completely out of left field. After all, she hadn't known about the disagreement that he and Kyle had just hashed out back at the hotel. Secondly, though Robin was distant, she didn't seem upset about anything, for once. In fact, her quietitude appeared to be born out of mental fatigue, sprinkled with a healthy dash of relief at being reunited with those she loved the most. There were no immediate loose ends to tie up, either. Her homelessness problem was solved, at least for now. The remains of her son had been respectfully re-interred, only now they were laid to rest next to Kathleen Maxwell's memorial at the former base at the mountain camp. Diana was holed up at Visitor Fields, Patricia was apparently out of commission and hopefully dead (although Ham knew better...) and Polly had come back from San Francisco with the good news that Diana's latest attempt to procure another starchild hadn't taken.

And, of course, Katie had survived another precarious revolution around the sun. There wasn't much in the world Ham Tyler ever sought to take pleasure in, but this was one that not even his jaded spirit could deny him. Watching a little kid with an ear-splitting grin clamp her eyes shut tight while the rest of the world sang a song for her and waited for her to conjure up a wish to expell on brightly burning candles that would bring her whatever her heart desired...It was a sight that could bring him to tears if he'd let it...if nothing else ever could. The memories that evoked those tears, of watching his own daughter, Sunshine, poised gleefully over her own birthday cake, huffing and puffing until every lit candle was extinguished, would never be a reality again. But the sense of pride and joy he'd felt then would never leave him. Amazingly, Ham could relive that again, only with Katie now, and somehow, it didn't hurt anymore. It was a true celebration to see her turn another year older. Ham doubted that Kyle would feel anything like that if he were to be there to see Katie blow out her candles. And while she was wishing and blowing, Ham doubted that Kyle would stand next to her, simultaneously wishing, with all of a father's passion, that no harm would ever touch that precious girl.

As it was for the spur of the moment birthday party, Katie's cake was not the huge affair Ham had envisioned. Instead, it was a modest, pre-baked, simply frosted concoction that Pizza Works complimentarily served up whenever a Pizza N More Party Pack was ordered. In addition to the cake, Ham got two Ultra Party Pizzas with the works...including a side of anchovies for Abraham...two pitchers of Party Pepsi, and enough game tokens to melt down and turn into a small army tank, if he was so inclined.

Despite Visitor oppression, the place was packed. Kids ran pell mell all over the place, and their harried parents chased after them. The rectangular tables were arranged in long rows, like a military mess hall. Many of the table sections were marked off for other birthday parties in progress. Bright streamers hung in festoons, and some of the more ornate table sections were marked with balloons and party hats. Ham felt a momentary regret that they had none of these things for Katie, but he soon realized that Katie was far more interested in the fist full of token in his hands than in the paper streamers and party favors. The game room, annexed off of the eating area, was jam packed with kids of all ages, ranging from toddlers in diapers to teenagers with pimples. It amazed him that Abraham fit in so neatly as he tagged along with Katie and Medina to the GameWorks Arcade. Looking at him, Ham was hard pressed to tell that the boy was actually a hybrid. While the Bram, Katie and Medina went off to spend their tokens, Elizabeth stayed with Ham and Robin, helping to fetch and carry the food, drinks, and various eating utensils.

Despite her world-wise ways, Elizabeth's eyes still danced around the restaurant, taking in all she could see. Ham supposed that in her eight years of existence, the Starchild hadn't been to too many pizza joints. As Elizabeth helped to set the table, she seemed to be transfixed by the illuminated banks of video games, and the captivated shouts of glee produced by kids playing Skee-Ball and Whack A Mole.

Camera flashes strobed as parents took photos of their children's revelry. A young woman that looked to be about Elizabeth's age tended a prize counter where kids could trade in the tickets they'd won from the various games for assorted toys and what-nots. Already, Katie was prancing around with a streamer of tickets hanging from her pocket like an odd tail. Medina had draped her slightly smaller ticket compliment around her neck like a paper scarf. Bram was lost to the video games, not even caring about how many tickets he could win, or what he could trade them in for.

Elizabeth watched solemnly, almost as though she was waging a mental argument with herself. Should she hang out with the "adults", or go play with the "kids"? It took Robin only about five minutes to notice her daughter's dilemma. With a knowing smile, she jabbed Ham in the ribs and held out her hand for some tokens.

"Oh, what, now you're gonna go play and leave me to watch the purses?" he asked, only half jokingly.

"No, Elizabeth needs some tokens too, y'know," she responded dryly.

"Uh, yeah, sure. She can have as many as she wants," Ham responded, depositing a handful in Robin's outstretched palm. Elizabeth heard her name and tore her attention away from the activity at the game station. Robin passed the tokens to her with a cheerful nod.

"Go and play if you want! You're here to have fun too!" she urged.

Elizabeth didn't need a second prompt. She accepted her allotment of tokens with a shy smile. Though she didn't run off towards the games like the others had, it only took her a few short moments to join up with Katie and Medina. Robin plopped down on the bench seat after she finished laying out the napkins, and turned a pointed gaze in Ham's direction.

"So..." she started, only taking a pause in her speach for dramatic reasons, "what were you and Kyle fighting about in the hotel room? The window was open, and I could hear the two of you locking horns over something..."

Ham snorted in disgust as he debated what he should tell Robin, if anything, about the disagreement. He took a moment or two to debate which angle he should answer from, knowing full well that he'd never get away with not giving her some sort of response. "Lemme ask you something," he said, more as a statement than a question, "does the idea of Kyle and Elizabeth getting hitched bother you?"

Robin's eyes widened in surprise, and her mouth curved into a small smile. "Well...uh...Yeah, right now, it would. Elizabeth said that Kyle told her he wants to marry her someday, and I suppose that seems inevitable, but we both know what we saw in the garage that day, and I think he has some stuff he needs to deal with..."

"Yeah, I remember," Ham said, pointedly.

"Did you get anything out of him? You know...about what made him get so drunk?

Ham chuckled appreciatively at Robin's question.

"What? What did I say?" she asked in a defensive balk.

"No, Robin, I'm not laughing at you. Most guys don't need an excuse to get drunk and act like assholes...they just need an opportunity. But, no, he didn't fess up to anything in particular. If you remember right, we got the phone call from Willie that Polly had come back. There wasn't time."

"Yeah, I know," Robin agreed, "so, why are you bringing up this marriage question? Do you know something I don't then?"

"Do you know he told me and Stanley and Phillip that he plans to sign Elizabeth up for an investment class at the Junior College this fall?"

"Oh, yeah, it's a money management course. I was gonna take it too, except now I'm unemployed, so I won't have the money for the registration fees," Robin replied casually.

"Well, gee, why doesn't Daddy Warbucks cough up the dough for you to go, so he can run your life like I see he's planning on running Elizabeth's!" Ham countered.

"Geez, Ham! It's just a class! What has you so bent about it? Is this what had you and Kyle shouting at each other?"

Ham let out a deep, troubled sigh, trying to release some of the anger that was creeping back into his mind.

"Robin, it just sounds fishy. Kyle is just as aware as any of the rest of us that Elizabeth has special...um...well...instincts. I've always noticed that he seems a bit controlling over Elizabeth, and now maybe I can see why. I just saw some big, blazing neon truth...like he wants Elizabeth to use her talents on Wall Street or something, to benefit his interests..."

"Ham, Nathan Bates would have exploited Elizabeth like that if he'd had the chance, but Kyle? Y'know, Elizabeth does have very honed instincts. She knows when people aren't being up front with her. I may not necessarily think she's old enough to get married, but...Well, I think that if Kyle was only after Elizabeth so that he could take advantage of her, Elizabeth would know it by now, and she would have given him the heave-ho," Robin explained.

"Love is blind," Ham stated plainly. He pretended not to notice the pained look that crept into Robin's eyes with that remark.

"Since when did Kyle's financial business and intents come into the discussion anyways?" she questioned, deftly maneuvering the conversation to a more comfortable zone. "I thought the whole purpose of your meeting with Kyle, Phillip and Stanley was to go over Diana's money."

"It was, primarily. We found out, after we went over Diana's accounts, that she has a hefty trust fund set up for Madeline. We also learned that some of that money was scheduled to be allotted to her in August. An amount to the tune of thirty five G's. I made a suggestion that Madeline should funnel some of that money into the resistance, and the next thing you know, both Kyle and Phillip were jumping down my throat like live prey! Kyle started popping off about how Madeline should invest it..."

"Thirty five thousand dollars!" Robin whooped. If her voice had been any louder, Ham would have shushed her. Fortunately, she had become just as skilled as any other resistance member when it came to having very private discussions in public.

"Yeah. It's a boatload of money," Ham confirmed, "and frankly, it's too much money for a dim- witted Starchild like her to have control of. She'll blow it all on mice and hats. Meanwhile, the resistance sits with too few guns and too few powerpacks to do any real damage to Patricia and her Reptillian Rambo Brigade, if they should make another pass our way."

"Madeline is not dim-witted! She's very bright, especially when you consider the fact that she's just a year old!"

"Judging by some of the stunts that girl has pulled, I'd say she's dumber than a box of hair, Robin. If you don't think so now, wait til you see what happens when she gets control of a sum of money like that."

"That's not a very nice way to talk about your daughter."

"I don't consider her my daughter," Ham retorted tersely.

"No, not unless a wad of dead presidents comes as standard equipment with her, right?"

"Christ on a bagel! You sound as bad as Kyle and the rest of them!" Ham grumbled.

"Well, you should get a tape recorder and listen to yourself," Robin said. "I know it can't be easy for you to accept what you know about Madeline. It wasn't easy for me to accept having Elizabeth either, especially when I learned the truth about her father. But, in the time since, I've accepted her..with my whole heart. Not just what's easy to deal with, y'know, but everything. The whole package. With kids, it's all or nothing. You either have to accept Madeline for who and what she is, or you get nothing. If you can't accept her, Ham, that's fine, but I wouldn't make any grand schemes to start organizing her finances for her, either. It makes you look like a greedy jerk, and it makes you sound like a hypocrite. I'm sorry if it sounds harsh, but..."

"No, you're absolutely right," Ham responded. He gazed thoughtfully into the arcade area, searching for Katie, Medina, Elizabeth and Bram.

"There is a way for you to benefit the resistance with Madeline's funds when she gets them...one that wouldn't be so...overtly greedy," Robin hedged. She studied Ham's face intently, wondering what sort of reaction her offering of advice would bring.

"Yeah, how's that?" His expression remained carefully neutral, but the tone of his voice indicated that he was at least willing to listen to a suggestion if it was offered up in a fashion he could tolerate.

"Ever since Madeline had been Earthside, she's had to live off the charity of other people. She has no real place of her own, and no practical belongings, either. The resistance is tapped as it is, y'know. I'm a fine example. The sooner I get a job and get back on my feet, the less of a burden I'll be on other people, y'know? In other words, if Madeline is taught to use the trust fund money to take care of her own needs, other people's money will be freed up for resistance business. I think you could be right about what she'd do with the money if she was left to her own devices. She'd totally blow it, because she has no idea what it means to need to support herself..."

"So you're suggesting that I give Madeline a course in self sufficiency?" Ham questioned bluntly.

"Well, Ham, you might be the ideal person to do it," Robin replied thoughtfully. "I mean, I've never seen you go out and blow money on stupid stuff. You drive the same van around that you've been driving for years. I don't even know if you have a real place of your own, or if you just crash where you hang your hat...but one thing's for sure. You know how to take care of yourself, and you seem to know how to do it without sponging off of other people. Hell, I could even use a few lessons in that department." She finished her monologue with a self-deprecating chuckle and a healthy swig of Pepsi.

Ham said nothing, as he jabbed his straw in amongst the ice cubes floating in his own soda glass. Any thoughts he had on the matter were cut short as servers brought two huge, steaming trays of pizza to their table. On cue, Katie streaked over from the arcade, followed by Medina, Bram and Elizabeth. As Robin began to divvy up slices of pizza, the servers began a chorus of Happy Birthday. If only for a brief moment in time, all the threats and concerns of the recent weeks melted away. Katie beamed, radiantly happy, and it seemed as though her joy was contagious. Ham's souring mood evaporated as he surveyed the celebration. For once, the cheer had been his own doing. If he felt smug about that fact, no one noticed.

Chapter 32

Jaded

"Every now and then I get a little bit restless

And I dream of something wild.

(Turn around)

Every now and then I get a little bit helpless

And I'm lying like a child in your arms.

(Turn around)

Every now and then I get a little bit angry

And I know I've got to get out and cry.

(Turn around)

Every now and then I get a little bit terrified

But then I see the look in your eyes.

(Turn around, bright eyes)

Every now and then I fall apart.

(Turn around, bright eyes)

Every now and then I fall apart..."

~~ Bonnie Tyler Total Eclipse of the Heart

Out in the courtyard of the hotel, it was reletively quiet. The lights in the pool made the water glow an eerie aqua-green. Crickets could be heard chirping in the near darkness. A light, warm breeze ruffled through Polly's hair, lifting it off her shoulders for the barest of moments. The fresh air felt good. It was so much better than the "canned" air Polly had breathed while she was a hostage on board the mothership. Strangely enough, she'd never really noticed how artificial the atmosphere up there had been until she returned.

For the moment, Polly was alone, which was just how she preferred to spend most of her time these days. In fact, she'd watched from the window of her hotel room, politely waiting for Natty and Paul to finish their swim before she came out. That hadn't been an easy feat. From the room next door, Polly had overheard Kyle bitching to someone about Ham taking Elizabeth somewhere and not having the decency to tell him where they were going. Polly, of course, had known where everyone was. When Katie had come around searching for Bram, she'd told Polly that Ham was taking her to Pizza Works for a late birthday party, and she'd sweetly invited her older sister to come. Polly declined, trying to explain to Katie that some of the bruises on her neck still showed a little, and she didn't want people to stare.

Despite Katie's disappointment, Polly was relieved about the temporary separation. The two of them had spent plenty of time together in San Francisco with Tonya and the other members of the Golden Gate resistance group. Chuck Shanklin had even taken the girls shopping on Pier 39 for Katie's birthday. Polly now wore a pucca shell necklace, courtesy of Chuck. Katie had one too, and several other trinkets as well. She was proudest of the charm bracelet he'd bought her. It had several souvenier charms of San Fransisco, like a minature Golden Gate Bridge, a cable car, and a China Town-style building.Therefore, Polly didn't feel horribly guilty over missing out on Katie's party. They'd celebrated their own way while they'd been gone. In fact, time alone had been hard to come by in San Fransisco. There were plenty of people Tonya knew there, and they'd all made a fuss over her injured, but healing shoulder. It wasn't long before they learned of Polly's ordeal, and Katie had made certain that everyone knew that her birthday was quickly approaching, to get her own two cents worth of drama in.

Polly was glad to have a few moments on her own. No one was breathing down her back, asking her how she felt. No one was watching her to see if she slipped and used her left hand, despite her insistance that she hadn't been converted. No one goggled over the fading bruises on her neck, or gave her any "Poor Polly" looks. At least, Polly had been able to diffuse Robin's concern over any possibility that she was pregnant with a hybrid. The "curse" had showed up two days after she'd arrived in San Fransisco. Only, in Polly's book, it was a blessing, not a curse. It also explained why she was laying out by the poolside in an outdoor lounger, fully clothed in a pair of shorts and her new "Alcatraz Triathalon...Digging, Diving and Swimming" T- shirt. A swim might have been nice on a night like this, but Polly was having the last days of what had been a rather heavy period, which would make swimming somewhat inconvenient.

Polly felt her eyelids drooping shut, which was no surprise these days. She was past the worst of the Procorb withdrawl, but now she was slightly anemic. Julie had given her an iron supplement, but Polly was simply not inclined to shove any pills down her throat. She was also uncooperative when Julie had suggested an examination to see if she had suffered a miscarriage. In all honesty, Polly simply did not care to know if she'd ever been pregnant, even if it had only been for a brief instant. Whatever might have been was gone now, which was fine. Her period was finally slowing down too, which would quickly put an end to the anemia. The bruises from the injector were only faintly visible. Soon, there would be no physical traces left on Polly's body to indicate that she'd ever suffered on board the mothership. Everyone would forget that then, and at last, Polly would be allowed to forget it too.

The guards hands were rough as they yanked her out of the confines of her cell. In the sleepy fog of Procorb, she didn't have the strength to fight them off. They always wore helmets with visors on when they came for her, and Polly could always see her pale, pathetic form reflected in them. Soon, she'd learned to just close her eyes. It didn't matter where they took her anymore.

She was guided into Diana's private bed chamber and once the guards brought her here, their demeanor towards her always changed. They treated her gently. Instead of shoving her into the chair that was waiting for her, they lowered her into it delicately. Her hands were left unbound, but a switch on the wall was flicked on. A light gravity field held Polly in place. She found that she could move if the gravitational setting was on a low level, but it was difficult to. The guards then took their leave, but Polly knew instinctively that they were positioned right outside the bedroom door.

For a few moments, (or perhaps a few hundred moments), nothing happened. Polly felt her eyelids begin to sag. Seconds before she succumbed to slumber, the door to the "refresher" opened, and Diana breezed into the room. She wore a pale orange lounging gown with the usual Visitor symbol emblazoned on the upper left side, just above her fake breast.The folds of the gown billowed out behind her as she strode towards Polly's drooping form.

"Ah, there you are," Diana said to her in a falsely bright tone of voice, "and I'm glad to see that you're perking up a little."

Indeed, Polly was feeling more alert now. Adrenaline had the tendancy to do that. Fortunately, the gravity chair prevented Diana from noticing the nervous twitching in her arms and legs.

"I've had a terrible night," Diana confided, as she reached through the gravitational field to lay a heavy hand on Polly's cheek. Her movements were slow and leaden, but very intentional, as if to show Polly that she really could get out of that chair and run with a little effort. However, shamefully as always, Polly felt her limbs lock up in a freeze. She couldn't force herself to move even if there was no gravity field holding her in place. Diana knew it too, and she let Polly know she knew by affording her a patronizingly kind look.

"My dear, I need you to tell me something," she continued, gingerly fingering the latest bruise that had purpled Polly's neck after her last Procorb injection.

"What do you want to know?" Polly heard herself ask, her lips suddenly freed from the freeze that had taken over the rest of her body.

"I need to know if Lydia bested me. She killed herself and took all of her damn traitor secrets with her. Did she best me, Polly?" Diana's fingers continued their tracing movements on Polly's sensitive skin. Any harder, and the pressure of her fingertips would hurt. Before she could answer, Diana spoke again; the intensity of her touch increasing just a slight incriment.

"It makes me so angry that she did that. I'm so mad, I feel cold. I have ice in my veins right now, I think..."

"If you think you're cold, imagine how cold Lydia is right now. See, you're alive, and she's stone cold dead, so I'd say she didn't best you. You beat her," Polly blurted. The cadence of her voice was only one notch above dull.

Diana's touch relaxed immediately, and Polly knew she'd awarded her tormentor with the correct answer.

"Yes, how very right you are, my dear. But, I'm still numb with cold. I need you to share your warmth with me."

Her response came in panting breaths. In a blurring instant, she reached both of her hands into the force field and yanked Polly free from it with only the slightest amount of exertion. Then, she pulled her into her arms, and held her warmth against her body, as close as she could.

"Yes, this is right. Just right. Your heat, and a warm, soothing shower, I think..." Diana's lips were cold against Polly's cheek as she trailed them lightly along the delicate curve of her jaw.

Cold. Too cold....

The water that splashed down on her was nearly freezing. Polly woke with a start, a silent scream etched onto her lips. Brandon, standing above her, had been laughing, but his smile faded as Polly came to, sputtering and yelling.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" she shrieked. The sleep and the nightmare were still clinging to her consious mind like Saran Wrap, but she had enough time now to gage what had happened. Brandon still held a plastic tumbler in his hand. With an angry jab, Polly knocked it clean from his grasp. It tumbled end over end for a yard before it landed in the pool.

"I-I'm so-sorry, Polly! You just looked like you were having a bad dream or something," Brandon stammered. All traces of humor had been wiped from his face, "And you were sweaty. I didn't want to scare you...I just wanted to play a joke and wake you up!"

Polly's fists were clenched at her side and her stance was still defensive, but through the heart hammering haze that was beginning to abate, she slowly realized that Brandon was not the enemy. He was just being his usual self. Her nervous gaze darted to the pool. The cup had been retreived by Bram, who was clinging to the side of the pool, his eyes wide.

"I told you it wasn't such a good idea, Brandon," he said from his distant vantage point in a hesitant tone of voice.

"Yeah," Polly chided in agreement, "It was a really sucky idea." Then she dropped her gaze, and flopped back onto the chaise lounge. Seeing the two of them together, (as they often were) brought a nearly nauseating wave of guilt over her. She couldn't really remember if she'd told the two of them that Diana had forced her to rat them out. Especially Bram. She quietly regarded the boy in the pool, who looked alot like the despised Danny Bernstein, but was obviously not like him in the least.

She'd never gotten along with Danny; that much Polly remembered clearly. She had been quite young when the Visitors first invaded; only about 12. However, she'd been at the age where she could remember most of everything, even if she hadn't been able to understand what it all meant. And, she remembered snippets of life before the Visitors, although those memories seemed grainy and unclear, like antique tintype photographs. Almost like they'd never happened...but they had. Danny Bernstein had been much a part of those "tintype" days. He always hung around, bugging Binna, helping himself to sodas in the Maxwell's refridgerator, and verbally sparring with Polly. Though Polly couldn't honestly say she hated him, she knew that Danny's presence annoyed her to no end. It didn't surprise her in the least that he'd sold his soul to the Visitors.

Bram was different. He was the epitome of innocent. He represented what Danny could have been if he'd chosen to fight against the Visitors instead of siding with them. Worse yet, Bram was vulnerable in ways that Danny never would be. Danny had always wanted to be important, and he reguarly pumped his head full of ideals of just how damn good he was. Bram, on the other hand, was important, and had been from the moment he'd been born. The Visitors wanted Bram, especially Diana.(Wouldn't that have just chapped Danny's hide) And now, if Diana really wanted to get him, nothing would really stop her. A little investigation, and she could readily find him. What Bram's fate might be if she found him here and got her scaly claws on him...

And it was all Polly's fault. She had done nothing to fight while imprisoned aboard the mothership. She had just sat there and let them do whatever they wanted to make her say whatever they wanted to hear. Polly couldn't count with the fingers on both hands how many lives she might have endangered with her big mouth. Standing before her were two of those lives. I have no right to be angry with Brandon for playing a stupid joke on me. Look at what I've done to him....

Once again, Polly shoved herself into a sitting position. She used the momentum to carry her out of the chaise lounge and away from the pool area as fast as she could run. Her flipflops beat a staccato on her heels as she tore out of the gated confines and down the cement pathway to the hotel room she shared with Katie. Fortunately, Katie wasn't in there right now. Polly hurled herself onto her twin bed and began to beat angrily at the lifeless pillow beneath the neatly made bedspread. She bit back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. She'd done enough silent sobbing on board the mothership to last her a lifetime. Tears got you nothing, she reasoned.

At last, the fevered turmoil in Polly's mind exhausted itself. Her arms were too tired from her exertions to do any more pillow pummelling. There was simply nothing more left to think. The silence surrounding her began to wear on her nerves as much as being around other people usually did. A thin slice of moonlight filtered in through the crack in the drapes, and she glanced at digital readout on the bedside alarm clock. It was already a quarter past nine, and it occurred to her that Katie should be coming in to go to bed soon. She rose from her position, flipped on the light, and noticed what a mess she'd made of the bed. Hastily, she began to straighten the wrinkled coverlet. As she tucked the abused pillow back into it's accustomed place at the head of the bed, a hesitant knock sounded on the door.

Polly was fully expecting to find Katie waiting guiltily outside, ready to report that she'd lost yet another room key. Instead, Bram stood outside, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"Um..I have to go to the bathroom, and my room is clear around the other side. Can I use yours?" he asked. Water dripped from his bermuda swim trunks onto the cement, puddling around his bare feet.

"Yeah, sure," Polly replied, willing her voice to sound normal. "By the way, where's Katie? I know you went to the pizza joint with her, so if you're here, then so is she. Have you seen her?"

She stepped aside so Bram could pass her, patiently waiting for his response.

"Uh, yeah, she's down at the pool now with Medina and some of the others," he called over his shoulder.

For the two minutes that Abraham tended to his business, Polly stood on the threshold of the doorway. If she listened carefully, she could hear other voices from the pool area now, and one of them did sound suspiciously like her younger sister's. She jumped in surprise when Bram's voice sounded behind her.

"My Grandmother gets to come home from the hospital tomarrow," he said, hardly able to disguise his excitement. His voice cracked uncontrollably on a few syllabals, and he cleared his throat several times as if to rid himself of a frog in his throat.

Like, what if there really is a frog in his throat?

"That's really great, Bram," Polly responded. She was surprised to hear the sincerity in her own response. Lately, even she was aware of the monotonous cadence her voice had assumed these last few weeks.

"Yeah, I hope she isn't in too much pain. I've been asking Elizabeth if she knows any ways to help her...anything Elizabeth could teach me. You know, anything special..."

"I know what you mean," she said, suddenly aware of the guilty way that Bram was staring at his feet.

"You don't blame yourself for what happened to Lynn, do you?" she asked unabashedly.

Abraham looked up, and suddenly looked heartbreakingly vulnerable, standing there wearing only a pair of dripping swim trunks, sans his eye contacts. Polly bit her lip as another wave of guilt washed over her. He would just be so easy for Diana to hurt. At least she could console herself with the fact that she didn't recall Diana questioning her to reveal how she might personally feel about Bram. After all, Polly had met him shortly after the molt that made him look like a toddler. She watched him grow so quickly, and she'd spent all spring and part of the summer tutoring him. Bram was like the little brother she never had....the little brother she'd prayed feverishly for when her mother had been pregnant with Katie.

"I guess I do a little. If only I knew the things Elizabeth knows...if only I was as special as she is! I might have been able to stop Patricia and her squad from hurting my grandmother." His voice cracked again when he spoke, and Polly wasn't sure if it was from emotion...or because his voice was changing. She wondered if he was too old looking for that. In her eyes, Bram looked to be about 16, and she seemed to recall that the boys she'd gone to school with had undergone that change somewhere at the end of junior high, or the beginning of high school.

But, then again, she knew alot about lots of things, especially science and math...but boys? She hardly knew the first thing about them, except how to act like one. And...there was alot about Starchildren she didn't know either. Maybe parts of his puberty would happen later...and maybe some of those amazing abilities Elizabeth had would too. He was a boy, and if she knew anything about boys at all, it was that they matured slower.

"Bram, I don't think you're done growing yet," Polly told him earnestly, perching herself on the edge of Katie's bed. Forgetting that his bermuda trunks were wet, Bram followed her lead and sat down beside her. She only smiled, making a mental note to swap beds with Katie for the night if it would bother her.

"I bet I'm not either. What if I molt into an old man like my Grandfather next?"

Polly laughed; it was the first time she had in what seemed like ages.

"Your grandfather isn't really that old...and what I meant is...Well, when Elizabeth and this other girl, Madeline, molted, they went from like eight to eighteen. You, on the other hand...well, you seemed to stop around fifteen or sixteen. That's just what I noticed. You are a little different than them, because you're a boy. Boys grow slower and longer than girls do. These powers you're waiting for...well, they may not happen at all. Or they may happen in a year or two for you. Whatever the case, Bram, it's not your fault."

"I don't even have venom sacs like they do. If I did, I would have spit at Patricia..just like Madeline and Elizabeth and Philip did. Only I would have spit at the goon that shot my grandmother too!"

"Well, I don't have venom sacs either," Polly mused, "and if I did, Diana would have gotten a venom bath. That much I know!"

"If it's not my fault that my grandmother got hurt, then how come you think it's your fault that Diana found out about me?" Bram asked quietly.

Polly's heart nearly froze in her chest for a beat as her mind whirled. How could Bram know what she'd been worried about? She didn't remember telling him that much...

"You know, Bram...those powers you don't think you have...Well, I think maybe you do have some, but you just don't realize it. It's the only way you could know I thought that...."

Bram shook his head.

"It was the look you gave me out at the pool before you ran away. It was written all over your face."

"Look, I'm not really sure it was my fault. I know they doped me full of drugs and Diana tricked me into talking. I know that I tried to lie to her, and she saw right through me. The rational part of my brain knows this. The rest of me just feels like a pile of crap for not being stronger. I know I told her lots of things about lots of people..even people she didn't previously know about, like Brandon and Tonya. But, I'm most worried about you. She'd do just about anything to get her hands on a Starchild...even make one of her own, which is just disgusting, considering what she had to do to get her...But, see, Diana confided some things to me..told me some of her grossest secrets. Assuming that she was telling the truth, Diana told me that she really wanted Madeline to be a boy. She hoped she'd be able to mate her son and Elizabeth...get it?

"Yes, but Elizabeth is my cousin, so we can't mate," Abraham said stoicly.

"Oh, yes you can. Haven't you ever heard of kissing cousins? Granted, it's not usually first cousins that marry, but even then, it's been known to happen. In fact, in the old days, families used to intermarry like that to keep the family heritage going...y'know...so they wouldn't pollute the family lines and stuff."

Bram sniffed audibly, obviously chagrined at the thought. Polly smiled softly.

"Don't worry, Bram. That was back in the old days. Besides, Elizabeth is totally in love with Kyle, which would kill any plans for Diana to mate her with a male Starchild. But, it wouldn't stop her from trying to mate you with Madeline if she thought she could get away with it. The biggest point of all is that you are the only surviving male hybrid, and that makes you a little more special on it's own merit, at least in her book.

The giggle that erupted from Abraham sounded almost girlish.

"Me mate with Madeline? I think she's had lots of mates already, and I think they're all older looking than me. Besides...I kind of like somebody else, but I'm not sure if I just like her, or if I like her like her."

Polly's eyebrow shot up a notch.

"Oh, yeah? You're carrying a torch for someone?" she asked companionably.

"I don't know," he replied softly, "but she's a lot of fun to be around."

"Who?" Polly demanded playfully.

Bram shrugged in a nervous jerk.

"I'd rather not say just yet. She doesn't molt like me, so I'll have to wait awhile to really like her. I just hope I don't molt anymore. When she catches up, I don't want to be too old again."

It dawned on Polly that perhaps his friendship with Katie had taken on a new meaning for him, now that he was thinking with the hormones of an adolescent. At least he'd told her that he knew he had to wait. If there was one person on Earth who knew less about boys than she herself did, it was Katie. She had just turned 12. Polly remembered herself at 12. She had no interest in boys then. However, somewhere in the back of her mind was a dim recollection of Binna around the age of 12...maybe 13...Boys. Yes, it seemed like Binna had been interested in boys for as long as Polly could remember!

"I think you're really smart to wait, Bram. Sometimes, love ruins perfectly good friendships. If it's meant to be, it'll happen at the right time, and it won't matter what you look like"...(and nothing had better happen until Katie is 18...think you can wait 6 years, buddy?)

"Yes, I can wait," Bram answered absently.

***************************************************************

There were actually quite a few people out at the pool. Polly had gone with Bram only to call Katie in for bed. But, when she got out there, she realized that she didn't want to be the party pooper that spoiled all of her sister's fun. Katie and Medina were playing a loud game of Marco Polo with Brandon, and they squealed loudly with joy when the saw Bram return. He jumped into the water, anxious to resume the game.

"Hi there, Polly" a voice greeted her from the shadows by the edge of the pool. Polly recognized the southern tinged tones as belonging to Jaime, one of the two Visitor Fifth Columnists that had freed her. She sat with her legs dangling in the water as any human might. Beside her sat the former security officer that Polly knew as Nigel. Jaime pat a spot on the ground opposite from where Nigel was, inviting Polly to join them. Polly obliged, kicking off her flip flops to dangle her own feet in the pool.

"I sure do like this swimming pool," Jaime commented, "And I like the one at the Bernstein's house, too. Imagine having your very own oasis in your back yard! Unthinkable where I come from."

"I've swam at the Bernsteins before. Sometimes, they'd chlorinate the water too much and it burned my eyes, but it was still cool."

"I Wish I could swim," Jaime commented, almost jealously, "The water is so nice, I would just like to jump right in, but I would drown if I did something so foolish!"

"You could learn to swim. It isn't hard, really. You could even get in the water without drowning if you stay in the shallow end....but I think Amir would prefer it if you wore a bathing suit in his pool."

The hospital security uniform that Jaime wore, rolled up to the knees so her pant legs wouldn't get wet, was hardly suitable swim attire.

"Where would I get a 'bathing suit'?" she asked.

"Oh, geeze, you could get one at K-Mart, or practically anywhere that sells clothes. This time of year, you could even get one fairly cheap, because they tend to go on clearance at the end of the summer."

Polly wasn't certain if Jaime knew what a clearance sale was, but she could tell that 'fairly cheap' registered with her loud and clear.

"I will remember that," Jaime replied gratefully. Then she cocked her head ever so slightly at Polly.

"You said you used to swim at the Bernsteins. If you did then, why do you not swim now? It is so nice and all...."

"Um, well, I can't right now. I..uh..don't have a suit," Polly lied. She did actually have a suit in her duffel bag that she'd packed before she left for San Fransisco.

"It is because she's having a season Jha'me," Nigel interjected.

Jaime's lips puckered and her eyes squinted nearly shut. Polly supposed that her facial _expression was one of embarrassment; perhaps akin to blushing for a human.

"In season," she echoed, "So..is that what that peculiar scent is about you these days? Well, it would make sense, but I am not sure what having a season has to do with going swimming..."

Polly's jaw dropped a notch, but before she could even say a word, a voice sounded from behind her.

"Ohmygawd, did you say you can smell it? That's totally disgusting!"

That tone of voice could belong to no one other than Robin, and sure enough, when Polly craned her head upwards, she saw her sister standing just behind her, wearing a bathing suit; a stiff, white hotel towel draped over her arm.

"Well, yes, that is what I said," Jaime sputtered, the tip of her forked tongue darting out nervously to flick at her lips.

"And yes, there is a detectable scent when a human woman is in season...or a Sullam Voe woman for that fact," Nigel stated.

Polly felt some of her disgust fading as the scientific logic she typically reasoned with took hold. Robin, on the other hand, still looked mortified.

"Well, it's not exactly like I'm in season," Polly explained matter of factly, "It's more like...nothing happened, so my body is getting rid of stuff it doesn't need because I'm not pregnant. Get it?"

"Humans bleed when that happens, Jaime, so she cannot swim," Nigel finished for his friend's enlightenment.

"I am very sorry for you. Bless your soul, it sounds so painful!" Jaime responded, sounding every bit like a well bred human woman who'd been born and raised in the South instead of on a planet 8.7 light years away. Her _expression appeared to reflect that her mention of Polly's scent might have been a social faux pas. Robin's next response confirmed it for the Visitor if nothing else could.

"Well, it's totally rude for you guys to go sniffing around us like that. Do you always do that?"

"We cannot exactly help it," Nigel replied cooly, "Our sense of smell is very highly developed. We are predators by nature, and predators rely heavily on scent. Even if we are not hunting, we cannot shut it off. I can tell when someone is in season, when someone is attracted to or afraid of someone else, and if a couple has mated, among other things. In our society, we are very open about what we can scent, so please forgive Jha'me's bluntness."

"Wow, is it like phermones that you smell?" Polly asked. She realized, vaguely, that if her father was alive right now, he'd love to be in on this conversation. Anthropologists never die; they just pass on their curiosity to their nosy middle daughters. It was almost as though the same thought crossed Robin's mind. The look of disgust was dissipating as she took a seat at the edge of the pool next to her sister.

"Phermones...forgive me, it's not a term I'm familiar with. Is that like chemicals?" Jaime asked.

"Exactly. Like body chemistry," Polly replied.

"Yes, then, that would be a large part of it. When someone is afraid of someone or something, the fear they feel releases a chemical we can smell. The same is true with attraction and mating, only with mating, it's even more pronounced. On board the mothership, great care had to be taken to rid all mating scents from our bodies if we did not wish for others to know who we'd been with," Nigel explained.

"Well, it is how I know that Diana helped herself to Orlando's hide," Jaime spat angrily, almost as if she'd forgotten that two humans were present.

"Oh, well, Diana is the exception. When she flaunts her rezzi, she wants all to know. Like mother, like daughter, too. I heard Sean Donovan boasting that Madeline rezzed off on him, too, though I could not scent anything to confirm this."

"Wait a sec," Robin interjected, "Um, what, may I ask, is a rezzi?"

Jaime clapped a hand over her mouth, and glanced guiltily out at the youngsters still splashing around in the water.

"It is a word Nigel should have never used in front of the small ones!" she cried emphatically, despite the fact that she didn't dare raise her voice above an exaggerated whisper.

"Yes, she is right," Nigel said, "But it is really what you would say is a short form for the word Resivoir.."

Polly blanched noticeably, as if she clearly understood what it meant now.

"Is that what Visitors call the female anatomy?" Robin questioned innocently.

"Duh, Binna," Polly muttered, ignoring the dirty look her older sister afforded her in return.

"Yes, exactly. I understand that Humans have uh..derogatory terms for genitals too, and the R word...well, the short form of it that I used, at least, is what we would consider derogatory," Nigel said.

"Derogatory! If my Auntie heard me talk like that, she would box my vennies! It is downright nasty!" Jaime proclaimed.

"Vennies?" Polly mused.

"Venom Sacs," Nigel explained.

Robin listened with some interest to the banter between the two Visitors, pursing her lips thoughtfully. Finally, she turned towards Nigel, fidgeting nervously with her towel.

"Can you tell this about everybody, or just your own species? The mating thing, I mean," she questioned hesitantly.

"The scent? I have noticed that I can tell when two humans mate, but it took a few exposures to it before I recognized the smell for what it was....I can even smell a trace of human matings on the sheets of the bed I sleep on here at the hotel," he replied.

"Oh, that's disgusting!" It was Polly's turn for an outburst, and her nose wrinkled in emphasis, "And all I smell is bleach! Geez, I thought bleach wiped out all that stuff!"

"I smell the disinfectant too, but it has...well, maybe it has imprinted itself into the mattress. This, I do not know, but I know the scent now, and I know what it means."

"Have you been around Elizabeth lately? Can you tell if she and Kyle have....?" Robin blurted.

"No, I do not believe they have. I saw Kyle earlier. He asked me if I knew where Elizabeth, you, and Ham Tyler went. I told him that I did not know. I did not smell anything of that nature on him," Nigel answered.

"Oh, thank Gawd!" -" Robin exclaimed loudly. Before she uttered the last word, she stopped short, noticing that Katie was perched upon Bram's shoulders in the pool, playing "chicken fight" with Medina, who was precariously maintaining her balance on Brandon's shoulders. All of them were within earshot of a loud exclaimation, but neither party appeared to have noticed. Instead, Robin turned to Polly with an exasperated look on her face.

"You know, Ham and I talked a little bit today about Kyle and Elizabeth. Ham says that he's afraid that Kyle is too controlling. I sort of shrugged him off, but.....now I think maybe he's right. Especially after he got drunk and all."

"Drunk? When did this happen?" Polly asked.

"Don't worry, Polly. It was while you were gone. Kyle is going through something, but he never said what it was. He got a bit drunk one night and he said some things that really upset Elizabeth....but from what I understand, the night before, he told her that he wants to marry her someday," Robin explained.

"Sounds like I missed out on all kinds of stuff..." Polly said dully.

She was quite happy that the conversation had switched from who was 'rezzing' who to Kyle's elbow bending problem. After all, she didn't want Nigel blurting out that he could...scent certain...

Polly shivered and suddenly felt the need for another, scaldingly hot, long lasting shower. She only wished she had a pumice stone available to scour her skin of every last possible trace of the Lizard Queen's touch.

Conversations and waterplay were stopped the minute Amir appeared at the gate with a keychain dangling from his hand. The hotel's pool policy, posted on a placard at the enterance, declared that the pool area closed at 10 p.m. It was actually 10:30.

"Well, so much for a swim," Robin complained lightly. The two Visitors rose from their seats, toweling off their damp legs. Medina was the first of the swimmers to exit the water. Katie and Bram paddled over to Polly and Robin's side and hauled themselves out of the water. Katie snached the towel out of Robin's hand and vigorously dried herself with it.

"Hey!" Robin protested.

"Sorry, I forgot to get one from my room," Katie explained, handing the damp, used towel back to her sister.

"Looks like I forgot mine, too," Bram said. A mild seabreaze had gusted as evening progressed into night, lending a slight chill to the air. Bram shivered almost uncontrollably, as if the temperature was winter cold. His lips were ever so lightly tinged with blue. He had thrown a T shirt on over his damp trunks, and it was now plastered wetly to his skin.

"You'd better get to your room and warm up before Stanley blows a gasket," Polly warned him.

"Grandfather won't freak. That's Grandmother that worries all the time," Bram replied. With his voice shaking as he shivered, it almost sounded almost like a Visitor's reverberation. He offered no more arguement, though. Amir still stood at the gate, politely silent, but sentinel. One by one, the loiterers filed through the gate, and Amir locked it behind them. As they parted ways, Polly could hear Jaime and Nigel discussing how utterly perfect the pool area would be if there were some nice warm rocks to lounge on. Ughh!

Robin had her room next door to Katie and Polly's. She supposedly shared it with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth rarely slept there anymore. Instead of retiring to her own room, Robin followed her sisters into theirs. Katie was urged to take a shower to wash the chlorine off of her skin. While Katie started the water in the bathroom, Polly flopped tiredly onto her bed. If Robin noticed any signs of Polly's earlier tantrum on the bed, she made no indication. Instead she sat down next to Polly and stared pointedly at her.

"Why didn't you tell me you'd started your period?" she asked.

Polly looked at her blankly and shrugged her shoulders.

"Why would I? Last I heard, stuff like that is private business. It was really nice of Nigel to advertise to everyone, don't you think?"

"Nigel doesn't know better," Robin stated impatiently, "And you know why I'm asking you."

"Do I?" Polly countered.

"You're not pregnant, then. Umm, that's really good. I was afraid for you, especially after you told me about the turkey baster."

Polly rolled her eyes exasperatedly.

"Well, now you know, so you don't have to worry."

"I still worry, Polly."

"Why? You said it yourself; I'm not P-G. So what's to worry about?"

"I'm concerned about other stuff too, y'know. It was terrible not having you at home, knowing that you were being hurt on board the mothership, and knowing that there was nothing I could do to get you out of there. But, as awful as it was for me and Katie worrying about you, it had to be so much worse for you. You just don't talk about it."

"There's nothing to talk about. I'm not pregnant, I'm not converted and I'm not a prisoner anymore. End of story," Polly stated.

"It's not the end of the story," Robin said sadly, "You went through hell up there, and trying to bury it won't change it. It will all just come back to haunt you."

"You should talk, Binna. How far along were you before anyone even knew that the baby you were having was Brian's?"

"Exactly my point, Polly. I should have said something long before I did, because I could have gotten help dealing with it sooner."

"Well, I'm not having Brian's baby, nor any other lizard's for that fact, so I don't have anything to get help with," Polly retorted. She squirmed under her sister's scrutiny, wishing Robin would just hurry up and leave, taking this whole lame subject with her.

"That's bullcrap and you know it," Robin replied. She chewed on her lip for a moment as she formulated her arguement.

"I know they hurt you up there," she continued, "They did horrible things to you. Injections, questions, turkey basters, and God only knows what else. Maybe you weren't impregnated or converted, but you were hurt just the same. Since you've been back from San Fransisco, you've just been so quiet and withdrawn, and I've been worried sick about you."

You don't even know the half of it, Binna. Frankly, I don't think you could handle it if I told you...You'll totally lose your grip.

"Well, now. I certainly don't want to make you sick, so why don't I ease your mind?" Polly suggested, in a tone that bordered on sarcasm, "Everything you said happened. Injections, questions and turkey basters. There was also lots of time spent alone in a cell, wondering what was going to happen to me, and wondering if anyone else got captured or hurt in the raid. The worst part was not knowing. Now, I know. Tonya was shot. Lydia died. She and Ham and Madeline were caught in addition to me. Ham and Madeline escaped. Eventually, I did too. If only we could bring Lydia back, this whole story could have a happy ending, but despite losing her, we still beat the odds. And, to add to it, I'm not pregnant. So, the way I see it, there's nothing to dwell on. It's all over and done with!"

As if to punctuate her point, the shower water in the bathroom stopped running, and moments later, Katie emerged, dressed for bed. Robin let out a sad sigh, shaking her head.

"It's not over and done with, Polly. You'll see. I just want you to know that if you ever feel you need to talk to me about anything...and I mean...anything..., I'll be here for you."

Don't hold your breath.

Once Katie was tucked into bed, Robin made her departure, finally leaving Polly alone. The dark surrounded her, nearly suffocating her in it's closeness. As her eyelids fluttered closed and sleep overcame her, the nightmare awaited her.

Polly would never truely be alone again.

Diana had seen to it.

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