The Salvation

"Yeah. Exactly," Alex said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Is that something that's important to you-a good sense of humor?" Because that would be great, he thought. Maria didn't make hilarious jokes or anything. In fact, she usually made really lame ones. But she was always finding something to laugh at, and that was the best kind of sense of humor, if you asked him.

Michael licked a smear of whipped cream off his top lip and shook his head. "Hasn't it completely sunk in that pretty much any girl in school would go out with you if you looked at her cross-eyed?" he demanded. "You don't have to suck up with some sensitive-guy list on your web page. Those days are over, my friend."

"I wasn't-" Alex began to protest.

Michael slammed his locker shut. "Gotta go. I'm meeting up with Trevor and Maria. Good luck to you and the B team." He strode off down the hall.

"You guys are the B team," Alex called after him, then shrugged and headed out to the parking lot. Liz and Isabel were already waiting for him in the Jeep. He swung himself into the back. "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work-" Alex stopped himself. "Sorry. Pulled another Maria. I can't get Snow White out of my head."

"Oh, just so you know," Liz said as Isabel pulled out of the parking lot. "Maria said if she ever heard you use that expression again, she was going to use your head for a planter. For an herb garden or something."

"The truth hurts-that's her problem," Alex answered, stretching out his arms and resting them on top of the backseat. "I brought some cards. I thought we could play poker if Max-" He stopped himself. "And yes, folks, your eyes didn't deceive you, that was his foot going into his mouth for a second time."

"Yeah. Watch it. Or the expression will quickly become pulling an Alex," Isabel warned, glancing at him in the rearview mirror as her blond hair whipped around her face.

Alex decided to keep his mouth shut the rest of the way to the UFO museum. Liz and Isabel didn't bother trying to make conversation, either. There was obviously some mental gearing up happening on both their parts as they prepared for the Max encounter.

It wasn't exactly a picnic for Alex to see Max in his comaesque state. But Max wasn't his brother. He wasn't the love of Alex's life. It just didn't rip him up inside in the same way it did Isabel and Liz. Both of them were walking wounded.

"Hi ho, hi ho," Isabel said sarcastically as she pulled into the museum parking lot.

"You want me to just run upstairs and check on him?" Alex asked, looking up toward Michael's apartment. "If he's still out, I could give him the speech about wanting to find the Stones for him-in case anybody in there's listening-then we could go to Flying Pepperoni for a while and do another check later."

"I want to see him," Isabel said, unlatching her seat belt. "Now."

"So do I," Liz insisted. They each gave him a semi-disgusted look, then climbed out of the Jeep.

"Okay, okay. Just a suggestion." The girls had guts. No taking the easy way for either of them, Alex thought as he followed them up the outside staircase leading to the apartment.

"The TVs on!" Isabel cried when she reached the front door. She jerked it open and ran into the living room. Max was sitting on the floor, eyes focused on the set.

"Hey, you're awake! Who kissed you?" Alex called as he burst into the room. His heart felt like it was on an elevator going up. Max was the center of their group, the backbone, the leader, the… Alex couldn't come up with another one. His brain was on overload. Max was the Max.

"Max!" Liz exclaimed. "What happened? Are you okay?"

He didn't turn his head. Alex's internal elevator was going straight down, no stops. Something was very wrong.

"Did you find the Stones?" Max asked, finally looking over at them. His blue eyes were alert. But there was something missing.

"It's not him," Liz said, her voice low and strained.

Alex gave a quick nod to let her know he got it. "Not yet," he told the consciousness. "We're pla

"We talked it over, and we think there's a good chance Michael stashed them there," Isabel added, her voice sounding normal even though her entire body was rigid. "Not that he would tell us or anything."

"Let's go," the consciousness said through Max. Clearly it was accessing his knowledge of the language and of earth itself. Alex hoped it was careful as it went digging through Max's brain. Who knew what kind of damage it could do in there?

"The Jeep's right downstairs," Alex answered. All we have to do is keep the consciousness entertained, he reminded himself. When we don't find the Stones at the cave, we'll just drive it somewhere else-anywhere else.

"Good." The Max thing rose to its feet and headed for the door. Alex, Isabel, and Liz exchanged wary looks but silently followed.

"I'm driving," Isabel a

"Hey, Max, we have Trevor taking your place at home," Isabel said as she drove through town, heading for the highway. "I think Mom and Dad like him a little more than they do you." She shot a fierce glance over her shoulder at Max's face. Alex didn't have to check to see if she'd shocked some kind of reaction out of the real Max. Isabel's devastated expression gave him the answer. She turned back to the road and sped up.

"Max, look! UFOnics!" Liz called out, her voice high and too loud. "Remember that time that I went there with Jerry Cifarelli and you were jealous and you changed your face and went in so you could spy on us?" She twisted around, gripping the roll bar in both hands. "Remember, Max?" Her voice broke on his name, but she kept going, taking her turn at trying to jar Max free. "And it didn't work because you forgot to change your eyes, and so I knew it was you. Remember?"

The anti-Max turned to Alex, ignoring Liz. "If the Stones aren't in the cave, where do we try next?"

Alex wished he could head butt Max for the pain he'd just caused Isabel and Liz. But he couldn't hurt the consciousness by hurting Max's body, not much, anyway

"We could do a day trip to Carlsbad Caverns," Alex suggested. "Maybe even a weekend thing. It's huge, so searching it could take some time."

Alex struggled to remember some factoid about the caverns. "There's one room-that's what they call the different parts of the caverns-rooms-named the Hall of Giants," he volunteered. "It has some really tall rock formations in it… which is why it's named the Hall of Giants."

The Max thing twisted its lips in a condescending smile. Bring it on, Alex thought, ready to babble all night if that's what it took to keep the consciousness occupied. And make it leave Liz and Isabel alone.

"Let's see if I've got this right-while I was driving the car home yesterday, you two were frolicking in the ocean," Maria said. She slid off the hood of the Cadillac and glared from Michael to Trevor and back, trying not to let herself get distracted by the image of said wet-male frolicking.

"Not frolicking," Trevor told her, absentmindedly drawing in the desert sand with the toe of his work boot as he leaned against the car. "Like we said, we were able to test the power of the Stones by using them to heat up the water in the ocean. At first we just did a little section."

"So you could frolic," Maria shot back, noticing what Trevor had drawn in the sand was a big, curling wave.