"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 planning to go out to the cave today."
"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 announced when they hit the parking lot. She trotted to the driver's side and scrambled behind the wheel before Max had a chance to respond. Alex nudged Liz toward the shotgun seat, then climbed in the back. If anyone was going to have to share a seat with a dangerous alien contingency, it was going to be him. The Max thing got in beside him.
"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.
"Then we realized that we could use the ocean as a way to fully test the combined power of the Stones," Trevor continued.
"The bad news is, forming a connection and using the Stones together didn't give us much more juice than each of us using the Stones separately," Michael added. He adjusted his weight on his leg so it wasn't pressing into the side of the hood ornament.
"Which means we're looking for another way to boost the Stones' power," Maria said.
"Yeah," Michael agreed.
"Yeah," Trevor repeated.
Silence descended. Too bad none of them had a clue how to do it.
Michael stretched out on the hood, staring up at the sky as if looking for inspiration. Maria tried not to look at the strip of naked stomach that Michael's scrunched-up shirt was now exposing. It gave her a certain kind of inspiration, but definitely not the kind she needed.
Stones. She needed to be thinking about the Stones. How could they be enhanced?
Maria forced her gaze away from Michael and over to Trevor. "I guess it wouldn't help for you two to connect with me? I mean, I can add a little bit of energy, but probably not enough."
"Probably not," Trevor answered, but he said it in a nice way. Maria was liking Michael's brother more and more as she got to know him. But as similar as he and Michael were, Trevor just didn't get to her the way Michael did. Looking at Trevor was enjoyable. Looking at Michael was almost meltdown inducing.
"Wait. Wait. That almost made me think of something." Michael sat up fast.
"What?" Trevor asked.
"Almost made?" Maria chimed in.
"Shut up," Michael snapped at them, running his fingers through his black hair until it was spikier than ever. "Just wait. I got this flash of a thing. An idea."
Trevor gave Maria the raised-eyebrow look. She gave it back, but she had to use her fingers to make her eyebrow go as high as his did.
"Okay, connecting with Maria is a stupid idea. It would hardly do anything," Michael burst out.
"That's been established, thank you very much," Maria muttered, blushing for no reason.
Michael ignored her and turned to Trevor. "But what if the two of us connected to Max? It might take the power of all three Stones to shatter the consciousness from the outside. But if we link to Max, we link to the consciousness, and then we'd be using the power of the two Stones from the inside."
Maria's stomach dropped. Destroying something from inside Max didn't sound appealing to her.
"It could work," Trevor answered slowly "The consciousness might be much more vulnerable from the inside. But there's no way of testing your theory. Max is the only being on earth connected to the consciousness."
"What's the downside of trying it?" Maria asked, hoping they might see how dangerous this could be. "I mean, do you have any idea if the consciousness could sense what was happening and… retaliate?"