Michael and Trevor exchanged a glance that sent a chill down Liz's spine.
"If the Stones are returned to the home planet, it's over," Trevor said with a serious doomsday tone. "Without them we have no chance of shattering the consciousness."
"Then we have to keep Max from finding them," Alex said, rubbing his hands together. "Simple, right?"
"Yeah, but you haven't seen what Max can do when the consciousness has control of him," Liz said, her stomach feeling as heavy as lead as she remembered how consciousness Max had once brutally attacked DuPris. "He's… dangerous."
Isabel dropped her head into her hands, and Liz immediately wished she hadn't said anything. She knew it was hard for Isabel to hear everyone talk about her brother like this. But it was all, unfortunately, true. And it wasn't Max's fault.
"Then we need two teams," Alex said as he leaned back in his chair. "One team will keep working on a way to annihilate the consciousness, and the other…"
"The other can hang with Max and take him on a wild-goose chase," Maria finished, perking up slightly. "We can make the consciousness believe we want to help it find the Stones and keep it distracted."
"We are so on the same wavelength," Alex said, crunching into a nacho.
"Huh. Go figure," Michael said, rubbing his chin.
"What?" Alex asked, his brow scrunching up.
"You two came up with a good plan," Michael deadpanned. "Didn't think it was possible."
"Oh, very funny," Maria said.
"I'll be on the distract-the-consciousness team," Liz volunteered, raising her hand to shoulder level.
"I've got to be on the other one," Trevor said, leaning his elbows on the table. "No way would the consciousness accept that I'd be willing to give it the Stones." He took a sip of his Lime Warp and grimaced.
Michael tossed him a couple of packets of hot sauce. "I'll work with you on trying to figure out what we can do with the two Stones we have."
"Just give me a chance to sew some sequins on a leotard, and you can call me your lovely assistant," Maria volunteered. She glanced at Liz. "Unless you want to switch," she said. "I get the feeling the consciousness wasn't exactly, um, nice to you."
Best-friend telepathy. It almost never fails, Liz thought. "Thanks. But I keep thinking about that day in the hangar, when Max was Max again, totally Max, just for those few seconds. If that happens again, I want to be there."
God, did she want to be there. She needed something from the real Max to make her stop thinking about what had happened that morning.
"I do, too," Isabel said quickly. Liz knew that the two of them were thinking exactly the same thing-please, please, please let me have one real moment with Max.
"So, Michael's the only one who knows where the Stones are, huh?" Trevor asked Maria. They sat side by side on the hood of Michael's big old Cadillac, waiting for him to teleport back to the desert so they could get to work.
"Yeah, I guess he figured it was safer that way," Maria answered, coughing as the wind kicked up a sand cloud all around them.
At least it's nothing personal, Trevor thought. It's not as if Michael told everyone except me. Although Trevor wouldn't be surprised if that's how it had gone down. He knew helping kill DuPris had gone a long way toward winning back Michael's trust. But he wasn't sure if his brother had gotten over the fact that Trevor had used their relationship to try to get close enough to one of the Stones so he could bring it to DuPris, back when Trevor still thought DuPris was almost a god.
"You look like him, you know?" Maria commented, leaning back a little so she could study his face. "Same eyes. Same hands. Same basic build. You even have some of the same expressions-like the raising-one-eyebrow thing."
Trevor raised one eyebrow at her, and she smiled. "Looking like him, that seems to be a good thing by earth standards."
"Oh yeah," Maria said. Then a faint blush colored her cheeks. Trevor always noticed stuff like that-blushes, teary eyes, rapid breathing. The way the human body responded to emotion fascinated him, although the sensations could be almost creepy when he felt them happening to himself. "I think I see him coming back," she added, jerking her chin toward a mesquite bush.
"You're right," Trevor agreed. He could see a network of veins forming. Blood began to rush through them, then muscle and bone began appearing, followed by the internal organs until Michael's body was whole again except for two empty eye sockets.
"This is the part that makes me eww," Maria confessed, shuddering slightly as she squeezed her eyes shut.
"Something about me makes you eww?" Michael asked as his gray eyes solidified.
"Many things," Maria answered, peeking to make sure Michael was all intact.
Why don't I believe that? Trevor thought, catching the little swirls of pleasure that had appeared in Maria's aura as Michael teased her.
"So I have the Stones. Now what do we do?" Michael asked, slapping his hands against his dusty jeans.
Trevor shrugged. "Basically we're trying to find a way to boost their power," he answered. "But I have no idea how."
"Maybe we could each hold a Stone and then connect, and see if the two Stones are more powerful when they're linked through the connection," Michael suggested.
"First you'd have to see how powerful they are when you use them together unconnected," Maria said. She slid off the hood and grinned. "Hey, I sounded like Liz for a second. Go, science girl."
She's so adorable, Trevor thought. So bouncy. Bouncy hair, bouncy personality He shot a glance at his brother. What was the guy's problem? Didn't he notice how attractive Maria was?
"Maybe we should whip up some kind of weather thing," Michael suggested, looking around the empty desert. "It's not like many people come out here, but just in case someone noticed, at least there would be a natural explanation."
"Sounds good to me," Trevor answered, hopping off the car.
"Your lovely assistant, Maria, agrees," Maria said with a little curtsy.
"I'll go first." Michael pulled one of the Stones out of his pocket. It began to glow with a purple-green light, a light that intensified every second. He stretched out his hand, aiming the Stone away from them.
The desert sand began to swirl, forming a tall column. The column began to whirl, dragging more sand into it.
"I don't know if this was such a good idea," Maria shouted as a large boulder got sucked into the tornado.
The funnel of spinning sand expanded. Trevor felt it sucking the ground out from under his feet, greedy for even more mass.
"Michael! The car!" Maria cried, panicked.
Trevor jerked around just in time to see the Cadillac fly into the air and whip into the funnel. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he staggered over to Maria and grabbed her wrist. Images of a man's face, a chocolate cake, and a piece of wood with a wicked-looking nail in it flashed through his mind as he made the connection. He used his powers to make both their bodies heavier, anchoring them to the ground.
Maria's hair slashed into his face, each strand like a wire whip in the furious wind. He could see her screaming something, but he couldn't hear a word.