The Salvation

TWELVE

Michael could feel his cheeks rippling from the force of the wormhole as the straps of the safety harness cut into his chest and stomach.

"Still green?" he shouted to Trevor. His brother was only a foot away from him, but the horrible sucking sound of the open hole made it almost impossible to hear anything else.

"Still green," Trevor yelled back.

Crap. Shouldn't it have gone to red by now? What if the whole thing was a bust? Oh, just shut the hell up, he ordered himself. He forced his head to turn toward Trevor, fighting the pull of the wormhole. His brother's eyes were intent on the remote. Michael couldn't see the indicator light, but it didn't matter. Watching Trevor was just as effective. When Michael saw relief flood Trevor's face, he knew what had happened even before Trevor let out a triumphant cry of, "Red!"

Show time. Michael pointed his Stone into the wormhole and let it rip, full strength. The purple-green light flared around him in a huge circle. It was all he could see. It was almost as if he started to become the light. His body began to feel like pure, pulsing energy-all heat and electricity-instead of flesh and bone. He wouldn't be surprised if he started to glow himself or if his veins had been converted into wires, his neurons into circuits.

"Michael, are you all right?" he heard Isabel ask. Her voice sounded like a whisper, although Michael was sure she was screaming her lungs out. "Michael, can you answer me?" she whispered again.

The name Michael sounded strange to him. Almost meaningless. How could he answer her? He was a conduit. He'd thought maybe his body was becoming filled with wires, but now he realized his whole body was one big wire. Its only function was to allow the power of the Stone to surge into the wormhole. Michael felt less alive and more alive than he ever had, all at once.

"Will we know when it happens?" Alex shout whispered.

Michael didn't attempt to answer. He didn't even know the answer. He let the energy slam through him, shoving away any impulse to resist. His legs began to twitch, then his arms, then his fingers. His eyelids fluttered. And he felt his hair stand on end. Then his heart began to beat erratically, stuttering, almost stopping, stuttering again.

Was he even still holding on to the Stone? He couldn't feel it in his hand. He couldn't feel his hand at all. But he couldn't have dropped it, or the power would have stopped pounding through him.

Michael tried to tighten his fingers around the Stone. If he let it go now, it could destroy the plan. Had his fingers moved? Had the message made its way from his brain? He had no way of knowing.

"Need help holding it," he managed to gasp out.

He was sure no one had been able to hear him, but a moment later he felt an Isabel infusion in the blast of power. It added a delicate flavor to the energy, very faint, but distinct.

"Alex, help Trevor," Isabel cried, her voice still sounding so soft.

"Got it," Alex answered.

Michael felt the power slacken slightly. The ball of purple-green light around him grew the tiniest bit less brilliant. He could feel his bones inside him again, although they felt as insubstantial as jelly.

The power of the Stone is starting to run out, he realized. And the consciousness hadn't shattered. At least he didn't think it had. They would have to be able to feel the impact of something that cataclysmic coming at them through the hole. Wouldn't they?

The purple-green light faded some more. Michael could see the hole again. They'd battened down the museum as well as they could, but one of the display cases was spinning around in midair, getting sucked into the hole. A mobile of the universe was right behind it, planets jerking wildly on their wires.

Michael reached out and grabbed Trevor's wrist. He had complete control over his own body again, although he had to strain against the pressure of the wormhole. Instantly a connection formed between him and his brother. He could feel Alex in the connection. And Maria.

Very faintly he heard the music of their connection begin, lacking something without Max and Liz. Without Adam. But still something that Michael could feel with a physical force. He pulled in a deep breath, taking in the perfume of their combined connection scents, feeling more strength return to him.

Alex threw out an image of a runner bursting through a finish line. Michael threw the image right back at him, following it up with as much energy as he could pull out of himself. Isabel zapped it out again. Then Maria. Then Trevor. Then Alex again. Then Michael. Until there was a whole marathon of runners crashing through the tape together. United. Strong. Winners.

"On three," he shouted. "One. Two. Three." They combined the power of their connection with the fading power of the Stones, and the sound of a billion voices filled the air. The voices became the air. Became the ground under Michael's feet, the wall behind his back. Those voices became the world. Michael couldn't make out any individual words. They were all in a language he didn't understand.

But he understood the emotions. There was fear. And fury. And relief. And joy.

"Elvis has left the building," a voice said in his ear, a voice filled with warmth. It was Ray. Michael could feel Ray's aura briefly blending with his, although he couldn't see it, in a final good-bye.

Then two new auras wrapped themselves around Michaels. There was no anger in them. And although he could feel a trace of sorrow, the overwhelming emotion that filled Michael was love-of being loved by these two beings he'd never met.

"Our parents," Trevor said. But Michael would have known that even if Trevor hadn't spoken. Michael wanted to soak up every bit of this feeling, keep it with him forever. He closed his eyes and realized there were tears on his lashes.

"Don't go," he whispered when he felt the two auras begin to slip away from his. He heard a few of the strange words in his ears, felt the love intensify until he felt like a little bit of it had been burned into his heart. Then the auras were gone. Another good-bye.

Michael's eyes snapped open as a thought exploded into his brain. Where was Max? Oh, God, where was Max? Was Michael going to feel his aura next? Was that going to be the last good-bye?

Liz stretched out on top of Max, pinning his body to the floor with hers so they wouldn't be sucked into the wormhole in the kitchen. She stared down at his face through the whipping curtain of her long hair. His blue eyes were still empty. Nothing she'd tried had gotten even a flicker of response from him.

She pressed her lips down on his slack mouth, kissing him as deeply and passionately as she could. Again there was no response.

"Max, please. Come back to me," she begged. "I love you so much, I don't even have the words to explain it. No one has invented the words for the way I love you. It would have to be some kind of chemical formula that would take a million blackboards or something."

Liz kissed him again. Then her mouth slipped. Her chin hit the floor. So did her body. Max-Max had disappeared, his molecules disbursing so quickly, Liz hadn't even been aware of it happening.

"Max," she cried. "Oh, Max, no!" She lifted her head and stared around the room as if she'd find him leaning up against one of the walls, smiling at her in that way that only Max had ever smiled at her, the way he never smiled at anyone but her. "Max!" she shouted again.

And in her mind his voice answered. "Even if my molecules were spread out from here to whatever galaxy my home planet is in, that wouldn't stop me. All my molecules would be like little homing pigeons. They'd all zoom to you, and then I'd re-form."

It was the voice of memory, something Max had said to her in a conversation long ago. Liz had told him his theory was romantic, but not scientific.

"But maybe that's what the love formula would be," she whispered. "Maybe love is the strongest bond between molecules, not something like shared electrons." She stretched her arms out in front of her and put her head down again, forced to keep her body flat so she wouldn't be pulled toward the hole. If she could somehow split her own body into molecules, maybe each of them could find one of Max's and bond with it. Even if she never got her body back, she'd be with Max. There was nothing more important than that.

But she wasn't an alien. She had no powers. She couldn't break herself into molecules without help.

I've got to try, she decided. She remembered how Max had discovered he could scatter his molecules. He'd been connected to the consciousness, and the beings had been exploring his memories. He'd said he'd felt like he was dissolving, and then it happened-his body had began to disappear as the molecules flew apart.

Liz conjured up the first memory that came to her-Max healing her. She envisioned throwing the memory out into the universe, as far away from her body as she could get it. Then she remembered kissing Rosa's cool cheek as she lay in her coffin, the smell of her sister's too heavy mortuary makeup strong in Liz's nostrils. She threw that out, too.

She didn't hold back anything. She had no shame. No pride. No secrets. She flung out the memory of getting her period for the first time-standing in the shower and thinking for a minute that she had some horrible disease and that a doctor was going to have to look at her down there. She flung out the memory of lying to her mama about stealing a little toy truck from a toy store when she was four. She let go of every thought she'd had about Max, good and bad. Every fantasy she'd had about him, even the ones she could hardly believe had come out of her own mind.

Liz released the memory of Maria's kitten scratching her lip when Liz was using a piece of string to play with it. She released the raw fury at her papa that she was shocked to find still had a place in her heart.

Her body began to feel lighter. She didn't lift her head to see if anything was happening. She kept calling up the memories, then letting them go. Calling them up, letting them go. Feeling the power of gravity release her. Feeling her heart stop beating. Feeling her lungs stop taking in air.

And then blackness.

And then silvery light.

Liz didn't even know how she was seeing the light. For she had no eyes. No body. No way to sense anything. But somehow she was experiencing silvery light.

The light shattered into silvery splinters, and Liz realized they were stars. She was surrounded by them.

Maybe we're the binary pair we saw that night out in the desert. Liz didn't know how she heard the words, any more than she knew how she was the stars. But she knew the words were from Max.

The closest star expanded and took on a new shape. Max. A shining silver Max. He reached out and touched her face with his glittery fingers, and she realized she did have a body after all, or at least she did now-a body like his, more glow than substance.

She pulled him to her, embraced him, never wanting to let him go. For an instant their bodies became one blinding star, then separated into the glowing forms again.

We need to get back. The others might need us, Max communicated soundlessly.

Liz laughed, feeling the laughter but not hearing it. You're still Mr. Responsible. It's one-one of the many-things I love about you.

Yeah, I know, Max communicated. I know a lot of things now. We're going to have to… talk about those fantasies you've been having.

Max took her hand. He pointed at a small blue ball far below them. Earth. Then Liz felt her molecules dissolve again, dissolve and mix with Max's.

"Oh, my God! Look!" Maria cried over the sound of the wormhole. "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

"Max!" Isabel exclaimed.

"I guess I am!" Maria shouted. This was… phenomenal. That was the only word for it. Max and Liz had teleported into the museum, arms wrapped around each other, looking so happy, so love struck, that they almost glowed. Without letting go of each other, they stumbled toward the wall where Maria and the others had strapped themselves. They squeezed in between Maria and Isabel.

Maria grabbed Liz around the waist and held on tight to keep her from being sucked into the hole. She snagged a piece of Max's shirt with her other hand, and he smiled at her, his eyes bright and alert and Max-ified.

"Hi, everyone," he yelled.

"You guys are late. We've pretty much done everything without you," Michael shouted. Even through the noise Maria could hear the raw relief in his voice.

"We're not going to be able to keep the hole open much longer," Trevor shouted.

Maria felt like Trevor had picked up a baseball bat and bashed her over the head with it. The joy at seeing Max back, whole and just him, gushed out of her like blood from a wound. She was still happy for him and Liz in an intellectual sort of way. Ecstatic, really, even though she couldn't feel the ecstasy right now.

How could she? Michael was going to leave. And any chance Maria had of ever experiencing that Max-and-Liz kind of love was going with him. Maria knew she'd never love anyone else the way she loved Michael. It was impossible.

"Isabel?" Trevor called out. "Are you coming?"

Isabel wrapped her arms tighter around Max, her fingers brushing Maria's.

"I can't," she answered. "My family is here. My whole family." She smiled at Maria. "I can't leave."

Trevor unfastened the straps holding him to the wall. He wrapped one of them around his fist to keep him from flying into the wormhole immediately.

"Isabel, I… I'll come back. I don't know how long it will take, but I promise I will."

"Yeah," Michael shouted. He unfastened his straps and grabbed onto Trevors shoulder. "Let's go!"

That's it? Maria thought. That's it? He said one word to all of us. One yeah. And that's it?

She knew she should feel angry. But she didn't feel anything. She was sure she'd never feel anything ever again. How could she? Her heart was broken.