The Vanished

ONE

Michael Guerin caught a whiff of something fresh and tangy. The smell of the ocean. God, he loved that smell.

Yeah, but do you love it because you love the ocean? he asked himself. Or do you love it because it's the way Cameron smells?

He ignored himself. He needed to get some sleep. And thinking about Cameron Winger was like chain drinking fifty cups of coffee. It made him feel like all his nerves were vibrating.

The ocean scent grew stronger. And Michael's nerves started vibrating faster, generating an electric current that raced through his body. Cameron was here. In his room, in his bedroom. He was sure of it.

Before he could sit up, he felt her arm slip around his waist, felt her breath warm against the back of his neck. Cameron wasn't just in his bedroom. She was in his bed.

He used to fantasize about exactly this when he was lying in his cell in the Clean Slate compound, held prisoner by Sheriff Valenti. The fantasies kept him sane in there. Kept him from thinking about exactly what the Clean Slate crew planned to do with him after they learned everything they could about his powers.

But those fantasies all took place before he found out the truth about Cameron. That was before he found out that she wasn't just another prisoner in the compound. She was working for Valenti, and her job was to get Michael to give her the names of the other aliens living in Roswell.

Was he just supposed to forget that Cameron had betrayed him? Was he just supposed to what-roll over and start kissing her or something?

Yes, you big idiot! his body screamed at him. Yes! Do it. Do it now!

"Can't you even look at me?" Cameron asked softly. "You haven't actually looked at me for days."

It was true. He avoided looking at her because when he looked at her, he wanted her. And starting up something with Cameron again didn't seem like the smartest idea.

Cameron pulled her arm away. The mattress dipped as she slid to the edge of the bed.

"I guess I thought risking my life for you and your friends would mean…" Her words trailed off. "My mistake."

Michael shoved himself up into a sitting position and leaned against the headboard. He shot a quick glance at Cameron. She was facing away from him, and the curve of her neck under that short red hair of hers almost annihilated him. There was something about that short-as-an-army-guy hair that made the rest of her look even more female.

"It did mean something," Michael told her. "We probably wouldn't have gotten out of there alive without you."

It was true. Cameron had risked her life to help them escape from Elsevan DuPris, an enemy who had proven himself to be much more dangerous than Sheriff Valenti and Project Clean Slate. Cameron knew DuPris was an alien with powers exponentially stronger than Michael's and the others', but that hadn't stopped her from hurling herself at DuPris unarmed. Totally defenseless.

"But?" Cameron asked.

But Michael's problem was figuring out which was the real Cameron. The girl who betrayed him. Or the girl who saved his life.

He sighed. If he was going to try and explain that to her, he had to at least look her in the eye. Even if it caused some kind of electrical fire inside him.

Michael reached out and pulled Cameron around to face him. And then he screamed. He couldn't help himself.

It wasn't Cameron sitting there. Not anymore. It was DuPris.

"Wake up, Michael," DuPris told him. "You're a whole different species than that… girl. A superior species. Don't taint yourself."

What did DuPris want? He couldn't have taken on Cameron's appearance just to give Michael advice on his love life.

"Wake up, Michael," DuPris repeated. But it didn't sound like DuPris anymore. It sounded like Max Evans, Michael's best friend.

Michael felt a pair of hands shaking him, although DuPris hadn't touched him. DuPris wasn't even in the room anymore.

What the hell?

"I know you need your beauty sleep, but you have to wake up," Max's voice insisted.

Michael jerked upright and opened his eyes. "Thanks," he mumbled. "I was having a heinous nightmare. Cameron turned into DuPris and-" He shook his head. "You get the idea."

"Nasty," Max said. He stepped back, and Michael noticed for the first time that the rest of the group was there, too. Max's sister, Isabel, hovered by the bedroom door along with Liz Ortecho, Maria DeLuca, and Adam.

For a moment Michael wondered what he'd done to earn the honor of a group wake-up call, but then he groggily recalled the plan.

They were supposed to go out to the ruins of the Project Clean Slate compound to find their ship-the one DuPris had crashed back in 1947, killing Michael's and Max's and Isabel's parents… and Adam's. For years Michael had searched for the ship. Then just a few weeks ago he and his friends had discovered that Project Clean Slate, an organization dedicated to tracking down and possibly disposing of alien life on earth, had been hiding it in their secret compound for decades.

Unfortunately, Michael had only discovered the ship because Sheriff Valenti had trapped him in the compound. Michael's friends had stormed the place and broken him out, and the compound was destroyed in the process. The upside was Valenti and the rest of the Clean Slate crew were history. Ashes. Vapor. The enemy had been obliterated.

The downside was the ship might be history, too.

"So, the gang's all here," Michael said. "If I could get a little privacy, I'll get dressed and then we'll hit the road." Then he noticed the silence and the worried looks on his friends' faces. "What's up?" he asked.

Nobody replied, and a sick feeling twisted Michael's stomach. Somebody's missing, he realized, the first wings of panic fluttering in his chest. And it's not Alex…

Sadly, Michael had already gotten somewhat used to the lack of Alex Manes's bright orange aura in their group. A few days had passed since Alex had been mistakenly pulled through the wormhole that Max had opened to their home planet. Max had been trying to send DuPris back there, but DuPris had tricked them all, and now DuPris was free and Alex was in a galaxy far, far, far away. And who knew how the beings felt about having a human tourist.

"It's Cameron," Maria said quietly, pushing a stray blond curl behind her ear.

Michael was out of bed in an instant. Without bothering to pull a pair of jeans over his boxers, he rushed into the living room and over to the pile of flattened beanbags where Cameron Winger had been crashing for the past few nights. It was vacant. Michael put his hand on the cushion closest to him and found it cold. Cameron had left hours ago.

He spun to face Adam. "Did you see her leave?"

He, Adam, and Cameron had all been staying in Ray Iburg's apartment. They figured Ray wouldn't have minded. Before he died, he'd been kind of a mentor to Michael, Max, and Isabel, the only adult survivor of the Roswell Incident crash.

At least that's what they'd all thought until Elsevan DuPris revealed the truth about himself.

"I was asleep," Adam answered, his green eyes dark with sympathy.

Max cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, man," he said, placing his hand on Michael's shoulder.

For a moment Michael was surprised to feel how weak Max's grip was. But it made sense, with all he'd been through recently.

"It's okay," Michael said, taking a deep breath. "It's fine. We have something more important to deal with right now."

He would think about Cameron later. Much later. He wasn't going to let his feelings about some girl stop him from doing what needed to be done. Even some girl who turned him inside out, who betrayed him and saved his life.

If Max could stand up and face the disaster their lives had become, so could Michael. The withered, gray spots that had appeared on Max's face and neck after he'd opened the wormhole had faded, but he still had to be seriously exhausted. Michael was impressed that Max was even standing. His best friend was so painfully inspiring, it made Michael feel uplifted and nauseated all at the same time.

Michael grabbed a pair of pants and a T-shirt off the floor and yanked them on. "What are we waiting for?"

"To the Batmobile!" Maria cried. No one laughed. "Sorry. You know what happens when I get nervous. Brain Jell-O," she muttered.

A few minutes later all six of them were crammed into Max and Isabel's Jeep. Michael sat squashed between Adam and Max in the backseat, with Liz more or less on Max's lap. Maria was riding shotgun, and Isabel was driving.

They zoomed through the flat, strip-mall-lined streets of Roswell toward the desert beyond. The sun blared down on them, and the air over the road shimmered with haze.

"Do you think the ship will still be there?" Maria asked. Her question echoed through the silence in the Jeep like the crack of breaking ice. "I've been trying to imagine it still in the base-to visualize it. Maybe if we all do that, if we all visualize it, it will-"

"What flavor of Jell-O is that in your brain, anyway?" Isabel snapped.

Maria bit her lip and didn't say anything else.

Every muscle in Michaels body tensed. There was a thing between Isabel and Maria lately. And he had a feeling he was the thing. They'd both made a play for him when all he'd been thinking about was Cameron. And even though they'd both backed off, there was still this thing, this little bit of attitude. He was about to tell them to chill, but thankfully, Liz beat him to it.

"Was that necessary?" Liz asked, leaning between the two front seats and glaring at Isabel.

"Maybe," Isabel replied. Her shoulders were stiff, and she stared grimly at the road ahead of them. "I'm just not in the mood for one of Maria's little New Age games. Is that okay with you?"

"No," Liz said. "It's not."

"Everyone calm down," Max interrupted. "We're all worried. But we can't take it out on each other."

"Well, sorry if I'm paying attention to reality," Isabel said. "But did any of you stop to think that when Adam trashed the compound, it might have alerted other people? Like the police… or even worse, the media?"

"First of all," Michael replied, "Adam didn't blow up the Clean Slate compound. DuPris did, when he had control of Adam's body. You should understand that better than anyone, Izzy."

That was because DuPris had taken over Isabel's body, too. Just thinking about it sent a surge of bile up Michael's throat.

"I know," Isabel said. "But that doesn't change the fact that the police, or even a TV crew, could be waiting for us around the next corner."

"The explosion was a few days ago," Liz said. "The media would've been crawling all over Roswell by now if they'd heard anything." She reached back and quickly twisted her long dark hair into a spiral down her back. "I know you're freaked, but that doesn't mean you can just be randomly mean to people."

Isabel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry, Maria," she said quietly. "I'm just in a mood. Don't take it personally."

"It's forgotten," Maria said.

The thing faded. Michael leaned forward slightly. "The ship should be undamaged," he said. "Remember that piece of metal I found out in the desert? The ship is made out of the same stuff, and nothing I did to that scrap hurt it in the least. Not even a blowtorch-"

"The ship's fine," Adam added. "I know for sure."

"Did Valenti have you test it?" Max asked.

"Yeah, we beat that thing up endlessly. Nothing I did ever hurt it at all," Adam replied, staring out the side of the Jeep.

Michael heard the distant tone of Adam's voice and felt a surge of anger. He didn't even like to imagine how Adam had been raised. The late Sheriff Valenti had imprisoned Adam in the underground compound and never let him know that there was anything outside, never taught him anything about the world. Valenti even told Adam that he was Adam's father, which to Michael pretty much defined the word twisted.

It made Michael's childhood shuttling between foster homes look like The Brady Bunch.

Maria peered over the back of her seat at Adam. "So the ship could be fine," she said. "It could have survived DuPris nuking the place. All we have to do is dig it up, hop in, and zip off to get Alex and bring him back."

Michael glanced at Max, and the concerned, caged look in his best friend's eyes told him Max was thinking the same thing he was-if only it were that easy.

"Even if the ship's okay, we've still got to figure out how to fly it," Michael said. "Then if we manage that-"

"We still don't know how to get there," Max broke in. "I mean, I could get general instructions and directions by linking to the collective consciousness, but there's a big difference between being told how to do something and actually doing it. None of us has a clue about space travel. What if the flight takes years?"

Maria's eyes were wide. "Yeah, but it's possible, right?"

"We wouldn't be coming back out here if it wasn't," Isabel replied.

It's possible, Michael thought. It just isn't very likely.

But he wasn't about to squash Maria's hopes-and the hopes of everyone in the Jeep-by saying that out loud.

Hope was all they had left.

"We've arrived," Isabel said, slowing the Jeep to a crawl. She pulled up alongside a massive stretch of ground that was so burned, it gleamed like onyx, the rocks in the soil fused into a glassy sheen by the blast of Adam's energy. Make that Adam's energy combined with and controlled by DuPris's.

The six of them clambered out. "It's under there," Adam said. He pointed to a section near the center, staring at the ground as if he could see through it. "Deep."

Max led the way, kicking at the scorched sand. "Looks like we're in for some serious digging."

"We didn't bring shovels," Maria said, raising her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun.

"We've got us," Isabel replied, locking eyes with Michael.

Maria blushed. "Oh, right. The not-quite-human bulldozers."

"I'm still weak," Max said. "I don't know how much use I'll be-"

"The four of us can connect," Michael interrupted him. "Well get it done faster that way."

Liz turned to Maria. "Come on," she said. "Let's go keep watch."

"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" Maria said with a little salute. "Always wanted to do that," she said, grinning.

Michael smiled. Even in a situation as tense as this one, Maria always managed to do something that lightened his mood.

Isabel, Adam, Max, and Michael linked hands, forming a circle, and the connection was instantaneous. The four of them were one. Michael felt their auras flood through him, mingling with his own brick red energy. Isabel's rich purple blended with Max's emerald green, and then Adam's yellow aura shot through the mixture like a powerful blast of pure sunlight. Together they composed their combined force into a sturdy dark brown reservoir of power. Their individual scents-Michael's eucalyptus, Max's cedar, Isabel's cinnamon, and Adam's innocent smell of green leaves-intermingled to create a no-nonsense odor of burning wood. They focused their energy toward the molecules of the scorched dirt in front of them.

Michael felt power leap from them as they began to unravel the fused atoms of the blasted ground. It was tough going. The energy of Adam's earlier attack had sealed the soil into a dense blacktop, and that material was extremely difficult to break apart.

Then Adam released an image into their combined selves. It showed the group sharpening their energy to slice between the molecules rather than pulling them apart like a loaf of bread. Michael had never tried that before, but since Adam knew how, now Michael knew how. In a moment they had managed to cut open the crust and peel it back in a long strip.

Underneath, the dirt was crumbly and dry and much easier to move. They pushed it up the sides of the opening they'd made so that the soil gathered like an anthill.

Max was starting to leak images of his bedroom along with a general sense of weariness. He wouldn't be able to keep this up much longer. Michael sent him a strong boost of energy, diverting some of his force from the task at hand.

Foot by foot, the wide cone of dirt grew around the deepening hole. Chunks of wood and cement came flying up along with the dust of plaster as they tunneled through the crushed roof of the hangar. Never breaking the connection, they all walked forward until they were standing on the lip of the hole, peering downward at the churning vortex. And then Michael saw it-they all saw it-the smooth, dark metallic gray crescent of the ship's hull. The unearthly metal gleamed and rippled in the sunlight as if it were alive.

Keep going, Michael urged Isabel, Max, and Adam. We're almost there. He tried to calm his excitement, which would only break his concentration.

"A car!" Liz called.

"Someone's coming!" Maria shouted.

Michael dropped Isabel's and Adam's hands and wheeled around to look. In the distance a plume of dust was rising over the dirt road, heading their way.

"Back to the Jeep!" Isabel cried. "Now!" She rushed up and over the hill of debris they'd made, and Adam, Max, and Michael scrambled behind her. When he reached the top, Michael spun back and gave the hill a mental shove, which started a small avalanche. He wasn't sure if it would cover the ship, but it was all he had time to do.

Michael turned and ran up to the driver's side door, where he saw that Isabel had already started the Jeep. "I'm driving," he told her.

"There's no way." Isabel fixed him with a look of panic and fierce determination in her blue eyes.

"You're right," Michael said. "You'll be faster." He climbed into the backseat beside Adam.

Maria let out a short scream as the Jeep lurched and screeched over the charred earth around them. Isabel took a sharp turn toward the open desert, and Michael twisted around in his seat to look out the back. In the bright sunlight he couldn't get a good look at the approaching car, but it was close enough to have seen them, and it looked like it was speeding up.

"It's chasing us," Liz reported. "Go faster, Isabel."

"I'm trying!" Isabel called.

"Blow out its tires!" Maria shouted. "Adam, can't you blow out its tires?"

"We're moving too fast for me to aim," Adam answered.

There was no way they could slow down. The car was gaining on them. Michael didn't care who the people in it were. They could be military, police, Clean Slate, reporters-nobody could discover the truth about Michael and his friends. He had to figure a way to protect them-his friends-his family.

"We need cover," Michael said, peering around at the loosely vegetated ground up ahead. Cacti and sagebrush grew in clumps all over the desert floor, and the Jeep was bouncing over them as Isabel sped along. Nothing Michael could see was tall enough to help them hide.

"Behind what?" Isabel argued. "There's nothing around for miles."

"There's got to be a ravine or something," Max said. "Someplace where we can lose them."

"They can see us," Liz said. "How are we going to get far enough ahead of them to lose them anywhere?"

For a second everybody in the Jeep was silent, thinking, as the desert whizzed by outside.

"Got it," Liz said. "Use your powers to whip up a dust storm or something. It'll give us some headway, and it won't even look weird. Dust storms happen out here all the time."

Max gave Liz a quick kiss on the lips. "I knew we kept you around for a reason," he joked. "Do you think we can do it?"

Michael shrugged. "We were just digging. Why not?"

"All right," Max said. "We're going to need all of us for this. Except you, Iz. You keep a lookout for anywhere we can hide for a while."

"Got it," Isabel said.

Michael reached out and took Maria's and Adam's hands while everyone else linked up. Liz and Maria couldn't focus their energy on their own, but adding their amber and sapphire essences to the mix strengthened the group overall. Together they spun the elements of the ground along their trail into motion, whipping the reddish dirt into the air until it clouded behind them in a haze.

It's working! Liz sent the message out to the others. I can't believe it's working.

More, Max urged them. Thicker, darker, more.

Luckily Isabel had located a low path into a wide canyon where the ground was covered with the eroded sand of the rock walls. The fine silt was easy to whirl into the storm they'd created. Michael could no longer see the car chasing them, which meant the mystery driver couldn't see them, either.

Isabel cut a hairpin turn down the flat slope of a dry riverbed off the canyon. The arroyo wound around an outcropping of sculpted tan rock before splitting into two branches.

Isabel careened the Jeep down the branch to the left, and after a hundred yards or so of wild driving, she brought the Jeep up short behind a grove of stubby trees growing at a bend in the arroyo. With the added cover their pursuers just might miss them entirely.

"Keep it up," Isabel said. "I think we lost them, but I don't want to take any chances." She connected into the group through Maria, adding her anxious energy to the mix.

Michael continued to concentrate on keeping the dirt molecules in motion, but it was draining. Other questions kept intruding, questions he shared with his friends through their link.

Who was that chasing us? Obviously whoever was in the other car didn't just stumble on the compound, or they wouldn't have raced to follow them.

So who was it?

And what exactly did they want?

Time to call home, Max thought. After cleaning the dusty day off his body in the shower, Max lay in bed, propped up by pillows. He was ready to go to sleep, but first he wanted to make a connection to the collective consciousness.

Max hadn't linked in since he'd combined power with the consciousness to open the wormhole. Building that passage had exhausted him nearly to the point of death, and tonight was the first time he'd felt strong enough to even make an attempt at connecting.

In truth, it had been a relief to take a break from visiting the collective consciousness over the past few days. The billions of voices demanding information from him could be overpowering.

But he thought he felt up to connecting tonight.

Max closed his eyes. Breathed in a shaky but deep breath. Let himself relax.

Let himself reach out.

Let himself open up.

The ocean of auras that made up the consciousness was waiting for him, expecting him. Max plunged into the chaos of intertwined beings and was inundated by questioning images.

There was a new ripple of disturbance in the collective perceptions, a shock wave of bright orange confusion. Alex. Confusion over Alex. Confusion and anger and fear and excitement.

Max felt a burst of relief. Alex was alive. He'd made it alive to the home planet. Max had never shared his doubts with his friends, but he'd never been sure if a human could survive the trip through space.

His awful mistake-sending Alex instead of DuPris through the wormhole-no longer lay like a heavy, wet blanket across his shoulders. Alex was alive!

But Max's relief was short-lived. Intense images bubbled up from a pocket of the consciousness depicting Alex as a frightening foreigner, his friendly features exaggerated, a portrait painted by fear and distrust of the unknown.

Alex is my friend, Max shared with the collective, hoping to explain-to calm their fears. He was sent to you by accident. My accident.

A ruffle of interest spiked with doubt and animosity greeted his thoughts, and Max realized he had to talk to them in their own way, recall the sights and sounds and smells of that day and surrender the memory to the consciousness.

Max started with an image of himself struggling to open the wormhole-an event many in the consciousness remembered vividly. They returned their own recollections of painful effort and exhaustion.

Then Max sent a picture of his friends morphing their faces and bodies to look like DuPris in a desperate attempt to buy Max the time he needed. The consciousness reacted with fury to the image of the traitor. DuPris had stolen one of the Stones of Midnight from the planet, and they hated him for robbing them of the sacred power source.

When Max showed DuPris tricking the group into forcing Alex through the wormhole, the collective's fury was whipped into rage. Their anger was so potent that Max wondered if he should disconnect before the strength of their emotion did him damage.

But he had to stay strong. Max focused on channeling their wrath away from Alex. Too many of the voices in the collective were associating him with their feelings about DuPris, and that could be deadly. Max had to let them know what Alex was really like.

He started off with the strongest image of Alex he could remember-Alex sitting in front of Isabel's closed bedroom door, keeping a vigil when Isabel was too destroyed over the death of her boyfriend Nikolas to get out of bed. Alex had stayed there, talking to Isabel through the door, saying anything that popped into his mind-jokes, stories, one-sided arguments-anything to keep Isabel connected to the world. His patience had been endless, and his inventive mind had never run out of things to say.

A murmur rolled through the network of beings. A good number of them turned their attention to Max, and he could feel them considering his image of Alex as a good friend.

What else could he tell them to make them understand?

Humor, Max thought. Above all else, Alex is funny.

Would the web of alien minds understand human humor? Max had to try-any picture of Alex would be incomplete unless his humor was factored in. He concentrated on sharing memories of Alex at his goofiest.

Alex mocking DuPris with an overdone, corn-fried southern accent.

Alex making his silly lists to post on the Internet. The twenty best-tasting fried snack foods. The ugliest American presidents in order of hideousness, from Taft to Kennedy. The top ten reasons why goldfish made lousy pets. The fifty funniest words in the English language. (Number one was panty.)

Even when Alex was most down, when he was crushed over Isabel or struggling against his got-to-be-a-military-man father, that spark of light that allowed him to find the humor in any situation never went out.

Max tried to express this all to the consciousness, flashing memories of Alex goofing around, his friends cracking up beside him. The collective absorbed those memories, and Max was relieved to feel amusement from some of the beings in response.

They were getting what Max was trying to tell them.

That Alex was good, Alex was his friend. It was as easy and as difficult to express as that.

There were still some rumblings in the corners of the collective that insisted Alex didn't belong on their planet. Dark rumblings.

Max couldn't agree more. He wanted Alex back on earth more than any of them. Max sent an image of the beings in the consciousness forming another wormhole and sending Alex back. Could they do it?

No, came the reply, they couldn't. Max received a sense of pure weariness and exhaustion from the friendlier members of the collective. A picture of a group of glowing moons traveling slowly through a dark, acid green sky flashed in front of him. Because he didn't know how fast the moons passed over the home planet; Max couldn't be sure how long it would take before the beings in the consciousness were recovered enough to send Alex back. But he understood that it would be a long while.

Max suddenly felt very tired. He wasn't strong enough for this kind of prolonged communication yet.

But before he detached himself, he sent one last message into the darkness.

Tell Alex I'm going to help him. Please tell him I'll find a way to bring him back.

He wasn't sure if the message would get to his friend, but it was the best he could do. Max separated from the collective consciousness and let himself slump down in his soft bed. Every limb on his body felt like it weighed about a hundred pounds.

All he could do now was wait. Wait and hope the collective would get his message to Alex. Hope that he could figure out a way to get his friend home.