The Vanished (2 page)

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. “We'll 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 worm-hole. 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.