other arrangements could be made.

Of course, they were free to go wherever they wanted to.......even back to New York if they wished. Zan didn’t have any answers for them yet.......he was still getting used to being alive again, so he and Ava accepted their invitation to stay in the bungalow. Michael was skeptical about this move.

"Maxwell, we don’t know these people....they could go off with everything in the house, man! You saw all the stolen property in their crib in New York!"

"I don’t think Zan would do that to us, Michael. Anyway, the only thing of importance are the discs and they’re stored in the safe,"

"Yeah, and what’s to stop him from getting into that? We don’t even know what powers he has.....who knows what he can do! For all we know, he isn’t even Zan....he could be that guy who’s trying to stop us!"

"Michael, I’m sure Ava would sense if there were something wrong, don’t you?"

"Maxwell, we don’t even know who the real Ava is. Maybe she’s a plant, too!"

"Okay! Enough, enough already! We have to start trusting somebody.........I’m sure if there had been a problem with either one of them, Grandma would have let us know.....and she didn’t give us any kind of warning about them, so I vote we give them the benefit of the doubt."

Michael scowled and threw up his hands in frustration. He stomped away, muttering as usual. When Max turned around he saw Zan in the shadows watching him. He came out into the light and looked at Max with a trace of a smirk.

"You know, the big guy could be right about us......how come you’re so ready to believe in us?"

"Like I said, we have to start trusting somebody," Max sighed, as he drew his hand across his face. "And you’re as good as anybody, right now," he admitted, as he smiled at him weakly. "If I’m wrong, I’ll take full responsibility for the consequences. After all, I am Fearless Leader," he smirked.

"Hey, you got that crap thrown at you too?" Zan laughed. "Man, I was so sick of Lonnie and Rath shovin’ that in my face every day, I was ready to kill ‘em.........but I didn’t," he added, as Max shot a worried glance at him. "I swear, it wasn’t me, man," he said as he held up his right hand.

"You know, you make it real hard to believe anything you say," Max ascertained. "But, I’m going on faith now. Just don’t let me down," he warned. "We’re not as lame as you might think." With that, he walked out to the van to join his friends. Zan followed him out, with Ava by his side.

"What did he mean by that lame remark....how come he knew what I was thinkin’?" he asked Ava.

"He knows a lot more than you think, Zan. Don’t underestimate the guy," she warned.

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Max dropped his friends off, one by one. He helped Liz with her things, kissing her tenderly before he left her with her parents.

"Call me later," he whispered. "Love you."

"Mmm, love you, too," she whispered back, as her parents came down to greet her.

Max waved goodbye to them, and then he and Isabel returned the rented van. They picked up their jeep at the lot and went home. Both their parents were at work, so they unloaded their gear and then made some lunch.

"Iz, I was wondering if we should talk to Brody. We haven’t really had a chance to discuss anything that happened in Mexico, and I think we owe it to him, to.....you know.........give him some kind of explanation."

"What are you talking about, Max? You want to tell him everything! Don’t you think we should discuss this with the others first?!"

"Well, sure. I just wanted to run it by you first, that’s all," he assured her. "Look, he may have found something down there that we could use.....something that might help us. We trusted Balam......why can’t we trust Brody? I mean, we’ve known him longer and he has been a great help to us."

"I know what you’re trying to say, Max. It just seems that so many people have been let in on our secret, that I’m starting to wonder how long it will be before we’re exposed again. Where do we draw the line, Max? Remember, I wanted to tell Mom last year, and you stopped me........don’t you think she deserves to know as much as Brody?"

"We draw the line at people who would benefit from our exposure. I know Mom would never turn us in, but I’m more worried about what might happen to her if we told her. Brody is already known as being a so-called abductee, so I don’t think they’d even listen to anything he’d have to say.....they think he’s a crackpot, anyway."

"Well, why don’t we talk about it with the others before we make any rash decisions, okay?"

Just then, their parents walked in the door, anxious to see their kids after their *camping trip*. There were hugs all around and questions about their trip. Isabel glanced at Max guiltily, wishing that the two people she loved so much, could know the real truth. For once, Max agreed with her, as he hedged questions from his parents.

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That night, they called a meeting at Michael’s apartment to discuss the Brody issue. There were lots of objections, which Max was ready for. One thing he refused to do, was to defy their recommendations. Whatever the group decided, he’d go along with. In the end, they told him it was his call.

"Alright," he said. "Then, I vote we tell him. We need answers, and if he can’t handle the truth, then we’ll just get Tess to erase his memory of the whole thing, okay?"

They agreed and it was then up to Max to arrange a meeting with Brody. He was nervous about the whole idea, but he felt strongly that they had no other choice. He called him then, and asked if he could speak with him at the UFO Centre tomorrow. Brody agreed and they set up a time.

"I don’t think it’s necessary for all of us to attend," Max recommended. "So, who wants to go?" he asked anxiously.

"I do," Liz spoke up. "I want to find out the real reason he gave us the house. I never did buy that lame excuse he kept handing us. I want the truth," she admitted.

"Okay, who else?" Max asked.

"I think that Michael and Tess and I should be there Max," Isabel confirmed. "After all, it affects us more than anybody."

"Agreed," Max stated. "How do you guys feel about it?" he asked, as he turned to the other two.

Michael shrugged. "Well, if anything goes wrong, at least Tess can clean up the mess, so, yeah, I think we should be there."

"Good. We’ll see him at 2:00 tomorrow afternoon, in his office."

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True to their word, they met with Brody that afternoon. They were all nervous, not sure how to begin.

"Hey guys! Nice to see you back from you’re trip. Did you have fun?" he smiled at them.

"We didn’t go camping, Brody," Max began seriously. "I think you better sit down and get comfortable. We have a long story to tell you........all of it weird and pretty unbelievable."

For the next three hours, they filled Brody in on the strange events of their lives, beginning with the crash in 1947 up until the present. After the first ten minutes, Brody sat mutely, staring at them as they revealed the truth about themselves. They even gave him demonstrations of their powers to emphasize their point. He watched in fascination as they pulled one trick after another out of their hats.

When they finally reached the end, they looked at him expectantly, waiting for some kind of reaction. He stood up, pacing the room and holding his head in his hands. Then he turned around with a huge grin on his face,

"I’m not crazy after all!" he shouted in glee. "This is fantastic!"

It wasn’t exactly what they had expected, but it would do.

"So, you know you can’t tell anyone about this, right?" Max verified.

"Oh, of course not," he assured them. "Who’d believe me anyway?" he rightly determined. "Don’t worry.....my lips are sealed. So, your friends all know, too. How about your parents?" he asked concerned.

"No, only Sheriff Valenti," Max confirmed. "We don’t want to drag them into this.....not yet, anyway," he said as he looked at Isabel.

"Alright then," Brody said. "So let’s discuss what we found in Mexico. But first, why don’t we take a break and have some dinner? Would you like to call the others? We can go to my house....the one in town, and I’ll order something. How does that sound?" he asked smiling at them.

Max looked at his friends, who nodded in agreement, so Max accepted on their behalf. He called the others who agreed to meet them at Brody’s in half an hour. Brody dashed around, locking up doors and making sure the museum was unoccupied. Then he left with the kids and drove over to his house. They followed in the jeep and parked behind him in his driveway. Liz was itching to ask him about the bungalow, but decided to wait for the others to arrive.

By 6:00 p.m., they were all gathered in Brody’s living room, awaiting the arrival of the pizza delivery. He served them sodas while they waited, moving about constantly in his nervousness. Soon, the doorbell rang and he scooted to the foyer to pay for the pizza. He brought in plates and napkins to the living room, and they helped themselves.

While they ate, Brody gathered up all his information that he had collected in Mexico, and returned with it to the living room. He was too excited to eat so he sat down at the dining room table to lay out the various sheets of paper containing his scribbled notes. By the time the kids had eaten their fill, he was ready to begin.

He asked them to come to the table so they could see what he had found. His only discovery of any significance was found in the Temple of the Sun, as they had correctly surmised. It concerned the drawing of the last ruler of Palenque, and in particular, the three mirrors that hung from his belt.

Brody had seen similar mirrors when he had been abducted. He couldn’t recall the exact details, but as soon as he saw them, he knew they were important. He tried finding out more information from Ahmok and Eduardo about their significance to the Maya. Eduardo told him exactly what he had told the teens.........that they represented the journey they must make as it reflects their past to their future. However, he had cautioned Brody that this was just a guess on his part.

The kids remembered this conversation. It seemed like everywhere they turned, the link with the past and the future kept turning up. Liz sat there quietly as she absorbed this new information. Something was nagging her but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She asked Brody if he had a picture of the portrait of the ruler. He hunted around in his file and pulled a photo he had taken from the contents.

Liz looked at it carefully, mulling it over in her head. "Where had she seen this recently?" she agonized. She passed it around to her friends, telling them what she suspected, but nobody recognized anything familiar. She kept glancing at Tess, thinking that she was the link to all this somehow. She jumped up from the table, clearly frustrated at her inability to remember this detail.

She paced around the room, while the others went back to looking over Brody’s notes for anything similar to their own discoveries. She happened to glance up and saw Tess’s reflection in the mirror hanging over the fireplace which was reflected again in a brass pot on a side table.

"That’s it!"she exclaimed excitedly as everyone jumped at her shout of surprise. "Now, I remember. It was in the last cave....the one we visited this week!"

"What on earth are you talking about, Liz?!" Isabel exclaimed. "I don’t remember seeing any mirrors or pictures of mirrors in there."

"No, we didn’t. But Ava did! Don’t you remember? She borrowed some paper and a pen from Tess and she had to draw it out because we couldn’t see it. I guess we forgot about it because we’ve been so preoccupied. But I’m positive that Ava drew something similar to those mirrors on that piece of paper! Now, if we only knew what it meant!" she added in frustration.

"Well, let me take a wild stab at it," Alex offered. "Mirrors are used to reflect, and if we use it as a metaphor, they could reflect the past or reflect our feelings for the past. What if those symbols in the cave were meant to reflect something......like the past. Look," he went on, "there were twelve equal divisions right? And each one held seven symbols. What if the divisions represented the twelve hours of a clock or maybe the twelve months of a year?"

"River Dog explained the significance of the number seven to his people and how it ties in with the chant Max used......the seventh day, which were basing our whole theory on, right now. So maybe there’s some connection between the seven symbols in each section of the twelve. Either way, I think it represents a time period."

"It sounds plausible," Brody agreed. "You have nothing else right now to base it on. I think the sooner you can work out the meaning of those symbols, the better. I would be willing to help, if you like," he offered.

"Thanks Brody," Max replied. "We could use your help now. There is one thing that might tie all this together. I had a chance to tinker with that symbol we found on the ceiling of the cave near the entrance. As far as I can tell, it most resembles the symbol for a parrot.......and in the Maya culture, that represents communication. Maybe, we’re supposed to use these symbols to communicate with whoever is arriving on March 28th," he suggested.

"Okay, let me get this straight.....you think we’re expecting visitors now?" Kyle spoke up.

"Kyle, at this point, I don’t know what to expect," Max admitted. "But it seems to me, that when we see the symbol for communication, it must mean that we will have to communicate with somebody. But, maybe I’m wrong.....who knows," he shrugged.

"So let’s contact Balam, then, too. He’s helped us before, and he knows those Maya symbols better than anyone. We can fax him those that we found in the cave, and see what he comes up with, too," Alex offered.

"Sounds good," Max agreed. "Things seem to be falling into place, now," he admitted optimistically.

"I have one last question for Brody," Liz spoke up bravely. "Why did you give us the house?" she asked, facing him squarely.

He blushed and stood up to pace in front of them. Then, he turned to face them, realizing he couldn’t keep this a secret any longer.

"It’s quite simple really," he shrugged, as he eyed them sheepishly. "My accountant suggested that I use it as a tax break. I own a lot of real estate, not just in Roswell, but in other cities and states. I was told that this was one of the best ways to distribute my wealth and expect a safe return on my investment. Most of my holdings are commercial properties, and I have no interest in them, other than for investment properties. But, I have to admit that I was drawn to this property, even though I’ve hardly used it since. It was as if something was compelling me to purchase it. You must admit, it is very charming," he smiled.

"But I was starting to feel encumbered by all this real estate, and my accountant suggested unloading some of the properties. I hated to let this one go, though, and he suggested that I use it as a charitable donation type of deal, whereby I could write it off as a loss and claim it on my income tax. I’d still have to let it go, but at least it would be for a good cause."

"I didn’t know which charity I could use and then, when I caught you and Max in the Centre that night, I thought you guys would be the perfect recipients. Please, don’t get me wrong......I don’t consider you a charity case," he assured them. "I just wanted to make somebody happy, and you kids seemed the right choice. I thought if I was going to give away the one piece of property that I truly liked, then I would give it to someone I truly liked," he finished, embarrassed.

Liz came over and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? But, you know, we can’t just accept this, now. We’ll have to work out some kind of repayment schedule. Of course, with our present wages, it could take us about a thousand years to pay you back," she laughed.

"No, please, I meant it when I said I picked you two because I really wanted you to have it. Look, I have so much money, now, it’s embarrassing. I really don’t need any more, I can assure you. The house is yours....I must insist. If you like, you can invite me to dinner every now and then," he grinned. "And you’ll have to make that an invitation for two.....I’ve asked Carmen to marry me, and she’s accepted," he beamed.