Max got home that night, and crashed in his room. Tomorrow was the last day of school, last day of finals. The longest year of his life was almost over. He would have gotten excited about that (at least in his own way), but he knew that next year was going to be worse. He didn’t mean to be so negative, but he just knew, that with their responsibilities expanded on the home front, and with the revealing of their destiny, that is was only going to get harder. How was he going to do it? He thought that he would just take things as they came, try to sort it out. But the prospects were simply mind-boggling.

He heard the sound of a car hitting the driveway. Must be Isabel. Alex must have given her a lift home. They had been on a study date, or so she said. Was Alex and Isabel a good thing? Well, he had never seen her so happy. It was like she sparkled when she was with him. It was like a slice of normalcy in their screwed-up world for her. Like what he had with Liz, or used to have. He just hoped that they would be able to avoid his and Liz’s problems. But he didn’t see how they could. What was really all that different? But, it was working for the both of them. He shouldn’t do or say anything that could mess that up. It wasn’t fair.

When Isabel walked into the door, Max heard a call from downstairs.

MRS. EVANS: Max…

MAX: What?

MRS. EVANS: Can you come down here for a minute?

MAX: OK.

Max walked downstairs, and saw that his father and mother were sitting down in their chairs, and that Isabel was by herself in the middle on the couch. Max thought, oh this can’t be good.

MAX: What’s up, Mom?

MRS. EVANS: We just wanted to talk to you. (a beat) Now that the summer is upon us, Dad and I felt that we needed to talk to the two of you. You two have been out at all hours, sometimes missing for days at a time. We barely see you anymore. We’re both very worried about you.

ISABEL: Mom, we’re OK. I promise.

MR. EVANS: What your mother is saying, Isabel, is that we worry about you, and so we need to know that you’re OK. When you don’t call, or we don’t see you, your mother and I think the worst.

MRS. EVANS: What have you been up to? You never tell us where you’re going, or how long you’re gone. I think we’ve been very patient and understanding with you, with the both of you. But we have to ask…what have you been up to? I mean, it’s been weeks since we’ve all even been in the same room. We used to eat dinner together every night. Now if I get anymore than a one-word greeting, it’s a rarity.

MAX: Mom, I’m sorry. I wish that I could tell you everything that’s going on with us. But…I can’t.

MRS. EVANS: I know we had this conversation once before, Max. But I can’t help it.

ISABEL: Mom…Dad…I mean we’re getting older. Things like this happen.

MR. EVANS: I know. I remember when I was 17. But still, try to keep your old folks in mind every once in a while, OK?

ISABEL: We will.

MAX: Yeah. I have to study.

With that, Max left and went back to his room. About a minute later, Isabel walked in.

ISABEL: So…now we have our parents worried about us?

MAX: Our parents always worry about us, that’s their job.

ISABEL: No, but now they’re really concerned. Why can’t we just tell them the truth? I mean we told Valenti, and he’s the Sheriff. It hasn’t hurt us. I mean, I wanted to tell Mom so badly. You know that. Now may be the time.

MAX: But what about Michael and Tess?

ISABEL: What about them?

MAX: I mean, the more people who know about this, the more dangerous it is. We can’t speak just for ourselves on this one.

ISABEL: But we’re talking about our parents? The one’s who adopted us, raised us. I mean, I didn’t understand why you and Michael did what you did before. But now?

MAX: Isabel, you’re right. There will come a time when we can tell them, I promise. But we can’t throw our relationship with them in jeopardy now. There’s too much else going on. We don’t know how they’d react.

ISABEL: But we can’t keep pushing them away. We need them.

MAX: I know. But we can’t tell them now.

ISABEL: I just hope that when the time comes, we can tell them, and not have to have them find out some other way.

MAX: I know that too.

SCENE 2

Max turned in his last final and went for the parking lot with Isabel. School was done for the year, and a whole summer awaited them. Though they weren’t exactly normal teenagers, it was still a relief to be free of the responsibilities of homework, studying, and the like until fall. They were talking as they got to the car.

ISABEL: So how did it go?

MAX: I think I did alright. What about you?

ISABEL: I hate PE. I mean my god; they even have a final exam. How sick is that?

MAX: Yeah, well, it couldn’t have been that hard. You were waiting for me for an hour.

ISABEL: But still, we had to do the Presidential Fitness test thing again. They make you run a mile, do pushups, and…

MAX: I get the point. So what do you have planned to celebrate?

ISABEL: Alex and I are going out to dinner tonight.

MAX: Oooh…how exciting. Where is he anyway?

ISABEL: Home. He didn’t have a final this afternoon.

MAX: Must have been nice.

As Max turned the key, Tess’s SUV swerved into the parking lot. What was she doing here? She didn’t have a final in the afternoon either. She pulled up next to the Jeep, and got out.

TESS: Max…I have to talk to you.

MAX: OK. What’s so important that you had to come back to school?

TESS: Well, Javier.

MAX: What about him?

TESS: Well, this afternoon, I saw him take some equipment, including that light, with him in his car.

ISABEL: And?

TESS: So I decided to trail him, I mean, I thought it might be a good idea.

MAX: That sounded like a good thought, as long as he didn’t spot you that is.

TESS: I don’t think so. But then again, he went down the highway, out into the desert, so there weren’t a lot of cars out.

MAX: So what did you find out?

TESS: Well, he was difficult to trail, because he kept stopping, but he made his last stop right near the cave.

MAX: What was he doing?

TESS: I don’t know, but it was like he was looking for it or something.

Michael popped up behind Tess.

MICHAEL: Hey.

ISABEL: Hey, Michael.

MICHAEL: So what’s up?

MAX: Tess found Javier snooping around near the cave.

MICHAEL: What?

TESS: I don’t know if he was finding, but he was looking for something.

MICHAEL: Max, we have to get out there.

TESS: No…he drove back to his house. I don’t think he’s out there now. I came straight from there to here.

MICHAEL: Maybe he left something out there we can find. We have to do something.

ISABEL: Yeah, Max, this is getting serious. If we ask him, all’s he’ll say is that he is doing something archeology related. We have to do something about this.

MAX: You’re right. Michael, it might be time to go to Valenti. See if he can tell us anything.

TESS: You can’t do that. We have to confront Javier. Take care of him, if we can.

MAX: We can’t do that, and besides, Javier doesn’t know anything. He doesn’ t know who we are. We can use that to our advantage here.

MICHAEL: And how exactly do you know that?

MAX: I mean, he hasn’t done anything to us, not yet anyway. Tess saw him snooping around. You all have to admit that the rock formation around the cave stands out from the highway. He could have had any reason for stopping there. Even if he is looking for us, he hasn’t found us yet. He just has a signal telling him he’s close to where the communicators were activated, or the cave where the pods are. It sounds fishy, and we should check it out, but if we confront him, we have no idea what could happen.

ISABEL: If he is one of the people that Nasedo warned us about, he probably could defend himself too. No…we can’t confront him directly, even if we did know for sure who he is. But Max, we can’t afford to do nothing. What do you think we should tell Valenti?

TESS: I can’t believe you want to involve him in this. This is our fight. Only we can do it.

MAX: We need to get Valenti to do a check on Javier. See what his real story is. After that, then we may have to plan out some way to stop him. He may not be the only one. What if there are hundreds out there like him? If he’s one of them, we’ll probably have to kill him to stop him. Are we ready for that yet? I don’t see another way. And if we do it, who says that it wouldn’t trigger something else? God, I can’t believe I’m talking like this.

TESS: But what choice do we have? Whether it’s now or later, it will happen. I wish Nasedo were here. We need some answers. He could help us.

MAX: We may need to delay any ‘offensives’ until we can contact him. His help would be really useful. I assume you have no way at all to contact him?

TESS: No. When he leaves, it’s often for weeks at a time. He never tells me anything, and with him as Pierce, someone whose life is secret, who knows?

MICHAEL: I’ll go with you to the station, Max. It’s better if two of us go. Four might seem like we’re panicking.

MAX: We need to stop at the center first. Valenti is going to need some stuff. I think we can get a picture and maybe a copy of his application from his file.

MICHAEL: Good call. Anything will help.

ISABEL: Yeah, Tess and I will wait at the Crashdown.

MAX: Let Liz, Maria, and Alex know what we’re up to.

Tess flashed Max a dirty look at that one, but Max didn’t really care right now.

ISABEL: Sure. Hopefully you guys can find something out quickly.

MAX: Yeah.