As the three were sitting down, Isabel suggested a trip to the mall tomorrow as it was Saturday and they would have all day to shop for dresses. Maria agreed that it sounded like a good idea and looked at Carrie. "What do you say Carrie, would you like to come?"

Carrie whipped her head around and suddenly started paying attention, "Shopping, tomorrow? Uh sure. I could use some help, I mean I don’t know really what the fashions are here."

"Great, it’s a date then. I’ll let Liz know about our plans at lunch." Maria turned and looked back to see what the teacher was saying.

Carrie couldn’t believe how friendly these kids were, here she was a stranger and they accept me without question. Well her Stephens did say that she needed to fit in, and an invitation to a dance on her second day of school wasn’t bad. And that Kyle looked kind of cute in that rugged cowboy way.

The bell rang signaling the end to homeroom and the girls rose and left to head to their other classes.

Carrie quickly headed off to the library, where she was able to find a quite study room and make a private call to her boss.

"Agent Stephens please," the call was quickly transferred to team leader. "I attempted to meet with my primary subject this morning before school, a girl, Liz Parker interfered with my attempts to pass along the information."

"I understand, I will arrange for you to have some uninterrupted time with him after school in detention." Agent Stephens responded.

"From what I little I understand of these kids, Max is hardly the type of kid to warrant after school detention." Carrie responded.

"Don’t worry about it, I can make it happen. Just be ready for it. You make sure you get assigned detention as well." Stephens abruptly changed the subject, "How is everything else going? I received a note in the mail about a dance next week, do we need to set you up with a date so that you can continue surveillance?"

Carrie blushed to herself; "actually I already have a date to it. A Kyle Valenti invited me to it just this morning, and I have plans with the girls, Isabel, Liz and Maria to go shopping tomorrow"

"Kyle Valenti? He’s the sheriff’s son that may not be the best plan. He already messed up my last operation. I don’t want him to start sniffing around this one as well." Stephens said with a note of concern.

Carrie chuckled, "I Think I can handle Kyle. Don’t worry." With that Carrie ended the conversation and headed out of the study room and ran into a young man she had not seen before.

Alex had been looking for a place to set up his laptop; He wanted to work on a new ‘cracker’ program he was developing. After his last foray into the FBI mainframe he felt he had better be prepared to get past all of their passwords and trace programs. He had to be careful about where he worked on it though… Just having a program lake that on his computer was felony. But if he was going to help his new friends he had better be prepared. Alex, like all good Boy Scouts, was prepared.

Alex saw that one of the library study rooms was about to be vacated and headed over to grab it before any one else had the same idea. The girl that was exiting was not someone that Alex recognized and He wondered if it was that ‘new girl’ Isabel had been telling him about yesterday.

When she bumped into him and looked up he thought he would ask. " Uh, Hi I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before." Alex said indicating the school; "I’m Alex you wouldn’t happen to be Carrie would you?"

Carrie stopped and looked at the young man surprised that he knew her name." Yes, I am, but how did you know? Wait, Your not Liz’s friend Alex are you?" She looks down and saw that he was carrying a portable computer.

"As a matter of fact I’ve known Liz since grade school, we go way back. But I actually heard about you from another girl, Isabel Evans. She was telling me about a new girl in her homeroom class last night after I asked her to the dance."

Carrie blushed; of course, this was boy Isabel was all excited about going to the dance with. "I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more of each other then. Isabel invited me to go shopping with her this weekend. She must really like you, She has been talking non stop about this dance all morning."

It was Alex’s turn to blush, "Oh, well Isabel always gets worked up about these sorts of things. She will use anything as an excuse to go shopping." He was secretly hoping that Carrie was correct.

Carrie gave Alex a knowing smile and left Alex to the room.

Several hours later we see the Sheriff’s car pull up with a K9 unit. They head to the office to announce that they received a tip that there was some Drug dealing going on at the school and had brought a trained dog to sniff the lockers for contraband.

The gang was all sitting outside eating lunch, Maria and Isabel telling Liz about the proposed shopping trip, Michael, Max, and Alex trying desperately not to make it seem like such a big deal and making small talk about the weather. Carry and Kyle had been invited to join them but Kyle, still uneasy around Max & Michael decided that time could be better spent getting to know Carrie. So they sat together a little ways off. They were all surprised to see Kyle’s dad striding across the quad heading straight for Max.

"Max Evan’s could you come with me now?" the Sheriff asked.

"Why, what’s this about?" Max asked worried.

The sheriff looked at Alex sitting there, "We found a report from another student, stating that you were using drugs." The sheriff scratched his head under his hat; "we searched the lockers and found this." He said holding a small bag with some green flakes in it.

"Now will you please come with me."

Carrie was shocked… she couldn’t believe that Agent Stephens would go to such lengths to set Max up.

Kyle remembered the conversation he had with Alex a few months ago, and wondered if this was about that. He had never really believed that Max was a drug user, but his dad had told him to stay away from Max and that he was watching him.

Alex stood and stopped the Sheriff as he was leading Max away. "Is this about my meeting with Miss Topolski? If it is, I was wrong. I didn’t have all of the facts at the time."

The sheriff stopped, and looked to Alex again, "and what are all the facts, Mr. Whitman?"

Alex blanched but didn’t say anything, Max said, "I’ll come I’m sure we can get this all straightened out soon."

Isabel said, "Max I’ll call Mom & Dad, they can fix this." Max nodded, and gave a worried look at Liz.

Isabel reached her parents at their law office and explained the situation and the agreed to be right down.

Liz was so worried she was glad that Carrie was there to help with the lab in Biology. She tried to keep the topic away from Max, so they talked some about Kyle, and how he was the sheriff’s son and that he and Liz had dated all summer long. Liz explained that Kyle was still hurting from their breakup but that he was a good guy, and hoped that eventually they could be friends again. Carrie smiled, still finding it hard to believe that these kids could have done anything to warrant the kind of attention that Agent Stephens was giving them. To her they appeared to be normal teenagers, with a very close friendship bond, she was glad to be apart of it.

The two girls finished up the lab write up and put their equipment away, just as the bell signaling the end of class.

Carrie went off to her Math class alone, She was had decided not to turn in the homework she had spent 2 hr. on last night in the hopes the teacher would grant her after school detention to work on it.

Liz not feeling up to going to class decided to head over to the office and wait for Max to come out. When she got their she found that she was not alone, Isabel was already waiting there.

"Hi Isabel, what’s going on? Have you heard anything?" Liz asked.

Isabel stopped trying to listen at the door and said, "Mom and dad are in there now. They are arguing the Max is not a drug user and the ‘anonymous’ report was not admissible in court. The stuff found in the locker had no fingerprints on it and the search of the lockers was not conducted in the proper manner with notice given to the parents. They are working out an agreement now so that the Sheriffs office can save face. I think he is just going to be assigned after school detention."

Liz let out a breath, not realizing until this minute that she was holding it. She was glad that they were not pressing for a drug test or something else that might expose Max’s alien status. "Thanks Iz, I was so worried." She gave a slight smile, "Michael is going to have a field day with though. ‘The Max Evans’ has after school detention."

Isabel chuckled, "Yeah, who would have thought." Then she became serious; "Who planted that stuff in Max’s locker? You don’t think Kyle would, do you?"

Liz hadn’t thought of that, she knew Kyle was still hurting from their breakup, but she didn’t think he would go to such extremes to get Max in trouble. She then remembered some of the comments that Kyle had made about Max and began to wonder.

Just then Max came out of the office flanked by his parents. He smiled when he saw Liz standing there, and she ran over and gave him a hug. "Max I was so worried, how could they think such a thing about you?"

"It’s OK Liz, I have one day after school detention and I need to write a report on the ‘Dangers of Drug Use’. It could have been much worse if the law had become involved. Fortunately there was nothing they could prove, Somebody must have set me up." Max smiled at his parents who were getting ready to leave. "Mom, could you let my boss know that I won’t be in today?"

"Sure honey, I’m sorry couldn’t get the school to drop the issue, but they have their image to protect. One day isn’t too bad and who knows, perhaps you’ll lean something. Well see you two later." She said indicated Max & Isabel, "Liz it’s good to see you again."

Liz smiled shyly at his parents and walked with Max to their next class.

Michael was in the art room working on his picture of Maria. He had found that drawing helped calm him down and focus his thoughts. He was worried about Max, but he knew his parents would be there for him. His mind drifted off to thoughts of Maria, looking forward to the dance and grateful that Isabel had used him as her practice partner when she was learning how to dance.

Carrie had come to class a bit late with something that looked a lot like a detention slip. Michael had seen enough of his own to know what they looked like. She didn’t seem to want to talk about it so he left her left her alone.

The teacher was walking around the room giving suggestions to the students, He stopped by Michael’s shoulder and watched him work for a while before saying, "she’s a beautiful girl, Girlfriend?"

"Uh, no … Just a friend." Michael said with the hint of a smile on his lips, not taking his eyes off the canvass in front of him.

The teacher nodded, "Michael, this is some of the best work I have seen in a long time. Would you mind if I put it in the display case in the main hall?"

"I don’t know … " Michael was suddenly afraid of what Maria and the others would say if they saw it.

"I think any girl would be pleased to see herself as you see her." The teacher said with a glint in his eyes.

Michael thought about it for a moment and then agreed. The teacher smiled to himself and walked away.

Michael put the finishing touches on the painting and took it over to the teacher’s desk to be graded.

After school Michael went to catch up with the others, hoping to catch a ride home. When he arrived at his usual meeting spot he found Isabel, Liz, Maria and Alex waiting. "Where’s Max?" he asked?

Liz & Isabel looked at each other before Isabel said, "Max has after school detention today."

Michael smirked, "Maxwell, Mr. Responsibility, has detention? What did he do?"

Liz responded, "It’s about the whole drugs in the locker thing, The sheriff couldn’t pin anything on him, but the school wasn’t going to let him off so easily. It’s only for one day, and he has to write a report as well." She paused and continued; "we still don’t know who it was that set him up though. Perhaps you can get an image off his locker?"

Michael moved over to Max’s locker, grateful that Maria was standing next to him. He closed his eyes, and reached for the lock. Suddenly he had a flash of the same man he had in his vision when he touched Carrie, putting something in Max’s locker. He decided he would have to talk to Max about it tomorrow.

When he recovered from his vision he looked back the rest of the group. "I saw a man in a suit, but I don’t know who it was. Perhaps more will come tonight when I’m sleeping."

Isabel nodded, she felt he was hiding something but she knew Michael well enough not to push. "Maria, offered to give us all a ride home today so that we can leave Max the jeep."

The group all headed out to the school parking lot and crammed in Maria’s small car.

Max walked into the detention room surprised to see the rooms only other occupant. "Carrie, what are you doing here?" Max said as he took the seat next to her

"Apparently our Geometry teacher didn’t believe me when I told her my dog ate my homework." She laughed. "How about you?"

"Someone set me up … put drugs in my locker, fortunately my parents were able to get the charges dropped but the school still wanted to set an example." Max answered. "Where’s the teacher?"

"She said she had a meeting to go to after school and that it was just going to be the two of us anyway. You’re supposed to sign in on the sheet on her desk. She will be back in an hour to dismiss us."

Max went to write his name in on the sign in sheet, and went back to sit down. When he returned he saw that Carrie was spreading out some old black and white photographs out on her desk. "What’s this?" Max asked

"These are the things I started to tell you about this morning. I thought that since we don’t have anything else to do for the next hour you might like to go through these."

Max hit his forehead with the palm of his hand, He had completely forgotten about that what with all of the other distractions today. "Yeah, that’s a good idea." He moved his chair closer to hers so that he could get a better look at the pictures.

He immediately saw that they appeared to be taken at the reservation just outside of town. They showed several different images of the same young man including one of Atherton standing next to this man. There was also a photograph of the entrance to the cave. Max took all of the different images in committing them to memory. Carrie then brought out the journal. Max read the first few entries; they appeared to be notes of a follow up book to the one he had already written. He continued flipping through and then stopped and frowned. He came to a series of drawings, some appeared to be similar to those in the cave but the others had no meaning to him. He was so absorbed in his reading that lost track of time and was startled when the teacher walked into the classroom. He quickly closed the book, and they both walked out towards the school parking lot.

"Carrie, I won’t be working at the center until Sunday, do you mind if I keep these until then?" Max asked with a hopeful grin.

Carrie thought for a moment and said, "um, sure, I’ll stop in Sunday Afternoon and you can tell me what you found out."

Max smiled, and looked to see that Isabel had left him the Jeep. "Carrie, can I give you a lift home? Or have you made other plans?" Max asked.

"That would be nice, I was going to have to walk otherwise. My dad doesn’t think I need a car of my own." Carrie said with a grin.

Max agreed, "I have to share the jeep with my sister normally, but it looks like she found another ride home today."

Carrie was very silent on the trip home, so Max tried o make conversation. "So, tell me a little about your brother… it’s obvious that the two of you were very close."

Carrie stirred out of her thoughts caught off guard a bit by Max’s question. "He was my best friend, Someone I could share secrets with that I couldn’t tell another sole." She paused remembering how it was. " I would go in his room and talk to him… and he wouldn’t kick me out... you know how most brothers would, I could ask him anything and he would always tell me the truth. He would hold me when I was scared, and tell me I was smart I was, when I had had trouble on a test. He was always there for me and the one time he really needed me, I wasn’t there."

Carrie had stopped speaking again; Max looked at her hoping that she would continue. It was obvious that this was information that she kept buried deep within herself and she need to express it to someone, even a near stranger like Max. Max was unprepared for the sudden rush of emotions that engulfed him. He kept his hands clenched tightly to the wheel hoping that his actions wouldn’t betray him. He saw images of Carrie and her brother, they were talking and goofing off, he then saw Carrie coming home, looking for her brother and only finding an empty room. The final vision was of Carrie talking to her Parents and crying.

Carrie told Max a story, "My brother told me a secret, an important secret, he made me promise not to tell anyone." She sobbed, "I promised but then I accidentally told my parents one day when they were harping on me about my boyfriends." Carrie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, "The next day I came home from school and he was gone. My parents had kicked him out; telling me it was for my own protection, as if I needed protection from Josh. The kindest, gentlest person I have ever met."

Max starred back at her… thinking only of Liz, ‘god… that could be us, if she ever told.’ He thought sadly. He new it must be a strain on her relationship with her parents keeping his secret.

When they arrived at Carries’ house Max stopped the Jeep and leaned over to give Carrie a comforting hug. She was trying desperately to get her emotions back under control but as she felt Max’s touch she lost it again and latched onto him and shuddered, sobbing. They were wrapped in each other’s arms when a man walked up to the side of the jeep.

"What’s the matter Carrie?" the man asked?

At the sound of those words Carries face snapped up as if it had been slapped, "Uh, nothing dad… I had a bad day at school and Max was just comforting me." She said as she wiped her eyes.

Max’s brow furrowed, something about the statement didn’t make sense, The man wasn’t Carries’ father from his vision, but perhaps he was a stepparent or something. Carries’ emotions slammed shut at the sound of his voice so he was no longer able to feel what she was feeling. "Carrie, here are your books, I’ll see you later." He said as Carrie was leaving the jeep. He watched her until she entered the house before he finally started the Jeep and left.

"What was that all about?" Stephens’ said as her pulled her into the house.

Carrie looked at him embarrassed, "um, I slipped and told Max about my real Brother, it’s OK though, I think he believed the story I told." She wiped her eyes again, "Max just has a way of looking at me with those eyes of his, he makes me want to tell him everything. Just so the hurt will go away."

Stephens glared at her, "remember your job, you better not let it slip again or you will find yourself out of a job." He led her to a room in the back of the house, "OK, time for the debriefing, How did the transfer go?"

"I passed the documents to our primary target," Carrie began in her best special agent voice. "Subject advised me that he would review the documents and meet with me Sunday at 1700 hours, to discuss the contents. Subject is unaware of the transmitting devise hidden in the journal." The debriefing continued…

Max arrived home just in time for dinner with his family, "Hi Mom, thanks for what you did today." He said as he leaned over to give her a hug.

"No, problem honey, I just can’t understand why someone would set you up like that." She said, as she finished setting the food on the table.

"Mom, Dad would it be OK if I had a few friends over tonight to work on a project?" Max asked.

Both parents exchanged glances and silently agreed before his father finally answered, "sure Max, it’s not Michael is it?"

"Michael and another friend Alex, he has a computer and was going to hook up to the Internet. So that we could do some research on the project." At his mention of Alex, Isabel flushed.

Isabel’s Mom picked up immediately the reaction the name had on her daughter, "Alex?" she said prompting them for more information.

Isabel answered, "Alex is a good friend, he asked me to the dance next week. As a matter of fact I was going to go shopping for a dress tomorrow with some of my girl friends. Could I borrow the credit card?" Isabel smiled sweetly.

Isabel’s mom suppressed a grin and answered, "sure honey."

After dinner, Alex & Michael showed up and the boys all retreated up to Max’s room.

When Max opened the journal to the pages with the pictures on them Michael inhaled sharply," Max, is this…" Michael trailed off when Max nodded.

Alex looked at the Glyphs, and commented, "it looks like two or more different types of characters here. These… appear to be Native American or some such, but the others," he sucked in a breath, "I’ve never seen anything like it before."

Alex set up his computer complete with optical scanner and started scanning in some of the glyphs hoping that he would be able to find a match somewhere. His search turned up nothing other than the surprising fact that someone else had also been searching for information on the subject. Alex attempted to trace the previous search back to the origins, but came up empty when he came against a sophisticated firewall. The E-mail provided in the search was just a generic drop box with no ties to the owner. Alex was puzzled… he knew that whoever had performed the first search was very carefully hiding their tracks the question was why…

Michael took this opportunity to tell Max about his vision when he touched Carrie and then again when he touched Max’s locker. "You don’t think the FBI are following Carrie as well do you."

"I don’t know, She broke down in the car today when I was taking her home, and I got the feeling that she was hiding something. She’s pretty upset about her missing brother. Alex I don’t suppose you would be able to search the FBI data base to find out where he is do you?"

Alex, Max & Michael continued puzzling over the journal when the photos fell out. Max reached for the pictures to look at them again and it suddenly hit him what the glyphs in the journal meant.

He quickly outlined his thoughts to the others and they all agreed that a trip to the Reservation was in order. They made plans to meet in the morning.

Maria and Liz arrived at the Mall at the same time; they sat down a table in the food court and waited for the others.

"Did you talk to Max last night?" Maria asked

Liz looked down at her hands, "No, he didn’t call. I was hoping he would stop by after his detention but he didn’t. I tried calling his room several times but the phone was always busy."

Just then Carrie sat down next to them, "Hey gal’s, have you been waiting long?"

"No, we just got here ourselves." Maria answered. "Now we just wait for…"

"Isabel" Liz broke in spotting Isabel walking towards them, "where’s Max?" she said with a little too much enthusiasm. She quickly realized this and blushed.

Isabel smirked at Liz’s comment, "shopping’s not one of my brother’s favorite activities Liz. Besides, the boys had planned a bit of an adventure for today. The three of them headed off early this morning."

"Three?" Carrie asked.

"Yeah, Max, Michael & Alex. The three of them were up quite late in Max’s room and Mom said they all left before I even woke up." Isabel answered. "Well we have four fabulous dresses to find and only… six hours to do so." She said looking down at her watch.

The girls walked over to the first store….

Max, Michael & Alex decided to get an early start on their trip to the reservation. Max was hoping his hunch about the writing in the journal was accurate. As they neared the reservation they spotted a man standing along side the road. Max pulled off the road as soon as he recognized the young man as Eddie.

"Hey Eddie, can we give you a ride?" Asked Max.

Eddie glanced at the occupants of the jeep with a wary glance, "where are you heading? What do you want now?"

Alex made room for Eddie in the back of the jeep, and showed him the journal. "We were hoping to find out some more information on what these symbols mean. We also need to see if the images in any of these old photographs mean anything to anybody."

As the jeep continues on its way to the reservation, Eddie begins to slowly look through the old photographs. "These are very old, several of the people have already died. This though, I’m surprised you don’t recognize him." Eddie said as he handed the picture back to Alex.

Alex took another look at the image of Atherton standing next to a young man. "Riverdog?" Alex asked. "Who is this man standing on the other side of Atherton?" asked Alex.

Eddie shrugged and suggested they check with Riverdog. The boys continued onto the reservation, following Eddie’s directions to Riverdog’s house. When they pulled up to the small house it was not at all what they expected. The house was small but well maintained, with a small flowerbed in the front near the door. The four approached the door and Eddie reached forward to knock.

"Riverdog, I ran into these boys on the way here they have some questions to ask, I hope you don’t mind but they did pass the test." Eddie said when Riverdog came to the door.

The old man opened the door farther to let them all come in, "Eddie, why don’t you see what you can find in the kitchen to offer our guests." Riverdog showed them all into his small living room while Eddie headed to the back of the house. After the boys had all found seats Riverdog looked at Max and asked, "you have questions?"

Max nodded and passed the photos and journal to Riverdog, "these were loaned to me by Atherton's granddaughter. We were hoping you could help us find some answers."

"These were Atherton’s, But I don’t know how you got them from a granddaughter, he never married, he had no children." Riverdog said with confusion.

Michael reached for the journal for the first time and attempted to pull a vision off it. He closed his eyes, and saw… Maria picking up the book and putting it in the box with the other papers from the dome, men in black suits rummaging through Max’s bed room, a lab with people examining the book computers at every station. And the same man Michael had seen before in a vision handing the book to Carrie. The vision ended and Michael dropped the book like a hot coal; "It’s a trap! We were set up… this is part of the stuff we took from the dome, the stuff that was taken from your room Maxwell."

The group just stared at each other stunned, until finally Alex reached down and retrieved the book from where Michael had dropped it. He carefully examined the binding and found a small tear that had been carefully glued closed, unnoticeable unless you were looking for it. He lifted the edge of the flap with a fingernail and drew in a breath when he saw what it was concealing, a very small transmitting device. He pulled the binding away more to more fully expose the device so that he could study it. After determining that it was just a signaling device and designed to transmit voices, he spoke, "The book was bugged… they know where we are but not what we say unless they have some sort of listening device trained on this room." He walked to the window and looked out; he didn’t see any obvious signs that they had been followed but to be on the safe side he went over to the mantle and switched on the radio to a talk station. He then pulled the blinds to make it still more difficult to pull the sound waves off the windows. When Alex had finished with his precautions he returned to his spot on the couch and opened the book to the pages with all of the glyphs on it.

Michael was the first to speak up, "that’s all? You’re not going to destroy the transmitter?"

"No if we did it would seem even more suspicious. At this point I don’t think they have anything more on us than they did before." Alex replied.

Max nodded, "I agree, they already have suspicions, we can lead them in the wrong direction. As long as they don’t know we know."

"But what about Carrie? How does she fit into all of this?" Alex was the first to bring up that touchy subject.

Max decided that he had better tell them about the connection he made with Carrie the other day in his jeep. He explained that the emotions coming from the girl had been real, he just had a feeling that she was holding something back. He didn’t get a sense at all from her that she meant them any harm perhaps she was just pawn. Michael agreed that he didn’t get any kind of bad feeling from Carrie. They knew that they would have to find out where they stood with Carrie before they could trust her.

Eddie came back into the room carrying a large tray of sandwiches along with a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses. He looked at the group and said. "I hope you are all hungry… I’m starved it’s lunch time."

Max looked at the plate of food and thought of Liz… "Riverdog do you have a phone I could use? I just remember the girls, including Carrie, were all going shopping. We should warn them to be careful about what they say around her. At least until we know where we stand."