Max slowly woke up. He felt like he had been under the influence of some heavy narcotics, but he gradually started to come to. The only thing he was immediately conscious of was the faded, damp, gray ceiling above him. He just lied there for a minute, trying to get his head straight, when it all started coming back.

They were in the FBI Compound, or at least he thought that they were. This wasn’t a place he had seen before though. He looked down at himself. He was wearing what seemed like hospital scrubs. Just like before. Then he remembered what had happened. After they had entered the main chamber, the one with Nasedo, they had been stormed by what seemed like an endless stream of agents, men in black suits. It had taken four of them to hold him down, but they had succeeded in shooting him up with something. Just a few seconds later, it had all gone black.

LIZ: Max…

Max was brought back into the world by the sweet sound of Liz’s voice. He looked over across the small room, and saw her sitting up on a cot, which looked more like a shelf in the wall, with no padding.

LIZ: Max…are you all right? Wake up…

MAX: Liz…what happened?

LIZ: I don’t know. I just woke up a few minutes ago, and we were here.

MAX: Where’s everyone else?

LIZ: I don’t know.

Both of them slowly got up from where they had been lying, and surveyed their surroundings, such as they were. The two of them were the only people in a tiny room. There was a thick door at one end of the room, with not even a peephole to shed any light on the situation. What light there was in the room was being provided by a small flickering florescent lamp about twenty feet above their heads. There were no windows. Other than the cuts in the wall where they had been lying, there was nothing else in the room at all.

LIZ: Where are we?

MAX: I don’t know. Somewhere else in the building I guess.

LIZ: We’ve got to get out of here.

MAX: I know.

LIZ: I’m really scared, Max. Who knows what they’re doing to the others?

MAX: Liz…so am I. So am I. Do you remember anything?

LIZ: I saw you being held down, injected with something…and…

MAX: Then they came for you.

LIZ: Yeah…the next thing I knew. I was here.

MAX: We have to get out of here. Find the others. Quickly.

LIZ: Do we even know where here is? For all we know, we could be miles away from the compound.

MAX: No way. It’s too risky for them to move operations again. We’ve got to be somewhere close to where we were.

LIZ: It looks like the only way out is through that door. Max…can you force it?

Max went over to the door, and put his hand to the spot on the door where the doorknob would have been if there had been one there. He concentrated for a few seconds, but nothing happened. Max sighed, and moved back away from the door.

MAX: I can’t budge it. There’s no lock on it.

LIZ: There has to be a lock on it.

MAX: It’s just solid, well, solid something. I don’t know what it is. I can’t manipulate it. Nasedo said that the Special Unit had material like this. Matter that I can’t move. It doesn’t even look like it opens.

LIZ: Well, we got in here somewhere, there’s got to be a way out.

Max hit the door as hard as he could, so much so that his bruised his hand.

MAX: Aurrgh…won’t budge.

Liz and Max slumped back down to their cots, drained.

SCENE 2

ALEX: You know, before I met up with you, I hardly ever went to jail. Now this makes twice this year. This can’t be good.

ISABEL: Come on Alex, we’ll find a way out of this.

ALEX: How could we have been so stupid? I mean, really, waltzing right into the main room, not even thinking about the fact that the place was swarming with suits.

Alex and Isabel were stuck in an almost identical situation. Alone together. The two of them, in better times, might have relished this opportunity. But these were not better times.

ISABEL: OK…so we made a mistake. Are you happy?

ALEX: No…wait…you’re right, of course. It’s just frustrating. Face it, there’s no way out of here.

ISABEL: Wherever here is. I mean, this place is just creepy. Anyone could be watching us.

ALEX: Especially with that camera up there.

Alex pointed out the camera in the ceiling to Isabel.

ISABEL: So that means this room is probably bugged too.

ALEX: Other than us, those are probably the only two things in this room.

ISABEL: Just great. So what do we do now?

ALEX: I don’t know. But we have to find a way out of here.

ISABEL: But what about everyone else? We have to make sure that they’re safe too.

ALEX: I just hope that they aren’t any worse off than we are right now. Anyway, why did they put the two of us in here together anyway? And what was Nasedo saying when he said “I’m sorry, Max”? Did he rat us out or something?

ISABEL: No, he couldn’t have done that.

ALEX: Maybe he told them how to split us up.

ISABEL: But why, Alex? Why would he turn us in? He’s supposed to be protecting us.

ALEX: Maybe the Special Unit found a way to make him talk.

Both of them paused at that one. If the FBI could break Nasedo after all of this time, they stood no chance against them.

SCENE 3

MICHAEL: This door is going nowhere.

MARIA: Did you try banging on it…maybe someone will hear us.

MICHAEL: Maria, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. We don’t exactly want anyone to be hearing us right now.

MARIA: At least it would be somewhere other than here.

MICHAEL: We need to find a way out of here, and not through that door.

MARIA: Look around you…do you see another way out?

Michael and Maria had their own cell as well, identical to the other ones, although they had absolutely no way of knowing that.

MICHAEL: What was Nasedo thinking?

MARIA: It didn’t look to me like he was doing much thinking.

MICHAEL: But then why are we here…Nasedo never would have let them take all of us.

MARIA: Well, we did break into a government compound. There was always going to be some risk involved.

Michael paced into the far corner of the room. He shrugged in Maria’s general direction.

MARIA: Come on Michael. What’s going to happen when they come for us? I mean, I was supposed to be helping my mother with her cooking this morning, and now…I’m here.

MICHAEL: Don’t you think that that thought hasn’t crossed my mind? We’ve got to get out of here, and soon. We can’t risk anyone being interrogated again. You remember what happened to Max. Who knows, they could already have the others drugged up and forcing them to admit to anything. The FBI’s not going to stop until they have the answers that they’re looking for.

SCENE 4

Tess and Nasedo were also sharing a cell. Nasedo was acting really strangely. Tess didn’t know what to think. He was alternated between singing show tunes, reciting famous speeches, and was now currently changing shape over and over again.

TESS: Would you please knock that off? Talk to me. What’s going on?

Nasedo got up, and changed shape again to something resembling a Roman Senator.

NASEDO: Friends, Romans, countrymen…lend me your ears…

TESS: Shut up! What are you doing? Are you completely nuts? What happened to you?

Nasedo just kept reciting Shakespeare, completely ignoring her. Tess sat back down on the cot, head in hands. She tried to block him out, but it was difficult. He was like the genie in Aladdin or something, but now was definitely not the time to be silly. She needed him, more than she wanted to admit, if they were going to get out of this place. And she didn’t need him acting like a mental patient.

She walked over to him and grabbed him, trying to connect, see what was inside of him. A few seconds later, she was flung across the room by some unseen force, bouncing off the wall.

TESS: What the hell’s wrong with you?

NASEDO: I’ve seen the light.

Tess rubbed her eyes, taken aback that he finally seemed to snap out of it. Nasedo shifted again, back to the familiar guise of Ed Harding.

TESS: Why did you do that?

But Nasedo didn’t answer. Instead, he went back to his cot, lied down, and closed his eyes. Tess couldn’t get anything else out of him. After about twenty minutes, she gave up trying to get him to talk, and sat back down on her side of the room. She had this sickening feeling that they were doomed. With an unstable Nasedo, and all of them captured and apparently split up, they were powerless. They had done everything else as a group, albeit sometimes a reluctant group. They would have to find a way to each other to be able to get out of here. The Special Unit seemed to realize that now. The whole situation screamed setup. They had just walked onto the base, into the building. The FBI had to have known that they’d be coming. And they had moseyed right into it. How could that have been so blind? They had been so excited to find out where Nasedo was being kept that they hadn’t stopped to think that the Special Unit would be prepared for them. Now the situation looked hopeless, Tess thought, their journey to save their planet over before it really started.