Isabel was pacing back and forth across the narrow cell. They had been there for longer than even she could remember. Without a watch and without any sense of the outside world, time started to lose some meaning. Alex was just lying back on his cot, trying to distract her, talking about anything, but it wasn’t helping. She needed to do something, to go someplace. All of these hours, and she didn’t know if the others were even alive. She couldn’ t believe she had thought that. Of course, they were alive.

Alex and Isabel had exhausted all of their brainstorms about how to get out of the cell hours before. Their spirit had really started to wane.

ALEX: Anyway, I understand that the West Roswell High football team may actually have a shot to win a few games this year, even if Kyle gets on the field. Heck, we might even have a chance against Roswell High this year. We haven’t beaten them since my father was the team manager.

ISABEL: Alex, what are you talking about?

ALEX: Sorry.

ISABEL: I don’t care about football; I care about getting out of here.

ALEX: I’m just trying to keep us from nervous silence followed by gradual insanity.

ISABEL: Oh that’s a comforting thought.

ALEX: Say what you will Iz, but I’m telling you, school spirit is going to be at an all time high this fall.

Despite herself, Isabel started to crack up.

ISABEL: Stop that…you aren’t helping.

ALEX: Wait a second. Have you thought about trying to send a message to Max, you know with your power?

ISABEL: He could be anywhere; I wouldn’t know where to look.

ALEX: Come on, he’s your brother. You grew up in the same cave. You have to have some stronger connection than that. After all, you got through to him when the FBI took him the last time.

ISABEL: That’s different.

ALEX: How?

ISABEL: I mean, we were all together. Everyone was there to find Max.

ALEX: What, now I’m not enough?

ISABEL: No…you know I didn’t mean that. It’s just that it was easier to focus then.

ALEX: And now we’re all in the same boat, being held by the FBI?

ISABEL: Yeah.

ALEX: Trust me, Isabel, I know you, you can do this. It could be the only way we’re going to find a way out of here.

ISABEL: OK. I’ll try.

Isabel lied back on her cot, and closed her eyes. She tried as hard as she could to concentrate, block out everything. She just kept repeating in her mind the same word, over and over again, “focus…focus”.

---------

“Focus…focus…”

MICHAEL: What did you just say?

MARIA: Nothing, what?

Maria and Michael had been, well, involved, when Michael heard those words. He jumped up, and walked to the center of the room.

MICHAEL: Who’s there? What’s that?

MARIA: Michael, what are you talking about? I didn’t hear anything.

MICHAEL: It’s Isabel. I heard her; she’s here somewhere.

MARIA: Isabel? Michael, she’s not here. She’s off somewhere; we don’t know where she is.

MICHAEL: No…inside my head, I can hear her, she’s trying to get through to us.

Michael tried his best to answer her. He couldn’t tell if anything was getting through, but he sat down and kept trying.

---------

TESS: Nasedo, get up. Did you just hear that?

Tess jumped off of her cot, where she was trying to do anything to distract herself from someone who had become very quickly the most annoying well, thing on the planet. Nasedo hadn’t let up one lick since they had woken up in their cell.

TESS: Come on, when are you going to snap out of this?

Tess sat back down. She had heard Isabel too. Somewhere deep in her brain, she heard her cry for help, her cry for anyone. She tried to concentrate, tell her that she was alive.

---------

Isabel kept concentrating. She was about to give up when all of the sudden she saw something. She tried to move her mind to it, make it come into focus. She felt herself whizzing through, well, nothing. She felt herself stop, and all of the sudden, she opened her eyes. Or maybe she didn’t. It was kind of hard to focus on things like that. It was like she was dream walking, but she was completely awake. She found herself floating in a long, beige-toned room. She looked down, and saw that she was on a disc just a little bigger than herself. The disc was floating maybe about 10 feet above the floor. She forced herself to look towards the center of the room. There was a drawing in the floor, but she couldn’t move herself closer to it. The symbol of the drawing was familiar though. It was the symbol that was on the orbs, which always reminded her of a tunnel or a gateway.

She then saw something in the distance. Another person on another disc. It looked just like hers. As it got closer, she saw who it was. Michael. A few moments later, so quick that she was barely conscious of it, Tess was there. A few moments later, she felt another breeze pass by her. It was Max. They were all there.

TESS: Where are we?

Her words broke the dead silence that until then had been Isabel’s dream walk.

ISABEL: I have no idea. Is that really you, really all of you?

MICHAEL: As far as I can tell. One moment I was sitting in a prison cell, the next I found myself here. Wherever here is.

MAX: Yeah. Me too. What happened?

Isabel started to answer, but another gust of wind behind her took the words right out of her mouth. It filled the empty spot that was at the bottom of the picture of the symbol, which was roughly shaped like a pentagon.

MAX: Liz?

TESS: What are you doing here?

LIZ: I saw Max trying to hear something and all of the sudden, I heard it too. Isabel, what did you do to us?

ISABEL: I don’t know. I was just trying to find out where all of you were, and then, we were here.

MICHAEL: But if Liz is here, where’s Maria…or Alex?

ISABEL: I don’t know. I have no idea where here even is.

MAX: Well, wherever here is, we’re there.

TESS: What are we going to do to get out of here?

MAX: The Special Unit has this place pretty well locked down. Liz and I haven’t had much luck with that.

TESS: So you and Liz are in a cell together?

MAX: Yes.

ISABEL: Alex and I also got put into the same cell.

MICHAEL: Maria and me too.

TESS: So at least that’s everyone accounted for.

MAX: What about Nasedo. I mean, he’s the reason we’re here in the first place. Where is he?

TESS: Busy singing and dancing in my cell.

MICHAEL: What are you talking about?

TESS: He’s gone nuts, as far as I can tell. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t even remember who he is, I’ll bet.

MAX: That’s what the agent said.

ISABEL: Agent?

MAX: Yeah. The new head of the Unit, I guess, brought me into that main room that we were in when we got captured.

MICHAEL: Me too. Though I didn’t see anybody. We’ve got to get out of this place, and now. We’re goners if we spend much more time here, all of us.

MAX: I know. What did they do to you?

MICHAEL: Remember what they did to you the last time.

MAX: Yeah?

MICHAEL: Kind of like that.

MAX: We’ve got to get out of here.

TESS: I can assume that none of you has had any luck with the doors?

MAX: They’re some sort of super metal. I can’t do anything with them.

TESS: Me neither.

MAX: Well, the agent told me that Nasedo had given them all of the information that they needed about us. He knew about Liz, about our families, obviously. Everything we’ve been doing.

MICHAEL: Yeah, they’re threatening to kill everyone we know if we don’t give them the answers that they’re looking for.

ISABEL: Which is what?

MAX: They think that, well; I’m the leader of a plot to take over the world. If I don’t give myself up and reveal my plans, well…

LIZ: Well, what can we do? Now that we’re here, we have to think of something, all right, sooner rather than later.

MICHAEL: Well, the next time that they take one of us out; we have to get away, open up the other cells. It’s our only chance. We don’t have a way through that door, and we can’t get out of the ceiling, and there are no windows in anyone’s cells, right?

TESS: Yeah.

ISABEL: Right.

LIZ: But who are they going to come for next?

MAX: That’s why we all have to be ready. We only are going to get one shot at this. If we try and fail, it’s just going to be that much harder the next time.

MICHAEL: But they drugged me when they brought me into that room; who’s to say they won’t do that again?

TESS: We just have to fight through it, that’s the only way. Without Nasedo’s help, we don’t have much choice.

MICHAEL: This plan’s terrible.

ISABEL: You’ve got a better idea, now’s the time.

MICHAEL: All of our plans are terrible, that’s the real problem.

MAX: Yeah, you’re right.

Right after Max finished, all of them woke back up in their cells. The dream was over.

SCENE 2

The True arrived at Los Alamos after driving for most of the afternoon. Bryan had finally gotten his car fixed, and with much bickering, they were finally on their way. They skipped out of the auto bill, so they had to drive pretty quickly also. After clearing the town, they drove up to the main access road of the Laboratories.

CAREN: You’re not going to drive right on base, are you?

BRYAN: Why not? It’s broad daylight, and besides, we have to get in there somehow. Do you see all of those guard towers?

CAREN: Yes, that’s exactly why we can’t go through there. We’ll be thrown in the brig or something like that?

KATHERINE: I think that the Navy is the one with the brig, Car.

CAREN: Who cares what they call it?

BRYAN: OK, Miss Genius, what do you advise?

CAREN: Well, this doesn’t look like what I saw, and I saw a fence like that near their cars. Let’s drive around the perimeter. They had to get on somehow. It’s probably at the best spot.

No one could argue with that. They decided to drive around for a while. After a few minutes, they spotted what they were looking for. Max and Isabel’s Jeep. It was on one side of the gate, while the white SUV that she had seen was on the other. Caren couldn’t believe that no one had thought that this was suspicious. This was supposed to be one of the most secure spots in the whole country, and these cars had just been sitting there for who knew how long. This whole thing just seemed wrong somehow. There was something fishy about it. She laughed at her own thought. Everything in the past month had been completely off-the-wall; why change now? They pulled up to the cars as they thought of a plan of attack.

SCENE 3

While the True were debating on their next step, Max and Liz were just waiting. All of them were. They needed something to happen before making a move.

LIZ: So what happened back there, Max?

MAX: I don’t know. I didn’t know that we could do that.

LIZ: That’s not what I meant.

MAX: Didn’t I tell you that our destinies were the same?

Max flashed a smile, and Liz looked right into his eyes. Maybe he was on to something here. I mean, everything Max had said to her, she had tried to trust. But she hadn’t really believed. Now she didn’t know what to think. That was becoming a practically everyday occurrence for her, but once again, something had popped up that had completely surprised her. Why did she hear Isabel? Why was she with them in the room? How did she get into the dream? Why not Maria or Alex? Max seemed so sure that she belonged with them. Why couldn’t she just accept that? It was just too weird, even after all she’d seen, she thought. She wasn’t an alien. She was born in Roswell, New Mexico in August of 1983. To two human parents, who discouraged her from even discussing the existence of extra-terrestrial life, even as they ran an alien-themed café. Then Max Evans walked in her life, and everything changed for her. The past year had seemed longer for her than the previous sixteen put together. She had changed so much, grown up so much. All of that though had come with a price. Well, for one, it had brought her here. But what if Max had never revealed his true identity to her, what if she hadn’t gone to work that day. What would her life had been like if that hadn’t happened? She looked at Max, and realized that she didn’t want to take any of it back. Not a thing. Maybe one day she would figure out what her part was in all of this, but in the meantime, she had to just live her life, and let the pieces fall where they may.

MAX: No…you can’t take her! Take me!

The door to their cell had opened again, and the same two guards walked in. But instead of reaching for Max, they took Liz with them. She struggled, but they put the blindfold over her, and she was completely overwhelmed. Max reached out to stop them, but they knocked him down to the other side of the cell.

Well, it was all on her now, as she was being dragged this way and that, presumably back to the main room. She was the one that had to find the way out for the rest of them. She knew that she couldn’t fail, but at the same time, she didn’t know what the Special Unit had in store for her. She didn’ t want to know.

The lights came on, and she was standing in the center of the room. One agent was leaning against the far wall.

AGENT: So, Liz Parker, I presume. Well, I’m Agent Wilson.

LIZ: Hello.

She inwardly chastised herself. How could she say that?

AGENT: I guess you want to know why you’re here.

Liz didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say.

AGENT: Well, we have ourselves a situation here. I think you know what it is. But, in case, you wish to plead ignorance, perhaps a refresher may be necessary. You’re a high school student, a good one as a matter of fact, aren’t you? You also work at the Crashdown Café that your parents own. In September of last year, you were shot there. Am I right so far? You were saved by Max Evans, who you now date. Max is an alien. He healed you with some kind of magical power of his.

Agent Wilson walked toward the center of the room. He got up right next to her and kept talking.

AGENT: Well, I’m sorry to say this, but Max Evans is not the nice boy that you may love. He’s a cold-blooded killer, and he’s part of the enemy. The ones who are out to destroy humanity. You might say, Agent Wilson, you’re crazy. I mean, do you see alien conspiracies behind every corner? Why would someone want to destroy mankind in the first place? Believe me, Liz, I’ve been asking myself the same questions over and over again since I joined this unit. What crystallized for me was the discovery of an intruder in our midst. The one they call Nasedo. He told us a few things. One of them is that Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess are not to be trusted or trifled with. They’re going to act soon. They’ll be no place for anyone in their brave new world. Even you. Do you understand?

Liz couldn’t say anything. She didn’t even know where to start. Practically every word out of this man’s mouth to this point had been a complete lie. Yet he fully believed what he was saying. She could tell that. What was he going to do next?

AGENT: Well…this is where you come in. I’m going to offer you a deal. I’m willing to let you, Maria, and Alex walk out of here scot-free. You can just leave, get back in the car, and go back to Roswell. Heck, I just received an APB over the wire that your parents have declared you missing. Wouldn’t it be nice to go home?

LIZ: I’m assuming there’s a catch.

AGENT: We will let you go, but we have to keep the rest of them.

LIZ: What would you do to them?

AGENT: Well…it doesn’t appear that they are too willing to let us in on their plans. We may have to stop them for good.

LIZ: You mean kill them?

AGENT: Exactly. Believe me, Liz; I don’t want to do it. I would be satisfied if they just dissolved their force and went home. But they’re not giving me much of a choice. They keep saying that they don’t know anything. It’s getting very frustrating.

A germ of a plan was emerging inside Liz’s mind. She might as well try it, she thought.

LIZ: Well…believe me, it’s tempting. But how can I believe what you’re saying? What if they’re telling the truth?

AGENT: That’s a risk that I have to take. I’m sorry Liz, there’s just no other way.

LIZ: Well, can I have a little time to think about it? I mean, Alex and Maria have an interest in it too. We have to talk about it. Decide what we’re going to do.

AGENT: I don’t think that’s such a good idea.

LIZ: For all I know, you’ll let us out of here and then kill us. What assurance do I have you won’t make us disappear?

AGENT: Look, Liz, I’m here to protect you, all of you, from them. That is my mission as an officer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Special Unit on the Paranormal. That’s the assurance that I can give you. Well…what’s it going to be?

LIZ: Look, I need to think about this. Why don’t I go back to my cell, and think on it? I’ll get back to you in an hour.

AGENT: Well, we’re not letting you go back to that cell with Max. I have another place for you. Guards…

The guards came up to carry her out of the room.

LIZ: At least let me walk. It’s not like I’m going to overwhelm these guys.

Agent Wilson assented to that. He needed this girl. It was already scary enough for her.

Liz walked into the hallway, flanked by the two guards. She was escorted passed two checkpoints where she had to be scanned through, with agents at each one of those. She walked past a hallway with four solid doors on the left hand side. This had to be where they were keeping all of them, though because she had been blindfolded on the entire trip to the white room, she didn’t know that for sure. Well, it was now or never. Liz walked down the hallway perfectly straight. She eyed the first door, and she saw the lock. A card operated it. She looked at the guards to her left and right. Their access card was hanging on their belts.

LIZ: I feel faint, can I just stop here for a minute.

GUARD: No way, missy. Your suite’s this way.

LIZ: No really, it’ll just be a minute.

Liz didn’t wait for their assent. She leaned on the far wall, with her head facing it, and leaned over, seemingly to catch her breath.

GUARD: Let’s go now…

She just forced her leg back as hard and fast as it would go. She hit the guard in the leg, and he was so surprised that he fell right down onto the floor. She quickly reached over and grabbed the card off his belt and lunged for the closest door. The other guard was on his radio instantly, but she got to one of the doors and opened it. As soon as the door opened, she saw Max.

LIZ: Come on, hurry!

Max ran out the door and saw the other guard coming. He immediately held out his hand and pushed the other guard into the wall.

MAX: Get the other doors…that’s only going to hold them for a second before they call in backup.

Liz quickly ran and opened up the other three doors. Within ten seconds, all of them, even Nasedo was in the hallway.

MICHAEL: All right, which way?

As he said that, Nasedo got away, and started jogging down the hallway in the opposite direction that Liz and the two guards had come from.

MARIA: Should we follow him?

MAX: Whatever, we just need to move now.