Early the next morning, they arrived back in Roswell. The seven of them decided to stop by the Crashdown for some breakfast before they all faced the parents. What they didn’t count on was whom they saw immediately after walking into the café.

MR. PARKER: More coffee?

MR. WHITMAN: Sure.

MRS. PARKER: Jeff, have you been watching the news? Something happened again up at Los Alamos.

MR. PARKER: Bring the little TV in here. Maybe our bulletins are on TV. Maybe someone knows where the kids went.

All of them walked into the door.

MRS. EVANS: Oh my god! Max, Isabel…where have you been? I was so worried. Why didn’t you call? We sent out the police after you.

MR. PARKER: Liz! You have a lot of explaining to do.

Alex and Maria were getting similar speeches from their parents as Mrs. Parker walked back in with the television. After running over and giving Liz a big hug, they were all watching the television.

MRS. PARKER: Liz, what happened to you? You look exhausted.

LIZ: Mom, you don’t know the half.

TV REPORTER: …And last night was apparently a busy night at the Los Alamos National Laboratories in northern New Mexico. Police found a dead teenage girl inside the perimeter at about 4 this morning local time. Her name and her cause of death are being withheld pending an autopsy and parental notification. What she was doing there was unknown. The police also detained four other juveniles trying to flee the area after the discovery of the young girl. Their names are also being withheld at this time. Police believe that they are involved in the girl’s death. Police were unable to ascertain if this occurrence was related to another incident also at Los Alamos last night that involved the base being put on full intruder alert. According to eyewitnesses in the hills overlooking the base, there was a strange vibration that shook the grounds around the base during the alert. There were also reports of the epicenter of this occurrence being inside a building on the base, which destroyed the building completely. The National Geological Survey has denied reports of any earthquake activity in the region over the last 48 hours. The Department of Defense will neither confirm nor deny strange reports of this unusual phenomenon occurring at the same time of the base-wide alert. They will also neither confirm nor deny that one building was a complete loss, calling it a matter of national security. This is just another incident in a recent string of unwanted attention involving the troubled Los Alamos base. In July the loss of two laptops from…

LIZ: Oh my god, Max…

The six of them all looked at one another. They didn’t know what happened, but they were sure it was going to come back to affect their lives.

But they couldn’t worry about that in the meantime. The chances were that the investigation would prevent anyone from coming to look for them for some time. If the building had been destroyed, all of the members of the Special Unit were inside. It could be a blessing in disguise. Max couldn’t shake the feeling that the girl and the others were somehow involved in all of this. There had been another car parked in the bushes just opposite of theirs. He didn’t get a good look at it on the way out, but he could have sworn he’d seen that car before. Michael’s teardrop model seemed familiar to him too, although he didn’t want to say anything at the time. He assumed that Michael would come to him with any developments when he figured out what it was. They had all been so tired that he hadn’t even taken it out of his backpack the entire way back.

So many questions, so few answers. All of them would be starting school again in a few weeks. It had been almost a full year since he had saved Liz Parker that day. He looked around at his friends. They had grown up so much, learned so much since then. It seemed like much longer ago than just a year. Regardless of what had happened, he knew as he looked to Liz’s eyes that he wouldn’t trade it away for anything. He somehow knew that somewhere deep down the rest of them would agree.