Quarantine r-4

by Laura J. Burns

  "Of course we're trying to isolate specific genes that are most likely to lead to the growth of cancerous cells," Maris said.

  "Isn't it dangerous, though?" Liz asked. "I mean, once we start messing with people's DNA, who knows where it could lead."

  "That's exactly right, Ms. Parker," Dr. Sosa said. It was the first thing he'd said since Maris had arrived, and Liz was almost surprised to hear his voice.

  Maris smiled at Dr. Sosa, but her smile was a little forced. "There are ethical issues to any gene therapy," she admitted coldly. "But we at Meta-chem feel we know where the line is. And we'd like to eradicate cancer."

  Now I've insulted her, Liz thought. What a terrible beginning}. "That's really impressive," she said aloud. "I had no idea you were working on such humanitarian things."

  "We produce pharmaceuticals only to make money for our more important research," Maris said. "That's what Meta-chem is all about… helping people. Healing people."

  Dr. Sosa coughed, and Maris shot him an aggravated look.

  I guess Dr. Sosa doesn't buy the Meta-chem sales pitch, Liz thought, amused. It looked as if this job would be an education in office politics as well as science.

  "I wanted you to be in the lab where our most interesting work is being done," Maris told Liz. "That's why I've placed you with Dr. Sosa. I'll leave you two to get started."

  Maris headed for the door, then stopped and turned back to Liz. "I'm really happy to have you here, Liz. We both are. Right, Alan?"

  Dr. Sosa met Maris's eye, then forced a smile. "Sure," he said.

  The minute Maris was out of the room, his smile disappeared. Liz couldn't figure it out… he obviously wasn't happy to have her here. But why?

  "I'm really excited to be involved with such cutting-edge research," she said. "What do you want me to do?"

  "See that box?" he said, pointing to one of the crates the movers had left.

  Liz nodded.

  "You'll find about five hundred petri dishes inside. I want you to wash every one of them."

  Liz gaped at him. Washing dishes? That was her fantastic new job? She could do that at the Crashdown!

  "Just… wash them?"

  Dr. Sosa rolled his eyes. "Did you think you'd be splicing genes for your summer job?" he asked.

  Liz felt tears sting the back of her eyes. This guy was a jerk! "I'll get to work," she murmured.

  Isabel stuck another grape into her mouth and sighed. "Are we really watching General Hospital?" she asked her brother, who sat next to her on the couch.

  Max continued to stare at the TV

  "Because I kinda had the impression that you'd rather be tortured in the White Room than watch a soap opera," she went on.

  Max didn't answer. He just stared straight ahead, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. If he didn't get bored and leave, Isabel was going to have to take matters into her own hands. She needed him out of earshot before her new boyfriend, Jesse Ramirez, called. "In fact I thought soap operas gave you hives," she added.

  No answer.

  Isabel pointed her finger at Max and used her powers to shoot a tiny zap of electricity at his cheek.

  "Ow!" he yelped, jumping in surprise. He glared at Isabel, then picked up the remote. "Just for that, I'm not letting you watch General Hospital," he said, changing the channel.

  Isabel snorted. "You've been sitting here for fifteen minutes brooding and moping," she said. "And totally not paying attention to what's in front of your face. What's going on?"

  "Nothing."

  "Oh, please, Max. Don't make me resort to dreamwalk-ing"

  "You can't dreamwalk me," Max said.

  "Don't be so sure."

  They sat in silence for another minute, now watching an infomercial on TV If Max hated anything more than soap operas, it was infomercials. "It's Liz," he said suddenly.

  "Well, duh," Isabel replied. "What happened now?"

  "I think she took that job at Meta-chem just to get away from me."

  "Max, Liz won the job in a scholarship contest," Isabel pointed out. "It couldn't have been some premeditated way to avoid you."

  "I guess not. But I'm afraid she's having doubts about us," Max said despairingly. He clicked off the TV and turned his big, sad eyes on Isabel.

  Great, she thought. Now I'll never get rid of him before Jesse calls. It wasn't that she didn't care about Max's problem. But she wanted to talk to Jesse in private, and she could not let Max find out about him. Her relationship with Jesse was still so new, and she was sure Max wouldn't approve. In fact he might disapprove so much that he would tell their parents about it, and that would be a disaster. First of all, Jesse was older… eight years older. And second of all, he worked for Isabel's father. No, there was no way she could let her parents find out about Jesse.

  Once upon a time she would've trusted her brother with this kind of secret. Once upon a time he was her best friend. But Max had changed over the past year. Learning about their alien destiny had been a shock to all of them, but Max had taken it the hardest. Because Max was the king, a king whose responsibility it was to save a planet he'd never even seen. And whose destiny was to love a girl

  he barely even knew. Somehow, in the middle of all that, he'd lost track of who he was. He'd managed to alienate all his friends.

  And about two months ago, he'd done the worst thing Isabel could think of: He'd turned on her. He took his role of king so seriously that he thought he could make decisions for all of them. He'd decided that he didn't want Isabel leaving Roswell to go to college, and he'd threatened to do whatever it took to make her obey him. Even if that meant lying to their parents, telling them Isabel was on drugs.

  Max had apologized later, and she'd forgiven him. But Isabel wasn't sure she could ever trust her brother again.

  And Jesse was too important to her to give up. If Max didn't want her with Jesse, he might try to tell her what to do, maybe even threaten her again. So she just had to keep Max from finding out.

  Isabel didn't feel like talking about Max's troubles with Liz. Those two were never happy, and there was nothing anyone could do to help.

  "Max, you and Liz are the interplanetary Romeo and Juliet. She's disgustingly in love with you," Isabel said.

  "She got really upset after I had that flash of my son," Max told her.

  Isabel sighed. Clearly she was going to have to help Max through this, even if it meant missing her call from Jesse.

  "Well, you did sleep with Tess and get her pregnant," Isabel said. "And Tess killed Alex and lied to all of us. So it's sort of understandable that Liz would get upset when you have psychic flashes from Tess."

  "The flash came from the baby" Max corrected her.

  Isabel put her hand over his. "You can't know that for sure," she said gently. "You don't know anything about the baby. And you have to admit, if the situation were reversed, you'd be freaked out too."

  Max nodded sadly. "What am I supposed to do about it?" he asked. "All I want is for life to go back to normal."

  "News flash, Max: Life never was normal."

  Max smiled wanly. "You know what I mean. Before we knew about Antar and being the Royal Four."

  "Before Tess."

  He shrugged. "But there's nothing I can do about it now. I can't escape the responsibility. I'm the king. And he's my son, Isabel. I have to find him, no matter what. Don't I?"

  Isabel thought about it. Max's son. Her own nephew. It all seemed so remote, so unreal. Tess was gone, and she'd taken with her their only way to get back to their home planet, Antar. They were stuck on Earth now, with no means of fulfilling their duty to save Antar from its current, evil rulers. It seemed as if fate had taken it out of their hands. "I don't know, Max," Isabel said slowly. "I don't know if it's even possible to find your son. I think maybe it's time to admit that our lives are going to be here,, on Earth."

  "I tried that," he replied. "And as soon as I started rebuilding my life here, I got that flash from my son. He's telling me that I can't give up…
even if it means sacrificing my relationship with Liz."

  The misery in Max's face was so extreme that Isabel felt her own eyes filling with tears. Maybe she'd been too hard

  on him. He had problems on a universal scale. Maybe she should just let go of the past, try to trust Max again…

  The phone rang.

  Isabel froze. It was Jesse, it had to be!

  Max grabbed the cordless from the coffee table and clicked it on. "Hello?"

  She watched his face as he listened to the voice on the other end. Max's eyes sought out Isabel's, and he frowned. "Just a minute," he said into the phone. Then he held it out to Isabel, his eyebrows raised questioningly.

  Isabel looked in Max's eyes, but she couldn't read his expression. Did he suspect her relationship with Jesse? How would he react when he found out? Max had always been compulsive about keeping their secret… he didn't want anyone else to get close enough to him, Michael, or Isabel to find out that they were aliens. Too many people knew already.

  What would he do if he thought Isabel's new romance was putting them all in danger? Isabel knew the answer to that: He would make her end it. She couldn't let Max discover her feelings for Jesse. She couldn't trust Max. She took the phone from him. "Hello?"

  "Hey, beautiful." Jesse's warm, loving voice filled her ears. "How's my girl?"

  Her eyes still on Max, Isabel took a deep breath. "I'm not interested," she said. Then she hung up on her boyfriend before he could say another word.

  Max was watching her with a frown. "Who was that?" he said.

  "A telemarketer," Isabel lied. "Nobody important."

  "Bye, Mom!" Maria called as she bustled through the kitchen of the DeLuca house. She wore a long, loose skirt and a spaghetti-strap tank top and she was pulling her hair into a ponytail as she went. "I'll be back around ten."

  Sadie could hear pretty well from her hiding spot in the bushes outside the DeLuca house, and she managed to duck beneath the window just as Maria passed by inside. The bush she was hiding in had a few thorns, but nothing she couldn't handle. The only thing that mattered was that she get to watch Maria. She began to gather her things together so that she could follow Maria when she left the house.

  "Maria!" Amy DeLucas voice called from inside. "Where are you going?"

  Sadie slowly peered over the edge of the window again. Maria now stood near the front door, looking exasperated. Amy faced her from the other side of the kitchen.

  "I'm meeting Michael," Maria said. "We're going to the movies."

  "From one o'clock in the afternoon until ten at night?" Amy demanded.

  Maria rolled her eyes. "What's with the inquisition?" she asked.

  Sadie grinned. "What's with the inquisition?" she whispered. She loved the way Maria talked… always so sure of herself.

  "I have to go to Hondo for the afternoon flea market," Amy was saying. "I wanted you to come with me and man the booth today."

  Maria's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "Excuse me?" she said. "It's my one day off from the Crashdown."

  "That's the point," Amy replied. "You have time to help me today." She tossed Maria a glow-in-the-dark alien puppet. "I just got a whole shipment in, so it will be a busy day. I can't handle it alone."

  Maria held the puppet up by its webbed foot. "Look, selling this alien crap is your thing, not mine," she told her mother. "I have a job. And today is my vacation day, so that means I get to spend it doing what I want to do."

  Sadie's legs were getting tired from squatting underneath the windowsill. This argument seemed like it might go on for a while, so she slid down the wall of the house until she was sitting directly under the window. This way, she could still hear every word Maria said, and she could add to her logbook at the same time.

  "This 'alien crap' is what puts food on the table, young lady," Amy cried.

  Sadie tuned her out for a moment while she flipped to a fresh page in the notebook on her lap. She took a pencil from her backpack and began drawing a picture of Maria, quickly filling in the details… the pattern on the skirt she was wearing, the way Maria's ponytail sat high up on her head.

  "… this is a family business and you're part of the family," Amy was saying.

  "You call this a family?" Maria replied. "There are two of us, you and me. You sell alien stuff at flea markets, I work at the Crashdown. That's it. We have no family business. We barely have a family!"

  Sadie flipped to another blank page and began to write. Mom sells alien toys and stuff, she scribbled quickly. Maria doesn't like to help.

  "… enough of Michael?" Amy's voice broke Sadie's

  concentration. Was Michael Maria's boyfriend? Sadie got up and peered through the window again. Maria was standing with her hand on the doorknob, ready to leave the house.

  "No, Mom, I haven't seen enough of Michael," Maria was saying. "I like to see him as much as I can. You might not remember this, but when you have a boyfriend, you actually like to hang out with him." She turned and pulled the door open so quickly that Sadie barely had time to duck out of sight behind the bushes.

  Maria stomped down the driveway and opened the door of her car.

  "There's more to life than Michael Guerin, you know!" Amy shouted after her.

  Maria didn't answer; she just climbed into the car and peeled out.

  Sadie sighed. So much for trying to follow Maria. She looked back down at the notebook in her lap and wrote some more. Maria drives a reddish Volkswagen. Her boyfriend's name is Michael. Michael Geerin.

  That would do for now. Sadie closed the notebook and stared at the cover for a moment. Glued carefully to the front of the book was a large, glossy school picture. A picture of Maria.

  "Soon I'll know everything about you," Sadie whispered to the picture. "Everything."

  3

  Maris sat behind her huge cherry wood desk, poring over her file on the Healer. She had a photograph from the incident at the hospital in Phoenix last December. The Healer had cured an entire cancer ward full of children, and there was a security photo of a teenage boy with long hair. The FBI Special Unit… from whom Maris had bought this file… had thought this boy was the Healer. But Maris wasn't so sure.

  "It's worth investigating, I guess," she murmured, writing a note to herself to have a private investigator find out who the guy in the photo was.

  Dr. Sosa's thin, reedy voice interrupted her thoughts. "You told me to report at the end of the day."

  Without looking up, Maris said, "Come in and shut the door."

  Alan entered her office and closed the thick metal door behind him. "Liz Parker left about ten minutes ago," he said.

  "And?" Maris asked. "Did you give her the serum?"

  Alan snorted. "Of course not. I had to have some control samples."

  "Like what?" Maris asked.

  "I have the old samples of the Healer's cells, and now I have samples of Liz Parker's. I managed to get a piece of her hair without her noticing."

  "I'm bored by this, Alan," Maris said.

  "If you want me to track the changes in her after I give her the serum, we need to have a baseline sample from before she has the serum," Alan said petulantly. "And besides, I found out something very interesting."

  "What?"

  "Her DNA is odd."

  Maris frowned. "Odd how?"

  "It has some similarities with the DNA from the Healer's cells."

  Maris sat back in her chair. "That is interesting," she said. "Are you suggesting that when he heals, he actually changes the structure of the patient's DNA?"

  "It would appear so," Alan said.

  "So if he heals my husband, he'll be turning Clayton into some sort of superman," Maris said, more to herself than him.

  "No, not at all," Alan corrected her. "Liz Parker isn't superhuman. She's simply… different. There's no reason to think the mutated DNA has any effect on her daily life. It may just be a tag left behind by the healing process. It doesn't seem to serve any purpose."

  "Oh, please,
Alan," Maris snorted. "You scientists can't. figure out the purpose of most of our genetic material. Don't pretend you know what this DNA does."

  Alan sat down in one of her guest chairs without even

  asking. "I think we need to reconsider using Liz to test the serum," he said.

  Maris stared at him with contempt. "No."

  "Maris… Ms. Wheeler. Liz already has compromised DNA. We won't be able to tell how the serum works on a regular person, a person who's never been healed by the Healer. She isn't a good test subject."

  "Didn't you just say that you think the mutated DNA has no effect on her?" Maris asked.

  Alan looked confused. Got him! Maris thought with satisfaction. She could always tell when Dr. Sosa was trying to worm his way out of doing something unpleasant.

  "Be sure to give Liz the serum tomorrow," Maris instructed him. "Now get out of my office."

  Kyle opened the front door and walked wearily inside. He tossed the keys onto the table beside the door and wiped his sweaty palms on the dark blue jumpsuit that was his uniform at Toby's Garage. Then he wrinkled his nose. He'd been underneath a car for the last three hours, but the air in the house he shared with his father was even harder to breathe than exhaust fumes. "Jeez, Dad, open some windows," he cried, fanning his face.

  "Sorry, son," Jim Valenti called from his seat on the couch. "I guess we should clean up in here one of these days." Valenti took a swig of his Coke and continued watching TV

  "Yeah, maybe next time I have an hour off," Kyle muttered as he forced open the living room window. Two men, their dirty clothes, and lots of leftover takeout could create quite a stench.

  "How was your day?" Valenti asked.

  "Uh… it sucked," Kyle replied. "How 'bout you? What did you do today?"

  Valenti yawned. "Oh, a little of this, little of that."

  Translation: Nothing at all, Kyle thought. He tried not be angry at his dad. After all, it wasn't Valenti's fault he'd lost his job. He'd been trying to help the aliens, the same way Kyle always tried to help them. He owed Max Evans his life, and Isabel was turning into one of his closest friends. Hell, even Michael had his moments. So if the interplanetary gang needed help, the Valentis were there.