Transformation
By DocPaul
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Part
Five: Hearth Fires
There is a moment in time, that elusive second between
sleep and awareness when a person pulled from a deep sleep realizes something is
wrong.
Amy DeLuca opened her eyes in fright as a hand came over
her mouth preventing her scream. Her frightened eyes met the warm golden brown
of Michael’s, and her tense body relaxed as her brain processed the awareness
of his presence. Michael slowly removed his hand from her mouth, and raised a
shushing finger to his. Circling his finger around the room, he indicated that
her home could have ‘bugs’—those special FBI ears. Amy nodded.
Michael handed Amy a set of clothes he had quietly
assembled before waking her, and he indicated for her to go to the living room
and wait. He left her room and went to another, saving the harder task until
last. He had to wake Sean.
Amy, waiting in the living room wincing when she heard a
slight scuffle, then moments later both Sean and Michael appeared. Michael
quietly led them out of the house in their dark clothes as they merged into the
night.
Maria turned quickly when she heard someone entering the
copper mine, her hand instinctually going to her stomach as she resisted the
urge to run and hide, hoping it was Michael. Seeing her mother first, she rushed
forward as her mother saw her and called her name with them hugging, both
crying.
Sean and Michael stood back as the two women spoke to each
other in low voices as they held each other. Maria glanced over at her cousin,
and suddenly she was swept away from her mother in a hug from him as well. Amy
attacked them from behind in a huge awkward DeLuca huddle of arms and limbs. Amy
glanced over at Michael, and without a word, she pulled him into the mass,
adding him to the group hug.
When they finally pulled apart, Michael was holding Maria
securely in front of him, his arms circling her protectively. His eyes met his
mother-in-law, and with a slight nod, he kissed the side of Maria’s head, and
let her go.
“I’ll make a run for food and hot coffee. Stay with
your mom, and I’ll be back.”
Sean glanced at his cousin and aunt. “I’ll go with
Michael—to help.” Both men left quickly as Amy took her precious daughter
back, the two women’s heads were bent together as Michael glanced back before
walking out.
Sean was quiet for most of the drive. They drove to a
Dexter, smaller town than
“Yeah, all my life.”
Sean seemed to think about it for a few moments on his own.
“My aunt read Parker’s journal. It wasn’t a comfort.”
Michael glanced at Sean. “Did you read it?”
“Yeah. I was there when Jeff Parker gave it to her.”
Sean shook his head. “It explained a lot about that night—the blackout and
the lunatic ramblings of that freak at the UFO center. Guess he wasn’t such a
freak.”
“Brody was taken over a few times by an alien named Larek.”
“Nice the way your people just use humans against their
own will.”
“I guess it happened long before we met Brody. I don’t
know why Larek felt the need to walk around on Earth borrowing Brody’s body,
but obviously he did. They cured Brody’s cancer.” Michael was quiet for a
moment. “How’s Maria’s mom been doing?”
“How do you think? She woke up one morning and her
daughter was gone. No note. No explanation. If you think reading Parker’s
idiotic ramblings romanticizing Max was any comfort, you’d be wrong. It told
nothing about Maria, except her love for you, and that she left with you.”
Michael stared straight ahead. “There was no time. We
thought we had until the UFO Convention, but they moved to take us during
Graduation. Time ran out, and there was no way for us to make contact.”
“Though Liz Parker drops her journal and a letter to her
father in the mail, and there was no room for Maria to write Aunt Amy too?”
Michael went quiet. It was hard to explain, but it always
came down to Max and Liz being the only ones that were important, or given any
consideration. That was going to change. It already had. He was not going to
spend his life following their instructions, their lead, not at the risk of his
wife and his children.
“There’s a lot going on, Sean. So much more than I can
just tell you in a quick conversation. The most important thing is Maria.
She’s pregnant, and she needs her mother.”
“Pregnant?” Sean said incredulous. “Maria is pregnant?
I should kill you now. Stealing her from her family, getting her in trouble, and
…”
“We’re married. Over eight months ago. I didn’t get
her in trouble. We were careful, but
we couldn’t plan for my special physiology.” Michael stopped the car at the
restaurant. “Get angry. Go ahead and take a hit at me. Maybe I deserve it.
But—I will not apologize for loving
her, or marrying her. She is more than my wife. She has been my best friend,
someone that believes in me, and I won’t let anyone come between us.”
“So what are your intentions?” Sean asked quietly.
Michael paused before getting out of the car. “Giving her
back her family. Giving my unborn son his grandmother.”
~~~
Sean and Amy listened quietly as Maria and Michael told
them everything that happened to them since they left, including Maria being
attacked, and the baby. Most importantly, they told them about Future Max, and
their belief that nothing had been truly changed, that it had merely been
shifted out of sequence, that they suspected their planet would soon be at war
with aliens.
“How are they tracking you?” Amy asked, her eyes deadly
serious.
Michael shook his head. “No idea. We have nothing they
want or need. It was never planned for us to return to Antar. Earth was given to
us as a new home. They only came after all these years for the Granilith, and
they were all Kivar’s people searching frantically before the other worlds in
the solar system realized he didn’t have the power to hold over them.”
“This—Granilith?” said Sean. “It went back to Antar
with Tess?”
“Yes. As far as I can figure, Nasedo, one of the
Shapeshifters sent as Protectors struck a deal with Kivar. He offered to trade
us and the Granilith for some position of power. I think he was the protector
for the others—the Dupes, but their Max didn’t have the crest, so he needed
us—the originals. He deserted the others in the sewers of
“Until Max saved Liz Parker that day and exposed all of
you.”
“Yeah,” Michael said. “The other shifter knew where
we were, but he watched us from afar, convinced that if were integrated into
human society it would be better for us. The problem was we were exposed to
Valenti, who in turn exposed us to the Special Unit, and they sent agents, first
Topolsky and Stevenson, and finally Pierce. Later members of the disassembled
Special Unit, Burns found us after Max and Liz held up the convenience store in
“They took Max.” Amy asked.
Maria nodded. “They put him in a White Room, and were
planning on cutting him open when Nasedo and Michael saved him.” Maria cleared
her throat. “It made it perfectly clear to all of us that the fear of exposure
that they always felt was a very real threat, and they couldn’t risk anyone
learning their secret.”
“So this other Shapeshifter, the one that died,” said
Amy. “He lied to you.”
“More ways than one,” Michael confirmed. “I think he
had Tess mindwarp the message from home. He set us up to find the orbs, and
created the message to give us a purpose, binding us into a unit of four, one
that excluded our human friends. The message confirmed the destiny book he
created.”
“Why?” Sean didn’t get it. Why convince them they had
a destiny?
“I believe he created the destiny idea to keep us
isolated from humans, from interacting. He told the story to the Dupes, and then
to us. I think it was true that Max and Tess were married in their previous
life, because other aliens referred to her as the Queen, but not once did anyone
ever refer to me and Isabel as a mated pair, in fact, they only referred to
Isabel in connection to Kivar. He was her great love.”
“And this other Shapeshifter, Kal? He told you that you
were their brother?”
Michael nodded at Amy. “Yeah. It explains why I inherited
the crest when Max died, and not Isabel. I think all that Nasedo wanted was for
us to think we all belonged together, were destined to be together so we
wouldn’t form alliances with humans—become attached to Earth. The more
isolated we were, the easier it would be to convince us to return to Antar with
the Granilith.” Michael took Maria’s hand, kissing the back of it. “He
knew that if we had lives here, that Antar would be something we wouldn’t
want. It took him years to find us, and when he did, we already had paired up
with humans. Max with Liz, Maria with me, and Isabel and Alex were getting
together. Isabel was attached to her human parents. The message told us that our
people were waiting for us to liberate them.”
“Fifty years later? A hundred?” Amy asked, incredulous
that they would so easily accept such an outlandish tale.
Michael shrugged. He wouldn’t be so easily fooled now,
but at the time, he remembered needing a purpose, a reason why they recreated
him. His life would’ve been so much easier if he had been what he originally
thought—a child of the aliens that crashed, hidden to keep him safe, but
something happened keeping them from returning. Having an entire other life, one
he already lived had been nothing but a burden.
He would’ve preferred to be like Superman, a child sent
to Earth, given a new world because his old world was dead, and they loved him
enough to want him to survive. Instead, he was murdered on his own planet,
hated, and those who killed him before were more than happy to do it again, and
instead of being alien, he was actually more human. That was added to this
‘destiny’ to return and free his world from tyranny—a weighty
responsibility for a young boy who barely felt comfortable in his own skin, that
‘destiny’ was overwhelming when all he could see was his own potential
failure.
“Michael, you came back for a reason. Why?” Amy knew
there had to be a purpose. Michael hid all his life. Surviving was what he did
best, so risking everything to return to the one place to which he should never
return had to come with a purpose.
Michael glanced at Maria, his hand going to cup her face as
he leaned down and kissed her. He rested his head against hers for a moment
before looking at his mother-in-law, as his hands came to pull Maria into his
body.
“I can’t give Maria back to you. I won’t. Not her.
Not my son. But I want to give her you. I have a plan and it means destroying
your life here—giving up everything for both of you to help me create a safe
home for not only you, but me and Maria and our baby. I think it’s a way for
us to stop running, and if it works, we can spend whatever time we have left
together—no matter how long that time is.”
~~~
The van parked in a discrete distance from
“Maybe we should wait?” Isabel suggested. It was around
three in the morning, and by the time they walked into town, it would be almost
daylight. They couldn’t afford anyone recognizing them. After Max’s
performance at the graduation, Michael speeding him away on a bike, and men in
black with flak jackets, night vision goggles, and high powered riffles, they
would definitely be remembered.
Kyle shook his head. “I’m going to my father. You can
wait here if you like, and I’ll bring him back.”
Max shared a look with Liz, the worry lined on her face.
“I think we all need to go. We need to see what happened to our parents.”
Turning to Kyle, Max shook his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t stop them
from leaving. You should’ve woken us.”
“Hell, I was gonna go with them, but it was obvious that
I wasn’t invited. I think Michael was more concerned to get Maria away from
any other alien, give her breathing space to calm down. She was finally eating
again, and keeping it down.”
“We could’ve all left together if you hadn’t pulled
that stunt, and gone off to get drunk.”
Kyle made a face at Max. He was tired of hearing about it.
“Hey, you’re no longer a damn King, remember? And—you sure as hell were
never any King of mine. I’m only on this crazy ride because of you—so back
off. I don’t answer to you. I’m heading that way,” Kyle said pointing
towards
Kyle didn’t wait; he walked off into the dark easily
merging into the woods he had walked all his young life.
Max, Isabel and Liz shared a look before quickly following
him.
~~~
Michael paused before leaving again. He stopped beside
Maria, his head bending to hers. For a moment, they held a kiss. Michael closed
his eyes as her hand came up to stroke his cheek.
“I love you.” He whispered, ignoring the impatient
Sean. His hand rested on her stomach, before he kissed her again with more
passion, his eyes meeting hers before he walked out of the copper mine. Amy came
up behind Maria, hugging her from behind as she rested against her precious
child.
It took a little time to find two bodies, both John Doe’s
at the morgue. They made a fast trip to
They took the bodies back to the DeLuca house, and entered
as quietly as possible placing the bodies in the appropriate beds. Michael took
a few empty boxes and grabbed things he felt had to be essential to his
mother-in-law, most of them being her family albums. Sean did the same. They
were careful not to remove too much of anything that could in any way indicate
that Amy and Sean had left. They added a few clothing items, and on their way
out, Michael put his hand next to a heating element on the baseboard, sending a
power surge at the point, fraying wires. They could smell the fire starting in
the walls. Michael concentrated as he helped to accelerate the fire so an
emergency response would not be able to stop it.
Going out the window, and through the dark backyard they
returned to Michael’s new SUV, and put the boxes in the back. Sitting a few
blocks away in the SUV watching behind the darkened window, they observed as
firefighters responded, then police, and finally ambulance and coroner’s
office as two bodies were removed from the smoldering home.
Sean and Michael were quiet as they watched Deputy Jim
Valenti approach the firefighters. He opened the body bags on the stretcher and
nodded when he identified Amy and Sean’s bodies. The two young men watched as
Jim Valenti rubbed his eyes with his hand, obviously crying as he turned to
watch what was left of the DeLuca house burn in the night.
~~~
It was barely daylight as the others found a safe place to
observe without exposing themselves. They were waiting for Jim to get off the
late shift, but Isabel insisted that they locate Jesse. He had been taken, and
then returned. The Parkers and the Evans had not. The Crashdown was closed.
There had been a sign on the door stating it would remain closed until further
notice. The sign was old, almost a year old. The Evans house stood dark and
cold, obviously deserted.
They waited for Jesse to wake. Sure that his home and
office had to be monitored, they went into his garage and searched his car, but
could find no listening devices. Kyle and Liz left Max and Isabel to intercept
Jesse when he left for work as they hid in the backseat of the car.
Kyle and Liz went to find Jim. They made arrangements to
meet back at the van in the woods.
Kyle and Liz hid in the back of the Valenti house near the
side door leading into the kitchen. Kyle waited until his dad was struggling to
open the door into the kitchen before he made a special bird call. His father
paused for a moment, and then opened the door. Kyle waited a few moments before
his father came to the kitchen window before standing to let Jim see him. Jim
appeared not to see him, but Kyle saw a slight nod of his father’s head as he
indicated the car. Waiting until his father left the window before leading Liz
to Jim’s SUV, where they hid in the back.
Jim tried to calm his heart rate, taking long concentrating
breaths. Finally, he picked up the phone and dialed through to the Sheriff’s
office.
“Hey, Hanson, it’s Jim.” Jim listened to Hanson’s
greeting, and his condolences that Jim had to be the one to identify Amy’s
body. “Listen, I think I need a few days off. No. No, I’m okay. I just need
to get away. I was thinking of loading up, and taking off to go fishing.
Probably two days, or over the weekend. Yeah. Right. Get my head on straight.
Thanks. No. No, I’ll be fine. Right. Uh-huh. Yeah, I’ll call if I need
anything.”
Jim quickly moved around the room pulling together what he
would need for a fishing trip, including food, and tackle. He went outside and
made a show of loading his vehicle, leaving the back open as he loaded fishing
poles and reels. Getting into the SUV, he headed out of
~~~
Jesse stood holding Isabel to his side as Jim’s SUV
joined his car and the van. Max went to help Liz get out of the back, and Jim
walked around the car to look at the crew.
“Where are Michael and Maria?”
“We don’t know,” Max confessed. “They were heading
back here, but which route they took and when, we don’t know. We’re supposed
to meet them in
Jim glanced at Jesse. “Did you tell them?”
Jesse shook his head. Isabel stopped hugging her husband
and stepped back a little to look at him. “Tell us what?”
Jim cleared his throat. “The people who came for
you—they weren’t Special Unit. They weren’t FBI.”
Max moved closer leaving Liz’s side. “Then who were
they?”
“Jesse met them.”
The group all turned to Jesse.
“They took me, like they took your parents. I don’t
know why they released me, but they did. It was a General from the Air Force
base that Tess destroyed. He was working with rogue members of the defunct
Special Unit, and …”
“And?” Max prompted.
“And, they were being backed by someone—someone not
military. Someone with their own agenda. They took your parents, searched your
homes, and then they left. We haven’t heard anything from your parents
since.”
“I issued missing persons on all of them. Nothing.” Jim
told them.
“Three weeks later, after the hype and tabloids got hold
of the story, the raid at Graduation, and there were all these stylized photos
made of Max confessing to be an alien—the real FBI showed up to investigate.
Kyle stared at his father. “Maria’s mom? You?”
Jim shook his head. “No. It was Graduation. Seniors move
away, go to school. Everyone assumed Maria went back to
Isabel was crying. “So you don’t know what happened to
them?”
Jim shook his head. He suspected a mass grave somewhere,
but he couldn’t say that. He didn’t know. One thing he did know, they would
never see Jeff and Nancy Parker, or Philip and Diane Evans again. Whoever took
them didn’t want their presence known. Not to the real government of this
world, and especially not to Max and the others.
“Why did you come back?” Jim asked.
Liz wiped tears from her eyes. She couldn’t wrap her mind
around the thought of her parents gone forever. Nothing. No word. No grave.
Nothing. “Maria’s pregnant. Michael was bringing her home to see her mom.”
Liz cleared her throat. “We heard that our parents were taken, and that Jesse
had been too. Kyle needed to see you—we have new news, and …” Liz trailed
off. Eighteen months. They roamed around for eighteen months hardly giving
Jim wiped a hand across his mouth. “Maria—she’s going
to get a shock. Last night, Amy and Sean DeLuca died in a house fire.”
“What?” Max and Liz both stood up straighter as Isabel
painful held Jesse’s hand. “Are you sure? Maybe they left with Michael and
Maria?”
Jim shook his head. “No. I identified the bodies. Sean
was burned almost beyond recognition, but I could still identify Amy. The fire
destroyed their DNA, but Sean had one good fingerprint, and we had his on file.
It was them.”
“Who killed them?” Liz demanded. Oh god, Maria. She
would come home to find her home gone, her mother and cousin dead.
“No one. Initial fire investigation after the fire
suggests a faulty wire along a baseboard heating unit. It went through the walls
rapidly, and they probably never woke from their sleep. The final report won’t
be out for a week or so, but it was pretty apparent where the fire started.”
The entire group slumped to the ground. Except for Jesse
and Jim, everyone else left in
Jim nodded. He suspected as much. Why would they risk
coming back unless it was important. “You better tell us.”
~~~
The light from the dash illuminated Michael’s face as he
drove. Maria was asleep in the backseat with her mom, and Sean was sleeping in
the seat next to him. Michael glanced up into the rearview mirror to find Amy
DeLuca watching him.
“How much longer?” she asked quietly.
“Sometime tomorrow—late.”
“You know where you’re going? Where we’re going?”
“Yes.” Michael nodded turning his eyes back to the
road. He had a crimp in his neck. Searching the passing road signs, he found one
for gas and food in a few more miles. “The Shapeshifter, Kal, has arranged
everything.”
“He bought you this car?”
“Yes.”
“It’s different from your bike.”
Michael shrugged smiling slightly to himself. “It is. A
bike is okay for me and Maria, but hard to transport a pregnant woman, and later
a baby.”
“True.”
Amy seemed to be mulling things over. Her life took a
strange turn mere hours ago. She was no longer Amy DeLuca, and except for a few
boxes, one containing all her photo albums, and Maria, whom she held sleeping in
her arms, Sean, and now Michael, she had nothing left of her old life—not even
clothes. It didn’t matter. Things didn’t matter. Everything of importance,
she was taking with her. Her hand wandered to Maria’s flat stomach and rested
there in wonder. Her baby was having a baby.
“You trust him?”
Michael shrugged. “I trust no one, but in this instance,
I think I have to. I couldn’t do this alone.”
“Do what, Michael?”
Michael’s eyes met Amy’s in the mirror again. “Build
you a new life—a safe one where Maria and I can come and be safe as well,
where our son can grow up with family.” Michael shared a quick look with his
mother-in-law. “I never wanted to steal anything from you, except Maria. I
knew—I always knew that I was taking her with me. I just didn’t always want
to know that.”
“A mother expects to have their children leave, Michael.
I guess just not that abruptly, and never forever.”
Michael turned on the signal to leave the highway. He
needed coffee or something to keep awake. “Kal is creating new identities for
you. New lives. It’s what he does. He created his own over forty years ago,
and he’s never been questioned. I told him someplace nice. We needed two
houses, next to each other, new names, a business for you and Sean, money in the
bank, and new cars to start. He had it almost all done in twenty-four
hours—proof that with enough money, you can do almost anything.”
“That’s a lot of money, Michael.” Amy couldn’t
imagine buying two houses, a business, and new vehicles all at the same time,
let alone create new records for four people.
“He has it. He spends more on making one movie then I’m
asking him for. His life is about making lies appear to be truth—it’s what
he’s good at, so no wonder he became an icon in
“A grocery store and dry goods?” She owned a
Mercantile! Amy sat back. She had run a shop for years.
“You can add on or change the merchandise as you see fit.
It’s completely yours. He bought out the elderly couple who owned and ran it
almost all their lives. They’re retiring to
Michael drove up to the pump and turned off the engine. Amy
slowly shifted the sleeping Maria from her so she could get out. “Why would he
do this for us, Michael?”
Michael paused before getting out of the SUV. “Strangely
enough, he’s not only programmed to take direct orders from Max, but from me.
But that isn’t why he is doing it. I didn’t have to order him. The only
order I gave him was to never divulge the location or what he did, not even
under direct orders from Max, and to die before telling another soul.”
“Then why?”
Michael gave Amy a wryly grin before going to pump the gas.
“I told him he could be the godfather.”
~~~
Jesse sat with his hands dangling between his legs, his
head bent as he listened. Isabel watched him, concerned, but Jim was different.
He asked questions.
“So when my powers come online, more than likely I’ll
begin to burn out my own life?”
Max cleared his throat. “I—Ava had told Liz that
bringing people back was bad, but we were never told why. You and all those I
saved are still human, but it altered your genetics enough to turn on an
evolutionary gene—one that wouldn’t have been activated in human genomes for
another thousand years or so. Not until humans evolved enough to utilize an
increased amount of their own energy. I guess only about 8-10% of humans’
energy yield and potential is used efficiently right now. In another thousand
years that will increase to over twenty some percent, making it easier to
sustain increased mental prowess.”
“So I’m gonna die?” Jim asked.
“Yes,” said Max quietly. “At best, I gave you time,
nothing more. The same goes for Liz, Kyle and the cancer kids.”
“That hardly matters, now does it, Max?” Jesse said
from his quiet corner. “If what you suspect is true, there’s an alien
invasion beginning, and in the next few years to a decade we’ll be looking at
living in a world resembling the future of the Terminator. But it won’t be
evil AI machines, but aliens.”
“Future Max told me that he came back from the future by
thirteen years, but he implied that he and the others spent most of their lives
fighting.” Liz confessed. Future Max said he fought in a hundred campaigns.
“Did he say anything else?” Jim asked. That was hardly
enough information to help prepare.
Tired of the same discussion rehashed a thousand times, Liz
sighed. “No. He told me nothing important, only that Tess, the Queen was
necessary, that the Royal Four were important to save this world, and without
her—the world ends.”
Jesse stood. “So the aliens are tracking you, and you
don’t know how?” The group shook their head. “You have to have something
they want or need! Or else why bother? You’re powerless teenagers! Not even in
your twenties yet. You have no real power. You have no Granilith. So what do you
have that they need?”
“Nothing.” Max replied standing next to Liz. “There
is nothing alien on us. We cracked the healing stones trying to heal Liz, and
the destiny book was a hoax, a way to get us to activate the Granilith. Michael
tossed the destiny book to the bottom of the first deep lake he found. We left
the orbs in the pod chamber.” Max shrugged. “Nothing. We have nothing.”
Jesse believed Max. His tone was too sincere. If he had
something, he didn’t know he had it. “How long do you think we have until
this invasion?”
Kyle snorted. “You’re not getting it. The invasion
already started. We’ve been tracking increased alien sightings, and people
claiming to be abducted over the last year. Whatever’s coming has already
begun to escalate. The war is now!”
Jim clapped his son on the back in comfort, putting the arm
around him hugging him tight next to him. “Then we better get started. We need
to leave
“What good is that going to do? There is no Royal
Four,” said Liz.
“I just know the aliens were sent together. We need a
Queen, so we find one.” Jim suggested. “Was Tess’s counterpart, Ava—wasn’t
she still alive?”
Liz stood up straighter. “You mean substitute Ava as the
Queen in the Royal Four!”
“Supposedly, she had the same powers, and maybe when Tess
died her powers and what she was became Ava’s!”
“What about the Granilith?” Isabel asked.
Jesse shook his head. “There is no Granilith. According
to you, this Kivar person has it.” He took a deep breath. “I can close the
firm, claiming to take another position in
Jim nodded. “I’ll tell Hanson that with Amy gone and
Kyle graduated and gone that there’s no reason for me to stay. I’ll tell him
I applied to be Sheriff in a small town up north.”
Max looked at the group, now once again six. “So we all
leave together?”
Jesse nodded staring at his wife. “Yeah, this time—we
all leave together.”