Chapter Twenty

Now steady on her feet, Liz hauled Max close to her so that their mouths were inches apart. Her eyes stared into his, memorizing the look of understanding that shone in their depth and filing away the passion for later contemplations.

"You could tell, the whole time?" she asked wondrously, one hand wandering to caress his profile.

He nodded and said hoarsely, "Yes. It was killing me, Liz, thinking our connection was gone." A thin sheen of tears made their way onto Liz's wandering fingers as he continued. "I felt so lost. The connection was what kept me alive when-" He trailed off. "For it to be gone... but then there it was. In the park. With you."

"Why were you with me- her, then?" She stepped over from him a little, needing to hear his answer out loud and to ignore her heart begging her to forget it all. Somehow, she needed to know this.

"I just couldn't give up on us, Liz. Not after what we had. I loved you all my life; how could I just turn away from you because suddenly I wasn't getting flashes? It made me think that all I cared about was the flashes, when I had you."

"Oh, Max," she cried softly. "I'm sorry for making you go through that, but the flashes are part of us. Part of our love. You had every right to feel like you were being cheated out of something. I know it's like breathing for me to feel you." She shook her head sadly. "I thought you couldn't tell the difference," Liz whispered. "I was so angry at you for being with her, but then I was so angry when you came to me in the park. I'm sorry."

He shook his head and extended his hand to her. She placed her small hand in his and he pulled her close. "Why, Liz," he murmured. "Why were you going to let me put you in the Granolith and send you home? It doesn't make any sense."

Liz's eyes opened in shock as she suddenly remembered the true purpose of allowing Max to take her to the Granolith. She swallowed hard and tried to think quickly, but all she wanted to do was burrow herself into Max and never let go. "Shh," she whispered, putting her finger over his mouth to keep stillborn further questions. Then she shivered at the feel of his warm breath against her digit. "I have missed you so much, Max," she admitted. Her finger slid away and she kissed him slowly, her eyes closed tight in an effort to burn every moment into her brain.

Max responded in kind, finally feeling the sensations that kissing Liz always brought. It felt different, of course; her lips were suddenly shaped differently and her couldn't run his hand through her straight hair, but it didn't matter. The heart and mind were the same, and what her physique felt like could not hold a candle to the delicious feel of her soul.

Her mouth opened further, inviting him closer to her, while at the same time her arms brought him closer still. When they finally pulled away, breathing shallow, Liz rested her forehead against Max's. Her eyes were still shut and her body drowned with the sensations Max had wrought upon her, but she braced herself for what she was about to do.

"I love you, Max," she told him clearly. He moved to respond, but she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Max," she continued, "but I can't let things be this way." Then, before he could blink, she tried not to flinch and hit him squarely in his midsection, putting a little alien 'oomph' into it. He doubled over in pain and shock, and Liz bit back tears as she shoved him out of the granolith room. He sank to his knees on the floor of the pod chamber, and the last thing she saw before sealing the door with her powers was the look of utter confusion and betrayal on his face.

The connection, still open from the afterglow of their loving kisses, transmitted Max's pain to Liz. She shuddered and realized that he would probably recover too soon and open the door before she had a chance to put her plan in action. Thinking quickly and praying Max would forgive her, she honed all the skills Isabel had helped her gain control of and put a temporary warp on Max's brain. Hopefully, it would confuse him enough so that she could buy time to put her plan in action.

Once she was reasonably sure Max would be incapacitated, Liz quickly removed the folded up piece of paper from her pocket where the instructions to using the granolith were printed. She ran to an inconspicuous part of the wall and waved her hand over it, revealing a previously unseen chamber.

"Wh-what? You expect me to believe that the...the granolith is like some sort of time machine?"

"It wasn't intended to be, but it does have an enormous amount of power, and we were able to modify it to artificially create a tear in time space."

That was one thing she now knew Future Max had been wrong about. That, and the fact that he and Tess being together would help out the world, but she didn't have time to dwell on that thought. She now knew that the capacity of the granolith to be a time machine was written straight into the pages of the Destiny Book, if only one knew where to look. Because she'd been reading with just that purpose, the underlying message became quite clear to her. Whatever modifications Future Max had made, they were unnecessary if you altered the data input into the Granolith.

For the ultra-sophisticated Antarians, going backwards in time was only a step away from transporting across space instantly.

Liz let out a low breath as she stared at the crystals lined against the sides of the chamber. They were all exactly alike, shining slightly with some unseen light. She stared, mesmerized, and one hand reached out to touch the closest one. At the contact, she shivered; these crystals were undeniably filled with power. Just the slightest touch could make her certain of that. Trying to ignore the surging of power coursing through her, Liz grasped the chosen crystal fully in her hand. She walked to the Granolith and inserted it into the designated slot, sighing when the buzzing though her body settled back down to a faint tingling. Now, all she had to do was set the granolith with her time specifications and go.

~~~~~~ ~~~~~

"We have to go after Max," Isabel cried, "even if we might be too late." She turned and stared at Tess hatefully. "But what are we going to do with her?"

"That's easy," Michael responded, grabbing Tess none-too-gently. He placed her arms behind her back and snatched two knives that were lying idly on the Crashdown counter. He used his powers to mold the silverware into a firm handcuff and nodded. "Without her powers, that should do fine."

"Come on. We can't waste any more time." That was said by Alex, who was looking shaken but determined to remain on his feet. His mind was trying to wrap around the fact that the girl who almost killed him was currently residing in his best friend's body. The unexplainable feelings he'd been getting all week suddenly made sense.

Michael and Isabel walked on either side of Tess, guarding her against making any moves to escape from them. Maria and Alex followed until they reached Maria's Jetta. The five of them crammed into the small car in the same arrangement, and once the doors slammed closed Maria gunned the engine and pealed out of the Crashdown parking lot.

~~~~~~ ~~~~~

Liz pressed the final button according to the instructions and held her breath. Almost instantly, she could feel a change in the air. Everything seemed to waver the way things looked when you stared through hot air, and then came the suction. Liz's skin crawled and she felt the gravity in the chamber shift imperceptibly.

The next thing she knew, the world was tinted purple and she was suspended inside the cone of the Granolith.

Liz let out an amazed breath. "Wow," she whispered, but her voice came out exceedingly small. Inside the chamber, it was so silent and still. She felt ungrounded and realized it was because she had suddenly surpassed all her notions of human capability and physics. Her body had transferred through a solid mass and was now hovering comfortably in the middle of oxygen.

And the connection was missing, she realized abruptly. The granolith was almost like it's own dimension and being inside it had severed the mind link with Max.

As if on cue, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Liz whipped her head to the side and watched Max come through the door to the granolith chamber. She didn't need to see his lips move to know the question plaguing his mind.

Why?

But then the countdown ceased, and everything went black.