LIZ: What does that mean?

MAX: I don’t know, but it can’t be good.

PART 1

All of them filed into Max’s room, transfixed by the light. Michael broke the silence.

MICHAEL: We have to get out there. Now.

Max took the light, put it into his backpack, and led everyone out.

SCENE 1

Javier stood back, averting his eyes from the shimmery glow of the rock face. The rock just seemed to fade out of existence. No trace of it was left. It was like it had never been there. As everything returned to normal, such that it was, he crept slowly back up to what was now a wide-open entrance. Well, he thought, I’ve discovered something. What else could it be other than the hideout for his enemies that had come to Earth?

He had been told back on his home planet that they would be incubating, and that they could still be there when the signal was activated. He entered the cave, slowly, fully expecting something to happen. They couldn’t of made it that easy, he thought. There had to be another doorway, another trap. He just had to prove that they had been here, exactly where the signal had come from. Then he could go home.

SCENE 2

MARIA: Will someone please shut that thing up?

Maria had let Liz drive the Jetta behind them. She wanted to be close to Michael, who was riding shotgun in the Jeep. It hadn’t been a planned thing. She hadn’t really even thought about it. She threw the keys at Liz, and Liz just knew. It was like that sometimes, between best friends, knowing what each of them was thinking. Maria also knew that Liz was thinking about Max, knew she couldn’t stop thinking about Max. Liz was strong, stronger than she was right now. Even though she was mad at him, really mad, and had been since that day he pushed her away, she just couldn’t help it.

So Max, Michael, Isabel, Tess, and Maria had all crammed into the Jeep, with Liz and Alex following them in the Jetta. Her current problem right now was directed towards the light. Max had brought it with them, and it was still chirping incessantly.

MICHAEL: What are we going to do, break it? It could be the key to finding out what’s going on.

MAX: Yeah, I don’t think it has an off switch.

MICHAEL: Why are you even here anyway? Your car had plenty of room…

Maria had a pained expression on her face, and after a short pause, she ignored that and continued.

MARIA: Well, do something, stuff it under your seat or something. You know, muffle the sound. And besides, it’s not like everyone we pass out here can’t hear it or anything. It’s like a police siren or something.

Isabel took it from Michael in the front seat, and threw it in the back, underneath the Jeep’s soft-top.

MICHAEL: Better?

MARIA: Yeah, a little.

ISABEL: So, Max, what are we going to do when we get there? What if the light means what we think it means?

MAX: I don’t know. I guess it will depend if we find him there…if we get there fast enough.

TESS: We have to stop him, by any means necessary.

ISABEL: But that light is probably a signal, and if there are two of them, there are probably more. The signal’s already gone off…

MICHAEL: Isabel’s right. Even if we killed him, it wouldn’t matter.

MAX: We should at least talk to him. Find out what he knows.

MARIA: What makes you think he’ll tell us anything?

TESS: Between Isabel’s dream walking and the rest of us, we can make him talk.

ISABEL: But if he’s an alien, who knows what kind of powers he has? He could stop me really easily.

TESS: Remember what Nasedo said, focus. You don’t know what you can and can’t do until you put your mind to it. Look what you did to Pierce.

Behind them, Liz and Alex were trying to keep up with Max’s breakneck speed.

ALEX: How are you doing, you know, with all of this?

LIZ: What do you think; I’m going out of my mind, aren’t you?

ALEX: Well, yeah, but, I mean, have you and Max made any headway?

LIZ: Well, we talked, and that was good, but…

ALEX: But…?

LIZ: We agreed that we definitely can’t be together, especially now.

ALEX: Liz, I’m sorry. (a beat) It’s just so weird, the three of us, the three of them, it’s like we have a fate all of our own, you know. The dichotomy of it all, and now…

LIZ: Wait a minute; what kind of word is dichotomy? Please tell me you haven’t been flipping through the dictionary again…

ALEX: No seriously, though, it’s like we’re almost competing with them. What’s true or what’s destined. Everything’s in so much flux.

LIZ: But you and Isabel, everything’s all right, right?

ALEX: I think so…I mean, I’m trying so hard to be the caring, responsible boyfriend. You know, understanding, giving space, that sort of thing. I know I told you during finals about the two of us trying to live in the moment, but…

LIZ: The moment may be catching up with you sooner than you thought.

ALEX: Right. You see it, even if you don’t want to, with you and Max. I mean, today could be the start of their destiny…they may have to start defending themselves against this whole new thing, and I don’t know if we can ever be a part of that, even if they want us to, and it’s going to consume them. It’s just a matter of when.

LIZ: I know exactly what you mean, and it’s tearing me up. Maria too…

SCENE 3

Javier started to enter the cave. It was dark, but he made out the glow of the four pods along one of the walls. Was this how the aliens had survived over the years? The pods were so different than what he remembered learning about their race during their war. What kind of people was his kind up against? He saw a few other things; a book on a table and what he had come for: two grayish orbs, with the signal that he knew so well on them. They must have generated the signal. But, if they had, that meant that someone or something had actually caused them to work. He knew that they couldn’t work without some sort of intervention. Before, he hadn’t been sure if the signal was caused on Earth or elsewhere. Now he knew. This is what he needed to find, the key to rverything. He scanned the wall with the pods.

They were broken. Whatever had emerged from them had been out for some time. He went over to them, took out a scanning device from his pocket, and went to work.

He found that approximately 11 years had passed since three of them had been occupied, the fourth, just a little bit less time, maybe 10 ½ years.

So the battle had truly begun now. He had made positive contact with the enemy, four of them anyway. If what his people had told him was correct, and there really were others on his side, four of them shouldn’t be too hard to stop. But that wasn’t for him to do. He was going home. All he had to do was wait. They would send for him.

His curiosity got the better of him though. He decided to take a look around. After all, he had spent a good part of his life trying to find this place; at least he could savor the moment a little, maybe fill in the blanks and the questions that he had about his mission, things that his masters wouldn’t tell him. He took the book, which also had that same signal on it, and began to read. The language was the one that his people and their enemy shared, and it was refreshing to actually find it. He hadn’t even seen anything written in the language of his home since he had arrived on earth, some fifty years before. It was the story of their struggle, obviously left for the four to find. He thought he should better hold on to it, lest the four find it and figure out what they had to do. Ignorance could only help his cause. He flipped to one of the middle pages, and saw four pictures, pictures that looked very familiar. One of them looked just like Max, his boss at the UFO Center. Another, like Tess, his neighbor. He was sure that he had seen the other two around with them as well. So it was them. He would have never suspected it.

After finishing with the book, he had a nagging feeling that he better get out of there before he was discovered. Max and Tess had each asked him those questions about the light. He felt so stupid. How could he not have been able to sniff them out? It was so obvious to him now. Anyway, it didn’t matter. He was going home, and the others could deal with them any way they wished. He grabbed the book, the orbs, and the rest of his equipment, and decided to go back home and wait. If his people were still monitoring him, they would know to come get him now, and if not, perhaps he could let them know using the orbs what the situation was. Along with the book, it would give all the information that they would ever need, and allow him to finally leave this place, and start his life over again.

As he got into his car and pulled out on to the road, he made a decision to drive back to Roswell using a different route than he had come, to guard against being seen by anyone who could be coming. He made a turn south, to hook up with another road about five miles to the south.

SCENE 4

When the seven of them arrived at the rock outcropping, the place was deserted. Isabel thought she might have seen another car in the distance as they pulled off the road, but other than that, there was no one or nothing around as far as they could tell. They moved quickly up the rock surface, almost running toward the cave. When they got there, they realized that something had happened.

MICHAEL: What the hell happened?

MAX: I don’t know…the door, it’s missing.

ISABEL: That means someone’s been here. Someone’s seen everything.

TESS: Someone? Or Javier?

MAX: Let’s go in and check it out.

The group walked into the cave entrance. Alex and Maria, who had never been here before, were especially stunned by the scope of the place. It was like the rock face that had served as the door had never existed.

TESS: Oh my god, Max…the book, the orbs, they’re gone!

MAX: What? I thought you said that you had them at your house.

TESS: Well, I did, but I had brought them up here the last time I was here, and, since it seemed like the safest place we had, I kept them here to try to keep them away from Javier.

MICHAEL: Even after what we found out about him snooping around the cave? Nice one, Tess.

MAX: No, Michael, she couldn’t have known. It’s one thing to find the cave, but we didn’t think he could find a way in.

MARIA: Well, it’s obvious that whoever was here isn’t anymore.

MAX: We have to get those things back. If Javier looks through the book, he’ll know who we are…

ISABEL: And then we’ll have no choice but to protect ourselves.

LIZ: So how do we do it? I mean, get those things back.

ALEX: Yeah, do we confront him? Maybe we can break into his house or something…

MAX: No…I doubt he’s going to keep the orbs or the book out of his sight, and besides, now that he knows, if he knows, I don’t think he’s going to stay in that house next to Tess’s.

MICHAEL: But it’s our only lead, we have to go there.

MAX: And we will. But not just yet. Liz, how long ago did that light go off?

LIZ: I don’t know exactly…maybe an hour.

MAX: Right, and that means that Javier is probably not even back at his house yet, even if he was going there. I mean, we didn’t see his car on the way back.

ISABEL: But how do we know which way he was going? There’s more than one way to get from here back to town.

MICHAEL: Our lives hang in the balance here. I don’t want to say it, but we have to act, Maxwell, and act now, by any means necessary.

MAX: But Michael, killing him isn’t going to do us any good. It’s already too late for that. He knows something. He is something.

MICHAEL: But we already got into trouble by just waiting. Look at where we are. We spent all of our time debating while Javier was here, and now, this cave is perfectly visible to anyone who comes here. How much longer can we wait before everyone finds out about what’s here?

MARIA: We have to go back to Tess’s house and wait for Javier. I mean, what other choice do we really have?

ALEX: Maria’s right. We can’t search the desert for him. That could take forever, and we don’t have that long.

MAX: I’m sorry, Michael, but what other option is there? We have to find him before we can do anything.

MICHAEL: But what if he doesn’t come back to Roswell now that he knows? What if he has other plans?

Michael let his words trail off, but the magnitude of the problem at hand was clear. None of them really knew anything, and that was the hardest part. They needed to find some answers, and quickly.

ISABEL: But what do we do about the cave? We can’t just leave it like this.

MAX: We just have to hope its location can hide it until we can find a way to close it again.

TESS: Nasedo might know a way.

MICHAEL: Yeah, but where is he? He said that he was going to protect us. Where is he now?

MAX: He can only do so much, Michael. Infiltrating the FBI is a tall order for anyone. We have to find a solution ourselves. It may be the only way.

As the group went to leave, they found a small shimmer underneath some dirt on the desert floor. Max and Michael moves to dig it out. It wasn’t covered all that much, but it took them a few seconds. It was another light, beeping away just like the one that Max had, presumably also like the one Javier had.

MICHAEL: Well, I suppose this answers any doubts that any of us would have had.

ALEX: It could always be a third one.

MARIA: Alex, now’s not really a good time to joke.

ALEX: Who’s joking? Why couldn’t it be? Maybe he dropped it.

MAX: I don’t think he would have just left it here.

ISABEL: Maybe it’s outlived its usefulness to him.