building," the suit explained. "Their labs are more up-to-date than the hospital labs, and they've graciously offered us the use of their facilities to quarantine and care for the sick."

This news practically caused a riot in the waiting room. The people in suits, the regular doctors and nurses, and the patients and their families were all yelling at and pushing one another. Maria was so busy trying to figure out who was in charge that she didn't even notice the cops until Isabel grabbed her arm.

"I think we should do what they say," Isabel said grimly. "Look outside the doors."

Maria looked through the glass windows in the doors. Outside were a bunch of cops in riot gear. "Where did they come from?" she asked.

"They're not local," Valenti commented, stepping up behind them. " Roswell doesn't even have that many cops. My guess is they're private security. Maybe the CDC brings their own goons with them."

Around the room people were quieting down. It seemed everyone had realized that the CDC was calling the shots here. Maria turned to check on her mother, but Amy was gone. "Mom? Mom!" she yelled. She thought she could see Amy heading off down the hallway with a nurse. "Mom!" Maria realized she was being herded toward the door with the rest of the crowd.

"What about my son?" Valenti was yelling. "Who do I call to get updates?"

"Mom!" Maria cried. She felt tears running down her cheeks. Where were they taking her mother? How could they just pull her away like that?

She felt an arm around her shoulders and looked up into Max's eyes. "Come on, Maria," he said. "We have to go."

"My mom," she said.

"We'll figure it out," he told her. "We always do."

Before she could protest, they were outside on the sidewalk in front of the door. Maria's group was one of the last to leave. She and Max turned around as they got outside.

The doors closed in their faces.

8

Liz raised herself on her elbows and looked around. She was in a giant room with dark gray walls. There were about thirty cots set up in rows with about ten feet between cots. Already half of them were filled with patients. Liz saw everything from heart monitors to IV drips to defibrillators.

How could so many different illnesses spring up at the same time? she wondered. She took a deep breath and took stock of her own sickness. She was feeling better, she thought. The tiniest sounds still seemed really loud, but it was almost as if her ears had adjusted to it and it now felt normal. More likely, my brain adjusted to it somehow, she thought. The same was true of her heightened vision. The lights no longer seemed too bright. Even her oversensitive skin felt normal now.

But still there was some part of her that knew… that was absolutely positive… that her body couldn't withstand these changes for long. Whatever was going on, she had to find a cure for it. Fast.

More stretchers were being wheeled by every few minutes. On the latest one, she saw a familiar face. "Kyle!" she called.

He turned toward her, and his eyes lit up.

"Hey," she said to the nurse pushing Kyle's gurney. "Can you put my friend next to me? Please?"

The nurse shrugged and steered Kyle over to the empty cot next to Liz. Two other nurses helped lift him from the stretcher onto the bed. After they left, he lay there quietly for a moment, recovering.

"Kyle, can you hear me?" Liz called.

He recoiled. "Yeah, you sound like an air horn."

Was I talking that loudly? she wondered. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Can you hear me now?"

"Yeah, that's better," he said.

Liz narrowed her eyes at him. His cot was ten feet away. How could he hear her if she was only whispering?

Kyle turned slowly onto his side to face Liz. "So what are you in for?"

"I don't know," she replied, still talking in a whisper. "I started feeling weird this afternoon. Noises seemed too loud… "

"And lights seemed too bright," Kyle finished for her. He was whispering too. "Did your skin feel weird? Tingly?"

"Yes!" Liz said excitedly. "Exactly! Kyle, do you think everyone in here feels that way?"

Kyle shrugged. "It doesn't look like it," he said. "Seems as if most of these people have really serious stuff."

Liz thought about it. "Your hearing is as sharp as mine now, right?" she whispered.

"It's practically bionic," Kyle replied.

"So let's just listen for a bit," Liz suggested. "Concentrate on hearing what the nurses and doctors are saying. I want to find out what's wrong with all these other people. I want to know if they feel the same way we do."

"Right," Kyle said. "Because if they do, I have to assume there's some alien connection. This is too freaky to be an Earthly disease."

Liz didn't answer. For a while they both lay quietly. She closed her eyes and concentrated on listening. It was hard to do. Liz felt as if she had to pull strength from the rest of her body in order to focus it all on her heightened hearing. But after a few minutes, she began to pick up conversations from around the room. She couldn't be quite sure where they came from, but that wasn't what mattered.

"Cancer," one male voice said. "Full-blown lymphoma, even though yesterday she had no sign of it."

"Maybe it just hadn't been noticed yet," another man suggested.

"That's what I would think," the first voice answered. "But she'd had a complete physical a week ago for her life insurance company. It can't begin and spread that quickly."

The voices were interrupted by a woman talking more loudly. "… mother's brother had diabetes," she was saying. "But it's never been in my branch of the family. How can I have it now?"

"We're trying to find out," another woman's voice answered her. "Just be patient."

She's a doctor, Liz thought. She decided to try something new. She would mentally attach herself to this particular voice, she'd follow the sound of it. Then she'd be able to

hear everything the doctor said to her patients or to other doctors.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Sharoff?" the doctor's voice asked. The sound of it was fainter now, and Liz had to focus all her energy on listening to that one voice, mentally blocking out all the other voices in the room. It was a little like tuning a radio to the right frequency.

"I feel okay," a man's voice answered. "But I just can't seem to walk straight. It's like my left leg doesn't have any muscles in it."

"And you never noticed this before today?" the doctor asked.

"No, never."

"Mr. Sharoff, is there any multiple sclerosis in your family?" The doctor sounded worried, Liz thought.

"No." Now the patient sounded worried too.

A wave of exhaustion passed over Liz, and she had to stop listening while she rested for a minute or so. When she tuned back in, the doctor was talking to a nurse.

"… woman's symptoms are consistent with Marfan's syndrome. But how can that be? She felt fine up until today."

"It's the same thing all the patients are saying," the nurse replied.

"I've been with the CDC for ten years," the doctor said. "I've never seen anything like this. It's as if something just activated every illness lying dormant in these people's genes."

"Kyle!" Liz whispered, turning her head to look at him.

"I'm here," he whispered back. "What did you find out?"

"All these people have hereditary diseases," Liz told him. "Except they're suddenly full-blown cases. In patients who have never even had symptoms before."

"So they had these diseases in their genes but they wouldn't necessarily have gotten sick?" Kyle asked.

"Right," Liz replied. "It's like something happened that just turned on all these inactive genes."

Kyle was silent for a moment. "Then what dormant genetic disease do we have?"