"Sort of. You're…" She hesitated a moment, trying to come up with the right word. "You're resourceful. Like when the witch wanted to see if Hansel was fattened up enough to eat and he kept letting her feel the chicken bone instead of his finger-that's something you would do. You think fast."

"But Hansel," Alex scoffed, throwing out his hands. "Just the name. Hansel! How lame."

Isabel shook her head and laughed. It sounded odd, but good. "Forget Hansel. Forget fairy tales. How about Superman?" Alex brightened at this suggestion, and she grinned. "You're a good guy like he is. And you have that sort of geeky-yet-cute exterior-well, until lately, when you became a stud. Plus in the right situation you can kick some major butt."

Alex rocked his chair back on two legs. "Superman. I like it." For one second everything was fine. Then Alex glanced over his shoulder, Isabel followed his eyes, and she remembered what was going on. The smile fell from her face as Alex let the chair legs fall back to the floor with a thud.

"Think I should check on Liz?" he said.

"It's still quiet back there," Isabel answered. "Let's give her another couple of minutes. If Max-if the consciousness-bought our story, she should be safe."

"I wonder how the B team is doing," Alex said. He reached across the table, going for the marshmallow rocket again.

"Me too," Isabel agreed, letting him eat the repulsive thing without comment. Sometimes Alex just had to be Alex. And that, at least most of the time, was a very good thing.

"It sucks being the lovely assistant," Maria muttered as she maneuvered Michael's big old Caddy onto Main Street. "Trevor and Michael are off… someplace, probably someplace really cool. And did they even think about inviting me? Oh no. No, no. I get to drive the car back home."

She slowed down as she passed the UFO museum. She could just drop the Cadillac there and save Michael a trip. Buses ran pretty often at this time of night, so it wouldn't be too much of a pain.

But that wasn't going to happen. Maria pressed her foot on the accelerator and sped around the corner. Michael had said he'd pick up the car, and that's what he'd have to do. And if she just happened to see him through the window when he came to get it, and then just happened to wander outside, and then just happened to throw herself on the hood of the car and scream, "Kiss me, you wild Michael beast," and then just…

And then just happened to watch Michael run like he was training for the Olympics, she thought, rolling her eyes. Which was obviously what he would do.

Maria tried to keep her mind on the road the rest of the way home. She only ended up driving by Braille a couple of times. That's what her brother, Kevin, called it when she let the car wander a little too far to the left and started going over the little bumps marking the white divider lane-driving by Braille.

It took only two tries for her to pull the boat of a car into the driveway. Two tries and one slightly dented antenna. Hey, if Michael had a problem with it, he could do the driving himself.

Maria cut the engine and reached for the door handle, then hesitated. Being in the car was sort of like being a little tiny doll or an elf and living inside Michael's pocket. The interior actually smelled like him-all spicy-musky, with a hint of sweet-and-spicy that came from the number of crullers with hot sauce he'd consumed sitting right where Maria was now. She pulled in a deep breath and let it out with a long, content sigh.

"I have so lost it," she whispered. But she didn't get out of the car. She leaned her head back against the seat and took another breath, savoring the smell, then clicked on the radio and did a pass through the stations Michael had programmed in. She smiled when she caught a snatch of an Elvis tune. She was sure Michael had chosen that station in honor of Ray Iburg, who'd given Michael the car. Any station that played the King would have been fine by Ray.

She punched the buttons again until she found a song that matched her mood, kind of slow and sad and dreamy. She closed her eyes and let herself drift into la-la-la land, which was what she called the place in her head that was in charge of producing fantasies. That little corner of her mind was fully stocked with images of Michael. Maria picked one-Michael in a soft gray T-shirt that matched his eyes-and began to dance with it, breathing in the Michael scent, trying to make the fantasy a little more real.

"Wow." Trevor watched the waves roll into the shore again and again. Michael watched him watch, then returned his own gaze to the ocean.

"Before I hid the Stones out here, I'd been to the beach only once before, with the Evanses," Michael said. "Totally blew me away. One of the best times ever."

"I can imagine," Trevor answered, never taking his eyes from the water. "Can we go in?"

"We'd freeze," Michael replied. For the last fifteen minutes he'd been sitting here, trying to play it cool and not pull his jacket tighter around himself to fight off the wind. "If we had wet suits, we'd be okay, but-"

Trevor turned to look at Michael, and he was grinning. "We have something better," he said, pulling one of the Stones out of his pocket.

Michael smiled. He yanked off his jacket and was out of his shirt in seconds. "What are we waiting for?" he said as he shoved off his sneakers without bothering to untie them. "Last one in is a rotten egg!"

He raced across the deserted beach, aiming his Stone at the water. Trevor was right behind him. "A rotten egg? Ooh. That really hurts," he shouted.

"You ever smelled a rotten egg?" Michael yelled back. He plunged straight into the ocean and kept running, as well as he could run against the tide, until the water was chest high. "This is awesome. It's warmer than a bathtub." He spread open his arms and let himself fall backward, submerging completely. When he came back up, the first thing he saw through the salt stinging his eyes was Trevor blowing a stream of water out of his nose and coughing.

"Didn't the materials the Kindred gave you mention that the human body can't breathe underwater?" Michael asked.

Trevor answered by using both hands to splash Michael. Michael retaliated, using a little power, nothing anyone would notice, to bring a wave down on Trevors head.

A second later Michael was kissing sand. "Truce, okay? Truce?" he called when he resurfaced.

"Okay," Trevor answered, slicking his brown hair away from his face.

"Suck-er." Michael used his power to knock Trevor on his butt. And the water war was on again.

One attack, one counterattack, one counter-counterattack, two fake truces, and one real truce later Michael stretched out on his back, allowing the warm water to support him. He couldn't stop a smile from spreading across his face. Him and his brother at the beach. It was too cool.

"I'm gonna have to build me one of these when I get back home," Trevor announced as he floated beside Michael. "After we shatter the consciousness and I help rebuild the planet, it's on the top of my list."

"Ambitious much?" Michael asked. The stars had come out, and he stared up at them, feeling like he was floating in the sky, too.

"It's going to be a big job," Trevor answered, his voice serious now. "The consciousness has been the foundation of our society for thousands of years. Together we're all going to have to figure out what we want to replace it. Sometimes I don't think the members of the Kindred think about that part enough."

"But you do." Michael glanced at his brother as well as he could without tipping himself over.

"Yeah. I do. A system a little like the one you have in the United States might even work." Trevor flipped over on his stomach and paddled out to a sandbar just breaking through the water. He sat on it, letting the ocean advance and retreat around him.