"But I can't drive this thing! “

"Lonnie, we came to this planet in a spaceship. How hard can it be to drive a copmobile?" Lonnie spared Rath a sidelong glance and saw that he was placing his hands on Ava's cheeks. She felt a momentary surge of jealousy but forced it down, reminding herself that the Feds couldn't be far behind them. They were still in huge trouble.

She pointed the truck toward the terminal building and hoped for the best, coming to a stop just outside the security doors perhaps a minute or two later. In one of the side mirrors, she could see dark-suited men running toward the vehicle from behind. They were already close enough for her to make out the guns in their hands.

Lonnie turned in the seat to face Rath and Ava. They both looked sharp and alert.

"All right, what now?" Lonnie said, her heart leaping into her throat as she considered the prospect of falling right back into the hands of the MiBs.

Lonnie saw that Rath's hands were beginning to glow as his offensive powers charged up. He knelt in front of the seat and placed his hands on the floorboard.

"Now we find another ride," Rath said, grinning. "While our queen covers our tracks. “

Margolin took the point as he, Bartolli, and two other agents cautiously approached the rear of the armored vehicle. A half-dozen other armed agents, all members of the local reception team, had joined them in encircling the truck, their trank guns held at the ready.

After the vehicle had pulled up in front of the terminal building, none of the doors appeared to have opened. The glare of the sun across the tinted windshield made it impossible to see what the teens inside were doing.

Margolin motioned to Bartolli to cover him. His weapon raised, Margolin shouted toward the eerily silent vehicle.

"Come out slowly, with your hands on top of your heads. If you attempt to raise your hands as you exit the vehicle, you will immediately be rendered unconscious." Watch those hands, Margolin told himself repeatedly. According to the two agents who had remained conscious after the Guerin boy's attack, these aliens' hands could be lethal, even from a fair distance away.

Several seconds passed in silence. Margolin repeated his demand. No response came from the truck as another full minute came and went.

"I thought I heard a sound from inside the truck just after they stopped," said one of the other agents. "Like a gunshot. “

"Maybe they decided to kill themselves," said another, nodding.

Margolin curtly acknowledged the two agents, then gestured for quiet. He'd heard the muffled sound too. But he found it hard to believe that their quarry would take such a cowardly exit. Not after he'd seen with his own eyes their willingness to fight.

It was far likelier that Guerin would try to set a trap for them.

"Maybe we ought to speed things along a bit, Viceroy," Bartolli said, looking impatient. "Lets force their hand. “

Margolin smirked, making an after you gesture toward the vehicle. "By all means, Dale. “

Bartolli walked cautiously around to the opposite side of the vehicle and approached the driver's side door. Though Margolin couldn't see the door from where he stood, he knew that its tinted, bulletproof window would have prevented Bartolli from seeing inside.

His pistol at the ready in his right hand, Bartolli reached for the door latch and pulled.

Surprisingly, the door swung open without any resistance. A thin plume of smoke curled upward from inside the cockpit. Margolin unconsciously tightened his grip on his weapon as he watched Bartolli, whose normally unflappable expression had abruptly changed to a look of shock. "Boss, you're not gonna believe this. “

Gathering from Bartolli's reaction that it was safe to approach, Margolin advanced quickly toward the passenger door. He pulled it open with an ease that surprised him.

The center of the bench seat was burned away, leaving a meter-wide hole that seemed to go all the way to the vehicle's undercarriage. Ignoring the lingering traces of smoke, he stuck his head into the cockpit and saw that the hole in fact extended all the way down to the tarmac.

The prisoners were gone.

"Looks like one of the girls mustVe whacked us with a Jedi mind trick," Bartolli said, a vague smirk on his face. "This looks bad, Chief." Margolin knew that what his ambitious deputy really meant was, "This looks bad for you. “

One of the other agents approached the burned-out cockpit carrying a small handheld device no bigger than a TV remote. "I can confirm that, sir," she said to Margolin. "I'm picking up electromagnetic traces that match other sites where anomalous psi-powers were documented. “

Margolin realized then that the Harding girl also must have gotten the drugs out of her system somehow. She had probably influenced the minds of her pursuers, rendering all three teens conveniently invisible just long enough for them to escape into the terminal.

Suddenly transported by an impotent rage, Margolin slammed his fist on the hood of the truck. Then he swiftly tried to compose himself.

"Alert the backup team," he said to Bartolli a moment later. "They're going to try to get through the terminal to steal some transportation. We have to head them off. “

"This is a big airport," Bartolli pointed out as he opened up his cell phone.

Margolin gestured angrily toward the electromagnetic detection device the female agent still held in her hand. "The Harding girl is going to have to keep using her abilities as long as they're here. That means she's going to leave a trail. I want it followed. “

Everyone scattered to resume the chase. Margolin swore to himself that the kids wouldn't get far.

Anthony Miller was in a hurry. His flight had arrived late, and unless everything went perfectly for the next ninety minutes or so, he was going to be very late meeting with a very important, very finicky client. And he knew that expecting perfection from the baggage carousel, the car rental desk, and the 405 freeway was asking for the impossible.

But as he left the luggage area, his suit-bag slung over one shoulder, he began feeling lucky. Maybe I used up all my bad luck during the layover at O'Hare, he thought, striding urgently toward a wide-open, relatively uncrowded array of car rental desks. No lines! I can't believe it! Coming out of nowhere, someone bumped him, making his suit-bag tumble from his shoulder and to the floor. Miller was about to say something rude when he saw the frail-looking old man with whom he'd just collided.

The old man was flanked by an equally fragile old woman and a middle-aged woman who had to be their daughter. The old man looked apologetic as he stooped to help Miller recover what he had dropped.

Then the old man lost his balance, and Miller reached out to steady him.

"I'm so sorry," said the old man.

Now feeling guilty, Miller helped the man recover his footing. Retrieving his bag, he said, "Don't mention it. It was probably my fault, anyway. I wasn't watching where I was going. Are you all right? “

The old man smiled, his eyes twinkling as though he had a secret. "Don't worry about me." Then, still flanked by his wife and daughter, the old man continued on his way.

Miller didn't realize that his wallet was missing until a minute later, after he'd reached the car rental desk.

Ducking behind a pillar beside Rath and Lonnie, Ava carefully altered the mindwarp shell she had created to cover their escape from the MiBs back on the tarmac. Ava felt sweat beginning to bead across her brow.

The image of an elderly couple and their middle-aged daughter wavered and vanished as their forms… at least in the eyes of anyone who came within fifty yards of them… quickly shifted and altered, then stabilized into entirely new configurations.

A moment later, Rath looked down at his own expensively dressed body, and then studied Lonnie and Ava, both of whom had been magically transformed into men. They all appeared to be in their mid-thirties, and bore no resemblance at all to the fugitives the MiBs were chasing.