Chapter Sixteen

With his hypnotic gaze focused elsewhere, Helen was free to make another run for Jake. Yet as she got closer, Phelps's grip on Jake's middle tightened.

"I told you, earth woman: Dishonor my agreement and all bets are off. Your husband dies."

"You wouldn't hurt him!" Helen gasped, wild desperation in her eyes. "You wouldn't - you can't hurt us! For the love of God, if there's any humanity in you!"

"Silly self-absorbed humans," Phelps murmured, his gaze still focused squarely on Daria and Quinn. "It's always about you. Haven't you been listening? I don't have any humanity in me - why do you think I want to go home?"

Daria and Quinn were locked in his gaze. Daria found that she was free to think, but could not move. She cursed their wasted opportunity - they had him distracted earlier and they had done nothing, and now it might be too late.

Quinn, too, wrestled with her thoughts. Every so often, her former math teacher seemed like the man she knew, the one who had tipped her chin gently in the classroom and thanked her for showing him compassion. But only for an instant - then he transformed into something cold and unmovable. How could you do this?! she wanted to scream. You said you liked me... Quinn found herself directing these thoughts at him, and once, when he started back a little, imagined that he had heard.

"Oh girls," said Phelps in a sing-song tone, "tell your mother to back away, or she'll die before your father does."

Or maybe not. "Mom, back off," said Quinn, in a voice that she scarcely recognized as her own. Helen looked at her with distress, than slowly crept backward.

"Please... please, don't..." she begged softly to Phelps, tears welling in her eyes. She might as well have begged to a stone wall.

Meanwhile, Amy shifted so that she was even more in front of her nieces, and found herself caught in Phelps's stare. It felt like a steady blast of sub-zero cold eating through her skin. Still, she remained rooted in her spot, her head bowed and arms wrapped protectively around her bulging middle.

"ReMEMBER our agreement," DeMartino warned Phelps. "Kill Norlek, and you lose everything."

"You sold us out, you bastard!" Helen screamed at him. "I always knew you were in love with Jake! But he didn't want you, so you blamed it on me. I knew in my heart you would do anything to keep him!"

"How did it happen?" Daria asked, in a voice that sounded robotic and distant.

"Oh please, let me tell it," said Phelps. "Some time ago, at one of those dull teacher functions, I hinted to your dear Gobsnotter -" He paused to chuckle. "-my identity. He was taken aback of course, but once he learned that we had a common goal to overthrow the warlords of Xulfanex, his tongue loosened in quite a hurry. Still, he would not reveal Norlek's identity. Said that if I threatened him, he would just point out the wrong person and foil my plans. Until last week - "

"Listen to ME!" DeMartino said with despair, looking from Helen to Daria and Quinn to Amy. "What I said, it was DIFFERENT then, I didn't think -"

"Didn't think what?" asked an amused Phelps. "That I would remember what you said when I thought Norlek might be split between two people? You said that Norlek's powers were on empty, that he would be of no use anymore - but that he had two daughters in whom his powers may have lived on."

"You told him about us?" Quinn said tonelessly.

"I THOUGHT he was bluffing," said DeMartino helplessly. "I thought he KNEW who Norlek was and was trying to TRICK me! I didn't know you really WOULD have powers!"

"You're lying," Daria said simply. She could not read him because he was alien, but somehow she knew.

DeMartino looked at her, and his shoulders sank.

"Why," asked Quinn.

"Oh now, have some compassion," Phelps whispered. "It's not easy being Gob. On the one hand, not able to have the man you love. On the other, knowing that this man can no longer defend the planet you've given your life for. Poor Gob was so resentful toward Jake - whoops, I mean Norlek - for putting his own happiness before the good of Xulfanex... but for the longest time, he didn't have the heart to let go. Until finally I gave him an out."

"It was DIFFERENT then," DeMartino whispered. "I didn't know..."

He looked at Amy, who strenuously avoided looking back.

"Wasn't it clever when we pretended not to recognize each other in the hallway?" Phelps quipped. "Gob said that he couldn't agree to a deal unless you could demonstrate you did have powers."

"I'd CHANGED my mind! I got SCARED - I didn't know if I could TRUST you!" DeMartino cried out. Again, he turned to Daria and Quinn in desperation. "The POINT is that when it came down to it, I took you AWAY."

"Oh good," Daria spat, "so we were saved from horrific punishment by a last-minute change of heart. I feel reassured now."

"What do you make of all this, earth woman?" Phelps asked Helen, one eye veering toward her. "I know you have something to say."

"No," Helen said in a soft, fierce tone. "Nothing that man has done surprises me. I just want my family safe - please, I'll do anything."

"And if all goes according to plan, what makes you think they would be hurt?" asked Phelps with a faint note of surprise.

His lessened focus was enough to bring Quinn back to her full senses. His last words echoed in her mind. I know... Angrily, she gazed at her former teacher. "You lied to me! You told me you couldn't read minds!"

Phelps's hypnotic power softened slightly, as he absorbed her accusation. "And so I can't," he said.

"You were inside my head! You made me bring you here!"

Phelps's one eye stared at her. Then, surprisingly, his mouth parted in a sympathetic smile. "On the contrary, my dear Quinn: It's you who got inside my head. You led me here."

Quinn gasped, but no sound came. The room began to sway.

"Quinn," Helen said in a shocked tone, "is this true?"

"No!" Quinn cried. "He's lying!"

"I assure you I'm not," said Phelps. "I was at the school, trying to determine where you and your sister had gone, and then suddenly there you were before me. This little mirage that talked without speaking. When it finally left, I merely followed."

Quinn's head swam. So this was her fault. Her family wouldn't be here now if not for her. She thought back to her dreams, and started to wonder how much they could be true. Maybe she really did map Phelps's way home during their daily exercises. Maybe he had a space ship waiting...

"I mean I saw him -" Quinn sputtered, "but in my dreams! I tried to get him out, but I couldn't -" She burst into tears and sniffled and heaved.

"That was how I knew for sure how powerful you are," Phelps said softly. "You could be the equal of Norlek... and if your sister is the same way, we would be unstoppable."

"I won't go with you!" Quinn shouted.

"But why not?" asked Phelps, again seeming genuinely surprised. "Don't you see that there's nothing for you here on earth?"

Somehow, as Phelps spoke, Quinn forgot that she was with other people and felt that only she and her former math teacher were together.

"I've got... frie-"

"Friends, you say? Prospects?" Again, Phelps let out a full, hideous laugh. "When you have powers you can't control? When day after day, you'll hold them in just hoping and praying that you won't get upset enough to... do something..."