"Sounds like a plan, Maxwell," Michael said.

Isabel nodded her agreement, and Max realized that in spite of what he wanted and in spite of what he had just said, he had just mapped out their future. And the others had agreed.

Old habits, he thought. As he approached the van, he sighed and thought, Well, Rome wasn't built in a day. And if took longer than a day to fall, he reminded himself.

As he surveyed the damage to the front windshield, he wondered if the fall took more or less than fifteen years.

Pieces of windshield were scattered on the road and desert around them in a radius of two or three dozen yards. The bits of glass were very small. The force must have been tremendous. He wondered how big the hole in the ground was that Isabel had filled in.

Max waited until three cars passed them and they were alone on the road. Raising his hand, he collected the hun- dreds of bits of broken glass and used his powers to lift them in the air. Bringing them together, he fused them into the windshield and reset the glass onto the van.

When he was finished he could see the problem: a hole about two feet around in the center of the windshield.

"Some of the glass must have been pulverized," Max said.

Liz looked embarrassed.

Maria looked amazed. "Remind me not to make you mad, Parker.”

"There's plenty of sand around, Max," Liz said. Max nodded and reached out with his powers to pick up a small pile of sand. It was simple to heat it to the right tem- perature and make it into a good approximation of the windshield glass. Then he fused the new piece into the hole. When he was finished, he smoothed over the whole piece of glass and saw that it would do.