Playing it Safe

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One:

 

My suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. —J.B.S. Haldane—

 

It was a good thing February was such a short month. Enduring tedious in-school suspension had been too much for Jeff Streigle… so much that he had promised all, including and especially the vice-principal of Pennington High School, that he would not cut class for the rest of the semester. The eighteen-year-old senior declared that he had learned his lesson and he would be a good boy for the rest of the year.

His sarcasm wasn’t missed one iota, even though he was also telling the truth.  

Freed, Jeff crossed the campus from the administration hall to the cafeteria, ignoring the turning heads and staring eyes. Pale as death, his midnight-black hair was in an old 80’s skater cut, short in the back and on the sides with long hanging bangs that concealed half his fathomless blue eyes much of time. But his most prominent feature was the scar across his right cheek which connected to the break in his nose. One glance at him and you were either intimidated or intrigued. Often both. Everyone believed he had once been in a Chicago gang.

After quickly buying lunch, Jeff continued out to the redtop—the red-painted asphalt area between the gym and the senior lawn sorted with picnic tables—where he hoped his friends were waiting. It had been a long time since he had last hung out with them at school.

“Hey! Welcome back!” Brian Henderson jumped up from his seat at their corner picnic table, quickly joined by his other buddies, Jonathan Baker, Mark Wheley, and Adam Arbor. They all surrounded Jeff with wrestling hugs, nearly strangling him to the ground before dragging him back toward the picnic table. And their classmates watched with a degree of envy. They were the weirdest, most fun group of guys to hang around at school. And if they accepted you, then you were considered the coolest of cool—because they didn’t like jerks, generally.

Thing was, most people described their group of guys a bit like one of those religious/racial jokes that no one admitted was funny. For example, Brian was this tan, all-American kind of boy whom very few disliked—except for the fact that he was an opinionated Mormon. Jonathan was Jewish with uncommonly dark hair and a playful smile. And Mark was of sturdy Germanic Lutheran stock. As for fair-haired Adam, he was a professed agnostic whose parents were Evangelicals. And for some reason they got along swimmingly.

No one could quite put a punch line to the joke, as Jeff didn’t quite fit in the joke equation as a former Chicago ‘thug’. Besides, these boys were not the only ones who hung out at the redtop at that table. For starters, the boys had their token gal pal who was a drop-dead gorgeous, fiery-haired blonde and a cheerleader… with a really weird name, as she was a foreigner.

Zormna Clendar.

Zormna was patiently sitting at the table, her dark green eyes watching Jeff while his buddies exuberantly welcomed him back. She brushed her fiery blonde hair away from her face, her dimples digging in her cheeks as she smiled at Jonathan putting Jeff in a headlock, demanding for details. She knew Jeff was going to eventually join them all and then regale them with stories of in-school suspension—of which she also already knew plenty about. She also had been in afterschool detention for the very same reason Jeff had been in in-school suspension. They had ditched school together for a week.

The thing about Zormna was that she was not a cliché. And to sum her up in a phrase would be a mistake—though people tried it all the time. Their old friend Todd McLenna (who had graduated that last year) called Zormna Aphrodite reborn. Todd’s sister and Zormna’s first friend in Pennington, Jennifer McLenna, called her the Irish Ninja. Her jealous classmates called her a series of unrepeatable names, most of which were not true. And the boys who had crushes on her called her uncatchable. Her teachers called her a troubled, yet brilliant student. The school psychiatrist called her intense, paranoid, and naïve… which on the whole was a strange combination. Jeff frequently called her a pain in the neck. Oh, and Darren Asher, called her a Martian.

Or did. Once.

Darren must be mentioned. A junior at Pennington High, he was a tall, lanky, space-obsessed geek who at the moment watched Jeff from his usual place behind the tree. Though he was not a friend within the group, he was always around. Not that he liked this gang of boys. Quite the opposite. But he liked Zormna a lot. They were neighbors. Literally. Their houses were next to each other. And Zormna put up with him—or that was how her friends saw it. Or wanted to see it. Most did not like how Zormna had befriended the space nut in the last few months, despite how a year ago Darren was following after her, saying she was an alien from outer space. Darren had stopped talking like that around the beginning of summer anyway and had gotten obsessed with the FBI instead.

Jeff ignored Darren most of the time.

Setting his sights on Zormna as he approached, Jeff smiled wider when he walked with his pals back to the table, straight to her as if she was the only person he wanted to be with. Which was weird, because everybody had heard the rumor that Zormna was the one who had broken his nose a few years back, and they once loathed each other. That scar on his face was her fault.

Long story.

Thing was, somehow Jeff had grown fond of the pain the neck. They shared a silent look as Jeff sat next to her. Everyone on campus watched with judging, leering snickers as Jeff scooted even closer to Zormna, teasing her like the closest of friends, or possibly something more—as the current names people have been calling Zormna behind her back have been: slut, whore, hooker, ho, and a few other choice phrases which she felt ought not to be spoken in polite society. They had heard these epithets before. And neither Jeff nor Zormna thought she deserved it.

“I swear Mr. Vicksler gave Zormna an easier punishment for ditching than you because he has the hots for her,” Mark said, enjoying this opportunity to tease them.

Zormna punched Mark’s arm, though not as hard as she could. “That’s not—”

“Afterschool detention is easier,” Jeff cut in, smirking.

She shook her head vehemently, pinching his arm. “No…. Well, yes—but he didn’t do it like that for that particular reason is what I mean. He was trying to separate us.”

But Jeff smirked at her. “So, he could have a chance?”

“Shut up.” She slapped his forehead, or tried to. Ducking, Jeff hastily climbed over the table to get out of her reach. His friends dodged around him, struggling to keep out of her way. The chase was not a serious one, as it really wasn’t the worst she could do to Jeff… because she had been the one who had broken his nose.

Thing was, any solid guy, young or old, thought Zormna Clendar was hot. And why not? She epitomized for many what a goddess would look like if one had come to Earth. Healthy curves, not starved and not fat—Zormna had porcelain skin, intelligent green eyes, bow-shaped lips, and a face like heaven. Some people compared her to a young Michelle Pfeiffer, only prettier. Some said she was like Cara Delevingne, only shorter, with better teeth and more curves. Zormna’s hair was a mess of curls and waves, like a living fire, stopping at her chin. In fact, it contained all the colors of fire from gold to light yellow to orange and even strands of red. And the way she carried herself was with so much confidence that people nearby could not help but stare. On top of that, her military school upbringing had made her a huge tomboy who preferred the company of boys.

But that last year she and Jeff had been ditching school and leaving the state together. On road trips, they told their friends. Just trying to deal with the FBI, they explained. So, of course rumors spread. No one believed Zormna or Jeff when they said they had not ‘hooked up’ during their trips. Zormna was too beautiful and Jeff was… well, a charming if not brilliant punk kid. Everyone believed the cliché. They couldn’t see a reason not to… even though Zormna was an infamous prude and Jeff was the only guy on campus who hadn’t drooled over her.

As for that thing about the FBI? They really were watching Zormna.

Currently there was a car in the parking lot where two agents were listening in to their conversation at the table. They had a bug placed in the cracks of the wood slats, masked to look like age-old chewing gum. One of their on-campus operatives put it there and regularly checked to make sure it was still there, as Zormna had a habit of searching out electronic listening devices and destroying them.

Adam Arbor was just finishing a joke about what Mr. Humphries had said in English that morning—something about frogs. They were reading some short stories written by Mark Twain before they would dip into Steinbeck and Victor Hugo’s books. They had planned to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but too many parents had protested, and that ended that.

Mark snorted through a laugh. He had heard enough about Mr. Humphries to believe he was lucky, despite missing out on a good joke. Jonathan chuckled.

“Is he going to make you catch up with all the class work you missed, Jeff?” Brian asked with a glance at his friend who finally got to his lunch.  

Jeff swallowed a mouthful of juice and said, “I’m already caught up. I got my homework done during in-school suspension. Mr. Humphries came in and delivered it himself, insisting I do homework.”

Zormna and Adam nodded. Mr. Humphries assigned heaps of homework. It was decent of him that he had given Jeff a chance to keep up.

“I think that last one was way too hard,” Adam complained immediately. “I couldn’t think of one thing to write about.”

Zormna shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t that bad. All we had to do was write a short story.”

Brian laughed, eyeing her. “Sure, maybe easy for you. You and Jeff have been coming up with stories all year,” implying the stories they told about their trips. “I had nothing to write about.”

Zormna refrained from retorting and just rolled her eyes.

Maintaining a wry look, Jeff said, “Well, Mr. Humphries did say the writing assignments were going to get harder. Don’t we have three major ones still left?”

Brian nodded, picking up his burrito. He held it before his mouth, not yet biting into it. “I think he said we had two reports on two novels to write, our pick, and one essay about some political topic that’s happening in the news right now.”

With a nod, Jeff scratched the side of his head. “Yeah, those two. Have you picked your books yet?”

Zormna and Adam shrugged, then peeked at one another.

“Yeah,” Brian replied. “I’m doing it on Les Miserables. Since we’re reading the Hunchback of Notre Dame in class, I thought it would be good to do it as well.” He finally took a bite and chewed. “I heard it was one of the best.”

Zormna leaned in, listening. Her beautiful face contorted as she seemed genuinely daunted by the task. “I’m not sure which book to choose. I’ve already read so many. I’m not sure—”

Cackling at her unintended boast, Jeff shook his head, patting her on the top of her head as if to say ‘poor baby’.

Adam threw a carrot at her.

“Stop it, you,” she snapped, shoving Jeff’s hand off.

“Bragger.” Adam chucked another carrot at her.

Brian laughed with a look to Jeff. “Have you picked one yet?”

Pursing his lips, Jeff shrugged. “I’m at a loss myself. I think I might do a report on Moby Dick, but I think digging through a book about a whale would bore me.”

With an exchanged look with Jonathan, Mark said, “That is an understatement.”

“Doctor Zhivago,” Adam declared, finger raised.

The others blinked at him.

“That’s a Russian novel,” Jeff said, shaking his head which chastisement.

Pointing at Brian, Adam said, “His is French, and it’s allowed.”

Their conversation sank into the seven-minute-lull, everyone at a loss either because they were still trying to think of a novel to do, or they could not think of a way to get out of that downer subject. The FBI noted that, as usual, that the conversation had stuck to the average teenage subjects. Most of it was banter and prattle. They also noticed that Jennifer McLenna took that moment to slip off with her boyfriend Kevin Jacobson. The couple often sat near the group of friends as Kevin usually did what Jennifer wanted, and Jennifer usually wanted to sit with Zormna. Darren had already slipped off to do homework in the library. He was only truly safe with that group when Zormna was right next to him, and currently she was with the boys. Darren had been once the FBI’s most reliable informant before Jeff had gotten to him. Fact was, the FBI were watching Jeff just as much as they were watching Zormna.

As this group of friends was immersed in thought, munching on lunch, the FBI noticed Michelle Clay (the head cheerleader) and her gaggle of gals stroll up to the picnic table, positioning themselves near the table a bit like a firing squad. Their predatory eyes were eagerly set on Zormna and Jeff. The agents on duty exchanged amused looks, as things were now going to get colorful. One might consider Michelle the cliché head cheerleader, though there was a little more to her. She dressed like she wanted to be a popstar. She loved attention, and she knew how to pull off the narrow balance between sweetness and acidic cattiness in a way that boys hardly noticed but girls felt excruciatingly. In fact, her approach was only noticed by Zormna, and too late.

Seeing Michelle, Zormna braced for another snotty remark about her virginity, or the imagined lack thereof.

“Hi, all,” Michelle’s voice echoed into their cluster. She flashed her smug smile at all the boys who turned upon hearing her and smiled, while Zormna ducked behind Brian for a shield. Brian chuckled, allowing Zormna hide behind him. It wasn’t how she used to be, but he thought it was cute. She had gotten this way ever since she and Jeff ditched school together, which to Brian was proof that Zormna was telling the truth about her claim that she and Jeff had done nothing ‘inappropriate’ together.

“Hi, Zormna,” Michelle said to let her know that she did see her.

Zormna straightened up and returned a fake grin. “Hi, Michelle.”

The girls snickered behind Michelle like a fan club. All that snide giggling had increased since Jeff and Zormna returned from their last adventure in Arizona. The girls on Zormna’s team raked over her with smug, judging eyes.

“We missed you at the Valentine’s Dance last weekend. Why didn’t you come with Jeff?” the head cheerleader asked, her face dramatizing shock and curiosity.

Zormna’s usually pale face flushed, but then so did Jeff’s.

“I was busy.” Jeff rose to his full height. His voice went cold and hard. He glared at Michelle in a way that Zormna usually did.

It had an effect upon the head cheerleader that nothing else did. She flushed with embarrassment and stuttered as if she had forgotten what she was about to say, realizing that casting such remarks in front of this particular boy was unwise. Jeff was not such a thick-head.

But Michelle’s top lackey, Stacey Price whispered to the other girls, “They were probably busy celebrating by themselves, if you know what I mean.”

Their gaggle tittered, enjoying it.

Jeff bristled, turning his glare on the pixie-haired bleached-blonde girl.

But Stacey did not pull back. She relished all innuendo like a daredevil, challenging him to refute it. Truthfully, the FBI frequently got an earful of Stacey’s risqué talk—and Zormna snapping at Stacey to make her stop.

“So, are you going to Sadie Hawkins then?” Stacey asked, tilting her head to the side. “It will be a regular hootenanny with hay bales and shotgun weddings.”

Zormna stared blankly at her, not comprehending most of that sentence as a foreigner.

“You can have a real roll in the hay on that day,” Stacey gazed at Zormna with a blink while winking at Jeff.

Jeff’s jaw tightened. Stacey really was relentless. Worse than Michelle. But then Michelle had a brain. Michelle was taking this time to regain her composure, allowing her favorite lackey to do the talking for her so she could stand haughtily behind her and take credit without being directly guilty of bullying.

Zormna cringed at her, yet stood her ground. “I might. I might not.”

Jeff stepped back, letting Zormna defend herself. She was more than capable anyway. Besides, what could he say? In modern America, normal conversational self-defense for a man had become impossible. He would be accused of mansplaining or sexual harassment, even though Stacey was the one harassing them.

“Well, I hope you do. Joy and Jennifer are planning a group date, and I think it would be fun if you all came with us,” Stacey said as if she hadn’t just made a crude suggestion about Zormna and Jeff. And she winked again, this time at Brian. Joy was Brian’s younger sister, and also on the cheer team with Zormna and Jennifer McCabe. Jennifer McLenna was in flags and not the Jennifer Stacey was talking about.

Of course, Michelle’s followers snickered as Stacey said this, giving Jeff and his friends longing glances.

 Without another word, Michelle’s little gaggle of gals left as quickly as they had come, wandering the redtop to assure their popularity as the most wanted females on campus—Which was nearly true since they were all cheerleaders and dance enthusiasts, and therefore used to wearing skimpy outfits and having people stare at them. Zormna usually avoided them when she wasn’t actually doing cheerleading. The FBI found it all amusing. They figured Zormna had only joined the squad to give herself some kind of cover.

Yet as the girls trotted off, Brian’s freshmen brothers, the Henderson twins Ammon and Moroni, followed straight after Michelle’s gaggle, walking prissily and making duck-faces with fluttering eyelashes. They got halfway across the redtop when Michelle’s group finally noticed them. Shrieking, the girls chased them away. Yet Zormna grinned after the pair of boys.

The FBI took note.

That was another family the Bureau had thought about watching. But the Hendersons, like the McLennas and the Streigles, were just another family whom they believed were being used by Jeff and Zormna as cover.

 “Sadie Hawkins,” Adam murmured once the pack was gone.

Grimly thinking about it, Zormna ran her fingers through her curls. Everyone had been talking about Sadie Hawkins lately—a girls-invite-boys dance. The only one in the year. The entire high school anticipated it in March, midway between the Winter Ball at Christmas and Prom at the end of the year. But dances meant dresses. And Zormna hated wearing dresses.

Brian cringed. “I hate this time of year.”

“Why?” surprised, Jeff regarded him with a laugh, as they all went to the dances. It was tradition.

“I hate waiting to see who would ask me to the dance. Last year Shandra Hensford asked me, and I just couldn’t tell that pimply—uh… unattractive chick no.” Brian clenched his head while Zormna shot him a dirty look. Shandra was a nice girl, and Zormna as overly sensitive when people judged on looks.

“You’re too soft,” Jonathan said, nudging him in the side. “If you don’t like a girl, why don’t you just say dating them in against your religion?”

Brian gave him a hard glare. “That’s not funny.”

All of them cast Brian a shared look. Brian was famously sensitive about his religion. They usually avoided religious debate, which was why they got on without much trouble—but they did like teasing Brian occasionally. Everyone considered him fair game.

Mark patted Brian on the back. “Well, boy, just run when the ugly ones get at you.”

Brian rolled his eyes at him.

“I personally like the odds.” Adam straightened up, grinning. “More girls than guys here. I could go with any girl and have a great time.”

Jeff nodded sharply, finishing his lunch. “I agree.”

Zormna peered sideways at him. “You do?”

“Sure.” He smiled back, nodding sincerely. “We’ll dance a lot. Eat our fair share of junk food and have a blast. I figure I can have the same amount of fun with any girl I go out with—as long as we don’t make it personal.”

Yes. Not personal. That, Zormna agreed with, deeply nodding.

Watching him for a pensive moment, Brian cut in, “And as long as you don’t ditch her.”

Hearing him, Jeff cringed in response.

So did the agents listening in the car. It reminded them both of the last major dance when Jeff had taken out Brian’s sister Joy—Homecoming—while their undercover agent ‘Sam Perkins’ had taken Zormna. Jeff had ditched Joy near the end of the dance to chase down Zormna and ‘Sam’ to make sure the agent would not take Zormna anywhere dangerous. Their agent’s cover had been blown. And so was the cover of their operation. Thing was, Jeff and Zormna were never quite sure if Brian had ever forgiven him for leaving his sister at the dance.

But when Jeff looked up and caught Brian’s amused grin, a teasing flicker was in Brian’s eyes.

“Dork.” Jeff punched Brian in the arm.

Brian laughed, ducking away.

As the agents in the field were recording a load of useless conversation at Pennington High, the FBI office run by Agent James Sicamore was mausoleum quality that morning. Silent and empty, and a little cold. It had been for some time since their return to Pennington from Arizona. A second time they had lost valuable information to those two Martians.

Yes, Martians. Darren hadn’t been wrong—space-crazed or not.

The FBI knew very well that Zormna and Jeff were Martians even though the absurdity of the idea had given them little support in the Bureau in the beginning. They now had loads of support from the agency, but there was one snag. The boy called Jeff held the leash on the project, and he had decidedly tied the dog of the operation to a tree.

Agent Sicamore stared at all the facts and figures, photographic and audio proof of life on Mars, churning over and over his encounters with the two teenagers from another planet in his head. He stared and read and stared more, thinking about what he was dealing with, searching for options.

And what was he was dealing with? As the FBI understood it, they were dealing with two unusual, extra-terrestrial beings who were somehow human. They had taken DNA samples. They had blood samples. It was irrefutable and stood in the face of evolutionary theory like an ugly pimple. But also, these two alien-humans were incredibly important.

They had discovered Zormna Clendar first.

According to all the combined information they had gathered, besides being a knockout-gorgeous military brat, they had learned that Zormna Clendar truly had been raised in a military school but she was currently the equivalent of a captain within that military… or had been before she came to Pennington Heights. She had been orphaned with a backstory fit for a Dan Brown thriller. Her entire family had been murdered in one way or another, and Zormna had come to Pennington Heights to live with a great aunt… who had been unfortunately dead two years before she had arrived. Also murdered. The FBI had been trying (miserably) to solve her great aunt’s case for two years when Zormna had come into the neighborhood. And none of this was a secret except for her ‘captain’ status. Everybody who knew Zormna knew this about her.

But as for Jeff Streigle, the FBI did not even know he was a person of interest until that summer. Jeff was an enigma with a solid alibi claiming he was just an abused kid from Chicago who was living with an uncle for a second chance. He had a caseworker and everything. However, since his discovered connection to Zormna Clendar, the FBI eventually unearthed holes in his backstory. It took a lot of digging though. The only thing the FBI could nail down was that Jeff was a sneaky conniving kid with more connections than a mafia boss.

It took the incidents in Florida and in Arizona to truly get the dirt on the pair, but most of what had been gathered on them had been unreliable, conflicting data. Rumors really. Talk of prophesies and blood lines. For starters, Jeff had an alias or two, but the FBI stuck to calling him the Boy. It was easier. As for Zormna, her life really was like a Dan Brown novel. The only solid fact they got was that Zormna was of royal blood. A Tarrn. But her family wasn’t in power back in their home world. In fact, they had been thousands of years out of power, according to their informants. As for Zormna, it took truth serum to get her to even say a word about her secret lineage. Tarrns hid as Tarrns were hunted.

As for the rest? Jeff was her newly, self-proclaimed bodyguard.

That annoyed Zormna at first. The FBI noticed that more than anything else. And why not? Because why would a former military captain of her influence need a bodyguard? Especially one whom everyone called super-ninja behind her back—because she really was uniquely skilled in martial arts. Having a royal lineage thousands of years back was just too silly of a reason.

But setting all those facts aside, what did this mean to the Mars Project?

The Boy and Zormna Clendar were proof that there was life on other worlds. And not just that, but proof of a dangerous, advanced civilization which had already infiltrated the nations of Earth.

The problem was, Agent Sicamore no longer felt intrepidly able to pursue this project further. They had all the facts, but… the Boy had found a way to restrain the FBI’s investigation, drawing it to a stifling standstill.

Agent Sicamore shook his head and closed his file. There really wasn’t anything he could do. Zormna could commanded her fleet of Martian pilots and pick his operatives off, if she wanted. They had seen that in Arizona. And the Boy—well, the Boy knew Agent Sicamore’s darkest secret. He, Agent James Sicamore of the FBI, was also of Martian blood.

No one in the agency knew this detail—and it was crucial to keep it that way. Truthfully, nothing had devastated FBI agent Sicamore more than this fact. He hadn’t even known about this awful connection until three years ago when he met had Zormna’s great aunt, merely thinking the woman a lunatic. And even then, he had not understood what his connection to the woman meant until a year ago when Zormna came into town. Sicamore had always assumed his parents were Scottish or something like that. The idea of alien had never occurred to him. Now… it would ruin his career as well as his life if it ever got out.

He blamed Zormna’s great aunt. It had started with her.

Everybody in Pennington Heights knew the famous ‘crazy lady of Hayes Street thought she was a Martian. And like a nut, she did crazy things, including ‘borrow’ electricity from her neighbors to power a radio that could send messages into space. If she hadn’t done that, she never would have been killed, because the FBI never would have been sent to investigate her for a possible drug house.

But Agent Sicamore closed his eyes, chastening himself. It was wrong to blame the victim. It was all his fault the old woman had been killed. A proper FBI agent did not talk about on-the-job stories with their parents.  

But he had.

And they had reacted with such horror at the things he had said.

He should never have talked about the brand mark they had found on the woman’s shoulder. He should never have mentioned her weird ‘alien’ name. He should never have said anything to them, but he had been de-stressing at the time and had let his guard down. And worse, a couple days later she was found by the neighbor boy, slumped in her couch with a bottle of pills at her side, dead as dead could be.

No one had bought it as a suicide, though it was meant to look like one. Everyone had believed she was murdered. Her neighbors though her too bombastic in her eccentricity to just give life up with an overdose. Her accountant (who was also her lawyer) swore she was waiting for family to arrive. As for the FBI? They found too much evidence that she never took even one pill except for the one that lay on her tongue dissolving but not swallowed. And more plainly, her autopsy showed that she had been stuck with a needle and injected with fast-acting poison, poison not much different from the contents of the pill bottle, though hardly distributed in her body as the pills would have if digested. Since then, everyone in neighborhood believed that the FBI had killed her, for whatever reason.

Yet the neighbor boy who had found her, Darren Asher, believed that aliens from her world had ‘offed’ her for political reasons. Everybody thought that boy was nuts, except the FBI. Unfortunately, Darren could not tell them any more about who had the woman killed—only that she had been perfectly safe before they had showed up. In that interview, Darren accusatorily said to agents questioning him, “You’ve got a mole. Someone from her world heard about her from you people. One of your agents has to be from Mars, because she was safe until you came along.”

And that ended the investigation. The FBI thoroughly doubted they had been infiltrated by aliens from another planet, which saved Agent Sicamore who had in that moment recalled his encounter with his parents. And later that evening, he had gone home and confronted them.

But they had denied everything and the incident had been forgotten. Or at least he tried to forget it. For two years Agent Sicamore felt a nasty low guilt that it was his fault the crazy lady of Hayes Street had gotten killed. Instead, he worked with the investigation to find a more ‘credible’ killer with a more credible motive. 

None showed up. And the case went cold. Since then, they had focused on more pertinent subjects—such as terrorists from the Middle East and cyberattacks from countries that were currently out of favor with the leading political party of the day. Fact was, when Zormna Clendar had showed up, they were ready to box the entire thing up and leave that part of the state for a better office.

She had really ruined everything. The girl would have entirely gone under the FBI’s radar if she had not committed the same foolish mistake as her great aunt. Zormna had also used the radio system that hogged her neighbor’s electricity (which had never really been dismantled, as the house had never been put on the market to be sold). Using that radio was like lighting a beacon, saying “I am here.” Even then the two FBI agents had been dispatched to merely find out who had activated that radio system, never mind it sending signals into space. That’s when they discovered Zormna Clendar.

And they were floored. Not just by her looks—though they were mesmerizing. In fact, her looks proved she was a relation to the old woman. But her manner, all her marching, her military posture, and her intense paranoia proved to them there was more going on about this family than first suspected. And though Zormna claimed to be from Ireland, when Zormna admitted that her family had all been murdered and she was upset to find upon arrival that her great aunt was also dead, it just stirred everything up again. The FBI wanted to know who in the world would go out of the way to murder a crazy woman. And who is the world was this peculiar, beguiling young woman?

Zormna’s presence made Agent Sicamore nervous. His fellow agents were, unfortunately thorough when doing the background checks. First, they found out that Zormna’s documents were all forgeries, which made the agency suspicious. Their minds started to work out theories about terrorists and political coups. Zormna’s claims about growing up in a military school made them even more suspicious, as she could not give them an exact address. And though Zormna had been adamantly insistent that she had come from Ireland, it was all Agent Sicamore could do to keep a lid on the investigation so that it would not blow out of control. Yet, he also wanted to know where she had come from and why she had come to Pennington, of all places.

He had not given the permission for her three-day kidnapping and interrogation. That was the fault of the other project head, whom Sicamore was sure was a secret Nazi part of the supposed “Project Blue Beam”. The go-ahead had been given when their agents saw that Zormna had the same exact circular brand mark on her right shoulder as her great aunt. Of course, Agent Sicamore was terrified that history would repeat all over again… and they would have a dead girl in the neighborhood.

The worst part of it all was that under interrogation, using truth serum, Zormna Clendar had admitted to being a soldier from Mars. She did not deviate from it. They had taken samples of her blood, recordings of her peculiar language, x-rays of her skeletal structure, measurements of her body density, and lots of other proof that she was not from this world.

And that ended their exodus. The FBI would not be moving from Pennington Heights after all.

If it had been just Zormna, Agent Sicamore was sure he could have kept the entire thing contained—but that was before the Boy was discovered. That was before the Boy and Zormna were friends.

The Boy, it turned out, was no one to mess with. And worse, Agent Sicamore had no idea how the Boy had unearthed his secret.

On that thought, Agent Sicamore rose from his desk to leave his office, shaking his head and massaging his temples. It really was of no use. One day the Boy would spill the beans to the agency, and his life as an agent would be ruined. And there was no way he could leave the project now with his parents at risk. The Boy needed him to stay put to keep the other agents in line.

The door opened as he came to this thought. Sicamore found himself facing Agent Steve Keane, the FBI agent who had once pretended to be a high school student (by the name of Sam Perkins) to get more information on the teenagers—a tactic that didn’t work well. Darren, of all people, had seen right through him, and Zormna was quick to listen to Darren Asher.

“Mr. Sicamore, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” the young agent started, haltingly.

Startled initially, Agent Sicamore waved it away, still rubbing his temples. “S’all right. What do you need, Keane?”

The young agent ventured to look pleased in spite of his superior’s headache. “I wouldn’t have intruded but, Agent Wills wanted me to hand you the visual report. Your secretary wasn’t here, so I just came in.”

The head agent nodded and waved him in. “Come in. Marc is off at lunch. I can take it anyway. I’ve nothing better to do.”

Agent Keane nodded and stepped into the room, closing the door. He placed the file onto the desk. His feet shifting awkwardly, as his task was done and he had not originally intended to linger. Taking in the stress on his superior’s face, he said, “What’s troubling you, Sicamore?”

Agent Sicamore moaned. “If only you knew,” he muttered, not actually wishing the young man knew. He doubted Agent Keane would be sympathetic if he knew he was Martian too.

Agent Keane examined the circles under his superior’s eyes and leaned against the desk. “Talking helps.”

“Uh…” Agent Sicamore thought about it weakly and shook his head. “No. That’s ok.”

Unable to help, the young agent shrugged then leaned over the table to flip open the file he had brought. “Well, I took a look at this report, and you really should see what is in here. The satellite got these shots of maneuvers on the planet surface and another shot of them disabling the NASA weather satellite. You know, the one that supposedly crashed in the northern hemisphere last Monday.”

Sicamore looked over at it and nodded with a dry smirk. It was as he thought. All the regular satellites sent to Mars saw what the Martians wanted them to see. Those people were millions of years more advanced after all. Only the FBI’s new stealth satellite had remained undiscovered and therefore left untouched. But that would not last forever. After all, the U.S. had been tracking spacecraft around the earth for decades, trying to follow them without success.

“Mr. Sicamore?” Keane said, leaning in, “Why don’t we urge our military to prepare for war? Forget those two kids. They are only sidemen—not really in the military circle anyway. And I think those Martians might attack soon if—”

“No, no, no.” Shaking his head, Sicamore cringed. “We have no evidence of them massing troops for an attack, Steve. So far all we have is a record of them minding their own business.”

“They destroyed that satellite,” Keane interjected. “I’d say that is a sign of hostility.”

“It is only a sign that they want to be left alone,” Agent Sicamore replied. “Our satellite was in their territory.”

The room went silent for a while. Only the hum of the fan could be heard. Agent Keane swallowed, eying Sicamore and the clammy, desperate stare on his superior’s face. “They really frightened you, didn’t they?”

Agent Sicamore quickly looked at him. It took a second to compose himself as he answered, “It isn’t that.” He walked over to his desk and sat back into his chair, heavily thinking. “I just think the situation is more complex than them wanting to attack us.”

With ill-masked disbelief, Agent Keane heaved out a solemn breath of air and turned to leave.

“I can’t say they won’t attack us—because they might,” Agent Sicamore continued. “But I think the likelihood of that happening is extremely slim. They just seem to want to stay quietly in the background.”

“Control quietly in the background,” Keane murmured.

“What’s that?” Sicamore asked, leaning forward.

Stiffening, Agent Keane flustered, but then he stuck to his remark, deciding it was better to voice it than let it stay hid. “I was just saying that it feels like they are trying to infiltrate silently into the system. Our system. That’s all. It just so subversive.”

Agent Sicamore nearly laughed. But as quickly as he found it funny he sobered up and nodded. “Indeed, my friend, I dare say they already have.”

Agent Keane closed his eyes and sighed with a nod.

“I’ve got it!” Zormna declared as she walked with Jeff to his motorcycle across the student parking lot. “1984.”

It was after school. Everyone was going home. And both of them were done with their afterschool ‘counseling’ sessions— another part of their punishment for ditching.

“Nice year. What of it?” Jeff responded, walking with her. When they arrived, he checked his bike over to make sure no one had messed with it, an old precautionary measure from back Home. Jeff was always careful about that sort of thing.

She scowled at him, propping her hands on her hips as she waited for him to finish his security check. “The book I’ll read.” But then she thoughtfully paused. “Or maybe I’ll read Animal Farm. I hear that one is a good one too. Mrs. Ryant says George Orwell has important things to say and I ought to read his books.”

Jeff shrugged and threw his leg astride the motorcycle, gunning the motor as soon as he could. “I suppose, if you like depressing stuff.”

“Well, Brian took Les Miserables,” Zormna scowled at him again with the inclination to kick him, if only a little, “and I wanted to read that one.”

Jeff glanced back at her with surprise. Zormna got wrapped up in the oddest things. Currently it was the local books she was reading. She had been devouring book after book since she had learned to read English a year ago, and she often borrowed the older classics from Mrs. Ryant who had been her English teacher from the previous year.

 “I heard from Joy that Les Miserables was one of the best novels ever written. And when I saw it on the book list for English, I thought I’d do that—but Brian took it.” Zormna was now sulking, much more like her usual self when she was put out. It made her seem more her age, as she was only fifteen. But also made her look cute. He didn’t ever tell her, though. She didn’t react well to such remarks. Zormna did not want to be ‘cute’. She wanted to be taken seriously.

“You know, you can still read the book. You just can’t do a report on it.” He was about to say something else to tease her, but he stopped when his eyes caught on the watching FBI agents who were sitting in the car across the street. Not that the FBI watching them was unusual, but there were days when it wearied him. It wasn’t like those people were going to discover anything new about them. They were just going to high school and biding their time until they could both go Home. And Jeff didn’t know when that would be. He was honestly hoping to graduate high school—for once.

With an irritated look, he gestured for Zormna to hurry on back of the bike so he could take her home.

She peeked over at the FBI also. With a shudder, she immediately complied.

They really were inseparable now, the two of them. Since the beginning of that year, Jeff and Zormna went everywhere together, which no doubt encouraged the rumor that they were an intimate couple. But the real reason they had become so inseparable was because Jeff did not want the FBI to snatch Zormna off the street again. It had happened when she had been alone and outnumbered, just barely after he had discovered that she was a Tarrn—possibly the Tarrn they were looking for. Her three-day kidnapping last year had been a nightmare for both of them. In those three days, he believed that he had failed in his life mission. Her recovery and return had been a reprieve for him. Since then, he had tried to get Zormna to move in with his ‘family’, but she wouldn’t do it. She was too headstrong and independent. So, giving her rides was the next best thing. It was a taxing job being her bodyguard.

The agents followed them with their eyes a good way before calling ahead to the next set of operatives at the usual place.

“Agent Barlow to Hayworth. They’ve gone from the school. Have you spotted them?”

The agents waiting for the other side, stationed near Zormna’s house, responded. << They’re riding by now. It looks like they’re going to the Boy’s place. >>

The agents across the street from the school waited and listened to their cell phones for the ring.

The melody came out, beeping like a pager.

“Barlow here,” a dark-haired agent said, lifting the phone to his ear.

<< The two have arrived. I suppose she’ll be staying for dinner tonight again. >>

Agent Barlow chuckled and nodded. “Alright, inform Agents Hayworth and Simms when he takes her home, but keep an eye out for any sneaking out. They like to do that just to mess you.”

The voice of the other man laughed mildly on the other side. Agent Barlow pressed the button to end the call.

Turning to his partner, he said, “All clear here.”

Indeed, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Nor had anything intended to happen. Jeff, as was said, had promised many people that he would stick around and finish out school. So, no more ditching and sneaking off with Zormna, and no more adventures across the country—even if it was great fun to get away from the quiet uniformity of the Pennington suburb. That night, they merely finished their homework in the sterile Spartan living room of the ‘Streigle’ home. And after, Jeff practiced his banjo, his violin, and worked on his technique with his balalaika while Zormna listened in amusement as well as private amazement at his broad talents. Their noise gave cover for the others in the household who directed the Arrassian rebellion from the back recesses of a locked room which the FBI did not know about. And after all that, they ate the dinner made by Jeff’s pretended Aunt Mary, a dish she found online which promised to be interesting. Later Jeff took Zormna home and double-checked her security system to make sure no one would break in and mess with her.

The usual.

Video Tape

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two:

 

To get the right answer you have to ask the right questions.—anon—

 

Jeff awoke that morning with the oddest feeling. He couldn’t quite place it. It gave him swirling sensation in his head and chest, with a peculiar calmness… like being in the eye of a tornado. Most of his life back Home had been torn up and tossed about in the storm of caste-system politics. And though it had been relatively peaceful for him in Pennington, the FBI eventually had made a lousy mess of that. And as he rubbed his bleary eyes, glancing about his room (which on one side he had a collection of various stringed instruments lined up, which he played, and on the other side was his desk where he was currently messing around with a computer he had taken apart and intended to make better), he got the impression that he was in a space of deceptive peace.

His mind drifted to the current events as he slid out of his covers to start the day. Up until that point, the rebellion of Arras (Jeff’s and Zormna’s home world and the real name of Mars) had been succeeding in many places. Jeff and the others living in his household were confident that things would go well, maintaining that they would return Home at the most critical point of their fight to help it succeed. Only, in his gut that morning he felt this terrible underlying horridness. It crawled up into his chest and seemed to wrap around his heart.

Then something snapped.

Jeff lurched to a stop, pawing his chest. It was nothing within him that had snapped. Mentally feeling out, as he was one of those intuitive sorts who had learned long ago that the material world was merely a skin to a more substantial world beyond, Jeff sensed with a pang that something important had broken.

He quickly rushed out of his bedroom to their radio room for the rebellion to see if something had gone wrong. But when he arrived, Eergvin, the college-aged redhead who outside the house went by the name of Eric, blearily looked up from his desk where he was listening to communications in boredom. He then eyed Jeff in his shorts and tee shirt, hair all mussed up. “Something the matter?”

Deciding not to worry him, Jeff shook his head and stepped out again.

Yet ‘Eric’ took notice, mentally tucking the incident in the back of his brain for a later date. He had learned ages ago that if something bugged Jeff then it had to be important.

Around that same time, Agent Keane, followed by Agents Palmer and Powell, barged into the project head’s office. “Agent Sicamore!”

Agent Sicamore didn’t look up at first. He had been going over and over a dossier, or looked like he was at least. He was mostly staring at it—the one listing all the members of the household where Jeff was staying. The agency had pegged Jeff, ‘Eric’, and a blond man named Aaron as Martians. But Sicamore was currently rethinking that assumption. As clever as he realized Jeff was, the idea that Jeff and the other two were manipulatively imposing on that regular American family was perhaps a mistake. The FBI had intended to rescue the Streigle family from Jeff and the college pair, but now, after inspecting Alex Streigle more closely—whom Jeff always called Al, and who had been pretending to be Jeff’s older brother—Agent Sicamore realized that Alex fit the Martian profile too well, despite being taller than the usual Martian. And if that were the case, then Alex’s parents could also be Martians. And if that were the case, then that opened a nasty can of worms because the Streigles had once owned a bed and breakfast in Missouri which had catered to out-of-town travelers. And the more Agent Sicamore thought about it, the more he realized that it was the perfect place to start settling in ‘aliens’ from anywhere else—be it a foreign country or another planet. This realization had struck him so heavily that he had closed his eyes and clenched his head in frustration. He understood that he now had to send people out to pick up those ‘parents’ from Chicago—especially since Sicamore recently learned that Jeff’s real parents were dead.

“Agent Sicamore!” Keane said again, heaving breathily and waving for him to come out of the room. “Come quick, you have to see this!”

Lifting his eyes from the file, the worn-out agent took in the three men in his doorway. He gazed tiredly at Agent Keane’s insistence. “What is it?”

Sweaty, anxious, the young agent beckoned his superior to follow him. “It’s the satellite! You have to see! They’ve found it!”

Agent Sicamore’s head dropped against the table with a hard thump. “Ugh.”

“Agent Sicamore,” Agent Palmer marched over to him with purpose. “You have to come now. Tanner has gotten the last recording, and you have to see it.”

Weary, dreary, and feeling the weight of hopelessness upon him, the head agent talked directly at the table. “What’s the point? They found our satellite. We have no more living proof.”

“General Gardner doesn’t think so,” Agent Powell cut in insistently.

Sicamore lifted his head. Hearing the urgency in all three of their voices, he said “General Gardner?”

All three agents nodded.

“He’s in the observation room now,” Agent Powell continued with an assured air that begged their operation head to get out of his seat and see for himself.

Agent Sicamore rose quickly. General Gardner was their liaison with the military—their greatest and sanest link with the U.S. military. Turning to Agent Keane now, Sicamore asked, “What did they record from the satellite?”

Agent Keane grinned as one bringing Sicamore to a birthday party. “Come and see.”

Firmly nodding, he joined the three agents in a march back to where they had come from, hope timidly returning.

They all marched down the hall to the satellite observation room—a room they had dubbed the ‘dark room’ because it was always dark inside and usually silent except for the Martian radio activity they had tapped into and were recording. The alien language itself was indecipherable, though they had collected several samples of it from Zormna and Jeff as well as from space. Nothing was translated except possibly the occasional radio transmission in an Earth language. And though they had locked away in a hidden place a handful of actual Martians who had committed murder—which Zormna and Jeff had ‘conveniently’ let the FBI keep—none of them were actually talking, except to vilify Zormna as a loathsome Tarrn. Of course, these captives refused to translate anything for the Bureau. In fact, they all seemed to be waiting for something. A rescue, possibly.

Thing was, not all the communications were Martian anyway. They tended to use Earth languages as a code-language among themselves.

The four agents arrived in the dark room, knocking on the door to be let in. They found the General standing there, watching to the rewound video footage over and over again. The General was a solid, mature man with squared shoulders and a fixed jaw. He lifted his head when he heard the men enter quickly focusing his eyes on Agent Sicamore, who approached him. “Ah, there you are, Sicamore. What do you make of this?” 

Agent Sicamore looked at the screen, which was quickly skipping back to the point the general had ordered.

“Sorry, General, but I haven’t seen it yet,” Sicamore said.

The General waved over to the screen. “Then look. And tell me what you make of it.”

Sicamore obeyed. The recording stopped, the operator pressed the play button again and sat back for Sicamore to take in what they had been watching for the pas hour. On the screen, at least in the beginning, showed the usual routine of ships coming and going. Boring stuff.  

“There,” the General finally said, pointing to a speck coming from the planet, “Watch that ship.”

So, Sicamore did.

The ship on the screen went into the same routine, speaking in code—Russian this time. It flew toward the potato-shaped moon that orbited Mars, where they presumed the Martians had a base.

<< Triisat trii Demarr, Palocheeteye menya? >> the voice came, rolling his r’s in proper Russian style.

<< Paloochesh, >> the other side responded. << Triista trii Demarr Priletitye. >>

The ship proceeded to the asteroid, but then veered a bit—just a slight bit.

<< Shto Eta? >> the voice in the ship said in Russian.

“Do you speak Russian, Agent Sicamore?” the General asked.

Agent Sicamore shook his head.

“He just asked, ‘What is that?’” the general said.

Sicamore’s insides tightened.

<< Smatriitye! Shto ta zdyes. >>

“Look, something is here.” The General translated the spoken Russian for the benefit of the head FBI operation there.

<< Koshmarr. Alea Kardnek! Yest shto tah… koshmarr… shto tah… koshmarr! Eto sputnik! >>

“He’s just rambling here. He’s saying something is a nightmare, but I think that’s slang. He recognized the satellite.” The general looked at Agent Sicamore. “This is where it gets interesting.”

Indeed. The screen quickly filled with ships coming to investigate the satellite. Agent Sicamore expected them to blow the satellite to bits, but instead people went out in suits to retrieve it—suits which he recognized very well as these were the same suits worn by the alien visitors who stole the ancient crashed ship from the archaeological site in Arizona that last February. Agents Palmer and Powell nodded to him. They had been there with him. As Sicamore watched, the Martians no longer spoke to each other in Earth languages. They were now chattering in their own tongue.

<< Serr’kai. Tar za razol’narr da en’em. >> a deep male voice uttered.

<< Skavee! En zhaz’or Ull-Ess-Ah. Ne’em kah’ova gunnflii- shakee, shea za ne’em pres trii? >> another male voice responded.

The general murmur of the group (there were about four individuals floating in space deliberating over the satellite) there was leaning toward the negative. 

<< Al’ rannal’orn Alea Zormna oomtor’or shea an’e za del’narr dal tar, >> one voice came again.

<< Za en errz polzarr’narr? >> a voice from beyond the four asked.

<< Na, Ar, >> the fourth responded.

<< Shoora, yiin’kai en’em. Ee vzar’kai en’em van, >> the voice from beyond said again.

The transmission ended there.

Agent Sicamore cringed. He closed his eyes, jaw clenching. It was over. He really had hoped all that fuss his agents had made had been over something more substantial, but this was a dead end. He turned to go.

“Wait Sicamore.” The general put his hand on the head agent’s arm to stop him. “There’s more.”

“More?” Agent Sicamore gasped. “How? They broke the satellite.”

“Actually,” chimed in one of the operators of the room, “They only broke the main broadcast system. We immediately transferred power to the auxiliary system—you know, put in in case it was found or the main parts broke. We got this.”

Agent Sicamore immediately looked up at the screen to see what had been recorded with hope that it was something useful. The audio was gone. They only had video, and that was severely distorted as if there were some interference. However, they got the machine’s view of the side of a man in a peculiar, yet utilitarian uniform, helping to carry the satellite inside a huge… well, the agents assumed it was a docking bay. They got only a few glimpses beyond the man’s suit, as the angle was bad, but of what they caught were views of this crisp clean, well-lit ‘garage’ full of a variety of spacecraft the likes which belonged in sci-fi military novels. A number were sleek ships with reflective metal, clearly intended to reflect starlight and little else. Stealth, probably. A row of the spacecraft were like the ones that had landed in Arizona, van-like, not very large but built like they were meant to carry a number of people to and from a place—a shuttle, perhaps. And there were some odd space craft that looked a little junkier, more construction level in design. The satellite recorder could only get a bit of this though. The view extremely was bad. Yet about halfway through they got a clear shot of the ceiling, as if the carriers had shifted the satellite to fit it through a door. The ceiling area above the docking bay was paneled, and filled with catwalks and other spacecraft hooked up in storage. Then they had the clear shot of a face. Up-his-nose view, actually.

The face was freckled with wrinkles. Male. And human. In fact, he had red hair (which was graying) and brilliant green eyes. The Martian typical, Agent Sicamore had decided. This man was clean-shaven. He also looked like he was in charge of the operation with the way he was speaking to others. The man pointed away from the satellite, through the door, and those carrying the satellite followed his direction.

The satellite recorded nothing but wall for a while. But occasionally they passed people in uniform. Several of them were redheads, and more that were blonds—which Agent Sicamore mentally shifted as the Martian typical, counting them. He really had to go back and investigate Alex and the other Streigles now. It was clear they had to be the same kind. He did not see one with dark hair until he saw a young man in the crowd whose slick dark hair was a shade of red so dark it was black. In fact, it was the same shade of black Agent Sicamore had, and it gave him chills. He hoped no one else noticed this. It was the worst damning evidence of his true heritage, and he didn’t need it to come up now.

 Unfortunately, the people carrying the satellite stopped and talked to that man for a moment, casual like. And worse, it went on for a while until that dark haired young man stared directly at the satellite.

“Watch him,” the general said.

The young man then poked right at the lens, smearing it with his fingerprints. There seemed to be a general conversation about the lens. The ones carrying the satellite peered over at the lens now, squinting as they contemplated it. But the conversation ended with the dark-haired young man accompanying them down the hall to the end.

“Look at the wall behind them,” the general said.

Behind the dark-haired Martian, beyond the fingerprint smear on the lens was something so startling Agent Sicamore could not restrain his shock. “Those are ours!”

Indeed, like vases in a museum, set along the wall were the Viking, the Mariner, and many other satellites that had been sent to Mars, supposedly lost to weather conditions. The land rover was one of the last they passed, showing its flat solar panels and its tag that said USA. It would have been convenient if they had just placed that satellite alongside the others, giving them a spy camera within the compound, but the Martians really were more cautious than that. As they had surmised, the dark-haired soldier had spotted their camera as the satellite was being taken to a room for inspection.

The soldiers had placed the satellite on a table, giving the FBI view of a room full of machinery operated by people dressed in the equivalent of lab coats. All of the people in the room appeared to be working on various technical projects, and all of them glanced over at the satellite when it arrived. The dark-haired soldier called for someone to inspect the satellite. An old wrinkly man with hair that had gone white and wispy, walked to the machine with a healthy stride and peered it over with a sharp inspecting eye. His skin had liver spots on it that indicated great age, but he certainly didn’t act it.

The dark-haired man pointed at the camera lens again. The old man examined it, nodding. Immediately, the dark-haired solider picked up a metal rod and rammed it into the lens.

The picture was gone.

“That’s it,” the general said.

Agent Sicamore let out a breath and nodded.

That was it. Their satellite was gone. However, they had gotten an inside view of the moon base itself and recorded proof that these Martians had been sabotaging all their satellites all those years. They also received solid proof that the Martians had an enormous military contingency of spacecraft, including stealth planes. It was proof enough that they were ready for war.

“So, what do you think?” the general said, looking to Sicamore. His eyes probed gravely, reading the head agent’s looks.

Silently Sicamore nodded to himself, thinking. He had to be careful. His situation still wasn’t good. And yet, they had all the proof they needed. “I think we need to prepare ourselves.”

“And the two children?” the general asked, meaning Zormna and Jeff. The man had the decency to at least see them as children rather than a complete alien menace as the other generals tended to think.

Agent Sicamore shook his head. “I… I don’t think they’re involved in that.”

The General shook his head knowingly, trying to meet the head agent’s eyes. “Sicamore, that girl is very much involved. That is her military. They did mention her, if I am not mistaken. She did use them to steal that unearthed spaceship. And the boy and girl are threatening you, aren’t they?”

Agent Sicamore gazed up at him, going ashen. He hoped the man didn’t know exactly how they were threatening him—what his true fear was.

General Gardner sighed and stared at him plainly. “I know they have been threatening you and your family. Sicamore, I can assure you we will take all measures to protect your parents from any dangerous persons.”

“Is that a promise?” Agent Sicamore asked at once, relieved the general still hadn’t figured out the entire truth.

The General nodded.

Agent Sicamore slipped again into his thoughts. He still had time. But they needed to be careful.

“So, what about those two?” the General asked again.

Thinking, Agent Sicamore replied hesitantly, “I think we should wait all the same, General.”

The General let out a disgruntled sigh and almost retreated with his question. But he changed his mind. “Why?”

Sicamore didn’t need to think about this one. He had already decided. “Because, sir, I still think those two, no matter how much they have interfered with our operation, are simply trying to lay low from something on the other side.”

“Other side?” the General huffed. “What other side?”

Sicamore wet his lips, choosing his words. “The other side of their political situation.”

The General shook his head. “Political situation? You aren’t referring to those murderers who stole that satellite and killed our agents are you?”

Agent Sicamore nodded. He had been struggling to explain to the others that they had stumbled on a sticky political ‘feud’ of which they did not know where they stood themselves.

Shaking his head, the general approached Agent Sicamore with a graver look. “Are you so sure of that? Those two seem unscrupulous enough to blame anyone for something they did.”

“They left us the satellite,” Sicamore replied, grudgingly.

“Which you can’t open.” The General frowned at him. “Sicamore, don’t you think you’re taking an unusual amount of effort to defend someone who has caused you, and the U.S. taxpayers, an immense amount of grief?”

Preparing to defend his actions, Agent Sicamore drew in a breath.

—but he was stopped from speaking.

“I think, Mr. Sicamore, that perhaps I should remind you that the U.S. government has already decided themselves on the matter. We are just waiting for you to say when we should seize them and shut down their operation.” General Gardner folded his arms, waiting.

With a sigh, Sicamore shook his head. “I just think that we need more time.”

General Gardner frowned deeper.

“Until I see pure evidence of hostility on their part, I see no need to seize either child,” Sicamore explained. Acknowledging the general’s objections, he continued. “And even if we did take them into custody today, I doubt we would be able to seize their operation. That boy, I am positive, controls much beyond our reach—and I dare say his people be on our backs if we touch him while we are still in the dark about them. Besides, there are a few more leads I want to follow which I believe may prove fruitful.”

This, the general sighed at and conceded, though reluctantly. “How long do you need then?”

Sicamore shrugged. “At least a month, two at the most. I think we shouldn’t wait as long as the end of May. Those two look like they’ll skip the planet as soon as school lets out for summer.”

General Gardner laughed in irony. “To think that the U.S. defense lays in the hands of two high schoolers. Who’d have thought we’d come to this?”

The FBI agent nodded and laughed too, though hardly with any real amusement.

By this time, the two high schoolers in question were sitting in English, listening to Mr. Humphries talk about the Dust Bowl and relate it to the book they were starting as if it was the most critical thing at that moment. The Grapes of Wrath had to be the most dreaded book of all high school students. No one wanted to read a book about an Oklahoma family of hicks starving to death as migrant farmers in California. It was just too depressing. Mr. Humphries was just finishing his lecture about how life could turn itself on a dime and devastate everyone with a natural disaster.

“Think of it. You are all sitting comfortably in your homes, eating food that many people across the world will never get to eat, living in peace and never seeing fighting. You are the most privileged people on the face of the planet. Now think about what would happen if one day a massive tornado touched down in downtown Pennington Heights, tearing down everything. Your homes gone, your school gone.”

One boy hooted at that.

Mr. Humphries scowled but continued. “And added to that, the area has been hit by a drought, the likes of which you have never seen, turning the entire area to a dust bowl—now you are not only homeless but also starving. What then?”

He let that idea sink in.

“We often get too complacent, spoiled by our comforts that we even start to assume we deserve them.” Their teacher leaned against the front of his desk and stared out at the crowd of teens. “In the nineteen-fifties, the people feared nuclear war. And luckily, we did not have one, though we came close several times. We have lived too long under the complacent attitude that nothing can happen to us—despite 9/11—and we have become unsympathetic to those suffering out there in the world.” He then stood up and said to them squarely, “That is why we read Steinbeck—to remind us that people do suffer, even in our own country.”

The class didn’t dare moan when Mr. Humphries got that serious. The students endured the complete oration, waiting for it to end rather patiently. Immediately after, their teacher handed them study sheets for the novel, listing several essay questions they would have to answer.

Zormna took hers and passed the rest back to Joy, who received them likewise. They all stared at the papers, skimming the questions which were typed in order of the events of the story.

“How does the allegory of the turtle crossing the road foreshadow the future events of the story?” Brian read out the question in a low voice. Most of the class was murmuring over the packets while their teacher finished passing them out.

“Look at this one,” Adam interjected in a whisper. “Describe the conditions of the migrant worker camp. How, do you think, did the land owners get away with creating these camps, and why do you think they lasted so long?” He tossed the paper back on the desk. “He’s got to be kidding.”

Mr. Humphries, however, was sitting at his desk waiting for the murmuring to die down… and looking absolutely serious. But then he always did. It was the sweater vests with his ties and white shirts that usually completed the impression—though perhaps it was the severe look in his eye.

Jeff shrugged, peering through the entire stapled packet. “Apparently not. They aren’t unreasonable questions.”

Both Adam and Brian stared at him.

Seeing their looks, Jeff choked in a disbelieving laugh. “Really you guys, these are easy enough, and the questions are rather good.”

Joy grumbled in the back, whispering forwards. “Good? Jeff, Steinbeck is hard to read.”

“Even if we faked our way through the essays,” Adam said, “Mr. Humphries would be able tell if we actually read the book.”

Jeff only smiled with an uplift of his eyebrows. “Well then, I guess we’ll all be reading it, huh?”

Joy and Brian mutually cringed. Adam just stared at him as if Jeff had said something graphically profane about his mother.

“I wonder,” Zormna perused the papers herself and sighed at it, “Is the book long?”

Her answer came quickly as the person sitting in front of her dropped the copies of the novel onto her desk. Lifting it up, she shrugged. She took one, placing the rest on Joy’s desk behind her. Joy made a face like she wanted to toss the book out the window.

 

All of them were glad once the class was over. Gathering her things into her book bag, Zormna, with Adam, walked to History class, which was in another wing of the school on an upper floor. Honestly, Zormna had gotten used to the high school routine to the point that she had started to wonder if her old life had been a dream. She had gotten so accustomed to dealing with teenaged things such as the ‘popularity’ game and ‘fitting in’, which she had never been good at even back Home. But her daily routine mostly included ignoring the snippety remarks frequently shot her way by the girls and the leering glances from the boys. And though she missed the military life she had been raised in, she had learned to enjoy the variety and color that life as an American teenager gave her. American teenagers had fun—something the military hardly ever gave her time for, especially as a legal adult of rank. The only thing she truly didn’t like about living in America as a teenager was that she had to humor a number of ridiculous people. And one of them was her History teacher, Miss Bianchi. The others were all her classmates, even the ones she liked.

Arriving in the classroom, Zormna sat in her usual place next to Jennifer McLenna and Jessica Clark. The teacher was busy up front, thankfully. Both girls nodded to her, ignoring the other. For the record, Jennifer and Jessica were not ‘sitting together’, something they insisted to tell others whenever people asked—because they had once been best friends back in jr. high, though not in high school. But they were both friends of Zormna’s and happened to have ended up in the same class, they said. Jennifer thought Jessica was a backstabbing jerk, and frequently said so, while Jessica said Jennifer was a preppy, freckle-faced snob with a ‘stick up her butt’. Both girls refrained from such remarks when Zormna came around since they both wanted to keep their friendship with their foreign friend, mostly because Zormna didn’t put up with bickering.

Wearing one of her black heavy metal tee shirts but none of her old goth makeup, Jessica gestured with her head to the front of the room, urging Zormna to look at what their teacher was thinking up for their class to do next. Jennifer cringed, her eyes also taking it in. So, Zormna looked. A general murmur of curiosity was in the room. Miss Bianchi was hanging up a rough banner for the next dance, Sadie Hawkins—though this banner was from the last year. Their teacher often saved old posters as ‘visual aids’

Tacky clothes and frizzy hair aside, Miss Bianchi was an enthusiastic busybody. She was currently covering the subject of World War II in class with patriotic vigor. Of course, that teacher did everything with vigor—especially party planning. She was the teacher advisor in charge of most of the school dances and fairs. In fact, she tended to take them over like a frizzy-headed Napoleon. And

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.10.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7554-7921-5

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