Apocalypse Before Finals by Julie Steimle (electric book reader txt) 📕

Agents Powell and Palmer met them at the base of the hill, ignoring Jeff's remarks while talking to their operatives. "Take the girl in your car and the boy will come in mine. Put the two men in the armored truck."

Zormna blinked and jerked back, resisting their holds. She looked once at Jeff. "They're separating us."

"Shea del'el nee umderr'om? Ne'em reesee nas'op ein damrra'om neem syafa iisa kaink eme,"[3] one of the PMs said to her with a sneer.

"Shut up!" Jeff lurched after the PMs. But the group steering Jeff pulled him away so there could be no opportunity to create and incident.

Each one was efficiently separated to their designated vehicles. But the agent in charge noticed how peculiar it was that the two new Martians calmly went along with it, allowing themselves be detained without any resistance whatsoever. In fact, they seemed to take a great deal of joy watching the agents haul Zormna away as if it tickled them pink. However, they shot Jeff sullen looks, like those merely waiting for the proper time to kill him.

The FBI put Jeff into a secured car with two armed escorts, which Agent Keane drove. Zormna peered out at Jeff from the back window of the car they had shoved her into, shaking from a sudden headache. Forcibly pushed around by men in black drew up the buried memory of when the FBI had kidnapped her the year before. At least this time they had the decency not to drug her and throw her into the trunk of a car. She wondered if they were taking them to the same place as last time.

The convoy drove out of the city limits, possibly to Billsburg, but Jeff guessed they were nearing Harvest. Where they went exactly, even Jeff couldn't say. It was a part of the area he was not familiar with. He could tell, however, that they had entered a city-like center and not in a suburb. They stopped at a large four-story building that appeared to him like a cube in its bulky box-like symmetry. It was too dark to make out any real shape. The front of the building, in the dark, looked plain. At both sides of the structure stood trees and grass. It could have been a government building, but it also looked like it could be a library in the model of the Parthenon, except for the lack of carved relief at the top. Both Zormna and Jeff peered up at it as they were physically removed from their vehicles and dragged up the stone-like steps into a main hall wide enough for lots of foot traffic. The floor was shiny marble-like tile.

Passing through the main hall, the operatives shoved them towards a freight elevator, weapons rammed forcefully into their sides. They took Jeff down first, holding Zormna back with the two People's Military officers. Jeff's eyes fixed on Zormna's as the doors closed between them, the expression in his dark gaze speaking volumes. He had been in prison before and he had escape before, as she full well knew. Things weren't over yet, he wanted to remind her.

They hauled Zormna to another elevator, keeping tightly at her side and watching her as if she were a terrorist with explosives strapped to her body. But perhaps they were thinking super ninja as they pressed the bottom button on the panel taking them down all the way to the basement. Some wondered if she was merely letting them take her.

Zormna caught a final glimpse of Jeff when she got out of the elevator. She heard him wisecrack to the FBI about their unlawful seizure and imprisonment. He was handling it so flippantly. In a sad way, it reminded her of the time when she had arrested him years ago and had personally him hauled off to prison.

Then she looked around the place. She realized where she was. They were in a bare hall that at both far ends were stark barred cells. With an easy guess, she figured they were in the county courthouse, and they were being taken to the prison block. And though she knew it would make no difference, she decided to make a fuss. It was her only way to protest. Besides, she needed to stall to get the lay of the area.

Tripping one of her guards, she kicked another in his chins and kneed a third in the groin. "I have committed no crime! You have no right to do this!"

One of them punched her in the stomach, though she ducked in to soften the blow. "Quit it! Or you'll be sorry."

The other elevator opened, and the two P.M. captives were taken out. One saw her and guffawed. "Vzak'kai sa, Alea Zormna! Ha! Pres'lak ee viiga Zeta sharnvod'ra!"[4]

She glared at them as their guards hauled those two into another section of the jail. Sullenly, Zormna made herself dead weight, forcing the agents to drag her down the prison rows to an unoccupied cell. She could no longer see Jeff from her vantage point. Rather, as she looked around she saw that she was being taken to an area just for women.

The human cage opened up, and the FBI operatives pushed her inside.

"What are you in for, honey?" a saucy voice from the right-hand side cell attached to hers piped up. Zormna turned to look. A woman in a sleazy dress, leaned on the bars nearest to her, half her makeup smeared with too much blue eyeshadow and caked-on mascara. The woman was sizing up the armed agents as they left, shifting her shoulders like she was savoring the view.

Zormna raised her eyebrows at her then turned around to assess her situation. Admittedly, this cage with no privacy was perhaps a more ingenious set up than what they had in ISIC, the prison complex back Home. It would take a skilled locksmith to pick his way out of such a cell without being seen. Zormna kicking the painted white metal bars between her and freedom to test their strength.

"No point in getting angry, kid. You're stuck," the woman said, hanging her arm through the bars and stroking one as she bent nearer. Her cleavage looked dangerous enough to fall out of her dress, and Zormna really didn't want the show.

Turning like a pacing tiger, Zormna shot one glare at her prison-mate. Then she paced the floor before throwing herself on the stripped bed. This wasn't exactly how she imagined that night going. Honestly Zormna was looking forward to sleeping in a real bed back Home.

The woman throatily laughed in what was presumably meant to be a lusty and alluring way. "Come on, honey, it ain't that bad. You couldn't have done something too terrible at your age. What'd you shoplift? Nail polish? Earrings?"

Groaning, Zormna rolled over on the cot and folded her arms firmly across her chest, trying to get what little sleep she could...though the lights were still on.

"I'm sure your mommy and daddy will come for you," the woman continued, shifting her positing on the bars. She then leaned closer, whispering in, "Or I can be your mommy. What 'choo in for, sweetie?"

"Oh for pity's..." Zormna rolled over and sat up with a snatch of malice, "You want to know why I am here? I'm here because the lousy FBI won't let me go back to my planet. But instead, they want to pin two murders on me just so they can declare war on my people. How's that?"

The woman pulled back from the prison bars, dropping all posturing. "You're nuts." She walked away to the other end of her cell.

Finally rid of the annoyance, Zormna dropped back on her cot and rolled over again, closing her eyes while shouting, "Could someone please turn off the lights?"

Someone on guard actually went back to ask about that.

When Jeff arrived at his cell, he just sat on his bed clenching his hands until his knuckles were white, thinking. Those agents standing guard shared discomfited looks, since he wasn't running his fingers through his hair. Clearly Jeff wasn't nervous. He was just waiting. And they wondered what it was he was waiting for.

One long night of waiting passed.

The next morning, bright and early, government officials from the Pentagon arrived at the city airport from Washington DC.  Agents Simms and Hayworth greeted General Gardner and several other military gentlemen with the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They led them to several waiting cars that would take them to the courthouse. Among them, stoic and serious faces nodded to each other. They started their morning's conversation with an 'are they secure?'

Agent Simms nodded affirmatively. "They are in the courthouse cells as we speak."

"Good," General Gardner said. Then he stepped through the open car door, sitting on the comfortable plush seat.

The important men were immediately taken to the county courthouse and up into a fourth floor courtroom where they were greeted at once by Agent Sicamore. Among the men that arrived was a Supreme Court judge. The judge took his place to preside in the courtroom. The generals and those with them sat in the seats usually reserved for the jury. The rest of the room filled up with concerned FBI agents and operatives, sitting in the audience behind the court fence and along the perimeter. They were not yet ready to bring in the president or the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

For the first hour of the morning, starting at around seven-thirty a.m., Agent Sicamore presented the recent events and recounted the phenomena relating to Zormna and Jeff. Within a thorough PowerPoint presentation, he displayed photographs, digital copies of memos, and audio and video recordings of conversations. He concluded in a booming voice that, "...the others have left their home vacant and have not returned, giving us the conclusion that they have evacuated the town. All connections with the boy's organization have evaporated. They were flawless in their retreat."

The panel of government officials listened intently, heavily pressing their hands on their chins and cheeks and mouths as they took in the information. Some clenched their fists, and others folded their arms solidly, having already made their decision. What Agent Sicamore said only confirmed the suspicions of most.

"...The only thing we can conclude is that they expected the arrival of these two..." Sicamore said, reading the paper before him, "...People's Military officers. We believe that both the Boy and Zormna expected to leave the planet in that ship - which we have confiscated and secured in a warehouse, waiting shipment to the first military compound for study."

The judge nodded.

Agent Sicamore then turned toward the main doors and said, "Now I think we will bring in the four Martians."

A general murmur ran through the watching crowd once Sicamore mentioned the word Martian. It was enough to say it in private, but said so openly it sounded ridiculously odd.

The bailiffs brought in the two pale men. They were still wearing the FBI agents' suits as part of evidence, but it made them look like a couple of stunted Swedes. Their gazes upon the crowd in the room remained haughty as if they knew a vital secret no one else was aware of - like a get out of jail free card, or a promised pardon by some powerful king.

"These murdered our men," Agent Sicamore said, giving the men no space for rebuttal. In fact, they offered none. The two killers held their heads up with dignified smugness.

Two other guards dragged in Jeff - or, rather, they prodded the cuffed boy forward, holding onto his arm so he wouldn't outrun them as his stride was full of self-control. Jeff appeared to have had a decent night's sleep, wearing that closed expression of calmness known to sit on his face. Jeff gazed across the room, turning his head slowly as he took in all the