The Mars Project by Julie Steimle (i can read with my eyes shut TXT) 📕

Sam shook his head. “Man, I wish I had a better partner. Travis keeps screwing up. Something always goes wrong. We’re either blowing up something, or we end up adding too much of something else. Any tips?”

With a snicker, Zormna said with an impish grin, “How about following the instructions? It works for me.”

Sam blushed as he laughed. “Yeah, that’s an idea.”

Entering the cafeteria, Zormna picked up the pocket pizza and juice, passing over the apples and the cup of peas that sat as side dishes. When she paid for her food, Zormna and Sam joined the rest of the group out on the lawn near the redtop. Brian’s gang had dragged the picnic table over the redtop so that it sat near the edge of the grass. Mark and Jonathan were messing around with their carrot stick while Brian and Jeff were reading and eating. Kevin had just come over and sat next to Jennifer on the fringe, since he still did not feel comfortable with the others and had no intention to linger as he was only there for Jennifer.

He was talking with Jennifer rather secretly—face near hers, probably whispering his sweet nothings, which on most occasions made Zormna sick. Brian was looking the other way in disgust, though Jeff really was engrossed in his meal and the text he was reading. That is, he appeared to be engrossed in his meal until Zormna came striding up with Sam. Then he peeked up and shifted so that he could gaze over the book at the pair of them.

Zormna peered around the area. Darren wasn’t there

She made a face. “Where is Darren? This is the third Monday that he hasn’t eaten with us.”

Jennifer glanced up then shrugged after a quick perusal. “I guess he’s decided to spend Mondays in the library.”

Grimacing, Zormna looking in that direction. “He went to the library again?”

Nodding, Jennifer replied, “Yep. He said he had homework to finish.”

Jennifer then returned to her whispered conversation with Kevin.

Wondering, Zormna sat down on the bench near the tree. Sam scooted next to her with a knuckle-bump to Adam. Without saying anything, she started on her lunch, chewing silently.

Jeff glanced down and then placed his bottle of juice on the picnic table. Leaning near, Jeff whispered to Zormna. “We need to talk.”

Zormna looked up at him, a little startled. His gaze was serious. She almost scowled, as he always had that lecturing tone when he said he wanted to talk, and she never knew what he was going to say—whether it was good or bad. She was tired of feeling chided all the time for being herself.

Yet, with a dour nod, she continued to eat her lunch.

When lunch was over and Brian and the rest hurried off to the main building for their classes, Jeff whispered again that he needed to talk to her at his house after school. This additional information made Zormna sincerely wonder what he was going to tell her. It had been a long time since she had been at his house, let alone invited. The last time she had been there, she had snuck in to see if Jeff was an enemy or a friend. But invited? Something had changed, though she didn’t know what.

Bemused, Zormna entered the building to go to her P.E. class, speculating, perplexed at what Jeff would say.

Jeff headed to the main building.

Darren stepped out of the side of the hall near the door. He touched Jeff’s shoulder just as he was walking through the door.

Jeff jumped.

“Don’t do that!” Jeff grabbed his chest. “What are you trying to do? Scare me?”

“Sorry.” Darren ducked his head apologetically. “But I need to talk to you.”

Jeff grimaced. “Can’t it wait?”

“This is important.” Darren pulled him around the corner, too insistent to ignore.

Peering around, Jeff stepped aside from the flow of students next to the boy so many people laughed at because of his obsession with Mars. But Jeff listened to him seriously.

“I think we have a problem,” Darren said, whispering.

Eying him funny, Jeff asked, “Like what?”

Darren drew in a breath. He leaned in much too close for Jeff’s comfort, causing him to back off.  “We have spies in the school.”

“What?” Jeff pulled back right away, eying him. “You don’t mean those FBI agents that watch across the street do you? We already know about them.”

Shaking his head, Darren said, “No, undercover agents.”

Jeff’s eyes widened. The thought had occurred to him, considering what had happened at camp, but he had been too busy to care. And to be honest, he and Zormna were doing great at keeping talk of Home almost nil. “New teachers? Janitors? Sure. We guessed that.”

Shaking his head more firmly, Darren said, “No, Jeff. Well…some— maybe. I mean, sure we have a few new janitors and student teachers and such that are probably spies. But I’m talking about students. New students.”

Making a face, Jeff stood back from him. “Darren, you are being paranoid. Teachers I can believe, but kid FBI agents? That’s not possible.”

With a roll of his eyes, Darren replied, “Jeff, the FBI have done it before. They just send young-looking agents to pose as teenagers. There was movie and a TV show about that kind of stuff.”

Jeff wouldn’t listen to anymore. The possibility of kid FBI agents did not fit his experience.

“Listen Darren, I don’t have time for this,” he said. And he strode off and down the hall, shaking his head.

Darren stared after him, wilting with dismay. He slumped against the wall with a large exhale.

*

Jeff sat in his Pre-Calculus class and stared at the numbers, thinking. What Darren said didn’t sound all that implausible—well, at least the first part. The FBI was more than capable of replacing one, if not a few, of their teachers with spies. The question was, how many were on campus now? Their school security guards could easily be agents. And Darren did say student teachers. Coach Baker had a new assistant coach helping out in wrestling, and there was a student teacher helping out in the shop classes. That meant the entire school could already be bugged. Which made Jeff wonder…had they overheard his conversation with Zormna in the stairwell? He had swept it, but he wasn’t military efficient at it as Zormna was. Was there anywhere safe on campus to talk with her? Or had they overheard their conversation near the tree? Was their picnic table bugged? Or the bench? Or the tree itself? Was his classroom now bugged?

Restraining a shudder as his flesh crawled, Jeff struggled to maintain his calm. After all, it wasn’t the first time his school had spies in it. Back Home, the People’s Military had replaced teachers in his school once to catch other teachers and students they thought were involved in the rebellion. The teachers in his former school had rotated often enough so that it was easy to do. He had lost nearly half of his teachers to that bust, and they were replaced with more P.M. spies.

Sighing, Jeff glanced up at the teacher that stood at the head of the classroom. Could he be a spy?

No. Shaking his head, Jeff breathed in and out, telling himself that his teacher couldn’t be. For starters, that teacher had been at Pennington High for years. Besides, if a teacher were an agent or working with agents, he would be trying to observe irregular behavior. A math teacher could never be suspect. They only discussed numbers, nothing personal.

But could their English teacher be an agent?

Jeff sat up and thought about it. They did discuss personal topics in that class, sometimes too personal. But Mr. Humphries wasn’t new either. He was an old-timer on tenure who actually believed he could affect the next generation. Yet as he thought about this, Jeff frowned, wondering if their teachers would cooperate with the FBI, perhaps let their rooms be bugged. Though, a custodian could just bug the room without permission. But his paranoia rose up in him and asked: possibly they could be recruited to observe, paid extra as American teachers didn’t receive half as much pay as Arrassian teachers did. And since America was currently keeping eyes out for terrorists or crazy gun-toting school shooters, they might possibly have less qualms about working along with the government if they assured the teachers they were keeping everyone safe.

Jeff shook his head with a smirk. And perhaps he was taking this a bit too far, making something out of nothing at all. He was becoming as paranoid as Darren.

Yet, thinking again—Darren did have a point. It was unusually quiet with the FBI. They had backed off since the end of summer. They hadn’t harassed him or Zormna lately. They just seemed to be waiting. And in Jeff’s long experience with covert government organizations, such unusually quiet activity was a sign that the enemy had changed their tactics to a better way of getting what they wanted. And that thought made Jeff nervous.

Now he was sure he had to include Zormna in his operations. For who was better to deal with government spies than a trained soldier?

*

Zormna waited in the starkly clean living room that belonged to the ‘Streigle’ family. Never mind that they were actually the leaders of the rebellion on Arras. And their leader, Jeff, was in the kitchen fixing two glasses of something he said was a surprise.

The others were out in the city working on their day jobs to keep the house up, excluding the housewife that went by the English name Mary. She was currently working in the back room, handling the radios and toiling with plans Jeff had left her while white noise played in the background to mute her activity. It would also make it difficult for the FBI to record their conversation. Zormna found it funny that a boy of almost eighteen held command of so many older and more experienced people. Stranger still was how well he maintained their respect. Especially since he was not military trained.

“Here,” he said handing her a tall glass of sparkling soda that had a floating green ice pop inside.

Her eyes widened into amazement.  

“It’s tsilk!” She exclaimed after taking a savoring sip. “You figured out how to make tsilk!”

Jeff nodded, grinning. He sat on the couch opposite her and placed his own drink on the table after a mouthful.

“It’s grapefruit soda with an ice-pop inside. It tastes nearly the same. It’s just too bad I can’t quite make a foamy. I tried with sherbet, but the affect isn’t as nice as at Sandi’s,” he said.

Taking another sip then sighing with contentment, she cradled the glass in her hands. “That’s right. You went there. I…uh…” She averted her eyes, recalling their encounter in that restaurant—their ‘fourth’ kerfuffle in which she had also encountered Dural Korad who also wanted to see her dead. On occasion she and Jeff called him their ‘mutual friend’.

“Yeah. I hung out there with my friends before I made the lists,” Jeff said, graciously ignoring her awkward die-out at a bad memory. He took another sip of his drink, enjoying the fizz and tart flavor. It was another thing they had in common—a good thing.

Swallowing, she then placed her glass on the table. Zormna looked up at Jeff and asked, “So what did you want me here for? What did you want to talk about?”

Jeff took another quick drink then set his glass beside hers on the table. Glancing up, he drew in a breath and said, “I want to let you into the rebellion.”

“Let me in, as in…participate?” Her heart rose into her chest. A rush of chills scampered through her as she sat straight to make sure she heard him right. “You want me to help you?”

Jeff pursed his lips while trying to phrase his thoughts right. “Not, exactly. I mean, I know you can’t contact the Patrol anymore, but I was thinking