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

The realization that Jeff had been messing with him the entire time swelled over him. Agent Sicamore bristled. And he rose. “What makes you think I will help you and your revolution? How dare you!”

Jeff shrugged as he said, “Probably because I know where your parents live.”

Agent Sicamore went white again as if Jeff had punched him in the stomach. “You! You wouldn’t!”

Jeff nodded. “I would. The government that they so well represent killed my mother when I was only seven. Those same people murdered the entire family that lived across from my father and me, and they are the ones responsible for millions kept in misery on Arras. Your parents are already linked with Asiah Clendar’s murder. It would only be justice for me to kill them.”

Agent Sicamore bristled.

“Or I could just report them to our authorities and have them thrown in prison back Home. Who knows what they’ll do,” Jeff said, smirking as he touched the large scars on the back of his neck, “Some of them are partial to torture.”

The FBI agent’s jaw fell. A new determined fear crept over him, but he stood there trembling. He nearly laid a hand on Jeff before the boy said, “If I don’t return, that is exactly what my friends have been ordered to do.” Jeff then smiled at Sicamore. “Think about it.”

With one twist of the lock, Jeff was out the door.

Agent Sicamore leapt to the door after him and braced himself against the doorframe. “Stop him!”

Some of the doors popped open. The security guard pacing the halls ran to Sicamore’s office. But Jeff was already gone sight.

“That boy Jafarr is here! He’s in the building,” Sicamore said, with increased panic in his voice.

The guards bolted toward the stairway and tried to seal off the exits. Agent Sicamore ran to the surveillance room. The knob jiggled but would not budge. Then saw a key was broken off in the slot. Several other doors were like that as if someone had prepared this long in advance. It didn’t seem possible since they had agents in the building late Saturday night. Sicamore ran down the hall to the elevator, slapping the button. The moment they opened, he jumped in, pressing the first floor button. As he traveled down, his eyes flickered on the doors and then up. His heart thundered harder. Then, he noticed above the vent cover in the elevator was missing. As soon as he reached the bottom and the doors opened, Agent Sicamore called to the security guards to check out the elevator. Immediately they froze the elevator’s controls to look up into the shaft.

A dreadful knot twisted in his stomach, waiting for the news. But his parents were in danger. That threat was real. And no one but he could take care of this problem—that is, if he wanted to keep his parents out of this entire business. To investigate aliens among them was one thing, but to be investigated as an alien was quite another.

He directly left the lobby to take action.

“Where are you going, Mr. Sicamore?” the guard at the desk called after him as he rushed out the doors.

“Business,” he said back.

The valet couldn’t bring his car fast enough. He climbed inside without a word then tore off into the traffic.

The traffic, especially for a Sunday, seemed extra dense. It took several minutes to drive to his parents’ house. Parking quickly in his usual spot, he looked out of his car window for suspicious characters.

His eyes fixed almost at once on Jeff who was leaning on the mailbox out front as if waiting for him, right next to a stack of pumpkins and a decorative scarecrow. The house was barely decorated for Halloween.

“Took you long enough,” Jeff said, straightening up. “Shall we go in?”

The agent rushed out of the car, terrified for his parents and for himself.

 Jeff was already at the door ringing the doorbell before Agent Sicamore could get to him. Worse, the door opened before Sicamore managed to pull the boy back.

“Oh, James, it’s you.” A wrinkled man just past middle age stared at the pair of them. In his hand was a huge bowl of candy. His thick brogue, seemed Scottish. He pushed the door screen open

Jeff smiled and walked right in. Agent Sicamore reached in to wrangle Jeff back, but the boy maneuvered himself expertly across the room as though he had done something like this dozens of times.

“Who’s this?” the old man asked, glancing suspiciously at the stranger in his home and then at his son. He placed the candy down on the kitchen counter.

Jeff smiled.

“Indeed, that is a good question.” Jeff glanced at Sicamore with a greater smirk. “Would you care to answer or should I?”

“He’s nobody,” Agent Sicamore growled, marching in to remove the boy, if possible.

Jeff stepped out of reach, gazing towards the seventies-style decor. Most of the house was in browns and mustard yellow with some white.  “Ah, well that’s a bad introduction,” Jeff said, turning to Sicamore’s parents. He bowed. “I’m Jafarr Zeldar, an acquaintance of ol’ James’s here.”

Agent Sicamore stiffened. New information so openly given. And yet he could see the profound effect Jeff’s words had on his father. The man’s face had gone a protesting red. His eyes stared furiously at his son.

“Zelda!” He yelled into the house.

A short, ash-blond woman with gray hairs came out from the back of the house and stared immediately at Jeff as if he were a ghost.

“Zelda, close the door,” the old man said.

Agent Sicamore shook his head. “No, that would…no. He’s just leaving.”

Jeff laughed, slapping the FBI agent on the shoulder. “No, I’m not. This is just getting interesting.”

The woman did as she was told.

The old man walked right up to Jeff, peering first at his forehead, even groping it as if there ought to be something there. His eyes raked over Jeff’s scars though as he murmured ‘Zeldar’ under his breath. Jeff let him paw over his shoulders and neck, searching for marks with his rough hands.

The old man then stepped back, as neither shoulder had any mark.

“Really?” Jeff chuckled at him. “After hearing my name you expected to find something there? If you noticed, I also don’t have marks on my back, or front or either of my hands.”

The old man flinched in disgust. “Rat.”

Grinning, Jeff then looked at Sicamore.

“James, what are you doing bringing this vermin in here?” The old man spat.

Agent Sicamore stepped back. His eyes flickered to Jeff in panic.

“That is a good question. Please tell us, James, why would you bring a person of the lowest social class into a High Class man’s home, and a Zeldar no less?” Jeff leaned near to him, hands behind his back, as if he was waiting for a response to an interview.

The woman blenched. “A Zeldar?”

Jeff nodded pertly to her.

“What does that mean?” Agent Sicamore asked.

“Second cousins to the Tarrns, and rebels all of them,” the old man replied with a snarl at Jeff.

Jeff smiled. “Well educated. I’m impressed. What adult level are you?”

The old man scowled at him. “Sixty eight!” he said proudly.

Jeff smirked and nodded. “Impressive.”

“You?” The old man sneered up at him.

Jeff laughed as he said, “Twice as much.”

“Can you sing?” the mother asked.

Jeff chuckled, nodding.

But then he turned to Sicamore. “I don’t suppose you have been telling them about your project. I bet if they knew what you have been up to, they would be just as livid as I am.”

The old man opened his eyes and turned toward his son. “What have you done?”

Words couldn’t force their way out of Agent Sicamore’s mouth.

“He’s going to expose us all,” Jeff said plainly while leaning on the couch. “Thanks to your hand in the death of yet another Tarrn—Asiah Clendar—the FBI are now searching our community for immigrants and have tapped into some top-secret information.” He then gazed at them with genuine anger, so much that they pulled back. “And thanks to you for giving them a tell-all P.M. view of the universe, they now think Arras and those who have escaped to Earth are a threat to them. Need I go on?”

The old couple swallowed, shaking. Almost immediately, they turned on their son. “What have you done? You’ve killed us! Do you have any idea what will happen to us if word of this gets out to the Surface Patrol?”

Sicamore nearly fell back as they approached him.

“Oh…don’t blame him,” Jeff said, lifting his chin, folding his arms. “It is not entirely his fault. You two are to blame. You shouldn’t have spoken. Fact is, as an Arrassian, I had to report you.”

Their eyes widened.

And the doorbell rang.

“Who can that be?” Jeff asked with a quality of mock surprise.

Agent Sicamore shuddered, feeling like the world was crashing in. Jeff had reported his parents? To whom?

As Jeff strode over to the door, the three broke into begging. “Please don’t!” But Jeff ignored them and opened it, almost with grand dramatic flair.

Standing there was Zormna Clendar.

Dressed in a suit Sicamore had never seen before, the girl had an air of a soldier on duty. And though her arrival was surprising, it seemed almost anticlimactic.

Yet his mother nearly fainted.

“Mom!” He jumped to her side.

His father staggered back. His eyes took in Zormna’s creamy peach suit then raked over her short crop of hair with those long strands hanging in front of her ears.

Zormna marched directly into the room with a look to Jeff. “Hello, Jafarr. Are these the two?”

He nodded.

She marched in further to face the father who was shaking like a man facing the gallows.

Jeff gently closed the open door behind them.

“I am Alea Zormna Clendar of the Zeta district,” she said. “And I have been duly informed of your activities. You broke immigration law number one. Never tell anyone, even your posterity, about your origins….” Agent Sicamore stared from his parents to Zormna. They were already sinking towards their knees to beg for mercy. She remained stoic, militaristic as she pronounced their punishment. “…Doing so puts nations at risk. The punishment is usually deportment and incarceration.”

Agent Sicamore bristled, furious that they dared play on his parents’ fears. He opened his mouth in protest. Yet before he could speak, Zormna whipped her eyes to him. Clear recognition was in her gaze. And loathing.

“Your son, I presume?” She said. “An FBI agent?”

They nodded miserably, now begging for his life and theirs, groveling in a way that Sicamore never thought possible for his usually proud parents. Part of him wanted to cry out and reveal that she was a Tarrn—but a thousand thoughts countered the idea right away. The first was that if he dared speak about that, Zormna might retaliate in the most violent manner. After all, she was not the same as her great aunt. Not soft or defenseless. She was a trained martial artist and a soldier. But the second was a sweeping guilt that if he said anything, she really could break their necks and call it justice. After all, he had been the reason her great aunt was killed. And he had a hand in Zormna’s kidnapping.

Or maybe the boy Jeff would kill them so that Zormna would not sully her hands. He was certainly watching, waiting for him to do something against her.

“I have been informed of everything,” Zormna said, glowering at the couple. “Due to these particular circumstances, this is your punishment: if he has any love for you at all, he’ll close down their secret project against our people. Any exposure of our fellow countrymen and their secrets to his government leaders will be your death sentence.” Then turning toward Sicamore personally, she said, “Understand this, I will personally and quietly remove him and you both from here. You will not only suffer incarceration, but you will have to pay for the suffering of the others hurt in the conflict he has already caused.” She stepped back. “Is that understood