The Millennial Box by Julie Steimle (snow like ashes .TXT) 📖

eyebrows at Zormna with a mild smile.

"What are you smiling at?" the bounty hunter Steele said, peering at him sideways.

Jeff shrugged. "I was just thinking about what to tell my friends when we get back. 'Oh, we got to see the outside, and Zormna was lucky enough to go inside and look at a whole bathroom.'" Jeff laughed. "Yeah, that's what I call an educational trip."

Zormna shook her head and walked towards the doors. Agent Keane followed, keeping a sharp eye on her and less than an arm's distance between them.

A crowd of tourists was walking down the hall. A few building employees stood and chatted in the hall. Zormna approached one of them. "Excuse me, but could you tell me where the bathroom is?"

The two women talking to a third, a man in a suit coat, turned around and glanced back. One of the women smiled, pleasure in her eyes.

"Ah cun show you," she said in a sweet southern drawl. Breaking from the group, the woman said good-bye. She politely grinned at Zormna and the formidable yet youthful-looking Agent Keane. She led them down the main hall to two doors marked with stick figures.

"Heah ya are. Ah hope y'all enjoy the Center now," she said, moving to walk away.

Agent Keane gently stopped her and showed her his badge. Her eyes widened.

"I am Agent Steve Keane with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and this young lady is central to an investigation we are working on right now. It would be a shame if we lost her at this crucial moment in the investigation. Would you be so kind as to go in there with her and make sure she doesn't do anything funny in there?"

Zormna was already leaning on the door. She shook her head and pushed her way in.

The woman nodded, eyes still wide, and she stared after the small pale blonde. She walked in after Zormna, looking back at Agent Keane.

"Just yell if anything happens, ok?" he said just before the door swung closed.

The woman had nodded wordlessly as she entered in. Zormna kept shaking her head and walked to the far end of the nice public restroom. She made for the last stall door, but stopped and looked back at the woman who followed her in. The woman walked over to Zormna with wide eyes still, glancing back at the door as she passed the sinks and large mirror.

"Zeta thirteen?" she whispered to Zormna.

Zormna grinned with a nod.

"What...?" the woman started, motioning towards the closed door.

Zormna shushed her. "We can't talk. They're probably listening."

The woman nodded.

Zormna turned right around and closed the stall door. She figured that since she was there she might as well use it.

Once she had flushed the toilet, Zormna opened the door and glanced at the woman. She was leaning on the sinks staring at her shoes with folded arms. Zormna passed her and turned on the water. Washing her hands, she started to speak.

"I need the copy of visual records of everyone who handled the satellite," she said as quietly as possible, barely loud enough to be heard by her contact.

The woman nodded. "We're still compiling it. How do I send it to you with those people lurking about?"

Zormna turned off the water and walked over to the automatic dryer. She stuck her hands underneath. It blasted hot air onto them making a loud noise.

"Do you have email or internet access?" Zormna asked.

The woman nodded. "Of course."

"Do you have a pen on you?" Zormna looked around her own pockets, realizing that she did not bring one.

The woman nodded again, lifting one up from a pocket. Zormna took it and rolled up the woman's sleeve to her elbow. She then wrote Jeff's email address onto the inside of her arm just below the elbow joint. Covering it up, Zormna looked at the woman straight. The fan had shut off and the room echoed again.

"Send it to us. We'll keep in contact."

Nodding and taking back her pen, the woman took a breath to regain her composure.

Zormna marched back to the entrance of the bathroom and flung open the door. The woman followed.

"Ah don't see what your problem was," the woman started back into her southern drawl. "The darlin' was an angel in there."

Agent Keane looked at Zormna, who lifted her chin smugly.

"Better now?" he asked disdainfully.

Zormna nodded. "Yes, thank you."

She marched back down the hall towards the entrance. Agent Keane followed right after, glancing back only once at the woman who still stood at the doors. The woman sighed as soon as they were out of sight and marched far away from that hall so she could write the email address on something more permanent.

 

"Nice bathroom?" Jeff asked casually, leaning on the outside wall near the door.

"Lovely," Zormna replied, still giving him icy looks.

Seeing the two back together and more observable, Agent Sicamore folded his arms and then unfolded them, glancing at his watch.

"So, what now?" he said, gazing mostly at Jeff.

Jeff shrugged. "You could let us go on our tour now, or we could all stand around here like a bunch of idiots and wait for sunstroke. I prefer the former myself."

Zormna stifled a laugh in spite of herself.

Agent Keane shook his head. "Listen, kid - "

That did it for Jeff. "Oh, shut up. You were pretending to be a kid not long ago yourself. At least I look my age."

Agent Keane's face tightened. "The point is you aren't going in there. You will not be allowed to snoop around a government facility."

Jeff rolled his eyes and mimicked Agent Keane's talking. The agent did not take kindly to it, nor had Jeff meant him to. Before they could get into a fight, Zormna placed her hand on Jeff's arm and pulled him a pace back, at least to get his attention.

"Let's just forget it for today. I've got a better way to get what we need," she said.

Jeff raised his eyebrows at her for a second, considered it, and then let off his hostile stance. Instead, he straightened his jacket and hefted his chest like he planned to save the fight for later - something he had seen others do but not really something he had done himself. It really was not in his nature to pick fights at all. "Fine. We'll go."

Smirking, she pulled on his arm for them to leave.

Agent Sicamore stopped them, blinking at how easily they gave up. "Wait. Where are you going?"

Jeff gasped with a laugh. "First you want us to leave, now you want us to stay. Sicamore, make up your mind."

The agent shook his head, looking at Jeff with eyes that probed deeper than just his surface. Jeff could tell he was searching for something, but he kept his cool to keep the man confused.

"We're going to our motel," Jeff said at last. "Is that a problem?" He then stepped back. "I realize that isn't under your thumb nor your eye, but it certainly suits us better."

"A motel?" Agent Keane murmured, glancing at Zormna.

She recognized his lecherous look and guessed at the thoughts behind it. "It's not what you think."

Agent Sicamore nodded, waving them off.

Smiling politely, Jeff bowed to Agent Sicamore and then at the other men. He passed back to the parking lot, delivering the stranger an unusual glance as he left. Zormna trotted along side him, peering back at Keane and muttering to herself so that only Jeff seemed to hear.

"Dirty-minded jerk," she growled.

They had picked up some pizza when they returned to the city from the Space Center and ate it over a short conversation about what Zormna did in the restroom. Pleasantly, Jeff agreed with what Zormna had decided to do. It was too risky to go back and try to meet her undercover Arrassian Surface Patrol spies in NASA now. The FBI would make sure of that. However, Jeff did suggest that they attempt to meet with the FBI to find out the details of the theft before they returned to Pennington. They both agreed that it was not an entirely wasted trip, though it was growing more unpleasant than either had expected.

They stayed in the motel the rest of the day, and Zormna went to bed early that night. They actually watched a little TV out of boredom until nine o'clock. By that time, Zormna had lain down in exhaustion and disappointment, refusing to plan any further until she had had a solid night's sleep. Of course Jeff could not sleep. Zormna never slept well in a strange bed, he soon learned. He knew she would be tossing and turning for hours until she got comfortable or too exhausted to move. He went out and walked the streets, thinking.

The bar across the street also had a small diner that served ribs, breakfast eggs and midnight cocoa. It joined the bar only by an extension of the physical bar itself that curved around from the dark smoky area to a better-lit side filled with checkered tablecloths. Jeff had decided that the pizza for lunch had not settled too well, and he really needed to sit down to think. The bar looked like the only inviting place for that purpose.

Jeff stepped through the glass-and-wood door. A little rusty bell jangled from it like the mini-mart door. Looking around, he smelled the air. The diner part was considerably less smoky than the bar section, so he decided that it was best to sit down where he could at least breathe. Jeff slid onto a high leather stool at the clean linoleum counter and stared at the small menu above. He really wasn't that hungry.

"Can I get anything for you?" a middle-aged, slightly sagging, wrinkled-yet-kindly faced woman asked.

Jeff blinked and nodded. Taking a breath, he continued to examine the menu. "I think I just want some cocoa, and maybe even some toast."

The woman smiled. "We have a special on peach cobbler if you are interested."

Jeff grinned at her now. "Let's just stick with the cocoa for now. I might come back for the cobbler later."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself."

He waited as she prepared his cocoa, tiredly taking in the room. He gazed across the smoky hall, watching the pool players, the disheveled drunks and a few scary-looking bikers that sat together and chewed the fat with each other. His eyes settled on the booths that ran along the long front window and to the far end of the bar. There, sitting ten feet away from the dining counter was that bounty hunter, Steele, who was cradling a drink between his meaty hands, gazing directly across the room at him.

Smirking to himself, Jeff shook his head. He wondered if he was still suspect in the murders of the five FBI agents. Regardless of what had been said that day, it seemed as if Steele was hired to follow him.

"Here you go, honey," the waitress said, handing Jeff a frothy, whipped-topped cocoa with nutmeg and cinnamon sprinkled on top. He took a sip. Though scorching hot, it was heavenly.

"Thanks," Jeff said with a grin. He pulled out his wallet and left two dollars on the counter.

The woman smiled.

Picking up his tall mug, being careful not to spill it, Jeff walked over to the booth where the bounty hunter sat.

"May I sit?" he asked the man who had been following his movements.

Steele nodded, still staring intensely at him. Jeff sat down opposite and placed his mug carefully on the table. Smiling, yet blinking at the gruff-looking man, Jeff took another sip of his hot cocoa and grimaced. It was still too hot.

"Having a beer?" the bounty hunter asked, not really looking at the mug.

"Cocoa," Jeff responded.

"What's a kid like you doing in a bar if you aren't here to sneak a beer?" the man asked.

"Upset stomach," Jeff replied. Then he looked at the man directly. "Besides, I'm a minor. You shouldn't be encouraging me to drink alcohol, now should you?"

The man shrugged, almost smiling.

Jeff sipped his cocoa for a minute in silence, listening to the cue balls and