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

tie. He stood up once he saw the three FBI agents, greeting them with a polite business smile on his face, his cold green eyes raking in their faces.

"Hello. May I ask what you are doing here?" The man had a faint Irish-like accent, nearly undetectable.

"They said they had a search warrant," the guard replied, stepping aside towards the desk.

The man gazed at the agents with almost sincere shock. It was not entirely real, as they could see because he maintained a placid expression that made his creamy jade eyes sparkle with clear knowledge of what was going on.

Agent Sicamore stepped forward. Showing his badge to the man, he said, "I'm Agent Sicamore. This is Agent Simms and Agent Hayworth. And you are...?"

The waxy pale man smiled with mildly horsy teeth. "Simpson. Doctor Allen Simpson."

"We're here to investigate the murders of five FBI agents who were killed just inside Florida," Agent Simms's face tightened as Sicamore spoke. "They were transporting an object that was also stolen."

"And what do you mean by coming here, flashing your badges?" Dr. Simpson asked, looking at each of them. "Do you think we stole the object, or killed those men?" His placid expression deepened even though he attempted to sound affronted by the accusation. It was all too clear he felt in no danger.

"We have a warrant to search the premises for the object in question," Agent Sicamore said.

<<They're moving in.>> Maya's voice said in their ears.

"Oh, really?" the waxy pale man said. "Search away."

Agent Simms nodded to Hayworth and both headed toward the upstairs. The supposed Dr. Simpson gave them a sharp glare. Right before they could even reach the first step, two guards with guns stepped in the way. Both agents stepped back.

"Interfering with a federal investigation is a criminal offense!" Agent Sicamore flustered, especially as he saw more armed men step out of the shadows behind the boxes.

Dr. Simpson still smiled at him placidly, pulling out his own gun. "What a shame."

He raised it, pointing right at Sicamore's head to shoot in between the eyes.

"There are others that know we are here," Sicamore called out, breathing hard and staring at the gun in his face. It was scary how accurately Jeff was able to predict things.

The man lowered his gun. "Others? How many?"

Agent Simms, stepped down, shoved back by five armed men who could have passed for Aryan thugs. Agent Hayworth followed.

"A squad," Sicamore said, trying not to sweat. "They know all about your little organization too. They're waiting for us to report back in with orders to raid this place if you kill us."

The waxy pale man stared fiercely at him. "Is that so?"

Sicamore nodded.

A loud ringing suddenly erupted in the open room. Several red lights flashed across the ceiling, making the room look almost like it was on fire.

"An intruder!" the first guard shouted.

Dr. Simpson pointed the gun at Sicamore again. "Nit'kai ne'eme ee vzar'kai ne'eme tan![1]"

Agent Sicamore gaped open-eyed at what he had heard. It was true. They were also Martians. It was one thing to hear it from Jeff, but entirely different hearing it from their own mouths. It was awful that Jeff was so right. Honestly, Sicamore had hoped the described murderous tendency of these people, who were so clearly linked to his own parents, had been slander.

A ruckus of a struggle, loud thumps plus several gunshots, echoed from the back of the room beyond the large crates on the right. It only lasted a few minutes. But soon enough, the guards dragged both Jeff and Steele out, ramming their guns into their sides. A bullet had grazed Steele, leaving a burnt scar on his cheek, but Jeff was bleeding from a shot in his forearm. He was clenching it, blood oozing between his fingers.

"Who are these?" the waxy pale man ordered, turning to Sicamore.

"How should I know?" Agent Sicamore shot back with perfect annoyance.

Dr. Simpson shook him, shoving the gun against Sicamore's side. "You lie!"

Jeff laughed in spite of the gun jabbing his ribs. Blood dribbled down in tracks from under his crimson-stained palm. Another guard pulled a gun on him.

"Fine." Agent Simms glared at Jeff with a step up toward the pretended doctor. "He's a punk kid we've been following. Part of a gang. And that man is a tracker we've hired to keep tabs on him."

Steele straightened his ragged coat. "Bounty hunter."

Agent Sicamore glared at Simms. It was a dangerous move to admit this reasoning, and he didn't like it. But Agent Simms looked so entirely put out by Jeff's presence - and it did stall for time, so he held his tongue.

The waxy man sauntered up to Jeff, shoving Sicamore at another guard to watch. He lifted his gun dangerously, pointing it into Jeff's face. Yet despite wincing painfully with the bullet wound in his arm, an amused grin crooked from the corner of Jeff's mouth and curled across it, spreading. The boy gazed directly at the waxy-pale man with his fathomless eyes, meeting the man's icy blue gaze.

Poking Jeff in the nose with the point of the gun, Dr. Simpson said, "What does a punk kid like you want from our club?"

"What does a High Class man want with a stolen satellite?" Jeff shot back.

With a sharp lurch, eyes wide, the waxy man lifted the gun to Jeff's forehead, peeking to the FBI. "Who are you?"

Jeff laughed, though wincing as he clenched his arm. The blood had dribbled to his fingertips, hovering dangerously over the carpet.

Dr. Simpson pushed the gun nozzle right against Jeff's forehead. "Tell me. Who are you?"

He cocked the gun.

Jeff stared at him plain-faced, though remnants of his smirk was still there. "Zeldar."

The waxy-faced man went green. He lowered his gun, which surprised Sicamore. It was the second time Jeff pulled out that name as a trump card. Thing was, Agent Sicamore could tell Jeff did not like to use it.

"Well, I'll be," the waxy-pale man murmured, "A Zeldar. And in my building." The man stepped back from Jeff, but did not turned away from him, as if he knew Jeff was dangerous by nature. He had the guards push Jeff over to the pool table as the alarm continued to sound and lights kept spinning overhead. He looked up at it and groaned. "Will someone turn that off?"

The lights and alarm ran for another minute then shut off. Yet even with it off, the room seemed to echo with the sound of it, the memory in their ears and bouncing inside their skulls.

"That's better." Dr. Simpson sat back in his seat at the desk, staring at his five captives. "The FBI following a notorious rebel." He paused with a look toward Steele, " - and one hapless bounty hunter, all in my residence." He mused to himself over this with a slow shake of his head, tapping his gun on his arm as he crossed them to think. "I wondered how the ridiculous government found out about us." His eyes trailed up to Jeff. "You led them to us?"

"You flatter me." Jeff smirked in between Dr. Simpson's guards who made sure Jeff could not run. Jeff had been checking out the exits by instinct, which had not been overlooked.

Narrowing his eyes at Jeff, Dr. Simpson said, "I should kill you right now for being so insolent - rat. But I think it would be better if I just contact those at Home and have you tortured in ISIC."

But that got a snort out of Jeff. "Been there. Done that."

The FBI agents and Steele stared at him. The agents all knew about Jeff's overabundance of scars, especially on his back. But up until then, he had never admitted to anything except that his father had beaten him. But with Jeff standing there, still chuckling despite having a bullet wound in his arm, it was clear he was no stranger to severe pain. Some of the bleeding in his arm had stopped, though his T-shirt cuff was soaked in blood. Rivulets had dripped through his fingers and down his arm to the floor, speckling the hem of his jeans.

Dr. Simpson glared hatefully at him. "Or we could beat you now. The only reason I don't kill you is that you have information we want."

Jeff laughed openly.

The man behind him knocked Jeff on the head, but that didn't stop Jeff's attitude.

"Do you actually think I'd give it to you? They couldn't beat it out of me in ISIC. What makes you think you will succeed in making me turn traitor?" Jeff glared at the waxy pale man now. "I'd rather die than betray my people."

Dr. Simpson stood up. "So be it." He pointed the gun at Jeff's head again.

"No!" Steele jumped in the way.

The waxy man aimed his gun at Steele's chest and glared. "Get out of the way! I don't need two dead bodies here, but I'll do it."

The guards dragged Steele out of Dr. Simpson's aim, though not without a strenuous fight.

"He's only a kid!" the bounty hunter shouted, struggling desperately. But he really wasn't large enough.

Honestly surprised at the paternal reaction from the man that had been glaring at him since they met, Jeff stared at the man. He genuinely had believed that Steele was only there because M had hired him. Unfortunately, he also started to feel a little light in the head from blood loss. That had not been in the plan.

The FBI agents watching also gaped.

Agent Sicamore protested. "You can't do this!"

Dr. Simpson shot him a dark look, lifting his gun for a perfect bullet to Jeff's head. "Can."

But he did not take the shot. A thump upstairs turned the heads of those downstairs. It had sounded like someone had fallen. The second after, a man rolled down the stairs as if pushed.

Several ran to the stairway to catch him, but directly behind him, another man rolled down the stairs, followed by another. All three were unconscious.

"Go up there and check the second floor!" the waxy man bellowed to a couple of guards, gesturing with his gun. He then waved for them to drag Jeff off to the side for a better place for a dead body to fall. Dr. Simpson was now regarding the carpet and the blood stains Jeff had already left on it.

The two men ran up the steps, but almost immediately they also fell backward. A flash of blue light, which illuminated the stairwell for a second, knocked them senseless. All of them fell in a lump on the steps.

Agent Sicamore's heart raced. He shared a quick look with Jeff who didn't even need to nod. The crook in his returning smile was enough to indicate that he had full faith in their plan.

Bristling, Dr. Simpson opened his mouth. Before he could order more men to go upstairs, the front doors smashed open.

A large bread truck had backed into it. The truck continued to back right up to the carpeted area, forcing all the men in the room into the desk or behind it. Immediately, the large door in the back of the truck opened. Out spilled at least twelve FBI agents armed with automatic weapons. More marched in through the broken doors.

Jeff had reactively dived down from those men holding him and rolled under the pool table when the truck came, dragging Steele with him. Agents Sicamore, Simms, and Hayworth had also dived to the floor. Their armed agents were already throughout the room, taking over the territory.

"Simpson! There's a - " A man on the upper landing yelled, but he was stopped mid-sentence by a blue flash of light. He flopped over onto the railing.

The gunfire did not last long. The guards and armed men of the social club were no match for the weaponry and training of these fully armed FBI agents. The occupants quickly surrendered.

Agent Keane walked through the gaping front door with both Agent Browns, ordering the cuffing and disarming every live captive. Agents Palmer and Powell helped Hayworth, Simms, and