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

"What about the satellite?" Agent Keane asked, looking up to the second floor. Rushing to it, he quickly stepped over the prone, yet not dead, bodies of the men at the base of the stairs, intending to go up.

Jeff crawled out from under the pool table. He clenched his wound with a red-stained hand, leaving blood marks in his wake. "Didn't you send someone up for it? You were supposed to."

The waxy-faced man gaped at Jeff, writhing in his cuffs between the agents clearing out the room. "You're working with them? Of all the low and deceitful - !"

Jeff only smirked back at the man as he followed Agent Keane toward the upstairs.

"The Surface Patrol will have your head!" Dr. Simpson barked at him.

Jeff laughed this time and jogged to Agent Keane's side. But just as Agent Keane had passed the last body on the stairs, he took a step back down. Then he took another step down.

At the top as if she appeared there out of nowhere, was Zormna. Dressed in the same plain suit uniform she had used on Halloween when she and Jeff had threatened Agent Sicamore's parents, she held the 'box' in her arms. With a homemade laser gun at her side, and her hair down in regulation Surface Patrol orphan style, it gave her enough of an official Arrassian look to her that it intimidated people on sight.

Thing was, the box in her hands looked just like that - a box. It did not have any of the old appendages and gizmos. It was perfectly squared and black, absorbing light rather than reflecting it.

Zormna descended the stairs carrying the box, careful not to step on the bodies that still lay on the steps. When she reached the main floor with a sweeping gaze over the scene, she took it to the desk and set it down.

The waxy man stared at her more, blinking. "Impossible. You! You, you can't possibly be - "

Zormna only glared at him as she passed him. Her look shut him up, as her green eyes spoke so much about what laws he clearly had broken and whom he had exposed himself to. He could read her authority in her posture and gaze. Only her uniform made him confused, as clearly to him it was not regulation.

"Jafarr," she said, turning to Jeff. "Do you think we can open it? I want to have a look inside."

Dr. Simpson drew in a breath. He watched Jeff nod then walk over to her, still clenching his arm.

"This can't be!" Dr. Simpson whimpered. "You're Surface Patrol! You can't be working with that rat! You just can't!"

The FBI agents listening took mental note. Though, Jeff and Zormna suspected some were taking audio and visual recordings. This was an opportunity, after all, to get more of the 'unadulterated truth.

Zormna ignored the man. The moment she saw that Jeff was bleeding, she pawed his arm. "You've been shot!"

Jeff shrugged dismissively, looking to the box. "I've had worse."

Zormna adamantly shook her head. "Take off your shirt now. It's still bleeding." She looked to the FBI agents. "Didn't any of you people bring a first aid kit?"

"Like they'd lend me one," Jeff muttered, pulling off his white-and-blood-specked tee.

Everyone who was not busy rounding up the people in the building, watched as Zormna ripped Jeff's shirt up then wrapped it around the wound on his arm with obvious experience. It was surreal to them. All of their eyes trailed to the scars and ancient bruises on Jeff's back and sides. It was true what he had said to Dr. Simpson - he had had worse. But out of all the watchers, Steele's eyes grew the widest as he watched Zormna bandage up Jeff's wound, gaping at every scar.

"There," she said, tying the knot right over the wound. "That should give it pressure. We should remove the bullet when we get back to the motel. "

Jeff nodded, admiring the work. "Not bad. When did you learn to bandage wounds?"

Zormna barely blushed. "Oh, it was part of basic training. They taught it in - "

"I can't believe this," the waxy man muttered out loud, watching out of the corner of his eye his men on the stairs getting moved and cuffed by the FBI agents. "A rat and flymite conspiring together like friends. Since when did the Surface Patrol join the rebellion?"

Jeff smiled with a look to him. "Soon."

The man glared while the FBI agents mused over that. It was news. Phrases and concepts solidified in their brains. Surface Patrol. Rebellion. And the other man's doubt - it explained so much how and why Zormna and Jeff had acted the way they had when they first met, and how they were acting now.

"So, let's figure out this box," Jeff said turning to look at the thing. He ignored their audience. They had no choice really.

Zormna smiled, but she watched the others out of the corners of her eyes. She saw Agent Sicamore and his gang come and circle the desk for their own share.

"Let's have it," Sicamore at last said, sticking out his hands.

Zormna pulled it closer to her, glaring at him. "It's ours. I told you."

Jeff stopped her. "Zhar del'rein em asor'om ne'eme men'om en'em[2]?"

"Shea[3]?" she exclaimed.

"Asor'kai em men'om eme's serr'en ee ooe lechak en pres apat. Ne'em 'om zulk'om en'em don em hooch'om en'em zada. En nas'rein za'or ray zhezva tregg'en en'em eez ne'em na'tan em hooch'om en'em,[4]" he said.

The waxy man laughed from his awkward position. Agent Palmer had cuffed him, but on orders of Agent Sicamore they kept him around in case they needed information. They were enjoying the free exposition of detail they did not normally get from tight-lipped Jeff and Zormna. Also, Sicamore thought it wise to keep an adversary of Zormna's and Jeff's to hold them in check.

"They're going to double-cross you," Dr. Simpson said to the FBI. "They said they'd let you take it because it was easy to steal it from you." But then he laughed more, "Only you kids can't open it. We've tried. It's locked with a code."

"Duh," Zormna said, making a face at him.

Sicamore reached for the box.

Zormna pulled it closer to her, scowling at him. "Let us at least have a look." She knew she and Jeff were outnumbered. They would lose the box no matter what they did that day.

Agent Sicamore pulled back, thinking about it. "Can you open it?"

"I can open anything," Jeff and Zormna said at once.

Agent Keane glanced at Sicamore, lifting his eyebrows with a hint that it was probably true. The head agent stood back and nodded.

The waxy-pale man laughed. "Go ahead and try. You won't be able to do it."

"Spasp'kai![5]" Zormna said, glaring at him.

Jeff pulled the box towards him. Looking it over, "Ok...it's a puzzle box with a complex code...." He turned it over and spun it on its side. Then he tipped it on a corner. Jeff brushed his fingers on the surface and peered at it. He touched the ridges and the markings, the only thing that really seemed to reflect instead of suck light.

Zormna looked at the other side. "There's a checkerboard pattern here."

Jeff spun it around to examine it. "Like a music box." Glancing over at Zormna, he asked, "Did you ever own one of those music boxes that you could play on?"

Zormna shook her head. "My mother had one, I think. I don't really remember. It has been a while."

Jeff nodded. "So did my mom. Hers played Harmony's End."

"My mother's played Deep Sunrise," Zormna said, peering at it. "I think my father gave it to her..."

The agents watched them spin the box between them.

Jeff smirked, nudging it to her. "You want to try it? Your song?"

She shrugged. Zormna reached out and pressed the buttons on her side, but they did not budge.

The waxy skinned man laughed. "I told you. You can't open it."

Jeff glared at him. The man was getting annoying "Maybe the parts are frozen from being too long in space."

Zormna shook her head. "No. I think there's a trick to it."

"What kind of trick?" Sicamore asked, peering at what they had pointed out.

Jeff nodded, ignoring him. "That has to be it. They also locked up the mechanism so it wouldn't work unless activated."

He then spun the box around again. He peered at it and pressed on the circular symbol on the side. It gave a little, but it jammed on one side.

"I told you - " Dr. Simpson said again, but Steele struck him across the back of his head to shut him up.

Jeff looked up at Zormna. "Hand me your medallion."

Zormna paled then glanced around at the company. "Here? Jafarr, they haven't even taken away all the roaches here yet!"

Realizing what he was asking, Jeff closed his eyes, thought for a second and nodded affirmatively to Zormna. "I know, but if Sicamore swears never to let them go," glaring hard at Dr. Simpson and the few others not carted off yet (they had already taken away several of the men and only a handful were left), "then I think it will be all right."

Zormna looked nervously at him. She then glared sharply at Sicamore, who waited anxiously to see insides of the box. Agent Sicamore turned to the men working in the room to tell them to hurry the others out. There were still a few left. The agents had their hands full. 

Zormna reluctantly tugged out the medallion she had hid inside her clothes.

His eyes fixing on the small circular medallion, the waxy man blanched. His eyes widened. He lurched at Zormna, opening his mouth as if he would bite her throat out. "Tarrn! No! You wretches! She's a Tarrn! You can't let her live!"

He yelled and kicked and thrashed in his bonds, straining against the holds of Palmer and Powell. Several other agents had to restrain him. The other three men of the club still left in the room reacted just as violently. They had to be severely restrained to keep them from rushing at Zormna to kill her.

Steele's eyes widened on her also.

Zormna glared sharply at Sicamore and then the others as she handed the necklace and charm over to Jeff.

Jeff shook his head and pushed it back.

"No. You have to open it," Jeff said, changing his mind as he fully realized what he had really asked her to do. The fact that she was giving the medallion to him showed that she truly was putting her life in his hands. It electrified him and filled him with heavy responsibility at the same time. He peeked at the struggling men and wondered if he was not making a mistake.

"No! Don't! Let me go! Can't you see? She's a wretched Tarrn!" Dr. Simpson still screamed.

Zormna set her medallion on the round symbol on the side of the box. It fit perfectly. She pushed down on the medallion where the brand prong was supposed to sit. The medallion slid right into the box side, forcing the square buttons out.

"Now what?" Zormna asked, looking up at Jeff.

Jeff stared back at her. "Do you remember the melody to Deep Sunrise?"

Zormna shook her head. "I'm tone deaf, remember?"

He shook his head and huffed. "You're not tone deaf. You just don't bother to listen."

She growled and punched him on his sore arm. He winced, but he chuckled at how it annoyed her.

Catching his breath, Jeff continued. "Ok, I think I know it."

Jeff then proceeded to press in the buttons in the order that the song went, starting from one side of the box. Some of the squares popped back out when he pushed them, giving off a light bell chime at different tones, but others stuck and stayed flat with the sides of the box, no longer capable of being played. Still, he continued on until he passed to the end of the box, yet it still