Apocalypse Before Finals - Julie Steimle (bts book recommendations .TXT) 📗

in the back of his head for a later date. He had learned ages ago that if something bugged Jeff then it had to be important.

Around that same time, Agent Keane, followed by Agents Palmer and Powell, barged into the project head's office. "Agent Sicamore!"

Agent Sicamore didn't look up at first. He had been going over and over a dossier, or looked like he was at least. He was mostly staring at it - the one listing all the members of the household where Jeff was staying. The agency had pegged Jeff, 'Eric', and a blonde man named Aaron as Martians. But Sicamore was currently rethinking that assumption. As clever as he realized Jeff was, the idea that Jeff and the other two were manipulatively imposing on that regular American family was perhaps a mistake. The FBI had intended to rescue the Streigle family from Jeff and the college pair, but now...after inspecting Alex Streigle more closely - whom Jeff always called Al, and who had been pretending to be Jeff's older brother - Agent Sicamore realized that Alex fit the Martian profile too well, despite being taller than the usual Martian. And if that were the case, then Alex's parents could also be Martians. And if that were the case, then that opened a nasty can of worms because the Streigles had once owned a bed and breakfast in Missouri which had catered to out of town travelers. And the more Agent Sicamore thought about it, the more he realized that it was the perfect place to start settling in 'aliens' from anywhere else - be it a foreign country or another planet. This realization had struck him so heavily that he had closed his eyes and clenched his head in frustration. He understood that he now had to send people out to pick up those 'parents' from Chicago, as Sicamore knew that Jeff's real parents were dead.

"Agent Sicamore!" Keane said again, heaving breathily and waving for him to come out of the room. "Come quick, you have to see this!"

Lifting his eyes from the file, the worn-out agent stared at the three in his doorway. He gazed tiredly at Agent Keane's insistence. "What is it?"

Sweaty, anxious, the young agent beckoned his superior to follow him. "It's the satellite! You have to see! They've found it!"

Agent Sicamore's head dropped against the table with a hard thump. "Ugh."

"Agent Sicamore," Agent Palmer marched over to him. "You have to come now. Tanner has gotten the last recording, and you have to see it."

Weary, dreary and feeling the weight of hopelessness upon him, the head agent talked directly at the table. "What's the point? They found our satellite. We have no more living proof."

"General Gardner doesn't think so," Agent Powell cut in insistently.

Sicamore lifted his head. Hearing the urgency in all three of their voices, he said "General Gardner?"

All three agents nodded.

"He's in the observation room now," Agent Powell continued with an assured air that begged their operation head to get out of his seat and see for himself.

Agent Sicamore rose quickly. General Gardner was their liaison with the military - their greatest and sanest link with the U.S. military. Turning to Agent Keane now, Sicamore asked, "What did they record from the satellite?"

Agent Keane grinned as if he were bringing Sicamore to a birthday party. "Come and see."

Firmly nodding, he joined the three agents back to where they had come from, hope timidly returning.

They all marched down the hall to the satellite observation room - a room they had dubbed the 'dark room' because it was always dark inside and usually silent except for the Martian radio activity they had tapped into and were recording. The alien language itself was indecipherable, though they had collected several samples of it from Zormna and Jeff as well as from space. Nothing was translated except possibly the occasional radio transmission in an Earth language. And though they had locked away in a hidden place a handful of actual Martians who had committed murder - which Zormna and Jeff had 'conveniently' let the FBI keep - none of them were actually talking, except to vilify Zormna. Of course they refused to translate anything. In fact, they all seemed to be waiting for something. A rescue, possibly.

Thing was, not all the communications were Martian anyway. They tended to use Earth languages as a code language among themselves.

The four agents arrived in the dark room, knocking on the door to be let in. They found the general standing there, watching to the rewound video footage over and over again. He was a solid, mature man with squared shoulders and a fixed jaw. He lifted his head when he heard the men enter quickly focusing his eyes on Agent Sicamore, who approached him. "Ah, there you are, Sicamore. What do you make of this?" 

Agent Sicamore looked at the screen, which was quickly skipping back to the point the general had ordered.

"Sorry, General, but I haven't seen it yet," Sicamore said.

The general waved over to the screen. "Then look. And tell me what you make of it."

Sicamore obeyed. The recording stopped, the operator pressed the play button again and sat back for Sicamore to take in what they had been watching for the pas hour. On the screen, at least in the beginning, was the usual routine of ships coming and going. Boring stuff.  

"There," the General finally said, pointing to a speck coming from the planet, "Watch that ship."

So, Sicamore did.

The ship on the screen went into the same routine, speaking in code - Russian this time. It flew toward the potato-shaped moon that orbited Mars, where they presumed the Martians had a base.

<<Triisat trii Demarr, Palocheeteye menya?>> the voice came, rolling his r's in proper Russian style.

<<Paloochesh,>> the other side responded. <<Triista trii Demarr Priletitye.>>

The ship proceeded to the asteroid, but then veered a bit - just a slight bit.

<<Shto Eta?>> the voice in the ship said in Russian.

"Do you speak Russian, Agent Sicamore?" the General asked.

Agent Sicamore shook his head.

"He just asked, 'What is that?'" the general said.

Sicamore's insides tightened.

<<Smatriitye! Shto ta zdyes.>>

"Look, something is here." The general translated the spoken Russian for the benefit of the head FBI operation there.

<<Koshmarr. Alea Kardnek! Yest shto tah...koshmarr...shto tah... koshmarr! Eto sputnik!>>

"He's just rambling here. He's saying something is a nightmare, but I think that's slang. He recognized the satellite." The general looked at Agent Sicamore. "This is where it gets interesting."

Indeed. The screen quickly filled with ships coming to investigate the satellite. Agent Sicamore expected them to blow the satellite to bits, but instead people went out in suits to retrieve it - suits which he recognized very well as these were the same suits worn by the alien visitors who stole the ancient crashed ship from the archaeological site in Arizona that last February. Agents Palmer and Powell nodded to him. They had been there with him. As Sicamore watched, the Martians no longer spoke to each other in Earth languages. They were now chattering in their own tongue.

<<Serr'kai. Tar za razol'narr da en'em.>> a deep male voice uttered.

<<Skavee! En zhaz'or Ull-Ess-Ah. Ne'em kah'ova gunnfliishakee, shea za ne'em pres trii?>> another male voice responded.

The general murmur of the group (there were about four individuals floating in space deliberating over the satellite) there was leaning toward the negative. 

<<Al' rannal'orn Alea Zormna oomtor'or shea an'e za del'narr dal tar,>> one voice came again.

<<Za en errz polzarr'narr?>> a voice from beyond the four asked.

<<Na, Ar, >> the fourth responded.

<<Shoora, yiin'kai en'em. Ee vzar'kai en'em van,>> the voice from beyond said again.

The transmission ended there.

Agent Sicamore cringed. He closed his eyes, jaw clenching. It was over. He really had hoped all that fuss his agents had made had been over something more substantial, but this was a dead end. He turned to go.

"Wait Sicamore." the general put his hand on the head agent's arm to stop him. "There's more."

"More?" Agent Sicamore gasped. "How? They broke the satellite."

"Actually," chimed in one of the operators of the room, "They only broke the main broadcast system. We immediately transferred power to the auxiliary system - you know, put in in case it was found or the main parts broke. We got this."

Agent Sicamore immediately looked up at the screen to see what had been recorded with hope that it was something useful. The audio was gone. They only had video, and that was severely distorted as if there were some interference. However, they got the machine's view of the side of a man in a peculiar, yet utilitarian uniform, helping to carry the satellite inside a huge...well, they assumed it was a docking bay. They got only a few glimpses beyond the man's suit, as the angle was bad, but of what they caught were views of this crisp clean, well-lit 'garage' full of a variety of spacecraft the likes which belonged in sci-fi military novels. A number were sleek ships with reflective metal, clearly intended to reflect starlight and little else. Stealth, probably. A row of the spacecraft were like the ones that had landed in Arizona, van-like, not very large but built like they were meant to carry a number of people to and from a place - a shuttle, perhaps. And there were some odd ones that looked a little junkier, more construction level in design. The satellite recorder could only get a bit of this though. The view really was bad. Yet about halfway through they got a clear shot of the ceiling, as if the carriers had shifted the satellite to fit it through a door. The ceiling area above the docking bay was paneled, and filled with catwalks and other spacecraft hooked up in storage. Then they had the clear shot of a face. Up-his-nose view, actually.

The face was freckled with wrinkles. Male. And human. In fact, he had red hair (which was graying) and brilliant green eyes. The Martian typical, Agent Sicamore had decided. This man was clean-shaven. He also looked like he was in charge of the operation with the way he was speaking to others. The man pointed away from the satellite, through the door, and those carrying the satellite followed his the direction.

The satellite recorded nothing but wall for a while. But occasionally they passed people in uniform. Several of them were redheads, and more that were blondes - which Agent Sicamore mentally shifted as the Martian typical, counting them. He really had to go back and investigate Alex and the other Streigles now. It was clear they had to be the same kind. He did not see one with dark hair until he saw a young man in the crowd whose slick dark hair was a shade of red so dark it was black. In fact, it was the same shade of black Agent Sicamore had, and it gave him chills. He hoped no one else noticed this. It was the worst damning evidence of his true heritage, and he didn't need it to come up now.

 Unfortunately, the people carrying the satellite stopped and talked to that man for a moment, casual like. And worse, it went on for a while until that dark haired young man stared directly at the satellite.

"Watch him," the general said.

The young man then poked right at the lens, smearing it with his fingerprints. There seemed to be a general conversation about the lens. The ones carrying the satellite peered over at the lens now, squinting as they contemplated it. But the conversation ended with the dark-haired young man accompanying them down the hall to the end.

"Look at the wall behind them," the general said.

Behind the dark-haired Martian, beyond the smear of his fingerprint on the lens, was something so startling Agent Sicamore could not restrain his shock.

"Those are ours!" Agent Sicamore exclaimed, staring at the screen in a gape.

Indeed, like vases in a museum, set along the wall were the Viking, the Mariner, and many other satellites that had been sent to Mars, supposedly lost to