The Millennial Box, Julie Steimle [classic books for 12 year olds .txt] 📗

Chapter One: No Bigger than a Bread Box

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained." –Mark Twain -

 

 

Above the Earth, many hundreds of miles up, the U.S. space station orbited. It wasn't very big, but it was white and reflected the sun from the distance. Marked with Roman numerals and rectangular flags with stars and stripes, clean and new since the previous June when it had been sent up, the letters U S A were still nicely printed on it and the residents were snug inside, eating freeze-dried ice cream in celebration of one of their nation's holidays. One of the men spoke in a low voice to the three others in the cabin.

"...And she heard a thump, scrape, thump, thump, sc - r - ape." His fingers scratched on the metal behind him as he said this. "She panicked when she heard that and tried to start the engine, but of course she couldn't. She kept hearing the thump, sc - r - ape, all through the night, and she stayed inside the car all night, shaking in fear of the clawed man." He paused to let the story sink in. "The next morning a forest ranger knocked on the window of the passenger side, startling her awake. Happy to see the ranger, she jumped out of the car, begging him to tell her what happened to her boyfriend. The ranger only turned and pointed above her car roof. She turned and saw her boyfriend dangling by a rope from the pine tree above the car, his feet hitting the roof with a thump, and they scraped across as he swung, blown by the wind."

One of the other men rolled his eyes. "I heard that one at Scout Camp. Find something new, Jacobs."

Jacobs smirked and shrugged. "Well, you didn't say it had be original. It's one of you guys' turn now."

A thinking mumble passed among the others in the cabin and settled with a thickset man with thin lips and a block shaped face.

"I have a real ghost story if you want one," he said.

The others snorted. Jacobs nodded. "You've been dying to tell that dead cat story, Zighler - go ahead."

Zighler frowned a little. "That was a real story. It really happened." He sat back. "But that's not my story. This one is about a date I went on with a bunch of friends out near this graveyard in Idaho. You see there was this man, an outlaw that was cornered in the hills of - "

"Is this the one about you and those guys that went grave hopping out near Styx Crick?" a sandy-haired, young looking man said with a rather rude laugh.

He shut up quickly after a growl from Zighler. "Don't call it Styx Crick. It was Cedar Creek and no, it isn't that story. This was years later when I was at college. We were just near where my old girlfriend lived and..." frowning, "Hey, you're messing up my story. I have to tell you about this outlaw. He was famous in seven states for stage coach robbing and horse thieving, and he was at last cornered out in these hills near - "

Something thumped against the wall of the station.

Scowling now, Zighler snapped, "Knock it off, Jacobs." He turned and continued with dramatic emphasis, "As I was saying, these hills..."

Something thumped the wall again and scraped against it, metal against metal. Zighler glared at Jacobs, but Jacobs was lifting up his hands innocently.

"I didn't do it. I think there is something outside," he said.

Zighler scowled. "I was quiet while you told your story, you - "

"Shhht!" the other man said, raising his head and listening. "It's not coming from inside. Can you hear that?"

Zighler turned to glare at him too, but all three lifted up their hands to make sure they were not the ones making the noise.

"You hear a lot of funny things in space," the blond young one said with a slight quiver to his voice.

Zighler glared at them. But the sound thumped and scraped again, sounding a little like a TV antenna bent and scraping on the roof by the wind.

"It stopped," Jacobs said. "Boone, go look out the porthole and see if you can see anything outside."

The young blonde nodded and floated toward the right tunnel. He pressed his face against the glass.

"Can't see anything at this angle," he replied.

"I'm going out," the fourth man said at last.

Zighler turned to look, his glare vanishing. He followed his shipmate out toward the airlock. His friend quickly pulled on a spacesuit. The others followed him to the airlock except for Boone, who still was trying to catch a glimpse out of the porthole. Once Zighler rechecked all the seals in his suit, the man stepped into the airlock cautiously.

"Be careful, Mike," Zighler said right before he closed the door and sealed it.

They waited at the radio, listening to Mike's breathing carefully. Mike said little until he made his way to the other side. He let out a gasp.

<>

"What is it, Hiller?" Boone asked through the radio.

<<I'm not sure. It's almost like it's not here. I can't exactly see it,>> Mike Hiller replied. <>

"Is it safe?" Jacobs asked, also peering out the front window.

There was silence for a while.

<> He paused. <<I'm bringing it in.>>

They could hear his grunts and moans for about five minutes. After three, he managed to return to the airlock with the thing he found.

After opening the lock and taking his helmet off, Mike handed the object inside. Boone grabbed it first, staring at it.

"Holy...." he gasped. "What is that? It doesn't reflect light."

It was a machine no bigger than a breadbox, blacker than black, and that was all they could tell about it.

A knock rapped lightly on the door and FBI Agent Sicamore looked up from his desk. His pale blue eyes were wearily scanning his files for something to help him. He had been running his fingers through his dark hair, tired from an arduous weekend in Washington D.C. - a failed trip that was meant to help their branch of the FBI in handling two presumed dangerous 'extra-terrestrials' who had had slipped into American society. Now the FBI operation had to start from scratch, including change locations as their security had been compromised by said 'E.T's from Mars.

Yep. Mars.

They had the proof.

Thing was, these extra-terrestrials were basically human - which they also had biological proof of. And therefore they were even more dangerous.

"Enter," Agent Sicamore said.

The man that usually ran their darkroom, a room their operation used to survey Martian activity in space, stuck his head in the door. With an anxious grin on his face, he stepped completely into the room. He carefully closed the door before speaking. Without even addressing Sicamore, the man sat in the open chair and stooped across the desk toward Agent Sicamore with a whisper. "We have a new turn of events I want you to see."

Sicamore lifted his eyes up apprehensively. He glanced around for a second to make sure their alien adversary's nasty spy network had not also bugged his new office. Since that one boy had broken in with very little effort and had escaped the building security just as easily just after threatening him, he had been uneasy about their security. They believed they had moles in their midst, though they had yet to find them. Frisking the desk, under and across, he gestured for the other man to do the same with a wave.

After a thorough check they were assured the room was clear.

Stooping closely again, the man addressed Sicamore. "I have this to show you. We got it in from NASA today."

He pointed to a fax that had an image added into it. Agent Sicamore's eyes widened on the image as his colleague traced something on the image with his finger.

"See that? It was etched on it. You know where this thing came from? They found it scraping outside the space station Halloween night, hooked onto the dish on the port side," he said.

Sicamore gasped. "Has anyone else seen this?"

The man barely shook his head. "Only those at NASA on the shuttle and at the station. They are bringing it down to earth today. A few techs at NASA will handle it before packing it for shipment. The Bureau should get it on the twelfth."

Agent Sicamore angled his head in a side look at him, asking, "When did you hear of this?"

The man from the dark room smiled. "While you were in D.C.. I figured you were too occupied to disturb you then, so I decided to save it for you as a surprise."

Agent Sicamore smiled. "Good. Tell no one else about this. I don't want this leaking out. I don't want that boy getting it before we do."

His colleague nodded and headed for the door.

"We may win this yet," Sicamore muttered to himself, feeling that tightness in his chest unclench. "We may win this yet."

That Boy, as Agent Sicamore had started to call Jeff Streigle, was sitting in English class that November Monday morning, resisting the urge to poke the sleepy-eyed Zormna Clendar in the side (They were the two E.T.s the FBI were spying on). It was against the rules for anyone to sleep in Mr. Humphries' class, and the fiery-haired, five-foot-tall junior with exasperatingly green eyes and porcelain skin was nodding from exhaustion after enduring yet another lecture from Mr. McLenna about how they would not tolerate her sassy behavior in their house. She kept wishing they'd just let her become an emancipated minor and get it over with, but they also preferred to keep her under their eye.

 "Mr. Streigle, would you stand and read this paper?" Mr. Humphries said, giving Jeff a jolt.

Jeff, a midnight-haired senior at Pennington High who had a scar across his pale right cheek and the broken part of his nose, stood up, taking the essay. They had just started reading The Canterbury Tales last week after finishing Macbeth, and they had been made to write about the Nun's Priest's Tale and that chicken, Chanticleer. The entire class was asked to write about something they were proud about. Jeff shook the paper out and looked at the title. He smirked.  

Clearing his throat he said, "Pride is a dangerous thing. I was once very proud about my grades when I was a kid. Some things came easy to me, and I didn't have to work as hard as my classmates, so I didn't work as hard. The really big kids at school noticed and started to pick on me - and back then I wasn't very big. I used to..."

Zormna looked up from her desk and smirked drowsily. She had actually heard this story before. It was one of the few true ones Jeff told, as most of what came out of his mouth were lies - or rather part of his alibi. She was glad Jeff quit poking her in the head. It had been starting to give her a headache, and she didn't relish losing her temper in the middle of class just to tell him to stop it.

As he read, Jeff glanced down at Zormna and smiled. For the most part, things were going ok. His job to protect Zormna Clendar from those who wanted her dead had become a lot easier since Halloween because he had blackmailed Agent Sicamore, who was connected to the people who had killed Zormna's great aunt. Because of that, he figured they would not have to worry about the FBI for another week, at least. He wasn't naïve enough to think their troubles were over, after all. Besides, it always seemed to take about that long for something else to come up and cause trouble.