Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Jack also happened to be at the restaurant. When Tishia introduced them, she said Jack was one of the lucky ones that got out on his brains. It turned out that Jack had a knack for programming artificial intelligences. He had once reprogrammed his teddy bear to respond to his mother’s questions from the other room so he could sneak out of the house. It took weeks before his parents realized they were talking to a toy.

  He also became a minor criminal in school when he reprogrammed the principal’s AI to sass back to her when she asked for information from the library database. This prank got the attention of the leading technical academy at Olympus. Jack underwent a series of tests and the dean of the academy was shocked to discover he had a 210 IQ.

  However, a high IQ was not what impressed Evangeline. Jack was intelligent, but he was also thoughtful. He was observant; he noticed things about the people around him and responded to a need he perceived they had before the other person realized what happened.

  That night Evangeline knew there was something unique about Jack. As they talked on the patio of the restaurant, Evangeline liked the way he could make her laugh and the way he listened to her. Before she knew it, she was telling him all about her divorce and the nightmares. She caught herself just before telling him about the letters from her parents. Evangeline surprised herself by the desire she felt to share all her dark secrets with Jack. However, she was not yet ready to open up her closet of skeletons.

  The sobs began to subside, her breathing slower and more regular. The hysteria from the nightmare was over, at least for the night. The clock showed that it was after 2:00 in the morning. She lifted her head to look up at Jack. Evangeline appreciated that aspect about Jack that. His sensitivity and patience never seemed to diminish no matter how many times her nightmares interrupted his sleep, nor how often her emotions became erratic from the slightest reminder of her lost childhood. He moved his hand from her hair to her back and glided his fingers up and down her spine, feeling the vibrations of his fingertips as he rubbed them along the TRTV connection ports.

  The ports were permanent, once installed. The pilot’s nervous system would become accustomed to the regular input from the interface and nerve damage would occur if removed. Even if a pilot discontinued operating a TRTV for an extended amount of time the degradation to their system would require periodic maintenance connections. It was what Tishia and Sam had to do now they were retired from the military. They connected to a TRTV simulation once a month and performed drills in order to keep their nervous systems, as Harper liked to call it, tuned up.

  Jack was never squeamish about the ports like Evangeline’s first husband, Erik had been. They had been married prior to her joining the military and acceptance into the TRTV program. Seeing and touching her with the ports in her back made him squeamish. It had been a detrimental to their love life. This physical repulsion to her ports was a big factor why she accepted the assignment for a short tour on the Chiron. She was hopeful that absence would make the heart grow fonder. Instead of longing, Erik began to frequent bars, clubs, and casinos while Evangeline was off world. It did not take long after she returned that their marriage died.

  The clock now read 2:30 A.M. Evangeline was finally calm, falling back to sleep in Jacks arms.

  Jack, on the other hand, was wide-awake, as she dozed on his chest. Once Evangeline’s hysterics yanked him from his dreams, he could never fall back to sleep, despite being accustomed to rising early.

  He rolled Evangeline onto her side and pulled the blankets up over her body. It would have been pointless to try to sleep, so he decided to get up and spend the morning hours on his new pet project.

  He padded down the hall and into the kitchen for a glass of water. While emptying his glass, Tori, their virtual daughter, materialized at his side.

  “Daddy, did mommy have another nightmare?” She inquired, looking up at him. She was wearing her favorite pink pajamas with the bunny feet. She looked to be around six years old, with Evangeline’s long chocolate hair, but she had Jack’s green eyes.

  “Yes, sweetie, Mom had a nightmare again,” Jack replied. “But it’s nothing you need to worry about. Go back to bed.” In an instant, Addison blipped next to Tori, cuddling his teddy bear and blanket.

  “Is she going to be okay?” he asked in a tender voice. Addison was around three, with light brown hair and blue eyes, and the latest addition to the family. Jack had wanted to add a son to the family, so Addison’s name was Jack’s little joke to himself.

  Jack kneeled down and faced the kids. “Yeah, buddy. She’s going to be fine. It was just a bad dream.” Addison did not seem to accept his answer.

  “But she has bad dreams all the time. Am I going to have bad dreams?” he asked.

  Jack chuckled at himself.” No, buddy, you won’t have bad dreams. You’ll be just fine.”

  Tori turned to her brother. “You can’t have bad dreams. You’re just a program.” Addison looked wide-eyed at Jack.

  “Is that true Dad? Am I just a program?” he stared, waiting for a comforting answer.

  Jack gave a scolding look to Tori before answering Addison. “Well, technically, that is true. You are an AI. But I made you, so that makes you my son.” Addison smiled and bobbed on the balls of his feet for a moment, then turned around dissolved out of the kitchen. Jack turned his attention to Tori, who was still standing there, looking sheepish.

  “Tori, I’ve told you. Addison’s programming isn’t sophisticated enough to understand he’s an artificial intelligence yet. You still have a lot to learn about people’s feelings,” Jack explained.

  Tori was not about to be curtailed. “But Dad, I know I’m an AI. My friends know I’m an AI. You and Mom know I’m an AI. What’s the big deal with telling Addison he’s an AI?”

  “You didn’t always know you were an AI, did you?” Jack countered. “For the first few months of your life you were barely interactive. It took months of input and adjustments until you realized you were a program. Now look at you! You’ll be all grown up before you know it.”

  Tori processed his answer for a moment and then tilted her head to the side. “I think I’m all grown up now,” she said. “Good night!” She chirped before turning around and dissolving like her brother.

  Jack smiled to himself. He had been developing virtual children for most of his career. It started out as another side project, trying to help couples who were waiting for a license to have a biological child. His idea was to create an interactive program that would act and think like a real child. Giving the parents something to bond to and train, like a real child, without the more unpleasant aspects of parenting.

  It became so popular that the number of applications for biological children in Olympus dropped as the demand for virtual children increased. His hobby had swollen into a full-fledged AI business. He was now working on a way to make the virtual children more independent.

  Growing up outside all the privilege that came with Olympic citizenship, Jack and his hidden mischievous nature, loved to pull a joke now and again. Evangeline did not know it, but he had created a code within the program that allowed him access to the operating command system with a particular phrase.

  On more than one occasion, he had caused the virtual kids of his obnoxious neighbors to transform into purple pigs with wings and fly around the room for an hour. Every time it happened, upset customers swamped his office with calls for the latest software patch to fix the problem. Free of charge, of course. Jack did not care about the infrequent complaints about glitches in a few customer’s children. He longed for biological children of his own, but it was not going to happen for him and Evangeline. As far as he knew, his virtual children would have to be enough.

  Jack set his empty glass into the sink and stretched. A drawn out yawn rattled in his throat as his fingers brushed the low ceiling. He stared at the marquee across the courtyard outside the sliding glass doors to the balcony for a lingering moment. The advertisement for a vacation to the islands off
the west coast carried no appeal to him.

  Jack walked out of the kitchen and into his office. He sat down at his desk and turned on the surface computer interface with a casual swipe of his hand across the glass.

  A holographic display appeared over the desktop and a keyboard glowed on the surface. Jack began to type and opened up a new project file. He named it GIDEON.

  NINE

  Silas Graham was sitting at his desk when his personal assistant, Celeste, brought him his morning beverage. Celeste was an Angel. Graham liked having Angels working for him. It appealed to his vanity to have an Angel of exquisite beauty, such as Celeste, at his side. They flattered his ego and made him feel less self-conscious about his eerie eyes.

  Graham ensured that Celeste never left his side. She was with him twenty-four hours a day, even helping him bathe in the mornings. Her devotion to his every need, want, and desire was absolute. He had no tolerance for the simple attire commonly worn by the Angels. Celeste obliged when he insisted that she dress in a more provocative fashion, although what she wore on the outside did not seem to affect her selfless disposition.

  After setting the drink down in front of him, she stood by his desk with a pleasant smile on her face, eager to please. “Is there anything else I can get for you, Silas?” she asked in soothing tones. He had always insisted she call him by his first name instead of using formal salutations.

  Graham turned from the window and smiled. Her eyes captivated him with their sincerity, yet there always seemed to be something missing. “No thank you, Celeste. That will be all for now.”

  She turned with a warm smile, walking toward the door and returning to her desk outside his office. In Graham’s mind, she was a capable assistant, but lacked initiative. He liked giving orders, and he liked when people did as instructed. She always did as he asked without question or hesitation. However, she never did something that he had not already asked her to do, like the routine of his morning pick-me-up. Celeste never brought it to him without his requesting it each morning.

  This flaw frustrated him, but her blind obedience was better than having his authority questioned by a subordinate. The last time he had been shown a lack of respect had been off world, when his perseverance bore fruit and he found the Dissident laboratory, when he had been face to face with the daughter of his old friend, Captain Evangeline Chapel.

  “Captain Evangeline Evans, now,” he thought to himself. He had tried shaming her by demoting her rank for her insubordinate attitude. But after locating and securing Matthew’s lab, and even denouncing her parents in her mission report, the worst damage Graham could inflict was having her reassigned to security patrols in the LTZ.

  Graham wanted the reassignment to be a punishment, but from the scant reports and rumors from his contacts on the base, the transfer did not have the effect he desired. From everything he heard, Evangeline had remarried and became a successful TRTV instructor on the base. It frustrated Graham to no end that the base commander had intervened on Evangeline’s behalf and protected her from his wrath.

  Graham continued to stare out the glazed wall of his large corner office. His last off-world mission was the success he needed to obtain a permanent assignment to Olympus. The promotion afforded him the luxuries he so enjoyed. Increased pay, heightened security clearance, and living quarters in the upper levels. He even had a private transport with an Angel driver in addition to Celeste. The equipment, specimens, and notes recovered by the second team he dispatched down to the moon were what he needed to obtain the post on Mars’ staff, even though Graham himself did not understand what it was Evangeline’s team found, or why it was so important.

  The public personnel file of General James ‘Mars’ Reynolds illuminated above Graham’s desk. The file showed Reynolds to be a short man with a stocky build. Many believed that Reynolds, and the other members of the Quorum of Zeus, were immortal. No one knew his actual age because he had had countless Angel transplants over the years, perpetually extending his life. Some had even speculated that he did not have an original body part left in his frame.

  Reynolds had carried the title of Mars longer than anyone alive could remember. To serve under him was considered a great honor, and those on his staff had taken the name of Martian upon themselves with pride. It was said Reynolds could be as wise a prophet and as cunning as the devil.

  Graham had wanted to work under James Reynolds since his childhood. Reynolds gave Graham the prime corner office, although an Angel named Sara, one of his personal assistants, made the arrangements. Reynolds, a secretive recluse, only met in person with the other members of the Quorum of Zeus, the ruling body of Olympus, which Graham did not have the security clearance to address.

  From his vantage point in the office, Graham could see the surrounding LTZ spreading outward for miles. His disdain for anyone who chose such a life was palatable. He grew up in Olympus to a life of privilege. His grandfather had been a member of Reynolds’ staff decades ago, but he had died before obtaining a post as notable as the one Graham held. It had been Graham’s lifelong ambition to exceed his grandfather’s prominence and bring honor to the family name.

  Below him, Graham could see the military base. Vehicles buzzed to and from the landing area, which resembled a giant honeycomb board. He wondered if one of the little dots was Captain Evans, off on another wonderful adventure into the exciting factories and stimulating farmlands in the distance. He allowed himself a grin for his own cleverness. He was certain the reassignment he had made would teach her a lesson she would never forget.

  Above, he saw the intercontinental transports arriving at the Stratoport. He grew up learning that before the collapse, air transportation had been so common that people would travel by air from one major city to the next. Ground travel was much slower by comparison.

  After the Great Recovery, continental travel was available by maglev trains, and only intercontinental travel would use hypersonic airship transports.

  Graham was very aware of the transportation requirements of Olympus, the LTZ, and the security installations along the borders. His responsibility on Reynolds staff was overseeing security and maintenance over the Continental Transportation System. It may not have been the largest in the world, but in his mind, it was the most important because it was his to command.

  Celeste interrupted his thought process as she entered his peripheral vision. She did it to get his attention without direct interruption. Her footsteps were as quiet as a whisper. Even in her heeled shoes, it seemed she floated across the floor more than walked across it. Graham smiled at her, unable to resist the surge of gratification he felt to have her. He could not help himself. “Yes, Celeste? What is it?”

  She gave him another warm smile. He liked it when she smiled at him. It made him feel powerful and important. “Colonel Jacobs is here to see you,” she said. “He doesn’t have an appointment.” She beamed as if giving this news to Graham was the most gratifying task of her life.

  Graham never cared if one of his superiors had an appointment. He would see them even if he were in the middle of a meeting. Celeste only made a point of it because she once interrupted his window gazing to announce a visitor from the transportation supervisor’s office. Graham remembered the first and only time he had barked at Celeste. “Don’t sneak up behind me without announcing yourself!” Graham had turned around and put on his most frightening sneer to intimidate his new assistant. “Does he have an appointment?” he asked knowing that his schedule for the day was wide open.

  Celeste, without taking any offense, had smiled at him and answered, “No, sir. He does not have an appointment. What would you like me to do?”

  Graham’s eyes softened as he sat looking at his assistant. Her innocent smile was unaffected by his gruff nature. He felt a tinge of guilt by his impatience toward her. Graham took a deep breath, turned away from his desk, “Escort him in… in ten minutes.” It was that day that he started keeping Celeste by his side at all times.

  Gra
ham pulled himself from his memory and walked past Celeste toward his desk. As he passed her, he brushed his hand across the small of her back. She smiled but otherwise did not make any indication that she noticed. “Please tell him I’ll be with him in a moment.”

  Celeste nodded and walked out to her desk. Graham heard their mumbled conversation. It was the usual, ‘he’ll be right with you’, kind of thing that Graham liked to make people wait for him. Jacobs was not Graham’s superior, so he did not feel like he needed to play the part of the eager to please subordinate.

  Colonel Mark Jacobs was a tall man with dark skin, dark eyes, and a thick black mustache. Both of Jacobs’ parents were in the military and he enlisted the day after graduation from the military academy. He was as tough as steel, and as sharp as a tack. He rejected offers of promotion to military intelligence. He preferred action, activity, and operations that utilized his body as well as his mind. In time, and with a distinguished career as a TRTV pilot and carrier commander, he became the commandant of the military training facility. Jacob’s intervention prevented Graham from kicking Evangeline out of the military entirely. He was not just her superior officer, but he had gone to school with Evangeline’s mother and had been her life-long friend.

  Jacobs had not been convinced that the Chapels had joined the Dissident movement. He watched over Evangeline from a distance when he learned about the disappearance and public lynching of her parents. After she returned to Earth, when Graham tried to get her discharged from the corps, he became Evangeline’s mentor and friend.

  This, alone, made Mark Jacobs an enemy in the eyes of Silas Graham.

  After making Jacobs wait for fifteen minutes, Graham told Celeste over the speaker to send him in. It was another one of those moves that made sure people knew Graham was superior.