Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) (32 page)

FORTY-EIGHT

The neat stack of papers flew off Campbell’s desk, swiped from the surface under his angry hand. The contents of his top-secret office were scattered throughout the room, flittering about like debris after a tornado cut a swath of destruction through the fields of the LTZ. The veins in his neck and face throbbed as he concluded his private meltdown. He slumped down into his chair, closed his eyes, pressed his fingertips together, and took a long, deep breath. He had spun in his chair in a slow, rhythmic circle for a few moments when Sienna’s voice came over the speaker.

“Mr. Campbell,” she announced, unaware of the tempest he had created in a distant location from her desk. “You’ve received an encrypted message on your private line from the undisclosed sender you asked me to watch for. Shall I place it in your inbox?”

Campbell slammed his fist down on the intercom panel of the desk. “No, Sienna,” he growled, “Place it in the ghost drive. I’ll deal with it later.” Campbell knew who the undisclosed sender was, but he had no time to deal with the interruption. As urgent as he knew the sender believed the message to be, it would have to wait.

Campbell was still huffing, catching his breath. The room bore evidence of him tossing books and papers, kicking shelves, and punching holes in the walls. The occupants on the other side of the glass wall froze like deer catching the scent of danger on the air. Like statues, not daring to attract his attention, they waited to see what would happen next.

One individual in that room had a great deal of experience remaining motionless for extended periods of time. She stood over the drain next to her sensory deprivation chamber, dripping fluid all over the floor. The young woman was the youngest operative ever recruited into Campbell’s covert organization. Sergeant Heather Davis was short and frail, with dark hair and even darker eyes. A white form-fitting body suit covered her skin from her neck down to her ankles and wrists. The ports along her spine had disconnected from the harness within the chamber the moment the agent became incapacitated. She had been standing there, soaking wet, since a livid Director Campbell had ordered her out of the chamber. Rivulets of water flowed across her thin suit and pulled what little body heat she had left down the drain. She did her best to stand at attention, fighting against the involuntary shivers racking her arms and legs and resisting the urge to wrap her arms around her chest to stave off the spasms in her torso.

This was the second agent damaged in as many days. The first incident had been her partner’s responsibility. He received a reprimand for sustaining damage to his collar that had rendered him inactive. Although, there had no way of knowing about the remote-controlled sniper rifle hidden in the structure of the arena.

The loss of Heather’s female agent, on the other hand, had been completely avoidable. Such a strategic flaw was inexcusable, and the termination of her agent had been the cause of Campbell’s tirade in his office. Heather should have detected the woman entering the apartment long before she had gotten close enough to strike. She should have heard her padded footsteps, smelled her distinct body odor, or heard her assassin chamber a round into her weapon. But, Heather had grown over-confident and consumed with blood-lust, focusing on Jack Evans to the point of distraction. That distraction allowed her agent to be blasted through the side of the head and dumped over a railing into a pile of refuse.

The gravity of Heather’s neglect pulled heavy on her shoulders. Every single team member in the room was staring at her, their laser glances burning heatless into her soul. She was so accustomed to the strength and stealth of her Angel’s agent body, that standing in her own physical body, still and shivering, she felt small and vulnerable. Weak.

Heather was wary of Campbell. She had witnessed his reaction to her blunder on the other side of the glass wall, and she was trembling from fear as well as cold. She had been reprimanded in the past for small mistakes and slip-ups, but letting her agent die in this manner was the worst error to ever happen to an operative in the history of the program. She knew the consequences would not be light. A failure such as this could warrant elimination, a fate worse than mere dismissal and returning to civilian life.

Campbell continued to take in deep, slow breathes of air behind the glass of his office. He straightened his shirt and attempted to smooth down his frazzled hair.

He stopped spinning in his chair and locked eyes with his protégé. This was the second agent that had been lost under her control. If Heather suffered another loss, she knew what the protocols dictated. In the past, her affinity for taking risks had born enough fruit to warrant his tolerance, but when it came to the matter with the Dissidents, the costs had begun to outweigh the benefits.

Campbell stood from his chair and finished making himself presentable, now the perfect image of calm composure. He placed his arms behind his back and stepped away from the disaster that had been a symphony of organization just minutes before. The door between the office and the lab opened with a hiss. As he crossed the threshold, his focus never broke from Heather’s eyes.

Heather was too afraid of Campbell to sever eye contact with him. Her eyes, for the first time since she had become an operative, showed not the fearlessness she had grown accustomed to, but the fear she has lived with her whole life until the fateful day she had been rejected from the TRTV program.

Only she and a handful of other TRTV rejects received the rare opportunity to become operators in Campbell’s elect squad. She had a gift for telemetric operations, at a level that only one in ten thousand applicants possessed. That singular gift had qualified her for the clandestine duties that required total anonymity.

Campbell walked right up to her, ignoring every other person in the room, and stood toe to toe. She could feel his rage emanating from his chest like a bucket of hot coals. The relief of warmth was dispelled by her sudden fear that she was about to become consumed in fire.

His mouth was pinched into a tight line, his nostrils flaring with each methodical and controlled breath. His gusts of fury disturbed the loose strands of hair that framed her face like curtains in the breeze. Campbell stared down at her, his face a mixture of contempt and frustration.

Beads of water clung to her trembling cheeks. She smelled the anger on his breath when his opened his mouth to speak.

“Get another one and find them,” he growled into her ear. “One more failure and there will be nothing I can do to prevent your elimination.” He turned and walked away. He stopped midstride and looked over his shoulder. His mouth opened to speak, but he pursed his lips again instead. Whatever warning he was about to give, he had decided against it. Heather wondered how close she had gotten to not meriting a third chance.

Campbell resumed his sprint to his office with a glance around the room of silent on-lookers. “All of you!” he barked. “Get back to work!” With those words, he crossed the threshold of his office and sat back down in his chair. With the touch of a panel, the transparent panes of glass transitioned through a hazy translucence until they became as opaque as the adjacent walls.

Heather released a sigh of relief. She had not realized she had been holding her breath when Campbell was in the room with her. She wrapped her arms around her torso and slumped down onto the ground to sit on her heels. The noise in the room remained lower than the hum of bees in a hive. No one in the room dared to offer her any comfort or support; they were all either angry with her for her screw up or afraid of incurring Campbell’s wrath if they showed sympathy. Heather just sat there hunched on the ground, rocking on the balls of her feet and breathing. At the moment, it was all she knew how to do.

She had no idea of the level of emotional and mental exhaustion she would be required to endure when she agreed to this assignment. Three years ago, all she had wanted was to get out of the LTZ, to get away from the outskirts of civilization so she could enjoy the privileged life of an Olympian. She had thought she got lucky when Campbell appeared outside her apartment in the LTZ and recruited her as an operative. However, sitting outside the sensory deprivation tank, when she was just Heather and not an agent, all she had found was the loneliness of secrecy.

As helpless and alone as she felt, her choices were limited. She could complete her mission, or the life she built would be over. She stood and took a deep, bracing breath, and walked over to a console. Entering a series of codes, a display appeared, showing her a menu of available units that were ready for deployment. She selected the model identical to the one she had just lost, and entered her username, Gabriella, into the login prompt. It was her favorite. She felt graceful and powerful when she was in control of this avatar, so unlike how she felt in her own skin. She linked the harness of the unit to her sensory chamber.

She turned from her console and caught several pairs of eyes in the room darting away from her. A wave of shame came over her as she registered the pity in their eyes. First shame, then loathing. They did not have an inkling of the exhilaration she felt when she was connected to her agent, and they could not fathom the emptiness she lived with when she was herself. Her agent could dispose of every man and woman in that room within minutes. She was vulnerable before them now, but once she was coupled to her agent, they would be the vulnerable ones.

Heather glared at them all with contemptuous superiority as she returned to her open sensory tank. She climbed in and slipped down into the warm water. The interface connected automatically to the ports along her spine and skull as she lay herself down. Once the connection was complete, the chamber lid closed slow enough to give a final glance at the merciless eyes watching her. The bliss she always felt when connected enveloped her, bringing a smile of ecstasy to her lips. She did not know it on a conscious level, but this was her own addiction, an intense addiction to which few people could relate.

As her mind drifted away of her own body and cares, she linked to the controls of the agent. She exulted in the strength of its muscles, the sharpness of its reflexes, and the acuity of its vision.

The body of the new Gabriella sat up on the bed and looked around. She was back in the barracks, a place familiar to her and others like her. Other Angels surrounded her. Some assembled in small groups, staring into space. Others were lying down on beds like the one she occupied.

One male Angel, who she recognized as her partner Aban, approached and stood beside her bed. He gazed down at her, holding out a piece of black cloth that looked like a towel with legs. She took it and began to put it on underneath the white sheet that draped from a hole around her neck. In moments, she felt the familiar sensation of the uniform clinging to every feature of her body. She took in a deep breath as she felt the exhilaration of the agent’s sensitive skin.

The one who gave her the clothing was also dressed in the black uniform of an agent. She looked into his eyes. “How’s the new interface working, Cross?” she asked with a coy smile.

He half-grinned back. “I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s just not the same,” he answered with a shrug. “Everything is working just fine, but it just doesn’t feel right. Humph. Maybe it’s just all in my head.” He laughed at his own joke. She gave him a mischievous, understanding grin.

Over his shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Campbell walking through the room. He glanced over and gave her a withering look, warning her with his eyes of the precarious situation in which she found herself. She had no doubts if she failed her mission, she would have to pay the ultimate price.

“Let’s get going,” she said to her partner. Without another word, they pulled their hoods over their heads and ran out of the room to the exit only they had authorization to use.

They descended a stairwell into the sublevels and followed the maze of tunnels underneath the building until they came out in the mechanical crawlspace under a maglev platform. They moved among the shadows until they positioned themselves above the platform, waiting for the next train to approach. This was their favorite perch, and the location enabled them to hitch a ride without catching the eye of common citizens. As the maglev approached, they prepared themselves to jump down onto the train and stow away in the mechanical space above the engine compartment.

The lights of the train came into view down the tracks. She stole a quick glance at the large, colossal structure rising into the sky above the platform. It never failed to astound her. Ever since she was a small child visiting the Cathedral with her mother, she was awestruck at the magnificent edifice. She had no idea at the time how her life would change because of the building and what it represented. At least, what she thought it represented. The building that once represented her salvation was now her prison. Words failed to express the degree to which her life had changed in the three years since her recruitment.