Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) (40 page)

SIXTY-FOUR

After twenty-four hours of being stuffed into a small storage room, with only wire shelves for furniture, Matthew and the four members of the freighter crew were pulled out, one by one, and taken away down the dark corridor with an environmental suit’s helmet facing backward on his head. Matthew had been the last one to be removed from the closet.

When the metal door opened to the same, large man with the name SWAN embroidered on his shirt, Matthew knew it was his turn. The man held up the dirty helmet he had placed on every other head that left before him with the same speech he delivered four other times. “It’s your turn, Olympian,” he said with distrust and his eyes glaring with hatred.

Behind Swan outside the door stood three other men, armed with heavy pick-axes and laser-drills. Matthew climbed off the wire shelf-turned-bunk bed and stood on his feet. “Where are you taking me? Where are the others?” he asked with as much boldness as he could muster. Matthew was no coward, but he also did not want to provoke his captors into an act of violence.

The man holding the helmet looked down at the floor and shook his head. “Like I told that captain,” he let out a menacing chuckle, “you can either put this on and answer our questions down the hall, or you can answer them from outside the airlock where we found you. What’s your choice?”

Matthew - musing on the old phrase rattling around in his mind - wondered if the imposing man in front of him was the rock or the hard place. With a sigh, he took the helmet from the man’s hand and placed it backward on his head. The tightening knob pinched against the bridge of his nose, threatening to break his glasses. “May I at least have your name?” he asked into the neck shroud.

 “Can’t you read?” the man chuckled. “The name’s on my shirt.”

Matthew felt Swan’s strong grip clamp down around his upper arm like a vice. Fighting the urge to wince at the pain, he turned his focus on discovering more information. “Are you the Dissidents? Are you the group responsible for bombing my clinic?”

A chorus of laugher erupted outside the storage room door. The vice grip pushed Matthew toward the ruckus, and he could sense the change in light levels from the open slit at the bottom of the shroud. The surrounding noise told him he had exited his jail cell into a corridor. He had no idea where he was. The last thing he remembered before waking up in the storage closet was being knocked unconscious as he stepped through the inner airlock door.

The laughter followed him down the corridor. The sheer jovial nature of the laughter seemed out of place with the foreboding glances he had received moments before. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You are,” Swan’s voice said next to him. Matthew felt his direction change with a sharp turn to the right and an immediate shove forward through another doorway. Passing the threshold, he heard the mumbled chatter of dozens of voices. He could make out men, women, 
and
 children.  Phrases like 
shove his Olympic hide out the airlock
, 
this one’s different
, 
where will we go
, and 
they’ll kill us all
 pierced through the cacophony of sounds.

Matthew felt his shins collide with a sharp, metal edge. He peeked through the slit and saw a metal armchair at his feet with straps attached to the arms and legs. His mind flew to his wife and daughter, fearing he would never see them again. Panicking, Matthew tried to spin away from the chair and bolt for the door. Swiping the helmet away from his head, he opened his eyes to find Swan standing in front of him. Shock and disbelief flooded Matthew’s mind, causing him to stumble backward into the metal chair.

“You kept your cool a lot longer than we expected,” Swan chuckled. “Most people who happen to get caught here end up running for the door as soon as they step out of that closet.”

Matthew shifted nervously in the cold chair. “I assume you’re going to torture me for information, and then kill me, right? Where are Captain Banks and his crew?” Matthew pulled his eyes from Swan’s gaze to search through the crowd. On the far side of the room, he spotted them against the far wall. Each one had a bodyguard on either side holding a weapon pointed at their chest.

Swan pulled another metal chair from the closest line of gatherers and sat down in front of Matthew. The large man stared at him for more than a minute before taking in a deep, slow breath. “I’m only going to say this once, so you’d do well to pay attention. There are no Dissidents.”

Swan spent the next hour explaining to Matthew who they were: Segregants, as he called it. A simple group of people who wanted to live so far outside of Olympic control, that even the LTZ was too close for their comfort. They had become weary of the interference of the Quorum and Olympus in their lives, so they packed up and set out for the furthest point in known space they could find. Finding a centuries-old mining facility abandoned by Olympus was a happy coincidence. The Segregants had spent the past decade mining for precious ores they traded with the less reputable fragments of society, only because they shared an equal disdain for Olympic authority.

Over the following hour, Matthew explained how he was on a research trip to discover the origin of the mystery container. Swan had the freighter’s shuttle searched before he believed Matthew’s account.

“Okay, Doc,” Swan said with a lingering strain of distrust, “I’ll accept your story as true… for now.”

Matthew looked over at Captain Banks and the rest of the crew and saw their countenances brighten as their guards put away their weapons. The guards dissipated into the gathered crowd and joined women and children, whom Matthew assumed to be their families.

The freighter crew huddled together into a small scrum, still not trusting their safety to the strangers around them.

Swan also spent a considerable amount of time expounding on the Segregants’ views regarding the Angels. They did not believe the story of a benevolent race from the stars that miraculously came to Earth seeking only the opportunity to serve their Terrain cousins. They believed that the Angels could not be trusted, refusing to incorporate them into their districts.

Swan’s face turned red with anger as he shared the details of Olympic TRTV patrols forcing their way into his grandfather’s home and threatening his family with prison if they did not obey the law and welcome Angel laborers in his textile mill. “Anyone who smiles all the time cannot be trusted,” he seethed. “My grandmother taught me that the Devil himself must have a gleaming smile, otherwise fewer people would fall for his lies.”

Matthew’s shock radiated from his face. In all his years, he had never come across more blind prejudice against the Angels than he had witnessed in the past few minutes.

“The Angels have been nothing but kind and gentle in all my dealings with them,” he said. “In the centuries they’ve been on Earth, they have never once shown the slightest inclination for deceit. I just don’t understand your point of view. Human or Angel, every man, woman and child on Olympus and the LTZ is entitled to the same human rights as you or I.”

Swan’s face erupted with a sneer. “But, they’re
not
Human, Doc,” he said with a smooth growl, “so they have no rights as far as I’m concerned. If they want their own rights, they can climb back into their ships and go right back to wherever they came from. They have no rights here.”

Swan leaned back in his chair, folding his powerful arms across his chest. Matthew did not like the way Swan was looking at him, as if he were trying to figure out how long he might survive in the mines.

Swan stood up from his chair, scooting it across the floor to its original position. “We’ve got someone in the infirmary that needs some medical attention, Doc,” he said, placing his hands on his waist. “Come with me.” Two of the men that had stood guard outside the storage closet approached Matthew from behind, giving him the cue to get up from his chair and follow Swan out the door.

The three men walked down the corridor in silence. Swan forged a path through the people also streaming out of the room, with Matthew following behind, as well as the two guards walking a pace to his rear. By the way the people made a path for Swan, Matthew could tell that he was not only the leader of the group, but feared as well. His confidence and bravado trailed behind him like a bridal train as he spoke loud enough for his voice to reach Matthew’s ears.

“We found the pair of them a few weeks back on one of our trips to trade processed ore for supplies,” he said. Matthew could hear the amusement in his voice despite not being able to see his face. “Turned out that one group of people we trade with had kidnapped them on Earth in the hopes of selling them off as slave labor. I guess they were intended to be a matched set.”

Matthew’s curiosity got the best of him. “What happened to them?”

“The people who kidnapped him said they just shut down. They stopped talking, stopped eating, and stopped sleeping. They just sat there. I think you call it catatonia,” Swan said, turning around to give Matthew a sidelong glance. “When we got them here, we tried asking them a few questions, but they never said a word. One of them died a few days ago. There’s no place to bury anyone, so we just put the body up on the surface and let the sandstorms take it away.”

Matthew’s sense of uneasiness pushed against his natural medical curiosity. “Who is the patient? Which one survived, the man or the woman?”

Swan remained silent until they reached a single door at the end of the corridor, pushing a code into an ancient-looking keypad. Matthew heard a series of beeps and a click before Swan turned to face Matthew with contempt written across his face.

“Neither,” he answered. “It’s an Angel.”

SIXTY-FIVE

Matthew followed the Segregant leader, a man who had informally introduced himself as Eric Swan during his discussion on their origins, into their infirmary. The other two men followed as far as the door opening, forming a human barrier to prevent Matthew’s escape. In the middle of the dim room - lying on the exam table - was the battered body of a male Angel, exposed from head to toe except for a sparse canvas covering his hips and thighs. Matthew recoiled and stumbled into one of Swan’s men the instant he saw the Angel’s bruised and lacerated flesh. Something so innocent, so lovely, suffering such torture…words failed to express his shock and sorrow.

The most disconcerting feature of the Angel’s face was not the swelling or discoloration. The smile, that perfect and Angelic smile amidst all the signs of abuse filled Matthew’s heart with grief. The expressionless eyes were fixed in a blank stare toward the ceiling. His chest rose and fell with each ragged breath.

Matthew took a deep, bracing breath before he turned around to face Swan. “I’ll examine him, but only if I’m alone in the room. You and your men must leave.” He cast his eyes at the scowling men, reading the distrust in their eyes, all of which zeroed in on him.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, “but I don’t want anyone or anything interfering with my examination.”

Eric Swan was a large man and he towered over Matthew, folding his arms and staring down at the challenging scientist. Eric gave Matthew a menacing scowl, but Matthew was not intimidated or deterred. He had come too far and had faced too many obstacles to let this stranger sway his convictions.

Matthew’s resolve won out. Eric narrowed his eyes and whispered, “Fine. We’ll leave you to it, 
doctor.
” With a silent look of his coal-dark eyes, his cohorts trooped out of the room. Eric shut the door as he followed them out.

With the Segregants gone, Matthew let out a breath of relief. He hefted his case of equipment onto the table and opened it, careful to retrieve his delicate tools and lining them up on the table next to the Angel’s body. He pulled on a pair of sterile gloves and a filtered mask with an attached eye shield. With a tap to his temple, LED lights on either side of the strap holding the mask onto his head lit up the room. An apron, wadded into a ball, happened to be in a corner of the infirmary. Matthew held it up and scrutinized the stains under the faint bulb hanging from the ceiling. The apron was soiled and probably filthier than Matthew cared to consider. He shook his head at himself and tied the apron about his waist. It would just have to do.

Matthew stepped up to the side of the table and looked upon the still figure before him.

“Can you hear me?” he asked. “I’m just going to examine you. I’m not going to hurt you. Is that alright?” he raised his voice louder. The Angel neither stirred nor spoke.

Matthew grabbed the Angel’s hand and placed two fingers against the wrist.

“Surprising,” he murmured to himself. “Strong and steady pulse. It looks like you’ve taken quite the beating. I was not expecting something quite so robust.”

Matthew walked around the table three times, performing a visual assessment of his battered patient. The Angel’s expression disconcerted Matthew as he stared into space and smiled at nothing. On his third pass, he noticed the small puddle of red on the table beneath the Angel’s head. Matthew adjusted his goggles and leaned in closer, confirming a spot of dried blood below the Angel’s matted hair.

Matthew reached out his gentle hands and rolled the Angel’s head to the side to get a better look, and what he saw made his stomach lurch. Instead of a rounded cranium covered with white hair, he found the back of the Angel’s skull caved in and fractured, much like the smashed shell of a hard-boiled egg.

His eyes grew wide and he stepped back from the table. Although his specialty was in organ transplants, he knew a fatal head injury when he saw it. He removed the portable scanner from his case and began running a deep tissue scan of the Angel’s head.

He had never had the opportunity to scan an Angel before. Protocols dictated only their own healers in the nearest Cathedral treated them. However, he was not on Olympus right now, and his curiosity and compulsion to help a living being overruled his respect for the unresponsive Angel’s beliefs. The readings began popping up on the screen, making Matthew curse under his breath.

“This can’t be right!” He reset the scanner and passed it over the Angel again.

“Impossible!” he cried. He wondered if the scanner had been damaged in the transport. Shutting off the power, he reset it once again and passed it over his own skull to be sure. The scan came back normal. A third pass of the scanner across the Angel’s head revealed results identical to the first two times.

Matthew was bewildered at what the scan detected, or rather, what it did not detect.

He was able to discern the skull, muscles, and skin of the Angel’s head. He recognized the brain stem and spinal cord, but what filled the rest of the brain cavity was the most baffling scientific discovery he had ever made. Where the cerebrum and cerebellum should be within the skull he found an unrecognizable mass resembling, for lack of better imagery, a bird’s nest.

He rushed to the door to the lab and flung it open.

“I need to speak with Mr. Swan, please. It’s urgent!”

The men loitering outside the lab relayed the request for Eric down the hallway. Moments later Swan came bursting out of the barracks. He stormed up to the door of the lab, which Matthew was blocking with his body.

“What is it, Doc?” he grumbled. Swan had changed into the underlining of an environmental suit and Matthew realized he must have been preparing to enter the mines, and he looked none too pleased for the interruption.

“There is something I need you to look at,” Matthew said, keeping his voice low and steady. He stepped aside so Swan could enter the lab. Matthew closed and locked the door behind them.

Swan eyed the locked doorknob with a wary glance, and then looked at Matthew. “You said this was urgent? Well, get on with it.” Matthew motioned for Swan to approach the examination table.

“I’ve encountered something I’ve never seen before, something I’ve never even 
heard
of before. And, quite frankly, I wanted another pair of eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.”

Matthew passed the scanner to Swan.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” he asked, eying the device with disinterest.

“It’s his brain scan,” Matthew answered. “It’s a picture of the inside of his head.”

Swan’s mouth turned down in new interest. “So, that’s what a brain looks like, huh? I never finished my secondary education back in the LTZ,” he said, tilting his head as he examined the display, “but I thought I remember the brain looking like, well, more like a brain. This just looks like the chicken scratches in the dirt.” He gave up making sense of the image and tried handing the scanner back to Matthew.

 “Exactly, Swan!” he said, snatching the scanner from Eric’s hands. “You are exactly right! This is not what a brain looks like at all, not in a Human or any other living creature on our planet.” Matthew’s fingers frantically swiped at the scanner display, and then he shoved it back into Eric’s hands.

“This,” he said, pointing at the screen, “is a scan of 
my
 brain taken just moments ago.” Swan’s eyes followed Matthew’s finger around the screen as he talked. “This is the brain stem. This is the spinal cord. This is the cerebellum. And this is the cerebrum, where higher functioning occurs.”

Eric tilted his head again, earnestly concentrating on the image on the scanner. Matthew took a deep and patient sigh, waiting for him to make the connection.

“My brain,” Matthew said, and then he swiped the screen with his finger. “The Angel’s brain.” Swipe. “Mine, the Angel’s, mine….”

Swan sighed, and then his eyes lit up.

“They’re nothing alike. How strange. Well, Doc, maybe Angels and Humans are just different. Why is this such an emergency?” Matthew stared back at him with wild desperation across his features.

 “No, Swan, you don’t understand. Every animal we know of that has the capacity for any level of reasoning has a developed cerebrum and cerebellum.” He changed the display settings on the scanner to show his and the Angel’s scans side-by-side. “From what I see in these scans, the Angel on that table ought to be incapable of speech, thought, emotions… anything that makes him able to interact with the world around him. This scan tells me his neural development would inhibit him from doing anything more than convert oxygen to carbon dioxide. He shouldn’t even be able to feed himself, let alone walk around, use tools, operate consoles and machinery, or carry on a conversation!”

Swan held up his hands. “But Doc, I brought this guy here and he could do all the things you said he can’t do. I’ve known plenty of Angels in my day, and they all can do those things you say are impossible.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Matthew answered. “But according to this scan,” he said, pointing to the image, “there’s no way that should be physiologically possible.”

Matthew and Swan stared at each other, each of them trying to make sense of the images on the scanner. Matthew walked over to the table and placed the scanner down next to the Angel’s head.

“What are you doing there, Doc?”

“I’m changing the settings to continual scan. I want to investigate an idea I have.” Matthew then picked up a probe and placed it on various parts of the Angel’s body as he monitored the feedback on the screen. “I need you to answer honestly, Swan. What’s changed from the time you brought him here until now?”

Swan uncrossed his arms, shuffled his feet, and turned his body away from the table. “There was an accident.” His voice was as cold and hard as ice.

“An accident?” Matthew said. “This man was tortured.”

Swan’s body was a blur as he spun around to face Matthew.

“HE’S NOT A MAN!” he roared. His breathing was heavy and he bent his knees as if he was readying himself for a brawl. Matthew had been so startled by the outburst he dropped his probe onto the Angel’s arm.

Matthew took a breath to steady himself. He knew he was no physical match against Swan.

“Angel, Human, or otherwise,” he said with a calm and steady tone, “every sentient being has rights, no matter where they come from.”

Swan opened his mouth to dispute Matthew’s claims when the scanner started blinking lights and emitting a shrill series of beeps that drew both men’s attention. Matthew rushed to the display to see what had caused the ruckus.

The image on the scanner showed increased activity in the brain stem that rose and erupted into a rolling cloud pattern.

Matthew lifted his probe and the beeping and flashing ceased.

Swan’s chest was still heaving from his outburst, but he was curious about the perplexed look on Matthew’s face.

“What was that, Doc?” he said, breathless.

Matthew was too distracted with his own questions to answer. He thought the sudden spike in brain activity must have been a glitch. He placed the probe back down on the Angel’s torso as he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples under the shield. The ear-piercing din erupted again, lights flashing around the display. Matthew scooped the probe up in his hand to silence the machine.

“Do that again!” Swan blurted out. Matthew’s head whipped up.

“Do what again?” he barked with a clear edge in his voice.

“Touch his skin with that thing!” Swan shouted, pointing to the probe in Matthew’s hand. Matthew slowly extended his arm and rested the probe on a random spot on the Angel’s torso. The scanner beeped and another cloud of light flickered on the display.

 Swan let out a gasp and took a cautious step toward the table.

“No way. Can it be…?”

 “Can what be what?” Matthew asked as his eyes darted between the scanner and Swan’s face. Swan’s face was alight, almost manic with enthusiasm.

Swan walked over to the table and picked up the scanner. “Do it again,” he commanded. “Poke him, again!”

Matthew grimaced. 

“For the record,” he said as he held up the probe to Swan’s face, “I’m not poking him! This is an electromagnetic probe designed to stimulate nerve endings and help track neural pathways.”

Swan waved away Matthew’s complaint. “Whatever! Just keep touching him with it. I want to see something.” His eyes were fixated on the display as Matthew continued to probe various parts of the Angel’s body. After several minutes, Swan turned his attention away from the scanner and looked at Matthew.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was an AI network node,” he said in awe. “I haven’t seen anything like this though. It’s much more advanced than the ones I used to work on.”

Matthew furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

“I used to be an AI engineer in the LTZ,” Swan explained. “I worked on the maglev operating systems.” Matthew had never thought about how the automated trains functioned. He had always assumed a centralized control system was responsible for running the trains. But, the idea of an AI managing the trains caught him off-guard.