DISCLAIMER:
This is a work of fiction. Corporations, places, and characters depicted
herein are imaginary and for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to
real companies, places, or people is coincidental.

To my wife, Tammy who
liked Jezebel the best. Thanks for 20 years of dates and late-night talks.

Thanks, also to my editors
Katy Sozaeva and Jennifer Mingee.

Cover art by
http://www.thecovercounts.com

Academy Diagram

Women’s Meta-pod

Cast of Characters

Apelu
– a Samoan rescue diver. Bodily Override talent.

Auckland
– a Maori physician who likes sports.

Benny
– Benjamin Hollis, Red’s father, former teen actor and US Ambassador to
the UN. Empathy talent.

Bermuda
Triangle
– Amanda Mori,
Kaguya’s mother and former Fortune agent. Simplification and Collective
Unconscious talents.

Claire
– Zeiss’s irresponsible sister, a model.

Claudette
– the billionaire widow of Elias Fortune, actress, and step-mother of
Daniel.

Daniel
– Daniel Fortune, alias Professor Sorenson, teaches Alien 101 and Kendo.
Confined to a wheelchair. Out of Body talent.

Desmond
– Daniel’s Jamaican bodyguard.

Green
– Syd Green, military navigator.

Grunt-Monkey
– Corporal Alistair, a martial-arts judge assisting Professor Horvath.
Canadian military, researching zero-g combat.

Herk
– Rafael Herkemer. A Polish bomb technician for the UN and inventor.

Jezebel
– Jezebel Hollis, Red’s mother, and former head of Fortune Aerospace.
Holds the record for number of talents possessed by a human.

Kaguya
– Kaguya Mori, Japanese heiress, fem fatale, and voice sculptor.
Simplification and Collective Unconscious talents.

Lou
– Captain Llewellyn, a handsome Welsh pilot.

Marsh
– head doctor on the island. Ethics talent.

Mary
– Mary
Smith, youngest daughter of PJ, a friend posing as Red in Paris finishing school.

Mercy
– oldest daughter of PJ Smith. Icarus field talent.

Merrick
– a military student expert in survival and diving. Bodily Override
talent.

Park
– a Korean star drive specialist.

PJ
–
PJ Smith is the head research scientist of Fortune Aerospace.

Rebecca
– Rebecca Hollis Ramsey, Benny’s mother and Red’s grandmother, married
to a senator.

Red
– Miracle Redemption Hollis, alias Miranda Scarlett Benson. A math prodigy and
heir to the Fortune Aerospace billions. Pattern Simplification, Collective
Unconscious, Empathy, and Quantum Computing talents.

Risa
– Sonrisa Belinda De Gama. Structural engineer and solar power, daughter
of Panamanian Ambassador to the UN, and Red’s roommate.

Rogers
– former Navy Seal and specialist in survival training.

Sojiro
– Japanese manga artist, computer programmer, and alien interfaces
expert.

Solomon
– an Ethiopian math professor who plays Go with Zeiss.

Toby
– a biologist.

Trina
– Trina Fortune, alias Nena Horvath, blonde former assassin, head of
anti-terrorism. Pair-bonded to Daniel. Simplification talent.

Vanessa
– a model friend of Zeiss’s sister.

Yvette
– a French nurse-practitioner and psychologist who specializes in
high-risk pregnancies.

Zeiss
– Conrad Zeiss, alias Z-man and the Monk. A tall mathematician and
physicist, teaching assistant for Professor Sorenson.

Chapter
1 – Age Six

“Mom, I want elephant ears!” the little girl insisted.

Miracle had been talking about the
UN “Desserts of the World” fair for the last month. Her friends in second grade,
the chauffeur, and even the gardener knew about the fundraiser for the UNICEF
vaccine program. At six, she was small, precocious, and a confirmed
candy-holic. Waiting until 7:00 a.m. to ask her mother had been grueling.

“That’s today?” asked Jezebel
Hollis. Her unwashed hair was confined by a pink clip. He face was sallow, and
her eyes had raccoon circles from exhaustion. The old, gray, UNLV sweats
contrasted with the rich, dark wood of her desk and the paneling of her study.

Her personal secretary, Trina,
replied while sorting through the pre-breakfast mountain of data that was
projected on the wall. “You’ve lost a day again, Jez. That happens when you
don’t sleep.” The platinum-blonde assistant in black short-shorts had been a
beauty contestant a decade ago and had stayed fit. Her voice had a soft, Dutch
accent, but only when she scolded. The amount of new work assignments and
research-direction changes Jez had generated that night boggled the mind. It
would take three assistants to weed out this mess, and those would need to
understand Jez’s personal shorthand.

Wealthy in her own right, Trina
could’ve quit years ago, but someone had to keep an eye on Jez. Rather than
argue, she bellowed for the boss’s husband. “Hollis!”

“Don’t tell him, please,” Jez
begged. “I think I’ve found a way to use the economic equations to overcome
some of the resistance to the Sirius Project.”

“You
need
sleep,” Trina
stressed.

“People are killing each other over
these issues. Famine is . . .”

Mira knew the tone. Mommy wouldn’t
be coming to the fair. The little girl crossed her arms and glared.

Trina smelled cookies burning. The
two women exchanged a glance. The secretary said, “Aunt Trina will take you.”

In truth, Trina was as much her
mother as Jez. The egg had been Jezebel’s, but Trina had carried the child for
nine months. They both tended knee scrapes and nightmares interchangeably. Mira
was sensitive in times of crisis, picking up on the stress of the other family
members.

“Mom, you
promised
.”

“Mommy’s wheelchair has trouble
making it through security scans,” Trina explained.

This was family code for health
issues. Jezebel rarely appeared in public, but if she looked this sick, Fortune
Aerospace stocks would plummet. Much of the company’s contracts, patents, and
future depended on the sheer force of her personality. The burning smell faded.

Benny Hollis, a graying former
actor, poked his head into the room, a mug of tea in his hand. His face lit up
with pride and joy when he spotted the little girl’s blonde curls. “How’s my
Kitten?” he asked, picking her up and spinning her around.

The smell of fresh cotton candy
filled the office as he put the girl down.

“Always working the fans,” muttered
Trina. A former UN ambassador for the United States, Benny Hollis was famous
for glad-handing crowds and signing autographs.

“Problem?” he asked.

Trina indicated Jez with her head.

He ran to her so fast that his mug
bounced off the carpet. Disengaging the brakes on his wife’s wheelchair, he
pushed her toward the bedroom. “Blast, what were you thinking?”

“If I could just convince them . .
.”

“They want to kill you,” he fumed.
“And you’re doing their work for them.”

Trina cleared her throat, covering
the word ‘kill’ from little ears.

As he wheeled her away, Jez
defended her actions. “They’re angry because they’ve been left out of the alien
science cooperative and barred from the space program.”

“They’re banned because they don’t
want to change how they behave. As a woman who reads and thinks, you’re an
affront to their cultures. Among other things, you have a
fatwah
against
you for that last article you wrote . . .”

Their argument faded with the
distance, but Mira had heard them all before. She turned to Trina. “Can Uncle
Daniel come, too?”

Trina smiled at the persistence.
“We’ll ask him. Bat your eyelashes the way I showed you.”

When they found Daniel Fortune on
the grounds, he was instructing two men in military-cadet uniforms. He stood
with the aid of two titanium crutches he called “the weapons.” His
short-sleeved, black, designer shirt showed off his powerful arm muscles and
the small, yellow biohazard tattoo on his left wrist. Even that wasn’t enough
to keep the admirers away. Sometimes he had to tell women his wife was a
trained assassin.

When Trina greeted him with a
passionate kiss, Mira smelled dark German Chocolate cake. The little girl
didn’t like the dessert, but Aunt Trina couldn’t get enough. Daniel radiated
the smell of mandarin oranges in a fruity drink from that beach in the Bahamas. The two men watching had the same sad look that dogs did when the cook threw away
a steak bone.

The youngest man complained, “It’s
too hard in daylight, sir.”

“That’s only Out of Body. Sensing
is easy,” Daniel said with confidence.

The older uniform grumbled. “You’re
just saying that because you have more experience than anyone alive.”

Daniel smiled. “Then why don’t we
let my niece show you how it’s done. If she can complete the exercise, will you
quit your whining?”

“Sure.”

“Mira, play ‘Hunt the Wumpus’.”
This was a programming-geek reference based on an ancient game where the player
had to find the monster in a multidimensional maze.

The little girl closed her eyes and
opened her special senses. “Cigarettes. Ick. No trace of gun oil.” She pointed
to a tall oak on the other side of the compound wall.

“Damn, that’s 100 feet,” said the
young trainee with awe.

“Ah . . . children and ladies
present,” warned Daniel.

“Sorry. I’m only rated at 40.”

“Practice helps you stretch,”
encouraged Mira. “When I was little, I could only do 35.”

The older trainee was already in
motion. “A paparazzi,” he shouted. As the intruder tried to climb down, several
guards apprehended him.

“Remember to be polite but firm,”
ordered Daniel.

With a Dutch accent, Trina said, “I
warned you the perimeter could be breached too easily.”

“You were right; you always are.
Have the tree removed.”

“Do we have to?” objected the girl.

“We’ll explain the necessity to our
neighbor after you ask Uncle Daniel your question.”

Mira blinked her eyes and asked,
“Could you ple-e-e-ase come with us to the dessert fair?”

The rich man sighed. “Fundraiser?”

“For a good cause,” answered his
wife.

“Elephant ears!” the girl explained
with such enthusiasm that all the adults chuckled.

“The UNICEF’s children’s
immunization program,” Trina clarified.

“Sold. I’ll bring the car around at
1:30, after you have a healthy lunch.”

****

Their armored SUV rolled up to the
security checkpoint at 2:00 p.m., with a car full of bodyguards following. “I
thought this was going to be low-key,” whispered Trina.

“Corporate security considers this
a compromise,” Daniel explained. Since he’d inherited 30 percent of a multi-billion-dollar
empire, CorpSec impinged on many daily freedoms. “Inside, we’ll just have
Desmond. They promised our support team would hang back a hundred feet. No one
will know they’re with us unless they hear the panic word or my vitals spike.”
He shifted his T-shirt to show the transmitter attached to his chest.

A human wall of muscle in
sunglasses opened the car door for them. His suit jacket wouldn’t button
because his chest was so big. The passengers hopped out at the front gate. To
Mira, the chocolate-colored man was sweet potatoes, something that you had to
have on your plate to get the good stuff. But she didn’t mind too much because
he had a hint of marshmallow around the edges when she wiggled her little
finger.

With a Jamaican accent that had
military overtones, the bodyguard said, “Evac one eez in da air, boss. Call
sign eez Alpha one-niner. Dey give us a one-hour window.”

With his trademark
crump-crump-clack rhythm, Daniel planted both crutch tips and swung his legs
forward. He bought a yard-long ribbon of tickets at the front window. “You
heard him: we have an hour to sample every sweet known to the world.”

The ladies were first through the
metal and explosive detectors. Like an airport, no weapons of any kind were
permitted. Daniel handed his metal crutches to Desmond, who gave the scan
operator the laminated doctor’s note. “Der’s a whole mess of shrapnel and rods
in dem legs, plus da braces. You’d be here all day if you count it, mon.”

Indeed, the technicians were so
busy verifying his implants and crutches that they totally missed a
multicolored ‘laser pointer’ the size of two cigarette lighters.

Mira ran for the midway, but Trina
caught her. “Pace yourself,” the adult insisted. Stopping at the first booth,
she bought a mild, mint tea. “Would you like one of these to cleanse your
pallet between samples?”

The little girl rolled her eyes.
“Elephant ears.”

“This is an education. Pastry and
desserts are an art to be savored.”

“With
lots
of powered
sugar,” Mira insisted, tugging on her aunt’s arm.

Trina watched her husband as he
passed through the screening process. “Learn to enjoy what you have now. Don’t
rush to the next thing too fast.”

Daniel ruined the whole lecture
when he approached with, “Give me an E!”

“E!” Mira shouted with glee as they
made the name of the treat into a cheer.

A pace behind the boss man, even
Desmond had a hard time not smiling.

By the time they reached the
trailer concession stand, she was bouncing with unbridled anticipation. There
were five customers ahead of them to make a purchase at the sliding, glass window.
The girl orbited the couple while they chatted.

Trina noted the propane tank by the
trailer hitch. “They have the industrial fry vats.”

“Yes!” said Daniel. “I’ve been jonesing
for a chimichanga since we got married.”

“Transfats and heart disease,” his
wife replied. “I want you around for another eighty years.”

When he thought Mira wasn’t
listening, he whispered, “Benny couldn’t be here; there’s a vote today.”

“There’s always a vote.”

“About the project. They want to
waive the morality clause needed for a government to get on the project.”

Trina shook her head. “It’ll never
happen with the US veto. Benny promised Jez that no killers would get alien
technology.”

Daniel shrugged. “So you know why
he has to be there.”

Not good at slow-moving lines in
slick grass, Daniel remained on the sidewalk. Desmond flanked him like a
shield, making sure no one bumped him.

“Thanks,” mouthed Trina, struggling
alone with the child.

Daniel chatted idly with the
bodyguard about an upcoming basketball game while both men scanned the crowds
for anomalies. Only when she was next in line did Mira settle down. “Four,
please,” said Trina. The little one stood on tip-toes to watch the mystical
process.

There were two men inside, cook and
cashier: both looked Mediterranean and wore the usual white foodservice aprons
and hats. The cashier grunted at the powdered sugar dispenser. “Let me get a
fresh one.” He bent over to pull supplies out from under the cabinet.

“Wait, make it six so we can take
some home to Mom and Dad,” said Mira, still trying to see how the treats were
made. Frustrated by lack of height, she extended her special senses. She
transmitted the scent of Turkish coffee and chromaline to the others. Daniel
was trying to pin down the elusive mental cue when the girl asked, “Why is that
hurt man sleeping under the trailer?”

Everyone stopped talking for three
heartbeats, frozen by the gaff.

“Angel one-niner, arm weapons,”
barked Daniel.

Desmond took several steps toward
the child.

Trina glanced at the cashier’s hip
and glimpsed black metal. She hopped up, reached through the window, and
grabbed the cashier’s hair. While he drew his pistol, Trina slammed his head
into the counter with a savage cry. Since she didn’t have the proper leverage,
it hadn’t been fatal. However, the armed man couldn’t see for a critical
moment. She didn’t let go of his hair. Planting both feet on the side of the
trailer, she attempted to pull him out the window. The hole was too small for
his shoulders and glass broke on both sides. The cashier’s arms were impaled by
the jagged shards, plugging the opening.

Desmond jerked the little girl off
her feet as he changed directions.

As the cook lifted a machine pistol
from a camping cooler, Trina dove behind the nearby wooden picnic table. Lead
sprayed the area, eliminating the rest of the glass and stinging Desmond’s back
and shoulders. He kept running, due to momentum and body armor. Daniel pointed
at the propane tank with his pocket laser and shouted, “
Penguin
!”

The terrorist stared at him in
puzzlement for a few seconds before swiveling the gun barrel toward the
billionaire. Then A19 fired on the designated target. The propane tank
exploded, taking the entire trailer with it in a fireball. Shrapnel and the
cashier’s body were launched across the grassy expanse.

“Evac!” called the billionaire
unnecessarily, hobbling away in the same direction that Desmond had darted.

“Copy. Evac front gate in T minus
four,” came the calm response from the pointer.

Trina crawled toward the cashier’s
body to find a weapon.

Desmond cradled the girl in his
arms like a football as he called over his throat mic, “I have Precious Cargo,
heading toward LZ one. ETA—”

BOOK: Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder)

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