Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder) Read online

  Sirius Academy

  Academy Diagram

  Women’s Meta-pod

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter 1 – Age Six

  Chapter 2 – Sirius Academy: Age Sixteen

  Chapter 3 – Sparring

  Chapter 4 – Roast Beef

  Chapter 5 – Schedule

  Chapter 6 – Dinner Party Conspiracy

  Chapter 7 – Workout

  Chapter 8 – Hell Week

  Chapter 9 – First Friday

  Chapter 10 – Kobiashi Maru

  Chapter 11 – Food for Thought

  Chapter 12 – Day of the Dolphin

  Chapter 13 – Celebration

  Chapter 14 – Analysis

  Chapter 15 – Coincidences

  Chapter 16 – Survival

  Chapter 17 – Smells Like Teen Spirit

  Chapter 18 – Come to Jesus Meeting

  Chapter 19 – Christmas

  Chapter 20 – Freshman Second Semester

  Chapter 21 – Advanced Seminar

  Chapter 22 – Age 6: Grandma Claudette

  Chapter 23 – Isolation Chamber

  Chapter 24 – Homecoming

  Chapter 25 – Solving Problems

  Chapter 26 – Setbacks

  Chapter 27 – Global Events

  Chapter 28 – The Day of the Bikini

  Chapter 29 – Burned

  Chapter 30 – Rally

  Chapter 31 – O Buys a Clue

  Chapter 32 – Moon Goddess

  Chapter 33 – Side-Effects May Include

  Chapter 34 – Belated Birthday

  Chapter 35 – Prospects

  Chapter 36 – Emergency Mission

  Chapter 37 – Honeymoon

  Chapter 38 – Jaws Theme Song

  Chapter 39 – Trial by Water

  Chapter 40 – Pivotal Choice

  Chapter 41 – Near Misses

  Chapter 42 – Endings

  Chapter 43 – Ascension

  Sirius Academy

  Book Two of Jezebel’s Ladder

  by Scott Rhine

  Amazon Edition

  Copyright 2012 Scott Rhine

  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.