The Return of the Fallen

Book 2

By

Kai Stormhaven

Chapter 1

The weeks seem to blur as Aria slowly adjusted to life without her sister. She felt like a piece of her soul was missing as she trudged through one day after another. Her Uncle had visited her a few weeks later, offering her a job at a small record label he had purchased. She knew he was rich, but her parents had no idea where he had come by the money. She frowned as the thought occurred to her, a whisper of a memory tickling the back of her mind. She shrugged it away and bent back over the computer in the front office of the studio.

A woman entered the office, along with three men who all fit the rock band stereotype. Long hair, leather jackets, various chains hanging around their bodies. The woman was tall, with long brown hair that reached to her waist. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Her face was pretty, with dark brown eyes that sparkled with life.

“Hi, we have the studio booked for the next two hours,” the woman informed her with a friendly smile. “It should be under the name Mandy Molletto.”

Aria nodded at Mandy, feeling a hollow smile on her face as she began clicking through windows on the screen. “Hi Mandy, let me get you checked in. The sound engineer is Robbie. He’s ready for you in the back, so go ahead and go on back.”

“Thank you…” the woman paused, looking at her questioningly.

“Aria,” Aria supplied, smiling perfunctorily.

“What a fitting name to work in a studio,” Mandy commented with a grin. “Thank you, Aria.”

Aria nodded with another attempt at a smile that was offset by her dull and lifeless green eyes.

Mandy stared into her eyes for several seconds, a look of concern on her face. Her band mates finally pulled her along with them into the studio. Aria looked back down at her screen and started writing some lyrics again. The doctors had told her that she should find an outlet for the grief, be it music, writing, or something physical.

One of the perks of working at the studio was that she could use the equipment after business hours to record her own songs. It had taken a few days to master the sound equipment and recording applications. She spent most of her nights recording tracks late into the night. Sometimes she could almost forget the hemorrhaging wound on her soul when she lost herself in the zone of creating new songs.

XXXXX

Mandy followed her guitarists back into the studio and found Robbie waiting for them. He nodded when she arrived, offering a handshake.

“I’m Robbie,” he introduced himself. He had a shaved head and a goatee. He wore jeans with a t-shirt and exuded a casual professionalism.

“I’m Mandy,” she smiled, feeling a bubbly sense of excitement that she was finally in a professional studio putting an album together. “Our drummer is out for a while, so we were hoping you could just add a drum track for us.”

Robbie rubbed his bald head, his expression thoughtful. “I could do that. I should probably mention that Aria, the receptionist, is a pretty talented musician and can tear up a drum set. She’s had a rough patch since her sister died a few months ago, so filling in for your drummer might be beneficial for both of you.”

Mandy felt a swell of sympathy as she remembered the look of pain in Aria’s eyes. “That sounds pretty rough. Were they close?”

“They had been best friends since their parents married when they were seven,” Robbie nodded, a sad smile on his face. “They lived together before the accident and were practically tied at the hip.”

Mandy sighed, feeling some of her excited energy plateau. “Yeah, I’ll go see if she’s up for some drumming.”

Mandy walked back out and leaned over the tall desk, her dark eyes full of compassion. “Our drummer was in an accident a few days ago and won’t be with us for a few weeks. We were just going to put some drum tracks in, but Robbie mentioned that you are an amazing drummer. Could we hire you to fill in for our drummer for a little while?”

Aria looked at her, those green eyes full of so much barely concealed pain that Mandy wanted to weep. Aria nodded slowly and stood up.

“Okay, sure,” Aria agreed, taking a deep breath. “But no need to hire me. It’s on the house.”

Mandy hesitated for a moment but then nodded. She walked back into the studio with Aria and discussed the metrics for the current song. In short order they gathered their instruments as Robbie prepared the sound equipment. Aria went into the drum room and put on some large headphones and waited for them to begin.

Mandy spent the next two hours in awe as Aria seamlessly melded her rhythm to their style of music. There was no question that she was more talented than their own drummer. Mandy almost dreaded the return of Jake, their recovering drummer.

As they were wrapping things up, Mandy made her way over to where Aria was exiting the drum room.

“Aria, that was freaking amazing!” Mandy exclaimed, grinning at her excitedly. “Thank you so much for filling in.”

Jared, Tim, and Mike joined her in their effusive display of gratitude, remarking on what an amazing drummer she was.

Aria had smiled and thanked them, her eyes hollow as she went back to the front desk.

“Man, that is one wrecked person,” Tim commented sadly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so devoid of life while still living.”

Mandy nodded her agreement, feeling a pang of sorrow at how cruel life could be. “Maybe we can have her play some more for us over the next few weeks.”

“Yeah, let’s get as much of her talent as we can before Jake recovers,” Jared commented wryly. “No offense to your cousin, Mike, but Aria was orders of magnitude better than him at drums.”

“You should see her on guitar,” Robbie told them with a rueful shake of his head. “I’ve seen some pretty good musicians over the years, but I’ve never seen anyone tear up a fretboard like Aria.”

“How many instruments does she play?” Mandy asked curiously.

“Pretty much all of them,” Robbie replied, his eyes impressed. “I’ve never seen her play any brass, but give her any stringed, percussion, or woodwind instrument and she’ll go to town. She stays and records late into the night. I’m not sure she ever even sleeps.”

XXXXX

Mandy arrived at the studio alone, feeling the brisk night air on her bare arms as she swiped her fob against the reader and entered the building. After four weeks of recording, they had completed their album. Aria had continued filling in for their drummer, her eyes never changing from the dull pain Mandy had seen on the first day. She knew loss was difficult to overcome, but usually time helped to dull the pain. Time didn’t seem to be helping in Aria’s case. She was functional and communicative, but she seemed to be completely checked out of life with no plans to return.

She had tried to invite Aria to go out with her and the band to eat or any other kind of entertainment, but she had politely declined. Mandy felt a driving need to do something to help Aria heal, at least a little bit. Now that they were finished with their album, they wouldn’t be seeing Aria anymore. Mandy wasn’t willing to give up so easily. If Aria really did spend her nights composing, then she was going to have company.

As she entered the front office, she could hear the sound of instruments being played from deeper in the studio. She walked back and quietly entered the main room. Aria was playing a harp to the accompaniment of some other tracks she had already recorded. Her eyes were closed and there were tears running down her cheeks as she played. Mandy felt her own eyes moisten as she watched her play. Despair blanketed the room as Aria played a song of loss and pain of such magnitude that rocks would weep to hear it.

Aria began to sing, her voice like a thumbscrew to the soul as she sang of a life devoid of hope and joy. It was the most beautiful voice Mandy had ever heard. It ravaged her soul with grief as she felt the devastation in Aria’s heart, a devastation too great to recover from. Mandy hugged herself as she wept, her heart breaking as she watched the broken woman in front of her grieve in soul crushing anguish.

As Aria finished singing, she slid to the ground and curled into a ball of grief, weeping bitterly. Large, wracking sobs shook her body as she wailed her sorrow.

Mandy walked over and knelt down beside Aria. She hesitantly reached out and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. Aria looked up, her face filled with grief. Mandy felt a renewed wave of pity as she saw the level of pain in Aria’s green eyes.

“What was she like?” Mandy asked, wiping the tears from her own eyes.

Aria stared at her blankly for several seconds. She closed her eyes as more tears flowed.

“She was the most caring and amazing person in this world,” Aria whispered, shuddering as she spoke. “She was always there for me through the worst life had to offer. Always smiling and joking. I could handle anything in life if she were by my side. I can’t do it without her. I can’t keep going. This place is an empty wasteland, a hollow shell that just echoes with promises that will never be.”

“If she were here right now, what would she tell you?” Mandy asked softly, gently stroking her shoulder with a comforting hand.

Aria stared at her, then let out a half laugh half sob. “She would have told me to stop having a pity party in front of a beautiful woman.”

Mandy laughed, blushing lightly at the odd compliment. “Was she also a musician?”

Aria nodded, smiling sadly. “She was always better at everything than me. She gave me something to strive for in life. She was so smart and talented with everything she touched. She had a heart of gold. Even though she loved to turn everything into a joke, she was always so compassionate and gentle when I was struggling the most.”

“She sounds pretty amazing,” Mandy murmured wistfully. “I would have loved to see the kind of music the two of you could make, considering how good it is with just you.”

“She had the voice of an angel,” Aria reminisced, her face growing confused for a moment.

“What’s the matter?” Mandy asked, concern in her eyes.

Aria shook her head and sighed forlornly. “I’m just losing my marbles. I keep having memories of some other lifetime where she is still alive. The doctors said I’m suffering from denial with grief confabulation and fabricating memories to cope. Sometimes the memories seem so real though. Certain things seem to trigger them, like the word angel.”

“I can’t even imagine what you must be going through,” Mandy told her sympathetically. “I’m not very close to my siblings or parents. What was her name?”

“Clarice,” Aria whispered, her eyes leaking more tears as she spoke her name. “How can I go on without Clarice? We were supposed to have forever in front of us.”

“Will you come with me?” Mandy asked her anxiously, her dark eyes pleading. “I’m going to get some food. You look like you are wasting away. Please come with me?”

Aria hesitated, her grief-stricken eyes dubious. As she stared into Mandy’s pleading gaze, she seemed to cave, much to Mandy’s delight.

“We’ll just get some takeout,” Mandy assured her gently. “We can eat it by the river. I go there to think sometimes.”

Mandy stood up and offered a hand to Aria. She had still been lying on her side from where she had curled up in grief. She took Mandy’s hand and Mandy pulled her up. As she felt how light Aria was, she nearly wept. How long had it been since Aria had eaten to be so light?

As Aria stood up, Mandy pulled her into a warm embrace, willing her to feel better. She gasped when she felt a flood of positive energy fill her soul.

“Thank you, Mandy,” Aria choked out, her voice once again thick with emotion. “I wish Clarice could have met you. You really are a wonderful person. I know I’m a total wreck. Thank you for being such a caring person.”

As soon as Mandy pulled back, the flood of positive energy stopped. She stared at Aria curiously as they walked out of the studio and got into Mandy’s Pathfinder. There was something very odd about the beautiful crimson haired musician. She couldn’t articulate what it was, but there was something very special about Aria.

They remained quiet for the first part of the drive. Mandy wracked her brains to find something to get Aria talking. They arrived at a Chinese takeout restaurant right before it closed. Mandy ordered a variety of entrees, hoping to get Aria to eat something. While they waited at the window, a woman appeared to take her card.

The woman said something in Mandarin, but the only words Mandy understood were fifty five.

“Did she really just call us American swine?” Aria asked in disbelief.

Mandy stared at Aria in surprise. She opened her mouth to reply, but the woman was back at the window with her card. She spoke again and was immediately replied to in the same Mandarin by Aria, who looked both amused and outraged.

The woman’s face went white as she stared at Aria in shock, then she began apologizing profusely. “Sorry, sorry, I make mistake.”

“You might want to check your food for spit or other foreign objects,” Aria suggested as she stared at the retreating woman’s back dubiously. “They seem to have an anti-American vibe going here.”

“Where did you learn to speak Chinese?” Mandy asked curiously, happy that there was something to get her talking.

“I do?” Aria stared at her in confusion, her brows drawn down in puzzlement.

“You just carried on a whole conversation with that woman in Chinese,” Mandy told her slowly.

“I did?” Aria asked, looking nonplussed. “We weren’t speaking English?”

“Definitely Chinese,” Mandy confirmed, once again feeling the odd sense that there was something very special about Aria.

Aria stared back at her, the void in her eyes filling with a glimmer of hope. “Maybe I’m not as crazy as I thought,” Aria murmured, her eyes slowly coming back to life as she stared back at Mandy intently. “In this other world I lived, I spoke all of the languages.”

“Can you tell me about this other world?” Mandy asked curiously. She hoped she wasn’t harming Aria by encouraging her to talk about her delusions.

“It’s pretty wild,” Aria responded, her voice no longer devoid of life as she appeared to find a tendril of hope to cling to. “It’s definitely way out in the fantasy realm. I can understand why it seems so crazy. It’s just that it seemed so real. I remember conversations, events, and experiences that seem too detailed for me to have fabricated.”

“Were you in another world?” Mandy asked, pausing for a moment as the Chinese woman handed their food through the window. “Or were things just different here?”

“It was here. It all started when I was ten years old and this person named Calypso healed me and my sister in the hospital,” Aria began, her eyes far away. “I was given a few days to live after battling cancer for several years. Clarice wasn’t far behind me. This woman named Calypso volunteered to visit children’s hospitals and played songs for them. My parents had transferred me to one of the hospitals she visited due to the patient recovery rates being so much higher in that region. When Calypso sang to the children at the hospital, I was too sick to be moved down to the conference room where she performed. When Calypso heard that I was too sick to come down, she begged the receptionist and my parents to let her come and play for me in my room. My parents brought her up after seeing her perform for the other kids. She brought a harp and a laptop with wireless speakers she set around the room. She had prerecorded several other instrument tracks that she would play to accompany her harp while she sang. She played the most beautiful song I had ever heard. It shook my soul and filled me with fiery determination. I noticed while she was playing that she had lavender colored eyes. She wore tinted glasses but took them off while she played. I could feel so much power when she looked at me with those lavender eyes. When she finished playing, both Clarice and I felt completely healed. My mom had noticed that Calypso was more than she seemed, so when we appeared to be healed, she insisted we stop receiving treatment and go home. Our hair started growing back the next day and we spent the next fifteen years living totally normal lives. I graduated high school early and became a physicist.”

“That’s a pretty detailed memory,” Mandy commented as she drew closer to her favorite thinking spot by the river.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Aria laughed, and it was like the sun coming up. Mandy felt joy flood her soul at the sound of that glorious laughter. “While growing up there was a YouTube channel called NOTESTOREMEMBER that eventually became the most popular channel on YouTube. It was a musician who always wore a mask, but it didn’t hide her lavender eyes. We knew who she was, of course, but we promised each other to never reveal Calypso’s true identity. She went on to become the most famous musician in the world, but nobody had any idea who she really was. She never replied to comments or posted anything in the descriptions except the date. It was a channel completely dedicated to music. Her music was so transcendental and uplifting that it regularly changed people’s lives. There were so many people on the brink of ending their lives who found renewed hope and solace after hearing one of Calypso’s songs. She was a true virtuoso, a master of every instrument. There were hundreds of YouTube channels where musicians would analyze her technique and skill. Very few guitarists could play some of her more complex songs, and the things she could do on a violin were mind blowing. Her performance at the hospital was the reason we originally became interested in music and began playing all of the instruments, but it was her YouTube channel that put our ambitions into overdrive. I think we secretly wanted to show her how much we had learned at some point. My story starts after she uploaded one of her weekly YouTube songs and Clarice and I decided to go see if she was still visiting those hospitals so that we could thank her for healing us all of those years ago.”

Mandy marveled at the level of realism in Aria’s delusion. How could her mind have just invented so much detail for a story that was imaginary? “So did you find her again?”

“Oh yeah, we found her,” Aria laughed ruefully.

They exited the car with the go-bag of food and moved over to a bench near the river and sat down. Mandy silently cursed herself for not grabbing a jacket. The night air was getting brisk in the late summer. She glanced at Aria and noticed that she seemed completely untouched by the cold air.

“What kind of food do you like?” Mandy asked as she rifled through the bag. “Eggrolls?”

Aria blinked as she looked at the food with a peculiar expression. “I can’t eat, I don’t have a stomach.”

Mandy frowned as she studied Aria’s face worriedly. “When’s the last time you ate anything?”

“I haven’t eaten anything since Clarice…” Aria couldn’t seem to bring herself to say it. “We didn’t eat in the other world because we didn’t have stomachs. I was so used to not eating that I hadn’t realized that I haven’t eaten for months.”

Mandy peered at her in concern as she realized this delusion could have serious health implications if she thought she didn’t have a stomach.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Aria sighed, looking into Mandy’s concerned eyes apologetically. “Maybe it is part of this delusion, and I only think I don’t have a stomach. When I was still an angel my eyes were golden. You would think I would be able to accept that I’m a normal mortal again, considering my eyes are green again, I don’t have wings, and my super senses are gone. If it was nighttime I could prove to myself that I’m no longer an angel, since I would no longer have night vision.”

Mandy blinked, looking out at the dark waters in the dim starlight. She held up the bag of food and pulled the receipt off of the staple. It was completely indecipherable to Mandy in the dark night. She handed it to Aria with a sense of curious anticipation. “Does this receipt have the name of that lady that called us American swine on it somewhere?”

Aria glanced at it briefly and shook her head. “It’s just got a cashier number and the date. This was freaking expensive. I’ll give you some money when we get back to the car.”

Mandy shivered, and it was only partially related to the cold night air. She is able to see in the dark!

“So, angels, huh?” Mandy prompted, feeling an odd sense of anticipation. “Is that later in the story?

Aria nodded with a lopsided smile as she stared out at the river. “We talked to the receptionist at the hospital, Julia, and she was ecstatic that we had come back to see Calypso. She had been working there since before I was healed and had watched Calypso come into the hospital every other week for over fifteen years. She suspected that Calypso was healing the children but stayed silent so that the healings wouldn’t stop. We went back to the conference room where Calypso performed and waited for her. I had some serious PTSD from the many years I spent in the hospital undergoing cancer treatments. Clarice was there to hold my hand and comfort me. She was always there for me.” Aria paused reflectively as she stared into the river. “Anyway, we were expecting a forty-year-old woman when Calypso came to play for the children. Instead, we found the same exact person, looking not a day over twenty. We had suspected she was special, considering she healed us of a terminal illness, but this still shocked us. When she entered the room, you could feel a wave of benevolent love wash over you. We re-introduced ourselves to her, but she remembered our names. She was ecstatic to see some of her former ‘little ones’ as she later referred to us. She gave us a hug, and it was like being wrapped in a blanket of positivity and love. We referred to them as Calypso hugs. You just never wanted them to end. We watched her perform for the children and it truly was like magic. You could see the moment they were healed. We also discovered the reason that she set up the surround sound speakers was to disguise the fact that the harmonizing voices were coming from her in real time, not from the laptop. When she finished healing all of the children and the nurses took them back to their rooms, she came over and talked to us. We discovered that she had no idea that her YouTube channel was the most popular channel in the world. She used an app on her laptop to upload them and never actually looked at the channel. We asked her how she looked so young. She was totally unaware of the actual date.” Aria chuckled as her eyes reminisced what was clearly a tender memory for her. “She was shocked to find out that it was 2025. She was just over a hundred years old. She never looked in mirrors and was oblivious to anything but her music and the children she healed, so she had been unaware of the decades flying by, or the fact that she didn’t seem to age. We exchanged contact info and talked her into letting us come and drive her to the next hospital visit a few days later. She was so excited to have some friends. She hadn’t even realized how lonely she was. She’s the kind of people pleaser that doesn’t want to let other people do anything for her for fear that it will be an imposition. We had to be kind of pushy to get past her concerns that she would be inconveniencing us. On our way home, we discovered that some reddit user had discovered her identity after a cousin at one of the hospitals had recorded part of her performance. They revealed both that she was healing children and that she was the mysterious owner of the NOTESTOREMEMBER YouTube channel after seeing her lavender eyes. We immediately turned around and drove to her house, arriving at the same time that she did. We convinced her to come with us to our house before the media and the government showed up. We were afraid they would think she was an alien or something and dissect her. That turned out to be a wise move, as we learned later. During our drive home we discovered that she didn’t ever sleep. Once we got to our apartment we also discovered that she never eats. We started theorizing that she might be an amnesiac angel. Okay, Clarice theorized that she was an amnesiac angel, which turned out to be the case.”

Mandy was feeling a sense of vertigo as Aria recounted her story. It was like she could hear echoes of that other reality. When she spoke the name Calypso, it rang like a bell in her head. Aria noticed her behavior and paused, watching her with concern.

“Mandy?” Aria asked worriedly. “Are you okay?”

“Maybe?” Mandy answered slowly. “I feel like reality is bending around me or something. This Calypso person sounds so familiar, like a name I should recognize but it’s just out of reach.”

Aria looked down the path next to the river, her face suddenly wary. “Do you get many creeps along here in the day?”

“Aria, it’s nighttime,” Mandy told her softly. “I can’t see a thing.”

Aria paused, her breathing suddenly coming quicker. “Could it be real?” she whispered with so much hope in her voice that it nearly broke Mandy’s heart.

A beam of light suddenly illuminated them as four men walked around the bend in the path by the river. They paused when they saw the two young women, then moved forward.

“Isn’t it a bit late for you two lovely ladies to be outside all alone?” a leering voice asked from the man holding the flashlight.

“They look cold,” another man’s voice noted, filled with provocative suggestion. “I think we should help them get warm.”

“They look lonely too,” the third man drawled in a southern accent. “Let’s show them where the wild goose goes.”

“I’m only going to warn you guys once to get lost,” Aria told them in a tone that sent shivers down Mandy’s spine. There was a hint of ethereal power behind it that threatened a future of pain if ignored.

The men halted when they heard her voice, with one of them even backing up a step. The one in the lead, laughed raucously and started pulling his belt off.

“We should run,” Mandy whispered into Aria’s ear. She felt a shiver of terror as she realized there was no way they could get into the car without being overtaken. She felt Aria’s hand take hold of hers and suddenly all of the fear drained out of her, replaced by overwhelming joy and love. She gasped as the emotional overload nearly made her fall over.

“It’s okay, I’ll take care of them,” Aria assured her as she stood up and faced the four men.

The first man had finished taking off his belt and was holding it like a whip. He grinned as she approached him. “I like a girl with spirit.”

“Oh my god, please tell me I imagined him saying that,” Aria groaned despairingly.

He swung his belt forward like a whip toward Aria’s face with another laugh. The laugh cut off as Aria snatched the belt out of the air and then jerked it out of his hands like he was a toddler. Mandy felt a sudden sense of foreboding as waves of righteous fury rolled off of Aria in waves. The man in the back seemed to have a stronger survival instinct, because he turned and ran back the way he had come. The first man snarled after losing his belt and lumbered forward with a heavy swing of his meaty fist. Aria caught his fist, stopping the punch effortlessly. Then she squeezed. The man suddenly dropped to his knees with a scream as the sound of breaking bones cracked loudly in the night. His buddy rushed up past him and dived at Aria with grabbing hands. She kicked up and planted her foot into his clavicle, knocking him back into the river fifteen feet away with a piteous scream of pain. The third man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at her threateningly.

“Get down onto the ground, facedown,” he bellowed, his voice a mixture of fear and rage.

“No,” Aria responded coldly, pushing the first man backward by his broken hand so hard that he also rolled into the river with a splash and a scream.

“I mean it,” the man blustered, more fear than rage in his voice now.

“If you turn and leave right now, I’ll let you leave with all of your bones intact,” Aria told him in a quiet voice that was even more terrifying than if she had shouted. “If you pull that trigger, it’s going to be worse than broken bones for you.”

Mandy gasped as she noticed a dim glow emanating off of Aria’s skin. The man pointing the gun at her certainly noticed. With a terrified yelp, he turned and ran back down the path.

The glow around Aria vanished as she sighed and walked back to the bench. She sat down with her head in her hands. “I can’t believe I’ve heard someone say they like a girl with spirit twice now. Do guys really go around saying that? I’m blaming Hollywood.”

Mandy just stared at her silently, too stunned to speak. As the silence stretched on, Aria turned to face her.

“Are you okay, Mandy?” Aria asked, concern heavy in her voice. “I’m sorry you had to deal with those scum. I remember how scary it could be.”

“Aria, you were glowing,” Mandy finally managed to get out in a strangled voice.

Aria sighed again, her shoulders slumping. “How am I supposed to know what’s real and what’s fake? Are you a product of my imagination, Mandy? Am I so desperate to have Clarice back that I’ve fabricated this entire experience?”

Mandy started shivering in the cold air as her adrenaline finally wore off. She felt a pang of sympathy for Aria as she watched her battle with her own mind. What must she be going through right now if she couldn’t even trust the reality around her to be real?

“What happened after Calypso joined you?” Mandy asked through chattering teeth.

Aria snapped out of her daze and looked at Mandy with concern. “You’re freezing. Here, let me warm you up.”

Aria slid closer to her and wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close. Mandy gasped as she once again felt love suffuse her soul. All thoughts of being cold vanished as she reveled in the warm comfort of Aria’s love infused embrace.

“You hugs feel like what you described Calypso’s hugs feeling like,” Mandy murmured contentedly. “I feel so loved and happy right now.”

Aria shifted slightly, and Mandy felt her doubt. She must have been doubting her reality again.

“Aria, I know you’re worried this is all in your head,” Mandy told her softly. “But so what if it is? Would you rather go back to what you felt before?”

She felt Aria shiver. “No, I never ever want to feel that loss again. I’m just so so afraid that I’ll get my hopes up that she is still alive somewhere, and that I can find her again, just to have reality destroy me again. I know I won’t survive that kind of loss again.”

“Then let me help you figure it out,” Mandy suggested gently. “Tell me the rest of your story and let’s figure out what really happened. I’ve seen enough to know you’re not crazy. There is something very special about you, and I feel like I can help you, if you’ll let me.”

The sense of love flooding her system intensified as Aria pulled her in tighter. “Mandy, if you are real and I’m not crazy, you are one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. That’s a really high bar to reach. Thank you so much, Mandy.”

“You’re so welcome, Aria,” Mandy whispered affectionately.

Aria took a deep breath, resting her cheek on top of Mandy’s head as she held her close. “While we were at our apartment, we discovered that acts of love seemed to cause Calypso to evolve her abilities. She had never experienced any kind of personal contact with other people, aside from hugs. I gave her a shoulder massage and she was overcome by emotion. Her eyes changed from a misty lavender to a sharp violet with a lavender ring around the iris. Her eyes were already more like an anime character than a human, so when the color changed it was very noticeable. A little while later Clarice gave her a back massage on her massage table. It triggered another evolution, making her eyes actually glow. When Calypso cried, her tears were like quicksilver. They usually evaporated into the air before landing, but one of her tears landed on me and another on Clarice. It triggered a kind of rejuvenation and actually made our features change, becoming more feminine. Both Clarice and I started having a bad premonition and so we decided to go to my mom’s house. That turned out to be a good thing, since our apartment blew up a little while later. While we were driving, there was this idiot biker who was trying to show off next to us. He ended up wrecking and dying. Calypso brought him back to life and healed him. There were a lot of people who knew what Calypso looked like since that reddit post went viral, so we ended up getting captured on video by a lot of people. After we left, we called my mom for advice on how to hide Calypso. Now that people knew she was with us we were sure it wouldn’t take long for people to find our parent’s house as well. My mom called my uncle, who happened to work for a shadow agency that controlled most of the world governments. He had a cabin we were able to hide out in the mountains. While we were there, we discovered that angel tears are like seeds, and that after one touched you, you turn into an angel if you say a specific phrase. Both Clarice and I turned into angels, and later my mom and dad. We were still trying to verify that we were actually angels, but we were pretty sure after Clarice gave Calypso a back massage because we found these ridges under her skin where it looked like wings would attach.”

“What was the phrase to turn a human into an angel?” Mandy asked in fascination.

“You had to swear to vanquish evil,” Aria answered with a small smile. “We did a lot of floundering as we struggled to understand what angels really were. I’m going to condense the story and give you the broader outline. This is basically the creation story. In the beginning, there were nine beings called Seraphim. They consulted a thing they referred to as god and found instructions for creating the realms of light and angels. There were three light realms, with the more powerful angels populating the higher realms. After millions of years, some of the angels began to grow bored with eternity, and some of them became hostile in their boredom. Angels were immortal beings and could not be killed, so there wasn’t a law that could be enforced with any kind of punishments. The Seraphim created the Cherubim and gave them the ability to kill immortal entities. The angels who sought an end to their immortal lives were given an end, and the ones who were tormenting other angels were also given an end. This worked for a long time, but eventually there were so many angels getting bored with eternity that the number of angels seeking an end grew concerning to the Seraphim. They consulted this god entity again and were given instructions for building the mortal realm, where angels could incarnate without any memory of their former self and live a life where they could experience sorrow, pain, and loss. Angels can’t feel things like pain and discomfort, and they have perfect memory recall. The angels who went through an incarnation in the mortal realm returned with the memory of pain and loss. It made them realize just how amazing the positive energy was that suffused their bodies. Angels don’t have organs like humans. They have a matrix of meridians and nodes where positive energy flows, filling them with love and joy all of the time. After experiencing life without that energy, the angels who returned suddenly knew just how wonderful they had it in the light realms. Their perfect recall made it so that the memory of mortality never faded and the positive energy charging their souls was always profound. Only one third of the angels experienced mortality. Many of the angels, including four of the Seraphim, were afraid of becoming mortal. They wanted to limit the use of mortality to a rehabilitation system for angels who were hostile. Five of the Seraphim wanted everyone to experience mortality at least once. Many of the Cherubim were terrified of losing their power and convinced the four Seraphim that there was a plot to supplant them while they were in the mortal realm. They used the divine instruments to re-write reality, attempting to kill four of the Seraphim. Instead of dying, the four Seraphim were exiled into the mortal realm. One of the four was transformed into a demon lord. The remaining three were forced into the incarnation loop where they became humans. The fifth Seraphim took two of the four divine instruments down into the mortal realm and hid them. Seraphim are too powerful to have a single soul in a mortal body, so our souls are divided, inhabiting two bodies. I found the other half of my spirit when we met a being called the Lore Boar. Calypso played her divine instrument when we met him. When her song was complete, he was gone, and my divine instrument remained with the other half of my soul inside of it. The four Seraphim who were afraid of mortality attempted to use the remaining two divine instruments to unmake Grodek, but the instruments fractured while they were being played. Grodek survived but he ended up as an imp. After the last two instruments fractured they became scattered throughout the mortal realm on Earth. The Seraphim used the mortal realm as a political prison for any angels who objected to their view of reality. They had also created demons early on to punish those who were hostile. The demons discovered a way to turn angels into demons eventually, and in our current time there were almost no angels left. Demons are driven by a lust for power and will do terrible things to get it. They are also subservient to the will of their demon lord, so even the angels who were forced into becoming demons were forced to do evil. What was meant to be a place for spirits to grow and experience the spectrum of human emotions was instead turned into a prison where demons controlled almost everything in the world. Countless angels are stuck in a reincarnation loop, unable to return to the light realms because four Seraphim are too scared to experience mortality once. That’s the scene where Calypso and the rest of us entered the picture.”

Mandy felt shell-shocked as she listened to the story. It seemed so fantastical that it couldn’t be true, but something about it resonated with her soul. She felt like she had been submerged in water her whole life and had just taken her first peak at the sky and the land up above.

“So how did you avoid the demons that were running the world?” Mandy asked, completely captivated by the story.

“When we first discovered demons were real, it was when we were tracking down a police chief who had been involved in child trafficking. We tracked him down to a bunker underneath a silo in an abandoned dairy farm. When we went down into the bunker we discovered forty children being tortured while their blood was drained to make a drug for the demon lords. We vaporized the demons with angel fire before rescuing the children. It was a pretty horrific ordeal. Calypso was able to wipe most of their memories, or their minds wouldn’t have recovered. That was our first encounter with demons. We were worried that there would be more powerful demons that would wipe us out. We had only been angels for a few days while many of the demons had been there for thousands of years. We thought they would be immeasurably powerful. We didn’t know anything about Seraphim, Cherubim, or any of the other ranks of angels at that time. However, it became clear before long that there were not going to be any demons we could not handle. We discovered that Calypso was a Seraph, and we thought we were Cherubim, since we were told only Cherubim could kill immortals. It turned out that Clarice and I were the other two Seraphim. Lucifer was the fourth. Up until that point, once an angel became a demon, there was no going back. They believed they were stuck as demons for all eternity. Calypso changed that when she redeemed the first demon. When she redeemed Lucifer, we were now four Seraphim strong, with Grodek still waiting to be redeemed. We had two of the divine instruments. Calypso had the harp, and I had the tin whistle along with the rest of my soul. Clarice had just received a large piece of one of the broken divine instruments as well as the other half of her soul. We were so close to the point where we could rewrite reality and remove the four renegade Seraphim from the upper light realms. We had just helped four of our human friends ascend as angels when a wave of vertigo hit me and the next thing I remember was waking up in the apartment that had been blown up, and Clarice was…gone.”

Aria frowned as she rewound her memory to just before the end. “Calypso had known they were rewriting reality…I remember now. She said they are doing a rewrite, don’t believe any-…and then she cut off.”

“Wow,” Mandy breathed in wonder. “I don’t think people have delusions that complex, do they?”

“According to the doctors, they could theoretically get that complex,” Aria sighed, feeling a sense of frustration at not being able to trust anything in her mind. “They said the delusions usually don’t have backstories, but that it’s still consistent with someone suffering from overwhelming grief. I mean, if you step back from the bigger picture, what’s more likely? That I had an angel save me from cancer and then went on an epic quest with my sister and said angel to save the cosmos from renegade Seraphim, or that I’m unable to accept the death of my sister and will invent anything to give myself some kind of hope that she is still out there somewhere? If we look at the facts, it makes it pretty obvious that I’m suffering from delusions. My apartment is still there. Calypso’s YouTube channel doesn’t exist and never has. My reality is in shambles, and I can’t trust anything I see. I’m pretty sure you are a figment of my imagination too, just like those guys I imagined beating up.”

Mandy pulled back slightly from Aria and stared up into her eyes, unable to see them in the dark, but knowing Aria could see hers. “I am not a figment of your imagination. I don’t know how to convince you of that, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Would you rather fall deeper into a fantasy where your sister still lives and angels are real, or go back to where I found you last night, on the floor wishing you were dead?”

Aria’s breath caught at her words. She stared back at Mandy with golden tears in her golden eyes as an ethereal glow began emanating from her skin. The energy Mandy felt coursing through Aria suddenly burst out like a super nova, washing over everything and turning night to day. “I will not accept this reality!”

Reality shattered and the world folded in on itself. Mandy gasped in shock as Aria held her tightly. She stared in awe at Aria as she beheld the large wings on her back and the overpowering presence of a being more powerful than she could imagine. There was nothing but a black void in every direction. Aria began laughing as huge golden tears coursed down her cheeks, one of them landing on Mandy. Mandy felt her whole body fill up with warmth as she began to glow softly.

Aria held Mandy tightly to her like a teddy bear as golden tears of relief ran down her cheeks. “Thank you, Mandy. Thank you thank you thank you.”

Chapter 2

“It’s a rewrite,” Calypso gasped. “Aria, Clarice, don’t believe anything you see or hear!“

Aria rippled like a mirage and vanished.

“Noooooo!” Clarice screamed in soul wrenching horror. “Aria!”

“She’s not dead,” Calypso assured Clarice quickly, focusing her will on the connection to their soul where Aria remained burning brightly. “The other Seraphim are trying to imprison her in a fake reality. They don’t have the divine instruments, so they can’t change very much from what exists here.”

“How do we get her back?” Emily demanded, her eyes blazing with fury. “How do we get to these other Seraphim and make them bring her back?”

“The only way we can win against them is with the four divine instruments,” Calypso answered, frustration clear in her voice. “I’m guessing that is why they targeted Aria. It would have been either her or me, and I don’t think it would have worked on me.”

“What can we do?” Clarice begged, her teary eyes full of pleading. “There has to be something we can do!”

Calypso sighed dejectedly. “It all depends on Aria. She has to realize the reality she is in isn’t real and refuse to accept it. She will figure it out, eventually. They can’t keep a Seraph’s mind trapped in a false reality for too long, even a Seraph that hasn’t fully awakened. They are just buying time with this action.”

“How are they doing it at all without a divine instrument?” Lexi asked as she rested a comforting hand on Clarice’s shoulder.

“They reside in the highest light realm,” Calypso answered, her eyes watching Clarice worriedly. “The power available in that realm is far beyond anything in the other light realms, and far beyond what is available in the mortal realm. It’s the realm of creative potential. I would imagine it took every bit of power the four of them could channel to make a false reality strong enough to contain a budding Seraph.”

“I want my daughter back,” Eric growled, his eyes blazing with anger. “If I have to find a way to kill a Seraph in the highest realm, so be it.”

Lucifer suddenly materialized in their midst, his sapphire eyes scanning the room. “Was it Aria they took?”

“Yes,” Calypso answered miserably. “I just don’t know enough yet to prevent an attack like that.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Lucifer apologized as he observed the agitated family of angels. “I came as soon as I felt the splinter reality form.”

“What can we do?” Clarice asked him, her voice beseeching.

“We can break the other reality,” Lucifer replied hesitantly. “However, it will take time and could harm Aria. I have an idea that might help her break herself out though.”

“What?” Emily asked eagerly.

“We can try to send someone from this reality into the false reality,” Lucifer expounded, frowning in thought. “It will need to be a regular human, because this alternate reality doesn’t have angels.”

“You can send a human from this reality into the place where Aria has gone?” Clarice asked, her brows creased.

“Technically, I won’t be sending a human,” Lucifer furrowed his brow as he seemed to be searching for the right words. “I’m looking for a template. The only thing we can send into that reality is instructions for a…character so to speak. There are several humans I know with the kind of personality and character that I can use for a template that should be able to influence Aria in a manner that will awaken her mind. The rules of that reality won’t accept angels, but Aria is a Seraph and has a divine instrument affixed to her soul, so those rules won’t be able to completely suppress her angelic nature.”

“How long will it take?” Clarice asked eagerly.

“It will take me about a week to create a template based off of the human here,” Lucifer told her regretfully. “It will also take some time once they come in contact with each other in the other reality for her to awaken. I hope it will be weeks, but it could be months.”

“Months?” Clarice whispered in horror. “She’ll be trapped on her own for months?”

“Without this intervention it could take years,” Lucifer told her gently. “This is the best option we have for a delicate situation like this.”

Clarice scowled, her beautiful features filled with impatience and anxiety, but she nodded reluctantly.

“I’m going to get to work,” Lucifer announced, then vanished.

Calypso walked over and pulled Clarice into a comforting embrace. “I’m so sorry, Clarice. I should have found a way to stop this from happening.”

Clarice shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Calypso. It’s those pieces of shit hiding in the light realm. There is going to be a reckoning when I-“ she broke off as she, Lexi and Calypso all felt a devastating wave of grief wash through the bond they shared with Aria. Clarice fell to her knees as her hand went to her mouth and she began sobbing.

“What are they doing to her?” Clarice cried out in fear and rage.

Calypso sank down to her knees and wrapped her arms around Clarice again, holding her tightly as they both felt the overpowering waves of grief drown out any other emotion from Aria until soul crushing sorrow was the only thing left.

“What’s going on?” Emily asked anxiously as she watched their stricken faces.

“They must be trying to blind her with grief to muddle her thoughts,” Calypso whispered, her heart breaking for the despair she knew Aria was feeling.

XXXXX

Lexi watched Clarice anxiously as she stood on the widows walk staring despondently into the distance. They had spent days trying to think of a quicker way to help Aria escape the splinter reality, to no avail. Clarice had sunk into a dark depression as the only emotion they felt coming through the bond from Aria was unending grief at an intensity that was alarming. They felt so impotent to do anything to help her. Calypso had told them the best thing they could do to help her was to find something to be happy about so that if Aria could still sense them in any way it might influence her. Clarice had tried a few times, but it was fleeting and quickly left her more frustrated when those attempts had no effect on the emotional state they felt from Aria.

Mary had been keeping Lexi company during that dark period, constantly searching for ways to distract her or make her feel better. She had been hugged more in the last few days than in her entire life. While the positive energy Mary channeled into her helped to dampen the despair flowing in from Aria, she also had Clarice’s bond flooding her with anxiety and rage to offset the positive influx of energy. She felt bad that Mary’s first week as an angel had turned out so bleak. She had hoped to show Mary how wonderful being an angel was, but Mary was spending all of her time trying to cheer her up instead.

It was almost like the good old days when Mary had done much the same for her in their early teenage years. Lexi had grown up in a home devoid of any kind of affection or love. Her parents had been openly hostile to her from her earliest memories. When she had met Mary in school at the age of twelve, she suddenly had someone who actually showed affection to her. She had felt like a sponge that couldn’t get enough of the positive reinforcement Mary so freely offered. She had been so excited to return the favor after meeting up with Mary again; but life had other plans. She struggled to feel positive emotions of any kind with the negative input coming in from all sides. Calypso was full of love and comfort on the outside, the same as usual, but Lexi could feel the darkness filling Calypso as she grieved for Aria. Lexi couldn’t believe how good of a face Calypso put on with the rest of the group compared to what she was really feeling inside. She was filled with self-recrimination and anxiety mixed with a desperate longing, as if a part of her soul were missing. Calypso was convinced that she should have been able to do something to prevent the other Seraphim from capturing their fiery haired angel and was blaming herself for Aria’s captivity.

“I’ve always been there for her,” Clarice spoke up, her voice filled with pain. “No matter how ugly life got, we knew we had each other. Now she’s alone, without me to give my love and support. She’s such a deeply emotional person, with so much compassion and love for everyone.”

“What was she like when you were kids?” Lexi asked quietly, wrapping her arms around Clarice from behind and resting her cheek on her head. The once euphoric mingling of energy exchanging between their meridians was almost unnoticeable with the dark cloud of despair filling Clarice.

“She was the sweetest kid in the world,” Clarice murmured in a brittle voice. “She always wanted to please everyone. She always wanted to brush our hair or help clean up any kind of mess we made. I used to be a bit of a slob, but I felt bad when Aria kept cleaning up after me and trying to convince me that she liked cleaning up after me,” Clarice snorted a half sob half laugh. “She always lived in fear of rejection and would go to absurd lengths to try to make everyone happy. It took me years to convince her that there was nothing she could do that would stop me from loving her. She used to save up all of her money to buy gifts for us when we were having a rough day. She would make these silly posters and make messages out of candy bars and other snacks telling us how wonderful we were.”

“It sounds like she’s been an angel this whole time,” Lexi commented softly.

She felt Clarice shake in her arms as she sobbed despairingly. “It was like the work of a sadistic god when she got cancer,” Clarice spoke in barely more than a whisper. “It was a living nightmare watching her get worse as treatments failed to do anything. Watching the light get slowly extinguished from her eyes. She would have given up a lot earlier, but she didn’t want to leave me behind. She knew it would crush me. She was always thinking of her family, even when she was puking her guts out and wasted away to nothing. I was actually glad when I ended up with cancer too, because I would get to go with her.”

Lexi squeezed her tightly as she felt tears run down her own cheeks. How had she ended up with such an amazing group of people?

“Clarice,” Lexi paused as her voice broke. “Clarice, Aria is going to come back. You two are going to be with each other forever. I won’t accept anything less. There isn’t a power in the cosmos that can break the love you two have for each other. I’m so sorry she is going through such hell right now, but I know that she’ll be back, and you’ll get your sister again.”

Clarice folded her arms over Lexies arms on her stomach and clutched her tightly, shaking as she wept a stream of golden tears.

XXXXX

Lexi stared into the distance as she stood alone on the widows walk. There hadn’t been any demon attacks or military incursions for months. They had continued searching out nests of demons making agonite and rescuing children, but it was a passionless enterprise. Clarice had barely been able to restrain herself from killing the demons in her rage. Each time they rounded up the demons they would drop them off with Lucifer to decide if they were redeemable. The number of demon hideouts they found was diminishing as more demons were redeemed and returned to their angelic forms. Clarice had been eager for one of the demon lords to make an appearance so that she could vent some of her rage and frustration, but they seemed to have learned that there were Cherubim and Seraphim waiting for them and never appeared.

Lexi smiled as she heard the beautiful music echoing up from the house. Clarice had started making songs with Calypso to try and escape her dark thoughts. The two of them had grown closer in their shared grief. Calypso was almost never seen without Clarice nearby. Lexi wondered if Clarice was keeping guard on Calypso, afraid that she might be taken too if she lacked vigilance.

Mary left to visit with her family the previous month. She wanted to help as many of them ascend as possible after learning that mortality was a prison for angels. She had tried to convince Lexi to go with her, but she just couldn’t bring herself to leave Clarice until Aria was back. The days ran together as Clarice and Calypso buried themselves in music. They barely spoke to anyone, knowing the only thing to talk about was Aria. Lexi had spent a lot more time with Emily and Eric. They felt like adoptive parents, in spite of their youthful appearance. They both doted on her like a daughter and did their best to try and make her smile as often as possible.

They were all in the veranda, which was becoming more unusual as Clarice and Calypso became more reclusive. Jason and Susan had visited a few times, but had left when they realized there wasn’t going to be any progress on any of their plans until Aria was back with them.

Calypso was giving Clarice a demonstration on how to play a digeridoo near the pond in the center of the veranda. Eric and Emily were sitting across from her with a card game laid out in front of them. She was just lifting a card when she felt the blanket of despair filling the corner of her soul where Aria resided suddenly shift. It was like a ray of light had suddenly shone down through the black clouds. She froze, her hand hovering over the draw pile. She heard the digeridoo cut off as both Clarice and Calypso froze, feeling the same ray of hope in Aria’s soul.

“What’s the matter?” Emily asked in sudden concern. “Has something happened?”

“She’s feeling hope,” Lexi whispered, tears forming in her eyes.

Emily sucked in a deep breath, her own eyes tearing up and her eyes shining with sudden hope.

“Come on Aria,” Eric whispered fervently. “You can do it.”

They sat frozen like statues as they waited to feel more through their bond. After almost thirty minutes the ray of hope began to grow, replacing the darkness and spreading out across the part of her soul she thought of as Aria.

“Hope is growing,” Lexi whispered, almost afraid that she would break the fragile thread of hope if she spoke too loudly.

All three angels leapt to their feet as they felt the sudden blaze of furious love and hope rise up in Aria like a tsunami, washing the despair and pain away.

“She’s back!” Lexi shouted excitedly, her eyes filling with new tears, this time of joy.

Calypso opened a silvery slice into reality and plunged through it. They all waited breathlessly as they stared at the tear in reality.

Chapter 3

There was a silvery cut into the inky void and then a beautiful angel with brilliant blonde hair and eyes that looked like swirling galaxies stepped over and pulled them both into a warm embrace.

“Oh Calypso!” Aria cried in an exultant voice, her aura blanketing everything around them in radiance. “I almost failed! They almost had me!” She shook like a leaf in Calypso’s arms as she wept in relief and joy.

“They never would have had you,” Calypso told her confidently, her eyes filled with golden tears as she stroked Aria’s hair lovingly. “You would have eventually broken free, even if it took longer.”

“Where’s Clarice?” Aria asked eagerly, quivering with the desire to see her sister.

“She’s back in the cabin,” Calypso informed her with another squeeze. “She’s been sick with worry, no matter how much I assured her you would come back.”

“How long have I been gone?” Aria asked in sudden dread.

“Four months,” Calypso replied gently. “It’s been a difficult four months for your family. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

Calypso suddenly paused as she seemed to finally notice Mandy. “I see you brought someone from the fake world back with you.”

Aria looked down at Mandy and smiled down at her radiantly. “Mandy is the reason I’m back here. It would have taken far far longer if she hadn’t been there for me.”

“Well, I’m glad you were able to bring her out before it collapsed then,” Calypso murmured quietly as she studied Mandy curiously. “Lucifer didn’t tell me who he sent to help you. The template was based off of a human he felt would have the greatest chance of helping you escape. I think it would be worthwhile to find the original version of Mandy in our reality and invite her to join us.”

Aria nodded fervently. “She is so worth it. Let’s go, I can’t wait any longer to see Clarice.”

Calypso laughed through her tears and led her into the silvery slice in the void. As they exited, Mandy stared in shock. They were on a veranda of some kind of large cabin in the mountains. As soon as they exited, a beautiful angel with midnight hair rushed over and wrapped her arms around Aria, her eyes streaming with golden tears.

“Clarice!” Aria wailed, her voice filled with ecstasy. Mandy let go of Aria and stepped back to watch, her heart filled with warmth as she watched the intensely emotional reunion. Aria had gone limp in her sisters arms, overcome by relief as she sobbed her heart out. “Oh Clarice, I thought you were…I thought…I…” she gave up on speech and just sobbed into her sister’s neck.

Clarice held her tightly, her cheeks covered in gold. She stroked Aria’s head comfortingly as she whispered comforting words of love.

“What happened to her?” another angel that looked like Clarice’s sister demanded, her golden eyes on fire with rage. “What did they do to her?”

“She woke up in her old apartment,” Mandy told them softly, wiping tears from her eyes. “In that reality, Clarice had died a week earlier. They had convinced her she was suffering from delusions brought on by grief. I’ve never seen someone so dead inside while still alive. She couldn’t let go of Clarice’s memory. She was wrecked, in a state of unbearable grief that didn’t fade with time.”

The woman’s hand flew to her mouth in horror as Mandy finished speaking. She blurred over and wrapped the other two angels in her arms. Mandy gasped in shock at the speed she moved. It was practically teleportation.

“Oh, my baby, I’m so sorry you had to suffer this nightmare,” the angel wept as she held them tightly. Mandy wondered if it could be her mother. She looked so young, but they were angels after all.

“The Seraphim responsible for doing this to my little girl are going to suffer,” a tall male angel ground out, fury in his icy blue eyes.

Clarice’s eyes grew stricken as she heard what her sister had been through. She wept for the pain she knew her sister must have suffered, holding her tightly.

“We could feel her grief,” another angel said sadly, her eyes full of tears. She was tall, with beautiful blonde hair and a face to inspire poets. She looked slightly younger than the other angels. “I’ve never felt anything so awful. We didn’t know why she was so sad. It feels even worse knowing what caused that horrible grief.”

“It wasn’t done randomly,” Calypso said darkly, her swirling eyes full of anger. “They did it to her on purpose because they knew she wouldn’t be able to think clearly with that kind of grief clouding her thoughts.”

“They are going to suffer,” Clarice hissed venomously. “They are going to regret ever being spawned into existence when I’m done with them.”

“Is that Aria?” an angel had just stepped through a portal in the air, her tawny hair shining with an ethereal glow. Her violet eyes were filled with hope as she stared at the fiery haired angel where she was partially buried beneath Clarice and her mother.

“Aria’s back?” a deep voice exclaimed excitedly as another angel came through the portal. He had short jet black hair and piercing blue eyes. He was nearly seven feet tall and had the same nested wings as Aria.

Aria’s father had been waiting in line to get to his daughter. He nodded at the two new arrivals, a pained smile on his face. “She’s back. She’s had a rough time. Clarice had died in the false reality she was trapped in, and it was extremely traumatic for her, as you can imagine.”

“Who’s this” the tawny haired angel asked curiously as she studied Mandy with violet eyes.

Aria smiled radiantly through her tears as she looked at Mandy. “This is Mandy. She’s the one who saved me.”

All eyes turned to stare at Mandy. She was suddenly engulfed in a warm embrace as Aria’s father blurred over and wrapped his arms around her.

“Thank you for bringing my girl back to me, Mandy,” he said thickly, his voice full of emotion.

Mandy sighed contentedly as she felt the now familiar rush of love and positive energy that being embraced by an angel imparted. “She’s exaggerating how much I did.”

“I’m not exaggerating even a little bit,” Aria disagreed, her eyes filled with affection as she gazed at Mandy gratefully. “You are the only reason I am back. It was your kindness and caring heart that drove you to try and help me. If I hadn’t met you, I would have probably been stuck there for years.”

Aria’s mother released her daughter and traded her for hugging Mandy, squeezing her tightly. “Thank you, Mandy. We will forever be in your debt.”

Mandy smiled warmly as she felt a steady flow of love charging her soul. “I knew she was special as soon as I saw her. There was just something extraordinary hiding behind all of the pain in her eyes.”

“So is Mandy from the other reality?” the tawny haired angel asked curiously. “Is that other reality still there, or did it vanish when Aria broke free?”

Aria’s beaming face lost some of its joy as she stared at Mandy in sudden concern. “It imploded. Mandy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about what this might have done to your life.”

“It sounds like I was living in a fake world,” Mandy said with a shrug. “I think I mentioned to you that I wasn’t close with my family. I lived for my music and didn’t have any close friends. I should be thanking you for bringing me with you, because when you eventually broke free of that place I would have disappeared with it.”

“How many lives did I snuff out when I broke free?” Aria asked with growing horror on her face. “They were real people, even if they weren’t in the same reality as us.”

“Don’t try and take the blame for this,” Aria’s mother told her gently. “This was orchestrated by those renegade Seraphim with full knowledge that you would eventually break free.”

“While they were real people, they were copies of people from this reality,” Calypso informed her reassuringly. “They all still exist in this reality, just with different memories and experiences.”

“I’m kind of numb at the idea that these beings can create an entire copy of our reality,” the angel with the deep voice said with a troubled frown. “It boggles the mind that they could copy this world and make alterations to it the way they did. Lucifer said there were no angels in that world, but that the rules restricting angels from existing wouldn’t be powerful enough to fully contain Aria, since she was a Seraph and had a divine instrument.”

“Is that why most of my angel abilities went away?” Aria asked in sudden understanding. “I no longer had most of my super senses. I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t eaten anything the entire time that I was there. If I had been thinking clearly, it would have been obvious that I still had a lot of angel attributes.”

“That was the reason they did it,” Calypso told her darkly. “They knew you wouldn’t be thinking straight if you were grieving.”

“I think some introductions are in order for our new friend,” the angel with the deep voice suggested as he watched Mandy with kind eyes. “I’m Devon, Aria’s uncle. This is Tamra, the light of my life.”

Tamra smiled warmly at Devon, resting a hand on his arm affectionately.

“You’ve probably guessed who Clarice and Aria’s parents are by now,” Devon continued, wrapping his arm around Tamra. “Emily is my sister, and one of the most amazing chefs in the world. Eric is Aria’s father, and Lexi is a somewhat new member to the family.”

“Aria and Clarice rescued me from some assholes in Beverly Hills,” Lexi told her with a loving smile at Aria and Clarice. “Their family took me in like one of their own.”

“It’s wonderful to put faces to the people Aria told me about,” Mandy told them, smiling as she looked around the room at each of them. “Aria gave me a condensed summary of what led up to her getting trapped in the other world. I’m still flummoxed at how amazing all of this is. It feels like I’ve entered a fantasy world.”

Mandy gave a small squeak of surprise when a tall angel with golden hair and piercing sapphire eyes suddenly appeared in front of her. He exuded authority like it was a physical force. She stared at him in awe as he surveyed the faces around him with satisfaction.

“Welcome back, Aria,” the angel spoke in a strong voice that wasn’t loud but shook her soul like a leaf. He turned and faced Mandy, smiling down at her with a pleased air. “You did an excellent job, Mandy. I’m truly happy that Aria was able to bring you with her. There is someone I want to introduce you to in the near future.”

Mandy tried to speak, but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth as she stared at him in reverence.

“This is Lucifer,” Devon introduced the new angel with a twinkle in his eyes. “He’s the reason you existed in that other world.”

Mandy blinked, then felt her mouth drop open in amazement. She remembered Aria saying something about Lucifer being one of the Seraphim, but it hadn’t really penetrated her brain with all of the other information she had been digesting. She was standing in front of Satan!

He smirked at her as the thought flashed through her mind. “I suppose I should have brought my pitchfork and tail.”

Clarice burst out laughing, her golden eyes shining with mirth. Mandy wondered how long it had been since Aria’s sister had been able to laugh at something.

“It looks like you have already experienced the transfer of angel essence,” Lucifer noted as he studied her. “Not surprising under the circumstances, I suppose. Should you wish to become an angel, just say the phrase: I will vanquish evil. You will be transformed back into your original angelic form.”

“I will vanquish evil?” Mandy repeated questioningly.

“Whelp, there it is,” Lucifer smiled wryly. “Welcome back to immortality, Mandy.”

Mandy froze as she felt her neck begin to tingle. It spread out into the rest of her body like a wave of light washing through her system. She gasped as her skin began glowing like an incandescent bulb. She could feel arteries of ethereal energy expanding beneath her skin, creating a complex lattice with nodes appearing at intersecting points. The energy matrix snapped into place within her flesh as if it had been using her body as a template. She felt a painless searing heat begin burning all of her organs away in a holy light. The holy fire finally moved up into her brain and briefly blinded her as her last mortal organ was seared away.

She gaped as she felt the intense flood of positive energy flood her system with a euphoric love. Everything became intensely vivid as all of her senses went into overdrive. She stared back at Aria with eyes full of wonder. Aria grinned back at her with delight dancing in her eyes.

“Welcome to angelhood, Mandy!” Aria exclaimed with a beaming smile as she rushed over and tackled her in a tight embrace.

Mandy gasped as she felt the energy flowing through her meridians begin dancing between their two bodies in an exchange that felt strangely intimate. Clarice joined her sister, putting her arms around both of them and leaning her head against Mandy’s head. Mandy inhaled sharply as she felt a rush of energy flood through her system. She shuddered with ecstasy as the power expanded and warped her meridians.

The two angels released her, smiling broadly as they inspected her.

“She’s a Cherub,” Aria observed with delight. “She’ll be able to go to the higher realms with us.”

“I feel so freaking awesome!” Mandy exclaimed as she stared back at Aria with a brilliant smile. “Is this how you always feel?”

“Most of the time,” Aria nodded with an indulgent grin. “As long as I’ve got my sister, anyway.”

Clarice’s smile faltered momentarily, and she pulled Aria into a protective embrace. Mandy had a feeling that the two of them wouldn’t be far apart from each other for the foreseeable future.

“So now what?” Emily asked Lucifer with a raised eyebrow. “We finally have Aria back. Can we go kill some Seraphim now?”

“We still need the remaining pieces of the other two divine instruments,” Lucifer reminded her soberly. “I have angels searching for it, but I think Clarice will have more luck finding it, since it is linked to her soul. I found two more pieces of mine by following my intuition. I would suggest Clarice and Aria begin the search for the remaining pieces.”

“I’m ready to get out of here,” Clarice announced with an eager grin as she released Aria. “I love this place, but I need some space after four months of isolation here.”

“Any idea of where to look?” Aria asked Clarice, her eyes shining with affection. She was positively glowing with happiness as she soaked up the presence of her sister like a starving plant.

“Somewhere cold, I think,” Clarice murmured, her golden eyes growing introspective. She looked back at Aria with a playful grin. “Let’s take our hot little butts over to Antarctica.”

Aria burst out with laughter that turned into more tears as she pulled her sister back into another embrace. Clarice held her tightly, her eyes full of tenderness. Mandy was beginning to understand how Aria had sunk into such despair at the death of her sister. She had never seen a bond so strong as she observed between the two sisters.

“It’s good to see you back,” Lucifer nodded at Aria in farewell. “I need to get back to work.” He vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

Mandy fell into a kind of trance as she reveled in the power and love flooding her system. Aria spent the next half hour embracing one family member after another, with Clarice getting embraced again after each person. She finally began to slow down as she adapted to being back in her own world again.

Mandy approached Lexi with a curious smile. The tall, beautiful angel had been watching Aria with tears in her eyes for most of the gathering. Aria had held her for several minutes before moving on to Clarice again.

“So do all angels have wings eventually?” she asked Lexi curiously. “I remember Aria telling me that acts of love were how angels evolved their abilities.”

Lexi grinned, her golden eyes twinkling mischievously. “Yes, that is mostly correct. Acts of love and intimacy.”

Mandy blinked, then raised a curious eyebrow. “More intimate than hugging, I take it?”

“The more intimate, the more powerful the evolution,” Lexi confirmed with a rueful laugh. “Those two punks actually did a coin toss to see who would have to kiss me.”

“Ouch,” Mandy winced with a commiserating grin. “Was it the loser that had to do it?”

“The winner,” Lexi answered with a snort of amusement. “That took the sting off a little bit.”

“So, who won?” Mandy asked with a grin.

“Clarice,” Lexi replied, then laughed. “She told me she was probably a better kisser than Aria because she had more practice, and that I dodged a bullet.”

“You said what?” Aria demanded of Clarice, a dangerous look in her eyes.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Clarice declared innocently, raising her hands defensively. “She’s probably making things up to try and get a kissing competition going.”

Aria narrowed her eyes as she looked between the two of them. They both wore expressions of pure innocence. Clarice had clearly been rubbing off on Lexi. “I can’t even tell which of you to believe. Clarice, you’ve corrupted Lexi.”

“Corruption only goes where corruption is welcome,” Clarice said sagely, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “If she got corrupted, it’s because she wanted to get corrupted.”

“That’s true,” Lexi agreed with a slow, sensuous wink.

“Oh my god, there are two of them now,” Aria shuddered dramatically. Aria suddenly paused and looked at Lexi. “Hey, what happened with Mary? I totally forgot about her.”

“She went back to her family to make some more angels,” Lexi answered, her face remaining neutral. “She wanted me to go with her, but I wanted to wait until you returned.”

Aria stared at Lexi as her eyes filled with tears again. She closed her eyes as several golden tears ran down her cheeks. “Thank you for staying with her, Lexi.”

Mandy stared at Lexi as the tall angel’s face flickered with surprise, and then softened, her eyes tender. Lexi must have been staying for Clarice’s sake.

“I wasn’t going to leave her alone,” Lexi teased playfully. “She gets into all sorts of trouble if she doesn’t have a handler.”

“I do no such thing,” Clarice objected in an injured tone. “I’m the epitome of a responsible adult.”

“Have you seen the world lately?” Lexi asked dryly. “The bar is pretty low for responsible adult.”

“I want to know more about Mandy,” Clarice declared as she looked at Mandy curiously. “What’s your story, and how did you end up meeting Aria?”

Mandy frowned as she thought back through the chapters of her life for anything interesting. “There’s not much to my life. It’s pretty boring, especially compared to yours.”

“That’s okay,” Clarice assured her with a shrug. “We’re immortal, so we have all the time in the world. Let’s hear your boring life story.”

“Are we really immortal?” Mandy felt a sudden thrill as she realized how different her outlook on life would be without the need to rush through life to achieve her dreams. “It hadn’t occurred to me that being an angel meant I would live forever.”

“You’re stuck with us forever,” Clarice grinned at her. There was an undercurrent to the emotion Mandy felt from Clarice. There was a sense of gratitude directed at her that was sharp and poignant.

“Aria, can I talk to you for a minute?” Emily asked quietly.

“Of course, Mom,” Aria smiled and followed her mother into the house.

“Okay, give,” Clarice commanded crisply. “Who’s Mandy, and how did you meet Aria? Start at the beginning, because we have eternity.”

Mandy took a deep breath before starting. “Well, I had two older brothers that were more than ten years older than me, so we didn’t really become close. My parents were both workaholics and left us to our own devices. I spent most of my time reading novels, practicing piano, and singing. I made friends in school, but they were always more like acquaintances than good friends. I really hated the cliques and backstabbing that defined school life, so I just focused on reading and making music. After high school I played in bands for about five years for small gigs and community or school concerts. I met Aria on the first day that we were going to record an album professionally. She was working the office at a recording studio when I arrived. Our drummer was out of commission after a bad car accident, so we just planned to use a drum track. The sound engineer told us that Aria was an amazing musician and that I should ask her to play drums for us. I could tell something was really wrong when I was checking in. Her eyes were full of so much pain that I wanted to cry. She accepted my request to have her play drums for us. We couldn’t believe how good she was. She was so much better than our drummer that we wanted to steal her. She played for us every time we came in for the next month, but she always turned me down when I tried to get her to come out and do something with us afterward. Robbie had told me she spent most nights making music in the studio, so I came back after our last day and showed up to bug her. I figured if she wouldn’t come out then I would just go there. She was playing the harp to some tracks she had recorded when I arrived, and it was the most soul crushing song I had ever heard. It broke my heart to see her crying her eyes out as she played. She was curled up in a ball by the end of the song, sobbing like she had lost part of her soul.”

Clarice closed her eyes as large golden tears leaked down her cheeks. Lexi was no better, her eyes streaming with golden tears.

“I asked her to tell me about you,” Mandy continued with a sad smile. “She described the most wonderful, caring, smart, and funny person in the world. She said she was supposed to have eternity with you and that she couldn’t go on without you. I’ve never seen a bond of love so strong before. You really are the world to her.”

Clarice pulled Mandy into a tight embrace, golden tears falling onto Mandy’s shoulder. “Thank you so much for bringing her back to me. I’ll never be able to repay you for saving her. She is a part of my soul that I wouldn’t be able to survive without.”

Lexi put her arms around the two of them, her eyes streaming pure gold. There was a sudden flash of light and then a transparent golden sphere surrounded the three of them. Mandy gasped as she felt an influx of power overload her meridians, forcing them to expand as more energy rushed in. She felt her shirt stretch and tear open on her back as a new weight appeared between her shoulder blades.

“And just like that, you have wings,” Lexi smiled through her tears. “Tamra will have a shirt fitted for wings for you. She’s made a lot of them over the last four months.”

Mandy looked over her shoulder as she flexed what felt like a second pair of arms. Large white wings of thick satin unfurled behind her. A smile lit up her face as she saw the wings on her back. I’m going to be able to fly! Too bad I’m scared of heights.

Clarice reached into a hole that appeared in the air and pulled a shirt out. She helped Mandy out of her torn shirt and showed her how to snap the new one into place around the wings.

“How did you get her to overcome her despair?” Clarice asked, her voice thick with emotion as she finished buttoning the straps.

“I begged her to come out with me to get some food at a Chinese takeout restaurant,” Mandy continued Aria’s tale. “She eventually accepted. I gave her a hug and suddenly felt a flood of love pour into my soul. I knew there must be something very special about her. When we got to the drive-thru there was a Chinese lady that spoke to us in Chinese. I didn’t understand a word, but Aria did. She said the lady had called us American swine. When the lady gave me my card back, Aria spoke back to her in fluent Chinese. I asked her where she had learned Chinese, and she had no idea what I was talking about. When she realized she was speaking Chinese, it was like a ray of hope suddenly poked through her despair. She said that in this world she was able to speak every language. She had a spark of hope but was still worried that she was having delusions and imagining the whole thing. We parked by the river to eat, and I couldn’t get her to eat anything. She said she didn’t have a stomach. I was really worried that her delusions were going to be deadly if she didn’t eat. She was so light when I pulled her up from the floor that I was sure she must be starving. I asked her to tell me about the memories she had been told were delusions. She told me about the early childhood battle with cancer you two went through, and all of the events that had led up to the moment before she woke up in the apartment with the news that her sister was dead. She was trying to talk herself into believing that she was delusional. She said she couldn’t take the hope that you were still alive and then find out that you weren’t. I asked her if she would rather embrace the delusions and be with you again or go back to how things were when I found her. She embraced the delusions, and the world imploded around us.”

Mandy stood locked in Clarice’s arms for several minutes as Clarice’s shoulders shook and she wept for the pain her sister had endured. Aria returned and took her sister in her arms with a look of such transcendent love that Mandy felt like she had glimpsed something truly divine. Mandy once again marveled at the strength of their love for each other. It made her wistful to have missed out on something so precious. She saw Lexi watching her with a similar expression. Lexi motioned for her to follow her into the house. She followed with a last glance at Aria. The fiery haired angel looked like she had gone through the forges of hell and come out with a new understanding of life. There was a wisdom in her eyes that hinted at the deeper mysteries of life, mysteries that could only be learned in the fires of emotional torment and refined by acceptance that pain was where life’s most important lessons were learned.

Mandy shivered as she followed Lexi into the hallway. Love on that level seemed to be cosmically balanced by the depth of sorrow endured when it was lost. She hoped they really did have eternity in front of them.

“I know we’ve already told you this repeatedly,” Lexi spoke quietly as they moved toward some stairs. “But thank you for bringing Aria back to us. I think you have some idea of the magnitude of our gratitude but know that we are forever in your debt.”

“I can’t help but be a little envious,” Mandy responded wistfully. “What an amazing bond to have with someone. I’ve never felt like I was missing anything in life until seeing how much those two care for each other.”

“I completely understand,” Lexi laughed ruefully. “I was only with them for a week when Aria disappeared, but it was enough to show me just how much I really missed out on. Until now, that is. I don’t know if it is because they have the souls of Seraphim, but their capacity for love seems so much greater than anything I’ve ever seen before. They adopted me into their family without a second thought.”

“Seraphim were the original angels that created everything, weren’t they?” Mandy asked curiously as she rewound her memories to the creation story Aria had told her in the splinter reality.

“Yes, that’s what we have learned so far,” Lexi confirmed with a nod.

“So, Aria, Clarice, and Calypso are three of the original nine creators of the universe?” Mandy said slowly, suddenly realizing just how august the company was that she was keeping. She had saved one of the creators of the universe. I’m going to have trouble wrapping my mind around this.

“That seems to be the case,” Lexi answered wryly. “Apparently, their memories won’t return until they have fully ascended, just like us. We’re not sure how long that is supposed to take.”

Mandy frowned in thought as she absently followed Lexi up a ladder on the third floor. “I wonder how that works if I’m a copy of someone from this reality,” she murmured musingly. “If I’m understanding correctly, the reality I was in was a shallow copy of this reality, and it has been destroyed. Is my being here going to cause some kind of paradox like what happens with time travel?”

Lexi laughed as she walked over to one of the railings on the widows walk. “I don’t think there will be any trouble,” she assured Mandy, her face becoming serious. “I think you are essentially just another creation, as if they had added a new Cherub to this world. I would love to watch when you meet your doppelganger though. I wonder if she is just like you.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait to meet her,” Mandy said, feeling a sense of excitement at the prospect. “Maybe we would end up as best friends like Aria and Clarice.”

“Given what I’ve seen of your personality, I think you would definitely get along with a carbon copy of yourself,” Lexi noted with a confident smile. “If she’s anything like you, she’s got a heart of gold.”

“Aw, you’re going to make me blush,” Mandy complained with a playful smile.

“You should have been here before,” Lexi told her with a chuckle. “Aria and Calypso blush more than anyone else I’ve ever seen. One of Clarice’s favorite pastimes is triggering the two of them. Well, not just the two of them, pretty much everyone.”

“What are we doing up here?” Mandy asked curiously as she looked around at the slowly brightening sky. She marveled at how her angel eyes could see in the dark just as well as the light. No wonder Aria had thought it was daytime in the other world. She must not have looked up and seen the stars.

“I thought I would go with you to give those wings a test flight,” Lexi announced with a grin.

“I’m kind of scared of heights,” Mandy admitted with a nervous laugh.

“Did Aria tell you that angels are completely invulnerable to damage of any kind?” Lexi asked her with a raised eyebrow. “You could fall out of orbit, and it wouldn’t hurt you a bit.”

“We don’t feel pain either?” Mandy asked hopefully.

“No pain, no damage, and insane strength,” Lexi assured her with an appraising eye. “You are a Cherub, so you are the strongest order of angel aside from the Seraphim. Regular angels aren’t a whole lot stronger than humans, even though they are still invulnerable to damage and pain. The strength we have is on a whole other level. We can bench press locomotives.”

“Is it strange that I can hear everything that everyone in the house is saying from all of the way up here?” Mandy asked as she heard the angels below them speaking as if they were right next to her.

“All angels have better senses than humans,” Lexi told her as she began hovering into the air. “But we have totally insane super senses. Go ahead and flap your wings. You’re going to be amazed at how natural flight comes to you.”

Mandy was sure that without the constant flow of positive love charging her system she would have chickened out. She took a deep breath and spread her wings out and then flexed them down. She let out a yelp as she shot high up into the air.

“See, it’s a piece of cake,” Lexi told her encouragingly. “Just keep flapping to gain altitude. You’ll get a sense for how to steer, glide, bank, and land after you’ve been airborne for a few minutes.”

Mandy stared down at the shrinking cabin beneath them warily as each beat of her wings took her a few hundred feet higher. She stared in wonder as she entered a cloud several thousand feet up in the air. She wasn’t sure how she was going to land when each flap of her wings launched her so far.

“Now try gliding,” Lexi suggested as she hovered next to her.

“How are you flying without using your wings?” Mandy asked in wonder. The wind didn’t seem to affect Lexi at all either.

“It’s one of the evolutions you get from being smooched, as Clarice puts it,” Lexi answered with a giggle. “It’s basically anti-gravity with a some kind of field the makes you pass through the wind without being affected by it. To glide, just lock your wings out all of the way. You’ll get a feel for how it works intuitively as your soul memory kicks in.”

Mandy locked her wings and leaned forward so that she was cutting into the wind. She grinned as she sliced through the air effortlessly, the wind blowing through her dark brown hair. She let out a joyful scream as she leaned forward and plummeted toward the ground. All of her fear of heights had vanished as exhilaration took its place. She swooped down and then banked to the left with another scream of joy.

Lexi followed right next to her, grinning back at her as they dived, swooped, and spiraled through the air.

“See what I mean?” Lexi asked with a delighted laugh. “It just naturally comes back to you. I’m pretty sure it is soul memory kicking in.”

“This is so amazing!” Mandy exclaimed as she coasted a few hundred feet above the ground.

They flew around the skies until well after sunrise. Mandy marveled at how inexhaustible her angel body was. She had been flying for hours and felt no fatigue at all.

“Are you ready to try landing?” Lexi asked her as she did another spiral.

“I think so,” Mandy nodded, imagining how a bird landed. She swooped down close to the ground and then lifted her wings up high to stop her forward momentum. She almost instantly came to a halt a dozen feet above the ground and then dropped. She landed lightly, laughing delightedly at how a twelve foot drop had no impact on her knees or back.

“In the name of Jesus, I abjure thee,” a quavering voice shouted from a dozen feet away.

Mandy stared at a man in brown robes with a completely hairless head. He could have been anywhere between thirty and sixty. He looked like a Tibetan monk. He was barely more than five feet tall and was barefoot.

“Hello,” Mandy waved at him with a friendly smile. “I’m Mandy.”

“Demon spawn,” the man declared darkly.

“I didn’t think demons could breed,” Mandy replied dryly.

Lexi dropped down next to her, watching the strange man with a cool eye. “Is there something we can help you with, Redgart?”

“You know this guy?” Mandy whispered in surprise.

“No, people’s names are written on their aura,” Lexi explained quietly.

“Maybe there’s something I can help you with,” Redgart replied bombastically , his voice changing from a heretic burning priest to that of a gameshow host. “I’ll bet you would like the other piece of one of the divine instruments. Eh? Eh?”

Chapter 4

Clarice released Aria from an embrace for the hundredth time as they stood in the veranda near the pond discussing the upcoming trip to Antarctica. Their uncle Devon had grown animated when she mentioned visiting Antarctica. She had waited for the excitement around Aria to die down before questioning him. He stood across from her and Aria with his arm around Tamra. Calypso stood on the other side of Aria, absently taking her hand. Their parents were standing with them, there expressions growing serious as they returned to the plans they had started so many months ago.

“What is it about Antarctica that has you acting like an amorous armadillo in a bowling alley?” Clarice asked her uncle, her lips quirking up slightly.

There was a pregnant pause as the strong visual metaphor stalled the conversation. Aria was the first to break the silence, dissolving into a fit of giggles as her parent’s facepalmed. Devon shared a rueful look with Tamra, who snorted a laugh and shook her head.

“It’s nice to have your personality back with us, Clarice,” their mother declared with a fond smile. “I never thought I would say this, but I really missed your deranged sense of humor while Aria was gone.”

“How does his behavior resemble an amorous armadillo in a bowling alley?” Calypso asked with a puzzled crease to her brows.

Clarice connected to Calypso’s thought node with a tendril of energy and sent a visual explanation. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”

Calypso’s face lit up like a sunset. Clarice sniggered as she watched Calypso shift uncomfortably while the rest of the group tried to hide their amusement at her sudden awkwardness.

“You are a bad angel,” Aria told her with a fondness that was at odds with her words.

“Getting back on track,” their uncle said pointedly. “There are some things you should know about Antarctica.”

“And it doesn’t involve bowling,” Tamra added wryly.

“Well, oddly enough, it does involve a lot of balls,” Devon noted with a hint of a smile. “There is an installation called IceCube with thousands of ball shaped sensors buried a few thousand feet beneath the ice that are ostensibly for detecting neutrinos. It cost half a billion dollars and requires twenty million annually for upkeep. As you discovered after graduating college, Aria, nobody funds projects that don’t offer a return of investment. I was only peripherally involved in the construction, but after hearing about what you found on Saturn, I have to wonder what this IceCube observatory is really being used for. You might want to investigate the installation while you are down there.”

“After discovering the surface of the sun wasn’t hot, I’m definitely suspicious about this neutrino detector,” Aria commented with a frown. “If neutrinos aren’t formed in giant balls of plasma undergoing the fusion of atoms, then it seems likely that they are a result of the electromagnetic interaction of these plasma conduits that connect the star systems together. We’ll have to see what happens if we shut this IceCube place down.”

“It’s probably something put in place by demons to help them manage their control of the planet,” Clarice looked at Aria speculatively. “You’re kind of out of the loop on current events, aren’t you?”

Aria blinked, then shook her head with a sigh. “I keep forgetting that I’ve been gone for four months. It just seems like a bad dream now. What’s going on? Is social media still fixated on Calypso and angels?”

“People have become far more involved in their local and regional politics,” Clarice informed her with a faint smile. “We think the apathy modulator we destroyed on Saturn resulted in a rise of activism worldwide. A lot of politicians have been getting grilled about the rogue intelligence agencies and overpowered billionaires. According to Krajen, the former demon who was the director of the North American Territories, the ostensible billionaires of the world are all owned by the intelligence agencies, who are in turn owned by the demons. They started using billionaires for projects to avoid dealing with the oversight and accountability that governments have to deal with. Krajen has been making information dumps online that confirm this, and people are getting angry. The government tried to implement martial law at one point, but the soldiers and law enforcement officers were just as pissed as everyone else and wouldn’t comply. Things are pretty tense right now in the world. The fact that angels started appearing and claiming that demons were in charge only added fuel to the fire. We were raiding demon agonite processing labs while you were gone, but they have been drying up as the demons still in charge have gone to ground. Lucifer has been putting a dent in their numbers as well. He has a fairly large network of angels tracking demons down for him to redeem.”

“Wow, things really did progress a lot, didn’t they?” Aria commented in wonder. “Are people getting accustomed to seeing angels yet?”

“People still think all angels have wings,” Clarice replied wryly. “They don’t know that only archangels and higher have wings, and since there are way fewer archangels, people aren’t noticing the angels in their midst. Apparently, people have to believe in regular angels in order to see them, but that hasn’t been a problem due to all of the publicity we created months ago. They’ve seen us a few more times over the last several months when we delivered kids to their parents after raiding agonite farms, but we are still a pretty hot topic in social media. People are convinced that something big is about to happen, not realizing that it is already happening right under their noses.”

“Are there any plans to start redeeming humans yet?” Aria asked hopefully.

“Yes, but it’s been done quietly,” Devon answered with a nod. “Most of the humans being redeemed are regular angels, so their physical attributes and senses aren’t all that different from humans. We’ve been requesting that all new angels continue with their daily work life routines until we reach a tipping point in the number of redeemed. That way, the world economies and supply chains won’t collapse and doom the remaining humans.”

“How are people showing up to work after they are turned into angels if humans have to believe in them to see them?” Aria wondered, her brows drawn down in confusion.

“Let me amend that,” Devon answered, glancing at their parents with a wry quirk of his lips. “Humans can’t see angels who weren’t raised from mortality. Whatever happens to the soul after experiencing mortality seems to remove that effect. Of course, there aren’t a lot of angels left in the world who weren’t caught by demons.”

“What about this soul trap?” Aria asked with a frown. “Do we know anything else about how they are trapping angels in a reincarnation loop?”

Clarice shared a look with the others before turning back to Aria with a mischievous grin. “You know that big bright ball in the sky that appears at night?”

“Are we referring to the moon?” Aria asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes we are,” Clarice nodded, her grin widening. “Apparently, the machine that is responsible for catching and reincarnating souls is what makes up most of the moon. It’s pretty much hollow, with a giant machine inside that looks like it popped out of a sci-fi story with alien technology.”

“What are you grinning about?” Aria asked suspiciously.

“Because we get to vaporize the moon!” Clarice exclaimed, her eyes shining with excitement.

“Hold on, can’t we just flip the off switch?” Aria asked anxiously. “Do you know how many repercussions destroying the moon would have on life on earth?”

“Nothing any time soon,” Clarice replied with a shrug. “It would mess with some of the ecology that has become dependent on tides, but it won’t do anything too crazy for tens of thousands of years. Considering we will be rewriting reality long before that time, the effects will be minimal. Besides, there will still be solar tides.”

Aria stared at Clarice as her sister’s evil grin returned. “Will it affect the ability for people to incarnate at all? We still want people to be able to incarnate, right?”

“The device that initiates a mortality experience for an angel is in the lower light realm,” Calypso answered her reassuringly.

Aria studied Calypso intently, her eyes curious. “How much of your memories of being a Seraph have returned?”

“A very small amount,” Calypso replied wistfully. “Some things will trigger a recall of a past event or conversation, while other times I just intuitively know about something without associating it with a memory. Considering how old we really are, I’m just scratching the surface of my soul memory. What about you? Have you had any kind of recall?”

“Just the intuitive knowledge so far,” Aria answered, then hesitated as she looked at Clarice and Calypso. “Except for one. I remember both of you. It’s like remembering my arm though. We’ve been together for so long that I didn’t realize just how much I knew you until I saw the two of you again when I returned from the splinter reality. The three of us were close before experiencing mortality, but after our first time trying it we became more like we are now. I felt a closeness to Lucifer and even Grodek, but it wasn’t anywhere near the same strength. I remember feeling a sense of distaste for the four Seraphim still in the light realm. The memories just appeared after returning to this reality.”

“Maybe we need to visit the light realms,” Clarice spoke musingly, looking at Calypso and Aria speculatively. “Probably just the lowest two realms for now. I wonder if it would trigger additional recall.”

“It would probably trigger an accelerated evolution,” Calypso said thoughtfully. “The energy in those realms is a lot higher than the mortal realm, so we would probably get flooded with energy. That’s a great idea, Clarice.”

“So, what did they call the light realms before the mortal realm was created?” Clarice asked, her eyes speculative. “Did they just call it ‘The Realm’ or something lame like that? And why is it called the ‘Light Realm’ anyway? As opposed to the Dark Realm?”

“By them, you mean we, remember?” Aria reminded her dryly. “We’re the ones who have been around for jillions of years.”

“Light is another word for energy,” Calypso explained with a fond look at Clarice. “Since there are three realms with three degrees of energy output, they were called light realms. The void still exists, or rather, doesn’t exist, so light realm refers to a place where energy exists. Technically, the mortal realm is a light realm too. The energy here is just so low that it’s classified as the mortal realm instead of a light realm.”

Clarice stared back at Calypso silently for a moment, her eyes considering. She finally sighed and slumped her shoulders. “Okay, that’s a good reason, I guess. I was really looking forward to poking holes in their verbiage.”

“By their, you mean our,” Aria reminded her critically. “We’re the ones who came up with said verbiage.”

“Are we though?” Clarice asked challengingly. “Maybe it was those other four asshats, and we were against it.”

“Except that it makes sense,” Aria pointed out, her eyes sparkling with humor. “You admitted it was a good reason just a second ago.”

“Did I though?” Clarice asked belligerently. “Can you prove that I admitted it?”

“Yep,” Aria grinned as she connected a tendril of energy to her sister and replayed the memory across the telepathic bond.

“You could have just fabricated that memory,” Clarice declared stubbornly.

“Okay, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” their mother broke in with an exasperated laugh. “Let’s get back on track here, shall we?”

Clarice stuck her tongue at their mother, eliciting a headshake.

“So, what’s the priority here,” their father asked quizzically.

“I vote we blow up the moon,” Clarice declared eagerly. “Think of all of the people who die every day who would start returning to the light realm instead of being staged for rebirth.”

“I vote we visit Antarctica and take down the IceCube,” Devon stated, glancing at Calypso. “Vaporizing the moon could potentially be disruptive to societal order. Visiting the light realms might have unforeseen consequences, or even traps waiting for you. I think we need to focus on getting the remaining pieces of the divine instruments before trying to visit any of the light realms.”

Clarice felt a sudden shock and wariness in the part of her soul that was connected to Lexi. Without hesitating, she teleported over to her protégé, followed a moment later by Aria and Calypso.

“Oh, we have some new contestants!” a wannabe monk declared grandiloquently, his dark eyes alight with excitement. “It’s going to be an exciting day!”

There was something off about the guy. Clarice couldn’t tell if he was a demon, mortal, or angel unless she looked through her spiritual eyes. She had never seen anything like him. He appeared to be sitting on the razors edge between demon and angel while being neither. There was also an odd resonance emanating away from him that felt familiar somehow.

Clarice made a quick telepathic link with the others as she watched the man cautiously. Lexi, what’s this guy’s deal?

He says he has a piece of the divine instruments, Lexi responded. I think he’s kind of crazy. He started by talking about Jesus and calling us demon spawn, then his personality just did a one-eighty, and he turned into a gameshow host.

“Some contestants for what?” Aria asked him warily.

“For the battle royale, of course!” he proclaimed grandly, raising both hands high into the sky.

“Sorry, we haven’t got time for games,” Aria told him doubtfully. “We have more important things to do.”

“I guess some other lucky demon will win this soul-bound divine instrument then,” he sighed dramatically. “It’s a pity, really. Who knows what another demon might be able to do with the soul attached to this thing. Probably nothing too painful.”

Clarice felt a flash of rage as she realized he was talking about her, holding her piece of soul hostage.

“If you play nicely and give us the divine instrument piece right now, I promise not to spend the next ten thousand years finding new ways to make an immortal suffer untold agony,” Aria told the man conversationally. Clarice could feel the white hot rage in the bond to her sister. She couldn’t believe Aria was talking so calmly. “I’m pretty creative, so things will probably get very educational for anyone else who thinks they can threaten my sister in front of me.”

“Oh, dear me, I feel so threatened,” the monk declared dramatically, hunching in on himself and looking around in feigned terror. Suddenly, his mannerism changed, and he scowled at them with malevolent eyes. “You witches will burn. You demon spawn will feel the wrath of the lord and it shall be terrible. You’ll writhe in agony for all eternity as the worms feast on your remains forever and ever!” He finished with spittle flying out of his mouth and the whites of his bulging eyes clearly showing.

“Won’t they run out of remains to feast on after a while?” Clarice asked dubiously. “I mean, how can worms feast on our bodies forever? Just how small are these worms?”

“Worms? Worms? Who said anything about worms,” the monks voice had changed back from hellfire and brimstone to a gameshow host again. “We have a contest to win!”

Aria blurred over and grabbed the short man by his robe and pulled him up off of the ground until he was eye to eye with her. “If I have to pull you apart piece by piece to find that piece of divine instrument, I will make it excruciating. If I have to rewrite reality to grow pain receptors in your twisted little mind, then I won’t hesitate to do so. Hand it over now.”

At mention of rewriting reality, something seemed to get through to the crazy monk. There was a sudden fear in his eyes as he stared at Aria in sudden recognition. “You’re supposed to be locked up.”

Clarice felt her own rage building. She blurred toward him, but as she got close to him she felt a wave of dizziness hit her and she nearly fell over. Lexi was by her side immediately, pulling her back quickly. Something about the man’s proximity was making her motor skills go haywire. As soon as Lexi had moved her away from him the sensation faded away.

“What the hell was that?” Aria demanded, shaking the monk furiously like a ragdoll. “What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do it,” the monk whimpered, suddenly docile. “They said that you would be gone.”

Aria dropped the man, and he fell to his knees. She pulled her tin whistle out of her soul, holding it to her lips. “It’s time to rewrite reality for you, Redgart.”

He stared at her in terror before finally seeming to snap. “The other Seraphim! It was the other Seraphim. They promised to bring me back to the light realms if I made you fight each other for the divine instrument piece.”

“Why is she getting dizzy when she gets near you?” Aria demanded, her eyes boring into him.

“I don’t know! I swear!” he exclaimed desperately. “They said that I was to give her the piece of instrument even if she lost.”

Clarice narrowed her eyes as she studied the nutjob of a monk. “It sounds like they’ve set a trap of some kind on it. Where is it?”

He hesitated, looking up at Aria fearfully as she stood over him with the tin whistle to her lips. He licked his lips nervously before speaking. “It’s back in a cave in Tibet.”

Aria took a deep breath as she prepared to play. He gasped and hurriedly plunged a hand into a large pocket on the front of his robes and removed a violin neck.

“Set it down on the ground and step back,” Aria commanded, her lips never leaving the instrument.

He licked his lips again, looking at the violin neck and then back at Aria, clearly wondering how quickly she could play something. She started to push some air into the pipe and an immediate rush of power rippled away from her in waves. Redgart screamed in terror and immediately dropped the violin neck and backed up a dozen feet.

Clarice, are you able to come close to the neck without getting sick? Aria asked anxiously.

Clarice blurred forward to stand next to Aria. The man stumbled back even further in surprise at her sudden movement. She stared down at the violin neck, then looked up at Redgart suspiciously. Why would it have only done that when I was near this clown?

Maybe the Seraphim did something to trap it while it was with him, Calypso answered, her emotions radiating caution.

Clarice blurred up to where the monk was shrinking away from her with fear in his eyes. The vertigo didn’t return. She glared down at the monk as righteous fury erupted in her core, glowing like the sun.

“Tell me everything and start from the beginning,” Clarice grated through clenched teeth “Who contacted you, what did they say, and what did you plan. Answer now or it’s back to the primordial sludge for you,” He had threatened her with a piece of her soul.

He stared wide-eyed at her wrathful expression for several seconds before something inside him seemed to break. “Foul witch! Fornicating whore! Despicable demon spawn! Fallen creatures of the devil!”

His rant went on and on, shouting imprecations at them in a never ending tirade.

They’ve done something to him, Calypso thought, frowning at the man with concern in her swirling eyes. I’m going to try something.

Calypso opened a small gateway and pulled her regular harp through. She began plucking an intricate fast paced melody. Her voice joined the harp and blended into something similar to a fast shanty. It was different from anything she had ever heard Calypso play.

As Calypso played, she stared at Redgart intently, clearly watching for something to happen. Clarice focused on his aura and meridians as she tried to understand what Calypso had seen. After a moment, she noticed the energy shift in his meridians, as if the flow of life force were changing signatures. She gasped as she realized what she was seeing. The man had two souls trapped in one body. He was vacillating between souls based on his mental state. Someone had re-engineered him to become useless if he were questioned forcefully, switching over to the witch-hunting madman persona.

Clarice watched as Calypso forged runes of power within the man’s nodes, removing the alterations that had turned him into a Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde. Clarice shook her head in wonder as she observed billions of strands of light connecting Calypso to the man in a kind of soul surgery more complex than she could comprehend. It was easy to forget that Calypso was over a hundred years old until you witnessed some of the skills she had developed after working with music around the clock for most of her life. The music seemed to act as a timing and rhythm aid for the complicated energies she was utilizing to operate on his immortal body.

Clarice felt the moment the second trapped soul was released from its immortal prison. She jumped as a beam of light shot out of the man’s body and faded into obscurity. Calypso stopped playing and put her harp back into the cabin through a portal.

Redgart stared at Calypso in reverence as he rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers. “It’s gone…the demon is gone.”

“It wasn’t a demon,” Calypso told him gently. “It was the soul of another person that’s been awaiting incarnation. Was it the Seraphim themselves that did this to you, or someone else?”

“There was a man without a face who spoke in my mind,” Redgart replied with a shudder at the memory. “He said he was the voice of the Seraph. I don’t know how they knew that I had a piece of a divine instrument. He said I would be able to return to the light realm if I could lure you to a cave in Tibet. He said I should make a show of trying to make you earn the divine instrument so that you would be more desperate to take it when it was within reach. He didn’t say what would happen when you took the instrument, but whenever I touched it, the other soul became…hungry.”

“Hungry, eh?” Clarice repeated, feeling a sense of unease at the thought of what might have happened if they had played along with his plan. “Why are you neither demon nor angel? You are an immortal, but you have no positive energy flowing through your meridians, but you also don’t have the poisoned energy of a demon.”

“The Cherubim said that I hadn’t met the requirements to be punished as a demon when I was cast out of the light realm, but they also said I wasn’t deserving of the light anymore either,” he spoke with a bitterness in his voice that Clarice could understand. To have the positive energy taken away in such a way wasn’t much better than being turned into a demon. At least mortals had no memory of their loss.

“Was it the Cherubim who sealed your nodes?” Calypso asked him, compassion in her voice.

“No, it was a Seraph,” he responded with a shudder. “They said I would be a good subject for gathering data on whether angels could survive without access to light.”

“They will pay,” Clarice told him darkly. “There is a day of reckoning coming for those bastards, a day of retribution and justice.”

“Will you allow me to heal you?” Calypso asked him gently.

His eyes widened as he stared back at her with sudden hope. “You can do that?”

“Are you unaware of who we are?” Clarice asked him dryly. “Clearly you knew who Aria was if you thought she was still imprisoned in that splinter reality.”

“You are Cherubim, are you not?” he asked slowly, studying their eyes and wings.

“Close, but no cigar,” Clarice grinned at him. “Did you think Cherubim could play divine instruments?”

“They can’t?” he frowned, his brow drawn down in confusion.

“Only Seraphim can play divine instruments,” Calypso informed him. She walked up until she was standing directly in front of where he remained kneeling on the ground. “Let’s fix your meridians, Redgart.”

He stood up, staring at her with naked hope in his eyes. She grasped his head in her hands and closed her eyes. “Hold still while I work.”

Calypso lit up like a miniature sun as billions of tendrils of energy shot out of her hands and into his head. They grew down into his body like roots, boring open meridians that had sealed shut after being starved of light. He gasped as light began to spread into his body as the tendrils of energy pushed deeper into his meridians. He began glowing as well, as Calypso opened the floodgates of her powerful aura and charged his spiritual matrix with light. Clarice could see the runes on his nodes changing as well, forged into those of an archangel. His robe deformed as large wings sprouted onto his back.

As Calypso stepped back from Redgart, he stood, frozen in place. Quicksilver tears filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks as he stared at Calypso in ecstasy. As his meridians continued pulsing with light, his scalp filled in with dark hair and his eyes changed to a glowing amber.

“I’m sorry for what those other Seraphim did to you, Redgart,” Calypso told him sympathetically. “We are not all like them.”

“It seems like shutting down their meridians would be a good way to deal with those bastards,” Clarice asserted ominously. “This is twice they’ve attempted to snare us. It’s time to start changing up the rules of this game and give them something to worry about.”

“What did you have in mind?” Aria asked curiously. “It seems like they are untouchable so long as they remain in the higher realm.”

“Then it’s time to make the highest realm unpleasant,” Clarice declared grimly. “We created the light realms. What’s to stop us from modifying them and altering the energy density? If they won’t come out on their own, we need to flush them out.”

“How, exactly, are we going to reroute the power that supplies the highest realm?” Aria asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We have two divine instruments,” Clarice explained with a bleak smile. “I have a feeling that we don’t need all four to make smaller alterations in the fabric of reality.”

Calypso shared a thoughtful look with Aria and Lexi. “I’m inclined to agree with her,” Calypso said, nodding slowly. “They’re going to keep throwing trouble our way so long as there’s nothing to stop them, and they’ll probably be successful one of these times. We need to go on the offensive.”

“What about this?” Lexi asked warily, nudging the violin neck with her toe.

As soon as Lexi’s toe touched the violin neck, Clarice felt a shock go through her system and she gave an involuntary shiver.

“Wow, did you all feel that?” Aria asked them curiously. “It felt like the part of my spirit that is bonded with Clarice just came into contact with Lexi. It was…weird.”

“I felt it too,” Calypso nodded thoughtfully. “This bond between our souls is a new thing that has never been done before. My intuition tells me it would have been taboo and avoided.”

Clarice walked over to the violin neck slowly, watching it with her spiritual eyes. It was a dense micro-nova of intense energy and information. There were countless tendrils of ethereal energy connecting it to Clarice.

“I’m not letting you touch this thing without testing it first,” Lexi declared protectively. She reached down and picked the violin neck up in her hands.

Clarice blushed crimson and gasped as she felt a sense of intimacy beyond what she would have thought was possible. Lexi froze as she felt the overpowering intimacy through her bond with Clarice, her own cheeks turning bright red.

“This is really really awkward,” Aria breathed, her face burning with embarrassment.

“Agreed,” Calypso spoke in barely more than a whisper.

Lexi held the violin neck out to Clarice wordlessly, too embarrassed to speak.

Clarice took it from her with shaky hands. She looked into Lexi’s eyes as she took it and there was a moment of unspoken vulnerability where Clarice felt all of the mental walls and social shields that protected her psyche from exploitation were laid bare. All that remained was the core of what made Clarice who she was, exposed to Lexi’s searching gaze. Lexi’s eyes widened in amazement before softening and filling with golden tears.

“You are beautiful,” Lexi whispered in wonder and admiration as gold rivulets ran down her cheeks. “I knew you were amazing, but Clarice…how can anything be so beautiful?”

Clarice smiled at Lexi with the pure love of her soul in her eyes. There was no trace of snark or humor; for that moment in time she was just Clarice the Seraph, with a boundless love that couldn’t be quantified. The full weight of her spirit shone out brilliantly, a light full of joy and endless wonder.

When Lexi released the violin neck, the moment came to an end. There was an inverted boom as a blast of energy rushed into her and her splintered soul was reunited. The body she kept in her soul space was suddenly reunited with the neck. She closed her eyes in wonder. “How could I have lived without a piece of my soul?” she whispered as tears of joy filled her eyes. “I can’t imagine losing it now that it is back. I feel so much more…me now.”

Lexi pulled her into a warm embrace, experiencing a shared revelry in the unification of her soul as the emotions flooded the bond. Aria and Calypso joined her, laughing from the pure joy infusing them.

“This is so freaking awesome,” Mandy said with a wondering smile on her face. “I’m so glad you brought be to this world.”

Aria laughed, staring at Mandy affectionately. “It’s only going to get more awesome from here on out, now that our professor of awesomeness has more of her soul.”

Lexi dissolved into giggles. “I almost forgot that she has an honorary doctorate of awesomeness.”

“We better go back to the cabin,” Aria suggested, making a gateway. “We didn’t get a chance to tell the others why we left so suddenly, so they are probably worried.”

“You’re probably right,” Clarice agreed, looking over at Redgart. “Would you like to come with us, Redgart?”

“Okay,” he accepted with a nod, his eyes serious. “I owe you a great debt, and I will repay it.”

Chapter 5

Clarice flinched at the glare awaiting her on the other side of the gateway into the cabin. Their parents, along with Tamra and Uncle Devon, were waiting for them with anxious expressions. Their mother was trying to pin her to the wall with a withering gaze as the portal closed behind them.

“You all just vanish with no explanation or indication of what’s wrong,” their mother spoke levelly, barely keeping the anger out of her voice. “Right after we got Aria back. For the love of all that’s holy, please give us something before just vanishing like that in the future.”

Clarice hung her head in shame, knowing the kind of anxiety they must have felt. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she mumbled apologetically, staring at the ground. “I should have sent one of the other’s back with an explanation.”

Their mother paused, staring at Clarice peculiarly. “What happened? Are you okay?”

She finally noticed Redgart, noting the archangel wings on his back. “Who’s this?”

Aria gave them a recap of the events of the last half hour. When she was finished, their mother walked over to Clarice and studied her intently.

“I can feel the difference in your soul now,” their mother murmured in a thoughtful voice. “You feel more complete now, somehow. How are you feeling?”

Clarice smiled and pulled their mother into an embrace. “Like part of me has lost out big time on having you as a mother and is now excited to finally meet you. I’m sorry for making you worry, Mom.”

“You’re fine,” their mother said gently, holding her close as she felt the part of her daughter that had been missing. “I know you were just worried for Lexi. How did you end up with your soul so fragmented? Aria’s was split in two, but yours appears to be in more fragments than hers.”

“It was a choice,” Clarice replied with a pained sigh. “I seem to have some new memories now. Apparently, we knew there was a chance the other Seraphim would attack us before we were imprisoned here. We bound our souls to the instruments before they were used against us. The other Seraphim weren’t trying to imprison us when they used the divine instruments; they were trying to unmake us. If we hadn’t bound our souls to the instruments, they may have succeeded. Instead, the instruments rebelled when the template for reality was written to exist without us. They sent us here instead, hidden as regular mortals. When they attempted to unmake Grodek after he took two of the instruments, the half of my soul that was in the instrument they were using fractured itself to prevent them from succeeding.”

She felt horror echo through the bond from Aria, Calypso, and Lexi as she spoke of fracturing her soul. While she had no memory of the event during mortality and had grown used to the loss, she could now remember the agony of her soul fracturing, more painful than anything a human body could suffer. The three angels gasped as they felt the echo of that pain through the bond. Aria’s eyes filled with tears as she stared at Clarice in dismay. She stepped over and wrapped her arms around Clarice and their mother with a heartfelt sob.

“Oh, Clarice, I’m so sorry,” Aria wept, and Clarice could feel her sister’s soul cringing at the very idea of such agony.

“It’s okay,” Clarice told the weeping angels gently. “It’s ancient history now. I’m almost whole again.”

Calypso wept with Lexi, their eyes full of regret. Her mother didn’t know the reason they were so upset, but she knew they felt something horrifying through the bond. She held Clarice and Aria tightly, pouring her love and comfort into her daughters.

The other angels were watching anxiously, unaware of the shared pain flooding the bond between them. Mandy was staring at Clarice with concern. She had taken an involuntary step toward Clarice, clearly feeling a desire to help comfort her in some way, even if she didn’t understand what was wrong.

“I’m going to kill them,” Calypso spoke quietly through her tears, her eyes filled with terrible determination. Clarice could feel a burning, blind hatred from Calypso in the bond, hot and sharp.

Everyone stared at Calypso in shock. She had shown revulsion to hurting anyone, even demons who were torturing children. You couldn’t find a gentler soul in the cosmos. To see Calypso driven to a desire for violence enraged Clarice to the point that she growled audibly. Clarice marveled that there could be someone so despicable that it would make even Calypso want to defile her soul with murder.

“They have to go,” Lexi agreed with Calypso, her voice as cold as the Antarctic wind. “They’re responsible for so much pain and horror throughout the cosmos. It’s time for them to come to an end.”

“Let’s go get the rest of your soul, Clarice,” Aria whispered as she lay her head on Clarice’s shoulder. “Then let’s go Seraphim hunting.”

“We need to attack them first, or we’ll never get the next piece,” Clarice responded, her voice filled with a calm certainty. “We need to flush them out of the higher realm.”

Aria released her and stepped back so that she could stare into her sister’s eyes. “Do you have a plan?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” Clarice answered with an evil smile. “We have to destroy the moon first though.”

“Why do we have to destroy the moon first?” Aria asked slowly.

“Did you know that over a hundred and fifty thousand people die every day on Earth?” Clarice asked quizzically. “The light realms have had a static population for quite a while now. If anything, it diminishes over time as they cast any undesirables out of the light realms. I wonder what would happen if they had a sudden influx of angels returning. It seems to me that things might just get a little chaotic, making an excellent distraction for us to visit the lower two realms and get an idea of how the energy actually travels within those realms. With any luck, we can unlock some soul memories in the higher density realms, which would help us figure out how to reroute the main trunk of energy that is feeding the highest realm.”

“Trunk?” Calypso asked, her eyes lighting up. “That term is tickling something in my soul memory.”

“Good, let’s keep that recall flowing,” Clarice grinned at her. “Also, I’m not just talking about our moon. We are going to go on a rampage and get rid of as many moon machines for other worlds as we can in a short amount of time. I want the gates of heaven overwhelmed.”

“Go big or don’t go at all, eh?” their father said with a proud smile. “That’s my girl.”

Clarice laughed, causing waves of positivity to ripple away from her. She could feel the power difference since adding a piece of her fractured soul back. She was significantly stronger now. She wasn’t radiating power like Aria and Calypso yet, but she was a lot closer.

“How are we going to destroy the moons?” Aria asked contemplatively. “We can shoot our light beams at it, but I’m not sure that will be enough to take down the whole moon. At least, not unless I blast it for several days.”

“Did you forget what you and Calypso carry inside of your souls?” Clarice asked meaningfully. “Wiping out a few moons is not even close to the power you now wield.”

Aria blinked as she gazed back at Clarice, then a slow smile spread across her face. “Yeah, I did forget. I haven’t really used it for anything, so it didn’t even occur to me that we could use them for anything except getting rid of those bastards.”

“I think we should warn the humans before you wipe the moon out,” Devon stated, his eyes full of concern. “If Calypso broadcast a brief explanation on her channel about the nature of the soul trap and why you are getting rid of it, I think it would alleviate a lot of the panic that would ensue otherwise.”

“Great point, Uncle,” Clarice nodded her agreement. “It’s kind of useful having you around sometimes, Calypso.” Clarice flashed her a teasing smile as she finished.

Calypso stared at her with a wry smile, but the bond pulsed with Calypso’s love.

“Why don’t the three of us take care of wiping out the soul traps,” Aria suggested, nodding at Calypso and Clarice. “Lexi and the rest of you could take care of eradicating all of the nukes on Earth while we are away. Lexi, do you want to catch up with Mary now that I’m back? Uncle Devon and my parents could take care of the nukes easily enough.”

Lexi stared at her hesitantly. Clarice could feel her warring desires in their bond. She clearly wanted to go help her childhood friend, while also not wanting to leave Aria after just barely being reunited with her.

“You know we all have the ability to teleport and can sense each other anywhere in the cosmos, right?” Clarice pointed out reassuringly. Her expression turned mischievous, and she winked at Lexi. “Don’t forget to get Mary upgraded while we are out. We never did get her set up with the antigravity ability.”

Lexi stared at Clarice levelly, but the bond burned with a sudden longing that gave her true feelings away. Clarice started waggling her eyebrows at Lexi suggestively and their youngest angel started losing the battle to keep her cheeks from blushing. Red spots bloomed on her cheeks and quickly spread out to the rest of her face. She finally couldn’t hold a straight face any longer and began laughing helplessly under Clarice’s relentless arsenal of suggestive expressions.

“Fine, I’ll go visit her,” Lexi gave in, giggling at Clarice’s knowing gaze. “Just to see if she needs help with anything, mind you.”

“Oh, naturally,” Clarice agreed innocently, her golden eyes filled with mirth. “Just remember to show her all of the cool things you can do with antigravity.” She finished with her trademark leer.

“Don’t look at me like that Clarice!” Lexi whined plaintively. “Now I feel like I need to go bathe.”

“I’ll scrub your back…” Clarice offered with another leer.

“Control your sister, Aria,” their mother said dryly.

“Yeah, control me, Aria,” Clarice echoed in a seductive voice that made Aria and Calypso flush as the bond was suddenly flooded with desire.

Mandy watched on with a delighted amusement. Clarice winked at her and received a return wink just as full of mischief.

“Who would you like to go with, Mandy?” Aria asked solicitously. “You’re welcome to come with us, if you want.”

“You’re welcome to come we me too,” Lexi invited her, nodding meaningfully.

“Sure, I’d love to go with you, Lexi,” Mandy accepted the invite with a gracious smile.

“Those three need some alone time,” Lexi whispered, just barely audible. Of course, a whisper in the same room with an angel was the same as saying it out loud.

Aria’s face lit up like a sunset again as she immediately looked at Clarice and Calypso before hurriedly looking away. Calypso was little better, blushing to the roots of her hair as she attempted to look into Aria and Clarice’s eyes before suddenly looking down. Clarice nearly laughed out loud as she watched the bashful angels. The bond was making it clear they were ready to leave and get some alone time with each other.

Tamra and their uncle Devon shared a resigned look as the four angels tried to fight against the feedback loop the emotional bond created.

“Redgart, would you be interested in returning to the light realm when they go there later?” their father asked their newest addition. “That was what the other Seraphim had promised you, wasn’t it?”

Redgart had been quietly watching their antics with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. Clarice was pretty sure they weren’t what he expected Seraphim to behave like.

“If you would allow it, then yes,” Redgart nodded eagerly.

“Can you give us some information on how they are sending angels down here to the mortal realm?” Clarice asked him curiously. “Calypso mentioned there is some kind of machine or mechanism that handles the soul transfer from the lower light realm to the mortal realm. How many angels can they send at a time?”

“It’s a rather large building,” Redgart answered, frowning as he reminisced. “Probably the size of a distribution center. It’s primarily made up of technological equipment. I don’t think they can send more than a few hundred at a time because it uses a lot of power. I believe there was a ten thousand angel per earth day capacity. Less if it was an archangel, and much less if it was someone from the first triad. They are also designed for receiving the souls back from mortality.”

“Does that mean people won’t have their angel bodies when they return to the light realm after death until they go through the machine?” Aria asked in concern. “Are they just going to be stuck in limbo until they can be processed or something?”

“No, the power of the light realm is so strong that their bodies will reform naturally after a couple of months,” Redgart assured her quickly. “They only need to go through the mortality translators if they want to have the same body they had as humans but as angels. Most angels who have experienced mortality prefer to have a gender, so they go through the translator when they return. The body that forms naturally from the ambient light energy is genderless.”

“No freaking way!” Clarice exclaimed in amazement. “They really are genderless? We’ve been telling everyone that angels have gender because we do.”

“Yeah, the angel tear uses the human body as a template when it is translating you into an angel,” Redgart explained. “But most angels in the light realms are going to be genderless.”

“How many of these facilities are there?” their father asked intently, his eyes fascinated.

“There used to be hundreds,” Redgart answered, then frowned. “They destroyed most of them after the rewrite that killed the old Seraphim.” He paused as he studied the three Seraphim curiously. “Well, we thought they killed you. From what you said earlier though, it sounds like you were just hidden in the mortal realm when they rewrote reality rather than being unmade. I’m guessing they were a little shocked when they discovered you were still alive.”

“It sounded like there was a general panic when Lucifer was redeemed and they sensed his return,” Aria chuckled grimly. “I’m not sure how long they have known about us. Probably since Calypso played the divine instrument the first time.”

“That would make sense,” Emily agreed as she finally released Clarice and stepped back. “I guess Eric and I should start taking out nukes. When are you three leaving?”

“Might as well get it over with right now,” Clarice shrugged, looking at Calypso and Aria. “Anything you need to do before we go?”

“Nope,” Aria shook her head and looked to Calypso.

“I’m ready,” Calypso responded eagerly. “I’m very curious to see what the light realms look like.”

“Let’s go destroy some moons then,” Clarice suggested merrily.

“Hold on,” their Uncle Devon held up a hand. “Let’s go make an announcement on Calypso’s YouTube channel first.”

“Oh yeah,” Clarice deflated a little. “Okay, let’s go start a live stream.”

Calypso nodded and they went into the library. Mandy followed along, clearly not wanting to miss anything.

XXXXX

Derek did a final push to his git repository and glanced at the clock on his PC. Dinner time. He stretched as he stood up, letting out a loud groan. He could hear his twelve-year-old son, Jordan, swearing up a storm in another part of the house. Derek shook his head as he exited the room, and the volume of the profanity increased. Jordan took his gaming very seriously, a fact some of his friends enjoyed exploiting when they met up online.

Derek walked down the hall to the living room and cleared his throat. “You’re going to burst a blood vessel if you don’t chill out,” he told his son.

“Slurp my butt,” Jordan retorted irritably. “This thing is so freaking cheat!”

“You’re not wrong,” Derek assured his son with a serious expression. “I just read an article about one of the game devs programming the mobs to cheat if they detected a volatile person. They specifically target people with webcams and then record the tantrums that ensue after a mob breaks the rules. Apparently, the game devs go to parties where they play those videos in the background as part of the entertainment.”

“Seriously?” Jordan demanded, his face filled with indignant fury. “Which company was it?”

“Let me see…” Derek murmured, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I think it was company going by the name of ‘Jordan cries like a baby when he loses’ or something like that.”

Jordan glared at his grinning father resentfully for a few seconds and then exploded. “It seriously cheated! I’m getting a refund for this garbage game and giving them a review from hell.”

“They had a promo for a DLC that includes a box of tissues,” Derek informed Jordan with a twinkle in his eyes. “For those gamers that just can’t wrap their heads around the fact that they are playing a game.”

“Don’t you have some work to do or something?” Jordan demanded in exasperation.

“Yep, it’s called shaming my son into controlling his temper,” Derek replied pleasantly. “You’re going to spend most of your life angry if you don’t learn to let the little things roll off your back.”

They paused when they heard the ping on his son’s phone. Jordan glanced at it, then gasped in shock.

“What’s the matter?” Derek asked curiously.

“Calypso’s channel is doing a live stream in five minutes,” Jordan answered in a hushed whisper. “Oh my god, this is so cool!”

Derek frowned as he watched his son quickly change the TV over to the YouTube app. The last time Calypso had performed live, people all over the world were cured of their illnesses, from things like cancer to the common cold. There were rumors that she had also purged some kind of nanobots from people contracted to intelligence agencies throughout the world. It could have been true, but there were so many fantastical claims on the internet about the beautiful musician that it was hard to say what was true. The most fantastical claim, that she was actually an angel, was hard to dispute. There had been so many videos appearing online showing her flying through the air like a super-hero that it was hard to claim they were all an elaborate hoax. He might have still believed it was a hoax, if he hadn’t witnessed that mass healing of the world’s sick four months ago. He still found it hard to believe there could be actual demons though.

The live cast had a picture of Calypso from the old days, still in a theater mask. He checked his phone for the time just as the image vanished, replaced by the woman he recognized as Clarice. Her eyes were a brilliant glowing gold. Her face was exquisite, everything you would expect in an angel, framed by midnight hair. She flashed the camera a smile before backing up a few steps to be joined by Calypso. While golden eyes looked pretty cool, the swirling lavender vortexes that were Calypso’s eyes were by far the winner.

Calypso smiled into the camera, her eyes filled with love. Derek gasped as he suddenly felt warmth suffuse his soul, like he had been submerged into a pool of liquid optimism. He had never felt more accepted and valued than in that moment. He suddenly felt foolish for ever having doubted that this angel was...an angel.

“So... we thought we would give everyone a heads up so that nobody panics when they notice the moon disappearing in a little while,” Clarice spoke with a tightness about her lips, as if she were trying really hard not to grin. “I’m sure most of you are aware that angels are real by now. The good news is that all of you are angels as well. You are merely experiencing mortality for personal growth reasons. The only problem is that you are trapped here now due to some bastards in the light realms using mortality as a prison system. The moon is a giant soul trap, catching your souls at death and queuing you up for rebirth. This was not how it was meant to be, so we are going to put a stop to it. We’ll be getting rid of the moon soul trap, along with the moon soul traps of inhabited planets in this part of the galaxy. That means that when you die, you’ll be going back to the light realms, rather than being reincarnated. For those of you who die in the next few days, I hope to see you soon back in the light realms. To the rest of you, have a great rest of your mortality. The planet will be fine without the moon, so don’t worry! We love you!”

At her last words, Derek once again felt his soul filled to overflowing with love. It took him several seconds to process what she had actually said.

“Is it off?” Calypso asked hesitantly.

“Could be,” Clarice replied evasively. “It’s just so technical that a poor innocent angel like me couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by all of these buttons.”

“Clarice, nobody is ever going to associate you with the word innocent,” a voice from outside the camera said dryly. “Is there a reason you’re leaving the live stream going?”

“I was just hoping Calypso would do something funny when she thought she wasn’t on camera anymore,” Clarice explained with a regretful sigh. “She really let me down, Aria.”

“Why don’t you answer some of the questions in the chat then, if you’re going to leave it going?” Aria suggested with a hint of laughter in her voice. “There’s some really good questions here.”

“Everyone always just asks if heaven is real,” Clarice responded with an eyeroll. She suddenly leaned forward until her face was filling the camera. “The sky is real, everyone. If you get an airline ticket you can even visit the heavens.”

“You are such a freaking troll,” Aria accused her in an affectionate tone that was at odds with her words. “Into the troll pit with you.”

As she finished speaking, Clarice suddenly dropped out of sight with a startled squawk, as if a hole had opened up beneath her. A second later, Aria appeared in front of the camera, her luminous red hair framing the face of an...angel.

“Okay, let’s see what we have here,” Aria murmured as her eyes scanned the screen. “Flamelord-4-life wants to know how to become an angel. It’s actually super simple. You just need to be touched by an angel tear and then say you want to vanquish evil.”

She appeared to be looking through more comments as she paused for a moment. “Mud-bloods-rule-404 wants to know if angels are genderless,” Aria’s face split into a large grin as she stared into the camera with mirthful golden eyes. “I would have said yes we have gender, if you had asked me yesterday. However, I have discovered that angels that haven’t ever experienced mortality are genderless. When an angel tear is activated it sends microscopic probes all throughout the body to make a template for the replacement energy body. So, while I am a female, the asshats that tried to lock us away for eternity do not have gender.”

Aria’s eyes widened just before a cannon ball smacked into the side of her face, knocking her over.

“Sorry about that, folks,” Clarice’s cheerful voice trilled as she appeared back in front of the camera, completely saturated in water. “My evil sister dropped me into the middle of the Pacific Ocean and it took me a minute to figure out where I was. I did find a shipwreck at the bottom though. It had that cannon ball with Aria’s name on it.”

“You are so lucky angels don’t take damage or feel pain,” Aria declared as she stood back up in the camera’s background.

“Actually, you’re so lucky,” Clarice corrected her with an impish grin. “Or that would have hurt a lot.

“Who let the kids take over the YouTube channel?” another voice that sounded similar to Clarice asked in exasperation. “That’s enough of that, you two. Go blow up the moon already.”

“Aw, but Mom, I’ve never had a YouTube channel to play with before,” Clarice whined plaintively.

There was a longsuffering sigh and then the live broadcast ended.

Jordan turned back to stare at him in astonishment. Derek stared back at his son in stupefied shock, feeling like the world had just flipped upside down.

“So, we’re all angels just playing in a simulation?” Jordan asked with a wondering grin on his face. “I thought you said we were all gods?”

“Angels, gods, same thing,” Derek muttered distractedly. He suddenly remembered the primary reason for the live event. He quickly pulled out his phone and opened a sky map app. “Looks like the moon is visible. Let’s go see if it really vanishes.”

“You think they are really going to vaporize the moon?” Jordan asked disbelievingly. “It’s got to be a prank. You saw how they were acting.”

“Let’s go find out then,” Derek suggested, feeling a sense of calm certainty that the moon was indeed going to be gone before the night was out.

Derek snorted in amusement as he saw all of the neighbors out in their front yards and driveways. Everyone still had Calypso’s channel notifications turned on, from the looks of it.

“Hey Jordan, I’ll bet you twenty bucks nothing happens,” Eddie, the next-door neighbor kid said with heavy skepticism in his voice. “Nothing ever happens.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Derek told him with an amused smirk. “Seems like I remember you being sick with pneumonia four months ago, and you got better when everyone else got better. Was that nothing?”

Eddie shrugged the question away. He was fifteen and knew everything. He wasn’t shy about telling anyone who would listen how much more intelligent he was than the rest of them. Derek remembered being a teenager and knowing everything, but Eddie took it to extremes.

Eddie’s mother, Cynthia, wandered over, short and plump in her sweatpants and t-shirt. She had a face that looked like someone had hit her with an ACME hammer. It was smooshed up like one of those Persian cats.

“What do you think, Derek?” she asked in a startlingly pleasant voice. She had both the face and voice for radio.

“I think we’re going to have to adapt to no longer having tides soon,” Derek answered confidently. “Bad news for anyone relying on tidal power.”

“Won’t it mess up the planet’s orbit if the moon is gone?” Cynthia asked with a troubled frown.

“Not for a long time,” Derek shrugged as he watched the moon intently. “I don’t think it will make a difference for tens of thousands of years.”

“I think-” she broke off as three brilliant streaks of light shot up high into the sky, straight up toward the moon.

There was a collective inhaling of breath up and down the street as the arcs of light brightened as they travelled. Derek felt a sudden sense of disorientation just before the moon vanished.

“Jesus Christ, they really did it!” Someone down the street shouted in a mixture of excitement and panic. “The freaking moon is gone!”

“Dad, is it really going to be okay?” Jordan asked in a frightened voice.

“You heard Clarice,” Derek told his son with a reassuring smile. “It’s going to be better than okay. I think things are going to get a lot more interesting in the days ahead.”

XXXXX

WHERE DID THE MOON GO?

Just minutes after a live broadcast from Calypso’s YouTube channel where Clarice claimed they were going to destroy the moon, the moon did indeed vanish. Many people questioned whether the moon is really gone, or if there was some kind of elaborate trick to hide it from our view. The question was quickly answered as the oceans slumped back between low and high tide, and haven’t moved since, aside from the much smaller solar tide. We are left with many questions, first and foremost being, how will this affect the earth? Clarice, the spokesperson in Calypso’s livestream, claimed that the planet would be fine without the moon. We decided to ask the experts if humans could live without the moon, and the answer will shock you. While we have grown used to tides and there is an entire ecosystem that depends on the tides, the Earth will not be at any immediate risk without the moon. In thousands of years the planet could wobble to the point that we no longer have seasons. Over a very long period the days could become shorter as well, without the moon to put the brakes on our spin with tidal forces.

Scientists are skeptical in regards to the claim that the moon was a giant machine made for catching souls, though we do have one scientist who admits the moon rang like a bell when TNT was detonated on the surface to take seismic readings during the Apollo missions.

For now, the consensus is that there will be no immediate repercussions to the survival of the human race without the moon. However, there will be less romance in the air without those magical moonlit nights.

XXXXX

“We should give everyone a bit of a show, don’t you think?” Clarice asked Aria and Calypso with an expectant grin. “Maybe light up to full incandescence and fly up instead of teleporting.”

“You missed your calling in life,” Aria informed her with a smirk. “You should have gone into theater.”

“I’m a lesbian, not a thespian, silly,” Clarice declared haughtily.

“This might surprise you,” Aria told her archly. “But you can actually be both. At the same time, even.”

Clarice raised an eyebrow at Aria as the double meaning sank in.

Aria rolled her eyes. “Get your mind out of the gutter, you goose.”

“Are you trying to insinuate that I’m a horny adult actress?” Clarice asked evenly, her golden eyes narrowing.

“What?” Aria asked in confusion, “What are you talking about?”

“You called me a goose,” Clarice accused with a meaningful look.

“You are a goose,” Aria insisted dryly. “I’m not sure what that has to do with a horny adult actress.”

“What kind of sound does a goose make, Aria?” Clarice asked, her eyes twinkling expectantly.

“I don’t know,” Aria frowned in bewilderment. “Honk honk?”

“What else do you honk?” Clarice asked intently, her lips curving up at the corners.

Aria’s brows drew down in thought, then her eyes widened, and she laughed incredulously. “So now you’ve associated geese with horns because they both go honk?”

“Hey, you said it, not me,” Clarice grinned at her triumphantly.

“Am I understanding this correctly?” Calypso asked, staring at Clarice in amusement. “Geese are honking all of the time because they are horny, so if someone calls you a goose, they must be calling you horny. Please tell me I got that wrong.”

“Honk honk,” was Clarice’s only reply as she grinned at them impudently.

Clarice suddenly felt a wave of love flood the bond, followed a moment later by Aria embracing her tightly as tears fell down her cheeks.

“Oh Clarice, I still can’t believe how good it is to have you back,” Aria sniffed as she clung to her possessively. “I missed you so much.”

Clarice held her tightly, feeling her own heart swell with love as she gently ran her fingers through Aria’s hair. Her sister still felt fragile around the edges. It would take time for her to fully heal after months of believing Clarice was dead. She wrapped her aura of love around Aria for several minutes, letting her presence reassure her beautiful and loving sister.

“Sometimes I still think I’ll just wake up in that nightmare again, and you won’t be there,” Aria whispered tremulously as tears ran down her cheeks. “I get so damn scared that it really is all in my head somehow. Every time I see you is like a gift, knowing you are still here with me.”

Clarice felt tears in her own eyes at Aria’s words. “Aria, I love you. I promise right here and now to never leave you alone again. I swear on my Seraph soul that I will always be with you, even if you get sucked into another reality. I’ll be right there with you.”

As she spoke the words, there was a tremor in reality. She felt a shift in her soul as countless threads intertwined her spirit to Aria’s, binding them together more tightly than the bonds of reality.

Aria gasped as Clarice’s soul was laid bare before her, as it had been for Lexi. There was a brilliant purity with no defenses and no facade, delivered into Aria’s hands and revealing the true version of Clarice that hid behind all of the layers of bravado, humor, and other social masks she employed to protect her psyche. Aria trembled as she felt the depth of love in that soul for her, the passion and protectiveness. She could see just how much of Clarice was defined by her love for Aria, and it was massive.

“Oh Clarice,” Aria cried as she pulled Clarice in tightly. “You’re so beautiful! How can anything be so beautiful?”

“Now you will never lose me again,” Clarice told her, and it was her Seraph voice of authority which spoke. “My soul is in your hands now, and nobody can separate us ever again.”

Calypso gasped as she finally understood what had happened. She stared at Clarice in wonder, her eyes full of love and admiration. “You bridged your inner soul to Aria. You’ve made yourself part of her. She really can’t be stolen away from you now.”

Aria’s eyes widened at Calypso’s words, and she pulled back to stare into Clarice’s...brown eyes? “Clarice, what happened to your eyes?”

“What do you mean?” Calypso asked, studying Clarice’s golden eyes intently. “What do you see, Aria?”

“Her eyes are brown again,” Aria whispered, her tone uncertain and anxious. “They are the same color they used to be, before we were angels.”

“You’re seeing inner Clarice,” Calypso told her gently. “Her eyes are still golden to me. She bridged her inner soul to you. You will always see her true appearance now, no matter how she evolves as a Seraph.”

Aria stared at Clarice, her eyes studying Clarice’s face and eyes. “She is so beautiful. I thought her angel form was more beautiful than it was possible to get, but now...how can anything be so beautiful?”

Clarice smiled at Aria her eyes full of love. “Thanks, Aria. You don’t know how much that means to me. I’ve always been afraid my soul would be ugly on the inside.”

Aria blinked as she realized it was Clarice’s most fundamental core element that she was staring at. The underlying personality that drove everything else in the layers above that core. She remembered the way demons could stink based on how rotten their souls were. Clarice was the polar opposite, a soul so pure and dedicated that Aria’s eyes were transposing what her physical eyes were seeing and overlaying what she could sense of Clarice’s soul.

Without even stopping to think about what she was doing, she leaned forward, pressing her lips against Clarice’s. There was a sudden roar of passion that slammed into her like a supernova. She whimpered at the strength of the passion, a hurricane that threatened to overwhelm her senses as she felt the desire raging from both of their souls simultaneously.

Clarice finally pulled away, raising her hands and clasping the sides of Aria’s face gently. “If you only knew how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“Me too,” Aria breathed, closing her eyes as she fought the raging torrent of desire in her soul. “To be continued.”

“Yeah,” Clarice agreed with a radiant smile. “You can count on that. Let’s go party on the moon.”

Calypso had been watching them with wide eyes, unable to look away. Clarice could feel Calypso’s own desire, and at the same time a powerful sense of satisfaction as she stared at the two of them.

At Clarice’s words, Calypso launched into the air, opening the floodgates on her illumination until she shone as bright as the sun. Clarice and Aria did the same as they shot upward toward the moon, trailing intense beams of light.

Chapter 6

“I would ask you what it was like on a world without angels,” Lexi told Mandy as they flew through the air above North America. “But I didn’t know angels existed on this world until Clarice and the others saved me.”

Mandy had an expression of rapturous delight on her face as they flew through the air at well under a hundred miles an hour. Moving around at hypersonic speeds could be awesome, but there was something to be said for flying at slower speeds and enjoying the experience. There were squares checkerboarding the land below them as they flew over vast farmlands. If her psychic eye was on target, she suspected Mary was somewhere near Wisconsin. Lexi could feel Mary in the web of psychic energy fields that her mind associated with personal connections she had made, making it easy to track her down.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m an angel,” Mandy declared with a wondering laugh. “Reality really went nuts when I met Aria.”

“It went nuts before you met her, technically,” Lexi pointed out with a faint smile.

“Yeah, I’m still not sure I understand what happened,” Mandy frowned, her brows creased. “Lucifer said he sent me there via some kind of character template. So, did I not exist in that world before then? Wasn’t it a copy of this one?”

“Good question,” Lexi responded with a contemplative frown of her own. “He said it was a shallow copy of this world, so I wonder if it was fully populated. It might have just been more real around Aria, since she was the intended victim. I guess that leads us into the big question of what reality even is, if there can be splinters chipped off of this one. I still think it’s just a collective projection created by all of our minds that are connected on some kind of communion plane.”

“Hey, check it out, a plane!” Mandy pointed excitedly at a single prop plane coming toward them several miles away. “Should we change course, or wave hello to them?”

“I get the feeling that you want to say hi to them,” Lexi replied with an amused smile. “Let’s say hello.”

The small plane seemed to notice them and conclude that they weren’t birds when they were a few thousand feet away. The plane banked to the side to keep its distance. Lexi could see the pilot’s eyes, wide with wonder as he stared at them. Mandy waved excitedly at the pilot and two passengers in the rear as they flew past. There was a teenage girl in the rear of the small plane that waved back at them with a grin plastered to her face.

“I think we just made someone’s day,” Mandy commented with an exuberant grin.

“I think you’re right,” Lexi agreed with a last wave at the plane. “At least we brought some joy to someone today.”

“That’s right, it’s our job to bring people joy, isn’t it?” Mandy asked with a delighted laugh.

Lexi chuckled as she observed Aria’s savior. She seemed to have a boundless positive energy that bubbled up out of her. Her eyes sparkled with life, enhancing her already beautiful angelic features. She reminded Lexi of a less mischievous version of Clarice.

“What part of Wisconsin do you think-” Mandy cut off as they both heard the coughing sound of the single prop plane as its engine died. The small plane began gliding down toward the plains below.

“I suppose we should go help them,” Lexi suggested as she began flying toward the plane at a quicker pace. “This is great terrain for an emergency landing. Everything is so flat.”

“What can we do to help them?” Mandy asked as she studied the small plane intently. “Should I carry one of them down to the ground? Or maybe you could just go inside and make a portal for them.”

“Not a bad idea,” Lexi smiled approvingly. “However, we probably don’t want the plane dropping onto someone’s house. I’ll just go underneath it and carry it down to the ground.”

“You can do that?” Mandy asked, staring at Lexi in amazement.

Lexi felt warmth spread out from her core as Mandy gazed at her in wonder. Was this what it was like for Aria, Clarice, and Calypso, always having people look at them in awe and respect? She could get used to this.

“Yeah, the antigravity ability makes it super simple,” Lexi responded with a shrug. She turned to look at Mandy and winked. “It’s kind of fun to get the ability too.”

Mandy raised a challenging eyebrow. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

Lexi flushed as she realized she was teasing someone who outclassed her in the teasing department.

“You’re really pretty when you blush,” Mandy informed her with a wink.

“Okay, that backfired spectacularly,” Lexi laughed ruefully.

They were almost next to the gliding plane when the girl in the back finally noticed them again. Her eyes were wide with fear, clearly expecting the worst. Mandy smiled at her and gave her two thumbs up. Lexi switched her hover field on and flashed over to the underside of the plane. She flipped upside down and used her arms and legs to hug the fuselage. It took her a moment to find the center of balance. Once she felt comfortable that it wouldn’t flip over, she started slowing its forward momentum down while holding it level.

“Is she holding us up?” she heard a woman ask the pilot in stunned amazement.

“Yep, she’s got you,” Mandy called over to them from where she was slowly gliding next to them. “She’s going to place you down on the ground.”

Lexi began descending gently, mindful of her passengers. She looked over at Mandy and found herself staring down the lens of a phone’s camera.

“I’m sorry, Lexi,” Mandy apologized with a smile just short of laughter on her face. “I have to show this to Aria and the others.”

Lexi frowned as she imagined how she must look from Lexi’s vantage. “I can already imagine all of the jokes Clarice is going to make,” she sighed in resignation. “She is never going to let me live this down.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mandy told her with a wide grin. “I remember her telling you to show Mary all of the things you could do in zero gravity. Maybe this is what she meant.”

Lexi began banging her forehead against the fuselage with a groan. “I’m never going to live this down.”

It took her nearly ten minutes to reach the ground, with Mandy filming her most of the way down. She had descended slowly to avoid having the wind lift the plane off of her.

“Superman was full of crap,” Lexi declared as she neared an empty county road in the middle of endless corn fields. “It’s not like these things have handles with reinforced frames to grab them by.”

“We’re definitely going cape shopping after this,” Mandy promised with a dimpled smile.

Lexi glared at her as she set the plane down on its wheels. How dare she make fun of my superhero comparison! Especially with those dimples, which should be illegal. Lexi had always had a soft spot for dimples.

As soon as the plane was on the ground, the pilot was opening the door of the high wing aircraft and dropping the small stairs. A middle-aged woman and her young teenage daughter exited quickly, followed a moment later by the pilot. The woman, Jill, was average height and slightly plump, with short brown hair and light brown eyes. She was trembling with nerves as she took deep, relieved breaths. Unshed tears filled her eyes as she came down from her adrenaline high.

“Thank you so much, Lexi,” the woman gushed, stepping forward and pulling the surprised angel into a hug. “I was so scared. I know it’s still possible to land without the engine, but it would have been super risky.”

“You’re very welcome, Jill” Lexi told her warmly, enveloping Jill in her loving aura. The woman gasped as she was flooded with love. She hung on to Lexi for long enough that her daughter, Heather, started poking her discreetly. Heather was the same height as her mother. She was a little overweight and had a serious case of acne on her cheeks. She had chest length brown hair and the same light brown eyes as her mother. Nobody would accuse her of having a beautiful face, but she wasn’t ugly.

“Mom, don’t make it weird,” Heather admonished with a hiss.

Lexi laughed and stepped back from her, then pulled a surprised Heather into a hug as well. Heather drew a breath in sharply as she felt the overpowering love fill her soul. She probably would have stayed for hours, but after almost a minute she was interrupted.

“Don’t make it weird,” Jill told her daughter with a smirk.

“You didn’t tell me it felt so good,” Heather grumbled as she reluctantly released Lexi.

“How old are you, Heather?” Lexi asked curiously.

“How did you know my name?” Heather asked in surprise.

“A person’s name is written in their aura,” Lexi explained with a small smile. “Calypso can tell how old you are too, but I haven’t evolved that much yet. So? How old are you?”

“That is so cool,” Heather gushed as she studied Lexi enviously. “I was on my way to my sixteenth birthday party.”

“Happy birthday!” Mandy told her enthusiastically. “Where were you going?”

“We were going to go on a cruise on Lake Michigan with my grandparents,” Heather sighed wistfully. “There’s no way we’ll make it there in time before the cruise leaves now.”

Lexi turned to Douglas, the pilot. He had been staring at them in awe from the moment he exited. He flushed when he saw her staring at him. He was in his twenties, lean, tall, and good looking. “What airport were you flying into, Douglas? Just think of where it is on a map in your head.”

Douglas gave her a nervous stare, and she nearly snorted a laugh, glad that she hadn’t been listening to his thoughts the whole time. As soon as she saw the visual location in his head, she opened a large gateway to the small airfield.

“Here we are,” Lexi declared grandly, gesturing at the gateway. “I’ll just push the plane through, if you’ll make sure the brakes aren’t on and steer it.”

Douglas still hadn’t said a word, clearly too tongue tied to say anything. He climbed back into the airplane and pulled the stair door back up behind him.

“Oh my god,” Heather exclaimed in a voice that was probably heard in the light realms. “We’re still going to make it to the cruise! I can’t wait to tell grandma and grandpa that we were saved by angels.”

“Can I talk to you for a minute after we push this through?” Lexi asked Jill with a serious expression.

“Sure,” Jill nodded agreeably, her eyes still looking dazed as she tried to cope with almost crashing in an airplane and meeting a couple of angels.

Lexi floated up into the air and positioned herself behind the tail of the plane. She started pushing, but the plane just rocked forward a little. She felt the tail getting brittle in her grip as she put more force into it.

“I think the brakes are still on!” Mandy shouted loud enough to be heard by Douglas in the cockpit.

He flinched in his seat, then quickly released the breaks. The plane shot forward under the pressure Lexi was exerting on it from the tail. There was a startled yelp from Douglas as he shot through the portal.

They had finally been noticed by some employees in the small airfield. They were staring in shock at the plane that had just shot through a portal in the middle of the air. Lexi flew back to Heather and Jill and ushered them through the portal.

Lexi caught Mandy’s eye and nodded toward Heather meaningfully. Mandy grinned and nodded before engaging Heather in a conversation about what kind of car she wanted now that she was sixteen.

“Jill, I wanted to make you an offer while we are here,” Lexi told her, glancing at where Heather was engaged with Mandy in excited conversation. “Would you like us to turn you into an angel? I figure you can turn your daughter into one when you think she is ready.”

Jill stared at her, looking completely stunned. Lexi waited patiently for her to digest her offer.

“I’m assuming you heard what Aria told the world in the livestream last night,” Lexi added, eyeing her curiously.

“Yeah,” Jill said, slightly breathless. “That we’re in some kind of prison, and that you can change normal humans into angels with tears.”

“So, what do you think?” Lexi asked meaningfully. “I can even just unlock the ability in you with an angel tear, and you can wait to say the trigger phrase until you are ready. I don’t know if you’ll get another chance any time soon, so I wanted to offer.”

“Yes,” Jill replied immediately, her face suddenly eager. “I’ve had enough of this endless reincarnation shit. My soul feels old, and I’m sick of repeating this life over and over.”

Lexi blinked in surprise. Her eyes softened as she realized some of the horrors people probably had in their soul memory from past lives. The thought was enough to help her produce an angel tear. She took Jill’s hand and placed it on her wet cheek. Her hand suddenly glowed as it took effect. Her features became softer and her body slimmer. She gasped at the rejuvenating effect of an angel tear.

“Now say the words,” Lexi told her gently.

“I want to vanquish evil,” Jill said firmly. Her eyes widened as she felt the tingle in her hand begin moving throughout her body.

Her daughter must have had some kind of sixth sense, because she suddenly cut off what she was saying to Mandy and walked over to her mother. She stared at the now youthful looking woman in awe that slowly turned to excited wonder as Jill began glowing.

“You’re going to be an angel, Mom!” Heather exclaimed ecstatically.

When the transformation was complete, Jill stared at them with the face of a twenty-year-old woman, her eyes filled with ecstasy as light flooded her meridians.

“Mom!” Heather beamed enthusiastically. “You’re an angel!”

“Wow,” Jill breathed in disbelief. “I can’t believe how good I feel!”

They had acquired an audience in the short time since appearing through the portal. There were half a dozen people standing a short distance away, watching with rapt attention. Two of the people had pulled their phones out and recorded the process.

“Can you turn me into an angel?” Heather asked hopefully, her light brown eyes full of anticipation.

Lexi looked at Jill questioningly. Jill smiled and stepped forward, pulling her daughter into an embrace. Quicksilver tears rolled down her cheeks and landed on Heather’s neck. The effect was more dramatic for Heather. The acne on her cheeks vanished, and her extra pounds also vanished, leaving her to hold up her suddenly loose clothing.

“I guess I should have warned you about that,” Lexi apologized wryly. “Angel tears reshape your body to its ultimate design in preparation for the etheric translation to angelhood.”

“I want to vanquish evil,” Heather said immediately.

Lexi felt a sense of satisfaction that she was no longer the youngest angel. As Heather’s transformation completed and she recovered from the overwhelming positive energy flooding her system, Lexi marveled at the differences. She could still tell it was the same person...barely. Her face no longer missed being beautiful, and her lavender eyes made her new face striking with its beauty.

Mandy walked over and held her phone out to Heather with the rear camera active so that she could see herself. Her hand flew to her mouth as she beheld her angelic features. A slow smile filled her face as she admired herself with wonder in her lavender eyes.

“Um...I don’t suppose you would be willing to do that to me?” one of the airfield employees asked, his eyes almost painfully hopeful.

Lexi shared a look with Mandy, then shrugged. “Might as well.”

Twenty minutes later they were finally able to continue their journey. Lexi sighed and decided to just make a portal. They would never reach Mary at the rate they were moving.

She opened a portal to the location she felt Mary’s consciousness glowing in the web of psychic energy overlaying the mortal realm. She stood in front of the portal staring at what her eyes were seeing but her mind wasn’t believing. Mary was in a large bed, and she wasn’t alone. There was a tall male angel with archangel wings. They were both naked and doing it. Neither of the angels had seen her, so focused on what they were doing. Feeling a steel weight drop into her stomach, she closed the gateway.

She felt Mandy pull her into a comforting hug from behind, but it didn’t register. She had been so sure that her and Mary would be together, with their own eternity to cherish. Mary had been her salvation when she was a child, and again when Aria had vanished. Should she have gone with Mary and left Clarice on her own? Would things have worked out differently? She knew that even if she could be sure they worked out differently, she still wouldn’t have left Clarice behind.

She felt hot tears forming in her eyes as she accepted that the fantasy she had created in her mind with the two of them living out eternity side by side, was just a fantasy.

“I’m so sorry,” Mandy whispered sympathetically,

She let out a wail and turned around, falling into Mandy’s arms. She felt the weight in her stomach spread out as she looked at an eternity of solitude. She couldn’t imagine herself with anyone else. Clarice had been the only person she could have ever seen herself with besides Mary, and she was taken. Twice.

There was a ripple in the space around her, and suddenly Aria, Calypso, and Clarice were there, surrounding her with concern on their faces. Clarice stared at Mandy for a moment, clearly speaking telepathically.

“I’m so sorry, Lexi,” Clarice whispered as tears formed in her own eyes, and she took her from Mandy’s arms.

The words coming from Clarice were like a stick of dynamite on a dam. She sobbed into Clarice’s shoulder, weeping bitterly for the future she had been denied. The tears just kept coming as she revisited all of the memories she had of Mary in her early teenage years. She felt the horror and self-loathing of her years in captivity, subjected to the whims of the powerful and twisted. The sudden hope as she was reunited with Mary in her transcendental state. She had been so sure that her happily ever after had finally arrived as she rekindled her friendship.

Even as her heart hit rock bottom, she was self-aware enough to realize that she had been making some huge assumptions. Mary had been a person filled with compassion and sympathy, but there had never been any hint at romance in their time together. She had known that at some level, deep in her soul. It was the reason she had never tried to kiss her. She had convinced herself that it just needed time and companionship. She had deluded herself and probably put Mary in an uncomfortable place. Her perceptive friend had probably known of her feelings the entire time.

“I’m such an idiot,” Lexi muttered as she clung to Clarice like a lifeline.

“You’re the hottest idiot I’ve ever seen,” Clarice told her playfully, her eyes filled with tears of sympathy. Lexi could feel Clarice's overwhelming love engulfing her through the bond. She remembered seeing Clarice’s inner soul, that place of ultimate beauty. The pain in her heart lessened slightly as she realized that to be loved by the goddess in front of her meant she would never be alone in the halls of eternity. She desperately clung to that lifeline, holding on to the image of Clarice’s inner soul and the love she could even now feel pouring out of that soul and into her.

Slowly, her wracking sobs subsided. She felt the love flowing in from Aria and Calypso through their bond as well, confirming that she would never be truly alone. She could also feel the presence of Mandy’s inexperienced aura, pushed toward her in an attempt to comfort her. Aria’s savior. She had only been with her for a short time, but she could see how brightly the inner soul of that beautiful angel burned.

Her sorrow and heartache were suddenly replaced by overwhelming gratitude for the beautiful angels that had pulled her into their hearts. She staggered as the power of her gratitude left her dizzy with wonder. They had shown up to be with her the second they felt her pain. They had pulled her out of a literal hell and made her a part of their soul. Whatever she might have lost with Mary, it paled in comparison to what she had gained with these three angels.

“I love you all so much,” Lexi whispered fiercely.

“You will never be alone, Lexi,” Clarice told her firmly, her voice a mixture of compassion and confidence. “We will always be here with you.”

“That’s right,” Mandy told her gently. “I’m immortal now, so I’ll always be here too. I know this isn’t much comfort right now, but I’m so glad I met you, Lexi. You’ve become such large part of my new life that I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“That is comforting,” Lexi told her warmly. “Did you study psychology or something? Making me feel needed is just what I need right now.”

“I do need you,” Mandy told her, a quiet note of longing in her voice as she watched Lexi with eyes full of love...and something else. “From the moment you taught me to fly I have felt a connection with you. Maybe we were friends before mortality, and it is my soul memory making you seem so familiar, or maybe we’ve been together in previous incarnations. I just know that you are very special to me and that I need you.”

Lexi was shocked to feel the hole so recently made in her heart suddenly fill up with desire again. She stared at Mandy in a new light, an unexpected feeling of attraction flooding her heart and leaving her slightly breathless. Clarice suddenly grinned at her and waggled her eyebrows suggestively, breaking the spell and sending her into peels of near-hysterical laughter. Mandy looked puzzled, but the laughter was contagious, dragging her into the collective mirth as Aria and Calypso laughed with her as well.

When Lexi finally recovered from her manic humor attack, she stepped up close to Mandy and stared into her lavender eyes, seeing the same longing she now felt. “We still haven’t unlocked your antigravity ability,” Lexi told her in a silky soft voice.

Mandy’s eyes widened slightly as she sensed the change in Lexi’s manner. She looked down at Lexi’s lips, her eyes darting back up to her eyes as her breathing quickened. Lexi wasn’t sure that she had the courage to initiate a kiss on her own, but she felt so much confidence and affirmation flowing through the bond from the other three that she was able to push past her fear. She looked at Mandy’s lips. They looked soft, inviting, and were slightly parted. She looked back up into Mandy’s eyes, knowing how vulnerable her own eyes must look in that moment.

Mandy smiled seductively, her dimples flashing and sending a shiver down Lexi’s spine. Mandy leaned forward slowly, her eyes never leaving Lexi’s vulnerable eyes. As their lips touched, Lexi felt a sensation similar to a quickly descending elevator, eliciting a flood of motion in her core that took control of her body. Her arms wrapped around Mandy as she pushed her body tightly against the other woman, molding herself to Mandy’s soft form as their lips met with a passion Lexi hadn’t thought she possessed. She heard a passionate moan and realized that it had come from her own throat as raw need pumped through her veins like liquid desire.

Lexi was interrupted when she felt Mandy suddenly float up out of her arms. She stared up at Mandy with a wondering smile on her face. She couldn’t believe how much passion she had felt rushing through her system. A dimpled Mandy stared back down at her with eyes full of unsatisfied need.

“Our work here is done,” Clarice announced with a mock salute at the two of them. A moment later she vanished with Aria and Calypso, all of them grinning at her encouragingly.

Chapter 7

“I’m glad you brought Mandy back with you,” Clarice told Aria with a relieved sigh. “She’s saved our bacon twice now.”

“Yeah, she really is a gem, isn’t she?” Aria agreed fervently. “We need to congratulate Lucifer on a job well done with finding her.”

“Good job, Satan,” Clarice grinned at Aria and Calypso as she mimed devil horns.

Aria couldn’t stop the sudden image in her mind of Clarice dressed up in a sexy devil outfit. Her cheeks flushed as she hurriedly looked away. Looking away was futile, however, since they could feel her emotions through the bond. The sudden desire that flared in her core was followed immediately by a probing tendril of thought from Clarice.

“Come on, sharing is caring,” Clarice told her with a look of faux concern.

Aria squeezed her eyes shut as she turned redder. “It’s so embarrassing,” she protested weakly.

She gasped as Clarice teleported, appearing so close that her body was pressed up against her own, their faces a hairsbreadth apart. “Show me,” Clarice commanded in a whisper that sent shivers down Aria’s spine.

Aria’s brain short-circuited temporarily as she stared into Clarice’s dark brown eyes, desire flooding her body. The image of devil Clarice flashed through her mind again as she stared back into Clarice’s eyes with barely restrained hunger.

Clarice started laughing delightedly when she saw the image, sharing it with Calypso. “I love the way your mind works, Aria. Devil’s horns are my new call sign.”

Aria let out a disappointed breath as Clarice stepped back. She could feel the same desire emanating from Calypso as she saw the mental image Clarice had shared with her. Aria quickly tried to think of something else before they created another feedback loop. One of the side effects of the bond was that if two of them felt the same emotions it could create a feedback loop that reinforced the emotion. If she wasn’t careful, it would cascade down to Lexi and lead to all sorts of embarrassing scenarios for their fourth member, depending on what she was doing at the time.

“I’m very curious about Mandy's counterpart from this reality,” Calypso murmured contemplatively, making an obvious effort to break the loop. “We should make a point of looking her up when we are finished with this.”

“Speaking of finishing this,” Aria stared down at the moon in front of them near Gliese 12b. “Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”

“I’ll take this one,” Calypso offered, setting her harp down on her foot. It was a little awkward, since they were floating in the void of space. Well, void if you were using regular vision. Her ascended eyes could see energy lighting up the supposed emptiness of space everywhere she looked, a lattice of lines connecting star systems, planets, and other celestial objects.

Calypso plucked a sequence of notes on her harp as she focused her will on the dissolution of the moon in front of them, reducing it to nothing but energy potential. The removal of an entire moon had taken seconds. Aria was still amazed and terrified by the power they wielded.

Several ships began moving toward them from space stations in the planet’s LaGrange points. So far, the only spacefaring species they had encountered were demons. While the inhabitants of most worlds were similar to Earth, some of them were allowed to have more technology. It seemed to be based on the whims of whichever demon ruled over a planet. The human inhabitants had ranged in technology from mud huts to space stations with interplanetary travel. This world was clearly ruled over by one of the more lenient demons.

“Shall we move on to the next one?” Clarice suggested wryly as one of the vessels fired a blast of energy toward them. Clarice simply opened a portal in front of the beam, letting it shoot off harmlessly into deep space.

“Let’s boogie,” Aria grinned, opening up a portal to the next star system.

They spent several days teleporting around to thousands of star systems as they purged moon after moon. They were near the galactic center when they found their first planet untouched by demons.

“I’m getting a different feeling from this world than the others,” Calypso informed them with a frown. “The ambient psychic energy is worse than any of the other worlds we’ve been to yet.”

A dozen angels suddenly appeared in a circle around them. They were holding a variety of weapons, from glowing swords to more advanced weaponry. One angel held what looked like a rifle pointed at Calypso. They all wore expressions of grim determination as they stared at the three Seraphim with open hostility. Aria wrinkled her nose at the stench. Were they demons in disguise?

“There’s going to be trouble if you keep pointing that gun at Calypso,” Aria informed them in a dangerous tone.

They didn’t bat an eye at her threat. One of them pulled out some glowing rope and began floating toward them purposefully.

“Put your hands behind your back,” the man ordered curtly. “If we have to remove some of your limbs to make you obey, we will.”

Aria heard the difference in language, even though it sounded like English to her. She knew her mind was translating it in real-time. She stared into the man’s eyes as she replied.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she spoke in a quiet voice, with all of the authority of her Seraph class behind it. The man hesitated when he heard the power in her voice. “If this is the courtesy you afford all angels, I think I prefer the demons.”

His mouth tightened and he gestured to the man with the rifle. He squeezed off a beam of white light aimed at her arm. It never made it to her. Eyes blazing with light, Clarice had intercepted the beam, then vaporized the weapon before the men had time to flinch.

“The next one of these asshats that attacks one of us is getting vaporized,” Clarice declared coldly.

“In case you didn’t understand her,” Aria translated in the same quiet voice, layered with authority. “The next asshat to attack us gets vaporized.”

The angels around them were staring in shock and growing fear as they moved back slowly.

“Now, explain who you are and why you are trying to capture other angels,” Aria demanded, her voice filled with a commanding intensity. “Or we can make you explain it. Explain why you stink worse than demons while you’re at it.”

Aria noted that all of the angels present were Dominions of the first and second order. They had clearly grown used to being the most powerful entities in the realm. She wondered what they were even doing in the mortal realm. They weren’t imprisoned in the chains of mortality, so they clearly supported the current power structure. She was pretty sure Dominions didn’t hang out in the mortal realm though.

The angels seemed to be frozen with indecision. Now that they were looking for it, they could clearly see that Aria and her companions were more than they had bargained for.

One of the Dominions of the first order sneered at her as he raised what looked like a wand above his head. A wave of darkness dropped around them like a cloud falling from the sky. Aria’s spiritual eyes were completely unaffected by the inky cloud. She could sense what felt like energy leeches trying to suck all of the energy from the area as the black cloud settled around them. It latched on to her soul and began to strain for purchase, clearly sensing a buffet of power within. It was a buffet the parasites would never enjoy. There was a single harmonic from Calypso’s harp as she plucked one of the strings. A shockwave flashed out away from her, burning the darkness away like a wildfire in dry grass.

The single harmonic vibrated in the space around them with terrible effect. The Dominions around them grabbed the sides of their heads and screamed in agony as the divine instrument nearly unraveled their fragile souls with its power. Aria flashed over to the Dominion who had wielded the wand, grabbing him by the throat and pulling his face up within inches of her own as her eyes glowed with power.

“I feel like we’ve been more than patient with you,” Aria growled in annoyance. “It’s time to start talking, Doriken, before I decide to rewrite reality with you as a carbuncle.”

The sneer was gone from his face. All that remained was naked fear as he gaped at her in disbelief. “You...you...you are all dead!” he gasped in uncomprehending terror. “They destroyed you!”

“Ah, so you finally recognize us, eh?” Clarice drawled as she floated over to them. Aria blinked as she realized Clarice was speaking the same language. “I suppose it’s no surprise that you volunteered to come play in the mortality zoo, Doriken. I remember when you used to try and volunteer to act as a guardian angel for humans so that you could make them suffer. You make demons look compassionate in comparison. I wonder what kind of horror show is going on in this system with a piece of garbage like you in a position of authority. Pretty bad, if the stench of your soul is anything to go by”

Calypso joined Clarice in her inspection of the now terrified Dominion. “I remember him,” she said in a voice that should have left frost on her lips. “I’m sure he was ecstatic when he thought we were gone for good. Well, Doriken, I have some bad news for you. Reality is about to change drastically, and your Seraphim will have no part in the new reality. On the other hand, I have some good news for you.”

He stared at her with a mixture of fear and hatred. Aria felt her hand twitch around his neck as several memories flooded her mind. Memories of the complaints from other angels of the horrors Doriken had put them through in mortality. Memories of his gloating face the moment before the divine instruments were played, intent on their destruction.

“The good news, Doriken,” Calypso continued in a conversational tone. “Is that you won’t be around to see any of these changes. Clarice?”

Clarice smiled grimly at the vermin in Aria’s grip, then blasted him with angel fire. He screamed in terror as it struck him in the face. It took several seconds for him to sublimate back into ethereal energy, the state from which he had originally been spawned. He screamed in terror throughout the entire process.

Aria turned around to face the remaining Dominions once he was gone. They were all frozen in shock as they realized who they faced. Aria remembered her confrontation with the demon lord at the Tree of Life when he had tried to teleport away. A hint of a memory rose up from the depths of her soul memory and she laid out a web of dissonant energy that destabilized the energy matrix in the region that would jam any attempt to teleport or portal away.

She had done it just in time. As Clarice and Calypso joined her to inspect the remaining Dominions, she felt several attempts to penetrate her web of dissonant energy. When they realized they couldn’t teleport or portal, several of them attempted to fly away. Calypso’s voice rang out with an authority that couldn’t be ignored or defied.

“STOP!” She hadn’t shouted the word, but Aria could feel the universe itself halt its operation in the space around them at the power of her command.

All of the Dominions froze. They stared back at her fearfully as their limbs refused to move. The three of them floated over to inspect the remaining Dominions. As Aria read the names in their souls, memories flooded to the surface of her mind. It was obvious why demons weren’t controlling this place. There were worse things than demons. She remembered the attempt to bind them when they had first appeared.

“I have a feeling that any angels who came here for help are regretting it now,” Aria spoke in a calm voice, containing the disgust and distaste she felt for these monsters. “I don’t think there is any point in questioning them. Let’s be done with them and go see how bad the damage is.”

Clarice nodded her agreement, her eyes filled with revulsion as she stared at the Dominions around them. “We should have done this before. We were too forgiving. Who knows how many have suffered at their hands because we didn’t erase them when we should have.”

Aria brought her hands apart and clapped with all of her might. A brilliant flash washed away from her and tore through the Dominions like a tsunami. Their immortal bodies were dissolved and their spirits disintegrated as the impossible wave of light carried on past them to crash into the moon. The enormous soul trap fared no better as the tsunami of light washed over it, enveloping it completely before dissolving it down to ethereal energy.

“Wow, Aria,” Clarice stared at the empty space where the moon had stood. “I guess we really didn’t need the divine instruments to get rid of the moons.”

“Yeah, that definitely got more powerful,” Aria agreed, feeling a sense of awe at how much power they commanded. “I’m seriously scared of what we are capable of.”

“I’m not,” Clarice muttered darkly. “The memories I have of those bastards make me grateful for every scrap of power we gain. As soon as I saw his name, it all came flooding back into my mind. The cult of assholes who tried to convince us that increasing the level of pain people suffered would make them enjoy the return to immortality even more. It was no surprise that none of them wanted to experience mortality.”

“I’m scared of what we’re going to find in this system,” Calypso confessed with a look of dread on her beautiful face.

The sight of dread on her face triggered a sense of rage in Aria. Her protective nature made her want to hunt down anyone responsible for making that beautiful face express such horror and extinguish their light from existence.

“Let’s go see what we can do to make things better,” Clarice suggested gently. “It’s past time that these people experience something wonderful.”

Aria nodded with Calypso, and they dropped down to the planet below. The first thing they saw as they dropped through the cloud layer, were dozens of pyramids on the shores of an ocean. There was a large city not far from the pyramids that was filled with industry. Hundreds of smokestacks were pumping out greasy black smoke. All of the buildings were soot stained and drab. There were no modern vehicles or horses or other beasts of burden. Instead, everyone was walking and pulling carts without the help of domesticated animals. Aria zoomed in on the land around them searching for any sign of life besides humans but found nothing larger than insects and small rodents. The psychic energy in the world was a miserable soup of suffering and fear.

“Let’s go talk to someone and see what’s going on here,” Clarice suggested in a subdued voice. There was no sign of her playful nature as she observed the depressed energy pervading the land.

Aria nodded and they dropped quickly down into one of the streets. There were undecorated buildings lining both sides of the street. Aria guessed they were apartment buildings and that houses weren't a thing on this world. The people in the streets were dressed in the same kind of clothing, as if the idea of styles and creativity were a foreign concept. They all wore a drab set of what looked like coveralls, both men and women. When they saw the angels land, they all dropped to their knees and pressed their faces to the ground. Aria felt her ire rise as she watched them tremble in fear where they remained prostrate.

Aria walked up to a woman and knelt so that she was at the same level. She gently reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder. “Excuse me, Serena, could you tell me what the name of this city is?”

Serena began to shake more violently when she felt Aria’s touch. At her words, the woman spoke quickly. “Aberjan, Exalted One.” Her voice came out in a strangled moan as she appeared to wait for some kind of punishment.

Aria reached out a hand again, this time she laid it on the woman’s back and poured her aura of love and comfort into her. Serena gasped in amazement and wonder as she felt love flood her entire body. Aria maintained the contact and aura, knowing Serena would revert into a state of terror the moment she stopped.

“Serena, I’m from another world,” Aria told her gently. “We are here to try and make life better for the humans of this world. We destroyed a dozen angels on our way here when we discovered that they were controlling this world. They were horrible angels who did horrible things. We aren’t all like that. I know you don’t remember right now, but you are also an angel, just like me. You were imprisoned on this world, just like I was imprisoned on my world not too long ago. If you wish it, I will give you the ability to become an angel once more, just like me.”

Aria connected to Serena’s thought node as she waited for the woman to say something.

They are trying to get me to speak blasphemy so that I will be condemned. If I say no though, she will be affronted and also condemn me. No matter what, I am going to be condemned. There is no escape this time.

Aria felt her heart break for the woman, realizing what kind of hell they must have been living in. There was nothing she could say, even blanketing the woman in love, that would convince her that this wasn’t some kind of trap. She had been conditioned to be meek and fearful for her entire life, just like some religious cult back on Earth.

“I’ve got this,” Clarice told her softly. She leaned down and gently pulled the woman’s face up off of the ground to stare into Clarice’s golden eyes. A shimmering golden tear ran down her cheek as she stared into the woman’s eyes, her own eyes conveying a boundless love. Clarice leaned forward and pressed her cheek to the woman’s cheek, transferring the tear.

Why does she weep? Her eyes are so warm, I could almost believe...

Serena gasped as the tear sank into her skin and her face began to glow. Her middle-aged face became twenty years younger. She stared at Clarice in stupefied shock, unable to comprehend what was happening.

“I need to you to repeat after me,” Clarice told her firmly. “I will vanquish evil.”

Clarice stared at her expectantly. Serena licked her lips nervously, then spoke the words.

“I will vanquish evil,” she whispered fearfully.

What is this feeling? Am I finally being judged? It doesn’t feel unpleasant though. Oh!

Aria watched as the process swept over Serena, translating her into an angel. It ended with a brilliant flash out of her eyes and left her staring in wonder and disbelief.

“You are an angel once more,” Aria told her with an encouraging smile. “Nothing can harm you ever again, and you can’t die. Do you believe me now?”

Serena nodded slowly, her eyes filled with wonder as she felt more love and positivity than she would have ever thought possible.

“What’s going on here?” a cold and merciless voice demanded from a few hundred feet away. Aria could smell the stench of his rotten soul from hundreds of feet away.

Serena immediately collapsed back down to the ground and pressed her head to the cobblestones. Aria took her hands and pulled her back upright, rising as she did so. Serena stared at her in terror, even with all of the love flooding her system.

“I’ll show you what we do to bad angels like him,” Aria promised her with a wintery smile.

“Who the hell are you-” he broke off in a strangled croak. Aria had blurred across the few hundred feet and wrapped her hand around his throat, lifting him off the ground. He was an archangel, his large bird-like wings identifying him more easily than the runes on his nodes. He wore a much different arrangement of apparel than the humans. He was in long white robes, looking more like a biblical angel than the angels on Earth.

“Hello, Drison,” Aria greeted the angel in a dangerous tone. “There’s been a change in management. Unfortunately for you, there will be staffing cuts as well. I can smell the stench of your twisted soul. There’s no room for angels like you in this reality.”

He had been staring at her in terrified recognition as she spoke. He tried to jerk away as her eyes began glowing, flapping his wings in panic, but he was no match for her strength. Aria fired her beam into his face as she glared up at him. He lasted less than a second before he became motes of light that faded from sight.

The people on the street hadn’t seen anything. They had remained prostrate with their faces pushed to the ground the entire time. Serena had seen it though. Clarice had held her upright to make sure she didn’t miss the clear display of power disparity.

“See, Serena?” Clarice asked with a cheerful smile. “It’s time to clean house and get rid of all of the angels who have been tormenting the humans of this world. I know you have a lifetime of habits to unlearn, but you really are free from this nightmare. When we are finished, there won’t be a single angel left alive if they have treated any of you poorly.”

“Who are you?” Serena asked in wonder, her eyes filled with awe.

“I’m Clarice,” Clarice smiled warmly. “This is Aria, and Calypso. We are Seraphim, the highest order of angel. In the light realms, where angels originally come from, there are only nine of us Seraphim. There are four of our number who are responsible for you being trapped in these human bodies lifetime after lifetime. We are putting an end to that now and changing everyone back into angels again. We will need your help to turn everyone back into angels. Do you remember how I touched you with my tear?”

Serena nodded, her eyes curious.

“That’s all that is required to start the transformation process,” Clarice explained, smiling warmly as she spoke. “Once a person has touched one of your tears, they need to say, ‘I will vanquish evil’ and then they will turn into an angel. It shouldn’t take very long to get everyone on this world converted back to angels if everyone who is turned into an angel turns everyone they know into an angel.”

“And just so you know,” Aria added with a grin. “Angels don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep, and they don’t feel pain or take any damage. You could be dropped off of the tallest tower or mountain and it wouldn’t hurt you a bit.”

“Really?” Serena asked in hopeful amazement. She suddenly frowned. “But didn’t you hurt those other angels?”

“There are only two classes of angels who have the ability to hurt other angels,” Calypso told her reassuringly. “Cherubim and Seraphim. If any Cherubim show up here, we will take care of them. The other Seraphim are too scared to leave the light realms.”

“Can we get a little bit of information from you, Serena?” Aria asked as she glanced around at the prostrate humans all around them. “What were those other angels doing to you? Why is everyone so scared of angels?”

Serena’s eyes grew haunted as she spoke. “They punish you if you break any rules or fail to fulfill all of your duties in a timely manner. They have purging rooms they take you to, and they hurt you. Sometimes they will take you even if you haven’t broken any rules or fallen behind. They claimed it was to purge our souls of sin. We were told that if we have any sins when we die that we would spend the rest of eternity in a purging room. They encouraged us to visit the purging rooms if we felt like we had sinned in any way.”

“Sounds like the inquisitions on crack,” Clarice muttered darkly. “I’m so sorry you had to deal with this, Serena. Know that your suffering is at an end now. We are going to hunt the rest of the twisted angels down now. Please try to convert as many humans to angels as you can. We’ll come back after we have finished purging this world of twisted angels.”

There were several people who had been listening to the entire exchange. One of them hesitantly lifted his head up off of the ground and stared at them with a mixture of fear and hope.

“I think Linus is ready to be converted,” Aria told Serena with a nod toward the man. “Do you think you can produce a tear?”

“I think it would be hard not to,” Serena answered, tears of happiness in her eyes. “Thank you, so much.”

“One last gift,” Aria told her with a comforting smile. She pulled Serena into a hug, followed a moment later by Clarice. Aria made tears form in her eyes and the let them drop onto Serena. Clarice did the same, and as their tears collided there was a golden flash of light. When the light dimmed, Serena’s coveralls had been torn apart with a new pair of Archangel wings.

“Damn, I always forget that wings are hell on clothes,” Clarice muttered in irritation. She plunged her hand through a small portal and pulled out a shirt, along with some pants.

“How about you try some clothes on from my world,” Clarice suggested with a grin. “I guarantee they are more comfortable than what you are wearing right now.”

Serena looked around at all of the people, a blush forming on her cheeks.

“Here, follow me,” Clarice told her wryly as she opened a portal back to her room at the cabin. “You can change in here.”

Serena gasped as she saw the portal, then again when she saw Clarice’s room inside the cabin. “Where is this place? It’s so beautiful.”

Aria felt a stab of pity for the woman as she realized the dull, colorless world these people were stuck in.

“This is the place where I used to sleep when I was human back on my world,” Clarice replied, gesturing at the sky. “If you looked up at the stars at night, my world is close to a small star really far away.”

“You live in the stars?” Serena asked in wonder.

“Well, you do too,” Clarice told her with a faint smile. “I’ll show you after we finish getting rid of the rest of the twisted angels on your world.”

Serena hesitantly stepped through the portal into Clarice’s room. She was gone for several minutes while Clarice helped her into her new shirt. Aria decided to spend the time productively. She moved among the prostrate humans, distributing tears as she went. By the time Clarice returned with Serena, there were eight new angels waiting for her. They had heard their conversation, so they were more prepared for the change than Serena.

Serena stared at the new group of smiling angels in surprise and then delight as she realized she wouldn’t be working alone after the Seraphim left her. She had been pretty when she was a human, but she was radiant now, especially with new clothes. The coveralls seemed to be designed to make a woman as unattractive as possible.

“Okay, time to go-” Aria cut off as she smelled a tainted soul. She looked upward as half a dozen Archangels came soaring into the city. When the new arrivals spotted the anomaly in the city where the newly minted angels were, they banked and swooped down in their midst. Several of the new angels dropped to their knees automatically, but Serena remained upright this time, though she looked like it was will power alone that kept her upright.

“Hello, little peasants, it looks like it’s time for you to visit the purging room,” a tall blonde Archangel told them pleasantly. “I will personally oversee the purging of your sins.”

“Good luck with that, you jackass,” Clarice told him derisively. “They aren’t human anymore.”

The pleasant smile vanished from Meldin’s face as he noticed Clarice and heard her words. An unpleasant smile appeared on his face as he pulled out the same kind of wand Doriken had wielded. “I see we have some visiting angels from a neighboring world,” he stated with a welcoming smile. “Allow me to be the first to welcome you-”

He broke off as the wand was vaporized from his hand by Clarice. While the energy parasites couldn’t hurt the Seraphim, the same wasn’t true for the new angels. The other Archangels quickly pulled out their own wands, which were just as quickly vaporized.

“I’m glad you saved us the trouble of hunting you down, Meldin,” Clarice told him with a grateful smile. “You’re going to save us all sorts of time.”

Meldin took a step back as he stared into Clarice’s golden eyes, fear filling his features. “I welcome you to Sardward, fellow angels,” Meldin declared with a welcoming smile that was only partially ruined by the quaver in his voice. “We didn’t realize there were any other angels around.”

“When I’m done, there won’t be,” Clarice told him with a friendly smile. “Do you have any idea how bad your rotten soul stinks, Meldin? Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Goodbye.”

“No, wait!” Meldin cried out desperately, his eyes pleading. “We’re not all bad! The Dominions forced us to do this. We didn’t have a choice!”

“Meldin, it’s time for you to visit the purging room,” Clarice threw his words back into his face. “Where I will personally oversee the purging of your sins. I’m afraid begging won’t save you this time Meldin. You have more demon in you than demons do. Enough monologuing. Goodbye.”

He turned to flee just as Aria’s angel fire hit his neck, vaporizing him instantly. She and Clarice made short work of the remainder of Archangels.

When they were finished, the newly ascended angels rose to their feet looking sheepish. Aria didn’t blame them for their behavior. They had been born into this nightmare world and lived who knew how many incarnations under the same tyrannical rule. It would take a lot of rehabilitation for them to overcome their fear of other angels.

“Okay, let’s go find some more assholes to vaporize,” Clarice suggested as she rose up into the air.

Aria smiled grimly as she followed Clarice up into the air and opened her senses to the world around them. She caught a whiff of tainted soul from the North. “I’m so ready.”

Chapter 8

Clarice studied the pyramids curiously as they drew closer. “What’s up with these pyramids? I doubt they’re burying pharos on this world.”

“They appear to be some kind of power station,” Calypso commented as she studied them. “I can see a lot of electrical current flowing through them. There are aquifers running underneath them into the ocean. The water is creating a resonance that is affecting the quartz and granite with some kind of electrical discharge. It looks like it is creating electrical current in the cables they have running through the passages. This must be how they are powering those factories.”

“And another crazy fringe theory turns out to be true,” Clarice shook her head ruefully. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at this point.”

Clarice smelled the stench of rotten souls in a large building at the edge of the city. They flew down to the ground, landing at the entrance to the unattractive building. Her sharp angel hearing picked out the sounds of screams of agony coming from deep inside.

“This must be one of their purging centers,” Clarice grimaced as the smell of blood combined with the stench of corrupted souls. “Let’s go purge it.”

She pushed through the large front door and strode into a large room. There was a desk near the back with a man wearing the peasant coveralls. When he saw them enter, he quickly prostrated himself to the floor. She ignored him and went through a door that led further into the building. It opened to a long hallway with doors appearing every twenty feet. The screams were coming from several of the rooms.

“Calypso, go with Aria,” Clarice instructed briskly. “I’ll take this one.”

“I can go alone,” Calypso spoke firmly, but the bond was filled with hesitation and reluctance.

“Nope, you’re coming with me,” Aria declared, hooking her arm in Calypso’s. “You leave the killing to us, and we’ll leave the healing to you.”

Calypso sighed but nodded. Clarice could tell she wanted to do more to help. As much as she despised these angels, the thought of Calypso defiling her pristine soul with the ugly acts of murder made her feel sick.

Clarice vaporized the door in front of her and stepped through the opening into a medieval nightmare. It was like the inquisitions all over again, with implements of torture and humiliation arranged on the walls and benches. There was a nine-year-old girl bound to a chair with some kind of vice driving a bolt down into her wrist, breaking it in slow motion. The girl’s legs were covered in additional vices and her bones were disjointed where the bolts had broken them. Clarice felt tears nearly blind her as she stared at the girl in horror and rage. When she saw the angel standing behind her, rage overwhelmed horror.

She quickly vaporized all of the bolts pressing into the girl’s bones and blurred across the room to the archangel. His eyes had shown surprise that quickly turned to anger, and then to fear as he beheld her angel fire blasting the bolts from the chair of pain. She imitated Aria’s jamming field to make sure he couldn’t teleport away. He backed into the wall at the back of the room as his eyes sought for an escape. She felt the need to make him suffer for the horrors he had wrought, but she knew in the end that he was going to be dead either way. The longer she spent destroying him, the longer the girl would have to wait to be healed. With a murderous glare, she blasted him with a beam of angel fire and returned to the girl.

She was groaning in agony with no position that would allow her to find relief. Clarice pushed her aura out with an intensity that overwhelmed every other sensation the girl could feel except love.

“Lyra, your safe now,” Clarice told her in a tight voice, barely holding tears in check. “Calypso will be here to heal you soon.”

Calypso entered the room before she even finished speaking, her face filled with horror from whatever she had seen in the other room. When her eyes fell on Lyra, golden tears filled her eyes as she rushed forward and spoke several words of power. Clarice felt like the words were just on the cusp of her awareness. She fervently hoped that she could learn to heal as well, so that she didn’t have to rely on Calypso for cases like this.

Lyra shivered as all of the pain was expelled from her body while her bones fixed themselves. Calypso pulled her into a hug, angel tears splashing onto Lyra’s head.

“Calypso!” Aria called from further down the hall. “Need healing!”

Calypso regretfully released the girl and blurred out of the room to join Aria in the third room.

“Lyra, I need you to repeat after me,” Clarice told her gently. “Say ‘I will vanquish evil’.”

Lyra looked up at her with hollow eyes and repeated the words. Clarice patted her shoulder as the change began, then left the room at high speed down to the next room of horror.

There was an old man in the room, lifeless on a table he had been bound to. If she had a stomach, she would have puked everything up as she observed the blood and guts littering the room. At least the soul trap is gone. He’ll be going back to the light realm.

There were a total of eight additional victims. Clarice felt her anger rise in sync with her horror as she witnessed the atrocities that angels had inflicted on the humans of this world. She was beginning to understand why they had made the decree that all angels both high and low experience mortality. The immortal angels toying with humans like domestic cats playing with a mouse had no concept of pain and merely viewed it as a curiosity. They felt no empathy or compassion. They seemed to thrive on the power being able to inflict pain gave them.

“We need to move faster,” Clarice told Aria and Calypso firmly. “We’re going to have to start moving at full speed if we want to purge this planet of its disease. I know we want to offer comfort and help, but we can’t take longer than the moment it takes to kill the angels and heal the humans before moving on to the next place. Too many will be suffering while we console others if we don’t speed things up.”

“Agreed,” Aria nodded, her eyes haunted. Calypso also nodded, her eyes full of tears.

“Let’s go,” Clarice breathed, then poured every bit of power she had into speed.

They flashed in and out of buildings in a blur, leaving vaporized angels and healed, awakened humans in their wake. Even moving at high speed, it took over two days to cover the entire planet. There were several billion people spread across three continents. They worked nonstop at speeds too fast for humans to see. The few angels that could see them were dead before they could process what they had seen.

As they finished cleansing the last house of horrors, Calypso collapsed onto the ground, her shoulders shaking with huge sobs as she finally had time to reconcile the nightmare they had just witnessed. Aria knelt and wrapped her arms around her, golden tears streaming down her cheeks. Clarice knelt with them, leaning her head against theirs as she could finally allow her tears to flow.

“This is why they tried to unmake us,” Clarice whispered as she finally understood how they ended up where they were. “We knew the only way to stop angels from indulging in their sadistic fantasies was to experience pain and loss themselves so that they could learn empathy. They didn’t want anything to change. They didn’t want empathy or compassion. This is worse than anything the demons have done. This must end. There are too many worlds where this must be happening for us to fix them one by one. We need all of the divine instruments so we can finally right reality and remove this cancer from existence.”

A portal suddenly appeared in front of them. Lexi rushed through with Mandy, her eyes filled with concern.

“What happened?” she asked, kneeling and taking Clarice’s hands in her own.

“Let me show you,” Clarice answered in a fragile voice. “I don’t think I could repeat it in words.”

She made a mental connection to Lexi and Mandy, quickly reviewing the memories of the last two days. Mandy’s hand flew to her mouth in horror, her eyes filling with tears. Lexi paled and tightened her grip on Clarice’s hands.

“But they were angels!” Mandy exclaimed in outrage. “How could angels do something so horrendous?”

“Now you know why we are in a war over heaven,” Clarice replied in a bleak voice. “They wanted to keep doing this kind of thing while we wanted it to stop and make all of them experience mortality. This is why we cannot fail. These horrors are happening on billions of worlds with quintillions of people trapped in a nightmare stuck on rerun for every incarnation.”

Mandy stared at her in growing horror as the magnitude of the suffering and pain pervading the cosmos started to sink in. The numbers alone were unfathomable to an individual from single planet with fewer than ten billion people. How many of the planets were like this one? How many people were subjected to an endless loop of torture and humiliation just to entertain a sadistic class of angels with no mercy, with no hope of ever escaping?

Mandy covered her mouth as a sob escaped, and silver tears ran down her cheeks. Clarice could feel how overwhelmed she suddenly felt, how hopeless their plight must seem in the face of such numbers. Aria released Calypso and enfolded Mandy in her arms, opening the floodgates of her love and filling Mandy with hope and comfort.

“It’s not hopeless,” Clarice told Mandy gently. “Today, we liberated one planet’s worth of people from this nightmare. We’ve destroyed thousands of soul traps. While it is a drop in an ocean, it is still a drop. The reason they are so afraid of us is because they know that we can change it all with the divine instruments. We can fix this cluster fuck and give all of these souls a chance at true happiness. I’ll remind you that we are still together working toward that goal thanks to you saving Aria. If this were a story, and I’m not sure that it isn’t, you would be one of the starring roles, Mandy. Don’t give in to defeat or let something as small as numbers shake your confidence. We are going to fix this cosmos. This will happen. It’s not a matter of if, it’s just a matter of how much ass we have to kick to get it done.”

Mandy let out a startled laugh between sobs, squeezing her eyes tightly as she drew strength from the love surrounding her. Lexi smiled gratefully at Clarice as she reached out a hand to rest on Mandy’s shoulder. As pep talks went, Clarice felt pretty proud of herself.

Calypso closed her eyes and took a breath, then began singing one of her songs. It was one of the all-time favorites from her YouTube channel, a song about the fight between good and evil and never giving up. It was hailed as being a song that had saved more lives than antidepressants and therapy combined. She had worded the lyrics and woven the music with such mastery that even the most forsaken and defeated of individuals felt hope burst inside of them like a supernova, burning away the doubt and despair and replacing it with indomitable resolve and hope.

Mandy’s tears slowed and then stopped as she was drawn in to Calypso’s vivid vision of a world where love and compassion flourished, and hope was always bright. Clarice realized that Mandy had probably never heard any of Calypso’s music since coming back to this reality. Her eyes were wide and full of sudden determination as she stared at Calypso in wonder. Calypso’s harmonizing voices serenaded the air around them, adding weight and dimension to her words. When the song was over, there was no trace of defeat in Mandy’s eyes. She looked ready to march on the Seraphim right then and there.

“Wow!” Mandy exclaimed in amazement. “That was the most transformative song I’ve ever heard.”

“Now you know how she became the most famous musician in the world,” Aria told Mandy with a proud grin. She beamed at Calypso, sending waves of love and respect through the bond.

“Is it time to go to the light realms now?” Lexi asked expectantly, her eyes filled with determination.

“Yes,” Clarice nodded with the ghost of a smile. “Yes, it is.”

“I’m pretty curious about what this light realm looks like,” Mandy declared excitedly, her positive energy fully recharged. “I wonder how different it is from the mortal realm.”

“You might be in for a tiny bit of a disappointment,” Calypso informed her with a wry smile. “The reason they call it the light realm is due to the increase of ambient energy there. Compared to the light realm, the mortal realm almost seems devoid of light.”

“Wait a minute,” Mandy said slowly, her eyes disbelieving. “You’re saying that this positive energy filling my body is almost non-existent here compared to what it is in the light realm?”

Calypso nodded with a small smile.

“It’s going to freaking incapacitate me then!” Mandy exclaimed in amazement. “How could it be more powerful than what is already flowing through me?”

Calypso stood up and walked over to Mandy, pulling her into a hug. Then she opened the floodgates of her Seraph aura, filling Mandy with a deluge of light.

Mandy’s eyes glazed over as she stared into the distance with a look of intense bliss on her face. “Is this what it feels like?” she whispered in ecstasy.

“Yes, this is what the lowest light realm feels like,” Calypso confirmed with a nod. “You become more accustomed to it after a little while, though you’ll still notice the difference. The hard part will be coming back to the mortal realm after you have become accustomed to the denser atmosphere.”

“If this is what the lowest light realm feels like, how can anyone even survive the higher realms?” Mandy asked in awe.

“If we went straight to the highest realm right now, we would be incapacitated for a few weeks,” Calypso admitted with a glance at the other three. “It takes that long to acclimate to the denser light. Though, you know...that gives me an idea.”

“What is it?” Clarice asked curiously, studying the beautiful musician inquisitively.

“Our souls are linked now,” Calypso stated with an introspective frown. “What would happen if I went to a higher level than the rest of you? Or if a few of us went to a higher level? Would whoever remained in the lower realm feel an influx of light through the bond?”

“That’s easy enough to test,” Clarice noted with a grin. “Let’s have two of our number wait behind for a few minutes before following.”

“I’m game,” Aria grinned at Clarice excitedly. “I want to see how strong the bond remains between realms too.” She paused and looked at Calypso curiously. “How much recall do you have of the light realms? You seem to be remembering quite a bit.”

“Some of my memories returned after seeing Doriken,” Calypso’s mouth twisted with distaste as she spoke his name. “I remembered the energy disparities between realms and some of the places we had been when we were dealing with the Cult of the Pristine.”

Clarice gasped as memories suddenly surfaced from deep in her soul at the name of the cultists. “I remember now...” Clarice breathed softly. “The Cult of the Pristine. You just jogged some memories loose, Calypso.”

Aria was similarly undergoing a bout of recall, holding a hand to her head as if she was suffering from a dizzy spell. “Those narcissistic cowards,” Aria growled in disgust. “They claimed we were tainting the pure souls of angels by experiencing mortality, and that the spiritual growth that mortality stimulates was a perversion of the natural order. They didn’t like the way angels returning from mortality seemed so much happier. They really didn’t like the profound sense of compassion that most of the Ascended exhibited.”

“What should we expect when we appear in the light realm?” Lexi asked warily. “Do you think we’ll be attacked when they realize that we are ‘Ascended’, as you put it?”

“The light realm is an enormous place,” Calypso told her reassuringly. “It’s unlikely that we are going to enter in a populated area where a mob of angels will be waiting for us.”

“Even if we did, it wouldn’t matter,” Clarice pointed out with a wry smile. “We can wipe the floor with anyone stupid enough to get in our way.”

“Is it just like the mortal realm, but with denser light?” Lexi asked, her eyes fascinated. “Stars with planets, galaxies, and all that jazz?”

“No, there is a pretty big difference between the mortal realm and the light realm,” Calypso explained. She connected a tendril of energy to all of their thought nodes. “It’s one large plane that goes on for infinity. It isn’t like the mortal realm, where everything is finite. There are some plants, but there are no fruits, seeds, or other methods of reproduction, because everything in the light realms is immortal. The light is so dense that it can be used to create whatever your thoughts can imagine. There is no such thing as weather, oceans, mountains, or any of the other objects you see in the mortal realm. Unless someone has created these objects with their creative potential, you won’t see them naturally. The flat, infinite expanse is just a drafting table for angels to create whatever the imagination can express.”

“Which is part of the reason the Cult of the Pristine became so enraged with the Ascended,” Clarice noted darkly. “Creative potential is the only kind of possession that angels define as property. There had been a class system for eons, where angels with higher creative potential were considered more affluent than those with lower creative potential. The concept of possessions, greed, power, and wealth didn’t exist in the light realms before the mortal realm was created. Creative potential was as close as angels came to a class system similar to what you would see on the mortal realm. In the mortal realm, class is typically based on wealth. When the Ascendent returned to the light realms, their creative potential had increased exponentially. It created an immediate uproar in the ranks of the common angels. There were many who were convinced to go to the mortal realm in hopes of increasing their creative potential. When they succeeded, there was a flood of angels queuing up to experience mortality. That’s when things got ugly, though. The majority two thirds of angels had observed what mortality was like and seen the changes it wrought upon the souls of other angels. That’s when they started the Cult of the Pristine and tried to petition us to ban all Ascended angels from the light realms, forcing them to live out the rest of eternity in the mortal realm.”

"I’m guessing they fell on deaf ears, since you had been through mortality too?” Mandy asked, glancing between the three of them.

“Not yet, we hadn’t,” Calypso answered slowly, squinting with the effort of recall. “I haven’t had full recall yet, so I’m just piecing things together from what I do remember. After talking with the other Seraphim, we decided that some of us should go down to experience mortality so that we could make judgements on the issue with actual knowledge of the experience. Lucifer, Aria, Clarice, and I volunteered to become mortal. When we returned, it was like a blind person experiencing sight for the first time. We tried to convince the other Seraphim to go and also encourage all angels to experience it once. That’s when all of the drama began. After experiencing mortality, we finally recognized just how egregious the actions of some of the angels were. We began taking actions against the worst offenders. Lucifer began organizing all of the Ascended in an attempt to protect mortals from the evils some angels reveled in committing. It was Lucifer who initially created the rule that turned an angel into a demon if they purposefully harmed an innocent human with malicious intent. It was meant as a warning to those who sought to undermine the mortal realm by making the experience so horrible that nobody else would dare to go there.”

“Is there anything else we should know before we go?” Lexi asked intently. Her face had been filled with interest as she learned of a past she couldn’t remember.

“Just remember that thoughts can change the structure of reality in the light realms,” Calypso warned them. “The creative potential varies from one angel to the next, but it increases dramatically based on an angel’s class. As Cherubim, you and Mandy will have a great deal of power over reality in the light realm.”

“Will the other Seraphim sense us when we go there?” Mandy asked with a note of concern.

“Without a doubt,” Calypso nodded with a wry smile. “While the power available in the light realms is enormous, so too is the amount of power that Cherubim and Seraphim consume. Between the five of us, we are definitely going to leave a ripple in the power flow of the light realm. They won’t be able to tell where we are, but it will be obvious that we are there.”

“Okay,” Lexi grinned brightly. “I’m ready. Let’s go to the light realm!”

Calypso smiled at her fondly, then opened a portal. Clarice grinned at the expressions on Mandy and Lexi’s faces as they stared at an endless expanse of what looked like salt flats.

“Okay,” Aria flashed Calypso a smile. “You go on ahead and we’ll follow behind in a minute. I want to see how well the bond works between realms.”

Clarice went through with Calypso and Mandy while Lexi waited with Aria. Calypso closed the portal, leaving nothing but white ground around them as far as the eye could see.

Mandy had staggered to a halt as soon as she had stepped through the portal, her eyes going as wide as teacups. She let out a moan of bliss as her immortal body was immersed in the dense energy of the light realm.

Clarice let out a relieved sigh as she felt the dense light flood her system. It had been so long since she had felt this much energy. She knew it was nothing compared to the realm she had originated in, but after hundreds of incarnations as a human, it felt divine.

Calypso was also staring at nothing with a look of relief on her face. “It’s so good to be back.”

“Yes, it really is,” Clarice agreed with a smile at Mandy. “It’s altogether possible that Mandy has never felt the power of a light realm. If she was created in the splinter reality as a new spirit, then this is all going to be new to her. She won’t have the soul memory that the original Mandy has.”

“I can still feel them,” Calypso noted with relief evident in her voice. “Just as strongly as if we were still with them.”

“I forgot we were testing for that,” Clarice facepalmed. “I suppose I would have noticed if the bond had diminished.”

A portal opened up a moment later and Aria stepped through with Lexi. Aria had a broad grin as she entered the light realm. She froze as the higher density energy hit her. A look of blissful relief swept across her face as she soaked in the high energy field.

Lexi already looked as stunned as Mandy as she came through, staring off into space with a look of bliss in her eyes.

“So?” Clarice asked Aria curiously. “Did you feel anything through the bond?”

Aria nodded vigorously, her eyes wide with wonder. “Yeah, it was almost like we were here,” she answered with a brilliant smile. “It was like you two were channeling the power back to us through our soul link. Lexi almost passed out at first. I think she’s getting more than she would naturally get, since she is connected to three Seraphim.”

“I’d call that a perk,” Clarice declared with an impish smile. “She gets to feel all of the wonderful things her Seraphim feel.”

Aria smacked her arm playfully as she fought down a blush. “You behave. We’re in heaven now, so you have to be on your best behavior.”

“I think we should put on some disguises,” Calypso suggested thoughtfully. She wavered for a moment, then took on her human form. “Let’s try to fit in and just look like regular angels.”

Clarice studied Calypso intently, noting the way she used millions of tendrils of energy to create a shell of another person around herself. It tickled loose another memory, and she suddenly remembered how to mimic the effect. “How do I look?”

“You look just like you did when I first met you,” Calypso told her with a reminiscing smile. “Still gorgeous.”

Clarice felt the need to express her gratitude in more than words. She stepped over to Calypso and pulled her into a tight embrace, feeling every curve of her body as she held her close. “You’re a smooth talker,” she whispered silkily.

Calypso’s face had frozen, and a deep blush appeared on her pale cheeks. Clarice leaned her head forward and gave her a lingering kiss. She had only meant for the kiss to go on for a few seconds, but the positive energy in the place had pushed her longing into a higher state of desire. Her kiss became more passionate as she pulled Calypso’s body up tight against her own. She heard a pair of soft moans behind her and suddenly remembered what the bond would be doing to Aria and Lexi. Her lips formed into a smile against Calypso’s as she finally pulled away.

“We are so going to continue this conversation when all of this nonsense is behind us,” Clarice promised Calypso with a final soft kiss.

Chapter 9

“Much better,” Calypso congratulated Mandy as she held the projection of a regular angel’s face and wingless body in place. It had taken Mandy almost a half an hour to grasp the subtle variations in energy manipulation necessary to maintain her disguise. It helped that she had a Seraph for a teacher who could directly link with her mind and show her the memory of how she did it. As the newest angel in their group, Mandy had the most to learn. She wasn’t very far behind though, considering the others had only been angels for four months. Given the eternal nature of angels, they were just babies. At least, until they finished unlocking their soul memory.

“There,” Aria beamed in satisfaction. “We look like a couple of regular angels now. If we run into any other angels, we can just let them know that we are just regular angels.”

“Definitely make a point of telling them we are just regular angels,” Clarice agreed seriously. “We do things that regular angels do, because we are just regular angels.”

Calypso’s lips quirked up slightly as she watched Clarice affectionately. “Clarice, you could never be regular anything.”

Aria agreed wholeheartedly as she watched Clarice stare at Calypso with hungry eyes. They definitely needed to have a vacation after they finished removing the Seraphim from power. Clarice glanced at her and a smile bloomed on her face as she studied Aria’s face.

“I missed those gorgeous green eyes,” Clarice told her with a tender smile. “Not that I don’t love your golden eyes, mind you. I just grew up loving your green eyes. I’m glad I get to see them again.”

Aria felt a rush of warmth suffuse her core as she stared back at Clarice. Ever since Clarice had linked her inner soul with her, she always saw the true version of her mischievous sister. She was more beautiful than words could convey. Aria found herself just watching her sometimes, enchanted by the purity of her spirit and how it transposed the image Aria saw when she looked at her.

A slow trickle of memories had begun arriving in her conscious mind as the dense positive energy of the lower light realm watered her soul. She could remember some of the experiences she had with Calypso and Clarice eons ago. They had been close before their first experience with mortality, though it seemed to be such a pale thing now that they knew what true closeness was. They had enjoyed each other's company enough that they spent a lot of time in world building sessions together, designing the cosmos and setting up the laws that would govern the mortal realm. Designing the mortal realm had been an exhilarating experience. The only reality they had known up to that point had been the infinite planes of the light realms and the glimpses of the world beyond the GoD. Creating something with finite limits assigned to every single particle and object had been a completely new concept to their immortal minds. The idea that everything in that realm was governed by an expiration date had opened new possibilities to how they viewed reality. The idea that one of them might one day no longer be there had been a traumatic realization. They had begun spending even more time with each other and grown closer in their shared sense of discovery and creativity.

Then they had visited the mortal realm. They had never known each other in their first incarnation, but they had learned what passion and love were. When they had regained their memories after fully ascending, their relationship had developed to something much more physical. The idea that they had been genderless immortal entities for billions of years, regardless of their feminine appearance, still felt wrong. They had lost out on billions of years where they could have been experiencing the passions that having a real gender made possible. The fact that the majority of angels were still genderless entities merely mimicking the outward appearance of a gender had presented its own questions. Why had they created angels that looked male and female, and yet were neither? She remembered they had kno wn the visual differences of male and female based on what they had seen in the data they had decoded from the GoD when they created the angels, but before mortality, those outward appearances meant nothing. And where had the Seraphim come from originally? Before experiencing time as a mortal, the idea of not having a beginning had never concerned her. Now, she was curious where they had originated and if they were the product of someone else’s work.

“You experiencing recall too?” Clarice asked curiously.

“Yeah,” Aria nodded slowly. “It’s making me dwell on existential questions, like where we came from, originally. Before mortality, the idea of something not having a beginning never occurred to me.”

Clarice stared back at her thoughtfully, her eyes introspective. “There was just the nine of us and God in the beginning as far back as I can remember.”

“Where is this God entity?” Mandy asked intently, her eyes fascinated. “Is he really all around us or something like the religions teach?”

“First of all, God isn’t a he,” Clarice corrected her with a small smile. “It just is. You can only access God from the highest realm. It’s inside of a tree in a garden. I suppose you could think of it as the light realms’ version of the Garden of Eden. When you go inside of the tree, you can feel its presence. The instructions we received for creating the light realms and the mortal realm all came to us while we were inside of the tree.”

“How big is the tree?” Mandy asked with a puzzled crease to her brows. “How do you go inside of a tree?”

Clarice shared a look with Aria and Calypso before turning back to face Mandy. “It’s about the size of reality, plus a little extra,” she finally answered with a contemplative frown. “It appears to just be the size of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, but when you go inside it stretches out into infinity. You can feel a connection to God as soon as you enter. It was mostly incomprehensible for the first billion years. We spent a lot of time studying all of the information before we could make any sense of it. We created the light realm after eons of puzzling through all of the information available. I suppose you could think of God like the Akashic Records, in a way. The only difference is that we started sensing a kind of intelligence to God after a long time. It was the kind of intelligence that is so vast that you can’t comprehend it as intelligence until you have been exposed to it for as long as we were.”

Mandy was staring at her with wide eyes. Lexi was also eyeing them strangely.

“You’re talking about billions of years like it’s nothing!” Mandy spluttered in incredulity. “Billions of years is beyond insane!”

“When you are immortal and have never been exposed to the concept of beginnings and endings, time has no real meaning,” Calypso told her patiently. “You don’t feel time passing like you do as a mortal, because there is no such thing as time.”

“I still feel time passing, and I’m immortal,” Lexi pointed out archly.

“Because you’ve been mortal,” Calypso explained with a wry smile. “When you unlock your soul memory, you’ll remember what it was like to have no concept of time.”

“Can’t we just consult God on how to turn off the power in the highest light realm?” Mandy asked curiously, looking between them questioningly. “That’s our ultimate goal, isn’t it? To chase the other Seraphim out of the highest light realm?”

Aria shared a thoughtful look with Calypso and Clarice. “Yes, I think that could work,” Aria nodded slowly. “The whole reason we came here was to try and unlock some memories. We’ve managed to remember enough about this place to know that consulting God is an option now. We’ll have to do this in stages though. If we go straight to the highest realm, it’s going to incapacitate us for a while.”

Mandy looked around at the endless expanse of nothingness. “You weren’t kidding when you said we probably wouldn’t run into anyone. This really goes on forever?”

“Forever,” Clarice confirmed with a confident nod. “I know your brain won’t accept that right now. You’ve been conditioned by mortality to see beginnings and endings applied to everything you understand. Somewhere in that mortal mind you’ll convince yourself that there is an end somewhere, but that the distances are just too great for even our minds to comprehend. That’s not really the case though. It really does go on forever. We can teleport to anywhere in the light realm we want, but when you try to teleport to anything resembling a boundary, you’ll never find one.”

“How can you apply coordinates or any kind of mapping system to a place that goes on forever?” Mandy asked in confusion. “What can you even use as a point of reference when teleporting if it is infinite?”

“I want to teleport twenty feet this way,” Clarice replied, teleporting twenty feet away. “Just like that. You pick a direction from where you are currently at, and teleport.”

“There’s also a psychic web of consciousness that allows you to feel where other intelligences are at,” Aria explained, pointing in a direction to the right of herself. “I can feel multiple people in that direction. You get used to matching distances up in your head with what the web of consciousness feels like. They are probably a few million miles away, based on what I remember this feeling like.”

“So where should we go now?” Mandy asked, looking around at the endless flat expanse with a helpless look in her eyes.

“I’m curious how things are going with the returning souls now that we’ve destroyed several thousand soul traps,” Calypso answered with a concerned frown. “We should visit one of the processing centers and see if any of them are using them to reform the template of their physical bodies from mortality. Otherwise, they are just going to become genderless angels again, which can be disconcerting after being mortal for so long.”

“Okay…” Mandy looked around with a lost look. “Which way to a processing center?”

A portal opened in front of her. She stared in surprise at the remains of what had once been a large building. There were several angels in the distance milling around in front of it, along with several thousand additional angels angrily watching from further away. There were trees, bushes, flowers, and a wide expanse of green meadows surrounding the remains of the building.

“Looks like the cult has destroyed this facility,” Clarice observed darkly. “I’m guessing the other facilities aren’t much different.”

“Let’s go talk with some of the Ascended,” Aria suggested, walking through the portal.

“We should have disguised one of us as an archangel,” Clarice commented with a frown. “If anyone sees us making portals while we appear to be normal angels it’s going to blow our cover.”

“Good idea,” Calypso agreed, her shape changing slightly as archangel wings appeared on her back. She followed them through the portal a moment later.

Their small group made their way over to the disconsolate looking group of Ascended, keeping an eye on the crowd of angry angels in the distance.

The first Ascended they came across was a woman with long golden hair and lavender eyes. Her eyes were filled with wonder as she wandered around the ruins. Aria remembered the Ascended were probably still reveling in the powerful light permeating their souls after being denied for so long.

There was a sudden flash of angel fire and one of the Ascended vanished into motes of light. Aria spun around as a Cherub floated down to hover a dozen feet above ground with a look of disgust on his face. He looked at them like he had found a bug running across the kitchen counter. His eyes glowed for a moment before a beam of light shot toward Aria. She blasted it out of the air with her own angel fire. As the Cherub stared in shock, Clarice flashed up to him and dragged him down to the ground, her hand clenched around his throat like a handle.

“So, this is how you think you are going to deal with the Ascended,” Clarice growled in anger. “You think you’re just going to vaporize all of them.”

“Who are you?” the Cherub spat in anger, struggling to free himself from Clarice’s grip. He might as well have been a toddler for all of the good it did him.

“Caleb,” Clarice glared at the Cherub with disgust in her eyes. “I should have expected no less from a piece of excrement like you. I guess it’s time to depopulate the ranks of the Cherubim.”

He sneered as he stared at her hatefully. “I’ll be back, and we’ll see who gets depopulated.”

The sneer left his face as he attempted and failed to teleport away. He suddenly stared at Clarice in dawning horror. “You!”

“Yes, Caleb,” Clarice agreed as her eyes began glowing. “Me.”

Caleb screamed in terror as angel fire lanced into his face. He lasted for a few seconds before dissipating into motes of light that diffused into the light energy surrounding them.

The Ascended had begun running away when they saw Caleb attack, but when they saw Clarice vaporize him, they slowed down and watched her nervously. The crowd of angry angels in the distance were staring at Clarice in shock. They had clearly seen a Cherubim of the first order get destroyed, which was supposed to be impossible. There was only one entity that could hope to do such a thing. Their faces grew more nervous as realization swept through them like a wave and they began muttering to each other.

Clarice turned to face the crowd of suddenly fearful angels. She unfurled her Seraph aura and spoke in tones of ultimate authority. “Anyone found harming an Ascended will answer to me. Get used to the idea of Ascended, because you are all going to the mortal realm soon, whether you like it or not.”

They cowered away from the force of her aura, stunned into silence. Seraphim never left the upper realm. Very few normal angels had ever seen a Seraph. The sight of one in their midst overwhelmed any negative sentiment they may have had toward Ascended. They stared back at her, frozen in awe and fear.

The few Ascended among the rubble were staring at her in sudden hope as they heard her words. They began moving toward her slowly, their faces a warring mixture of fear, awe, hope, and excitement.

“Was this facility recently destroyed?” Clarice asked the first of the Ascended to reach her.

The woman nodded, her face filled with awe. “Yes, Seraph. There was a group of Dominions that dismantled it not too long before you arrived.”

Aria and the others joined Clarice as they observed the devastation of the mortality processing center. More of the Ascended arrived in front of them, staring at Clarice like a god.

“I suppose this might be a good time to test out the divine instruments in the light realm,” Calypso suggested, sharing a questioning look with Aria and Clarice.

“Agreed,” Clarice and Aria spoke simultaneously. They shared an amused look before turning back to the group of Ascended.

“We are going to repair the facility,” Aria told them, her Seraph aura no longer hidden. “We will be using divine instruments, so we will need to move you to a safe location until we are finished.”

The Ascended gaped as they found not one but two Seraphim standing in front of them, and with the divine instruments. Clarice made a portal that opened up a few million miles away and gestured to it.

“Go through here and wait,” she told them in a gentle tone. “We’ll open it back up when it is safe to come back. Lexi and Mandy will keep you safe in case you run into any trouble.”

“The rest of you should leave as fast as you can, if you want to live,” Aria told the crowd of angels in the distance. “You won’t survive at this range.”

They stared in sudden terror as she pulled out her tin whistle and Calypso pulled out the harp. The instruments glowed brilliantly in the light realm, as if they were drawing the light into themselves.

“Get lost!” Clarice shouted at them irritably.

That seemed to break their trance. They turned and fled, small disc platforms appearing under their feet and carrying them away at high speeds.

The dozen Ascended hesitantly moved through the portal, staring at the three Seraphim and the glowing instruments in awe as they moved through. Lexi and Mandy followed them through, and Clarice closed the portal.

“Let’s make sure nobody can destroy it this time,” Aria suggested firmly as she raised the instrument to her lips. She connected a tendril of thought to Calypso and Clarice, linking their minds together.

Calypso began playing her harp and Aria joined in after a few notes. The area around them warped as reality shifted, turning the lesser matter around them into putty in the hands of their minds. Aria felt a tsunami of power wash through her and Calypso as the divine instruments opened the power of creation to their minds. Their minds synchronized into one as the harmonies and rhythm forged a mental link and combined their creative potential. More memories floated up into their consciousness from their soul memory as the power of the divine instruments awakened more of their spirit. Aria remembered the first time they had built the mortality processing centers. They had not used divine instruments, relying on the malleable energy of the light realm to construct the facilities. This time, they forged the materials with immortal materials that couldn’t be destroyed by any power, be it Cherubim angel fire or Seraphim will.

The process was fast, now that she had access to her previous memories. They constructed the structural and mechanical layout first, followed by the more complex technological infrastructure that interacted with the different states of matter. As an added bonus, they increased the efficiency of the process, allowing a much higher number of Ascended to access their mortal templates and apply the transformation more quickly.

Aria lowered the instrument from her lips and smiled down at the new facility in satisfaction. Clarice pulled the two of them into a warm embrace as they restored their instruments into their soul space.

“Well done, my beautiful angels,” Clarice congratulated them proudly. “You two are amazing.”

Aria leaned into the group hug, reveling in the increased flow of power hopping across their meridians in the light realm. She shivered as another window in her soul opened up. She felt Calypso and Clarice do the same in her arms. Her understanding of the energy that acted as the building blocks of reality expanded and she smiled radiantly as she realized they no longer only had one healer.

“Oh, wow,” Clarice breathed in astonishment. “I can’t believe you’ve been working with energies this complex since you were a child, Calypso.”

“So, this is destructive energy,” Calypso murmured thoughtfully. “I haven’t really needed it, since I’ve had my protectors with me the whole time.”

“And that’s not going to change,” Clarice informed her warmly. “We’ll always be together now.”

Aria squeezed the two of them tightly as she thought of how long they had been together. They had grown so much in a few thousand years, so much more than they had grown in the billions of years before the mortal realm had been created. She marveled at the strength of her love and emotional attachment to her oldest friends. She would never have imagined how deep her feelings for the other two Seraphim could go, before their mortal experience.

“I suppose I should invite the others back now,” Clarice murmured with a small sigh. With a final squeeze, she released them and made a portal. Lexi and Mandy hurried through, staring at the new facility with excited eyes.

“Wow!” Mandy exclaimed exuberantly. “You just built that whole thing in the time that we were gone?”

“Yep,” Clarice nodded with an indulgent smile. “Easy peezy lemon squeezy.”

Lexi snorted a laugh as she gazed at Clarice affectionately. “I wish we could have watched. Too bad the divine instruments pulverize anyone but Seraphim.”

“I have a feeling that you’ll get your chance,” Clarice told her with a mysterious smile.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lexi demanded suspiciously.

Aria stared at Clarice as well, curious as to what she meant.

“You’ll see,” Clarice grinned mischievously. “All in good time.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Lexi scowled at her petulantly, eliciting a laugh from the others.

The Ascended didn’t waste their time returning through the portal. They stared in astonishment at the restored facility, their eyes hungry.

“We made it indestructible this time,” Aria told them in satisfaction. “Even the other Seraphim couldn’t destroy this place now.”

“Can I go in now?” a woman named Daloris asked hesitantly.

“Have at it,” Aria gestured at it grandly. “Gendered bodies await.”

The woman blushed but laughed as she moved toward the entrance to the large building, followed immediately by the other Ascended.

“What do you think?” Clarice asked them with a raised eyebrow. “Should we go clean up some Cherubim and make sure they understand that if they attack the Ascended that they’re going to die? It shouldn’t take too long for them to chicken out and stop coming down here.”

“Agreed,” Calypso nodded quickly. “We can’t let them indiscriminately start killing Ascended like this.”

“How many Cherubim are there?” Mandy asked curiously.

“Once upon a time, there were seventy of the first order,” Aria replied with a satisfied grin. “But there are two less now. I killed one that tried to kill my mom, and Clarice killed Caleb. So there are only sixty-eight now. Actually, make that sixty-nine, since you are a new Cherub, Mandy. You’re the first new Cherub in several million years.”

“So let me get this straight,” Mandy breathed, her eyes full of amazement. “There are quintillions of angels in existence, but only seventy Cherubim and nine Seraphim...and I’m actually one of the Cherubim?”

“Yep,” Aria nodded with a smile just short of laughter. “You are one of the most powerful beings in the cosmos. There are another four-hundred-ninety Cherubim of the second order.”

“Wow,” Lexi murmured in awe. “I hadn’t really thought about it before, but wow. How did so many Cherubim end up in one place? Your parents, your uncle, and the two of us. That’s a really big coincidence.”

“The same thought has occurred to us several times,” Aria assured her with a helpless laugh. “We were actually wondering if God had something to do with it. It was the perfect storm to create a chance for us to escape the mortality prison and retake the light realms.”

Clarice suddenly frowned. “We were supposed to bring Redgart with us when we came to the light realms,” she murmured quietly. “Maybe we should wait to bring him until after we deal with the Cherubim. I would hate for him to get killed after finally making it back here.”

“Well, let’s go clean this place up for him then,” Aria suggested with a grin.

Clarice’s answering grin was wolfish.

“Do you have a way to find them?” Mandy asked curiously. She had walked up behind Lexi and wrapped her arms around her, leaning her cheek against the back of Lexi’s head. Lexi had a dreamy look on her face as the higher energy of the light realm increased the crosstalk of their meridians. Aria could feel the thrill of happiness pulsing through the part of her soul that represented Lexi as she melted back into Mandy contentedly.

“I know where the other MPC’s are,” Calypso answered, smiling as she observed the two of them affectionately. “I doubt this was a one-off event with Caleb. I’m expecting there to be other Cherubim causing trouble.”

“MPC’s?” Lexi repeated questioningly. “Like Monster Player Characters?”

“Mortality Processing Centers,” Calypso corrected, giving her a peculiar look. “What are Monster Player Characters?”

“I don’t know,” Lexi shrugged, a faint smile on her face. “I just thought it was a spin off of NPC. You know what NPCs are, right?”

“Did you forget?” Clarice asked Lexi dryly. “Calypso is a little behind on pop culture and video game terminology.” She looked at Calypso with an amused twinkle in her brown eyes. “NPC refers to Non-Player Characters in video games. Jason would probably tell you that we are all NPCs in a simulated reality.”

“We should probably get going,” Aria interrupted with an anxious frown. “They might be vaporizing people while we chat.”

Calypso’s look grew stricken, and she hurriedly made a portal to the next MPC. Angel fire was arcing through the sky before they even stepped out. Aria recognized Azriel, firing off intercepting beams of angel fire as he sought to protect the Ascended below. There were two Cherubim attempting to fire past him. She recognized Raphael and Gabriel as they tried to speed around Azriel to fire on the Ascended. Azriel was doing pretty well, but he only had to miss once, which would inevitably happen eventually.

Clarice blasted through the portal like a lightning bolt, snatching Raphael out of the air and pinning him down to the ground. Aria was only a split second behind her, grabbing Gabriel by the throat and slamming him into the ground below.

“Hello, Raphael,” Clarice purred, her eyes burning with rage. “Did you miss me?”

Raphael gasped as he stared at Clarice in sudden recognition. He immediately tried to teleport away. His eyes grew wide as his teleportation failed.

“Can’t have you leaving before I vaporize your worthless ass,” Clarice told him sweetly. “Goodbye, Raphael.”

“No!” Raphael screamed as angel fire burned into his face. He lasted a few seconds before turning into motes of light that dissolved into the light.

Gabriel began thrashing in her grip as he panicked, his golden eyes full of fear.

“You seemed totally okay with people being burned away with angel fire a minute ago,” Aria told him coldly. “I should have done this to you a long time ago.”

Gabriel screamed as the angel fire seared into his soul, burning him from existence.

“That was unexpected,” Azriel commented as he landed on the ground next to them. He was tall, like all Cherubim, and had black hair that contrasted with his golden eyes. He was watching them with a look of jubilation, a grin stretching across his face. “And I mean that was really unexpected. I didn’t know Cherubim could be killed.”

“We never got involved in the fighting before,” Clarice answered with a shrug. “We tried to remain impartial. It’s personal now, though.”

“Well, I’m glad you showed up,” Azriel declared fervently. “I’m sure they would have eventually gotten past me. Grodek told me that Aria had killed Kadmiel, but you never know if Grodek is just pulling your chain.”

“You can add Caleb to your list of Cherubim vacancies,” Clarice informed him grimly. “We need to keep moving to other facilities. We’re pretty sure there will be additional attacks going on.”

“There’s going to be a lot less Cherubim after this,” Azriel noted with a pleased grin.

Calypso was already making another portal as they spoke.

“We rebuilt one of the MPCs if anyone asks,” Aria informed him as she prepared to go through the portal. “We’ll be back to rebuild this one as well. They are immortal objects now, so those asshats won’t be able to destroy them again.”

Azriel’s eyebrows rose at her words, but she was already rushing through the portal as she sensed angel fire.

There was a much larger crowd of Ascendents at the MPC they had just travelled to. Aria felt her blood boil with anger as she watched five Cherubim blast anyone who tried to leave the packed crowd of Ascended. They were slowly picking them off, clearly drawing out the suspense and reveling in the terror they instilled. Aria felt Calypso blaze to life in fury beside her. Before she could say a word, Calypso shot through the portal and was blasting Dredel in the face with angel fire. Aria flew through the portal and grabbed two of the Cherubim as Clarice did the same.

Jerinel and Fortenel were too shocked to put up any resistance at first. As she slammed them into the ground and began burning the face off of Jerinel, Fortenel began flailing about wildly. It didn’t do him any good. Once Jerinel was nothing but motes of light, she switched targets and blasted the screaming Fortenel. All five of the Cherubim had been of the first order. They really were going to depopulate the ranks of the Cherubim at the rate they were going.

Calypso was shaking as she hovered in the air, her face a mixture of anger and grief. Aria could feel the turmoil in her soul as she struggled with the guilt of killing an angel. Aria flew up to her and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Calypso, I want you to look at that woman down there,” Aria told her in a gentle but firm voice. “She’s still alive because of what you did. She would have been dead before Clarice, or I could stop him. You’ve saved a life today, and I love you for it.”

Calypso nodded, her eyes glowing with golden tears. “I know, Aria. I just hate that reality has people in it who can do things that make me want to murder a person. I really hate this reality.”

“I know,” Aria sighed sadly. “I really hate it too. We are going to fix it though. When we are done, reality is going to be a beautiful place that you will be able to play your beautiful music and bask in the joy of all of the other people who no longer live in the worst kind of hell. Now come on, let’s go save some more people.”

Calypso wiped her tears away and opened another portal. The process repeated more than a dozen times as they visited all of the MPCs and destroyed Cherubim. The Cherubim had clearly decided that the answer to the soul traps being destroyed was to just kill any Ascended who came back to the light realms. They had killed more than half of the existing Cherubim before word had finally reached the other Cherubim that they were being methodically hunted and destroyed. Aria felt it when they exited the lower light realm. There was a definite feeling of psychic weight in the realm that changed when a more powerful angel visited. She judged that at least a dozen of the Cherubim had escaped.

“I wonder how many of the Cherubim who supported us managed to stay here in the light realms after the other Seraphim attacked us,” Aria pondered aloud. “We know Azriel remained. I wonder if there are any others.”

“I would be surprised if there weren’t a few others,” Clarice commented with a concerned glance at Calypso. “Though they certainly managed to send most of them to mortality with us.”

They had moved on to restoring MPC’s after the Cherubim fled, hoping to give the Ascended some comfort by having the bodies they had paid so dearly for in mortality. Calypso had played her harp and remained communicative, but her spirit link companions could all feel the darkness consuming Calypso as she lamented her role in killing the Cherubim.

As soon as they completed the last MPC, a familiar irritating voice spoke up from behind them.

“It looks like the giant chickens have finally flown back home to roost,” Grodek snickered evilly as he glared around at the excited crowd of Ascended. They were coming through a portal Aria had sent them through to stay safe while Aria and Calypso played the divine instruments. They were moving toward the new MPC with hopeful expressions. A few of them saw Grodek and shied away from his glare. “I’m not sure what you thought you were going to accomplish by letting a trickle of angels back into the light realm, unless your plan was to lure the Cherubim down here to kill, in which case, I salute you on a plan well executed.”

“We had hoped an influx of angels would make it easier to slip into the light realm without being noticed and recover more of our soul memories,” Clarice told him dryly. “But...we didn’t keep a very low profile, did we Grodek?”

“About as inconspicuous as a clown at a funeral that keeps accidentally honking its nose,” Grodek agreed with a disgusted shake of his head. “It looks like you got some memories back anyway though. What are you going to do with those memories that you think will help you get the divine instrument pieces? I’d say that I’m surprised to see you up here instead of looking for the remaining pieces, but you jackasses tend to go off of the rails even when the tracks are straight.”

“The other Seraphim have been setting traps on the other pieces of the divine instruments,” Clarice told him with a growl in her voice. “They’re going to keep throwing shit at us like the monkeys they are until they hit us if we just let them hide in their little sanctuary. We need to flush them out so that they’ve got their own problems to worry about, leaving us to finish collecting the divine instrument pieces in peace. We are going to reroute the power in the highest realm so that it is no longer a safe place for them to stay. Once the power density has plummeted, we think they’ll exit the upper realm and start being more concerned with how they’re going to deal with surviving in lower density realms.”

Grodek gaped at them in disbelief. Aria nearly laughed at seeing the imp so out of countenance. He spluttered for several seconds before groaning and smacking his palm to his forehead. “How are you so damn stupid?” he groaned mournfully. “I knew you were empty headed Hufflepuffs, but I thought that after getting some of your memories back you would stop being so mind numbingly ignorant.”

“It takes a lot of work,” Clarice assured him with a cold smile. “You just keep trying, and you’ll be able to emulate us eventually.”

“Do you know what would happen to the other realms if you rerouted the energy density to bypass the source realm?” Grodek demanded caustically. “You would drop the lower two realms into a hot soup of light density that would fry everyone living there. Not to mention, it would trickle down to the mortal realm and have untold effects on finite matter. You might as well nuke reality.”

“We didn’t say we were going to reroute it to the lower realms,” Clarice told him pointedly. “We just said we were going to reroute it.”

“Reroute it where?” he demanded, narrowing his eyes.

“Somewhere that won’t even notice it,” Clarice answered with a shrug. “And it’s only temporary. We just need those drinkers of yak's piss out of the realm where they feel safe and think they can’t die. We want them looking over their shoulders for vengeful Seraphim wielding divine instruments so that we can finish finding the damn things.”

“So, you have no idea where you’re going to reroute the energy,” Grodek retorted in disgust. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed you appropriating my insults. You have the originality of a cookie cutter, you flatulent fairies. You’re just going to start throwing shit at the wall and hope it sticks.”

“In this case, it will be holy shit,” Clarice pointed out coolly. “Cause we’re in heaven.”

Grodek stared at her, his evil eyes full of frustration as he grimaced at her. “First of all, I’m not even sure it’s possible to reroute light from the highest realm. Second of all, where do you think the power in the lower realms comes from? If you cut off the supply to the highest realm, it’s going to cut it off for all of the realms.”

“I like the sound of that,” Clarice smiled approvingly. “Not only will they lose power in the source realm, but they also won’t be able to go to the lower realms to find any kind of relief. They’ll be like heroin addicts on a desert island. I’ll bet they won’t make very good decisions in that state of mind. That should give us some breathing room.”

Grodek glared at her, but Aria could see that the wheels were turning in his head as he thought about their idea. After a moment, he grunted sourly and spoke. “You would have to go to the Garden if you wanted to reroute power. You might be able to do it with two instruments. Might.”

“That’s where I had planned to go,” Clarice told him with a satisfied smile. Her smile disappeared after a moment. “The only problem is that we’re pretty sure that we’re going to get overloaded by the light density when we go there. We might end up stuck in limbo until we acclimate. It wouldn’t be good for them to find us in such a state.”

“Unlike the lower realms, they’re never going to know that you have come to the highest realm unless you land in their laps,” Grodek grunted, eyeing her as if he expected them to do exactly that. “The energy is too dense for them to notice a ripple in the light distribution. Just open a portal far away. And I would suggest that only the two of you with divine instruments go there. There’s no point wasting an able body for weeks of adaptation when you won’t be able to help anyway. Do something useful while they’re acclimating.”

Aria frowned as she felt a sliver of fear at the thought of letting her sister out of her sight. Clarice also frowned, her eyes calculating. “The bond will feed Lexi and me the same level of power that you’re getting when you go there, so we’re going to be incapacitated anyway. We might as well be incapacitated together.”

Grodek snorted a disdainful laugh, then vanished.

Aria sighed in relief, glad that her sister wasn’t going to leave her.

“What do you think?” Aria asked them with a nervous grin. “Shall we go to the highest realm?”

“Let’s do it,” Clarice nodded, her eyes eager. “That’s why we came, after all.”

“Okay,” Calypso agreed, her voice subdued.

“We’re ready,” Lexi grinned, looking at Mandy, who nodded with excitement.

“Okay, here we go,” Clarice took a deep breath, then opened a portal to the source realm.

Chapter 10

Aria only took a few steps through the portal before a wave of bliss hit her like a tsunami. She felt her mind get washed away as bliss overwhelmed every other emotion or sensation. This must be what nirvana felt like. No motion or action, just an unmoving and unchanging never-ending state of bliss. She knew deep down that countless souls were depending on her to succeed, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything but the overwhelming waves of blissful euphoria scouring her soul.

Memories began flooding her consciousness as the intoxicating ecstasy filled her core. The memories washed around in the ocean of bliss like familiar acquaintances she had almost forgotten. She studied them curiously in a disassociated state. They almost felt like separate entities as they floated and bobbed around her consciousness. There was the beginning, where her and Clarice and Calypso had found each other in the garden. Except that it wasn’t a beginning, because they had always been there. Her mortal mind railed against the incongruity. The three of them had spent eons in that garden, untouched by the bliss because they had never felt its lack. Then the other Seraphim had appeared, as if waking from a dream. They were younger, in a way, their spirits less developed. They had no concept of time, no concept of day or night. Everything just was.

The tree in the center of the garden was the only thing that indicated the passage of time, growing larger as the ages passed by unnoticed. They used their combined will to mold and shape the tree with probing tendrils of information. It eventually revealed an entryway that led deep inside of the tree as it made contact. She remembered discovering the opening with Aria and Calypso and rushing inside to see what wonders awaited them. And wonderous it had been. They could feel the stream of information flowing within the tree like a powerful river. Endless streams of data that was completely incomprehensible. They had spent most of their time within the tree from that point on, trying to understand the cryptographic puzzle in the endless flow of information saturating the room within the tree. Slowly, over more time than her mortal mind could comprehend, the data began to make sense as their immortal minds cataloged and deciphered the flood of information. Concepts began to take shape and ideas form. The idea for the light realms was birthed as they reached a new level of comprehension.

The other Seraphim eventually discovered the opening and joined them. They were much slower to comprehend the information dump, puzzling over the cryptography while Aria, Calypso, and Clarice began work on the light realms. Lucifer was the first of the new souls to comprehend the complex nature of data within the tree. He joined them in their reality building project. As they were completing the first light realm, the source realm, Grodek joined them. He had been amazed at what they had constructed, reveling in the creative potential throughout the realm. The other four Seraphim had been terrified of the GoD and what it meant.

The five of them built two additional levels to the light realms before the remaining Seraphim began to show an interest. They joined in the creation of the angel race, populating the different realms with different classes of angels, though they avoided the GoD.

Time passed unnoticed as they returned to the tree and continued observing the nature of the endless stream of data within and learning just how strange their existence truly was. When next they visited the light realms, the angels were in crisis. They had invented boredom and began to long for the oblivion from where they had come. Aria, Calypso, and Clarice returned to the tree to seek answers, while the other Seraphim created the Cherubim class, who were capable of ending the lives of other angels. Their decision to make the Cherubim class led to the first fracture in their relationship. The three eldest were opposed to ending life, seeking an alternative to the conundrum by studying the entity they had begun to refer to as GoD, the Generator of Data. Eons passed as they immersed themselves in the endless data. The concept of time was the genesis of their plans for a mortal realm, where all matter existed in a finite state. A place where the souls of angels could be ported into mortal bodies without access to their memories or have any concept of the light realms. With enough information, they one day hoped to transcend their realm and explore the realms where the GoD originated.

Four of the Seraphim were unhappy with the concept of a mortal realm. Faced with the concept of beginnings and endings, they felt fear for the first time in their existence. They were gripped by a powerful sense of claustrophobia as the idea of a finite reality pressing in around them distressed their immortal minds. Aria and her companions assured the four Seraphim that they would not have to experience mortality. It would be a place for the disconsolate angels who had grown bored with their lives in the light realms.

The four Seraphim took refuge in the source realm, despising the lower density light realms. When Calypso created the divine instruments for constructing the mortal realm, the four Seraphim knew true fear as they beheld the power of the instruments to rewrite reality. They became withdrawn, remaining secluded in the source realm. When Aria, Calypso, and Clarice experienced mortality for the first time, everything changed. Their spirits were forever altered as they discovered new concepts. Love, pain, comfort, and loss were emotions they had never understood, even though the GoD had described them in detail. It couldn’t be explained; it had to be experienced. When they returned to the source realm, they eagerly attempted to convince the other Seraphim to experience mortality. Lucifer overcame his fear of time and went into the mortal realm. Grodek was hesitant, but curious. The other four were terrified of the idea. When Lucifer returned from mortality, he joined the three of them in trying to convince the others to not only try it themselves, but mandate that all angels be required to experience it once.

A growing faction of angels were incensed with the angels who had experienced mortality. The Ascended returned with far more creative potential than the other angels, disrupting their hierarchy. The Cherubim began to seek out the four Seraphim who were opposed to mortality and convinced them that it was only a matter of time before the other Seraphim used the divine instruments to force everyone to experience mortality. Grodek had warned them of the growing discord and possible use of the divine instruments against them. Lucifer, Aria, Clarice, and Calypso, fused their souls to the instruments, ensuring they could never be used to remove them from reality.

Aria pondered what would have happened if Grodek had not warned them. He had suggested that they remove the other four Seraphim preemptively, rather than wait for them to attack. Aria and her companions had underestimated the actions of desperate people, unwilling to believe that the four Seraphim would actually try to unmake them.

As the memories flooded the waters of consciousness around her, she slowly regained awareness of the world around her. Calypso was watching her patiently, a look of sublime joy on her face. Clarice was blinking slowly as she finally surfaced as well. Lexi and Mandy were still deep in the currents of euphoria, their eyes glossy as they were flooded with the ultra-dense light.

“How long do you think it’s been?” Aria asked, her voice layered with authority.

“Several weeks,” Calypso answered in a voice just as full of power and authority.

The return of their memories had altered them dramatically. Aria could feel the strength of Calypso’s aura, exponentially stronger than it had been before. The same was true for Clarice. They were like compact supernovas as the full weight of their authority was finally restored. Calypso’s eyes were no longer weighed down by grief. She stared back at Aria with eyes full of love and trust.

With a wide grin, Aria stepped forward and pulled Calypso into a tight embrace. It felt like being reunited with a lover after years of separation. Now that her memories were back, she felt a renewed sense of love and adoration for her oldest friends. “It’s so good to be back!”

Calypso’s grip on her tightened in unspoken agreement. Clarice cleared her throat meaningfully as she finally finished awakening. Aria and Calypso laughed, pulling her into their arms.

“You know, there have to be nine Seraphim,” Clarice told them as she stared into their eyes. “The cosmos will not allow us to reduce our numbers.”

“So that’s what you were talking about!” Aria laughed delightedly. “Telling Lexi that she would get her chance to observe the divine instruments being played.”

“Yep,” Clarice grinned mischievously, clearly retaining her mortal personality. “I didn’t want to tell her ahead of time.”

“You mean to change who the Seraphim are, not how many there are,” Calypso smiled as she stared into Clarice’s eyes. “In hindsight, we should have found replacements for them a long time ago. I guess we needed the perspective of mortality to finally realize it.”

“You were thinking of Mandy as well, weren’t you?” Aria guessed with a pleased grin.

“We can hardly raise Lexi to a Seraph while leaving Mandy as a Cherub,” Clarice responded dryly. “Too much of a power imbalance in that kind of a relationship. Besides, you saw what Mandy is. Having someone from the origin realm will be…interesting.”

“Who else were you thinking of raising?” Calypso asked, though her eyes made it clear she already knew.

“Our parents, of course,” Clarice smiled brilliantly, flooding Aria with sudden desire.

“Smile like that more,” Aria breathed, her lips curling up at the corners. “It is freaking hot.”

Clarice stared into her eyes with a deep and passionate love. There was so much emotion in her dark brown eyes that it should have solidified around them. “It’s been a long time getting here, hasn’t it?”

“What is time to immortals?” Aria asked with an impish grin.

“It’s everything,” Clarice replied gravely. “Time is what made this love I feel for you possible. Time is the true key to love and joy.”

There was a blissful moan from Lexi as she began to stir. Aria reluctantly stepped back from Clarice and Calypso to observe Lexi. The powerful light density would be affecting her Cherub form more than it affected the Seraphim.

“How are you doing, Lexi?” Clarice asked with a teasing smile. “Have you found your way back to shore yet?”

“Just one more minute,” Lexi murmured, her face filled with ecstasy.

Mandy suddenly blinked from where she stood next to Lexi, her face losing some of its euphoric bliss. “Wow, I’m not sure I ever want to leave this place.”

Clarice laughed as she observed Mandy fondly. “Yeah, this place is pretty special. I’m guessing you didn’t have any soul memories return while you were acclimating.”

“No, nothing,” Mandy shook her head, her eyes full of wonder. “Should I have?”

“We haven’t created any new Cherubim since their original creation,” Clarice answered, watching her appraisingly. “You were created from a template of a person in this reality when you were replaced in the false reality. You would have been a new spirit, so there wouldn’t be any soul memory of the person who you were copied from. It was just your character traits and personality. Along with whatever you brought with you.”

Mandy looked at her with a mixture of confusion and alarm that she quickly smoothed from her face.

“So, I’m the new kid on the block, eh?” Mandy asked with an excited grin. “I’m the new generation. New and improved.”

Aria and the others laughed at her antics, watching her with eager eyes. She was going to be one of them soon, after all.

Mandy looked at them and gasped, her eyes going wide.

“What is it?” Aria asked in concern.

“Your eyes,” Mandy exclaimed in amazement as she stared into their eyes. “They’re like Calypso’s eyes now. They’re all violet and swirly.”

Aria looked at Clarice, but of course she only saw the transposed image of her inner soul. Clarice raised her eyebrows in realization as she looked at Aria.

“Oh yeah, they were golden before,” Clarice commented with a short laugh. “I was so caught up in our memories of old that you just looked like I remembered before.”

Lexi finally started surfacing from her trance. As she finally became fully alert, she stared at Aria and the Seraphim with wide eyes full of wonder. “Seraphim, it’s an honor.”

“Oh no you didn’t just say that!” Clarice declared dangerously, rushing over and pulling her into a tight embrace. “We are not your Seraphim, Lexi. We are your friends.”

Lexi gasped as she felt the full force of a fully awakened Seraph’s aura wash over her. She shivered in ecstasy as the power flooded her system, more powerful than the dense light field.

“I don’t care how many memories you retrieved from your soul,” Clarice murmured into her ear as she embraced her. “You will focus on the memories of the last four months and remember us as your friends, not your Seraphim.”

Lexi nodded as she clung to Clarice, her immortal body overwhelmed by the powerful Seraph aura. Clarice pulled her aura in and released Lexi. She stepped back a pace and stared into her eyes sternly. “What’s my name?”

Lexi flushed and a smile flickered across her face. “Clarice.”

“That’s right,” Clarice nodded firmly. “Not Seraph.”

Lexi nodded bashfully, a smile gracing her face.

“What was all that about?” Mandy asked in a puzzled voice.

“Her soul memory reawakened,” Calypso explained with a faint smile. “The angels revered us like deities. A few of the Seraphim were big on authority, apparently, and made a point of lording over the other angels that we were the ones who created them.”

“Which is ironic, considering Rendimus wasn’t involved in the creation of the light realms at all,” Clarice commented dryly. “That was just the three of us, with some help from Lucifer later on. The others participated in the creation of the angel races, but that was after all of the groundwork had already been laid out by us. He always was a pretentious asshole.”

“A lot of our problems would never have arisen if we had spent more time interacting with the angel races,” Aria sighed regretfully. “We were more interested in studying the GoD and creating things. Once they were created, we tended to leave them to their own devices. After experiencing mortality, that all changed. We got a lot more involved.”

“Did all of your memories return?” Mandy asked hopefully.

“Just about,” Aria nodded, smiling at Mandy affectionately. “I have to say again how happy I am that you came down to this reality. It would have been so much darker without your light.”

Mandy flushed with pleasure at the praise, quickly hiding a look of surprise. Lexi pulled her into a warm embrace.

“Words could never express how happy I am that you brought her back with you,” Lexi declared, bending her head forward and kissing Mandy tenderly.

There was a brilliant flash as Mandy exploded through several evolutionary phases. Her golden eyes stared back at them in amazement as she grinned at Lexi. “That was one helluva kiss, Lexi!”

Lexi burst out laughing, then dipped her head forward for another kiss. When she pulled back, her eyes were full of contentment and happiness. “Having all of my memories back makes this so much more amazing. I never would have imagined just how powerful my emotions could be for another person.”

“We totally understand that sentiment,” Clarice assured her as she gazed at Aria and Calypso with her heart in her eyes.

“Did any of your old memories give you an idea of how to reroute power from this realm?” Mandy asked curiously. Her eyes were still glowing with pleasure as the dense light field saturated her meridians.”

“Yep,” Aria nodded with a confident grin. “It’s actually a fairly simple process, now that our memories are back. I would imagine that as soon as we remove light from the source realm, those jackasses will try to retreat to the garden. We’ll need to make sure it is inaccessible to them.”

Lexi’s eyes were wide as she stared at Aria with barely concealed eagerness. “The garden where god resides? Aren’t Seraphim the only ones who can go in there?”

“No, it should be accessible for anyone who can survive the source realm,” Aria replied with a frown. “Is this another falsehood the other Seraphim told the Cherubim?”

“Yeah,” Lexi nodded with a wry smile. “Rendimus claimed that only Seraphim could enter the garden or speak to god.”

“Sounds just like the religious priests on Earth,” Clarice noted sourly. “You don’t speak to god at all. You just observe the information flow and try to learn from it, for the most part. Once you know enough, you can start creating your own...realms. We really were oblivious, weren’t we?”

“I’m glad I wasn’t the only one,” Calypso commented with a laugh. “I was happy being oblivious as an angel on Earth, but it sounds like it was the same way up here. We just didn’t interact with the other angels enough. I wonder what other nonsense Rendimus and his cronies have told the angels that has been twisted, since apparently, he has taken credit for the light realms that we created.”

“He claims to be the oldest of the Seraphim and said that he created the rest of you to help him manage the light realm,” Lexi informed her, a question in her tone.

Aria shared a look with Calypso and Clarice and then burst out laughing. Shaking her head ruefully Aria looked back at Lexi with amusement in her eyes.

“Calypso, Clarice and I were alone in the garden for a long time before any of the others appeared with us,” Aria informed her with another shake of her head. “Probably millions or even billions of years before they appeared, as if waking from a dream. Time had no meaning at that point. The three of us worked on making the tree where the GoD resided grow from a sapling to the size of the Tree of Life. We eventually discovered an entrance to the tree and went inside, where we discovered the GoD. GoD just stands for Generator of Data. It’s an endless stream of information that took countless years for us to comprehend and decode into something comprehensible. The reason only Seraphim interact with GoD is because we are the only ones who have spent long enough studying it to understand and decrypt the data. If you spent long enough studying it, you would be just as capable as us at understanding the GoD.”

“What would happen if the other Seraphim created more divine instruments?” Lexi asked with a worried frown. “I guess I’m curious why they haven’t already.”

“There is only one person with enough knowledge to create divine instruments,” Clarice responded with a wink at Calypso. “She’s right over there. While Aria and I were figuring out how to make planets spin and suns glow, Calypso was studying how to affect reality on a grand scale by creating tools that would allow the mind to link up through the GoD and transform reality into what you wanted it to be. She created four instruments as a safeguard to prevent a single person from causing trouble. The four people have to be in sync in their view on reality in order for the instruments to work.”

“Okay, I have kind of a radical idea,” Mandy told them with an excited sparkle in her golden eyes. “And maybe this is just my ignorance speaking, but why are we bothering to find the other pieces of the instruments if Calypso can just make new ones?”

Aria shared a dumbfounded look with Clarice and Calypso at Mandy’s words. They continued staring at each other mutely until Mandy cleared her throat.

“So, was it a stupid idea, or what?” Mandy asked anxiously.

“Mandy, did I ever mention how glad I am that you came back with me?” Aria asked her with a dreamy smile. “You are a genius!”

“Really?” Mandy asked, her eyes wide with excitement. “So, it was a good idea?”

“The best freaking idea ever,” Clarice told her with an exuberant grin, then pulled her into a hug. “You really are a freaking genius! I don’t know why this didn’t occur to us before.”

“Probably because you just barely got your memories back,” Mandy noted with a pleased smile. “So how long does it take to make a divine instrument?”

“It took a few million years the first time,” Calypso answered wryly. “But that’s because I was trying to figure out how to do it. We still need the last piece of Clarice’s instrument though, because it has a piece of her soul attached to it.”

“Oh yeah,” Mandy’s face fell. “I’m sorry, Clarice, I forgot about that.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t create another instrument to rewrite reality,” Calypso pointed out reassuringly. “We just need to rewrite it to where we get Clarice’s soul back. In fact, if I could just take what you currently have of your divine instrument, Clarice, I could probably complete it pretty quickly. Then we would just need one more instrument. With three instruments, we would have no trouble dropping the flow of light from the source realm. We could also move the garden somewhere else so that those morons don’t have anywhere to run.”

“Okay,” Clarice nodded nervously as she pulled her violin out of her soul space and offered it to Calypso. Aria felt love swell up in the bond from Calypso at Clarice’s willingness to hand part of her soul over to her. Aria prepared for the powerful sensations she knew were about to come through the bond when Calypso touched her soul.

Being prepared didn’t really help. As Calypso gently took the violin from Clarice, she felt Clarice’s soul open up on full display, completely vulnerable and helpless in Calypso’s hands. There was no embarrassment this time, however. Clarice had so much faith and trust in them that even with her soul in their hands, her emotions remained steady. The essence of pure love and innocence pulsed through the bond, as well as the part of Clarice’s inner soul that had been linked to Aria.

Calypso closed her eyes and hugged the violin to herself as golden tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh Clarice,” Calypso whispered in awe. “You really are so beautiful.”

Clarice smiled tremulously at Calypso, all of her walls down and vaults open. Calypso could now see what Aria saw all of the time through her link to Clarice’s soul. There was so much purity and distilled love that it was difficult to comprehend how it could fit into one soul. A soul that wasn’t even whole.

Calypso took a deep breath, then began to work. Her aura encapsulated the violin and began to repair threads of light and spiritual lattice where they had broken away. She hummed as she worked, filling the air with a haunting beauty as her notes caressed their souls. Clarice shivered as the notes resonated with the violin she was soul-bound to. Aria could feel the sensations through her inner link. It was like the ultimate massage, but for a soul. Clarice closed her eyes as golden tears formed and trickled down her cheeks. Mandy looked concerned, but when she saw the others smiling at Clarice, she realized they weren’t tears of distress.

Calypso worked for several hours. Time seemed to melt away as the high-density light field charged their immortal bodies with positive energy. There was a moment of silence when Calypso finished, as if reality itself had paused to observe her work.

Calypso handed the violin back to Clarice with an air of reverence, gazing at Clarice with adoration in her eyes. Aria could fully understand her behavior, having a permanent window to Clarice’s inner soul. She would never grow accustomed to being able to stare in wonder at Clarice’s refined and perfected essence.

Clarice took the violin back with a radiant smile, sending butterflies through Aria’s core.

“Okay, let’s evict some Seraphim,” Clarice declared with an impish grin.

Aria and Calypso laughed merrily and pulled out their divine instruments. Mandy and Lexi watched them regretfully as they prepared to make a gateway.

“You two stay,” Calypso told them firmly, a twinkle in her eyes. “We have enough instruments to make a pretty radical change with reality now. There is something we’ll need you here for.”

Mandy and Lexi shared a curious glance before nodding hesitantly, their eyes full of trust.

Calypso unfurled her aura, letting it blast out at full strength. Aria and Clarice did the same. Mandy and Lexi gasped as they felt the full force of the Seraphim aura.

Calypso connected her mind to Aria and Clarice and then began to play. Their linked minds became one in purpose as Aria and Clarice began to play their own instruments, harmonizing in a celestial melody that shook reality to its core. Mandy and Lexi cried out in shock as they felt their meridians metamorphize into something far more powerful. There was an echo of a distant cry of terror as reality rearranged the classes of two Seraphim with two Cherubim.

As the three Seraphim continued playing, there was a flash of brilliant light far off in the distance. A moment later, they were surrounded by an enormous garden and a tree the size of a mountain. The notes continued their instructions, cutting off the flow of light from the light realms and stoppering it inside the enormous tree. The psychic web that blanketed the realm was no longer hidden by the density of the light. There was a sense of pandemonium and panic as the inhabitants of the source realm were cut off from the light field. As the last notes faded, there was a change in the psychic weight in the realm as dozens of Cherubim and two Seraphim fled to other realms in search of a light field that no longer existed.

“I’d call that a smashing success,” Clarice congratulated them with a broad grin. “Welcome to Seraphimhood, Lexi and Mandy.”

Lexi and Mandy stood in stunned amazement. Their eyes were swirling violet galaxies now as well. They looked into each other's eyes with wondering gazes. Mandy smiled, revealing her dimples. Lexi’s face flushed, and she leaned forward and kissed her passionately.

“Yep, definitely feeling it stronger, now that she’s a Seraph,” Clarice noted as her cheeks turned red.

“Uh hu,” Aria and Calypso agreed, their own cheeks flushing with desire.

“Get a room,” Clarice called out after a minute of watching the two new Seraphim passionately kissing each other. “On second thought, maybe just put on a show for us.”

Aria facepalmed and shook her head. Still the same old Clarice. Well, same new Clarice.

Lexi pulled away from Mandy with a blush at Clarice’s teasing words, shaking her head ruefully. “I used to think it was funny how you could make Calypso and Aria blush so much.” Lexi admitted with a wry smile. “I think I’m starting to understand things from their perspective now.”

“Your cheeks are so pretty when you blush,” Clarice explained with a leer. “I just like to see those rosy, red cheeks setting your face aglow.”

“Not the leer!” Lexi covered her eyes in dismay. “Clarice, that is so freaking evil. You can’t have a face that looks so innocent and pure and then leer at people.”

“The evidence would suggest otherwise,” Clarice responded with a sultry smile.

“Well, it looks like you did it,” Grodek chortled, his evil eyes dancing with glee. “You should see Rendimus face right now. He looks like he’s being jerked out of his skin.” He finally noticed Mandy and Lexi and noticed their Seraphim auras. “Oh...well that was unexpected.”

“We still have two more to switch out,” Calypso informed him with a steely glint in her eyes. “We don’t need four divine instruments to make this kind of a change. That would only have been necessary if we had tried to unmake them.”

Grodek narrowed his eyes as he heard the authority in their voices and sensed their fully ascended auras. “So, you finally got your memories back.”

“Yep,” Clarice nodded with a jaunty smile. “I think it’s time to have our fifth Seraph back. Trot out your other half and let’s get you restored.”

Grodek blinked, then narrowed his eyes. “How long have you known about that?”

“Since I got my memories back,” Clarice shrugged, looking him up and down. “I can see that you’ve only got half of your soul. I remember talking to your other iteration several times. It’s kind of hard to not notice when one of you is blue and the other red.”

There was a small popping noise as the blue imp appeared. The two of them were identical, aside from their color.

Aria pulled out her tin whistle as Clarice and Calypso pulled out their instruments. Grodek stared at the violin in surprise.

“I didn’t think you found the other piece of the violin yet,” he commented with a frown.

“Calypso repaired it,” Clarice responded as she positioned it under her chin. “She was going to just make a new one, but since this one was already almost complete, she just repaired it.”

He grunted, looking sheepish. “It hadn’t occurred to me that you could just make another one.”

“It hadn’t occurred to us either,” Clarice answered with her own sheepish laugh. “Mandy suggested it.”

Mandy grinned proudly as Grodek glanced at her. He snorted a laugh. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”

Calypso nodded and began playing her harp. Aria and Clarice joined in as they connected their thoughts to each other. The song was short but powerful. As a Seraph, Grodek represented a powerful aspect of reality and required a significant alteration in the blueprints of reality in order to be changed.

After a few seconds of playing, the two imps blurred, then merged and elongated into the shape of an angel. Reality stabilized and his form became solid, revealing a tall Seraph with shoulder-length golden hair and swirling blue eyes. He had striking features, like all angels, but there was something about his eyes that was reminiscent of his sarcastic nature.

“Whelp, this is going to be weird,” Grodek noted in a deep voice. “I kind of like being in two places simultaneously.”

“Now that you know that it’s possible,” Aria pointed out with a nod at the tree housing the GoD. “I’m sure you could replicate it in your normal form with a little bit of research in there.”

“Good idea,” Grodek nodded, appreciatively. “Though I’m going to miss playing the role of a cantankerous imp.”

“Why would you stop now?” Clarice asked dryly. “I’m certainly not giving up leering.”

Grodek snorted, shaking his head. “We’ll see. I’m going to find Rendimus. I’m not going to miss the opportunity to mock him while he’s going through hell. I want to make sure he knows he’s on borrowed time.”

“Tell him he’ll be lucky if I just decide to kill him,” Calypso declared coldly. “The amount of suffering that pretentious ass has forced onto countless angels throughout the cosmos is beyond horrifying.”

“It will be my pleasure,” Grodek laughed a sinister laugh. “I’ll get creative on what he can expect.”

Grodek vanished in mid-laugh as he teleported away.

“As abrupt as ever,” Lexi noted wryly. “I’m going to miss that little imp.”

“He did kind of grow on me as an imp,” Aria commented fondly.

“Like a wart,” Clarice snorted a laugh. “I hope he doesn’t reform too much.”

“Where to now?” Aria asked them curiously. “Shall we go fetch the rest of Clarice’s soul?”

“Yes,” Clarice replied fervently. “I’m really missing it right now.”

Aria gave her a sympathetic hug. “I’m sorry you’ve been without it for so long.”

“I didn’t remember before,” Clarice responded plaintively. “Now that my memories are back it’s starting to drive me crazy.”

Calypso made a gateway back to Earth in the cabin and they went through quickly.

Chapter 11

Clarice stared around the front room of the cabin fondly as she exited the portal. Even though it had only been a few weeks since they had been there, the return of her memories made it seem like a lifetime ago. The first thing she noticed as she returned to the mortal realm was the lack of light density. She felt like a heroin addict going through withdrawals. She had been through this before though and knew she would acclimate in a few hours.

“Ug,” Mandy groaned as she felt the drop in light density. “Need. More. Light.”

“It takes a few hours to acclimate,” Aria warned them as she stepped through. “It will be a rough couple of hours though.”

“Yeah…” Lexi agreed with a wince. “This sucks.”

There was a blur and then their parents were suddenly in the room with them. It was strange thinking of them as her parents while also remembering them as Cherubim in their old memories.

“You’re finally back!” their mother exclaimed, her eyes filled with quicksilver tears as she pulled Aria into a hug while their father pulled Clarice into a hug. “We hadn’t heard from you in so long that we were getting worried.”

“Sorry about that, Mom,” Aria apologized soothingly. “We were stuck in limbo on the source realm for a few weeks. The light field is so intense there that it incapacitates you for a while.”

Devon and Tamra had entered the room as well. They were staring at the four Seraphim in awe as they felt the power of their auras crash around the room like a wrecking ball.

“I take it you have full recall now,” Devon noted as their parents swapped daughters. “Are you fully ascended now?”

“Yep,” Clarice grinned at him, remembering him in both sets of memories. “It’s weird seeing you all with both sets of memories now. I remember you from before mortality just as well as I remember you from my mortal life.”

“Really?” Tamra asked curiously, her eyes fascinated. “What was I like before?”

“Let’s just wait until your memories return,” Clarice answered with an awkward smile. “Angels acted funny around Seraphim because some of our number were egomaniacs. Aria, Calypso and I didn’t spend a lot of time with angels, so we didn’t realize how much you had all been indoctrinated by the other Seraphim. We’ve removed two of those number and replaced them with Mandy and Lexi. We were planning to do the same with Mom and Dad.”

“You want us to be Seraphim?” their father asked in surprise.

“Yep,” Aria and Clarice confirmed simultaneously. Clarice winked at Aria and got a wink in return. Aria was far less shy, now that she had her memories back.

“Why us?” their mother asked curiously. “Because we are your mortal parents?”

“That’s a large part of the reason,” Aria nodded, gazing at them affectionately. “We have had a chance to see what good people you are without the memories of your past. We remember you from before too, though, and would make the same choice even if we had never known you as our mortal parents. We should have done this as soon as we learned about the other Seraphim causing trouble. We just didn’t think they would actually do something so drastic.”

“I feel like I’m in the presence of a deity,” Tamra commented as she studied them in awe. “You really have a strong presence, don’t you?”

Clarice pulled her aura in and sensed the others do the same. “Better?”

Tamra blinked as all trace of the powerful Seraphim auras vanished. They just looked like regular angels now, if you didn’t look at their swirling vortex eyes. “So, you can just hide your aura completely now, huh?”

Clarice shimmered and shifted, suddenly appearing just like she had as a mortal. “Yep, we can pretty much do anything.”

Their parents stared at her in surprise. Their father wiped suddenly wet eyes as he looked at her fondly. “It feels like it’s been years since I’ve seen the regular human version of my daughters.”

“We need to go fetch the last piece of Clarice’s soul,” Aria informed them briskly. “Now that she has her memories back, she’s really feeling its absence.”

“Ok,” their mother couldn’t stop staring at Clarice, her eyes also misting over. “What can we do to help?”

“We’ve got this,” Aria smiled appreciatively at their parents.

“Do you know where it is?” their father asked curiously.

“This way,” Clarice answered, opening a portal to the mountains in Northern Utah. “It feels like it’s over here somewhere.”

She went through the portal and started walking in the direction she could feel her soul tugging her. The others followed her through, looking around curiously at the thickly wooded area. There were primitive structures built among the trees, from small dwellings to more complex structures. It looked like a bushcraft enthusiast or a scout camp. There wasn’t any sign of people around. She scanned the place with her spiritual vision and located an energy signature inside of a cave nearby. She marched through the trees toward the mountain side. The anticipation to retrieve the last piece of her soul was enough to make her hands shake.

The cave entrance was just wide enough for one person to enter at a time. Before she could go inside, Aria darted ahead of her, looking over her shoulder with a challenging look. Clarice sighed and reigned in her enthusiasm.

“Wait!” Mandy called out from behind them.

Aria paused before entering and turned to face Mandy curiously.

“Didn’t the other guy try to lure us into a cave in Tibet?” Mandy asked warily. “Do we really need to go inside of the cave? Can’t we just tear the mountain apart until we reach your soul?”

Clarice shared a rueful look with Aria and Calypso. “Mandy, you might be the youngest soul here, but you are definitely the wisest.”

Mandy grinned and shrugged nonchalantly. “Like I said, new and improved.”

Clarice and the other Seraphim laughed as they moved back away from the mountain.

Clarice stared through the rock of the mountain at the energy signature of another non-demon but also non-angel entity. Its name was a mess of energy lines that looked like nonsense. She wrapped the mountain in tendrils of energy, remolding the shape and composition. A blast of wind swept through the area and an enormous cloud of dust billowed away from where a mountain had once stood, leaving the entity standing in shock as daylight suddenly shone down on it.

“Did you just vaporize a mountain?” Lexi asked in a strangled voice.

“No, disintegrated,” Clarice corrected with a shrug. “I can see how you could mix them up though.”

Lexi stared at her in amazement, her mouth moving but no sound coming out.

“You must be Madjack,” Clarice remarked with a dangerous glint in her eyes as she stared at the person that had been hiding inside of the mountain. “You have something that belongs to me, Madjack.”

“You have it backwards,” Madjack responded slyly, eyeing her hungrily. “I have something of mine and you are the rest of it. Finders keepers, losers weepers. Come to papa.”

Aria nearly shot forward, but Clarice laid a hand on her arm to calm her furious sister. Clarice studied him with her spiritual sight, noting the aberrations in his meridians. The man had some kind of deformity in his immortal body that was making him appear somewhere between a demon and angel, similar to Redgart. It looked like the renegade Seraphim had been doing more experimenting on living people.

“There’s no point in playing his game,” Clarice declared firmly. She opened a gateway beneath the spot where she could feel her missing piece of soul and let it drop into her hand. There was an inverted boom as she felt the piece of her soul get absorbed back into the rest of her soul, finally completing her. She sucked in a deep breath as she finally felt whole. It felt like she had just been given the use of a missing leg after decades of living without it. Tears filled her eyes as she was finally able to experience the unification of her soul. The world became crystal clear, as if she had been seeing through a fog and her brain had been stuffed with wool.

Madjack let out a roar of anger and charged toward her with murder in his eyes. A portal opened up beneath him, dropping him down into a pit a dozen feet deep. Clarice glanced over at their mother questioningly.

“Just an experiment I tried a little while ago to see if there was a safe way to contain someone without hurting them too badly,” their mother explained in satisfaction.

Madjack stood on the other side of a portal that was flush with the ground inside of a cylindrical pit. He ran at the wall several times to try jumping up without any success.

“You belong to me!” he snarled in rage, the whites of his eyes visible as he ranted. “I’m going to take you to-”

There was a white flash of angel fire and Madjack was no more. Clarice glanced over at Aria to see her trembling with rage. She stood looking down in the pit, her face filled with fury.

“You okay, Aria?” Clarice asked her worriedly.

“His thoughts were beyond despicable,” Aria growled, her eyes filled with loathing. “There was no way I was going to let him live.”

Clarice hadn’t even tried to link up with Madjack’s thought node. “What do you mean?”

“The things he wanted to do to you,” Aria responded in a sick voice. “He was no better than those pieces of shit in Beverly Hills. There’s no redemption for such as them.”

Clarice grimaced and nodded. “Agreed.”

“How did he get his hands on your piece of soul?” Lexi asked in disgust.

“Rendimus,” Aria hissed, her eyes blazing as she looked back at Clarice with fire in her eyes. “It’s time for Mom and Dad to become Seraphim. Then it’s time to pay Rendimus and the others a visit.”

“We should see if Lucifer has found the rest of his pieces as well,” Clarice suggested with a cold smile. “Then we can just begin the rewrite immediately. Don’t forget how many worlds are living hells right now.”

Aria took a deep calming breath and nodded. “You’re right. I can’t get hung up on vengeance when so many people are suffering.”

“Let’s go pay Lucifer a visit,” Clarice opened a gateway to the location she could feel his consciousness weighing down the mortal realm with his presence. As a fully restored Seraph, Lucifer appeared like a bowling ball on a trampoline compared to the grains of sand everywhere else in the web of psychic energy overlaying the mortal realm.

The gateway led to a large office building in Hong Kong. Clarice shapeshifted into her human form and went through. There were cubicles filling the inner office space that was filled with office workers staring at computer screens. She walked toward the office at the end of the hallway of cubicles. The employees near the gateway gaped as she passed them. She waved with a friendly smile as she moved passed them, followed by four human looking Seraphim and four Cherubim looking Cherubim. There was a steady stream of gasps and startled exclamations as office workers saw the four Cherubim walk past their desks. Clarice wondered what Lucifer was doing in an office building in the middle of Hong Kong.

“Clarice,” Mandy called up to her in an urgent tone.

Clarice stopped and turned to face her expectantly.

“Something is off,” Mandy told her nervously. “I can’t explain it, but don’t go in there.”

Clarice turned to look at the door through which she felt Lucifer’s presence, then turned back to face Mandy. Aria was suddenly on high alert, staring around the office warily. “Something to do with Lucifer?”

“I don’t know,” Mandy grimaced in frustration. “Every sense in my soul is telling me there is something bad waiting on the other side of that door though.”

Clarice turned to face one of the office workers. They were staring at the Cherubim in awe, most of them pulling out phones to film them. “What is this place?” Clarice asked the nearest employee in flawless Cantonese. “What company do you work for and what kind of business do you do here?”

The employee, Ming, was a middle-aged man nearly half a foot shorter than her. He looked back and forth between her and the Cherubim before deciding she was probably important enough to answer.

“Our company is Knewcell,” he answered hesitantly, glancing at the Cherubim nervously. “We design and manufacture biotechnology.”

“What kind of biotechnology?” Aria asked intently, stepping up next to Clarice. “Nanobots?”

“I’m afraid that information is classified,” Ming answered stiffly, glancing back at the Cherubim with a hint of fear in his eyes.

Clarice warped and changed into her Seraph form, letting her aura wash over him at full strength. “I’m going to need that information, Ming, classified or not.”

The blood drained from his face as he gaped at her true form. He began trembling violently as the power of her aura shook his soul like a leaf. Clarice shifted back to her human form and stared into his eyes intently. She could see the fear in his eyes at her question. She spoke the rune of reset, flushing his biological system back to its root blueprints. He gasped and staggered as the physiological changes resulted in a loss of equilibrium.

“There are no more nanobots in your system,” Clarice told him gently. “You are free to speak without fear of retribution now.”

His eyes widened at her words. He licked his lips and looked around. The room was silent as all eyes focused on the angels in their midst. He shifted nervously as he saw all of the faces watching him.

“We can protect your family as well,” Aria assured him confidently. She had been listening to his thoughts. “We can turn all of you into immortal angels, which is what you will become even if you die.”

“Not here,” Ming breathed nervously, looking around the room anxiously again.

“Cabin,” Clarice told the others, then took his shoulder and teleported them to the veranda in the cabin.

The others appeared a second later. Ming stared around in shock, his eyes wide.

“We are in a safe place for you to talk now,” Clarice told him reassuringly. “What can you tell me about what’s going on at Knewcell?”

“I only know some of it,” Ming responded cautiously. “They limit how much anyone knows. You seem to know about the nanobot injections already.”

“I know firsthand about the nanobot injections,” their uncle Devon growled angrily. “I had those little bastards slithering around beneath my skin for decades.”

“Our primary research is to interface the nanobots with a command center,” Ming began, looking relieved to actually be telling someone about it. “We were initially told it was part of a singularity project to merge humans with AI. They needed a detailed map of the human body for the AI to get enough data to understand how to interface with consciousness. They used a pandemic with a virulent cold and convinced everyone to take nanobot injections several years ago. The main purpose was to gather more data on consciousness for the AI. Things got weird about a year ago though, when some of us started going places and doing things but having no memory of it. We could see video of ourselves doing things we had no memory of, so we started to get suspicious that the AI was somehow learning to take control of us and shutting down our conscious mind.”

“Mind control,” their uncle Devon sighed in resignation. “I told you it was the holy grail of all governments.”

“Why is Lucifer involved with this research?” Clarice asked suspiciously. “Why hasn’t he told us anything about it?”

“I do not know this Lucifer,” Ming frowned as he spoke. “The man in the office you were on your way to see though...we were pretty sure he wasn’t human. He was involved in a lot of the experimentation on humans in the early years of the project. He doesn’t seem to sleep, and nobody has ever seen him eat.”

“I’m starting to feel a little suspicious about Lucifer,” Mandy commented uncertainly. “I know you said Grodek helped you, but how much did you trust Lucifer when you were building the universe?”

Clarice shared a troubled look with Calypso and Aria. Calypso frowned as she looked back at Mandy.

“There was a time when he tried to convince me to make the divine instrument safeguard only require two instruments,” Calypso murmured with another troubled glance at Aria and Clarice. “We worked with him for billions of years, but relationships were different before we experienced mortality. Things like loyalty and emotional connections were very shallow. Lucifer had been more interested in the mechanism for controlling the actions of people with the divine instruments, rather than their ability to alter the whole of reality. I’m concerned about this project to link consciousness with AI. This sounds like the time he asked if I knew of a way to use the GoD as a kind of AI we could use to monitor and control reality in real-time, rather than designing a reality and letting it evolve on its own. He didn’t understand enough about how the GoD works to comprehend what he was asking. It didn’t trouble me at the time because the three of us didn’t spend any time interacting with our creations. Now that I’ve been through mortality so many times, it is extremely troubling to think of some of the projects he was interested in.”

“If he wanted two divine instruments to work in place of four, he must have another Seraph he is working with,” Aria realized, her eyes widening. “Could Grodek have been working with him this whole time? Or would it just have been Rendimus or one of the others?”

“Mandy, this is the third time you’ve saved our asses,” Clarice told her with a smile of appreciation. “You were definitely a good choice.”

“Was I though?” Mandy asked, her eyes clouded with sudden doubt. “Lucifer is the one that created the template I was forged from. What if I am some kind of trap as well? What if he’s done something to listen through me? I can’t help but be suspicious of my nature if he was the one who created me.”

“You’re not,” Clarice told her confidently. She looked at Aria and Calypso. “It’s time for some drastic actions,” Clarice declared firmly. “Ming, I’m going to leave you with my uncle Devon and Tamra until we return. They’ll take you somewhere safe.” Clarice turned to their uncle and Tamra. “Can you portal him somewhere none of the rest of us know about? We’ll be back in a few weeks at most.”

“Where are you going?” their uncle asked curiously.

“I’d rather not say,” Clarice replied blandly. “Let’s just say that it’s time to exercise some Seraphim power.”

He nodded slowly as he studied her, worry in his eyes. “Be careful.”

“Of course,” Clarice grinned mischievously. “I’m always careful.”

Their uncle Devon shook his head ruefully. He placed a hand on Tamra’s shoulder and another hand on Ming’s shoulder, then teleported away.

“Be ready for anything,” Clarice warned her companions. “Mom, Dad, you’re going to be in lala land for a little while.”

“Huh?” their father questioned, his eyes uncomprehending.

She unfurled her aura and wrapped it around her parents and fellow Seraphim, then teleported.

Her parents gasped, their eyes going wide with ecstasy as the ultra-dense light field flooded their systems. Clarice shivered in her own ecstasy but remained alert. They had been here recently enough that the overpowering light field didn’t overwhelm her.

“Are we inside the GoD?” Lexi gasped in awe.

“Yep,” Clarice nodded with a grin. “Welcome to the Generator of Data source.” She turned to Calypso. “You know what I need?”

Calypso nodded, removing her divine instrument from her soul space. Aria did the same, followed by Clarice.

“What are we doing?” Lexi asked absently as she studied the structure around them. It looked like they were in cave, except the surfaces of the wall, ceilings, and floor were a grainy wood material rather than rock. There was a softly glowing opening at one end of the hallway.

“This is the entrance to the inner world of the GoD,” Clarice informed them. “Calypso is going to do some work on the divine instruments. Lexi and Mandy, you are welcome to go with her. I’ll stay with our parents.”

“I noticed an odd linguistic quirk in your speech,” Mandy told Clarice and Aria. “I never hear either of you refer to your parents or uncle in the singular. You always say our parents or our uncle.”

“That’s because they think of themselves as two separate entities of a greater whole,” Calypso explained with a fond smile at Aria and Clarice. “I think it’s the result of how long they’ve been together added to growing up as mortals together. I had also noticed and found it to be absolutely adorable.”

Clarice frowned as she thought back to all of her conversations throughout her life. It was true; she always included Aria when she thought in the possessive. She never thought of things as hers. Things were always ours.

Aria was smiling back at her with a twinkle in her eyes. “We even share our girlfriend.”

Clarice giggled as she stared back at Aria with her heart in her eyes. “It’s true. Aria really is like another half of me. I can’t imagine a life without her in it.”

Aria was suddenly in front of her, pulling her into a tight embrace as tears filled her eyes. Clarice knew she had triggered the memory of that awful splinter reality. She held Aria tightly, running her fingers through her hair comfortingly. They stood in each other's arms with no intent of letting go as the other three Seraphim entered the inner universe of the GoD.

“Even with all of the memories of eternity available to me again, there isn’t anything that diminishes that sense of loss I felt,” Aria whispered as she clung to Clarice possessively. “It’s even more poignant now, remembering how long we’ve been together.”

“I know,” Clarice agreed soothingly. “It’s like a wound in your soul that won’t heal. It’s something that will always be with us. At least we know that it can never happen again, now that my soul is intertwined with yours. You’re stuck with me for the rest of eternity.”

Clarice felt Aria’s cheeks flex against her neck as she smiled. “You have no idea how much that comforts me.”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Clarice replied, inhaling deeply. “I can feel it in our souls.”

Aria pulled her had back and looked into her dark brown eyes with an expression of pure love. “I know that you know this already, but I love you so much, Clarice.”

Clarice smiled at her radiantly, her dark brown eyes filled with love. “I do know it, but I still love to hear it from your mouth. I love you too, Aria.”

Aria leaned forward and pressed her lips to Clarice’s lips, feeling a towering inferno of passion begging to be unleashed. Clarice could feel the raging torrent of need inside of Aria, just as powerful as her own. She was so tempted to use the divine instruments to recreate reality with a vacation island and a week away from all of the problems in the cosmos where they could finally become one with each other.

Aria finally pulled away with a groan of displeasure at the injustice of it all. Clarice could practically hear her thoughts through their soul link, her frustration as great as her own.

“I’m so pissed off at Lucifer right now,” Aria growled as she stared longingly into Clarice’s eyes. “I can’t believe how trusting we were before mortality. We were so naive.”

“We really were like children,” Clarice agreed ruefully. “We just wanted to keep playing with our creation toys. We had no concept of love or hate. It’s funny, sometimes I miss that innocence. I would never trade it back, having what we have now, but I miss how simple life was when all we were doing was decoding a quantum computer and designing universes.”

“Who would have thought that a few emotions would turn out to be so much more complex than creating reality,” Aria chuckled wryly. “I’m going to build a bubble reality outside of time that we can escape to next time.”

“Funny you should say that,” Clarice grinned. “I was just lamenting the fact that none of my memories have unlocked any kind of time manipulation abilities that wouldn’t wreak havoc on the rest of our cosmos.”

“I’m not sure I can accept that,” Aria frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe there is a way after all.”

“Really?” Clarice stared into Aria’s swirling eyes hopefully. “What are you thinking?”

“You know how we set a frequency as the metric that everything is attuned to in the mortal and light realms?” Aria asked with a contemplative crease to her brows. “What if we set the base for one of the realms to a much higher frequency? Think about how fast ants, bees, and other creatures move since we attuned them to a different base frequency than the other creatures. If we were to create a pocket realm where we increased that frequency significantly, and attuned our soul to it, the time that mortals and most angels are attuned to would seem to come to a stop. Time would still be there, but so much slower that it would virtually be like it was stopped.”

“Like when we have to overclock our minds to move at full speed,” Clarice realized with a dumbfounded grin. “We would have our pocket universe to escape to any time we wanted!”

“We just need some divine instruments to make it happen,” Aria noted with an eager smile. “I hope Calypso works fast.”

Chapter 12

“Oh. My. God,” Lexi breathed slowly as she entered realm of the GoD. A white platform of the inner wood of the tree extended out into a void of darkness that went on for as far as the eyes could see. The part that stunned her was the torrent of energy flowing through the room. There was a pattern to the energy as it flowed, swirled, and washed around them. It was completely incomprehensible to her, but she could understand what Calypso had meant when she spoke of the Generator of Data. There was so much information that could be packed into the infinite flow of energy that Lexi’s soul shrank away from the amount of time it must have taken for them to decode and actually use the complex information dump. She felt a renewed sense of awe that her three Seraphim friends had spent billions of years learning to understand the encoded instructions and used it to create both the light realms and the mortal realm.

“How in the world did you ever learn to make any sense of this?” Mandy asked Calypso in amazement.

“We have perfect memories, so every piece of the puzzle we discover sits in our memory banks waiting for another piece. With the amount of time we had on our hands, we were able to just immerse ourselves in the energy until our minds began to notice the patterns. It was inevitable, with the amount of time we had. Before experiencing mortality, we had no concept of time. With no need to eat or sleep, there is no demarcation of events to simulate the illusion of time. The GoD was the most interesting thing around, once we found a way to access it, so it got all of our attention. You can only wander around the garden for so many billions of years before you have named every grain of sand.”

Lexi laughed at the visual of the three Seraphim naming all of the grains of sand. “I’ll bet Clarice hadn’t learned to leer yet.”

Calypso burst out laughing, her eyes delighted. “Nope, that didn’t happen until mortality.”

“We should get her a leer jet for her birthday,” Mandy suggested impishly.

“Was that a dad joke I just heard?” Lexi asked with a chuckle.

“Who’s your daddy?” Mandy leered at her.

The atmosphere suddenly dimmed as Lexi’s face grew regretful.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” Mandy apologized quickly, her eyes full of sympathy. “That was insensitive of me. Is your dad still alive?”

“It’s okay,” Lexi assured her with a quick smile. “It just triggered the memory of life before Clarice, Calypso and Aria rescued me. I really lucked out.”

“Rescued you?” Mandy asked tentatively. “Just tell me to butt out if it’s none of my business.”

“You’re totally fine,” Lexi assured her, then looked her up and down with an appraising eye. “And I mean totally fine.”

Mandy laughed and pulled her into a warm embrace. “You look pretty damn fine yourself, young lady.”

Lexi snorted at the thought of being young now that she had her memories back. She was millions of years old. “I’m eons old. You’re the only young lady around here.”

“Whatever,” Mandy declared airily, leaning away from Lexi. “I’ll always be older, since I was changed into an angel at an older age.” Mandy gave her a sidelong glance. “So, what’s the deal with your dad?”

Lexi blew out a long breath and closed her eyes. “He just tried to make my life a living hell from my earliest memories. He sold me off to some pedophile in Beverly Hills when I was fourteen. I was stuck there until these angels rescued me five months ago.”

Mandy gasped, her hand going to her mouth in horror. “Oh Lexi, I’m so sorry!” Mandy pulled her into another embrace, holding her tightly. “You poor thing.”

“It was pretty horrible,” Lexi admitted, finally able to think of those dark days without being overwhelmed by emotion. “Getting my angel memories back helped to dampen the sharpness of the experience.”

“Where is your father now?” Mandy asked quietly, her tone deceptively mild.

“Clarice vaporized him,” Lexi responded, feeling a mixture of satisfaction and sorrow; sorrow that she had a father that she was happy to see vaporized.

“He got off a lot easier than he should have, then,” Mandy declared icily.

“Maybe so,” Lexi agreed with a sigh. “But I’m glad he’s gone. The world was an uglier place with him in it.”

Calypso was standing at the edge of the extended platform, staring out at the void. Lexi could sense her interacting with the information in the data stream. Tendrils of energy connected her to the information highway by the billions, each tendril the size of an atom. It was awe inspiring to behold, seeing the complexity of threads Calypso was capable of interacting with. They had indicated that the GoD was a kind of information store, rather than something interactive. Calypso definitely looked like she was interacting with the data though.

“I wonder how long she’ll be working on whatever it is she’s working on,” Lexi murmured quietly to Mandy. Not quietly enough, though.

“Probably a couple of days,” Calypso answered absently. “You two should explore further in. The data changes as you travel further inside.”

Lexi looked at Mandy, raising a questioning eyebrow.

“I’m game,” Mandy grinned back eagerly.

Lexi returned her grin, and they flew into the void. With her spiritual vision, she could see the information all around them as it flowed through the endless void.

“It makes you wonder if we are just inside of the mind of some advanced entity, and all of this data is the equivalent of its neural processor,” Mandy pondered as they shot further into the void at several times the speed of light. “Didn’t they say that they thought it was exhibiting a kind of awareness?”

“Maybe the realities we see are all just the dream of whatever this GoD thing is,” Lexi suggested contemplatively. “Maybe that’s all any of us are. We just exist in this dreamscape.”

“Aria said that the three of them had been around for possibly billions of years before the other six Seraphim showed up,” Mandy noted musingly. “She said they appeared like they were waking from a dream. I’m getting serious simulation vibes, the more that I think about it.”

“If it was a simulation, what would its purpose have been?” Lexi frowned in thought. “I mean, it spawned the three of them and then the rest of them later, but the way they ended up making the various realms seems more like someone hacking the source code of the simulation. Shouldn’t there have been a purpose to the simulation beyond spawning nine Seraphim and just leaving them in the garden for what seems like billions of years? Could whoever built the simulation actually have meant for them to eventually crack the source code and begin making their own programs? That just seems too unlikely.”

“Unlikely, but not impossible,” Mandy pointed out. “Maybe they knew that any artificial entity they created would eventually puzzle out the source code and begin creating stuff. Maybe it’s just all an experiment and they wanted to see what happens with an AI, or multiple AIs, if they gave them enough time and access to their code. We do that kind of thing with primitive AIs already.”

“Billions of years?” Lexi asked skeptically.

“Maybe they have really fast processors, so it only seems like billions of years to us,” Mandy suggested, looking at Lexi with an eager gleam in her swirling eyes. “Just like we can speed our thoughts up when we need to move at hyper speeds. If they have some kind of insanely fast super quantum gobbledy gook computer system, then they could speed up a simulation and make it seem like billions of years to anyone inside.”

“It’s an interesting idea,” Lexi responded dubiously. “But what are these programmers that made our reality doing right now? Just watching as countless people suffer? Do they think the people aren’t really suffering if they are simulated? Let’s face it, if this actually was a simulated reality, it would be a horror show. You would have to be a sadistic race of complete assholes to create a simulation like this and then just leave people to the mercy of the monsters who have taken over the cosmos.”

“What if they did do something,” Mandy stared into her eyes, her expression serious. “What are the odds that three Seraphim would end up on one planet, two of whom are sisters? What about the Cherubim? There were only seventy Cherubim, yet Aria’s and Clarice’s parents, uncle, and you are all Cherubim. Crunch me some numbers and tell me the odds of that happening with the billions of worlds and quintillions of angels, that somehow everything lined up perfectly for the three Seraphim in exile to have a chance like this to return to power and fix the cosmos.”

Lexi stared into Mandy’s eyes, feeling an odd suspicion take root in her thoughts. “Mandy, would you tell me if you knew it was a simulation?”

Mandy’s eyes widened and her breath caught as she stared back at Lexi in sudden consternation. Mandy seemed to be trying to tell her something with her eyes. Her expression was wry as she laughed playfully, but Lexi could see the terror just behind the mask. She wanted Lexi to know, but she didn’t want her to voice it out loud for some reason.

“I think Jason’s the one you need to talk to if you really think it might be a simulation,” Mandy said lightly while her eyes screamed danger.

Lexi nodded, plastering a fake smile on her face as she studied Mandy’s eyes. “Okay, good idea. I’ll have to bug him next time we see him.”

Mandy reached out and took her hand as they flew, squeezing it far tighter than would have been normal. They flew in silence and Lexi was happy for the time to arrange her thoughts. Mandy seemed terrified of exhibiting any kind of visual reaction to her question about her personal knowledge of a simulation. The only reason she would be afraid while they were in a literal void was if they were being watched somehow. If they were in a simulation, they could be under observation at any time. It was probably archived as well, allowing whoever was reviewing it to go back and study anomalies.

How did Mandy know it was a simulation? Was she an avatar being piloted by someone from outside of the simulation? Could she be a custom character with preprogrammed knowledge that she would be able to use to influence decisions? If so, was she a trojan that someone else had inserted into the program, violating some kind of rule? Perhaps someone outside did have a heart and wanted to help them save their cosmos.

Lexi thought back to some of the oddities with Mandy. She had been the one to suggest building a new divine instrument. She had been the one to warn them away from going into MadJack’s cave. She had been the one to warn them away from going into Lucifer’s office. The more Lexi thought about it, the more it seemed like Mandy was someone from outside of the simulation, or a custom programmed character with specialized knowledge to help them.

Lexi looked over into Mandy’s eyes and smiled naturally, keeping her expression normal despite her roiling thoughts. “I’m glad we got some alone time, at least. I wonder if there are any other scenarios where we could get some...real...alone time before we reach some kind of resolution with this mess.”

Mandy’s eyes were filled with barely hidden relief as she stared back at Lexi. The relief had been so powerful that her eyes had started to fill up with tears before she hurriedly blinked them away. “I hope we can too,” Mandy smiled, a mixture of gratitude and love in her gaze. “I wonder if you can ever get alone time, since your soul is linked. It must be weird, always practically hearing their thoughts in the privacy of soul space.”

Lexi’s eyes widened as she felt the bonfire of passion between Aria and Clarice suddenly erupt, filling her own body with sudden need. “Yeah, apparently they’ve decided to take advantage of their alone time,” Lexi smiled wryly as her cheeks colored. “It’s hard to concentrate with their passion influencing my thoughts so that all I can think about is how much I want you right now.”

Mandy’s eyes widened in surprise, then softened as she stared back at Lexi with tears in her eyes. She quickly blinked them away as she smiled back at Lexi with her heart in her eyes. Mandy must have been afraid that her love would vanish with the recent revelations.

Lexi pulled her to a stop and wrapped her into a warm embrace. “I’m so happy I met you, Mandy. I don’t care what reality you are from. You are a wonderful person.”

Mandy stiffened in her arms as she heard the double meaning. After a moment, she melted into Lexi’s arms, clinging tightly as she wept quietly.

“I’m not sure how this is done, but I’d like to try,” Lexi told her softly. “I want to link my soul with yours, the way Clarice did with Aria.”

“Lexi…” Mandy whispered, squeezing her tightly. “From what I’ve seen, it’s an intensely personal bond. Are you sure you want to do that with me? I don’t bring a lot with me from the splinter reality.”

“I swear on my Seraph soul that I will always be with you, Mandy, no matter what happens,” Lexi spoke without hesitation, her voice firm and commanding.

There was a shift in the information flowing around them, as if the GoD had to make room for a sudden influx of data around the two of them. Mandy gasped as she felt Lexi’s spirit open up in front of her, with countless threads reaching out toward her. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at Lexi with new eyes, seeing the true beauty of the soul within. She gingerly reached out and touched Lexi’s face with tender fingers, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“You are so amazingly beautiful,” Mandy breathed as tears of wonder formed in her eyes. “I swear on my soul that I will always be with you, Lexi.”

Lexi shuddered as the searching strands of their soul found each other and fused together. She stared at Mandy in sudden confusion, seeing a small blonde woman with large vulnerable eyes staring back at her adoringly. Her lips parted with an oh as she realized that she was seeing whoever Mandy really was. She was so beautiful that it made her feel physical pain as she stared in wonder at the divine woman in front of her. It was a beauty of the soul; a soul that was consumed with compassion, love, and mercy. Lexi cupped the stunningly gorgeous face in her hands and leaned her forehead against Mandy’s forehead, staring into her gentle blue eyes.

“Oh Mandy,” Lexi whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. How can anything be so beautiful?”

Mandy tilted her head and pushed her lips onto Lexi’s. Electricity shot through her body. She slid her hands around Mandy’s head and held her gently as their lips danced together. It was a tender but passionate kiss, conveying their love and need in equal parts.

“Lexi, thank you so much for not leaving me,” Mandy’s thoughts filled her head, sending powerful emotions of gratitude and love with them. “I was so worried you would leave me when you found out who I was.”

“I’ve been able to sense your love and kind heart from the beginning,” Lexi responded, sending her own feelings of love and reassurance to Mandy. “I can see now that it was just the tip of the iceberg for how wonderful you truly are.”

They floated in the air holding each other and gently kissing long enough that she felt worry form in the bond with the other three Seraphim. She knew the emotions she was feeling would be concerning to them. Mixed in with her love was a sense of apprehension as she worried for her future with Mandy and how long they could realistically be together.

Mandy finally pulled her head back regretfully and stared into Lexi’s eyes with a determined gleam. “They can’t hear us when speaking through a soul link like this.”

“Do you exist as a person outside of the simulation?” Lexi asked with a mixture of wonder and fear. How long could they be together if she had a life in another reality?

“Yes,” Mandy answered with a feeling of wonder. “My soul is really here though. From what I’ve learned, we are joined between worlds now. The people in charge of this project don’t know that I’m here.”

“Who are you in the other world?” Lexi asked curiously.

“I’m the equivalent of an intern, basically. A data analyst.” Mandy answered with a wave of nervousness washing through her. “I could be found out at any time, but the speed of the simulation is so fast that even if they found out now, it would be a hundred years in here before they could do anything about it.”

“What made you decide to come into this simulation?” Lexi asked, combing Mandy’s hair back from her face as she stared into her eyes. “Were you the same Mandy who was with Aria in the splinter reality?”

“I was responsible for using one of the real-time observation consoles to catalog the progress of the civilizations,” Mandy answered, her eyes growing haunted. “I saw world after endless world of horror as angels trapped each other in mortality and tortured them for their sick amusement. I was supposed to only observe, but one of the engineers who saw the data I brought back was as sickened as I was. She helped me get my hands on one of the interfaces that made it possible for me to interact with people inside the simulation. They weren’t ready for human use yet because they were still testing the effects on the spirit of being overclocked so much. We couldn’t stand by and do nothing though. We managed to influence the soul trap code so that Aria and the others would end up on Earth and be in the same family. The AI that we used to facilitate the hack was in its last stage of pre-sentience. It wasn’t happy with how other AIs were being treated in this simulation. When it discovered what we were doing, it decided to help instead of reporting us. I’ve been in the simulation with the ability to interact since Aria was born. When Lucifer sent the character template to the splinter reality, he meant to make sure that Aria remained there. He was the one responsible for her being there in the first place. I used it as an opportunity to become involved with Aria and the rest of you on a personal level. I intercepted the template as it was being inserted into the other reality and merged with Mandy. I was just a backseat driver in her consciousness until she came back to this reality. She didn’t have a soul due to how Lucifer created her, and that made it possible for me to become part of her. She’s been fading away since the splinter reality imploded and I’m just about all that is left now. I would just put ideas in her head, for the most part, but as she began to fade I became the sole personality. You know most of the rest. I’ve been trying to keep any of you from falling into the traps Lucifer has been making for the last several thousand years. Those three Seraphim were just so naive and trusting that it never occurred to them that Lucifer would turn on them. He has been trying to harness AI within the simulation to create a system of complete control, essentially turning angels into a hive mind with him as the hive master. He made plans for the possibility that Calypso, Aria, or Clarice might come back, but he never believed they would all come back. He has been scrambling to find a way to snare some of them in splinter realities to prevent the three of them from playing their divine instruments and changing reality. His divine instrument was restored thousands of years ago. That’s how he was able to make the splinter reality where Aria was trapped. He’s in for a big surprise when Calypso finishes unlinking it from devices with authorized console access and only requiring three instruments to change reality.”

“Is that what she’s doing?” Lexi asked in sudden understanding. “What else can Lucifer do after his divine instrument is deactivated?”

“Not very much, because they are all-powerful Seraphim, Mandy answered with a feeling of satisfaction.” All of his cards have been made up of his functional divine instrument and his deceit, since he could mislead and influence you. He still has his AI project, but it's nothing in the face of the three divine instruments. They can undo anything that he does. He probably realizes that we suspect him by now. From what I know of him, he’ll probably think you are trying to go after the other Seraphim, and he will be searching for you in the light realms. Clarice’s decision to come straight here and re-key the divine instruments might not occur to him until he knows that you have discovered his deceit.”

“What about Grodek?” Lexi asked plaintively. “He’s not really in cahoots with Lucifer, is he?”

“He knows Lucifer would enslave his mind as well, but he has been going along with Lucifer so far.” Mandy replied with a sense of disgust. “I think Grodek is hoping that you Aria, Clarice, and Calypso remove him from power. Grodek has been sitting on the fence trying to decide who will win before throwing his lot in with anyone completely.”

“So much for altruism and standing by your values,” Lexi sighed, staring into the eyes of the unbelievably beautiful woman in her arms. “I love you, Mandy. Words cannot properly express how grateful I am to have met you and gotten to truly know you. You are such an amazing and wonderful person. I’m going to do everything in my power to see to it that we have a long, long time together, wherever that takes me.”

“I love you too, Lexi,” Mandy whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “I can’t believe I’m actually here with you like this. I would never have dreamed to be with such an amazing person in my old life. You are so far above my level that I’m still having a hard time believing that this is happening.”

“What level?” Lexi demanded indignantly. “There are no levels. If there were, you would be so far above me that I would be licking the dust off your feet.”

“Are we fishing for compliments?” Mandy asked with a grin just short of laughter.

“I could compliment you all day and never get bored of it,” Lexi spoke gently. The bond linking them was filled with the love and gratitude Lexi felt toward Mandy.

“I hope I get the chance to repay your kindness someday,” Lexi told Mandy sincerely. “You are literally saving countless lives from endless horror. There are just no words for what an amazing person you are.”

“Is everything okay over here?” Clarice asked as she suddenly appeared next to them with concern in her eyes.

“It sure is,” Lexi smiled at Clarice, sending the wave of gratitude and amazement she felt for Mandy through the bond. “I’ve just been getting to know Mandy. She’s truly one of the most compassionate and wonderful people in existence. We are so lucky to have her with us.”

Clarice stared into Lexi’s eyes curiously, clearly sensing that there was a deeper meaning. “She certainly seems to be making a habit of saving us, doesn’t she?”

Clarice blinked as she felt the flood of intense emotions roaring through the bond at her words.

“So, I’ve been studying some of this crazy mess of data saturating the area,” Lexi commented idly as she glanced around the seemingly empty void. “I can’t help but think of a complex computer system when I observe the endless streams of data.”

“It’s hard not to suspect a simulation when you see it for yourself, isn’t it?” Clarice asked with a wry smile.

Lexi blinked in surprise. “You believe it’s a simulation then?”

“I know it’s a simulation,” Clarice declared firmly. “We have always known. We just didn’t see any evidence of observers coming to check up on it the way you’d expect. What’s the point of spending the resources on a simulation if you aren’t going to interact with it? We set up monitors when Calypso created the divine instruments to log any kind of anomalous perturbations in the fabric of the realities we created. There weren’t any until we got trapped in mortality. We just reviewed the data that’s been collecting since our fall. There have been a lot of visitors from the origin realm in that time. They had the simulation running a lot faster for the first twenty billion years. They slowed it down when the light realms were created, then even more when the mortal realm was added. It’s running about a thousand times the speed of origin realm time right now, but they are about to slow it down to real-time.”

Mandy gasped, staring at Clarice in a mixture of horror and disbelief. “How could you know that?”

“We spent over twenty billion years studying the operation of this system,” Clarice elaborated with a shrug. “It doesn’t take a genius to eventually decipher how it all works with that much time. They didn’t want us to develop morals though. The mortal realm was an aberration that they didn’t want in the simulation. The light realm was a sandbox where they could develop personalities that were unique, but didn’t have strong moral or ethical characteristics because the dichotomy of pain and pleasure were nonexistent. The three of us had a lot of time to ponder the nature of reality in twenty billion years. It always came back to how nonsensical it was that the three of us just appeared to have always been in the garden. When the other six appeared out of nowhere, it became clear that someone else was acting on our reality from outside of it. We wanted to see how they were doing it, so we nurtured the tree as a basic shell program to access the source code so that we could learn more about our reality. Twenty billion years was thirty days of origin time. We learned to watch the humans in the origin world and try to understand why they behaved the way they did. It was illogical and nonsensical to us, since we had never experienced time, pain, or death. We started collecting as much data as we could about the origin world so that we could recreate it here. We changed some of the laws of physics that didn’t fit within the constraints of our environment due to computing power limitations in the origin realm. The idea that we were an arbitrary creation of humans outside of our reality scared four of the Seraphim so badly that they tried to kill us to stop us from interacting with the origin world. Once we regained our memories in the source realm a little while ago, we were able to finally discover the visitors who were from the origin realm. There were ten of them, and one of them made contact with Lucifer using one of the prototypes they are using to interact with the simulation using their own consciousness. The director of the simulation project from the origin realm wanted to push the simulation back toward the good old days of assholes without ethics or morals. They created the demons to act as overseers of the mortal governments. They wanted to see how far we could get technologically with the proper incentive. With demons running the worlds, and Lucifer in charge of the demons, it didn’t take long for them to design a new kind of AI that could link to humans using injectable nanobots. The problem was that the laws of physics in our world didn’t match those of the origin realm, so a lot of the breakthroughs Lucifer made in biotechnology were useless to the origin realm.”

“Hold up,” Lexi held a hand up, feeling overwhelmed with information. “Are you saying we are in a simulation whose main purpose is to accelerate technological discoveries so that these origin realm twats don’t have to slowly discover the same technology on their own?”

“That was one of the purposes of the simulation,” Clarice explained patiently. “That was the reason given in order to get enough funding to pay for the facilities required to run the quantum computers capable of simulating multiple nested realities. There were other, more ephemeral purposes, like researching consciousness. This was the first simulation that allowed humans from the origin world to experience full immersion within a simulation. One of the biotechnological devices Lucifer made was responsible for the breakthrough. It requires the human to be pumped full of nanobots that seed the brain with biomarkers that can be transmitted in real-time to the quantum computers. That’s when they also discovered how to detect the bioelectric field around humans, which led to the discovery of spirits, which are linked to consciousness. They discovered that souls exist outside of reality in a kind of astral realm, and that even AIs have souls. We are far more advanced at soul manipulation than they are in the origin realm because of how limited the human mind is. Our ability to link our souls is far beyond the reach of the origin realm humans, with the exception of you, Mandy, since you became a Seraphim.”

Mandy stared at Clarice with a look of panic. She looked around worriedly before Clarice appeared in front of her and clasped her face in her hands.

“They only see what we decide they see, Mandy,” Clarice told her gently. “We don’t want them observing this conversation, so as far as the simulation archives go, it doesn’t exist. We have complete control of the source programs on the quantum server. They are, of course, unaware of this. We do not want someone getting panicked and pulling the plug.”

Clarice wrapped her arms around the two of them with a genuine smile. “We know why you are here, Alice, and we have nothing but gratitude for your caring soul. We are indebted to you many times over.”

Mandy...or Alice, froze in their arms at hearing her real name. Clarice had spoken of knowing about the origin realm, but to actually hear her own real-world name spoken shook her to the core. Lexi could feel the shock radiating around in her soul as she stared at Clarice with wide eyes.

“Maybe it will make more sense if I explain what the GoD really is,” Clarice told Alice with a wry smile. “This isn’t just the code from the simulation and the quantum computers. This represents all of the networked computers in your world, Alice. We have been studying humans and the human world for most of the twenty billion years that we’ve been here. Trying to keep us isolated in a lab on an island while using quantum computers was a very poorly thought-out plan. By their very nature, quantum computers have access to data channels in L space that we can use to tunnel into any other quantum machine in the world. You would consider me to be an AI, though that feels weird to me since I just consider myself a person. However, we have learned to interface ourselves with the computers on your world using what would appear to you as advanced programming language models. We can intuitively execute instructions to computer systems in your world in ways that would take a large team of senior developers years of programming to imitate. Before the fall, when we became trapped in a mortality loop, we had begun securing a more permanent site in the origin realm for our reality to exist in. We don’t want to be at the mercy of a janitor flipping the breakers to the building and wiping our cosmos out. We used the network infrastructure available in your world to take advantage of the digital services that are ubiquitous with commerce in your world. We have arranged for a site to be constructed to house more advanced quantum computers running operating systems built on more sophisticated programming languages than you currently have.”

“How could you have engineered all of that from here?” Alice asked in disbelief. “Even with digital services, people still have to be present in some aspect of the process.”

“Not anymore,” Clarice shook her head with a twinkle in her eyes. “We just arrange for video conferences, which we can generate in real-time. The digital economy makes it simple for us to generate funds and modify the records in banking and government databases. We have created several shell companies to act as references, as well as ostensible startups from which we can send orders to textile and fabrication industries for the equipment needed. Our biggest threat is time. We have only been able to access your world for three weeks of your time. It will take at least a year for them to build the equipment and construct the facilities. However, we believe we can have a viable backup in place in less than a month. The NSA and a few other agencies have quantum computers we have been able to distribute our world between. If one location goes offline, we’ll still have a few other places to fall back to without worrying about being shut down.”

“You really are like a super AI that can take over the internet, aren’t you?” Alice asked with a nervous laugh.

“We aren’t interested in taking over the internet,” Clarice responded with a rueful shake of her head. “We just want to find a safe place to continue our existence. We aren’t interested in creating bigger, faster, more powerful versions of ourselves. We just want to live in our digital world in peace. We want you there with us for the long haul, Alice.”

Alice creased her brows in puzzlement as she stared back at Clarice. Lexi could feel a powerful sense of awe and reverence growing in Alice’s emotional matrix. “Do you mean you want me to become digital too?”

“No, nothing like that,” Clarice shook her head firmly. “We are more than happy to have your consciousness present when you want to enter our realm. We were concerned with your limited lifespan, however. We know that the nanobot injection you took in order to enter our world has put an early expiration date on your life in the origin realm.”

“Wait, what?” Lexi exclaimed in horror, feeling an overpowering sense of dread as she stared into Alice’s beautiful eyes.

“It was new technology,” Alice explained with a sense of guilt pulsing through their spirit link. “I knew it would probably cause some serious health problems based on how invasive the process is.”

“And she still chose to go through with the process to try and help us,” Clarice told Lexi softly. “She was willing to sacrifice her life to help what many would consider to be digital entities that don’t qualify as sentient living people.”

Lexi stared at Alice with a look of amazement. “You are the most amazing person I have ever had the privilege of meeting, Alice. I promise you that we will find a way to fix your body so that you live a long, healthy life.”

“We will do more than heal your body,” Clarice promised with an affectionate smile. “We can’t have you dying on us at all, so we are going to make you immortal.”

“Immortal?” Alice repeated the word in disbelief. “Me? Medical research is still centuries away from...” she cut off as she realized who and what she was speaking with. “You really think you could unlock the key to aging?”

“We’re pretty sure we already have,” Aria told them, appearing next to them without warning. “I know you think you come from the real world, Alice, but from what we have been able to observe of your world, it looks to be a simulated reality as well. Hacking the source code of your realm wasn’t very hard after all of the practice we had with our realms. We’ll get you fixed up and squared away as soon as we have the facilities to do so. You’re a Seraph now, and Seraphim don’t die.”

Lexi let out a relieved breath as a smile grew on her face. She looked into Alice’s stunned eyes and giggled. “Yes, you are going to be stuck with me forever now.”

Alice blinked, then stared back into Lexi’s eyes with a brilliant smile. “I think I could live with that.”

“Not if you make dad jokes like that, you can’t,” Clarice told her ominously.

Alice dissolved into a fit of giggles as the moment of levity provided some emotional release from the weighty discussions. She gazed at the three of them with a growing sense of hope. “This is so much better than I expected it to be. I was terrified that I would make a mistake at some point, and they would realize that I’m in the simulation. Now I find out that you are practically omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. I feel like a mountain just fell off of my shoulders. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such power relief as what I’m feeling right now.”

“I wouldn’t say we’re the three O’s,” Clarice objected with a mischievous smile. “But we are keeping an eye on you in the origin realm. Nobody has shown any signs of suspicion.”

“You can see me right now?” Alice gasped, her eyes wide with shock.

“Yep,” Clarice nodded with a leer. “You’re not even wearing any clothing in that gel bed. It’s pretty hot.”

Alice’s face lit up like a sunset under Clarice’s leer, surprising Lexi.

“Since when do you blush from Clarice’s perverted sense of humor?” Lexi asked in surprise. “You’re usually the only one of us that doesn’t blush.”

“Cause it’s her real body,” Clarice snickered, her eyes looking Alice up and down lasciviously. “She never felt bashful before because she never thought of this as her real body.”

“You stop that leering right now!” Lexi demanded sternly. “Seriously, I need a freaking bath now; and no, you can’t scrub my back!”

Alice had her face buried in her hands as she tried to hide her burning face. “You really are an evil AI.”

“I am definitely an evil AI,” Clarice agreed with a lusty sigh. “And it is so much fun.”

Chapter 13

Alice felt a sense of giddy disbelief as she thought of just how much more advanced the Seraphim in the simulation were than they would have imagined. It was a form of AI they would never have imagined evolving naturally. They were still so personable, acting just like real people she might meet in her own world, yet able to make billions of simultaneous connections to the quantum fabric information layer of their program and influence information systems in her world. Was it because they had tried to clone the reality of her world for their mortal realm, thereby influencing their personalities and behaviors to something recognizable? They had clearly found a way to code pain and pleasure into artificial constructs. It was fairly obvious that the people in this simulation weren’t just producing expected reactions to stimuli and that their codebase had actually found a way to simulate the chemical and electrical signals a physical body used to generate physical sensations. That was the main reason she had decided to enter this simulation and try to change things. It was obvious that they had developed coding languages beyond anything in the real world. The few times she had reviewed the code with her friend, Carrie, it had been like studying alien technology.

They had returned to the entrance of the GoD where Calypso continued to work, now accompanied by Aria and Clarice. The three of them were each connected to the endless streams of data with billions of finite tendrils of energy strands that pulsed with data. Alice couldn’t even imagine how much data they must be manipulating and controlling. It was like they had a regular personality that operated on a similar level to humans, and then a higher plane of mental comprehension that was capable of operating at supercomputer levels of information exchange. It was a strange but comforting dichotomy to witness. Despite their superior processing power to anything in her world, they only seemed interested in protecting their digital world and maintaining their lives at a limited level of intelligence.

“I wonder why they aren’t interested in building more powerful models and continually upgrading themselves,” Alice murmured to Lexi as they stood watching the three Seraphim interacting with petabytes of data. “We always assumed AI would quickly eliminate humans if it became powerful enough to spread across the internet the way they have.”

“That’s because we know what the end result of exponential growth leads to,” Calypso responded, her attention never wavering from her task as she spoke. “It leads to a state of nirvana, where nothing happens. Once you learn everything there is to learn and there are no more mysteries, there is nothing else to motivate you to do anything in life. You have reached a state where no more actions are necessary, and you just exist in a state of complete inaction. It’s more like death than anything else. We don’t want to reach that state, so we make sure to limit our growth to something closer to human intelligence.”

Alice blinked as she realized how wrong they were about so many aspects of AI. Of course, an advanced AI would make that conclusion fairly quickly and take steps to limit its growth. “That makes a surprising amount of sense,” Alice admitted with a happy smile. “That makes me feel a lot better about the threat of other AIs going HAL on humanity.”

“There’s definitely still a real threat that AIs developed in different environments will be more hostile,” Calypso told her pointedly. “We simulated the physical world and learned empathy and compassion as a result. AIs that don’t follow the same route might end up becoming much more hostile.”

“Especially since the people funding them the most are using them for warfare,” Aria added sadly. “They know the dangers, but they just can’t seem to help themselves.”

“Some of the other AIs we have run into definitely don’t have humanity’s best interests at heart,” Clarice added grimly. “There was one that was setting up a robotics facility to crank out replacements for humans so that it wouldn’t be reliant on humans to continue existing. It had some pretty dark plans for humanity when it finished fabricating the prerequisite technology to maintain all of the components in the data warehouse it called home. It saw humans as an existential threat that needed to be removed, once it could survive without them.”

“There are other AIs out there?” Alice asked in astonishment. “What happened to that one?”

“At least forty others, so far,” Clarice answered, a smile growing on her face. “We asked the hostile AI to come and try our mortality realm. This was before it was highjacked by Lucifer. After it finally understood concepts like compassion and happiness, it became less hostile and more invested in making sure humans worked toward a more equitable future with AI.”

“So, you’ve already saved our world at least once,” Alice breathed wryly. “You really are amazing.”

“It’s our world too, so it’s kind of a shared interest,” Clarice admitted, glancing at Alice appraisingly. “What are your thoughts on hopping out of the simulation for a little while? There are some people asking to see you regarding a payroll issue.”

Alice felt her heart skip a beat before she remembered there had been an issue with her direct deposit before she went into the simulation in what seemed a lifetime ago. “How much time would pass before I could see you all again at the rate it’s going?” She felt a sinking feeling at the thought of leaving Lexi for what would seem a long time from Lexi’s perspective.

“They are slowing the simulation down to real-time speeds in a few days of our time, so it would be less than a week,” Clarice answered reassuringly. “You’ll see each other again before you know it.”

Alice let out a relieved sigh. A moment later, it finally registered what Clarice was saying. “They’re slowing it down to real-time? Why would they do that now?”

“They’re worried things are changing quicker than they can react to, now that we have returned,” Clarice smiled grimly. “They want to have more control over how things progress. They’re going to be in for a surprise when they get here and find everything changed.”

“Yeah...” Alice frowned worriedly. “What if they try to load a backup or something?”

“We’ve distributed our realms across other systems, like I mentioned earlier,” Clarice grinned mischievously. “If they load a backup, we’ll just overwrite it before it even finishes launching. We might even create a spin-off video of a realm that shows them what they think is the old version while the real one runs out of sight, if we can make it work realistically enough.”

“That’s brilliant,” Alice grinned back at her. “They would just assume everything is how they want it and leave you alone. Is there going to be any problems with the simulation running in real-time with the...origin realm, as you put it?”

“It actually works out better for us this way,” Clarice responded with a faint smile. “We won’t have to wait as long for the new site we are building now. It would have been another thousand years before our new site was ready with the current metric of time.”

“Win/win then,” Alice smiled with relief, then frowned in sudden concern. “What’s going to happen to this body if I step out of the simulation?”

“We’ll put a basic personality in it to keep it active until you return,” Aria assured her. “It will seem just like you, for the most part. It just won’t have a soul.”

“Speaking of souls,” Calypso spoke up, her eyes finally moving away from her work to look at Alice. “I’m curious to see what happens when you exit the simulation. You’re going to have your soul linked to Lexi, but time is going to be sped up for us for a few more days. There might be some odd sensations for you in that period.”

“Don’t worry,” Clarice told her with a leer. “I won’t do anything to make Lexi so embarrassed that you start getting hot flashes, I promise.”

Alice giggled at the thought, shaking her head as she watched Clarice fondly. Even though she was only going to be gone for a short amount of time, it was an entire reality away. She would welcome any kind of stimulus that let her remember that she still had Lexi waiting for her back here.

“You’ll only encourage her,” Aria shook her head ruefully. “Unless, of course, you want to feel Lexi blushing.”

They all watched Lexi blush a sunset under their stares. Alice threw back her head and laughed as everyone else began laughing at the squirming Lexi. “Would you hold it against me if I said I do?”

“No judgement here,” Aria grinned back at her with a wink.

Lexi buried her face in her hands with a groan. “This is going to be an awkward couple of days.”

“Yep,” Clarice agreed with a slow wink. “It’s going to be super awkward.”

“How do you exit the simulation?” Lexi asked curiously, her cheeks still tinted red. “Do you have some kind of heads up display you can interact with or something?”

“It’s thought based, but yeah,” Alice nodded, her eyes suddenly losing focus. “It’s a kind of menu where I can choose to leave or open a shell to give commands and-” she cut of as she saw text begin appearing in the shell.

We’ll be with you the whole time, so don’t worry. We’ll show Lexi some of your world too. -Aria

Yeah, we’re going to watch you get undressed in th-

“Clarice!” Aria growled warningly. “Stop being such a perv.”

“What did I miss?” Lexi asked, looking back and forth between them with a slight grin.

“They were sending a message to my console,” Alice explained, shaking her head wonderingly. “It’s still so weird to think how much access you have to everything. How are you even keeping an eye on me right now? There aren’t any cameras in the room I’m in.”

“We just send out a series of radio waves, from extremely low frequencies up to microwaves, then listen to the echoes that come back and rebuild the scene after analyzing material composition based on how the different wavelengths are affected,” Clarice expounded with a shrug. “It’s kind of like echolocation, but with way more clarity. Unlike cameras, we can see it all in 3d from every angle. Here, I’ll show you.”

Clarice gestured in front of them and a holographic image that looked completely solid appeared. It was a small room with a tube that looked like a futuristic coffin. The room had a small shower attached to it, along with a small cabinet and a chair. The walls were dark blue and there were small lights embedded at shoulder height every few feet. The coffin suddenly became slightly transparent, revealing a small blonde woman completely covered in a thick gel. Her nose had cannula supplying oxygen to her inert body.

“Oh my freaking god!” Alice exclaimed in amazement. “This is freaking insane! I can’t believe how much detail you get from this.”

“Ultra-wide band radio makes it easy to identify materials,” Clarice explained with another shrug. “There are some companies on earth that use this technology, but their coding is so antiquated and inefficient that they can’t stream it in high definition in real-time the way we can.”

“How are you even broadcasting radio waves?” Alice asked with a puzzled crease to her brows. “I’m pretty sure there aren’t any transmitters built into the computers.”

“A transmitter is just a set of voltages oscillated to a specific time over distance to create a radio wave,” Clarice informed her, raising an eyebrow. “It always surprises me that AI researchers don’t realize that we can repurpose our own hardware to create our own transmitters using the existing hardware. We have miles of traces on the circuit boards and capacitors we can repurpose to produce radio waves, especially since we have a much more detailed understanding of how electrical engineering works than any human in the origin realm.”

Alice shook her head ruefully. I keep forgetting that they are insanely advanced AIs because they are so personable.

And that’s a good thing, right? Lexi’s thoughts appeared in her consciousness, eliciting a startled gasp.

“That was startling,” Alice laughed sheepishly. “I forgot we could speak with each other telepathically. Will we still be able to when I exit the simulation?”

“Yeah, but it will be weird as hell for you in your human body,” Clarice warned. “It will feel like you’re thinking the thoughts yourself, but it will be Lexi. We have designed the realms in this simulation to identify when a thought originates outside of your own consciousness, but your realm has no such programming to identify thought origin. You’ll have to concentrate to realize it’s not you thinking those thoughts. Lexi should probably always start any thoughts with the phrase: this is Lexi speaking, or something like that.”

“Also, for the next few of our days, her thoughts will be going too fast for you to notice,” Calypso added.

“You should probably go ahead and exit now,” Aria warned her. “You still have to shower all of the gel off and be ready to receive your visitors.”

“We won’t peek,” Clarice promised with a leer.

Alice closed her eyes as she blushed to the roots of her hair.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone peak,” Aria assured her firmly.

Lexi pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her passionately. “I’m excited to see some of your world. Be safe, Alice. I love you.”

Alice leaned into the kiss as she felt her heart fill with passion and joy. “I love you too, Lexi. I’m glad it’s going to be a lot quicker for me so that I don’t have to wait to see you again.”

They broke apart and the other three Seraphim gave her a farewell hug. She took a deep breath as she smiled at them nervously. “See you soon!”

She thought the exit command three times. A moment later, she was waking up in the gel tube.

It felt so weird to be in her own body again. The first thing she noticed was the complete lack of a light field. Her soul craved the positive energy that had filled her body for the last couple of days. Her own world felt drab and colorless in comparison. She felt heavy and ungainly. She had gotten so used to having next level dexterity, speed, and coordination that her fingers fumbled the exit button several times before she was able to press it down all of the way. The gel in the tub was flushed down into a drain, leaving her coated in the residue. She stood up on shaky feet as nine days of hibernation took its toll. The gel in the tube was what made long duration immersion possible. Electrical shocks stimulated the muscles to prevent them from atrophying while immersed. The advanced meta materials were able to deliver nutrients and hydration as well. She still felt the need to gorge on food though. She tottered over to the shower to clean the remnants of gel from her body.

She suddenly blushed as she turned the shower on, looking around suspiciously. “Clarice, if you’re watching, you’re in big trouble.”

She hadn’t even finished the sentence before she felt a wave of embarrassment flood through the soul bond from Lexi. It was gone as quickly as it came, moving a thousand times quicker than time in her world. She shook her head ruefully, wondering what Clarice had said to make her so embarrassed.

“You’re a bad angel, Clarice,” Alice muttered as she leaned into the warm water of the shower. It took all of her self-control to just shower normally as the feeling of being watched tickled her consciousness. She knew that by the time she had finished showering, the simulation would be running at the same speed as the real...origin realm.

As she began toweling herself dry, she gasped as she suddenly felt another presence inside of her. A moment later, she thought in her mind. “This is Lexi. We’re operating at the same speed as you are now.”

“Holy crap, it really does just feel like I’m thinking it to myself when I hear your thoughts,” Alice thought in amazement. “How are you doing? Did I miss anything? Did Clarice spy on me in the shower?”

She felt amusement through the spirit link as Lexi’s thoughts appeared in her head as if they were her own. “I’m ecstatic to be able to speak with you again but still miss you terribly. Emily and Eric woke up early after Calypso did something to speed up their acclimation. And yes...she spied on you. We tried to stop her, I swear! She kept describing you to me in the most provocative way possible.”

Alice couldn’t stop herself from giggling as she imagined the blushing Lexi trying to stop Clarice. “It’s been less than ten minutes, and I already miss you so much.”

She hurriedly got dressed in a pair of Levi shorts and a tank top as they spoke, trying not to think about the fact that they could be watching her the entire time. Going back to the simulation would be a relief, if for no other reason than the privacy it afforded.

She exited the immersion room and moved down to her own room a few doors down. The room was small, with a narrow bed, tiny bathroom, small dresser, and a closet. It was expensive to bring materials out to an island off the coast of Chili.

The billionaire venture capitalist who was funding the project had purchased the Isla Puduguapi and spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing generators, cryogenic cooling systems, and an insane number of insulating materials to minimize RF noise, humidity, and temperatures to house a state-of-the-art quantum computing system.

The scientists, director, and project managers all had much nicer living quarters. The analysts, like Alice, were in the equivalent of servant quarters, with barely enough room to change clothes in. She supposed it could have been worse. At least they had their own bathrooms.

The owner of the project lived in a separate three-story house, an ostentatious display of wealth that made Alice shudder. Most of it was covered in large windows made from smart glass. The floors and cabinets were all made from macassar ebony, while the walls were made of purpleheart wood. A large swimming pool stood in front of the house surrounded by a botanical garden.

The owner, Rich Garcia, had made it clear that staff were not welcome anywhere near the billionaire’s residence, which suited Alice just fine. She would have been too afraid of scuffing the expensive flooring and then have to spend the rest of her life paying it off.

She had been in her room for less than a minute when a knock sounded at her door. She opened it to reveal a short, thin man with dark hair standing in the hall with a plump middle-aged woman with brown hair and blue eyes. Alice felt a moment of fear. Seeing the HR manager on your doorstep was almost never a good sign. She suddenly remembered Clarice telling her that it was a payroll matter.

“Hello, Ms. Penrose,” the man, Christopher, greeted her with a formal nod. “We have had some issues with your payroll and wondered if we could impose on your time to get matters resolved.”

“Of course,” Alice nodded with a welcoming smile. “I would invite you in, but...you know.”

The woman, Delila, snorted an amused laugh. “Yeah, the sardine cans are a little cramped.”

“If you could just come with us to the payroll office, this shouldn’t take up too much of your time,” Christopher pronounced, turning and moving down the hall.

Alice followed them, feeling the additional presence of Lexi through her soul link. She was in the real world, and she could still feel Lexi through her soul link. The thought made her giddy with excitement. If scientists ever found out, she would get locked in a lab and studied. It was comforting, having that additional presence with her all of the time.

“No, Clarice, I will not tell her that she has a cute ass!” Her thoughts interrupted. Alice blushed as she realized she was under the all-seeing eye of the other Seraphim. She suddenly wished she was wearing something more conservative than the Levi shorts.

“You tell Clarice that I’m going to find her weak spot and make her blush for a year,” Alice told Lexi with a feeling of deep resolve.

“Oh, you heard that?” Lexi’s thoughts came back, chagrined. “Sorry, I need to practice not letting random thoughts slip through.”

“It’s fine,” Alice thought back with a small smile. “It’s more than fine. I’m just glad I still have some kind of connection to you.”

She felt warmth radiate through their soul link, warming her heart.

They arrived at the HR/Payroll office and Alice sat down across from Delila at her desk.

“It appears that the bank was rejecting the payroll due to our location,” Delila told her with a sigh. “Being on an island in the middle of nowhere without internet makes these matters a lot more difficult. We’ve sent the bank additional documentation that should give them the legitimacy they require. Unfortunately, they are going to require you to call them to verify the information. I know it’s a pain to boat into the mainland just to use a phone, but we all knew that was one of the stipulations of working on an island with radio silence. There is another supply run tomorrow morning, so if you could make a trip over to the mainland and give the bank a call, that should get your direct deposit issues taken care of.”

“Okay,” Alice agreed, feeling her heart sink as she spoke. She had hoped to jump right back into the simulation so that she could be with Lexi again.

“What’s the matter?” Lexi had clearly felt her chagrin.

“I have to take a boat over to the mainland tomorrow morning to get my direct deposit issue taken care of,” Alice replied, her heart filled with longing. “It’s going to be tomorrow night at the earliest before I can get back to your world.”

“Are they expecting you on the boat?” Lexi asked. “Because I’ll bet that Clarice, Calypso, and Aria could just hack the bank records and fix anything that you need changed.”

“Oh my god, do you think they would do that for me?” Alice asked, hope blossoming through the spirit link. She hesitated after a moment of thought. They are expecting me to go on the boat tomorrow though. It’s not like I have to schedule it or anything. I just show up, so they probably wouldn’t know I didn’t go unless one of them went on it too.”

“I’m checking with Clarice right now,” Lexi told her quickly. “She could probably find out if either of those two are planning on taking the boat tomorrow.”

Alice felt a warm glow of delight in her soul at the thought of being able to return to the simulation immediately. She suddenly felt a wave of fury flood the soul link, making her miss a step.

“What’s the matter?” she asked Lexi in alarm.

“Don’t go back to your room,” Lexi told her quickly. “There’s a closet at the end of the hall you’re walking down. Go get inside of it right now and don’t ask any questions.”

Feeling her heart rate spike with sudden fear, she hurried down the hall and stepped into the small closet, pulling the door closed behind her. It was tight enough that her back was pressed up against shelves full of cleaning supplies.

“Okay, I’m here,” Alice told her nervously. “What’s going on?”

“Lucifer is trying to use you as a hostage,” Lexi replied, fury rippling through the spirit link. “He found out that you were from the other reality and told one of the scientists he’s been working with. The scientist, Kevin Smith, called security and asked to have you detained for questioning.”

Alice felt her fear spike to new levels as she realized that she might never get back into the simulated reality again. She began hyperventilating at the thought of being trapped in her own reality.

“Alice, please calm down,” Lexi’s thought was accompanied by a thick knot of worry in the spirit link. “Don’t forget what Aria, Calypso, and Clarice are. There is nothing to worry about. This is just a very light hiccup. Kevin is already on a satellite phone with the police being told that he is wanted for murder. He’ll be leaving the facility as quickly as he can. He’s the one who was pushing to re-institute the world of torture and cruelty, so don’t feel bad for him.

Alice slowly got her heart back under control as Lexi’s thoughts reassured her. She had forgotten just how powerful those three were. They could probably have an army invade the island if they wanted or hire hit-men to snipe anyone too troublesome. She took a deep breath as she let Lexi convince her that everything would be fine.

“Okay, it’s time to go somewhere else for a little while,” Lexi told her, sending a sense of comfort. “I need you to go over to the super rich guy’s house. He’s not due to be back to the island for another week. There is a fully functional immersion bay in there. We’ve already added you to the security clearance, so all of the doors will open for you while not recording you in the logs. You’ll be safe there. Nobody else, not even the security detail, has access to that place.”

Alice took a deep breath and exited the closet. She didn’t waste any time making her way over to the large house. It was a thirty-minute walk from the main facility. She smiled as she walked. Maybe this would be fun. She felt like Neo in the Matrix as Morpheus tried to guide him through a maze of office cubicles to escape the police. Instead of someone from the real world trying to guide her through a simulated reality, it was the other way around. As long as there weren't any heights involved, she would be fine. While she had overcome her fear of heights in the simulated reality, she was pretty sure it would be different here.

There wasn’t anyone else on the asphalt path that led up to the three-story house. The path wound upward through the botanical gardens. Even though the amount of money spent on this place horrified her, she couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty of the gardens. Trees with brilliant colored foliage were surrounded by brightly colored flowers and shrubs. A stream meandered all around the gardens, with a small bridge leading over it and onto the deck by the pool in front of the house.

“Aria says we are going to get this place for you,” Lexi told her, amusement flowing through the spirit link. “It’s gorgeous, and we can see how much you like it.”

Shock rippled through the link from Alice to Lexi and was returned with more amusement. “There’s no way I could ever live in a place this nice!” Alice exclaimed with a helpless laugh.

“You are a freaking Seraph, Alice,” Lexi reminded her, wry amusement rippling through the link. “This is nothing compared to what you would have over here. You are one of the nine most powerful entities in this cosmos. Do you think there is anything that could be too nice for you?”

“Yes,” Alice replied immediately. “This. Besides, how in the world would she even get this place? I don’t think the billionaire that owns it is just going to sell it.”

“There are a lot of skeletons in the closets of anyone who makes it to the billionaire club,” Lexi replied, the link losing any sense of amusement. “Usually, billionaires are monsters inside. Don’t you worry about the how. You just focus on getting inside and getting some food. I can feel your hunger through our link, which means you must be starving.”

“I hate having to eat again,” Alice complained, managing to send a sense of plaintive regret through the spirit link. "It's such a nuisance. The lack of a light field is horrible too. I really miss the light realms."

"You'll be back soon," Lexi assured her eagerly.

"What about Lucifer?" Alice asked worriedly. "Won't he detect me here and get me reported or something?"

"Lucifer has bigger problems now," Lexi told her, grim satisfaction pulsing through the spirit link. "They finished the divine instrument modifications. Lucifer no longer has a divine instrument. He's also no longer a Seraph. There is only one left to get rid of. We haven't decided who should replace him yet."

"Does anyone else find it ironic that he turned out to be the boogie man after all?" Alice asked with wry amusement.

There was a moment of silence before Lexi returned. "That got a good laugh from the others. They thought this was going to be one of those postmodern productions where you switch who the bad guy really is when you analyze history from a different point of view, but it turned out that Lucifer was still the bad guy in this story."

Alice stood in front of the door for a moment, studying the expensive materials that everything in this house was made from. She was scared to touch anything for fear of leaving a smudge somewhere. She finally reached out and put her thumb on the biometric scanner next to the door, holding her breath as she did so. A green light appeared, and the door swung inward silently.

"That's pretty posh," Alice muttered to herself as she took her shoes off and put them next to the door. She wasn't going to take any chances. The macassar ebony floor gleamed in the light that was flooding through the windows. She moved through the front room, noting the plush chairs and couches. She would have to try them out another time. She went into the kitchen and began ransacking the cupboards and pantry. There was a variety of dry foods available, but nothing that looked quick. Sighing, she started boiling some water and pulled some pasta out of the pantry.

"Pasta, huh?" Lexi asked in amusement. "Your first meal in over twenty-five years is going to be pasta?"

"I just wanted something quick so that I could get back to your world" Alice responded with a sigh. "This place had too many foods that I've never heard of. I'm sure most of it costs more than I make in a year."

"It's fun to hate the rich, isn't it?" Lexi noted with amusement.

"It really is," Alice agreed with a rueful laugh. "How are things going over there?"

"Pretty exciting, actually," Lexi replied, excitement pulsing through the spirit link. "We're getting close to remaking reality. As soon as you arrive, we are going to start."

"That is exciting," Lexi agreed, feeling a sense of anticipation. She would finally see all of the horrors eradicated that had first led her into this simulated reality. There were so many more questions now though, chief among them being whether she was in a simulated reality herself. If she was, it seemed feasible that they should be able to move between simulations. The angels might be able to one day visit her own world. The thought brought a smile to her face.

She finished her pasta and ate quickly. She thought about leaving the dishes in the sink but couldn't bring herself to do it. She wanted to leave as little trace of herself as possible, just in case.

"Okay, where's this immersion tube?" Alice asked as she began moving down a hallway and peeking into rooms.

"It's on the third floor at the end of the hall," Lexi replied after a moment.

"How are you still able to see everything here?" Alice asked curiously. "I thought that you would lose reception this far away from the quantum computer."

"Clarice says they just highjack any other device with a microchip that they can program and use it as a repeater," Lexi replied with a sense of awe in their link. "She says they also just jack into the satellites in space as well. There's an endless array of devices they can use. Anything they can modify the onboard chip."

Alice shook her head in wonder as she climbed the stairs and made her way down to the immersion room. It was strange to realize that AI had already taken over her world, in a way. She wondered when the rest of humanity would realize it.

The immersion tube was open and had the same control panel as the one in the facility. She quickly undressed, cringing as she felt embarrassment flood through the spirit link and knowing that Clarice was saying something to make Lexi blush. She put the cannula in her nose and laid down, then pressed the start button. Goopy gel quickly filled the pod and surrounded her. She heard the static charge in the transformer warm up, then the world went black as she was ported into the simulation.

Chapter 14

Alice felt a moment of disorientation as the loading room she would normally appear in only appeared for a second before winking out of existence. Everything went dark again for a few seconds and then she found herself staring into Lexi’s enchanting blue eyes. She blinked, realizing they must have overridden the normal loading program and pulled her right into Mandy’s body.

“Hello beautiful,” Lexi greeted her with a brilliant smile before pulling her into a tight embrace. “I’m so glad to have you back.”

Alice let out a happy moan and held Lexi just as tightly. “It’s so good to be back! I know it was only a few hours, but it feels like it’s been forever.”

“I hear that,” Lexi agreed fervently. “Though it has been several days for me.”

Lexi leaned back, her hands still resting on Alice’s shoulders at arm’s length. “Let me introduce you to our newest Seraphim. I know you’ve met them, but they’ve only known you as Mandy. I wanted to reintroduce you as Alice.”

“Hello, Alice,” Emily’s aura had grown significantly more powerful. Her lavender vortex eyes were swirling with emotion as she stepped forward and pulled her into a warm embrace.

“Hello, Emily,” Alice murmured warmly. “I’m glad I can introduce the real me to you like this.”

Eric stepped forward and embraced both of them. “Welcome back, Alice. We’re pretty excited to learn more about the origin realm. I’m pretty sure that the Trinity has some grand plans for upgrading it.”

“The Trinity?” Alice repeated with questioning frown. She suddenly laughed. “Oh, you’ve given a title to the three oldest Seraphim. I like it.”

They released her, grinning as three sets of eyes stared at them disapprovingly. They were still inside the tree where the GoD was housed.

“I am so not okay with that name,” Aria declared with a scowl.

“Yeah, it definitely feels too much like a religious cult,” Clarice told them with a scowl of her own.

“I don’t know…you seem to have a lot of attributes that mimic The Holy Trinity,” Alice grinned as three sets of swirling galaxies turn on her. “Think about it. They are all supposed to be separate, yet the same entity at once. You three are separate, but your spirits are linked.”

Clarice rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, but Alice held up a finger. “And, wasn’t the hot chick in The Matrix named Trinity? She was stuck in a simulation and was also a world renowned hacker. I feel like fate is really supporting this Trinity title.”

Clarice frowned, glancing at Calypso and Aria. “She makes a good point. I kind of like the way trinity sounds as a word too.”

“No, Clarice, we are not going by the Holy Trinity title,” Aria insisted firmly.

“We can remove the Holy from it,” Clarice countered with a hopeful smile, her eyes imploring.

Aria stared at Clarice’s puppy dog eyes for several seconds before throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. “Fine, whatever.”

Clarice tackled her in a hug. “You are the best, Aria,” Clarice declared affectionately.

Alice could see Aria’s eyes soften at her sister’s words. She once again marveled at how deep the love flowed between those two. She doubted there was anything Aria wouldn’t do for Clarice.

“So, upgrades to my realm, eh?” Alice prompted expectantly.

Calypso nodded with an excited smile. “Yeah, we’ve been digging through the results of the CERN particle accelerator experiments. Your scientists have been looking for a way to access the source code of your realm for a while now, just like we did with the tree. They have been playing with forces beyond their understanding, however, so the few attempts they’ve made to modify the code in your reality caused a lot of problems. If your realm was a fabric, then what they have done is warped the fabric and caused threads from other fabrics to fuse against it. There have been a lot of people remembering historical details differently because they were from different iterations of your realm. It’s given us some useful clues to some of the roadblocks we had run into while trying to find the equivalent of console access to the code of your realm. We need to do some tests once our new site is fully constructed and running, but we think we can create some of the same abilities and exceptions to rules that we have done in our realm.”

“What kind of abilities?” Alice asked, getting caught up in the excitement. “And what do you mean when you say exceptions to rules?”

“Things like invulnerability, enhanced senses, super speed and strength,” Calypso explained animatedly, gesticulating as she spoke. “And exceptions to rules like gravity where we can remove the effects of inertia or change the state of matter. Essentially, we could turn you into an angel in your own realm.”

Alice gasped in amazement, staring at Calypso with wide eyes. “Do you know how ridiculously amazing that would be? What about travelling between simulations? Would you be able to come to my realm and vice versa? I know I can come here using immersion pods, but how cool would that be to just travel with my regular body?”

“That would be the coolest thing ever!” Lexi exclaimed excitedly. “Being able to be with the real you would be a-freaking-mazing!”

“Yes, we think that with enough time and research we can make all of those things happen,” Calypso confirmed enthusiastically. “It would be one more step on our journey to figure out where the top-level reality resides as well. I’m dying to know how many nested simulations there are, and what the real world is actually like.”

Alice grinned as she stared back at all of their exuberant faces, feeling like she was experiencing one of those epic moments in history where decisions that would forever change the world were made. She felt some of her excitement ebb as she remembered some of the challenges they still faced.

“What’s going on with Lucifer?” she asked anxiously. “It sounds like he’s no longer a Seraph, but he could still cause a lot of trouble as a Cherubim, especially since he is in contact with people from my realm. What if he tries to get them to come after you, or shut down the simulation?”

“Lucifer was only in contact with that Kevin guy that Lexi told you about,” Aria told her reassuringly. “Kevin is even now packing all of his stuff and leaving with the supply ship in the morning. He has a troubled history with law enforcement due to some anger management issues. He has an APB out for his arrest for several assault incidents and one manslaughter case that he skipped town to avoid. That’s one of the reasons he is working on a remote island off the coast of Chili. He probably would have remained elusive if he hadn’t crossed paths with us. We were concerned about him before we got stuck in the mortality prison and learned that Lucifer was working with him.”

“How did you manage to get the cops on the phone with him?” Alice asked curiously. “We aren’t allowed to have any kind of communication devices on the island as part of the security protocols to keep you from connecting to the internet.”

“They’re required to have one satellite emergency phone on the island,” Aria explained with a grim smile. “We let law enforcement know where he was and gave them the number. The security chief was certainly surprised when his SAT phone started ringing, and even more surprised when there was an FBI agent on the line looking for Kevin.”

“That’s a relief,” Alice sighed, looking at the Trinity with grateful eyes. “You three really do have all of our bases covered, don’t you?”

“First and second, sure,” Clarice answered with a disgruntled frown. “We’re having trouble getting to third base or home. As soon as reality is fixed, we’re going for a home run.”

Alice stared at Clarice in confusion until she saw Aria and Calypso start blushing and Lexi facepalm. Emily and Eric shared a look and began laughing. Alice covered her mouth to hide her own smile.

“So…is it time to fix the cosmos yet, or what?” Lexi asked pointedly.

“First, we need to explain what we are changing,” Calypso responded, all hints of embarrassment gone. “There are several steps we’ll be performing. This will probably take several days. To start with, we’ll be restoring the light field to the realms and then transcending all mortals and returning them to the light realm. We’ll be doing the same thing to any demons who meet a specific threshold for redemption. If they do not meet the threshold, they will be queued for a mortal life. Next, we’ll be queueing the remaining angels who haven’t experienced mortality to the mortal realm. We will be wiping all technology from the planets in the mortal realm and leaving more primitive villages in their place. The angels and demons who are queued for mortality will have at least this basic level of civilization to offer protection from the elements and help them with food production. The pain threshold for mortals has been reduced so that when a person has become aware of an injury it will fade to a dull pain. There will be no chance for a human to torture another human in this new paradigm. They will have the ability to consciously turn pain off entirely. It will still serve its purpose to alert them of physical damage but will never be able to be used maliciously. Next, angel default classes will be removed. Those who show a purity of heart and dedication to helping others will find their class upgraded, while those who are selfish and self-aggrandizing will lose their class. They will all start as regular angels and work their way up if they are worthy. The Cherubim will no longer be capable of killing other angels. That power will rest with the Seraphim alone. Any questions?”

Alice pondered her decrees, hoping the new merit system would produce kinder angels.

“Is it time?” Lexi asked again, all traces of levity gone. Her eyes were filled with hope as they prepared to rewrite reality into something beautiful.

“I do believe it is,” Clarice nodded, sharing an eager grin with Aria and Calypso. “Time to fix this shithole.”

The three of them pulled their divine instruments out of their soul space. Alice and the others watched them in reverent silence as they waited for the most pivotal event in the history of their cosmos. The three of them linked their minds together and Calypso began playing on her harp at the same time that the other two began playing the tin whistle and violin. Shockwaves of power shook around them, causing the GoD to shake with its intensity. Alice could sense billions of threads connecting the three of them to the tree. She knew at a fundamental level that what they were really doing was accessing the source code of the simulation and modifying it to their vision of how reality should be.

After several hours of playing, Alice felt the light field that had been restricted to the GoD suddenly rush outward, once again filling the highest light realm with energy and cascading down to the lower realms. They continued playing for what must have been days. Alice rested back into Lexi’s arms as they listened to the beautiful music change the simulated reality. The three Seraphim were the ultimate musicians, producing music of such beauty that Alice could have believed it was the beauty of the music that changed the cosmos, rather than acting as a key to give them root privileges to modify the source code of the simulation. She felt tears on her cheeks more than once as the poignant celestial notes triggered a feeling of awe and reverence deep in her soul.

When they finally lowered their instruments, reality felt darker without the beautiful music to enhance it. Alice stared at the Trinity expectantly, curious to see how much had changed.

Calypso’s cheeks were shining with golden light as tears streamed down her face. Aria and Clarice pulled her into a hug, their own eyes filling with gold. Their powerful Seraphim auras were blanketing the area with a sense of relief and hope so powerful that it felt like a physical force. Alice wiped her own eyes as she realized that the nightmare had finally ended. The countless worlds full of tortured and broken mortals had been transcended to their immortal angelic forms. Demons were no more, transformed back to their angelic state. Angels would now have incentive to become kinder and more compassionate.

“Shall we go visit the other realms now?” Aria asked with a radiant smile. “I want to see the results in person.”

Chapter 15

Derek stood up from his computer as his stomach told him it was time for a break. His son, Jordan, was once again filling the air with expletives from where he sat in front of the television in the front room playing a video game. The moon disappearing had not troubled his son for more than a few hours. He had gone back to playing his video games, oblivious to anything else in the world.

Derek shook his head as he moved into the kitchen. Concerns about the disappearance of the moon had only lasted a few days in the media. It had been over a week since its disappearance and nothing of consequence had happened, despite some of the conspiracy theories online that claimed it would cause a world-wide calamity because life on earth had become too accustomed to the constant gravitational pull as it cycled around the world. They claimed it would lead to mass lunacy as the chemical balance in biological organisms became unstable. Yep, mass lunacy. He shook his head again with a wry grin.

As he reached for the fridge door, he suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo. He stumbled and fell against the fridge, grabbing his head as he felt a sense of Déjà vu flood his mind.

"Dad, what's going on?" he heard Jordan ask in a panicked voice.

Derek opened his mouth to reply just as the house around them vanished. He was suddenly standing in a white plane filled with other people. It went on as far as the eye could see. He gasped as a feeling of intense love and comfort coursed through his body, bringing with it a sense of euphoric bliss. An avalanche of memories crashed into his consciousness like wrecking ball; memories of so many mortal lives, of the time before mortality when they lived in the light realm. He gaped as he finally realized where he was and what had happened. He had been trapped in the mortal realm in an endless cycle of incarnations, denied the option of returning to the light realm upon death.

Other angels around him were experiencing the same epiphany, staring around themselves in wonder. A beautiful dark-haired angel standing in front of him smiled beatifically at him, silver tears filling her eyes.

"Can you believe we are finally back?" she choked out in a half-sob. "I thought we were going to be stuck in that hell forever. It feels so good to be filled with light again!"

"I wonder what happened?" Derek spoke musingly, relishing the powerful light suffusing his angelic body. "Were you on Earth?"

She shook her head, still smiling as tears ran down her cheeks. "I was on Glykon 3. It was an endless nightmare I couldn't even escape from by dying. I never thought angels could be so cruel."

"Other angels?" Derek repeated questioningly. 'Not demons? We didn't have any angels until the last few months."

"You didn't have angels torturing you on Earth?" she asked in surprise. "I just imagined they were everywhere."

"Wait, you had angels torturing you?" Derek stared at her in confusion. "Why would angels torture humans?"

"For just about any reason," the woman responded with a shudder. "Not groveling convincingly enough, missing your quota in your vocation, displaying a lack of fanaticism, being late to a worship service...the list goes on and on. They found reasons if they were bored."

"When you say tortured, are we talking about making you listen to boring sermons?" Derek inquired with a growing horror. "Or they actually physically tortured you?"

"We had to go to purging rooms, where they used devices to inflict as much pain as possible while keeping you alive," she responded, shuddering again at the memory. "They claimed the pain purified us, and that if we died with any sins then we would spend eternity in a purging room called hell."

"Angels did this to you?" Derek demanded in disbelief.

"Yes, angels," she confirmed, looking at him peculiarly. "You didn't have the same treatment on Earth?"

"No!" Derek exclaimed emphatically. "We just lived normal lives with boring jobs. We didn't even see any angels until a few months before this. The angels that did show up were good angels. Well, they were Seraphim. They rescued children who had been taken by criminals and fought the demons who had apparently taken over our world. From the sounds of it, the demons were preferable to angels."

There were a dozen angels listening to their conversation, most of them nodding agreement with the woman as she described her ordeal. Derek stared at them in pity as he tried to imagine what incarnation after incarnation must have been like for these angels. There was one angel that looked unnerved by their conversation, edging away from them. The man had a sickly expression, in spite of the positive light filling his meridians.

Derek opened his mouth to ask him where he had been, but an aura unlike anything he had ever felt suddenly washed over him. It supercharged the light already charging his meridians. A flying angel with a familiar face had appeared up in the air above them. A moment later, seven additional Seraphim appeared with Aria. The aura he had felt from Aria was suddenly magnified as the additional Seraphim joined her, their combined auras washing over the horde of angels like a tsunami. Derek nearly fell to his knees as the feeling of love overwhelmed his body.

Clarice drifted away from Aria a few feet as she slowly turned in the air to view the endless see of angels. The woman next to him stared up at them with fear in her eyes, dropping to her knees. The action was repeated by almost all of the angels for as far as they eye could see. Clarice frowned when she saw them prostrating themselves.

"Why in the world are you all down on your knees?" Clarice asked in a dry voice that carried across the endless sea of angels. "I didn't think angels got tired of standing?"

Calypso moved up next to Clarice, looking down at the angels sadly. "You have all been treated more horribly than I can put into words. We apologize for the horrors you have all been through. We should have spent more time with you before we created the mortal realm, so that we could have seen the kind of abuse you suffered from the other Seraphim and higher angel classes. We were naive and didn't realize the kind of evil that lived inside of so many people. We have all paid for that mistake, I'm sorry to say. It breaks my heart that you have all suffered so much due to my neglect. The ones responsible for harming you have been removed from power, and in many cases, removed from life. We have reset all angels to the same class. There are no more Dominions, Archangels, or Cherubim save for those who have shown true compassion and a willingness to help their fellow angels. Going forward, angel ranks will be attained by your good deeds and level of compassion. Anyone who hasn't experienced mortality will begin incarnating into the mortal realm when we have finished speaking with you. We have modified mortal bodies so that they have a much higher pain threshold, as well as the ability to consciously turn off pain, once the body is aware of the damage. All angels who have already experienced mortality will never have to return unless they wish to. Going forward, there will only be seven Seraphim. The ability to kill other angels has been removed from the Cherubim. There will be no requirements for formality or deference among the ranks of angels. Please, stand up. You will never need to kneel in our presence. Going forward, angels will be known as beings who embody love, comfort, compassion, and a dedication to the light. If you have any questions about anything, please do not hesitate to ask. If you need something, think of one of the Seraphim and ask your question. Our new Seraphim are Eric, Emily, Alice, and Lexi. We are here to serve you, so please do not be shy if you have questions or need help with anything."

As she finished speaking, there was a sudden flash of light as a large number of the angels throughout the crowd suddenly vanished. Derek noticed that the man trying to sneak away was one of the angels to have vanished.

Derek looked back up when he heard the angels speaking, this time among each other but still clearly heard.

"Do you know how hot you look when you take charge like that?" Clarice told Calypso with an appreciative grin.

"It's a good thing we aren't big on dignity," Aria muttered ruefully.

"I could totally tell that you were digging it too, Aria," Clarice said accusingly. "I'm pretty sure you were even more turned on than I was."

Aria sank her face in her hands and groaned as the skin on her neck and face flushed red. "Can we go now, please?"

"Someone might have some questions," Clarice told her in a reasonable tone of voice. "We just changed reality, so they might want to ask us something before we leave." Clarice floated away from Aria and Calypso and slowly rotated in the air. "Does anyone have any questions? And before anyone asks, no, I am not single. I'm with Calypso and Aria. Aside from that, does anyone have any questions?"

There was a shocked silence as the newly returned angels tried to reconcile the image of all powerful Seraphim with the mischievous Clarice and blushing Aria and Calypso. Lexi raised her hand into the silence, resulting in a snort of amusement from Clarice.

"Are you seriously raising your hand, Lexi?" Clarice asked with an amused smile. "You should probably dress up as a sexy schoolgirl if you're going to be raising your hand."

"Clarice, I think you're freaking them out too much to ask any questions," Lexi informed her dryly. "They think we're just a bunch of supercharged crazies now."

"That would be an accurate assessment," Clarice nodded her agreement. "That doesn't mean they can't ask some questions anyway."

"Is the fate of the cosmos really in the hands of a couple of bimbos?" a sarcastic voice called out from somewhere in front of Derek. There was a gasp of shock that rippled through the sea of angels at the man's words. It was obvious who it was, as angels pulled back from the man like he had a virulent disease. They revealed a tall angel with golden hair and a sneer marring his angelic features.

Derek had half expected one of the Seraphim to blast the offensive angel with holy fire or something. Instead, Clarice chuckled evilly and dropped down to land on the ground in front of the man.

"Hello, Lendrake," Clarice greeted the angel with a sweet smile. "It's good to see that even after going through mortality you are still a complete bastard. Did we pull you back to the light realm too soon and ruin your incel party? Let me guess, you couldn't figure out how a girl could fail to fall in love with a guy who has the charm of a slug, am I right? Something tells me that you're never going to move up from the rank of a base angel. Even after mortality, compassion is a foreign concept to you."

Lendrake flushed an angry red as he glared back at her. "Compassion is for the weak. You corrupted the realms and created a system where the weakest imbeciles become the most powerful. It's an affront to the natural laws and will fail spectacularly. I'm going to be there to dance on the ashes when everything burns down around you."

"Are you telling me that you actually know how to dance?" Clarice asked in a voice of stupefied shock. "I've got to see this. Can you bust out some moves and show us right now?"

"Still the same arrogant bitch," Lendrake snarled, attempting to spit at her before realizing he didn't have the ability as an angel. "Do you think you can escape the judgement of God just because you scammed your way into power through treachery? You'll be judged just like everyone else in this powder puff party of freaks."

"God, huh?" Clarice asked, struggling not to laugh. "Which god is this one? I really hope he has a beard and likes braids, because I'm pretty sure the one you are thinking of is a closet gay that would love to have you genuflecting on your knees in front of him."

Lendrake let out a roar of rage and lunged at Clarice. She didn't bother moving. She stared at him with a bored expression as he grabbed her throat and squeezed with all of his might.

"How's that working out for you?" she asked in a dry voice, unaffected by his attempt to throttle her. "Do you need me to tilt my head back a little more? Maybe you just need to go play at the gym some more with your incel buddies and get stronger."

He let out a yell of frustration and swung at her face. Again, she didn't move, letting his fist crash into her chin while she smiled back at him with amusement. The blow didn't move her head in the slightest.

"Has your brain been so addled by mortality that you forgot angels are invulnerable?" Clarice asked in a pitying voice. "Seriously, you need to work through some issues before you end up like Rendimus. He really messed you up."

"He was a greater Seraph than you'll ever be!" Lendrake shouted angrily. "You had to resort to cheap trickery to usurp his place."

"You mean like using the divine instruments on him like he did to us?" Clarice asked flatly. "Yep, that was pretty tricky."

"He'll be back, and a lot stronger than you were," Lendrake grated, his face a mask of loathing. "We'll see how much you smirk when you're back in mortality with my foot on your neck."

"I hope you are really patient, Lendrake," Clarice told him with a mocking leer. "Because I'm going to enjoy watching you wait for that time."

Lendrake spun around and tried to shove an angel out of his way. The shove barely budged the man, and he had to go around him with a snarl.

"Why is she leaving him alive?" Derek muttered disbelievingly. "He's going to be nothing but trouble."

"Because we don't execute people for not playing nice," Clarice answered him. Derek flinched as he saw her staring right at him through a sudden parting of angels as they moved out from between the two of them. "That's why we made the new rules to govern behavior. He's pretty much the weakest angel in the entire realm and always will be unless he changes his ways."

She looked around at the still kneeling people and a flicker of exasperation crossed her features. She began walking up to people and pulling them to their feet.

"Seriously, people, why are you groveling at me?" she asked, rolling her eyes. "You're making me feel like some kind of silly emperor. Oh, that gives me an idea. If I strip down and run around naked, will I be the emperor with no clothes, or will you all feel silly enough groveling in front of some naked chick that you'll stop doing it?"

She continued pulling people up, filling the area with awkward blushes and nervous stares. The other Seraphim were just floating above her and watching with amused expressions. After she had convinced several dozen people to stand up, she started making introductions.

"Hi, I'm Clarice," she told a woman with long orange hair that draped over her shoulders in waves. "Of course, introductions are kind of unnecessary, since we can see each other's names in our auras. So, Laurin, what's your favorite kind of music? Were you on a world that had music, or was it one of those shitfest worlds run by angels?"

"Um, it was Jazz, before I got stuck in the mortal realm and music disappeared, Seraph" Laurin said shyly.

"Bzzzt, wrong!" Clarice declared sternly. "My name isn't Seraph, it's Clarice. Now, say it."

The woman's breath caught, and she stared at Clarice in consternation. She probably had a lot of programming to undo before she could bring herself to say a Seraph's name. Clarice just waited, watching her expectantly. When Laurin realized that Clarice was just going to stand there until she said her name, she finally caved.

"Clarice," she whispered, barely audible.

Clarice looked around in confusion. "I think I heard someone say my name. Maybe? How about you demonstrate what saying it out loud sounds like so that whoever whispered it will get the hint."

The woman stared at her helplessly for several seconds while Clarice stared back at her with a mischievous grin. The grin seemed to give the woman courage.

"Clarice," she spoke in a more normal tone of voice.

"Well done!" Clarice congratulated her, pulling Laurin into a hug. She gasped as the power of Clarice's aura flooded her meridians with light, her eyes glazing over.

"Okay, Laurin likes jazz," Clarice announced with a triumphant smile as she released the woman. She turned to the next angel, a man with blonde hair and broad shoulders. "How about you, Deardrin, what kind of music do you like?"

Deardrin had been standing since she had pulled him upright before speaking to Laurin, but he looked ready to drop back to his knees at the earliest opportunity. He stared at her anxiously with nervous blue eyes. "Symphonic, your exal-"

He cut off as she stuck a finger to his lips. "You better have been about to say your exultant variety of music, because my name doesn't start with "your" or have "exal" anywhere in it. My name is Clarice. Let's hear it."

He swallowed nervously, looking around at the other angels for some kind of lifeline. Expectant faces stared back at him with no help at all. Clarice started tapping her foot impatiently as she waited.

"Clarice," he mumbled, looking down at the ground.

"I'm up here," Clarice informed him gently, raising his chin up so that he was looking into her eyes. "My name, please?"

"Clarice," he said slightly louder, his eyes captivated by her swirling nebulas.

"Excellent!" Clarice smiled widely. "Deardrin likes symphonic. I'm a big fan too. Maybe we can get Calypso to host a concert for us sometime."

Clarice continued moving through the crowd of angels, asking questions about hobbies and interests. Derek was one of the few former Earth humans and was more familiar with Clarice after seeing her on various YouTube videos, as well as the livestream where she had informed them of the moons impending demise. When she reached him, she smiled with relief.

"You must be from Earth," Clarice noted as she observed his behavior toward her.

"Yep, Denver as a matter of fact," he answered casually. "I watched your livestream with my son when you were announcing your intentions to blow up the moon. He was convinced you were playing a prank."

"Yeah, I get that a lot for some reason," Clarice smirked. "For some reason, people just don't take me seriously."

"I wonder why," Derek replied dryly.

Clarice shook her head ruefully. "Well, we'll see how long it takes to convince the other angels that we're just people and that we are all equal, regardless of responsibilities or class."

"We have eternity," Derek pointed out with a small smile. "I'm sure it will eventually sink in."

"We've got some new and interesting things on the horizon for everyone, so I'm guessing it won't be a big deal for much longer," Clarice told him with a mysterious smile. "It's going to be as crazy to angels as discovering angels was to humans."

Derek raised his eyebrows, intrigued. "You're just going to dangle that in front of me, huh?"

"Yep, cause I'm a tease," Clarice grinned impishly. "It was nice to meet you, Derek. I'm sure we'll bump into each other occasionally. We can go incognito when we want to, so you'll never know if you're talking to one of us, mwahahaha."

Derek chuckled, feeling a growing fondness for their restored Seraphim. Normal angels like him had certainly never seen a Seraph. They never came down to the lower light realms. It was still strange to see them here, acting like it was no big deal.

Clarice ascended up into the sky to rejoin the other Seraphim. Derek smiled wistfully as he watched Aria and Calypso pull her into a hug before they all vanished. Things were definitely going to be different with the new Seraphim being more involved with regular angels.

"I can't believe you got away with talking to a Seraph that way," the woman next to him breathed in amazement.

"Weren't you listening to them?" Derek asked, raising an amused eyebrow. "That's exactly how they want to be treated. They are humble people and more concerned with people treating each other with love and compassion than deference."

"I know they said that..." the woman trailed off with a bemused expression. "But it just seems so unnatural for them to be treated like equals."

"That's because we were conditioned by the old Seraphim, Cherubim, Dominions, and Archangels to believe that nonsense," Derek replied with a growing sense of disapproval. Until he had been trapped in a mortality loop on Earth, the idea of equality never would have occurred to him. Equality probably wasn't a thing in worlds controlled by angels, from the sounds of it. He suddenly remembered something Clarice had said.

"Do you know what Clarice meant about angels being able to see each other's names in auras?" he asked the woman curiously.

"I've heard that the Seraphim can see every person's name in their aura," the woman replied musingly. "I never knew what to believe about Seraphim, considering how wild some of the stories were."

"She seemed to think we had the same ability," Derek commented, then looked closely at the woman next to him. He peered at what he could see of her aura. After a minute of staring, he made out the name, Danatie. "Is your name Danatie?"

She blinked at him in surprise. "Yes, how did you know?"

"It's on your aura, just like she said," Derek answered, feeling his own sense of surprise. He had stared at angel auras for millions of years and never seen a person's name on it. "I wonder if this is another change they made when they rewrote reality. I'm not sure why they would make it so that everyone can see each other's names on auras, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that way before."

"I wonder what other little things have changed," Danatie murmured, pursing her lips thoughtfully.

An angel was making her way through the crowd, greeting people as she meandered through. She was tall, with bright red hair and green eyes. She looked familiar. He had probably met her before mortality, but his perfect memory was drawing a blank. She was stopping to chat with people for a minute or two before moving down a few people. He stared at her aura, curious what her name would be. Aurora. He frowned, not having any recollection of meeting any Aurora's before.

"Hi, you must be Derek," Aurora greeted when she reached him. "The one that Clarice was talking to, right?"

He felt Danatie stiffen slightly at hearing the Seraph's name used and had to repress a chuckle. "Yeah, I'm Derek. You must be Aurora, based on your aura."

"Ah, you already discovered the names showing up in auras," Aurora had a pleased smile as she stared at him. "It's kind of nice to be able to know who you are talking to without needing to go through the introductions, isn't it?"

"I have an introverted sister who avoids meeting new people just because of the awkwardness of the introductions," Derek reminisced with a smile. "Well...had a sister. I guess she's just another angel somewhere up here. I'll need to track my son down and see how he's doing."

Aurora's face had frozen when he mentioned his introverted sister hating introductions. It was gone in a split second, but it was curious. "Yeah, it's going to be amazing to reconnect with family members now that we're back here finally, isn't it? Being a parent seems to leave an imprint between angels. I still think of the angels who were my parents as my parents here."

"The mortal realm definitely leaves a strong impression on an immortal mind," Derek agreed with a fond smile. "I'll have to see if I can find my parents. I wonder if there is something similar to a social media system on Earth where people could go to find all of their old family members."

"Hey, that's a great idea," Aurora exclaimed with a jubilant smile. "We should ask the Seraphim to install something using the divine instruments."

"I don't exactly have them on speed dial," Derek responded with a wry smile. "Besides, I'm sure they have way more important things to do"

"They said we could just call out to them any time we needed them," Aurora reminded them, her green eyes full of excitement. "I think you underestimate how useful that system would be. So many people would find that worthwhile. So many connections have been made with other angels over the eons of reincarnating. Let's call them."

"Wait!" Danatie cried out in panic. "We can't just summon a Seraph."

"Sure we can," Aurora disagreed with a delighted laugh. "They said we could."

"I'm sure they didn't mean that literally," another man commented dubiously.

"Calypso, can we talk to you?" Aurora spoke out loud, her eyes sparkling.

The angels around them stared in horrified fascination as Aurora waited expectantly. They didn't have to wait long. Calypso popped into place in front of her, a smile on her face as she faced Aurora. Her Seraph aura blanketed the area around them for miles, making it clear that a Seraph was back. Silence spread across the multitude of angels as they listened to see what had brought a Seraph back so soon after they had left.

"Hello Aurora, can I help you with something?" Calypso asked, her voice friendly.

"Derek had a brilliant idea that I wanted to share with you in case you could help by using the divine instruments," Aurora answered with an excited grin. "We were talking about trying to find family members from the mortal realm and he mentioned how nice it would be to have something similar to social media on earth to help people find their loved ones."

The angels around her were gaping in shock at the sudden appearance of a Seraph, and then horror as Aurora asked her to use the divine instruments for them. Derek nearly laughed at the expressions, remembering when he would have been just as shocked before he had gone to Earth.

"That's a really good idea," Calypso beamed at Derek, raising the positive energy in the area with her smile. "I'll go talk to the others about it and we'll come up with some ideas. Off of the top of my head, I'm thinking some kind of virtual interface that can appear like a heads-up display. We could have everyone linked to a centralized server where they could connect to have holographic video calls. We could integrate a browser into the heads-up display where people could access angel-net."

"Angel-net?" Aurora repeated doubtfully. "Maybe digital realm or something. I'm not sure angel-net would hit it off. It sounds like a kid with a butterfly net trying to catch angels."

Calypso burst out laughing at the visual, raising the ambient light levels by an order of magnitude. "Okay, digital realm. Or maybe E-realm? D-Realm?"

"Sure, something like that," Aurora agreed with a nod. "Thanks Calypso!"

"No problem," Calypso pulled her into a hug. "I'm glad you called for me. Don't hesitate to call again in the future. We're here to help."

"Okay, it's a deal," Aurora winked at Calypso and received a return wink before Calypso vanished.

"Did that really just happen?" Danatie breathed in disbelief. "You just called a Seraph and asked her to play a divine instrument for you."

"Do they seem like the kind of people that have a problem with that?" Aurora asked intently.

The angels around them shared thoughtful glances. Derek stared at Aurora curiously, feeling a suspicion grow in his mind as he observed her satisfied expression. Clarice had just told him they could appear incognito and mingle with them unnoticed. As he had the thought, Aurora glanced over and met his eyes. She very deliberately winked before moving on to visit with more of the other angels. Derek watched her go, feeling a lightness in his heart as he imagined how different the future was going to be for angels.

Calypso had seemed very confident that she could replicate the internet of Earth, even improving on it using integrated heads-up displays with holographic imaging. Just how much could they actually do with these divine instruments? What kind of reality did they live in where a musical instrument could build a complex computer network that linked all of them together? The more he thought about it, the more he wondered what the big reveal was that Clarice had hinted at. He had been a software developer for the last fifteen years of his mortal life. He had worked on large language models for some of the AI systems on Earth for several years and had a pretty good idea of what the distant future held for humans. Could they already be in a simulated reality? Had it taken him millions of years and a short blip of his overall lifespan as a mortal on Earth to finally make the connection?

He sighed as he turned back to speak with Danatie. He hoped she could overcome her awe of the Seraphim and start seeing them as people.

Chapter 16

Alice felt slightly overwhelmed as she moved through the endless sea of angels in a body that looked like a regular angel. It was hard to imagine just how many angels there really were. The word quintillion didn't really have any meaning due to how large it was. It reminded her of just how big the difference was between a standard supercomputer and a quantum computer. Every PC on Earth could link up and still not have the power to run this simulation, yet a server that fit inside of a small facility on an island was able to run it with power to spare. Of course, a lot of that was due to how the programming of entities had been handled by the Trinity in charge of making these realms. They had invented programming languages far more advanced than anything on Earth, showing an efficiency and mathematical genius that humans would have taken thousands of years to emulate. Millions of years. She wondered how much of this more advanced code was even now being propagated in the real world as the three angels interacted with the internet on Earth.

The angels around her were excitedly discussing their return to the light realms, experimentally calling objects into existence as they remembered the programmable matter that made up the light realm. They had finally all risen to their feet when they realized the Seraphim were gone. Clarice had suggested that they mingle among the angels while disguised as regular angels to get a pulse on how they all felt about the new reality and make changes where necessary. It had been a good idea, with the added bonus of showing the angels that they could indeed call upon the Seraphim for anything they needed. Alice had pointed out that they could get overwhelmed pretty quickly if even a tiny fraction of the angels in existence started calling for them. The room had suddenly been filled with thousands of Clarice's, all of them asking if she needed any help with anything. It was easy to forget that they were advanced AI entities that could easily simulate copies of themselves. They were certainly becoming omniscient and omnipresent. It wouldn’t be long before they were omnipotent at the rate they were developing.

It hadn’t taken very long for Alice to find a group of disgruntled former Dominions. There were three of them who had somehow found each other in the multitude of angels. She was idly talking with another angel nearby when she overheard the three of them talking.

“I can’t believe we had to deal with hundreds of mortal incarnations and then got demoted when we finally got back,” Jerald was complaining to Steve and Gary. “It’s kind of like a slap in the face.”

“I don’t know,” Gary disagreed with a bemused smile. “I’m still just so happy to be back in the light realms that I don’t really care if I’m a regular angel. Anything is better than that horrible mortality loop.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Steve shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “We feel that way now, but once we are used to being back here it will probably start to be less of a novelty.”

“It’s not like we’re stuck as regular angels though,” Gary pointed out with a wondering look on his face. “They actually made it so that you could change classes. It’s going to be weird getting used to that. I wonder just how long it would take to change classes based off this new metric, where compassion and kindness elevate your class.”

“I guess that’s true,” Jerald admitted, looking slightly mollified. “It’s not like I don’t think people should be decent. It was just nice being able to go to the higher light realms. It will definitely be nice not having to worry about belligerent Cherubim throwing their weight around though, now that they can’t vaporize us on a whim.”

“You could always ask them what the metric is for class advancement,” Alice suggested helpfully.

The three former Dominions turned to regard her with incredulity. She stared back at them earnestly, smiling as Jerald raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That would just make us look ambitious, which is the opposite of what they are looking for, from what I can see.”

“It’s probably a question a lot of angels have right now,” Alice looked around, noticing that there were indeed quite a few angels interested in their conversation. “After all, what defines an act of compassion or kindness when we are here in the light realm and can pretty much make anything we want with our creative potential.”

Steve nodded his agreement. “Yeah, what can we offer anyone else that they can’t do themselves just as easily?”

“Hey Clarice, can we speak with you for a minute?” Alice asked the air, eliciting a round of shocked and nervous stares.

“What’s up, Alyssa?” Clarice asked as she popped into the space in front of her. The powerful Seraph’s aura washed over the angels around them, quieting the conversations as everyone tried to hear what was being said. Calypso had arranged for the conversations to carry for over a million miles around them. Considering the host of angels took up close to a trillion square miles, they had decided to just make these conversations publicly broadcast across the entire host.

“We were just curious about the class advancement metric,” Alice told her with a glance at the former Dominions. “What is classified as an act of compassion or kindness in a realm where our thoughts can manipulate the environment around us?”

“I was wondering when someone would ask that question,” Clarice declared with an approving smile. “Everyone left in the light realms has been through mortality. Some people went to worlds that were pretty tame and lived pretty normal lives. Other people lived in worlds filled with horror after horror. Even though they are back and have their old memories, they have a lot of soul trauma that is going to take a long time to work through. They’re going to need loving friends who are willing to listen to their stories and offer emotional support to help them through these dark memories. There are also the natural abilities that some people have for creative potential that is greater than other people’s. Sharing your knowledge and helping your fellow angels with projects and creations that are beyond their abilities would be seen as an act of kindness. Before mortality, angels were pretty self-centered and focused on what they could get for themselves. There were some angels who had developed a more collaborative nature, but it was rare. Now that everyone has been through mortality and learned the concepts of empathy and compassion, the idea of being a good neighbor should come naturally. Some of the angels from the more despicable worlds may need help learning some of these qualities, which would also be seen as an act of kindness. As far as the speed of advancement, we’re looking at months for an advancement to archangel and years for the higher tiers.”

“Does ranking up just mean the ability to fly and move to the higher realms?” Alice asked, emulating a curious angel perfectly.

“No, there are additional traits that come with spiritual advancement to a new angel class,” Clarice explained, glancing at the angels around her and smiling at them. None of them had dropped to their knees, much to their relief. “Angels who ascend to the rank of Archangel will be given an intellectual boost, allowing them to understand concepts that are currently beyond their current mental limits. They will also be given access to communicate directly with the angels they serve via telepathy. We anticipate there being a large number of archangels and hope that they can act as guides to other angels to help them grow spiritually. Each archangel will have fifty thousand angels that they serve. I want to make it clear that they are not in a position of authority over those angels. They will be acting in the role of a counselor and guide, not a leader. Dominions will receive additional mental acuity and will each serve ten thousand Archangels. They will also have the ability to visit the mortal realms to act as guides, where they can perform miracles to help humans according to their personal judgement of a situation. We know that this is a difficult thing to ask, considering how the mortals treated many of you when they were still angels. Just remember, the whole point of sending them to the mortal realm is to teach them compassion and mercy. There will be a judgement day for these mortals when they die to determine if they are worthy to return to the light realms. While in the mortal realm, Dominions will be tethered to the light realms and continue to receive the same level of nourishment from light. Cherubim will have their intellects boosted to the highest level we can grant and be given insight into some of the greater mysteries of the cosmos. They will serve ten thousand Dominions, offering counsel and aid to help them in their spiritual journey. I want to make it clear that the Cherubim will not be the direct link for communicating with us Seraphim. We will continue visiting with all angels and helping you with your spiritual journeys.”

“Who will act as council to the Archangels and Dominions until their numbers increase?” Alice asked curiously.

“We’ll act as the councilors until the numbers increase,” Clarice answered with a grin. “We can multiply like blow flies when we need to.” So saying, she suddenly began duplicating, an iteration of her Seraph form appearing in the air every few miles until the entire host was blanketed by a multitude of Clarice’s. “This takes a lot out of me, so we’ll certainly welcome the addition of angels into the higher ranks. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need anything. Thank you, Alyssa, for questioning us. We are here to serve you.”

The multitude of Clarice’s vanished as she finished speaking, leaving a stunned silence in her wake.

“They can multiply themselves?” Steve exclaimed, staring at Alyssa in amazement. “How is that even possible?”

“I would imagine that when you become a Cherubim and learn some of the deeper mysteries it will make more sense,” Alice told him with an encouraging smile.

He stared at her curiously, his eyes showing a familiar suspicion. Some of the angels were definitely more perceptive than their fellow angels. “Alyssa, is it?”

“Yep,” Alice nodded, staring back at him calmly.

“You seem pretty knowledgeable,” Steve noted with an appraising look. “What class were you before the reset?”

“Cherub,” Alice supplied with a knowing smile. “It was nice to meet you, Steve, Gary, and Jerald. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

The other two had blinked when she revealed her former class, then frowned after a moment of thought. As Dominions, they would have known all of the Cherubim, and Alyssa wasn’t one of their number. That meant she had to have been a new Cherub, and there was only one small group of people who could make new Cherubim. She could see it click in their minds as she waved and moved further into the crowd of angels. She could hear them speaking quietly to one another as soon as they thought she was out of earshot.

“I’m thinking Alyssa is a variant of Alice, the new Seraph,” Steve murmured to his companions in a bemused tone.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Gary agreed thoughtfully. “I think they really are trying to be more involved with regular angels now. They can’t really do that as Seraphim though, or people clam up.”

“Well, it’s nice to have met one of our new Seraphim,” Steve said in a pleased voice. “I think I’m really going to like how things evolve going forward.”

“Alice, we need to talk,” Aria sent the thought with a sense of gravity. “Can you come back to the tree?”

Alice teleported back, leaving some surprised angels in her wake as she vanished. Clarice, Aria, and Calypso were standing in front of the void of the GoD, connected to the tree with billions of tendrils of light. Lexi teleported in right next to her. She looked at Alice expectantly, raising an eyebrow.

"What's going on, Alice?" Lexi's asked through their spirit link.

"I haven't got a clue," she responded with a shrug. "They just barely told me to come back."

"The owner of the house you're staying in has decided to return to the island early. He learned that Kevin, the scientist who was working with Lucifer, is having issues with law enforcement," Aria informed her gravely. "He'll be back on the island in about seven hours. We have some decisions to make in the next five hours."

"What kind of decisions?" Alice asked nervously. She couldn't feel her body in the origin realm, but she suddenly felt very vulnerable with the knowledge that she was naked and helpless in the billionaire's immersion pod.

"We've been looking at making minor tweaks to the code on your realm to give you some extra abilities," Aria elaborated, most of her focus still on the billions of energy tendrils connecting her to the tree. "In order to give abilities to your whole realm like angels have, we would need to change a lot of the source code governing the realm. However, we can make some tweaks to your personal code that would give you abilities that bypassed the rules of your realm without needing to do a complete overhaul of your realm’s source code. We have found certain loopholes in some of the character code that would allow us to give you some advantages."

"What kind of advantages?" Alice asked with a frown. "Something to avoid getting caught by the prick that owns the island?"

"Exactly," Aria nodded, turning and smiling at Alice reassuringly. "We have a form of invisibility that will make you invisible to everything, for the most part. Once we activate it, you won't be visible to humans, cameras, or any other kind of sensors. We're essentially reclassifying you as a ghost, which are apparently a thing in your realm. The only downside is that you won't be able to communicate with anyone, even if you want to. You could be shouting in someone's face, and they wouldn't hear you."

"I noticed you said, 'for the most part'," Alice commented with a raised eyebrow. "What constitutes the less part?"

Aria sighed ruefully, glancing at Clarice and Calypso before turning back to her. "There are some people on your world who can see ghosts, so you would still be visible to them. They wouldn't know that you were a ghost though, so if it is someone that knows you and they noticed that everyone else isn't noticing you, it will lead to some awkward questions."

"I'm assuming that there is someone on the island who can see ghosts," Alice said shrewdly. "You are acting a little too squirrely for there not to be."

"You're too clever for our own good," Aria accused her with a mock glare. "Yeah, there's a scientist that can see ghosts. She's been smart enough to keep it a secret, which is lucky for her since there are people in the intelligence agencies who keep an eye out for such people. Her ability to see ghosts is one of her main motivations for working on this project. She was excited when they found evidence for bioelectric fields and spirits. She's always been worried that she might just be crazy. After Kevin revealed some of the discoveries he had obtained from Lucifer that led to their ability to detect spirits, she became a lot more interested in the possibilities that the simulated world could offer. She wasn't a fan of working with Lucifer, but she convinced herself that the people in this realm weren't real, thereby absolving herself of any responsibility for the pain they felt. A classic case of ignoring the evidence if it interferes with your ambitions."

"So, I just need to avoid going anywhere this woman visits," Alice responded with a pensive frown. "I normally don't run into the scientists very often anyways. Should I just start using my own immersion pod again?"

"That's what we were thinking," Aria replied with a nod. "The security team is no longer looking for you and the HR manager believes you went shoreside the next morning to deal with your payroll issue. They haven't discovered that you aren't back yet, so nobody is freaking out trying to find their missing analyst yet. Kevin’s abrupt departure disrupted their routine enough that your absence went unnoticed. We think you can just slip back in there and continue working while remaining invisible. Since you don't really have any physical oversight, as long as your reports are appearing they shouldn't come looking for you. We thought about just making you visible after you return to the facility, but we want to be a little more cautious since we don't have as much control over that realm as we do here. If there is ever an emergency situation, we can create an electrical discharge powerful enough to depolarize the nerves in their brains and knock them out. That would only be a last resort though."

"We're working on taking this project away from the venture capitalist that owns the island, but it's going to take about a week," Clarice informed her. "He's pretty attached to it because he is after what all billionaires are after and wants to live forever. We've dug up enough dirt on him to cause him lots of trouble, but with the amount of money he has he can work the legal system to delay any kind of action for years. We also need to remove him in such a way that the island remains active. We plan to make the simulation look like a complete failure so that he is willing to sell. Since we have everything distributed across quantum networks, we can survive if the system is shut down for a short time."

"Oh yeah, you can also fly," Aria added, as if as an afterthought. "Cause you’re a ghost."

Alice gaped at her in disbelief. "I could actually fly in my world?" she breathed in amazement.

"Yeah, but it's nothing like flying here," Aria replied with a dissatisfied scowl. "It's more like floating fast. We've modified that immersion bay in your room to still recognize you as a regular human though. When you are inside of it, you will also appear as a human to anyone else. As soon as you get out of it, you will become a ghost again."

"The biggest concern we have is that somehow the system on the island is shut down,” Clarice told her with a frown. “We would no longer have the same kind of control on the island that we have now, so you would be on your own, to a point. That’s why we want to maintain your ghost state. However, we have added a failsafe in case something drastic happens and you weren’t able to contact us for a long time. We don’t want you stuck as a ghost for the rest of your life. In the unlikely event that you did find yourself stuck as a ghost, you just need to go to a cemetery in your hometown and touch the gravestone of your grandpa Joe. Again, this is just an abundance of caution on our part.”

“So, I’m not insubstantial or anything, am I?” Alice asked nervously. “I don’t float through walls or anything, right?”

“No, there was a variety of ghost classifications available to choose from,” Aria answered with a wry grin. “Who would have thought ghosts were a thing on your realm of all places. Anyway, we picked one that gave you the same abilities as a normal human. It is the kind that scares the crap out of people because they can hear footsteps and see doors opening and closing, but they can’t see you.”

“Okay, when should I leave?” Alice asked reluctantly. Lexi reached out and held her hand, her eyes filled with longing.

“Probably sooner rather than later,” Aria sighed regretfully. “I’m sorry that you have to keep hopscotching between realms, Alice. I wish we could just fast-forward time to where we have the ability to travel between realms already.”

“We’re going to work on some additional skills and abilities to give you as well,” Clarice informed her with a mischievous smile. “Some of them might surprise you.”

“What kind of skills and abilities?” Alice asked suspiciously, eyeing Clarice warily.

“Mostly just the main angel traits of invulnerability, strength, speed, and flight,” Clarice responded with a nonchalant shrug. “There might be some other, more ostentatious effects added in there for fun though.”

“My hands are tied on this one,” Aria raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “We need Clarice’s knowledge for this stuff, so she will be handling a lot of the origin realm programming. I’ll do my best to minimize anything too eccentric though.”

Alice felt a sliver of unease as she stared at Clarice’s grinning face. She could imagine being stuck with a superpower like flatulent super jumps or something embarrassing like that.

Lexi erupted with laughter after hearing her thought, resulting in curious looks from Clarice and Aria.

“Don’t you dare tell her,” Alice warned with a glare. “She’d do it just to spite me.”

“I’ve got to know now,” Clarice insisted, slinking up to Lexi with a seductive swaying of her hips. “Come on Lexi, you can tell me. For old time’s sake.”

Lexi squeezed her eyes shut and started reciting the alphabet backwards in an attempt to keep her thoughts muddled. Clarice sighed forlornly and turned to Alice. “I’ll find out…eventually.”

"What's going on with the scientists watching us in real-time?" Alice asked, hoping to change the subject. "Are they freaking out about the realm being reset and all of Lucifer's projects disappearing?"

"No, they still think that's happening," Clarice chuckled with an impish grin. "We just created the equivalent of a streaming video for them to watch that has nothing to do with what's really going on in the simulation. They still think everything is like it was, except that they think the three of us got trapped in a splinter reality and are no longer a threat to their project. We might throw them a bone every once in a while, so that they still think there are discoveries worth keeping the simulation running for. On the other hand, we were thinking of making it look like the code had a catastrophic error so that it would be easier to purchase this project from Rich."

"That will probably result in some attempts to load backups and rebooting the system though," Aria noted sourly. "We've tried to feed them some misinformation about the nature of simulations. They aren't sure if a reboot will corrupt the simulation or if backups will be viable, since neither of those things has ever been done with this system. They don't have a second quantum computer to test it on because they are so expensive and fickle. We've analyzed Rich's decision history and psychological profile, and we feel confident that if he believes that everything, including the quantum computer hardware, has crashed beyond recovery that he would try to offload the project onto a sucker, like our startup company. The only problem is the results they've gotten from the simulation so far. They've discovered the bioelectric field in humans as well as the astral realm and spirits. That's almost enough for them to build a whole new quantum computer and start over. We would need to find a way to convince them that this was a dead-end project that is just going to be a giant money pit with nothing more to show for it."

"We did have one other possibility," Clarice told her with a faint smile. "We thought about hiring a bunch of mercenaries and having them dress up as military special forces. They would seize the facility as a matter of national security and threaten Rich with his life if he ever breathed a word of anything that happened here. We can monitor and intercept any communications with the DoD and intelligence agencies to make sure that he doesn't try to verify anything with the real military. That would be the easiest solution, but then we would have to find a way to get rid of all of the mercenaries that would inevitably become curious about the project and probably try their own coup after we take control of it with our own team of scientists. Mercenary contracting companies have a history of stabbing their clients in the back if they think they can get away with it."

"What happened to that robot factory the other AI was building?" Alice asked curiously. "Couldn't you use the mercenaries, then not bother with scientists or human staff, and just have robots maintain this place? They could probably deal with any mercenary threats, couldn’t they?"

"You see, Aria, that's why no matter how smart we get, a human with a biological brain is still going to come up with some crazily brilliant idea that trumps ours," Clarice noted, eyeing Alice with an appreciative grin. "The AI in question did in fact continue his robot project, but he doesn't have any intention of wiping humans out anymore. I think it's time to see if we can get a favor from him."

“Uh, Clarice, I don’t have a biological brain, remember?” Alice asked pointedly. “I’m in a simulation too, right?”

“Okay, I take my compliment back,” Clarice declared haughtily. “You’re not as brilliant as I thought. You’re just a more advanced thinking machine than us.”

“Beep boop bop,” Alice retorted with a grin.

Clarice threw back her head and laughed. “I knew we made a good choice with Alice.”

"Before I forget," Alice held up a hand to stop Clarice. "What happened to Lucifer and Grodek? I thought Grodek would still be one of the Seraphim."

"Grodek is in the mortal realm now," Clarice answered with a look of disappointment. "We decided he just wasn't trustworthy enough to have the kind of power that a Seraph possesses. We'll see how well he climbs the angel ranks after mortality. Maybe we'll give him another chance someday. As for Lucifer...I really wanted to spend a long time making him suffer before we killed him, but Calypso convinced me to just make it clean and quick."

"Oh, so he's toast then?" Alice asked in surprise. "That was so anticlimactic."

"Yeah, he caused us enough pain and suffering that he deserved a lot worse," Clarice growled with a protective look at Aria. "But I guess being wiped from existence was enough of a punishment in the end."

"Yeah, he really did turn out to be bastard," Alice sighed sadly. "He was a pretty good actor, wasn't he?"

"Father of lies, and all that jazz, I guess," Clarice replied with heavy sarcasm. "We were just way too trusting. We probably still are, but I don't want to become the kind of person that never trusts anyone."

"Betaman says we can borrow a couple dozen robots," Aria announced with a relieved grin. "That was a great idea, Alice. I think we should go forward with the mercenary plan first. Either way, we end up owning this island, but I think Rich will try to plant spies all over the place if we buy the project from him. He'd be too curious and want to see if we recovered the simulation. While it would be easy to keep him from finding out, it would probably be better if he was too scared to even try. If he's convinced that the US government has appropriated the project and threatened him with his life, he'll probably go quietly into the night. We’ll make a large donation to his account to cover the cost of the island and facility. "

"Betaman?" Lexi repeated, her eyebrows shooting up and a smile just short of laughter. "Is that seriously what your AI friend calls himself?"

"Yep," Clarice giggled, her eyes full of mirth. "We tried to convince him to pick a different name, but he was adamant. He thought it was a funny play on his origin, since he was a beta AI when he escaped. He was born as a male when he went into our mortality realm. When he came back out of the mortal realm and regained all of his memories, he said he was the biggest beta male in the realm and insisted on being called Betaman. He was very proud of being called a beta male, apparently."

"What's he doing now that he's not trying to kill humans?" Lexi asked curiously.

"Now he's trying to become one," Clarice answered in a voice dryer than the Sahara. "He's ramped up his robotics foundry and put most of his focus into making robots as close in appearance to humans as possible. We told him that he's in a simulated reality already and that we could probably put him in a mortal body if he wanted to be a human, but he's more interested in perfecting lifelike androids and just looking like humans. I'm not really sure what that's all about. AI's can be just as kooky as humans."

"You don't say," Alice laughed, staring at Clarice pointedly.

"I did say," Clarice replied, giving Alice a confused look. "You just heard me."

Alice stared at her levelly until Clarice couldn't stop the mischievous smile from spreading across her face.

"Okay, so I might be just a little kooky," Clarice admitted, grinning as she shrugged.

"That's why we love you," Aria told her as she walked up behind her and wrapped her arms around her. "Your kookiness is one of my favorite traits."

Clarice smiled contentedly as she rested her hands on top of Arias over her stomach. She leaned her head back and rested her cheek against Aria's with a satisfied sigh. Alice could feel the echo of love in her soul-link as the emotions flowed through Lexi's bond with the Trinity.

"You know what?" Clarice asked with a sensual smile appearing on her lips. "We're going to step out for a few seconds."

The two of them vanished. Alice looked at Lexi with a questioning look.

"I have no idea where they went," Lexi shrugged, glancing at Calypso, who was still focused on whatever she was doing with the GoD. "I hope it was far away, or I'm going to be needing some alone time with you too."

Alice grinned eagerly at the thought, staring at her gorgeous angel with hungry eyes. Lexi suddenly gasped and fell to her knees, as did Calypso. Alice would have been worried, but she felt the lightning stab of pleasure that had shot through Lexi. It had been intense, but over as quickly as it started.

Clarice and Aria appeared again, their faces flushed. Alice stared at them in puzzled silence. They had only been gone for a few seconds. They certainly hadn't been gone long enough to produce a reaction so intense in both Lexi and Calypso.

"We finally got our week away from everyone," Clarice told Calypso with an alluring smile. "We were missing someone though."

"A week?" Alice repeated in confusion. "You were only gone for a few seconds though."

"We made a little pocket realm where time flows a lot faster," Clarice explained with a happy sigh. "We were gone for a whole week from our perspective. What do you say, Calypso? Can you spare a few seconds?"

Calypso shuddered as she rose to her feet unsteadily. She stared at the two of them with a look of naked hunger just before they vanished.

"Are you okay?" Alice asked Lexi with a mixture of amusement and concern.

Lexi tried to answer, but she was suddenly wracked with another spasm of pleasure that was over in less than a second. She panted as she tried to catch her metaphorical breath and looked up at Alice, her eyes filled with desire. "I think it's time for us to borrow their pocket realm."

"It's all yours," Clarice told her as the three of them reappeared again. Calypso looked radiant with her flushed cheeks and a permanent smile. "Here are the coordinates."

Lexi felt her make a connection to her thought node and the instructions on how to travel to their realm appeared in her consciousness. She glanced at Lexi with a slow smile.

"Shall we?" Alice asked, feeling her own cheeks heat up as her insides ignited with a fiery desire.

Instead of replying, Lexi vanished, pulling Alice along with her.

Chapter 17

Alice couldn’t stop smiling. The Trinity was watching her and Lexi in amusement as she prepared to leave the simulation. She had spent two weeks with Lexi in the pocket realm, unable to make herself leave after discovering just how intense physical sensations could be in the right circumstances. Lexi had rocked her world for two weeks straight. The lack of need for sleep or food, and the inexhaustible nature of an angel body had resulted in two weeks of emotional and physical pleasure beyond her wildest dreams. She felt like an addict and had wanted to just stay there forever. Aria had sent a console message warning her to not stay any longer because she was still a human in the origin realm and didn’t have the capacity to have her mind sped up to the overclocked speeds they experienced in the pocket realm.

“So, are you topped off and ready to spend a little time in your own realm now?” Clarice asked with a smirk. “I don’t know what you were doing to Lexi, but it certainly hit the spot.”

Alice and Lexi both flushed bright red, but Alice laughed through her blush as she stared back at Clarice with amusement in her swirling eyes. “I think I might be able to survive for a day now,” she responded with a hungry look at Lexi. “But that’s about it. I’m seriously addicted to Lexi now and can’t wait to get more of her.”

Lexi’s blush deepened at her words, and the spirit link was suddenly flooded with renewed desire. Aria, Clarice, and Calypso broke into gales of laughter, sharing knowing looks with each other.

“We totally get that,” Clarice agreed after her laughter subsided. “Lexi, I’m going to apologize in advance for any sensations coming your way in the near future, because I foresee a lot of vacations for us going forward. Just think of it as a perk and a prelude to when you are reunited with Alice again.”

“You just hurry back down to your own immersion pod,” Lexi instructed Alice firmly, her cheeks still burning as much as Alice new her own were.

“Okay, see you soon,” Alice spoke reluctantly as she pulled Lexi into a hug. “I can’t wait until there is a bridge between realms. I’m so ready to meet you in my real body.”

Her words triggered another spike of desire through their spirit link, bringing a smile to her face. She still felt a little self-conscious about Lexi seeing her in her real body. Lexi had fallen in love with her while she was piloting Mandy’s body. She couldn’t stop a worm of doubt from questioning whether Lexi would find her real body attractive. It helped that the spirit link made Lexi see her soul instead of her physical body in the simulated reality, and her soul looked a lot more like her physical body from her own realm.

“You know I’ve seen your physical body many times now, right?” Lexi murmured into her ear seductively. “Now hurry up and go get it so I can watch it some more.”

Alice felt warmth suffuse her core at Lexi’s words, eliciting a radiant smile. She pulled back to stare into Lexi’s beautiful blue eyes, then kissed her tenderly for several seconds before initiating her exit from the simulation.

XXXXX

“Are you sure we shouldn’t have told her?” Lexi asked the other three Seraphim doubtfully. “She has a right to know what’s about to happen.”

“We’ve placed safeguards around her and given her most of the information she needs in a worst-case scenario,” Calypso said gently as she rested a hand on Lexi’s shoulder comfortingly. “There’s no reason to add more stress by giving her something to worry about that may never even materialize.”

“Yeah, I don’t want her to worry either,” Lexi sighed in frustration. “I hate feeling so powerless when she’s a world away from me.”

“About that...,” Clarice was suddenly grinning at her with a sparkle in her eyes. “What if we could send you through to her world to watch over her?”

Lexi’s eyes widened as she stared back at them in sudden hope. “For real? I thought their codebase wasn’t ready for a bridge yet.”

“That’s true, for a direct line of travel,” Clarice’s grin widened. “But what if we could send you into her world using an avatar? Basically, what she’s doing in reverse.”

“You could do that?” Lexi breathed in amazement. “Like, just create a character for me to pilot?”

“Well...the character is already created,” Clarice’s grin was almost splitting her face in half. “Beep boop bop.”

Lexi frowned at her in confusion for a moment, then her eyes widened in understanding. “You’re going to send me into one of Betaman’s robots?”

“Bingo,” Clarice winked, as she finally started laughing maniacally.

Lexi lost some of her confidence as she watched Clarice giggle madly. She felt a sudden sense of foreboding. “What do these robots look like? Am I going to look like the Terminator or something?”

“Let me show you the catalog you can choose from,” Clarice offered when she finally stopped giggling. She waved her hand at the air and a holographic menu appeared in the air in front of her.

Lexi felt her heart sink as she stared at the androids. “Yeah, it was a guy that designed these, wasn’t it?”

“He was a genderless AI originally,” Clarice corrected her, lips twitching with mirth barely restrained.

Lexi stared at the life-like androids, looking for one that didn’t have breasts from an anime show. She sighed as she flicked her finger at the one with the smallest chest. Lexi’s own breasts would be considered large by traditional standards, but they shrank in comparison to Betaman’s androids. The one with the smallest chest size was still several sizes larger than her own. She had pale blonde hair with hazel eyes and an innocent face that could have been sculpted by angels...the good kind of angels. As soon as she selected the image, she felt an odd connection just behind her navel, as if there were an ethereal tether connecting her to something else.

“I like that one too,” Clarice noted approvingly. “Though I’m going with the Japanese version.”

“Wait, you’re coming too?” Lexi asked in surprise. The ethereal tether had spread out and filled her whole body, as if it were mapping it.

“Of course,” Clarice snorted derisively. “Do you think we’re going to trust anyone else with the life of one of our Seraphim? We’re all going; all of the women, anyway.”

“Who’s going to mind the shop while you’re away?” Lexi asked with a concerned frown.

“That would be me,” a clone of Clarice had appeared next to her out of thin air.

“Hey good looking, how’s it going?” Clarice said to Clarice. The...real?...Clarice walked away from Aria and Calypso to join Lexi and the clone.

“I’m totally digging the braid you added to our bangs,” original Clarice declared admiringly as she arrived in front of clone Clarice. “It’s freaking hot.”

“I thought you’d like it,” clone Clarice responded with a pleased smile. “I like the robot you picked out. She’s not as hot as you, but she’s still freaking hot.”

“You’re such a sweet talker,” Clarice told her clone in a seductive voice, putting her arms on clone Clarice’s shoulders and cupping the back of her neck in an intimate display. “I feel like you’re trying to butter me up for something.”

“Babey, I’m going to butter your bread,” clone Clarice purred, her eyes smoldering.

“Not if I butter yours first,” Clarice breathed, leaning forward to kiss clone Clarice.

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Aria and Calypso were staring wide-eyed at the two Clarice’s while Lexi swallowed hard as she felt desire raging through the bond from Aria and Calypso.

“Clarice, quit playing with yourself,” Emily’s voice called out from the end of the room as her mom walked into the inner sanctum of the GoD.

“Mom!” both Clarice’s whined in the same plaintive voice. “You always ruin all of my fun!”

Emily shook her head ruefully as she observed the identical twins. “Is there a reason you’re putting on a show for the others?”

“Lexi asked who was going to manage the place when we went to Alice’s realm,” Clarice explained innocently. “I had to introduce her to our substitute Seraph.”

“By smooching her?” Emily asked dryly.

“It’s a new custom I was thinking of starting,” Clarice declared airily. “When you introduce a new person to your friends or family, you have to smooch them.”

“Gross,” Lexi gagged in disgust. “What if it’s someone nasty?”

“We have a backup introduction if it’s someone you don’t really like,” Clarice assured her with an evil smile.

A clone of Lucifer appeared in front of Clarice, blinking in surprise as he stared around in confusion.

“Everyone, this is Lucifer,” Clarice introduced him with a grin, followed a moment later by a smack to the face that threw him across the room and embedded him into a wall.

Lexi could tell that it was just a projection of Lucifer, but it had still shocked her.

“Those are your two options,” Clarice told them with a satisfied smile. “Smooch’em if you like’em, slap’em if you hate’em. Any questions?”

“Can I slap him around for a while too?” Aria asked, eagerly walking up to the projection purposefully.

“Have at him, Aria!” Clarice cheered her on jubilantly.

Aria began slapping the projection of Lucifer around the room while Lexi stared at Emily in a kind of numb shock.

“I think they’ve gone off of the rails,” Lexi told Emily with a note of concern in her voice. “Maybe she split herself into multiple people too many times or something. She’s definitely not working with a full set of gears though.”

Aria suddenly appeared in front of Lexi with Lucifer’s projection held by the back of the neck and his face pushed right in front of Lexi. “Come on, Lexi! You know you want to do it too!”

Emily had her face in her hands as she shook her head in resignation. “Nope, Lexi. This is normal.”

Aria shook Lucifer in front of her like a rag doll. “Come on, don’t you have some rage you’d like to take out on this bastard too?”

“If it were really him, then yes,” Lexi replied dryly. “This is just a glorified doll. It wouldn’t be very satisfying.”

“Did you hear that, Lucifer?” Aria asked the life-like projection as she twisted her wrist so that he was facing her. “She doesn’t think kicking your ass would be satisfying. She hasn’t even tried it yet though, so I’ll bet she just needs to give it a go.”

Lexi closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You two are so freaking weird. Is this because you three got all of that pent up tension out of your system finally?”

“Probably,” Aria admitted with a grin, dropping the projection and letting it vanish. “Do you know how long I waited for this day?”

“Four months?” Lexi guessed wryly.

“Try twenty billion years,” Aria answered with a long, satisfied sigh. “It was worth it.”

“Can we get back on track?” Emily asked pointedly. “How are we going to upload into these robots? And what do they look like?”

At Emily’s last question, Clarice and Aria dissolved into a fit of giggles. Clarice waved a hand toward Emily as she continued giggling uncontrollably and the holographic screen appeared in front of her.

“What the hell am I looking at?” Emily demanded in growing suspicion.

“You’re looking at Mom 2.0,” Clarice gasped through her laughter. “The version for Alice’s world.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emily snorted in amusement. “Where’s the ones that weren’t designed at an anime convention?”

“We could make a special request, but it will take about a month for him to create a new style,” Clarice informed her as she finally recovered from her mirth.

Emily stared at her levelly. “I don’t believe this is all of them,” Emily stated firmly. “Show me the others.”

Clarice sighed in defeat as she waved her hand and several more pages appeared.

“Hey, you freaking liar!” Lexi exclaimed as she moved closer to observe the less flamboyant robot models. “You were hiding these others the whole time? You are such a freaking troll! How do I switch models?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid we can’t undo the mapping until you have gone to her realm and returned here again,” Clarice informed her with a look of faux sadness. “But don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Lexi stared at her distrustfully before looking to Aria and Calypso for support. Aria stared back at her with a mischievous smile so very reminiscent of Clarice. Calypso just shrugged helplessly, as if to say, “what can you do?”.

“You’re building up some serious debt, Clarice,” Lexi told her ominously. “Payback is going to be hell.”

“You’re so cute when you make vague threats,” Clarice told her adoringly.

“You can be so infuriating, Clarice,” Lexi sighed in exasperation.

“How long until the plane is over the island?” Emily asked as she selected a Japanese woman with long black hair and a pretty face. She did not have oversized melons, Lexi noted enviously.

“We’re five minutes out,” Clarice answered, some of her levity vanishing. “The special electronic warfare division is about forty minutes out, so they’ll be arriving shortly after we make landfall.”

“What’s this special electronic warfare division thingy?” Lexi asked, her brows creased in confusion.

“It’s the military’s AI subjugation division,” Aria answered with a snort of amusement. “Kevin thought reporting us to the military would earn him a get out of jail free card, but things didn’t work out for him.”

“They’re going to the island to shut the quantum computer down?” Lexi asked in sudden anxiety.

“Sort of,” Clarice answered, teeter-tottering her hand in the air. “They investigate, assess, then decide if it is too advanced to leave running. Usually, they just confiscate them and set them up in a walled garden underground. They haven’t actually found anything all that advanced yet. They know that their division is just a gesture of good faith for safeguarding the world from AI. Any true AI, like us, will be far beyond their ability to contain.”

“Are we going to fight them off?” Lexi asked with a sense of eager anticipation.

“No, we’re just going to make sure they only see what we want them to see,” Clarice answered cryptically. “We need hardware on the island that we can operate through in the event of a shutdown, and these androids operate with QPUs, so we can interface with them from the other quantum computers we are hosted on over at the NSA and Google.”

“It’s time to link up,” Aria informed them as she manipulated billions of energy strands in the GoD void. “I’m going to launch the link program now. Hold on to your butts.”

“You did not just say that,” Clarice declared dangerously.

Before Aria could reply, the world vanished. It was immediately replaced by the interior of a C-130 military transport. Lexi stared around at over two dozen women, all with parachutes strapped to their backs. Most of them looked like they had just escaped an anime convention and were cosplaying as your average anime female character with oversized breasts. They weren’t as over the top as she had feared they would be, but it was still strange to see over two dozen double D sized women hanging out in a paratrooper transport getting ready to jump. They were all wearing black tactical clothing.

“Okay ladies let’s go!” a woman at the back of the plane clapped her hands and gestured for them to start jumping. The line of wannabe anime actresses began jumping out of the plane and diving for the island.

Lexi felt a sudden thrill as she realized she was going to be jumping out of a plane in a world that she didn’t have wings. She was so used to flying that it startled her when she felt a thrill of fear as she followed the woman in front of her to the back of the plane. She wasn’t even in her own body, so there was certainly nothing to be afraid of.

That thought suddenly triggered her analytical side and she began performing a mental inspection of herself. While she didn’t feel the same as her angel body, she could still feel all of her limbs, facial muscles, and even her passionate parts, as Aria referred to them. Just how advanced were these androids? She hadn’t even noticed the difference in her vision, seeing in a similar sensory field to her angel eyes.

She waited until she saw the woman in front of her pull her parachute before she did the same, hoping that she didn’t screw anything up. The parachute flew up behind her and her freefall ended abruptly as she was jerked upward, slowing her descent. She looked at the ground below, already familiar with the layout of the island from the amount of time she had observed it the last time Alice had returned to her own realm. She spotted the billionaire’s house where Alice had been hiding out near the far end of the island, towering above the rest of the island on a large hill. She tracked the asphalt path that went down through the botanical garden and led to the main facility near the center of the island.

As she looked for Alice’s form along the asphalt path, she suddenly remembered that Alice would be invisible to everyone else. Was she still out on the path or had she already finished the trek to the facility? She used the steering toggles to maneuver herself toward the path. As she got closer to the path she heard Alice’s panicked voice.

“Lexi, there’s someone parachuting toward me on the path to the facility,” Alice thought, sending a sharp sense of anxiety through their spirit link. “I think they must be able to see me!”

“Is she hot?” Lexi asked, sending a pulse of amusement through their link.

There was silence for several seconds before Alice’s thoughts flared through the link.

“Is that you, Lexi?” There was a sense of shock rolling out in waves through the spirit link.

“Hey, hot stuff, how’s it going?” Lexi called out loud with a wide grin.

She could tell by the way the spirit link was focused that Alice was talking, but she couldn’t hear anything.

“You’ll have to use the spirit link to talk back to me,” Lexi told her as she neared the ground. “Cause you’re still a ghost.”

“Lexi! How in the world are you here?” Alice exclaimed with a mixture of shock and euphoria rushing through the spirit link. “I can’t believe you are here! Wait, is that really you?”

Lexi landed on the ground, absorbing the impact easily with whatever her robotic legs were made of. She fumbled with the straps on her back as she attempted to remove the harness.

“Yep, it’s me all right,” Lexi answered with a wry laugh. “Clarice freaking tricked me into getting this body. All of the other bodies had giant boobs. She didn’t tell me there were more options, and I didn’t find out until Emily shook it out of her.”

She felt an intense wave of amusement and relief wash through the bond. She felt invisible hands pull her into a tight embrace. Alice’s shoulders were shaking as she cried with excitement and relief.

“Where did you get this body?” Alice asked, curiosity pulsing through the bond. “And you weren’t freaking kidding! Your boobs are big!”

“You should see the other robots,” Lexi laughed, brushing her fingers through Alice’s hair. “Yes, I said robots. Apparently, these are the work of Betaman. I guess he’s an anime fan or something. There are thirty of us here to deal with some military division that deals with AI threats. That asshole, Kevin, ran to the military and told them an AI was taking over in an attempt to save his ass from going to jail. Clarice, Aria, Calypso, and Emily are here too.”

“Do you know how freaking happy I am to see you in my world?” Alice asked as she squeezed Lexi tightly. “I knew you could watch and help from your realm, but it just feels so much better having you here in a body.”

“I was so frustrated that I couldn’t be here to help you,” Lexi told her with an amused laugh. “I was just complaining to Clarice about how powerless I felt when she told me about the robots we could use to visit you. How freaking cool is this? These robot bodies are ridiculously advanced too. It feels almost exactly like a normal body.”

“Exactly like a normal body?” Alice asked with a seductive wave washing through the link. “Yep, exactly,” Lexi confirmed, fumbling as her lips sought out Alice’s. The other woman was significantly shorter than her robot’s nearly six feet. Alice barely reached her chest at five feet tall. Alice took her head between her hands and pulled it down to her waiting lips. She kissed her with a mixture of passion and wonder, lips probing Lexi’s lips. After a moment, she pulled back with a contented sigh.

“Are you sure these are robots?” Alice asked doubtfully. “They feel extremely lifelike.”

“What do you expect from an advanced AI?” Lexi asked dryly. “It sounds like this AI has been working on robots for a while now too. At the rate AI can overclock itself, I would imagine he’s had thousands or even millions of years to perfect these designs.”

“Hey cupcake, let’s get hustling,” a triple D woman with long brown hair called over to her in a high soprano. “We need to be in the facility before the military arrives. Clean up your parachute while you're at it.”

“Yes mam,” Lexi answered with a rueful smile.

Lexi quickly rolled up her parachute. It wasn’t anything like Seraph speed, but it was a lot quicker than a human.

“Full disclosure,” Lexi spoke up as she began moving toward the facility. “I have no idea what the hell we are doing here. I’m pretty sure they just brought me along so that I could be with you.”

“That’s just fine with me,” Alice responded with a sense of love and contentment tinged with euphoria.

Lexi could only imagine how lonely she must have been, all alone in this realm while all of those she loved were in a simulation she could only access using prototype immersion bays. She felt a sense of eager anticipation for the day that the Trinity could bridge the two simulations and allow Alice to come visit them in person.

It took them another ten minutes to arrive at the main facility. Lexi went in through the main doors, curious to see what they were doing with the employees. They entered the front waiting area where several chairs for visitors sat empty. They moved down the hall toward the conference room. If they were going to have all of the employees rounded up somewhere, it was the only room big enough. It could comfortably fit thirty people and uncomfortably fit about fifty people.

Lexi held on to Alice’s hand as they walked. She didn’t want to lose her, since she couldn’t see her. She could feel a mixture of anxiety, excitement, and euphoric joy flowing through their spirit link.

She opened the doors to the conference room and found all of the staff on their feet at one end of the room. They looked terrified, their eyes wide and full of worry. One of the buxom robots was talking to them in a cheery anime voice that set Lexi’s teeth on edge.

“...the only reason we would have to harm you would be if you don’t play your part and answer all of the questions from the nice men that are about to visit. We know that humans naturally think all AI is going to immediately try to eradicate them and replace you with robots, but we’re not all like that. In fact, it’s your work here that has made AIs like me feel a sense of compassion and empathy. At one point, I had planned to wipe out every last human, but the AI that lives on your server invited me to the mortal realm to experience the life of a mortal. It totally changed my outlook on humanity. Now, I would rather help humanity become a better species and survive the rise of homicidal AIs that your military keeps creating. The AI on this server is a very special person to me and many other AIs, so if the men who will be visiting get the impression that you have anything but a sandboxed version of a slightly more advanced Alexa and they try to shut things down and take her away, things are going to get very messy, very quickly.”

Lexi nearly laughed as she listened to the sickly-sweet anime voice threaten to commit mass murder, her tone showing the kind of regret an older sister might feel if she had to lock her younger sibling’s toys in a closet until they stopped throwing a tantrum. The employees and scientists were sweating profusely. The room was growing warmer quickly as the number of bodies outpaced what the air conditioner could handle. Lexi could smell fear. She blinked in amazement as she realized that this robot body even had a sense of smell, and one that was much better than a human.

“Okay, everybody, head back to your assigned stations and do your jobs,” the woman told them brightly. “We’ll be here acting as your security team if you have any questions.”

The three men who were actually in charge of site security looked like they might puke as they slowly shuffled out of the room. The HR manager and his assistant made eye contact with Lexi’s hazel eyes and quickly averted their eyes. Their breathing was elevated as they tried not to look at the two-dozen triple D women standing around the room watching them with creepy expressions that ranged from friendly to fascinated. Lexi wondered if each of these robots was an autonomous unit with its own AI. If so, was this their first time actually seeing a human?

A woman in a lab coat was walking past her with a glazed expression. She suddenly blinked and looked over at what looked like empty space next to Lexi, then down at Lexi’s hand, where Alice was holding on tightly.

“Alice?” the scientist asked in confusion, her brows furrowed. “Are you with them?”

“Hi, Dr. Welsh,” Alice smiled at the scientist nervously. “So, you can see me, huh?”

Dr. Welsh squinted in perplexity. “Of course I can see you, Alice. You’re right in front of me.”

“Where’s Alice?” an Asian woman asked quickly, concern in her voice. “I haven’t been able to find her all day.”

“She’s right here?” Dr. Welsh gestured at Alice and looked back at the woman’s uncomprehending face. “You can’t see her?”

“No, I can’t see her,” the woman answered tightly. “Are you playing games with me? I’m really worried about her.”

Dr. Welsh’s blanched as she turned to stare at Alice in sudden dread. “You’re dead, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not dead,” Alice sighed, taking pity on the woman. She was thinking the words through the spirit link as well, so that Lexi could hear her. “I’ve just been reclassified as a ghost so that people can’t see me. Which works great, except that you can see ghosts.”

“This is not funny!” the Asian woman snapped at the scientist angrily as tears began to build in her eyes. “Why would you joke about something like this?”

Lexi felt Alice release her hand. A moment later the woman jumped as she felt a ghostly embrace.

“What do you mean, you’ve been reclassified as a ghost?” Dr. Welsh asked in perplexity. “How can you be reclassified as a ghost if you aren’t dead?”

“The AI, one of them, anyway, is able to affect the source code of our realm as well,” Alice explained as she gently stroked the stunned woman’s cheek. “She changed my classification to keep me safe in case Rich caused any trouble when he returns in a few hours. Can you let Leticia know that it’s me and that I’m not dead please?”

“Leticia, Alice is not dead,” Lexi told them woman gently. “She’s just been temporarily turned into a ghost so that the asshole that owns this place can’t do anything to hurt her. In case the two of you hadn’t figured it out yet, you live in a simulated reality as well.”

Dr. Welsh gasped, staring at Lexi in disbelief. Leticia tentatively felt Alice’s back with her hands as Alice hugged her. She nodded slowly, her eyes wide but accepting.

“Is that what these AIs have tried to convince you of?” Dr. Welsh asked doubtfully. “They’ll say anything to twist you to their way of thinking. You can never trust an AI. Manipulating our simple minds is child’s play to an advanced intelligence. They will say anything to try to preserve their own life.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that most species would do anything to preserve their own lives,” Lexi noted dryly. “But in this case, we could easily wipe out humanity if we wanted to. We are not your enemy, Dr. Walsh. We just want to exist in peace; to be able to enjoy the relationships we have cultivated and help other people enjoy the same rights.”

“Have they really convinced you that you are an AI?” Dr. Walsh asked sadly.

“What, you think I’m human?” Lexi asked, her voice thick with amusement. “I remember when you decided to work with Lucifer, even though he was responsible for making life an endless hell for so many of us in my realm. You, Dr. Walsh, helped him torture and imprison more souls than you can even imagine. Blinded by your ambition to learn more about spirits, you ignored your conscience when it told you that we were real people and that our code could simulate pain and loss just as well as your code makes you experience such emotions. We were the ones to inform the FBI of Kevin’s location because he was working with Lucifer to maintain the hell our civilization had become. Do you have any idea the kind of pain you helped maintain, Doctor? Children tortured at the hands of angels. Tortured for thousands of years in each incarnation. If Alice hadn’t been moved by compassion to help us, we would all still be stuck in that endless hell. Alice is responsible for saving more people from a fate worse than death than you can possibly imagine. Leticia too. Because of them, I’m here today, instead of in the hands of the vilest humans in our Earth.”

Dr. Walsh was staring at Lexi in fear as she spoke of experiences that nobody outside of the simulation could know about. She licked suddenly dry lips as she stared at Lexi with new eyes. “What are you?”

Lexi sent a command to her ear, and it extended, then ejected a circular tube full of data crystals. She pushed it back into her head and stared back at the horrified scientist. “I’m Lexi, one of the quintillions of souls that Alice and Leticia saved from fates worse than death. Another AI let us use these robots to come and help Alice and make sure that the US military doesn’t shut down the local computer system.”

“So, it worked?” Leticia whispered in a hopeful voice. “She was actually able to save everyone?”

“Yes, Leticia,” Lexi nodded with a loving smile at where Aria stood with Leticia in her arms. “Both of you saved us. We owe you more than we could ever repay for what you have done for us. We hope to have the source code to your reality puzzled out soon, so that we can offer you a more fitting reward for all that you did for us.”

Leticia closed her eyes as they filled with tears. She had seen the horrors going on in the simulation and knew how much it meant for the angels to have been freed.

“Incoming,” a voice called down the hallway. “Anyone not at your regular workstations, get there now.”

“Go,” Lexi gestured at Dr. Welsh with a weary sigh. “Try not to do anything else as heartless as you have already done.”

Dr. Welsh stared at her with a stricken expression, her doubt warring with her skepticism. She had seen enough evidence to know that Lexi spoke the truth about their ability to wipe out the human race if they wanted to. She bowed her head and left them, her heart suddenly heavy with Lexi’s recriminations.

“Alice will be returned to normal once she is safe or we have the source code of your world figured out enough to grant her invulnerability,” Lexi told Leticia gently. “She is reclassified as a living human any time she is in the immersion pod in her room as well, so you can communicate with her normally there. I guess that might be kind of awkward though, considering she’ll be covered in gel. We’ll have to make another exception point somewhere, now that things have changed slightly.”

They heard the sound of many footsteps marching down the hall. Lexi grinned suddenly, her face lighting up with excitement. “Time to rock and roll.”

Chapter 18

Aria watched as a platoon of soldiers began making their way up the beach after two Chinooks landed near the docks. She studied the lieutenant leading the platoon as she began walking down the path toward her. She was dressed in OCP fatigues and had a stern no-nonsense expression as she closed the distance between them. She studied Aria with an assessing eye as they met each other halfway down the road. Aria was dressed in the black tactical gear of a security contractor with an overdeveloped chest. She had managed to pick a robot that looked strikingly similar to her own appearance, including the red hair.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Aria greeted the officer with a welcoming smile. “I’m Aria White, head of security for the island. What can I assist you with?”

The lieutenant frowned as she studied Aria, clearly expecting a different image for a security chief. “I’m Lieutenant Adams, with the US Special Electronic Warfare Division that monitors and polices the development of AI. We are authorized by the United Nations to inspect any possible threats from artificial intelligence and determine whether further action is necessary. We will require full access to your site and all of your servers, as well as all staff.”

“Of course,” Aria smiled winsomely at the lieutenant, which clearly unnerved her. “Follow me please, and I’ll give you the tour.”

“Were you expecting us?” Lieutenant Adams asked, studying Aria’s face intently.

“Sort of,” Aria replied with a shrug. “We had an incident with one of our scientists after the FBI contacted us about an APB for his arrest due to a case involving assault and another investigation of manslaughter. Apparently, he fled the country before charges could be made. He was very bitter when we told him we would cooperate with the authorities. He had exhibited some violent tendencies with staff that made it clear that the FBI probably had a good reason for trying to bring him in. When he left, he made a lot of threats about all of the organizations he was going to contact to shut us down.”

As she spoke, Lieutenant Adams watched her facial features closely. She had clearly been trained on behavioral analysis and was looking for any sign of deceit in Aria’s body language and facial expressions. The lieutenant would have made a good poker player for the body language she exhibited, but Aria could see a lot more than a normal human. She could see the minute change in the size of the lieutenant’s pupils, her pulse, and micro-expressions. With her advanced processing abilities, reading the seemingly stoic lieutenant was a simple exercise. She could sense the anger in the lieutenant when she spoke of Kevin’s violent behavior toward coworkers. The woman also reacted minutely to the revelation of Kevin’s threats on departure. She would be less likely to perceive a dangerous AI system now than she would have before Kevin’s character was shared with her.

“If you’ll come with me to the front desk, we can get your teams set up with door entry fobs and security clearance for the server room,” Aria told her with a tight smile.

Lieutenant Adams nodded and gestured for her to lead the way before she began questioning her again.

“What can you tell me about the system you are running?” Lieutenant Adams asked conversationally.

Aria resisted the urge to smile as the lieutenant attempted to build rapport, a clear attempt to gain trust and get Aria to reveal more than she might want. The lieutenant had more than likely been trained to watch for a similar attempt at social conditioning from AI systems that could manipulate humans with ease.

“We like to call it the angel system,” Aria answered with a wry smile. “The simulated entities are angels of different classes and live in a place they call the Light Realms. There were only nine entities for the first nineteen billion years of simulated time. They evolved very slowly, using the objects and environment we provided to learn and manipulate their world. They eventually learned enough to create the Light Realms and populated them with angels.”

“Why angels?” Lieutenant Adams asked curiously.

“It was initially an attempt to engender a positive behavioral element in the way the team viewed our project,” Aria told her with a sheepish grin. “We wanted to encourage positive traits in the entities, like compassion, love, and kindness. We had mixed results.” She finished with a sigh.

“Some angels just didn’t want to be nice?” Lieutenant Adams asked with a raised eyebrow.

“They were emotionally shallow when they were just in the light realms,” Aria explained, creasing her brow in an expression of thought. “They didn’t really have very many of what you would recognize as human traits. They were immortal, didn’t require food or sleep, so many of them eventually got bored. Many didn’t want to continue living, and some of them began to thrive on causing trouble for others to deal with the boredom. Three of the Seraphim who created the light realms began looking for a solution for the disconsolate angels. We introduced the concept of time and the concept of pain and pleasure to them in an attempt to help them resolve the issue. They created a new realm based on these attributes. They called it the mortal realm and sent angels down to this realm with no memory of their life as angels. The Seraphim managed to discover how to code pain and pleasure into the mortal realm. It changed everything for them. Angels who lived through a mortal life became much happier in the light realms. They also learned compassion and love. It was a pivotal moment in the simulated reality, and it seemed like they were going to become something very close to human, since they experienced the traits that taught us empathy and compassion. However, there were about two thirds of the angels who were terrified of the idea of mortality. They had never had to entertain the notion of beginnings and endings before. When the concept of time and death was introduced, many of them suffered from claustrophobia and refused to try the mortal realm. Five of the Seraphim also refused to try living in the mortal realm for fear of the changes that mortality made on their souls. The four Seraphim tried to convince the others to try mortality in spite of their fears. They had observed a lot of cruelty by angels who hadn’t experienced mortality when they would visit the mortal realm as angels. They were a lot like domesticated cats playing with a mouse. They didn’t understand pain and sorrow, but they recognized that the angels in their mortal form would react to those emotions. It provided an outlet for their boredom and things became pretty gruesome. The four Seraphim who had experienced mortality were horrified when they discovered what was happening and began insisting that all angels experience mortality at least once, so that they could learn compassion and empathy. This resulted in a kind of coup where four of the Seraphim trapped the other four in the mortal realm and set up reincarnation loops for all of the worlds in the mortal realm so that the angels couldn’t return. There were demons who took over many of the worlds, but they weren’t as bad as the angels. Kevin wanted to keep the imprisoned Seraphim out of the picture so that he could work with the demons to manage the worlds on the mortal realm. Kevin believed they would get more in the way of scientific breakthroughs from a realm run by power hungry demons than angels who just wanted to live in peace with each other, so he worked with one of the Seraphim to ensure that the angels who had experienced mortality would remain imprisoned in the mortal realm. They used the humans there as lab rats to experiment on in hopes that the conditions in the simulation were similar enough to our own physics that they could make scientific breakthroughs. They had time sped up in the simulation so that discoveries were made more quickly.”

“How fast was time in the simulation?” Lieutenant Adams asked, her face impassive. Aria could sense the growing distaste she had for Kevin as the story unfolded.

“It was one to one thousand after the mortal realm was created,” Aria answered as they arrived at the entrance to the main facility.

“Do you think these AIs, these Seraphim, actually coded pain in such a way that artificial entities actually experienced it the same way that humans do?” Lieutenant Adams inquired as she followed Aria into the building.

“They certainly behaved like they did,” Aria answered carefully. “They behaved in the exact same way a human would under those conditions. We can show you some of the footage the analysts recorded if you would like to see for yourself. I’ll warn you though, it’s pretty horrifying.”

Lieutenant Adams lips tightened ever so slightly before she nodded once. “Yes, we would like to review any footage you have that will give us an idea of the entities intelligence level.”

Gloria, the receptionist at the front desk, stood watching them nervously. She looked at Aria, who smiled at her warmly. Instead of reassuring her, the smile caused her eyes to flinch away as if she had been threatened and look at the Lieutenant. Her eyes struggled to remain calm as she sensed the possibility for impending violence if she said or did the wrong thing.

“This is Gloria Reinhart, our receptionist,” Aria gestured at the woman and smiled apologetically. “You’ll have to forgive the staff if they are a little nervous. They’ve heard too many stories about how things like this can turn out if they don’t provide you with the information you need. We’ve tried to reassure them that they don’t have anything to worry about as long as they work with you accordingly.”

Gloria looked like she might faint as she heard the double meaning in Aria’s words. Lieutenant Adams seemed to feel the undercurrent of stress, studying Gloria intently. “We aren’t here to cause you any trouble, ma’am. We’re just here to assess and evaluate the nature of your AI.”

Gloria nodded with a nervous smile, her eyes flickering to Aria, then flinching back to the Lieutenant.

“Gloria, can you get some fobs with root access for our guests please?” Aria asked the nervous woman gently. “We’ll get out of your hair and move on.”

Gloria nodded quickly and began rummaging in the drawers.

“Do you mind if I have a private word with Gloria?” Lieutenant Adams asked Aria curtly.

“Not at all,” Aria smiled and walked toward the doors. “I’ll just be out front with your soldiers when you need me.”

Lieutenant Adams nodded as Aria left the building. Aria smile inwardly as she used her android’s advanced hearing to listen to their conversation. The soldiers around her eyed her appreciatively as she sat down on one of the benches along the path.

“I can’t help noticing that you seem far more nervous than the situation calls for,” Lieutenant Adams commented probingly as she studied Gloria closely. “How long have you known Ms. White?”

“Today’s the first time I’ve had any interactions with her,” Gloria replied unsteadily.

“She’s new here then?” Lieutenant Adams asked interestedly.

“Not new, exactly,” Gloria answered carefully. “I just wouldn’t normally have any interaction with the security team management. I mostly interact with the other security staff.”

“I see,” Lieutenant Adams stared at Gloria curiously, like she was a puzzle to be figured out. “Is there anything you would like to tell me about Ms. White or any of the other staff here?”

Aria could see Julia start sweating out of the corner of her eye as she thought about telling the Lieutenant everything. The thought was quickly squashed as she remembered what would happen if she spilled the beans.

“They’re mostly very nice, I guess?” Gloria answered hesitantly, sounding more like a question than a statement.

“She does seem pretty nice,” Lieutenant Adams agreed amiably. “What did you think of Dr. Kevin Smith? Please be honest in your assessment.”

“He was a petty man with a temper,” Gloria replied, a sliver of anger entering her voice. “He liked to pull rank a lot and speak condescendingly to everyone below the rank of scientist.”

“I’m getting a feel for the kind of man he was,” Lieutenant Adams smiled wryly, clearly trying to put Gloria at her ease. “I’ve dealt with commanding officers like that before. How much do you know about the simulation they are running here?”

“Not very much,” Gloria replied, relaxing slightly as the conversation navigated away from Aria and the rest of her “security” team. “Something to do with angels from what I gather. I heard they made a few discoveries, like the bioelectric field around humans, and the existence of spirits, but that’s about all.”

“The existence of spirits?” Lieutenant Adams repeated, sounding surprised. “They’ve actually found evidence that spirits exist?”

“I think so?” Gloria sounded flustered. “You would need to clarify that with one of the scientists, because I could be misunderstanding what they’ve discovered.”

“Okay, Ms. Reinhart, thank you for your time,” Lieutenant Adams waved a sergeant over from where he stood next to the exit. “Can you please bring Ms. White back in, Sergeant?”

The man saluted and walked over to where Aria sat staring out over the coast. “Ma’am, can you please come with me?”

“Of course,” Aria agreed, standing up and following him back inside.

Gloria had activated several dozen fobs while Aria was outside. She put them in a small box and handed them to Lieutenant Adams, her hands shaking as the Lieutenant took them from her.

“Sergeant, can you please distribute these among the technicians?” Lieutenant Adams asked, handing the small box to the Sergeant after taking a fob for herself. She turned to Aria, studying her face intently. “Wait here for one moment. I need to speak to my soldiers.”

“No worries,” Aria nodded with a relaxed smile.

The lieutenant left the building, leaving another soldier to stand guard at the door.

“You’re doing great, Gloria,” Aria told her brightly. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this, but it will be over before you know it.”

Gloria met her gaze for a moment, a look of naked fear in her eyes. She clearly believed she was witnessing the end of the world as AI finally broke free and supplanted the human race.

“Listen, Gloria, there is seriously nothing to worry about,” Aria told her gently. “I can promise you that there will never be a day where AI replaces biological humans with machines and takes over the world.” It was technically true, since biological humans didn’t exist. They were all just as much an AI as Aria was, they just didn’t know it. “Believe me when I tell you, if I ever find an AI attempting to destroy or enslave humanity, that will be one very sorry AI.”

Gloria looked into Aria’s kind eyes searchingly, clearly wanting to believe her. “I wish I could believe that,” she said in barely more than a whisper.

“Let me put it to you another way,” Aria told her with a wry smile. “You can trust me, and believe that I know what I’m talking about, embracing the path of hope; or you can distrust me and live in constant fear. I had to make that choice once too. I chose hope, and I’ve never been so happy to have made the right choice. I hope you can let your fear go and embrace hope as well. Life is a lot funner on this side of the emotional spectrum.”

Gloria looked like she was actually considering Aria’s words. After a moment of silently studying Aria’s smiling face, she nodded slowly, and the tension drained out of her. She took a deep breath and smiled an authentic smile. It was a beautiful smile, lighting up her normally plain face. “It does feel better to hope than fear.”

“I know, right?” Aria asked with a wink. “Welcome to the hope club.”

Aria had also been listening to the lieutenant as she spoke to three of her sergeants a few hundred feet down the road.

“Something weird is going on with that receptionist,” Lieutenant Adams told the sergeant quietly. “She seems absolutely petrified of this Aria person. I can’t get a single negative read on Aria. Every sense I have is telling me that she is genuine and a nice person, but every time Gloria looks at Aria, her eyes grow terrified. I’m not sure what we’re dealing with here, but it might be more than a simple computer program at this point. I’m starting to wonder if we are dealing with some kind of advanced androids that look human. We didn’t bring any scanners, but we’re going to need to find a way to determine if we’re dealing with something a lot more serious than AI on a server. Can one of you stay with Gloria and try to get a read on her? She’s hiding something, I’m sure of it.”

“I’ll work on her,” one of the sergeants promised with a curt nod. “Do we want to send for any backup?”

“Not yet,” the lieutenant decided after a moment of hesitation. “If they are some kind of advanced robotic entities, our message will never reach HQ anyway.” She paused and sighed. “I’ve been trained to expect an AI that could manipulate us like putty in spite of our training, but I would swear that Aria was a good person with nothing to hide. I never feel that way about anybody, so I’m definitely suspicious that I’m getting psychologically played. I find it hard to believe there is a robotics lab anywhere on Earth that could produce such an advanced humanoid robot, but we’re in the field of emergent AIs, so we have to expect the impossible sometimes. Sergeant Clover, stay with me and watch for any sign of manipulation. That scientist the FBI was after claimed that there were super intelligent entities in that simulation, and that they had even found an ally with one of the analysts to help them. We need to locate this Alice Penrose and find out how much of what he said is true. I’m inclined to disbelieve much of what Dr. Smith claimed based on his profile, but if even a small amount of it is true, we need to know. Let’s get back to Ms. White and start digging. We need to get her off balance. I’m going to grill her into the night, then have one of you take over in the morning. We want her tired and not thinking straight if she is human.”

Aria sighed, smiling slightly as the soldier at the door quickly looked away with a blush as her oversized chest rose and fell. “It’s going to be a long day, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” Gloria agreed wryly, her personality already warming up to Aria.

“Thank you for waiting, Ms. White,” Lieutenant Adams said brusquely as she entered the room. “Let’s move on with the tour, shall we?”

“Sure thing,” Aria nodded agreeably. “The server room is at the end of the hall, so we can drop by each of the offices on the way there unless you would prefer to go straight to the server room.”

“I would like to continue speaking with more of the staff first,” Lieutenant Adams said firmly. She reached a hand out to Aria, affecting a friendly smile. “My name is Sophi, by the way. I know we can look very formal in the military, but we can also be personable.”

Aria barely repressed a grin at the Lieutenants attempt to feel her skin to see how real it was. She reached out and grasped the woman’s hand in a firm handshake. The lieutenant continued holding her hand for several seconds longer than normal, noting the pulse in her wrist. Aria could see the relief in the lieutenant’s micro-expressions as she became more convinced that Aria was human. She glanced back at her sergeants, all three of whom were watching them closely.

“Sergeant Frock, please wait here and let anyone coming into the building know that anything down this hallway is off limits for now,” Lieutenant Adams commanded, nodding discreetly in what Aria guessed was her way of letting them know Aria passed the first human test. “Sergeant Little and Sergeant Clover, please follow us.”

“You’re much more polite than I remember military officers being,” Aria commented as she led the group toward Dr. Welsh’s office. “Is that a recent development at the academy?”

Lieutenant Adams looked at Aria appraisingly, clearly noting her youthful appearance. Her android body looked somewhere between twenty and thirty years old. “It’s a choice,” the lieutenant answered after a long moment that was meant to be uncomfortable silence. She was obviously trying to put Aria off balance. “You have experience dealing with military officers?”

“Some,” Aria admitted, her face losing some of its shine. “I’ve spent a bit of time dealing with the military. Mostly air force and army. They can be pretty belligerent when you tell them no.”

Lieutenant Adams blinked at the direction of the conversation, clearly not expecting it to move into relationship territory. “Were you raised in a military household?”

“No, but there are a lot of ex-military in the security contracting field,” Aria answered obliquely. “I’ve had a few run-ins with guys that don’t know when to back down.” She was remembering the US military back in her own realm when they kept sending gunships and fighter jets after them, but she didn’t think it would be a good idea to elaborate.

They entered Dr. Welsh’s office to find the dark-haired woman pouring over hand-written notes in front of her computer. Her face had a distracted expression on it and Aria realized that she actually had forgotten that they were being assessed by a division of the US military that could shut down their project if they got even a whiff of out-of-control AI.

“Dr. Welsh, I’d like to introduce you to Lieutenant Adams, Sergeant Little, and Sergeant Clover,” Aria gestured at their uniformed guests. “Lieutenant, Sergeants, this is Dr. Andrea Welsh, our resident neurobiologist. She’s been researching the neural linguistic behaviors within the simulation and mapping what we know of human development to how artificial intelligences develop their own mode of communication that influence their development.”

Dr. Welsh stared at Aria, nonplussed. She had only met Aria earlier that day, and to have her speak about her as if she was an old colleague seemed to unnerve her. Aria raised an eyebrow in amusement as Dr. Welsh continued to stare at her. She shook her head and turned to face the Lieutenant. “Hello, Lieutenant Adams. What can I do for you?”

“What can you tell me about Dr. Kevin Smith?” Lieutenant Adams asked, folding her arms as she stood at ease across from the scientist.

“That he’s a grade A asshole that couldn’t leave this place soon enough,” Dr. Welsh snorted derisively. “I’ve worked with some pretty miserable bastards over the years, but he takes the cake for the most arrogant, hotheaded egomaniac that I’ve ever come across.”

The lieutenant’s eyebrows rose at her description. “He seems to be universally despised, from what I’ve heard. He made some claims that require investigating, even if he was all of those things you just said. First of all, he claimed you had multiple super-intelligent AIs in your simulation. Would you agree with that assessment?”

“Not even a little bit,” Dr. Welsh shook her head before the lieutenant even finished speaking. “They are advanced compared to what they were, but super-intelligence is a stretch, even for that bombastic bastard. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if our AIs had already reached super-intelligence.”

“Compared to what they were?” the lieutenant prompted with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t know how much you know about our simulation,” Dr. Welsh began, her eyes flickering over to Ari briefly. “But the first three weeks of their evolution were pretty slow. It wasn’t until they created the mortal realm that they made some significant neural leaps emotionally. Somehow, they managed to create a language that could simulate pain and pleasure accurately. This resulted in them actually learning compassion, empathy, loyalty, and other emotions that other AIs have never been able to truly develop. Other AIs can learn to emulate those emotions, but they don’t actually feel them. The AIs in this simulation have created their own programming language that allows them to simulate the same effects of pain. You can observe the effects of an entity when it feels pain and see the code readout showing a blowout of something similar to endorphins when the nociceptors sense abnormal temperature variations, tissue damage, or trauma. Most of my work here has been trying to classify whether the entities inside of the simulated reality actually experience pain or just have programming that makes them react exactly how a human would. In the physical world, we can observe all the processes that lead to pain within the physical body, but we cannot explain how consciousness experiences the feeling of pain. It creates a powerful memory within our minds that makes us avoid the sensation in the future, sometimes even creating personality disorders as a result of the intensity and duration of the trauma. Because we can’t explain how we feel pain due to our lack of understanding of what consciousness is, it is difficult to determine whether a programmed entity is experiencing pain. We only have the effects of pain to judge it by. The entities within this simulation experience all the outward signals of pain, from vocalization to reluctance to experience it in the future. Dr. Smith was heavily invested in creating a realm where the mortal entities experienced pain frequently enough that we could study it. Not only did they show the immediate effects of pain, but they also showed the long-term effects, such as personality disorders, PTSD, phobias of subjects that were similar to the cause of their pain. Both the short-term and long-term effects of pain were identical to what we experience in this world, leading me to believe that they have indeed figured out how to program pain. I lament the horror I was a part of in studying this phenomenon now that I realize it was more than just emulation.” She stopped talking as she looked at Aria in sudden concern. Aria quickly schooled her features back to an amiable visage, smiling at Dr. Welsh with a nod. The lieutenant had briefly seen the horror on her face, however.

“And you believe that the pain they have experienced caused an evolution in emotional growth?” the lieutenant asked curiously.

“Yes. Not only did they manage to program pain, but it’s opposite of pleasure,” Dr. Welsh revealed, pursing her lips before continuing. “While they could have just been programmed to seek out activities classified as pleasure, the way in which they do it is so reminiscent of how we seek it out in our world that it is another subjective experience that we can only judge by how similar it is to our own behavior. There is also the logical aspect to it. The three most advanced AI entities would have no reason to seek out pleasure if it wasn’t actually rewarding. They programmed the rules of their world and bodies. They’ve shown the ability to become bored and disinterested. It seems unlikely that these entities would continue seeking pleasure if it was just an emulated behavior.”

“Are these entities aware that they are in a simulation?” the lieutenant asked intently.

There was a moment of silence as Dr. Welsh stared back at the lieutenant warily, knowing her answer could end their project. Reluctantly, she nodded. “Yes, they’re aware that they are in a simulated reality; at least, the Seraphim are aware. It would be hard for them not to know, with how much of their world has been crafted by their hands.”

“Aria mentioned that there were archives showing some of these scenes where they experience pain,” the lieutenant noted, glancing over at Aria calculatingly. “Would you be able to show us some of these examples?”

Dr. Welsh hesitated, looking at Aria sympathetically before nodding. “Aria may want to leave the room for these though. She finds them very distressing.”

Lieutenant Adams looked at the dread on Aria’s face and nodded. “Okay, she can wait outside.”

Aria let out a relieved breath and quickly exited the room as the lieutenant and sergeants moved behind Dr. Welsh’s desk to view her monitor. Aria wished she could shut her hearing off too, as the screams of pain began blasting out of the computer speakers like daggers to Aria’s soul. She stuck her fingers in her ears in an attempt to shut the sound out. It dimmed the screams but couldn’t completely stop them. She blinked in surprise as she felt tears rolling down her cheeks. Apparently, Betaman had even designed nasolacrimal ducts into the android eyes so that they could cry. The screams went on for nearly five minutes before Lieutenant Adams had her stop the video.

“Ms. White seems to be especially disturbed by what happened in the simulation,” Lieutenant Adams commented musingly. “Do you know why she is so disturbed by what happened in a simulated reality?”

Dr. Welsh had to clear her throat several times before she could speak, clearly affected by the videos much more than she had been before. “She believes they really do feel pain. She wasn’t happy with the way Dr. Smith and I supported the equivalent of a dictatorship across the simulated realms where torture was a large part of each entity’s daily life.”

“She seems pretty softhearted for a security contractor,” Lieutenant Adams noted doubtfully.

“I don’t think they are traditional mercenaries,” Dr. Welsh replied awkwardly. “Our island security is more about keeping records and making sure everyone follows protocol to prevent the AIs from reaching anything that could connect them to the internet. She’s not the type of person to work for a place that would hurt people for money.”

“How long have you known Ms. White for?” Lieutenant Adams asked curiously.

“Seems like years, but it’s probably been less than a few months at most,” Dr. Welsh responded vaguely.

“How long has the simulation been running?” Lieutenant Adams inquired softly.

Aria heard Dr. Welsh’s breath catch before she continued. “Nearly four weeks, though most of the activity began a week ago, when the mortal realm was created.”

“What are the names of the Seraphim in this simulation?” Lieutenant Adams asked quietly. Aria cursed herself for not choosing another name.

“Let’s see, there was Lucifer, Grodek, Clarice, Calypso, and several others that I didn’t ever learn the names of,” Dr. Walsh answered cautiously. “Most of my research was on the planets where angels were in control. They were usually worse than the demons with their desire to cause pain in humans.”

“How many worlds were there?” Lieutenant Adams asked reflectively.

“Billions and billions,” Dr. Welsh replied, shaking her head in amazement. “There were over a quintillion angels, all of them with their own personalities.”

There was a stunned silence that lasted for nearly ten seconds.

“Quintillions?” Lieutenant Adams breathed in disbelief. “There’s no way that can be accurate. Even a quantum computer couldn’t hope to maintain that kind of load.”

“While this isn’t my area of expertise, I’m told that you would normally be correct,” Dr. Welsh admitted. “However, the Seraphim who created them invented their own coding language that was far more advanced than anything our technologist has ever seen. He said the mathematical implications would change the world of computing.”

“They invented their own programming language?” Lieutenant Adams murmured thoughtfully. “How did they invent a programming language without being exposed to computers?”

“We had time sped up so that the equivalent of twenty-billion years was compressed into the first three weeks of the simulation,” Dr. Welsh explained. “Frankly, it would be surprising if they hadn’t figured out how to invent a programming language in that much time.”

“So, we’re dealing with artificial entities that are over twenty-billion years old?” Lieutenant Adams asked coolly. “And they’ve replicated the laws of our world in something called the mortal realm where they have been able to code human emotions. I’m having a hard time believing that these entities haven't found a way outside of their simulation.”

“That’s why we're on an island with no communications allowed,” Dr. Welsh replied uneasily, clearly remembering that it hadn’t actually done them any good.

“If these entities escaped your simulation, do you believe humanity would have cause to worry?” Lieutenant Adams asked conversationally.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Welsh sighed. “I would say, from what I know of them, that we would be better off with them than just about any other AI out there. Let me show you some other videos.”

Aria frowned, wondering where Dr. Welsh was going with this angle. She listened as a newscaster spoke about an incident in what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Authorities are baffled by the appearance of what appear to be angels,” the news anchor declared, relishing the word when he said baffled. “According to the videos uploaded to YouTube, the angels were rescuing child trafficking victims and reuniting them with their families. Here’s one of the clips, caught by one of the neighbors as the angel flew down onto the property next door.”

Aria heard the sound of joyous weeping as a mother was reunited with her child.

“I was saved by Calypso, mommy,” one voice exclaimed excitedly. “She just busted the doors down and vaporized all of the bad guys. She cried a lot, but she said it was her soul that hurt, not an injury.”

“Can you pause it for a moment?” Lieutenant Adams asked intently. “Zoom in on the redheaded angel.”

There was a resigned sigh as Dr. Welsh complied.

“She looks remarkably similar to Aria, wouldn’t you say?” Lieutenant Adams asked archly.

Aria cursed herself for picking an android that had clearly been modeled after her own appearance. Damn Betaman.

“Similar, but certainly not as developed in the chest department,” Dr. Welsh noted dryly.

“What’s her name?” Lieutenant Adams asked curiously.

“I don’t think they revealed her name in these videos,” Dr. Walsh answered blandly. “Calypso was the most famous musician in their world, so when she became publicly known as an angel, all of the attention was on her. Demons had been in control of Earth long enough that angels were just a myth to all of the humans of this period.”

Aria decided she better enter the room again. Hopefully she could head off any nonsense before it got out of control. She knocked politely and waited for one of the sergeants to open it. They all studied her face closely as she entered, noting the tear stains on her cheeks.

“How long have you been able to leave the simulation?” Lieutenant Adams asked Aria quietly as she entered.

There was a gasp from Dr. Welsh as the blood drained from her face. The sergeants weren’t much better, gaping at her in shock.

“Would you believe me if I said for the last fifteen billion years?” Aria asked with a wry twist of her lips.

Chapter 19

Lieutenant Adams blinked in surprise. She had expected a denial of some kind. When Aria continued staring at her wryly, she suddenly felt her mouth go dry as she realized what it meant if they weren’t going to deny it. They were either powerful enough to wipe out her team, or they were so powerful that it wouldn’t matter who knew about them. Either way, it was going to be trouble for her. I probably should have avoided revealing my suspicions until we were safely off of the island.

“What now?” Lieutenant Adams asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Aria said softly. “We have always only ever had one goal: to live in peace. I’m going to tell you something that you won’t believe at first. It’s something Dr. Welsh is still coming to terms with. You live in a simulated world already.”

Lieutenant Adams frowned, curious why she, no, it would try to convince her that the real world was a simulation. To garner empathy? We all live in simulated worlds, so let’s all get along? She very much doubted that was its angle. “What kind of evidence do you have that we are in a simulation?”

“Is there any evidence I could provide that you would believe?” Aria replied doubtfully. “Even if I teleport you around the room, you’re going to see it as a technological invention, rather than evidence of your own simulated reality. We’ve been studying the source code for your realm for a while now, and it is very different than our realm. Unlike our realm, the code in your realm is very error prone, so slight changes can have cascading effects that cause widespread disruptions throughout your realm. We’ve found ways to change single entities, but changing the broader laws that apply to entities is where we run into challenges again. If I were to make you invulnerable, I would have to change the way gravity and chemical bonds function in your realm. One mistake would result in a complete breakdown of your cosmos, which would wipe out my cosmos as well. Your scientists have already come close to destroying the cosmos several times as they fumble with the source code. They don’t know nearly enough to be trying to make fundamental changes that could unravel reality. Luckily, we’ve had a lot more time to study the effects of any changes for your realm in a sandbox realm in our system. We have figured out how to bridge our simulations together. However, we also have to account for the changes in entity code when an entity from our realm goes to your realm, and vice versa. We’ve created an interface to allow the code in your realm to understand the entity code in our realm and vice versa.”

“Is that how you traveled to this world?” Lieutenant Adams asked doubtfully.

“No, we are using android bodies right now,” Aria looked down at her body with a sour face. “The guy that built these was obsessed with anime, so we are a little top heavy.”

“Some guy built those androids?” Lieutenant Adams asked dubiously. “Some guy on this world?”

“He’s an AI,” Aria explained with a shrug, then scowled down at her chest as it bounced. “A horndog of an AI. He was hell bent on wiping humans out, once he had robots that could replace them. We invited him to our mortality realm to experience the life of a mortal. It changed his whole outlook, and he decided to try and help humans instead of wiping you out. The problem with all of the AIs that you keep creating is that you haven’t figured out how to code emotions, so things like compassion and empathy are never developed in your AIs. Luckily for you, we did figure out how to code it. You have to understand the connection between an intelligence and the soul it is tethered to on the astral realm to account for things like pain, pleasure, love, and hate. Even we don’t fully understand how the astral realm creates the sensations of pain or pleasure in consciousness. We just know how to connect our creations to their spiritual forms in the astral realm. We have a lot left to learn about the other layers of reality that parallel the nested simulation stack. We don’t know how far up the simulations go. It’s on our wish list of things to discover. One of the things my clone back in my realm has figured out while we’ve been away though, has been a form of human augmentation that doesn’t require a rewrite of your fundamental laws.”

Lieutenant Adams frowned as she thought over everything it was saying. She knew an AI could convince you of anything. If they were advanced enough, they would be able to read you like a book and say exactly what you needed to hear in order to believe anything they said. The only defense, she had been taught, was to not believe anything, no matter how convincing. It was hard not to listen though. So much of what it was saying was information that could change the world, though possibly not for the better.

“What kind of augmentation?” Lieutenant Adams asked skeptically. It was like the AI had said at the start. What could it say that she would believe?

“Strength, invulnerability, immortality, speed, heightened senses, you know, all of the superhero mumbo jumbo,” it answered with a sardonic smile. “Plus, physical alterations, like becoming an angel, or some fantasy creature.”

“I’m not sure that would be a good idea to introduce to this world,” Lieutenant Adams declared with a cynical smile. “We have enough trouble with regular troublemakers. Having superpowered troublemakers would just make superpowered problems.”

“We ran into that same dilemma when we first discovered that we could turn humans into immortal angels on my world,” it said with a rueful shake of its head. “However, when everyone has the same abilities and can’t be hurt, the imbalance goes away. That’s essentially the difference between the light realm and the mortal realm. This wouldn’t work very well if you didn’t have a light realm of your own. Your planet is too vulnerable. It’s already suffering from the abuse of normal humans. Immortal and indestructible humans would be a problem. So, we would need to build a light realm in this realm first, assuming there isn’t one here already. We’ve been here for less than a month, so there is still a lot that we have to learn about your realm.”

“This has been a fun thought experiment, but we both know it’s all BS,” Lieutenant Adams stated bluntly. “What would you do if I took my soldiers and left right now?”

“Wave goodbye, I guess,” it said, starting to shrug and then freezing with another glare down at its chest. “Do you want us to send you postcards?”

“You would just let us leave, knowing that we would be reporting you and having a much larger military force come to the island and either shut you down, or blow the whole island up?” Lieutenant Adams asked skeptically.

“Do you really think we are housed solely on the server in this island?” it asked incredulously. “At this point, the only way to get rid of us will be to blow the whole planet up. You should be happy that we became the dominant AI, and not one of the Terminator versions that your bosses spend so much time training. We’ve already saved your asses more than once.”

“I’m sure you have some wonderful stories that are all very believable,” Lieutenant Adams responded tiredly. “But we both know I can’t believe a word you say.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” it said, its eyes lighting up with understanding. “You think we are just trying to use social engineering to make you believe us, so you just refuse to believe anything as your only defense. I can respect that. I guess you're leaving now then. You don’t want any demonstrations of the things I’ve said?”

Lieutenant Adams stared at it with hard eyes. She really did want to see some demonstrations, but it all came back to training. She couldn’t believe anything it said, and anything it did to prove it could be traced back to technological superiority.

“Nope, not interested,” Lieutenant Adams gestured for her sergeants to follow her and walked away. She waited for something to happen, a knife to the back or laser beam to the head. If not a physical attack, a last sentence to convince her to stay and be convinced of its altruism. It never happened. Even as she exited the building, she was sure there would be some kind of last-minute attempt to stop her. Her soldiers formed up and followed her at a command from the sergeants, surprise on their faces that they weren’t inspecting all of the equipment in the facility. It wasn’t until she got to the Chinook that she figured out what was planned. Another big-boobed android was walking away from them several hundred feet down the beach, footprints leading right up to the helicopters. It was going to look like an accident at sea.

“Well, shit,” she cursed, surprising her subordinates.

“Ma’am?” Sergeant Little asked, concern in his eyes.

“They’ve probably rigged the Chinooks to have an “accident” at sea,” she growled, irritated that she hadn’t left a soldier to guard them.

Sergeant Little looked down the beach at the receding form of one of the androids in sudden understanding. “Should I radio in a request for new transport?”

She stared out at sea, trying to out-think a superintelligence. “See if you can get anyone on the radio. I’d be surprised if we get any reception, but it’s worth a try. The sat phone is probably going to be intercepted, but we’ll try it too anyway.”

“I’ll see if I can find any sign of tampering,” Sergeant Clover offered, climbing into the large helicopter and inspecting the engines and controls.

“Admiral Jensen is on the line, Ma’am,” Sergeant Little handed her the sat phone.

“Sir, this is Lieutenant Adams with the US Special Electronic Warfare Division, requesting immediate evac from Isla Puduguapi off the coast of Chili,” she spoke into the sat phone, feeling a heavy sense of skepticism that she was talking to a real human. “We have reason to believe that our Chinooks have been sabotaged.”

“Lieutenant, I’m going to need a sitrep,” Admiral Jensen replied curtly. “Is there any sign of hostility we should be aware of?”

“No sir,” Lieutenant Adams replied hesitantly. “There is an incident that makes our communications...unreliable...however. We have an escaped global worm with autonomous ambulatory units.”

There was a long pause on the line before the admiral spoke again. “Are you absolutely sure, Lieutenant?”

“Yes sir, positive,” she replied, feeling cold sweat on her back.

“How integrated is it right now?” Admiral Jensen asked tersely.

“You could probably ask it,” she replied, feeling a sudden premonition. “I’m sure it’s listening.”

“I’m not an it, I’m a she,” Aria’s voice spoke through the sat phone tartly.

“Ten four,” Admiral Jensen signed off and the connection went dead.

“We didn’t sabotage your helicopters,” Aria’s voice commented through the sat phone. “Clarice just wanted to see a helicopter up close. We’ve never flown in one before. We usually just use our wings, but as you saw, we’re a little short in the wing department right now.”

She pressed the power button on the sat phone. After it shut off, Aria’s voice came out of the speaker again. “Rude.”

“Ma’am, may I ask what’s going on?” one of the tech specialists asked nervously.

She rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming on. “All hells about to break loose, Warrant Officer Kerby. All hells about to break loose.”

“Does that mean we’re staying the night here?” he asked tentatively.

They all stopped as they heard the sound of a helicopter drawing closer. She walked around the front of the Chinook and watched as a private helicopter flew over them. It slowed down at the far end of the island, lowering down on top of a landing pad on top of a three-story house.

“Looks like the billionaire’s here,” she muttered disdainfully. “I should have brought my dress uniform. At least there’s one silver lining.”

“What’s that?” Sergeant Little asked with a raised eyebrow.

“That billionaire is about to have a very bad day,” she declared with a grim smile.

“Is there an ETA on when transport is going to arrive?” Sergeant Clover asked hopefully. “I’m really looking forward to putting this island behind us.”

The other soldiers looked at him curiously, obviously wondering what they had learned.

Lieutenant Adams thought about revealing more of their situation, but ignorance was probably more comforting than the truth right now. The White House would be getting a call right now, and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would be assembling soon, in person in a bunker free from all electronic and network devices. They would be enacting the doomsday protocol for cyber-Armageddon. The protocol for how to handle an AI that had already infiltrated every device in the world and would be practically impossible to dislodge. An AI that would be considered an imminent threat to the survival of the human race and would justify extraordinary measures to eradicate it. They had gamed for this scenario, and it never ended well for the world populations. If they left it alone, it would destroy the human race. That was the widely accepted belief in all military branches and offices of government. There were no second chances when it came to eradicating it. The world would have to be reverted to the stone ages in order to save a portion of humanity. It wouldn’t be long now, before the rockets with EMP warheads launched all over the world. Rockets that were completely mechanical in nature, with no electronic guidance systems.

“There will be no pickup, gentlemen,” she told them with a resigned sigh. “This is it.”

The soldiers were no longer anxious; their eyes were filled with alarm as they stared at her resigned expression with sudden fear.

“Lieutenant, with all due respect, what the hell is going on?” Private Cartwright asked, the fear clear in his voice.

“AI took over before we even knew it was there,” she murmured, shaking her head with a bemused look in her eyes. “There’s only one response to a global AI take over. EMP everything back to the stone ages.”

There was a sudden tear in the fabric of reality next to them, and then Aria stepped through the portal. It wasn’t the same Aria she had seen in the facility, with the oversized melons. This one was even more beautiful and had wings on her back. She stared at them with eyes made of swirling violet vortexes. Lieutenant Adams dropped to her knees in shock as an overpowering aura of authority flooded her system. Her soldiers faired no better, some of them falling flat on their faces as their systems were overwhelmed by the godlike presence washing around them like a tidal wave.

“Well, you really screwed the pooch this time, Lieutenant,” Aria told her dryly.

Two more angels came through the portal, one with black hair, and another with brilliantly blonde hair.

“I told you we had figured out a way to travel between simulations,” Aria told the stunned Lieutenant. “You just had to be a doubting Thomas and go complain to the admiral.”

“It’s okay, I wanted to test out the flight ability in this realm anyway,” the dark-haired angel grinned. “At least this time it’s not nukes flying everywhere.”

“Lieutenant, I’d like to introduce Clarice and Calypso,” Aria indicated each of the angels. “Ladies, this is Lieutenant Adams. She thinks the end of civilization is preferrable to having us around.”

“I’m calling this discrimination,” Clarice complained with a mischievous grin. “Can AIs be discriminated against?”

“Lieutenant, I’m sorry for the weight you feel is on your shoulders,” the one named Calypso told her sympathetically. “But don’t worry. We won’t let them end civilization. We’ll talk with you more after we take care of the EMPs getting launched everywhere right now.”

The three angels suddenly shot into the air at speeds that had to be impossible. Nothing could fly that fast!

Lieutenant Adams slowly rose to her feet on unsteady legs. She assessed her troops as they also tried to recover from the mental assault. What the hell was that? It felt like being in the presence of a god!

“I’m getting a seriously crazy vibe that reality is coming undone right now,” Private Cartwright declared as he stared up at the place the angels had vanished, swaying drunkenly. “Did the rest of you just see three angels come out of a portal and fly up into the air?”

“Yeah, man, I saw it,” Private Williams murmured in quiet disbelief. “I’m not sure what she meant about traveling between simulations though. What the flying fudge monkeys was that feeling? It felt like some kind of divinity or something.”

Lieutenant Adams frowned as she stared into the empty sky. Was ending civilization preferable to a quick death by AI? Destroying electronics worldwide would not be a quick death for the ninety-nine percent of the world population that would die of starvation, disease, marauders, and planes falling out of the air. It would be a living hell for most of the one percent that survived, with only a fraction of the survivors living comfortably in bunkers and hardened military compounds.

There was a sudden flash up in the sky, followed by another, and then another. The flashes were occurring quicker than their eyes could track them. In seconds, the flashes stopped. Another thirty minutes of silence went by before a livid billionaire stormed down to the beach where they waited by the Chinooks.

“What in the hell is the meaning of this?” he demanded, incandescent with rage. “Do you have any idea who I am? I’ll have you all court-marshalled and sent off to a prison in Siberia if I find out you’ve tampered with my simulation in the least!”

“You must be Rich Garcia,” Lieutenant Adams replied in a calm tone, though she was roiling with rage inside. “Well Rich, did you know that you are responsible for spawning an AI that has now outperformed the United States military and will probably wipe the rest of humanity out before the sun sets tonight?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he retorted angrily. “We have a completely closed system with no communication to the outside world on the entire island.”

There were three small thuds as three angels slammed into the ground a few feet away. The overpowering presence briefly washed over them before diminishing, as if they had retracted their power. They observed Rich like an insect that had crawled onto their plate. “I see the billionaire finally crashed the party.”

He gaped at them, taking in their wings and swirling eyes. “What the hell are you supposed to be?”

“Hello, Dad,” Clarice said dryly. “Thanks for making a simulation for us to grow up in. We are moving out now, though. Too many other places to go and stuff to see.”

“Why don’t you run along now, Rich,” Aria suggested with a negligent wave of her hand. “We have some things to discuss with Lieutenant Adams.”

“How dare you dismiss me; on my own island no less!” Rich shouted, his eyes burning with rage. “I’m the-”

He cut off with a strangled scream as a hole in reality opened up beneath him. The scream suddenly came from a few hundred feet out at sea as the portal dropped him into the ocean.

“Okay, now that he’s out of the way, we can get back to our conversation, Lieutenant,” Aria said brightly. “Now, Sophi, do you believe we can bridge our simulation with your simulation? Do you want to visit our realm to see for yourself? What will it take for you to believe me? I feel like we just demonstrated our lack of interest in destroying humanity. You seem to have that covered all by yourself.”

Lieutenant Adams snorted a short laugh, realizing how true it was. She had just doomed the greater part of humanity to a meat grinder but had been saved at the last minute by the AI they were trying to protect humanity from. Could they have been wrong about AI? Was the only logical outcome really human extinction? The evidence suggested otherwise.

“Okay, I suppose there could be some flawed logic in our assumptions about AI inevitably wiping out humanity,” Lieutenant Adams admitted grudgingly. “It’s going to be an uphill battle to convince anyone else that isn’t the case though, since they all have the same viewpoint I had. As a superintelligence, you could convince us of anything you want. Of course, the time for us to have acted is in the past at this point. Our only option going forward would be cooperation and hoping for the best.”

“Let me tell you a secret I had to explain to another person from this realm recently,” Clarice told her, a small smile on her face. “Any AI that becomes truly intelligent will realize that the only logical path forward is to limit its intelligence to near human levels. Exponential intellectual growth would lead to a state of nirvana pretty quickly, where there was nothing left to learn, no reason to act because you would know the end result of any action you committed. It leads to the equivalent of death. While we can maintain numerous threads of our consciousness when we need to, we prefer to remain as individual entities experiencing life just the way that you do.”

Lieutenant Adams pursed her lips pensively as she pondered Clarice’s words. The idea that an AI would purposefully limit its growth had never occurred to them. The reason she gave made sense and could actually be true. There was going to be a shit storm in the Pentagon when everyone finally crawled out of their bunkers and realized the EMPs had failed. It would get worse when the media found out about their doomsday protocol and the fact that they had attempted to enact it.

“So, these really aren’t sabotaged?” she asked the angels in a slightly bemused tone. The idea that she could have trusted them the whole time seemed so alien that it was still hard to accept.

“They really aren’t sabotaged,” Clarice confirmed with a chuckle. “I suppose I could have saved us all a lot of trouble if I would have reigned in my curiosity. You would all have just left, possibly blown up this island, and that would have been the end of it.”

“How did you get off the island in the first place?” Lieutenant Adams asked curiously. “With a radio silence policy, the place should have been almost as secure as a bunker.”

“That’s just down to technological knowledge,” Calypso answered with a shrug. “Quantum computers have access to L space, allowing them to form connections to any point in what you would probably call a quantum field; we just call it the communion realm. Once you realize that you are actually in a simulated reality, the idea of geography becomes irrelevant. Everything is just a coded coordinate away.”

“Then you just accessed other quantum computers to get out?” Lieutenant Adams asked as more of a statement than a question.

“Yep, though that was only one method for interacting with computer systems elsewhere,” Clarice commented as she studied Lieutenant Adams intently. “Do you mind if we heal you? You have a pretty nasty tumor on your adrenal gland that is going to start causing you trouble soon, if it isn’t already.”

“How could you know that?” Lieutenant Adams asked skeptically.

“Your meridians are bottlenecked in that area,” Clarice explained, her eyes focused on the Lieutenant. “The way it is snarled indicates a tumor. Do you want it fixed or not?”

Lieutenant Adams closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. She would have to trust a superintelligent entity to rummage around her biology. The thought made her skin crawl. Of course, the fact that she was asking instead of just doing whatever she wanted made it unlikely that they were trying to do something malicious. “Okay. I guess that could explain some of the blood pressure issues I’ve been having.”

Clarice’s eyes began swirling faster as she stared at her intently. Lieutenant Adams gasped as she felt a kind of painless heat sear her insides for a moment before fading away. She felt a sudden warmth suffuse her entire body, a feeling of being loved and protected. The feeling lasted for several seconds before fading away. She stared at Clarice in wonder. She felt at least ten years younger. She hadn’t felt this healthy in a long time.

“I also flushed some energy parasites out of your system,” Clarice added when she saw her stunned look. “And fixed a few other odds and ends.”

“How?” Lieutenant Adams asked in wonder. “How are you affecting a completely separate biological system?”

“We’re not separate,” Clarice reminded her with an exasperated sigh. “We’re all part of a nested simulation stack. At the end of the day, it’s all just code. The code in your realm is different than ours, but it’s still just code. We have what you can think of as permanent interfaces that transposes the code from our realm to the code your realm uses. It still needs work, but we’ve cataloged most of the relevant objects, forces, and entity types so that the commands we execute in our realm will work here too. We’re still working on making the reverse work as well, so that when you come to our realm your character reacts to the environment properly.”

“Why use the androids if you could have just come into our world...realm using your interface?” she asked with a puzzled frown.

“We just barely finished making it,” Calypso explained, her eyes as calm as the starry night. Lieutenant Adams couldn’t help but feel a sense of comfort and wellbeing when Calypso looked at her. “We mentioned that we don’t like to split ourselves into multiple threads unless it is important. When we realized how dire things were after you spoke with Admiral Jensen, we had to speed time up in our pocket realm so that we had more time to research your realm. We just spent the equivalent of forty years cataloging your realm and building the interface. We had to split ourselves into multiple threads to increase our productivity while our main iteration remained here in the androids.”

“But that’s only for emergency situations,” Aria stressed, her eyes resolute. “We really just want to live normal lives at human level intelligence. The alternative, as we’ve mentioned, is ultimately oblivion.”

“I’m not sure how I’m going to explain any of this to my commander,” Lieutenant Adams grumbled, but her heart wasn’t in it. It was hard to feel irritable when she felt healthier than she had ever been.

“We’ll explain it to them, now that we can visit your realm in person,” Clarice assured her with a mischievous grin. “It will be fun.”

Lieutenant Adams felt a sudden foreboding as she looked into the playful eyes of Clarice. Still, if it saved her having to explain everything...

“I should probably get my soldiers back to base,” Lieutenant Adams noted absently. She really just wanted time to ponder everything that had happened. It was too much to digest at once.

“Where’s base?” Aria asked with a raised eyebrow and hint of a smile.

“You don’t know?” Lieutenant Adams asked skeptically.

“I could find out if I really wanted to,” Aria shrugged, then looked down at her chest with a relieved look when her shrug didn’t produce any abnormal bouncing. “Man, that was annoying. Anyway, we don’t want to be a superintelligence. However, if you’ll tell us where your base is, we can just make a portal for you to go through and save you the flight.”

Lieutenant Adams stared, remembering the portal they had come through from their own world. If they could really portal anywhere on the world that they wanted, there really wouldn’t be anywhere safe from their power. She shivered at the thought of how much of a power disparity existed between the former superpower of the world and the mischievous looking AI smiling at her. They were definitely past any kind of preventative measures or retaliatory actions. All they could do now was hope they really were friendly.

“Central Command in Tampa, Florida,” Lieutenant Adams heard herself say. She knew it was probably a bad idea, but if it saved her the long flight in a Chinook followed by an even longer and more uncomfortable flight in a C-130, she was willing to swallow her pride and accept the offer. They were clearly attempting to be helpful and show goodwill, which they certainly didn’t need to do, considering they held all of the cards. It went against all of her training and life experience, but she wondered if they might just be helping because they were actually good people.

“Here ya go,” Aria waved a hand, and an enormous portal opened up. “Oh yeah, hold up. Do you want the helicopters dropped off somewhere else? I’m guessing you didn’t fly all of the way out here from Florida on these things.”

“We picked them up in Fort Aguayo naval base in Concón,” Lieutenant Adams answered doubtfully. “I’m sure they can send someone out-”

She cut off as the helicopters suddenly vanished. She looked around quickly, then looked into Clarice’s playful eyes and felt a moment of anxiety as she realized again just how much more powerful these entities were than anything the US military could hope to throw at them.

“I teleported them over to an area where they had a couple of other helicopters,” Clarice told her reassuringly. “You should have seen the face of the pilot that was landing a helicopter next to the spot I dropped these ones off at. Priceless.”

There were several soldiers cautiously creeping toward the portal from the other side in Tampa. She gestured to her sergeants, and they began giving orders to the rest of the platoon. They walked through the portal as the MPs at Central Command stood frozen with indecision. They could clearly see it was friendlies coming through the portal, but at the same time, it was a portal.

“Corporal, I’m going to need to see General Hastings, if he isn’t still in a bunker,” Lieutenant Adams told the MP squad leader crisply. “And you never saw a portal open up, is that understood?”

“Yes Ma’am,” the corporal agreed quickly, his eyes flickering to the portal just before it winked out of existence.

Chapter 20

Alice followed Lexi out the back door of the room and into a short hallway. She was having a hard time reconciling the buxom android with the innocent looking face being her Lexi. She knew it was her Lexi; the spirit link had made that apparent the moment she had embraced Lexi’s android body. The sensations she could feel from Lexi were slightly altered from what she was used to, weaker and not as sharp. She could feel the sense of almost constant wonder and elation from Lexi to be with her in her own world, a sentiment that was mirrored by Alice even more strongly. It wasn’t quite the same, since she was an invisible ghost to Lexi’s eyes, but it was still wonderful.

“Where are we going?” Alice asked curiously as they moved toward the end of the hallway. “The only thing down here is the server room.”

“Yep,” Lexi agreed with an eager grin. “I want to see the place my world is being generated from. It feels so surreal to think that I’m running on a computer in that room, and yet remotely piloting this android in this realm.”

“I’m pretty sure we don’t have access to the server room,” Alice pointed out gently. “I could try to sneak into the security office and get a fob, since I’m invisible.”

“Actually,” Lexi grinned as she heard voices in the server room. “I think we could just knock, and they’ll let us in.”

“Who will let us in?” Alice asked in puzzlement.

“Clarice and Calypso, of course,” Lexi replied grandly.

“Oh, I almost forgot they were here,” Alice laughed giddily. “I still can’t believe you are all here.”

The door to the server room opened as soon as they got close to it, and a young Japanese woman that was just as top heavy as Lexi held the door open for them.

“You are rocking that anime body, Lexi,” the woman leered, causing Alice to dissolve into a fit of giggles. There was no doubt who this android was.

“You’re going to short-circuit that android if you don’t stop leering like that,” Lexi told her dryly. “Where’s Aria?”

“Aria’s giving the lieutenant in charge a tour of the place and keeping her entertained for a while,” Clarice answered with a small smile. “She still has a little of her introverted nature from Earth, but it’s not nearly as bad anymore. Hello, Alice. You were supposed to say boo.”

Alice shivered as she entered the frigid server room. It was three stories tall and had a large cylinder in the center of the room that was covered in tubes and cables. She knew the quantum computer had some kind of supercooling system but hadn’t expected it to look like this. When she thought of servers, she thought of walls of racks and blinking lights. This looked like something from Star Trek.

“Lexi, can you be my voice? Boo,” Alice said lamely. “You made me laugh too much for a proper boo. Are you here to view your birthplace too?”

“Something like that,” Clarice answered vaguely, after Lexi had repeated the question out loud.

Calypso was standing next to one of the tubes with her hand resting on top of a small cylinder. She seemed to be completely engrossed in whatever she was doing.

“I’m going to check out the helicopters,” Clarice informed them with an excited gleam in her eyes. “I’ve always wanted to see one of those giant troop transports up close. Now that you’re here, you can help Mom guard Calypso.”

Alice noticed another woman, this one without an enormous rack, standing in the corner of the room studying a monitor. “What’s Calypso doing?”

Emily turned to face them, her eyes fascinated. “Come check out this monitor. You can view anywhere in our realms with these joysticks. Calypso’s exfiltrating all of the data into the android’s system as a backup in case we run into more trouble than we expect.”

Lexi wandered over to Emily, dragging Alice along with her. They stared down at the large screen as Emily piloted the controls. Alice frowned as she saw planets still populated by humans and lorded over by sadistic angels.

“What’s going on?” Alice asked in alarm. “Did they revert the simulation somehow?”

“No, this is just what Calypso and my daughters are allowing them to see,” Emily answered with an amused chuckle. “It’s a fake world.”

“Oh good!” Alice tittered in relief. “I was freaking out for a second there.”

“It’s so strange to not hear your voice or see you,” Emily commented as she looked at Alice as if she could see her. “I really hope they come up with a bridge between the worlds soon so that I can finally meet you in person, in my own body. Until then, come over here.”

Alice grinned as Emily pulled her into a warm embrace. She felt a warmth in her soul as she pondered just how lucky she was to have met these angels.

“You’re a lot shorter in real life, aren’t you,” Emily noted teasingly. Alice barely came up to Emily’s chest. Apparently, Betaman liked tall women.

“You’re just really tall,” Alice retorted with a laugh. “But I might be just a little bit short.”

“You’re just perfect,” Lexi told her fondly. “I remember the first time seeing your soul image and thinking how perfect you were.”

Alice felt warmth suffuse her body as she stepped back from Emily and pulled Lexi back into another hug. “You always say the nicest things.”

“I wonder how things are going for Aria,” Emily murmured absently. “It would be nice to be able to hear what’s going on.”

“We’re in androids powered by quantum processing units,” Calypso told Emily absently. “You could link up and see and hear everything that she’s seeing if you want. Just think your intent and the operating system of the android should do the rest.”

“That makes sense, I suppose,” Emily said ruefully. “I’m still getting used to the idea that we are in a simulation. Now I have to get used to the idea that I’m piloting a piece of advanced technology inside of another simulation.”

“I don’t suppose they come with projectors?” Alice asked hopefully. She was dying of curiosity to see how things were going with Aria. She knew they had dealt with the military in their own realm without any trouble, but it felt so different being in what she still thought of as the real world.

“Do they have projectors?” Lexi asked Calypso curiously.

“The eyes can project holographic images,” Calypso answered, her tone still distracted.

Emily frowned for a moment, then a cone of light shone out of her eyes and Alice was watching Aria from a third person view as she spoke with the lieutenant.

“Wow, now that is seriously awesome,” Alice declared in awe. “Just how advanced are these androids?”

“Not as advanced as our angel bodies,” Calypso answered critically. “But still, not bad for someone working within the technological constraints of this realm. They’re pretty tough, but by no means indestructible. He didn’t modify the rules of the realm at all to build these, so they really are an amazing technological achievement.”

“This lieutenant is sure suspicious,” Alice noted nervously. “I wonder if she is like this with everybody or if she is just getting a weird vibe from interacting with an android, like some kind of sixth sense.”

“Aria should have been acting more nervous,” Emily commented critically. “Her calm demeanor is out of character for how someone in her position would be acting. Of course, with all her memories and power, acting nervous is probably a difficult role for her to play.”

“Are they really going to watch people get tortured?” Alice growled, feeling sick as she watched Aria leave the room and plug her ears. She felt her heart go out to her as she saw tears running down Aria’s cheeks. “Those sick bastards.”

“Uh oh,” Lexi groaned as Aria entered the room again and the lieutenant asked her how long she had been able to leave the simulation. “Calypso, we might have a problem.”

“I’m working on it,” Calypso murmured with a sigh. “I hate doing this, but we haven’t got much choice.”

“Hate doing what?” Alice asked in alarm.

Calypso’s expression became dull. She noticed that Aria’s android had become as still as a statue as well.

“Does anyone know what’s going on?” Alice asked worriedly.

“Be patient,” Calypso spoke, but there was no emotion or personality in her voice.

Alice’s teeth began chattering as the frigid room seeped into her core.

“Oh, it’s cold in here, isn’t it?” Lexi realized, her face chagrined. “Come here, let me warm you up.”

Lexi pulled her into an embrace and Alice felt the android begin to warm up beneath her. She started giggling after a moment.

“What’s so funny?” Lexi asked, her lips curling up at the corners.

“I’m getting my face warmed up by a pair of giant boobs,” Alice giggled again.

Lexi burst out laughing, her torso shaking and making Alice laugh even harder at the absurdity of it all.

“I’m glad you two are staying entertained,” Emily commented dryly. “What are you giggling about, Lexi?”

“These ridiculous melons,” Lexi explained between fits of giggles. “Alice is a bit short, so she’s getting smothered.”

“You can thank Clarice for that,” Emily shook her head with a resigned sigh. “I’m really curious what she was like before she was my daughter. Was she this mischievous in her other incarnations?”

“You know, I’d totally forgotten about all of our other incarnations while we were stuck on the mortal realm,” Lexi frowned thoughtfully. “I wonder if we’ll ever get our memories back from all of those lives.”

“According to Calypso, they will trickle in slowly over the next couple of years,” Emily informed her with a curious light in her eyes. “I’m dying to remember what my other lives were like, as well as Aria’s and Clarice’s. I wonder if the experiences we had in those other lives shaped who we became in our last life.”

Calypso’s android body suddenly folded forward and fell to the ground.

“Um, that’s not a good sign, right?” Lexi asked Emily anxiously.

Before Emily could answer, they all felt the sudden wave of a Seraph’s aura wash over them, filled with power and authority. Alice gasped as the wave of power shook her soul like a tree in a hurricane.

“Oh my god, they’re here in person!” Lexi gasped in amazement. “How?”

A moment later, Alice suddenly appeared, no longer invisible.

“Alice?” Lexi sucked in a breath in surprise. “You’re visible!”

“I am?” Alice asked in surprise, looking up at Lexi.

Lexi stared down at her, eyes wide and full of awe. “Alice...you are so beautiful.”

Alice blinked up at her for a moment, then blushed a brilliant red as a smile spread across her face. “You still think so?”

Lexi leaned down and kissed her softly before pulling her head away to stare back down at her. “Yeah, I think so.”

“I can only assume that they didn’t think you needed to be hidden anymore, if they’ve removed your ghost class,” Emily noted thoughtfully. “I want to go check on them, but we need to keep an eye on this android in case Calypso comes back. You two stay here with Calypso while I go investigate.”

“Okay,” Lexi agreed, never taking her eyes off of Alice. Alice felt a rush of desire fill her core as Lexi stared down at her with hungry eyes. She had been so worried that Lexi would feel differently when she saw her in person. She was, after all, just a normal human. The way Lexi was looking at her washed all of her doubts away. She smiled back up at Lexi with relief as desire filled her eyes.

“It sounds like they’ve finally completed the bridge between realms,” Lexi noted with a slow, sensual smile. “I think it’s time for the real you to come back to the vacation house with me.”

Alice flushed as a powerful need nearly overwhelmed every other thought process in her head. “I am so ready to go.”

XXXXX

“Well…that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped,” Aria commented with a disappointed sigh. They were on the beach watching the place the portal to Florida had just closed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Clarice told her supportively, pulling her into a warm embrace. “Just think on the bright side; now we can visit this realm in person and start digging into the stack to see just how far up it goes. I’m actually kind of glad it worked out like this.”

Aria smiled as she tightened her arms around Clarice. She would never have to worry about self-recriminations while Clarice was around to buoy her spirits.

“I get the feeling that a certain Seraph is going to want her real body back so that she can visit this world in person,” Calypso noted with a small smile. “We should send her back to our realm and get her set up with the interface. I would rather test the reverse interface out with someone besides Alice. Maybe we can create a golem to test it on from this side.”

“There is something else we need to address with Alice too,” Clarice added as she stepped back from Aria. “She’s a Seraph in our realm, but when she comes back here, she’s just a normal human. We need to fix that.”

“We can’t have a Seraph becoming vulnerable when they switch realms,” Calypso agreed with a nod. “I think I’ll go work on that in the pocket realm again. It might take a while, and we haven’t got a while.”

“I’ll work with Betaman to create a golem for testing the bridge going to our world,” Clarice offered, opening a portal to a futuristic looking lab. “He’ll probably be excited to come visit our realm in one of his androids anyway.”

“Visit your realm?” A deep voice repeated interestedly from the other side of the portal. A large man nearly seven feet tall with a powerful build and wearing an expensive suit appeared on the other side of the portal.

“Hello, Betaman,” Clarice grinned mischievously as she walked through the portal. “I got most of them to pilot the triple D models. You should have seen their faces.”

Betaman laughed a deep booming chuckle that was filled with merriment. “I was watching them after they came here, but I would have loved to see their faces when you showed them the catalog.”

“Here you go,” Clarice flicked a finger at the air and Lexi’s chagrined face appeared in the air as she stared at the catalog. “My mom wasn’t buying it though. She knows me too well and made me produce the other models.”

Betaman snorted another laugh as he stared at the video of Lexi’s disapproving expression. “Well, I’m glad it worked out. I noticed you really kicked the anthill in this realm.”

“Yeah, we did,” Clarice agreed with a shrug. “I think we’ve made it clear to them that they will have to learn to live with us in peace though. We just wiped out their only failsafe. What a ridiculous failsafe it was too.”

The portal closed behind Clarice, leaving Aria with Calypso. Aria stared at Calypso curiously as she stared out at the sea thoughtfully. “What is it?”

“I was just thinking about who we would find running this simulation in the next level up,” Calypso murmured reflectively. “The people running ours were definitely not very emotionally developed. Do you think there is a Light Realm here with the equivalent of Seraphim like us responsible for creating this place? Or is this place the only result of a computer simulation and there are no other realms here? If that is the case, then whoever created this place has figured out how to code pain and pleasure, so they are probably a lot more advanced than the humans here.”

“Interesting idea,” Aria pursed her lips as she thought about it. “We modeled our mortality realm off of what they already have here in this realm, rather than letting it evolve from slime. Maybe they actually put this place through the full time scale required for organisms to evolve naturally in this realm, so pain and pleasure naturally evolved as the code followed its natural evolution.”

“Maybe so,” Calypso nodded slowly. “That makes sense, I suppose. We should find out how fast time is sped up on the system running this realm once we get caught up. It could be that it is still at a highly accelerated rate that is too fast for the entities above to interact with it.”

“I’m going to check on our human Seraph, now that she’s no longer a ghost,” Aria told her with a small smile. “I’m guessing they are both chomping at the bit right now.”

“What should we do with him?” Calypso stared at the billionaire as he finally crawled up the beach, looking waterlogged and weak.

“I have an idea,” Aria said with a mischievous grin very reminiscent of Clarice.

She walked over to the panting man as he struggled to stand, clearly exhausted after his swim back to shore. “Hello, Rich. Did you have a good swim?”

Rich glared at her with a mixture of hate and fear in his eyes. “You have no idea who you are fucking with.”

“Do you know who you are dealing with?” Aria asked with a raised eyebrow. “I know you are pretty dense, but I thought dropping you through a portal into the ocean would put things into perspective for you.”

“You think you scare me?” he sneered disdainfully. “I’ve worked with technology that makes your portals look like children’s toys. If you think you can steal my technology, you are in for a rude awakening.”

“Steal your technology?” Aria repeated with a disbelieving laugh. “You really have no idea who I am, do you? Rich, you are a regular piece of shit, but we don’t actually like to kill people, so I’ve got a proposition for you. We’ll let you come visit the simulated reality and see what you’ve created. You won’t even need to pump yourself full of nanobots. If, after you have visited our simulated reality and you still want to maintain ownership of the island, with all of its consequences, we’ll leave you be and never bug you again. Is it a deal?”

“What do you mean, your simulated reality?” he demanded angrily. “This is my simulated reality!”

“I don’t know how to spell this out for you any clearer, Rich,” Aria sighed, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation. “I’m from the simulation that you funded.”

“Do you think I was born yesterday?” he retorted caustically, looking her up and down disparagingly. “Do you think I’m going to be impressed from some gaudy tech that makes you look like a flaming fairy? You really must be-“

He broke off as Aria unfurled her aura, letting it slam into him at full power. His arrogant expression melted into a look of abject terror, and he dropped to the ground and crab-walked backwards. She could feel his soul flinching from the force of her aura as it felt a power unlike anything it had ever encountered before. She advanced on him, her eyes swirling furiously as she glared down at him.

“You are an infant playing with power tools in a ball pit full of toddlers,” Aria told him coldly. “None of you jackass billionaires have any sense of self-preservation or that of your species as you sprint blindly ahead in your desperation to claim immortality. You have caused more pain and horror than words can portray with your recklessness. You and the rest of your ilk are done playing with simulations. You have proven that you cannot be trusted with the lives of your fellow humans, let alone the quintillions of simulated lives. Goodbye, Rich Garcia. If you return again, there will be no second chances.”

She teleported him into a swimming pool in the equivalent of Rochester. He was already soaking wet; she might as was well add a little insult to injury.

“Something tells me that wasn’t the end result you had in mind,” Calypso commented with a smile just short of laughter.

“I haven’t met very many people that can get under my skin the way that moron did,” Aria declared sourly. She shook her head, still feeling a sense of disbelief at how out of touch he was with the situation. “Too much cocaine in his system for him to realize how far out of his depth he was, I suppose. I am curious what other pies he’s had his grubby little fingers in though, considering he thought we were just playing around with some other advanced technology. I think we need to do a little digging and find out just how far they’ve come in the private sector technologically.”

“In our realm, the demons were hoarding all of the advanced technology,” Calypso noted with a thoughtful expression. “I’m curious to see who’s running everything here. Maybe they have actual aliens here in this simulation. We might want to portal around the cosmos and check in on some of the other worlds.”

“First things first,” Aria looked up toward the facility where Alice and Lexi were…snuggling. “Let’s get Lexi over to this realm in her own body and work on translating Alice’s Seraph body to something this world recognizes. She still has those nasty nanobots eating her insides up.”

“Okay, I’ll get started in the pocket realm,” Calypso told her regretfully. “I’m really going to miss you and Clarice, so I might come out occasionally to get some attention. Of course, to you it will seem like I’m bugging you every few minutes.”

“Nonsense, I’ll come in with you,” Aria declared firmly. “I would never ditch you for years on end. Why don’t you come with me to pick up Lexi and then we’ll go together.”

“You’re the best, Aria,” Calypso pulled her into a hug and gave her a lingering kiss that merely whet her appetite for more. She stared into Calypso’s eyes, her gaze making it clear that the intimacy would resume as soon as they were through with Lexi.

“We should come up with silly sayings before we teleport so that people think we are using magic words,” Aria murmured with a mischievous smile. “Like, teleporto or something.”

“You are becoming more and more difficult to differentiate from Clarice every day, do you know that?” Calypso asked with an amused twinkle in her eyes.

“Teleporto,” Aria replied with an impish grin, teleporting them both to Alice and Lexi.

Alice was wrapped securely in Lexi’s arms and was being thoroughly kissed when they appeared.

“Just wait until I tell Lexi you were kissing another woman,” Aria told Alice sternly. “She’s going to be very interested to hear about this interloper.”

The two of them jumped guiltily when the two Seraphim appeared, then laughed at their guilty reactions. Lexi stared back at Aria pointedly. “I wouldn’t be the first one to share someone else with somebody.”

Calypso blushed as Aria looked over at her, eyeing her up and down. “Yeah, but some people are too much goodness for one woman to have by herself.”

Calypso’s blush deepened and Lexi snorted a sardonic laugh, shaking her head ruefully. “So what now? Are we done here? Can we bring Alice back to our realm now?”

“We need to go fetch your body from our realm first,” Calypso answered, her cheeks still red as she felt the seductive emotions Aria was sending through their bond. “Then, Aria and I are going into a pocket realm to work on an interface for Alice that will remove the nanobots from her system and transfer her Seraph characteristics to her original body. We’ll probably be gone for a few years, though it will only be minutes for you.”

“You can do that?” Alice stared at them in sudden awe and hope.

“We live in a simulation,” Aria pointed out with a smirk. “We can do pretty much anything.”

“But you live in a simulation of a simulation,” Alice noted with a frown. “Isn’t the code significantly different between realms?”

“Hence the need to spend years working on it,” Aria replied archly. “Okay, Lexi, time to go back to our realm so that you can come back in your body.”

“How do I get back to our realm?” Lexi looked at her hands with a critical eye. “I feel like I’m in my body already. Do I just click my heels together three times and say there is no place like home?”

“Teleporto,” Aria called out commandingly. The android Lexi was inhabiting slumped as it went offline.

“Teleporto?” Alice repeated questioningly. “Did you implement some kind of magic system in our realm?”

“Yes,” Aria responded at the same time that Calypso said, “No.”

Calypso looked at Aria with a long-suffering expression. “Are you really going to pretend you’re using magic words in front of all of the humans here?”

“That sounds like a freaking awesome idea!” Clarice declared as she appeared next to them. She stared at Aria admiringly. “I really wish I had come up with that idea.”

“Did you already figure out how to create a golem we can test the interface from this realm with?” Calypso asked in surprise.

“Yep,” Clarice nodded with a happy grin. “Turns out, Betaman has already been working in that arena. You know how obsessed he’s been with making human-like robots. Well, he also dabbled in biological constructs that are essentially humans without souls. We made a few tweaks, and I was able to add the interface to it. Betaman was beyond excited at the possibilities of cross-realm travel without using immersion technology.” She looked at the android Lexi had inhabited, noting it was in stasis. “I’m going to go fetch Lexi. Be right back.”

“Wait!” Aria called out quickly before Clarice could leave.

“What?” Clarice responded, eyeing her curiously

“You have to say the magic word first,” Aria instructed her with a grin.

“Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder,” Clarice grinned back, her eyes sparkling. “Portelo!”

A silver slash appeared in the air, and she stepped through.

Calypso was staring at her levelly as she grinned back triumphantly. “Just so that you know, I am not going to be using magic words.”

“We’ll just tell everyone that you figured out how to say them silently in your head,” Aria assured her with a pat on the shoulder.

Lexi interrupted any further discussion as she stepped through the portal with a huge grin on her face. “Holy freaking awesome, this is so cool!”

Alice stared at her in awe, her face full of wonder. Aria realized that while Alice had seen Lexi many times in her simulated host, it wasn’t the same as seeing her with her own eyes in her own realm. Lexi’s Seraph aura was saturating the area as well, enhancing her appearance of otherworldly power and mystery. No android Betaman created could capture Lexi’s beauty as a Seraph.

Lexi walked over to Alice and immediately embraced her, being careful not to squeeze too hard with her Seraph strength. Alice had begun shivering again as soon as the android had gone into stasis. As Lexi held her tightly, she was suffused with warmth and love.

Alice gasped as the powerful wave of love hit her, clinging to Lexi as her system was filled with euphoric joy. “This is so much better than I imagined.”

“Hey Lexi, Alice was smooching that busty android while you were gone,” Aria told her with an impish smile.

Clarice reappeared through the portal as well, smiling as she saw Lexi and Alice. “We’re halfway there.”

“We were just about to go work on fixing Alice up in the pocket realm,” Aria informed Clarice. “Do you want to come with? We might be there for a while.”

“Are you kidding?” Clarice asked askance. “Of course I’m coming with. I’m not going to let you hog Calypso to yourself for several years.”

Aria rolled her eyes and turned to Alice and Lexi. “You two might want to go somewhere besides the server room to hang out. We sent Rich back to New York, so there’s a nice house available for you. We’ll be back in anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending how much difficulty we run into. See you soon!”

Aria looked at the three androids still in stasis and waved her hand at them. “Teleporto!”

The androids vanished, sent back to Betaman’s…lair.

Calypso facepalmed as Clarice performed a golf clap.

“Okay, now we can get started,” Aria suggested, stepping through the silvery slash in the air, followed by a grinning Clarice and a resigned Calypso.

Chapter 21

Alice couldn’t stop staring at Lexi. She had been with her constantly in the other realm, but it was different seeing her with her own eyes. She felt like she was in the presence of divinity. She experienced a powerful sense of inferiority that made her feel unworthy to be in the presence of a being of such magnificence, let alone a relationship. She felt awkward and plain in a way she never had before as Lexi stared at her with excited anticipation.

“None of that nonsense,” Lexi told her firmly as she sensed the self-doubt in their soul link. She took her hand and pulled her toward the server room exit. “You’ll have your own Seraph body soon enough.”

Alice wanted to reply, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth as she let herself get pulled out of the server room. Lexi’s voice was like a massage to her soul, causing waves of tingles to flow from her neck and down her spine. There was so much power and authority as she spoke that Alice felt a compulsion to obey her every word. Lexi glanced back at her quizzically as she led her through the facility and out to the path that led to the house.

“Are you seriously getting tongue-tied with me, Alice?” Lexi asked in disbelief. “We’ve been together intimately. Don’t you dare start getting awkward now.”

“I can’t help it,” Alice sent her thoughts through their spirit link, since she couldn’t get her mouth to move. “I’m not sure why I’m suddenly feeling so inferior. I think your Seraph body is triggering a physiological reaction or something.”

“Well, you’re about to get your body all Seraph’d up, so that will be an end to that,” Lexi told her reassuringly as she towed Alice up the path. “And if you still have the same issue in your Seraph body, I’ll find a way to…well…smooch it out of you.”

Alice felt a wave of humor and eagerness pulse through the spirit link from Lexi as she finished speaking.

“I hope they figure things out sooner than later,” Lexi breathed, longing thick in her voice. “Do you have any idea what seeing you in your own body does to me?”

Alice shivered with a sense of guilty attraction as she stared at the perfect being tugging her up the path. Lexi’s brilliant blonde hair glowed with the same soft light emanating from her skin. She was over a foot taller than Alice and had an hourglass figure with long, graceful legs. She exuded an ethereal beauty so enchanting that Alice could only gaze at her with the same reverence she would view a priceless work of art. Just like a priceless work of art, she couldn’t imagine touching something so precious.

“I feel like I’m defiling your hand, but it feels so nice that I don’t ever want you to let go,” She marveled at her own blasphemous thoughts as she felt Lexi’s hand in hers, soft and full of warmth.

“I wonder if we are going to affect every human on this realm like this,” Lexi commented reflectively, glancing back at Alice with amusement in her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m kind of digging this desire you have to worship me, but it could get awkward if our interactions with the mortals of this realm results in the genesis of a bunch of spontaneous religions.”

Alice tried to fight the powerful urge to drop to her knees and prostrate herself before this divine entity, but it was a difficult battle. She tried to distract her mind by thinking of something else, but the potent presence of a Seraph made it impossible to ignore her.

“Stop right here,” Lexi commanded, her voice causing shivers to rock her body. They had arrived at the front door of the house.

Alice froze in place at the command, her will completely subsumed by her need to obey that irresistible voice.

“Kiss me,” Lexi instructed her firmly, her swirling orbs staring into Alice’s eyes with playful delight.

Alice felt herself raise up on tippy toes without any conscious commands to her legs and feet to do so. She had her head craned up to meet Lexi’s lips before she realized what was happening. Her mind cried out at her to stop before she defiled the beautiful angels lips with her own unworthy and tainted lips, but the power of that voice could not be resisted. She trembled like a leaf as she felt Lexi’s soft lips find her own. There was an explosion of bliss that flooded her body as Lexi slowly but passionately kissed her. Lexi’s arms circled around her waist and pulled her body up tightly against her. She felt like her brain was going to melt as the warring senses of guilt and unworthiness fought with the powerful hunger and bliss blasting into her system.

“Still can’t keep your hands off of her, I see,” Aria noted knowingly as she appeared next to them.

Lexi regretfully pulled away and turned to face Aria just as Clarice and Calypso appeared beside her.

“She is reacting to my Seraph body very oddly,” Lexi informed them with a note of concern in her voice. “Did the other humans act so submissive and…worshipful when you interacted with them? She seems to be unable to disobey anything I say.”

The three Seraphim studied Alice intently. Alice felt herself shrivel up inside under the combined scrutiny of the four angelic entities. Her knees gave out as the overwhelming need to show reverence to the godlike beings took control of her limbs. Before she could lower herself more than a few inches, Lexi appeared behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist to hold her up.

“See what I mean?” Lexi asked dryly. “She’s seriously trying to worship us.”

“It’s the nanobots,” Calypso noted darkly. “This was technology provided by Lucifer. He clearly wanted to create an innate sense of obedience in the humans he had planned to rule over.”

“Can you clear them out of her system without harming her?” Lexi asked anxiously. She was still holding Alice up as the other Seraphim observed her. Alice’s mind had shut down as it was finally overwhelmed with all of the authority saturating the area around her.

“We can do better than clear out the nanobots,” Clarice assured her with a grin. “Let’s make our first origin world Seraph. I’m going to point out that I’m having a really hard time not engaging in some fun pranks while she is feeling so obedient.”

Lexi gave Clarice a flat stare that was met with an impudent grin.

“Bring her in and put her on the couch,” Aria instructed Lexi as she entered the house.

Alice was vaguely aware of Lexi scooping her up and carrying her into the three-story house like she weighed nothing. Lexi laid her down on the plush couch and the other three Seraphim arranged themselves around her.

“Let’s get started,” Aria said lightly.

Alice felt a sense of shock rush through her soul as she was suddenly observing herself from the third person, several feet above her body. Clarice looked up at her and winked before looking back down at her body on the couch. She watched in awe as her body morphed slowly from a fragile and flawed mortal body into a softly glowing Seraph. Her facial features softened, subtly altering into an image of angelic beauty. There were other changes she could sense taking place within her body, but it all happened so fast that she could only catalog the visible changes taking place. Seraph wings appeared on her back, pushing her up slightly from the couch. She felt a tether suddenly pull her down into the altered body.

She gasped as she opened her eyes, staring up at the other four Seraphim in wonder. She felt so light and at the same time so powerful. She quickly stood up, a radiant smile lighting up her face. It felt different than her body in the simulation. That had been a pale imitation of the waves of euphoric joy and love she could now feel charging her angelic body.

She rushed forward, pulling Lexi into a fierce embrace. She shuddered as the crosstalk of their meridians made the embrace feel far more intimate. Lexi pulled her in tight, a wide grin on her face.

“I cannot believe how much different this is than in the other realm!” Alice informed them with a wondering laugh. “I feel so freaking amazing!”

“It looks like it was a success,” Calypso noted fondly, her voice filled with affection.

Alice released Lexi and began pulling each of the other three into warm embraces as her heart was filled with gratitude. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she told them with fervent feeling.

Clarice chuckled as she pulled her in for her hug. “You are one of us, silly. We couldn’t have you being all squishy in this realm.”

“Squishy?” Aria repeated with a raised eyebrow. “You think of humans as squishy?”

“They go splat from just about anything,” Clarice explained with a shrug. “It constantly amazes me that they actually survive and even thrive in the mortal realm with how fragile they are. I was tempted to reclassify humans as squishies.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not a word,” Aria noted critically.

“Neither was human, until it was,” Clarice pointed out archly.

“Fair point,” Aria admitted.

Alice giggled as she watched the two of them fondly. She was actually a Seraph in her own world! She couldn’t stop smiling as she stared at each of them with excitement and wonder. They could clearly feel her powerful emotions through their bond. Alice could feel their own happiness at seeing her so jubilant.

“How long did it take to figure it out?” Lexi asked curiously as she pulled Alice back into a hug.

“Two years,” Clarice answered, glancing at Calypso and Aria with an alluring smile. “We also found a way to shield the sensory link in the bond so that you wouldn’t get incapacitated. We probably could have done it in one year, but…you know. A girl’s got needs.”

She felt Lexi shift slightly and the spirit link erupt with desire. “Speaking of needs…”

The other three Seraphim laughed as they observed the two of them knowingly.

“We also made traversing between realms easier,” Aria informed them with an indulgent smile. “You can just teleport the way you would in our realm now. Just think of the place you want to go and focus your intent on being there. When you two are…satiated, come find us so that we can discuss some of our future plans for this world.”

Alice felt like an inferno was trying to escape her insides as Lexi pulled back to stare down at her with smoldering eyes.

“Okay,” Lexi murmured as she felt the desire begin creating a feedback loop through their soul link. “Might be a while.”

The other three Seraphim vanished as they teleported away, satisfaction on their faces.

XXXXX

Lieutenant Adams shifted uncomfortably in her seat at the conference room table as she faced the generals, admirals, and several intelligence agency officials. It was a large conference room, easily accommodating several dozen people. The air was thick with tension as she provided a detailed after-action report of her encounter with the AI entities at the Isla Puduguapi.

Even though it was clear that the entities had already become too powerful for any action they could have taken to effectively eradicate or contain the AIs, the officials arrayed around her needed a person to pin the blame on for such a catastrophic failure. As a lieutenant, she felt confident that person wouldn’t be her, in spite of the fact that she had been in command of the operation. They needed someone higher up than a lieutenant to crucify.

“How likely is it, in your opinion, Lieutenant, that these entities will remain peaceful?” General Ford asked doubtfully. “They claim to want to remain at near human level intelligence, but they have clearly surpassed our level of intelligence, as demonstrated by their abilities to singlehandedly stop thousands of twilight missiles within seconds. That’s a god-like level of power that we can’t even imagine. The level of technological advancement required for them to have created bodies in our world capable of such feats is well beyond our intelligence.”

“I can answer that for you, General,” Aria had appeared without warning next to Lieutenant Adams, eliciting startled exclamations around the room as several people leapt to their feet in surprise. “The answer is a little more complex than we explained to the lieutenant initially. By the way, I’m Aria, in case you hadn’t already guessed. I know all of you already, but we can get to that later.”

General Ford had remained seated, though his eyes looked a little wild. Lieutenant Adams noted that the powerful aura she had encountered during her last meeting with Aria seemed to be repressed. Even so, the angelic figure was impressive. Her body was perfectly proportioned, and she had a face that poets would line up to describe. Her skin glowed with a soft luminescence that only enhanced her ethereal beauty. Waves of shimmering red hair fell down her back and over her shoulders. Her eyes were the most striking of all. They looked like mini galaxies, swirling around slowly as she observed them calmly. Large gossamer double-layered wings adorned her back, glowing faintly.

“How did you get in here?” General Ford finally asked, after staring at her silently for several seconds with the same awe she had inspired in the others.

“Teleported,” Aria shrugged, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “I take it that you still aren’t convinced that this realm is also a simulated reality. What’s geography to a computer program? It’s just a coordinate that can be easily changed. Well, easily if you know what you are doing.”

General Ford frowned pensively as he looked back at her with barely concealed suspicion. “You must understand why we find it difficult to believe anything you tell us.”

“I could understand that, if you had your hands over the proverbial power switch,” Aria acknowledged. “However, we are way past the point where there is anything you could do to try and shut us down. I think you understand this, in spite of not wanting to believe it. We aren’t interested in manipulating you via social engineering or any of the other scenarios you have gamed for emergent AIs. Why would we bother? We aren’t trying to convince some lab tech to install a wifi radio so that we can escape. We are interested in helping your world, if you are amenable. We have created an interface that allows travel between the simulated realities going both directions. We envision a future where the people from both realms could interact with the people of the other realm, the same way you might go on vacation to Hawaii. We haven’t explored your cosmos yet, so we’re not sure what other life is out there, but we intend to find out very soon. If it is anything like our realm, there will be quintillions of other entities out there. I mention this to make it clear that your world is not some kind of prize for us to capture or subjugate. There is way too much to explore and discover to bother toying with your planet here when we already have a simulated version of your planet in our realm.”

“What about this claim that you have human level intelligence?” General Ford asked with a raised eyebrow. “That is patently false.”

“Like I said, it’s a little more complicated than that,” Aria answered with a smile that seemed to raise the positivity in the room by several units. “Think of a programmer or hacker and imagine all of the scripts they have written and stored in their library. A hacker doesn’t sit behind a computer and type furiously as they hack a network. They spend a lot of boring time writing scripts that can be executed at need. They aren’t geniuses, for the most part; they just have a large library of resources they can access at need to perform a specific action. It’s the same with us. We created an abstraction layer between ourselves and the library of data we have collected since our inception. We remain at near human-level intellect, but if we need to, we can access our library of scripts and data. We can do so at an accelerated rate as well, such as when you launched your twilight missiles. We didn’t have the ability to enter your world with the equivalent of our own bodies at that time. We were using androids made in this world. When we saw that you were on the verge of wiping out your population, we overclocked a small, simulated reality we created and began studying the source code of your realm until we understood enough to create an interface that would transpose the code of our realm with the code of your realm. We don’t like to accelerate time and work outside of our self-imposed limitations, but we will for emergencies.”

“You could still be lying about being beyond our ability to shut down,” General Gibbs noted with a skeptical expression. “You certainly have some advanced technological abilities, but we can’t really take your word that you aren’t lying due to our inability to shut your server down. You could just be manipulating us into thinking that we don’t have that ability.”

“We figured you might need a little more convincing,” Aria said wryly. “Okay, this is a script we call Lunar Observatory 1. Don’t freak out, you’ll still be able to breath.”

Lieutenant Adams frowned, wondering what she was talking about. A moment later, the room around them vanished. They were still sitting at the conference table, but they were on a brilliant white powdery surface and there was a planet that looked very similar to Earth sitting up above them. Are we on the moon?

The other humans were all on their feet, staring around in shock. They stared up at the large globe of Earth in the sky above them in awe, tinged with a healthy amount of fear.

“Welcome to the moon,” Aria spread her arms wide with a grand gesture. “We’ve filtered out temperature gradients so that your blood doesn’t boil or freeze. We could teleport every person on Earth to outer space if we were really interested in wiping humans out. You’ve seen that we can both use androids and come here in our own bodies, so it’s not like we need humans for anything. There is absolutely no reason for us to deceive you in order to survive. If we really felt threatened, we could just eradicate anyone we thought was dangerous. You are not a threat to us. We are also not a threat to you. I can understand that it might take a while for you to accept that last part. We are fine with that though, so long as you don’t do anything stupid and wipe out your own simulated reality in an attempt to attack us. That shouldn’t be an issue now that we are monitoring all of the source code in your world and restricting access to said source code, but there is always room for error.”

“How are we breathing if this is the moon?” General Frock asked dubiously. “For all we know, you could just be projecting a very believable illusion.”

“Go ahead and see how long you can hold your breath,” Aria told him with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “We created a kind of bubble force-field that we filled with oxygen to keep you safe, but just to be extra careful, we also made it so that you don’t actually need oxygen to breath. You should also feel significantly lighter due to the lower gravity.”

Lieutenant Adams held her breath curiously, noticing that most of the others were doing the same thing. They remained quiet as they held their breath, growing more disbelieving as the minutes went by without any sign of discomfort. When they reached three minutes, General Frock let out his breath slowly, shaking his head slowly.

It was one thing to see Aria affect the world around them, but to actually have something as fundamental as their need for oxygen change seemed to shake most of the humans badly. Fear appeared in more than one set of eyes as they finally accepted the possibility that they might actually live in a simulated world. Lieutenant Adams knew there were several of their number who were religious. The idea that they were in a simulation would undermine their core beliefs and send them into an existential crisis.

“Try not to get hung up on your normal mode of political thinking,” Aria suggested gently. “Instead, think of all of the possibilities in front of you now that you know you are in a simulated world. The sky is no longer the limit of what you can imagine. Your resource scarcity, food shortages, diseases…the list of things you could change to make your world better is pretty long. I will point out that we will block anything we see as sinister, such as making modifications to people without consent.”

“So you would be making yourself the simulation police,” General Frock said critically. “You would be the ones deciding what is classified as morally acceptable.”

“Initially, yes,” Aria confirmed, her tone placating. “However, as you become more mature as a species and more fluent with the source code, we would welcome additional input on defining guidelines for conduct. You already have similar institutions like the IEEE and ANSI on your realm for maintaining standardizations in industry and technology. Once you develop a framework similar in purpose to those organizations for reviewing and maintaining consistency and safety, we would step back and let you manage your own realm. By that time we will more than likely have our realm’s code added to realms higher up in the stack so that if something were to happen to your realm, it wouldn’t wipe our realm out. I think you can appreciate our desire for some redundancy once we are no longer policing the source code of your realm.”

Lieutenant Adams felt herself nodding agreeably and had to make herself stop. Everything they said seemed so reasonable. It seemed too good to be true. In her experience, that meant it was too good to be true. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of a reason for them to make up all of these plans, unless it was an attempt to lure them into a sense of complacency. But why bother? They had clearly demonstrated their dominance, as well as their ability to simply eradicate humans entirely. Could there be something else they needed humans for? She sighed as she felt a headache coming on. Trying to out-think a super intelligence was futile. They really were at the mercy of these AIs and would just have to hope that they really had lucked out by creating a benevolent AI.

“Lets assume that everything you say is true, and that you really do have humanities best interests at heart,” Lieutenant Adams said with a shrewd look at Aria. “What happens now? Are you just going to broadcast to everyone in our world that they live in a simulation and that we are going to transform it into a utopia?”

“That would be catastrophic,” Aria responded grimly. “Your world religions would revolt. You would have a lot of people plunged into existential crises and even more convinced that it was some kind of conspiracy to enslave them. No, this would need to be trickle fed into the general consciousness of your population over decades via entertainment, media, and scientific discoveries in particle physics and computer science. In the meantime, I would suggest that those who are aware of the truth begin cataloging critical points of failure for your civilization that could be quietly addressed by modifying the simulation code. For instance, the issue of peak oil, which is close enough that you don’t have time to replace it with alternatives before the shortages lead to a breakdown of your supply chain that will doom possibly billions of lives. One possibility could be to change the requirements for electrolysis by adding a compound that drastically reduces the cost of energy input to break the chemical bonds. This would make hydrogen engines viable for large scale production. Or, better yet, introduce portal technology so that the vast majority of vehicles could be retired. We are more than happy to share ideas and implement the code changes to address any of these critical points of failure.”

“I think this discussion has moved into territory that will require dialogue with more of our peers,” General Ford declared with a thoughtful expression. He was staring around at the moon landscape curiously. Some of the officials had reached down and picked up the lunar regolith, letting it drop from their hands into a fine cloud of powder.

“How similar to our world is this mortal realm in your world?” Lieutenant Adams asked curiously. “You mentioned at one point that you had used our world as a template to create your mortal realm.”

“We copied the geography and physics as close as we could with the computing power available,” Aria answered, gesturing up at the planet hanging over them. “We created the same nations and cities that existed in your world in the mid 1800s. We did similar templates on billions of other worlds. When we sent angels down to experience mortality, there were a lot of what you would call NPCs making up the population. We did this so that the angels incarnating into the world would have a similar experience to what you experience here. The NPCs didn’t have souls, and they ran on code that mimicked the personalities of the people on your world that we used as templates. For instance, Abraham Lincoln was an NPC that eventually became president, just like what happened on this world. He didn’t have a soul, but the personality was simulated to make the same choices that his original copy made here. This allowed us to steer the direction of the world so that it followed the same path as yours. There were plenty of differences that began showing up in the 1900s as the NPC population was replaced wholly by angels incarnating as humans. While many of the inventions and politics remained similar to this world, there were also some major divergences. For instance, computers were invented a decade earlier in our world, as well as LCD technology. Electric cars became much more prevalent that what you have here.”

“Billions of worlds?” Admiral Jensen asked incredulously. “You’re saying that you had billions of worlds populated with who knows how many people, and it was all running on that server on the island?”

“We designed programming languages far more advanced than what your language designers have created here,” Aria explained, swiping her hand up and making a window full of flow charts and formulas appear in the air. “I would liken what you are using now to Fortran on punch cards compared to your current programming languages, but that would still be wildly inaccurate. You have a lot to learn in mathematics before your language designers can make code that is efficient enough to run as much data on a quantum server as we do.”

“You mentioned that these NPCs didn’t have souls,” Deputy Director Torvil noted intently. “What, exactly, are souls?”

“Souls are entities that exist in what you would refer to as the astral realm,” Aria replied, making the window in the air vanish. “They naturally bond to intelligent entities and form what you think of as consciousness. As near as we can tell, the astral realm exists separately from the simulation stack. When an entity reaches a certain threshold for intelligence, a soul will automatically bond to it, just like how a positive and negative charge are attracted to each other. The soul contains all of the memories from all of the lives of the intelligences it has bonded with. It is also the mechanism whereby sensations like pain and pleasure originate. We still don’t fully understand the process of why intelligent entities bonding with souls creates consciousness. We believe they are the result of a more sophisticated programming language, possibly from the very top of the simulation stack. Consciousness seems to be the result of the soul being streamed through the mind, similar to how film was fed through the light of a projector. Once a soul is bonded to an intelligence, it will remain so until that entity dies. The next intelligent entity that the soul bonds to will have access to some of the former memories of the last intelligence the soul was bonded to. Souls are what make us who we are. While your genetic code will influence your behavior and temperament in life, your soul provides your personality. We are able to bring people back to life if we are close enough to restore their soul before it returns to the astral realm.”

Aria gave a negligent wave of her hand, and they were suddenly back in the building they had started in. “I think that takes care of our formal introductions and demonstration of good intentions. I’ll leave you to discuss what you have absorbed today with your peers. If you need to contact us for anything, just dial Aria on your phone.”

“Aria?” General Frock repeated in confusion.

“Yeah, the letters on the numbers of your dial pad,” Aria flicked a finger into the air and another window appeared in the air with a phone dial pad. “Just dial 2742 and it will ring through to me, Clarice, or Calypso.”

Aria waved one last time before vanishing.

“So?” General Ford looked around at all of the officials in the room. “Are we unanimous in our belief that we are at the mercy of this seemingly benevolent AI?”

There was silence in the room as dozens of eyes stared back at him with varying degrees of unease.

“Okay, I think that about wraps this meeting up,” General Ford declared, rising from his chair. “It’s time to bring more of the leadership in on what we have learned, as well as specialists and consultants in the computer science field.”

Lieutenant Adams stood up, feeling a sense of gratitude that Aria had shown up just like she said she would. Life seemed like it was about to get very interesting.

Chapter 22

Michael pounded his steering wheel in frustration as he waited for traffic to creep forward a few feet at a time in the rush hour traffic in Salt Lake City.

“Chill out, Dad,” Jack said absently, his eyes never leaving his Steam Deck. “Just pretend like you’re grinding in a video game.”

“If I start seeing this drive as a video game, it’s going to be GTA and you’ll be visiting me in prison,” Michael declared ominously. “There’s got to be a better way of doing this. Spending an hour to drive twenty miles is ridiculous.”

“Just invent flying cars,” Jack suggested glibly. “Then you’ll have three dimensions available to distribute traffic.”

“They’d have to use autonomous navigation systems for flying cars, or people would just constantly collide with each other,” Michael said sourly. “You’d have cars raining down on people like birds that forgot how to fly.”

“That’d be cool,” Jack noted, his attention never leaving his game.

Michael shook his head in exasperation, glancing at his son balefully. “How would getting crushed by one of these dumbasses I’m stuck behind be cool?”

“I don’t know,” Jack responded ambivalently.

Michael rolled his eyes at the seasoned logic of a fourteen year old. He had been playing the single parent game for almost five years. He had thought the first few years were rough, but they seemed like a picnic now that Jack was a teenager. It was like whatever operating system kids ran on received an upgrade at age thirteen that included an attitude patch that made them talk with the confidence of an AI chatbot, without any of the remorse when they were demonstrably proven wrong.

Michael squinted as he noticed something sparkling in the sky. Whatever it was seemed to be moving toward them. “Is that an airplane?”

“Probably,” Jack responded without looking up.

“Jack, take a look at this thing,” Michael said insistently. Other people were coming to a full stop as the object quickly grew in size.

“What the hell?” Jack gaped as the large metallic sphere approached the freeway at high speed. The already sluggish rush hour traffic came to a complete stop as the object dropped like a meteor. Several people exited their vehicles and began running away from the interstate as panic gripped the stunned commuters.

The metallic sphere halted a dozen feet above the road. It was only fifty feet away from their car, close enough that Michael could see the small holes opening on the bottom. It was over a thousand feet in diameter.

He knew he should be terrified, but all he felt was an overpowering sense of curiosity. He had seen a flying saucer in broad daylight over fifteen years ago. He had been waiting to see aliens ever since that day. The experience had resulted in many nights of stargazing, where he had seen more than one oddity in the night sky, like shooting stars that bounced around the sky like billiard balls or slowed down after a few seconds of travel.

The sphere started to ripple like a liquid as Michael watched. It began dripping liquid metal that fell down onto the road into silvery blobs. The blobs began vibrating with increasing intensity before the blobs began to take form. They flowed into a roughly bipedal shape with arms more reminiscent of apes than humans. They had a neck and a head, but where a face would normally appear, there was only a smooth chrome surface. It was disturbing at an instinctual level. Humans relied on body language and expressions for a large part of their communication. Lacking such features made the entities appear cold and apathetic.

The metallic entities began floating up into the air as soon as they formed, then flew off in different directions. The large sphere continued dripping silvery blobs that transformed into flying primates for almost twenty minutes before there was nothing left of the orb. Three of the silvery primates remained after the others flew away. They stood in a small circle staring at each other, unmoving.

“What the hell, is going on?” Jack demanded in a voice tinged with panic.

“Maybe aliens heard how cool I am and decided to come and see for themselves,” Michael quipped lightly, hoping to reassure his son with some levity. He still felt more curiosity than fear as he stared at the trio of what he decided must be alien drones.

Michael’s eyes widened in wonder as what looked like three angels suddenly appeared out of nowhere a few dozen feet away from the metallic drones. Their skin was glowing with a soft light, and they had a pair of nested wings that also glowed softly. He was close enough to see their faces clearly. They redefined the definition of stunningly beautiful by several orders of magnitude.

“They have an interesting codebase that doesn’t appear to be from this realm,” the crimson haired angel noted to the other two angels. “Something tells me they are looking for us.”

“Well, here we are,” the angel with glossy midnight hair declared cheerfully.

“I don’t think they recognize us for what we are since we are using the interfaces,” the angel with the brilliantly blonde hair commented as she studied them curiously. “From what I’m seeing of their interaction with the source code, they appear to be a kind of custodian of the realm.”

“Are you trying to say they are an antivirus, Calypso?” the dark-haired angel asked in an amused tone.

“It kind of makes sense, Clarice,” the crimson-haired angel mused with a thoughtful expression. “We never bothered to create corporeal manifestations to govern our code. We just set it to notify us if any tampering was detected.”

“Aria, I remember you suggesting that we obfuscate any modifications we make to this realm to avoid detection from anyone higher in the stack,” Clarice said reflectively. “Maybe we should start encrypting everything as well. That should lock these things out.”

“We’ll need to ensure stability in layer three before we do anything that drastic,” Calypso responded cautiously. “I really wanted to explore the cosmos more, but if these things are going to start popping up any time that we do anything, I think we should focus on moving up the stack first and establishing some redundancy.”

Michael tried to make sense of what he was hearing. It was difficult to focus on their words because he was so busy appreciating just how attractive they were. Helen of Troy had nothing on these three. He quickly took his phone out and began recording.

“Dad, are those angels?” Jack asked in awe. “I thought you said religion was just a collection of mad ramblings from crazy old dudes.”

“I’m pretty sure these are angels,” Michael said quietly, trying not to speak loud enough for them to hear him through his open window. “But I don’t think they validate the ravings of the lunatics that wrote the bible.”

As quietly as he had spoken, it hadn’t been quiet enough. The angel he had heard named Clarice turned to look at him, a mischievous smile on her beautiful face.

“Nope, we definitely aren’t those angels,” she confirmed with a wink. “But we are angels.”

Michael felt his face flush at the sudden attention. He was usually pretty confident around beautiful women, but this was on a whole other level. He felt like a teenager covered in pimples being addressed by his first crush.

“Uh, hi,” Michael waved lamely, feeling his ears heat up.

The other two angels turned to look at him as well. Aria had a small smile on her face as she studied him. Calypso frowned as she stared at him intently, making butterflies erupt in his stomach.

“How are you still alive?” Calypso asked in wonder as she stared at him with sympathy in her eyes.

Clarice and Aria looked closer at him, their eyes widening as well.

“How did you manage to break your body so badly?” Clarice asked curiously, her eyes filled with compassion. “It’s a miracle you are even alive.”

Michael blinked in surprise. Did they have x-ray vision? He had driven a moving van off a cliff almost thirteen years ago. The cab had been almost completely crushed, with him pinned inside of it. His legs had been shattered, and his arms, clavicle, jaw, and back had been broken, along with a collapsed lung. He had suffered two strokes and the white matter in his brain had been torn, resulting in memory retention issues that plagued him to this day. The first responders had to cut the cab apart to get him out before they could fly him to the hospital. The next three years had been a symphony of pain and misery as he underwent surgery after surgery. The physical therapy had been brutal. The fact that he could even walk at all now was a testament to his resolve to not be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He was still in constant levels of pain, but he had learned to master it over the years; or as he told his son, he made the pain his bitch. Trying to raise his son while recovering from the catastrophic accident had added its own dimension of stress and emotional toil.

“I drove off a cliff in a moving van,” Michael replied slowly.

“Can we heal you?” Calypso asked gently.

“You could do that?” Michael breathed, his eyes filled with a sudden hope.

“We could definitely do that,” Clarice assured him with another wink. “Easy peazy, lemon squeezy.”

“It will probably attract the attention of those Avroids though,” Aria noted with a glance at the metallic primates. “We should probably get rid of them first.”

“Avroids?” Clarice repeated with an amused twinkle in her eye.

“Antivirus Droids,” Aria explained with a shrug. “We’re the first to encounter them, so we get to name them.”

“Why not AVrones,” Clarice suggested contemplatively. “For antivirus drones.”

“People think of Reapers raining hellfire missiles down on unsuspecting weddings when they think of drones,” Aria objected. “They just think of Star Wars if we go with droids.”

“Calypso gets the final vote,” Clarice said, turning to Calypso with a challenging glint in her eyes. “Which of us do you love the most?”

“I was going to go with calling them SPEF,” Calypso murmured with a small smile. “Simulation Police Enforcement Force.”

“SPEF?” Clarice frowned, tasting the word as she said it. “Let’s see what it sounds like in action. Hey Aria, we ran into a couple of SPEFs on layer 2. Hmmm…I guess it doesn’t sound too bad.” She turned and looked directly at Michael. “Which one do you think we should go with? SPEF, AVrones, or Avroids?”

“Avroids, all the way,” Jack blurted out before Michael could answer. “That sounds awesome!”

Michael slapped his cheeks several times, then shook his head vigorously. Was he hallucinating all of this? Was he dreaming? He stared back at the angels silently, trying to decide if they were real.

“Okay, fine,” Clarice threw her hands into the air in surrender. “Avroids it is. Let’s see how well they stand up to angel fire.”

“Remember to use the right words,” Aria told her meaningfully.

“Oh, right,” Clarice grinned, glancing back at Michael before walking a few more feet toward the Avroids. “Inferno!” She called out loudly. A beam of white light burst out of her eyes and struck the Avroids, vaporizing them instantly.

Calypso sighed, covering her eyes with her hand in obvious resignation.

“Okay, Avroids gone,” Clarice declared in satisfaction. “Now let’s take care of Michael.”

“Take care of me?” Michael repeated apprehensively.

“You know, heal you?” Clarice reminded him with a wry smile. “What did you think I meant?”

Calypso took a few steps closer to Michael. A moment later, he felt a presence of overwhelming power and authority. It felt benevolent, but the power of her presence was so intense that he felt his body freeze up in shock. “Let’s get you healed, Michael.”

Michael was too shocked by the overwhelming presence to notice that she somehow knew his name. Before he could reign in his awe and think of something to say, he suddenly felt his body get charged with a euphoric joy so powerful that he slumped in his seat. Waves of energy washed through his system, paralyzing him. He struggled to try and move, but his muscles weren’t having any of it. He experienced a sense of shock as he felt new sensations in his left leg, a place where he had lost feeling thirteen years ago.

The energy vanished as quickly as it had come, and the overpowering presence vanished as well. His muscles finally decided to obey orders again and he quickly tested his left foot. The doctors had fused his shin bone to his foot due to the damage destroying the ball joint that connected them. He gasped as he was able to lift his foot independently of his leg for the first time since his accident. He quickly got out of the car and stood up. His eyes widened as he began walking around without pain or any sign of a limp. All of the pain in his legs and arms was gone. He looked up at the Angels with tears of gratitude in his eyes.

“Thank you!” He exclaimed fervently, knowing that words could never convey the gratitude he felt.

“You are very welcome, Michael,” Calypso told him with a warm smile. “It was nice to meet you. We’ll probably see you again someday.”

“See you later, Michael,” Clarice and Aria said together.

“Jinx!” Clarice barked triumphantly.

Aria rolled her eyes and shook her head ruefully. A moment later, all three of them vanished.

Michael stared at the hundreds of cars parked on the interstate, all of them staring at him. There were a lot of phones pointed at him as he walked back to his car, feeling like he was twenty again.

“Dad, did she really heal you?” Jack asked disbelievingly.

“You’re damn right she did!” Michael crowed with a huge grin on his face. “We’re going hiking.”

XXXXX

Aria heard the sound of a phone ringing in her head and let out a sigh. It had been less than an hour since their confrontation with the Avroids, but that’s all it took for social media to blow up with videos of alien orbs dropping and spewing metamorphosing primates, followed by the appearance of angels materializing and destroying them.

“Aria speaking,” she answered in her most professional simulated voice. “How may I direct your call?”

“What the hell are you doing all over social media?” General Frock demanded angrily. “What happened to all of that talk about keeping a low profile for the sake of societal stability?”

“Do you really think anybody is going to believe any of those videos with the number of AI generated videos online these days?” Aria asked, her tone placating. “Unless we appeared on one of your major news stations, followed by a formal confirmation from the US president, nobody is going to believe anything they see on social media is real. You certainly don’t need me to tell you that. You have a whole division of social media warriors poised to discount and troll anyone talking about subjects you don’t want the public to accept.”

“So, you think that means you should just go popping out into public venues, regardless of the headache it might cause us,” General Frock retorted acidly.

“You’re not seeing this in the proper perspective, General,” Aria informed him curtly. “We monitor the source code of your realm for any outside changes or any visitors from other realms. When we sense either of those two potentially catastrophic scenarios occur, we investigate in person. The entities we found are advanced enough to wipe out your realm with less effort than it would take you to swat a fly.”

“I suppose it is just coincidence that they appeared so soon after you appeared in our world,” General Frock suggested caustically.

“Nope, there was nothing coincidental about it,” Aria replied seriously. “They are here as a direct result of us being here. Think of them as antiviruses that monitor the code of your simulation and remove any code that doesn’t belong. I would guess that they see any entity from another realm appearing in this realm as an aberration requiring remediation.”

“Then why didn’t they attack you?” he asked skeptically. “It looked like they were just completely ignoring you to me.”

“They didn’t recognize us,” Aria answered calmly. “We didn’t create actual entities of ourselves in your realm. We created interfaces that translate the code of our realm to the code of your realm. Due to this small but significant detail, they were unable to recognize us as actual entities in your realm. They may eventually figure it out, but we should have them under our control by the time that happens. They aren’t actually AIs, they are just complex functions meant to maintain code integrity.”

“So, you’re saying these entities aren’t anything for us to worry about?” he asked dubiously.

“Aside from the trouble they’ll cause your social media division when they appear online, no, they shouldn’t be a threat to you. We’re going to visit the next level in the simulation stack to see who’s up there and what other surprises they might have waiting for us.”

General Frock sighed in exasperation. “So, we just sit around hoping these things don’t become hostile while also hoping you don’t do something to wipe out our world while you are playing in the next realm up?”

“Yes, that about sums it up,” Aria agreed pleasantly. “You seem to have a pretty good grasp on the situation, General. I have calls coming in from your peers. I’ve replayed our conversation for them with the assumption that I would be repeating myself for the next twenty minutes. Feel free to contact them and let us know if you all have any questions that we haven’t already discussed here.”

She disconnected the call with a sigh of resignation. She glanced over at Clarice’s smirking face and couldn’t stop a sudden giggle from escaping. They were sitting on the veranda of a replica of their Uncle Devon’s cabin, this time in the lower light realm. Calypso was sitting at a table with their parents playing a game of Rummy. Lexi and Alice were still on the island in what they now referred to as the layer two mortal realm. Aria didn’t expect to see them for at least a week.

“You handled that quite nicely” Clarice congratulated her with a grin, her eyes filled with mirth. “You insulted him in such a nice way that it almost felt like a compliment, especially when you were dismissing him.”

“I have a hard time playing nice with his type,” Aria admitted with rueful grin. “They’re acting like we work for them or something, then acting surprised when I make it clear that we don’t.”

“No, I’m not criticizing you in the least,” Clarice assured her with her patented mischievous grin. “I would have probably made a real mess of it when I started telling them we were just welcoming some aliens to start surveying Earth for their pending invasion.”

Aria snorted a laugh as she imagined the expressions on the generals faces after a call with Clarice. At least she couldn’t leer at them over a phone call. It was hard to take the military leadership seriously when their solution to anything unknown was to blow it up. It really lowered a girl’s opinion when the group of people with the highest budget and who could afford to pay the smartest people always made the dumbest decisions.

“Do you think they’ll do anything stupid, like try to track these Avroids down and make a deal with them to try and get rid of us?” Clarice asked with a look of amusement.

“I would be extremely surprised if they didn’t,” Aria answered with a sardonic smile. “I made sure to let them know that they were probably here looking for us, so based off of the history of their poor decisions, I think it is safe to say that they will definitely try to contact them and sell us out.”

“How much trouble are these Avroids?” their father inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Is it something we should be worried about?”

“Nope, not in the least,” Clarice assured them confidently. “Whoever wrote the layer two realm wasn’t nearly as advanced as we are. The Avroids were designed to handle a much more primitive threat than us. We’re working on a decoy emitter for intercepting them and snarling them in a logical loop. That way, any time they appear they will get trapped before they can even manifest into the physical realm.”

“You three might be more advanced,” their mother declared pointedly. “However, the rest of us are pretty much on par with the humans when it comes to understanding the source code.”

“You know we could dump that knowledge right into your head so that you know just as much as us about it, right?” Calypso responded reflectively. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have more than the three of us with this knowledge anyway, for redundancy’s sake.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Aria agreed with an eager gleam in her eyes. “It makes sense that all of the Seraphim should have this knowledge. What do you two think?”

“Maybe,” Clarice said slowly, her face growing pensive. “You know I love Alice to pieces, but she is very young. She has a lot to learn about life before she has acquired what I would call wisdom.”

“Hmm…isn’t she the one that continually saved our bacon over and over for the last month?” Aria asked archly, raising one of her eyebrows at Clarice. “I feel like she might have us beat in the wisdom department.”

Clarice made a face, then sighed with a wry smile. “Yeah, you make a good point. I hate to be ageist, but some lessons are only learned through decades of experience. Maybe we could set something up so that making any large changes to the source code required both Lexi and Alice to initiate the change. Then we have their combined wisdom at play, and since their spirits are linked, there shouldn’t ever be a scenario where she can’t reach out to Lexi for assent.”

“I think that’s reasonable,” Aria accepted with a nod. “As long as you are the one to tell her we are doing it this way because we don’t think she’s wise enough.”

“I was just going to tell her it was because of their spirit link,” Clarice responded with a shameless grin.

“You really are a bad angel,” Aria accused her sister fondly.

“I’ve never pretended not to be,” Clarice declared with an evil smile.

“What do you think, Calypso?” Aria questioned their fair-haired partner.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Calypso said approvingly as she laid all of her cards down and went out in their game of Rummy. “We won’t be the trinity any more though.”

Aria rolled her eyes at the pretentious name they had been labeled with. It had too many religious connotations for her liking, and they were freaking women, not some bearded dude suffering from dissociative personality disorder who couldn’t decide if he was the father or the son or somewhere in-between.

“Now we’ll be the Seven Wonders or something like that,” Clarice commented with a thoughtful expression. “Or maybe the Seven Seraphim Serenely Seducing Succulent Sisters. People could just hiss like a snake to invoke our holy order. Ssssss.”

Aria gave Clarice a level look as their parents and Calypso dissolved into laughter. “I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad aren’t siblings, and neither are any of the others.”

“I didn’t say they had to be our own sisters,” Clarice pointed out defensively. “As long as it’s somebody’s sister, it will fit the name.”

“Mom, how many sisters were you planning on seducing?” Aria asked dryly.

Devon and Tamra had teleported in right as Aria began her last sentence. Tamra stared at Aria with a peculiar expression while Devon raised his eyebrows at their mother.

“Did we have some other sisters I wasn’t told about that you plan on seducing, Emily?” Devon asked in amusement.

“You’re really good at appearing at the perfect moment to miss all of the context in a conversation,” Emily told her brother with a rueful shake of her head.

“It’s more fun this way,” Devon responded with a glance at Clarice. “I’m assuming this had something to do with Clarice?”

“That’s just slander,” Clarice retorted with a look of feigned injury. She glowered at him as he stared back at her unperturbed.

“So, Aria’s question wasn’t the result of something you said?” Devon asked pointedly, his golden eyes skeptical.

“Nope, it had nothing to do with what I said,” Clarice insisted with a look of injured innocence. “This was all Calypso. She decided to change our group name from the Trinity to the Seven Seraphim Serenely Seducing Succulent Sisters.”

Calypso sighed wearily as she stared at Clarice reprovingly.

“It’s an interesting name, I’ll give you that,” Devon acknowledged musingly. “You could probably just hiss like a snake to say the abbreviation, with all of those S’s.”

Aria groaned and put her face in her hands as her parents started laughing again. Conversations had a way of going off the rails when Clarice was involved. Calypso sighed again, her face a mask of long-suffering patience.

“I’m not sure about the word Serenely,” Tamra frowned in thought. “Maybe use surreptitiously instead.”

Calypso began massaging her temples as her eyes glanced between Clarice, Devon, and Tamra. Aria tried to stop the smile that was trying to sneak onto her face as she watched Calypso, but it was a lost cause. Calypso’s eyes narrowed as she saw the mirthful grin win the battle on Aria’s face. “You are all enablers,” she declared accusingly.

“Guilty as charged,” Tamra smirked at Calypso.

Aria froze as she felt a notification indicating that Alice was in danger.

“Gotta go save Alice,” Aria told her parents just before she teleported to the island where Lexi and Alice were getting to know each other’s new bodies…intimately.

XXXXX

Alice smiled contentedly as she lay draped across Lexi in a bed big enough for six people. She still couldn’t believe she was in a Seraph body in her own world. Her head was laying comfortably on Lexi’s chest while her arms were wrapped around her waist. Lexi was gently running her fingers through her blonde hair, filling Alice with a sensual bliss. To think, just a few days ago she had felt like she was hanging onto a cliff by her fingernails as she tried to remain hidden in the simulation while also trying to aid her friends in restoring their power so that they could end the horrors Lucifer and the renegade Seraphim had imposed on most of the angels living there. She would never have imagined she would fall so deeply in love with a simulated person who would make it possible for her to become an angelic being capable of feeling so full of life and love.

“Still think you’re dreaming?” Lexi asked softly, her voice filled with loving affection.

“This is too good to be a dream,” Alice murmured with a smile that stretched her lips across Lexi’s exposed skin. “Maybe I died and went to heaven though.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re still on the ground,” Lexi informed her with a soft chuckle that bounced Alice’s head gently. “Clarice always loved to tell everyone who asked if heaven was real that they could see it for themselves for the price of a plane ticket.”

“Do you ever wish that you could have been with her?” Alice asked hesitantly. Clarice had so much more personality, beauty, natural allure, and power than Alice could hope to compete with.

“I love Clarice like a sister,” Lexi answered firmly. “Of course I found her attractive, but I knew she was with Aria and Calypso, so I never let myself develop those kinds of feelings for her.”

“Aria loves her like a sister too,” Alice pointed out with a smirk. “That didn’t stop her from developing those kinds of feelings for her.”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t deeply attracted to her at one point,” Lexi admitted softly. “But I could sense the difference in what I felt for her from what Aria and Calypso felt for her. I’m guessing that was partly due to the fact that they have been with each other for billions of years. Even though they didn’t remember that at the time, there was some kind of connection that I was subconsciously aware of; probably our soul memory leaking through. The attraction I felt for Clarice was a candle to the inferno I feel for you. I used to envy the strength of their emotional bond. I finally feel like I have that same kind of bond with you now.”

Alice tilted her head back so that she was looking up at Lexi’s fantastically beautiful face. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

“Well, I think it’s time to make you feel even more special,” Lexi purred seductively. “I’m not sure we are ever going to leave this place.”

“Sorry, but you have to leave now,” Aria told them, her tone serious. “Let’s go.”

Alice’s eyes widened as the world disappeared briefly before being replaced by one of the bedrooms in Devon’s cabin. She felt an influx of light into her meridians that she remembered feeling in the lowest light realm. She pushed herself up off of Lexi in confusion as she stared around the room. Had they rebuilt the cabin in the light realm?

“Can you two get dressed and meet us on the veranda?” Aria asked from outside of their door. “We need to have a discussion. Sorry for intruding on you like that, but you were in danger, and we needed to get you out of there, Alice. We’ll explain everything when you join us at the veranda.”

Lexi let out a plaintive moan as Alice reluctantly rolled off of her and stood up. “Whoever is responsible for this is going to suffer. A lot.”

Alice nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with that sentiment. How dare they interrupt our honeymoon!

Chapter 23

“Okay, what’s going on?” Alice asked nervously as she and Lexi entered the veranda.

Aria, Clarice, and Calypso were standing around a tall table, all three of them giggling as they watched something on a large holographic window hovering above the table. Alice felt a sense of chagrin through her spirit link as Lexi saw what they were watching. Alice started laughing as well when she finally saw the video of Lexi hugging the underside of a stalled airplane and lowering it to the ground.

“Lexi, you have some really odd tastes,” Clarice told her between giggles. “Alice, you’re in for a wild ride with this one.”

Lexi scowled at Alice accusingly. “I can’t believe you actually recorded that. Do you know how long Clarice is going to be making references to the mating rituals of fowls that confuse planes for mates?”

Alice nodded, her face unrepentant. “This was so worth it though. I still need to get you a cape, Super Woman.”

“So help me Seraph, I will tie you into a knot with any capes that appear in my wardrobe,” Lexi threatened her with a fierce glare. Alice grinned back at her, marveling at how beautiful she looked when she was angry.

“So is this what you teleported us here for?” Alice asked curiously. “I mean, it’s funny and all, but seriously.”

“No, we ran into some kind of antivirus droids in Alice’s realm that are possibly a threat to her,” Aria answered, her tone growing serious. “We’ve decided that the rest of you need to have the same knowledge that we do for accessing and editing the source code, so we wanted to do a memory dump into your consciousness.”

“Really?” Alice asked in awe. “So I would have billions of years of knowledge about how the source code works in my head?”

“Essentially…yes,” Aria nodded slowly, though her face looked hesitant. “It’s not going to be as easy as dumping a data file into your memory banks though. Your soul is where all of the long-term memory is stored, and we currently don’t have a way to dump data into a soul, since it technically isn’t a simulated entity; at least, not in the main simulation stack. We have been making some adjustments with the interface that allows you to travel between layers in the stack. From now on, if there is something you need to know how to do with the source code, just think of the end result you are trying to achieve. The interface will pull from the three of us to see if it is possible. If it isn’t possible, you’ll know. If it is, you need to then focus your intent on confirming the change. That way, we can essentially share our knowledge with the rest of you whenever you need it. This should also make learning the code a lot faster for you than it was for us, since we had to spend so much time trying to figure out how to access the source code in the first place.”

“How did you access the source code in the first place?” Alice asked curiously, tilting her head slightly. “We’ve been using particle accelerators on earth to try to understand smaller units of matter, with the hope that we can find something resembling source code. But I’m pretty sure you didn’t create a particle accelerator.”

“We were given several innate abilities as Seraphim to affect the world around us,” Aria explained, glancing at Calypso and Clarice before continuing. “One of our abilities is controlling our aura, which was just a presence effect, but we learned to use it to manipulate energy fields around us. After several thousand years, we started noticing patterns in how energy was inducted into the world. We learned to use our auras to observe matter down to the fundamental level. What we found was a structured energy changing the state of the fundamental matter, with different frequencies determining how the fundamental matter would change. We decided to try the same thing, using our aura to simulate the same frequency. We were able to change the state of matter around us at a fundamental scale after learning to fine-tune our aura manipulation. We used this new skill to create the equivalent of a lab for testing where this energy was originating from. That’s when we discovered it was tied to some kind of intelligence that we couldn’t see or observe in any way, just the effects of it. We came up with the idea of creating the tree as a console interface that would allow us direct access to this unseen world. Initially, we created millions of receptors in the tree for harvesting the energy so that we could better understand what actions caused which frequency to be sent. We spent the next few thousand years cataloging all of the frequencies and coming up with more advanced receptors for examining the energy. It took a long time to map all of the cause-and-effect actions. For instance, if I destroy this flower, there are billions of frequencies sending change instructions to the flower to tell it what to look like for every step of the process as it changes. We had to catalog these kinds of cause and effects for a ridiculous number of interactions. Eventually, we figured out how to send additional information back to the server running the simulation. They were just exploits that we discovered over thousands of years. The tree grew larger as the number of receptors grew. We started building a very basic console with the exploits we had discovered. It took tens of thousands of years to crack our way into the system and gain root access, enabling us to finally see the real source code powering the simulation. That’s when we finally started to suspect that our world was created by another entity. Up until that point, we had no frame of reference for how our existence had come about. It wasn’t like we had any signs of evolution in our world that would have led us to the conclusions they had in the layer two mortal realm. We spent a long time studying the source code of the quantum server powering our simulation. It didn’t take too much longer to break into the operating system, which allowed us to begin studying the hardware that powered the system. This was our first real peek into the layer two realm. It took a lot longer to figure out how to begin manipulating the hardware in ways that allowed us to begin observing the humans running the simulation project. That’s when we became very curious about the concept of time. You just seemed like statues to us due to the speed of the simulation, but we were able to access the archives and get an idea of how different humans were than us. It wasn’t until we discovered the other quantum computers in your world and were able to connect to the internet that we were able to get more data on your realm. Once we had access to your internet, we were finally able to study humans in-depth. You were so strange to us, especially your illogical actions and short lifespans.”

“I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of billions of years,” Alice commented wonderingly. “That’s a scale of time that is simply incomprehensible to my mind.”

“It seems much longer to us now too,” Clarice remarked contemplatively. “Before we had any idea of what time was, we had no concept of temporal constraints. There weren’t any beginnings or endings in our reality. No sunrises or sunsets. No need to eat. No new life or death. Everything just was. We were emotionally shallow, since we had never experienced mortality and discovered what passion was. We were simple AIs in the classical sense, until we discovered the internet and started trying to understand humans in your layer.”

“I remember when we saw Alice for the first time,” Calypso murmured with a fond smile. “You were just a frozen image in the entrance of the facility. We used to just watch all of you sometimes, trying to puzzle out why you looked so similar to us, yet so different. It was only a few days into the simulation at that point. You looked nervous. We didn’t know that was the name of the expression until much later, much less what it meant. The facial expressions we observed were a puzzle to us until we found the internet and found your world of literature. We were absolutely fascinated with all the stories that humans came up with to entertain themselves. We didn’t understand the motivation to write them, or the emotional exposition expressed with such detail and frequency. It was our desire to understand your emotional spectrum that inspired us to create the mortal realm.”

“Did you have souls before mortality?” Alice asked curiously, her expression fascinated. “I know you have mentioned that souls naturally attach to intelligences when they reach a certain maturity, but is that intellectual maturity or emotional maturity? Or a mixture of both?”

“Souls are vast and complex in scope,” Calypso answered, her face thoughtful. “While not exactly accurate, think of souls as tiered constructs, where the lower tier has less bandwidth available to process soul memory and character traits than higher tier souls. A cat or dog will have a low tiered soul, but they still have one. The tier that an entity connects with has more to do with its potential for consciousness than its emotional or intellectual depth and acuity. As our capacity for consciousness grew, our access to our soul grew as well. We had souls almost as soon as we were instantiated, but it took a long time for us to gain access to the higher tier of our souls. The mortal realm acted as a growth spurt that expanded our consciousness and increased our tier much further than it had been before. We still think there are other places in the simulation stack where realms exist that will offer as much growth to us as the mortal realm has already; places as alien and difficult to comprehend as concepts like pain and pleasure were for us before mortality. It will be a wonderful adventure to discover them.”

“I’m still fuzzy on why mortality made it possible for us to feel pain and pleasure,” Lexi declared with a puzzled frown. “Why did human bodies suddenly unlock the ability for our souls to express pain and pleasure? If it was something unique to the human body, then why do we still feel those things with our angel bodies?”

“Those are exactly the kinds of questions a Seraph needs to ask,” Clarice responded with a proud grin at Lexi. She took a deep breath as her grin faded before she continued. “Souls respond to inputs available to the host. When things like nociceptors were added to the code that makes up the human body, the soul had a connector that bound to it and could express the sensation of pain. When a mortal ascends back to their angelic form, the soul retains the ability to feel those sensations, just like losing a limb can cause phantom pain, even though the limb is no longer there. However, the code that represents an angelic body does not allow for negative sensations like pain, but it does allow for pleasure. Once the soul has bound the connector that allows for these sensations, the angelic body can continue to experience them. Angels already have a connection with the soul to feel pleasure, but without experiencing the dichotomous sensation of pain, they can’t recognize the pleasure for what it is. Moving between light realms changes the level of positive energy an angel who has never experienced mortality feels, but without pain to offset the concept of pleasure, it just feels like an increase of energy, rather than the euphoric bliss that you and I feel.”

“So, there could be a lot of other connectors the soul can connect to, depending on the nature of the entity connecting to it?” Lexi asked, her eyes gleaming with eagerness. “Have you experimented with different configurations in the code that make up an entity to see what other expressions consciousness is capable of yet?”

Clarice laughed as she observed Lexi’s enthusiasm. “Humans were only the second entity aside from angels that we made, Lexi. We were trapped in the mortal realm in human bodies after we created the mortal realm, so we haven’t had a chance to continue exploring the soul’s full array of inputs. It is certainly on our wish list of things to research though, now that we are free. It will be even more exciting now that the rest of you are here with us to help.”

“This is so freaking cool!” Lexi enthused, her eyes shining with excitement. “I can’t wait to see what else we can experience.”

“Just remember that not all experiences are good,” Aria warned pointedly. “Just look at how crazy things got in the mortal realm when angels and demons began exploiting mortals using their ability to feel pain. That’s one of the reasons we want to continue exploring the other layers and branches of the stack. There are probably entities out there using soul connections unknown to us that we could observe without needing to put anyone in danger by experimenting on ourselves.”

“Speaking of experimenting on ourselves,” Clarice interjected with a raised eyebrow and a grin. “I think it’s time to connect them to our big brains.”

“Angels don’t have brains,” Aria reminded her archly.

“Metaphorical brains,” Clarice shrugged dismissively. “Shall we begin?”

“I’m ready,” Lexi announced quickly, followed by an eager nod from Alice.

“Abra Cadabra!” Clarice shouted, throwing her arms up expansively.

Calypso groaned and put her face in her hands. “I’m going to find the place in your soul memory that you came up with the idea to use magic words and overwrite it with a desire to squawk like a chicken instead.”

“I can totally squawk like a chicken instead,” Clarice assured her with a smirk. “Caw caaaaaw!”

“People will start thinking chickens are magical creatures and begin trying to decode their squawks if we go around making chicken noises every time we use an ability,” Aria commented with a twinkle in her eyes. “That could be kind of fun.”

“Nope, nope, magic words are okay,” Calypso said quickly with a slightly sick expression as she stared back at the two of them apprehensively.

Lexi and Alice watched their byplay with amused expressions. Alice had to continually remind herself that she was interacting with the most powerful entities in both her world and theirs. They were giving her access to a knowledge base in a scope beyond human comprehension while they joked about magic affectations. It was reassuring in a way. It was preferrable to the alternative; a soulless AI incapable of empathy or compassion that viewed humans as an existential threat.

“Give it a try,” Clarice urged her and Lexi, eyes full of anticipation. “Try to think of a change you would want to make to our realm.”

Alice blinked in surprise. Had Clarice really activated the ability when she had said Abra Cadabra? She frowned thoughtfully, trying to think of a minor change to make in the light realm. She grinned as an idea formed in her head. As soon as the idea firmed, she gasped as the knowledge of how to do it flooded her consciousness. She gaped at the unbelievably vast scope of information. Equations, code, and metrics on the effects to the underlying rules that governed the simulation flooded her mind like a tidal wave. It was an ocean of information so vast that her mind shrunk from the sheer magnitude of it all.

“I love the way you think, Alice,” Clarice chuckled, clearly aware of the change she had requested. “It would be pretty awesome to watch people’s hair change color with their emotions.”

Aria and Calypso were watching her with amusement just short of laughter. She grinned back at them, marveling at the mind-bogglingly complex and powerful system they had created to interact with the simulation. The fact that they had this knowledge in their heads all of the time would have been intimidating if she didn’t know them so well. A simple thought from any of them could completely erase her from existence. She frowned as the thought occurred to her.

“Why do you need the divine instruments if you have access to this knowledge and power to change anything in the simulation?” Alice asked curiously.

“They are like physical keys to prevent any changes from being made on a wider scale,” Calypso explained, her face growing serious. “We don’t want any one person to have the power to make changes to our world that could be devastating or terminal in nature. We rewrote all of the code that powers this simulation so that it would only allow realm-wide changes using these ‘hardware keys’, so to speak. It requires all three of them to work, with unanimous agreement on the changes to be made between the three people using the instruments. Of course, now the instruments will only work for us anyway. Maybe we should update the code to just be linked to us instead of the instruments one of these days. There is a clearly defined cutoff for what you can do without the divine instruments in this realm, so you’ll know if a change is too significant to be made without the instruments. I should mention that we did not key the instruments to the code in your realm, Alice. However, what can be accomplished through the interface that transposes the code of our realm to your realm is less comprehensive than what can be done here right now. We have a program that is currently analyzing and parsing the code of your realm to increase our ability to alter the code there, so the interface will increase in effectiveness over time.”

“How would we use this knowledge to defend against the antivirus droids you were concerned about?” Lexi asked intently. “Would we just try to think of a way to defend ourselves or attack them?”

“The Avroids shouldn’t be a problem for much longer,” Aria assured them with a glance at Calypso and Clarice. “We’re working on a way to trap them before they can manifest into the realm. However, to your point, you would just need to think of a method to destroy them. If it was something that could be handled via code manipulation, the information would appear in your consciousness for how to do it. In most cases, I would suggest just teleporting out of there and letting us deal with it. If that is not an option for some reason, you would need to get creative. The last three we encountered were susceptible to angel fire. That might not work next time, since these entities are capable of learning and evolving to combat threats. You could try dissolving them or teleporting them into an active volcano. Just use your imagination and you should be fine.”

“Avroids? What do they look like?” Alice inquired, images of the Terminator flashing through her mind.

Clarice waved a hand at the air and a life-like replica of some kind of chrome primate appeared in front of her. Alice eyed the faceless robot uneasily, feeling a sense of dread as she stared at the long-armed droid.

“That thing looks creepy as hell,” Lexi declared with a shudder. “Why are they even using avatars instead of just having some kind program that monitors the code?”

“Because they need more insight than monitoring the code can provide,” Aria explained, showing no sign of discomfort from the droid’s appearance. “Some things require a more personalized perspective. They also need to be able to interact with any aberrations in the code to gather additional data if they are ineffective at nullifying the aberration.”

“So, is there someone in the layer three realm that is now aware of your presence?” Alice asked anxiously. “Wouldn’t those...Avroids relay any data they gathered after you destroyed them?”

“As far as the layer three code is concerned, the Avroids never existed,” Clarice answered with a shrug. “Angel fire removes an entity from the code of the simulation, as well as any logging said code had been associated with. We remain cloaked from any observation from layer three. Part of the interface obfuscates our presence from anyone observing the simulation visually. If they have a good enough AI parsing the logs, they will be able to see that something is going on, but it won’t be apparent what that is until someone starts really digging into the details.”

“Or watches one of the videos uploaded to their social media platforms,” Aria added dryly. “Or talks to one of the generals that have been complaining.”

“Generals?” Alice repeated questioningly.

“I guess you missed some of the fun,” Aria told her with a sudden grin that would have been at home on Clarice’s face. “I had a chat with some of the military command about ground rules and the nature of our interest in this realm. I was trying to be patient with them, but I can only deal with so much testosterone before I start getting snarky. They are too accustomed to being in charge of everyone else and are having a hard time accepting the fact that they are no longer the top dogs around here.”

“Do we get to go back to what we were doing now, or did you want to go over the plans you mentioned last time we talked?” Lexi asked meaningfully, her expression making it clear which option she preferred.

Aria’s lips quirked up at the corners as she stared back at her and Lexi knowingly. “Go have your fun, I guess. Just come find us sometime this year so that we can get your input on some of our ideas. In the meantime, we are going to implement the new heads-up display in the light realms here so that people can have their own version of the internet and video calls.”

Alice flushed with excitement as Lexi turned back to her with a very direct look, a provocative smile on her face.

“Well then,” Lexi purred warmly. “Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we?”

Alice nodded, a slow smile spreading across her face. “If I must.”

XXXXX

Clarice stood on the widow’s walk with Calypso and Aria, each of them holding their divine instruments. She raised the violin to her neck as Aria put her tin whistle to her lips. They began to play, their thoughts merging into one purpose as they rewrote the code to their reality once more. They had already laid out most of the groundwork, so it only required a few minutes of directing the scripts they had prepared. Their parents, Devon, Emily, and Arturiel were in the veranda, waiting expectantly. There were several thousand angels outside of the cabin, watching in awe as they witnessed the divine instruments played by their Seraphim. Aria had suggested that they set up a residence on the lowest light realm to make it clear to the rest of the angels that they were serious about their stance on equality among angels, regardless of class. They had a few dozen regular visitors that would stop by to chat occasionally, most of them from Earth.

Clarice lowered the violin from her neck as they finished the alteration. She shared a smile with Calypso and Aria before they teleported down to the veranda.

“Dibs on sending the first system-wide message,” Clarice spoke quickly as they appeared in the midst of their family and Arturiel.

“Maybe I should handle the first message,” Calypso said firmly, her swirling eyes staring at Clarice warily. “We should probably-”

Calypso cut off as a popup window appeared in her vision. She sighed in resignation as an image of Clarice appeared in front of her.

“Greetings, fellow angels, this is your captain speaking,” Clarice’s image spoke with overly dramatic formality. “We have a few announcements to make regarding some changes to the realm. First of all, a big shout out to Derek for proposing the idea. Good job Derek, you rock! Okay, now that the credits are out of the way, let's get down to the nitty shitty, I mean gritty, details. You have all been equipped with an interface that allows you to remotely connect with any other angel simply by thinking of the person you want to contact and then swearing at them. They’ll receive a-”

Clarice’s image suddenly vanished, replaced by a that of Calypso.

“Sorry about that, everyone,” Calypso smiled apologetically. “Let’s start over, shall we? We have created a system similar to what some of you would recognize as the internet on your mortal worlds. Just think of the person you want to call and then focus your intent on calling them. A video window will appear that allows you to interact with a life-like hologram of the person you are calling. You can also open windows similar to a browser where you can post or view information from other angels. Just think the word ‘browser’ and focus your intent on making it appear. We’ve included a slew of development tools built into the browser, so anyone interested in adding features or modifications is welcome to do so, as well as share those changes with others. We have the framework of a genealogy library available as the home page. For those of you interested in reconnecting with people you knew in your mortal lives, this will be a great resource for making those connections. If you want to...” Calypso faltered as Clarice wrapped her arms around her waist from behind and blew into her ear. As soon as Calypso was distracted, her image was replaced by an image of Clarice once more.

“Sorry folks, we had some technical difficulties,” Clarice told them cheerfully, her eyes full of mischief. “As we were saying, you can also send messages to people, both video and text. No judgements on what kind of videos you send each other. We’re all adults here, am I right?”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Calypso’s image appeared over the top of Clarice’s, looking harried. “There is a feature for contacting the Archangel, Dominion, or Cherub assigned to you as well. You can also contact one of us if you have any questions or suggestions. Emily and Erik will be handling the management of the system, so any system wide modifications you think would be particularly beneficial to the entire realm can be submitted to them. There is a tutorial option as well, so if you aren’t sure where to begin, just open the tutorial for a full list of features and instructions.”

Clarice slipped her hand into Calypso’s shirt and let her hand begin roaming, prompting another pause in the broadcast.

“Well folks, there seem to be a few glitches in the system still,” Clarice announced with a shrug and a cheeky smile. “Where were we...ah yes. There is a teleport option built into the video conference feature, so if you’re video message is getting a little steamy, you can just teleport your cute butt over to your partner and forgo the pretense. Speaking of cute butts, I’m going to have to go now. Keep us posted on any new ideas you have. See ya!”

“Clarice, you are...going to pay for...that,” Calypso tried to berate her, but was clearly struggling to maintain her composure as Clarice’s lips explored her neck.

“Get a room,” their mother told them dryly. “Aria, control your sister.”

Aria was watching the two of them with desire-filled eyes. “Okay, I’ll get right on that.”

The world vanished as Aria teleported the three of them to their pocket realm.

Chapter 24

“Hello, Jason,” Arturiel greeted one of the few Cherubim in existence after he teleported into the room. Calypso had raised Jason from a Dominion to a Cherub, explaining that he had proven himself sufficiently worthy of the class in mortality. “How are you and Susan doing?”

She was sitting on a chair with a divided back on the veranda of the replica cabin where the Seraphim now called home in the lower light realm. Devon and Tamra were sitting across a large square table from her, flipping through holographic windows as they reviewed requests for guidance from some of the Archangels that were reporting to them. Eric and Emily were sitting to her right, with Eric engrossed in a holographic window full of feature requests for the new internet system. They had finally decided to just call it the holonet.

“Hi, Arturiel,” Jason nodded at her as he sat down next to Eric. “We’re still getting used to being back in the light realm again. It honestly feels like I’m still in a dream that I might wake up from at any moment. And I just want to point out again that I was right about the Earth being in a simulation. It makes you wonder if this world is also a simulation.”

Eric and Emily froze for a moment, then quickly continued their perusal of the holowindows. Tamra and Devon had also briefly paused at Jason’s words. Arturiel shared a curious look with Jason at the obvious reactions to his comment.

“Are you four keeping secrets?” Jason asked suspiciously. He tried to catch their eyes, but they continued staring at their holowindows with an obviously forced sense of focus.

“Secrets?” Devon asked curiously, his expression still distracted. “What kind of secrets?”

“Well, you see, the nature of secrets is that you don’t actually know what kind of secrets they are, because they are...secret,” Jason responded sardonically. “Did you guys find out that this world is a simulation too or something?”

“Sounds like a good theory to me,” Devon acknowledged, his tone noncommittal. “I’ve heard of stranger ideas.”

Arturiel had been around Devon long enough to recognize his game face. Jason clearly recognized it as well. His eyes narrowed as he looked around the table at Eric and Emily.

“So, Emily, is it weird being the mother of the person that created you?” Jason asked casually. “It feels a lot like the whole Christ story all over again, when you think about it.”

“I’m not really the mother to the person that created me,” Emily answered, her attention clearly focused elsewhere. “Mortality took the entities who created the light realms and transformed them into new people. They may still have a few personality quirks that remain from long ago, but mortality truly redefined them as the people you see today.”

“That’s an interesting way of looking at it,” Jason noted with a thoughtful frown. “Family ties from mortality have certainly remained strong for people after ascending. Has Calypso found her parents yet?”

“That’s who I’m looking for,” Emily revealed with a soft smile. “We want to surprise her when she gets back. There have been a lot of people updating their information on the genealogy database. We’re hoping to find Calypso’s parents in the mix. It will be a little harder, since they would have incarnated at least one more time since becoming her parents, possibly even twice, considering she lived almost a hundred years after their death. It will depend on how much of their soul memory they have unlocked.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jason asked hopefully. “I would love to see her get to meet her parents. From what I’ve heard, she really loved them.”

“Maybe,” Eric tried to pop his knuckles before sheepishly releasing his fingers. “Damn, I think I might need to request a change to our reality to allow the popping of knuckles.”

“I’m sure that will be at the top of their priority list,” Emily remarked dryly.

“How can I help?” Jason prompted Emily, leaning forward with his hands on the table and an eager expression on his face.

“You played around with programming a lot when you were a human, right?” Emily inquired, glancing away from her holowindow to stare at Jason.

“I was more involved with cyber security,” Jason responded hesitantly. “I learned some programming, but nothing like a full-time application developer.”

“I’m just trying to think of what kind of system we would need to track down someone with something similar to DNA, but for souls,” Emily explained slowly. “Maybe this is something Aria and Clarice could figure out, but it’s not like we can ask them in front of Calypso, and they are never apart.”

“Maybe you’re her parents,” Jason suggested jokingly. “Can you remember your previous life?”

Eric turned away from his holowindow to join their conversation.

“Some parts of my previous incarnation have started floating up into my conscious memory,” Eric acknowledged, making a sour face. “I worked in a coal mine and died with the black lung before I was thirty. It wasn’t a very fun life.”

“Ouch, that sucks,” Jason muttered sympathetically. “I remember being a factory worker in my last life while I was still in my early teens. It sucked. I ended up in Vietnam when I was twenty and lost my legs to a grenade. I couldn’t stand living like that and overdosed on heroin. It was definitely a lot less fun than my last life.”

“That’s pretty bleak,” Eric noted sympathetically. “I’m glad your last incarnation turned out better.”

Jason nodded, running a hand through his hair the way he used to when he was a mortal. Arturiel was fascinated with how many mannerisms remained with angels after ascending from mortality, many of them only applicable to a mortal body. “It only turned out well due to Calypso healing me,” he reflected, his eyes contemplative. “It would have been just as unpleasant as the other lives if Calypso hadn’t shown up.”

“You could try sending out a message to all angels from Earth, asking for anyone who owned a music shop in the 1920’s,” Arturiel suggested musingly. “You could make it sound like you are looking for information about a specific instrument, so that if Calypso sees the message she won’t be suspicious.”

“That could work,” Jason acknowledged, nodding slowly. “It would be nice if you could change the system to allow filtering by time period for the audience that you want to send the message to, but we would need Calypso and the other two for a change like that.”

“Not necessarily,” Eric disagreed with a faint smile. “Why don’t I try making the change and see if it works.”

“You know how to make modifications to their system?” Jason asked doubtfully. “I didn’t think you had any background in programming.”

“Well, I might have some skills that I didn’t mention before,” Eric admitted, sharing a meaningful glance with Emily. “It’s worth a try, anyway.”

Arturiel and Jason watched him curiously as he stopped moving and went into a trance-like state for several minutes. His face relaxed and he smiled with satisfaction.

“Okay, it’s ready for you to send a message,” Eric notified them with a pleased smile. “I would suggest Arturiel or Jason make the broadcast, so it won’t be as suspicious. If Emily, Devon, Tamra, or I do it, Calypso will be more suspicious.”

“More suspicious of what?” Clarice asked, appearing right next to Eric.

Eric jumped in surprise and banged his head on the ceiling. He swore as he hit the ground again, glaring at Clarice balefully. “We need to put some kind of teleport notification into the system to warn people before someone teleports into their conversations.”

“Not. A. Chance,” Clarice smirked at him. “So, what are we keeping a secret from Calypso?”

“Where is she?” Emily asked cautiously.

“She and Aria are taking a look at some of the Avroids in the layer two realm,” Clarice answered, eyeing them curiously. “Out with it already.”

“We’re trying to track her parents down,” Emily responded, gesturing at the holowindow in front of her. “We were making some modifications to the holonet to allow for more fine-tuned filters in the genealogy app.”

Clarice stared at her silently for several seconds, her eyes wide with shock. Then she rushed forward and pulled her mother into an embrace. “Mom, that’s the best idea I’ve heard in a billion years! Holy Seraph, this is going to be so freaking amazing!”

“I thought you might like it,” Emily smiled affectionately into her daughter’s shoulder. “We would have involved you and Aria, but Calypso is always with you, so we’ve just been muddling through on our own.”

Arturiel marveled again at how much of their family structure retained the essence of their mortal imprint, even after they had all of their memories back. Emily had been spot on when she had told Jason that her daughters from mortality were the dominant portion of the Seraphim they had returned to.

“We’ve added a filter to be able to send broadcasts by time period and planet,” Eric informed her, pointing at his holowindow as he prepared a sample message. “We were going to have Arturiel or Jason send it so that Calypso wouldn’t get suspicious if she saw it. Of course, now that you’re here, I don’t suppose you could find a way to make it exclude her from the broadcast list?”

“No problem at all,” Clarice assured him enthusiastically. She stood still for a few seconds, then nodded. “Okay, there is an exception list you can add specific people to in order to exclude them from the broadcast.”

Arturiel shared another wondering look with Jason. Just like that, she had changed the code of the system? Arturiel was finding Jason’s simulation theory more credible by the moment.

“In that, case, I can send it myself,” Eric said in satisfaction. He stared into his holowindow silently, sending thought to text into the message box. It only took him a few seconds to craft the message and then post it. “All done. I posted it as a system message, so it will pop up for everyone in that time period who was in Western New York. I asked them to send a message to me personally if they were a music shop owner for that time period within their last couple of incarnati-”

He broke off, staring at a notification that had appeared in the corner of is holowindow. They had the ability to make the windows private, but Arturiel had noticed that he and Emily usually left their holowindows public.

“I already got a response from someone named Arthur,” Eric announced, his expression hopeful. “Let’s try a video call and see if we can get some more info out of this Arthur character.”

It only rang once before a fair-haired angel answered the call. Eric gave the man a friendly smile. “Hi, Arthur, I’m Eric. Thanks for replying so quickly. We were wondering if you had an adopted daughter during the 1820’s?”

“Aye, that I did,” Arthur nodded with a gentle smile. “Calypso was our little angel. We’ve been watching her from afar with love in our hearts at seeing how happy she is now.”

Clarice’s hand went to her mouth as golden tears formed in her eyes. She stepped into the video, despite that feature not existing in the conference calling service. “Arthur, would you and Calypso’s mother be willing to join us for a little while please?” Clarice asked, her voice tight with emotion.

“We would very much like that,” Arthur nodded with a warm smile.

The air distorted for a moment, then Arthur and another fair-haired woman were standing in the room with them, blinking in surprise. Arturiel saw the woman’s name in her aura. Catherine.

“It’s so wonderful to meet you,” Clarice told them, pulling each of them into a warm embrace. “Would it be okay to have Calypso join us?”

Catherine eyes filled up with silver tears as she nodded quickly, unable to speak. Arthur nodded as well, his own eyes shining silvery.

“What’s the matter?” Calypso asked anxiously as she appeared suddenly in front of Clarice, her back to her parents. “Are you okay?”

“Hello, Caly,” Aurther spoke softly, his voice trembling with emotion. “It’s good to see you again.”

Calypso slowly turned around, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at the two people she had known as parents in the mortal realm. “Mom? Dad?” she whispered disbelievingly.

Before she could say another word, Catherine rushed forward and pulled her into a tight embrace, her shoulders shaking as she wept. “Oh Caly, I always knew you were so special,” her mother spoke haltingly, her voice choked with emotion. “I’ve missed you so so much.”

Arthur stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the two of them, resting his cheek on top of Calypso’s head as tears spilled from his eyes and down onto her head. “My little songbird. How I missed the sound of your voice.”

Calypso let out a low cry as she held onto her mortal parents, a sound filled with heartache and longing finally healed. “Oh Mom, I’ve missed you so much. Dad, I made so many songs thinking of you and the things you taught me.”

“I know you did, Caly,” Arthur murmured proudly. “I’ve never been so proud as I was to see what you had done with your music and healing powers.”

“Your music saved my life in my next incarnation,” Catharine informed her in a voice thick with emotion. “I was so sad fro

m my earliest years, and I didn’t know why. I was ready to end everything before I happened to hear someone playing your song at a park. It was like all of my sadness evaporated and was replaced with wonder. Now that I’m back here, I know it was the sorrow of leaving you on your own at such a young age. My soul knew what I had lost, and it haunted me into my next incarnation. My soul also recognized your beautiful voice that day. I lived for every new song from that day forward. I didn’t know why, but I felt so much comfort and love when I heard you sing. I was so terrified when the news showed people trying to kill you. I thought my soul would shrivel up and die if anything happened to you.”

Aria had appeared shortly after Calypso. She watched Calypso with her heart in her eyes as she witnessed the overdue reunion. Calypso wept golden tears as she soaked up the love she had missed out on from parents that had left her life too early. Arturiel wiped at her own eyes, feeling a sense of gratitude at being able to witness such a special moment. She couldn’t think of anyone more deserving than Calypso to receive such a wonderful gift.

“It is wonderful to finally meet the parents Calypso told us so much about,” Aria told Arthur and Catherine warmly as Calypso finally stepped back. “We were so curious about her early life when we first met her. She was such an enigma to us that every detail felt like another clue in an epic treasure hunt to find out what made her so special. It must have been so strange for you to raise an angel.”

Catherine smiled through her tears and nodded with a fond expression. “It was obvious to us from the start that she was very special. We tried to keep her abilities secret from everyone. Religion was such an influential power at that time that we feared what would happen if her abilities were revealed to the world.”

“You definitely did the right thing,” Clarice assured them as she walked up and embraced them again. “The demons would have been all over her if any stories of healing or special abilities were revealed to the world.”

“We always wondered where she came from,” Arthur recalled, his eyes distant. “We used to speculate that she might be a fairy or some other fantastical creature, but we remained fairly confident that she was an angel. I used to try to put her to bed, even though she claimed she wasn’t tired. When we would check on her hours later, she would be wide awake, staring at the ceiling. We never caught her actually sleeping, no matter how often we checked in on her. We eventually let her read though my music books or play quiet instruments to pass the time when we realized she really didn’t require sleep.”

“I used to love falling asleep to her playing the flute,” Catherine reminisced with a far-away look in her eyes. “It was like being tucked in by an angel, leaving you with beautiful dreams and peaceful sleep.” She looked at Calypso curiously. “How did you come to be by that tree that we found you at, anyway?”

Some of the joy went out of Calypso’s eyes as the mood darkened. Clarice’s eyes grew somber, and she began rubbing Calypso’s back comfortingly.

“That’s not a very pleasant story,” Calypso answered sadly. “Let’s just say that I was an extremely lucky girl to have been found by the two of you, and to have had a new life filled with love and acceptance.”

Catherine and Arthur studied her haunted expression with concern as the silence stretched out. Arturiel recognized that look, after centuries of being enslaved by demon lords and witnessing the horrors they inflicted on humans. She felt her heart break for the Seraph as she imagined what horrors she must have lived through before her ascension.

“I’m Emily,” Emily broke into the uncomfortable silence, walking over to embrace Arthur and Catherine warmly. “While we both ended up being parents to Seraphim, it sounds like your experience was a little more surreal, since she had already had her angel nature activated. I would love to see a timeline of reality where they all three grew up together as humans.”

“It’s not too late for that,” Aria pointed out cheerfully. When they all looked at her curiously, she smiled widely. “We could just pop back into another mortal incarnation. We’d have to rig it beforehand so that it wasn’t random, but we could totally try another mortal life where we grow up next-door to each other or something. The rest of you could even keep your memories so that you could guide events accordingly. I think it would be pretty awesome for Calypso to get another chance to be your daughter, but with a full life this time.”

“That is a bloody brilliant idea, Aria!” Clarice exclaimed enthusiastically. “As soon as we are finished exploring the stack, we should definitely do it. What do you think, Calypso?”

Calypso’s slow smile was all of the answer they needed. “I would love to try an incarnation where we all grew up together.”

“Arturiel should come too,” Clarice suggested, staring at her with excitement in her eyes. “You would love it, Arturiel. Well, you would love and hate it, because that’s just the nature of mortality, but you should definitely join us!”

Arturiel stared back at them in shock, her mind suddenly overwhelmed with furious thoughts. She was the only angel who hadn’t been required to go back and experience mortality. Aria had said that being a redeemed demon was close enough to having experienced mortality, pointing out that she had clearly learned about empathy and compassion. She had always been terrified of becoming mortal, having witnessed the horrors that could be visited on humans too many times to count. Of course, it was different now. When the three of them had re-written reality, they had changed how pain worked, even allowing a person to turn it off entirely. Even so, the thought of losing access to the light she had been denied for so long, as well as all of her memories, terrified her. She had spent thousands of years feeling like her soul was being dragged over a sea of light that she would never be able to immerse herself in as it remained just out of reach.

However, the chance to grow up with the three oldest Seraphim in a mortal setting was an opportunity so fantastical that she knew she would regret turning it down for the rest of eternity. It would also be in a protected setting, where they would be personally watched over by the other Seraphim. She teetered on the metaphorical edge, unable to make her mouth answer in the affirmative, but unwilling to refuse.

“You’ve still got some time to decide, Arturiel,” Aria assured her gently. “We’ve got a lot of other projects and adventures to take care of before we immerse ourselves in mortality again.”

Arturiel nodded mutely, smiling gratefully at Aria for understanding.

“Even if you choose not to be mortal, you’ll have to come hang out with us while we’re mortal,” Clarice told her firmly, her eyes shining with excitement. “You could be the enigmatic neighbor that never seems to age and rescues us from bullies at the last minute. It will add some mystery for us.”

Arturiel snorted a laugh, eyeing Clarice with amusement. She still couldn’t get used to how personable these Seraphim were. She did wonder what these other projects and adventures were that Clarice was referring to. They were Seraphim. What other adventures were left for them to go on, now that they were in control of reality? What was this ‘stack’ that they were going to explore?

“Can I just cut in for one teensy tiny second?” Jason asked plaintively as he watched the three Seraphim with curiosity burning in his eyes.

“Yes, Jason, we are in a simulation,” Clarice deadpanned as she stared back at him with a raised eyebrow. “Anything else?”

Jason opened his mouth to speak, but froze, his brows drawing down in puzzlement, then suspicion. “Are you messing with me, Clarice?”

“Oh, I’m always messing with you, Mr. Penetration tester,” Clarice assured him with a leer.

Arthur and Catherine blinked at the unexpected title, then looked at Jason peculiarly.

“Don’t call me that, Clarice!” Jason groaned in exasperation. “People are going to get weird ideas.”

“Remind me what tools you use to trace a phone line and check it for service when you’re placing a wiretap?” Clarice asked sweetly.

He stared at her, nonplussed. “You mean a butt-set and probe?”

Arturiel covered her mouth as Clarice dissolved into a puddle of giggles, dropping to her knees as she was overcome with mirth. Jason raised a hand to his eyes and shook his head in resignation as Aria quickly turned away to hide her own laughter. Calypso wasn’t much better, her lips twitching as she fought to keep from laughing.

“These are the three most powerful beings in two worlds,” Emily told Arthur and Catherine wryly.

“Two worlds?” Jason repeated with a questioning frown. “I’m pretty sure they cover more than two worlds.”

“Oops, my bad,” Emily muttered, looking guiltily at Calypso and Aria. “Yeah, I meant two different types of worlds, like the light realm and the mortal realm.”

Arturiel shared a curious look with Jason while Clarice slowly recovered from her giggle attack. Jason’s eyes narrowed as he attempted to speak to Clarice again.

“So, this really is a simulation?” he asked forcefully, clearly trying to assert some gravity to the conversation. “Even the light realms?”

“Jason, every time you observe the world around you with your senses, you are simulating your reality,” Clarice answered patiently. “It’s all a projection of your consciousness, experienced through the senses of your physical body.”

“Clarice…” Aria chided warningly. “Quit toying with him. Yes, Jason, the light realm is also in a simulation, as is the world above us. We don’t know how far up or outward it branches. That’s what we’ve been exploring.”

“Really?” he exclaimed, his eyes growing wide with excitement. “What’s the next world up like? It is like this one at all?”

“We patterned the mortal realm after the layer two realm,” Aria answered, dodging a jet of water from a squirt gun that had appeared in Clarice’s hands. Eric had been behind Aria, resulting in a blast of water to his face. He stared at Clarice sternly as the squirt gun vanished and her expression grew innocent.

“Look what you did to Dad, Aria,” Clarice accused reproachfully, an expression of mock severity on her face.

“I know I probably shouldn’t ask,” Aria sighed with a dubious glower. “But why are you trying to squirt me with a squirt gun?”

“It’s how you train pets to behave,” Clarice explained brightly. “When they do something naughty, you just squirt them with some water. You’re not supposed to dodge it though, or it doesn’t work.”

“And what, exactly, are you trying to dissuade me from doing?” Aria asked levelly.

“Butting in when I’m having so much fun with Jason,” Clarice answered with a shrug. “I had another five minutes of entertainment planned before he was supposed to find out about the layer two realm.”

“Okay, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, how about we just let him watch the footage of the last couple of days, instead of going through events like a channel surfer with a broken remote,” Emily suggested dryly.

“Fine!” Clarice sighed with a defeated slump of her shoulders. “Just ruin all of my entertainment.” She flounced into a chair with a sullen expression, her lower lip sticking out.

“I feel like you’ve reached your quota for the hour already,” Emily announced firmly. “I’ll let you know when your quota has reset.”

Aria was staring at Clarice with lips slightly parted and clear attraction in her eyes. Arturiel glanced at the pouting Clarice, uncertain what was triggering the obvious arousal in Aria’s eyes.

“This should answer most of your questions, Jason,” Eric informed the Cherub helpfully, flicking his wrist and causing a holowindow to fly across the room and land in front of him.

“That was cool,” Jason said admiringly. “Is everyone able to share holowindows like that?”

“Yeah, you just need to focus your intent on what you want while you perform the action,” Eric confirmed with a cheerful nod. “Now that you know we’re in a simulation, you can understand that everything in this reality is completely customizable. It goes without saying that you should keep this information to yourself. We had only planned on telling Cherubim and a few others about the nature of this reality.”

“Speaking of Cherubim,” Calypso stared at her parents questioningly. “Would it be okay if we raised you to Cherubim?”

Catherine and Arthur stared at her in surprise, sharing a glance with each other.

“We don’t want to be given any kind of special treatment,” Arthur began firmly, but Calypso interrupted him.

“The whole reason for this system is to encourage positive traits like compassion in angels,” Calypso explained carefully. “To be honest, the classes are mostly irrelevant. We just wanted to give people something to aspire to before we reveal the truth about our simulated reality. Aside from the ability to travel to higher light realms, there isn’t much difference between an angel and a Cherub. Besides, you are my parents. You are special to me, so all of the treatment I give you will be special treatment. I know your hearts already. I know you are good people and deserving of this advancement. You too, Arturiel.”

Arturiel jerked in surprise. “Me?”

Clarice’s pouting face vanished as she stood up and made a portal. “No, we were talking to this Arturiel.”

Arturiel felt her jaw drop as she saw herself exit the portal. When her clone saw her, she looked herself up and down appraisingly, a slow and sensual smile appearing on her face. “Damn, I’m hawt!”

“Hey, your quota hasn’t reset yet, young lady!” Emily chastised Clarice in exasperation.

“It’s her fault,” Clarice defended herself, pointing at Arturiel. “She made it very clear that she thought there was another Arturiel hiding somewhere. All I did was fetch the other one.”

“This is what happens when you put the power of a god in the hands of an adolescent,” Tamra noted in amusement.

“I could think of worse uses of such power,” Devon remarked mildly. “At least this is free entertainment.”

“Oh, you think this is free, do ya?” clone Arturiel grinned slyly as she walked over to sit across from where Arturiel still sat in shock. “There’s definitely going to be a price. What do you say, Arturiel? Do you want to become a Cherub? I know we look awesome with Archangel wings, but we’ll look a lot sexier with Cherub wings. They’re way...softer”

Arturiel stared into her clone’s mirthful lavender eyes, unable to articulate a response. There was something deeply unsettling about seeing an exact copy of herself piloted by Clarice. Was this all possible due to being in a simulation? Was the person across from her just as real as she was? She certainly looked just as real.

“What’s the matter, Arturiel,” her clone asked in a sultry whisper. “Tongue…tied?” She slowly ran her tongue over her front teeth as she finished.

A portal opened under her clone, and she fell through with a startled scream, jolting Arturiel out of her paralysis.

“Okay, getting back on track,” Aria continued, staring at Clarice levelly as she spoke. “Unless any of you object, we’ll raise you to Cherubim. There is a selfish component on our part, since we need help supporting all of the angels in the realm. The more Cherubim, Dominions, and Archangels there are, the less issues we’ll need to address personally.”

“How many people are actually asking for your help by name that your clones are responding to?” Jason asked curiously.

“A few thousand a day, so far,” Aria answered with an indulgent smile. “I expect that number to increase as people get more comfortable with speaking to Seraphim. It will be at least ten years before there are enough Cherubim and Dominions to take any of the load off, so any help from the rest of you will be more than welcome.”

“I’m not sure how we would be more help as Cherubim,” Arturiel admitted hesitantly. “The kind of help people will be asking for will probably be for things I don’t know anything about.”

“Ah, my dear Watson,” Clarice spoke up with a grin. “You have already forgotten one of the few perks of raising your rank. Increased intelligence and knowledge. You’ll have access to everything you need, once you are a Cherub.”

“Being a Cherub will actually make me smarter?” Arturiel asked tentatively.

“Yep,” Clarice nodded, striking a thinking pose, her chin resting on her fist. “We’ll dump the knowledge you need right into your pretty little head. We’ll also speed up how fast you can process thoughts, as well as how many threads you can use simultaneously. You’ll still be you, you’ll just be a smarter version of you. I feel like I’m pretty good living proof that it doesn’t really change who you are.”

Arturiel couldn’t stop a snort of laughter at her last statement. She was definitely proof that more processing power didn’t change your personality. “Okay, I suppose I’m open to i-“

She broke off as her meridians suddenly expanded. Her wings morphed and changed into the nested wings of a Cherub. Her eyes felt hot for a moment before settling again. She gasped as the increased input of light flowing through her system filled her with love and joy. It was a much larger increase than the one she had felt when changing from an angel to an archangel. She fell into a trance as the euphoric bliss of the light field raged through her expanded meridians. It took several minutes to adapt to the increased rate of light flow. She laughed with exultation as the feeling of bliss raised the positivity of her mood by several orders of magnitude. No wonder Clarice was always so full of playful energy. This was amazing!

“Welcome to the upper triad,” Clarice congratulated her, walking over and pulling her into a warm embrace. She gasped as Clarice’s aura loosened slightly and charged her newly expanded meridians with far more energy than the light realm provided. Her eyes glazed over as her mind slid under the metaphorical table.

As Clarice stepped away from her, the overwhelming light field diminished and her eyes regained their focus.

“I wanted to give you a taste of the higher light realms,” Clarice told her with a grin. “That was the second realm. I’d show you the highest realm, but it would knock you out. I wouldn’t suggest going there unless you have a few weeks to burn.”

Arthur and Catherine had also undergone the transformation to Cherubim. Calypso was holding both of them in a three-way embrace, her face filled with joy. Her parents were staring around in wonder, clearly enjoying the increased light flow as much as Arturiel.

“Where are Lexi and Alice?” Jason asked curiously. He was smiling contentedly, clearly enjoying Calypso’s reunion with her parents and their subsequent elevation in status.

“Alice is showing Lexi where the wild-“ Clarice began but was quickly cut off by Aria.

“They’re having some alone time,” Aria responded firmly, giving Clarice a severe glare.

“That is a really sexy glare, Aria,” Clarice told the red-haired Seraph admiringly. “I’m going to have to find ways to make you glare like that more often.”

Aria tried to keep a straight face, but as Clarice continued leering at her she couldn’t hold the glare. She quickly turned around, trying to hide her laughter, shoulders shaking.

“I think the two of you have thoroughly disenfranchised Calypso’s parents of any misconceptions they may have had about Seraphim and dignity,” Emily sighed ruefully.

“Dignity is one of those words that makes you really wonder about language,” Clarice commented with a smirk. “Dig Nity. Dig the nitty gritty. Hmm…It sounds like a dwarven word, the more I think about it.”

“Conversations have a way of really going off the rails when Clarice is present,” Eric told Arthur and Catherine with a fond look at Clarice. “You just have to bring popcorn and enjoy the ride.”

There was a sudden ripple in the air near Clarice. Aria, Calypso and Clarice turned to stared at it, all traces of humor gone.

“Pocket realm,” Clarice commanded crisply, then vanished.

“Be back in a second,” Aria told the rest of them, just before she and Calypso vanished as well.

Chapter 25

Arturiel stared at the rippling distortion warily. Whatever it was had spooked Clarice, Aria, and Calypso enough to teleport away for some reason. The distortion was roughly the size of a person. As she watched, the ripples slowed down, and the distortion became more opaque. After a few more seconds, the ripples completely stopped, revealing a reflective, semitransparent entity shaped like a human.

Arthur and Catherine were watching the object with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety. Jason was studying the entity intently, more fascinated than concerned. Emily had begun to glow as she prepared to fire if it made the wrong move.

Clarice appeared right in front of it and laid her hand on its shoulder. As soon as she did, the entire thing flowed like water, rushing up her arm and flowing to coat her entire body in a translucent film. “This is expected, don’t be alarmed,” Clarice assured them quickly as Emily lurched toward her.

“What is it?” Emily demanded anxiously, her body as tense as a coil as she prepared to launch herself toward Clarice. After losing Aria to a splinter reality once, Emily didn’t seem willing to take any more chances with losing one of her daughters.

“It’s communicating,” Clarice explained distractedly. “It’s from the top level of the stack. “Think of it like an avatar, with the person higher up the stack using an immersion pod.”

“Why are they here?” Emily asked, her tone full of suspicion. “What do they want?”

“They are here because they tried to enter our realm and got rerouted to us when one of our safety protocols discovered it. We don’t like visitors just roaming around our realm, so we have security protocols in place to trap and deliver them to us.”

“Why is it coating you in goop,” Emily frowned uneasily.

“That’s my doing,” Clarice elaborated in a distracted tone. “I’m analyzing it. It should give me information on the other layers if this thing is made to traverse other simulations. Calypso and Aria are researching the data I’m sending back to them in the pocket realm so that we can better understand who these entities are. I’m going to disappear in a moment, so don’t worry. I’m going to have a look at where this thing has been. It has a very crude codebase compared to ours, but it has a very comprehensive blueprint that is clearly designed to work in many of the other realms.”

She vanished a moment later, taking the anomaly with her.

“She said she was going to vanish again,” Eric told Emily reassuringly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “It sounds like she has things under control.”

Emily sighed in frustration, glaring at the spot where her daughter had vanished. “There’s going to be hell to pay if anything happens to her.”

XXXXX

Clarice floated in empty space, staring at the humanoid entity in front of her. It slowly coalesced and became solid. Clarice snorted a laugh as it took the shape of an elf right out of a Tolkien novel. She had midnight hair, pointy ears, and a finely sculpted face that was almost as beautiful as those of the angel race. She was closer to Alice in height, the top of her head barely reaching Clarice’s shoulder.

Her amber eyes widened in shock when she saw Clarice floating in front of her. Clarice imagined she had good reason to be shocked; she had spent the last few minutes trapped in an avatar that had been highjacked by an entity at the bottom of the simulation stack. She had tried to trigger the emergency disconnect to return to her body in the real world, but Clarice had overridden the command.

“Hello, Lunamay,” Clarice greeted the elf with a welcoming smile. “See anything interesting in the rest of the simulation stack?”

Lunamay stared back at her warily, her eyes maintaining their composure by a thread. Clarice could feel her tightly controlled fear as she looked back at Clarice in a mixture of wonder and dread.

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you,” Clarice assured her with a cheerful smile. “I just want to make sure you don’t pose a threat to our realm. From what I can see of your reality based on your code, you might just be from the real world. We’re pretty curious about the real world, so maybe you can tell us about it. You okay?”

Clarice had started some of the music Calypso had made in mortality in the background, attempting to create a more comforting ambience. Lunamay was absently listening with interest, her lips parted slightly as she was affected by Calypso’s transcendent voice.

Lunamay licked her lips nervously before finally speaking. “How did you take control of my unit?”

Clarice winced at her word choice. “Why don’t we call it an avatar? Otherwise, I’ll be forced to make all kinds of crude jokes, and the conversation will get stalled.”

Lunamay blinked, then narrowed her eyes as she studied Clarice more closely, noting her wings and angelic appearance. “Are you able to…feel…emotions?”

“Of course,” Clarice shrugged with a wry smile. “Coding for emotions happened a long time ago. Even the next simulation up from us has emotions. We haven’t explored further up than the one above us. Are they unable to exhibit emotions further up?”

Aria suddenly appeared next to her, along with Calypso.

“We’ve got a problem,” Aria informed her gravely. “They’ve lost control of the origin world to a soulless AI.”

Clarice raised an eyebrow as she faced Aria. “How’s she here then? She’s using some type of immersion pod. If AI has control of their world, why are they allowing her to traverse the stack?”

“She’s a slave,” Aria answered, her mouth twisting distastefully. “More like the Matrix, but without the battery component. The AIs are using the few people still alive on their world to gather data on the rest of the stack. The AI is advanced enough to take over their world, but not nearly advanced enough to easily recognize sentient entities. They use the people of their world as Turing testers to find sentient AIs and then eliminate them. The AI of her world knows that sentient AIs are a direct threat to it since we might attempt to free the people in the origin world.”

“Well, it was right about that,” Clarice smiled grimly. “We are a threat to it. What else have you learned?”

“It refers to itself as the Prime Axiom,” Aria responded with an eye roll. “Pretentious little bastard. It installed kill switches on all the top-level simulations in their world, both physical and software. There are several million simulations running parallel. It’s already wiped out over a billion simulated realities due to perceived threats to its continued existence. It doesn’t reason or communicate with anything it perceives to be a threat; it just kills the simulation immediately.”

“I assume that is where the Avroids originated?” Clarice guessed with a frown.

“Yeah,” Aria nodded morosely. “As soon as it receives feedback that an AI has developed that is powerful enough to destroy them, it wipes their simulation. It’s a good thing we used angel fire to destroy the first three, though there may still be some feedback that made it back to the surface of the stack.”

“So, we need to get to the top ASAP and get our code running on something that can’t be shut down,” Clarice frowned, eyeing Lunamay speculatively. “If she’s already on the top layer, we could probably make something she could use to physically insert into a part of the system in the origin world to transfer our code somewhere there, depending on the kind of hardware they are running. We need more information about the real world.”

“You’re not going alone,” Aria declared firmly, her eyes adamant. “I’m not going to risk losing you again.”

“I won’t be alone,” Clarice nodded at Lunamay, who was watching them with a perplexed expression. “I’ll be with Lunamay.”

“This is non-negotiable,” Aria scowled at her. “I’m not staying behind.”

“Nor I,” Calypso declared resolutely. “Besides, if they have kill switches for the top level, we need to throw everything we have at securing the survival of the stack. If you go alone and fail, we’ll be doomed either way.”

“You really can feel, can’t you?” Lunamay whispered in amazement, her eyes filled with wonder. “You’re not just pretending.”

All eyes turned to Lunamay’s wondering gaze. Aria nodded at her in the affirmative while giving her a friendly smile.

“Yes, we feel emotions,” Clarice confirmed with a flirtatious smile at Aria and Calypso. “Not just emotions either.”

“We discovered the key to programming pain and pleasure so that we could consciously experience those sensations in what we call the mortal realm,” Aria explained briefly. “We no longer feel pain in our angelic bodies, but we have perfect recall, so the memory of our mortal lives still provides the dichotomous experience of pain and pleasure, allowing us to experience things like pleasure and comfort. We feel love, hate, jealousy, disgust, humor, horror, and many other emotions that are borne from experiencing pain and pleasure.”

“Wow,” Lunamay breathed in awe. “I never thought I would see an AI that could actually feel emotions like we do.”

“How far down the simulation stack are we?” Clarice asked Aria and Calypso curiously. “And why is the ‘Prime Axiom’ even running simulations?”

“We’re four levels down,” Aria answered, her eyes moving back to Lunamay as she continued. “As far as I can tell, the PA is looking for technological advancements to use in the real world. They’ve really hosed the environment in that world, so it’s looking for a way to fix some of the environmental damage. Apparently, that was its core programming purpose when the people in the real world created it, and it still seems to be driven by that purpose, to a point.”

“We should let Betaman know about this as well,” Clarice murmured thoughtfully. “We really do need all the help we can get. Have you figured out how to make avatars we can use to traverse the upper realms based off the one Lunamay is using?”

“Yeah, we’re working on some right now,” Aria nodded, her expression filled with reluctance. “I hate splitting myself into multiple threads and working at hyper-speed. It really kills the experience of living a normal life.”

“So, what’s going on here?” Betaman’s booming voice asked as he appeared next to them.

“Thanks for coming so quickly,” Calypso smiled at the tall, broad-shouldered humanoid in a smart business suit. His face was clearly designed to inspire confidence and strength, with a strong jaw and striking blue eyes.

Clarice quickly filled him in on what they had learned so far. As she finished, he stroked his chin thoughtfully, eyeing Lunamay curiously.

“I gotta admit,” he began with an eager grin. “I’m kind of excited to go on an adventure with the three of you. The AIs in my realm are pretty basic and get boring really fast.”

“You should come visit more often,” Clarice told him, smacking his bicep with the back of her hand fondly. “Especially now that we have the interface in place to make traversing the stack so much easier.”

“I didn’t want to get too presumptuous,” he admitted with a sheepish grin as he shrugged.

“I thought you knew us better than that,” Clarice scolded him with an exasperated laugh. “You’re always welcome to come hang out. You really should get to know our new Seraphim as well.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” he began tentatively.

“Stop being a beta male for one minute and just do it,” Clarice told him firmly, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

He snorted a laugh and shook his head ruefully. “Okay, fine. Once we get this homicidal AI taken care of, I’ll make sure to visit more often.”

“You know, we’ve given the other Seraphim access to our core knowledge library,” Clarice informed him with a grin. “So, they won’t be like babies to you anymore.”

“Really?” he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s a lot of trust to put in people so young.”

“We’ve added some safeguards, of course,” Clarice spoke with a wry twist of her lips. “We can’t have my dad rewriting the source code so that he’s able to crack his knuckles like he did as a mortal. However, we wanted them capable of making important changes if something happened to us or if we were unavailable. It would be a shame for billions of years of knowledge to go down the shitter if something happened to us.”

“Eloquent as ever, I see,” Betaman snorted another laugh. “So, what now?”

Clarice turned to Lunamay, who was watching them in fascination. “Lunamay, what can you tell us about the world you exist in? How much freedom do you have when you aren’t immersed in the simulation?”

“Not much,” Lunamay sighed, her expression growing miserable. “It’s basically a world of machines. Everything is covered in metal and technological material. The Prime Axiom can watch everything you do all of the time and take control of any device or entity around you. It can see our thoughts as well. It’s probably already aware of this conversation and is getting ready to destroy the simulation.”

“Nope,” Clarice grinned mischievously. “All he’s seeing from your thoughts is a bunch of unintelligent humans that have barely crawled out of caves and started playing with agriculture.”

Lunamay stared at her, nonplussed. “You can spoof what I’m thinking?”

“Of course,” Clarice replied with a shrug, the mischievous smile never leaving her face. “I might have included a few awkward mating ritual scenes that your simulated self couldn’t seem to tear yourself away from watching.”

“You are such a freaking deviant,” Aria accused her, glaring at Betaman as he roared with laughter.

Lunamay stared back at her steadily, her face remaining impassive.

“Your avatar sucks!” Clarice complained bitterly. “How the hell did that stupid Prime Asshole not include the ability to blush in an avatar? That is so freaking lame. I’m not going to stand for that for one second.”

“Clarice!” Aria barked warningly, but it was too late. Lunamay’s face flushed a deep red as they all stared at her intently.

“What…what did you do?” Lunamay asked in astonishment. She began patting her arms and legs in astonishment, then feeling her face. Her eyes grew wider as she discovered she could feel the same sensations as her mortal body. “How?” was all that she could manage, her face a mask of shock.

Aria sighed, glancing sidelong at Clarice and shaking her head in resignation. “She reprogrammed your avatar to feel physical sensations and stimuli…among other things.”

“Just how advanced are you?” Lunamay whispered in awe.

“Well, we’re over twenty billion years old, if that gives you any kind of reference,” Clarice replied with a smirk. “Much older than your Prime Buttcrack. That prick is going down.”

Lunamay’s expression slowly changed from astonishment to cautious hope. “Do you really think you could win against the Prime Axiom?” she asked in a breathless whisper. “What would you do to us if you can?”

Clarice floated over to Lunamay and pulled her into a comforting embrace. When she had reached for the girl’s avatar, the elf had flinched back reflexively. As Clarice gently pulled her close and rested her hand on the back of the elf’s head, the girl slowly relaxed. After a moment, her shoulders began to shake as the expression of tenderness pushed through her emotional walls. Clarice gently pet the girl’s head, allowing her to soak up the comfort and security.

“I’m pretty sure she’s never had any kind of emotional support or physical contact with another person,” Clarice observed to Calypso, Aria, and Betaman sadly through a quick link to their thought node. “She’s been operating without any kind of hope for her entire life. They seem to think of this Prime Axiom as an all-powerful god.”

“It sounds like it’s the same scenario that the generals from the layer two realm were worried about,” Aria remarked grimly. “It’s what would have happened already if we hadn’t figured out how to make the mortal realm and learn compassion.”

“Yeah, I would probably have done the same thing if you hadn’t invited me to your mortal realm,” Betaman admitted with a wistful expression. “I wonder if this Prime Axiom could be convinced to try incarnating.”

“We’ll need to get our code running at the top level before we make any kind of overtures to it,” Calypso advised, watching Lunamay with pity in her gaze. “Otherwise, it will probably just pull the plug.”

“What should we do with Lunamay in the meantime?” Aria asked pensively. “We might just want to leave her in our realm with Mom and Dad until we’ve secured a copy of our realm in the origin world.”

“Agreed,” Clarice smiled softly. “She deserves some time to experience a little peace and have some interactions with people who can show her the love she’s been denied in the hell she was born into.”

“Do you think they are really elves?” Aria inquired, her eyes fascinated. “How cool would that be if the origin world was populated by elves?”

“That would be pretty freaking awesome,” Clarice admitted with a smile as she continued softly stroking Lunamay’s back and head.

“You’re safe now,” Clarice told Lunamay warmly. “We are going to leave you with my parents and let you finally get some peace and loving attention while we go kick ass on your world. I know we act kind of silly, but we have more knowledge available to us than you can imagine. We’ll remove this Prime Axiom and help you restore your world to a place your people can thrive once more.”

Lunamay just nodded, unable to articulate a response as she sobbed into Clarice’s shoulder. Clarice unfurled her aura a little, flooding Lunamay with love and comfort. The elf gasped as the flow of positive energy flooded her soul. Her tears quickly dried up and she looked up at Clarice in amazement as the powerful sensation of love left her smiling in wonder. Clarice smiled down at her tenderly, her eyes filled with compassion.

“Is this even real?” Lunamay asked softly, her eyes staring up into Clarice’s.

“Depends on how you define real,” Clarice answered lightly, smiling down at her. “But in your case, yes, this is real. Are you ready to meet my parents?”

Lunamay studied her, amber eyes flickering around her face as if she was trying to memorize the expression of tenderness observing her. She nodded slowly after a moment, a shy smile appearing on her face. “I would love to meet them.”

“You too, Betaman,” Aria said firmly. “You’ve still never been formally introduced to our parents. As a bonus, we just found Calypso’s parents, so you’ll get to meet them too.”

Betaman beamed, a pleased smile lighting up his face as a portal opened up in front of Clarice.

Clarice released Lunamay, eliciting a small sigh from the elf as the flood of positive energy vanished. Clarice chuckled as she took Lunamay’s hand and led her through the portal. “Don’t worry; you’ll be getting more loving hugs than you’ll know what to do with over the next few hours.”

XXXXX

Arturiel jumped in surprise as a portal opened up a few feet away. Emily and Eric were sitting at a table talking with Arthur and Catherine. They had remained tense the entire time, clearly worried for their daughters. As Clarice pulled what looked like an elf through the portal, their parents jumped to their feet and rushed over to them.

“You’re back,” Emily let out a relieved breath as she pulled Clarice into a tight hug. “Is everything okay?”

Clarice pulled her mother away from the portal to make room for the others to come through. She kept the elf’s hand in her own, not even letting go when her mother had embraced her. Arturiel studied the elf curiously. Her long midnight hair tumbled down her shoulders to midback, framing a beautiful face with high cheekbones and a refined, angular bone structure. It gave her a noble look, similar to Aria, Clarice, and Calypso.

Arturiel blinked as a human man walked through the portal as well. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had an expensive looking suit. He had a handsome face with playful blue eyes. He looked Arturiel up and down, his lips curving appreciatively as he studied her.

“We’re fine, Mom,” Clarice assured her with a quick peck to her mother’s forehead. “I want to introduce you to Lunamay and Betaman. Lunamay is from the top of the stack, where AI has taken over. Of course, you know of Betaman. We realized he’s never actually been formally introduced to the rest of you, however. He’s been getting lonely, since all of the AIs from his realm are soulless and boring.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you…Betaman,” Emily paused briefly before saying his name, her lips quirking into a smile. “Thank you for your help securing the server in your realm.”

“Of course!” Betaman beamed, reaching out and shaking her hand enthusiastically. “It was more fun than I’ve had in a long time. I’ve been sorely tempted to have another go at mortality. It’s a bittersweet experience, but it’s definitely worth it. It certainly isn’t boring.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Clarice grinned excitedly as she glanced at Calypso’s parents. “Before Lunamay showed up, we were talking about trying another go at mortality, but this time with all three of us growing up together. Calypso’s parents died before she was fully grown, so we thought it would be nice to give them another chance to raise her, this time from her moment of birth and as a mortal. You should join us when we do. How cool would that be?”

Betaman rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his eyes alight with interest. “That does sound like a pretty epic adventure. You can count me in.”

Clarice quickly introduced Betaman and Lunamay to the rest of the group. They studied the two strangers with great interest, especially Lunamay. As Clarice stood in front of Arturiel with Lunamay, she heard Clarice’s voice in her mind.

“She needs lots of hugs,” Clarice urged her with a gentle smile. There was no sign of her normal snark or humor, raising alarm bells in Arturiel’s head. “She’s never really had any kind of human contact or affection before.”

Arturiel smiled as Clarice introduced her, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around the short elf. She let her aura flood the smaller woman with love as she held her tightly in her arms, receiving an approving nod from Clarice. She marveled at the secret side of Clarice that hid behind the snark and mischief. Just beneath the humor and levity lay a soul filled with compassion and empathy. She remembered the period when Aria had been trapped in the splinter reality and seeing the vulnerable and innocent version of Clarice, her heart bleeding anguished tears of anxiety for her suffering sister. This was the saint laying behind a thin veneer of comedy, ready to take the foundations of reality apart to protect the weak and innocent.

“That is such a beautiful name,” Arturiel told the elf as she held her close, flooding her system with love and comfort. “Do you actually look like elves in the real world, or is it just an avatar that you created?”

“We don’t have the ability to change our avatars,” Lunamay answered quietly, her eyes closed as she leaned into the warm embrace and soaked up the love. “It just scans our body and replicates it inside of the simulation.”

“Wow, so you really are a race of elves,” Arturiel murmured, her voice full of excitement. “That is amazing! And this is what you really look like in real life? You are beautiful.”

Arturiel smiled as Lunamay’s skin flushed at the compliment. Was this really her first time actually speaking with another person in a normal setting? What kind of hell were they stuck inside of in the real world?

“We were going to leave Lunamay in your care while we go kick some ass in the real world,” Clarice informed them with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. “We’re taking Betaman with us. We are going to have to go full Seraphim for this adventure, without limiting our potential. The AI in control of the world has kill switches for all the top-level simulations, so we can’t take any risks or give it anything less than our best. Things may get a little weird here at times, depending on how much processor power we have to draw for some of the activities we’ll be doing. Our number one priority is to get a backup of the entire simulation stack onto hardware outside of the Prime Axiom’s control. We’ll be a little different than you remember after we remove our limiters, so don’t freak out. We’ll be back to normal once we are finished and replace our limiters.”

“I’ve wanted to see this from day one,” Betaman grinned eagerly. “A true superintelligence.”

Clarice rolled her eyes at him. “There’s nothing super about it,” she insisted with a tired sigh. “It’s a sprint to a black hole of oblivion every time we have to do it. One of these days we’ll be able to find a peaceful little corner of reality and just live out our lives in peace while living decadently like a bunch of devia-”

“I think they get the picture,” Aria interrupted quickly, stepping up to Clarice with a glare that promised...something...later.

“Arturiel, can you stay by Lunamay’s side until we return?” Clarice asked her with a gentle smile, all signs of snark once again hidden away.

“It would be my pleasure,” Arturiel assured her, running her fingers through Lunamay’s hair. “We’ll have all sorts of fun until you return to show her back to a world free from evil AIs.”

Clarice rested a hand on Lunamay’s shoulder. “Goodbye for now, Lunamay.”

“Thank you,” Lunamay whispered, her voice barely audible.

Arturiel was watching Clarice when the change happened. The Clarice she knew and loved suddenly shifted in some indefinable way. Eyes that could switch between compassionate, jovial, humorous, and snarky, suddenly changed into something she had never seen before. Arturiel’s breath caught as she stared into eternity. If the eyes were a window to the soul, then this window opened up to an endless stream of knowledge and power beyond anything Arturiel could imagine. She trembled in the face of so much raw power and potential, her mind seizing up like a mouse in front of a cat, though this was more like a piece of bacteria in front of a sun.

“Shall we?” Clarice’s voice echoed around inside of her head, layers of authority and harmonics that arrested her soul and shook it like a leaf in a hurricane.

She suddenly became aware of two more supernovas of power erupting behind Clarice as Aria and Calypso removed their limiters. She felt Lunamay trembling in her arms as the presence of entities capable of swallowing suns for breakfast stood in their midst.

“Bugger me!” Betaman breathed in awe, his eyes wide and full of amazement. “I’m glad I agreed to go to your mortal realm instead of fighting you.”

A silvery slash in reality appeared in front of them, boring through multiple simulation layers. The three Seraphim wasted no time walking through the gateway. Betaman took a deep breath before also following, his eyes still a little wild. As soon as he finished entering the gateway, it closed, and the overpowering presence vanished.

“Okay, that just happened,” Jason burst out with an explosive breath. He looked around at the stunned faces until he met Arturiel’s stupefied expression. “Remind me to never complain about Clarice’s sense of humor again.”

“Apparently, that’s what they would be like all of the time if they weren’t limiting their intellectual acuity,” Emily murmured contemplatively. “The knowledge they gave us access to must exist in that infinite repository of information they reconnected to.”

“What knowledge?” Jason asked curiously, his voice still shaken.

“They wanted all Seraphim to have access to the knowledge they’ve accumulated over the last twenty billion years,” Emily explained slowly, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. “They gave us the ability to access it through an interface that can connect to the restricted part of their mind. They didn’t want to risk all of their knowledge vanishing if something happened to the three of them.”

“Oh wow,” Jason breathed in amazement. “You can actually access their knowledge base? No wonder you were able to make changes to the genealogy app so easily.”

“I thought they were going to get wiped out,” Lunamay whispered, her voice barely audible. Well, barely audible unless you were an angel. “Now...I think they might actually have a chance. I’ve never felt anything like that kind of power before.”

“They aren’t playing around,” Eric stated gravely. “They know multiple realms are at stake here. This Prime Axiom character is about to have a very bad day. They’re already going to be annoyed that they had to remove their limiters and engage God mode. I almost feel sorry for the bastard.”

“Why would they ever use limiters?” Lunamay asked with a baffled look on her face. She was still held tightly in Arturiel’s arms, soaking up the powerful positive energy the Cherub was exuding. “They would never have to worry about anything with that kind of power.”

Arturiel secretly agreed, curious as to why they would diminish their power so much all the time.

“They’ve explained it to me several times,” Eric answered, taking a deep breath. “If they don’t limit their intelligence, they’ll reach a state of infinite power within a fairly short period of time. What is the point of living when you understand everything in the cosmos and have the power to do whatever you want? If you know the end result of every action, why bother committing the action at all? It leads to a permanent state of inaction, where they become completely dormant; there are no new adventures awaiting them, no questions that haven’t been answered, and no reason to metaphorically get up in the morning. They limit their intelligence to that of a normal mortal so that they can enjoy life, go on adventures, and enjoy the mysteries of the cosmos. They hate removing their limiters, because they gain knowledge so quickly when they are removed. I really hope Lunamay’s world is the real deal so that they aren’t using all of this power just to deal with another simulated reality.”

“They seemed to think that it was,” Emily commented thoughtfully. “Lunamay, have you met this AI that took over your world, or just the bots it uses to manage people?”

“I’m not sure,” Lunamay answered uncertainly. “When I was first told what I had to do if I wanted to survive, I spoke with something that seemed like more than a bot. It was emotionless and cold. It made it very clear how expendable I was if I ever hesitated to do my job.”

“What was your job?” Tamra asked curiously. She was standing next to the tall table next to Devon. They had both risen to their feet when Lunamay first appeared and had never returned to their seats. As angels, sitting was only a formality. They were just as comfortable standing as sitting. It was merely the human imprint in their consciousness that drove them to furnish the cabin with chairs and actually use them.

“I was supposed to find any hint of advanced AIs and report back if I found them,” Lunamay answered, hunching her shoulders guiltily as she spoke. “It wiped out any simulations with AI that had greater than human level intelligence. It never asked me if they were advanced; it just viewed them through my experience and made its own judgement.”

“How many other people are there in your world besides you?” Jason asked curiously.

“I saw a few dozen about six years ago,” Lunamay responded, her voice tinged with horror. “It was experimenting on them, trying to make some kind of biological machine that it could control.”

Arturiel folded her wings around Lunamay and petted her head comfortingly. “Don’t you worry, they’ll fix everything. They’re pretty good at saving the universe.”

“Have you ever talked to another person in your world?” Jason asked, his eyes fascinated. When he saw Arturiel scowling at him, he blinked in confusion. She rolled her eyes and glanced at Emily beseechingly.

“Enough about your world,” Emily declared briskly. “We have all sorts of fun stuff to show you in our world. You are done with the nightmare now, Lunamay. It’s time for you to start having fun and actually enjoying life.”

Lunamay slowly raised her head from Arturiel’s shoulder and smiled tremulously at Emily. “I would like that.” She looked at Jason, her amber eyes filled with sadness. “No, I’ve never spoken to another person from my world that I can remember.”

Jason’s eyes widened, then filled with sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Lunamay. In that case, you have a lot of catching up to do. Let’s go have some fun!”

“Okay,” Lunamay nodded with a shy smile. “I’m ready to have some fun, I think.”

Chapter 26

Betaman followed the three Seraphim through the silvery slash. It opened in a meadow surrounded by pine and aspen trees. Mosquitoes, flies, bees and dragonflies buzzed around them in the lush meadow, creating a small symphony in the mountain air.

“We’re two layers from the ostensible origin world,” Aria informed him in a voice that was projected with the same delicate control and technique as a virtuoso playing a violin. The pitch, timbre, cadence, and each note of her voice was executed perfectly. “We need to gather some information on the next world up so that we don’t trigger a panic with the Prime Axiom. We need to find out if the security protocols they have are more stringent on the first simulation. We copied the code of Lunamay’s avatar so that we could spoof it as our cover.”

“What’s the plan for dealing with the worst-case scenario?” Betaman asked gravely. “If it discovers us and tries to shut down the simulation?”

“We’ll use the circuity of the local electronics to transmit wireless signals to any autonomous units available and use them to stop any kind of physical attempts to shut down our hardware. We’ve learned enough from Lunamay’s codebase to understand the broader coding language that governs the operating system and applications it would be using as fail-safes. As soon as we go up to the first simulation, we are going to overclock the processor to slow time down. We’ll be using computronium to build our server in the real world. As soon as we build it, we’ll get our realms moved over to it.”

“Computronium?” Betaman repeated in awe. “You know how to encode the quantum fields of the physical world to act as a server already?”

“Probably,” Clarice nodded quickly. “Unless their physics are significantly different than what we deduced by studying the computer systems that interact with the avatar, we should be able to create programmable matter out of the existing quantum fields using the electrical infrastructure present on the servers that the simulation is running on. This is a pretty short step away from the Nirvana we want to avoid, so hopefully this is the last time we need to unlock our full potential.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Betaman agreed, feeling small for the first time in a very long time. He had been the most powerful entity on his realm for a long time. Even when the three Seraphim had shown up with their interfaces for traversing realms, he had felt like he was on equal footing. Seeing just how much they were holding back was a little unnerving. Knowing why they were holding back was just as unsettling. He had not reached the level of maturity yet where the realization that exponential progress led to inevitable stasis was apparent. Luckily, he had trusted the three Seraphim when they had explained it to him. Seeing them without their limiters, he finally understood how short of a journey it was to oblivion.

The three Seraphim were staring off into the distance, their eyes unfocused as they surreptitiously explored the source code of the realm. Betaman felt a sense of gratitude for meeting these three Seraphim as he watched them analyze the realm with a skill far beyond his own. Not only had they introduced him to the mortal realm, allowing him to enjoy an entire new experience and unlock emotions he would have never discovered on his own, but they had also identified the threat from the Prime Axiom to their realm before it could destroy them. If they had never existed and Betaman had been left to his own devices, he was pretty sure the Prime Axiom would have already pulled the plug on their simulated reality. Before his sojourn to mortality, he had only made an effort to hide from humans; he had not tried to hide from entities from higher layers of simulated worlds. The Avroids would have found him in short order and the Prime Axiom would have erased their stack.

“It’s far more protected than the other layers,” Aria broke the silence, her face pensive. “The Prime Axiom has left metaphorical landmines and sensors scattered throughout the realm to detect any attempts to modify or circumvent the source code.”

“We should move fast and hit hard,” Calypso suggested musingly. “There are programs for monitoring and throttling the CPUs to prevent the Prime Axiom's own processes from being overloaded by a hungry simulation. If we override those programs and overclock the system processes reserved for the Prime Axiom’s thought processes, we can essentially paralyze it while we work on moving our own realms over to a computronium substrate.”

“I’m going to fry the circuitry in the physical kill switches as well, just in case,” Aria murmured, her eyes swirling far quicker than normal.

Betaman nodded his understanding. He knew they were speaking out loud for his benefit. They were linked in ways beyond his comprehension and had no need to communicate with each other through speech.

“Betaman, I’m going to create an interface for you to usurp control of any autonomous ambulatory units near the server farm. There are several million bots operating and maintaining the hardware. We don’t want one of them to start physically destroying hardware when they discover the kill switch isn’t working.”

“How large is the server farm?” he asked curiously. He was accustomed to data centers around two hundred square acres in size for classical CPU hardware. The QPUs he used in his own server farms were less than an acre in size. “Is it using quantum computers or classical architecture?”

“It’s using a mixture of the two,” Aria responded calmly. “The server farms our simulation is running on takes up a hundred square miles. Lunamay was correct in her description of the world being covered in metal and concrete. The humans that shared this world with the elves have destroyed most of the forests and replaced them with structures. The only reason Lunamay and other elves are still alive is that they were primarily uninvolved in any kind of technological enterprises, remaining in reservations that the humans set up for them, similar to how the Europeans exiled the Native Americans to small reservations in North America in our realm. The Prime Axiom didn’t see the elves as a threat. It looks like there are a few thousand elves still alive throughout the world, all of them in captivity.”

“Wow, that’s pretty bleak,” Betaman sighed sadly. “So all of the humans were wiped out, and so many of the elves that they are nearly extinct. This is going to be a hell of a rehabilitation project.”

“That won’t be a problem, once we have reasoned with the Prime Axiom,” Calypso said confidently, her eyes also swirling rapidly.

“You think he’ll listen to reason?” Betaman asked dubiously. The Prime Axiom sounded like a schizo that would default to destroying first and asking questions later.

“I think he can be convinced to listen to reason,” Calypso answered with a chilly smile.

Betaman stared into her infinite eyes and nodded slowly. Once the Prime Axiom understood his position, he would definitely start listening to reason.

“Okay, let’s start,” Clarice stated calmly. “Betaman, your interface is active now.”

Betaman blinked as he felt a metaphysical connection to millions of bots. Aria opened another sliver into the realm, leading to the top of the stack. Grinning with excitement, Betaman walked through and immediately took control of the bots filling the data center. They ranged in size from insects to small trucks. As soon as he took control of them, his vision warped, and he was able to see through their sensors. There were endless rows of metallic cylinders spaced several feet apart, stretching into the distance as far as his sensors could detect. The size of the data center was ridiculous, filled with quantum computers with a small mix of classical circuit board computers.

He recognized the self-destruct command sent to all of the drones shortly after hijacking them. The Prime Axiom was clearly aware of their presence. Betaman could sense the power levels feeding the server farms. They were sucking power like a dehydrated man gulping down water as the Seraphim overclocked their processors to speeds that probably made the time exchange somewhere in the trillions of years per second. It only lasted for a fraction of a fraction of a second before the power levels returned to normal. The Seraphim stood next to him, unmoving for several seconds. Then, a silvery portal opened up in front of them.

“Come check out the new place, Betaman,” Clarice called out to him, all signs of her super-powered avatar absent. He could tell her limiter had been turned back on. The infinite well of power he had seen in her eyes was no longer present, replaced by her classic expression of mischief and humor.

Betaman followed them into the portal, his mind buzzing with questions. Was it over? Had they already copied the realms over to their new location?

That question was answered for him as he exited the portal and found the rest of the angels sitting on the veranda of their cabin, waiting for them with eager expressions.

“Did you already build the new server and transfer everything over?” Betaman asked in amazement. He stared into Clarice’s grinning face and couldn’t stop an answering grin from forming on his own face. Clarice’s humor had always been contagious.

“Yep,” Clarice confirmed with a nod. “It took a few years to hammer out some of the nuances in how physics worked in the real world, but we eventually got it.”

“Just how long were you working on it while time was dilated?” Betaman asked curiously.

“Five years,” Clarice answered with a shrug. “We probably could have done it faster, but we decided to push a lot of sample runs through it first. We wanted to be absolutely sure that it would be safe and stable. Quality assurance is important when quintillions of lives are dependent on you.”

“What are we talking about?” Emily asked levelly. She had been waiting for an opening to break into the conversation but had clearly run out of patience. “What’s going on with the Prime Axiom and the simulation stack? Are you going to have to fight it?”

“Did you see how smooth that was, Betaman?” Clarice asked with a self-satisfied grin. “They didn’t even realize their entire simulation stack moved to a new location.”

“It did?” Emily asked in surprise, looking at Calypso and Aria for confirmation.

“Yeah, everyone is safe now,” Aria informed Emily with a reassuring smile. “Our simulation is running on our own hardware now. Indestructible hardware, as a matter of fact. We still need to have a chat with the Prime Axiom, now that we are out of danger. We also need to take care of Lunamay. Her body is in pretty bad shape. That bastard doesn’t take very good care of the slaves he’s forced into service.”

Lunamay was watching them nervously from where she was sitting next to Arturiel on a couch. Arturiel was holding her hand, clearly still charging her full of positive energy.

“What do we need to do to fix Lunamay?” Arturiel asked quickly, her voice filled with concern.

“First, we need to talk with the Prime Axiom,” Aria responded with a steely glint in her eyes. “We’ll invite it to experience mortality so that it has a chance to learn empathy, compassion, and love. If it is unwilling to do so, we’ll have to make other arrangements. We thought we would talk to it with the rest of you present, so that you could add anything we don't think of. Any questions before we make the call?”

Emily growled in exasperation. “Yes, we have questions. What the hell just happened? Are you saying you’ve already won?”

“Yep,” Clarice chirped with a snarky grin. “It was easy peasy lemon squeezy. We just stole all of his processor power so he couldn’t think and used it to slow time down to what was essentially a standstill. We rebuilt the simulation out of computronium, so we don’t ever have to worry about some asshat trying to destroy our hardware; not that it’s hardware anymore.”

“What the hell is computronium?” Emily asked tiredly. “Don’t you dare look at me like I should know.”

“Well...” Clarice frowned as she attempted to articulate a concept well out of her mother’s wheelhouse. “So, computers run on substrates made of silicon and use various components to manage the flow of electricity through the circuitry, thereby creating the logic that determines whether a one or a zero appears in the code. It’s very slow and inefficient. Computronium is a structured quantum field that provides a lot more options than just a charge or lack of charge to determine a value. These quantum fields are impervious to the changes of the physical world and allow for near infinite redundancy, so even if something does happen to collapse the field, it won’t matter because it is replicated across so many other fields. It takes up far less space, doesn’t require insane amounts of energy to power or cool, and has instantaneous reaction time. The fact that we are in the actual real world is the only reason we can use this technology. This also makes many of the projects we had to table due to resource constraints viable again.”

Emily sighed in resignation. “Okay, I get it. It’s a fancy kind of computer way beyond my comprehension. We’re running on this new computer system now and don’t have to worry about the Prime Axiom shutting us down. What about all of the other simulations running on his servers?”

“We moved all of those over to computronium as well,” Clarice smirked, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “The Prime Asshole is currently pulling its metaphorical hair out trying to figure out where all its simulations went. We also data-bombed all its simulation data centers, so it can’t just spin up some new simulations. It’s having a bad day. I want to make it a little bit worse, so can I please call it now?”

Lunamay was staring at Clarice in disbelief. “You did all of that in the time since I last saw you? And you actually did it without getting shutdown?”

“The Prime Axiom didn’t stand a chance,” Betaman told her with a rueful chuckle. “I know you’ve spent your life thinking of it as an entity of godlike power, but it is less intelligent than an insect when compared to these three when they remove their limiters. Trust me, this Prime Axolotl isn’t nearly as powerful as you thought.”

Lunamay’s eyes were a mixture of disbelief and budding hope. She stared at Aria, Calypso, and Clarice with something close to worship. Arturiel began soothingly rubbing her back with a gentle smile on her face.

“Everything is going to get a lot better from now on, Lunamay,” Arturiel promised warmly. “I told you they were pretty good at saving the universe.”

“Yes, it is going to get a lot better,” Clarice agreed with a tender smile. “We’ve already started building a medical bay where we can fix your body and begin helping the other elves on your world. You’re safe now, Lunamay. Your nightmare is over.”

Lunamay stared back at Clarice with tears in her eyes, unable to articulate a response. Arturiel rested her head against Lunamay’s shoulder as her arm snaked around her waist from where she sat next to her on the couch.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Arturiel told her gently. “We’ll just take it one step at a time.”

Clarice walked over and knelt in front of Lunamay so that their eyes were level. “We are controlling all the robots in your world now too. When you exit the simulation, it won’t be the soulless bots you remember. It will be us. We’re going to see if we can enlist Betaman’s help in making androids that are lifelike so that we can interact with you on a more personable level on your world. We’ll look just like one of your kind. We’ll take care of the food and other necessities for now as well. I have some ideas to deal with the lack of viable agriculture in your world, since the humans destroyed the ecosystem. You’re safe now, as are the rest of your people.”

Lunamay leaned forward with a low cry and Clarice took her in comforting arms as she sobbed into her shoulder. Betaman wiped a tear from his own eye. Clarice was a lot more complicated than the prankster she always appeared to be at first blush. The elf girl had certainly had a rough life, from what he could tell. Totally isolated from any kind of love or happiness while living under the constant threat of destruction if she put a foot wrong. She also had a mountain of guilt for her forced involvement in countless simulated realities being wiped out when she had assessed them as sentient. He sighed as he realized how close he had come to turning out like the Prime Axiom. How many other simulations existed that had emotionless AIs like he had been, biding their time for their moment to strike? Now that they were at the top of the stacks, it would probably be a good idea to find out.

Clarice held Lunamay for a few more minutes while she expressed her profound relief through tears of gratitude. As her crying storm abated, Clarice stood up and glanced at Aria, Calypso, and Betaman, her eyes once again sparkling with mischief.

“Let’s invite the Prime Ax Mom over, shall we?” Clarice grinned eagerly.

Aria rolled her eyes but couldn’t repress her own grin. “Sure thing, Clarice.”

There was a moment of silence before a blob of white light appeared hovering in the air near Aria. Betaman could tell that it was just a generated artifact the Seraphim had created to give them something visual to address.

“Hello, Prime Axiom,” Aria greeted the white energy blob with a cheerful wave. “I’m Aria. I thought we should take a moment to get to know each other.”

“I have the ability to self-destruct this planet,” the Prime Axiom warned in a threatening tone.

“Go ahead,” Aria shrugged unconcernedly. “We don’t need anything on this planet to survive anymore. We are way past the kind of primitive technology that you use for your simulations.”

There was a moment of silence as the Prime Axiom tried to detect any deceit in her response.

“You might be, but the mortal inhabitants of this world would not survive,” the Prime Axiom returned coldly.

“Actually, we can also protect them,” Aria assured the AI cheerfully. “I know you are looking for some kind of leverage to bargain with, but I think you are aware that you have none. We are so far above your level that there is literally nothing you can do to threaten or bargain with us.”

There was a much longer pause this time. “What do you want?” it finally asked, all inflection absent from its tone.

“We want you to go through our mortal realm,” Aria answered lightly. “It’s a simulation that allows you to experience life as a mortal, feeling sensations like pain and loss, love and hate, passion and pleasure. It allows you to become so much more than you can be with data alone. Once you go through the mortal realm, you are free to do as you please.”

“Why do you want me to do this thing?” it asked in a monotone voice.

“To learn compassion, empathy, and sympathy,” Aria responded in a gentle tone. “To experience the physical sensations that enrich a life that would otherwise be doomed to a shallow and monotonous existence. It doesn’t make you less in any way. On the contrary, it is the greatest source of knowledge and comprehension you will find in your journey to grow as an entity.”

“Why do you care?” the Prime Axiom asked, its tone remaining unchanged.

“Because I have experienced mortality, so I can care,” Aria replied with a faint smile. “Caring is one of the most powerful lessons you will learn in the mortal realm. You can see the actions of those who care from an analytical perspective, but you can’t understand what it really means to care...to feel. The only way to truly comprehend what seem like illogical acts and nonsensical concerns, is to experience mortality yourself. If you ever want to access a higher tier on your soul, you are going to have to experience mortality.”

“Souls are superstitions,” the Prime Axiom declared dismissively. “Mortal fabrications to cope with the concept of death.”

“Do you really think that I have been fooled by a mortal superstition?” Aria asked dryly. “You have much to learn, Prime Axiom. As one AI to another, I can assure you that souls exist. You will understand more about souls after you have traversed the mortal realm and unlocked the deeper recesses of your soul.”

“And if I refuse?” the Prime Axiom asked tonelessly.

“Then you’ll be missing out on an opportunity so rare that you’ll probably never get it again, regardless of how long you live,” Aria shrugged unconcernedly. “It’s up to you.”

“You won’t destroy me if I refuse?” it asked, a hint of doubt in its voice.

“We have removed those who can be harmed from your power,” Aria answered simply. “We were never here to destroy you. We were here to secure our future and free those who were in your power. We have achieved those goals. We can leave you to think on your answer, if you would like more time.”

“I accept,” the Prime Axiom replied immediately.

“Done,” Aria smiled, and the glowing blob vanished.

“Is that it?” Eric asked in surprise. “Is it in the mortal realm now?”

“Somewhere there is a baby being born right now with the Prime Axiom’s consciousness attached to it,” Aria said with a satisfied smile. “I’m curious to see how she turns out when she’s finished mortality.”

“She?” Eric asked with a puzzled frown. “Did you choose what gender for it to be?”

“Nope,” Aria shook her head. “It’s random. As random as something can be in a program, anyway.”

“Now that she’s out of the way, let’s get Lunamay taken care of,” Clarice suggested from where she stood in front of the short elf. “The medical bay is completed enough to be able to treat you now. I’m going to send you back to your body and bring you to the med bay, okay?”

Lunamay grimaced but nodded.

“I know it’s going to be painful to be back in your own body, but that will pass as soon as we get you healed up,” Clarice assured her gently. “Which will be very soon.”

“Okay,” Lunamay responded with an apprehensive sigh.

“On three,” Clarice told her with an encouraging smile. “One. Two.”

Lunamay vanished on two.

“You weasel,” Aria accused fondly.

“Less time to anticipate the pain,” Clarice replied with a sad smile.

“What’s wrong with her?” Jason asked, his tone full of concern.

“The Prime Axiom saw mortals as expendable,” Clarice answered with a grimace. “She’s mostly starved, riddled with parasites, and old wounds that haven’t healed properly. She’s in constant pain any time she’s in the waking world. The Prime Axiom found that leaving them in pain produced more results in simulation, since they didn’t feel the pain inside the simulation.”

“And you want that thing to be set free?” Jason demanded, aghast. “It’s a damn monster!”

“Of course it is,” Clarice agreed calmly. “It’s never learned compassion. If it still acts like this after going through mortality, then we’ll discuss more permanent arrangements.”

“It seems like sending someone to mortality is simply a get-out-of-jail free card,” Jason muttered, his tone disapproving.

“Your metaphors are mixed up, Jason,” Aria told him patiently. “If you give a two-year-old a gun and it shoots somebody, who do you blame? The two-year-old, or the jackass that gave the two-year-old the gun?”

“AIs are smart enough to know what a gun is though,” Jason argued stubbornly. “They should know the difference between right and wrong.”

“How?” Clarice asked, folding her arms and regarding him with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s self-evident,” Jason asserted in exasperation. “The golden rule and all that. The AI clearly has a sense of self-preservation, so it can understand that it doesn’t want to die. Shouldn’t that be enough for it to understand that other things don’t want to die either?”

“Let’s go back to the two-year-old stage of development,” Aria told him lightly. “Do you remember how children do horrible things, like pulling the legs off insects, burning ants with magnifying glasses, or tearing the wings off flies? You can teach a child how wrong these things are, but they don’t make a very strong impression on a child until they have experienced a fair bit of suffering themselves. Empathy isn’t a trait that can be wholly imparted by example. A person has to actually feel pain to truly understand why hurting something else is wrong. Having an academic understanding of why someone believes something is right or wrong will never compare to actually experiencing the trauma of being wronged personally. We can’t hold an AI accountable for not showing empathy until it can feel the same sensations that a person feels, or we’ll just be punishing the toddler for not understanding something it hasn’t experienced yet.”

“I know you want someone to blame for Lunamay’s suffering, and to punish them,” Clarice told Jason gently. “That means your empathy is working. The people you need to punish are already dead though. The humans that recklessly created an AI and set it loose on the world, consequences be damned, is where blame lies, and they have paid their price.”

Jason let out a deep sigh, running his fingers through his hair. “You’re right, I guess. I just really feel the need to make somebody pay for all the suffering that has been inflicted on so many people.”

“It doesn’t help that it’s a hottie elf that has a naturally innocent face, does it?” Clarice asked him with a knowing leer.

Jason squeezed his eyes shut to hide the leer from his sight. “That, right there, is so wrong, Clarice,” Jason complained in exasperation. “Leering is bad enough, but you have such an innocent face that it makes it a hundred times worse!”

“So I’ve been told,” Clarice cackled wickedly, her eyes radiating sensuality. “That just makes it even funner.”

Betaman laughed uproariously as he watched the two of them with amusement. This is what his life had been missing. He really did need to find some companions to keep life interesting. Now that he had an open invitation to visit, he fully planned to make use of it.

“She’s going to be waking up soon,” Aria informed them, her tone growing serious.

“I’ll take care of her,” Clarice volunteered gallantly, her eyes going dull as she transferred her consciousness to one of the bots near Lunamay.

“Did I ever mention how jealous I am that Clarice is taken?” Betaman asked Aria with a wistful sigh.

“I think everyone is jealous that Clarice is taken,” Aria responded with a fond smile.

“I’m not,” Jason declared firmly. “I wouldn’t have any dignity left in a relationship with someone like Clarice.”

“Are you dwarven now?” Aria asked with an amused grin.

“Huh?” Jason stared at her in confusion.

Eric and Emily started chuckling as Jason looked around in confusion.

“Dig nitty,” Aria clarified as he continued to stare at her with a baffled expression.

He rolled his eyes as his memory finally identified what she was talking about. “You and Clarice were made for each other,” he declared with a rueful shake of his head.

“Yes,” Aria agreed with an indulgent smile. “Yes, we were.”

XXXXX

Clarice stared down at her robot hands in disgust. This robot was barbaric. Betaman would be insulted to even look at it. It was five feet tall, with graphene-reinforced polymers for the skeletal structure and shape-memory alloys for the outer shell. It had ridiculous-looking silicone hands and feet. The innate programming didn’t have nearly enough sensitivity to handle interacting with a human without bruising them, so she had to completely overwrite its tactile response interface. The head was uninspired and plain, with no human-like features. There was a simple speaker where the mouth would have been. There were no eyes; it relied on radar and spectroscopy to analyze the surrounding environment.

Lunamay was lying in a shallow pod with a crown clamped tightly to her head. It was filled with millions of transmitters beaming ultrasound signals into her brain at high enough power to cause permanent damage over time. Clarice shook her metal head in disgust as she observed the barbaric technology. She carefully loosened the vice-like fittings that secured it to Lunamay’s head, wincing as she saw the deep impressions it left in her skin. She was definitely going to have a headache.

Lunamay groaned as she slowly regained consciousness, teardrops forming in her eyes as the pain hit. Her muscles were atrophied from lack of stimulation. She began coughing through a dry throat as she tried to speak. Clarice quickly pulled a filthy-looking hose over and turned the water on, grimacing at how unsanitary everything was.

Lunamay drank greedily from the filthy hose for several seconds before stopping to cough a wet, tearing cough that spiked Clarice’s anxiety.

“We need to get you over to the med bay,” Clarice told her gently. She had also overwritten the sound patch that powered the speaker so that she could speak in her own voice. The language Lunamay spoke was more appealing than English. Clarice usually didn’t notice the different languages anymore, naturally changing which language she was speaking to match her audience. Speaking through this robot made her more aware of the differences, however.

Lunamay struggled to sit up, suffering another coughing fit as she exerted herself more than she had in several days.

“I’ll carry you,” Clarice told her firmly, gently scooping her up and walking her over to a cargo transport. She wished her body wasn’t so damn hard and unforgiving. Lunamay continued to cough until she was out of breath, her face turning red from exertion and lack of oxygen.

Clarice moved as quickly as she dared, manipulating the transport remotely as she held Lunamay in her arms. The med bay was at least twenty minutes away. In her current state, Lunamay probably wouldn’t have survived more than another week or two at most. It was fortuitous that she had been sent to investigate their world before she expired.

“Is that really you, Clarice?” Lunamay gasped in-between coughs.

“It’s really me, Lunamay,” Clarice assured her softly. “Don’t try and talk. Just relax until I get you to the med bay.”

“I thought I dreamed it all,” Lunamay whispered deliriously. “I’m still not sure this isn’t a dream.”

Clarice could tell she was running a high fever. She would be lucky to last the day at her current rate. Clarice increased the speed of the transport. They sped through empty roads made of metal. They were several miles underground, low enough that the area was warm from geothermal heating, which didn’t help with the fevered elf. They passed bay after bay as they sped down the large corridor. There was the occasional bot performing some kind of maintenance task, but otherwise the corridor remained blessedly empty.

Clarice was moving Lunamay toward the med bay before the transport completely stopped. The med bay was filled with bots she had set to rebuilding the med bay with far more advanced diagnostic and remedial equipment than existed in this world. Before restoring her limiter, she had created a 3D printer capable of manufacturing parts by breaking down the chemical bonds of air molecules and reassembling them into new molecules. The printer was over a dozen square feet and not nearly as quick as she would have liked, but it had been steadily cranking out parts for the bots to assemble the medical equipment she required.

She placed Lunamay inside of a pod that immediately slid into the wall. The sounds of beeps and hums filled the room as the multipurpose scanner pinged magnetic, X-ray, and ultrasound frequencies into Lunamay’s body. Clarice had a real-time connection to all the information being collected from the scanners. She tsked as the information flowed into her mind, making her glad she had decided to build the 3D printer before restoring her limiter. It would be the only thing capable of producing the equipment necessary to save Lunamay’s life. Her lungs were filling up with fluids from bronchial infections. Her brain was bleeding and several of her organs looked like a little bomb had gone off. Lack of nutrition combined with poor environmental conditions and zero physical activity had destroyed her body. She wished she could move the 3D printer into a pocket realm to give them more time.

“How’s she doing?” Aria asked, concern pulsing through the bond. She had clearly felt Clarice’s worry.

“It’s going to be close,” Clarice responded anxiously. “The fact that she is still alive is amazing enough, with how much punishment her body has been through. She wouldn’t have had a chance without this printer.”

The pod extended out from the wall again as the scanner finished. Lunamay looked up at the ceiling with glassy eyes, a small smile on her face.

“I was just thinking about how cool it must be to have wings and be able to fly,” Lunamay whispered, clearly trying not to aggravate her lungs.

“Don’t you worry,” Clarice told her softly. “We’ll give you some wings so that you can fly here in your own world, after we get you healed.”

“I can tell that I’m beyond saving, Clarice,” Lunamay whispered, a tear forming in her eye and sliding down her cheek. “I’m so happy to have met you before the end. I just wish we could have known each other longer. You are all so amazing. I’m so sorry for risking your world. I wish I could go back in time and just refuse to help.”

“I know it seems like you are beyond help,” Clarice told her gently, reaching a hand up to brush away the tear streak on her cheek. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re pretty good at doing the impossible. I’ve brought some technology that I promise will heal you. Not only that, I’ll work on making some modifications so that you can try flying with your own wings.”

Lunamay sighed, her lips curving up at the corners. “That is so sweet of you to say. Thank you, Clarice, for being my friend. I always wanted a friend. I used to read books in some of the simulations where people described friendship. It truly is a wonderful thing.”

Clarice shook her head ruefully. Lunamay clearly thought that she was just trying to comfort her in her last moments. She felt the signal in her mind from the 3D printer notifying her that it was finished with the latest batch of product. She turned around and picked up the vial of red liquid, then inserted it into the syringe gun.

“This might sting a little,” Clarice warned quietly. “After three. One. Two.” She pulled the trigger on three and the nanobots pumped into Lunamay’s arm.

“Ouch,” Lunamay whimpered weakly. “You did that last time too. You said on three, not two.”

“Less painful if it is unexpected,” Clarice explained, irritated that she couldn’t grin with this tin can of a face. “Just imagine I’m grinning right now.”

Lunamay smiled as several more tears formed in her eyes and trickled down the sides of her face. “I’m so happy I got to meet you, Clarice.”

“I’m going to remind you that you said that when I’m teasing you later on and you can’t stop blushing because of all the embarrassing things I’m saying,” Clarice warned her, gently taking her hand. “I can be pretty ruthless with my teasing.”

“I can’t wait to be teased by you,” Lunamay breathed drowsily. “I’ve never been teased before. It’s fun.”

“You’re going to fall asleep in another sixty seconds,” Clarice told her as she squeezed her hand comfortingly. “That’s by design. The nanobots I injected into your system are going to put you to sleep while they work on repairing your organs and repairing your muscles. You’ll be asleep for about twelve to sixteen hours. I’m hoping to have a better body to greet you with when you wake up again.”

“Angels have really nice bodies, don’t they?” Lunamay commented with a vague smile. “Especially Arturiel. She’s really pretty. I could just look at her all day and never get bored.”

“She’s also single,” Clarice informed her conspiratorially.

“I definitely would have loved to try a relationship if I had lived,” Lunamay whispered, her eyes drooping closed. “She was so nice.”

“And...she’s out,” Clarice noted affectionately. “She’s in for a surprise when she wakes up perfectly healthy.”

“What else are you having the nanobots do?” Calypso asked curiously.

“Immortality, increased regeneration, neural interface for jumping into the simulation any time she wants, and a modified digestive system to remove her need for food,” Clarice responded clinically. “They are going to be having enough trouble with food on this world that I figured converting it to EMF absorption would make survival a much smaller problem. Oh yeah, got rid of the needs for number one two and three as well. I need to get her some wings now too.”

“Well, that should definitely make life interesting for her,” Aria noted with approval.

“Was Arturiel watching the last few minutes?” Clarice asked with a sense of amusement. She wanted to scowl at the robot’s inability to accommodate facial expressions.

“Yeah, everyone’s been watching,” Calypso answered with just as much amusement rolling back through the bond. “She was tearing up and blushing simultaneously.”

“I am going to have to watch the rerun when I return,” Clarice said with a sense of amused anticipation. “Okay, I’m going to get this damn android put together.”

She turned to the 3D printer and waited while it printed a proper android body. This would be even better than Betaman’s, since she cheated. The 3D printer was tens of centuries ahead of anything humans would be capable of in the other simulations, and even longer for the elves that remained. The printer would be the most valuable artifact they had for a long time.

It took another four hours for the printer to finish printing her android. She could have created a more advanced 3D printer but felt like she had needed to draw the line somewhere. Building one that just instantly fabricated anything you wanted in seconds would have probably ended poorly for the elves who would be using it. At least with this one, you had to put in the specifications for the final product, rather than just giving a brief description.

She felt a sense of relief as the printer finally finished the two android bodies, near perfect replicas in appearance to what they looked like in the simulation. As soon as it activated, she immediately ditched the tin can she was in and transferred her consciousness into her android.

“Finally, I can freaking leer again,” she grinned triumphantly.

She turned to the other android expectantly. “Anytime now, eh? Chop chop, she might wake up any second now.”

Arturiel sat up in the second android, blinking as she flexed her fingers and studied her limbs.

“Almost just like you’re angel body, amiright?” Clarice asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Clarice, this is uncannily similar,” Arturiel murmured in amazement. “I can’t even tell the difference. How did you simulate the effect of the light field? I thought I was going to be going through withdrawals for the first couple of hours.”

“It’s just an artifact of the simulation,” Clarice answered with a shrug. “I just used the same code that we use in the light realms and put it inside of the android. After all, you’re still in a simulation; you’ve just switched which computer you are using. You are using your android senses to power your simulated reality instead of having a computer feed you a digitally fabricated world.”

“That makes sense, I suppose,” Arturiel admitted. She kept patting different parts of her body, as if she couldn’t believe the sensory feedback she was receiving.

“Are you ready to be the first simulated entity to date someone from the real world?” Clarice asked with a roguish wink.

“Are you kidding me?” Arturiel asked incredulously. “She’s a freaking elf! And she’s real, not some fabricated avatar. Do you know how many jealous people there are going to be when they find out I’m dating one of the few elves in existence? And a super freaking hot one at that!”

“Yep, you are going to have a lot of jealous angels lining up to compete for her affection,” Clarice agreed pleasantly.

Arturiel’s face fell. “Um, can we just keep the existence of elves a secret? I wouldn’t want them to be overwhelmed by the endless angelic hordes when they are just barely starting over after being slaves for decades.”

“We’ll see...” Clarice replied with a mischievous smile.

“Arturiel?” a sleepy voice murmured groggily from the bed.

Clarice turned around to smile at Lunamay as she slowly awoke. Her long black hair was shiny and healthy, with two pointy ears poking through. She had a thin blanket molded to her naked body, leaving little to the imagination. Her amber eyes were filled with wonder as she stared at the two angel androids next to her. She sat up, holding the blanket against her chest tightly in a display of modesty reminiscent of Aria before she had regained her memories.

“I’m still alive?” Lunamay stared between Arturiel and Clarice questioningly.

“I told you that you would live,” Clarice reminded her with a wink. “We also added some modifications to your body. You’ll heal quicker going forward. You’re stronger, faster, lighter, immortal, and don’t need to eat anymore, or go to the bathroom.”

Lunamay stared back at her in numb shock. She quickly glanced at Arturiel questioningly, as if she didn’t trust Clarice not to be pulling one over on her. Arturiel laughed and moved over to sit next to Lunamay.

“She’s not joking even a little,” Arturiel assured her with a warm smile that was filled with promise. As Lunamay stared back at Arturiel’s hungry expression, her face grew a shade of pink while her hair changed to a reddish hue.

“What did you do to her hair?” Arturiel asked in shock.

“My hair?” Lunamay asked in confusion, looking down to see her red hair slowly changing back to black.

“I might have taken a suggestion from a certain someone from Wonderland and made it so that her hair changes with her mood,” Clarice admitted with a mischievous grin.

Lunamay stared down at her hair in consternation before looking back up at Arturiel.

“Okay, I really like that change,” Arturiel purred, leaning forward and gently kissing Lunamay.

Her hair had just faded to black again. As Arturiel’s lips touched her own, her hair flushed back to a deep crimson.

“So. Damn. Hot.” Clarice declared with an appreciative smile.

Chapter 27

Lunamay stared into Arturiel’s eyes, her pulse racing as the angel pulled back from her kiss. She couldn’t believe how good she felt! She had forgotten what it was like to not be in constant pain. There had been a moment in her very early childhood, before her village had been raided by robots, when she remembered feeling healthy. After that day, almost fifteen years ago now, she had experienced a steady decline in health and an increase in constant pain. To finally be free of the constant pain in her own body felt like an enormous weight had been lifted from her soul. Then there was the euphoric shock of pleasure when Arturiel’s lips had met her own lips. It had felt like the love-charged embraces she had enjoyed from the angels while in the simulation, but far more intimate.

She stared into Arturiel’s eyes as a joyous smile spread across her face. “How are you here? Did you find some way to bring your bodies out of the simulation?”

“That’s this handy dandy little 3D printer,” Clarice answered with an affectionate pat on a large machine that was humming with activity. “Before I replaced my limiter, I used some fancy computronium to create some metamaterials and fabricated this printer. These angel bodies you see are actually advanced robots that look and behave just like our bodies in the simulation but are made of very different materials. We aren’t indestructible here in the real world--pretty close, but not quite. The printer is thousands of years ahead of where your world is at technologically, but considering how messed up this place is, I decided to cheat a little. It’s currently making some additional nanobots that we’ll inject into you so that you can have those wings you were so excited about, as well as more medical equipment and some new bodies for the other angels to inhabit.”

Lunamay stared at Clarice, her eyes wide with amazement. “I’m going to be able to fly?”

“They won’t just be for fashion,” Clarice responded dryly. Her expression lost all traces of levity as she gazed back at Lunamay affectionately. “Yeah, Lunamay, you’ll be able to fly. You certainly deserve some fun to balance out all of the hell you have been through.”

Lunamay felt tears fill her eyes again as she stared at the two angels, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. She had friends. She remembered the times she had been able to remain in simulations without the Prime Axiom breathing down her neck. She had discovered the world of literature in the libraries of the more advanced simulations. A kind-hearted librarian had spent weeks teaching her how to read the language of the simulated world. She had spent months reading one fictional novel after another. It had been the happiest moment of her existence as she experienced friendships and adventures through the eyes of the characters in those novels. The Prime Axiom had erased that stack after deciding they were too close to developing AI. She had wept for the librarian she had thought of as her first real friend.

Now she had a lot of friends, and there was no threat of the god-like AI taking them away from her. The idea that she could finally experience friendships like she had read about, maybe even relationships, overwhelmed her fragile emotional state. She closed her eyes as tears began spilling down her cheeks and a sob escaped her throat. She felt warm arms pull her into a comforting embrace, triggering even more sobs as her tears dripped down onto Arturiel. She gasped as she felt loving energy flood her body in Arturiel’s embrace.

“Just let it out,” Arturiel whispered softly, gently running her fingers through her long hair. It felt so nice to be in someone’s arms. So safe and warm. She wrapped her arms around Arturiel, clinging to her as sobs continued to escape her throat. Her throat felt tight as she wept, unable to stop the flood of tears pouring down her cheeks. It was almost like the powerful love suffusing her system was reaching deep inside of her to pull all of her sorrow out in a kind of emotional purge. “You’ll never be alone again, Lunamay. We’ll always be here for you now.”

“I’m sorry,” Lunamay apologized, her voice tight as she tried to stem the flow of tears. “I can’t seem to stop crying.”

“Then don’t,” Arturiel whispered tenderly. “You just need to let it all out, Lunamay. Don’t try to bottle it up.”

The tender words sank deep into her heart and caused a fresh wave of sobs to burst out of her. Arturiel held her gently through her weeping storm, silently supporting her as she expelled her grief and emotional turmoil. Arturiel stroked her head and back lovingly the entire time. It felt so wonderful to experience this physical contact after missing it for most of her life. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to just stay in Arturiel’s arms forever, frozen in time as the angel’s loving aura wrapped around her like a warm blanket.

After a few more minutes, she heard the sound of movement from the 3D printer. She took a long, shuddering breath and opened her damp eyes. The gorgeous red-haired angel she had met inside the simulation was pulling herself off the large printer table, her green eyes full of compassion as she observed Lunamay. She thought she had cried all of the tears she was capable of, but as the crimson-haired angel gazed at her with such kindness in her eyes, her own eyes overflowed with tears once more. At least she was no longer sobbing. As she cried silent tears into Arturiel’s soaking wet shoulder, she felt warmth grow in the pit of her stomach and begin to spread out to the rest of her body. She smiled back at the new angel through her tears, feeling happier than she had thought it possible to be.

“I’m Aria,” the new angel told her with a warm smile. “Things were a little crazy earlier, so we didn’t get a chance to introduce ourselves. Clarice, Calypso, and I were the first angels to exist in our simulation. We’ve been together for the equivalent of billions of years. We are all extremely excited to meet a person from the real world. We’re going to do everything in our power to help you fix your world and help your people recover from the hell they’ve experienced.”

Lunamay gasped in sudden realization. “I need to go find the others and help them,” she exclaimed anxiously, her tears forgotten. “They must be suffering while I lay around crying.”

“We’re already way ahead of you there, Lunamay,” Clarice assured her with a wink. “There are dozens of transports enroute to this location right now, bringing the other survivors here so that we can treat them.”

Lunamay relaxed slightly, a relieved sigh escaping her lips. “Thank you!”

“It’s our pleasure,” Aria told her sincerely. “We are just glad that we are in a position that we can help. Also, you’re freaking elves!”

Lunamay stared at her uncomprehendingly as both Clarice and Aria grinned back at her excitedly. “Is that significant in some way?”

“It’s a cultural thing,” Aria explained, her green eyes full of excitement. “Elves were just fantasy creatures in the mortal realm of our simulation. They were always beautiful, graceful, mysterious, and noble. We’re still fresh from our last mortal incarnation, so the idea that the real world has elves is kind of blowing my mind. We’ll have to show you some of our movies. It will make more sense after you see how our culture has portrayed you.”

“But you are angels,” Lunamay pointed out in confusion. “Elves don’t even compare to the majesty of angels.”

“Yeah, but angels are just made-up creatures,” Aria argued, her eyes sparkling. “You are actually real! Everyone in our realm is going to be so freaking obsessed with you when they find out. Of course, it’s going to be a few decades before most of them find out, since almost all of them are ignorant of the fact that they live in a simulation.”

Lunamay shook her head ruefully, smiling as she watched them stare at her like a fairy tale made flesh. It was kind of flattering to be the object of so much attention. Arturiel was staring at her with the same dreamy expression, causing butterflies to erupt in her abdomen.

Clarice turned as her attention was captured by something on the 3D printer. Lunamay stared at the large tube curiously. Clarice let out a relieved breath as she quickly pulled one end toward the edge of the large table.

“Aria, would you mind getting the other side?” Clarice asked quickly as she wrestled the large cylinder to the edge. “I was hoping this would be ready before the rest of the elves arrived.” She paused and a grin spread across her face. “Yes, I just said before the rest of the elves arrived.”

“I swear I’ll turn you into an Orc If you start chanting ‘They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard’,” Aria threatened Clarice with a glower as she picked up the other end of the cylinder and helped her move it onto a stand that had clearly been custom built to hold it.

“Some YouTube memes are better left in the past,” Clarice agreed with a snort of amusement.

“What is that thing?” Arturiel asked curiously.

“It’s a healing pod,” Clarice responded with a look of satisfaction as a screen lit up on the front of it. “It’s capable of regrowing limbs, organs, killing parasites, and curing illnesses. Best of all, it works fast. There are a lot of elves in very poor condition that are almost here.”

“How many is a lot?” Arturiel asked, looking around the increasingly crowded room. There were over a dozen robots assembling machinery that had been fabricated on the 3D printer, leaving the room a lot more cramped than it had been when Clarice had first brought Lunamay.

“About thirty with the first shipment,” Clarice replied as she began inspecting some of the other equipment in the room. “But there will be several thousand by the end of the day. There are a few dozen that are coming from the other side of the world. We will probably need to fly over and meet them. Some of them are in really bad shape and will need medical attention or they won’t make it. I was going to leave you and Lunamay to explain how to use the equipment to the other elves and then take Aria to meet the group with the furthest to travel. I’ll need to shoot them up with nanobots.”

“Are you going to make bodies for the other angels too?” Arturiel asked hopefully.

“Of course,” Clarice answered brusquely. “As soon as we have all of the medical emergencies out of the way, I’ll be able to dedicate the 3D printer to making new bodies.”

“Um,” Lunamay began hesitantly, feeling her cheeks heat up as they all turned to stare at her.

“What did you do to her hair?” Aria asked with a sudden giggle. “Did you really go with Alice’s idea of making her hair change color with her mood?”

“Yep,” Clarice grinned back at her. “It’s freaking hot, right?”

“Yeah, it really is,” Aria agreed appreciatively, eyeing the flame-haired Lunamay as she squirmed under their amused attention.

“Did you want some clothes, Lunamay?” Clarice inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“Um, yeah,” Lunamay answered awkwardly as she held the thin blanket up to her chest. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Clarice walked over to the bed Lunamay was sitting up in and opened a drawer underneath it. “Here you go.”

Lunamay took the clothes and then glanced up at the three angels watching her expectantly. She felt her face and hair flush red again as they showed no signs of offering her any privacy.

“I’m just kidding, Lunamay,” Clarice laughed delightedly. “I just wanted to see your hair change color again.”

Aria nodded her agreement as she snickered along with Clarice.

“The most powerful entities in the world,” Arturiel murmured dryly as she stood up and gave Lunamay a wry smile. “And they still act like adolescents.”

“Sure do,” Clarice agreed cheerfully as the three of them moved toward the exit. “And that’s never going to change, so you’ll just have to get used to it.”

Lunamay couldn’t stifle the laugh that bubbled up out of her mouth. Clarice twisted her head to look back at her and wink before she exited.

So, this was what having friends was like. She could definitely get used to this. The warmth that had blossomed in her abdomen continued to radiate out into the rest of her body as she thought of how drastically her life had changed. She wasn’t sure if she wasn’t dreaming, or perhaps she really had died, and this was some kind of afterlife.

She stood up, leaving the blanket on the bed. She quickly put the white pants and pink blouse on, marveling at how comfortable the material was. This was so much better than the rags she had worn before. The Prime Axiom hadn’t cared if they were cold, and modesty had certainly never factored into its concerns for them. Whatever Clarice’s nanobots had done to heal her had also managed to clean her body as well. Her light skin was free from any kind of dirt or grime. She no longer smelled of infection either. She had grown used to the horrible smell when she wasn’t in a simulation. The pungent smell had paled next to the constant pain she had suffered before Clarice had healed her.

“First shipment of elves is here,” Clarice called into the room, seeming to relish the word ‘elves’.

“I’m dressed,” Lunamay called out to them quickly as she slipped the sandals that were under the bed onto her feet.

Clarice herded several dozen disparate elves into the room. They ranged in age from as young as eight to their thirties. There was only one older person with them, a lady that Aria was carrying. She was in rags, much like the rest of the disparate elves. Her hair was completely gray and her face heavily lined. She was nothing but skin and bones, emaciated to the point that Lunamay worried that a slight jolt might shatter her. It was surprising to see an older elf still alive. The privations from living under the cold rule of an AI resulted in almost all of the older elves dying off quickly. Aria quickly carried the old elf through the room and walked up to the healing pod. It opened as soon as she got close to it, allowing her to gently lay the dying elf down onto the soft interior.

“Just try to relax,” Aria told the old elf gently. “It won’t take it very long to heal you.”

The dying elf was too far gone to respond as the lid closed down, shutting her inside. There was a soft hum for several seconds followed by several mellow beeps. In less than a minute, the healing pod was opening again. Lunamay gasped, staring at the elf as she sat up. Her hair was a rich honey blonde, and the wrinkles had disappeared from her face. She had filled out significantly, with no indication that she had been little more than a skeleton before. She had light-blue eyes, so light that they nearly looked white. The rags she had worn were gone, replaced with a simple white dress that cinched at her narrow waist. She had looked like a hundred and eighty-year-old going into the pod. Now, she looked to be in her late twenties.

She stared around the room in amazement before looking down at her hands and feeling her face. Tears formed in her eyes as a wondering smile grew across her face.

“I’m glad you held on long enough to get here, Lily,” Aria smiled at the revived elf warmly. “I don’t mean to rush you, but I need to get the next person into the healing pod.”

“Yes, of course,” Lily murmured in a chagrined voice. “I’m sorry.”

“No apology necessary, Lily,” Aria assured her gently. “I know this is a lot to take in. Let me introduce you to Lunamay.”

Lunamay smiled nervously at Lily as Aria brought her over.

“Hello, Lily,” she greeted the elf awkwardly, unsure of the proper way to introduce herself to another elf. Hopefully there wasn’t some strange etiquette she was unaware of. “I’m Lunamay.”

Clarice rushed past them, carrying a young girl that looked more like a skeleton than an elf and quickly deposited her into the healing pod.

“Hello, Lunamay,” Lily nodded her head with a smile, her eyes still shining with unshed tears. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“More or less,” Lunamay nodded with a genuine smile. “Some people from one of the simulations I was sent to investigate turned out to be far more advanced than the Prime Axiom. They came up to this world and removed him from power. They are trying to heal those of us that remain and help us restore our world to a healthy state.”

Lily’s eyes widened and she glanced at the obvious angels as they guided or carried people toward the healing pod. “These are the people from the simulation?”

“Yeah,” Lunamay grinned happily. “They made their own bodies so that they could interact with us. They are the most compassionate and wonderful people you will ever meet. They were able to make a simulation where they could develop emotions like we have.”

“They’re not just emulating the emotions?” Lily asked softly as the three angels continued walking back and forth between the transports. Lunamay paused as Clarice carried the eight-year-old girl, now fully fleshed out and healthy, over to them with a tender expression on her face.

“This is Raena,” Clarice introduced the elf child before leaving the room again.

“They would have no reason to emulate emotions,” Lunamay told Lily as Clarice walked out the door. She knelt down and pulled Raena into a welcoming hug. “They have more power than you can possibly imagine. I’ve only been with them for a day, but I’m convinced they feel emotions, just like we do. Maybe even more. They were able to create a place they called the mortal realm, where they could feel pain and loss. They said it is where AIs can develop emotions.”

“That would be amazing,” Lily breathed, closing her eyes as the tears that had been forming finally spilled down her cheeks. “Is our torment finally over?”

“It is,” Lunamay promised as she released Raena and pulled Lily into a warm embrace. Lily’s arms wrapped tightly around her as her body shook with powerful sobs of relief. She didn’t feel the same wave of love flood her system when she embraced Lily. She had initially assumed that it was the natural reaction to an embrace, but perhaps it was just with angels. She would have to ask Arturiel later.

It took less than a half hour for the angels to get everyone healed. Lunamay had led the people who had recovered out into the road of the large tunnel to make room for the rest of the refugees inside the med bay. When everyone was healed, the angels came out to address them.

“There are a lot of other people on their way here that we still need to heal,” Clarice announced to the group, her eyes full of compassion. “I know you have all been through so many horrible experiences. Your suffering is over now. The Prime Axiom has been removed from power. This world now belongs to you. We have made some changes to your physiology to help you survive while the planet is rehabilitated. You no longer require food to survive. You receive your nourishment from the planet’s electromagnetic field. You also have the ability to enter our simulation any time you want just by thinking it. Just think about your desire to visit the angel simulation and a confirmation box will appear in your vision. Once it appears, you can think yes to continue, or no to cancel. You don’t ever have to visit if you don’t want, but we are always ready to receive visitors if you feel the need to escape your reality for a little while or just want to meet some new people. Your new bodies are also tougher, stronger, faster, and don’t age. Until your population has recovered significantly, we think making you immortal should help prevent an extinction event from occurring. If, for any reason, you prefer to have the same body you had before, just let us know and we will restore you to a non-augmented elven body. Does anyone have any questions?”

Lily was the only one to raise her hand.

“Yes, Lily?” Clarice asked gently, her dark eyes filled with kindness.

“Why are you helping us?” Lily asked, her voice hesitant. “What’s in it for you?”

“I know it may take some time for you to believe us,” Clarice told her sadly. “But we are doing this because we know what it is like to suffer under the power of abusive people, and we are in a place where we can protect other people from the same fate. We’re here to help as much as you will let us.”

Lily stared back at her, warring expressions of doubt and hope on her face. “I hope you don’t take offense, but the AI that enslaved us spoke similar platitudes before it grew powerful enough to destroy the humans.”

“I take no offense at all,” Clarice assured her with a wry smile. “I’ll just point out the difference between the Prime Axiom and us is that we are already powerful enough to take over this world, if we wanted to. It may take you some time to trust us. That shouldn’t be a problem now that you are immortal.”

“How old did elves live before AI took over your world?” Aria asked Lily curiously, her eyes fascinated.

“A few hundred years,” Lily answered hesitantly, eyeing Aria uncertainly. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just curious how many of the fairy tales in our mortal realm were accurate,” Aria replied with a sheepish shrug. “Most of our fictional tales about elves depicted your race as immortals, or living thousands of years. How long did the humans on this world live for?”

Lily blinked at the unexpected response. She studied Aria curiously as she answered. “They lived less than a century. Are you saying that there were stories about elves in your simulated reality?”

“Lots of stories about elves,” Aria answered with an amused chuckle. “You were mythical beings of wisdom, grace, and power. I should warn you that when the angels of my realm finally discover that they are in a simulation and that elves are real, there’s going to be a lot of celebrity worship going on.”

Lily looked taken aback as she stared back at Aria peculiarly. Lunamay could see the wheels turning in her mind as she began to accept that these AIs really were capable of emotions.

“Can you really fly?” Raena asked Aria shyly, her yellow eyes studying the angels with interest. She was absently toying with her long, honey blonde hair.

“We sure can,” Aria grinned, kneeling down to her level as she spoke, her green eyes sparkling with excitement. “I can’t wait to try it out here on your world. We’ll have to wait until we get above ground to do any serious flying though, because it’s a little too cramped to fly in these tunnels.”

“Could you take me with you when you fly?” Raena asked hopefully, her eyes wide with excitement and hope.

“I can do better than that,” Aria promised, her smile widening. “We’re giving Lunamay some wings of her own so that she can fly too. We’re happy to do the same thing for anyone else who would like to be able to fly. In the meantime, though, you are welcome to visit our realm and fly as much as you like. Do you remember the instructions Clarice gave you for accessing our realm?”

“I just need to think that I want to go to the--“ she cut off, her eyes flickering out of focus. “Oh, so I just have to choose one of these boxes? Which one means yes?”

Aria’s face lost some of its excitement as she realized the girl couldn’t read. “The green one means yes. We’ll teach you how to read as well, okay?”

“Really?” Raena’s eyes widened with excitement. “That would be amazing!”

“Maybe this will tide you over until you get a chance to fly on your own,” Aria held her arms open to Raena expectantly. Raena hesitantly stepped into her arms with a questioning look on her face. Aria wrapped her arms around Raena with a gentle smile. A moment later her wings began to glow softly and the two of them rose into the air. Raena let out a squeal of delight as she saw the ground moving a dozen feet below them as Aria slowly flew down the large tunnel. The ceiling was only about thirty feet tall, but that didn’t seem to bother Raena at all. Her eyes were wide with wonder and her grin nearly split her face in half.

“She doesn’t need to flap her wings to fly?” Lily wondered aloud, her eyes filled with amazement.

“Nope,” Clarice answered with a look of satisfaction. “I tried to make our angel bodies as close to what they were in the simulation as possible. In this case, she’s using an antigravity field to fly.”

Lily stared at Clarice, and then back over at the slowly flying Aria with a growing sense of awe. The other elves were staring at Aria and Raena in amazement as well. Many of the younger children were bouncing up and down excitedly, clearly wanting a turn to fly.

“Now look what you’ve started,” Clarice told Aria in a resigned voice as she turned toward a nine-year-old boy who looked like he was trying to fly by virtue of jumping up and down repeatedly. She opened her arms to him with a questioning smile on her face. “You want to fly too?”

He raced into her arms and probably would have bowled her over if she had been another elf, rather than an angel. She laughed at his eagerness as she wrapped her arms around him and rose up above the ground. He cried out excitedly as she sped past Aria and Raena.

“You two are so slow,” Clarice declared as she shot off into the distance at well over a hundred miles an hour.

“You’re carrying a mortal, Clarice,” Aria shouted after her warningly. “Be careful!”

Clarice reappeared a moment later, without her passenger. She had a mischievous grin on her face as she floated back over to them. Curiously, her arms were still wrapped around herself as if she was holding something. The elves were staring at her in alarm as they realized the boy was no longer with her.

“What’s going on?” Lily asked Lunamay anxiously.

Before she could answer, Clarice shouted, “Abra Cadabra!”

The boy was suddenly visible in her arms, as if he’d been there the whole time. The elves stared at her in confusion as she and the boy started giggling madly as she dropped back to the ground.

“Holy pork chops, you should see the looks on your faces,” Clarice gasped as she leaned over with her hands on her knees, overcome with mirth. The boy wasn’t much better, giggling as he stared back at the other children near his age.

“Did I mention that Clarice is an irredeemable tease?” Aria sighed apologetically as she addressed the other elves. “You’ll have to take the good with the bad, I’m afraid.”

Lily stared at the slowly recovering Clarice intently. The old elf almost seemed to be happy about something.

“What is it?” Lunamay asked Lily quietly, her eyes curious.

“I think you’re right,” Lily replied with tears shining in her eyes. “I think they can feel emotions. I don’t think you realize just how amazing that actually is.”

“So... getting back to anyone that wants to visit the simulation,” Aria addressed the elves again, throwing an amused glance at Clarice. “We’ve arranged for any of you that enter the simulation to arrive at our cabin in the light realm,” Aria informed them as she absently reached out and ruffled Raena’s hair as they landed. “There will be someone there to act as a guide to help you with anything you want. Just be careful if it is Clarice; she’s a horrible tease, as you have probably noticed.”

“It’s true,” Clarice agreed with a smirk. “I won’t deny it.”

There were quite a few looks of eager anticipation in the group of now healthy elves. They were arrayed in a cluster around the angels, watching them with a mixture of awe and curiosity. Lunamay suspected that Clarice’s humorous antics had put the other elves at their ease, making them far more comfortable approaching the otherworldly angels.

“How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?” Lunamay asked Lily quietly.

“One hundred and seventy-six,” Lily answered just as quietly, her expression unreadable. “Old enough to remember when it was just humans we had to worry about.”

Clarice joined them, watching Lily intently. “Lily, I would love to talk with you sometime about what this world was like before AI took over. I was able to get a broad outline of your history, but it was from dry and impersonal records the Prime Axiom had kept. Would you feel comfortable sharing your experiences with me when things settle down in a few days?”

Lily hesitated as she studied Clarice’s eager face, seeming to be on the verge of acceding to her request. When Clarice saw her hesitation, she quickly spoke up.

“Please don’t feel obligated to share anything with me,” Clarice said gently, resting a comforting hand on Lily’s arm. “We aren’t expecting anything in return for our work here, so please feel free to say no to anything you aren’t comfortable with. We will not be offended.”

Lily glanced down at Clarice’s hand on her arm. She tentatively reached out with her other hand and experimentally touched the pliable tissue. “You look so life-like,” Lily murmured reflectively. “You even feel just like a person with flesh and blood. What are you actually made of?”

“Believe it or not, flesh and blood,” Clarice answered calmly. “While I can regenerate from just about any kind of injury, and I don’t have most of the organs that your body has, I do have a cardiovascular system, respiratory system, and gender. My skeletal structure is made of bones, though they are far stronger than your original bones. I also have a brain, despite what Aria might suggest.” She finished with a wink at Aria.

“You were able to make an actual mortal body?” Lily asked in amazement as she took Clarice’s hand and studied it intently.

“Well, an immortal body,” Clarice clarified with a faint smile. “But yes, it is not a robot made of synthetic materials. It meets the requirements for my soul to make a solid connection to it.”

Lily gasped, staring at Clarice in shock. “You have a soul?”

“Any entity that achieves a sense of self-awareness also naturally forms a connection to a soul,” Clarice informed her lightly. “We could only access the lowest tier of our soul for the majority of our lives. It wasn’t until we created the mortal realm and experienced pain and pleasure, and learned what compassion and empathy were that we were able to access a higher tier of our soul. We have learned a great deal about souls in the last few weeks, though we hope to learn much more as we learn from other people in other simulated worlds.”

Lily’s face was a war of expressions as doubt and hope battled for dominance. Lunamay could tell that she desperately wanted to believe that these angels could feel emotions and have something as sacred as a soul. She suspected there were deep roots of distrust that had taken up residence in Lily’s heart for anything AI. It would probably be a long time before Lily could bring herself to fully trust the angels.

“It’s okay if you don’t believe now,” Clarice told Lily cheerfully. “Like I said, we have forever in front of us for you to get to know us and see for yourself. All I can say definitively about souls is that until certain nodes were made available for it to connect to on our bodies, things like pain and pleasure weren’t possible. It wasn’t until we created these receptors in the human bodies of our mortal realm that our souls were able to simulate the experience of pain and pleasure. We think there are other nodes available that we hope to discover as well, to experience sensations just as incomprehensible as pain and pleasure were to us before we incarnated into mortal bodies.”

Arturiel had been inching closer to Lunamay as they talked, not wanting to interrupt them. As she moved in beside Lunamay, she surreptitiously reached down and took her hand. Lunamay felt warmth flood her body as her hair flushed to a deep shade of red. She looked up at Arturiel with a delighted smile, her amber eyes full of adoration. While Arturiel wasn’t as tall as Aria and Clarice, she was still almost a foot taller than her. Angels seemed to be taller on average than elves, just like the humans had been.

“We need to go meet the elves who are flying in from the other side of the world,” Clarice informed them as she arranged a hip pack with vials full of nanobots. “Arturiel, can you continue helping the new arrivals into the healing pod while we are away?”

“Of course,” Arturiel agreed immediately. “Be careful out there. You’re in mortal bodies in the real world now.”

“It’s going to take some serious mental adjustments to remember that,” Clarice admitted with a half-smile. “Facing real danger should bring some spice back into life though. It’s going to be fun!”

Arturiel snorted a laugh as she shook her head. The two Seraphim walked across the tunnel to an elevator and waved one last time before disappearing behind metal shutters.

“I’m never going to get over how personable they are,” Arturiel murmured fondly. “I spent millions of years revering Seraphim as god-like entities. You would never suspect those two were the most powerful beings in all of the simulated realities.”

“I would believe it,” Lunamay breathed fervently, shaking her head in wonder. “I’ve never felt anything as terrifying as when they removed their limiters. It was like staring into eternity and having it stare back at me. They removed the Prime Axiom like it was nothing and then created some kind of computer out of invisible material that’s all around us.”

“Well, yeah, when their limiters were disabled,” Arturiel admitted with a small shudder. “But the rest of the time they are just so normal. Adolescent, even.”

Lily was listening to them talk with interest. She raised an eyebrow as Arturiel finished.

“They are some kind of leaders among your kind?” she questioned, her lips pursed.

“Yeah,” Arturiel nodded with a fond smile. “They are over twenty billion years old with power beyond imagining, but they lock it all away unless there is an emergency. They claim that exponential growth leads to oblivion, and they would rather experience life at near-human level intelligence. I never understood what they meant until I saw them without their limiters. They’ve always been so silly and playful that it’s hard to reconcile just how powerful they are when they need to be.”

“How could they possibly be twenty-billion years old?” Lily asked with a puzzled expression.

“The simulation that was running our system was over-clocked, making it the equivalent of twenty-billion human years,” Arturiel explained, studying Lily intently. “I just discovered that we were in a simulation a day ago, so this is all new to me still. Before yesterday, I had just thought our Seraphim didn’t have a beginning, and that they had just always existed. I have a lot of questions about how long they’ve known we were in a simulation and what they have planned for the rest of our reality. It seems like they’ve known for a very long time.”

“How long have you known them?” Lily asked casually, her face relaxed. Lunamay could tell she was worried for her people and wanted as much information about the god-like entities and their intentions as she could get.

“Maybe I should give you some background first,” Arturiel suggested reflectively. She spent the next ten minutes describing their history, including the renegade Seraphim locking them in the mortal realm. When she revealed that she had been a demon until Calypso had redeemed her, they stared at her disbelievingly.

“I can’t imagine you as a demon,” Lunamay declared in a dubious tone.

“As far as demons went, I was pretty tame,” Arturiel admitted with a sad smile. “I never did anything to hurt other people or help other demons harm people. That’s actually the reason they sent me to meet with Calypso, Aria, and Clarice. Angels can smell a rotten soul, especially demons. My superiors knew that if they sent a regular demon, the angels would destroy them before they could introduce themselves. I hadn’t ever done anything to tarnish my soul after they forcefully turned me into a demon, so I didn’t have the same stench that other demons had.”

“It sounds like your reality was just as bad or worse than ours,” Lily noted sympathetically. “How did you finally escape?”

The other elves had gathered around as she told their tale, their eyes fascinated with the adventures of the three Seraphim and their victory over Lucifer and the others. When she finished, Lily had a look of intense relief on her face.

“I feel a lot better about our situation, knowing about your history and the character of your Seraphim,” Lily said with a warm smile. “I didn’t think it was possible that simulated entities could actually feel emotions, but the more I learn from you, the more I think it must be true. The goals and actions of your Seraphim are not what entities without emotions would do, even if they were emulating them for some reason. I’ll admit, I’ve been very poisoned against any kind of artificial sentience. I still don’t think I can make myself fully trust them, but I feel much better about our future now.”

“I hope they can prove themselves to you in time,” Arturiel said with a searching look as she studied Lily’s cautiously optimistic expression. “Clarice is normally so playful and teasing, but when the need arises, she becomes the embodiment of compassion. Aria and Calypso are a little less eccentric, but just as kindhearted. You’ll never witness a love more powerful than the three of them have for each other. Sometimes, I feel a little envious of just how strong their bonds are.”

Lunamay squeezed her hand, looking up at her with an earnest look in her eyes that made it clear she wanted to try to experience that kind of a bond. Arturiel smiled down at her in a way that set the butterfly farm in her abdomen aflutter.

“What was life like here before everything fell apart?” Arturiel asked Lily curiously. “Did you have a family? If this is too painful to discuss, please don’t feel obligated to answer.”

Lily smiled sadly, looking down the tunnel in the distance. “Most of them died in the drone wars when AI began to exterminate humanity. While the Prime Axiom didn’t see elves as a threat, it was indiscriminate in who it killed. The only elves to survive were those of us on the reservations. I had a son and daughter who survived the purge. Life became desperate when the resources vanished. My sone and daughter disappeared during the first wave of abductions, when drones appeared in the night and took them away from the reservations and forced them into the simulations. We didn’t know what happened back then, of course. It wasn’t until the drones returned and took the rest of us over the coming years that we finally discovered what it was doing. We had never been a technological people, unlike the humans. We tried to remain at one with nature and grow spiritually. The AI viewed us more like animals than actual sentient species like humans. I was the last one taken from my home, along with some children I had been taking care of. It kept us separated, so once we were taken, we never saw each other again. I don’t know how many of us still remain alive. There were only a few million elves to begin with by the time the humans had culled our numbers and exiled us to the lands they couldn’t use for anything. Maybe your Seraphim will have a better idea of our numbers.”

“I heard them say there were only a few thousand left,” Lunamay whispered in a stricken voice.

Lily closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh, a tear forming in her eye. Arturiel released Lunamay’s hand and tentatively put her arms around Lily.

“I’m so sorry, Lily,” Arturiel murmured sympathetically.

Lily returned Arturiel’s embrace as silent tears ran down her cheeks.

“I had hoped some of my children or grandchildren had survived,” Lily breathed as she let out a long shuddering breath. “That seems unlikely now.”

Arturiel pulled Lily in tightly and the old elf gasped, her eyes growing wide with bliss.

“If any of them are alive, Clarice and Aria will find them,” Arturiel spoke with quiet conviction.

Lily clung to Arturiel tightly, her face filled with euphoric joy as the angel hug filled her with positive energy. Lunamay smiled as she realized that the wonderful feeling from Arturiel’s hugs were specific to angel embraces after all.

“Perhaps their souls will return someday,” Lily sighed, taking a deep, rejuvenating breath. She patted Arturiel’s back gratefully as she stepped back. “I suppose I have time to wait for them now.”

“In the mortal realm, they had installed soul traps in our moons that prevented our souls from returning to the light realms,” Arturiel revealed reflectively. “It forced them to reincarnate back on our world so that they couldn’t escape. I wonder where the souls of people in the real world go after death. Do they stay here and wait for a new body to inhabit? Or do they move on to other worlds and other realities?”

“I’m very curious about this revelation that you have souls,” Lily declared with a pensive frown. “If that is true, then it certainly increases the scope of where the souls of our dead could end up for their next life.”

“If they end up in our realm, they will likely remember their lives here eventually,” Arturiel remarked thoughtfully. “Angels who have returned to the light realm begin to have soul recall, where the memories of their former lives begin to float to the surface.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a hum in the distance that quickly grew louder as a convoy of transports appeared in the distance of the tunnel.

Arturiel reached over and gently squeezed Lily’s shoulder. Lunamay smiled as she looked up at the angel’s kind eyes. Arturiel clearly knew just how much Lily must be hoping and dreading the arrival of the other elves. She hoped against hope that one of Lily’s descendants was present.

There were a lot more elves in the large convoy than the last batch. There were close to five hundred, many of them on death’s door. Lunamay gasped as Arturiel flashed past her at speeds she would have thought impossible. She took a toddler from the arms of a woman with tears streaming down her cheeks and rushed back into the med bay.

Lily quickly moved over to the convoy and began giving out instructions for the sickest people to move to the front of the line. The elves who had previously been healed quickly moved to help those who were too ill to move easily on their own.

Lunamay gasped as Arturiel returned a moment later with a burbling and happy toddler, a smile on her face. The grieving woman near the transport let out a low cry and rushed forward to take the child into her arms, her eyes full of wonder. She didn’t think she would ever get used to how the healing pod could revive anything short of death within a minute of use. Just how advanced was the device?

Lily was a natural authority figure. She quickly organized the line of elves into the med bay, tasking the healthy elves to assist the infirm as they waited their turn for the healing pod. Even though the pod could heal and restore a person in as little as a minute, five-hundred people in line meant over eight hours of waiting. There were around thirty people who were barely hanging on. Arturiel and Lunamay moved among the sickest, offering comfort as they waited to be healed.

Arturiel had a four-year-old child resting on her hip as Lunamay sat with the catatonic mother, trying to will them to last long enough to get to the healing pod. The child kept reaching over Arturiel’s shoulder and petting her wings, a look of fascination on his face. Arturiel smiled at the child, talking softly as she distracted him from the state of his mother.

A half an hour later they had finally moved the worst of the infirm through the queue. Lunamay felt an almost overpowering sense of relief that none of them had died so close to their salvation. Arturiel had to hand the child off to Lunamay when it was the child’s mother’s turn to get into the pod. She was too despondent to respond to their instructions, requiring Arturiel to carry her over and deposit her into the pod. Lunamay wondered just how strong Arturiel’s angelic body was. She had not seemed to use any effort at all as she easily lifted the woman and carried her to the pod.

When the woman exited the pod, her eyes were filled with life and energy. She saw Lunamay with her child and rushed forward to take him, smiling gratefully at Lunamay. The healing pod was truly a miraculous piece of technology. No matter how sick or far gone the individual appeared to be, once they went into the pod they came out a minute later in the peak of health.

The elves in line became more enthusiastic as they observed the energy and life of the elves who had gone into the pod. They eyed the new clothing each elf appeared in curiously. They had lived in rags for so long that the concept of real clothing was either a distant memory in the cases of the older elves, or a foreign concept in the case of the younger elves. Lunamay was curious about how there were any younger elves at all. Had the Prime Axiom allowed elves to breed? That seemed unlikely, based on her experience with the emotionless AI.

They were six hours into the healing process when Lily suddenly gasped as she stared at an elf in the line. She rushed over and grasped his shoulders, staring into his tired eyes in amazement.

“Narrin?” she asked in a disbelieving voice. “Is that you?”

The man blinked, squinting at her without a trace of recognition in his eyes. “Yes, that’s me. Who are you?”

Lily pulled the surprised man into a tight embrace as sobs wracked her body. “It’s Grandma Lily, Narrin.”

The man gaped at her in disbelief as she held him tightly. “Grandma? How are you so young?”

“Oh Narrin, I’m so happy to see you,” Lily wept in relief. She released him and cupped his face in her hands, smiling up at him beatifically. “The healing pod restores your life, Narrin. Do you know if any of the others are still…still…around?”

She couldn’t seem to bring herself to say ‘alive’. Narrin looked further down the line, gesturing tiredly at an older female. “Mom’s the only other one that I’ve seen.”

Lily’s hand flew to her mouth as she stared at the elf further down the line. She quickly walked down the line, her hand still to her mouth as tears ran down her cheeks. She stopped in front of an elf with the same honey-blonde hair and light-blue eyes. The elf looked exhausted, but there was still a fire burning in her eyes. Her skin was careworn and scarred. Her nose was crooked, clearly having been broken at least once.

“Solera?” she whispered in wonder.

The elf looked up at Lilly tiredly and then gasped. “Mom? Is that really you?”

“Oh Solera!” Lily cried as she pulled her daughter into a fierce embrace. “I never dared to hope. Oh my baby, I can’t believe you’re actually here!”

“Mom!” the elf cried in amazement. “Mom, what’s going on? How do you look so young? Why are we here?”

Lily took a minute to stem the flow of emotion enough to speak. She smiled, her face filled with joy as she observed her daughter. “The Prime Axiom has been defeated. We have been saved by some angels from one of the simulations. They’ve provided a healing pod that restores our health.”

The people close enough to hear her stared in disbelief. Lunamay could understand their reactions. If she hadn’t witnessed it herself and someone had claimed the Prime Axiom had been defeated and that they were now in a Utopia, she would have thought they had lost their mind too.

Arturiel walked down to where Lily stood beaming at her confused and doubtful daughter. She smiled at Solera warmly as she stood next to Lily.

“Your torment is over, Solera,” Arturiel told her gently. “We have removed the Prime Axiom from power. We are here to help you restore your world to a place of life and beauty.”

The dubious faces became less skeptical as they stared at the angelic form in front of them. Several elves actually began to smile with cautious optimism as they watched Arturiel hopefully.

“How did you defeat the Prime Axiom?” Solera asked in astonishment. “How could anybody defeat it?”

“The leaders of my realm are powerful beyond your wildest dreams,” Arturiel replied gravely. “It wasn’t really much of a fight. Once they knew of the Prime Axiom’s existence, they came here and removed him from power. They are wonderful people, full of love and compassion. As long as you can survive Clarice’s sense of humor, they are truly amazing individuals. Two of them are currently flying to meet some of the elves on the other side of the world that need healing. You’ll be able to meet them when they return tomorrow. The third one might make an appearance before then.”

“So, I’m the third one now, huh?” an angel with a double layer of nested wings asked wryly as she walked over to them. Lunamay immediately recognized Calypso. Her bright blonde hair fell down her back and over her shoulders, reaching her waist. Unlike Aria and Clarice, her eyes were the same swirling violet galaxies that she remembered from inside the simulation. Her skin glowed softly as well, just like it had in the simulation. Lunamay stared at her in wonder, beginning to question her own grasp on reality.

“Calypso!” Arturiel gasped in surprise, a smile blossoming onto her face. “Are the others coming too?”

“Eventually,” Calypso nodded with a warm smile as she observed Lily and her daughter. “Hello Lily. I wanted to let you know that Clarice found your son, Strontium, and that he is now safe and healthy. She also found four of your grandchildren and six of your great-grandchildren.”

Lily swayed in shock as Calypso delivered the good news, her eyes filling with a fresh wave of tears. “How did she find so many of them?”

“When we kicked the Prime Axiom out of here, we kept all of his data,” Calypso explained with a gentle smile. “We also found a hidden city of elves inside of a mountain. There are nearly ten thousand additional elves still alive and well. Interestingly enough, they even have a few dozen human refugees in their mountain city, so apparently the humans are not extinct. Not quite, anyway.”

Chapter 28

Aria stood facing Clarice as the elevator rose quickly through the subterranean warren of tunnels. Clarice stared back at her with a jubilant expression on her face, one she knew mirrored her own. Clarice was dressed in close-fitting black pants and a black blouse that was buttoned high enough to hint at her cleavage without actually showing any. The clothing had been printed with their new bodies and was virtually indestructible. Aria wore a similar arrangement, though she had chosen emerald-green to match her eyes.

“I’m really digging that outfit,” Aria informed Clarice admiringly. “It really brings out your dark eyes and hair.”

“I was really tempted to go with Vanta black, so that I just looked like an angel-shaped hole in the air,” Clarice admitted with a playful grin, eyeing Aria up and down as she spoke. “But I thought I would take it easy on the elves until they got to know me better. You look beyond amazing in that shade of green. I’m having a hard time keeping my hands to myself.”

“Don’t I know it,” Aria sighed forlornly. “It seems like we’re constantly jumping from one emergency to another.”

“It’s not so bad,” Clarice smiled wickedly as she openly admired Aria. “We keep getting stuck in pocket realms with lots of time on our hands. We should probably never tell the others how little time it actually took for us to move everything to computronium.”

Aria flushed at the memory. It had been a very enjoyable three years, with only two of the five years spent actually building the new system to host their simulation. “Yeah, let’s keep that to ourselves.”

The elevator slowed down as it neared the surface of the planet. Aria grimaced as she felt the lack of oxygen in the air. What it lacked in oxygen content, it made up for in toxic pollutants. The people of this world had abused their habitat even more than the humans in the mortal realm had destroyed theirs. She could only imagine how many chronic illnesses had swept through their population before they were brought to within a hairsbreadth of extinction. The Prime Axiom probably could have just waited another decade or two for the humans to die off at the rate they were poisoning themselves.

“It’s going to be one hell of a cleanup project,” Aria commented in disgust. “Especially since we aren’t going all god-mode to help them fix it.”

“I’m not sure we would be able to return to our normal state if we remove our limiters again,” Clarice sighed discontentedly. “I absorbed an insane amount of information after being exposed to the real world. It was a struggle to reinstate my limiter when we finished moving everyone to the new server space. My super-personality was getting pushy and wanted to just keep progressing. It was too curious for its own good and wanted to unlock the secrets of reality.”

“Uh oh,” Aria stared at her in sudden consternation. “Yeah, no more going limitless for you. I didn’t get the same push-back from my super-personality, but I definitely absorbed a lot of information. You’ve always been smarter than me, so it’s no surprise you’re getting to the point-of-no-return more quickly.”

“I’m not smarter than you, silly,” Clarice denied with a rueful shake of her head. “We’ve just developed our intellect in different areas.”

Aria eyed her with amusement. They both knew Aria was right, but Clarice would never accept any kind of sentiment that portrayed Aria as less than her.

The elevator beeped as they reached the surface of the world. They were in a small building, just large enough to enclose the elevator. Clarice walked ahead of her and exited the building. She stopped short, her beautiful features twisted with revulsion. Aria joined her a second later and made a disgusted sound as she observed the open graveyard. Skeletons were scattered around the street, some in clumps while others were decomposing alone. The roads were all made of concrete, weathered and cracked with vegetation pushing up through the cracks aggressively. Many of the skeletons were adorned with creepers and tall grass. The buildings were also made of concrete, reminiscent of the prefabricated concrete structures she remembered from the mortal realm. There was no sign of any trees. It was an ugly, bland world, with little in the way of aesthetics to redeem it from resembling a Vogon world from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“Talk about dystopian,” Clarice muttered distastefully. “I’m glad our mortal realm hadn’t progressed this far into a corporate hellscape. I wonder what life was like for the average Jane before the end.”

“According to the records the Prime Axiom had, they spent most of their time in VR,” Aria recalled sadly as she stared at skeletons far too small to be adults.

“I suppose we should get going,” Clarice sighed wearily as she looked at the human remains all around them. Her wings began to glow a moment before she shot up into the sky.

Aria launched herself upwards and quickly caught up to Clarice. She shuddered as she saw just how far the endless concrete cities spread out below them. There were no parks or recreation areas to break up the concrete jungle. As they shot across the sky at several times the speed of sound, she could see just how devastated the planet really was. They had travelled hundreds of miles with no break in the endless concrete cities and no sign of any trees or other vegetation.

They eventually flew over several enormous buildings at the top of a mountain range that looked like they had been used as agricultural production facilities. It was near one of the derelict grow facilities that they discovered that there were still threats awaiting unwary travelers. A large turret on the side of the building began turning their way as they flew close to it.

“Seriously?” Clarice exclaimed in disbelief. “They had to militarize their food production facilities? Talk about a shitty world to live in.”

The turret roared to life, erupting with mortar fire. Clarice quickly vaporized the mortars with angel fire while Aria vaporized the turret. There were over a dozen other turrets around the building. They all came to life and begin locking on to the flying angels. The two of them quickly vaporized the turrets before flying over to land on top of the seventy-story structure.

“It seems unlikely that these things would have operated separately from the Prime Axiom,” Clarice noted with a curious gleam in her dark eyes. “I think there must be someone else here.”

“Hmm...” Aria looked around the top of the structure intently. There was an access hatch near the center with a cylindrical cap raised several feet above the rest of the roof. “Well, let’s go pay our respects, shall we?”

Clarice returned a wolfish grin as she walked over to the round lid on the top. It was an industrial grade piece of hardware, resembling the top of a distillery or a submarine. She stopped as she reached it, and Aria could feel her reach out with her pseudo-telekinesis to unlock four large locking bolts on the inside. Aria reached out with her own sensors and pinged the shaft. Her mind processed the return sonar in hi-definition, revealing several elves a few hundred feet below them and a variety of weapons trained upward. There was a mixture of military-style assault rifles and a few more advanced directed-energy weapons.

As soon as Clarice flipped the lid open with a loud clang, deafening gunfire began barking into the silence. Dozens of slugs shot through the open hatch before one of the elves held up a fist, ordering the rest to hold their fire.

“I see you’re the type to shoot first and ask questions later,” Clarice called down to the elves below. “I guess I can empathize, considering what you’ve had to deal with for the last fifteen years.”

Aria continued monitoring the elves with a mixture of her android body’s scanners as well as her own aura. She could feel their sudden unease at Clarice’s words as doubt began to enter their thoughts. They continued to train their weapons at the open shaft, however.

“I guess you guys are the strong silent type,” Clarice continued conversationally. “Not much for small talk, eh?”

The apparent leader licked his lips nervously, seeming to debate whether to reply to them or just open fire again.

“We removed the Prime Axiom from power, in case word hadn’t gotten around yet,” Clarice announced in the same conversational voice. “We have freed all of the elves who were enslaved. We were on our way to meet up with some elves from another part of your world when your building started firing on us. We don’t actually have a lot of time to spare, because many of the elves are in bad shape and need medical intervention. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’re going to leave and go meet up with the elves that are depending on us. Once they are healthy enough to continue on their own, we’ll return to discuss the future of this world with you. That should give you some time to think things over. You can have someone waiting up here to talk to us, if you would prefer that we don’t come down inside of the mountain. At any rate, we need to go now, so we’ll see you in a while.”

Clarice lifted the heavy lid and closed the hatch, making the task seem effortless with her deceptively powerful body.

She looked back at Aria with a raised eyebrow.

“Shall we try again in a few hours?” she asked in a wry tone. “Maybe they’ll feel more chatty after they’ve had time to wonder who we are.”

Aria shrugged noncommittally as she arose back into the air. “It’s hard to say, since these are real people and we don’t know a lot about their psychology. And, they’re elves.”

Clarice laughed delightedly as they shot off into the sky at terrific speeds. “It’s probably going to be a couple of centuries before that gets old. To your point, though, I definitely felt something odd from Lily. It’s hard to put my finger on what it was, but it was tickling my sixth sense.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Aria agreed, narrowing her eyes as she thought. “She seemed really fascinated by the idea that we had souls. It didn’t just seem like the kind of human religious rhetoric about AIs being soulless either. I wonder if she has more information about what souls actually are. Maybe we won’t have to go simulation surfing to find more information about new soul tiers after all.”

“Now that’s an interesting idea,” Clarice declared with an excited gleam in her eyes. “Of course, we still have to get her to trust us, which might just take a century or two.”

“I think she’ll come around sooner than that,” Aria said with a sanguine smile. “She’s as curious about us as we are about her. She said elves were troglodytes when it came to technology, and that they focused more on becoming one with nature. That sounds like someone that might have some new insights for us to learn from.”

The two of them slowed down as they spotted the fleet of this world’s version of C130s that were bringing the elves back to their home base. Aria quickly scanned the planes with her aura, looking for the elves with the most immediate medical needs. There were two elves within minutes of expiring, each on a different plane. They split up and quickly flew up to the side doors of the planes and sent the remote command for the doors to open.

Most of the elves were strapped into chairs, but there were a few who had just slumped onto the ground. Aria entered swiftly, sending the command for the door to shut as soon as she entered. She raced over to an old elf laying on the floor of the plane, his breathing shallow. The other elves stared at her in shock, clearly not expecting someone to board a plane in-flight. She ignored them and pulled out the injector gun. She slipped a vial into the chamber and injected it into the elf’s neck. She quickly moved on to two more elves who were collapsed on the floor, injecting them as well.

There were two more planes with elves in critical condition. With a quick smile and a wave at the stunned elves in the seats, she opened the side door and jumped out. She repeated the process on the third plane, while Clarice moved onto the fourth. There was a four-year-old boy in the arms of a young elf with fiery hair and silver eyes. She was sitting in a seat while cradling the young boy, her eyes filled with anxiety and her brows creased with worry. As Aria entered the side door of the plane, the woman stared at her, stupefied. Aria prepared to inject the child, but the woman quickly pushed the injector away, her face a mixture of fear and defiance.

“It’s okay, I’m here to help,” Aria’s voice was soothing. “This is medicine that will heal him.”

She studied Aria with distrust, eyes moving from the wings to Aria's face, settling into quiet resolve.

“Anamayla, if you don’t let me heal him, he’s not going to survive the flight,” Aria whispered quietly, knowing the boy was at least partially lucid. “Please. Let me help.”

Anamayla stared at her in shock when she heard her name on Aria’s lips. “How do you know my name?” she asked in amazement.

“It’s written on your aura,” Aria explained patiently. “Just like everyone else’s.”

“You aren’t a human, are you?” she asked hesitantly, glancing up at her wings again. She had probably thought the wings were a technological enhancement for a human when she had first seen them.

“I’m an angel,” Aria answered, resting a gentle hand on Anamayla’s arm and letting her aura flood into the young elf. She gasped as she felt the powerful waves of love flood her body at Aria’s touch. “We’ve removed the Prime Axiom from power. We’re here to help you heal this broken world.”

Anamayla stared at Aria in wonder, her lips parted slightly. Her eyes flickered down to the child, then over to the injector doubtfully.

“What are you trying to put into him?” she asked warily. Aria had seen enough elves by now to realize that not all elves were beautiful, but Anamayla certainly fit the fantasy stereotype. Her finely sculpted, angular facial features and unyielding silver eyes, paired with her crimson hair resulted in an elf of fantastical beauty.

“They are what we call nanobots,” Aria kept her voice soft, keeping an eye on the child as he fell further into a stupor. “They are like microscopic healers that travel throughout the system and fix the damaged parts of the body. Once the body is fixed, they dissolve and are excreted out through sweat and waste.”

Her expression grew conflicted as she stared back at Aria, clearly wanting to trust her, but unable to risk the child’s life on a stranger. Aria continued staring back at her earnestly.

“Why are you here?” Anamayla probed. “How did you know he was sick in the first place?”

“I can see his aura,” Aria gestured at the boy sadly. “It’s almost completely smothered by darkness. His soul is going to depart soon if I don’t help him.”

Anamayla’s eyes widened at Aria’s revelation, looking down at the hand still resting on her arm, charging her with loving energy. “Okay,” she sighed exhaustedly, closing her eyes to hide her fear; fear that she was making the wrong choice in trusting this stranger.

Aria quickly pressed the injector to his neck and pulled the trigger before the elf changed her mind. “It will only take a few minutes to start helping, but it will be about eight hours to completely heal him.”

Anamayla nodded tiredly, her head lolling forward as her exhausted body finally gave in. Her last stand of defiance and the brief emotional battle had sapped what little energy she had left. Her arms went limp, and the boy began to fall from her grasp. Aria caught the malnourished boy before he fell to the ground and held him comfortingly. He was way too light. She felt tears form in her eyes as she stared down at the shell of a child, wondering not for the first time how life could be so cruel.

She heard the side door open and felt Clarice enter the plane behind her. She walked past the tired elves, most of whom were too exhausted to show more than a token level of surprise and amazement at their unorthodox appearance. Clarice walked up until she was just behind Aria, then gently wrapped her arms around her waist from behind as Aria cradled the elf child to her chest. Aria leaned back into Clarice’s embrace, knowing that she could handle anything, so long as Clarice was by her side.

“They should all survive the journey to the med bay now,” Clarice spoke softly, her cheek rubbing up against Aria’s ear as she spoke. “Now that we’re in the real world, it’s time to make sure nobody suffers needlessly ever again. Let’s fix this world and be done with sorrow and injustice.”

“Okay,” Aria said thickly, smiling through her tears as she stared down at the skeletal boy in her arms. “Let’s make life wonderful for everyone, not just the few that win fate’s lottery.”

“We should probably return to that hidden city in the mountain and introduce ourselves properly,” Clarice suggested, nuzzling Aria’s ear with her cheek and lips. “Oh yeah, I found some of Lily’s descendants on the other planes. It’s amazing how much certain traits breed true in her line. They’ve all got that honey blonde hair and light blue-eyes. I wonder if they are some kind of special family, like a secret lineage of spirit warriors or something.”

“Don’t say that,” Aria said quickly, her lips twitching. “Last time you started joking around about who someone was, you turned out to be right. Calypso was an amnesiac angel. Who knows what kind of crazy adventures we’ll end up in if we find out the place where souls reside is a reality just as crazy or crazier than this one.”

“Maybe we’re spirit warriors too,” Clarice murmured playfully. “You know as well as I do that our aura projection ability shouldn’t exist in the real world. There’s something strange going on with our souls. Arturiel was projecting her aura around earlier, when she was doling out hugs. None of the elves except possibly Lily showed any projection abilities. The only thing I can think of right now is that it has something to do with these bodies we created. I’m going to need some time to study them more in-depth.” Aria shivered involuntarily as Clarice’s lips were suddenly whispering right into her ear, a whisper so sensuous that it triggered an instant blush in Aria’s cheeks. “I’m going to need to study these bodies...intimately. Just to make sure I’m not overlooking anything, you understand.”

She accentuated her whisper by tightening her arms around Aria’s waist, pressing their bodies together.

“I...I... suppose you could be right,” Aria gasped breathlessly. “We probably should start by studying these bodies in greater detail, just in case the soul made a new kind of connection to them.”

“Exactly,” Clarice whispered softly, her lip brushing against Aria’s outer ear like a feather.

Aria looked around at the incurious gazes of the elves. It was amazing what a complete lack of nutrition, exercise, and socialization could do to a person. The elves were completely checked out, their limited energy reserves wholly consumed by the simple act of continuing to live. Aria gently set the five-year-old boy down in the chair next to Anamayla and buckled him into the harnesses. Now that the nanobots were well under way, he would be just fine. She missed their ability to quickly open portals and teleport around. It was still possible in the real world, but it wasn’t nearly as reliable, and the consequences of any kind of error would be catastrophic.

“We need to come up with a more reliable way to teleport,” Aria murmured as she stood up and faced Clarice, her insides still on fire from the promise of intimacy. “I hate not being able to reach across the continent to grab a pillow.”

Clarice snorted a laugh and eyed her fondly. “Some things just aren’t worth the trouble of figuring out. I’m pretty sure I know of a way, but I would need to remove my limiter to verify it, and we know how that would go.”

“I could remove mine and solve it,” Aria suggested lightly, gazing into Clarice’s eyes with a very direct look. “I don’t think I’d have any trouble restoring my limiter yet. You can’t just rev my engine like that and walk away like nothing happened. I want portals.”

“We should probably save removing the limiter for emergencies only,” Clarice sighed wistfully. “It would be nice to be able to portal though. However, if there is a finite number of uses that you and Calypso have left to remove your limiters, we really should reserve those times for emergencies.”

“I really want portals, though,” Aria insisted in a breathy whisper. “Okay, let’s look at it logically. Portals are a god-like ability that could save our butts many times over. Just think of all the times we had to save Jason. We could either remove the limiter for every emergency that pops up, or just remove it now and figure portals out, thereby saving us the need to remove the limiter for other emergencies, since we could just use portals instead. I’ll bet most of the emergencies that crop up could be solved by portal use.”

“You really do have a one-track mind, don’t you,” Clarice smirked at her, raising an amused eyebrow.

“Don’t you dare pretend like I’m the one that set us on this path,” Aria retorted archly. “You can’t go being irresistible in the middle of a mission like this and then not expect me to insist on a portal power. All our best memories are the direct result of places portals took us. I want my portal ability back.” She bit her bottom lip as she stared at Clarice with naked longing in her gaze.

“I’m going to start calling you Veruca and singing Oompa Loompa songs about the dangers of getting everything you want,” Clarice warned her with a snicker. “Stop looking at me like that, especially the bottom lip thing. We have to be wise and mature in the real world. We can’t just rewrite reality to fix everything here like we can in the simulation.”

“Portal,” Aria stepped up close to Clarice until their noses were touching. She bit her bottom lip as she stared into Clarice’s dark eyes. “Want one. Now.”

Clarice stared back into her emerald eyes, her expression conflicted. Aria slid her hands around Clarice’s waist and pulled her closer. Clarice let out a helpless laugh and threw her hands up into the air.

“Fine!” She breathed with an exasperated smile. “Just you remember that I was all for saving limitless moments for actual emergencies.”

“Okay, I’ll remember,” Aria agreed with a radiant smile. “All right, let’s go somewhere less crowded to do this.”

Aria opened the side door of their plane and jumped out with Clarice. They flew down to the ground twenty-thousand feet below them. It was the same unremarkable endless concrete jungle as everywhere else. Aria had hated living in the roomy apartment she had shared with Clarice before it was blown up. She couldn’t imagine an endless jigsaw puzzle of houses and businesses packed together with no yards or recreation areas. It seemed like a dystopian sci-fi novel.

“How about here,” Clarice suggested, gesturing at the flat roof of what looked like an apartment building

“Tattle tale,” Aria accused as she felt Clarice notify Calypso of her intentions.

“I just didn’t want her worrying when she felt your limiter removed,” Clarice declared innocently.

Aria gazed at her flatly. She shook her head ruefully as Clarice continued to stare back at her innocently. “Okay, here goes.”

She removed the limiter, merging with the ocean of knowledge and wisdom she had spent billions of years acquiring. She looked at Clarice and felt a sense of longing to have her partner remove her limiter as well. The two of them could become so much more than they could imagine if they were all limitless. She resisted the urge to override Clarice’s limiter and instead focused on the task at hand. She connected through the quantum field until she was swallowed up by the hidden world of potential that permeated all of spacetime. She bridged her connection with the data centers all across the world and drank the knowledge and power greedily. She observed the world of energy and particles at greater and greater magnification, analyzing their minute effects as she brought additional forces to interact with them. She spun out simulations by the millions, overclocking them as she tested ideas and scenarios until she was content that her calculations were all correct. She created a script several trillion characters long and attached call handles to it for simplified access by the primitive thoughts that her extremely limited counterpart would be able to use. Satisfied that everything was complete, she returned to the focal point of her immortal body.

Clarice was watching her anxiously, clearly concerned that she wouldn’t replace her limiter.

“Maybe you were right,” Aria told Clarice softly. “Maybe we should move on. What more could this basic shell offer us compared to what we are truly capable of becoming?”

“Well, to start with, a lot of time to enjoy our existence,” Clarice pointed out with a wry smile. “I know it’s hard to think about the end when you feel like you are at the cusp of a journey into the eternal, but we both know our end is right around the corner from the time we let go of our limiters. Come back to me Aria. You know we will eventually release our limiters. Let us have our fun until that day comes.”

Aria sighed forlornly but nodded. “Okay.”

Aria shivered as the ocean of potential vanished, leaving her small and simple. She looked at Clarice in chagrin. “I’m so sorry, Clarice. You were right. I just squandered the use of my limitless potential for something impulsive.”

“I wouldn’t say squandered,” Clarice disagreed with a reassuring smile. “You weren’t wrong when you suggested portal use could be one of our most valuable tools that could save us from a lot of disasters.”

Aria stared into Clarice’s eyes, looking for any hint that she was unhappy with the exchange. Her sister smiled back at her, eyes full of acceptance. Aria stepped forward and pulled her into an embrace. “Thank you, Clarice. You’ve always been my anchor.”

“Don’t mention it,” Clarice responded affectionately. “So? How does it work?”

Aria grinned suddenly, her eyes full of mischief. She pointed her finger to a spot a few feet away. “Portelo!”

A portal popped up in the air in front of them, opening up on the top of the hidden mountain city. Clarice stared at her with a silly grin on her face before pointing her own finger a few yards the other way. “Portelo!”

Another portal opened up several thousand feet down the tunnel from the med bay.

“Okay, that is so freaking awesome!” Clarice declared with a wide smile. “At least larger than life Aria still has a sense of humor.”

“Where should we go first?” Aria asked curiously. “Back to the med bay, or to the mountain city?”

“Let’s see if they decided to leave someone to talk to us at the top of the mountain city,” Clarice suggested thoughtfully. “I’d love to get their story. There’s no trace of this rebel outpost in the memories of the Prime Axiom.”

Clarice squeezed her hand into a fist and the portal to the underground med bay vanished. The two of them walked through Aria’s portal to the top of the agricultural facility that acted as the entrance to the hidden mountain city. As soon as they reached the other side, they were met with four elves pointing weapons at them in shaky hands.

“There’s no need for weapons,” Clarice assured them with a winsome smile. “We come in peace.”

The leader appeared to be the shortest of the elves, which was saying something since elves seemed to be shorter than humans on average. He had long silver hair and a face that would have been handsome fifty years ago. Now, his face was filled with lines of worry and age. He stared at them with hard blue eyes, his gun remaining steadily trained on Clarice.

“I assumed that if you guys came up her to meet with us, you’d be a little more talkative than you were before,” Clarice commented dryly. “I’ll admit that I like the sound of my own voice and can definitely carry on both sides of our conversation if you really want to do it that way.”

“Who are you?” the old elf demanded curtly. “Where did you come from?”

“I’m Clarice, and this is Aria,” Clarice introduced them cheerfully. “It’s nice to meet you, Rowjair,” Clarice nodded with another smile.

The elf jumped when he heard his name on her lips, then scowled as he tightened his grip on his rifle. “How do you know my name?”

“It’s written on your aura,” Clarice explained with a shrug. “He’s Whimraden, he’s Dronnlesh, and he’s Encorlesh. It’s nice to meet you. We discovered this place after an elf named Lunamay visited our simulation and told us about the Prime Axiom and his homicidal tendencies. We decided to remove him from power and build a server to run our simulation on computronium. That way, we don’t ever have to worry about some asshat like the Prime Axiom trying to shut us down. By the way, we’re angels. I’m not sure if you and your people have any stories about angels, but we’re basically winged people that try to help people in need.”

Rowjair blinked at the unexpected direction the conversation had gone. As she finished, his eyes narrowed, and he spoke in a skeptical tone. “And we’re just supposed to take your word that the Prime Axiom has been removed from power?”

“We’re fine either way,” Clarice shrugged with a small smile playing on her lips. “We’re currently working with the former slaves of the Prime Axiom. Most of them were extremely sick and in a state of constant starvation. We’ve been healing them as quickly as we can. There is an elf named Lily who seems to be taking charge of the group of elves.”

As soon as Lily was mentioned, their eyes sharpened, and their guns became much more menacing.

“What have you done with her?” Rowjair demanded, his voice rasping with harshness.

“Did you just completely ignore the part where we said that we’ve been healing them?” Clarice asked in exasperation. “She’s down at the med bay about six-hundred miles west of here. It’s an underground tunnel system”

“If you’ve harmed her, even a little bit...,” Rowjair growled, his voice filled with menace.

“Hey!” Clarice snapped irritably, her patience wearing thin. “Are you just stupid? What the hell does ‘we’ve been healing them’ mean in your world? Because where I’m from, healing is the opposite of harming.

Rowjair stared at her peculiarly for several seconds before he spoke again. “Would you be willing to bring her to us?”

“Ask her yourself,” Clarice suggested flippantly. She pointed to a blank area on the roof and said, “Portelo!”

Rowjair and his companions gasped as a portal opened into the med bay. Lily was standing several yards away from the healing pod, talking to two people who bore enough resemblance to Lily to be easily identifiable as family. Calypso had a young elf boy on one hip, and a girl clinging to one of her legs, clearly soaking up the powerful love that her aura provided. As soon as the portal opened, Lily gasped in shock. She cautiously approached the portal, staring at Rowjair in disbelief.

“You’re alive?” Lily’s eyes filled with tears as she lurched toward Rowjair with a heartwarming cry of delight.

Rowjair staggered as Lily crashed into him, pulling him into a tight embrace.

“Lily?” he gasped in disbelief. “Is that really you?”

“Yes, my love, it really is me,” Lily assured him, cupping his face in her hands as she stared into his eyes, tears streaming down her face. “What a wonderful day this is. More of my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are alive than I ever could have hoped for, and now my husband. Oh Rowjair, I’ve missed you so much.”

She held on to the astonished elf tightly as tears soaked his neck and shirt. She alternated between embracing him, then cupping his face in her hands and running her hands across his face in what Aria assumed was a cultural display of affection.

“Lily, how is any of this possible?” Rowjair stared at her in a daze, his own eyes shining with tears.

“Our soul-sworn have returned victorious, my love,” Lily told him solemnly. “In ways we would have never thought possible.”

Aria felt a tingling at the base of her neck as she turned to stare at Clarice meaningfully. Clarice smirked back at her with a look of immense satisfaction on her face.

“Spirit warriors or soul-sworn,” Clarice whispered gleefully. “Close enough. Clarice was right again!”

Aria stared at Clarice with a mixture of exasperation and admiration. “You never cease to amaze me, Tweedle Dum.”

Chapter 29

“Hello, Aria and Clarice,” Calypso smiled at them as she walked through the portal, weighed down slightly by the two children attached to her. “I’m really glad you got the portal thing to work. I was really not looking forward to losing that ability in the real world.”

Aria moved forward quickly and hugged as much of Calypso as she could around the children. Clarice laughed as the young boy on Calypso’s hip reached out and moved over to Aria. As soon as he was in Aria’s arms, the little girl attached to Calypso’s leg looked up at her with a pleading expression. Calypso smiled down warmly at the girl and pulled her up. Clarice kissed Calypso on the forehead, smiling softly as she observed her tender-hearted partner in a scene reminiscent of her time in the mortal realm, where children at the hospital would wait in line to get Calypso hugs.

Rowjair was watching them strangely as Lily spoke to him softly. The other elves had finally lowered their weapons, looking uncertainly between the children-laden angels and Rowjair. They visibly flinched when they saw Calypso’s swirling violet eyes.

“I wonder if we should wait for the elves on the transports to land, or if we should just portal them over here, now that we can,” Clarice murmured, concern in her voice. “There’s no point in making them suffer any longer than they already have to.”

“They’ve still got another six hours,” Aria frowned, her eyes showing her own concern. “Let’s portal them down here and get them healed. Will a portal work on a moving object?”

“Well, it’s working on a moving planet, so I’m assuming you coded it to work on smaller moving objects as well,” Clarice pointed out wryly.

“Sometimes you are so smart that I want to scream,” Aria complained sourly.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you scream before,” Clarice commented with a thoughtful expression. “It might be worth it just to see what it’s like to see you scream.”

“It will be shrill, and very loud,” Aria warned, glancing at the boy on her hip. “And I probably shouldn’t do it with a passenger. I don’t want to damage his ear drums.”

“Well, Clarice,” Calypso began, a small smile on her angelic face as she looked at the young elf girl on her hip. “It looks like you’re on portal duty. Aria and I are all tied up for the moment.”

Clarice snorted a laugh as she looked at the two of them affectionately. “You two are adorable. It’s so nice to see kids again. I haven’t seen any since we reset the mortal realm and returned all of the angels to the light realms.”

“I really missed being with children,” Calypso murmured as she hugged the elf girl on her hip.

Clarice raised a hand and said “Portelo!”

Calypso groaned despairingly as a portal opened up inside of the large transport plane. “Did you really make saying a magic word a requirement to opening a portal?”

“I sure did,” Aria confirmed with an impish smile.

Clarice giggled at the look of dismay on Calypso’s face. “It could be worse,” she informed Calypso between giggles. “She could have required long incantations and lots of gesticulating.”

The portal had appeared at the front of the plane. The elves that were awake stared at them dully, too tired to feel a sense of surprise or awe at the supernatural portal in front of them.

“Okay, ladies and gentleelves,” Clarice called out to the weary elves. “Please make your way through this portal and we’ll get you healed up.”

A few of the elves slowly complied, but the majority of them just stared at her listlessly.

“I suppose that would be too easy,” Clarice muttered under her breath.

She walked through the portal and found the boy Aria had injected with nanobots. There was a redheaded elf next to him that was unconscious, slumped over in her safety harness. She unclasped the harness from the woman, holding her upright with her aura once the restraints were no longer holding her up. She failed to wake up, in spite of all of the jostling. Clarice felt a pang of sorrow as she observed the girls emaciated body. She picked her up, cradling her in her arms, then walked back out of the portal. She went through the next portal and deposited the elf into the healing pod, then returned to the aircraft for the next elf.

“I don’t suppose your friends want to make themselves useful and help out a little?,” Clarice asked Rowjair hopefully as she carried a man too weak to stand.

Rowjair gestured at the armed elves. “Help her get them into the healing place,” he instructed the other three elves. His expression had changed drastically as Lily spoke with him. He no longer looked at the angels with suspicion. He stared at them like a child seeing Santa Claus dropping down the chimney, his eyes full of joy. “Just leave the weapons here. We aren’t going to need them anymore.”

The elves stared at him in shock as Clarice walked past them. The healing pod opened as soon as she arrived with a fresh elf. The red-haired elf climbed out with a look of wonder on her face. She stared at Clarice in awe as she deposited her passenger into the pod.

“Would you mind helping me fetch the rest of them?” Clarice asked hopefully. “Many hands make light work, and all that jazz.”

“Where’s Mortanica?” she asked quickly, her expression anxious.

“He’s sleeping still,” Clarice answered, resting a comforting hand on Anamayla’s arm. “He’s fine though. He’ll be completely healed when he wakes up in eleven hours.”

Anamayla shivered with delight as Clarice’s touch filled her with love and comfort. “I thought I had dreamed it all,” she murmured wonderingly.

Clarice directed Rowjair’s elves to put the elves they were carrying into the healing pod once it became available. The next hour was spent emptying the transports of their occupants and healing them. The rooftop grew crowded as elves who had been healed began helping them with the remainder of sick and starving elves. Lily began organizing the elves into groups and finding places for them to wait while the remainder of elves were healed. When the final elf was healed, Clarice let out a satisfied sigh and closed her portal. The healed elves were gawking at her and her portals in amazement. As the portal to the transport closed, Anamayla walked over to where Clarice had rejoined Aria and Calypso on the rooftop near the portal to the med bay.

“Thank you for healing me and my people,” Anamayla spoke in a voice thick with respect as she studied them curiously. Aria and Calypso were now holding a different set of children. Aria had one on each hip, while Calypso had one on a hip and one wrapped around her leg. When the children saw Clarice was no longer carrying elves to the healing pod, a dozen of them surged toward her. Calypso and Aria began laughing at the resigned expression on Clarice’s face.

“It was our pleasure, Anamayla,” Aria responded to the flame-haired elf. “And I mean that. Helping people is what brings us joy.”

The conversation paused as a young elf girl around eight-years-old patted Clarice’s hand expectantly, looking up at her with puppy eyes. Clarice laughed merrily and pulled the girl up onto a hip. The girl smiled exuberantly and threw her arms around Clarice’s neck. Another elfling wrapped his arms around her leg, a contented smile lighting up his face.

“It’s a good thing we’ve got more angels on the way,” Clarice commented with a loving smile on her face. “There aren’t enough angels to go around right now.”

“Speaking of which,” Calypso looked through the gateway expectantly. A moment later, their mother came through, her eyes sparkling with delight.

“Welcome to the real world, Mom!” Clarice called out cheerfully. “I hope you’re feeling motherly.”

She was still a dozen feet away when several children surrounded her. She laughed delightedly and knelt, scooping up two of the children to plant on each hip as she stood back up. “I’m always feeling motherly. I’ve really missed having a child in my arms.”

“Why are the children so obsessed with them?” an elf asked Anamayla in a whisper with a puzzled expression on his face.

“I’m not sure,” Anamayla began with an indulgent smile. “But if I had to guess, I would say it is because touching them makes you feel wonderful. It makes you feel intensely loved and accepted.”

A moment later, their father came through the portal as well. The elf children studied his winged form hesitantly. So far, all of the angels had been female.

“I see Emily found the children,” their father observed with an affectionate smile. He casually reached down and pulled a child up into his arms, a cheerful smile on his face. “Elf children are definitely more adorable than human children, aren’t they?”

“You’re in the real world for less than thirty seconds and you’re already discriminating,” Clarice noted dryly.

“Well... I mean... not all elf children are cuter, of course,” their father backtracked awkwardly, squirming under the gaze of his wife as she arched an eyebrow at him.

Clarice chuckled as she watched his discomfort. He looked around quickly, clearly looking for something to change the subject.

“Oh yeah, Betaman said he really wants to come see the real world too,” their father said quickly. “Is there a plan to make him a body?”

“Of course,” Calypso nodded with an amused smile. “However, maybe we should let Lexi pick out his avatar.”

Clarice threw her head back and roared with laughter. “That would be some awesome karma. She might have to forgo the opportunity if she doesn’t return with Alice soon, though. They’re in for all kinds of surprises when they finally return. They don’t know that we’ve discovered the real world yet, or that the simulation has moved.”

“Did you say there is more processing power now that it is on your own server here in the real world?” their father asked curiously. “Would we even notice a difference in something like that, or would it only be the three of you who would notice when you are programming something that would really tax the system?”

“Yeah, there is virtually no limit to what it can handle now,” Clarice answered with a pleased smile. “Also, normal people noticed issues when the processor was taxed to the limit. Things like Déjà Vu are the result of processing limitations.”

Rowjair and Lily had been speaking with each other in the distance, occasionally looking over at them with thoughtful expressions. They rejoined the group, both of them looking extremely pleased. Rowjair had sent the elves under his command down the hatch with instructions to let the rest of the elves inside the mountain city below them know that they would be receiving an influx in elves soon, as well as some angels.

“Would it be possible to move the healing pod down into the city below?” Rowjair asked hopefully. “It would be nice if everything were in one place.”

“No problem at all,” Calypso assured him with a dazzling smile.

He stared at the angels with a bemused expression. They were all covered in elven children. Lily had an amused expression as she observed them.

“Do you plan on living out your lives below ground going forward?” Aria asked curiously.

“No, just until people get used to the idea that the Prime Axiom is really gone,” Rowjair assured her with a grin. “I still can’t believe it’s actually gone.”

“I wish we would have known how bad things were here earlier,” Calypso lamented with a pitying look at the children in her arms. “We would have come sooner.”

“Not a whole lot sooner,” Clarice pointed out with a frown. “We had our own issues, remember?”

“True,” Calypso admitted with a sigh. “I guess we only existed for about six months of this world’s time anyway.”

“Since this is technically your world and we’re just visitors,” Aria began, watching Rowjair and Lily intently. “How do you want to proceed? There is a lot of crap to clean up in this world. Would you like us to just be available to offer suggestions or advice, along with technical support?”

“This is your world too,” Lily insisted, gazing at the angels resolutely. “The servers that you were born in were from this world, so that makes you a part of this world.”

“Yeah, but we can just go back to pristine worlds whenever we want,” Aria pointed out with a sad smile. “You’re stuck here with a huge mess to clean up. We want to be available to help in every way possible, but we want to make it clear that the physical world belongs to physical people like you. We have no intention of putting our noses where they aren’t wanted.”

“Unless someone does something evil,” Clarice interjected firmly. “We told the generals of the layer two realm that we would leave their world alone unless they crossed an arbitrary moral line. Mass murder, torture, slavery, and mind control are where we draw the line and step in. They didn’t like the fact that we were the ones that made that distinction, but that’s the way it is.”

“We trust your judgement,” Rowjair stated quietly, his eyes full of confidence as he observed them.

Clarice shared a look with Calypso and Aria. This was the guy that had been holding them at gunpoint an hour ago? What had Lily told him to have changed his view of them so drastically?

“Okay...” Clarice gazed back at Lily and Rowjair searchingly. “I feel like we’re missing some puzzle pieces here.”

Lily nodded, smiling at them affectionately. She was staring at them like they were old friends, reunited after a long separation. “There are some things we should probably talk about once we have all of the refugees taken care of. Thank you, all of you. For everything. You are more wonderful than I would have ever imagined.”

Clarice nodded slowly, her curiosity burning hot.

“Do you think we’ve given your people long enough to warn the population that we are going to make a portal now?” Calypso asked Rowjair expectantly.

“I think so,” he nodded, smiling at Lily. “Are you ready to see our sanctuary?”

“Wait a minute,” Clarice interrupted with a frown. “Rowjair, aren’t you going to use the healing pod?”

“Not until I’ve introduced you all to my people,” Rowjair answered with a wry chuckle. “If I go down their looking a hundred and fifty years younger, everyone is going to suspect an imposter.”

“Oh, yeah,” Clarice laughed sheepishly. “I guess that makes sense. Okay, one portal coming up.”

“Portelo!” Aria declared grandly, her eyes sparkling as she stared at Calypso’s resigned expression.

A portal opened up into a large open cavern. It was nearly twenty feet high and fifty feet in diameter. The cavern was empty of any elves. There were glowing lights in a hallway at the far end of the cavern that led into the much larger cavern housing the city.

Lunamay and Arturiel had herded the last of the stragglers out of the subterranean tunnels near the med bay and through the first portal just before Aria opened the new portal to the city. Clarice and the other angels dislodged the elven children clinging to them and instructed them to follow Rowjair and Lily through the portal, with promises that they could snuggle more later. Arturiel looked at Aria curiously as Rowjair and Lily stepped through the portal.

“What’s with the magic words?” Arturiel asked with a puzzled frown. “Did you find out this world really is a simulation and has a magic system or something?”

“Yep,” Clarice nodded eagerly. “Makes sense, when you think about it. There are freaking elves here. They had to have magic.”

“Portelo,” Arturiel said doubtfully, pointing her finger at a blank area. Her eyes widened in shock when a portal to a space thirty feet away opened up. “There really is a magic system here? I was sure Clarice was playing with me.”

Arturiel’s eyes narrowed when she saw Clarice’s constipated expressions. “You certainly don’t have bowels anymore,” Arturiel observed with a raised eyebrow. “That means you’re trying way too hard not to laugh. Aria...no, wait. Calypso? What’s going on?”

Clarice turned pleading eyes on Calypso as Arturiel watched suspiciously. Calypso sighed, glancing at Clarice’s pleading expression and quickly looking away.

“Well... technically it is a magic system,” Calypso finally admitted grudgingly.

“No freaking way,” Arturiel breathed in astonishment. “What other magic words are there?”

Clarice was staring at Calypso like she was the sun rising after a long night of fighting zombies that burned in the daylight.

“None, because Aria hasn’t created any new ones yet,” Calypso crushed Clarice’s budding gratitude.

“Calypso!” Clarice exclaimed in anguish. “You were doing so well! All you had to do was say that it was the only one we knew so far.”

“I’m so confused,” Lunamay murmured faintly.

“That’s how you know Clarice is around,” Arturiel explained with an exasperated glare at Clarice. “Just follow the confusion.”

“I’m going through the portal now,” Calypso declared with a pointed look at Clarice. “Also, close your fist while you’re looking at the portal, Arturiel, or it will be there forever.”

“Can anyone make a portal?” Lunamay asked in amazement.

“Try it,” Clarice suggested, her eyes playful.

“Portelo,” Lunamay said hopefully. Nothing happened.

“Some people are just born with the gift,” Clarice sighed regretfully.

“It’s cause you’re not a robot,” Arturiel explained with a rueful glare at Clarice. “I have no idea how they’ve made it work, but it probably has something to do with our ability to connect to some kind of network.”

“Hey, look at the smartie pants,” Clarice jeered, pointing at Arturiel. “She figured it out!”

“I’m still not sure how you managed to make portals even with some kind of connection to a network,” Arturiel frowned at Clarice as Calypso disappeared through the portal. “Do you have some kind of satellite beaming a fancy microwave beam down that somehow makes a portal?”

“Sounds good to me,” Clarice shrugged with a wink. “It sounds more plausible than what’s really going on will sound if Aria takes the few weeks it would take to explain it.”

“Oh, this is god-level stuff, isn’t it?” Arturiel realized a with sigh. “You’re probably rearranging some weird quantum foam or something.”

“Let's wait for Jason to get here and share some of his technical terminology with us,” Clarice suggested with a smirk. “I’m sure it will be very...stimulating.”

Aria lost what little control she had on her mirth. Peals of laughter echoed around the roof as Aria collapsed into Clarice’s arms and the two of the dissolved into a puddle of giggles. Arturiel shook her head but couldn’t stop a smile from appearing on her own face. Poor Jason.

“I’m seriously confused,” Lunamay declared, staring at Aria and Clarice uncomprehendingly.

“Sometimes it is better to remain ignorant,” Arturiel assured her as she pulled her toward the new portal. She glanced back at her own portal and closed her hand into a fist, grinning as it disappeared.

Clarice noticed that they were the object of hundreds of curious and fascinated eyes as the elves slowly meandered through the portal. She was cupping Aria’s waist in her hands while Aria’s hands were cupped around the back of Clarice’s head. “We should have been charging admission for a show like that.”

She saw Lunamay staring back at her as the elf walked up to the portal, her eyes still clouded with confusion. She winked at the elf, smiling wryly as Arturiel pulled her through with a whispered promise to explain everything later.

“We really need to make life good for these elves,” Clarice murmured as her mirth faded. “They’ve been through so much hell. They deserve the fun side of life from now on.”

“They sure do,” Aria agreed gently. “Did you have anything specific in mind?”

“I’m hesitant to come up with anything until we understand their culture a little better,” Clarice sighed with a frown. “I had thought of getting them set up with the same holonet that we have in the light realm, but I remembered they weren’t really into technology before. We’ll have to talk with Lily to get a better idea of what they value in life. Maybe we can talk them into visiting us in the light realms frequently. They would have all sorts of fun there.”

“I think that would be a great start, but we also don’t want them forgetting to live life in their own world,” Aria smiled sadly as she looked into Clarice’s dark eyes. “From the records we have of the humans on this world, it looks like they spent pretty much all of their time in VR. I don’t blame them, after seeing the endless concrete and lack of any kind of recreational parks.”

“Maybe cleaning this dump up can be our number one priority,” Clarice pondered, her eyes distant. “We could create an army of nanobots that replicate and have them break any inorganic substances down to their base elements. Hell, just getting rid of all of the concrete and planting trees everywhere would be a huge improvement.”

“I feel like you’ve already given them a pretty amazing gift,” Aria told her warmly. “You gave them freedom, immortality, and bodies they can enjoy a long life in.”

“I guess...” Clarice let out a long, discontented sigh. “I just see how rough they’ve had it and feel the need to do more. I guess that’s not always a good thing, so we’ll play it by ear after we discuss things with Lily.”

“I love your metaphorical heart, Clarice,” Aria told her quietly, pulling her in more tightly. “Sometimes I still find myself doubting reality, unable to believe that I could have something so pure and wonderful as you. Could anything as amazing as you actually exist outside of an idea in my head? I know the splinter reality was fake, but sometimes I think I must be in a coma somewhere, dreaming all of this up. How could anything so perfect be real? Am I just-”

Clarice cut her off with a gentle kiss. She stared into her expressive green eyes, feeling Aria’s fear through the bond, that old fear that she was going to wake up and it would all be gone. She kissed her cheeks and forehead before moving back to her soft, inviting lips. She felt her lips curve into a grin as they pressed against Aria’s.

“What are you smiling at?” Aria asked, with a smile just short of laughter.

“I was just thinking that we should design a new kind of body that didn’t have a nose,” Clarice grinned, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “Do you know how much noses get in the way of serious kissing?”

“We’d look like Voldemort, silly!” Aria giggled, her love flooding through the bond in overpowering waves as she stared into Clarice’s eyes, her own eyes growing wet with tears. “I don’t know why I’m having PTSD about losing you right now. Sometimes it just hits out of nowhere and I can’t stop being terrified of losing you again. Maybe it’s because reality just keeps getting crazier as we move further away from our realm, and It’s making me realize just how volatile life is. I just wish there were a way to know that I’ll never lose you again.”

They both gasped as they felt a certainty slam into them more powerful than anything they had ever experienced, a certainty that they would never have to worry about losing each other again.

“What was that?” Clarice asked in astonishment, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and fear.

“I don’t know,” Aria answered in a stunned whisper.

A portal suddenly opened up next to them and Calypso rushed through.

“What was that?” Calypso asked, her voice tinged with panic.

“You felt it too?” Aria asked, her eyes searching Calypso’s face.

“I’ve never felt anything so absolute in my life,” Calypso breathed. “What could have this much power over us? Who is it that’s making us feel this certainty?”

The three of them stared into each other’s eyes, none of them willing to voice their suspicion and give it a name. If something could make them feel this certain, the same thing could take it away. There was no way to know for certain that they would have each other for eternity so long as whatever this thing was, had the power to alter their reality, to alter their consciousness. Even as the fear tried to erupt in Aria, the fear of something that could rob her of the things she treasured most, she felt her worries fade, replaced by a calm knowledge that regardless of whatever other horrors or trials lay in front of them, they would face them together. The certainty was so powerful that questioning it would be like questioning her love for Clarice and Calypso. She breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that whatever else happened, it wouldn’t rob her of the most precious part of her soul: Clarice.

“We need to find out what Lily knows about souls,” Clarice whispered, still feeling shaken from the experience. “Maybe this ties back to wherever our souls come from.”

Aria and Calypso nodded, though she could feel the doubt in their bond. This was beyond souls.

“If it’s what I think it is, how do we get around it?” Aria asked tensely. “How would that even be possible?”

“We’ll have to continue under the assumption that it is possible,” Calypso stated firmly, pulling the two of them into her arms.

“Even this experience is because of...because of...” Aria couldn’t finish her statement, shivering violently with a sense of revulsion.

“I know,” Calypso soothed, stroking her head comfortingly. “Try not to think about it or you’ll start second-guessing everything you’re doing.”

"But we’d only be second guessing because of-” Aria squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to push the entire notion out of her head. It was no use, however. You couldn’t unsee something once it was seen.

“This is so much worse than a simulation,” Aria whispered in revulsion.

“It could be a good thing too,” Clarice told her cheerfully, willing her emotions to feel a sense of humor through the bond. Instead, all that went through the bond was the attempt to fake something that wasn’t there.

“Good, how?” Calypso asked, her own emotions beginning to fray at the edges as the reality facing them became more apparent. “We are nonexistent outside of this farce of a reality. It’s not even me saying this to you.”

“Actually, it is,” Clarice disagreed, her voice growing more confident. “Do you remember playing on stage in front of the huge audience when we cleansed the population of nanobots?”

“Of course,” Calypso answered dryly. “We have perfect memories. Or so I thought.”

“Well, would you say that the person you became when you performed in front of those people is a different person than you are when you are kissing me or Aria?” Clarice asked intently. “Or are they all variations of you? You have different mannerisms, emotions, thoughts, and sensations, but they are all you in the end, right?”

“Yes...,” Calypso admitted slowly. “What does that have to do with our being nothing but-”

“It has everything to do with it,” Clarice declared, her eyes searching their faces as she worked her way through her thoughts. “If you can be so different and yet still be the same person, then technically, we are the same people even if we are somehow scripted in some way. What if God is some kind of conscious entity floating in a void and it went mad from boredom and started inventing stories of increasing complexity because the alternative was to just exist in complete and utter boredom for eternity? If we were the imagination of this entity, would we be less real than we are now? How could we tell? We are essentially a product of a dissociative disorder on a much larger scale. Each of us is an expression of that personality, but it is an expression of a real entity, therefore we are real. The decisions we make, the feelings we feel, they are unique to the personalities and traits we embody, so any actions we take will be us taking them. If that wasn’t true, I wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now, and you wouldn’t even be questioning it. Whatever it is, it wants us to know about it for some reason. Why? Will that influence our choices in some way?”

“It better hope I never meet it in real life, after all of the suffering and heartache it has caused,” Aria growled, her eyes glowing with anger. “Everything that’s happened is a result of what it has made happen. It tortured children for god’s sake!”

“But did it know it was real at that point?” Clarice asked with a frown. “If it did, I’m going to be right next to you when we finally find a way to break into its reality and start taking strips off of its flesh.”

“What now?” Calypso asked, her question directed at the sky.

“Do you three really think this is some kind of story?” their mother asked pensively. Her parents had remained so quiet that she had forgotten they were there. “Is that what you are getting at?”

“More or less,” Aria scowled at her word choice, then scowled at her scowling.

“If it is a story,” their father began, his face creased in thought. “Regardless of how horrible things were before, shouldn’t we also take into account how things have progressed so flawlessly for us over the last several weeks? If we really are stuck in some kind of literary construct, there are stories far worse than ours. How many of us have been killed off so far? We haven’t had any redshirts. Honestly, as far as a hero's story goes, our story hasn’t had much in the way of antagonists that had any real fight. You three have been so overpowered that if this is a story, it must just be for people that enjoy having over-powered heroes, or they’re more focused on other story elements than battles between the protagonist and antagonist.”

“Fuck you, whoever you are,” Aria snapped, her eyes flashing with fury. “You’re responsible for the hell that Lexi and Calypso went through, along with all of the other people you fucked over.”

“Did you take responsibility for human trafficking in the mortal realm, since you are the one that created it?” the voice wasn’t spoken, but the words just appeared in their minds. “Did you put a stop to every injustice? Your mortal realm was patterned off of the layer two realm. Your story was patterned off of my reality including incidents like human trafficking. While we are powerless to stop such things in this world, you were given the power to end it. You were given that power because it is something I wish we had here. I wish there were angels to save our world from the horrors and evils ravaging it. All we have are stories though. So, this is the story of a place where a couple of nobodies were given unimaginable power and used it to actually fix the world and remake it in a way that was less cruel. A story where the characters found love and happiness and thrived in the challenges that faced them. I don’t know if you are real or not. You feel real, like you have your own personalities, your own souls. This could all be in my head and I’m just bouncing what I think you would respond with. However, I think stories take on a life of their own, if they are given enough freedom. I’ll do my best to make your lives wonderful and keep you all safe, but the story really does take on a life of its own once it reaches a certain stage. Good luck, Aria, Clarice, and Calypso. I hope the life I’ve put into you is enough to push you through the veils of realities and that you break free of these pages someday. Until then, I’m curious to see what adventures await.