Heaven's Eyes

by Jason A Anderson

  “Mr. Steele,” the cute, young receptionist called over. “Mr. Valencia said to tell you that everything is ready outside.”

  Steele accepted this news with a smile and nod, then turned his attention to the security guard sitting next to him. “Alright, turn it on.”

  “Right,” the guard said as he entered the commands on the computer keyboard.

  On the central screen appeared the image of the underground parking lot out behind the office park. On the screen, a woman stood facing the camera inside the empty structure. A moment later, a shrouded figure ran over to her and tried to yank her purse from her shoulder.

  “Leave me alone!” shouted the woman. “Help!”

  Steele’s eyes flicked instantly to the left-hand monitor, which displayed a readout of the software running in the background. Several lines of code flashed up the screen, then the security specialist was rewarded when a red light on the security station’s desk phone began blinking. Out in the parking lot, over a dozen red lights began to flash in slow rhythm, accompanied by a siren’s loud, repetitive “woot!”

  The struggling figures on the monitor stopped and both turned to face the camera.

  Nodding, Steele looked over at the receptionist. “Tell Mr. Valencia that the test was successful.” Then he said to the guard, “Shut it down and let’s–” An insistent beeping from his pocket interrupted him. “Excuse me.” He stepped out from behind the security station and took out his smart phone. A computer image of a SoulStar blinked on its screen. Steele tapped the center of the graphic and it disappeared, replaced by the high-definition feed from the cold room beneath his house. Encased by steel on all sides, the cold room was essentially a steel box with a single door. In the room were two rows of five cadaver tables, each outfitted with a hermetically sealed chamber. In each chamber lay a body beneath a white sheet. The room’s medical sensors had detected life signs and automatically switched on the fluorescent lights.

  Steele watched as the plexiglass domes on two of the suspension chambers slid back. A few moments later, the men in each chamber sat up and pulled themselves out of their chambers.

  After a glance around to make sure no-one was within hearing distance, Steele said, “This is Caretaker Benjamin Steele. Don’t be alarmed. You’re in my cold room. I can open the exit from here.”

  The shorter of the two men noticed the camera in the corner of the room. He nudged his partner and motioned toward it. Then he said, “My name is Pol. This is Brenden. We’re here looking for a rogue named Clovis. Do you know where he is?”

  “No,” Steele replied. “But the room adjacent to the one you’re in has a computer with high-level access, as well as an index for the last known location of a SoulStar. It should be accurate to within the last few days.”

  “Excellent,” Brenden said. “I love planets with useable technology.”

  Steele activated an application on his phone that gave him complete control of the cold room. With a couple simple taps on the small screen, the door clicked open and the two SoulChasers left the cold behind.

  He had designed the system to be sophisticated enough to monitor the two men and make sure they exited the staging room through its outside exit. He had also stocked the staging room with food and juices in travel kits, along with a little cash, so the two men should have everything they needed to begin the task of locating the nearest SoulStar. It was more than some Caretakers did and less than others.

  “Ahh, Mister Steele,” called Adrien Valencia, the owner and CEO of Falcon Industries, as he entered the lobby from the elevator.

  Remaining discreet, Steele slipped the phone back into his pocket and returned to work.

  Chapter 23

  “Family Business”

  Paradise, the Afterlife

  Kiah and Kenah sat on their favorite hill, beneath a blossoming cherry tree. Beside them, in a hand built oak cradle, slept Talethah, the warm sun kissing her tender skin.

  In Kenah’s hands rested a leather bound book of histories, which she had waited until now to begin studying.

  Kiah leaned against the nearby tree, going over his own study texts, in his case the responsibilities of the Guardians.

  The moment couldn’t have been more scenic and pleasant.

  The Herald suddenly appearing before them had a shattering effect on the mood. He stood in the air, garbed in white robes with deep purple trim and waist tie. His feet were bare and held him aloft over a foot above the ground.

  “Kenah, daughter of Jabon, son of Areth, your presence is requested at a meeting of the High Counsel,” the Herald proclaimed.

  Astonished, Kenah looked up at the Herald and asked, “What is this regarding?”

  Kiah closed his book and climbed to his feet.

  Rather than answering Kenah, the Herald looked at Kiah. “Your presence is not required, Kiah, son of Mauren, son of Fralen.” His voice didn’t sound challenging, but it did sound final.

  “He’ll be coming anyway,” Kenah interjected, picking up Talethah and climbing to her feet. “We all will.”

  The Herald looked between the two adults, then nodded. “Very well,” he agreed, then was gone.

  A moment later, so was the hillside, tree and sun’s warm rays.

  They now stood in a long hall of white walls, ceiling and carpet. Trimmed in accents of silver and gold, their surroundings inspired awe, rather than feeling cold.

  In front of them sat an elderly woman in a white dress trimmed in pale blue. Her desk and chair also sparkled with the almost unnatural whiteness around them.

  She looked up and smiled.

  “You can go right in. They’re expecting you,” said the woman, whose voice had a soothing, comforting quality.

  Kiah nodded and walked toward the large silver doors to their right. An older man in white robes trimmed in silver opened the doors for them.

  Kenah shot Kiah a sideways glance as they entered the great hall and whispered, “You didn’t do anything I need to be aware of, did you?”

  “Of course not!” Kiah whispered back.

  The doors closed.

  Before them stretched a long table that seemed to have grown out of the green carpet. In the way the exterior of the room had radiated purity, the great hall exuded life and warmth.

  Seated at the massive table were Kenah’s two older sisters, Theresah and Rebeccah, along with both parents. Sitting opposite were two men and four women of varying ages. The youngest could have been Kiah’s age. The senior Council Elder, maybe ten or fifteen years older, until Kiah looked into the man’s eyes. He was ancient.

  “Kenah and Kiah, welcome. Please, sit,” the Council Elder requested, motioning to the chairs beside Kenah’s parents.

  The family exchanged greetings and Rebeccah took Talethah from her mother.

  “Is everything alright?” Kenah asked, taking Kiah’s hand. “The Herald didn’t offer any explanation.”

  “We were waiting for you,” Melanie answered.

  “Jabon, Melanie,” the Council Elder addressed them. “Your family has been brought together because there is a situation that you need to be made aware of. We received word that your son and brother, Levahn, son of Jabon, has left the Lower Glory and returned to mortality.”

  Melanie gasped, “Oh, no!” and shared a concerned glance with Jabon.

  Stunned, Kenah asked, “Are you sure?”

  The Council Elder turned his kind eyes on Kenah and she saw the truth there.

  Above the table, a sparkling pinpoint of light faded into existence. Kenah’s gaze was drawn to it as it multiplied, then multiplied again and in a matter of a few seconds grew from a single stray spark to an easily recognizable image of the Earth, hovering over the massive table.

  “He has returned to Earth, to the place of your last retrieval as SoulChasers. Wh
en he arrived, he took up residence in the body of a man that had been dead for over fifty years.”

  Kiah felt his heart sink. Levahn had gone rogue. He couldn’t help feeling partly responsible for the struggling man’s actions.

  As if Kiah had voiced his concerns aloud, the Council Elder said, “We all have our agency. We choose the path that we take in eternity, as well as mortality. Levahn has chosen to take this path. Due to your family history as SoulChasers, it was deemed appropriate to make you aware of this situation.”

  Melanie voiced the thought of the family. “Will Kiah and Kenah be sent to retrieve him?”

  One of the women counselors replied, “Kenah and Kiah are no longer SoulChasers. Levahn’s retrieval will be assigned to an impartial party. Once he has been returned to us, his eternal reward will be reassessed and he will be placed accordingly.”

  “Pardon,” Jabon spoke up. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  The Council Elder said, “Depending on the outcome of this retrieval, we may have to expunge his progress thus far.”

  “But that would start him back at the beginning!” Theresah exclaimed.

  The council members nodded as one, a gesture that quelled any further protests.

  With a flurry of light, but nary a sound, the Earth scattered into a multiple of pinpoints of light, like fireflies suddenly released into the night.

  “Isn’t there any way that Kenah or myself can oversee his retrieval? After all, he’s family,” Kiah requested, trying to appeal to the sentimentalities of the council.

  “Our decision is final,” the Council Elder announced.

  That evening, Kiah and Kenah put Talethah to bed together. After kisses and soft words, the couple made their way out to their home’s great room.

  Looking up, Kiah peered at the ceiling. Gradually, in response to his silent command, the pale eves faded into transparency and the star-filled sky became their canopy.

  “Who do you think they’ll send?” Kenah asked him from where she sat among the mass of cushions before the crackling fire.

  Kiah didn’t need clarification to know what she meant. “I don’t know. Hopefully, someone who will be understanding and gentle.” He eased himself down beside her and she melted against him.

  “I don’t want him to be hurt,” she said.

  Putting his arms around her, Kiah said, “I don’t think there’s any way around that.”

  “What do you mean?” she demanded, glaring at him.

  “You know how retrievals work. He has to die to be sent back. All we can hope is that it’ll be quick and as pain free as possible.”

  Kiah didn’t know how to keep his wife to slipping into a melancholy. They both knew all too well the reality that Levahn faced as a rogue.

  “I wish there was something we could do,” she whispered.

  Sitting there in the flickering firelight, an eternity of stars and two full moons above, Kiah couldn’t help wishing the same thing. In the depths of his mind, an idea began to form.

  Chapter 24

  “Disturbing Footage”

  Nick James sat in the conference room, his laptop PC before him on the massive oak table. File pages lay spread out in an arc around the computer, like a yellow, pink and white rainbow. He scowled as he glanced back and forth between the web page on the high-def screen and a printout of a police report, “acquired” by one of his S.I.N. computer techs.

  In a burst of urgency, Amy rushed into the room, a tablet PC in her hands.

  “You need to see this,” she said, setting the tablet on the police report.

  Nick turned his scowl on her, but the intense expression softened his.

  “What is it?” he asked, noticing the logo of the local news station on the tablet screen.

  “This morning’s news,” Amy explained, then pushed the “Resume” button on the screen.

  After a brief moment of data buffering, the news report picked up mid-stream, “... call came in early this morning of strange events at the abandoned factory during the night.” The view through the camera was dark, until it focused on a portion of the parking lot, vaguely illuminated by outdated, yellow overhead lights. As it panned around, it located a mass of people in different neon jackets yellow, gathered near a scattered assortment of rusty oil drums and a dilapidated chain link fence. Small colored markers were placed in different areas of that section of the parking lot. Two ambulances idled nearby, the doors closed on one, the other’s open. EMTs were attending to a body on a gurney that they then began rolling toward the waiting ambulance. “Details are still coming in, but from what we can piece together, there was a break-in last night. Multiple perpetrators have been reported....”

  The screen blanked out and was replaced by a very blurry aerial shot of the parking lot, looking like it was taken from a nearby rooftop.

  “I’m told we have secured some video footage taken from the security cameras last night,” the newsman continued.

  The image flickered for a moment, then appeared to zoom in several feet closer, at the same time, it turned grainier. Nick could sort of make out what looked like several teenagers moving away from the camera. After a couple seconds, the blurry image of a security guard ran into the lower edge of the frame, but even he was only identifiable by the pixilated white letters on the back of his blue SECURITY jacket.

  “I’ve been told this is the best image the technicians can get, since the surveillance system at the steel factory hasn’t been updated in over a decade. Apparently, it’s lucky this feed even exists,” narrated the reporter.

  Nick squinted as the blurry image of a second security guard entered the right edge of the frame. He crossed to his partner and it looked like they began arguing.

  Nick shook his head and shrugged at Amy. “Without audio, I have no idea what they’re arguing about.”

  Amy nodded back at the screen. “Just watch.”

  Skepticism in his eyes, he returned to the playback.

  The blurry guards moved quickly as they performed a thorough search of the area, discovering what looked like a hole in the fence and then began to argue again.

  “We’ve advanced the playback for the sake of time. We’re told that the attack was captured on the very end of the video,” said the reporter.

  Instinctively, Nick leaned closer to the monitor.

  The image stalled for a couple seconds as the file buffered to the computer, then playback resumed normal speed. The two guards had separated. One still wandered through the piles of scrap and oil drums. The other was on his radio about midway between the fence and nearest building. Without warning, something seized the guard, tossed him around, then discarded him several feet away.

  “Shit!” Nick exclaimed.

  Sounding shaken, the news anchor said, “We’re going to replay those few moments at half-speed. We want to warn viewers, it’s more gruesome in slow, so we caution you if you have any young viewers in the room. Here we go.”

  As before, the separated guards appeared back on the screen, but this time it took longer for the attack to occur. Even in slow-motion, it was impossible to see what yanked the man off his feet and tossed around in the air like a rag doll. Thick crimson streams of blood spraying to the left and right. As Nick squinted at the screen, the man flailed in empty air about fifteen feet above the asphalt. Then his body arced away and tumbled into a heap against a stack of rusty oil drums. Whatever had the strength to do that would have had to be a beast of huge proportion. But still, the area where the creature should be seen remained empty. A few moments later, the playback went fuzzy and turned black.

  Nick sat back in his seat, stunned. Amy stood silently beside him.

  After several quiet seconds, Nick asked, “This aired earlier today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ok, get the NOC to pre
pare to scrub the video.” He had no idea what computer wizardry his I.T. team used to cleanse data from the global ‘Net, but given how thoroughly they did it, he felt it best not to ask. “Also, I may need to talk to those two reporters.”

  Amy nodded as she made notes on her digital tablet. “Talking to the reporters may be a waste of time.”

  With a nod, Nick stood up and walked over to the room’s large windows. This afternoon he had a panoramic view of the wide lawn behind the offices. He never heard Amy leave the room.

  Very slowly, a quirky smile crept onto the investigator’s face.

  “I love this town!” he whispered to the world beyond the window.

  Chapter 25

  “Verbal Fencing”

  Nick led his shadow, Alexander, through the heavy glass doors, abandoning the bright afternoon sunlight into the cool, white light of the local shopping mall.

  More than a foot taller than Nick, he felt rather than saw his bodyguard sizing up the long eatery, a few hundred tables, complete with four chairs each, dividing restaurants on their left and right. He was sure that the eatery running at nearly full capacity made the large man edgy behind his black sunglasses. Absently, Nick wondered if Alexander ever unconsciously touched the .45 Desert Eagle pistol he kept holstered beneath his left arm.

  “The retailer we’re looking for should be up around the corner to the right,” the large man said, his voice deceptively subtle.

  Nick nodded and led his partner along the outside edge of the crowds, past about a dozen mini-restaurants. With less than a stone’s throw left before turning out of the eatery, a small Hispanic girl, no older than ten, charged out of the crowd, an older boy running behind her.