Immortal Saga - Chloe - Chapter One

    HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF ALSTON TECHNOLOGIES ? Of course, you have. You surely know Christopher Alston, CEO and face of A-Tech. You probably imagine that he is the brain that thinks about all these wonderful pieces of technologies, like the first ever space shuttle, pretty much every space station in the solar system, or the total renewal of modern society by using a revolutionary clean energy production method and that he basically is Elon Musk or Tony Stark. What if I told you Christopher Alston was a fraud, that he never invented a single thing, But that his daughter, me, did all the work.

    I’m Chloe Alston. Daughter of the richest man on the planet, the luckiest man in the world to have a daughter like me. I’m chief of R&D at Alston Tech. And I’m the one that came up with all his wonderful ideas that changed the world and made him rich.

    Somehow, I always knew how to use and put tech together. By nine I built the smallest supercomputer in history, capable of calculating any equations you threw at it, by twelve, I had developed the very first Artificial Intelligence fully capable to live on his own, so, obviously, I named it JARVIS and made him my personal assistant.

    He began to be the only ‘human’ contact I had except for my father and my only friend. I always worked alone. One day, my father forced me to present my ongoing project, namely a working space shuttle, able to travel to mars in a matter of a couple of hours. I made a panic attack before going on stage and he had to present the whole thing. That’s how he became famous. Then it came naturally, I built, he sold, and we became the richest people to ever live on earth, and in the solar system, thanks to us.

    But then she entered my life. Samantha Edwards.

    I had to go to a presentation of our new product, a brand-new kind of augmented reality OS, basically, a holographic phone that we accessed through glasses. The presentation also happened to be an inauguration of our new space-station in orbit around Saturn. I was at the back of the room, despite being obvious with my scarlet hair colour. A colour I was born with, defying nature itself.

    The main problem was, once the room was filled with journalists and rival companies’ representatives, when my father was supposed to get on stage, it wasn’t my father who went on stage, but a guy I’ve never seen before. My first reaction was to rush behind stage to see if my father was alright. But a hand catch me and forbid me to go.

    It was her. A young woman, in her twenties, the prettiest I’ve ever seen. I think I fell in love with her at first sight. But she didn’t. She had a hard steel stare, like her amber coloured eyes were piercing through my soul. She had much more strength than she should have, I though my wrist was going to break under the pressure of her hand.

    “Don’t.” she said. “You will only find death and pain. Come with me.”

    She pulled me out of the conference room and into an office close by. She sat me on a chair and locked the door behind her.

    “That won’t hold him, he’s probably found you, as have I, lucky for you.”

    I was too startled to do anything. But I managed to get my mind in check.

    “I have to get to my father, he may be in danger !” I tried to go to the door, but she blocked me and sat me back down.

    “No. He’s dead. I’m sorry.” She said. I felt my whole world break into pieces. How was I going to sell my stuff without him ? How would I be able to live without him ?

    “We have more important stuff to discuss” she sat down next to me. “You’re special.” She said.

    “What do you mean, special ? like I have a weird hair colour and knows a lot about tech so I’m special ?” why was I so calm ? My father just died, but I felt nothing.

    “That’s exactly why. You and I, we’re not humans. We are gods.”

    “You can’t be serious.” I said half-laughing

    “I’m deadly serious. And if you end up in the hand of the guy on stage right now, you’ll end up really really badly. And all of those people will die.”

    “What are you talking about ? I designed this space station, it’s the most secure I ever made. Nothing can destroy it, not even an atomic blast !”

    “An atomic blast in nothing compared to a Soul Grinder. We have two tasks. One, Protect you from that guy, and Second, protect those mortals.”

    “Mortals. You are crazy. There’s no such things as gods or demons or whatever, just man. And possible alien life !” I replied

    “There is so much more than that. You have no idea.”

    When she said that, I heard a wheezing, like a vacuum being turned on.

    “Oh no. we have to hurry.” She took my hand and we ran out through the door, the locked door, she just kicked it.

    “Alright. You have to get everyone out. I’ll handle the Noxis.”

    She went for the emergency alarm and triggered it. All the lights shut off and emergency red lights turned on, all doors opened and light path to the nearest escape pods lit up. An automated female voice said in “Emergency. Please, follow the nearest exit path towards the nearest escape pods in an orderly fashion.” Endlessly.

    Everyone followed the orders and proceeded towards the escape pods, wondering what was happening.

    Samantha ran inside the conference room after tasking me to escort the last people to the escape pods.

    The last people sent away, I went towards the conference room, I arrived just in time to see her being thrown through the wall, which looked awfully like something taken of an anime. She just stood up like nothing happened, and dust off some that was left on his shoulder.

    She looked at me briefly and took a fighting stance the guy that was on stage came out of the rubbles from the walls like he was the main baddy of the movie.

    He looked at me. “So you’re the goddess-to-be I was sent for ! What are you ? Goddess of knitting ? We don’t need more useless gods among Noxis.”

    “I’m not…” I started “Don’t. Don’t give him a reason to be interested in you. He’ll just take you for his personal collection.” Interrupted Samantha

    “Ah. I see you know me well.” He bowed “Avery Reiss, god of Avarice, Noxis, at my service.” He stood up and draw a beautifully crafted onyx-coloured rapier.

    He had mid-long pink hair, yes, pink, and deep blue eyes. He was dressed in a white tuxedo.

    “However, I don’t seem to know you, Silver. Are you the one that punk failed to retrieve?” he asked

    “That’s none of your business.” Answered Samantha. She had draw a sword and a shield too, her sword kind of looked like a katana, but not exactly, and her blade had a deep purple reflection. Her shield on the other hand, looked more ‘normal’, just grey with a sigil on it I couldn’t identify.

    They both lunged at each other, and it looked like a Dragon Ball fight with swords. It was going way too quickly from a common eye to even see, somehow, I could sort of see what was going on, Samantha and Avery were lunging at each other, Samantha deflecting with her shield while Avery just dodged her attacks.

    It seemed to go on forever, but in the end he kicked Samantha to the ground and held her throat by the tip of his sword. “You fought well, it’s a shame, I’ll take the prize and you’ll die, ashamed that you failed, forever.” He said.

    I don’t know why I did that but I took a piece of metal that was a wall that laid on the ground and threw it at Avery. He didn’t expect it, he took the hit, it created an opening, and Samantha took it, she took her sword and just killed him by piercing Avery with it.

    To my surprise, despite being quite dead, instead of falling on the ground, Avery’s body burned into ashes in quite a dramatic way. The last thing he said was “Eh, not bad for a rookie, see ya’ “ for a moment I was looking for a camera, it was way too much like a Hollywood movie.

    Samantha sheathed back her sword and shield in the tiny pouch she had around her belt. The pouch just stretched enough to fit a shield and a sword, and casually took it’s original shape back. When she saw my face she smiled “You’ll get one too, handy eh ?”

    “Right, we gotta go before more Noxis arrives.” She said, she took what looked like a toy laser pointer and drew a door on a nearby wall, the laser left a trace like it burned the metal, and when her arch was done, the wall cracked to leave a red and gold double door. Samantha took my hand a got me inside.

    Inside was beautiful. I looked like what you’d expect of Mount Olympus. There was a high tech kitchen that didn’t really fit in with the rest, but it made the rest stand out.

    “Whoah.” I said.

    “I know, right ? I’m proud of what I did with my Temple.” Her smile faded. “Come on, the Boss is waiting for us.” She lead me to a similar red and golden door, and opened it to reveal a room that looked like a VIP lounge in a chic night club.

    There was a bar, a retro-projector displaying a game, and a huge croissant shaped couch, with four guys in it, a blond guy that looked older than everyone else, and three guys that looked the same, but they had different tattoos on their arms, there was a fourth clone behind the bar, making drinks.

    “Let me introduce you, she pointed at the three clones on the couch, this is Marcus, Maximilian and Sean Bennett, respectively gods of imperial, modern and futuristic wars. Behind the bar is Samuel Bennett, god of medieval wars, and the last one” she pointed at the blond guy “David Faust, god of Literature, AKA the boss.”

    They all turned towards me and I was greeted by a cheerful “HEYY !” from everyone except David, that looked stoic. He got up and picked up a box labelled “Chloe Alston : Technology” and came to me.

    “So you’re Chloe Alston. Nice to meet you” He smiled, which seemed to impress all the other “Here” he picked a laser pointer from the box, “This will allow you to get into your Temple. As you can see from Samantha’s Temple, there are three parts, the Main Hall, your personal space, Your Guest Hall, where you can invite mortals or gods that wants a chat, and your Altar, your bedroom.” He gave it to me, and got a belt like Samantha’s, and now that I think of it same as everyone else. “This is your Belt, an endless storage that you can access anywhere.” And he gave it to me.

    “Now I must warn you, we, gods, don’t have the same night cycle as mortals, we stay awake and sleep for roughly a thousand earth years.”

    After saying that, he snapped his fingers and I fell asleep instanteniously.