Chapter 18
“Ok, give me a few minutes,” said Scott and walked out of the living room. Then, he walked the hallway to his office, took a piece of paper from his printer, and a pen from the top drawer of his desk. The computer was on standby. Then, Scott walked out of his office with the blank paper and the pen in his left hand, leaving the door open, and walked the hallway back to the living room. He walked closer to Mark and placed the blank piece of paper on the coffee table and the pen on top of the piece of paper. “Write me up a document stating that this is not a loan, but a gift, and then sign it.”
Mark smiled because this meant that Scott was taking the money. He wrote exactly what Scott wanted him to write and signed the document. Just then, Lily quickly took the check from Mark. Finally, the two men shook hands, and then Mark got up and gave Scott another big hug.
Crying tears of joy this time, Scott said, “I don’t know how to repay you, man. Thank you so much.”
“I want you to repay me with your friendship, your loyalty, and your honesty, and that is the only repayment I will accept.” Mark picked up his and Scott’s written agreement from the coffee table. “Remember we agreed that you won’t repay me with money.”
Smiling, Scott said, “I’ll remember.”
Mark put the document down, placed his checkbook back in his briefcase, closed his briefcase, and picked it up. “Well, I have to go. I will see you tomorrow.” Mark walked to the front door, and Scott and Lily followed him together. Then, Lily opened the door for Mark; Mark walked out, and gave Lily and Scott a big hug. Finally, Mark walked back to his car, and Lily closed the door. Minutes later, Mark pulled out of Lily and Scott’s driveway, took the road, and his car disappeared from Scott and Lily’s sight.
That afternoon, Lily and Scott’s bank and the post office were still open. It was four fifteen, and Mark and Lily took quick showers in separate bathrooms, and then changed their clothes and a few minutes later, they were out of the house. They went to the bank to deposit $13,000 of the $20,000 in their bank account, in which the balance was just thirty-three cents. Then, they made a certified check for $7,000 for their mortgage. They owed $6,990. Finally, they went to the post office and mailed the certified check express-mail. Their mortgage company received the check less than twenty-four hours later, thanks to the three angels that were working at the post office, thus they made sure that the check would get there before the due date, and three days after Mark gave them the money.
That day, Starr, the mother of Daniel’s baby, went to Daniel’s house with her and Daniel’s child, who was now an adult. Incredibly, super-aliens like Mark, Matt and Daniel had a lifespan of 2,000 years, but their children and other loved ones didn’t know that these aliens were supermen and superwomen and that their lifespan was that long, so they had procedures done that would ensure that their children would age like human children aged, Earth year by Earth year. Incredibly, the Manning twins didn’t know that they were supermen either, and that their children were supermen and superwomen. Starr and Daniel’s son was never admitted to any of the Tears facilities, so although he wasn’t hurting or killing anyone, he was impregnating human women like crazy. Ever since he became an adult a few months ago, he had already impregnated ten women, and all of those women had died. Daniel’s grandchildren were living with Starr in Starr’s five-bedroom house. Fortunately, the rooms were big, and three children could sleep in the same room. Also, fortunately, all of these children were boys, so there was no risk of them getting pregnant with their own brother’s child. Three of the boys looked exactly like Daniel and Seth when they were children, three of the boys had features of their father and their mothers, and some of them looked exactly like their mothers. Starr hesitated to ring Daniel’s bell for a few minutes because she knew that she was in serious trouble with the law. By law, all alien children had to be taken to Tears of the Sun, Tears of the Moon, or Tears of the Universe as soon as they were born. Starr was now responsible for the deaths of ten innocent women. Incredibly, Seth felt badly. He was deeply depressed because he noticed that every time he got together with a woman, the woman would get pregnant and then died. He didn’t understand why this happened, and he didn’t know how to prevent a woman from getting pregnant, much less how to save her life while she was giving birth. Seth didn’t want to have any more children for a long, long time. He did know however that he had hundreds of lifetimes ahead of him, so from now on, when he knew how to get together with a woman without impregnating her, he would choose the woman that he wanted to be with for the rest of his life and then avoid having children for the next 200 years. The only reason why Seth had children with different women was because the women would die in his hands. Finally, Starr decided to get in her car and leave her son there because he’d persuaded her to take him to his father so his father could help him with all the troubles he had with women and children. Starr really didn’t want to go to jail, so she abandoned her son. She didn’t want to be located. “Irresponsible then,” said Seth, crying silently, “irresponsible now. Some people never change.” Seth rang Daniel’s bell.
Daniel was in the dining room, wearing a robe, drinking his morning coffee. It was Sunday, so Daniel expected to watch TV, surf the internet for a little while, and just relax for the entire day, like he usually did every Saturday and every Sunday. Unfortunately for him, he wouldn’t be able to do that today, and for a long while. Daniel walked to the front door having no idea what awaited him. Daniel opened the door. He thought it was Arthur, so he smiled and said, “Hi, Arthur, how are you doing? I know I promised to buy you a house, but I’ve been incredibly busy, and I haven’t been able to…” Daniel saw through Seth and figured he was an alien. He gasped and said, “Oh, no…”
Without greeting his father, Seth asked, with his arms crossed across his chest, “So, you don’t want me, either?”
Daniel gasped. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to say next. Five minutes after looking his son in the eyes without saying anything to him, he said, “Come on in,” made way for Seth to come in and then closed the door behind them. “Where’s your mother?”
“She came here with me, but she just left.”
“Did she really? That’s great!” said Daniel. He was angry. They walked together to the living room of the mansion that was closest to the entrance and they sat down. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Seth Benson.”
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“Starr Benson.”
A few minutes later, Daniel was on the phone with a police officer explaining everything that had happened. He told him that he had a son with a woman named Starr Elaine Benson and that she’d kept the child instead of giving him in to any of the agencies that took care of aliens. Seth got on the phone with the same police officer and gave him Starr’s address, birth date, and even her phone numbers. Several hours later, the police went to Starr’s house and they only found Seth’s children there. Daniel was with the police.
“Oh, my God, I can’t believe it,” said Daniel as he caressed the heads of all of his grandchildren. “You had all these kids, Seth?” Daniel was openmouthed.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, Dad. I mean I wasn’t spreading my seed without any regard and ignoring the consequences or being promiscuous.”
“Your son’s right, Dr. Sherman,” said Officer Snyder. “Every time that he got together with a woman, she would get pregnant and then die a horrible death at the hands of her offspring.”
Daniel was even more astonished now. Gasping, he said, “Seth, why didn’t you come to me for help the first time this happened?”
“Because I was stupid, Dr. Sherman!” yelled Seth, openmouthed.
“You don’t have to insult yourself, Seth,” said Daniel, serious and angry.
“You don’t have to yell at your father either,” replied Officer Snyder. “Gentlemen, we have to take these children to Tears of the Sun before they become adults. Don’t worry about their grandmother. She’ll get exactly what she deserves… as soon as we find her.”
Precisely at that moment, Starr was in the airport, waiting for her flight to England to arrive. Amazingly, she made an incredible amount of money. She was an escort, and she had been for three years. Starr was only twenty-eight years old, and she would only serve celebrities and other multimillionaires. Seth was using his seventh sense to connect with his mother and know exactly where she was. As soon as he located her in an airport waiting area, seeing her on his mind as if he were watching a movie, he told authorities. He also told them that her flight would take off less than thirty minutes from now, so police had to act fast. When the police arrived at the International Airport, Starr was only minutes from leaving, inside the airplane. Police quickly notified everyone at the airport that a criminal was about to escape, and just before the airplane took off; a hoard of policemen entered the airplane and hunted Starr down. Without saying anything to the crew or the passengers, Officer Snyder screamed, “Starr Elaine Benson you are hereby under arrest!” Other officers helped a dumbfounded Starr get up and Officer Snyder handcuffed her as he said, “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.” They were taking her out of the plane now in front of astonished and horrified passengers. “If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the state. Do you understand your rights?” They were going back into the airport in a rush now, running. Starr simply nodded as she was rushed out of the airport and dragged to the police patrol. They took extreme measures to make sure that she wouldn’t hurt anyone and get away. They confiscated her purse to make sure that she wouldn’t have pepper spray available to her or anything of such sort. She was sitting in between two police officers that weighed over 250 pounds and stood over six feet tall. Hours later, Starr was locked up, her grandchildren were in Tears of the Sun, and Seth was moved into Daniel’s mansion. Seth had no plans of getting married anytime soon, so he was allowed to live with his father indefinitely. Incredibly, Seth had everything an eighteen-year-old man could wish for: a nice bedroom set, a cool laptop with Internet access, a big flat screen TV, and satellite-TV service in his bedroom. Although his father was a multimillionaire, Seth wasn’t planning to live off of his father’s money. He wanted to enroll in college and pursue a career of his own. Seth wanted to be a high-school teacher. Although that would only generate about $5,000, for human teachers, he would still be able to survive with that amount of money. That’s the amount of money that he thought he was going to earn. He had no idea that alien pre-school, elementary, middle, and high school teachers earned over $12,000 a month and they were fighting actively for human teachers to earn the same amount because they knew that was fair. The angels didn’t know that they earned twice as much money as humans did in their professions in a monthly basis because their intelligence was far superior to ours. Yet, they thought that humans deserved to earn as much as they did because, while they would only spend a few months in college, getting master degrees in any profession, it would take us up to fifteen years to get a master’s degree in professions such as doctors. It only took Daniel Sherman a few months to become a psychiatrist because he learned at a blazingly-fast pace and his intelligence was superlative compared to other collegians. Seth didn’t know that it would only take him months to become a high-school math teacher and that his students would love him very much.
Seth was in his room, surfing the Internet quietly on his computer. Hoping to find his son one day, the day that Daniel Sherman moved into this mansion, he furnished the room and put in all the goodies, a nice bedroom set, a computer, and a flat-screen TV with satellite TV service. He knew that he would start college next month, and he was excited. Suddenly, the phone rang. Seth had a phone extension in his room, so he answered it. “Hello.”
“Hi, Daniel, how are you?” said Madison. “I want to show you my brand-new laptop.” She was smiling brightly. “The other laptop I had, it fell, and the screen came off of it, so I bought another one.”
“Is this Dr. Sherman’s girlfriend?”
Madison’s smile quickly faded. “Yes. Who am I speaking to?”
“This is his son, Seth Benson, well, Sherman.”
“You’re Daniel’s son? He found you? That’s great! How did this happen?”
“I begged my mother to bring me over here so my dad could help me with,” he cleared his throat, “a problem.”
“Oh… well, I’m Madison Sierra, and I am your father’s girlfriend, as you know. We met a few months ago, and then we lost touch with one another. We just got reunited.”
“I am so happy for you, Ms. Sierra.”
“Please call me Madison.”
Seth laughed. “Ok. My dad’s not here right now. He’s with the police. The police arrested my mother for not turning me in to TOTS when I was born.”
“Oh, that’s serious.”
“Yeah, I will have my dad call you when he gets home.”
“I can’t wait to meet you, Seth,” said Madison, smiling once again.
“Goodbye, Madison,” said Seth and hung up.
Madison became saddened when she hung up. She noticed that Seth was cold an unemotional. She wondered what had happened to him, why he was so careless and unaffectionate. She wondered if Seth loved his father. Madison was uncertain of whether she should continue her relationship with Daniel because she was afraid that Daniel’s son wouldn’t approve of it. She was afraid that Seth would interfere in their relationship and do anything in his power to tear them apart. Seth seemed heartless to her. Nothing could move him. She thought that maybe his mother had abused him and turned him into a cold man. Madison suddenly sat on her couch and started to cry bitterly, with her face down and her hands on her face. Ninety minutes later, Madison was calm, but still deeply saddened, eating a piece of key lime pie that she’d just made, in the dining room. She was wearing a robe. She suddenly realized that her love for Daniel was too real and too intense for her to put an end to the relationship. Madison cried for Daniel for several months because he didn’t call her, email her, or write to her. His indifference towards her killed her. Was it worth it to end the relationship just because of an intruder after she’d shed so many millions of tears? Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Madison put her fork down and got up. She walked until she got to the living room and then to the front door. She opened the door and she gasped when she saw two identical men in front of her. These men were Daniel and Seth. Daniel was carrying a bouquet of red roses in his hands. Madison had planted her other roses. Seth was carrying a spindle of fifty recordable CD’s for Madison to download and record music on, an iPod, and a small digital video camera with the capability of taking photos also. The camera and the iPod were still in their respective boxes, unopened. Madison made way for them, let them in, and closed the door behind them. She smiled. “Hi, guys, how are you?” She hugged Daniel and kissed him on the lips, putting a bright smile on Daniel’s face. Every day, Daniel fell more and more deeply in love. “And you must be Seth,” she said and shook Seth’s hand.
Seth opened his arms for a hug. “May I have a hug, too?”
Surprised, Madison answered, “Sure!” and they hugged. She didn’t know what had happened, but in less than two hours, Seth had become a totally-different person, the opposite of the man that she’d just talked to on the phone. “Sit down,” she said. They sat down in the living room. “This is your house. Do you guys want a piece of key lime pie that I just made?”
“I love key lime pie,” said Seth. “Mom never made or bought me any.”
“Aww,” said Daniel. “Your mother’s a class act.”
“Yes, tell me about it.”
Madison walked out of the living room and went to the kitchen. Ten minutes later, she returned to the living room with one piece of pie on a little plate, in each hand. She placed the pieces of pie on the coffee table in front of Seth and Daniel and they quickly took their forks in their hands and dug in. Unexpectedly, the doorbell rang once again. “Hmm,” she said, “I wonder who that could be at this hour. It’s nine fifteen.” Madison walked to the door and opened it. It was Diana, and she was crying bitterly. She quickly wrapped Madison in her arms. She’d been looking for Alexander everywhere all day: at his house, at work, and at the homes of his best friends. She was hoping to find him here but she was out of luck.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Madison,” said Diana, crying, as Madison made way for her to get in.
Madison closed the door behind Diana, concerned. “What’s wrong, Diana?”
“Have you guys seen or heard from Alexander? I can’t find him anywhere!” Diana sat down on the loveseat right beside Daniel and Seth.
“I talked to him last night, and I haven’t heard from him since,” said Daniel, deeply worried.
“Where could he be?” asked Seth.
Alexander had been kidnapped earlier today, in the morning, when he was getting into his car to go to work. Three thugs pulled him from his car, beat him up, and forced him to get into their van. When they got to their destination, Alexander was so badly beaten that he couldn’t even talk. The men carried Alexander inside, as it took all three of them to hold him because he weighed 199 pounds and he was five feet and eleven inches tall. His weight was in pure muscle. He couldn’t see anything because he had a black bandanna over his eyes. They took him to a desolated, filthy and empty room, tied him up with chains, gagged him and locked him up in the room. Alexander had been here for almost thirteen hours, and he had no way of communicating with anyone or screaming for help. His head was down and he was completely incapacitated.
Suddenly, Daniel visualized him in the room, exactly in the situation he was in, like a video. Daniel started hyperventilating and screamed, “Oh, my God,” sweating like a pig, “Alexander, they’re going to kill him!”
“What? Oh, my God…!” screamed Diana, and started crying even more bitterly. “Oh, my God…!”
Daniel, Diana, and Seth ran out the door and Daniel and Seth went to their car. Diana went into her car. They didn’t have time to wait for Madison to get ready and go with them. In a matter of minutes, the car lights came on and Daniel and Diana’s cars took the road. Daniel guided Diana to Alexander’s exact location, and they drove for three whole hours until they got there, to the house of one of the thugs. The thugs were drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream on top in the living room, watching a wrestling match on TV. They saw the lights of two cars as the two cars parked in their driveway. For the first time in their lives, Daniel and Seth decided not to strive for the support of the police and take justice into their own hands. They quickly got out of their car as the thugs, alarmed, got up from their seats and went into their rooms, as one of them went to answer the door. The thugs were out of luck. Someone was coming to rescue Alexander, but they thought that they were Alexander’s family members. They didn’t expect two aliens, two supermen. Right before the first thug could open the door, Daniel and Seth threw the door down with all their strength, and quickly proceeded to beat up the thug, just the way the thug and his accomplices did with Alexander several hours earlier. Alexander heard the screams of the thug from the room he was locked up in, although he heard it very far away because he was in a room that was almost completely separated from the house, in a secret location, right beside the basement. Alex’s heart was filled with hope. Someone had arrived here to save him. The thugs were planning to shoot Alex to death the morning after without contacting his family to ask them to pay for his rescue. They weren’t doing this for money. The mysterious organization that still sought the demise of the angels had hired them to kill him because he was the one who had frustrated their plans to destroy the angels once and for all. Just when the other thugs returned to the living room to help their new friend, they found him lying down in a river of blood that stained the beige carpet horribly. They gasped. Right before they had a chance to act, Daniel and Seth morphed and literally got on their bones. They looked like giant octopi, extremely horrifying, and Daniel’s tentacles had grown long again. They were huge. In an instant, both creatures wrapped the thugs around their tentacles and squeezed them with all their strength and their blood came out like water in a fountain. All the walls were stained with blood and the thugs’ bodies were literally split in two, vertically. Daniel and Seth knew that they could be locked up in TOTS once again for this and be killed, but they didn’t care. They wanted to show loyalty to their good friend, although Seth hadn’t met Alexander yet. If Alexander was Daniel’s friend, then he was important to Seth. Daniel went to the hallway bathroom and Seth went to the bathroom inside the master bedroom. They took their clothes off and took quick showers simultaneously to get themselves clean. Then, Daniel went to the master bedroom of the house and together, he and Seth picked long-sleeved, buttoned shirts and pants. They put these clothes on as quickly as they could and then went to the room that Alex was locked up in. They threw the door down, ran up to Alexander, unlocked the chains that restricted his extremities, took the bandage off his eyes and off his mouth, and then Daniel picked him up and placed him on his shoulder. Finally, Seth and Daniel ran out of the house and into their car. They let Alexander lie down in the backseat of the car and closed the door. All the while, Diana had stayed in her car because Daniel and Seth didn’t want her to witness the way that they made their enemies pay for everything they’d done to Alexander. Diana saw the love of her life beaten to a pulp and started crying. She got to the point that she was unable to drive. Seth went to her car, unlocked and opened the driver door, had Diana get out of the car and go around it to sit in the passenger’s seat, put his seatbelt on, and started the car as Diana closed the passenger’s door. Daniel left in his car and Diana and Seth left the house in Diana’s car, following Daniel. Unfortunately for the angels, the neighbor from across the street of the house they’d just broken into had seen them go into the house, throw the door down, and then run out of the house. The neighbor didn’t see the color of Daniel and Diana’s cars because it was dark, and she didn’t see their license plates either. Immediately after the angels left the house, the woman called the police and let them know what had happened. Two hours later, while Daniel, Seth, and Diana were sleeping tranquilly at home, and Alexander was at the hospital, getting the medical care he desperately needed, policemen entered the thugs’ house and found their destroyed bodies on the ground. They screamed in horror and then picked up the evidence in the crime scene. Shortly after, the policemen left the house and then went to Daniel’s mansion. They took Daniel and Seth in for questioning and Daniel and Seth told them exactly what had happened in the presence of Attorney Smith, Daniel and Seth’s new attorney. Officer Snyder finished interviewing them and let them go home for now. Three days later, even though Daniel and Seth had murdered three men, the police considered having them live at TOTS once again, indefinitely, where they received therapy and were rehabilitated. They were taught not to kill people no matter what and to always report criminals to the police. Alistair Reynolds took care of the needs of Daniel’s patients while Daniel was released from his new confinement.
Everyday, Daniel would call Alistair at his own office just to see how his patients were doing. Alistair told them that his patients were doing very well, but that it felt weird to them to see another psychiatrist taking care of them temporarily, instead of Daniel. Fortunately, Alistair had just finished his doctorate in psychiatry and he was fit for the job. Daniel’s patients were in good hands. Daniel and Seth were sad. They didn’t want to be locked up. They learned the hard way not to take justice in their own hands. The only good thing about Daniel and Seth being locked up in TOTS was that they taught Seth how to avoid impregnating a woman when he got together with her and most importantly, he underwent an operation that allowed his offspring to be human with superpowers and these offspring would never kill their mother while she was giving birth to them. One month had passed, and they were desperate. Seth wanted to start working and Daniel wanted to marry Madison and start a new life with her. Just when they thought that life as they knew it was over, they were notified that they would be released. All of Dr. Sherman’s patients stuck up for him and his son and went on a hunger strike outside the premises of TOTS. Other angel supporters joined in on the fight and a judge finally decided that Daniel and Seth Sherman should be freed. They were released, and the first thing that Daniel did, less than twenty-four hours after being released, was to go to court and marry Madison. Seth on the other hand continued with his studies and tried to move on with his life. Unfortunately for all the evil humans who wanted to see angels’ dead or out of Planet Earth, Daniel didn’t change his mind about killing people and he chose to take the advice that he’d been given to avoid jeopardizing his career, but Seth didn’t. Unbeknown to everyone that knew him, the thug that Daniel killed was his very first and last victim, but the thug that Seth killed was not his first victim. In fact, Seth had killed over 100 men in self-defense, and he’d always gotten away with it, so Seth decided to kill whomever, wherever, in self defense, like he’d done before, if he felt threatened. He was hiding this from Daniel, and he was using one of his superpowers to keep Daniel from ever finding out. Daniel wouldn’t know about this unless he saw his son killing someone. From his very first murder, Seth learned the way of killing someone and getting away with it. Only time would tell when, where, why and whom he would kill the next time. Seth wasn’t such an angel after all. He was a beast that had never been tamed, and now that he was twenty-two, it was too late for anyone to teach him to do the right thing.
A beautiful human angel appeared in Seth’s life days after his release from TOTS. They were walking outside to the cafeteria, and the sweet young woman was holding her books. Seth was texting Daniel from his Blackberry phone to see if he’d heard from Alexander and if Alexander was ok. Seth accidentally bumped into Lydia and Lydia’s books fell on the floor. They got on the floor simultaneously and Lydia and Seth’s hands were entwined as they tried to pick up the books.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Seth as he picked up the books, and they both got up and he gave the books to her. “That was my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
This man was candy to Lydia’s sweet and innocent eyes. He had light brown hair, turquoise-blue eyes, an astonishing smile, a beautiful face, and a gorgeous and desirable body. His muscles were astonishing and gigantic. He had the body of a wrestler, like most of the male angels. His skin was light and beautiful. There was no doubt about it. This was the man of her dreams. “It’s ok. Don’t worry about it. I’m ok. Do you want to sit with me during lunch?”
“It will be an honor for me.” Seth and Lydia walked to the cafeteria hand in hand without realizing it. They walked into the cafeteria and ordered their food. Seth ordered meat and vegetables, mashed potatoes, and Coca-Cola. Lydia ordered two slices of pizza, a bag of chips, and a Mountain Dew. They sat at the table together, Seth in front of Lydia, and they were smiling to one another and conversing the whole time as they ate.
“So, where are you from?” said Lydia, taking another bite of her first slice of pizza.
“I’m from the moon.”
Lydia laughed. “No, seriously, where are you from?”
“I’m from the moon,”