Recycled Lives Read online

  Recycled Lives

  (The Seraphim Network - The Everyday Series, Book 3)

  By Yasmin Hawken

  Table of Contents

  Recycled Lives

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Copyright © 2019 by

  Charlotte Head & Kay Hawken as Yasmin Hawken

  All Rights Reserved

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover Art by:

  Anya Kelleye Designs

  Edited by:

  Lauralynn Elliott

  Seraphim Network logo:

  Daniel Buckley

  Acknowledgements

  We want to thank everyone who supports us, from those of you who purchase our books, to those who have helped us throughout the publication process. Without your continued support and belief, we could not keep creating this amazing world that we have to share with you all.

  A special thank you goes to James, who originally brought the character of Jacques to life and allowed us to have our artistic way with him.

  We hope you all enjoy the latest adventure, and we look forward to taking you on many more.

  Chapter One

  The sun was threatening the horizon as Jacques came to halt in his chosen hiding place. Crouched behind the balustrade of a balcony, he looked down through a gap in the stylized posts to the ballroom below. It was an event of excess. People dressed in expensive clothing. Or a severe lack of. When body modification was as extensive as it was in Seattle, people liked to show off their enhanced bodies. Whether that was a few inches cut from the waist or anything from face reshaping to an unusual eye color or breast implants, cosmetic surgery was a fashion accessory. These sorts of people paraded around in outfits that covered the bare essentials but showed that they had money to become the ‘perfect’ versions of themselves.

  Jacques hated these people. He was augmented himself, a set of blackmarket cybereyes that he was still paying off, but they were useful; he could enhance his vision, see body heat through walls or see perfectly in low light situations. When you were historically poor, it was hard to see the point of purchases of such excess, where the only goal seemed to be to show off how much cash you had to burn. He scanned the crowd using the vision enhancement on his cybereyes to locate his target—Lucy. His teammate. She strode through the crowds with confidence in a tight-fitting outfit that left nothing to the imagination. Her boyfriend, Zane, was a lucky man.

  “Jacques, wanna give me a location here?” Lucy said, her murmured voice coming from his earbud.

  He pulled back from the edge of the balcony and flicked through the camera feeds he had active on his AR. He wasn’t a hacker, but when you had the technical know-how, getting access through the hardlined wires was simple.

  “You’re looking at the back left hand door next to the stage. Guy’s holding a neon blue and black drink,” Jacques said as he spotted their target in the corner of the room.

  “And we’re sure he has no eye augmetics?” she asked with a slight tone of concern in her voice.

  “If he has, they aren’t legal. We need to hurry; we have three minutes until sun up,” he said. If they waited too long, their escape plan was screwed.

  Communications went silent as Lucy approached the mark. He watched on the cameras as she played with her blonde ringlets, a flirty smile on her porcelain face. She reached out and placed a gentle touch on his hand; that was the signal.

  With deft movements, he used his wire clippers to snip the main line to the room’s lights. The huge ballroom was plunged into darkness. There were shrieks and gasps from the assembled guests. He glanced down, his cybernetics adapting to the small amount of dawn light by activating the low light vision modification. Lucy was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully that was a good thing.

  Before anyone could trace the breach in the powerline back to him, he grabbed his tools and jumped to his feet. With the black body suit he wore, he would be indistinguishable from the darkened corridors. As a stealth specialist, the night and the shadows were his best friend.

  “Jacques, where are you?” said Lucy’s whispered hurried tone.

  “On my way. Hold your shit,” he said as he made quick but quiet progress through the upstairs corridor.

  ‘Third turning, second door, fourth window. Third turning, second door, fourth window.’ He repeated the instructions over and over to himself. These large elegant houses were like mazes; how anyone lived in them he’d never know. He was just happy that his apartment had a separate living room and bedroom, let alone having three reception rooms, an ostentatious ballroom, a private parlor and twelve bedrooms.

  The corridor was almost pitch black, so dark that even his low light systems were having issues with providing him clear visibility, and that made him uncomfortable. He was relieved when he reached the target door and threw it open. The room’s curtains were opened to welcome in the weak morning light, which gave him full visibility. He was glad he had gone for the flare compensation adaption when getting his eyes done; it had stopped him getting suddenly blinded by sudden sensory input of the morning sunlight. He ran to the fourth window.

  The window was alarmed as expected; the faint etchings of circuitry at the edges of each of the panes was a dead giveaway. Reaching into one of his hidden pockets, he extracted a small toolkit. It was a simple system. He expected people with this much money to have something a little more complex. He was almost disappointed by the lack of challenge presented to him. With the alarm system cut, he threw open the window and jumped out.

  The wind cut through him as he fell, instantly chilling him. The body suit, while good for stealth, wasn’t great at keeping him warm. The freefall was only three stories, but he could feel his heart pounding away in his chest. His instincts feared injury even though the logical side of him knew he’d been fine, and he truly enjoyed the feeling of nothing beneath his body

  With a heavy thud, he hit the inflatable pad below, the impact causing his teeth to crack together. It would only take moments for the pad to deflate, and as soon as his partner joined him, they’d be on their way with no real signs they’d been here.

  “Here, take your clothes,” Lucy said from behind him. He turned to find the pretty blonde brandishing his equipment at him. She was already dressed in jeans and a thick jacket.

  “You got it, right?” Jacques asked as he grabbed the clothes and pulled on the cargo pants.

  “Of course,” she said as she opened her palm and showed a beautiful high-priced wrist watch. Even though the devices were rarely used thanks to AR, they were a sign of money. He had no idea what the Network’s interest in it was, but it was his and Lucy’s job to get it. They didn’t need to know why the Network wanted it.

  He pulled on his winter jacket, and by the time he was done, Lucy had forced the blow-up pad back into its pack and was ready to leave. With that, they quickly made their way back to the street. The perfect time of day to make yourself disappear—rush hour. They stepped into the heavy foot traff
ic moving with the throngs of people until they reached the subway system.

  The stench of piss and sweat was thick and unforgiving as they descended the well-used staircase. The cream tiled walls were littered with AR posters advertising a whole host of things. From job openings, to band performances, to people selling their bodies, and posters selling augmentations. You could find anything here, not that you would trust a lot of the things you found in the subway system. Jacques had been bitten by that once. Never again.

  As they reached the ticket barrier, Jacques stopped and removed a small patch from his hand. The translucent patch covered and disrupted the signals from the chip implanted in his palm. Everything about a person was stored on the chip that was inserted straight after birth. A simple scan could produce your entire history: medical records, school records, employment records, every house you had ever lived in. It also held all your banking information and, of course, your current location.

  Jacques placed his palm in the ticket scanner. A machine read his identity chip, and with his permission, deducted the subway fare from his bank account. The turnstile clicked, and he stepped into the hub of the subway system. Streams of people filtered through different doors, each person in a desperate rush to their destination. When you had to work multiple jobs just to keep a roof over your head, time was a precious, finite commodity that no one wanted to waste by traveling.

  The different scents from the food outlets and the people, combined with the cacophony of noise and movement, was a real assault on the senses. He turned to see Lucy get shoved by a larger man in a bright red trench coat and neon blue hair. She turned to throw the man a glare as he continued unhindered on his route through the swarm of people.

  “EXCUSE YOU,” Lucy said loudly before straightening her jacket and turning to Jacques. “One of these days I’m going to invest in a car. I can’t stand the fucking subway.”

  “Maybe you should move in with your boyfriend, then you could afford one,” Jacques said with a knowing smirk. Lucy and Zane had been growing close for the last couple months, and he’d asked her to move in twice—into what was, in fact, her own house no less—but for some reason, she was hesitating.

  “If you think it’s such a great idea, why don’t you move in with him?” Lucy said childishly.

  “I would, but he hogs all the covers,” Jacques responded sarcastically, his smile becoming mischievous and teasing as he looked at her.

  Lucy huffed a little and started for the stairs to their station. Well, that was the end of that conversation. He shook his head and followed after her. Maybe one day he’d get her to talk about what was going on with her.

  The small cramped corridors opened out into a much larger room. The subway platform was alive with throngs of humans waiting to force themselves into the large metal tubes. It was a good thing he wasn’t claustrophobic; otherwise, he’d be screwed. With Lucy at his side, they pushed through to where they needed to be.

  “Oh, god, I can’t wait to get to bed,” Lucy said with a yawn.

  “You going home or to Zane’s?” he asked.

  “Probably home. It’s closer to the office, and I don’t want to be fighting Sawyer for the shower again,” Lucy said with a chuckle. “What’s your plan? Back to Venom’s or off training?”

  It had been nearly six weeks since he’d moved out of Venom’s place, but he hadn’t wanted to tell Lucy. There was no way he would escape without her asking questions. How did you tell your friend that you had to move out of your apartment because of an ungodly unrequited crush on your flatmate, who was now in a committed relationship with someone else? There was no way he’d ever live it down.

  “I’m gonna grab a drink then go home,” Jacques responded. He’d specifically used the term home and not Venom’s, so technically then he wasn’t lying. He felt the looming threat of how hurt she would be when she found out he had hidden this from her, but he forced it down. She wasn’t willing to talk about her shit with Zane, and he wasn’t willing to talk about his shit with Venom. That made them even in his eyes.

  There was a rumbling that echoed around the room as a subway car came thundering into the station and a screeching of brakes as it came to a halt. As soon as the doors opened, people started moving. They boarded the train along with the hundreds of other people and made basic conversation as the train thundered through the tunnels beneath the city.

  Chapter Two

  Ava came awake suddenly, her hand instantly gripping the gun that was stashed under her pillow. Her eyes darted around the darkened room until she picked up the edges of the beaten furniture that decorated the place she now called home. When she found nothing threatening in the room, she convinced her heart that it could slow down. Suddenly, there was a knocking on the door. That’s what had woken her. She slid from beneath the covers and made for the door. She opened it just a crack to see Hamish standing on the other side.

  “This is your wake-up call, love,” Hamish said in his friendly but gruff voice.

  The tenseness rolled off her shoulders in that moment. Even after weeks of this ritual, hearing the knock at her door was still enough to shake her. If she woke to the sound of someone else too close to her in her old place then a fight was about to take place. With a yawn, she dragged her hand down over her face.

  “Thanks, Hamish,” she said, expecting him to turn away and head back into the bar.

  “Y’know that gauntlet I brought you can act as an alarm, right?” Hamish said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I just need the extra boot up my ass,” she lied. Hamish nodded and made his way back down the corridor. He didn’t need to know that she had no idea how to work that technology of his.

  Where she had grown up, the most advanced tech were things like vehicles and guns, nothing compared to the levels of tech in Seattle. The Fringe was a decrepit and backwards place. Existing in a walled off section of Seattle, The Fringe had been left to fester and decay. Gangs had risen, and the people had been forced to make do, or they starved or died of infection. If you wanted anything good, you had to pray that you had something extraordinarily valuable to barter with Big Boss, the ruthless ganger that ruled the roost.

  When Jacques, Lucy, and Zane had entered her home in the trash heaps of The Fringe, she hadn’t thought much of them. They had wanted information, and for that, they had brought her with them to the bright lights of Seattle. It had been difficult trying to acclimatize to the world on this side of the wall. The fact that the city never slept had been the greatest shock; even at night, the neon lights illuminated the cityscape like a sunrise. She found she missed the quiet, pitch darkness that accompanied nighttime in The Fringe. Then there was the tech. It had taken her close to a month to get used to the payment system in the bar and paying for her own goods when she went shopping, let alone tackling the messaging and social media systems that everyone seemed to insist on using. She felt so lost, but she would never tell anyone that. Her hard front was what protected her from being exploited by others. That's what she had been taught, and keeping her struggles to herself had served her well so far.

  Using the small sink in her room, she strip washed before dressing in her attire for the day, a red, cold shoulder cut blouse with low V neckline and a pair of dark navy low-rise jeans that she had stitched some additional embellishments into the back pockets of. It was simpler than her old style of dress and only showed a little skin. She was past the days of selling her body, but in the bar, showing a little cleavage was enough to get the patrons tipping. Sex sold in The Fringe, and apparently Seattle was no different.

  Since she’d settled here, she had been forced to think about what she was going to do with her life. She had been raised to be a whore, but now she could do whatever she wanted, and in a way that scared her. Hamish had seen she was set up with what she needed: fake ID, bank account, and all the tech. He’d even bought her some simple clothing as she’d only had the clothes on her back, and they were only fit to be burnt. To pay him back, she wor
ked most nights behind the bar for reduced pay. It worked for her; she got a place to stay, was able to learn the new world she found herself in, and the job was easy, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life.

  In the Valkyries, her path had been clear. Do her time of service, show her potential as a leader, and rise the ranks to head up her own piece of the territory, maybe even the whole gang. No more taking orders from anyone. She would be her own woman. But after her expulsion from their ranks, those dreams had died, and her only focus had become survival. Now she needed a new dream. She still wanted to be her own boss, but she had no idea what she could sell this side of the wall other than sex.

  “Delivery day today,” Hamish said as she stepped into the bar.

  The best day of week. She grabbed a band and pulled her long blonde hair into a ponytail. Nothing like carrying a shit ton of heavy crates from the landing dock through to the store room while two guys flirted with her. She was quick to remind herself that it was better than having to fight them for their wares or be forced into bed with them. She was good at sex and enjoyed it when it was on her terms, but being told who to sleep with or what she had to do to them had grated on every fiber of her being. It’s how she had ended up bedding Big Boss. When he came looking for a new girl, she made him want to take her home. Sure, he was a little crazy, but he looked okay and gave her more freedom than a usual Valkyrie, and she had chosen him. He just didn't know it.

  “I’ll get on it,” Ava said with a nod to Hamish. The older man smiled back at her.

  “Be careful; don’t hurt yourself,” Hamish said. The people at the Oaken Casket were like a little family. Hamish genuinely seemed to care about the staff and the regulars like they were his children. It was something she hadn’t really seen before now, and the whole thing made her a little awkward.