Seraphim Corp.

♡

Once upon a time, Nora Campbell, fed up with cramped studio living and cup ramen, sought employment at Heaven. Offering livable wages, a benefits package to die for, and, if the ads could be believed, in desperate need of help, it was an escape she'd been seeking.

But as the shuttle ambled up the cobblestone road cutting a direct path through Seraphim's main campus, Nora's heart shriveled. Here she was, a nobody, encroaching on corporate elitism at its peak. In wrinkled trousers and a nauseating pink blouse no less. Enough ruffles hanging around her neck to choke a car-full of circus clowns.

She wasn't kidding anyone. Nora was an ugly stain on a masterpiece. Sin personified, disturbing the tranquility of the garden. An outsider who'd gotten close enough to press her nose into the glass and glimpse unbridled power. Her driver might as well pull over, call for the guards, and have her escorted off the property.

She didn't belong here, at the city's heart where everything sparkled with newness and light. She deserved the city's intestines, where everything was bloody and grim and people struggled to get anywhere. Where the air hung thick and rank, where buildings of steel, stone and concrete stood in defiance of the sun. Where everything was a smooth, unfeeling gray. Where Nora could step into the shadows and move around unseen.

Why, again, had she agreed to this interview?

Outside the shuttle's windows, magnolia blossoms twirled to the ground. Nora clenched the strap of her briefcase between her fingers; the breeze floating the scents of late summer - dew and sunshine - to her nose.

She knew full well the reason she was here. Sitting with her thighs stuck to the pimpled vinyl seat, breath funky, sweat encroaching on her lace front. Her father. Alester Campbell the third. Southern gentleman, Harvard alum, constant Nora critic. As of two weeks ago, he'd cashed in a few favors he'd had rotting away in his Armani two-piece to land her this interview.

And then guilted her into going. It's better than where you're at now. Do you really want to be on the lowest wrung of the corporate ladder? Do better, Nora. You're better than this.

Sighing, she visualized the summer air swirling around inside her body, filling up her lungs, flooding her muscles, giving life to her blood. She imagined a million tiny seeds buried in her bones only to see them transform into flowers and vines. And then the human version of herself disappeared until all that was left behind became a garden, freed of the pressure to be a father's idea of what she should be.

The sun shone freely overhead, casting a mean glint, as the shuttle moved beyond the treeline. An expanse of lawn stretched out before her, so green Nora's mother would have demanded it princess cut and shoved on her ring finger. Trimmed shrubs lined the sides of the road as it curved toward the base of an enormous skyscraper.

Seraphim Tower rose into the clouds, white exterior glittering like a thousand diamonds. News reporters and gossip rags nicknamed it the Gateway to Heaven. Seeing it up close, Nora understood why.

The shuttle crawled to a stop before a marble staircase that crested toward a pair of gilded archways. Above the doors in modern script, glowing white, a sign read, Seraphim. Making Heaven on Earth one step at a time.

Nora inhaled as her driver pulled back on the latch with scarred, fat fingers, releasing the shuttle doors. He gave her a quick glance through his overhead mirror, eyes the color of dirt after a downpour. "Your stop, hun."

Closing her window, Nora unstuck from her seat, thanked the driver and stepped off the shuttle. Hollow clicks announced her arrival as her heels made contact with the sidewalk. Cooes and chatters rained down from overhead - pigeons and sprites going at it again.

Nora's grip tightened around her briefcase. A plastic rainbow dangled off its strap. The charm was cheap and worse for wear, but it'd been the only gift her parents had given her that she truly liked.

She took the stairs one at a time, her stomach abuzz with anxiety bees, each one stinging her insides.

Oh, crap. Here we go, she thought just before Seraphim's golden gates swallowed her whole.

The lobby could have housed an Olympic-sized pool. Instead, it held all the essentials of a corporate lobby, albeit with an emphasis on luxury only a trillion-dollar corporation could afford. Rows of modern chairs upholstered in plush leather made a u-shape around a glass table so clear it might as well not even be there. Tropical plants grew in window planters and out of silver pots, with every care taken to maintain them. Their foliage was lush and waxen and green, and their fire-red blossoms were in full bloom.

An espresso machine was tucked away in a corner alongside trays of clean coffee mugs and a return bin for the dirty ones. It was empty, as someone had clearly been tasked with checking it hourly.

One of the walls was an entire TV screen, which cycled through various vignettes of Seraphim's successes. Up first was the Halo, the Brights first integrated light rail, built with humans and majjos in mind. One of three in the country, the commercial lauded. One of five worldwide, Nora added as an afterthought.

After that vignette faded to black, a new one took the screen by storm. This one for Happily Ever After, Seraphim's dating app that promised to connect humans with majjo companions. Alongside its top secret algorithm and the help of AI fairy god mothers to guide users, it claimed true love was only a swipe away.

Nora had signed up for HEA's early access the second it had gone live. Dating an angel or demon would do wonders for her online presence. It'd push her from influencer obscurity into immediate stardom. She'd have millions of subscribers to her Winter's Wonderland blog instead of thousands. Her Instagram would be a hive of activity never mind the book deals and talk show spots. The world would be her oyster to shuck. But she'd been one of millions to jump on the chance. And Nora still hadn't heard back.

Behind a sleek desk in keeping with the rest of the modern feel of the space, a woman draped in red tapped away at a keyboard. From this distance, Nora couldn't make out any computer screen, but she was sure there had to be one. Weird tech was part of the job when you worked for trillionaire genius angels. The screen might be holographic, or imbedded in the desk. Or available to that woman's eyes only to limit corporate sabotage.

Throwing back her shoulders so she didn't look like a hunchback oaf stumbling in from outside, Nora headed for the woman. She was unsteady in her heels, a foot-devouring pair of stilettos two inches higher than Nora had ever attempted to walk in.

She felt gawky, like thirteen-and-at-the-school-dance gawky. Stuffed into a Chanel dress that aged her forty years with its merlot colored taffeta skirt and high-neck. Stumbling around the dance floor, as cousin Lore stomped around the gymnasium like she owned the place. Everywhere Lore went, it felt like she belonged. Lore fit in, Lore adapted.

Nora floundered and pressed her eyelids shut, hoping she went unnoticed.

"May I help you?"

The receptionist's ID badge read Agnes Redding, her preferred pronouns listed as she/her. She stared up at Nora with bright blue eyes, half-hidden under a plum smoky eye.

Nora settled her briefcase on the desk. With her fingers grazing the rainbow charm, she exhaled. "No-Nora Campbell. I'm to see Mz. Breeze."

Agnes smiled, her matte red lipstick giving her the appearance of a bruised mouth. "Interview?"

Nora nodded as she undid one lock on her briefcase. The other had been broken for years now, but she hadn't bothered searching for a replacement. So what if part of it was broke? It didn't take away from its function. Broken things still had purpose.

She dipped her hands inside before pulling out a manila folder alongside a plastic ID card. The ID had been her Beacon City resident card, taken three years ago. She winced at her image - at the short fringe, the raccoon eyes and the nose piercing of her latter college days. She'd made a lot of mistakes then, as her parents liked to remind her, but they'd been her mistakes to make. Her life to live.

"Everything should be here," she said, sliding the papers toward Agnes. "Birth certificate. Background check permissions. Two forms of identification--"

Agnes stared at the papers, as they added an appearance of clutter to her otherwise empty desk. "No need for these," she stared into space, a soft focus housed in her eyes, "she/her are your pronouns of choice?"

"Yes."

"Very good then, Miss Campbell." She slid the papers back toward Nora. "I have all your information in our system."

As Nora shoved her papers back into her briefcase, she couldn't help but wonder what system Agnes referred to. She skimmed the woman's desk. No screen in sight.

Agnes tapped her temple. "Ocular implant, Miss Campbell. Saves space and is eco-conscious."

"Ah," Nora tapped a heel against the floor. "That sounds..." Invasive. Painful.

"It's a simple prick of the skin. No scarring, easily removable. Security parameters make it active only during an employee's shift. And if accessed outside of those hours, it sends an alarm to IT where one of our agents will temporarily deactivate the device until an investigation into the matter can get underway."

"You must get asked about it a lot."

Agnes's smile crept along her face. Coupled with her leathery skin, she resembled a toad, albeit one swaddled in Chanel's Spring/Summer collection for the majjo on the go. "Indeed. Your kind are quite curious."

"It's not everyday we see someone typing without a computer screen present."

At this, she snorted. "It wasn't every day you saw angels flying into LAX, but now they have their own terminals. The future's constantly shifting away from a human's limited scope of what can be. And this," she tapped her temple, "is more of that future."

"Seraphim seems to be in the business of redefining the future."

Agnes returned to her keyboard, striking at the keys with lightning speed. "Someone has to save humanity from itself."

Ah. Less than five before the prejudice came stumbling into the convo (a record for sure). Majjos blaming humans for the state of the world. Sure, they might have mucked things up, but at least they lived in the world. The majjos hid away, ignoring everything, until boredom coaxed them from fairyland.

And now they were the self-proclaimed heros humanity never wanted or asked for, fixing what humanity broke. Could have offered to help earlier, before everything broke, but what did Nora know, being a lowly human and all.

"11:30?"

Nora sighed as she rested her head in her hand. "Yes."

"With Mz. Breeze--" Nora opened her mouth, a response dangling on her tongue, when Agnes continued, "--and Mr. Archer." A perfectly trimmed eyebrow rose up on Agnes's face like a cobra poised to strike. "Odd, for an interview?" The high-pitched inflection signaled a question had been asked, not a statement.

But Nora didn't have any answers. She was as dumbfounded as the next person. Michael Archer, Seraphim's CEO, and one of the first angels to fall from Heaven, had no reason to meet her. Or observe an interview for an entry-level position in Relocations. "There's got to be a mistake."

Agnes narrowed her eyes, her finger stabbing at the space bar over and over. "I've told you, we don't make mistakes here."

Panic wove itself through Nora's body. She shook her head. "This is wrong. Wrong. There's no reason--"

"There must be."

Nora coughed into her hand, eyes darting around hoping to pull an answer out of thin air. "Then what is it? What could it possibly be?"

Behind her, a wall clock jumped to half-past eleven. As if on cue, the wall behind Agnes split apart, revealing a winding corridor of blinding white. Walk into the light.

"Walk into the light, Miss Campbell."

Nora whirled. "What? What'd you say?"

"Walk into the light. Mz. Breeze will guide you to one of our interview rooms."

It was then Nora noticed the person in the hallway, standing there in a tailored suit, charcoal grey, arms crossed over their chest. Cropped white-blond hair fell to their chin, kept out of the way with grease. A pair of deep-set gold eyes barely registered Nora's existence. Whoever they were, they exuded less life than a statue.

But this wasn't a person. This was a by-the-books, from-the-movies Cherubim. Low tier angel folk, depicted in lore and across wall frescoes with tiny wings, pot-bellies and saggy diapers, though nothing sagged, that was for sure, about the one waiting for Nora.

"This way, Miss Campbell." The deepness of the voice, the richness like it'd been gold-plated surprised Nora. "Best not to keep Mr. Archer waiting. He's very keen on punctuality."

Nora glanced at Agnes, her grip tightening around her briefcase. "Better do as they say," she whispered. "Seraphim don't enjoy spending their eternities waiting."

Eternities. As in multiple lifetimes. As in undying, unless deciding otherwise - so like a zombie but with a pro-choice stance.

Hefting her briefcase off Agnes's desk, Nora sucked a breath through her teeth. She rushed forward, not wanting to keep an angel waiting, while pondering what it must be like to have an eternity to waste. How confining it must be. How meaningless.

"This way." Mz. Breeze turned toward a row of elevators.

Nora followed behind, eclipsed by Mz. Breeze's shadow. She noted the vertical slits in the suit jacket, from where their wings could extend fully. Slowly blowing out, Nora smoothed the ruffled collar of her blouse. Just what was she getting herself into?

#help

Word Count: 2747