Artificial Absolutes (Jane Colt Book 1) Read Online Free

know exactly what had happened seven years ago to rob her of her mother.
    As for Devin, he always looked like a façade behind which the brother she’d known as a child disappeared. She’d never noticed how closely her brother resembled their father until after he’d donned it, for she sensed an agitated pensiveness about him she couldn’t imagine ever crossing Victor Colt’s perpetually confident visage. Devin seemed to be doing his best to become their father’s dark-eyed clone. Although he had everyone else fooled, Jane still perceived the remnants of that uncertainty behind the corporate illusion.
    Come to think of it, the resemblance paradox was true of Jane and her mother as well—same large, dark brown eyes. But whereas Elizabeth Lin-Colt’s gaze had been famously piercing, Jane’s made her look as if she was either dreaming or up to something. Which was often true.
    Jane finally found her shoes and slipped them on. She jumped up to grab her bag from the top shelf. It tumbled to the ground, spilling its contents. Among the office access cards and forgotten lipsticks lay a circular pendant engraved with the symbol of the Via faith: two stars, one transparent in the middle with solid rays and the other its inverse.
    Jane picked it up. The golden suns seemed to smile at her. She smiled back. Ironic, that an outspoken atheist such as herself owned one of those things. She wondered what caprice had made her accept it from her friend— or is he my boyfriend now? —Adam in the first place.
    “Keep it,” he’d said after she’d asked for a closer look at the symbol he always wore. “I want you to have it.”
    Jane had countered with every protest from “I can’t. It’s yours!” to “But I’m not Via,” culminating with, “This is part of your proselytizing scheme, isn’t it?”
    “I promise I’m not trying to convert you.” Since he’d seemed incapable of being anything but sincere, she knew he meant it. “It’s just that you seem to like it, and I thought it could bring you comfort the next time you’re feeling down.”
    Well, Adam, it’s working. You’re s uch a goody-goody. Why do I associate with you?

    She’d met Adam at the Via temple in the Silk Sector about two months ago after wandering into the stone rotunda in search of a choir to join. Ordinarily, she would never have been caught entering a religious establishment, but she was running out of options after several secular musical groups had turned her down.
    Jane accidentally arrived an hour before the open rehearsal and awkwardly waited by the pews. She heard a friendly voice.
    “Hi there. Are you lost?”
    A young man walked toward her. The white light of the sun streamed in from the large window at the back and almost silhouetted him, forming something of a halo. He was a bit taller than Jane, but not that tall by guy standards.
    Jane noticed his Via pendant and hoped it was a passing greeting. She was terrible with people she disagreed with. “I’m waiting for the choir rehearsal.”
    “They’ll be here in about an hour. You’re not Via, are you?”
    “No, but the choir’s secular, right?”
    “It is. I’m Adam, by the way. I’m a first-year at the seminary.”
    Adam stopped in front of her. Jane was finally able to make out the details of his appearance. The halo effect was gone, yet there was still something angelic about his boyish face, light brown hair, and gentle eyes, which were a bright shade of green, reminiscent of peridot.
    Pretty boy. Maybe even prettier than me… Nah, I’m still prettier.
    Jane accepted the hand he extended. “I’m Jane. So…” She let go of his hand and flipped through her mind for topics of conversation, but she had nothing to say to the religious do-gooder. Nothing that won’t offend him. She leaned against a pew and examined the swirls carved into its back.
    Fortunately, he continued, “I was just setting up for an event the temple’s hosting this evening. It’s a memorial