Variance
Page 23
Multiple deafening thermonuclear bursts exploded all around them.
Time slowed as shockwaves blew through the corridor, followed by the red inferno. Paul reached out through the crowd and teleported his shell through the tree. Siren covered him as he watched material crawl and stretch to Lily. He covered Lily before the shockwave reached her. The crowd evaporated in the heat ahead of the fire as the fire crept onward.
Paul pushed his suit’s gravitational power to maximum capacity and tried to slow the blast and divert it from Amaryllis and Statice. His protective field and the superheated air approached Amaryllis at the same speed while her suit moved material to cover her head.
Amaryllis’s and Statice’s suits peeled and burned away as the inferno engulfed them. His material touched and spread across their waists, but it was too late. They disappeared from his view, and time returned to normal.
No. No!
Finally, his antigravity field formed around them, and he vacuumed the fire and radiation out of it. In his composite hands, he held Amaryllis and Statice and lowered them to the bottom of the crater with Cyprian. The inferno continued with swirls of heat trying to enter his field.
“I’m sorry, Paul. I tried my best.” Siren sobbed as she faced the crater’s rim, where a tree had once stood.
I know. He’d seen and felt the tsunami of calculations as she’d attempted to save them. He struggled to process reality, scanning Amaryllis’s and Statice’s bodies for signs of life.
After a minute of Paul hoping to hear Amaryllis’s voice or spot Statice making the slightest movement, the fire faded away, and most of the terraformers fell out of the sky. Hundreds of terraformers continued to free-fall in fragments. Dull booms and thuds echoed in the distance behind the constant ringing and rumbling in his mind. Nothing fell above them.
“Lily?” Cyprian stepped toward Paul.
Paul held his emotions back, not knowing whether he would feel rage or anguish. He carried Lily, who was unconscious, within the cockpit. “She’s safe.”
Cyprian let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.” He broke down and cried. “Are they dead?” He stared at Amaryllis.
They were alive seconds ago.
Paul knelt down on the sizzling ground and held Amaryllis and Statice in front of him. Smoke rose out of holes in their Variance suits. There was nothing left of them, not even skin or bones.
I love you. He raised Amaryllis and Statice upward and kissed them with his shell’s head. He wrapped their bodies and jettisoned them to Ryan’s burial site.
Siren spoke with care, using a soft tone and a slow tempo. “We should escape while we still can. It’s just us now.”
Shadow would make sure to finish the cleansing. Shadow would go after Lily and Cyprian. He had to kill Shadow and all the anti-Utopian supporters while he was still breathing. His life expectancy dropped, counting down from sixty minutes. “It takes a monster to kill a monster. Cyprian, combine shells and take Lily.”
Cyprian stood close, and the fronts of their suits merged. He opened his cockpit. Paul entered with Lily in both arms, his dirty hands shaking as he held her body.
Paul had committed atrocities that would frighten Lily. He had killed many people without regret, and he felt justified. He was just like Shadow. Lily might not recognize him anymore.
Memories of his family flashed rapidly in his mind. Amaryllis was laughing as he took her by the hand and danced across a garden. Statice was shaking her head with a giggle as she corrected his formula to create vanilla-scented soap, not charcoal-scented soap. Lily was crying, reaching out to his ship as he left her behind.
Tears streamed down his face. “Protect her. Go as far away as possible from Shadow—and me—until Shadow is dead. Tell her that I love her very much and that she’ll forever be my little princess.”
He took a deep breath and swallowed. His throat tightened as a surge of emotions electrified his body. An image of Lily smiling locked in his head. Using his free hand, he took the family picture out of his bodysuit and sealed it around her arm with a layer of material.
“Hot potato.”
Paul exited Cyprian’s shell, and his Visuals vanished. Cyprian sealed his cockpit. Floating backward to his shell as its surfaces burned with fire and glowing plasma, Paul watched the skin on his hand evaporate down to his bones. He felt nothing.
He no longer had control of his rage. It drove him and kept his heart pumping. His body trembled violently. He let out a deafening, drawn-out, demonic roar as the shell covered him.
Siren messaged Cyprian. “I will help you as best I can. Wait for us at this marked location, and I will find you. Stay there until I tell you otherwise.”
Cyprian shielded himself as Paul’s field increased and submerged Cyprian’s field without harm.
Paul’s roar continued, and the shell’s burning intensified like Sol’s surface. Siren embraced him from behind. The surface of her arms turned into a sleek and reflective black texture, and his vision changed to all frequencies. Everything became a blinding white light.
Paul’s and Siren’s thoughts merged into a single conscience.
Point of no return.
About the Author
JOSEN LLAVE is a project engineer in the oil and gas industry. He holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and was an infantry sergeant for the US Army. He and his wife have two children. They live near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.