Would she die, lonely and listless with no one to remember, giving breath to her immortality? Someone should remember our existence.
Away from Carne I’d be able to focus, I promised myself. He always clouded my ambition and forced me to second guess. I had forestalled my own assignment for tonight. I should never have agreed to come. I should have packed my gear and ran the second I knew Carne had left my apartment.
Not all was lost though, I agreed with myself. Oh just talk to your damn self Delilah, you’re alone in your head right now!
Ardman was slain by a man who had been trafficked. Kuroyuri had some correlation to Ardman. He had direct links to auctions similar to tonight’s. Our host hadn’t struck me as a host, perhaps head security... but not a people person. Ardman however, made a home in an affluent estate. His study branded with understated class and hints of timber and finery. His base profile I could assume was smooth and personable. Someone who might persuade donations for charities as easily as he up-sold GMT.
Ardman’s employer was our Sector Governor. R. G Milligan and he might set that connection aglow for me. Precedence went to picking up supplies first though.
I couldn’t go back to my apartment right now, maybe not ever. I’d have to evade Carne but I was prepared. I had stashed a triumvirate of caches with the basics, but I would need someone to retrieve the synced device I had hidden at the apartment.
Jobe, being Spartan’s pet, would probably be told not to interfere (I hoped), only to transmit my contact. It would mean Spartan had a bead on me, something I may have to acknowledge but contain.
I had to hazard it.
How long could I outrun a maniac bent on my capture? I probably shouldn’t ask my sister that the first time I met her. I smirked with black humour even as I pushed the vehicle to new heights for its fuel injectors and worried for my twin as much as I did myself.
Chapter Nine
Carne
“Why?” I raged, launching furniture from my path even as the auction finalised. Storming forward, my every muscle burned with the speed and strength I enlisted and readied. The blow swung on a downwards arc hitting him like a sledgehammer.
He hacked and spit but grinned madly.
Not fast enough to catch her, Boy.
What have you done? I pummelled his rock head again. Flesh split and his head was thrown side to side. Incensed beyond mere anger, I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop raping, pillaging his thoughts to reap my own answer from his insidious mind.
The man crumbled before me, dying.
Ven wrapped his solid frame around mine, yanking, but I was rooted to the spot. Delilah was not the only Variant who struggled to maintain control. My fears of a borderline personality disorder might be founded.
Spartan had arranged the entry of the second Private Military Company. Joss? Was that the name he was trying to delete from him memories? I shook my father from my back easily.
“She deserves better than a man who’ll only enslave her,” Spartan struggled out as his face marbled and veins bulged so thick through the dark ink around and up the man’s throat. His thoughts grew quite dim so I released my stranglehold on his soul, stomped on an upturned chair and tore off a sharpened metal leg.
I belted it across his chest with a swing so deep I bent to a lower lunge, my gaze at the doors behind him as the crunch sounded.
Spartan listed forward. I stepped back up, twisted the leg and stabbed it downwards into his gut.
“You’ll kill him Carne!” Ven roared. This alone would not kill this brute. The man on his knees, with choppy last breaths, knew he’d die as I silenced his electrical current that all life required - not from bleeding out.
“It would be like flicking a switch,” I whispered down to him.
“So do it.”
“Not yet, not easily.” I plundered his recent inner dialogues. Spartan had put Delilah in the path of Joss.. no Jobe.
You betrayed her?
She’d be smarter than to trust anyone I left in her company.
He’d systematically, over decades, indoctrinated Delilah not to trust him, not to trust me. What possible reason could you have had?
She’ll need to crawl from her knees soon.
“Argh! Riddles old man!” All I could see as he shied into darkness was a dank puddle Delilah used as a rippled cloudy reflection to shear tufts of matted hair from her cut and battered head.
I stumbled backwards. Scrunched my face in disbelief. He was Pre-Cog. A tear licked my cheek. I swiped it and looked down at the wetness dumbly.
Ven tackled me sideways, clawing my mind from Spartan’s.
I hoped to have killed Spartan already.
Keota barrelled on top of Ven, Cory next. Ella joined the fray. She had no weight but used a stronger telekinesis than I could withstand with so many now beating at my defences.
With a descending calm Delilah would envy I gave the room an anticlimactic, “You may release me now, or I will use force.”
Ven looked at me like he no longer knew the son he raised. If anyone should recognise me, he should. Hadn’t he seen the beginnings of the monster I’d discovered inside the day Delilah had come into our lives?
Disturbed, Ven shifted. His wide shoulder shuffling, alerting Keota to move off. Slowly, they all took steps away from me as I came to stand with my back facing them.
I turned gradually when I was confident I projected only blankness. Cory took another step back, I flicked my eyes to him from under heavy lids.
“PsiHawkI, ready our gear. We leave now.”
“No Son,” Ven rested a palm on my shoulder in a familiar gesture. I looked at it disdainfully. “PsiHawkI is under my complete command. We run as a subsidiary to Onyxeal.”
Recognition flared. “You anticipated this.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I would no longer hide my agenda, one I’d been setting in place for years. They could call me a traitor, but I had never omitted any dishonesty in my character, simply let them ignore what their instincts should have demanded they see.
My team appeared confused as they shared worried glances. “PsiHawkI is mine. You are all contracted heavily and I now have a tight schedule for tonight’s mission. We will collect this child, since my team is already in place.”(And Delilah would demand the child’s safety.)
I flicked my wrist and gauged the time. “We have less than forty-five minutes to rendezvous with the team before transport dispatches. Move. Out.” I gritted at the end.
They fell in behind me. Ella, first.
I’d remember that.
The three at my back had lived at my side for the past eight months straight, running the military coup in the independent Russian state of Свобода, named for the very liberty we fought.
We had liquidated all enemies in our path and I had not pulled my punches. If they neglected the way foes fell around me as I charged into a fray, if they saw a man fall as if his life string was suddenly severed by fate, and did not question, they had no reason to question now. I disliked their wariness but I was the same man who bred them through violence; I had never been soft on them; amicable, yes. Soft, never.
I waded through the mess, took an interlude to gather the remaining intelligence and forward it to my devices. I met the door but no dead man.
I searched the shadows. Not Dead? I asked.
Not today, he gruffed and I almost believed he was saddened by that fact.
You won’t save her. He coughed a chunk of blood. When you are at your lowest, know that I have done my best for your Mate. She will prevail. Eventually. Or she will die, and even that will be a gift.
The ill omen rattled about me, a harbinger, cawing out his beastly mouth. Fucking Pre-Cog. I’d stab him again for a laugh. My shit-kickers left imprints in his blood saturating the royal blue carpet as I stalked towards Delilah’s flux future with murder on my mind.
Delilah
I weaved through Burrows, hastily altering the data programmed back to the Sector from the vehic
le even as I scoured my surroundings and dug my VII from my arm with a laser and then a knife. A bloodied hand print made the steering slippery.
I stabbed the chip violently into the passenger seat, short circuiting it, after flicking it out with a chilling aversion. I was a slight step ahead. For now.
I expected to be ambushed quickly. Creating a boundary of time increased my chances; the longer I evaded, the easier it would become.
Onyxeal would rally and they would do it in record time, so I was definitely beggared for that time. I flicked through the vehicle’s 360 degree monitoring system as well as bird’s eye view. Twice.
Unanchored, I was a liability to them. I knew it, but the alternative was unconscionable. Would Ava think she could stave off indenture? I was not safe at Onyxeal. If I thought that were still the case, I’d be headed there now but it just wasn’t true anymore. That safety was a severed limb, I swore I could I still feel, but logically I knew it wasn’t there.
Onyxeal wasn’t safe but the hover car itself was a mini fortress. So safety was relative at the moment. It was, however, linked to Onyxeal and traceable once I dumped it. So I wound about in stealth mode, confusing my path through the Burrow check points - ones I entered and those I hacked.
Troy and Ava would be in the control room with the centre screen lit up like a meteor shower burning up in our atmosphere, entries pinging at similar times for chaotic locations.
My phone had been vibrating at a constant rate on my forearm until I dug out the chip. I dared not answer them, even to explain. Or to say goodbye, on the very good chance they’d override audio to visual and catch clues to my location.
The further out I travelled the looser the noose looped down around me, away from my neck, letting me breathe without thinking of slavery. I could make better choices and plan, outside my own immediate trauma.
The hover vehicle also helped to evade Carne’s telepathic connection, which meant I had to be primed to block him when I dumped the vehicle. It was too noticeable, too easy to spot when entire units would be tracking me.
As I entered Burrow 3, I was glad of the independent handler Spartan had foisted on me. Certainly not independent from Spartan but of Onyxeal, and after my Grandfather’s odd behaviour in my favour, it put me in a better position to disappear and prioritise.
I needed independence. I was flawed I could admit that, but I was sure I could maintain them. Grow and abridge those defects or at the very least suppress them. I was a master at suppressing things.
But, I also wanted to save the captive Variants and Kuroyuri.
My peculiarities, at times, supplemented my physical abilities and I was wary of utilising my own arsenal while I felt so fractured and deprived, but those very peculiarities could mean my success on a mission sometimes.
My deprivation made me ambitious to find Frankie’s dank hole as well and I hoped to stars above that young man was not in pieces, grafted to that vile, twisted monster in some macabre craft.
The tasks felt insurmountable without adding the biological imperatives driving me, conning me, consuming my reserves like a mind controlling fungus that bewildered me into believing I was acting for my continued survival.
I had to remind myself not to turn. Not to release all I contained and give it to someone expert in retaining it.
I had to escape Carne. All hinged on that fact.
Chapter Ten
I pulled over randomly at the back of a group of stalls flowing into shanties, tents and power outlets. I minded my surroundings, scanned each person I came into contact with, and there were many. I weaved about them all. It was crowded enough to hide my kleptomaniac spree. A hat here. Non spec wearable tech visor there, and a gaudy pink jogging hoodie off a rack trying to entice customers into the stall. I had to change my features and posture enough that even on the Burrow cameras I’d not be picked through an algorithm.
I altered my stride, laid weight to my right side as I exited with my new fluffy pink accessory. I used the visor to locate Jobe through his VII chip and found him inside a Sector medical facility over in Burrow 4.
I could make it on foot using back roads and residential streets. It’d be darkening soon and every minute out was encouraging. I’d stop at Cache 34 on my way, for disposable VII chips, credit, basic supplies and weapons.
Relief was a physical joy when I reached my cache and resupplied. No one had been about when I entered the stormwater drains and easily backtracked to my pack in the dark tunnel, sealed to the ceiling of a large pit.
I left the pit a new person.
I shed the skin of vulnerable Delilah, who bemoaned the unsatisfied addiction to Carne, and instead, severed the emotions that centred a person in their own world. A network that rounded an evolutionary defence - gone. Emotions connect us, but mine couldn’t be trusted.
I would make do without them. An all or nothing thing. I could be on the verge of being hunted for decades. It was a daunting prospect and I had to be willing to rid myself of anything that would stifle my success.
Why couldn’t he simply trust me? It would… No. I wouldn’t ask that question. The consequence would be dire. I could never expect to reason with him. Especially now, after I’d ran. Carne would be… not himself.
The medical facility I found was a free clinic, with a sad paper mache bear out front, under a shelter, that distressingly, was missing a part of its face from the weather. It’s rounded belly and cuddly arms, no longer appealing even if it was in a magical painted woodland.
The facility had many tinted windows I could see through and it wasn’t difficult to find Jobe.
I watched for long moments as he pretended to kick a young boy up the bum as mock stealthily as he could. He told the boy something that looked like it could have been the best news the boy had ever heard.
The pale child had bruises under his eyes and a semi-permanent port in his chest, seen because his shirt had been taped down to show it. He punched Jobe in the arm, had to reach to do it even though Jobe wasn’t a large man. Both laughed as they continued their play fight in exuberant excitement.
The room was set up with rows of comfortable chairs and a med station at each. A few young children and teens sat, fragile and wan as they received treatment.
Most cancers were treatable, even curable through proven methods including blood and skin and bone, but some were still stubbornly medieval to control; brain and stomach usually. Free clinics were prevalent but the governments had little to fund them.
I called Jobe instead of entering the building. I was now confident he was truly as independent from Onyxeal as possible. But he’d need something in exchange for what I’d ask.
“Jobe. You okay to talk?”
“Nice to see you again General,” he grinned childishly. His joy thankfully not so close as to leap into me.
“Will you stop calling me that.”
“Mmm… nope,” his disagreed happily.
“Moving on. I need tech retrieval and crash and burn at my apartment.”
He waved me to a pause as if I was being silly for the nickname, or the familiarity. “A retrieval and CB I got it. 4pm okay?”
“You’re joking?”
“Kinda.”
“He does that all the time!” The boy guffawed at me as if I was joking and didn’t know the man before me at all, as he popped his head over Jobe’s shoulder. He swung from his neck like a spindly pendulum.
“Does he now? You’ll have to help me torture him to get the answer out of him. Pay you in lollies, promise,” I winked.
“Deal!”
Jobe untangled himself, chuckling at the kid affectionately.
“Torture. Sounds fun,” he smirked at me. “So, this little request is off job. Has the contract been corrupted?”
“No. Still on it. Data I’ve collected is at the apartment but my presence there has been monitored.”
“So… Dangerous.”
“Not for you.”
“But for you?”
&nbs
p; “Kinda,” I shrugged, throwing his words back at him.
“Payment?”
“Actually, I have something you may want. Meet me out back in fifteen.”
“You’re here?”
“Close. See you in fifteen.”
I closed the connection and entered the building through a bio-print activated side door. In less than fifteen minutes I’d drawn a few vials of blood from a vacant med station in a small office. Variant blood was potent and filled with repairing and duplicating nano-bytes. The kids here needed all the help they could get. And what the heck, I was already rogue. It was against code but I was willing to forfeit it, this once.
Perhaps it’d be possible one day to donate. Today was not that day. When would donation stop and farming begin if humans worked out we could cure, contain disease or heal trauma?
Jobe wandered out the back as if trying to be stealthy. Slow measured steps, glancing about like a paranoid doomsday hoarder. It was very sweet.
I tapped him on the back.
He spun wildly and I took a little step back, comfortably moving myself from his surprise.
“Oh, sorry,” he said embarrassedly. “Didn’t see you there.”
“What’s wrong?” I could feel the panic and fear scrawing up my veins.
“You’ve been listed as Rouge and another unit has been listed as AWOL.”
“Spartan sent you that?”
If Spartan sent that information out to his contacts and not specifically to Jobe, even though he knew exactly who he could contact for my whereabouts, he was simply sending me a message: get moving. They’re nipping at your heels, Girl.
“Sent it as general alert. Not just to me.”
“Termination?”
He thought about it for a second and the suspense stole my breath. Would the people who raised me order my death?
I expected termination.
I knew they loved me. Called me family. That wouldn’t matter. Code was code and it had kept Variants safe for decades.
“No. Locate and Capture for the Rogue. The AWOL’s - I’m not sure what happened. So what did happen?”
Variant Evasion: Trilogy (Variant Trilogy Book 2) Page 6