I was about to tell her that she’d hit the door, rolling at it like that but stars, she was quick. A moment before she hit I saw the red light blink. But the green would take another second delay to open. Anxious, I hoped the door would miraculously open before the green flickered on so the old bat wouldn’t earn herself a broken leg.
And it did.
Then the green blinked on.
My gut sank to the tacky resin floor and my step faltered. I couldn’t be so prone to misfortune.
I didn’t want to speak the truth of the word but I knew it to be.
Telekinesis…
Misery.
I’m sure some people would say, wow! Now I have super powers. My belligerent head warned me of this earlier when it banged and banged at me to close up shop. My cracked teacup already leaked with empathy and telepathy to the outside world in a drip feed. I didn’t need more challenges in that department. It was like a man suddenly aroused in public: embarrassing, inappropriate and absolutely unwanted.
I felt breakable, suddenly thrown into one of those augmented reality.
It was expected that with time, stress and /or control a TPK might utilize some parts of their brain’s latent talents that were heretofore only in preliminary stage of stimulation; that I’d be telekinetic as well as telepathic and my kind of empathetic.
But my empathy was not normal even for a TPK. I was an anomaly even among my own kind. Only, according to Ava, Ven and Troy who’d debated the continued evolution of our sub- species many times, they suspected telekinesis a possibility though statistically low.
My first foray into living a normal life and I contract telekinesis.
How would I ever conceal this?
This could ruin everything. It could be the chain that dragged me back to the home I’d scratched to escape. The tipping point of all my arguments hinged on the fact that I was psychologically equipped to manage the perpetual empathic storms I harboured daily. I had years of experience blocking, enduring, and managing but that logic would not account for an untried condition, one that had potential to unearth Variants in an explosive way if I lost control publicly.
If Ven or Spartan even suspected me of an uncontrolled outburst… Others had been isolated. Reviewed.
I rolled my eyes at the old biddy’s “See, I did it!” and sidled past her. No one was around but I still hid my face behind a curtain of hair. I stole out quickly, despite trying to convince myself I was safe - that nobody noticed.
I hailed a cab kerb-side and told the driver “Food, Burrow 2.” I was too busy within myself to notice whether he’d taken me for a ride when he deposited me at a café. I just swiped my wrist to pay the fare but made a mental note to check my account for how much he taxed me. Most had pay-chips implanted, and though I personally believed the risk outweighed the benefit of the implant becoming corrupted, it had been a viable bribe with Ava. Albeit a fortress compared to market value chips, it choked hard on my marionette strings.
My phone vibrated along that same forearm and I checked for a puppeteer but found a private caller. Jobe, assumedly with intel on the murder victim. A mask of calm slid over the panic, clearing the locked stress and vulnerability from my jaw and between my brow.
I flicked my wrist to answer the connection but found Lolly’s bright face, a little rosie cheeked, greeting me.
“OMG,” she exclaimed. “I just saw this sawwccy little brunette saunter by.”
“Uh-huh.” I spun my head around slowly - stars, did I need to do it slowly - scanning the graffiti covered sidewalk and alfresco dining tables. She wasn’t difficult to spot. I tapped ‘End Connection’ and advanced on Lolly at said table waving like a queen.
“I see you’re doing the soldier look to death,” Lolly grinned, mock saluting.
“I see you’re perfecting the playful mermaid look. Probably luring unsuspecting men to blindness,” I commented dryly, motioning towards another highlighted mish mash of material wrapping her asymmetrical body.
She winked, which I took as agreement.
“Sit, sit,” she patted the chair beside her. I did, then grabbed up a menu. This wasn’t like the Asian grocer’s. They had table service here and frilly tablecloths. Ooh-la-la. I ordered with the efficient waitress.
“And you Miss?” the waitress asked Lolly. I had figured she’d already ordered.
“Just got here,” Lolly explained, her eyes downcast on her menu. She ordered a raw vegetable salad, which I could actually appreciate if I didn’t assume that’d be all she’d partake for half a day. The waitress gave us a wait time of ten minutes before leaving me alone with Lolly.
I waited for her to speak. I knew it wouldn’t take long. Am I cynical? I should try harder. I smiled.
She just looked scared.
“What you up to today?” Lolly peppered but began her own journal for today before I could make up a lie. People jabbered when they were hiding something. And Lolly was.
During the tale of how hard it was to find clothes that fit her ‘gorgeous girls’ as well as her hard-to-up-keep thighs, she never once mentioned hiding in her apartment this morning waiting for thugs-in-suits to leave her door. That just seemed odd. Lolly had no trouble blabbering on about intimate details about her person but dismissed noting something like that.
I noted it for her.
I exaggerated my exploration of the city and sourcing a new bed. At least it was part truth.
“You should be careful in some of those Burrows, Delilah.” Worry knotted her brow momentarily. “Oh but have you seen the mezzanine restaurant at the Plaza Hotel? We’ll have to make a date of it! So where is the next bed adventure?”
I relayed the advice I’d been given about Idyllic Creations. “They might deliver,” I shrugged.
Without taking a closer inspection of Lolly’s inner clock I could see contradictions in her personality but decided I’d leave her be. If I allowed another crack to form today my light shell might splinter. Recovering from that sort of injury was lengthy and involved, and I was working too hard to tolerate that. It was none of my business if she held a façade in front of others anyway, I consoled. Maybe she liked being perceived as a natty blonde, who’s to say? Whatever her reasons, I knew that buried under ‘fickle, flirty Lolly’ there was someone entirely different. She was a talented actress; a puzzle. But I had my own veiled story and I was not one to throw rocks at glass houses.
“I’ll come with,” she invited herself on my shopping expedition. “Idyllic Creations is nice but I know of a few others that have the most gorgeous little nick-knacks. We’ll accessorize!” she told me gleefully. “Remember, I’ve seen your apartment. Talk about sparse! What look are you going for?”
“Look?” I asked.
“Yeah. What style do you like?”
“Don’t know?”
“Sounds like you need my help more than I realised,” she tsked.
Our food finally came which saved me from having to join in further on subject matter like material textures, aspects of light and colour schemes.
I finished my main meal, which filled my belly as much as a few grubs. I’d learn from this experience and stick to lower end restaurants where they actually served full meals, not tiny artworks. Suddenly Lolly’s unfinished raw vegetable salad looked very available.
“You want?” she caught me drooling. Not literally of course. I wasn’t totally uncouth.
I pulled her bowl over and began tucking in.
“Eating for two?” Lolly laughed. I looked up over my bowl. And realised I’d just committed a social faux pa.
“It’s fine,” she assured me. “Wish I could eat like that. Straight to the thighs, though,” she patted her toned thigh, giving me an inkling into societal constraints.
It was late afternoon before we’d irrevocably decided that living where we did had its definite disadvantages. Somehow Lolly had managed to barter a decent price for delivery on a new couch. No such luck on a bed, which proved more elusive than trees. I couldn’
t sleep on the mattresses that moulded to your body. They were too soft. I needed a hard mattress that supported my weight. I was small yes, but there was a lot of weight packed into my petite frame.
I’d managed to hold Lolly back from redecorating my entire apartment but reluctantly agreed to her having free reign to decorate the living room. Another time. Maybe next month, when I had the cash, I declared. Maybe never. A girl could only hope. Lolly couldn’t know that money had never been the problem it could be for others, though most days I’d definitely swap my own for just that.
There was a real kindness and upfront generosity in Lolly that I envied. She had quickly promised she knew of bar work if I needed any credits. I thanked her but told her no, I would make do for now as I found my feet.
That sort of occupation certainly would not include that laser focus and stab of lust as my shot made its mark, or cause raw and burnt hands rappelling down a dirty skyscraper, but... I didn’t think I had it in me to be so naked to the world. As a sniper for Carne’s team, I was necessary but held apart. For Spartan I was a ghost. To Lolly I was just a friend. That I existed to her was a huge accomplishment for me and I silently thanked her for guiding me gently into a world I had been terrified to enter alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Carne
The swell had engulfed me as well as Delilah - I’d seen through her eyes, felt through her bones. The knitted beanie of that old woman vibrant in colour and the focus of her telekinesis. The old Lady’s grumpy mood latched on like a tick and Delilah willed the woman away from her, growing edgier the more the foreign personality melded with her own.
Delilah’s fear was acidic and I knew it was a fear of me and not any recognition of Telekinesis.
She’d conceal her weakness just to stay hidden from me. Risk herself to keep me away. She’d left of her own accord and believed me capable of betraying her. As if I could put any one person on this planet before her? It validated my decision. The cold and dark kept me from the rage. And I it kept her safe from me for a little longer. Time allowed her failure and would force her to recognise her need.
I rested in the cold and dark, but she’d incensed me past merely rage, the sentiment was so much more active than that. Bitterness corroded, lust, love and hate tugged at one another but a selfish possession won over all. It never left me, but I would ensure she never bore the entire weight of it. My purpose was to protect and own but never to ruin - even if I used all for persuasion.
I questioned if I felt guilt. I picked at the self analysis. No, no guilt. The end justified the means.
Not long after Delilah had been recovered from the orphanage Ven had left for St Petersburg as scheduled and we all gathered at the front entryway of the manor to say goodbye. Delilah stood beside me without understanding the sentiment of the sorrow around her. Her big charcoal eyes looked up at me, questioning.
I took her still skeletal hand, so small in mine and let her see the sick sorrow I felt myself that my father would be gone so long. Delilah’s pretty lashes folded, brushing her hollow cheeks as she closed down to block some of me.
She’d been numb in the orphanage, a survival trait to blend her with the environment. The effect of my physical presence lent the survival programming to relent. But how to explain an emotion or sentiment to a child who felt it as if her own? How to separate her ‘self’ from others while I merged my own with hers.
My mother had been so dishevelled that day, though most wouldn’t pick up on it, I’d had to ignore Delilah’s shaking response.
My mother lingered in her kiss goodbye, clinging as long as she could and even Troy shook Ven strongly, patting him on the back in a ‘you better come back hug’.
Both Troy and Mum would have been happy to leave with Ven. It was hardly a secret that tests revealed both Troy and Ven were my biological fathers.
Ven was commanding and cool, with his squarish, always stubbled jaw. His brown hair was always neat – short back and sides - and his fatigues always clean and crisp. His mood rarely changed and you could count on him to be brutally honest. He pushed both Deli and I harder than Mum or Troy but was never unkind.
Troy, whom I also called father was more playful, he made games out of our lessons like throwing a coin, coloured the same as the pool’s bottom into the lap pool and having us dive for it and come up when it was found. Concentrating on something other than the need to breathe aided in the duration we could stay under.
He winked his sea green eyes, never seemed to brush his sun-highlighted honey cropped hair. He constantly tussled our hair or chucked our chins and was explosive when telling stories, using different voices and play-acting the stories as he told them. He made Deli feel welcome and I’d appreciated it. But he was just as strict on time management and our lessons regimen.
Behind the façade my father hid a deepening grave. I always sensed it’s depth and I was now sure why I was able to be created by three parents. My Variant abilities were controlled by the one Troy had bestowed: Bioelectrickinesis.
My coding hid his signature. I knew it now, even as it camouflaged itself, intelligent and parasitic under the TPK.
I adored Troy as a child. As an adult I was wary of him. I knew myself and so knew his pretense. It was a veneer I strove for.
My mother was a glue that held the triad together. She managed the burden of two aggressive males with grace. Shrugged off or even appreciated their invasive natures. She’d never argue with either of them but had a way of suggesting things that manipulated them. She’d always state things so she was asking their opinion, she was savvy and manipulative, but her reasoning’s were sound and her husbands had no recourse but to take her suggestions on board. Maybe these skills were attributed to her being a mother.
She was a good one.
Oh, she never baked cookies or darned socks – though she received praise from the soldier’s for a neat hand at stitches – but my mother listened even when I didn’t talk and she held my cheek in her hand with such love when she bade us goodnight. She was everything I wanted from my partner when I grew up: capable, beautiful, enduring, though she was also many things I abhorred so vehemently I was not sure how she never felt my hatred.
My fathers knew of it. Watched me.
I understood their boundaries, even at a young age. And even at that young age, I expected no less from them, especially after Delilah arrived.
Ven stood staunchly before me with distinct attention. “Look after our little Gypsy, Carne,” he said, missing any affection. It wasn’t a good bye, it was an order, an understanding. “And keep on top of your studies.”
“Yes Father. I’ll take care of Deli and Mum.” Sacrificing myself if necessary for his mate or mine. It was what I would expect of him. He understood me better than Troy. My other father was blinded to our similarities despite glaring evidence.
“I know you will.” One last pat, a stolen kiss from my mother and Troy before Ven was in the hovercraft and out of sight.
We didn’t wave until he was out of view, like I’d seen on an old movie. I roped my arm through Deli’s and led her into the house to make a second breakfast for her. Her bones had jutted worryingly.
Everyone else followed to continue his or her day.
Over the years to come we had many moments like that. GMT had ruled my parents’ lives. The hardest was when Mum went on a trip, always with at least one husband. Though I’m pretty sure she viewed herself the General allowing a Lieutenant to accompany her. I was just as sure Ven and Troy’s view differed greatly.
I decided that day I did not want Deli to lead a life of survival. I would do what I could to protect her from that fate. I allowed for her training as we grew. Even if it meant that fucker Spartan could make her strong. I couldn’t have her vulnerable and I understood why my parents raised us the way they had: they raised us how they were raised. They did what all parents strive to achieve: to teach their offspring all that they knew. And all my parents knew was how evade capture.
My children would not need those lessons. Deli should not need them.
I whiled the day away lost in the past, back against the bed-head of her terribly girly bed. She’d loved the sight of it when she first came. But she grew into who and what she’d be and I was proud of her for deciding for herself that the pink fluffy mess was tragic. But, here it stood - a testament to her lack of frivolity and steady sentimentality that rarely found its way forward for the world to witness.
In this room there had been times where Deli had looked up at me in question, expecting my all-knowing answer. When Deli needed me through the dark nights and laughed while wrapping those fragile arms around me.
“Ah, you pathetic prick,” I commiserated; sculling the hard liquor I’d switched to as the day wore on. I wished for the sweet numbness of a drunken state. I’d be drinking a lot more before that happened. I had to distract my cunning nature. Because it fooled even me into believing that I should be with her, near her, guarding her.
An ultra-sonic beep, unheard by by those around me, sounded from my fatigues. It wouldn’t be whom I wanted. Even if she wanted to talk to me she wouldn’t use a phone. Sometimes Delilah could be a right annoying tart! I screamed through our bond, knowing it wouldn’t be heard.
Bulldozing narcissist! Rattled my brain before the link was severed.
Shit.
Why had she lowered her guard? I hoped she was relenting, failing. Hope the Tk was close to releasing the control she’d gained over our link with all her space. I truly did not look forward to force… though it was alluring and spiked my blood with dopamine. I sculled again, sweeping the meanness away.
Beep, Beep, Beep.
I cursed aloud.
I pressed connect without checking. Fuck, I should have checked. Where was my head? I had to get back to work; inaction was tedious and allowed way too much time to think.
Variant: A Sci-Fi Romance (Variant Trilogy Book 1) Page 9