My fist bleached of colour and I burned to reach in and rip out the crazy fuck’s throat.
Ven stepped into my peripheral and both Spartan and I straightened at his solid presence. “Team convenes in ten for briefing.” Ven’s voice was rough and simple, very much like the man.
I rose a centimetre and breathed upon Spartan’s face intimately. “Stay away from my Mate. You understand that concept don’t you? You understand the lengths I’d go for her? Don’t get in my way,” I warned.
“Yeah, I understand Mates,” he spat. “Now think how far you’d go for her daughter, or her daughter’s daughter. You have no idea what flesh and blood will drive you to rend.”
I grabbed suddenly onto his forearm and skull fucked him in a vicious parody of the blanket I enfolded Delilah in when I devoured her.
Real terror hinged from Spartan’s gaping concrete jaw and his eyes exploded aglow. For the first time in an epoch he discovered an adversary on this planet that could take from him the very thing he violently guarded: his freedom.
We could fight bloody. Tear flesh off each other, but all we’d get from it would be pleasure. This disgusts me, brushing the violence and anger you harbour, but it scares you that I made it in. I see you Spartan and I warn you never to underestimate me again. Stay away from my Mate. You have caused enough damage!
I slid free and Spartan jerked free as soon as he was able. He snorted like a bull with tunnel vision. I had no doubt all the man saw was red. All the man had in him was red; red anger; blood and revenge. All of him, etched in crimson and hate. Despite this, the giant winked.
“Grown some balls Boy; maybe I did teach you something at last.” His chainsaw laugh turned heads in sudden trepidation as he strode away from me.
“Don’t poke the bear,” Ven advised.
“Huh,” I pffted. “You and Delilah with your bears. Spartan needs the occasional reminder that he’s not be the scariest thing in this world.”
“Now is not the time and Delilah, not the subject. The Genetic Manipulation Tech is more important than your squabbles with Delilah. Let her fly. She will come home, of that we are certain. Our little gypsy might need to wander but she knows where home is.”
I refused to listen on a level Ven understood. He put a hand to my shoulder, the muscle jumping at the physical reprimand I had not felt since adolescence.
“Son, your relationship with Delilah has never been normal, let it outside the box. Take it from someone who learnt the hard way. The box is filled with dark matter, still bound to gravity, so you think you can hide it away but it escapes without notice because it is not bound by other matter; it filters through everything.
Open the box before it moves on without you.”
Like Spartan I might have just now had the scare of my life from a man who rarely uttered such abyssal truths. I opened my mind to drag a little of my mate in with me. She noticed immediately and struggled.
I couldn’t ease my grip.
She bent and let me wrap her up.
Chapter Three
Delilah
“Delilah? Can you hear me?” Ella snapped her calloused fingers in front of my face.
“He’s done it again hasn’t he?”
I couldn’t answer but I needn’t have. Ella felt the telekinetic energy falter and scoop back into me until I almost believed it was a queer dream. I tried to laugh and only Carne heard it. My train of thought easily shifted to the many times I had screamed myself hoarse into obscurity and only He heard.
Let go, I begged. Please Carne. Let me go. We both knew I meant on a deeper level than right now.
I wont. But he left temporarily and I let my arms wide and dived heart first into a complete forward fold, with my head a heavy burden in my lap. I heaved in long breaths under the curtain of hair and slowed my heartbeat. I did not raise my gaze to Ella until I was sure I would not betray my weakness to a woman I ‘d never pictured on her knees in supplication - a place I found at times so comforting and warm.
“Snap outta it Woman, we’ve got work to do.” She came to stand beside me and toed my thigh. ‘Woman’ said she meant business.
“You’re a vicious harpy. I’m up,” I muffled up from my legs. I was not ‘up’.
Ella slapped my shoulder blade affectionately. “One day I’ll sock that motherfucker in the nose.”
“Didn’t you already do that a couple times?” I asked affectionately as I rose.
“Oh yeah. But… the memories have faded, there’s time to make new ones,” She snarked happily.
“Wont argue that,” I agreed.
“So, we’ve become one with our psyche and all that shite. Practised streaming the TK out little by little to prevent a build up, now you gonna tell me how the TK came about?”
“I think the shock of seeing my sister’s face face in those files ruptured something. I can look back now and see it was building.”
“Yeah, and leaving Onyxeal must’ve been hard as well. Carne was messed up a couple months into the mission. How’d you find out about Spartan?”
“See, even you cant say it, how will I ever be able to?”
“Just ‘cause he’s your granddad doesn’t mean you’ve changed fundamentally Delilah,” she promised.
But that was a lie.
A lot of things made sense now, and I knew my aversion to empathy stemmed from a part of me that hid from the happiness misery sometimes brought me.
I squeezed the guilt with a fist in my mind.
“You want to know how I found out?” I said angrily.
“Yeah, I do,” Ella lifted her chin in a way I never did.
“Come in,” I said simply. Ella and I had been friends a long time she was the only other person who had the capacity to receive a memory transmission the way Carne and I always have. Carne and I were almost one mind though, so although possible for Ella it probably still violated her as much as she did me when she punched her way in. It hurt, but some things couldn’t be explained and even memories were mostly perception, not reality.
Six months ago.
Tyler lay beside me on his belly in the red dirt, his stocky legs out behind him. The minutiae slowed, and Ella fell like a ghost beside him. Tyler’s head listed oddly and a white film covered his eyes.
Jolted, I loosened my grip on my knife because I didn’t trust I’d stay my hand. Confused, I shook myself a little and my initial instinct fled with the breeze. The man beside me lifted his shoulder to twist toward me and his unruffled concentration betrayed nothing of my daze. He used his free hand to gesture he’d heard movement ahead to the left, his heavy brow line promising determination.
I lay my ear closer to the ground and met his gaze, in a show of listening. My hearing was far superior to Tyler’s but it became a blurry line of risk to benefit ratio in alerting others. I knew there were three human beings, one male, two female ahead. Two lent against a vehicle that washed with a tinny sound when they brushed against it.
They discussed the descent of man.
“Boyd, faith is like fire. That fire will cleanse this world,” she swore vehemently and I heard a muffled thud that sounded suspiciously like skin taking a blow.
“Yeah, but don’t lose sight of the real fight. It’s been hundreds of years since these fuckers had any faith. They weren’t brought up like we were you know? I think we should have some sort of... program or something for the young ones.”
“Don’t start with that again, the Chapter already discussed that, and you know that the cleanse has to happen first. Don’t you remember Genesis 7:21, 22? And all flesh died that moved upon the earth. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.”
“I’m not the expert on that shit Lou and all I know is if I got to be six hundred years old I wouldn’t have been only takin’ me one wife with me for another six hundred!” Boyd sniggered.
A rustling and shuffling sounded. “You people are bat shit crazy!” Another Thud. A whine. Quiet.
Our hostage. I had no idea why the girl was taken; what sort of leverage the zealots hoped to gain. She could be a sacrifice, but it meant little to me. Her problems only extended to me because Spartan had been paid to take the contract. The whine let me know where she fell, however.
Tyler made to move though I was not sure if he’d heard what I had. He bunched up on those tree trunk thighs – his only distinguishing feature when his sun browned skin was smeared with camouflage and mud. I tapped his arm lightly to garner his attention and used hand gestures to disagree with his intent. The flash accompanying my refusal was fleeting but white hot.
Spartan had commandeered Tyler and myself to diffuse the hostage situation together and it was a bizarre pairing. It was either a set up or a challenge Spartan had set me. I doubted Tyler registered on his agenda.
The culprits ahead sounded like a few illegal zealots. We’d been out here in the scrub for the past forty hours or so and we were both running a little empty. Tyler was probably worse than I and I’d had to take his survival into account when we’d first arrived, especially since Spartan needed no excuse to challenge us further by launching our back packs out of a moving vehicle.
We’d scavenged for plastic bottles to dodgy up some solar stills to evaporate some of the water we’d harvested from the filthy pools of polluted sludge we’d found. It allowed us a few precious mouthfuls of water today. I felt a pinch of guilt for charading a dire need of a share but Tyler was already the suspicious type and his rank didn’t have higher clearance.
Tyler would be the last person I’d willingly agree to have here on my six and on this one thing, I’m sure he’d even agree, but orders were orders despite our mutual dislike of one another.
Tyler was a second year recruit. Recruits always did a stint with Spartan, not one they often forgot. This was his first deployment with me and though he was an arsehole I had no need to worry that he wouldn’t understand my silent hand signals. You learned quickly under Spartan, if not then you were dropped even quicker.
I held the signal for halt, silence.
I signalled to move forward and to move in adjacent directions but was surprised by the adamant shake of Tyler’s head and his signal for me to hold. His body language, much like the first time I met him spoke of his dislike toward me. From the curling back of his top lip in revulsion to the aggressive way he tried to take the lead.
I ignored this behaviour mostly, like training a dog; you ignore the incorrect behaviour and praise the good. Turns out men in the units were easier than dogs to train. Especially since I‘d hit puberty and now had breasts. Use all your assets Ava always said.
Too bad Carne was exempt from my womanly wiles.
Still, despite my trouble keeping Carne at bay, I had come a long way since puberty with keeping the world at bay, though small fissures let in fragments of Tyler’s thoughts, like a fuzzy radio constantly flipping channels. He really didn’t have much of a vocabulary.
Been handed everything on a platter, fuck the haughty bitch. Just a few more clicks. Thinks she so good. She’s pathetic. His fist gripped the darkened earth, rattling leaves. Spartan’s pet! He spat. Fucking pathetic to get a tattoo just like Spartan. Who does that?!
This last statement pulled me up and slammed the channel. I felt mentally slapped. My coding was my own. No one had the exact same though I did hold Carne’s signature in one part -
The world fell away as my veins blistered. My arm reached out to snag Tyler, who was suddenly kinetic energy I couldn’t follow. Pain bashed my skull and it aggravated me so badly I almost let the scream erupt from me. Minutes expired. Kilometres gained. So you’ve been lied to all your life, stop letting your head fuck with your body for once and run!
Dirt skidded out from under my feet and the first step I took was still on all fours, clawing at the ground, but I gained momentum quickly. Squelching the need to vomit up the last twenty odd years of my life, I slid my knife from my belted waist as I pumped as much blood through my body as fast as inhumanly possible.
The blaze of light and gentle haze of smoke spoke of unpractised subterfuge. Tyler was much more practised than the man and woman sitting on a rolled out bed mat. Boyd relaxed against all terrain hover vehicle behind them, Lou was gazing serenely at the tightly bound woman uncomfortably thrown on her side with arms bent hard behind her back. The hostage’s golden hair was matted with freshly clotted blood. It covered half her face, so I could only see one of her leafy hazel eyes glaring daggers at the breezy lunacy of her captor.
I couldn’t get a bead on Tyler though. Where are you?
I scanned and scanned as I ran but I could not afford to let my empathy snake out from me as it was digging at me to do, to pinpoint where he’d hid. I was still too far away to intercept what I could easily predict happening.
And as I had the thought enter my head, Tyler stepped from a shadowed tree line with his weapon raised. It was not a projectile weapon, it was a light - fissionless fusion weapon capable of very direct catastrophes and his hands were rock steady.
He’d yet to see me, even as I swerved direction abruptly towards him. Was I really that loathed, inspired such disgust that he’d risk discipline? The contract was not just cash flow, it was reputation, Spartan’s reputation, and even I was smart enough not to fuck with that.
I would do what was required. I would see this job through, fingers crossed I’d keep green and gold alive through probably the worst day in her life. Stele, I might even have to try to save Tyler, though conceptually he was much further than another galaxy was to me right now. After that, I was done. My mind was in two places, one physically, as time slowed to an almost impossible pace and I slogged through it like jelly and, two, in memory as Carne misdirected me from Spartan one time when he’d torn off a blood soaked shirt to stem a wound; when Spartan ripped himself angrily from the concrete edge of the pool to stalk away as if I’d invaded his imaginary space. Carne and Spartan.
Tyler’s foot brushed over leaf litter.
Time relapsed, back flipped and jumped light speed+1.
Boyd lifted and spun his chin in Tyler’s Direction. Tyler let a beam fly and, laser-like, it cut across the expanse of scrubland. Severing any brush and trees like candles under a sword
Crazy Lady Lou’s eyes rolled in their sockets and she burst from her seat like a frog banged up on Eupho. Goldy, rolled. Not fast enough. She ‘oomfed’ hard as she was tackled by Lou. Lou kept rolling with the hostage as cover then jacked them both up. Braced wide, with a projectile weapon at Goldy’s cheek, hollowed from the pressure of the barrel.
Tyler rolled along the rocky ground as Boyd’s head imploded and an arterial spray spurted from his chicken neck. The rest fell bodily to its knees, confused at it’s aloofness. The body fell forward with a puff of dust and the dramatic muffled screech of the hostage sent a white eyed panic through her captor like a cornered heifer stabbed with an electronic prod.
Lou clawed her prey closer, her finger twitchy on the trigger.
I had to make a decision. I hesitated. Kill Crazy or save a perceptive but brash Tyler when Lou decided to aim his way. The scald of betrayal was fresh, so fresh it’s decaying waft transcended Boyd’s messy puddle of matter.
I launched myself over Tyler just in time to catch a nick to my inner thigh from Lou’s sharp aim. I winced as my face caught a rock on the slide. I rolled to a balanced crouch and grunted as I bodily picked up and threw Tyler, two handed, over me to the tree line a few metres off. He came up spitting like a terrier but I was already gone.
Crazy Lou spun in circles panting, then screeched a war cry. I slid through the darkness and hardly breathed. Anger rode me like a slut. I did not often let my emotions betray me. I spent most of my life burying them further and further into my cemetery psyche.
Tonight I was failing.
Tonight my coding dripped like acid down my side and electrical currents branched out from me like the tree of life... or death.
Suddenly Crazy lost her zealous
gleam. Her arms slackened and, doll like, she listed and I heard a fleshy tear. Goldy, confused, blinked, and a peculiar fear reached into her as she chanced a glance over her shoulder.
A tattooed paw. That’s all I’d seen, so Goldy probably saw nothing but ghosts as Lou staggered back, sightless.
Without a spine, she toppled.
I came to stand in the open. Rage simmering to a low throb with the slash on my cheek and my seeping thigh. Boldly wiping at my face, my fist came away rusty with dirt and blood. I stood and glared at death waiting to eclipse the hostage who wildly searched for the predator her instincts demanded she find.
Spartan formed from the night, painted in war. Did the earth tremble as he walked?
Goldy took a horrified gasp and stumbled back onto her arse and hands, scrabbling backwards before she could consciously understand what her body was rushing away from.
The step Spartan took dwarfed a giant. One step and he’d stomped upon Goldy’s foot. Panicked, she struggled to keep momentum. Spartan met my gaze. My electrical waves smashed upon the shore of his and not for a second did his understanding register shock.
He backhanded Goldy with a precise amount of force. Her body lifted, then crumpled and he simply stepped over her.
“Spartan, Sir,” Tyler ran straight for the mammoth hurricane bearing down upon us and did not seem to want to notice Spartan’s countenance was anything but friendly. Anything more than an oppugner.
“Sir,” Tyler panted, after all the exertion the adrenalin fled him. “That was one crazy bitch. Delilah too if you ask me.” He turned to me but I was too savvy to have my attention stray from the foe within striking distance.
I took into account the steady drool of my thigh wound and my hindered eyesight as my cheek swelled as unhurried as the calming melody of my rage. Thud. Thud Thud.
“Why’d you jump me Delilah? I could’ve taken both the marks before that fella even woke up.”
Variant Evasion: Trilogy (Variant Trilogy Book 2) Page 2
