Variant Evasion: Trilogy (Variant Trilogy Book 2)

by J. Q. Baldwin

  Protests began. He cut them off with a swift gesture. They all filed out of the room.

  “You are not Kuroyuri,” I was told when all was quiet as he finished jotting notes.

  I saw no need for further charades. He knew my sister well, apparently. I wondered how well. His attention left his tablet and he placed his stylus neatly beside it.

  “Who are you? Where is Kuroyuri? I promise you my reputation as an enemy will not benefit you.”

  “I am a mercenary. Contracted for a job.” I walked around the coffee table, brushing the tops of the soft flowers standing in a vase upon it. “And Kuroyuri? Well, I don’t trust you enough to tell you what I know.”

  “You’re a child,” he snorted. “A little girl playing solider,” he spoke uninterestedly, pointing out my fatigues and boots with his stylus now back in his hand.

  I smiled then. An endearing memory playing in my mind. I was filthy, rank with the city’s dregs even though I’d pulled my gaudy jumper off and replaced it with my bomber jacket I was rough; wiry, edgy and feeling sensual of all things.

  “Something you find interesting in that?” he sat back in his chair, swaying back.

  “Yes, actually. A long time ago, an old man once said something similar to me.”

  “And this is a fond memory?”

  “Yes.” I said simply.

  “Pray tell, then, girl I love a good story.” He mocked condescendingly. I judged him then to have a sense of humour at least and decided to indulge him.

  “The old man chastised me saying that to salute him is to lie. That I was neither a child nor a soldier.”

  “What were you then if not a child?” I had piqued his curiosity. My answer was not what he’d been expecting and the lift of a thick but neat eyebrow was telling.

  “Little General.” I paused and smiled slowly. “He told me modesty was a weakness as the weight of my grave became oppressive. He said respect came when men were led home alive, then he shovelled more dirt over my face until I let death slide beside me.” I was not melodramatic, just talking plainly about the dark, sordid truth of our world.

  “I am neither a little girl nor a soldier Mr. Milligan nor will I pretend to be. Now, what do you know about Ardman’s death,” I asked.

  “What possible reason could I have to dole out information on people, I may or may not know, to a stranger?” He was disturbed by my honesty and I think by the brutality. I’d regaled the story lovingly even if that troubled child had slipped out my eyes for a second. Had Spartan’s training ruined me or made me stronger if I recalled that very fist time without air as endearing?

  It made me realise I had been thinking like a target, like prey, when I needed to be out hunting. Spartan did that. Pulled me back to myself and inspired me on.

  I dived at the pooling coolness, the emptiness filling space in my chest and let ambition rise, pushing me to become that one person I’d donned. Singular, and not receptive to interference.

  I sneered.

  “I wonder if you knew he’d sold one of your ‘assets’,” I pondered aloud, anticipating his reactions.

  “Nothing happens without my knowledge.”

  “You sure? Because my training says you’re surprised. Didn’t know Ardman had a little side venture?”

  “Tread lightly girl,” he warned.

  Mr. Milligan suddenly found me at his back, a dagger at the crux of his spine.

  “Lightly enough for you?” I scraped a thin line down his neck. “You have information I need but if I were to kill you now do you think it would play on my conscience?”

  Right now even I didn’t know the answer.

  “Perhaps I should. A new coronation for the next Sector Governor, waiting in the wings.”

  I was closer to Kuroyuri than I’d been yet. If he felt tight lipped I was open to interrogation. I’d start by nicking the skin at his neck and flaying it back if it made him purge knowledge. He was involved in GMT Sales. He knew or suspected more than he let on. I wanted to kill him for the woes he had, or would surely bring to our species… but Kuroyuri worked for him.

  The edginess was making me brash, it goaded me to violence.

  The violence made me grin.

  I wasn’t so blood thirsty normally… He was coming. Carne was near. I was splitting… like a wet feather, irreversibly damaged from the constant bleed of others.

  Could Milligan feel my felicitous nature behind him?

  “Who are you?” he asked simply, proving he could.

  I let my lips find his ear as I whispered. “I’ll tell you one of my names, Mr. Milligan for I wish to gain the information I came here for but lets keep this between us. It’s a bit tacky if you ask me. And before you blame me - I did not come up with and I certainly wouldn’t be out there calling myself something so pretty.” I ran an eye down myself. I was not pretty, not right now.

  “If you wish,” he nodded, calm even as my knife punctuated its point in his skin.

  “Flores Mortis.”

  Carne’s presence clouded across the expanse inside me, restless. I was suddenly warring with a brutally dominant mind.

  The stylus on Milligan’s desk rolled, breaking the silence.

  It startled us both.

  Tk seeped out in a snaking breeze, coiling up and around me from my toes to face, whisking under my nose like a ribbon, winding and enticing.

  I stilled. Sucked at the escaping vine.

  I had a troubled voice in my head asking if I was myself. I was chatty, snarky and aroused. Yes, all aspects of me… Yet I still felt worry churn in my belly. His anchor dropped. I saw him. Carne was hurt. He never hurt. But I knew it, without any doubt.

  My heart tore a little and leaked some of our shared vitality.

  “Flores Mortis, “ Milligan repeated, jerking forward despite my frozen grip. I let him be as he slowly turned his face suddenly pallid. I knew the feeling.

  “You,” he licked his lips. “You are the death flower?”

  I dropped my hold on him, and walked stiffly around him to the vacated sofa to sit and cross my feet over the coffee table. Fake it til you make it.

  I was shaken. To my bones. Carne needed me.

  “I am called many things Mr. Milligan as I am sure you are. The difference being I do not believe all that is said about you but you should believe everything you’ve heard of me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Get on top of it D, block him. Just for now. Promise, lie to yourself if you have to! He’ll be fine until you get out of here.

  “You may have asked for Colin but what interest do you have in Kuroyuri?” Milligan was braving me. Was Kuroyuri’s safe return driving him or had the mention of a lost asset connected a few dots.

  “I was hired; here I am.”

  “And the fact that you are Kuroyuri’s double?”

  “Coincidence,” I said.

  “Coincidences are for the ignorant.,” he derided. “Do you know who killed Colin?”

  “You assume it wasn’t Kuroyuri?” I asked, curious.

  “Let’s not pretend I can’t obtain copies of national and medical reports. I know Colin had a man’s size fist crush his skull. Kuroyuri had similar indentations before escaping the hospital. I deleted the files myself.”

  The asset hadn't been his. He would’ve made the connection if that were true. “The “Subject’ had been concealed from him, by his own employee.

  “You have a theory,” I cooed, like we were friends on a little sleepover, gossiping. “Tell me.”

  Mr. Milligan raised one of those perfectly aligned eyebrows. That wouldn’t see me say please. It took more than that to make me beg. He could wait all he liked. It did make me think he either had experience with children or maybe a sibling he looked out for growing up.

  He was a ruthless man. Both of us had evaluated properly and he was right to be wary of my wild switches in personality traits. Carne, was tripping emotionally, between rabid and reminiscent and I was ambitious and greedy for independence.
Neurotic was a good word for how Milligan was perceiving me.

  “Kuroyuri. I want her found. If you’ve been enlisted to find her, it makes me ever more concerned. I will tell you she would have come here after her escape if she were able, or at least to one of a few locations.”

  “You know every place she keeps?” I interrupted.

  “Yes.”

  “You think she was kidnapped?” I asked. “Perhaps she was simply pissed off he got the better of her, retrieved clothes and cash and bolted before the trail got cold.”

  “Are you suggesting Kuroyuri can track by scent?”

  “Let’s pretend you know her better than I’d like,” I admitted. I began burrowing into Milligan’s head. Carne was busy. Scattered, but focused elsewhere. I risked it.

  I was slightly disgusted to note Milligan had serious emotional attachments to Kuroyuri, but through this attachment his very detailed, morphing train of thought enticed me in.

  He didn’t know where Kuroyuri was. He pined. It squashed his chest, made him unfocused when he should be with precision sharpness. He had no idea who killed Ardman or why. This angered him almost more passionately than the grief he felt at Kuroyuri’s disappearance.

  I had wondered why he hadn’t thought of the auction and the sub par performance of Ardman’s replacement but now I knew why. He’d been played... And I couldn’t force his thoughts where I needed them.

  Milligan might run fights but his underlings had been busy using it as a front, a means of confining their assets until sale.

  Milligan was a man who controlled his environment. Was savvy and organised in a way I envied. The evidence would knock him. He’d been betrayed.

  My control wavered constantly. Milligan was bold and reinforced even now. He wasn’t brutal about it, just consistent, he was livid but steady, already mentally running the lists of possible co-conspirators of Ardman’s and the asset that had been sold.

  While angry, cruelty seemed to be absent. I would expect cruelty from someone who could starve and sell a child, further proof of his ignorance.

  Milligan’s thoughts then skimmed across fleeting private moments with my twin, moments where he watched while he thought she was unaware. His symptoms were gut wrenching.

  She looked so pretty, carrying her boots over a shoulder in the dawning sunlight dappled across the courtyard below his office window. Her jagged shoulder length hair, shiny in the light. My own forlorn love for a family member was in peril. I didn’t want my own feeling corrupted, not for a sister.

  I closed down my connection. The flush of want for a memory not mine took a mental shake.

  Maybe I had some misguided belief that I’d be a little closer to knowing her somehow if I could hold his memories.

  “I knew you were not Kuroyuri the moment you walked in here,” he said, in a winsome tone.

  “I will find her,” I made the promise but it wasn’t to him. I didn’t convey a tone that said I’d tell him if I did.

  His expression turned shrewd. Perhaps my opinion on whether I’d approve of his relationship to Kuroyuri grated against his ego. I’d closed off gently from his mind. No point jumping in again now. Every time I lowered my mental guard Carne’s emotions crashed against me; he was furious again now and I had no doubt it was with me. I was the only one he bothered to feel an extreme emotion about.

  He’d finished his mission, I knew that much, but he was stifled somehow in his search for me.

  I was glad to know the broken doll had been rescued.

  “How did you know?” I asked genuinely curious about my differences from Kuroyuri.

  “You are a storm. You strode in like the General you claim to be. Your clothing is masculine and you manner gruff.” He stood and watered his plant by the window.

  “I’m not an animal, Mr. Milligan, though you describe me as one.”

  “You’re not offended. I never said you weren’t a clever entity. A storm has a mind of its own,” he assured me, looking back.

  “Am I so different from her?” My brow furrowed just slightly, as I plucked a stem from the vase. I petted the flowers, and then glanced back up.

  “Kuroyuri enters the room without notice. She would never barge in but like spring rain she’d gracefully find her place beside me. Where you are gruff she is demure. She also has a Japanese accent. Your first word confirmed what I knew already.”

  “Does she adore you in the same manner you do her?”

  Milligan suddenly appeared out of place, uncomfortable.

  “She is more than an adviser and guard, yes.”

  “That does not answer the question Mr. Milligan and I’ve realised perhaps that I know Kuroyuri in the ways that count.”

  “You’ve offended me.”

  “Most men wouldn’t admit it. I admire you,” I praised, my eyes laughing, though I felt doing anything but.

  “We will conclude this now. We have both learnt much; we both intend to locate Kuroyuri and discover who killed Colin. I may not know how you coincidently became involved, but I will.”

  I’d purposefully not mentioned any detail about the GMT or ‘The Subject’s’ status as a Variant. He seemed to guess well enough that Kuroyuri was odd but I couldn’t quite determine if he knew for sure. If he did have feelings for her, would they be extinguished if he knew the truth? Until I knew more I’d not mess with my sister’s personal life in a savage way.

  “You already know quite enough, but I agree we have similar interests,” I deviated. He understood what I meant and stiffened as if slapped. So I amended, “But until I speak with Kuroyuri I will not do anything rash. I am impulsive but will endeavour to keep Kuroyuri’s nature in mind for now.”

  “Small favours,” Milligan noted. “I shall return it.”

  I smiled. It was endearing to think he would try – and fail. He ran the Burrows but Variants lived outside his warren.

  “You may take that small branch,” Milligan offered.

  My head tilted and I stopped plucking the ruby petals.

  “You’ve told me I’m missing an asset so I will tell you: those flowers are sacred to Kuroyuri. Do what you will with that information but know she has sliced a finger off one of my men for daring to hurt her flowers.”

  “Ah, a girl after my own heart. Blades are stealth and beauty.”

  “Deadly,” he agreed. “The three of you have much in common.”

  I left then, offering my back in assurance that I would hold him to his word - for now. Shadowing when he glanced down, I escaped his notice. I climbed out the way I had come, keeping my flowers dry by placing them inside my jacket, against the cool of my skin.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Carne

  “Here little reject. We’re under orders to water you before your new owner receives you.”

  I wondered if she’d take the bait from the guard half bent over trying to break her focus. If she’d had water recently it would’ve only been because they’d washed her for the auction. She was like a sad puppy, farmed, degraded, filthy and only fluffed up for sale. If she’d been born to this state we’ve fallen short of what my grandparents built their company on; saving our kind from the putrid grasp of Homo-Sapiens.

  The child lay poised in an intricate plank position, one leg wrapped and carried by one arm. Someone must have taken great care to practice her in it. Her breathing was deep but sparse. Her heartbeat dripped slowly in latent pressure. That eerie wind blew from the room and down the corridor. My visor tracked the gust past the girl’s sour face, as she floated into another pose. She made no move to give the guard any attention, but she was aware of him.

  The cell was a glowing blue 2 x 2 box and hers held the only living, sentient, occupant. Lines of macabre others glowed in thin suitcase sized slices or cylinders, pumping and breathing in the same gel seen at the auction. It cast a ghoulish light against the encroaching darkness of camouflaged buildings. My visor scanned multiple objects, identifying status’ across my view–

  0.000675 m3, org
anic gel, bio printed pancreas from contaminated HsVariant xy - sub class Btk - tissue and bio engineered materials.

  0.000900 m3, organic gel, bio printed lungs from contaminated HsVariant xy – sub class Btk - tissue and bio engineered materials.

  To be sequestered among organs, like meat…

  My visor eschewed further organs for the closest guard to me and confirmed a genetic link to nameless others we’d incapacitated onwards and upwards in the spire of a skyscraper disguised as a derelict government facility. It fell between six such buildings, gated and guarded.

  Simple thought processors allowed me to prompt the visor to scan the girl. It panned and panned as she considered the bait. Again. Her meadow eyes finally followed the condensation and spillage lipping down the steel bottle. Fer face very reminiscent of a brutish leopard despite her wan features when her attention switched so abruptly.

  HsVariant, Unvaried xx – sub classification Btk, age: ten std years calculated from 66 day tooth ring biorhythm...

  Cumchugger!

  It was faint with the charged cell blocking most electrical interferences, but it was her sneer. A pouty pre-teen nastiness that hid the pain of hopelessness. Of being small and without recourse.

  I could almost taste the want on her tongue. Her lips cracked open a touch and their dryness left the corners white and dry. But she didn’t get up, she was preternaturally still.

  “Sure you don’t want a sip?” The jeering cackle pre-empted more water to trickle out with suggestive promise. The guard then splashed in it like a toddler in a mud puddle.

  The hunt had geared me up, wired my reflexes and focused my rage here, toward the ultimate reason our lives had been so dire and driven. I gripped my weapon across my chest. An obscene blush of pleasure elicited more dopamine to my system. Ella noticed, her pupils shrunk as quick as her loose wisps of hair flung in my direction.

  No time for play, wasn’t that your rule tonight? She chastised.

  I shouldn’t enjoy the rush so much but it invigorated me. These kind of time poor, high stress missions offered a release that eased the pressure from my Mate. It unfurled the strangling bonds that set my teeth aching. My tongue soothed the blade of one now.