Variant: A Sci-Fi Romance (Variant Trilogy Book 1)

by J. Q. Baldwin

  A family member lost and gained. Temporary pain. Temporary pain.

  “Shut it, gleeful dog,” I mumbled. The noisy beast was close to my entry point.

  Just a little more. Knifing pain intensified to a point where I expected my cranium to split with it - then plop.

  I knew without opening my eyes the sticker floated in mid-air. I took a deep, shaky breath.

  I’d done it.

  I wiped thick tears gathering at my eyes. My fingertips came away red. My nose dripped and I swallowed more down my throat. Carne’s worried mind tried to catch me in my weakness. I sunk to a cold place.

  If I thought I could let the new ability have free reign without consequence I would, but I had to push myself to learn this control. And I had to do it feral and fast to keep ahead of anyone that might discover it.

  Squashing the laser base proved garishly simple compared to carefully peeling it away. Brute strength felt immeasurably easier than fiddling gently and the sticker folded in on itself. The satisfying tiny crunch of the chip being destroyed buoyed me.

  The remaining four became the training tools, honing my mind. By the fourth I hadn’t needed to concentrate as hard but the residual pain extended well past the dull ache that had been building since I left the hospital.

  I re-scanned the room. It wouldn’t do to get past one security system only to get tripped up by another.

  When I was satisfied security had deemed their system infallible I trod slowly around the room, tapping slightly on the walls, lifting the rug, listening for other currents. Ardman kept no safe hidden anywhere in his office.

  Smart.

  I skirted his desk and searched in and around it as well, just in case there were any hidden compartments.

  There weren’t.

  Dumbfounded but still hopeful I slid a storage device into Ardman’s computer. The software would penetrate the firewalls and, in less than thirty seconds, clone all information - encrypted or otherwise - from the memory. I just hoped it hadn’t been scrubbed too clean by Milligan’s team.

  Thirty seconds, counted so slowly, seemed an eternity when two dogs now made a ruckus below. Their glee from a new scent in their noses.

  Guards gathered trying to quiet the dogs while two other guards breached the house to search for any disturbances.

  I could hear them talking. “Nothing had gotten past them,” they told each other adamantly.

  Footsteps creaked below. The safety on two guns clicked off.

  Hurry up, hurry up, D I thought, anticipating the ultra-sonic beep, signalling the upload’s completion.

  My hands gripped the plush office chair arms tightly.

  Twelve seconds, eleven, I gripped harder – and broke one arm. It fell out under my hand and my loose fingers brushed the sharp edge of paper. Paper?

  Nine seconds, eight, I slid the coiled hard copies from the hollowed out chair arm, rolled it open and scanned.

  “Oh, no,” I breathed.

  Two seconds, one - Beep beep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gunfire detonated through the office door, the same moment the storage device had filled its belly. I ducked to the right just as a bullet blew a breeze past my ear. The door burst open from a well-placed kick and two men rushed the room. Utilizing my strength I shoved the desk away from me, physically and mentally. The combination had the desk screeching across the floor with such force the two guards were barrelled over by the heavy furniture, affording me a precious moment to slip free the storage device and stuff it in the inside pocket of my hoodie.

  Recovering faster than I’d anticipated, the men fired repetitive rounds. I back-flipped over the chair I’d sat on - a flimsy barrier.

  Behind me, the glass door shattered.

  I dove and landed awkwardly on my hip on the verandah roof. Above, the guards scrambled to aim and shoot as I bounded over the dented iron and onto the moisture covered, greasy grass.

  I almost screamed as a vicious, evilly excited, slobbered dog ripped into my forearm, nearly dragging me sideways. I backhanded the bitch and was equally sore to hear the thick thud as it landed ten feet away, whining.

  My arm dripped with blood and the edges of the laceration whitened from blood loss. I stripped a cloth from my ruined sweater and hastily wrapped my arm to prevent leaving a trail of blood. I was cut short before tying it off as a kick to the head knocked me over. I recovered, spinning into a squat, baring my teeth in a hiss.

  The next kick I caught. The gunshot sound reverberating into the chaos of yelling and barking was the sound of Mr. Headshot’s ankle breaking.

  A solid punch to his chin on my upwards jump acted as a nice anaesthetic as he fell and I just barely stopped the automatic follow through that would see my fist ripping out his trachea.

  I spat the rust coloured dribble gathering in my cheek onto the grass before taking off full pelt, dodging the bullets I felt racing behind me as the air was cut from their path.

  Wisps of my hair came loose as I fought my lungs for freedom. They whipped about stinging my cheeks. The fence loomed ahead. I reached it in seconds, leaping it like a metre high hurdle. The tree line came to life as a blur of fingers, reaching out to snag me in their grasp.

  Escape was my only option. Another massacre on the premises would draw too much unwanted attention from the sector authorities rather than Milligan and heat from the Sector would definitely see my detention as fallout. Onyxeal survived on our collective effort and stealth. I knew the consequences.

  My soft footfalls echoed on the deserted suburban street I’d suddenly stumbled onto. I slowed my pace as I scanned possible escape routes.

  I was being followed.

  I’d gained a fair distance between those snapping jowls and guns but I didn’t trust my speed enough to slow completely.

  Left, through a toy scattered backyard, over the fence, around a tiled barbecue area of its neighbour, over another fence and I’d reached another block over.

  I kept going and I kept up my pace. Surely some would have been smart enough to jump in a vehicle but even that would not catch me now.

  I disappeared into the darkened night with a fat lip and a mangled arm.

  “Mmm,” I mused in my bathroom.

  I had to re-tear the wound in parts to clean it before the jagged edges began a leisurely close as I watched. It was slightly painful but my mind was elsewhere. Beside me sat four pages of paper. Actual paper.

  ‘Subject detained for fifteen years as a cage fighter’ and ‘remarkable healing ability and strength’ bounced off page one, burning my retinas. Page two: invoice paid in full for ‘services and delivery of GMT technologies’. Page three: photo of a naked man, bulging with strain and hate in a cage that glowed slightly. A cage flooded with electricity, I assumed. Page four? Oh it just got worse – I mean better? E-mail communication stating the escape of said ‘Subject’.

  I could have killed Ardman myself. He’d sold ‘the subject’ as tech. Nothing more. I now had no sympathy for him in death but wondered how an accountant had the intelligence to involve himself in such classified undertakings. Maybe that was it; he’d had none. That I could believe.

  I had a glossy photo of Ardman’s killer and motivation spitting embers through the caged animal’s eyes. I was tempted to leave the bastard well alone. Going by the report he’d been little more than a teenager when he’d become ‘The Subject’, but he’d taken my twin. With her injuries she wouldn’t have made it far from the hospital and with no drone or security footage during her hospital escape there was only one likely explanation: it was deleted. I recalled the parking lot footage, re ran the timeline. No time lapses.

  I sifted, more carefully, watching for tiny glitches or misplaced air. She’d been so quick to escape, I started again. One minute sixteen seconds. The ether slithered under the lights of the Drop -Off Zone.

  I’d been concentrating on parts minutes later. I should have known her strength wouldn't have dragged her speed and that if she had the strength
she’d have Shadowed, camouflage in plain sight.

  Frame by frame, I waited for the door to open. The wave of misplaced hazy air seemed to wait for the same.

  But when it did the mass froze, braced.

  A smaller haze hit the larger with force, rippling with the impact. A naked female body bounced off the ground. The mass of malevolence covered her. Shadow falling like concrete.

  I was confirmed. He followed her and my twin was being held against her will.

  I was not excited about calling home. GMT leaks were generally unheard of but these reports proved a team was required to resolve this quandary – quietly. Information such as this had to be divulged immediately.

  After my arm healed to a fleshy pink now so I redressed and swiped my forearm to activate my call, finding myself in the kitchen, leaning on the ugly sunny bench.

  Instead of calling the house, I called Ellie-May, AKA Ella Mayhem Murphy. She was probably the only person who would see my leaving as a good thing. She’d suggested it many times.

  One ring.

  “Sug,” Ellie-May greeted me coolly. Her surroundings put her outside and her rosy cheeks suggested she’d been exercising in these early hours.

  “Ellie-May,” I said.

  “Finally got off your lazy arse, I see.”

  “I would have liked to say goodbye,’ I offered. I’d left without telling her since she’d been on assignment with Carne. Apart from cowardice, I hadn’t wanted add extra stress or distractions to them both while in a potentially hazardous situation. My excuse and it held - barely but I wasn’t quite sure I believed myself.

  “Like I care, Sug. You did what you had to. No point regretting the past.”

  “No,” I agreed.

  “So what do I owe the pleasure? And keep in mind if you ask me how Carne is, I’ll disconnect.”

  “I know how he is already, Ellie. I’m calling about evidence of GMT I’ve found on the assignment I’m working on.”

  “What assignment? Ava said you’d taken some time off.” The cheeky lilt of her upper lip said she knew I hadn’t just taken ‘some time’.

  “GMT leaks Ellie,’ I repeated emphatically.

  “Oh we’ll get to that. Ven has already discovered GMT up for sale. I’d guess your evidence would corroborate Ven’s. It would be highly unlikely they’d be separate cases. So what are you working on?”

  “I have a twin.”

  “Yeah? Spartan still got his claws in you then?”

  “You know about the assignments he sends me on?”

  “Of course. The Bastard’s got those claws in me too,” Ellie snorted.

  “Of course he has,” I said.

  “So have you met this twin yet?”

  “She was kidnapped by the subject involved in the GMT,” I explained dryly.

  “Perpetrator?”

  “Victim… Sort of.” I was conflicted. She’d known Ardman, not the Variant exacting revenge. Had she known of Ardman’s involvement in the GMT sales?

  “Interesting.”

  “Want to know what else is interesting?” I sighed in resignation. “I must have caught your telekinesis.”

  “Cant catch that, Love,” Ellie-May laughed.

  “I’m blaming you,” I told her decidedly.

  “I’ll give you a hand getting it under control when I see you this week,” she offered.

  “What? You’re back? You’re coming here?”

  “Just to see your button nose? No, the GMT leak has us due there in two days. Send me your Burrow and address.”

  “Distract him as long as you can, Ellie, Please?”

  “See what I can do Sug, but you know I can’t promise much. Send me the GMT info you’ve got as well?”

  No, she couldn’t promise anything. Carne could care less about the opinions of others.

  “Will do, sending now,” I said as I transferred a paper trail worth a man’s life and one woman’s liberty so far.

  Ellie disconnected.

  I fell weak all of a sudden and I feared it was not because I’d ripped up my forearm. Oh Stars, he’s back! Time was not a constant and my mind was lapping light speed. Everything suddenly crawled to a stop. I couldn’t trust myself alone with Carne, let alone him with me. I’d left while he was gone for a reason!

  Pacing my kitchen, veins fluttering, my gut stabbed with worry and my head swarmed with half cocked plans. It wasn’t until Lolly’s good glasses smashed to the ground in a shower of shards that I realised inanimate objects were levitating erratically round the apartment.

  It shocked me to a full stop.

  I fell on my arse, then onto my back, my head impacting upon the track worn floor. I identified my body’s reactions to this little burst of power as a burgeoning panic attack but I couldn’t slow my pulse, couldn’t stop from hyperventilating, couldn’t stop the room from spinning wildly away from me. I was going to pass out, from a silly panic att –

  Carne.

  Keota’s mammoth foot collected my jaw with a jarring snap. My head roared in pain and panic. Helpless, I twirled on the ball of one foot like a boxer in slow motion, mid KO. Dazed, my head bounced on the training mat, clanking my teeth together.

  “Carne!” I vaguely heard Cory.

  I sensed more than saw Keota’s fist nudge me before Ella rolled me onto my side.

  “Back the fuck up you idiots, he’s fine.”

  I didn’t feel fine. Delilah?

  “Delilah,” I croaked to Ella.

  “I know. I just talked to her. My bad,” she grinned. “Stress is a trigger and I just pulled the gun. Thank me later.”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “Give it five minutes Romeo.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Delilah

  “Why do you fight us D?” his calluses rasped against my throat and my pulse sputtered.

  Fingertips lingered so slowly I recognised his almost indistinguishable fingerprints.

  I didn’t reply to that whisper hiding in the dark, a whisper quietly seething. I kept my silence and shored my defences, though a shroud of hopelessness settled upon me.

  He’d found me.

  He’d found me, and my body exhaled as if relieved.

  Another part in my brain, stalked my consciousness like an eerie predator waiting to strike, or drop a building on the unaware and it tussled for my concentration. La niba, my head felt heavy, and the straining bond was reaching out with childlike fingers to find comfort.

  I was in the bed and not on the floor where I’d fallen. I scissored my legs and found no clothes riding my thighs. The bed dipped further and a meaty arm coiled around my middle and reefed me closer to the hot wall behind me. His elbow rested on my hip bone and even I knew where his hand would find its home.

  The weight that slid around my throat was very different from the ambiguous feathery brush as I woke. My hormones began corrupting and that bitch of a bond strangled me with vines of psychic strands creeping, draining.

  His thumb slid toward my jaw then snapped my face over my shoulder. His stare was one part thrill at the final ownership of his possession, and one part irritation at my continued protest. He bared his teeth. It was not a smile. Variants did not show their teeth in greeting nor joy.

  I closed my fist, pumped it once. I held his gaze as my chest heaved and adrenaline flooded my bloodstream along with the hormones that at once, both fuelled a raw and cutting fury, and a pathetic pining.

  He hadn’t shaved recently and my fingers remembered the inky softness. I briefly mourned bouncing caramel curls long gone from childhood. Now, his charcoal hair was cut military short, similar to his father’s, though no one could deny his mother’s stony cheek bones or that smooth umber tone of his skin.

  A coolness snaked up through the bond he was encouraging to entwine further, a selfishness to the drag on my fractured psyche, and I knew my current condition affected Carne.

  He toed a red line, one he’d never crossed and I shouldn't hold to the trust I’d believ
ed in so fundamentally. He’d indoctrinated me as surely as Onyxeal. He was on that edge but I forced myself to recognise the violence. He could break me, had been, so slowly I’d barely noticed the premeditation, the patience. But I knew of his betrayal now. How dare he let me feel his fury at my absconding. He’d spent years conditioning me, and now, when I understood, understood he’d never let me go, never share me with the world, he was salty?

  Fuck him!

  He let me stare. He let me challenge. A lifetime of memories, of re-cooked arguments and brand new hurts smacked backwards and forwards between us like physical blows. I knew all his arguments, all his reasons and he tossed away my own as quickly as I did his. Stalemate. Again.

  My left hook caught him unawares.

  I heaved as much weight as I could as I rolled my entire body. His head smashed down to the pillow and I felt the blood splatter with my fist on the follow through.

  Just. Cathartic.

  Slowly, so slowly, that handsome face returned to me smiling gently, without the aggression now. With one hand he caught my wet one and laid a kiss to it, smearing his lips garnet.

  My breath found heavy, thick air and I gulped it in, almost incapacitated by the sudden intrusion of his mind locking mine to his.

  Poison tainted any affection the bond callously encouraged. It corroded in my veins. He was in my flesh, ready to take control.

  His lathed at the blood on my hand. Possessively. Waiting for me to acquiesce and not just physically. He desired dominion. Always dominion.

  My blows were nothing to him. We both knew it. As close as he was, and if so inclined, he could influence me until I existed only as an eidolon, but he waited. Sinister. Tolerant as ever.

  “If it makes you feel better Deli, throw another,” he whispered as he crawled over me, dragging me under. His mind had always been a rocking ocean, powerful and lulling; mine the chaotic hungry shark. He smothered me, he also pushed me forward, forcing life through my gills.

  His other hand snaked up and fisted my hair so hard I gasped. “We both know I own you. You know you can’t ever escape me. It is the only thing that gives me solace right now. You will always be forced back to me because of this.” He rode sinuously along my length. “Your eyes spit fire but your body melts into mine. Hate me with your thoughts Delilah, but fucking cleave to me now,” he commanded as he sliced in, screeching to a halt at the end of me.