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

by J. Q. Baldwin

  You knew her name. All this time you knew?

  Yes.

  Just like you’d known all along Spartan was my biological grandfather?

  Not as long as that but, yes.

  I should’ve cut you off a long time ago, he replied abstractly.

  Cut me off from what? What are you talking about? Where she is now?

  I’ve been anchoring you for so long, when I found you gone when I got back… I cut you off.

  Cut me off?

  Yes.

  I felt an up-welling. I held off for the night. Enough for you to stabilise.

  The Tk came on at the hospital, I recalled slowly, with trepidation.

  Yes.

  You were suppressing it? How long? HOW LONG?

  Since you were five.

  I couldn’t look away from the board members. Couldn’t snarl or screech or stab or run away. If anything he held me harder, compressed me into a box so reinforced I couldn’t even mourn. Couldn’t feel most of my muted emotions.

  Why are you telling me now? Why now?

  I should’ve done it a long time ago.

  You shouldn’t have blocked me at all.

  Maybe.

  So why now! In a public space? Are you trying to have me committed? Is that it? Onyxeal ready to lock me down?

  Now is the time Delilah. The Variant that abducted Yuri - some people call her that -

  Some people. People close to my sister…

  The Variant that abducted her was held at the auction house. François bought him and he escaped his care.

  You’re telling me this. Just like Spartan handed me the file. Both of you only use me.

  I use you. You use me. We use each other Delilah. That’s how it works and that’s how I fucking like it. But, you need motivation and I need your skills. I require an insight into our friend over there.

  François?

  Carne nodded just slightly and I could still only see him do it from the very corner of my eye.

  Despite my many strengths, you succeed me in telepathy. I require contact to get in his head.

  He’s not one of us. I can see that from here, I slashed back angrily.

  And yet I cannot get past his shields. If I make contact he’ll see me too and be able to pull the pin on everything before we can shut down the whole GMT auction house and all its tributaries, including to that of ‘the subject’ currently at large with a hostage.

  You have betrayed me. Again and again and again. Locked me from myself and hidden one family member from me. What a fucking tragic, pathetic person I am? To have talked and pondered, curled up with you in our room, confided how I might find them and one was at Onyxeal all along… Now this.

  I grew so cold in my limbs. My extremities were tingling.

  If you do this. Get inside this sick old bastard’s head. You’ll be closer to your sister and one step farther from me. I’ll cut you off for good and let you go Delilah if you do this.

  You’re going to cut me off right now, to do it, aren’t you?

  Have to. Prove to me you’re ready.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Refreshments were offered during a respite before the company’s analytical data was to be presented for questioning. Carne walked a few paces away from me, neatly distancing himself.

  I sagged. My body trying to follow the link he’d just severed.

  I blinked.

  He’d cut it. I couldn’t feel him.

  But I could sense the Telekinesis glut on my substance as if it was starved. It binged at more to gain its own clout.

  Kuroyuri. My sister.

  Freedom.

  I could truly, irrecoverably, be free. I just had to endure.

  François was a timid, broken little man who probably had lived long enough to enforce natural shields. If I got close I’d be able to peer into his life, as if it were my own. His deepest aspirations, his most potent desires would be my own.

  But that had always been a fight I’d fought. My telepathy was so hale because it had the backing of empathy. I didn’t need touch, even for Variants, they were all simply a thought away, as close as the hate I held for porridge, as recognisable my opinion on coffee with milk. Empathy and telepathy had worked in concert to segregate me from the world and inversely made me a husk, without individuality.

  My body woke to shaking knees as they bore my weight.

  Tk was something else entirely; a monster waking.

  I stood woodenly. Or tried to, my knees congealing.

  Like I were high, I was paranoid: was anyone watching me? Could they see me quiver in my pretty dress and heels that were no help to my confidence.

  The tug toward him was…

  He betrayed you. Again! I pleaded with my sanity. Pleaded for dear life. A life so dear. One I hadn’t even met yet.

  My eyes found his back.

  I thought he’d cut me completely but then that last strand popped free. Snapped and frayed and swung about confused and aloof.

  My vision burst white. I was blind. My mind ripped and I knew the injury to be absolute. And still I mandated my body to move.

  I was in control. No matter the hurt. No matter how laborious, how grim. I was finally in control and that was sweeter and more tangible than any fraudulent autonomy.

  Carne had moved into the path of two delegates discussing anti-rejection treatments as they walked to the sandwich bar as if nothing so monumental had occurred.

  He laughed. Chortled amicably with persons unknown to him.

  Carne made everything easy, his confidence and affability with which he manipulated people was distressing to me. It stripped me now. But I envied him.

  He plied a pair of antique and eloquent glasses to his face playing a nerdy, hipster-cool scientist, instead of the arrogant owner he was beside me.

  How had I never realised he’d never released my mind entirely all these years? He’d held me together effortlessly. I acknowledged there was no pain from telekinesis my whole life, no worry of releasing it and creating a mess. But what else had he hidden, taken or stolen?

  Now I was beholden with pain. It held me upright. I’d never be the same again.

  I walked toward François.

  I picked his security in the crowd.

  I focused only on him and let the lacerations deliver me from oppression.

  Help - whispered on the air.

  Confused I turned. Nothing was out of place. Carne cracked up again with the two scientists. He was now removed. I felt nothing from him.

  He was a stranger.

  Many powerful people surrounded me though and their personalities and desires were clamant now instead of his but I suddenly perceived many more close to me than those present. More than those that filled this room.

  Mercy stroked my ear. Thick and sad and close.

  The further away from Carne I got, the more gravid my telekinesis bandied with my incoming empathy. Muddled by the confusing mass of minds, cresting upon me, my terror cinched higher.

  A variant of a Variant. I thought it was my own fear loosening my cheeks into hopelessness. Was the entire universe against me? To have three abilities so defunct they could not harmonise was debilitating.

  Was I free? Really free?

  Would I ever be? Would I need Carne forever simply to exist? Was it taking the easy route if staying pain-free, and ignorant was tempting? Or was that smart? Stay until proficient…

  Was I contemplating going back?

  No!

  I cleared my head, jumping away from that downward spiral. Whatever I could do with him, I could do without.

  A groan rumbled with strain near me. Veiled and distant but the anguish was so close, so close to my own. Once again, I turned around, trying to place it. Located what I thought sounded young, and male.

  Great holo-screens fenced the ceiling as if falling from it, pouring their propaganda of humanitarianism the company headed. I wouldn't get an emotional feed from a screen but it was possible I was confusing the plight
of refugees on screen with a shareholder’s or my own personal anguish. I wasn’t exactly feeling sane.

  François was close. An uninspiring man. Hair whipped up and back as if in his earlier years he’d had a crop of hair styled to suit his stature. His stature and age had decayed and yet like a hoarder with their attachments, he’d kept the hair style despite how sad it rendered his appearance.

  Those he spoke to were careful to be polite, but didn’t engage fully, leaving their conversations brief, a polite acknowledgement. As if his obvious illness might see him expire because of their conversation or worse, transfer that illness to them.

  He noticed of course and those close to him seemed on a fated path, unable to hide their mortal fear of death. I had only one fear: that I’d open my eyes and realise I’d walked back to Carne instead of to the man who could lead me, independently, to Kuroyuri.

  Only one, an immunologist spoke with excitement to François. I recognised her face. She was a brilliant woman who had won a scientific award recently for her work in mucosal immunology.

  “Renee Pritchard, so lovely to see you again after Madrid’s IIS” I greeted with forged swarming confidence. She’d been the recipient of the travel award at the International Immunology Society’s annual ceremony and my perceptive memory was carrying me through the farce.

  “And you too -”

  “Oh, excuse me, I hope I’m not interrupting -” I left it open for François to introduce himself and for Renee to gain a name and for me to retain dignity. To be an everyday colleague and hide the necessitous basin I truly was.

  “François Petre, my friends call me Frankie,” he shook my hand in his fragile one. The sag from elderly excess skin shifted creepily over his bones.

  My own froze over his.

  His thoughts were elsewhere. Nowhere near me or here.

  My teeth gnashed upon something pulling at my mouth.

  I was suddenly naked, bound, begging, drooling past the strap in my mouth crying unheard protests as the drill buzzed and the grinding of my hip bone gave way to fractures.

  I reefed my head away. Away from the teenage boy in François’ memories pleading, uncontrollably pleading.

  I reeled and strove not to stumble, to fall heavily to my knees. Frankie’s accompanying emotions were simply eager, spirited with anticipation.

  My gut turned.

  If Carne was a monster, was François a maniac?

  Was a maniac more horrifying because of their unpredictable chaos?

  I tried to close. To shut down and find the frigid dark, where I was alone, but I was not alone. Tk coddled me, gathered me in its arms and snivelled, weeped at me to release.

  Release

  Release

  Release and let go.

  Let go honey, I have you.

  “Woah there Mireen, what was your last level? Were they less than five?” Carne swept my arm over his shoulder, tapped my face gently. I could do nothing but shudder, my eyes rolling in my head. Telekinesis yowling and banging at the bars Carne had it now locked behind.

  “Is she alright? I’m just calling an ambulance now,” Renee assured.

  “Just give me a second. I know she has her insulin with her. Hopefully she’ll be okay. If she’s hypo I should be able to help.” He rummaged roughly about in my dress pockets, coincidentally finding a packet of sterilized pre-packaged insulin patches. He peeled one quickly and rubbed it to me, circling the spot over and over, as if in worry.

  The grimy contorted mind behind me became repulsed at my deformity. Renee, a juxtaposition that was jarring.

  “There, you see, she’s coming to a little now. Mireen, you okay Sweety?” Carne’s voice was bothered and tender but I thought to myself that it was a little saccharine.

  You think?

  I smiled. Then remembered. I would never forget. I would never again let him have the tiny human smiles I tried on my face. I sunk away once more and was again caressed by Frankie’s natural perverted glee, then, disgusted fear at my condition.

  “Lets get you to your lunch pack to have a carb, Sweety, that’ll help wont it?”

  “Yes. Thanks Honey,” I stammered, embarrassed.

  “Mireen, I should have remembered you were diabetic from meeting you last time; my Uncle has the condition. Don’t you worry, I’m sure I have your Email; I’ll send you notes on the analytical data on Ceretide’s scientific research. You just get home with your husband here,” She soothed, bending close with her hand out as if to rub me but didn’t want to impose on my personal space.

  I nodded in response.

  “You really should mind that - condition - you have there Mireen,” Frankie admonished.”

  “It sneaks up, François, sorry to worry you.” I acceded in a conciliatory tone, gritting my teeth in angst because Carne deliberately wouldn't hold against the writhing sickness permeating the very ether around the man.

  Carne rested my mind while he transported us home. Blanked things I knew I shouldn’t let him take. If I really wanted independence shouldn’t I have some initiative, some will strong enough to rival what he extorted?

  To be useless was an injury to my self-esteem. Assassinations were concussive and every one I recalled with shrill pain. But I copped the empathic backlash from a blade or a bullet, bore it.

  Touching was worse.

  François was worse.

  Carne, cemented back in place, was a fundamental crux, but touching that animal was irretrievable no matter my anchor.

  That torture was now my own. I’d never not see that young man’s face, his agony, and only feel greedy anticipation. Hear the drill coring, and only feel desire.

  So, I allowed… or at least didn’t fight Carne when he stole me inside that murky cage, where the cacophony of his thoughts and danger of becoming entranced by the electrical impulses of life flashed.

  Carne carried me, broken and vacant into my home.

  Home: I was calling it that now, huh.

  The one lead to Kuroyuri, a wasted exercise, simply because I lacked the perseverance. He rolled my head into the crook of his neck, where the scent of him was strong.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Carne

  “Did you get that Ven?” I sent through a communication as soon as I’d herded my sick Mate to the valet, then into our hired ride. While it was time consuming to be driven to an unlinked address, it was still necessary.

  Delilah was damaged. Safe guarding her was imperative now more than ever. François now knew she was true Variant. Not the botched experiment on humans he’d been harvesting before he’d found ‘the subject’. I’d seen him from her escaping psyche. As soon as he’d realised his vulnerability he’d turned it to his advantage.

  Delilah was now in mortal danger and I had purposely constructed it.

  “I got it.” Ven answered. “Been digging deeper. François Petre is a silent board member for Cercek and that boy you saw is a missing Gen3.”

  “How long has he been missing?”

  “Nine months approximately.”

  My worry was not a ploy, as the situation I placed Delilah into, was. My worry was consuming but my conscience suffered little. Delilah’s condition was worsening but to break her was cruel but necessary.

  Tk had to be quantified and controlled. I’d never have been able to hide it from her forever but the energy had only continued to build until it had peaked forcing my follow through. It began when she’d seen Kuroyuri’s face. I’d questioned my decision then, because to reform after breaking our bond might not be possible, but I’d still made that decision even though it had the potential to end us both.

  And I’d do it again.

  Delilah was unable to descry the impending ravages she was capable of but I was well was of them. Knew she’d have to know of them to learn control.

  If I had to cut her off from her anchor to learn, so be it.

  I’d need to enlist my family to insist upon her return to Onyxeal, at least until after the auction.

 
; After the auction I might have another eighty years of GMT off the streets to sequester my Mate, far from its reaches until she could be trusted alone in this world. But I had to remove the stain before we were safe.

  Her fractured little soul wouldn’t mend mine but we could remain broken together.

  I brushed the hair from her eyes gently and undressed her completely, slipping her dress down. Possessively tasting along the swell of her breast as I rolled her underwear over her silken thighs. the dress right where my genetic signature appropriated her. Named her mine. Her coding was alive with my touch, reacting and to my DNA, shifting and accepting.

  She’d never get the chance at escape again.

  Delilah

  I answered the call with an anxious lurch tossing my stomach and my one plate across the kitchen drawer. I picked the plate up and let it rubble on the counter before it settled. Carne was so close I could still smell him on my skin and yet he was gone from my apartment. Still, gooseflesh rippled up my arms but I shook myself bodily.

  He must have left in the early morning hours. He wouldn’t have left voluntarily and I figured whoever called now had something to do with it.

  It was the Control Centre at Onyxeal. My gut knotted again. A call from home pre-empted a tearing turn of direction and I was in complete fear that my independence was about to be cut very short just like Carne prophesied.

  I answered.

  “Gypsy,” he grinned genuinely. One of the few like me who truly tried it on as a face of joy rather than aggression. “How are ya Darlin’?” That cheery smile did nothing to allay fear but his charm sparked through the connection and I smiled companionably with Carne’s Father just as humans do with one another, because to do anything would see me splinter. How could I stand and be pleasant of all things after yesterday. The husk was back, no matter that Carne barred me away.

  Troy appeared Carne’s age though I’d estimate his age around the two hundred mark, but his youth like his golden curls clung like mud pies on Mum’s picnic rug.

  “Oh you know, joined a cult. Very misunderstood as I hear it,” I joked dryly. It was a long running joke Troy had first made when I was small and learning the world was so very different from the time bubble I’d been found in. It was hard to remember who I was when talking with him.