Variance Page 18

  “Still thinking of a diplomatic, peaceful fight?” Ryan continued his function tests.

  Paul’s navigation screens turned blank, with visibility limited to the chamber. The battle interface that displayed crowds of spectators lighting fires, fighting as their way of cheering, and betting values thousands of times larger than the last battle disappeared. Paul believed the world went crazy for their deaths. They wanted to see bodies torn apart and vaporized in the controlled explosion.

  The chamber stopped. Gates with energized shields appeared at the bottom of the dome.

  Statice’s voice called out to Paul as if through a hollow tube. “Dad?”

  “Statice?” He looked around the crowd. None of his interfaces had active video recordings.

  Nyle looked at Paul. “Who?”

  “Paul, are you all right?” Ryan stood by Paul.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just watching a video.” Paul cleared his throat.

  Would more illusions and sounds distract him in the maze? Was anxiety causing the visions? Was anyone else seeing the things he saw? Were they hallucinations?

  Siren looked at him wide-eyed.

  Everyone else tensed up. Ryan, suddenly pale, sweated profusely and coughed several times. Nyle vomited in his cockpit. Cyprian remained quiet. Corda’s aggressive attitude turned somber. Pela’s dumbfounded composure had continued since they’d left the building. Their attitudes did not resemble the ones they’d had in their previous battle.

  Their gate hissed with energy. It was large enough for a worm beast. Everyone cleared the center of the dome to leave the bomb by itself. The battle interface clock counted down from ten seconds, and a protective field covered the bomb.

  “Good luck, everyone. Move fast, and kill fast. Do this for the freedom of all Utopians and Kazats.” Ryan’s cheeks puffed up with every deep breath. No songs played over their channel.

  Everyone wished each other good luck. Nyle’s family hugged each other in their bulky mechanical suits.

  Good luck, Siren.

  “Good luck, Paul.” Data bands around Siren disappeared. She floated in front of his suit, facing the gate. Her chest rose and flattened rapidly.

  Paul knew she did not need air to breathe, but she emulated the physical reaction to anxiety. She was becoming more human, while he was becoming less human.

  At the end of the countdown, the maze hummed, and gravity no longer held them to the metal floor. The gate shields vanished, and all the teams fired at each other. Paul and company flew in and escaped from the bombardment and blasts.

  “Right.” Ryan guided the team down one intersection. Thin, dim streaks of white light randomly lit the cold metal halls.

  Pela left a camouflaged drone on the wall.

  “Far left and up.” Ryan guided the team through an upward entrance to several passages. “Get ready. Something should present itself any moment.”

  Pela dropped off another drone.

  Siren detected energy two hundred meters down the hall. “Incoming.”

  Nyle took the lead and shielded the team with an energy field. The walls emitted multiple sources of energy fields that clashed with Nyle’s shield, forcing him to stop. Everyone tried to brake, almost crashing behind him. Doors opened behind them, and a sea of drones swarmed toward Corda.

  “I’ve got this.” Pela’s attitude shifted from quiet to highly motivated as she formed strategic walls and clumps of drones, successively bounding and covering fire.

  Explosions drummed the hall in a chaotic mess of deep rumbles and deafening shockwaves. Thousands of bullets sprayed everywhere, brightening the hall. Beams intersected and formed piles of floating plasma. She kept the drone swarm at bay to unleash her cannon.

  Pela shot a thick blast of red energy down the hall. Her drones peeled away, and the blast obliterated hundreds of enemy drones. Panels around Corda’s mechanical torso opened and sent a high rate of hypersonic projectiles.

  “Corda, careful,” Ryan said as Corda tore massive incisions in the maze walls.

  Paul launched forward with Pela’s drones and cleared the rest of the assault down to the last chunk of enemy metal. A dense cloud of smoking mechanical parts hovered around them. They overcame the sixty-second attack. The energy fields ahead of Nyle ceased.

  “Good start. Keep moving.” Ryan continued to lead the way.

  After several intersections and an accumulated time of one minute and forty-five seconds, the team reached a dead end. One of Pela’s drones down the hall vanished from their navigation. The lights in the distance faded quickly as something approached them.

  “It’s the wall.” Siren began to reinforce Ryan’s suit with everyone’s material. “Ryan, set your legs on the fixed wall, and prepare to stop the moving wall.”

  Ryan positioned himself with his mechanical feet on the wall. Material streamed from everyone’s suit onto Ryan, forming a wide plate and multiple springs. Everyone hovered close to Ryan’s legs.

  The wall slammed into Ryan’s plate, buckling the massive Legacy suit’s legs. He pushed back and slowly resisted. Siren moved material to weaker springs and reinforced the wall. Ryan gained a meter.

  “I’m good.” Ryan’s arms rose above his head. Raised blood vessels slithered across his temples.

  The walls in front and behind Ryan slid open, revealing a lost team and the mouth of a worm beast. Nyle rushed upward, perpendicular to Ryan’s back, shielding everyone from the mechanical shredding and rotating sets of worm teeth. Siren shifted material to Nyle to hold him in place as the worm pushed him back.

  Nyle grunted. “Get rid of that team. That’s our exit.”

  Corda flew downward toward a group consisting of Legacy, Controller, Abstract, and Frequency fighters. Siren redirected material toward the team as they charged.

  Corda battled the Legacy fighter while blocking the Frequency fighter’s focused beams and everything else with her shield. Pela staggered drone shields with lines of drones snaking toward the Controller fighter. Cyprian engaged the Abstract fighter in material combat while both of them deflected bullets and fought drones.

  Paul watched everything as if in slow motion. He knew he only had one job to do.

  “Do what you do best, and Corda will handle the rest. You don’t have to deal the killing blow.” Siren nudged Paul forward.

  Point of no return.

  Paul flew and rolled around Corda. While blocking and deflecting hypersonic projectiles and arrays of lasers, he pierced the Legacy fighter’s armor with multiple spears from his body. The spears sent material crawling through the inside with tentacles, severing everything connected to the cockpit.

  He leaped out, and Corda blasted the cockpit with rail guns. An explosion and a shockwave erupted behind him, ejecting him forward with shrapnel. The Legacy fighter’s icon disappeared from his battle interface, and the team earned a secret location on their map.

  The distance between Paul and the Frequency fighter felt infinite as he soared over and around drones and missiles. The Frequency fighter reacted with an extreme radiation field. Paul’s layers rustled and blew away. Siren quickly sent material from Cyprian.

  In combination, Paul and the material penetrated the Frequency’s armor, ripping it apart in multiple locations. His material snaked in and tore the power supply out. He exited, and the radiation around him vanished as Siren shook off the dead material. Corda fired a large missile toward the disabled Frequency fighter.

  This motherfucking game.

  “Paul.” Siren looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  The Abstract fighter smashed Cyprian into the wall and continued flying uncontrollably, crashing into Paul’s leg. Midcollision and midexplosion, Paul weaved material through the fighter’s elaborate network of blades, tentacles, and saws and overwhelmed the fighter with a high volume of attacks. The fighter managed to break free and push awa
y from him, ejecting across the hall along with the blast.

  Siren re-formed herself out of Corda’s suit and jumped toward the fighter. Paul leaped from the wall, and material clashed in between them, calculating a hundred moves per second against thirty moves per second. The fighter attempted to launch a defense against Siren.

  Siren’s body shattered into dust and re-formed in a hug around the fighter. Paul sent electricity through Siren and into the fighter’s body. Blue electrical bolts danced around the fighter, who ceased all movement. Siren shattered into fragments and whooshed away to join Paul’s suit. Corda’s mechanical head shot a narrow energy beam through the Abstract fighter’s body, vaporizing and charring human flesh.

  Paul shook his head. “I might as well kill them myself to save time and make it less painful.”

  “Then fucking do it, and finish the last man,” Ryan grunted while maintaining his hold on the wall.

  The Controller fighter gathered all his drones and attempted to escape. Paul remained in place and hesitated.

  Siren jumped out of his suit, and Corda tore out the layers of drones on the fighter’s back with a heavy onslaught. Pela used her cannon. Projectiles and energy zoomed by Paul as he watched Siren reach out to the fleeing fighter.

  Siren landed and, like a needle, injected herself through the layers of drones into the Controller’s suit. Paul directed her to sever the primary power connections and refrained from entering the pilot’s cockpit. The clump of lifeless drones separated from the master suit as useless pieces of metal.

  A large missile rocketed past Paul. The fire blinded him, and the blast pushed him back. He regained his vision. Siren returned in flames. She extinguished the fire and returned into his suit.

  “The map is open.” Ryan accepted the fifty-five-second shortcut, and everyone’s navigation screen and Visuals displayed the way out.

  Five minutes and thirteen seconds had elapsed.

  “Go.” Nyle lowered his shields and zoomed past Ryan.

  Siren ejected Ryan toward the team, and the wall slammed shut and blocked the worm beast.

  A blue-highlighted path led the team through corridors in which the walls constantly changed. Paul watched walls open and close where fighters fought to their deaths. The blood-filled mechanical teeth of worm beasts slammed into closing, sliding walls. Suits of defeated fighters hovered in burned halls. As Paul’s team passed, armies of drones ready to attack lined the walls, remaining at bay.

  Everything went by so fast that Paul could not think; he could only observe.

  At the end of their shortcut, the blue path disappeared. They were on their own again.

  Ryan continued forward. “Keep moving.” Six minutes and eight seconds had elapsed. He and Corda soared forward.

  In their formation, Paul could almost touch Corda’s leg. Cyprian hid inside Pela’s drones. Paul had almost forgotten about Cyprian. Siren had spent half or more of her resources helping the boy. Nyle flew slightly ahead of Pela. His head jerked as Ryan took a sharp turn. Maybe if Paul had killed the fighters sooner, they would have been in a better position to escape, at least by a couple of seconds.

  A door shot up and separated Pela and Cyprian from the group.

  Nyle turned around and started blasting through the door with energy. “Pela! Cyprian!”

  Corda slammed Nyle with her shield. “They’ll find a way out.” Her voice lowered. “They’ll find a way out.”

  “We have to keep moving.” Ryan launched forward, and Corda followed.

  Nyle looked at Paul for an answer.

  “Come on, Nyle.” Paul followed Ryan.

  With loud static, Pela’s voice broke through their communications. “Keep moving.”

  Cyprian cried, “I don’t want to die! Mom, I don’t want to die.”

  The static grew, and a golden glow increased ahead of them.

  “Champion.” Corda slowed down.

  “Go.” Ryan grabbed Paul and launched him forward.

  Paul felt eager and doubtful. He wanted to kill, but fear was growing from within him. Was he ready?

  His giant suit split into ten smaller versions of him, converting his cockpit into a suit. Siren joined. Energy sparked and sizzled all around the Kalliro champion and the walls.

  This is it, Siren. Let’s fucking do this.

  Strong magnetic fields around the champion drew in Corda and Ryan. Paul’s clones turned into webs of support and resisted the pull, allowing the rest of the team to fly overhead and down the hall.

  Paul commanded them to keep going.

  Seven minutes and twenty-one seconds had elapsed.

  Nyle’s rocket nozzles disappeared in the distance. The champion hovered, waiting for Paul to attack.

  Simultaneously, Paul, Siren, and his clones advanced forward with turbines, wings, or stilts. He imagined ten layers of offensive and counteroffensive moves. Material shot outward from his clones and met golden streams and plates of radioactive metal.

  The champion’s material moved incredibly fast and appeared to teleport. The champion severed Paul’s charring material. Siren cycled and updated material while learning from the Kalliro’s speed.

  Eight minutes and two seconds had elapsed.

  Paul weaved, snaked, and shot material all around the moving liquid-metal polygons while defending against liquid blades, spears, and blunt panels. None of his material advanced beyond the initial contact zone.

  Eight minutes and five seconds had elapsed.

  Paul consolidated all his material and concentrated his moves in a frontal assault. With Siren’s processing, 375 physical attacks and defenses per second turned his Visuals into wavy lines of data. He pressed harder and watched a sliver of material work its way three meters closer to the suit’s flowing armor. The golden champion turned into flames of reds and blues.

  Paul tasted a warm, metallic liquid on his lips. Blood streamed from his nose. Eight minutes and ten seconds had elapsed.

  Siren retracted and reused material that had peeled and chipped away from the radiation field that had made direct contact with the gold metal. She turned material into dust and re-formed to advance.

  The champion hovered back. Siren re-formed behind the champion and launched attacks with webs of material, blocking the hall. Paul shifted his body forward and around the golden defenses that cut into his suit. He arched his body back as a golden plate sliced through the layers over his stomach, revealing his skin to the field.

  He screamed as he covered his stomach. His skin vaporized to the muscle fibers.

  “Healing.” Siren kept his intestines in place by reinforcing his damaged skin with material.

  His scream turned into maniacal laughter. “You call yourself a champion?” As he pushed harder, more of his material penetrated the liquid-metal defense.

  Siren strategically positioned a cloud of material at an opening. Paul formed a scythe and swung it toward the champion. A chunk of liquid ejected off the champion’s suit from his slice. In the microsecond in which he revealed the mechanical abdomen, the gap filled with liquid metal. Paul retracted all his material and hovered.

  His eyes twitched. Everything appeared red. The champion’s liquefied head armor resembled Shadow’s face, laughing at him.

  “Fuck you, Shadow.”

  Just as Paul lunged forward, his vision cleared, and he found himself lying down in a field of grass. Amaryllis stood above him, fighting off the polygons of metal shifting all around her, with Variance material blocking and pushing the metal back.

  Eight minutes and thirty seconds had elapsed.

  “Amy.”

  He roared, spraying saliva and blood all over his face mask. He sprang off the grass, and through his imagination, multiple sets of wings formed around him instantaneously. He spun past Amaryllis and drilled through the metal plates pushing against him in all dire
ctions in an intense magnetic field. Each plate attempted to cut his body into pieces, and he shattered or redirected the material away from him.

  Stilts and supports broke into the grass behind him, allowing him to resist and advance harder. His wings swung and swirled, replaced by waves of new shifting and morphing wings.

  Eight minutes and thirty-three seconds had elapsed.

  Despite their combination attacks and defenses, he and Amy could not advance, but neither could the champion. Paul’s vision returned to normal. Code enveloped Siren’s specter as she maxed out the suit’s cellular potential. His Visuals flashed rapidly. He withdrew his material and hovered.

  The champion hovered from side to side. Its mechanical face constantly shifted from a sparkling helmet of disks to Shadow’s face.

  Eight minutes and forty seconds had elapsed.

  “Come on!” Paul barked. Material moved away from his face, exposing his skin to the radioactive air. “Come on, you motherfucker. You piece of fucking shit. I’m going to rip your fucking heart out.”

  He put his fist in front of him, shaking with rage. His skin burned and vaporized. He pointed at the champion. “Make your fucking move.”

  The champion hovered forward with multiple nested spheres of liquid polygons. Paul hovered in kind. They slammed into each other, and the two spheres clashed, with gold seeping through his layers. He countered streams of gold metal and blocked the gold’s path closer into his inner spherical layers. Peeling white material pierced through gold sheets and countered inner layers by turning the ends into random shapes.

  A horn blared a constant roar. Nine minutes had elapsed.

  The champion retracted all liquid material and zoomed backward, disappearing from sight. Paul flew forward and heard nothing on the team’s channel. He could not read any of his fuzzy interfaces.

  He growled. “Fuck. Get back here, you coward. I’m not done with you.” Globules of blood ejected from his mouth and floated in front of him.