Variance Read online

  Paul turned down several intersections as panic increased his breathing toward dizziness and replaced his aggression.

  Nine minutes and twenty-five seconds had elapsed.

  As he turned down a hall, everything around him changed into Azure. Trees towered around him, with Sol glowing in between two trees. People around him laughed and smiled. The horn faded. Families held hands as they walked down the grass paths without the sense of urgency that was pounding in his chest.

  Standing next to him, Lily and Statice transformed their Variance blocks into kites, each with two cords. The wind blew the kites high into the air, and they soared. Their voices sounded real. The warm and cool breeze brushed against his bare skin and his hair. His breathing calmed, and his eyes drooped. He wanted to stay awake and fought the fainting sensation.

  What the fuck is going on?

  “Here, Dad. Your turn.” Statice handed her kite’s handles to him.

  As he reached out, everything turned bright. The white trees glowed redder than the sun. Everything and everyone, including his daughters, burned around him without expression. The ground rose high into the air in large fragments of earth, followed by a rumble loud enough to vibrate the air out of his lungs.

  Ten minutes and one second had elapsed.

  A force launched Paul forward, and he found himself behind burning spherical layers of material. His eyes, his chest, his real and fake organs, and even his shit pressed against the back of his suit as his body flew forward. His body jolted and rotated in intense jerks, shifting his internals everywhere. His eyes blurred more but remained open just enough for him to notice pinholes of burning light penetrating through his innermost sphere.

  He rocketed out of the maze with a degrading bodysuit like embers rising off a burning log. A gap of thousands of meters stretched between him and a burning forest.

  “Paul, I’ll—”

  He heard an indistinct voice over his Audials. Siren was not around. The skin on his arms and legs met with the superheated air. He screamed and heard himself through his skull—a dull, muffled cry. Tears blurred his view of his helpless freefall.

  There’s no way I can survive this.

  He blinked. He found himself on the ground, looking up at Ryan’s suit standing over him. Smoldering dirt covered his body. He did not remember crashing.

  Ryan spoke through Audials. “I’ve got him.” He laughed and then grunted. “I can’t believe you made it.”

  Paul was not sure if he spoke, but he moved his lips and passed air through his throat to say, “Everyone okay?”

  Ryan responded with prolonged grunts. “Still searching for Pela and Cyprian. We won first place. We made it out because of you.” He carried Paul and leaped into the Legacy cockpit. Ryan’s suit melted with sizzling bubbles.

  Paul’s body was deteriorating with every second. His head wobbled, and the lights inside Ryan’s cockpit dimmed into darkness. His Visuals disappeared. He couldn’t stop his eyes from closing.

  Ryan’s voice turned into a distant echo. “Stay awake, Paul. Shit. Stay …”

  The blue capsule opened. Paul sat up after having died again, having survived cellular cancer, organ failure, and numerous symptoms of extreme gravitational force and radiation on human flesh. Most of his skin and organs were artificial, as were his eardrums.

  He only had five days left to live.

  Every time he sat up from the capsule, the shitty feeling of living increased exponentially. He found himself inside the team building, this time without Pela’s suit parked in between Nyle’s and Cyprian’s new suits.

  Siren stood up from a chair next to the capsule and approached him a step at a time. “Paul, need me to help with anything?” She sent material to cover his body.

  Quick update.

  “We’re eight hours away from the final match. No details there, except we have to travel to Forever Winter. We have more supplies, more than we had last time, and I’ve upgraded the suit to withstand extreme radiation fields and blasts. Just not enough to break through a Kalliro suit.”

  He sighed with his eyes closed. He would die if he survived another match. He was not sure if he would see his family again.

  “You will make it. I promise. We can do this.”

  He would not have expected Siren to say otherwise. If he died, she died. It was simple logic. How had he been able to survive the blast?

  “The blast carried you out of the maze. I kept you oriented safely from all the turns, and the blast really maxed me out. I thought I was going to lose you. I cycled material and tried to minimize all of the forces possible.”

  He felt like shit, but at least he felt something. He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

  Siren remained quiet and in place.

  Nyle and Cyprian sat on a cot, hunched over, sulking together. Paul slid off the capsule, dragged his feet, and went toward the cot.

  “Paul, please rest.” Nyle waved Paul to halt.

  Paul continued and made an effort to talk. “I’m sorry about Pela.”

  Nyle smiled. “She died for a good cause. We knew the risks when—”

  “We are going to avenge her and fucking kill Shadow. When I’m holding him by the throat, I will give you the liberty of ripping his insides apart.”

  Nyle maintained his smile. “No, Paul. You and I will not be committing such inhumane acts. We will win, and then we will focus on our families.”

  Paul’s tone grew deeper. “As long as that asshole is alive, you will not have a family, a son to raise into a man.”

  Cyprian cried more but fought the urge to make a sound. He huddled under Nyle’s arm.

  “Paul, please.”

  “Are you not infuriated?”

  “No, Paul. I’m happy to be closer to a world of peace. That’s why we participated in Divine Might long before you arrived. It was our dream to reach this point, and now we’re facing our final battle. Pela died with honor. I know she’d have preferred her death to have been in a championship battle, not at the hands of the Kazat military or civilians.”

  Paul stared hard at Nyle, almost transferring his rage, as if to convince Nyle to feel the same.

  “Paul, please.” Nyle patted Cyprian.

  Ryan spoke through Audials. “Paul, when you can, please come outside with your suit. We don’t have much time, and I need to show you something.”

  Paul turned and watched Ryan’s cockpit seal. Corda stepped away from the suit.

  Siren, let’s go.

  Siren streamed material to him and carried him to the rest of his suit.

  Corda’s somber aura and eyes stared at nothing as she spoke in a monotone. “Don’t stay out too long. We’ll have to leave soon.”

  Paul had no idea where he was going. He nodded and entered the suit.

  Ryan led him several kilometers down a serene mountain range. The clear night sky glistened with the stars of the galaxy. He spotted Azure and Sapphire. Azure no longer glowed as a blue orb. It was yellow.

  “We’re going to dump the suits here. I need you to bring enough material to transport a Frequency-sized suit and break it into pieces. Turn your material into a small train or something.” Ryan lowered himself into a sea of clouds at the bottom of a cliff near the outskirts of a major city.

  At the base, Ryan jumped out of his cockpit. “All right, now take us back up the cliff.” He coughed several times, spitting blood onto the ground.

  Paul found it peculiar that Ryan wanted to disassemble a suit in secret, when Ryan transported tons of Variance material in secret. He lifted Ryan on to the edge of the cliff.

  “What about the surveillance drones following us all the time?”

  “At this point, it doesn’t matter. Actually, fly us over to the city. We don’t have time.”

  Ryan needed to make up his mind. Paul guessed that Ryan’s nervous
ness and pale skin drove his indecisiveness.

  Paul flew them toward a city. “Isn’t the capsule curing you?”

  “Some bodies just don’t do well with cancer, even with the capsule. It keeps removing it, but my cancer cells return more aggressively each time. Divine Might is fucking me hard. Once it’s all over, I should be able to resume a normal, healthy life.” Ryan continued coughing, his coughs overcoming the rustling of leaves.

  Paul believed Ryan should stop fighting. Ryan had fought his share, and he’d saved Paul and saved the team with resources. He wanted to tell Ryan, but Ryan would probably tell him to fuck off.

  Ryan led Paul around the city streets. No one paid attention to them and their conspicuous train. The city smelled like shit and sewage. The ground was black from mold and dirt. Parked transport ships were the cleanest objects around them, with shiny and reflective fuselages.

  Ryan reached a luxurious doorway with a man standing at the ready.

  “Good evening, gentlemen, and welcome to—”

  “Make way.” Ryan brushed past the man and entered.

  Paul stared hard at the Kazat citizen and followed Ryan with the train following behind him. “What the fuck are you looking at? You didn’t see anything. Understand?”

  The man backed away, almost tripping on himself. “Nothing, sir. Understood, sir.”

  Paul was glad that the building was quiet, with no one to interfere in their operation, whatever it was. The train took up the width of the hallway. They made several turns and took three elevators to the ground floor. Siren used the other elevators to transport the material.

  Ryan walked past several open storage areas and approached a closed gate. “We’re here.” He coughed, and more blood oozed out of his mouth.

  Paul wanted Ryan to quit. Aside from outbursts of rage, his thoughts had slowed significantly, as if he were mostly brain-dead. He struggled to gather his thoughts regarding how to deliver his opinion on Ryan’s health. Just then, Siren and the material arrived.

  They stepped inside, and the gate closed. Bright lights turned on. The room was large enough to house a tall object covered in metal sheets.

  “I need you to remove the cover—quietly.” Ryan stepped back.

  The moment Paul hovered at the top of the object and sliced a hole into the metal, Siren read high levels of radiation, similar to those of a Kalliro suit. He continued dismantling the shell in neat piles, and sure enough, he found a disabled Kalliro suit.

  “How did you get this?” Paul hovered around the suit as Siren touched every component with her hands.

  “I needed to save my family, Paul. I wanted to save everyone’s family. I was close to victory, but my body failed, as you can see. I got desperate and obtained an illegal suit.” He coughed and spat out bloody phlegm. “I wanted to give this to you earlier, but that would have meant I would have died, your team would have died, and we probably wouldn’t be hours away from the final championship battle.

  “Do whatever you want with it. Besides, if I go into that thing, my body will turn into mush with all the cellular mutations. I’m probably on my last breath anyway, so if you can hurry the fuck up, it would be great.”

  “I can transport everything in its idle state. We’ll make it back, for the most part.” Siren watched her arm react to the suit as small patches of Variance skin peeled away.

  Paul hovered down to Ryan and gave him a hug. Siren joined in. “Thanks for everything, Ryan.”

  For a moment, Ryan appeared to have enjoyed the warm embrace. “Okay, enough with the sappy shit. Break it down, and cover it with Variance material so that the Kazat military doesn’t find us. High radiation is not a natural occurrence in these parts.”

  Siren, what can we do with this?

  “Anything and everything, Paul.” In minutes, Siren dismantled the suit into small pieces, lining them with Variance while analyzing functionality and its systems.

  Without being sappy, Paul was not sure how else to express his gratitude. “Let me end this, Ryan. I can finish DM. Be with your family while you still can.”

  “As much as I’d like to kick back and relax, I will stop when the contract is fulfilled. Then I can be at peace with my family.”

  Siren covered the engine, the largest component in her train of Kalliro parts. “I’m done. Don’t mind me. I have a lot of work to do.” She dematerialized and joined the train.

  She materialized back into her human form and hugged Ryan. “I’m so happy. Thank you so much.” She dematerialized again and rejoined the train.

  Ryan looked at Paul with a raised brow and an odd smile.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Paul was not sure what to make of Ryan’s reaction to Siren’s gratitude.

  “I don’t know how you do it, Paul.”

  “Do what?”

  “You can curse like a pirate and harbor the need to rip the balls right out of a man. I’m just glad your carnal side is at bay because of your Utopian beliefs.”

  Paul scratched his head. Carnal side at bay?

  “Man, lighten up, and take a joke. You know, I had to give up my left testicle to get that suit.” Ryan chuckled as he turned off the lights and closed the gate.

  Paul gasped. “Couldn’t you just use the medical capsule to—”

  Ryan slapped the back of Paul’s head. “No, man. What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m just kidding. I have my nuts. But I definitely had to shed some blood and tears to get that suit. I’m so glad it’s being put to good use.” He wrapped his arm around Paul with a big smile and then let out a series of severe coughs. “You know, at one point in my life, someone actually held a knife to my balls.”

  Paul maintained his seriousness. “I can do—”

  “Paul, I will rip out your left testicle if you tell me to quit again.” Ryan pointed at Paul’s crotch.

  “All right. Sorry.” Paul placed his hands over his testicles.

  “Good.”

  The sparkling orange glare of Prism’s gigantic surface appeared above the horizon. A transport ship parked in front of the building with the gate open. Ryan landed next to the ship.

  “Why is my family here?” Ryan’s mechanical chest plates swirled open. His grave tone and wide eyes meant that something was wrong.

  With tears pouring down her sick, pale face, Elise pushed her kids out of the gate and walked toward Ryan.

  Corda followed Elise. “Where are you going? Tell me what’s wrong.” She spoke to Ryan through the team channel. “She just arrived, crying all over herself. The kids are scared.”

  Nyle and Cyprian stood at the gate. Nyle ushered Cyprian to return inside the building.

  “They should not be here.” Ryan’s voice quivered.

  Elise continued crying, forcefully pushing her kids forward. They all had tears and fearful expressions on their faces.

  Siren molded herself out of the suit and stood in front of Paul to scan the area.

  Ryan jumped down and walked over to his family with haste. Siren kept up with Ryan.

  Elise screamed and spoke with urgency. “I love you, Ryan. I love—”

  A ball of light blinded Paul’s view, and a blast made him react and anchor himself deep into the ground. A conventional bomb exploded, leaving a deep crater where Elise and her kids had stood. Shrapnel balls partially penetrated his suit. A loud ringing blocked all sounds out, even his own breathing.

  Siren protected Ryan but fell short in time to protect Corda. The exposed building walls buckled inward, creaking and burning with smoke. Cyprian’s icon remained active on Paul’s map. Everyone else registered as deceased. He could not process a thought or emotion, except to check the whereabouts of his team.

  Corda’s last location pinged her against the wall. Paul hovered past Siren and Ryan to find burned blood splattered around the outline of her body. Her steaming body
, with the skeleton exposed, lay on the grass.

  He wanted to kneel next to Corda to see if he could salvage her somehow. She was dead beyond repair. He hoped it was all just a hallucination.

  Nyle’s last location pinged him inside the building in a far corner. Paul hovered into the building and found Cyprian inside the Variance suit, thanks to Siren. The gap between the floor and Nyle’s suit was only big enough to slide a finger in. Nyle’s torso was in between that gap. Paul could not reimagine any of Nyle’s features in looking at the ripped tissue and cracked facial bones, which were the result of a direct shrapnel impact to the face. Blood began to spread everywhere.

  He hovered back and stepped on the ground. The color and volume of blood left him breathless. He heard a crack under his foot. It was his family picture frame. The blast had turned the polymer frame and translucent cover into brittle material. He slowly snapped the frame away and held on to the picture.

  “No.” Siren released Ryan out of her shield. His dying face and bloodshot eyes shook as saliva dripped down his mouth. Ryan ran and leaped upward into his suit with rockets active, constantly mumbling, “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “Wait. Where are you going?” Paul flew next to Ryan, who started to hover.

  Ryan’s mechanical arm stopped Paul. “I will kill Shadow. You end this war the way you planned from the beginning, Utopian. I have faith in you. I gave you everything you needed to survive.” His arm lowered. “If you don’t see me at the gate, that means me and that fucker are dead. Regardless, the battle will still go on. Give them one hell of a show.” He rocketed away, leaving Paul in a cloud of dust.

  Paul descended and stood. Either he was thinking slowly, or he could not fathom what had just happened. Were Corda, Nyle, and Ryan’s family truly deceased? Was this an illusion? What would he tell Cyprian? Corda could not be saved.

  What the fuck should he do next? What was he supposed to do?

  12

  W3-W-HR

  PAUL STOOD AT A DISTANCE from Cyprian, who sat down next to Nyle’s grave. The past hour had been the longest hour of his life. Six deaths had occurred three hours before the final battle. Stoically, he buried everyone. He dug dirt without emotion, picked up body parts, and gently placed them into the holes. He still could not grasp the situation.