- Text Size +
Story Notes:

Hey, gang!  Here it is: my darkest, lengthiest, and most action-packed entry in Ackbar’s Omegaverse yet.  As a sequel to the cliffhanger from Omega: Inheritance, it picks up less than a year after the conclusion of Consequences (which, coincidentally, you should definitely go read if you haven’t yet).  I hope you enjoy the ride and let me know what you think after you’re through reading.

            Ben Wagner clenched his clammy fists inside his pockets and kept his eyes locked to his sneakers.  This was already tougher than he’d been anticipating.

            “C’mon, c’mon,” he whispered to himself under his breath.  “Suck it up.”

            As soon as the seventeen-year-old Beta had been hustled off of the subway and onto the platform, he and his class had been immediately nudged along toward the path that led toward the central docking area in order to make room for the next incoming trainload of students.  His nerves were already on edge from being around so many moving bodies this morning, but now that he was out in the open again and could see the Alpha workers from afar directing the influx of Beta traffic that formed an organic sea of shuffling fabric and chattering voices, it was getting harder to keep himself in check.

            Thousands upon thousands of Beta high school students guided by teachers and administrators were marching in orderly throngs up the paths and toward the positively mountainous building that made up the Norman & Joan Tyler Convention Center and Memorial Gardens.

            Scaled for both Alpha and Beta use, the place was a veritable fortress to the latter class.  Ben couldn’t even manage to see both ends of the wall without turning his head, and the roof wasn’t much easier to make out without craning his neck.  Most of the imposingly massive structure was a pristine white dotted with crystalline windows that appeared like diamonds from this distance, except for the furthest edge from the entrance, where extensive additions were obviously midway through construction.

            Cringing as several students shoved past him in their eagerness to move ahead in line, Ben made eye contact with his teacher Mrs. Hall, who gave him an additional wave to get him to pick up the pace.  Due to the sheer number of students present at this first city-wide event of the week commemorating the 20th anniversary of Beta education, he understood that there wasn’t really time to stop and take stock of the unfurling madness around him, but his anxiety made him long for it all the same.

            After his cluster of a couple hundred students had been shepherded up a series of walkways and into one of many wider platforms, still with the Center a good distance away, Ben and the others were directed to stand still.

            The young man’s jaw couldn’t help but fall slack as he witnessed the grandeur of a female Omega marching into view over the side of the elevated road and virtually blotting out all urban scenery behind her with the pure gob-smacking size of her frame.  Though these pathways were raised far above the ground, the slender redheaded behemoth still had to crouch to put herself down low enough to not appear quite so much like a skyscraper.  Even now, her being was so unfathomably huge that he could tell that, despite her appearance suggesting she couldn’t have been much more than a year older than most of the students, he wasn’t the only one with the subconscious feeling that they were in the presence of godhood.  For Ben, it was a bit more than subconscious.

            “Good morning, everyone,” the ginger giantess boomed benevolently in a delicate enough voice that no one was startled, though the magnanimity of her sound still caused Ben to tremble.  “My name is Angela, and it’s my pleasure to welcome you here for today’s events.  Before you all head inside, I’d just like to cover a few quick points to keep everything in neat fashion so we can get started.  Once you’ve reached the front of the line, an Alpha attendant will give you a lift to the correct entrance, three at a time, and from there, you’ll follow the moving walkways to the main auditorium.  Please stay with your classes and teachers, and this will all run a lot smoother.  Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy the day!”

            She raised a hand large enough to hold their entire grade in the palm and wagged her fingers genially at the crowd of dumbstruck Betas below, some of whom managed to respond with their own waves, but most just watched in awe as the young woman backed away and directed them to continue up the path.  The added urging of their teachers got them moving again.

            Ben gulped and kneaded his hands together to keep them from shaking.  He gazed far ahead in line toward the Center, and could see a few dozen Alphas posted at the entrances lowering a hand for Betas to embark, then lifting them up to the elevated doorways wide enough to allow for the density of incoming guests.

            His line appeared to be moving toward a young woman dressed in a uniform from the Center.  Her dark brunette hair cascaded smoothly over her shoulders, and a few freckles dotted her cheeks.

            This would be easy.  All he had to do was climb into the girl’s hand when it was offered, stand still for a few seconds, and then step onto a platform.  Nothing to it.

            His palms were already sweating so hard, it felt like he’d dunked them underwater.

            “Hey.  Hey, piss-pants,” a voice grunted in Ben’s ear, chuckling barely held back.  “Feeling scared yet?”

            “Get away from me,” he grumbled, elbowing his classmate out of his personal bubble.  “I’m not in the mood now.”

            “I’m just trying to be helpful.  They say you’re supposed to confront your fears, don’t they?” the teen continued with an innocent shrug.

            “I said leave me alone, Mike.”

            “Aww, did I hurt widdle Benny’s feelings?  Hey, you’re gonna have to get used to this real fast, because we’re almost up there.”

            Gritting his teeth, Ben resolved to ignore his bully as the number of people between himself and the Alpha woman lifting them toward the door continually thinned.  He dealt with this kid and his cackling cronies practically every day at school; he needed to block the sound out right now in order to focus, or he’d never make it through this.

            “Michael, that’s enough,” the teacher snapped, noticing the commotion from across the path.

            “Whatever,” he mumbled, then hissed back to Ben: “Aren’t you almost eighteen?  Keep getting people to fight your battles for you, and you’ll never be a man.”

            “Next up,” the young Alpha woman announced with pronounced disinterest as she crouched back down and flattened her hand to the ground where more passengers could clamber in.

            Ben blinked as he stared at the palm, pale and with a few weathered blisters, but it looked soft enough, and obviously everyone up on that balcony had been delivered in one piece.

            He could do this.  He would have to.

            “Come on, kid.  Let’s move it along,” she instructed, and with a start, Ben realized her lake-blue eyes were trained directly in his direction and widened with irritated expectation, her attention entirely on him.  Her hand was already occupied by a sniggering Michael and another student, leaving space for one more.

            I’ll show them, Ben growled to himself within the safe confines of his head, and marched forward without allowing his trembling knees to fully consider what he was doing as he stepped right onto the woman’s hand.  He could hear her heavily sigh with obvious exhaustion at this dull task as her hand began to ascend.  Glancing at her hip as they rose past it, he noticed an ID tag clinging to her belt with a photo and “Sharpe, Taylor” in bold letters beneath.

            “Real impressive.  I’ll bet Mommy and Daddy would’ve been so proud of you right now,” Michael joked into Ben’s ear with a final half-suppressed laugh.

            That was it.

            Ben turned around and launched himself onto his classmate with an enraged yelp, pinning him into the center of the Alpha’s palm and began raining his fists down against the teen’s face.  Michael managed to block most of the blows, particularly with his size and strength advantage over Ben, but the surprise of it allowed the emotionally damaged Beta to get in a few solid right hooks.

            “Enough,” huffed Taylor, and Ben’s heart practically dropped down into his stomach when he felt the pads of a thumb and forefinger almost as wide as his entire body each curling around his sides and plucking him off Michael.

            Ben became horrifyingly transfixed as the Alpha’s swimming blue eyes narrowed, studying him intently while she lowered her other hand toward the platform where the embarrassed Michael was being helped back to his feet.

            “Nobody’s pulling any kind of crap around here, not on my watch.  Got it?” she declared as she brandished the petrified Beta between her two fingers and inched him closer to the bridge of her nose.

            “G-G-Got it,” Ben gasped with his last free breath before going snowy and silent.

            “Good.  Pull anything else, and you have to answer to me,” Taylor warned as she finally lowered the Beta back toward the platform before turning around to bend over and collect the next batch of students.

            Ben’s feet instantly collapsed out from under him as he was gently delivered onto the walkway, and he resolved to remain seated there until his limbs decided to stop quaking so hard.  That seemed the most logical way to proceed.  It would give him time to slow his positively stampeding heart rate back to normal.

            “Ben?  Ben, honey.  C’mon, I’ll help you up,” a voice said before another minute had passed, and he realized his teacher had been on the next load as she placed a hand on his shoulder.  “Are you all right?”

            “Fine.  I’m fine, Mrs. Hall,” he mumbled, taking her hand and wobbling up again.

            “You didn’t have to get on the same trip as Michael.  You could’ve waited for the next one.”

            “I wanted him to see… that I could…”

            “You don’t have to prove anything to him, or anything else.  Don’t worry about him.  I’ll make sure they know it wasn’t just you, too.  Just try to relax now.  We’ll find you a different way back downstairs after the event, okay?” Mrs. Hall said.

            “Okay,” he gulped, gaining confidence in his steps as the pair began walking again with the group.  “Thanks.  I think I’ve got it now.”

            “Of course.  Just talk to me if anything else happens,” she said warmly, at last letting go of his shoulder and marching further ahead to keep the students on the right path as they began winding along the elevated Beta walkway of the cavernous Convention Center entrance hall.

            Putting one foot in front of the other, Ben managed to work himself back into semi-functioning order, and being able to admire the architectural majesty of the Center’s marbled interior amidst the distracted bustling of his classmates did help take his mind off the fact that he’d just been gripped and personally addressed by a member of the class that comprised his greatest existing terror.

            Pillars, large even by Alpha standards, lined the hall, and generous plate-glass windows allowed in plenty of sunlight.  He noticed that many of the teachers who were Alphas gathered around the central part of the hallway, directing traffic flow when needed, while also moving toward a different hallway toward a spillover room, where a video feed from the auditorium would allow them to hear the speakers as well.

            The entrance to the actual space was just ahead, where they would soon hear from Betas who had made great strides in advancing the class and intended to inspire the upcoming generation of learners.

            His nerves slightly calmed, Ben couldn’t help slipping back into thinking about what Michael had spat into his ear.  Even though it was intended to belittle him with his rival’s usual sense of shriveling degradation, it rang stingingly true in its sarcastic sense.

            What would his parents think of him, shaking like a leaf at the mere thought of stepping into the hand of an Alpha who intended him no harm?  It made him sick to even consider.  What sort of legacy did it make him?  A poor one, for sure, but he knew that was the least of it.

            “Benjamin?” a voice called out over the infinite babbling as he continued making his way through the crowd.  “Benjamin, over here!”

            His ears perking up hopefully at the familiar sound, Ben allowed himself a relieving smile to see the bespectacled face of Herman Randolph, his father’s old roommate and the closest person he had left to a surviving relative, grinning at him as he neared.

            “Benjamin, it’s good to see you here today.  How have you been, son?” the man enthusiastically enquired, clasping an arm over Ben’s shoulder.

            “I’m… fine, Dr. Randolph,” Ben lied for the second time in the same three-minute span, still shaken but nonetheless grateful as he accepted his hand to shake.  Not wanting to unload his burdens onto this man who he knew would be speaking so soon before more than one hundred thousand Betas, he managed a false smile.  “Just fine.”

 

            Across the Center, well out of range of the buzzing voices of masses of three-inch-tall students and teachers, an Alpha guard turned the corner of a hallway and entered the partially constructed north entrance to the building, his eyebrow arched suspiciously at the sound of tires creaking quietly over debris.

            He brushed past a tarp that separated the plaster-swept workspace from the cleaner hallway and was puzzled at the sight of a massive cargo truck with flashing lights coming to a halt as it rolled backward into the area.  Once it had completely stopped, a man and a woman in orange construction gear emerged from the driver and passenger doors and promptly marched to the back of the vehicle to open the door.

            “Hey.  Hey, excuse me,” the guard called out loudly as he marched toward them.  “There’s no unloading or work being done today with the event going on.  I’m afraid I’ll need you two to back that thing out of here.”

            “Just give us a minute, and we’ll be right with you,” the man in orange gruffly responded as he nodded to briefly acknowledge the guard’s presence.  Standing easily at six and a half feet tall with shoulders broad enough to tackle a large mammal, the stranger grasped a handle on the back of the truck and pulled, allowing the door to slide open.  A scraggly beard wreathed his stony jawline.

            “Didn’t you hear me?  Your superiors must have made some mistake on your schedule.  There’s absolutely no work being done today in here, not even drop-offs.”

            “Why not?” the woman said, and it came less as a question and more of a challenge, venom loaded in both heavy syllables.  She didn’t even bother turning her head to show her face, though her black hair appeared to be cut low to her skull, almost in a military style.

            “Because of the… look, I don’t need to give you a reason,” the guard snapped as he finally reached the pair.  “I’d appreciate it if we didn’t have to start making calls about this.  Now.  Please close the truck back up and pull back out.”

            “Sorry.  Can’t do it,” the woman uttered.

            “Pardon me?” the guard responded, placing a hand on her shoulder.

            “Don’t like being touched,” she mumbled.

            “What?”

            “I said I don’t like being touched,” she spat, and in one swift motion she had turned around and plunged a karambit blade hilt-deep into the soft section of the guard’s neck before the man could even get a good look at her ghostly silver eyes that threatened to burn a hole through his pupils with their gaze.

            The bearded accomplice in the other bright construction suit grasped the gurgling guard by the back of his neck and heaved him with ease under the truck, where he wasn’t as easily noticed as he succumbed to a throatful of blood blocking his airway.

            “That was messier than it had to be,” the orange-clad brute commented with a half-smile, wiping a small bloodstain onto the woman’s arm that had spilled as he flung the body.

            “I wanted it messy,” she asserted as she held the crimson-soaked blade under her nose and inhaled deeply.

            “Remember what Halle said?  If we have people sniffing around before, just put ‘em to sleep for a while.  No messes,” he said as he slammed a steel-toed combat boot onto the step of the truck to climb inside and begin unloading the cargo.

            “Not like it matters,” the woman shrugged.  “Things will be moving in a couple of minutes, and then a little blood on the floor will be the least of anybody’s problems.”

 

Chapter End Notes:

Please comment!

You must login (register) to review.