“What do the chaperones outside say? What are we seeing?” Abigail Lindon barked across the expanse of the panic-stricken yet grimly efficient Aegis office, where almost every seat was now filled with an Omega busily looking into the apparent takeover of the Norman & Joan Tyler Convention Center. “I need someone to talk to me about this NOW.”
“Senior Enforcer Reynolds says all the exits are sealed. Window and rooftop entrances as well,” came an answer from Kyle Rodgers at his desk. “They must’ve had someone let them into the security. Claire and Jenna are already down there, too. They’re all still checking, but it doesn’t look promising.”
“Have the chaperones keep looking, too. What about security? Why don’t we have control of it yet, Dawn?” Abby rolled on as she turned to her best chance at cracking into the structure’s highly sophisticated system.
“I’m trying, Chief. We all are. But it’s shut tight. Every time I make a move, it gets blocked. It’s like they’re already expecting everything I try,” said the addressed Omega behind a laptop, her frizzy walnut locks bouncing against her porcelain cheeks as she busily tapped away at her keyboard. A few feet away from her massive monitor on the surface of her desk sat a dozen Alphas with their own computers, all working just as feverishly as their overseer.
“Try harder, then,” Abby answered impatiently, clenching her fists until her ashen knuckles cracked. “I needed that building back in our hands about five minutes ago. David, where are we on that list of possible IDs for that Alpha in black?”
“Still collating. It was too dark for a definite identification. I’ve got a short list and it’s already headed over to you,” Senior Enforcer Hart answered from his office as he continued searching furiously through his archives.
“How about those personnel files? What kind of defense are we looking at?”
“Fifty-two on duty. At least eight accounted for outside,” Hart reported. “Four called in sick and replacements went ahead. We’re sending people over to confirm, but I’ve got a feeling they’re sicker than we think.”
“Okay, that’s… something. Still not enough to go on. And where’s Melody?”
“Right here, Abby,” the honey-haired amazon of an Omega responded, suddenly appearing behind her boss who, despite her own imposing height above most of the room’s occupants, was made to look much closer to the ground by her towering assistant.
“I want our evac teams on standby. Full Bulwark Protocol. Every carrier, Omega and Alpha, here and ready to move out and collect the residential and mixed districts if we so much as hear a whisper from inside that building,” Abby said as she looked up to her colossal protégé’s apologetic countenance.
“Right,” Melody confirmed, swiping her tablet open and dialing in a message with swift strokes. “It’ll… take a little while, but…”
“Just get moving on it. Anything at all from the beacon we sent to Kayla?” Abby demanded almost pleadingly.
“Nothing,” Melody said with a heavy swallow as she reopened the call and jammed a thumb aggressively at the screen, as though it would produce more promising results. Given how far away Dr. Everett was at the moment, it only seemed more hopeless with each thrust of her finger. Though her movements were small, the obvious tension throughout the girl’s body caused her rounded biceps to bulge slightly with every flick of her wrist.
“Damn it. Keep trying,” Abby snapped, the strain of the situation obviously getting to her just as it was everyone else in the room. “Can someone at least tell me we’ve been able to open a line of communication?”
“We’re listening, but we’re not getting any outgoing signals,” Dawn regretfully announced, tapping her petite digits anxiously against her lips.
“Okay, then what about us contacting them? Can we get access to a phone in there somewhere? A laptop, even? Anything?”
“They’ve got us locked out of all that, too. Whoever it is must have gotten access to the building’s mainframe.”
“Fantastic. So we’re just flying blind here. Get somebody to check on whoever was on duty for the Center’s security today. No, scratch that. I want anyone who’s ever held the keys. Maybe they can tell us something,” the elder Omega drawled agonizingly, digging her nails into her temple and sliding them up through her brunette bob, clearly dying now for a single shred of good news. “Ev. Do you have anything?”
“There might be something we could use in the lower levels, below the primary supports. But it sounds like the power’s already been cut to all maintenance entrances,” Evelyn Cade reported mutedly as she tied her silvery blonde hair behind her head and gazed down at a digitized blueprint of the building’s exterior. “Worth a try, but I don’t think it’ll be of any use now.”
“There’s an opening on the new wing, Chief,” Kyle called out suddenly. “Construction hasn’t put in the security system yet, so they can’t gate us off. Of course, they’ve probably already rigged up…”
“If it’s an access point, it’s the only one we’ve got, and it’ll have to do,” Abby interjected. “We’re just about ready. I just need-”
“Abby!” Tricia Reynolds clamored militantly from the Alpha walkway. She was garbed in body armor, with an assault weapon strapped to her back and a utility belt strung around her waist. “My team and I are prepped and ready for deployment.”
“Good. Then it’s time to mobilize,” Abby said, biting her lip and willing herself to stay in control, though her blue eyes couldn’t help but well from the duress.
The auditorium, despite containing in excess of one hundred thousand people, remained in an eerie graveyard-like reticence that was interrupted only by the occasional burst of tears by young Betas in the balcony who had managed to move beyond a catatonic traumatized state and into one of gut-wrenching turmoil at what was happening. A few choice glares from Gail, who had been pacing aggressively around the room with a knife teased against her mouth, was often more than enough to quash these irritations back into silence.
“Everything closed up tight in that spillover, Alice?” Halle asked into the earpiece, now standing in a cautious huddle with five members of her team in the center of the room.
“Yep, looking good. All Alphas I can see in the building are in the room or otherwise… dealt with, and it’s sealed off on both exits,” came the static reply.
“What about Betas?”
“Might be a couple strays moving around the halls, hard to say just yet. I’m looking.”
“Keep it up. We’ll send out a few extra pairs of eyes,” Halle said, at last addressing her crew directly. “Sonja? Alma? Take a stroll and pick up any stragglers.”
“I still have to finish hooking a few things up before we’re set. I need to be in here,” Alma countered.
“Okay, then. New guy? You’re up.”
“It’s Randall,” the greasy gunrunner commented, scratching at the back of his neck and twitching with the intensity of someone deprived of a fix. “My name is Randall.”
“Prove you’re worth a damn and then maybe we’ll start remembering that,” Sonja scowled, sharpening the blade of her knife against a piece of body armor before grabbing the newbie by the shoulder and shoving him toward the door. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
“Where the hell did you find him?” Roger mumbled under his breath to Halle. “He looks like he cracks under pressure.”
“He had an in, and he knows how to put someone down when he has to. It was good enough for me. Don’t worry, I won’t give him anything important. Besides, we won’t need him the whole time,” Halle said. “I almost forgot about Taylor, too. I sent her to watch the south entrance, but that’s enough for now. Someone give her another call and get her in here.”
“What if she doesn’t handle it? What we’re doing?” Gail suggested to her twin sister as she hunched over in one of the chairs. “How much did you tell her?”
“Not any more than she needed to know. I don’t think she’ll be a problem, though. You should see some of the things on her record,” Halle said, smirking. “She’s a girl after your own heart.”
“And what if she becomes a problem anyway?” the scruffier sibling pressed, grinding her yellowed teeth demonstratively.
“Then you know what to do, won’t you?”
“It looks like they’re trying to advance on the north wing,” Alice said into her boss’s earpiece, interrupting the exchange. “The construction side. No cameras, so I don’t have eyes down there, you might wanna…”
“I know. We were expecting this. Let’s see then, Roger? Grab a box and follow me,” Halle instructed with a controlled cool, eyeing the pair of black parcels resting at her feet they’d just finished filling moments before. “Let’s go greet our public.”
In the short hall leading off of the Beta walkway in the entrance to the Center, Ben emerged from the restroom and dug his hands back into his pockets as he strode toward the main thoroughfare.
“Stop jittering. You’re making me nervous,” Sonja growled from around the corner as she and Randall exited the main doors of the auditorium.
Ben’s heart fluttered in his chest just by nature of being in the same vicinity as Alphas again, and he abruptly pressed himself up against the drinking fountains positioned outside the bathroom, his heart railing in his chest. He exhaled wearily and clenched his eyes shut.
This had to stop, now.
He’d never learn to live with himself if he couldn’t get over this, and he’d most certainly never live down his parents’ names. The Beta had to just step out into the unknown if he ever wanted to be something of use to the world. After all, they were people, just like him, who just happened to be big enough to pick him up with two fingers.
“Okay, diaper-pants, you take the west side, then head upstairs and look around. I’m gonna check out the entrances. Stay tight, keep your voice down if you have to say something. And watch your goddamned back. Anything with little legs runs across the floor, you grab it up. Don’t smash it unless that’s your last option. Halle wants as many as we can get still in one piece. Got it?” Sonja hissed.
Ben’s breathing stopped almost entirely now, a cold bead of sweat trickling down his forehead.
So maybe they weren’t people just like him.
“Got it. Look, I know what I’m doing, all right? Done shit like this a thousand times,” Randall groaned.
“Buddy, I guarantee you you haven’t done shit quite like this before, and if you don’t keep your trap shut more often, you won’t get the chance to top it, either,” Sonja fired back as she continued sauntering back into the front of the hall toward the sealed entrance, her eyes scanning obsessively over the Beta walkway.
It was at this moment that her face became framed by the narrow hallway entrance and her owl-like eyes fell on Ben.
Adrenaline instantly surging through his veins, the scrawny blonde Beta hardly had time to process the unsettling sight of oddly luminescent red tresses, the long black lines of eyeliner that resembled war paint on the woman’s cheeks, nor the various firearms strapped to her hips. He leapt to his feet and darted the few long paces back into the relative safety of the bathroom, his heart threatening to rise into his throat and burst out.
“What’s the rush, little fella?” Sonja snickered through gritted teeth as she lunged forward, her powerful arm filling up the hallway immediately, her gloved fingers clenching together with a leathery slap just as Ben dove over the threshold. Army crawling because of the fact that his legs were more or less composed of jelly now, he scrambled further into the room in time to avoid Sonja’s long fingers opening back up and clamping hard against the doorframe, clearly strong enough to at least do some structural damage if she tugged hard enough.
“Damn it, I forgot how fucking fast you shits can be,” she cursed, opening and closing her fingers into the bathroom entrance as if simulating shark jaws. She clearly couldn’t fit any further, but that didn’t stop Ben from hyperventilating as he witnessed the towering woman’s massive black-clad appendage clawing desperately for him. He remained sprawled on the tile in front of the sinks, unable to convince himself to move any further.
“You think you’re safe, huh, little mouse? Think you can just hole up in the can, and wait it out?” Sonja taunted as she withdrew her arm from the hallway at last with a final waggle of her fingers. “I’ve got a fun surprise for you, then. I hope you’re a bug fan, because I certainly am.”
Forcing life back into his limbs by sheer force of will, the Beta resolved to operate on autopilot to avoid finding out firsthand what the woman’s verbal abuses were hinting at. With the frantic effort reserved for people with Ben’s particular depth of paranoia, his mind went to work on constructing a way out and immediately spied a grate on the wall to the left of the stalls.
It was small, but someone with Ben’s nimble frame could manage to maneuver through, if he could pry the screws way. Plunging his hands into his pockets again, he fished for his pocket knife, praying he hadn’t neglected to bring it with him today, then gratefully felt its shape in his palm.
No sooner at the Beta selected the proper tool and darted to the wall to work on undoing the screws around the edges of the grate, then he heard something else from down the hall, which had fallen momentarily silent after Sonja’s last statement.
Skittering, like nails brushing threateningly against a chalkboard, and rapid. It grew louder, clattering in Ben’s ears as he hurriedly finished the second screw, and the next time he looked over his shoulder, he saw what he could only describe with a ghastly churning in his stomach as a metallic four-legged spider the size of a scaled Saint Bernard stepped into the room.
A single crimson eye in the center of the thing’s pod body scanned into the upper corners of the room, then moved to the walls, making a single pass over each surface.
Ben nearly choked in his paralyzed throat to keep silent as he twisted the final screw required to open the grate, then spun it to the side so that the cover only hung on by the final fastener. He didn’t allow himself another moment to look back as he threw himself into the claustrophobic tunnel of the vent shaft and lunged forward as best as he could into the dusty blackness.
The sounds of the spider’s legs clinking aggressively against the entrance to the vent could be heard behind him in few enough heartbeats that Ben was surprised his ankle hadn’t been skewered by a sharp robotic limb, but considering how hard he was breathing as he squirmed through the tunnel, it wasn’t like his body needed the extra help to barely function.