“I bet you’re wishing you’d just gone to school today, huh?” Halle asked as she sauntered back across the stage of the auditorium.

            Snapping to attention, Mona realized the terrorist was addressing her, and turned in her direction, though was clearly too fearful to make eye contact as she cowered in the chair Roger had pulled into the middle of the room for her.

            “Yes, I’m talking to you, dear,” Halle confirmed with a broad smile as she came to a stop and leaned against a wall.  She pointed at the teenage Alpha, the sole chaperone who’d been allowed to remain behind with the Beta hostages, and earned a flinch from Mona, which only gave her tormentor cause to snicker.

            Biting her lip, which was already fluttering with her effort not to weep, Mona shook her head from side to side.

            “Huh.  Are you sure about that?” Halle laughed.  “You could’ve been nice and safe with all your friends, hearing about all this on the news instead of having to sit through it yourself and wondering if somebody’s going to stick something in your neck.”

            Mona shivered, but held resolute, shaking her head again.  Her eyes had shifted back to the area behind the stage, where Roger, Alma, and Sonja were busily marching back and forth, carrying boxes from the hose-mounted shelves into the auditorium.

            “You know, I like you.  You’re ballsy,” Halle said honestly, shrugging to herself and digging her fingers delicately into her pocket.  “We could use someone like you on our team.  It’s too bad you’re in love with a bunch of rodents.  But hey, if you ever change your mind about that, send us a resume.  We’ll keep you on file.  Mona… Collins, right?”

            This recognition seemed to unnerve the young Alpha most of all, and at last she managed to tear her eyes away from the horrible sight before her.  Finally, she managed to form papery words.

            “How… how did y-”

            “What kind of operation would we be if we didn’t take notes?” Halle smirked, nodding in the direction of a laptop resting on a chair in the corner.  “My girl Alice got us a complete guest list, just so we can make sure everybody gets to come to the party later.”

            Mona’s mouth hung open, but no sound escaped.  She didn’t have much energy to engage in conversation, and the gut-contorting fear of this imposing statue of an Alpha wasn’t helping.  There’d be a lot of commotion earlier from the thousands of Beta schoolkids trapped in the balconies above as the group set to their purpose with the boxes, but after some encouraging roars from Gail, almost all had been silenced again as the smaller race rose from their seats and did as they were ordered to do by their diabolical hosts.

            Even now, in the relative quiet peppered only with the shuffling footfalls of the Alphas, Mona could hear the sobbing of horrified Betas above, who wanted help so desperately that she couldn’t provide for them now without risking their lives.  It felt a bit like having her heart quartered with a butter knife.

            “Since you’re being so good now, though, and not making a big stink while my friends do their work, I decided I might as well let you get the festivities started a little early with a party favor,” Halle said.  Drawing her hand out of her pocket at last, she opened her leather-clad fingers to reveal an absolutely petrified Beta girl.

            Mona’s face went from merely pale to a decrepit ashen, her eyes glazing over.  She looked a few dead brains cells away from fainting.  White knuckles were the only things keeping her from catapulting herself instinctively at the woman who was now holding Mona’s three-inch-tall little sister.

            “Ah, I can tell you’re just itching to party already,” Halle said, savoring the pained recognition in the girl’s face.  Her silvery eyes shifted down to the helpless captive teen in her gloved palm, still lightly stained with crimson from her earlier acts to dissuade Aegis intrusions.  “Aren’t you?”

            “W-What…” Mona croaked.  “What do you w-want…”

            “I want our world back,” Halle interrupted curtly, the false smile she’d been wearing up to now fading just as quickly.  Her hand tilted from side to side, forcing the Beta girl to lean along with her to avoid falling from the precarious perch.

            Mona twitched, still fighting the desperate urge to lunge forward and help her hostage sibling, despite knowing such an act would almost certainly be a death sentence for the girl.

            “They’re… they’re just kids,” Mona said pleadingly, unable to take her watering eyes off her sister.  The Beta had silently noticed her sibling and reached an arm out hopefully from Halle’s treacherous palm.  “Please don’t punish them for what-”

            “For what Aegis did?  See, that’s not bad logic, except for the fact that I’d probably be one very flat lady if I just took this up with an Omega.  We all do what we have to,” Halle explained, obviously still getting immense entertainment from the horrified expression on Mona’s face as her sister was rocked hazardously back and forth in the ponytail-sporting Alpha’s glove.  “For example, little… Audrey, isn’t it?  She’s just going with the flow right now so she doesn’t have to take a tumble.”

            “Please,” Mona rasped, her volume rising higher than it had yet.  She clasped her hands together, already begging.  “Please don’t d-do anything to-”

            “Stay cool, hon.  We’re just having a nice little chat,” Halle said soothingly as she pressed a finger to her lips.  Without removing her eyes from Mona, the Alpha gently deposited Audrey back into her pocket and patted it, then called out to her cohorts up near the stage: “How are we looking, folks?”

            “Almost finished loading up,” Roger answered gruffly, balancing two of the hefty metal cases on each arm as he marched back into the storage area to re-insert the units into their shelves.  He was clearly beginning to fatigue from the length of time they’d been at work.

            “What about those monitors, Alma?” Halle followed up.

            “Ready to go when you two are,” the hardened criminal replied with a slimy smile as she finished shoving another of the boxes onto its tower and fidgeted with the attached hose that wound like a snake down the leg of the rack and onto the adjoining one.

            “Wonderful.  Alice, dear, go ahead and open the channels wide open,” Halle said quietly, pressing a finger to her earpiece and nodding at her employee’s response.  “Yep.  It’s time.  Let’s give them a little show.”

            “They’re bringing in the last few blocks from residential into the facility now,” Melody reported to her boss across the humming domain of the command center Aegis had established down the hill from the Convention Center.  She lowered her phone away from her ear and unlocked the tablet again, drawing up a twelve-tier schematic in prediction of the inevitable follow-up question.

            “What about the mixed center?” Abby pressed, approaching quickly from her former post.  It was barely noon and the Omega’s tired eyes were strained with an endless parade of dead ends Aegis had been meeting all morning in their aggressive efforts to keep the disaster from elevating any further.

            “Shield unit is on patrol.  Snipers on major rooftop chokepoints and Alexis is just outside the outlet mall with her eye on everyone going in or out,” the lofty Omega said as she examined the cobalt-tinted layout of the shopping center.  “The team down there says perimeters are locked up tight.”

            “All right,” Abby said, calmed if only in the smallest measure to know the threat could no longer metastasize further across the city.  “Melody…”

            “Howard and Corey are at Aegis.  I just heard from them,” she replied with a similar look of abatement glazing over her glassed irises, anticipating this question too.  “They came in on one of the last shuttles.”

            “Thank you,” Abby breathed.

            “Chief, I’ve got something!” Dawn shouted from her station nearer to the building.  Her fingers were ticking madly away on the keys of her laptop as she peeked down into her tactical vest, where her Alpha support team were all seated in pockets with computers of their own.  “I’m not just seeing things here, am I?” she asked quietly of them.

            “Nope, I see it too,” one of the Alphas called up to her Omega handler.  The others quickly concurred from their respective pockets.

            “What is it?” Abby demanded, suddenly standing over her petite tech guru’s shoulder.

            “I… I think we can patch into a camera inside the building,” Dawn said after a pause, less assured of her ability and more in the threat of accidentally creating excitement over what might turn out to be yet another roadblock for justice.

            “Which one?”

            “It… looks like it’s in… the primary auditorium,” Dawn responded with a frown, knowing how unlikely such a coincidence was that they’d magically gain access to the single most helpful lens in the entire fortress.  “I…”

            “She’s right,” one of the Alphas in her pockets shouted out helpfully.  The others chattered in agreement.

            Abby nodded, her lips pursed tightly.  “And it’s only that one?”

            “Yes,” Dawn confirmed.  “I don’t understand, though, it’s… it’s right there, like-”

            “They must be ready to talk,” the Omega said.  “What about phones?”

            “There’s… there’s one.  Just one I can see.  The rest are still blocked off,” Dawn sighed, realizing her boss was correct.  She drew a phone from a lower pocket and switched it on.  “If you want, I could-”

            “Go ahead,” Abby ordered softly.  “They’ve dragged this out for long enough.”

            Gulping, Dawn tapped in the digits and handed the device to Abby, who pressed it to her ear, hovering as a mountain over the laptop.

            Before even a decibel had emitted from the speaker, the commanding Omega already understood what they were up against, the sensation of it coiling through her stomach and around her heart.  This was only the first day of Unity Week.  Had this unknowable crisis, whatever it was, struck only twenty-four hours later, Howard and Corey would’ve both been in the Convention Center, out of hers or anyone’s reach, instead of in the mixed class shopping center for one of Corey’s regular check-ups where they were now.  The very concept of being unable to tear through walls and earth itself to defend those closest to her was unfathomable to Abby, and yet here they all were, watching just such a nightmare was about to unfold for thousands of families.  Knowing full-well she stood now for every man, woman, and child waiting out in the city for news of their loved ones, Abby exhaled into the receiver as the dial tone cut off.

            By now, all members of Aegis present had heard the commotion and moved inward to watch Dawn’s computer screen as it pulled up the promised video feed of the auditorium, breaths held and prayers mouthed.  Rebecca Reynolds and Evelyn Cade towered as silent sentinels beside Abby.  Melody, Kyle, and Claire, each holding several Alphas in their hands to help them see the screen, huddled behind the crowd of anxious public servants.

            “Helloooo?” sang Halle’s voice from the phone.  She stood a few feet from the camera in the cavernous auditorium, smiling and waving to the viewers.  “Sorry I couldn’t come to the phone earlier.  We’ve just been so busy this morning, I couldn’t make the time.”

            “What do you want?” Abby intoned sternly.

            “Oh, what kind of manners are those?  Aren’t you even going to ask my name?” Halle giggled.

            “Your employee already told me.  You’re Halle Paradise,” the Omega simpered.

            “Oh no!  Not my employee!  I suppose my whole terrible plan is unraveled,” Halle mocked, chuckling with a fervor that made most of her audience’s skin crawl.  “By the way, I wanted to congratulate whoever it was that swiped the idiot.  Is she around somewhere?”

            The underling Jenna grabbed just knew the peripherals of the operation, as he’d been a hired gun rather than a key limb, so Abby didn’t have much need for him yet.  Still, he’d at least been useful in detailing the identities of the team working inside; so, she’d kept him close by as some begrudging emergency medical staff patched him up well enough for him to stay conscious and available for further questioning.  It was a small gain, if nothing else.

            Jenna was a different story.  Abby sighed, steeling herself to recall the look on the girl’s face when Tricia had emerged from the Center and reported the Beta casualties incurred with hardly a twitch from their silver-eyed murderer.  The tough-as-nails young Enforcer wasn’t the type to get squeamish, making the hollow horror in her eyes all the more rattling as she staggered back and took a rumbling seat at the bottom of the hill outside the Center.  A thousand yard stare glazed into her eyes like an open wound.  Claire had huddled herself around her friend, rocking her back and forth even as tears trickled from her own eyes.  Jenna had simply remained stoic, gazing down into the grass as though she could see miles into the crust of the planet.

            “You can tell her in person later,” Abby continued efficiently.  “And I’m not going to sit here and pretend to be impressed about what’s in your criminal record.  I don’t have time to play games, and neither do you.”

            “Right down to business, huh?  All right, we can go with that,” the Alpha said.  “What I want is to speak to Kayla.  Everett, in case that wasn’t clear.”

            Abby’s hand tightened in agonized frustration around the phone, her limbs shaking a little from rage at the cruel irony of the universe.  Rebecca laid a comforting palm on her friend’s shoulder, feeling a similarly instantaneous reaction.

            These people had no idea of what the most powerful being on earth was truly capable of.  If only Kayla were here instead of ascending through the cosmos in pursuit of humanity’s future, this nightmare would’ve been over mere minutes after it had begun thanks to the effort of one veritable goddess of an Omega.  They’d have thrown these monsters in cells hours ago while counselors soothed the hostages, all of whom would’ve gotten out with their lives.

            But that wasn’t the reality they’d been handed.

            Kayla wasn’t here - couldn’t be here - and because of some cruelly serendipitous timing, these Alphas had the upper hand.  Betas, innocents in all this, had been murdered.  And even more might very well be lost before this was over.

            It crucified Abby’s heart like nothing else, but with a brave exhalation, she kept her composure.

            This was not the time to falter.  Not when she was the one responsible for these people in their leader’s absence.

            Claire lightly grasped her mother’s arm, clearly sensing the aid her parent needed but unsure of how to provide it in this particularly grim moment.

            “She’s can’t come.  You’ll just have to deal with me,” Abby said, willing herself to maintain a steady tone, knowing anything else would be a sign of weakness.

            “Can’t come.  Well, isn’t that peachy.  Has anyone ever told you what a crummy negotiator you are?” Halle asked.

            “I’m the one who’s going to arrange for terms.  If you want something, you’re going to get it through me.  Understand?” the Omega emphasized.

            “Hey, as long as everybody’s happy!” Halle laughed with a shrug.  “Let’s talk some turkey, then.  I suppose you’re wondering why I finally allowed your joke of a tech team to take a peek in here.”  She stepped back, revealing more of the stage behind her.  The view wasn’t very clear with the lighting, but Abby and her towering companions were able to make out the rows of boxed racks behind it.

            “You seem like a lady in a hurry, so I won’t bother wasting more time,” Halle said, her voice shifting into business mode.  “Behind me in all these boxes is every single scrap of Beta you were so kind as to gather for us in this convenient little space.”

            Cupping a hand to her ear, the ringleader of Paradise leaned toward the back of the stage, silencing herself as well as everyone else in the room.  In the quiet, a low but no less disturbing chatter of tiny voices rang out from among the macabre aisles: a cacophony of wailing, screams, and barely coherent cries for help.

            For a moment, every member of Aegis ceased the regular flow of oxygen.

            “Don’t get worked up yet.  They’re still all alive, at least for the time being,” Halle continued as Alma crept into view, her head bowed and a rabid glint in her eye.  “But thanks to a very impressive set of fancy tubes and wires, courtesy of my good friend Alma Warren here....”

            Rebecca, standing like an iron soldier, let her arms fall to her sides.  Her fingers clenched in, knuckles cracking loudly enough for all to hear as the Senior Enforcer watched her former charge step into the light.  Evelyn, meanwhile, upon laying eyes on the birth mother of her damaged surrogate daughter, had to set the Alphas she was holding down on a table and press a fist against her lips to keep from crying out.

            “…that won’t be the case forever, unless you do everything we say, exactly as we say it, exactly when we want it,” Halle said as she marched closer to the boxes.  “See, every one of these nifty little devices is hooked up to a particularly large quantity of unpleasant gases an associate of mine was able to acquire.  With the dose we’ve cooked up, if we should feel inclined to open up the floodgates in here, each and every Beta would go belly-up in, I don’t know… twenty seconds?”

            “More like ten,” Sonja’s voice bellowed proudly from somewhere off-camera.

            “Ah, thank you,” Halle smiled graciously.  “Ten.  In case there aren’t a lot of math whizzes over at Aegis, that’s pretty quick.”

            There were multiple stifled cries from Omegas and Alphas alike as the magnitude of the group’s ploy began to sink in.  Several burst into quietly choking tears and held one another closer for support, especially those with children currently trapped inside the boxes.  A few, going weak at the knees, shuddered to their haunches.

            Claire and Kyle, both chewing their lips in effort to stay calm, exchanged helpless glances.  Meanwhile, all Alphas in Melody’s expansive palm felt the tender ground quake beneath them as rage boiled to a nuclear fever pitch inside the ordinarily peaceable Omega.

            Only Abby remained a wall of unmoving and graceful stone.

            “Now, I’m sure at least a few of you are already getting some real funny ideas about how to get around our little set-up here, so let’s jump ahead here and save us all the time,” Halle continued as she approached the camera again, having paused for long enough to let her previous threats simmer appropriately in the hearts of everyone listening and watching.

            She didn’t bother to hide a gleeful smile as she patted a small disc affixed to her lapel that blinked like a metronome with a small crimson beacon.  Gail stalked into the view of the camera, wearing an identical device on her tactical suit as well.  “And here’s why.  My sister and I are both sporting a couple of hip new accessories that Ms. Warren’s hooked up to her art project back here.  Anything happens to us?  The same thing happens to your precious baby animals.”

            Another grave void of noise and steady breathing followed for everyone watching.  Only the heart monitors worn by the Paradise sisters, it seemed, were in motion as the lights blinked ominously.

            “Are you going to tell me what it is you want, or not?” Abby besieged at last.  Her voice was heavier now, more forceful.

            “For now, I want you to just keep on what you’ve been doing all morning, which is to say, doing a very, very poor job of impeding our work here,” Halle said snidely, then winked at the camera.  “Don’t get lonely, though.  I’ll give you another call in a little while and I’ll start to list out a few of the things I want besides all of you hundred-foot-freaks to chug a lake of sulfuric acid.  Clear?”

            Abby nodded solemnly.  “Yes.”

            “Don’t sound so glum, dear.  I imagine this whole “not being in control” thing is new for you, but don’t worry.  You start to get used to it.  Trust me, I know from experience,” Halle reassured.

            At this, the eldest Lindon released a miraculous burst of laughter that caught everyone off-guard, Paradise sisters and Aegis workers alike.  Rebecca, too, snorted in disbelieving disdain.

            “You know from experience,” Abby repeated back, deadpanning.  “You.”

            “Struck a nerve, hmm?” Halle chuckled.  “I’ve been around long enough.  I’ve seen it all.”

            “No.  No you haven’t,” the Omega responded coldly.

            “You sound like you know something I don’t,” her Alpha opponent teased.

            “The truth is that you, your sister, your colleagues... you're children. You remind me of the ones that found my home when I was young and still a Beta. Those who in the same streak of inhumanity thought it would be fun to fill our homes with pesticide, and laughed as it killed over a hundred people who couldn’t fight back,” Abby said steadily, each word fortified with strength as she felt the hands of every Omega around her and even some Alphas’ tiny appendages placed on her shoulders, arms, and back.  She exhaled, then rolled onward: “And that’s just endemic of what you are.  Little spoiled children still stuck in a world that's dead.  That we killed. That we bury a little further every day. You and your friends... you're nothing I haven't seen before. And one way or another, we will bury you, too.”