Omega Zero

by Kurtis Eckstein

  Omega Zero

  Omega Metahumans Book 2

  Kurtis Eckstein

  COPYRIGHT © 2019 – KURTIS M. ECKSTEIN

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the copying, scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, business establishments, events, institutions, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ASIN: B07TC694JL

  Cover Art Copyright © 2019 Kurtis Eckstein

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1. Darkness

  2. Newcomers

  3. Twins

  4. Hunting

  5. Love

  6. Betrayal

  7. Deceit

  8. New Leader

  9. New Recruit

  10. Origins

  11. Pathogen

  12. Flatline

  13. Manipulation

  14. Instincts

  15. Compliments

  16. Developments

  17. Compromised

  18. Synced

  19. Fooled

  20. Parasite

  21. Ghost

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The person they were bringing was sitting on their knees in the middle, their hands tied directly to the floor with chains so thick that I was confident I wouldn’t be able to snap them with my strength. And that was saying something since I maxed out on bench at about six-hundred pounds. Granted, I could just slice through easily with my blood, but that wasn’t the point.

  They were some big ass chains.

  They looked like chains used to secure an anchor to a ship – something that you could lift a pick-up truck straight off the ground with.

  Could this person really be that strong? Even stronger than Trinity and me? Surely this guy wasn’t that dangerous? I mean, they didn’t exactly seem dangerous. They seemed…

  Female.

  “Umm, he is a she,” I said out loud.

  Chapter 1: Darkness

  I sat on a boulder, staring at the glowing embers, with Trinity curled up in my arms and Liz wrapped around my feet. Zane was sleeping behind me, while Ava was to my right and Zayden was to my left. Our packs were mixed in among the group, serving as makeshift pillows for everyone except Ava, who insisted on just using her arm. They were all positioned well inside Liz’s shield to ensure no one accidentally rolled out of it while unconscious.

  After all, only about three and a half feet away from Liz’s skin was a lethal nuclear fallout zone.

  We could literally see it in the air, a fine dust that seemed to float down from the sky, although it was raining now just beyond the shield – black raindrops silently rolled off the force field as if it were an invisible umbrella.

  We knew the radiation would be in the soil too, but all we could do was hope that Liz’s superpower was able to decontaminate everything it touched by pushing away the toxins.

  This was our second night in the wilderness, the first being when the nuclear bomb had dropped and we almost died from the impact. It was strange to think that it had been almost a full week since I joined the team. This was my sixth night on the team, and once everyone woke up, it would be my seventh day. So much had happened in the first three days, and then we lost almost two days in traveling to Indonesia and waiting for the mission to start, only to spend the last day walking the entire time to escape the radiation.

  At least we were out of the jungle now, being able to see a mountain in the distance that Zane thought might be an Indonesian volcano. Even though the moon was hidden behind the clouds, I could see just fine even without the glowing embers, and not just because of my sixth sense. It seemed my eyes had become a little sharper at night. I figured it must be because my body was still changing slightly after my initial triggering almost a week ago.

  Given that the grassy field we were sleeping in appeared to have been used for farming at one point in time, we suspected a village might be nearby.

  However, it had gotten too late to go searching for any signs of life. After a full day of walking, everyone was ready to take a break, get some sleep, and resume the next day. It didn’t help that everyone was jet-lagged either. For them, the daytime here was nighttime back home, so our full day of walking was like them staying up all night.

  No wonder they were all so tired.

  Plus, it was doubtful anyone we came across in a nearby village would be doing too great, having gotten the full exposure of whatever radiation lingered.

  We hadn’t called the Major General back yet to let him know we were all alive, having decided to give it a few days – at least until we got out of the fallout zone – to fill him in on the details.

  Which still left us with a big decision to be made.

  Go back to help save the world from another round of nuclear attacks? Or finally escape the military by feigning death, and lead a semi-normal life of freedom?

  I felt like I should go back, because if I ignored this situation, then I risked it ultimately resulting in all our deaths. According to the General, the reason why almost a tenth of the world’s population had died was because they targeted large cities and strategic military locations. But what’s not to say this terrorist organization didn’t have the capacity to nuke the entire world? After all, the bombs had launched from several different countries, none of which authorized the attacks.

  However, Liz going back was a problem.

  Considering that the higher-ups had tried to have her killed previously, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of her returning. This opportunity could be her only chance to get away for good. To stay safe.

  But there was a problem claiming that Liz was dead. If we went with that story, then that meant almost everyone else would have died too. Zayden was practically immune to bombs, so we could get by with saying that he survived, even if we didn’t actually know if it was possible with a nuclear explosion –he wasn’t brave enough to try to walk outside of Liz’s shield to find out.

  But, what about everyone else? I supposed I could say I had regenerated, even though I most definitely wouldn’t have, but Zane, Trinity, and Ava didn’t have that excuse. Would they believe that Trinity had survived without Liz? Would Ava’s shadow form be a valid reason for her being alive?

  At the very least, if Liz didn’t go back, then Zane couldn’t return either. Not to mention, I was reluctant to leave Liz behind without someone extremely powerful like Trinity to protect her. Zane could do a lot, but on the relative power-scale, he was the weakest out of all of us.

  Was I willing to leave Trinity behind so I could protect Liz? Was I willing to leave them both behind to help stop this nuclear massacre from killing them eventually? And would Trinity willingly stay to support and protect Liz?

  While everyone else appeared to be enjoying the peaceful bliss of unconsciousness, I silently struggled with an internal turmoil of indecisions.

  It was nice being alert constantly, but part of me missed the ability to leave the world for a time – to forget all my problems for most of the night. Instead, I was stuck in my own thoughts, torn between two seemingly impossible decisions.

  Despite my grim mental state, I felt a grin creep onto my face when Liz unexpectedly stuck out her foot to stretch in her sleep, only to have her boot end up in Zayden’s face. He wok
e up immediately with a glare, taking a moment to register why a boot was interrupting his sleep, before flopping around onto his other side.

  It was unlikely that he would remain too annoyed with her though – after all, she was the only reason we hadn’t all died of radiation poisoning, and why we could all relax a little despite the pitch-black radioactive rain still silently pounding at Liz’s shield.

  I took a deep breath once the brief amusement vanished, returning my focus to the glowing embers.

  I realized that I might have to tell Armstrong that only Zayden and I had survived, going back without the rest of them.

  I tightened my grip on Trinity, glancing down at her slightly parted lips as she slept peacefully in my arms. Her blue hair was disheveled, some of it in her face. Not having my hands available, a thread of my blood popped out of my neck to gently brush the strands away. She didn’t budge at all, completely undisturbed by the gentle touch.

  If I did leave them, I might have to feign death myself eventually, so the military didn’t try searching for me once I decided to return. It was the only way to avoid looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.

  But how long would it take?

  What if I was away for a year? Would Trinity still love me after a year of separation? Would I be able to handle being away from her that long, with no way to communicate?

  I didn’t like the idea at all. If Liz’s life wasn’t on the line, I wouldn’t even consider it.

  I knew the decision was already made though, because it was the difference between an uncomfortable life for a period of time versus the potential death of all of them.

  I’d rather be a world away and know they were alive, as opposed to the alternative.

  My attention abruptly shifted to Ava on my right when a whimper escaped her sleeping form. The crease between her eyebrows was furrowed, giving her tan face the appearance of being in physical pain.

  When she whimpered a second time, her entire body tensing, my blood popped out of my shoulder, slipping out of my shirt and then heading in her direction. I increased the volume, forming the shape of a hand to gently touch her back. I doubted she wanted to be responsible for waking everyone else up if her nightmare got any worse, so I figured I’d pull her out of it.

  The moment my blood touched her back, my temporary appendage feeling her warmth just like my actual hand would have, her brown eyes popped open in surprise.

  She looked around frantically, before her gaze locked onto mine as I pulled the crimson fluid back inside of me.

  “Jake,” Ava whispered urgently, her voice trembling. She didn’t wait for me to respond though, immediately continuing. “Codeword?” she demanded.

  My brow furrowed in confusion for a moment, before I relaxed and spoke in a gentle tone. “Cupcake, Ava. Sorry for waking you up. It’s just that it looked like you were having a pretty bad dream…” My voice trailed off.

  She took a deep breath, bringing her hand up to her forehead to hide her eyes.

  We were both silent for a few minutes, and I figured she might have fallen back asleep. However, then she spoke again.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I cleared my throat quietly. “You’re welcome,” I answered simply.

  “Is it still raining black?” she wondered, not bothering to look herself. Liz was able to keep even the sound out with her shield, so of course she wouldn’t be able to hear it.

  “Yeah,” I admitted, wondering why she was asking.

  She answered my unspoken question without prompt. “It reminds me of blood.”

  “Oh…it does?”

  She sniffled, her voice breaking. “Y-Yeah. Blood can look black if its concentrated enough. Or if it’s dark enough in the room.”

  I didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure what to say to that, nor did I understand why she was telling me. Did it have to do with her dream? Was she trying to explain why it was a nightmare? I considered whether I should bother asking for clarification.

  Again, she continued without prompt. “My father…” she whispered. “He made me watch…”

  That got my attention.

  “Watch what?” I asked in disbelief, thinking of a dozen different options – none of them good, given what little I knew about him – that he was a cold-blooded killer, according to her.

  “Kill,” she replied simply in a quiet voice. “Torture,” she corrected herself quickly. She shivered then, pressing her hand flat against her forehead even harder, her closed eyelashes beginning to glisten in the dim light, followed by a single tear slipping across the bridge of her nose.

  I tightened my grip on Trinity. “Cupcake,” I repeated in a whisper. I didn’t know what else to say.

  Ava sucked in a deep breath, followed by a controlled exhale. “Thank you,” she repeated.

  “Is this something you want to talk about?” I wondered hesitantly.

  She shook her head just barely, sniffling again, before responding with a contradicting answer. “Yes.”

  I took a deep breath myself, Trinity’s upper body moving slightly with my chest. “Tell me about your family,” I offered, changing subjects slightly. “You have brothers and sisters, right? How many?”

  “There are six of us,” she replied, still partially hiding her eyes. “All of them are half-siblings though, and I’m a lot older than everyone else. David is the next oldest, and he’s only fourteen.”

  “You’re only twenty, right?” I interrupted. “That doesn’t seem too much older. I mean, you’re only three years older than me, and he’s only three years younger.”

  She shrugged. “Almost twenty-one. But either way, it’s a big difference when you’re the one taking care of all of them.” She paused to wipe away the tears, glancing at me before focusing on the glowing embers. “Joseph and Karen are full-blooded, and the youngest. David, Mitchel, and Sarah all have different mothers. We all used to live with my father since he was a successful business man, and all the women he dated either disappeared or went crazy.” She paused for a moment, before continuing. “David and Mitchel’s moms both tried committing suicide, and they ended up in long-term psychiatric facilities. I don’t know what happened to everyone else – I’m not even sure what happened to my own mother. She’s probably dead, if I’m being honest. Probably all of them are – the bastard just may not have made me watch those times.”

  I was silent for a moment. “And I guess something happened to him?” I assumed.

  She shook her head. “No. I mean, he’s still alive. One day I’d had enough, so I grabbed all of my siblings and left.” Her gaze finally met mine again, shifting subjects. “My father thought of himself as a prophet. He was Native American and claimed that spirits, what they called Kachina, spoke to him, telling him who to kill next.” She sighed. “Really, he’s just schizophrenic, having hallucinations, delusions of being important, and hearing voices. But the impact on my life was real enough. I’ve seen way more death at his hands than I’ve yet to see at my own hands – and I’ve been working with the military for three years now, being forced to kill every few weeks.”

  “Wait,” I asked in concern. “If you took off with your brothers and sisters, then who has them now?”

  She was silent for a moment. “That’s my price,” she admitted quietly. “Afraid my father would find us, I was forced to steal to support them. I couldn’t risk getting a normal job and have him track us down. So when the military caught me, it was either do what they say, or else I’d go to prison and my siblings would go back to my psychotic father.”

  “They would really do that?” I asked in disbelief. “Is that even legal?”

  A humorless laugh escaped her lips, sounding more like a scoff. “You, Trinity, and Liz being in the military certainly isn’t legal, yet here you are,” she countered. “We aren’t citizens to them, Jake. We’re the enemy – homegrown terrorists. Weapons to be controlled and nothing more. The laws don’t apply to us. Certainly not when a six-year-old can kill hundreds o
f people by throwing a tantrum.” She paused, seeming pensive. “That’s a real thing, you know – a handful of years ago, there was a bunch of people that died on the other side of the country. The official story was that a gas line broke and everyone suffocated, but really it was a six-year-old who was angry. The military shot him in the head – that certainly isn’t legal either. But to them, this is war, and they are facing an enemy that has better weapons. An enemy that has weaponized children walking among them like bombs just waiting to go off.”

  I took a deep breath. “So your brothers and sisters are safe though, right?” I wondered.

  She nodded, readjusting her head on her tan arm, and then moving some of her black hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Yeah, they actually threw him in a military prison for me. That was my main condition, although it wasn’t like I really had a choice. Granted, I did have a little bit of leverage since they can’t easily keep me in a prison, given that I could just walk right through the wall. I told them I’d do whatever they wanted, so long as they threw my father in jail and made sure my brothers and sisters were able to stay together in a nice place.”

  “Well, that’s good,” I commented, before falling silent for a few seconds. “Umm, is there any reason why you didn’t get rid of your father yourself?”

  She stared at me in disbelief. “Jake, are you really asking me why I couldn’t kill my own father?”

  “Oh.” I looked away, contemplating it, unsure what I would have done in her situation. I cared about my dad, though I also wasn’t torn up about never seeing him again. But if he had been a monster like Ava’s father, would I have had to courage to handle it myself?

  I wasn’t sure.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  She didn’t respond right away, the glow of the embers reflecting in her brown eyes as she stared at it. When she spoke again, it was barely above a whisper. “But that’s why I have to go back either way,” she admitted. Her gaze focused on mine. “I want out. I don’t want to kill anymore. But I also don’t want to risk them letting my father out, or not supporting my family, in the event they think I’m dead. That’s why I left it up to you to decide – because I was indecisive.” Her expression became more gentle. “I’m glad you decided to go back though. It’s the choice I have to make anyway, whether I like it or not.”