by Nora Phoenix
Palani couldn’t help it. He was impressed when he heard that. “I’ll admit that sounds better than I had expected,” he said. “But back to my question. You say their findings are correct, so let’s go along with that for a sec. How can you apply these to a culture that has completely changed? Can you use the dynamics that worked in a society a hundred years ago, before so many modern inventions, and apply them to our current day society?”
“You don’t seem to object to the dynamics themselves,” York noted, deftly evading the question.
“I have my reservations,” Palani assured him, “but my bigger concern is how you can claim that what worked a century ago would still work.”
“You’ll need to share those reservations with me, as I’d be most interested to see where you have doubts. You’re most certainly a proponent of more independence for omegas, judging by some of your articles.”
“I am, but that doesn’t mean I agree with your view on how that independence should be achieved. You state all omegas should marry, for instance, and by doing so achieve more legal autonomy. What if they don’t want to?”
“All omegas want to be in a relationship,” York said. “It’s in their very nature. It’s how they’re wired. To deny themselves that would be unnatural.”
“I don’t agree with you, but even so, how would that work when so many alphas refuse to enter into a serious, committed relationship? I’m neither an alpha nor an omega, but I've learned from stories how hard it is for omegas to find alphas willing to settle down.”
York scratched his beard, sighing. “I agree that’s an issue we need to address. Many alphas need to grow up and leave their antics behind them to start a family.”
“And you think you can achieve that with a marriage bonus?” Palani said, referring to one of their political key promises.
“Not with that bonus alone but with a broad spectrum of measures and incentives, yes.”
“Getting an alpha to marry an omega is still not a guarantee for a family,” Palani pointed out. “Male infertility is a big issue, and so are pregnancy complications and the high mortality rate during delivery for male omegas.”
“Yes. That’s why we propose a massive increase in funding for research into the causes of these health issues and for treatment. Health care options for omegas are way too limited, especially for those who are single or from lower-income families. That has to change. We applaud the efforts of doctors who have been on the front line of male omega health care for years, fighting a lonely battle, and we would support them with grants for research, training, better facilities to treat omegas, and more.”
Palani had to fight to keep his face neutral. The man was referring to Enar, no doubt about it, but how did he know? It was not something Palani was going to discuss, not with someone he was interviewing, not with the leader of a political party, and most definitely not while his recorder was on.
“Those measures can only be described as revolutionary,” he said. “How will you get other alphas to support this, considering they don’t seem concerned about this issue right now?”
“We have some educating to do,” York said. “Alphas don’t realize that these problems do affect them. The number of children born from male omegas is still declining, though slowly, and this is a worrisome trend. If we don’t change something, fertile male omegas capable of delivering a healthy baby and surviving to actually parent the child will become a rarity. That is not a reality that any alpha should want. The problem is that many don’t start caring until it’s their omega who can’t get pregnant. We need funding for more research. We need to stop the government from being influenced by lobbyists who are blocking reform on this issue. There are drugs that have proven to be more effective in preventing pregnancy in male omegas for instance, but lobbyists from certain drug companies are blocking their approval.”
This time, Palani could not keep himself from reacting. What drugs was York referring to? Was he referring to Excellon? How the hell had he found out about it? “Are you sure that’s an accusation you want me to print, Mr. York? That’s a bold statement coming from a political candidate.”
York leaned back in his chair again. “It is, but it’s the cold hard truth… There is evidence of coordinated efforts by companies to block access to successful drugs for omegas. You know that as well as I do, Mr. Hightower.”
Palani wasn’t sure what surprised him more, the reference to him already knowing about this issue—by now it was crystal clear he was alluding to Excellon—or York addressing him as Mr. Hightower when the colloquial “Palani” for a beta would have been far more customary. It was the second time York had mentioned knowing more about Palani, and it creeped him out a bit. Enough to not acknowledge he knew what York was referring to, that was for sure.
“The elections are in three months. Polls show you have a chance of winning as many as forty of the hundred-and-fifty seats in parliament. With the other seats divvied up between six other parties, you’re looking at becoming the biggest party. That would be the political upset of the century…and would make you prime minister. Do you think these polls are realistic?”
“No, I don’t. Right now, our support comes mainly from omegas and betas who are tired of omegas being suppressed. We don’t have enough alphas supporting us yet, which is why we’ll focus on explaining why improving the positions of omegas is beneficial to alphas as well.”
Palani couldn’t help it. “Good luck with that,” he said.
Back in his car after the interview, he pondered the many things York had said. The man seemed to have a genuine passion to grant omegas more rights, and yet Palani shuddered at the vibe he picked up from him. Sometimes the man sounded passionate and honest, but other times he was one step away from being a ranting lunatic.
Take his insistence that returning to the societal structure from a century ago not only would improve the lives of alphas, betas, and omegas but also would strengthen their shifters’ abilities. Moreover, he wanted to fund research into restoring the ability to shift. The Conservative Wolf Party didn’t merely want the dynamics from the shifter-society. They wanted a full-blown return of shifting itself. If that didn’t sound like pure science fiction, Palani didn’t know what would.
And what was up with York digging into Palani’s personal life? The reference to Enar had been worrisome, but the one to Excellon had been scary. That was not a topic anyone should be aware he was working on, not even his boss, so how had this man found out? Palani had some more digging to do, it seemed.
Between his longer commute to Lidon’s house and his crazy hours, Enar had little time to think about the mysterious Melloni gene. But today was Sunday and Palani was off, so Enar had forced himself to free his schedule as well. They’d found a quiet spot in the study to see if they could come up with any answers. Hell, Enar would be happy if they could develop a solid theory at this point. He’d called Melloni again a few days ago, but the doctor hadn’t made any breakthrough developments on the origin of the gene.
“Let’s write all the facts on separate Post-its,” Palani suggested. He found a block of bright pink Post-its in a drawer and handed Enar a black marker. “That always helps me to see things in a different light.”
“Okay, I like that,” Enar said. “But you’d better write ‘cause my handwriting is illegible.”
Palani grinned. “You just wanna look at my ass as I bend over to write,” he teased.
“True. But you really won’t be able to read my scribbles.”
“All right, I believe you. Let’s start with what we know to be true.”
A few minutes later, they’d stuck various Post-its on the cream-colored wall in front of them. Enar studied them, his mind trying to figure out connections. “All male,” he said. “Symptoms are high fertility, low birth mortality, high sex drive, excessive behavior during heats.”
“Depression,” Palani added, writing another note and sticking it on the wall. “Multiple cases in the same family, which sugges
ts it’s hereditary.”
Enar hesitated. “The first, yes. The second we can’t support with data yet. There can be other reasons why it affects siblings.”
“Such as?”
“Environmental causes, for instance. Siblings grow up under the same environmental conditions. If it’s something in, say, the water, it will affect them all.”
“Good point. I’ll just add a note with the McCain family, then, without speculation for the cause.” He wrote the note. “What else?”
“Irresistible smell to the point where it triggers even mated alphas.”
Palani nodded and added it to the wall. “I wonder if Vieno’s smell will change now that he’s mated,” he said.
“He smelled damn good to me last time,” Enar pointed out.
“Yeah, but he’d only been mated for a short time, and I’m not sure if he was technically mated to you yet, and if he was, it was probably not long enough for it to affect his smell.”
“Good point. We’ll see at his next heat, then.”
Palani added the question to a Post-it and stuck it a little to the side of the others. Enar studied what they had accumulated so far. “I’m not sure if depression is a symptom or a result,” he said. “It could be caused by the gene, but it could also be a result of the consequences of the gene. Many of the omegas we’ve seen with the gene have been assaulted or raped, which is a known cause for depression.”
“Vieno showed the first symptoms of being depressed before his first heat.”
“Melloni speculated this was not a natural cause, remember?” Enar said.
“Because of how fast it popped up,” Palani said. “I remember. He said that if it had been a natural cause, even an environmental one, it would've developed more slowly over time.”
“Exactly. It suggests a human intervention of some kind. But what common characteristics do these omegas share to link them to a possible human origin? Vieno didn’t know the McCains either, did he?”
“No,” Palani said. “And he hadn’t heard of the beta Lidon almost arrested either or his omega husband, ‘cause I checked with him. They’re all from roughly the same neighborhood, but that’s still a big area, and they didn’t have any personal contact. Aside from the McCains who obviously knew each other, I haven’t found any links between the carriers of the gene.”
Enar studied the wall again. There had to be a connection, something that linked all the omegas who had this gene, but what?
“Let’s hypothesize for a second,” Palani suggested. “Let’s say it was human intervention. How would you gain access to a child to administer something to change his genes?”
“You can’t,” Enar said. “You’d have to…” He stopped, checking his own reasoning.
“You’d have to…what?” Palani asked.
“Genes are formed in the womb. To change someone’s genetic makeup, you’d need to do it during pregnancy.”
“But what woman would give permission for that?” Palani wondered. “Take Vieno’s mother. She’s not exactly mother of the year, but I can’t see her give permission for some strange genetic experiment on her baby.”
“So they didn’t know. They were given something during their pregnancy, and they weren’t aware of it,” Enar said.
“But who would have access to them?”
The answer was so obvious, Enar couldn’t believe he’d missed it so far. “Me. Their ob-gyn.”
Palani’s eyes grew big. “Shit, you’re right.”
“You have no idea how easy it would be for me. I give pregnant patients shots all the time, like vitamins or antibodies or meds to prevent morning sickness. They would never know if I switched the syringe and shot them up with something else instead.”
“We need to know if they all used the same ob-gyn. It would make sense, since they’re all geographically close. No pregnant woman wants to go across town for checkups.”
Enar froze. “They all had female omegas as mothers,” he said. “They have that in common too. None of them was birthed by a male omega, right?”
“Right. Not as far as we know. All the McCains had mothers,” Palani said, his voice excited. “I can ask Vieno who his mom’s ob-gyn is. Maybe he remembers.”
“I’ll ask him, and you could call a few of the McCains instead, since they know you?”
Vieno was outside with Lidon and his cousins. They were putting topsoil on his vegetable plot, and the omega was almost dancing with excitement, so it took a while before Enar could get him to focus on something else. Once he had his answer, he headed back inside. When he walked back into the study, Palani was wrapping up a conversation.
“Thank you, Mrs. McCain. I’ll be sure to keep you informed, I promise.” He hung up, then turned to face Enar. “They didn’t share the same ob-gyn, the McCain mothers. Two of them did, but the third had another doctor.”
“Vieno said his mother switched doctors all the time, so he had no idea who it could have been.”
Palani sighed. “Yeah. Apparently, it took her a long time to get pregnant with Vieno. His parents were already married ten years when he was finally born. It was one of the things they held against him, that he was such a disappointment after all the trouble they’d gone through to get pregnant and the money they’d spent on…” He suddenly stopped talking, his eyes widening.
Enar wanted to ask what was wrong, but Palani held up his finger. “Wait. Let me think ‘cause I’m having a déjà vu.”
Enar stood, patiently waiting. He wouldn’t dream of interrupting Palani, not with the concentrated frown the beta was sporting.
“Robert McCain,” Palani said, his face lighting up. “His mother couldn’t get pregnant. That’s what his boss said, that she’d told him that at the funeral. He was an only child because his mother struggled with infertility.”
“Yeah, so?” Enar asked. Why was Palani so enthusiastic about this? Then it hit him. “They have that in common, Vieno’s mother and Robert’s mother.”
Palani nodded. “What if they had the same fertility treatments?”
“God, yes. What better way to administer something aimed at changing the genetic makeup than during conception? Holy crap, we need to find out of this was true for the others as well.”
Palani whipped out his phone. “On it.”
“Mrs. McCain, I’m so sorry to bother you again,” he said seconds later. “I have a rather personal question, if that’s okay.”
Enar waited while Palani talked to the mother, his eyes fixed on Palani’s face for any signal. Palani’s eyes popped.
“Are you sure?” he said, reaching out for Enar’s arm. He held on to it with such force that Enar was certain bruises would show the next day. “I promise you we’ll come talk to you as soon as we confirm this.”
When he hung up, his eyes were still wide open in shock. “They all used the same fertility drugs. The McCains. I didn’t realize it, but they’re three sisters who married two brothers and a cousin, and they all struggled with infertility. A genetic thing, she said. Her oldest sister got pregnant after using them, and they all followed her example.”
“What’s the name of the drug?”
“It was a clinical trial. It never went to market, she said. The drug was labeled X23 in the trial.”
Enar’s head buzzed with the implications. “I’ve never even heard of it, but that’s not surprising as this trial had to be done, what, twenty years ago?”
Palani’s grip on his hand intensified. “Wait. Something doesn’t add up. Robert McCain was twenty-two when he died, which means his mother would’ve been in that trial twenty-three years ago, give or take. So was Colton McCain. But Vieno is twenty-three…that’s a whole year older. And the other McCains who passed away were younger…Adam was twenty and Lance twenty-one. We’re talking about a three-year period between the youngest and the oldest… What clinical drug trial would take that long?”
He was right. That was a way-too-long period for a drug to be in a clinical trial. What the hell had
happened? He tried to make a timeline in his head and realized something else. “There’s another complication with this theory. The first cases of the gene were over a decade ago. Melloni mapped the gene ten years ago and gave it its name. That would put this trial at a running period of fifteen years. That’s impossible.”
“You’re right… But the fertility drugs are too obvious a connecting element to ignore. We should inform Melloni of our theory, see if he has any theories.”
Enar shook his head. “No, that’s too soon. We’ll need to dig what we can find out about those drugs the McCains took first and see where that leads us.”
“If we operate off the assumption that fertility drugs were the common factor, that gives us also tools to discover more potential carriers of the gene,” Palani added.
Enar’s blood froze in his veins. “It also means I have to contact my brother, Sven. Remember what I said, that my mom had trouble getting pregnant again after me? How much do you wanna bet she used fertility drugs, considering she did end up having two more kids pretty close to each other. What if she took the same drugs? Sven is twenty and could have his first heat any moment.”
8
Every time he drove through the gates, a strange calm washed over Lidon’s heart. It had always been home to him, his ranch, but for a while, he’d lost that feeling. It had felt empty to him, but now things had changed. As soon as the gates closed behind him, he felt different. Safe. Calm. As if he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
It could be because of the renovations that had started, he mused. In the last weeks, Jawon had cleared the plot where Vieno wanted his vegetable garden and covered it with topsoil or whatever it was that made plants grow, preparing it for Vieno to start sowing and planting.
He’d also knocked down the old chicken coop, clearing the land for a new one. Vieno had become well versed in growing vegetables by doing extensive research online, and he knew more about chicken breeds than Lidon ever had thought possible. It proved how well Vieno matched with this place, which filled Lidon with a deep contentment and pride. He’d chosen his mate well, or rather, fate had chosen well for him.