Chapter 2: The Abyss of Omega

My skull stabbed in a rusty air hammer.

When I blinked, an unnaturally grelle, sterile white burned into my retina.

The familiar, comforting stench after lubricating oil, earth and sweat from the slums

had disappeared. Instead, the air roared to ozone, sharp

Disinfectants and... fear. Cold, metallic terror.

I lay on a steel carrying, strapped tightly with thick leather straps. Panik rose in

my throat, but I forced myself to rest. Breathe, Jada, analyze. Survival.

How many times did I make a working system from old, broken boards?

My mind was my best tool, and I was not allowed to let the fear

shortcut.

I just turned my head over a millimeter. The room was a high-tech laboratory,

stuffed with flickering monitors and solid steel doors. Two men in

white coats stood a few meters away and stared at a bright

Data terminal. Her faces were bald.

“Your vital values are stable,” the younger whispered. He knew himself with trembling

Hands over the forehead. “But doctor, look at the compatibility rate. The

must be a system error of the raster scanner. An absolute level

Gene tests never before. Not even close.”

The older scientist slowly shook his head. No trace of

Humanity was in his view. “There are no errors in the Omega protocol. The

Oberkommando has already authorized the command. It is the new sedative.”

“But she will die in seconds!” the younger cried. “Just like the last

fourteen women. Subject Zero has been on withdrawal of the Sedativa for three days. His

Metabolism burns everything. He has the last group of heavily armored purifiers in

the air torn when they only tried to clean his food hatch! If we do this

Put a woman in there, he won't just kill her. He will tear them into pieces.”

My blood is freezing. The cold crawled into my fingertips. Subject Zero. That was not

Man. It was a weapon. A genetic nightmare they are down here in the dark

cultivated far away from the shiny domes of the elite. And I was his food.

“We don’t have a choice,” said the doctor emotionally. He turned to me and

noticed that my eyes were open. “The biometric barrier of its cell stops

not long. If we don't give him a sacrificial animal that his instincts for a few

It's busy minutes, it's breaking out. Bring them to the cell.”

Before I was able to resist or scream against the belts, two were hard

armored guards from the shadow to the carrying. They released the straps, grabbed me

mercilessly on the arms and crumbled on my feet. My knees almost gave up,

but I forced myself to keep my weight. I wouldn't give them satisfaction

give me to crawl.

They dragged me through a long, sparsely lit corridor. The deeper we are

the intestines of sector Omega went, the colder it became. The steel floor was

sown with deep, brutal scratches – as if something massive had tried to

To tighten violence in the metal. The scratches were deeper than my thumb was thick.

At the end of the gang there was a door. She didn't look like a normal

cell door, but like the bulkhead of a space cruiser, almost half a meter thick

and secured with heavy hydraulic bolts. Red warning lights turned silent

on the ceiling.

“May the system of our soul be gracious,” one of the guards muttered.

He typed a code into a wall panel. The hydraulics clinked like a dying,

mechanical animal. The massive door slowly glitt to the side and gave the view

to an impenetrable, pitch-black nothing.

From the cell there was a stench that turned my stomach. It was the smell of

old blood, biting ammonia and wild, untamed predator. It was the

Smell of absolute death.

“Get away, slum rat,” the guard crawled and pushed me hard with the

Gunpowder in the back.

I stumbled forward into the dark and fell hard on the ice-cold stone floor of the cell.

My knee was bleeding. Before I could get up, the steel door slammed behind

To me. The loud cliche of the hydraulic bolts sealed my fate.

Absolute, suffocating darkness enveloped me.

I didn't dare breathe. My heart beat my ribs so loud that I

feared the sound would betray me. I pressed flat on the damp

Floor and felt blind on my boot. At the raid they had mine

tool backpack and shocker removed, but in the slums you learned,

always have a backup. From the hollow sole of my left boot I pulled a

narrow, sharpening knife-sharp piece metal that I made of a broken rotor blade

had ground.

It was a bad trump against a monster that could tear armored steel,

but I wouldn't die noisy.

Taken minutes. The silence was so dense that it was on my ears.

I heard it.

A deep, crunchy sound. Chain link which slowly rubs over chain link.

A massive weight moved in the shadow, just a few meters before me. The

Stone floor vibrated slightly under an ear-powdering, well-tural cord, the deep

in a gigantic breast. It didn't sound human. It sounded like a

Urgency that rose from the depths of the earth.

Two eyes opened in the dark.

They floated almost two meters above the ground. They glowed in a toxic,

murderous green and fixed me. The pure, undiluted hatred of this

Look, let me stare inside.

The crawling became louder, more aggressive. The clinks of the chains were compressed to form

whiping noise when the massive shape was in the dark.

The beast came out for a leap.