Robert Crane - Omega

They’re coming for you , Wolfe’s voice came again, urgent. Janus isn’t like the others they’ve sent. Vampires? Henderschott? Even that delicate little morsel Fries…they are insignificant compared to the Wolfe. But Janus …There was almost the sound of a hiss inside my head, as though Wolfe were drawing away at the thought of the name.

“You’re afraid of him. He frightens you.” I felt the umbrage at my words, the hiss of anger. “Why? Why does he scare you?”

Wolfe fears no man , the words came, no man and no beast, either. But Janus…is strong. Powerful of body and mind. And he has the ear of those at the top of Omega, he is the loudest voice of their old guard, still at odds with the new regime . The others fail. Henderschott failed, constantly. Wolfe owned a piece of his face after one of his failures. Janus does not fail. Not ever.

“So now we’ve progressed from the unkillable man,” I said, pointing at Wolfe’s image behind mine in the mirror, “to Iron Man, to a guy who tried to get in my pants before smooth talking me into joining Omega, to vamps and a traitor, and more recently the three stooges.” I took a deep breath, drawing confidence from the lineup I’d just listed. “Now they’re sending me a man who won’t fail. Got it. I bet they didn’t think any of the others were failures, either.”

You’ve gotten the dregs since me because they’re dealing with bigger matters, Wolfe said in a low hiss. You were always in the back of their minds, always at the side of their focus. Now they turn all their attention on you, and you will feel the strength of Omega descend on you, the power of the gods of old will rain down hell upon your life.

I tugged the little leather kit from of the drawer by the sink and pulled a needle free from the stock I had, then drew a few milliliters of chloridamide into the syringe and pressed it into my vein, the same one I used every day, because it healed to perfection between doses thanks to my meta powers.

You will break, little doll . The eyes stared at me from behind mine as I looked up to the mirror, those black, soulless eyes, pools of nothing but darkness. You will look back on this moment and wish that you’d listened to the Wolfe…

I pushed the plunger and felt the rush of the narcotic as it hit home; it was always a curious sensation, as though the world went slightly muted when I injected, a little feeling of drowsy satisfaction. “I don’t think I’ll ever be sorry that I don’t have to listen to you, Wolfe.” I didn’t hear a response from him, his voice quieted, and I smiled, my own smile, all the way up to my eyes, visible in the mirror. Nothing of him remained with me now, not even the faintest trace.

I saw movement in the mirror and the door opened as Zack stepped inside, his naked body visible under the thin mesh of the suit he still wore. “Good morning,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me and I felt the press of him against my back—in several spots of my back, actually.

“Hi there.” I turned to face him, pressing my flesh against him, feeling his warmth even as my feet touched the cold tile floor. I ran a hand down his chest, felt the firmness of his muscles and let out a little sigh of contentment. I gave him a long, sweet kiss and broke just when I heard him gasp slightly. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he said with a smile. “Just in time, it was starting to get that first feeling of ow.” He squeezed me in his arms and I lay my head against his chest.

I held there for almost a minute, just enjoying the feeling of being close to him, then a devilish thought lit my mind and I raised my head to look at him. “Do we…have time?”

He looked pained. “Again? I have to tell you…other girls I’ve talked to, you know, after the first time, they’re not really as…um…enthusiastic, let’s say. I mean you seem fine and all, I just mean I hope it didn’t hurt too much.”

“I barely felt it at all,” I said, putting my head against his chest. I froze there for a second, and then pulled myself off his chest to look him in the face. “That’s not what I meant,” I said, watching him raise an eyebrow. “What I meant is that compared to the pain I’ve experienced in my life, it was fairly small. Pain-wise, I mean.” I slapped myself on the forehead. “A small amount of pain! Not that I didn’t feel it, because I did, and it felt good, but…” I sighed. “You know what I mean. I hope you know what I mean. It was very good. I liked it a lot. I would like to do it again, as soon as possible.”

“I think I got what you mean,” he said, with almost a smile. “You were already…prepared…and so the little pain you felt was not that big of a deal compared to the beatings you’ve experienced in the last year.”

“You’ve got a way with words,” I said, pulling close to him again. “I wish I had a way with words right about now. Instead, I’m fumbling, a mess, all that.”

“It’s all right. But to answer your earlier question, I have to go.” He gently pulled from me. “We have a meeting with the other agents, preparations for when this Operation Stanchion lands on us.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Stay out of the way as much as possible if it’s a meta assault,” he said, taking a slow walk out the bathroom door and back into the bedroom, fishing his boxer shorts out of a pile of clothing next to the bed. He came up with my underwear as well and tossed it to me. I caught it in one hand. “Our job is to effect an evacuation of the campus, not to get into a rumble with Omega’s metas. We’re assigning out those industrial strength electro cannons like we used on Wolfe, but we’ve only got a half dozen of them. We’ve got some dart guns that will put most metas down, but they take a few seconds to work, so pistols and rifles are going to be option one. We’ve got some shotgun shells that have some extra pop to them, and some slug-throwing shotguns that’ll put a hole in an elephant. Other than that…” He shrugged. “Like I said, we’re evacuating and trying to make way for you metas to rumble to your heart’s content.”

“My heart’s quite content with no rumbling,” I said, and slipped on my panties. “I could use a nice long vacation about now.”

Zack smiled. “Like Italy?”

“Somewhere tropical,” I said. “Somewhere warm. It’s about to get really cold here in Minnesota again, you know.”

“Having lived here my whole life, I was dimly aware of that fact.”

“I’ve never been outside the Midwest,” I said, looking out the window at the sun, already high in the sky. “I remember thinking when Wolfe was coming for me how much I wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else.”

“I remember,” he said. “But you knew he’d find you.”

“Yeah. I should take those vacation days they gave me, and go somewhere good.” I stepped closer to him, rubbed a hand along the smooth covering over his chest as he placed his shirt on and left it unbuttoned. “What do you think? You, me, a sandy beach, warm sun overhead, crystal blue waves—”

“I think that sounds like a vacation that is a little above my pay grade.” He smiled. “But I like the sound of it. It sounds like more fun than that time we took a day off and went to Valley Fair.”

“I had fun with that,” I said, and slapped him on the shoulder. “You remember the list?”

“You mean the list of things you were supposed to do in your life?” he asked. “We did a good number on that list this last summer, you know.”

“We did indeed.” I stood up on my tiptoes and gave him a peck on the cheek that lasted a fraction of a second. “I had another list, you know.”

He turned his head to look at me. “Oh, yeah? What was on it?”