Robert Crane: Omega

“No, sir,” I said, and swallowed heavily. “I won’t put myself in a position like that again.”

“Do not be afraid to kill,” he said, “not to save your team, not to save yourself. And certainly not for so low a form of life as James Fries.”

“Yes, sir.” I felt a slight contraction in my throat at their concern, a burning that I had failed them in some way.

Ariadne’s eyes were soft, and she wore an almost sympathetic smile of understanding. “We just want you to understand your worth to the organization—and to us. Killing in your own defense is always preferable to placing your life at risk, and we want you to know that you’ll always have our backing in that type of situation.” She leaned forward. “No matter what. If your life is at risk, you are our priority. Not a stranger, not a random person, and certainly not an Omega operative. Pull the trigger next time, and we’ll sort it out later.”

“Understood,” I said, and felt a slight tug in the back of my mind. “Is there anything else I can improve on?”

Old Man Winter said nothing, and Ariadne answered. “Nothing beyond the major concern we already voiced. We’re going to let Fries stew for a night and then start the interrogation tomorrow.” She smiled. “Should soften him up before we start asking questions.”

“What do you think he’ll say?” I looked at both of them, waiting for reaction, but found none.

Ariadne seemed to stare, cocking her head to look out the window. “I’m not sure, exactly. He’ll probably be a tough one to crack. Hopefully he’ll give us some pulse on what Omega’s up to since they’ve gone quiet for the last few months after their assault on our agents.”

“Assault is putting it mildly,” I said. “They drew out and killed ninety percent of our human agents. They engaged M-Squad in a battle in Kansas that the news called an apocalyptic firestorm coupled with tornadoes.”

Old Man Winter snorted. “The press is very easily led, in most cases. Especially when telepaths become involved.”

I felt my jaw tense at the mention of the term telepath. I’d had my own encounter with a telepath only a few months earlier, and the memory was still with me. “Fries,” I said, trying to bring the discussion back to center. “How do you want to handle this?”

“If you’re up for it,” Ariadne said, “I’d like you in there with Parks when he conducts the interrogation. You can play bad cop to his good cop. Just try not to go over the top with your performance.”

“Fries is slick,” I said. “He may see this coming.”

“If it gets ugly,” she said, “excuse yourself from the room. We’ll figure out where to take it from there.”

“All right,” I said. “How far are we going to take this?”

I saw Ariadne’s gaze flit to Old Man Winter, and his stone-faced response. He waited before answering, as though he were milking the moment of all the august pause he could put into it. “As far as it needs to go,” he said. “Omega has you as their target, and they have intended to lay their hands upon you since day one. I will not let them have you.” He let out a slow breath that fogged the air with frigid mist in front of his blue lips. “And I mean to know why they want you.”

I walked back across the campus after my meeting with Ariadne and Old Man Winter, his words echoing in my ears. Why did Omega want me? I wondered, too, and had since they’d first sent Wolfe after me almost a year ago. The leaves blew around my ankles as an eddy of wind formed, causing them to drift up in a whirlwind around me. I blinked and took my hands out of my pockets as two of them, maple leaves, ran across my face and tickled my nose. I saw Reed, his fingers extended to the glass from the lobby, a smile on his face. When he saw he’d caught my attention, he dropped his hand and the wind around me faded, the leaves drifting away.

He held the door for me as I walked up, my hands again snugged in the pockets of my coat. “Heya, brother,” I said in as casual a tone as I could as I walked past.

“Heya, sis,” he said, and let the door swing shut after I passed then opened the next for me. “How was your meeting? Or should I call it an ass-chewing?”

“Hardly.” I walked into the lobby of the dormitory. It was a wide area, oblong and directed down two hallways to the left and right, the two respective wings of the dormitory. Directly in front of us was the entrance to the cafeteria. People were already lined up out the door for dinner; it was close to time. I was hungry, but I wouldn’t be eating there tonight. “They just wanted to be sure I didn’t hesitate to kill next time rather than let myself go into danger.”

“I was wondering about that myself,” Reed said, and I stopped, feeling my brow crumple as I gave him a look. The aromas of food came from within the cafeteria—meatloaf, I thought with a cringe. I could hear the chatter, some hushed whispers of a few newer metas talking about me in quiet undertones from near where the line formed for the cafeteria.

“Oh?” I let my head swivel; in a normal situation I’d have been looking for a threat. In this case, I was withering a nearby teenage boy with a glare for staring at me. He had brown hair and glasses, and he didn’t look away from me, didn’t turn red, didn’t break eye contact. Annoying. “Why’s that?”

“Because,” Reed said, lowering his head from the top of his lanky frame as though he were trying to bring it into view for me because I was much shorter than him, “Fries had a bead on you. He would have killed you, no hesitation. But you? You didn’t fire, even though you could have.”

“I was told to get him alive, so I got him alive,” I said with only a little hostility. Defensive much?

“And if they’d told you to bring him dead?” Reed’s right eyebrow was higher than the other. He held eye contact with me just a second too long for my taste. When I didn’t answer, he spoke again. “Why are you trying to scare off the newbs with your frightening glare?”

“I don’t like the way they look at me,” I said, turning back to the teenager who I’d caught staring. “Like I’m some kind of freak.”

“Umm, no,” he said. “They’re not looking at you like you’re some kind of freak.”

I frowned at him. “What are you talking about? They stare, they whisper—it’s a full-blown epidemic of gossip, just like it has been since the beginning—”

“Wrong,” Reed said with a little more energy and a slight smile. “Some of that, yeah. But they’re staring at you because they’re teenage boys, and because you’re—”

“What?” I let my voice rise and drew looks. “You’re way off.”

“Not so. You may be my sister—”

“Half-sister,” I corrected.

“—but yeah, I still know. And they’re not looking because they’re gossiping.”

“Awkward,” I said with raised eyebrows. “But thanks for that.”

He shrugged, but wore a smile. “I’m here to help.” His face shifted a little, expression almost pensive. “I never asked you this, but you really didn’t know I was your…?”

I let my face scrunch up to show my incredulity. “How would I have known that? Do you think my mother gave me a lesson in family history?”

“Just curious.” His eyes went back to the teenaged boys in line behind me, and I followed his gaze. All but the one with glasses averted their eyes before we caught them looking. The one with glasses, he didn’t seem to care, staring back at me, absolutely cool. “So you didn’t ever feel like…” Reed let his words trail off.

“Like what?” I tore my eyes away from the teenager in line and looked back to Reed. “Like you were an awkward teenage boy?”