Omega Zero (Omega Protocol Prequel #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Zero

Iwake up face-down on cold concrete with a groan slipping out of my raw throat.

For a few seconds, I just lie there, cheek pressed against the floor, trying to remember what part of my body belongs to me and what part belongs to the various drugs the lab likes to pump into my bloodstream for fun.

I feel slightly disoriented, but isn’t that the fun part?

The concrete smells faintly like disinfectant.

And blood. Mostly disinfectant, and I find that encouraging.

I open one eye slowly. Bright white light pours down from the overhead fixtures like the sun decided to move underground just to personally ruin my morning.

My skull pulses in time with the electric hum in the ceiling.

Fantastic.

"Good news, Zero," I mumble into the floor, my voice coming out raspy as fuck. Like gravel got into my throat overnight. Or like something crawled in there and died. Hard to rule either one out.

"You're not dead."

I pause, thinking about it. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but I’ve always been the type of guy to try to look on the bright side.

"Yet." The floor doesn't argue. Which, in my experience, means the statement is probably accurate.

I roll onto my back slowly, limbs heavy and uncooperative. Whatever they injected me with yesterday is still dragging its claws through my nervous system. My muscles feel sluggish, like someone replaced all the working parts of my body with damp sandbags.

The ceiling comes into view, and I blink slowly, trying to get my eyes to focus. Cracked plaster spreads above me in long crooked lines. I've spent a lot of time studying those cracks. When you live in a room that's barely bigger than a walk-in closet, you start memorizing stupid things.

The number of screws in the ventilation grate. The exact pitch the fluorescent lights make when the power fluctuates. The way shadows pool differently in the corners depending on the time of day… not that I know what time of day it actually is.

There's one long fracture that looks like a lightning bolt. Another that resembles a crooked spine. And then there's the one above the light fixture.

I squint at it. Still looks like a rabbit. Not a normal rabbit, obviously. A deeply disturbed rabbit. Possibly screaming. I tilt my head to the side, examining it from a different angle.

"Morning, screaming rabbit," I tell the ceiling.

Silence answers me.

"That's good," I decide, "if you start talking back, we're upgrading from 'coping' to 'officially insane.'" The rabbit remains unhelpfully mute.

The sane thing would be to stop addressing ceiling plaster. The sane thing also assumes you have better conversational options. I've been in this room long enough to know I'm working with limited material.

I exhale and rub my eyes with both hands. My fingers come away sticky with dried blood.

Huh.

"That feels… concerning."

I sit up slowly and inspect my arms. A small puncture mark blooms darkly in the crook of my elbow.

Another injection site. The skin around it is bruised in ugly shades of purple and yellow.

Colors that have no business being on a human body voluntarily.

I poke it with my index finger, because I can’t seem to help myself.

It stings slightly, causing me to cringe, and yet, I’m half tempted to do it again.

"Right," I mutter, "sedatives. Hormones. Mystery science juice."

The bruises have started layering lately. Fresh ones are sitting on top of old ones that never fully faded, like the lab is running out of clean real estate. They've started eyeing my ankles. I've made my feelings on that development very clear.

Repeatedly.

Loudly.

With my teeth.

I flex my fingers. At least everything still works. More or less. That's a win in this place. A faint mechanical whir clicks softly in the corner of the room. I glance up.

Red light.

Camera.

Always watching.

The small black dome mounted near the ceiling swivels slightly, tracking my movement with quiet, patient precision.

Like a bored predator observing a very unimpressive prey animal.

I wonder sometimes if whoever's manning the monitor gets paid extra to stare at me while I sleep.

If so, I hope the overtime is worth it. I've been told I make unpleasant faces when I'm sedated.

I stare back at the camera. Then raise my hand and wave.

"Morning, creeps." The camera does not wave back.

Rude.

I let out a heavy breath and push myself to my feet, joints popping in protest. The room spins for half a second before settling into its usual bleak shape. One of these days, the floor isn't going to stop moving. That'll be a fun new development.

My containment unit is twelve steps long if I stretch my stride.

Eight steps wide. I know because I've counted them about nine hundred times.

I've also counted ceiling tiles, drain grates, and the number of times per hour the ventilation cycles.

Somewhere in my head, there's a very detailed map of this room that serves no practical purpose whatsoever.

The walls are smooth, reinforced concrete.

There are no seams, no loose edges, nothing sharp enough to use as a weapon.

It’s all rather boring if you ask me. Whoever designed this place was very thorough about removing the possibility of fun.

There's a grudging kind of respect in that.

Whoever built this room knew exactly what they were putting inside it and planned accordingly.

I find that almost flattering.

Almost.

A drain sits in the center of the floor.

There's a thin mattress shoved into the far corner, more of a suggestion of a mattress than a functioning one, the foam compressed into a shape that remembers every bad night I've ever had in here.

A stainless-steel sink built directly into the wall.

No mirror. They took the mirror out after the third time I broke it. Which was fair, I guess.

And the observation window. That thing takes up nearly half the opposite wall, a thick sheet of glass stretching from chest height all the way to the ceiling.

I've thrown a chair at it twice. A meal tray once.

My own body, on one memorable occasion, in what I still maintain was a completely reasonable response to circumstances.

It didn't break. It didn't even scratch. It's reflective on my side. Opaque on theirs. I shuffle toward it, scratching absently at the back of my neck.

My reflection slowly resolves in the glass.

Messy dark hair sticking out in all directions.

Sharp cheekbones carved a little too severely for someone my age…

assuming I know my age, which is a thing they've been very cagey about.

Pale skin that hasn't seen actual sunlight in long enough that I've started to look like something that lives underground on purpose.

And the thin black barcode tattooed just below my ear.

O-00.

Subject Zero.

I tilt my head, studying it.

"Still ugly," I inform my reflection. The guy in the glass looks unimpressed. He looks tired, not sleep-tired, but the other kind. It’s a bone-deep exhaustion that you can’t just shake away. The kind that sits behind your eyes and watches everything like it already knows how it ends.

I press my forehead against the cool surface. The temperature difference sends a small shiver down my spine. I leave it there for a second longer than necessary. Simple sensations. You learn to collect them when the world gets small enough.

Behind the glass, somewhere in the observation room, I know they're standing there watching me like I’m an exotic animal in an exhibit.

Scientists in pristine white coats holding clipboards like sacred texts.

Watching me breathe. Watching me blink. Writing things down that I'll never get to read…

notes about my pupils, my posture, the way I held my arm when I checked the injection site.

Waiting. Always waiting. For what? It’s hard to say.

Maybe they're hoping I'll sprout wings. Maybe they already tried that experiment, and I just don't remember.

My memory has holes in it now. Stretches of days that feel like static, like someone hit the skip button on a record.

I stopped trying to map them. The gaps are just part of the landscape now.

My stomach growls loudly. I glance down at it.

"Oh, relax," I tell it, "I'm sure they'll remember to feed us eventually."

The feeding schedule, such as it is, runs on lab time. Which means whenever the fuck they feel like it. Breakfast comes early on trial days. Late on observation days. Sometimes not at all when they're running bloodwork, and the results make the clipboards very excited.

Hungry test subjects are apparently easier to work with. I've considered proving that theory catastrophically wrong on several occasions. Patience is a virtue. I have almost none of it. But I'm learning.

The room remains stubbornly silent.

Then-

A faint metallic rattle echoes from the ventilation grate near the ceiling. I freeze. Slowly, very slowly, my grin spreads.

"Oh, hey," I whisper, tipping my head back toward the vent.

The grate vibrates slightly.

Someone is shifting on the other side.

"Vent guy," I call softly, "you alive up there?"

There's a pause.

A long one.

Long enough that I start calculating whether whatever they pumped into the east block last night was stronger than what I got. Then a hoarse voice drifts down through the metal slats.

"Shut… up."

I grin wider.

"Great talk." I settle cross-legged on the floor beneath the grate. "You sound terrible, by the way."

A longer pause.

"I know."

Progress.

That's two responses. We're having a whole conversation, and I can’t help my excitement for it. At night, the vents carry sound between the containment cells. It's the closest thing we have to social interaction, and we've all developed our own strange rhythms around it.

The unspoken rules of the network. Don't broadcast during observation hours. Keep the volume down when the night crew does their rounds. Cover for each other when the sounds get bad.

There's Screamer two rooms down, who absolutely loses his mind during hormone trials. I've stopped counting how many times I've fallen asleep to that particular soundtrack. You'd think it would get easier to ignore.

It doesn't.

But you get better at keeping your face flat when the technicians walk in afterward, like the sounds don't register. Like you're not cataloguing every name and face of everyone who walked past that door without stopping.

Crybaby across the hall who sobs every time the sedation wears off.

Quiet, horrible crying that the vents carry with devastating clarity.

That one started recently. I don't know their number.

I don't know much about them at all, only that they've been here less time than me.

I can tell because they still cry like they think someone's going to come and save them.

Nobody's coming, though. You figure that out eventually.

And Vent Guy, whose entire personality seems to consist of telling people to shut up. Apparently, on particularly adventurous mornings, confirming his own terrible mood. Community building.

Important for morale.

I tap the glass lightly with my knuckles, drumming a thoughtless rhythm.

"You think today's a bite day?" I ask the room. Bite days are my favorite.

The last time a technician leaned too close with a syringe, I grabbed his wrist and sank my teeth straight into the soft part of his arm. Not hard enough to break skin. Just hard enough to make a point.

The look on his face?

Priceless.

He'd been in and out of my cell a dozen times by then. Started getting comfortable. Started talking over me to his colleague while reaching for my arm like I wasn't attached to it. Like the arm was just floating there in space, conveniently located.

That's the thing about this place. They get comfortable, and then they stop paying attention. And then they remember, very suddenly, why they should have been.

Apparently, "hostile response behavior" is frowned upon in controlled laboratory environments. They added a notation to my file. I can see them reference it sometimes through the glass. They hold the clipboards slightly differently when they're looking at something that concerns them.

My file must be enormous by now. I consider that a point of pride. Footsteps echo faintly down the hallway outside my cell, pulling me out of my morbid thoughts. I go very still.

Boots.

Several pairs.

Heavy and deliberate. Not the soft-soled shuffle of the overnight monitors. Not the clipped efficiency of the data team. Something with a purpose. My grin slowly returns.

"Ah," I murmur.

The morning crew. I stand up, rolling my neck until something pops satisfyingly. It doesn't actually make me feel better. It's just a thing I do because it's mine. A small, stupid piece of routine that belongs to me and nobody in a white coat.

Time for another exciting episode of What Horrifying Experiment Are We Running Today.

The door at the end of the hall buzzes. Another unlocking. Another day beginning in whatever way they've decided it should.

I crack my knuckles and roll my shoulders.

"Okay, Zero," I whisper to myself. The footsteps are closer now. Four sets, maybe five. They bring more people on the days they expect resistance. They've learned. I've taught them well.

"Let's try not to die before lunch."

The lock on the steel door clicks.

A mechanical clunk echoes through the frame. Bolts sliding back in sequence. One, two, three. I've memorized that sound the way you memorize things that matter.

Then the intercom crackles overhead.

Static hisses briefly before a familiar cold voice fills the room.

Flat.

Clinical.

Emotionless.

The voice of someone who has never once asked whether any of this is a good idea.

"Subject O-00."

I look up at the speaker.

"Yes, mysterious voice in the ceiling?"

A beat. The pause they always take, like my responses are being noted somewhere. They probably are.

"Stand by for extraction."

I smile slowly. Let my shoulders drop into something relaxed. Easy. Like, the word extraction doesn't mean whatever it means today.

"Oh," I murmur.

The door begins to open. Light floods in from the corridor beyond, brighter than my cell, which takes some doing. Figures appear in the threshold, backlit, reaching for equipment they don't intend to use gently.

I rock forward onto the balls of my feet.

"Definitely a bite day."