Omega by Jus Accardo

“So the only guy with actual medical knowledge went off to chase the screw driver-happy lunatic?” Phil sputtered and a spray of blood spattered across Cade’s shirt. “That doesn’t bode well for me.”

  He’d been able to walk us through doing the rest of the chips, explaining how they worked and how to tune them to our individual frequencies. I didn’t miss the way he watched as I followed his instructions, and wondered if he knew his time was running out. After we’d all attuned the chips, he explained how they worked to G, who’d promptly gone after Noah and Sera. The moment he left, things took a turn for the worse.

  “They’ll be in soon.” Cade glanced at the door. The insistent pounding had stopped a few minutes ago. Now it sounded like they were using a machine to cut through the metal. He sank to his knees beside Phil. “We’ll skip and get you medical attention on the next earth.”

  Phil laughed. It was a broken sound full of pain and regret. “Can’t.” His breathing was more labored now. His eyes more hooded. There wasn’t anything we could do to stop this. I’d known that right away. Noah had, too. That’s why he’d left. Cade, though, he was a demon. Obsessed with getting us all out of that lab in one piece no matter what. “Have to…give…you some…something,” Phil said. His body shook as he let out a rattling cough. “Safe in the…the hall. Combin—three forty-two. Go.”

  When no one else made a move to stand, I wobbled to my feet and went into his secret hall. I don’t know how we didn’t notice it before, but on the wall to the right, just inside, was a small metal wall safe. I punched in the combination and opened the door. All that was inside was a single blue envelope.

  I grabbed it and hurried back. “Okay. What is it?”

  “Proof.”

  “Proof of what?” He couldn’t mean proof of Omega. That’s what he’d bargained with us to get.

  “Noah… The reporter, Wagner.”

  A rush of excitement rolled over me, quickly followed by fury. “You had proof she’d been right about them skipping people to un-researched worlds? And you said nothing?” How could he have kept quiet? “None of this would have happened! Noah would still be alive.”

  Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and another series of coughs rattled his entire body as he tried to shake his head. “Never meant for it to… He was my friend. She made…me…give him bad…bad chip. Heart failure. I didn’t want to hurt—”

  An icy chill crept into the room. Surely I was hearing things. He couldn’t possibly mean… “Are you saying you killed Noah?” The words were as surreal as they were devastating.

  “She knew…we were friends. Made…made me steal the Wagner…files and steer him…him away from Om…Omega. But he found out…about…about you.”

  “That’s what he’d wanted to tell me. The night he died…” He’d found out Cora had taken me. The revelation brought a fresh wave of razor sharp guilt to my chest. “How could you do this to him?” And even as the words left my mouth, I still couldn’t believe it. That’s why Cora hadn’t been watching him, why he’d been unafraid to help us. He’d been working with her the entire time so she never would have suspected him. “You told us you wanted out!”

  “Did want…out. Was…hoping to find…that you’d find…” An all-over spasm rocked his body and he went limp. Eyes glazing, he lay motionless on the ground.

  I looked from him to the envelope in my hands. There were papers inside, as well as a bright blue flash drive. A lump formed in my throat. He’d been playing both sides against the middle. Working for Cora while hoping we found enough evidence to set him free. He’d been responsible for Noah’s death. Not some clandestine hit squad or one of Cora’s top-notch go-to boys? Phil—his friend. He’d known what Cora did to me…

  Kori got to her feet and tried to reach out to me. “Ash.”

  I stumbled away, sickened by the idea of contact. Of concern. This place was insane. A twisted world where people were treated like trash if not born under the right name and mothers killed their children all in the name of the almighty dollar.

  “What did he mean?” Cade asked softly. “That Noah found out about you?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. I refused to cry. I refused to let this cut take me down. There’d been so many over the years. Most delivered by Cora, with her expert precision and insider knowledge. She’d known just how to wound me, yet I survived. It must have driven her insane when I didn’t crumble. That wasn’t about to change. She’d stolen me from my home, my family, but I’d have the last laugh. She wasn’t going to use me to prove that Omega worked. I was getting the hell off this rock. “They’ll break through soon. We have to go.”

  I folded the envelope and jammed it into my back pocket, then went in search of a pen. I was leaving, but I wasn’t forgetting. Cora wouldn’t get away with what she’d done. I’d be back and I would watch her fall. I found a red marker on Phil’s desk, then grabbed a notebook from a small pile. Flipping to an empty page, I wrote in large letters,

  I have proof now. See you soon.

  Cade held up his arm and tapped it twice to wake up his chip. “Everyone understands how to use these, right? We need to be touching if we all want to land in the same place. Ready?”

  We all joined hands. A second later, the same freaky, translucent blue box appeared on Cade’s skin. He touched the option labeled PATH, and scrolled down to the third line, the one noted as Noah. Hopefully, wherever he was, he was okay. Phil somehow managed to program all our frequencies into the chip’s memory. With G and Noah in pursuit, Dylan must have figured this out by now. Our best bet was to skip to where Noah was and join the search—or fight.

  A part of me was hoping for the latter, because right now? I needed to work off some serious anger.

  “On three?”

  Kori nodded and Cade said, “One, two…three.”

  I held my breath as he pressed Noah’s PATH line. One second I was standing in Phil’s lab, the next I was on a street corner in downtown Wells. “That was surprisingly easy.” I hadn’t known what to expect and there hadn’t been time to quiz Cade or Kori. I didn’t know if skipping was painful, or if there were side effects I’d have to contend with.

  “You okay?” Kori came up beside me.

  “Yeah.” I turned and scanned the area and miraculously caught sight of Noah. He was sitting on the grass not far from where we were. “There he is!”

  “Noah,” Cade shouted and took off. He reached him first.

  He was hurt. That much was obvious from the amount of blood—and he wasn’t alone. Two women, dressed in beige jumpers, stood on either side of him. Both had an odd-looking gun slung over their backs, while a third, kneeling on the ground beside him, wore all yellow. Oh. And scattered around them were four gigantic wolves. I’d never seen one before. On my earth they were extinct. Killed off in the early eighteen hundreds and reduced to textbooks and museum exhibits. For a second I thought these were dead, shot by the strange women in beige, but then I saw the nearest one’s chest rise and fall. Asleep. Probably tranquilized.

  Cade stepped over one of the fallen animals. “What happened?”

  The woman in beige on his right had brunette hair pulled back into a severe bun and pinched face. She wore no makeup and narrowed her eyes at us. “Are you all insane? What is in the water today?” She took a step toward us. “Back up!”

  “How many times do you people have to be told?” the other one said with a snap. “You can’t cross the fences! Your stupid friend here just got used as a chew toy. We had to tranq them. Now they’ll be useless for days.”

  “Something bit him?” Kori tried to move around the woman blocking us, but she stood her ground.

  The woman on the ground with Noah, the one in yellow, looked at Kori, then turned to each of us one at a time. Finally, she turned back to Noah. “You’re up to date on your shots, right?”

  “Right,” he confirmed without hesitation.

  She stood and helped him up, then finished taping his ar
m. “You’re lucky there was a patrol nearby.” With a nod in our direction, she added, “Best get moving. If you’re out after dark, you know what happens.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Wouldn’t want that.” He met us on the sidewalk, where the woman had herded the group.

  The moment he stepped onto the concrete, Kori threw her arms around him.

  He rolled his eyes, but I didn’t miss how he returned the hug, almost relaxing a bit. Another few seconds passed and he disengaged himself and took a step back, eyes finding me. He didn’t say anything, but I could see the relief in his eyes.

  There was no longer any comparison between him and the other Noah. I couldn’t bring myself to think of him as my Noah anymore. Partially because of what I’d learned, and partially because I was beginning to believe what Kori said. Technically they were all my Noah. This one, though…this one was different. He fit in a way that was comfortable, yet exciting. Both easy and intricately complicated. This thing between us set my nerve endings on fire, but at the same time, made my head spin—in both good and bad ways. No matter how perfectly we fit, though, it wasn’t ever going to become something. Now that I knew there was a place for me—a real home and possibly a family who missed me—I had to go there. I had to see what Cora had taken from me.

  “Dylan has Ava. She’s okay, but he knows we can follow him now. That’s going to lead him to do something desperate.” Noah was still looking at me.

  Cade nodded, oblivious to our stare-down. “This is bad. He finally has her. He won’t let go without a fight. We need to be careful. The collateral damage could be huge on this.”

  “What about G?” I swallowed and tried to look away. I had to tell him I was leaving, but for some reason, the words wouldn’t come. “He came to find you. Have you seen him?”

  “I saw him one skip back. We got separated. He—”

  “I have to leave,” I blurted before I lost my nerve.

  “Huh?” Cade said, while Kori cried, “You can’t!” Noah remained silent, still standing there. Still watching me like he was trying to see straight through to my skull.

  “For several reasons, I have to leave,” I tried again. “I need to go home.”

  That got a reaction out of him. He grabbed me by the shoulders, fingers twitching for a moment before his hands slipped upward. Over my upper arms, across my shoulders, then settling on either side of my face. For an insane minute I forgot about everything else. Everything but the feel of his touch. Warm, soft, fierce…

  Then he opened his mouth.

  “Don’t be stupid. If you go back there, Cora will kill you.”

  I reached up and gently pried his hands free. “First, she won’t kill me. She needs me. I’m the only actual proof she has, the only leverage she’s got to get Omega off and running. But I wasn’t talking about going back there. I was talking about going home.”

  Noah’s brow quirked. He didn’t get it right away—but Cade did. “She took you, didn’t she? You weren’t born on that earth.”

  “I was the first.” I shook my head and swallowed the lump in my throat that seemed to be getting bigger and bigger by the second. “It’s a really long story—and it doesn’t matter. The point is, I was never meant to be there. I was never meant to live like—” I sucked in a breath and held it for a minute before continuing. “I want to see my family. I want to know what it could have been like.”

  Noah was quiet for a minute before nodding just once. “Okay.”

  “I’ll help you find Sera first, though. Then I’ll leave.” I didn’t know if it was the look in his eyes—sadness mixed with defeated acceptance—or an odd feeling of responsibility. Sera, G…all the others that came and went before them. They were in this situation because of me. I was the one who truly inspired the Omega project. It was my body’s acceptance of the serum that made them think it was possible. How many lives had she destroyed? How many people had she irrevocably altered? I owed Sera at least this.

  “Shouldn’t be too hard,” Cade said. He started walking and we fell in step. “The way Rabbit explained these new chips, we really can’t lose each other.”

  Noah flinched. He tore his gaze from mine and turned to Cade. “Speaking of—is he—”

  “Dead.” My reply came too fast and far too enthusiastic. Everyone turned to stare. “He’s dead and got what he deserved.”

  “Ash—” Cade started.

  I cut him off. Their Phil—their Rabbit—might have been a standup guy, but this one was a bastard. I focused on Noah. “He did it. He’s the one who killed you. Him.”

  He didn’t respond, but he didn’t really look surprised, either. I wondered if he’d had suspicions, which would really make me feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. All the dodging. The squirming…

  “Well, we have to sit on our thumbs for a while. Dylan doesn’t know it yet, but he’s not getting off this rock for another twenty-four hours.” I patted my right front pocket. “Rabbit slipped me a note with all the things we’d need to know about these new chips. Apparently one of the main things is that you can only skip four times within a twenty-four-hour time frame. It’s how they deal with overheating.”

  “That gives us some time to process and settle on a plan of action,” Cade said. I could already see the wheels inside his head churning away. “We should get off the street, though. That woman made it sound like there’s some kind of curfew here.”

  We wandered for a bit, scoping things out. The sun was setting and there was very little activity on the streets. The people we did see scurried about like mice with their heads down and their pace increased. They wore drab colors—more shades of beige, yellow, and brown—and sullen expressions. Wherever it was we’d landed, it didn’t seem like the friendliest place in the world.

  Kori slowed and pointed to a large brick building ahead. “There’s a motel.”

  “I’m almost afraid to go in.” We stopped a few feet from the door. “This place is weird.”

  Noah smiled, but it was forced. “They all feel weird. It’s not the Wells that you’re used to. It’ll get better.”

  After I was home, he meant.

  “Just take it slow,” Cade said. “Do a lot of watching. See how people talk, act, how they dress. React accordingly.”

  I glanced down at my bright red hoodie. So far, it’d stuck out like a neon sign. “If that’s the case, then I need to get out of this thing.”

  It was the perfect opportunity. Hand delivered ammo for something flirty with a dash of snark. Yet Noah didn’t bite. He stepped up to the desk and said, “We’d like a room. Suite if you have it.”

  The girl behind the counter, a short blond with bright blue eyes, nodded. She shot me a confused look, gaze traveling from head to toe—she even leaned over the counter to get a better view—before turning her attention to the computer in front of her.

  As soon as she was distracted, Cade tugged Noah away from the counter. “A suite? Have you become a multi-dimensional millionaire while I was away? We’ve got no cash for this place.”

  Noah grinned and pulled a generic looking black wallet from his back pocket. “Swiped it from that medic chick in the park.”

  The girl returned and slid an oddly shaped key toward us. Square and silver, with intricate looking groves in the center. “The deposit is seventy-five dollars. The remainder is due upon checkout.”

  Seventy-five dollars? That seemed cheap. Then again, maybe money was different here. On my world—Cora’s world—seventy-five dollars got you a decent lunch. Here, maybe the value of a dollar was tripled or something.

  Noah paid her and took the key, and we were directed to the staircase at the end of the hall. The motel was only three floors, our suite on the top. By the time we’d climbed three flights of stairs, I was ready to drop. I hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest in days. Weeks, actually. Ever since Noah’s death. Some time to recharge, as much as I hated the idea, sounded good.

  Noah unlocked the door and stepped aside, and the four of u
s filed through. The entryway spilled out into a large room with a wall mounted television, huge wraparound couch, and a fireplace on the other end. On the wall beside the door was a large sign trimmed in silver that said, Your needs are our highest priority. You have but to ask. No request is too big—or too small.

  “That’s accommodating,” Kori said with a snicker.

  “And creepy.” Cade closed the door behind us. “Given some of the things we’ve seen along the way, a statement like that could mean a million things.”

  “Snazzy digs,” Kori slumped back into one end of the couch, while Noah did the exact same thing on the opposite end. They both kicked their feet onto the end table at the same moment. When she realized what she’d done, she quickly removed them and sat forward.

  I smiled. They really were a lot alike and that meant she was good people, because as hard as he tried to get me to believe otherwise, this Noah Anderson was a rare find. It made leaving all that much harder.

  “So now what?” I joined them in the sitting room, claiming an oversized lounge chair. Thinking about Noah wasn’t going to make this any easier. The best thing I could do for my sanity was to focus on Sera. “We have to get to Sera. What’s the plan?”

  “He won’t hurt her,” Noah said. He grabbed the room service menu and pretended to study it. He wasn’t reading it, though. I could tell because his eyes never moved. “This is the first time he’s ever skipped with her. He’ll do and say anything to win her over.”

  “I think this downtime might be to our advantage,” Kori said. “He’s stuck here at the moment. We have almost a full twenty-four hours that we don’t have to chase him. We know exactly where he’ll be.”

  “Not exactly where he’ll be.” I tucked my feet up under me and curled against the couch. “I mean, he’s in the area, but that’s all we know. And what’s to say he’ll stay here? Couldn’t he leave the city? Start driving to, I dunno, Canada and skip when the cooldown is up?”

  “He could,” Cade said, standing. “But he won’t. He’ll use this opportunity to try showing her he can be good for her. Normal. He won’t drag her around. Plus, he doesn’t know about the cooldown. All he knows is that the chip isn’t working.”