Marked Omega (Quarantine Omega Book 1) Read online

  Marked Omega

  Lizzy Bequin

  Marked Omega

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events reside solely in the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters are eighteen years of age or older.

  © 2020, Lizzy Bequin. No portion of this work can be reproduced in any way without prior written consent from the author with the exception for a fair use excerpt for review and editorial purposes.

  This title is for adults only. It contains explicit sex acts, adult themes, and material that some folks might find offensive. Please keep out of reach of children.

  lizzybequin.com

  Table of Contents

  Newsletter

  PART ONE: THE ZONE

  Chapter 1: LILY

  Chapter 2: LILY

  Chapter 3: LILY

  Chapter 4: ADDOM

  Chapter 5: LILY

  PART TWO: THE ALPHAS

  Chapter 6: KADMON

  Chapter 7: LILY

  Chapter 8: HASKER

  Chapter 9: LILY

  Chapter 10: ADDOM

  Chapter 11: LILY

  Chapter 12: ADDOM

  Chapter 13: LILY

  Chapter 14: LILY

  Chapter 15: KADMON

  PART THREE: THE SOURCE

  Chapter 16: LILY

  Chapter 17: LILY

  Chapter 18: LILY

  Chapter 19: LILY

  Chapter 20: ADDOM

  Chapter 21: LILY

  Chapter 22: KADMON

  Chapter 23: LILY

  Chapter 24: ADDOM

  Chapter 25: LILY

  Chapter 26: LILY

  Chapter 27: LILY

  Chapter 28: HASKER

  Chapter 29: LILY

  PART FOUR: THE OUTSIDERS

  Chapter 30: KADMON

  Chapter 31: LILY

  Chapter 32: LILY

  Chapter 33: LILY

  Epilogue: LILY

  Also by Lizzy B.

  About the Author.

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  PART ONE:

  THE ZONE

  CHAPTER 1: LILY

  The armored transport rumbles over a hill, and we see it for the first time—the quarantine wall. It twists across the barren landscape like a ribbon of iron and rust.

  On this side of the wall is the so-called civilized world. Sure, it’s no picnic, but for all its multitude of problems—overpopulation, rampant crime, pollution, depleted resources—it’s got nothing on what lies on the other side of that ugly, metal boundary.

  The quarantine zone. By all accounts, it is hell on earth. And that’s exactly where we are heading.

  I shudder as I think about the dangers awaiting us beyond that wall—horrible, twisted mutants who will tear a man limb from limb. Based on everything I’ve read, they’ll do even worse things to any woman unfortunate enough to fall into their clutches.

  Seated beside me, in the middle row of the cramped vehicle is Sara, another young SynerGen research assistant like myself. I don’t know her too well, as she only joined the team recently, after her predecessor Eva went missing.

  When I glance over at her, Sara brushes back her brown hair and tries her best to give me a reassuring smile. But the nervous way that she fidgets with the ring on her finger betrays her fear. When she notices me looking, she stops her fidgeting and pulls on her thick protective gloves, snapping them into the sealed sleeves of her bodysuit.

  She has no reason to be ashamed. I completely relate to her fear. She’s thinking the same thing that I am right now.

  What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?

  “Nervous?” our boss, Dr. Lucian, calls from the front passenger seat as if he can sense our emotions. His head of thick, dark hair bobbles as the transport rocks over the cracked pavement. He turns in his seat and darts his eyes between me and Sara.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “We’ll be perfectly safe inside this transport. It’s vacuum sealed and radiation resistant to protect us from any contagions in the zone. And the armor plating is more than adequate to resist a physical attack should we run into any Alphas.”

  Alphas. That word makes my skin prickle with goosebumps. I swallow hard. Sara asks the question that I’m thinking.

  “Do you think that’s likely, Dr. Lucian?” Sara asks. “That we will encounter any Alphas, I mean?”

  A mysterious smirk curls at the corner of his full lips. Dr. Lucian is not your typical nerdy scientist. His clean-shaven jaw is strong and masculine. He has a veritable mane of slightly curly dark hair that is silvered at the temples, and intense brown eyes stare out from beneath a pair of thick brows.

  Dr. Lucian’s most attractive feature, however, is that picture perfect smile of his.

  A lot of the young female assistants at the lab have a crush on Dr. Lucian, and if I’m being completely honest, there was a time when I counted myself among that group too. By now, however, I’ve worked with him long enough to recognize that smile for what it really is—a manipulation. An empty promise. A way to cajole young women into doing all of his hard work for him while he reaps all of the accolades.

  Well that’s about par for the course these days. The men have all the money and power, while the women are left with the scraps. Dr. Lucian’s self-satisfied smile shows that he knows that fact all too well.

  But this time, there’s a hint of mystery in that smile, and I don’t like it. It makes me feel like there’s something Dr. Lucian isn’t telling us.

  “No,” he answers Sara in a patronizing tone. “It’s highly unlikely that we will run into any Alphas on the other side. As I’m sure you both know, they are extremely elusive. They prefer hiding to confrontation.”

  He flicks his gaze up and over our shoulders and juts his chin.

  “Besides,” he says calmly, “should we run into any trouble, the security troopers will protect us. They are more than a match for a pack of wild animals.”

  I turn and look at the two troopers seated behind us. Deakon and Chappel. Two solid bricks of men with matching crew cuts. Their massive bodies jostle in the seats as the transport bumps down the road. Their faces are impassive.

  Their team leader, Bishop, is up front driving the transport. He has a grizzled, black beard that is slashed across his right cheek by a nasty pink scar. I can’t see his face from where I’m sitting, but I have no doubt that it is wearing that same mean-looking scowl as always.

  For these security troopers, it’s just another day at the office.

  But not for me. The quarantine wall is getting closer by the minute, and I’m practically shitting my pants at this point.

  Well, I’m practically shitting my protective bodysuit, I should say. Everyone in the transport is wearing one. The suit is a one-piece of a heavy, black, leathery material. A metal ring around the neck allows for a special helmet and ventilation mask to be attached should we need to exit the vehicle.

  That thought makes my stomach turn, and I feel a sour taste in the back of my throat as the synthetic peanut-butter sandwich I ate for lunch threatens to return.

  I need something to calm me down, and fast.

  I wait until Dr. Lucian has turned back around in his seat to face the front. Then I lean forward, my mobility restricted by this uncomfortable suit, and I rifle through the satchel that is stowed under my seat. After a bit of frantic digging, I finally find what I’m looking for.

  My small, rattling pill bottle of nihiloxin tablets.

  I can feel Sara eyeing me as my clumsy, gloved fingers struggle with the child-proof lid
, but I don’t care. Yeah, I’m a desperate nihiloxin addict. So sue me. Half the population is addicted at this point, so it’s hard to be too embarrassed about it.

  Hell, the government practically encourages the use of nihiloxin at this point. Along with its sedative effects, it has the side effect of inhibiting sexual urges. In the government’s view, that’s a good thing, considering the rampant overpopulation that’s stretching the hive city’s resources to their limits.

  Once I manage to get the stupid bottle open, I shake one small purple tablet into my palm and knock it back. It is chalky and bitter on my tongue, and I swallow it back without water.

  As I’m about to put the pill bottle back into my satchel, Sara touches my arm.

  “Can I get one of those?” she whispers.

  I pass her a pill, trying to be as discreet as possible about it.

  Almost immediately, I can feel the relaxing effects of the drug washing through my body. It doesn’t erase my terror about venturing into the quarantine zone. It just dulls it. It doesn’t negate my fear of getting eaten alive, or worse. It just makes it seem…like it doesn’t matter all that much.

  It helps me detach, like I’m watching everything happen to somebody else in the third person. When it comes to the soul-crushing existence of daily life in the hive cities, a lot of people find this drug very useful.

  Settling back into my seat, my mind now slightly at ease, I remind myself why I’m doing this.

  Eva.

  The reason I’m here is Eva. She was my best friend at SynerGen Labs. In fact, she may have been my only friend.

  Shit, I need to stop thinking about her in the past tense. She may still be alive.

  Eva went missing several weeks ago during a previous top-secret excursion into the zone. The mission was so secret, in fact, that I haven’t been given any details about it. All I know is that Dr. Lucian was present on that mission too, and Eva was accompanying him as his assistant, just as Sara and I are accompanying him now.

  I remember when Eva confided in me that she would be going on an excursion into the zone. I thought she was crazy for doing it, but I suspected the professor’s winning smile had helped persuade her.

  Or even more likely, he threatened her job if she didn’t go along. It’s hard enough for a woman to find anything better than menial work these days, and lab assistant is an extremely prized position. I have little doubt that Dr. Lucian used that leverage to cajole Eva into making the trip.

  Now she’s gone missing. And now I’m the one going into the zone like a damn fool.

  I wish I could say I’m not second guessing my decision now. I wish I could say that I’m that courageous girl who fearlessly charges into harm’s way to save her friend, no matter the cost. But the truth is I’m scared shitless.

  Oh well, at this point, the decision has been made. There’s no turning back.

  Still, I can’t help wondering why on earth a pair of lowly corporate research assistants like me and Sara would be brought along on a rescue mission. In my case, it’s even weirder considering my skill set. Yes, I work in the biotech sector, but my area of expertise is with computers, designing programs to run data analysis operations. I’m hardly a field researcher.

  Dr. Lucian simply claimed that he needed someone to assist him during the mission, but that just raises another question…

  Why is a corporate biotech expert participating in a rescue mission?

  When I questioned him about it, he told me that it is standard protocol to bring a scientific expert on every excursion into the quarantine zone.

  But I’m starting to wonder if I can trust anything that man says.

  All that talk about the protective armor of our vehicle and the big strong security troopers who will defend us against the mutants? That’s all well and good. But obviously it wasn’t enough to keep Eva safe.

  The comm unit on the vehicle’s front console crackles to life, startling me out of my thoughts.

  “This is Vigilance Station Thirteen,” a stern, militaristic voice comes over the speakers. “Identify yourselves. Over.”

  Commander Bishop takes one massive, black-gloved hand off the steering wheel and reaches over to the console to depress a large green comm button there.

  “Copy, Vigilance Station, this is Sword of Fire, embarking on Directive Sixty-Six. Request entry to the quarantine zone. Over.”

  There is a moment of silence, and then a reply comes back. The voice is flat and scratchy with radio static.

  “Acknowledged Sword of Fire. Preparing to open the gate. Please hold.”

  Sara and I both lurch forward against our seatbelt harnesses as Bishop brings the transport to an abrupt stop. The heavy treads of the tires crunch to a halt on the weathered rockcrete pavement. Leaning forward in my seat, I gaze out through the dusty windshield.

  Now the wall looms over us. Fifty feet of pitted steel paneling, the old rivets trailing brown rust where the rain has dripped and corroded the metal.

  High atop the imposing structure, dark-clad security troops move about on the parapets. Every twenty yards or so are stationed massive 50-caliber machine guns on tripods aimed into the zone on the far side of the wall. Some of the troops appear to be shouldering sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and even flame throwers.

  Is all that firepower really necessary to keep the beasts on the other side at bay? The thought makes me shudder again.

  Then I notice a sound. I feel it deep in the marrow of my bones before my ears actually pick it up. It is like a low, excruciating groan. The sound of massive gears cranking back the impenetrable steel gate.

  Slowly the broad metal surface slides aside until all that’s left is a gaping maw revealing the quarantine zone. To my surprise, the landscape on the other side of the wall appears identical to the side we are on.

  Somehow, I thought Hell would look different.

  Well, I know better than that. I know all about the feral Alpha beasts that are lying in wait on the other side.

  “You may proceed, Sword of Fire,” the comm unit hisses.

  “Acknowledged.” Bishop glances back at us passengers in the rear-view mirror. “All right, we’re going in.”

  The transport lurches forward slowly, tires grinding against the pavement.

  Going in.

  The phrase is accurate. The quarantine wall surrounds an enormous area comprising hundreds of thousands of square miles, containing the twisted mutants and keeping them from escaping into the outside world.

  But somehow, it feels like the other way around. I have a feeling that I have spent my life inside the protective barrier of the civilized world, and now I am venturing into the outer darkness.

  A shadow passes across the blast resistant arma-glass of the vehicle’s windshield as we roll beneath the arch of the gate. As soon as the back tires have passed the threshold, the gate immediately begins rumbling shut behind us.

  That feeling of terror returns, sitting heavily in the pit of my stomach like I’ve swallowed a chunk of ice. I resist the temptation to melt it with another nihiloxin tablet. I need to keep my wits sharp from here on out.

  Bishop hits the throttle, and we speed ahead down the road.

  After a minute, I turn to look back at the wall receding behind us into the distance. Already the troopers manning the 50-cal guns looked like small black bugs.

  This is it. We are in the zone.

  CHAPTER 2: LILY

  “Levels?” Bishop grunts as he steers.

  A few miles in, the highway became too clogged with the rusted-out carcasses of cars left behind during the cataclysm, so Bishop took us off-road. Now the vehicle is jolting over the uneven terrain, rocking me violently in my seat harness. I glance over at Sara, and she is clutching the arm rest of her own seat tightly. Even with that nihiloxin in her system, she’s rattled as hell, and I don’t blame her. I’m right there with her.

  Dr. Lucian, on the other hand, seems totally at ease. Even though he’s shaking and bouncing in his seat
up front, he manages to tap the glossy screen of the data slate that he’s holding in his lap, scrolling through an array of tables and digital charts—information streaming in from the sensors mounted on the roof of the vehicle.

  “Looks like the levels are at…three fifty,” he calmly answers Bishop. “We still need to go a little deeper.”

  Bishop nods and jams the accelerator down even harder.

  Three hundred and fifty. He must be talking about the levels of omega contamination outside the vehicle right now. That’s high enough that we would all become warped mutants within a matter of minutes were it not for the protective shielding built into the armor of this vehicle.

  Close to the barrier wall, the radiation levels are low, almost zero. Certainly not enough to lead to mutation. Still, the wall guards wear environmental gear as a precaution. But the closer you get to ground zero, the contamination levels and the risk of mutation increase quickly.

  Ground zero. That’s where the cataclysm started nearly a century ago.

  To this day, nobody knows what happened there.

  There has been, of course, a great deal of speculation about the source of the omega contamination. Some people suggest it was the result of a biological attack, but the fact that the contamination levels have not abated for over ninety years seems to rule that out.

  Other more outlandish theories propose an off-world source.

  Sara and I both squeal in unison as we are bounced violently in our seats. The vehicle just hit a particularly nasty ditch, making it rock precariously.

  The men seem totally unfazed by it all. Sara and I exchange a knowing glance, both feeling embarrassed for our little frightened outburst.

  “Don’t worry, girls,” Dr. Lucian says, flashing one of his trademark smiles. “We’re almost there.”

  I don’t appreciate him calling us girls, and I’m tempted to remind him that I’m twenty-one, but I decide it’s best to keep my mouth shut.

  “Almost where?” Sara asks.

  Dr. Lucian’s face darkens, and the smile drops from his lips. He hesitates briefly before he responds.