CHAPTER 05: GOD LOVE OMEGA - COWARDS’ MAKE-BELIEVE WARS
"He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior."
— Confucius
The athlete formerly known as Richard Reginald Harry, now revered by the public as God Love Omega, clapped his hands beneath his weighted athletic robe, activating the AVP nanotechnology integrated into his skin. His eyes scanned the vast spherical sports arena, empty but for the holographic "crowd" projected in the stands—millions of fans participating via AVP from over a hundred thousand locations. Yet the digital projections filled the arena as though it were packed with real people. When God Love Omega unmuted the sound feed, the silence exploded into the deafening roar of white-noise applause.
He tuned down the applause using his AVP and began playing his theme song, Professor Darnell's Radical Pontifex:
"Yo! They call me Hell,
Guts spillin' ink like I’m outta a well,
Cut you deep, leave you shattered, broken like a bell,
Y’all in my world now, feel that deadly swell."
"Face cut, mask tight, no mistake,
I ain’t a god, but I make earthquakes,
Break bones, take souls, I ain't fake,
Show that mask to ya dad, see how long he shakes."
”
God Love Omega spread his arms wide, performing a kata he’d mastered from a ninjutsu practitioner who had lived a life of constant warfare between the zaibatsu and yakuza. The movement sent his heavy robe cascading off his broad shoulders, leaving him in a triumphant V-shape stance. At that moment, ambient lights triggered by his AVP flared into life, casting him in dramatic, strategic lighting. The applause surged back, a wall of noise, but Omega stood firm, pretending he wasn’t elated. Warriors like him didn’t indulge in joy—self-discipline forbade it.
Omega towered at over two meters, his body a sculpture of inhuman muscular proportions. His 81-centimeter biceps were legendary among his fans, though they weren't natural. They were the product of Ne Plus Ultra exoskeletal augmentations—sleek, matte-black enhancements that covered his limbs, chest, and back. More than just augmentations, the NPU provided strength amplification, superior joint flexibility, and agility through powerful but lightweight actuators. In the sport of Siege, these enhancements were the standard, leveling the playing field and pushing athletes to their physical limits.
Even with the cutting-edge tech, Siege still came down to who could best control their movements in microgravity, akin to swimming. And when everyone had the same tech, the game reverted to its essence—skill, balance, and domination. Omega knew championships won through mere technological superiority were hollow, but true mastery—dominating the field with skill—was everything. He embodied that.
Omega crouched down, his hulking form contracting like a cannonball, preparing for his leap. The microgravity caused his mass to shift downward. With a sudden extension of his legs, he launched into the air, soaring upward before curling into another somersault mid-flight, arresting his ascent. He unfurled and spun on his axis, propelling himself forward, the audience roaring in excitement as they watched him navigate the zero-gravity arena. Fans loved the acrobatics, but they loved collisions—Newton’s Third Law in action—even more.
In Siege, points were won by controlling momentum, pushing without being pushed, forcing without losing control. It required meticulous training. And while many players mastered the art of freefall, there were plenty who floundered in the lack of gravity.
As Omega glided through the arena, a massive round structure defined by two giant intersecting metal rings, he addressed the millions of fans watching.
“Welcome to Victory Road, the secret space arena of the Pro-Status-Quo movement. I am your host and champion-of-the-hour, God Love Omega. Before we begin, know this—your champion’s AVP feed is Secret-Dark Encrypted.”
He paused, letting the gravity of his words settle.
“Prepare to confront your fears of a deviant future—a future where designer humans replace you all. Here, right now, your champion will expose Evil Evolution to our wrath!”
Omega’s voice was electric, charging the audience.
“I left the Siege arena eight years ago without ever taking home my own championship. It wasn’t about the loss. I just wanted to feel what it was like to stand in the heat of competition. The kind of heat that makes men ask themselves if they can survive. I live for that Heat. Surviving it is the life I’ve retained.”
Omega paused again, his tone darkening.
“No man can take it forever. That’s why you have to cool things off—thin out the competition until you’re the last one standing. That’s cold. But it’s not cold. It’s not the heat either. In Siege, it’s all make-believe. A sport for cowards. You fight like you can’t die. But here, in this arena—you can die.”
Suddenly, he shouted, "This is where it’s hot!" His voice boomed, and the holographic audience went wild, glitching and surging with noise.
Omega began pounding his chest, thumping out Pro-Status-Quo slogans while he moved around the arena, knowing the AVP was capturing every second from every angle. He relished the moment, calling out, “They can’t reproduce this!” as he thumped his chest harder.
Meanwhile, the Russian operators launched three curled-up humanoid bodies into the arena. The bodies weren’t dead—Omega knew that much. If they were dead, what would be the point of this? But they would die. He would make sure of that.
The androids began to uncurl, their bodies processing their surroundings. Though once human, the Russian surgeons had stripped away any unnecessary organs, leaving them as hollowed-out living corpses. Their brains were drowned in a cocktail of drugs that kept them from screaming, even as they woke to the horror of their own existence.
God Love Omega prepared himself, squatting down on the arena floor. Within seconds, the androids would regain their full capacity for violence. He sprang forward, targeting the closest android with his enormous shoulder. The force of the impact sent the smaller android tumbling, end over end, into another one. Their bodies collided and spun apart in opposite directions, their disjointed limbs flailing.
The audience was ecstatic. Omega’s signature opening move—sending bodies into a bloody spiral—never disappointed. One of the androids began spinning violently, its right hip shattered and femur broken from the force of Omega’s charge. The arterial spray propelled its corpse around the arena.
The fans were bloodthirsty, craving more. Omega obliged.
He spun to face the third android, which was flailing to control its movement in microgravity. The android’s desperate swipes propelled it toward Omega. Letting it get close, Omega kicked out, sending it careening away. As it flew, Omega grabbed the flailing first android by the ankle, swung it in a wide arc, and released it toward the second android. The bodies collided mid-air, breaking apart as they crashed into each other.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Another android, now missing its teeth from an earlier impact, locked its unblinking eyes on Omega. It twisted itself into a spiral, charging at him. Omega let go of the support ring, launching himself toward it. He grabbed the android by the head and crushed it with both hands as the crowd chanted: "Pop-A-Daisy!"
The skull caved in with a sickening crunch, and Omega released the now-limp body, letting it ragdoll through the arena.
Seconds. It had all happened in mere seconds. But those moments were everything to his audience. Every move, every kill, every death—captured in AVP Replay for them to relive as though they were part of the carnage themselves.
God Love Omega floated, victorious, as the last android’s body—mutilated and half-dismembered—swam toward him. With a final, brutal gesture, he crushed its head in his hands.
The crowd adored him.
God Love Omega finished cleaning his body and Ne Plus Ultra in the bootlegged sterilization pod and pushed his way out, his muscles twitching slightly from withdrawal. His dealer was waiting for him, unmoved by his naked state. He wondered briefly if she was admiring the precision of his augmentations, but then realized she was staring at his penis.
"Good evening, Sashenka. You got me?" he asked, his voice betraying an edge of desperation.
Still looking at him, she answered, her voice firm, "Call me Alexandra."
"Oh?"
"You may have overheard others call me by that name, but you will not."
A flicker of anger sparked inside him—irrational and sharp, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He didn't know why the correction annoyed him so much. But then again, he did. The gnawing edge of withdrawal was creeping in. His nerves were shot, and every interaction felt like a personal attack.
"But to answer your question," she continued calmly, "I do."
Victory Road’s lavatorium, like the rest of the space station, operated in low microgravity, but Alexandra still walked along the floor as if it had weight. Magnetic boots locked her to the surface, each step making a soft clink as she moved. In her hand, she carried a black leather bag with a bomb-lock—designed to destroy its contents if tampered with. Stealing from her wasn't just dangerous; it was suicide.
Before she opened the bag, Alexandra looked him over and gestured to the floor. "Sit down."
His hands were trembling slightly now. God Love Omega obeyed, feeling a rising tide of frustration. She reached into the bag, pulling out a small cylinder. "Psychomechamine," she said flatly.
He repeated the name, the sound of it bringing temporary relief to his frayed nerves. This chemical cocktail was his lifeline. Composed of phenylcyclohexyl piperidine mixed with neural stabilizers like lithium and tricyclics, it was fine-tuned by nano-regulators to ensure safe ingestion. Without it, the Ne Plus Ultra augmentations would wreak havoc on his nervous system. And without the regulators, his system couldn’t handle the strain. The drug had become more than an enhancement—it was a necessity. He was addicted, body and soul.
"Payment?" she asked, slipping the vial back into her bag.
God Love Omega moved quickly, pulling out a chip from his locker, his fingers shaking. The chip contained his "allowance" from his wife’s father. Flicking it at her, it floated through the air, and she caught it with a practiced hand.
But the moment she slid it into her flexipad, her expression changed.
"There’s not enough currency," she said, almost amused.
"What do you mean? It’s enough. It’s always been enough," Omega snapped, his voice rising. He could feel the desperation swelling.
Alexandra let out a soft chuckle, flicking the chip back at him like it was a piece of trash. "Inflation."
"You’re a drug dealer!" The words burst out of him before he could stop himself, his rational mind already drowned by the panic. His body ached for the fix.
She shrugged, completely unfazed by his outburst. "And you are washed-up."
As she turned to leave, the full weight of his situation hit him like a tidal wave. His body, already starved of psychomechamine, reacted instinctively. He launched himself at her in a blind rage, but instead of tackling her, his mass collided with her anti-inertial barrier. The impact sent him flying back across the room, slamming into a locker, his muscles screaming in pain as the metal crumpled beneath him.
He bounced off, careening through the space. His neck throbbed, a sharp ache spreading down his spine, but the withdrawal and frustration overshadowed the physical pain. He gritted his teeth, pulling himself back under control, folding his limbs to stabilize his rotation.
Alexandra didn’t even glance back as she exited, shouting something in Russian to a man just outside the room. He entered, looked at God Love Omega’s bloodied face and trembling body, and muttered with clear disdain, "пиздец."
The hum of the medical machinery irritated God Love Omega as he lay in traction. He craved a good beat to drown out the noise, but the hospital was jamming his AVP, leaving him with nothing but the sterile, monotonous drone. He had just woken from a medically induced coma, after undergoing surgery to repair his broken neck.
Through the doorway walked his father-in-law, the wealthy founder of Aerospace LogiX, and the last person he wanted to see.
"Good to see you, Dayson," God Love Omega said, though the lie was painfully obvious.
"Annehlise is having anxiety attacks because of you. If you're wondering why she hasn't come to see you, that's why," Dayson replied. His voice was tight-lipped, stern—controlled anger.
"You don’t go into business with Russians, Richard," Dayson said, using God Love Omega’s original name.
God Love Omega corrected him. "It’s God Love Omega now."
"You will never hear me say that name, Richard. Now listen." Dayson adjusted his glasses before continuing, and God Love Omega wondered if the man kept them for appearances—to seem humble.
"I thought I knew you well enough to believe you weren’t going around the Solar System making enemies…" Dayson pulled out a flexipad, projecting holographic images of the androids God Love Omega had destroyed, alongside footage of the Victory Road conversion theater. It looked like evidence—cold, damning.
"Those androids had owners, Richard. It doesn’t matter if you hate them or if your insane Pro-Status-Quo movement is true—you can't just destroy other men’s property. These Russians are butchering androids, turning them into grotesque monsters, and you’ve become one of them."
God Love Omega winced as Dayson gestured toward his powered augmentations. The man’s voice was cold, pointed. "If that space station wasn’t already under surveillance, you’d be dead. You’re a fool if you think this habit of yours," Dayson said, gesturing at the augmentations, "isn't going to kill you."
God Love Omega couldn’t respond. His chest tightened as he tried to gather his thoughts, but nothing came. His usual defiant rhetoric felt hollow, as if the world had shifted, and he was standing at the edge of a very real game over.
Dayson wasn’t done. "Your wife—my daughter—is a public embarrassment right now, because of you. This isn’t a game, Richard. You got those augmentations because you needed them to compete as an athlete. But after you lost, you spiraled. Now you're destroying androids for a hate group of paranoid, wealthy aristocrats, all because you can’t let go of those damned cybernetics."
God Love Omega locked up, his mind scrambling for a way to resist, to push back. But every angle he approached left him trapped, every escape route cut off by the growing awareness that Dayson was right. This was a different world, the real world, and God Love Omega was losing.
"It’s time to make a change, Richard," Dayson said, calling someone into the room.
A tall, cream-haired technician entered, pushing a heavy fabricator-de-fabricator machine toward God Love Omega’s traction rig. The machine moved with eerie smoothness, its purpose clear—removing and replacing cybernetics. The operator began explaining the procedure, but God Love Omega couldn’t hear it. His pulse pounded in his ears.
"No!" The word burst out, sharp and desperate.
Dayson’s laugh was dry, almost a cough. "No? No to what, Richard? I am not paying for you to live this way anymore. You are done with those ridiculous Russians and that Neptunian hate group. These augmentations will be removed, and you will find a new path."
God Love Omega’s mind raced, desperately searching for an escape. His thoughts, though chaotic, coalesced around a single fear: losing his augmentations. He could already feel the humiliation—the stick hands, twig legs, the standard cybernetics that made people look weak. The very thought of it sent a wave of rage and helplessness crashing through him. His eyes burned with anger, locking onto Dayson’s expressionless face.
He felt trapped, bound not just by the traction frame but by the cold, indifferent logic of his father-in-law. His chest heaved with wracking sobs of frustration and despair, and for a moment, the image of himself—the strong, powerful athlete he imagined—shattered into a blur of white noise.
But then the fog cleared, and an idea sparked in his mind. He would submit, but only enough to survive.
"I'll work. A real job, someplace my Ne Plus Ultra will be of use," God Love Omega said, his voice trembling as he tried to regain control. "Cut off my allowance, if you want. You're right—I need to change. But I'm not ready to give up my body, not like this. Please, just let me work. I can take responsibility for the augmentations myself. I will."
Dayson's expression flickered with anger, but softened as God Love Omega continued. By the end, the older man was almost smiling.
"It’s funny you mention work, Richard. A friend of mine, an entertainment producer, was asking about you. He had an idea for a Replay and wanted you to be one of its participants."
"Participants? In what?"
Dayson didn’t elaborate. "I'll have Huis contact you directly. But for now, I have appointments. You feel better soon."
With that, Dayson left, and God Love Omega remained suspended in traction, full of uncertainty and surprise.