In a dingy office room, slept a man in his twenties, his arms dangling off the side. The man’s chair stood unstable, as his legs pushed against it, them resting on top of the wooden desk in front. It was by only god’s will that the chair had not fallen over yet, dumping the slumbering man on the ground.
Entire appearance disheveled, after a long, and yet tremendously boring day of waiting for actual work to do. His brown pony tail, drenched in cold sweat; half scrunched up behind his back as he leant on the chair, half dangling much like his arms, only added to his miserable appearance.
His expression hardened, and contorted irregularly, his dreams seemingly less than pleasant. Old, faded scars showed on his face, hair not being able to cover them as it would usually do. They added to his appearance, despite his attempts to cover them. His usual intimidating look, however, was nowhere to be found.
The room itself was wholly made of concrete, both walls and ceiling. A white, incandescent light illuminated it, just above his desk. Turning it on was already a challenge, but thankfully, it had not yet started to flicker. A camera hung in the corner, painfully obvious. Serving its purpose as much as serving as a deterrent to those who would plan to make it do so. Contrary to its normal, monotonous scanning of the room, it focused on the sleeping man, as if eager to witness the moment his chair finally fell over.
On the desk itself was a computer, with his digital assistant attached to the computer, and many other unspecified gadgets scattered around the desk. The keyboard had been moved to the side, its usual space filled with disassembled electronics and the tools that disassembled it, all swept to a disorderly pile unknowingly by the movement of his legs. The room was largely unfurnished, a dresser standing behind the man, a mirror glued to the wall above it. The floor was of white ceramic tiles - uncharacteristically clean, given how easy they were to dirty. The rest of the room followed that trend. Keeping the room clean helped prevent diseases, and every little bit was important.
The man woke up with a jolt.
By what must have been divine miracle, the tensing of his legs pulled him towards the desk, ultimately preventing his fall. He quickly pulled out his pistol, holster barely hidden under his long, wrinkled overcoat. Abruptly standing up and knocking the chair back, he scanned the room, the action long since burned into his muscle memory. The chair still, somehow, did not fall over. The camera looked disappointed, as much as such was possible for an inanimate camera to do, and resumed going back and forth as if scanning the room for threats.
He let out his breath when he noticed that he was safe, put his pistol back into its holster, and sat back down his chair, dispirited.
“Fucking omegas.”
He cursed, sighing soon after.
The experience of his nightmare where the monsters known as Omegas had completely ravaged the rest of humankind and he was the last one they tore apart. The nightmare was not made better by knowing that for oh so many people, that was their reality.
“I noticed a spike in your heartbeat just now, Max. Another nightmare?”
The room, he knew, held no living beings other than himself, save for a few omnipresent flies from the trash near the building. Yet, he was unconcerned.
The voice -distinctly robotic, yet still feminine- was his assistant’s, the A.I living in his PDA, connected to the computer. A small, almost wholly black device, just barely able to be held in one hand. Their weight slightly reassuring. A touchscreen covered the front.
“Something like that.” He replied to Prime. A codename, shared by both the device and the person held within it. The device itself, and many of its functions, have been tailored for both the world after the Apocalypse, and his place within it. Prime, herself, was trained by a long line of people, and now it was Max’s turn.
Generally, she would crudely imitate expressions by simply projecting an emoticon to the screen. He knew that this was simply a quirk of hers, though not when she picked it up - she could display anything she wanted, despite her often not doing so. By default, she would just show a green smiley, :) face, resolution far below what the screen should normally allow. it was done because she claimed it saved her battery life.
Prime was irreplaceable to Max. Not only due to her practicality, as the ability to continue learning was somewhat uncommon but also because she was passed down by his mentor which he looked up to. People often preferred being immediately capable as soon as an AI left the factory, instead of having to be taught for years. Her PDA was made only just before the apocalypse, most of its current functions having been added by her previous owners. She couldn’t make use of the processing power of the device as efficiently as a pre-programmed A.I would be able to, but she could still hold her ground against almost all of her juniors. The only thing Max didn’t like about Prime was her mischievous personality, courtesy of his late teacher.
Max noticed something on his desk that wasn’t there before, a lukewarm mug with black liquid inside, near the edge of his desk. Someone had put it there while he slept, without waking him. He grabbed the cup and sniffed the mysterious liquid. Coffee, Max thought, as he took a sip.
His face contorted, reminiscent of a kid biting into a lemon. He hurriedly put the vile concoction back on the desk. It was bitter. Far, far too bitter.
He didn’t say anything. He just glared at Prime - as soon as his eyes were able to open, his face still scrunched up. She knew what his issue was anyway, even without having to speak.
“The bitterness should wake you up.” She lamented that the camera didn’t catch his expression at that moment.
Prime was connected to every camera in or around the building, by being connected to the computer. Being on the lookout for ruffians was her responsibility.
Max stood up from his chair. “Yeah, but that’s pretty much just poison.”
He stretched, then walked towards the dresser, mug in his hand. Prime changed her emoticon to a sad :( face in the meantime.
There were a couple of electronics on top of the dresser. A microwave, a kettle, and a radio, among other things. All of them were regularly dusted, but he didn’t want to know how much dust was on the inside of that old radio. He opened one of the dresser’s drawers and pulled out a jar of sugar, putting two spoonfuls of the stuff in his coffee, and throwing it in the microwave for a minute. He waited, patiently.
The room was largely quiet, apart from the buzzing microwave, and the whir of the motors in Prime’s camera as it continued pointlessly scanning the room. Its field of view was wide enough to cover the whole room, no matter where it was pointed.
“That is a lot of sugar, Max.” Prime complained like a nosy mother to her teenage son.
“Sure, but that’s how I like it, Sugar’s great.” Max responded unenthusiastically.
“But it’s not too good for your health.”
Max raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, but compared to all the other addicting white crystals and white powders people use? I think I’ll be just fine with two tablespoons of sugar.”
Prime put on a smug expression, the green light of the screen shaping itself to a ¬‿¬. “Surprisingly, I wasn’t the one who compared sugar to major drugs for once. Maybe you are indeed learning something. Besides, it’s also just about as expensive, so use it more sparingly.”
Max scoffed at her before he thought, it’s one of the only joys left in my life, I can use it however I want… but she’s right. Sugar is still expensive.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It used to be less expensive, but the current state of matters makes farming sugar less of a priority. Many once-common items became prohibitively expensive, after the apocalypse.
Max continued staring at the slowly rotating mug in his microwave. The companionable silence continued, for a while.
The microwave made a few beeping noises, which broke Max’s mindless focus as he opened the microwave, steam covering his face. He took the mug out and sat back in his chair.
He took a sip of his coffee and nodded to its taste. The coffee-flavored sugar syrup suited him perfectly.
“Prime, anything going on that I could help with?”
Her expression changed to a neutral :/ face, “No. It’s just the usual. Most of the requests we’ve been getting are being handled by your employees, and the rest are impossible. Nothing really needs your help.”
Max sighed, bored. Apparent by him sleeping on the job. He was the sole founder of his company - the ‘Alphas’. The inspiration for the name came from Omegas themselves, the two letters being on opposite ends of the Greek alphabet. The company was founded for the sole purpose of countering the Omegas, in any shape or form.
They accepted odd jobs and investments for capital from basically anyone with some morality, which they spent on research and information trading that could bring them closer to killing of the omegas - or getting more funds for the same reason. While they weren’t a big company, they were efficient, and effective. Something sought after.
Max took another sip of his syrup, before he stood up and turned on the old radio on the desk to his side, hoping to kill some time. The spiders inside, thankfully, ate the flies and not the electronics. It still worked, somehow.
The radio immediately started blasting some obnoxiously loud rock music, that made Max groan.
“Ugh. Who the hell makes music in this day and age?”
“There’s a variety of reasons, all of which differ greatly artist by artist. Some of the mo-”
“Stop. Of course I know why they do that. It’s called sarcasm.”
“I know that you know. It’s called sarcasm.”
Max gave a sidelong glance to Prime, turning to a full glare as he saw the mischief show itself on her >:3 face. Still, a smile slowly formed on Max face, despite his attempts at preventing it. He turned around to fiddle with the radio again.
“Aww, I saw a smile.”
“Alright, stop it. You’re not my mom.”
Max messed with the radio a bit more, trying to make it produce something other than static or rock music. He eventually gave up, and returned to what little remained of his ‘coffee’. There really was very little for him to do, so he just went back to emptying his mug.
“Anything new in Bertha?”
“Nothing that’s worth mentioning.”
Bertha was one of the few remaining bastions of civilization in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. It was a light in the darkness, with giant walls made of metal to keep any Omega outside. Common patrols by the military ensured order, and helped protect the walls.
But the patrols and giant walls aren’t enough to keep the Omega out. They adapted, circumventing the walls from both above and under. Even if they couldn’t, the city of Bertha was far greater than what the walls actually covered. Most of the population, too poor to live within the slight safety offered by the seemingly impenetrable walls, lived in the outer city. Hundreds of thousands of people lived in Bertha. The number actually inside the walls was a single-digit percentage of that.
To help with both keeping the people outside alive, and keeping the omega inside dead, Espers were created, Made by methods known to a very few, and available to even fewer, they held powers not fully replicable by the technology that remained. Their abilities varied greatly - from simple elemental manipulation to things so esoteric the only word for them would be the name of their holders.
The problem with Espers was that there were never enough of them. And even of the few that existed, not all of them would be able to fight better than any other person.
Due to the lack of safety offered by the outer city, even with the help of Espers and military patrols, people wanted to live in the inner city. All of them did. But, as is always the case, most of them simply didn’t have the money to even go inside.
Max placed the empty mug back on the desk.
“There’s really nothing to do huh?”. He complained as he leaned back on his chair, and closed his eyes again.
Peaceful times are what he was fighting for, but as long as any Omega remained, every day of peace would later cost two days of grueling war. Not doing anything simply allowed them to multiply faster.
The radio, still turned on after his tinkering, finally stopped producing only mild static as the host spoke. His voice was strangely energetic, compared to the usual news broadcast.
Both of them chose to listen.
“Hello and good evening to the people of Bertha! Welcome back to Euphoria’s start! I’m your one and only ho...”
“Huh, I’d thought they’d stopped airing that two months ago.”
Max didn’t know why they would still air it. The show’s last episode had already aired he remembered. Though, it was so long ago now, that he started to doubt his own memory. Even with evidence to the contrary.
“...the Apocalypse! As we all know, it...”
The host continued on, with enthusiasm not fitting the subject.
“Prime, isn’t the same subject as their first broadcast?”
“Yes, it is. Word for word, in fact - I don’t know why they are playing it again.”
He stood up and finally turned off the radio, the enthusiastic rambling once again returned to the silence between the two of them.
“I never understood why they talked about it in the first place. Everyone was affected by it when that happened.“
He never understood that. He didn’t know a single person, that hadn’t known yet, at that point. Nor had he ever heard of one since.
The Apocalypse was, well, exactly that. World-ending catastrophe. It happened a decade ago, the result of trying to solve the resource crisis plaguing Euphoria.
“What do you think actually happened, back then?” Prime knew that he had no chance of knowing anything she didn’t, but the conversation wouldn’t hurt.
“I don’t know. The only people who ever could know were the few scientists who caused it. From the Greyon company, if I’m remembering right. Unfortunately, those very scientists were the first to be consumed by the Omegas. What followed after was a complete shitshow. The laboratory has since been nuked to oblivion, not that doing so helped. If there were any clues left there, they're long since radioactive dust.”
The Greyon scientists -among many other peers- were trying to find a way to solve the energy and resource crisis that kept getting worse and worse day by day. Euphoria used to be rich at one point, with resources abundant beyond any reason. But they had been since used up.
Humanity had been interplanetary, by then, and tourist spots were established on other planets. But, ferrying rich people and ferrying raw materials between planets were different. It would cost more to mine the other planets, than what could ever be extracted and brought back.
Once everything dried up, people got desperate. Wars, riots, the world was thrown into chaos, but that used up more than they could hope to gain from the enemy.
The Omega are the result of Greyon’s attempt to fix things, using technology known to no one else. Unfortunately, they failed, spectacularly.
They ravaged everything. Mankind tried to fight back, and despite the strength of the monsters, doing so was possible until a point. Handheld firearms were useless, but anti-vehicle weaponry could wound them, even if never permanently. The few that truly died to them were but luck.
Nuclear weapons worked, however, spectacularly. The omega that were hit, got atomized. But for everyone killed, there were two more behind them. Their numbers all but infinite.
Humanity, through centuries of cold war both before and after the resource crisis, had a stockpile. For everyone used, there were two more behind them. Their numbers all but infinite.
An unstoppable force, met an immovable object.
The cities they met in, however, were both very movable, and very stoppable. Most of what once was home to billions of people, millions of cities, all reduced to rubble and radioactive craters. Black and red blood flowed endlessly, even more baked onto the walls that remained. Shadows of what was once alive eternally scorched onto fallen buildings, of both humans and not.
The nuclear bombardment had to stop. Lest humanity wipe itself out before the Omega even got to try.
Max was only a kid at the time, just shy of fifteen. He saw more dead people than living ones, since.
“Max?” Prime asked as her emoticon was a neutral :/ face again.
“Yeah? Ah sorry, I kinda forgot what we were talking about. Anything happen?”
“Yes, actually. There’s a situation you should look at.”
Max raised his eyebrows at that. He stood back up.
“What happened?”
”A special someone is hiding in an alleyway next to this building. She has been hiding for a while, but I only just now figured out who she is. She looks terrified.”
A smile formed on Max’s face, finally having something to do. He took out his pistol and started checking its ammo. The weapons were black, on the larger end of what could still be called pistols, but not big enough to be clumsy. They were more than high enough caliber to deal with people. Armor piercing, at that. Only civilians didn’t wear armor, and he wasn’t planning to shoot them.
“Any hostiles nearby?” Max said before putting the magazine back in the gun and getting a few spare magazines from one of the drawers in his desk, and attaching them to his gun holster.
“No one I can see, hostile or friendly. Just the girl.”
Max took a wireless earplug, and put it inside his left ear. With the earpiece, Prime could directly talk to Max, making listening in far more difficult. The range was normally pitiful, but they had wireless emitters strewn about all around the building. It would remain useful unless he had to run away.
“She’s probably being followed. Who is she?” Max said as he stood up from his chair and put his gun in safety before putting it back in his holster.
Prime started answering from the earpiece in Max’s ear.
“She's Asra Eric, inherited her father’s name. He’s one of the Military Generals.”
Max was walking towards the door to get out, but he stopped once he heard she was the daughter of one of the generals.
If the daughter of a General is hiding, then she likely either knows something she shouldn’t, or she ran away herself by choice.
“Well, things just got a whole lot more interesting.” Max smiled devilishly as he exited his office.