Welcome to Omega Volume 1: Nightmare

By Jack Delgado

Earth, two hundred years in the future. Some people call it heaven, a place where all your wildest dreams are at your fingertips; cybernetics, androids, a thousand ways to enjoy life and forget about the world.

Many more call it hell. Because they have to face their worst nightmares every day and never forget that the world is out to take their life. Crime lords. Corrupt government. A million ways to die.

In a world choked of freedom and opportunity, a world where all your decisions are made for you, what can you do but accept your fate and die?

The answer; fight.

Something is waking in the dark, something that's been asleep for nearly two hundred years. Its return will be heralded by fire, brought about by steel, and will shake the world to the core.

It's not just a change.

It's a revolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Delgado
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301179183

Book preview

Welcome to Omega Volume 1: Nightmare

Copyright © Jack Delgado, 2012

Smashwords Edition

Cover Illustration by Tazio Bettin

http://sunamori.deviantart.com/

Dedicated to my family, blood and otherwise, for all their support and hard work.

Author’s Note:

This story was originally intended to be sold episodically, but due to some constraints in Amazon’s otherwise very generous self-publishing system, I’m required to publish them in volumes. These stories were meant to be read one at a time; take it slow and you’ll really feel what I was trying to do. Don’t rush through, not only because this is the shortest volume but because you’ll miss out on the real effect I strove for when writing this. That being said, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you, reader, for helping to make my dream possible. Thank you for reading my story. Let’s dive right in, then…

Welcome to Omega, ladies and gentlemen.

Episode 1: Welcome to Omega

December 21, 2192

The dull stars glared down on Omega City from their perches in the night sky, watching everything and nothing. Their light barely illuminated the polluted and twisting streets, their cold radiance filling the recesses of gutter and slum.

Eternal witnesses without hope of testimony, the stars stared down at the spectacle of human life.

Here a corpse, his killer standing over him with blood dripping from his fists, his tears and his curses filling the night around him like a fog.

There a man, broken and delirious, a marionette of the flesh, living out his last moments in a black haze of alcohol and legalized narcotics.

There a woman, journalistic folder in hand, dragged silently from her home by guns for hire, gagged for life.

Here deals for the death of another, whispered in vile tones of fear and secrecy, made openly under the night sky for any of the gods to see.

On and on they continued, the dramas no one would dare play out in the sunlight.

But not all is done in malice and anger… look there, nestled between the monolithic houses of the old city, blocks of black ice in the shadows.

Two lovers, united in desperation and fear, their young and fatal connection overcoming the terror of discovery with sweet words, false reassurances, promises easily broken.

Two deserter soldiers, brothers in arms by necessity and by choice, standing by one another as their own platoon of former comrades bear down on them, their guns making one last retort to an old tyranny.

On and on the stories wrote and finished themselves, tortured songs and dances written and performed between the shadows of the megaliths in blood and tears, stories of loss, corruption, death, regret, defiance, and the desire for freedom in a shattered and black world.

And here on the roof of a towering helioscraper, lit by the light of the desolate and eternal stars, two of the actors stood above it all and watched through a sniper rifle's scope.

A woman and a boy, strange and unharmed and dangerous in this bleak midnight, watched the world around them through the glass of the scope. His hair swirled around his head in a cloud of shadow, his eyes onyx in the night, his face bearing a look of innocence lost.

The woman kept her vigil over the youth as he watched the world, her cropped auburn locks swirling in time with the boy’s, her eyes of a color with his. Her face was far away from where she stood, beautiful, sad, pained.

She could feel the agony emanating from him, the anger, the grief. She wanted it to stop, wanted to hold the boy close, whisper and lie that he was alright, to save him from the bloody screams the city’s nights brought with it. She yearned to shield the child, to keep him unknowing just a moment longer.

But the moment came; the boy had seen enough at last. He got to his feet slowly, stiff from the long hours of watching, and looked at the woman. He stared at her a moment, then opened his mouth to speak. She raised her hand to silence him, slender and grey in the twilight.

You want to know why it’s our way to bring young ones like you up here and have you sit here for a night, watching the city, she said, her melodious voice carrying even at a whisper.

He nodded vigorously, never breaking eye contact with her. She sighed and shook her head.

We have to know the world we exist in, she told him grimly, We have to know the city. You’ve never seen it as it truly is until tonight. You may have had some idea about the danger, but no one really understands anything until they take a long look around them.

You wanted me to know what their life is like, he murmured, soft as silk, You wanted me to see the world as it is when the sun and the rules are gone.

It was a statement, not a question. The woman shivered and looked away, avoiding the child’s eyes.

I wish you wouldn’t do that, kid, she murmured.

Do what?

Nothing. Nevermind, she replied quickly. She beckoned him to follow her, walking towards the opposite end of the mighty helioscraper. They strode in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes, the only sound the crunch of gravel under their feet.

As he joined her at the edge of the roof, she turned her gaze to the horizon. The first tinges of dawn's light were beginning to color the polluted sky, dyeing it with rich hues of amethyst and orange. The child stood impassively, arms crossed as he watched the city below.

You didn't like what you saw, did you? she asked quietly, keeping her eyes fixed on the distant skyline.

His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed as he stared into the twisting black metropolis below them. Anger, hatred and confusion drifted off him like a scent. To her they were as palpable as gun smoke, the smell of steel, the silent air before a summer storm.

That was murder being committed down there, he growled, his fists clenching by his sides, "I saw men and women alike being gunned down in the streets, saw people being persecuted based on nothing but dislike, saw people's lives being ripped apart with a knock on their doors.

He turned to her, fury set in his face like the carvings of a statue.

You know me, he snarled, Do you think I liked what I saw?

Never. I know you better than that.

He looked away, blinking rapidly. She felt her heart wrench a little in her chest, her throat constricting as she watched him.

But no matter how hopeless the world may seem to you, we're working to change it, she said earnestly, fighting the overwhelming urge to go to him, to comfort him, "Keep that in mind. You can't stop every murder, abduction or enslavement in the world. I know I would love to be