L*st and Death

The once-in-a-lifetime grand opening of Yoon Siron’s Indian restaurant was just around the corner.

With trembling fingers, Siron picked up the mysterious sedative. He had no idea how much was needed, or how strong the effects would be, but he dumped a generous amount into the bubbling, thick curry.

To make sure the alpha bastards started eating at roughly the same time, he pre-plated white rice onto dishes and divided the boiling curry into three large containers, then carried them to the center of the dining hall. At six o'clock sharp, the alphas arrived, pushing through the rain, boisterously gathering to eat.

Siron, hiding in the storage room, cracked the door open just a finger’s width and peered out, half-paralyzed with anxiety. The men were heaping steaming curry onto their plates and digging in immediately. He’d worried someone might hate the taste and ruin the whole plan, but it turned out to be a pointless fear. The men were thrilled to be eating something new for the first time in ages. They devoured the curry greedily, slurping and chomping with gusto.

The drugs began to kick in about fifteen minutes later. At first, a few men staggered in place and slumped out of their chairs. As the severity of the situation dawned on the others, some tried to escape the cafeteria, but they barely made it a few steps before collapsing helplessly at the door.

Siron cast a nervous glance at the black lens of the cafeteria’s CCTV. If the footage of the men collapsing during dinner had been transmitted to the security room, someone monitoring the cameras would immediately dispatch a response team.

That was the trap Isaac had devised. He planned to use the surveillance cameras to trigger a rapid response from the security team—and then "handle" the incoming alphas. But he hadn’t said how he would handle them.

The man was wheelchair-bound and couldn’t move easily—so how was he going to deal with anyone?

Siron imagined Isaac taking out the alphas like a sniper as they approached the cafeteria through the lab building, then shook his head to banish the thought. Survival came first.

He forced the questions from his mind and focused on the task at hand. One by one, he began stripping the unconscious alphas of their weapons.

At the same time, 100 meters away from the cafeteria, Manu Singh was stirring the sugar grains at the bottom of his teacup with a spoon.

Something about the atmosphere felt off today. The room seemed unusually empty—and the sugar jar had only three cubes left, which was especially strange. Still, his distracted mind couldn’t quite pin down what was different.

Just as his scattered thoughts were about to drift toward the missing stainless steel thermos, a chime sounded from the computer. Holding his cup, Singh walked over, sat down, and took a warm sip of tea. As the heat moved down his throat and warmed his stomach, whatever vague sense of absence had lingered in his mind vanished completely.

On screen, the DNA data from the test subjects had finished loading. Singh clicked the mouse with tense fingers, and the DNA sequences—accompanied by endless streams of alphanumeric codes—began scrolling rapidly.

The previous night, he had drawn blood from thirteen subjects himself and fed the samples into the analysis machine. After twenty hours of automated processing, the system had finally produced results.

This time, Singh hadn’t let Isaac assist at all. He suspected Isaac might be tampering with the data.

Singh stared at the screen with hopeful eyes—but his expression quickly fell. He had been expecting to find genetic anomalies matching those of the omega genome, but the results were a disappointment. All thirteen subjects had DNA sequences identical to betas—standard males.

“...Disappointing.”

They had tested 72 subjects so far with no results. Singh, still seated, glanced toward Isaac, who was lying on his back with a repair manual covering his face.

“You must’ve botched the genetic modifier,” Singh muttered irritably.

Isaac peeled the manual down slightly to look at him, smiling with thin amusement.

“You never really understood the recombinant protocol Yuri Berekh left behind. You couldn’t even implement it. And now, thanks to your incompetence, all the alphas are going to die. Humanity will lose its one shot at advancement.”

Singh was trying to provoke him. But Isaac only responded with a calm, amused voice.

“Maybe so. But what can you do? Tragically, I’m the only one alive who remembers Yuri Berekh’s research.”

He smiled with mocking serenity.

“So you’d better get used to disappointment.”

Isaac folded his arms and closed his eyes again, like nothing had happened. He crossed his left leg over his right and settled into a relaxed position. His movements were so fluid that Singh didn’t notice anything odd at first—until he saw Isaac drawing slow circles with his toes.

Then it hit him.

“...Your legs.”

“They’ve been improving rapidly since yesterday.”

“Good. That wheelchair was an eyesore anyway.”

Singh eyed Isaac’s foot as it swayed lazily, and the faint outline of toned muscle beneath his black slacks. Despite spending a month in a wheelchair, Isaac looked like he’d be walking again in a few days with some light rehab. The alpha’s specialized muscle cells had preserved his strength well, minimizing atrophy by efficiently storing energy.

It made Singh uneasy. The physical resilience of the alpha breed was terrifying. Just imagining a fully recovered Isaac towering over him stirred up something dark.

Singh forced himself to focus. He stood up, feigning dejection over the DNA results and citing the hurricane as an excuse to go drink whiskey and sleep early. But the moment he stepped outside, he broke into a brisk walk against the storm.

His destination was the control room at the base of the eastern tower. Surveillance for the island was centralized in the west tower, so the eastern control room had been repurposed as storage for large unused equipment like bed frames.

He unlocked the rarely used door and stepped inside. Beyond the glass wall of the control room, the wind howled like it was battering a massive drum. The echoing sound was deafening.

The night before, Singh had secretly re-analyzed the DNA of all thirteen subjects. Suspecting sabotage from Isaac, he’d used an old analyzer stored in the warehouse to cross-check the data. He wasn’t even sure it would function properly—but by some miracle, it had completed its processing around the same time as the lab’s main system.

With the blinds down and door locked, Singh opened the finished report with little expectation.

And then he stopped breathing.

Twelve of the samples were, as before, standard beta DNA—nothing special. But one was different.

Subject 3543.

That cunning little East Asian bastard had changed. His genome no longer matched either beta or alpha. It was something else—a third type.

Singh launched the software and loaded the DNA data of the world’s only known omega: Dr. Yuri Berekh.

He initiated a comparison between Subject 3543’s sequence and Berekh’s, scanning for shared mutations and species-specific traits.

A thunderclap split the sky with a sound like the heavens tearing open.

Lightning!

Singh pictured a bolt frying the circuit boards.

The lab had lightning rods, but even indirect surges could fry essential equipment.

Panicking, Singh began uploading 3543’s data to the cloud with the care of someone placing a priceless gem in a vault.

A small window popped up in the center of the screen, showing the upload progress.

He watched it with rising dread. The storm must’ve disrupted satellite connections—upload speed was glacial.

89%... 90%... 92%...

“So damn slow,” he muttered.

93%... 95%... 99%...

The closer it got to completion, the tighter his jaw clenched.

And then, without warning—everything went dark.

Power outage.

Singh gasped.

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