Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. The Omega File By CSquared Chapter Two: Dom awoke to a blazing blue sky. Blinking, he sat up. Ahead of him was a brilliant green field, a river, and another field on the other side. After a few miles, there were huge mountains. All around him were equally confused looking people, some still lying down, others getting up and walking around. He didn't recognise any of them, and spent a while wandering about, searching for a familiar face. Suddenly, one found him. "Dom!" it shouted. "You made it in time! Oh, man, am I glad to see you!" Dom grinned. "Hey, Elias." he said. "Where the hell are we?" Elias frowned. "I'm not entirely sure. This is nothing like F... Mr. X told me..." "Mr. X? Who's that? Is it the guy in the video?" "Yeah. He doesn't want anyone to know who he is, though... at least, no-one that didn't already." "Aw, you can tell me..." "No, I can't. He'll know, and I'll be killed." "Killed?! Why?" "He... let's just say he has his reaso... oh *shit*! Get out of the way!!" Elias dove towards Dom, knocking him off his feet. They both rolled a good few feet, as they had landed on the slope of an incline - and gone down it. This was fortunate, as the crackling sound that had alerted Elias grew to fever pitch, then exploded as a huge vehicle burst out of nowhere, right where they had been standing. The thing thundered down the field, screeching to a halt about fifty feet from the river. Dom's eyes were the size of dinner plates, and he just lay there staring at it as Elias scrambled to his feet and followed the tyre tracks. "Come on, Dom!" he called. "This is important!" Dom shook his head, and ran after Elias. As he approached the vehicle, a loudspeaker crackled into life. _"Please stand *back*!"_ shouted a voice. _"To stand within a fifty foot radius of this vehicle within the next few minutes is highly unadvisable, and may be hazardous to your health!"_ As if to add punctuation to its point, a klaxon began to blare. People visibly jumped, and almost fought each other to get out of the way. A muffled grinding noise emanated from within the vehicle, and became clear when the roof swung open. Other flaps of metal swung from sides and from other flaps, as the entire machine unfolded, much like the Command And Conquer mobile construction yard. Before long, a massive building was standing where the vehicle had been. Dom blinked at it. "That's... impossible..." he breathed, and Elias looked at him. "Excuse me? After what happened earlier, you think *anything* is impossible?" Before Dom had a chance to answer, movement on the first floor balcony of the building caught his eye. It caught everyone else's, too, so by the time a man walked out, he had everyone's full attention. He looked down over the crowd. "Well." he said. "We seem to have created quite the commotion. Sorry for the violent entrance... but I'm sure you know that time travel requires a minimum speed of 88 miles per hour..." Silence filled the air. "OK, OK, bad joke. But relative velocity carries over - we were going pretty fast when we had to engage the transporter. Anyway, as you all should know, I am your benefactor. And don't worry, guys - you'll all receive your special privileges soon." A lecherous smile creased the mans face, and a low chuckle passed across some of the crowd. Dom was nonplussed, though. He didn't even know where he was, let alone what these special privileges were. He took advantage of this lull in Mr. X's speech to look over the crowd, and for the first time something odd struck him - they were all men. Where were the women? "Your laptops will be returned to you as soon as possible - we haven't yet processed the owners of them all. It was, however, easy to find them. Once the transportation was complete, the major drain of battery power was gone, so they just floated there waiting. Unfortunately, some of them didn't survive. These were the ones directly under the impact zone of the meteorite... which landed, in the end, exactly on Brighton." Dom gasped - he'd been at the epicentre? How had he survived? Had the blue dome had something to do with it? It must have, but... how? And how had he turned up here? For that matter, where *was* here? If Earth had been struck by a meteorite, then surely the entire planet had been destroyed? "I apologise heartily to those who lost their machines - they will be replaced with the top-of-the-line equipment we will eventually hand out to all. As for everything else, you will all receive answers soon. In fact, your laptops will tell you everything you need to know, and have been modified to make carrying them easier. Anyone here whose laptop was destroyed, please enter the building. You *will* be checked against a database, so there's no point in lying - you won't get anything if you still have a laptop." Mr. X turned and walked into the building. Quiet murmurs ran through the crowd. When Dom turned to ask Elias about what was going on, he was shocked to find him gone. He was nowhere to be seen. _`But he was here a second ago...'_ Dom thought, before shaking it off and walking towards the building. ***************************************** A small group of people - only about twenty at most - had gathered in what appeared to be the only room in the entire building. It was small, and nondescript - and had no doors leading from it further into the building. It was all very confusing. They waited for over fifteen minutes before someone appeared - literally. Someone just materialised out of thin air. "Follow me, please." he said, and walked into a strange hexagonal cubicle in the corner, promptly disappearing again. People stared at it in shock, until one man, standing next to it, gathered up the guts to walk into it. He vanished in the same manner, and other people gradually began to follow suit. Dom was the seventh person to step into the cubicle, and his view of life was turned on its head. The moment his foot touched the bottom of the cubicle, he wasn't there anymore. He was facing out of an identical cubicle in a completely different room, where the six men who went before him stood in an equally confused daze. He stepped out of the cubicle, and a few moments later, another man appeared behind him. Once everyone was through, the man appeared again. "Ah, good. Come this way, please." he said, and led them through a door in the far wall. They walked down a corridor, and into another room. This room was stark and white, and contained dozens of boxes, arranged in various patterns. The man then introduced himself. "I'm Mr. Q, by the way. I'm responsible for technology distribution and manufacture. As such, I'm going to check each of you against the database, then allocate you your Aide." He looked around the room. "Uh, you'll have to forgive the mess... we haven't quite finished unpacking yet. Anyway, let's get started. Please form a line." Everyone lined up, forming a silent consensus that they would stand in the order they went through the cubicles in. This made Dom the seventh in line. When he reached the front, Mr. Q didn't even look up at him. "Name?" he demanded, and Dom shakily replied, "Uh... Dom. Dominick Polinsky." Mr. Q looked up immediately, his face a mask of sheer fascination. "You *are*?" he gaped. "But you... the meteorite... it... it landed exactly on your house!" Dom stared at him. "So what?" "So what? So wh... so that means you shouldn't be here! You should be dead!" "What? Why?" "The shield device was never designed to withstand a direct hit... in fact, we're a little surprised that anyone from that area is here, but you were the only person within twenty miles of the epicentre with a device. We assumed that theirs held up just long enough to... we have to test this. How long had your device been running when it hit?" "Uh... the video had only just finished... and I put in the thing just before he started talking again." "You mean when Mr. X paused to allow anyone who hadn't done so to connect the device? Uh-huh... and how much battery life did your laptop have when you switched it on? Full?" "Uh... yeah. I'd charged it the previous night, and plugged it in before I switched it on." "Right, right... so it had been running for approximately five minutes, with an estimated fourteen hours fifty-five minutes of battery life remaining... and it activated the transporter approximately twenty seconds after impact. That still shouldn't have been enough power... you know what? Let's just say that you are a *very* lucky man, Mr. Polinsky." Dom laughed nervously. "I'd like you to wait around so I can run a few tests, if you would, so please take this and start playing with it while I finish up here." Mr. Q continued, handing Dom a small device. It was a box, about the size of a standard large-capacity MP3 player, with a screen covering the entirety of one side. Dom took it and went to sit on a chair by one wall. He pressed the single button on the device, and the screen lit up instantly. A voice seemed to speak to him inside his head. <Welcome to the initialisation menu of the M412 Mark 9 Sigma series personal Aide. Please state your name for registration purposes.> "Uh... Dominick Polinsky." Dom said, and the voice continued. <Thank you, Dominick. How would you like the aide to refer to you?> "Uh... Dom." <That's fine. Now, Dom. I need your date of birth, and the name of the person that gave you your CD and device.> "22nd of June 1988. Elias Fish." <Good. Please confirm that the information on-screen is correct.> "It is." <Sending data. Registration complete. Aide number AA-54-VC is registered under the name of Dominick Polinsky. I am your Aide. I am here to help you in any way you might need in order to settle in correctly in the New Eden.> "I've heard that before. What is this `New Eden'?" <The New Eden is the `promised land', if you will. It is a safe haven from the devastated ruins of the Earth.> "So we're still on Earth, then?" <Most certainly. The transporters are not nearly powerful enough to remove a body from the planet, merely to take it from one area of gravitational similarity to another. Each Aide contains a local area transporter.> "Really? But gravitational similarity... what does that mean?" <One point where the gravitational field strength is approximately the same as another.> "Does that mean that if I was falling, you couldn't transport me to safety?" <Yes and no. I could transport you back to where you had fallen from, but at the same distance from the nearest surface as before and at the same relative velocity.> "So?" <So if you fell off a cliff, I could transport you to the same distance from the top as you had been from the face, still falling and accelerating at 9.8 metres per second squared.> "Ouch." <Ouch indeed. Do not rely on your transporter for safety.> "What else can you tell me?" <You cannot transport into areas that you are not cleared for. In your case, you can transport anywhere within the communal areas, the lobby area of this building, and into your domicile.> "Ah. So where is my home?" <I can take you there right now, if you want. You've been placed with people most likely to get along with you - this includes your friend Waterman.> "Elias, you mean?" <Yes. Is the name Waterman not correct designation for him?> "Oh, no, nothing like that. It's just that I never called him that. It's his nickname, you see. His name being Fish and all." <Ah, I understand. I can refer to him as Elias from now on if you would prefer?> "Yes, please. Hey, I noticed something weird earlier. Everyone around me when I woke up was a man. What happened to all the women?" <You don't know? Well...> "Dominick?" Dom looked up to see Mr. Q. "I've finished, now, so if you could come with me?" Dom stood, and followed Mr. Q to another room. ***************************************** An hour later, Dom emerged from the building. "Sheesh." he breathed to himself. "That took long enough. I wonder where everyone's gone?" <They have gone to the town, Dom. Would you like me to take you there?> answered his Aide. "Yes, please," Dom replied, "but answer me this, first. Earlier, when you were going to answer me, you stopped in mid-sentence because Q spoke to me. Why?" <That's simple, Dom. I am programmed to discontinue speaking whenever another human speaks to you.> "Hmm. Can I override that?" <Yes, on a circumstantial basis. You can directly order me to bypass that coding if you have a good reason for doing so.> "OK. Well, `port me over, then." <Very well.> Dom appeared up a small hill from a town square. A fountain dominated the square, and a small group of people were crowded around it. A faint sound of raised voices floated through the air. As Dom began to walk towards the people, one of them broke away and ran, screaming, towards him. As they got closer, he realised that it was a girl. More to the point, it was a girl he knew. And her clothes had been ripped from her body. She ran towards him, seemingly oblivious to his presence, until she ran directly into him, almost knocking him over. Her tear-soaked eyes shot open, terror clearly visible in them. Dom wrapped his arms around her and said, "Rose? Rose, what's going on?" "Dom?!" she gasped. "I.. they..." He looked over her shoulder, and was horrified to see several of the group charging up the hill after her. "Aide, get us out of here! *Now*!" Dom shouted, pulling Rose close to him. <Dom, I...> it replied. "*NOW*!" Dom screamed, and they faded out just as the fastest reached them. They materialised in a bedroom. Rose leapt from Dom and onto the bed, curling into a ball. It was then that he noticed that she was soaked, from head to toe. "Aide, where are we?" he asked, and was answered with, <Why, your domicile, of course.> Dom sat down on the bed, and Rose clung to his waist. "Rose, we're safe. What happened?" She sobbed, and said, "I... I was... just walking to school... when someone grabbed me and pulled me into a car. They blindfolded me before I could see who they were. They didn't say anything after that, but when they stopped the car, I heard some kind of video being played. I could tell it was a video because the sound was kind of tinny, like on a laptop, you know? It said something weird about a "New Eden", then there was this huge flash of light, and I woke up here. My blindfold was gone, and when I stood up, I was surrounded by men. I'd never seen any of them before. They... they..." She broke down once more, and Dom stroked her hair in an attempt to comfort her until she started talking again. "They grabbed me, and some of them started to... to feel me up while they dragged me along the street to that square... when they got there, they started tearing at my clothes, ripping them off me. Next, one of them threw me into the fountain, and followed me in. He grabbed me by the neck and forced my head underwater, while he got me up on my knees. I think he was... undoing his trousers... behind me, because I felt something rub against my... you know... Well, he kept bringing me up so I could breathe, then shoving me back underwater, but when the thing started rubbing me, I got this rush of adrenaline, and managed to get away from him. I forced my way through and over the others, then ran away. That's when I hit you." "Rose..." Dom began, "I... I don't know what to say... I... Aide, what's going on?" <I was attempting to tell you earlier, Dom, but Mr.Q spoke to you, then you didn't ask again. You asked where the women were? Well, there are approximately two hundred women here, as opposed to the one hundred men. Under the constitution set down by Mr. X, they have no rights. They are here merely as toys and reproductive facilities.> "*What*?" Dom cried. "What are you *talking* about?! That's disgusting!" "Dom..." Rose whispered, "who are you talking to...?" Dom looked at her. "Can't you hear it? The voice?" She shook her head slowly. "I... it's this thing, Rose - I'm not crazy. This little box is my `Aide', and it's supposed to help me settle in to this `New Eden' thing... though I'm not sure I want to if this is what it involves..." "If what is what it involves?" "Rose, you have no rights. None at all. I... Aide, can you transmit with some kind of loudspeaker function?" <Yes, Dom.> "Then tell her what you told me." Rose's face gradually changed from one of shock to one of disgust then to one of terror, as the full implications of what she had been told sunk in. "Dom..." she quivered, "I'm scared..." He looked at her with a concerned look on his face, and said, "Aide, is there anything I can do? How can I help her?" <There is something you can do.> Replied the Aide. <Each man is allowed up to two slaves. Once registered, a slave cannot be touched by another man without her master's specific consent. If you made her your slave, she would be safe.> "How would I go about that?" <I can do it for you.> "Well, Rose? How does that sound to you? I can protect you, if you agree to be my slave." She looked at him, and, seeing only concern in his eyes, she agreed. "Yes, Dom. I'll do it." <Please state your name and date of birth.> "Rosemary Anne Donoho. 15th of April, 1992." "92? You're thirteen?" "Yes, why?" "I don't know, you just always seemed... older..." <Scanning database... Rosemary Anne Donoho - previous location: Brighton. Donator: Tom Clover.> "Aide, what does `donator' mean?" <It means the man who brought her, Dom, what else?> "Tom Clover did this?! I'll kill him!" "Dom, it doesn't matter. I'm here now, and you can protect me... just like always..." Dom smiled at her. He'd known her for a good few years now, and had taken her on as a kind of adopted sister. Strangely, the topic of her year of birth had never come up in conversation. <Please confirm that the information on-screen is correct.> "It is." <Sending data. Registration complete. Slave number V-14-OG is registered under the name of Dominick Polinsky. She is yours to do with as you wish.> Dom frowned at the Aide. "Yeah... thanks..." he said. "Anyway, let's see if we can't get you some new clothes." Rose had wrapped herself up in the bedsheets, which had, in the end, been useless - they had soaked through and gone transparent. Dom had to avoid looking at her so he didn't get aroused - which was the last thing he wanted. If he started thinking like that about her, he might start to use his powers as her master. <Actually, Dom - you can't.> said the Aide. He looked down at it, clipped onto his belt. "Huh?" <Slaves are not permitted to wear clothing. Given that the weather in New Eden is computer controlled, the ambient temperature will never drop below a comfortable fifteen degrees. Therefore, Mr. X wrote into the constitution that slaves are not permitted clothing, even when it rains - as, and I quote, `A naked slave is nicer to look at than one with clothes, and a wet, naked slave is nicer than a naked one.' In fact, those bedsheets are breaking the law.> Rose glared at it. "Oh, like anyone's going to find out." she mocked. <Actually,> it replied, <they could. At any point, they could decide to check my scanners, in which case the punishment is quite severe.> "Oh, and what might that be?" <Specifically, the punishment for a slave wearing clothes is the insertion into the urethra of a one centimetre diameter metal rod, which has a heating element run through the centre, which in turn is then attached to a voltage supply. This supply is turned up until the temperature of the metal rod is at sixty-five degrees. This is then left for twenty minutes.> Rose dropped the bedsheets immediately. Dom turned away, but slower. He was finding it increasingly difficult not to stare at her. She was, indeed, worth looking at. A slim beauty, with long red-brown hair, and piercing blue eyes. Her breasts were a little larger than a handful, and perfectly formed. She didn't quite curve, but she was growing into it. Her face was offset perfectly by small round glasses. She was a picture, to say the least. "Well," said Dom, "let's go and find Tom, shall we?"