Commander: An Omegaverse novel

Chapter 3

Banging on the door in a specific rhythm that was this week's code, Anna fought to hold her tears back. She heard the locks being turned quickly and the door was pulled open to reveal an older woman with kind Grey eyes and an apron around her waist. She had interrupted her cooking.

"Come inside child." The woman said softly, herding her in and shutting the door, turning the locks into place once again.
"What type of bread can I get you, my dear?"
"Pita." She murmured the second passcode.
The woman nodded, and led her to one of the ovens, pushing a sequence of buttons that caused it to hiss and pull away from the wall.
"Anna!" John had been alerted to her coming in, throwing his arms around her as she stepped through the passage. Anna let out a sob into his shirt, clutching him as he led her down the steel gangway to another door. This one was made of thick bomb-proof steel and swung open slowly on creaking hinges. John ignored it, pulling her down a ladder and into the bunker. People were bustling about on the ground floor, large maps of the city and country lined every wall, computer pinged off data as workers said commands into headsets. This wasn't the head office of the Opposition, that was in the Capital city Valar, this was the district's operations office, taking care of Civall and the surrounding areas underground rebellion. Ignoring the stares of the passers-by at her disheveled appearance, John led her to a door on the side, swiping an access card to gain access. The door opened to a small hospital, uniformed nurses and doctors rushing between rooms as the serious injuries were dealt with. Gunshots, shrapnel were regular hazards in the Oppositions work. John led her down the hall, past a screaming man on a gurney being held down as a doctor pried a piece of metal out of his leg. Anna felt like she was going to be sick. John brought her to another door and swiped his card again. This time, a retina display emerged, scanning his face. The machine dinged after a second, and the door let out a hiss as it opened. They stepped into a smaller room, laboratory equipment lined one wall, medical equipment, and a chair sat in the center. In a corner, a smaller chair sat upon a fur-lined rug, several blankets piled beside it. An old TV and stack of movies sat across from it, as well as a few worn books that she had read so many times she could almost recite them from memory. She'd spent so much time here, either giving blood for their experiments or on the dialysis machine when the Hormones made her too sick. John motioned for her to sit down on the exam bench bending down to look at the wound that was now crusted over with blood. He prodded at it for a second, making her wince, his brows came down in a frown.
"What happened?" he asked, eyes filled with concern. Anna relayed the encounter with the Alpha, how she had felt her instincts take over, and the unlikely call in that had saved her.
John stood up once she had finished, raking a hand through his dirty blonde hair as he let out a sigh. He moved to the medical supplies and started pulling items off the shelf.
"You know what command will say when you report to them."
Anna rolled her eyes. Shaking her head at him as he came back to the bed, starting to clean the wound.

The war had just begun in Valar, it hadn't even reached Civall yet and a bulletin had been issued urging army corps to do the same genetic test Oversight was performing on the general populations under their control, issuing the portable testers to soldiers. They tested the blood for compatibility with what had been dubbed "the triad virus". Originally created for soldiers, it enhanced certain characteristics to make them better on the battlefield. They were faster, larger, more cunning, stronger, demanding submission from those not infected.. everything that made them better soldiers, they were dubbed "Alphas". However, another dynamic also emerged. The virus made some lose bone mass and size, becoming almost dainty in appearance. They were just as intelligent as the Alphas, but their nurturing instincts were the ones heightened, driving them to create safe spots in their rooms, soft blankets and torn apart mattresses arranged into an exact position that only the person knew... nests. Alphas grew agitated around them, but it seemed that only one was a match for each, taking care of them after aggressively mating the newly infected candidate, biting them on a shoulder as a sign of ownership. The virus did not discriminate between male or female, only the genetic makeup of the individual. The higher the purity, the more likely the person would survive the transformation.