Page 52 of Marked Omega

She shrugs while working suds into her hair.

“All we know for sure is that it’s the cause of the mutations in the zone.” She pauses and thinks for a moment as she slicks her shampooed hair back. “And we know that it was made by SynerGen.”

She submerges, and I can see the wavering form of her body beneath the surface as she runs her hands over her head underwater, rinsing her hair.

Hannah is right. The implication of that is huge. Whether intentionally or by accident, SynerGen caused the cataclysm. The single most destructive event in history. If word of that were to get out, it would shake the entire world.

After a moment, Hannah breaks the surface, squinting and wiping her rinsed hair back from her face.

“Hannah,” I say, “what if this gets out? About SynerGen and the Source.”

She shakes her head and chuckles bitterly.

“That’s the thing,” she says. “It’s never going to get out. All of the evidence is quarantined here in the zone.”

“But we know,” I insist. “We could tell people.”

“Who?” she asks, leaning back against the side of the bath. “Who are you going to tell? And more important, how are you going to tell them? You’ve seen the firepower they have surrounding the zone. You’d get blown to smithereens before you even got close to that quarantine wall.”

She lolls her head back and studies the tile ceiling overhead, obscured with steam.

“Besides,” she adds, “even if you could tell the outside world, think about the effect it would have. There would be riots probably. It could undermine the entire foundation of society. Is that really what you want?”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. Still, the truth is the truth, and people have a right to know. We’ve all been lied to for all these years.

“Well what about this?” I ask her. “Now, I’m not necessarily saying this is a good idea, but what would happen if the power to the Source was turned off.”

Hannah tilts her head forward. Her eyes are wide, and they dart around the room.

“Lily, listen to me,” she says in a whisper. “You mustn’t talk like that. If the Alphas heard you…that thing is the center of the universe to them.”

“I know, I know,” I tell her, surprised by her reaction. “I mean, I said I wasn’t really suggesting we try to do that. But, well…just for argument’s sake, what do you think would happen?”

Hannah relaxes a little. She rolls her eyes back as she thinks.

“I’m not really sure,” she says. “But I don’t think it would be good for the people of the zone. I mean, we know that the energy field that it emits definitely dissipates as you get farther away, right? That’s why the Alphas that live in the far lands are so messed up. And that’s why it has no effect on people outside the zone. Beyond the wall.”

We both get quiet for a moment as we think about that world beyond the wall. The civilized world that we have left behind.

“Do you ever miss it?” I ask. “The outside world, I mean?”

Hannah’s eyes grow distant and sad.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have…”

Hannah shakes her head.

“No it’s okay,” she says. “I mean, if you’re talking about the overcrowding in the city hives, the smoggy air, the flavorless food…the flavorless life that I was leading from day to day. No. I don’t miss any of that. But there are people I miss.”

Hannah inhales deeply, holds it for a moment, and then lets it out, her shoulders sinking like she’s breathing out all of her tension.

“I was married,” she says. “I had a husband. I do miss him. And I wish there was some way I could, you know…just let him know that I’m alive.”

She shakes her head, and looks down at her body, at the metal piercing in her nipple that is right at the surface of the water. Beneath the surface, her hand is resting on her belly, and I have a sudden intuition.

Hannah is pregnant. Pregnant with an Alpha baby.

“Then again, maybe it’s better that he doesn’t know what’s happened to me…”