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Chapter 2
Natasha
When I opened my eyes, I knew they were seeing dull gray reality. A cold emptiness penetrated my soul. I felt for my cigarettes then realized I’d left them behind at the squat.
“My head is splittin’” I complained.
“It will pass, soon. Doctor Kavat says you’re cured of all your ills, including your addictions.” Urgoth stood before me. The grumpy one. Great.
I was in a different room now, without all the tubes and wires. This one was more like a prison cell.
“I wasn’t addicted, I was bored. So take that off your notes for a start.” The thing I hated most about the authorities was the way they wrote stuff down about you and passed it around to each other behind your back, and the next thing you knew, you were beinghandledby some other randomer with a fancy shiny car who thought you needed fixing.
I’d thought I was imagining the metal surroundings, but I knew I was straight up, now. I felt the dull ache of real life, and I still seemed to be on a spaceship. How could that be? Was this arealship? Was I at sea? That might be it. I’d never been on one, so I had no idea what they’d look like from the inside.
“The reason for your intoxication is irrelevant. You’re here because twenty-five years ago, you were left on Earth by a stricken space ship that was supposed to carry you to safety away from a solar flare on your home planet. Epsilon.”
I snorted with derision. It was total rubbish, the lot of it. “Chuck that in, I don’t believe you.”
“Again, your belief is irrelevant. It doesn’t change the facts. You’re an omega, not a human.”
“Is this some weird test to check if I’m gone in the head?” Were they going to get the men in white coats on me if I went along with this nonsense? That would be just my luck.
“No. It’s the truth. Look outside.” He indicated a window. Outside, it was just black.
“You put paper over the outside. Or a blind. Or it’s a picture in a frame.”
“No. You’re in space.”
“Where are the stars?” Surely they could have made more effort to make it seem like space?
“They are very far apart. You can’t see them through this small window. It’s too bright in here.”
“What’s an omega?”
“A special type of humanoid from your home planet. There are three types of people on Epsilon. Alphas, who are big and tall like me and the doctor. Betas, who look just like the humans you’re used to on Earth. And omegas, who are tiny and vulnerable. Alphas are commanding, strong and powerful. Betas are sort of average. Omegas are sweet and submissive. Perfect mothers. According to their description. I’ve never actually met one before you.”
I snorted with laughter. That description was the complete opposite of me.
“Well I’m no’ an omega, then, am I? I know fine well I’m tall for a girl. And I’m nobody’s fucking mother!”
“Not yet. You haven’t been mated and bred, yet.”
I gave him a look of pure disgust. “D’you hear yourself? You’re sick in the head, pal. I’m leavin’.”
I tried to get off the bed but I was held back by wires and tubes.
“Get this shit off me, I’m going.”
“You are staying here. I observed you for a while before we retrieved you. Your life revolved around intoxicating substances. You have no job, no home of your own, no future on Earth. Did you even finish school?” Urgoth sounded like he thought I’d made bad choices. I didn’t think I’d had any choices to make.
“I got expelled at fourteen and never went to the other place.”
“Other place?”
“It was a place where they send kids who can’t behave at school. I got sent there but I never turned up.”
The PRU. Pupil Referral Unit. Even the name had sounded like it was going to be a grim reform school. I’d walked past it but wouldn’t go in. Twelve-feet-high fences, no outdoor space for breaks, and they had a policeman on the door who searched people with a handheld metal detector every morning when they arrived. Kev had been there. He said he’d had to hand his phone in every morning. The teachers were strict and the pupils were treated like numbers. Fuck that. When my mum had told me I was going there, I told her to piss off. I’d found a crew of pals who hadn’t given a shit about school, either.
