Page 57 of The Omega Archives: Part Two

“Yeah,” said Rita. Her voice dippeddownlow as if she wasn’t sure exactly how she was supposed to sound when she said hernextwords.

Happy? Angry? Relieved?

If Iwasher, it would probably be the last one. She had been holding onto my secret for as long as I had. It was a long time.

My body said so.

“Looks like the omega is out of the bag, huh?”

“Yeah.” Thefullunderstanding of it all still made my heart hammerin my chest. The reality settled in. “It looks like it.”

“I’m sorry about your job too.”

“Thanks. It was a…” I searched for the right word to describe wha I was feeling. “Shock with everything else going on.”

“There have been cuts all over campus recently. A few of the PhD stipendswere pulled,” she said.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish. LuckilyI’mstill here and in the gamealongwith a few others. It doesn’t make sense since there is also this new guy here that’s a fellow. He just started after the conference. We sort of met there actually.”

“Sounds like you more than met.”

“Details, details,” she teased. “He’s here at Prestford on somekind ofexchange situation? I have no idea. He seems nice enough.”

“Cute?”

“We aren’t talking about that.” Rita chuckled.

“Details.” I repeated her previous statement.

“To be shared at a later date.”

So cute andsmartif Rita was interested.

“He was shopping around for fellowships or something? After hearing me ramble on about the campus and how I have amazing friends here in the librarylikemy favorite junior archive assistant– I’m talking about you,” she said.

“I’m aware,” I chuckled.

“Prestford won him over. He said he had to come and see the place and meet you if you’re as fun as I sad you were.”

“You were clearly exaggerating.”

“I wasn’t. Don’t put yourself down like that,” she said. “His name is Paul. He works in the engineering department . I don’t knowandhonestly, I’m too grateful to still be in my program to care much even though he did…invite me out to dinner.”

“You’ll have a great time.”

“We’ll see. So, where are you anyway? Did you finally call up Omega Services? The librarian mentioned something about a pack...Oh my god. Did this happen because of that pretty boy’s pack he mentioned?I swear if they did anything to you, I will hunt them down.”

“Stop, Rita. It’s fine. I’m fine,” I said. Well, now I was anyway. “So,remember those suppressants that I managed to get?”

“From your old supplier, right?” Her voice dipped in case anyone was listening wherever she was.

“Yeah, I thought so anyway.”

“Did something happen?”

I took a deep breath. “Turns outtheywere fakes.”

---