Page 58 of Shattered Omega

He nodded, considering that. “That explains their interest in Arkology. Did they think they could, perhaps, contribute to the solution themselves? Rather arrogant—but then that isn’t so uncommon in this field… I heard rumours, but tell me, did they find a cure?”

I considered that. This information was dangerous to give away. If it got around, more Akologists may pick it up, and ruin more lives.

Yet, I didn’t think Uncle was like that.

The man before me, Dr. Eugene Howard, was the most ideal candidate for the research they were attempting with me which was focused on reversing gold pack status. He’d fielded many studies on gold pack omegas. Not only that, it was one of the most well-funded research projects ever undertaken.

But, he’d left.

“Why did you quit the research project I was in?” I asked.

He frowned. “The first strike was the incident with you. But the investigation that followed also revealed some unfortunate truths about the subjects we were to research. I learned that not all of them were gold pack when they arrived. Some were held for months and denied the injection—forced to become gold pack. It seems there were a few involved that were tracking data of their own and wished to know if the outcome of the experiments would be affected by whether an omega chose golden eyes, or had the decision taken from them.”

“Do… you think it would have?” I asked, curious about that.

Uncle shrugged. “An omega’s choice is never insignificant, but I do not think the answer to that was worth tainting the research with ethical issues—not an answer any true Arkologist knows anyway.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“There are no loopholes in Arkology,” he said. “Everything comes around with bites and bonds.”

I was silent for a moment, thinking. “So you left the study because of the ethics?”

“I’m not perfect, Shatter. You know that. Lauren does too, but when it comes to my work, I want a legacy I can die peacefully with.”

I nodded, circling back to his original question: Were the studies successful?

“They found a… fix in those trials,” I said. “But not a cure.”

A cure wasn’t what Umbra was to Flynn. The tainted bond between their pack had temporarily halted the effects of Flynn’s aura sickness, but that was all.

“A fix?” Uncle asked. “Of what nature?”

“Aura contracting—as far as I can understand.”

“Pack bonds?” he asked curiously. Aura contracts were known as one of the more powerful energies in Arkology, but they were also the most rigid, and almost impossible to influence outside of their natural course.

They were, in essence, contracts between alpha and omega, alpha and pack, or pack and pack—essentially, the forces behind binding us together.

The formation of alpha-centric packs—such as Dusk, Umbra, and Ransom being in a bond, that was a form of aura contracting. It was a phenomenon that occurred when alphas took Syvex, the bonding drug, and accepted a pack with one another. Another was when an omega accepted a bite into a pack—even the bond on my neck was a form of aura contracting, though dark bonds were not a natural course of nature.

Most importantly, all aura contracts followed similar laws, and the connection between my pack and the Lincoln pack, I believed was the same.

“Yes,” I said. “But not any aura contract I’ve ever seen or heard of.”

He tilted his head. “How does that work?”

“From what I can tell, they tried to manufacture alpha to alpha contracting in a similar way to how dark bonds work.”

Uncle froze, eyes widening. “That is a dangerous game…”

He was right. It wasn’t only a volatile energy source to work with—evidenced by the many alphas who had died in that facility—but it was one of the most heinous crimes within Arkology. “To mess with a force as restricted as dark bonds… And… it worked?” He looked concerned.

“In a way.”

“How?”

“The pack with aura sickness connected to the other—my pack.”

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