Page 14 of The First Omega Made
“He knows.” Two words I already knew but made me feel cold in the pit of my true body.
“I know. I was there for that much.” I opened my arms and took Doc in. “I’ll be okay. I’m at the end of my host’s lifespan anyway.”
“But I don’t want you to be. And he made my body react, and I hated it, and he thinks Noel is this thing called a gene bomb, and he wants my eggs and to ablate me—” He choked over his words and told me all that was said.
I wanted to die. I was ready for it not a day prior, but hearing Doc cry into my arms, sobbing about his body’s betrayal—the potential for this male to claim them. I wanted to live. I wantedto live just long enough to save him. “Stay in my room. Do not leave. Stay with me.”
“But I have to—they’re in my lab.” Doc tensed and clutched to me.
“Come back to me, then. Tell them I’m sick. In fact… Merriel!” I held Doc and took him to my bed, pulling him down with me.
“’Sup?” Merriel’s tinny voice obscured Doc’s sharp breaths.
“I’m sick. Not coming out for a while.”
“Yep. Space sickness.” He cut out with that finalized beep he sometimes did for show.
“Do you think they’ll buy it?” I caught Doc’s gaze with what I hoped was a humorous grin.
“They buy everything Noel says, and he’s refuted any sort of current language initiatives.” Doc’s misery broke for a moment, a half smile dusting over his pretty lips. Despite the anxiety I felt over my lips, the mustache I grew covering a deformation that refused to heal, I kissed him. And for a moment, I could swear I felt a spark between us. Feeling that, I continued the kiss until Doc nuzzled away, placing his head in the crook of my neck. “I wish you could mark me for yourself like Vil and Noel. I don’t like this feeling.”
“It’s okay. Even if he does lure you in, I’ll understand. If your body draws to him, it means there’s compatibility.” I knew so much about Naleucians that I could never speak about. And Noel being a gene bomb? I had heard the concept, and gene bomb was the best term for them. He was a transmissible recombinant donor. Pieces of him were like me, in a way. My body could inhabit a host and change it. His body could infect a host and alter it down to the DNA, as I saw happening with Doc. I traced fingers over his scales. “Do you trust me?”
“I trust you. More than anyone.”
“How much serum do you have left from Noel’s isolate?” I traced my fingers through his hair, the once-dark locks pale from root to almost the tips, just the barest dusting of dark brown left from his last cut. I twisted the ends between my fingers as he thought.
“Six more treatments before I’ll—”
“Merriel! Tell Noel to get four of the green labeled vials from the cryo and bring them. Please.” I waited for a response for a solid minute, confident he’d heard me.
“With a syringe?”
“You know it.” I continued to play with Doc’s hair.
“He’s on his way. And he’s absolutely delighted to get away from whatshisname. Shafa.” Merriel beeped out, and I continued to cradle Doc until the door to my room opened a few minutes later. Noel slipped in, equally disturbed by his expression—though he didn’t show it nearly as vividly as Doc. His stiff features withheld so much.
I rose from my bed and held my hand out. “Thanks, Noel.”
“Are you going to—”
“No. Please understand that I cannot. I’m going to give Doc a large dose. It’ll put him out of commission, but it should kick things off to make them permanent. It’ll take a while.” I took the syringe and loaded a vial into it, glancing over at a fearful Doc without making eye contact. He had every opportunity to stop me and say no, but he didn’t. He pushed the waistband of his pants down and rolled to his side to give me his hip.
“Speeding things up. Because I’m a gene bomb thing? A lot of humans died from my genes. I am in so many of them.”
“No, your space genes weren’t the reason so many died,” I said, and Noel blinked impassively. “They tried to alter your genes before using them without realizing that you’re mostly stem cell. You’re recombinant, so when your genes infectsomeone, it alters their genes, and they need maintenance until the change is complete.”
“How do you—” Noel held two of the vials while I injected one into Doc’s hip, rubbing the spot where the needle pierced. I didn’t bother getting another needle or sterilizing. He’d not need to worry about bacteria soon.
“I just do.” I reached toward Noel, beckoning for a third. “I didn’t know what you were, but now that I do, I know you’re very special. It’s why you’re near colorless.”
Noel glanced at his hair and skin, brow furrowed. “I have blue in me.”
“A little, but you have the markers for all the colors. Green, blue, purple, red, yellow, and potentially bicolored alphas. I’ve studied Naleucian history—I don’t talk about it much because it’s just hearsay. What Shafa said is the truth.” I pushed the second and third syringe in as Doc hid his face in the blankets and tensed. The needle pushed between two scales, and red blood that had a slight magenta cast to it beaded next to the sharp tip.
“Oh.” Noel stared me down, those black and blue eyes penetrating me so deeply. All the questions left unasked would remain unanswered.
“I’ll tell you as soon as I can, any question you ask, but let Vil know that Doc and I are out of commission until he’s better. I’ll stay with him.”
