Chapter Text
Yeah sure, no one got cancer anymore. But only the lucky few got to have children. That’s why Omegas were valuable.
When the anti-cancer serum became available, everyone who could afford it got inoculated. The only side effect was a minor cold and stomach ache that lasted a few days. People who didn’t get the injection got the flu like symptoms too, but it was all so mild, so unremarkable that hardly anyone noticed or commented at the time. But the serum wasn’t a harmless collection of dead cells. It was a living virus that affected the very DNA of everyone who came into contact. And the long-term effects weren’t obvious for years. First, birth rates started levelling, then dropping. Dropping dramatically.
The kids who were born showed the second generation effects. After puberty, they presented in one of three ways. 90% were ‘Beta’. Almost all women were Beta and most men were too. Betas were normal in almost every way, except with low fertility. 8-9% were ‘Alpha’ - men demonstrating more sex drive and general aggression/leadership - but almost completely sterile unless they mated with a compatible Omega. The useless fucking delicate flowers that were Omega, all female.
Obedience. Surrender. Breathe. Submit.
The world’s population had halved and then halved again. Women had never been regarded as full citizens in the pre-Alpha era, but things were much worse afterwards. In the chaos, Omegas were reviled, courted, sacrificed and locked away until the Central Government Authority came up with a plan to protect and re-stock them. As soon as their status became clear, Omegas were sent to government-run sanatoriums, kept separate from the general population except for the Omega rooms at breeding hotels and the hideousness that was Matching.
To maintain a population, each woman has to have 2.1 children and access to modern medicine. Now that government had stabilised, healthcare wasn't an issue, but the birth-rate was still at extinction levels: approximately 1.3 live births per woman. But Omegas matched to a compatible Alpha could easily have 5-10 children.
Sometimes Omega status wasn’t clear until the first heat, which could present anywhere from 16 to 25. Your presentation hadn’t come until you were 23, secure in your assignment as a Beta. You were happily working in a government lab on the scientific project of the decade: harnessing the Omega pheromone to increase Beta fertility.
Your experiment results started to skew from established norms, though you checked and double-checked the results, re-calibrating your pheromone reader. Your placebo group’s pheromone readings were off the charts. How was this possible? An Alpha supervisor had come to look over your lab, recognised your pre-heat scent and immediately pressed the contamination button, leaving you locked down in an underground lab to suffer through your first heat alone. Later, you found out that the supervisor was bonded to an Omega of his own, otherwise you might have had to the additional torment of a forced mating. Some Omegas were seriously injured if left unguarded during their first heat, as multiple Alphas zeroed in on their scent and fought for the right to mate.
Obedience. Surrender. Breathe. Submit.
At least you’d had the decontamination shower and relative privacy. Sarah, your first dorm mate at the sanatorium, had come into heat at the bakery where she worked and had had to live out both days of heat in a building with a plate glass window. She’d tried to stick paper to the front window to give herself some dignity, but hadn’t really been in much condition to reattach the sheets that had fallen down by the second day. Apparently, the bakery attracted a loyal Alpha clientele whilst it was closed. When it re-opened they still came in to enjoy the scent of Omega and once that was gone, the memories of a heated Omega lying on the floor in a pool of her own juices, ripe and ready for anyone willing to smash the glass and beat their way through the six Beta guards armed with cattle prods who stood outside. It didn’t bear thinking about.
The sanatorium wasn’t a prison. Omegas were to be cosseted and kept happy. They just weren’t allowed to do anything REAL whilst they waited for bonding. Their work was to go into heat regularly so their pheromones could be used to increase the fertility of Betas at breeding hotels. It was degrading, but as you were usually only semi-conscious for most of your heat you were mercifully unaware of most of it. All you had to do was lie in a room and sweat whilst an extractor fan swept your scent out to the rooms of the breeding hotel. At some point, you’d be so overcome with sexual desire that you’d start pawing at the handlers, futilely masturbating and attempting to find some relief by humping furniture. That was when your pheromones were most powerful. Your face burned when you thought about it.
Obedience. Surrender. Breathe. Submit.
The hotel handlers were professional, even kind, but the whole thing was just too awful to think about much. Handlers were all Beta women, many with medical degrees. You’d wondered why such well-qualified people would want the work, which was essentially shepherding near-comatose damp sheep around their pens, but one day you’d heard two handlers gloating over being exposed to constant high doses of Omega pheromones, increasing their chance of pregnancy. All they had to do was keep you hydrated in your heat and help you to shower afterwards, it wasn’t like you were violent. No, you only begged them to have sex with you.
God. Jesus. Fuck.
Quarterly, Omegas were given the ‘opportunity’ to find a compatible partner at a Matching session. This entailed sitting VERY still in a ‘controlled environment’ (aka cage), whilst un-bonded Alphas wandered about staring. Embarrassing and AWKWARD, especially when you noticed a former colleague or school friend stalking around looking predatory. You were fucking meat on display.
Obedience. Surrender. Breathe. Submit.
What else could be expected from a government sponsored attempt to find fertile pairs? A compatible pair could produce more children, and children were what everything was all about. When you’d thought of yourself as Beta, you’d considered this corralled life to be completely acceptable for Omegas. They had a role to play; it was only right that they should share their fertility for the common good. Now that you were an Omega, it all felt wrong. And you missed your lab. Hell, you missed your life.
The one where you’d been able to eat hamburgers, go out dancing with friends, speculate over who was in love or could be in love, and ogle cute guys. Love wasn’t a consideration for Omegas. They had bonding, duty and, if they were lucky, children. Those were their callings. Your callings.
Fuck it.
Your life now consisted of having your blood tested and your temperature taken regularly, swimming at an indoor pool, tennis in the courtyard or jogging the indoor running track. Re-reading the same books at the library. Compulsory group therapy. Meditation sessions. Healthy meals and a healthy body! No smoking, no alcohol and minimal outside contact.
Sarah had come back to visit a couple of times since her bonding and honestly, she seemed happy enough. She was clearly ecstatic to be pregnant again but the way she described her Alpha was creepy. She worshipped the guy. He was the leader of the regional council, but to hear Sarah talk, he was a fucking senior statesman, holding the fate of the entire human race in his hands. Omegas were like that with their bonded mates. It was ridiculous, and it made you feel nauseous to think you’d ever be like that yourself.
When you tried to talk to Sarah about it, she was half angry with you, half shy. Apparently you’d understand when it was your turn. But it was never your turn.
You’d been stuck in the sanatorium for 18 months now, and you were going insane for lack of mental stimulation. You had to admit that the stereotypes about dumb Omegas were depressingly accurate. These people were not geniuses. Some of them could do a capable watercolour or sketch, but they weren’t real artists. One of the girls had played the guitar and sung competently, but she was bonded before you really got to know her. Hardly any of the women had started a tertiary degree and only one or two tried to complete it once their Omega status became clear. They knew the high school version of how the Alpha/Beta/Omega split worked, but it was all surface material. If you tried to discuss your work with the protein molecules that made up DNA, you were talking to a brick wall. Smiling, compliant brick walls who were patient and kind to you, but completely uncomprehending.
Obedience. Surrender. Breathe. Submit.
The head of the medical unit lent you his journals and even subscribed to some new ones for you, but you were trapped in a gilded cage with no way of getting back to your beloved lab and doing real work. You missed the cut and thrust of intellectual life. The excitement of fail-safe experimentation, where each step could be THE breakthrough that allowed the human race to reclaim control of fertility.
Obedience. Surrender. Breathe. Submit.
You thought of your sister and her grief at her continued infertility. As immediate family, she had the right to ask for a concentrated heat pheromone session with you at a breeding hotel. And you’d agreed to do it when she summoned the courage to make the formal request. It was awful to have to listen to her and James having sex in the room next to you on the first day, and humiliating to know that they were going to hear you groaning in your heat. And it hadn’t even fucking worked. She hadn’t visited since, shrinking away from the enforced intimacy as much as you had. A polite thank-you note for your help and then nothing for six months until she sent a generic Christmas card and finally 3 months after that a gushing phone message to say she’d finally won the lottery and was going to have IVF treatment. You knew you’d bumped her up the list because women related to Omegas had an increased chance of success and you were glad for her. Jesus fuck, let it work. Let some good come out of this misery.
Mediation helped you to keep calm and control your frustrations. Breathe. Submit. Let go of your sense of self. Patience. Obedience. Surrender. Breathe. Submit. Your scientist mind knew that it was logical for you to not beat your head against the bars, so you tried to co-operate with the system. There was no escape from your fate, and you weren’t even sure you wanted to escape. Omegas owed the rest of the human race whatever they could give. Obedience. Surrender. Breathe. Submit.
Your parents lived several jumps away and kept their distance once your status was declared. Your mom had made something of a media personality out of being a Beta who’d had three unassisted successful pregnancies. She gave advice on what foods to eat and wrote a self-help book on the power of a positive attitude. When one of her children turned out to be Omega, it took some of the wind out of her sails. Positive thinking had little to do with it when you breathed in the same air as an Omega every day.
Breathe. Fucking submit.