Return the Love

The early morning sun streamed through the window. Omega lay on her bed, eyes closed, still in that phase before you fully wake up and the world around you is just a mess of noises. She could vaguely feel someone gently brushing the few out-of-place strands of hair away from her face. It felt quite nice, actually, but when you're half asleep, you just don't want to be bothered. "Stop it, Alpha." She mumbled, turning over so that her back faced her sister. All was quiet in the room apart from her own breathing and the soothing hum of the air-conditioner motor. Alpha didn't seem to have heard. She just kept stroking, neatening up Omega's ruffled hair. "Alpha . . ." Omega said again, this time with a slight note of annoyance in her voice. She gave up and just lay there, slowly taking in her surroundings, letting her eyes adjust to the light.

Her senses were not yet fully awake, but awake enough to tell her that this wasn't Alpha by her bed side. She sat up, ignoring the sudden rush of blood up to her head, making the whole room spin. She looked to her left. "What in the name of-" she almost yelled out. Then she lowered her voice. "Why are you here?" She glared at the albino twin crouching by her bedside. "Leave now. How dare you intrude like this! Did you come here thinking you might have even the slightest chance of ridding your pathetic life of me?" Her voice was growing louder and louder with each word that departed from her lips. "It's already been predetermined that that isn't going to happen. Too complicated for your insignificant mind to comprehend?"

"No. About yesterday-" Two barely managed to begin.

"Ohhh. Yesterday? What happened?" Omega scorned. "Oh yes. Now I remember. You back here to taunt? Go ahead. Give it your best shot."

"We-"

"Actually you don't need to. Relationship rejections are all pretty much the same. I don't need you; get out of my life; you've changed; I've found someone better than the idiot you are; I already have someone; you don't excite me anymore . . . they all play on the same note." She nodded her head slightly and gave a big grin.

Two cringed inwardly. Each syllable she pronounced was like an arrow being released full force from the bow. And all the arrows had been aimed at him. Very accurately. "That's not what we came here to say. All we wanted to tell you was-"

Omega was giving him no chance. "Leave! Get out! Depart from the region!" She just about screamed, but making a point to keep her voice just soft enough so as not to wake Alpha, who was sleeping in another room down the hallway.

It was hard for Two to keep his expression impassive as he got up and turned to go. He phased and began to sink down through the carpeted floor.

"No. Wait. Come back," Omega's voice suddenly called after him.

Surprised, Two floated back up into the room and phased back to normal. Omega was out of bed and stood in the middle of the carpeted room with an expression that was hard to read.

"Go on. What is it you wanted to say?"

Two took a deep breath before proceeding. "We don't know what has happened to us, but we thought . . . maybe you weren't that bad after all."

Omega didn't move for awhile, but then she slowly nodded and, carefully choosing her words, said, "Thanks for seeing it my way. Carry on."

Easing up a little at this favorable reception, Two continued on. "We thought we'd just try being friends for once. It seems to be no use fighting anyway."

Omega turned her head away to hide the smile that spread across her face. She had to force herself to look serious again before she looked up at Two. "Why the sudden rebellion agains your team, hm? Anyway, let's get out of the house first. Just in case Alpha wakes and finds you here. We don't want that happening." In her hand appeared a small reddish glass bottle. "You stay here. I'll be back soon."

Omega transed through the wall which backed her bed. She floated through a maze of pipes and ended up in Alpha's bedroom.

She crouched down by her sleeping sister's bed and uncapped the bottle. She dripped some of its liquid contents onto her fingertips and let it run down the length of her palm. It burned with a strange coolness. Something like alcohol, but slightly different. She could feel it penetrating her very being.

Omega quickly dabbed it onto the base of Alpha's neck and watched the liquid fade into her skin. Done. Satisfied, Omega transed back into her own room where Two was waiting exactly where she had left him. "What was that?" he asked.

Omega absorbed the bottle back into her inventory and began to explain. "It's something I created. A temporary bug. I formed it because . . ." she lost her pace. She didn't want to talk about this certain issue, and yet she wanted Two to understand. Omega closed her eyes and concentrated on her argument with Alpha on the street last night. In her mind she cut out a segment of the playing memory video-clip and forced it out of her own conscience and into Two's.

Two smoothly took it in and immediately understood Omega's actions. "How'd you create it so fast?"

"A mixture of determination, spite and intellect. Quite simple. Shall we go now? I mean, there's no big rush. The bug will last for fifteen hours, but might as well make the most of it." Omega said with a small shrug.

"Okay."

Standing next to each other out in the bight morning sunshine, they were a strange and out-of-place pair to see. They certainly were the total opposite of each other. They began walking down the pavement. There was an uneasy silence between them. No one knew what to say in order to get the conversation going, so they just kept walking. Two was the first to break the tension. "Where are we headed?"

Omega looked back at him. "I don't know. I don't know where anything is going nowadays," she answered.

"Maybe we could go somewhere without so many humans around. I don't feel safe."

Omega stopped walking and stared at him. "You? Not feeling safe? You could easily kill everyone in this district right now if you wanted to. You don't feel safe? As in, you're scared?"

Two returned her stare. "You altered my coding."

Omega swallowed. She was trying to decide weather or not what she had done to Two was good or bad. It seemed good. He was a little more docile now, but did he like it that way?

"Hey," Two's voice shook her from her thoughts. He was already a few more paces down the street.

"Yeah. Yeah. Coming," Omega said as she walked briskly to catch up with him.

"Where are we going?" Two asked again.

"Some rooftop, maybe. No humans there."

Two seemed to be fine with this idea, so Omega led the way to the rooftop of the state's tallest skyscraper.

"Nice view," Two mused.

"You can see past the city limits from up here," Omega said with amusement as she scoped the area.

The sun was still on its rise and there was a slight chill in the morning breeze. Swallows chirped in a monophonic melody as they ducked and glided on the winds. Far below, humans went about their daily live, not knowing of their artificial world, the 'other beings' among them, and the real existence that controlled them. It all seemed so peaceful from up here, unlike the war which only became more fiery with each moment passed.

Omega sidled up to Two. "So . . . whaddaya wanna talk about?"

"Anything you want."

"Right. Could you tell me more about why you suddenly wanted to get along with me?"

Two stared at her from out of the corner of his eye. "I really don't know how to put that into words. I just . . ."

"It's okay. I think I understand." Omega lightly rested a hand on his shoulder. Two nodded. He looked at her, then at the hand on his shoulder. "Why-" Two began.

"-were we made so different?" Omega completed. Two stared at her in amazement for a moment, and then shrugged it off. It was probably the question both of them had on their minds, but didn't quite want to ask it for fear of a negative answer. "I don't know," Omega said. She walked to the edge of the building. "I only know that everything has a reason." She looked down at the maze of streets below or rather, the enslavement world of creation over creator. "Everything, though it may be hard to see how." Omega seated herself on the edge and beckoned for Two to join her. There was a certain tension as he approached her, but she forced it down and willed her breathing to return to normal. Why was she being so edgy? Couldn't they just have a normal, relaxed conversation with each other?

"You know," she opened. "I never thought we actually be in each other's presence doing anything else apart from fighting. I was meant to kill you, not be . . . friends."

"I was supposed to have been rid of you long ago," Two said in a flat tone.

"You've got your facts upside down. You are the one who should be back at the source right now," Omega playfully retorted.

Two snarled at this, but you could evidently see that he didn't take it to heart. In fact, his snarl could almost have been a smile. Omega saw this. Good. He was easing up a little.

Omega gazed out into the wide, open sun-lit sapphire sky laid before them and just chatted away to herself, or to anyone else who might want to join her in her one-sided discussion. "What is existence? How is it that I am here, as me, in this body, this place, this time, thinking these thoughts? Why was I created as me? Is it for a certain purpose that I'm am looking with these eyes out into the world from the exact position that I stand? What would happen if I and somebody else were to trade minds; would we even notice the difference? Would we have any recollection of our past existence? And there's the word again: existence. What is it? And why?"

"That would connect to 'Are our every action, choice and thought all just part of a script? Have our futures been already not just plotted out, but predetermined?'" Two continued the train of thought.

"Yeah. You have an answer to any of these questions? I sure would like to hear a solution to this alien word. Existence: Nine simple letters, easy pronunciation and yet it has such a tangle of meanings behind it. You ever got that mess sorted out before?"

"You exist because you are meant to be here, saying what you will say and talking through the definition of existence," Two answered.

Omega laughed. "It goes in circles, but I guess that's as straight forwards as it can get," she said.

"We've been trying to solve this puzzle myself for quite awhile."

"So that's why you could so easily give an answer?"

"Actually no, I've never been able to answer it that way before. This time it suddenly seemed so simple, it almost as if I must have been incredibly blinded to not have groomed over that solution before. Maybe it . . . helps to have somebody to pick apart this web."

Omega gazed at him. "You always been this articulate?"

Two exaggeratedly paused. "No. Not always."

"Oh, right. My fault," Omega said. "C'mon, surely not everything was because of me?"

"Actually yes. Everything that's recently happened to me is because of you, to my knowledge," Two replied.

Omega was silent.

"What?"

"But does that sit well with you? I mean, do you like who you've become? You're not the vicious assassin you were. Now you almost seem . . . human," Omega said carefully.

"We're not the only one who's changed," Two said.

"I noticed. Human sounds more like what we are now."

"Programs aren't supposed to feel love."

"No they aren't."

"So why can we?"

"You're the one who knows how to answer these questions."

"This one we can't."

"Looking at how everything has gone, it's all because of me. Saying that this was my doing is a fair enough guess, no?"

"Yes, but how did you change?"

"I'm a hack you know. I'm not a legal program. In a way I'm a virus like you. My coding doesn't follow the usual template. It's more flexible."

"That explains it. A virus affecting a virus."

"That's about it."

"Your coding has partially overridden ours, making it as variable as yours, opening us up to other emotions including love and fear."

"I see no other possibility," Omega said. She slowly leaned over to the side until she was literally leaning on Two. He didn't move, finding himself in an awkward position.

As Omega rested against him, Two could hear her saying something in the tone of voice you would use when you didn't want to say something, but still wanted the other person to know. "Seeing the way Neo and Trinity are in love with each other, I wouldn't say we are like them. They bear a love for each other that I know for a fact I am entirely incapable of feeling. Being a program does have its limits."

"Being limited is not always bad."

"You think?"

"Depends on how you want to weigh the benefits against the losses."

Omega only nodded. She had so much to say, yet for the moment all she wanted was to stay there resting against Two and watching the world below proceed with its hectic schedule. Just one thing was spoiling it all . . .

She lightly grabbed Two around the shoulders from behind and shook him. "Ease up will you? You're as stiff as the Statue of Liberty."

In response Two put his arm around her. "Better?"

"Better."

Omega craned her head to the back and noted something rather significant about their shadows: the closer ends of the shadows were cast relatively far apart, but as they stretched on the eventually drew closer until they merged into one. "Interesting," she said as a warmth flooded her chest.

"What?" Two asked. Omega showed him, to which he judged, "You think you aren't going to meet someone, and then one day you suddenly do."

Omega hugged him in agreement. They whiled away the rest of the day just sitting on the edge of the building, enjoying each other's company.

Finally the sun began to set. It was a marvelous sight as the light sapphire sky backing the city began shifting into a more crimson hue. Omega had seen sunsets before, or at least she thought she had, because she had certainly never witnessed anything like this. Half the sky was washed with an achingly vivid orange-gold. This extraordinary glowing hue was spilled and spread through a network of torn tissue-like clouds that lay horizontally in layers over the horizon. The sky burned more intensely in the spaces between. A lovers' sunset, some called it.

The powerful shades of red and orange gradually ebbed away, leaving a vast expanse of clouded amethyst sky. Regretful that she had to leave, Omega downheartedly reminded her companion that she had to return home, so as not to rouse any suspicions from Alpha. With a quiet "See you soon," from both of them, they parted ways.

Omega transed and floated slowly back home. She silently scorned Alpha. I've spent a whole fourteen hours with one of the Twins and you still haven't come after me. I can deny the false sense of authority you hold over me.

Alpha doesn't know . . . Alpha doesn't know . . . That was the subconscious thought the bounced along the sides of the inside of her head.

-

Sure, Alpha didn't know, but returning from the Chateau, an albino assassin had been wondering where his twin was, had happened to see Two and Omega together, and now crouched in the shadows, enraged, and made up his mind that he was going to weed out these two female irritants once and for all.

-

Omega transed into her house and found, as she had expected, that Alpha was still asleep. She casually made herself something to eat and settled down in front of the television, but she was more thinking about her day with Two than focusing on the news cast which rolled on the widescreen set.

-

Two found his house empty. "One?" he called as he strode through the empty rooms in search of his brother. Maybe he had been retained at the Chateau for a few extra hours. No matter, perhaps he might even join him there. He needed to provide an explanation for his absence that day. He phased back out the door.

-

Alpha awakened and felt her mind being released from some kind of bugging grip. What the heck? Shewondered hazily. Weird, it was still dark outside. Still night? No, her time check reported to be the next day already. She got out of bed and dressed in full before proceeding down the stairs to the living room. Through the full length glass doors shesaw Omega calmly sitting there in front of the television. She could feel an eerie sense of deception in the room, like something was being hidden from her. She delved down into the programming section she and her sister shared. Omega had her guard up. Something was going on here, and Alpha didn't like it.

-

Omega kept here eyes on the television screen and didn't notice Alpha watching her. She didn't notice that the bugging time had expired and had released Alpha from her slumber. And she definitely wasn't aware of Alpha sneaking out of the house.