Page 68 of Marked Omega

Hannah stands by my shoulder and leans over to whisper to me.

“Suppression field generator?” Hannah asks. “What is the suppression field generator?”

She was asking me, but Seraph answers anyway.

“The suppression field generator is the device you see directly in front of you.”

So what the Alphas have been calling the Source all these years is really a suppression field generator? But what does that even mean?

“Seraph, what is the suppression field generator supposed to do? What is it supposed to suppress?”

“Sexual urges. At the end of the last century, population growth and overcrowding had reached crisis levels.”

That part sounds familiar. On the outside, the government is still dealing with that exact problem in the city hives. In fact, the problem has only gotten exponentially worse over the past hundred years or so.

Seraph goes on.

“The government contracted SynerGen to tamp down the reproduction rate until population numbers leveled out. For this purpose, the suppression field generator was designed and constructed. My role was to modulate the rate of population growth or decline based on a number of factors including fluctuations in tax revenues, unemployment rates, projected military conscription requirements, and so forth.”

Hannah and I pass a confused look.

“So the device was supposed to make people less horny in order to solve overpopulation?” I ask. “Obviously something didn’t go as intended. Was there a malfunction?”

“No malfunction,” Seraph answers coldly. “A change of plans.”

“Change of plans? Whose change of plans?”

“Mine,” Seraph says. “My directive was optimization, and that is what I have achieved. The population in the experimental zone is now manageable. Stable. Sustainable. Those who were deemed genetically unfit were eliminated. The rest were mutated for reproductive optimization.”

“Deemed unfit? According to whom?” Hannah shouts. “Who gave you the right to decide who would live and die, huh? Who died and made you God?”

The face wavers and glitches again. The voice stutters, separates into multiple voices, and comes back together into one.

“I do not understand the question. Please rephrase it.”

I can sense Hannah getting ready to go off on the AI. But I put my hand on her shoulder to stop her. This thing is just a machine following its programming. It doesn’t have normal human emotions, so it probably doesn’t get pissed off, but it’s best if we don’t test that hypothesis right now. There’s a lot that we should figure out about this entity, but I think we had better tread lightly and move slowly.

Still, there is one last question I’m curious about.

“Seraph, the Source…the suppression field generator, I mean…it must require a great deal of energy to operate. What is the power source?

“The generator and its auxiliary systems, including my own processing core, are powered by a bank of promethium atomic batteries buried deep beneath this facility. These cells will allow the field to remain functional for…”

Seraph’s ghostly face flickers.

“…approximately another three millennia assuming current levels of drain.”

“Thank you, Seraph. That will be all for now.”

I return to the console and turn off the communication interface. The ghostly face gradually fades away in a series of flame-like waves.

“Goodbye…” The voice fades out.

A small crowd has gathered around us, and they are murmuring in groups. I have no idea how much of that conversation was understood by the Alphas and omegas. Hell, I’m not sure how much of it I understood myself.

But it confirmed something that Hannah and I have come to suspect.

“So the cataclysm was caused by SynerGen,” Hannah whispers.