Chapter One
Zetas were the last virally altered dynamic caste to be categorized. Only a handful are known to exist.
Accelerated metamorphosis allows them to change biology and mimic other dynamic castes. Depending on the magnitude of the alteration, this process can take anywhere from a few minutes to several weeks.
It has been theorized that more of this caste exists, but that during early development, they latch onto a preferred alternate caste and remain in that form, effectively locking in the changes for life.
~Doctor Lillian Brach
Zeb
Another day, another mission. They’re beginning to blur into one another. Am I addicted to the adrenaline rush? I think maybe I am. They deliver a flicker on an otherwise flatline of numbness.
Am I looking for death?
Hell no.
But maybe I’ve grown reckless. It does something to you, this lifestyle of war.
Fun fact: the war isn’t changing, but I recognize that I am.
I’m thirty-two. Not exactly old, but I sense I’ve been in this game too long. I’m an anomaly in the world of dynamics. Rarer than a delta. Rarer than the singular omegas. To most, my kind is a myth—a rumor passed around military bunks. I’m a misfit doomed to forever be on the outside looking in. That happens when you live in a society with a caste system and don’t fit into a neat slot. The zeta. The shapeshifter. I can become anything… almost.
It takes time, though. It’s not like the flick of a switch. Muscle mass, posture—even scent changes. Some things are easier than others and can happen in real time, and some can take days and even weeks. Going bigger is easier than going smaller. I’ve played most types of dynamics. Never tried an omega, and don’t aspire to, either. I guess there are limitations as to what can fit. I’m pretty open-minded sexually but taking an alpha dick and knot in the ass for the sake of a mission, that’s a hard pass.
But occasionally, like this operation, I play the role of an alpha.
My default body is that of a larger beta. Lean muscle, deceptively strong, all optimized to the molecule. I’ve beentested, poked, and prodded at, and they say I’ll live for a very long time—assuming I don’t die in the field, which is looking increasingly likely if they keep throwing high-risk missions my way.
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the stretch of a life with no end date scrambles the human mind.
I know I think too much. Sometimes I ponder these things alone in the dark of night. And sometimes I have an existential crisis during a pre-mission briefing.
Right before I break someone’s face.
Which, given the way this recruiter is irking me, is looking increasingly likely.
“Have you ever been with an omega?” the recruiter, Bob Billion, asks, a note of challenge, maybe snark, in his tone that I really don’t like. “Can you fake it?”
Is that his real name? Whatever… Bob is presenting himself as a good candidate for face breaking right about now. His office is a bland box with a viewer screen on one wall showing a tropical rainforest, of all things. Recruiters all appear the same to me. Not on the surface, because they can present in every color, race, gender and nuance possible. But underneath, at their core, they all develop over-inflated egos. They are non-virally altered, known as non-dynamics. They should be at the bottom of the caste system, but some fuckwit in command decided they were uniquely qualified to be impartial when it came to allocating alpha and omega pairings on operations.
Spoiler alert: they’re not.
The spaceport at Primus9 isn’t the largest military port, but it has the biggest throughput. Queues are everywhere. I bypassed most of them on my way here. Pity I couldn’t skip Bob Billion and his snarky questions. Unfortunately, my mission requires me to shadow a regular military operation where I will be allocated to a team. Some other fuckwit decided, in their infinitewisdom, I needed to play not only an alpha, but a controller… which means I need an omega allocated to me.
I did question the order… more than once. I have a lot of training, and none of it involves their dynamic, nor how to control them. But apparently, my last mission drew some chatter on the Uncorrupted networks when I played the part of a regular alpha. Then there are the rumors that they have spies among our ranks thanks to their alliance with the thetas. Being a controller would lend an extra layer of camouflage to my movements prior to going undercover.
Cue a fuckton of research, in what should have been my downtime.
I mean, I’ve got the basics of the controller-omega relationship. I’ve hung around military personnel long enough and taken part in enough operations to get the gist. And faking things is pretty much my forte, so I have this covered.I hope.
I indicate the data tablet on Bob’s desk. “You’ve read my resume, I presume, yet you’re asking me this question?” I add just a hint of incredulity. My smile is all teeth and no warmth.
He fiddles with his data tablet and doesn’t answer.
“I’m not an alpha. Alphas behave around your special kind of fuckery, at the risk of being allocated to a remote mining colony. The kind where there are no sweet, needy omegas and the only action their dick will get is via their own hand or a fellow alpha, which, you know, doesn’t always hit the same spot. Tends to help them focus on being polite.”
I step closer.
