Now I am become Death

September, 21st

"She's what?"

The man sitting at the wooden desk was positively growling with anger. He stood up, his large bulk making the man in a white lab coat sitting across the desk look like a little, scared, boy.

"D... dead, sir," he replied, stopping for a moment, waiting for a scowl that didn't come. "Well, not technically dead, but she suffered extreme brain damage. The cortex is completely gone, along with most of the deep forebrain. There's some function left in the brain stem, but that's all."

The other man grimaced, making his already large jaw stand out even more.

"And I assume her cybernetics can't just take over."

"They can make her follow commands, even execute complex motor tasks, but they can't replace a human brain in terms of flexibility and tactical thinking. Certainly, they can't make her fight. She'd be nothing but a puppet, a terrible drop from the highly trained agent she used to be. I am afraid," he added, "the Omega Project is at an end."

The large man suddenly slammed his fist on the desk.

"The project isn't finished until I say so! I didn't spend billions to create a perfect, living weapon only to give it up like this!"

"But... Sir! She's dead! Her brain isn't working, it's broken, kaput!"

"Then, Doctor Chester, find me spare parts!"

There was a time when my name was Jason Caldwell. When I was a regular college boy. When I was human.

Then they took me. They stripped me of my identity, my gender, my humanity. They made me hunt and kill for them. Man, woman, teenager - it didn't matter; as long as they were metas, they weren't people. They were threats. They were targets.

I should have felt horrified, disgusted, even desperate. I would, if I still were human.

But nothing of that mattered anymore. It was all left behind. Because I had become the End, Death Incarnate.

"This is Command to Omega, report."

The voice of Brannon, my comms operator, echoed in my head, directly transformed from radio waves to thoughts by my internal communication system. I stared down from the edge of the rooftop I currently laid on, my targeting software highlighting a figure standing in front of the small warehouse below.

"Only one target in sight, the adult. He's watching the door. The others are likely sleeping," I replied, without the need to speak a word.

"You're clear to engage, Omega. Remember that the adult has enhanced strength and reflexes."

"Copy. I'm taking him out first with the sniper rifle."

I opened the large satchel I'd brought and took out the weapon, assembling the silencer and stock, then I suddenly realized I had no clue on how to use the rifle when my ranged combat software suddenly stopped working.

"I'm getting strange logs, Omega. Everything OK?"

"I'm sending a patch through. Hold on."

My Operating System signaled me the incoming update in familiar orange letters, glowing on the left side of my field of vision. Directly interfaced to my visual cortex.

UPDATE IN PROGRESS... STAND BY.

I watched a progress bar quickly fill up, while keeping watch on my target. He had no clue I was here.

UPDATE CORRECTLY INSTALLED.

"Done. My systems look stable again," I thought back to base, as I took aim at the man's head.

BLAM The target collapsed on the ground. Swift and clean.

"The sentry is down. I'm going in."

"Copy."

I dropped the rifle - someone from the cleanup team would take care of that - and jumped down the edge of the rooftop. Activating my flight systems, I slowed down and landed without a sound on the pavement below. I crossed the few feet dividing me from the door in a fluid, quick pace, picking up the dead body of the sentry as easily as I'd lift a rucksack. I dropped it just out of sight from the street, and then concentrated on my next targets.

I knew a group of people was hiding out in the main storage area of the warehouse. Some of them were metas; they were my primary targets. Everyone else had to be taken down too, though; we couldn't afford to deal with witnesses.

I silently slipped into the large space. My targeting software quickly identified three heat signatures in the room. Two of them were sleeping, apparently, but one was standing and was busy waking up the others.

If I could still feel emotions, I'd be annoyed at this development. I wasn't; I just calculated the best course of action and sprung into business. The target who'd been awake first, obviously a meta with some kind of improved senses, knew I was there and turned around to face me. It didn't do him any good. In a moment, I was on him, running a scan of his biometrical data, along with some random stuff such as his cell phone number. An energy blade emerged from my right wrist and precisely buried itself in his throat, leaving him dead on the floor.

While I moved on to the next one, I registered they were kids. All of them - none older than twenty, probably.
Again, it didn't matter to me; my orders were clear.

The second kid, a scrawny boy with brown hair, threw himself at me with a scream of rage. Again, my blade flashed and he went down.

"Adrian! Die you bitch!" screamed a girl on my right. She was one of the youngest in the group, sixteen or seventeen. I turned to face her, and a burst of electricity shot out of her extended arms, hitting me squarely in the chest.

I actually felt that. My core systems were insulated against electrical overload, but that didn't do much good for exposed flesh. Not that I actually cared for pain.

I merely adapted to the new threat, a shimmering energy field expanding from my left forearm into a square that looked like a large riot shield. The girl fired another burst, but the shield caught it and the energy dissipated into nothingness.
She was frightened now. I could see it in her eyes.

"Who... What are you?" she muttered, taking a step back.

I didn't answer. I just kept walking, some leftover of my human brain taking note that I must have looked just like a killer robot out of Terminator; and she was my Sarah Connor.

I let the shield disappear and my left arm shot forward, grabbing the girl by the neck, staring at her face and running a scan of her too.
Just then, the girl discharged again. Once more, my insulation flared to life, and suddenly something was wrong.

WARNING. INSULATION SYSTEM FAILURE DETECTED.

I let her go just in time to save my CPU from frying, and shot a punch at her face, missing completely! My field of vision was now a constant flash of orange, messages running at alarming speed through my sight.

WARNING. CLOSE COMBAT SOFTWARE MALFUNCTIONING. RANGED COMBAT SOFTWARE MALFUNCTIONING.
MULTIPLE SYSTEM FAILURE. SHIFTING TO CORE FUNCTION MODE.

The girl realized something was wrong and started to run away, panting and sweating.

"Command, I'm damaged. Multiple system failure. All combat software is crashing."

"Omega... Wait!"

He never got to end his sentence, as I felt the tingling on my skin signaling my teleportation device coming online.
I emerged in the tech bay, back at the base. It was my default emergency teleport point.

WARNING. CORE DATABANKS DAMAGE DETECTED. EMPATHIC INHIBITOR DAMAGE DETECTED. LOYALTY PROTOCOL SOFTWARE MALFUNCTIONING. DISENGAGING OBEDIENCE PROTOCOL. TRANSFERRING CONTROL TO LOCAL USER.

Suddenly, I let out an ear-piercing yell.