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Chapter Alpha

A tiny beep rang out from the front of the small dark room. A hard familiar beep that snapped the entire occupancy to the attention of the front. The occupancy consisted of several children, ranging from the age seven until early teens. Each seated around a small table with several touch pads in front of each. All were located on the edge of their seats, like loaded springs, cobras ready to strike. Some fingers were tapping, somewhat impatiently, on the arm rests around the chair.

As soon as the beep had sounded, the entire room snapped their heads towards the large screen in front of the room. A series of numbers quickly flashed across the screen.

(3x((12^8)-(90^2/21))/10 = ?

A smaller girl, no younger than 10, jumped forward in her seat. Grabbing her pen, she began quickly writing the answer, already solving the problem mentally. With in a second, she had the answer written out. 128,994,393. Her palm sweat as she quickly finalized the last nine before a small sound filled the room, filling her blood with fear.

A soft beep rang out from the chair beside her. She quickly finished the last number before collapsing, beaten, on the table in front of her. Cradling her head in her arms in frustration, letting her dark amber red hair fall over her face.

“I guess thats why you're just Beta,” a voice sounded out from behind her. Beta didn’t have to look up to know who the voice belonged to. The Alpha. Two years older than Beta, at twelve, the Alpha had held on to his throne for several of those years and didn't make any signs of slowing. She was stuck as the Beta. It wasn’t often but there were times where she was faster. She was getting better, slowly.

Beta heard the chair beneath her hum before a small shock raced through her body, making her grimace slightly, tightening her fist in pain. Others weren't as lucky; a loud shriek echoed around the room as the Theta screamed in pain, the slowest of the group. Beta grimaced again as the scream was accompanied by a second, the Delta. His incorrect answer causing him more pain than he felt since his promotion from the Theta.

Before the scream silenced, the room beeped again. Beta quickly snapped her head upwards in attention. She quickly scanned the screen in front of her. A grid quickly appeared. Each tile was about a centimeter by a centimeter and on the large screen in front of them, the grid must have held thousands. Each tile was marked with a number and a color. She quickly scanned the screen for a half second before the grid was replaced by a black screen. A group of questions flashed by in rapid succession.

'How many blue tiles?'

'How many tiles with numbers greater than 7?'

'Ratio of red tiles to violet'

Ratio of tiles with odd numbers to tiles with primary colors.'

Beta stared at the list for a half second before it too vanished. She heard a groan from Theta before he quickly started writing something, scratching his head. Beta took a deep breath and closed her eyes, quickly clearing her mind and adding the grid to her minds eye. She could see it perfectly, clearly as if it were right in front of her.

“677 blue tiles,” She thought quickly, counting them and memorizing the number. She imagined her mind was a white board, somewhere she could write and store information for easy recall. Writing '677' to the side, she quickly counted the tiles.

“...19992 tiles with numbers greater than seven...3 red tiles to every 2.73 violet tiles...”She thought, quickly writing the data on the grid below the others. She stole a glance around the room. The Alpha looked stressed, more stressed than he normally looked. Beta couldn’t hold back a small grin before returning to counting. She added the number of blue tiles already counted to the number of red and yellow while at the same time, searching for odd numbered tiles.

“4.726 to 8.009!” Beta thought, snapping her eyes open. She grabbed her pen from behind her ear and quickly entered the data into the touch pad digitizer. She quickly entered the numbers before stealing a glance at the Alpha. He still was rubbing his forehead in frustration. Beta smiled quickly as she added the last number and pressing the enter key. She sat back in her chair with a satisfied grin. The entire process had taken her under two seconds.

A soft beep sounded through out the room during which, Beta couldn't contain her enjoyment. She turned to look at the Alpha with a look of satisfaction. He looked back with a stress riddled face, his eyes half closed. Nothing was written on his data pad. He looked beaten.

“Not Beta for much longer,” She said, her grin growing wider and wider. The Alpha did something that no one in the room expected, especially not even Beta. He returned the grin. Confusion replaced Beta's expression. The Alpha quickly picked up his own touch pad and pen, quickly adding something onto the front. He turned the pad over, showing Beta his solution. Drawn on the front was a picture of a smily face with its tongue sticking out. Beta stared at the Alpha, mouth open, with a look of confusion, the pride long gone.

The Alpha quickly pressed the enter key on the tablet before the smily face disappeared. He smiled quickly and leaned back, resting his head back as if napping.

“You keep telling yourself that,” The Alpha replied sighing peacefully. Beta opened her mouth to say something before she was cut off by a loud harsh beep above her. She quickly looked up at the sound and heard her chair hum loudly. More than she had heard since she was a Theta. She quickly looked down at the data pad in front of her. Something was different, something she should have noticed before but didn’t. Something that was in the back of her mind before but was pushed away.

The tablet was older. It's display was scratched and dented from years of use. The pen was the same, but something didn’t seem right. The pen, which hadn't been out of Beta's sight all day, was new, not a scratch. The tablet didn’t match, even the science lab logo was different. A wave of fear rushed through out her blood stream as she heard her chair hum louder. She quickly looked over at the Alpha's tablet. New and in prestige condition. Matching exactly with her pen. Looking exactly like the tablet she had put in countless other calculations.

“No you didn't,” Beta gasped out quickly before the Alpha turned back and flashed her a quick wink before turning back and closing his eyes again. “NO!” Beta yelled before the humming stopped and an electric force hit her. More force than she had felt in her entire life, raced through her body. She was no longer in control; she couldn't even move, couldn't even feel, only pain existed now. A loud shriek escaped her lips, tearing through the air around her, drowning out Theta's own scream and leaving everyone's eyes locked on her.

After what seemed like an eternity, Beta was freed. Lacking the strength to use her legs, she fell forward quickly, hitting her knees against the hard floor. She grabbed the edge of the table for support and held herself there, breathing heavy.

“You're going to have to hurry up if you think you have a chance at answering this next question right for a change,” The Alpha said. Right on cue, the buzzer beeped above them. “I'll tell you what, I'll even give you a head start.” The Alpha said as Beta rose to her feet, curling her hand into a fist. “I'll count to three. One...-” Whatever he was going to say after that, no one in the room got the chance to hear it. Beta rotated her body, swinging her arm up and outwards. The punch sailed right at The Alpha's smug face.

At the last second, Alpha's hand rose quickly and caught the hand.

“Well, that was surprising.” He said with out a hint of shock in his voice. Beta didn’t respond, she only stared back with her cold dark blue eyes. She, with strength that surprised herself, pushed the chair backwards, propelling the Alpha backwards. He fell quickly backwards, reacting and pushing his feet forwards, kicking Beta across the room. They both hit the ground at the same time.

“I can't say I'm not impressed.” The Alpha said as they both got to their feet. Beta didn't respond, her eyes locked with his. “A Beta...a weak beta at that...throwing an Alpha? Now thats unheard of.” Beta didn’t react, her anger slowly building up.

“If only you can think better than you fight you could be the Alpha...I'd bet that's how you even got to the Beta position in the first place. Fighting your way to the top, if you consider second place as the top, which I guess you do.”

Beta felt her body disconnect from herself, her anger building rapidly. She couldn't feel anything, not the pain from the electrician nor Alpha's kick. She couldn't feel anything, but at the same time, she could feel everything. Everything in the room was like an extension of her own body. The table, the chairs, the people, all a second part of her; an untapped source of her mind. Everything physical was disconnected from her; she didn't even notice she wasn't touching the floor anymore.

“Someone needs to end this,” A scientist in an observation lab quickly stated, watching the fight take place. A second lab technician quickly nodded and reached for the phone on his desk. He picked it up, only to have it slammed back down again into the receiver by a second hand.

“You end this fight and I'll end your life...” a man said from behind them. The lab tech recognized the voice; he didn’t have to turn around to know the man could easily have made good on his promise.

“So, second class, let's see what you can do.” Alpha said holding his hands out wide. “I'd really like to know how someone like you got into a beta position. Come on, I'll even give you the first shot.” Beta didn’t even blink.

“Well, since you insist,” She said coldly before raising an arm up quickly, a move she had never preformed but rather came to her instinctively. The chair she just vacated quickly rose into the air and flew across the room, hitting the Alpha square in the chest. His eyes grew wide for a moment before it struck.

The small chair packed a punch, sending the Alpha across the room and into the far wall. Crumpling to the ground, he looked up to see the last thing he expected. Beta standing in mid air above him, two arm chairs on either side of her, each rotating on opposite axis' in the air.

“I'd really like to know how a rat like you became an Alpha,” She said malice in her voice. “Stealing answers from betas? That cute.” She said as all the touch pads in the room started to rise in to the air. “You want answers so bad? Here take them!” Beta said throwing her arms forwards. The data pads shot forward, attacking the Alpha one by one. Beta rushed forward, grabbing the Alpha by the collar and dragging him into the air.

“If you so much as think about pulling something like that again,” Beta said cold eyes locked with his. “And I will find out...I'll make you jealous of the electrocution Theta's receive. Understand me?” She said before throwing him back in his seat and floating back to the ground.

“Did anyone here see that?” The man said to the two lab technicians. They both looked back at the man most people knew and everyone feared. They nodded quickly.

“You guys knew she could do that?” he asked, his eyes wide, a kid in a candy store. The two lab techs shook their head.

“I want her for my team.” He said breaking his glaze from the monitors. “Demote the Alpha to a shade and send the beta over asap.” He said quickly before walking to leave. “And by asap I mean now.”

“We'll bump her up to an Alpha and send her to your quadrant,” the scientist replied, urgency in his voice. The man nodded and opened the door to leave. Stopping quickly he turned back, his finger to his head as if he remembered something important.

“I don't think the promotion will be necessary. Keep her at Beta. I'd rather not cause confusion. Thanks.” The man said quickly, turning away from the perplexed man.