Ch 1: The Circumstances

Conrad Fitzroy. Male. Delta. That's what it said on the name-tag I wore. Sub-gender, nice and bright underneath the gender and name. Delta. It was too bright. Too noticeable. I saw it every morning as I walked into the bar. Clocked in using the chip on the back of the name-tag. Pinned it on. Saw it again every night as I clocked out and threw my uniform into a small and dirty locker. Saw it in the bathroom mirror as I went on my break.

It was a reminder of what I was and everything I wasn't. I was a delta. I was not an omega. I was not an alpha. Hell, the goddess couldn't even have been bothered to make me a beta or a gamma.

It wouldn't have been so bad, I often thought. I could handle the dirty looks as I walked into a New York Cafe above my pay grade with omegas way out of my league and alphas taller and stronger than I could ever hope to be. But, y'see, it ain't even that dismally simple. Oh no.

See, alphas were the kings and queens of the world. The leaders, the strongmen, the boss that could chew your ass out because he was having a rough patch with the wife. Betas were the charismatic second-in-ranks. They were also strong and had powerful personalities and enough social goodwill that, honestly, who could hate them? They were alphas without tempers. Maybe weaker. The gammas were the perfect middle. The most common subgender, if only by a plurality. Lean, smart, kind, normal. A very versatile group of people. Then came the deltas.

Yes, in technicality, omegas were the lowest rank. At least, insofar as the outdated and politically incorrect (as many academics liked pointing out) ranking system was organized, which was on the basis of average physical strength and temperament. Omegas were the weakest on average. Of course, they were also very intelligent.

That wasn't the point, see. The point? The point was that, out of the five, deltas were the awkward sibling. Not quite the adored youngest, nor the respected oldest. They weren't considered as smart as gammas, as pretty as omegas, as strong as alphas, and much too awkward and servile to charm and socialize like betas. Some joked that deltas were omegas but only if omegas were too tall, too lanky, too pale, dumb and asocial and, well, in politically incorrect terms, ugly.

Those were the circumstances. "Those are the cards you get," my dad would say. "What you gonna do about it, kiddo?"

I hadn't done much. I didn't need to do anything more than get used the circumstances that surrounded my life. I staved off the bullies. It wasn't particularly difficult. After all, there were no alphas at the old schools around the blocks where I grew up. What alpha family with enough money (and that was most of 'em) in their right mind would send their alpha or omega kid to schools in a decrepit neighborhood of New York?

"Can't be that hard, anyways," I remembered my dad telling me with a half-smirk. "Deltas can go their whole life ignored."

It was true. If we weren't being ostracized for being in the wrong space, we were left alone. I stuck with my delta friends. We grew up like any other kid. We jumped rope, played four square, failed quizzes, tested our curfews and dated. All within our own little delta bubbles. Maybe a stray gamma would join us at our lunch table or out in a game of tag in the school yard.

Really the circumstances weren't that bad. I hardly even noticed, growing up in a slightly rowdy part of the city. I was Conrad, son of Connor and Linda Fitzroy (both deltas), Irish catholic descent, male, red-head, big green eyes, toothy grin, aspiring mechanic or craftsmen like my dad. I had my best friend, James Montgomery Roman, son of a very rich and powerful family but also a delta with an awkward smile. I had Elise Okafore (gamma), a daughter of Nigerian immigrants and the type of person who would find abandoned buildings throughout the neighborhood to drink beer  in on lazy nights and wax gibberish and pseudo-philosophy while passing a joint.

Delta was a label that hardly mattered. Life was simple. My dreams and future were simple.

My dad bought a small shop on the outskirts of the neighborhood. There was a small one bedroom apartment on top of it. I remembered him, tall and heavily built for a delta man. Unkempt beard, flannel that smelled like wood shavings with the sleeves rolled back to the elbows. Elise's father stood next to him. Both of them were staring at the small, empty building with arms crossed and big grins.

"It's gonna be our studio office thing, red," he told me then, as he ruffled my hair while shooting a thumb at Elise's dad. "Hell yeah, it's gonna be good. Your old man's gonna sell way more furniture this way, moving out of the garage and all. And Elise's father can teach you two about working a car."

Elise let out a whoop before hugging me in her excitement. It was something she rarely did but as we looked at the decrepit square little thing of what would be our fathers' shared workspace, I could understand her joy. College wasn't an option. Apprenticeships were hard to find. But now, Elise's father would teach us everything about being mechanics. It was something both her and I had wanted.

See? Life was simple. The circumstances were great. Just, y'know, I wish that I'd known then that they tend to change. Life always finds a way to make things more complicated. It's like the fifth law of thermodynamics or something. Life can never be that easy.

When I turned eighteen, my family threw a block party as was the case for local kids turning eighteen. Everyone was running around outside the large spaces between the apartments and the smaller houses. Neighbors I'd known like extended family my whole life came to give me small presents or the small amounts of money they could afford to give away. Kids ran around chasing after each other. I spent the day with Elise and a few others. James couldn't come. His father wouldn't allow him to come to "this side of town."

"What a bougie prick," Elise said when I told her. I chuckled. We were sitting on the cracked steps to my house, drinking cream soda and watching the kids run around and the adults mingle.  Before I could reply to Elise, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see my dad. We smiled at one another.

"Hey red," he began, before pulling out a small box and offering it to me. "Happy birthday."

I opened it to find a small cassette tape and a walkman for the tape. When Elise begged me to let her listen to the tape, I refused. It was something special, I knew. I would listen to it when I was alone.

The thing was, I never actually listened to the tape. Two things happened after I turned eighteen. First, my parents died.

Or they may have been killed. In a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood like mine, the cops weren't always the cleanest. They told me that my father had drunk too much coming home from the shop. My mother had been there with him that night as she was on most nights when my father had to stay for a long time to finish up a piece. I was told by two apathetic officers that the car had run off the road and hit a tree. I didn't believe them. But there was rule around the area. You didn't call out the dirty cops. Especially not beta cops. Especially not beta cops most likely on the payroll of some powerful alpha. Especially not when you were a delta. A poor, blue-collar, weak delta.

They were probably robbed by some street thugs working for someone much bigger. I would never know.

It was the first time I'd felt my subgender with such foulness. Such hatred. Helplessness. Delta. I was a delta. There was nothing I could do. No lawyers to hire. No investigation. No charges. No trial. Only a sombre funeral service that left the insides of my organs cold and numb, a dull, aching, almost distant pain seeking to latch onto my heart and mind and rip both apart.

I left the neighborhood. I left the city. I went west. Portland, Oregon. My cousin Vinnie had a bookstore there. It was small, cramped, and dusty, and I wasn't much of a reader but it pulled me away from the cruel memories that plagued my thoughts of New York. I could forget, once again, that I was a delta. Portland was a nice, liberal city. At least the omegas didn't tell you to your face the true reason why they "couldn't" take up your offer of a date.

Life once again settled into a simple rhythm, if with a slight ache and dullness to it. I still kept the tape my father gave me. I didn't want to look at it the first few years. Then, the next few, I was looking for the right moment to do so.

On my 22nd birthday, I almost planned to do so. Then I got distracted. The second thing that happened was that I met Joseph Darling.

-8-

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