Omega Protocol

It Begins

Hailey Is Fired

Old Friends

The Truth

Jason Takes Omega Out

Jason Falls For Hailey Again

Hailey Meets Dr. Rovert

“Hey, Hailey, It’s Jason. But you probably already knew from caller ID. Uh, I know that you're having a tough time right now with the jobs and everything so I wanted to say that if you needed help with anything just let me know. I’m gonna be at the Fareway for lunch today so if you want to meet me there we could talk about it. Or just hang out, that works too. Umm, ok bye.”

Jason had sent this voicemail this morning hoping to be able to have a moment with just the two of them. He couldn’t believe how awkward he was. Ever since Omega had been staying at his apartment it had only ever been the three of them. Jason looked at the clock on the wall, it said 1:00 pm. At this point he had been waiting in a booth at the Fareway for nearly an hour.

“Probably should’ve named a specific time.” He put his phone down and let out a sigh. He decided he would just enjoy the rest of his coffee and then go home, after all Hailey was a busy woman, she probably had something more important going on.

“Hey, is this seat taken?” Jason looks up from his drink and sees a beautiful girl with short red hair, a choker with spikes on it and a stud in her nose.

“Uh… no, it’s not.”

“Cool.” She sits on the other side of the booth and smiles at Jason. Jason just stares at her for a moment before she speaks again. “I’m Valery by the way, you got a name?”

“Um, Jason.”

“Had to think about it?” Jason couldn’t think of a witty response fast enough. “That’s ok tough guy, at least you’re cute right?

“Haha yea.”

“Got any hobbies Jason?”

“I make music sometimes. I’m just getting back into it.”

“Oh me too. Well, not making music, but I get local bands to play at gigs and things.”

“That’s cool. Any good bands around?”

“Let’s say there are some aspiring bands around. Don’t get me wrong, I love that people are doing what they love, but one city can only have so many Queen and AC DC cover bands y'know? Would be awesome to have something fresh.”

“Yeah, making original stuff is hard though, sometimes you just want to play a song because of how it made you feel when you listened to it for the first time.”

“Woah, cute and a philosopher. Who raised you?”

“My grandma.” Jason was starting to get some of his confidence back, and while the response was sarcastic, it was also true.

Hailey wakes up in her home alone. She takes a shower, gets dressed, and sits down on her couch in front of her TV to open her laptop and read the damage. She checks her emails and sees that she has ten more rejected job offers. She closes her eyes and breathes heavily hoping that when she opens them again that the problem will be gone. She thinks about what she should’ve done differently but she can’t think of anything. She would either have to build an ultimate weapon or lose everything that she worked for since middle school. Its a lose lose no matter how you slice it. She opens her eyes again and checks her phone. Turns out that she has two missed calls. One from Jason, and one from an unknown number. She turns on the voicemails and listens.

“Hey, Hailey, It’s Jason. But you probably already knew from caller ID. Uh, I know that you're having a tough time right now with the jobs and everything so I wanted to say that if you needed help with anything just let me know. I’m gonna be at the Fareway for lunch today so if you want to meet me there we could talk about it. Or just hang out, that works too. Umm, ok bye.” Hailey laughs at the awkwardness of the voice mail. Some things never change. She opens the next voicemail.

“Hello Dr. O’hara, this is Dr. Rovert, the dean of the Rosen Institute of Technology. I wanted to talk to you about your application to be a professor at our school.” Hailey’s face lights up, as this is the first real response she has gotten from anyone in days. “I had some things I wanted to discuss with you if you're interested before offering you the position. If you're still looking for the opportunity, why don’t you stop by my office today at the university at around 1:00. Thank you for your time, have a good one.” After the voicemail ends, Hailey screams. She looks at the time on her phone. 12:40. She immediately enters panic mode and drops everything to get ready and out the door as quickly as possible.

Later when Hailey gets to the university, she walks into the pristine front office. Everything is totally new and spotless. Hailey expected nothing less from an ivy league school. She checked the time, 1:03 pm, hopefully she wasn’t too late. She steps up to the secretary.

“Hello, I’m Dr. O’hara here to see Dr. Rovert.”

“What time was your appointment?”

“1:00”

“Hmm, I’m not seeing anything on Dr. Rovert’s schedule for 1:00, are you sure that is the time?”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure, I had received a voice mail from him asking me to be here at one.”

“Ok, well I’ll let him know you're here, so it will just be a moment. You can go ahead and have a seat until he is ready for you.

“Yeah, no problem, thank you.” Hailey picks one of the many uncomfortable chairs to sit in, and contemplates what she is going to say. After pushing the hair out of her eyes for the millionth time, she worries about whether Dr. Rovert will bring up the latest buzz about her career, or worse, the defense grant. She sits in agony in anticipation as time seems to slow to a stop. It had only been two minutes.

“Dr. Rovert is ready for you, just go ahead and head inside.” Shocked by the break in silence, Hailey jolts up and walks into the office. Inside she finds a well dressed man in a suit, sitting at his desk surrounded by books about various topics.

“Ah, Dr. O’hara, so nice of you to drop by. Please, have a seat.”

“Of course, and thanks for replying to my application.”

“Absolutely, after all it did seem strange to see your name appear on the applicant sheet. The job listing seemed a bit below your station, and I just wanted to make sure you knew that we were just looking for a professor to teach intro level courses.

“Yes I’m aware. I wanted to put my hat in the ring for a change of pace from my usual work, ya’know? Figured I could give teaching a try.”

“Oh yeah, I get it, I mean getting to be on the cutting edge of robotics I’m sure is super tiring work.”

“Yes it is. And to be honest I don’t know if I’m really cut out for it.”

“Oh nonsense. I’ve read your books, and more importantly your dissertation, and I have to say, I am very impressed with your work. Truly you are ahead of your time when it comes to learning algorithms.” Hailey is a bit taken back by the compliment. It’s a nice change of pace from the things her colleagues are saying about her.

“Thank you so much, it really means alot to hear that.”

“Of course.” There is a small pause while Dr. Rovert contemplates how to say what he wants to say next. “I did however want to address the elephant in the room.” Hailey’s heart drops as her worst fears come true. “You lost the International Defense Grant. And despite frankly being over qualified for the position, I wanted to ask from a first hand source what happened. I heard many rumors from word of mouth but it felt unfair to make my own judgment without hearing from you first.” Hailey breathes in deep.

“Yes, well, it was unfortunate what happened. I programmed and made several systems as requested by the government, but unfortunately they were not satisfied with the final product and provided corrections. I changed my programs to compensate and was successful in all my changes and even delivered before the deadline, but the government was moving in a different direction so they decided they would go with someone else.” The words felt like glue trying to leave her mouth. Every word made Hailey angrier and angrier remembering how Roland had dismissed her like nothing. And even worse, now she was trying to relay that to her next potential employer who had no reason to believe her.

“I see… So if you don’t mind me asking, what are you working on now? No one has really heard from you in a few weeks after what happened.”

“Well, right now I’m in the process of writing a new book, it’s only in the beginning stages but I feel like it’s a topic that is very relevant to the future of robotics, true AI.”

“Ah yes, correct me if I’m wrong but that was the topic of your dissertation.

“Yes it was.”

“Have you built any prototypes of a project like that? Even just a proof of concept I feel would be rather impressive.”

“Yes, actually, I do.” Hailey opens up her laptop that she had brought with her and opened her rough drafts for the Omega Protocol. Many of the vital parts of the code were missing, and Hailey had made sure of it so Dr. Rovert couldn't see anything that would compromise Omega’s safety. Dr. Rovert however was very interested in her rough drafts.

“Wow, amazing. Well I think with that we can go ahead and conclude the interview. I think as of right now, you are just far too qualified for the position, and to be honest the pay really doesn’t reflect your academic achievements.” Hailey was overcome with dread as she heard those words. Feeling like she was back to square one, she began to pick up her laptop and was fully ready to cry in the car. “But, I think that we can come to a compromise. The university could really use classes about learning algorithms and AI. Just teach one or two higher level courses, and publish your book through the university press, and I will raise the annual salary to match your merit, and hire you for the start of next semester. What do you say?”

Hailey couldn’t believe the roller coaster of emotions. She was so happy, she felt like she could just scream at the top of her lungs. It was finally over, and now she could get back to getting her life back to normal. However, that would be unbefitting of a new professor.

“That sounds more than generous Dr. Rovert. I would love to teach here.”

“Perfect, I’ll have Susan upfront give you all the paperwork.” Hailey exits the office feeling like the world is finally breaking her way. She signs all the paperwork and goes to her car and immediately calls Jason.

“You’ll never guess what happened!”

“What?”

“I have a new job! I’m a professor at an ivy league school!”

“Hailey, that’s awesome! I knew you could do it! See? It’s only a matter of time before we get everything all figured out, now all we gotta do is handle the whole saving the world thing. Easy peasy.”

Meanwhile back in Dr. Rovert’s Office, Dr. Rovert walks out to talk to his secretary.

“Susan? Can you make sure that a second key is made for Dr. O’hara’s new office? I want to have a spare just in case. And also get agent Roland back on the phone. Tell him that I’m accepting the defense grant offer. I have some new ideas that I think would solve our alien problem.” Susan timidly looks down at her keyboard as if she’s afraid to speak up.

In Jason’s apartment, Jason, Omega and Hailey are sitting down relaxing with each other. Jason and Omega are playing a game of chess, per Omega’s request. Jason is losing horribly and has his head in his hands. Omega looks very relaxed and is just happy to be spending time with her friends. Hailey is on her phone reading emails. She sees that she has been rejected for eight more jobs. Defeated, she switches on an online form for robotics. Many of the comments are about her losing the national defense contract with the government. She reads several of the comments ridiculing her for not being able to stack up to the government's standards before she puts her phone down and lets out a heavy sigh.

“Everything ok Dr. Hailey?” Omega chimes.

“Yeah everything is fine.” she gives a small pause before continuing. “Hey Jason, I think we should go to the store and pick up something to eat, your fridge is looking kinda empty.”

“Yeah yeah whatever I just need a second.” Jason is not paying any attention, his full focus is on the chess game and how to salvage the totally lost position.

“That is ok Jason, you can go with Dr. Hailey to the store.” Omega moves one piece forward delivering a checkmate. “There. Now the game is over!” Devastated, Jason stands up and gets his keys.

“Ok, let's go.”

At the grocery store, Jason and Hailey are standing in the frozen aisle. Hailey is not really paying attention to what is going on around her and Jason is looking at frozen pizzas.

“Hey, do you like pepperoni or do you want a supreme.”

“Jason, I think my life is starting to fall apart.”

“I’m picking pepperoni.”

“I’m being serious.”

“You're a prodigy and leader in your field. You have written multiple books, made a ton of money, and have a phd. You also created a fully sentient life form so I don’t know what more you want.”

“I just… I don’t know. Things are different now that I lost the defense grant from the government.”

“What do you mean? You're like this generation's Einstein.”

“They didn’t like what I made. They asked for defense systems from an unknown threat we don’t know how to fight, and when I built defense systems they hated it. After they sent me a letter of correction I fixed all the original issues and even made Omega, a robot designed to solve complex problems and save the world, and it still wasn’t good enough. They wanted me to make a weapon that could destroy whatever they pointed it at and I couldn’t build it. So they took the grant away and when my peers found out, they started criticizing me. They all think I can’t do it.” Hailey pulls her phone out and sees she got rejected from another job. “Maybe they’re right.”

“No, they aren’t. You are easily the smartest person I’ve ever met. And fuck the government for asking for a weapon. As if they need another giant gun that they can wave around and threaten people with.” Jason looks at Hailey and sees that she genuinely feels hurt.

“But that’s the issue, I couldn’t solve it. I tried for months trying to figure out how to stop this threat and I couldn’t do it. So instead I built Omega, thinking that she would be able to figure it out.”

“No one else would’ve been able to do that. Half the people that are criticizing you would’ve just built a weapon for the money, and they would’ve made the world a worse place. Tell me this, do you genuinely think that anything anyone could have built would stop this alien thing?” Hailey leaves a long pause to fiddle with the charm on the phone even though she already knows the answer.

“No… I don’t.”

“Right. And even if anyone else had the idea for Omega, no one would actually have the know-how to build her. What you made was a true AI. One with thoughts and feelings, one with dreams and wishes, and most importantly a desire to want to save the world from something. That has literally never been done before.”

“Yeah, it’s true.”

“See? The government has no idea what it’s doing, and you do. Your colleagues have no idea what you’ve made, and you do.” Jason picks up a frozen dinner from the shelf and stops to think. He hesitates for a moment before talking again. “And I also think it’s rude of you to make me go to the store in order to have this talk away from Omega, she would agree with me and tell you how awesome you are.”

“I just don't want Omega to learn anything that isn’t helpful to her. She is going to carry the literal  weight of the world on her shoulders and I want her to reach her full potential.”

“She will, after all she’s got you as a teacher.” Hailey puts her phone back in her pocket and smiles at the complement.

“Thanks for helping me Jason, I know you didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course I did. After seeing Omega’s ‘disguise’, I knew you didn’t have what it takes to hide a super robot from the government.” Hailey chuckles to herself. A second goes by with them just walking to another aisle.

“Could we get the supreme pizza instead?”

“Not a chance, I want pepperoni and I have a job.” They both laugh at the joke and leave the store.

Back at the apartment, Jason and Hailey walk in and see Omega sitting on the couch. Omega is almost surprised that they are home already.

“Oh! Welcome home! How was your trip to the store?” Jason goes to the kitchen to unload the food and Hailey sits down on the couch and turns on the tv.

“It was fine. Were you ok by yourself?”

“Yes, I was fine.” There is a tone of sadness in Omega’s voice, Jason hears this and yells from behind the kitchen counter.

“Hey! Let's watch a movie tonight, we can let Omega pick it out.” Omega’s face lights up and she quickly grabs the remote and begins surfing through movies. Omega picks a nature documentary, and all three of them sit on the couch and watch it together. Hailey falls asleep first and rests on Jason’s shoulder. Jason smiles at how peaceful she looks before falling asleep himself. Omega stays up and finishes the whole documentary interested in every word. After realizing that Hailey and Jason have both fallen asleep, Omega slowly gets up.

Jason wakes up and rolls over in bed, his alarm clock is fixed and his clock reads 12:23 pm. He yawns and reaches for his phone. He sits up and looks around and sees Omega sitting at his music studio listening to music with headphones.

“Morning Omega, how was your morning?

“Good afternoon! My morning was great, I listened to so much music while you were asleep. I love listening to what the musicians sing about.”

“Do you have a favorite?”

“Hmm, not yet. I really love the music where they sing about how they feel, it’s like I’m learning who they are without meeting them! But I wanted to listen to your music first before picking a favorite. You mentioned it last night.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, it’s not that good. It’s just stuff I make in my spare time.”

“I’m sure that it’s great, and what if it’s my favorite?!” Jason chuckles to himself and gets out of bed and gets dressed. He walks over to his guitar and sits down with it in his lap. He begins playing his song for Omega who is listening intently. After the song ends Jason looks at Omega, and she seems confused. She takes a second before speaking.

“What is your song about Jason?”

“Oh, uh, I don’t know. It was just something I wrote in college. When Hailey and I went to the same school, she told me to write something to get started trying to make my own music and that’s what I came up with. Sorry if you didn’t like it.”

“Well, I think it would be better if you added lyrics. The other musicians on your computer sing about things that are important to them or something that they went through. Maybe you should try that.” Jason looks at his guitar sadly.

“Yeah, I haven’t really felt anything like that in a while. It’s hard to write stuff like that when you live by yourself and never go out.”

“Maybe you should go out! That way, you could start experiencing things that you could write music about.”

“That’s ok Omega, I’m fine here. Plus I don’t think I would have made a good musician anyway.” Jason puts his guitar down and walks to the kitchen and begins making coffee for himself.

“Is making music really important to you?”

“It was.”

“Why would you give it up? If music makes you happy then you should make more music.” Jason looks sadly over at Omega before the picture of him and his grandmother catches his eye. Jason has a flashback to him and his grandmother having a picnic at the park. His grandmother looks at him and hands him an envelope.

“Jason, I want you to have this. It’s money to go to college. You talk so much about how you want to learn music and publish songs, so your grandfather and I put this together before he passed away.”

“Grandma, you didn’t need to do this, I-” His grandmother interrupts him.

“Stop it Jason. You're going to take this, no buts. If music makes you happy then you should make music.”

Jason snaps back to reality and looks around at his messy apartment. He stands up and for the first time in a long time, and puffs his chest out.

“You’re right Omega, I shouldn’t give it up. But I shouldn’t go out, we should.” Jason’s expression turns into a mischievous grin as Omega’s changes to one of worry.

“I don’t think Dr. Hailey would like that. She wants me to hide from the government and the public.”

“Well, Hailey isn’t here right now. Plus, if going out and seeing the world would make you happy, why would you not do it?”

“I’m… not sure. I just don’t want Dr. Hailey to be upset with me.”

“Look Omega, what is your one goal in life?”

“To protect Earth.”

“That’s right, and how can you do that without knowing what Earth is like?” Omega fiddles with her fingers and hesitates while thinking about the question.

“I… guess that’s true.”

“It is true, and don’t worry. We are both going to be super discreet.”

Fast forward to Omega in a plaid button up, jeans, and a dairy cows baseball cap. They are both sitting on a bench in front of a fountain at the park. Jason is super relaxed and Omega is looking very nervous.

“I don’t know if I like being out in the open like this Jason.”

“Oh don’t worry, once you're here for a while you’ll calm down. I mean, look at how peaceful everything is.” Omega looks around and sees a group of kids playing with a frisbee, a elderly woman walking her dog around in the grass, and a couple sitting on the edge of the fountain. The couple both throw a couple of pennies into the fountain and walk away. Omega loosens up a bit and calms down.

“You’re right, it's not so bad. What were those two people doing with the coins?”

“They were making wishes into the fountain, you take a penny and throw it in, and wish for whatever you want to happen, and it happens.” Omega’s face lights up with excitement.

“Is that really true!?”

“Not really, it’s more like you wish for something that you hope to happen, but it isn’t guaranteed.” Omega rushes over to the side of the fountain and looks into the water.

“Wow, that's amazing.”

“What to make a wish?”

“Yes please!” Jason hands Omega a penny from his pocket.

“Just make a wish and throw it in.” Omega pauses to think for a moment, wanting to make sure that she wishes for the correct thing. Jason smiles to himself at Omega’s determined face. After Omega has her wish, she closes her eyes and tosses the coin into the fountain. “What did you wish for?”

“There are so many coins in the water, that means that so many people came to the fountain to tell it their wish. I wished that all of their wishes would come true.” Jason is stunned by her answer.

“That’s a good wish.” 

“Why don’t you make a wish!?”

“That's ok, I've made plenty of wishes in the past.” Omega smiles as she looks into the water. After a moment, Omega feels something hit her foot. When she looks down, she sees it’s a blue frisbee. She looks where the frisbee was thrown from and sees a couple kids waving her down and yelling to throw it back. Omega looks at Jason unsure of what to do.

“Well… toss it back to them.” Omega picks up the disk, rears back, and throws it so hard that it embeds itself into a nearby tree. The kids are amazed and look back at Omega in shock. Omega realizes that she may have thrown it too hard and looks down in embarrassment. “Uh, ok that might be our cue to leave.” Jason takes Omega's hand and begins running away from the scene.

Back in Jason’s apartment, Omega and Jason sit down on the couch laffing from the experience at the park.

“Honestly it’ll be the coolest thing that happened to those kids all week.” Omega fiddles with her hands before speaking.

“Thank you for taking me out to the park. It was really cool to see something outside from the lab or this apartment.” Jason gets up from the couch and begins picking up the dirty clothes off the floor.

“Of course Omega, you’re my friend and I would do anything for you.”

“Is that why you let me stay here? Because Dr. Hailey is your friend?” Jason puts all the dirty clothes into the clothes bin before letting out a sigh. He doesn’t turn around to answer Omega.

“Hailey and I aren’t exactly friends per say.”

“Oh… would you not do anything for her?” Omega’s expression is a bit sadder now, not realizing that it was a sore subject for Jason. Jason turns around and sits back down on the couch.

“It’s… complicated. Hailey and I were friends a long time ago. We went to the same middle school and we hit it off almost immediately. She was the nerd of the class and didn’t talk to anyone, I was the extrovert who wanted to know everyone so I walked up to her and introduced myself. From then we were inseparable.”

“Then what changed? You had mentioned earlier that Dr. Hailey had not spoken to you in a year?”

“Well, Hailey started making robots, and started becoming a child prodigy. She quickly got the attention of really important people and was making bigger and better robots for them. I got to see her less and less everyday, but we had always agreed that we would go to the same college so that we could spend everyday together. Eventually we both graduated high school and were looking at colleges. I got accepted to a music school by the skin of my teeth, and Hailey got a full ride scholarship to the best robotics school in the country. It was a no brainer. At that moment I decided we would just grow apart, she would do great things and I would do my own thing. But by some miracle, my grandmother put in my application to the same university and I made it. My family couldn’t afford it but my grandparents put together the money for me to go. We both got to school, but it was even worse than high school. She had even less time, she wanted to graduate early and I couldn’t keep up with her. Eventually I dropped out to do music full time and hadn’t spoken to her sense.” There is a long silence between the both of them. Omega looks down at herself.

“I didn’t know. She always talked about you like you were the best of friends.”

“Hey, it’s ok. We both got what we wanted out of life. I got to play music and Hailey got to build you. And you are amazing!” Omega makes eye contact with Jason

“You sacrificed a lot for Dr.Hailey, but she didn’t.” Jason looks away for a moment.

“I cared a lot about Hailey, but she never felt the same.” Jason stares off into the distance with longing in his eyes. “I was okay with the sacrifices because I got to see the amazing things she made.” Jason looks back at Omega and smiles. “Like you. If it wasn’t for you I would still be in bed giving up on my music dream.”

“Thank you Jason. I’m glad I could help.”

There is a long pause between them. “And hey, I think I have something to write music about now.”

Later, after Jason has gone to bed, Omega stands up and opens the window to the fire escape. She climbs out and carefully shuts it to make sure that she doesn’t wake up Jason. She then jumps and flies out into the night. She looks around the city scanning the streets with her eyes. After a while, Omega finds what she is looking for. She swoops down and grabs a penny from the side of the road scaring a few people who happen to be walking by. Omega then goes back to the fountain that she and Jason were at earlier that day. She tosses the coin into the fountain.

A few days later Hailey is in her home at the dining room table on her laptop. She is open to a website with job listings for anything robotics related. She gets a text on her phone, opens up the message and sees that she has been rejected for the job. She lets out an aggravated groan. This was the third rejection today and it wasn’t even noon. She had never been rejected from a job before, but now it seems like it’s the norm. After she puts her phone down it begins ringing. She checks the caller ID to see that it’s Jason. She hangs up the phone but Jason calls again almost immediately. Hailey rolls her eyes and answers the phone.

“Hello?” she says in an annoyed tone.

“Yeah. Hello. What’s the deal, you just drop off your stuff at my apartment and bail?”

“I have a ton of important stuff to do right now and I just need you to watch Omega for a little bit. After I get this all sorted out I’ll get her and be out of your hair.”

“No, you can’t do this to me again. You always say that it’s something important. Well you know what, I’m important too and this ain’t fair, not to me, or your sunshine toy.” Hailey places a hand on her temple.

“Please tell me you aren’t saying these things in front of her.”

“What, that’s what you care about? And no I’m not, right now I’m in my car driving.”

“Ok good, I don’t need to explain to Omega that she isn’t a toy.”

“Why does that matter?”

“I have to curate the information she hears, she is a learning AI meant to save the world. I can’t have her data corrupted because I can’t build another one of her, I only get one shot.”

“One shot for what? Why not just tell me what’s happening?”

“If I tell you, will you stop complaining about her being in your apartment?”

“The reasoning had better be great, but sure I will.”

“Ok I’ll meet you at the fareway for coffee and tell you about it.”

Hailey then arrives at the fareway, a golf themed coffee shop with green walls made to look like terf and little flags at every table. Hailey walks in and looks around and finds Jason with a cup of coffee slouched in a booth toward the back of the shop. Hailey walks over, sits down and pulls out her laptop to continue applying for jobs. Jason looks around the laptop with a tired expression.

“Couldn’t even say hi first before ignoring me?”

“I know you want my world to revolve around you right now but at the moment I have to apply for new jobs.”

“New jobs? What happened to your old one?”

“I lost it.”

“Ok, the world is ending. How did you get fired from a job? You're like the most insane work-a-holic I know.”

“You want to know what’s going on or not?” Jason puts his hands up as if to surrender and sits back in his seat. “Ok, so, it started a few months ago, I had gotten the government to pick me for the grant for their ‘International defense program’ or whatever. After I got picked they gave me a document detailing what they wanted. They needed a defense system from… something. It was really vague and didn’t talk about defense from what. It just kept saying ‘the target’ over and over again.

“The target? Like, as in, an alien that is coming to destroy Earth?”

“Right? It was weird and I couldn’t make sense of it. I made a few prototypes of things that might work but they were not impressed. I got another document saying more about ‘the target’ but as I was reading it became clear that the government had no idea who or what was coming to hit us. So, because I can’t solve a problem I can’t even figure out, I decide to build Omega Zero and a few other systems to help her out in defending us from this thing.”

“What!” Jason gets low and whisper-yells to Hailey. “Omega isn’t a nuke right? You did not put a nuclear bomb in my apartment!” Hailey rolls her eyes.

“No, she isn’t a bomb. The government wishes I just built a bomb, but that doesn’t solve the issue. No matter what I build, the mysterious target could have a potential answer to it, and if they do, the world is doomed. So instead I put my dissertation’s money where its mouth is and built a true AI. An AI that could learn who the target is and defeat them no matter what it is.”

“Woah, that is like, a really big deal.”

“Yes it is. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Anyway the government was not happy that I wouldn’t build them a weapon of mass destruction, so I grabbed Omega and ran. No doubt the government has me on a watch list, and on top of that I for some reason can’t get hired right now. All the jobs I apply to reject me.”

There is a pause as Jason looks down at his coffee and Hailey continues to type. Jason realizes he may have overreacted now knowing how much stress Hailey is under.

“Hey, I’m sorry about the phone call earlier. I didn’t realize what you were going through. Omega can stay at my apartment for as long as you need.” Hailey looks up from her laptop and makes eye contact for a brief moment.

“No problem, I know it was probably hard to not get any information and just have this dropped on you. Especially in the middle of your music career.”

“Yeah well, I’ve mostly just been working at the movie theater these days.”

Jason lives in a studio apartment with a single window outlooking the city with a fire escape. The place has clothes lying around and several instruments on stands looking pristine. Next to the instruments is a desk with a computer, sound system and mixer. Jason’s alarm clock is blinking as if a power out hit it. Jason is unconscious in his bed, with messy hair and dirty pajamas. One eye opens as he lazily reaches out for his phone with one hand. The time says 4:25 Pm. He stands up and puts his slippers on. He looks at the mess and gives up on cleaning it right now. He sits down at the desk, picks up his guitar and begins playing a few notes. On the computer screen is a new song that he had been working on for months with no progress. He looks at a picture of him and his grandma at his graduation from college and lets out a deep sigh.

“I’ll make it one day.” Jason plays a few more notes when the doorbell rings. Jason changes shirts to something cleaner and opens the door. On the other side is Hailey, a childhood friend of his from all the way back in middle school. She’s standing with a robot in a lab coat and the baseball cap Jason had given Hailey years ago.

“Hey Jason, I need your help with something important.” Hailey walks past Jason into his apartment and looks at the mess. “I see you still have the same organization skills as you did in college.”

“Hello to you too, and I wasn’t expecting company from you and your next science fair project. Why is it wearing my hat?” Omega holds her hand out to Jason excitedly.

“Hello, it’s wonderful to meet someone new! I am Omega Zero and I am programmed to save the world!” Jason looks Omega up and down before taking her hand and shakes it.

“That’s cute Hailey, but why is it here?” Jason turns to Hailey, “And frankly, why are you here? You don’t return my texts or calls, flake when we make plans, and disappear for a year and all the sudden you need something from me.” Hailey goes to Jason’s kitchen and grabs a soda from his fridge without making eye contact.

“That sums it up pretty well actually, and I was working on something really important.” Hailey gestures to Omega. “After I got that contract from the government, she needed my full attention." Jason sighs knowing that she says this for every robot she builds, and this time is no different. “I need a place to hide her until I figure out what to do next.” Omega begins looking around the room and shows interest with Jason’s music studio setup.

“Hide her? Why does she need to hide?”

“Turns out the government didn’t actually want a robot to protect Earth, they wanted a weapon to use for themselves. So I had to steal my blueprints and sneak Omega out of the lab so the government couldn't have her. She is much too important to let fall in the wrong hands.”

“Wait, so you actually built like a super murder robot for the government?”

“No, I didn’t. Omegas programming is very clear. Her only two objectives are to protect the people of Earth, and defend the planet from any harmful threats.”

“And why can’t she stay at your house?”

“The government is on my back and would expect me to hide something there. This is way less obvious.” Jason looks over at Omega, who has picked up a drumstick and is looking it over with genuine curiosity. Jason face palms before answering back.

“You're lucky I hate the government. Fine, I’ll house your little fugitive until you can build some other invention that magically solves all your problems.”

“Thanks Jason, you're a lifesaver.” Hailey quickly leaves the room and closes the door behind her.

“Yeah no problem, I live to serve you.” Jason looks up at the ceiling and lets out a groan. He looks at Omega waiting to see if she is going to do anything. Omega is now sitting quietly at Jason’s drum set. She takes the baseball cap she was wearing and holds it out to Jason with a smile.

“This is yours, I wanted to return it to you. Dr. Hailey would wear it around the lab but it has your name on it.”

“Oh, thanks. I gave it to her a long time ago.” He sets the hat down on the kitchen counter. “So are you really going to save the world, like, superhero crimefighter robot style?”

“Someday I hope so! Right now I don’t know much about the world and I hope to learn more. From what Dr. Hailey lets me read, humans seem really complicated, but they are really cool!” Jason’s expression changes from tired to curious.

“You hope? That isn’t something that robots normally do.”

“Well, I am not a normal superhero crimefighter robot.” Jason see’s Omega’s genuine happiness and innocence and can’t help but smile back at her.

“What was your name again?”

“Omega Zero! But you can just call me Omega.”

“Do you like music?”

Hailey is in a suit and tie with a clipboard in her hand, she has a checklist that is mostly finished, but the last point is still unchecked. It says ‘impress agent Roland so much he pays me more money than I know what to do with, and get a nobel peace prize’. Next to the checklist is a hand drawing of herself with sunglasses and finger guns. She smiles, satisfied from her work and glances at a door inside of her lab labeled ‘Omega Protocol’. She puts the clipboard down with a sigh of anticipation.

“Don’t overthink it, let your work speak for itself.” The front doorbell rings and Hailey waits for a moment. Is answering it right now too early? I don’t want them thinking I was just standing in front of the door. But I don’t want to wait too long either, plus I am just sitting in front of the door. The doorbell rings a second time.

“Oh shit.” She opens the door quickly. On the other side are four Government officials in suits and ties with black sunglasses. The man in front takes his glasses off and puts them into his pocket.

“Good evening Dr. O’hara, it’s a pleasure to see you again.” The fake smile the man puts on is poisonous.

“Afternoon Mr. Roland, how has your day been?”

“I’d rather skip formalities if that’s alright, we have a quick form for you to sign verifying that we did a progress report with you.” There is a long pause, Rolands smile fades away and he hits one of the lackeys behind him.

“Oh, sorry boss.” The goon behind Roland gives a clipboard with a document on it to Hailey.

“Oh, yes, of course.” She takes out a blue pen and begins to sign the document. “I think you will be very happy to see my progress. I have found solutions for our “unique problem” and have finished all of my projects a month before the deadline and all systems are fully operational. If you wanted, I could have them installed for homeland security by the end of the year.” Roland is pacing around the lab looking at the notes and research around the room with an unsatisfied face.

“That is wonderful news, but as you may remember, our last visit was not what our team was hoping for. We gave you some notes to work on?”

“Yes! I read through the extensive documents you gave me and was a little confused. The threat you described in your letter seems like a very serious threat and I didn’t agree that the solution was a bigger bomb or better weapons. If the target is as smart as you say they are then there are bound to counter measures that we can’t account for so I made-” Roland puts his hand up to cut Hailey off

“The American government isn’t paying you to theorize, we requested a targeting system.” Hailey looks at him annoyed at the interruption.

“According to the brief, the target could have shields to block targeting systems, so I didn’t build that. I made something that can think for itself and solve problems. Firstly I made an anti-aerial defense system AI, it can establish unidentified flying aircraft and missiles in seconds and dispense measures to neutralize a vast number of threats from explosives to EMPs.”

“How far can it fire?

“Um, it wasn’t made to launch anything, it was only built for defensive measures…” Hailey feels the air in the room grow still so she perks up. “However it can reach across the entire continental US so only one system will be needed to defend the entire nation saving on precious tax dollars. Plus when defending other countries you would not need to build very many to cover the globe.”

“Money is no object Dr. O’hara. And the US isn’t defending the whole world. Show us what else you got.” Hailey gives him a puzzled look.

“The target is clearly capable of total annihilation. Shouldn’t this technology save everyone?”

“Everyone doesn’t vote in elections. Continue your presentation.” Hailey begins to realize that the language of a ‘global defense system’ in the grant she was given was clearly just talk.

“I also have made an AI that was built to be launched into space via satellite and scout the surrounding area for any anomalies in space. The scanning range is large enough that it can reasonably guess what is going on in our whole solar system in less than a year. Invaluable for looking for the target or anything else anomalous in our system.”

“What else does it do?”

“Well… it can also launch missiles to break apart asteroids.”

“Dr. O’hara, respectfully, our department isn’t interested in killing space rocks.” Hailey stops for a moment before shaking her head and firing back at Roland 

“Didn’t the brief you sent me say that you wanted a defense against threats off planet?” Roland hesitates, clearly not wanting to answer the question.

“Yes, it did”

“And didn’t it say that the system needed to be able to protect itself from unknown and unrecognizable threats?” Hailey’s voice is beginning to rise from anger.

“...This is not what we had in mind.”

“I don’t think you understand what the Earth needs in order to survive “the target’s” attack.” Hailey puts dramatic emphasis on ‘the target’ with finger quotes. She begins to believe that homeland security doesn’t even know who ‘the target’ is.

“The US has given you all the information you need about the target. if you are incapable-” This time Hailey raises her hand to cut off Roland.

“I am capable. The brief was vague at best, so to compensate for the lack of information I had I built something that can learn and protect us itself.” There is a long pause, until finally Roland puts his sunglasses back on.

“Dr. O’hara, the US government is unhappy with the progress you made and we are pulling out from the grant we offered you.”

“Wait what? You can’t do this! I’ve built everything you asked for and I still have one more project-” Hailey’s eyes dart to the door labeled Omega Protocol. Roland interrupts her again.

“And the government will be happy to review all your work on AI and national defense at a later date, but you are now off the project. Thank you for your time but we are taking it from here.” There is a beat before Roland rolls his eyes. “That means pack up the stuff! The three other government agents jump up and begin quickly taking papers and blueprints off the desk and walls and filing them in boxes.

“What, no you can’t do this. I slaved away this whole time, being on your beck and call for months. This is my research and my lab. All of this tech belongs to me.” Hailey grabs Roland's arm to stop him from picking up a piece of tech. The item Roland is holding falls to the ground and breaks into several pieces. He pushes Hailey off his arm. Roland begins to lose his proper facade and lets his true colors show through the black and white suit.

“According to the contract you just signed, this whole lab belongs to the government. Your notes, your blueprints, your tech, even the building. And we are no longer going to compensate you for ending the contract early, which you agreed to by signing. Get your personal belongings and get out, the International Station of Defense would be happy to arrest you if you don’t comply.”

Hailey looks around the room and sees the other agents picking up all of her stuff. She snaps the blue pen she was holding when she realizes that she isn’t being listened to, again. She sees one agent find her TV remote and begins pointing it around like a laser gun. Hailey rolls her eyes. She knows that Omega Zero can not be used by Roland. Knowing him he would turn it against other countries, or worse.

“I understand.” She begins picking up random trinkets to fake that she is packing up her stuff. She then opens a desk drawer and grabs a silver key. One of the government agents sees it and raises an eyebrow. Hailey smiles fakely, “spare house key, haha.” The agent shrugs and looks away. Roland, satisfied with his work, leaves the room.

“I would say it was a pleasure Mrs. O’hara, but it wasn’t.”

“Doctor O’hara.” seeing the opportunity that only the stooges were left in the room, she sarcastically shouts. “Ok, I’m leaving the lab. Before I go I’m gonna grab my super secret plans in the break room and go home.” All the agents look up and quickly file out of the room towards the break room. Hailey shouts at them as they leave. “Three doors down on the left.”

Hailey quickly rushes to the Omega Protocol door and opens it. Behind the door is Omega, sitting and waiting to be called on. Omega jumps up and begins excitedly shouting.

“Hello! I am Omega Zero and I am going to protect the Earth!” Hailey quickly shushes the robot and grabs her hand.

“We need to get out of here, and we can’t let anyone know who you are and why we’re leaving.”

“Okay! How would you like me to help?” Omega whispers.

“You need a disguise.” Hailey ignores Omega’s offer and puts her lab coat around Omega and her flatbill hat with a picture of a cow on it for the local sports team. She takes a step back to look at Omega who is smiling and excited. “This isn’t going to work.”

“I believe in us!”

Both of them begin walking throughout the facility breezing past agents. Hailey is keeping her head down and not talking to anyone while Omega is skipping down the hallways waving at agents as they pass. The agents wave back happily and some even say hello. They get all the way to the front door before one of the agents shouts at them.

“Hey, Hold on one minute!” Omega turns around immediately and Hailey slowly turns to the agent. The agent looks intensely, as if studying them for anything suspicious. After a brief moment, he gets a smile on his face. “How about the Dairy Cows right? Crazy game they had yesterday.”

“Oh yea, haha what a game.” Hailey says as she practically runs out the door.

The agent puts his hand up on his head making them look like horns. Omega returns the gesture then uses her rocket shoes to fly after Hailey outside. The agent turns around as she flys out the door totally oblivious.

Hailey and Omega are now sitting in Hailey’s car, and Hailey looks determined and she starts the car. Omega looks out the windows, at the new city around her.

“Wow, I have never been outside the lab before! It is exactly how I imagined it. Where are we going now Dr. Hailey?”

“I need to find a place to hide you and lay low while I figure things out. Ugh, where am I going to find someone who would be willing to hide a six foot super AI!” 

“Maybe we could go to Jason’s house to return his hat! Maybe he misses it.”

Hailey is sitting in her pajamas and slippers in front of a computer. She is in her lab, and there are robot parts, blueprints, tools, and scraps of food strewn about all over the place. Hailey is writing code for a project she is working on, when she receives an email on her second monitor. She takes a drink from an energy drink sitting on her desk and opens the email. It's from agent Roland, a government agent that is in charge of her grant on programming a defense system to save the world from an unknown threat in space. She begins reading to herself aloud.

“Hello Dr. O’hara, hope this email finds you blah blah blah… If you remember from my last visit to your office we had discussed your progress on the AI defense systems. While the government is happy with the pace you are working at, we believe you could make some improvements. Wait, what?” Hailey sits up in her chair and reads more intently. “While the systems you made were good, we do not think they are sufficient enough to stop an imminent threat. The government wanted to suggest a more proactive way to deal with invading threats. I’m sure you know how effective the correct tool for the job can be. ‘The target’ is hyper intelligent and capable of nearly anything. Having a weapon to deal with them quickly and efficiently would be best.”

Hailey sits back in her chair. “Seriously? A weapon? If this ‘target’, whatever it is, is capable of anything, then why can’t they stop a weapon? That's stupid.” Hailey scrolls through the email and sees pages upon pages of descriptions and plans for bombs, guns, and lasers. As well as critiques of her previous work and dismissive statements.

“You have got to be kidding me. This is what they think will stop a super powerful alien threat.” Hailey rolls her eyes and sighs. She skips to the last page to see if there is any closing remark or summary. “Thank you for taking our suggestions, and we will be visiting you again later this year to check your progress. We hope your expertise in AI and algorithmic technology can be sufficient for our goals.” Hailey stares at the email in disbelief. “Wow, ok, fuck this. I’m building what I was going to originally build. And it’s going to work too.”

Hailey then drops everything she was building and starts a new project. She begins building a robot with all the parts around her and coding a new program to go in it all while mumbling to herself about how stupid she thought the email was.

“Humans are capable of stopping bombs, what a dumb idea. Do you know how easy it is to stop a laser? Who has a PHD in robotics? Hope this email finds you well my ass.”

She takes several months of hard work and staying up late at night, but she just finishes the prototype before her next deadline. She boots up the program in the robot and waits. A few seconds go by with nothing happening.

“Maybe… it’s not on?” Hailey pushes her rolling chair to the computer, and then the robot whirs to life. It looks around at its surroundings with a confused expression. Hailey freezes in her tracks, waiting for the robot to do something.

The robot steps off of the stand it was sitting on making eye contact with Hailey. “Hello?”

“Hi…”

“Who are you?”

“I am Dr. Hailey O’hara, and I created you.”

The robot looks at her hands and her body. “What am I?”

“You are Omega Zero, the first robot to be fully sentient. I made you to protect Earth.”

“What is Earth?”

“Earth is the planet we live on. If you look in your memory, I have downloaded databases that will help you understand the world you live in. It contains things that you will need to know in order to save the world.”

Omega closes her eyes and searches her memory. She sees folders of subjects like math, language, history, and sciences. She also finds a section labeled prime directive. She opens it and finds a short rule set laid out for her. Omega Zero’s task is to save the world from outside threats. If Omega Zero can not complete this task for any reason, initiate the Omega Protocol. Omega Zero looks around her memory to try and find the Omega Protocol before she hears Hailey’s voice outside of her head.

“Hello? Are you ok? Did you die?”

Omega opens her eyes again. “Dr. Hailey O’hara, what do I need to do to save the world?”

“Uhh, well… I don't know. I built you to learn about the world and to gain experience, then you will be smart enough to know how to save the world. Also you can just call me Hailey.”

Omega smiles at Hailey. “Okay Dr. Hailey, and in the spirit of fairness, you can just call me Omega.”

“Wait no, you don’t have to… whatever, it doesn’t matter.”

Omega closes her eyes again for a moment and then reopens them. “I did a brief reading of history, and it didn’t mention anything about robots like me. Why?”

“Well, there has never been a robot like you. You’re the first of your kind. You're special.”

Omega’s tone of voice is slowly getting brighter and more positive as she gets the hang of speaking. “Then, you must be special too. There has never been anyone else to create someone like me before either.”

Hailey is taken back by the compliment, as well as Omega’s cheery demeanor. “Yeah, that’s one way to look at it. But I have a lot to prepare you for. You and I need to talk about what you're capable of. We have a meeting with a guy named Roland from the government who wants to meet you.”

“I can not wait to meet him either!”

At the same time, in a movie theater, a man named Jason is manning a concession stand. He looks annoyed and tired. Jason glances at the clock and sees that he has 5 minutes left in his shift. He begins to walk away from his station when he is stopped by his manager.

“Jason, you still have time left on your shift!”

“It’s 5 minutes, by the time I get to the time clock, it’ll be over.”

“We need to stay productive our whole shift. I mean, some employees even work a little after their shift ends. I’m just not sure how committed you are to the theater environment.”

“I’m not committed, I’m off the clock. Can I go home now?” Just as Jason asks, a kid trips over nothing and spills popcorn and soda all over the carpeted floor. Jason’s manager smiles at Jason.

“As soon as you help that guest with a new popcorn and drink, and clean up the mess, you can go.”

Jason rolls his eyes with an annoyed expression. He looks over at the little boy laying on the ground with a spilled drink and popcorn all over the floor. He looks as though he is about to cry. Jason’s expression changes to genuine empathy. He walks over to the boy and holds his hand out to help him up.

“Hey buddy, are you ok?”

The boy sniffles a little and takes Jason’s hand. “My mom let me carry the popcorn and drinks, but I couldn’t hold them all, and now it’s all on the floor.” The boy’s face scrunches up as his eyes fill with tears.

“Hey hey, it’s ok. Let’s get you some new popcorn and drinks ok? And I’ll help you carry them to your seats so you don’t drop them again. How does that sound?”

The boy drags his arm across his face, covering it with snot. He says nothing at first but gives a nod. Jason takes the boy by the hand, making sure it isn’t the one covered in snot, and guides him to the concession stand. They get more popcorn and drinks, and Jason takes the boy’s ticket and walks him to his seat where he finds the boy’s mother. She sees her son covered in pop and snot and looks at him sweetly.

“Oh no, what happened?”

“I dropped all the popcorn and drinks, but this nice man helped me up and gave me some more because I dropped it all.”

The mother picks her son up and holds him on her lap. She turns to Jason and mouths thank you while cleaning up the little boy’s shirt with a napkin. Jason mouths back, ‘no problem, enjoy the movie.’ Jason goes back to the lobby and cleans up the mess, clocks out, and goes home.

I had an idea for a superhero story while working my 9 to 5 dead end job. I watched every marvel movie that there was and got really tired of how their stories were written (for the movies anyway) so I wrote my own take on a superhero story. It’s a love story that isn’t edgy or too serious about itself and is just fun imo. I like characters that I can invest in and are genuinely good people.

Dr. Hailey O’hara is a robotics engineer and is hired by the government to build a weapon to stop an unknown threat from space. Hailey knows that a weapon won’t be able to stop whatever is out there, so instead she builds a super intelligent learning robot named Omega Zero. Omega Zero is tasked with saving the world and protecting it from this outside threat, and if she can’t do that, to Initiate the Omega Protocol as a last resort. The government isn’t happy about what Hailey made so they take Hailey’s research and fire her. Hailey then has to hide Omega Zero from the government and has Omega hide in Hailey’s childhood friend's apartment. Jason is an aspiring musician starving artist style, and used to love Hailey ever since middle school but never had the guts to tell her. Now Hailey is back in Jason’s life and Omega Zero is crashing at his apartment. Hailey teaches Omega how to be a hero and save the world and Jason teaches Omega about art, life, and being human. All the while Jason slowly falls back in love with Hailey again.