Fragment 27

I've hit a dead end. I don't know where else to look for my grandmother. I don't know anything. All I have are these fragments and starting here, they skip around a lot. I don't know if I can make sense of them. I'll try.

I ran through the stacks to see what had made the noise, why Canto had yelled out. Was it the Slender Man again? Was I running right towards him? 

No. As I emerged into the center of the library, I saw him. The man from the pharm, the man who had saved us from the drones. He was standing in the middle of the room looking at Canto and I saw that there was a symbol on the back of his jacket – the same symbol that was on the cover of Beware of Faded Giants. A circle with an x through it. 

"Can I help you?" I asked loudly. 

The man turned around and suddenly I realized my mistake. In the pouring rain, I had looked back and seen a man, but right here, I can could tell she was female. She was tall and thin, with black hair cut short and with her hood up, she could very easily be mistaken for male. 

She also wore a hard expression and held a curved sword in one hand. "Are you the Stray?" she asked. 

"You know who we are," I said. "You helped us back at the pharm. You've been following us. Why?" 

"I am Omega," she said. And if Canto looked shocked before, this expression made that one seem calm. 

"Holy shit," he said. "The Omega? I mean, we were told stories, but I thought you were dead. I mean, there was all this contradictory stuff, but-" 

"It's a title, not a name," she said. "I've been following you since the Church. I was a member there. In fact, I installed the computer you hacked." 

"And you call yourself Omega?" I said walking around her. 

"It is to honor the original Omega, the Alpha Omega," she said, still holding his sword sideways, as if anticipating an attack. "A group of us who meta at the Church decided to live like he lived. We called ourselves Omega. And we helped people. Until last week." 

"What happened last week?" I asked. 

"Our group was slaughtered," she said. "Every member was killed by men in bowler hats." 

I looked at Canto. "The Golconda," I said. "We've had problems with them, too." 

"Good," Omega said and lowered her sword. "Then we can help one another. I have information you need and you can help me to get vengeance." 

"We don't know who hired the Golconda," I said. "And I don't know how you can help us." 

"I installed the chemical computer," she said. "You don't think I didn't take precautions? How do you think I found you here? There were nanotags on the computer itself. And a tracefile in the Archive." 

"You know where the Archive is?" I asked. 

"At every single moment," she said. "You will help me and I will help you." 

"How do we know you'll keep your word?" I asked. 

"I'll keep it," she said. "Because I am the last Omega."