Chapter Four

Since our task coincided with my personal business, I decided to drive him to the address on the business card given by Dr. Crane. I thought it would be like how she described it, which is 'dirty,' but among the establishments in the slum area of the city, his clinic was reasonably decent. They have security guards in uniform, armed with a 45' caliber tucked in their belts, there was a good amount of flowering vegetation from the ground to the terrace on the second and third floor, and there were creeping vines all over the old bricks.

We were blocked by the guards as soon as we tried to enter. One of them asked, "Sirs, we have to inspect you first before you can come in for safety reasons." Then the other started to check Jacob's bag.

"I know I'm pretty, but I'm telling you now, I have a high standard," Jacob smirked at the guard checking him out. He said he has a high standard, but he quickly falls in love with a wide range of men transcending social statuses and genders.

I showed the card to them, and without trying to touch me, they directly led us inside to the receptionist.

"Hello. May we ask for what reason are you here?" The receptionist gracefully asked with a kind smile on her face. She then gave us a brochure about their clinic, which contains information about their clinic's services and abortion is not in it. They have free consultations for people with low incomes. They even have dental check-ups and services, prioritize elderlies with heart conditions and diabetes, and have their own omega healthcare program giving free contraceptive pills. What kind of clinic is this? Well, the brochure also contains that they have seven licensed doctors, forty registered nurses, and more than fifty volunteers. From the outside, the clinic looked so small, but it was actually big inside that it would be a shame to call it a mere clinic.

"Ahh, Dr. Crane suggested that I see Dr. Mendez," I told her as I showed the card.

"Dr. Crane? That Dr. Crane?" She asked with shocked eyes. Then, she immediately took the phone and said, "Hello, this is Amy. We have visitors here who were introduced to come here by Dr. Crane. Please inform Dr. Mendez, we have a visitor..." she paused and looked at me to ask, "May I know your name, sir?"

"I'm Russien Rene, and this is my friend, Jacob Walter," I answered, and Jacob waved his hands to say hi.

She relayed our names to the person she talked to and then asked us again, "May we know how old you are?"

"I'm 27, Walter's 24."

"May we know your gender?"

"I'm an omega, Walter's uh...well, alpha." Jacob added clarification, "But I swear I am not proud of it. I am too cute to be a trashy alpha."

She gestured a hand signal to the guard, and they quietly took Jacob to a room, "Please come with us, sir, to follow the safety protocol."

"Hey, I know you have to be wary of alphas, but I swear, I am a good person, and I do not want to cause any harm. I always take my inhibitors. I am a responsible person. You do not have to be-" He tried explaining, but they still took him away.

"Where are they taking him? Why do they have to do that?" I asked.

"Alphas who come here not as a patient must wait in the designated room until the procedure is done. I hope you don't get offended by it." She explained.

"I understand," I said, and then she took me upstairs to the rooftop, where a seemingly simple house with a beautiful botanical garden was built. Then a bearded man with dark circles on his eyes and thick eyeglasses rushed to us. He was laughing like an idiot.

"Is this the one from Dr. Crane?"

They took me to sit on a white-painted bench inside the gazebo-like garden. The greeneries cover the sun, and the air that blows is as fragrant as the flowers around. They also served green tea and sweets like children's tea parties.

Dr. Mendez was not wearing a lab gown or a suit. He was wearing a Hawaiian polo shirt as if the whole place did not have enough flowers, so he decided to wear flower patterns on his clothes too. He extended his hand and introduced himself while shaking mine. "I'm Angelo Mendez. I used to be a famous neurosurgeon, but I dropped it all and switched my specialty to Secondary Gender Anatomy and Endocrinology. Crane thinks I'm her rival, and she's quite disappointed in my life choices as if she could ever get to my level. I was so shocked when I heard that she finally admitted her defeat and recommended me to you."

Ugh... I see now why she hates this doctor.

"So, what's your name? What's wrong with you?" He asked while his eyes were beaming.

Should I go back?

"I'm Russien Rene, and I got marked last week," I answered in the most concise way to make it short, so I could leave early.

He freezes up, and lets go of my hand. So, I asked, "Is there something wrong with you, doc?"

He took off his glasses, used his shirt's hem to wipe the lenses, and wore it again.

"You work at Verde Veritas, right?" He asked, and I was taken aback. Am I famous? Oh, doesn't this forfeit the other reason why I came here? I was supposed to investigate the abortion procedures they do here.

"Yes, doc. I'm an investigative journalist at Verde Veritas."

He drank his tea and gestured for me to drink too. He also took a pink-colored macaroon and ate it without any tact.

"I read your article last year. About the missing omega cases from 1973 to 1988 in nine regions in the country. You said there could be more than a hundred who went missing and are still not found to this day. You also wrote that the police did nothing to investigate them since most of them are orphans and from the slums. Since last year, I have wanted to talk to you about it, but I was buried in paper. It's nice that you showed up at my door instead."

Hearing him talk about it intrigued me. After the article, many people approached me to give me death threats and false information. What could be the reason why he's showing interest in it? So, I asked, "That article was taken down a week after it was published, and I got a lot of criticisms. They said it was a cacophony of conspiracy theories I developed because I was delusional. What do you think of it, doc?"

"I had a patient once. I tried to treat her outside because they couldn't afford to stay in the hospital. Well, her boy begged me to help them. At first, I was scared because I might lose my license if I helped them, but I still did. Her condition was outside my specialty, and I still tried to help. Anyways, I am a genius, so it worked out in the end..."

Is this guy seriously bragging? I thought his story was going on a different path, but then the continuation of his story shed light on why he's invested in the case like me, "Then, that boy disappeared, and it drove his mother to insanity."

I put the cup on the table. "When did the child go missing?"

"1988. The kid was last seen on this street. Then I read in your article that the last place where the disappearance occurred was in the poorest area of Lacierta, particularly this town. Then I remembered that you were right. More than twenty young adolescent omega went missing in Lacierta alone from 1987 to 1988. There were more than twenty because the number was actually double your estimate. There were 42 who went missing in the span of mere two years. So, if you think that there were only more than a hundred, that number is too small if the disappearance started in 1973. It's been seven years since the disappearance stopped. What do you think happened? Who do you think is responsible for that?"

After I released that story, I accumulated more information about others who went missing in this city. my count reached 38 identified missing persons. All of them are omega. They're primarily poor or from the marginalized sector. And all of them are still not found.

"I tried to investigate the sex trafficking industry for seven years since I was seventeen. I even traveled all over the country to gain information. I only gained an increasing number of missing omega but not factual information to point out who did it. I also tried to investigate sex traffickers and exposed them by ghostwriting for other news writers. Anyways, those bastards did not give me information about the whereabouts of the known victims. It's like those people ceased to exist. Their records, the people who knew them, and their whereabouts were erased and nowhere to be found, no matter how much I dig. Few were reported to the police as missing persons, but they did nothing after searching through forests and streets. They stopped all their efforts and moved on because no one gave them pressure to find the missing kids. So, if you're asking me who's responsible, I still don't know who was the culprit or culprits, but I blame the police for their incompetence."

He nodded and asked again. "You stopped writing about them after that one article. Did you give up?"

I rolled my eyes and told him about how things work in the company. "So, no one believed me except Jacob, and even Mr. and Mrs. Verde can't interfere with publishing my articles about the missing kids. Some didn't want me to pursue the case because it criticized the system so much. But I'm telling you, I'm far from giving up."

There was a gush of silence as the wind passed us by and cooled the atmosphere. "Do you have any materials about the victims here?" I asked.

"Ahh. Yes. I also know a few of the victims' relatives here. You can talk to them anytime."

We finished half the macaroon as he talked about the victims' lives in the slums.

"Ahh, by the way, what's wrong with you, again?" He asked.

Wow. It made me forget that the person I talked with had loose screws.

"I got marked, doc, by someone I don't know and don't want to be with," I told him again.

"Ohhh... you're fucked up." he simply concluded.

"Exactly." You son-of-a-bitch.

"My disciples are currently developing drugs to alleviate the heat of an omega and how to improve the immune system of marked omegas, but I cannot prescribe them to you or to anyone yet."

"What kind of doctor has disciples?" His image looks like a cult leader than a doctor.

"Well, two of them are chemists, the other has a doctorate in material physics, and the last one dropped out of med school. They call themselves researchers, but they're just my disciples as long as they need my help." His chin and nose were becoming pointed because of his bragging when he did not answer my sarcastic question accurately.

"So, you can't do anything for me?" Now, I realize why Dr. Crane called him a self-proclaimed expert.

"Well, I have a theory that the hormonal imbalance marked omegas suffer from when their partner is absent is the brain's response to the sudden loss of pheromones that their body adapted to because of the marking. It's all in the brain, chemically speaking. If we can make an artificial pheromone similar to the lost pheromones, then maybe we can trick the brain into thinking that everything is fine, so there's no need to produce these stress hormones. It's all still work in progress, but we're getting there." He looked so proud explaining his little theory to me.

"Pheromones are as distinct as fingerprints. It's unique to every human. So, how can you say that you can synthesize something similar to pheromones to trick the brain? An alpha tried to touch me earlier, and I puked because I felt disgusted with his pheromones. Omegas have a physiological mechanism that can accurately identify which pheromones match their mate and which do not. Trick the brain? Please... You're too far from there." I questioned. He has a theory full of loopholes. But I applaud him for his creative imagination, which is not really that far from reality.

"You don't have to point out the problem to me." He chomped at the remaining macaroons.

"Oh, I was actually told to investigate the city's illegal abortions, and Dr. Crane implicitly told me that you do that here too. You're in a fucked up position, doctor."

He looked so scared. It made me relate to that monster a little bit. Teasing others is quite entertaining, huh.