Content Warning: omegaverse, alpha/beta/omega dynamics, eventual mpreg, breeding kink, breeding instinct, outdoor sex, post-apocalyptic far future setting, genetically engineered humans
Author's Note: did quite a bit of world building at the start but I promise it ends with smut XD
The world was a mess in the latter half of the twenty-second century, though admittedly not as bad as it could have been.
Climate change did irreparable harm to the planet but belated policy changes on the part of governments world-wide were finally enacted and kept the world from becoming
completely
uninhabitable. This was, unfortunately (and predictably), far too late for vast swaths of humanity-- those living nearest the equator and along coastlines were hit particularly hard. The advent of the twenty-second century saw the battle for resources hit a fever-pitch and those who could afford it fled towards the poles while ice caps melted and entire governments went defunct. Petty dictators rose and fell while more resource rich countries, clinging to what stability they still had, took what refugees they were able.
Daniel Smith was, in a way, a direct result of the worst years of the resource wars circa 2164. Desperate to protect lands that had skyrocketed in value in the face of collapsing ecosystems further south, the newly founded Canadian-American Union launched an ethically dubious super-soldier program that used experimental gene therapy to create a new breed of human that was not only better suited to surviving extreme conditions-- but was faster, stronger, and hardier than naturally born humans.
Unfortunately for the program, they were exceptionally intelligent as well-- something that rarely made for soldiers that followed orders without question.
The existence of program was leaked to the public by its own creations and ostensibly shuttered in the face of the ensuing outrage. Daniel himself had no doubt the program would have made a come-back eventually-- he himself was shuffled between different branches of the military after it all came out. He'd been an officer in the marines but had been ill-suited to the role given his penchant for asking questions and, on more than one occasion, refusing to carry out orders when he'd been told to use force to turn refugees back at the border.
He'd wound up a medic eventually, putting his 'bleeding heart to use' as his previous commander had put it, and he might have stayed there indefinitely if not for mother earth taking another swing at the bee-hive that was humanity.
Her bat of choice was a vicious little virus resurrected from the ice of Antarctica as the last of the glaciers melted away, freeing it from a prison of millennia old ice to ravage the helpless inhabitants of the modern day. Worse, exposure to UV light mutated it into something new and strange that laid all humans low but hit those with xx-chromosomes particularly hard.
Women died by the millions, all but demolishing the already beleaguered human race within within five years. In the face of extinction, scientists pivoted from chasing the illusive cure to developing something,
anything,
that would allow the species to persist-- even if they had to become something entirely new to do so.
The last Daniel heard they had been using gene therapy and any other tool they could get their hands on to establish a way for the surviving men to reproduce without women, a stop-gap against extinction until a cure for the virus could be found. He, and the surviving members of the program that had made him, were put in cryogenic stasis as specimens of humanity's very peak to be defrosted at a later date when things finally stabilized-- for better or worse. The virus was killing off people with y-chromosomes too, after all, though at a significantly lower rate-- and the super soldiers were too valuable to lose.
Unfortunately, 'later' never came.
~~~
Daniel woke to a rush of cool, stale air and inhaled deeply on reflex. He regretted it almost immediately as the dust caught at the back of his throat and sent him into a paroxysm of coughing before he even opened his eyes.
He could hear voices around him but he couldn't make out what they were saying-- not unusual for someone fresh out of cryo-sleep, though still annoying. Daniel rolled onto his side and hauled himself mostly upright with the help of the handrail built into the cryo-pod and multiple pairs of unfamiliar hands on his arms and shoulders.
Someone spoke again and still Daniel couldn't make heads or tails of what they were saying so he forced his eyes open and blinked rapidly in an attempt to focus on the figures gathered around his pod.
There were three of them, all men, and they were dressed very strangely for a visit to a military deep-freeze facility. Wearing a blend of rough fabrics, leather, and furs, the trio looked more like they were dressed up for Halloween or living displays for some sort of 'ancient man' display at the local museum. All three men were on the shorter side, though the tallest of them was very muscular and covered with scars. On closer inspection, the other two looked to be quite strong as well, though in a leaner sort of way, and all of them had the look of people who spent a great deal of time outdoors.
The closest man reached out to him and placed his hand on Daniel's, drawing the soldier's attention to him as he spoke. Daniel had no idea what the man said, but as his eyes finally made a full recovery he noted that the stranger was quite beautiful. So much so Daniel might have mistaken him for a woman at a glance, but the sharp edges of his tan face and his build marked him as male.
"I'm sorry," Daniel said when the beautiful stranger tried to speak again. "I don't understand what you're saying."
The three men shared a surprised look and conversed amongst themselves for a moment. While they did, Daniel strained his ears but, despite being fluent in several languages himself, and more than capable of at least identifying the rest by ear, he couldn't follow them in the least. There
was
something maddeningly familiar about whatever language they were speaking, and Daniel wondered if he hadn't suffered some sort of brain damage while he was on ice.
The light coming in from overhead shifted, and for the first time Daniel noticed that it wasn't electric, but natural sunlight pouring in from a hole in the ceiling. There was fresh looking dirt and debris on the floor and the rest of the room had a run-down and disused look to it that made no sense to Daniel.
Something was wrong.
Heart thundering in his chest, Daniel climbed out of his cryo-pod, stumbling a little on legs long left unused, and made his way to the pod next to his. The trio stepped quickly out of his way when he moved but he paid them no mind as he went to activate the touch screen built into the unit, only to find it dark and unresponsive. Closer examination revealed a crack in the casing and Daniel knew even before he cupped his hands around his eyes to peer into the darkened inner chamber than the woman within was long dead and the same proved true of the final pod at the end of the room.
There had been three members of Project Nephilim interred here at site delta-- himself, Charlie, and Alison, but it seemed only his cryo-pod had survived. A quick scan of the room revealed a sizable fracture in the floor that suggested an earthquake had ruptured the power-lines to the other two pods, killing their occupants.
Project Nephilim, the super-soldier project that had lead to the creation of himself and some hundred others like him, had been a close knit group-- the closest thing to family any of them had ever gotten over the course of the almost thirty years they'd been alive. They hadn't all
gotten along
, but that didn't mean they weren't family.
A hand brushed his shoulder and Daniel looked around sharply, startling the man that had reached out to him-- the beautiful one with tan skin and expressive green eyes.
Daniel had already noted that all three of the strangers were on the short side, but now that he was on his feet the difference in their heights was all the more apparent. At six foot four, Daniel was used to towering over the people around him-- he and all the members of Project Nephilim had been built that way; even the women had been six foot and taller. Judging by the way the three strangely dressed men stared at him now, however, it was clear they had never seen someone so large as him before.
"Sorry," Daniel said and held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I'm just... you don't have a word I'm saying, do you?"
The other man cocked his head, making it obvious that this was the case, then made a helpless gesture while one of the other males made some remark. Finally, he seemed to give up communicating and simply took Daniel gently by the hand and lead him back towards the hole in the ceiling where a rope was still hanging down. One of them, probably the largest, judging by the dirt that lingered on his clothes, must have fallen down through a weak point in the ceiling and the others had followed after with the rope.
The trio climbed up first while Daniel checked the only door to the room. He had no idea if it had been fused shut or blocked in some other way, but it refused to open even under his strength, making it obvious the soldier wouldn't be getting into the rest of the facility without the use of some tools.