Title Page

Copyright Notice

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Dedication

This novel is dedicated to

Dr. Arul Chidambaram and the doctors, nurses, and dedicated staff at Wellington Regional Hospital.

Thank you for saving my life.…

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is with great appreciation that I acknowledge those who contributed to the completion of The Omega Project.

First and foremost, to the great staff at Forge Books, with special thanks to Tom Doherty and his family, my editors, James Frenkel and Whitney Ross, art director Seth Lerner and jacket designer Peter Lutjen. My gratitude and appreciation to my personal editor, Lou Aronica at the Fiction Studio ([email protected]), whose advice remains invaluable, and to my literary agent, Danny Baror of Baror International, for his friendship and dedication. Thanks as well to his assistant, Heather Baror-Shapiro.

To my friend Nick Nunziata—a special thanks for your input during the writing process. Thanks as well to the talented William McDonald (www.alienUFOart.com) for the original artwork found within these pages, and to copy editor Justine Gardner.

My gratitude and appreciation to Barbara Becker, who serves as my personal reader and works tirelessly in the Adopt An Author program, as well as to Millennium Technology Resources, for managing the SteveAlten.com Web site.

Finally, to my wife, Kim, and my kids, Kelsey and Branden, for their love, and for their tolerance of the long hours involved in my writing career, and most importantly to my readers and fans, without whom I’d have no career.

Contents

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Epigraph

Prologue

Part One: GDO (The Great Die-Off) 2020–2025

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part Two: 2028

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Illustration

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Part Three: Awakenings

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Illustration

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Illustration

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Epilogue

Epigraph

Novels by Steve Alten

About the Author

Copyright

Epigraph

The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there’s an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy Earth.

—STEPHEN HAWKING, Nobel Prize–winning physicist and author of A Brief History of Time

Prologue

PROLOGUE

JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
MARCH 12, 1998