by Lizzy Bequin
“Dad,” she pleads, “This isn’t helping…”
He sighs, gradually getting his temper under control. After a couple of deep breaths, he nods. While he’s picking up his fallen chair, I think about what he just said. Empathetic bond? He’s got no idea. But it’s definitely not misplaced. And the connection between me and Amrita is not just Stockholm syndrome. Our ties run so much deeper than some psychological disorder. We’re joined at a cellular level. True mates.
“Fine,” Reese huffs, settling back into his seat. “Let’s talk then. Where do you want to begin?”
Thinking, I take a nice long slurp of my coffee, and I can feel the tiny surge of caffeine energy course through me. Before I can speak, Amrita jumps in.
“Let’s start with my condition,” she suggests.
Reese gulps. He flicks his eyes to his daughter’s face, then looks down at the table, placing his hands palms down on the smooth wooden surface, fingers splayed.
“Well,” he begins, “the short answer is that you are an Omega.”
“Omega?” Amrita asks, her brow knitted with confusion.
I lean forward.
“In the same sense that I’m an Alpha?” I ask.
“Well…yes and no.”
“All right,” I say, settling back into my chair and crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I think we’re going to need the long version now, Reese.”
His shoulders rise and fall as he heaves a deep sigh, and his eyes seem to glass over as his gaze turns inward. He’s dredging up memories of the past.
“To give you the long answer, I’ll have to go back more than twenty years.” He nods toward his daughter. “Back before Amrita was even born. It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got all night, and plenty of coffee,” I tell him. “I’m all ears.”
CHAPTER 21: AMRITA
The sun has gone all the way down outside, and I can hear the cicadas humming in the trees out there. Here inside the small cabin it is dim, the only source of light is a trio of thick, wax candles melting directly onto the surface of the wooden table. The wavering, golden flames push the shadows back just enough to encase the three of us in a warm globe of light.
Conway is leaning back, his arms folded across his broad, powerful chest. He pulled on an undershirt so that he wouldn’t be bare-chested, but the tank top leaves his thick, muscular arms on display. I try to ignore the way my desire for him writhes in my core.
Totally not appropriate with Dad here.
“We’ve got all night,” Conway says to my father, “and plenty of coffee. I’m all ears.”
Dad’s eyes swing up from the table to meet Conway’s stare for a moment. Then he shifts his gaze to me. Those dark eyes looking at me from under his bushy eyebrows are clearly troubled, and I can practically see the thoughts churning in his brain as he struggles to find the words to say what needs to be said.
I’m so happy to see him here sitting across from me, and my heart beats with love for my father when I think of everything he’s been through these past days, and how he came for me. It really is amazing.
But now it’s time to get everything out on the table.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I say drawing my legs, clad in Conway’s way-too-big sweatpants, up on the seat, until my knees are folded under my chin. “Whatever it is, I can take it. And I need to know.”
Dad nods and stares into the candle flames, which cast eerie, upward shadows over his face. He looks like he’s about to tell a campfire ghost story.
I notice that Dad’s fingers are fidgeting with something through the fabric of his shirt. He’s feeling my mom’s engagement and wedding rings which he always wears on a chain around his neck, the rings that always hang next to his heart.
“Before you were born,” he begins, his voice soft, “your mother and I were scientists. We worked together on a top secret experiment. It was a joint project between the US and Canadian governments. We worked at a location simply known as the Facility in the British Columbian wilderness, near the border with Alaska.”
I knew that my parents had worked on some kind of project together based on that old photograph that I found tucked away in a drawer in Dad’s office. The rest of the details, however, are new to me.
“Tell us about the project,” Conway prods him.
Reflections of the candles dance in his dark eyes. He raises his cup to take a long drink of coffee, and my father does too, setting the cup back down very deliberately, turning it in his fingers as he thinks.
“It was called Project Alpha. Our subjects were all dangerous men. Soldiers. Mercenaries. Prisoners. We did biological experiments on the to change their DNA. It was called the Alpha Conditioning. It made them stronger, faster, more ferocious. And it also enhanced their ability to heal themselves. Their cells were able to regenerate at an exponentially faster rate than an average human.”
“Sounds kind of like me and the other fellas at the Alpha Initiative,” Conway butts in.
When he mentions those “other fellas,” I’m reminded of his partner Kruger. My blood chills thinking about that scary guy. He might be like Conway in terms of his physical abilities, but that’s where the similarities end. Kruger is a total psycho. I pray I never see his scarred face again.
“Yes,” my dad goes on. “I believe that Project Alpha was a predecessor to the Alpha Initiative that granted you your abilities. Although it seems that in the intervening years they have made certain…advances.”
My Dad’s eyes are looking at Conway’s fingertips. Conway is slowly and absent-mindedly sliding his sharp claws in and out like a cat. I’ve seen him do that before. It’s kind of a habit he has when he’s thinking. But obviously, since my dad isn’t used to it, it’s a bit disconcerting.
Conway notices him staring and tucks his fingers beneath his arms.
I squeeze my arms around my folded legs, and shiver slightly, even though it’s not cold at all in the cabin. It’s just strange to think that, in some distant, indirect way, my dad helped play a roll in making Conway what he is. But he still hasn’t answered the original question.
“Okay, Dad,” I say, the breath from my voice wobbling the candle flames, “But that’s Project Alpha. What does that have to do with me being an Omega or whatever? And what even is an Omega?”
“I’m getting to that he says,” smoothing his hands over the wood-grained surface of the table. “You see, while Project Alpha was a success in many ways, there were still problems. Behavioral problems.”
“The Alphas were rowdy?” Conway snorts.
“That’s one way of putting it. You see, the genetic enhancements, while making the Alphas superhumanly powerful, also stirred up deep-seated primal instincts that made them nearly impossible to control. Their behavior was erratic at best. And at worst, well, I’m sure you can imagine…”
Conway nods as he swallows another big gulp of coffee before clunking his empty cup on the table. I notice my dad eyeing that cup.
“Yeah,” Conway says. “That part’s still pretty much the same. Most of the Alpha Initiative operatives end up losing it sooner or later.”
Dad glances at Conway’s cup again, then he finishes off his coffee too. It’s funny because even though Dad is a coffee drinker, he usually sips on the same cup for hours. If we’re at home, he usually has to take his cup the microwave two or three times to warm it back up. When he comes into the diner, I’ve never seen him finish a whole cup before it’s time to go.
Is he like, trying to win a coffee-drinking competition with Conway or something? Whatever. The main thing on my mind right now is how fucked up this whole Project Alpha business sounds.
“Dad, this all sounds totally unethical. Like, Frankenstein type of stuff.”
The expression on his face drops and his shoulders droop. I can tell he’s ashamed of it.
“If I had known exactly what I was getting into, I never would have signed up for the project,” he says. “It was the same for your mother too. But by the time
we realized just how bad things were, it was too late.”
He stands up, his chair legs scraping on the floor, wood on wood. Conway tenses, but my dad holds up his palms in a non-aggressive gesture.
“I’m just going to get more coffee,” he says, picking up his cup and then pointing to Conway’s. “You want more too?”
“Sure,” Conway says, relaxing and leaning his folded elbows on the table. “Thanks.”
Dad looks at me, and I shake my head. I’ve hardly touched my coffee. He takes his and Conway’s cups with him over to the stove
“So why didn’t you quit?” I ask, getting back to the topic.
Over the gurgle of the pouring coffee, he goes on talking over his shoulder to us.
“It wasn’t like we could just put in our two weeks notice. The people running the project were anxious to protect any information about what was going on inside the Facility. Your mother and I were in fear for our lives. And the man who was in charge of the whole show was a real monster. I simply knew him as the Professor. I never even knew his real name.”
He returns to the table, placing one brimful cup in front of Conway before taking his seat again.
“But you must have quit eventually,” I say, “I mean, you don’t work for the Facility anymore…do you?”
Dad shakes his head.
“The Facility was destroyed. The Alphas ended up turning against their creators. They tore the place apart and killed the better part of the staff, including the Professor. I saw him get ripped limb from limb right in front of my eyes before they threw him into a flaming chemical fire to burn alive.”
The blood drains from my father’s face as he speaks, and he rubs his hand at his throat.
“Your mother and I were lucky that we made it out alive.”
Conway drums his fingers against his tin cup, the tips of his sharp, exposed claws making a clicking sound against the hard metal. My father watches him carefully as he takes a big swig of his hot coffee, his throat working as he gulps down nearly half the cup in one go before setting the cup back onto the wooden table.
“All right,” Conway says, “but you still haven’t gotten to the part about Omegas.”
“Right,” Dad says, his eyes shifting from Conway to me to the guttering candle flames.
“The Professor’s theory was that the Alphas’ unruliness stemmed from the fact that they were mutated as adults. He tried to bring them under control by wiping their memories and subjecting them to intense psychological reconditioning. The process had minimal success.”
“So they moved to Plan B,” Conway interjects.
“Yeah,” my dad says, “Or more precisely, Plan Omega. The idea was to breed an infant with congenital Alpha traits. In so doing, the Professor felt that by raising the Alpha child from infancy, he would be able to make it serve him as a master. But it wasn’t just a matter of impregnating a female with an Alpha’s sperm. The fertilization process required an ovum that would complement the Alpha germ cells. Thus Project Omega was undertaken in order to create a vessel for the next generation Alpha.”
My throat feels strange and tight. I don’t like what I’m hearing, because I know that somehow it has to do with me. All my life I’ve struggled to be normal. Now it’s starting to sound like I was created in a lab somewhere in Canada.
“Project Omega?” I ask “Is that all I am? A vessel?”
Bitter tears are welling in my eyes, blurring my vision. I blink them back and wipe them away on the sleeves of my absurdly oversized sweat shirt.
“Sweetie, no, it’s not like that,” my Dad says, his face pained to see me crying.
“So what happened?” Conway grumbles. “Did you succeed in making one of these…Alpha babies?”
“No,” Dad says, shaking his head. “We bred Alphas and Omegas, but never succeeded in producing a viable Alpha embryo…”
His voice tapers off like the thin smoke rising from the candles.
“But,” Conway coaxes him.
“There was one viable Omega embryo that was the product of a mating.”
Dad clutches his hands together to hide the trembling.
“It was Amrita,” Conway says, and my father nods, keeping his eyes on me to watch my reaction.
My skin is crawling, and I feel like a panic attack is setting in .
“We wanted a child,” my dad says, “but we struggled to conceive. After some tests, we determined that Amrita’s mother had problems with fertility. During the chaos at the Facility, she managed to grab the Omega embryo. I thought it was…” He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “I thought it was unsound, but your mother insisted. She was an expert in Omega biology, and she believed that she would be able to carry the embryo to term safely. And we both wanted a child of our own so badly. Once we reached safety, we implanted the embryo. For the first several months, the pregnancy progressed as normal. I thought everything was going to be okay…”
He gets choked up and becomes silent.
“But something went wrong,” Conway urges him to continue. And he’s right to do so. Even though it is painful, I need to learn the full story about myself.
“An average woman just isn’t built to carry an Alpha or Omega foetus. There are major differences at the cellular level. And the Omega physiology is so much more robust. It requires so much energy for the foetus to develop.”
A tear rolls down his face beside the bridge of his nose, and his fingers go back to worrying the rings that he wears around his neck. He fixes his eyes on mine, and their depths are churning with so many emotions—love, apology, loss.
“In the last months your mother grew weak,” he says in a shaky voice. “She didn’t survive the birth.”
My chest feels tight, and the shadows at the edges of the room seem to close in like the cabin is shrinking around me.
“I killed Mom” I say flatly. “I sucked the life out of her.”
“Amrita, it’s not like that.”
“And when I got older, you gave me medicine to suppress my Omega traits,” I say. “To hide who I really am. What I really am.
I can’t look at him anymore. I bury my face between my knees as the tears start rolling out of me. At last I know the story of my life. At last I know where I came from.
After a minute, Conway breaks the silence.
“I just have one more question, Reese.”
Earlier, Conway took my dad’s satchel with all of his weapons. Now he reaches under his chair where he has stashed it and he sets it onto the table, rummaging through its dangerous contents. He draws out a device that almost looks like a chunky smartphone. He slides it across the table to my father, but he doesn’t say anything. As the moments drag out, the tension in the air grows thick.
“What’s your question?” my dad whispers bitterly.
“My question?” Conway asks, and points at the device. “Is that what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is?” my dad retorts.
His face is growing dark with anger, and he occasionally shifts his eyes back to me.
“I think it’s the way you found us,” Conway says, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table next to the satchel.
My dad’s shoulders slump as he breathes a defeated sigh.
“What is it, Dad?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer.
“If you don’t tell her, Reese, I’m going to.”
I straighten in my chair. My skin is prickling as I wonder what the hell is going on.
“What is it?” I demand, growing scared and angry.
“Amrita, I’m sorry, baby,” my dad whispers. “I was only thinking about your safety.”
“Just tell me what it is!” I yell, slamming my fists, balled inside the ends of my sweatshirt sleeves, onto the table. Both of the men jump a little in surprise at my outburst. But I’ve had just about all of this beating around the bush that I can take.
“It’s a tracking device.”
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“It’s a tr
acking device,” my father says. “When you were an infant, I surgically implanted a small transmitter under the skin behind your left ear. I can follow it with this device.”
My hand shoots up to the recess behind my earlobe, and the pads of my fingers roll over the little bump there. I’ve felt it before of course, but I never thought anything of it. It’s just one of those little details of my body that I took for granted.
“You put a tracking device on me?” I gasp in disbelief.
“It was standard practice with the subjects at the Facility. In case they escaped. After you were born, I was concerned that someday someone might try to kidnap you. A fear that was clearly warranted.” My dad casts an angry glance at Conway. “I needed to know I could find you if—”
“You put a tracking device on me?” I repeat, my voice getting louder. “Like some kind of animal?”
My father holds his hands up in surrender.
“Amrita, you have to understand, I did it for your own good.”
“My own good?” I scream, banging my sleeved fists into the wood table again so hard that some coffee splashes out of my cup, and the candles nearly topple over. “My own good? Why does it seem like everybody in this room has a say about what’s best for me except me?”
Tears sting my cheeks as my voice grows ragged with angry crying.
“Sweetie—“ my Dad starts, but I cut him off.
“Don’t ‘sweetie’ me,” I shriek, as boiling anger wells in my chest. “You lied to me. All my life you’ve hidden who I am. What I am.”
I stand and kick my chair, sending it screeching across the floor.
“Amrita,”
Conway rises too, his arms reaching out to calm me, but I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want anyone to touch me now.
“You’re just as bad as he is,” I sob. “You locked me away to be your…your…your little ‘vessel.’ Well I’m not having it. This is my life. My body. My decision.” I punctuate each shouted statement by fiercely jabbing my finger at my chest.
