Collided

Chapter 34

Alyssa had been telling the truth when she said she said she wanted to be there and to meet Tinker's baby. She had, of course, been telling the truth when she said she had grieved. Where she had told a lie was where she told Tinker that she had made her peace. It was a baldfaced lie. 

In fact, it was so much so that she found herself filled with an overwhelming urge to see her babies again by the time she left Tinker's room.

As she went back to her room to try to bring her cascading emotions under control, she stopped by Blaze's room hoping to find him, but he was not around. She stopped by her room, but instead of going in, she kept on walking and did not pause until she was standing at the doors of the medical bay.

Along the way, she had tried to talk herself out of it, tried to reason with herself, but there was no stopping her. She would not go further without seeing her children. If it were now possible, she would hold them in her arms too.

She found Ada at her office with the door open as always, but that was not where she was headed. She started to turn the other way towards the maternity ward, but Ada noticed her and rushed out to meet her.

"Alyssa!" she said. "What...what are you doing here?"

"Don't mind me. I'm just here to see my babies. You can go back to whatever it is you were doing."

"Are you joking with me right now?" Ada asked. "I told you that I was letting you off that one time on the grounds but that you were not coming back."

"That's your business, not mine."

Ada grabbed her by the arm, and before Alyssa could think to resist, she dragged her into her office, basically throwing her in.

"Are you out of your mind? What the hell has gotten into you?" Ada snapped.

"I'm a mother who wants to see her children, and you're a doctor, a mother to be, and a fellow woman is standing in my way. Which of us sounds out of their mind?"

Ada pointed to the chair across from her desk, and with authority, Alyssa did not know she had. 

"Sit the fuck down!"

Begrudgingly, Alyssa obeyed, all the while making sure to make her displeasure clear. Ada was not impressed.

She shut the door and went to sit in her chair on the other side of her desk. Her hand casually slipped under her table, but Alyssa thought nothing of it.

"Alyssa, you can't just waltz in here like you own the place. This situation is not so simple, and you damn well know it," she said.

"No! I don't know that! What I do know is I was lied to by your tyrannical leader—"

"He's no tyrant, Alyssa. Mind your words. I will not tolerate or entertain blasphemy!"

Alyssa was not listening to her.

"My babies were forcefully removed from me without my knowledge or consent—"

"To save your life! And theirs!" Ada said. "Did you expect me to wait for your permission while you were bleeding out? While they were dying?"

"Well, I'm being prevented from visiting them now!"

"For your own protection!"

"Protection from who?" Alyssa questioned.

"You know who from!"

"So you're scared of him."

"I'm not scared."

"You are. Don't deny it. You are very much afraid of Boman!"

"Okay, fine! Yes, I'm afraid. So what? I'm afraid that if he finds out about this, I don't get what I want! This is treason and disloyalty. Helians do not yield to that!"

Alyssa laughed dryly.

"Is that enough for you? Are you happy now?"

"Not even close. He's deceiving all of you. He is never going to give you what you want!" she said. Ada's face went dark instantly.

"Be very careful what you say next, Alyssa," Ada said in a voice so cold that Alyssa shivered.

But her resolve to spit her truth was just as cold.

"You're his loyal servant, and your respect to him it's honorable, and as long as he has something you want, you'll remain loyal, even more, loyal than those who believe in his cause. He knows that. And so he'll keep you believing he can give you what you want even though he has no such intentions or even capability!"

"Shut up, Alyssa!"

"Your miscarriages were no accident, Ada!" Alyssa's voice rose. She no longer cared. "You are the product of failed experiments and living proof of Boman's wickedness!"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" Alyssa asked. "You're not the only Helian woman who is unable to carry a child all the way to childbirth. There are now very few of you. You have a couple of days missing from your memory from a long time ago, right after a certain ceremony, and you think you partied too hard and got too drunk because you woke up in bed. You did not. You were drugged, and you were experimented on against your will!"

"Enough of this!" Ada pushed out of her seat and backed away till her back hit the wall. She was breathing hard like the beginning of a panic attack.

"Even the women who can no longer give birth to female children result from a wider range of experimentation. Your womb is wrecked because you were the first set of experiments! hear me when I tell you this, no matter how hard or how many times you try, your pregnancies will never come to full term!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" A man's voice boomed from behind, and Alyssa jumped in her seat.

She turned. Standing in the doorway was Blaze.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough!"

"How did you... Why are you here?"

"I called him," Ada said. She was still struggling to catch her breath. She raised her hand, and in it, there was a little communication device.

Blaze rushed to her side and started whispering soothingly to her. Alyssa was confused by these demonstrations of affection from him towards Ada. 

"I've been searching for you all day, and all she had to do was press a button. Neat," Alyssa murmured.

"What were you going on about?" Blaze asked. His expression was fiery for some reason, and Alyssa knew he was in no mood to play.

"I stumbled upon your archives or whatever, and I saw files pertaining to an experiment. Project XX." As she said that, she looked at Blaze's face, hoping to catch a clue that he already knew what it was. Either he was an exceptional actor, or he didn't. "I was curious, so I opened it. That's where I found all this."

"What is she talking about, Blaze?" Ada asked.

"I'll explain in a moment," Blaze said. "Bear in mind you'll hate it very much." To Alyssa, he said, "This is what you were keeping from me. Isn't it? Why? Why keep this from me?"

"I didn't know if I could trust you!"

"What...what is she going on about, Blaze?" Ada asked. "She's lying, right?"

"I believe her," Blaze said sadly.

Ada fell to her knees in shock. Clearly, his words held more weight than hers. To Alyssa again, he said, "I wish you had told me about this first. That we'd slowly build trust with one another. There are things I do plan to tell you eventually."

"Then start talking, Blaze. Out of everything, why would this matter to you the most?" Alyssa asked.

"Because!" He started snappily but caught himself and took a deep breath. "Ada is my sister."