Nathan’s expression changed.

Eli kept hold of his hand.

Images flashed through the glass coils surrounding the chamber.

A child lying on an operating table.

Sebastian standing beside him.

Elena screaming.

Alistair attempting to shut down the machine.

But the child was not Nathan Cross.

The name on the medical file was different.

ADRIAN VALE JR.

Adrian stared at the screen.

“That’s impossible.”

He had never had another son.

Nathan grabbed Eli’s wrist.

“Get out of my mind.”

Eli’s nose began bleeding.

“Your memories were put inside someone else.”

Grace touched the machine.

More images appeared.

Nathan Cross had died during the first experiment.

Sebastian had preserved his memory pattern and transferred it into another child.

Then another.

Then another.

For decades, the person calling himself Nathan had lived through stolen bodies.

Daniel moved toward him.

“Whose body is this?”

Nathan smiled.

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to him.”

Daniel pointed at Adrian.

Eli closed his eyes and pushed deeper into Nathan’s memories.

A hospital room appeared.

Elena held a second newborn baby.

Adrian stood beside her, unaware that the scene was being recorded.

The timestamp was seven months after Daniel’s birth.

Adrian looked at Elena’s recording in disbelief.

“We never had another child.”

Alistair began crying behind his breathing mask.

“I’m sorry.”

Adrian turned toward his father.

“What did you do?”

Alistair lowered his head.

“Elena was pregnant with twins.”

Silence consumed the chamber.

Adrian looked back at Nathan.

One child had been Daniel.

The other had been declared dead before Adrian ever saw him.

Nathan touched the scar running down his face.

“Now you understand.”

Adrian’s cane slipped from his hand.

“You’re my son.”

“Part of me is.”

Eli suddenly screamed and released Nathan.

He fell into Daniel’s arms.

Blood ran from both ears.

Nathan staggered backward as if something inside him had awakened.

His eyes filled with tears.

“What did the boy do to me?”

Eli looked up weakly.

“I found the real person under all those memories.”

A hidden door opened behind the machine.

A woman stepped from the darkness.

Her hair was streaked with gray.

A scar crossed her face.

Adrian forgot how to breathe.

“Elena.”

She looked at Daniel.

Then Nathan.

Then Eli.

Her expression filled with terror.

“You shouldn’t have awakened him.”

The entire mansion began to shake.

Far beneath the ocean, something mechanical turned on.

Grace stared toward the floor.

“There’s another network.”

Elena grabbed Adrian’s hand.

“No. It’s older than Helix.”

A deep sound rose from beneath the house.

Thousands of screens across the chamber activated.

Every screen displayed the face of a sleeping child.

One by one, their eyes opened.

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Then a voice older than Sebastian, Nathan or the Helix Foundation spoke from beneath the sea.

“THE VALE FAMILY HAS RETURNED.”

TO BE CONTINUED