CHAPTER 18 THE DEAD MAN ON THE PHONE
Daniel stared at Jonas Vale’s body.
The man’s lips were colorless.
His skin was cold.
Yet the same voice continued through the phone.
“You still enter through the front door,” it said. “Prague taught you nothing.”
Daniel walked away from the table.
“Who is this?”
“You know who I am.”
“Jonas Vale is dead.”
“Which one?”
The line disconnected.
At that moment, the teenage girl at the table moved.
Emily jumped back.
The girl’s hand slid from her lap.
A small metal object fell onto the floor.
Mara approached carefully.
“She isn’t breathing.”
The movement had been mechanical.
A wire beneath the chair had released her hand when the phone call ended.
Daniel picked up the object.
It was a key.
Black metal.
Twelve teeth.
Each tooth shaped differently.
Rebecca’s implant began vibrating again.
This time, the pulse came rapidly.
“There’s someone else in the house,” she said.
Mara checked the hallway.
“Where?”
Rebecca turned slowly.
The vibration became strongest near the fireplace.
Emily found a hidden pressure switch behind a portrait.
A section of the wall opened.
Behind it, narrow stairs descended beneath the estate.
The air smelled of damp stone and antiseptic chemicals.
Daniel led the way.
At the bottom stood a steel door.
The black key opened it.
Inside was a medical panic room.
A boy sat beneath a white emergency blanket.
He looked about twelve years old.
Dark hair covered his forehead.
Blood stained one sleeve.
He held a kitchen knife in both hands.
Mara lowered her weapon.
“We’re not here to hurt you.”
The boy stared at Daniel.
“My father said you would come.”
“Jonas Vale?”
The boy nodded.
“My name is Nicholas.”
Daniel glanced at the monitor beside him.
“Who killed your family?”
“They weren’t my family.”
The words came without emotion.
“They were copies.”
Emily moved closer.
“What do you mean?”
“People trained to look like us in public. They attended dinners, charity events, and meetings. My real family stopped appearing outside years ago.”
Daniel remembered the voice on the phone.
“Where is your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your mother?”
Nicholas pointed toward a second door.
“She was taken below the chapel.”
Mara examined his injury.
“Who attacked you?”
“The men from Calder.”
Rebecca recognized the name.
“Calder Defense Systems.”
Nicholas nodded.
“Gate Nine.”
The twelve families did not merely hide behind money.
Each one controlled an institution powerful enough to shape the country.
The Vales controlled medical relocation.
The Calders controlled private military contracts.
The Whitmores had controlled intelligence.
Daniel looked at the black key.
“What does this open?”
“My father called it the Skeleton Key.”
Nicholas’s eyes moved toward Daniel.
“He said it belongs to the man without a house.”
They left the boy with Emily and followed the passage beneath the chapel.
Rows of empty medical beds lined the underground chamber.
Each bed contained restraints designed for adults.
Rebecca stopped near one of them.
Her name was printed on the identification plate.
REBECCA MERCER
PRIMARY BIOLOGICAL BRIDGE
TRANSFER DATE: JULY 27
The transfer date was seven days in the future.
Daniel tore the plate from the bed.
“They expected to bring you here.”
Rebecca studied the medical equipment.
“It’s the same technology Evelyn implanted in me.”
A cabinet contained dozens of devices identical to the one that had connected Rebecca’s heartbeat to Emily’s biometric signature.
Mara opened a file drawer.
Inside were records for hundreds of children.
Most names had been replaced by numbers.
“Dad.”
Mara handed Daniel a medical report.
The patient was listed as SUBJECT D-12.
Age at admission: seven.
Blood type: Daniel’s.
A childhood photograph was attached.
The boy had dark hair, bruised knuckles, and Daniel’s eyes.
Daniel stared at the image.
“I’ve never been here.”
Rebecca touched his arm.
“Are you sure?”
He tried to remember being seven years old.
He remembered a small apartment.
A woman singing near a window.
A father who smelled like engine oil.
Then nothing.
There were nearly eighteen missing months in his childhood.
His parents had told him he suffered from a severe fever.
The satellite phone rang again.
This time Daniel answered immediately.
Jonas Vale’s voice returned.
“They erased less than they believed.”
“What did they do to me?”
“They prepared you.”
“For what?”
“To destroy families like mine when we became inconvenient.”
Daniel looked at the photograph.
“Where are you?”
“Room Zero is waking.”
“What is Room Zero?”
“The place where all twelve gates meet.”
A woman screamed somewhere beneath the chapel.
Daniel ran toward the sound.
He reached a circular chamber with a single chair in the center.
The chair was empty.
Fresh blood covered one restraint.
A camera faced the seat.
On the wall behind it, someone had written a message.
WELCOME BACK, DANIEL.
Rebecca entered behind him.
Then she saw the monitor beside the chair.
A live video feed showed her standing in the chamber.
The image was dated seven days in the future.
In the recording, Rebecca was restrained in the chair.
Daniel stood behind her.
May you like
He held the termination device.
And Mara’s lifeless body lay on the floor.
