CHAPTER 29 THE HOUSE BENEATH THE LAKE
Daniel froze.
Little brother.
The silver-eyed man appeared on every monitor.
His face remained hidden.
Mara stood rigid beside the console, fighting the system moving through her nerves.
Daniel held Rebecca with one arm.
“Who are you?”
The man ignored him.
“Eleanor, you should have told him.”
Eleanor stepped backward.
“I thought you were dead.”
“You hoped I was.”
The monitors displayed another childhood recording.
Two boys stood inside Room Zero.
Daniel was seven.
The older boy had silver eyes.
Both wore identification bands.
D-12.
D-13.
Daniel had not been the only Correction candidate.
The older child approached the camera.
“My name is Elias.”
Rebecca stopped breathing.
Daniel felt her body become heavy in his arms.
She whispered the name before the recording continued.
“Elias.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You know him.”
Rebecca’s face collapsed.
“I thought he died.”
“Who is he?”
She could not answer.
Gunfire moved closer.
Celia Hale and the remaining House representatives entered the upper chamber with private soldiers.
Reed and Charles tried to hold them back.
Emily helped Daniel move Rebecca toward the evacuation tunnel.
Mara remained connected to the console.
“I can hold the doors,” she said.
“We aren’t leaving you.”
“If I disconnect, they enter.”
Rebecca pulled away from Daniel.
“I’ll stay.”
“No.”
“Daniel, she is our daughter.”
“So is Emily.”
Emily reached the manual controls.
“We all stay until we find another exit.”
The old childhood recording continued.
Vivian entered the room and stood between the two boys.
“You cannot raise them as opposing weapons,” she told Eleanor.
“One will become the Correction,” Eleanor answered.
“And the other?”
“The Gate.”
Daniel looked at Elias’s identification.
D-13 had not been designed to destroy rogue Houses.
He had been designed to control the Correction.
Eleanor finally spoke.
“Elias was the first child created from your genetic line and mine.”
Daniel stared at her.
“He is not your brother.”
Eleanor looked at Rebecca.
“He is your son.”
Silence swallowed the chamber.
Daniel turned toward Rebecca.
She looked as though the room had disappeared beneath her feet.
“During Prague,” she whispered, “when you were missing…”
Daniel remembered.
He had vanished for nearly eleven months during an operation.
Rebecca had been told he was dead.
“I was pregnant,” she said. “The hospital told me the baby did not survive.”
“You never told me.”
“I couldn’t.”
Her voice broke.
“I buried an empty coffin.”
Elias had been taken at birth.
Raised inside Room Zero.
Trained as the Gate.
Mara’s older brother.
Emily’s older brother.
Daniel’s son.
The silver-eyed man watched them from the monitors.
“They made you a father,” Elias said. “Then they taught you to forget.”
The House soldiers reached the final security door.
Mara locked it.
The metal began bending beneath explosives.
Emily searched the Room Zero files.
“I found an evacuation route.”
A diagram revealed a tunnel running beneath the lake toward an abandoned ranger station.
They began disconnecting the children’s biometric files from the central system.
Daniel copied the master ledger.
Mara transferred control away from the medical networks one sector at a time.
The process weakened Room Zero without creating a global collapse.
Celia’s voice came through the door.
“Daniel, open the chamber. Elias is manipulating you.”
Daniel looked toward Eleanor.
“Is he?”
Eleanor did not answer quickly enough.
The door exploded inward.
Gunfire filled the room.
Charles tackled one soldier.
Reed shot another.
Emily pulled Rebecca into the evacuation tunnel.
Daniel reached for Mara.
She disconnected from the console.
The entire facility shook.
Water poured through cracks in the ceiling.
They escaped as Room Zero began flooding.
Eleanor remained behind.
Rebecca shouted for her.
Eleanor stood beside the main system and looked at her daughter one final time.
“I gave you away once.”
She activated the emergency barrier.
“I won’t do it again.”
The steel door closed between them.
The lake swallowed Room Zero.
Hours later, the family reached a federal safe house.
Rebecca sat in silence.
Daniel did not know whether Eleanor survived.
Mara’s implant no longer displayed the circle.
But she could still hear faint commands.
Emily opened the master ledger.
Most records were corrupted.
One page remained intact.
MERCER FAMILY SUCCESSION
PRIMARY CORRECTION: DANIEL
CENTRAL HEIR: EMILY
GATEKEEPER: MARA
PRIMARY VESSEL: REBECCA
CONTROL AUTHORITY: ELIAS
A live location appeared beside Elias’s name.
May you like
Daniel looked at the map.
The signal was coming from his house.
