CHAPTER 29 : BENEATH ETHAN’S BEDROOM
The Blackwood estate appeared abandoned.
Smoke rose beyond the trees from the underground hospital.
The storm had cut power to the main house.
Ethan entered through the kitchen with the preserved infant.
Noah and Vanessa followed.
Daniel came behind them, dragging Grant with his wrists tied.
Claire carried her newborn.
Helen walked beside her.
Neither woman trusted the other enough to turn away.
Thomas and Margaret arrived through a separate tunnel with Adrian.
Thomas had been shot through the shoulder, but he refused assistance.
They gathered in the entrance hall.
For the first time, every surviving piece of the Blackwood program stood beneath the same roof.
Thomas looked toward Daniel.
“Which brother are you pretending to be now?”
The scarred man removed the Blackwood ring.
“My name is David.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Ethan stared at him.
“You told us you were Daniel.”
“I told you the name that opened the door.”
“Where is Daniel?”
David looked toward the staircase.
“Beneath your childhood bedroom.”
Thomas laughed.
“You expect us to believe Daniel has been alive under this house for thirty years?”
David faced him.
“You spoke to him through the floor.”
Thomas’s amusement disappeared.
Ethan led them upstairs.
His childhood room had remained untouched.
The narrow bed.
The wooden desk.
The marks on the wall where he had measured his height.
Vanessa moved the bed aside.
Five circular symbols had been carved into the floorboards.
Three knocks came from below.
A pause.
Two more.
Claire’s newborn opened his eyes.
The preserved infant did the same.
Both children turned toward the sound.
Ethan found a metal ring hidden beneath the carpet.
He pulled.
The floor opened.
Cold air rose from a stone staircase.
They descended into a chamber older than the estate itself.
A glass coffin stood at the center.
Medical tubes ran from the coffin into the walls.
A man lay inside.
His hair was gray.
His body was thin.
Two fingers on his left hand were permanently damaged.
David stood beside the glass.
“My brother.”
Thomas looked at the man’s hand.
“That injury can be copied.”
David pointed toward the chest.
“But that cannot.”
A surgical scar crossed the man’s heart.
The same scar documented in Daniel Blackwood’s childhood medical file.
Ethan approached the coffin.
A speaker activated.
The man’s voice was barely audible.
“Ethan.”
Ethan stepped back.
“He knows me.”
“He watched you grow up,” Margaret whispered.
“You knew?”
“I heard the machines beneath the floor. Helen told me they were keeping the estate’s security network alive.”
Helen moved toward the controls.
“We cannot wake him yet.”
Claire blocked her.
“You have controlled enough lives.”
“He is connected to every continuity subject. Removing him could kill the children.”
Adrian examined the system.
“She’s right.”
Grant laughed from the staircase.
“Daniel was never a patient.”
Everyone turned.
“He was the living server,” Grant continued. “Every identity, memory map and genetic command passed through his nervous system.”
Thomas grabbed Grant by the throat.
“How do we disconnect him?”
“You don’t.”
The preserved infant touched the carrier wall.
A voice emerged from Claire’s newborn.
“Open.”
Daniel’s coffin unlocked.
The glass rose slowly.
Helen reached for the emergency stop.
Evelyn took control of Claire again and grabbed her wrist.
“No more cages.”
Daniel’s eyes opened.
He looked first at David.
Then Helen.
Then Thomas.
Finally, he looked at Ethan.
“You were never Thomas Reed’s son.”
Thomas’s face hardened.
Daniel lifted a trembling hand toward the preserved infant.
“That child existed before David and me.”
Ethan looked down at the baby.
Daniel struggled to breathe.
“He is not the Blackwood heir.”
May you like
The lights beneath the estate activated.
“He is the reason the Blackwood bloodline exists.”
