CHAPTER 30 : THE FIRST BLACKWOOD
No one spoke.
The preserved infant watched Daniel with silent recognition.
Ethan placed the carrier beside the coffin.
“How could this child exist before you?”
Daniel slowly sat up.
The movement caused every monitor in the chamber to spike.
Claire’s newborn cried.
Noah grabbed the wall as pain crossed his chest.
The three heirs were reacting to Daniel’s body.
Adrian adjusted the machines.
“Speak slowly.”
Daniel looked toward the infant.
“My father found him beneath St. Aldwyn in 1964.”
David stared at him.
“You told me the first experiment began after we were born.”
“That is what Helen wanted us to believe.”
Helen moved toward the stairs.
Vanessa blocked her.
“You’re not leaving.”
Daniel continued.
“The child was already preserved. No birth record. No parents. No identifiable origin.”
Thomas looked toward Helen.
“What did you use him for?”
Helen’s silence became an admission.
Daniel touched his own chest.
“My father used the child’s tissue to treat my heart condition.”
David understood.
“And later he used the same tissue in me.”
“The Blackwood brothers were not his biological sons,” Daniel said. “We were reconstructed around the child’s genetic material.”
Grant smiled.
“The inheritance never belonged to Daniel or David.”
“It belonged to the source,” Ethan said.
The preserved infant’s eyes moved toward him.
Thomas shook his head.
“No court would recognize a child found beneath a hospital sixty years ago.”
“The trust does not answer to a court,” Evelyn said through Claire.
A control panel appeared behind Daniel’s coffin.
Three symbols illuminated.
The preserved child.
Claire’s newborn.
Noah.
A fourth symbol appeared beneath them.
Ethan.
WITNESS REQUIRED TO OPEN ORIGIN GATE.
Daniel reached toward Ethan.
“Do not touch it.”
Helen stepped forward.
“He deserves the truth.”
Daniel looked at her with hatred.
“You want what is behind that gate.”
“I spent my life protecting it.”
“You spent your life trying to control it.”
The floor shook.
A circular door became visible behind the stone wall.
It had no handle.
Only four biometric sensors.
Thomas looked toward Noah.
“This is why you raised me,” Noah said.
Thomas did not deny it.
Ethan looked at Margaret.
“Did you know?”
“I knew there was another chamber. I never knew what it contained.”
David aimed his weapon at Helen.
“You are not opening it.”
Evelyn raised Claire’s hand.
David’s weapon locked.
Helen smiled.
“Evelyn understands.”
Claire fought to regain control.
Her arm trembled violently.
“No…”
Ethan held her shoulders.
“Claire, stay with me.”
“I can’t hold her.”
“Yes, you can.”
“She remembers everything.”
“Then make her remember what she did to you.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Images passed through her mind.
Helen standing over the dead eight-year-old Claire.
Evelyn preparing the replacement body.
Thomas carrying an infant through the corridor.
Margaret exchanging two identification bands.
Daniel screaming from inside the coffin.
A woman pounding against the far side of the origin gate.
Claire opened her eyes.
She was herself again.
“There is someone behind that door.”
Helen’s confidence vanished.
“That is impossible.”
Claire stepped toward the wall.
“I remember her voice.”
The preserved infant raised one hand.
Claire’s newborn whispered through him.
“Mother.”
The origin gate began unlocking without Ethan touching the witness panel.
Daniel tried to rise.
“Stop it!”
The circular door opened several inches.
Freezing vapor entered the chamber.
Behind the gate stood a second glass coffin.
A woman lay inside.
She appeared to be in her early thirties.
Her face was identical to Claire’s.
Helen dropped her weapon.
“No.”
The woman’s eyes opened.
She looked through the glass at Claire.
Then she looked at Ethan.
Her lips moved.
The speaker inside her coffin activated.
“My name is Claire Carter.”
The Claire standing beside Ethan stepped backward.
The woman inside the coffin raised one hand.
“And the woman beside you is not my replacement.”
The entire estate locked down.
Red lights filled the chamber.
“She is my daughter.”
Claire stared at the identical woman.
“That’s impossible.”
The woman looked toward Claire’s newborn.
“No, sweetheart.”
Her voice became urgent.
“The impossible part is what Helen put inside your son.”
Every monitor in the chamber went black.
Then a new message appeared.
ORIGIN SUBJECT AWAKE.
MATERNAL HOST CONFIRMED.
TRANSFER WILL BEGIN IN TEN MINUTES.
The preserved infant began crying.
It was the first ordinary sound he had made.
Claire’s newborn did not cry.
He turned his head toward the sealed origin gate.
Then he spoke in the voice of a grown man.
May you like
“Bring me home.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
