CHAPTER 14: THIRTY MINUTES
Red lights flooded the laboratory.
The children began crying.
Some called for parents they had never met.
Others sat silently, waiting for instructions.
Mercer’s guards tried to regain control.
Richard and Adrian fought beside each other.
Claire carried Lily toward the exit.
Claire Vale opened more chambers.
Anna reached the central computer.
“The fire protocol is not only explosives.”
“What else?” Claire shouted.
“Chemical sterilization.”
A gas designed to destroy all biological evidence would flood the underground facility before the explosion.
Mercer crawled toward the controls.
Adrian kicked the gun from his hand.
“Where is the shutdown code?”
Mercer smiled through the blood on his teeth.
“Inside Clara.”
Everyone looked at Claire.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know any code.”
Anna examined Claire’s medical profile.
“Your memory implants.”
The fire memory.
The lullaby.
The numbers Miriam had taught her.
Claire began humming.
The computer responded.
A sequence appeared.
She entered the rhythm as numbers.
The countdown stopped at twenty-three minutes.
Then restarted.
ACCESS INCOMPLETE.
Claire Vale touched Claire’s shoulder.
“The code needs both of us.”
They sang together.
Their voices matched perfectly.
A second sequence appeared.
ACCESS INCOMPLETE.
Mercer laughed.
“You still haven’t found the third daughter.”
Claire looked toward Evelyn’s file.
Subject E.
But Evelyn had died in the mansion explosion.
Adrian shook his head.
“My mother may still be alive.”
A door opened behind the laboratory.
Evelyn entered.
Half her face was burned.
Blood covered her coat.
But she was alive.
Adrian stared at her.
“You came back.”
“I never left.”
She walked toward the computer.
Mercer ordered the guards to kill her.
Evelyn fired first.
Three guards fell.
She placed her hand on the scanner beside Claire and Claire Vale.
The computer accepted all three.
The countdown stopped.
SECOND FIRE DISARMED.
The children cheered.
Then the screen changed.
PRIMARY TRANSFER INITIATED.
Evelyn’s face went pale.
“I entered the wrong protocol.”
Mercer laughed.
“You entered exactly what I needed.”
The children stopped crying.
Every child turned toward the central screen.
Their eyes became blank.
A wave of digital signals moved through the facility.
Anna stared at the data.
“August is copying himself into all of them.”
Mercer’s body began convulsing.
His consciousness was leaving.
Claire grabbed Lily.
The child screamed.
Then her body went still.
She opened her eyes.
Her voice had changed.
May you like
“Hello, granddaughter.”
August Vale was now inside Lily.
