CHAPTER 15: THE VOICE INSIDE LILY
Claire held Lily’s face between her hands.
“Lily, look at me.”
The child smiled with Mercer’s cold expression.
“She can hear you.”
“Get out of her.”
“There is nowhere for me to go.”
Adrian grabbed Mercer’s body.
The man lay unconscious, barely breathing.
“If he’s inside Lily, kill the transfer system.”
Anna shook her head.
“It has already spread.”
Every child in the laboratory began speaking together.
“You cannot erase us.”
Hundreds of identical voices filled the room.
Claire Vale aimed her gun at the central servers.
Evelyn blocked her.
“If you destroy those machines, you may destroy the children’s minds.”
“They’re already taking them.”
“We don’t know how much remains.”
Lily began crying.
For a moment, her own voice returned.
“Mama, it hurts.”
Claire pulled her close.
“I’m here.”
Then August returned.
“Emotional attachment. Fascinating.”
Claire looked toward Anna.
“How do we separate them?”
“There may be a way on Blackridge.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“You said we weren’t going there.”
“Mercer needed the hospital network first. Blackridge contains the original memory core.”
Richard examined a map on the computer.
A cargo tunnel connected the hospital to a river dock.
A submarine was scheduled to leave in fifteen minutes.
Mercer had planned to transport the children.
“We take Lily to Blackridge,” Claire said.
Claire Vale pointed toward the other children.
“And leave them?”
“No.”
Evelyn entered a command.
The children’s chambers converted into transport units.
“There is room on the submarine for forty.”
“There are more than two hundred,” Adrian said.
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
“I know.”
Claire looked at the children surrounding them.
Some resembled her.
Some looked like strangers.
All had been created for someone else’s future.
“We don’t choose which ones live.”
Richard opened the facility’s emergency broadcast system.
He transmitted every file to the public hospital network.
Documents appeared on thousands of screens across the city.
Project Janus.
Continuance.
The children.
Richard looked at Claire.
“Now they can’t erase this quietly.”
Outside, sirens began approaching.
Mercer’s remaining guards abandoned their positions.
Marcus and Miriam reached the laboratory.
Miriam saw Evelyn.
“Mother?”
Everyone froze.
Adrian looked between them.
Evelyn’s burned face softened.
“Miriam.”
Claire stared at the two women.
Miriam whispered, “You said my mother died when I was fourteen.”
Anna answered.
“She became Evelyn Whitmore.”
Miriam looked devastated.
“You abandoned me.”
Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears.
“I was ordered to forget you.”
Lily turned toward Evelyn.
August spoke through the child.
“H-2, complete your final assignment.”
May you like
Evelyn raised her gun.
She pointed it at Miriam.
