CHAPTER 19: HELENA PRIME
The woman called herself Helena Prime.
The first successful daughter created from Anna.
The other Helenas had been copies of her.
Claire and Claire Vale were her genetic daughters.
Richard stared at her.
“You are their mother.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I let you believe many things.”
Claire’s anger rose.
“You left us in that laboratory.”
“I was trying to destroy it.”
“You gave us implanted memories.”
“To hide information August could not remove.”
Mercer strained against the transfer chair.
“Helena, turn the power back on.”
She looked toward him.
“You have lived too long.”
Emergency generators activated.
The transfer machine restarted.
Helena inserted a device into the control panel.
The screens filled with Project Janus records.
She had copied every identity file.
Mercer smiled.
“You came to bargain.”
“I came to erase you.”
She pressed a button.
Explosives armed throughout the island.
Ten minutes appeared on the main screen.
Claire looked toward the children.
“You’ll kill them too.”
Helena’s face tightened.
“The train can evacuate them.”
“The tunnel was damaged.”
“Then repair it.”
“You planned this without knowing whether they could escape?”
Helena looked at Claire.
“You sound like Richard.”
“And you sound like August.”
The insult struck her.
Mercer used the distraction to activate the transfer.
Adrian’s body convulsed.
Claire screamed his name.
His eyes opened.
The expression inside them was not his.
He looked toward Richard.
“Hello, son.”
Richard stopped breathing.
August was inside Adrian.
Mercer’s body collapsed.
Claire approached the operating table slowly.
“Adrian?”
August smiled through her husband’s face.
“He can hear you.”
“Fight him.”
“He was created for me.”
Claire touched Adrian’s hand.
“You dropped our wedding ring in Central Park.”
A flicker crossed his eyes.
“You cried when our first dog died.”
His fingers moved.
“You hate coffee but drink it because you think adults should.”
A weak laugh escaped him.
Then August took control again.
“He remembers because I remember watching.”
Claire pulled the sensors from Adrian’s head.
The machine sparked.
Anna shouted, “The transfer is incomplete!”
Adrian screamed.
Mercer’s body opened its eyes.
August’s consciousness was now trapped between both men.
Helena’s countdown reached six minutes.
The island shook.
Claire Vale freed the children.
Richard carried Lily.
Miriam and Evelyn opened the evacuation doors.
Adrian looked at Claire.
His own voice returned.
“Black door.”
Claire remembered.
She opened it.
Beyond was not another laboratory.
It was a cryogenic chamber.
Inside floated a young man with Adrian’s face.
A label identified him:
PERMANENT HOST A-0.
Adrian stared at the body.
May you like
“That is what I was supposed to become.”
The young man opened his eyes.
