CHAPTER 30: THE GRAVE BENEATH THE GRAVE
The cemetery was surrounded by police when they arrived.
Not normal police.
Every officer stood perfectly still.
Their eyes followed Claire’s car in perfect synchronization.
August-controlled subjects.
Richard drove through the iron gates.
Marcus fired at the security lights.
The cemetery fell into darkness.
Claire, Adrian, Lillian, Lily, Aiden, Helena, Miriam, Evelyn, Richard, and Marcus moved between the graves.
Claire found the stone bearing the name:
CLARA ELIZABETH VALE.
BELOVED DAUGHTER.
She placed her hand against the cold marble.
The brass key Dr. Voss had given her fit inside a hidden lock.
The grave opened.
A staircase descended beneath it.
Claire looked toward the others.
“No one follows until I know what’s down there.”
Adrian caught her hand.
“You’re not going alone.”
Lillian joined them.
“Neither am I.”
Lily refused to remain behind.
The four descended together.
The underground facility was older than Blackridge.
Older than the hospital.
Dust covered the machinery.
But the glass capsules remained active.
Dozens of women slept inside.
Every woman looked like Claire.
Different ages.
Different scars.
Different lives waiting to be activated.
The little girl in the white nightgown stood at the end of the corridor.
“Who are you?” Claire asked.
The child smiled.
“C-0.”
“The original Clara?”
“No.”
She pointed toward Claire.
“You are.”
Claire stopped.
The child explained Claire was not one of the later subjects.
She was the first stable child created by Helena and August.
The others had been copied from her.
Claire Vale.
Lillian.
Lily.
Aiden.
All of them carried parts of Clara.
“Why do you look like me?” Claire asked.
“I was created to replace you if you failed.”
The girl turned toward Adrian.
“And he was created to open the final door.”
A black steel door stood behind her.
Adrian placed his hand against the scanner.
The door unlocked.
Inside was a small room containing one chair and one screen.
A woman sat in the chair.
Her face was hidden beneath long white hair.
Claire approached slowly.
“Helena?”
The woman lifted her head.
She did not look like Helena.
She looked like Claire at eighty years old.
“I have waited a long time,” the woman said.
Claire’s blood turned cold.
“Who are you?”
“My name was Clara Vale.”
“No. I’m Clara.”
The old woman smiled.
“You are my replacement.”
Claire stepped backward.
The screen activated.
An old recording showed the woman as a child.
She was born more than seventy years earlier.
August had not created Clara.
Clara had created August’s work.
The old woman explained she had funded the first identity experiments because she was dying from a genetic disease.
Every Claire, Clara, Helena, and Evelyn had been part of her attempt to create a body capable of carrying her complete mind.
“You are the final body,” she told Claire.
“No.”
“You already contain most of me.”
Claire remembered memories that had never belonged to her.
The fire.
The laboratory.
The coded lullaby.
They were not random implants.
They were pieces of the old Clara.
Adrian moved in front of his wife.
“You will not take her.”
The old woman laughed.
“You were designed to make her emotionally stable enough for transfer.”
The door slammed behind them.
Metal restraints emerged from the floor and locked around Adrian and Lillian.
Lily screamed.
Claire ran toward her.
The old woman pressed a button.
Every capsule opened.
Dozens of Claire copies stepped into the corridor.
All of them turned toward the real Claire.
The old woman stood.
Her body was weak, but her eyes were powerful.
“Only one Clara leaves this room.”
Above ground, Marcus received a message on Richard’s phone.
The sender was Dr. Samuel Voss.
The message contained a photograph.
It showed Richard meeting August twenty-three years earlier.
Beneath it were five words:
RICHARD STARTED THE FIRST FIRE.
Marcus slowly looked toward Richard.
Richard was already holding a gun.
Inside the underground room, Claire heard a voice speak inside her mind.
Not August.
Not Helena.
Her own older voice.
Do not fight the transfer.
Claire covered her ears.
The voice continued.
You asked for this.
A final memory opened.
Claire saw herself as the old woman.
She saw herself creating Project Janus.
She saw herself ordering every copy made.
Then she saw the real reason she had created Adrian.
Not as a husband.
Not as a host.
As the only person capable of killing her after the transfer.
Claire looked toward Adrian.
His restraints opened by themselves.
A gun rose from a compartment beside him.
The old woman smiled.
“You know what to do.”
Adrian picked up the weapon.
He aimed it at Claire.
Tears filled his eyes.
Claire stepped toward him.
“Adrian?”
His hand trembled.
Then Lily screamed from behind them.
“Daddy, that isn’t Mommy anymore!”
Claire looked down.
The veins beneath her hands had turned black.
Her reflection appeared in the glass.
Her face was aging.
Her eyes no longer looked like her own.
The old Clara’s voice came from Claire’s mouth.
“Finish it.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
A gunshot shook the underground chamber.
May you like
The screen went black.
No one saw who the bullet struck.
