Chapter 11: The False Escape
Maya refused to abandon Anna.
Rafe knew an old service tunnel leading toward the prison infirmary, but the passage had partially collapsed during the riot.
They moved through it slowly, supporting Mercer and carrying Anna between them.
Lucas walked behind Maya.
Without the implant controlling him, fragments of his memory were returning.
Unfortunately, they contradicted each other.
In one memory, Maya was his sister.
In another, she was a Helix operative who questioned him for months.
In a third, Maya had died at Redwater when she was eight.
“How many versions of me have you met?” Maya asked.
Lucas looked exhausted.
“Four.”
“Which one brought you to Blackridge?”
“The one with the scar beneath her left eye.”
Maya glanced at Anna.
Anna shook her head weakly.
“It wasn’t me.”
Lucas did not respond.
They reached a junction beneath the chapel.
Rafe removed several loose bricks, revealing stairs leading upward.
The chapel was empty.
Rain struck the stained-glass windows.
Rafe barricaded the entrance.
Mercer used the altar cloth to bandage Anna’s wound.
Maya inserted the memory card into a computer beside the organ.
The screen requested a password.
She typed Lucas’s birthday.
Rejected.
Her father’s name.
Rejected.
Then she remembered the line Elias had spoken.
You still drop your right shoulder before you punch.
She typed:
RIGHTSHOULDER
The file opened.
A list of more than four hundred subjects appeared.
Journalists.
Judges.
Military officers.
Scientists.
Children.
Many had been declared dead.
Beside each subject was the name of a “host”—someone who had received copied memories or skills.
Maya searched for Lucas.
His record appeared.
LUCAS CROSS — ORIGINAL SUBJECT ACTIVE
Host count: three.
Then she searched for herself.
Seven entries appeared.
Six were marked:
REPLICA TERMINATED
The final entry read:
MAYA CROSS — STATUS UNVERIFIED
No designation identified her as the original.
Maya stared at the screen.
Rafe placed a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll find out.”
A vehicle engine roared outside.
Through the chapel window, they saw an unmarked transport van crash through the outer gate.
Inmates flooded the yard as gunfire erupted from the towers.
“Someone started an escape,” Mercer said.
Lucas shook his head.
“No. Helix is emptying the prison.”
Explosions struck the administration building.
Black smoke covered the yard.
Rafe opened the chapel’s side door.
“This may be our only chance.”
Mercer lifted Anna.
They joined the inmates running toward the damaged fence.
Maya could see freedom less than fifty yards away.
Then Lucas stopped.
A group of armed guards emerged from the smoke.
At their center stood Dr. Price.
Beside her was another Lucas Cross.
He wore a corrections officer’s uniform.
Maya looked at the brother standing next to her.
Then at the identical man across the yard.
Dr. Price smiled.
“One of them has been protecting you,” she called.
The officer beside her raised his weapon.
“The other one helped us kill your mother.”
Both Lucases turned toward Maya.
Both spoke at the same time.
“She’s lying.”
Gunfire erupted.
Rafe pulled Maya behind a concrete barrier.
When she looked up again, one Lucas had disappeared into the smoke.
The other lay motionless in the yard.
Maya ran toward him.
Before she reached the body, someone grabbed her from behind and whispered into her ear:
“Don’t turn around, Mayfly.”
May you like
It was Lucas’s voice.
But it came from a third man.
