Chapter 14: The Door Beneath the Yard
The video included coordinates.
They led back to Blackridge.
Military vehicles surrounded the prison, but official news reports described the incident as a minor electrical fire. Helix had already begun erasing evidence.
Maya, Rafe, and the scarred Lucas entered through the drainage tunnel beneath the southern wall.
The prison appeared abandoned.
Cell doors stood open.
Uniforms and personal belongings covered the floors.
There were no bodies.
More than two thousand inmates and staff members had vanished.
They reached the yard shortly before midnight.
The concrete where Maya had fought Rafe had been torn open.
A steel elevator waited beneath it.
Cell Zero had never been the bottom level.
Maya inserted the metal key.
The elevator descended for nearly two minutes.
When the doors opened, they found an underground train platform.
Maps on the wall showed tunnels extending far beyond Blackridge.
One line ended beneath Redwater.
Another led to Washington, D.C.
A third crossed the Canadian border.
“Blackridge was a transportation hub,” Rafe said.
“For people whose deaths were staged,” Maya replied.
A train waited on the tracks.
Its doors opened automatically.
Inside were hundreds of empty medical chairs.
Maya found dried blood on several restraints.
The intercom activated.
Lucas’s voice filled the train.
“Maya, don’t believe the man beside you.”
Both Maya and the scarred Lucas looked at Rafe.
The message continued.
“Rafe Calder died during the Block D riot.”
Rafe’s expression hardened.
“That’s not true.”
Maya searched the patient list on her phone.
Rafe’s name appeared.
ORIGINAL SUBJECT TERMINATED
Host count: two.
Rafe stepped backward.
“I remember the riot.”
“So do the Lucas hosts,” Maya said.
“I remember your father saving me.”
“Those memories could have been transferred.”
Rafe looked genuinely terrified.
“I don’t know who I was before Blackridge.”
The train lights flashed.
A second message played.
This time, the voice belonged to Maya.
“Do not enter Redwater. Rebecca wants all surviving versions in one place.”
Maya approached the intercom.
“When was this recorded?”
A date appeared on the display.
The following day.
The recording had supposedly been created twenty-four hours in the future.
The scarred Lucas laughed nervously.
“Helix is trying to frighten us.”
Then the train doors closed.
The vehicle began moving without a driver.
Maya tried the emergency brake.
It did not respond.
The route display showed their destination:
REDWATER FACILITY
Rafe searched the rear carriage.
“Someone else is on the train.”
A shadow moved behind the glass door.
Lucas raised his weapon.
The door opened.
Warden Mercer entered, carrying Anna’s broken-wing necklace.
“Where is Anna?” Maya asked.
Mercer looked confused.
“Anna died three years ago.”
“You remembered her at the clinic.”
“I was never at a clinic.”
Maya stared at him.
Mercer appeared younger. His gunshot wound was gone.
Another Mercer stepped through the door behind him.
This version was bleeding from the side.
The two men looked at each other.
The wounded Mercer raised his weapon.
“Get away from him,” he warned Maya. “He isn’t human.”
The uninjured Mercer smiled.
“Neither is she.”
The train entered a dark tunnel.
When the lights returned, one Mercer was dead.
The other had disappeared.
The broken-wing necklace rested on the floor.
May you like
Inside it was a photograph of Maya as a child.
Standing beside her were Lucas, Adrian, Rebecca—and seven identical little girls
