Chapter 18: Redwater’s First Survivor
Maya dropped the identity tag.
Lucas caught her before she fell.
“That child is lying,” he said.
The girl shook her head.
“She always says that when she starts remembering.”
Maya pulled away from Lucas.
“I was eight years old when Redwater burned.”
“No,” the child replied. “Your body was eight years old.”
Elias closed the medical room door and locked it.
“We need to move.”
Maya faced him.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“Was I Rebecca’s first host?”
Elias looked at the child marked 08.
“You were her escape plan.”
The humming in the walls intensified.
Elias explained that Rebecca had anticipated Adrian’s attempt to expose Lazarus. Before the Redwater fire, she copied most of her memories into Subject 01—a genetically engineered child designed to carry an adult consciousness.
The transfer had failed.
The child remembered fragments but retained her own personality.
Adrian rescued her and raised her as Maya Cross.
“He gave me a new identity,” Maya said.
“He gave you a chance to become someone Rebecca could not control.”
“Then who was the real Maya?”
Elias looked toward Lucas.
Lucas’s expression changed.
“Our sister,” he said slowly.
A buried memory surfaced in his mind.
A little girl with hazel eyes.
A blue sweater.
She stood beside Lucas while Adrian photographed them near the lake.
The girl did not look like the woman before him.
Maya saw the realization on his face.
“I’m not your sister.”
Lucas’s voice broke.
“You were after Redwater.”
“Where is she?”
Elias lowered his eyes.
“The original Maya died in the fire.”
Maya turned away.
Every childhood memory she treasured had been built around a dead girl’s identity.
Her mother’s voice.
Lucas calling her Mayfly.
Adrian teaching her to fight.
Perhaps they had loved her.
But they had also needed her to believe she was someone else.
The child marked 08 walked closer.
“You came back for us,” she said.
Maya looked at her.
“You said I locked you inside.”
“You did.”
“Then why would I return?”
“Because you changed your mind.”
The girl described the fire.
Rebecca had ordered the young hosts sealed in a laboratory to prevent Helix from claiming them. Subject 01 obeyed at first.
Then she heard the children crying.
She fought Rebecca’s transferred commands, unlocked the doors, and tried to lead the others out.
Only Subject 08 survived.
“You saved me,” the girl said.
Maya’s eyes burned.
“Where have you been?”
“Sleeping.”
Elias examined the black number above the child’s ribs.
“The physical aging inhibitors.”
Lucas stared at him.
“She hasn’t aged in fifteen years?”
“Not normally.”
Rafe sat upright despite the pain.
“Why wake her now?”
No one answered.
The child smiled faintly.
“Because Mother needs the part of her I carry.”
Maya crouched in front of her.
“What part?”
“The code.”
Every light in the room turned off.
A hidden door opened behind the operating table.
A stairwell descended into darkness.
The child walked toward it.
“The archive is below.”
Elias grabbed her shoulder.
She moved faster than any child should have been capable of moving.
She caught his wrist, twisted it, and threw him into the wall.
Lucas raised his gun.
Maya stepped in front of the girl.
“Don’t.”
Subject 08 stared at Maya with eyes that suddenly seemed much older.
“You still protect people,” she said. “That is why Mother hates you.”
She entered the stairwell.
Maya followed.
The others had no choice but to go with her.
At the bottom, they found a massive circular vault filled with thousands of glass cylinders. Inside each floated a human brain suspended in clear fluid.
Rafe stopped breathing.
“What is this place?”
“The source archive,” Elias said.
Names illuminated beneath the cylinders.
Some belonged to the dead.
Others belonged to living politicians, judges, doctors, and military commanders.
Lucas found his own name on three cylinders.
Rafe found Daniel Mercer’s.
Maya searched for Rebecca Cross.
No cylinder carried that name.
Instead, one enormous chamber stood at the center of the room.
Its label read:
PRIMARY CONSCIOUSNESS: OFFLINE
Subject 08 approached it.
“This is Mother.”
Maya looked inside.
The chamber was empty.
The system activated.
A message appeared across every screen.
PRIMARY CONSCIOUSNESS SUCCESSFULLY TRANSFERRED
Maya felt Rebecca’s presence surge inside her mind.
Then Subject 08 looked up at her.
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
“Why?”
“Because now she knows which body survived.”
May you like
Maya’s reflection appeared across the glass chamber.
But Rebecca was the one smiling.
