Chapter 12 - What Evelyn Chose
Audrey climbed onto the damaged platform as emergency alarms filled the facility.
Kessler had vanished through a lower tunnel.
Evelyn carried the silver key toward the replication chamber. Julian lay unconscious near the broken railing.
Audrey followed her.
The chamber door closed before she reached it.
Through reinforced glass, Evelyn inserted the key into a circular control panel.
Thomas arrived behind Audrey.
“Stop her.”
“I cannot. The lock is mechanical.”
“Break the glass.”
“It is designed to withstand explosives.”
Inside the chamber, Evelyn connected the prepaid phone containing Chloe’s false neurological pattern.
The system activated.
A second medical platform rose from the floor.
Restraints opened around it.
Audrey realized what Evelyn intended.
“She wants to use the system on herself.”
Thomas stared.
“No. Her compatibility is too low.”
Evelyn activated the intercom.
“I heard that.”
“Evelyn, stop.”
“You always believed I was only an assistant.”
“You knew the risks.”
“I knew the potential.”
Audrey stepped toward the glass.
“You stole Chloe from her family for this?”
“I saved her life.”
“Then you used her.”
“I gave her sixteen years.”
“You gave her fear.”
Evelyn’s expression twisted.
“I gave up everything for that child. My marriage. My career. My freedom.”
“You helped Julian abuse her.”
“I controlled him when I could.”
“You watched him break her nose.”
“Because he had discovered the implant, and I needed to know how much he understood.”
Audrey’s disgust became physical.
“You let him hurt her as an experiment.”
Evelyn looked away.
Thomas entered a code into the outer terminal.
No effect.
“The system will reject you,” he said.
“Not with the bridge pattern.”
Evelyn held up the prepaid phone.
“It is corrupted,” Audrey said.
“Chloe lied.”
“Perhaps. But not completely.”
Evelyn inserted a cable into the interface at the base of her neck.
Audrey struck the glass with the handle of her weapon.
“Don’t do this.”
Evelyn smiled sadly.
“You still think I am the villain because villains are easier to understand than mothers who make impossible choices.”
“You chose yourself every time.”
“No.”
Evelyn’s eyes moved toward Thomas.
“I chose the world he was too weak to build.”
She activated the transfer.
Her body arched against the medical platform.
Monitors displayed fragments of Chloe’s memories.
The kitchen.
The hospital.
The fall from the landing.
But other images appeared too.
Images Chloe had never described.
A dark underground room.
A line of children.
A man in a gray suit.
And Thomas standing beside Kessler.
Not fighting him.
Shaking his hand.
Audrey looked at her father.
“What is that?”
Thomas’s face became rigid.
“An old memory.”
“You were partners.”
“Before I understood what he was.”
Inside the chamber, Evelyn screamed.
The false neural pattern destabilized. Lights flashed. The medical restraints tightened around her arms and legs.
Thomas worked frantically at the terminal.
“The transfer is damaging both patterns.”
“Both?”
“The copy is still linked to Chloe.”
At the hospital, Chloe’s heart monitor began to fail.
Her voice broke through the speakers.
“Audrey.”
“I’m here.”
“It hurts.”
Thomas pointed to a manual override beneath the floor panel.
“The chamber can be shut down, but someone must hold the release lever from inside the service tunnel.”
“What happens to that person?”
“The tunnel will flood with coolant.”
Audrey opened the floor hatch.
Julian stood behind her.
Blood covered the side of his face.
“I’ll do it.”
Audrey stared at him.
“You can barely stand.”
“I know the lower tunnels.”
“You’ll die.”
“Maybe.”
“This does not erase what you did.”
“I know.”
“Chloe may never forgive you.”
“I know.”
Julian looked through the glass at Evelyn.
“She never loved any of us.”
Thomas started to argue.
Julian cut him off.
“Don’t defend her. You left. She stayed. Both of you chose the project.”
He lowered himself into the tunnel.
Audrey caught his arm.
“Julian.”
He looked at her.
For the first time in years, he did not smile.
“Tell Chloe I’m sorry.”
He disappeared into the service passage.
Seconds later, the manual override activated.
The chamber power collapsed.
Evelyn’s body went still.
Coolant alarms sounded beneath the floor.
Audrey opened the hatch again.
Freezing vapor rose from the darkness.
“Julian!”
No answer.
Thomas pulled her back as the tunnel seals closed.
Inside the chamber, Evelyn remained alive but unconscious.
The neurological link to Chloe stabilized.
At the hospital, her heartbeat returned to normal.
The countdown disappeared.
Audrey leaned against the glass, shaking.
Mara approached through the smoke.
“Kessler escaped.”
“Where?”
“North tunnel. Lawson followed him.”
“Alone?”
“He said he could not let Kessler reach the surface.”
A radio transmission crackled.
Lawson’s voice came through.
“I found the exit.”
Gunshots followed.
Then silence.
The tracking signal from Lawson’s radio began moving rapidly away from the campus.
Kessler had taken it.
Or Lawson had joined him.
Before Audrey could decide, Chloe’s voice returned.
“I found Julian.”
Audrey looked toward the speaker.
“Is he alive?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Relief struck Audrey so strongly she nearly fell.
“Where?”
“He isn’t beneath the chamber.”
“Then where is he?”
Chloe’s voice became uncertain.
“He went through a door that is not on Dad’s map.”
Thomas stepped toward the console.
May you like
“What door?”
“The one marked Nursery.”
