Chapter 14 - The Code Hidden in the Family
Twenty-two minutes remained.
Mara pursued Ethan through the lower tunnels while technicians attempted to access the servers.
Every path required an authorization code.
Henry’s first child.
Thomas searched his father’s archived notes.
Miriam, weakened by blood loss, sat against the wall under guard.
“You know who Child 1 was,” Claire said.
Miriam looked away.
Liam knelt in front of her.
“Thousands of children will lose their identities. Some will disappear into systems controlled by Meridian. Tell us the name.”
Miriam laughed bitterly.
“You still believe a name will save them.”
“What will?”
“The first child was the template. Every identity created afterward contains part of that original record. The code is not a name. It is a biological key.”
Liam understood first.
“DNA.”
Thomas turned toward him.
“Whose?”
Miriam looked at Thomas.
“Henry’s first test was performed on his own son.”
Thomas went still.
“Edward?”
“No.”
Miriam’s eyes shifted toward him.
“You.”
Thomas stared at the servers.
He approached the biometric console and placed his hand against the scanner.
Access denied.
“Biological key,” Liam said. “Not fingerprints.”
A blood sample was required.
Thomas pressed his wounded palm against the reader.
The console processed it.
Partial match.
Claire looked at Liam.
“Partial?”
Thomas stepped backward.
Miriam closed her eyes.
“You were never Henry’s biological son.”
The revelation landed almost absurdly among all the others.
Thomas looked at her.
“My mother?”
“Had a child before she married Henry. You were that child. Henry adopted you, then used your records to create the first Orpheus identity.”
“Who was his biological child?” Claire asked.
Miriam looked toward the tunnel where Ethan had fled.
“Richard Vale.”
Thomas’s face emptied.
Henry Carter had fathered Richard Vale.
Thomas and Richard had been raised as enemies while sharing a father.
Ethan, born Jonathan Vale, was Thomas’s nephew.
Claire had unknowingly married a member of the same extended family that had adopted her.
The code required Vale blood.
Fifteen minutes remained.
Mara’s voice came over the radio.
She had cornered Ethan near the flooded generator chamber.
Claire took the radio.
“Bring him back alive.”
Ethan refused.
When Mara reached him, he stood above a channel of black water with the trigger in his hand.
“You need my blood,” he said.
Mara kept her weapon trained on him.
“You heard the transmission.”
“I designed the transmission system.”
Claire and Liam reached the chamber.
Ethan looked at Claire.
“You always come back.”
“I came to stop you.”
“You came because some part of you still believes I will explain why I chose you.”
Claire stepped closer.
“You did not choose me. You were assigned to me.”
His jaw tightened.
“You think that makes everything false?”
“It makes your love another weapon.”
For the first time, Ethan looked wounded.
Then the expression vanished.
“Give me immunity.”
“No,” Mara said.
“Then the children disappear.”
Claire looked at the countdown displayed on Liam’s tablet.
Nine minutes.
She approached Ethan.
“You want control. Immunity does not give you that.”
“What are you offering?”
“The index.”
Liam turned toward her.
Claire continued before anyone could stop her.
“You give us the blood key and shutdown code. You get the index.”
Ethan studied her.
“You do not have the complete index.”
“My mother carried one half. Dad carried the other.”
Thomas looked at Claire.
She was bluffing.
But Ethan did not know that.
“Show me,” he said.
Claire held up the microfilm container.
Ethan moved closer.
Mara prepared to strike.
Ethan saw it.
He grabbed Claire and pulled her toward the water.
The trigger fell.
Liam tackled him.
All three crashed against the railing.
Claire broke free.
Ethan struck Liam’s wounded shoulder.
Liam fell.
Mara fired.
The bullet hit Ethan’s leg.
He collapsed.
Thomas seized him and pressed Ethan’s bleeding hand against a collection tube.
The countdown showed four minutes.
They ran back to the server room.
Technicians inserted the blood sample.
Biometric match accepted.
A second prompt appeared.
ENTER PATERNAL DESIGNATION.
“What does that mean?” Mara asked.
Thomas stared at the words.
“Henry never called Richard his son. He used a project designation.”
Miriam whispered from the floor.
“Crown.”
Thomas typed it.
Access granted.
The shutdown sequence opened.
Thirty seconds remained.
Claire pressed the final command.
The screens went dark at three seconds.
Then the servers restarted.
Thousands of records reappeared.
The identities were safe.
For the moment.
Ethan lay under guard near the doorway.
He looked at Claire.
“You think you won.”
“No,” she said. “I survived.”
Police took him away.
For the first time in six years, Claire watched her husband leave and felt no fear that he would return that night.
But one question remained.
When Liam examined the restored database, Orpheus Child 1 was no longer listed as Thomas.
May you like
The record had changed during the shutdown.
The new name displayed on the screen was Claire Carter Vale.
