Chapter 10 - The Heir Beneath Emma's Heart
The data chip revealed drug records, surveillance audio, and the names of twenty-three children created or monitored by the program. Fourteen were confirmed alive.
A video made twenty-six years earlier showed Samuel, Evelyn, and the original Gabriel attempting to build an ethical shutdown into the research. They preserved an embryo as an emergency biological key, never intending it to be implanted.
Emma learned that the embryo had been created from Evelyn's egg and Samuel's preserved cells. Biologically, the baby was her mother's child, but Emma refused to let genetics erase the reality that she had carried, protected, and loved him.
Margaret disclosed that a manual shutdown existed beneath the Northbridge courthouse. It required three biological authorizations: Margaret, Evelyn, and a Vale-Morgan derivative. Daniel or Adrian might provide the third.
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S-1 invaded an offline system and synchronized his heartbeat with Emma's baby and the fourteen connected children. The quarry lost power as his drones entered.
Emma decided they would return to Northbridge, expose the program, and activate the shutdown. No one would make another decision about her child without her consent.
