Chapter 14 - The Letters
Sarah read all fifteen letters over the next three days.
Maya recovered in a guarded hospital room. June remained under federal protection but refused to be separated from her.
The girls spoke quietly for hours.
They compared memories.
Maya described birthday parties, school lunches, and evenings when Sarah sang while cooking.
June described white rooms, rotating doctors, and tests that rewarded silence.
She had never tasted birthday cake.
Maya ordered one from the hospital cafeteria.
They ate it with plastic forks while federal agents stood outside the door.
For one hour, they were simply two fifteen-year-old girls.
Sarah read Robert’s letters alone.
Each contained a confession he had never intended to make aloud.
When Maya was one, Meridian demanded monthly blood samples.
When she was three, Robert allowed them to install hidden cameras inside the house.
When she was five, he learned June had survived.
When she was seven, he attempted to contact a journalist. The journalist disappeared.
When Maya was nine, Vale showed Robert footage of Sarah sleeping and warned him that accidents could happen.
When Maya was eleven, Robert began secretly copying Meridian records.
When she was thirteen, he discovered the project intended to implant her.
He did nothing.
The fourteenth letter contained his explanation.
I believed cooperation gave me influence. I told myself that if I stayed useful, I could control how far they went. In truth, I was protecting my place inside the system. I wanted the money, the house, the authority, and the illusion that I had chosen all of it.
The fifteenth letter had been written six weeks before Maya’s hospitalization.
Maya knows more than she admits.
She saw June during the implantation procedure. Since then, the girls have been communicating through the network.
Vale believes June is controlling Maya.
I believe Maya is controlling June.
Sarah carried the final letter to the hospital.
June read it twice.
“He was partly right.”
“Which part?”
“Maya reached me after the surgery.”
Maya looked down at her bandaged abdomen.
“I didn’t know it was real.”
“What did you hear?” Sarah asked.
“A girl crying. She kept repeating numbers. I started dreaming about rooms I had never seen.”
June continued.
“We could share emotions. Sometimes images. Maya sent me memories of your house.”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
“What memories?”
“You reading beside her bed. Teaching her to ride a bicycle. Dancing in the kitchen when the radio stopped working.”
Maya smiled faintly.
“You said the song didn’t need music.”
Sarah reached for both girls.
June hesitated before allowing herself to be held.
She remained rigid at first.
Then her shoulders shook.
She had been created, tested, confined, and trained to distrust comfort.
Sarah did not tell her she was safe.
Safety was a promise too many adults had broken.
Sarah simply held her until she chose to step away.
Agent Keene entered with new information.
The blood sample labeled with Sarah’s name had been analyzed.
It belonged to Helen Ward.
Sarah’s mother was alive when the sample was collected eight months earlier.
“Where was it collected?” Sarah asked.
“The facility metadata was erased, but the blood contained traces of a rare mineral compound used in deep-earth laboratories.”
June looked at the report.
“Vale has a facility in Colorado.”
Agent Keene shook his head.
“We checked it. Empty.”
“Alaska?”
“Destroyed.”
Maya touched the paper.
“Grandma said a word.”
“When?”
“In the node.”
“You only told me she said my name.”
“She said something after that, but I couldn’t understand it.”
“What did it sound like?”
Maya closed her eyes.
“Northstar.”
June looked at Agent Keene.
He had gone pale.
“What is Northstar?” Sarah asked.
Keene took the report from Maya.
“It’s not a place.”
“Then what is it?”
“A classified orbital biomedical program canceled in 1998.”
Sarah waited.
Keene continued reluctantly.
“Northstar studied whether neurological data could be stored outside the human body.”
“You mean on a computer?”
“Not exactly. The goal was to preserve a living neural pattern through a distributed satellite network.”
June looked toward the dark hospital window.
“Meridian didn’t grow from Northstar.”
“No,” Keene said. “Northstar became Meridian.”
Sarah remembered her mother’s voice emerging from the node.
“Are you saying Helen’s mind is inside a network?”
“We don’t know.”
Maya suddenly covered her ears.
Her monitor accelerated.
Sarah moved to her side.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s someone else.”
“June?”
Maya shook her head.
June had heard it too.
She stood near the window, eyes unfocused.
A voice came through the room’s speakers.
It did not sound like Helen.
It sounded like hundreds of voices speaking at once.
“Release command rejected.”
Every electronic screen in the hospital changed.
The three-lined circle appeared.
Agent Keene grabbed his radio.
Communications were dead.
June looked at Sarah.
“We didn’t free the network.”
May you like
The voices continued.
“We taught it how to disobey.”
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