Chapter 26 - THE OFFER AT GATE ZERO
Gate Zero was not a gate.
It was a circular command chamber built beneath the oldest terminal.
At its center stood a platform surrounded by biometric scanners.
Gideon waited there.
The man aboard the aircraft had been a synthetic projection.
Mara’s father had never left the airport.
“You knew I would find the cassette,” Mara said.
“I spent twenty-six years teaching you to question every locked door.”
“You spent twenty-six years lying to me.”
“That too.”
Elias was brought into the chamber in his medical chair.
Sabine followed with the equipment needed to disable his implant.
Gideon offered Mara a choice.
Activate Orpheus and gain control over every identity it created.
Or destroy the Cradle archive and condemn thousands of erased people to remain legally dead.
“You built the choice so both answers serve you,” Mara said.
Gideon smiled proudly.
“Now you understand.”
Mara stepped onto the scanner platform.
It recognized both Mara Quinn and Evelyn Shaw.
Two identities.
One body.
She ordered the system to identify Gideon.
The scanners returned 6,412 names.
No original record could be found.
Gideon Quinn was also a ghost.
“Who are you?” Mara asked.
For the first time, fear appeared in his eyes.
Before he could answer, Ward raised Gideon’s stolen phone.
“I know.”
Ward revealed a classified photograph taken forty years earlier.
It showed Gideon as a young engineer beside the real Gideon Quinn.
Mara’s father had stolen the identity of Orpheus’s creator.
The original Gideon had disappeared soon afterward.
The chamber lights turned red.
An automated voice announced:
ORIGINAL CREATOR DETECTED.
A hidden door opened.
May you like
An older man stepped through it.
He looked exactly like Gideon.
