Chapter 11 - The Song in the White Room
Daniel moved with terrifying speed.
He struck the officer’s wrist, tore the gun free, and pointed it toward Detective Reyes.
Emily stepped between them.
“Daniel.”
His face remained empty.
“Put the gun down.”
No response.
The lullaby continued playing from the floor.
Linda kicked the phone beneath the bed.
The music stopped.
Daniel blinked.
His hand began shaking.
He looked at the gun as if he did not understand how it had reached him.
Reyes seized it.
Two officers forced Daniel against the wall and restrained him.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“You were triggered,” Emily said.
His face collapsed.
“I don’t remember.”
Linda turned toward Reyes.
“That is why he cannot go to headquarters.”
“What was the trigger designed to do?” the detective asked.
“Neutralize threats.”
“Who decides who the threat is?”
“The person controlling the audio sequence.”
Voss.
Or Sarah.
Or anyone with access to the archive.
Daniel was transferred to a secured medical room. Doctors sedated him lightly and placed sound-blocking equipment around the bed.
He insisted Emily stay away.
“I could have shot you.”
“You didn’t.”
“Because you stopped the music.”
“Because you recognized me.”
“I didn’t.”
The words hurt both of them.
Emily sat outside his room, refusing to leave.
Reyes joined her.
“We searched the phone,” the detective said. “The audio file was sent through Mercer Medical’s emergency network.”
“Can it reach other devices?”
“Yes.”
“Then David may also be controlled.”
“Possibly.”
“And the children?”
Reyes did not answer.
At three o’clock, a second hospital device failed.
No patient died, but an elderly man suffered cardiac complications before staff replaced the monitor.
Voss sent another demand.
Emily and D-1 must enter headquarters by five.
“They keep calling him D-1,” Emily said. “Which twin?”
“Linda believes Daniel is D-1.”
“Linda admitted she could not tell them apart.”
“DNA cannot distinguish identical twins.”
“Fingerprints should.”
“Under normal circumstances. Their records may have been deliberately duplicated.”
Emily looked through the glass at Daniel.
“What can?”
“Memories.”
Except memories could be altered.
Linda asked to speak with Emily alone.
The police allowed it under supervision.
“There is a test,” Linda said.
“What kind?”
“A phrase Rebecca taught one twin before Evelyn separated them.”
“Which twin?”
“Her firstborn.”
“D-1?”
“Yes.”
“What phrase?”
“I only know the question. Malcolm knew the answer.”
“What is the question?”
Linda leaned closer.
“Where does the river sleep?”
Emily frowned.
“That means nothing.”
“It will mean something to Daniel if he is D-1.”
They asked him through the intercom.
“Where does the river sleep?”
Daniel stared at the glass.
Then his eyes filled with tears.
“Under the red bridge.”
Linda exhaled.
“That is him.”
“How do you know?” Emily asked.
“David always answered beneath the stone.”
Daniel remembered nothing else about the phrase, but he described an image.
A red wooden bridge.
Snow.
A woman wearing a green coat.
Police analysts searched Mercer family properties.
They found an old vacation house near a river in northern Vermont. A red bridge stood behind it.
Property records showed it had belonged to Rebecca Ellis.
A basement search uncovered sealed boxes of research journals.
The journals were scanned and transmitted to Reyes.
Rebecca had documented the birth of identical sons.
Subject D-1 was named Daniel.
Subject D-2 was named David.
Daniel was placed with Linda.
David remained at the laboratory.
The journal confirmed Daniel’s identity.
For the first time in days, something became certain.
Emily entered his room.
“You are Daniel.”
He almost laughed.
“I never thought hearing my own name would feel like being rescued.”
She sat beside him.
“You are also dangerous while Voss controls the triggers.”
“I know.”
“I need you at headquarters.”
“No.”
“The archive requires both of us.”
“That may be a lie.”
“Patients will continue suffering.”
“You cannot trust me near you.”
“I trust the man you chose to become.”
“That man disappears when she plays a song.”
“Then we learn how to bring him back.”
Daniel looked away.
Emily placed his hand over her wrist implant.
“Your family chose our genes, our meeting, maybe even our marriage. But they did not choose every morning we built together. They did not choose the night you slept on the bathroom floor because I was sick. They did not choose you learning to make my father’s soup after he died.”
His eyes closed.
“They may have planned the beginning,” she said. “They do not own everything after it.”
At four fifteen, Daniel was released into police custody for the operation.
He wore a sound-blocking earpiece controlled through a closed police channel.
Emily’s implant was shielded beneath a metallic cuff.
Linda provided building maps and old security codes.
Mercer Medical headquarters stood twenty stories above the river.
Most employees had been evacuated.
At 4:52, Emily and Daniel entered the lobby.
The elevators activated automatically.
A woman’s voice came through the speakers.
“Welcome home, D-1 and E-5.”
The doors opened on the seventeenth floor.
Grace stood alone in the corridor.
“Emily?” she said.
Emily moved toward her.
Daniel caught her arm.
“Wait.”
May you like
Grace smiled.
Then she began singing the lullaby.
