Chapter 5 - THE DEAD MAN’S INSTRUCTIONS
Amanda could not speak.
No recording could have recreated the small roughness in Samuel’s voice when he called her Mandy. No stranger could know the pause he always left afterward, as though waiting for her to protest that she was no longer a child.
“Dad?”
Richard stepped closer.
Vivian backed toward the red door.
The voice continued. “Do not trust the paternity report. Do not trust the police officer named Corwin. And whatever happens, do not let them take Ethan to Vale Biodyne.”
The line crackled.
Amanda gripped the receiver. “Where are you?”
Silence.
“Dad, answer me.”
“You have less than ten minutes before the chamber seals.”
“Are you alive?”
A breath.
Then: “Open drawer seven.”
The line went dead.
Amanda held the receiver to her ear even after the dial tone began.
Richard reached for it. “Let me hear.”
She pulled away. “He warned me not to trust you.”
“He mentioned me?”
“He warned me not to let Vale Biodyne take Ethan.”
Vivian’s face became unreadable.
Amanda looked around the circular room. Seven metal drawers were built into the central desk. She opened the last one.
Inside lay a cassette recorder, three sealed envelopes, a keycard, and a digital timer.
The timer lit as soon as the drawer opened.
09:59.
09:58.
09:57.
A motor started inside the walls.
Richard ran to the red door. It had begun to slide closed.
“Move!” he shouted.
Vivian slipped through first.
Amanda gathered the envelopes and recorder. Ethan whimpered and pressed his hands over his ears.
The door moved faster.
Richard held it with both arms, muscles straining. “Amanda!”
She ran toward him.
A monitor flickered on behind her.
Samuel appeared on the screen.
Older than in the photograph. Thinner. Alive.
Amanda stopped.
“Mandy,” the recording said, “if you are seeing this, Ethan has activated the Hart protocol.”
Richard shouted her name again.
The door narrowed to less than two feet.
Amanda looked from the exit to her father’s image.
“Go,” she told Richard. “Take Ethan.”
His eyes widened. “I am not leaving you.”
It was the first human thing he had said all day.
She handed Ethan to him. “Then hold the door.”
Amanda turned back to the screen.
Samuel continued. “The child is not the danger. The child is the key. The Vales will tell you blood determines ownership. They have believed that lie for generations.”
On another monitor, files began copying to the keycard.
The timer reached eight minutes.
Richard’s arms shook.
“Amanda, now!”
She inserted the keycard into the console. A folder appeared labeled ORIGINAL LINE.
The first file contained medical charts dated thirty-two years earlier.
Patient V-17.
Male infant.
No name.
A second file displayed a photograph of a newborn with a blue identification band.
HART, MALE.
Amanda stared.
Richard was thirty-two.
She opened another photograph.
Vivian held the newborn in a hospital corridor.
Samuel stood behind her.
The caption read: SUBJECT TRANSFER SUCCESSFUL.
“What is this?” Amanda whispered.
The recording of Samuel answered as if he had heard her.
“Richard Vale was not born Richard Vale.”
At the doorway, Richard froze.
The red steel pressed against his shoulder.
Amanda turned the monitor toward him.
He saw the infant band.
HART, MALE.
Vivian’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Do not listen to it! Samuel fabricated everything.”
Richard’s face emptied.
“Who am I?” he asked.
The timer reached seven minutes.
Samuel’s recording continued. “Thirty-two years ago, Vale Biodyne conducted an unauthorized neonatal study. Infants were exchanged, records were altered, and families were paid or threatened into silence. Vivian believed the project could prove inherited memory.”
Amanda looked at Ethan.
The bell. The red door. The names he should not know.
Inherited memory.
“No,” she said. “That is impossible.”
“Not memory in the mystical sense,” Samuel said on-screen. “Conditioned response, prenatal exposure, genetic markers, and repeated environmental triggers. The Vales called it lineage recall. Most trials failed. Some children died.”
Richard nearly lost his grip on the door.
Vivian shouted, “He is lying!”
The recording shifted to a list of subjects.
V-17: transferred to Vivian Vale.
H-17: location unknown.
Amanda’s eyes moved to Richard.
“You were the Vale subject.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“And another baby was taken in your place.”
Samuel’s image leaned closer to the camera.
“If Richard is with you, tell him this: the child labeled H-17 was my son.”
Amanda stopped breathing.
Her father had never told her she had a brother.
The timer reached six minutes.
A warning alarm sounded.
The red door pushed Richard to one knee.
Amanda yanked the keycard free and ran.
She squeezed through the narrowing gap. Richard released the door and fell beside her as it slammed shut.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then Vivian picked up the silver bell.
Richard looked at her.
“Was I stolen?”
Vivian rang the bell once.
Richard’s body locked.
May you like
His eyes lost focus.
And he turned toward Amanda with his hands clenched.
