Chapter 5 - Subject Seventeen
The voice belonged to Claire’s uncle Graham.
She almost answered. Graham had been part of the family video call. He had shouted for Adrian to stop and called the police. He had held Claire at her father’s funeral and promised she would never face hardship alone.
Nora pressed one finger to her lips.
Above them, Graham walked slowly across the church floor.
“I know you are frightened,” he called. “But Detective Ortiz is compromised. The woman with you is dangerous.”
Ortiz mouthed, How did he find us?
Nora pointed to Claire’s hospital wristband. A small tracking chip was embedded beneath the printed barcode.
Claire tore it off.
The basement had a coal chute at the rear. They crawled through it into an alley as Graham descended the stairs. By the time he found the files on the folding table, they were hidden beneath a delivery truck moving toward the river district.
Nora led them to a shuttered print shop owned by a former center employee. Inside, the walls were lined with obsolete presses and boxes of yellowing paper. A generator powered a single lamp and an old desktop computer disconnected from the internet.
Detective Ortiz copied the files onto encrypted drives.
Claire stared at the photograph of herself as a baby.
“What is Project Lantern?” she asked.
Nora sat across from her. “A memory retention study. Your mother believed traumatic memories could be preserved through certain sensory triggers even after chemical suppression.”
“Suppression?”
“Conrad Mercer wanted to erase memory. Evelyn wanted to prove it always returned.”
Claire touched the number written beneath the baby blanket. Subject 17.
“Was I experimented on?”
“I do not know. But Adrian married you because of Project Lantern.”
The sentence was more painful than the cracked ribs.
Claire remembered their first meeting at a museum fundraiser. Adrian had seemed surprised by her interest in old medical instruments. He told her they had crossed paths years earlier, though she could not remember where. He knew her favorite childhood song. He knew she disliked the smell of cloves. She had interpreted those details as attentiveness.
Perhaps they were research notes.
Ortiz turned from the computer. “We need evidence that can survive a courtroom. The video proves assault. These files suggest conspiracy, but Vale will call them fabricated unless we establish chain of custody.”
“The center ledger,” Nora said. “It contains intake orders, payments, and treatment recordings. Conrad kept everything.”
“Conrad died six years ago,” Claire said.
Nora’s eyes shifted away.
Claire noticed. “Did he?”
No one answered.
The print shop telephone rang.
All three women stared at it. The line had supposedly been disconnected for years.
It rang again.
Claire picked up.
Her mother spoke first.
“Do not trust Nora Bell.”
Claire closed her eyes. “How did Graham find us?”
“I sent him.”
“Why?”
“To keep you alive.”
“By taking me back to Adrian?”
“Adrian is not in control anymore.” Evelyn’s voice shook. “The video call changed the timetable.”
“What timetable?”
A pause.
“The final retrieval.”
Claire gripped the receiver. “Am I Subject Seventeen?”
Her mother began crying.
That was answer enough.
“You told me you were a receptionist.”
“I told you what was necessary.”
“Did Adrian marry me because of your research?”
“Yes.”
The word broke something inside Claire that no blow had reached.
Evelyn continued quickly. “But the research was never meant for this. Project Lantern was designed to help trauma survivors recover memories safely. Conrad turned it into a weapon.”
“Where is he?”
“I cannot say.”
“Is he alive?”
The line crackled.
“Claire, listen carefully. When you were five years old, you saw the entrance code to the original chamber. You are the only person who ever remembered it after treatment. Conrad has spent twenty-seven years trying to retrieve that sequence from you.”
“I don’t remember any code.”
“You do. It is hidden inside a song.”
Claire thought of the lullaby her mother sang every night when she was small. Seven notes, repeated twice.
From the street came the squeal of brakes.
Ortiz moved toward the window. Three black vehicles stopped outside the print shop.
Evelyn’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Do not let them make you hear the final verse.”
The front windows exploded inward.
Smoke canisters rolled across the floor.
Nora grabbed Claire’s arm, but a masked figure emerged through the gray cloud and struck her down. Ortiz fired once before another figure knocked the weapon away.
Claire felt a needle enter her neck.
As she collapsed, someone began humming her childhood lullaby.
May you like
The first seven notes opened a door in her mind.
Behind it, a little girl stood in a white room, watching Conrad Mercer bury a metal case beneath the floor.
