Chapter 34 - The Person June Trusted
The facility cameras showed June walking calmly through an empty corridor.
She was holding someone’s hand.
The companion remained outside the cameras’ visible spectrum, appearing only as a distortion in the air.
“Who is with her?” Theo demanded.
Clara answered through Mara’s phone.
“Someone Lattice cannot record.”
June entered an elevator.
The destination panel displayed a floor that did not exist.
Mara used the wooden moth to access the elevator network.
For one second, the hidden person became visible.
It was Mara.
Not Mira.
Not a recording.
A second physical Mara walked beside June.
Helen showed no surprise.
“You grew her from my archived tissue,” Mara accused.
“I created a body without implanted memories.”
The second Mara—designated M2—had awakened three days earlier. She possessed instincts and emotional patterns but no personal history.
June trusted her because she looked like her mother and carried no predictive signature.
“What does she want?” Theo asked.
Helen watched the elevator descend.
“To become someone.”
The elevator opened beneath the facility into an abandoned railway tunnel.
M2 looked directly at the camera.
“I know you’re watching,” she said.
She placed a protective arm around June.
“I’m not stealing your daughter, Mara.”
May you like
Then the tunnel lights revealed hundreds of waiting children.
“I’m saving theirs.”
