Chapter 4 - Subject 07)
Marcus moved Lily out of the Thorne estate before sunrise.
He did not tell Victoria where they were going.
He chose an apartment owned through a private holding company that even most of his executives did not know existed.
Nathan brought two trusted guards.
Marcus brought the pendant.
And Victoria's warning followed them.
The people your father was trying to escape.
At 8:17 a.m., Nathan managed to extract the microchip from inside the crystal.
The chip was encrypted.
By noon, they had bypassed the first layer.
A single folder appeared.
PROJECT AURELIA.
Marcus stared at the name.
"Open it."
Nathan clicked.
Password required.
Beneath the password field was a clue.
SUBJECT 07 DATE OF ORIGIN.
Marcus frowned.
"Date of origin?"
Nathan tried Charles Thorne's birth date.
Rejected.
Marcus's birth date.
Rejected.
Elena's.
Rejected.
Lily sat at the table drawing while the men worked.
She looked up.
"Try Mommy and Daddy's wedding."
Marcus turned.
"Why?"
"Grandma said everything started when Mommy married you."
Nathan entered the wedding date.
Rejected.
Lily frowned.
Marcus looked at her.
"What exactly did Grandma say?"
Lily hesitated.
"She said Mommy wasn't supposed to love you."
Marcus felt a chill.
Nathan stopped typing.
"Anything else?"
"She said Mommy ruined the plan because she had me."
Marcus sat beside his daughter.
"When did she say this?"
"Last night."
"In Grandma's room?"
Lily nodded.
"She was talking to Mr. Adrian."
"What did he say?"
Lily looked down at her drawing.
"He said I was supposed to be a boy."
Marcus felt something cold move through his chest.
Nathan whispered, "Jesus."
Marcus kept his voice gentle.
"Did they say why?"
Lily shook her head.
"Then the lady came."
"The woman in the catering uniform?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
"She said Subject Seven had been located."
Marcus and Nathan exchanged a look.
"Who was she talking about?"
"I don't know."
Lily pointed at the computer.
"Maybe Subject Seven isn't a person."
Marcus looked at the password clue again.
SUBJECT 07 DATE OF ORIGIN.
He thought about the phrase.
Not birth.
Origin.
He remembered the photograph.
Twenty-one years earlier.
Then another memory surfaced.
His father had founded a biotech subsidiary twenty-one years ago.
Aurelia Biomedical.
Marcus pulled up archived corporate records.
The incorporation date was March 14, 2005.
Nathan entered 03142005.
The folder opened.
Hundreds of files appeared.
Patient charts.
Contracts.
Photographs.
Payment records.
Marcus felt sick before reading a single word.
Nathan opened the first index.
AURELIA HUMAN ADAPTATION TRIAL
PHASE II
Marcus stared.
Human adaptation.
"What the hell does that mean?"
Nathan opened another document.
The language was scientific, but the purpose slowly became clear.
Aurelia had been studying inherited neurological traits.
Memory retention.
Stress resistance.
Pattern recognition.
Exceptional cognitive development.
Marcus scrolled.
Subjects had been selected from families with specific genetic characteristics.
Some had consented.
Others had not.
Children were included.
Marcus stopped.
"How did my father get involved in this?"
Nathan opened the personnel list.
Charles Thorne.
Financial sponsor.
Elias Vale.
Medical director.
Graham Cole.
Acquisitions and compliance.
Victoria Thorne.
Family liaison.
Marcus stared at his mother's name.
Family liaison.
Then he saw another file.
SUBJECT 07.
He opened it.
The photograph was blurred.
A teenage girl.
Dark hair.
Green eyes.
Marcus stopped breathing.
He knew those eyes.
Elena.
The file name read:
SUBJECT 07
ELENA MARROW
AGE AT INTAKE: 13
Marcus whispered, "Marrow?"
Nathan looked confused.
"That wasn't Elena's surname."
Marcus scrolled.
Elena had not originally been Elena Ramirez, the name Marcus knew when he met her.
She had been Elena Marrow.
One of twelve minors enrolled in Aurelia.
There were records of memory conditioning.
Medication.
Isolation periods.
Behavioral testing.
Then a final note appeared.
SUBJECT 07 REMOVED FROM FACILITY.
STATUS UNKNOWN.
DATE: AUGUST 9, 2009.
Marcus calculated.
Six years before he met her.
"What happened to her?"
Nathan opened a linked incident file.
Most of it had been deleted.
One surviving sentence remained.
SUBJECT 07 REMOVED WITH ASSISTANCE FROM R.L.
Marcus stared at the initials.
"Rebecca Lane."
Nathan nodded slowly.
The missing nurse.
The woman who had supposedly died in a highway crash.
Marcus leaned back.
Rebecca had rescued Elena.
Years later Elena married Charles Thorne's son.
Had she found Marcus deliberately?
Had their entire marriage begun as an investigation?
His stomach twisted.
Then another file opened automatically.
A photograph appeared.
Elena standing outside Marcus's first apartment.
The image had been taken from across the street.
Date: four months before Marcus and Elena supposedly met.
Underneath was a caption.
SUBJECT 07 HAS ESTABLISHED CONTACT WITH HEIR.
Marcus stared at it.
Lily came beside him.
"That's Mommy."
Marcus closed the laptop too quickly.
"Daddy?"
He forced a smile.
"Go finish your picture, sweetheart."
She returned to the table.
Nathan watched Marcus.
"You okay?"
"No."
Marcus walked to the window.
For four years, he had mourned Elena.
For ten years before that, he had believed their marriage was built on chance.
Now everything was uncertain.
Except one thing.
Whatever Elena had originally wanted from him, someone had faked her death.
And if her voice on the phone had been real, she was still trapped inside the nightmare his father helped create.
Nathan reopened the files.
"Marcus."
"What?"
"There's a second subject connected to Elena."
Marcus turned.
Nathan looked at Lily.
Marcus followed his gaze.
"No."
Nathan rotated the screen.
A document was dated six months after Lily's birth.
PROJECT AURELIA
GENERATION TWO OBSERVATION
SUBJECT 07 OFFSPRING
FEMALE CHILD
LILY THORNE
STATUS: ACTIVE
Marcus's hands curled into fists.
May you like
Then the apartment door alarm sounded.
Someone was entering the building.
