Chapter 9 - THE OTHER DAUGHTER
As they fought, Claire B shouted fragments of memories that belonged to Claire: the smell of Arthur’s workshop, the tune Rebecca hummed, the exact words written inside Claire’s academy ring.
Claire realized the woman was not performing for witnesses. She believed the memories emotionally. Hearth had repeated them during isolation until borrowed scenes became the only childhood available to her.
“You think I stole your life,” Claire B gasped.
“No,” Claire answered, blocking a strike. “I think they stole both of ours and taught us to fight over what remained.”
For a fraction of a second, Claire B hesitated.
That hesitation allowed Marcus to reach them, but it also revealed something more dangerous than hatred.
She wanted Claire to be right.
Marcus wrapped his jacket around his face.
Claire searched the archive shelves for ventilation controls while the white gas thickened around them. Arthur’s watch displayed a new message.
BLOOD OPENS WHAT NAMES CANNOT.
A panel beside the projector contained two small glass pads. Claire pressed her bleeding thumb to one. Marcus used the other.
The archive door released.
They stumbled into the corridor as alarms began.
The other Claire waited beyond the gas cloud wearing a black tactical suit. Up close, the resemblance was not perfect. Her mouth was narrower. Her left eyebrow rose differently. Yet in a dim hallway, on a surveillance camera, or before witnesses prepared to believe, she could pass.
“Hello, sister,” she said.
Claire raised her weapon.
“Where is Arthur?”
“Always the first question. Never who are you?”
“You are the person trying to steal my life.”
The woman flinched as if the accusation hurt.
“My name is Claire Bennett. I was raised for it. Trained for it. Punished for it. You were the substitute they chose when Arthur could not recover me.”
Marcus moved to Claire’s side.
The woman looked at him with contempt.
“And you are the spare.”
“Story of my life,” Marcus said.
She pressed a remote.
Steel shutters sealed both ends of the corridor.
“I did not come to kill you,” she told Claire. “I came to complete the transfer.”
“You think wearing my face makes you me?”
“No. Surviving what they did makes me the only one worthy of the name.”
She attacked with sudden speed.
Claire blocked the first strike, absorbed the second, and drove her shoulder into the woman’s chest. They crashed into the wall, mirror images fighting beneath emergency lights.
Claire B anticipated military techniques because she had been trained from Claire’s records. She knew Claire favored the injured left knee after long engagements. She knew the hesitation before Claire fired at close range.
But she did not know Marcus.
He tackled her from the side.
The remote flew from her hand.
Claire caught it and opened the shutters.
Federal agents appeared at one end of the corridor.
Hale led them.
At the other end, Northstar gunmen advanced.
For one terrible second, no one knew which force Hale belonged to.
She fired at Northstar.
“Move!” she shouted.
The archive became a battlefield.
Claire B escaped through a service hatch after slashing Marcus across the arm. Claire pursued her into a chamber containing medical chairs, facial molds, voice equipment, and walls covered with family photographs.
In the center stood Arthur.
Alive.
He was restrained upright inside a transparent medical enclosure, unconscious but breathing.
Claire reached the controls.
Voss appeared on a balcony above.
“Touch the chamber and his heart stops.”
Claire aimed at him.
“You signed his death certificate.”
“I have signed many deaths that were temporary.”
“Release him.”
Voss smiled. “Choose.”
Two medical enclosures rose from the floor.
One held Arthur.
The other held the gray-haired woman from the video.
Rebecca Bennett.
Both were connected to the same control system.
“One lives,” Voss said. “One dies. The surviving witness will tell the world which Claire is real.”
Claire looked from the man who raised her to the woman she had mourned for nearly three decades.
Marcus reached the chamber room behind her, blood running down his sleeve.
“Claire,” he said, “the building is rigged.”
Voss placed his hand over a red switch.
“Choose your parent.”
May you like
Claire lowered her weapon.
Then she shot the control panel instead.
