Chapter 10 - what peter forgot)
Peter demanded the phone.
Daniel refused.
“What did Adrian mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Peter’s jaw tightened.
“I have spent eighteen years not knowing which memories are mine. So yes, Daniel. Sometimes I do not know.”
Claire stepped between them.
“Fighting is exactly what Voss wants.”
Peter looked away.
Torres ordered Adrian’s call traced.
The signal had bounced through multiple towers.
They could narrow it only to the eastern industrial district.
Police began searching hospitals and abandoned buildings.
Meanwhile Daniel’s recovered memory intensified.
He saw a room beneath Mercer.
Red door.
White chair.
Peter standing beside him.
Not restrained.
Free.
That detail frightened him.
Daniel described it.
Peter shook his head.
“I was never free inside that building.”
“You were in the memory.”
“Memories can be constructed.”
“Exactly.”
“Then you cannot trust it.”
“But Adrian said you forgot what you did.”
Peter’s expression hardened.
“You trust Adrian now?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
Claire quietly said, “That may be the healthiest thing anyone has said today.”
Ruth requested water.
Then she spoke.
“There was a phase when Peter cooperated.”
Peter stared at her.
“No.”
“You don’t remember because Voss removed it later.”
“Why would I cooperate?”
“To protect Daniel.”
Peter went still.
Ruth continued.
“Voss convinced you Daniel was being held in another wing.”
“He wasn’t?”
“No. Daniel had gone home.”
Peter’s face twisted.
“What did he make me do?”
Ruth hesitated.
“Evaluate other subjects.”
Torres frowned.
“Evaluate how?”
“Peter was unusually resistant. Voss wanted to understand why. He began asking Peter to speak with patients undergoing treatment.”
Peter looked sick.
“I helped him.”
“You were manipulated.”
“I helped him.”
“You thought Daniel would be hurt if you refused.”
“That doesn’t erase it.”
Daniel watched his brother absorb a guilt Daniel recognized immediately.
It was the same guilt he felt for being the son Charles chose.
Different facts.
Same poison.
Ruth continued.
“One subject became attached to Peter.”
“Who?”
“A teenage boy.”
Peter closed his eyes.
A fragment returned.
A boy sitting on the floor.
Dark hair.
Seventeen years old.
Smiling nervously.
Peter whispered, “Adrian.”
Ruth nodded.
Daniel stared.
“Adrian was a subject?”
“Yes.”
Peter looked shaken.
“He wasn’t recruited.”
“No.”
“He was treated.”
“Yes.”
Everything changed.
Adrian had not entered Daniel’s life simply as Voss’s agent.
He had been shaped into one.
Ruth explained that Adrian’s father had worked for a corporation involved in a major fraud case.
The boy witnessed a meeting he was never meant to see.
His family sent him to Mercer after Voss promised treatment for anxiety.
Instead his memories were altered.
His loyalty was redirected.
Later Voss placed him near Daniel.
Peter whispered, “I knew him.”
“You tried to help him resist.”
“How?”
“You taught him to repeat one memory every day.”
Peter’s face tightened as another fragment returned.
A red bicycle.
A woman laughing.
Rain on a kitchen window.
Adrian’s mother.
Peter opened his eyes.
“He remembered his mother making pancakes.”
Ruth smiled weakly.
“Yes.”
“He said Voss couldn’t take that.”
“Yes.”
Peter sat.
Daniel finally understood why Adrian’s loyalty had always seemed contradictory.
Programmed obedience to Voss.
Genuine attachment to Daniel.
A buried memory Peter had taught him to protect.
Claire said, “Maybe that’s why he came back.”
Peter nodded.
“Maybe.”
Torres entered after receiving a message.
“They found Adrian’s blood in a warehouse.”
Daniel stood.
“Body?”
“No.”
“A vehicle?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what?”
Torres placed a photograph on the table.
On a concrete wall, someone had written a message in blood.
Daniel read it.
RED DOOR. MIDNIGHT.
Below it was an address.
Peter recognized it immediately.
“The old Mercer campus.”
Daniel’s pulse quickened.
The facility had supposedly been demolished after closure.
Peter shook his head.
“The upper buildings were demolished.”
Claire asked, “And the lower level?”
“Underground.”
Torres immediately refused to allow Daniel or Peter anywhere near it.
Peter said, “Voss wants us.”
“Which is precisely why you will not go.”
“If we don’t, Adrian dies.”
Torres looked at him.
“You do not know that he’s alive.”
Daniel replied, “He was alive when he called.”
Claire turned toward him.
“You cannot go.”
Daniel knew she was right.
He also knew Voss would not stop.
The boys would remain targets.
Claire would remain a target.
Every person around them would remain a potential weapon until Voss was found.
Daniel said quietly, “If the registry is inside us, hiding only keeps this going.”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“So your solution is to hand yourself to him?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Daniel looked at Torres.
“We make him believe we are.”
Torres studied him.
It was dangerous.
Probably reckless.
But it could also be the first opportunity to bring Voss into a controlled environment.
Police planned the operation.
Daniel and Peter would enter with concealed transmitters.
Tactical teams would surround the underground complex.
Claire would remain at a command post miles away.
At eleven fifty three, the brothers stood beside a rusted service entrance on the old Mercer property.
Rain had begun.
Daniel looked at Peter.
“Feels familiar.”
Peter gave a faint smile.
“You still hate storms?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Means they didn’t change everything.”
Daniel looked at him.
For a second, they were brothers again.
Not subjects.
Not evidence.
Not living archives.
Brothers.
Then the steel door opened by itself.
A red light glowed beyond it.
A speaker crackled.
May you like
Dr. Elias Voss spoke.
“Welcome home.”
