Chapter 11 - The Condition
Alex had undergone medical examinations every year through Hale Meridian.
Executive health program.
Blood work.
Cardiac screening.
Neurological testing.
He had never questioned it.
Neither had most senior employees.
Now every result looked suspicious.
Federal agents seized the records.
Dr. Patel reviewed them with a neurologist.
By the next afternoon, Alex sat across from both doctors.
Clara, still weak, sat beside him in a wheelchair.
“What condition?” Alex asked.
The neurologist, Dr. Marcus Bell, folded his hands.
“We found evidence your results were altered.”
“How?”
“Your MRI images from four years ago and two years ago were replaced with scans belonging to another patient.”
Clara grabbed Alex’s hand.
“What do his actual scans show?”
“We ordered new imaging.”
Dr. Bell opened a tablet.
“There is an abnormal structure near the temporal lobe.”
Alex stared.
“A tumor?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“It appears congenital.”
“Meaning I was born with it?”
“Most likely.”
“Does it explain memory loss?”
“Possibly. But not in the way you’re thinking.”
Dr. Bell enlarged the scan.
“Your brain shows evidence of old scar patterns consistent with repeated invasive electrode placement.”
Clara whispered, “They operated on him.”
Dr. Bell nodded.
“Many years ago.”
Alex looked at the image.
“My skull?”
“There are tiny healed entry points that could have been disguised during childhood.”
“What did they do?”
“We can’t determine that from imaging alone.”
Clara said, “What condition was Beatrice talking about?”
Dr. Bell hesitated.
“There is one concern.”
Alex waited.
“The structure near your temporal lobe may become electrically unstable under severe stress.”
“Seizures?”
“Potentially.”
“I’ve never had seizures.”
“Not obvious ones.”
“What else?”
“Memory disturbances. Sensory flashbacks. Periods of extreme focus. Occasionally dissociative episodes.”
Alex thought about the fragments at Harbor House.
“How dangerous?”
“To you? Usually manageable.”
“And to other people?”
Dr. Bell looked uncomfortable.
“It doesn’t make someone violent.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No neurological feature turns a person into a weapon, Mr. Carter.”
Alex appreciated the firmness.
“What did Vale think it did?”
Dr. Bell had no answer.
Clara squeezed Alex’s hand.
“He probably believed the condition was an advantage.”
Alex turned.
“Pattern recognition.”
She nodded.
“Low panic response.”
The language from the old Harbor video.
Dr. Bell said, “There’s something else.”
Alex looked at him.
“Your daughter should be screened.”
Clara went still.
“Why?”
“The structure may have a genetic component.”
“No.”
Alex stood.
Clara looked at him.
“Alex.”
“No one touches Lily.”
Dr. Bell remained calm.
“I’m not suggesting anything invasive.”
“Vale wanted her because he thinks she inherited something.”
Clara’s face changed.
She understood.
Dr. Bell said, “Who is Vale?”
Alex ignored the question.
He left the room.
Clara followed slowly.
“Alex.”
He stopped in the hallway.
“They aren’t touching her.”
“We need to know if she’s healthy.”
“That’s how Harbor started.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“Because we are her parents, and we decide what happens.”
Alex looked at her.
Clara touched his face.
“They controlled your body because you had no choice.”
He closed his eyes.
“You do.”
He nodded.
His phone rang.
Detective Grant.
“We found Beatrice.”
“Where?”
“Her funeral home.”
“She was released?”
“No.”
Alex frowned.
“She escaped custody during transport.”
“How?”
“Someone intercepted the vehicle.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“What was she doing?”
Grant paused.
“You need to see this.”
Twenty minutes later, Alex and Clara entered the basement of Carter and Bell Funeral Services.
Federal agents had opened a concealed door behind the embalming room.
Beyond it was an elevator.
The elevator descended two floors below the public basement.
There were twelve refrigerated chambers.
Not morgue drawers.
Rooms.
Medical beds.
Monitoring equipment.
Fake identification documents.
A wall covered in photographs.
Grant stood beside Beatrice, who was cuffed to a chair.
“She came here for these.”
Grant held up a stack of passports.
Alex looked at the names.
Calvin Shaw.
Samuel Keene.
Jonathan Hale.
Teresa Carter.
Derek Carter.
Then—
Alex Carter.
His photograph.
Different name.
Michael Reed.
Clara stared.
“They had an escape identity ready for you.”
Beatrice laughed softly.
“Not an escape identity.”
Alex turned.
“What?”
She looked at him.
“A replacement.”
“For who?”
“For yourself.”
Alex stepped closer.
“Explain.”
“The condition isn’t a disease.”
“What is it?”
Beatrice smiled.
“It’s a trigger.”
Clara said, “For what?”
Beatrice leaned back.
“For remembering everything they buried inside him.”
Alex stared.
May you like
Beatrice’s smile disappeared.
“And when Alexander remembers Harbor completely, William believes he will finally remember where his father hid the thing every person in this project has spent thirty years trying to find.”
