Chapter 8 - Margaret’s Offer
Richard tore a sheet from one of the beds and pressed it beneath the door, but the gas came from every vent.
Lucy opened cabinet after cabinet.
“There should be masks.”
“They removed them,” Ethan said.
Richard looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“I remember Margaret doing it.”
A monitor turned on.
Margaret appeared live from an unknown location.
“Ethan’s integration is progressing faster than expected,” she said. “Proximity to Subject Seven is restoring Daniel’s memory network.”
Richard lifted a metal chair and struck the glass beneath the monitor.
It did not crack.
“You tried to murder him at the airport.”
“I tried to prevent activation.”
“Owen blocked his airway.”
“Owen made a reckless decision. He was instructed only to sedate Ethan and remove him from the terminal.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to understand that killing Ethan would destroy twenty years of research.”
Lucy found a panel beneath the floor.
Inside were three emergency respirators.
She passed one to Ethan and one to Richard. Only two had intact filters.
Richard gave his to Lucy.
She pushed it back.
“You need it.”
“You are seven.”
“That does not make your lungs more important.”
Richard placed the mask over her face and tightened the strap.
“That is not how this works.”
He wrapped his shirt around his mouth.
Margaret watched them.
“You are performing fatherhood very dramatically for a child you met hours ago.”
Richard looked at the screen.
“You knew she was mine.”
“Yes.”
“You told me the embryo had failed.”
“Victoria agreed.”
“Why?”
“Because you would have stopped the research.”
“I would have stopped you from experimenting on my daughter.”
Margaret’s expression remained calm.
“Lucy would never have survived without us. The woman who carried her had no money, no legal identity, and a progressive neurological disease. We provided treatment.”
“You stole her baby.”
“We preserved a valuable life.”
Lucy removed the respirator long enough to shout.
“My mother came back for me!”
Margaret’s eyes shifted.
“So you remember Elena.”
Lucy froze.
Richard filed the name away.
“Elena who?” he demanded.
Margaret ignored him.
“Richard, the gas is not fatal. It will make you unconscious. When you wake, Ethan will be receiving proper treatment. Lucy will return to secure care.”
“No.”
“You do not have a choice.”
Richard’s vision began to blur.
Ethan pointed toward the glass room.
“Dad, the stars.”
One yellow star on the ceiling blinked red.
Lucy understood first.
She ran into the room and pulled the wooden block marked D from her pocket. One side of the block contained a metal pin.
She inserted it into the blinking star.
A ventilation fan roared to life.
Fresh air flooded the chamber.
Margaret’s composure broke.
“Daniel.”
The gas cleared slowly.
Richard removed the cloth from his mouth.
“Daniel built an escape system?”
Lucy nodded.
“He said every room needed one secret the doctors didn’t know.”
Ethan smiled weakly.
“He remembered where he hid it.”
The console restarted.
A file downloaded automatically.
ELENA MARQUEZ PAYMENT RECORDS.
Richard opened it.
The file showed monthly transfers from the Harrison Foundation to a woman named Elena Marquez for two years after Lucy’s birth.
Then the payments stopped.
The final entry contained a handwritten note.
SUBJECT’S MOTHER REFUSED SETTLEMENT. TRANSFERRED TO BRIAR HOUSE.
“Where is Briar House?” Richard asked.
Margaret’s image disappeared.
An alarm began sounding.
The steel exit barrier lifted.
Police and federal agents rushed inside seconds later. The men from the hospital corridor had fled through another passage.
Richard gathered the files and copied the digital records.
Outside the chamber, an agent told him Margaret’s foundation offices had been emptied.
“She knew we were coming,” the agent said. “Servers, paper records, even security cameras are gone.”
Richard looked at Lucy.
“Can Briar House help us find your mother?”
She stared at the payment record.
“I saw that name once.”
“Where?”
“On the door they took Daniel through after he died.”
Ethan’s face changed.
A memory had surfaced.
“He wasn’t dead when they moved him,” Ethan whispered.
Lucy looked at him.
May you like
“What?”
“I remember hearing him breathe.”
