Chapter 10 - Two Mothers
The service corridor locked down around them.
At one end stood Claire, Reyes, and Melissa.
At the other stood the imitation wearing Claire’s face.
Emma’s bed remained in the center with Nathan and Leena.
The false Claire spoke first.
“Emma, come to me.”
The real Claire did not move.
“Baby, look at my hands.”
Emma looked.
Claire raised both palms.
A small crescent-shaped scar crossed her right hand where she had cut herself opening a can two years earlier.
The imitation raised its hands.
It had the same scar.
Emma began to panic.
“It knows everything.”
Claire kept her voice steady.
“Not everything.”
The imitation smiled.
“I know you slept with the hallway light on until you were six.”
Claire said nothing.
“I know your father called you Cricket.”
Emma looked toward the real Claire.
Both women appeared identical.
Reyes whispered, “Can we test their blood?”
“No time,” Nathan said. “It can replicate biological tissue.”
The imitation moved closer.
“I know what your mother said at the kitchen table yesterday.”
Emma’s eyes widened.
Claire spoke.
“You asked whether bad things would be your fault if you told the truth.”
The imitation repeated the exact sentence at the same time.
Emma covered her face.
Claire’s mind raced.
Memories would not work.
The creature had access to Emma’s thoughts, and possibly hers through the stolen laboratory data.
She needed something Emma knew emotionally rather than factually.
Claire stepped forward.
“The night Daddy died, everyone told you he became a star.”
The imitation nodded.
Claire continued.
“But I told you that was only a story people use when the truth feels too painful.”
The imitation’s smile faded.
Emma lowered her hands.
Claire looked directly at her.
“I told you Daddy died, and that dying meant he could not come back.”
Emma’s breathing slowed.
“You said pretending would make me wait for him.”
“Yes.”
“You said love doesn’t need a lie.”
“Yes.”
The imitation’s face twitched.
Claire extended her hand.
“Come to the mother who never promised you impossible things.”
Emma climbed off the bed.
The imitation lunged.
Reyes fired.
The bullet passed through its shoulder, scattering black fibers.
Melissa pulled Emma toward Claire.
Nathan overturned the bed as a barrier.
The creature struck it and split into two shapes.
One continued wearing Claire’s face.
The other became Vera Holt.
Reyes stared.
“It can divide.”
Both figures attacked.
Leena activated a fire-suppression switch.
Foam blasted from the ceiling.
The organisms slowed as the cold chemical coating hardened around them.
Nathan shouted.
“Move.”
They ran toward the stairwell.
Claire carried Emma.
Behind them, the two creatures merged into a shapeless mass and began dissolving the foam.
They reached the lower floor.
Hospital alarms sounded throughout the building.
Patients and staff crowded the evacuation route.
Reyes contacted the tactical unit.
“The target is not human. Avoid direct contact. Use cryogenic suppression.”
His radio crackled.
A voice answered.
“Understood.”
The voice belonged to Reyes.
He stopped.
Everyone heard it.
His radio repeated his own words.
“The target is not human.”
Then the lights went out.
A pulse of energy passed through the hospital.
Phones died.
Emergency generators failed.
Ventilators stopped.
For four seconds, the entire building became silent.
Emma whispered, “The silence.”
Backup systems activated.
Red lights returned.
But in those four seconds, every monitor in the pediatric ward displayed the same message.
SUBJECT E-7 CONNECTED
Emma screamed and collapsed.
Claire caught her.
Beneath the bandage on her neck, black lines spread rapidly.
Nathan checked her pulse.
“The residual fragments are reactivating.”
The imitation had not been trying to capture Emma.
It had been trying to trigger her.
The hospital speakers crackled.
Hundreds of children’s voices spoke together.
“Claire Bennett.”
Claire held her daughter.
“What do you want?”
May you like
The voices answered.
“Take Emma back to the garden.”
