Chapter 6 - The Archive Beneath the City
The original Alden research center stood forty miles outside the city behind rusted gates and rows of overgrown trees.
Rebecca arrived shortly before sunset with Martin, Lena, and two security vehicles.
Blake was not invited.
He came anyway.
His car appeared behind the convoy as the gates opened.
Lena’s security team stopped him near the entrance.
“I have information,” Blake shouted through the open window. “The caller told me Rebecca had to open the archive.”
Rebecca approached the vehicle.
“What caller?”
Blake looked at the guards surrounding him.
“I want written immunity.”
“You are not in a position to negotiate.”
“I can identify the number they used.”
“Then give it to Lena.”
“I speak to you alone.”
Rebecca folded her arms.
“You used my daughter’s medicine as part of a trap. You do not get private conversations.”
Blake looked toward Martin.
“The person said you would bring her here.”
Martin’s expression tightened.
“What exactly did they say?”
“That the archive would prove Northstar was never hers.”
Rebecca studied him.
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Yesterday you believed I should cook dinner before my daughter received medicine.”
Blake lowered his voice.
“I made a mistake.”
“A mistake is forgetting an appointment. What you did was a choice.”
Rebecca turned away.
Blake called after her.
“They know about Rosie.”
She stopped.
“What about her?”
“They called her the successor.”
Rebecca returned to the car.
“The successor to what?”
“They did not say.”
Blake took a folded paper from his jacket.
“I wrote down everything I remembered.”
Lena collected it through the window.
At the bottom of the page, Blake had written a phrase repeated by the caller.
The bloodline opens the door.
Rebecca looked toward the abandoned research building.
The entrance was covered in dust, but the electronic lock beside it still glowed.
Martin placed his hand against the scanner.
Access denied.
Lena tried her security credential.
Access denied.
Rebecca stepped forward.
The scanner illuminated her face.
A mechanical voice spoke.
“State your name.”
“Rebecca Hale.”
Access denied.
The system waited.
She understood.
“Rebecca Grace Alden.”
A green light appeared.
“Identity confirmed. Welcome home.”
The doors opened.
Inside, the building looked as though everyone had left only minutes earlier. Laboratory equipment sat beneath protective covers. Files remained inside glass cabinets. A coffee cup still rested beside an old computer terminal.
Emergency lights activated one row at a time, leading them toward an elevator.
The elevator descended beneath the main laboratory.
No floor numbers appeared.
Only a single word.
ARCHIVE.
When the doors opened, they entered a circular room surrounded by metal cabinets. At the center stood a console with two hand scanners.
“One must be for Gideon,” Martin said.
“And the other?”
A smaller scanner was positioned lower.
Rebecca thought of Blake’s phrase.
The bloodline opens the door.
“No,” she said.
Martin followed her gaze.
“It may require a direct descendant.”
“I am his direct descendant.”
“Perhaps the first scanner is yours now.”
“And the second requires the next generation.”
Rosie.
Rebecca stepped away.
“We are not bringing her here.”
Lena examined the console.
“There may be another method.”
A red light suddenly appeared on the wall.
The entrance doors locked behind them.
A screen activated above the console.
Old security footage began playing.
Gideon Alden appeared on the screen.
He was standing in the same archive room, wearing the ring seen on the courier’s hand.
Rebecca had not heard her father’s voice in eighteen years.
“If you are watching this,” Gideon said, “then someone has used the Alden emergency reserve to reactivate the founder network.”
Rebecca moved closer.
“I created the reserve for a moment when ordinary systems failed. But I also knew the reserve would act as a signal.”
“A signal to whom?” Rebecca whispered.
Gideon continued as though he had heard her.
“The company contains a hidden organization. Its members believe medicine should belong to those wealthy enough to control it. They have stolen research, redirected supplies, and influenced hospitals from inside our own walls.”
“Vesper,” Martin said.
“I tried to remove them,” Gideon continued. “I failed.”
The screen changed to a list of names.
Many were marked deceased.
Others were hidden.
One name was clearly visible.
Martin Ellison.
Lena immediately reached for her weapon.
Martin raised both hands.
Rebecca stared at the screen.
Gideon’s recording continued.
“Some names on this list belong to traitors. Others belong to people I asked to enter the organization and report back to me. If I am dead, you must determine which is which.”
Rebecca looked at Martin.
“Were you working with Vesper?”
“I was working inside it.”
“For how long?”
“Twenty-two years.”
“You never told me.”
“Your father ordered me not to.”
“My father is dead.”
“And Vesper is not.”
Gideon’s image disappeared.
A new file opened.
It contained footage from the day of his plane crash.
Rebecca saw her father enter a private hangar.
Another man followed him.
The man was younger, but his face was unmistakable.
It was the courier from Marissa’s building.
The man wearing Gideon’s ring had been alive eighteen years ago.
Yet he had not aged.
The footage paused.
A label appeared beneath his image.
SUBJECT A-2
IDENTITY: THOMAS ALDEN
STATUS: CLASSIFIED
Rebecca’s knees nearly weakened.
She turned toward Martin.
“My father had no brother.”
Martin’s silence answered before his words did.
“Gideon had a younger son.”
Rebecca stared at him.
May you like
“A son?”
“Your brother.”
