Chapter 12 - THE SEVEN-MINUTE CHOICE
The terminal contained two options.
PRESERVE REGISTRY.
DESTROY REGISTRY.
Sophia stared at the screen.
A warning beneath them explained the consequences.
Preserving the registry would retain the identities and locations of every child, parent, surrogate, buyer, physician, and financier connected to Nightingale.
Destroying it would erase the entire system permanently.
Miriam arrived through the tunnel with Peter.
Evelyn supported the injured Hannah.
Agent Dean called for pursuit vessels, but the fog and rough water slowed the response.
The countdown reached six minutes.
Peter examined the terminal.
“This is a dead-man transfer.”
“What does that mean?” Sophia asked.
“At midnight, the files move to a remote owner unless a founder chooses another action.”
“Can we copy them first?”
“Not all of them.”
“How much?”
“Maybe five percent before the timer ends.”
Dean stepped beside Sophia.
“Preserve it.”
Hannah shook her head.
“No.”
Dean turned on her.
“That registry is the only way to find the children.”
“It is also the map their buyers use to reclaim them.”
“We can secure it.”
“You couldn’t secure me when I reported Daniel.”
Dean’s jaw tightened.
Sophia looked at him.
“Did her complaint reach your agency?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“It was classified.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then the organization has people inside your agency.”
“Possibly.”
Hannah laughed weakly.
“Possibly.”
The countdown reached five minutes.
Evelyn touched Sophia’s arm.
“Destroy it.”
“And lose Lily.”
“Jonathan wants the registry. If it disappears, he may keep her alive because she becomes his only remaining connection to the program.”
“Or kill her because she’s no longer useful.”
Hannah shook her head.
“He won’t kill her.”
“How do you know?”
“He believes she belongs to him.”
Sophia looked at the fog where the vessel had vanished.
Her father had not looked at Lily like a hostage.
He had looked at her like possession.
Peter opened a partial file list.
Two hundred seventeen children.
Some were adults now.
Some were infants.
Each had a Nightingale designation instead of a name.
LARK.
ORIOLE.
RAVEN.
SWAN.
The labels reduced lives to specimens.
Sophia found LARK.
The location field was changing rapidly as the vessel moved.
If she destroyed the registry, Lily’s tracker would vanish.
If she preserved it, the organization would retain access.
“Can you isolate the child records from the client records?” Sophia asked.
“Not in five minutes.”
“Can you corrupt the transfer?”
“Maybe.”
“How?”
“Send incomplete data to the remote owner while keeping a local fragment.”
Dean frowned.
“That risks losing evidence.”
Sophia turned on him.
“I’m not choosing between your prosecution and their market.”
The timer reached four minutes.
Peter began coding.
Sophia placed both hands on the console.
“What do you need?”
“Your biometric authorization at the final step.”
Miriam examined the legal prompts.
“If we preserve any part of the registry, ownership may transfer to you as surviving inventor.”
“Ownership of people?”
“Ownership of the database.”
“I don’t want it.”
“But you may need it to destroy the remaining copies.”
Ethan’s voice came from the tunnel.
“You can’t.”
Two agents escorted him down the stairs.
A bandage covered his forehead.
Dean glared.
“He insisted he could help.”
Ethan looked at the terminal.
“If you corrupt the transfer, the system will trigger identity purges.”
Sophia faced him.
“What does that mean?”
“Every linked child will receive an emergency relocation instruction.”
“From whom?”
“Guardians, handlers, institutions. Anyone assigned to protect the asset.”
Hannah turned pale.
“They’ll move the children tonight.”
Ethan nodded.
“If you destroy it, they scatter.”
“If we preserve it?”
“The remote owner gets everything.”
“Who is the remote owner?”
Ethan looked toward the sea.
“Jonathan.”
Sophia stared at him.
“You knew my father was alive.”
“I met him once.”
“When?”
“Before our wedding.”
The confession no longer surprised her.
Only its depth did.
“What did he offer you?”
“Funding.”
“For Nightingale?”
“For CrossHale.”
“You married me for access.”
“At first.”
Sophia’s face hardened.
Ethan stepped closer despite the agents.
“Then I loved you.”
“You sold our daughter.”
“I hid her from him.”
“You delivered her to Hannah under his program.”
“I changed the buyer record. Jonathan believed the embryo had failed.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“That’s why Daniel kept Lily hidden.”
Ethan nodded.
“Daniel wanted his own leverage over Jonathan.”
Sophia saw the shape of the war.
Her daughter had spent seven years between competing men who viewed her as an asset.
Ethan had not saved Lily.
He had merely changed who controlled her.
The timer reached two minutes.
Peter worked faster.
“I can split the registry into three encrypted fragments.”
“Where do they go?”
“One to a secure federal archive.”
Dean nodded.
“One to Sophia’s founder vault.”
Miriam looked uneasy.
“And the third?”
Peter looked at Ethan.
“To the remote owner.”
Sophia understood.
Her father would receive only a piece.
He would need Sophia’s fragment to reconstruct the registry.
That would keep Lily valuable.
It would also keep the pursuit alive.
“Do it,” Sophia said.
Dean objected.
“We cannot give Jonathan any data.”
“We are not giving him the registry. We are giving him a reason to keep my daughter alive.”
The timer reached one minute.
Peter initiated the split.
The system requested dual founder authorization.
Sophia placed her hand on the scanner.
Ethan remained still.
She looked at him.
“Authorize it.”
“What do I get?”
Dean grabbed his shoulder.
“You get the chance not to spend the rest of your life knowing you killed two hundred children.”
Ethan looked at Sophia.
“I want immunity.”
“No.”
“A reduced sentence.”
“No.”
“Sophia.”
“You have thirty seconds.”
His face twisted.
“You still think you can control everything.”
“No. I finally understand that I never controlled anything.”
“Then why should I help you?”
“Because Lily called you Uncle Ethan. And some part of you hated hearing it.”
His eyes lowered.
The timer reached twelve seconds.
Ethan placed his hand on the second scanner.
AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED.
The terminal flashed.
TRANSFER SPLIT INITIATED.
At midnight, the screen went black.
Then three messages appeared.
FEDERAL FRAGMENT DELIVERED.
FOUNDER FRAGMENT SECURED.
REMOTE FRAGMENT DELIVERED.
A final line appeared beneath them.
RECONSTRUCTION REQUIRES SUBJECT LARK.
Sophia’s heart stopped.
Peter stared at the screen.
“The registry isn’t keyed only to your authorization.”
“What is it keyed to?”
“Lily’s living biometrics.”
Ethan whispered, “That’s why Jonathan took her.”
May you like
The registry could not be rebuilt without Sophia’s daughter.
And now every side needed her alive.
