Chapter 10 - Two Fathers
Ordoñez’s men were less than a minute away.
Andrés had two men claiming to be his father, one locked behind a biometric door and another standing at gunpoint.
There was no time to determine which was real.
Rafael, or the man using that name, looked toward a control box beside the scanner.
“Shoot the lower hinge.”
“That could seal the door permanently.”
“It could also open it.”
“Could?”
“The system was designed to fail outward.”
“You designed it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did it reject you?”
“Because identity is not the same as biology.”
The answer made Andrés pause.
Sofía understood first.
“Surgery cannot change fingerprints.”
“No,” the man said. “But a name can be assigned to another body.”
Andrés fired at the lower hinge.
The door shifted outward.
He fired twice more.
Sofía and the stranger pulled while Andrés pushed. The metal door opened just enough for a person to pass.
A hand appeared through the gap.
Thin.
Scarred.
A second man emerged.
He was older, bearded, and so weak that he collapsed to his knees.
He did not look exactly like Rafael.
But beneath the damage, Andrés saw the same eyes.
The same uneven angle of the left ear.
The same small white mark near the thumb where Rafael had once cut himself repairing a saddle.
Teresa lowered herself beside him.
The prisoner touched her face.
“Green dress,” he whispered.
She began crying.
The other man closed his eyes.
Andrés turned his weapon toward him.
“Explain.”
“My name was assigned Rafael Valdés sixteen years ago.”
“What was it before?”
“Gabriel Serrano.”
Sofía stared.
The ledger contained the line Substitute approved.
Gabriel had been the substitute.
But not necessarily the first impostor Teresa had killed.
The weakened prisoner pointed toward Gabriel.
“He saved me.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You were not supposed to be conscious.”
“I heard enough.”
Footsteps echoed around the final curve of the tunnel.
Andrés moved everyone inside C-7.
Gabriel closed the damaged door and wedged a steel bar through the inner handles.
The chamber beyond was not a prison cell.
It was an archive.
Shelves held hundreds of files, cassette tapes, film reels, hard drives, and sealed boxes marked with military and corporate symbols.
At the center stood a medical bed surrounded by monitoring equipment.
The real Rafael had been kept alive not merely as a prisoner, but as a biological resource.
Teresa held his hand.
“What did they do to you?”
“Signatures. Voice patterns. Memories.”
“How do they take memories?”
“Questions repeated until answers become scripts.”
Gabriel opened a cabinet and found water.
“They built substitutes for people whose authority they needed.”
Andrés looked around the archive.
“Politicians?”
“Judges,” Rafael said. “Officers. Company owners. Anyone whose death would create problems but whose continued existence could be useful.”
Sofía searched the shelves.
“Where is Emilio Rojas?”
Rafael looked at her.
“Your father helped me copy the council records.”
“Is he alive?”
“He escaped C-7.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
A pounding began at the iron door.
Ordoñez’s voice came through the metal.
“Andrés, open the door. The men inside are not what they appear to be.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
“For once, he is telling the truth.”
The real Rafael gestured weakly toward a locked case.
“My blood opens it.”
Teresa helped him stand.
He pressed his thumb to the case scanner.
It opened.
Inside were three passports bearing Rafael’s name.
Each showed a different face.
Beneath them lay documents authorizing military operations, property transfers, and secret payments over sixteen years.
Some were signed by Rafael while he was officially dead.
Andrés found one dated only four months earlier.
It approved the extension of his own deployment.
General Ordoñez had not merely known where Andrés was.
The council had used Rafael’s stolen identity to control his military life.
Rafael pointed toward a small red drive.
“The master list.”
Gabriel took it.
The pounding at the door intensified.
A cutting torch burned through the upper hinge.
“We need another exit,” Andrés said.
“There is one,” Rafael replied. “But it requires the trust key.”
“What key?”
“The one Teresa hid inside your uniform insignia.”
Andrés touched the metal emblem at his collar.
It had belonged to his father.
Teresa had given it to him on the day he entered the academy.
He removed it and found a tiny seam along the edge.
Inside was a narrow gold strip covered with microscopic markings.
Rafael nodded.
“The final trust key.”
Gabriel connected the strip to a reader beside the archive wall.
A section of shelves moved aside, revealing an elevator.
The display showed one destination.
SAN JERÓNIMO.
Sofía entered first.
Teresa supported Rafael.
Andrés remained beside Gabriel.
“Why did the council assign you my father’s identity?”
“To replace him.”
“Why did you save him?”
Gabriel looked toward Rafael.
“Because I discovered they intended to replace me too.”
The cutting torch broke through the hinge.
They entered the elevator.
As the doors closed, Ordoñez shouted through the gap.
“You have no idea what waits beneath San Jerónimo!”
Rafael answered from Teresa’s arms.
“Yes, we do.”
The elevator descended.
The depth indicator passed fifty meters.
Then one hundred.
Then two hundred.
Finally, the lights went dark.
A recorded voice filled the elevator.
“Welcome, Colonel Andrés Valdés.”
May you like
It was General Ordoñez.
“You have completed the first stage exactly as your father predicted.”
