Chapter 5 - What Was Inside Maya
Maya was moved to surgery within nineteen minutes of the ultrasound.
Not because anyone understood the mass.
Because she was bleeding.
Emily ran beside the gurney until nurses stopped her at the restricted doors.
"I'm her mother."
"We know."
"I'm going with her."
"You can't."
Maya reached from beneath the blanket.
"Mom."
Emily grabbed her hand.
"I'm right here."
Maya's lower lip trembled.
"What if I don't wake up?"
Emily leaned down and kissed her forehead.
"You will."
"How do you know?"
"I don't."
Maya's eyes filled.
Emily pressed her forehead against her daughter's.
"But you've been trying to tell everyone something was wrong for months. You were right. You fought long enough to get here. So now you fight a little longer."
The anesthesiologist approached.
"We need to go."
Maya squeezed Emily's fingers.
Then she disappeared through the doors.
Emily stood motionless.
Detective Ortiz remained beside her.
"Sit down."
"I can't."
"You'll fall."
"I can't."
Ortiz didn't argue again.
At 10:58, FBI Special Agent Nathan Cole arrived.
Unlike the impostors, he came with verification from three separate federal offices.
Ortiz checked all of them.
Cole was forty-six, broad-shouldered, tired-eyed, and visibly irritated by whatever he had learned on the drive.
He showed Emily a photograph.
"Do you recognize him?"
The man was in his late sixties.
Silver hair.
Thin glasses.
No smile.
Emily shook her head.
"That's Adrian Vale."
"He isn't dead?"
"Not exactly."
"What does that mean?"
"Adrian Vale was the public identity used by a physician named Dr. Malcolm Voss."
Emily's throat tightened.
"Used?"
"Vale died eleven years ago. Voss didn't."
Maya's words returned.
There was a man.
The one Dad kept meeting.
Emily looked at Cole.
"Where is Voss?"
"We don't know."
"What was St. Gabriel?"
Cole hesitated.
"An unauthorized tissue-regeneration project."
Emily stared.
"On children?"
"Mostly infants with specific genetic traits."
The hallway tilted.
"What did they do to my daughter?"
"We're trying to determine that."
"Try faster."
Cole accepted the anger.
"Fifteen years ago, researchers were studying whether certain fetal and neonatal cells could support implanted biological tissue in ways adult cells couldn't."
Emily struggled to understand.
"Implanted tissue?"
"Experimental grafts. Engineered organ material."
Her stomach turned.
"You mean they put something inside her?"
"We believe so."
"What?"
Cole looked toward the surgical doors.
"That's what your doctors are about to discover."
At 11:26, a surgeon came out.
"Mrs. Thorne?"
Emily rushed toward him.
"Is she alive?"
"Yes."
Emily nearly collapsed.
The surgeon continued.
"We controlled the bleeding."
"What was it?"
He removed his mask.
"I've never seen anything exactly like this."
Cole stepped closer.
The surgeon looked at him, then Emily.
"There is a large encapsulated structure attached near the posterior abdominal wall. It has its own blood supply."
Emily felt nauseated.
"A tumor?"
"We don't think so."
"What do you mean?"
"It is organized tissue."
"Organized how?"
The surgeon exhaled.
"Almost like an organ."
Emily stared.
"But she has all her organs."
"Yes."
The sentence hung between them.
"What did you remove?"
"Nothing."
Emily remembered Robert's warning.
"Why?"
"Because it's connected to multiple blood vessels. Removing it without understanding its function could kill her."
Emily covered her mouth.
Cole asked, "Biopsy?"
"We took a microscopic sample from the surrounding capsule."
"When will you know?"
"Pathology is running it now."
Emily looked at the surgeon.
"Can I see her?"
"Soon."
At 12:04, Maya woke in intensive care.
She was groggy but alive.
Emily held her hand and cried quietly.
Maya opened her eyes.
"Did they find it?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"We don't know yet."
Maya blinked.
"Is Dad here?"
Emily looked away.
"No."
Maya closed her eyes again.
At 12:31, pathology called the surgeon.
Emily watched his expression through the ICU glass.
He listened.
Then asked them to repeat something.
Agent Cole noticed too.
They approached together.
The surgeon ended the call.
"What?" Emily asked.
He looked at her.
"The tissue sample doesn't match Maya."
Cole frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"The DNA is human."
Emily's heart stopped.
"But it isn't hers."
Silence.
Emily whispered, "Whose is it?"
"We're running comparisons."
Cole's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression became darker with every second.
Then he looked at Emily.
"We found your husband."
"Where?"
"An abandoned medical storage facility twenty-seven miles away."
"Is he alive?"
Cole hesitated.
Emily stepped closer.
"Is Robert alive?"
"Yes."
Relief hit her so hard she hated herself for feeling it.
"Then bring him here."
Cole's face didn't change.
"He wasn't alone."
Emily froze.
"Who was with him?"
Agent Cole glanced toward Maya's room.
May you like
Then he answered.
"Dr. Malcolm Voss."
