Chapter 15 - The Voice Behind the Locked Door
Emergency lights flickered on.
The monitor was black.
Olivia rushed toward it.
“Mom?”
No answer.
Russell’s officers spread through the room.
“Power failure on the lower grid,” one reported.
“External signal lost.”
Thomas entered the office and examined the computer.
“That was a live transmission.”
Kendra remained in the white room under guard.
Victor grabbed her arm.
“Where is Eleanor?”
Kendra looked at his hand until he released her.
“I don’t know.”
“You arranged the feed.”
“Voss arranged it.”
“You helped him.”
“I helped myself.”
Olivia returned to the white room.
“Why would my mother fake her death?”
Kendra looked almost sympathetic.
“She didn’t.”
“Then explain it.”
“Thomas placed her in protective custody after she learned the full purpose of the program.”
Thomas stepped forward.
“That is not what happened.”
Kendra turned toward him.
“Then tell Olivia why Eleanor refused to return.”
Olivia looked at her father.
Thomas’s silence answered again.
“What did you do?”
“I tried to protect you.”
“From my own mother?”
“From what she had become involved in.”
Victor looked toward the dark monitor.
“She took the Voss file.”
Thomas nodded.
“She believed the government investigators assigned to the case were compromised.”
“Were they?”
“Yes.”
“So she disappeared.”
“She intended to return after securing the evidence.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No.”
Kendra walked toward the observation glass.
“She discovered something in the file.”
“What?” Olivia asked.
Kendra’s reflection looked like a ghost in the glass.
“That Thomas Hartwell was not the original target of the program.”
Thomas’s expression hardened.
“Kendra.”
She ignored him.
“Daniel Hayes was not the target either.”
Victor stepped closer.
“Then who was?”
Kendra looked at Olivia.
“You.”
Olivia shook her head.
“I was seven.”
“The project began before you were born.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Your mother understood it.”
Thomas moved between them.
“Enough.”
Olivia pushed past him.
“No. Not enough. Never enough.”
She faced Kendra.
“Why was I the target?”
Kendra studied her for several seconds.
“Because the Voss program was not designed only to predict choices.”
“What else did it do?”
“It created circumstances.”
Victor frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It arranged losses. Meetings. Betrayals. Reconciliations.”
Kendra’s eyes moved between Olivia and Victor.
“It did not merely observe whether two people would fall in love. It destroyed everything around them until love became the most likely outcome.”
Olivia remembered the arranged charity auction.
The staged elevator failure.
Victor’s studied kindness.
But the program had watched her long before Victor.
“What outcome did they want from me?”
Kendra looked toward the black monitor.
“I never found that page.”
A speaker crackled above them.
Everyone raised their heads.
Elias Voss’s voice filled the underground chamber.
“You found more than enough, Mara.”
Kendra’s body went rigid.
Russell’s officers searched the ceiling for the source.
Voss continued.
“Thomas, Victor, Kendra, Olivia. Four people shaped by the same experiment, each convinced the others are responsible.”
Olivia shouted toward the speaker.
“Where is my mother?”
“She is safe.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“You already did.”
The monitor turned on again.
Eleanor appeared.
This time she stood closer to the camera.
A locked metal door was visible behind her.
“Olivia,” she said urgently, “listen to me. You cannot trust anyone in that room.”
Thomas moved toward the monitor.
“Eleanor.”
Her expression changed when she saw him.
Not love.
Not relief.
Fear.
“Thomas, get away from her.”
Olivia looked at her father.
“Why is she afraid of you?”
Thomas stared at the screen.
“I don’t know.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“You still don’t remember.”
Thomas’s face changed.
Victor noticed.
“Remember what?”
Eleanor pressed her palm against the camera.
“The night Daniel died.”
Thomas stepped backward.
“I remember the crash report.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “You remember the story they gave you.”
Olivia looked between them.
“What really happened?”
The feed distorted.
Voss’s voice returned.
“This is the final stage.”
Russell aimed his weapon toward the speaker.
“End the transmission.”
“Violence remains your favorite solution, Mr. Kane.”
A heavy door slammed somewhere in the facility.
Then another.
Warning lights flashed red.
A mechanical voice announced that the underground wing had entered containment mode.
Russell’s officers moved toward the exits.
All doors were locked.
Ventilation fans began turning overhead.
Victor looked at Kendra.
“What is he releasing?”
“I don’t know.”
Thomas pulled Olivia behind him.
Voss laughed softly.
“Do not worry. There is no gas.”
The center monitor displayed a countdown.
05:00.
04:59.
04:58.
Olivia stared at the numbers.
“What happens when it reaches zero?”
Voss answered.
“The truth is released.”
“To whom?”
“To everyone.”
Screens across the observation room turned on.
Each showed documents, financial records, medical files, videos, and names.
Some belonged to Hartwell companies.
Some belonged to Hayes Global.
Others carried government seals.
Victor stared at the evidence.
“You’re publishing the program.”
“Only part of it.”
Kendra looked at the screens.
“What part?”
“The part that ensures none of you can return to the lives you had yesterday.”
04:21.
Olivia turned toward her mother’s feed.
“Mom, where are you?”
Eleanor looked over her shoulder at the locked metal door.
“I don’t know the location. They moved me before the wedding.”
“Who moved you?”
Eleanor began to answer.
The sound vanished.
Her lips continued moving silently.
Russell’s team worked on restoring the audio.
03:48.
Thomas approached the screen.
“Eleanor, what happened the night Daniel died?”
Her face tightened.
The sound returned for one sentence.
“You were in the car with him.”
Thomas staggered backward.
Victor stared at him.
“My father was alone.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“No.”
The feed distorted again.
Victor grabbed Thomas by the collar.
“What did you do?”
Thomas pushed him away.
“I don’t remember being there.”
“You killed him.”
“I said I don’t remember.”
Kendra stepped between them.
“That is what Voss wants.”
Victor’s face twisted.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You let me spend my life blaming Hartwell.”
“Blame made you useful.”
Victor raised his hand.
Then stopped himself.
Olivia watched him lower it.
For the first time, he seemed to see Kendra clearly.
Not as a friend.
Not as a lover.
Not as a partner.
As another person shaped into a weapon.
02:56.
Olivia looked at the screens.
One file appeared beneath her name.
SUBJECT O.
Beside it was a date.
The date was three years before she was born.
She moved closer.
“That’s impossible.”
Thomas saw it.
His face became blank.
Olivia opened the file.
A scanned medical record appeared.
The patient name had been hidden.
The procedure description remained visible.
Embryonic genetic selection.
Neural response markers.
Behavioral inheritance study.
Olivia stopped breathing.
She looked at Thomas.
“What is this?”
He did not answer.
“Dad.”
Thomas’s eyes filled with something deeper than guilt.
Terror.
“I never saw that document.”
“Is it real?”
“I don’t know.”
Kendra moved to the screen.
She read the file.
Then she looked at Olivia.
“You were not selected after birth.”
Olivia felt the room grow cold.
Kendra continued.
“You were designed for the program.”
01:44.
Eleanor struck the camera from the other side.
The sound returned.
“Olivia, do not believe the genetic file.”
“Why?”
“It was created to make you doubt who you are.”
“Then tell me who I am.”
Eleanor began crying.
“You are my daughter.”
“Is Thomas my father?”
The entire room became silent.
Thomas stared at Eleanor.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
The countdown continued.
01:12.
Olivia moved closer to the screen.
“Mom.”
Eleanor opened her eyes.
“I wanted to tell you.”
Thomas whispered, “Eleanor, don’t.”
Olivia turned toward him.
“Don’t what?”
Voss’s voice entered again.
“One minute.”
Victor stepped beside Olivia.
“Whatever happens, he is controlling the order of disclosure.”
She looked at him.
“You would know.”
The words hurt him, but he nodded.
“Yes.”
Olivia returned to the screen.
“Tell me the truth.”
Eleanor pressed her hand against the glass.
“Thomas raised you.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“He loved you.”
“Is he my father?”
00:41.
Warning lights pulsed.
Russell’s officers shouted that an external upload had begun.
Thousands of files moved across the screens.
00:32.
Thomas stepped toward Olivia.
“I should have told you years ago.”
She backed away.
“Told me what?”
00:24.
Victor looked toward a security monitor.
A camera showed movement outside the underground facility.
A convoy of vehicles was approaching.
Not Hartwell security.
Not police.
Black military transports.
“Someone else is coming,” he said.
00:17.
Kendra stared at the lead vehicle.
Her face changed.
“I know that symbol.”
A white circle was painted on the door.
Inside the circle was the number zero.
00:12.
Olivia looked at the Subject O file.
The same symbol appeared in the corner.
00:09.
Eleanor screamed through the monitor.
“Olivia, when the doors open, do not let them take you.”
00:06.
Thomas reached for Olivia.
Victor stepped between them.
Kendra picked up the pistol the guards had placed on the table.
Russell raised his weapon toward her.
00:03.
A thunderous impact shook the underground wing.
The main containment door began to open.
00:02.
Cold white light poured through the widening gap.
Figures stood on the other side.
00:01.
A man stepped forward.
Olivia had never seen him before.
But Thomas whispered his name.
“Daniel.”
Victor went completely still.
The man looked exactly like the photographs of Daniel Hayes.
Older.
Scarred.
Alive.
The countdown reached zero.
Daniel looked past Victor and Thomas.
His eyes settled on Olivia.
Then he said the words that silenced the entire room.
“Do not call either of them your father.”
May you like
The screens went black.
And the underground doors locked behind him.
