Chapter 26 - THE CHILD WHO RANLucy knew St. Catherine’s better than anyone.
By the time Amelia reached the hidden passage, the girl had disappeared into a network of tunnels beneath the hospital.
Victor escaped in the opposite direction during the electrical failure.
Elias wanted to pursue him.
Amelia stopped him.
“Lucy has the device.”
“That makes her more dangerous than Victor.”
“She is seven.”
“She is Successor D.”
Amelia stepped close.
“She is my daughter.”
Elias’s expression hardened.
“And what was I when they trained me to destroy you?”
The question silenced her.
Elias had been a child too.
A child no one rescued.
Samuel accessed the hospital plans. The tunnels connected to an old railway service line and a sealed research bunker.
Julian found a live signal from the composite device moving beneath the east wing.
“She is heading toward the bunker.”
“Why?” Nathaniel asked.
The nurse answered from the floor where Samuel had restrained her.
“Because that is where Mother lives.”
Amelia turned.
“Who does Lucy call Mother?”
The nurse smiled.
“Helen Hart.”
They reached the bunker door twelve minutes later.
It opened before Amelia touched it.
Inside was a reconstructed family home.
The wallpaper matched photographs of the house where Amelia had lived before Helen’s death.
A dining table had been set for four.
Lucy sat at one side.
Helena Voss sat beside her, still wearing Helen’s face through reconstructive surgery.
Amelia stared.
Helena had left the factory despite claiming her heartbeat was linked to the archive.
“You lied.”
“I disconnected the archive when you opened the third button.”
“You raised Lucy?”
“I preserved her.”
“You helped Victor steal her.”
“I stopped Gabriel from killing her.”
Lucy held the composite device against her chest.
“She is my mother.”
Helena looked at Amelia.
“She needed one.”
“So did Elias.”
A flicker of guilt passed through Helena’s expression.
Elias entered behind Amelia.
“You chose the new child.”
“You were already beyond my reach.”
“You decided that.”
Helena told them that Helen Hart had survived the initial plane crash for eleven days. During that time, she recorded memories, instructions and testimony against Sebastian.
Helena had used those recordings to build the Helen identity.
Over time, the line between imitation and self had blurred.
“I know Helen’s love for Theodore,” she said. “I remember giving birth to Amelia, though I never did. I remember holding Elias, though I first met him at age four.”
“You are not her,” Amelia said.
“No.”
Helena’s eyes filled with tears.
“But part of her has never stopped loving you.”
Lucy looked between them.
The composite device began flashing.
A message appeared on its screen:
REMOTE CLAIM INITIATED
AUTHORIZED CONTROLLER: GABRIEL ROWE
Amelia stared.
Gabriel was supposed to be in custody.
Julian checked the federal transport records.
The convoy had arrived empty.
The agents escorting Gabriel had never existed.
A map appeared on the bunker wall.
May you like
Gabriel was inside Hart Meridian’s central command facility.
And he had just activated Orpheus.
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