Chapter 30 - THE GIRL BEHIND THE DOORTheodore did not touch the vault.
Margaret entered a secondary code that opened only the observation panel.
A young girl stood behind reinforced glass.
She appeared eight years old.
She had Amelia’s childhood face.
Same gray eyes.
Same dark hair.
Same scar near the left eyebrow.
Lucy stepped backward.
“Who is she?”
Helena’s hand began trembling.
“Successor A continuity model.”
Amelia stared through the glass.
The girl had been created from stored embryos and genetic material.
Orpheus had not merely prepared replacement identities.
It had prepared replacement bodies.
“What is your name?” Amelia asked.
The girl looked toward someone outside the panel’s view.
“Amelia Hart.”
“My name is Amelia Hart.”
The child frowned.
“Mom said the outside Amelia was damaged.”
“Who is Mom?”
A woman moved behind the girl.
Helen Hart stepped into view.
Not Helena.
Not a reconstruction.
A younger woman, perhaps forty, with Helen’s exact face as it had appeared before the plane crash.
Theodore nearly collapsed.
Margaret whispered, “Continuity vessel.”
Helen’s neural recordings had been placed into a genetically engineered daughter created from her own cells.
The woman inside the vault believed she was Helen.
She also believed the girl was the true Amelia.
Theodore approached the glass.
“Helen?”
The woman looked at him without recognition.
“You are older than my husband.”
His face broke.
Amelia understood the cruelty of the design.
Sebastian had not preserved Helen.
He had created an imitation frozen inside selective memories.
Margaret explained that the founding vault contained five continuity subjects.
Helen and the young Amelia were only two.
The others remained in suspended sections below.
“Who else?” Elias demanded.
Margaret looked at him.
“You.”
Elias’s expression changed.
A second Elias existed beneath the estate.
A version raised without bitterness.
A controllable corrective heir.
Gabriel’s voice entered through the house speakers.
“You have found the family Sebastian preferred.”
The vault locks activated.
Theodore’s hand was pulled against the biometric plate by an electromagnetic restraint built into the wall.
The transfer began.
CUSTODIAN AUTHORITY RECOGNIZED
A weapon emerged from the ceiling and aimed at Amelia.
Another targeted Elias.
A third targeted Lucy.
A fourth locked onto Julian’s remote location.
Theodore fought the restraint.
“Run!”
The woman inside the vault watched calmly.
The young Amelia placed her hand against the glass.
“Why is Father trying to kill you?”
Theodore shouted through the pain.
“I am not your father.”
The child smiled.
“I know.”
Then she entered a code from inside the vault.
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The weapons turned away from the successors.
They aimed at Theodore.
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