Chapter 32 - TWO MEN NAMED ELIASThe duplicate aimed at Elias.
Elias did not draw his weapon.
“What did they call you?” he asked.
“Elias Hart.”
“What did they tell you about me?”
“That you murdered Helen and abandoned Father.”
Theodore stepped between them.
“That is false.”
The duplicate’s weapon shifted toward Theodore.
“You left me inside the vault.”
“I did not know you existed.”
“Everyone says that when the door opens.”
Ada moved closer to the duplicate.
“His designation is Echo.”
The duplicate looked at her with anger.
“That is not my name.”
“It is the name we chose when the cameras were off.”
The weapon lowered slightly.
Ada explained that the vault children had given one another names to resist the identities assigned to them.
She was Ada.
He was Echo.
The young Theodore was called Thomas.
The Helen vessel had chosen no other name because she fully believed the recording.
Echo looked at Elias.
“If you are the original, what does that make me?”
Elias answered quietly.
“Alive.”
Orpheus operatives began surrounding the estate.
Nathaniel prepared the defense system while Julian attempted to extract Sebastian’s neural core.
Helena warned that disconnecting it might kill every continuity subject linked to the archive.
Helen’s vessel approached Theodore.
“If I am not Helen, why do I remember loving you?”
Theodore looked at her with tears in his eyes.
“Because someone stole her love and put it inside a prison.”
She touched his face.
“Do you love me?”
He could not answer.
The estate shook as operatives breached the outer gates.
Lucy held Amelia’s hand.
“Are they coming for me?”
“Yes.”
“Will you let them take me?”
“No.”
“You let them take me before.”
Amelia knelt.
“I did not know you were alive.”
“That does not change what happened.”
“No.”
Amelia did not ask for forgiveness.
She promised only the next choice.
“I know now.”
Lucy looked at her for several seconds.
Then she nodded.
Julian announced he had found a shutdown pathway.
Sebastian’s neural core could be transferred into the composite device and isolated.
But someone had already initiated a transfer.
The destination displayed on the screen.
VESSEL: THEODORE JAMES HART
Theodore collapsed.
His eyes rolled back.
When he opened them again, his voice was different.
May you like
“Amelia,” he said.
Then Sebastian Hart smiled through his son’s face.
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