Chapter 15 - The Man Who Owned the Name
The safe room’s emergency clock showed 5:41 a.m.
Sunrise was less than an hour away.
August remained unconscious on the floor.
Patient Eleven examined him and found a faint injection mark beneath his collar.
“The gas was a distraction,” she said. “Someone injected him earlier.”
“When?” Lena asked.
“Possibly at the lake house.”
Charles laughed from the chair.
“Or years ago.”
Lena cut his restraints using a blade from the emergency cabinet.
He rubbed his wrists.
“You trust me now?”
“No. But I need every person in this room able to move.”
Patient Twelve searched the safe room and found an old internal communication terminal disconnected from the main network.
Julian’s voice suddenly came through the speaker.
“Lena?”
She pressed the control.
“Where are you?”
“At the hotel. Vivian disappeared.”
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago. Security footage shows her entering a car with Marcus.”
“That’s impossible. Marcus is being held inside the tower.”
A pause followed.
Julian understood.
“There are two Marcuses.”
“Or more.”
“The board meeting has been moved to six thirty. Samuel says it cannot be canceled.”
“Why not?”
“Emergency corporate law. With the company collapsing, the directors must confirm a controlling officer.”
“They want to force a choice between the two Augusts.”
“Yes.”
Lena looked at the unconscious man.
“Can you reach the executive floor?”
“Police can’t open the elevators.”
“Find the original building plans. There must be another entrance.”
The speaker filled with static.
Then Julian said, “Lena, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“The hospital called. Lucian is gone.”
“Another escape?”
“No. He was transferred.”
“By whom?”
“You.”
The line died.
Patient Eleven stared at Lena.
“My access is being used again.”
Charles moved toward the safe-room door.
“We cannot stay here.”
“Adrian controls the building.”
“He also controls the board. If the duplicate is confirmed as August, every crime becomes legally defensible. He can claim the man beside us was an impostor responsible for the Continuity Program.”
Patient Twelve nodded.
“And if this August is confirmed, Adrian exposes him as the replacement.”
Either way, the company survived by sacrificing one identity.
Lena searched the safe room cabinets.
Behind medical supplies, she found a box labeled MERIDIAN CUSTODIAN.
Inside were old cassette tapes.
One carried Margaret Whitmore’s handwriting.
FOR JULIAN WHEN AUGUST FORGETS.
Julian.
Not Vivian.
Not Charles.
Lena inserted the cassette into the terminal’s emergency recorder.
Margaret’s voice filled the room.
“If you are hearing this, Adrian has returned.”
August stirred on the floor.
His eyes opened slightly.
Margaret continued.
“You will be told there are two versions of your father. That is not true.”
August pushed himself upright.
“There were never two August Whitmores,” Margaret said. “There were three.”
Everyone in the safe room became still.
“The first was the man I married. The second was Adrian’s subject. The third was created after the laboratory fire to replace them both.”
Charles whispered, “Three?”
Margaret’s recording continued.
“I discovered the substitutions in 1991. I could not identify which man was the original because Adrian had divided August’s memories among them.”
Lena looked at August.
His face had become gray.
“One received his childhood. One received his ambition. One received his love for the family.”
Margaret began crying on the tape.
“I chose the man who loved my children.”
August closed his eyes.
“That is the man who raised you. He may not be your biological father, but he protected you from the others.”
Charles stepped backward.
The duplicate on the screen might be August’s ambition.
The unconscious man beside them might be August’s love.
Where was the third?
Margaret answered.
“The original escaped before the program could erase him. Adrian believed he died. I helped him disappear.”
A location followed.
Not a place Lena recognized.
Saint Orison.
Then Margaret said, “Julian, the original August left something with you on the night you were born. It is hidden beneath the black identification band.”
The tape ended.
August looked at Lena.
“I have never heard that recording.”
“Do you know Saint Orison?”
“No.”
Patient Eleven did.
“It’s not a town. It’s a vessel.”
“What kind of vessel?”
“A medical ship. Officially destroyed in a storm twenty-seven years ago.”
Charles stared at the cassette.
“Where is it now?”
Patient Eleven looked toward the dark window.
“In international waters.”
An alarm sounded.
The safe-room lock disengaged.
The board meeting had begun.
They entered the executive corridor.
The gas had cleared.
At the far end, the boardroom doors stood open.
Directors sat around the long table.
Samuel Crowe stood at the center.
Behind him were Vivian, Eleanor, Lucian, and Marcus.
Or people wearing their identities.
The duplicate August sat in the chairman’s seat.
He looked toward the August beside Lena.
The two men faced one another across the room.
Samuel raised the succession document.
“Under emergency authority, the board must determine which claimant possesses legal identity as August Whitmore.”
Lena stepped forward.
“No.”
Every face turned toward her.
She placed Margaret’s cassette on the table.
“You are asking the wrong question.”
The duplicate August smiled.
“And what is the correct one?”
“Which of you deserves the name?”
The directors began whispering.
Lena looked at Vivian.
“Where were you taken?”
Vivian’s expression remained calm.
“I was not taken.”
“What did Marcus say in the car?”
Marcus looked toward her.
Vivian hesitated.
That was enough.
Lena pointed.
“That is not Marcus.”
The man beside Vivian drew a gun.
The real Marcus attacked him before he could fire.
They crashed across the board table.
Police entered through the service doors.
Gunshots shattered the glass walls.
Directors crawled beneath chairs.
The duplicate August moved toward Samuel.
Eleanor grabbed the succession order.
Charles struck the armed copy of Marcus with a chair.
Patient Eleven pulled Lena behind the marble podium.
In the confusion, the August who had traveled with Lena approached the chairman’s seat.
The duplicate faced him.
“You were always the sentimental one,” the duplicate said.
“And you were always afraid no one would choose you.”
They stood inches apart.
The duplicate smiled.
“They won’t have to.”
He pressed a control beneath the table.
Every screen in the tower activated.
A live satellite image appeared.
A ship moved through dark water.
SAINT ORISON.
On its deck stood an elderly man.
His white hair blew in the ocean wind.
Even through the grainy image, he had August Whitmore’s face.
The third August.
Beside him stood a man Lena recognized immediately.
Owen.
Not Patient Twelve.
Not one of the copies from Northstar.
Owen wore the broken half of the brass coin around his neck.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Lena, don’t trust the man who brought you to the tower.”
Lena slowly turned.
The August who had traveled beside her was gone.
The boardroom doors swung shut.
A message appeared across every screen.
EMERGENCY AUTHORITY CONFIRMED.
SUCCESSOR: LENA CROSS.
Below it, a second message began typing.
PHASE TWO AUTHORIZED.
RELEASE ALL CONTINUITY SUBJECTS.
Lena stared at Owen on the screen.
He placed one hand against the camera.
Then someone behind him raised a weapon.
The transmission cut to black before Lena could see who it was.
Across the city, hospital doors opened.
Private aircraft changed course.
Bank accounts activated.
Thousands of people received the same message on their phones.
YOU MAY NOW RETURN TO YOUR ASSIGNED LIVES.
In the silent boardroom, Samuel handed Lena a sealed envelope he claimed had just appeared inside his locked case.
Her name was written across the front in Owen’s handwriting.
Lena opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed her and Owen as children standing beside their mother.
Behind them, half hidden near the doorway, stood Adrian Voss.
On the back, Owen had written:
LENA, HE DIDN’T CHOOSE OUR FAMILY.
HE CREATED IT.
Beneath those words was a date.
The date was six months before Lena had been born.
May you like
And under the date was one final sentence.
YOU WERE THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL REPLACEMENT.
