Chapter 10 - Five Minutes Under St. Catherine’s
Mara shot the remote from Adrian’s hand.
It shattered against the floor, but the countdown continued.
Four minutes, forty-two seconds.
Vale shouted instructions. “The purge system will flood the storage rooms with nitrogen and destroy the servers. If it reaches us, we lose oxygen.”
Ethan tried the steel door.
Locked.
Lila ran to the terminal. “There may be a manual override.”
Kessler sank against the wall. “The override requires two authorization keys.”
“Where are they?” Mara demanded.
“One is in Richard Bennett’s vault.”
Adrian smiled. “Too far away.”
“And the second?” Claire asked.
Kessler looked at Julian.
Julian reached beneath his shirt and removed a metal pendant shaped like the symbol from his journal.
“I kept it.”
Three minutes, fifty seconds.
Lila inserted the pendant into a recessed slot beside the terminal. Half the override panel lit green.
“We still need Richard’s key.”
Ethan suddenly pulled off his watch.
“My father gave me this when I became chief executive.”
He opened the clasp. Inside was a narrow metal strip engraved with the Bennett crest.
Kessler stared. “That is it.”
Ethan inserted the strip.
The panel requested a biometric confirmation.
AUTHORIZED USER: ETHAN COLE BENNETT.
A scanner illuminated.
Ethan placed his hand against it.
ACCESS DENIED.
Adrian laughed again.
“Because he is not a Bennett.”
The countdown reached three minutes.
Claire looked at the scanner. “Whose biometric profile is authorized?”
“Richard’s biological heir,” Lila said.
“His biological child died.”
Kessler’s face went blank.
Claire saw the answer before he spoke.
“No,” she said.
Kessler looked at Madison’s baby.
“The system recognizes the Bennett bloodline through stored genetic markers.”
“But the child is Julian’s,” Vale said.
Kessler shook his head. “Not entirely.”
The room fell silent.
He confessed that the embryo had been created using Julian’s stored sperm and an egg donor carrying genetic material from Richard Bennett’s deceased son. The donor was the dead child’s twin sister, hidden from public records and raised under another name.
Madison.
Ethan turned toward her.
“You are my father’s daughter?”
Madison recoiled. “I didn’t know.”
Kessler continued rapidly. Richard had arranged Madison’s placement with another family. Years later, Northbridge recruited her into the Sable program without revealing her origin.
The baby was both Julian’s daughter and Richard Bennett’s biological granddaughter.
Two minutes.
Vale carried the infant to the scanner.
“This is dangerous.”
“The purge is more dangerous,” Claire said.
He pressed the baby’s tiny palm against the glass.
The scanner turned green.
SECONDARY CONFIRMATION REQUIRED.
A new message appeared.
MATERNAL LINE CONTROL: SABLE-14.
Everyone looked at Claire.
Her code.
She placed her hand beside the infant’s.
For one second, nothing happened.
Then the countdown stopped at one minute, twelve seconds.
The ventilation restarted.
The doors unlocked.
Mara moved instantly, restraining Adrian and Kessler. Lila secured the copied files. Vale rushed the baby toward the service elevator.
Julian remained near the cryogenic chamber, breathing painfully.
Claire turned to him.
“You built the system to require me.”
“I built it so Richard could never use Sable without the control subject’s consent.”
“You never asked for my consent.”
“I expected your mother to tell you.”
“She died.”
Grief crossed his face.
“I know.”
“No, you know the date. You do not know what it was like.”
Claire left him there.
Upstairs, the infant was transferred to intensive care. Federal agents arrived before dawn. Adrian and Kessler were arrested. Julian surrendered voluntarily.
Ethan sat outside the neonatal unit while Madison was questioned in another room.
For the first time, no one stood beside him.
Claire could have walked away.
Instead she stopped.
“You saved the baby,” she said.
He looked up. “So did you.”
“That does not repair what you did to me.”
“I know.”
He said it without defense.
The honesty came too late to heal anything, but it mattered.
Before Claire could leave, a federal agent approached with a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was the fertility report Dr. Kessler had signed years earlier.
“We recovered this from the basement,” the agent said. “There is a handwritten note on the back.”
Claire turned it over.
The note was from her mother.
Do not let them tell Claire she cannot become a mother. Her future must remain hers.
May you like
Beneath the sentence was a second message in newer ink.
She will never forgive Ethan if she learns he volunteered her.
