CHAPTER 10 — SUBJECT ONE
“YOU ARE NOT GOING ALONE.”
Claire stood between Michael and the front door.
Midnight was forty minutes away.
Michael carried no visible weapon, but Claire knew him well enough to notice the pistol beneath his jacket.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“If Jonathan wanted you dead, he could have killed you already.”
Michael stared at her.
“He wants something worse.”
“Exactly.”
Claire stepped closer.
“He wants you obedient.”
Upstairs, Emily and Lily slept under federal protection.
Noah refused to sleep.
Sarah remained hospitalized under guard.
Ben remained missing.
Every second felt stolen.
Michael looked toward the staircase.
“I can’t risk them.”
Claire’s eyes filled with anger.
“And I can’t risk you.”
Michael softened.
But only for a moment.
“If Ben carries my DNA because somebody used me without my knowledge, then I owe that child an answer.”
“You owe him survival.”
Michael said nothing.
Claire touched his face.
“Come back.”
He kissed her forehead.
“I will.”
But both knew promises had become dangerous things in their family.
The coordinates Jonathan sent led Michael to an abandoned research hospital outside Evanston.
The building had officially closed thirty-two years earlier.
One year after Michael’s birth.
He entered through a basement door.
Lights turned on automatically.
One by one.
Leading him deeper underground.
At the end of the corridor stood Jonathan Reed.
No guards.
No weapon visible.
Just an old man in a dark coat.
“You look like your mother,” Jonathan said.
Michael stopped twenty feet away.
“Where’s Ben?”
“You have my impatience.”
“I’m nothing like you.”
Jonathan smiled.
“That is what every son eventually says.”
Michael raised the pistol.
“Where is he?”
Jonathan looked at the gun.
“If you shoot me, you will never find him.”
Michael lowered it slightly.
“Talk.”
Jonathan opened a steel door.
Behind it was a laboratory preserved like a tomb.
Old computers.
Medical beds.
Cryogenic units.
Photographs covering one wall.
Michael as an infant.
Michael at five.
Ten.
Sixteen.
College.
Wedding.
Emily’s birth.
Every stage of his life.
Observed.
Recorded.
Measured.
Michael walked toward the wall.
“You watched me.”
“We studied you.”
“For thirty-three years?”
“For thirty-three years.”
Michael turned.
“Why?”
Jonathan’s expression changed.
For the first time, the confidence disappeared.
“Because you survived.”
“Survived what?”
Jonathan walked toward a metal cabinet.
He removed an old file.
MICHAEL CARTER — SUBJECT ONE.
“You were born with a condition nobody expected you to survive.”
Michael frowned.
“I was healthy.”
“That is what Robert told you.”
Jonathan opened the file.
Inside were neonatal photographs.
Michael connected to machines.
Doctors surrounding him.
His skin almost blue.
“You were dying.”
Michael stared.
“Eleanor authorized an experimental treatment.”
“My mother?”
“She was desperate.”
Jonathan’s voice softened.
“I developed it.”
Michael looked up.
“You?”
“You survived within forty-eight hours.”
Jonathan touched the file almost reverently.
“And your cells changed.”
Michael felt sick.
“So Project Legacy began.”
“No.”
Jonathan looked directly at him.
“Project Legacy began when Eleanor realized your altered cells could be inherited.”
Michael remembered the phone call.
To see if you could reproduce.
“You used my children.”
“We studied inheritance.”
“They’re children!”
“They are proof.”
Michael struck Jonathan.
The old man crashed against the cabinet.
Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Jonathan smiled.
“There he is.”
Michael grabbed his coat.
“Where is Ben?”
Jonathan wiped his mouth.
“Ben is the first successful artificial combination.”
Michael froze.
Jonathan continued.
“Your genetic material was preserved from childhood. Sarah provided the maternal line.”
“Without consent.”
“Consent is a word used by people who arrive after discovery.”
Michael punched him again.
This time Jonathan fell.
Michael stood over him.
“Say something like that again.”
Jonathan laughed through blood.
“You think violence makes you different from Robert?”
Michael stepped back.
That was what Jonathan wanted.
Anger.
Loss of control.
Michael lowered the gun.
“No.”
He breathed slowly.
“I’m different because I stop.”
Jonathan’s smile faded.
Michael heard something.
A faint sound.
Knocking.
Behind the wall.
He followed it.
A concealed door stood behind a medical cabinet.
Michael pulled it open.
Ben sat inside.
Alive.
Terrified.
Michael dropped to his knees.
“Ben?”
The boy moved backward.
“My mom said not to trust you.”
“She was right.”
Ben stared.
Michael continued.
“You shouldn’t trust me yet.”
The boy looked confused.
Michael held out his empty hands.
“But I can take you to her.”
Ben’s lip trembled.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
Ben ran toward him.
Michael caught the child.
For one second, every mystery disappeared.
There was only a frightened five-year-old boy.
Then Jonathan spoke behind them.
“Beautiful.”
Michael turned.
Jonathan held a syringe.
Before Michael could react, Jonathan drove it into his own arm.
Michael stared.
“What did you do?”
Jonathan smiled.
“Started Phase Two.”
Alarms erupted.
Cryogenic units unlocked across the laboratory.
Michael grabbed Ben and ran.
Behind them, Jonathan collapsed.
Federal agents stormed the facility minutes later.
Claire had ignored Michael’s instructions and given Sloan his location.
Michael emerged carrying Ben.
Claire ran toward them.
Ben saw Sarah arriving in another ambulance under medical supervision.
“Mom!”
Sarah pushed past the paramedics.
Ben flew into her arms.
She collapsed to her knees, holding him.
Claire joined them.
Three people connected by blood.
But Michael stood several feet away.
Because he understood something nobody else did yet.
Jonathan had injected himself with something.
And inside the laboratory, federal technicians discovered that every cryogenic container was empty.
Whatever had once been stored there had already been moved.
Except one.
A vial labeled:
M.C. — ORIGINAL.
Sloan looked at Michael.
“What does ‘original’ mean?”
Michael stared through the glass.
“I don’t know.”
Then a technician called from across the room.
“Agent Sloan, you need to see this.”
A computer screen displayed a transfer manifest.
Thirty frozen embryos.
Destination:
UNKNOWN.
Michael felt his stomach turn.
May you like
Project Legacy had not created five children.
It had prepared for dozens.
