CHAPTER 13 — BENEATH THE CARTER NAME
“TURN OFF THE LIGHT.”
Sarah’s whisper came from somewhere beneath the old Carter Development headquarters.
Michael and Claire stood inside a maintenance tunnel with Agent Sloan and a tactical team behind them.
Michael killed his flashlight.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Then footsteps passed beyond the wall.
Two guards.
Claire squeezed Michael’s hand.
For the first time, they were walking directly into the place where Project Legacy had begun.
Not as subjects.
Not as descendants.
As parents.
Sloan signaled.
The team moved.
Within seconds, both guards were restrained.
Sarah emerged from a concealed doorway.
Claire almost struck her.
Then hugged her instead.
“You idiot.”
Sarah sobbed against her shoulder.
“I know.”
“Never do that again.”
“If we survive tonight.”
Claire pulled back.
“We survive first. Threats later.”
Michael almost smiled.
Sarah led them deeper underground.
The facility was enormous.
Far larger than Jonathan’s abandoned laboratory.
Rows of medical rooms stretched beneath the building.
Some had not been used in decades.
Others were new.
Michael saw fresh food.
Children’s drawings.
Tiny shoes.
Beds.
“How many?” he whispered.
Sarah looked sick.
“Eight.”
Michael stopped.
“Eight children?”
“Jonathan moved them here when the investigation began.”
“Why?”
“He calls them the Continuation Group.”
Claire’s face hardened.
“They have names.”
“Yes.”
Sarah nodded.
“I know.”
They reached the first locked room.
Inside were two children.
A boy around six.
A girl perhaps nine.
They recoiled when agents entered.
Michael stayed outside.
He had learned something.
Rescue could look terrifying when every adult you had known was dangerous.
Claire entered slowly.
“My name is Claire.”
The girl stared.
“Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“Are you taking blood?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
Claire’s voice cracked.
“To take you outside.”
The girl looked toward the ceiling.
“What’s outside?”
Claire began crying.
Michael turned away.
Some questions should never come from children.
Agents moved room by room.
Three children.
Five.
Seven.
Then eight.
All alive.
Jonathan was nowhere.
Neither were the embryos.
Sarah led Michael toward the oldest section of the facility.
“This is where you were treated as a newborn.”
Michael stopped before a rusted door.
SUBJECT ONE.
The label remained.
Thirty-three years later.
Michael touched it.
His entire life had begun behind that door without his knowledge.
Claire stood beside him.
“You don’t have to go in.”
“Yes.”
He opened it.
The room was small.
One observation window.
One infant bed.
One camera mount.
On the wall, someone had scratched words into the paint.
Michael moved closer.
ROBERT: IF THIS WORKS, TAKE HIM AND RUN.
Michael stared.
Claire whispered:
“Who wrote that?”
Sarah answered from behind them.
“Your mother.”
Eleanor.
Michael felt anger and grief collide.
Eleanor had committed terrible acts.
Manipulated lives.
Protected Project Legacy.
But once, thirty-three years earlier, she had apparently wanted Robert to take her baby and escape.
“What changed?”
Sarah looked toward the observation window.
“Jonathan found out.”
A speaker crackled overhead.
Then Jonathan’s voice filled the room.
“History is always kinder when viewed incompletely.”
Michael looked up.
“Where are you?”
“Where I have always been.”
Lights illuminated the observation room.
Jonathan stood behind the glass.
Beside him was a large cryogenic container.
Sloan raised her weapon.
Jonathan smiled.
“Bulletproof.”
Michael approached the glass.
“Open the door.”
“You rescued the children.”
“Yes.”
“I knew you would.”
“You wanted that?”
“I needed confirmation.”
Michael stared.
“Of what?”
Jonathan looked toward Claire.
“That Subject One produces attachment beyond genetic boundaries.”
Claire shook her head.
“You’re insane.”
Jonathan ignored her.
Michael understood.
The children had been bait.
Not because Jonathan needed them.
Because he needed Michael to rescue them.
Another measurement.
Another test.
“You still think I belong to you.”
Jonathan’s smile disappeared.
“No.”
He placed one hand on the cryogenic container.
“You belong to history.”
Michael laughed softly.
Jonathan frowned.
“What is funny?”
“You.”
Michael stepped closer.
“Thirty-three years.”
Jonathan watched him.
“You spent thirty-three years building the perfect experiment.”
“Yes.”
“And you never understood the subject.”
Jonathan’s eyes narrowed.
Michael continued.
“You think every decision I make proves your theory.”
He pointed toward Claire.
“If I protect my wife, you call it genetics.”
Toward Sarah.
“If I rescue her, you call it attachment.”
Toward the rescued children.
“If strangers save strangers, you call it inherited empathy.”
Michael shook his head.
“You built a theory that can never be wrong because you rename everything as evidence.”
Jonathan’s face hardened.
Michael smiled.
“That isn’t science.”
Silence.
“It’s religion.”
Jonathan slammed his hand against the console.
For the first time, Michael saw him lose control.
“You understand nothing!”
“There you are.”
Michael whispered.
“The man behind the experiment.”
Jonathan breathed heavily.
Then smiled again.
“You still lose.”
He pressed a button.
Alarms screamed.
Sarah looked toward the cryogenic chamber.
“No.”
A countdown appeared.
05:00.
Sloan shouted for evacuation.
Jonathan opened a rear door.
Michael realized what he had done.
“Self-destruct?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Not explosives.”
“What?”
“Liquid nitrogen purge.”
If released into sealed underground corridors, oxygen levels would collapse.
Everyone inside could suffocate.
Agents began evacuating the children.
Michael looked at Jonathan.
The old man was escaping.
Claire grabbed Michael.
“Let him go.”
Michael stared through the glass.
Thirty-three years of answers were walking away.
Then he heard a child crying behind him.
One of the rescued boys had frozen in fear.
Michael turned.
Jonathan disappeared through the rear door.
Michael had a choice.
For the first time, Jonathan’s test was real.
Michael ran toward the child.
Not Jonathan.
He lifted the boy into his arms.
“Look at me.”
The child screamed.
“I want my mom!”
“We’re going to find her.”
Michael carried him toward the exit.
Claire ran beside him.
Behind them, Project Legacy’s first laboratory vanished beneath clouds of freezing vapor.
They reached the surface with thirty seconds remaining.
Michael collapsed on the pavement.
The child clung to his neck.
Claire knelt beside them.
Sirens surrounded the building.
Sloan approached.
“Jonathan escaped.”
Michael nodded.
He expected regret.
There was none.
“Good.”
Claire stared at him.
Michael looked at the boy in his arms.
“Now he knows.”
“Knows what?”
Michael smiled faintly.
“That I’m done taking his tests.”
Then Sarah emerged carrying a metal case.
She placed it before Michael.
“I took this from the cryogenic chamber.”
Inside was not genetic material.
Not embryos.
Files.
Hundreds of them.
Michael opened the first.
A photograph fell out.
Robert Carter holding newborn Michael.
On the back was a handwritten sentence.
IF YOU EVER FIND THIS, SON, JONATHAN LIED ABOUT THE FIRST EXPERIMENT.
Michael turned the photograph over.
Beneath it was another message.
YOU WERE NEVER THE SUBJECT.
Michael stared.
Then who was?
Sarah opened the next file.
May you like
The answer was written across the cover.
JONATHAN REED — SUBJECT ZERO.
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