Chapter 11 - The Woman on the Screen
My mother looked exactly the way I remembered her.
That was the worst part.
Not older.
Not different.
Not distorted by age or illness or some trick of the camera.
She looked like the woman who had braided my hair before school.
The woman who had sat beside my bed when I had pneumonia.
The woman who had held my face in both hands when I was seventeen and told me that people survived terrible things because they had no choice.
The same blue eyes.
The same narrow jaw.
The same small white scar beside her chin.
Only now those eyes were looking at me from every screen in the hospital.
“Victoria,” she said softly.
Reyes stepped between me and the monitors.
“Kill the feed.”
Technicians ran toward the control station.
Nothing happened.
The screens flickered, went black for a second, and came back.
My mother's face remained.
“You always were impatient, Daniel.”
Reyes froze.
“You know my name,” he said.
She smiled.
“I know much more than your name.”
Sarah stood behind him with her hands still raised.
Emily was sitting upright on the hospital bed.
Her face had gone pale.
“Mom,” she whispered.
I looked at her.
“Stay here.”
“I want to know who she is.”
“So do I.”
My mother tilted her head.
“You brought your daughter with you.”
The words made my stomach tighten.
“How do you know Emily is here?”
“Because I arranged for her to be brought here.”
Reyes swung toward the screen.
“You arranged this?”
“She was never supposed to survive the attack.”
Emily flinched.
I moved closer to her.
“What attack?”
My mother looked directly at Emily.
“The beating.”
Silence filled the room.
My daughter stared at the screen.
“You sent them?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“People who believed the card was still in your possession.”
My heart stopped.
Reyes looked at Emily.
“What card?”
Emily closed her eyes.
I understood immediately.
“You found something.”
She looked at me.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When I knew you wouldn't think I was crazy.”
“You were beaten nearly unconscious.”
“I know.”
“And you had a memory card?”
Emily nodded.
“Where is it?”
She reached beneath the hospital blanket.
Her fingers shook as she removed her sock.
There was a tiny stitched seam near the heel.
She pulled at the thread.
A black memory card slid into her palm.
Reyes stared.
“That's what they were looking for.”
Emily nodded.
“I hid it before they took me.”
My mother smiled.
“That card should never have left the facility.”
I stared at her.
“You knew about it.”
“Of course.”
“You knew my daughter had it.”
“I knew someone had it.”
“You sent people after her.”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“But I did something worse.”
Reyes raised his weapon toward the screen as though bullets could reach through glass.
“What?”
My mother looked at me.
“I knew your daughter would be attacked, and I let it happen.”
Emily inhaled sharply.
I felt something inside me turn cold.
“Why?”
“Because I needed you to finally stop trusting the people who claimed to protect you.”
Reyes looked disgusted.
“You call that protection?”
“No.”
She paused.
“I call it pressure.”
“You tortured my daughter for a lesson?”
“I didn't touch her.”
“You allowed it.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of her answer frightened me more than denial would have.
I stepped toward the nearest screen.
“You're my mother.”
“I am.”
“You're supposed to love me.”
“I do.”
“Then why have you spent my entire life lying to me?”
Her expression changed.
Not guilt.
Fear.
For the first time since the video appeared, she seemed genuinely afraid.
“Because the truth killed your father.”
I swallowed.
“My father died twenty-two years ago.”
“No.”
She said it quietly.
“Your father died when he realized what I had become.”
I looked at Sarah.
She wouldn't meet my eyes.
“What did you do?”
My mother took a breath.
“In 1989, your father and I were given a choice.”
“What choice?”
“We could give them you.”
The room went still.
“Who?”
“The people who were building the system.”
“What system?”
“The system that created Sarah.”
Sarah's face tightened.
My mother continued.
“Your father thought he could control it. He believed he could build an artificial identity architecture—training, biometric mapping, behavioral modeling, voice replication. He believed people could be taught to become someone else.”
She looked at Sarah.
“He was right.”
Sarah lowered her hands.
Reyes moved his weapon toward her.
“Keep them up.”
She obeyed.
My mother said, “Sarah was one of the first successful subjects.”
I stared at Sarah.
“How old are you?”
She looked at me.
“Forty-one.”
My breath caught.
I was forty-three.
“You were doing this before I was an adult.”
“They were doing it before you were old enough to understand it.”
I looked at my mother.
“And me?”
Her silence answered first.
“And me?”
“You were the control.”
My skin prickled.
“What does that mean?”
“It means they built Sarah by studying you.”
My daughter whispered, “Mom.”
I couldn't move.
All the recordings.
The fake voice.
The doctored documents.
The altered biometrics.
The surveillance.
The years of someone learning how I walked, spoke, signed my name.
It hadn't started recently.
It had started before David.
Before Margaret.
Before I even knew what danger looked like.
My mother leaned closer to the camera.
“You were the original behavioral model.”
Reyes's expression hardened.
“Then who is the woman we've been calling Victoria?”
My mother looked at me.
“That depends on which Victoria you're asking about.”
A sharp alarm sounded.
Every door on the floor slammed shut.
Red lights flashed.
Reyes turned.
“Lockdown.”
A technician shouted from the hallway.
“We've lost the west wing!”
My mother smiled.
“They found you.”
“Who?”
“Your father's people.”
I stared.
“My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“You just said he died.”
“I said he died.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“I didn't say the work died with him.”
The hospital lights went black.
For two seconds, there was only darkness.
Then emergency lights came on.
Sarah grabbed my wrist.
“Victoria.”
I jerked away.
“Don't touch me.”
“They're coming.”
“Who?”
Her eyes filled with fear.
“The people who made me.”
Gunfire erupted somewhere below us.
Emily screamed.
Reyes drew his weapon.
“Everybody move!”
The screen above us flickered.
My mother appeared again.
“Victoria.”
I looked up.
Her face was almost pleading now.
“Do not let Reyes take you to the federal command center.”
Reyes shouted, “Don't listen to her.”
My mother whispered four words.
“David tried that once.”
The screen went black.
Reyes looked at me.
“Your mother is manipulating you.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“But you knew more than you told me.”
His jaw tightened.
I stepped closer.
“How long have you known she was alive?”
He didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
“Daniel.”
He looked exhausted.
“I suspected.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“I found evidence three weeks ago.”
“You found evidence my dead mother was alive three weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing?”
“Because the first agent who followed that evidence disappeared.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
“Ethan.”
My heart dropped.
“Ethan is dead?”
“No.”
Reyes looked toward the dark hallway.
“He's missing.”
Another gunshot echoed.
Sarah whispered, “We don't have much time.”
I looked at the memory card in Emily's hand.
Then at my mother's empty screen.
Then at Reyes.
“Take us somewhere safe.”
He nodded.
But before we reached the door, Emily grabbed my arm.
“Mom.”
“What?”
She stared at the black monitor.
“Grandma wasn't looking at us when she said David tried that.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“She was looking past the camera.”
“Where?”
May you like
Emily pointed.
“At someone standing behind it.”
