Chapter 17 - The First Victoria
Everything I believed about my mother collapsed again.
I looked at Sarah.
“You're telling me the woman on the screen is my twin?”
“No,” David said.
“The woman on the screen is the first person who successfully became Victoria.”
I couldn't speak.
He explained slowly.
“Your mother died twenty-eight years ago.”
I remembered the funeral.
The black dress.
The flowers.
The coffin.
My father standing beside me.
Emily had been a baby then.
I remembered crying until I couldn't breathe.
“But I saw her.”
“You saw her.”
“Then how?”
“Your mother created the replacement.”
Sarah looked sick.
“She used the identity architecture on herself.”
I stared at David.
“So the woman I called Mother…”
“Was a copy.”
My knees weakened.
Reyes caught me.
I pulled away.
“No.”
David continued.
“Your mother was trying to survive long enough to destroy the system.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“Because she didn't know whether she could trust you.”
“That woman raised me.”
“The original Marisol did.”
“And the copy?”
“Watched you.”
My stomach turned.
“How long?”
“Since 1998.”
The year my mother supposedly died.
I closed my eyes.
That meant every phone call.
Every birthday.
Every warning.
Every photograph.
Every time I thought grief had changed my mother into someone colder—
It had been someone else.
Emily whispered,
“Then who was Grandma?”
Nobody answered.
Sarah did.
“A woman named Evelyn Cross.”
I looked at her.
“Cross?”
“The first completed identity transfer subject.”
My father's notes.
My mother's project.
The beginning.
And then my mother appeared on a monitor.
But this time she wasn't alone.
A second woman sat beside her.
Same face.
Same body.
Two versions of the woman who had been my mother.
One looked at the camera.
The other looked at me.
The first one spoke.
“Hello, Elena.”
The second one smiled.
“Victoria.”
My blood froze.
David whispered,
“You're looking at both of them.”
The first woman was the replacement.
The second—
I knew immediately.
My mother.
The real Marisol.
Older.
Weaker.
Alive.
The two women sat side by side.
The replacement smiled.
“The game is over.”
The real Marisol looked devastated.
“No.”
The replacement turned toward her.
“Your daughter finally knows.”
I walked toward the screen.
“Mom.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I'm sorry.”
“Which one of you raised me?”
“Both.”
“What does that mean?”
“The woman you knew as your mother after 1998 was Evelyn.”
I looked at the other woman.
“My real mother.”
“Yes.”
She spoke softly.
“I couldn't reach you.”
“Why?”
“Because Evelyn had already taken control.”
“Then why did Dad die?”
The real Marisol closed her eyes.
“He didn't.”
My breath stopped.
“What?”
“Thomas disappeared.”
David looked at me.
“He's alive.”
Every nerve in my body went numb.
“My father?”
My mother nodded.
“Your father is being held in the original Mirror facility.”
I turned toward the laptop.
“Where?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
David looked alarmed.
“Then how do you know he's alive?”
“Because he sends me one message every year.”
“What message?”
She looked directly into the camera.
“Three words.”
I waited.
“ELENA REMEMBERS EVERYTHING.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
My mother smiled through tears.
“You're remembering now.”
My childhood flooded back.
The fire.
Victoria's hand.
My father's voice.
My mother screaming.
And something else.
A man outside the building.
A black car.
A silver ring.
A Prescott emblem.
I grabbed the laptop.
“I remember.”
David stared.
“What?”
“The man who started the fire.”
Everyone went still.
“Who?”
I closed my eyes.
I could see him.
A younger man.
Standing beside the vehicle.
Holding a fuel can.
And beside him—
General Vale.
I opened my eyes.
“Vale.”
Reyes swore.
“What?”
“He was there.”
David's expression changed.
“That means he wasn't just a handler.”
“What was he?”
Margaret whispered the answer.
“The architect.”
Reyes grabbed his radio.
“I have to warn command.”
David stopped him.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because command already belongs to him.”
The lights went out.
A second later, every phone in the building began ringing.
Mine.
David's.
Reyes's.
Sarah's.
Margaret's.
We looked at one another.
I answered.
My father's voice came through.
“Run.”
May you like
Then a gunshot.
Silence.
