Chapter 23 - The Man I Buried
Michael pulled me through a hidden doorway before the alarms finished screaming.
Emily ran beside me.
David and Reyes followed.
Victoria stayed behind for half a second.
Then she came through too.
The door sealed.
The alarms disappeared.
We stood in a narrow room lined with paper files.
Real paper.
Thousands of folders.
I looked at Michael.
“You built this.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To survive.”
Victoria stared at the shelves.
“You knew about the descendants.”
Michael nodded.
“Some.”
“Some?”
“There were too many to track.”
Sarah stepped inside.
“How many?”
Michael looked at her.
“Thirty-two confirmed bloodline branches.”
Sarah went pale.
“I thought there were twelve.”
“That was the public number.”
I felt sick.
“Public?”
Michael looked at me.
“There was never one network.”
He opened a file.
“This was an inheritance.”
He pulled out a photograph.
A woman from the 1960s.
She had my eyes.
My jaw.
The same small scar near her eyebrow.
I stared at it.
“Who is she?”
“My grandmother,” Michael said.
I looked up.
“What?”
“My grandmother was one of the first women moved through the program.”
Victoria stepped closer.
“So this wasn't started by the Prescotts.”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Michael hesitated.
“The Hart family.”
Silence.
Thomas appeared on a monitor.
“That is not the whole truth.”
I spun toward the screen.
“Dad.”
Thomas looked exhausted.
“The Harts didn't create Mirror Zero.”
Michael said, “They inherited it.”
“From whom?”
Thomas looked at Sarah.
Sarah couldn't meet his eyes.
“Your mother knows.”
I turned to her.
“Mom?”
She cried.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“You always wanted to tell me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You let me bury my husband.”
Sarah stepped closer.
“I thought Michael was dead.”
Michael laughed bitterly.
“You did.”
“I thought they killed you.”
“They almost did.”
Sarah stared at him.
“Then why didn't you come home?”
Michael looked at me.
“Because they had Elena.”
I frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“They didn't need to physically hold you.”
He placed a folder in my hands.
Inside was a photograph of me at age six.
I was standing beside a machine.
A black glass cylinder.
A scientist stood behind me.
The scientist's face had been scratched out.
My mother was in the corner.
And beside her was Thomas.
Michael touched the photograph.
“This was your first interface.”
I shook my head.
“I don't remember this.”
“You weren't supposed to.”
“Why did you let it happen?”
My father answered from the monitor.
“Because I was trying to save your life.”
I looked at him.
“You both keep saying that.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“The truth is worse.”
The monitor changed.
A document appeared.
SUBJECT ELENA HART.
STATUS: DECEASED.
I stared.
“I was listed as dead?”
“Yes.”
Sarah whispered.
“For eighteen months.”
“Why?”
Thomas said, “Because your identity was transferred into a controlled environment.”
I looked at Emily.
“Controlled environment?”
Michael nodded.
“Your childhood home wasn't your real home.”
I felt dizzy.
“What?”
“You lived there physically.”
He paused.
“But your records were not yours.”
He showed me another file.
Birth certificate.
School records.
Medical history.
All fabricated.
“Then who was I?”
Michael's voice softened.
“The woman they were training you to become.”
Victoria leaned against the table.
“What happens to the original?”
Michael looked at her.
“She disappears.”
Victoria whispered, “Like me.”
He nodded.
“Exactly.”
Emily started crying.
“Does that mean I'm going to disappear too?”
Every person in the room went silent.
I knelt in front of her.
“No.”
Michael knelt beside us.
“No,” he repeated.
Emily looked between us.
“You promise?”
He looked at me.
Neither of us could promise.
But I did anyway.
“I promise.”
A sound came from the shelves.
Something had fallen.
Reyes picked it up.
A small metal box.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Michael younger.
Sarah younger.
Thomas younger.
And another man.
I stared.
I knew him.
The face belonged to the man who had visited my home twice after Michael's funeral.
The man who had introduced himself as a federal investigator.
The man who had told me my husband's body had been identified.
I whispered his name.
“General Vale.”
Michael shook his head.
“No.”
He took the photograph.
“That's his father.”
Reyes looked at him.
“Then who is the man we've been fighting?”
Michael looked at me.
“The second Vale.”
The lights flickered.
Then a printer started running.
One page came out.
Then another.
Then another.
Reyes pulled the pages free.
The first one read:
MICHAEL HART — DECEASED.
The second:
MICHAEL HART — ACTIVE.
The third:
MICHAEL HART — OBSERVATION UNIT 7.
I stared.
“Observation Unit 7?”
Michael's face turned pale.
“That file should not exist.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the sealed door.
“Because Unit 7 is where they keep the people who are not supposed to know they survived.”
A voice came through the speaker.
A woman's voice.
Calm.
Familiar.
Mine.
“Michael.”
He stopped breathing.
The voice spoke again.
“You really should have stayed dead.”
He looked at me.
“I know that voice.”
“So do I.”
Victoria whispered it.
“Who is she?”
May you like
Michael answered without looking away from the speaker.
“Elena.”
