Chapter 8 - The Safe Facility
Emergency lights flashed red.
Mara pulled me behind the cot as the hallway filled with running footsteps.
Price drew his sidearm.
“Stay here.”
The door opened before he reached it.
A female agent stumbled inside holding her throat.
Blood seeped between her fingers.
Price caught her before she fell.
“Medic!”
The hallway alarm began repeating a calm recorded message.
SECURITY EVENT. SHELTER IN PLACE.
Mara looked at me.
“Do exactly what I say.”
“You said that at 12:08.”
“And you’re alive.”
“Barely.”
The brass clock clicked once.
Then twice.
Mara’s eyes moved to it.
“That thing shouldn’t work in here.”
“Why?”
“This room is shielded.”
I picked up the clock.
The second hand was moving.
Tick.
Tick-tick.
Then it changed.
Tick-tick.
Tick.
Two-one.
Not twelve-eight.
A different pattern.
“Is it receiving?” I asked.
Mara took it from me.
“No antenna should penetrate this room.”
Price looked up from the injured agent.
“Unless the signal originates inside.”
We all stared at the clock.
Mara pressed the hidden back plate.
The transmitter compartment opened.
A tiny red light blinked.
Price swore.
“Tracker.”
“No,” I said.
The irregular pattern repeated.
Two-one.
Two-one.
Room twenty-one.
I looked at the door number painted on the inside wall.
21.
“It’s not tracking us,” I said. “It’s naming the room.”
Mara stared at me.
The clock ticked three times.
Then four.
Price looked toward the ceiling.
“Three-four?”
A ventilation panel dropped open above us.
A black cylindrical device fell onto the floor.
Mara kicked it under the cot.
“Down!”
A white flash filled the room.
Sound vanished.
My ears became pressure and static.
I opened my eyes to blurred shapes.
Someone moved through the doorway.
A woman.
My height.
My hair.
She crossed the room with frightening calm.
Mara lunged.
The woman twisted aside and struck her throat.
Price fired once.
The bullet hit the concrete wall.
The woman shoved a syringe into Price’s shoulder.
He collapsed.
Then she stood over me.
My own face looked down.
Up close, the illusion broke in tiny ways.
Her eyes were slightly lighter.
Her left earlobe was attached differently.
The scar near her eyebrow was too precise.
She smiled.
“Finally.”
I swung the brass clock.
It struck her cheek.
She staggered.
I hit her again.
Mara grabbed her from behind.
The woman drove an elbow backward, but Mara held on.
I kicked the syringe away.
Price lay breathing but unconscious.
The duplicate twisted free and ran into the hallway.
Mara chased her.
I followed.
Agents flooded the corridor from both directions.
“Stop!”
The duplicate raised both hands.
So did I.
For one surreal second, twenty armed people looked between two Elises.
The duplicate shouted, “She’s the infiltrator!”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
Mara stood between us, breathing hard.
An agent yelled, “Agent Vale, identify!”
Mara did not answer.
She looked at my hands.
Then the duplicate’s.
“Dad’s clock,” she said.
The duplicate frowned.
I held it up.
Mara asked, “How many turns?”
“Seven,” I said immediately.
The duplicate said, “What?”
Mara pointed her weapon at the duplicate.
“On the floor.”
The woman smiled.
“Cute.”
Then she reached into her jacket.
Three agents tackled her.
They found no gun.
Only a small plastic case.
Inside were two baby teeth.
Each was labeled NOAH MORRISON.
I stopped breathing.
The duplicate laughed from the floor.
“You still don’t understand what your father saved, do you?”
I crouched beside her.
“Where is my son?”
May you like
She looked at me with my own eyes.
“He’s with the woman who remembers giving birth to him.”
