Chapter 6 - Basement Forty-Two
The elevator descended for three full minutes.
No floor numbers appeared.
Only the four-note melody pulsed softly through the ceiling speaker.
Ding. Ding-ding. Ding.
Emma wanted to tear the speaker out.
Alexander stood beside her with Grace. Evelyn held Noah. Rebecca and Vale stood behind them. Marcus had taken two guards and another route to cut power if needed.
The doors opened into a corridor lined with white glass.
Not concrete.
Not pipes.
A hospital.
Hidden beneath one of Chicago's most expensive office towers.
Emma stepped out.
Lights came on one by one ahead of her.
"It recognizes me."
Rebecca's voice was barely audible. "Your neonatal ID was never deleted."
On the wall, dates had been engraved beneath photographs.
Infants.
Dozens of them.
Some photos had green circles.
Some red.
Emma found hers.
A tiny premature baby inside a clear chamber, fists no bigger than walnuts.
Green circle.
SUBJECT 01 - EXTERNALIZED.
She touched the glass.
"You named me Emma because you didn't want to call me one."
Rebecca's face crumpled.
"I named you Emma because your biological mother wrote it on the consent form."
Emma turned.
"You told me there was no mother listed."
"There wasn't when I took you. The original page had been removed. I found a scan years later."
"Who was she?"
A door opened at the end of the corridor.
Charles Harrison stepped through.
He was sixty-two, silver-haired, beautifully dressed, and completely dry.
"That," he said, "is the question your mother never wanted answered."
Alexander moved in front of Emma.
"Stay away from her."
Charles smiled.
"There he is. My heroic nephew. Always late to his own inheritance."
He carried no weapon.
Behind him stood six security officers wearing Harrison badges.
Corporate security.
Alexander knew two by name.
Neither met his eyes.
Charles glanced at the twins.
"Remarkable. We lost nearly every viable pair before these two."
Evelyn pulled Noah closer.
"They're children."
"Of course they are. That's why the paperwork became so tiresome."
Emma hated him immediately.
Not for shouting.
For never needing to.
Charles explained what he thought they already understood.
Richard Harrison had created Continuance to secure bloodline control of the company. But Alexander had refused the arranged marriage, refused embryo banking, refused every plan his father considered responsible.
Then he fell in love with Evelyn.
She became pregnant naturally.
Twins.
At twenty-two weeks, she was told she had lost them.
She had not.
The fetuses were transferred into Continuance chambers.
Evelyn was drugged, isolated, and eventually declared dead after a staged boating accident during recovery.
Alexander stared at her.
"You were pregnant?"
Tears ran down Evelyn's face.
"I was going to tell you the night they took me."
His breath left him.
The photograph in the locket had been fabricated later from surveillance images and neonatal renderings, a psychological tool meant for Evelyn, not Alexander.
Charles spread his hands.
"You wanted love without obligation. Father wanted continuity without chaos. Everyone got half of what they wanted."
Alexander crossed the space between them so fast two guards reached for weapons.
Emma caught his sleeve.
"Don't."
Charles smiled at her.
"Smart girl."
"Don't call me that."
"What would you prefer? Subject One?"
Emma's jaw clenched.
Charles turned to a glass wall.
It cleared.
Behind it was another chamber.
Inside sat a woman in her forties.
Thin.
Blonde.
Hands folded in her lap.
Rebecca made a sound Emma had never heard from her before.
"Laura."
Emma looked at her.
"Who is that?"
Rebecca gripped the wall for balance.
Charles answered.
"Your biological mother."
The woman inside lifted her head.
She looked directly at Emma.
Then raised four fingers against the glass.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
May you like
The lights shut off.
In the darkness came five notes.
