Chapter 15 - What Mother Knew

Ethan kicked free and nearly lost his grip on the ladder. The person below gasped and lifted a face into the dim emergency light: Eli, coughing seawater, one hand gripping a broken railing.

“Help me!”

Ethan stared. “You're the one who opened the gates.”

“Not me. The other one. Victor put my print on the panel.”

Mia reached down first. “Argue later!”

They hauled Eli onto the ladder. He braced a shoulder under the hatch while Ethan spun the wheel. The metal finally gave. They crawled into a dry maintenance passage just before the shaft flooded to the ceiling.

Mia collapsed against the wall. “Mom knew about the program,” she said. “She was a nurse at the first clinic. Victor threatened to take us unless she helped.”

Ethan shook his head. “No.”

“She tried to report him. He staged her death three years ago.”

“She's alive. I talk to her every week.”

Mia looked at him with unbearable pity. “Those calls are recordings. You never see her face, right?”

He couldn't answer. His mother had said she was too sick for visits, always too tired for video. He'd wanted so badly to believe her.

Eli sank to the floor. “Victor kept a woman in the upper lab. He called her the nurse.”

Ethan seized his arm. “Where?”

“West wing. Room nine.”

They followed the passage toward the surface. Halfway there, an explosion rattled dust from the ceiling. A steel beam dropped and separated Ethan from Mia and the others.

“Go!” he shouted through the gap. “Get the files out!”

Mia reached for him. “I'm not leaving you.”

“You already saved everybody. Let me do this.”

She pressed her forehead to the beam for one second, then ran with the others.

Ethan crossed into the west wing alone, following a line of flickering green exit signs. Room nine stood open. Inside was a hospital bed, a wool blanket, and a radio playing an old country song. On the pillow lay a recent photograph of his mother.

A woman stepped out of the bathroom.

“Ethan?” she asked.

He could hardly breathe. “Mom?”

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She reached toward him. Then he saw the tiny earpiece behind her hair.

From the speaker above the door, Victor said, “Careful, son. This one is almost perfect.”