Chapter 9 - Bluebird
The woman in the doorway stared at Ethan with recognition that did not reach her eyes.
“Mia?” he said.
She shook her head. “My name is Ada.”
His knees nearly failed him. She looked like his sister down to the little chip in her front tooth. Only the scar was new, and her voice carried a careful flatness that Mia never had.
June brought them tea nobody touched. “Victor doesn't clone people,” she said. “He builds doubles. Surgery, training, a thousand hours of footage, voice models, everything. Ada was the first successful one.”
Ada looked down. “I wasn't supposed to have a name. Mia gave me one.”
“Where is the real Mia?” he asked.
“In the Archive,” Ada said. “Under the pier.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. Last time I saw her.”
June explained that Mia had discovered a library of fabricated testimony used to blackmail judges, executives, and witnesses. She had also found the real people kept in hidden rooms until their doubles finished the work.
“She helped Ada escape,” June said. “She stayed behind to erase the system from the inside.”
“Because Victor controls the proof of what's real. One fake video could make the whole story look like a lie.”
Nora held up the narrow film. “And this?”
June brought it under a magnifying lamp. Her fingers went still. “That's the master index. The only map to the untouched originals.”
A crash sounded downstairs. The lights flickered.
Ada lifted her head. “He found us.”
June snapped open a steel case. Inside lay a compact radio transmitter, a coil of wire, and a pistol.
“Take the index,” she said. “Get to the roof. The transmitter can reach Jasmine's station.”
A burst of gunfire splintered the stairwell door. June shoved the case into Ethan's hands.
Ada didn't move. She stared at the broken door and whispered, “That's my handler. He knows the phrase that makes me obey.”
A man's voice came through the door. “Bluebird, come home.”
Ada's shoulders stiffened. Her eyes lost focus.
Ethan stepped between her and the door. “Hey. Look at me.”
She tried to move around him. He caught her hands. “Mia gave you a name. That means she wanted you to choose what happens next.”
Ada's breath shook. “I can't.”
“Yes, you can.”
The door burst inward. Ethan swung the steel transmitter case, striking the first gunman hard enough to knock his weapon away. Nora kicked the second man's knee. June fired once into the ceiling, and the hallway filled with dust.
They climbed the fire stairs. Jasmine answered the transmitter on a crackling frequency from the other side of town.
“I have a problem,” Jasmine said. “Every channel is airing footage of you kidnapping Nora Ashford. They're saying you set the hospital fire.”
Nora went pale. “He flipped the story.”
“Then flip it back,” Ethan said.
June connected the film reader to the transmitter. Strings of numbers began traveling through the air in compressed bursts. On the neighboring roof, a rifle barrel appeared behind a chimney.
The shot struck June in the side. She dropped behind the air unit, blood spreading across her shirt. Ethan dragged her into cover while Nora held pressure on the wound.
June seized Ethan's sleeve. “Don't stop the transmission.”
The rifle fired again. Ada grabbed the transmitter's wire and ran across the roof to a better antenna point. She braced it with both hands while bullets chewed through the concrete around her.
A harsh tone sounded from the speaker. Jasmine shouted, “Index received!”
Then Ada pitched backward off the roof.
May you like
Ethan lunged toward the edge and saw her hanging by one hand from a rusted gutter. Below her, five stories of open air.
From the street, the handler raised his gun and said, “Bluebird. Let go.”
