CHAPTER 10 – THE SEVEN HEARTBEATS
CHAPTER 10 – THE SEVEN HEARTBEATS
The first heartbeat disappeared from the monitor at 12:14 p.m.
The second vanished three seconds later.
Then the third.
The fourth.
The fifth.
One by one, the green lines flattened across the screens.
A single continuous alarm screamed through the underground laboratory.
The artificial womb chambers began to darken.
Amber fluid stopped circulating through the transparent tubes.
Inside the chamber marked SUBJECT FIVE, my unborn daughter floated without movement.
Her small hands remained closed near her face.
Her dark hair drifted around her head.
The screen above her chamber displayed a heart rate of thirty-eight.
Then thirty-two.
Then nothing.
“No.”
The word tore out of me.
I ran toward the artificial womb room.
Beatriz stood behind the glass with the detonator raised in one hand.
The emergency release lever was in the other.
“Stay back.”
Her voice shook for the first time.
Officer Salgado raised his weapon.
“Put the device down.”
“You fire, they die.”
“The power is already gone,” Elena shouted.
“What more can you do?”
Beatriz smiled.
“This laboratory has independent oxygen reserves.”
“I can destroy those too.”
Behind her, seven chambers stood in darkness.
Seven unborn children had become silhouettes inside their artificial wombs.
Some were only halfway developed.
Others looked close enough to birth that I could see the shape of their eyelashes.
They were not research.
They were not material.
They were children waiting for someone to decide that their lives mattered.
My mother reached the laboratory door and examined the electronic lock.
“The emergency batteries should have activated.”
“They did not,” she said.
“Someone disabled them manually.”
I looked through the glass at Beatriz.
“You did this.”
“I prepared for betrayal.”
“You stopped their hearts.”
“You brought police into a sterile facility.”
“You forced my hand.”
I struck the glass with my palm.
“They are dying because of you.”
“They will die because you refused to cooperate.”
Behind me, Nicolás cried out.
Elena was still struggling with the restraint around his right wrist.
The automatic lock had frozen when the power failed.
Mateo knelt beside the operating table and searched through the surgical instruments.
Daniel and Lucía stood near the doorway.
Officer Salgado had ordered them to remain in the corridor.
Neither moved.
They watched everything.
They saw the darkened chambers.
They saw the blood on the floor.
They saw adults arguing while children died.
I turned toward them.
“Daniel, take Lucía and Mateo back to the elevator.”
“No.”
“Now.”
“The elevator does not work,” he said.
“Then go to the stairs.”
“Mommy.”
His voice trembled.
“I am not leaving you again.”
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to protect him from the next few minutes.
But there was nowhere safe on the island.
The power was gone.
The exits might be sealed.
Armed guards could still be moving through the facility.
Keeping the children where I could see them might be the least dangerous choice.
My mother pulled open a small maintenance panel beside the laboratory door.
A row of wires and switches filled the compartment.
Most were dead.
One small red light continued blinking.
She stared at it.
“The life-support system still has internal power.”
“Then why are the monitors flat?” I asked.
“Because the main circulation pumps stopped.”
“Can we restart them?”
“From inside.”
Beatriz heard us through the intercom.
“No one is entering.”
I looked at the detonator.
“You need these children alive.”
“I need one of them alive.”
The words chilled the room.
“Which one?”
She did not answer.
My mother looked toward Subject Five.
“Laura.”
“She never intended to preserve all seven.”
“What do you mean?”
“The chambers share an emergency reservoir.”
“If power fails, the oxygen can be redirected to one unit.”
Beatriz’s smile returned.
My mother understood the system because she had seen it before.
Perhaps she had helped design an earlier version.
Perhaps she had spent years studying how to destroy it.
“Which chamber receives the emergency supply?” Elena asked.
My mother examined the panel.
“It depends on the internal priority setting.”
Everyone looked at Beatriz.
She lowered the detonator slightly.
“Subject Five.”
My unborn daughter.
The chamber created from another stolen embryo.
The child Beatriz claimed she needed Nicolás to save.
The others had never been intended to survive an emergency.
They were disposable.
Like records.
Like witnesses.
Like every mother who had trusted the wrong doctor.
“You built a system that sacrifices six children to save one,” I said.
“I built a system that protects the most valuable result.”
“They are all valuable.”
“Not equally.”
Daniel stepped into the operating room.
His small voice carried through the alarm.
“You are wrong.”
Beatriz looked at him.
He stood with his shoulders shaking.
He was terrified.
But he did not step back.
“You do not know anything about value,” he said.
“You called me Subject Three.”
“You called Nicolás Subject Four.”
“You gave Lucía a number.”
“You do not even know us.”
Beatriz’s expression hardened.
“I know your biology.”
“That is not knowing someone.”
Daniel looked toward me.
“My mom knows I hate peas.”
Despite everything, a broken laugh escaped me.
Daniel continued.
“She knows I sleep with my feet outside the blanket.”
“She knows I pretend I am not afraid of storms.”
“She knows I like the blue cup better than the green one.”
“She knows me.”
“You only know my blood.”
The alarm screamed around him.
Beatriz’s hand tightened around the detonator.
“You are a sentimental little boy.”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“And you are still wrong.”
A sharp metallic sound came from the surgical table.
Mateo had wedged a clamp beneath Nicolás’s restraint.
Elena pushed down with both hands.
The lock cracked.
Nicolás pulled his wrist free.
He slid off the table.
His legs collapsed beneath him.
I caught him before he hit the floor.
He looked up at me.
“Is the baby really my sister?”
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Biologically, she was his sister.
Emotionally, they were strangers.
That did not make her life less real.
“Can we save her?”
“I am going to try.”
“What about the others?”
“All of them.”
Beatriz laughed through the intercom.
“You cannot save all of them.”
I met her eyes through the glass.
“You keep saying that.”
“Maybe you need it to be true.”
My mother continued working at the maintenance panel.
“There may be a manual override in the lower service corridor.”
“Where?”
“Beneath the womb room.”
“Can we reach it?”
“Through the sterilization tunnel.”
Elena looked toward the hallway.
“Where is the entrance?”
“Behind Surgical Theater Two.”
Salgado spoke into his radio.
Only static answered.
The concrete walls were blocking communication with the officers above.
“We split up,” he said.
“No,” I replied.
“We cannot leave the children unprotected.”
“I will take two officers to the service tunnel.”
“You remain here.”
“You do not know the system.”
“Your mother does.”
My mother looked at me.
“I am going.”
I stared at her.
I had found her less than twenty minutes earlier.
For twenty years, I had believed she was dead.
Now she was volunteering to disappear into a dark tunnel beneath a laboratory controlled by the sister who had imprisoned her.
“I am coming with you.”
“No.”
Her voice carried the same firmness I remembered from childhood.
The same tone she used when I wanted to cross a busy street alone.
“You stay with your children.”
“You are my mother.”
“And that is why I am going.”
She touched my face.
Her hand was thin.
Warm.
Real.
“I failed to stop Beatriz when you were born.”
“I will not fail again.”
“You saved me.”
“I ran.”
“You survived.”
“I left you grieving for twenty years.”
“You were protecting me.”
“I told myself that every day.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“It did not make the nights easier.”
The alarm shifted to a lower tone.
A mechanical voice announced that oxygen reserves had reached sixty percent.
Inside the laboratory, Beatriz glanced toward the chambers.
Her confidence flickered.
She had expected Subject Five’s emergency system to activate.
It had not.
Something else was wrong.
My mother saw it too.
“The reservoir is not redirecting.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Someone closed the main valve.”
Beatriz turned toward a control console.
She pressed several buttons.
Nothing happened.
Her face changed.
“You did this,” she said.
My mother looked through the glass.
“I hoped I would get the chance.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Beatriz stared at her.
My mother’s voice became calm.
“When you moved me to this island, you allowed me to work in the lower maintenance wing.”
“You thought keeping me useful would keep me obedient.”
“I installed a mechanical lock inside the emergency reservoir.”
“You cannot open it from the laboratory.”
Beatriz’s control vanished.
“You condemned them.”
“No.”
“I made sure you could never choose which child survived.”
“You wanted to force me to save all of them.”
“Yes.”
The mechanical voice announced fifty-five percent oxygen.
My mother looked at Salgado.
“The manual valve requires two people.”
“One must hold the pressure wheel.”
“The other must reset the pump sequence.”
“How long?”
“Seven minutes if the tunnel is clear.”
“And if it is not?”
She looked toward the dark corridor.
“Longer.”
Salgado selected two officers.
They followed my mother into the hallway.
Before she left, she turned back.
“Laura.”
“Yes?”
“If we restore circulation, someone inside must reset each chamber individually.”
My eyes moved toward Beatriz.
“She is the only one inside.”
“No.”
My mother pointed toward a decontamination hatch built into the far wall.
“It can be opened manually from this side.”
“Where does it lead?”
“Directly into the womb room.”
Beatriz heard every word.
She raised the detonator again.
“You open that hatch and I destroy the oxygen lines.”
I looked at the device.
“Is that really a detonator?”
She smiled.
“You want to test it?”
My mother hesitated.
That told me she did not know.
The device might control explosives.
It might control the chamber valves.
It might do nothing at all.
Beatriz had survived for decades by making everyone afraid to test her threats.
My mother left with Salgado and the officers.
Elena moved toward the decontamination hatch.
A large manual wheel was mounted beside it.
She pulled.
It did not move.
“The pressure lock is active.”
Mateo joined her.
Together, they turned the wheel.
Metal groaned.
The hatch shifted slightly.
Beatriz stepped toward the inner door.
“If you enter, the child in Subject Five dies first.”
I held Nicolás against me.
His body was cold.
He looked at the chamber where his unborn sister floated.
Then he looked at Beatriz.
“You said you made me.”
Beatriz turned toward him.
“I preserved you.”
“Did you know my name was Nicolás?”
She hesitated.
“Names were not relevant.”
“My father knew.”
“Eduardo was sentimental.”
“He came for me.”
“He came to bargain.”
“He still came.”
Nicolás straightened.
“You never did.”
Beatriz’s face hardened.
“I gave you life.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“She did.”
The words struck me with a force I was not prepared for.
He was not calling me his mother.
Not yet.
He was simply choosing which truth belonged to him.
Beatriz lifted the detonator.
“Nicolás.”
“Step away from her.”
He moved closer to me.
“No.”
The alarm announced forty-eight percent oxygen.
Subject Five’s screen flickered.
Her heartbeat returned for a single second.
Twenty-one beats per minute.
Then the line flattened again.
The baby’s small body shifted in the fluid.
My instinct screamed at me to break through the glass.
I imagined holding her.
I imagined her opening her eyes.
I imagined losing her without ever touching her.
“Turn the wheel,” I told Elena.
Elena and Mateo pushed harder.
The hatch opened another inch.
Air hissed through the gap.
Beatriz moved toward the oxygen lines.
Her thumb rested on the detonator.
“Stop.”
“No.”
I stepped toward the hatch.
“Laura,” Elena warned.
“She will not do it.”
“You cannot know that.”
“She needs Subject Five.”
“She may kill the others.”
“She has already tried.”
I looked at Beatriz.
“You built your whole life around continuing this program.”
“You will not destroy the result you value most.”
“I will if it keeps you from taking it.”
“No.”
“You will threaten.”
“You will manipulate.”
“You will sacrifice everyone except yourself.”
“But you will not destroy the proof that you believe makes you important.”
Beatriz’s eyes narrowed.
“You sound like your mother.”
“That is the greatest compliment you could give me.”
I placed both hands on the wheel.
Together, Elena, Mateo, and I turned it.
The hatch opened.
Beatriz pressed the button.
Nothing exploded.
For one second, she stared at the device.
Then she pressed it again.
Still nothing.
My mother had disabled more than the reservoir.
She had disabled Beatriz’s final threat.
I climbed through the hatch.
Beatriz ran toward me.
She struck me with the metal detonator.
Pain exploded along my temple.
I fell against the floor.
She grabbed my hair and pulled me backward.
“You destroy everything you touch.”
I twisted and drove my elbow into her ribs.
She released me.
I reached for the control console.
The screen remained dark.
Seven manual switches lined the lower panel.
Each one corresponded to a chamber.
All were locked in the off position.
Beatriz lunged again.
We crashed against Subject Five’s chamber.
The transparent wall vibrated.
Inside, the baby drifted closer to the glass.
Her face turned toward me.
For one impossible second, it felt as though she knew I was there.
I placed one hand against the chamber.
“I am here.”
Beatriz grabbed my injured arm.
“You were never meant to see her.”
“That is the problem with your plans.”
“People survive long enough to find the truth.”
She struck me across the mouth.
I tasted blood.
I caught her wrist before she could hit me again.
We struggled beside the chamber.
She was older.
But she was stronger than she looked.
Years of control had taught her how to use other people.
They had not taught her what it felt like to fight someone with nothing left to lose.
I drove her into the console.
The detonator fell.
It broke open against the floor.
Inside were no wires.
No transmitter.
No explosives.
It had been empty.
A prop.
A threat shaped like a device.
Beatriz saw me look at it.
Shame crossed her face.
Then rage replaced it.
“You see?”
I pushed her away.
“You never had control.”
“You only had frightened people.”
The oxygen alarm announced thirty-nine percent.
Elena crawled through the hatch.
Mateo followed.
Nicolás remained on the other side with Daniel and Lucía.
Elena reached the first manual switch.
“It is locked.”
“Use the surgical clamp.”
Mateo handed her the tool.
She forced the cover open.
I moved to Subject Five’s control.
The display showed no circulation.
No heartbeat.
No movement.
“Come on.”
I struck the reset switch.
Nothing happened.
Beatriz laughed from the floor.
“The pumps are still off.”
My mother had to open the valve below.
Until then, the switches could do nothing.
“How much time do they have?” I asked.
Beatriz wiped blood from her lip.
“Some less than others.”
“Subject Seven has perhaps four minutes.”
“Which chamber?”
She pointed toward the smallest fetus.
A tiny form floated inside a unit at the far end.
Elena moved toward it.
“Which switch?”
“Find it yourself.”
I crossed the room and grabbed Beatriz by the front of her gown.
“You are going to help.”
“No.”
“These are your subjects.”
“They are failures.”
“They are children.”
“Not all of them are viable.”
“You do not get to decide that while refusing to try.”
She looked at my blood-covered face.
Then she smiled.
“Your mother begged the same way when your younger sister was dying.”
I froze.
“What younger sister?”
Beatriz’s eyes brightened.
She had found another weapon.
“You still do not know.”
“Know what?”
“Your mother did not escape alone.”
My grip tightened.
“She carried an infant.”
“A baby girl born two years after you.”
“That is impossible.”
“My mother had no other children.”
“She had one.”
“And she brought the child to me for treatment.”
I released Beatriz slowly.
“You are lying.”
“The girl carried the mutation.”
“Your mother hated our work until she needed it.”
“What happened to her?”
“The treatment failed.”
My chest tightened.
“Did she die?”
Beatriz looked toward Subject Seven.
“The first version of her did.”
The room tilted.
“The first version?”
Beatriz’s smile widened.
“Where do you think the genetic material for the seven chambers came from?”
I looked across the artificial wombs.
Seven unborn children.
Seven experiments.
Seven lives created from stolen cells and family secrets.
Subject Five belonged genetically to Eduardo and me.
But the others had unknown sources.
Beatriz had used my mother’s lost child.
My sister.
A baby I had never known existed.
“She is the source,” I whispered.
“Partially.”
“Which chamber?”
“More than one.”
My stomach turned.
Beatriz had not merely created embryos.
She had split genetic material across several attempts.
Copies.
Modified versions.
Children built from the DNA of someone who had died decades earlier.
The alarm announced thirty-one percent oxygen.
A deep mechanical sound came from beneath the floor.
The circulation pipes trembled.
My mother had reached the valve.
A second sound followed.
Then another.
Lights flickered inside the first chamber.
Amber fluid began moving.
“Now,” Elena shouted.
We hit the switches.
Chamber One activated.
A heart monitor appeared.
A faint rhythm returned.
Chamber Two activated.
Then Three.
Mateo forced open Chamber Four’s panel.
I reset Subject Five.
The pump began moving.
Fluid circulated through the tubing.
Her heartbeat did not return.
“Come on.”
I pressed the reset again.
Nothing.
Elena activated Chamber Six.
The monitor showed a weak but steady rhythm.
Subject Seven remained dark.
The manual switch had jammed.
Elena struck it with the clamp.
“Move.”
“It will not release.”
Beatriz remained on the floor.
She watched us struggle.
Then she looked toward the corridor.
She was waiting for something.
I followed her gaze.
A red light began blinking above the main door.
Someone was entering the laboratory from the upper level.
Not police.
The access code was being accepted.
Beatriz smiled.
“You thought Mateo Salazar was my only operative.”
The door opened.
Judge Alberto Medina entered with two armed guards.
The same judge who had signed the order declaring me mentally unstable.
The same judge connected to the hospital records.
He held a pistol in one hand.
In the other, he carried a portable power unit.
“Step away from the chambers,” he ordered.
Elena turned.
“You are under investigation.”
Medina laughed.
“By whom?”
“The officers whose careers I control?”
One guard aimed at Elena.
The other aimed at me.
Beatriz rose slowly.
“Attach the power unit to Subject Five.”
Medina moved toward my daughter’s chamber.
I blocked his path.
“You will have to shoot me.”
“That can be arranged.”
Nicolás appeared in the open hatch behind Elena.
He had crawled through despite my order.
Daniel and Lucía were behind him.
Mateo stood with them.
All four children were inside the laboratory.
“Get back,” I shouted.
Medina turned toward them.
His expression changed when he saw Nicolás.
“Subject Four.”
Nicolás stepped closer.
“My name is Nicolás.”
“Not for long.”
Medina raised the pistol.
A gunshot exploded.
I threw myself toward Nicolás.
The bullet struck the glass beside Subject Seven.
A web of cracks spread across the chamber.
Amber fluid began leaking through the fracture.
The smallest unborn child drifted toward the damaged wall.
Elena tackled Medina.
His weapon slid across the floor.
One guard fired toward the hatch.
Mateo pulled Daniel and Lucía down.
Beatriz grabbed the portable power unit.
She ran toward Subject Five.
I reached Nicolás and pushed him behind the console.
The cracked chamber groaned.
Fluid poured faster.
Subject Seven’s monitor showed a heart rate of seventy.
Then sixty-five.
Then fifty.
The chamber wall could fail at any moment.
My mother’s voice came through the intercom.
“Laura.”
“We opened the valve.”
“But the main generator is flooding.”
“You have less than three minutes before total shutdown.”
I looked at Subject Five.
Her heart had not restarted.
I looked at Subject Seven.
Its chamber was breaking.
I looked at the other five chambers.
Their rhythms were weak.
Beatriz connected the portable power unit to Subject Five.
The chamber lights brightened.
My daughter’s heart monitor flickered.
A pulse appeared.
Twenty-six.
Thirty.
Thirty-eight.
She was coming back.
At the same time, every other chamber dimmed.
The portable unit was drawing power away from the shared system.
“You are killing the others,” I shouted.
Beatriz held the cable in place.
“She is the only one who matters.”
I lunged toward her.
Medina grabbed my ankle from the floor.
I fell.
He pulled me backward.
Elena struck him with the empty blood case.
He released me.
Subject Seven’s chamber cracked again.
A tiny hand drifted through the leaking fluid.
There was no way to keep both systems powered.
Beatriz had created the choice she wanted.
Save my biological daughter.
Or save the six children who were not mine.
Daniel stood near the center of the room.
He looked at Subject Five.
Then at the other chambers.
He understood.
“Mommy.”
His voice was quiet.
“You said blood is not the only family.”
I looked at him.
Tears filled his eyes.
“You have to save all of them.”
Beatriz tightened her grip on the cable.
“You disconnect this unit, Subject Five dies.”
I moved toward her.
“She is your daughter,” Beatriz said.
“The others are experiments.”
“No.”
I looked across the seven chambers.
“They are all someone’s children.”
I grabbed the cable.
Beatriz grabbed my wrist.
“You cannot divide the power.”
“Maybe not through your system.”
I looked at Nicolás.
“Your father’s blood.”
He stared at me.
“What?”
“Eduardo’s blood was on my clothes.”
I looked at Elena.
“The sample case.”
“Rosa carried Mateo’s vial.”
“The operating room has transfusion equipment.”
“What are you thinking?” Elena asked.
“Subject Five does not only need electricity.”
“She needs circulation and compatible blood.”
“If we stabilize her biologically, we can disconnect the extra power sooner.”
Beatriz shook her head.
“It will not work.”
“You never tried.”
“Because it is impossible.”
“You use that word whenever someone challenges you.”
I ripped the portable line from the chamber.
Subject Five’s monitor dropped immediately.
The other chambers brightened.
Subject Seven’s heart rate increased slightly.
Beatriz screamed and struck me.
I hit the floor.
Elena carried the portable unit toward the damaged chamber.
She connected it to Subject Seven.
The emergency seal activated around the crack.
The leaking slowed.
Mateo and Nicolás helped Daniel pull the transfusion cart toward Subject Five.
Lucía gathered tubing from the surgical tray.
Children should not have known how to move medical equipment through a collapsing laboratory.
They should have been at school.
They should have been playing beside the lake.
Instead, they worked together because every adult system had failed them.
I cut the blood-soaked section from my shirt.
Eduardo’s blood had dried into the fabric.
It was not enough.
Then I remembered the vial.
Rosa had carried a sample labeled MATEO VARGAS.
It was still in the boathouse.
Or perhaps in her pocket.
My blood was available.
Nicolás’s blood was available.
But using a child as a donor without testing could kill both patients.
I looked at Beatriz.
“You know our blood types.”
She said nothing.
I grabbed her shoulders.
“What is Subject Five’s blood type?”
Silence.
I shook her.
“Answer me.”
“O negative.”
My breath stopped.
My blood type.
Universal donor for red cells.
I looked at Elena.
“Prepare a direct transfusion.”
“You are injured.”
“I am conscious.”
“You have already lost blood.”
“I still have more than she does.”
Elena hesitated.
Then she moved.
Beatriz laughed from the floor.
“You may save her heart and destroy her lungs.”
“Then we handle the next problem after she survives this one.”
“That is not medicine.”
“No.”
“It is motherhood.”
Elena inserted a needle into my arm.
The tube filled with dark red blood.
It flowed through a filter toward Subject Five’s emergency port.
The chamber accepted the line.
My daughter’s heart rate remained at eighteen.
Then twenty.
Twenty-two.
I felt dizzy.
The laboratory tilted.
Daniel held my free hand.
“Stay with me.”
I smiled at him.
“You sound like me.”
“You say it a lot.”
“Because people keep trying to leave.”
“I am not leaving.”
Subject Five’s heart rate reached thirty-one.
Then thirty-five.
The other chambers stabilized.
Subject Seven’s damaged wall remained sealed by the portable unit.
My mother entered the room with Salgado.
One officer followed.
The other had been wounded in the tunnel.
Salgado arrested Medina.
Beatriz backed toward the main door.
No one saw her reach the fallen pistol.
Except Lucía.
“She has the gun.”
Beatriz raised it toward the transfusion line.
My mother stepped in front of me.
The gun fired.
She jerked backward.
I caught her.
Blood spread across her gray dress.
“Mom.”
Her body collapsed against mine.
Salgado fired.
Beatriz dropped the weapon.
The bullet struck her shoulder.
She fell beside Subject Five’s chamber.
My mother struggled to breathe.
The wound was high in her chest.
Too close to her heart.
“No.”
I pressed my hand against it.
“Stay with me.”
She looked at the chamber.
My daughter’s heartbeat had reached forty-four.
Then forty-eight.
My mother smiled weakly.
“She looks like you.”
“You cannot leave.”
“I already left once.”
“Do not do it again.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I need to tell you where the original files are.”
“We will talk later.”
“There may not be later.”
“Do not say that.”
She gripped my hand.
“Your sister did not die.”
I stared at her.
“Beatriz said the first version died.”
“She lied.”
“Where is she?”
My mother’s breathing became shallow.
“She is here.”
I looked across the chambers.
“Which one?”
“None.”
Her eyes moved toward the children standing behind me.
Daniel.
Lucía.
Mateo.
Nicolás.
My mother raised one trembling hand.
She pointed toward Lucía.
The girl froze.
My mother whispered the truth Beatriz had hidden beneath every switched sample and false maternity test.
“Lucía is not Silvana’s daughter.”
“She is mine.”
The laboratory went silent.
Lucía stared at my mother.
Then at me.
My mind refused to accept the dates.
Lucía was seven.
My mother’s supposed second child would have been nearly thirty.
Unless the girl had not been born naturally.
Unless the embryo had been preserved.
Unless Beatriz had used my mother’s lost daughter’s genetic material decades later.
My mother’s eyes closed.
The monitor above Subject Five reached fifty-two.
Then a second alarm sounded.
Not from the womb chambers.
From the building’s security system.
A mechanical voice announced a complete island lockdown.
Steel doors began closing across the corridor.
Salgado tried his radio.
Nothing.
Beatriz lay bleeding near the chamber.
She smiled through the pain.
“You saved the heartbeats.”
“But you trapped yourselves with them.”
A countdown appeared across every monitor.
TEN MINUTES TO THERMAL STERILIZATION.
The laboratory’s temperature began to rise.
Beatriz looked at the seven chambers.
Then at the children.
“This facility was designed to erase biological evidence.”
“In ten minutes, every living thing on this level will be incinerated.”
The doors sealed.
May you like
The ventilation stopped.
And the only person who knew the escape code was Beatriz.
