Chapter 12 - St. Catherine’s.
Federal warrants sealed St. Catherine’s Hospital by dawn.
Administrators denied knowledge of any underground laboratory.
Building plans showed only parking, storage, and old utility tunnels.
Evelyn Marsh provided a code that opened a freight elevator behind the genetics department.
The elevator descended below every listed floor.
Elena remained in the command center with Noah, Hope, and Claire.
She watched agents enter through body-camera feeds.
The hidden laboratory was still active.
Incubators lined one room.
Freezers held embryos labeled with family names.
Medical beds were fitted with restraints.
A wall displayed photographs of children from infancy through adolescence.
Noah’s photograph appeared in the center.
Beside it was a photograph of Hope taken less than an hour after birth.
Marcus had received hospital surveillance continuously.
He had collaborators inside County General too.
Agent Ward found a secure server.
Its files revealed Project Continuance.
The objective was not simply to cure hereditary disease.
The objective was to create patent-controlled human bloodlines.
Children born through the program would carry genetic watermarks.
Aeternum intended to claim ownership of treatments derived from their cells.
Marcus had designed human beings as licensed products.
Elena read the documents with shaking hands.
There were twenty-three pregnancies.
Most had ended in miscarriage.
Five infants had lived longer than one year.
Noah was the only confirmed survivor still listed.
One file was marked LOCATION UNKNOWN.
Subject Four.
A girl named Lily Chen.
Claire searched the database.
Lily would be nine years old.
Her mother had died in a house fire.
Her father was in prison for arson.
The pattern resembled Elena’s life.
Family destroyed.
Child isolated.
Records controlled.
Ward sent agents to locate Lily.
Then the hospital power failed.
The body-camera feeds vanished.
Emergency generators started but the hidden elevator locked.
A message appeared on the command-center monitor.
WELCOME HOME, ELENA.
Marcus controlled the system remotely.
Hospital doors sealed.
Ventilation shifted.
A chemical odor entered the maternity floor.
Dr. Shah identified it.
A sedative gas.
Staff began collapsing.
Claire wrapped wet towels around Noah’s and Elena’s faces.
Hope’s oxygen monitor dropped.
Elena placed the infant inside a portable oxygen hood.
Marcus’s voice came through the speakers.
“Bring Hope to the genetics elevator.”
Elena looked at Reyes.
He had returned wearing body armor over his bandages.
“There must be another way.”
“There is.”
Evelyn pointed toward an old laundry chute connecting to the lower utility level.
It was narrow, rusted, and steep.
Reyes went first.
Elena followed with Hope secured against her chest.
Claire stayed with Noah in a sealed room.
The chute ended behind the hidden laboratory.
Emergency lights painted the corridor red.
Agents lay unconscious but breathing.
Marcus waited inside the embryo storage room.
He held no gun.
He held a remote detonator.
Behind him, explosive charges covered the freezers.
“One step,” he said, “and every child in this room disappears.”
Elena looked at the thousands of frozen embryos.
“You would destroy your work?”
“I would destroy evidence.”
Hope stirred against her.
Marcus’s eyes softened when he heard the sound.
It was the closest thing to love Elena had ever seen in him.
That made it more terrible.
“Give her to me.”
“No.”
“She belongs to the future.”
“She belongs to herself.”
Marcus pressed the detonator halfway.
Reyes moved behind the glass wall.
Marcus saw him in the reflection.
He pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
Evelyn had given police the disarm code.
Marcus looked down.
Elena crossed the room and struck him with the metal oxygen cylinder.
He fell against a freezer.
Reyes entered and handcuffed him.
For the first time, Marcus did not smile.
Then an alarm began.
May you like
One explosive charge had a separate trigger.
The freezer containing Subject Four’s remaining samples started to burn.
