Chapter 12 - The Island Laboratory
Victor Sloane’s guards separated Nora from the others.
Her bracelet was removed.
Her phone disappeared into a metal tray.
She was escorted through a glass corridor overlooking the sea.
Below, waves crashed against the island cliffs.
“Where are the children?” she asked.
“Safe.”
“That word means nothing when people like you use it.”
Victor smiled.
“You sound like your mother.”
“You knew her?”
“I admired her.”
“You helped kill her.”
“I tried to warn her.”
Nora stopped.
“Why should I believe you?”
“You should not. Belief is emotional. Evidence is useful.”
He led her into a laboratory.
Five children slept in separate rooms behind glass partitions.
They appeared alive and medically stable.
Nora counted them twice.
“All five?”
“Yes.”
“Why keep them?”
“To preserve the research.”
“They are not research.”
“They are the reason thousands of children may one day survive diseases currently considered incurable.”
“You always use future children to justify hurting the ones in front of you.”
Victor’s smile faded.
“Your father understood sacrifice.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“He believed the Vale mutation could permit universal cell adaptation. Your blood carries the strongest expression.”
“Then why use children?”
“Your father’s samples degraded. We needed descendants.”
“Why not ask me?”
“You would refuse.”
“You never gave me the choice.”
“Progress rarely waits for consent.”
Nora looked at the children.
“That is what every monster says before calling himself a visionary.”
Victor opened a file.
It contained photographs of Nora throughout her life.
School.
College.
Her wedding.
Mia’s birth.
She had been watched continuously.
“You engineered my marriage.”
“Beatrice did. I approved Garrett’s selection.”
“Selection?”
“He possessed genetic traits that increased the probability your child would carry the adaptive marker.”
Nora felt nausea rise.
“Mia was designed.”
“No. Encouraged.”
“She is a person, not a breeding result.”
“Both can be true.”
A door opened.
Sloan entered wearing a detention transport uniform beneath a borrowed coat.
Nora stared.
“You escaped too.”
“My father arranged it.”
Sloan’s face had changed since the gala. The arrogance remained, but exhaustion hollowed her eyes.
“Where is Garrett?” she asked.
“In custody.”
“And my baby?”
“Still inside you.”
Sloan touched her abdomen protectively.
“My father says the baby may carry the marker.”
Nora understood.
Victor did not rescue Sloan out of love.
He needed her unborn child.
“Do you know what he plans to do to you?”
Sloan glanced at Victor.
“He is saving us.”
“He is measuring your baby.”
“Don’t.”
“You hit Mia because she exposed the port in your dress.”
Sloan’s hand rose unconsciously toward her chest.
“I panicked.”
“You struck a five-year-old.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Tears filled Sloan’s eyes, but Nora did not offer comfort.
Regret did not erase consequences.
Victor ordered Nora onto an examination platform.
She refused.
Two guards restrained her.
Blood was drawn.
A scanner passed over her body.
Across the laboratory, alarms suddenly flashed.
Emily had escaped confinement.
A guard shouted through the intercom.
Victor cursed and left the room.
Sloan remained.
Nora studied her.
“You can help us.”
“My father will kill me.”
“He plans to use you until the pregnancy ends. What happens afterward?”
Sloan looked toward the door.
“He loves me.”
“Did he ever ask what you wanted?”
Silence.
“Did he give you a life outside treatment rooms and assignments?”
Sloan began to shake.
“He said Garrett would marry me.”
“Garrett was already married to Emily and me.”
“He said those marriages would be dissolved.”
“He lied to all of us differently.”
A crash sounded in the corridor.
Sloan unlocked Nora’s restraints.
“There is a submarine dock beneath the west wing.”
“Can it carry the children?”
“Yes.”
“Then help us reach it.”
They found Emily near the medical ward. She had disabled two guards with sedatives.
Helen and Reed were freeing the children.
Elias’s agents had taken control of the security room.
Victor sealed the main exits.
They moved through service corridors toward the dock.
The five children were frightened but mobile.
Sloan entered the access code.
The dock door opened.
A small transport submarine waited in a flooded chamber.
Before they could board, Victor appeared above them on a metal balcony.
“You disappoint me,” he told Sloan.
She looked up.
“You never loved me.”
“I gave you life.”
“You gave me fear.”
Victor raised a remote control.
Reed recognized it.
“Explosive charges.”
Victor pressed the first button.
The corridor behind them collapsed.
Water began pouring through cracked concrete.
They rushed the children into the submarine.
Elias’s pilot started the engines.
Nora was the last to board.
Victor aimed a gun at her.
Sloan stepped between them.
The shot struck her shoulder.
She fell.
Nora pulled her inside as Emily sealed the hatch.
The submarine descended just as explosions tore through the island facility.
Water churned around them.
Metal groaned.
For several minutes, no one knew whether they would escape.
Then the submarine cleared the underwater channel.
The island disappeared beneath smoke and snow.
Sloan lay on the floor, bleeding but conscious.
Nora pressed bandages against her wound.
“Why are you helping me?” Sloan whispered.
“Because your child did not choose you any more than Mia chose Garrett.”
Sloan began to cry.
The rescue vessel reached them at dawn.
All five children survived.
Victor Sloane’s body was not found.
Neither was the main research archive.
He had destroyed the island, but evidence suggested he escaped before the final explosion.
Back in the United States, Sloan entered federal custody and agreed to testify.
Her unborn child was healthy.
The Project Aster network was wounded.
But it was not dead.
One week later, Nora received a package.
Inside was the black bracelet taken from her on the island.
May you like
A new engraving appeared beneath the clasp:
YOU CANNOT PROTECT THEM ALL.
