I woke to the smell of dust and antiseptic.
For one terrible second, I thought I was back beneath Whitmore Auto.
Then I heard machinery.
A steady ventilator-like pulse.
Cooling fans.
Electronic beeps.
I opened my eyes.
Industrial ceiling.
Fluorescent strips.
Concrete walls.
Not Mercy.
My wrists were secured to the arms of a medical chair.
Not tightly.
Enough.
I turned my head.
Rachel was not there.
Grace lay on a bed to my right.
Leah on another beyond her.
Both breathing.
Matthew sat restrained across the room.
Julian beside him.
Michael was on the floor near a cabinet, unconscious but breathing.
Claire was nowhere visible.
Ortiz was gone.
“Grace.”
My voice came out rough.
She stirred.
“Dad?”
Relief hit hard.
“I’m here.”
Leah groaned.
“If someone says ‘good morning,’ I’m killing them.”
Grace turned toward her.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Same.”
Matthew lifted his head.
“Where are we?”
Julian scanned the room.
“Research facility.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael stirred.
David’s voice came from somewhere behind me.
“You should.”
We all turned as far as restraints allowed.
He stepped into view wearing dark scrubs.
No gun.
That did not make him less dangerous.
Julian stared.
“This is Douglas’s sublevel.”
David smiled.
“There you go.”
Anna’s father’s old facility.
Another buried room.
“Where?” I asked.
“St. Anne’s.”
Michael blinked.
“The hospital?”
“Old annex beneath it.”
“I thought it was sealed.”
“It was.”
David looked at Julian.
“Harlan opened it again.”
Julian’s face tightened.
“Why bring us here?”
David walked to a monitor.
“Because every relevant branch began here.”
Grace pulled against her restraints.
“Let us go.”
“In time.”
“No.”
David looked at her.
“You always make commands sound like diagnoses.”
“Occupational hazard.”
He almost smiled.
Leah said, “I’m guessing the gas violated informed consent too.”
David ignored her.
Matthew stared.
“Where is Claire?”
“Safe.”
“What does that mean?”
“She is not here.”
“You took her?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
David looked toward Julian.
“Harlan.”
Julian’s face changed.
“Harlan is in custody.”
David smiled.
“You keep believing institutions hold him because paperwork says they do.”
Michael sat up slowly.
“What did you do?”
David looked at him.
“Nothing.”
“Then where is he?”
“Transferred.”
“By whom?”
“People who still owe him.”
I stared.
“Harlan escaped.”
“Technically he was released into a secured medical transport that never arrived.”
Leah laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Grace looked at David.
“Why are we still alive?”
He turned toward the monitors.
“Because killing subjects destroys comparison.”
“Stop calling us subjects.”
He paused.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
That surprised everyone.
Grace stared.
David continued.
“Harlan would call you subjects. I am trying not to.”
“You kidnapped us.”
“Yes.”
“Drugged us.”
“Yes.”
“Experimented on us.”
“Yes.”
“So vocabulary is not the main problem.”
“No.”
David looked tired.
Not guilty.
Tired.
I asked, “What do you want?”
“The same thing I’ve wanted since I learned what Harlan built.”
“Recognition.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That too.”
At least he admitted it.
“But more than that, proof.”
“Of the repair pathway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if it works, everything Harlan did becomes medically meaningful.”
Grace stared.
“No.”
David looked at her.
“What?”
“Nothing makes trafficking babies meaningful.”
“I didn’t say justified.”
“You implied redeemable.”
“That is different.”
“Not to the people used.”
David’s jaw tightened.
Julian spoke.
“She’s right.”
David turned.
“You don’t get to become ethical now.”
Julian flinched.
“I’m not becoming anything.”
“You developed the precursor.”
“For cancer studies.”
“Which gave me the tool.”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t pretend you stand outside this.”
“I don’t.”
Julian looked around.
“But knowing I contributed to harm obligates me to stop it.”
David laughed.
“Very noble.”
“No.”
Julian’s voice sharpened.
“Very late.”
That silenced David for a moment.
Michael pushed himself against the wall.
“What have you already done?”
David looked at him.
“Finished G3.”
Grace went pale.
“The embryo.”
“Several.”
Leah closed her eyes.
“Of course several.”
Michael’s face tightened.
“Transferred?”
“One.”
Every person stopped.
Grace whispered, “To whom?”
David looked at her.
“Not you.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
Matthew stared.
“Claire.”
David looked at him.
“No.”
“Anna?”
“No.”
“Who?”
David walked toward the monitor.
“Volunteer.”
Julian laughed.
“You expect us to believe someone volunteered for an embryo created from stolen reproductive material?”
“She volunteered as a gestational carrier.”
“Did she know the genetic origin?”
David did not answer.
Julian nodded bitterly.
“Then she did not volunteer for this.”
“She knew the embryo was research-associated.”
“That is not enough.”
David ignored him.
Grace’s voice shook.
“Which embryo?”
He turned.
“Yours.”
“And Michael’s.”
“Yes.”
Michael closed his eyes.
Grace stared at him.
Not accusation.
Shared violation.
Michael whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Grace looked at him.
“For what?”
“My sample.”
“You didn’t consent either.”
The words surprised him.
They surprised me too.
Grace had reached a distinction the rest of us were still learning.
Responsibility without accepting blame for what someone else stole.
David watched them.
“Interesting.”
Leah snapped.
“What?”
“You two.”
Grace’s face hardened.
“Don’t.”
“Your responses are not what Harlan predicted.”
“That seems to keep disappointing all of you.”
David walked closer.
“He expected resentment.”
“Maybe I’ll schedule some.”
“Grace.”
“What?”
“You defend Michael.”
“I acknowledge facts.”
“You don’t trust him.”
“No.”
“You may never.”
“Correct.”
“And still you reject the role Harlan assigned.”
She stared.
“Yes.”
David smiled faintly.
“That matters.”
Leah groaned.
“Everything matters to the guy with spreadsheets.”
Matthew asked, “Where is the carrier?”
David looked toward a closed door.
“Elsewhere.”
“How far along?”
“Twenty-three weeks.”
Silence.
Grace looked physically ill.
“There is a pregnancy.”
“Yes.”
“A living fetus.”
“Yes.”
“Created from stolen material.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept going.”
David’s face hardened.
“When I discovered the pregnancy had succeeded, termination would have become another ethical harm.”
Julian stared.
“You created the harm, then used the resulting pregnancy to justify continuing it.”
David looked away.
That accusation landed.
I asked, “Does the woman know now?”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
Another hesitation.
“No.”
“Then your ethical concern is theater.”
His face tightened.
“I intend to tell her.”
“When?”
“When the pregnancy is stable.”
Grace laughed in disbelief.
“You are exactly Harlan.”
David turned toward her.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“He never cared whether people survived.”
“You care whether they survive because you need the outcome.”
“That is not the same.”
“It is close enough.”
David walked away.
Anger helped him avoid the truth.
I knew that trick.
I had used it for years after the divorce.
I asked, “What is the fetus supposed to prove?”
He faced me again.
“Combined suppressor stability.”
“Meaning?”
Michael answered.
“The embryo combines Harlan’s line through me with Daniel and Rachel’s VQ-linked line through Grace.”
David nodded.
“And theoretically?”
“It may produce a more stable repair phenotype.”
Grace looked sick.
“So a child was created to test a theory.”
David said nothing.
Leah whispered, “You people really do know how to destroy a sentence.”
Matthew looked at David.
“What about me?”
David’s attention shifted.
“You were the missing comparator.”
“For what?”
“Embryonic development.”
“Because I was created from Daniel and Rachel before the twins.”
“Yes.”
“And Julian?”
“Shared prenatal environment.”
Julian’s expression hardened.
“So you wanted all four of us.”
David nodded.
“Grace and Leah: same genes, different childhoods.”
“Matthew and me,” Julian said, “same womb, different genes, different childhoods.”
“Yes.”
Michael stared.
“And you think that tells you something about G3.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
David’s eyes lit.
That frightened me more than the gun ever had.
“Which influences matter most.”
Grace shook her head.
“Not cleanly.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“You have confounders everywhere.”
David’s expression changed.
She had entered his language.
Grace continued.
“Different prenatal exposures. different medical care. different socioeconomic environments. undocumented interventions. selection bias. corrupted samples. deliberate dosing. trauma from concealment itself.”
Michael looked at her.
Then at David.
“She’s right.”
David stiffened.
Julian almost laughed.
“The great design isn’t even scientifically clean.”
“It was never meant to be perfect.”
Grace stared.
“No.”
“It only had to reveal signal.”
Leah shook her head.
“You ruined lives for bad data.”
David’s face tightened.
“That is not true.”
Grace leaned forward against her restraints.
“Then publish raw methodology.”
Silence.
“With every illegal intervention.”
David looked at her.
“Publish every missing consent form.”
He said nothing.
“Every forged authorization.”
Nothing.
“Every altered medical record.”
Nothing.
“Every time your subjects learned the study existed and behaved differently afterward.”
His jaw tightened.
Grace’s voice softened.
“You don’t have a study.”
David stared.
“You have a crime scene with statistics.”
That hit him.
Hard.
Michael looked away.
Julian closed his eyes.
Matthew laughed once.
Even Leah was quiet.
David turned toward the monitor.
For several seconds, the only sound was equipment.
Then he said, “Harlan said you would be difficult.”
Grace almost smiled.
“Good.”
I watched David.
Something in him had shifted.
Not enough.
But certainty had cracked.
Then an alarm sounded.
Different from the equipment.
Security.
David looked toward the door.
Julian did too.
“What?”
David checked a screen.
His face went white.
“No.”
I felt hope.
“Police?”
He shook his head.
“Worse.”
The outer camera showed a man walking through the corridor.
Elderly.
Thin.
Silver hair.
No restraints.
Harlan Vale.
He walked slowly, carrying a pistol.
Behind him was Claire.
Her hands were bound.
Matthew surged against his restraints.
“Mom!”
Harlan looked directly into the camera.
He smiled.
Then raised one finger to his lips.
David stared at the monitor.
For the first time since I met him, he looked afraid.
“He found us.”
Julian whispered, “No.”
David backed away.
“You don’t understand.”
Leah laughed bitterly.
“There’s that sentence.”
David looked at all of us.
“Harlan does not want the experiment preserved.”
Grace frowned.
“What does he want?”
David stared at the monitor as Harlan entered the outer lab.
“To erase everyone who can prove it existed.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 27: Harlan Returned to Destroy His Own Experiment, and David Was Forced to Decide Whether the People He Used Were Worth Saving
Three Years After Our Divorce, Rachel Left Her Wedding Ring on My Pillow and Vanished Before I Woke
Part 26 of 43
