Chapter 14 - Ten HoursThe first thing we did was destroy the machine.
Or tried to.
Helix had anticipated sabotage.
The countdown continued.
09:21:14.
09:21:13.
Eli was brought into the archive.
He looked at me.
“You're scared.”
“Yes.”
“Daddy said you would be.”
I knelt.
“What else did your dad say?”
“He said when the clock starts, I have to tell you something.”
“What?”
Eli touched my tattoo.
“You've already forgotten me once.”
My breath caught.
“What?”
Eli nodded.
“When I was a baby.”
Logan looked away.
I turned to him.
“Explain.”
He sighed.
“You knew Eli when he was born.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“But I didn't know I had a son.”
“You did.”
My heart pounded.
“Then why don't I remember him?”
“Because that's Reset Seven.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Five years ago, I had held my own son.
Then Helix had taken that memory.
They had erased Eli from my life.
And Logan had raised him instead.
I looked at Eli.
“I’m sorry.”
He smiled.
“Daddy said you'd say that.”
The countdown reached seven hours.
Marcus discovered an old server room.
Inside were encrypted memory files.
One file carried my name.
ORIGINAL MEMORY: PRIORITY BLACK.
We opened it.
A video appeared.
Me.
Not the version I knew.
Older.
Calmer.
Angrier.
I stared at myself.
“If this recording is playing, Reset Eight has started.”
The image of me leaned closer to the camera.
“Colin, listen carefully.”
He pointed behind him.
“Helix is not a program.”
He whispered:
“It is a person.”
I frowned.
“You're looking for a leader.”
My recorded self shook his head.
“There isn't one.”
Then he said:
“Helix lives inside the system.”
Police databases.
Hospital records.
Financial records.
DNA databases.
Every place where identity existed.
Helix wasn't controlling memories one person at a time.
It was controlling reality itself.
Then the recording changed.
A woman appeared.
Evelyn.
She was younger.
Standing beside me.
She said:
“We built it together.”
I stared.
My recorded self looked directly at the camera.
“And when we realized what we'd created, I made the worst decision of my life.”
He paused.
“I asked Evelyn to erase me.”
The video ended.
No one spoke.
Then Marcus found a final file.
One sentence.
SUBJECT C-01 REQUESTED MEMORY DELETION VOLUNTARILY.
I looked at Logan.
“Why?”
He didn't answer.
Eli did.
“Because you knew you were going to kill yourself.”
I stared at him.
“Who told you that?”
“Dad.”
“Where is your dad?”
Eli pointed toward the door.
A man stood there.
Logan.
But the real Logan had been beside us.
I looked from one to the other.
Two identical men.
One whispered:
“Colin…”
May you like
The other raised a gun.
“Don't trust him.”
