Chapter 11 - The countdown continued.19:42.
19:41.
Daniel stared at the screen.
"What do we do?"
Jonathan answered:
"You stop the system."
"How?"
"You can't."
Daniel frowned.
"Then why bring me here?"
Jonathan smiled.
"Because they can."
He looked at Evelyn.
"Only Subject 18 can stop the first layer."
Evelyn stepped closer.
"And Subject 17?"
Jonathan looked at Daniel.
"He can stop the second."
Daniel's expression hardened.
"What happens to us?"
Jonathan didn't answer.
Evelyn understood.
"What happens to us?"
Jonathan finally said:
"You don't survive the process."
Silence.
Thomas shook his head.
"There has to be another way."
Jonathan looked at him.
"There isn't."
Daniel stared at the machinery.
"Then we destroy it."
Jonathan smiled.
"They built it inside your brain."
Daniel felt sick.
"What?"
"The system isn't inside the machine."
Jonathan pointed toward Daniel.
"It's inside you."
Daniel backed away.
His father continued.
"You were the first successful human interface."
Daniel touched his temple.
Every memory suddenly flashed.
His mother.
His father.
Evelyn.
Thomas.
The explosion.
Blackwood Manor.
The hospital.
Everything collided.
Daniel fell to his knees.
Evelyn knelt beside him.
"Daniel."
He whispered:
"My name is Gabriel."
"Yes."
"But Daniel was real."
Evelyn nodded.
"Yes."
"So which one am I?"
She looked at him.
"Both."
Daniel looked up.
"What?"
"You weren't replaced."
Evelyn touched his face.
"You were split."
Jonathan explained.
"Your original identity remained beneath the implanted one."
Daniel remembered something.
A phrase his mother used to say.
You can hide a memory, but you cannot destroy a choice.
He suddenly understood.
The Architects hadn't created obedient agents.
They had created people capable of remembering what was real only when the right emotional trigger appeared.
Daniel looked at Evelyn.
"You knew."
She nodded.
"Some of it."
Thomas stepped forward.
"How do we stop Final Dawn?"
Jonathan pointed toward two chambers.
"Daniel enters one."
"Evelyn enters the other."
"Then?"
Jonathan looked at the countdown.
"Once the synchronization begins, the system will ask each of you one question."
"What question?"
Jonathan answered:
"The same one."
Daniel waited.
Jonathan's voice became quiet.
"Who do you trust?"
Thomas looked at Daniel.
Daniel looked at Evelyn.
A hidden door opened.
The two chambers glowed.
Evelyn stepped inside.
Daniel followed.
The doors closed.
Machines connected to their heads.
The countdown showed:
08:07
The room went dark.
Then a woman's voice began speaking.
Daniel recognized it.
His mother's voice.
"Gabriel."
He opened his eyes.
He was standing in his childhood home.
Everything looked perfect.
His mother was in the kitchen.
His father sat at the table.
Evelyn was twelve years old.
Thomas was sixteen.
Daniel was five.
All of them alive.
His mother smiled.
"You've come home."
Daniel knew it wasn't real.
But every part of him wanted to believe it.
Then his father stood.
He held out his hand.
"Come with me."
Daniel didn't move.
His mother smiled.
"Trust your father."
Daniel looked at her.
Then at Evelyn.
Evelyn whispered:
"Don't."
Daniel froze.
He looked toward Thomas.
Thomas shook his head.
Then Daniel noticed blood dripping from his mother's hands.
He stepped backward.
"You're not my mother."
The room cracked.
His father screamed.
The house collapsed.
Daniel woke inside the chamber.
The system displayed one word.
TRUST.
Then another message appeared.
SUBJECT 17 ACCEPTED.
But a second message appeared beneath it.
SUBJECT 18 REJECTED.
Daniel's eyes widened.
"Evelyn?"
May you like
Her chamber alarm began screaming.
Something had gone wrong.
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