Chapter 6 - The Secret Below the HouseI couldn't move.
Two Glens.
One beside me.
One trapped behind the door.
Both sounded exactly the same.
Ariel pressed her face into my shoulder.
The second girl clung to Mara.
“Which one is real?” I whispered.
Mara looked at Glen.
Then at the door.
“I don't know.”
That answer terrified me more than anything else.
Glen stepped toward me.
“I know how this sounds.”
“You sound exactly like him.”
“I am him.”
“Then prove it.”
His face tightened.
“How?”
“Something only you would know.”
He thought.
“Your first date.”
I waited.
“August twelfth. You spilled coffee on my shirt because you were nervous.”
I remembered.
“That could be in your records.”
“Your mother hates lilies.”
I froze.
My mother had died when I was fourteen.
Almost nobody remembered that.
Glen continued.
“When she was dying, she told you not to marry a man who smiled too much.”
I stared at him.
Tears filled my eyes.
“That's impossible.”
The voice behind the door laughed.
“Of course he knows.”
The door shook.
Glen grabbed my arm.
“Move.”
I pulled away.
“Don't touch me.”
He stopped.
The second Ariel spoke.
“That's not Daddy.”
Glen turned toward her.
“Why would you say that?”
She pointed to his hand.
“Daddy has a scar there.”
Glen looked down.
A tiny white scar crossed the base of his thumb.
He had it.
I had seen it hundreds of times.
The other voice behind the door said:
“I have one too.”
Silence.
Mara whispered, “We're out of time.”
She opened a second door at the end of the tunnel.
We entered a large underground chamber.
It looked like a laboratory.
Computers covered the walls.
Monitors displayed dozens of security feeds.
Our house.
The pool.
Ariel's bedroom.
Clara's lounge chair.
The backyard.
Everything.
We had been watched.
For years.
Mara rushed to one console.
“I need the records.”
I stared at a screen.
A folder was labeled:
PROJECT MIRROR
Under it:
SUBJECT A
SUBJECT B
PATERNITY
MEMORY TRANSFER
BEHAVIORAL DUPLICATION
My knees weakened.
“What is Project Mirror?”
Mara didn't look at me.
“A program designed to create replacement identities.”
“For spies?”
“For anyone.”
I stared at her.
“You're saying someone made a copy of my husband?”
Mara nodded.
“Not exactly.”
She opened a file.
Two images appeared.
Both were Glen.
“One was born naturally.”
“And the other?”
“Raised in a controlled environment.”
I looked at the dates.
The two birth dates matched.
The hospital matched.
Everything matched.
Except the fingerprints.
I whispered:
“Which one is my husband?”
Mara looked at me.
“The man beside you doesn't know.”
Glen stepped backward.
“What?”
“His memories may be implanted.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
Mara clicked another file.
MEMORY AUTHENTICITY: 31%
Glen's face crumpled.
I felt my heart break.
Not because he might be fake.
Because he looked terrified.
Like he suddenly couldn't trust his own mind.
The second Ariel walked toward the screen.
She touched a photograph.
“That's Daddy.”
Mara crouched.
“Which one?”
The girl pointed.
The photograph showed Glen at age nine.
Standing beside a little girl.
The little girl's face had been scratched out.
Ariel gasped.
“She was Mommy.”
I stared.
“What?”
Mara zoomed in.
A second photograph appeared.
The girl had the same face as me.
But younger.
Much younger.
My stomach dropped.
“That can't be me.”
Mara looked at me.
“It is.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You're saying I was involved?”
She shook her head.
“Not involved.”
“Then what?”
Mara whispered:
“You weren't supposed to survive.”
The laboratory lights suddenly went out.
A red alarm began flashing.
Then every screen turned on.
A single message appeared.
MIRROR ACTIVE.
Another message appeared underneath.
TARGETS: MOTHER. CHILDREN. CLARA.
Then a final line:
Glen has been replaced.
Behind us, the tunnel door opened.
A man stepped into the laboratory.
May you like
He looked exactly like my husband.
But he was smiling.
