Chapter 12 - The Original ExperimentWe escaped Room Twelve with Evan barely conscious.
Mara led us through a service tunnel.
Nobody trusted Voss anymore.
Not even his own guards.
We reached an old underground control room.
Mara locked the door.
“Tell me everything.”
She looked at Mom.
“You first.”
Mom shook her head.
“I don't remember.”
Mara stared at her.
“Then let me show you.”
She connected a laptop to the hospital network.
A file appeared.
PROJECT GENESIS
Inside were hundreds of names.
Scientists.
Doctors.
Military contractors.
Politicians.
And at the top:
FOUNDATION DIRECTOR: ELIAS VOSS
Below:
ORIGINAL GENETIC SOURCE: SARAH HAYES
Mom covered her mouth.
“I never agreed to this.”
“You didn't have to.”
Mara opened another document.
A photograph of Mom from eighteen years ago.
She was lying in a hospital bed.
Pregnant.
The file said:
SUBJECT S-01
EGG HARVEST SUCCESSFUL
Dad stared.
“What?”
Mom began crying.
“They took your eggs.”
Dad looked at her.
“Without telling you?”
Mara nodded.
“Before Connor was born.”
I stared at the screen.
“So they already had my mother's genetic material.”
“Yes.”
“Then why make a baby?”
Mara answered:
“Because cells in an adult body deteriorate.”
She opened another file.
“Embryonic cells do not.”
I felt sick.
“They wanted to create the perfect regenerative human.”
Dad asked:
“And Connor?”
Mara looked at me.
“He was accidental.”
“What?”
“The experiment created you naturally.”
Mom looked shocked.
“They detected the mutation during pregnancy.”
Voss had known.
The entire pregnancy had been monitored.
My parents hadn't known why.
I was born.
My twin was born.
Then everything changed.
Mara played another recording.
Voss stood beside a hospital bed.
“Subject One exhibits spontaneous cellular adaptation.”
A nurse asked:
“Can we replicate it?”
Voss smiled.
“Not yet.”
The camera turned.
A baby was lying in an incubator.
My twin.
Then another incubator appeared.
Me.
Voss said:
“Keep the adaptive subject alive.”
A doctor protested:
“We're supposed to terminate it.”
Voss turned.
“No.”
“Then what do we tell the parents?”
Voss smiled.
“Tell them one baby died.”
Dad covered his face.
Mom whispered:
“You knew.”
Dad shook his head.
“I knew they said one baby died.”
“But you didn't know which one.”
“No.”
We watched.
Voss pointed at one incubator.
“Subject A goes to the Hayes family.”
Then he pointed at the second.
“Subject B remains here.”
I stared.
Subject B.
Evan.
But something bothered me.
I leaned closer.
The date on the file was March 12.
Two days before my official birth.
I looked at Mara.
“There's a gap.”
“What?”
“Between the twins being born and me going home.”
She nodded.
“Forty-eight hours.”
“Why?”
Mara opened another file.
The title was:
TRANSFER PROTOCOL: MARCH 14
She clicked it.
The screen showed a security camera.
Two doctors carried a newborn through a hallway.
One doctor stopped.
He looked at the baby.
Then at the camera.
And said:
“We have a problem.”
The image froze.
Underneath it was one line:
SUBJECT A IS NOT THE ORIGINAL.
I stared.
“What?”
Mara's face went pale.
“That means…”
She slowly turned toward me.
“You aren't the baby they thought they sent home.”
Dad stared at me.
Mom stopped breathing.
The screen revealed one final line.
ORIGINAL SUBJECT LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
Then Evan whispered:
“Connor…”
I turned.
He was staring at me.
“You're not the original.”
May you like
His voice shook.
“They switched us.”
