Chapter 18 - The Original KeyMy entire life had been built around a lie.
My father.
My mother.
My grandfather.
Emily.
Even my childhood memories.
Vanessa showed me records.
Medical files.
DNA reports.
Laboratory photographs.
I had been tested as a child.
Repeatedly.
Without knowing why.
The archive wasn't originally designed around Lily.
It was designed around me.
I was the first successful genetic key.
But my grandfather abandoned the project after my parents objected.
Years later, Lily inherited the same sequence.
That was why the system responded to both of us.
Vanessa wanted Lily because Lily was easier to control.
But she needed me too.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because the archive requires two confirmations.”
“Mine and Lily's?”
“Yes.”
“And Emily?”
“She built the fail-safe.”
Emily looked at me.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You lied to me.”
“I know.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
She cried.
“Not when the person threatening your daughter can erase every record of her existence.”
I stopped.
“Your daughter?”
Emily looked at Lily.
Then at me.
Lily wasn't Vanessa's target.
She was Emily's daughter.
But why had Emily said that?
Vanessa answered.
“Because Lily was born from the project.”
“What project?”
“The DNA program.”
I looked at my sister.
“Did you knowingly let them use your child?”
“No.”
Emily's voice broke.
“I thought they were helping her.”
She explained that Lily had been born with complications.
Doctors said she needed monitoring.
The truth was that someone had engineered the monitoring.
They wanted to test whether the genetic sequence could be inherited.
Lily was the result.
I wanted to scream.
Vanessa stepped closer.
“The archive can be erased tonight.”
“Or exposed.”
“Yes.”
“And you're asking me to choose.”
“No.”
She smiled.
“You are going to choose.”
She pointed toward a screen.
A video appeared.
My father was strapped to a chair.
Sarah stood beside him.
Marcus was bleeding.
Vanessa said:
“Activate the archive, and they die.”
“Erase it, and Emily dies.”
I looked at my sister.
She shook her head.
“Don't.”
Vanessa pressed a button.
Lily appeared on another monitor.
She was alone in a dark room.
“Say the word,” Vanessa ordered.
Lily cried.
“Home?”
“Yes.”
Lily looked at the camera.
Then she did something none of us expected.
She smiled.
“I know who you really are.”
Vanessa froze.
“What?”
Lily lifted her hand.
She was holding a tiny black key.
Not the one we'd found.
Another.
Vanessa's face changed.
Emily whispered:
“She found it.”
Lily looked into the camera.
“Mommy told me to wait until everybody was here.”
Every screen in the room suddenly went black.
Then one sentence appeared.
ARCHIVE OVERRIDE: LILY CARTER.
Vanessa screamed.
And beneath the message appeared another line.
SECOND KEY ACCEPTED: JAMES CARTER.
I felt my phone vibrate.
A countdown began.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Vanessa lunged toward me.
Seven.
Six.
May you like
Five.
And then the archive opened.
