Chapter 10: Subject Zero
The words on the photograph wouldn't leave my mind.
You were Subject Zero all along.
I read them again.
And again.
As if staring at the sentence long enough might somehow make it mean something else.
It didn't.
My father had taken Ava.
My mother had lied to me for nine years.
Serena had watched my daughter since birth.
And now I was apparently part of the same experiment.
I looked at the photograph.
I was five years old.
Standing beside my father.
Smiling at the camera.
Behind us was the same basement.
The same twelve chairs.
Except there were only eleven.
One chair had been removed.
Someone had written:
SUBJECT ZERO
under the photograph.
My hands started shaking.
"Daniel."
Marcus's voice brought me back.
"Where's Ava?"
I looked up.
"Richard took her."
Thomas swore.
"Then we don't have much time."
I turned toward him.
"You knew."
He looked away.
"You knew I was part of this."
"Not everything."
"How much?"
He didn't answer.
I grabbed him by the collar.
"How much?"
Thomas stared into my eyes.
"Your father tested the program on you first."
My grip loosened.
"What program?"
"Conditioning."
I felt sick.
"Explain."
"Your father believed certain genetic traits could make a person unusually resistant to fear, stress, and psychological manipulation."
I shook my head.
"That's insane."
"He wasn't trying to create a weapon."
"What was he trying to create?"
Thomas hesitated.
"A perfect survivor."
I laughed bitterly.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"No."
He pointed toward the photograph.
"You don't have to believe me."
"Then prove it."
Thomas looked at Claire.
She nodded.
Claire walked toward one of the filing cabinets.
She opened it.
Inside were dozens of medical records.
She pulled out a thick file.
The label read:
SUBJECT ZERO - DANIEL CROSS
My name.
My entire life.
Inside were photographs of me as a child.
Medical scans.
Psychological evaluations.
Blood tests.
School records.
Everything.
There was even a photograph of me sleeping.
I turned the pages.
One report caught my attention.
Age: 5
Response to controlled fear stimulus: exceptional.
Another:
Age: 7
Memory retention after traumatic exposure: abnormal.
Another:
Age: 10
Subject demonstrates unusually strong emotional suppression.
I stopped.
I remembered being ten.
My parents had always told me I was "mature for my age."
Maybe I wasn't.
Maybe I'd been trained.
I looked at my mother.
"Did you know?"
She nodded.
"Not at first."
"When did you find out?"
"When you were twelve."
"That's when Dad supposedly died."
She looked down.
"Yes."
I understood.
His disappearance wasn't the beginning.
It was the moment she finally tried to get me away from him.
"What happened when I was twelve?"
My mother whispered:
"Your father wanted to take you back."
"Why?"
"Because you had started remembering."
"Remembering what?"
She looked at Claire.
Claire answered.
"The first experiment."
I felt cold.
"What experiment?"
Claire opened another file.
Inside was a video drive.
She connected it to the old computer.
The screen flickered.
A recording appeared.
I was five.
Sitting in a chair.
A man stood behind a glass window.
My father.
A woman sat across from me.
She asked:
"Daniel, are you afraid?"
Child-me shook my head.
"No."
"What do you see?"
"A door."
"What's behind it?"
"I don't know."
The woman smiled.
"Good."
Then a loud noise played.
Five-year-old me didn't flinch.
The woman looked toward my father.
"It worked."
My father said:
"Again."
I stared at the screen.
I couldn't breathe.
This wasn't a memory.
It was proof.
They had experimented on me.
The video continued.
A younger Serena appeared in the room.
She was holding a clipboard.
She looked terrified.
My father told her:
"Record his response."
She nodded.
Then child-me looked directly into the camera.
And said something that made the entire room go silent.
"I know you're watching."
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
I turned toward Serena.
She was crying.
"You knew."
She nodded.
"I saw the recording."
"When?"
"Five years ago."
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
"Because your father threatened to kill you."
I stared at her.
"And you believed him?"
"I saw what he did to the others."
"Which others?"
She looked toward the twelve chairs.
"Children who remembered."
I felt sick.
"Did he kill them?"
"No."
She swallowed.
"Worse."
Before I could ask what she meant, Marcus rushed into the room.
"We found the exit."
"Where?"
"Behind the control room."
I grabbed the files.
"We're leaving."
Thomas stopped me.
"Daniel."
"What?"
"Look at this."
He pointed toward a monitor.
A live camera feed.
Ava.
She was sitting in a chair.
Richard stood behind her.
My heart stopped.
"Where is that?"
Thomas checked the signal.
"Another facility."
"Where?"
"About forty minutes away."
"Let's go."
Thomas shook his head.
"There's a problem."
"What?"
"Richard isn't alone."
The screen changed.
Several people entered the room.
I recognized one of them.
A man in a gray suit.
My father's old lawyer.
Another was a doctor I'd seen on my childhood medical records.
And then someone else walked into frame.
A woman.
She turned toward the camera.
My blood ran cold.
It was my mother.
No.
Not my mother.
Another woman.
Someone who looked almost exactly like her.
Claire stared at the screen.
"That's impossible."
I looked at her.
"Who is she?"
Claire whispered:
"Your mother's sister."
I stared.
"My mother doesn't have a sister."
"She did."
"What happened to her?"
"She disappeared twenty years ago."
The woman on the screen smiled.
Then she looked directly into the camera.
As if she could see us.
She said:
"Daniel."
I froze.
She continued:
"Your father told you the truth about one thing."
She stepped closer.
"You are Subject Zero."
Then she smiled.
"But Ava isn't Subject Twelve."
I felt my heart stop.
The screen changed.
A document appeared.
SUBJECT 12: DECEASED
I stared.
"That's impossible."
Claire whispered:
"They're using a fake designation."
"Then who is Ava?"
The woman on the screen answered.
"Ava is Subject Zero's daughter."
I shook my head.
"That's all?"
She smiled.
"No."
The screen showed another document.
A DNA comparison.
Daniel Cross
Ava Cross
Genetic compatibility: 99.98%
I stared at it.
"But I'm not her biological father."
The woman smiled.
"That's what Serena wanted you to believe."
I looked at Serena.
She was crying.
"No."
"Serena."
She shook her head.
"I was forced to falsify the DNA report."
"Then Ava is my daughter?"
She nodded.
"Yes."
My knees nearly gave out.
Five years of doubt.
Five years of believing she wasn't mine.
Five years of wondering why she looked at me differently.
Why she always ran to me.
Why she trusted me even when everyone else frightened her.
She was my daughter.
My blood.
My child.
The woman on the screen continued.
"And now Richard knows the truth."
I looked at the monitor.
"What truth?"
She leaned toward the camera.
"That Ava inherited your resistance."
I felt a chill.
"Resistance to what?"
She smiled.
"Fear."
Then the screen went black.
Thomas grabbed his weapon.
"We need to move."
I picked up the files.
"Where?"
He pointed toward the exit.
"Before Richard realizes we know."
We ran.
But as we reached the outside door, my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A video message.
I opened it.
Ava appeared on the screen.
Her face was wet with tears.
"Daddy..."
I nearly dropped the phone.
A voice spoke behind her.
"Daniel."
Richard.
"You have one hour."
The camera moved closer to Ava.
"Come alone."
Richard paused.
"Bring the original Subject Zero file."
My blood ran cold.
"And if you don't?"
He smiled.
"Then Ava learns what you learned at five."
The video ended.
I looked at the others.
Nobody spoke.
Then I noticed something.
Ava had been holding something in her hand.
A tiny piece of paper.
She had deliberately shown it to the camera.
I zoomed in.
Four words were written on it.
DADDY, TRUST CLAIRE.
I looked at Claire.
She immediately understood.
"She wants me to come."
I shook my head.
"No."
Claire stared at me.
"Why?"
"Because if Ava is being used as bait..."
I looked toward the road.
"...then Richard isn't expecting all of us."
I folded the paper.
"We're going to rescue my daughter."
Thomas asked:
"What's the plan?"
I looked at the file labeled Subject Zero.
For the first time in my life, I wasn't running from my father's experiment.
I was going straight toward it.
"We give Richard what he wants."
Marcus frowned.
"What?"
I looked at him.
"The file."
Then I smiled.
"Except we're going to give him the wrong one."
May you like
And somewhere forty minutes away...
my daughter was sitting alone in a room with the man who had spent her entire life hunting her.
