Chapter 8 - PROJECT MIRRORMara read the file again.
Then again.
Nothing made sense.
“Protecting him from me?”
Evelyn nodded.
“You were the only person who could expose the project.”
“What project?”
“Memory replication.”
Damian laughed bitterly.
“Tell her the rest.”
Evelyn hesitated.
Mara glared at her.
“Everything.”
Evelyn opened another file.
“Anthony believed memories could be transferred.”
“To another person?”
“To a biological copy.”
Luca stared.
“You mean…”
“Project Mirror created genetically identical bodies capable of carrying extracted memories.”
Mara felt cold.
“Copies.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Anthony wanted immortality.”
Damian looked at Mara.
“You're part of it.”
“Why?”
“Because you were the first successful subject.”
Mara shook her head.
“I was four.”
“Yes.”
“What memories did they take?”
Evelyn answered quietly:
“All of them.”
Mara stared.
“What?”
“They erased your childhood because they copied it.”
Luca's face tightened.
“Where?”
“Into another body.”
Mara whispered:
“Damian?”
“No.”
Evelyn looked at the doorway.
“Into Anthony.”
Mara's blood ran cold.
“The man on the screen…”
“Has your memories.”
Mara backed away.
“That means he remembers my childhood.”
“He remembers what they extracted.”
“Then he knows everything I know.”
“Not everything.”
Evelyn turned to Luca.
“Because some of your memories were also transferred.”
Luca stared.
“My memories?”
“Anthony wanted a complete successor.”
Mara looked at Damian.
“What about him?”
“Damian was the failed template.”
Damian smiled without humor.
“Thank you.”
Mara walked closer to him.
“So you're not Anthony's biological son.”
“No.”
“Then why does he look like Luca?”
“Because they used Luca's DNA.”
Luca stared at Damian.
“You were built.”
Damian nodded.
“And abandoned.”
The silence became unbearable.
Mara felt suddenly dizzy.
A memory surfaced.
A child running through the blue-door bedroom.
A man grabbing her.
A needle.
A flash of light.
And someone whispering:
“Remember the elevator.”
Mara gasped.
“What?”
Rose grabbed her shoulders.
“Mara?”
“The elevator.”
Luca stepped closer.
“What about it?”
“I remember.”
“What?”
“I was inside it.”
Her eyes widened.
“When I was four.”
Damian's face changed.
“What did you see?”
Mara closed her eyes.
A memory surfaced.
Her mother stood inside the old elevator.
Anthony was there.
And another man.
The man looked exactly like Anthony.
Two identical fathers.
But one had blood on his hands.
Mara whispered:
“I know which one killed my aunt.”
Rose's face went pale.
“Who?”
Mara opened her eyes.
“One of them wasn't Anthony.”
Damian took one step backward.
“What are you saying?”
“I remember the elevator.”
The building lights flickered.
The elevator bell rang somewhere upstairs.
Luca looked toward the ceiling.
“No one should be there.”
Mara heard it again.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
The old elevator was moving.
Coming down.
Evelyn whispered:
“That's impossible.”
“What floor?”
“None.”
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened.
Inside stood a man.
Anthony Moretti.
Or the copy.
He smiled at Mara.
“You finally remembered.”
May you like
Then he pointed at Luca.
“Now ask your brother why he killed your mother.”
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