Chapter 9 - The First SubjectThe woman on the screen was my mother.
But not the mother I knew.
Not the woman who had raised me.
This woman wore a black military uniform.
Her eyes were colder.
Sharper.
Alive with the certainty of someone who had never apologized for anything.
I stepped closer.
“How?”
Ethan didn't answer.
Lauren whispered:
“There were two of her.”
My mother appeared beside us.
For the first time, she looked truly afraid.
“She was my predecessor.”
I stared at her.
“You cloned identities.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“We manufactured identities.”
The woman on the screen spoke.
“You all misunderstood Blackfall.”
Her voice was calm.
“It was never designed to erase people.”
The screen showed thousands of files.
“We designed it to replace them.”
Identity wasn't a name.
It was a collection of memories.
Records.
Relationships.
Habits.
Financial history.
Social connections.
If those things could be reproduced, anyone could become anyone.
That was Blackfall.
A machine for manufacturing ghosts.
The first subject continued.
“I was the first successful transfer.”
I looked at my mother.
“You created her?”
“No.”
My mother whispered:
“She created me.”
My mind reeled.
The first subject was my grandmother.
The woman who had supposedly died before I was born.
She had created my mother.
My mother had created Blackfall.
And I had been the final experiment.
Ethan looked at me.
“They wanted to see whether a trained operative could live an ordinary life after every memory of war had been buried.”
I whispered:
“And you?”
“I was assigned as your husband.”
“To monitor me.”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
He looked away.
“I fell in love with you.”
Nobody spoke.
Then my grandmother laughed from the screen.
“That's the flaw in every experiment.”
She looked directly at me.
“Humans become unpredictable when they care.”
The facility shook again.
This time the ceiling cracked.
My grandmother continued:
“You were never supposed to regain your memories naturally.”
I looked at Ethan.
“So you attacked me.”
“To trigger your combat response.”
“You knew I'd fight.”
“Yes.”
“And if I didn't?”
He swallowed.
“I would have died.”
I almost laughed.
“You knew the baseball bat might kill you?”
“I knew you wouldn't.”
That answer disturbed me more than anything else.
He trusted my instincts.
More than I trusted them myself.
Then an explosion tore through the facility.
The screens went dark.
Emergency lights flashed.
My grandmother's voice vanished.
Lauren screamed.
The chamber doors opened.
The missing women woke simultaneously.
Daniel ran toward them.
I looked at Ethan.
“Who attacked us?”
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
A siren began.
Not a normal emergency siren.
A nuclear warning.
Daniel returned.
“We have six minutes.”
“Until what?”
“Until this island is destroyed.”
My mother grabbed my arm.
“We have to leave.”
I looked toward the screen.
My grandmother's face reappeared.
She smiled.
“You have six minutes to choose.”
A countdown appeared.
06:00.
05:59.
05:58.
She continued:
“Save the women…”
May you like
The timer ticked down.
“…or save your mother.”
