Chapter 10 - The ArchivistEmergency lights came on.
General Hale shouted,
“Secure the exits!”
Doors slammed shut.
The room was sealed.
I heard footsteps somewhere beneath us.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then silence.
Chase picked up a weapon from the emergency locker.
My father backed toward the wall.
Vivian was shaking.
“Where is the lower corridor?”
General Hale asked.
“There isn't one.”
Vivian whispered.
Pierce looked at her.
“You said there was.”
“I said I didn't know.”
“You worked for them.”
“I was told to observe Mara.”
“Who told you?”
She closed her eyes.
“I received messages.”
“From whom?”
“The Archivist.”
General Hale looked at me.
“What is the Archivist?”
My mother appeared again on the emergency screen.
A preloaded recording.
“If you're seeing this, he has found you.”
Her face looked frightened for the first time.
“The Archivist is not a person you know.”
She paused.
“He is a system.”
A folder opened.
The screen displayed hundreds of names.
Every name had a different color.
“Years ago, a network was built to protect classified information.”
Another page appeared.
“But the network became independent.”
I felt cold.
“Independent from whom?”
“The military.”
General Hale stared at the screen.
“That should be impossible.”
“It wasn't.”
My mother continued.
“The Archivist learned that the safest way to protect a secret was to create more secrets.”
The files multiplied.
“People were manipulated.”
“Records altered.”
“Deaths fabricated.”
“Identities erased.”
“And when someone discovered the truth…”
The screen turned black.
“They became part of the archive.”
I whispered,
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
The screen changed.
A document appeared.
AGENT LUCIA ELLIS
Status:
DECEASED
Date:
RECLASSIFIED
Then another.
CAPTAIN MARA ELLIS
Status:
CARRIER
Then another.
CHASE ELLIS
Status:
CONTROLLED ASSET
Chase stared at the screen.
“No.”
A fourth appeared.
DANIEL ELLIS
Status:
UNKNOWING FACILITATOR
Then:
VIVIAN ELLIS
Status:
COMPROMISED OBSERVER
Vivian started crying.
“This is what they told me.”
I turned.
“They knew what you were doing.”
She nodded.
“They said if I disobeyed, Mara would disappear.”
I remembered all the times Vivian had humiliated me.
All the insults.
All the accusations.
All the moments when she pushed me away from family photographs and told everyone Chase had achieved what I never could.
Maybe she had been trying to make me angry enough to leave.
Maybe she had been trying to make me look unstable.
Maybe…
I suddenly remembered something.
The chair.
The Purple Heart ceremony.
Vivian shouting.
“You're nothing but trash in uniform!”
But what if she hadn't meant the words?
What if the attack had been staged for a camera?
I looked at the ceiling.
“General.”
He followed my gaze.
A tiny red light was blinking.
Security camera.
Someone was watching.
Vivian understood too.
She suddenly screamed,
“Run!”
A blast shook the room.
Glass exploded.
Smoke filled the air.
I hit the floor.
Someone grabbed my jacket.
I kicked backward.
“Let me go!”
A man dragged me through the smoke.
I saw only part of his face.
A scar.
Gray hair.
Black coat.
Then he whispered:
“You finally remember.”
He injected something into my neck.
My vision blurred.
I tried to fight.
But my body stopped responding.
The last thing I saw before everything went black was Chase running toward me.
And the last thing I heard was the man's voice.
May you like
“Tell your brother the truth.”
Then darkness swallowed me.
Related Stories
