Chapter 13 - THE LAST SECRET OF LIDIAStefan screamed.
The darkness vanished.
He woke on the floor of the ship.
Real this time.
Rain hammered the metal roof.
Pavel was beside him.
Ovidiu was unconscious.
Lidia was standing in front of the old generator.
Blood ran down her arm.
"Where were you?"
Stefan rose.
"You told me to kill you."
Lidia smiled sadly.
"Now you know why."
Pavel examined the room.
"She planted explosives."
Lidia nodded.
"Everything underneath us has to disappear."
"Why?"
"Because the archive is not a book."
She pointed to Stefan.
"It's him."
Pavel stared.
"The memories?"
Lidia nodded.
"They stored the entire archive inside the nervous system of the first successful subject."
Stefan whispered:
"Me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because no machine could be hacked if the information was inside a person."
Pavel looked horrified.
"How do we destroy it?"
Lidia looked at Stefan.
"We don't."
Stefan's face changed.
"Then what?"
"We release it."
"How?"
"Through the broadcast system."
The facility had been designed with a hidden emergency transmitter.
If activated, every recorded memory would be sent to the outside network.
Government archives.
News stations.
Police databases.
Foreign servers.
Everywhere.
The truth would become impossible to bury.
But there was a cost.
Stefan would have to remain connected during the transmission.
Lidia knew what that meant.
He might not survive.
"You're asking me to die."
"I'm asking you to finish what I started."
Pavel stepped between them.
"There has to be another way."
Lidia shook her head.
"There isn't."
Suddenly the ship doors exploded inward.
Armed men stormed inside.
Pavel fired.
Ovidiu woke.
Stefan ran toward the transmitter room.
Lidia stayed behind.
"Go!"
Stefan looked back.
She smiled.
The first explosion shook the ship.
Then another.
The transmitter came alive.
A massive screen displayed one sentence:
ARCHIVE ACCESS GRANTED.
Stefan connected the final cable.
Thousands of memories exploded through the system.
Faces.
Names.
Deaths.
Orders.
Confessions.
The world began receiving everything.
But one final file remained.
LOCKED.
Stefan stared at it.
"What is this?"
Lidia's voice came through the intercom.
"The truth about your birth."
He opened it.
His hands froze.
The first image appeared.
A photograph.
Lidia.
Adrian.
And a third person.
Stefan's biological mother.
She was someone he had seen all his life.
Someone who had stood beside him.
Someone who was still alive.
Pavel looked at the photograph.
"Who is she?"
Stefan whispered:
"My mother."
But Lidia wasn't his mother.
And the woman in the photograph...
was standing outside the ship.
May you like
Right now.
Watching them.
