Chapter 15 - THE LAST ROOMThe story spread faster than anyone could contain.
The names appeared online.
The photographs appeared on television.
Officials resigned.
Police stations were raided.
Secret laboratories were discovered across Europe.
Families learned that sons and daughters they had buried decades earlier had never died.
The village became the center of an international investigation.
But the ship was gone.
Completely destroyed.
Lidia was never found.
Neither was Adrian Voss.
Pavel survived.
Ovidiu survived.
The twelve prisoners survived.
The others were taken to hospitals under military protection.
Stefan disappeared.
For six months, nobody knew where he was.
Then, one winter morning, Pavel received a letter.
No sender.
Only his name.
Inside was a photograph.
Stefan standing beside a lake.
Alive.
Older.
Smiling.
On the back were seven words:
THE ARCHIVE WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
Pavel immediately understood.
He drove to the location listed beneath the photograph.
An abandoned research station.
No electricity.
No guards.
No cameras.
He entered alone.
At the end of the building was a small room.
Inside sat Stefan.
Across from him was Elena.
Pavel closed the door.
"So it wasn't destroyed."
Stefan looked at him.
"No."
"What survived?"
"The original archive."
"Where?"
Stefan pointed toward his head.
Pavel sighed.
"Still inside you."
Stefan nodded.
"But not all of it."
"What do you mean?"
Stefan smiled.
"There are memories I never accessed."
"Whose?"
He looked toward Elena.
"People who came before me."
Elena stood.
"Thirty years ago, the program began with one subject."
Pavel asked:
"Who?"
Elena opened an old metal box.
Inside was a photograph.
A child.
Maybe six years old.
The child stood in front of the first facility.
Beside him were Lidia, Adrian, and Elena.
Pavel stared.
"That's Stefan."
"No."
Elena slowly turned the photograph over.
On the back was a date.
Pavel looked again.
The boy couldn't be Stefan.
Stefan hadn't been born.
Then who was he?
Elena whispered:
"The first one."
Pavel's blood ran cold.
"What happened to him?"
Elena pointed to another photograph.
A laboratory.
A metal table.
And a body.
"His memories were transferred."
"To whom?"
Elena looked at Stefan.
"To him."
Pavel stared at Stefan.
"You were never the first subject."
Stefan shook his head.
"No."
"Then what are you?"
Stefan stood.
"I am every subject."
Silence.
Pavel took a step backward.
Stefan continued:
"Every person they experimented on."
"Every memory."
"Every victim."
"Every witness."
"Everything they tried to erase."
Pavel finally understood why the archive could never be destroyed.
It wasn't stored in a machine.
It wasn't stored on a server.
It was alive.
Inside one human being.
Then the lights went out.
Elena froze.
A voice came from the darkness.
A familiar voice.
Lidia's voice.
"You've found the last room."
Stefan turned.
"Mother?"
The voice laughed softly.
"No."
A figure stepped into the doorway.
It looked exactly like Lidia.
Same face.
Same silver hair.
Same eyes.
But there was something wrong.
The woman's smile was too perfect.
Too calm.
She looked at Stefan.
Then at Pavel.
And said:
"Did you really believe I died in the explosion?"
Nobody moved.
The woman stepped closer.
"I was the one who taught them how to make copies."
Stefan's face became blank.
"You aren't Lidia."
"No."
She smiled.
"And neither are you."
The door slammed shut.
A lock clicked.
Then the woman whispered:
"Now, let's begin again."
And from somewhere behind the walls came the sound of hundreds of people waking up.
May you like
All at once.
THE END.
