Chapter 4 - Subject ZeroEvan drove until the city disappeared.
No streetlights.
No buildings.
Only black forest and winding roads.
The SUVs had vanished.
For the first time in an hour, he could breathe.
Barely.
He pulled into an abandoned gas station.
Lucas was asleep in the back seat.
Mara stared through the windshield.
Evan turned toward her.
“Start from the beginning.”
She closed her eyes.
“Twenty years ago, you weren't just working at your father's company.”
“I wasn't?”
“You were being studied.”
Evan frowned.
“I was twenty-one.”
“You were fourteen when it began.”
He froze.
“What?”
“Your father enrolled you in a medical program.”
“I don't remember.”
“You weren't supposed to.”
Mara took a breath.
“They used drugs to suppress specific memories.”
Evan stared at her.
“You're telling me my childhood was erased?”
“Not erased.”
“Then what?”
“Buried.”
She explained.
Helix had been developing a method to manipulate traumatic memory.
Evan's father believed his son could become their first successful human subject.
But something went wrong.
Evan survived.
His brain developed an unusual ability.
He could retain fragmented memories without consciously accessing them.
Helix called him Subject Zero.
Mara met him years later.
She didn't know any of this at first.
Then she found the files.
Then she discovered she was pregnant.
“They wanted Lucas because of me?”
“No.”
Mara looked at him.
“Because of you.”
Evan looked down at his hands.
The ball rested beside the gearshift.
The same old ball.
He picked it up.
A strange pressure moved behind his eyes.
Suddenly he saw something.
A hallway.
White walls.
A little boy crying.
A man in a white coat.
His father.
“Hold still, Evan.”
He blinked.
The memory vanished.
Mara grabbed his arm.
“What happened?”
“I saw something.”
“What?”
“A hallway.”
Her face went pale.
“Tell me everything.”
He described it.
When he finished, she whispered:
“That’s the Helix facility.”
“You've been there?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because I've seen the photographs.”
Evan looked toward Lucas.
The boy had awakened.
“Dad?”
Evan froze.
Lucas looked embarrassed.
“Sorry.”
Evan's throat tightened.
“What did you call me?”
“Dad.”
Mara turned away.
Lucas looked down.
“I don't know why.”
Evan smiled despite everything.
“It’s okay.”
Lucas slowly moved forward.
“My mom said you might be.”
“Might be?”
“You don't seem very happy.”
“I am.”
“Then why do you look scared?”
Because Evan knew exactly what was happening.
He had spent his entire life feeling that something inside his mind was missing.
Now he understood why.
And the worst part was this:
He could feel memories returning.
One after another.
A room.
A needle.
His father's voice.
A woman screaming.
Mara.
Then a final image.
Lucas.
Not as a child.
Older.
Thirty years old.
Standing in a laboratory.
Holding the same ball.
Evan staggered.
“What?”
Mara caught him.
“What did you see?”
“Lucas.”
“What about him?”
“He was older.”
“How much older?”
“Twenty years.”
Mara stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“Tell me about it.”
Evan looked at the documents again.
The page marked Subject Zero.
At the bottom, beneath the medical data, was another notation.
PREDICTIVE MEMORY RESPONSE DETECTED.
Evan's blood chilled.
“He didn't just study my memories.”
Mara looked at him.
“What?”
“They studied what I could remember about the future.”
She shook her head.
“That makes no sense.”
Evan lifted the ball.
“Maybe the ball wasn't meant to find me.”
He looked at Lucas.
“Maybe it was meant to remind me.”
Suddenly, headlights appeared in the distance.
One pair.
Then two.
Then five.
Mara whispered:
“They found us again.”
Evan started the engine.
But Lucas suddenly reached for his hand.
“Dad.”
Evan turned.
The boy's eyes were fixed on the ball.
“There’s something inside it.”
“What?”
Lucas touched the worn leather.
“Mom told me never to cut it open.”
Evan's heart stopped.
He looked at Mara.
She closed her eyes.
Because she knew.
May you like
The secret they had spent twenty years protecting was not in a file.
It was hidden inside the ball.
