Nobody moved.
Jason stared at the man standing across the chamber.
I stared too.
The resemblance was impossible.
It wasn't the vague similarity of relatives.
It was Jason.
Older.
Perhaps twenty years older.
Same dark eyes.
Same shape of mouth.
Same scar.
Even the slight tilt of his head was familiar.
Jason whispered, “Who are you?”
The man looked at him.
“You know.”
“I don't.”
“Yes, you do.”
The stranger stepped between them.
“Michael.”
The older man nodded.
“You finally said my name.”
Jason shook his head.
“No.”
Michael smiled sadly.
“You were always stubborn.”
Jason took a step backward.
“I've never seen you.”
“You have.”
“When?”
“When you were three.”
Jason stared.
The memories were still coming.
The silver watch.
The blue light.
The woman in the white coat.
The crying child.
He pressed both hands against his temples.
“I don't remember.”
“You will.”
The baby cried.
Michael looked toward her.
His expression softened.
“She has the sequence.”
The stranger nodded.
“She is the composite.”
Michael stepped closer.
Emily immediately moved behind me.
“Don't come near her.”
He stopped.
“I won't.”
He looked at me.
“You're Subject 12.”
I felt anger rise.
“My name is—”
“I know your name.”
“Then use it.”
He smiled.
“That's what your mother wanted.”
Something about the way he said it made me pause.
“You knew my mother?”
“I knew her better than anyone.”
“How?”
Michael looked at the stranger.
“He didn't tell you?”
The stranger remained silent.
Michael shook his head.
“Of course not.”
Jason looked between them.
“What?”
Michael answered.
“Your mother saved me.”
Jason stared.
“How?”
“When I was taken.”
“By Dad?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Michael walked toward the wall.
There was a photograph hidden behind a panel.
He pulled it free.
It showed our mother holding a young boy.
Michael.
I looked at the date.
He was about four years old.
My mother was crying.
On the back was a message.
I promised him I would come back.
I swallowed hard.
“She tried to rescue you.”
“She did.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't she?”
Michael's expression changed.
“Because she discovered the program had another purpose.”
“The memory experiments.”
“Yes.”
He explained that the researchers had become obsessed with the possibility that certain biological patterns could preserve fragments of learned responses. They believed those patterns might be transferred into future generations.
“They weren't trying to create identical people,” he said.
“Then what?”
“Continuity.”
Jason frowned.
“Continuity of what?”
“Experience.”
The stranger looked down.
“They wanted to make a child who could inherit memories.”
Michael nodded.
“That was the real goal.”
I looked at the baby.
“And she can?”
“She can carry the mechanism.”
“Can she remember?”
“Not like an adult.”
“Then what does she have?”
“Access.”
“To whose memories?”
Michael looked at me.
“Yours.”
My stomach tightened.
“Mine?”
“And Jason's.”
The stranger corrected him.
“Michael's.”
Jason looked at him.
“You mean I am Michael.”
“No.”
Michael smiled.
“That confusion is exactly what your father wanted.”
Jason looked lost.
Michael continued.
“There were three children.”
I stared at him.
“Three?”
“Yes.”
“Me.”
“You.”
“Jason.”
He shook his head.
“Not exactly.”
“And you.”
“Yes.”
I felt dizzy.
“Then who is Jason?”
Michael looked at my brother.
“That's what you need to ask him.”
Jason frowned.
“I don't know.”
Michael stepped closer.
“You were created from my cells.”
Jason froze.
The stranger closed his eyes.
I stared at my brother.
“What?”
Michael continued.
“After I escaped, your father believed the researchers would use me to rebuild the project. So he created another child from my preserved cells.”
Jason's voice was barely audible.
“Me.”
“Yes.”
“But I have memories.”
“Some are yours.”
“Some?”
Michael nodded.
“Some came from me.”
Jason looked sick.
“That means…”
“You were never my replacement.”
Michael looked at him.
“You were my continuation.”
The phrase hung in the room.
Jason's eyes filled with tears.
“Why did Dad call me his son?”
“Because you were.”
“But I wasn't really—”
“You were his child.”
Michael's voice softened.
“Your father loved you.”
Jason looked down.
I stepped toward him.
He looked at me.
For the first time since the truth began unfolding, I could see the fear beneath his anger.
I took his hand.
“You're still my brother.”
He squeezed it.
Michael watched us.
“That is the part your father got right.”
The baby suddenly became restless.
Michael turned toward her.
“She knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That the sequence is complete.”
The stranger moved toward the platform.
“There has to be a way to shut it down.”
Michael shook his head.
“There isn't.”
“Then what happens?”
“The child chooses.”
Emily tightened her hold.
“Chooses what?”
“Which memories become active.”
I looked at the baby.
“How?”
“The marker.”
The stranger studied the symbols.
“Three sequences.”
“Yes.”
“Subject 12.”
“Her.”
“Subject 13.”
“Michael.”
Jason stared.
“And me?”
Michael looked at him.
“You are the bridge.”
Jason shook his head.
“I don't want any of this.”
“You don't have to.”
“What happens if I refuse?”
“Nothing.”
The stranger frowned.
“Then why were they hunting them?”
“Because they thought control was possible.”
“And it isn't?”
Michael smiled.
“No.”
A distant alarm sounded.
Everyone turned.
The farmhouse above us was being entered again.
“They found us,” Jason said.
Michael nodded.
“Then we don't have much time.”
He walked to the central platform.
“There is one final record.”
“From Dad?”
“Yes.”
He pressed his palm against the symbol.
The room came alive.
A recording appeared on the wall.
Our father stood in the image.
Older.
Tired.
His face looked nothing like the father I remembered.
He stared directly into the camera.
“If you're seeing this, then the researchers have failed to stop the sequence.”
Jason stepped closer.
Our father's recorded voice continued.
“I need you to understand that I lied to protect you.”
I felt tears fill my eyes.
He continued.
“I made mistakes.”
The recording showed photographs of us.
My childhood.
Jason's childhood.
Michael.
Our mother.
Then the baby.
A photograph I had never seen before.
She was an embryo in a laboratory.
The date was two years before Jason and I were supposedly born.
Our father continued.
“The final child was never meant to be created.”
Michael whispered, “He changed his mind.”
The recording continued.
“But after your mother died, I discovered something in her records.”
A pause.
“She had carried a fourth sequence.”
The stranger stared.
“Fourth.”
Our father's voice continued.
“Not Subject 12. Not Subject 13. Not Subject 14.”
I felt the room go cold.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Something older.”
The recording ended.
The lights went out.
Then the baby's back began glowing faintly beneath her blanket.
A fourth line appeared around the familiar circle.
Michael stared.
“That wasn't in the original records.”
Jason looked at him.
“What does it mean?”
Michael's face had gone pale.
“It means your mother was never the beginning.”
A sound came from the stairwell.
Footsteps.
Several people were coming down.
The stranger reached for the weapon he had hidden beneath his coat.
Emily backed toward the wall.
I held the baby.
Jason stood beside me.
Michael looked at the fourth symbol.
Then at me.
“Your father spent his entire life believing he was protecting you.”
“From what?”
Michael's answer was almost a whisper.
“From whoever created your mother.”
The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs.
A door opened.
A woman in a white coat entered the chamber.
The same woman Jason had remembered.
The silver watch was on her wrist.
She looked at me.
Then at the baby.
And smiled.
“Evelyn's daughter.”
I held the baby closer.
The woman looked at Jason.
“Michael.”
Then she looked at the older man.
“Subject 14.”
Finally, she turned toward the stranger.
“You brought them exactly where we needed them.”
The stranger's face changed.
“You knew I'd come.”
She smiled.
“We've been waiting twenty-eight years.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 13: The Woman With the Silver Watch
My Twin Brother Had Waited Years for This Child, Yet the First Thing He Saw After Her Birth Made Him Step Away
Part 12 of 20
