Chapter 17 - The House Without Birth Certificates
We reached Vermont after dawn.
The mountain road twisted through dense pine forests coated in morning fog.
Agent Morris led a convoy of federal vehicles, but we stopped two miles from the coordinate.
Charles had surveillance cameras along the road.
David remembered them.
“He’ll see the convoy.”
“He already expects us,” I said.
I had received a photograph during the drive.
Margaret sat inside a wooden room with her hands tied.
Behind her stood a row of children.
Some were teenagers.
Some were younger.
The oldest looked twenty.
Every one of them wore the same silver identification bracelet.
No names.
Only numbers.
Charles’s message read:
THEY BELONG TO WHOEVER CONTROLS THE TRUST.
Human beings reduced to assets.
Again.
Samuel stared at his daughter’s photograph.
“We go now.”
Agent Morris stopped him.
“We need to assess the property.”
“My daughter is inside.”
“So are at least twelve unidentified civilians.”
David pointed toward a narrow trail.
“There is an old service entrance near the greenhouse.”
“You know the layout?”
“I helped Daniel build the first shelter.”
I looked at him.
“You knew about the children.”
“Not all of them.”
“How many?”
“Six when I left.”
The photograph showed fourteen.
The Legacy Project had continued producing children after Arthur claimed to shut it down.
We approached through the forest.
Samuel stayed behind with the tactical team.
I went with David and Agent Morris.
The mountain estate appeared through the trees.
Stone walls.
Steel shutters.
A greenhouse covered in frost.
It looked less like a home than a private institution.
A young woman stepped onto the rear porch.
She had long red hair.
My hair.
She raised a rifle.
“Stop.”
Agent Morris showed her credentials.
The woman did not lower the weapon.
“Federal agents came before.”
“When?” Morris asked.
“Three years ago.”
“What happened?”
“They took two children.”
David stepped forward.
“Where is Daniel?”
She looked at him.
Her eyes widened.
“Uncle David?”
He froze.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Rose.”
She looked at me.
“No. My real name is Kylie.”
The world seemed to narrow around her face.
She had my eyes.
My mother’s mouth.
“Why do you have my name?” I asked.
“Arthur said I was the first successful replacement.”
Replacement.
The word made me physically ill.
Rose lowered the rifle slowly.
“He said if anything happened to you, I would take your place.”
Agent Morris remained calm.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
I was thirty-five.
She had been created when I was nine.
Arthur had been planning replacements long before Daniel discovered the project.
“Are you my clone?” I asked.
Rose shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
Her egg came from my mother.
Her father was Thomas Laurent.
The same biological parents as me.
She was my full sister, conceived years later through stored genetic material.
Arthur had created another daughter with the same bloodline.
Not to love.
To substitute.
“Where is Charles?” David asked.
“He entered through the front.”
“Margaret?”
“With him.”
“The children?”
“In the lower shelter.”
“Daniel?”
Rose looked toward the house.
“He won’t leave his room.”
“Why?”
“He has been sick for years.”
We entered through the greenhouse.
Rows of medical plants grew beneath heat lamps.
Beyond them was a classroom.
Desks.
Books.
No windows.
The children had been educated inside the estate, hidden from schools, hospitals, and government records.
Rose led us upstairs.
A man lay in a bedroom connected to medical equipment.
He was thin.
Gray-haired despite being only in his early forties.
But I recognized him.
Not from memory.
From the family resemblance.
The real Daniel Rhodes opened his eyes.
“Kylie?”
My knees weakened.
He smiled faintly.
“You grew up.”
I sat beside him.
“So did you.”
His eyes moved toward David.
“You kept her safe.”
David looked away.
“I let her believe you were dead.”
Daniel reached for his hand.
“You followed my order.”
“I followed it too long.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Arthur told me you were safer if Charles believed you were ignorant.”
“Arthur lied about everything.”
“Yes.”
“Did he create these children?”
Daniel’s face filled with pain.
“Some.”
“How many?”
“Thirty-two.”
I stared at him.
“Where are the others?”
“Adopted under false records. Sold into powerful families. Some do not know who they are.”
Agent Morris stepped closer.
“We need the database.”
“Charles has the access key.”
“No,” Daniel whispered. “Kylie does.”
I touched the brass key from the envelope.
Daniel nodded.
“It opens Arthur’s master archive.”
A loudspeaker crackled throughout the estate.
Charles’s voice filled the house.
“Welcome home, Kylie.”
Metal shutters slammed over every window.
Doors locked.
The house sealed around us.
Then Charles continued.
May you like
“You have ten minutes to bring the key downstairs, or Samuel Reed watches his daughter die.”
👉 Charles had trapped Kylie inside the estate, but the sister created to replace her knew a secret passage Arthur had designed for the day his own family turned against him.
