Chapter 13 - THE VOICE INSIDE LAB THREE
Avery enhanced nothing.
I told her not to.
No invented clarity.
No software guessing faces.
We worked only with what the environmental system actually captured.
The final diagnostic image showed a partial body near the reactor.
Dark clothing.
Gloved hand.
Silver key attached to a short chain.
No face.
No reliable gender.
The audio was better.
Lab Three’s emergency recorder automatically saved thirty seconds before any containment alarm.
Avery played it.
At first:
Machine noise.
My footsteps.
I heard myself say:
“Why is Batch 7 unlocked?”
My own voice made my skin crawl.
Then another voice answered from somewhere near the reactor.
“You came alone.”
I froze.
A woman.
Older than Cassandra.
Not Miriam.
Not Avery.
I had never heard Helena Ward speak.
But Margaret’s recording gave me the name.
I whispered:
“Play it again.”
Avery did.
Woman:
“You came alone.”
Me:
“Who are you?”
Then:
“You look like your father when you’re angry.”
My heart stopped.
The woman knew me.
Knew my father.
Then I heard myself move backward.
“Get away from the reactor.”
The woman answered:
“He should have destroyed everything.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
My breathing became shallow.
Then the alarm began.
Me:
“What did you do?”
Woman:
“Nothing Cassandra didn’t already prepare.”
That line changed everything.
The third person had used Cassandra and Julian’s planned reactor fault.
Turned it into something worse.
Then:
“Where is Helena?”
My recorded voice asked.
I stopped.
I had known the name.
At least in that moment.
Avery paused the audio.
“Elena?”
“I don’t remember.”
Trauma.
Sedation.
Or something else.
“Keep playing.”
My recorded voice:
“Helena is dead.”
The woman laughed.
“No.”
My skin prickled.
Then:
“She just stopped using that name.”
The hydrogen alarm intensified.
I heard myself move.
A metal latch.
Me:
“Open the door!”
Woman:
“You built a beautiful prison into your own system.”
Then I heard something I never remembered.
A second person.
Male.
Through a speaker or earpiece.
“Thirty seconds.”
The woman:
“I know.”
Male voice:
“Do not stay.”
She answered:
“Elena has the key.”
What key?
My founder token?
Margaret’s silver key?
Something else?
My recorded voice shouted:
“Who are you talking to?”
Then the woman said:
“Ask Julian what his mother gave him.”
The audio ended in explosion.
I removed my headphones.
My hands were shaking.
Julian’s mother.
Again.
She had given Cassandra a drive.
Left me a silver key.
Possibly gave Julian something else.
I called him.
“What did Margaret give you before she died?”
Silence.
“Julian.”
“A letter.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Elena.”
“The woman in Lab Three said to ask you.”
Silence.
Long enough to become confession.
“What did she give you?”
“A vial.”
My stomach tightened.
“What vial?”
“Blood.”
“Whose?”
“My mother’s.”
“Why?”
“She told me to keep it frozen.”
My mind raced.
Margaret had been treated with Aurum.
Her blood contained the persistent sequence.
A biological record.
Potential proof.
“Where is it?”
“At HartVale.”
“Where?”
“My private freezer.”
“Who knows?”
“Cassandra.”
“Anyone else?”
“Miriam.”
“Did you test it?”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
Julian’s voice became quiet.
“The sequence inside my mother was not the one Cassandra said she gave her.”
My breath stopped.
“What?”
“It wasn’t your abandoned protocol.”
“Then whose?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did it match Batch 7?”
“Partly.”
The puzzle sharpened.
Margaret was treated eighteen months ago with a sequence from an unknown source.
Cassandra then used her response data to build the treatment Julian received.
Batch 7 evolved from both.
The entire secret program descended from something older than HartVale.
My father’s Project Gold.
“Why hide this from me?”
Julian answered:
“Because if your father developed the core sequence before HartVale, our ownership structure might be invalid.”
There it was.
Money again.
“If Aurum came from my father’s preexisting work—”
“Then investors could challenge every assignment.”
“And Cassandra knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Before she treated my mother.”
My chest tightened.
Cassandra had known for at least eighteen months.
“What about Helena Ward?”
Silence.
“You know that name.”
Julian whispered:
“My mother mentioned her.”
“Alive?”
“She said Helena was your father’s research partner.”
“Why have I never heard of her?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to her?”
“Officially?”
“Yes.”
“She died twenty-one years ago.”
My skin prickled.
Another dead person who might not be dead.
Then Julian said:
“Elena, we need to get Margaret’s blood sample before Cassandra does.”
“Why?”
Silence.
“Julian.”
“Because she asked for it ten minutes ago.”
“From who?”
“The freezer manager.”
“Did they release it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It requires two executive approvals.”
“Yours and?”
He hesitated.
“Yours.”
My founder authority still controlled something after all.
Then my phone announced an authorization request.
BIOLOGICAL ARCHIVE RELEASE.
Sample:
MH-AURUM-001.
Margaret Hart.
Requester:
Cassandra Vale.
I denied it.
Immediately.
Three seconds later, another approval appeared.
Requester changed.
Elena Hart.
My own stolen credentials were trying to authorize the release after I had just refused it.
Someone was still impersonating me.
And this time, the system accepted.
May you like
Sample release approved.
📖 Find out who used my identity to override my refusal—and why Margaret’s blood sample became the most dangerous piece of Aurum evidence in CHAPTER 14. 👇
