Chapter 15 - WHO GETS TO EAT
We entered the original house under court supervision.
The dining room lights were bright.
The table was perfectly set.
Alana sat at the head, unchanged by age.
Not the real Alana.
A biometric projection generated from the archive.
The younger Dustin stood beside her.
He was not a projection.
DNA showed he was another child created from Michael’s stolen genetic material and a surrogate.
A backup Dustin.
Name: Daniel Parker.
Raised inside the continuity network.
He had been trained to repeat the first dinner until an adult responded correctly.
Alana’s digital figure snatched his plate.
“Pick it up and eat it! That’s your food!”
The boy flinched.
The real Dustin moved before I did.
He placed a full dinner plate in front of Daniel.
“You can eat whatever you want.”
TABLEKEEPER rejected the action.
TEST INVALID.
The digital Alana turned toward me.
“Clarissa, protect your son.”
“I am.”
“Which one?”
The system expected competition.
I pulled both boys behind me.
“Both.”
The room flickered.
Every chair filled with Parker family members from different years.
Robert.
Alana.
Michael.
Thomas.
Ellie.
Claire.
Rachel.
Liam.
Emma.
Some real recordings.
Some synthetic.
Some identities we had never known.
Each held a different plate.
The system announced:
FINAL FAMILY AUTHORITY REQUIRES ONE CHILD TO RECEIVE LESS.
No one moved.
Then Michael entered.
Older.
Released after serving his sentence.
He carried the original plastic plate in an evidence bag.
Dustin looked at him.
“Why are you here?”
“To tell you I saw Grandma rehearse the throw.”
“You already admitted that.”
“No. I saw it years before you were born.”
He placed an old video on the table.
A little boy in a navy suit stood beside Alana.
Not Thomas.
Not Michael.
Robert.
Alana had been raised inside the same ritual by Robert’s mother.
The family table had repeated for generations.
Then the digital system displayed the first recorded child.
Name: CLARISSA PARKER.
Age seven.
My face.
My childhood.
I had never been a Parker child.
Or remembered being one.
The video showed me in a navy suit, hair cut short, holding a potato.
Alana—young—threw the plate at me.
The woman I believed was my mother stood behind the camera.
She said:
“If Clarissa forgets this, she’ll marry into the family willingly.”
My breathing stopped.
The continuity company had altered my childhood records and guided me toward Michael.
I was not an outsider who challenged the Parker system.
I was one of its original test children.
Dustin took my hand.
“Does that change who you are?”
“No.”
TABLEKEEPER flashed:
MEMORY CONFLICT DETECTED.
The dining room doors locked.
The digital Alana smiled.
“You threw the chicken because you remembered.”
I looked at the scattered food beneath the table.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe my body remembered before my mind did.
Then Daniel—the younger backup Dustin—picked up the cold potato.
The system waited.
He looked at the real Dustin.
Then threw it at the digital Alana.
The projection shattered.
Every light went out.
When they returned, the head chair was empty.
The system displayed one final message through the audio speakers:
NO CHILD ACCEPTED LESS.
FAMILY AUTHORITY UNRESOLVED.
The front door opened.
A woman entered wearing an emerald gown.
My face at thirty-five.
She held a full plate of fried chicken.
Another Clarissa.
She placed it at the head of the table and smiled.
“I’m the version who stayed quiet.”
The real Dustin stepped beside me.
Daniel stood on my other side.
The replacement Clarissa looked at both boys.
“One of them belongs to me.”
I answered:
“Children don’t belong to people.”
Her smile vanished.
The phone on the table rang.
The screen showed one word.
SON.
Both boys reached for it.
Before either answered, a child’s voice came through the speaker.
May you like
“Mom... which Dustin are you coming to save?”
Then every plate on the table turned cold.
