Chapter 10 - THE OTHER DR. VALE
Jonathan Vale contacted me through the clinic’s original security system.
He looked exactly like Samuel with slightly grayer hair.
He claimed Samuel took credit for research Jonathan designed.
Their father raised Samuel publicly and Jonathan privately.
One became physician.
The other became replacement, transporter, and cleaner.
Jonathan said he removed Anna from Colorado to protect her from federal seizure.
He believed government custody would turn the children into evidence before treating them as people.
Some institutions had failed.
His private kidnapping was not the answer.
He offered to surrender Anna if I gave him the silver cup and William’s journals.
He wanted control of the program’s history.
I refused a secret trade.
Rebecca arranged communication under supervision.
Anna appeared on video.
She looked healthy, cautious, and far older in expression than five.
Jonathan asked her who I was.
She answered, “The first mother.”
The program taught children numbered family roles.
First mother.
Carrier mother.
Medical father.
Legal father.
No simple names.
I spoke directly to her.
“My name is Anna too.”
She frowned.
“Only one person can be Anna.”
“That is not true.”
Jonathan muted the call.
He could not allow identity outside hierarchy.
Federal analysts traced a church bell and freight train in the background.
A converted monastery in Pennsylvania.
Agents entered.
Jonathan escaped through an underground tunnel but left Anna with a caretaker.
She entered therapeutic protection.
Our first meeting lasted four minutes.
She would not come near me.
She asked whether Lucas replaced her.
“No.”
“Then why do you keep him?”
“Because he is my son.”
“What am I?”
“A child connected to me. You decide how our relationship grows.”
She looked confused.
The program expected immediate claims or rejection.
Choice created unfamiliar space.
Then she asked for paper.
She drew a silver cup.
Inside it, not liquid.
A key.
The cup’s hidden base opened a vault beneath the monastery.
Agents returned.
Inside were original birth records, embryo files, and video diaries from William, Sylvia, Samuel, and Jonathan.
One recording showed my father, David Collins.
He had not abandoned my mother.
Mitchell agents recruited him into the program after discovering he carried the regenerative marker.
When he resisted, they staged his disappearance.
He was alive under another identity.
The vault listed him as DONOR D-1.
Current status: active.
The Mitchells selected me because my father’s genetics combined with my mother’s line produced the strongest responder profile.
My family had been harvested before I was born.
Jonathan had moved David recently.
Another message appeared.
May you like
YOUR FATHER WILL MEET HIS GRANDSON.
AT THE FINAL COLLECTION.
