Chapter 15 - THE TARGET BEHIND THE TARGET
The woman on the firing line wore my face at twenty-eight.
Same tied-back hair.
Same camouflage uniform.
Same controlled expression.
Marcus shouted:
“PUT IT DOWN! YOU THINK A PIECE OF TRASH LIKE YOU IS ALLOWED TO HOLD A GUN?”
Soldiers laughed around her.
Not recordings.
Living people.
A reconstructed unit.
The archive had created another range using recruits who believed the continuity program was a classified readiness test.
The younger Elena knelt.
Picked up the rifle.
Wiped the scope.
“Just wait and see.”
I stood behind the observation glass with Ryan, Dylan, Aaron, Sarah, Claire, and federal investigators.
The younger Elena did not know we were there.
Marcus grabbed the barrel.
“What can a worthless thing like you do?”
She pulled the rifle back.
“Remember to keep your promise.”
The same dialogue.
The same emotional path.
The system had rebuilt the trigger from archived footage.
She fired.
BOOM.
The target remained hidden.
Marcus seized the spotting scope.
“No... it can’t be.”
This time, the shot had not struck the optical relay.
It struck the lock on our observation room.
The glass door opened.
The younger Elena looked directly at me.
She had known.
“Come out,” she said.
I stepped onto the range.
“Who are you?”
“Elena Carter.”
“So am I.”
“They said you were the failed version.”
“Who said?”
She pointed beyond the target line.
A white truck waited beside the ridge.
Colonel Samuel Carter stood beside it.
My father.
Young.
Alive.
He had been declared dead for decades.
Sarah gripped the rail.
“That isn’t Samuel.”
The man raised one hand.
A childhood signal only my parents knew.
Sarah went pale.
The younger Elena removed the black-sealed round.
“My mission is to shoot him.”
“Why?”
“Because the archive says he created all of us.”
Samuel’s voice came through the loudspeaker.
“Elena, the woman beside you is the continuity subject.”
The younger Elena looked at me.
I looked at her.
The range screens activated.
ELENA CARTER — ORIGINAL.
ELENA CARTER — CURRENT.
FINAL RECORD REQUIRES ONE CONFIRMED SHOT.
I examined her rifle.
The scope pointed toward Samuel.
But the windage sat three clicks wrong.
The hidden target was not my father.
It was Sarah.
My mother stood behind observation glass aligned with the ricochet channel.
The younger Elena saw it too.
She lowered the rifle.
Samuel smiled.
“You both checked.”
Then six more firing lanes rose from beneath the sand.
Each held another Elena.
Different ages.
Different scars.
Different uniforms.
All carrying the same rifle.
The archive had not stopped at six.
It had manufactured generations.
Every woman received a different target.
Ryan.
Claire.
Dylan.
Aaron.
Sarah.
Me.
The loudspeaker announced:
CARTER LINEAGE FINALIZATION.
ONE ELENA MUST REMAIN.
The soldiers around us raised weapons.
Not at the targets.
At one another.
Each had been told a different version of who was real.
I removed my magazine.
The younger Elena did the same.
Claire stepped onto the line and lowered hers.
Then another.
And another.
Marcus screamed:
“Shoot!”
No one obeyed.
The archive began rejecting every profile.
Samuel climbed onto the hood of the white truck.
“You think refusal makes you free?”
He opened his jacket.
A black service chain hung beneath it.
Hundreds of tiny tags.
Every one bore ELENA CARTER.
He tossed them into the dust.
“Freedom requires one record.”
Sarah stepped out of the observation room.
“No. Institutions want one record.”
She looked at every woman.
“Families can remember more than one truth.”
The range system marked her as hostile.
A hidden rifle rose behind the target line.
Dylan saw the laser first.
“Down!”
The younger Elena fired.
Not at Samuel.
Not at Sarah.
At the rifle’s pivot joint.
The hidden weapon collapsed.
Her shot was perfect.
Marcus grabbed the scope.
His face emptied again.
“No... it can’t be.”
The target screen finally revealed what she had hit.
Behind the hidden rifle stood another Marcus Hale.
Older.
Wounded.
The man convicted ten years earlier.
The young Marcus on our range turned toward him.
Two versions.
Same fear.
The older one shouted:
“Don’t trust Voss!”
Colonel Voss stepped from the white truck wearing Samuel’s face.
A mask.
He removed it slowly.
Scarred.
Alive after prison records claimed he died.
The man incarcerated had been another continuity subject.
Voss looked at me.
“You destroyed one archive.”
He pointed toward the desert.
“You didn’t destroy the people who needed it.”
The sand beyond the range moved.
Thousands of target frames rose.
Each displayed a soldier’s face.
Original.
Replacement.
Unknown.
The system announced:
GLOBAL IDENTITY CONFLICT ACTIVE.
RESOLUTION REQUIRES BALLISTIC AUTHORITY.
A rifle rose in front of me.
One black-sealed bullet.
The same round from Ryan’s case.
The same blood signature.
The same trap.
Voss whispered:
“Take the shot and choose which records survive.”
I opened the chamber.
Removed the bullet.
Held it toward the sun.
Inside the hollow base was not blood this time.
A small photograph.
My mother holding twin newborn girls.
Both labeled ELENA CARTER.
Sarah saw it.
Her face collapsed.
“You were twins.”
The younger Elena looked at me.
Not a replacement.
My sister.
Separated before memory.
The program had built one identity around two children and spent decades forcing the world to choose.
Voss smiled.
“Now you understand why only one can remain.”
My sister placed her rifle on the ground.
“So what do we do?”
I looked at the targets.
The soldiers.
The two Marcuses.
The man wearing every father’s face.
Then I dropped the bullet into the dust.
“We make the records tell the truth.”
The archive rejected the command.
BALLISTIC AUTHORITY REQUIRED.
Every rifle unlocked.
Every soldier’s finger hovered near a trigger.
Then Aaron kicked the metal ammunition bucket beside the bench.
Brass exploded across the concrete.
The sound echoed through every lane.
The same humiliation trigger.
But no one laughed.
The casings rolled beneath thousands of boots.
Each carried a serial number tied to a stolen identity.
Soldiers began reading them.
Recognizing names.
Friends.
Siblings.
People declared dead.
The firing line broke formation.
Voss shouted for Marcus to restore order.
Both Marcuses looked at each other.
Neither moved.
The younger Elena leaned toward me.
“Remember to keep your promise.”
“What promise?”
“That if I hit the target, you answer one question.”
I nodded.
She looked beyond the ridge.
The white truck’s rear door had opened.
Inside sat Ryan Carter.
Another Ryan.
Young.
Unscarred.
He held a sniper rifle aimed at us.
“What’s your question?” I asked.
She stared through the scope.
“Which brother did you bring home?”
The Ryan beside me stopped breathing.
The young Ryan in the truck smiled.
The archive screens displayed:
RYAN CARTER — ORIGINAL.
RYAN CARTER — RECOVERED.
FINAL VERIFICATION REQUIRES SIBLING SHOT.
My sister’s finger rested beside the trigger.
I reached for the barrel.
She did not look at me.
Then she whispered the same words I had spoken years earlier:
“Now... you don’t dare let me shoot again?”
The white truck engine started.
May you like
Both Ryans called my name.
And before the range could decide which brother was real, every target turned toward me.
