Chapter 10 - THE SURGICAL THEATER
Henry threatened to destroy the facility and every record inside it.
Grace remained strapped to the table.
Her eyes stayed on the camera.
She looked terrified but alert.
Rebecca Carter entered through an observation corridor and spoke over the intercom.
“Dad.”
Henry looked up.
“You always were sentimental.”
“You shot me.”
“You interfered.”
“You stole children.”
“I advanced medicine.”
He believed results transformed crimes into necessity.
Rebecca asked what happened to the first thirteen subjects.
Henry said some died.
Some were transferred.
Some continued in other programs.
He did not know their names.
Only numbers.
Grace began working one hand free beneath the restraint.
I saw it on the feed.
So did Rebecca.
She kept Henry talking.
“Why Luke?”
“Stable maternal environment.”
“Why Grace?”
“Controlled environment.”
“You turned twins into an experiment.”
“I eliminated uncertainty.”
Grace pulled her wrist free.
She reached toward the emergency oxygen valve beside the table.
Henry noticed.
She twisted it open.
A high-pressure alarm erupted.
Mist filled the surgical theater.
Agents moved through the side doors.
Henry pressed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Madeline had given them the disarm code.
For once, her knowledge saved rather than controlled.
Grace rolled from the table.
Rebecca reached her first.
Henry tried to escape.
Brandon, who had entered with federal permission to identify the old passages, stepped into his path.
Father and son faced each other.
Henry said, “You were never capable of understanding the work.”
Brandon answered, “I understand what you did to my children.”
Henry laughed.
“They are my children genetically.”
“No.”
Brandon looked toward Grace.
“They belong to themselves.”
Agents arrested Henry.
Grace was rushed to the hospital.
When I entered her room, she stared at me.
Then at Brandon.
Then at Luke through the glass wall.
There was no cinematic reunion.
No instant embrace.
She asked one question.
“Why didn’t you find me?”
I sat beside her.
“Because I didn’t know you existed.”
She looked away.
“That’s what Rebecca said.”
“I wish I had known.”
Grace’s hand trembled.
I did not touch it until she reached toward me first.
Then Luke entered.
He carried a new ceramic bowl from the hospital cafeteria.
Inside were blackberries.
He placed it on the table.
May you like
“I saved you some.”
Grace began crying.
