Chapter 12 - THE CHOICE
Walter ordered us to an abandoned oil site in West Texas.
He demanded that I come before labor progressed further.
Rebecca refused.
Morris refused.
Anna refused.
I agreed anyway—but under a controlled plan.
Doctors prepared a decoy transport while agents surrounded the site.
Grace wanted to come.
I told her no.
“You don’t have to save everyone.”
She looked at me.
“Neither do you.”
She was right.
But Ethan had never chosen this system.
At the oil site, Walter stood beside an underground medical trailer.
Ethan lay on a stretcher connected to oxygen.
Walter held a remote detonator.
He had placed explosives beneath the trailer.
“You brought the mother,” he said.
“I brought myself.”
“You are the program.”
“No. I’m the person you failed to control.”
He smiled.
“You still came.”
“For Ethan.”
Walter wanted me transferred to the trailer for immediate delivery.
I refused.
Morris stepped into view.
Walter recognized him.
“The father.”
“Biologically,” Morris said. “Nothing more unless Emily chooses.”
That language enraged Walter.
Choice threatened everything he believed.
He pressed the detonator.
Nothing happened.
Rachel had disabled the receiver through the site’s network.
Agents moved.
Walter grabbed Ethan’s oxygen line.
I stepped forward before anyone fired.
“You need him alive.”
Walter hesitated.
“He is evidence of success.”
“Then you won’t kill him.”
That pause allowed Ethan to roll from the stretcher.
Morris tackled Walter.
Agents secured the trailer.
Ethan survived.
Walter was arrested.
May you like
The network’s architect finally lay in handcuffs.
Then my water broke.
