Chapter 13 - David
Daniel had an identical twin.
Born eleven minutes after him.
David Carter.
There were photographs.
Birth records.
Hospital bracelets.
Then nothing after age seventeen.
Daniel felt physically unsteady.
“What happened to him?”
Glass Harbor.
David witnessed the same event as Michael.
But unlike Michael, David refused identity relocation.
He threatened to expose everything.
Voss’s predecessor classified him as unstable.
Evelyn tried to protect him.
Richard tried to negotiate.
Then David disappeared.
“Did he die?”
Evelyn whispered:
“We were told he did.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“That sentence again.”
No body.
No independent identification.
A sealed report.
Daniel’s own memories of David had been targeted during treatment.
Not completely erased.
Reassigned.
Childhood moments Daniel believed involved himself sometimes belonged to David.
That explained strange family photographs.
Two identical boys where Daniel remembered a cousin.
A second bicycle.
A second baseball glove.
Fragments hidden in plain sight.
“Why didn’t I remember my twin?”
Helen Ross’s methods.
Trauma.
Medication.
Isolation.
Repetition.
Family cooperation.
Then time.
Not magical deletion.
A brutal reconstruction.
And Richard and Evelyn participated.
Daniel looked at them.
“You helped me forget my brother.”
Neither defended themselves.
Then the active server sent a message.
HELLO, DANNY.
Daniel went cold.
Only family called him that.
Another message.
ASK MOM WHY SHE CHOSE YOU.
Daniel looked at Evelyn.
“What does that mean?”
She began shaking.
“David believed I chose which son Glass Harbor would keep.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Richard looked away.
Daniel saw it.
“Dad?”
Richard whispered:
“There was one extraction slot.”
Three boys endangered.
Michael already relocated.
Daniel and David remained.
Glass Harbor offered protection for one.
Evelyn chose Daniel.
“Why?”
“You were injured.”
“And David?”
“He could run.”
Daniel stared.
“So you left him.”
“We thought he escaped.”
“But he didn’t.”
Nobody knew.
The server sent a photograph.
Current.
A man around forty.
Daniel’s face.
Different eyes.
Scar across one eyebrow.
David.
Alive.
Standing beside Mark Ellison.
Claire whispered:
“Mark found him.”
Exactly.
Mark’s investigation into Lantern uncovered David.
David had been living under another identity for decades.
He helped Mark access the network.
But Mark thought David wanted exposure.
David wanted something else.
Daniel typed:
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Response:
MY LIFE BACK.
Daniel stared.
Another:
YOU GOT MY NAME.
MY FAMILY.
MY CAREER.
Daniel whispered:
“No.”
David believed Daniel’s adult identity had originally been intended for him.
The Army pathway.
Voss mentorship.
Intelligence career.
Everything.
Was that true?
Voss admitted:
“Partially.”
Glass Harbor planners had originally selected David for intelligence recruitment.
After he disappeared, the profile was reassigned to Daniel.
Daniel’s career had been influenced.
Not fabricated.
He still earned his rank.
Made his choices.
But doors had been opened deliberately.
David had spent decades watching the life designed for him unfold through his twin.
Daniel finally understood the anger.
He didn’t excuse what came next.
David sent another photograph.
Claire’s hotel in Virginia.
Taken days earlier.
Then Sophia’s school.
Then their house.
He had been watching all of them.
Daniel typed:
STAY AWAY FROM MY FAMILY.
David replied:
THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MINE.
Daniel’s blood went cold.
Not because David wanted Claire romantically.
Something worse.
He believed Lantern had originally designed Claire’s future pairing with “Subject D.”
The records didn’t specify which twin.
David believed it meant him.
Claire whispered:
“He thinks our entire family was stolen from him.”
Daniel looked at the screen.
David’s final message appeared:
May you like
BRING MOM TO THE PLACE SHE CHOSE YOU.
THEN I’LL TELL YOU WHY SARAH REALLY PUT SOPHIA OUTSIDE.
