Chapter 5 - Before Seventeen
Daniel had childhood memories.
Birthday cakes.
Baseball.
His father teaching him to drive.
His mother burning Thanksgiving rolls.
School.
Friends.
None felt artificial.
Maya explained that Glass Harbor could not manufacture an entire childhood.
That wasn’t what happened.
The program manipulated specific traumatic periods.
Months.
Events.
Names.
Daniel’s life before seventeen existed.
But one year had been rewritten.
The question was why.
Compartment 7149 provided the answer.
Daniel, Maya and federal investigators opened it under warrant.
Inside were analog tapes, medical reports and photographs.
Daniel found himself at seventeen.
Hospital bed.
Bruised.
Terrified.
Beside him:
Evelyn.
Voss.
And another teenage boy.
Daniel recognized him immediately.
Despite thirty years of age difference.
Richard.
His father.
No.
The boy looked too much like Richard.
Label:
MICHAEL CARTER — AGE 18.
Daniel whispered:
“Who is Michael?”
Maya found the file.
Michael Carter.
Daniel’s older brother.
Daniel had never known he had one.
Officially Michael died at eighteen in a boating accident.
Actually, he survived.
Then disappeared into Glass Harbor.
Why?
Because Michael witnessed a covert intelligence asset committing murder.
That asset was Voss’s superior.
The Carter family was threatened.
Evelyn agreed to enroll both sons in identity-protection procedures.
Michael received a completely new identity.
Daniel stayed Daniel—but underwent intensive trauma treatment and narrative conditioning designed to remove details that could lead him back to Michael.
It was supposed to protect them.
Then Evelyn discovered the program had another purpose.
Recruitment.
Young witnesses with rewritten histories became unusually controllable assets.
Not mind-controlled soldiers.
People whose vulnerabilities were mapped with terrifying precision.
Daniel later joined Army Intelligence believing the path was entirely his own.
Voss had guided it.
From a distance.
Daniel felt violated.
Then he found a photograph of Michael as an adult.
He recognized him.
Colonel Ethan Cole.
Daniel’s trusted colleague standing outside the hospital.
The man he had called when Sophia was hurt.
Daniel slowly turned.
Ethan wasn’t there anymore.
He had disappeared.
Maya whispered:
“Oh God.”
Daniel called Ethan.
No answer.
Then a message arrived.
DON’T FOLLOW ME.
Daniel called again.
Ethan finally answered.
“You’re Michael.”
Silence.
Then:
“I was.”
“You’re my brother.”
“I am.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Mom made me promise.”
Daniel gripped the table.
“Mom is with Claire.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Ethan’s breathing changed.
“Because Evelyn believes Claire found the original Glass Harbor index.”
“What’s on it?”
“Everyone they rebuilt.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Military personnel.
Witnesses.
Contractors.
People living under identities partly shaped by a program they didn’t know survived.
“If that index gets out—”
“Lives could be destroyed.”
“So Mom wants to destroy it?”
“No.”
Ethan paused.
“She wants it back.”
“Why?”
“Because she helped create it.”
Daniel’s mother had not merely enrolled her sons.
She became part of Glass Harbor afterward.
First victim.
Then collaborator.
Then architect.
Daniel whispered:
“Where are you?”
“I’m going to Claire.”
“Wait for me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom will talk to me.”
“And not me?”
Ethan’s answer hurt.
May you like
“She never erased me from herself.”
“She erased me from you.”
