Chapter 7 - The Baby Called W17-04
Victor denied it.
“I know who my parents are.”
His birth certificate named Michael and Susan Hale.
Both dead.
Adoption records?
None.
DNA answered.
Victor was Anna Bennett's biological son.
Claire's half-brother.
Emma stared at the man she had married.
The man who had just been exposed as unfaithful, indebted and coercive.
Now he was also Claire's biological brother.
But crucially—
not Emma's.
Victor's biological father was not Robert.
Testing identified no Whitmore paternal relationship.
So Emma and Victor were not siblings.
Claire and Victor shared Anna as gestational/biological maternal line only? Further testing clarified something stranger.
Anna was Victor's genetic mother.
But she was only Claire's gestational carrier.
Claire remained genetically Miriam and Robert's daughter.
Therefore Victor and Claire were not genetically siblings either, despite Anna raising Claire.
The family relationships had been intentionally made confusing because records mixed genetic and gestational parentage.
Thomas had used that confusion.
Victor was W17-04.
The fetus declared dead.
He had survived the experimental procedure.
Thomas secretly removed him from the program and placed him with the Hale family.
“Why?”
Victor asked.
Robert looked at the medical report.
Because Victor was the first successful W-17 treatment.
His prenatal cardiac defect had been repaired.
Thomas wanted him observed over decades.
Victor's entire life had been a long-term clinical study without his knowledge.
The revelation shattered him.
Emma watched.
Part of her wanted to comfort him.
Then remembered the frame.
The affair.
The contract.
Understanding someone's trauma did not erase what they did afterward.
Victor looked at her.
“I didn't know.”
“I believe you.”
Hope flashed.
Emma continued:
“And it changes nothing about what you did to me.”
His hope disappeared.
Good.
Some boundaries needed clarity.
Then Claire understood why she had been drawn into Victor's life.
Thomas needed W-17 activated.
He had one successful former subject:
Victor.
Two heirs:
Emma and Claire.
And now—
another pregnancy.
Emma's.
Seven months.
Thomas had not selected the timing accidentally.
Emma put both hands around her belly.
“No.”
Robert understood simultaneously.
Victor was the first successful W-17 fetal patient.
Emma carried Victor's child.
The baby was the first natural descendant of a successfully treated subject combined with Whitmore genetics.
To Thomas—
May you like
that unborn baby was not merely family.
It was the next experiment.
