Chapter 10 - Jonah's Choice
Security footage showed Jonah leaving the hospital on his own.
No abduction.
He used maintenance corridors.
Avoided cameras.
At the loading dock, he entered a van.
Driver unseen.
Ethan thought betrayal.
Claire refused.
“He stayed twenty years to protect people. He didn't suddenly join Malcolm.”
Eli agreed.
“Jonah is moving toward something.”
The archive contained three facility coordinates.
Two were abandoned.
The third:
a former psychiatric hospital in rural Pennsylvania.
Owned by a shell company connected to Malcolm.
Police prepared a raid.
Then Lily heard something.
A faint tapping from the metal safe-deposit key.
Impossible.
She held it near her ear.
“There's something inside.”
The key was not a key alone.
A micro-transmitter.
Jonah had built a crude beacon.
They tracked it.
Hospital.
Road.
Then Pennsylvania facility.
Jonah took the key? No.
Lily still held it.
Instead, the transmitter was receiving a paired signal.
Jonah had the other half.
He wanted them to follow.
The raid uncovered the truth.
Seven subjects.
Alive.
Ages sixteen to sixty.
Some visibly altered.
Some outwardly normal.
All dependent on stabilization drugs.
Malcolm was gone.
Jonah had entered hours earlier and freed them.
He intentionally triggered alarms.
Then disappeared deeper underground.
Claire found him near an old elevator.
Bleeding from the shoulder.
Malcolm had confronted him.
Jonah managed to injure him.
But Malcolm escaped through lower tunnels.
Jonah had recovered one object:
a phone.
Malcolm's.
Inside were videos of Lily.
Hundreds.
Birthdays.
School pickup.
Bedroom.
Wardrobe.
Some filmed by hidden cameras.
Others by people near her.
Ethan's hands shook.
Malcolm had built a surveillance network around his granddaughter.
Then a recent message.
FROM: A
SHE IS READY.
Malcolm replied:
NOT YET. ETHAN MUST BREAK FIRST.
Everyone looked at Ethan.
“Why me?”
Eli understood.
“Because Malcolm wants Lily separated from the father she trusts.”
Biological lineage was not enough.
Malcolm believed attachment suppressed survival responses.
He wanted Lily frightened, isolated and uncertain.
Breaking Ethan's role as father was part of the protocol.
That was why Jonah had told Lily Ethan was not her biological father.
But Jonah had not intended to destroy their bond.
He thought truth would protect her before Malcolm weaponized it.
Malcolm had planned a harsher reveal.
Ethan felt conflicted.
Jonah's choice hurt.
But the reason mattered.
Then they identified “A.”
Adam Reese.
Subject Two.
Alive.
The man everyone assumed had helped people escape.
The apparent success.
Daniel's mentor.
Eli's ally once.
Adam had been communicating with Malcolm.
Claire whispered:
“Why?”
Daniel became furious.
“He saved me.”
Maybe.
Or groomed him.
Another relationship became uncertain.
They found Adam in Boston.
He did not run.
He admitted working with Malcolm.
Then said:
“You still don't understand who is experimenting on whom.”
Ethan wanted answers.
Adam gave them.
Malcolm had lost control of Nocturne years ago.
The active program was not Malcolm's.
It belonged to Eli.
Everyone turned.
Eli went still.
May you like
Adam smiled sadly.
“Tell them, Subject Zero.”
