Chapter 13 - The Last Door
They did not obey exactly.
They never would again.
Federal agents surrounded the site.
Ethan went in wearing a tracker.
Claire remained outside despite wanting to follow.
Lily and Sophie were nowhere near it.
That rule stood.
The facility lay beneath an abandoned hydroelectric station.
Malcolm waited beside a circular steel door.
Jonah knelt nearby.
Not restrained.
He appeared exhausted.
Malcolm held no gun.
He did not need one.
Jonah's stabilizer hung in a medical pump beside him.
Malcolm controlled the dosage.
“Open the door.”
Ethan stared.
“Release Jonah.”
“Door first.”
“No.”
Malcolm smiled.
“Your protective reflex is tedious.”
“So is your monologue.”
For the first time Malcolm looked irritated.
Good.
Ethan approached the biometric panel.
“What is behind it?”
“The beginning.”
Charles Hart's original lab.
Records predating Nocturne.
Malcolm believed it contained the formula used on Eli.
The “perfect” version.
If found, he could stabilize every surviving subject.
That sounded noble.
Ethan distrusted it.
“What else?”
Malcolm hesitated.
“Embryos.”
Of course.
Stored genetic material from the Hart family.
Dozens.
Generations.
A continuation engine.
Ethan understood.
“You don't want to save subjects.”
“I can do both.”
“You always say that.”
Malcolm's face hardened.
“You think morality means refusing knowledge?”
“No. It means people get to choose whether their bodies become your knowledge.”
Jonah slowly lifted his head.
He smiled.
A strange, crooked version.
Malcolm noticed too late.
Jonah's pump line was disconnected.
He had never been dependent on the current dose.
Voss had gradually reduced it in hospital.
Jonah had tricked Malcolm.
He lunged.
Not like a monster.
Like a damaged man who had waited twenty years.
He struck Malcolm's arm.
The controller fell.
Ethan tackled Malcolm.
Federal agents entered.
For a moment it seemed over.
Then Malcolm hit the emergency release.
The steel door unlocked.
He ran inside.
Ethan followed.
The original lab was colder than expected.
Freezers.
Old computers.
Photographs.
Rows of sealed storage.
Malcolm opened one cryogenic unit.
Empty.
His face changed.
“No.”
Every embryo container was gone.
Someone had been here first.
On the wall:
three slow knocks.
Two quick.
Three slow.
Listen.
But Jonah stood behind Ethan.
He hadn't done it.
Who had?
A speaker activated.
Adam's voice.
“I told you someone was experimenting on the experimenters.”
Malcolm screamed:
“ADAM!”
Adam had removed the embryos years earlier.
Destroyed most.
Preserved only those connected to identifiable people until consent could be established.
He had spent years working both sides to locate the final vault.
That did not erase his manipulation.
But his purpose became clearer.
Then Adam appeared on a monitor.
“The formula you wanted isn't there either.”
Malcolm stared.
“Where?”
“I burned it.”
Malcolm's face broke.
Not anger.
Grief.
Decades of obsession collapsing.
“You destroyed the only chance to cure them.”
Adam shook his head.
“No. I destroyed your version. Voss and independent doctors already developed stabilizers from patient-specific care.”
Malcolm looked at Jonah.
The man he had imprisoned was improving without the mythical perfect formula.
The ideology collapsed in real time.
Then Ethan found the final record.
Subject Zero.
Eli.
Treatment source:
not synthetic.
Derived from a rare naturally occurring mutation.
The mutation belonged to someone else.
A woman.
Name redacted.
Malcolm saw.
His obsession reignited instantly.
“Who is she?”
Ethan looked at him.
“You still haven't learned.”
Agents arrested Malcolm.
This time alive.
Publicly.
No fake funeral.
No hidden continuation.
But the redacted woman remained.
And something about the date chilled Ethan.
Her sample was collected eight years before Eli was born.
Meaning Project Nocturne had never truly begun with the Hart family.
May you like
They were not the origin.
Someone else was.
