Chapter 4 - Subject Three
Claire stared at the photograph until Ethan took it from her hands.
She was twenty-one in the image.
She knew the dress.
A white hospital gown.
She knew the necklace.
A graduation gift.
She even recognized the bruise on her wrist from falling off a bicycle two days before the surgery she believed was for ovarian cysts.
But she did not remember this room.
Nor the restraints visible behind her.
Her file was marked:
SUBJECT THREE — C.H.
PROTOCOL: GERMLINE COMPATIBILITY.
Ethan read slowly.
Jonah had been physical adaptation.
Adam Reese had been neurological adaptation.
Claire was reproductive compatibility.
Malcolm and Voss were not simply changing individuals.
They wanted to know whether induced traits could be passed to children.
Claire's eggs had been harvested.
That much matched what Voss later admitted.
But more had occurred.
She received microdoses of the same regenerative vector used on Jonah and Adam.
The procedure caused no obvious physical transformation.
Instead, Voss documented changes in ovarian tissue and gene expression.
Claire felt violated in a way language could barely hold.
“My father did this.”
Ethan did not correct her.
“Yes.”
She looked toward the dark passage.
“No wonder Jonah hates me.”
“You were a victim too.”
“I left him.”
“At sixteen.”
“I still left.”
“Both can be true.”
Claire wiped her face.
Ethan continued reading.
Subject Three was terminated from active study after an adverse immune response.
Eggs preserved.
Fourteen viable oocytes.
Then:
FERTILIZATION SERIES A.
Paternal contributor:
SUBJECT TWO.
Claire's eyes lifted.
“Adam.”
Ethan's uncle.
“Lily…”
Ethan couldn't finish.
The file indicated embryos were created using Claire's eggs and Adam Reese's sperm.
One successful implantation eight years earlier.
Claire sank against the wall.
“Then Adam is Lily's father.”
Maybe.
The file stopped before confirming which embryo was transferred.
But the dates aligned.
Ethan felt something unexpected.
Not jealousy.
Grief.
A biological truth could be devastating without changing love.
Lily was still Lily.
Yet someone had chosen her genetics before either parent knew.
Then a new thought.
“If Adam was Subject Two, where is he?”
A knock came from the corridor.
Jonah.
Three slow.
Two quick.
Three slow.
Listen.
Ethan approached.
“What do you want us to know?”
A scraping sound.
Then something slid beneath the steel door.
A photograph.
Three young adults.
Jonah.
Adam.
Claire.
Claire asleep in a hospital bed.
Jonah and Adam beside her.
Jonah looked sick.
Adam looked normal.
On the back:
WE TRIED TO GET HER OUT.
Claire began crying.
“They helped me?”
Jonah had not hated her.
He had tried to save her.
Ethan found a second message.
ADAM GOT OUT.
Claire looked at him.
“Your uncle survived.”
A third note.
HE CAME BACK FOR THE BABY.
Ethan's pulse changed.
“What baby?”
The answer came as a medical chart.
Not Lily.
Older.
A pregnancy from the project twenty years ago.
Another Subject Three.
Different woman.
The first attempt at a child carrying Nocturne-altered genetics.
Baby boy.
Born alive.
Removed from mother.
Identity sealed.
Ethan scanned the date.
Thirty-nine years ago.
Almost his age.
His face changed.
Claire saw it.
“What?”
The infant's adoptive placement listed:
REESE FAMILY.
Ethan's parents were Reeses before his father changed the family surname.
His mother, Laura Reese, had adopted a boy.
Ethan.
Claire stared.
“No.”
Ethan read again.
He was born into Project Nocturne.
His adoption was not random.
Adam Reese, later Subject Two, was raised as his “uncle.”
But biologically—
the documents suggested Adam might be something else.
Ethan's older half-brother.
The project had been embedded in his family before he was born.
Then Jonah knocked violently.
Not a message.
A warning.
Footsteps sounded from the upper corridor.
Someone else was inside the walls.
Claire whispered:
“Jonah?”
No answer.
A flashlight appeared at the far end.
A man's voice:
“You should not have opened that room.”
Ethan recognized it instantly.
Their family physician.
Dr. Samuel Voss.
The man Claire believed had disappeared eight years ago.
He stepped into the light.
Now seventy.
Calm.
Clean.
May you like
Alive.
And holding a syringe.
