Chapter 19 - The Founder’s Voice
The red warning lights pulsed through the laboratory.
Every locked door sealed with a second metallic impact, and a thick sheet of reinforced glass dropped over the entrance to the refrigeration carriage.
The gray-haired man remained on every screen.
“My name is Adrian Harrison,” he said calmly. “Although Michael prefers to call me the founder.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You used sick children to build an empire.”
Adrian smiled.
“I used abandoned research to create the future.”
Emily stepped toward the nearest camera.
“You kept us underground.”
“I kept you alive.”
“You erased our names.”
“Names create emotional complications.”
Michael raised his pistol toward the screen.
“You destroyed families.”
Adrian’s expression did not change.
“You helped me begin.”
Michael pulled the trigger.
The monitor exploded.
Adrian’s face continued speaking from the remaining screens.
“Anger will not open the doors.”
Dr. Carter held the genuine stabilizer vial tightly.
“Ethan needs this immediately.”
Adrian looked directly at her through the camera.
“Then bring him to the central chamber.”
“No.”
“The boy’s transformation has already passed the stage you can treat manually.”
Michael looked at Emily.
“Is he telling the truth?”
Emily studied the medical readings appearing on one terminal.
Ethan’s temperature was still climbing.
His heart rhythm had become dangerously irregular again.
She swallowed.
“The stabilizer can slow the reaction, but his body may reject it unless the dose is calibrated.”
Daniel understood the trap.
“The central chamber belongs to him.”
Adrian nodded approvingly.
“You learn quickly.”
Laura’s voice came through Marcus’s radio from the clinic.
“Daniel, Ethan is awake, but he keeps asking for Buddy.”
Buddy immediately turned toward the sound.
He barked and scratched at the locked laboratory door.
Daniel crouched beside him.
“We’re going back.”
Adrian leaned closer to the camera.
“Not without giving me the black box.”
Marcus held the evidence case behind his back.
“You’re not getting it.”
“I already have copies of every document inside.”
“Then why do you care?”
For the first time, Adrian’s smile weakened.
Michael noticed.
“The transparent sheet.”
Emily looked toward the list of thirty-two children.
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“That list was incomplete.”
Michael stepped toward the camera.
“How many children are there?”
Adrian said nothing.
“How many?”
The founder finally answered.
“One hundred and nine.”
The laboratory fell silent.
Daniel felt sick.
The thirty-two names represented only a fraction of the missing children.
Adrian continued.
“Most of them cannot survive without the treatment network. Destroy my work, and you kill them.”
Emily shook her head.
“He’s lying.”
“Am I?”
A new video feed appeared.
Rows of glass chambers filled the screen.
Children and young adults slept inside them beneath a large underground facility.
Each chamber displayed a countdown.
Dr. Carter stepped closer.
“What are those timers?”
Adrian answered quietly.
“The time remaining before their life-support systems shut down.”
Every timer showed less than two hours.
“Bring Ethan and the evidence to the central chamber,” Adrian said. “Or decide which promise matters more.”
The screens went black.
At the same moment, the locked door behind Buddy opened by itself.
May you like
Beyond it waited a dark corridor.
At the far end, Ethan’s weak voice called Daniel’s name.
