Chapter 21 - The Numbered Children
Daniel knelt in front of Twelve.
“How many children are below?”
She looked toward the elevator shaft.
“There were twenty-four.”
Lydia covered her mouth.
“Were?”
“Some stopped coming to lessons.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“What kind of lessons?”
“Music. Languages. Memory tests. How to repeat conversations exactly.”
Eleanor looked at the archive shelves.
“They were creating witnesses they could control.”
Samuel shook his head.
“No. They were creating replacements.”
Daniel looked at him.
“For whom?”
Samuel pointed toward the photographs on the walls.
Musicians. Heirs. Trustees. Public officials.
“Children with trained voices, gestures, memories. Enough to imitate someone’s history when records needed to change.”
Victor stared at Twelve.
“That is impossible.”
She looked at him calmly.
“You visited Level Four six years ago.”
Victor went pale.
“I have never been beneath this building.”
Twelve repeated in his exact voice:
“Remove the ones who cannot perform under pressure.”
The imitation was perfect.
Victor stepped backward.
Eleanor stared at him.
“You said that?”
“No.”
Twelve continued using his voice.
“The foundation cannot afford sentimental mistakes.”
Victor’s face collapsed.
“I was speaking about scholarship candidates.”
Julian moved toward him.
“Children disappeared after that visit.”
Victor shook his head.
“I never knew they were held here.”
Daniel stood between them.
“Later.”
The monitor flashed again.
The ballroom feed had changed.
Michael Arden was gone.
The guests were still trapped, but several armed guards now lay unconscious near the stage.
Clara stood beside the piano holding Michael’s gun.
“Daniel, someone opened the west exit.”
“Can you get everyone out?”
“No. The corridor leads back into the hotel.”
Then the ballroom doors slammed shut again.
A deep male voice filled both rooms.
“Transfer authority has been restored.”
Arthur stopped smiling.
Daniel noticed.
“You know that voice.”
Arthur looked toward the speakers.
“Yes.”
“Who is it?”
“My father.”
Samuel stared at him.
“Our father died before the foundation existed.”
Arthur shook his head.
“That was the first identity he abandoned.”
Twelve stepped away from the elevator.
“The Director is awake.”
The small girl beside her began crying.
Elena crouched down.
“Who is the Director?”
Twelve answered without emotion.
“The man who decides which names survive.”
The archive computers activated one after another.
Every open file vanished.
The red markers on the map changed direction again.
Now all twelve were moving toward a single underground chamber labeled CONDUCTOR.
Samuel whispered, “He is gathering them.”
“For what?” Daniel asked.
Twelve pointed toward the incomplete musical score.
“To replace the three heirs.”
Arthur finally pulled his arm free from the damaged partition.
He fell to the floor, bleeding heavily.
Julian aimed the violin bow at his throat like a blade.
Arthur looked at Daniel.
“If the Director authenticates twelve trained successors, your bloodline becomes irrelevant.”
Daniel glanced at Clara.
“How do we stop him?”
Arthur looked toward the children.
“You don’t stop the Director.”
Then every screen displayed the same black-and-white photograph.
An elderly man stood beside the original grand piano.
Behind him were Lydia, Samuel, Victor, Eleanor, Arthur, and Elena.
Daniel studied the image.
The old man’s hand rested on the shoulder of a little boy.
May you like
The boy was Daniel.
The photograph had been taken years before Daniel believed he had met any of them.
