CHAPTER 34 — THE IMPOSSIBLE BIRTH
Olivia screamed.
Rebecca examined her abdomen.
There was no incision.
No blood.
No sign she had given birth.
“This is impossible.”
Miriam held the infant against her shoulder.
The baby was silent.
Iris looked toward the walls.
“It is a projection.”
Rose grabbed a surgical tray and threw it.
The image of Miriam disappeared.
The infant’s cry continued from behind the wall.
Rebecca found a hidden speaker.
“The pregnancy was not accelerated physically.”
Daniel understood.
“The monitor altered Olivia’s perception and ours.”
Olivia touched her stomach.
The baby kicked.
She began laughing and crying at once.
Silas had used the fetal-support network to generate shared sensory hallucinations.
Sarah struck the wall.
“Miriam is still alive.”
A hidden screen activated.
Miriam appeared in a room filled with monitors.
“Reality is only the memory everyone agrees to share.”
Claire looked at the photographs.
“Where is the real Anchor?”
“Still inside Olivia. For now.”
The floor began vibrating.
The infant’s cry became louder.
Elias followed the wiring to a sealed elevator.
“This leads beneath the orphanage.”
Mason checked the chapel door above.
Gunfire had stopped.
“Jonah?”
There was no response.
Sarah opened the elevator using the Vane registry.
The group descended.
At the bottom was an enormous circular laboratory.
A glass sphere hung over a deep pit.
Inside the sphere floated a human brain connected to thousands of cables.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
Silas’s voice came through the speakers.
“My body became inefficient.”
Claire stared at the brain.
“You transferred your mind into the network.”
“Not transferred. Expanded.”
The glass sphere pulsed in rhythm with Olivia’s baby.
Silas continued.
“When the Anchor is born, I will no longer require machines.”
Olivia backed away.
“You want my child’s body.”
“I require a nervous system capable of carrying me.”
Rose and Iris stepped in front of her.
Silas laughed.
“You still misunderstand.”
The cables inside the sphere shifted.
A second, much smaller brain was attached beneath his.
Lily pointed at it.
“Mommy, that one is awake.”
A child’s voice emerged through the speakers.
“Claire?”
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Claire recognized the voice.
It belonged to the real Thomas Bennett.
