CHAPTER 38 — DR. MIRIAM VANE
Sarah opened the Origin door.
Everyone rushed inside as bullets struck the corridor behind them.
Daniel and Cole pushed a metal cabinet against the entrance.
The room resembled an old operating theater.
Black-and-white photographs covered the walls.
Margaret appeared in several of them.
In one photograph, she was young and pregnant, standing beside a white-haired woman.
Claire tore it from the wall.
“That is Miriam?”
Margaret nodded.
“She founded the maternal identity division.”
Rose examined the date.
“This was taken thirty-four years ago.”
Sarah searched beneath an operating table.
“She believed family loyalty was stronger than military conditioning. She wanted to control entire governments through children placed inside powerful homes.”
Rebecca found a row of glass cylinders filled with cloudy liquid.
“Genetic samples.”
“Not samples,” Daniel said. “Original bloodlines.”
The barricaded door shook under gunfire.
Mason discovered a circular hatch in the floor.
He opened it.
Black water flowed beneath them.
“The tunnel.”
Olivia struggled to breathe.
Her monitor began flashing again.
Sarah looked at the device.
“Miriam is connecting remotely.”
Rose approached Olivia.
“I stopped it before.”
“You were inside the network then,” Sarah said. “Out here, you need a transmitter.”
Lily raised Mr. Buttons.
“There’s something inside him.”
Claire opened the stuffed rabbit’s back seam.
A small metal disk fell into her hand.
Sarah recognized it immediately.
“A Vane beacon.”
The room became silent.
Claire looked at Lily.
“Who gave you this rabbit?”
“Grandma Miriam.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
The speaker inside the disk activated.
A woman began singing.
Two little stars above the sea.
Margaret stepped back in terror.
Sarah looked toward the flooded tunnel.
“She knows exactly where we are.”
The operating-room door started opening.
Not from the guards outside.
From a control hidden inside the wall.
A white-haired woman appeared on an old monitor.
May you like
Her face had barely aged.
“Welcome home, my daughters.”
