CHAPTER 71 — THE BLOOD TEST
Claire raised her hands.
Lily stood in front of her.
“No one touches my mommy.”
Ward ordered the agents to lower their guns.
“We test everyone.”
Rebecca collected blood from Claire, Rose, Iris, the two adult Claire subjects, Ward, Daniel, Mason, and Margaret.
The Saint Orison laboratory processed the results.
Ward was confirmed as the original Helen Ward.
Daniel remained genetically linked to the dead double.
Claire’s sample triggered an alert.
MATERNAL IDENTITY TEMPLATE.
Her DNA had been artificially edited.
Claire expected the result.
“What does that prove?”
Rebecca compared it to Margaret’s blood.
“You are her biological daughter.”
Margaret exhaled.
But Rebecca continued.
“Your DNA also contains segments from Miriam Vane.”
Claire stared at her.
“Segments?”
“You were engineered from two maternal lines.”
Miriam and Margaret were both genetically connected to her.
Rose and Iris carried the same markers, but in different proportions.
Sarah’s old medical records showed Miriam as her biological mother.
Claire finally understood.
Miriam had called all of them her daughters because, biologically, part of her existed inside each one.
Ward opened the Phase Two files.
“The replacements are programmed to activate in fourteen days.”
“What happens when they activate?” Cole asked.
“They eliminate the original family and assume control.”
A global map displayed more than three hundred targets.
Mason recognized one location.
“The vice president’s residence.”
Ward found a worse one.
“Strategic nuclear command.”
The Blackwater children were not the primary replacements.
They were training models.
The real sleeper families had been living in place for years.
Claire looked at Lily.
“How do we identify them?”
C-Two approached the registry.
“The song.”
She sang the lullaby backward.
The pages revealed a hidden sequence of medical frequencies.
Rebecca understood.
“The replacements react to a certain sound.”
Ward ordered her agents to prepare a national test.
Before she could transmit it, every screen turned on.
Sarah appeared.
She was alive.
Her face was burned, and she stood somewhere near the ocean.
“Do not broadcast the frequency,” she warned.
Claire stepped toward the screen.
“Where are you?”
“The test does not reveal replacements.”
May you like
Sarah looked directly at Ward.
“It kills the originals.”
