Chapter 9 - The Chamber of Mirrors
Daniel stepped into the white hall, his boots leaving wet, muddy tracks across the pristine marble floor.
The air inside smelled of isopropyl alcohol, formaldehydes, and cold air conditioning. Recessed ceiling lights cast no shadows, creating the same blinding, disorienting glare that had defined his house for the last three weeks.
Standing twenty yards down the corridor, right at the center of a circular observation room fitted with reinforced glass walls, was Victoria Vance.
She was still wearing her beige wool pantsuit, though she had removed her jacket, leaving her in a crisp, white silk blouse that was buttoned tight to her throat. Her blonde hair remained pinned in its flawless, unyielding bun.
She was standing next to a large steel surgical table covered in a white sheet. On the table lay three clear glass IV bags filled with a pale, amber liquid, connected to a digital dosing pump that hummed with a low, rhythmic beep.
"You brought the drive, Daniel," Victoria stated. Her voice was carried through an overhead intercom speaker, sounding clear, close, and entirely devoid of echo.
Daniel raised his pistol, aiming the sight directly at the center of her chest through the reinforced glass window.
"Where is she, Victoria?" Daniel demanded, his voice echoing down the white trench.
Victoria smiled—a tiny, cold curve of her lips that did not reach her pale blue eyes.
"Clara is where you left her, Daniel," Victoria said through the speaker. "At the bottom of Blackwood Point. Where her mind finally found the peace you couldn't give her."
"You poisoned her!" Daniel screamed, taking three steps toward the glass wall. "You used synthetic neuro-toxins to shatter her short-term memory! You made her drive off that cliff!"
Victoria did not step back from the glass. She leaned her hands against the steel frame of the observation window, looking down at Daniel like a professor observing a specimen in a Petri dish.
"We didn't poison her, Daniel," Victoria corrected softly. "We cured her. Clara was the primary carrier for the Vance family genetic tremor—the same neurological degradation that is currently developing in Maya’s temporal lobe."
Daniel’s blood turned to liquid nitrogen. His hand holding the pistol trembled, the sights wavering off her chest for a fraction of a second.
"What did you say?" Daniel whispered.
"Maya isn't confused, Daniel," Victoria revealed, her voice dropping into a tone of quiet, devastating authority. "She isn't echoing your words. She is experiencing the first phase of the Phobos-9 integration cycle. The same cycle that made Clara see red doors in the middle of the night."
Victoria reached down and tapped the screen of a digital monitor mounted to the surgical table.
A live biometric feed materialized on the screen.
It showed a heart rate monitor, an EEG brain-wave plot, and a GPS tracking signal.
May you like
The signal was originating from the passenger seat of Daniel’s SUV, parked two hundred yards away in the pine trees.
And Maya’s heart rate was climbing rapidly toward two hundred beats per minute.
