Chapter 9 - What My Mother Left Behind
I hadn't heard my mother's voice in twenty-two years.
It was lower than I remembered. Tired. Still unmistakably hers.
"Clara. Iris. And the girl they won't let me name. I'm sorry I couldn't reach all three of you."
Iris sat on the floor. Wren pressed a hand over her mouth.
The tape hissed.
"Your father thought the cells would help patients recover from terrible injuries. He didn't know Helena intended to create living donors. By the time we understood, the company had bought the security staff and locked down the research."
My mother drew a breath.
"If you're grown when you hear this, please don't let them call the women in those tanks replacements. They are not me. They belong to themselves."
Something metallic crashed in the hallway.
"The recording," Wren whispered. "Keep it."
I slipped the cassette and the signed papers into my waterproof coat pocket. Iris found a small data card taped behind the cabinet's back panel. It carried a handwritten label: CLIENTS AND TRANSFERS.
Our mother had been keeping evidence, not just memories.
A voice came from the doorway. "Put those down."
A nurse stood there, holding a flashlight. Her badge read ADA CHEN.
Wren didn't flinch. "She's with us."
Ada looked at the tape in my hand and exhaled. "Miriam said someone would come for it. I stopped believing her years ago."
She told us the transport lift would remain jammed until staff reset it manually. Rusk was preparing to send the most alert subjects by a medical convoy the following night instead.
"We have time to get outside help," I said.
"Not much," Ada replied. "The women can't survive a long shutdown. We need doctors, equipment, and a lawful seizure of this facility. Not just a rescue video."
Footsteps approached. Ada shoved open a supply hatch and gestured us through.
Before following, Wren caught my wrist.
"If we make it out," she said, "you need to know who told Rusk you were coming."
May you like
She looked toward the corridor where my father still worked.
"It was him."
