**She Saw a Woman With Her Exact Face in the Woods—Then the Ground Split Open, Revealing a Secret Lab Full of Frozen Clones and Her Dead Father, Still Alive and Not a Day Older.**

Clara stared at the receiver. "I'm standing right here."

"The document says Subject 0B died twenty-two years ago," Ortiz replied. "June believed it was filed to erase your legal identity."

"Why would they do that?"

"So nobody outside the project could prove there were two daughters."

The line crackled. Clara folded the telephone cord around her hand until the plastic hurt.

"Send that to the district attorney," she said. "And please get here."

They reached the archive chamber through a narrow equipment hall. Two reader pads glowed beside a wall of sealed drives. Mara approached the first pad; Clara stood at the second.

"If we put our hands down, can Victoria open it from upstairs?" Mara asked.

Jonas shook his head. "The release is physical. You choose whether to touch the pad. Once you do, a recording of the original records goes to the emergency transmitter."

"And the research?" Clara said.

"The protected library can be locked permanently afterward. Victoria wants to copy it before that happens."

"She's going to have to live disappointed."

A gun clicked behind them.

Marcus stood in the doorway, blood soaking the bandage on his arm.

"Hands away from those readers," he said.

Mara stepped between him and Clara. "You told me she was dangerous."

"Victoria told me that."

"You were there when she drugged me. You watched."

Marcus glanced down the hall. "I thought I was protecting the project. I thought your father had hidden a weapon."

"We're people," Clara said. "Not a project."

He raised the gun. Jonas moved in front of both daughters.