Chapter 2 - The Man in the Photograph
Clara had spent her whole life being told her father died in a laboratory fire. Now he was running down metal stairs toward her.
"Stay away," she said, backing into a glass cylinder.
The man stopped. "My name is Jonas Reed. Your mother called you Cricket because you kicked all night before you were born."
Nobody knew that nickname except Aunt June, who had raised Clara. June had died three weeks ago, leaving behind a map, a key, and one instruction: If they come for you, go to the oak.
"That's not proof you're him."
"No. It isn't." Jonas pulled back his sleeve. A thin surgical line ran from wrist to elbow. "I was put into medical suspension after the fire. Woken for tests, then frozen again. My body lived a few months while twenty-two years passed outside."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I expect you to look around."
A woman floated behind the nearest glass. Her dark hair moved in the blue fluid. She looked thirteen. The next cylinder held the same face at thirty.
Clara swallowed. "What happened to Mom?"
Jonas looked toward a sealed doorway at the far end of the chamber.
"That answer is behind there. But first you need to understand this place."
He led her past a console marked ORCHARD. The screen showed two human silhouettes, each linked to a different locking mechanism.
"Elena designed a system that couldn't be opened by one person," he said. "Victoria turned that protection into a prison."
"Who's the girl outside?"
"Her name is Mara. She's been told she's the only daughter."
Clara looked at her own reflection in the glass, then at the young woman floating beyond it.
"And what am I?"
Jonas's answer came so quietly she almost missed it.
"You're Subject 0B. Your sister is 0A."
An alarm sounded. On the console, a new message appeared.
May you like
PRIMARY HOST DESCENDING.
"Clara," Jonas said, "your sister is coming down here. And she's carrying Victoria's orders inside her body."
