Chapter 8 - A Dead Man's Laboratory
“Voss is alive?”
Daniel's voice shook.
Sarah answered from the other end of the phone.
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“At a place I thought was abandoned.”
“Sarah, come home.”
“I can't. Not until I get the evidence.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“What evidence?”
“Proof of what they did to Margaret.”
The line crackled.
“Sarah?”
“Tell your mother I'm sorry.”
Then the call ended.
Daniel lowered his phone.
For a long moment, he didn't move.
I watched my son struggle between anger and fear.
“Why would Sarah apologize to me?” I asked.
He sat down.
“Maybe she knew more than she admitted.”
I wanted to hate her.
But I remembered the woman who had held my hand after Robert's funeral.
The woman who checked on me during winter storms.
The woman who noticed my belly and begged me to see a doctor.
Had she been trying to help?
Or had she spent twelve years protecting a terrible secret?
Detective Brooks arranged for investigators to trace Sarah's call.
Meanwhile, Dr. Collins brought us the results of more detailed imaging.
The mass filled much of my abdomen.
It wasn't a pregnancy.
It was a complex growth surrounded by fluid.
And embedded in its outer tissue was a small manufactured device.
“We believe the device may have been implanted during the procedure at Bellwether,” Dr. Collins explained.
“Could someone have made it start working again?” Daniel asked.
“We don't know. The device may have malfunctioned, deteriorated, or triggered a delayed reaction. We can't determine its purpose from imaging alone.”
I looked toward the screen.
For six months, I had carried something inside me that nobody could explain.
Now I knew it might have been placed there deliberately.
“Can you remove it?”
Dr. Collins nodded.
“We're preparing for surgery.”
“Then remove it.”
“Margaret, we need to discuss the risks.”
“I understand the risks.”
My voice grew steadier.
“But I want my body back.”
The doctor looked at me with compassion.
“We'll do everything we can.”
That afternoon, Detective Brooks received a call from her team.
Sarah's phone had briefly connected to a cell tower near an abandoned industrial facility.
The property had once been leased by Bellwether.
Police entered the building.
Inside, they found laboratory equipment, storage cabinets, and old medical files.
They also found a recently used computer.
Someone had been working there.
The final file opened on the screen contained my name.
Under it was a photograph.
It showed me standing in my garden six months earlier.
Another photograph showed me at the grocery store.
A third showed me entering my church.
Someone had been following me.
Then investigators uncovered a document labeled:
SECOND DAWN — REACTIVATION PROTOCOL.
The date on the document was exactly six months earlier.
The same month my stomach began growing.
May you like
And beneath the document was a single authorized physician's signature.
Nathaniel Voss.
