Chapter 8 - The Echo of the Past
Arthur stared at the young man, his weathered face tight with suppressed emotion. The stark fluorescent lights caught the metallic flecks in the boy's dilated amber pupils. For a fleeting second, the harsh lines of the soldier melted away, replaced by the ghost of a memory best left buried.
"David," Arthur said softly, his voice dropping the commanding edge it had carried all evening. "You're supposed to be in the cryogenic vault at Site Four. You've been gone for twelve years."
David tilted his head, a faint, unsettling smile playing at the corners of his mouth. The movement was entirely human, yet utterly foreign. "Site Four was decommissioned the day you signed the demolition order, Arthur. You thought fire could erase what you built. But biology finds a way to keep the receipts."
Elena stirred on the floor beside them, groaning softly as she pushed herself up on one elbow. Her long dark-red silk dress was stained with dust, and her blonde hair had come completely unpinned, falling in tangled waves around her shoulders. She blinked against the harsh light, her gaze locking immediately onto David.
"David..." Elena choked out, scrambling forward on her hands and knees before Arthur stepped in to block her path.
"Don't touch him, Elena," Arthur warned, keeping his hand firmly planted on his sidearm holster. "He's not your son anymore. Not in any way that matters."
"He is my flesh and blood!" Elena screamed, her voice cracking with sudden, raw anguish as she tried to shove past Arthur's arm. "You stole him from me when he was six years old, you and the Department! You turned him into a lab rat, and now you have the nerve to stand there and lecture me about humanity?"
"I saved his life," Arthur retorted, his voice rising to match hers. "The compound was airborne before the quarantine protocols were even drafted. If I hadn't put him in stasis, his cellular structure would have dissolved every organ in his body within the hour."
David held up a hand, and the argument instantly died in the heavy air. The gesture was effortless, yet it carried an absolute authority that commanded total silence.
"You're both arguing over a corpse," David said smoothly, his voice echoing off the sterile walls. He looked down at his own glowing hands, flexing his fingers as thin wisps of amber light danced across his skin. "The compound isn't a disease, and it isn't a cure. It's a localized network. And right now, it's telling me that the rest of the board is heading down the main elevator shaft."
Officer Ramirez spun around, rushing toward the shattered doorway to peer down the long, empty hallway. "The elevator? Colonel, if they reach this level, they'll flush the entire wing with nerve gas to destroy the evidence. We're sitting ducks."
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"They won't be using the elevator," David replied calmly, his amber eyes flashing in the dim emergency light. He turned toward the reinforced exterior wall at the end of the hall. "Because I just rerouted the lift cables through the primary electrical grid."
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