Chapter 6 - Protocol M-17.
Miriam pulled me into the service elevator before the police reached the hall.
June pressed the button for the basement while I clutched Ava and the envelope.
“If Vivian has the official samples, what am I carrying?”
Miriam opened the seal with a letter opener.
Inside were four empty tubes and a note written in black ink.
YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO LEAVE THE HOSPITAL.
The elevator stopped one floor above the garage.
Luka stood outside with a split lip and a court officer's coat over his black shirt.
“You escaped custody,” I said.
“They released me when Miriam threatened to make the hospital explain why my genetic sample was stored without consent.”
Miriam handed him the note.
“They are no longer hiding the threat.”
We left through the theater loading dock and entered three different vehicles before noon.
Our destination was an abandoned train station beneath the old financial district.
The brass key marked seventeen fit a locker behind the ticket office.
Inside waited a ledger, a portable drive, and a photograph of seventeen young women standing outside Morrow Biologics.
My mother was the last woman in the second row.
Her face had been circled in red.
SUBJECT M-17 was written beneath her feet.
I had always been told she died in a car accident when I was an infant.
The ledger said she died from complications during an unauthorized immune trial.
“Then I am not M-17,” I said.
“My mother was.”
June turned to the next page.
“You inherited her designation.”
Morrow had tracked me through school vaccines, dental visits, marriage records, and fertility appointments.
Grant's name first appeared beside mine four months before we supposedly met by chance.
He had been recruited, evaluated, and paid to court me.
The ledger even described the red scarf I wore on our first date and the coffee he deliberately spilled to make me laugh.
A supervisor had scored my emotional response as favorable.
Grant's proposal at the lake was listed as SUBJECT ATTACHMENT ACHIEVED.
My miscarriages appeared as failed cycles followed by recommendations to increase my dependence on him.
I closed the book before grief could become another cage.
Our first date, our engagement, and even the house he chose had been milestones in a project schedule.
Every loving memory became evidence against him.
Luka opened a contract near the back of the ledger.
Grant had signed it the week before our wedding.
He would receive ten million dollars if a viable child carrying both target markers survived delivery.
The contract identified Luka as NONCONSENSUAL PATERNAL SOURCE LM-04.
It identified me as HEREDITARY MATERNAL CARRIER M-17.
The last page contained an authorization for emergency containment.
If the mother resisted tissue collection, the project director could approve sedation, indefinite psychiatric confinement, or medical termination.
Grant's signature appeared beneath the words MATERNAL TERMINATION CONTINGENCY.
My phone rang.
His name glowed on the screen.
I answered and activated Miriam's recorder.
“You signed permission for them to kill me.”
Grant exhaled as if I had inconvenienced him.
“That clause was never meant to be used.”
“You left them a door and trusted them not to open it.”
“I can still fix this.”
“You cannot fix our marriage.”
“I am not calling about our marriage.”
His voice hardened.
“Bring me the M-17 drive by six tonight, or the next death certificate will have the correct name on it.”
Behind his voice, I heard a man groan.
May you like
Then my father whispered the childhood nickname no one living was supposed to remember.
“Run, little star.”
