Chapter 12
Blythe had left drawings beneath the stone.
Jonah had once buried his broken robot beside the flowers because he thought his mother could fix it in heaven.
I turned toward Miriam.
"Find Valez."
She already had.
An abandoned Helixor research facility stood beneath an old pharmaceutical warehouse fourteen miles west of the city.
Officially, the building had been empty for nine years.
Unofficially, power consumption had never stopped.
I did not call Prescott.
Instead, I sent him a message.
ELENA IS AT MY ESTATE.
SHE HAS THE ORIGINAL FILES.
He responded within thirty seconds.
I'M ON MY WAY.
There it was.
He didn't ask what files.
He already knew.
Miriam sent a team to intercept him.
I went to the Helixor facility.
For once, I did not go with an army.
Too many people had already been bought.
Miriam came with me.
So did Elena.
We entered through a maintenance tunnel marked on Genevieve's files.
The laboratory beneath the warehouse was spotless.
New equipment.
Active ventilation.
Medical supplies.
Someone had spent millions keeping the facility invisible.
We passed locked rooms.
Freezers.
Server banks.
Then I heard a voice.
"Lawson."
Every part of me stopped.
I turned.
Genevieve stood behind a glass partition.
Alive.
Thinner.
Her dark hair cut short.
Face pale.
But alive.
My knees nearly gave out.
She pressed both hands against the glass.
I walked toward her.
For two years, I had imagined a thousand impossible versions of this moment.
None included the rage.
"Why didn't you come home?"
Tears filled her eyes.
"I couldn't."
"Two years."
"He had the children watched."
"You let them think you were dead."
"I thought it kept them alive."
"They're dying."
Her face collapsed.
"I know."
A door opened behind us.
Adrian Valez entered.
He was seventy three.
Tall.
Silver haired.
Perfectly dressed.
A scientist who had spent his life believing intelligence made morality optional.
"Lawson Mercer," he said.
I wanted to kill him.
He smiled faintly.
"You're more impressive in person."
"You experimented on my children."
"I saved them."
"They have leukemia."
"An unforeseen failure."
"They're six."
"Science doesn't care about age."
I moved toward him.
Miriam caught my arm.
Valez didn't flinch.
"If you kill me, your children die."
I stopped.
He smiled again.
"I developed the correction sequence."
Genevieve looked at me through the glass.
"He's lying."
"No," Valez said.
"I'm bargaining."
He held up a drive.
"Everything required to stabilize the receptor permanently."