Chapter 56 - The Mirror Chamber
They moved rapidly down the central corridor, passing shattered workstations, discarded hazmat suits, and hard drives that had been drilled through with industrial precision. The evacuation had been frantic, executed by people who knew they were leaving no living witness behind.
At the end of the hall, a double-sealed vault door stood half-ajar, wedged open by an overturned titanium medical gurney.
Daniel pushed past the barrier, gun raised.
The room inside was spherical, dominated by a massive spherical tank filled with crystalline, glowing amniotic fluid. Cables thick as anacondas snaked from the base of the tank into an elevated control dais.
Inside the sphere, suspended by delicate chest harnesses and an umbilical breathing apparatus, was a boy.
Daniel stopped dead in his tracks.
The child inside was not an infant. He appeared to be roughly eight or nine years old—precisely Leo’s age. His features, his messy dark hair floating in the warm solution, the exact arch of his brow—it was an undeniable, terrifying mirror image of the son standing right beside Daniel.
"Leo..." Daniel breathed, his hand involuntarily reaching out to pull his real son behind his hip.
"He has my facial structure, Dad," Leo said, his voice quiet, hollowed out by absolute shock. "He has the exact scar over his left eyebrow. The one I got when I was four, falling on the lake docks."
"How is that possible?" Daniel demanded, rounding on the magistrate. "A clone doesn't inherit acquired scars!"
The magistrate stared at the tank, his expression grim and hollow. "That isn't a clone, Daniel. Look at the date on the cryo-log terminal."
Daniel turned toward the illuminated monitor beside the dais. The primary admission date flashed in green phosphor:
*SUBJECT DESIGNATION: PRIMARY BIOLOGICAL ANCHOR.*
*EXTRACTION DATE: OCTOBER 14.*
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*ORIGINAL DESIGNATION: LEO VANCE-REID.*
Daniel felt the world tilt on its axis. He looked from the monitor to the boy suspended in the liquid, and then down at the boy standing beside him, holding the tactical tablet.
