Chapter 18 - THE CLINIC UNDER THE CHURCHThe building had been abandoned for eighteen years.
At least officially.
Liam, Adrian, Leo, Miriam, and federal investigators entered the basement beneath St. Vincent’s former medical center shortly after midnight.
Dust covered everything.
Except the elevator buttons.
Somebody had used them recently.
Adrian stared.
“This existed when we were children?”
Liam nodded.
“Our father donated the building.”
“He owned it.”
“Apparently.”
The underground level was still powered.
Refrigeration units hummed.
Computer servers blinked.
Leo whispered:
“That’s disturbing.”
Miriam opened a cabinet.
Patient files.
Recent ones.
Not thirty-year-old evidence.
Recent.
Liam looked at a date.
Three weeks earlier.
“These people are alive.”
Miriam nodded slowly.
“Harrington never stopped.”
They found no patients inside.
Only samples.
Genetic data.
Blood.
Tissue.
Records.
Then Adrian found his name.
ADRIAN MERCER — SUBJECT V-17.
His childhood medical records had been copied into the system.
Liam’s were there too.
So were Grace’s.
Adrian slammed his fist into a cabinet.
“Everything was an experiment to them.”
Liam caught his arm.
“Stop.”
Adrian stared at him.
“You’re telling me to calm down?”
“No.”
Liam looked at his brother.
“I’m telling you not to break your hand before we find him.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Clara really did ruin you.”
“Completely.”
A monitor suddenly activated.
Dr. Samuel Harrington appeared onscreen.
Seventy-two years old.
Silver hair.
Calm eyes.
Same physician who had once stood beside Liam’s bed.
“Hello, Liam.”
Liam stepped closer.
“Where are you?”
“You always ask the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
“Why.”
Harrington leaned toward the camera.
“Your father was a brute. But he understood scale.”
Miriam shouted:
“You killed my sister!”
Harrington barely reacted.
“Elizabeth experienced an adverse event.”
Adrian lunged toward the monitor.
Liam held him back.
“Adverse event?”
Adrian’s voice broke.
“She was my mother.”
Harrington studied him with clinical curiosity.
“You survived because of her.”
Adrian went silent.
Harrington continued.
“The Mercer line carries an unusually resilient immune response linked to the Vale mutation.”
Liam felt sick.
“You studied us.”
“I protected the work.”
“You studied my daughter.”
“She possesses the cleanest expression we’ve seen.”
Liam’s face transformed.
Leo quietly stepped closer.
Not to protect Liam from Harrington.
To protect Harrington from what Liam might become.
Then Clara’s voice came through Liam’s phone.
“Liam.”
He froze.
She had been listening through the encrypted channel.
“Don’t give him what he wants.”
Harrington smiled.
“Clara Bennett.”
She continued.
“He wants you angry.”
Liam breathed.
Once.
Twice.
Then looked into the camera.
“You’re right.”
Harrington frowned.
Liam smiled.
“You spent thirty years expecting Victor Mercer’s son.”
He stepped closer.
“He’s dead.”
The screen went black.
Then Leo shouted:
“Movement!”
A side door opened.
Everyone raised weapons.
A frightened young woman stumbled into the corridor.
Hospital gown.
Bare feet.
Pregnant.
She collapsed.
Miriam caught her.
The woman looked up.
“Please.”
Her hand covered her stomach.
“He said my baby could cure people.”
Clara heard every word through the phone.
May you like
Then the woman whispered:
“There are eleven more of us.”
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