Chapter 6 - The Scientist Who Had Been Dead for Five Years

Sera Patel lived under the name Susan Park in a town north of Milwaukee.

No social media.

No property in her name.

No medical license.

Whoever had helped her disappear had done it well enough that Prescott’s people found only one weakness: every Thursday morning, she bought cardamom tea from the same grocery store.

We reached the parking lot before sunrise.

I brought Elena.

Prescott came despite my telling him not to.

“You can fire me after the children are safe,” he said. “Until then, I’m not letting you walk into another warehouse alone.”

Sera exited the store carrying two paper bags.

She saw us.

One bag dropped.

Oranges rolled across the asphalt.

Then she ran.

Elena caught her first.

“Sera!”

The woman stopped at the sound of her real name.

She looked older than the photograph in Halcyon’s records, but the eyes were the same.

Alert.

Exhausted.

Already calculating exits.

“Who sent you?”

“No one,” Elena said.

Sera saw me.

Her face changed.

“Victor’s son.”

“Lawson.”

“I know who you are.”

“Then you know why I’m here.”

“I know why people like you are always somewhere.”

I held up a copy of Jonah and Blythe’s current blood work.

“My children are dying.”

Her expression cracked.

Just once.

“They’re alive?”

Elena whispered, “Barely.”

Sera closed her eyes.

We moved to a rented house outside town that Prescott had cleared.

Sera refused coffee.

She accepted the genomic report.

Her hands trembled while she read.

“HLX-17,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Franklin used it?”

“He prescribed it under another name.”

Sera sat down hard.

“I told Genevieve he would.”

“Why?”

“Because your children are evidence.”

I leaned forward.

“Evidence of what?”

“That Halcyon worked.”

Elena frowned. “They’re dying.”

“Halcyon did not exist to make perfect children. It existed to prove targeted embryo repair could produce a living human subject.”

The phrase made me sick.

Subject.

Not child.

Sera continued.

“The original defect in Jonah and Blythe would likely have caused marrow problems eventually. Franklin’s team corrected part of it. But the edit created a second instability. We discovered it late.”

“After implantation?”

“After birth.”

I stood so fast the chair scraped backward.

“You knew.”

“I knew when they were eighteen months old.”

“And you said nothing.”

“I tried.”

“Try harder.”

Sera’s face tightened.

“I filed reports. Victor buried them. Adrian threatened my husband. Franklin altered the data. Genevieve was the only person with enough access and enough courage to keep digging.”

Elena touched the necklace beneath her shirt.

“What about the counter-agent?”

Sera looked at her.

“It suppresses the regulatory sequence. It can stop HLX-17 from continuing to shut down marrow production.”

“Can it save them?” I asked.

“It can remove one pressure. It cannot repair the damage already done.”

My stomach dropped.

“What can?”

“A stem-cell rescue.”

Chen had said the same thing in more cautious language.

“Donor marrow?”

“Not standard donor marrow. Their immune systems were shaped by the edit. A conventional transplant carries unusually high rejection risk.”

Elena leaned forward.

“Genevieve banked cord blood.”

Sera nodded.

“For both twins.”

Hope arrived so sharply it hurt.

“Where?”

“Lakefront Cryogenic Services.”

Prescott was already on his phone.

Sera stopped him.

“Don’t call.”

He looked at her.

“Why?”

“Because Franklin knows.”

Silence.

“He asked me about the cord units years ago,” she said. “I lied and told him Genevieve destroyed them.”

“Did she?”

“No.”

I leaned toward Sera.

“Do you know the account number?”

She shook her head.

“Elena might.”

Elena stared.

“I was never involved in storage.”

“You were involved in labels.”

Sera looked at the necklace.

“Genevieve said she hid the account identifier somewhere she could carry without paper.”

Elena removed the pendant.

We opened the blue stone casing again.

The data wafer slid out.

Nothing else.

Sera took the silver backing and held it beneath a lamp.

Tiny scratches circled the inside rim.

Not random.

Numbers.

Prescott photographed them.

Within minutes, Lakefront confirmed the account existed.

My pulse accelerated.

“Send a team.”

Prescott’s expression turned grim.

“They can’t.”

“Why?”

“The account was accessed ninety-two days ago.”

The exact week HLX-17 first appeared in the twins’ medication.

“By whom?”

He listened to the person on the phone.

Then looked at me.

“Franklin Yates.”

I felt anger become something colder.

“Are the units still there?”

“One is.”

“One?”

Elena went white.

“What happened to the other?”

Prescott asked.

Then his jaw tightened.

“It was transferred.”

“Where?”

“No destination listed.”

Sera stood.

“That’s impossible. Cryogenic chain-of-custody requires a receiving facility.”

“Unless someone inside erased it.”

My phone rang.

Unknown.

This time, I answered without speaking.

Franklin Yates breathed on the other end.

“You found Sera,” he said.

I looked at her.

Her face drained of color.

“What do you want?”

“What I have always wanted, Lawson. Time.”

“You gave my children ten days.”

“I gave them more than anyone else could.”

“You poisoned them.”

A pause.

“Bring me Genevieve’s key.”

“The necklace?”

“The data.”

“And you give me the missing cord blood.”

Another pause.

“Yes.”

“How do I know you still have it?”

My phone chimed.

A photograph arrived.

A cryogenic container.

A handwritten label.

BLYTHE MERCER.

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Yates spoke again.

“Because I’m the only reason your daughter still has a chance.”