Chapter 6 - The Son of Vale

Clara led them through a supply corridor that smelled of bleach, hot linen, and old steam.

Behind them, the hospital alarm repeated the same calm instruction telling everyone to remain where they were.

Ava had never trusted calm voices during emergencies.

“Left,” Clara whispered.

Ava stopped her.

“No.”

Clara turned.

“The loading dock is left.”

“So are three men.”

Holloway listened and heard nothing.

Ava pointed right.

“Two on the stairs behind us. Three waiting ahead. Someone expects the loading dock.”

Clara looked at her carefully.

“You can count them?”

“I can hear their boots.”

“That should not be possible at this distance.”

“Put it on the list.”

Clara unlocked a narrow service door on the right.

They entered a disused laundry shaft corridor beneath the oldest wing of Mercy General.

Holloway pulled the door shut.

“Where does this go?”

“Old boiler annex.”

“Exit?”

“Eventually.”

“Comforting.”

Clara glanced at Ava.

“He always like this?”

“I’ve known him six hours.”

“Feels longer,” Holloway muttered.

They moved quickly.

At the bottom of the corridor, a freight elevator stood open.

Ava stopped again.

The coin in her pocket had become warm.

Not hot.

Alert.

She heard breathing inside the elevator.

“One person.”

Holloway raised his pistol.

A man stepped out slowly with both hands visible.

He was about thirty, tall, pale, wearing a dark wool coat over a suit. His hair was black, his face narrow, and his eyes were the same gray as Adrian Vale’s.

Clara whispered, “No.”

The man looked at Ava.

“Mara.”

Ava’s entire body tightened.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Fair.”

Holloway aimed at his chest.

“Elias Vale?”

“Yes.”

“Hands higher.”

Elias raised them.

Clara looked ready to strike him herself.

“You work for him.”

“I work near him.”

“That distinction is cowardice.”

“It has also kept me alive.”

Ava studied him.

The coin pulsed once.

Elias winced at the same moment.

His hand went instinctively toward his chest.

Ava saw the motion.

“You have your key.”

His expression changed.

“So do you.”

Holloway stepped between them.

“Take it out slowly.”

Elias shook his head.

“No.”

“That was not a request.”

“If I bring mine within a few feet of hers, the convergence response gets worse.”

Clara said, “He’s right.”

Ava felt pressure gathering behind her eyes.

Images flickered.

A boy at a white table.

A man’s hand on his shoulder.

A voice saying again.

Again.

Again.

Elias staggered.

“Back up,” Ava said.

He did immediately.

The pressure eased.

Holloway looked between them.

“You felt that too?”

Elias nodded.

“I’ve spent twenty years learning how not to.”

Clara’s voice was ice.

“You stayed with him.”

“I was two years old when Kharif happened.”

“You grew up.”

“So did you. We all made compromises.”

Clara took a step forward.

Ava caught her arm.

“Not here.”

Footsteps sounded behind them.

Elias glanced toward the locked door.

“You have ninety seconds before Rourke’s people reach this level.”

Holloway’s face darkened.

“You know Rourke.”

“My father owns him.”

“People aren’t owned.”

Elias gave him a sad look.

“You should tell Colonel Rourke.”

Ava said, “Why are you helping us?”

“Because my father finally decided you’re ready.”

“For what?”

“To complete LANTERN.”

“That does not answer my question.”

Elias lowered his hands slightly.

“I’m helping because completion kills us.”

Clara went still.

“What?”

“Not immediately. But the original protocol requires all surviving resonance patterns to be collapsed into the seventh carrier.”

Ava’s stomach turned.

“Collapsed?”

“Vale calls it integration.”

Clara whispered, “He never told us that.”

“Of course not.”

Elias looked at Ava.

“The first six keys authenticate. The seventh receives.”

“Receives what?”

“The full LANTERN model.”

Holloway frowned.

“A computer model?”

“An adaptive cognitive archive trained on twenty-four years of stolen neurological data, command simulations, surveillance sets, and the original ORISON subjects.”

Ava stared at him.

“You’re saying he wants to put a computer inside my head.”

“No.”

Elias’s voice softened.

“He wants your nervous system to become the final decryption instrument. Your brain would not store the database. It would be forced to resolve its keys in real time.”

Clara understood first.

“The sensory overload.”

Elias nodded.

“Would likely be fatal.”

Ava felt strangely calm.

“My father knew?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know what he knew?”

Elias looked toward the elevator.

“Because I spoke to him four months ago.”

The words stopped the corridor.

Ava’s voice dropped.

“You spoke to Ethan.”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I can explain after we leave.”

She crossed the distance between them in two steps and grabbed his coat.

“Where is my father?”

Elias did not resist.

“Alive when I saw him.”

“Where?”

“Asterion Northglass.”

Holloway said, “That facility was closed.”

“No. The public campus was closed.”

Ava tightened her grip.

“What is Northglass?”

“A research site under an abandoned observatory in Pennsylvania.”

Clara whispered, “Vale has Ethan.”

Elias looked at Ava.

“He has had him eleven months.”

Ava released him as if burned.

Eleven months.

The date of the final notebook entry.

“He’s a prisoner?”

“Yes.”

“Why keep him alive?”

“Because Ethan hid two of the keys.”

“Which?”

“Jonah’s and Miriam’s.”

Clara’s face closed.

“Jonah’s key is not hidden by Ethan.”

Elias looked at her.

“My father believes it is.”

“Good.”

A metal crash sounded behind the service door.

Elias said, “We need to move.”

Holloway kept the pistol on him.

“You first.”

Elias stepped into the freight elevator.

“No power,” Clara said.

“Emergency circuit is isolated.”

“You know that how?”

“I designed the hospital continuity system for Asterion six years ago.”

Clara stared at him.

“You designed systems in this hospital?”

“I told you. I work near my father.”

The elevator descended.

Ava stood at the opposite corner from Elias.

The pressure behind her eyes remained, but manageable.

“What did Ethan say to you?”

Elias watched the floor indicator.

“He said you would come looking for truth when somebody finally scared Holloway enough to tell it.”

Holloway sighed.

“I am being insulted by a dead man who is apparently not dead.”

Ava looked at Elias.

“What else?”

“He told me not to trust him.”

“Ethan told you not to trust Ethan?”

“No.”

Elias met her eyes.

“He told me not to trust myself.”

Clara folded her arms.

“That sounds sensible.”

Elias accepted the blow.

“My father conditioned me differently from the others. He raised me inside the program. There are triggers I may not recognize.”

Ava’s coin pulsed.

For one second, she saw a boy strapped to a chair.

Adrian Vale stood behind him.

Say the numbers, Elias.

The boy cried.

Say them.

Ava looked away.

Elias saw her reaction.

“You saw something.”

“I saw enough.”

The elevator reached the sub-basement.

Elias opened a maintenance hatch and led them through a tunnel beneath the hospital.

At the far end waited an old delivery garage.

A gray van sat with its engine running.

Holloway stopped.

“You arranged this?”

“Yes.”

“Who is driving?”

“No one.”

Ava looked at the driver’s seat.

Empty.

Elias held up a remote fob.

Clara said, “Absolutely not.”

“It is not autonomous. I started it remotely.”

“Still hate it.”

They climbed inside.

Holloway drove.

Elias sat in the rear, as far from Ava as possible.

Clara watched him like a surgical complication.

Ava turned in her seat.

“Show me proof.”

“Of what?”

“My father.”

Elias hesitated.

“Now.”

He reached into his coat slowly and removed a paper photograph.

Not a phone.

Not a screen.

Paper.

He handed it forward.

Ava stared.

Ethan sat at a metal table beneath fluorescent lights. He was thinner. His beard had gone mostly gray. A bruise darkened one temple.

But he was alive.

On the wall behind him, someone had taped a newspaper front page.

The date was four months earlier.

Ava’s fingers trembled.

“Dad.”

Holloway glanced at the photograph and nearly drove through a red light.

“Jesus.”

Clara leaned over the seat.

“That’s him.”

Ava turned the photograph over.

Ethan’s handwriting filled the back.

AVA — IF ELIAS BRINGS YOU THIS, HE HAS CHOSEN A SIDE.

Below that was another line.

DO NOT ASSUME IT WILL STAY CHOSEN.

Ava looked back at Elias.

He gave a tired smile.

“Your father was very difficult.”

“He still is.”

The word still caught in her throat.

Elias’s smile disappeared.

“Yes.”

Ava held the photograph against her chest.

“Take us to Northglass.”

Elias shook his head.

“Not yet.”

Ava’s eyes hardened.

“You have one chance to explain why I shouldn’t put you out of this van.”

“Because Northglass is exactly where my father wants you to go.”

Holloway glanced in the mirror.

“He expects her?”

“He built the last eleven months around making her come willingly.”

Ava looked at the photograph again.

Her father alive.

Waiting.

Possibly bait.

Probably both.

“What do we do first?” she asked.

Elias looked at Clara.

“We find Jonah’s key before Adrian does.”

Clara’s face became unreadable.

“And why would I tell you where it is?”

Elias answered quietly.

“Because Jonah left something with it that proves who ordered the Kharif ambush.”

Holloway’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“Vale.”

Elias looked at him.

“No.”

The van went silent.

Elias continued.

“Someone above Vale.”

Ava felt the next layer of the story opening beneath her feet.

“Who?”

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Elias looked directly at General Marcus Holloway.

“Your predecessor.”