Chapter 8 - Four Minutes to Save Five Lives
The steel shutters locked before I reached the first infant room.
Claire dropped beside the desk and tore open the control panel.
“Voss changed the override system.”
“Can you open it?”
“Not from here.”
The countdown fell.
03:41
Valentina pressed her face to the glass slit in the first door. Inside, a newborn girl kicked beneath a yellow blanket.
“Tell us what to do.”
Claire pointed toward the end of the hall.
“Mechanical room. Manual oxygen valves.”
Matteo ran.
Rebecca remained on the floor where I had knocked her down. She stared at the locked rooms as if waking from a long sleep.
“You said they would be transferred,” she whispered.
“No one told you the truth,” I said.
She looked at the timer.
“I know the valve sequence.”
“Then move.”
Rebecca led us through a narrow door behind the nurses’ station. Pipes covered the walls. Five red handles were arranged beneath numbered gauges.
“Each room has an independent line,” she said. “If we open them in the wrong order, the emergency system vents the oxygen.”
“Which order?”
“I do not remember.”
Matteo rushed in behind us.
“You worked here for years.”
“They changed the markings.”
The timer continued.
02:58
Claire entered carrying a folder from the archive desk.
“The room numbers correspond to patient birth times.”
She read the first chart.
“Room One, 2:14 a.m. Room Two, 4:50. Room Three, 11:06. Room Four, 6:33. Room Five, 8:21.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Ascending order.”
Matteo grabbed the handle for Room One.
“Wait,” Claire said. “The labels may be reversed.”
“Why?”
“Voss designed the system.”
That was reason enough.
Valentina examined the gauges.
“These pressure numbers are not room numbers.”
I looked closer.
Each gauge displayed a date.
Dates from decades earlier.
One was the date my mother disappeared.
Another was Matteo’s birthday.
A third was Valentina’s supposed birthday.
My father and Voss had built even their safety systems around secrets.
The timer reached two minutes.
Rebecca touched the gauge marked with Matteo’s birthday.
“This line belongs to the first child born through the program.”
“Matteo?” I asked.
She nodded.
“The sequence is not birth times. It is the order the program created the children.”
“Then tell us.”
She moved from valve to valve.
“Matteo first. Then Elena’s stored embryos. Then the judge’s child. Then Valentina. Then Adrian.”
Valentina stared at her.
“You know who I am.”
Rebecca avoided her eyes.
“Open the valves,” I ordered.
Matteo turned the first handle.
Nothing happened.
Rebecca opened the second.
A green light appeared above Room Two.
Claire opened the third.
Another light changed.
Valentina turned the fourth.
An alarm shrieked.
The countdown accelerated.
00:54
“Wrong valve!” Claire shouted.
Rebecca shoved Valentina aside and reversed it.
The timer stopped at forty-six seconds, then resumed.
I grabbed the final handle.
“Which one?”
Rebecca pointed.
I turned it.
All five pressure gauges jumped.
The shutters lifted.
Air hissed through the ceiling vents.
The babies’ cries filled the hallway.
Valentina entered the first room and lifted the newborn girl from the incubator. She held the child against her chest, whispering that she was safe.
For one brief moment, the entire world narrowed to five living children.
Then security guards stormed the ward.
Anthony’s copied uniform meant nothing now.
Gunfire cracked through the corridor.
Claire shot the first guard in the shoulder. Matteo overturned the nurses’ desk. I pulled Valentina and the infant behind the wall.
Rebecca stood in the open.
“Adrian!” she shouted.
The guards stopped firing.
Dr. Adrian Voss appeared between them.
He wore a white coat over a perfectly tailored gray suit. He was in his late forties, tall, with the same eyes as my father.
My father’s other son.
Voss looked at Rebecca.
“You pressed the failsafe.”
“You said the rooms would unlock.”
“They did.”
“You intended to kill them.”
“I intended to recover stolen property.”
Valentina held the baby tighter.
“These are children.”
Voss looked mildly annoyed.
“They are evidence.”
His gaze moved to me.
“Where is Salvatore?”
“Dead.”
“Again?”
“This time I watched.”
Voss considered that.
“And the archive drive?”
Claire pulled it from the computer.
The download had reached ninety-six percent before the alarm interrupted it.
“Almost complete,” she said.
Voss smiled.
“You always were persistent, Claire.”
“You should have aimed for my head.”
“I did not shoot you.”
She looked at Matteo.
My brother shook his head.
“I heard the shot.”
“You heard Salvatore shoot her,” Voss said. “He wanted you frightened enough to obey.”
Even now, my father’s schemes continued changing shape.
Voss held out his hand.
“Give me the drive and leave with Dominic’s child.”
“The other five come with us,” I said.
“No.”
“Then you get nothing.”
“Dominic, you misunderstand your position.”
He nodded toward the guards.
Two men wheeled Dr. Mercer into the corridor.
Blood covered the side of his face.
Beside him was my son’s portable incubator.
My baby cried beneath the transparent cover.
Voss rested one hand on the oxygen control.
“One drive,” he said. “One child.”
“And the others?”
“They remain.”
I looked at the five infant rooms.
Somewhere above us, parents still believed these children were dead.
Voss believed I would choose my son.
My father would have.
Perhaps that was why Voss expected me to do the same.
I looked at Valentina.
She understood before I spoke.
“We are not leaving any of them.”
Voss’s smile faded.
“Then you will lose yours first.”
His hand moved toward the switch.
Rebecca drew Claire’s spare gun and aimed at her other son.
“Step away from the incubator, Adrian.”
Voss looked at her almost tenderly.
“You would shoot me for him?”
“For all of them.”
“You spent thirty years protecting me.”
“I spent thirty years believing your lies.”
Voss stepped closer to her.
“You abandoned Matteo to Salvatore. You chose me.”
Rebecca’s hand shook.
Matteo rose behind the overturned desk.
“No,” he said. “She was forced to leave me.”
Voss turned.
That movement saved my son.
Rebecca fired.
The bullet struck Voss in the side.
I rushed the incubator.
The guards opened fire.
Matteo threw himself between Rebecca and the bullets.
He fell.
Claire shot the lights.
In the darkness, I heard Valentina screaming my brother’s name.
Emergency strobes flashed.
Voss had disappeared.
The archive drive was gone.
But the incubator was still there.
I lifted my son into my arms as Mercer crawled toward us.
“Matteo,” I shouted.
Valentina knelt beside him.
Blood spread beneath his body.
Rebecca pressed both hands against his chest.
“My son,” she whispered.
Matteo looked up at her.
“Which one?”
Her face broke.
“You.”
Then the ceiling speakers came alive.
Voss’s voice filled Ward E.
“You have ten minutes before the police arrive. The archive will show Dominic Moretti kidnapped six infants and murdered the hospital administrator.”
A photograph appeared on the corridor monitor.
It showed me standing over my father’s body.
Another image showed Claire holding a gun.
A third showed Valentina carrying the infant from Room One.
Every recording had been altered to tell Voss’s story.
His final message appeared beneath the photographs.
May you like
THE CHILDREN BELONG TO THE HOSPITAL.
Then the chapel elevator began descending.
