Chapter 12 - the second Victoria
Principal Hall’s transmission lasted eleven seconds.
Then static swallowed his voice.
Ms. Clara called back repeatedly.
No response.
Rodrigo remained on the floor with Maria in his arms. She looked at him with polite fear, as if he were a stranger trying to comfort her.
Victoria entered the tower chamber.
“Mommy?”
Maria looked at the girl.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know you.”
Victoria’s face collapsed.
Rodrigo pulled her close.
“It may be temporary.”
He looked at Dr. Warren, desperate for agreement.
The doctor had followed the children upstairs.
“We don’t know what the shutdown affected.”
Maria touched Victoria’s cheek uncertainly.
“Were you mine?”
“You are my mommy.”
Maria began crying without understanding why.
Some emotional memory remained even when names and events were gone.
Officer Reed returned to the terminal.
“Cross is moving toward Oak Valley. Why?”
Ms. Clara thought about the school.
“The first selection site.”
Amanda shook her head.
“North Ridge was older.”
“But Oak Valley is where Victoria was monitored.”
Maria stared at the cracked screen.
A fragment of technical instinct survived.
“Founder mirror.”
“What?”
“The system would keep a backup of the primary carrier.”
Rodrigo looked at her.
“A backup person?”
“Not necessarily.”
Hall had said the child looked exactly like Victoria.
Renee opened the silver cane’s ledger and searched for V-09.
Two entries appeared.
V-09A: VICTORIA HARPER.
V-09B: VERA.
STATUS: DEVELOPMENTAL MIRROR.
Ms. Clara read the second record.
“No legal surname. No parents listed.”
Rodrigo stared at the screen.
“Is she a clone?”
Maria shook her head.
“Human cloning at that level isn’t possible.”
“Then why does she look like my daughter?”
Amanda found another file.
EMBRYONIC SPLIT RESEARCH.
Rodrigo’s face went cold.
Maria began remembering in fragments.
“Cross collected embryos from program participants.”
“You used our unborn child?”
“I don’t remember.”
The file explained enough.
During fertility treatment years earlier, Maria and Rodrigo had created several embryos. They believed unused samples had been destroyed after Victoria’s birth.
One had been retained illegally.
Vera was genetically Victoria’s identical twin, born through another surrogate one year later and raised inside the program.
Rodrigo sat down.
“I have another daughter.”
Victoria stared at the photograph.
The girl had the same fair skin, the same eyes, and the same dark-blonde hair. But her expression was empty.
“Is she my sister?”
“Yes,” Rodrigo whispered.
Cross had not merely selected Victoria before birth.
She had manufactured a second child as a control subject.
The ledger showed that Vera carried a more advanced implant. Her brain had been conditioned from infancy to receive external memory without resistance.
“She is the mobile node,” Amanda said.
Reed checked the map.
“The signal is approaching Oak Valley.”
Ms. Clara looked at Victoria.
“Why would Cross bring Vera to the school?”
Renee answered.
“To replace Victoria.”
The possibility silenced everyone.
If Cross could present an identical child with altered memories, she could claim Rodrigo had abducted the wrong girl or fabricated the entire story.
Officer Cole entered with Ethan.
“News channels are reporting that police rescued Victoria Harper from a group of kidnappers.”
Rodrigo looked up.
“They’re using Vera.”
A live broadcast appeared on the terminal.
Superintendent Cross stood outside Oak Valley Elementary beside a girl in a light-blue uniform.
Vera.
Principal Hall stood behind them with a bandage around his head. Two armed men flanked him.
Cross addressed reporters.
“Victoria Harper was recovered safely. Her father and several school employees remain fugitives.”
The girl looked into the camera.
“My daddy hurt me,” she said.
Rodrigo stopped breathing.
Victoria cried, “That’s not me!”
Cross continued.
“The suspects have abducted multiple children from medical care. We urge the public not to approach them.”
Reed turned off the screen.
“She has created a perfect witness.”
Ms. Clara looked at the real Victoria.
“Not perfect.”
“What do you mean?”
“Victoria remembers things Vera cannot.”
“Cross can transfer memories.”
“Not everything.”
Ms. Clara knelt beside Victoria.
“What did your father say every night before bed?”
Victoria answered immediately.
“That brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It means you tell the truth while you’re scared.”
Rodrigo closed his eyes.
Ms. Clara continued.
“What did your mother sing?”
Victoria hummed the three-note lullaby, then changed the final note.
Maria looked up.
“That’s wrong.”
Victoria shook her head.
“Mommy always sang it wrong on purpose because Daddy said the real ending was too sad.”
Rodrigo stared at Maria.
She had remembered.
Only a fragment.
But it belonged to their family, not the program.
“We go back,” he said.
Reed looked at the children.
“Cross controls the police response.”
“Then we don’t approach as fugitives.”
Ms. Clara picked up the red notebook.
“We approach as teachers, parents, doctors, and thirty-six children who can identify what was done to them.”
Lily stood beside her.
“My mom is bringing other families.”
Cole checked his phone.
Hundreds of parents were gathering outside Oak Valley after receiving the evidence release.
Cross expected frightened individuals.
She was about to face a crowd.
As they prepared to leave, the ledger produced a new alert.
VERA TRANSFER: 83% COMPLETE.
TARGET MEMORY: VICTORIA HARPER.
Rodrigo looked at his daughter.
“What happens at one hundred percent?”
Maria answered in a whisper.
May you like
“The system may no longer be able to distinguish them.”
👉 Cross was using Victoria’s hidden twin to replace her publicly, and the memory transfer was rapidly making the two girls psychologically identical.
