Chapter 13 - the second lucía
The woman entered the archive chamber without resistance.
Security officers spread around her, weapons pointed toward Elena, Michael, Sofia, Brooke, and the wounded Arturo. Their uniforms carried the Rivera Biomedical emblem, but Elena recognized none of them.
The woman’s resemblance to Lucía was extraordinary.
Her hair was styled differently, cut shorter at the shoulders, but her eyes, cheekbones, and even the slight upward curve at one corner of her mouth were identical.
“Put down the gun,” she told Sofia.
Her voice matched Lucía’s.
Sofia’s arms shook.
“You’re not my aunt.”
The woman smiled. “That depends on how you define family.”
Elena stepped in front of Sofia.
“Who are you?”
“Subject L-2.”
Arturo’s face collapsed.
“No.”
The woman looked at him.
“Hello, Father.”
“I ordered the replication trials destroyed.”
“You ordered the records destroyed. The subjects remained.”
Michael moved toward the terminal.
A security officer aimed at his chest.
“Don’t,” the woman said.
Michael stopped.
She approached Arturo and examined his bleeding shoulder without sympathy.
“You look smaller than I remember.”
“I have never seen you.”
“You visited the nursery every week until Catherine discovered us.”
Elena felt sick.
“How many subjects?”
“Twelve from the immediate Rivera line. More from affiliated families.”
“Copies?”
“Genetic approximations,” L-2 said. “We were not grown as adults, if that is what you are imagining. Embryos were selected and altered, then raised under controlled identities.”
“Who raised you?”
“Dr. Voss.”
“He’s dead.”
“Yes.”
“Who controls the program now?”
L-2 looked toward the terminal.
“The board.”
Elena understood at last why the private security team had arrived. Rivera Biomedical’s board had not been protecting Arturo. It had been protecting a program hidden beyond normal corporate oversight.
The company’s leadership had known about the mountain, the archive, and Noah.
“Why come tonight?” Elena asked.
“Because the trust activated.”
“You want control of the company.”
“We want continuity.”
“That means ownership.”
“It means preventing a child from inheriting technology that could destabilize governments.”
Sofia raised the pistol higher.
“He’s eight.”
“Exactly.”
A screen activated behind L-2.
The board chair, Malcolm Reed, appeared through a secure call. Elena had worked with him for fourteen years. He attended Noah’s christening, sent birthday gifts every year, and publicly praised Elena’s leadership.
Tonight he looked at her as though she were a failed employee.
“Elena,” he said, “we can still resolve this quietly.”
“You sent an imitation of my sister with armed men.”
“Lucía is not an imitation. She is a legal employee of the company.”
“Her name is L-2.”
“A designation from an obsolete program.”
“Where are the others?”
“Protected.”
“Imprisoned?”
“Protected.”
Elena almost laughed.
Every criminal in her family used gentle language for cages.
“What do you want?”
“The trust documents and the biological key.”
“Noah.”
“Yes.”
“You are not touching my son.”
“Then you accept responsibility for the missing children whose medical records remain in the archive.”
Michael spoke.
“The transfer reached ninety-nine percent. Most identities may already be recoverable.”
Malcolm’s eyes shifted toward him.
“You were supposed to die at the border.”
Michael smiled without humor.
“Several people have been disappointed tonight.”
L-2 walked to the terminal and inserted a board override card.
The screens displayed the trust’s new ownership structure.
At midnight, voting control of Rivera Biomedical had transferred into a protected account.
Primary beneficiary: Noah Rivera.
Guardian administrator: Elena Rivera.
Secondary administrator: Lucía Rivera.
Elena glanced toward the woman standing beside the terminal.
L-2 smiled.
“The trust recognizes my genetic identity as Lucía Rivera.”
“That is why you came,” Elena said. “You can seize secondary control.”
“Only if you are declared incapable.”
Malcolm spoke from the screen.
“Your decisions today demonstrate instability. You canceled contractual obligations during a family dispute, physically assaulted your father, removed company assets, and entered a restricted facility.”
“My father grabbed me. The property was purchased in my name.”
“The board will present a different interpretation.”
“You staged the birthday incident.”
“No.”
“Brooke did.”
Brooke stepped forward. “I did not plan the mud.”
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed toward L-2.
“She contacted Arturo using Sofia’s account. She arranged the bucket and told me it contained the activation compound.”
L-2’s expression did not change.
“Brooke is emotionally compromised.”
“You promised Noah Lawson treatment,” Brooke said.
“I promised access to the protocol.”
“You never intended to save him.”
“I intended to preserve useful research.”
Noah Lawson’s voice came through the mansion feed.
“I heard that.”
He stood beside young Noah, though his pistol now hung at his side. Mrs. Bennett and Lucía remained close.
Malcolm’s expression tightened.
“You have failed your assignment, Noah.”
“I was never employed by the board.”
“You were created by it.”
“No,” Catherine said from somewhere beyond his camera. “He was stolen by it.”
The mansion feed shifted.
Catherine entered the underground chamber wearing the same clothes from her earlier transmission. A bruise marked her temple, but she was free.
Noah Lawson had released her.
Arturo stared at his wife.
Catherine looked through the camera toward the mountain archive.
“L-2,” she said, “Dr. Voss lied to you.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed.
“About what?”
“You were not created from Lucía’s genetic material.”
L-2’s confidence faltered.
“Then whose?”
Catherine looked at Elena.
“Hers.”
The room fell silent.
L-2 turned toward Elena.
Catherine continued.
“Elena and Lucía were born two years apart, but their early samples were deliberately mislabeled. Voss created L-2 from Elena’s cells and altered her appearance to resemble Lucía.”
“Why?” Elena asked.
“To create a subject capable of replacing either daughter depending on which inherited the company.”
L-2 stared at her own hands.
Malcolm’s voice sharpened.
“Do not listen to her.”
Catherine held a paper document toward the mansion camera.
It was an original Rivera trust amendment.
“I have proof.”
Malcolm disconnected.
The security officers surrounding L-2 waited for instructions.
None came.
Elena approached the woman.
“You are not my sister,” she said carefully. “But you are not their property either.”
L-2 looked at the armed team.
“You don’t understand. They raised us to obey.”
“Then stop.”
A long silence followed.
L-2 removed the board override card from the terminal.
For one hopeful second, Elena believed she had reached her.
Then L-2 pressed a hidden switch beneath it.
The facility alarms activated.
SELF-CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL INITIATED.
Steel doors sealed every exit.
A countdown appeared.
TEN MINUTES UNTIL THERMAL PURGE.
L-2 looked at Elena with tears in her eyes.
May you like
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “They also raised us never to be captured.”
👉 Trapped beneath the mountain with ten minutes before the facility burned itself clean, Elena had to convince a woman created from her own DNA that obedience was not the same as survival.
