Chapter 9 - The Other MotherThe woman in the hospital footage resembled Rebecca closely enough to pass at a distance, but she was not identical.
Her hairline differed.
Her eyes were darker.
A faint scar crossed her chin.
The second baby appeared the same age as Sophie.
The archive identified the woman as Rachel Hale.
Rebecca’s younger sister Rachel had died at sixteen in a highway accident.
At least, that was what their parents told her.
No funeral had been open-casket.
No independent medical record appeared in the family archive.
Rachel Wynn, Sophie’s child-welfare attorney, stood beside Rebecca when the name appeared.
Her face went pale.
Rebecca looked at her.
“Why are you reacting?”
Rachel Wynn removed her glasses.
Her legal name before adoption had been Rachel Morgan.
She had no documented childhood before age seventeen.
The attorney who arrived to protect Sophie might be Rebecca’s lost sister.
Federal agents requested immediate DNA testing.
Rachel did not resist.
“I have no memory of a sister,” she said.
“Do you remember your childhood?” Rebecca asked.
“Fragments.”
A white hallway.
A woman asking her to repeat a new surname.
A baby crying behind glass.
Rachel had entered law school because she believed children disappeared inside sealed court systems. She never knew that belief might come from her own life.
The Room Zero archive showed teenage Rachel surviving the highway crash. Preston’s father, Dr. Arthur Hale, transported her to a private rehabilitation center.
Arthur later introduced Preston to Rebecca at a university fundraiser.
Rebecca believed the meeting was accidental.
It had been arranged around Rachel’s family.
The second baby in the footage was labeled S-0B.
Relationship:
Genetic sibling to S-0.
Rebecca stared.
She had carried one pregnancy.
Yet the records claimed Sophie had a genetic twin.
The study used embryos created during Rebecca’s fertility treatment. She and Preston had tried assisted conception after two miscarriages.
The clinic said only one embryo survived.
A second embryo may have been transferred into a gestational carrier without consent.
Rachel—or the woman using her identity—had carried Sophie’s twin.
“What happened to the other child?” Rebecca asked.
The archive displayed a status:
PLACED WITH CONTROL FAMILY. IDENTITY SEALED.
The control family was listed under Preston’s father.
Arthur Hale had raised the second child somewhere inside the Continuity network.
Sophie had been selected as the exposed subject, living with Rebecca and Preston.
Her twin remained the comparison subject, raised entirely within controlled institutions.
Room Zero’s lock required Sophie because the archive tracked the original embryo line.
Preston needed access to discover where the second child had been placed.
He had not staged Sophie’s injuries only to win custody.
He needed full legal control over her biometric identity.
With Sophie under Havenbridge authority, he could enter Room Zero and claim the hidden twin.
“Why would he want both girls?” Rachel asked.
The archive answered.
Arthur Hale created a trust worth $180 million for the Continuity program. Control would transfer to the first guardian legally recognized over both S-0 children.
Preston had one daughter.
He needed the other.
Rebecca’s custody appeal threatened his control over Sophie, delaying his access to the fortune.
The rehearsed fall was designed to discredit Rebecca permanently before Preston retrieved the hidden twin.
The archive contained a current location for S-0B.
A residential treatment center outside Boston.
Patient name:
Olivia Bell.
Age twelve.
The profile photograph showed a girl with Sophie’s face.
Then the status changed.
TRANSFER IN PROGRESS—AUTHORIZED BY PRESTON HALE.
Preston had reached the Boston facility.
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He was taking Sophie’s twin before federal authorities could intervene.
👉 Sophie’s injuries were part of Preston’s plan to control two genetically identical girls and inherit the fortune built around them.
