Chapter 13 - The island of borrowed names
The Coast Guard refused to approach the island.
Satellite surveillance showed armed defenses along the shoreline, while thermal imaging revealed more than fifty people inside the underground complex. Federal commanders wanted to wait for specialized units.
Claire knew waiting was exactly what Celeste wanted.
Every hour gave Continuum time to move the identity archive.
Daniel sat across from Claire inside a secure aircraft hangar. Doctors had removed the deformed bullet from his vest and treated two fractured ribs. Physically, he was strong enough to travel.
Mentally, no one could predict which identity would control him when they arrived.
Claire showed him childhood photographs.
Their first house.
The blue room.
Daniel holding the paper crown he had made for her birthday.
He recognized some images immediately. Others produced no reaction.
When shown a photograph of Malcolm Voss, Daniel stared for nearly a minute.
“He hated cameras,” he said.
“Daniel hated cameras?”
“Malcolm.”
“You remember being him?”
“I remember standing beside him. I remember looking through his eyes. Sometimes I remember things from both sides at once.”
“Can he control you?”
Daniel looked down at his hands.
“He does not need to control me. Part of me agrees with him.”
Claire felt a chill.
“About what?”
“Death.”
Daniel looked toward the aircraft.
“Malcolm believed human identity should not end because the body fails. He saw memory transfer as the next stage of medicine.”
“He stole patients.”
“So did Celeste and Adrian. Malcolm believed consent would eventually become irrelevant because everyone would choose survival.”
“And do you believe that?”
“I don’t know where his belief ends and mine begins.”
Claire took his hand.
“Then choose based on what you do now.”
He looked at her.
“You still trust me?”
“No.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“Honest as always.”
“But I will not let them turn you into property.”
Evelyn approached from the far side of the hangar.
Claire had not spoken to her since learning that Thomas had been alive for eight years. Evelyn carried a sealed metal case recovered from her private bank vault.
“Thomas told me to give you this only if the island was exposed.”
Inside were two injectors.
One contained clear liquid.
The other contained black.
“What are they?” Claire asked.
“The clear serum suppresses transferred memory patterns. The black serum strengthens them.”
“Which one cures Daniel?”
“Neither. Thomas said the correct dose depends on which identity is dominant.”
“And how do we determine that?”
Evelyn’s silence gave the answer.
They could not.
The aircraft departed before dawn.
Claire, Daniel, Evelyn, Detective Reed and a small tactical team flew toward the Maine coast. Marcus remained missing. Adrian had been captured in the forest, but during interrogation he claimed Thomas—not Continuum—had ordered Daniel’s boating accident.
No one knew which version was true.
The helicopter reached the island under heavy fog.
The shoreline defenses did not fire.
The complex appeared abandoned.
Claire’s team entered through a service tunnel beneath the cliffs. Inside, the halls were warm and brightly lit. Meals remained untouched on tables. Medical equipment continued operating.
But every person was gone.
They found Anna Mercer inside a glass chamber.
She was conscious and standing without assistance. Her gunshot wound had healed with unnatural speed.
Claire released the door.
“Where is Celeste?”
Anna looked at Daniel.
“Which one are you?”
“Daniel.”
“That is what you said before you killed Patient Seven.”
Daniel recoiled.
“I never met you.”
“Malcolm did.”
Anna turned to Claire.
“Celeste moved the identity archive into the lower vault. Your father is trying to stop her.”
“How many subjects are here?”
“Seven stable. Thirty-two unstable.”
“Where?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“For bodies.”
A deep mechanical sound passed through the facility.
Rows of hidden doors opened along the corridor.
Inside each room stood a patient wearing identical white clothing.
Some were young.
Some elderly.
Several were children.
They looked toward Claire at the same moment.
Then they spoke together.
“Welcome, Claire Hart.”
Reed raised her weapon.
Anna stepped in front of her.
“Do not shoot. They are linked.”
“Linked how?”
“The archive is testing shared memory synchronization. Pain in one can trigger reactions in all.”
Daniel approached the nearest child.
The boy tilted his head.
“Hello, Malcolm.”
“I’m not Malcolm.”
“You brought us here.”
The child smiled.
“You promised us bodies that would not die.”
Daniel backed away.
Claire took the clear injector from Evelyn.
“If Malcolm becomes dominant, I use this.”
“And if Daniel disappears?” Evelyn asked.
Claire looked at the black injector.
“Then we decide whether bringing him back is worth what else might return.”
An alarm sounded from below.
Thomas’s voice came over the speakers.
“Claire, the lower vault is opening.”
“Where are you?”
“Level six.”
“Is Celeste with you?”
“No.”
A second voice entered the system.
Marcus.
“Yes, she is.”
The speaker crackled.
“Your father is lying again.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Marcus, where are you?”
“In the identity chamber.”
“Why did you shoot Daniel?”
“To stop Malcolm from accessing the archive.”
“You pushed him off the boat.”
“Because Thomas ordered me to.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“He is lying.”
Marcus continued.
“Ask your mother who placed Malcolm’s first neural map inside Daniel. Ask her who signed every authorization.”
Claire looked at Evelyn.
Her mother’s face revealed fear.
“Mother?”
“I signed the papers,” Evelyn said. “But Thomas prepared them.”
The floor beneath them vibrated.
The synchronized patients began walking toward the lower levels.
Anna grabbed Claire’s arm.
“If the archive opens, they will receive every stored identity simultaneously.”
“What happens then?”
“They choose who they want to become.”
“And what happens to the people they are now?”
Anna’s expression became hollow.
“We disappear.”
Daniel moved ahead of the group.
“I can close it.”
“How?” Claire asked.
“Malcolm designed the core.”
“That means he can open it too.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You will have to decide which one of us you trust.”
They descended toward Level Six.
At the bottom of the stairwell, they found Thomas Hart waiting behind a reinforced glass door.
He was alive.
Older, thinner and leaning on a cane, but unmistakably Claire’s father.
For one second, she became the daughter who had watched him die.
Then she saw the gun in his hand.
Thomas was pointing it at Marcus, who knelt beside the archive controls.
Celeste stood behind Thomas with a knife pressed against his spine.
And on the central screen, a countdown had begun.
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IDENTITY RELEASE: 00:05:00.
👉 Claire finally found her living father, but five minutes remained before every preserved mind inside Lazarus would be released into waiting human bodies.
