Chapter 13 - The Primary SubjectThe young woman identified herself as Mira.
She was twenty-two.
Richard claimed she had been created from the same embryonic line as Mara and Marina, but born years later through delayed implantation.
Independent verification was impossible while he controlled her location.
Mira looked frightened, not rehearsed.
She told Mara she had grown up in a private medical school where everyone called her the “primary continuity subject.”
“You’re not primary,” Mara said. “You’re a person.”
Mira’s eyes filled.
“No one ever said that.”
Richard entered the frame.
He held the portable patent drive.
“Your public trust conversion depends on proving you are the original Vale beneficiary.”
“I am Jonathan’s legal daughter.”
“The original trust names the first viable HELIOS subject.”
Mara understood his strategy.
If Mira could be portrayed as the legally designated subject, Mara’s ownership and authority might collapse.
The companies could revert to founder control.
Richard did not need the claim to be true.
He needed litigation long enough to halt the conversion.
Nina Caldwell reviewed the trust.
Richard had inserted the phrase “first viable subject” into a copy filed decades after Mara’s birth.
The original handwritten charter named Mara specifically.
Richard produced a second original.
Two documents.
Two chains of custody.
Two versions of history.
Again, the system manufactured uncertainty.
Mira spoke while Richard argued with the investigators.
“There are others here.”
“How many?” Mara asked.
“Five.”
Richard turned toward her sharply.
Mira continued.
“Some are sick. One is a child.”
He ended the feed.
Federal agents traced the transmission to an abandoned pharmaceutical plant in Missouri.
No raid could happen immediately without local coordination and proof of hostages.
Mara released a public statement through her attorney—not identifying the children, but announcing that Vale-Holloway facilities may contain unlawfully confined medical subjects.
The statement made secrecy harder.
Richard’s lawyers accused her of damaging the companies during postoperative delirium.
Mara’s medical team confirmed she was competent.
Adrian’s confession and the ICU recording supported her.
Selene testified that Beatrice instructed her to provoke Mara while physically vulnerable.
Marina provided evidence of the attempted injection.
Elise admitted her role in HELIOS.
The family’s united silence began breaking because Mara refused to protect anyone’s reputation.
Beatrice requested another meeting.
She offered the Missouri plant’s access codes.
“What do you want?” Mara asked.
“To see Adrian before I am transferred.”
“He can decide that.”
“And legal protection for Selene’s children.”
“They already have independent advocates.”
“Richard will never stop claiming them.”
“Neither will you.”
Beatrice looked exhausted.
“I wanted a family no one could take from me.”
“So you created children no one could leave.”
The sentence struck her.
She handed over the codes without securing a promise.
It was the first useful act she had taken without immediate gain.
Adrian agreed to see her under supervision.
Mara did not attend.
Their relationship no longer belonged to her.
Federal agents entered the Missouri plant.
They found five young adults and one child in medical dormitories. Some believed the outside world was contaminated. Others had been told their families sold them.
Mira remained missing.
Richard had moved her minutes earlier.
The recovered residents carried genetic links to Vale and Holloway descendants, but not all had been created through embryos. Some were children surrendered through fraudulent medical guardianships because their families possessed useful traits.
The continuity program had expanded beyond one bloodline.
It had become a private market for human biology.
In the pediatric ward, officers found an eight-year-old boy named Caleb.
His file identified Mara as his biological mother.
Mara’s stolen eggs could have produced several children.
Caleb held a drawing of the ICU room.
The details were exact:
The red camera.
The IV stand.
The divorce papers.
Beatrice leaning over the bed.
Yet he had never been there.
“How did he draw this?” Mara asked.
An officer found a speaker beneath his pillow.
Richard had been broadcasting the ICU confrontation to the hidden children.
He wanted them to believe Mara had refused them after discovering they existed.
Caleb looked into the body camera.
“Are you coming to get us?”
Mara fought to keep her voice steady.
“The police are bringing you somewhere safe.”
“You’re not coming?”
“I’m recovering from surgery.”
Richard had designed the question to make any answer sound like rejection.
Mara continued.
“I will speak with you when you are safe and when your advocate says you are ready. I will not make promises before I know what you need.”
Caleb looked confused.
Then relieved.
The officers transferred him.
Inside his medical chart was a current location for Richard and Mira.
A private airfield outside St. Louis.
The aircraft had already departed.
Its flight plan listed Geneva.
But the passenger manifest contained another name.
Mara Vale Holloway.
Richard intended to travel internationally using Mara’s legal identity.
May you like
If border systems accepted Mira as Mara, the woman in the ICU could be declared the impostor.
👉 Richard escaped with Mira while using Mara’s passport, preparing to replace Mara legally with a woman raised to carry her identity.
