Chapter 5 - The Project
Elias turned to the children.
"There's another exit."
Ruby narrowed her eyes.
"You said this floor was secret."
"It is."
"Then how do they know?"
Elias hated the answer.
"Because someone with executive access told them."
They moved through a maintenance corridor into an old archive level.
Elias had built it after a kidnapping threat twenty years earlier.
He never expected to use it with four grandchildren he had not known existed.
The thought still felt impossible.
At the archive door, his right thigh tightened.
A muscle.
A real contraction.
Elias gasped.
Mateo noticed.
"It's happening again."
"No."
"What?"
"You said she healed your brother once."
Mateo's face darkened.
"Tomas had a heart problem."
"And Grace touched him?"
"When she was three months old."
"What happened?"
"His heart got better."
"Then where is he?"
Mateo looked at the floor.
"They took him."
Elias entered his password.
The archive opened.
Inside were paper records from Vance Biomedical's earliest research years.
He searched Project Lazarus.
Most files were gone.
One box remained.
ELENA VANCE - ETHICS REVIEW.
Elena had written them to him.
He had never received them.
Dad, the animal studies are being manipulated.
Dad, Russell Wynn is moving pediatric trials off-books.
Dad, if you don't stop funding this, they will use children.
Elias stopped reading.
Russell Wynn.
Chief scientific officer.
His oldest friend.
The man currently running Vance Biomedical.
Frank swore softly.
"You trusted him with everything."
Elias looked sick.
"I did."
A crash sounded behind the archive door.
Mateo grabbed a metal rod.
Elias opened another file.
A patient list.
Codes instead of names.
G-11.
G-12.
G-13.
Then:
G-14 - RUBY M.
G-15 - MATEO M.
G-16 - CALEB M.
G-17 - GRACE M.
Elias stared.
"You were all subjects."
Ruby's face drained.
"No."
Mateo looked at his arm.
A small circular scar near the elbow.
Caleb began crying.
Elias read further.
Different procedures.
Different outcomes.
And beside Grace:
REGENERATIVE EXPRESSION - UNPRECEDENTED.
The archive door shook under a heavy impact.
Frank raised his weapon.
Elias flipped to the last page.
One handwritten note from Elena:
If Grace survives, do not let Russell discover what her blood can do.
Below it, Elena had written an address.
And three words.
May you like
TOMAS IS ALIVE.
Then the door burst inward.
