CHAPTER 6 — The Friend Michael Buried in His Past
CHAPTER 6 — The Friend Michael Buried in His Past
The rain had finally stopped.
Blue police lights continued to flash across the driveway as Detective Harris laid the old photograph on the hood of his car.
No one spoke.
Michael stared at it as if he'd seen a ghost.
His face drained of color.
"I thought he was dead," he whispered.
I looked at him.
"You know him."
Michael closed his eyes.
"His name is Daniel Mercer."
The name meant nothing to me.
"It was before we met," Michael continued. "Daniel and I were graduate students. We were recruited into the same government research program."
"The facial replication project?"
He nodded.
"We weren't building masks."
"We were building emergency identity technology."
The detective folded his arms.
"But someone realized it could become the perfect tool for espionage."
Michael's voice became quieter.
"Daniel believed that if governments wanted it, someone else would eventually build it anyway."
"I disagreed."
"So you reported him?"
Michael looked away.
"I did."
The silence that followed hurt more than shouting.
"He disappeared a few weeks later."
"I was told he died during a transport accident."
The detective shook his head.
"He didn't die."
"He vanished."
"And for the last ten years, we've linked him to dozens of identity theft operations across three countries."
I felt sick.
"So... this entire thing..."
Michael looked at me with tears in his eyes.
"Started because I chose the right side."
Before I could answer, an evidence technician approached at a run.
"Detective!"
"You need to hear this."
He held up a digital voice recorder recovered from the abandoned SUV.
"It survived."
Minutes later, everyone gathered around a laptop.
The recording began with muffled voices.
Then Daniel spoke.
His voice was calm.
Confident.
"Phase One is complete."
Another man asked, "What about Carter?"
Daniel laughed softly.
"Michael isn't the objective."
"The wife isn't either."
"The child is."
Every hair on my arms stood up.
The recording continued.
"The girl remembers details adults ignore."
"If she talks, twenty years of work disappears."
Sophie's fingers tightened around mine.
She wasn't crying.
She was listening.
Then another sentence played.
One that made every officer in the room freeze.
"Prepare Phase Two."
"Bring Subject Zero."
The recording ended.
The detective looked up slowly.
"What is Subject Zero?"
Michael didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he sat down heavily on the bumper of the patrol car.
"I prayed I'd never hear that name again."
He buried his face in his hands.
"When our project began, there was one volunteer."
"The first successful identity transfer."
"The first person whose face could be copied perfectly."
"The prototype."
"The man we called Subject Zero."
I swallowed.
"Who was he?"
Michael looked straight at me.
"My older brother."
The words stole the air from my lungs.
"You told me you were an only child."
"I lied."
"My brother, Ethan, volunteered because he believed he was helping national security."
"But after the project was corrupted..."
"He disappeared."
"They told my parents he died."
"I believed them."
The detective's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression hardened.
"What?"
"When?"
He listened another few seconds before hanging up.
"The unconscious suspect woke up."
"What did he say?"
The detective looked directly at Michael.
"He asked one question."
"What question?"
"'Has Subject Zero already reached the Carter house?'"
Silence.
Every officer instinctively looked toward our home.
The front door...
Which had been left open during the search...
Slowly creaked wider.
No one had touched it.
A shadow moved inside the hallway.
Then an elderly man stepped onto the porch.
Gray hair.
Wrinkled face.
Walking with a cane.
None of us recognized him.
Except Michael.
He staggered backward as though he'd been punched.
"No..."
"It can't be..."
The old man smiled.
Then, in a voice almost identical to Michael's, he said,
May you like
"Hello, little brother."
"My name isn't Ethan anymore."
