Chapter 16 - THE ARCHIVE BELOW THE SEA
The unidentified vessel remained half a mile away.
Its navigation lights were dark.
Radar showed it moving parallel to the Ashford research ship.
Naomi’s face remained on the communication screen.
Sloane held Evelyn near the rail.
Her hands were bound.
Adrian saw his mother and attempted to stand.
His legs failed beneath him.
Ethan caught him.
“You cannot help her if you collapse.”
“She will die.”
“She may.”
Adrian looked at him.
Ethan did not soften the truth.
“We still do not give them the archive without a plan.”
Vivian examined the sonar image.
The metal container rested two hundred feet below the surface.
It had been secured inside the wreckage of a small cargo vessel.
Graham had not merely hidden documents after the plane crash.
He had prepared the location in advance.
“Can we access it remotely?” Claire asked.
“The recovery drone can bring it to the surface,” Vivian said.
“Can Naomi intercept the drone?”
“Possibly.”
Reed studied the second vessel.
“Sloane will have armed personnel.”
Naomi’s voice returned.
“You have ten minutes.”
Claire activated the microphone.
“Release Evelyn first.”
“No.”
“She is your aunt.”
Naomi smiled.
“She is a woman who sold two infants and later helped burn a laboratory.”
“She is also the only reason Victor did not kill you as a child.”
Naomi’s expression changed.
Claire had guessed.
Valerie said Eleanor’s parents raised Naomi for three years.
Someone had to place her there.
Evelyn might have done it after regretting the fire.
“You do not know anything about me,” Naomi said.
“I know Victor spent years making every child believe another person stole their life.”
“He did not make me believe what happened.”
“He made you believe revenge would repair it.”
“What repaired your life?”
“Nothing.”
Claire’s answer silenced her.
“Some things cannot be repaired.”
“They can only be stopped.”
Naomi ended the communication.
The recovery drone reached the wreckage.
Its mechanical arms cleared rusted metal from the container.
A camera revealed Ashford symbols engraved across the lid.
Vivian entered an access code.
The container unlocked.
Inside sat several waterproof cases.
One bore the label HELIX ORIGINAL.
Another bore Daniel Bennett’s name.
The final case bore the names Claire and Caroline.
Claire stared at the screen.
“What did Graham keep about us?”
Vivian did not know.
The drone lifted the cases.
Naomi’s vessel changed direction.
It moved closer.
Reed’s tactical officers prepared defensive positions.
Eleanor entered the control room.
She had remained inside a secured cabin.
Reed looked at her.
“How did you get out?”
“You placed a twenty-two-year-old officer outside my door.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“I asked him to unlock it.”
“Why would he?”
“He works for my company.”
Reed ordered the officer removed from duty.
Eleanor examined the approaching vessel.
“That ship belongs to Victor.”
“He is in custody.”
“He designed contingencies.”
“Can you disable it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Both Ashford vessels share an emergency control network.”
Vivian looked at her.
“You could shut down their engines.”
“For ninety seconds.”
“Do it when the drone reaches the surface.”
Eleanor entered the control code.
The system rejected it.
Remote administrator override.
Sloane had removed her authority.
Ethan stepped beside her.
“Use mine.”
“You were suspended from the board.”
“My biometric access was never removed.”
He pressed his hand against the scanner.
The system accepted him.
Eleanor looked at her son.
“You always were the better heir.”
“I am not your heir.”
“No.”
“You are better than one.”
The drone surfaced.
Crew members pulled the waterproof cases onto the deck.
Naomi’s vessel accelerated.
Ethan activated the shutdown command.
The second ship’s engines stopped.
Its momentum carried it forward, but the distance widened enough for Reed’s team to secure the cases.
Then the Ashford ship’s engines stopped too.
Eleanor stared at the controls.
“That should not happen.”
Sloane’s voice came through the radio.
“Shared emergency network.”
He had used their own command against them.
Both ships drifted in rough water.
Naomi’s vessel launched two smaller boats.
Armed men crossed the distance.
Reed’s officers exchanged gunfire across the waves.
Claire helped Vivian move the cases below deck.
Adrian remained in the medical cabin.
Ethan refused to leave him.
Evelyn appeared on Naomi’s live feed again.
Sloane moved her toward the edge.
“Bring the Helix case to the stern.”
“Or she goes into the water.”
Adrian heard him.
He pushed himself upright.
“Give them the case.”
Vivian shook her head.
“It may contain the only complete formula.”
“It is my mother.”
“It may save every remaining patient.”
“I do not care.”
Ethan looked at him.
“You will care if she survives and you do not.”
Adrian struck him.
The blow was weak.
The emotion behind it was not.
“You had a mother.”
“I had Eleanor.”
“She loved you.”
“She lied to me every day.”
“She still chose you.”
Ethan caught Adrian’s wrist.
“Evelyn chose Victor before either of us.”
Adrian’s face broke.
“She came back.”
“So did Claire.”
Claire entered carrying the case labeled with both sisters’ names.
“We open this first.”
The locks required two blood samples.
Claire provided one.
Naomi was not present to provide the other.
Vivian examined the mechanism.
“Graham designed it to require both twins.”
Eleanor entered.
“Not both twins.”
She pressed her thumb against the second scanner.
The case opened.
Claire stared at her.
“Why did it accept you?”
Eleanor looked at Vivian.
“Because I carried Claire’s cells for twenty-five years.”
Vivian went pale.
“What did you do?”
“After the fire, Claire needed a compatible host for an experimental marrow procedure.”
“You carried her?”
“For six months.”
Claire looked between them.
“Explain.”
Eleanor touched the inside of her arm.
“Vivian believed Claire would die outside a controlled biological environment.”
“An artificial system was not available.”
“So she used me.”
Vivian stepped closer.
“You volunteered.”
“Graham begged me.”
“You hated me.”
“I hated what you and Graham had done.”
“I did not hate your child.”
Claire opened the case.
Inside were letters, photographs, and two infant identification bracelets.
One read Claire Bennett.
The other read Caroline Bennett.
A handwritten journal rested beneath them.
Graham described the night of the fire.
Both girls survived initially.
Claire received Caroline’s marrow.
Caroline responded better to Helix.
Graham switched their identification bracelets before bringing one child to Daniel.
He intended to return for the other.
Victor moved her first.
The child Daniel raised was Caroline.
Naomi was Claire.
The truth was confirmed.
A final envelope was addressed to both daughters.
Claire opened it.
Graham’s letter explained that the Helix formula was not inside the underwater archive.
The cases contained evidence proving Victor deliberately altered the trial.
The formula existed inside the combined immune response of both twins.
Neither sister alone could recreate it.
Claire looked toward Naomi’s vessel.
“She needs me.”
Vivian nodded.
“And you need her.”
Gunfire struck the ship’s windows.
One of Sloane’s boats reached the hull.
Reed’s officers engaged them below deck.
Ethan opened the HELIX ORIGINAL case.
It contained the names of every patient, dosage records, and a treatment protocol.
The final page required biological samples from Patient One and Patient Two.
Adrian looked at Claire.
“You can save us.”
“Only with Naomi.”
Evelyn screamed through the communication screen.
Sloane pushed her over the rail.
Adrian shouted.
Ethan ran to the deck.
Evelyn struck the water between the vessels.
The waves pulled her beneath the surface.
Adrian attempted to follow.
Claire grabbed him.
“You will drown.”
“She is my mother.”
Ethan tied a rescue line around his waist.
“She is mine too.”
He jumped.
Adrian watched his brother disappear into the black water.
For the first time, he whispered Ethan’s name without anger.
Naomi’s vessel regained power.
It moved toward them.
Sloane aimed its bow directly at the disabled Ashford ship.
Eleanor looked at the radar.
“He intends to ram us.”
Crew members struggled to restart the engines.
Claire saw Ethan surface beside Evelyn.
He held her above the waves.
The rescue line tightened.
Adrian helped pull them toward the ship.
Naomi appeared alone on the communication screen.
Blood covered one side of her face.
“Sloane has locked the controls.”
“Can you stop him?” Claire asked.
“No.”
“How long until impact?”
“Four minutes.”
“Jump.”
“The lower doors are sealed.”
Claire looked at the treatment protocol.
Both sisters were required.
If Naomi died, every surviving patient might die with her.
Claire took the second waterproof case.
“What are you doing?” Vivian asked.
“Bringing her here.”
“There is no safe way across.”
Claire looked toward the recovery drone’s cable system.
“There is one.”
Ethan and Evelyn reached the ship.
Adrian pulled them aboard.
Claire attached herself to the drone harness.
Ethan saw her.
“No.”
“Naomi cannot escape.”
“The ships are about to collide.”
“She is my sister.”
“She threatened to sink us.”
“She is still my sister.”
The cable carried Claire above the water.
Wind tore at her clothes.
The second vessel grew closer.
Three minutes remained.
Naomi reached the upper deck and opened an emergency hatch.
Claire released the harness and fell onto the moving ship.
Naomi raised a gun.
Claire looked at her.
“You called me here.”
“I did not expect you to come like that.”
“Neither did I.”
The ship continued accelerating toward the Ashford vessel.
Sloane stood inside the locked bridge.
He smiled through the glass.
Naomi lowered the weapon.
“How do we stop him?”
Claire looked at the emergency fuel system.
“We don’t stop the ship.”
“What do we do?”
“We change what it hits.”
Together, the sisters ran toward the manual steering controls.
For the first time in their lives, Claire and Caroline stood side by side knowing which one was which.
Behind them, Sloane raised a rifle.
Across the water, Ethan shouted a warning.
The rifle fired.
Naomi jerked forward.
Blood spread across her back.
She fell against the steering lever.
The vessel began turning.
Claire held her sister upright.
Naomi looked toward the approaching ship.
“Did it work?”
The bow missed the Ashford vessel by less than twenty feet.
It struck the submerged wreckage instead.
The impact threw both sisters across the deck.
Metal screamed.
Water rushed through the lower hull.
The ship began sinking.
Naomi looked at Claire.
“I can’t feel my legs.”
Claire pressed both hands against the wound.
“You are not dying here.”
May you like
Naomi smiled weakly.
“Which one of us is supposed to survive this time?”
