Chapter 4 - THE CHILDREN BEHIND THE NUMBERS
Nathan’s restraints were real.
He had a cut across his forehead and bruising around both wrists. When agents entered the room, he begged them not to remove him.
“My mother’s people are outside,” he said.
“Your mother is in custody,” I replied.
He shook his head.
“I mean Helena.”
The answer made no sense until Nathan explained that Helena had controlled Project Evergreen for years. Brenda provided money, laboratories, and access to patients, but Helena designed the experiments.
“She told everyone you died,” I said.
“She told you what made you safe.”
Nathan laughed bitterly.
“That is what she calls every lie.”
He admitted that when he met me, he already knew my identity. Brenda instructed him to gain my trust. Helena approved the marriage after reviewing psychological reports.
“Did you ever love me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you let them use my body?”
“I thought the embryo was ours.”
“You knew Cora was tested.”
“After the pregnancy began.”
“And you stayed silent.”
“My mother said telling you would cause stress and risk the child.”
“Your mother or mine?”
“Both.”
The two women had worked together longer than anyone realized.
Their partnership fractured only after Cora’s birth, when the expected mutation did not behave as predicted.
Brenda wanted to end the project and destroy evidence.
Helena wanted to continue testing.
Victor Blackwell had opposed using children and attempted to report them.
That was why he died.
“Who killed your father?” I asked.
Nathan looked toward the camera.
“Helena ordered the boat sabotaged. Brenda helped cover it up.”
My mother had framed Gabriel Reed for the laboratory fire, survived under a new identity, and later murdered Victor when he threatened her research.
No one in our family stood outside the conspiracy.
Even Nathan—cowardly, manipulated, and sometimes frightened—had chosen silence every time truth became inconvenient.
Agents copied the facility’s servers.
The files documented twenty-seven children created or monitored through unauthorized reproductive procedures.
Some were born to parents who believed the embryos were their own.
Some had been adopted through agencies funded by Evergreen.
Several developed severe immune disorders.
Three died during experimental treatments.
Their deaths were recorded as natural complications.
The locked bedrooms had housed children during “observation periods.”
Project Evergreen was not research.
It was a private human trial hidden behind charity.
We located most surviving families.
One mother, Teresa Mills, recognized the facility immediately. Her son vanished for two days during a hospital admission when he was four.
Doctors told her a transfer error occurred.
In reality, Evergreen brought him to the mountain clinic for testing.
“He came back terrified of white rooms,” Teresa said. “They told me it was anesthesia confusion.”
Helena had built protection through respected doctors, donors, and hospital administrators.
Maya discovered the person inside Cora’s hospital security system.
Dr. Leon Hayes.
He had delivered Cora.
He also signed several Evergreen death certificates.
Police moved to arrest him.
He entered Cora’s room minutes before they arrived.
The pediatric advocate found him adjusting her IV.
She activated an alarm.
Hayes fled, leaving behind a syringe.
Laboratory analysis found a sedative strong enough to suppress breathing in a small child.
He intended to take Cora without resistance.
We moved her to a federal medical facility under armed protection.
I refused to leave her bedside.
Nathan asked to see her.
I said no.
“You abandoned her at the table,” I told him. “You watched your mother strike her.”
“I froze.”
“You always freeze in the direction that protects you.”
His cooperation gave investigators access to Blackwell accounts, but cooperation did not restore fatherhood.
Then Helena contacted me directly.
A video call appeared on a secure device no outsider should have reached.
She sat inside a laboratory.
She looked older, thinner, and unmistakably like the mother I remembered.
“Hello, Alora.”
I could not speak for several seconds.
“You watched me mourn you.”
“I watched you survive.”
“You chose my husband.”
“I chose a man who could protect you financially.”
“He protected no one.”
“That was my miscalculation.”
“You created Cora.”
Her expression softened.
“Yes.”
“She is my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Not your subject.”
Helena looked toward something off-screen.
“Cora’s mutation is not defective. Brenda’s laboratory misread it. The child’s cells adapt under stress.”
“What does that mean?”
“She may carry the only stable response we have ever seen.”
“You tried to sedate her.”
“I ordered Hayes to bring her safely.”
“He nearly killed her.”
Silence.
For the first time, uncertainty crossed my mother’s face.
She had spent so long measuring human beings through outcomes that individual suffering became an error in execution.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I will exchange the full project archive for Cora.”
“No.”
“You do not understand what she could save.”
“She does not owe the world her body.”
“She is two years old. You must decide for her.”
“I have decided.”
Helena leaned closer.
“Then every child who dies from the disease will be on your conscience.”
“No. They will be on the conscience of people who spent twenty-five years committing crimes instead of conducting ethical research.”
Her face hardened.
“You always were sentimental.”
“You selected me because you knew I would love her.”
“Yes.”
“Then you should have predicted this.”
I ended the call.
Minutes later, alarms sounded at the federal facility.
Not inside Cora’s room.
Inside the evidence laboratory.
Someone had activated a remote purge.
The copied Evergreen servers began destroying themselves.
Investigators stopped most of the process, but one file disappeared completely.
SUBJECT E-01.
The first child created through Project Evergreen.
Nathan looked at the blank screen and went pale.
May you like
“What is it?” Maya asked.
He whispered, “Subject E-01 is me.”
