Chapter 6 - Beneath Palisade
Nathan reached us just as the basement door opened.
He raised his weapon.
“Back.”
A woman emerged.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
Hospital clothes.
My heart knew her before my mind did.
She stopped.
Looked at Emily.
Then me.
“Claire?”
Everything inside me broke.
“Mom.”
She covered her mouth.
I crossed the distance.
Her arms closed around me.
And suddenly I was seventeen again.
Not because I remembered everything.
Because I remembered enough.
Her perfume.
Her hands.
The way she said my name.
Emily joined us.
For several seconds the world narrowed to three people holding one another inside a hallway filling with smoke.
Nathan touched my shoulder.
“We need to move.”
My mother nodded.
“There’s another exit.”
She knew the underground clinic.
Of course she did.
She had spent twelve years inside it.
We followed her through the basement.
Behind us, alarms screamed.
Hale had designed the clinic to destroy records during a breach.
But Warren’s team was already copying servers.
My mother led us through an old treatment wing.
Glass rooms.
Metal chairs.
Observation windows.
My stomach turned.
“What did they do here?”
She looked at me.
“Things people convinced themselves were necessary.”
“Did they do it to us?”
Her face filled with pain.
“Yes.”
Emily squeezed my hand.
My mother continued.
“I discovered what Palisade really was when Emily was eight.”
“And Hale took her.”
“Yes.”
“Why erase my memory?”
“To protect the program.”
My jaw tightened.
“And Dad?”
“He helped me expose it.”
That surprised me.
“He told me he helped hide it.”
“He did both.”
Of course.
My father had spent half his life making terrible compromises and the other half trying to undo them.
We reached a service elevator.
Dead.
My mother led us toward stairs.
Nathan spoke into his radio.
“Cole to Warren. Three civilians coming out south utility tunnel.”
Static.
Then Warren:
“Understood.”
We emerged twenty minutes later behind the clinic.
My father was waiting.
The moment he saw my mother, he stopped.
She stopped too.
Twelve years passed between them in silence.
“Sarah,” he whispered.
She walked toward him.
He began crying.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
He embraced her.
She let him.
Then she stepped back.
“You don't get twelve years back with one hug.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
It was becoming his most important sentence.
Agents brought Hale outside in handcuffs.
He saw our family standing together.
For the first time, he looked defeated.
I walked toward him.
He smiled weakly.
“You think this ends Palisade?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I think evidence ends Palisade.”
His smile faded.
Warren approached.
“Hale, your accounts are frozen. The ledger is authenticated. Multiple witnesses are in federal custody.”
Hale looked toward Voss, who stood beside two marshals.
Voss shrugged.
“Survival.”
Hale laughed.
Then looked at me.
“All this because of a scar.”
I touched the line across my chest.
“No.”
I looked at my father.
“All this because everyone kept calling evidence something ugly.”
Hale was taken away.
For a moment, I believed the worst was over.
Then Warren received a call.
His expression changed.
Nathan noticed.
“What?”
Warren ended the call.
“There’s a problem.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind?”
“The Red Ledger was copied before we froze the system.”
“By whom?”
“We don't know.”
Anna approached.
“I do.”
Nathan looked at her.
She held up a small drive.
“When Hale called us at the farmhouse, someone accessed the backup server.”
“Who?”
Anna looked at my mother.
Sarah’s face changed.
“No.”
I turned toward her.
“Mom?”
She whispered one name.
“Daniel Mercer.”
My father stiffened.
I recognized nothing.
“Who is that?”
My mother looked at me.
“The doctor who erased your memories.”
Nathan's expression hardened.
“I thought Mercer died.”
Anna shook her head.
“So did Hale.”
Warren said, “If Mercer has the ledger, he has every witness name.”
Emily went pale.
“Including ours.”
My mother grabbed her hand.
Nathan turned to Anna.
“Where would he go?”
She hesitated.
“There's one remaining Palisade facility.”
“Where?”
“Virginia mountains.”
My father said, “Fort Mercer.”
Nathan looked at him.
“You know it?”
“I wrote the original land trust.”
Of course he did.
We left within the hour.
By evening, federal teams surrounded the old facility.
No lights.
No vehicles.
Nothing.
Nathan entered first with agents.
I remained outside with my family.
Twenty minutes later he called.
“Claire.”
Something in his voice frightened me.
“What?”
“You need to see this.”
I went inside despite everyone protesting.
In the main control room, hundreds of files had been destroyed.
But one monitor remained on.
A video waited.
PLAY ME, CLAIRE.
I clicked.
A man appeared.
Late sixties.
Silver hair.
Doctor Daniel Mercer.
He smiled into the camera.
“Claire, if you're seeing this, Marcus failed.”
Nathan stood behind me.
Mercer continued.
“You may believe you recovered your family. You may believe Palisade ends when its files become evidence.”
He leaned closer.
“But Palisade was never a building.”
My stomach tightened.
“It was an idea.”
The screen changed.
Photographs appeared.
Politicians.
Military officers.
Doctors.
Judges.
Some familiar.
Some not.
Then one photograph filled the screen.
My father.
Young.
Standing beside Mercer.
I turned toward Richard.
He stared in shock.
Mercer’s voice continued.
“Ask your father why Project Palisade began.”
My father shook his head.
“I don't know.”
The video froze.
Then a second file appeared.
Dated thirty years earlier.
My father’s name was in the filename.
RICHARD_BENNETT_ORIGIN.
I looked at him.
He whispered, “Claire, I have never seen that.”
Nathan reached for the mouse.
Before he clicked, an incoming live call appeared on the monitor.
UNKNOWN.
It answered itself.
Mercer appeared live.
He smiled.
“Richard.”
My father stepped closer.
Mercer lifted something into view.
An old photograph.
A baby.
My father whispered, “No.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
Mercer smiled wider.
“Tell Claire who the first Palisade subject really was.”
My father looked at me.
His lips trembled.
May you like
Then he said:
“It was me.”
