Chapter 55 - THE SIGNAL BEYOND THE CLOUDS
The cargo ramp groaned as the hydraulic cylinders lifted it back into the fuselage, sealing out the storm, the rain, and the mountain.
Inside, the aircraft was stripped bare—no passenger seats, only two rows of canvas jump-seats along the ribs of the fuselage, surrounded by secured cargo crates stenciled with marine navigation markings. The loadmaster, a silent man in dark flight gear, locked the ramp pins into place and gave a thumbs-up toward the cockpit.
The engines surged with a deafening roar. The plane began to taxi forward, bouncing across the uneven, cracked asphalt of the forgotten runway, gathering speed as it hurtled into the black void between the two mountain ridges.
Evan sat on the canvas bench, holding Sophie securely against him. Grace sat to his left, her head resting back against the cold aluminum frame of the aircraft, her eyes closed in utter exhaustion. Thomas Miller sat opposite them, his hands resting on his carved cane, watching the child with an unreadable, intense focus.
The wheels left the tarmac. The violent rattling of the airframe smoothed out instantly as the transport cut upward into the thick soup of the storm clouds.
They were airborne. They were out of the valley.
Evan let out a long, ragged breath, feeling the tension that had gripped his spine for weeks begin to loosen by an agonizing fraction of an inch. He looked down at Sophie. Her eyes were heavy, drifting toward sleep, her head nestled into the crook of his arm.
"It's over, Sophie," Evan whispered, kissing the top of her damp hair. "We're safe."
Across the cabin, Thomas Miller reached into his heavy flight jacket. He pulled out a small, circular device of brushed titanium, about the size of a pocket watch, and clicked the central bezel.
A sharp, high-frequency chime emitted from the device.
In the exact same instant, the silver bracelet on Sophie’s wrist—the one Grace had thought was Eleanor’s tracking beacon—lit up with a brilliant, continuous blue LED glow.
Sophie’s eyes snapped wide open.
She did not look at Evan. She did not look at Grace. Her gaze locked dead onto Thomas Miller across the aisle. Her hazel eyes, usually so warm and frightened, were utterly blank, completely devoid of emotion, dilated until the irises were almost pure black.
"Subject 09 responsive," Sophie spoke.
Her voice was not the high, sweet voice of a seven-year-old girl. It was flat, perfectly modulated, devoid of human inflection—the cold, terrifying tone of a vocal synthesizer reading pre-recorded telemetry.
Evan went rigid. He tried to pull her tighter against him, but her small hands suddenly reached up, pressing against his chest with an unnatural, hydraulic force that shoved him hard against the aircraft wall.
"Sophie?" Evan choked out, his blood freezing in his veins. "Sophie, what are you doing?"
Thomas Miller leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his face completely devoid of the warmth he had shown on the tarmac.
"She isn't Sophie, Evan," Thomas said quietly over the roar of the engines. "She never was. Sophie Whitaker died in the incubator eight hours after birth. What you’ve been protecting for seven years isn't a child."
Thomas tapped the titanium device against his cane.
"It's the container," Thomas said. "And the flight isn't going to Scotland."
From the front of the aircraft, the cockpit door clicked open. A woman stepped out into the dim red cabin light, removing her flight headset, her silver hair coiled neatly at the base of her neck.
May you like
It was Caroline Whitaker. Not Eleanor.
Caroline smiled at Evan with cold, infinite amusement, and from the floor beneath Evan’s jump-seat, the emergency depressurization valves began to hiss.
