Rebecca refused to look at the screen.
“No.”
Aaron enlarged the file.
Subject S-5.
Female.
Age nineteen.
Height matched Rebecca’s old medical records.
Birthday matched.
Family relationship to S-4:
Sibling.
There was no uncertainty left.
Rebecca sat down slowly.
“I would remember.”
Sarah’s expression softened.
“That’s exactly the problem.”
Rebecca looked at her.
For years she had been keeper of memory.
The sister who knew what Sarah had forgotten.
Now that role collapsed.
“I wasn’t sick.”
Nathan’s old notes said otherwise.
Not physically.
Psychologically.
After Daniel’s death, Rebecca had experienced severe guilt, insomnia, panic, and intrusive recall.
Nathan and Victor classified her as a secondary trauma subject.
Rebecca read the phrase.
“Secondary.”
Sarah touched her hand.
“You were nineteen.”
“I helped them.”
“You were also used.”
“Both can be true.”
Sarah’s words echoed what I had been learning about everyone.
Both can be true.
A person can cause harm and be harmed.
Love and manipulate.
Protect and destroy.
Nothing here stayed clean.
Rebecca read further.
The first S-5 dose occurred eleven days after Daniel’s funeral.
“Why?”
Nathan’s note explained.
Subject witnessed compromising event and remains unable to maintain agreed narrative.
Sarah looked at her.
“What event?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“That may be the memory they targeted.”
The “agreed narrative” was obvious.
Daniel died accidentally.
Lily died as an infant.
Joseph abandoned the family.
Margaret protected everyone.
Rebecca had been unable to maintain it because she had seen something.
Victor suppressed it.
Then Sarah had spent twenty-five years trusting Rebecca’s version of history.
A version edited too.
Lily asked, “How many doses?”
Mara counted.
“Five.”
“Home medication?”
“No.”
“All clinical.”
Rebecca stared.
“I remember visiting Sarah.”
“Maybe that’s when they treated you too.”
One note identified Anne Bishop as objecting strongly.
A.B. states second sibling did not consent and demands trial termination.
Victor’s note below:
A.B. becoming unstable.
The wording chilled me.
Not grieving.
Not dissenting.
Unstable.
The language people use when they want inconvenient witnesses dismissed.
Another line:
N.V. suspended administration after session five.
Nathan again.
Too late, but eventually resisting.
Then Subject S-5 disappeared from the study.
No follow-up.
Rebecca whispered, “What did I see?”
Aaron searched all references.
One file contained a transcript.
Partial.
Interview with S-5 before dosing.
Victor asking questions.
Rebecca’s nineteen-year-old voice.
Faint.
Recorded through static.
“Tell me what happened after Daniel left.”
“I went outside.”
“Why?”
“To find Sarah.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Who did you see?”
“Uncle Nathan.”
Everyone stopped.
Rebecca stared at the speaker.
Her younger voice continued.
“He was by the road.”
“Doing what?”
“Arguing.”
“With whom?”
“Victor.”
The room changed.
Victor had interviewed Rebecca about seeing Victor himself.
Absurd.
Unless he intended to erase exactly that.
Young Rebecca continued.
“I heard Nathan say Daniel had the files.”
Victor asked:
“What files?”
Rebecca:
“You know.”
Then static.
Next intelligible line:
“You followed Daniel.”
Victor:
“Did you see anyone else?”
Rebecca:
“Michael.”
Sarah looked at me.
All three men had been near Daniel that night.
Nathan.
Victor.
Michael.
Joseph.
Margaret earlier.
Thomas earlier.
Daniel had driven into a web.
The recording continued.
Rebecca said she saw Victor get into a dark car.
Follow Daniel.
Nathan followed too.
Then Rebecca took Margaret’s car and followed them.
Present-day Rebecca started trembling.
“I drove there.”
Sarah held her hand.
“You remember?”
“Headlights.”
“What else?”
“Rain.”
The same rain.
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“I was behind them.”
“Who?”
“Nathan’s car.”
“And?”
“Another car ahead.”
“Victor?”
“I think.”
Rebecca breathed faster.
“I saw Daniel’s motorcycle.”
“Before the crash?”
“Yes.”
“He was moving?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
She gripped Sarah’s hand.
“A car pulled beside him.”
“What car?”
“Dark.”
“Victor?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“What happened?”
“It moved toward him.”
Lily whispered, “Ran him off the road?”
Rebecca shook.
“Maybe.”
The recovered interview answered.
Young Rebecca:
“The car pushed him.”
Victor’s recorded voice became quieter.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see the driver?”
Pause.
“Yes.”
Every person leaned toward the speaker.
Victor:
“Who?”
Static swallowed the answer.
Aaron cursed quietly.
“File damage.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Trying.”
Rebecca pressed both palms against her temples.
“I saw the driver.”
Sarah knelt before her.
“Don’t force it.”
Rebecca laughed through tears.
“You tell me that now?”
Sarah almost smiled.
“I’m learning.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Glasses.”
Victor wore glasses.
“Nathan?”
“Not then.”
“Joseph?”
“No.”
“Michael?”
“No.”
“Victor.”
Rebecca flinched.
“I think.”
The recovered transcript resumed later.
Victor asked:
“What did you do after the crash?”
Young Rebecca:
“I stopped.”
“Did you approach?”
“Yes.”
“Who was there?”
“Dad.”
Sarah looked up.
Joseph.
Young Rebecca had called him Dad.
Despite everything.
“He was holding Daniel.”
“What else?”
“Nathan came.”
“And?”
“Victor was gone.”
There.
Victor had been at the crash.
Then vanished before Nathan reached the wreck.
Rebecca continued:
“Daniel gave Dad something.”
“Did you see what?”
“Envelope.”
“Then?”
“Daniel said Sarah.”
“And?”
“Elizabeth.”
Lily covered her mouth.
Then young Rebecca said something none of us expected.
“And Michael.”
Victor’s voice sharpened.
“What did he say about Michael?”
“I couldn’t hear.”
The tape stopped.
Rebecca opened her eyes.
“Daniel said Michael’s name.”
Michael was alive.
We contacted Chen.
She arranged a second interview.
This time Rebecca joined.
Michael appeared on screen.
Pale.
Angry at seeing the old transcript.
“You knew Rebecca was there?” I asked.
“No.”
“You knew Daniel said your name before he died?”
“No.”
“Why would he?”
Michael looked away.
“What?”
Sarah’s voice sharpened.
“Michael.”
He stared at her.
“I had given Daniel something.”
“What?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“Nathan’s research storage.”
“When?”
“That afternoon.”
“Why?”
“Daniel threatened to expose me too.”
“For drugging me?”
“Yes.”
“So you decided to help.”
“I decided helping was better than prison.”
“Honest.”
“I’m done lying.”
Sarah looked unconvinced.
“What was in the storage room?”
“Records.”
“Only records?”
“Samples.”
“What kind?”
“Blood. Tissue. Drug compounds.”
Mara frowned.
“Human samples?”
“Yes.”
“From Sarah?”
“Some.”
Sarah looked sick.
“Why keep them?”
“Victor believed long-term biomarkers might show whether memory suppression had permanent effects.”
“That makes no medical sense,” Mara said.
“He had theories.”
“Bad ones.”
“Yes.”
Michael continued.
“Daniel took copies and one sample case.”
“Why?”
“To prove experiments happened.”
“Did he have it when he crashed?”
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca suddenly whispered, “No.”
Everyone turned.
“What?”
“The case.”
“You remember?”
She touched her forehead.
“Silver.”
Michael leaned toward the camera.
“Yes.”
Rebecca’s breathing accelerated.
“It was in the road.”
“After the crash?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to it?”
“I picked it up.”
Silence.
“Then what?”
Rebecca looked terrified.
“I gave it to someone.”
“Who?”
Memory came hard.
She began crying.
“My father.”
Joseph.
Sarah stared.
“Dad took the case.”
“Yes.”
That could explain decades of surveillance.
Joseph had evidence.
Victor wanted it.
Nathan wanted it.
Claire eventually received pieces.
Emily knew about Subject S-5.
Everything connected through the case.
Sarah asked Michael, “What did Daniel mean when he said your name?”
Michael closed his eyes.
“I think he wanted Joseph to know I helped him.”
“Why?”
“Because Joseph hated me.”
“Why?”
“Joseph knew Thomas was my father.”
“That isn’t enough.”
Michael hesitated.
“He also knew I drugged you at the party.”
Sarah went still.
“You told him?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
Of course.
Daniel had known.
Michael continued.
“Daniel confronted me after he found Nathan’s payment record.”
“What did he do?”
“Hit me.”
I almost respected him for that.
“He told Joseph too.”
“So Joseph saw you as part of Victor’s group.”
“Yes.”
“Were you?”
“Then? Yes.”
“And later?”
Michael looked exhausted.
“Later I tried to get out.”
“When?”
“After Daniel died.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor admitted something.”
“What?”
Michael swallowed.
“He said the crash solved two problems.”
Sarah stared.
“Daniel and the evidence.”
“Yes.”
“Then Victor caused it.”
“I believed he did.”
“But you never testified.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He had proof I drugged you.”
Sarah’s laugh was cold.
“So everyone kept everyone silent.”
“Yes.”
Blackmail as architecture.
That family and research network survived because every person held something against another.
Margaret held Thomas’s shirt.
Victor held Michael’s payment.
Nathan held records.
Joseph held evidence.
Rebecca held memories.
Then those memories were altered.
Sarah looked at the S-5 file.
“What did Victor want Rebecca to forget?”
“Seeing his car.”
“Yes,” Mara said.
“And Joseph receiving the case.”
Aaron found another note.
V.H.:
S-5 continues to retain visual association despite intervention. Recommend extended dosing.
N.V.:
DENIED.
Then handwritten in different ink:
Proceed independently.
Initials:
E.B.
Emily Bishop?
Impossible.
She would have been young.
Mara calculated.
“Emily is fifty-one now.”
“Twenty-five years ago she was twenty-six.”
Old enough.
Sarah stared.
“She was already involved.”
Mara searched archived staff.
Emily Bishop.
Pharmacy fellow.
Mercy predecessor institution.
The same year.
Emily had not become involved recently.
She had been there from the beginning.
Claire’s sister.
Victor’s daughter.
Anne’s daughter.
The person who may have continued dosing Rebecca after Nathan stopped.
Sarah whispered, “Emily wasn’t pretending to help Victor.”
“What?”
“She was protecting the experiment.”
That interpretation fit better.
Victor might be disposable now.
The research was not.
Aaron searched Emily’s archived publications.
Memory pharmacology.
Trauma.
Reconsolidation.
Long-term effects.
She had built an entire career around the same questions.
Under legitimate protocols.
With clean language.
But perhaps dirty origins.
Mara’s phone rang.
Hospital security.
Emily’s vehicle had been found.
Not at the hospital.
At a private storage facility twenty miles away.
Police obtained emergency access.
Inside her rented unit:
Old research equipment.
Boxes of records.
Photographs.
And a cryogenic sample container labeled S-4 / S-5.
Sarah and Rebecca.
Twenty-five-year-old biological samples.
Still preserved.
Another box contained recent samples.
Blood draws.
Sarah’s name.
Dates from her cancer treatment.
Emily had continued collecting.
Mara whispered, “She had access through pharmacy and research services.”
Sarah looked at her sister.
“And you?”
A recent vial bore Rebecca’s name too.
Rebecca stared.
“I never gave blood here.”
“When was the date?”
Mara read it.
Three months earlier.
Rebecca went pale.
“I had a flu shot at a pharmacy.”
“Which pharmacy?”
She named it.
A Mercy-affiliated outpatient center.
Emily had access.
Sarah touched Rebecca’s arm.
“They’re still studying both of us.”
“Yes.”
Not Victor alone.
A continuation.
Generational.
Emily had inherited her father’s obsession.
Then Chen called again.
The storage unit also contained one more file.
Not S-4.
Not S-5.
S-6.
Female.
Age twenty-three.
Lily’s age.
Lily stopped breathing.
“No.”
Sarah looked at her daughter.
The study had moved to the next generation.
Click here to continue reading: PART 20: Lily Became Subject S-6 Without Knowing It, and Emily’s Hidden Research Plan Forced Sarah to Choose Between Running and Fighting Back
Three Years After Our Quiet Divorce, Sarah Came Home for One Night and Left Her Wedding Ring Behind
Part 19 of 50
