Chapter 46
The Door Rowan Opened
Rowan's child face moved behind the glass.
She could not hear them. Claire could not hear her. Between them, the artificial lake carried the sound away.
The copy—Ada—pressed her hand against the window.
The child copied the gesture.
The glass turned transparent.
Claire saw the original room on the other side: a treatment chamber, a table, and Mara kneeling beside a machine. A younger Claire sat in the chair. Owen Bell stood behind the console.
Rowan was in the corner, holding the blue pencil.
“She opened the door,” Ada said.
“To free me?”
“To free the record.”
Mara's voice came through the water.
“Claire, you must choose who leaves.”
Young Claire shook her head. “Everyone leaves.”
Owen pressed a button.
The child Rowan opened the door.
The machine began to copy the room.
Claire understood. The transfer had not moved a person from one body to another. It had copied the moment of choice, then assigned that moment to whichever person the system could control.
“What did Rowan do?”
Ada's face reflected in the glass. “She made the door remember.”
The chamber filled with water.
The guards had reached the corridor outside. Their silhouettes moved behind the glass.
Daniel fired at the lock.
The door opened.
Water poured into the room.
Claire grabbed the younger version of herself through the glass.
The memory split.
She was back in the treatment chair.
Mara stood in front of her.
“If you leave,” Mara said, “the copy stays.”
“If I stay?”
“The copy becomes the witness.”
“What happens to Rowan?”
Mara looked toward the child.
“She chooses.”
The memory stopped.
Claire returned to the flooded corridor with Mara's hand around her wrist.
The model stood beside the clock.
“You were not the person who left,” she said. “You were the person who agreed to let Rowan decide.”
“What did she choose?”
The clock reached 4:18.
Every light in the facility turned on.
On the wall behind the model, Owen Bell's original patient list appeared.
Beside Claire's name was a status Claire had never seen.
TRANSFERRED TO PUBLIC.