The syringe gleamed in the little palms of Daniel Carter swirling with a thick substance like liquid mercury. Lena was soldiering on holding her daughter tighter as the boy stepped into the lamplight, his movements far too precise for a child. The cheek had the same barcode tattoo like Matthew's, except that it read *Subject 89-R*.
R for refined, he said to her unspoken question. Uncle Charles said I was the upgrade, the gaze flickered toward Ryan's twitching left hand. Phase Two's quickly underway. He'll forget your face by moonrise.
Sophie lunged toward her laptop, but Daniel swifter—a blur of preternatural speed as he kicked it against the wall. The screen shattered with Margaret's encrypted ledger bracing it.
"You're not my real brother." Lena edged toward the fireplace poker. Margaret would never—
Margaret didn't know. "Her precious Danny died in the NICU. I'm a transplant." He tapped his temple. "Subject 22 from Marseille. They overwrote me with Danny's memories once the brain structure matched."
Ryan staggered, his knife clattering to the floor as another wave of neural static hit. "The lighthouse... Dad's blueprints... they predicted this." His words slurred. "Not antidotes. Assemblies."
The hand of Daniel holding his syringe twitched. "Enough nostalgia."
The baby cried, the sound seemed to break something in Daniel's programming. His pupils became diffuse before the syringe trembled.
Lena grabbed the moment. "You recall the lullaby? The one Margaret used to sing?" She hummed three notes of All the Pretty Little Horses, the tune Margaret had put in every margin of each diary.
Daniel's knees buckled. "N-no trigger phrase—" CRACK - Sophie's frying pan hit him on the skull. While he crumbled, his last whisper was in French, "Maman...."