บททั้งหมดของ The Alpha Heir Who Put a Baby in His Enemy: บทที่ 61 - บทที่ 70

Theodore was dead.I knew that.I understood the words on the screen.PRIMARY CONTROLLER V-01: DECEASED.Still, my mind kept returning to the last thing he had said.Do not become me.Marcus remained on the floor beside his body, one hand pressed uselessly to Theodore’s neck as though another pulse might appear if he waited long enough.It did not.Ronan stood behind me.Close.Not touching.The boardroom screens glowed around us.CRADLE REQUIRES ONE KING.Below it:SELECT SUCCESSOR.ADRIAN VALE — O-17RONAN ASHCROFT — A-04I stared at the options.Then laughed.It was not amusement.It was exhaustion finally finding a voice.Ronan looked at me.“What?”“They genuinely built a reproductive surveillance empire and still found time for theatrical language.”His mouth tightened.“Do not select anything.”“I was not planning to.”Marcus finally rose.His face had changed.Not crying.Worse.Controlled.The kind of control people used when grief had arrived at an inconvenient time.“He is

The name on the screen made the room go still.PATERNAL GENETIC SOURCE: ELIAS ASHCROFTFor several seconds, I could only stare.Evelyn Vale.Elias Ashcroft.An embryo created twenty-seven years ago.The same cycle as me.O-18.Not a future child.Not a theoretical heir.A person Cradle had already made and frozen before I had even taken my first breath.Ronan looked at Marcus.“Check again.”“I already did.”“Check again.”Marcus did.The result did not change.I almost laughed.“Apparently denial is hereditary too.”Ronan ignored me.His face had gone cold in the specific way it did when anger became too large to show.I looked back at the file.“Storage location.”Marcus opened the section.Then frowned.“What?”“The embryo is listed under a Vale reproductive archive.”“Where?”He read the location.My stomach tightened.“Vale Biomedical Annex.”Ronan looked at me.“You know it.”“Yes.”An old research facility outside the city.Officially shut down six years ago.Unofficially still

The timer appeared beneath the warming chamber.GESTATIONAL TRANSFER REQUIRED WITHIN 60 MINUTES.Then it began counting down.59:59Elias watched me from across the laboratory.Calm.Certain.As though he had finally found the one trap I could not argue my way out of.I stared through the glass at O-18.It did not look like a person.That was the problem.An embryo was easy to turn into an argument.Cradle had done that for decades.Potential heir.Founder continuity.Succession reserve.Carrier assignment.Every phrase designed to make life sound like inventory.I forced myself upright.The neural synchronizer still pulsed behind my eyes, but the worst of the pain had faded.“You planned this.”Elias smiled faintly.“I prepared for it.”“Difference?”“Preparation assumes intelligence.”“Planning assumes guilt?”His smile disappeared.Good.I looked at the console.“Marcus.”Static.Then his voice.“I am here.”“Can you see the chamber?”“Yes.”“Can you interrupt transfer?”“I am tryi

The machines beneath us came alive one by one.Not loudly.That somehow made it worse.A low mechanical hum rose through the floor of the Vale Biomedical Annex while the hidden gestational wing accepted eighty-four embryos into active development.The screen remained bright.GENERATION PROGRAM RESTARTEDESTIMATED FIRST BIRTHS: 38 WEEKSFor several seconds, nobody spoke.Even Elias looked shaken.That told me enough.He had known the wing existed.He had not expected it to activate.Ronan looked at him first.“You said GS-01 was a prototype.”Elias’s jaw tightened.“It was.”“That sounds less convincing with eighty-four machines running beneath us.”“The prototype became a network after I lost control of the Archive.”My attention sharpened.“When?”He looked at me.“Years ago.”“Who expanded it?”Silence.Evelyn answered through the phone.“Theodore.”Everything inside me went still.Again.Ronan looked toward the screen.My mother continued.“Not for this.”I almost laughed.“Everyon

The old man on the screen smiled.Not kindly.Not cruelly.Like someone looking at the final result of an experiment that had taken an entire lifetime.P-01 — ACTIVEGENERATION ZERO CONTROLLERHis words remained in the room.“Cradle was built from me.”Elias stood completely still.That interested me more than the old man.Elias Ashcroft had spent the entire night behaving as though fear were something that happened to other people.Now he looked like a child who had just discovered the monster under the bed had learned his name.I turned toward him.“Who is he?”Elias did not answer.The old man did.“My name was erased long before Elias was born.”I looked back at the screen.“That was not what I asked.”His smile deepened slightly.“You do sound like Gabriel.”I almost sighed.“Everyone keeps saying that.”“Because you inherited more than his face.”My pulse shifted.Ronan’s voice came through my earpiece.“Adrian.”“I am fine.”“You are standing in front of a man who claims he pre