Chapter Twenty-Six

Elena

The silence that follows is as heavy as my body. I crane my neck to look around. The four of them stand in a misshapen circle, the tension thick, pulsing through the room, suffocating me.

“What— Have you lost your mind?” Dad asks, his voice too quiet to mean anything good.

“Not at all,” Dr. Niels says. “Technically, everything that existed in my son’s brain exists inside Aiden.”

Carter’s eyes are saucers, and his jaw hangs slack before he remembers and pulls it together. “Your son died. That must have been hard, and I can even say that a part of me understands your attachment to…Aiden. But your son was flesh and blood. He was organs, and memories. Aiden is titanium and computer chips. It’s not the same.”

I can’t make sense of what he’s saying. The words float to my ears, but none of Dad’s words ring true. Sounds too much like the inside of a sci-fi movie. His ice-cold words are insulting icicles raining down around me. But Aiden is fading. Fading, fading, becoming trapped beneath a layer of thick ice—never to wake up again.

“No, Aiden and my son are not the same, but you’re not understanding what I mean.” Dr. Niels’s figure blurs through my salty tears, until he’s merely a floating blend of colors. I blink quickly to combat it. “Seth was on life support for two weeks. It was hell on Earth, watching him die. His organs were failing, and I…I knew he’d never recover. I couldn’t lose him, too, not after Bethany… During those two weeks, I had an idea. It seemed impossible at first, but I knew I had to try.”

“What the hell did you do?” Carter says. “What are you trying to say?”

I spin to Aiden, place my warm hands against his cheeks.

“Elena.”

“Aiden,” I whisper. “Are you—what’s happening?”

I gently pull his face up, forcing my gaze to his. Green eyes full of fear stare back at me. A fear so painful to watch, my heart shatters. I focus on his face. At least I have this. The last thing he’ll see before he dies won’t be this room, a room that holds the worst memory of his short existence. The last person he sees won’t be the cruel man who condemned him to death and put the seal on his fate. I can only hope he’ll appreciate his last image—the face of the girl who risked everything for him.

To save his life.

The guy who, if given the chance, I might’ve been able to love.

My despair pitches as I spiral toward oblivion. “Don’t go.” I can barely get the two syllables out. My throat is a Brillo pad, and it hurts to speak. Aiden had been holding onto his consciousness with a thread wearing thin.

“Please,” I say, but the strand finally frays and snaps silently in two.

And he disappears.

My heart explodes in my chest. My eyes fill with new tears as I stare at Aiden, his head lolling back. A screech rises in my throat but never comes out. My shaking hands reach for his fingers, his chest, his face, looking for something, anything—a sign of life. His chest doesn’t rise. His eyelids don’t flutter. My own pulse is a drum in my head while I search for his. I can barely hold my hands still while I press two fingers to his neck.

Nothing.

My hands slide down to grip his, and mine are cold around them. I suck in air, razor blades ripping my throat apart, and I don’t move for what’s surely an eternity. My soul splinters and cracks, and all the broken pieces slice wounds deep into my soul.

“I was already working on Project A.I.D.E.N.,” Dr. Niels says, bringing the rest of the room back into focus.

I forgot they were here.

“I used Seth’s DNA and other viable parts of him to create Aiden.”

“You did what?” Dad’s voice is violent, shaking the air around us like a tornado. “Your reports stated the project used a small series of donor DNA, as well as portions of viable organs.”

“I falsified the reports. I said only 10 percent of him was human—just enough to give him a lifelike appearance. You never knew because all you cared about was the statistics, the reports. You’re no scientist, no doctor. I knew you’d believe all of my documentation to be complete and accurate. And if I’d told you what I’d done in regards to my son, I…I knew I’d lose everything, and you’d take him away from me.”

“You lied to me!”

Their words fade into muffled ramblings in my head. My gaze flits to the machines next to Aiden. There’s still an IV connected to his arm, but how can I remove it? Just rip it out? I fight through the fog in my mind, trying to think. CPR. I learned how to do it once. My hands move again as I try to remember. Chin back. Breaths in. Chest compressions. Repeat. I can do it.

But I freeze. You can’t give CPR to someone sitting in a chair. And what good will it do for someone who already has a deadly drug attacking his system?

My numb fingers tug at the restraints around his wrists. I inhale harshly and try once more to steady my hands. Two heartbeats pass. Then ten more.

It’s useless.

The restraints are mostly metal. I’ll never free his hands in time—if there even is any time left.

Dr. Niels’s voice breaks through the crashing and pulsing of blood in my ears. “I used the organs from Seth that were still viable and transplanted them, altered them. Those allow Aiden’s heart to beat, for it to quicken and slow down in response to what he sees, what he feels. His own enhanced DNA is why he experiences pain. It’s what makes his skin, his hair, and his eyes real.”

Several seconds pass, and I don’t dare breathe.

Dr. Niels tilts his head, silent tears streaming down his face. “The computer components give Aiden the ability to retain every single piece of information—every sight, smell, and sound—to process and analyze. But it’s the human half of him that allows him to consider, doubt, and wonder. It’s why he feels emotions, and God, it’s even why he loves playing piano. Aiden has a different face, but his smile is the same, his body speaks in the same way… Aiden is Seth. They are the same person.”

The silence that follows is deafening. Just when I think the whole building will combust from the pressure, my father breaks the quiet.

“You’re serious? Do you know how many laws you’ve broken? Let alone any moral or ethical codes.” His voice has changed from a boulder crashing into a car to a pebble knocking on a window.

“I know what I did. The first code as a doctor is to do no harm, and I did not break that. In the end, it’s the only code that matters to me. The opportunity—a medical, scientific miracle—was right there in front of me, and I had to take it. You must understand that as a father. Wouldn’t you do anything, anything to keep your own child alive?”

My dad looks like someone punched him in the gut, and he can’t decide whether to hit back or walk away. “What you did—”

“Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest thing, or the most legal, moral, or understandable, but it was the right thing. You know what I’ve found? Right and wrong are not so black-and-white. Somewhere in the middle of the two is a path made of gray. That’s always been enough comfort for me, and I believe in Aiden more than anything else in the world.”

“You replaced your son with a robot,” Dad says with a hint of incredulousness.

But Aiden is human. I’m not a scientist, a doctor, or a robotics engineer, but I understand enough to know what Dr. Niels has done. It was no different than a soldier receiving artificial legs, or a person with metal beneath their skin holding their bones together. It’s that, only in reverse. I choke on my own breath, tar filling my lungs. I’m raging and useless, broken and shaking.

And Aiden is dead.

I stand and whirl around. “You killed him.” My shrill voice echoes off the walls. I swallow a mouthful of barbed wire, and my numb fingers turn to red-hot, liquid fire. “You killed a person.” My dad’s eyes meet mine. “A guy who had hobbies, a personality, a hope for a better life. You’re a monster. A murderer.” The fire scampers up my arms, my neck and face. God, I want to throw something. I want to hit him, my own father. I want—

For Aiden to be alive.

“Elena,” he says, taking a tentative step closer.

I throw my hands up. “No! What if it were me? What if you had the chance to save me? In any way you could. Wouldn’t you?” Dad only stares, dumbfounded. “Can you honestly say you wouldn’t do what Dr. Niels did?”

He glances from me to the other two faces in the room and rubs the underside of his jaw as his muscles work. “I honestly can’t say what I would do.”

Jaw clenching, I glare. He can’t say? I shouldn’t be surprised by his response, but I didn’t expect it to strike right through my heart. “Don’t you love me?” My words sound desperate, and I hate it. “Aren’t parents supposed to be willing to do anything for their children?”

“Of course I love you.” His words are sharp. His face shifts, as if offended. “I would do anything I could, yes. But this? No, certainly not this. That wasn’t Dr. Niels’ son anymore. He was a replacement Niels constructed for himself.”

I’m seething to the point of being unable to speak. I glare at the floor and clench my fingers.

Dad turns to Melanie. “You…you knew about this?”

“I had no idea about the bombshell,” she says, holding up her hands. “It was only after Elena mentioned Aiden had a memory of an orange cat named Velveteen.” Shifting her gaze to Dr. Niels, she adds, “One of the photos you keep on your desk, it’s of your son Seth sitting next to a cute ball of fluff. You told me once about how much Seth adored Velveteen. It felt uncanny, too much to be a coincidence.”

My dad’s hardened gaze falls on Melanie, then back to me. “So you sought her out? After everything else you’ve managed to do this weekend? And Melanie, you discussed Project A.I.D.E.N. with Elena? It’s called classified for a reason. Does no one adhere to rules anymore?”

“At least they have the capability of caring and compassion,” I say, my words tasting bitter and hostile on my tongue. “Something you obviously don’t have.”

His eyes grow wide, but he stays silent.

I let out a slow breath. It burns my lungs, my throat, and my whole damn body. My entire being is on fire, racked with pain from being too late.

Too late.

Without another word to me, Dad turns to Dr. Niels. “Who else knows about what you did?”

“Not a soul.”

My dad shakes his head wildly. “What exactly was your plan? The purpose of Project A.I.D.E.N. was to design a prototype we can later replicate and sell.”

Dr. Niels sighs in an oddly calm way. “I’d hoped you would see that Aiden was slightly below par and that I’d get a second chance at the project, the real project. I never anticipated you finding out the truth, and I certainly didn’t expect an order to…to terminate him.”

I want to curl up in the corner and fade away from all of this. None of it matters. Not anymore. We were too late, and maybe we couldn’t have changed anything anyway had we gotten here sooner. I stare at the ground, allowing the tears to flow freely. They drip from my nose and chin in constant streams. I don’t know how long I stand like this, and I don’t know if anyone talks, but I don’t hear it if they do.

Someone’s hands wrap around my arms gently. Melanie’s hands. She pulls lightly and starts leading me toward the door.

“Come on,” she says in a soothing tone.

I shake my head but don’t protest. She walks me past Dad and Dr. Niels, and bitter blackness surrounds me, eating away at all the broken pieces. One moment, I’m a windstorm, arctic wind and frozen hail. The next I’m an inferno, blazing heat and ravaging fire. I spin away from her and face Dad. “How could you?” I want to run at him like a battering ram, but I only clench my fists together instead. “You did this. And you.” I turn to Dr. Niels. “How could you just give up and give in? He might have ordered it, but you’re the one who killed him. I thought you were stronger than that. Better than that.”

Melanie pulls on me again, and I let her. My anger swirls into the river of disgust running through my veins, and I refuse to look at anyone anymore.

“Elena,” Dr. Niels says, stopping my advance to the door. “You think after all of this, after everything I’ve done, I’d destroy Aiden? I’d sooner die.”