The engines began turning somewhere beyond the walls, a deep mechanical rumble that seemed to rise through the floor and settle inside Lucas’s chest.
Rachel held him close while the chamber remained dark. She could feel his hands trembling against her jacket, though she wasn’t sure whether it was fear or the strange pressure he had described moments earlier.
“Stay with me,” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
Carter’s voice came from the other side of the console. “Nobody move. The emergency lights should come on.”
A faint red strip flickered along the base of the walls. It revealed the core in fragments: the circular housing, the open silver cylinder, the frozen display, and Voss standing motionless beside the control panel.
Rachel turned toward him. “What did you see before the screen went black?”
“Nothing.”
“You were staring at it.”
“I saw the first letters.”
“Whose name?”
Voss pressed his fingers against his forehead. “I don’t know.”
Carter stepped closer. “You said there were two references. You helped build this architecture. You must know what the second one was supposed to do.”
“I knew there was a second profile. I didn’t know it had been completed.”
Rachel’s expression hardened. “You’ve had years to tell me.”
“I didn’t know it was connected to Lucas.”
“You knew enough to warn me to keep him away from the system.”
Voss looked at her. “Because I knew the system could recognize him. I didn’t know it would try to restore the original architecture.”
The floor shuddered again. Somewhere overhead, a heavy door opened and closed.
Carter checked his radio. Static answered him.
“The aircraft is drawing power from the reserve line,” he said. “If it reaches the runway, we may not be able to contain it.”
Rachel looked at the core. “Can we restore the display?”
Voss moved to the auxiliary controls. He opened a panel beneath the console and found a manual switch. When he pulled it, the core’s emergency indicator blinked twice.
The screen returned in a wash of pale blue light.
For several seconds, only system diagnostics appeared. Then the hidden profile reemerged.
SECONDARY REFERENCE: UNRESOLVED.
A string of identification numbers followed. Most were corrupted, but one field remained intact.
BIOLOGICAL LINK: R. MILLER.
Rachel went still.
Lucas looked from the screen to his mother. “It’s connected to you?”
“Apparently.”
Voss leaned toward the display. “That shouldn’t be possible.”
Carter frowned. “Why not?”
“The second profile was supposed to be independent of the first. It was a control reference, not a biological duplicate.”
Rachel stared at him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the system may have created the second profile from the same source as yours.”
Lucas felt the pieces shift in his mind. The old hospital photographs. His mother’s unexplained recording. The child’s voice. The system’s insistence that he was incomplete.
“Could it be another version of me?” he asked.
Nobody answered immediately.
Voss finally said, “It could be a model derived from your mother’s data. Or from a second subject whose information was linked to hers.”
“Another child?”
“Possibly.”
Rachel took a step toward the core. “Then we find out who.”
The display flickered. A line of text appeared beneath the second profile.
RECOVERY SOURCE: MEDICAL ARCHIVE—NORTH OPERATIONS.
Carter swore quietly. “The archive we just left.”
Rachel looked at the portable drive in her jacket. “The recording said the profile was meant to identify the person who could shut the system down. If there were two references, one may have been designed as a backup.”
“Or as a control,” Voss said.
The words made Lucas turn toward him.
“What’s the difference?”
“A backup preserves the original function. A control can override it.”
“And which one is this?”
Voss looked at the screen. “I don’t know.”
The core began to hum more loudly. A thin line of light traveled around its inner ring.
REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE: 94% RESTORED.
Rachel moved toward the manual controls. “We need to stop the restoration.”
Voss shook his head. “The transfer pathway is paused, but the core is still rebuilding its internal map. If we cut power now, it may restart from the last stable state.”
“Then we don’t cut power. We redirect the process.”
Carter pointed to the emergency response pathway. “Can we use that to isolate the second reference?”
Voss studied the display. “Maybe. But the system is treating both references as unresolved. It won’t accept an isolation command until it identifies them.”
Lucas looked at the profile. “What if it already knows?”
The room fell silent.
A faint voice came through the speaker.
“Reference recognized.”
Rachel raised her weapon toward the ceiling, though there was nothing to shoot.
The voice continued, clearer this time.
“Secondary reference available.”
A new image appeared on the display.
It showed a child sitting on a narrow hospital bed. The picture was grainy, and the child’s face was turned away from the camera. A white band circled one wrist. The same three-tone sequence sounded softly from the speaker.
Lucas felt the pressure behind his eyes return.
He stepped back.
Rachel caught his hand. “Don’t look at it.”
But Lucas couldn’t stop staring. Something about the image felt familiar—not because he recognized the room or the child, but because the posture seemed like his own. The way the shoulders curved inward. The way one hand held the blanket tightly.
“Is that me?” he whispered.
Voss shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
The picture sharpened.
The child turned slightly.
A name appeared beneath the image.
SUBJECT: MARA.
Rachel’s hand tightened around Lucas’s.
Carter leaned toward the screen. “Mara who?”
The display added a second line.
RELATIONSHIP: UNCONFIRMED.
Voss looked as if he had seen a ghost.
Rachel noticed. “You know that name.”
He didn’t respond.
“Elias.”
His eyes stayed on the screen. “There was a girl in the original study. A child who was brought in after the first medical trials.”
“Where is she now?” Carter asked.
“I don’t know.”
Rachel’s voice became sharp. “You’re going to stop giving us half-answers.”
Voss looked at her. “Mara was the first successful reference candidate. The system responded to her profile before it ever responded to yours.”
Lucas stared at the photograph. “Then why does it need me?”
“Because Mara’s profile was incomplete,” Voss said. “Or because someone deliberately removed part of it.”
The display flashed.
REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE: 95% RESTORED.
A warning appeared beneath the image.
SECONDARY PROFILE REQUESTING AUTHORIZATION.
Carter reached for the controls. “We have to shut this down.”
Rachel moved beside him. “No. We need the identity record first.”
“Rachel, the aircraft is moving.”
“Then we have to know what we’re stopping.”
Voss reached for the silver cylinder. “There’s a way to retrieve the original medical index. The cylinder contains a map of the archive links.”
Carter grabbed his wrist. “You’re not touching anything until we know what you’re doing.”
Voss looked down at Carter’s hand. “If you want answers, you’ll have to let me work.”
Rachel studied him for a long moment, then nodded once.
“Slowly,” she said. “And every command gets explained before you enter it.”
Voss began typing.
The core’s rings turned another fraction.
On the display, Mara’s photograph remained visible, her face still partly hidden.
Lucas watched the child’s hand tighten around the blanket.
Then, in a voice so quiet he almost thought he had imagined it, the speaker said:
“Lucas?”
He froze.
Rachel stepped between him and the core.
“Who said that?”
The screen went blank.
A single line appeared.
SECONDARY REFERENCE: AWAKE.
They left the calibration chamber through a maintenance corridor that connected to the tower’s lower service level. Voss carried the silver cylinder. Carter kept close behind him, while Rachel walked beside Lucas, watching his face for any sign that the strange pressure had returned.
The facility was no longer merely vibrating. It seemed to be breathing. Power moved through the walls in uneven surges, and the overhead lights brightened and dimmed with each pulse.
At the end of the corridor, a steel door opened into a small observation room overlooking the runway. Through the reinforced window, Lucas could see the aircraft.
Its engines were turning.
The landing lights came on, cutting through the darkness in two hard white beams.
Rachel reached for the wall phone. “Control, this is Miller. Confirm aircraft status.”
Static crackled.
Then a technician answered. “We have movement on the main gear. The aircraft is not responding to ground commands.”
“Is anyone in the cockpit?”
“Negative. The canopy is sealed.”
Carter stepped toward the window. “Can the runway be blocked?”
“Ground crews are moving barriers into position.”
Rachel looked at Voss. “How long before it can taxi?”
He studied the aircraft. “If the core completes its restoration, it may not need conventional taxi authorization.”
The aircraft’s nose shifted slightly.
Lucas felt the three tones in his head again.
He pressed his palms over his ears.
Rachel turned. “Lucas?”
“It’s calling me.”
Voss’s expression tightened. “The system may be using the reference signal as a navigation cue.”
“Then stop it.”
“I’m trying.”
Carter moved to the wall phone. “Ground control, clear the runway and cut the reserve power if you can do it safely.”
A technician replied, “We’re attempting a power isolation now.”
The aircraft’s lights blinked once.
Then the runway display showed a new message.
CALIBRATION FLIGHT: AUTHORIZED.
Rachel stared at it. “Who authorized that?”
Nobody answered.
The aircraft began to roll.
Click here to continue reading: PART 18: THE RUNWAY WITHOUT A PILOT
The Moment My Teacher Turned My Proudest Memory Into a Joke in Front of the Entire Eighth Grade
Part 17 of 40
