Chapter 300
Chapter 300
Nobody in the observation room moved.
The man’s face remained on the monitor as though he had all the time in the world. He stood beneath the dim emergency lights of the western maintenance corridor with one hand resting casually in the pocket of his coat, wearing the faint smile of someone who had just returned to a place he had never truly left.
Evelyn’s breathing became uneven.
“It can’t be…”
Kayla turned to her.
“You know him.”
Evelyn’s eyes never left the screen.
“I knew him.”
Her voice trembled.
“We buried him.”
Arthur slowly looked from Evelyn to the monitor, his expression growing darker with every passing second.
“No,” he said quietly. “We buried someone else.”
The realization settled over the room like a heavy fog.
Whoever the man was, he had spent decades allowing the world to believe he was dead.
The stranger tilted his head slightly toward the camera.
“I was beginning to wonder how long it would take before someone recognized me.”
His calmness was unsettling.
There was no urgency in his voice and no sign of panic despite the security teams converging on his location.
Marcus reached for the communication panel.
“I’ll have Team Three intercept him.”
Arthur immediately raised a hand.
“No.”
Marcus frowned.
“We’re just going to let him walk through the building?”
Arthur shook his head.
“If he entered using a Founder’s clearance code, then he already knows every defensive position inside this observatory. Sending guards after him blindly will only cost lives.”
Charles nodded in agreement.
“He wants us to react emotionally.”
Jason folded his arms as he studied the monitor.
“So we don’t.”
The man smiled, almost as though he had heard the conversation.
“I see Jason Lugard lives up to his reputation.”
Jason’s expression remained unreadable.
“You know who I am.”
“I know everyone in this room.”
His eyes shifted toward the camera covering the observation room.
“And I know which one of you is Kayla.”
An uncomfortable silence followed.
Kayla refused to look away.
“I’m right here.”
The stranger’s smile softened.
“You look like your mother.”
The words caught her completely off guard.
She had expected a threat.
Instead, she received a memory.
“You knew Lily?” she asked.
“I knew her better than most.”
Before Kayla could ask another question, Jason quietly stepped beside her.
“Who are you?”
The man considered him for a moment before answering.
“My name used to matter.”
He paused.
“Now people simply call me Gabriel.”
Charles frowned immediately.
“That’s not possible.”
Marcus looked toward him.
“You’ve heard the name?”
Charles slowly nodded.
“Gabriel was one of the original founders.”
Arthur’s face hardened.
“The youngest of them.”
“And the only one who disappeared before the organization fractured.”
Gabriel gave a small nod of approval.
“I’m pleased someone still remembers.”
Kayla felt another piece of the puzzle shifting into place.
“You worked with my mother.”
“I did.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
His smile faded.
“I intend to.”
Outside the observatory, another burst of gunfire echoed through the night.
Noor immediately switched one of the monitors back to the eastern perimeter.
Ethan and Helena had abandoned the concrete barrier and were moving toward a cluster of abandoned service buildings, using the darkness for cover as the attackers continued their pursuit.
“They’re running out of space,” Noor whispered.
Jason’s jaw tightened.
“If we don’t help them now, we may not get another chance.”
Kayla looked from Ethan’s image to Gabriel’s.
Everything was happening at once.
The brother she had only just found was fighting for his life outside.
A man from the past had appeared inside the observatory claiming to know her mother.
Every answer seemed to arrive wrapped inside another mystery.
She closed her eyes briefly, forcing herself to think.
When she opened them again, the fear had been replaced by determination.
“We’re done reacting.”
Everyone turned toward her.
“We’ve spent weeks letting other people decide where this story goes.”
She looked first at Arthur.
“Prepare a rescue team for Ethan and Helena.”
Then she turned to Charles.
“Lock every internal route except the central corridor.”
Finally, she faced Jason.
“And you’re coming with me.”
A faint smile appeared on his face.
“I wasn’t planning on letting you go alone.”
She reached for his hand, drawing strength from the familiar warmth of his touch.
For a brief moment, the chaos surrounding them disappeared.
“You still trust me?” she asked softly.
Jason looked into her eyes.
“I trusted you long before I trusted myself.”
Emotion filled Kayla’s expression.
She leaned forward and kissed him gently.
It was a quiet kiss, lasting only a few seconds, but it carried every promise they had never spoken aloud.
When they finally separated, Jason rested his forehead against hers.
“We finish this together.”
“Together,” she whispered.
Before either of them could move, every light inside the observatory suddenly went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A chorus of startled voices echoed through the building before the emergency generators struggled to activate.
Three seconds later, the backup lights flickered on.
The observation room came back into view.
Everyone was exactly where they had been…
Except Gabriel.
The monitor displaying the maintenance corridor was empty.
No footsteps.
No opened doors.
No sign that anyone had ever been there.
Then Noor’s computer emitted a sharp alert.
Her hands froze above the keyboard as a single file appeared on every monitor in the observatory.
Its title consisted of only four words.
PROJECT TWIN: FINAL PHASE.
Nobody spoke as the words remained on the monitors.
The title alone was enough to send a wave of unease through the observation room. Kayla felt Jason’s hand tighten around hers, instinctively reassuring her that whatever they were about to uncover, they would face it together.
Arthur was the first to recover from the shock.
“Noor, disconnect the system from the external network.”
“I’m trying,” Noor replied, her fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard. “Whoever uploaded this file has administrator-level access. Every command I enter is being overridden.”
Charles stepped closer to the main screen, his expression unusually grim.
“Then Gabriel didn’t come here to attack us.”
Kayla looked at him.
“He came here to make sure we found this.”
Charles nodded slowly.
“I think so. If Project Twin is the reason Ethan was taken, then this file may contain every answer we’ve been searching for.”
Before Noor could open it, another notification appeared beneath the file name.
This one was handwritten, as though someone had scanned an old note and attached it to the archive.
Kayla’s breath caught as she recognized the handwriting immediately.
It belonged to Lily.
The message was painfully short.
If you’re reading this, then you’re finally ready to learn why I sacrificed everything to keep my children alive.