Chapter 8 - THE FINAL REVELATIONVance screamed in agony as Rick's teeth bit deep into his wrist! The gun clattered onto the linoleum floor.
"GET THIS DAMN MUTT OFF ME!" Vance shrieked, thrashing wildly.
I didn't waste a millisecond. I drove my elbow violently into Vance's ribs, breaking his hold on my neck, and lunged for the dropped pistol, kicking it down the hallway out of reach.
Mark pulled a hunting knife from his belt and charged at me with a primal roar! I grabbed a heavy metal fire extinguisher off the wall and swung it with all my remaining strength.
CLANG!
The extinguisher struck Mark squarely in the chest. He crashed backward through the glass doors of the Master Control Room, tumbling over the control consoles in a shower of sparks and shattered glass!
Vance managed to throw Rick off, scrambling toward his gun on the floor. But before he could reach it, the heavy double doors at the end of the hall burst open.
"POLICE! DON'T MOVE!"
A tactical team of Federal Marshals spilled into the corridor, weapons raised! Behind them pushed through Sarah—her shoulder bandaged, but very much alive!
"Drop the weapon, Vance!" the lead Marshal yelled. "It's over! We intercepted the digital files your secretary leaked an hour ago!"
Vance froze, his face turning ghostly white as he slowly raised his hands into the air.
I rushed into the Master Control Room. Mark was groaning on the floor, bleeding from his nose, surrounded by flickering monitors. But as I looked up at the main broadcast screen hanging on the wall, my jaw dropped in utter astonishment.
The live news feed wasn't displaying a local news report. It was displaying a live, streaming video from an unknown camera—showing a dark, high-tech laboratory filled with rows of glass cylinders.
Inside one of the cylinders, suspended in blue fluid... was another body.
A body that looked exactly like me.
Mark spat blood onto the carpet, looking up at me with a terrifying, unhinged grin as the Federal Marshals dragged him to his feet.
"You thought I was your twin brother... didn't you, Leo?" Mark cackled maniacally, his voice echoing over the alarms of the news station. "You idiot... our father wasn't a businessman. He was the lead scientist for Project Lazarus! You aren't the original Leo... you're just Clone Number Three!"
The world seemed to stop spinning. The room tilted under my feet.
I looked down at Rick. The dog wasn't looking at Mark. He was looking at me—his eyes filled with an ancient, eerie intelligence that no ordinary animal should ever possess.
Rick slowly walked over to the main computer terminal, raised his paw, and pressed his pad against the biometric scanner.
The computer screen flashed bright green:
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As the high-frequency chime sounded through the broadcast room, a rush of suppressed memories flooded into my brain. The dog had never been trying to warn me about an intruder.
He had been sent to awaken me.
