CHAPTER 8: THE FINAL NAME ON THE LIST
The nation watched in complete silence.
Michael Brooks stepped onto the stage beside Adrian.
Father and son...
Reunited after twenty years.
Reporters forgot to ask questions.
Cameras kept rolling.
Victoria slowly backed away, her hands shaking for the very first time.
"No..."
"You died."
Michael smiled.
"No, Victoria."
"You only buried an empty coffin."
Federal agents surrounded her from every direction.
"It’s over," Adrian said.
"You've lost."
Victoria looked at him...
Then laughed.
Not the laugh of a defeated woman.
The laugh of someone who knew a secret.
"You still don't understand."
"There was never a Project Phoenix."
The room fell silent.
Adrian frowned.
"What are you talking about?"
Victoria looked directly into the nearest television camera.
"Project Phoenix was only a name."
"A distraction."
"So people would never look for the real organization."
Michael's confident expression suddenly disappeared.
He whispered only one word.
"No..."
Victoria smiled.
"So..."
"You remember."
She slowly turned toward Noah.
"You know why your father survived?"
"You know why your grandfather disappeared?"
"Because someone needed them alive."
Adrian stepped between Victoria and Noah.
"Enough."
Victoria ignored him.
"The Brooks family was never the target."
"They were the experiment."
The giant screens behind the stage suddenly flickered.
Without anyone touching the controls...
A hidden file began playing automatically.
Across every television in America appeared a classified government document.
OPERATION GENESIS
STATUS: DECLASSIFIED
Every person in the room stared in disbelief.
The document listed thousands of names.
Scientists.
Judges.
Military generals.
Presidents.
Business leaders.
Each one carried the same label.
SUBJECT
Then Adrian found his own name.
SUBJECT 0001
Below it, another name.
NOAH BROOKS
SUBJECT 0002
Michael slowly closed his eyes.
"They found the Genesis files..."
Victoria smiled.
"They didn't find them."
"I released them."
The audience erupted into panic.
Stock markets immediately crashed.
Government officials rushed to make frantic phone calls.
News anchors interrupted broadcasts across the country.
Then...
Oracle's face suddenly appeared on every screen.
She looked more serious than ever before.
"Adrian..."
"You have exactly sixty seconds."
"Until what?"
Oracle didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she displayed one final document.
At the bottom...
Only one signature appeared.
Adrian stared at it.
His hands began to shake uncontrollably.
It wasn't Victoria's signature.
It wasn't Michael's.
It wasn't Sarah's.
It was his own.
Signed...
Thirty years ago.
Before he could even remember.
"No..."
Adrian whispered.
"That's impossible."
Oracle looked directly into his eyes through the camera.
"No, Adrian."
"It's the truth."
"You weren't chosen by Genesis."
"You..."
"...created it."
The entire world fell silent.
Noah looked up at his father with tears in his eyes.
"Dad..."
"What does she mean?"
Adrian couldn't answer.
Because deep inside his mind...
Fragments of memories he had buried decades ago began returning.
A laboratory.
Children.
Locked rooms.
A voice repeating the same sentence over and over.
"Memory wipe successful."
Then, without warning...
Every light inside Brooks Global Headquarters went dark.
A computerized voice echoed through the building.
"Welcome back, Founder."
"Authorization confirmed."
"Genesis Protocol... Activated."
And somewhere, hidden beneath the skyscraper...
May you like
A massive steel door that had remained sealed for thirty years...
Slowly began to open.
