Chapter 3 - The Clock is Ticking
The truth exploded in the hallway like a concussive blast.
Nora felt as though the floor had dissolved beneath her feet. "My baby... Ruby..."
"Your baby was born perfectly healthy, Nora," Paige wept, pulling her knees to her chest. "But Arthur Vance’s family trust offered Dr. Thorne two million dollars for a healthy, genetically verified heir. Arthur didn't know... he thought his wife was giving birth to their child. Karen was brought in to act as the recovering mother in Room 312."
"And what were you going to do with my daughter?!" Nora demanded, her voice breaking into a ragged sob. "What was going to happen to Ruby?!"
"She... she was going to be registered as an unidentified abandoned infant," Paige whispered. "Then transferred to a private care facility in upstate New York... until the adoption papers could be quietly processed."
Miles looked as if he were about to kill someone. His face was pale, his veins standing out along his neck. He stepped toward Paige, but Officer Ramsey quickly intervened, holding his hands up.
"Sir, stay back! Let us handle this!" Ramsey shouted. He signaled to his partner. "Detain Karen Vance and Paige Ward immediately. Get cuffs on them."
Karen tried to run, but Officer Miller tackled her to the ground near the water fountain, ratcheting steel handcuffs around her wrists. She spat curses, her manic composure completely shattering. Arthur Vance sank to the floor, resting his head in his hands, weeping uncontrollably as the entire reality of his life collapsed around him.
Inside the nursery, the red warning light above the door flashed again. A low chime sounded.
Vivian pressed the intercom button. "Celeste, Dr. Thorne just logged into the hospital network from his home computer. He’s executing a remote wipe of the maternity ward’s server."
"Can you stop it?" Celeste asked, rushing back to the glass.
"I can block the main database override, but only if I keep this room isolated," Vivian said. "If the network goes down completely, the digital records connecting the infants' true DNA profiles to their maternal charts will be permanently corrupted. I need twenty minutes to complete the physical blood-typing tests manually."
"Vivian," Nora pleaded, her face pressed against the cold glass, looking desperately into the dim nursery. "Please... just let me see her. Let me see Ruby's face. I need to know she's okay."
Vivian paused. She looked at Nora, seeing the agonizing pain of a mother who had lost seven babies before this one.
Slowly, Vivian turned and walked to the back partition. She picked up a tiny bundle wrapped in a pale yellow blanket, capped with the soft yellow hat Nora had knitted herself.
Vivian brought Ruby right up to the window.
Through the glass, Nora saw her daughter's tiny, perfect face. Her little rosebud mouth was open, taking tiny breaths, her dark eyelashes resting against her soft pink cheeks. On her tiny left foot, a small blue mark showed where Vivian had taken a heel-prick sample for the blood test.
Nora broke down, pressing her lips against the glass right over Ruby’s little head. "Oh, baby... Mommy's right here. Mommy's here."
Miles placed his arm around Nora, pressing his forehead against hers as tears ran down his face. "She's safe, Nora. She's right there."
Suddenly, the lights in the entire building cut out completely.
Emergency red lights kicked on five seconds later, bathing the hallway in a eerie, bloody glow. The electronic hum of the air circulation system sputtered and died.
"The main power grid is down," Celeste gasped, checking her radio. "The backup generators failed!"
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Behind the glass, Vivian looked up at the ceiling as the temperature inside the nursery immediately began to drop.
"He cut the power to the floor," Vivian said through the battery-operated intercom speaker, her voice tight with sudden dread. "He’s trying to force us out."
