Chapter 8 - The Vanguard
We drove for two hours, deep into the arid hills of the Mexican countryside, far away from the resort towns and the flashing lights of the police. Mara was crying silently, clutching her swollen belly. Evie sat perfectly still, staring at the dashboard.
I finally pulled the truck behind the crumbling walls of an abandoned colonial church. The roof had caved in decades ago, but the thick stone walls offered cover from the main road.
I turned off the engine. The silence that followed was suffocating.
"Okay," I said, my voice trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline. I turned to the little girl. "Talk. Now. No more riddles."
Evie slowly turned her head. Her ancient eyes met mine.
"Arthur Sterling works for a consortium known as The Vanguard," Evie began, her voice steady. "They are not a corporation. They are architects. For the last seventy years, they have been secretly mapping and manipulating the human genome, suppressing evolutionary leaps to maintain their control over global structures."
"Evolutionary leaps?" Mara breathed, looking at the child in horror.
"Yes," Evie said. "Every few generations, a genetic anomaly occurs. A mutation that grants heightened cognitive abilities. Precognition. Hyper-intuition. The ability to calculate the probability of events before they happen." She tapped her own temple. "Like me."
"You... you can see the future?" I asked, my mind spinning.
"I see probabilities," she corrected. "I see the math of the universe. And I am not the only one. But The Vanguard hunts us. They eradicate us because a human mind that can predict their moves cannot be controlled. They engineer 'accidents.' A car crash. A structural failure."
I felt the blood drain from my face. "The skylight."
"Yes."
Mara let out a sob, wrapping her arms protectively around her stomach. "But why me? I'm nobody. I'm an accountant. David is a high school teacher."
Evie reached out, gently placing her small, cold hand on Mara's stomach.
"Because the child you are carrying is not a standard mutation, Mara. Your baby possesses a sequence that The Vanguard’s supercomputers flagged three months ago during your routine amniocentesis. The lab sent your bloodwork to a Vanguard front company."
Evie looked up, her gaze piercing. "Your child is an Apex. A generational leap. Their cognitive abilities will dwarf mine. If your baby is born, it will possess the intellect to dismantle The Vanguard’s entire empire. That is why Arthur Sterling is here. That is why you were not supposed to leave that pool."
The weight of it crushed me. A global conspiracy. Genetic anomalies. My unborn child marked for death before taking a single breath.
"Why are you helping us?" I asked, my voice cracking. "If they're this powerful... why risk your life?"
May you like
Evie pulled down the collar of her faded yellow dress. At the base of her neck was a barcode, scarred heavily into her flesh, along with the number 004.
"Because I was born in one of their labs," Evie whispered. "I am their failed experiment. And I am tired of watching them win."
