CHAPTER 27
Circle House One
Washington looked peaceful from the sky.
That was the first lie.
The monuments glowed beneath us.
Government buildings sat quiet.
Streets moved with early-morning traffic.
Nothing about the city suggested that hundreds of children had been tracked, trained, and assigned futures beneath it.
Our helicopter landed at a private medical pad outside the city.
Nobody greeted us.
Nobody checked identification.
A black transport vehicle waited with its doors open.
The original key displayed one message.
TRANSPORT PROVIDED
Dymond stared at the vehicle.
“Black.”
“What?” Nesha asked.
“Serena said the Circle doesn’t use black vehicles.”
“Serena doesn’t,” I said. “Simone might.”
A driver sat behind tinted glass.
I tried the front door.
Locked.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The driver didn’t respond.
Meech examined the vehicle.
“No license plate. No visible cameras.”
“That means there are cameras,” Dymond said.
Nesha lowered herself into the back seat.
“I’m tired of being watched.”
She wore fresh bandages beneath dark clothes Serena had brought. Her face had more color than before, but every movement hurt.
Dymond looked worse.
The tube had been removed from her side before we landed, against her surgeon’s instructions. Her breathing remained shallow.
I wasn’t doing any better.
My shoulder burned.
My chest felt heavy.
Three wounded women traveling to Washington to argue with a dead woman inside a computer.
Nothing about our family made sense.
Meech moved toward the vehicle.
The original key flashed.
THREE DAUGHTERS ONLY
“I can’t come,” he said.
“Find another way inside.”
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t try.”
He looked at me.
“Right. That means do something impossible.”
“You’re learning.”
Serena and Karen’s aircraft landed on a separate pad.
We couldn’t see them.
Their phones went straight to voicemail.
The Circle had separated us before we reached the building.
“I don’t like this,” Nesha said.
“None of us do,” Dymond replied.
“Just making sure.”
We entered the vehicle.
The doors locked.
A divider rose between us and the driver.
All three phones lost signal.
The original key remained active.
A map showed our route toward downtown Washington.
No street names.
No landmarks.
Only a white line leading toward Circle House One.
Dymond leaned her head against the window.
“If one of us has to stay, it won’t be Keyshia.”
I looked at her.
“We are not doing this.”
“We should decide before somebody decides for us.”
“Nobody is staying.”
“You don’t know if that’s possible.”
“Neither do you.”
“Nesha has Kendrick’s blood. You have Karen’s. I have Karen and Victor.”
“That sounds like enough blood to break anything.”
Dymond almost smiled.
Nesha watched both of us.
“She’s right.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“Dymond. We need a plan if the system can’t be destroyed.”
“No.”
“Key—”
“No.”
“You have children.”
“So do hundreds of other women trapped in the Circle.”
“Your children need you.”
“And your life matters without children.”
Nesha looked down at her hands.
“What about mine?”
I turned toward her.
“What?”
“You both immediately decided you’re the one who should stay.”
“We didn’t decide anything.”
“You started arguing about it.”
“Nesha—”
“I don’t have children. I don’t have a crew. My store job is gone. My mother tried to turn me into a computer prisoner.”
“You have us.”
She looked at me.
“I know.”
“Then stop measuring your life by what belongs to you.”
Dymond nodded.
“Keyshia’s right.”
Nesha stared at her.
“You agreed with her fast.”
“I don’t want to get shot again.”
The vehicle slowed.
Outside, people walked along sidewalks carrying coffee.
Joggers passed.
A school bus stopped at a corner.
We pulled beneath a modern building covered in mirrored glass.
Gold letters near the entrance read:
THE AMERICAN YOUTH PROTECTION FOUNDATION
A banner stretched across the lobby.
EVERY CHILD DESERVES A SAFE FUTURE
I wanted to tear it down.
The vehicle entered an underground garage.
The doors opened.
Three women in white suits waited beside an elevator.
No visible weapons.
That meant the weapons were hidden.
The woman in the center held out her hand.
“The key.”
“No,” I said.
“You cannot enter without surrendering it.”
“We were invited.”
“The invitation grants access. The key grants authority.”
“Then authority comes with us.”
Her expression didn’t change.
The elevator opened.
“Place all weapons inside the container.”
A metal box slid from the wall.
Dymond removed her gun.
Nesha placed hers beside it.
I kept mine beneath my coat.
The woman looked at me.
“Your weapon.”
“I don’t have one.”
A scanner moved across my body.
It beeped near my waist.
She stared at me.
I removed the gun.
“Forgot.”
“You are entering the most secure Circle facility in the world.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better without a gun.”
The weapons disappeared into the wall.
We entered the elevator.
The three women remained outside.
The doors closed.
No buttons.
The elevator descended.
Ten floors.
Twenty.
Thirty.
The display stopped showing numbers after thirty-five.
“How deep are we going?” Nesha asked.
“Too deep to run,” Dymond said.
The lights shut off.
Red lasers scanned our faces.
A needle extended from the wall and moved toward my hand.
I pulled away.
BLOOD SAMPLE REQUIRED
“Of course,” I muttered.
The machine took one drop from each of us.
Then it spoke.
KEYSHIA CARTER — SELECTED
DYMOND CARTER — REJECTED
JANESHA CARTER — ACCEPTABLE
The doors opened.
Circle House One stretched beneath Washington like an underground city.
White corridors.
Glass offices.
Rows of servers.
Hundreds of people worked behind screens.
Nobody looked surprised to see us.
A wall displayed live video from the eleven remaining Carter Houses.
Children ate breakfast.
Sat in classrooms.
Slept in small beds.
The emergency transfer had stopped.
For now.
A woman approached wearing a silver suit.
Her face was Simone’s.
Not an image.
A body.
I stepped back.
Dymond stared at her.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I am.”
The woman smiled.
Up close, something was wrong.
Her skin looked real.
Her eyes didn’t.
“An artificial body,” Nesha said.
“A vessel,” Simone replied.
“You put a computer inside a person?”
“The body was grown for me.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said.
“That is survival.”
“You’re still not Simone.”
“I remember Karen’s first steps. Serena’s fear of thunder. The night our father promised Victor the empire.”
“Memories aren’t a soul.”
“Neither is blood. Yet your family worships it.”
She turned and walked.
“Follow me.”
“Where’s Monica?” Nesha asked.
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“You.”
We followed Simone through the facility.
People stopped working as we passed.
Some wore government badges.
Others wore military uniforms.
One man had appeared on television the night before defending the federal response to the archive leak.
He watched us with hatred.
“You exposed them,” Dymond whispered.
“And they’re still at work,” I replied.
“That’s Circle House One,” Simone said without turning. “Governments change. We remain.”
“Not after today,” I said.
She stopped beside a glass wall.
Children’s photographs covered it.
More than sixteen hundred.
Some black and white.
Some recent.
Every child who passed through the facility.
The last three photographs belonged to Jayce, Amaya, and Laila.
I tore them from the wall.
“You don’t own them.”
“No,” Simone said. “They belong to the future.”
“They belong to themselves.”
“A child cannot determine what the world requires from them.”
“Neither can you.”
We reached a circular room.
Three chairs sat in the center.
Silver restraints rested beside each arm.
The sacrifice room.
Monica waited near the control panel.
Her injured leg was wrapped.
No wheelchair.
No gun.
She looked at Nesha.
“You came.”
“You made sure I would.”
“I knew you wouldn’t leave Keyshia.”
“That doesn’t mean you know me.”
“It means I know what you love.”
Nesha’s face hardened.
“You put a bomb on Jayce.”
“I knew Keyshia had the key.”
“You keep saying you knew she would save him as if that excuses what you did.”
“We can discuss forgiveness after this is over.”
“There won’t be forgiveness.”
Something moved behind Monica’s eyes.
Pain.
She hid it quickly.
Simone stood beside the three chairs.
“Sit.”
“No,” I said.
“The remaining Carter Houses will begin permanent transfer in forty-seven minutes.”
“Transfer where?”
“Locations outside American jurisdiction.”
“You mean trafficking.”
“I mean preservation.”
“Same thing with a prettier word.”
Simone looked at the original key in my hand.
“Without authorization, the children disappear.”
“And if we sit?”
“One becomes guardian. Two leave. The eleven houses close. Every child is released.”
“Where?”
“To families already selected.”
“Circle families?”
“Some.”
“Then they aren’t being released.”
Nesha looked at Monica.
“You invited us. Stop it.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re a founder.”
“Simone controls the master system.”
“Then what do you decide?”
“Which woman the system accepts.”
I raised the original key.
“It already selected me.”
Monica looked at Dymond.
“Before the transfusion.”
Dymond’s expression changed.
“What transfusion?” Simone asked.
Monica smiled slightly.
“Keyshia’s blood entered Dymond after the system made its first selection.”
Simone’s artificial eyes moved toward the blood tube taped near Dymond’s arm.
“The hospital records did not show a transfusion.”
“Because Serena’s facility has no records.”
The digital woman stepped toward Dymond.
A scanner passed across her body.
The room flashed red.
SECOND SELECTED BLOODLINE DETECTED
The system displayed two names.
KEYSHIA CARTER — SELECTED
DYMOND CARTER — SELECTED
CONFLICT
Simone looked toward Monica.
“What have you done?”
“Created a choice.”
“You were instructed to deliver one guardian.”
“You told me one mother would decide who leaves.”
Nesha stared at her.
“You’re saving me.”
“I’m trying.”
“By sacrificing Key or Dymond?”
“They were already selected.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“It keeps you alive.”
Nesha stepped close to Monica.
“I never asked you to trade another sister for me.”
“You’re my daughter.”
“That didn’t matter when I was five.”
“It mattered every day.”