Adrian looked directly at her.
Before he could answer, every screen in the cockpit changed.
A photograph appeared.
Maya.
Twenty-three years old.
Wearing a hospital gown.
Unconscious.
A serial number printed beneath her image.
ICARUS-01.
Maya stopped breathing.
And from the cockpit speakers, her mother’s voice whispered:
“Welcome home, Number One.”
PART 3
THE MAN BESIDE HER SON KNEW HER REAL NAME
Maya did not remember leaving the cockpit.
One second she was staring at the radio, hearing the impossible voice of a man she had mourned for eight years.
The next, she was moving down the narrow aisle of Flight 417 with her pulse hammering against her ribs.
“They’re sitting beside your son.”
Ethan’s warning repeated inside her head.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Every passenger suddenly looked suspicious.
The elderly man clutching his wife’s hand.
The businessman pretending to read.
The college student wearing headphones.
The woman Maya had trusted to watch Leo.
