Chapter Four: The Preoperative Conference
1518 Words
At exactly eight o’clock in the morning, Sean pushed open the door to the conference room.
Both sides of the long table were filled. Representatives of the hospital’s board of directors, consultants from the ethics committee, and the legal team of the Krown Group—each face appeared as though cast from the same mold: suits, ties, and professionally curated smiles. Yet the one who truly commanded the room sat at the head of the table.
Victor Krown.
He was younger than Sean had expected. The dossier listed him as sixty-five, yet the man before him looked no older than forty-five. His skin was taut, his hair thick, his physique lean—like a luxury object meticulously preserved. He wore a bespoke charcoal suit; his cufflinks were platinum, engraved with a symbol: a triangle enclosing a single eye.
The All-Seeing Eye.
“Dr. Sterling,” Victor rose and extended his hand. “I’ve heard much about you.”
Sean shook it. The palm was warm, the pressure measured, perfectly calibrated. A man who had invested heavily in mastering the art of human contact.
“Mr. Krown.”
“Please, sit.” Victor gestured to the seat, his gaze lingering on Sean’s face for a second—not scrutiny, but something deeper, as though assessing a work of art in a private collection. “I understand you did not leave the hospital last night.”
“I had work to complete.”
“Of course.” Victor smiled faintly. “That is precisely why we chose you. The finest minds are always the most diligent.”
Sean did not respond. He pulled out his chair and sat, his eyes scanning the table. Helena sat to Victor’s right, dressed today in a black suit, her collar fastened to the very top button as always. A file lay open before her; she held a pen, though the cap remained unopened.
She was waiting for something.
“Let us begin,” Victor said, tapping the table. The projection screen flickered to life. “This is the current cerebral state of Elvira Ross.”
A three-dimensional brain scan appeared on the screen. Healthy tissue was marked in blue; damaged regions in red. The red dominated the brainstem like a spreading conflagration.
“Hypoxic brain injury due to a diving accident,” the hospital’s chief legal counsel began. “Brainstem failure. Autonomous respiration cannot be sustained. Without intervention, the patient will expire within forty-eight hours.”
“The standard course of treatment?” Sean asked.
“Brainstem transplantation,” the head of neurology replied. “But a suitable donor is unavailable. The compatibility requirements are extraordinarily stringent—blood type, HLA markers, neural architecture alignment… Under normal circumstances, the probability of finding a match is one in ten million.”
“Under normal circumstances,” Sean repeated quietly.
Victor smiled. “But with Elvira Ross, we are not constrained by normal circumstances.”
He pressed the remote. A second scan appeared on the screen.
Sean’s body went rigid.
He recognized it instantly. Too well.
It was his own brain—the architecture of the arcuate fasciculus, its neural pathways forming a structure like an exquisitely engineered bridge between the two hemispheres.
“Dr. Sterling,” Victor’s voice dropped to a near whisper, as though he were confiding a secret, “your brain and Elvira’s are a perfect match.”
The room fell silent for three seconds.
Sean’s gaze shifted from the screen to Victor’s face, then to Helena. She did not look at him; instead, her eyes remained fixed on the file before her, the pen still uncapped in her hand.
“When did you obtain my cerebral scan?” Sean asked.
“When you joined the California Medical Center,” the hospital’s HR director replied. “It was part of your onboarding examination.”
“The onboarding exam does not include a brain scan.”
“This one did.” Victor interjected, his tone as indifferent as a weather report. “From your very first day, we knew exactly what you were. S-001.”
The designation struck the room like a bullet, piercing the air and embedding itself in Sean’s chest.
He could feel the weight of every gaze settle upon him. The men in tailored suits, the curated smiles, the carefully rehearsed expressions—they all knew. From the very beginning, they had known.
“Dr. Sterling,” Victor rose and approached the screen, tracing a finger along the cerebral image. “I understand you have questions. About the Eden Cradle. About your identity. About why you were created. Those questions can be addressed in detail after the procedure. But for now—”
He turned to face Sean.
“Now, a girl’s life is counting down. She comes from the same place you do. Her neural architecture is an exact match to yours. You possess the ability to save her. And the future of the entire neurosurgical department at the California Medical Center depends on this operation.”
“Is this a threat?”
“This is reality.” Victor’s tone remained perfectly even. “You are free to refuse. No one will force you. But if you do, Elvira Ross will be dead within forty-eight hours. Your department will be dismantled within three months. And you, S-001, will never learn why you were made.”
Sean leaned back in his chair, his fingers unconsciously pressing against his left wrist.
He turned his gaze to Helena.
At last, she looked up and met his eyes.
There was no threat in her gaze, no calculation—only something he could not name.
Only later did he understand—that it was despair.
“I have one condition,” Sean said. “I will determine the surgical protocol. No standard procedures from the Krown Group are to be used. I will do it my way.”
Victor glanced at him, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
“Agreed.”
“Second, after the operation, I want full access to the Eden Cradle archives. Not the curated files—the complete records.”
Victor looked toward Helena. She nodded.
“Third,” Sean rose, his gaze sweeping across every face at the table, “During the operation, no one is to enter the operating room except my team. Not even Krown personnel.”
Victor smiled. “Of course. It is your operating theater.”
Sean offered no reply. He turned and walked toward the door. His hand was already on the handle when Victor’s voice came from behind him.
“Dr. Sterling.”
He stopped, but did not turn.
“You said just now that you would do it your way. That reminds me of someone. Thirty years ago, another man said the same thing. He was the chief researcher of the Eden Cradle. He designed you—every neuron in your brain, every synaptic connection.”
Sean’s fingers tightened around the handle.
“Who was he?”
“You will find the answer in the archives,” Victor said lightly, a trace of amusement in his voice. “If you can still recognize him.”
The door opened. Sean stepped into the corridor, leaving behind those gazes, those smiles, those meticulously constructed traps.
At the end of the corridor, the ICU door stood ajar. He saw Elvira’s room, the machines flickering with life, the pale face beneath the dim light.
He walked in.
A nurse adjusting an IV line stepped aside upon seeing him. Sean stood by the bedside, studying Elvira’s profile. She was thinner than he had imagined, her cheekbones sharply etched like they had been carved with a blade. Her blonde hair lay across the pillow, dull and lifeless, like a withered sheaf of wheat.
Her left hand hung over the edge of the bed, fingers slightly curled. The pale pink polish on her nails had chipped away in uneven fragments, revealing the ashen nail beds beneath.
Sean reached out and took her fingers in his.
Cold.
He thought of the photograph—the little girl in a white dress. Of himself standing in the background, the S-001 label affixed to his wrist. They came from the same place, forged by the same hand, bound by the same invisible chain.
“I will save you,” he murmured, “and then I will know who I am.”
Elvira did not respond. The monitor continued its steady, rhythmic beeping, like a countdown with no mercy.
Sean released her hand and turned to leave the room. In the corridor, a man in a gray jacket leaned against the wall, his cap pulled low over his eyes. As Sean passed, the man slipped something into his hand.
A small USB drive, its silver casing unmarked.
“Grand Park. Three p.m.,” the man said quietly. “Come alone.”
Sean closed his fingers around it. He did not slow his steps. He did not look back.
As the elevator doors shut, he slid the drive into the inner pocket of his white coat, pressing it close to his chest, against his heartbeat.
- Writer
