Trapped in a 5-Second Future: A Landlord's Cold War Trap in Arlington
👉 [Previous Decision]: You are continuing from CHAPTER 9 or CHAPTER 10.
The tension in the control room was a suffocating blanket. Holloway, his sidearm trembling slightly in his grip, glared at Sergeant Kincaid. Dr. Aris stood frozen by his console, his face pale, too terrified to intervene. Clara watched, a silent, helpless witness from behind the reinforced glass.
Kincaid, however, held his ground. If he had retrieved Clara’s ledger, he now pulled it from his pocket, holding it up, the small leather book a stark contrast to Holloway’s firearm. “She’s no Soviet sympathizer, Colonel! Look at this! Her bank book, with military receipts! She spent her own money buying supplies for wounded GIs!”
Holloway’s eyes flickered to the ledger, a momentary confusion replacing his rage. “What is that nonsense?”
“And this!” Kincaid reached into his other pocket, pulling out a rolled sheaf of papers. “Dr. Aris’s secret testing logs from 1951! I found them in your hidden files, Colonel! The original Project Chimera trials!”
Aris gasped, a small, choked sound. His eyes, wide with fear, darted from Kincaid to Holloway. Holloway’s face, already pale, drained of all color. The sidearm lowered slightly, his hand beginning to shake uncontrollably.
“My son… he was subject Delta-Seven,” Kincaid’s voice hardened, thick with a terrible accusation. “He was in an early prototype of this very chamber in 1951. The screens overloaded, just like they did today. He suffered a fatal cardiac arrest, Colonel. And you refused to stop the test.”
A collective gasp echoed in the control room. Aris buried his face in his hands. Clara pressed her own hands against the glass, a wave of shock washing over her. Holloway’s lost son, killed in Korea, had actually died right here, in a similar experimental trial. Holloway had forced him into it. The cold, hard truth, hidden for over a decade, was now exposed.
Holloway’s eyes were wide, vacant, staring at Kincaid as if seeing a ghost. The gun clattered from his suddenly limp fingers, hitting the floor with a hollow thud. He swayed, clutching at his chest, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The rigorous, paranoid colonel was gone, replaced by a grief-stricken, broken man. His past cruelty, his unforgivable decision, was laid bare for Clara and Dr. Aris to witness.
The screens in Clara’s chamber, which had been blank, flickered back to life, but displayed only fragmented images of Holloway’s distraught face, five seconds behind his actual reaction, a cruel mockery of its original function. The system, once a tool of control, now reflected his internal torment.
The revelation hung heavy in the air, a devastating weight. Holloway had not only tortured Clara; he had sacrificed his own son to the same cruel logic. His entire desperate project, Clara now understood, was a desperate, twisted attempt to somehow justify that unconscionable act, to prove his “predictive” technology was valid, even if it meant destroying others in its wake.
➡️ Read CHAPTER 12 to continue the story
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