Chapter 11 - My Mother Had Lied About My Father Too
“No.”
My mother said it before I asked anything.
That made it worse.
We sat inside the command boat while Vincent was transported into federal custody.
“Who was my father?”
“Erin.”
“Don't.”
She closed her eyes.
The man I grew up believing was my father, Michael Blake, died when I was six.
I remembered little.
A beard.
Old rock music.
Pancakes shaped like animals.
My mother always said he was the love of her life.
Apparently that was another incomplete truth.
“Michael raised you.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“No.”
“Who?”
Matteo remained near the doorway.
He started to leave.
“Stay.”
He stopped.
My mother stared at her hands.
“Your biological father was Daniel Mercer.”
Never heard the name.
Matteo had.
His expression changed.
“Mercer?”
“Who is he?” I asked.
Matteo answered.
“Former intelligence officer.”
My mother added:
“And one of Lantern's original architects.”
Of course.
I laughed.
At that point, what else could I do?
“My mother built it. My father built it. You people couldn't have opened a bakery?”
Anna almost smiled.
Then didn't.
Daniel Mercer had worked with Salvatore Rinaldi creating the technical logic behind Lantern.
He believed centralized surveillance could prevent wars between criminal organizations.
Predict betrayals.
Expose informants.
Stop violence before it happened.
Idealism became control.
Control became blackmail.
Eventually Mercer wanted out.
He disappeared before I was born.
“Dead?”
“I thought so.”
“You're terrible at knowing when people die.”
That hurt her.
I regretted it.
Still true.
Vincent claimed another custodian existed.
Mercer might be alive.
If so, he represented the oldest surviving branch of Lantern.
We interrogated Vincent.
He refused details.
Only said:
“Mercer never stopped watching.”
Then we found proof.
Inside the island bunker, one secure communication channel remained active.
Recipient:
D.M.
Messages spanned years.
He had tracked my mother's movements.
Matteo's rise.
Vincent’s expansion.
Mine.
Daniel Mercer had watched his daughter from a distance.
Another parent deciding surveillance counted as love.
I was getting tired of the theme.
Then one message stood out.
Sent six weeks before the gala:
ERIN IS READY. INITIATE CONVERGENCE.
My blood went cold.
My involvement had been planned long before Vincent supposedly improvised.
Maybe Vincent wasn't the mastermind.
Maybe Mercer had nudged him.
The canceled electrician.
The gala blackout.
My mother's storage locker.
Every road pushed me toward Lantern.
“Why?”
Matteo asked.
I answered.
“Because he wants me to inherit it.”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Erin—”
“You trained me. He watched me. Vincent tested me.”
I felt sick.
“My entire career may have been shaped toward this.”
“No.”
My mother grabbed my hand.
“You chose electrical work because you loved it.”
“How do I know?”
“Because I tried to make you become an accountant.”
I stared.
True.
I hated accounting.
Unexpectedly comforting.
Not everything had been engineered.
That mattered.
We traced Mercer through old intelligence contacts.
No address.
No photograph after 1998.
Then he contacted me directly.
Email.
YOU HAVE QUESTIONS.
Understatement.
COME TO NEW YORK.
NO RINALDI. NO ANNA.
I replied:
NO.
Three dots appeared.
Then:
YOU ARE MORE LIKE ME THAN YOU KNOW.
I wrote:
THAT IS NOT THE COMPLIMENT YOU THINK IT IS.
No response for several minutes.
Then a file arrived.
A video.
My childhood.
Me at eleven, fixing a lamp at the kitchen table.
Recorded from outside our house.
My stomach turned.
Another.
High-school graduation.
Another.
My first company van.
My mother began crying.
“I didn't know.”
I believed her.
That was new.
Trust rebuilding itself in tiny increments.
Mercer sent one final message:
LANTERN WILL EXIST WITH OR WITHOUT US.
THE QUESTION IS WHO CONTROLS IT.
That was the argument everyone used.
Power is inevitable, so take it.
Corruption is inevitable, so manage it.
Violence is inevitable, so own the gun.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe not.
I looked at Matteo.
He had surrendered pieces of his empire rather than sacrifice me.
Refused to kill Vincent.
Maybe systems did not change because good people controlled bad power.
Maybe they changed when somebody refused the premise.
“What if we don't control Lantern?”
My mother frowned.
“What?”
“What if we make it impossible to control?”
Matteo understood first.
“Decentralize disclosure?”
“No.”
“That could kill protected people.”
“Exactly.”
I opened the node map.
“We separate identities requiring protection from evidence of crimes.”
My mother stared.
“That would take months.”
“Then we take months.”
“Mercer won't let you.”
“Then he can try stopping me.”
For the first time, I wasn't reacting.
Not to Vincent.
Not to Salvatore.
Not to my mother.
Not to my father.
I had a plan.
We would dismantle Lantern carefully.
Protect witnesses.
Release evidence through lawful channels.
Destroy blackmail.
Preserve accountability.
No custodian.
No king.
Matteo looked at me.
“That's your answer?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Good.”
Then my laptop screen changed.
Mercer had remotely entered the system.
A single sentence appeared.
THEN LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT A KING.
May you like
Every known Lantern node went dark simultaneously.
And across the country, people connected to those nodes started disappearing.
