The doctor dropped the ultrasound probe and RAN out of the room screaming while doing my wife’s ultrasound. I looked at the screen to see my baby… but what I saw made me jump out of bed and run barefoot into the street immediately…
The typical November drizzle of Seattle lashed against the windows of the Evergreen Women’s Health private clinic. The rhythmic patter sounded like a ticking clock, but at that moment, I – David Miller – could only hear my own heart pounding with happiness.
I held my wife Elena’s hand tightly. She lay on the examination bed, her shirt pulled up to reveal her slightly protruding five-month pregnant belly. Elena smiled at me, a radiant smile that brightened the room, which smelled strongly of disinfectant.
“Are you nervous?” she whispered.
“More nervous than the first time I rode a motorcycle,” I joked, kissing her forehead lightly.
We had waited three years for this child. After two painful miscarriages, this time everything seemed perfect. Elena was healthy, all her vital signs were good. Today was the 4D ultrasound to determine the sex and check the morphology.
The door opened. Dr. Evans walked in. He was a man in his sixties, with white hair and gold-rimmed glasses, renowned as the best obstetrician in Washington State.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Miller,” Dr. Evans said in a warm, reassuring voice. “Now, let’s see what our little angel is doing.”
He applied a layer of cooling gel to Elena’s abdomen. She shivered slightly, squeezing my hand tighter. Dr. Evans placed the transducer on her belly, moving it slowly.
On the large LCD screen on the wall, grainy black and white images began to appear. The whirring sound of the ultrasound machine echoed, simulating the sound of blood flow and the fetal heartbeat.
Pop… Pop… Pop…
“A strong heartbeat,” Dr. Evans nodded. “About 145 beats per minute. Very good.”
I held my breath, staring at the screen. I saw the baby’s head, its curved spine, and its tiny hands curling up. A surge of emotion welled up in my chest. It was my child. My flesh and blood.
“Now I’ll switch to 4D mode so we can see the face clearly,” Dr. Evans said, his fingers manipulating the keyboard.
The screen turned to the characteristic yellowish-brown color of 4D ultrasound. The image became clearer, with volume and depth.
Dr. Evans moved the probe down a little to examine the internal organs.
Suddenly, he froze.
The gentle smile on his lips vanished. His eyes behind the lenses widened to their fullest extent, his pupils constricting as if he had just seen a ghost.
“What… what is this?” he mumbled, his voice faltering.
“What’s wrong, doctor? Is something wrong with my baby?” Elena asked anxiously, trying to sit up.
Dr. Evans didn’t answer. He pressed harder on the probe, turning it to a different angle to get a better look at the fetus’s back.
And then, he screamed.
A bloodcurdling, terrifying scream, unlike anything a seasoned doctor should have made.
“NO! IT CAN’T BE!”
He dropped the probe to the floor. Clang! The expensive device hit the tile floor, shattering its plastic casing.
Dr. Evans recoiled, bumping into the instrument cart, knocking over the stainless steel tray of scalpels and other instruments. His face was deathly pale. He looked at Elena, then at me, with an expression of utter horror, as if we were monsters.
“Run! Everyone run!” he yelled, then turned and dashed out of the room, his white lab coat caught on the doorknob. His frantic footsteps echoed down the hallway, accompanied by shouts: “Red Code! Call security! Call the bomb disposal team!”
The room fell into a deathly silence, only the low hum of the ultrasound machine remaining.
“David… what’s wrong?” Elena trembled, her face pale. “My child… my child is a monster?”
I stood frozen. I was a former mechanical engineer, a man of reason. I didn’t believe in ghosts. Dr. Evans’ actions could only be explained by one reason: He had seen a real danger.
I swallowed hard, stepping closer to the ultrasound screen, which was still displaying the last frozen frame before the probe fell.
I looked at the screen to see my child.
The baby lay there, curled up. But on its back, where the delicate spine should have been… there was a strange object.
It wasn’t a tumor. It had sharp, geometric edges.
I squinted, pressing my face close to the screen. The 4D resolution showed every detail.
Embedded deep along the fetal spine, through the placenta, was a network of thin, spiderweb-like threads. And in the center, right next to the baby’s beating heart, was a tiny rectangular metal block.
Engraved on that metal block were a series of serial numbers and a symbol.
A stylized scorpion symbol.
My blood froze. A chill ran from the top of my head to my heels, colder than the rain outside.
It wasn’t a birth defect.
It was a Micro-DX4.
A type of micro-explosive device, activated by the heartbeat, a proprietary product of “The Scorpio”—an underground arms trafficking organization I’d worked for 10 years ago, under the codename “Ghost.”
I’d left the organization. I’d had facial surgery, changed my name, moved to Seattle to live a normal life. I thought the past was buried.
But no. They’d found me.
And they did the most heinous thing: They implanted a bomb in my unborn child. The baby’s heartbeat stopped.
It’s a countdown timer. If the heartbeat stops, or if the baby leaves the womb and there’s a sudden change in pressure… BOOM.
But wait.
To implant this device in the uterus without causing a miscarriage requires an extremely complex laparoscopic surgical procedure, and the mother must be under general anesthesia for at least four hours.
Elena and I are together 24/7. She never takes her eyes off me for more than an hour, except when she goes to the spa or visits her mother on weekends.
I slowly turned to look at Elena.
She was no longer trembling.
She no longer had the panicked look of a mother worried about her child.
Elena was sitting on the bed, her legs dangling. She was calmly wiping the gel off her stomach with a tissue.
“You realize it, don’t you, David?” Elena asked. Her voice had changed completely. No longer the sweet, affectionate voice of a loving wife. It was a cold, sharp, and authoritative voice.
I took a step back. “Who… who are you?”
Elena smiled. A smile I hadn’t seen in three years. The smile of an assassin.
“I’m still your Elena,” she said, gently stepping off the bed. “Except, you never knew my real name. In the organization, they call me ‘Widow’.”
“You… you implanted that thing in your own child?” I screamed, disgust and pain tearing at my heart.
“Your child?” Elena chuckled. “Poor David. You’re a brilliant engineer, but you’re blind in love. This pregnancy… isn’t yours. And actually, it’s not a normal pregnancy either.”
She patted her stomach.
“This is a bio-bag. Inside is a cloned embryo nurtured solely to maintain the heartbeat of the DX4 bomb. Your mission is to approach me, gain my trust, and wait until I complete the missile guidance system blueprints you stole from the organization before you flee.”
I was speechless. Those blueprints. I had hidden them in a chip, implanted under the skin at the back of my neck.
“The organization is losing patience, David,” Elena pulled a silenced pistol from her bag. “They want the blueprints. And they want you to die in excruciating pain. Doctor Evans saw it sooner than expected, but that’s okay. Plan B still works.”
She pointed the gun at me.
“Reach behind your neck. Cut the skin yourself to get the chip out. Or I’ll blow your knees to pieces, then wait for the bomb in my belly to explode. You know the destructive power of the DX4. This whole clinic will be reduced to ashes.”
“You’ll die with me,” I gritted my teeth.
“Oh no,” Elena shook her head. “I have a remote detonator. I can detach this amniotic sac in 30 seconds and throw it back to you. I’ll walk out of here, and you’ll be blown to pieces with your ‘child’.”
Chapter 3: The Barefoot Run
I looked into the eyes of the woman I once loved more than life itself. Now, she was nothing but a demon.
I reached behind my neck.
“Hurry,” Elena urged, her finger on the trigger.
I felt the small scar on the back of my neck. But I didn’t take the chip.
I felt the emergency fire alarm switch mounted on the wall right behind me.
I’m not a killer. But I’m an engineer. I know how things work.
“Elena,” I said. “You forgot something about the DX4.”
“What?”
“It’s extremely sensitive to high-frequency ultrasound waves. That’s why Dr. Evans saw it so clearly. And that’s also why…”
I glanced at the ultrasound machine, which was still running.
“…I secretly increased the transducer frequency to maximum as soon as I entered the room, to get the clearest image for my child.”
Elena’s face changed color. She looked at the ultrasound machine.
“If the frequency is too high,” I continued, “it will interfere with the detonation circuit. It won’t count down with the heartbeat anymore. It will count down by seconds.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A small but clear sound came from Elena’s abdomen. The rhythm quickened.
“You’re lying!” Elena screamed, but panic had taken over. She pointed her gun, ready to fire.
But I was faster. I yanked the fire alarm.
BOOM!!!
The fire alarm blared deafeningly, followed by the activation of the sprinkler system on the ceiling. Water poured down.
Elena was taken by surprise, losing her balance and slipping on the wet tile floor.
I didn’t wait another second. I didn’t grab my shoes. I didn’t grab my coat.
I leaped over the hospital bed, slamming my shoulder into the reinforced glass window.
CRASH!
The glass shattered. We were on the first floor. I dashed out, falling into the thick bushes below. Shards of glass pierced my bare feet, blood gushing out, but the adrenaline made me oblivious to the pain.
I got up and ran.
I ran barefoot on the wet, icy Seattle pavement. I ran like a madman, leaving the clinic behind, leaving my fake wife behind, leaving the child that never existed behind.
“STOP!” Elena shrieked from the shattered window. She fired two shots. The bullets ripped through the pavement just inches from my heels.
But she couldn’t catch up. The fake pregnancy – the amniotic sac bomb – was counting down. She was struggling to remove it.
I dashed across the intersection, narrowly avoiding a truck. The horns blared. I kept running.
I needed to get at least 200 meters away.
One second.
Two seconds.
BOOM!!!
A massive shockwave flung me forward. I fell face down into a puddle of cold water.
Behind me, the Evergreen Clinic building exploded. The first floor vanished in a brilliant orange fireball, engulfing everything inside. The windows of the surrounding buildings shattered.
I lay there, gasping for breath, rainwater mixed with blood and tears, the taste salty in my mouth.
I turned my head to look. Flames licked at the gray sky. Elena – or Widow – certainly couldn’t have survived. She had died by the very weapon she intended to use to kill me.
Police sirens blared in the distance.
I propped myself up, looking down at my blood-soaked bare feet.
I had lost my wife. My child. The new identity I had painstakingly built.
But I’m still alive.
I reach behind my neck. The chip is still there.
I stand up, limping down the dark alley. Seattle is vast, and the darkness will once again shelter me. “Ghost” is dead again. And this time, I’ll make sure no one can find me.
Only, every time I close my eyes, I know I’ll be forever haunted by that image: The baby curled up on the ultrasound screen, its heart beating the countdown of death. The child never born, but who saved my life with its bizarre very existence.
