The Cantrell Protocol.

The first instruction asks you to confirm that you exist.

Not emotionally. Administratively.

You are told to gather proof. Government identification. A recent photograph. A signed affidavit from someone willing to state that you are real without hesitation. The document advises choosing a witness who does not ask questions. Doubt, it explains, delays verification.

Mara chooses her sister. Her sister signs quickly, as if existence were not something that might be withdrawn without notice.

The document insists you read it in full before proceeding. Partial compliance will be treated as withdrawal. Withdrawal is permanent.

On the third page you are introduced to Adrian Cantrell. Founder. Innovator. Builder of systems that scale cleanly and endlessly. The language is careful and bloodless. He is described by function rather than temperament. The manual explains that Cantrell believes legacy should not be left to chance. Children, like infrastructure, should be deliberate. Designed. Auditable.

You are invited to participate.

The next instruction requires a statement of intent. One paragraph only. Why you seek a genetic connection. Sentiment is discouraged. Precision is preferred. Financial instability may be acknowledged. Loneliness should be reframed as interest in continuity.

Mara types and deletes until her hands ache. The office printer hums. Someone laughs in the corridor. She finally writes that she wants security for a future she cannot otherwise afford. She does not mention exhaustion. She does not mention the small fear that follows her home each evening. The manual does not ask for those things.

Weeks pass. You are told waiting is normal. Silence does not indicate rejection. Silence is part of the process.

When approval arrives it is modest in tone. You are accepted. You are permitted to proceed.

The vial arrives on a Thursday, smaller than she expected. Ordinary. Labelled with a code that means nothing to her and everything to someone else.

You are instructed not to open it yourself. Not to speculate about its contents. Not to imagine the man it came from. Anthropomorphising genetic material, the manual warns, introduces attachment errors.

Mara holds the vial longer than necessary. It is cool. She sets it down carefully, as if it might bruise.

At the clinic the nurse handles it the way one handles a passport belonging to a stranger. With care. Without curiosity.

You are told to document everything. Dates. Temperatures. Decisions. The manual explains that inheritance depends not only on DNA but on record integrity. Errors are not erased. They are archived.

The pregnancy instructions are extensive and oddly intimate. You are advised to follow dietary guidelines. Avoid extremes. Joy and despair are both listed as stressors. Journalling is recommended, not for relief but for traceability.

Mara writes carefully. Symptoms. Measurements. Thoughts phrased as observations. Once she writes a sentence that feels too close to the truth and deletes it. The manual suggests speaking to the fetus only if you can avoid projecting expectation. Projection complicates later reconciliation.

She reads that sentence twice. She follows it anyway.

Weekly scans are logged. Files uploaded. Compliance confirmed. The system responds with automated reassurance. Progress noted. Continue.

The birth instructions arrive before the birth. You are told whom to notify and when. Which samples to collect. How quickly they must be submitted. The manual concedes that sentimentality at this stage is understandable but inefficient.

You are required to name the child, but the name is provisional. Permanent naming should wait until verification. Neutral names are suggested. Names that imply patience.

Holding her child, Mara feels something that does not fit anywhere in the documentation. The manual offers no guidance. She does not try to write it down.

Verification takes years. The manual prepares you for this. It reminds you that timelines are extended by design. That certainty precedes access. That inheritance is deferred to prevent misuse.

Emails arrive occasionally. Status updates. Requests for confirmation that records are being maintained. Reminders about discretion. Mara complies. She always complies.

The confirmation arrives without ceremony. The genetic link has been established. The child is recognised as an heir. Distribution will occur according to the terms of the Cantrell estate. Access will not be immediate. Or soon. Or guaranteed within a lifetime that feels predictable.

You are instructed to acknowledge receipt.

Mara reads the message twice. The first time for meaning. The second time because she expects something else to be there. A sentence that does not arrive. She clicks acknowledge.

Nothing changes. She still goes to work. She still checks her bank balance before buying fruit that bruises easily. The fortune exists now as a distant certainty, like a weather system forming far out at sea.

That night she rereads the document, not because she needs to, but because she wants to see what it has taken from her without announcing itself. She notices the careful avoidance of the word family. The way patience is praised as discipline rather than endurance. The repeated suggestion that clarity is the reward for obedience.

The manual never promised happiness. It promised eligibility.

Mara saves the document again, its margins crowded with her handwriting and pauses. It no longer feels like a guide. It feels like a record. Evidence that she once believed instructions could lift her into a safer future.

She closes the file.

The system has what it needs from her. Samples. Dates. Proof.

What remains is not listed anywhere. A child sleeping in the next room. A life that unfolded quietly while she followed the steps. Between the confirmations and cautions and permissions, something unmeasured has taken shape.

Not the legacy that was designed.

But the one she will have to live with.