Chapter 8

Christina pulled her car over to the side of the road, parking under the shade of a large oak tree.

Her hands trembled as she pulled the velvet box from her pocket. She opened it. The pendant lay there, but the scratches stood out like open wounds on the silver surface.

Her hyper-memory instantly replayed the moment Burke had handed her the box. The slight hesitation. The way his eyes had darted to the left. The micro-expression of guilt.

Her brain reconstructed the scene she hadn't witnessed.

Flashback: Two hours ago, in Brielle's room.

Brielle was screaming, ripping the pendant off her neck. She raised her arm to throw it against the wall.

Burke lunged, grabbing her wrist. "Are you crazy? If you break it, she'll never stop!"

"I don't care! I hate her!" Brielle shrieked, trying to wrestle free.

Burke pried the pendant from her fingers. As he pulled it away, Brielle's long, sharp nails scraped across the metal, leaving deep gouges.

Burke pocketed the damaged pendant and pulled out his wallet, extracting a black credit card. He held it out to his sobbing sister. "Here. Buy whatever you want."

Brielle sniffled, eyeing the card but still looking resentful. "I want the new Porsche."

"Fine," Burke snapped. "We'll pick it up next week. Just stay in your room and shut up."

Back in the present, Christina let out a short, humorless laugh.

"A few scratches for a Porsche. Brielle, you really are cheap."

She reached into her bag and pulled out the micro-tool kit. She selected a fine probe and carefully examined the grooves on the pendant.

The scratches were ugly, but they were only surface-level. The microscopic data ports embedded in the grooves were intact. She let out a sigh of relief.

She grabbed her laptop and the universal data cable. She found a micro-port hidden under the pendant's clasp and plugged it in.

The laptop screen remained black. No chime. No recognition.

She tried a different port. She rebooted the system. She ran the extraction script.

Nothing. The computer didn't even register that a device was connected.

Christina's hope began to evaporate. Was it broken on the inside? Had the impact from Brielle's nails damaged the circuitry?

She closed her eyes, forcing her engineering brain to run at full capacity. She visualized the schematics she had deduced from her memories.

Then it hit her. The pendant wasn't a traditional drive. It didn't use standard data protocols.

In her flashback, her mother hadn't used a cable. She had used her hand. And the pendant had glowed blue.

It didn't need a wire. It needed a biological signal.

She unplugged the cable. She ran her thumb over the cold, scratched metal, feeling the grooves and the rough edges of the damage. Nothing happened.

Frustration boiled over. The data overload in her brain was causing a sharp pain behind her eyes. She pressed harder, trying to find a button, a switch, anything.

"Come on," she muttered, her voice tight. "Show me how to open you."

She squeezed the pendant in her palm, the weight of it a cold comfort. Her thumb slipped, pressing hard against a jagged edge where the metal had been scraped away.

"Ow!"

She pulled her hand back. A drop of dark red blood welled up from the pad of her thumb.

She watched, frozen, as the drop of blood stretched, fell, and landed perfectly into the deepest groove of the pendant.