Chapter 94

The Chip

Rhea sat bolt upright, gasping for air, her fingers trembling as they touched the base of her skull.

And she remembered everything.

Not just being in the lab. Not just the procedures.

She remembered the chip.

A neural implant, designed by the Cartwright Group to host encrypted data—living data. Not files. Not images. But living fragments of consciousness.

She had been told:

> "You are the prototype. The chip won't just store memories. It will protect them. Hide them behind personality. If they ever try to extract it, you'll forget. But the body will remember. The child will remember."

She had agreed. She had volunteered. To protect something they had all wanted:

> The location of the vault. The source code of Project Eden.

And the only way to retrieve it was to awaken the data… either in her mind or—God forbid—in her child.