"Don't look."

Zaharah had glanced away even before Uncle Cam spoke. Her gaze flitted away from the coffin to Pharah, who stood beside her. A mesh veil and sunglasses hid her face, and she held Zaharah's hanky pressed to her lips.

"Come just Pharah." Zaharah steered the DJ away from the coffin just as the mechanism activated to take Devin down his final resting place.

It had been one hell of a sendoff. Police escort to the gravesite, lots of flowers and Roddi had given a spectacular eulogy. It was just them and the priest at the ceremony, private, quiet, somber. Just like Devin would want, according to Pharah. Though she guessed he wouldn't appreciate them crying over him.

Zaharah guided Pharah along the path leading to a stand of palms at the belly of the hill. A few people stood around the stone benches edging the patch of trees, some talking, others crying. She hated funerals. The somber mood hung over the graveyard like a heavy fog, despite the clear sky above them. A light breeze left in the wake of the storm teased the trees and grass.

They sat on one of the stone benches and watched the ebb and flow of people. Hearses drove up and down the incline, and people carrying bundles of flowers walked the paths. One such person walked up to them, the bundles of lilies and roses in her arms hiding her from neck to torso.

Zaharah recognized her as Dr Nisha Sky, the Minister of Health. They'd had a short video call before the storm and agreed to meet when the Minister was back from Jamaica. But they'd scheduled said meeting for tomorrow. She was just as Zaharah remembered, beautiful in a demure way with a timeless face and coily tresses.

"Hello Zaharah." Nisha smiled over the flowers. "It's nice to finally meet you in person. Though I wish it were under more spirited circumstances." She had a gentle way of speaking, and a quiet manner always quick to listen and slow to speak.

"Likewise," Zaharah said with a small smile. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"I came to leave some flowers for my late mother. And I needed to speak to your uncle."

"Ah. I think he's still up on the hill."

"I'll be seeing you then." She nodded to Pharah. "Please have my condolences." And she was gone.

"She seems nice," Pharah said, her voice low and raspy. "Is she going to help with the micro metal?"

Zaharah nodded. Tomorrow, she'd go into a private hospital for testing. Blood, tissue, bone samples. Physical exam, ento chamber, the works, but with less nefarious intentions, she hoped. They still didn't know what the Director's endgame was with her, but knowing that woman, it couldn't be good.

"Did you see where Jade and Roddi went?" she asked. As if on cue, Jade came jogging down the path with Skorpi clinging to her head for dear life.

You guys need to come here, quick, she signed and started back up the path without checking to see if they'd followed.

Pharah took Zaharah's hand and dragged her along the path, weaving past the other cemetery-goers. They followed Jade past the hill where Devin was buried and up a set of step that led to the west side of the cemetery. There they found Roddi, standing at a gravestone twice as tall as he was made of black stone.

Written on its face in gold text was Zander Cyan with and Icarus emblazoned below. Zaharah stepped forward and placed her hand on the cool stone. Flanking it were six other grave markers, three on each side. To the left, her mother and the twins, to the right, Quelle, her and Jade. Someone had left a wreath on each, recently it seemed, since the flowers were still fresh.

"Was anyone here before you guys?" Zaharah asked Roddi.

He shrugged a shoulder, eyes hidden behind his shades. "Not that we saw. We were headed across the street to the daiquiri shack when Jade spotted it."

It doesn't mean anything, Jade signed. There are no bodies here. They're just rocks with names.

Zaharah took her sister's hand and nodded. "You're right. If we're alive, any of them could be alive too. I want to know the truth. We'll figure it out." They stood in silence for a while the ebb and flow of the graveyard continued around them. After a while, Uncle Cam came up to their father's grave and place a single yellow rose by the headstone.

"I hate to ruin a tender moment," he said. "I'm going to head to the Tower, are you all okay getting back on your own?"

Zaharah nodded. "We'll be fine uncle, thanks."

"I'll be at the Tower 'til late, so stop by or call if you need anything." He raised his hand in a wave as he took the steps back down towards the parking lot.

"You all ready to get out of here?" Zaharah asked.

Pharah nodded. "I hate graveyards." They made their way down the incline to the west exit and crossed the street to a plaza. The daiquiri shack sat on its northernmost end, quite literally a shack constructed of wood and thatch, very rustic, very vintage. Two people armed with fruits, ice, and a daiquiri machine manned the establishment.

Zaharah went for her usual leaded Miami Vice, while Jade and Roddi opted for mango and Pharah got plain strawberry. They sat on the benches outside the shack, and sips on their drinks while watching some trashy TV on Roddi's phone.

Zaharah caught Jade out of the corner of her eye, toying with the pommel of Markus' knife. As much as Uncle Cam advised against it, she insisted on carrying the thing everywhere. Zaharah couldn't blame her, that and memories were all they had left of him.

Jade twisted the pommel, and an audible click cut through the sound of reality TV. With a hiss, the pommel rose, revealing two green sticks. Her gaze flicked to Zaharah, then back to the knife, and for a moment they sat in stunned silence.

"The hell?" Zaharah breathed. "What are those?"

"They look like the chips they used to store archived data in Denden," Roddi said. "Is it Markus'?"

Zaharah exchanged another glance with her sister. "Maybe we can ask Uncle Cam to crack them open for us? They have the tools to at the Tower."

Pharah stood. "Then let's go."

They hurried back to the graveyard parking lot and piled into the Audi. It was a long way to the Cylean Cybernetics Tower located in the heart of the business district. The glossy behemoth towered over the surrounding buildings, a paragon of scientific advancement. Outside its entrance was a sign emblazoned with the company's logo and its slogan: Innovation Lives Here.

Zaharah had spent many afternoons there in her formative years, mostly to make optimizations to her arm, sometimes to hang around her dad. She and Jade got to beta test a lot of new tech before it was released to the public.

As soon as they walked through the door, they found the latest pair of hover skates in the tube display—a glass cylinder used to advertise the latest release. Her arm had been in there at one point. Jade ran up to the glass, eyes bugged out and mouth wide like a kid in a candy store.

The tube displayed the skates in all twelve available colours from Lava Red to Cosmic Purple. Pretty slick but Zaharah preferred to ride around on the ground. She peeled her sister from the display and rounded the tube to reception. They'd texted uncle Cam in advance, but he hadn't read or responded.

A lone android stood behind a desk in the corner, next to the glass elevator. She smiled at them as they approached. "Welcome to Cylean Cybernetics, how can I help?"

"We're here to see our uncle, Cameron Sanders," Zaharah said. "It's really urgent."

"What the fuck?!" A loud bang followed the expletive, a combination of breaking glass and crumpling metal. Standing by the elevator was a young man wearing a crisp lab coat with his hair braided into cornrows. At his feet was some contraption of metal and glass, broken and splintered. He gaped at their group.

"Uh... hi?" Zaharah tried for a smile.

The guy took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, then slipped them back on. "Zaharah, Jade? Am I seeing things right now? Am I going crazy?"

Are we supposed to know him? Jade asked.

"Of course you know me. I was Zander's protégé for years," he huffed.

Just then, the elevator hissed open, and Uncle Cam walked out. He paused for a moment to grimace at the broken glass and metal o the ground, then made his way over to them. "Sorry, I just saw your message. What's the problem?"

Jade held up the chips.

"We found those in Markus'... you know," Zaharah said. "We want to know what's on them."

Uncle Cam plucked them from Jade's hand, turned them over. "Tay, front and centre."

The man hustled over from the elevator. "Yes sir?"

"Take my nieces down to the sublevel and figure out what's on these chips. I have to get back my meeting." And with that, he strode back into the elevator. "I'll see you all at dinner."

"Uh, sir," Tay said before the doors could close. "What's going on?"

"I'll explain later." The doors hissed closed, and uncle Cam disappeared into the upper reaches of the building.

Tay sighed and crouched over the broken remains of his box. He touched a button o top and it came together of its own accord. "I guess that's as good f a crash test as this is gonna get." He turned towards the elevator. "Follow me please."

They pile into the elevator, and Tay hit a button to take them down to the sublevel. Zaharah had spent many afternoons in there with her father and uncle. That place was the nerve center of the Tower, where all the innovation they prattled on about was born.

The labs below reminded her of the one in Denden, cold, clinical, clean. Tay led them into an empty one and dumped his box on a vacant counter space. Computers lined one side of the room, and a digital whiteboard sat up from. On the walls hung various tools, lasers, drills, soldering pens and the like. Roddi sidled up to one counter where a disassembled mechpet sat and examined the pieces.

"Try not to touch anything." Tay sat behind a computer and fired it up. "Can I have the sticks please?" Jade handed them over and he placed the longer one on a pad next to the console. "Alright... let's see."

Zaharah and Jade flanked him, watching the files fill up the screen. She couldn't decipher any of them, which made her anxiety mount into frustration. She remembered Markus pressing the knife into her hand, having to leave him there to die. They didn't even have a body to bury or a grave to leave flowers at.

"Huh..." Tay said. "Some of these files are heavily encrypted. Like military level encryptions holy shit."

Like Makana? Zaharah bit back the question before it could escape. She knew how secretive that Makana shit was. No need to out Markus.

"The files that aren't," Tay continued. "Looks like AI data copied from an android."

Jade grabbed tight to Zaharah's wrist. AI data.

"What does that mean?" Zaharah asked, her heart beating a frantic rhythm.

"It's just a back-up for an android in case their AI gets hacked or corrupted. With this you can bring them back with most of their memory data intact."

"Oh my god, it's Markus!" she screamed, making Tay jump. "We can get him back!" She and Jade jumped up and down like giddy school girls.

"What about the other one?" Pharah asked.

Tay replaced the long stick with the shorter one and a new set of files came up. "I'm not familiar with this extension." He pulled his cell phone from his pocket with one hand and tapped away at the console with the other. "Hey, Yaya, I just sent you a screenshot. You know these extensions? Yeah? Alright." He hung up ad pressed the phone's console against his chin. "Apparently these are used with the memory mapping programme."

Zaharah gasped. "Could they be...? Jade's memories?"