Chapter 14 - The Data Recovery
At 3:40 the next morning, Monica received the call.
The laboratory had opened the prosthetic housing.
Coffee had entered through the cracked elbow seal and damaged the primary circuit board.
But the memory module was protected by a secondary coating.
Technicians believed they could recover part of the data.
Daniel listened from his hospital room.
“How much?”
“Unknown.”
“Timeline?”
“They’re working now.”
He hung up and stared through the window.
The hearing in Washington had been postponed.
Northstar’s attorneys had already filed a motion questioning the integrity of the device after the incident.
They argued that any recovered data could have been altered by liquid damage.
Monica expected the argument.
The federal camera helped.
It established the device’s condition before Cynthia touched it.
Daniel’s own maintenance logs documented earlier failures.
Still, a complete recovery mattered.
Rachel visited before returning to work.
She carried a clean garment bag.
Inside was a replacement shirt and jacket provided by the airline.
“I thought you might need something for Washington.”
Daniel looked at the clothes.
“Thank you.”
She hesitated.
“The airline asked me not to speak publicly.”
“That’s common.”
“They said it could affect the investigation.”
“It could.”
Rachel sat beside the bed.
“People online are calling me a hero.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“You brought towels.”
“I stood between her and you.”
“You did your job well.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Why didn’t you hit her?”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“Because I knew what would happen.”
“What?”
“The video would begin after I reacted.”
Rachel understood.
A disabled Black veteran might have been treated differently, she thought—but Daniel was white. Yet he still knew public footage often erased provocation and preserved retaliation.
He continued.
“When someone wants you to become dangerous, discipline is how you refuse.”
Rachel looked down.
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
The laboratory called again.
They recovered the first data block.
It showed a temperature spike inside the prosthetic weeks before the flight.
Then another.
Then seventeen silent error reports the manufacturer claimed never existed.
Daniel closed his eyes.
The evidence was alive.
But only partially.
The final file contained the company’s hidden diagnostic code.
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Without it, Northstar could still deny knowledge.
👉 The laboratory recovered proof of repeated failures—but the one file linking Northstar executives to the defect remained corrupted.
