He took two steps back, and the iron pliers slipped from his hand and hit the floor with a clang.
"Impossible." Martin lunged at me and grabbed my collar. "You're lying."
"There's nothing impossible about it. I never planned to let you take my research while I was still breathing."
He stared at me with murder in his eyes, but reality kept his hand still.
I dragged the torn corner of my mouth into something close to a smile. "Didn't expect that, did you? The heart of the Mark VII Synthetic is emotional simulation, and a human being's heartbeat is the most complex password there is. I built a biometric lock into the algorithm. The data only reads cleanly when my heart rate stays within a specific range."
Winnie lifted my chin with the head of a hammer. "How do we know you're telling the
