Page 113 of Stars in Umbra
‘Stop it!’ Rina shouted, stepping forward.
‘I’m trying,’ Mirage barked. ‘If I don’t disable it now, it’ll fry his brain stem.’
With a final surge, Mirage plunged her palm flat into Mo’s temple.
A shockwave of coded nanite energy burst from her hand, flooding his neural circuits.
Mo released the synth AI and convulsed, collapsing mid-lunge, and crumpling onto the hover cot in an eerie silence.
His limbs twitched, then fell still.
Mirage didn’t hesitate.
She gripped the bed and, with a grunt of strength and speed, pushed him back into the Faraday cage.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, the tension in the room dissipated somewhat.
The invisible field enveloped him once more, cutting off all external signal interference.
Mirage dropped to her knees beside him, cursing under her breath.
Rina knelt next to her. ‘Is he-?’
‘Alive. Just unconscious,’ Mirage clipped. ‘I severed the kill protocol before it reached the medulla, but only just.’
They both studied Mo.
He lay on his side, chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm, faint pulses of energy still flickering under his skin.
However, the sub-dermal light shifted, becoming less violent and steadier.
Mirage leaned in, eyes narrowing.
‘That glow is not tech.’
‘What is it then?’ Rina asked.
Mirage’s voice lowered. ‘Fokk,if I know. He’s channelingsomethingancient. Some dormant force is helping him resist that node.’
‘Is it enough?’ Rina whispered.
‘Nada. He’s burning through reserves I don’t think he even knows he has.’ Mirage sat back, thinking. ‘I can extract it, butI’ll require assistance from Ki’Remi. Also, Kainan’s approval to excise him, given this tech’s locked deeper than anything I’ve ever seen and might cause irretrievable damage.’
Rina nodded, already reaching for her comm.
‘Ki’Remi is key,’ Mirage said. ‘He can direct me on how to remove the nucleus safely without melting his brain.’
‘Also, ask for Issa,’ she added after a beat. ‘If that signature means what I think it does, we’ll require someone who can read ancient energy fields. She’s the only one who can guide us on that.’
Rina stared at Mo, lying out cold beneath the shielded lights of the cage.
‘Then we get them all,’ she said. ‘So we can save him.’
Rina’s fingers trembled as she keyed the secure comm into her wrist tab.
The Data Nexus was quiet around her, too hushed, ratcheting up her worry for the man she adored.
Mirage hovered outside the Faraday shield, running diagnostics from a holo interface, while Mo remained unconscious inside beneath its shielding field on the hover bed.
