Page 114 of Stars in Umbra
His chest rose and fell, slower now, but the image of him almost dying, again, seared itself into her mind with horror.
She initiated a call to Selene.
It was early afternoon on Eden II.
The holo rendered the flickering visual of the Prime of Dunia and Kainan’s wife in near-perfect clarity: soft curls falling over one shoulder, long lashes blinking at the light as she sat at an outdoor table under the hazy Edenite sun.
The gentle murmur of music and the sound of children playing in the background filled the space around her.
Beside her, Kainan turned his head toward the screen mid-bite of his steak lunch.
‘Rina, hon?’ Selene asked, smiling, until she spotted Rina’s face. Her brows pinched together. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I need you, Zane and Kainan, please, to consult on a critical matter,’ Rina said, voice clipped. ‘It’s Mo. Mirage is here on Dunia, where I discovered him after his fall. He’s alive, but it’s complicated.’
Kainan straightened in his chair, his food forgotten. ‘Complicated how?’
‘He got implanted with a neural controller years ago. One embedded with rogue tech, over-engineered shit, but enough to overwrite his synapses at a command, and take over his reactions. He believes he was then used as an operative on various dark missions. Whoever is controlling him is now trying to kill him because he found a way to get around their commands. His most recent endeavor proved too difficult for him to execute, which is why he disappeared. I located him, banged up in the hospital, and brought him to the Data Nexus at Thabot Barracks, then invited Mirage to join us to figure this shit out. He attacked Mirage when the node reactivated outside the Faraday cage, and we now have to extract it from his brain. To do so, we need Ki’Remi and Issa’s help, but also your guidance on how to proceed.’
Kainan’s jaw tightened, and he glanced at his wrist comm and punched in a series of messages, likely reaching out to the Rider family members she requested.
‘We’ll beam in,’ he rasped. ‘Hold tight.’
The connection flickered out.
A few minutes later, the Data Nexus lights shimmered, and five distinct holo forms crystallized into the space:
Kainan, stoic and intense; Selene, arms crossed but worried; Zane, his psionic gaze already scanning the room.
Ki’Remi too joined, his face clinical and calm.
Beside him, Issa was ethereal in a sleeveless robe.
Mo began to stir in the cage behind them, the hum of the disruption field still crackling through the air. His eyelids fluttered, then snapped open as his spine arched, veins rising stark against his temples.
His eyes rolled back, the whites flashing as if some invisible torrent was battering his skull. A broken groan tore from his throat.
Then the words, stammering, unbidden, slipped out between clenched teeth.
‘Memories f-flooding me,fokk, so many of them, I can’t stop it -.’
He blinked, rapid-fire, as though his brain was trying to process a thousand images at once, the sheer overload dragging him into seizures of breath.
His fists curled, knuckles whitening.
Mirage’s dulcet voice cut across the tense silence, clinical yet edged with something almost like wonder.
‘It seems when my nanites flooded his neural lattice to halt the kill sequence, they also shattered his internal lock protocols. He is now accessing decades of suppressed data. Classified operations. Black contracts and every mission his handlers put him on.’
‘Handlers?’ Selene asked, perplexed.
Rina exhaled. ‘It’s a long story and it’s best he tells you.’
Mo dropped back onto one elbow, sweat beading his brow, his chest heaving as the onslaught slowed.
His gaze flicked toward the Riders surrounding him.
He cleared his throat, speaking, his utterance sandpapered raw.
