The rain had ceased its relentless tattoo on the annex roof by the time the first gray light of dawn clawed its way over Delhi's jagged skyline, but the air inside the Malhotra wing hung heavy with the residue of storm and sorcery. Moksh Bose stood motionless in the doorway of the makeshift laboratory, his standard-issue armor still humming faintly from the Ebon Halo's suppression field, the device clipped to his belt like a silent sentinel. The room before him was a heresy of flesh and filament: walls veined with salvaged fiber-optics that pulsed like exposed arteries, holographic schematics flickering erratically above a scarred console, casting Rajan Malhotra's crumpled form in erratic blue halos. The patriarch—gaunt, augmented, very much alive—lay bound in etheric restraints, his chest rising and falling in shallow, defiant rhythms. His implants, shattered prisms of stolen APC tech, sparked sporadically, sending tiny arcs dancing across the floor like dying fireflies.
Moksh's brown eyes, unmarred by the lime-green surge that had betrayed his activation moments earlier, scanned the space with the precision of a man who had long ago learned to dissect chaos without flinching. The green had come unbidden, as it always did—a birthright's curse, flaring when the Sage's Eyes demanded clarity amid the weave of energies. It had pierced the illusions Rajan had hurled like shrapnel, revealing the cold mechanics beneath: loops of electromagnetic grief, scripted to ensnare the unwary. Now, with the power receded, Moksh felt only the familiar ache behind his irises, a reminder that versatility was both gift and chain. He flexed his fingers, the ghost of replicated rewrite pulsing faintly in his veins—temporary, as Stage One decreed, but enough to have turned the man's own regrets against him. Dark Chain had bound the body; the borrowed illusion had caged the mind.
"Clear the perimeter," Moksh said, his voice low and even, carrying the weight of command without the bark of it. He preferred the quiet edge, the strategic murmur that inspired rather than intimidated. Around him, the team moved like extensions of his will: Aarav Sen, the soldier whose scar traced a line from jaw to resolve, retracted his Chrono Anchor with a soft whine, the blue filaments coiling back into his wrist gauntlet like a serpent sated. Meera Kulkarni, scholar and rune-weaver, tapped her console once more, her braid swinging like a pendulum as she sealed the emitter nodes with golden threads of binding script. And M. Chakraborty—uncle in all but blood, Vacant Elite of the seven who had forged him in the fires of training—stood at his shoulder, her blue eyes dimmed from the Recall's toll, but her presence a steady anchor amid the unraveling.
Aarav nodded, his uniform crisp even in the damp aftermath, gold buttons catching the holo-light like accusations. "Juniors holding the gate, sir. No breaches. But the air... it's still whispering coordinates." He glanced at the console, where faint text scrolled: 18.5.2012. Vacant Elite. Nexus Break. Moksh's own history, etched into the ether like a taunt. Aarav's jaw tightened; he knew the scars of that op, the interdimensional trafficking nets shattered across borders, the teammate lost to hesitation—Moksh's unspoken regret, Rhea Singh's burn that neither man voiced but both carried.
"Log it for APC oversight," Moksh replied, stepping deeper into the room. His boots echoed softly on the concrete floor, scarred by hasty welds and ritual burns—the sigils from the bodies downstairs, spiraled into wards of bone and byte. "Meera, extract the core drive. I want every subroutine mapped before Rao's inquiry hits at noon." Chief Rao's silver-haired scrutiny loomed like monsoon clouds, ever-ready to weigh deviation against tradition. Kavitha's silk-steel diplomacy would follow, probing for cracks in protocol. Moksh had faced such tempests before; his 98% resolution rate was shield enough, but zero casualties demanded precision, not spectacle.
Meera's fingers danced over her device, runes blooming in the air like fragile lotuses before sinking into the console's ports. "Done. It's... layered deeper than Rajan's implants. Nexus scraps, yes, but fused with something older—Serpent of Memory glyphs, adaptive. The house didn't just loop trauma; it learned from us. From Amit's fear, Sana's surprise." Her voice held the quiet horror of one who unraveled riddles only to find them staring back. The delivery boy's trembling account still echoed in their briefing: whispers folding space, laughter metallic and wrong, a girlfriend's face overlaying a ghost's.
M. Chakraborty knelt beside the bound man, her coat pooling like spilled ink. She extended a hand, not touching, but close enough for Spectral Recall to thread blue tendrils into his aura. Emotional residue bloomed in her mind's eye: greed's sharp tang, laced with the bitter ash of isolation—no family, no distractions, just the cold calculus of a lab rat turned architect. "He's not the builder, Moksh," she murmured, her tone the paternal gravel honed over decades, one of the seven Elites who'd drilled him through void-step simulations and hybrid surges. Kazuto Kirigaya's shadow lingered in those memories, the Japanese Elite's precise voids a counterpoint to her emotional floods, but here, in Delhi's underbelly, it was her blue gaze that cut true. "This is a node. Rajan's hands did the wiring, but the code... it sings of collectives. Borders blurring, councils entwined."
Rajan stirred then, his milky eyes cracking open, laugh bubbling wet from his throat—a fractured echo of the metallic glee that had shattered bulbs in the main hall. "Collectives," he rasped, restraints humming as he tested them. "You think APC's clean, Elite? Nexus Break cracked the veins—South Asia to Japan, Pakistan ports to your 'domain.' I just tapped them. Shipment hits Mumbai at dawn. Shadows trafficked, not souls... data. Rewrite the dead into tools." His gaze fixed on Moksh, implants sparking defiance. "Your eyes saw it—green flare in the dark. But you can't unmake the machine. It's in the wire now."
Moksh's expression remained a mask of disciplined calm, but inwardly, the ethical core twisted. Zero casualties. Rajan's words clawed at old wounds: Operation Shadowfall's rogue cells dismantled, but echoes lingered; Delta-7's Class V containment, shadows bound with zero civilian blood, yet the cost in silence. He crouched to the man's level, voice steady as Faultstone. "Names, Rajan. The handler. Or the loops turn inward—your regrets, broadcast till they break you."
The patriarch's laugh died to a cough, but his eyes gleamed with the fanatic's fire. "No single hand. Collective rot—APC blind spots, threads to forgotten sectors. Kazuto knew once... vanished chasing them." A lie? Truth? Moksh's Sage's Eyes itched for activation, but he held it leashed; green demanded exposure, and this room reeked of traps.
Before he could press, Meera's console chimed—urgent ping from APC central: Mumbai anomaly spike. Interdimensional bleed confirmed. Vacant Elite Bose: lead containment. Joint oversight en route—Elias directive. Moksh rose, the weight settling like Volcanic Eruption's rumble. "Aarav, secure him for transport. Uncle Chakraborty, your Recall on the drive—pull the emotional signatures, map the intent." He turned to Meera. "Cross-reference to Japanese sectors. If Kazuto's name surfaces..."
M. Chakraborty stood, her hand lingering on his arm—a rare touch, mentor's steel softened by the familial. "Eyes stay brown till they don't, boy. But when green comes... see the whole weave. Training's lesson: seven Elites, one truth—darkness binds, but light reveals the hand behind." Her blue eyes met his, dim but fierce, the woman who'd solved 82 of 82 without leaving her chair, now stepping into the field for him.
The team moved as one, annex shadows yielding to dawn's indifferent light. Outside, Delhi stirred: rickshaws rattling through puddles, chai vendors' calls threading the mist like fragile wards. But in Moksh's mind, the city pulsed with unseen veins—Nexus remnants snaking south, collectives whispering across borders. Rajan's code was dismantled, the house's loops silenced, but the reflection in the shattered prism lingered: narrow cheeks, off-center eyes—not his, not Sana's. Another face, waiting in the wire.
As the convoy engines growled to life, Moksh mounted the obsidian Glider, its crystallized energy thrumming in sync with his pulse. Tara's parting embrace from the night before echoed faintly—jasmine and book-dust, a tether to the man beneath the Elite. Home, she'd whispered, patching him with chai and truths. But home was fracture now: IPC halls with empty frames, APC directives blurring lines, a ninth tier forged in regrets.
He gunned the engine, the bike unfolding into glider form with predatory grace, IDAIA's interface whispering tactical overlays in his ear. Mumbai awaited—shadows at dawn, shipments of data-ghosts. And somewhere, in the collective dark, Kazuto Kirigaya's void-step echoed, a challenge or a warning.
The Glider lifted, slicing monsoon remnants, carrying Moksh toward the bleed. To the east, the sun breached the horizon, gold and unforgiving. But in its light, Moksh saw only patterns: threads to untangle, machines to unmake. The hunt was far from over; it had only just rewritten itself.
End of Chapter 45