Page 113 of Red Demon

“I modeled the sequence,” Mira said after a bite, a spark of excitement in her face. “You were right, the database is wrong. It’s a marker. Not the standard one, but…”

“What did they do to him?” Faruhar said, voice a threat. “What marker?”

“He’s okay,” Mira said, flustered under Faruhar’s gaze. “A marker is … a tag. Think of it like a comment line in a program.”

Far cocked her head, hawklike. Mira shifted backward.

“Okay. Chaeten modtech labs have a way of flagging genes they edit. It might look like code, but it won’t make a protein. It just contains notes on what lab made the last change and when. There’s an established format all the Chaeten labs use, but Jesse’s markers don’t use that format, so I missed it until I could dig deeper.”

I curled up a leg to my chest, thinking that over.

“So either it’s a mistake that no one has caught in centuries, or the empire has it mislabeled in the database intentionally,” Mira continued. “I’d have to know who made the last edit in the table to deduce which, but I’m leaning toward the latter scenario.”

“I think I know where the mod came from,” I said. “My Chaeten dad told my whole family he was a miner. His records show he was a medical lab tech … in Crofton Mine.”

“How is he modded, Mira? Is he in any danger?” Faruhar’s voice cut low.

Mira frowned at Faruhar, swallowed. “I didn’t get a chance to model them all yet, but those I have … are positive. Little things that would explain how he responds well to stress, is a decent athlete.” She took a deep breath. “I also found near-matches to several older Chaeten mods, pre-Nara old.”

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

She drummed her fingers on her knee, no doubt working out how to dumb this down for me. “The original Chaeten refugees were all given an array of mods as soon as they arrived, either because it was necessary for their survival on Nara Mnaet or because the Asri demanded it.” Mira sighed up to the sky. “In the right stage of our brain development, any of us could have accepted a soul from Oria if the Tower was still standing.” She met my gaze. “Anyone but Jesse. His mind cannot interact with spirits at all.”

I rolled my shoulders, taking that in. “I guess that tracks. My dad’s favorite bedtime stories were about Attiq-ka coming to kill us, but he mixed in some about Oria coming to kill us to keep things interesting. He probably thought this mod would protect me.”

Faruhar stared. I shuffled the gravel under my feet.

“Mira, in the cafe, you said SBO is real,” Asher said.

“Ah. That.” Mira looked between all of us with a newfound gravity. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out several small vials filled with a clear liquid. “This is an anti-SBO mod. The empire considers this ‘experimental,’ and all the articles paint the leadership who’ve taken it as heroes for accepting the risk. Goatshit, I think. It’s not experimental at all. The code is straight-forward; it only took me two hours of modeling to be sure I know what it does.”

“What does it do?” I asked, squinting at the vial in her hand.

“This mod locks changes to a frequency associated with consciousness resonance. It prevents a code change and does not cause one. I’ve already given it to myself. I’m certain it’s safe. And based on what Ash told me, I now believe SBO summons ruren-sa. This blocks them from entering a mind.” Mira handed a vial to Asher.

Asher blinked, wary.

“Normally, I wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t trust my work. Replicating findings is important.” She bit her lip, smiling at Ash. “But everyone in the military’s upper ranks and higher Z’har has taken this now. They’re all fine.” She held out a vial to Faruhar next.

Faruhar hesitated, her gaze dissecting the vial in Mira’s hand. Asher opened his vial, and with one last glance to Mira for confirmation, downed it.

“None of those captains have ghosts that already share their mind,” Faruhar said. “This would kill my sister. She lives in my mind.”

“What?” Mira froze.

“Bria’s a nice ghost,” Asher said. “She was in my mind once too.”

“What?!” Mira said, and then Ash explained.

But I didn’t listen. My thoughts whirled.

Faruhar’s gaze burned into me as I threw my head back to the snow-laden clouds. “Mira, can you test my code again?” I asked. “Look for infections, new mods?”

“Why?”

“Since the attack on Nunbiren, my body has been weird: good weird, but weird.” I hissed out a breath. “I heal faster; poisons don’t affect me. I don’t get tired when I run. I keep up with Far in training. Kicked her ass recently, too.”

“Not often. And none of that is weird if you’re not sedo,” Faruhar said.