Chapter 28: The Ghostly Blueprint and the Predator's Shadow

The blueprint on Yuhan's screen wasn't just glowing—it pulsed, like it had a heartbeat of its own. Lines of alien code and sleek circuits shimmered with a pale, unnatural light. It felt alive. A machine designed to interface directly with human thought. Nerves. Memory.

And at the bottom, like a whisper carved in steel:

> Find the other 'Genesis' subjects. Only they can unlock the next level of the truth. And Mochen, Yuhan, holds the first piece.

The words hadn't left him since the entity spoke. The Librarian. Its voice was artificial, but there was something too deliberate in how it spoke—too precise. As if it knew him. Like it had been watching.

Yuhan sat frozen, elbows on the table, one hand tangled in his hair as he tried to make sense of it all. His breath came slow and shallow, eyes fixed on the screen. Somewhere in his mind, he was ten years old again, sitting in that cold observation room, wires clipped to his temples, being told to "focus." He hadn't remembered that detail until now.

The scar on his wrist—something he'd long written off as an old accident—started to throb. Not painfully. Just... present. As if it remembered too.

What if this wasn't just tech? What if this was the reason he saw things before they happened? The reason he knew things he shouldn't? Not foresight. Not trauma. But programming.

His throat went dry.

"How much of me is mine?" he whispered to himself.

Then louder, with a kind of steel-edged numbness, "Ngozi."

She turned instantly from across the room. Her face, usually firm and unreadable, flickered at the look in his eyes.

"I want you to prioritize The Genesis Initiative. Top-level clearance. Use everything we have—contacts, resources, favors. I want to know who funded this, who ran it, and every child involved. Especially the tech. I need to know if it's theoretical... or already out there."

Ngozi blinked, just once, but it betrayed something close to fear. Not of him—of what they were uncovering.

"Yes, sir," she said, voice tight. "On it."

Around her, her team was already on high alert, buzzing about the digital anomaly that had just hit their firewalls. It had come and gone in seconds, but left fingerprints that didn't match anything in known cyberspace.

Yuhan leaned back, gaze still fixed on the blueprint. The key the Librarian gave him wasn't just digital. It was a breadcrumb. A lure. A test.

And the instruction to find Mochen—it wasn't an option. It was the next step.

The predator had just been handed a mirror.

And somewhere else in the city, that predator was already stirring.

---

Shen Mochen stood in silence, his hands buried deep in his pockets as he watched the city breathe beneath his penthouse windows. Lagos was aglow—millions of lights, billions of secrets.

And one of them had just shaken his entire network.

The breach in Yuhan's systems wasn't human. His top analysts had all hit the same wall: no origin, no signature, no logic. It was like a ghost had walked through their firewalls, whispered something to Yuhan, and vanished.

And Yuhan's response?

Complete digital lockdown. Total silence.

Mochen's jaw flexed as he turned from the window. A man like Yuhan didn't shut the world out unless he'd found something worth burying himself in.

Or someone had found him first.

He picked up the phone.

"Chief Adekunle," he said coldly.

"Speak."

"Your strong-arm tactics won't work. Alhaji's not some street-level pawn you can shake loose. He's playing a long game. We need something smarter."

A grunt. "Then give me smarter, Mochen. Or give me a better target."

Mochen's lips curled into a small, bitter smile. "We use Yuhan."

There was a pause on the other end. "Use him? You mean trust him?"

"Temporarily. He's not loyal. He's curious. And right now, that curiosity's locked onto something—something tied to Alhaji, and to me."

"You think he'll work with you?"

"No. But he'll work toward something. And that's enough." Mochen's voice dipped, low and razor-sharp. "He can find the Guardian. Once he does, we take everything."

"And if he turns on us?"

"He will. But I'll be ready."

He ended the call before Adekunle could argue. Across the glass, the night pressed in. And somewhere out there, Yuhan was pacing too. Thinking. Trying to understand a truth Mochen had known for years:

> You can't run from what made you.

---

Yuhan didn't sleep that night.

The photo of his childhood self—barefoot, expression blank, tagged as a subject of The Genesis Initiative—lay beside the flickering blueprint. He kept staring at the eyes in that photo. His own. But empty. Unknowing.

His whole life had been about revenge. For Chike. For himself. Now, he wasn't even sure the pain had been fully his to begin with. What if his fury, his vision, had all been planted—designed?

The silence of his compound was deafening.

He stopped at the glass wall of his study, fingers grazing the smooth surface. The city stretched beyond, distant and cold.

He could feel Mochen.

Not literally—but like a storm you sense before the wind hits your skin. Mochen was watching. Thinking. Hunting.

And the worst part?

Yuhan was thinking about him too.

Not just with hatred, but... fascination. Mochen wasn't just a monster. He was brilliant. Brutal. And now, according to the Librarian, necessary.

Yuhan hated how true that felt.

As dawn smeared the skyline with silver and ash, Yuhan exhaled and made the only choice he could.

He would find the other Genesis subjects.

And he would start with Mochen.

Not because he forgave him. Not because he wanted an alliance.

But because the truth mattered more than vengeance now. Because something deeper than revenge was pulling the strings.

And because if Mochen really held the first piece—

> He was going to take it from him, no matter the cost.

Just as he turned to issue the next round of commands, a soft chime echoed from his desk—the secure comms line, one of the few systems not offline.

Incoming transmission. No sender.

One file.

A video.

Yuhan stared at the progress bar as it loaded. He hesitated—then hit play.

The screen lit up with a flickering, dim room. Fluorescent lights buzzed. A figure sat bound to a chair, head slumped forward, groaning through a gag.

The camera zoomed in.

And Yuhan's blood froze.

His chest went hollow.

It was Chief Li.

His father.

Alive. Captive.

And the game had just changed again.