The Lock chamber pulsed softly now — not like a heart, but like a system waiting for input.
Lines of light shimmered in the air, forming spiral-threaded geometry, dense with variables Cael didn't understand. He stood at the edge of the dais, still unsure if he should speak.
"Try nothing," Lira said behind him. "Let's leave with our insides where they belong."
"I need to know what it knows."
"It called you an anchor. That means it's still linked. You activate anything, it could restart systems that haven't run in decades."
"Maybe they have answers."
"Or teeth."
Cael reached toward the Lock field again — slowly this time, gently.
The Keymark didn't burn.
It welcomed.
As his fingers passed near the surface, symbols shifted, rotating into a sequence that matched his pulse.
A new thread of light formed.
A single phrase hovered, etched in midair.
QUERY INPUT ACCEPTED.
SPEAK INTENTION.
Cael hesitated.
Then said:
"Show me the first time I was marked."
Lira tensed immediately.
"You can't ask that."
"Why?"
"Because the system won't just show. It'll try to replicate the sequence. That means reliving it. Maybe even triggering protocols around it."
"Good."
The light responded.
A deep chime echoed — not from the room, but from inside Cael's chest.
The Lock's glow surged outward into a ring, scanning the chamber's walls, then pulsing upward, through the earth and beyond.
USER OVERRIDE DETECTED.LOCAL AUTHORITY: RESTORED.TRANSMISSION NODE SEEKING SYNC.
"What the hell did you just do?" Lira hissed.
"I asked for memory."
"You asked for network access. That pulse went above ground."
"So?"
"So every Lock-adjacent device for miles now knows someone just woke up a legacy command system."
Outside, in a battered tower five districts away, a sealed terminal flickered to life.
Static.
Then a voice — low, uncertain, and old:
"Is it... him?"
Another voice responded — filtered through corruption.
"Sequence code... matches."
Back inside the chamber, Cael gasped as the Lock hit him with a data surge — not in words, not in pictures.
Experience.
He was strapped down.
White light.
People in suits speaking in loops.
His voice — younger — screaming not to forget.
And then, before the moment he was marked… everything cut to black.
Memory severed.
Intentionally.
He collapsed.
Lira caught him before he cracked his head on the dais.
"What did you see?"
"They took it."
"Took what?"
"The moment. The choice. I didn't agree to this. They erased it."
His voice shook — not from fear. From rage.
"I didn't choose this."
"Then you're exactly what they wanted," Lira said softly.
"Someone who thinks he can break back in."
Up above, distant towers stirred.
An old satellite blinked on.
And a whisper filtered into multiple channels simultaneously:
"The user has returned."
End of Chapter 9: User Override Detected