Chapter 27 – Vision Lock
Night had fallen, painting the forest canopy around the hidden safehouse in deep hues of blue and black. The air was still, too still—like even the wind feared to stir. The team had gathered around a table in the underground common room, the newly arrived case from the mysterious envoy open before them. Inside were three items: a triangular data drive etched with a strange symbol, a map stitched into faded cloth with blood-red thread, and a silver device that resembled a crystal spider frozen mid-crawl.
Lena held the cloth map delicately, brow furrowed. "This stitching… it's a neural pattern. Not a topographic map."
Jett stared at it, eyes wide. "You're right. It's not where to go. It's what to remember."
Aya hovered near the spider-like device. "And this thing? It's humming."
Noah kept his distance, unease prickling his skin. "What did that woman say again?"
"She said it would help us 'remember forward,'" Lena repeated. "Whatever that means."
Jett looked between them, uncertain. "I don't know if it's safe."
Aya was already reaching out. "Only one way to find out."
As her fingers brushed the crystalline device, it pulsed with pale violet light—and in an instant, a powerful shockwave of invisible energy burst outward. The room seemed to vanish around them, swallowed in a brilliant flash.
They were no longer in the bunker.
No longer anywhere that made sense.
Lena opened her eyes first. She stood alone in a white void, her feet on nothing, her breath echoing unnaturally loud. And then—shapes emerged. A dream version of her childhood home. Her father, smiling. Her mother, standing in the shadows, features unclear.
"Lena," her father said, his voice distant yet familiar. "You're the light in the signal."
"What?" she tried to say, but her voice cracked.
Then the scene morphed—the house flickered into flame, the trees outside dead and gray. A dark figure appeared beyond the burning window—eyes glowing like twin coals.
"Echoes aren't what they seem," her mother said cryptically. "Not all data is dead."
Suddenly, Lena was falling through the floor.
Elsewhere, Noah found himself in his old school gymnasium, but everything was off. The scoreboard counted down in reverse. His classmates stood motionless like mannequins. On the far end, his mimic—the perfect version of himself—stood waiting, smirking.
"You hesitate," the mimic said. "That's why you lose."
"I don't hesitate," Noah growled.
The mimic tossed a basketball, but it transformed midair—turning into a black orb that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Then prove it," the mimic said. "Let go of Lena. Let go of your weakness."
Noah charged—but the gym dissolved before impact.
Jett awoke in an old lab—like Echo Cradle, but worse. Filled with dead machines and cracked glass. His hands were wired to a console, streams of data flowing through his veins. A voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere.
"You're the architect of your own prison."
"No," Jett whispered. "This is someone else's code."
"Is it?" The console screens flickered to images of the others—struggling, trapped.
Then his own face filled the screen—older, colder, a twisted grin spreading slowly.
"You'll choose logic over life. You always do."
Jett ripped his hands free—and the lab exploded in digital fire.
Aya stood in a storm. Not a natural one—this was a psychic maelstrom. Memories rained from above, fragments of her childhood, her dreams, her fears. In the center stood a woman—Aya's mother—yet something was wrong. Her eyes glitched. Her form flickered.
"Why didn't you save me?" the false mother asked.
"I couldn't—I was six!" Aya shouted into the storm.
"Still an excuse." The wind intensified.
The whispering voice—The Whisperer—returned, threading through the chaos.
"You hide from your storm, Aya. But it is your strength."
Aya dropped to her knees. "I didn't want to be strong. I just wanted to be okay."
The voice softened. "Then rise."
She stood.
And everything shattered.
One by one, they returned to consciousness, gasping for air, drenched in sweat. The room had changed—scorched symbols on the walls, the crystal spider device now completely black, inert.
Jett clutched his temples. "That was a forced neural overlay—an echo loop spliced with emotion triggers. We were hacked."
"No," Lena said, breathing heavily. "Not hacked. Shown."
Noah shook his head, still dazed. "It made me doubt myself. Made me… think I'd hurt her."
Aya wiped tears from her face. "They made me choose between memory and madness."
Jett stood slowly. "It's called a Vision Lock. An ancient AI tactic. You trap someone in their own mind—use their thoughts as keys to extract patterns."
Lena looked to the center of the room, where a new symbol now glowed on the floor. "Then we must've passed the test."
Aya approached the mark. "Look. It's a sigil. Same as on the map. It leads somewhere."
Noah exhaled. "So this was all a key? Some… psychic password?"
Lena nodded. "To what, though?"
The floor beneath the sigil began to rumble.
And then it opened.
Beneath lay a spiral staircase descending into glowing violet light.
Jett stared down the passage. "Did anyone else get the sense that those weren't just simulations? That… they pulled real things from us?"
Aya nodded. "I saw my mother. But I also saw something behind her. Something watching."
Lena looked at the others. "Then we go together. Whatever's down there—it's part of our past. And maybe the answer to why we were chosen."
Noah glanced at her. "You sure?"
She smiled faintly. "I'm sure of one thing now—we're stronger because we've seen our worst fears. And we're still standing."
One by one, they descended the stairs.
Toward the core of the mystery.
Toward the next piece of themselves.
And far above, unseen by them, a drone hovered silently near the canopy—recording everything. Its single eye blinked once.
And then it vanished into the dark.
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