The zone they entered next wasn't a place.
It was a glitch.
The Breachlace was terrain torn by at least three overlapping Lock events, each rewriting the laws of decay and distance.
Buildings floated.
Time stuttered.
No compass held true.
Lira led with a compass that didn't point north — it pointed stable.
"Something's tracking us," she said for the third time in an hour.
"You think it's Solin?"
"No. I think it's worse."
They passed a collapsed school wrapped in memory-tape — a failed experiment by the Archivists. Inside, the walls whispered old lessons to no one.
Outside, the sky blinked.
Literally blinked.
Like someone had forgotten to animate the clouds that hour.
Then it happened.
A rusted drone — long dead — jerked to life in the weeds and projected a flickering hologram.
A file window.
With Cael's face.
Younger. Smiling. In a white coat.
Text below it scrolled:
[ANCHOR: ARIK VEL]STATUS: CONTAINEDCOMPOSITE STABILITY: 84%NOTES: PERSONALITY REFORMATTED FOR CIVILITY LAYER]
Cael stepped back.
Lira's voice was dry:
"Well. That's subtle."
"This isn't a memory," Cael said. "It's a… profile."
"It's trying to rebuild your past. This isn't a Lock effect."
"Then what is it?"
"It's the network trying to finish what it started. It doesn't just want you back — it wants to reinstall you."
They moved fast after that.
Too many signals pinged. Too many systems stirred. Every old camera lens followed him. Every ruined terminal sparked when he passed.
At one point, a vending machine lit up and whispered:
"Welcome back, Director Vel."
He smashed it.
Meanwhile, in a high tower far outside the fracture zones, Solin knelt before a darkened console.
A red line blinked once.
Authorization code scrolled upward.
He read it. Then exhaled once.
"Clearance received.Target: Thirian-class.Status: Breach Vector.""Directive: Terminate."
He stood.
The team behind him — six silent agents in null armor — stood as well.
"We move now," Solin said."Before the system finishes rewriting him… and we're the ones who forget who we are."
End of Chapter 10: The Systems That Still Remember