The lights in the transport flickered dim, sterile beams that cast long shadows across the reinforced interior. Kael sat bound to a restraint chair, his wrists magnetically locked to the armrests. Across from him, two GenCore enforcers flanked a med-tech drone that occasionally clicked and whirred, scanning him with red pulses.
The drone paused. A mechanical voice emitted from its speakers.
"Subject 7-KR12-13. Genome instability detected. Neural pathways adapting. Subject is entering Phase One Mutation. Caution advised."
Kael's head throbbed. Not just from the light or the restraints but from inside. Something was still shifting beneath his skin. He could feel it. Hear it. A faint whisper threading through his thoughts like a second heartbeat.
Heir of the Spiral…
He didn't know what it meant just that since touching the Gene Stone, nothing felt entirely real. Or rather, too real. He could sense the enforcers' pulses, detect the microfractures in the vehicle's alloy, and even feel the raw animal fear from the young driver up front.
This wasn't normal.
The transport lurched to a stop. A hiss of hydraulics. Then silence.
The door slid open.
A gust of cold, sterile air rushed in, carrying the scent of antiseptic and decay. Beyond it stretched the vast underground prison known only as Black Sector the final stop for genetic anomalies, rogue genome users, and things too dangerous for the surface world.
Kael was marched through a labyrinth of dim corridors. Security drones floated overhead, tracking his every step. Behind reinforced glass, other prisoners stared out some with blank eyes, others visibly mutated by failed fusions. A few hissed or muttered nonsense. One grinned, revealing rows of serrated bone where teeth should have been.
His escort stopped at a sealed chamber door. A symbol three intersecting spirals was etched into the frame.
The older enforcer turned. "You're not just a Null anymore, Kael Riven. You're a question mark. And GenCore doesn't like questions."
The door opened.
Inside stood a single figure.
A woman in a black lab coat, her skin pale as frost, hair swept back in surgical precision. Her eyes glowed faintly blue the mark of a high-level gene-user. Around her neck hung an obsidian pendant shaped like a tear.
"Leave us," she said.
The guards hesitated.
"That wasn't a suggestion."
They exited without a word.
Kael looked at her. "Who are you?"
She approached, heels clicking. "Dr. Lysara Vex. Chief Genome Architect. I oversee Ascendant integration and… anomalies. Like you."
Kael struggled against his restraints. "Why am I here?"
"You awakened something ancient. Something classified. The Overlord Genome was purged after the First War for a reason."
"Because it was dangerous?"
"No." Her eyes darkened. "Because it couldn't be controlled."
She waved a hand. The restraints disengaged with a hiss.
Kael stood, cautious.
Dr. Vex stepped back and tapped a control pad. A panel slid open in the wall, revealing a slab of black crystal not the Gene Stone, but similar. Smaller. More refined.
"This is a Resonant Shard. It reacts only to certain gene frequencies. The last time it activated… was over a hundred years ago. Try it."
Kael hesitated. His hand trembled as he raised it to the shard.
The moment he touched it, it flared red.
But not just red alive. The spiral emblem ignited on his chest, glowing beneath his shirt like a second sun. The entire room dimmed as the shard responded, patterns spiraling across its surface in alien geometry.
Dr. Vex stepped back, stunned.
"Impossible…"
Kael staggered, the voice in his mind louder now.
"Dominion is not granted. It is remembered."
Then images. Not memories, not dreams inherited knowledge.Thrones of bone. Titans of flesh and data. Overlords reshaping cities with a whisper. Genes rewriting entire bloodlines with thought.
Kael gasped, tearing his hand away.
The shard dimmed. The spiral on his chest faded.
Dr. Vex was already on her communicator. "Notify the Director. We have confirmation."
Kael turned to her. "What was that?"
She looked at him, expression unreadable.
"Your genome isn't evolving, Kael. It's restoring. You are not a mutation. You are a reboot."
Alarms suddenly rang across the facility.
A distorted voice screamed from the loudspeaker:
"Containment breach in Cell Block Delta. Unknown entity detected. All personnel to lockdown positions."
Dr. Vex stiffened. "That's not possible. This level is locked down."
A nearby screen flashed red, showing a corridor filled with smoke and shredded drones. Something moved through it a shape, fast and shifting, half-seen.
Then the camera cut.
Kael felt the air hum again. The spiral on his chest began to glow on its own.
The voice returned louder now.
"You are not the only one who remembers."
---
End of Chapter 2