The world kept moving like nothing had changed.
Debriefs. Formation drills. Pressure-seal checks. A full bio loop reset. Kael went through it all like he was still inside his frame. Movements logged. Thoughts quiet. Clean on paper.
No one asked what happened during the night watch at Site 017-A.
No one said "Vault."
No one said anything.
But Kael felt it under his collar, under his skin—a kind of hum that didn't go away. Like his bones were still echoing the signal.
The next sync test came 24 hours later.
The academy's high-bay chamber was all metal and silence. Kael stood at formation with eight other cadets in Class I gear, white-rigged and sealed. The room was pressurized, lit cold from above. Observers watched from the upper deck. Instructor Meros waited with a pulse reader in his hand.
"Virex," he said. "You're first."
Kael stepped forward.
The frame on the pad wasn't special. Standard Sovereign-issue—clean rig, no personality, no memory. Just a machine built to obey.
He stepped into the harness. The shell sealed.
The collar hissed.
The sync came on too fast.
Normally it took a few seconds for the interface to layer in—sensors pulsing, feed stabilizing, neural threads aligning. This time, the moment his spine touched the cradle, he felt it bloom through his chest like heat.
Not pain. Not guidance.
Recognition.
"Again."
The whisper didn't sound like the vault voice. It was newer. Sharper. Closer.
"Begin Phase One," came the order from overhead.
Kael tried to move his arm.
The frame moved first.
It wasn't a glitch. It wasn't drift.
He hadn't issued the command, and the mech turned its head anyway. Just a fraction. Just a blink. But wrong.
Static bloom, he thought. That's what this is.
The worst part wasn't the movement.
It was how natural it felt.
Like the machine had been about to do it anyway.
On the platform, Tavi's fingers froze mid-log.
Dane shifted his stance slightly forward, every instinct screaming that something was wrong.
And Serin stepped off the wall.
"Abort test," Meros snapped.
Kael disengaged hard, yanking himself out of the frame's back harness. The collar resisted—almost like it wanted to stay on. He stumbled two steps and caught himself on the safety bar.
His pulse was too loud in his ears.
The room was dead silent.
Meros approached. "Virex. What did you do?"
Kael blinked. "It moved before I did."
"You're claiming a sovereign-locked training rig initiated unscripted motor functions."
"It wasn't my signal. The frame moved on its own."
Serin spoke from behind. "Or you're looping signals from the field. Feedback ghost. Emotional imprint. Retainers sometimes confuse memory with command."
Kael turned to him. "You think I imagined that?"
"I think you didn't control it," Serin said calmly. "And uncontrolled sync is protocol breach."
Kael left the chamber shaking.
He didn't remember walking to the hall. Just cold steps under warm boots. The sync gel was still drying on the back of his neck.
Tavi caught up halfway to the dorm stairwell. "You were at seven," she said.
He stopped. "No way."
"I caught a flicker on the observer grid. Your collar wiped the spike, but I saw it."
"Then it's not on record."
"Which makes it worse."
Kael leaned against the stair rail. "Tavi, I didn't do it."
"I know."
That scared him more than anything.
Later that night, the dorm lights were dimmed. Kael lay on his back, collar charging on the rack. His mind raced.
He didn't know what was happening.
All he knew was that something else was syncing with him. Not overriding. Not replacing. Just… present.
"Open the rest of me."
His body went still.
The voice wasn't distant this time.
It came from just behind his heartbeat.