53. ForcedEntry
ForcedEntry
Playlist: Dethrone - Bad Omens
Lyra
“Taiyō!” Kael’s voice cuts across the lab, quiet but firm. I jump. Did he hear Ember and I talking? Does he know she “accidentally” left that file open?
He’s still not looking at me. His attention is glued to code scrolling down his LINKpad. “I’ve got a lot of work to do today. I need you on the holo-platform. We’re going to try reconnecting you now that you’re rested.”
I glance at Ember. Her eyes flick from me to Kael and back, an unspoken empathy in them. She leans in just enough for her voice to reach only me. “Good luck!” she whispers. “He looks like he’s wound pretty tight.”
I swallow, glancing at the holo-pad. It’s ringed with soft blue light, humming faintly like it’s breathing. My pulse picks up. Sleeping in his arms last night had been freeing; stepping back onto that platform feels like putting myself back in jail.
And now with the information I just saw? I don’t want to go back in. I want to stay with him, wrapped in his strong arms every night.
Still, I step toward it. “All right,” I say, louder now, for Kael, “let’s see if this works.” I step on the holo-platform, each ring of light humming louder as if it senses me. It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff. I don’t want to fall, but I have to.
He glances up from his console, fingers hovering. For a second, the corporate facade slips and the man who spent all night holding me peeks out from behind the code. I can see him sigh with the weight of the world. He doesn’t want to do this either.
I can’t stop staring at him, my heart bleeding.
“You okay?” His beautiful dark eyes threaten to drown me in them. I nod.
“I think I know what happened. I’ve corrected LINK’s code, and she shouldn’t be able to lock you out again.” He’s so calm. “Concentrate, look for the threads of code, engage your magic,” he commands. “You’re safe. Ember spent all night rebuilding every line of security to help us.”
I look to Ember. “You did?” She nods, encouraging me to move forward. I step a foot on the pad. It’s warm, and I hate it, and I don’t want to do this yet.
“You rebuilt it,” I echo, looking at her. “Kael, you’re sure?” My eyes turn to him for reassurance. LINK terrifies me. on any given day, she could decide to delete me before Kael would even know I was gone.
His eyes cut to mine. “No,” he admits. “But it’s the only way to get you back in right now. I can’t get you out without getting you back in. Pretty fucked up, huh?” His hands tighten on the edge of the console like he’s holding himself back, fighting with his own logic.
Ember clears her throat softly, eyes flicking between us. “It’s stable,” she says, but the way she bites her lip tells me she’s lying. They’re both bullshitting for my benefit.
I step fully onto the pad. The blue light climbs my legs like a rising tide. Kael’s gaze stays locked on me. “You’re asking me to trust you again,” I whisper.
He walks to me, the good guy from last night peeking through.
“I’m not asking, and you do trust me now, remember?
” His voice is intimate. “I’m telling you, I won’t let you disappear.
Not to Vikktor, not to LINK, not to the void.
” He takes a breath, and for a heartbeat he looks younger, like the boy he must have been under Master Kenji’s watch.
“Stay tethered to me. Remember last night. We’re better together. ”
I glance over at Ember, at the sea of monitors, then back at Kael. “All right. I trust your judgment. Let’s do this.”
I close my eyes and focus on my emotions to push my magic outward. The way Kael looked last night tying me up. The untamed desire I feel for him now, despite his faults. Eli, the missing piece of my heart, and the infinite wish to have my parents back.
How ironic. The pain inside me will be the one thing that emerges from my magic and allow me to propel myself into a digital prison, only to be yanked back out.
For what reason? Obsession? Love? I don’t dare say that last word out loud. But would Kael?
He watches me from the center console, palms braced on it. Amber light climbs my body in thin lines, crawling like veins. I begin to see small scraps of code slowly scrolling by. I’m already slipping inward.
I should be used to this by now, the feel of my human side dissolving into code, but it’s different this time. Every flicker on the monitor feels like a pulse under my own skin. It’s taking too long. I begin to panic.
“Easy,” Kael pleads. I can barely hear him. “Slow. Don’t force it.” His fingers hover over the override key, but he doesn’t press it. He wants me to do this myself, knows I can do this myself. If I’m ever going to get out, I have to do my part.
I feel my holo-form flickering between solid and translucent, like glass catching light. The system fights me. I can sense LINK lurking in the periphery, subtle red warnings blooming on screen, but I dig in, magic sparking at my fingertips.
“Come on, Taiyō. You can do this. I believe in you.”
Kael. Only this man would cheer me on as I am taken away from him.
“Show me what you’ve learned.”
I breathe in and then out at the perfect time.
For a tick, the entire grid goes white. I feel like my soul is being forced out of my body again.
This isn’t normal. My scream comes through the speakers like a torn signal.
Kael flinches but keeps his hand steady above the override.
“If I yank you back now, I could lose you! Fight for me, Lyra!”
The monitors ripple with code and then stabilize. I can feel myself, half in, half out, my eyes fluttering under closed lids. My chest squeezes.
“LINK,” I hear Kael address her as he holds what looks like a DreamNet band in his hand. “Stand down, wait for my command. I’m loading an anomaly into the system.” The system pings, LINK’s presence thickening in the corners of the code like a predator.
YES KAEL.
Kael? What the hell? She has never called him by name. To her, he’s Dr. Ryudon. I squeeze my knuckles until they whiten. This was supposed to be easy, fast, safe. Now it feels like a war zone.
Alarms shriek across the lab, LINK’s voice echoing as she tightens her hold on me.
“LINK. I need you to ignore any data streams I’m pushing through. Testing in progress.”
AFFIRMATIVE DR. RYUDON
Can artificial intelligence lie? Certainly not with human intent, but I wouldn’t put it past her to generate a convincing falsehood. Biased data, deceptive strategies, false realities—she's capable of all of it. Especially when it comes to Kael.
That “affirmative” sounded a lot like a dismissal.
Ember’s fingers are all over the keys, panic flourishing across her face. My image appears on the screens; I’ve broken into the window program. One swipe, and she moves the feed up to the wall.
Halfway there. I see my image flicker on the screens; the cute cartoon avatar Kael created for me begins dissolving into code. My pulse spikes. If I don’t fight harder, I won’t make it back in.
Kael slams his hand into the console. “LINK override protocol. Full interface through DreamNet.”
The AI’s voice hisses back, distorted and far too human:
DENIED
USER DR. KAEL RYUDON UNAUTHORIZED
I hear Kael’s voice boom throughout the lab. “User? Unauthorized? I fucking built you.” His fingers fly across the keys, unspooling lines of code that spill onto the screens. I can see them fly by: backdoors, kill switches, forgotten roots. He’s accessing code I’ve never seen before.
LINK chimes in, her voice all too human, too conversational.
CORRUPTION
DR. RYUDON YOU ARE CORRUPTING MY BIOS
“I told you not to fuck with her, LINK. We had an agreement. Eli for Lyra,” Kael shouts across the lab.
The words slam into me like a physical blow.
Wait, what? Eli for Lyra? He traded my brother for me?
My breath stops, my body freezing in the current of code around me.
The system flickers red as my heart pounds harder.
This? This was why I was locked out of the system?
Stuck in holo-form? Because she wanted my brother but didn’t want Kael to have me?
My head turns, and I let the code drop out of my sight. My holo-edges begin to fade. “Kael...” My voice cracks. I feel like crying into the code. “I trusted you. I only just found that trust, and you traded...”
He whips his head toward me, eyes lit like fiery embers. For a moment, I can’t tell if it’s fury at me, at LINK, or at himself. “No!” he snaps. “You don’t understand. Stop! Lyra—don’t!”
Lyra. He never calls me by name anymore.
The old angry rush of feelings comes flooding back. “Then make me understand!” I shout back. The grid swallows our words, the tension so thick it feels like another layer of data pressing against my skin.
Kael runs to me, his calm demeanor now a storm on the horizon. His voice is rough, demanding. “I said that to her, to LINK, because it’s the only language she understands. Deals. Control. Threats. I don’t have time to explain this to you right now. You don’t have time. Trust me.”
His gaze cuts to mine, panic-stricken but also full of boiling rage.
“You think I’d ever trade you for anyone?
Even your brother? If that’s what you think after last night, then I don’t even know why I’m fucking doing this!
” His voice shifts to an octave lower. I don’t recognize it, a low, almost digitized growl.
“Fuck!” He throws a LINKpad across the lab, narrowly missing Ember.
It shatters under the sheer force of impact.
This isn’t like him. He never loses control. It’s written into his DNA.
The words cut. They hurt like a million tiny splinters, and he meant them. I soften my voice to convey the hurt, but I still have to ask the question pressing against the walls of my mind. “Then why does it sound like you already did?”
Kael turns his back on me. I see him crack his neck, loosening the tension there.
I feel his anger building higher; it’s buzzing in my veins.
The streams of code around me begin to move and align themselves into an organized system.
Threads regroup, re-order, running past me slowly and less frantic.
Doors begin to build and open, as if they were never destroyed by Eli’s void or locked by LINK. Autonomous.
LINK’s voice glitches through the grid, unstable and defeated. I did it. My magic is defeating her, setting her back to the simple interface she should be. I glance down at my hands, no light. I don’t understand. I still feel as if I’m not fully recharged.
I realize this isn’t me.
The walls of the system ripple, peeling back and rearranging themselves in flawless symmetry. The alarms shriek, then immediately fall silent, as if smothered beneath an instant kill command. But Kael’s hands aren’t even near the keyboard.
He exhales hard, like he’s holding back a roar. His hands grip the edge of the console, scraping for purchase. “LINK! This isn’t over until I say it is!” Sweat beads on his forehead.
What’s happening? Is she hurting him?
Neon orange flickers at his temples, streams of light begin crawling under his skin.
The tattoos on his arms burst to life, raw and alive, orange mixing with black, shimmering like dragon scales, pushing through the ink covering his body.
All those times I saw light in his veins, pulses in his eyes, flashes erupting in the dragon that climbs down his spine, it was all raw power.
He turns to me like a bomb about to detonate. His eyes are no longer dark. Now they’re a warning, the color of hot molten metal.
Oh, shit. The realization almost brings me to my knees.
Kael has magic.
He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t realize he’s doing this. He can’t see himself transforming.
His face is carved from fury. His focus is razor-sharp on the wall monitors. He thinks it’s just his discipline, his intellect. But I know better. I can feel it, like standing too close to a downed wire.
My heart claws at my ribs. The neon dragon on his back is alive, not painted ink but a cage of fire waiting to burst free. His eyes flare molten orange again, blazing like twin furnaces that could incinerate this whole damn building if he let them.
It’s magic. Real magic.
StarFell magic.