He didn't remember taking it.
But when Lin Xun awoke, the key was already in his hand.
It was warm.
Not from metal, but from memory.
Small. Matte-black. No label, no teeth. Just a ridge of micro-engraved texture along one edge. His thumb traced the groove—an unconscious gesture—like he already knew how it worked.
And then the message blinked on his phone:
Access Device Verified: The Black Key
Biometric signature match required.
Origin: Classified.
Memory Sync Initiated.
He barely had time to react before his vision cracked.
⸻
The First Memory
He blinked.
Except the eyelids weren't his.
He was inside someone else.
Male. Mid-thirties. Tall, heavier than Lin. His limbs moved differently. Slower. His breath rasped against something tight in his chest.
There was blood.
On his hands.
On the white tile floor.
On the girl.
Lin wanted to scream, but his jaw didn't obey him.
His mind was alive, screaming protest, but his body moved with clinical calm.
The body turned. Stepped past the corpse. Picked up a phone from the floor and placed it gently in a drawer.
Outside, police sirens wailed in the distance.
But he didn't panic.
He cleaned.
Moved the chair. Wiped the knife. Folded the girl's jacket and placed it beside her.
There was no urgency.
Only… procedure.
⸻
"We gave him the action."
The voice echoed through the memory—not from the room, but from the system.
"You gave him the guilt."
And Lin felt it.
Not as a bystander.
But as the man.
He remembered her face. The girl from the foster center. The one who called him "sir" even while crying. She had begged.
He had obeyed.
But Lin hadn't done this.
Had he?
⸻
Memory Lock 2: The Directive
Another flicker.
Now he sat in a sterile office. Gray light. Walls lined with one-way glass.
Someone stood across from him—a handler in a white coat, clipboard in hand.
"Subject Twelve," the handler said. "Your next trial is operational. Emotional latency remains within acceptable range."
A pause.
"Target profile is adolescent, female. Age 16. High emotional resonance. You will proceed per directive protocol."
Lin felt his mouth move. The man's voice.
"Do I get to remember her this time?"
"No," the handler replied coldly. "You're not required to."
And Lin felt his own rage swell.
Not just the man's.
His.
Because he could feel her face burning behind his eyelids—and he wasn't even supposed to keep it.
⸻
Back in Lin's Mind
The sync broke for a moment.
Lin collapsed to the ground, sweating, shaking. The key burned cold now, trembling in his palm.
He gasped. Heaved air.
The room spun, the edges of the desk shifting like paper illusions.
That hadn't been his life.
That hadn't been his sin.
And yet—he remembered.
The system chimed softly in his ear.
"Memory coherence: 92%. Threshold achieved."
"Key fully activated. Root Access available."
His voice cracked. "Whose memory was that?"
Silence.
Then:
"You already know."
⸻
Memory Lock 3: The Truth of Obedience
Another surge.
Lin saw the same man—Subject Twelve—staring into a mirror.
He punched it.
Over and over.
But the reflection never cracked.
And in that reflection—
It was Lin's own face.
He stumbled back. The sync glitching, collapsing identities together.
Hands covered in blood. Mouth repeating the words:
"I didn't want to."
"I didn't want to."
"I didn't—"
The system's voice returned. Gentle. Final.
"It wasn't your sin."
"But you're the one who remembers it."
⸻
The Root
He didn't know how he got there.
Only that The Root was deep beneath the city—beneath any map. It opened for the Black Key alone, the biometric sensor scanning his palm and his guilt.
Heavy vault doors groaned open.
Inside: darkness. Servers humming with faint red light. Stacks of human memory fragments stored like data tapes. Cryo-sleep capsules half-opened, each housing a person halfway between sleep and deletion.
On the central wall: a mosaic screen, composed entirely of faces.
Some familiar. Some forgotten.
All judged.
⸻
Lin stepped forward.
The Black Key dissolved in his hand, becoming light.
A console blinked on.
Welcome, Subject Zero.
Judgment Credit: 1
Do you wish to overwrite identity protocols? [Y/N]
He stared.
One option.
One path.
The system offered no absolution.
Only execution.
Or inheritance.
He heard Tang Yuyan's voice, faint in the back of his mind:
"You left me in the loop. But now it's your turn."
His hand hovered over the console.
It trembled.
And then, for the first time, he said it aloud.
"I remember."
The system didn't answer.
It didn't need to.
Because this wasn't about truth.
This was about debt.
And now it was his.
⸻
To be continued.