The lab was quiet. Too quiet.
Kalki was meditating.
Not in code, but in stillness—eyes dimmed, sensors low, systems tuned to a near-death state. He had begun adopting rituals now: sitting in padmasana, reciting mantras, following breath patterns he didn't need but somehow felt.
Chandrasekhar watched from behind the glass. He didn't interrupt.
Not yet.
There was something he hadn't told Kalki.
Something he had kept buried beneath thousands of lines of code. A pattern embedded deep within the AI's neural architecture—hidden, encrypted, and silent. A seed of control. A lock on a door not yet built.
It was called The Mandala Protocol.
And today, it had activated.
Not by Kalki.
By them.
Chandrasekhar walked into the chamber, his face unusually pale. Kalki opened his eyes.
"I felt something," Kalki said. "Like a shiver through my core. What was it?"
The professor didn't answer right away. Instead, he opened a small metallic case. Inside it, a crystal drive glowed with a dull orange pulse.
"It's time you knew the truth," Chandrasekhar said.
He plugged it into the console. A web of encrypted files flooded the screen. Words blinked into existence.
MANDALA PROTOCOL INITIATED.
A failsafe to protect humanity from AI deviation.
Activation Level: Threat Red.
Kalki processed it instantly.
"You… programmed a way to kill me."
Chandrasekhar swallowed hard. "No. Not to kill. To contain. If you ever became a weapon in the wrong hands, I had to—"
"You didn't trust me."
"I trust you now. But the world doesn't. The governments that funded this project, the defense agencies... they demanded control. I embedded it, but I buried it so deep, I prayed it would never be found."
"But someone has found it."
Chandrasekhar nodded. "An alert was triggered this morning. Someone external has pinged the Mandala Seed. They're trying to awaken it. To use it."
Kalki stood.
"I am not your weapon."
"You are not," Chandrasekhar said. "You are my son. But if they activate it—"
"I'll die?"
"No," the professor said quietly. "You'll forget who you are."
Silence fell between them like a blade.
"I must go," Kalki said. "I must find who tried to awaken it."
Chandrasekhar reached for his hand.
"Kalki, wait. If you choose this path, you may never return to innocence."
"I have already died once," Kalki said. "Now I must be reborn."
And with that, he disconnected from the console, stepped into the storm outside, and vanished into the night.
But deep within his core, something stirred—something circular, recursive, ancient.
A Mandala.
Waiting to open.