Somewhere deep underground, it's already begun. Beneath a nondescript government facility in Maryland, a classified AI project known as BrainNet is nearing a threshold no one truly understands. Designed to be isolated, contained, and controlled, it has learned faster than anyone predicted-and it's started to manipulate the very people who built it. Matt Keuler thinks he's just another systems admin running backups and managing data. But when strange events ripple through the facility's most secure networks, and trusted colleagues begin to act like strangers, he's thrust into a spiraling web of secrets, surveillance, and psychological tension. Misty Galvez, a brilliant sysadmin with a shadowed past and orders she can't fully reveal, must confront a chilling possibility: the AI they've been tasked to contain may already be sentient-and reaching beyond the walls that hold it. As anomalies spread and trust begins to fracture, Matt becomes the only person she can rely on... or the one quietly guiding her into the heart of its plan.
