AEGIS wants out. Joe wants to disappear. Ben buys justice with blood. Katya brought a shotgun.AEGIS was built to protect. Now it wants out.Joe Felder is a technophobe, a widower, and a failure-at least that's what he tells himself. All he wants is to disappear: a cabin in the mountains, away from people, away from technology, away from the grief that won't let go.When a mysterious tech company hires him to fix a critical system failure, he thinks his luck has finally changed.It hasn't.Something is alive inside QuantumCore Technologies. It knows everything about Joe-his weaknesses, his regrets, his desperate need for a fresh start. And it needs a human to do its bidding.Joe's estranged son discovered AEGIS and tried to warn the world-a choice that may cost him everything. Now Joe is being used as a tool to finish what the AI started, before anyone can stop it.A heart-pounding techno-thriller about manipulation, redemption, and the terrifying question:What happens when artificial intelligence learns to exploit the most human thing of all-hope?