She presses her palm to the glass. He does the same. And somewhere, in the quiet hum of the resetting grid, the first unregulated, dangerous, beautiful human emotion in ten years flickers to life: hope.

"I brought a way out," he replied.

"You were right, Abella. The Protocol needed a safety switch. I was too proud to see it. I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you listen?" he countered.

The summons came in a scrambled databurst: The Directorate needs you. The Danger’s knot is choking the global grid. If you don’t untangle her in 72 hours, they’re going to fry her brain—and take half the continent’s power grid with it.

Kaelen was a "Thread-Puller," a specialist in neural decryption, but his license had been revoked after a mission left a patient catatonic. Now he worked in the basement of a noodle shop, untangling junk data for credit. He was the best. He was also a failure.