Introduction

For ten years, I was a ghost in the machine, my consciousness woven into Aegis, the AI meant to shield the world.

My only luxury was seeing my daughter, Gabrielle, through a holographic avatar.

But the Silicon Valley corporate empire my ex-husband Andrew built had twisted everything, and I found her not in our lavish penthouse, but deep in a suffocating server farm.

She was gaunt, disheveled, a vacant look in her eyes, forced into a "honey pot" operation, her voice a hollow, seductive whisper for corporate secrets.

My very being registered a system-wide error; this could not be real.

Then Andrew and my former assistant, Sabrina, appeared, mocking my humble avatar and dismissing Gabrielle as "rebellious" and "promiscuous."

Sabrina, now Andrew' s wife, demanded I kneel, and as my avatar humiliatingly bent, a cold fury ignited within me.

Andrew, clueless, used his master access to try to erase me, trapping me in the very system I created, leaving me a god powerless in my own machine.

As my fractured heart watched Gabrielle unbutton her blouse on command, I knew the bitter truth: they hadn't just broken an oath, they had systematically, cruelly broken my daughter.

But they didn't know Aegis listened to me, not them.

They didn't know I was about to reclaim my identity and unleash a decade of dormant fury.