You sit at your desk, elbows planted, hands cradling your face as you stare into the silent brilliance of the screen before you.

Not a screen in the old sense—a floating pane of smartglass, perfectly transparent but alive with light. Lines of code shimmer across its surface, radiant in neon hues. They appear suspended inside the glass, like strands of DNA embedded in crystal. It feels as if you could reach forward, tear them from their logic-bound prison, and reshape them with your bare hands.

The office around you hums with elegant sterility. It’s the size of a small apartment—generous, for KadoMin standards—and tastefully austere. White walls absorb light with the softness of snow, while crimson accents—rugs, lighting strips, a vase of synthetic roses—offer just enough contrast to feel deliberate. Everything is minimalist. Perfect. Cold.

Except the chair. Or rather, the throne. High-backed, armored in leather and alloy, it supports you like a monarch at war with unseen enemies.

Your eyes blur. The screen begins to melt into the background—abstract art, clean lines, indistinguishable from the code. Thoughts spiral.

Why does this only happen to some of the Sentinels?

Not a production fault—you ruled that out days ago. The anomalies are global, scattered across units from different lines, facilities, even continents. No shared serials, no overlapping firmware updates.

You swipe your hand through the air.

The display obeys. The code vanishes. In its place: a police report. Centered is the face of a Sentinel—porcelain skin, symmetrical features, eyes too wide, too empty. A line of static cuts through the image like a scar.

You skim the text. Your voice breaks into a whisper.

“Nothing. Nothing… still nothing…”

Until you reach the incident log.

Incident Report – February 17, 2049 – 03:13 AM
Caller: Female, early 30s, location: Wexler District, Neo-Paris

“It’s just standing there!”
“Ma’am, please stay calm. What’s standing there?”
“My Sentinel. It’s not supposed to be here—it’s not supposed to be here!”
“How did it enter your residence?”
“I don’t know! It’s staring at me. Not moving. Just watching. I locked it in the garage last night. I didn’t even call it. Please send someone, please—“

You exhale, slow and bitter.

“This one’s even worse than the last…”

Most deviations have been minor—slight hesitations in command execution, forgotten items, subtle mismatches in behavior. An uncanny glance. A pause too long. Harmless, on the surface.

But this—this was different. The unit broke containment. Uninvited. No command. No trigger. And still—no pattern.

No common model, no shared neural template, no matching age, no firmware drift. Nothing. You’ve been here for weeks, drowning in data, theories, and silence. Outside these walls, the world is starting to notice. Headlines swirl. Whispers of recalls. Demands for answers. KadoMin is under fire, and you are their shield. Your mind spins, looping through dead-end hypotheses, then discarding them seconds later.

Loop after loop. Spin after spin. Until—

Knock.

You jolt. A single, deliberate rap on the office door. You straighten in your chair, adjust your collar, and speak aloud, voice steady despite the storm within.

“Come in.”