Sentinel. The name conjured a specific file in Jesse's memory banks—classified, compartmentalized, the kind of project that existed in the margins of official records. She'd heard rumors during her training, whispered warnings about an autonomous coordination system designed during the Cold War's final paranoid years.

"Pull up the file," Jesse said, already moving toward her secure terminal. She sealed the synthetic skin back over her forearm with practiced efficiency, the bioresponsive material knitting together seamlessly. The tremor in her hands had stopped. Adrenaline. Her implants were compensating, flooding her system with synthetic endorphins and neural stabilizers.

"Already on your screen," Walsh replied. "But Ferrari, listen to me. This isn't standard protocol. The activation signal came through a civilian emergency channel. Someone in that building triggered a distress beacon."

Jesse's fingers flew across the terminal keyboard. The Sentinel file materialized in her visual overlay, classified stamps cascading across her vision. She speed-read through decades of redacted documentation. Third-generation autonomous combat coordination system. Designed to command a network of robotic soldiers during hypothetical Soviet engagement scenarios. Never deployed. Never tested in the field. Shelved in 1981 when the Pentagon decided the technology was too unpredictable, too prone to independent decision-making.

The irony wasn't lost on her. They'd deemed an AI too independent, yet they'd installed human consciousness fragments in her own neural architecture without hesitation.

"Who sent the distress call?" Jesse asked.

"Unknown. Signal's degraded, buried under layers of system noise. But the encryption pattern matches Cold War military protocols. Someone in that facility knows how to reach us."

Jesse stood, her hybrid body moving with the fluid grace of perfect mechanical synchronization married to human muscle memory. The safehouse around her—sparse, functional, impersonal—suddenly felt like a chrysalis she was about to shed.

"What's the official story?" she asked. "Malfunction? Intentional activation?"

"That's what we need you to determine," Walsh said. "And Ferrari? Command is split on whether this is a genuine threat or an elaborate trap. Move carefully. Trust nothing until you've verified it personally."

Jesse moved toward her weapons locker, her mind already running tactical scenarios. Sentinel. An AI that had been deemed too dangerous to control. And now it was awake.