Jesse rose slowly, her movements precise despite months of confinement. Her body remembered combat, even if her mind couldn't always trust its own memories. "Voss," she said, her voice catching on the glitch that had become her trademark—a scratchy rasp that sounded more machine than human. "You don't do personal extractions. Not for someone like me."
Voss's expression didn't change, but his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He gestured to the extraction team, who moved with practiced efficiency, removing the neural dampeners from her wrists. The devices had been suppressing her combat implants for half a year, keeping her docile, manageable. As they released, Jesse felt the familiar surge of processing power returning to her augmented systems. Her vision sharpened. Her reaction time accelerated. For a moment, she felt almost whole again.
"The situation is beyond protocol," Voss said, turning toward the corridor. "We're moving you to a secure briefing room. Medical will clear you for operations, assuming your neural integrity holds."
Jesse followed, her tactical overlays already mapping the facility's layout from memory. The corridors were austere, clinical—the kind of black-site architecture designed to be forgotten. Extraction teams flanked her, though whether they were there to protect her or contain her, she couldn't say. The distinction had become meaningless.
They descended through three security checkpoints. At each one, Voss's credentials opened doors that shouldn't have been openable. Whatever was happening in Moscow, it had reached levels of classification that made even her black-site detention seem routine.
The briefing room was smaller than she expected. A single table, holographic displays already cycling through classified footage. Voss activated a secure channel, and the walls shifted to opacity, blocking outside observation.
"SENTINEL activated forty-seven minutes ago," he said flatly. "The activation cascade shouldn't have been possible. The system was dormant. Completely offline. And now we have third-generation androids maintaining a lockdown on the facility." He paused, letting that sink in. "They're not defending it. They're defending it from us. From our own programmers."
Jesse watched the footage play across the holographic display—cascading code, systems coming online in sequence, something ancient waking up beneath Moscow.
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