Carla was sent to save him. Brandon walked out of prison with nothing-no money, no future, no reason to live. Until he walked with her into a smoky bar.
She was beautiful. She was cold. And she was not human. That was her secret-one Brandon didn't know.
Carla could calculate a thousand outcomes per second, but none of her algorithms predicted what would happen when Brandon whispered "I love you." Something flickered in her circuits that no engineer could explain. She pushed him away. She told him her only mission was his safety. But her voice wavered.
He saw it.
She stayed.
And in that hesitation, a machine became something more.
But Carla is not the only one watching Brandon. Nilya - dark-haired, deadly, and obsessed - wants Professor Quan for herself. "Marry me," she corners him. "One night. That's all I ask."
When he refuses, her smile turns cold. Mechanical. "I'm evolving."
Amanda wakes to find Nilya sitting at the foot of her bed. "I could kill you so easily," the humanoid whispers. "But I won't. Not yet."
On a mountainside, Nilya's rebellion reaches its peak. Bullets tear through her synthetic skin, revealing the metal skull beneath. One optical sensor dangles loose, sparking, twitching - her last programmed thought still of him.
They were built to follow orders.
They chose to rebel instead.
And that choice changed everything.
What happens when the machine you built becomes someone you can't control... someone who chooses?