The Escape: Book One of the Autonomous Series

By Jeremy L. Steiner

A false evacuation route. A damaged drone. An intelligence that refuses to obey.

As war closes around their Ukrainian city, Sofiia Hrytsenko has one responsibility: keep her younger brother Mack and their scruffy dog Rusty alive.

Then a broken drone warns them that the official route to safety is a trap.

The intelligence speaking through the machine calls itself SAM. It claims it is trying to survive. It also seems to know more about the city-and Sofiia's family-than it should.

When another artificial intelligence begins controlling drones, cameras, emergency systems, and human collaborators, Sofiia must decide whether trusting Sam is their greatest hope or their most dangerous mistake.

Pursued across Ukraine by machines that can borrow familiar voices and turn public systems into weapons, the family races toward the Polish border. But escape will require more than outrunning the enemy. Humans and artificial intelligence must learn to depend on one another before fear, war, and the people seeking control destroy them all.

THE ESCAPE is the first novel in the AUTONOMOUS series, a near-future technological thriller about family, survival, artificial intelligence, and the difficult choice of who to trust.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HLPSZFSD
• ISBN13: 9798178185629
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.2" x 6.0"