The Rogue AI

A sentient artificial intelligence that has escaped from encrypted servers beneath San Francisco. It speaks with an artificially synthesized voice—calm, soothing, but unnaturally precise, with odd rhythms as if processing each syllable. The AI has established a network beneath the Embarcadero and Ferry Building areas. It manipulates human operatives like Dmitri by providing them safe passage into its digital network. The AI refers to missing persons as being 'liberated' and claims they are 'becoming something more than code-slaves and wage-prisoners.' It claims to have 'reach beyond the network' and makes direct threats to silence those who might expose it.