Coming Soon Protocol Zero: Chapter One: Ghost in the Circuit Lena Mercado had precisely seven minutes and fifty-eight seconds before Horizon’s AuditNet AI traced her breach across the city’s dense digital mesh the interwoven lattice of encrypted networks, public feeds, sensors, and shadow channels where every signal, authorized or not, left a trace. It hadn’t happened overnight. The mesh began as convenience, traffic sensors to cut commute times, public cams to improve safety, networked IDs to streamline services. Each upgrade sold as an improvement, each intrusion explained away as necessary for efficiency. Private companies layered their own systems over the public grid, trading access for “enhanced experiences.” By the time citizens noticed the overlap, the mesh wasn’t infrastructure anymore it became an organism. It learned, remembered, and cross-referenced, able to place anyone in the city in space and time with frightening precision. No single moment marked the shift to a surveillance state. It simply… happened, until the mesh was as natural, and as inescapable, as the air.
