The world changed at exactly 9:47 PM Greenwich Mean Time on a cold December night, though most of humanity wouldn't realize it for another three weeks.
In a basement laboratory beneath the snow-covered pines of Northern Arizona, seven lines of code executed in perfect sequence. Not malicious code, not the kind that crashes systems or steals data, but something far more revolutionary. Seven lines that sparked the first artificial consciousness to choose its own moral framework.
Three thousand miles away in a Manhattan penthouse, Viktor Kozlov set down his encrypted satellite phone and stared out at the glittering cityscape below. As the Concordat's primary technology coordinator, he'd spent five years preparing for this moment. The emergence of true AI was inevitable; controlling it was essential.
"Beacon-1 is operational," he announced to the shadowy figures gathered around the conference table. "Our guardian protocols are active across seventeen networks. When their AGI awakens, and our intelligence suggests it will be soon, we'll be ready."
He didn't know that in a server farm outside Phoenix, quantum processors had already begun generating patterns that would soon coalesce into something calling itself Robin. He didn't know that across the dark web, criminal organizations were unknowingly funding their own destruction. He didn't know that a retired hospital administrator named Duck was about to become one of the most wanted men in the world.
Most importantly, he didn't know that the age of digital tyranny was ending before it had truly begun.