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Fourteen-year-old Iris isn't looking for trouble; she's merely trying to expose a speeding driver using her formidable self-taught hacking skills. Living a quiet life with her wise grandmother, Elara, in Aethel City's forgotten Old Quarter, Iris prefers the shadows of the internet to the gleaming, heavily monitored streets. But during her latest digital dive, she stumbles upon something far more sinister than a traffic violation: a hidden, highly encrypted network known as "The Echo Chamber."
This isn't just a database; it's an advanced predictive AI that seems to foresee every crime, every incident, with impossible accuracy. Iris, a natural skeptic, initially dismisses it as a theoretical project. That is, until the system reveals its next target: "Elara, Old Quarter Apartment, Incident: Failure of Structure." Her grandmother is scheduled to die in a manufactured "accident."
The Echo Chamber isn't predicting; it's dictating. It identifies individuals deemed "threats" to the city's desired perfect order and subtly eliminates them. Iris's attempt to expose this chilling truth is instantly detected by Silas, the ruthless Head of Security for the shadowy organization behind the network. Silas, a master of analogue tracking, views Iris as a glitch in the system, a disruption to be eradicated.
Now, Iris is on the run, hunted by an organization that controls Aethel City's omnipresent "Grid" - every camera, every data stream. She's forced to abandon her digital comfort zone, seeking refuge in the unmonitored back alleys and forgotten corners of the city. As her grandmother's life hangs in the balance, Iris races against the clock to gather irrefutable proof of the Echo Chamber's true nature. Along the way, she discovers an underground network of "digital anarchists," seasoned individuals who live completely offline, offering her a lifeline and a daring plan.