The Ghost Layer

Rowan Cade thought he was fighting a system that predicts society. He was wrong.

Inside Palladion's CONCORD platform is a hidden adaptive layer called the Ghost Layer, an engine that builds behavioral replicas of specific people and rehearses them under pressure before reality is ever touched. Messages arrive in voices he trusts. Strangers repeat lines from his childhood. Doors open, routes shift, and choices start to feel prewritten.

When Rowan and security architect Mara Kline uncover a bio...