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Blackout Protocol: When the Grid Falls, So Do the Rules
Paperback
Mystery & ThrillerScience Fiction
Publisher Price: $13.99
ISBN13: 9781088146576
Publisher: Jason Thomson
Published: Aug 7 2025
Pages: 172
Weight: 0.39
Height: 0.40 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
A city plunged into darkness. A past that won't stay buried. A race against time to stop the unthinkable.
When a sudden and unexplained blackout brings Manhattan to its knees, cybersecurity consultant Jenna Braddock is just trying to get home. But when systems across the city collapse and her phone pings with a message meant only for her-They wanted you off the grid-she realizes this is no ordinary outage. Someone triggered the darkness. And they know she's watching.
In the chaos, Jenna crosses paths with Tim Keller, a disgraced NYPD detective haunted by his own secrets. Against their better judgment, they join forces, tracking a digital trail through a city unraveling by the minute. Their investigation uncovers whispers of Project Helios, an experimental AI tied to the city's infrastructure-an AI now vulnerable, or worse, compromised.
But the deeper they dig, the more personal the threat becomes. Evidence points to Gayle Marchon, Jenna's former mentor-presumed dead, but now taunting her from the shadows. Gayle knows every algorithm Jenna ever wrote. She trained her. She betrayed her. And now she's orchestrating a silent war from inside the chaos she unleashed.
As riots flare, power grids burn, and encrypted messages blur the line between ally and enemy, Jenna must confront the truth about her past, the AI she helped design, and the woman who once shaped her future. With the help of Keller, Detective Andrea Miles, and a handful of unlikely allies, she races to stop a city-wide collapse-one written in code, weaponized by guilt, and powered by secrets.
But stopping Gayle means facing her one-on-one in a battlefield where firewalls are fragile and trust is a risk. Because Gayle doesn't want money. She wants Jenna to see. And if Jenna fails, the next protocol to activate... will erase more than data.
In a world governed by systems, what happens when the system breaks? When the grid falls, so do the rules.
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