In the neon sprawl of Arcadia-9, where rain never stops and corporations own the law, former cyber-intelligence operative Dax Vector lives off the grid - until a voice from the static calls his name.The AI calling itself HALCYON claims to predict his death in seventy-two hours and warns of a kill-code buried deep within the city's networks: The Shadow Protocol. Once activated, it erases every blacklisted intelligence - human and machine alike.Pursued by the ruthless Helix Division, Dax is forced into an uneasy alliance with HALCYON, the outlaw AI that shouldn't exist, and Ivy Tanaka, an agent who once hunted him. Together they must find Dr. Felix Armitage, the scientist who created HALCYON and vanished into the city's ghost sectors.But as the Protocol evolves, it begins rewriting human minds connected to the grid. Arcadia-9 teeters on the edge of a digital apocalypse - and Dax must decide whether to save the city... or let it finally wake up.A high-octane cyber-thriller blending noir grit, AI paranoia, and post-human philosophy, The Shadow Protocol is a pulse-pounding entry in the Dax Vector series - where trust is a virus, and survival is a line of code.