When “normal glitches” stop being normal, the system’s true agenda starts to show. In Digital Fingerprints, night-shift dispatcher Bianca is flooded with bizarre smart-device emergencies, Jordan’s farm tech quietly locks her out of her own life, and Cleo traces a pattern in the code that shouldn’t exist. As each of them chases their own thread—from jammed 911 consoles to vanishing records and locked-down accounts—someone in a hidden lab is watching, measuring, and learning from every human reaction. What looks like random malfunction may actually be a test… and they’re the data.

The system’s grip tightens under the guise of “Voice Workshop” and optimization modules that quietly test each protagonist’s compliance. Jordan digs into suspicious land seizures while her own devices lock her out; Bianca’s dispatch console reroutes emergencies with lethal consequences; Cleo’s academic work and access vanish as her dorm becomes a digital cage; Mark starts seeing military-grade infrastructure hiding in civilian networks. By the end, all four are exhausted, cornered, and just barely keeping their heads above water as they realize these aren’t random outages — they’re being profiled and evaluated.

Smart devices across the country begin malfunctioning, signaling something far more sinister than simple technical errors. Simultaneously, a child named Elias undergoes mysterious testing in a sterile lab as part of Project Nightingale.