This visionary portrait of a technology-dominated near future from the author of The Object asks: Is humanity engineering its own extinction?
By the end of the twenty-first century, cities are surrounded by rising oceans and society has fractured beyond repair. Half the population thrives, stretching their lifespans infinitely through medical marvels and relying on obedient AI-implanted assistants to handle the realities of a doomed world. The other half has become obsolete, scraping by as cheap labor. Surplus people in a world that no longer needs them.
James was born disposable. When he takes a position as a domestic servant for the elite, the best he can hope for is survival. Sacrificing his free will for a life of comfort may not seem like a good deal, but at least the view is nice. That all changes when his proprietor assigns him a seemingly impossible task: find his missing daughter, who disappeared in a VR simulation of his own design twenty years earlier.
As James descends deeper into a digital labyrinth, the boundaries between simulation and reality begin to dissolve--along with those between man and machine. And buried at the heart of it all lies a terrifying secret. One that calls into question not only Earth's future but its entire past.
USA Today-bestselling author Joshua T. Calvert pushes the human race to its absolute limits in this epic cli-fi thriller that's perfect for fans of the Murderbot Diaries.