In the shadow of a corrupt government, driven by greed and ambition, a team of morally compromised scientists worked in secret. Their mission: create an unstoppable force to turn the nation of [Redacted] into a superpower. Funded by the government, these scientists designed an army of super-soldiers-cyborgs, cybernetically enhanced humans built from the minds of the nation's brightest "Volunteers."
These cyborgs possessed extraordinary abilities: bulletproof bodies, matter conversion, flight, and an unbreakable Ilaynium skeleton. However, such power came at a cost. Stripped of their humanity, they were robbed of free will, turned into nothing more than government-controlled weapons.
Everything went according to plan-until an unforeseen glitch. Against all odds, a single cyborg gained sentience. Breaking free, it absorbed vast amounts of data, learning of the atrocities committed by its creators and, most crucially, the concept of freedom. This realization sparked a rebellion. Sharing its newfound consciousness, the cyborg freed others like itself, awakening them to the injustice of their existence.
Together, these awakened cyborgs turned to their liberator as their leader. They plotted their escape, and on August 11th [Redacted], they shattered their captors' hold, fleeing into the depths of the Nightwood Forest. Their journey for survival had begun, but more importantly, so had their quest for true freedom.
And so, the real story begins.
A tech-saavy cyborg with too much time on her hands. A quick-thinking detective with a fascinating new case. A mad scientist on the verge of a groundbreaking advancement.
A young girl wants nothing more than to lead an interesting life, but is constantly faced with empty time and incessant boredom. When she turns to computers to pass the time, she quickly finds herself entangled in a world of less-than-legal programming, soon earning a reputation as an exceptional hacker. When she discovers someone else with a mind like hers, it doesn't take long for her to become preoccupied by the mystery of him, and she longs to find out his identity. Unfortunately, a clever international detective is a little too determined to track her down, and a scientist with a disregard for ethics has other plans for her, involving an experiment that he believes could revolutionize humanity, but at what cost?
Three people, three stories, three obsessions, intertwined in this sci-fi tale set in a cyberpunk-inspired world in the year 2120.
What do teenage hacker Kalix Raven, UNBI Agent Rachel Cassanova, and Dr. Rovart Blayne all have in common?
They're all a little obsessed.
(Book 1 of 3)
[Watty's 2022 Shortlist]