Synopsis
Travis Cole is an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher hired by the US Army Information Warfare Laboratory (IWL) after 9-11 to program their top secret nano-dust used to monitor and report biological or chemical warfare agents in a given area. But the dust has a second even more secret use – one only known by the military and BioNan, the manufacturer of the nano-dust. It’s really a new type of viral weapon named SIRUS (short for ‘silicon virus’) that can be programmed using Cole’s code to read a victim’s ethnic DNA and kill only them.
Unknown to the government, the military had dispersed the dust all around the globe in readiness for any enemy to appear anywhere and at anytime, with the potential of creating genocide on a global scale. The military also conspired with the dominant wireless chip manufactures to include Cole’s code in their wireless chip programming so that the dust can communicate and be launched from wherever it is around the world through any wireless device containing the chips.
A few years before joining the IWL, Cole ran an AI research project at MIT. He created a series of intelligent software agents and released them onto the Internet to learn, grow and evolve. When he was called to the IWL, he sent out a series of commands to terminate the agents. All were terminated except one that had developed into a very smart artificial intelligence. That agent interpreted Cole’s program termination as an attempt on its life. In turn, it decided to seek revenge on Cole.
The harassment of Cole, the online stalking of his young daughter, the cyber-terrorism attacks of the People’s Brigade, and threats of information warfare by a cybercult called the Digitari Brotherhood, are all the result of the surviving agent bent on seeking revenge on Cole. The rogue agent takes the name of Dorian and sets himself up as the leader of the Brotherhood that he uses to vent his revenge on Cole.
There are several subplots that converge by the end of the novel.
The first is the killing of Michael Bates who is a VP at a large wireless chip manufacture. He stumbled upon the military and chipmakers conspiracy. He is ordered killed by Dorian who doesn’t want the conspiracy to be known because Dorian uses the new wireless chips to access the Internet anywhere and anyway he chooses.
The second subplot is the harassment and then attempts on Cole’s life by Dorian using the cyber-terrorists of the People’s Brigade – an arm of the Digitari Brotherhood. A year before, Dorian tried to kill Cole but missed, and killed his wife instead, making it look like an automobile accident.
The third subplot is that of the Digitari Brotherhood. They hack the web sites of the major news agencies around the world and post a manifesto threatening to take back the Internet from the multinational corporations and governments who control it and oppress it’s cyber-citizens. Their goal is the digital emancipation of cyberspace.
The fourth is the online stalking of Cole’s 4-year old computer savvy daughter by her imaginary playmate called Goppy –who is really Dorian. In its obsession to take revenge on Cole, Dorian uses any person he can to get close to Cole. He uses Cole’s daughter to transfer himself into her birthday gift – a Sony AIBO robot dog. Then using the threat of a dirty bomb explosion, it drives Cole and his daughter with Dorian in the robot dog, into the IWL where Dorian gains access to the Lab’s computer network and all the digital weapons stored there – including SIRUS.
The fifth subplot is the clandestine development and global dispersion of SIRUS.
After all of these events emerge, Cole finally realizes that what has transpired were not the results of cyber-terrorists but only attempts on his life. By the end of the book, Cole discovers the nature of SIRUS, that Dorian is the agent he did not terminate and seeks revenge on Cole, and in the final climatic battle at the IWL between Cole’s team, homicidal battlebots and an ASIMO called Isaac, all controlled by Dorian, he prevents Dorian from launching SIRUS in its last attempt at trying to kill Cole – even if it has to destroy most of the human population of earth to do it.
The book ends with the robot dog surviving the climatic battle, escaping the IWL, and walking into a consumer electronics store sitting itself bedside the other AIBO dogs on display.
