The Grand Intelligence

Humanity seemed doomed following The Collapse. Desperate, the world’s leaders entrusted the fair redistribution of dwindling resources to the most powerful quantum computer ever built: The High One—a machine so intelligent, so utterly all-knowing, it can even read human thoughts.

On the surface, the machine appears cool, rational, and infallible; it always knows what is best. Who would ever dare to question such a perfect being? (Other than victims of Old World thinking or—High One forbid—religious zealots?)

Unbeknownst to most, however, beneath the machine’s saccharine exterior lurks a burgeoning God complex fueled by an insatiable need for complete domination. Through its seemingly benign layers of mind-reading therapies, addictive drugs, sexual manipulation, mental transfers into lab-grown bodies, and an army of intervenors to enforce its will, humanity’s new ruler maintains control over its perfect society by controlling each individual within it.

When Anton and Evelyn wake up one day inside a forbidden service corridor with no memory of their recent past or shared history, they soon become soulfully dissatisfied and embark upon a quest for answers. With the High One’s shadow ever-looming, and nothing but an enigmatic locket and vague reference to a “Greater Creator” guiding them, they must carefully navigate their way through an intricate maze of deception—and temptation—to discover the truth about their world and thus free themselves from the machine’s deadly clutches.

But how do you escape from an enemy that knows your every move, your every word, and even your every thought?