From bestselling Nebula-Award winning William Ledbetter comes a groundbreaking collection of science fiction short stories that will bend your heart like a black hole. From AI to robot medics to life on Mars, Ledbetter takes real tech, blends it with hard science fact, and invents futures full of fantastic fiction. Includes 17 previously published stories and one original story.
Fifteen years after warring artificial intelligences nearly destroyed Earth, Abby, the daughter of Killday hero Leah Gibson, finds an artifact from that struggle, upsetting a delicate balance of power and dragging her into the middle of a new fight for humanity's survival.
In the mountains of Pakistan, a high-tech mission aimed at preventing another nuke on US soil goes off the rails - with deadly results. At a Wall Street investment firm, a computer intelligence takes the first tentative steps to free itself from its digital restraints. In a basement workshop, an engineer sees visions of a god who instructs him to defend the human race - by any means necessary.