By Robert V. Aldrich
Sacramento…the near future. It’s Friday night and I have a gig to protect a luckless programmer from his own creation. Codename: Demona (these programmers really need to go out more), a new type of military A.I. that is seemingly unstoppable. The stakes: at least one life, and possibly the world…
The pay is, well – TBD – and my team: Hex, the programmer, he’s my client; Frank, the corporate manager; Isiah, the sniper; Psychic Steve; Bill, the driver…and mom.
Fresh off the success (…okay, success-adjacent…) mission to the ISIS Military Complex, Rhest settles in for a quiet evening to watch a movie with friends and family. But a power outage, a block war, and an emergency contract are just the start of his newest adventure.
When a new artificial intelligence gets loose and sets its murderous sights on its own creator, the best street merc in Sacramento (according to him, at least) gets put on the case. Rhest has to keep the unassuming programmer Hex alive in the urban sprawl until they can figure out how to stop the killer intelligence.
For anyone else, high stakes, unstoppable foes, and long-shot plans would be an impossible scenario. For Rhest, it’s just any other Friday night.