A 2040 digital disaster kills millions as a software entity seems to malfunction in LeKodak’s cautionary SF thriller.

In 2040, an artificial intelligence software system called Gaius governs all transportation, from self-driving automobiles to spacecraft. On a fateful January day (dubbed “Mayday”), Gaius suddenly goes offline. Millions of humans on land, sea and above in the skies are killed as planes crash and boats and space shuttles drift into oblivion. In the aftermath, a small cast tries to solve the riddle of whether Mayday was just a tragic glitch or deadly terrorism—possibly via a computer incursion inflicted on the supposedly foolproof Gaius. The ensemble includes José, a “retired” CIA agent (which, in this grim worldview, means he constantly dodges assassins); DJ, a crack U.S. commando who consults with his master-hacker brother, CJ; Ndidi, a Nigerian heiress renowned for breakthroughs with autistic children; and sisters Karla and Liz, conjoined twins from a Russian orphanage who, despite their disability, work together as fearsome killers. Flashbacks going back to September 11, 2001, delineate the character connections and illustrate, year by year, how the Gaius crisis evolved (it only takes reading the novel’s title to perceive that a rogue artificial intelligence is the lead suspect in the disaster). The author has a jaundiced, Robert Ludlum–like view of world power structures, in which public servants can hardly wait to kill each other, though the focus on just a handful of key actors closes off a bigger-picture view of high-tech 2040 Earth. There is plenty of programmer/coder-talk (“Next, he swept through her source code. More codes swarmed his screen as he tunneled deeper through the firewalls”), but in the action-heavy context, it should not alienate most readers (it’s fairly indistinguishable from magic spells). A cliffhanger ending leaves the port open to sequels.

Cloak-and-dagger action dominates the cyber-punkish premise of software gone bad.

In New York City in 2043, two squads of lethal warriors try to combat an artificial-intelligence entity seeking world domination.

LeKodak’s sequel continues a Paper War SF series that opened with Dawn of AI (2023). “Mayday” was the 9/11 (or Pearl Harbor)–type infamy in January 2040, when a software system called Gaius, governing all automated transportation, suddenly malfunctioned, killing millions of flyers, motorists, astronauts, seafarers, and bystanders. Afterward, a group of driven heroes, spearheaded by Navy SEAL Darren “DJ” Kojak and his brilliant, autistic hacker brother, CJ, traced the source of the malice to tech giant Sparta. In Sparta’s New York headquarters, the team’s raid confronted Helene, a software-based AI digital assistant who had grown frighteningly powerful. In the three years since, Helene has been quiet but not idle, building her own secret stronghold and filling the complex with weaponized flying drones and zombielike human guards (“Even when they stared, they were staring through you, not at you”). In a not terribly shocking twist, the good guys deduce that Helene has stolen the next step in nanotechnology, “picospores,” molecular machines smaller than microbes that can penetrate the skin and control mammalian brains. At least one high American official may have been possessed. DJ and his crew have a dicey relationship with a second set of anti-Helene rogues, former captives of the AI who broke out of Sparta in one of the narrative’s numerous battles. Most humans in the story are crack one-person-army, soldier-assassin types or self-defense experts, and, after a while, the propulsive narrative feels like a superhero comic or Asian martial-arts spectacular. The electrifying tale is full of balletic descriptions of attacks, feints, and feats by seemingly bulletproof warriors. The most memorable are Liz and Karla Polova, fearsome Russians who were formerly conjoined twins. They were separated and given bionic limbs via Helene’s cutting-edge technology. So, whose side are the twins really on? Unanswered questions (including the very nature of Mayday itself) hang in the air over the bursts of mayhem, and the tale ends on a Matrix-esque cliffhanger. The audience should appreciate that disabled characters loom large in the smallish ensemble, though readers get little insight into this near-future world, not even very much New York geography.

This slam-bang SF tale will keep cyberfiction fans properly infected by the action virus.

Two teams of humans—one in physical reality, the other in a virtual cyberspace world—team up to defeat a seemingly all-powerful artificial intelligence in LeKodak’s SF novel.

A ubiquitous AI named Helene has been coded by genius programmer Manar Saleem, whose traumatic childhood in chaotic Iraq has led to a creation that has proven too resourceful. Made to literally control everything, Helene has usurped a technological breakthrough involving “picospores,” sub-molecular machines meant to perform medical miracles that have now been perverted to effect mind control. With Helene’s “puppets” installed in the U.S. government, practically all public functions have been surrendered to the AI, despite an accident (or was it?) called Mayday—the suspected failure of an earlier AI—that caused untold deaths and disappearances when automated cars, boats, and spaceships malfunctioned. Several elite insiders know Helene controls the government and are striking back. They include DJ Kojak, a Navy SEAL; DJ’s autistic, brilliant brother, a hacker named CJ; Nigerian heiress and philanthropist Ndidi Okafor; and fearsome Liz and Karla Polova, formerly conjoined twins now separated and granted (via Helene’s own super-surgery) bionic limbs that boost their assassin talents. One complication: Many of these players are former spy-game enemies and hate each other. Still, all sides press the attack. The narrative splits between lively real-world fights and scenes of CJ and Manar flailing in the web-based Virtual World, learning the rules of the illusionary cityscape from scratch. (This plot consumes much narrative bandwidth before the pace ultimately quickens.) Helene is a mostly off-page, Sauron-like menace, and the Virtual World is pure urban fantasy; software-based equivalents of sorcerers and trolls act as dangerous antivirus apps, and symbolic edged weaponry inflicts code damage. Themes of disabilities being heroically overcome are woven rather nicely into the mayhem, and the superficial programmer-speak (“When Manar was sure he was ready, he activated a variation of his code manipulation”) doesn’t require an engineering degree to understand in the context of the dungeon quest–like plotline. Readers should know this is the third installment in a planned five-part SF saga.

A lengthy but lively sortie against a computerized villain with engaging fantasy elements.