FAKE

Disaster looms following an amateur hacker’s moment of carelessness.

Addressing several real, ominous trends, Fountain posits a dismal near future a few decades after an antibiotic-resistant version of scarlet fever has driven society into isolated family groups and allowed cybergatekeeper Global Connections to gain control of the world’s economy. Old enough at last to leave virtual learning behind, 14-year-old Jessica joins an incoming class of girls, some of whom had never met another child except online, at a physical boarding school. As if a heavy course load and challenges like learning to play team sports on real rather than virtual fields aren’t stressful enough, Jess is concerned for how her already strapped family is going to pay for the increasingly expensive medication needed to keep her little sister alive. This leads her to furtive experiments with illegal hacking techniques learned from an old book to explore Global Connections’ company files. Suddenly unable to get in touch with her family, she learns to her horror not only that the medication’s escalating cost had been directly linked to a decline in her family’s online purchases, but that thanks to her lack of expertise, now they’ve all been ruthlessly “deleted” by the corporation as security risks. Though the author engineers a resolution that will strike even uncritical readers as contrived and overly tidy, her premise and picture of cyberdependent daily life cut close enough to the bone to spur reflection and discussion. The cast reads White.

Chillingly plausible.