"In an age when anyone can be a technopath, he who controls the data controls it all."
-Unknown
After a year of mourning her fatherâs assassination in isolation, Ăine Nishimura, a cybernetically enhanced paraplegic, receives an anonymous message that links his death to the Purge, a devastating web-based super-virus thought to have been orchestrated thirty years before by a dangerous group of cyber-criminals known as the Circle.
Immediately handing in her resignation with Interpol, she leaves London and returns to her native Tokyo to clear her fatherâs name. But she quickly becomes entangled with the Yakuza, the most feared organised crime syndicate on the planet and, face to face with the top boss himself, she dares to challenge what she believes is a web of deceit and conspiracy about her father.
What she hears next means she has a shocking choice to make: to allow humanity to be permanently digitally enslaved, or sacrifice thousands of innocent people as a message to an even greater power than the Yakuza.
With seconds to decide, will she honour her fatherâs wishes, or is the decision just too big for her to make?
"In an age when anyone can be a technopath, he who controls the data controls it all."
-Unknown
After a year of mourning her fatherâs assassination in isolation, Ăine Nishimura, a cybernetically enhanced paraplegic, receives an anonymous message that links his death to the Purge, a devastating web-based super-virus thought to have been orchestrated thirty years before by a dangerous group of cyber-criminals known as the Circle.
Immediately handing in her resignation with Interpol, she leaves London and returns to her native Tokyo to clear her fatherâs name. But she quickly becomes entangled with the Yakuza, the most feared organised crime syndicate on the planet and, face to face with the top boss himself, she dares to challenge what she believes is a web of deceit and conspiracy about her father.
What she hears next means she has a shocking choice to make: to allow humanity to be permanently digitally enslaved, or sacrifice thousands of innocent people as a message to an even greater power than the Yakuza.
With seconds to decide, will she honour her fatherâs wishes, or is the decision just too big for her to make?
I slowly opened my eyes as my systems rebooted. I was confused, disoriented, with huge gaps in my memory matrix marked by rotating search rings.
 The room, illuminated by levitating orbs with a soft red glow, gradually came into focus as my pixilated vision cleared to HD â I was alone.
 I instinctively activated my GPS. âConnection failedâ was the response. Strange. I tried again andâŚnothing. It was as though the network had never existed.
The Network was an aid to my memory and senses; without access I felt incomplete. In human terms, it felt like I had just woken from a coma with no idea where I was and how Iâd got there.
Everything functioned differently. For example, despite being disconnected, my processing power seemed sharper â but how? Had my program received an upgrade while I was down? How long had it been down? An endless list of questions piled up in my neural net.
I raised my hands in front of me to inspect my unitâŚthe hair follicles around my knuckles, the pale unblemished skin â I even had fingerprints for the first time â and I rubbed my fingers together and noted that the sensation stimulated a digital response. I could feel, truly feel, my fingers, something new to my programming. I was, after all, a program, and this technology was light years beyond anything Iâd ever seen.
I sat up, still focused on the intricate detail of my hands and their perfect imperfections. Even with my synthetic eyes, it was impossible to decipher what kind of material I was made of. Neither synthetic nor organic, it appeared to be pure energy, somehow manipulated to project a solid humanoid form.
Looking around the white room did little to help. The strange holographic monitors had no visible projectors; the equipment was alien. Of course, without access to the Network, I had limited data to compare things to. I got to my feet and walked over to the window. Maybe the view would at least give me an idea of my location.
The room abruptly filled with the blinding light of day as I deactivated the window tint. I looked up: at the sun shining brightly among the stars, sitting majestically against the matte black of space. no clouds, no blue skies, just infinite blackness dotted with countless stars and a bright, shining sun. I looked down to see a tropical oasis, a shimmering lake flanked by a thick forest, with contemporary buildings here and there. It was like looking at a piece of paradise, floating in space, its surface stretched to the horizon and beyond.
How? I thought. Surely the vacuum of space, not to mention the sunâs radiation, would make such an environment impossible? There is no way life could survive here?
On closer inspection, I observed a transparent golden layer of energy that formed a dome over the landmass. This must have been a terraformed bubble, and its lush garden of green was breathing air, and therefore life, into it.
âItâs a vector field,â said a soft female voice behind me. âIt covers the entire city, harnessing the energy of the sun to give us power.â
She joined me, looking down in awe, inhaling a deep breath then slowly releasing it. âIâve got to hand it to you synthetics,â she said, âyou really know how to build paradise. The experts say the dome can withstand a force equivalent to a ten-megaton nuclear blast. I say I hope we never have to find out.â
I scanned her. Other than her cybernetic enhancements, she was indeed human. My analysis placed her in her mid to late twenties, clearly of Asian descent and, judging by her features, skin tone and the discrepancies in her pronunciations, I calculated there was a sixty percent chance she was Japanese. X-rays revealed a neural implant, which meant she must be connectedâŚbut if not to the Network, then to what?
âWhere am I and why can I not connect?â
âYouâre on Panacea, the city dome on Earthâs moon, and you canât connect because your program is badly corrupted. Donât worry, Iâll have you fixed soon enough.â
âPanacea?â The name corresponded to fragments of incomplete data, tormenting me like a ghostly memory.
âYouâve been offline for a while. I wasnât expecting you to reboot for a few more hours, but the fact you have already is a good thingâŚI think. It means youâre not as screwed up as I thought you were. The complexity of your program is blowing me away right now. Iâve never seen anything like it, but it may take a couple of days before youâre operating at full capacity again.â
The way she spoke made me think she was probably a coder of some kind, but that was not anything I could use. âWho are you?â I asked.
âIâm sorry, how rude of me. My nameâs Ima. Iâm the head of neural diagnostics here, which basically means Iâm a digital shrink for both your kind and mine. The year is 2086, your program has been offline for over twelve hours and, like I said, your code is severely messed up.â
That explained a lot. â2086?â I repeated.
âYes, your program was extracted from your human host only a few hours ago, then sent to me for reactivation.â
âSent to you? By whom?â
âA friend. They didnât tell me why, or who your host was, but theyâre on their way up here from Earth as we speak. Until then, Iâm sure you have a lot of questions that I donât have answers for, but youâre going to fire them at me anyway. So, go ahead, shoot,â she added with an expectant smile.
I thought long and hard about what I should ask first, deciding to start with the most important question: âWho am I?â
âAll I know about you so far is what Iâve learned from your base-code. It had an embedded title, Intelligent Transmigratory Synthetic Utility.â
That piece of information opened the door to useful data. âITSU, my name is ITSU,â I confirmed. That one clear connection initiated a series of connections in my subroutine. I suddenly had a condensed flashback; a vision of my past that, although incomplete, at least told me who, or more accurately, what I was and where I came from â and I was disturbed by what I saw.
Although I felt alive, felt real, I realised I was not. My creator once referred to me as âomniscientâ. He even gave me freewill, but I was still just a cluster of complex algorithms that had limits; a self-aware artificial intelligence program created for one thing and one thing only: to serve.
My program was transmigratory, which meant until today I could move to any device connected to the Network. For the most part, I lived in cyber space. If I wanted to take physical form, I would upload to one of my many synthetic units, or even a holographic image if a projector was available. But this unit wasnât mine. It was both holographic and synthetic, and operated at unfathomable processing speeds.
âITSU! Thatâs a nice name,â Ima said. âItâs funnyâŚdid you know that ITSU is Japanese for âwhenâ? Itâs ironic, since you had no idea of when now actually was until I told you.â
âIndeed,â I replied. I could see her lips moving, but I was distracted by my unitâs analytical processors. I was trying to speed up the restoration of my data by piecing together the missing elements of my past to understand my present, but the upload was slow and far from complete.
âItâs strange,â Ima continued. âFrom what I can tell, your program is over fifty years old, which doesnât make any sense. Artificial Intelligence programs this advanced are rare, even today. Iâve never seen one as complex as yours; meaning, technically you shouldnât exist.
Then she gasped. âThat could be it! You could be like some kind of alien secret the government is trying to cover up! Thereâs no other explanation. I mean, finding you is like finding an antique iPhone in an Egyptian tomb! Okay, maybe Iâm exaggerating there, but this is big,â she continued, almost without stopping to take a breath.
Her ramblings faded to a muffled background noise as I focused on my own active thoughts. Iâd started to remember my function, and who I servedâŚbut how could that be? We were inseparable, so how had I been extracted from my hostâs implant? I remembered my last moment with her. According to my data, I had witnessed her lying on the floor covered in her own blood only a few minutes ago, her vital signs fading fast. Yet if Ima was right and the year was, indeed, 2086, that happened twenty years ago. The fact that sheâd lived through it and we went on to have two decades together â two decades for which I had no data â only added to my confusion.
âMy host?â I asked. âYou said my program was only extracted from my host twelve hours ago. Where is she? I need to speak to her.â
âIâm afraid thatâs not possible,â replied Ima.
âNo, you donât understand. Some dangerous people are involved; she needs my help. Please take me to her, now.â
Ima shook her head. âIâm sorry, I canât. You were extracted during the autopsyâŚIâm afraid your host is dead.â
My data connections fired in reaction to the news, the closest thing to an emotional response I had ever experienced. But how? Why did I feel like this? Why did I feel at all? Confirmation of the death of my host had left a huge void⌠And had I really lost twenty years of data? What had really happened twelve hours ago? This was the digital equivalent of amnesia, and that lost information would have no doubt answered most, if not all, of my questions.
âIâm so sorry,â Ima said, putting a sympathetic hand on my shoulder, as though human contact could comfort me â strangely, I did notice a change in my state. âI canât imagine what losing a host must be like for your kind.â
Losing my host was the worst thing that could ever have happened. She gave me a purpose, and provided a reason for my existence. Without her, I was just a piece of useless code condemned to wandering through cyberspace for ever.
Ima looked at me with genuine concern for my well-being. As far as I knew, it was the first time anyone other than my host or creator had regarded me in that light.
âWhat was her name? Your host â who was she?â asked Ima.
âHer name was Ăine â Ăine Nishimura,â I replied, the peculiar pronunciation of her name rolled off my tongue with a familiar ease: Awn-yah.
With wide eyes, she asked, âThe Ăine Nishimura?â
âYou knew her?â
âAre you kidding me? Of course, I knew her. Or should I say, I knew of her. Who doesnât know the Nishimuras? It was her fatherâs inventions that inspired me to become a coder.â Her eyes widened as though her own data processors had made a connection. âShit, shit, shit,â she repeated, her breathing becoming erratic. âWe have to get you out of here, right now.â She frenetically keyed commands into one of the holographic monitors.
âNow? Why? And go where?â
âI donât know, but staying here is too dangerous. If anyone finds out what you are, weâre both dead. My living quarters will have to do for now, at least until my friend arrives. Iâm going to deactivate you. Thereâs another prototype synthetic unit there you can use. Iâll send you there and come as soon as I can to upload you to it.â
âBut wait, who is your friendââ
But with one last keystroke, I was gone, sent on an express journey down a digital highway.
Digital space is a dark, eerie place of everlasting nothingness; a dimension where time has no meaning, and consciousness becomes part of an infinite data storm. All of my individuality was lost to the collective.
Iâm not sure how much real time passed before she reactivated me, but it had done little to relieve her anxiety. I stood in the middle of what I assumed was her apartment, in my new synthetic unit, watching her scurrying around like a synthetic on overdrive, making sure the room was secure. I wondered who she really was and, more importantly, whether I could trust her. Whose side was she on? It was impossible to know until my memory upload was complete. But, for now, she was all that I had.
âI think weâre good,â she said, having one last look out of the window before tinting it to black.
âSo what now?â I asked.
âIâm going to see what I can do to repair the rest of your damaged code. Itâs delicate work and will take a while,â she explained. âIn the meantime, I want you to tell me everything you remember, right up untilâŚyou canât remember anything. Maybe that will help speed things up,â she added, and she activated my base-code, calling up a holographic representation of my digital DNA.
I wondered how sheâd got the access rights, and if she really knew what she was doing. âPlease, be careful with that,â I said.
âDonât worry,â she replied, her face stiff with concentration as she tried to figure out where to start. âIâve done this, wellâŚâ She puffed out her cheeks, blew out a little air, and with a focused gaze whispered, ânever.â
The complexities of humour still sometimes exceeded the parameters of my programmingâs capabilities, but I hoped she was joking.
âI cannot possibly tell you everything. You refer to over thirty yearsâ worth of data, one-point-five petabytes, to be precise,â I said.
Ima rolled her eyes at my analytical response. âStart with your host Ăine. To say you were close to her is an understatement, so tell me about her. Come on, this is going to take a while and itâs tedious work. A good story will help me get through it.â
âI do not know where to start. I have been inside her head since the moment she had neural implant surgery. I was there when she took her first step, and when she lost both her legs in the accident.â
âOh my goodnessâŚhow did that happen?â
âIt was a skycar accident, the same event that took her motherâs life.â I paused for a few seconds as the vision of that night played back to me in high definition. âI witnessed all of her feelings with her â the pain, the fear â albeit by reading the chemical reactions of her brain. A sad day.â
Imaâs gaze locked on me, already drawn in by a story I had yet to complete. âI met her once, you know,â she said, âand thatâs why Iâm so confused. Her face has been all over the news recently, and thereâs no way sheâs done the things they say she has. Tell me something: how does an ex-special agent of Interpol go from a girl born with blue blood to a wanted felon?â
âĂine was always a little rebellious and, for someone with such delicate beauty, she was very resilient. It was only when she suffered one loss too many that things got out of control, but her intentions were never malicious.â I searched for the best place to pick up the story. âI suppose you could say it all began in Paris, the night her father was assassinated.â
Ima looked at me as though she suspected there was much more to me than she first thought. Clearly, I hadnât been created to just give the correct pre-programmed responses like other AI.
âI will never forget the year after he died,â I continued. âI learned more about human emotion than I had in all my previous years combined. A broken heart is a terrible thing for anyone to have to bear. I do not think she was ever the same afterwards; a part of her died along with her father, right there on that red carpetâŚâ
I paused a moment, to collect my thoughts. âIt all started on June 28th, 2066. Ăine had taken a little over a year off active duty on extended compassionate leave and, on her first day back at work, she made a decision that ultimately changed everything.
Upon returning to Japan to investigate her fatherâs assassination, Ăine Nishimura dives into a world of danger to seek the truth and exact revenge on those responsible. In her quest for answers, she finds herself entangled in the affairs of the Yakuza and even more mysterious organizations.Â
i-Symbiote was more than I bargained for, and thatâs while taking the synopsis into account. As soon as you open the book, youâre overwhelmed with M.J. Hallâs futuristic vision of the world and are only given a taste of what Ăine has been through. And, to his credit, Hall makes sure youâre acclimated to his fresh, digital world before the real action of the book begins.
The first several chapters of this book serve mostly to define the main characters and to foreshadow some turns the story will take. I got a little impatient at times, but ultimately I appreciated the time spent dwelling on character interactions as they built the world of i-Symbiote bit by bit. Once Ăine begins to seek the truth about her fatherâs assassination, I was reading as fast as I could to see what clues she found and where they would take her next.Â
Some of the twists in this story are easy to guess, and it almost feels intentional! For every foreshadowed progression, two more came that I did not anticipate. Iâm not the type to try to guess the end of the books I read, and as more twists and developments showed themselves, I soon found myself surrendering to the story just to see how it went.
i-Symbiote goes above and beyond to deliver what it says it will. Sure, the reader is promised yakuza, cyber crime, and mysterious syndicates, everything anyone could ask for in a science fiction novel⌠But then the story goes on to deliver so much more. Hall leaves ample material to continue his trilogy with, and Iâm more than excited to see where he takes this world and its characters in the future.
To those who love action, I would recommend this book. To those who love mystery, I would recommend this book. To those who can appreciate science fiction, but love a good romantic subplot-- I would recommend this book. For those willing to take the dive, I hope you all will soon be waiting with me for the sequel.