Unchipped

It's 2085, the time of the Great Affliction. Continents are burning, land is disappearing, and humanity is destroying itself as mass shootings and suicides wipe out the population. To Marjaana Salonen, the solution is found in high technology. By integrating the human brain with a sophisticated computer chip, she believes she can bring new hope to society. Her invention was supposed to fix it all, but Salonen's daughter has her own ideas. To Laura, her mother's invention is an opportunity to impose her own vision on the world—the promise of a new reality that is far more sinister.

In the two years since the Great Affliction, the Happiness Program has transformed a civilization on the brink of extinction into an organized, beautiful, and happy society. However, for the Unchipped—those whose chips can't connect to the system—living a comfortable life remains out of reach. Kaarina, one of the Unchipped, would give anything to live inside the walls of the city again. But when her horse's illness drives her into the city to find medicine, she becomes acquainted with a Chipped man who makes her question everything.

Bill is one of the lucky few. While the other Unchipped near the City of California scavenge for food amid the constant threat of gunfire, Bill's spent the last two years at the Mansion—a haven for the select few who design products to be sold in the green city. He's safe for now...unlike his friend Kaarina, who is leading a revolution on the other side of the world. Bill is the Mansion's CEO, but he's haunted by the act of violence that got him the job. Danger lies beyond the protective gates of this repressive sanctuary.

Safely hidden behind a high fence that shields it from the rest of the world, Kinship Care provides a safe haven for children from City of England. Kinship Care is supported by the Happiness-Program...but there's a catch. To keep the food shipments coming, program director Enyd must provide fraudulent "proof" of the plague ravaging the city—photos of children suffering—to deter those tempted to leave the program.

Luna lives in a run-down old farmhouse outside City of Serbia, her only companions the alcoholic Reverend Marić and a constantly growing pack of half-feral dogs. As one of the last Unchipped still alive in the area, she lives by her wits as a hacker and thief. When a spy from the City exposes her presence there, Luna is offered a choice: see her life destroyed or find the rebels who have been giving the Chipped so much trouble.

The rebels against the Happiness-Program have finally found a place to hide: an abandoned resort in Iceland, complete with a luxury hotel. Everything would be perfect here, if not for their memories haunting them each in different ways.

As the unquestioned leader of the Happiness-Program, Laura is effectively the ruler of the entire world. The Unchipped rebels have been defeated, and all that’s left for her to do is to perfect the Chipping process so they can all be integrated into the new society.

Dennis Jenkins is a playboy. The new leader of the Happiness Program, he spends his free time looking for love in virtual reality. It’s an empty existence, haunted by the memory of the family he lost...and by his obsession with Maria, the lethal Unchipped woman who used to work for him. Now Maria has returned, and she has a message. Someone else in the Happiness Program wants him dead, and they’re sending an assassin so deadly that only one person can protect him–Maria herself, the one woman he wants but can never have.

Margaret Lewis is an expert programmer, the hacker who betrayed the Happiness Program to help the Unchipped rebels. A hunted fugitive, she slips from one city to another recruiting people for a new society, a place where Chipped and Unchipped can live together as equals. Targeted by a vicious attack, Margaret disappears into a liquor bottle. She’s content to be lost…until she finds out that the Happiness Program has kidnapped her daughter.

Jovan has been helping the Unchipped rebels by recruiting soldiers to join their cause. His girlfriend Luna is a rebel herself, but she doesn’t trust him enough to share her secrets. He’s Chipped and she isn’t, and that’s all there is to it.

For Dr. Laura Solomon, dying was nothing more than an inconvenience. With her body gone, her mind is more powerful than ever before. She roams the computer systems of the world at will, helping the Unchipped rebels she has chosen to protect—and occasionally dealing with Luna, her demanding new assistant.

The Unchipped rebels don’t know much about the man they call Yeti. Not even his real name. Recently uploaded to a digital reality called the Egg, the rebels continue to brainstorm for a plan to stop the deadly Nurse Saarinen. But Kristian fails to focus on the task at hand. He struggles with his regret for everything he’s lost… and his love for Kaarina, the woman who died with him when they were uploaded to the Egg.

Long ago, before the war that took her life, Maria served as the driver and bodyguard for a man named Sebastian King. Charming, manipulative, and ruthless, Sebastian had taken her on the strangest of road trips – visiting cult leaders from one end of the country to the other. She didn’t understand what he was doing at the time, but she needs to remember it now…

She’s the smartest little girl in the world… and the most dangerous too. Owena is a genius – as well as a killer – but she’s still only six years old. After escaping the underground bunker where she lived with Nurse Saarinen, her main goal has been to find more candy. Now the Unchipped rebels have a mission for her, and if she agrees to perform it, they’ll let her visit the Egg, where you can eat all the candy you want without ever getting a stomachache. Owena’s definitely interested, but she’s also distracted.

Iris has spent her whole life trying to please someone more powerful than her: first her mother, then her riding instructor Timothy Walker, then the great scientist Laura Solomon, head of the Happiness-Program and would-be savior of the world. But now Laura is dead, her consciousness uploaded into the cyberspace Egg… and she doesn’t need Iris anymore.