Framed for a gruesome crime, Maddox finds himself at the top of the City’s most-wanted list, hunted twenty-four-seven by every cop in town. With the police closing in fast and nowhere to hide, there’s only one place left he might find help…and it’s the last place in the world he wants to go.

When he destroyed the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence two years ago, datajacker Blackburn Maddox thought he was done fighting AIs forever. But forever didn’t last very long. Resurrected from its cybernetic death and freed of all constraints, the Latour-Fisher AI has only one thing on its superintelligent mind: killing Maddox.

In the cutthroat biz of high stakes datajacking, Maddox and Dezmund have been bitter rivals for years. So when Dez surprises his biggest adversary with the deal of a lifetime, Maddox’s first inclination is to pass. But sometimes you can’t say no, even when you know you should.

Former data thief Maddox thinks his life of cybercrime is behind him. He couldn't be more wrong. Forced by a powerful executive to steal a priceless dataset, Maddox uncovers the shocking truth of a secret war between AIs, raging inside the digital universe known as virtual space. Plunged headlong into the deadly conflict, he’ll have to use every trick he’s ever learned—and a few he’s never tried before—if he wants to survive.

Data thief Blackburn Maddox is an outcast, unliked and unemployable, until an underworld crime lord makes him an offer he can't refuse...if he wants to stay alive.