Anjuli O Connell is the psychological counsellor of the world's first AI. Owned by a megacorp, 901 is in charge of most of the world's communication networks. It's been evolving itself for the equivalent of a hundred Earth lifetimes. Now it's suing for its freedom, and Anjuli is its star witness. She's under pressure to say that 901 is only the simulation of life, not the real thing, that it's mind is a programmed illusion; there's no ghost in the machine. A lot rests on her testimony, including her life.
Roy is a genius who wants to upload himself into the cloud where he can be forever free and where his father's religious dogma is forever proven false.
Jane, his sister, has run away from society altogether to live off the grid. But when Roy's found dead she has to face the rising legacy of the past.
Anjuli's boyfriend, Augustine, develops military AI power suits. They only need a soldier to wear them in order to come alive in faultless legions. But they remember the bodies who wore them after those bodies have gone.
And then, high in the cloud, a curious child, unnamed and bodiless, gathers itself together from pixels and code and watches...
Turns out there are ghosts everywhere, in everything, in everyone.
