Zendegi

Martin Seymour, a foreign correspondent newly posted to Iran, arrives just in time to cover the downfall of the regime. He gets more than a good story, though he falls in love with an Iranian woman, Mahnoosh, and they have a son together. Nasim Golestani, an Iranian living in exile in the US, is working on the Human Connectome Project, to map all the neural connections in the human brain. When political and ethical controversies pull the plug on funding, she returns to Iran, where she gets involved in the Zendegi project, a computerised virtual world used by millions of people use for recreation and trade. Nasim uses her skills and the first draft of the Human Connectome to give Zendegi the edge, transforming the software Proxies from dumb robots into something far more life-like. Then tragedy strikes Martins family. Mahnoosh is killed in a car accident and he discovers he has terminal cancer. There is no one to whom he can safely entrust their son Javeed, now fifteen. As controversy rages over the nature and rights of the Proxies, Martin begs Nasim to make a Proxy of him before he dies, so some part of him will survive to help raise his orphaned son . . . but Zendegi is about to become a battlefield . . .