In 2115, Mariela Stafford is a vice president at the world's largest metaverse and pod warehousing company, until she's demoted by her new boss and replaced by his digital clone. Now the clone wants to kill her boss and is blackmailing Mariela to help.
Embedded chips, expanded virtual reality, and the threat of extreme weather have led to a market for businesses that keep a person's body alive in a habitation pod while the person lives entirely in the metaverse. But not everyone embraces technological advances - a group of people have adopted pre-2005 tech and isolated themselves to resist the temptation of advanced technology. Panacea Corp - the world's most powerful corporation - connects both worlds through providing the metaverse, the pod warehouses, and the land to the technology resisters.
To delete the clone, Mariela will need to access an 80-year-old server in the isolated area. She recruits a team to carry out her plan, but none of them know the true nature of what they are doing. The team members include a man who's still resentful about losing his job three years ago after being outed as unchipped, a woman who doesn't fit in with the chipped or the unchipped, a renowned former player in the Zazora Games, and a woman who just left her habitation pod after living in the metaverse for 32 years.
This 'earth' opera-a tale with all the drama, expansiveness, and varied cast of a space opera, but set on earth-will appeal to anyone who's ever felt out-of-control of the technology in their lives.
Panacea Genesis is book one in the Panacea Trilogy.
