When Martha is forced to abandon her young son, Karl, they both wind up as critical pieces in a bizarre game played out between the Artificial Intelligences - Juniper, :3:, and D'artagnan, as well as 2 very powerful humans - the General and the Benefactor. For Karl to save Martha, he must cross into Wildcard's domain - a new universe created in cyberspace. But it is dangerous. And the most dangerous part of all may come from Wildcard himself - the original, ancient AI, who may be insane, or may not even exist.
Excerpt:
At sixteen, Martha kidnapped her surrogate son Karl from their private prison and the only home they had ever known. IKG Psinetics, the most sophisticated genetics laboratory on Earth, created, raised and trained her to be the best at something. But they never told her what that something was. The anonymous staff taught her nine tongues fluently and a survivable grasp of twenty more. She was a biopid, pronounced like myopic, they told her, a genetically modified human. She learned a barrage of espionage techniques, philosophy, math, science, wide-ranging social skills including seduction, and most especially, psychology, both Eastern and Western.
The staff never told her their names, so she came up with names for them, which they accepted with indifference. Doctor Bob, Doctor Harry, Doctor Marcia. If one got too close to her emotionally, as happened a couple of times, they disappeared. She never left.
The high-walled, guarded compound had a 200 acre grounds in a lovely English garden style, a planned natural look with ancient oak, spruce, elm, lindens, ash, maple and a variety of other well-cared for trees, their canopies spread wide over the unnatural green of the grass. Multiple outbuildings dotted the grounds, some for utility functions, some for other reasons, unexplained to Martha. In the center squatted the two story sprawl of the IKG Psinetics laboratory and corporate office, a brown brick vulgarity contrasting the opulent nature. Miles of shiny, bone-white, cement walled corridor with unnumbered, locked doors rambled in square patterns throughout.
