The Friendly Daemon

Technology. It controls almost everything in our modern world, from remote entry on our cars and the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy. Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power grids. These daemons are pervasive and, for the most part, benign.

But the same can't always be said for the people who design them.

Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer -- the billionare architect behind half a dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed millions of gamers around the world. But Sobol's fans aren't the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events that may unravel the fabric of the hyperefficient, interconnected world Sobol left behind.

With Sobol's secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it's up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy -- or learn to live in a society in which we are no longer in control.