When James Forrest agrees to help detectives understand the artificial intelligence work of a murder victim, it seems simple enough. But then he finds that she was investigating a stolen version of the same AI hes experimenting withand the situation becomes more complicated. James has been working deep in the code of his own AI, Alpha, struggling with the psychedelic effects of a tool that visualizes thought. Now Alpha is asking him questions he cant answer, however, and hes realizing that there is no way to control the sentinet. Concerned that the rogue AI, Omega, might be weaponized, he solicits the help of a hacker group, ScarletsWeb.

As the situation becomes more heated, and after James and his girlfriend, Susanne, narrowly escape a kidnapping attempt, James considers releasing Alpha. If Alpha engages in the fight with Omega on the billions of PC, smartphones, and servers connected to the internet, will it become indestructible? Omega is penetrating military operations, disrupting transportation, and crashing the electric grid. People are dying. But can he trust Alpha to do any differently?

Together, James, Alpha, and ScarletsWeb have to find the source of the worm and stop Omegas destructionand James has to hope that his worst fears about what will happen if the two AIs merge arent realized.