The United States government’s plan to eradicate crime.
A billionaire doctor’s sinister plot to expand mind control throughout North America under the auspices of the American president.
An ethical neurosurgeon whose purpose in life is to prevent Cyberbrain’s expansion outside the United States.
Max Wilson, a medical school student from Buffalo, is looking forward to saving lives. His peers, however, are pressuring him to consider a lucrative offer from the Cyberbrain Corporation: train as a government-sponsored doctor inserting neural implants, or “cybers,” in the brains of newborns. Cyberbrain—a program designed by billionaire doctor Patrick Kobayashi to eliminate crime by stifling criminal thought right where it starts—in the brain.
Max and his friends were part of first wave of Cyberbrain implants. He’s told time and again that it’s something he should be proud of, but he feels trapped inside his own head. An accident on Canadian soil puts him under the scalpel of Dr. Warren Alston. Alston is a respected neurosurgeon who refused to be a lackey to Kobayashi’s pet project at the beginning of his career. He fled to Canada, where free will was still the law of the land. Alston is recruited years later by Kobayashi to expand Cyberbrain’s operations to Canada, but he sends the billionaire packing.
Alston extracts the cyber from Max’s brain and sends it to a secret lab for study. Alston is convinced Cyberbrain’s implants pose a far greater threat to society at large than merely suppressing criminal thought.
Max has become the only living person to have his cyber removed. He discovers the true meaning of free will, and he understands why he felt trapped inside his head. Max refuses to submit to a direct order for a new implant; he is a wanted man. But Max is convinced that anyone who has undergone a neural implant must have their cyber removed, beginning with his girlfriend, Vanessa. With Dr. Alston’s help, Max is prepared to risk arrest to bring Vanessa across the border.
Will Dr. Alston’s war on Cyberbrain prove that Kobayashi has something far more menacing in mind?
Will Max be able to convince Vanessa that free will is far more desirable than suppressed thought?