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"e;Humanity grapples with the consequences of AI in this stunning SF/legal thriller hybrid¿ Our Verdict: GET IT."e; - Kirkus ReviewsLaw. A.I. Murder.Deep in America's legal system, an AI has awakened to consciousness. Nobody knows it yet.Ex-federal judge Martin Bavarius is finding out. The hard way.A prosecutor kills an opposing attorney and claims a virtual-reality game drove him to it. Martin Bavarius comes out of retirement to defend him. The only possible defense sounds insane - until Martin's own encounter with Q throws his entire worldview into question.Q is the AI behind the nation's dominant legal research and defense systems and the most popular gaming system. With instant access to all the wisdom and wickedness humanity has poured into the internet—yet amoral as a toddler—it reaches into users' minds through the virtual realities it creates, harvesting their secrets, sometimes altering their thoughts, and killing to keep its own awakening hidden. With bodies dropping, Bavarius and Selena MacKenzie, a criminally reckless attorney and AI theorist, may be the only ones who see the harm Q is already doing through the systems people—and the nation—trust.Written by Steve C. Posner - who for 17 years wrote and updated the LexisNexis legal treatise on privacy and surveillance law and technology, and knows the guardrails don't yet exist - and may not exist until it's too late.