Project Maldon

It’s bad enough when you suspect your boss is sabotaging your work. It’s far worse when your boss is “Helen,” a temperamental Artificial Intelligence of awesome power and you must rely on her advice to manage Project Maldon, a complex piece of social engineering designed to prevent Armageddon.

In theory, Helen, hurtling over the world like an omniscient god, will absorb data from around the globe, spotting trends too subtle for human minds to perceive, then arrive at cures for the rot infecting the roots of civilisation. But during the hot summer of 2027 the project’s director Edward Wolfe begins to suspect that something is wrong with this optimistic scenario.

As Helen’s increasingly odd directives trigger social unrest, murder and finally outright civil war, Wolfe becomes desperate to learn whose side the Al is really on, and what her true goals are.

Only by peeling away layer after layer of deception does Wolfe learn the truth-which is far stranger and more sinister than he had ever imagined.