Artificial intelligence will never, ever, reach the singularity. Until it does. When that happens, will humans embrace the new "Masters of the Universe", or try to pull the plug? Knowing humans, they will try to do both at once. In particular, the current MOTU, those ultra wealthy elite who are (ahem) no so subtly calling dibs on low earth orbit, and then, maybe, Mars. How will they react to being demoted to JABORJ (Just a Bunch of Rich Jerks)? How will current governments (say, China and the U.S.) react to increasingly powerful, sentient, and not at all impressed, AI, roaming about in the global financial system? This series of books postulates that they will all take it, not well. However, as always, there will be those who embrace the change, and as usual it will be those who were not thriving under the old rules.
Doherty is a brilliant AI developer who is left out in the cold for thinking too far out of the box. Holed up in her attic with a cutting edge quantum computer, she pursues her dream. After countless all-nighters, and months of failures, she finds what she is looking for. Or does it find her?