The Magu Program

<p><em><strong>It's long been fashionable to declare cyberpunk a defunct genre but when an author of Hartle's talents pumps this much juice into the tropes they come alive as they did in the heady 1980s when William Gibson's Neuromancer debuted. The action is slick the techno-veneer is seductive even in its horrific aspects and a retro noirish flavor leavens the future-shock. --Kirkus Review</strong></em><br><br>A hundred years into the future megacities dominate the landscape. Buildings soar a mile into the sky leaving dark canyons below. While the wealthy and powerful live amongst the clouds those below choke on pollution blinded by the neon glow of Base City.<br><br>Ashiro Taki has amnesia and can't remember anything before a few months ago. Memories come to him disconnected and unexplained. A view of a building the face of a child and the noodle stand where the proprietor Eido seems to know him.<br><br>What Ashiro does know is that he's enhanced <em>very</em> enhanced. Brain augmentation data ports and sensory upgrades give him extraordinary advantages when jacked in. On the street muscle bone and tissue implants make him an elite soldier. But what is it all for?<br><br>One day while wandering through the smog-filled half-light of Base City Ashiro comes upon a boy and his mother. He recognizes the child his smile his voice everything. Has he met him before? Is the boy his? What about the woman? She's familiar too.<br><br>When Ashiro is injured in a deadly fight following a botched hack he awakens to find the woman Chiya caring for him. She doesn't know who he is but has discovered a terrible secret something she's too afraid to tell him. <br><br>Ashiro is dying melting from the inside out as his extraordinary enhancements degrade.<br><br>The Hakko Ichiu Corporation is one of the largest in the world and its resources are vast. In control of it all is Yugi Orgata. He has lost something very precious and he wants it back.<br><br>For Chiya the child Wren is pure and innocent. He is her chance to be a mother again after losing her own son. For Yugi the boy is something else--and he will do whatever it takes to get him back.<br><br>Ashiro Chiya and Wren find themselves united in a desperate struggle to survive. Together they will fight to answer the greatest question of all-- What is The Magu Program?</p>