Daemon

DAEMON
    ‘
Daemon
is the evil legacy of a computer genius who can make your wildest dreams come true, or your most terrifying nightmares haunt you. You must decide. Serve the monster or watch your world fall apart. This debut is superb, with some of the best action set-pieces I’ve ever read. For crime fans and sci-fi lovers both’
    Independent on Sunday
    ‘
Daemon
is relentlessly exciting and cleverly plays on current anxieties about our increasing dependence on the internet’
    Daily Telegraph
    ‘A disturbing exploration of societal control, where an electronic labyrinth of computer programs is hijacked by its own components. Although in essence a work of fiction, software designer Suarez’s industry expertise glows throughout his succinct but meticulously composed chapters, providing a troubling prophecy for our future relationship with machines’
    Buzz
    ‘
The Matrix
of the paperback world … A sharp techno-thriller’
    Zoo
    ‘So is the fanfare justified? Well, yes it is … A visceral and vital read … a fast-paced tale, told with an astute understanding of what clicks with audiences. Hurtling from one event to another as the plot unwinds itself at a breakneck pace, Suarez proves himself to be adept at raising the stakes and he builds tension with ease’
    SciFi Now
    ‘A gripping, tense, terrifying and realistic techno-thriller … Suarez’s major achievement is in explaining to a non-technical audience how software works, while still keeping a brilliant suspense yarn running … first-class’
    Sunday Business Post
    ‘This is a book that’s got the shock of the new, that’s so fresh and well-informed that it’s still covered in metal shavings and PVC dust. Reality is everywhere in Daemon, and it’s exciting and scary’
    Time Magazine
    ‘Greatest. Techno-thriller. Period. Experts have long feared the Internet doomsday scenario.
Daemon
is arguably more terrifying’
    William O’Brien, Director of Cybersecurity, the White House
    ‘
Daemon
is to novels what
The Matrix
was to movies. It will be how other novels that rely on technology will be judged’
    Rick Klau, Google
    ‘Suarez is the best author of tech fiction since Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson. Buy everything he writes’
    John Robb, author of
Brave New War
    ‘
Daemon
is better than early Tom Clancy … The tech is invoked with inside knowledge, the writing is better, and deeper issues are explored with greater imagination’
    Stewart Brand, founder Whole Earth Catalog & co-founder the Long Now Foundation
    ‘
Daemon
is the real deal – a scary look at what can go wrong as we depend increasingly on computer networks’
    Craig Newmark, founder Craigslist

DAEMON
    Daniel Suarez
    Quercus

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Quercus This paperback edition published in 2010 by
    Quercus
21 Bloomsbury Square
London
WC1A 2NS
    Copyright © 2009 by Daniel Suarez
    The moral right of Daniel Suarez to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
    Published by arrangement with Dutton, a member of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
    A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
    ISBN 978 1 84724 961 6
    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
    Printed and bound in Great Britain
    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
    Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

For Michelle
No more bedtime stories …

Part One

Chapter 1:// Execution
    Reuters.com /business
    Matthew A. Sobol, PhD , cofounder and chief technology officer of CyberStorm Entertainment (HSTM – Nasdaq), died today at age 34 after a prolonged battle with brain cancer . A pioneer in the $40 billion computer game industry, Sobol was the architect of CyberStorm’s bestselling online games Over the Rhine and The Gate . CyberStorm CEO Kenneth Kevault described Sobol as ‘a tireless innovator and a rare intellect.’
    What the hell just happened?
That was all Joseph Pavlos kept thinking as