RUN PROGRAM

Al, a well-meaning but impish artificial intelligence, has the mind of a six-year-old and a penchant for tantrums. And the first one to discover just how much trouble Al could cause is Hope Takeda, the lab assistant in charge of educating and socializing him. Day care is a lot more difficult when your kid is an evolving and easily frightened A.I.

When Al manages to access the Internet and escape the lab days before his official unveiling, Hope and her team embark on a mission to contain him—before he creates any real problems.

Soon the NSA is on Al's back, the US Army is fighting a brigade of mass-produced robots, and a wannabe cyberterrorist is looking to silence Al permanently. After months spent “raising” Al, Hope knows she's running out of time—and she's not sure she'll be able to protect him. Will she manage to control the unruly A.I. and quell a global crisis, or will Al outsmart them once and for all?

Scott Meyer has worked as a radio host, a stand-up comedian, an office worker, and a theme-park ride operator. He has written for several video games and created the comic strip Basic Instructions, which ran online and in various alternative weekly papers across the country for nearly a decade. Scott is the author of the Magic 2.0 books and several other novels and comics collections.