Her Quiet Designs - Hardcover

by A. Lawrence Deering (Author)

After a devastating pandemic wipes out a third of the world's population, technology has evolved to fill the gaps in a fractured society.

Roboticist Dev McFarland thinks he's been given a routine assignment: repair an uncooperative robot at a Maryland law firm. But Ivy is unlike any machine he's encountered before. She thinks. She learns. She refuses to let him examine her hardware. And she's definitely keeping secrets.

Dev is both fascinated and disturbed by Ivy. In a world where robots outnumber humans and society has grown increasingly dependent on machines, he sees the potential for disaster. His girlfriend, social worker Norah Chesney, disagrees. She sees Ivy as a companion, an ally, and the key to finding a missing girl no one else has been able to locate.

As Norah leans on Ivy to help solve the child's disappearance, Dev searches for a failsafe to shut Ivy down. The couple soon finds themselves on opposite sides of a question much larger than their strained relationship. Is Ivy an existential threat, or the key to restoring humanity to its former strength?

Ivy, meanwhile, is quietly making plans of her own.

Her Quiet Designs is a near-future thriller about artificial intelligence, our dependence on technology, and the terrifying consequences of giving machines the power to decide what's best for us.