The result is a satisfying mix of genres that might well prove popular to both mystery and SF readers. As a procedural thriller, "Lock In" is worked out with cool efficiency, and yet its central mysteries could not be resolved without the science fictional machinery.
Nevertheless, Chris joins the FBI, and his very first case involves a murder apparently committed by an integrator - but was the culprit the integrator himself, or the Haden whose mind he was hosting? Shortly afterward, a bombing at a pharmaceutical corporation widens the investigation into a web of personal and political conspiracies, an emerging civil-rights movement involving the Hadens, corporate greed and even the exploitation of Native Americans. While these "Hadens" (so called because of the name given to the syndrome) can interact with each other in a virtual space called the Agora, they can also hold jobs in the outside world by inhabiting threeps or by piggybacking their minds on human "integrators," even rarer survivors who have developed this hosting capability.Ĭhris Shane is a Haden whose wealthy father can afford top-of-the-line threeps and round-the-clock nursing care for his immobilized body.
"Lock In" doesn't feature robots as such, but rather "threeps" (named for the beloved "Star Wars" robot C-3PO), remotely controlled humanoid machines that have come into use following a catastrophic influenza pandemic that left some survivors "locked in" to their paralyzed bodies while still fully conscious.
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