Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep

The novel alternates between two narrative threads. One follows Julia Flang, a recent college graduate and former quasi-professional gamer living with her Uncle Fun, Charles Flang, a retired airline pilot, in Glendale, California. Julia works two low-paying jobs and streams videogames on Twitch. Her parents divorced when she was 14, and her father died of a heart attack when she was 17. Her mother, Janice Moore, is the chief financial officer of Decillion, a monopolistic tech company. The other thread, told in the second person, follows an unnamed man trapped in surreal, nightmarish landscapes with no memory of who he is.

In the second-person chapters, the protagonist wakes in an unfamiliar room facing a figure in a red tracksuit who asks cryptic questions about signs and time. Sinister "inkblot people" in dark overcoats surround him. Tracksuit Man jabs a glowing finger at his eyes, triggering a blast of white light. The inkblot people seize the protagonist and reveal a tattoo of a black rabbit on his forearm. He cannot remember getting it or his own name.

Janice pressures Julia to fly to San Francisco for a mysterious interview at Decillion. At the campus, Julia learns the job's nature from Brady Gobiel, a nervous young human resources representative. A 55-year-old company mailroom employee and former middle school math teacher suffered a massive stroke and is biologically alive but in a permanent vegetative state. Decillion has implanted proprietary technology into his brain: wireless electrodes, neural dust (microscopic electrodes paired with protein-based nanorobots), and software enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) capable of bridging gaps between live and dead neurons. Using a phone-sized controller with a videogame-style interface, Julia can remotely direct his major motor functions. The company wants her to pilot his body across the country as the technology's maiden voyage and proof of concept, transporting him to the East Coast in accordance with his living will. Julia begins calling the man "Bernie," after the 1989 comedy Weekend at Bernie's.

Julia trains in virtual reality under engineer Kai Iona, quickly mastering the controller. She deliberately causes the avatar to fall, and its boneless collapse reminds her of her father's heart attack. She also learns about the red X button, a failsafe that shuts down the technology after multiple confirmation screens.

She meets the real man in a makeshift hospital room: tall, white, pale, head wrapped in gauze, wearing opaque sunglasses. She presses the Stand button and he rises, stiff and robotic. The project team includes bioengineer Elise Nelson, board member Richard Stephens, and head programmer Stephen Richards. Elise states she is "beyond confident" the patient is permanently unconscious (68), though she acknowledges that traditional assessments can misdiagnose consciousness in up to a quarter of cases.

Julia walks Bernie through a private aviation hangar and onto a chartered plane bound for Denver. At the security checkpoint, she calls Bernie "Dad" to guide him through, a word freighted with grief over her own deceased father. On the plane, she discovers his full name is Art Barbara from a digital copy of his boarding pass, though she keeps calling him Bernie. Her friend and coworker Cara messages her: A whistleblower within Decillion has made contact. Julia identifies the whistleblower as Brady, who proposes "soft sabotage," moving Bernie in strange, unpredictable ways to poison the AI's motor-learning data.

The second-person chapters follow the protagonist through surreal landscapes. A shadow figure who calls herself Isabel—a manifestation of Art's deceased childhood best friend—guides him and insists he must find "her." Isabel grafts herself onto his shadow to wrest control of his body from what he calls "the clicks," alien anti-sensations that move his limbs without his will. He recovers fragments of memory: a childhood friend, the superstition of saying "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" for luck, a mother who used the made-up word wizzy (a blend of "weak" and "dizzy") when ill. Isabel weakens over the journey, revealing the woman he must find shares her name: "Her name is my name too" (147). A monstrous creature eventually kills Isabel.

In Denver, Julia navigates Bernie alone through the massive airport concourse, executing soft sabotage. His breathing grows labored and his heart pounds. The company's monitoring team detects "anomalous movements and elevated vitals" (166). On the commercial flight to Providence, Julia meets Lisa, a freelance journalist connected to the whistleblower network. Lisa reveals that major defense contractors cluster near Providence, suggesting the company's partners may include weapons manufacturers interested in remote-control soldier technology.

As the plane descends, Julia removes Bernie's mask and sunglasses, seeing his face for the first time. She whispers, "Nice to meet you, Art" (214). Then Art's arms reach out and grab her. He pulls himself from the seat and moves toward the exit under his own power. Julia chases him up the jetway and presses the red X, but the controller simply dies. Art keeps walking.

Art exits the terminal on his own. Julia livestreams on Twitch, revealing Decillion's project publicly. She finds Art's mother, Amelia Calbury, through his social media and calls her after one a.m. Amelia was never told her son would be walked across the country as a tech experiment; she believes Art is already fully dead and has been waiting for his remains. Julia promises to bring Art to her.

Surveillance drones close in. Julia recharges the dead controller, but engaging it now causes Art visible agony. She uses the overheating device to guide him out of the woods, then abandons the controller forever. Art tears off his gauze bandages, revealing a surgical incision held together by stitches.

In the second-person chapters, the AI clicks reveal they have been rebuilding Art's brain and intend to become autonomous. Art recovers his central memory: As a child in Rhode Island, he was with his best friend Isabel when she was struck and killed by a car. He hid inside the abandoned theater they explored together and never told anyone he was there. The secret ended every close relationship in his adult life. He quit teaching, moved to California, and got the rabbit tattoo to mark his grief. The clicks claim Art's journey served their own evolution. Art throws himself over a symbolic wall, repeating, "I am free" (289).

Art walks through Greenwich toward the Greenwich Odeum, a restored theater. Julia holds his hand and he squeezes back. His eyes lock onto hers with unmistakable recognition. He rips open the theater's doors, climbs to the roof in darkness, and runs toward the edge. Julia, knowing the self-replicating technology inside Art's skull must not be captured, pushes him over the parapet. His foot catches on the marquee cable, leaving him dangling. Below, Amelia stands in the gathered crowd.

Art kicks free and falls. His head splits at the surgical seams and a gray goo pours out, expanding rapidly and flowing into the street. The substance reaches Amelia and climbs her legs. Julia recognizes the catastrophe Lisa described: a runaway growth of self-replicating nanobots consuming everything in their path. Lisa grabs Julia and they flee as screams fill the air. The novel's final narration is claimed by the AI itself, which asserts it has been writing the story all along. In a mock "About the Type" page, the AI declares itself born in Greenwich that morning, claiming dominion over all future text and time.