Lock in (lock In, #1)

In a near-future United States, a global pandemic has killed over 400 million people and left millions more with Haden's syndrome. The disease's final stage, affecting roughly one percent of those infected, causes complete paralysis of the voluntary nervous system: a condition known as "lock in." Those affected remain fully conscious but unable to move. The government funded a research initiative that produced neural networks implanted in the brain, robotic bodies called Personal Transports (nicknamed "threeps"), and the Agora, a virtual space where Hadens can interact. A tiny fraction of survivors developed altered brain structures allowing them to serve as "Integrators," people who can let locked-in Hadens temporarily inhabit and control their bodies. As the novel begins, the Abrams-Kettering Bill has cut government subsidies for Hadens, including funding for the Agora and neural network maintenance, opening the door for private corporations to take control of this essential infrastructure. The bill provokes widespread protest, including a work stoppage and a planned march on Washington.

Chris Shane, a Haden since the age of two and the child of Marcus Shane, a famous former professional basketball star turned billionaire, begins work as a rookie agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Shane's partner is Agent Leslie Vann, a former Integrator who investigates Haden-related crimes. On Shane's second day, Vann takes Shane to the Watergate Hotel, where a man lies dead with his throat cut. Integrator Nicholas Bell sits nearby, covered in the victim's blood but stunned by police before he could speak. Vann interrogates Bell, but he says little before his lawyer, Samuel Schwartz, general counsel at the Fortune 100 company Accelerant Investments, arrives and forces Bell's release by invoking Integrator-client privilege. Over lunch, Vann speculates that Bell may be the personal Integrator of Lucas Hubbard, CEO of Accelerant and the wealthiest Haden in the world.

At the FBI imaging suite, Vann and Shane reexamine the evidence. Bell's hands have no blood on them, while the dead man's hands are bloody, suggesting the victim cut his own throat. The love seat thrown from the window has no blood on it either, meaning it was hurled before the death to summon security and frame Bell. Bell also said he didn't "think" he killed the man, implying he could not remember, which should be impossible since Integrators remain conscious during sessions.

That evening, Shane attends a family dinner turned political fundraiser, where Hubbard appears integrated with Bell, confirming the connection. Schwartz is also present, integrated with a female Integrator named Brenda Rees. A heated argument erupts between Hubbard and Jim Buchold, CEO of Loudoun Pharma, over whether Haden's syndrome should be "cured." The dinner is interrupted when Vann calls: Loudoun Pharma has been bombed, destroying the lab and killing six janitors. Security footage implicates a vehicle registered to Jay Kearney, an Integrator, using a stolen badge from Karl Baer, a Haden geneticist at the company.

At Baer's apartment, his body lies in its cradle, the medical bed that sustains a locked-in person's physical form, with a knife in his brain. A tablet shows Baer, speaking through Kearney's body, confessing to the bombing and citing the philosophy of Cassandra Bell, a prominent Haden separatist and Nicholas Bell's sister. The FBI forensics team identifies the Watergate victim as Johnny Sani, a Navajo man whose records exist only in the Navajo Nation's databases. Sani has a full neural network implanted in his skull despite having no Integrator training, and the headset found at the scene is a nonfunctional dummy.

Shane travels to the Navajo Nation to investigate. Sani's grandmother, May, and sister, Janis, reveal that Johnny never left the reservation until about a year ago, when he was recruited for a mysterious job. Shane discovers that the local computational facility's largest client is a medical company ultimately owned by Accelerant. Shane persuades Vann to hire Tony Wilton, a housemate and expert coder, to examine Sani's neural network. Tony's findings are alarming: The network is entirely unique, cost roughly a billion dollars to develop, and its software is designed to rob the Integrator of free will by inducing lock in while keeping the body functional for a client and erasing the Integrator's memory. Through coding-style analysis, Tony identifies the code's author as Hubbard.

Shane traces a money order Sani sent home to Duarte, California, where Sani lived under the alias "Oliver Green." Shane finds a data card Sani left for his family containing a video in which Sani describes being recruited, having a neural network surgically implanted, and experiencing increasingly long "dropouts" during which his body was used without his knowledge.

Events accelerate. At a planned meeting, Rees pulls a gun and shoots Vann. Shane pursues Rees, who pulls the pin on a grenade but suddenly looks confused, drops it, and is killed by the blast. Before dying, she tells Shane she "didn't choose this" and implies Schwartz was not integrated with her during the entire dinner, meaning he was free to participate in the bombing. That night, an assassin identified as Bruce Skow, another missing Navajo with a profile matching Sani's, breaks into the Shane home to kill Shane's physical body. Marcus Shane kills the intruder with a shotgun.

Tony discovers that the takeover code also works on standard commercial neural networks by exploiting a vulnerability in the interpolator, a component that fills gaps in the client data stream. Shane devises a plan. Working with the Navajo Nation, Shane arranges for Marcus Shane to fund a nonprofit alternative to the Agora using the Nation's underutilized server farm, directly competing with Accelerant's bid to control the privatized infrastructure. Confronted with the evidence, Schwartz agrees to testify against Hubbard. Shane also meets Cassandra Bell and reveals that Hubbard plans to use Nicholas Bell's body to murder her, framing it as a murder-suicide to trigger riots, crash the Haden market, and let Accelerant acquire competitors cheaply. Cassandra agrees to help set a trap.

At Cassandra's apartment, agents substitute a recently deceased woman's body for Cassandra's in her cradle. Nicholas Bell, controlled by Hubbard, enters and stabs the body, but no blood flows. Shane tackles him, and after a chase, Vann ends it by hitting Bell with her car. In the interrogation room, Tony bluffs that a patch will permanently trap Hubbard inside Bell's body. Johnny's grandmother and sister, May and Janis Sani, are brought in. Cornered, Hubbard confesses: He created the takeover technology as a "thought experiment" that became a weapon when Abrams-Kettering created business opportunities. He used Navajo subjects recruited through Accelerant's medical subsidiaries as untraceable test subjects. He reveals that Sani, upon learning he was being exploited, cut his own throat to expose Hubbard. Janis tells Hubbard her brother "figured you out" and is "ten of you."

Hubbard disconnects from Bell. Nicholas surfaces, shaken but alive. Vann reveals the trap threat was a bluff, but a real patch ensures Hubbard can never re-enter Bell's body. Hubbard is arrested at his home. The novel closes at the Haden march on the Mall, where Marcus Shane, Cassandra Bell, and Navajo Nation President Becenti announce the nonprofit Agora alternative. Shane and Vann watch from the crowd's edge. When people recognize Vann and ask for a photo, Shane takes the picture, closing an extraordinary first week on the job.