when cybersecurity wiz nik breathes life into nicola-a deepfake ai sculpted in the image of alix, his favorite person in the world - he thought it was his own little cyber experiment. what could possibly go wrong?just as his life partner alix convinces him to shut the project down, all hell breaks loose. a black hat cracker styling himself "the technician" hacks into his cyber-security company. shadowy cyberpunk icon "the vulture" sends cryptic messages to his best programmer. a ruthless oligarch schemes with his partners to wrest control of the company he started. supernatural figments occupying nyc like paranormal vagabonds seem to know what's going on but are no help at all. and big thugs with russian accents keep turning up like bad pennies. with everyone scrambling to gain control of his creation, nik and alix set out to contain what he unwittingly unleashed. when one of his contractors is found dead and intern kate goes missing, the stakes turn deadly. of course, the only police detective who believes them has been forced to resign, but her cyber-sleuth girlfriend "the bloodhound" is on the case. can they find kate before the technician finishes her off? will they ever get rid of those lurking russians? and can nik put the cybernetic genie nicola back in the virtual bottle or will she escape into the digital wild?