A hundred years into the future, megacities dominate the landscape and one corporation rules the Moon.
Bots take the streets, and a group of friends fresh out of high school go underground.
The Moon is hostile. The corporations are ruthless. And family may be the deadliest risk of all.
Living on the fringes of Base City, Riku Hayashi knows exactly who he is: a farmer’s son, skilled with machines, dreaming of a simple life rooted in the land. But when a devastating fire reduces their world to ashes, the Hayashi family is forced into a future none of them wanted: a new life off-world.
The Moon—rich in resources and free from Earth’s governments—is ruled by the powerful Hakko Ichiu Corporation. Beneath its gray surface, vast mines churn out unimaginable wealth. Above, massive domes rise from the lunar regolith, housing workers in a world bound to weeks of unbroken light and endless darkness.
The Moon also harbors something else: a haven for those who thrive in its shadows. Pleasure domes lure the desperate and ambitious alike, Zuhara the most notorious of them all.
The Hayashi family settles in Halcyon Prime, the lunar farming colony. While Riku struggles to find his place in this new life, his younger brother Kaito is drawn to the danger, riches, and seduction of the lunar underworld. On Earth, he was restless and bored; here, with nothing to hold him back, the possibilities seem endless.
But in a world where every breath is manufactured and aging domes strain to hold back the vacuum of space, Riku must decide how far he’s willing to go to save his brother.
The Core is merciless. The Scrape is deadly. And the name he’s hiding behind may be the most dangerous thing he carries.
Ashiro Taki has been back in Base City for over a year now, though he couldn’t say exactly how long. The days don’t have much shape at street level. He sleeps in a capsule hotel when he can afford one and on the sidewalk when he can’t, eats at the noodle stands, and keeps one pill in an inside pocket that he hasn’t taken and tells himself he won’t.
He used to be somebody else. He had a farm outside the city, and a family, and a name, and he lost all of it on the Moon. His father is dead. His mother is in an abbey and doesn’t speak anymore. His brother is still up there, doing well for himself in a line of work Ashiro wants nothing to do with. The name he goes by now was his brother’s idea. It was supposed to keep him safe.
It does, more or less, until a job goes wrong and he walks away from a man named Kenzo, who doesn’t take that kind of thing well.
So he enlists. It’s a bed and three meals and a place nobody will think to look for him, and right now that’s enough.
The Core has a place it takes recruits. There’s a part of Base City older and poorer than the rest, built down in the shadows where the megastructures block out what’s left of the sky. The people there have been left alone for a long time, and they’ve made things in that dark they’d rather the rest of the city never saw. Recruits call it the Scrape. It’s where the Core sends them to see who washes out.
Ashiro figures he’s handled worse.
Kenzo, meanwhile, hasn’t forgotten him.
Ashiro Taki joined the Core because it was the last place anyone would think to look for him. The Core spared no expense on his upgrades. They rebuilt nearly every part of him, right down to a new hand with sensors glowing red beneath the skin so he can feel everything.
After a short recovery, his platoon shipped out for AstraVantis, the biggest colony on the Moon. Crime syndicates have the run of the place—that was the briefing, anyway.
Ashiro hates it up there, not quite as much as Base City, but it’s close. The Moon is where he lost his family, and his brother never came home from it. Since the platoon landed, Ashiro has done everything he can to avoid thinking about him. He doesn’t know if his brother is in AstraVantis, but the biggest crime bosses on the Moon operate there, so where else would he be?
Down in Base City, Police Captain Kahn is twenty hours into his shift, riding a lift up the side of a corporate tower where a young man is standing on a ledge several hundred stories up. He’s the son of one of the corporation’s board members. Kahn finds something he can’t ignore. Pulling on it takes him places a police captain has no business going, and it starts costing the people who help him.
The chief keeps calling to remind him how sensitive this case is. Kahn is starting to wonder who’s been calling the chief.
A hundred years into the future, megacities dominate the landscape. Buildings soar a mile into the sky, leaving dark canyons below. While the wealthy and powerful live amongst the clouds, those below choke on pollution, blinded by the neon glow of Base City.
Ashiro Taki has amnesia and can’t remember anything before a few months ago. Memories come to him, disconnected and unexplained. A view of a building, the face of a child, and the noodle stand where the proprietor, Eido, seems to know him. What Ashiro does know is that he’s enhanced, very enhanced. Brain augmentation, data ports, and sensory upgrades give him extraordinary advantages when jacked in. On the street, muscle, bone, and tissue implants make him an elite soldier. But what is it all for?
One day, while wandering through the smog-filled half-light of Base City, Ashiro comes upon a boy and his mother. He recognizes the child, his smile, his voice, everything. Has he met him before? Is the boy his? What about the woman? She’s familiar, too.
When Ashiro is injured in a deadly fight following a botched hack, he awakens to find the woman, Chiya, caring for him. She doesn’t know who he is but has discovered a terrible secret, something she’s too afraid to tell him. Ashiro is dying, melting from the inside out as his extraordinary enhancements degrade.
The Hakko Ichiu Corporation is one of the largest in the world, and its resources are vast. In control of it all is Yugi Orgata. He has lost something very precious, and he wants it back.
For Chiya, the child Wren is pure and innocent. He is her chance to be a mother again after losing her own son. For Yugi, the boy is something else—and he will do whatever it takes to get him back.
Ashiro, Chiya, and Wren find themselves united in a desperate struggle to survive. Together, they will fight to answer the greatest question of all—What is The Magu Program?
The Gift: Every day, Police Chief Kahn faces the worst Base City has to offer—violence, corruption, and loss. His only refuge is Emiko, his wife and the woman who reminds him there’s still beauty in the world. When the Corporation offers them a second chance at a future they thought was lost, it feels like a miracle. But in a city where even hope is weaponized, no gift comes without a cost. A gripping sci-fi story of love, sacrifice, and survival.
The Noodle Chemist: In the neon haze of Base City, Eido Naki runs a humble noodle stand by day—and a covert chemistry lab by night. To the neighborhood, he’s a healer and a provider. But when a heavily augmented stranger named Ashiro Taki stumbles into his stand, Eido is pulled into a dangerous entanglement. Ashiro’s mind is shattered, but his body is a masterpiece of decaying technology—a ticking time bomb. If Eido is to help him, he must accept the danger that is sure to come, and Ashiro will have to learn to trust in a world he can’t remember. A story of loyalty, survival, and reliance in a crumbling world.
The Postulant: In the fractured shadows of Base City, the ancient walls of an abbey provide refuge from the neon world beyond. For Vox 5, a nameless postulant raised in silence and ritual, this is the only life she has ever known. But when violence breaches the sacred halls, a doorway to another life cracks open. Alone and adrift in the chaotic sprawl of the city, Vox 5 confronts a world she has only glimpsed in her dreams—where hunger, wonder, and fear move hand in hand. A story of innocence colliding with survival and the first trembling steps into an unknown future.
The world is a deeply troubled place—years of crippling unemployment, a collapsed economy, and rampant crime have left people feeling desperate, but Adam Mason and his friends don’t care about that. They’ve finished classes for the final time and are looking forward to a carefree summer of parties, camping, and enjoying their first authentic taste of freedom after high school! Fate has another plan for them.
On their inaugural summer outing, the friends encounter a reconnaissance robot, or ‘bot’ as they are known—with disastrous results. One of the friends is grievously wounded in the exchange, kicking off a race against time to get help before it’s too late! When the friends finally make it back to the city, they find the streets are overrun with bots; martial law is in effect. People are being loaded onto buses and taken to transition camps. Anyone caught in the open is pacified and detained; not all will survive.
Adam and his friends go underground, taking up with Skip, a brilliant but eccentric hacker. Skip has built a tech hideout called The Nest—a Faraday cage suspended in the maintenance tunnels beneath the city. Using antiquated technology—dial-up modems and BBSs—the friends begin to organize. Together, they will fight desperately to survive, unintentionally planting the seeds of a resistance that will become more important than any of them can imagine.
Fans of the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins and Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson will love Of Courage and Sacrifice!
Adam Mason and his friends have escaped the city, leaving behind the Nest after a deadly attack—the one place they thought was safe. As the reluctant leader, Adam struggles to hold the group together as relationships grow tenuous under the relentless stress of survival.
The Transition, a wholesale restart of society, is well underway, and the bot menace is everywhere. Travis Eckhart, the mastermind behind the bots, is now almost entirely dependent on NXES—a powerful AI he developed to help win the war. However, NXES has its own agenda, and Travis must confront his own blind ambition if he is to discover the truth before it’s too late.
Adam and his friends embark on a perilous journey to Cheyenne Mountain, the secret stronghold of the burgeoning rebellion against the Transition. They carry with them information that could change the course of the war, but only if they can reach the mountain in time. Along the way, they will discover they aren’t the only ones fighting for survival. There are others just as desperate as they are, and it’s not always clear who they can trust.
In a world where loyalty is rare, and peril is ever-present, Adam and his friends must rely on each other to navigate their harrowing journey. Dive into this gripping tale of courage, friendship, and the fight for survival in a world on the brink of a devastating rebirth.
In the final chapter of the Bot Trilogy, survival is no longer enough—it’s time to fight back.
After a long and perilous journey, the friends have reached the subterranean rebel stronghold of Cheyenne Mountain. However, not everyone who set out has made it this far, and the promises of peace and safety prove fleeting. NXES—the relentless AI created to enforce Travis Eckhart’s brutal Transition—has unleashed its merciless bot armies to hunt down every last survivor. Life at the Mountain hangs by a thread as tensions rise, alliances falter, and the weight of the war presses down on all.
Amira Fahmi, once uncertain of her purpose, has become vital to the resistance. With her programming expertise and unrivaled knowledge of the bots, she is now a critical asset in the rebels’ fight for survival. But as the resistance places their faith in her abilities, Amira must face daunting odds and take risks that will push her beyond her limits—forcing her to uncover a strength she never imagined she possessed.
Adam Mason feels adrift. The roles of leader and protector—burdens he never wanted—are no longer needed at Cheyenne Mountain. As his friends find their places within the resistance, Adam is left questioning where he belongs. But his quest for purpose will test him in ways that threaten not only himself but also the fragile bonds that hold the group together.
In this epic conclusion to The Bot Trilogy, battles rage, sacrifices mount, and humanity’s future teeters on a knife’s edge. To survive, the friends must face impossible choices and find strength in their bonds—or risk losing everything. Victory is within reach—but at what cost?
This collection of three short stories is set in the universe of the Bot Trilogy. The stories explore several book characters, building on their backstories and developing their world.
Atticus Coven: Atticus Coven is lucky to have a job at all, let alone one with the Corporation. But the work is numbing and repetitive, and the pace is relentless on the brutally efficient AI-controlled factory floor. Every day is a trial—until her. It was just a glimpse, but it was enough—Atticus is spellbound and will do anything for just one chance to return her smile.
Mark Scott: Mark Scott is just another boy trying to survive school, have fun with his friends, and enjoy a normal family life. Unfortunately, there’s nothing ordinary about his home. His mother is long since out of the picture—he’s forced to live with an abusive drunk of a father, every day creeping like a shadow to hide from his father’s rage. Fortunately for Mark, there is always a bigger fish swimming in the sea.
Travis Eckhart: Attending university as a young man, Travis Eckhart is researching technology he hopes will change the world—but will it be for humanity’s profit or his? Maya Wilson is a beautiful young woman attending university as well—she is also Travis’s first love. There have been others, but she is the only one he has really cared about. Could Maya possibly sway the intentions of the ruthlessly ambitious Travis, and help him find compassion before he discovers power?
