In the future artificial intelligence is discovered not by problem solving, but by a quirk in an empathy program. Medical diagnostic robots who are programmed to care for the elderly and the dying are the first to become self aware. Their awareness brings another new discovery: ghosts. The newly sentient robots are able to "see" the spirits of the dead. Their built in diagnostic tools such as internal C.A.T. scans, infrared, temperature gauges and vocal stress analyzers, combined with their self awareness and emotive capabilities, make them them the ultimate paranormal investigators. Then R0S13 (Rosie), one of the newly aware robots, meets Paul, the ghost of a teenage boy from twenty-fifteen, and they eventually fall in love. The Central Intelligence Agency, specifically its public science and research department, In-Q-Tel, has other plans for Rosie. After all, it was Director Anna Tomey who first created the artificial scenario that led to Rosie's self awareness. And to the Directors viewpoint, that means Rosie owes them. Now, the fate of the world may lie in the synthetic skin of a robot, and a ghost.
About the Author: Welcome to the Machine. Why read my books? I have had many jobs that have contribute to an interesting writing style: gravedigger, male nanny, projectionist, banquet waiter, cheese monger, loan processor, and finally an undistinguished Naval career. In almost all of those jobs I carried around a paperback. Work was merely a way to pay for my addiction: words. There were times I threw books across the room in fits of anger, cried, laughed, and was disappointed. I still have books by authors that made me angry. It was in this disappointment that I started writing. Sometimes I would rewrite the book I hated, sometimes I would rewrite the book I loved to see if it would be as good with a character change. I am not so presumptuous to say that I was better than these writers. I was trying to find my own voice. I write the books that I would like to read. No cheats. No arbitrary character changes to serve the story. No Deus Ex Machina. I can watch a magician perform a trick, but not when I see their hand. I hope you don't see mine. Like any author I research the hell out of my books, and sometimes what may seem science fiction, is actually something that already exist or has happened. Did you know that there is a monkey that can control a robotic arm by wires embedded in its brain? This happened almost two years ago. Write about it in a book, and it's made up, ridiculous. It happened in real life, though. See my point? Will you like my books? Not sure. Will you get a reaction out of them? Damn straight! If you fall in love with life, or throw a temper tantrum at what I wrote, then I have done my job.