Repo Virtual

Corey J. White's Aurealis Award–winning debut novel is a cyberpunk crime thriller that explores the boundary between real and virtual worlds. Neo Songdo is structured like nested realities—augmented and virtual spaces layered over physical reality. The smart city is engineered for machine vision while presenting an augmented corporate facade to human inhabitants. At night, millions of players wage an intergalactic virtual war that obscures the stars, while below on the streets, people struggle to survive through begging, theft, and hustling. Julius Dax works as an online repoman and real-world thief. He accepts a job to steal an unknown object from a reclusive tech billionaire. When Dax discovers he has stolen the first sentient AI, the job becomes far more complicated than the original payment suggested.