From Jessica Khoury comes a high-action sci-fi adventure about a video
game AI come to life. Warcross meets Ready Player One in this
thriller set in a high-tech near future.
Bullied at school and home, Ash finds respite from his unhappy life in
virtual reality games. One night, he spends his meager savings to help a
stranger, who thanks him with a copy of an old fantasy game called The
Glass Realm.
While exploring the game, Ash meets a seemingly humble shopkeeper named
Ruby. But from the start, Ruby seems different than the other
townsfolk--especially when she and Ash stumble across an in-game quest
designed not for the player, but for Ruby to solve. When Ruby begins
developing powerful abilities that can rewrite the very code of the
game, they realize she is far more than a pre-programmed side character.
Following the quest left for her in The Glass Realm, the pair discover
that Ruby is actually a sentient AI who's been hidden inside the game.
Originally built as a weapon, her developer stole her from his employers
and hid her away, hoping to keep her safe.
That safety vanishes when Ash and Ruby are targeted by the powerful
shadow organization who funded Ruby's development, and who would use her
to spark a world war to rack up huge profits. Caught in a deadly game
that blurs the lines between real and virtual, Ash and Ruby must flee
for their lives. If they lose this game--they might just doom the world.
