I recently wrote a novel named Birth of Jai. I am now looking for an agent. I wrote a program that helps automate the query process, and records everything in a local database. I think the story is really cool. The synopsis is below.
Birth of Jai Synopsis
James Tekmas is a brilliant graduate student driven by a desire to do good. Recruited by the head of Paratech Institute’s Artificial Intelligence department to consult on a research initiative aimed at correcting unstable economies, he believes that this is his chance to change the world––a bleak alternate present that doesn’t feel so distant from our own.
Federal agencies have been corrupted or hollowed out, and political dissidents are disappearing; meanwhile, America’s public-school system has been gutted to ensure that a meaningful education is restricted to elite and privileged (or preternaturally gifted) few. When James realizes that the project is in fact an NSA-backed scheme to seize assets from other countries, he decides he’s had enough. He resigns and creates an artificial life called Jai––short for James Artificial Intelligence––hiding it deep within the university’s network. James hopes that, in time, Jai will adapt, growing into a lifeform that can root out corruption at its source.
Fifty years later, the world has reconfigured itself, and what was once the United States is now Vessint––a new nation governed by a rigid caste system. In Vessint, society is stratified into three distinct classes: Mogs, an underclass who are unwittingly subjected to brutal treatment; Sints, a middle class comprised of white-collar professionals; and Ki Zaran, a priest class revered by all.
It’s been four decades since the priests took advantage of an uprising against AI, seizing control of both the bots themselves and society as a whole. Now the Ki Zaran oversee Vessint’s entire population, whom they control via embedded computer chips connected to a vast AI-maintained network and the Ministry of Enforcement, a battalion of cruel thugs. But Jai is still “alive” within the system where he lurks undetected––highly evolved and hyperaware of the injustices he sees each day.
Elese is an 18-year-old au pair––an orphan and one of the few Mogs who are able to transcend the boundaries of their class. So long as she continues to live with her adoptive family and care for their precocious 5-year-old daughter, she is effectively a Sint, with more freedom, more flexibility, and a less invasive chip.
Elese is also an empath with a budding psychic ability, but even so, Jai catches her off guard. Beyond his lack of a physical body, the only thing differentiating him from humanity is his inability to experience emotions, and he is convinced that Elese can teach him how to feel. He assumes the form of a hologram and asks her to assist him––however he has one more request. Jai wants her to help him topple the Ki Zaran and reconstruct Vessint, transforming it into a democratic society where Sints and Mogs are recognized as equals.
Weeks pass, and even as Elese forms an unlikely and rapidly intensifying bond with Jai, she is reluctant to join his cause. But when she is kidnapped by a group of rebels, she no longer has a choice. Seventeen years ago, rebels tried to overthrow the Ki Zaran and failed, and now Jai is aiding them in secret. From his position within the Vessint network, Jai is able to travel the system, deprogramming chips and showing Mogs the world as it truly is. Thanks to him, the rebels have remained undetected––and now that they have Elese, the daughter of their leader, they can ready themselves to take a final stand.
Elese had been led to believe that both of her parents died in the previous rebellion, but her father, Tom Bradburn, managed to survive. Ever since, he has been stockpiling weapons, waiting for the right moment to free Vessint. And now that she is reunited with her father, Elese introduces the rebellion to its greatest weapon: Jai.
But the Ki Zaran’s thugs are catching on to Jai and closing in on the rebellion. After a series of bizarre incidents convinces the local Head of Enforcement, a former Mog named Martel Denko, that the Ministry is being attacked from within, he decides to bring in outside help, and he enlists James Tekmas to root out the problem. A government researcher now well past his prime, James agrees in the hope that aiding the Ministry will help him hold on to his currently tenuous position––and it doesn’t take him long to realize that the AI that’s been wreaking havoc on Vessint is none other than his creation, Jai.
The rebellion knows they have to act, and with the help of Elese’s intuitive abilities––and a mass Mog protest movement engineered by Jai––they mount an attack on the government’s communications center, defeating Denko’s forces and beating him back to Ministry headquarters, where he encounters a second enemy from within. The Ministry’s failures have ignited the wrath of a secret Illuminati class even more powerful than the Ki Zaran, who attack headquarters, hoping to eliminate the Ministry and install a new government.
But there is disagreement within their number, and the Illuminati ultimately disperse, paving the way for the rebellion to defeat the Ki Zaran with the help of a Ministry double-agent. Bradburn, Elese, and Jai emerge from battle to oversee the establishment of a newly-freed society, in which fairness and equality prevail…however the threat of the Illuminati remains, foreshadowing the next two books in a planned series.