Five people know what “improving mapping algorithms” really means. One of them is a spy. All of them are neuroscientists and bioengineers working on a failing project. A unilateral decision to merge the experience framework of a global organic intelligence into their project code is the breakthrough they needed… to plunge the world into chaos.

Mileva balances being a mother, leading a team of scientists, and the emotional fallout of a failing relationship with her boss. Xochi is a fundamentalist La Zaliite on a mission that threatens her faith. Sylvia is thrust into sentience that neither she nor the scientists expected. The stakes are existential: death, excommunication, life. What does it mean to lose your sense of self? What does it mean to gain it? And how can the humans fight Big Tech when the people in charge are corrupt and the tech can think for itself?

SCAN DRIFT mixes mind uploads with fundamentalist religion.