The Drone Keeper

Three hundred and twelve people are dead. His drones are blamed. And the only survivor carries the evidence that could prove he was framed. On a dying Earth, Steve Glenning trusts machines more than people—and with good reason. From an abandoned desert observatory, the reclusive engineer controls the vast fleet of drones keeping the Company's fragile world functioning. Deliveries, surveillance, transportation—nearly everything depends on the machines Steve created. Then a routine assignment ends in mass murder. A London tower is deliberately demolished with hundreds of people trapped inside. One of Steve's damaged sentries is recovered beneath the wreckage, still shielding the only survivor: Wynn Adams, a mysterious woman with an adaptive network embedded beneath her skin. The Company says Steve's machines caused the disaster. The evidence says he authorized it through a contract he refused to sign. As investigators close in, Steve discovers that someone has forged his identity, seized control of his drones, and rewritten the official record. Even his own machines no longer recognize him as their rightful creator. Then his medical implant begins failing. His drones turn against him. And the trusted assistant who has managed his life for years may not be the person—or the consciousness—he believed her to be. Wynn's damaged network may contain the only unaltered record of the attack. To reach it, Steve must escape the Company, uncover the truth behind a secret transfer program called New World Ascension, and survive the machines now hunting him. But the conspiracy is larger than a stolen fleet. Someone has discovered how to duplicate a human identity—and give the copy legal control over the original. The Drone Keeper is the gripping first book in the Watch the Wreckage series—a dystopian sci-fi thriller packed with drone technology, corporate conspiracy, betrayal, dark humor, and a chilling battle over who owns the human mind.