Crux

In the aftermath of the events of Nexus, the neuro-interface drug Kade helped unleash on the world has spawned the Post-Human Liberation Front, which weaponizes Nexus to turn recruits into living weapons and pushes governments toward chaos. Kade and the genetically enhanced soldier Feng go on the run from the CIA, trying to head off a full-blown war between baseline humans and the posthumans Nexus is creating.

In Shanghai, a posthuman child named Ling Shu attempts to rescue her mother, Su-Yong Shu — a mind uploaded and imprisoned as a computer intelligence on a Chinese government server — in a subplot that spirals toward a shocking act of digital hijacking. Ramez Naam's Crux escalates the bioethical stakes of the Nexus trilogy into full technothriller territory.