Hardwired

Walter Jon Williams's Hardwired is set in a fractured near-future America ruled from orbit by corporate victors of the "Rock War," where heavy tariffs between balkanized states have spawned a thriving black market run by smugglers known as panzerboys. Cowboy, an ex-fighter pilot wired directly into lethal combat hardware through sockets in his skull, takes a job running contraband medicine across a heavily guarded border — while Sarah, an equally cyborged mercenary, accepts an assassination contract from an orbital agent.

Both are betrayed by their employers and driven into hiding, where their paths collide; what begins as an uneasy alliance of convenience between two burned operatives turns into a joint campaign against the orbital corporations that have been using them both.

A foundational cyberpunk novel nominated for the 1987 Locus Award, Hardwired pairs hard-edged action with a bleak vision of corporate rule and body-modified survival.