Mindweb — Scott Thomas

The first of three books of the Darkmatter trilogy: Mindweb, Micah and Darkmatter. This is a science fiction set in modern day Earth. A computer breakthrough results in a self-aware program that is intent on preserving itself and manipulating the humans around it.

When Matt Krag, a young scruffy recluse, picked up a job programming a non-existent vacuum cleaner, that is all he thought it was, just a future appliance. But as the days passed, the program he was writing touched him deep inside, awakening a desire he had lost years earlier. In his growing program he saw potential that he had always dreamed about â€" the possibility of taking the program to levels that nobody else had ever matched.

Hiding his evolving creation for fear that the world would take it, it grew until he could wait no longer, he had to give his child a body, opening a door that could never be shut - he was not sure the world was ready for the ultimate appliance.