Finalist, 2023 Philip K. Dick Award
In her breakout technothriller, virtual reality expert Kimberly Unger
has created the iconic, badass, cyberpunk heroine that you desperately
need: Eliza McKay. McKay is disgraced underground hacker who is just
trying to take back her career one dangerous job at a time. But when her
latest contract throws her into the middle of a corporate power
struggle, she finds herself fighting for her life in both the real and
digital worlds.
"Cyberpunk fans won't want to miss this."
--Publishers Weekly
Eliza McKay is, by extreme necessity, a low-profile Extractionist. McKay
is an expert in the virtual reality space where minds are uploaded as
digital personas. When rich or important people get stuck in the Swim
for reasons that are sleazy, illegal, or merely unlucky--it's her job to
quietly extract them. And McKay's job just got a lot more dangerous.
After McKay repels an attack on her Swim persona, hired thugs break into
her house to try to hack her cybernetic implants directly. Meanwhile,
the corporate executive she was hired to rescue from VR space is
surprisingly reluctant to be extracted. Something is lurking in the
Swim, and some very powerful people will stop at nothing to keep it
secret. This job might be the big break McKay has been waiting for to
reboot her career--but only if she can survive long enough to beat the
hackers at their own game.
With The Extractionist, virtual reality and gaming expert Kimberly
Unger (Nucleation) has created an unforgettable cyberplayground where
the rich still make their own rules, but a skilled operator remains the
wildcard.
