Lock In

In not too far off future, a brand-new, very infectious illness spreads over the world. The majority of ill people just get headaches, fever, and the flu. However, the illness results in "Lock In" for the unfortunate 1%, or around five million people in the US alone: victims are alert and conscious but unable to move or react to stimuli. Everyone is affected by the disease: individuals of all ages, wealth, poverty, and races. The environment adapts to the task at hand.

Two decades later, in a society influenced by what is now called "Haden's syndrome," rookie FBI agent Chris Shane and seasoned agent Leslie Vann are teamed. The two of them are given a case involving a murder at the Watergate Hotel that seems to be connected to Haden, and the suspect is a "integrator"—someone who can temporarily lend their bodies to others who are locked in. Identifying the murder suspect gets much more difficult if the Integrator was transporting a Haden customer.

Still, "complicated" is hardly an adequate description. It becomes evident that the true mystery—and the true crime—is larger than anybody could have predicted as Shane and Vann started to piece together the details of the murder. The world of the imprisoned is changing, and with it, chances that the aspirational will take advantage of at any costs. Shane and Vann are taken by the inquiry, which started as a murder case, from the corridors of corporate power to the virtual worlds of the imprisoned and to the core of a startlingly new human society. It's not what you were expecting.