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by Brenda St Louis (Author)
"In a future where AI is banned and the race to control human consciousness rages on, a young girl holds the key to the survival of humanity."
Ten-year-old Zephyr has a very different way of being in the world. She can feel the animals and trees around her and connect with the Mycelial Network-a mass of interwoven fungi fibers beneath the earth that joins all life on our planet. People, on the other hand, are trickier for Zephyr-except for her Gran. People have sticky energies that weigh her down and even hurt her if she is physically touched. Some have labeled her as "autistic," while others see her as "gifted." That is why, after Gran mysteriously disappears, Zephyr is accepted into Cloudhaven, an elite school for extraordinary children.
In addition to being a school, Cloudhaven is a powerful, privately funded research institute working to map and tap into the complete human brain. This brain-potential research has crossed ethical lines, and several Cloudhaven students, especially those without family, find themselves unwitting test subjects.
As Cloudhaven researchers attempt to use the Mycelial Network to connect students' brains to a digital world, several children become sick from these tests and start to disappear. Zephyr-with her unique ability to connect with the Mycelial Network and the world around her-knows the experiments must be stopped. Thankfully, she is not alone. Zephyr bands together with her new friend and fellow student, Saafir, to collect allies and prevent Cloudhaven from abusing students-and to stop them from creating a technology that would provide the institute with limitless power.
