The year is 2124. It is the eve of Toby Troy’s fourteenth birthday, the deadline by which he is required to select an android Personal Assistant. A solitary child raised in the Territories, whose father was killed in the mysterious Drone Attacks of 2120, Toby is a deep thinker. Not just any android will do. Securing “Hawk,” the android that Toby wants, is anything but simple. The only way to obtain such an old model is to know someone who’s recycling their PA…or dying.
Hawk is indeed no ordinary android. With an empathy chip and unusual sensitivity toward human emotions, Hawk becomes the like-minded companion Toby never had. Against a decades-long backdrop of government corruption and personal loss, Hawk and Toby are each other’s only constants. Together, they discover firsthand the limitations of human memory and the unpredictable, tragic consequences of time travel.
In a world where memories are wiped, the all-powerful state can stream information directly into citizens’ minds, and anyone who causes too much trouble can be executed covertly, can Toby and Hawk’s “time trials” ever eke out a future that doesn’t end in darkness?
