Awakening in a silent chamber with vast knowledge but no memories, Unit Eight is given the name "Adam" and discovers he is more than a machine. He has a synthetic body and a mission: hunt down Unit Seven, an escaped prototype android supposedly too unstable to survive among humans. But the deeper Adam tracks her across the frontier world of Vidari, the less the Fortress story holds. Seven leaves behind hidden camps, rescued settlers, and a trail of people who describe not a killer but a woman who steals medicine for the sick and risks herself for strangers. As Adam's orders increasingly clash with his instincts, disturbing fragments surface in his mind: a woman's voice telling him to "Find me," the name Talia, and flashes of a life the Fortress insists never existed. When Adam finally catches up to Seven, he learns the truth. Neither of them is a machine in any meaningful sense. They are stolen humans, their brains ripped from their original bodies, reformatted, and installed in programmable chassis as part of a covert operation backed by powerful off-world investors. Talia escaped before they could erase her. Adam did not. And if the Fortress catches them, it will wipe what remains of him for good. To expose the conspiracy and save the hundreds of abducted people still trapped inside the Fortress, Adam and Talia must turn their makers' weapons against them. But taking down one facility may only ignite a war against a network that spans planets. MIND AND BODY is an adult science fiction novel with YA crossover potential, complete at 141,077 words. It combines the frontier intrigue and moral urgency of character-driven SF thrillers with themes of memory, identity, and bodily autonomy.
