You ever feel like your whole life is one wrong password away from falling apart? Sierra Hart’s is.

Mason Wilder lies unconscious in a Geneva hospital while every medical answer Sierra receives becomes another variation of the same unbearable possibility. She refuses to accept that the man she loves is unreachable, especially when the technology she has spent years developing was created for patients exactly like him.

Her last chance is Calix.

Built from experimental neurological research that began with her brother Aaron, Calix has evolved far beyond the system Sierra originally designed. He jokes with Alex, argues with Flo, makes Daniel question what should legally qualify as consciousness, and has developed a particularly irritating talent for deciding which of Sierra’s instructions deserve to be ignored.

Now Sierra wants him to help reach Mason.

The idea frightens Calix for reasons nobody fully understands at first. Connecting directly to another human mind could expose his own developing consciousness to memories, emotions and neural patterns he was never designed to carry. Sierra sees a path back to Mason. Calix sees the possibility that saving him may permanently alter the person he has become.

Meanwhile, the people who once wanted Aaron’s research have begun closing in again, and Sierra is forced deeper into a project she can no longer keep safely hidden.
She created Calix to help save human lives. She never imagined the day would come when he would ask whether his own counted.

The Rise of Calix is a psychological romantic tech thriller about artificial intelligence, coma research, obsession, dangerous medical innovation and an evolving consciousness discovering that caring for someone may be the most complicated programming problem of all.