At the Institute for Deep Learning, its genius tech boss, Tobias Hawke, is on the threshold of a major achievement in Artificial Intelligence. Then he is murdered and his software creation, Syd, has shut itself down. Michael North is asked to help find out what happened to Hawke and how to revive Syd. To do that he needs the help of a teenage hacker named Fangfang and Hawke's widow, each of whom have their own motives in solving the problem.