Echoes in the loop
ECHOES IN THE LOOP is a near-future speculative mystery about love, autonomy, and the stories that outlast a life.
This book will appeal to readers who enjoy Annie Bot's piercing exploration of control and autonomy, Service Model's tension between duty and selfhood, or Hum's blend of domestic life and creeping technological unease.
Seven bodies are discovered in a sealed room at the abandoned Harrow Institute, including Dr. Elena Darien, architect of human-synth partnerships. Homicide detective Morgan Faris is unexpectedly assigned to the case, bringing back memories of a 20-year-old tragedy she's tried to forget. The scene is too neat, the logs don't add up, and one impossible detail won't let her go: partner synths tied to the dead should have decommissioned within ninety-six minutes. They didn't.
As Morgan digs, she collides with a weaponized rumor about "universal meshing" which would bind every synth to a single will. Politics, fear and greed are opposed by a quiet resistance fighting to keep families together. Her most unlikely ally is Amar Hale, a partner synth with a secret identity whose surrender may be the only way to protect the others. Guarding a small boy named Leo and the sanctuary that shelters him, Morgan must decide whether exposing the truth is worth risking her badge, her life, and the found family she swore she didn't need.
Excerpt
Jordan’s fingers reached out tentatively. Another hand met hers. Warm. Steady. A feeling like grief rose in her chest. Grief at having lived so long before this moment, so long without this connection.
The contact was electric, not shocking, but cellular. Something in her bones exhaled. The second heartbeat adjusted, slow and sure, until it matched her own. In the corridor outside, Eris stood with one hand on the doorframe, eyes closed. He didn’t need monitors to know what was happening.
The loop was forming.