This Mortal Coil

In this gripping debut novel, seventeen-year-old Cat must use her gene-hacking skills to decode her late father's message concealing a vaccine to a horrifying plague. Catarina Agatta is a hacker. She can cripple mainframes and crash through firewalls, but that's not what makes her special. In Cat's world, people are implanted with technology to recode their DNA, allowing them to change their bodies in any way they want. And Cat happens to be a gene-hacking genius. That's no surprise, since Cat's father is Dr. Lachlan Agatta, a legendary geneticist who may be the last hope for defeating a plague that has brought humanity to the brink of extinction. But during the outbreak, Lachlan was kidnapped by a shadowy organization called Cartaxus, leaving Cat to survive the last two years on her own. When a Cartaxus soldier, Cole, arrives with news that her father has been killed, Cat's instincts tell her it's just another Cartaxus lie. But Cole also brings a message: before Lachlan died, he managed to create a vaccine, and Cole needs Cat's help to release it and save the human race. Now Cat must decide who she can trust: The soldier with secrets of his own? The father who made her promise to hide from Cartaxus at all costs? In a world where nature itself can be rewritten, how much can she even trust herself?

Cat thought the Hydra epidemic was over, but when new cases pop up, she must team up with an enemy to fix the vaccine before the virus spirals out of control in this thrilling sequel to This Mortal Coil, which New York Times bestselling author Amie Kaufman says "redefines 'unputdownable.'" The nightmare of the outbreak is finally over, but Cat's fight has only just begun. Exhausted, wounded, and reeling from revelations that have shaken her to her core, Cat is at a breaking point. Camped in the woods with Cole and Leoben, she's working day and night, desperate to find a way to stop Lachlan's plan to reprogram humanity. But she's failing-Cat can't even control her newly regrown panel, and try as she might to ignore them, she keeps seeing glitching visions from her past everywhere she turns. When news arrives that the Hydra virus might not be as dead as they'd thought, the group is pushed into an uneasy alliance with Cartaxus to hunt down Lachlan and fix the vaccine. Their search takes them to Entropia, a city of gene-hackers hidden deep in the desert that could also hold the answers about Cat's past that she's been searching for. But when confronted with lies and betrayals, Cat is forced to question everything she knows and everyone she trusts. And while Lachlan is always two steps ahead, the biggest threat to Cat may be the secrets buried in her own mind.

Cat's hacking skills weren't enough to keep her from losing everything-her identity, her past, and now her freedom. She's trapped and alone, but she's survived this long, and she's not giving up without a fight. Though the outbreak has been contained, a new threat has emerged-one that's taken the world to the brink of a devastating war. With genetic technology that promises not just a cure for the plague, but a way to prevent death itself, both sides will stop at nothing to seize control of humanity's future. Facing her smartest, most devastating enemy yet, Cat must race against the clock to protect her friends and save the lives of millions on the planet's surface. No matter the outcome, humanity will never be the same. And this time, Cat can't afford to let anything, or anyone, stand in her way.