Insignia trilogy

Insignia Trilogy

Book Covers of the Insignia Trilogy
Insignia Vortex Catalyst Allies (prequel/novella)
Author	S.J. Kincaid
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Young adult, Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Publisher	Katherine Tegen Books (an Imprint of Harper Collins)
Published	2012 - 3078
Media type	Print
No. of books	3 + 1 Novella
Website	http://sjkincaid.com/

The Insignia trilogy is a series of three young-adult science fiction novels by S.J. Kincaid.

The novels describe a dystopian future where the Earth is in the middle of World War III, when teenage gamer Tom Raines is recruited to train with other young cadets as a pivotal member of the elite combat corps, the Intrasolar Forces. At the Pentagonal Spire’s training academy, he makes the best friends of his life, fellow government pilots-in-training Wyatt Enslow, Vik Ashwan, and Yuri Sysevich.

Series Plot summary

The planet's natural resources are almost gone, and war is being fought to control the assets of the solar system. The Indo-American and Russo-Chinese alliances are fighting for supremacy through the use of unmanned drone battles in interstellar space, where each side’s intrasolar combatants control the drones. The enemy is winning. The salvation may be Tom Raines. Tom doesn't seem like a hero. He's a short fourteen-year-old with bad acne. But he has the virtual-reality gaming skills that make him a phenomenal success behind the controls of the battle drones.

As a new recruit of the Intrasolar Forces, Tom's life completely changes. Suddenly, he's someone important. He has new opportunities, friends, and a shot at having a girlfriend. But there's a price to pay... Tom is given a neural processor, a computer in his brain that allows him to learn any skill with a download, to control the drones in space, and even get rid of his acne. As Tom is training at the pentagonal spire, doing VR calisthenics and applied simulations, he makes enemies. Having a computer in his brain means that Tom’s brain can be programmed just like a computer. When Tom refuses to tell him who changed his profile in the spires database, lieutenant Blackburn uses him for a demonstration of neural processor programming. After making him fall in love with a podium and believe himself a dog, Blackburn activates Tom’s fight or flight reflex. As Tom attempts flight, he ends up punching Karl Marsters, an intrasolar combatant in full, in the jaw. Causing a yearlong vendetta.

Several months into his time at the spire, Tom becomes obsessed with Medusa, a Russo-Chinese combatant with seemingly supernatural piloting skills. He and Medusa begin playing VR battle Sims online, with her beating him over and over. As they forge a relationship, Tom comes to the attention of his mother’s boyfriend, Dalton Prestwick, an executive a Dominion Agra, the company that controls the world’s food supply. Dalton tries to recruit tom as a combatant for his company, but due to Tom’s hatred of Dalton, he turns him down. Dalton tries to convince Tom by bringing him to the Beranger club, a private club FO the rich and powerful in Washington. After bribing him with full access doesn’t work, Dalton restrains Tom and installs software in his processor, forcing him to obey. Over the next few weeks, Dalton reprograms Tom, making him obedient, polite, and completely disregard his friends. Eventually, sensing something is off, Tom’s friends manage to install a firewall/antivirus software in his processor, returning him to normal. In revenge, Tom and his friend Vik use Dalton’s credit card to spend $50,000 in just under a week. Then, at the meeting where Dalton was supposed to show off the success of Tom’s reprogramming, Tom locks the Dominion Agra inside the bringer club, floods it with sewage, and Medusa disables the cell phone signal in the area.

In revenge for Tom’s actions, Dalton leaks the identity of every member of CamCo and alerts Blackburn that Tom had been meeting Medusa online. Convinced Tom is the leak, Blackburn subjects Tom to a neural culling, where he uses a census machine to rip memories out of Tom’s mind, a process which will eventually drive him insane. Tom cannot reveal to Blackburn that before using it on him, Wyatt tested her firewall/antivirus on Yuri, removing the scrambling software the military had installed because they deemed him a security threat. In an attempt to stop the culling, Tom tells Blackburn about his ability to enter and control machines not designed for a neural interface. When Tom shows him a memory of him doing this which also contains a memory of Josef Vengerov, the CEO of obsidian corp, and the man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers while testing his neural processors, Blackburn becomes enraged, thinking tom is colluding with Vengerov. General Marsh is unable to stop Blackburn because of leverage Blackburn has over Marsh’s career.

Tom's only chance at pardon is winning at Capitol Summit, the annual competition between the public faces of both sides of the war. Each side will have one combatant proxy for the one the public sees, and General Marsh makes Tom Eliot’s proxy. Tom correctly assumes that Medusa will be fighting on the Russo-Chinese side and Wyatt prepares a virus to knock Medusa out of commission. At the Capitol Summit, Nigel cripples Tom with a virus and explains his plan to use a battleship to destroy the Spire so as to emerge the hero and the new face of CamCo, as well as his role in helping Dalton leak the CamCo names. Tom overpowers Nigel with the virus he had prepared for Medusa and regains control of the battleship. In a subsequent battle with Medusa to gain control of an orbiting satellite, Medusa continues to overpower him; but Tom finds himself able to interface with the satellite and his surroundings. He discovers that Medusa shares his capabilities, but Tom emerges as the final victor after entering the security cameras of the Chinese embassy and showing Medusa that he sees her face, which is horribly disfigured.

Tom's victory guarantees him asylum from Blackburn's investigations and Nigel is revealed as responsible for the leak. Later, Tom learns that General Marsh sought him out especially as key to winning the war. However, Tom continues to regret that he exposed Medusa against her wishes. She vows to him that the next time they meet in a real battle, she will win. The book ends as Tom is promoted to Middle Company.

Vortex

Vortex is the second book in the trilogy.

On vacation in Las Vegas, Tom Raines uses his powers to hijack an overhead drone in order to humiliate a man who sent thugs to rob and beat up his dad and him, but there are consequences: Medusa, unforgiving of his cruelty to her in the last book, threatens him via drone and warns him that if he uses his powers like that again, she'll kill him (because it will take only a certain number of unexplained occurrences before someone figures out what's up and traces it back to them); and the one beaten up turns out to be Hank Bloomsbury, an executive at one of the large multinational Coalition companies whom Tom needs to impress in order to get a sponsor if he ever wants to make it into Camelot Conpany.

Upon returning for the new semester at Pentagonal Spire, Tom finds to his dismay that he and Vik are no longer roommates and that he just can't seem to follow directions and keep himself out of trouble. On his first use of the exo-suits that increase their strength to 42 times that of a normal person, he does exactly what Lieutenant Blackburn tells him not to do, which is jump up to touch the lights 40 feet up. Then, when he is taken via the Interstice (a vacuum-propelled train that travels at thousands of miles per hour between the big cities of the Indo-American alliance) to try to curry favor with CEOS in the Coalition of multinationals, he does something in each company that causes him to be blackballed by potential sponsors. He also finds out that Dalton Prestwick has had him added to the terror watch list. At the end of a disastrous day, Elliot takes him aside and explains to him the fate of those who are not sponsored: no jobs, no money, just a future of being a lackey controlled by the military because of the neural processor. Tom can't stomach the idea that he's supposed to suck up to people who have robbed and cheated their way to world domination—they have no right to his respect, and he refuses to play act it. (This attitude will, of course, come back to bite him on the behind.) Elliot also confesses that he was once in love with another guy, but that since the Coalition frowned on that, he gave up the relationship to further his career chances. He's regretted it ever since.

General Marsh pulls Tom aside and explains that since the Russo-Chinese consortium has claim to the moon, they are the ultimate controllers of all resources in space—but that they don't put the moon card into play because Big Business has a huge vested interest in there being a war on earth that never ends (since the warmongers buy their commodities and makes them all rich). He also feels that Big Business is enhancing neural processors and other technologies in such a way as to make human beings obsolete...and that once they are, Big Business will be done with them. Marsh asks for Tom's help: he needs Tom to become a Combatant so he can get into space and destroy the weapons hidden on the moon. And for Tom to do that, he's going to have to suck up to the CEOs he hates. Tom agrees to try—and he also continues to try to contact Medusa, even though she's told him bluntly to STAY AWAY.

Meanwhile, the training goes on. The cadets are introduced to the basics of machine-based thought interface, which allows them to hear each other's thoughts and thus communicate with each other when they're enveloped in machines or combat. This isn't a bad setup, except for the fact that the other people can hear ALL yours thoughts...not that great when you're 15 and have a very hot team commander like Heather Akron (currently in disgrace for having released personal details about the other CamCo combatants to the tabloid press). He flies along into space with Heather, sees Medusa in the fight and lets her know he sees her, then uses his ability to float through the circuits to get in on some of the battle action...all in 30 seconds. No wonder combatants need a neural processor—humans could never keep up that pace unassisted.

Strange malfunctions are happening in various of the Spire's systems, and Blackburn is tagged to figure them out. As Tom keeps sending messages to her whatever way he can, Medusa finally agrees to meet him.

On another fly-along with Heather, Tom lets slip that Wyatt was the person who tracked down Heather's leaks to the press about the other combatants' weaknesses, and now Heather, in trouble, vows to get even with Wyatt (although the other girl was just completing an assignment, and Heather was the one who'd really done the bad deed—but of course, Heather doesn't see it that way). This conversation is happening at the same time that their VR ship (controlling a real one near Jupiter) is getting pulled down into the storm at the Great Red Spot—and just before they hit, Tom senses the presence of another person traveling the circuits: A PERSON WHO IS NOT MEDUSA. So who can it be? Even worse—Blackburn wants to use the census device on everyone to figure out what just happened there and Tom is afraid of it, after the torture he experienced through it at Blackburn's hands last year. But strangely, there's an out: Blackburn knows Tom's secret, and when he hears that there's another person like Tom out there, he knows that's a memory that can't be let loose into the census device. So he declares that Tom is too afraid to undergo the experience...which really ticks Tom off, but still comes as a great relief. He gets together with his friends for a relief/victory celebration, but Heather interrupts and threatens to make Wyatt's life seriously suck. Wyatt responds, surprisingly, with a threat of her own that makes Heather back off—score! Enjoying this moment, Tom has the feeling that everything is perfect right now and that things can only go downhill from here...and he's so right.

First, Vik encourages Tom in a daredevil climbing stunt and Blackburn reams him out, accusing him of not really doing the right thing by Tom; then, as Tom is walking downstairs hauling baggage as a punishment, he runs first into Yuri, and then into Blackburn. Blackburn says some key words that would scramble Yuri's processor if Wyatt hadn't taken his firewall down; then Yuri proceeds to hang around and eavesdrop on their conversation after having been told to go. Blackburn wants to know how the third wave-traveling brain is getting inside the Spire's systems, because if they originated here, Blackburn would know. When Tom asks Yuri what he heard, the Russian boy denies having heard anything. Tom believes him, but thinks it's weird.

The group is now in Applied Scrimmages: battle scenarios where, although virtual, injuries actually hurt and scenarios can last for days. Their leader this year, Snowden, prefers to keep himself out of the thick of things. In the midst of an Okay Corral simulation, Elliot Ramirez tells Tom that Joseph Vengerov still wants him at the next Obsidian Corp meet and greet, despite Tom's having trapped the Russian with sewage in his own club last year. Tom also "runs into" Medusa in cowboy land, who explains that someone has leaked to the powers-that-be on her side that she was meeting up with Tom (the enemy. Now she's being monitored, and every time he tries to contact her, he's endangering her because of the traces. He asks her how she got into space without a sponsor, and she says it's because she's good, but also willing to be invisible. He tells her he doesn't care how she looks, but she doesn't believe him. At the end of the simulation, Wyatt comments that now that's she's being moved from Middle into Upper Company (fastest move ever for a 2nd-year cadet)she won't see her friends anymore, including her sweetie Yuri. Tom pretty much knows he's never going to be advancing to Upper Company, not after having alienated all the CEOs.

Over winter holidays with his dad, Tom finds himself at a casino, in a meeting with Vengerov and his father, which is weird beyond belief because his dad seems totally cowed by the powerful oligarch. Vengerov asks Tom to pick the correct number on a roulette spin, which he does—twice. His dad, not knowing about the neural processor, gets suspicious about how Tom did it; Tom responds by asking why his dad didn't punch out the hated symbol of corporate greed when he had a chance. Answers are not forthcoming, and Tom stalks out—only to find there's a really long walk to the airport ahead of him. He gets picked up by Vengerov's limo, and, because Medusa is doing so much to help the Russo-Chinese block win, the defected Russian tries to recruit him to install a computer file into Medusa's programming that would render her ineffective. Vengerov easily takes down Tom's firewall and installs the program into his processor, all before dropping him at the airport. He's waiting for an answer about Tom's willingness to cooperate and hints that his goodwill could get Tom a spot as a Combatant. What's he willing to do for that coveted position? Back at the Spire for the rest of the break, Tom's ripped out of a simulation by Karl Marsters, who wants to beat him up, but at the same time seeing a message that a download has been paused at 98% complete. Who is removing something from his brain?

Tom has a weird conversation with Yuri, who knows and asks him about Medusa. Tom tells him that he's going to refuse to help Vengerov take her down—but his friend kind of blanks out when her name comes up, and then comes back to life when the conversation is over—almost as if someone else had taken over his consciousness while they were talking. A lot like his eavesdropping in the stairwell, and then claiming he hadn't heard anything. Huh.

The last meet and greet is at Vengerov's huge facility in Antarctica, where Tom intends to tell the old man that he won't help with corrupting Medusa's files. A disaster occurs when Tom, coatless, is herded outside by Vengerov's robotic warriors and left to freeze. His frantic attempts to get help fail, and it's only because Blackburn notices he's left the group that he's eventually rescued—but not in time to save his fingers, all of which have to be amputated. He's fitted with artificial fingers right away, but a deep depression hits him and renders him incapable of learning to use the prosthetics for gaming or VR for the time being.

Wyatt, trying to comfort him, lets slip that she knows he used to game for money in the past—and when he calls her out on it, she admits that she downloaded the census files from last spring's torture by Blackburn. Now she knows all the ugly truths about Tom's past life, and he can't forgive her for that. She understands why he hates Blackburn, and she's mad at the teacher on Tom's account too—but that doesn't cut it with Tom. He hates that she knows. His freaky hands, however, give him an understanding of why Medusa was so angry when he spied on her at the Capitol Summit last year. He contacts her, she comes to see him in Applied Scrimmages, and he warns her about Vengerov's plan to plant a virus in her programming.

After that, she begins to appear regularly in his App Scrims. There's an ongoing attempt on his part to try to guess her real name (like Mulan?!?!) One fateful day, they talk about her scarred face, Tom realizes he really doesn't care that much about it, and they kiss right before she has to disappear. But this is the only good thing going on in Tom's life right now—Vik has found a girlfriend and seems uncomfortable around him, Wyatt is working for Blackburn all the time, and Tom doesn't quite trust Yuri.

Blackburn, doing therapy on Tom's new fingers, expresses the opinion that something Tom did made Vengerov act preemptively to punish him. Tom's puzzled because he hadn't told Vengerov yet that he wasn't going to take Medusa down...the only one he'd told was Yuri. Wait. Yuri—whose eyes had glassed over, and who had talked like a computer. Yuri, who scrambled processor Wyatt had debugged last spring. Yuri, who's been spying and is the source of all the glitches in the Spire's systems this year.

When Tom tries to bring it up with Vik, he finds out that his friend is dealing with a boatload of guilt over having known Tom was missing in Antarctica, but not saying anything—because he thought Tom was off on an adventure of his own, and Vik was "covering" for him. Tom says they can get Wyatt to remove that memory, but Vik says no—it's woven into too many intervening memories for that to be effective now, the same way they can't just "rescramble" Yuri's processor because he's heard too many other things since the firewall was taken down. Tom and Vik show Tom's memories to Wyatt and prove that Yuri's behind it all, and she's crushed. They go to face the Russian boy, but when the name "Vengerov" comes up, Yuri's regular personality shuts down and a computer-like persona takes over; when, during a conversation with this persona, they threaten to shut Yuri down, the controller takes over and threatens them in return. It's only when Vik gets a message to Blackburn that the teacher shows up and subdues Yuri—and right then after Blackburn threatens the remote operator, the controller turns on the census device and electrocutes the boy until his neural processor self-destructs. Strangely, though, the transmitter still works. They quickly stabilize him, but Yuri's brain has had a processor for so long that he can't survive without it now; and as a spy, he won't qualify for a replacement through the Spire's program. Yuri is essentially put on life support while they figure out what to do with him. After all, he couldn't help having been hacked by Vengerov, his father's employer, but if he gets a new processor, Vengerov would be able to put him back to work spying.

Months pass. Ever since the incident with Yuri, Wyatt has become selectively mute. Vik has gotten a girlfriend and stopped hanging out with Tom. Tom has a plan to blow up Yuri's transmitter from the Obsidian Corp. side of things, but Medusa refuses to help him. She wants to talk about why he kissed her, but he blows her off and she goes away mad. He finally has to go to Blackburn for help, because even though he hates the man, he knows he can trust him. But Blackburn also says there's nothing he can do.

Elliot pulls Tom aside and advises him to act repentant—saying that even though the CEOs hate him, many people like it when someone sees the error of their ways and grovels. Tom can't do this either, but he appreciates the effort.

Unexpectedly, Heather Akron tells Tom that, in her efforts to get revenge on Wyatt, she's come across Wyatt's download of the census files from Tom's torture last spring, and now SHE knows what he can do. She threatens to expose him as a traitor because of his interactions with Medusa unless he helps her defeat Medusa when Heather is serving as Elliot's proxy at the Capitol Summit. Tom is forced to agree, but he's looking for a way out of it. And in fact, when the Summit starts, instead of aiming Heather's weapons at Medusa, he aims at the skyboards (huge electronic billboards in low-earth orbit, run by the megacorporations)and surprise—Medusa comes to join him in wreaking havoc—they're in their natural habitat! She tells him that if he can ever beat her in a fair fight, she'll tell him her real name.

Strangely, the crowds are cheering for Elliot when the destruction ends (remember that Heather was proxy flying for Elliot) despite the fact that he "lost" the battle. But the crowds hate the big corporations, and they're thrilled that Elliot has apparently brought them down. The event gives Elliot a chance to claim responsibility and then do what he's wanted to do for a long time—quit. Elliot walks straight out into the crowd and disappears. Tom realizes that what drives the oligarchs, and their iron grip on the throats of the people, is fear—not one of them would ever dare go out into a crowd without a bodyguard.

After viewing the memories of people who were there during the Antarctic incident, Tom decides he's going to go back and disarm the transmitter that's still operating in Yuri's head. Vik and Wyatt sign up to help, and Tom (on the off chance he doesn't make it back) writes farewell notes to his father and Medusa. As the three friends are making their way to the Interstice train, they see Heather sneaking in ahead of them—and they also see Blackburn. Turns out she tried to blackmail Blackburn by pointing out that although he knew what Tom Raines could do, he didn't report it to the authorities. She's out for revenge on Tom, and she's going to get it by exposing Blackburn's files. His reply is simple: he picks her up and throws her in front of the oncoming vacuum train. End of problem.

The three friends sneak onto the Antarctica-bound train, and with a series of elaborate computer hacks (courtesy of Wyatt) are able to sneak into Vengerov's compound, where Tom plugs himself into a neural port and finds, unexpectedly, another consciousness there: the ghost in the machine. It's Vengerov, and he clearly has a neural processor (even though he's supposedly too old to have survived the operation). He is the one who can travel the circuits like Medusa and Tom—and he asks if this is "Yaolan"—so now Tom knows Medusa's real name too. An alarm splits the air, and before they know it, the kids are trapped in a storage bay, about to be surrounded by robot warriors. Vengerov gives them 90 seconds to surrender. Tom knows they can't save themselves, but he wants to let Medusa know that Vengerov is onto her, too—so once again, he finds himself outside in the bitter cold, this time trying to send her a message. He looks up to see the drone that had once tracked him down in Las Vegas—but this time, Medusa (who'd hacked into and read his farewell note) is here to save him—oh, and Wyatt and Vik too. She also blows up Vengerov's compound and even flies them back to DC, where she has to drop them off far enough from the Pentagon that she won't get caught...but they can still catch the subway.

Blackburn is there to bust him as soon as he gets back, but Tom manages to cut a deal with him about getting a reformatted processor for Yuri, partially by giving him the info that Vengerov has a processor (and a hint about possibly knowing what happened to Heather). Medusa lets him know that he was darn lucky she was keeping track of his secret online posts so she could save him; he says he didn't want to ask her to take terrible risks for him, but she says she would have (even last year at the Capitol Summit) for a friend. He guesses her name (okay, he cheats) and lets her know that Vengerov is after her. He tries to get her to defect to the US, and when she refuses, he triggers the device Vengerov planted in his brain to make her slow down and lose contact with the 'verse. When she's out of the picture, he sends a message to the skyboards that could only come from a ghost in the machine: "The ghost in the machine is watching the watchers"—proving to Vengerov that Medusa is not the ghost in the machine, because she's currently incapacitated. He knows Medusa may never forgive him, and that Vengerov may follow a trail that leads the old man straight back to him, but it's worth it to Tom to keep Yaolan safe.

Catalyst

Catalyst is the third book in the Insignia Trilogy.

While on vacation with his father, Tom’s neural processor is discovered. He meets an NSA agent named Irene Frayne, who is assigned to the Pentagonal Spire now that the Ghost in the Machine is viewed as the nation’s biggest terrorist threat. Frayne tells Tom she has to disappear Neil. Meanwhile, Neil reacts poorly to news of his son’s brain surgery and intends to take him back from the military. Tom cuts a deal with Frayne that he’ll keep his father quiet. He then alienates his father so Neil will never attempt to force him out of the military.

Lieutenant Blackburn comes to retrieve Tom, and he is furious over the Ghost in the Machine issue. He forces a neural link between their processors so he can see through Tom’s eyes whenever he wishes and deletes Tom’s memory of it.

Tom arrives back at the Pentagonal Spire to find General Marsh has been fired over the Ghost in the Machine and the disappearance of Heather Akron. The new General is far more strict and has hired Obsidian Corp/Joseph Vengerov’s contractors to run the Pentagonal Spire. Tom, Vik, Wyatt and Yuri struggle to function under the new strict regime, and meanwhile Vik and Wyatt are desperate for Tom to lay low and not attract attention to them after they blew up Obsidian Corps in the last book. They don’t realize Tom is the Ghost in the Machine. They urge Tom not to get back in contact with Medusa.

Vik urges Tom to date a new girl, Iman Attar, and meanwhile Medusa meets Tom on top of a train with one as Hitler, one as Stalin, and they share a romantic moment but she tells him never to contact her again. Then she retaliates for the virus he gave her by giving him one that makes him feel like someone is kicking him in the groin. Tom rushes to Wyatt. He’s desperate to get her roommate out of the bunk so he can ask her for help, so he grabs her and kisses her. Wyatt fixes his virus but is furious with him for toying with her long-buried feelings. Yuri gives Tom a friendly but hard punch.

Mezilo has assigned Tom new plebes to train as punishment for Tom’s insubordination. Tom notices the plebes aren’t growing taller like new plebes usually do. He finds out that the new plebes all have a new type of neural processor, an austere grade processor that can be swallowed in food. When all the cadets are in a simulation that fools them into thinking they’re not in a simulation, Tom realizes the new plebes also have an inbuilt inability to break rules.

Since Blackburn has a neural link with Tom, he tips him off without Tom realizing it that the sim isn’t real. With the suspicions Blackburn planted, Tom checks surveillance and realizes that Irene Frayne is using the simulation to ferret out traitors, so he takes the initiative of single-handedly killing all the enemies in the simulation to prevent any of his fellow cadets from implicating themselves as traitors. Everyone in the Pentagonal Spire thinks Tom is a psychopath afterward, because they don’t realize he knew the sim was fake. Wyatt, Vik, and Yuri are confused. General Mezilo is very proud of Tom’s show of loyalty. Irene Frayne is confused because Tom’s actions don’t fit his profile, so she puts him in the census device. Again Blackburns neural link alerts him to Tom’s peril and he intervenes and makes it seem like Tom’s eyes were closed for the segments when he was truly using his ability to check surveillance.

Blackburn reveals to Tom that the new, austere grade neural processors aren’t just intended for new cadets. They’re intended for everyone in the world. They’re the ultimate means of mind control over the general populace. Tom wants to warn the world. Blackburn tells him it won’t work. He tells him only violence will solve this problem, and Tom better not have anything to do with it because he makes any situation worse.

Joseph Vengerov of Obsidian Corps was impressed by Tom’s seeming willingness to kill people who are traitors, so he makes sure Tom is invited along with prospective Camelot Company members to a reception at Milton Manor in Yosemite with Coalition of Multinationals Executives. Vengerov surprises Tom by offering to sponsor him for CamCo.

While Tom is there, Blackburn looks through his eyes, and abruptly there is a random attack by war drones that kills off most of the surrounding executives. Tom puts on a neural interface so he can use his ability to stop the machines, but they get halted on their own. Joseph Vengerov notices. Vengerov survives the attack because his own machines can’t kill him, but Tom has invited his suspicion, even though Tom isn’t the one who did this attack.

The Ghost in the Machine claims credit for the attack.

Since Tom is the ghost, he is freaked out. Things only get worse when “The Ghost in the Machine” kills more and more Coalition executives.

Since the attacks by the Ghost are being done by Vengerov’s machines, the other Coalition executives grow suspicious of him. The other companies turn on Obsidian Corps, and the austere grade neural processors are canceled. The new plebes leave the Spire and it seems the imminent takeover of the word has been halted. Then while on a routine training flight, Tom and his fellow cadets notice an asteroid has been knocked from orbit and is on course to collide with Earth.

With an existential danger facing Earth, Tom seeks out Medusa freely and they work together to deploy nuclear missiles to break up the asteroid, but mass deaths take place all over the world. In the aftermath of the destruction, Joseph Vengerov claims credit for saving the planet, and in doing so wins back all the favor he’s lost from the other executives, and the austere grade neural processors are most certainly going to be rolled out again.

Medusa is distraught over the damage even the broken up asteroid caused and believes she could have done better, and Tom meets her in person for the very first time so he can reassure her. He takes her to Hawaii and tells her that this exists because of her, and then he says he loves her, saying he realized while in space. She doesn't repeat it back, but they kiss. Afterward, Blackburn confronts Tom about his open meeting with Medusa and unwittingly learns her true identity, and he points out to Tom that Vengerov had the means of redirecting the asteroid, and everything to gain from it. Tom wants to know why Blackburn hasn’t killed Vengerov even though Vengerov destroyed his life, and Blackburn reveals that Vengerov cannot be killed by anyone with one of his machines in his head. This can’t simply be reprogrammed. To alter this aspect of a neural processor, a zero-day exploit in the processor’s code has to be found, and there’s no way any of them would find it.

Since faced with imminent death, Tom revealed the truth to his friends that he was the Ghost in the Machine, Vik, Wyatt, and Yuri confront him over whether he’s the one killing all the executives. Tom denies it. Vik insists he was suspicious beforehand and proves it by reversing the memory he and Wyatt deleted of discussing their suspicions of Tom. This also reverses the erasure of Tom’s memory of Blackburn forcing the neural link on him.

The NSA Agent Frayne tells Tom she wants him to spy on Blackburn, and Tom pieces it together and realizes Blackburn is the one who has been using the drones to kill the executives, posing as the Ghost in the Machine. He refuses to spy for her and tells Blackburn over the neural link that he’ll make a truce with him if Blackburn removes the link as soon as everything is over.

Tom visits his mother in New York City because his father has been missing since the asteroid hit. While there, Tom realizes for the first time that she has a neural processor that has erased every aspect of her personality and left her as an empty shell that obeys Dalton. Tom attacks Dalton, her lover, and finds out that his father traded Tom and Tom’s mom to Obsidian Corps as test subjects when Tom was a baby, and parts of his mother's brain were removed when it rejected the transplant until there was nothing left of her personality. Tom was also going to grow up into an empty shell like his mother until he received a neural graft, which now allows him to interface with other machines (and also explains Medusa's ability, because she received a neural graft following her accident in childhood that caused her face to burn away). To get revenge on Dalton, Tom forces an austere grade processor on him so he can know what it’s like to be reprogrammed. Meanwhile, Vengerov shows up and shows Tom that he has Neil as his prisoner. He suspects Tom is the Ghost. In exchange for his father’s life, Tom confesses. Vengerov takes him prisoner and erases Neil’s memories of him.

Because Blackburn has a neural link with Tom, he warned Tom just how Vengerov will try to use his ability and urges him to resist. Vengerov takes Tom up to space and isolates him totally, keeping him locked in darkness and silence for weeks at a time and slowly driving Tom insane. He begins planting fake memories in Tom’s head of an ‘Ivan Vengerov’, Joseph Vengerov’s younger brother who was helpless and mentally impaired and dependent on Joseph. Over the course of a year and a half, Tom loses all sense of self and begins to believe he’s "Vanya" (Ivan's nickname), cooperating with Vengerov because he is now crazy and convinced he is Vanya, and he is desperate for Vengerov to return so that he can see light and feel things again. As he cooperates more and more and Vengerov's visits increase, Vengerov implants a memory in his head of receiving a bunny rabbit as a Christmas gift, then gives him an actual bunny, which Tom becomes obsessed with. Vengerov uses his power with machines to discreetly kill off all of his enemies, while Tom devotes all of his thoughts to the bunny and is unaware of how Vengerov is using him. The austere grade processors spread all over the world.

One day when Vengerov sets out to kill Blackburn and Wyatt, Tom remembers himself and fights back. In the firefight within the walls of the Spire, Frayne is killed, and Medusa mounts a surprise attack. Tom realizes he is in love with her, and he is strengthened by the realization his own imprisonment spared her this fate. Vengerov is furious to learn there’s another Ghost in the Machine, threatening to kill Tom's bunny if he does not cooperate, but Tom realizes he cares more about Medusa than anyone or anything else and allows Vengerov to kill the bunny without revealing anything. While Vengerov leaves to regain control over him, Tom blasts out the window into the void to escape and is sucked into space without a space suit, trying to aim himself towards a ship outside while he is still conscious. His neural link with Blackburn alerts Blackburn about what he’s done and Medusa possesses the ship Tom is aiming for and saves him. Tom learns he has been in space for fifteen months.

Tom is traumatized until Blackburn manipulates his neural processor so Tom thinks he’s his father, and in doing so, Blackburn makes peace with the fate of his own sons. At peace now, Tom and Blackburn return to the Pentagonal Spire to reunite with Yuri, Vik, and Wyatt. They rally all the willing cadets on the Spire while Medusa rallies the others on the Russo-Chinese side. Together, they mount a fake attack on all of Vengerov’s internet hubs, while Tom and his friends sneak into Obsidian Corps to plant a code in all the austere grade processors in the world. Everyone on the planet learns at once how to program in the Zorten-II computer language and Elliot Ramirez asks them to look for a zero-day exploit in the code. With billions of people all working together, a zero-day exploit is found easily and Vengerov’s restriction against killing him can be undone. Vengerov gets into a ship to go into hiding. Tom and Wyatt are shot down and cornered by a Centurion, and Blackburn realizes when he is chasing Vengerov that his missiles no longer work and his one weapon is his ship, meaning he can either ram Vengerov or the Centurion about to kill Wyatt and Tom. He chooses the latter and sacrifices himself to save them.

The singularity has begun as progress begins at an exponential rate since everyone in the world can learn anything at will. Tom goes to his mother’s apartment in New York City and turns off the neural processor that’s been keeping her artificially alive, essentially killing her because there is no way to recover her personality and he is sick of her being Dalton's sex slave. Dalton, like all Coalition executives, is facing public wrath, so Tom leaves him at his house and tells him prison is the only way he’ll be able to get his life back.

At Medusa’s urging, Tom meets with his father and restores his memories. Neil tells him the truth that he made a mistake handing Tom and his mom over to Vengerov and he tried to take them back. Tom learns that Vengerov had hired his father to improve his bluffing tactics in poker. Because Vengerov was too analytical, Neil compared this to teaching someone to learn how to behave like a human. This remark dawned on Tom: Perhaps Vengerov's cruel persona is due to the influence of a machine -- his own neural processor. Tom then realized that Joseph Vengerov was Ivan Vengerov all along. Using this train of thought, Tom realizes that the memories implanted in his head were actual memories of Vengerov's childhood. Ivan Vengerov was ill, so his abusive father installed a neural processor in order to "fix" him. As the machine adapted in Ivan's head, it noted how cruel and evil the world was, causing Ivan to believe that this is how humans behaved. Ivan would then took over his brother's identity in his attempt to dominate the world.

Tom invites Vik to come with him and tracks Vengerov down to his childhood home, where they capture him and take him into space. Though he is now arrested, Vengerov attempts to get into a space suit and use the propellors to get himself to one of his ships, but only realizes once he is in space that the boys anticipated this move and sabotaged the propellors. Tom tells him he wanted to give him a chance to do the right thing, but Vengerov chose his fate. They leave Vengerov to float in space until he dies.

Months later, Tom and Vik are the first to set foot on the planet Mars, but Tom blows it by impulsively blurting, “Kapow, I’m on Mars!” instead of something profound. All the resources that used to be dedicated to the war are now a Galactic Legion and Medusa and Yuri are going to test the first faster than light engine that Wyatt helped develop. Tom and Medusa share a last moment before she is due to leave the solar system. She’s worried about him because he didn’t fight for the more prestigious mission - the FTL flight - and he let Vik be the first person to step on Mars. Tom assures her he’s happy. All he wanted when he was young was to be someone important, but now he’s realized it was just because he never felt like be belonged anywhere. Now he has these people he loves and he’s found what he was looking for. He tells her he loves her and she repeats it back. Then they fly off into the sunset (but in a non-cliché way, since they're in space and there really is no sunset up there).

Allies (novella)

Allies is a prequel to the Insignia Trilogy. It takes place before Insignia.

In this 47-page prequel novella to the series, budding genius Wyatt Enslow, intensely loyal; and hyperintelligent if occasionally; hilariously, socially awkward, takes center stage as S. J. Kincaid reveals Wyatt’s life before she found her place, and her own inner strength, among her devoted band of friends at the Spire.

Reception

Insignia made the short-list for the 2014 Waterstones Children's Book Prize^[1] and won the 2015 Young Adult Alabama Author Award from the Alabama Library Association.^[2]

The book was nominated for numerous awards, including the 2014-2015 Soaring Eagle Book Award by the Wyoming Library Association,^[3] the 2015 Sequoyah Book Award by the Oklahoma Library Association,^[4] the Truman Reader Award by the Missouri Association of School Librarians,^[5] the Connecticut Nutmeg Book Award by the Connecticut Association of School Librarians,^[6] the 2015 Rhode Island Teen Book Award by the Rhode Island Library Association.^[7]

The book was a Junior Library Guild selection,^[8] a selection for the 2013 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults List,^[9] a selection for the Summer 2012 Indie Next List,^[10] and a selection for the Texas Lone Star Reading List^[11] The book was also a 2016-2017 Sunshine State young readers award winner

References

External links

• Author's website