Back to Zero

★ A new work by the acclaimed screenwriter of The Theory of Everything and Darkest Hour, the “award-winning actor magnet”;

★ When the all-seeing “Sky Eye” is everywhere, how do you become an invisible person in the age of big data?

★ A librarian versus a tech giant in an ultimate showdown — a cat-and-mouse game that keeps you holding your breath to the very last moment.

In this big-data era where “privacy is dead,” this book is a survival guide for every “information prisoner” — how to evade the all-seeing eye, erase your traces, and become an invisible person. The latest full-length work by Anthony McCarten, acclaimed screenwriter of Darkest Hour and The Theory of Everything and a celebrated novelist, imagines a cat-and-mouse game set against the technology of the Sky Eye system. The U.S. government and a tech giant jointly develop a high-tech project called “Fusion.” Ten candidates are selected to take part in a test: each must make themselves “disappear” within two hours, while the ubiquitous Sky Eye system spends thirty days tracking them. Whoever survives thirty days without being found wins a prize of three million dollars. Among the contestants are a retired veteran, a technology expert, an escape specialist — and an unremarkable Boston librarian, Caitlin Day, whom everyone agrees will be the first to be eliminated. Only she herself knows her true reason for entering. In this cat-and-mouse game between wildly mismatched sides, who will be the final winner? McCarten, the acclaimed screenwriter, keeps the suspense until the very last second, making readers realize with a chill the terrifying implications behind everyday life — and offering a path to escape it all.