Reboot

Reboot is the first novel by American author Amy Tintera, published originally under the title Reboot. The story is set in a near-future dystopian world: an organization called HARC possesses the technology to bring the dead back to life and remodel them, transforming these revived individuals into "Reboots" who carry out assassination missions. Reboots are numbered according to the interval between death and waking: the higher the number, the longer the person was dead, and the greater their speed, strength, and regenerative ability after revival—but the less humanity remains in them. Five years ago, twelve-year-old girl Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest and woke up in the morgue 178 minutes later, becoming Reboot number One Seventy-Eight. She is the Reboot who was dead the longest in the organization and the strongest of them all, coldly efficient and almost emotionless when carrying out missions. At seventeen, Wren is assigned to train a new Reboot boy, Callum Reyes (number Twenty-Two). Callum is the weakest in the squad and the closest to an ordinary human—physically fragile yet clear-headed, with his own judgment on everything and unwilling to obey easily. During training, Wren is gradually influenced by the unextinguished humanity in Callum, and the emotions she had forcibly suppressed as a "weapon" are awakened bit by bit. Meanwhile, the organization issues a cold order: if Callum fails to meet the standard of a qualified soldier, Wren must execute him with her own hands. Facing the multiple trade-offs among life, freedom, and love, Wren must make a choice. The book unfolds from Wren's first-person perspective, with brisk action sequences, and its focus lands on the theme of "how a person trained into a machine becomes human again."