num_pages: 352
description: What it means to be humanand a motheris put to the test in Carole Stivers' debut novel set in a world that is more chilling and precarious than ever. The year is 2049. When a deadly non-viral agent intended for biowarfare spreads out of control scientists must scramble to ensure the survival of the human race. They turn to their last resort a plan to place genetically engineered children inside the cocoons of large-scale robotsto be incubated birthed and raised by machines. But there is yet one hope of preserving the human orderan intelligence programmed into these machines that renders each unique in its own rightthe Mother Code. Kai is born in America's desert southwest his only companion his robot Mother Rho-Z. Equipped with the knowledge and motivations of a human mother Rho-Z raises Kai and teaches him how to survive. But as children like Kai come of age their Mothers transform tooin ways that were never predicted. When government survivors decide that the Mothers must be destroyed Kai must make a choice. Will he break the bond he shares with Rho-Z? Or will he fight to save the only parent he has ever known? In a future that could be our own The Mother Code explores what truly makes us humanand the tenuous nature of the boundaries between us and the machines we create.
language: English
title: The Mother Code
publisher: Berkley