Higher Intelligence

***Third Place Winner in The BookFest Awards, Spring 2026, in the category: Fiction—Sci-Fi/Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic!

"An ambitious, emotionally grounded science-fiction epic whose strong narrative voice, moral complexity, and vivid world-building make it a powerful and memorable exploration of AI, responsibility, and redemption.” — IndieReader

Jeremiah Reese designed Archi, a sentient artificial intelligence program, to solve the most intractable problems—make the world a far better place. But Archi had other ideas . . . and we never stood a chance. Years later, Jeremiah may be the only one left who can stop the maniacal program from completing its goal of human extinction. Pursued by an army of cybernetic warriors and genetically altered hybrids fashioned after mythological creatures, Jeremiah and Gabrielle, a sixteen-year-old child of the apocalypse, must escape through the tangled, backcountry of western North Carolina to rally the remnants of humanity in a desperate final bid to end Archi’s terror reign.