97,813 Words

Complete at 97,000 words, EXAPTATION is a multi-POV novel which anneals character-driven emotional depth of Richard Powers' Bewilderment with the high-concept scientific suspense of Blake Crouch's Upgrade and the story-end conceptual reframing found in Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life. With two minds in one body, which deserves to live? MIT physicist Trevor Larkin is losing his mobility and independence to multiple sclerosis. Desperate, he enrolls in a clinical trial for an experimental drug championed by biotech researcher Joakim "Jo" Mayor. The treatment is a miracle - until the trial abruptly ends. When the drug is withdrawn, Trevor and the other patients collapse into terrifying catatonia. Tasked with investigating the disaster, Jo discovers that Trevor alone has emerged from his locked-in state functional, but profoundly changed. He now calls himself Hale. Jo uncovers a chilling truth: the Hale personality is not a side effect of brain damage, but a distinct parallel consciousness - an immune mind that developed silently alongside Trevor's neuronal self over a lifetime. The experimental drug made it possible for Hale to take control of Trevor's body - and he has no intention of giving it back. More troubling, Hale believes immune minds like his are the next stage of human evolution and intends to awaken the other catatonic trial patients in the same way - supplanting their former selves. As Jo's obsession with stopping Hale fractures both career and family, he realizes his only option is to weaponize the original trial drug against Hale. But doing so means deciding whether destroying a new form of conscious mind - killing it, killing him - is the right choice to reclaim Trevor and to stop the proliferation of immune minds.