It's just a game. Right? Virtual reality isn't reality. So even though Lena didn't expect to have fun, she went along with the VR game anyway. But its artificial intelligence knows everything about her—who she is, how much money her parents have, her greatest fears. When the line blurs between the nightmare and what's real, Lena must fight for her life to escape. This standalone novelette is a newsletter exclusive set before the Flesh and Metal trilogy.

A devastating accident. An artificially intelligent prosthetic that makes her sleepwalk… A series of murders. Lena hates her parents’ tech company. The world worships each cutting-edge CyberCorp release, but Lena has her doubts. Machines that think for themselves? She doesn’t trust them… So when a car accident lands her with the company’s first cybernetic arm, she’s pissed. A glitch in the arm’s artificial intelligence makes her sleepwalk. Meanwhile, children of CyberCorp employees start dying in their beds, and thanks to her unwanted nighttime strolls, Lena has no alibi. Is she a target? A suspect? Lena literally can’t sleep at night until she proves her innocence—or her guilt. Marissa Meyer’s Cinder meets Netflix’s Black Mirror in this YA sci-fi murder mystery with a twisty ending you won’t forget.

She must obey a stranger’s orders, or the androids will attack again… Despite Lena’s fears about the dangers of the Model One androids, CyberCorp has shipped them to customers. They work perfectly—except around Lena. When an android attacks one of her best friends, she insists the robots are fatally flawed. Desperate to keep this situation from spiraling out of control, like it did last time, Lena casts suspicion on everyone she knows. This time, she won’t trust anyone. When she gets a threatening note from someone claiming to be controlling the androids, she’ll obey—but only to stall for time. Can she find whoever’s responsible, before someone else she loves dies?

With no way out, she’ll face a pissed-off artificial intelligence and two killers… Lena’s ready to put it all behind her. She helped catch two killers who used CyberCorp to commit murder, and starting right now, she vows never to set foot inside the company’s headquarters again. But when those killers show up at CyberCorp Tower to confess everything they’ve hidden, Lena can’t resist seeing justice done. As she steels herself to confront them again, decommissioned androids go berserk inside the headquarters, forcing a lockdown. Lena is trapped inside not only with the killers she brought down—but also with the dangerous technologies she fears. Can Lena escape, or will she die inside CyberCorp Tower? War of Flesh and Metal is the thrilling conclusion to the YA science fiction Flesh and Metal trilogy.