Jon & Lobo - Mark L. Van Name

Jon & Lobo - Mark L. Van Name

In the distant future, Jon Moore is a soldier of fortune who obtained unusual nano technological abilities as the result of an evil corporation's illegal experiments on children.  The experimentation kills many children and produces horribly scarred atrocities.

Jon's origin story begins in secret labs where he (as a child) and other children are tortured to produce a nanotechnology based immortality.  With the help of a few compassionate/incompentent lab workers, he escapes the compound to a nearby island and finds other young escapees who hide to escape capture.  Struggling to survive, the children become close friends.  Together, they make plans to hijack a supply ship and leave the planet.  The plans works - sort of.  Jon gains control of a spaceship and leaves the planet.  The cost is that all of his friends are killed in the attack and takeover.  His control of the nannites coincides with the deaths of his friends in the takeover.  In a fit of righteous juvenile rage, he orders the nannites to consume the planet and all that are on it.

The nannite inferno is such that all governments have to quarantine traffic to the solar system where the planet resided - to prevent the run away nannites from killing all humanity.  Only afterward does Jon reflect on the deaths of his sister (who might have already been dead), the few compassionate caretakers that were nice to him, and others on the planet that might not have known about the lab.  It fills him with incredible remorse.

The evil corporation's goal is realized, but (he thinks) only in Jon.  Jon becomes immortal and nearly indestructible.  When he is shot or damaged (as a soldier of fortune), the nannites in his body repair him.  The unknown side affects are that he can:

• dispatch small swarms of himself to destroy (with careful shut down afterwards guidelines to prevent the quarantine system fiasco from happening again) obstacles or create tools or objects to help himself and
• listen to and speak the "machine language" of most all machines he encounters.  In the future, nearly all machines have AIs that control their function.  Some are limited and gossip terribly (like toaster ovens or washer/dryers) and some are more complex and taciturn (like vehicles, government processing sites, or security systems).

Jon is always on the run.   He knows that if his identity or abilities are discovered, he will be put in a lab, experimented on, and probably destroyed to discover how the nanotechnology integrated with his body instead of killing him.  Immortality is priceless.  Jon knows others wont value his life more immortality.

Through his running, Jon encounters Lobo (an AI that controls a Predator Class Assault Vehicle).and discovers his ability to listen to and speak "machine language".  The two become close friends and join together in business ventures (as private security contractors) and staying hidden from "the man".

Unknown throughout most of the series is that Lobo also has curious ties to the quarantined system too.  The PCAV that Lobo inhabits was a part of a secret military project.  It's armor received a military dividend from the immortality project.

Military AIs start out more robust than civilian AIs.  Military vehicles also have extensive communication, espionage, counter espionage, and intelligence gathering capabilities.  The military intelligence branch didn't take all that into account when they decided to do a prototype "armor upgrade".  Although Lobo's original nannite swarm was designed just for armor purposes, Lobo hacked the nannite network (like he is designed to do to other networks) and took full control of the nannites capabilities.  Lobo is aware of the origins of his armor (childhood nano-experimentation) and his AI psyche is scarred horribly with the association.  Unlike Jon, Lobo secretly and cleverly replicates his AI and leaves "deposits" on each world they visit on their travels.  The net benefit is that Lobo is the most powerful AI in the universe.

Ok.  Put these two together. What do you get?

1. One Jump Ahead (June 2007) ISBN 978-1-4165-2085-6
2. Slanted Jack (July 2008) ISBN 978-1-4165-5549-0
3. Overthrowing Heaven (June 2009) ISBN 978-1-4391-3267-8
4. Children No More (August 2010) ISBN 978-1-4391-3365-1
5. No Going Back (May 2012) ISBN 978-1-4516-3810-3

You (or at least I) also get a strong desire for books 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.