Prometheus Road — Bruce Balfour

Bruce Balfour, national bestselling author of The Forge of Mars and The Dig/ta/ Dead, transports readers to a future Earth--and a virtual reality hell...

Tom has always lived in the shadow of Nova Olympus--a mountain that marks where the gods cast the heathen city of San Francisco into the sea centuries ago. And he cannot resist the allure of the forbidden zones near the sunken city, and the rare relics of the people who lived there...

But his defiance brings down the wrath of the gods and sends him running for his life, his only friend a mysterious hermit who promises him a safe haven. The promise is a lie--there is no safe haven for him.

For Tom discovers that the gods are also a lie--they are artificial intelligences, created by a humanity they now control. And only he can follow the Prometheus Road, a terrifying, mystical pathway that will lead him from a face-off with enemies that are half human, half machine to a virtual reality battleground, where war-faring computer programs demand Tom's destruction...