BZRK

American author Michael Grant’s young-adult science fiction novel BZRK (2012) is the first book in a series of the same name. Set across the globe in the near future, the story is about a new war being waged inside human beings (“in the meat”) on the microscopic level. Power-hungry Siamese twins, Benjamin and Charles Armstrong (aka Nexus Humanus) head the Armstrong Family Gifts Corporation, AFGC, which aims to use nanotechnology to infiltrate the minds of the most powerful leaders in the world, eradicating their free will by rewiring their brains. BZRK, a young group of nanobot-hackers led by sixteen-year-olds Noah Cotton and Sadie McLure, seeks to put an end to this nefarious plan. To thwart the efforts of Nexus Humanus, BZRK uses a technology called biots, bits of spliced DNA that serve as biological counterparts to nanobots. As Noah and Sadie fight to preserve humanity’s free will, they begin to fall in love with each other along the way. BZRK has been called “Young adult fiction at its best” by The Examiner, and an “intense, marvelously plotted, paced, and characterized story” by Booklist.

Told from varying perspectives throughout the novel, the story begins in a mental hospital in New York City. Sixteen-year-old Londoner Noah Cotton visits his brother, Alex, who went insane during his time fighting a war in Afghanistan. Now seemingly cured, Noah, who cannot understand why his brother is still hospitalized, surmises something other than war must have made him go insane to begin with. Meanwhile, sixteen-year-old Sadie McClure is at a football game, during which an airplane crashes into the stadium, exploding in spectacular fashion. Sadie soon learns her father, Grey, and brother, Stone, were both on board at the time of the crash. Sadie is now an orphan.

Noah is approached by Nijinsky, who explains that he used to work with Alex in an organization called BZRK and that an invisible war is being waged “in the meat.” Nijinsky claims he needs Noah’s help to fight the war on behalf of BZRK, a revolutionary hacker group in stark opposition to the Armstrong Family Gifts Corporation. By implanting nanobots into the minds of the most influential world leaders, the AFGC, led by the creepy, conjoined twin brothers Benjamin and Charles Armstrong, also known as Nexus Humanus, plans to advance its plot to overtake the world, turning everyone into mindless drones. While this war is being waged on the micro level inside human beings, fighting also occurs on the macro level as well. BZRK wants to preserve humanity’s free will and independent thought.



Soon, both Noah and Sadie are recruited by BZRK to fight the AFGC. Noah assumes the alias Keats; Sadie assumes the alias Plath. Along with other BZRK members Vincent (aka Michael Ford), Ophelia, and Wilkes, Noah and Sadie begin combating the nanobots by using biots, bits of DNA spliced from various critters such as scorpions, spiders, humans, etc. The biots kill the nanobots, but if a biot is killed, the person hosting it will go insane. Noah, learning this is what happened to Alex, vows revenge. BZRK faces off with AFGC fighters that include Bug Man, the one responsible for the plane crash that killed Sadie’s family, for which she also wants revenge. Other enemies include Karl Burnofsky, the mad genius who invented the nanotechnology being used for global dominance. As the war continues, Keats and Plath fall in love.

After going through a gruesome laboratory process to grow their spiderlike biots, Noah and Sadie use the biots to safeguard each other. For instance, Sadie has an aneurysm that Noah cures via his biots; Sadie does the same for Noah to help ward off disease. Now ready to fight, BZRK hatches a scheme to thwart Nexus Humanus’s plot for global dominance. When BZRK learns the AFGC wants to implement nanobots into the United States President, the group goes to the United Nations to create a major distraction. Ophelia and Wilkes torch the AFGC gift shop in the U.N. building, hoping to expose a hidden backroom full of AFGC members. However, the plan backfires when the secret room explodes leaving no evidence behind.

Noah and Sadie are assigned to find and kill the Armstrong twins, who are located on the top floor of the Empire State Building. Sadie infiltrates the brain of one them, but both she and Noah are captured soon after. With time running out, they must improvise an escape plan.



While Sadie is hounded by security guards, Noah quietly escapes and begins fighting with them. Sadie breaks free and tries to kill the Armstrong twins. Witnessing this, the AFGC members order the destruction of Sadie’s biots. However, they are too late, and she fatally stabs the Armstrong twins in the brain. The novel ends with the triumph of killing the head of Nexus Humanus, but the brain of the female U.S. President still remains hacked. The President was ordered to kill her husband after his suspicions were aroused. Vincent and Ophelia, having had their biots destroyed, go insane. Noah and Sadie survive the ordeal with a few scrapes and scratches.

BZRK is followed by BZRK II: Reloaded, BZRK III: Apocalypse, and BZRK: Origins. In 2012, Sony Pictures announced plans to adapt BZRK into a motion picture, tapping Michael Ross to write the screenplay. The production is currently in development.