Fraught, by Kerry Nietz

Sci-fi author Kerry Nietz has come through for fans of his 2016 book Frayed with Fraught, book 2 in the DarkTrench Shadow series.  Debugger ThreadBare is no longer working directly for the royal family, but has been reassigned to help with instructing new implants at Bamboo's school.  His thoughts frequently turn to Damali, the freehead servant girl who also served at the Imam's palace.

As ThreadBare ventures beyond Bamboo's place, ostensibly teaching his young charges about life in the city and giving them opportunities to hone their debugging skills, and later being reassigned to the Imam's palace in Mecca, Nietz paints a vivid picture of the life and culture of this future world, going beyond the settings of Frayed.  The tech, the geography, and the mores have all been shaped and altered by the Imam's global rule.  Yet ThreadBare picks up undercurrents of change.  He comes face to face with the rebels of antitex when they capture him and one of his students, and force him to repair a captured tank.  And he continues to be intrigued by the formulation he first saw in Frayed: A~A³.  He has figured that it means something like "A (Allah, although Nietz never says the name) is not A cubed." 

Sometimes fighting against his restraint, that buzz in his head that gives a painful jolt when he lies or disobeys his master, he pursues both Damali and the mystery of A cubed.  He begins to learn that Isa, one of the figures he learns about in scripture, was a worker of miracles that may still be active in ThreadBare's life.  Nietz's portrayal of ThreadBare's internal struggles with his implant, the accompanying restraints, and his human nature and curiosity, raise interesting questions about the inevitable future of the augmentation of the human mind.  If you could have a neurological link to the stream (Nietz's future, much more robust version of the internet), would you really want one?  How would that change the way you interact with the world around you?  This and many other techie descriptions and questions form the backdrop of Fraught.

ThreadBare crosses paths with Damali, and may have a path to long-term friendship.  His progress on the mystery of A~A³ is less promising, but knowing Nietz, ThreadBare will make more progress, in both the relationship and in exploring the mystery, in book 3.  And that is something to look forward to; Fraught's ending is satisfying, but it does leave me hungry for a hoped-for sequel.