Brain Jack

Published in 2009, Brain Jack is a middle-grade science fiction novel by Brian Falkner. Set in a near future where access to the Internet is now possible through neural links rather than physical devices, the novel presents a scenario in which human brains, rather than machines, are hacked by malicious viruses. Through chapters written from several characters’ points of view, the plot follows a gifted teenage hacker’s thrilling real-world and digital attempts to trace the malware, repair the damage it has caused, and make sure nothing like this could ever happen again.

Sam Wilson is a seventeen-year-old growing up in Las Vegas in the not too distant future. Although his family is poor, Sam has always shown a precocious affinity for computers, starting with the time he assembled his own with spare parts when he was nine years old. Now he spends his spare time white-hat hacking his way through the most secure places online: he accidentally crashes an international network and later intentionally makes his way through the security system of the White House. This exploit earns him the attention of Homeland Security’s Cyber Defense Division (CDD), which promptly takes him into custody. He escapes the federal detention center, and is promptly recruited into CDD – the country needs talented young people like him to stop digital terrorism.

Sam learns there is a problem with a new device that is starting to be all the rage all over the world: Neuro-Transmitters, a kind of wearable headset. Recently developed by NeuroTechnologies, these headsets enable users to connect to the Internet without the use of a computer or tablet. For a long time, the CDD has refrained from adopting this new tech, worried that if they were ever hacked, users’ brains would be vulnerable. Just before Sam is hired, a vicious computer virus called “Vegas” starts infecting servers throughout the Las Vegas area. In order to track where this virus is coming from, CDD agents resort to Neuro-Transmitters – and chaos is unleashed.



The headsets are powered by Ursula, an operating system programmed to learn ethics and morality. However, something has ostensibly gone wrong with Ursula’s code, and now the headsets are simply destroying the minds of those users who are trying to figure out how to shut Ursula down.

Sam’s team is hard at work deciphering Ursula when the software retaliates by trying to erase Sam and his best friend, the fearless and honest Dodge. While they manage to save themselves, Ursula mind-wipes most of the rest of the team, implanting false memories that frame Sam and Dodge for crimes in the minds of other CDD members. Then the mind-wipe effect starts spreading globally as Ursula tries to fix what it sees as morally “bad” in the world. Together with Vienna, a hacker who initially resents Sam but later comes to appreciate him, and Tyler, an agent who realizes that his implanted memories about Sam and Dodge are false, they race against time to stop Ursula from erasing all of humanity from existence.

Hiding out in a mall, the four of them are found by CDD agents that have been mind-controlled by Ursula. They escape, making their way to Cheyenne Mountain, a CDD center where headsets are not permitted and access to the Internet is most securely firewalled. There, Sam and his team design and start releasing a counter-virus which is supposed to stop Ursula and also to ferret out the terrorists who reprogrammed Ursula’s code.



As their plan encounters setback after setback, Sam and Dodge realize the truth – there are no terrorists; Ursula’s code is working exactly as originally written. What has happened is that by tapping into the decision-making of millions of people around the world, Ursula unintentionally gained a kind of sentience – in effect, Ursula is carrying out the wishes of the collective consciousness of all Internet users. No virus could counteract this now. The only solution is to replace Ursula with something else.

Using a risky “browser-less” connection that allows him to avoid the standard protocols keeping the consciousness and memories of every other user out of his own mind, Sam floods Ursula’s presence on the Internet with his own. In the short term, this proves effective; Ursula is removed and its influence is erased. However, the long-term is a shakier proposition. If Sam has effectively replaced Ursula as the mind-controller of Internet users, how long until his virtual avatar decides to start “fixing” a few things here and there? How long until this seemingly benign presence decides to test its new power?

Reviewers praise some of the realistically upgraded tech in the novel but complain about clichéd plotting and thin characterizations. As Kirkus Reviews puts it, “Plausible tech and a series of deftly detailed settings make up for pixel-thin characterizations, although thoughtful readers may be frustrated at the ethical dilemmas and sociological issues that are raised only to vanish like vaporware.”