Freedom is a harsh mistress.
Behind Blue Eyes by Anna Mocikat is a action-adventure Cyberpunk thriller.
In a future world ruled by warring mega-corporations, cyborg Nephilim believed she was fighting a righteous cause. As a powerful, genetically and cybernetically enhanced elite soldier, her brutal and violent life is not truly her own – until one day, a simple glitch separates her from the grid. For the first time in her life, she is free…and she has doubts. Doubts that bury deeper into her psyche when she meets Jake, a mysterious, 100% bio-human.
He opens her neon-blue eyes to the lies she had been exposed to all her life. Questioning everything she has ever known, Nephilim resolves to take a stand. To hold on to this freedom she has miraculously discovered. But can one person, no matter how strong, beat an all-powerful system of oppression? Soon, Nephilim finds herself hunted by her own people in a deadly game of survival…
The main book series contains the following volumes:
- Behind Blue Eyes
- Fallen Angels
- War Games
- Last Stand
A Prequel series called Nephilim: Behind Blue Eyes Origins was released in 2022, consisting of three volumes and detailing the early life of the central protagonist.
A spinoff series called Neon Nights was released in 2023, detailing the adventures of Film Noir detective Siro Ferreira-Nunes and his partner, Kate Spader.
This series contains the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Nephilim is a badass cybernetic assassin with super-speed and Femme Fatalons.
- All the Other Reindeer: Inverted. Nephilim is considered special and unique by Metatron. This is because he was in love with her father.
- Anti-Escapism Aesop: A Downplayed Trope but it is clear that Olympias is only able to get away with its atrocities because the public generally doesn't care.
- The Beautiful Elite: The Guardian Angels are treated as this with their bodies enhanced to physical perfection and treated as sex symbols despite the fact much of the populace is terrified of them.
- Big Bad: Metatron is the leader of the Guardian Angels and a Dragon with an Agenda.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The Guardian Angels are all hooked up to a machine that influences their minds as well as reports any deviation from their typical thought patterns.
- Bread and Circuses: The Olympias Corporation's preferred way of controlling humanity. They have eliminated religion (or tried to) as well as most dissent but attempt to smother the populace in base pleasures.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Olympias Board of Directors is a bunch of scheming aristocratic old men that maintain their corrupt dominion over the Western Hemisphere through a combination of Bread and Circuses.
- Crapsaccharine World: Olympias provides its citizens with wealth, sex, drugs, and jobs to all of its citizens. It also traffics children, forbids religion, and eliminates all dissent with death.
- Culture Police: The Guardian Angels are deployed as assassins for anyone who doesn't toe the corporate line.
- Cyberpunk: A dystopian science fiction future ruled by corrupt megacorporations and employing cyborg super assassins. Much of the series has themes of information control, religious oppression, and distractions of a superficial shallow nature as used to dominate the populace.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: A Justified trope as the Guardian Angels cybernetics are designed to make it easier to control their minds via brainwashing. They're designed to be an Internal Death Squad that eliminates all dissent to the Olympias Corporation after all.
- Cyborg: The Guardian Angels are a Super-Soldier death squad enhanced with numerous implants designed to make them the world's deadliest killers. It also brainwashes them into obedience while leaving the majority of their personalities intact.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: The reason so many Guardian Angels were killed was due to Finwick selling their weaknesses on the Black Market to sustain his lifestyle.
- Downer Ending:
- Book 1 ends with Nephilim re-brainwashed, the resistance exposed as a foreign plot, and Finwick on the run.
- Book 2 ends with Metatron more powerful than ever and a large number of Guardian Angels murdered by Rossum.
- Book 3 ends with Olympias City about to be invaded and Stavros getting away with his serial murders and rapes.
- Averted with Book 4 as that tends to be more to the Bittersweet Ending as they avert an invasion. However, Jake has gone through a Face–Heel Turn to become a misogynist traitor.
- Dragon with an Agenda:
- Metatron is technically just the chief enforcer of the Olympias Corporation but it's clear he wants to actually rule it even to the Board. They'd love to reign him in but he's very good at contriving reasons why that's a bad idea.
- Technically, Nephilim becomes this to Metatron when he makes her one of his Archangels. until he brainwashes her rebellious tendencies out of her.
- The Evils of Free Will: The Olympias Corporation believes in this and does their best to enforce it with a combination of enforced decadence, propaganda, and murder.
- Face–Heel Turn: In Wars Games and Last Stand, Jake proceeds to become willing to betray his own country, allow Guardian Angels to be raped and murdered by a Serial Killer, and more in order to try to "rescue" Nephilim. When she rejects him, he develops a strong misogynist streak.
- Fantastic Racism: Cyborgs are considered to be monsters in the territory controlled by the Rospram Corporation. This is averted in the Olympias and TogbuaXiang controlled areas where they are the ruling elite. Even so, Olympias' board considers cyborgs to be useful tools and not really people. Metatron, by contrast, thinks of regular humans as inferior and cyborgs as the next stage in human evolution.
- Free-Love Future: Deconstructed with the fact that while the populace is sexually open and free, a vast number of citizens are forced into Sex Slave status due to the fact it is just another commodity to peddle. This includes children.
- Gay Best Friend: Adriel is a fellow Guardian Angel and Nephilim's closest friend in the world. He is also one of the few male characters in the setting with no interest in her due to their Incompatible Orientation. Despite being a Free-Love Future, he is also one of the few characters with no love interests or one night stands.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: What happens to Guardian Angels as they are too dangerous to be allowed to think for themselves. They are all Brainwashed and Crazy and monitored for deviation from the norm but are given vast amounts of power as well as pleasure to keep them docile between missions.
- Happiness in Slavery: What the Olympias Corporation has (mostly) achieved with a society that provides for all material wants, provides all the sex you could ever desire, and constantly bombards you with propaganda. They only have to prune a small number of citizens every year.
- Hollywood Atheist: The Olympias Corporation hates religion and has done its best to suppress it throughout its territories despite it controlling the highly-religious former United States as well as South America.
- Hollywood Voodoo: Mama Legba cultivates this image around her gang of hackers and Street Samurai that operate under the radar of Olympias City. The fact it is religious in nature makes it inherently subversive to the Hollywood Atheist megacorp ruling it.
- Honey Pot: Jake was sent to seduce Nephilim by the Romsprom megacorporation. He pretends to be a plucky resistance fighter against the Olympias Corporation.
- Hope Spot: Nephilim has found true love, regained her free will, and joined the Resistance. The Resistance is a lie, her boyfriend is a Honey Pot, and she's eventually re-brainwashed.
- Hopeless Suitor: Finwick to Nephilim. He's a geeky nerd that is kind of a creep and she's a beautiful master assassin superhuman.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The elderly and other "suicides" are hunted by the rich when they sign up for the service, instead of the easy death they were promised.
- Incompatible Orientation: Kate strongly prefers women but was willing to sleep with Siro as a gesture of their friendship.
- In Love with the Mark: Jake falls in love with Nephilim during his attempt to turn her into an asset against her fellow Guardian Angels and this results in him sabotaging his spy cell's attempt to take down Olympias.
- Internal Death Squad: The Guardian Angels fight against foreign agents but primarily focuses on eliminating internal dissent as well as separatists.
- Megacorp: The world is divided between three megacorporations that directly rule all the remaining cities.These are the Olympias Corporation, Rosprom, and TogbuaXiang. The Olympias Corporation controls North and South America, Rosprom controls Europe and North Asia, and TogbuaXiang controls Asia as well as Africa. No word on who controls Australia.
- Mook Horror Show: Nephilim puts on one of these when she proceeds to hunt down and exterminate an entire Organ Theft ring to rescue Finwick.
- Moral Myopia: Jake is perfectly happy to assist in the rape and murder of Guardian Angels as long as Nephilim isn't threatened by then. He also seems to believe Nephilim would be okay with this despite her friendship with many of them.
- Morality Pet: Sarah serves as one of these for Nephilim before her mindwipe destroys her memory of her and then Finwick. Both of her guardians think of their treatment of her as a way to atone for their evils as part of the Guardian Angels program. Sarah accepts Finwick but still considers Nephilim to be the woman who murdered her family.
- My Girl Is a Slut: All Guardian Angels are expected to be promiscuous and sleep around.
- Neon City: Olympias City is a massive city covering most of Western North America that is absolutely deluged in light based advertisements, glowing lights to keep it running twenty-four seven, and augmented reality. Since everything is owned by the Olympias Corporation, it is dedicated to keeping the public distracted by Bread and Circuses versus actual profit.
- Organ Theft: Siro and Kate bust up one of these rings in Neon Nights, the group having literally hundreds of victims.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Of the extreme misogynist and Fantastic Racism variety. Cilian Stavros is a serial killing murderer of cyborgs and enjoys rendering them helpless before raping then murdering them. He gets an especial thrill from preying on the Action Girl Guardian Angels.
- Replacement Goldfish: Metatron was passionately devoted to Nephilim's father. That's why he wants to make her his lover and second-in-command. This is why Metatron always attempting to win Nephilim over and promoting her over other Guardian Angels.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Nephilim proceeds to go on one of these after she escapes Cillian Stavros. She pushes herself to the limit and slaughts all of his guards before jumping off a building to get on an aircraft. Sadly, she misses.
- Schmuck Bait: Finwick forges a bond with a sex worker and he is invited to go off together. It's actually a cover for an Organ Theft ring.
- Serial Killer: One of these, Cillian Stavros, is preying on the Guardian Angels despite their Super-Soldier status. Stavros is a Olympias executive who is working with weaknesses provided by Finwick to pay for his daughter's protection.
- Sensual Slav:
- A rare male example with Jake who is from Eastern Europe, not Olympias. He is handsome, buff, blond, and charming.
- Komarova is a more traditional example being a buxom blonde Femme Fatale.
- Shout-Out: There are multiple references to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. The title is one to The Who song "Behind Blue Eyes", a song about struggling with one's inner demons.
- Single-Target Sexuality: After being with Nephilim, Jake loses all attraction to other women, even the alluring fellow Sensual Slav Komarova.
- Super-Soldier: With mutually assured destruction a guarantee, the fighting between the superpowers is done between teams of these.
- Transhuman Treachery: Metatron considers cyborgs to be a superior being than regular humans, particularly those of the Guardian Angels and resents that he's forced to subordinate himself to the Olympias Corporation board that is made of regular humans. He makes several not-so-subtle attempts to get more freedom over his group's actions and alludes to overthrowing them.
- Villainous Crush: Metatron is obsessed with making Nephilim his lover as well as second in command. This includes erasing her memories of those things that cause her to question his allegiance. It is also because he used to be in love with her father.
- When Harry Met Svetlana: What Nephilim's relationship with Jake turns out to be. He is a foreign asset attempting to seduce her into uploading a computer virus that will crash the Olympias system.
