Putting the Punk back in Cyberpunk.
SINless is a series of Cyberpunk books by K.C. Alexander. They follow the adventures of street mercenary, Riko, who is living in the ruins of what was formerly America. It is a setting where cybernetically enhanced Runners live off the grid without their SIN codes and survive through various acts of crime.
Cybernetic enhancements aren't without their own dangers, though, as there's a condition where the nanites that allow them to remain in your body go beserk. This results in them spreading like cancer and eventually consuming the body, reanimating it as a cyborg without a soul called a Necrotech.
Riko has no desire to engage with any of the corporations or Dirty Cop authority figures who rule the world but only survive by her wits. Unfortunately, she has a tendency to offend her fellow criminals with her attitude too. As such, she has no allies and a very bad reputation with every person she deals with. That's fine, she prefers to do it her way anyway.
There are two books in the series:
- Necrotech
- Nanoshock
Tropes:
- The Aloner: Having a relentlessly hostile and angry attitude to everyone and everything will leave you with no friends or allies.
- Antihero: Riko is crude, rude, lewd, irreverent, and a professional criminal. She's also A Lighter Shade of Black than everyone else around her.
- Ambiguously Brown: Riko was kicked out (or ran away) of the 'anglo compound' because she wasn't white enough due to recesssive genes.
- Ambiguous Ending: Riko shoots herself in the head in Nanoshock. She then wakes up. The End.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Riko has a somewhat one-sided set of this with Detective Gregory. She has similar feelings toward Malik Reed.
- Big Bad: MetaCore is the company behind the necrotech zombies. They also serve as The Man Behind the Man.
- Big Brother Instinct: Indigo's relationship with Nanji. It wasn't appreciated by her.
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Gregory insists on trying to put a positive spin on the fact he's holding Riko's file over her head.
- Coolest Club Ever: The Mecca is one of these, being one part brothel, club, mercenary hang out, and other things.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Malik is one of the richer contacts that Riko has.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Going into "Nanoshock" and becoming "Necrotech" is a very real danger. All humans have an extensive amount of nanites, and many will have further bionics, with cybernetics enthusiasts really pushing the boundaries. Unfortunately, humans have a limited "tech threshold", after which the body can't handle all this energy-intensive hardware and shuts down. Plus, even if are you well below the tech threshold, if the nanites in your body exhaust their energy supply then they will start to break down the host body for energy. This is going in to "Nanoshock" and if the person dies, the corpse becomes animated by the nanites and the resulting high-tech zombie becomes known as "Necrotech".
- Dating Catwoman: With Riko as Catwoman to Gregory's Batman. She's a Runner, he's a Cop.
- Depraved Bisexual: Parodied as Riko would describe herself as depraved and she's also bisexual. The two aren't linked, though.
- Driven to Suicide: Riko kills herself in Nanoshock. It doesn't take.
- Fate Worse than Death: What Riko considers becoming a necrotech to be. She's not wrong.
- The Fundamentalist:
- Purists are this, believing that cybernetics are an abomination. They can't reject nanotechology completely, though, because it's necessary for survival.
- Defied by the Shepherds who utterly profane all religious iconography they adopt to justify their crimes. Riko says the Purists would be (and are) disgusted by them.
- Gang of Hats: The Shepherds are a gang that adopts a misogynist Catholic theme that utterly disgusts Riko.
- The Ghost: SINless individuals live off the grid by removing their SIN codes (effectively social security numbers). It means they have no rights, though.
- Hate Sink: Fuck It Jim is the most loathsome fixer in the arcology. He's treacherous, slimy, and implied to be a pedophile. No one misses him when Riko kills him.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: All of Riko's street cred is gone at the start of Nercotech. She has no idea why and it's part of her motivation to investigate her Laser-Guided Amnesia. It actually gets worse with Nanoshock when it's believed she's sold out her former partners to be turned into necrotech.
- Hotter and Sexier: There's a lot more sex in Nanoshock than there is in Necrotech but it tends to border on Fan Disservice.
- Killed Off for Real: Indigo is given a Mercy Kill by Riko in order to prevent him from succumbing to necroshock.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Riko has no idea how she got to be captured or operated on at the start of Necrotech.
- Naughty Nun: Riko has sex with one in an alley in Nanoshock. Notable that she's a member of the Shepherds gang than part of the Catholic Church (that may no longer exist).
- No Woman's Land: Shepherd territory where rape is a common punishment and women are used as sex slaves.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Necrotech are what happen when you have too much cyberware and it screws up your nanites. The technology takes control, replaces your mind, and turns you into a mindless killing machine. It is considered to be a Fate Worse than Death.
- Police Brutality: Riko is subjected to this in the opening chapters of Necrotech but gets saved due to her Friend on the Force.
- Religion of Evil: The Shepherds gang are this as well as a Gang of Hats. Their Christianity begins and ends at justifying their misogyny.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: This is what Riko immediately goes on well before she discovers what happened to Nanji.
- Mercy Kill: What Riko believes is necessary for her to give to Nanji after she discovers she's been corrupted into a Necrotech.
- Naughty Nun: The female gang members that Riko likes screwing with (in both ways) in Nanoshock. It's their theme.
- You Killed My Father: More like girlfriend but Nanji is one of the few of Riko's lovers that she actually cared about.
- Zombie Apocalypse: What people think will happen if Necrotech ever learn to spread beyond methods other than direct touch. It happened in Nanoshock and was what the scientists were trying to accomplish.
