After she discovers a diabolical-yet-invisible menace, a scientist and her autistic daughter must go on the run to escape it - and save humanity.

SYNOPSIS:

Wife and husband psychobiologists, ALEXANDRIA BELL and MIKE MILLER, discover the Inscape, a shared mental world accessible through a computer interface that allows them the freedom to change form from one living creature to another at will. But after one of their sessions, Mike commits suicide, sending Alex into a personal and professional tailspin, leaving her to raise their brilliant but autistic daughter, WATSON, alone.

Alex’s mentor, NORMAN RABIN, shares a special relationship with Watson, exchanging codes and jokes. When a protégé of Norman’s, SU LI CHAN, approaches Alex with the idea of resuming her experiments, she refuses until Su Li convinces her that it might cure Watson’s autism. But when they descend into the Inscape they are attacked by giant ferocious creatures with twisty tails. NORMAN leads them to his specially insulated lab where he shows them something that looks just like the creatures that attacked them. They are special bacteria which emit - and communicate through - electromagnetic radiation. He calls them Sheddim, demons from Jewish folklore. Norman explains that one bacterium is not a “brain” any more than one neuron. But when 100 billion are connected together…

As Alex comes to realize, the Sheddim can take over the minds of people and cause them to do anything. When Norman is killed by a truck driver under their control, Alex, Watson, Su Li, and Norman’s assistant JAMEY, flee to a remote region of Canada based on a clue Norman left in code for Watson. They begin to understand that the Sheddim tolerated humanity, even thrived off of it, until it became a threat to their dominance of the planet. They are pursued by a team led by the ruthless MR. AMES. After several narrow escapes, they make it to Canada’s Cape Scott.

With the help of Mike’s brother, RICK MILLER, Navy Seal and the designer of ultra-deep water submersibles, they flee to the one place on earth electromagnetic radiation can’t reach - the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Western Pacific, 7 miles deep. And in this unique environment, Watson proves to be vastly more powerful than any of the others - or their enemies - realized. It is here that they begin to understand that the Inscape is not just some virtual reality world, but is the collective unconscious of the entire human race. And they must enter it one last time for a showdown with the forces that wish to control - or destroy - humanity.

INSCAPE