Colonel Steven Scott has one mission: stop an economic war designed to cripple a nation without invading it. Officially, SOULUTIONS does not exist.
Unofficially, the President has just authorized the CIA to unleash it.
Scott—a former Green Beret carrying the scars of wars that followed him home—is the point man. Inside his reconstructed right eye is PSYCHONIX, a classified neural-noetic system that extends human capability beyond conventional technology while preserving the one thing no machine can manufacture:
the human soul.
His target is General Ali Ardeshir Larijani, a former Iranian intelligence operative running a fortified DarkNet auction in Syria. But Larijani is only the muscle. Behind him is Maxime Thierry—a sophisticated French financier with a deep-seated hatred of Israel and the West has driven him to turn stolen antiquities, extremist money, and global commerce into a nation-killing weapon.
Steal a nation’s treasures. Destroy its tourism. Rattle its markets.
Finance the next strike. Israel is first. The West is next.
Scott’s orders are simple:
Infiltrate the auction.
Seize the intelligence.
Collapse the network.
Get out alive.
And while Scott fights his way through Syria, another SOULUTIONS operative is closing in on Thierry through the money corridors of Dubai. The men at the top have to be taken off the board. They built an economy of terror.
Steven Scott is about to bankrupt it.
Thank you for stepping into this world with me.
— Mike Burnette
“In a world where personhood is reduced to algorithm and morality to preference, PSYCHONIX dares to ask what happens when the soul fights back. This is more than a battle for control—it’s a war for what it means to be truly human. Because the soul isn’t a program. It isn’t data. And it refuses to be erased.”
~ Dr. Joshua R. Farris, Founder, Soul Science Ministries
“Mike Burnette’s visionary narrative offers a sobering and insightful glimpse into the future of warfare shaped by emergent AI. With intellectual precision and narrative force, he confronts the unsettling implications of transhumanist technologies—how they may erode human dignity, blur moral lines, and unleash new forms of destruction. Yet, Burnette also deftly captures their paradoxical potential: as tools essential to the preservation of liberty in the face of terrorism and totalitarianism. This is not just speculative fiction—it’s a compelling warning, and a challenge to think critically about the path ahead.”
~ Dr. Julie Miller, Author of Critiquing Transhumanism: The Human Cost of Pursuing Techno-Utopia
Colonel Steven Scott agreed to die for the most classified experiment in America.
He did, and then came back.
Now foreign intelligence wants PSYCHONIX, someone inside the program has betrayed it—and Scott is carrying its secret inside his skull. A combat-wounded former Green Beret, Scott has survived men who wanted him dead before. This is different.
Created by brilliant neurosurgeon Dr. Mark Starr, PSYCHONIX—Psychological Bionics—is a revolutionary neural-model interface designed to augment the brain while reaching beyond its physical limits to the immaterial soul. They thought they were building the next generation of human-machine integration. They opened a door between realities.
To prove PSYCHONIX could cross it, Scott had to die. For four minutes and thirty-eight seconds his conscious mind crossed a threshold no soldier, scientist, or intelligence service had ever reached. Then he came back—remembering a reality his body never entered.
Now the CIA is watching, foreign intelligence is closing in, and the threat is already inside the program. PSYCHONIX could transform intelligence, warfare, and the balance of power. The people hunting it don’t have to understand its soul. They only have to understand its advantage. Scott is no longer the test subject. He is the key. If they can’t steal PSYCHONIX from the laboratory—they’ll come for the man carrying it. But Scott has one advantage.
They’ve never fought a man who was dead.
Surviving death was the experiment.
The first arms race for access to the human soul has already begun.
“PSYCHONIX is a compulsively readable thriller—packed with psychological twists, existential stakes, and ideas that linger long after the final page.”
~ Gary Habermas, Liberty University
“Believe me when I say PSYCHONIX is engaging. Mike Burnette did a outstanding job of capturing the mind-body problem arguments accurately and in an interesting, readable way.”
~ Dr. J.P. Moreland, Talbot School of Theology