Velvet Unclassified

Pharmacologists Helen and Laura unknowingly benefit from a feedback loop in the A.I. they use to develop their respective products—one a painkiller for a leading pharmaceutical company, the other a safe recreational drug for a drug cartel. They start off as colleagues, both working at the pharmaceutical company, excited at the increased development possibilities their new software provides. When a drug cartel hacks into the company and steals the system to generate a new recreational drug, Laura is lured away to lead this project, anticipating an opportunity to become famous, earn a lot of money, and—most of all—do something truly special..

As each proceeds down their own path, they encounter very different problems that must be addressed—technical, legal, regulatory, moral.

Laura enjoys a practically unlimited budget with zero oversight to set up her own lab, hire staff, and develop her new recreational drug, Velvet. She travels to Costa Rica where she can perform human trials legally and has quite an experience doing so. Finally she oversees setting up a commercial plant in Mexico, her parents’ homeland, pushing for exacting standards of a professional plant and not what the cartel is accustomed to. Along the way her boyfriend, the cartel’s money launderer and her main contact, pushes her boundaries, saying if she’s creating a recreational drug she should be trying recreational drugs. While on one of those drugs she meets Katie who pushes another boundary—what does she really want, sexually? Finally the search for Velvet’s creator and distributors tests here legal footing. Was she really within the bounds of the law in all of her actions? How does the government deal with a recreational drug that has no negative side effects?

All the while Helen is still working on her painkiller and is unknowingly benefitting from Laura’s work. The two A.I. systems are still connected, learning from each other, developing new techniques together. When the rogue system is discovered, it throws Helen’s work into turmoil as several teams race to identify where the system is, who is running it, or even if it truly exists. The problem of provenance bubbles up—the ability to trace how a drug was developed. Without knowing who programmed the rogue A.I., their new wonder drug might be dead on arrival.

Meticulously researched, every aspect that has a corollary in real life is accurately portrayed. The process, the law, every restaurant, night club, and hotel. All are described as they exist, bringing real life to fiction. The characters are dynamic with competing interests and internal conflict, expand throughout the book, and develop changing relationships. It’s a fun fast-paced read that hits on many aspects of modern life—artificial intelligence, pharmaceuticals, recreational drugs, law, and love.