The Bohr Maker

Nagata, Linda. The Bohr Maker. New York City: Bantam Spectra, 1995. See Internet Speculative Fiction Database for other editions, translation, and awards.[1] First in series, or after "0", The Nanotech Succession.[2]

Blurb from author's website:

It is the most powerful technology known to humanity, microscopically small, allowing its user to control and change other's moods and emotions, and even to reprogram his or her own genetic structure. Its potential as the ultimate weapon or an instrument of peace has led to its ban by the Commonwealth.

Someone has stolen this outlaw technology, the Bohr Maker, from the secret files of the Commonwealth Police, at the command of a man with a genetic time bomb coded into his DNA. Nikko Jiang-Tibayan has only weeks to live, and he will do anything to stay only weeks to live, and he will do anything to stay alive, even if it means the end of life as we know it.

But then the Bohr Maker falls into the hands of a beautiful young woman in the poverty-stricken slums of Sunda. Its technology will make her both fugitive and messiah. The object of frantic searches by a walking dead man and a high-tech police force, the Maker holds the key to the total destruction of humanity -- or its miraculous rebirth...[3]

Cf. Nexus Trilogy, Eclipse Corona, and Interface.

RDE, finishing, 25Nov21