Legacy humans like Cyrus Kowalski are used to skirting the laws the ascenders have laid down - after all, he knows the hyper-intelligent human bot hybrids only pretend to care about their legacy pets. But when Cyrus's adopted mother is stricken by a disease the ascenders refuse to cure, he has to risk everything to defy them... or stand by helplessly and watch her die.Defiance is a standalone short novella that takes place in the world of the Singularity novels.Start the novel series with The Legacy Human (Singularity 1).