Daemon is a 2006 novel by Daniel Suarez about a distributed persistent computer application that begins to change the real world after its original programmer's death.

Upon publication of the obituary for Matthew A. Sobol, a brilliant computer programmer and CTO of Cyberstorm Entertainment, a daemon is activated.

The program secretly takes over hundreds of companies and provides financial and computing resources for recruiting real world agents and creating AutoM8s (computer controlled driverless cars, used as transport and occasionally as weapons), Razorbacks (sword-wielding robotic riderless motorcycles, specifically designed as weapons) and other devices.

[1] What follows is a series of interlocking stories following the main characters: Detective Pete Sebeck is called in to investigate the death of Pavlos.

Ross eventually deduces that the Daemon can anticipate their every move, seemingly one step ahead of anyone who tries to interfere with its operation.

Even after being named in the Daemon hoax (and put on the FBI's most wanted list), Ross willingly helps the US government to stop the program.

Assigned to the NSA's anti-Daemon task force, with Agent Phillips, he is a firsthand witness to Loki's attack[clarification needed] on the installation and barely survives the massacre that follows.

A longtime military officer and expert in hostage situations, he realizes that Sobol's estate is a death trap and red herring, but fear of the Daemon forces his hand and his team is ordered to secure the site regardless.

His team is quickly killed, and he remains the lone survivor, infiltrating the house and accidentally triggering a bomb, which levels the property.

The Major, unnamed throughout the series, is introduced as a secret DOD liaison assigned to the daemon task force.

Charles Mosely is a former drug dealer and convicted killer recruited by the Daemon, which helps him to escape prison by transferring him first to minimum security and then releasing him altogether.

He eventually becomes a security operative, assigned jobs such as executing criminals, participating a massive worldwide assassination of spammers who corrupt the internet.