What happens when the quest for ever-cheaper products, delivered ever faster, completes the takeover of American business? The Warehouse. The Cloud company.

Cloud is to Amazon what the Black Death is to a cold. Cloud takes everything down to the cheapest possible solution, whether it is products, delivery, employees, vendors, customers or government.

Amazon today hosts “camperforces”, RV parks to house their seasonal workforce, who migrate around the country seeking work. Cloud builds huge dormitories housing tens of thousands who must wear ID trackers to access their rooms, the trams, the workspace, the bathrooms. Employees work 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, with nominal breaks. Warehouses cover hundreds of acres, too large to see from one end to the other; with few bathrooms and break rooms scattered inadequately. Cloud pays in script and charges hefty fees to convert between script and dollars. It’s the company town and company store on steroids.

Cloud’s founder Gibson Wells believes the market should dictate everything, that customers value low prices and convenience, and he has Cloud work aggressively to swipe ideas and push vendors into bankruptcy in order to cut prices ever lower.

He tells us about his triumph with Cloud Pickles. He liked a brand of $5 pickles and wanted the company to sell them for $2, but the company could not. So Cloud came up with their own almost-as-good product and drove the original pickle company out of business.

Cloud privatized the FAA in order to deliver via millions of drones and expects to privatize the rest of the government. He never considers the long term end state because the ends – cheap products and services – justify the means.

This is not libertarian economics run amok, it is totalitarian rule with a bit of bread and circuses thrown in.

Morality Play
One way to read The Warehouse is as dystopian economics. What happens when one company dominates everything, from transport to food to retail to government services? What happens when that company is just about the only employer left?

How do the people running this behemoth justify their predatory behavior? How do their employees, their vendors respond to the never-ending push push push for more for less?

When people forget the basic rules of decency and morality, stop following the Golden Rule, they become monsters. That’s what is happening in Cloud. Gibson Wells sees employees and vendors, even the country, as giant sponges to be wrung dry, turnips to suck to dust. He justifies everything by his goal for cheap products and services, ignoring the cost to everyone else.

Paxton and Zinnia, two new employees at a Cloud warehouse, also have decisions to make. Paxton had invented a gadget to cook the perfect boiled egg and his company did quite well, for a while. Then Cloud demanded to purchase at below Paxton’s costs and put him out of business. Now Paxton is a reluctant security guard at the warehouse. Zinnia is a corporate spy hired to find out how Cloud is powering this enormous facility.

Paxton is more reactive while Zinnia takes action on her own. Zinnia discovers a creepy pervert supervisor and tries to protect others from him; Paxton later discovers the man was never fired, just reassigned. (The security lead says it’s quieter and easier to move someone than to fire tem, although Cloud routinely axes their lowest performing decile every quarter.)



Characters
Gibson Wells is the most interesting character. He narrates his story now as he is dying, and manages to justify the destruction Cloud has done by remembering the good he has done. Or thinks he has done. It’s very difficult to justify putting millions out of work and treating employees like dirt just to cut a buck off the price of some gadget.

One lesson I learned very early in purchasing vintage glass for my small business was that deals need to be good for everyone. You have to be willing to leave money, not on the table, but in the pockets of your supplier. Otherwise you won’t have a supplier. Apparently Gibson Wells never learned this. He thinks it’s great if he’s the only supplier.

Zinnia is fascinating too. She has zero intention of falling in love, or even caring about anyone at Cloud. She’s there to do her job, get the information she came for, and get out successfully. Instead she gets pulled into an affair with Paxton that may cost her life.

Paxton is there mainly as a foil, to move the story along and to show us a bit more about Cloud and the misery it causes.

There are a few minor characters, also well drawn and believable. The other security people are willing to ignore cruelty in order to keep Cloud running smoothly, while dealing harshly with small infractions. They see their job as keeping the place running the best it can for everyone, making mediocre omelettes while breaking more than a few eggs.

Overall
5 Stars

I received The Warehouse via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The nice part about living in a present-day America that edges closer and closer to becoming a full-blown dystopia rife with all kinds of political and capitalism-driven horrors is that it gives authors plenty of raw material to work with. Whether it’s Chuck Wendig’s recent, Wanderers, which used the ascent of a Trump-like president, climate change, and artificial technology to tell of an epic 800-page apocalypse, or Rob Hart’s The Warehouse, it’s hard not to recognize the modern realities that forecast the various states of ruination at the core of these stories.

At an unspecified point in the near future, a massive online retailer has taken over. Economically, commercially, and, to a degree, governmentally, everything belongs to Cloud and its dying, insanely wealthy CEO Gibson Well. Situated on the outskirts of one of America’s many ghost cities lies a MotherCloud facility, a futuristic analog to the company towns where employees live, work, and shop. Among its latest batch of new entry-level hires are Paxton, a former CEO whose company was bought out by Cloud, and Zinnia, an industrial spy whose been tasked with infiltrating Cloud and stealing its secrets.

Presented as a successor to Amazon, Gibson was able to get one over on Bezos with his company, Cloud, by cracking the code to aerial drone delivery and lightweight packaging, a task prodded along by his governmental lobbying and pockets deep enough to allow him to privatize the FAA. Gibson himself is a rather complicated character, which makes him feel all the more real. As he tells of his successes and failures, his dreams and ambitions, Hart paints a fully realized portrait of a man grappling with his legacy as his final days approach. Gibson Wells has changed the world, perhaps even permanently, and what he’s left behind will forever mark mankind with his legacy. As we learn more about him, and the impact his life’s work has made, it becomes quite clear Gibson is hardly the perfect hero he believes himself to be. It’s hard, however, to paint him as a clear-cut, James Bond-type villain, twirling his mustache and rooting for the world to end. He does want to do good, but gives little thought to the consequences of his actions, firmly rooted in an “ends justify the means” mindset. His right-wing libertarian ego prevents him from seeing the harm he’s wrought, but his earnest idealism make him a fairly sympathetic antagonist to humanity.

Like Gibson, Paxton and Zinnia are equally complicated, morally conflicted protagonists. Hart does a wonderful job crafting complex characters and shifting reader’s expectation on how to view them. That a love story develops between these two should be of little surprise if you’ve ever read a thriller before, but the nature of that story and the multiple dimensions it exists within are a beautiful exhibit of the author’s skill as a storyteller. You’re never quite sure how things are going to shake out, who to root for, or when the jig will finally be up. It’s through their eyes that we get the ground-level view of life inside the MotherCloud facility, the sad and hard state of life outside it, and the various shades of grey that permeate their lives and the world around them.

Workers live and breath Cloud. Their homes are onsite, within this gargantuan facility where they work. Each worker is required at all times to wear a smart device, kind of like a FitBit, that tracks their work performance, monitors their location within the facility, provides them with job duties, and allows them access to and from their dormitory, shopping centers, and the community restroom and showers. The MotherCloud is, for all intents and purposes, a prison facility in the panopticon mold, its laborers a willing slave force. They’re paid in company credits, rather than the US Dollar, but if they are fired during a monthly Cut Day they can transfer whatever credits they’ve made to a non-Cloud bank for a nominal service fee and whatever the current exchange rate might be. Employee performance is algorithm-based, so workers on the stock floor are forced to hustle, constantly running from one end of the warehouse to the other to fulfill orders and keep their ranking in the green lest they be hauled off the premises by the blue-shirted security guards. Everything within the Cloud runs on the almighty algorithm. Unions are anathema, workers rights nonexistent, and there are no weekends, no vacations, no sick leave, unless you want to lose a star ranking and risk losing everything. Outside the facility is nothing but the remains of an American town that used to be, its businesses long since shuttered and foreclosed as customers grew to rely on Cloud to fulfill their every whim.

If any of this sounds familiar, it should. Cloud is, of course, a thinly veiled critique on Amazon business practices with a polished 1984 veneer, but also American capitalism and greed run amok. While Amazon enjoys a -1% tax rate on hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, us working class schmucks are only a few possible, terrible steps removed form the bleak future Hart’s envisioned. Every underwater mortgage, golden parachute, bankrupted competitor, government lobbyist, unchecked monopoly and unfettered monopsony, and cut to education and public welfare programs gets us that much closer to having to choose between our personal freedom and being a wage slave for life without any reasonable alternatives in between. One of the recurring themes in The Warehouse is the issue of choosing the lesser evil. Is it better to have personal freedom and possess nothing, or to have everything provided for you and be nothing?

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same…but it’s also true that a society that forgets its past is doomed to repeat old mistakes. It’s possible that advancements in technology and corporate business ethics could carry us forward into a new epoch, but it’s just as likely they’ll all too easily return us to a messy and difficult past of hardships and human capital in a future where we’ll owe our soul to the company store.

The Warehouse by Rob Hart

Pros: interesting characters, fast paced, thought-provoking

Cons:

Gibson Wells, founder of the Cloud tech empire that dominates the US economy, is dying. After Cloud puts Paxton’s business under, he applies to work at one of their MotherCloud facilities, where people work and live. He expects this to be a temporary gig, to earn enough money so he can be his own boss again. Zinnia has been hired to infiltrate a Cloud facility and steal proprietary information.

Their paths collide inside the company in a novel that explores how far corporate America will go to ‘make the world a better place’.

The book takes place during the slow economic and environmental collapse of America. The world is not as apocalyptic as Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, but it’s getting there. With fewer and fewer options, more people are opting to work for Cloud, which has both caused many of the problems mentioned in the book even as it tries to (claims to) make things better.

At the start of the book I felt sympathy for Wells, but as I learned more about him, and saw the predatory nature behind his smiles and the abusive personality behind his policies I started to despise him. Though Zinnia is also manipulative I found I still liked her at the end of the book. She’s feisty and smart and I wanted her to be happy. I thought she and Paxton made a good couple and hoped they’d stay together, despite some of her choices towards the end. Paxton was a mixed bag. I liked him but he was easily manipulated by everyone around him, which made me feel less sympathetic towards him.

The book was surprisingly fast paced. Adult dystopian fiction generally drags a bit due to excess worldbuilding or political sentiment. The focus here really is on the characters so it was a quick read - and hard to put down towards the end.

That’s not to say there weren’t some poignant moments where you can see how our own world is heading in this direction. The company is obviously modelled after Amazon and Walmart and their practices of forcing producers to cut costs so they can sell products a the lowest price possible. It does end of a slightly more positive note than other dystopian books as well.

This is definitely worth checking out.

What if climate change and the complete collapse of retail stores left the planet with almost nothing but a monolithic, Amazon-like online store called Cloud to supply not only everyday needs, but a place to live and work as well? This is the dystopia depicted in The Warehouse. It follows two new Cloud employees, and the founder (who is dying from cancer, and blogs about his career and his road trip to visit as many Cloud facilities as he can before the end).

Neither of the employees are thinking of the job as a permanent thing. Paxton is a former prison guard who founded a company that was destroyed by Cloud; Zinnia is a corporate spy who has been hired to infiltrate Cloud. Gibson is Cloud's founder, who we see only via blog entries until the climax of the novel. Much of the novel focuses on Paxton and Zinnia as they learn their new jobs (Paxton is assigned to security, Zinnia to "picking," pulling ordered items for shipment), become romantically involved with each other, and try to advance their own priorities.

There are of course complications, leading to Gibson's visit to their MotherCloud warehouse, which brings everything to a head. Zinnia and Paxton both learn things that few Cloud employees know (or anyone else, for that matter). Cloud has already taken a dominant role in society, and Gibson means to take things much further. In the end Paxton makes a choice for personal freedom over comfort, throwing his lot in with a group of revolutionaries.

Hart has crafted an exciting story, and the contemporary reflections serve to amplify the message rather than oversell it. Hopefully things will never get this bad, but if they do the human spirit is invincible.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy.

One of the best books I've read recently! This page-turner features two believable characters who both end up working for "The Cloud", an Amazon-like facility with "work-life" dormitories and no privacy whatsoever. Each worker wears tracking devices and job security is non-existent. Paxton is simply looking for a job, while Zinnia is infiltrating the organization to learn its secrets. You'll never look at a box on a porch in the same way after finishing this thought-provoking new book.

The Warehouse is one of those books that absolutely sucked me in from the vey beginning. I wanted to call in sick at work just so I could sit at home and read all day. The best thing about it was I can see our future in this book. Replace Cloud with the current "biggest online retailer" we all know and love and this is us in the near future. Horrifying...

I recommend this to anyone who loves futuristic suspense thrillers.

An eerie modern take on Orwell's 1984. What struck me the most was the plausibility. It's crossed my mind, as I'm sure it has yours, that a monopoly online retailer has the power to change the world. Is changing the world.

In the USA especially, where convenience and instant gratification rule, it is easy to 'go with the flow' without looking at the possible consequences. Portrayed so well in this story.

The world has become a harsh environment. We have polluted and consumed to the edge of extinction. There is only one escape - The Cloud -

The Cloud is an behemoth online retailer that provides for all your needs including housing and medical care if you're one of the lucky ones to work for them. The conditions are atrocious to us readers, but to the characters who have only the harsher outside world to go to it's better than nothing. It's truly scary to see how the characters are easily brainwashed into 'the system'. It's even scarier to think that it could/would happen to me.

Hang on for this thrilling ride into a near future reality. The end will have you gasping and asking for more.

I absolutely dig this book! Such a great concept, I was interested, I believed it, I believe it CAN happen. It made me think a lot about what I would do IF it happened.

I am a big fan of dystopian tho. Freaks me out and really makes me think and I’m all about that. I love a mindless thriller most, yes, but I also love thinking books too!

My one criticism? The ending. Didn’t do it for me.

Loved the alternate chapters from Zinnia and Paxton’s perspectives, with Gibson mixed in there.

Who are you rooting for? I think you’ll find yourself questioning who throughout this book and that’s awesome.

If you can let yourself go and get into the book and get into what you would do in this alternative (and very possible) world then you’ll love this book too!

The Warehouse is a dark thriller about a world where an Amazon like company called "The Cloud" has taken over as the retailer of choice. The creator of the Cloud is dying and trying to visit as many of the mother Cloud locations - 1 per state - as he can. Meanwhile, the story follows 2 protagonists who are hired at the same hiring event as they start their new jobs, though one is not quite who they pretend to be.
Part of the book is the blog entries from the Cloud's creator, where he talks about the history of the Cloud and what his view of the world is. In general, he comes across like every business leader who has absolutely no clue about what his underlings are doing, and has no sympathy for the downsides of what his business model has wrought. In my opinion, he comes across as a mix of Steve Jobs, the Walton family, and most arrogant business owners who somehow think they are due to make millions off the labor of others because the whole thing was originally their idea. He is a very unsympathetic character and I was honestly surprised that he didn't have more of hand in the main event, the so-called Black Friday Massacres that are hinted at with little explanation until the final chapters, that caused the Cloud to become the retailer of choice.
There are some very cliched moments - a manager/pervert who manages to get people fired when they complain about his behavior; tying one's rating to willingness to work unpaid overtime, etc. - that are probably meant to be satirical but come across as unlikely or absurd.

Loved this book! The writing was suspenseful and thrilling. Couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen. Would like to read another Rob Hart book.

When jobs and housing are scarce, The Cloud provides workers a job and a place to live. All you have to do is give up your autonomy. Paxton has nowhere else to turn after his business goes bankrupt. Zinnia is not who she appears to be. Part techno-thriller and part dystopian warning, The Warehouse will shock and terrify readers. Recommended for fans of Blake Crouch.

If your going to read a book on the implications of Amazon, this is it. Chilling, interesting and thought provoking of the premise of taking the impact of amazon to its logical conclusion. Should be read by everyone.

Grocery pickup, online shopping, and delivery droids seem so harmless... right? In The Warehouse, a world of nearly unthinkable capitalism is explored. Are you really anything if you aren’t part of the Cloud? If the insane capitalism wasn’t mind boggling enough, the escapades happening inside MotherCloud get more and more intense with every page.

If you’re a fan of thrillers or sci-fi, and want to dive into a terrifying, yet intriguing world, The Warehouse definitely needs to be added to your reading list.

The scariest part of The Warehouse by Rob Hart is how it paints a nightmarish future similar to the brilliance of Black Mirror. There is enough logic in the madness of why Cloud exists and why a CEO can convince him/herself and their stockholders that any decision can be spun to seem like it's helping people when the reality of it is that the main decision is money and power. The Warehouse follow the paths of Zennia and Paxton. In Zennia, we follow a new Cloud hire who is also a hired spy with a plan. In Paxton, we follow another new hire who has a grudge against his new employer. Both characters offer compelling journeys as they navigate through Cloud. Hart does a fantastic job illustration the futuristic and hellish work conditions at Cloud. I felt like the plot could have moved along a bit quicker in the beginning but other than that, I found this thrilling story to be a great read and I highly recommend it.

After the Black Friday Massacres, Americans were afraid to go shopping. Luckily, Cloud was there to save the day. With its vast warehouses and nigh-instantaneous drone deliveries, Cloud easily replaced old-fashioned commerce. And when this new business paradigm drove all smaller companies out of business, gutting towns and dreams, Cloud was there to offer jobs with decent (scrip) wages, (microscopic on-site) housing, and medical care (you won't use if you know what's good for you). Little do they suspect that their newest employee is actually a corporate spy. Both thrilling and horrifyingly plausible.

Okay, I have to admit, I enjoyed this for a very strange reason. I really enjoy reading about processes and how things work- especially in dystopian societies. If Margaret Atwood wrote a rule book for handmaids that explained how everything worked, I would totally read that.

In this book, large chunks are dedicated to explaining how things work inside the Cloud (a company that is more or less based on Amazon- when you know, Amazon finally succeeds in world domination). The author goes into explaining all of the shirt colors, what they do, how everyone lives, eats, etc. and I thoroughly enjoyed all of this world building explanation. Overall, the characters and plot were also good.

I will also admit to pausing and ordering a couple of things from Amazon that I randomly remembered needing. Luckily though, I don't eat meat, but I did just have a Beyond burger and after reading this I am slightly less confidant in that decision 😂

THE WAREHOUSE, by Rob Hart, has the unique quality of being a satire/thriller. Cloud is a giant tech company in the future that has become so huge that it not only has it's own culture, but when governmental agencies have slowed it's progress, like for instance the FAA wanted to regulate drone delivery use from Cloud, Cloud found a way to take it over and make the FAA into what it needs. Paxton is a lost soul who is hoping to find purpose in his life by starting anew at Cloud. Zinnia has joined the Cloud family under false pretenses and she has a secret agenda. Paxton and Zinnia cross paths and develop a relationship as they both settle into Cloud, truths float to the surface and Zinnia's agenda reveals itself.
Hart creates a world that is close to being taken over by a corporation, Cloud. Hart's vision of this company comically mirrors conventions that real world companies use like color coated uniforms to define job type, a campus that sounds like a futuristic utopia that fosters happiness and contentment while hiding real humanity, and my favorite part is that Cloud doesn't want to act like big brother and put cameras everywhere so that people feel watched, but each employee has a tracker they must always wear on their wrist, otherwise the Cloud authorities will be notified of their insubordinance. The reader is doled out new fun tidbits about Cloud throughout the book, which couples nicely with the plot of Paxton and Zinnia. Really cool and intelligent action and suspense sequences are throughout the book and there is a truly exciting finish to the story.
Maybe our world is heading towards Rob Hart's vision in THE WAREHOUSE and this book forces the reader to consider what the future holds. I don't think Hart is convinced if his future is definitely good or bad and he does a good job of weighing the pros and cons. A mind-bending fun read!

Convenience is not the ultimate nirvana. Rob Hart immerses the reader into a dystopian future where an Amazon-like company, known as The Cloud, is virtually in a position to take over all the functions of society..Consumers no longer feel the necessity to venture out of their house ... The Cloud's Warehouse can supply anything they could possibly want with a simple ordering click. However, the apparent benefits come with a high price ! The underlying dilemma is the true nature of this supposed Utopian workplace .... the employees are overworked and underpaid, and pushed behind reasonable expectations.
The narrative revolves around two new reluctant employees. Zinnia, the bronze beautiful corporate spy and Paxton , the disgruntled entrepreneur and former prison guard. Paxton has an axe to grind ... The Cloud squashed his business by demanding an ever expanding discount to sell his inventive product.. Zinnia has been sent to infiltrate the companies security to "find dirt" to bring The Cloud down.. Although their interests are dissimilar their lives intersect and an unexpected relationship develops.
Gibson, the inventor of The Cloud is dying and is attempting to visit as many of his facilities as possible before he succumbs to Cancer. The tension and mystery ratchets up as the three main protagonists find themselves converging in the same place with unexpected results.
Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to Crown Publishing, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
There are moments when I really appreciate Netgalley, and this is one of them. This isn't a book that I would have spent money on, and if I had, then I probably still wouldn't have read it! I knew from the get go how this book would be, and also the end.
Yep! I'm one of those crazy folk who prefers locally owned. I don't shop boxstores, and except for e-books and my kindle device, I very seldom shop Amazon! Like maybe, once or twice a decade! That's it.
I started reading this book, and I got to the part where it stated that the Cloud didn't pay in money. Only credits. Everything you NEEDED could only be bought through the Cloud. These are employees. They work 10 to 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Of course, no unions. Well, anyone who knows me, knows that I'm slightly pissed off now! I've turned down promotions because I was expected to work more than 40 hours. Money is awesome. Too much time spent making that kind of money is not. At least for me! I've made a lot of money, and tiny amounts of money. I've learned to adjust! Crikey! So, living in this environment means I'm now going to have to "thermite" you! Guns, knives and other stuff? Psst! Nope. J.K! Maybe! I like thermite! I've never seen it, but I know how to make it, because....books! The thing is that this book is dystopian. From the first chapter, to the last, it screams "DYSTOPIAN." I love most Apocalyptic fiction, but dystopian makes me nauseous.
From the time my favorite bookstores and funky little local shops started closing down. To the time I was allowed to interview and hire at the drugstore where I worked, and I kept hearing things about Wal-Mart especially, but many other home and office stores too! I knew that I couldn't support those wealthy, who couldn't, nay, wouldn't even give good health insurance to their employees!
The first half of the book, I keep singing "in the back of my head," Tennessee Ernie Ford's song "16 Ton's." I know most people are way to young to remember the song, hell, I almost am too! Yet, the sentiment has always stuck with me.
You load 16 tons, whattaya get? Another older and deeper in debt. Saint. Peter don't ya' call me, cuz I can't go....I owe my soul to the company store...Chilling. Look up the history of what it was like before. Down with big business. Politicos with deep pockets. Also, what the hecks up with these big co. tax cuts? My squat hairy man received no refund this year. He seldom received much, but this year he did have to pay! So happy that the rich are paying their fair share! "That's sarcasm, b.t.w." Most of my Goodreads friends recognize sarcasm, but I've noticed lately that somehow ignoramuses's have taken sarcasm literally. Hey, I'm not saying your an idjit. But, yes, I'm saying, you are an effing idjit!
This book just says to me, what has always been obvious. Buy locally owned. We here in my town, no longer have bookstores. No BOOKSTORE. Used? Yes. A fresh smelling bookstore? Sadly, no. I'd walk into Hastings every Tuesday morning. New release day! I always thought it smelled of puppy breath, until I realized it was freshly brewed coffee! I am not a coffee drinker! Tea, yes! Coffee? Coffee makes.me high as a kite! It took me over a year to realize that fresh coffee smelled like puppy breath!
Wowser! So, rambling on! I guess this is my way of saying that I received exactly what I expected from this book. I knew what it was based on. I also got the exact horror of it. There were no big surprises. It's dystopian. There are never any happy endings. I of course always wish for more. But, this is the way of the world.
Still, this was a very readable book. I put other books aside, just to read this.
If course, it will remind you of Amazon and all internet stuff. I'm so glad that all this technological crap wasn't around in the late 70's and especially the 80's! Whew! I dodged a bullet!

The Warehouse opines a rather believable future for America (and the rest of us). Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read "The Warehouse" by Rob Hart, in return for a fair review.

What if Amazon took over the world? That's sort of the premise of Rob Hart's new book, The Warehouse. It's a dystopian future for America and the world, where no one goes out to shop any more (maybe not for any reason at all) and Cloud warehouses supply everything that one could want - all you have to do is order it. After the Black Friday Massacres (we're not given a lot of background on them, but you can imagine: after that, Cloud no longer sells firearms).

The story in the main follows two new employees of a "MotherCloud' warehouse - Zinnia (although that's not her real name) and Paxton. She is a corporate spy and he is a disgruntled entrepreneur and former prison guard. His big invention was co-opted by Cloud when they insisted on deeper and deeper discounts on product; she's been sent to Cloud with a nefarious mission. Of course, their lives intersect and we get to follow them as they live and work at Cloud - oh yes, Cloud employees all live and work in the enormous warehouses.

At the same time, the inventor of Cloud (a Jeff Bezos-type of character) is dying, and is on a tour of as many facilities as possible before turning over the reins. But there's a traitor in his midst, and he or she has been giving orders to Zinnia, culminating with a planned disaster and possible assassination.

This is an interesting and easy read, and gives one pause to think. Highly recommended.