Entanglement: Book 3 of the Cerenovo Series

The AI appeared as a child but became their last hope. As the Great Collapse becomes a distant memory, Ridley Pierce knows that the botnet virus will eventually return. With his newly earned fortune, he convinces Diane Kingsolver to help him battle fire with fire, creating a sentient intelligence to defend humanity. Lucy appears to them as a child, but he suspects that she has secrets. When she devises a way to upload the minds of the newly deceased, he wonders if she is plotting humanity's downfall - or if she will take the population into the stars.