Escape from America

Lu Jue is a Silicon Valley data engineer and an online icon known as "Lao A"—a programmer who deconstructs reality through internet memes. At the celebratory launch party for the Sky Eye project, FBI agents break down his door and charge him with stealing state secrets. On the very first day of his flight, he discovers two devastating truths: the algorithms he built are systematically surveilling Chinese Americans, and the project he contributed to is part of "Mirror Plan"—a covert collaboration between the U.S. government and tech giants to construct a digital surveillance network spanning the Pacific. The bitterest irony: he is now hunted by his own code. Every move is predicted by his algorithms, every digital identity flagged. His desperate flight takes him from San Francisco to the East Coast, through the Nevada desert, the neon labyrinth of Las Vegas, the snow-capped Colorado mountains, and the Texan badlands. Along the way, he encounters Echo, a member of the hacker collective Prism; biologist Zhou Yan, also on the run; and a scattered underground network of Chinese Americans across the country. Together, they evade the FBI's "Hound" tactical team and the private mercenaries known as "Cleaners," surviving on three lifelines: deep knowledge of the surveillance systems, counter-tracking instincts honed from China's health-code mindset, and—despite the surreal absurdity of their plight—the memes and deadpan jokes they can still crack. This is not one man's escape. Behind him stand countless ordinary people whom the algorithm has labeled "potential threats." Escape from America is a thriller about what happens when technology becomes a wall, and code becomes handcuffs—where what you flee is not a nation, but a system.