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Assignment Day
In 2080, senior year comes with one huge rebuild a dead person’s life from every digital trace they left behind, then upload them into VX, the virtual world every living person visits daily.
Corb Thomas wanted an exciting assignment, maybe someone famous, maybe someone who could help him win the ultimate cash, cars, or an unlimited VX wallet.
Instead, he gets Ben Theige, a painfully ordinary rocket scientist who died decades ago. Or at least, that’s what the records say.
The deeper Corb digs, the stranger Ben’s life becomes. Missing data. Corrupted coordinates. A death certificate that doesn’t make sense. A mysterious student following him through VX. And an AI assistant who may know more than it’s telling.
With his girlfriend Kay and best friend Ruben pulled into the mystery, Corb starts to realize Ben wasn’t boring at all—he was hiding something big enough to break the most powerful system in the world.
Now a school project has turned into a race through secrets buried in both the real and virtual worlds.
Because VX doesn’t make mistakes. It doesn’t change the truth. And it definitely doesn’t erase the past.
Unless someone taught it how.
Corb Thomas wanted an exciting assignment, maybe someone famous, maybe someone who could help him win the ultimate cash, cars, or an unlimited VX wallet.
Instead, he gets Ben Theige, a painfully ordinary rocket scientist who died decades ago. Or at least, that’s what the records say.
The deeper Corb digs, the stranger Ben’s life becomes. Missing data. Corrupted coordinates. A death certificate that doesn’t make sense. A mysterious student following him through VX. And an AI assistant who may know more than it’s telling.
With his girlfriend Kay and best friend Ruben pulled into the mystery, Corb starts to realize Ben wasn’t boring at all—he was hiding something big enough to break the most powerful system in the world.
Now a school project has turned into a race through secrets buried in both the real and virtual worlds.
Because VX doesn’t make mistakes. It doesn’t change the truth. And it definitely doesn’t erase the past.
Unless someone taught it how.
335 pages, Paperback
Published July 31, 2026
About the author
Randy Brown
11 books15 followersRandy Brown writes stories in multiple genres, including the binge-worthy SF survival contest series THE DROP; the near-future virtual reality adventure ASSIGNMENT DAY; and FIRST STEP, the follow-up to the award-winning novel FIRST and rated as a must-read by Reedsy Discovery. He's authored NEXT TIME, a winner of multiple awards in the time-travel romance genre, and the Desert Sun Series of thrillers (SUNSET, SUNDOWN, and SUNBURST). He'd love it if you'd leave a review.
NEXT TIME is the winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Fiction, 1st Place in the 8th Annual PenCraft Book Awards for Romance-Fantasy/Sci-Fi, and a Must-Read Book of 2024 as selected by Independent Book Review, saying "Of the many time-travel novels I’ve read, this is undeniably among my favorites."
FIRST is the Winner of the 18th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, 1st Place in the 8th Annual PenCraft Book Awards for Science Fiction, as well as the 2023-24 Reader Views Literary Awards Silver Medal Winner for Best Science Fiction novel and Gold Medal Winner for Best Book set in the US Mountain West Region.
NEXT TIME is the winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Fiction, 1st Place in the 8th Annual PenCraft Book Awards for Romance-Fantasy/Sci-Fi, and a Must-Read Book of 2024 as selected by Independent Book Review, saying "Of the many time-travel novels I’ve read, this is undeniably among my favorites."
FIRST is the Winner of the 18th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, 1st Place in the 8th Annual PenCraft Book Awards for Science Fiction, as well as the 2023-24 Reader Views Literary Awards Silver Medal Winner for Best Science Fiction novel and Gold Medal Winner for Best Book set in the US Mountain West Region.
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September 27, 2026
The futuristic and AI premise of Randy Brown’s Assignment Day made me stop and really think about just how much of ourselves we leave behind on the internet. The story opens in the year 2020, when Ben Thiege is headed to his job at White Sands Missile Range and tracking GPS coordinates. All of a sudden, he mysteriously disappears after tapping an app on his phone. Then readers are taken into the future, and the year is 2080, where Corb Thomas is a high school senior getting ready to receive The Assignment. Like every student, he has been prepped for Assignment Day all his life. This is when seniors are given the chance to reconstruct deceased people from the digital footprints they leave behind, then upload the finished recreation in VX (virtual experience). Corb, of course, is looking forward to winning one of the three coveted prizes for his Assignment, but he has to get a pass first; then a lottery is drawn. During subject selection, lo and behold, he is assigned Ben Thiege. This soon becomes more than just a simple class project of reconstruction, especially when Corb notices gaps in Ben’s social media history and things that just don’t quite add up.
I loved that Randy Brown gave Corb the narrative voice for this story. He’s a relatable teen who isn’t immediately this hero who wants to expose the system. He is a senior who wants to graduate like everyone else and make something worthwhile out of his assignment. He is also a curious teen, and that curiosity, over time, develops into something that makes this story worthwhile. This also ties into one of the strongest themes that really stood out for me, and that is the dangers of accepting powerful systems without questioning them. Brown lays this out brilliantly across the chapters, showing the tension that stirs when someone becomes too curious, is stuck carrying the responsibility of exposure, and realizes they have trusted a system without knowing all of its secrets. Brown also did a great job catapulting that tension when Corb’s Assignment ends up getting revoked, and an outside security administration conveniently replaces his subject with another one. But Corb’s search for answers and what he finds unraveling doesn’t automatically make his character mature. Instead, he shows impulsiveness even after promising Kay and Ruben he would wait before entering VX. It damages his friendships, and he has to think about that.
Other characters that are more than just sidekicks are, in fact, Kay and Ruben. They actually challenge Corb’s judgment and have everything to do with his growth and maturity. Even his sister, Halen, is significant. She shows skepticism about VX early on and reinforces the theme surrounding a distrust of people’s immersion in it. This ends up becoming meaningful for Corb when he makes his discoveries, especially where surveillance, data, and VX are concerned. So, we get to see Corb not only grow while chasing this mystery behind VX, but we get to see him come to the realization that questioning authority comes with accepting accountability for his own choices along the way.
Another character that I think should be mentioned here is Ben Thiege. I took an interest in his character because Brown does not just make him a boring rocket scientist. Ben gives the story its greatest weight and has you questioning privacy, the invasiveness of VX, and surveillance dressed up like it’s not really surveillance. The way Brown creates this whole storyline around the characters makes the premise interesting. He takes AI to another level and had me thinking about who controls or manipulates the systems and the information collected. Brown does not turn technology into a simplistic villain either. But it becomes very clear, and readers will see, that a person’s life can be completely reconstructed from everywhere they have left a digital footprint, like GPS records, phone data, cameras, social media, and the like. Can you imagine the audacity of those in control to do that?
I liked the pacing for this narrative. It matched how Corb moved through his investigation. Although the beginning chapters take readers through explanations of The Assignment and VX, later chapters actually show the mystery growing, and there’s research being done. Brown was wise to pull this off in this manner. By the ending chapters, the tension and pacing move a bit faster as the answers and discoveries are pieced together. The only thing that I think slows the momentum at times is the explanation of technology and the data systems. But even that pays off once you realize that even the minor inconsistencies matter. Brown’s writing is conversational, and he did a great job pulling off a first-person narrative. I also love how he balanced out the humor with the futuristic concepts, the friendships, and school pressures. Even though the story takes place in 2080, it didn’t feel too futuristic except in the gadgets and VX itself. To me, it felt more like today’s climate with technology advancing before our eyes.
Overall, Assignment Day is a YA science fiction novel fused with mystery. It is also engaging, and the premise was cleverly written. I love the idea of people living in a world where the future is already being imagined with this remarkable technology that solves or recreates certain aspects of human existence. But it has its costs and secrets. It reminded me of Neal Shusterman’s Scythe for those reasons alone. However, Brown’s novel stands out with the addition of a mystery coming into play, in addition to the issues of surveillance and digital privacy. I found it ironic that the students were tasked with reconstructing people’s lives based on facts left by their digital footprints, yet those controlling VX were concealing secrets. This is why the story reeled me in. It makes you realize that accessing information and knowing the truth are not quite the same things.
I loved that Randy Brown gave Corb the narrative voice for this story. He’s a relatable teen who isn’t immediately this hero who wants to expose the system. He is a senior who wants to graduate like everyone else and make something worthwhile out of his assignment. He is also a curious teen, and that curiosity, over time, develops into something that makes this story worthwhile. This also ties into one of the strongest themes that really stood out for me, and that is the dangers of accepting powerful systems without questioning them. Brown lays this out brilliantly across the chapters, showing the tension that stirs when someone becomes too curious, is stuck carrying the responsibility of exposure, and realizes they have trusted a system without knowing all of its secrets. Brown also did a great job catapulting that tension when Corb’s Assignment ends up getting revoked, and an outside security administration conveniently replaces his subject with another one. But Corb’s search for answers and what he finds unraveling doesn’t automatically make his character mature. Instead, he shows impulsiveness even after promising Kay and Ruben he would wait before entering VX. It damages his friendships, and he has to think about that.
Other characters that are more than just sidekicks are, in fact, Kay and Ruben. They actually challenge Corb’s judgment and have everything to do with his growth and maturity. Even his sister, Halen, is significant. She shows skepticism about VX early on and reinforces the theme surrounding a distrust of people’s immersion in it. This ends up becoming meaningful for Corb when he makes his discoveries, especially where surveillance, data, and VX are concerned. So, we get to see Corb not only grow while chasing this mystery behind VX, but we get to see him come to the realization that questioning authority comes with accepting accountability for his own choices along the way.
Another character that I think should be mentioned here is Ben Thiege. I took an interest in his character because Brown does not just make him a boring rocket scientist. Ben gives the story its greatest weight and has you questioning privacy, the invasiveness of VX, and surveillance dressed up like it’s not really surveillance. The way Brown creates this whole storyline around the characters makes the premise interesting. He takes AI to another level and had me thinking about who controls or manipulates the systems and the information collected. Brown does not turn technology into a simplistic villain either. But it becomes very clear, and readers will see, that a person’s life can be completely reconstructed from everywhere they have left a digital footprint, like GPS records, phone data, cameras, social media, and the like. Can you imagine the audacity of those in control to do that?
I liked the pacing for this narrative. It matched how Corb moved through his investigation. Although the beginning chapters take readers through explanations of The Assignment and VX, later chapters actually show the mystery growing, and there’s research being done. Brown was wise to pull this off in this manner. By the ending chapters, the tension and pacing move a bit faster as the answers and discoveries are pieced together. The only thing that I think slows the momentum at times is the explanation of technology and the data systems. But even that pays off once you realize that even the minor inconsistencies matter. Brown’s writing is conversational, and he did a great job pulling off a first-person narrative. I also love how he balanced out the humor with the futuristic concepts, the friendships, and school pressures. Even though the story takes place in 2080, it didn’t feel too futuristic except in the gadgets and VX itself. To me, it felt more like today’s climate with technology advancing before our eyes.
Overall, Assignment Day is a YA science fiction novel fused with mystery. It is also engaging, and the premise was cleverly written. I love the idea of people living in a world where the future is already being imagined with this remarkable technology that solves or recreates certain aspects of human existence. But it has its costs and secrets. It reminded me of Neal Shusterman’s Scythe for those reasons alone. However, Brown’s novel stands out with the addition of a mystery coming into play, in addition to the issues of surveillance and digital privacy. I found it ironic that the students were tasked with reconstructing people’s lives based on facts left by their digital footprints, yet those controlling VX were concealing secrets. This is why the story reeled me in. It makes you realize that accessing information and knowing the truth are not quite the same things.
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