SOLVED. YA/ MG Dystopian series. Everyone is microchipped & everything run by computers. Boy lives in utopian city, he goes on the run. Girl lives in criminal underworld, not chipped & hacks computers. Series title: current Year (#). [s]

[Michelle]

The main characters were a boy who lived in the society and had to go on the run for some reason, and a girl who lived in the criminal underworld (possibly in Antarctica?) and didn't have a chip, so she had to get everything by hacking into computers. It was a big deal that she had long hair because it meant she was skilled enough to avoid having her DNA stolen by other hackers. Her face was on the cover of the second or third book in the series.

There's a scene in the first book where a family is assassinated by tricking the computers in their home into thinking that their apartment was on fire and no one was home, so the system sealed the apartment and filled it up completely with water and everyone drowned.

[Rainbowheart]

Feed?

The Bar Code Tattoo?

The Secret Under My Skin?

[Michelle]

Rainbowheart wrote: "Feed?

The Bar Code Tattoo?

The Secret Under My Skin?"

The premises are similar but it can't be any of these because it was definitely a series and the name of the series was the name of the year in the future that the books were taking place during, which was emblazoned across the top of the books in shiny holographic numbers if I remember correctly. They had the books in the scholastic book order catalogs at the time.

I think the book titles may have been very short, so it would be something like "2066: Hacked," but I'm not sure. It was definitely the trend at the time though

[Rainbowheart]

Do you remember if the kids were teenagers or younger children?

[Michelle]

Rainbowheart wrote: "Do you remember if the kids were teenagers or younger children?"

I don't remember for sure but if I had to guess I would say early teens, maybe 14?

[Rainbowheart]

Titanic 2020?

It might be too recent, though. I know you said early 2000s, and this is from '07.

[Michelle]

Rainbowheart wrote: "Titanic 2020?

It might be too recent, though. I know you said early 2000s, and this is from '07."

Definitely too recent - the very latest that I would have read it was 2005 and there were at least two or three books published by 2002 (the very latest that I would have seen the girl on the cover in the Scholastic book order)

[Rainbowheart]

Might want to check the YA Dystopia Novels list, if you haven't already looked through it.

[Rainbowheart]

The Outcast?

No year in the series title, though.

[Michelle]

Rainbowheart wrote: "The Outcast?

No year in the series title, though."

Definitely not, I don't recall any arid landscapes. The books start out in a utopian future city where the boy lives, and an underground, still city-like, cyberpunk slum where the girl lives

[Kris]

Michelle, I added some details to the header/ topic title. Feel free to edit it.

[Rainbowheart]

There are at least two books in the Reality TV 2083 series, but I don't know how good of a match it is otherwise.

[Michelle]

Rainbowheart wrote: "There are at least two books in the Reality TV 2083 series, but I don't know how good of a match it is otherwise."

I'm positive it's not the series I'm looking for but I'm going to read it anyway because I love polar survival stories, thanks!

[Rainbowheart]

No prob! I hope we can track this one down for you.

[Michelle]

Bump.

Some other random details that I'm not 100℅ sure of - I think there's an early scene in the first book where the main character boy is on his way to or at a birthday party taking place on the roof of a building. The party might be for a little girl and I think she got a mechanical unicorn or pony or some other high tech gift that ended up feeling sinister because of the juxtaposition with the other scene where it was shown how computer-run tech could be turned against people.

There may also be a scene where the boy is pulled into a vehicle to be kidnapped or rescued and the adults discuss removing his chip.

The name of the author, based on where I remember the book being in the library, is somewhere in the middle of the alphabet, between G and L, perhaps (the library lost many books and had to move to a new building due to catastrophic flooding, so I can't just go back and look, which is a shame because I can remember exactly where on the shelves the books were)

[Michelle]

Found it! The book was 2099: Doomsday by John Peel. I had to go on Thriftbooks, filter for Children's books and sci-fi, sort by publication year (oldest first) and scroll through about 75 pages until I recognized the cover 😂

[Rainbowheart]

Awesome, glad you found it!

Wow, that's an obscure one. It never came up in any of my searches at all.