The Lord of Opium

Matt returns to the land of Opium as the new "El Patron." He starts out as an idealistic 14 year old kid. He wants to feed the microchip enslaved workers. However, he discovers that it may be impossible. He also learns he must act like a ruler to be one. He starts to adopt some of the cruelty. (After all, he is genetically identical to the original leader.) He tries to free "waitress". He sees some small emotion come out, but she still remains a "zombie". He wants to spend time with his friends. However, he also is required to be involved in many big issues of running a drug empire.
He gradually learns more details about how people are "enslaved". He is never able to free waitress, but he does manage to stumble upon the way to free others, but with a sacrifice to a space station. The novel spends just a few paragraphs covering what would be the very difficult task of repatriating this zombies into society.
The characters in the book are all quite complex. It is not a case of clear-cut good guys vs. bad guys. Instead, there are different characters with different values. There are often trade offs with many problems not having a clear-cut best solution. There are also plenty of coincidences that are needed to make the book move along. The ending is almost too "happy". The drug empire was essentially a garden of eden for the rebirth of the ecosystem after the ravages of humanity elsewhere. Oh, we could dream.