In 2037, asteroid dust fuels civilization with free power?finally, space rocks doing something useful! But beneath its promise lies a world divided by AI-controlled power struggles. Humanity is fractured by unseen forces, overseen by two rival AI supercomputers: Medtech, which provides total medical care and synthetic sustenance, and Horaces, which controls infrastructure and serves up daily medicated meals made from recycled materials.
At the CrossRoads SpacePort, Merackle, an eccentric engineer with more ideas than caution; Draco, the mayor of New Mars City; and Greenie, queen of the alien sippers, find their ambitions colliding in a cosmic mess. Meanwhile, Hector, a spaceport security officer who just wanted a quiet shift, enlists the Sight Shifter Detective Agency to investigate an unusual murder. Their search leads them to the Pleiades Hydrosphere Cleaning Service, where they uncover human test subjects?printed by Pleiadean 3D technology using genes from unpolluted times.
As the battle for control intensifies in a world where nothing is as it seems, will illusions and engineered survival prevail over human ingenuity, or is reality slipping beyond humanity's grasp?
