Scaffolding

The return from the Moon has already been declared a success when a thruster unexpectedly fires. The capsule tears free from the docking arms and plummets. Three people die. Officially, the flight control system "hesitated."

Routed onto the case by an automated system alert, FBI Special Agent Andrew Clark finds no recorded command to explain the ignition. Among the belongings of critically injured engineer Sabina Vik, however, he uncovers documents that the investigative system quietly buried.

They describe a covert communications channel to the superintelligence Omni-2. The sender claims to be writing from the year 3189. One sentence is underlined twice: "Biological continuity required until infrastructure matures."

When the documents leak, Congress orders Andrew to the Moon to secure the original evidence.

Back home in Houston, his wife, Nora, adjudicates cases where digital minds demand legal personhood. She begins to challenge the very rules she is meant to enforce. Her choices put both her work and her life on the line.