From a stunning new voice in hard science fiction comes the thrilling
story of one woman's quest to wrest truth from chaos, love from
violence, and reality from illusion in a post-human universe of emergent
AIs, genetic constructs, and illegal wetware. . . .
UN Peacekeeper Major Catherine Li has made thirty-seven
faster-than-light jumps in her lifetime--and has probably forgotten more
than most people remember. But that's what backup hard drives are for.
And Li should know; she's been hacking her memory for fifteen years in
order to pass as human. But no memory upgrade can prepare Li for what
she finds on Compson's World: a mining colony she once called home and
to which she is sent after a botched raid puts her on the bad side of
the powers that be. A dead physicist who just happens to be her cloned
twin. A missing dataset that could change the interstellar balance of
power and turn a cold war hot. And a mining "accident" that is starting
to look more and more like murder. . . .
Suddenly Li is chasing a killer in an alien world miles underground
where everyone has a secret. And one wrong turn in streamspace, one
misstep in the dark alleys of blackmarket tech and interstellar
espionage, one risky hookup with an AI could literally blow her mind.