2165, Peru. Twenty-nine-year-old Eusebio is a failure. He lacks assets, has little power, and only the barest whiff of status. At least, that’s what the Algorithm says, and it must be right, given it evaluates and controls most of the known world. It’s only in the virtual realm that Eusebio can pretend to be someone else and forget his shame and dread.

But even that quiet peace is disturbed by the appearance of a stranger who confronts Eusebio with a warning he cannot ignore: Will he spend the rest of his life caught in the agony of paralysis, or finally find the courage to save himself?

Eusebio faces daunting challenges as he escapes to the Non-Participating Territories, learns he has a special ability, and joins in the moment of discovery when two wildly different societies become aware of each other. The Deep Timers and the Storks need to work together to protect their worlds from annihilation. Can Eusebio be the human link between them?

The answer awaits in worlds beyond Eusebio’s imagination, and ways of being that stretch into the distant past. But before he can learn the Way of Deep Time, he will find himself drawn into a war against an enemy that would obliterate reality itself. Freedom is within grasp, but only if he joins the fight to save it.