I stood in Marcus's facility, his consciousness protocols burning in my mind, and saw something he'd kept hidden even from himself.
Embedded in the deepest layer of Generation Three code—coordinates. Not for Antarctica. For somewhere else entirely. Somewhere Marcus accessed unconsciously. Somewhere his distributed consciousness reported to without his awareness.
Someone had been manipulating the manipulator.
I phase-shifted to the coordinates. Emerged in facility that made Marcus's Antarctic base look primitive. Technology that was centuries ahead. Architecture that existed partially outside normal space-time. And at the center—
A council chamber. Seventeen chairs arranged in circle. Fifteen occupied by figures wearing masks that shifted between solid and quantum probability. And in th
