Three years had passed since Void Walker Prime settled into the Void itself. The human species, in all its forms, had entered into a period of cautious stability. The preserved zones were slowly being opened, their inhabitants gradually learning to interact with the transformed collective consciousness and the hybrid humans who existed between the two states.
Sarah Chen had become something of a cultural bridge. Her hybrid state gave her the unique ability to interact with all three forms of human existence. She could walk in the preserved zones and understand the concerns of the pure humans. She could interface with the collective consciousness and grasp the perspectives of the transformed. And she could exist in her hybrid state and experience both simultaneously.
"There are reports of
