Proteus Unbound

Trouble has crept into the process that lets people reshape their bodies and forms. Early glitches gave way to outright failures, and now some have died, leaving the people of the outer colonies afraid to step into the tanks. Out in the Cloudlands, citizens need constant small adjustments just to keep functioning, and the growing faults are pushing their whole society toward collapse. Behrooz Wolf, summoned from the Inner System, arrives too despairing to help, and his own mind is coming apart under visions of a strange figure who dances at the edge of sight. Meanwhile, a rival schemer waits in the Kernel Ring, patient for the empires to fall and ready to claim what they leave behind.