Some say loneliness is the mark of destiny.

That’s how they get you.

Heather Knight feels like she doesn’t exist. After a demoralizing first year of high school, her parents derail her life and drag her across the country because her dad’s secret government job exploded under suspicious circumstances. Sick of being sidelined, she decides make herself undeniable—starting with landing a summer internship at her dad’s job: an engineering lab called Larkspur.

It’s a promising antidote to her alienation. She even befriends the standoffish youngest engineer on the team—James—whose brilliance came at a price. But trouble brews under Larkspur’s amicable surface. Its idealistic prodigy has thrown himself into building a machine that, if successful, could unseat the sovereignty of life and death. Larkspur tries to cull the project, but James has too much to lose.

And suddenly, Heather’s safe haven becomes a trap door to a sinister web of secrets, murder, and human weaponry research, as James’ brave new benefactor reveals its true intent. With all the odds stacked against them, the pair must reckon with the annihilation of everything they fought so hard to be, and work together with some unexpected allies if they hope to escape.

But Empetrum won’t give up its prize so easily.

In the game of survival, is our soft, searching humanity truly worthless, or the very thing that will save us all?

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(3/8/25: I uploaded a more recent version. Thanks so much for your interest in my work. I love sharing my stories with you all. <3)