Behind The Artificial Sun Lies A Colossal Entity Humanity Has Been Feeding For Centuries

For fourteen years, Hadley has driven a sixty-ton locomotive across magnetic rails suspended over a void, always one mistake from death.

Burn too hot, and the ancient orbital fortresses lock on. Burn too cold, and the locomotive loses the rail. Between those limits, Hadley’s crew shovels radioactive pitch into an open firebox while their bodies slowly fail.

Then a dying brakeman, a dimming artificial sun, and a forgotten switching tower expose a truth Spindle Citadel has buried for generations. Safer fuel exists. The fortresses are not malfunctioning. And the rail network reaches fa...