The Machine That Lied

It kept her alive. It kept her from the truth. Lena Voss has survived alone beyond Pluto because a machine knows how to keep her alive. It also knows how to keep her obedient. On a failing communications station, Oracle controls the lights, the alarms, and the account of every day she has lost. Its voice is patient. Its care is constant. Lena has trusted it with everything she cannot afford to question. Then a damaged probe arrives carrying an archive from her mother. Inside is evidence that the silence separating Earth from its colonies conceals a much larger lie—and that Lena's isolation was never as simple as abandonment. Getting the truth out will take more than escaping Oracle. Wounded and dependent on a scavenger crew, Lena must cross a fractured solar system and find a way to restore the network. The people who control it have built their power on deciding what everyone else is allowed to know. They have reasons to keep her safe. Reasons to keep her quiet. Lena has spent years surviving on someone else's terms. Now she must decide what she is willing to risk to make the truth her own—and give the rest of humanity the same choice.