Find the missing. Fear the found. Three months have passed since the aliens' arrival, but little has changed in the skies. Motherships still hover, impervious to attack and communication. Spherical shuttles ferry about with unclear intentions. But the abductions of select humans have ended, and most of those taken have been returned - dazed, incoherent, and prophesying glory or doom, but home where they belong. Still, nine seemingly unconnected people remain missing. Trapped in their besieged bunker outside Vail, Piper, Trevor, Lila, and Heather wait for one. All of this has happened before.... For his entire life, Benjamin Bannister has sought the connections uniting the planet's ancient wonders. And for years he's pursued evidence that extraterrestrial life isn't new to Earth. For years he was dismissed as a fool. Now the spheres have arrived, and Benjamin has found vindication...along with troubling theories. His research facility rests on a paranormal hotspot in Moab, Utah - but Vail, Colorado is where his interests lie. He's sent an emissary to Meyer Dempsey's ranch to find out what makes the Missing Nine so special to the planet's invaders. What news will those nine bring when they return? And what, as the motherships again move like pieces finding positions on a chessboard, will happen next? And...it will all happen again. Vail and Moab, Moab and Vail - two epicenters in the cold alien war. The locations' fates seem somehow intertwined as Earth's clock ticks toward midnight. The roads and communications have been closed, but now it seems that the planet's future might depend on a journey from one to the other, no matter the cost. Humanity must find the value of those who have been taken...or become mere fossil evidence for future archaeologists to puzzle over.
