THE OAKHAVEN PROTOCOL: GROUND ZEROThe core must be silenced, but the end is already written.Having successfully built and deployed Spark and Scylla, Agnes Hemlock has broken AetherCorp's monopoly on air and water. But the earth itself is dying; massive seismic tremors signal that the Blight's entropic acceleration has destabilized the planet's mantle. Jonas discovers the devastating source: Marcus Thorne is powering his corporate state with a secret underground reactor that actively amplifies the Blight at the original Oakhaven collapse site-Ground Zero.With time running out and Thorne's forces closing in, Agnes makes the final, agonizing decision: she must sacrifice the Scylla core to build Prototype Hades, a single-use machine designed for a suicide mission into the Earth's depths. Her final descent is a desperate battle to stop the reactor, a fight she knows will cost her everything, but which must be won to ensure that the eventual Seed Keeper machines have a world left to save.
