Ground Zero

THE OAKHAVEN PROTOCOL: GROUND ZERO​The 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.