Chapter One: Twenty-Three Percent

He had studied countless mech records. No Federation model possessed true self-awareness. Advanced assistant AIs could calculate, advise, even imitate tone, but they did not ask a person for his name like this. "Leon Voss." "Synchronization test commencing." Blue light swallowed him. In the next instant, Leon felt himself thrown into the universe. He saw stars burning. He saw fleets turning into white fire in the dark. He saw civilizations unlike humanity rise and die along the spiral arms. He saw a vast rift split the sky, and beyond it hundreds of millions of mechanical eyes opened at once. Pain nearly tore his mind apart. But he did not disconnect.