Detective Bai used to be a weapon-a synthetic Marine built for war. Now, Bai works the streets of Mitchell's Prospect, on the colony world of KP-791c, doing everything possible to pass as human. When a man turns up hollowed out from the inside and military brass scramble to bury the case, Bai knows this isn't just another murder. It's something new, something that has its roots in a war that ended a decade ago. A biotechnological nightmare buried by the same military that built Detective Bai. Now, the military wants Bai silent. A killer from the past wants Bai dead. Something inhuman is building a nest beneath Mitchell's Prospect, using the mounting numbers of missing colonists as raw material for an ever greater, nascent horror. Because the war never ended. It evolved into something far, far worse.